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MIGA stage of Trump political career: the art of betrayal of his election promises (April 2017 -- March 2019)

Will the neocon baggage, "Make Israel Great Again" (MIGA) policies, Venezuela color revolution, and complete betrayal of his voters Trump looks like Republican Obama, another master of "bait and  switch" maneuver. Obama  won  his reelection bid. Can Trump repeat the trick ? 

News Donald Trump Recommended Links War is Racket Syria civil war Civil war in Ukraine Afgan war Venezuella: another "bombs for oil" scenario after Libya? Yemen war
Trump2016 economic platform Trump2016 foreign policy platform Trump2016 immigration platform Michael Wolff's "Fire and fury" revelations and slander of Trump administration Russiagate -- a color revolution against Trump Reversal of planned detente with Russia Trump version of gangster capitalism in foreign policy: Shoot-first-ask-questions-later Korea saber-rattling Iran saber-rattling
Strzokgate Steele dossier Brennan elections machinations Wiretaps of Trump and his associates during Presidential elections "Seventeen agencies" memo about Russian influence on elections Was Natalia Veselnitskaya meeting with Trump Jr. a trap Appointment of a Special Prosecutor gambit DNC and Podesta emails leak: blaming Vladimir Putin Elite [Dominance] Theory And the Revolt of the Elite
Anti-Russian hysteria MSM as an attack dogs of color revolution  "Fuck the EU": neocons show EU its real place Anti Trump Hysteria Personnel is Policy Non-Interventionism   Crisis of legitimacy of neoliberal elite New American Militarism
Media-Military-Industrial Complex Neoconservatism The Deep State  American Exceptionalism New American Militarism Neocolonialism as Financial Imperialism Pope Francis on danger of neoliberalism Neoliberalism as Trotskyism for the rich Obama administration directed the intelligence services putsch against Trump
The Iron Law of Oligarchy Amorality and criminality of neoliberal elite  Audacious Oligarchy and "Democracy for Winners" Myth about intelligent voter Pluralism as a myth Libertarian Philosophy Nation under attack meme    
Principal-agent problem Corporatist Corruption Resurgence of neo-fascism as reaction on neoliberalism Ethno-linguistic Nationalism Corporatism National Security State Predator state Machiavellism Neoliberal Brainwashing -- Journalism in the Service of the Powerful Few
Betrayal by Bernie Sanders of his supporters Superdelegates at Democratic National Convention   US Presidential Elections of 2012 Mayberry Machiavellians Politically Incorrect Humor Skeptic Quotations Humor Etc
 
In 2016 Trump promised to drain the swamp. He drained a small patch of neocon swamp and put all those bottomfeeders from this patch in his cabinet.

Trumps come and go, but the deluded, totally brainwashed electorate will stay. That's the real problem. Degradation of democracy into oligarchy (the iron law of oligarchy) is an objective process. In 2016 we saw  some kind revolt against status quo. That's why Trump and Sanders get so many supporters.  It ended with nothing.

Donald Trump probably broke the record of withdrawing his promises faster than any other US president in history including previous champion -- Obama.

The Imperial Presidency of the United States has evolved over the last century to the point that the executive holds certain powers that can be considered dictatorial. Arguably, due to imperial transformation of the USA after 1991 (the collapse of the USSR) the area in which the President is almost totally uncontrolled is in waging wars. The Constitution specifically reserves this right for Congress.

Trump betrayed everything and everybody, but  he remain the sign of the crisis of neoliberalism in the USA. The USA looks and sounds like a person with dementia – as if a sick person behaving inappropriately, showing unprovoked aggression (like some Alzheimer patients), using silly or senseless phrasing, and having the unreasonable demands and uncontrolled fits of rage like a spoiled child. Add to this  Pelosi, and hysterical Max Boot, the openly lying Clapper and the hate-filled profiteer Brennan.

Let me be clear: in the last 24 years the DC political class has gone almost entirely criminal, with the last 13 years dedicated to serial war crimes. In this sort of situation the DoJ, AG, and FBI head, becomes corrupted, and turns away from the rule of law to become a shield for the DC criminal despotism.

His greatest accomplishment may well be that he has caused Washington's Swamp Dwellers to rise from the ooze and expose themselves for all the world to see.

Trump proved to be a sad joke of a anti-neoliberal, anti-war crusader.  As for his anti-globalization stance, it looks like he prefers the direct economic racket to treaties.  but still wants to sustain and expand the US neoliberal empire, no matter what are the costs for the US people. Venezuela is a good example here.  US relations with Russia, which Trump promised to improve, have chilled to Cold War status and policies toward Russia of Trump administration does not differ from the policies of Obama administration.  That increases chances of WWIII, which might mean that perishing of the human civilization, as we know it (Khrushchev's bon mot about the US nuclear superiority still apples, He said something like that: "Yes, the USA is much stronger, we just have the capability to destroy the USA one time, while they have the capability to destroy the USSR many times").  This saying is fully applicable to the idiotism of Trump "supersized" military budget. And the U.S. national debt is now larger than the US economy. This is imperial overstretch. It is unsustainable.

His "Draining the swamp" slogan in reality turned to be as phony as "change we can believe is. "  he proved to be another Bush II, uneducated, inarticulate,  and incompetent President fully controlled by neocon lobby (which in its immense gratitude for services he provided wants to depose him and organized Mueller witch hunt). Add to this his impulsivity and narcissistic desire to be in the spotlight and you get a really toxic brew. The number of neocons in Trump administration is comparable with the number of neocons in Bush II  and Obama administrations.

Trump allowed to Washington foreign policy elite to conduct his foreign policy. The latter is arrogant (just look at Pompeo and Bolton), out of touch with reality and still stuck in the 1990s. They believed in American exceptionalism and that the U.S. had an almost divine right to run the world. American power supposedly rivaled imperial Rome. Clinton, Bush,  Obama and Trump all shared similar foreign policy objectives. Fierst of all they wanted to to spread the US-style neoliberalism.  Even if this can be accomplished on the tips of bayonets.  Any dissenters are branded as authoritarian dictators, sanctioned and for non-nuclear players threatened with force.  The Washington elite believes it is America’s destiny to lead the world forever, despite their own level of degeneration.  Government officials and media commentators who have promoted disastrous wars suffer no consequences and are welcomed back into circles of power.The cost of imperial wars since dissolution of the USSR runs at around 6 trillion. It is now clear that that large part of the defense budget would be better spent at home, upgrading the country's infrastructure.

Trump proved to be completely different politician then he was pretending to be during 2016 election.  In this sense he competes with Obama for the  title of Grandmaster of "bait and switch" game. His main accomplishment was "Trump tax cut for the rich". Similar to Bush II cut. In this sense he performed a deft "bait and switch" maneuver similar to one done by Obama and can be called "Republican Obama." Another classic turncoat US politician, who betrayed his voters three months after the elections. 

Despite his campaign rhetoric (“our foreign policy is a complete and total disaster”; “we’re rebuilding other countries while weakening our own”), Trump used the playbook of the neocon foreign-policy. Even some members of establishment  started to realise this (better late, then never ;-). See for example Stephen Walt’s The Hell of Good Intentions.  Here is one Amazon comment

C. Overgaard

A Powerful Critique of US Foreign Policy November 4, 2018

This is a well written, well researched, and well reasoned criticism of Liberal Hegemony (“LH”). LH rests on the belief that the United States is uniquely positioned to spread democracy and shape the international system to promote international peace and prosperity. LH has led to the invasion of Iraq, military efforts in Afghanistan, and counterterrorism operations in Somalia, Yemen, Libya and Syria. The results, according to Walt, are not favorable:

In spite of this, LH continues to be advocated almost universally in the media and by political and foreign policy commentators. People who criticize its exercise are ostracized. Nevertheless, Walt names proponent’s names and few well known political and military spokesmen are spared.

Walt reviews Trump’s foreign policy and military efforts and concludes he has made matters worse.

Walt presents a very persuasive alternative strategy that he calls Offshore Balancing. It would entail a continued strong military but much less active military involvement in other countries and more use of diplomacy. This is truly a book well worth reading.

Trump as serial Betrayer not that different from Obama

Again, the essential of Trump is "serial betrayer" which is as bad  as "serial killer": in 2018 Trump positioned himself as anti-war, anti-establishment  candidate and some of his points resonated strong with the the US population. He betrayed all of them. This posture was fake,  and now he can't repeat this trick. He is not the establishment.   All those votes IMHO are not going to Tulsi, not Trump, if Tulsi runs against him.

The main issue in this election is that the Neoliberal Imperial Oligarchy has now taken off the mask, they have abandoned the pretense of "Coke Pepsi" two party competition to unite behind the defender of status quo interests, with WikiLeaks detailing the gory details of their corruption and malfeasance. But they will fight furiously and will try to accomplish with Tulsi the same dirty trick as they accomplished with Sanders in 2016.


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[Nov 15, 2020] Will the Democrats and Biden continue to treat Russia as the enemy- Responsible Statecraft

Nov 15, 2020 | responsiblestatecraft.org

Ironically, the entire contention that Trump pursued an appeasement policy toward Putin was the opposite of reality. Washington's policy toward Moscow actually hardened in multiple ways during the Trump years. Numerous measures, including repeated U.S. arms sales to Ukraine, continued expansion of NATO's membership, an increase in both the number and size of NATO war games near Russia's borders, U.S. withdrawal from the INF treaty, and Washington's efforts to unseat Russian client regimes in Syria and Venezuela, confirmed that point. Some would argue that he did this all under pressure from Congress, nevertheless, the mythology that Trump spent four years cozying-up to a murderous aggressor now has a tenacious hold on the collective American psyche.

[Nov 05, 2020] The Last White Man by Eric Striker

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... trigger the libs ..."
"... The Last White Man ..."
Nov 05, 2020 | www.unz.com

Many nationalists plan to vote for Trump, not due to a positive assessment of his first term, but for the same reason people line up for terrible movie sequels: warm and fuzzy nostalgia, sometimes inexplicable. Once upon a time the prospect of electing this man made the people we all hate but who rule us anyway visibly afraid.

Spite for the "coastal elites" in tortoiseshell glasses will likely save the day.

But don't expect the same flood of libtard tears this time around outside of maybe low level MSNBC watchers. The real elite, the Jews, now realize that Trump's gun had an orange tip spray painted black the whole time.

Trump began betraying his voters almost as soon as he was sworn into office. The only figures in Trump's populist campaign who survived the 2016 election were Steve Bannon, who was banished after Charlottesville and is now facing federal charges at the hands of Trump's own Department of Justice, and Jeff Sessions, whose political career was destroyed by Trump's calculated malice.

A victory in 2016 by any of the generic GOP hacks who lost during the primary would've been indistinguishable from the last four years of Trump, policy-wise.

Draining the swamp and transforming the Republicans into a worker's party? No. Instead, his cabinet positions were staffed by the swamp scum at the Heritage Foundation.

Deportation force and a wall? He trots out Stephen Miller before any big vote , but nothing was accomplished on this front. Barack Obama removed 50% more illegal aliens in his first term than Trump has. In his first two years of holding the Presidency and Congress, Trump made no effort to present legislation to combat illegal immigration or even increase border security. There are more Asian and Central American illegal aliens in the United States right now than before he took office.

Punishing "LIBERAL DONORS"? Heritage's appointments have helped enable a corporate crime wave not seen in recent memory, with laughable cases of naked insider trading like the "paused" loan to Kodak personally protected by Trump's inner circle. Every multi-national and NGO has been scamming the PPP system, Trump's promise to crack down on this will never materialized . White collar crime prosecutions have fallen to a 33-year low during this administration.

Is it any wonder these "donors" have so much money laying around they can use it to fund Black Lives Matter?

This round of American populism has been defeated by the Swamp conservatives, many who were originally Trump foes and but now gleefully wear MAGA hats and have shoved aside relatively independent alt-light con artists and the organic ethno-nationalist movement. The conservatives we thought we canceled, like the Jews Ben Shapiro, Mark Levine, and Dennis Prager have come back from the dead thanks to Big Tech's massive crackdown on independent media.

The problem for Trump is that conservatism is widely hated, especially by his voters. Trump's tax cut for billionaires is one of his administration's only policy achievements, and it is the most unpopular thing he has ever done.

What will carry Trump over the finish line is the understandable desire to trigger the libs just one last time, in a way that won't get you fired from your job or antagonized by the FBI . The immense power the Judeo-left has amassed by uniting suburban liberals, big capitalists, permanent bureaucrats and antifa under Trump has contributed to white working people becoming atomized, thus demoralized, thus susceptible to Trump's campaign year presentation as The Last White Man .

Seeing the conservative movement peering out from under the mountains of shit we shoveled on them to dominate the Trump-era is testament to the flexibility and tenacity -- thanks to Jewish "philanthropy" -- of the phony right. The time-sink, money-sink non-issues of abortion, the supposed justification for confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, has re-emerged as a supposedly important issue. Last year the abortion rate fell to the lowest levels ever, largely due to low rates of sex between young people and the widespread adoption of contraceptives.

But the Koch brothers know what we're really getting in ACB. The notorious "Americans for Prosperity" spent millions to push her through because she will be the most pro-big business justice on the court (she sided with big business 85% of the time during her judgeship), which explains the complete lack of a fight from the Democrats. 15 of the last 19 SCOTUS judges have been appointed by the Republican Party, yet the court has become more pro-business and socially "liberal" anyway.

As Ted Cruz has recently stated, once the election is over and they're no longer under pressure from voters, Trump and the GOP will be returning to business as usual : imposing austerity during an unprecedented unemployment crisis, ratcheting up military tensions with enemies of Israel, and as the Heritage Foundation predicts in its conclusion of Trump v. Biden on immigration, a massive amnesty bill that will introduce a new "merit-based immigration system" -- the H1-B program on steroids.

While nobody thinks Trump's "platinum plan for black America" will ever come to be, the mere suggestion will be opening up a debate we should not be having. Explicit no-whites-need-apply social policies are another cultural artifact of the Trump era bound to become acceptable in his second term.

For establishment Democrats, their second defeat at the hands of Trump will be enormously discrediting, but they will profit in the short term from their comfortable position as the opposition party. By running a candidate like Joe Biden, one can only assume they want to lose.

But the Clinton-Biden-Obama-Pelosi nexus, who planned to fill "Sleepy Joe's" spayed cabinet with people like John Kasich, Jeff Flake , and various in-house neo-liberals, will be pressured by actual communists in their party to step aside. The Republican Party will never be able to meet this challenge, instead Trump and Charlie Kirk will be riding a helicopter to Botswana to cut the ribbon on a new bathhouse and dance to the Village People when the next incident occurs and the nation is once again on fire.

The New York Times has turned this election into a referendum on Woke + Wall Street. The majority, even many non-whites, will be rejecting America's new official ideology today.


Anon [206] Disclaimer , says: November 4, 2020 at 1:46 am GMT • 1.1 days ago

From the beginning, one side of me has always thought Trump to be too good to be true. My first doubts about him came when I learned his daughter was married to a powerful Jew and she's adopted his religion. Trump has turned out to be the most pro-Zionist president ever and has even moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem...

Mike Zwick , says: November 4, 2020 at 2:31 am GMT • 1.1 days ago

Woke is Wall Street.

Achilles Wannabe , says: November 4, 2020 at 7:33 am GMT • 20.8 hours ago

Best thing I have read on Trump. Here is my one reservation

"The real elite, the Jews, now realize that Trump's gun had an orange tip spray painted black the whole time."

Forget "now realize". At least Trump's Jews – the ones anti Jewish Power Trump supporters never report on – have ALWAYS realized that Trump is shabbos goy to the bone. I am talking about Jews like:
Lew Eisenberg, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Mel Sembler, Ron Weiser, Steve Wynn, Elliott Brody, Laurie Perlmutter, and Carl Icahn, not to mention Bernie Marcus. Then we have his many Jewish personal and professional associates, who include, among others, Avi Berkowitz, Michael Cohen, Gary Cohn, Reed Cordish, Boris Epshteyn, David Friedman, Jason Greenblatt, Larry Kudlow, Stephen Miller, Steven Mnuchin, Jay Sekulow, David Shulkin, and Allen Weisselberg. All those Trump-defenders out there in America should be dismayed at his vast linkage to the people of Israel(See Thomas Dalton, True Q)

These are the big Business Republican Jews and their apparatchiks as opposed to the new class professionals, academics, intellectuals, mediaist, journalists, and policy wonks who comprise the neo liberal – liberal and neocon Jews of the Democrat Party. Unlike the Democrat Jews who don't know Trump existentially – he's too vulgar and undereducated – and really do think, or perhaps at least thought, that Trump could be the coming of a new Hitler, the Business Jews have had long actual existential relations with Trump or know Jews who have. Trump has been up to his ears in Jews of the Big Business type his whole life and they know he is firmly in the Semophile bag. As Jews , Trump's Jews want Zionism and have always known he is good for it. But they also want every break they can get for Big Business because what could be better for Jews who prosper from neoliberalism right across their higher class status? As Striker argues , Trump will give Jews another round of business breaks like those he had already given in his first term. And there will go his populist image but it will have served its purpose

All this could have been easily predicted if someone in our ethnic realism community had taken a good look at Trump's Jews. Instead Trump was allowed to pose as "the last white man"

Actually E Michael Jones sort of tried it but he didn't get any support. Why is that?

GMC , says: November 4, 2020 at 7:54 am GMT • 20.4 hours ago

Well, I don't know who won yet and I doubt that anyone will ever know since everything is rigged, but Old Joe has most of the alphabet agencies in his pocket, the MSM in his corner and a whole lot of Obama, Clinton trotskyites lookin after him. That should mean that he should win by a landslide, unless he lets the popular vote for Trump – into the election process – which would be shrewd .. lol As far as America goes – SNAFU d again.

freedom-cat , says: November 4, 2020 at 8:13 am GMT • 20.1 hours ago

I've been sitting here watching the election maps all night.

The counting stopped around 8:30 – 9:00 Pacific time. It hasn't moved since.

If you go into the counties on the particular states that have stalled, you can do the math.

Clearly Trump was winning and if counts allowed, they should be able to call it.

Amazingly, they called Arizona when it was only something like 68% complete.

NV was going red but it shows it is swaying blue now it is the only state that has updated in last 3 hours besides Arizona.

It looks like they might be trying to pull something (the Democrats/Deep state).

I've never seen this happen. There is no reason for it to have happened.

WI, MI, PA, NC and GA are all pending red, along with the 1 electoral vote in ME.

Go to bed. In morning we'll get up and Biden will be declared winner with most of the above states declared blue (sometime during the night when most people are sleeping).

It's orchestrated.

https://www.foxnews.com/elections/2020/general-results

Bardon Kaldian , says: November 4, 2020 at 9:36 am GMT • 18.7 hours ago

Superficial article. The author did write a few good sentences, but seems to have missed that Trump is at most a potential catalyst for white awakening. If that does not happen, you can't blame him. You can only blame yourself for a combination of spinelessness, stupidity, cowardice & naivety.

If the central pillar of America, whites, are so immature or so divided, US cannot last. No empire which was not a nation-state too, did survive in history. It disintegrated & collapsed.

Bronze Age Persecutor , says: November 4, 2020 at 10:46 am GMT • 17.6 hours ago

Too bad Trump is jewish and fully cooperated with his shitty ethnic group and their endless treasonous schemes many times. The alt-right/Q/MAGA jewish psyop (the real Russiagate), HARPA, Barr covering up many crimes of the tribe (Epstein, Trump's crimes, big tech, fake BLM/ANTIFA protests, ), treasonous cooperation with Israel, the coronavirus flu scam, close ties to illegal mass surveillance contractors and Chabad Lubavich, shady deals with banks, handing money over to his fellows in "coronavirus aid packages", engaging in trade wars that seemed to be stupid, but had the objective of imploding the US economy to pave way for China (same for the flu scam and 2008 crisis)
Biden isn't that different either.

Mefobills , says: November 4, 2020 at 11:17 am GMT • 17.1 hours ago
@Anon out civilization and barbarism that Hudson quite matter-of-factly agreed with me that the book is, to the extent that it will be understood, " earth-shattering" in both intent and effect .

The movement that Striker is referring to, has have a moral component, otherwise the agents of Mammon win again. Our (((friends))) have been winning for centuries, because they have redefined reality using their ill-gotten gains. Clown world is funded.

But whether we get Trump or Biden, we need to organize our own political movement or we will be getting it anyway.

Sick of Orcs , says: November 4, 2020 at 11:26 am GMT • 16.9 hours ago

Barack Obama removed 50% more illegal aliens in his first term than Trump has.

And illegally gave us DACA, canceling out the numbers deported (who probably are here again.)

RoatanBill , says: November 4, 2020 at 11:34 am GMT • 16.8 hours ago
@Grundle

The point is that there's not a dimes worth of difference between the Democrats and Republicans and their candidates and therefore voting is a waste of time.

Rosie , says: November 4, 2020 at 11:52 am GMT • 16.5 hours ago
@freedom-cat

It looks like they might be trying to pull something (the Democrats/Deep state).

Yes, they're trying to cheat, no doubt. Of course, nobody will care enough to do anything about it. Had Trump actually done something for White people, the erstwhile alt-right might have organized Charlottesville-style rallies in support of Trump, but he didn't, so they won't. That's what he gets for being a cuck and throwing his most committed supporters under the bus.

Johnny Walker Read , says: November 4, 2020 at 1:30 pm GMT • 14.8 hours ago

Trump is like the abusive alcoholic husband and American conservatives(mostly Whites)are like the battered wife. Deep down we know the beatings will never stop, but we continue to give our love and support to him. We know we should leave him, perhaps find a new man to share our love with and help raise our kids. The problem is we are stuck in a neighborhood of crack heads and heroine addicts, and the new husband would turn out worse than the last...

pecosbill , says: November 4, 2020 at 1:38 pm GMT • 14.7 hours ago

The old saw that Obama deported more illegals than did Trump in the first term is a lie exposed many times over. At the border under Bush II, Mexicans caught coming across were simply sent back on their own recognizance (ORed) and not counted as a deportation. There were thousands and thousands treated this way by the Border Patrol and Immigration. To get the deportation numbers up, Obama ordered that ORs be counted as deportations, so therein is the lie.

TG , says: November 4, 2020 at 1:47 pm GMT • 14.6 hours ago

I must agree with this article. Trump has largely betrayed his base, and is no more likely to do better for the average working class American in his second term than he has in his first. It's painful, I don't want to admit this either, but as they say, optimism is cowardice.

I must however object to the notion that the Democrats are in any way "communist." Do communists throw tens of trillions of dollars at Wall Street while starving the real economy of investment? Do communists support "surprise medical billing?" Do communists allow all important financial decisions to be made by private corporations? Oh sure, the Democrats will come up with all sorts of confiscatory taxes and regulations on the middle class, no doubt, and they will subsidize illegal immigrants – which is to say, they will subsidize cheap labor for the elites. And yes they will be for transgender bathrooms. But communists? No way no how, the Democrats are Neoliberal scum just like the Republicans.

Make a new political movement? It would be nice, but I can't see any way that such a thing will not be suppressed or co-opted or the leadership bought out etc.etc. Look what happened to "Golden Dawn" in Greece

anon [110] Disclaimer , says: November 4, 2020 at 2:50 pm GMT • 13.5 hours ago

Sadly I think the last white man is going to lose. The election has been stolen from him with mass voting fraud, both in vote counting and mass voting by illegal voters. He has also shot himself in the foot over the last four years with several major blunders, which did not help, for e.g.:

1) Calling off the voting fraud investigation and disbanded the investigative team soon after his inauguration in 2016.

2) Too thin skin and incendiary in his tweets, not very Presidential and made unnecessary enemies.

3) Didn't do enough to reduce legal immigration incl. H1B and OPTs right from the get go, which lost him a lot of enthusiasm from college educated voters. He only finally began to do something about it last month, too little too late. Stephen Miller turned out to be a fake patriot after all, who kept out true patriots like Kris Kobach from running the DHS.

4) Kept/promoted his enemies like Paul Ryan, John Kelly, Rod Rosenstein, James Comey, HR McMaster, Gina Haspel, Christopher Wray et. al, which came back to haunt him very quickly.

5) Letting wormtongue (Jared Kushner) into the WH and giving him far too much power, including freeing all the drug dealers.

6) At times it seemed like the only thing he cares about is the stock market, he made lots of people way richer than they were in 2016, and these are all the people who are now voting against him, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley.

7) Too many Jews and Ziocons in his cabinet. Pandered too much to Israel, making his real slogan more like MIGA than MAGA.

Come to think of it, Trump is not the last white man. He is the last Ziocon Jew to become president.

Yukon Jack , says: November 4, 2020 at 2:52 pm GMT • 13.5 hours ago

Trump is going to win.

That is a positive statement based on wishful thinking as the electoral maps show Biden ahead and there is probable vote fraud

https://centralbankinginsanity.wordpress.com/2020/11/04/vote-fraud-evidence/

Trump did not win by a landslide as so many hoped. There is a reason for the red wave fail, and it is Trump himself and his policies.

Trump's biggest enemy is himself, he spent the entire administration making threats and filling his administration with swamp criminals, he is slavishly whored to Netanyahu and Israel, he even murdered Soleimani. He didn't remove the troops from a single occupied nation. Trump's failure as a good administrator is glaring obvious and of no surprise because he had no previous governmental experience. He just winged it based on being the Donald. What a joke. A nation ruled by one ego that thinks it is god.

He never went on the offensive with 911 truth, which would put the entire swamp under investigation and in a fight to stay out of prison. With 911 investigation Israel would be put on a leash, and the Neocons would ALL be indicted, along with the Jewish newspapers and lobbies. Because Trump REFUSED to investigate the biggest crime in history because of his god damned loyalty to Jews and Israel, it is Trump who spent his entire presidency in a defensive mode.

When asked if he condemns white supremacy Trump did not condemn the interviewer or defend white people. Pathetic. He's cucked to the Jewish media narrative. And why doesn't he take legal or military action against the Jewish media? Because he is bed with Kushners and the Adelsons.

As a result of his own actions Trump who could of won by a landslide is now in a stalemate with creeper senile Biden, one of the most pathetic candidates ever. Trump failures all center around his loyalties to Jews and Israel.

So this election is looking more and more like a stalemate and I would like to bring to everyone's attention that there is a "prophecy" of how this ends:

https://centralbankinginsanity.wordpress.com/2020/11/04/conversations-with-nostradamus-even-electoral-split-prophecy/

"The presidents of the U.S., a supposedly free country, have been abusing their power to an increasingly greater extent. During a time of social unrest even more so than the period of Viet Nam and Watergate, the electoral college will be evenly split over the election of the new president. The process will stalemate, with many people clamoring for whichever candidate they voted for, causing enormous tension in the country. Internationally it will be a sensitive situation.

Because of the split, and the extremely volatile and explosive social unrest, putting either candidate in office instead of the other could start a civil war or a revolution. After a long time of impassioned speeches invoking patriotism and the founding fathers, a compromise solution of holding another election will be taken, and a candidate will be installed without disaster."

PS I have no dog in the fight and I don't vote, I will never vote for a lesser of two evils, if the two pedo candidates is the best the nation can do when we have 337 million people to pick from then maybe the nation needs to fall.

anastasia , says: November 4, 2020 at 2:57 pm GMT • 13.4 hours ago

Trump ran against a man who would qualify as retarded.
I had to laugh when he said, "Look at what I am running against. It could only happen to me."

.and the rest of us. Clearly, we are on the losing side.

AndrewR , says: November 4, 2020 at 3:00 pm GMT • 13.3 hours ago
@Despair

Lol "vs"?

Antifa and Wall Street are the same now. It's them vs law-abiding, productive Americans.

c matt , says: November 4, 2020 at 3:18 pm GMT • 13.0 hours ago
@Hojer

persistence and evolution of the US two/uni party system is interesting.

It is due to the "winner take all" election rules rather than a proportional system. For the most part, US voters vote straight party anyway, so I don't see why we can't just go to a proportional system where you vote for a party, and based upon that party's percentage of vote, they get to fill X seats. Perhaps that would not work with the Presidential or Senate elections, but would at least work for the House.

Agent76 , says: November 4, 2020 at 5:24 pm GMT • 10.9 hours ago

Oct 29, 2020 Robert O'Brien – Trump's Foreign Policy

Donald Trump is the first American president since Ronald Reagan not to initiate a foreign war.

Yukon Jack , says: November 4, 2020 at 6:04 pm GMT • 10.3 hours ago aandrews , says: November 4, 2020 at 7:49 pm GMT • 8.5 hours ago

"This round of American populism has been defeated by the Swamp ."

LEVIATHAN AND ITS ENEMIES: Anonymous Elites in Power | with F. Roger Devlin
24:30 -- 27:00

The Machiavellians, by James Burnham
The Managerial Revolution, by Burnham James
Archive | F. Roger Devlin

Zarathustra , says: November 4, 2020 at 7:54 pm GMT • 8.4 hours ago

It looks like Republicans will be keeping the Senate. They almost did win House also.
So Biden cannot do too much, except to make some wars, regulate the international trade and give some money to freeloaders residing in the cities.
In the mean time the rate of debt will significantly increase.
I do not think there could be any negotiations with Russians because Biden is unreliable.

aandrews , says: November 4, 2020 at 8:01 pm GMT • 8.3 hours ago
@aandrews

Sam Francis on the Roots of Liberal Hegemony

James Forrestal , says: November 4, 2020 at 10:10 pm GMT • 6.2 hours ago

Trump began betraying his voters almost as soon as he was sworn into office. The only figures in Trump's populist campaign who survived the 2016 election were Steve Bannon, who was banished after Charlottesville and is now facing federal charges at the hands of Trump's own Department of Justice, and Jeff Sessions, whose political career was destroyed by Trump's calculated malice.

Remember Kris Kobach and how he was going to investigate widespread election fraud? that's something that might have been useful. Whatever happened to him, anyway? Just kind of faded away. No support from Drumpf. Last I heard, Kobach was held in contempt of court for failing to adequately advise noncitizens of their "right" to vote:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/18/kris-kobach-found-contempt-court-voting-case/

And Steve King -- sure, he was initially a Cruz supporter, but backed Trump enthusiastically later on. King's mild civic nationalism and strong support for common sense, patriotic immigration reform are exactly the agenda that Trump claimed to support. But when the corporate "news" media and the entire Uniparty attacked Steve King as "inadequately anti-White" -- Trump did <a href+' https://www.timesofisrael.com/white-house-distances-itself-from-king-comments/"was quick to disavow. King's longstanding fanatical Israel Firstism did nothing to save him. It's not enough to support semitic supremacism in the current year; you have to be actively anti-White as well, goy.

Robjil , says: November 4, 2020 at 10:11 pm GMT • 6.2 hours ago
@TKK d-multitudes/sam-the-banana-man/

Zemurray's original name was Schmuel Zmurri. He was born in Kishinev, Bessarabia, Russia (present-day Chişinău, Moldova) to a poor Jewish family that emigrated to America when he was fourteen years old.

In early 20th century, he went to Honduras to take over the banana crop business. He hired pe0ple to do a coup for his business interests in 1910.

https://www.cjnews.com/culture/books-and-authors/banana-trade-samuel-zemurray

geokat62 , says: November 4, 2020 at 10:29 pm GMT • 5.9 hours ago
@Sulu

Well, it official folks. U.S.A. is a Jew run banana republic.

They've even designed a new flag

The Real World , says: November 4, 2020 at 11:09 pm GMT • 5.2 hours ago
@Rufus Clyde Too group has been around for more than a decade. It was very clever to imply they were deeply involved and have them seem to be the originators of the predator exposures and firings.

Also, think it a coincidence that so many Repubs in Congress either "retired", decided to do something else or whose campaigns weren't going to be funded by the RNC in 2018? NO. They were forced out because they were corrupt.

Think Guliani bothered to go spend weeks in Ukraine just for vacation? NO, he went to get firsthand evidence of the Biden corruption. Etc, etc ..

nsa , says: November 4, 2020 at 11:21 pm GMT • 5.0 hours ago
@Zarathustra "Trump did for the jew as much as he could."
How does the cliche go? Live by the jew, die by the jew? Parasites are not known for their loyalty. The tribe squeezed all it could out of their useful idiot, Donnie the Dummy, and then deftly jumped to a new host, Joey Depends, who will willingly advance the tribe's self-serving agenda in ways yet undreamed of even by the political cognoscenti. Donnie appears to be a vindictive old bitch and might just form a populist third party along the lines of Teddy Roosevelt's moronic Bull Moose now that the tribe has discarded him like a wad of used stained toilet paper.
Sulu , says: November 4, 2020 at 11:43 pm GMT • 4.6 hours ago
@Zarathustra he Jews and being vetted by them. He was a loose cannon and had to go.

I further believe that war with China is more likely under Biden than Trump. The U.S. dollar has been the reserve currency since right after WWII. The rise of China threatens that so China will eventually have to be dealt with militarily. The Jews must maintain the U.S. dollar as reserve currency else much of their ill gotten gains tend to evaporate over time.

I am positive that local Jews have large investments in China.

That one I have no information on. It could well be true.

Sulu

Sin City Milla , says: November 5, 2020 at 12:25 am GMT • 3.9 hours ago
@Bardon Kaldian

Multiculturalism has always been a stopgap, a temporary pause on the way to disintegration for empires. The elites always put their hopes in it imagining they will satisfy angry minorities with minor adjustments. It never works. Just look at the Black armed militias. Not even systematic Black privilege n Supremacism is enough for them. They won't stop even for Biden until they ethnically cleanse whites completely from large parts of the country dominate the rest. We are past elections now. The war has begun.

shylockcracy , says: November 5, 2020 at 12:59 am GMT • 3.4 hours ago

The stage is set for another false flag with everyone distracted and caught up with the plandemic and/or political unrest, and regardless of which puppet gets selected, the Ziocorporate regime is certain to be rolling out more AI and tech to manipulate, control and frame the masses. The "anti-semitic terrorism" angle of Islamism now colluding with neo-Nazi white supremacism is as hilarious as it is scary, considering the US/EU Ziocorporate terrorist regimes' recent interventions in Libya, Syria and Ukraine and the sudden rise in ISlamist events in NATO/EU countries. This late stage fusion of imperial capitalism with communism in the West is looking like a complete disaster for mankind.

"Extremism Building to the 'Doorstep of Another 9/11,' DHS Official Tells Anti-Semitism Hearing"
https://www.hstoday.us/subject-matter-areas/infrastructure-security/extremism-building-to-the-doorstep-of-another-9-11-dhs-official-tells-anti-semitism-hearing/

anon [287] Disclaimer , says: November 5, 2020 at 1:50 am GMT • 2.5 hours ago
@Katrinka in droves, but there is massive fraud going on in GA, NC, NV, AZ, PA, WI and MI, as well as all the blue states. Not only are votes miscounted, ballots conjured out of thin air for Biden, I suspect many are also voting illegally since the DMV that registers voters in these states have no capacity to check their citizenship status. The GOP needs to form an election integrity committee and conduct a thorough audit of every state to verify their voters' eligibility. It is a massive undertaking, but it must be done. There is no integrity left in our election system.

The DNC should rename themselves the EJM, the End Justifies Means party. Democrats are a bunch of shameless frauds.

Clay Alexander , says: November 5, 2020 at 1:54 am GMT • 2.4 hours ago

It's so simple most don't even see it. American Jews are Trotskyites and Israeli Jews are Stalinists. That's it Bolshevism 101, come to think of it there is no 102. It seems Mr. Trump did not choose wisely.

Robert Dolan , says: November 5, 2020 at 2:46 am GMT • 1.6 hours ago

https://www.revolver.news/2020/09/meet-norm-eisen-legal-hatchet-man-and-central-operative-in-the-color-revolution-against-president-trump/

[Oct 26, 2020] A Vaporware Executive- An Attitude, Not a President by Fred Reed

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Here context matters. The US, or those who control the US, are trying to maintain American hegemony, or near hegemony, over the world. America has 600-800 military bases around the globe depending on what you regard as a military base. While many tens of thousands of America sleep on the sidewalks, while infrastructure crumbles, while standards of living fall and medical care is pricey but poor, the Pentagon always gets its budget. At the level of the White House, the Five-Sided Wind Tunnel, the arms industry, the important thing is to maintain the flow of money. And dominate the world. ..."
"... Trump is the embodiment of this looking-for-a-fight attitude. Not good. He has surrounded himself with over-age Cold Warriors, with generals, with the pathologically aggressive hangers-on from think-tank Washington: John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, Steve Bannon, and minor squibs of like outlook. He has pulled the US out of the arms-control treaties, START, INF, Open Skies. He has pushed NATO against Russian borders. In the Legion halls of Idaho, this may seem virile, the sort of thing that John Wayne would do. Back the commies down. Show them who is boss. No. It is just pointless and dangerous. ..."
"... Worse, there is a new kid on the block. China is growing. It behaves no worse than other countries, does not inflict on the world nearly the destruction and horror that the United States does, but it is growing. For Washington, this makes it not a competitor but an enemy. This is very much Trump's policy. Don't negotiate. Threaten. "Do as I say, or I will break you." ..."
"... Those favoring the continuance of Empire might note that, even at this, Trump has been a disaster. The First Rule of Empire is Don't let your enemies unite. Trump, having made Russia and China into enemies (why?) has forced ..."
"... Then there is Iran, a geopolitical linchpin, having eighty million people, a large and competent military, and lots and lots of oil. Under the JCPOA, the nuke deal, the Iranians were posed happily to integrate themselves into the Western economy -- buy hundreds of airliners from Boeing and Airbus, telecommunications gear, sell oil, have western companies develop its huge hydrocarbon reserves. ..."
"... Then Trump pulled out of the treaty and, led by the egregious Pompeo, tries to starve the Iranians into installing a puppet government. Iran, seeing that the West is not friendly, turns to the East, allies itself tightly with Russia and China. Tehran and Beijing are about to sign a twenty-five year, multimanymuchoslotsa billion dollar development deal. ..."
"... Then Trump had Soleimani, an Iranian hero, murdered. This doubtless played well with his partisans in Joe's Bar in Chicago, being manly and decisive and making America great again. It was also idiotic, making Iranians even less likely to cave to American pressure. ..."
"... With Trump the country elected an attitude, not a President. Truculence, bravado, and an in-your-face aggressiveness are no substitute for competence. ..."
Oct 26, 2020 | www.unz.com

Everybody and his goat has weighed in on the election, so I will too. This will make no difference to Trump's core followers, for whom he is a cult figure, or to those who detest him. The undecided may be interested.

Note how insubstantial Trump has been, pretending to be what he isn't and claiming to have done what he hasn't. Does no one notice? He has heavy support from Evangelicals. Ask him to name the books of the Pentateuch, or the second book, or what church he regularly attended, or ever attended, in New York. He was going to end the wars, but what war has he ended? To reduce the trade deficit, but it has grown . To get rid of all illegal aliens withing two years, but have they gone? To bring back factories from China and Mexico, but how many have returned? He is called a law-and-order President. Yet he hid, besieged, in the White House during the greatest eruption of lawlessness the country has ever seen, with a statue being pulled down across the street from his house. His handling of the virus? America remains hardest hit in the world, and it worsens by the day.

Trump, like all Presidents, has fulfilled the two critical jobs expected of him, protecting Wall Street and the military budget. What else has he done?

Almost nothing. All in good fun. But in the crucial field of international relations, he has been a disaster. I suspect that few of his followers in Flint and Gary study things beyond the borders. They should.

Here context matters. The US, or those who control the US, are trying to maintain American hegemony, or near hegemony, over the world. America has 600-800 military bases around the globe depending on what you regard as a military base. While many tens of thousands of America sleep on the sidewalks, while infrastructure crumbles, while standards of living fall and medical care is pricey but poor, the Pentagon always gets its budget. At the level of the White House, the Five-Sided Wind Tunnel, the arms industry, the important thing is to maintain the flow of money. And dominate the world.

Trump is the embodiment of this looking-for-a-fight attitude. Not good. He has surrounded himself with over-age Cold Warriors, with generals, with the pathologically aggressive hangers-on from think-tank Washington: John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, Steve Bannon, and minor squibs of like outlook. He has pulled the US out of the arms-control treaties, START, INF, Open Skies. He has pushed NATO against Russian borders. In the Legion halls of Idaho, this may seem virile, the sort of thing that John Wayne would do. Back the commies down. Show them who is boss. No. It is just pointless and dangerous.

Worse, there is a new kid on the block. China is growing. It behaves no worse than other countries, does not inflict on the world nearly the destruction and horror that the United States does, but it is growing. For Washington, this makes it not a competitor but an enemy. This is very much Trump's policy. Don't negotiate. Threaten. "Do as I say, or I will break you."

Those favoring the continuance of Empire might note that, even at this, Trump has been a disaster. The First Rule of Empire is Don't let your enemies unite. Trump, having made Russia and China into enemies (why?) has forced them to unite. This is -- how shall I put it? -- stupid. Russia and China are not natural allies. China is a crowded country with 1.4 billion smart, industrious people, rapidly growing influence, and a very long indefensible border with Russia. Russia has barely 146 million people, a comparatively static economy, vast empty lands with rich resources. The Russians may have noticed this. The two have had territorial disputes. This is not a marriage made, as we say, in heaven. Instead of playing them against each other, allying with one against the other, or leaving them the hell alone, Trump has forced them into close alliance.

This is Trump's policy, in the sense that if it happens during his presidency, it is his baby, though it is fairly evident that Pompeo is Trumps brains and Trump is Pompeo's enabler.

Then there is Iran, a geopolitical linchpin, having eighty million people, a large and competent military, and lots and lots of oil. Under the JCPOA, the nuke deal, the Iranians were posed happily to integrate themselves into the Western economy -- buy hundreds of airliners from Boeing and Airbus, telecommunications gear, sell oil, have western companies develop its huge hydrocarbon reserves.

Then Trump pulled out of the treaty and, led by the egregious Pompeo, tries to starve the Iranians into installing a puppet government. Iran, seeing that the West is not friendly, turns to the East, allies itself tightly with Russia and China. Tehran and Beijing are about to sign a twenty-five year, multimanymuchoslotsa billion dollar development deal.

Three enemies, united, where none was before. Fucking brilliant, Mike. Just fucking brilliant.

Then Trump had Soleimani, an Iranian hero, murdered. This doubtless played well with his partisans in Joe's Bar in Chicago, being manly and decisive and making America great again. It was also idiotic, making Iranians even less likely to cave to American pressure.

The same counterproductiveness appears in his "trade war" with China, in fact an attempt to wreck China commercially and technologically. This is packaged by Trump as "standing up to China," "deterring China," "containing China," but it might as accurately be called "encouraging the genie to leave the bottle," or "asking for it."

A quick example: Huawei was contentedly using Google's Android operating system on its smartphones. Android and iOS, both American, dominated the world market for operating systems. Huawei, with the predictability of sunrise, responded by crash-developing its own OS, Harmony . With equal predictability and suddenness it will improve it, further grow its app store (HMS, Huawei Mobile Services) and, on a guess, encourage other companies to use it. It will be said that a new OS won't work, can't compete, will take decades, and all the things that are customarily said of things China does. Wait.

Trump's result: A new and, likely, serious competitor to Google. Good job, Don.

There is more to come. Precisely because of Trump's technology-denial policy, China has launched a massive program to make itself tech-independent. It will take time, but it will happen. Every time China develops a replacement for an American product, US companies will lose the Chinese market for it -- and shortly face a competitor.

The root of the matter? With Trump the country elected an attitude, not a President. Truculence, bravado, and an in-your-face aggressiveness are no substitute for competence. Trump has demonstrated repeatedly that he is blankly ignorant of history, geography, technology, the military. In Hawaii, when taken to the USS Arizona memorial, he didn't know what it was. He has opined that the Spanish flu of 1917 (his date) influenced the end of WWII . It would be instructive for a reporter to ask him what countries border Iran, where one finds the Strait of Malacca, and why it matters.

The more enthusiastic of his followers seem to be equally ignorant and, worse, have no idea why a President should know such things. Is this how we choose Presidents, and the sort of Presidents we choose?

Write Fred at [email protected] Put the letters pdq anywhere in the subject line to avoid heartless autodeletion.

Check out Fred's splendid books ! Sedition, outrage, distortion, treason and other amusements. Enjoy accounts of America, not the disaster by the same name now peddled as the real thing. Cheap at the price.


Bragadocious , says: October 25, 2020 at 1:31 am GMT

This chart is a good reminder why Trump should be re-elected.

Suck it, Fred.

Oh and Mexico's doing worse on Covid when you account for their criminal undercounting of Covid deaths. When you have one of the lowest testing rates of any large country, then it's easy to undercount.

Achmed E. Newman , says: Website October 25, 2020 at 2:59 am GMT

This article would read fairly well if you would just replace all instances of "Trump" with "the US Feral Government". You're gonna blame the continuing stupidity of this huge Beast of a Government on the one man? Do you think he is King of America? He can hardly get anything done, which IS, BTW, partly his problem – the one thing you are quite right about is the stupidity in the President's hiring of swamp creatures to drain the swamp. I don't understand this myself but chalk it up to a lack of confidence in his own instincts.

Commenter Bragadocious has already brought up the very encouraging numbers of admitted "refugees" that I have read on VDare, but there are other below-the-radar good efforts by the President regarding immigration. Of course, most of us have been disappointed quite a bit, but lately I've been more gung-ho – anyone interested, please read VDare's "NYT Delivers Unintentional Endorsement Of Trump's Immigration Triumph" . (Hey, didn't you use to work there, Fred? You ought to at least keep up a bit.)

Peak Stupidity points out "The Bad, the Good, and the Ugly" regarding the President and this election – see "The Bad" , "The Good" , and "The Ugly" .

I honestly don't understand why you're so concerned with what happens to America anyway, Fred. You live in the great country of Mexico. Is it that everything disparaging you write makes you feel better about your decision to high-tail it down there?

gay troll , says: October 25, 2020 at 3:32 am GMT

COVID came from Fort Detrick and Trump knows it.

another fred , says: October 25, 2020 at 3:38 am GMT

Presidentially and socially we face two alternatives: an easy anesthetized slide into certain doom or a panicked descent kicking against the looming walls of our trap. Of course, that is not what either pretends to be, nor what the masses think they are.

In the end I can't tell a nickel's worth of difference. If someone could guarantee that one alternative was more likely than another to end in nuclear holocaust than the other I would allow a difference, but I don't see it. Which ever we "choose" this time, the pendulum will swing until a tipping point is reached.

It would be nice to have a serious realist in the White House, but I don't see the people voting for one. Maybe one will ride in on a white horse.

Carlton Meyer , says: Website October 25, 2020 at 4:23 am GMT

An excellent and accurate article. However, it should note that Biden's history shows he will probably be worse. Despite his tough talk, Trump never started a new war, which is why the Deep State hates him. They teed up four excuses to attack Iran: the strange drone attack on a Saudi oil facility, the strange mines placed on a tanker, flying a drone over Iran that was shot down, and doing nothing when Iran fired missiles at American bases in Iraq.

Weston Waroda , says: October 25, 2020 at 4:27 am GMT

Those favoring the continuance of Empire might note that, even at this, Trump has been a disaster. The First Rule of Empire is Don't let your enemies unite. Trump, having made Russia and China into enemies (why?) has forced them to unite. This is -- how shall I put it? -- stupid.

This isn't accurate, letting Russia and China unite was a notable feature of the Obama administration and probably goes back further than that. Remember the pivot to Asia? Remember Victoria Nuland handing out cookies at the Maidan? But you are absolutely right about Trump solely pushing Iran into the arms of Russia and China.

GreatSocialist , says: October 25, 2020 at 4:51 am GMT

Fred is right, Trump is a hee-haw Jackass who takes the prize for the dumbest, most delusional, most corrupt and most incompetent POTUS in all history.

He's run America into the ground with his failed trade war, his delusional (un)management of Covid-19 and all his damn fool gross stupidity. Just like his 6 failed casinos, his Trump University and his bankrupt listed company DJT.

Everything just fail, fail, and fail. Even an Orangutan taken from the zoo would have done better as POTUS than him.

Ghali , says: October 25, 2020 at 5:30 am GMT

Sorry, but to rewrite your comment, Trump, just like all his predecessors, has fulfilled the Three critical jobs expected of him: 1. Armed and expanded Jewish colonial fascism in Palestine, 2. Continue to protect the 1% (Wall Street) and 3. Increased U.S. military budget by continuing to sale arms to fascist regimes.

David J , says: October 25, 2020 at 8:16 am GMT

Yes, he is a blathering, bullshitting salesman who built hotels and had a reality TV show. But he didn't start any wars. Bombed the odd airstrip, but that was about it. Who was the last President you could say that about? If he loses, strap in for more wars, possibly even the Big One. And as for China, before we get too awestruck about their economic 'miracle' -- which was remarkable -- note that their money supply (M2) is 2.5 times their GDP. $2.50 for every $1 they need for their economy. Why? To prop up a banking system that is a total Ponzi scheme. To say they have an internal debt problem doesn't begin to cover it. Sure, it allowed them to build super fast trains and cities with no-one in them, but they can't get Chinese people to consume because they are all desperately saving for health care. The public health care is dreadful. It was a miracle, sure, but full of holes (which makes it no less impressive).

Ilya G Poimandres , says: October 25, 2020 at 8:25 am GMT

Fred highlights lots of problems, but I don't see why the other two Presidents will be better at solving them. They certainly won't be, because they don't see them as problems.

They will start more wars, they will ignore the trade deficit, they will bring in millions of immigrants, they will keep selling off manufacturing to cheaper places indifferently, and they will be indebted to their BLM fascists when in power, meaning violence will increase either way.

They are for Empire, and they don't keep to the treaties anyways – at least Trump is honest when he tears them up. It is, according to Al-Anfal 55-63 at least, up to those who get betrayed to tear up the treaties, and they should have long done so anyways.

Killing Suleimani? Is there a bigger misstep that could have been done by the Empire, that cost so little in terms of human life to the ME, and actually improved the reputation of Trump with the crazies whilst making the wind down accelerate?!

They will be for NATO, which will stop being an NA and will become a World Treaty Organisation.

He sure ain't perfect – he is a very weak or trusting manager, it seems – but he tries to move in the right direction often, even if he is prevented from taking even more than baby steps. The other two Presidents will march into the abyss whilst laughing at their awesome brilliance!

Jon Halpenny , says: October 25, 2020 at 8:51 am GMT

The reason Trump forced Russia, China, and Iran into alliance is because America conducts its foreign policy for the benefit of Israel.

OilcanFloyd , says: October 25, 2020 at 9:35 am GMT

Why was Trump elected in the first place, Fred? In a well-run country with real options, Trump would have been laughed at. When your rulers actively sell you out, hate you, and are in the process of replacing you, a Donald Trump is a realistic option. That is sad. What's worse is that even after Trump's election, the PTBs are doubling down on the treason and hatred of Americans. As bad as Trump is, what is the option? And what can one man really do?

It's too easy to just blame the situation on stupid Trump supporters, as if their votes created America's problems.

GMC , says: October 25, 2020 at 10:52 am GMT
@Weston Waroda rm the Ukraine military. Ukies don't just take their kalashnikovs and send them to the metal cutters – their corrupt generals sold all the rifles, motors, and assorted other arms and kept the 35 million. This makes Neo Nazi's much more stronger at the Maidan, which was delayed because of Yanukovych and his kleptocrazy regime. Thanks to the African born Obama and Joe the War lover – Ukraine to day is totally CIA,Mossad, Nato etc. We could dissect Libya and Syria but we would find the same Satanic World Order boys – Barrack and Joe – doing their thing for the Cabal. Oh – I lived in Ukraine 08 – 2014 and then had to switch residency – for obvious reasons. Spacibo
Anon [421] Disclaimer , says: October 25, 2020 at 10:54 am GMT

You have to give credit to Trump for stopping the anti white brainwashing AKA
as 'diversity training' which was based on the white hating manifesto AKA 'critical
race theory.' It turned out that under the radar big business and many parts of the
government were forcing whites to repent for their racist attitudes and write forced
confessions. President Trump gave the middle finger to that with much deconstructing
still to come.
I can't fathom how a descendant of the illustrious Tidewater Reeds can
turn his back on the accomplishments of his Anglo Saxon people.
America began as a Protestant project which is why we are fortunate to have
the most enlightened system of jurisprudence in the world. Say what you will about
Trump's brash New York City manner but at least he is a defender of Western
Civilization. I most look forward to cleaning house at the DOJ & CIA if he wins.
That and smashing Big Tech into a thousand pieces.

Under The Bridge , says: October 25, 2020 at 11:21 am GMT
@Bragadocious

"Oh and Mexico's doing worse on Covid when you account for their criminal undercounting of Covid deaths."

Indeed! Anything less than American-style overcounting is undercounting! It's CRIMINAL! They should be put in jail! Or quarantined! I repeat myself!

"When you have one of the lowest testing rates of any large country, then it's easy to undercount."

When you test for the ubiquitous presence of viral fragments in people who are not sick, it's easy to overcount. FTFY.

Mikael_ , says: October 25, 2020 at 11:32 am GMT

I'm not sure I want someone like you lecturing us on morality, Fred.

You're basically stating over and over, that the US should strive to maintain its 'Only Empire in the World' approach (which it did since at least Clinton),
but Trump is just doing it wrong.

Achmed E. Newman , says: Website October 25, 2020 at 11:33 am GMT
@Craig Nelsen f stupidity is Mr. Reed's part about Trump causing Russia and China to be allied. WTH? Trump wanted to ignore the pretension by the Neocons (if they are serious it be even stupider) that Russia is still the USSR, our arch enemy. The MIC and Neocons blocked his rapprochement with Russia. President Trump's attempt to end the completely unfair trade deal the sell-outs handed to China in the mid-1990s is one of his admirable efforts. Relations have become bad mostly due to that the Chinese don't want a fair deal with trade. They are used to taking advantage of us in every way possible – even the Great Chinese Visiting Scholar Scam .
antibeast , says: October 25, 2020 at 11:59 am GMT

Trump is a symptom of the disease which the author mistakes for the disease itself. That's why Trump won in 2016 because the white masses who elected him needed to vomit their own existential angst against the System. The more petulant Trump became, the more love the white masses have for him because that's how they feel against the System which has betrayed their own white interests.

The author correctly points out that Trump does exactly what other US Presidents before him have done which is to promote the economic interests of the US Capitalist Class and the US Military-Industrial Complex, by cutting income taxes and increasing the defense budget, respectively. He also mentions Trump's trade war and technology bans against China which has served more as a "canary in a coal mine" than anything else, hastening the pace by which Chinese companies have been diversifying away from the USA, since the GFC in 2008, including developing their own indigenous technologies which have given rise to homegrown tech giants like Huawei and TikTok. While Trump's anti-China moves were driven by political self-aggrandizement, China's response was driven by its economic self-interest, which explains its low-key approach to resolving its trade disputes with the USA.

But the author missed something else which is Trump's hostility to Globalist causes such as unrestricted immigration, outsourcing of manufacturing and services jobs, foreign wars, multilateral treaties such as the Paris Climate Accord, international institutions such as the WHO, trade deals such as the TPP and NAFTA, among others. His most glaring omission is to avoid any mention of Trump's decision to withdraw US troops out of Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany as well as preventing another regime-change war against Iran.

While his economic policies range from the patently mediocre (promoting "fracking") to outright stupid (imposing tariffs), Trump's biggest successes are in fact in the areas of US foreign policy in which he DID carry out his "America First" strategy which has endeared him to his white supporters but which has disheartened his enemies in the US Deep State.

Of course, that's exactly why his white supporters elected him in 2016 and why the US Deep State is doing everything it can to defeat him in 2020 because a second term of Trump would hasten the decline and fall of the US Empire.

Michael888 , says: October 25, 2020 at 12:01 pm GMT

"He has pushed NATO against Russian borders." No, after Reagan assured Gorbachev that NATO would not move an inch closer to Russia with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Bill Clinton moved NATO to Russia's borders as a provocation, along with slaughtering Slavs and proving the inability of Russia to continue its traditional role as protector of the Slavs. This was followed by BUSH's and OBAMA's continuation of Color Revolutions to establish US puppets in former Soviets (and more NATO bases).

The Biden/ Nuland-led Maidan Revolution in Ukraine meant that the per capita GDP dropped over half by deflecting the internal corruption into external Americans' and American Ukrainians' pockets. For calling out that US corruption and briefly holding up more weapons, money and provocation with Russia, Trump was impeached. Ukraine lost Crimea BEFORE Trump, and he was stymied from removing troops by a Congress who refused to accept him as an Elected President and Commander-in-Chief.

While Trump has lots of issues, calling him out for doing exactly what the last three Presidents before him did, really undercuts the article's message. Scapegoating Trump doesn't change reality.

aspnaz , says: October 25, 2020 at 12:10 pm GMT

Trump is the embodiment of this looking-for-a-fight attitude.

Wow, you have been asleep for the last four years? The antics of the Democrats and their female goddess seem to have completely passed you by. Just to fill you in on some basic detail, the Democrats (what an ironic name) have been waging battle after battle, you could call it a war, against the President because they just couldn't accept the result of the last election. They felt they were entitled to the presidency. You say Trump is looking for a fight, the Democrats didn't just look, they launched the war and lost.

KenH , says: October 25, 2020 at 12:17 pm GMT

We all know that Trump is bellicose and a blowhard but he said all the right things in 2015-16. My issue with Trump is his betrayals. He threatened to end birthright citizenship but never followed through. He was working with Tom Cotton to reduce legal immigration and end chain migration but gave up after less than a year. He should have ended AFFH shortly after taking office but didn't do so until just two months ago. The list goes on.

Another reason his administration wasn't as successful as we all hoped is that he didn't know how to staff a government as PCR feared and predicted. He thought he could just ride in to Washington and wing it and start barking orders it doesn't work that way.

Trump is not a visionary like Obama was. In order to qualify for Obama's administration you had to think and see the world exactly like he did. Trump seems to get his jollies from hiring people who disagree with him and work to undermine his agenda.

Now Trump is courting black nationalists like rapper Ice Cube while condemning white nationalists. This would be like Obama courting David Duke on a plan to help poor and working class white Americans.

VinnyVette , says: October 25, 2020 at 12:28 pm GMT

Trump has given us three conservative SCOTUS's justices. He has also exposed the deep state, the alphabet agencies, and the MSM for what they are. Evil anti American forces.
And all the while, staving off three bullshit coup attempts and constant personal and political assault!
And what better would we get from proven corrupt and dementia laden career politician Joe Biden Fred?
Fuck you!

Old and Grumpy , says: October 25, 2020 at 12:35 pm GMT
@another fred

I'm voting for the entertaining one. Politics is interactive theater. Was it George Carlin who said that if voting mattered they wouldn't let us do it? No truer words. Plus I like the Melania fashion watch on Breitbart....

Old and Grumpy , says: October 25, 2020 at 12:41 pm GMT
@Jon Halpenny

BRICS began back in Obama days. More importantly its inception was due to crippling Russian sanctions due to the bogus Magnitsky Act, which was passed during the W. Bush reign. BTW do you know who sponsored the act in Congress? McCain, Biden, and Obama. All are/were Zionists and Necon approved.

Trinity , says: October 25, 2020 at 1:08 pm GMT

Hmm, as disappointing as Trump has been, and believe me, he has been a disappointment, he is the best President in my lifetime of 59 years. Of course, given the list of empty suits that we have been given as our leaders over the last 59 years, saying Trump is the best of the lot is not saying much. Honestly has America elected a decent man to hold the office of POTUS in the last 120 years?

At the very minimum Trump has exposed the FAKE MEDIA, hell, that is more than the others ever did while in office because as we all know the American people have been lied to by the Jew Media for over 100 years and counting. IF anyone can come up with reasons why anyone from JFK to Obama were better for America than Trump, I am all ears. Personally, I give Trump an overall D on his report card while the others I give a flat F. Do Whites really want a Biden/Harris Presidency? I voted Trump, again. No REAL choice as usual.

John Achterhof , says: October 25, 2020 at 1:55 pm GMT

The root of the matter? With Trump the country elected an attitude, not a President.

Outstanding essay, Fred, and much of the reaction to it confirms it's validity.

I only have a petty disagreement with this one observation:

Russia and China are not natural allies.

All countries, in civilization and decency, are natural allies. It's only predatorial interests of states that upset this natural human alliance.

Desert Fox , says: October 25, 2020 at 2:37 pm GMT

All the potus have been under zionist control since they had JFK assassinated and then came the zionist/Israeli and traitors in the ZUS government attack on the WTC on 911 and this was blamed on the Arabs and gave the zionists the excuse to destroy the middle east for Israels greater Israel agenda, using the ZUS military and AL CIADA and MOSSAD and MI6 created mercenaries to to the destruction and the killing.

Trump is just another in a long line of zionist puppets and Biden is the same and the one ie the libertarian Joanne Jorgensen who is against these wars, is ignored, and the beat goes on.

God's Fool , says: October 25, 2020 at 2:48 pm GMT

Nobody gives a shit in Joe's Bar in Chicago about the killing of the Iranian general but you may want to check the bars in Tel Aviv to see if they're rejoicing

Now enough about China there are plenty of other sycophants on unz.com without you joining in. Stick to defending wetbacks which suits you naturally and it's more palatable.

As to Russia and China: first, you outline Chinese population treat to Russia and then second, you breathlessly claim they're boon companions so, which is it?

Lastly, I noticed that the one group which has most benefited from the orange man presidency while undercutting his nationalist credentials which would help traditional Americans isn't even mentioned in the article no names or hints. What gives?

Wally , says: October 25, 2020 at 4:02 pm GMT
@GreatSocialist nbsp;
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/07/president_trumps_handling_of_the_virus_was_not_a_failure.html

50 Things Neo-Marxists Don't Want You to Know About Trump:
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2020/07/29/50-things-they-dont-want-you-know-trump-harpercollins-reveals-breitbart-editor-jerome-hudsons-book-cover/#

[Sep 29, 2020] Trump Confirms U.S. is Israel's "Protector", by Philip Giraldi

Not that foreign policy is high priority for most of the USA electorate, but still it looks like some potential Trump voters do not approve this message.
That's why many of them probably will not vote for Trump in 2020, or will not vote at all because there is no difference in this area between Trump and Biden: you can call the same Zionist cutlet with two different names. but it is still the same cutlet.
People voted in Trump to be a protector of workers and lower middle class against financial oligarchy. Instead, they got "Ziotrump", a marionette of Israel lobby who is first and foremost the protector of Israel, MIC and the billionaire class.
The question is: Is Zionism an official ideology of the USA ruling elite? Zionism as any far right nationalism has it pluses and minuses, but why this important decision is not discussed?
Notable quotes:
"... I like being energy independent, don't you? I'm sure that most of you noticed when you go to fill up your tank in your car, oftentimes it's below two dollars. You say how the hell did this happen? While I'm president, America will remain the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world. We will remain energy independent. It should be for many many years to come. The fact is, we don't have to be in the Middle East, other than we want to protect Israel. We've been very good to Israel. Other than that, we don't have to be in the Middle East." ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
Sep 29, 2020 | www.unz.com

For many years the security framework in the Middle East has been described as a bilateral arrangement whereby Washington gained access to sufficient Saudi Arabian oil to keep the energy market stable while the United States provided an armed physical presence through its bases in the region and its ability to project power if anyone should seek to threaten the Saudi Kingdom. The agreement was reportedly worked out in a February 1945 meeting between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, just as World War 2 was drawing to a close. That role as protector of Saudi Arabia and guarantor of stable energy markets in the region later served as part of the justification for the U.S. ouster of the Iraqi Army from Kuwait in 1991.

After 9/11, the rationale became somewhat less focused. The United States invaded Afghanistan, did not capture or kill Osama bin Laden due to its own incompetence, and, rather than setting up a puppet regime and leaving, settled down to a nineteen-years long and still running counter-insurgency plus training mission. Fake intelligence produced by the neocons in the White House and Defense Department subsequently implicated Iraq in 9/11 and led to the political and military disaster known as the Iraq War.

During the 75 years since the end of the Second World War the Middle East has experienced dramatic change, to include the withdrawal of the imperial European powers from the region and the creation of the State of Israel. And the growth and diversification of energy resources mean that it is no longer as necessary to secure the petroleum that moves in tankers through the Persian Gulf. Lest there be any confusion over why the United States continues to be involved in Syria, Iraq, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, President Donald Trump remarkably provided some clarity relating to the issue when on September 8 th he declared that the U.S. isn't any longer in the Middle East to secure oil supplies, but rather because we "want to protect Israel."

The comment was made by Trump during a rally in Winston-Salem, N.C . as part of a boast about his having reduced energy costs for consumers. He said " I like being energy independent, don't you? I'm sure that most of you noticed when you go to fill up your tank in your car, oftentimes it's below two dollars. You say how the hell did this happen? While I'm president, America will remain the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world. We will remain energy independent. It should be for many many years to come. The fact is, we don't have to be in the Middle East, other than we want to protect Israel. We've been very good to Israel. Other than that, we don't have to be in the Middle East."

The reality is, of course, that U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has been all about Israel for a very long time, at least since the presidency of Bill Clinton, who has been sometimes dubbed the first Jewish president for his deference to Israeli interests. The Iraq War is a prime example of how neoconservatives and Israel Firsters inside the United States government conspired to go to war to protect the Jewish State. In key positions at the Pentagon were Zionists Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. Feith's Office of Special Plans developed the "alternative intelligence" linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda and also to a mythical nuclear program that was used to justify war. Feith was so close to Israel that he partnered in a law firm that had an office in Jerusalem. The fake intelligence was then stove-piped to the White House by fellow neocon "Scooter" Libby who worked in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

After the fact, former Secretary of State Colin Powell also had something to say about the origins of the war, commenting that the United States had gone into Iraq because Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld bought into the neoconservative case made for doing so by "the JINSA crowd," by which he meant the Israel Lobby organization the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

And if any more confirmation about the origins of the Iraq War were needed, one might turn to Philip Zelikow, who was involved in the planning process while working on the staff of Condoleezza Rice. He said "The unstated threat. And here I criticize the [Bush] administration a little, because the argument that they make over and over again is that this is about a threat to the United States. And then everybody says: 'Show me an imminent threat from Iraq to America. Show me, why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us?' So I'll tell you what I think the real threat is, and actually has been since 1990. It's the threat against Israel. And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it's not a popular sell."

So here is the point that resonates: even in 2002-3, when the Israel Lobby was not as powerful as it is now, the fact that the U.S. was going to war on a lie and was actually acting on behalf of the Jewish State was never presented in any way to the public, even though America's children would be dying in the conflict and American taxpayers would be footing the bill. The media, if it knew about the false intelligence, was reliably pro-Israel and helped enable the deception.

And that same deception continued to this day until Trump spilled the beans earlier this month. And now, with the special security arrangement that the U.S. has entered into with Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the ability to exit from a troublesome region that does not actually threaten American interests has become very limited. As guarantor of the agreement, Washington now has an obligation to intervene on the behalf of the parties involved. Think about that, a no-win arrangement that will almost certainly lead to war with Iran, possibly to include countries like Russia and China that will be selling it military equipment contrary to U.S. "sanctions."

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .


geokat62 , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:10 am GMT

Trump Confirms U.S. Is Israel's "Protector"

Protector? Is that a fancy word for "Bitch"?

JWalters , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:28 am GMT

Excellent synopsis of the situation. And if we look into the founding of Israel, we find it was founded by war profiteers. This would explain why peace has been so "elusive". It has been relentlessly dodged. "War Profiteers and the Roots of the 'War on Terror'"
https://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com/p/war-profiteers-and-roots-of-war-on.html

JWalters , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:32 am GMT
@geokat62

It means Netanyahu is the de facto president of the US.

Derer , says: September 29, 2020 at 5:13 am GMT

Trump Confirms U.S. Is Israel's "Protector"

This declaration is against the will of the American people. Hawkish policies of this nature, that endanger the American lives should be confirmed by a referendum of the people. Of course that would be logical step in a democracy but USA is not a democracy but a diktat of backroom unellected ruling clique.

sethster , says: September 29, 2020 at 6:07 am GMT

990. Jews are the scapegoats for all the deficiencies of low-IQ whites just as whites are the scapegoats for all the deficiencies of low-IQ non-whites. Let me explain how that works.

Why do we observe Jews at the forefront of many cutting-edge industries? (for example the media/arts and financial industries are indeed rife with them). The low-IQ answer is, of course, a simplistic conspiracy theory: Jews form an evil cabal that created all these industries from scratch to "destroy culture" (or at least what low-IQ people think is culture, i.e. some previous, obsolete state of culture, i.e. older, lower culture, i.e. non-culture). And, to be sure, there is a lot of decadence in these industries. But, in an advanced civilization, there is a lot of decadence everywhere anyway! It's an essential prerequisite even! So it makes perfect sense that the most capable people in such a civilization will also be the most decadent! The stereotype of the degenerate cocaine-sniffing whoremonging or homosexual Hollywood or Wall Street operative belongs here. Well, buddy, if YOU were subjected to the stresses and temptations of the Hollywood or Wall Street lifestyles, maybe you'd be a "degenerate" too! But you lack the IQ for that, so of course you'll reduce the whole enterprise to a simplistic resentful fairy tale that seems laughable even to children: a bunch of old bearded Jews gathered round a large table planning the destruction of civilization! Well I say enough with this childish nonsense! The Jews are simply some of the smartest and most industrious people around, ergo it makes sense that they'll be encountered at or near all the peaks of the dominant culture, being overrepresented everywhere in it, including therefore in its failings and excesses! This is what it means to be the best! It doesn't mean that you are faultless little angels who can do no wrong, you brainless corn-fed nitwits! There's a moving passage somewhere in Nietzsche where he relates that Europe owes the Jews for the highest sage (Spinoza), and the highest saint (Jesus), and he'd never even heard of Freud or Einstein! In view of all the immeasurable gifts the Jewish spirit has lavished on humanity, anti-semitism in the coming world order will be a capital offense, if I have anything to say on the matter. The slightest word against the Jews, and you're a marked man: I would have not only you, but your entire extended family wiped out, just to be sure. You think you know what the Devil is, but he's just the lackey taking my orders. Entire cities razed to the ground (including the entire Middle East), simply because one person there said something bad about "the Jews", that's how I would have the future! Enough with this stupid meme! To hell with all of you brainless subhumans! You've wasted enough of our nervous energy on this stupid shit! And the same goes to low-IQ non-whites who blame all their troubles on whites! And it's all true: Jews and whites upped the stakes for everybody by bringing into the world a whole torrent of new possibilities which your IQ is too low to handle! So whatcha gonna do about it? Are you all bark, or are you prepared to bite? Come on, let's see what you can do! Any of you fucking pricks bark, and we'll execute every motherfucking last one of you!

From http://orgyofthewill.net

Talha , says: September 29, 2020 at 6:46 am GMT

Honestly, I like way better out in the open like this. Now there is no reason to worry about all the other BS excuses, it's all on the table.

So now, as a public, we have been informed; so what are we going to do about it? Or are they so confident about their position that they know they can announce it to he world openly and be sure that there will be zero consequences?

GMC , says: September 29, 2020 at 9:59 am GMT

Protector, personal armies, saboteurs, financiers, assassin's, propagandists, liars, thieves, rapists, slavers, and that is just for starters – which includes inside and outside of the former country called the USA.

Oracle , says: September 29, 2020 at 10:22 am GMT
@sethster

No, you are wrong. The problem with the 'industriousness' is that it is characterized by the principle of profit before all, no matter how immoral the activity. People who do that don't care about a civilized society and should not be able to reap the benefits of one.

Also high IQ isn't exemplified by trickery, lying, subverting and eroding the morals of the host society.

Talha , says: September 29, 2020 at 10:58 am GMT
@Hess of Germans, what are those homeboys up to lately ?
Ugetit , says: September 29, 2020 at 10:59 am GMT

The US is not only the protector, but has been the enabler of the mafia from the start.

Chaim.Weizman and Nathan Sokolow approach the British with a dirty deal. The Zionists offer to use their international influence to bring the US into the war on Britain's side, while undermining Germany from within. The price that Britain must pay for U.S. entry is to steal Palestine from Ottoman Turkey (Germany's ally) and allow the Jews to settle there. Zionist agitated anti-German propaganda was unleashed in the US while the Zionists and Marxists of Germany begin to undermine Germany's war effort from within. Wilson establishes the Committee on Public Information (CPI) for the purpose of manipulating public opinion in support of the war.

-M.S. King, The Bad War, p 50.

Similar scenario for "WW2" which was little more than a continuation of the previous biggie. They really ought to be known as the One World Wars since they were obviously part of the plan for the world to be dominated by the International mafia through such creations as the League of Subjects and the United Slave Nations with the capitol at Tel Aviv.

Tommy Thompson , says: September 29, 2020 at 11:23 am GMT

Yes, Dr. Giraldi, you hit the nail on the head again.

However, the problem is that most White Middle Class Americans, are satisfied and fully compliant with this situation where the USA is a Megalethon Vassal and Servile State for the poor little Israeli state .

Also, let us be honest with ourselves, Blacks and other minorities on more occasions do dare to speak out on this issue, only to get trounced upon by the MSM and silence and snickers by the stay safe White American Middle Class. Do you ever find a Main Line White Politician speaking up for America's interests and placing them first vis a vis our best little ally ??? Only when it comes to Afro or the Hispanic – Americans sticking their heads up a little does Middle White Americana get all worked up and emotionally charged.

The White Middle Class and most certainly the well moneyed Corporate Class of America, does not mind giving away huge transfers of their tax dollars, national debt, high technologies, military hardware, and even their uniformed sons and daughter, upon command from the likes of Trump and their political opportunists managing the country (Rep and Dem alike). Serving and making America serve the Greater Zio Agenda for their ME and Global domination has become the norm and unquestionable. Try raising this issue at a dinner party and see how many people role their eyes and turn their heads away.

I doubt that the RU followers here, who seem more bent on street brawling with the false bogeymen like BLM and ANTIFA, are the ones that will stand up to the in your face take over of WDC by AIPAC and the Israel First Crowd, including front man Trump for the Kushner-Bibi WH.

Let us not forget the thieving and scamming Sunday preachers who tell them it is great to be in full service of the Zio (Jewish Talmudic based) domination agenda– as it has become a direct ticket to a Raptured Heaven . Jesus for them was been thrown under the bus long ago or strangely converted into a gun machine toting Israeli nut case extremist settler, clearing the land and villages of the indignies children and all.

Let us be frank, some elements of the America First Jewish intelligentsia are more likely to call out and the whorishness ( extremes only) of the Washington's ZOG policies than Middle Americana, who dare not risk their creature comforts, Game Time or corporate positions.

As the old adage goes, you get the Government That You Deserve .

lavoisier , says: Website September 29, 2020 at 11:29 am GMT
@sethster

Are you all bark, or are you prepared to bite? Come on, let's see what you can do! Any of you fucking pricks bark, and we'll execute every motherfucking last one of you!

Well your tribe has been incredibly effective at genocide and mass murder on an unprecedented scale of barbarism in the past, and I have no doubt you remain just as capable of such barbarity and cruelty today. Your rant makes that very clear.

Too bad the high IQ does not seem to correlate in a positive way with morality.

But thanks for the warning! Trust me, many of us are quite aware of your capabilities.

lavoisier , says: Website September 29, 2020 at 11:36 am GMT
@Talha

Germans are a totally deracinated and brainwashed people.

Germany sold Israel submarines capable of launching nuclear missiles!

A more cucked-up people are impossible to find!

It should be no mystery how Jews have gained such control over the Gentile.

It was granted to them, willingly.

lavoisier , says: Website September 29, 2020 at 11:43 am GMT
@Talha

Most Americans do not care that their country serves the unethical territorial ambitions of the Jews.

Most Americans believe Israel is a noble country filled with noble people that would never do anything unjust or immoral.

Most Americans believe Israel is our greatest ally.

This is sad, but it is true.

Hence the predicament and the peril of our fealty to Israel.

And the predicament and peril of all those who come into conflict with this rogue nation and people.

God's Fool , says: September 29, 2020 at 12:11 pm GMT

The only reason Trump "spilled the beans" about how we are in the Middle East to protect Israel and not to keep oil flowing is to get himself reelected and nothing else. As to war with China, Zuckerberg alone would be able to bribe the administration in particular, and both the parties in general, with his extra billions to keep them out of the war being that he has married a chink, er, Chan. All will be back to business as usual after the election at least, for four more years.

HallParvey , says: September 29, 2020 at 12:30 pm GMT
@JWalters

It means Netanyahu is the de facto president of the US.

Not quite. He is much more powerful than that. The entire Congress of the United States stands and applauds when he arrives to speak. They would never do that for Trump, or any president. The fear of being unpersoned keeps them in line.

Malla , says: September 29, 2020 at 12:32 pm GMT
@Ugetit endence and freedom but things actually became more messy. Also the "hated" Russian Romanovs were got rid off, Russia pushed under Communist Jewish dictatorship. Also the destruction of the Caliph, imagine a united Turko-Arab Empire, no way Israel would have survived that. Even T.E. Lawrence who helped the Arabs fight the Turks was totally disappointed with the behaviour of his own Zionist controlled government. He was going to speak to the British people about the great betrayal to the Arabs and being a war hero they would have listened to him. But before he could do so he met with an "accident" while riding his motorcycle. Yeah, very convenient.
Miville , says: September 29, 2020 at 12:35 pm GMT
@sethster re good at gathering Nobel Prizes, which is best arranged by jury-rigging and string-pulling thanks to their talent for networking, but no so good as making real inventions. In Israel proper the mean Jewish IQ, 94, is not only disappointing but a few points below even the Palestinian one. Spiritually the Jews have no longer been a chosen people for ages and most of the intellectual development they knew from about 1850 onwards was due to their being emancipated en masse from rabbinical authority, not by conforming to it : now that are falling back under an even worse collective authority with Zionism they are reversing the intellectual gains they once made.
Z-man , says: September 29, 2020 at 12:55 pm GMT

A bit off topic but RIP Steven F. Cohen.

anon [461] Disclaimer , says: September 29, 2020 at 1:14 pm GMT

Back in the second half of the 80s the big war games were all IRAQ IRAQ IRAQ!!1! There was a strong push from all the interagency pukes with their dotted-lines reports to Langley – to aim at Iraq, and to suppress any practical considerations that might interfere with this very lucrative debacle. We watched these moles countering evidence and analysis with declamatory bullshit they made up. Way back then CIA had decided. April Glaspie's headfake sprung a trap set in Kuwait by the NOCs infesting Bechtel. That horizontal-drilling rhubarb was years in preparation.

Iraq was one big war with three phases: beating up on the Iraqi armed forces; ten years of blowing shit up; the occupation.

It turned out great. CIA got money-laundering nirvana, a chaotic zone where they could ship pallets of money around. They got an arms entrepot that lasted 20 years.They got a great network of sites for the torture gulag, with secure impunity – when Iraq tried to accede to the Rome Statute in 05, the CIA torturers were on the spot to nip it in the bud. The tame jihadi boogeymen the torture camps produced were invaluable in creating Rumsfeld's "terrorist corridor" in the Sahel and justifying the P2OG and the Pan-Sahel Initiative. That put AFRICOM garrisons, US-trained warlords, and CIA torture sites in one of the most diplomatically recalcitrant regions of the world:

So turn that frown upside down! Your old bosses got a lot out of that charlie foxtrot.

Realist , says: September 29, 2020 at 1:19 pm GMT
@sethster re all conceived and started by Gentiles Henry Ford is a great example and he knew Jews quite well. The only industries , as you call them, that Jews are involved in are leech enterprises financial corporations are excellent examples of leech enterprises. The financial products they contrive are methods to extract value from productive industries.
A large percent of Jews are devoted obsessed with gaining wealth and power from the efforts of others which is the reason for their inordinate involvement in the Deep State and also for the abject loathing by many Gentiles throughout the ages.
Moi , says: September 29, 2020 at 1:29 pm GMT
@geokat62

Fact is you can fool all Americans all the time. We are a nation of ignorant people.

Moi , says: September 29, 2020 at 1:39 pm GMT
@Talha

Whether the truth is hidden or now out in the open doesn't matter to a people so stupid as to believe the Creator's offspring walked, eat and crapped on this little planet 2k years ago.

Exhibit B of their stupidity: Electing Trump (and more than a few of his predecessors).

Anonymous [311] Disclaimer , says: September 29, 2020 at 1:45 pm GMT

The NWO won't come to America as Greta Thunberg marching ahead of the Democrats in Mao suits under LGBTQ and GND banners and tumbrels of Christians headed for the guillotine, but as one transnational compliance regime after the other enacted by treaty, such as mandatory bi-annual vaccinations with largely inefficacious vaccines carrying not just behavior modifying chemicals and sterilants as adjuvants, but DNA-altering horrors. Anyone want to argue the threats posed by these DNA- or mRNA-modifying vaccines made from, among other things, insect DNA?

Some think it's over the top to talk about the NWO that's on the horizon as a Sino-Judaic, world-hegemonic NWO, but the United States government is itself already little more than a collection of compliance regimes in service to International Jewry. The 29 standing ovations from a Congress afraid to be the first to stop clapping for a kitchen cabinet salesman-turned-Caesar made that clear enough. The rest of the story, like the nonsense that Congress and DJT are voluntarily protecting Israel, is eyewash for fools when International Jewry owns them all like the trained seals who perform in the Central Park Zoo.

Old and Grumpy , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:01 pm GMT
@God's Fool

The Holy Rollers were never going to bail from Trump after the embassy move to Jerusalem. Jews on the other hand are likely not amused about such a revelation. So his words were unlikely about the election.

Old and Grumpy , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:04 pm GMT

How is this foreign policy now not a violation of the church-state separation? Especially since Israel describes itself as a Jewish state.

The Spirit of Enoch Powell , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:17 pm GMT
@lavoisier nd stern conversation, "For me, the new Germany exists only in order to ensure the existence of the State of Israel and the Jewish people." He's a brilliant intellectual and a thoughtful politician, and we don't need to worry – he won't give up his existential friendship so easily. And certainly not because of Bennett or his colleague Orit Strock, the party whip.

A very symbolic photo posted by the Israel Defence Forces' Twitter account, in the tweet linked to by user Talha

Heil Judea!

Realist

Realist , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:19 pm GMT

@lavoisier

Too bad the high IQ does not seem to correlate in a positive way with morality.

Exactly.

Gidoutahere , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:49 pm GMT
@sethster

Weinstein, Epstein, Maxwell, Maddof, –cking geniuses. I thought your principal asset was "God's chosen people". Now I see it's your penetrating mind.

anon [143] Disclaimer , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:56 pm GMT

It is time to be more honest. A foreign war that the US loses may be the only way out of the political, moral and social impasse that currently afflicts the US. The forces that control the US government need to be removed and that seems increasingly unlikely to arise from simply domestic opposition.

It took World War II to remove Adolf Hitler from power in Germany. Why should anyone expect anything less to change the government of the United States? The US wants a war with Russia and China. Perhaps it is best that it be granted one? Let's see some articles on this proposition.

The Spirit of Enoch Powell , says: September 29, 2020 at 3:24 pm GMT
@Talha

The odd thing is how so many Jews still support immigration despite the fact that a lot of the immigrants are (from the Jewish/Zionist perspective) at best indifferent to Israel and at worse outright hostile and want it gone.

Or perhaps they realise democracy is a sham and the Jewish elite have got their backs? Hence their plans to mongrelise Europeans nations don't really conflict with their Zionist ambitions.

One thing is for sure, when things start to get hairy in the West, all Jews will have a nice First World ethnocracy to move to.

anon [108] Disclaimer , says: September 29, 2020 at 3:24 pm GMT

Trump's greatest contribution to the US/World might be exposing the naked ambition and evilness of the Ziocons. Before Trump, Ziocons lurked in the background as puppet masters, with their many plans obscured behind "diplomacy" and propaganda like "freedom" and "human rights", now thanks to Trump they are showing their true colors. Trump has managed to expose to the whole world including all our allies who is really running America and the extent they will go to destroy their perceived "enemies" to achieve world domination -- the end justifies the means. It is making our allies esp. Europe think twice about their alliance with JU.S.A.

anon [108] Disclaimer , says: September 29, 2020 at 3:24 pm GMT

Trump's greatest contribution to the US/World might be exposing the naked ambition and evilness of the Ziocons. Before Trump, Ziocons lurked in the background as puppet masters, with their many plans obscured behind "diplomacy" and propaganda like "freedom" and "human rights", now thanks to Trump they are showing their true colors. Trump has managed to expose to the whole world including all our allies who is really running America and the extent they will go to destroy their perceived "enemies" to achieve world domination -- the end justifies the means. It is making our allies esp. Europe think twice about their alliance with JU.S.A.

karel , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:25 pm GMT
@lavoisier

You must have been misinformed if you think that "Germany sold Israel submarines". Not really as you can find out from the link bellow. The first two submarines were donated and the third was "hawkered" for about half the production cost.

https://rotefahne.eu/2011/01/brd-1108-mio-steuergelder-fuer-israelische-u-boote/

Harold Smith , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:26 pm GMT
@anon the empire starts WW3, e.g. the "big one" at Yellowstone, which will do so much damage as to make it impossible for the evil empire to continue it's pursuit of world domination and control.

BTW on a positive note, it looks like there is now some resistance from the private sector against the evil orange clown's self-destructive economic war against China:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-tariffs/some-3500-u-s-companies-sue-over-trump-imposed-chinese-tariffs-idUSKCN26G31G

Talha , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:37 pm GMT
@The Spirit of Enoch Powell a massive forward operating base for the West declined any normalization.

I do think it is game over for quite a while in the West regarding opposition to Israel. Israel may collapse or have to come to the table or something due to some game changer in the Middle East, but I don't see it happening due to lack of support from the West anytime soon.

Peace.

Note: This is a good analysis of various views:
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/265898/american-jews-politics-israel.aspx

[Jul 03, 2020] Dangerous Game - How the Wreckage of Russiagate Ignited a New Cold War by Kyle Anzalone and Will Porter

Jul 02, 2020 | libertarianinstitute.org

It's been nearly four years since the myth of Trump-Russia collusion made its debut in American politics, generating an endless stream of stories in the corporate press and hundreds of allegations of conspiracy from pundits and officials. But despite netting scores of embarrassing admissions, corrections, editor's notes and retractions in that time, the theory refuses to die.

Over the years, the highly elaborate "Russiagate" narrative has fallen away piece-by-piece. Claims about Donald Trump's various back channels to Moscow -- Carter Page , George Papadopoulos , Michael Flynn , Paul Manafort , Alfa Bank -- have each been thoroughly discredited. House Intelligence Committee transcripts released in May have revealed that nobody who asserted a Russian hack on Democratic computers, including the DNC's own cyber security firm , is able to produce evidence that it happened. In fact, it is now clear the entire investigation into the Trump campaign was without basis .

It was alleged that Moscow manipulated the president with " kompromat " and black mail, sold to the public in a " dossier " compiled by a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele. Working through a DC consulting firm , Steele was hired by Democrats to dig up dirt on Trump, gathering a litany of accusations that Steele's own primary source would later dismiss as "hearsay" and "rumor." Though the FBI was aware the dossier was little more than sloppy opposition research, the bureau nonetheless used it to obtain warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.

Even the claim that Russia helped Trump from afar, without direct coordination, has fallen flat on its face. The " troll farm " allegedly tapped by the Kremlin to wage a pro-Trump meme war -- the Internet Research Agency -- spent only $46,000 on Facebook ads, or around 0.05 percent of the $81 million budget of the Trump and Clinton campaigns. The vast majority of the IRA's ads had nothing to do with U.S. politics, and more than half of those that did were published after the election, having no impact on voters. The Department of Justice, moreover, has dropped its charges against the IRA's parent company, abandoning a major case resulting from Robert Mueller's special counsel probe.

Though few of its most diehard proponents would ever admit it, after four long years, the foundation of the Trump-Russia narrative has finally given way and its edifice has crumbled. The wreckage left behind will remain for some time to come, however, kicking off a new era of mainstream McCarthyism and setting the stage for the next Cold War.

It Didn't Start With Trump

The importance of Russiagate to U.S. foreign policy cannot be understated, but the road to hostilities with Moscow stretches far beyond the current administration. For thirty years, the United States has exploited its de facto victory in the first Cold War, interfering in Russian elections in the 1990s, aiding oligarchs as they looted the country into poverty, and orchestrating Color Revolutions in former Soviet states. NATO, meanwhile, has been enlarged up to Russia's border, despite American assurances the alliance wouldn't expand " one inch " eastward after the collapse of the USSR.

Unquestionably, from the fall of the Berlin Wall until the day Trump took office, the United States maintained an aggressive policy toward Moscow. But with the USSR wiped off the map and communism defeated for good, a sufficient pretext to rally the American public into another Cold War has been missing in the post-Soviet era. In the same 30-year period, moreover, Washington has pursued one disastrous diversion after another in the Middle East, leaving little space or interest for another round of brinkmanship with the Russians, who were relegated to little more than a talking point. That, however, has changed.

The Crisis They Needed

The Washington foreign policy establishment -- memorably dubbed " the Blob " by one Obama adviser -- was thrown into disarray by Trump's election win in the fall of 2016. In some ways, Trump stood out as the dove during the race, deeming "endless wars" in the Middle East a scam, calling for closer ties with Russia, and even questioning the usefulness of NATO. Sincere or not, Trump's campaign vows shocked the Beltway think tankers, journalists, and politicos whose worldviews (and salaries) rely on the maintenance of empire. Something had to be done.

In the summer of 2016, WikiLeaks published thousands of emails belonging to then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, her campaign manager, and the Democratic National Committee. Though damaging to Clinton, the leak became fodder for a powerful new attack on the president-to-be. Trump had worked in league with Moscow to throw the election, the story went, and the embarrassing email trove was stolen in a Russian hack, then passed to WikiLeaks to propel Trump's campaign.

By the time Trump took office, the narrative was in full swing. Pundits and politicians rushed to outdo one another in hysterically denouncing the supposed election-meddling, which was deemed the "political equivalent" of the 9/11 attacks , tantamount to Pearl Harbor , and akin to the Nazis' 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom. In lock-step with the U.S. intelligence community -- which soon issued a pair of reports endorsing the Russian hacking story -- the Blob quickly joined the cause, hoping to short-circuit any tinkering with NATO or rapprochement with Moscow under Trump.

The allegations soon broadened well beyond hacking. Russia had now waged war on American democracy itself, and "sowed discord" with misinformation online, all in direct collusion with the Trump campaign. Talking heads on cable news and former intelligence officials -- some of them playing both roles at once -- weaved a dramatic plot of conspiracy out of countless news reports, clinging to many of the "bombshell" stories long after their key claims were blown up .

A large segment of American society eagerly bought the fiction, refusing to believe that Trump, the game show host, could have defeated Clinton without assistance from a foreign power. For the first time since the fall of the USSR, rank-and-file Democrats and moderate progressives were aligned with some of the most vocal Russia hawks across the aisle, creating space for what many have called a " new Cold War. "

Stress Fractures

Under immense pressure and nonstop allegations, the candidate who shouted "America First" and slammed NATO as " obsolete " quickly adapted himself to the foreign policy consensus on the alliance, one of the first signs the Trump-Russia story was bearing fruit.

Demonstrating the Blob in action, during debate on the Senate floor over Montenegro's bid to join NATO in March 2017, the hawkish John McCain castigated Rand Paul for daring to oppose the measure, riding on anti-Russian sentiments stoked during the election to accuse him of "working for Vladimir Putin." With most lawmakers agreeing the expansion of NATO was needed to "push back" against Russia, the Senate approved the request nearly unanimously and Trump signed it without batting an eye -- perhaps seeing the attacks a veto would bring, even from his own party.

Allowing Montenegro -- a country that illustrates everything wrong with NATO -- to join the alliance may suggest Trump's criticisms were always empty talk, but the establishment's drive to constrain his foreign policy was undoubtedly having an effect. Just a few months later, the administration would put out its National Security Strategy , stressing the need to refocus U.S. military engagements from counter-terrorism in the Middle East to "great power competition" with Russia and China.

On another aspiring NATO member, Ukraine, the president was also hectored into reversing course under pressure from the Blob. During the 2016 race, the corporate press savaged the Trump campaign for working behind the scenes to " water down " the Republican Party platform after it opposed a pledge to arm Ukraine's post-coup government. That stance did not last long.

Though even Obama decided against arming the new government -- which his administration helped to install -- Trump reversed that move in late 2017, handing Kiev hundreds of Javelin anti-tank missiles. In an irony noticed by few , some of the arms went to open neo-Nazis in the Ukrainian military, who were integrated into the country's National Guard after leading street battles with security forces in the Obama-backed coup of 2014. Some of the very same Beltway critics slamming the president as a racist demanded he pass weapons to out-and-out white supremacists.

Ukraine's bid to join NATO has all but stalled under President Volodymyr Zelensky, but the country has nonetheless played an outsized role in American politics both before and after Trump took office. In the wake of Ukraine's 2014 U.S.-sponsored coup, "Russian aggression" became a favorite slogan in the American press, laying the ground for future allegations of election-meddling.

Weaponizing Ukraine

The drive for renewed hostilities with Moscow got underway well before Trump took the Oval Office, nurtured in its early stages under the Obama administration. Using Ukraine's revolution as a springboard, Obama launched a major rhetorical and policy offensive against Russia, casting it in the role of an aggressive , expansionist power.

Protests erupted in Ukraine in late 2013, following President Viktor Yanukovych's refusal to sign an association agreement with the European Union, preferring to keep closer ties with Russia. Demanding a deal with the EU and an end to government corruption, demonstrators -- including the above-mentioned neo-Nazis -- were soon in the streets clashing with security forces. Yanukovych was chased out of the country, and eventually out of power.

Through cut-out organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy, the Obama administration poured millions of dollars into the Ukrainian opposition prior to the coup, training, organizing and funding activists. Dubbed the "Euromaidan Revolution," Yanukovych's ouster mirrored similar US-backed color coups before and since, with Uncle Sam riding on the back of legitimate grievances while positioning the most U.S.-friendly figures to take power afterward.

The coup set off serious unrest in Ukraine's Russian-speaking enclaves, the eastern Donbass region and the Crimean Peninsula to the south. In the Donbass, secessionist forces attempted their own revolution, prompting the new government in Kiev to launch a bloody "war on terror" that continues to this day. Though the separatists received some level of support from Moscow, Washington placed sole blame on the Russians for Ukraine's unrest, while the press breathlessly predicted an all-out invasion that never materialized.

In Crimea -- where Moscow has kept its Black Sea Fleet since the late 1700s -- Russia took a more forceful stance, seizing the territory to keep control of its long term naval base. The annexation was accomplished without bloodshed, and a referendum was held weeks later affirming that a large majority of Crimeans supported rejoining Russia, a sentiment western polling firms have since corroborated . Regardless, as in the Donbass, the move was labeled an invasion, eventually triggering a raft of sanctions from the U.S. and the EU (and more recently, from Trump himself ).

The media made no effort to see Russia's perspective on Crimea in the wake of the revolution -- imagining the U.S. response if the roles were reversed, for example -- and all but ignored the preferences of Crimeans. Instead, it spun a black-and-white story of "Russian aggression" in Ukraine. For the Blob, Moscow's actions there put Vladimir Putin on par with Adolf Hitler, driving a flood of frenzied press coverage not seen again until the 2016 election.

Succumbing to Hysteria

While Trump had already begun to cave to the onslaught of Russiagate in the early months of his presidency, a July 2018 meeting with Putin in Helsinki presented an opportunity to reverse course, offering a venue to hash out differences and plan for future cooperation. Trump's previous sit-downs with his Russian counterpart were largely uneventful, but widely portrayed as a meeting between master and puppet. At the Helsinki Summit, however, a meager gesture toward improved relations was met with a new level of hysterics.

Trump's refusal to interrogate Putin on his supposed election-hacking during a summit press conference was taken as irrefutable proof that the two were conspiring together. Former CIA Director John Brennan declared it an act of treason , while CNN gravely contemplated whether Putin's gift to Trump during the meetings -- a World Cup soccer ball -- was really a secret spying transmitter. By this point, Robert Mueller's special counsel probe was in full effect, lending official credibility to the collusion story and further emboldening the claims of conspiracy.

Though the summit did little to strengthen U.S.-Russia ties and Trump made no real effort to do so -- beyond resisting the calls to directly confront Putin -- it brought on some of the most extreme attacks yet, further ratcheting up the cost of rapprochement. The window of opportunity presented in Helsinki, while only cracked to begin with, was now firmly shut, with Trump as reluctant as ever to make good on his original policy platform.

Sanctions!

After taking a beating in Helsinki, the administration allowed tensions with Moscow to soar to new heights, more or less embracing the Blob's favored policies and often even outdoing the Obama government's hawkishness toward Russia in both rhetoric and action.

In March 2018, the poisoning of a former Russian spy living in the United Kingdom was blamed on Moscow in a highly elaborate storyline that ultimately fell apart (sound familiar?), but nonetheless triggered a wave of retaliation from western governments. In the largest diplomatic purge in US history, the Trump administration expelled 60 Russian officials in a period of two days, surpassing Obama's ejection of 35 diplomats in response to the election-meddling allegations.

Along with the purge, starting in spring 2018 and continuing to this day, Washington has unleashed round after round of new sanctions on Russia, including in response to " worldwide malign activity ," to penalize alleged election-meddling , for " destabilizing cyber activities ," retaliation for the UK spy poisoning , more cyber activity , more election-meddling -- the list keeps growing.

Though Trump had called to lift rather than impose penalties on Russia before taking office, worn down by endless negative press coverage and surrounded by a coterie of hawkish advisers, he was brought around on the merits of sanctions before long, and has used them liberally ever since.

Goodbye INF, RIP OST

By October 2018, Trump had largely abandoned any idea of improving the relationship with Russia and, in addition to the barrage of sanctions, began shredding a series of major treaties and arms control agreements. He started with the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which had eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons -- medium-range missiles -- and removed Europe as a theater for nuclear war.

At this point in Trump's tenure, super-hawk John Bolton had assumed the position of national security advisor, encouraging the president's worst instincts and using his newfound influence to convince Trump to ditch the INF treaty. Bolton -- who helped to detonate a number of arms control pacts in previous administrations -- argued that Russia's new short-range missile had violated the treaty. While there remains some dispute over the missile's true range and whether it actually breached the agreement, Washington failed to pursue available dispute mechanisms and ignored Russian offers for talks to resolve the spat.

After the U.S. officially scrapped the agreement, it quickly began testing formerly-banned munitions. Unlike the Russian missiles, which were only said to have a range overstepping the treaty by a few miles, the U.S. began testing nuclear-capable land-based cruise missiles expressly banned under the INF.

Next came the Open Skies Treaty (OST), an idea originally floated by President Eisenhower, but which wouldn't take shape until 1992, when an agreement was struck between NATO and former Warsaw Pact nations. The agreement now has over 30 members and allows each to arrange surveillance flights over other members' territory, an important confidence-building measure in the post-Soviet world.

Trump saw matters differently, however, and turned a minor dispute over Russia's implementation of the pact into a reason to discard it altogether, again egged on by militant advisers. In late May 2020, the president declared his intent to withdraw from the nearly 30-year-old agreement, proposing nothing to replace it.

Quid Pro Quo

With the DOJ's special counsel probe into Trump-Russia collusion coming up short on both smoking-gun evidence and relevant indictments, the president's enemies began searching for new angles of attack. Following a July 2019 phone call between Trump and his newly elected Ukrainian counterpart, they soon found one.

During the call , Trump urged Zelensky to investigate a computer server he believed to be linked to Russiagate, and to look into potential corruption and nepotism on the part of former Vice President Joe Biden, who played an active role in Ukraine following the Obama-backed coup.

Less than two months later, a " whistleblower " -- a CIA officer detailed to the White House, Eric Ciaramella -- came forward with an "urgent concern" that the president had abused his office on the July call. According to his complaint , Trump threatened to withhold U.S. military aid, as well as a face-to-face meeting with Zelensky, should Kiev fail to deliver the goods on Biden, who by that point was a major contender in the 2020 race.

The same players who peddled Russiagate seized on Ciaramella's account to manufacture a whole new scandal: "Ukrainegate." Failing to squeeze an impeachment out of the Mueller probe, the Democrats did just that with the Ukraine call, insisting Trump had committed grave offenses, again conspiring with a foreign leader to meddle in a U.S. election.

At a high point during the impeachment trial, an expert called to testify by the Democrats revived George W. Bush's "fight them over there" maxim to argue for U.S. arms transfers to Ukraine, citing the Russian menace. The effort was doomed from the start, however, with a GOP-controlled Senate never likely to convict and the evidence weak for a "quid pro quo" with Zelensky. Ukrainegate, like Russiagate before it, was a failure in its stated goal, yet both served to mark the administration with claims of foreign collusion and press for more hawkish policies toward Moscow.

The End of New START?

The Obama administration scored a rare diplomatic achievement with Russia in 2010, signing the New START Treaty, a continuation of the original Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty inked in the waning days of the Soviet Union. Like its first iteration, the agreement places a cap on the number of nuclear weapons and warheads deployed by each side. It featured a ten-year sunset clause, but included provisions to continue beyond its initial end date.

With the treaty set to expire in early 2021, it has become an increasingly hot topic throughout Trump's presidency. While Trump sold himself as an expert dealmaker on the campaign trail -- an artist , even -- his negotiation skills have shown lacking when it comes to working out a new deal with the Russians.

The administration has demanded that China be incorporated into any extended version of the treaty, calling on Russia to compel Beijing to the negotiating table and vastly complicating any prospect for a deal. With a nuclear arsenal around one-tenth the size of that of Russia or the U.S., China has refused to join the pact. Washington's intransigence on the issue has put the future of the treaty in limbo and largely left Russia without a negotiating partner.

A second Trump term would spell serious trouble for New START, having already shown willingness to shred the INF and Open Skies agreements. And with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) already killed under the Bush administration, New START is one of the few remaining constraints on the planet's two largest nuclear arsenals.

Despite pursuing massive escalation with Moscow from 2018 onward, Trump-Russia conspiracy allegations never stopped pouring from newspapers and TV screens. For the Blob -- heavily invested in a narrative as fruitful as it was false -- Trump would forever be "Putin's puppet," regardless of the sanctions imposed, the landmark treaties incinerated or the deluge of warlike rhetoric.

Running for an Arms Race

As the Trump administration leads the country into the next Cold War, a renewed arms race is also in the making. The destruction of key arms control pacts by previous administrations has fed a proliferation powder keg, and the demise of New START could be the spark to set it off.

Following Bush Jr.'s termination of the ABM deal in 2002 -- wrecking a pact which placed limits on Russian and American missile defense systems to maintain the balance of mutually assured destruction -- Russia soon resumed funding for a number of strategic weapons projects, including its hypersonic missile. In his announcement of the new technology in 2018, Putin deemed the move a response to Washington's unilateral withdrawal from ABM, which also saw the U.S. develop new weapons .

Though he inked New START and campaigned on vows to pursue an end to the bomb, President Obama also helped to advance the arms build-up, embarking on a 30-year nuclear modernization project set to cost taxpayers $1.5 trillion. The Trump administration has embraced the initiative with open arms, even adding to it , as Moscow follows suit with upgrades to its own arsenal.

Moreover, Trump has opened a whole new battlefield with the creation of the US Space Force , escalated military deployments, ramped up war games targeting Russia and China and looked to reopen and expand Cold War-era bases.

In May, Trump's top arms control envoy promised to spend Russia and China into oblivion in the event of any future arms race, but one was already well underway. After withdrawing from INF, the administration began churning out previously banned nuclear-capable cruise missiles, while fielding an entire new class of low-yield nuclear weapons. Known as "tactical nukes," the smaller warheads lower the threshold for use, making nuclear conflict more likely. Meanwhile, the White House has also mulled a live bomb test -- America's first since 1992 -- though has apparently shelved the idea for now.

A Runaway Freight Train

As Trump approaches the end of his first term, the two major U.S. political parties have become locked in a permanent cycle of escalation, eternally compelled to prove who's the bigger hawk. The president put up mild resistance during his first months in office, but the relentless drumbeat of Russiagate successfully crushed any chances for improved ties with Moscow.

The Democrats refuse to give up on "Russian aggression" and see virtually no pushback from hawks across the aisle, while intelligence "leaks" continue to flow into the imperial press, fueling a whole new round of election-meddling allegations .

Likewise, Trump's campaign vows to revamp U.S.-Russian relations are long dead. His presidency counts among its accomplishments a pile of new sanctions, dozens of expelled diplomats and the demise of two major arms control treaties. For all his talk of getting along with Putin, Trump has failed to ink a single deal, de-escalate any of the ongoing strife over Syria, Ukraine or Libya, and been unable to arrange one state visit in Moscow or DC.

Nonetheless, Trump's every action is still interpreted through the lens of Russian collusion. After announcing a troop drawdown in Germany on June 5, reducing the U.S. presence by just one-third, the president was met with the now-typical swarm of baseless charges. MSNBC regular and retired general Barry McCaffrey dubbed the move "a gift to Russia," while GOP Rep. Liz Cheney said the meager troop movement placed the "cause of freedom in peril." Top Democrats in the House and Senate introduced bills to stop the withdrawal dead in its tracks, attributing the policy to Trump's "absurd affection for Vladimir Putin, a murderous dictator."

Starting as a dirty campaign trick to explain away the Democrats' election loss and jam up the new president, Russiagate is now a key driving force in the U.S. political establishment that will long outlive the age of Trump. After nearly four years, the bipartisan consensus on the need for Cold War is stronger than ever, and will endure regardless of who takes the Oval Office next.

[Jun 16, 2020] Almost the entire Trump cabinet are members of the CFR

Jun 16, 2020 | chuckbaldwinlive.com
CFR Members And Bilderberg Attendees Appointed By Donald Trump (Taken from the CFR membership and Bilderberg participant lists)

Published: Wednesday, May 31, 2017

CFR Members And Bilderberg Attendees Appointed By Donald Trump

[May 29, 2020] Trump's Tax Cuts Get an "F" for enriching the Globalist Elite by Michael Cuenco

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Instead of reining in the "globalist elites" he so vociferously ran against or those corporations "who have no loyalty to America," his one legislative achievement has been to award them a massive tax cut. Through it, he has maintained their favorite mix of low revenue intake and high deficits which gives Republicans a pretext to "starve the beast" and induce fiscal anorexia. ..."
"... Trump ran as a populist firebrand -- a fusion of Huey Long and Ross Perot -- and while he never abandoned that style, he has governed for the most part as a milquetoast free market Republican in perfect tandem with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, one whose solution to everything is more tax cuts and deregulation: a kind of turbo-charged "high-energy Jeb." ..."
"... With the outbreak of COVID-19, many on the reformist right are hoping for the emergence of the President Trump they thought they were promised, a leader just as ready to break out of the donor-enforced "small government" straitjacket while in power as he was during the campaign. ..."
"... The heightened rhetoric against China will continue -- the one thing Trump is good at -- but it is unlikely to be matched with the required policy ..."
"... If neoliberalism excused inequality at home by extolling the equalization of incomes across the globe (millions of Chinese raised from poverty, while millions of American workers fall back into it!), the new position must shift emphasis back to ensuring a more equitable domestic distribution of wealth and opportunity across all classes and communities in this country. ..."
"... It is worth pondering what might have happened if the administration had gone the other way and followed the last piece of policy advice given by Steve Bannon before his ouster in August 2017. Bannon suggested raising the top marginal income tax rate to 44 percent while "arguing that it would actually hit left-wing millionaires in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street, and in Hollywood." ..."
"... It might well have put Trump on the path to becoming what Daniel Patrick Moynihan once proposed as a model for Richard Nixon when he gifted the 37th president a biography of Disraeli, namely a Tory Republican who could outsmart the left by crafting broad popular coalitions based on a blending of patriotic cultural conservatism with class-conscious economic and social policy. ..."
"... Then and even more so now, the idea resonates: a Reuters/Ipsos poll from January found that 64 percent of Americans support a wealth tax, a majority of Republicans included. Poll after poll has reaffirmed this. It seems as if there is right-wing populist support for taxing the rich more. ..."
"... There is one more thing to be said about the significance of taxing the rich. Up until very recently, there has been a prevailing tendency among the reformist right (with some important exceptions) to couch criticism of the elites primarily or even exclusively in cultural terms. There seems to have been a polite hesitation at taking the cultural critique to its logical economic conclusions. It is easy to excoriate the excesses of elite identity politics, the "woke" part of woke capitalism; it's something all conservatives -- and indeed growing numbers of liberals and socialists -- agree on. Fish in a barrel. ..."
"... But to challenge the capitalism part, i.e. free market orthodoxy, not in a secondary or tertiary way, but head on and in specific policy terms as Lofgren and a few others have done, would involve confronting difficult truths, namely that the biggest beneficiaries of tax cuts and Reaganite economic policy in general, which most conservatives enthusiastically promoted for four decades, are the selfsame decadent coastal elites they claim to oppose. It is they who more than anyone else thrive on financialized globalization, arbitrage and offshoring. ..."
"... In other words, it amounts to an honest recognition of the complicity of conservatism in the mess we're in, which is perhaps a psychological bridge too far for too many on the right, reformist or not. (Trigger Warning!) This separation of culture and economics has led to the farce of a self-styled nationalist president lining the pockets of his nominal enemies, the globalist ruling class. ..."
"... A conservative call to tax the rich would signal that the right is ready to end this charade and chart a course toward a more patriotic, public-spirited and yes, proudly hyphenated capitalism. ..."
"... Michael Cuenco is a writer on politics and policy. He has also written for American Affairs. ..."
May 26, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

They also left worker wages stagnant and increased the deficit. Where is our more nationalist economic policy?

Much has been written about the disappointment of certain segments of the right in the apparent capitulation of Donald Trump to the agenda of the conservative establishment.

Instead of reining in the "globalist elites" he so vociferously ran against or those corporations "who have no loyalty to America," his one legislative achievement has been to award them a massive tax cut. Through it, he has maintained their favorite mix of low revenue intake and high deficits which gives Republicans a pretext to "starve the beast" and induce fiscal anorexia.

The president has granted them as well their ideal labor market through an ingenious formula: double down on mostly symbolic raids (as opposed to systemic solutions like Mandatory E-Verify) and ramp up the rhetoric about "shithole countries" to distract the media, but keep the supply of cheap, exploitable low-skill labor (legal and illegal) intact for the business lobby.

Trump ran as a populist firebrand -- a fusion of Huey Long and Ross Perot -- and while he never abandoned that style, he has governed for the most part as a milquetoast free market Republican in perfect tandem with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, one whose solution to everything is more tax cuts and deregulation: a kind of turbo-charged "high-energy Jeb."

With the outbreak of COVID-19, many on the reformist right are hoping for the emergence of the President Trump they thought they were promised, a leader just as ready to break out of the donor-enforced "small government" straitjacket while in power as he was during the campaign.

Despite signs of progress, what's more likely is a return to business as usual. Already the GOP's impulse for austerity and parsimony is proving to be stronger than any willingness to think and act outside the box.

The heightened rhetoric against China will continue -- the one thing Trump is good at -- but it is unlikely to be matched with the required policy, such as a long-term plan to reshore U.S. industry (that doesn't just rely on blindly giving corporations the benefit of the doubt). At this point, we already know where the president's priorities lie when given a choice between the advancement of America's workers or continued labor arbitrage and carte blanche corporate handouts.

Lest they be engulfed by it like everyone else, the reformist right should ask: is there any way to stand athwart the supply-side swamp yelling Stop?

Many of these conservatives lament the Trump tax cut not just because it was a disaster that failed to spark reinvestment, left wages stagnant, needlessly blew up the deficit and served as a slush fund for stock buybacks, but more fundamentally because it betrayed the overwhelming intellectual inertia and lack of imagination that characterizes conservative policymaking.

More than in any other issue then, a distinct position on taxes would make the new conservatism truly worth distinguishing from the old: tax cuts were after all the defining policy dogma of the neoliberal Reagan era.

If neoliberalism excused inequality at home by extolling the equalization of incomes across the globe (millions of Chinese raised from poverty, while millions of American workers fall back into it!), the new position must shift emphasis back to ensuring a more equitable domestic distribution of wealth and opportunity across all classes and communities in this country.

A reformulation of fiscal policy along populist economic nationalist lines can help with that.

It is worth pondering what might have happened if the administration had gone the other way and followed the last piece of policy advice given by Steve Bannon before his ouster in August 2017. Bannon suggested raising the top marginal income tax rate to 44 percent while "arguing that it would actually hit left-wing millionaires in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street, and in Hollywood."

Such a move would have been nothing short of revolutionary: it would have been a faithful and full-blown expression of the populist economic nationalism Trump ran on; it would have presented a genuine material threat to the elite ruling class of both parties, and likely would have pre-empted the shock value of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposing a 70 percent top marginal rate.

It might well have put Trump on the path to becoming what Daniel Patrick Moynihan once proposed as a model for Richard Nixon when he gifted the 37th president a biography of Disraeli, namely a Tory Republican who could outsmart the left by crafting broad popular coalitions based on a blending of patriotic cultural conservatism with class-conscious economic and social policy.

Not that Trump would have needed to go back to Nixon or Disraeli for instruction on the matter. In 1999, long before Elizabeth Warren came along on the national scene, a presidential candidate eyeing the Reform Party nomination contemplated the imposition of a 14.25 percent wealth tax on America's richest citizens in order to pay off the national debt: his name was Donald Trump.

What ever happened to that guy? The Trump of 1999 was onto something. Maybe this could be a way to deal with our post-pandemic deficits.

Then and even more so now, the idea resonates: a Reuters/Ipsos poll from January found that 64 percent of Americans support a wealth tax, a majority of Republicans included. Poll after poll has reaffirmed this. It seems as if there is right-wing populist support for taxing the rich more.

To the common refrain, "the rich are just going to find ways to shelter their income or relocate it offshore," I have written elsewhere about the concrete policy measures countries can and have taken to clip the wings of mobile global capital and prevent such an outcome.

I have written as well about how taxing the rich and tightening the screws on tax enforcement have implications that go beyond the merely redistributive approach to fiscal policy conventionally favored by the left; about how it can be a form of leverage against an unaccountable investor class used to shopping at home and abroad for the most opaque assets in which to hoard vast amounts of essentially idle capital.

A deft administration would use aggressive fiscal policy as an inducement for this irresponsible class to make things right by reinvesting in such priorities as the wages and well-being of workers, the vitality of communities, the strength of strategic industries and the productivity of the real economy – or else Uncle Sam will tax their wealth and do it for them.

It would also be an assertion of national sovereignty against globalization's command for countries to stay "competitive" by immiserating their citizens with ever-lower taxes on capital holders and ever more loose and "flexible" labor markets in a never-ending race to the bottom.

Mike Lofgren has penned a marvelous essay in these pages about the virtual secession of the rich from the American nation, "with their prehensile greed, their asocial cultural values, and their absence of civic responsibility."

What better way to remind them that they are still citizens of a country and members of a society -- and not just floating streams of deracinated capital -- than by making them perform that most basic of civic duties, paying one's fair share and contributing to the commonweal? America need not revert to the 70-90 percent top marginal rates of the bolshevik administrations of Truman, Eisenhower or Kennedy, but proposals for modest moves in that direction would be welcome.

There is one more thing to be said about the significance of taxing the rich. Up until very recently, there has been a prevailing tendency among the reformist right (with some important exceptions) to couch criticism of the elites primarily or even exclusively in cultural terms. There seems to have been a polite hesitation at taking the cultural critique to its logical economic conclusions. It is easy to excoriate the excesses of elite identity politics, the "woke" part of woke capitalism; it's something all conservatives -- and indeed growing numbers of liberals and socialists -- agree on. Fish in a barrel.

But to challenge the capitalism part, i.e. free market orthodoxy, not in a secondary or tertiary way, but head on and in specific policy terms as Lofgren and a few others have done, would involve confronting difficult truths, namely that the biggest beneficiaries of tax cuts and Reaganite economic policy in general, which most conservatives enthusiastically promoted for four decades, are the selfsame decadent coastal elites they claim to oppose. It is they who more than anyone else thrive on financialized globalization, arbitrage and offshoring.

In other words, it amounts to an honest recognition of the complicity of conservatism in the mess we're in, which is perhaps a psychological bridge too far for too many on the right, reformist or not. (Trigger Warning!) This separation of culture and economics has led to the farce of a self-styled nationalist president lining the pockets of his nominal enemies, the globalist ruling class.

Already, the White House is proposing yet another gigantic corporate tax cut. Using the exact same discredited logic as the last one, senior economic advisor Larry Kudlow wants Americans to trust him when he says that halving the already lowered 2017 rate to 10.5 percent will encourage these eminently reasonable multinationals to reinvest. There he goes again.

A conservative call to tax the rich would signal that the right is ready to end this charade and chart a course toward a more patriotic, public-spirited and yes, proudly hyphenated capitalism.

Michael Cuenco is a writer on politics and policy. He has also written for American Affairs.


Kent 3 days ago

"America need not revert to the 70-90 percent top marginal rates of the bolshevik administrations of Truman, Eisenhower or Kennedy, but proposals for modest moves in that direction would be welcome."

Those tax rates were offset by direct investment in the US economy. So if I invested in the stock market, I'd get a 90% tax rate because that doesn't produce actual wealth. On the other hand, if I invested in building factories that created thousands of jobs for American citizens, my tax rate may fall to 0%. And those policies created a fantastic economy that we oldsters remember as the golden age. That wasn't bolshevism, it was competitive capitalism. What we have today is libertarianism. And as long as conservatives are going to let the libertarian boogey-man's nose under the tent, we are going to have this ugly, bifurcated economy. Your choice. Man up.

Winston Nevis Kent 3 days ago • edited
You ever tell hear of sarcasm, bud? I think that's what the author was going for. Don't think he was trying to say that Ike and Truman were Bolsheviks but was rather making fun of libertarians who hyperbolically associate high tax rates with socialism and Soviet Communism...
K squared Winston Nevis 3 days ago
Plenty of goldwater's supporters in 1964 called President Eisenhower a communist
GAguilar K squared 2 days ago
Particularly the John Birchers, including my parents!
SKPeterson Kent 3 days ago • edited
We absolutely do not have libertarianism operating in this country today. There is simply no evidence that there is any sort of libertarian economic or political system in place. Oh sure, you'll whine "but globalism without actually defining what globalism is, or what is wrong about precisely, but just that it's somehow wrong and that libertarians are to blame for it. There's a good word for such an argument: bullshit.
We have an economy that is extraordinarily dominated by the state via mandates, regulations, and monetary interference that is most decidedly not libertarian in any way whatsoever. The current system though does create and perpetuate a system of rent-seeking cronies who conform rather nicely to the descriptions of said actors by Buchanan and Tullock. The problems of the modern economy are the result of state interference, not its absence, and Cuenco's sorry policy prescriptions do nothing to minimize the state but instead just create a different set of rent-seeking cronies for which the wealth and incomes of the nation are to be expropriated.
marku52 SKPeterson 3 days ago
O dear, No True Scotsman....
SKPeterson marku52 2 days ago
If you can point to how the current situation is in any way "libertarian" without creating your own perfect little lazy straw man definition then by all means do so. Until then your retort is without
substance (you see a no true Scotsman reply doesn't work if the facts are in the favor of the person supposedly making such an argument. Here you fail to establish why what I said is such a case; saying it doesn't make it so). When Kent makes some throwaway comment that we're somehow living in some sort of libertarian era he's full of it, you know it, and all you can do is provide some weak "no true Scotsman" defense? Come on and man up, stop appealing to artificial complaints of fallacious argumentation, and give me an actual solid argument with evidence beyond "this is so libertarian" that we're living in some libertarian golden age that's driving the oppression of the masses.
cka2nd SKPeterson 3 days ago
Busted unions, contracting out and privatization, deregulation of vast swaths of the economy since the late 1970's (Jimmy Carter has gotten kudos from libertarian writers for his de-regulatory efforts), lowered tax rates, especially on financial speculation and concentrated wealth, a blind eye or shrugged shoulder to anti-trust law and corporate consolidation. Yeah, nothing to see here, no partial victories for the libertarian wings of the ruling class or the GOP, at all. The Koch Brothers accomplished nothing, absolutely nothing, since David was the Libertarian Party's nominee for Vice President in 1980; all that money gone to waste. Sure.
SKPeterson cka2nd 2 days ago
So, now some sort of "partial victory" means we're living in some sort of libertarian era? And what exactly was so wonderful about all the things you listed being perpetuated? So, union "busting" is terrible, but union corruption was a great part of our national solidarity and should have been protected? Deregulation of vast swathes of the economy? You mean the elimination of government controlled cartels in the form of trucking and airlines? You mean the sorts of things that have enabled the working class folks you supposedly favor to travel to places that were previously out of reach for them and only accessible to the rich for their vacations? Yes, that's truly terrible. Again, you're on the side of the little guy, right? Lowered taxes? Are you seriously going to argue that the traditional conservative position has been for high tax rates? What are taxes placed upon? People and property. What do conservatives want to protect? People and property. So... arguing for higher taxes or saying that low taxes are bad or even especially, libertarian, is really going off the rails. That's just bad reasoning. And regarding financialization, those weren't especially libertarian in their enacting, but rather flow directly out of the consequences of the modern Progressive implementation of neo-Keynesian monetary and fiscal policy. Suffice it to say, I don't think you'll find too many arguments from libertarians that the policies encouraging financialization were good or followed libertarian economic policy prescriptions. Moreover, they led entirely to the repulsive "too big to fail" situation and if there's one thing that libertarians hold to is that there is no such thing (or shouldn't be) as "too big to fail." The objection to anti-trust law is that it was regularly abused and actually created government-protected firms that harmed consumers. If you think anti-trust laws are good things and should be supported by conservatives then by all means encourage Joe Biden to have Elizabeth Warren as his vice-presidential running mate and go vote Democrat this fall.
Blood Alcohol SKPeterson 3 days ago
"The problems of the modern economy are the result of state interference, not its absence". That's because the "state interference" is working as proxy for the interests of vulture capitalist.

What we have today is vulture capitalism as opposed to free enterprise capitalism.

DUNK Blood Alcohol 2 days ago • edited
You could also call it "crony capitalism" or "inverted totalitarianism".

Chris Hedges: "Sheldon Wolin and Inverted Totalitarianism" (November 2, 2015)

GAguilar DUNK 2 days ago
Princeton professor Sheldon Wolin's excellent book is entitled, "Democracy Incorporated."

He lays out how we're living in a totalitarian, capitalist surveillance state, as if that's not already obvious to most people around here.

SKPeterson Blood Alcohol 2 days ago
Exactly. The existence of a vulture capitalist or crony capitalist economy, which we have in many sectors, is evidence that "libertarianism" is nothing more than a convenient totem to invoke as a rationale for complaint against the outcomes of the existing crony capitalist state of affairs. My contention is that Cuenco, et al are simply advocating for a replacement of the cronies and vultures.
1701 3 days ago
A very similar article(but probably coming at it from a slightly different angle) wouldn't look out of place in a socialist publication.
The culture war really is a pointless waste of time that keeps working class people from working towards a common solution to shared problems.
bumbershoot 3 days ago
Trump wants to "keep the supply of cheap, exploitable low-skill labor (legal and illegal) intact for the business lobby."

Well of course he does -- otherwise how would he staff Mar-A-Lago and other Trump Organization businesses?

SKPeterson 3 days ago
I used to think that conservatism was about protecting private property and not, like Cuenco, in coming up with ever more excuses for expropriating it.
Kent SKPeterson 3 days ago
No, that's libertarianism (or more properly propertarianism). Conservatism is first and foremost about responsibility to God, community, family and self. Property is only of value in its utility towards a means.
GAguilar Kent 2 days ago • edited
As I see it, here are examples of how "conservatives" have actually practiced their "responsibility to God, community, family and self":

The genocide of Native Americans
The slavery and murder of blacks

Their opposition to child labor laws, to womens' suffrage, etc.
Their support of Jim Crow laws
Their opposition to ending slavery and opposition to desegregation
Opposition to Civil Liberties Laws

Willingness to block, or curtail, voting rights.

Hyping the "imminent threat" of an ever more powerful communist menace bearing
down on us from the late 40s to the "unanticipated" collapse of the
USSR in '91. All of which was little more than endless "threat inflation" used
by our defense industry-corporate kleptocrats to justify monstrous increases
in deficits that have been "invested" in our meddlesome, murderous militarism all around the world, with the torture and deaths of millions from S. E. Asia, to Indonesia, to Latin America, to the Middle East, to Africa, etc.

Violations of privacy rights (conservative hero J. Edgar Hoover's illegal domestic surveillance and acts of domestic terrorism, "justified" by
his loopy paranoia about commies on every corner and under every bed.)

Toppling of democracies to install totalitarian despots in Iran
("Ike" '53), Guatemala (Ike, again, '54), Chile (Nixon '73), Brazil (LBJ, '64) and many, many more countries.

Strong support of the Vietnam War, the wars in Laos and Cambodia, and the Iraq War, which, according to conservative W. Bush, God had inspired.

The myriad "dirty wars" we've fought around the world, and not only in Latin America.

With a few, notable exceptions, conservatives have routinely been on the wrong side of these issues. For the most part, it has been the left, particularly the "hard left," that has gotten it right.

AdmBenson SKPeterson 2 days ago
"conservatism was about protecting private property"

You're conflating conservatism and libertarianism. Conservatives realize they are citizens of a country. Libertarians wish they weren't.

SKPeterson AdmBenson 2 days ago
So conservatism should be entirely about taking people's property "for the good of the country"? That the purpose of a country is to loot the people? That the people exist for the government and not the government for the people? Seems Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk would like to have a word with you Adm.

To quote Kirk as just one example of your fundamental error:

Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked . [Apparently, Adm. you dispute Kirk's assertion and accuse him thereby of conflating libertarianism and conservatism. Yes, I know Kirk was a hater of the idea of patriotism, but he was such a raging libertarian what else could he do?] Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all. Upon the foundation of private property, great civilizations are built. The more widespread is the possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a commonwealth. Economic levelling [this is the outcome of Cuenco's policy prescriptions by the way] , conservatives maintain, is not economic progress. Getting and spending are not the chief aims of human existence; but a sound economic basis for the person, the family, and the commonwealth is much to be desired.

So, either "Mr. Conservative" Russell Kirk wasn't really a conservative but a man who horribly conflated libertarianism and conservatism, or we can say that Kirk was a conservative and that he recognized the protection of private property as crucial in minimizing the control and reach of the Leviathan state. If the latter holds, then maybe what we've established is that AdmBenson isn't particularly conservative.

Winston Nevis SKPeterson 2 days ago • edited
"The more widespread is the possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a commonwealth." This status quo has produced precisely the opposite of this. Wealth, assets, capital has been captured by the elite. The pitchforks are coming. See this CBO chart: View Hide
AdmBenson SKPeterson 2 days ago
Conservatives accept taxes as a part of citizenship. Since taxes can't be avoided, a conservative insists on democratic representation and has a general desire to get maximum bang for their taxpayer buck.

Libertarians, on the other hand, see everything through the lens of an individual's property rights. Taxes and regulation are infringements on those rights, so a libertarian is always at war with their own government. They're not interested in bang for their taxpayer buck, they just want the government to go away. I can't fault people for believing this way, but I can point out that it is severely faulty as the operating philosophy beyond anything but a small community.

As for me not being particularly conservative, ya got me. It really depends on time of day and the level of sunspot activity.

SKPeterson AdmBenson 2 days ago
Sunspots, eh? And here I thought it was your reliance on tinfoil.
AdmBenson SKPeterson 2 days ago
The tinfoil and the mask were scaring people. The tinfoil had to go, but that's had side effects.
SKPeterson AdmBenson 2 days ago
I should have put the /s on my reply, but your response did give me a good chuckle. Besides, for that finger pointing at you, there were three more pointing back at me.
JMWB 3 days ago
And somehow people continually fall for the Trickle Down economic theory. George HW Bush was correct when he called this VooDoo economics. Fiscal irresponsibility at it's finest.
Victor_the_thinker JMWB 3 days ago
Nah people don't fall for it, republicans do. The rest of us know this stuff doesn't work. We didn't need an additional datapoint to realize that. The Tax Cuts and Jobs act was the single most unpopular piece of legislation to ever pass since polling began. It never had support outside of the Republican Party which is why it's never had majority support.

https://news.gallup.com/pol...

Blood Alcohol JMWB 3 days ago
John Kenneth Galbraith called Trickle Down "economics", "Oats and Horse Economics". If you feed the horse a lot of oats, eventually some be left on the road...
Nelson 3 days ago
The leader of Republicans isn't Trump. It's Mitch McConnell.
J Villain Nelson 3 days ago
Mitch is fully owned by Trump as is every republican that holds office except Romney. Mitch can't go to the bathroom with out asking Trumps permission.
Nelson J Villain 3 days ago
Mitch is owned by corporations and he likes it that way. He basically says as much whenever campaign finance reform pops up and he defends the status quo.
aha! Nelson 2 hours ago
Yep. The guy who declared war on the Tea Party. The guy who changed his tune entirely about China when he married into the family of a shipping magnate.
SeekingTruth 3 days ago
I'm eagerly awaiting a GOP plan for economic restructuring. I've been waiting for decade(s). Surely there is someone in the entire body of think tanks, congressional staffers, and political class that can propose a genuine and comprehensive plan for how to rebalance production, education, and technology for the better of ALL Americans. Surely...
Tradcon SeekingTruth 3 days ago
American Affairs (the policy journal this author writes for) and The American Compass are both very good.
cka2nd SeekingTruth 3 days ago
I honestly wonder if Jack Kemp might have had a "Road to Damascus" conversion away from his pseudo-libertarian and supply side economic convictions if he had lived through the decade after the Great Recession. Probably not, given his political and economic activity up until his death.
Barry_II 3 days ago
"They also left worker wages stagnant and increased the deficit. Where is our more nationalist economic policy?"

In your dreams, just like those many large projects which Trump drove into bankruptcy.

Right alongside the money owed to the many people he's stiffed.

Name 3 days ago
So after 30 years or more of " globalism" , the GOP is adopting Bernie Sanderism?
Johnny Larue Name 3 days ago
Uh, no.
Name Johnny Larue 2 days ago
Uh, it seems so. Did you even read?
TheSnark 3 days ago • edited
Trump pushed the tax cut because it saves him at least $20 million each year in taxes, probably closer to $50 million. That's the only reason he does anything, because he benefits personally.
kouroi 3 days ago
Thank you very much for posting the link to the wonderful essay by Mike Lofgren. Written 8 years ago it feels even more actual than then. I have bookmarked it for future reference.

Looking at the US it always comes to my mind the way Rome and then Byzantium fell: a total erosion of the tax-base the rich refused to pay anything to the imperial coffers, and then some of the rich had land bigger than some modern countries... And then the barbarians came...

Kent kouroi 3 days ago
And, by then, the population welcomed the barbarians.
kouroi Kent 3 days ago
Likely true, with some exceptions... The Huns - and on that one I keep wondering if there isn't a whiff of "Yellow Peril" smell in all that outcry...
Ray Woodcock kouroi 2 days ago • edited
Lofgren: "What I mean by secession is a withdrawal into enclaves, an internal immigration, whereby the rich disconnect themselves from the civic life of the nation and from any concern about its well being except as a place to extract loot."

That was in 2012, but that was what struck me about my well-to-do classmates when I transferred from Cal State Long Beach to Columbia University in 1977 . Suddenly I was among people who saw America, American laws, and a shared sense of civic responsibility as quaint, bothersome, rather tangential to the project of promoting oneself and/or one's special interest.

kouroi Ray Woodcock 2 days ago
Cold, eh mate? Reptiles, lizards...?
Adriana Pena 3 days ago
Did you ever hope that Trump would do what you wanted? You are adorable
sam 3 days ago
The only way that factories would come back is when Americans start buying made in America. We can't wait for ANY government to bring those factories and jobs ( and technology) . Only people voting with their pocketbooks can do it.
J Villain 3 days ago
Still waiting for the day the first American asks "What have WE done wrong?" Rather than just following in Trumps step and playing the victim card every step of the way and wondering why nothing gets better.
Blood Alcohol J Villain 3 days ago
nuffsaid. The blood is on everyone's hands.

[May 14, 2020] Trump betrayal of his election promises was not accidental. This is a developed by his handlers strategy, similar to Obama "change we can believe in"

May 14, 2020 | www.unz.com

Ilya G Poimandres , says: Show Comment May 14, 2020 at 5:44 am GMT

@Al Lipton He strikes me as just another leader out for his own self image, and legacy. I took this opinion given his foreign policy – the shows for his isolationist base, and his continuous almost wars for the MIC. I do say almost wars, and that says something. We're I a US citizen, and one to vote for humans, I would vote for Trump this time, but he is imperfect imo, and it's only a coincidence that on some issues what benefits him, aligns with what benefits the nation.

The timing of ObamaGate for example – we all knew it, it would go from snail's pace to a decent speed just as the election cycle was heating up. But this is playing politics and electioneering with the most critical misdirection and criminality of US officials in a long time. A real leader who worked for the nation and its Constitution only, would bugger all that and start draining as soon as could be done.

Of course that could be coincidence, and they could have been building a strong case, but as someone else said, I will take my conspiracy theory over some coincidence theory any day.

I can't imagine that without ObamaGate, he would have even tried to drain the swamp. Made showpieces of it sure, but no thing major. But now he can do what he promised and maybe even wanted to do, without reputational damage, and he will do it.

But how he will be in his second term, through a depression that was on its way in 6 months before corona? Like FDR I'd guess – war war war.

Robert Dolan , says: Show Comment May 14, 2020 at 5:45 am GMT
Mike Enoch calls it the "kosher sandwich" and he's right.

Trump lied his ass off, has been shabbos goy forever. He had no intention of doing anything ...

Adam Green has delved into Trump and his father. They were born shabbos goy.

The GOP says what we want to hear, then they do what the nose tells them to do.

The Dems just do whatever the nose wants without even having to ask. They anticipate what the nose wants!

... ... ...

[May 13, 2020] Dramatic change of direction for Syrian envoy

Highly recommended!
This is MIGA in action...
Notable quotes:
"... former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell admitted in a TV interview he views that the US should be in the business of "killing Russians and Iranians covertly" ). ..."
"... Ironically, Jeffrey's official title has been Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIL, but apparently the mission is now to essentially "give the Russians hell". His comments were made Tuesday during a video conference hosted by the neocon Hudson Institute : ..."
"... He also emphasized that the Syrian state would continue to be squeezed into submission as part of long-term US efforts (going back to at least 2011) to legitimize a Syria government in exile of sorts. This after the Trump administration recently piled new sanctions on Damascus. As University of Oklahoma professor and expert on the region Joshua Landis summarized of Jeffrey's remarks: "He pledged that the United States will continue to deny Syria - international funding, reconstruction, oil, banking, agriculture & recognition of government." ..."
May 13, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Washington now says it's all about defeating the Russians . While it's not the first time this has been thrown around in policy circles (recall that a year after Russia's 2015 entry into Syria at Assad's invitation, former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell admitted in a TV interview he views that the US should be in the business of "killing Russians and Iranians covertly" ).

And now the top US special envoy to region, James Jeffrey, has this to say on US troops in Syria :

"My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians."

Ironically, Jeffrey's official title has been Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIL, but apparently the mission is now to essentially "give the Russians hell". His comments were made Tuesday during a video conference hosted by the neocon Hudson Institute :

Asked why the American public should tolerate US involvement in Syria, Special Envoy James Jeffrey points out the small US footprint in the fight against ISIS. "This isn't Afghanistan. This isn't Vietnam. This isn't a quagmire. My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians."

He also emphasized that the Syrian state would continue to be squeezed into submission as part of long-term US efforts (going back to at least 2011) to legitimize a Syria government in exile of sorts. This after the Trump administration recently piled new sanctions on Damascus. As University of Oklahoma professor and expert on the region Joshua Landis summarized of Jeffrey's remarks: "He pledged that the United States will continue to deny Syria - international funding, reconstruction, oil, banking, agriculture & recognition of government."

"My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians."

Special US envoy to Syria - James Jeffery

He pledged that the United States will continue to deny Syria - international funding, reconstruction, oil, banking, agriculture & recognition of government. https://t.co/MSAkQqAmdh

-- Joshua Landis (@joshua_landis) May 12, 2020

But no doubt both Putin and Assad have understood Washington's real proxy war interests all along, which is why last year Russia delivered it's lethal S-300 into the hands of Assad (and amid constant Israeli attacks). But no doubt both Putin and Assad have understood Washington's real proxy war interests all along, which is why last year Russia delivered it's lethal S-300 into the hands of Assad (and amid constant Israeli attacks).

As for oil, currently Damascus is well supplied by the Iranians, eager to dump their stock in fuel-starved Syria amid the global glut. Trump has previously voiced that part of US troops "securing the oil fields" is to keep them out of the hands of Russia and Iran.

* * *

Recall the CIA's 2016 admission of what's really going on in terms of US action in Syria:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/OJ3fTFHQ0KA

[Mar 17, 2020] Russia Strikes Back Where It Hurts American Oil by Scott Ritter

Mar 17, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

R ussia and Saudi Arabia are engaged in an oil price war that has sent shockwaves around the world, causing the price of oil to tumble and threatening the financial stability, and even viability, of major international oil companies.

On the surface, this conflict appears to be a fight between two of the world's largest producers of oil over market share. This may, in fact, be the motive driving Saudi Arabia, which reacted to Russia's refusal to reduce its level of oil production by slashing the price it charged per barrel of oil and threatening to increase its oil production, thereby flooding the global market with cheap oil in an effort to attract customers away from competitors.

Russia's motives appear to be far different -- its target isn't Saudi Arabia, but rather American shale oil. After absorbing American sanctions that targeted the Russian energy sector, and working with global partners (including Saudi Arabia) to keep oil prices stable by reducing oil production even as the United States increased the amount of shale oil it sold on the world market, Russia had had enough. The advent of the Coronavirus global pandemic had significantly reduced the demand for oil around the world, stressing the American shale producers. Russia had been preparing for the eventuality of oil-based economic warfare with the United States. With U.S. shale producers knocked back on their heels, Russia viewed the time as being ripe to strike back. Russia's goal is simple: to make American shale oil producers " share the pain ".

The United States has been slapping sanctions on Russia for more than six years, ever since Russia took control (and later annexed) the Crimean Peninsula and threw its weight behind Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. The first sanctions were issued on March 6, 2014, through Executive Order 13660 , targeting "persons who have asserted governmental authority in the Crimean region without the authorization of the Government of Ukraine that undermine democratic processes and institutions in Ukraine; threaten its peace, security, stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity; and contribute to the misappropriation of its assets."

The most recent round of sanctions was announced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on February 18, 2020, by sanctioning Rosneft Trading S.A., a Swiss-incorporated, Russian-owned oil brokerage firm, for operating in Venezuela's oil sector. The U.S. also recently targeted the Russian Nord Stream 2 and Turk Stream gas pipeline projects.

Russia had been signaling its displeasure over U.S. sanctions from the very beginning. In July 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that U.S. sanctions were "driving into a corner" relations between the two countries, threatening the "the long-term national interests of the U.S. government and people." Russia opted to ride out U.S. sanctions, in hopes that there might be a change of administrations following the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections. Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear that he hoped the U.S. might elect someone whose policies would be more friendly toward Russia, and that once the field of candidates narrowed down to a choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Putin favored Trump .

"Yes, I did," Putin remarked after the election, during a joint press conference with President Trump following a summit in Helsinki in July 2018. "Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal."

Putin's comments only reinforced the opinions of those who embraced allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election as fact and concluded that Putin had some sort of hold over Trump. Trump's continuous praise of Putin's leadership style only reinforced these concerns.

Even before he was inaugurated, Trump singled out Putin's refusal to respond in kind to President Obama's levying of sanctions based upon the assessment of the U.S. intelligence community that Russia had interfered in the election. "Great move on delay (by V. Putin) – I always knew he was very smart!" Trump Tweeted . Trump viewed the Obama sanctions as an effort to sabotage any chance of a Trump administration repairing relations with Russia, and interpreted Putin's refusal to engage, despite being pressured to do so by the Russian Parliament and Foreign Ministry, as a recognition of the same.

This sense of providing political space in the face of domestic pressure worked both ways. In January 2018, Putin tried to shield his relationship with President Trump by calling the release of a list containing some 200 names of persons close to the Russian government by the U.S. Treasury Department as a hostile and "stupid" move .

"Ordinary Russian citizens, employees and entire industries are behind each of those people and companies," Putin remarked. "So all 146 million people have essentially been put on this list. What is the point of this? I don't understand."

From the Russian perspective, the list highlighted the reality that the U.S. viewed the entire Russian government as an enemy and is a byproduct of the "political paranoia" on the part of U.S. lawmakers. The consequences of this, senior Russian officials warned, "will be toxic and undermine prospects for cooperation for years ahead."

While President Trump entered office fully intending to " get along with Russia ," including the possibility of relaxing the Obama-era sanctions , the reality of U.S.-Russian relations, especially as viewed from Congress, has been the strengthening of the Obama sanctions regime. These sanctions, strengthened over time by new measures signed off by Trump, have had a negative impact on the Russian economy, slowing growth and driving away foreign investment .

While Putin continued to show constraint in the face of these mounting sanctions, the recent targeting of Russia's energy sector represented a bridge too far. When Saudi pressure to cut oil production rates coincided with a global reduction in the demand for oil brought on by the Coronavirus crisis, Russia struck.

The timing of the Russian action is curious, especially given the amount of speculation that there was some sort of personal relationship between Trump and Putin that the Russian leader sought to preserve and carry over into a potential second term. But Putin had, for some time now, been signaling that his patience with Trump had run its course. When speaking to the press in June 2019 about the state of U.S.-Russian relations, Putin noted that "They (our relations) are going downhill, they are getting worse and worse," adding that "The current [i.e., Trump] administration has approved, in my opinion, several dozen decisions on sanctions against Russia in recent years."

By launching an oil price war on the eve of the American Presidential campaign season, Putin has sent as strong a signal as possible that he no longer views Trump as an asset, if in fact he ever did. Putin had hoped Trump could usher in positive change in the trajectory of relations between the two nations; this clearly had not happened. Instead, in the words of close Putin ally Igor Sechin , the chief executive of Russian oil giant Rosneft, the U.S. was using its considerable energy resources as a political weapon, ushering in an era of "power colonialism" that sought to expand U.S. oil production and market share at the expense of other nations.

From Russia's perspective, the growth in U.S. oil production -- which doubled in output from 2011 until 2019 -- and the emergence of the U.S. as a net exporter of oil, was directly linked to the suppression of oil export capability in nations such as Venezuela and Iran through the imposition of sanctions. While this could be tolerated when the target was a third party, once the U.S. set its sanctioning practices on Russian energy, the die was cast.

If the goal of the Russian-driven price war is to make U.S. shale companies "share the pain," they have already succeeded. A similar price war, initiated by Saudi Arabia in 2014 for the express purpose of suppressing U.S. shale oil production, failed, but only because investors were willing to prop up the stricken shale producers with massive loans and infusion of capital. For shale oil producers, who use an expensive methodology of extraction known as "fracking," to be economically viable, the breakeven price of oil per barrel needs to be between $40 and $60 dollars. This was the price range the Saudi's were hoping to sustain when they proposed the cuts in oil production that Russia rejected.

The U.S. shale oil producers, saddled by massive debt and high operational expenses, will suffer greatly in any sustained oil price war. Already, with the price of oil down to below $35 per barrel, there is talk of bankruptcy and massive job layoffs -- none of which bode well for Trump in the coming election.

It's clear that Russia has no intention of backing off anytime soon. According to the Russian Finance Ministry , said on Russia could weather oil prices of $25-30 per barrel for between six and ten years. One thing is for certain -- U.S. shale oil companies cannot.

In a sign that the Trump administration might be waking up to the reality of the predicament it faces, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin quietly met with Russia's Ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov. According to a read out from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the two discussed economic sanctions, the Venezuelan economy, and the potential for "trade and investment." Mnuchin, the Russians noted, emphasized the "importance of orderly energy markets."

Russia is unlikely to fold anytime soon. As Admiral Josh Painter, a character in Tom Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October," famously said , "Russians don't take a dump without a plan."

Russia didn't enter its current course of action on a whim. Its goals are clearly stated -- to defeat U.S. shale oil -- and the costs of this effort, both economically and politically (up to and including having Trump lose the 2020 Presidential election) have all been calculated and considered in advance. The Russian Bear can only be toyed with for so long without generating a response. We now know what that response is; when the Empire strikes back, it hits hard.

Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author of several books, including his forthcoming, Scorpion King: America's Embrace of Nuclear Weapons From FDR to Trump (2020).

[Mar 10, 2020] Trump's Second Term? Not Worth Freaking Out About by Ted Rall

Looks like Trump is already lame duck President. And this will not change with the elections
Notable quotes:
"... I'm not suggesting that President Trump deserves a second term. He didn't deserve a first one. He's a terrible person and an awful president. What I'm saying is that it is more likely than not that he has already done most of the damage that he can do. ..."
"... An achievement-filled second term would be a major reversal of recent historical precedent. Things may get worse under four more years of this idiot, but not much worse as the Democratic doomsday cult warns. ..."
"... I hope Obama enjoyed all those trips to Martha's Vineyard because that's pretty much all he has to show for term number two. ..."
"... George W. Bush screwed up one thing after another during his second four years in office, which was bookended by his hapless non-response to the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina and his role in the ineffective and wasteful bailout of Wall Street megabanks during the subprime mortgage financial crisis. What began as an illegal war of aggression against Iraq became, after reelection, a catastrophic quagmire that destroyed America's international reputation. ..."
"... Reagan was both senile and bogged down in Iran Contra. ..."
"... "If Trump wins a second term this November," James Pethokoukis writes in The Week, Trump "might propose more tax cuts, but they are more likely to be payroll tax cuts geared toward middle-class workers instead of income tax cuts for rich people and corporations. ..."
Mar 06, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org

You've heard it so often that you may well believe it's true: Trump's second term would be a disaster. For the Democratic Party. For the United States. For democracy itself. "The reelection of Donald Trump," warns Nancy Pelosi, "would do irreparable damage to the United States."

But would it really?

Exceptions are a normal part of history but the record suggests that Trump would not be one of the few presidents who get much done during their second terms. There are three reasons for the sophomore slump:

By definition, political honeymoons expire (well) before the end of a president's first term. Elections have consequences in the form of policy changes that make good on campaign promises. But turning a pledge into reality comes at a cost. Capital gets spent, promises are broken, alliances shatter. Oftentimes, those changes prove disappointing. Recent example: Obamacare. Voters often express their displeasure by punishing the party that controls the White House with losses in Congress in midterm elections.

The permanent campaign fed by the 24-7 news cycle makes lame ducks gimpier than ever. Before a president gets to take his or her second oath of office, news media and future hopefuls are already looking four years ahead.

Scandals come usually home to roost during second terms. It's tough to push laws through a Congress that is dragging your top officials through one investigation after another.

I'm not suggesting that President Trump deserves a second term. He didn't deserve a first one. He's a terrible person and an awful president. What I'm saying is that it is more likely than not that he has already done most of the damage that he can do.

Pundits and Democratic politicians have been pushing a self-serving narrative that implies that everything Trump has done so far was merely a warm-up for the main event, that he would want and be able to go even further if given the chance if November 2020 goes his way.

That doesn't make sense. Who in their right mind thinks Trump has been holding anything back? Which president has failed to go big within a year or two?

An achievement-filled second term would be a major reversal of recent historical precedent. Things may get worse under four more years of this idiot, but not much worse as the Democratic doomsday cult warns.

President Obama didn't get much done during his second term, which began with the bungled rollout of the federal and state "health exchanges." He signed the Paris climate accord, renewed diplomatic relations with Cuba and negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran. But the ease with which his successor canceled those achievements showcased both the ephemerality of policies pushed through without thorough public propaganda and a general sense that second-term laws and treaties are easy to annul. I hope Obama enjoyed all those trips to Martha's Vineyard because that's pretty much all he has to show for term number two.

George W. Bush screwed up one thing after another during his second four years in office, which was bookended by his hapless non-response to the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina and his role in the ineffective and wasteful bailout of Wall Street megabanks during the subprime mortgage financial crisis. What began as an illegal war of aggression against Iraq became, after reelection, a catastrophic quagmire that destroyed America's international reputation.

Whatever the merits of Bill Clinton's legislative and policy agenda -- welfare reform, NAFTA and bombing Kosovo would all have happened under a Republican president -- having anything substantial or positive to point to was well in the rearview mirror by his second term, when he found himself embroiled in the Monica Lewinsky affair and impeachment.

Reagan was both senile and bogged down in Iran Contra.

Even the most productive and prolific president of the 20th century had little to show for his second term. FDR's legacy would be nearly as impressive today if he'd only served four years.

Anything could happen. Donald Trump may use his second term to push dramatic changes. If there were another terrorist attack, for example, he would probably try to exploit national shock and fear to the political advantage of the right. Another Supreme Court justice could pass away. On the other hand, Trump is old, clinically obese and out of shape. He might die. It's doubtful that Mike Pence, a veep chosen for his lack of charisma, would be able to carry on the Trump tradition as more than the head of a caretaker government.

Analysts differ on what Trump 2.0 might look like. Regardless of their perspective, however, no one expects anything big.

"If Trump wins a second term this November," James Pethokoukis writes in The Week, Trump "might propose more tax cuts, but they are more likely to be payroll tax cuts geared toward middle-class workers instead of income tax cuts for rich people and corporations. He'll look for a new Federal Reserve chair less worried about inflation than current boss Jerome Powell, who deserves at least partial credit for the surging stock market and continuing expansion. Trump will let the national debt soar rather than trimming projected Medicare and Social Security benefits. And there will be more protectionism, although it may be called 'industrial policy.'"

"The early outlines of the [second-term] agenda are starting to emerge," Andrew Restuccia reports in The Wall Street Journal. "Among the issues under consideration: continuing the administration's efforts to lower prescription drug prices, pushing for a broad infrastructure bill and taking another crack at reforming the country's immigration system, [White House] officials said." They also want to reduce the deficit.

Under Trump, immigration reform is never a good thing. But it's hard to imagine anything major happening without Democratic cooperation.

Internationally, many observers expect Trump to continue to nurture his isolationist tendencies. But President Bernie Sanders would probably have similar impulses to focus on America First.

By all means, vote against Trump. But don't freak out at the thought of a second term.

Mourn what happened under the first one instead -- and work to reverse it.

[Mar 05, 2020] Has Trump Delivered the Promised Revolution? Not Necessarily and that it his major weakness in 2020 election

Notable quotes:
"... It seems to me, though, that running on little more than people's fond memories of the Obama administration won't be enough in de-industrialized, opioid-ravaged Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin (Bernie outperforms Biden in all three, according to current polls). Trump won there by a combined margin of 77,744 votes precisely because of voters who, after eight years of Obama, had nearly lost hope and were hungry for change. ..."
Mar 04, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Supporters who were expecting a more radical agenda may feel betrayed, and that could play into the hands of the Democrats.

In its ridiculous dual endorsement of Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, the New York Times Editorial Board divided the Democratic field into those candidates who "view President Trump as an aberration and believe that a return to a more sensible America is possible" and those who "believe that President Trump was the product of political and economic systems so rotten that they must be replaced."

I've already written about how arbitrarily the Board sorted candidates into one group or another, but the dichotomy itself is useful. Recently, I've found that it helps to make a parable of it.

Some Democratic candidates think Trump has flipped over the political table. They want to set it back up, dab at the tablecloth, enforce better manners, reheat the entrées, and put a second scoop of ice cream on the pie à la mode. Biden and Bloomberg are currently the frontrunners in this category, but even the supposedly radical Elizabeth Warren, by virtue of her moderating compromises and general palatability to the party elite, deserves (at least in part) the label of table re-setter.

For others, though, Trump never actually flipped the table. Sure, he promised to, but as soon as he sat down and dug into his well-done steak, something changed. Many of his signature dishes never materialized. And although he continued to insist that the kitchen staff were defiling the food, he seemed awfully chummy with the management. The management, for their part, obligingly looked the other way while he belched, used the wrong knife, and generally flouted the edicts of Emily Post. Those at the far end of the table where pickings were slim, many of whom had played a part in elevating Trump to his lofty position, wondered what had gone wrong. Was the table bolted invisibly to the floor? Or had Trump betrayed them? Meanwhile, the food, rotten long before Trump had sat down, continued to attract flies.

Into this category, I would place Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, and perhaps Tulsi Gabbard, of whom only Bernie remains standing.

Biden thinks he can still salvage dinner; Bernie wants to go full Gordon Ramsay.

To be clear, neither of these is exactly my position. My question is how Trump will respond to the latter. Sure, Biden's guy's-guy persona might be enough to take back the Rust Belt and push him over 270. It seems to me, though, that running on little more than people's fond memories of the Obama administration won't be enough in de-industrialized, opioid-ravaged Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin (Bernie outperforms Biden in all three, according to current polls). Trump won there by a combined margin of 77,744 votes precisely because of voters who, after eight years of Obama, had nearly lost hope and were hungry for change.

This feeling of being let down by Obama's messianic promises, what Sarah Palin eloquently called his "hopey-changey thing," could cut both ways, though. Trump still hasn't built his wall. Manufacturing jobs have not returned en masse; tariffs on China have squeezed farmers and failed to produce the speedy victory he promised. The wars he promised to end still rage, and we've gone to the brink with Iran. Yes, the economy is strong, and conventional wisdom has it that the incumbent only loses if the economy tanks. But Bernie makes a strong case that the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the economy are not the same thing. Six out of 10 Americans feel they're better off than they were three years ago, but I wonder whether the frustrated Midwesterners who swung the election in 2016 have gotten what they wanted out of Trump. If not, they might be willing to try something new . The distance between left-populism and right-populism is, after all, far shorter than the distance between the center-left and the center-right. If Obama let you down and Trump let you down, why not vote Sanders? You've already switched parties once.

Trump shot to the top of the Republican primary polls because he had the energy of a disruptor. The media showered l'enfant terrible with free advertising. Since the impeachment, though, it seems like the press's white-hot Trump derangement has cooled at precisely the wrong time. These days, it's Bernie drawing all the outrage, including accusations of Russian stoogery and wild speculation about anarchic brokered conventions.

Slowly, a narrative is solidifying: if you're ready to say "the hell with it," vote Sanders; if you want more of the same, vote Trump. This perception could prove fatal to the incumbent.

Trump will give Bernie both barrels with "you're a communist" and "how are we supposed to pay for that?" But those might actually work in Bernie's favor. On the campaign trail, Trump proposed a number of fanciful policies, from punishing post-abortive women to deporting 12 million people to the possibility of nuking Europe, and all it got him was more free media. He never explained how the hell he was going to get Mexico to pay for the wall, but nobody cared. Trump was bold, brash, and unconcerned with breaking rules or offending people. Now Sanders, less crass but equally brash, has usurped that brand positioning. This move could force Trump into the role of a brake-pumping Deng Xiaoping, persecuting the authentic radicals while hollowly insisting that he remains the true custodian of the populist revolution.

Badgering Bernie about his lavish Medicare-for-All plan and his lack of clarity about how to fund it could induce sticker shock in the American electorate, but it could also solidify voters' perception that Sanders is the dynamic visionary and Trump the static naysayer. Bernie seems to actively cultivate this edgy persona. Why else would he call himself a "democratic socialist" rather than a "social democrat," a term that more accurately describes his policies and leaves out the scary S-word to boot?

On the debate stage, Bernie will almost certainly castigate Trump for exploiting the anxieties of those coveted 77,744 and delivering on little of what he promised. If Trump counters that he's been stymied by the Deep State, he loses again. His die-hard supporters will buy it, but at least some voters at the end of their rope will think, "Well, if Trump couldn't hit hard enough to shatter the ossified bureaucracy, maybe Sanders can. Or maybe he'll get it rolling in the direction he wants, transforming that bureaucratic mass from an immovable object into an unstoppable force."

I worry that our politics have entered a downward spiral. Hyperpartisan polarization has ensured that everyone feels precarious all the time, and thanks to the ever-morphing values of liquid modernity, moderate candidates can no longer run fast enough to stay in place. If America is no longer great, it must be made great again by whatever means necessary. If it was never great, it must be radically transformed. As checks, balances, bureaucrats, and practicalities frustrate the sweeping aims of each successive political messiah, they prepare the way for one even more extreme to follow. If this happens enough times, the populists of whichever stripe, thwarted again and again, will finally turn against the institutions of their own society. Enter Thomas Hobbes, stage right or left.

I recognize that, for all but the most milquetoast of centrists, the status quo has plenty of problems. I even admit that my own sympathy to populism has grown since 2016. But the trend I've described in American politics is enough to make me sympathize with C.S. Lewis, who grew fed up with an electorate that demanded "such qualities as 'vision,' 'dynamism,' [and] 'creativity'" from candidates.

Lewis longed for a political leader "who will do a day's work for a day's pay, who will refuse bribes, who will not make up his facts, and who has learned his job." He even sardonically proposed founding "a Stagnation Party -- which at General Elections would boast that during its term of office no event of the least importance had taken place."

It's enough to make me miss Jeb Bush.

Grayson Quay is a freelance writer and M.A. at Georgetown University.


kouroi Kent 13 hours ago

US is an oligarchic republic, like the good old Venetian Republic of old. As an outsider of the US polity, I just get the popcorn and beer during US elections. While the PoTUS has not that much power in the US (albeit a savvy executive, controlling all the federal agencies and appointments in various places, and having the appeal of executive power, which is direct raw), it can be crushing for the outside world. The droned people can attest to that. The starved people due to sanctions can attest to that, the sick and un-treatable people due to sanctions can attest to that power of the PoTUS.
Bg 14 hours ago
Building the wall is itself a lie. It would be simple to reduce immigration by a lot. use e-verify

The wall is an expensive distraction, that would have zero impact on immigration.

It allows Trump and other elite (who want the low wage workers) to pander. They can tell their base they are being so, so harsh on immigrants, while doing nothing.

Feral Finster 13 hours ago • edited
What "revolution"? Trump has governed as a meaner, more dysfunctional, more reckless version of Dubya.
Doug Wallis 12 hours ago

...Make America Great is a revolt of the poor and middle class who want their share of the economy instead of giving it away to foreign countries and foreign immigrants. That revolt is not going to go away. However if you are blindly living off the largess of our nation and its big government social welfare programs then you have no connection to education, to employment and from your point of view the government provides your living and the living for your children so as long as you get your check it doesn't matter whether there is 1 person living off that social safety net or 1 thousand or 1 million or 1 billion.

TISO_AX2 12 hours ago
It was never Trump's revolution to deliver. We the people delivered the revolution in bringing in DJT to expose and (hopefully) weaken the entrenched Establishment. The former has been accomplished exceedingly well. And there is more work toward that goal to be done. I'm more than impressed with the progress that we've made. Captains can be changed quickly but this ship does not turn easily.
Watchers 10 hours ago
This is a site for GOP establishment types. They suppressed us as deplorables and lied to us with false promises. So we gave them Trump. May the never Trumper Romney types rot in hell
hooly 8 hours ago
won't be enough in de-industrialized, opioid-ravaged Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin

Is this 'opioid epidemic' for real? I keep hearing about it. Or is it just like the Global Warming Hoax and people are just exaggerating this 'epidemic', like the coronavirus nonsense??

[Feb 23, 2020] Viva #MIGA

Feb 23, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

14 minutes ago

[Feb 22, 2020] It's not given that Trump will be reelected. he lost important parts of his consituency: anti-war republicans and independents are one such part

Notable quotes:
"... IMHO, Sanders, accused of being a 'self-identified' socialist, should be emphasizing the U.S. is shoulder-deep in socialism for the 1% who have access to free Fed funds. ..."
Feb 22, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Likklemore , Feb 22 2020 22:53 utc | 105

it's not a lock that Trump will be re-elected. It's the great silent majority of moderates [RINOs, DINOs] and independents who fear another 4 years of Trump - The Autocratic President of the United States
a brutal assessment -
Donald Trump can be seen as some sort of a deadly "political virus", which was introduced accidently into the American body politic in 2016.

Introduction

Wednesday, February 5, 2020 will come to be remembered as a date of historic significance for the United States. Indeed, this is the date when a Senate majority of 52 Republican Senators (with the notable exception of Sen. Mitt Romney), voted against convicting President Donald Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of justice, in the impeachment trial of the latter. That is also the date when Donald Trump interpreted such exoneration as a blank check to move towards a fully autocratic presidency.

Thus, in open defiance of the American Constitution and of America's checks-and-balances system, Trump's Republican enablers have placed the American people before a fait accompli and the only question now is to see if this dangerous drift toward autocracy will be condoned or reversed in the next presidential election of November 3rd.[.]

IMHO, Sanders, accused of being a 'self-identified' socialist, should be emphasizing the U.S. is shoulder-deep in socialism for the 1% who have access to free Fed funds. Free as in ZERO interest (0%) while jim and joe mainstreet struggle to pay interest on debt.

Good Luck.

[Feb 21, 2020] There is that Great Silent Majority made up of Independents, RINOs, DINOs, and Moderates who are embarrassed by and are tired of Trump

Feb 21, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Likklemore , Feb 21 2020 0:02 utc | 72

@ RSH 66
[If] either are nominated - or any other of the current crop of losers - the Democrats will lose against Trump, despite Trump making all kinds of incredibly stupid statements during the campaign. Because, let's face it, Trump will do stupid stuff all during the election race - and his supporters will no doubt ignore them or praise him for them.
[;]

There is that Great Silent Majority made up of Independents, RINOs, DINOs, and Moderates who are embarrassed by and are tired of Trump. Also, throw in those who will refuse to participate in the rigged system. In 2020 this time it's different.

And then there is Mike Bloomberg who told the New York Times he is open to spending up to $1 billion to defeat Trump in 2020. and that he'll put the force of his operation behind the 2020 nominee whether or not it's him.

[Feb 14, 2020] Trump's budget does gut Social Security and Medicare, proving Trump lied--again

Feb 14, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Feb 13 2020 18:27 utc | 199

Another great Dave Lindorff item , "The Red-Baiting of Bernie Sanders Has Begun and is Already Becoming Laughable," a topic we all knew was coming. Given his performances, Chris Matthews would be better off with a lobotomy. Many others are just as bad in their display of ignorance on the topic.

Meanwhile, Mnuchin admits before the Senate's Finance Committee that Trump's budget does gut Social Security and Medicare, proving Trump lied--again:

"Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, tweeted in response to the exchange that 'Mnuchin admits Trump's budget cuts your earned benefits in Social Security.'

"'Slowing the rate of increase' is Washington-speak for cutting benefits and breaking the Social Security and Medicare guarantee,' Wyden added.

"The Trump admin claims there are no cuts to Social Security in the budget. So why wouldn't Sec Mnuchin answer a simple yes or no question about whether there are billions in cuts to Social Security, hurting seniors?

"Answer: because there are cuts to Social Security in the budget."

Yes, you can bet Sanders will milk that for all its worth just in time for all those retirees living in Vegas to cast their primary votes.

[Feb 08, 2020] Trump's Chumps by Brad Griffin

Notable quotes:
"... Speaking of Trump's donors, we wrote Trump a blank check in the 2016 election to deliver on the MAGA agenda that he had sold us. We voted for big ideas like "nationalism" and "populism." The reasons why I voted for Donald Trump in 2016 were immigration, trade, foreign policy, political correctness and campaign finance and furthering these big ideas of "nationalism" and "populism." He has been a disappointment on all fronts. ..."
"... Orthodox Jews hit the jackpot with the King of Israel and Zionists have been on an unprecedented winning streak. In just the last three months, Trump has issued an executive order to ban anti-Semitism on college campuses, assassinated Qasem Soleimani and has given Bibi Netanyahu the green light to annex large swathes of the West Bank. Trump is even considering allowing Jonathan Pollard to return to Israel. Is it any wonder then that a recent Gallup poll found that Israelis support his "America First" foreign policy over Americans by a whopping 18-point margin? ..."
"... Trump's Chumps have demonstrated in the last two election cycles how easy they are to manipulate. They can be relied on to vote and shill for the GOP no matter what it does. Donald Trump isn't under any pressure from these people to change. He knows his mark better than they know themselves. They are so desperate for acceptance and to participate in elections and to feel like they are "winning" that they will delude themselves like the rest of his cult into believing almost anything. Give a drowning man enough rope and he will hang himself. ..."
Feb 08, 2020 | www.unz.com

"This President has done more for African Americans in this Country than any President since Lincoln." @LouDobbs 

-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 7, 2020

I voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

I spent months making the case for Trump on this website. I will be the first to admit that I was wrong and that those who were skeptical of Trump in our community were right in 2016. In that election, I drank the koolaid and was one of Trump's Chumps. Unlike AmNats, I have tried to learn something from that experience. I hate getting fooled by Republicans.

In 2020, we have a far better sense of Donald Trump. The Trump administration has a record now. Donald Trump's first term is mostly history. We can now look back with the benefit of hindsight and evaluate our standing after the last three years without being drunk on Trump koolaid. No one drank the Trump koolaid in our community more deeply than the AmNats. Some of them remained drunk on the Trump koolaid even after the 2018 midterms. A handful of his most faithful cheerleaders have never given up faith in their GOD EMPEROR and succumbed to reality.

What is the reality of the Trump presidency?

1.) Those who feared that the Trump administration would lull the conservative base into a false sense of complacency and put all the normies back to sleep were right. Donald Trump has told his base that they are "winning." They wear Q shirts and "Trust The Plan" at his rallies. They are Making America Great Again simply by having a Republican in the White House. They are content to go on believing that even as illegal immigration DOUBLED in FY 2019 and became a far worse problem than it ever was under the Obama administration. As we saw after the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, they are also ready to swallow Trump's war propaganda against Iran and believe anything their dear leader tells them. It was Julian Assange and Roger Stone who went to prison under Trump, not Hillary Clinton. Normies are content to have conservatism in power and are less willing to give us an audience with a Republican in the White House.

2.) Those who feared that the Trump administration would suck all of the energy out of the Alt-Right were right . In the final two years of the Obama administration (2015 and 2016), the Alt-Right was thriving on social media and was brimming with energy. Four years later, the country has only gotten worse, but the brand has been destroyed and all the energy it had back then as an online subculture has been sucked out of the room by Trump and channeled into pushing the standard conservative policy agenda. The movement has been in disarray and has been divided and demoralized ever since Trump won the 2016 election. The last few years have been terrible. As soon as Trump won the 2016 election, conservatives shifted their attention back to policing their right flank. They are far more successful at policing their right flank when they are in power.

3.) Those who rationalized voting for Donald Trump on the basis of immigration and changing demographics were proven wrong about that too. He has refurbished the George W. Bush era fence. Since he has been president, Donald Trump has built all of three new miles of fence , which is actually less than W. and Obama. He didn't do anything about sanctuary cities or pass E-Verify. He has actually increased guest worker programs . There has been no cuts to legal immigration. Instead, Jared Kushner's legal immigration plan only proposes to reconfigure the composition of it for big business so that more high skilled workers and fewer peons are imported from the Third World. Illegal immigration has remained steady and has surged past the worst highs of the Obama years. It has recently fallen back to 2015 levels after peaking in FY 2019 . Trump has vowed to pass an amnesty to save DACA. The Muslim ban became an ineffective travel ban . The only area where he has had any real success is refugee resettlement, but overall the bottom line is that after four years of Trump there are millions of more illegal aliens and legal immigrants here. Donald Trump hasn't even deported as many illegal aliens as Obama .

4.) Those who voted for Donald Trump to "move the Overton Window" succeeded in making homosexuality more acceptable on the Right. This was already clear by the time of the Deploraball at Trump's inauguration. In the Trump era, homosexuals and drag queens would be accepted into the fold on the Right and White Nationalists would remain stigmatized. Congress has actually condemned White Nationalism at least two or three times since Donald Trump has been president. Far more White Nationalists have gone to prison under Donald Trump than Barack Obama. Trump has appointed "conservative judges" like Thomas Cullen who put RAM in prison . Some of Trump's Chumps point to Bernie Sanders vowing to "declare war" on White Nationalism after the El Paso shooting. They conveniently forget the fact that National Review and conservatives ALSO declared war on White Nationalism last August . We've been covering the government crackdown which has been going on since last August .

AmNats have been purged from Turning Point USA, banned from its events and reduced to haranguing Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk from the sidewalk. They have been banned from even attending CPAC. Those who thought that they could work within the system to reform conservatism were grossly mistaken. Steve King was condemned by Congress, stripped of his committee assignments and has been treated as a pariah within the Republican Party . Michelle Malkin was deplatformed by Mar-a-Lago and excommunicated from the synagogue of mainstream conservatism. Ann Coulter was marginalized in the Trump administration. Jeff Sessions and Steve Bannon were both fired. Donald Trump hired conservatives and staffed his administration with his enemies. While I won't name any names, I will just point to all the people who actually worked within the conservative movement who have all been purged and fired in the Trump era by Conservatism, Inc. as proof that working within the system doesn't work and is a bad idea and those people would have had more job security doing almost anything else.

5.) What about Antifa and Big Tech censorship? Aren't those good reasons to vote for Donald Trump in 2020? Neither of these issues were on our radar screen BEFORE Donald Trump won the 2016 election. Both of those problems became dramatically worse as a result of electing the boogeyman as president . Far from being a victory for the Dissident Right, we became identified with Donald Trump and were caught in the backlash while he delivered Jeb Bush's agenda (the boogeyman wasn't real). Before Trump was elected president, Antifa was a tiny nuisance that protested Amren conferences and there was still a great deal of free speech on the internet. We could also hold rallies all over the South without serial harassment from these people. Now, everything from harassment and doxxing by "journalists" to chronic Antifa violence to police stand down orders to deplatforming to FBI counterextremism witch hunts has became part of the scenery of life under the Trump administration which is only interested in these new grievances insofar as they can be milked and exploited to elect more Republicans. In hindsight, it would have been better NOT to have identified ourselves with the boogeyman in 2016.

6.) Isn't having Donald Trump in the White House a huge victory for "identitarianism" and big ideas like "nationalism" and "populism." President Donald Trump's signature policy victories have been passing a huge corporate tax cut, criminal justice reform and renegotiating and rebranding NAFTA. Trump is a "populist" in the sense that he has DEEPENED neoliberalism. When you look at his policies, he has continued and further extended the status quo of the last forty years which has been tax cuts, deregulation, entitlement cuts, free trade agreements and huge increases in military spending. Trump's economic agenda has been no different from the last three Republican presidents. He has been all bark and no bite.

Donald Trump is pointedly NOT a nationalist, populist or identitarian. He carefully avoids ever mentioning the word "White." Instead, he talks incessantly about the black, Hispanic, Asian-American, LGBTQ and female unemployment rate. He holds events at the White House for blacks and Hispanics. He delivers policies for blacks and Hispanics too like criminal justice reform. The "forgotten man" couldn't be further from Donald Trump's mind when he is schmoozing with the likes of Steve Schwarzman and boasting about the stock market. Trump is a demagogue who recognized that nationalist and populist sentiments were growing in the American electorate and he has harnessed and manipulated and exploited those forces for his donors.

7.) Speaking of Trump's donors, we wrote Trump a blank check in the 2016 election to deliver on the MAGA agenda that he had sold us. We voted for big ideas like "nationalism" and "populism." The reasons why I voted for Donald Trump in 2016 were immigration, trade, foreign policy, political correctness and campaign finance and furthering these big ideas of "nationalism" and "populism." He has been a disappointment on all fronts.

Those of us who were duped into believing that Donald Trump had a team of Jews who were going to craft all of these policies which were going to stabilize America's demographics should reflect on what has actually happened during the Trump presidency. Orthodox Jews hit the jackpot with the King of Israel and Zionists have been on an unprecedented winning streak. In just the last three months, Trump has issued an executive order to ban anti-Semitism on college campuses, assassinated Qasem Soleimani and has given Bibi Netanyahu the green light to annex large swathes of the West Bank. Trump is even considering allowing Jonathan Pollard to return to Israel. Is it any wonder then that a recent Gallup poll found that Israelis support his "America First" foreign policy over Americans by a whopping 18-point margin?

Trump's Chumps haven't been deterred by any of this. They want us to write Donald Trump a second political blank check in 2020, which his Jewish donors intend to cash at the White House, only this time he won't be restrained by fear of losing his reelection . In light of everything he has delivered for them so far, what is Donald Trump going to do in his second term for his Jewish donors who fund the GOP? Do we trust Trump not to start a war with Iran?

8.) In the last two elections, Donald Trump has pulled a bait-and-switch and Trump's Chumps are gullible enough to fall for it a third time. While I was wrong about the 2016 election, I was one of the first voices in our community to wise up to what was going on. By the 2018 midterms, I saw the bait-and-switch coming and warned our readers about it.

As you might recall, the 2018 midterms were about tax cuts and the roaring economy, deregulation and putting Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. It was also full of dire warnings about scary Antifa groups, Big Tech censorship and caravans from Central America to stir up the base. Trump vowed to issue an executive order to end birthright citizenship. The GOP knows what its base cares about and shamelessly manipulates its base during election season.

After the 2018 election was over, you might recall how Trump banned bump stocks and passed criminal justice reform for Van Jones and the Koch Brothers during the lame duck session of Congress. As we entered 2019, the Republican agenda changed to overthrowing the government of Venezuela to install Juan Guaidó in power and passing anti-BDS legislation. The GOP spent the whole year accusing the Democrats of anti-Semitism and promoting Jexodus. Virtually nothing else was talked about for a whole year in Congress but anti-Semitism until Trump issued his executive order on anti-Semitism on college campuses after the House and Senate had failed to reach agreement on anti-BDS legislation. The White House held its Social Media Summit in July and nothing came out of it . Antifa disappeared from the agenda and was replaced by a government crackdown on White Nationalists after El Paso. Ending birthright citizenship was forgotten about. Illegal immigration soared to its highest level in over a decade last May.

Don't forget how Trump's Chumps told us how "Chad" it was in 2018 to elect more Republicans to stop Antifa, the caravans and Big Tech censorship and how those same Republicans once elected to office preferred to fight anti-Semitism for AIPAC.

9.) In the last election, Trump's Chumps were manipulated into splintering their own movement by GOP operatives who divided and conquered and data mined the Dissident Right. When Ricky Vaughn was exposed as a Republican operative named Douglass Mackey who was scraping Paul Nehlen's Facebook in order to feed the information into the Smartcheckr database, Trump's Chumps loudly denounced Nehlen for doxxing Vaughn. Strangely, they had nothing to say when Smartcheckr which became Clearview AI sold that database and its facial recognition tool to the FBI and hundreds of other law enforcement agencies .

https://www.youtube.com/embed/-JkBM8n8ixI?feature=oembed

10.) Trump's Chumps have demonstrated in the last two election cycles how easy they are to manipulate. They can be relied on to vote and shill for the GOP no matter what it does. Donald Trump isn't under any pressure from these people to change. He knows his mark better than they know themselves. They are so desperate for acceptance and to participate in elections and to feel like they are "winning" that they will delude themselves like the rest of his cult into believing almost anything. Give a drowning man enough rope and he will hang himself.

Four years later, Trump's Chumps are still sitting by the phone waiting for the Donald to call back while he huddles with Steve Schwarzman and Bibi Netanyahu. They can't see what is front of their own eyes. By going ALL IN for Trump, they wrecked, divided and demoralized their own movement in order to advance the standard conservative policy agenda. They have been pushed off the internet and in some cases even to the dark web. In virtually every way, they are worse off than they were four years ago and have nothing to show for it. Insofar as they are getting more web traffic, it is because America has only continued to deteriorate under Trump, which would have happened anyway regardless who won in 2016.

It's not too late for Trump's Chumps to reclaim one thing that they have lost over the past four years. They can still reclaim their self respect. They don't have to participate in this charade a second time and mislead people who are less informed because they now know full well that Sheldon Adelson has bought Donald Trump and the lickspittle GOP Congress.

Note: Imagine thinking a New York City billionaire is a "populist." LMAO what were we thinking? He told us what we wanted to hear and we believed it.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/zgJC4Pu_tbo?feature=oembed

https://www.youtube.com/embed/6-sATHRO0jo?feature=oembed


Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 5:06 am GMT

Trump killed a true hero and man of God Soleimani.

Trump is scump.

MattinLA , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 5:11 am GMT
My understanding is that net foreign immigration has gone down in the last few years. Hardly a triumph, I agree. There are quite literally hordes of foreigners living here. Even a president who was a combination of Jesus and Superman would find it excrutiatingly difficult to eliminate immigration under these circumstances.

We face no good choices, unfortunately.

Peter Akuleyev , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 5:24 am GMT
All this seemed painfully obvious to me in 2016. We all know who Trump had been the first 70 years of his life – a braggart, a reprobate and a real estate developer who loved celebrities and organized crime figures. He is married to a high class escort from Slovenia who speaks English worse than a Mexican immigrant. This man is going to be the savior of Western Civilization? He has always been a fraud.
Peter Akuleyev , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 5:30 am GMT
@MattinLA Trump has not even made a sincere effort. Where is the effort to stop birth right citizenship? To punish employers who hire illegals? He doesn't try to build a coalition to stop immigration, he is clearly using it as political issue to keep his low info base revved up, but Trump doesn't actually want it resolved. It is the same with abortion, where both Parties are perfectly happy with the status quo because it allows each to fund raise by pointing at the threat coming from the other side. And at the end of the day it is all about find raising.
Gizmo880 , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 5:54 am GMT
Pretty much an accurate article, but what Democratic Presidential Contender would have been a better choice? The answer is none. The modern day Democratic Party, and most everyone who identifies with it, is as morally disgusting and filthy of a political party as has ever existed on this planet. Whatever grievances you have with DT, wait until the next Democrat gets elected President. The trifecta of Diversity (aka hate and blame Whitey for everything), LGBTQ insanity, and Climate Change hysteria will be shoved down the throats of this country like never before. The Obama years were just a warm-up for the cultural destruction that will happen to this country when the next Dem gets elected.

Actually, just bring the Civil War on. Whites will either get some self-respect and stand up for themselves before it is too late, or surrender to living in a ghetto trash culture and being ruled over by Jews and their white hating 'POC' puppets. It's an easy choice in my book.

I started college in 1982 with nothing but high hopes for the future, by 1990 I knew something was terribly going wrong with this country, and now I know the destruction of this country is virtually guaranteed. No good choices, indeed, as stated above. WTF happened?

EliteCommInc. , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 6:16 am GMT
I voted for this executive. I am not ashamed of my vote. However, as someone who voted on agendas and policies, I disappointed with the results. I knew going in there wasn't much in store for me personally by supporting the candidate. it was a diversion at the time from the standard fare. The problem with the standard fare is that they offered more of what were the problems. candidate Trump, actually responded to the issues echoing the same concerns, even if in a less than civil tenor. He gave as good as he got or better. I would that had been more substantive, but it was what it was.

There are some things that need to be cleared up in your article, most prominant of which is the fairly loose use of straw men positions. Just a few:

–the president did not run as a conservative despite comments he made about some conservative aspects of his own views.

–he never ever abandoned his position on same sex relations and marriage -- both of which are neither conservative or something he campaigned on, so it was clear from the get go, he had no intention of changing that game. What he did contend is that religious people have the same protections and they should not be cowed

–the overton window that would permit any president to openly support a condition in which skin color is the primary or a primary point of view would violate the principles and foundation of the country. but regardless most of the country sees that as an anathema to the what they want to country to be -- even far right conservatives are not arguing a white nationalist perspective -- trying to weigh him down with an overton window position that was never in play, at least not as you suggest it. The president started with a definitive lean in that direction of sorts, but it probably did not take him, long to figure out -- he was surrounded by whites in control of the country -- whites are not being pushed around by non-whites, inspite of having elected a non-white executive. But still he has knee jerk responses to dismantle the nonwhites policies. He remains as prowhite as any candidate in office. his references to how he claims to have aided nonwhites as pushback against accusations of being "racist" makes perfect sense. That does not make him "anti-white".

–your bait and switch assail is a tad convoluted. Antifa big tech and tax cuts . . . big tech and antifa initially responded with the same shock and vitriol as all his opposition when he was elected -- but as time has worn big tech has moved on seeing the current exec as a nonthreat -- tax cuts proceed unimpeded. The president's position on Jews and Israel were clear from the start and remain as they were -- one can contend he is overboard, but there was no bait and switch. The president did not say I was not for Israel and pro limiting immigration, he made clear he opposed illegal immigration and was proIsrael they are not competing issues . He has simply abided by one and dragged his feet on the other, if not abandoned it all together.

There are some other issues that need addressing, not the least of which is that many of us who supported the current executive before and now, have done so calling him out on issues where he has failed or is failing and have done so from the start -- -

On that I think my self respect remains intact

Father O'Hara , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 6:24 am GMT
Harvey Weinstein posed a question to one of his conquests: Do you like my fat Jewish dick? Trumps answer is apparently," Hell yeah!"
anon_382 , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 6:32 am GMT
@Priss Factor the scary part about that is blumpf and the (((deep state))) would do that to you or me too

it was sickening to see that he seemed to have regained his self confidence from the assassination of Soleimani and was blathering on at the SOTU as though everything was just fine, better than ever

Crazy Horse , says: Website Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 7:04 am GMT
One good thing Trump did was save us from that shrieking Valkyrie warmongering Hildabeast. If she had been elected she would have taken it as a mandate to start a war with Russia and/or Iran. Personally I was never voting for Trump but against Hillary.

Now that the demoncrats no longer have someone like Hillary running it would be pretty safe to vote a third party which I plan to do this election. Screw King Cyr-ass and his Zionist claque of losers.

alex in San Jose AKA Digital Detroit , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 7:04 am GMT
@MattinLA The US economy alone (not to mention the suckiness of the culture and people) has been bad enough going back to a year or so before the crash that net immigration, I believe, has been outward. Stupid Orange Man yelling at people "Get outta here! You're fired!" means less when they calmly retort, "I was leaving anyway".
nsa , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 7:28 am GMT
@MattinLA

"net foreign immigration has gone down .."

Happened to be in the Emerald city on Wednesday and wandered through the Seattle Convention Center .there were so many hindoos milling about thought it was some kind of curry cooking convention.

But no .it was something called Microsoft Ready which is Microsoft's internal marketing, technical, and sales event bringing together over 21,000 Microsoft staff.

Had to be at least 75% dotheads with a sprinkling of turbanized Sikhs, and maybe 25% whites and asians. Asked one of the dotheads if Paul Allen would be attending this year, but just drew a quizzical stare.

Noted in the Mr. Softie handouts that these legions of imported cut rate code scribblers are referred to as "scientists". Trumpstein actually did something about the H1B visa program .he increased it claiming we need more of these half priced "brainiacs". Can't find enough discount American code scribblers, you know.

Gleimhart Mantooso , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 7:33 am GMT
Trump first got my attention when he made those initial comments against the illegal invasion. But later, when he said that Mexico was going to pay for the wall and talked about putting a "big beautiful door" in it, I figured he was probably full of it. When he attended AIPAC, I was done.
eah , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 7:40 am GMT

Congress has actually condemned White Nationalism at least two or three times since Donald Trump has been president. Far more White Nationalists have gone to prison under Donald Trump than Barack Obama. Trump has appointed "conservative judges" like Thomas Cullen who put RAM in prison.

Chet Roman , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 7:53 am GMT
After the last 3 years of seditious behavior of lying politicians like Schiff, Nadler and Pelosi and the traitorous schemes of deep state actors like Weismann, Vindman, Sondland and Yovanovitch I would still vote for Trump in the hopes that some of these traitors and others in the DOJ/FBI/CIA/NSA would be prosecuted. Hopefully, Durham will do his job before the election and we will see some of the coup plotters going to jail. Even if that doesn't happen, a final payback to the treacherous Democrats and their propagandists in the MSM will be another conservative judge on the Supreme Court; a change that will impact the next 30+ years. That alone will be enough for me.
Divine Right , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 7:57 am GMT
I agree with much of the analysis I've read here, but let me offer a somewhat different perspective. The author notes that, "Donald Trump is pointedly NOT a nationalist, populist or identitarian." This is probably true, but it's also not necessarily a bad thing at this point if you're a contrarian of this sort.

My read of the situation is that Donald Trump is almost certainly going to lose the general election, despite the confident predictions of an incoming Trumpslide by deluded supporters. In his defeat, he'll take the last vestiges of Reagan conservatism down with him. Even if he doesn't, Trump will almost certainly be the last republican president due to demographic change, so it doesn't matter either way. It would make sense in that light to let Mr. Trump run and lose on a platform of standard fare conservatism than have him be closely associated with populism and discredit that ideology on his way out.

People forget that Donald Trump was only made possible by Mitt Romney's failure in 2012. Romney ran a standard conservative, milquetoast campaign and lost; he was nevertheless called all manner of vile names by the left but responded like a gentlemen. His defeat came as quite a shock to many rank and file GOPers. Fox News had convinced them leading up to election day that they were going to win. How could they not? Romney said all the same things Ronald Regan did and he won; he talked up the military, he repeated economic platitudes and denounced socialism, he self-immolated over racial issues and claimed democrats were the real racists. So, obviously, Mitt Romney should – by all rights – win just as Reagan did. Lost on them was the demographic situation, among other things. 2012 America was not 1980 America. When Reagan won California in 1980, Los Angeles was majority white; California had two million more white Caucasians than it does now (Trump and Reagan received almost exactly the same number of white votes in California but with different results); the economy for blue collar voters was better, so there was less opposition to Reaganomics.

When Romney ran as a traditional, non-offensive republican and lost, he discredited that ideology and made a louder, more combative alternative possible. That was Donald Trump. In the minds of many republicans, conservatism could no longer win elections, so why not go all in with a contrarian radical? I expect that mentality to return sometime after Trump loses this November. Radical sentiment has been quieted as of late only because normies sheepishly think they are winning. That's probably why the establishment is freaking out: they know that won't last. You occasionally see moderate democrats asking for peace and quiet, perhaps realizing this, but it's unfortunately not a message well-received by the fringe left who control social media and these divisive late night network shows.

My prediction: on election night 2020, there will be a lot of shell-shocked republican normies. Either the despised socialist is elected or a man who stokes racial animus for personal gain – Pete Buttigieg – will become president-elect. In the minds of conservative Boomers, that wasn't supposed to happen; it's as if someone said they could see inside the event horizon of a black hole – total violation of established physical reality. Impossible or so they thought. Republican operatives are already trying to help Bernie Sanders in both Iowa and South Carolina. They foolishly think Sanders can't win, but that's not true. I've seen the polls. On election night, Donald Trump will have to deliver a heart-wrenching speech to his deluded followers conceding defeat to someone they thought couldn't win.

But the Trumpslide. Qanon said to trust the plan*. We're winning. The wall. MAGA.

All exposed as lies. The sort of lies a defeated people tell themselves. Cerebral comfort food for the weak-minded.

In the process, Donald Trump will discredit Conservatism Inc. just like Mitt Romney did in 2012. Contrarians will escape the judgment of history and live to fight another day. Most likely, there are yet more dissident stars on the right to be made. Some older ones may also return in the aftermath.

Considering circumstances, the best path forward (speaking as devil's advocate) is to critique the man without vocally supporting his defeat. Let him go down fair and square. Starting in November, there will many republicans in Trump's former base looking for an alternative. They will seek out dissidents they heard about but dismissed as blackpillers; MAGA supporters will be sidelined. Third Way Alternatives should consider laying out a well-reasoned, practical and achievable alternative in the present with the anticipation they will be called upon in the near future.

However, I wouldn't count on that considering the lack of organization and drive I see on the dissident right. Mr. Griffith's essay, for example, is filled with a strange defeated tone. It sounds as if he just wants to go back to business as usual before Trump: do his contrarian thing without being harassed. Certainly, life would be easier. But you would be no closer to any kind of victory, either. As the author notes, dissidents were tolerated before Trump. But why? I think laying the full blame on Trump is not warranted. Yes, he failed to protect his followers – that's one big reason why dissent is now being crushed. There is another reason, however: you were winning. You were only tolerated before because you were on the wrong side of history. The establishment didn't fear you because you couldn't challenge them. With Trump's surprise victory, the situation changed. With that in mind, what's the point of going back to business as usual while being on a certain path to defeat? unless you want to lose (or don't care), unless you simply want the freedom to be a contrarian without accomplishing anything. Sounds like a grift to me, pardon the rudeness.

If you want to ineffectually complain about the ruling class on Twitter while being free of harassment, then supporting the democrat is probably your best bet. They'll tolerate you because you don't threaten them. I think that's what a lot of guys on the right really want, which is why they went so heavily into Yang's UBI. It was a sort of early retirement option for them, regardless of how they justified it – get free money and cash out, let the world burn.

*Well, that and to drink bleach to ward off the wuhan coronavirus. Do NOT trust that plan.

Disclaimer: I'm speaking as a neutral third party who was never involved in any of this stuff.

Nonny Mouse , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 7:59 am GMT
But what's this "United" muck? How much better the world would be without that muck! (Says an Australian.)
Daniel Rich , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 8:07 am GMT
To distill the above into something simple: ' you' are what you vote .

Luckily you learned a lesson. Cherish it.

Mea Culpa , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 8:16 am GMT
Idiotic article. Yeah, Trump is a Trojan horse who is making. Israel great again. Yeah, he's a fragile, narcissistic buffoon. The only unabashed positive I can really offer is that he is in 2020, as he was in 2016, the least bad option.

The author doesn't seem to quite get numbers. God, as they say, tends to favor the side with the biggest battalions. Perhaps he should take a look at a demographic plot of the map of the United States circa 2020. The truth is that, if a hyper-competent, charismatic candidate had formed a consensus around Trump's 2016 platform in maybe 1975, the demographic trajectory of the country could have been changed. It's way, way too late for that.

If you were stupid enough to think in 2016 that demographic realities were going to be unwound, or even that there could consensus to address the issue in a serious unapologetic way, I really don't know what to tell you. You're probably too stupid to be operating heavy machinery, much less posting articles on Unz. Trump's election is Prop 187, circa 1980's. Far too little, far too late. But still the least bad option.

All there really is at this point is a rearguard action, and maybe win a skirmish here and there. In terms of the Long War, we don't have the numbers or the consensus. Grow the fuck up.

The Alarmist , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 8:27 am GMT
I'm often asked by people in the US who learn I've lived outside the US the better part of three decades when I might return to the US, to which I lightly reply, "When the Republic is restored. I guess that means never."

At the end of the day, who better than Trump can you get behind? I guess it is game over. The only problem is that the rest of the developed world is going in the same problemmatic direction, and places like Uruguay still have their occasionally lurches into insanity.

Biff , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 8:34 am GMT

2.) Those who feared that the Trump administration would suck all of the energy out of the Alt-Right were right.

This is very typical. In the waning days of G.W. Bush there was a very strong hard left anti-war movement in place, and doing well on the internet, and also had a home on some cable stations. Once Obama was elected it faded into obscurity with-in hours, and never resurrected even as Obama become more hawkish than Bush – both expanding the War on Terror, and codifying the Bush Doctrine.

Dupes all around.

Gleimhart Mantooso , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 8:37 am GMT
@Priss Factor Soleimani was no man of God. He was a muslim, which is the opposite.
Fiendly Neighbourhood Terrorist , says: Website Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 8:42 am GMT
Ok, let's see,

1. Trump was a con man as a businessman. How did anyone imagine he wouldn't be a con man as president?

2. Trump knows which side his bread is buttered. How long do you imagine he would've lasted if he actually did the things he promised, especially ending the Amerikastani Empire, before ending like Kennedy? Six weeks?

3. Whether the author of this article, with whom I sympathise, changes any minds with it is irrelevant. Trump is the Wall Street/military industrial complex/zionist candidate for re election, and his return to power is being arranged even as I write this. The shambolic Daymockratic Party impeachment circus and the bad jokes posing as candidates in their primaries have one purpose alone: to ensure a second term for Donald Trump. What any normal person votes for is irrelevant.

Thulean Friend , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 8:54 am GMT
A common trope on the right is that the left gets what it wants. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just witness the shenanigans the DNC is pulling in the current primaries. When Pelosi theatrically ripped up Trump's speech in the SOTU, she shortly thereafter voted to support the efforts to destabilise Venezuela and support the CIA-handpicked Juan Guaido.

Pro-Israel PACs have flooded the primaries attacking Bernie. CIA puppet Pete Buttigieg is against medicare for all. Democrats do not get what they want. The only thing they get is woke rhetoric but the neoliberal economic system and the imperialist foreign policy remains the same.

Jimmy Dore's reference to the "uniparty" is apt here. So while Mr Griffin's catalogue of Trump's various betrayals is useful, keep in mind that the disease is bipartisan. The US is in many ways a sham democracy where the actors perform kabuki theater. You will never get an honest say on the core principles of the system. Regardless if you're coming from the right or the left. And the media is in on the charade.

freedom-cat , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 9:00 am GMT
Tricky Trump.

He is so duplicitous it's mind boggling. Nancy Pelosi is right when she calls him a liar, although she's no angel herself.

The Jewish Power structure is in total control. Trump WILL BE the final nail in USA coffin, because he is dictating for Israel, now. Israel will make even bigger moves after he is re-elected, for sure. No doubt to further the Yinon plan along.

I voted for him too; but will not be voting at all this year. I refuse to play into their twisted game.

They purposely caused all this Chaos to keep people distracted while Big Tech companies consolidate their power over the internet and the Military Industrial Complex plans the next false flag to kick off the next invasion (Iran & Syria).

My guess is that Jewish Democrats like Schiff, Nader, and proxy Nancy have all been part of this horrible PsyOp that has been going down the last 3 years.

It doesn't matter which "side" you are on anymore because there is really only ONE SIDE.

Nodwink , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 9:06 am GMT
I wouldn't feel bad about being a "Trump Chump" – there are millions of you, after all.

As someone who would be in the Bernie/Tulsi camp if I lived in the USA (but would also be furiously opposed to being swamped by Somalis), here's a little advice, free of charge:

You will never get anywhere being attached to a Party of Capital. They will always want to bring cheap labour into your country, and they don't care what those immigrants do to your family. Money rules. Forget the GOP, and start your own party.

NPleeze , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 9:51 am GMT

Imagine thinking a New York City billionaire is a "populist." LMAO what were we thinking? He told us what we wanted to hear and we believed it.

Not just a NY billionaire, but one who profited from (a) mega-banks, and (b) the ZioNazi media.

His first two reality TV stunts were WWE, and then The Apprentice. The third is his crown achievement.

You call them Trump's Chumps, I've called them TrumpTARDs, because they are fucking useless, mindlessly idiotic fools/rednecks/inbred losers.

Fact is the country doesn't stand a chance, the "resistance" is more pathetic than the globlalists. If the last three years has taught the world anything, it's not just how mindlessly stupid TrumpTARDs are, but how uncivil, rude, aggressive, and downright despicable.

Nobody has harmed the conservative cause more than the Orange Satan.

All, of course, by design. What still gets me is that conservatives are to utterly stupid to fall for it. At least the Liberals caught on that Obama was a fake early on – the TrumpTARDs just can't get enough of sucking that Orange ZioNazi's dick.

sally , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 9:51 am GMT
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52960.htm&#8221 ; < Coronavirus & Global Collapse

https://theintercept.com/2020/02/06/congress-exxon-mobil-eastmed-pipeline-cyprus/ =<pipeline

this who thing looks related to me.. .. the Cornoavirus, the pipeline, the bombings in Syria, the libya-turkey GNA thing, the recent airliner crash in Turkey, I feel something is surfacing

https://friendsforsyria.com/2020/02/07/israeli-airstrikes-on-damascus-suburbs-put-at-risk-civilian-flight-with-172-passengers-on-board-russian-mod/

Trump proved that the nation state system is disastrous for those humans governed by it. The nation state system is great for those few who are the puppet governors of the few that rule the world.

The problem Mr. Griffin is that the article does not recognize that USA citizens who not part of the electoral college cannot vote for either the President or the Vice President. Amendment 12 read it.

We should Trumpet Trump because if we don't we might be next..

NPleeze , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 9:54 am GMT
@MattinLA

There are quite literally hordes of foreigners living here.

Fact is none of the fake conservatives, from the Orange Satan to the Governor of Texas, is against illegal immigration. It would be easy enough to prosecute employers who hire illegals, but neither the Orange Satan, nor any State, be it Wyoming or Texas, so-called "Red" (Communist) states, does anything about it.

But yet the idiot TrumpTARDs wail on and on about how the Orange Satan is their savior and how Republicans are better than Democrats.

It's amazing how unbelievably, astoundingly stupid Americans are.

George Lincoln , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 10:01 am GMT
You are either stupid or lying, I believe lying. I say this because in each of your substantive attacks, you blatantly misstate facts, even obvious ones.

Personally I am honestly and eyes open clinging to the hope that Trump is sincerely doing his best for us, because the alternative is civil war, and if it comes to that, it will come to that. Trump is the last possible peaceful salvation for America.

Here are your lies, which tell me you are not genuine:
> He has refurbished the George W. Bush era fence. Since he has been president, Donald Trump has built all of three new miles of fence,

A blatant and obvious lie to anyone who is tracking the wall progress – "refurbished" means replaced completely ineffective fence, including vehicle barriers which you can literally walk around, with 18-30ft high steel fence. You may jerk off to the technicality that it isn't "new", but we all see through you. Over 100 miles so far with 350 more planned, and he has done it with congress kicking and screaming. He even diverted defense spending for this purpose, against all of Washington's whining and complaining. These are the actions of someone who is sincere.

>there have been no cuts to legal immigration

Bull shit. Blatant lie. 2017 saw a 10% decrease in net migration from 1046 million to 930 million. 2018 down another 25% to 700 million, and 2019 15% to 600 million. That's God damn good work for a man with an entire bureaucracy and 2 parties fighting him. He didn't even get a law to sign and he still cut legal immigration by almost HALF. I can hardly believe it myself it's too good to be true. Why lie?

>Donald Trump hasn't even deported as many illegal aliens as Obama.

You know as well as I do that Obama changed the reporting of deportations to include 'voluntary returns'. Obama deported virtually no one from the interior. Regardless, more importantly, we both know how aggressively both parties and the bureaucracy have fought to prevent Trump from taking action, and yet against all odds he secured agreements with Honduras El Salvador and Guatemala to deport "Asylum seekers" there, making an end run around the legal labyrinth that was keeping them here. That is HUGE and you completely omit it.

You also omitted –

Starting a trade war with China
Supporting the break up of the EU
Demanding funds from allies under our umbrella
Not starting a war in Syria or Iran, both of which they desperately tried to force him into

But most of all, you ignored the fact that the entire intelligence apparatus, the entire media, the entire establishment has sacrificed their credibility in the attack on Trump.

That is the main reason I still have hope. Your lies bald face lies are why I do not believe you are sincere.

gotmituns , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 10:12 am GMT
I love it that the jew and the fag won in Iowa. Of course, I don't love that Trump will probably win in Nov. but the options to him are dismal to say the least. No matter what, once he's out of office the days of this "republic"/empire are surely numbered.
Tom Welsh , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 10:28 am GMT
I disagree that voting for Mr Trump was a mistake. American elections are always a choice of evils, but in this case it was more a choice between rapid extinction of our species and run-of-the-mill evil, killing only the odd million people now and then.

I personally take this cartoon very seriously indeed:

If Hillary Clinton had become President, I believe she would have found a way to start a war with Russia. And that would have resulted in the death of all human beings, plus many other species.

Mr Trump is execrable, it is true. But he has one enormous virtue: for whatever reason, he is extremely open and candid. Whereas US presidents going back to the 19th century did frightful things while smiling genially and pretending to be kind, Mr Trump openly admits how frightful he and his deeds are.

That is hastening the demise of the US empire, which is in the interests of all human beings.

Tom Welsh , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 10:31 am GMT
@MattinLA There are certainly no easy choices. As a foreigner I am hardly in a position to criticize, let alone to encourage US citizens. But perhaps I could remind you of an early President during whose 8 years in power not a single American or foreigner was killed by the US government?

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure".

– Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Stephens Smith (13 November 1787), quoted in Padover's Jefferson On Democracy

anonymous [245] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 10:36 am GMT
@MattinLA IOW, you're going to vote again? For Mr. Trump?

"In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and bloody criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class. Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military banking complex. Now, Trump is being trumpeted as another political outsider.

A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump won't fulfill any of his election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics."

Linh Dinh, "Orlando Shooting Means Trump for President," June 12, 2016, @ The Unz Review.

All the system needs is for you to pick Red or Blue, accepting the results until the next Most Important Election Ever.

Esoteric Schuonian , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 11:16 am GMT
As a first time voter in 2016, Trump's relative inaction on all that he promised has made me more aware than ever of the rot that has set in our political system. I was skeptical that political change could be accomplished prior to 2016 but optimistic. Now I cannot be anymore pessimistic about the future.
anonymous [245] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 11:35 am GMT
@Chet Roman " another conservative judge on the Supreme Court; a change that will impact the next 30+ years. That alone will be enough for me."

Yeah, Right.

Like the impact of all the Republican appointees who issued the ruling in Roe v Wade?

Like the impact of Mr. Kennedy, a Republican choice who helped rewrite the legal definition of marriage?

Like the impact of Mr. Roberts, a Republican choice who nailed down Big Sickness for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries?

What impact do you honestly expect from Mr. Kavanaugh, Mr. Trump's choice who earned his first robe by helping President Cheney with the Patriot Act?

Like the "federal" elections held every November in even-numbered years and the 5-4 decrees of the Court, the partisan judicial nominations and nailbiting confirmation hearings are another part of the RedBlue puppet show that keeps people like Chet Roman voting in the next Most Important Election Ever.

WorkingClass , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 11:36 am GMT
Your disappointment is the inverse of your expectations. Perhaps you should curb your enthusiasm? So what's next? Join the Communists? Boycott the system? That will teach them! Trump is the best looking horse in the glue factory. Do you see a candidate you like better?

Speak for yourself chump.

Sunshine State , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 11:36 am GMT
As Ronald Reagan once noted, the public has once again come to realize there is not much difference between the Party's.
Craig Nelsen , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 11:49 am GMT
The effort to remove Trump from office began before he was even sworn in. In terms of intensity the effort has been unlike anything any of us have ever seen. And that effort has come relentlessly, from all sides. The media, the late night comics, the intelligence services, the kritarchy, the bureaucracy they have been united in thwarting Trump's every move, united in flogging an entirely bogus Russian collusion investigation from his first day in office. And they IMPEACHED the man over nonsense, for crying out loud.

The most powerful elements in this country have thrown, and continue to throw, everything they've got at him. They have brought this country to the brink of a cataclysm for their hatred of Donald Trump and their overriding desire to see him removed from power and his voters punished. Their hatred alone is reason enough to continue to support Trump.

It was a miracle Donald Trump won the presidency. It is a miracle he is still in office. And a miracle is the only thing that can save us.

Do you not remember how utterly hopeless things seemed in 2015? How completely we'd been beaten? There was zero chance the immigration tide could be stopped, for one thing. Do you not realize that it is a miracle that things are slightly less hopeless now? A miracle that, in 2020, we aren't beaten quite so completely? That, by some miracle, the chance of achieving an immigration time-out within the next four years is now greater than zero?

Any Trump supporter who turns on Trump because he disapproves of the job Trump has done as president just shows his own fractiousness, because, in truth, Trump has not yet had a chance to be president. And politically, turning on Trump is particularly boneheaded given there is absolutely no alternative and we are out of miracles.

Just passing through , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 11:53 am GMT
@Divine Right The GOP donors would never allow a fully-fledged White populist candidate to slip through the net, Trump was never such a thing which is why he managed to win the primaries.

By the time the boomers die off, it will be too late and even a White Rights candidate would never won as the demographics will have shifted so much, and this is assuming Whites start skewing towards GOP on the same way Blacks skew towards Democrats. In reality the younger Whites still have the virus of individuality in their minds, thinking that politics is about high-minded ideas instead of group interests.

BuelahMan , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 11:59 am GMT
Poor Brad. I spent all that same time trying desperately to show you how far off you were in the support of an obvious jew water carrier. Twitter (until they dumped me) and then even signing up for your blog.

I left comment after comment with valuable information, obvious and thorough.

You ignored it all, even in the face of its blatant OBVIOUSNESS. You were a Drumpfter and with Trump saying just the right thing, you could probably go back.

It is why I left your site and won't go back. You spent years being totally WRONG.

Reading this is like reading the words of a guilty man who was too stupid to see what was truly right in front of your face. Or one that knew all along but had a different agenda.

Either way, you have zero credibility or discernment when it comes to politics, so why don't you just keep it to yourself.

Me, a dumb ole redneck, called it in Aug 2015 and didn't stop trying to warn the world of this OBVIOUSNESS. You know it and I know it.

John Chuckman , says: Website Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 12:00 pm GMT
Some strong points here, not all of them, but a number.

"He has been a disappointment on all fronts."

No statement could be more accurate.

Trump is a failure, but one with a very loud mouth and a rather twisted psychology that magically converts all failures into successes. Nothing factual ever fazes him.

And the ability to just keep going is a great asset in politics, even if it means you keep going to do destructive things. You actions communicate strength and purpose and determination to ordinary people.

After all, much of the ordinary public literally has no idea what is going on, abroad or at home, so poorly informed are they by the mainline press and the political establishment.

He does a daily war dance of self-praise, finding new phrases to whoop and chant, describing his almost complete failure in the opposite terms.

But because he is doing overall the power establishment's work – against China, against Iran, against Russia, for Israel, and in Latin America – they not only do not oppose him, they support him.

He does his work rudely and utterly without grace.

He is a man who wears his ignorance as though it were a finely-tailored suit.

But the power establishment is okay with the grotesque style, so long as they get the results they want. And they do.

The desired results are mainly negative, not positive, achievements.

But that is the essence of imperial America today, to do harm to others in order to improve its own relative standing. It does almost nothing positive anymore anywhere. It threatens friends and foes alike. It destroys international organizations and order. It supports the creation of chaos, as in Syria or Libya or Yemen.

The contrast of America's now-constant threats and hostilities with China's great Belt and Rail Initiative couldn't be starker. Or with Putin's pragmatic "live and let live" philosophy. We see destruction versus creation. Coercion versus cooperation. Ignorance versus information. Darkness versus light.

So, Trump, with all of grotesqueries and lies, provides almost the perfect President.

Sorry, America, but that is a very great, if ugly, truth.

BuelahMan , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 12:00 pm GMT
@Tom Welsh The lesser of two evils is a sad, twisted and failed idea. Learn a new one.
BuelahMan , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 12:03 pm GMT
@George Lincoln Let's not forget that he is totally and completely surrounded and controlled by Chabad jews.

Good thing, right?

That his every move is something for jews?

That's GOOD, right?

I despise Drumpfters.

Iraq Veteran , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 12:08 pm GMT
@Priss Factor You are so right!
geokat62 , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 12:14 pm GMT

They wear Q shirts

Only until they start wearing JQ shirts will there be hope.

onebornfree , says: Website Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 12:20 pm GMT
"The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can "throw the rascals out" at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy .Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies." Carroll Quigley

And so it goes ..at least until enough people start to understand/believe that the government is their enemy, never their friend , and that a completely unlimited government [i.e. what we currently endure], regardless of who is president, will continue to take more of their money and freedom away on a daily basis because:

"Because they are all ultimately funded via both direct and indirect theft [taxes], and counterfeiting [central bank monopolies], all governments are essentially, at their very cores, 100% corrupt criminal scams which cannot be "reformed"or "improved",simply because of their innate criminal nature." onebornfree

Regards, onebornfree

Robert Dolan , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 12:22 pm GMT
Sadly, it doesn't matter who we vote for as the jewing will continue unabated.

Proof of this is to always ask, "Who benefits?"

And the answer is ALWAYS the jews, and the answer is NEVER white people.

Once you understand what the jews want, what their interests are, and you see that everything that happens seems to be good for the jews, you realize that this awful system is anti-white to the core and it's been engineered by the nose for the nose. There is no other way to explain the fact that the interests of white people are NEVER honored. In fact, the interests of white people are not even given a passing thought.

It's really quite remarkable. And totally insane.

Rusty nail , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 12:23 pm GMT
I knew it was going south in a hurry when he moved into the white house and turned it into something resembling a synagogue.

As an outsider, watching media reporting on American politics, I find myself wondering if I'm not actually viewing Israeli political news. How do Americans not notice this?

zard , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 12:24 pm GMT
Trump's supposed conflict with congress to get funding for the border wall is just a kosher psyop designed to give off the illusion that he is fighting to uphold his campaign promises, when in reality he's just carrying out the jews white genocidal program. He's no different than Obama. Black or white, they take orders from the same political class: the Jews who control the money, the policies, and the media.

But what's most sickening about all this is that the same congress that unanimously votes to give untold billions to Israel in foreign military aid is now telling the American people that there is just not enough money to fund a border wall ! Israel first, America last, that's how congress works.

Why don't the Jews want a strong US border wall built ? Because the JEWS want to genocide White Christian Americans through mass illegal immigration. Why ? Because non-white third world people have lower-iq's and are easier for the Jews to control and make slaves out of.
( Destabilizing society for political gains- Offering stupid people free everything will always get votes, and they know this. )

Funding for the US border wall could be solved overnight by removing Jewish control over the monetary system and cancelling all foreign aid to Israel, but don't except that to happen anytime soon. Nothing has changed since Trump has become president and nothing will. Illegal immigration, poverty, unemployment and wars will accelerate under Trump because those are the natural consequences of following the orders of America hating Jews. Trump isn't playing some 4d chess strategy and all those who still say this are blind, deaf and dumb. The Jews are still in full control of the Federal Reserve and by extension the media, government, courts, law enforcement, education etc. Stop living in a fantasy land and face the facts.

As it was with Bush,Clinton and Obama, the United States is still a vassal state of Israel and controlled by the Jews. We cannot vote ourselves out of this situation. Democracy means Jewish control that breaks down to which political candidate gets the most jewish money and jewish media coverage. The Jews pick our presidents, it doesn't matter if a republican or democrat gets elected, each party is only concerned with advancing the Jewish world government agenda.

Moi , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 12:57 pm GMT
@Priss Factor Regarding Gen. Soleimani, a true martyr, you should have seen how insultingly the moronic ABC World News anchor David Muir brought up the name of Gen. Soleimani at last night's DNC debate. And none of the candidates bothered to correct Muir.
Moi , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 12:59 pm GMT
@Gleimhart Mantooso Keep wallowing in hate and ignorance. Muslims are the only people outside of Christians who revere Jesus, albeit not as god jr. but as as a mighty prophet.
Moi , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 1:01 pm GMT
@Peter Akuleyev The man is lout!
I'm Not Laughing , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 1:09 pm GMT
For sure, Trump has been less than impressive on all fronts. At least he hasn't committed the US to an all-out war with Iran, but I strongly suspect he will do so after he is re-elected.

As far as actual unemployment, January 2020 remains at a stable 21% and all the bs about 3.5% is the usual smoke-and-mirrors:

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts

I think the establishment is once again giving the American voter no real alternatives (but isn't that the point?). Do you want Trump or a Jewish communist, Trump or Indiana's little Peewee Buttfudge? Whatever. The final result will always be "X" is president in a White House filled with zionists. Everything American crumbles while the Israelis continue the dance they started on 9/11.

Anonymous [346] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 1:09 pm GMT
Machiavelli wrote that the best people to take power are not the best people to run the government. The implication is precisely that: use the chumps and then discard them.

Despite all the technology, some things haven't changed.

Sam J. , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 1:19 pm GMT
@Divine Right " My read of the situation is that Donald Trump is almost certainly going to lose the general election, despite the confident predictions of an incoming Trumpslide by deluded supporters. In his defeat, he'll take the last vestiges of Reagan conservatism down with him "

Your comment is very interesting. While I didn't like it emotionally. Intellectually it was excellent.

I have all of the same complaints as Brad Griffin. I have to admit my perfidy as I have at times believed in Q and other times I haven't. Right now I'm at the, we'll see, stage as I have no idea what is going to happen and if he so wished Trump could fall on the deep State like a bear trap. If he is going to do this then the delay til he can get in a more honest set of judges and push out some the worst of the actors makes sense. Even his wishy washy staffing the place to the gills with Jews and inconsistent policies. He has several times stated positions and done things that have put his enemies in very awkward positions that are difficult to weasel out of. He could still take down portions of the deep State. We'll have to see but I admit it doesn't look good.

Former CIA head William Casey once said, and it is verified, something like that when no one knows what the truth is the CIA had done it's job. I think we are at that stage now.

If Trump does not reign in the deep State, meaning the Jews for all practical purposes, or even if he loses the election I suspect strongly that a vast tsunami of Whites will instantly lose faith in government. I think it likely that if Trump loses it will be a psychic shock.

If Trump has no plan to take on the deep State and Q is just a deep State actor to delay the day of reckoning I hope Trump does lose.

There's a path, a very scary one, that may be what Q is all about if he is a deep State actor. Computer power has continued to increase combined with neural nets computing. The time line for a $1,000 computer chip with the computing power of a human is 2025. It may be off by a little but it will happen. If when this happens and the Jews are still in control they could, combined with 5G, build what ever robot army they wished for around 10 or 20 thousand dollars a piece and murder us all. Elon Musk global network in space would also allow them global dominance. I've always been suspicious of Elon being a Jew while supporting what he is doing as being good for the country. When he immigrated to Canada from South Africa he first had a job at a bank supposedly with one of this relatives. He also has been extremely capable in raising vast sums of capital. Jews are much more able to do this due to nepotism. He denies being a Jew.

Sam J. , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 1:32 pm GMT
@NPleeze " Nobody has harmed the conservative cause more than the Orange Satan ."

Nobody has harmed the FAKE JEW conservative cause more than the Orange Satan.

Fixed it for you.

Johnny Walker Read , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 1:45 pm GMT
Trump is very much a chump and a liar, as pretty much every president has been from the beginning. This will include supposed great presidents like Lincoln, Wilson, Teddy and FD Roosevelt, Reagan, Obama, and yes, even the vaunted JFK.

The problem is and always has been "Murkans" find themselves a political party and basically sign up for life. They never seem to learn no matter who is put into office, the slow slide to a full blown Marxist type Oligarchy marches on. I cannot fathom why people go to political rallies and wave and cheer for known liars and charlatans, hanging on their every promise as if it came from God himself.

Nothing is ever going to change in this country until the corporate money is eliminated from politics, until lobbying for political favors is made illegal, until BOTH corrupt political parties currently running America are shown the ash heap of history, AND until people realize there is more politics than marking a ballot.

This country will only be made well when the citizens start attending city, county, and state government meetings and demand the constitution be upheld. Without our involvement at every level of government, it is easy for the shysters and crooks to grow fat through graft and corruption.

The choice is ours and ours alone, but if history is any indicator of what will be, I say we be in deep shit.

KenH , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 1:47 pm GMT
@George Lincoln

Bull shit. Blatant lie. 2017 saw a 10% decrease in net migration from 1046 million to 930 million. 2018 down another 25% to 700 million, and 2019 15% to 600 million. That's God damn good work for a man with an entire bureaucracy and 2 parties fighting him

Where's the link for this claim? At the 2019 SOTU Trump bragged that immigrants would be coming to the USA in "the largest numbers ever" under his administration.

Candidate Trump vowed to end H1B visas but president Trump now supports expanding the program. Candidate Trump vowed to deport Dreamers and all other illegal aliens. Candidate Trump says he'll work with Congress to allow Dreamers to stay in the U.S. and avoid deportation.

But most of all, you ignored the fact that the entire intelligence apparatus, the entire media, the entire establishment has sacrificed their credibility in the attack on Trump.

Outside of a few of exceptions like Comey, Strzok and McCabe there's been almost no consequences for any crazy leftists or deep state operatives for attacking Trump. At most, some (((MSM))) talking heads have suffered decreased viewership, but that hasn't slowed them down one iota while the FBI has viciously retaliated against high profile Trump supporters like Mike Flynn and Roger Stone.

I thought Trump was going to go after Hillary if elected and "lock her up?" That was just one of his many lies and dog whistles.

Johnny Walker Read , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 1:53 pm GMT
More on "Pete the Cheat" Buttigieg, not the harmless little rump ranger mayor you have been led to believe he is.
https://www.winterwatch.net/2020/02/mayor-pete-the-spook-a-favorite-of-the-kakistocracy-and-parasite-guild/
Truth3 , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 2:13 pm GMT
Yes, Trump is an idiot I know well. I spent a day with him.

The real problem has been, when we have a candidate that would be good for America, the Jews and the Jewish controlled media destroy him, and the people do not react appropriately.

Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader all offered their talents for the job. See what happened?

Trump is not the problem. He's the symptom.

Go after the root.

Gerhard Menuhin understood this well enough he named his book accordingly.

Because life is relatively short, the people adapt a "go along to get along" mentality. They fear losing their rice bowl (job) so they act like coolies (slaves).

People need to change the essential failing thinking only of themselves.

Better to be a martyr once than a slave 10,000 times.

fool's paradise , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 2:17 pm GMT
Since both parties are hopelessly corrupt enemies of the people, I vote third party if I can, so I didn't vote for Trump but I was glad he beat Hillary, because Hillary was a known evil, and Trump? I liked his campaign promises, to make friends with Russia, to get out of NATO, to stop the "stupid" Mideast wars, to echo Lindbergh by his motto "America First", which promised a kind of paleo-conservative "isolationism", i.e., stay home, mind our own business, stop policing the world with regime-change wars. I wrote off his Border Fence as unworkable. And he started off well. He called most TV news Fake News. He said Media was "the enemy of the people". Wow! What other politician told such a truth? He met with Putin in Helsinki and believed Putin's word over his own "Intelligence", and Wow!, again. But it didn't last. His enemies were after him (Russia! Russia! Russia!) from Day One, and after the Putin meeting FBI and CIA and Media all called him a TRAITOR! Media bad-mouthed him 24/7 for months, and I believe Trump finally caved, joined our enemies in the Swamp he had promised to drain, because he didn't have the balls to stand up to the constant, unrelenting pressure on him. His first choices for Secty of State,of Defense, were okay, but then he hired the awful Bolton and then the noxious Pompeo, he surrounded himself with the loyal-to-Israel Neocons, and now Netanyahu is our President, not Trump.

So he has become just another enemy of the people. If Bernie is screwed out of the Dem nomination, as he was last time, I hope he starts a Third Party, with Ron Paul as his Vice, and Tulsi Gabbard as Secty of State.

remington , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 2:24 pm GMT
inclined to agree. perhaps q-anon is part of this charade?
ken , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 2:29 pm GMT
@Gizmo880 Add to that, who would champion any of these changes in either chamber of Congress? This article perfectly reflects the adolescent whining that permeates the unz site that everything is not going exactly as I want.
bjondo , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 2:39 pm GMT

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_wMntDFfAhQ?feature=oembed

https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/02/07/tucker-carlson-sounds-the-alert/

5ds

Really No Shit , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 2:40 pm GMT
You deserve to be drunk on the junk offered by the Drumpf a narcissistic hedonist from Manhattan in real estate business (where 9 out of 10 largest real estate enterprises are owned by Jews), who was desperate at times to hold on to that thing which is most dear to him, the title of unmitigated billionaire, and which could not be hold on to without the blessings of the Central Park "rabbis" and one who had married non-native white women of dubious origin (possibly Jewish), at least 2 out of 3 times and a man who wasn't known for his christian (assuming he is one) piety or charity was suddenly the savior of the White nationalists.

You're right about one thing: give a drowning (White nationalist) man enough rope and he will hang himself!

Glock45 , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 2:49 pm GMT
@nsa Trumpstein actually did something about the H1B visa program .he increased it claiming we need more of these half priced "brainiacs". Can't find enough discount American code scribblers, you know.

Bingo.

BTW, back in the mid 00s when I had certifications in C# programming and SQL, my phone was literally ringing off the hook with job offers and I never went more than 1 week without a contract job. In the following years working for a large company in the industry, I gained even more experience in other things in IT that interested me such as machine learning, parallel programming and cloud computing.

When that company went south in 2016 I lost my job. Furiously searching for a job, it took NINE months before I landed another. When I talked with all the local head-hunting contractor firms and IT placement companies, they all told me the same story: all the local companies are pretty much only hiring H1B's now in their IT departments.

Absolutely disgusting.

That along with many other things that I've seen since 2016 have convinced me that my children have no future here in this shithole country.

MLK , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 2:51 pm GMT

In the final two years of the Obama administration (2015 and 2016), the Alt-Right was thriving on social media and was brimming with energy.

Yes, in service to Hillary and the Democrats. Not all who called themselves alt-right, but beyond question it was a "movement" that was and still is wholly compromised. I know it's hard for you to hear, and despite whatever else he peddled, Freud was on to something when it came to Projection.

It doesn't surprise me that this author has memory-holed his movement's high water mark -- Hillary's alt-right speech. Throughout the 2016 campaign, while little went Hillary's way, she consistently drew royal straight flushes, with David Duke, Richard Spencer and various other agents-provocateur, going on CNN and MSNBC declaring their support for Trump.

Here's your buddy Richard Spencer days after Trump won the election:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/1o6-bi3jlxk?feature=oembed

A word to the wise, anyone who didn't know to whom this character belongs, and long before this moment, should assiduously avoid the word 'chump.'

I won't paint with a broad brush. To the extent that anyone cares, it was and remains rather easy to figure out which in the so-called alt-right can't be trusted. Whether because the FBI or someone else has them by the short-hairs, or they're Leninist/Stalinist filth doing their part for the cause.

That includes those writing articles like this, lamenting that Trump betrayed you after you voted for him by being a great president for African Americans too.

Timing is rarely coincidental. Thus this jibber jabber comes just after Trump defeated the latest coup attempt and even Democrat allied-media is finally forced to begin to concede that he'll win reelection.

Trump will do so with historic support from blacks and Hispanics (for a Republican). Which is why Democrats and their allied-media are again feverishly pushing their "white nationalist" button again.

Glock45 , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 2:58 pm GMT
Meh, c'mon guys.

Any day now the "GOD EMPEROR (!!!)" is going to "UNLEASH THE STORM!!!"

Oh, yeah, sure some Jews get beat up in midtown Manhattan and Trump swings into action quicker than whale shit thru an ice floe passing EOs that end up practically paving the way to make it illegal to criticize Jews

Um, OK he sure was quick and decisive for them.

But surely he will get around to doing something for the goys too!!!

Just wait and "trust the plan!"

Ragno , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 2:58 pm GMT

The reasons why I voted for Donald Trump in 2016 were immigration, trade, foreign policy, political correctness and campaign finance and furthering these big ideas of "nationalism" and "populism."

Well then you are a chump. The only tactical reason to have voted for Trump was to deny Hillary Clinton executive power . That was the sole reason any conservative or rightist had to participate in Our National Sham. To believe that he was going to reintroduce "nigger" to the national lexicon by 2018 was head-in-the-clouds foolishness.

Thwarting Soros/Hillary remains his major contribution* to American politics: under Trump, the masks on the other side have all come off. There is no longer any subterfuge about the Unholy Trinity of the Far Left, meaning the Democratic Party, the mainstream media and the hostage institutions such as academia and local/state government. The rabid doubling-down of the anti-white Deep State – unthinkable with a nabob like McConnell or Romney in the Oval Office – is another plus to the Trump Administration: what the talking heads all nervously refer to as the "deep divisions" in our country is one of the few signs of mental health and vitality America has experienced in a half-century's worth of decline.

Nobody was going to reverse that half-century in three or four years – it was a physical impossibility; just as no one was going to pry off Team Shmuel's death-grip without at least pretending not to. Ten years would be insufficient for such tasks. But it doesn't mean you petulantly vow to starve yourself because half a loaf is an insult.

*= it's rarely brought up but his quietly appointing centrist/conservative judges to the bench, boring as it may seem to tiki-torch revolutionaries, still represents an important step in the right direction and is probably his second major contribution to the struggle,

Moi , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 2:58 pm GMT
@Father O'Hara Perfect!
MikeatMikedotMike , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:04 pm GMT
@BuelahMan For example?
Desert Fox , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:05 pm GMT
Trump is the reincarnation of the Roman emperor Caligula and the present government of the ZUS is a reincarnation of the later days of the Roman empire, in every way!
MikeatMikedotMike , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:06 pm GMT
@I'm Not Laughing Pool's closed.
Anonymous [137] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:07 pm GMT
Great article, and the most depressing one I've read in a long time.
KA , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:17 pm GMT
@MattinLA America has faced problem like this in the past It will solve the problem in similar or identical terms . Thats what it does It provides a ruse . Now the ruse is not covering the corners of the lying lips even before next set of problems emerge straight from the solution.
Anon [398] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:18 pm GMT
I agree with the Jew in hating Christ.

I am gainfully employed by the FBI.

I eat ranch dressing on every meal.

I AM A PROUD WHITE NATIONALIST!

Niebelheim , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:19 pm GMT
Trump isn't a god and there's so much to criticize about his track record, all true. But at minimum, Trump did delay the socialist takeover of the federal judiciary. As disgusting as his kowtowing has been of the neocons that control the Deep State, the invasion of Iran has still yet to materialize. How would a Hillary presidency have fared with Scalia's replacement and a no-fly zone over Syria? Good bye First and Second Amendment. The alternative to Trump is grim.
KA , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:20 pm GMT
@Sam J. FAKE JEW conservative

He has not harmed the FAKE He has not harmed the JEW

He might have harmed some conservatives But they are not neoconservatives.

Trinity , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:21 pm GMT
@Tom Welsh As bad as Trumpstein is, and make no mistake, the cuckold for Coco-Zionists is bad, Clinton and company would have been even worse. In 2020 we have anti-White demsheviks like Butt-Plug, the first openly homosexual candidate for Prez, Warren, Biden and flat out commie Jew, Sanders, and Jew Bloomberg. I guess the Jew is ready to come out of the shadows and openly run for Prez just like homosexual Butt-Plug. Of course it could be said that we have a Jew as POTUS right now, President Baby Nut&Yahoo and his VP Jared Kushner.

The biggest thing Trumpstein has done as Prez is expose how fake the Jew media is, but lets not kid ourselves, with the exception of Tucker Carlson ( even Tucker doesn't tell the total truth and he won't touch the JQ) even the neocons at FOX and OAN don't tell the complete truth, and sometimes they do more harm by telling 90% truth and 10% lies than commie anti-White networks like CNN, MSNBC and all the rest.

Trumpstein is a native New Yorker, what did you really expect?? The guy has been around criminal Jews all his life, he has Jew lawyers, his daughter has converted to Judaism and she married an orthodox Jew. As bad as our past Presidents were, some claim LBJ, FDR, and even Eisenhower might have been Jews or had Jewish blood flowing through their shabbos goy veins, Trump might be the biggest cuckold yet when it comes to the biggest shabbos goy Prez of all time.

Until a UNITED STATES PRESIDENT OR OFFICIAL GOES AFTER GEORGE SOROS AND THE LIKE AND SERIOUSLY SEEKS TO IMPRISON HIM AND OTHERS FOR FLOODING OUR COUNTRY WITH ILLEGAL INVADERS, WE DON'T HAVE A LEGIT PRESIDENT.

Do you think Hitler would have stood by and allowed non-Germans or traitorous Germans to flood Germany with Turks or Pakis and then went out and told throngs of people how he is keeping Germany first? Come on, man. Trump is better than the alternative, BUT the new boss isn't much different than the old boss. Just another cuckold influenced by his Jewish masters and Jewish money.

WJ , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:23 pm GMT
@Priss Factor It's amusing to read the rabid Trump haters on the right. They have a better option?

Some of the Trump haters say we should just let the whole thing burn down and that Trump is controlled opposition delaying the inevitable and preferred civil war. These are people that won't give up their Netflix, won't give up whatever outlet Game of Thrones is on and won't even put down their IPhone. It's absurd.

It's always about horrible vs less horrible.

Charles Pewitt , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:23 pm GMT
Trump is a fat-assed, baby boomer politician whore for the evil and immoral globalizer treasonites in the JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire.

Trump has been screaming like a three dollar whore politician about flooding the USA with mass legal immigration "in the largest numbers ever."

Trump has refused to deport the upwards of 30 million illegal alien invaders in the USA.

Trump has kept the American Empire garrisons and bases forward deployed and stuck in muck hole regions of the globe.

Trump has put the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the American Empire.

Trump is a bought and paid for three dollar whore politician for Jew billionaires Shelly Adelson and Paul Singer and Bernie Marcus and other billionaire bastards.

Trump has kept his fat mouth shut about the Fed-created and monetary policy induced asset bubbles in stocks, bonds and real estate. In 2016, fat ass baby boomer bastard Trumpy was calling these same damn asset bubbles nothing but "fat, ugly bubbles." In 2016 Trump said "we are in a big, fat, ugly bubble" and the asset bubbles in stocks, bonds and real estate are only bigger and uglier and fatter now.

I hereby challenge baby boomer fat ass Trumpy -- and Teddy Cruz, Marco Rubio, Dan Crenshaw, Tom Cotton and any other GOP puke who wants to show up -- to a debate on mass legal immigration and mass illegal immigration, tax policy, trade policy, foreign policy, monetary policy, American national identity, multicultural mayhem, White Genocide and any other damn thing.

Vote for CHARLES PEWITT as a Write-In candidate for president in New Hampshire and Nevada and South Carolina and every other state presidential primary.

Charles Pewitt Immigration Pledge:

IMMIGRATION MORATORIUM NOW!

DEPORT ALL ILLEGAL ALIEN INVADERS NOW!

REMOVE THE FOREIGNERS NOW!

REMOVE ALL WHITES OR OTHERS THAT ARE HOSTILE TO THE EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN ANCESTRAL CORE OF THE USA

Ban The Bat Soup Fever People Now!

The Charles Pewitt write-in campaign for president of the USA has called for the immediate implementation of a BAT SOUP FEVER BAN which will quarantine the rest of the world, including Canada and Mexico. All foreigners currently occupying US territory will be immediately removed and they will be put on barges with baloney sandwiches for sustenance on their long voyage back to wherever the Hell they came from. Those who have deliberately shredded their identification -- like Pelosi shredding Trumpy's speech -- shall be put in a baloney sandwich camp in sub-Saharan Africa and kept there indefinitely.

The Charles Pewitt write-in campaign for president has stated numerous times that open borders mass legal immigration and open borders mass illegal immigration brings infectious diseases to the USA and this new fangled BAT SOUP FEVER is just EBOLA with more sniffles and the walking pneumonia and the boogie woogie bat soup fever blues.

The Charles Pewitt ban on the Bat Soup Fever People, plus all the other foreigners for good measure, will bring massive benefits to the American people.

The Charles Pewitt ban on all foreigners in combination with a massive removal of all foreigners in the USA will boost wages, lower housing costs, reduce income inequality, lower class sizes, protect the environment, restore cultural cohesion, give US workers more bargaining power, reduce belly fat, reduce commuting times, provide relief for overwhelmed hospitals and be good for regular Americans and bad for globalizer banker money-grubbing nasty people.

The Charles Pewitt presidency will extinguish all student loan debt and pay back all student loan debt ever paid plus 6 percent interest accrued yearly.

The Pewitt Conjured Loot Portion will grant each American citizen with all blood ancestors born in colonial America or in the USA before 1924 the sum of ten thousand dollars a month -- tax free.

The Pewitt Tax Pledge will abolish the payroll tax and reduce federal income taxes substantially for all Americans making below 300, 000 dollars a year. Billionaires will be declared illegal and they will be financially liquidated and the federal corporate tax rate shall be 80 percent and 100 percent for all corporations that have gone offshore.

God Bless America And Ban The Bat Soup Fever People Now!

Write In CHARLES PEWITT For President On Your Ballot -- God Bless The USA!

WJ , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:24 pm GMT
@MattinLA Clinton /Kaine promised up comprehensive amnesty in the first one hundred days of their administration. Did we get that under Trump?
Turk 152 , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:31 pm GMT
@Divine Right If the Democrats have Pete steal the nominatin, then you can be sure they want to give Trump the election. I dont think they control Bliombverg, more likely, he controls them so I would call him a wild card. Sanders would win the election, but as you can see in Iowa, the criminals running the DNC, aka Hillary, are a much bigger threat to him then Trump.
RadicalCenter , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:36 pm GMT
@Father O'Hara Proper response would have been a kick in the balls and "you ARE a Fat Jewish dick."
Trinity , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:38 pm GMT
@Charles Pewitt And you actually think that guy has a legit shot at winning? And you actually think he will be able to keep all of his promises? The more I learn about what Hitler had to overcome to become Chancellor of Germany, you realize that men like Hitler are rare and only come along once every couple hundreds of years. And Germany wasn't mixed with every kind of brown and yellow race under the Sun either, America is a different animal altogether. I am not sure if even a man like Hitler could turn America around in 2020. It will take A LOT OF WORK TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, odds are unless we do a 180% turn, America is going out with a whimper and sooner rather than later.
RadicalCenter , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:41 pm GMT
@alex in San Jose AKA Digital Detroit Net immigration has definitely NOT been outward. Both legal and illegal migration into the USA are still massive, larger than the outflow from all appearances. The net result, and this is without reference to the race or color or religion of the wave of immigrants:

a more crowded, more polluted, more expensive, less trusting society where tens of millions of people cannot communicate effectively with each other in English and US citizens whose families have been here for generations or even a couple centuries have a harder and harder time finding full-time jobs with decent pay, benefits, and HAHA a pension.

eah , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:42 pm GMT
@Chet Roman After the last 3 years of seditious behavior of lying politicians like Schiff , Nadler and Pelosi and the traitorous schemes of deep state actors like Weismann, Vindman, Sondland and Yovanovitch

(That would be Andrew Weis s mann.)

See JEW COUP: SEDITIOUS JEWS ORCHESTRATING TRUMP IMPEACHMENT LYNCHING

Trump will continue to kiss Jew ass though -- and don't forget: the Democrats are the real anti-Semites.

Z-man , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:50 pm GMT
While I agree with your main point, what are you going to do? Vote for lil' Mike Bloomberg? Mayor Pete? LOL. These clowns are completely controlled. Yes this system has boxed us in but Trump at least gives the illusion of revolt, and he still isn't 100% controlled, only 99%.(Grin) Others will have to pick up the mantle of revolt against the 'Deep State' when he is gone.
For the time being thankfully Tucker Carlson, Rand Paul and other America First types will be pushing Trump to follow his campaign promises, however little he actually does. Because the alternative, Biden, Bloomberg, the mayor Pete & company, is considerably worse.

The main strikes against Trump are 1. His even more fawning than anticipated towards the Zionist beast. But most of that was predictable however regrettable. 2. His acquiescence to the Republi'tard tax cuts which has only benefited the rich. The Republicans lost big in the mid terms because of those cuts but 'lo and behold' Trump was still there. 3. All the other shit-lib policies that Trump ignored or even supported, like increases in 'legal' immigration. That's the fault of his dopey daughter and her weird Zionist/Orthodox Jew husband. With the son-in-law's one sided 'Deal of the Century' falling flat on its face, hopefully this will hasten the moving of said weird son-in-law and dopey daughter back to NYC 'one'. Then hopefully Trump will turn to advice from the likes of Carlson and Paul who will appeal to his inner America First soul.

Meena , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 3:51 pm GMT
@Ragno Thwarting Soros/Hillary remains his major contribution* to American politics: under Trump, the masks on the other side have all ""

How has he exactly ?
Soros and Hillary occupy certain positions . Now they are gone but taken over by some other guys and gals .
It's a job . New employees still haven't been awarded the best employee award yet . That will come at the retirement for the next set of people to carry on with the same anonymity.

We all know PNAC. How many will bother to know what the new letter head organizations the same crazy bunch are heading now with new faces ?

Trinity , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 4:03 pm GMT
Whether it is the openly anti-White demshevik candidate who wins or Trump, it is a win-win for the Jew. And our demshevik buddies have already hinted at locking up any White who might have the temerity to whine about his or her countries being flooded with browns, yellows and other hues of hostile third world biological weapons of mass destruction or God any White who blasphemes the self avowed "masters of the universe" who control America's media, much of our judicial system, and apparently own all of our serious candidates for POTUS should face imprisonment according to some of these certifiable cuckold nutjobs. As I commented earlier, Hitler wasn't some mentally disturbed madman who munched on carpet when enraged, he was a brilliant and brave man, but even Hitler didn't have to overcome the odds that anyone elected as the American President has to overcome. The Jewish dream of making America a polyglot of every kind of race under the sun with more colors than a rainbow has become true. Hitler only had the Jew to worry about for the most part, while the American President has to tackle not only Jewish power and influence, he has a country full of Chinese, Arabs, East Indians, Africans, Hispanics of all sorts, just your common everyday African American with a chip on his shoulder the size of a boulder, and all other assorted groups of malcontents demanding handouts while at the same time cursing our nation and thinking Whitey owes them something for nothing.
Agent76 , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 4:05 pm GMT
Slavery is alive and well for those who cannot thier chains.

Jul 22, 2009 Speaker Pelosi on Restoring Pay-As-You-Go Budget

Discipline Today, the House passed the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act 2009 (HR 2920) by a vote of 265-166.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/jmiU_C2UEdM?feature=oembed

Jan 20, 2017 Here's how much debt the US government added under President Obama

Based on quarterly data released by the US Treasury, the debt at the end of 2008 – just before Obama took office – stood at roughly $10,699,805,000,000. As of the third quarter of 2016, the most recent data available, the debt as Obama is set to leave office stood at $19,573,445,000,000.

https://amp.businessinsider.com/national-debt-deficit-added-under-president-barack-obama-2017-1

Charles Pewitt , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 4:07 pm GMT
@Trinity The USA will thrive like never before after doing two simple things:

3 measly little hikes to the federal funds rate and remove all the foreigners and the spawn of the foreigners.

The Pewitt presidential administration shall order the privately-controlled Federal Reserve Bank to raise the federal funds rate from the current level below 2 percent to 6 percent and then to 10 percent and then to 20 percent. This whole series of asset bubbles the last 40 years can be traced back to 1981 when the federal funds rate was 20 percent. Deliberate asset bubble implosions now!

Implode the asset bubbles and financially liquidate the greedy White nation wreckers born before 1965.

Young White Core Americans must be free of the DEBT BOMB MILLSTONE destroying their future and their country.

The Pewitt presidential administration shall order the Fed to begin contracting the Fed's balance sheet and there will be a complete halt to dollar swaps and liquidity injections and all the other monetary extremism crud that keeps the asset bubbles in stocks and bonds and real estate inflated.

The Pewitt presidential administration shall order the immediate implementation of an immigration moratorium and will begin the immediate deportation of all 30 million illegal alien invaders in the USA. All foreigners and their spawn shall be immediately removed from the USA and the members of the Deportation Force that puts this policy into action will get 1 million dollars a year for their patriotic efforts.

Politics in the USA Distilled For My Fellow Americans:

DEBT and DEMOGRAPHY

Monetary Policy

Immigration Policy

The USA must get back to a population of 220 million like it was in 1978.

Desert Fox , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 4:21 pm GMT
@Charles Pewitt The zionist owned FED must be abolished, this is the key to the zionist control of America and Americans.
anon_382 , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 4:27 pm GMT
@alex in San Jose AKA Digital Detroit

means less when they calmly retort, "I was leaving anyway"

OMG please do

Turk 152 , says: Show Comment February 8, 2020 at 4:40 pm GMT
After Iowa, i'm unclear why anyone still thinks the DNC is interested in making any sort of meaningful change to our system towards socialism; rest assured they are not. They blatantly committed election fraud to support the mayor from the CIA, Pete. If he fails, they will put their full support behind Bloomberg, the very definition of a right wing candidate. The threat to our ruling class is not Trump, its Sanders.

Trump supports Israel, billionaires, Big Corporations, wars for Oil, Wall Street and so will the DNC candidates Pete and Bloomberg. The rest are just wedge issues to give the masses the illusion of choice.

Current Commenter

[Feb 05, 2020] Anyone who believes that Donald Trump was serious about reducing our military adventurism is deluding themselves.

Feb 05, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

gnt 6 hours ago

Anyone who believes that Donald Trump was serious about reducing our military adventurism is deluding themselves.

The theme of forcing other countries to support our aims is central to his foreign policy, and he escalates all conflicts in hopes of forcing others to concede. None of that was hidden during 2016. It's also consistent with how his businesses have treated small vendors. The Trump you see is not some creation of the deep state, or a product of aggressive investigations. It's the Trump that has always been there. He's a bully. He's always been a bully, and he always will be a bully.

You might have missed the evidence in 2016, but you can't pretend in 2020 that Trump is the guy who will minimize the use of force to accomplish his goals.

kouroi 11 hours ago
But how else will the US force the other countries to renounce their sovereign status and relinquish their economies to the extractive, parasitic greed of Wall Street? Andrew Mellon's brother, Richard, used to say that being in the business of steel making, one needs a machine gun... When one seeks to be the Hegemon (ultimate monopolist), one needs "full spectrum dominance"!
Kent 11 hours ago
"We need to recognize that our hyper-militarized foreign policy achieves nothing except to foment more conflict that kills and displaces innocent people in huge numbers."

That's called a "self-licking ice cream cone". The more you spend on something to fix something else, it only causes an increase in the something else, which causes you to have to spend more. It is the entire basis of the US defense, healthcare and legal markets.

[Feb 05, 2020] The diehard Trump fans placed too much hope and faith in the miscreant's foreign policy

Feb 05, 2020 | off-guardian.org

Charlotte Russe ,

The diehard Trump fans placed too much hope and faith in the miscreant's foreign policy. They thought voting for the buffoon was a way of securing rapprochement with Russia and less militarism. Let's face it, in 2016 the two nominees were reprehensible–there was NO good choice. The electorate could choose the terrible warmonger Hillary, who would accelerate Obama's imperialist policies against Russia, China, and the Middle East or they could vote for the "phony" supposed non-interventionist.

The bottomline as always is that the "winner" is completely subjugated to the foreign policy whims of the security/surveillance state. It's naive to think otherwise. During the last three years there's been an internal conflict between various factions of the military/security/ surveillance state, but generally speaking they've done quite well under Trump. In fact, when it comes to foreign policy it's almost as if Hillary had been elected ..

[Feb 01, 2020] Trump fought the swamp, and the swamp won

Feb 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I'm a little worried about Donald Trump. I'm worried he may be on the verge of a sudden, major heart attack, or a stroke, or a fatal golfing accident.

Food poisoning is another possibility. Or he could overdose on prescription medication. A tanning bed mishap is not out of the question.

He could accidentally hang himself during autoerotic asphyxiation, or get shot by a lone-wolf white supremacist terrorist trying to start the RaHoWa. The Russians could spray him with that Novichok perfume.

There are any number of ways he could snuff it.

I don't mean to sound alarmist, but the Resistance is running out of non-lethal options for removing Donald Trump from office. Here they are, in no particular order


TG , says: Show Comment January 27, 2020 at 6:40 pm GMT

Cute, but seriously: Trump has been pretty much hammered into toeing the party line. The oligarchy still doesn't like him, and it has taken a lot of effort to reign in him, but rhetoric aside he's currently governing a lot like Hilary Clinton would have. The borders are still open to illegal immigrants and the rich have their cheap labor, we're still wasting trillions on pointless winless foreign wars, our manufacturing base is pretty much hollowed out, we're still shoveling trillions of dollars in direct and indirect subsidies to Wall Street, big medicine is still busy with organized looting ('surprise medical billing', anyone?), you get the idea.

Trump fought the swamp, and the swamp won. The 2020 election looks to be yet another heads they win/tails we lose circus. Trump is in no danger, IMHO.

Unless Bernie gets the nomination. Now there's a politician that needs to worry about his health

Ozymandias , says: Show Comment January 27, 2020 at 6:48 pm GMT
You're overlooking the obvious contingency plan for the Dems: Biden will recruit Terry Crews or Tiny Lister for his VP candidate. Of course the Veep will have to dress transgender and change their name to Cornpop, but that's a small price to pay. The future of the country is at stake.
WorkingClass , says: Show Comment January 27, 2020 at 7:44 pm GMT
It has become clear to Bernie's supporters that they and the Deplorables have the same enemies. The more the media demonize Bernie in the same way they demonize Trump the stronger Bernie will become. Bernie doesn't need to be in Iowa. CNN and the NYT are working for him. Fake news is also stupid news.
Curmudgeon , says: Show Comment January 27, 2020 at 9:00 pm GMT

the total stranglehold the Russians now have on American democracy

I'm grateful Mr. Hopkins sorted that out for us.

Anon [111] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 28, 2020 at 8:03 pm GMT
@Nancy O'Brien Simpson

CJ Hopkins has to be one of the best political commentators alive today. His writing is both hilarious and profound. No easy fete.

Yes, absolutely exquisite use of the language to ridicule the ridiculous "resistance."

Clearly, Andy Kaufmann (aka Latka Gravis) did not die: he slinked away to politics and took on the mantle of Schifty the Popeyed Crackpot California Congressman.

Omegabooks , says: Show Comment January 31, 2020 at 5:52 am GMT
Love this Hopkins dude!

Dead President Walking .or walking contradiction? Dead or not

eah , says: Show Comment January 31, 2020 at 8:39 am GMT
Hopkins entertainingly finds the black humor in all of this -- but none of it is funny, even darkly so -- the reason it isn't funny is that millions of decent, hard-working Americans are chained to this amoral freak show via the coercive tax system.
OverCommenter , says: Show Comment January 31, 2020 at 3:13 pm GMT
Well nothing of value would be lost Trump hasn't drained the swamp, locked her up, or built the wall. In fact the only people that have been arrested are Paul Manafort and Roger Stone. I was going to add a string of "lols" tied together, but this place is classier than that.

Honestly it might be a good thing, because then Pence would be president. Think about it, then the Evangelicals who the GoP relies on their vote, but have also been strung along for decades getting none of the social issues addressed while, and then also being blamed for everything from war in the Middle East to every social problem. I think it would be good for them to see the righteous avatar Pence ascend to the throne, and then completely shun and ignore them. Maybe that will finally wake them up.

[Feb 01, 2020] Trump is just another in a long line of big-mouthed, self-important scam artists always, was, and always will be

Far right is now against Trump. Interesting...
Feb 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

onebornfree , says: Website Show Comment January 31, 2020 at 1:37 pm GMT

So they bump off Trump. So what?

Trump was never going to "drain the swamp". I knew this back in 2015 when he started to campaign: http://onebornfree-mythbusters.blogspot.com/2015/08/do-you-suffer-from-dictator-syndrome.html

When/where did he ever talk about reducing the Federal government to its original constitutional functions? Never.

When/where did he ever talk about re-enforcing the Bill of Rights on the Feds? Never.

When/where did he ever talk about getting rid of the income tax and the IRS? Never.

When/where did he ever talk about getting rid of the FBI, the CIA, the Federal Reserve, the NSA, the FDA, the CDC, the EPA [all unconstitutional] etc.etc. etc. ad infinitum? Never, that's when.

He's just another in a long line of big-mouthed, self-important scam artists – always, was, and always will be.

I feel sorry for the naive individuals who were fooled, and those who continue to be fooled. Maybe at least some of them have now learned a valuable lesson.

Regards, onebornfree

Bro43rd , says: Show Comment January 31, 2020 at 2:03 pm GMT
@onebornfree
You are correct that orange man was a manchurian candidate. But I still felt good giving the ptb a good poke in the eye.
Tucker , says: Show Comment January 31, 2020 at 2:20 pm GMT
@TG I said over a year ago, around the time this Orange Cuck Master gave that SOTU speech and reversed almost every policy promise he made to his 63 million supporters on his #1 most important issue, i.e., the border wall, deporting illegals, ending DACA on day one, drastically reducing legal immigration – which is even more destructive to the future of the GOP to win any more elections than is illegal immigration, the whole package that got people off their sofas and down to the polls to vote for him – that it was obvious to me that the globalist deep state had finally gotten their hands on some kind of leverage over him and had finally put their dog collar around his Orange lying neck.

Was it related to Jeffrey Epstein? Who knows. I'm sure it is possible, with the way degenerate behavior seems to now run amok within the super rich and elitist circles. Heck, the morals of the entire country have pretty much descended into the sewer these days.

I think we are in the last days of this empire's history. I see no White knight waiting in the wings who will ride to the rescue, and if one did emerge – only half of the country would support them and the other half of totalitarian, sexual and moral degenerates would want to kill him.

What we need is a collapse and breakup of America.

[Feb 01, 2020] Trump and globalism

Feb 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

Al Monee , says: Show Comment January 27, 2020 at 11:22 pm GMT

@Nancy O'Brien Simpson Sept 24, 2019: "The future does not belong to the globalists." -Donald Trump declares during his speech to UN General Assembly

Sept 24 later that day: "The President must be held accountable" -Nancy Pelosi declares during her official launch of impeachment inquiry

Globalism is the ideological, economic and political platform thru which the 'Empire of the 0.1%' best achieves the looting and subjugation of the rest.

So in spite of all his other offerings to them, the Elites still desperately want Trump out. That's why.

Tusk , says: Show Comment January 28, 2020 at 1:21 am GMT
I like this bit:

The "Crush Bernie" movement is just getting started, but you can tell the Resistance isn't screwing around. Hillary Clinton just officially launched her national "Nobody Likes Bernie" campaign at the star-studded 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Influential Jewish journalists like Bari Weiss and Jeffrey Goldberg, and Ronald Lauder's newly-founded Anti-Semitism Accountability Project, have been Hitlerizing him, or, rather, Corbynizing him. Obama has promised to "stop him," if necessary. MSNBC anchor Joy Reid brought on a professional "body language expert" to phrenologize Sanders "live" on the air and, as I said, they're just getting started.

Considering that nearly everything described happened to Trump in a similar manner. So two ways of looking at this: Bernie should be able to easily get above this since Trump managed to win despite a similar campaign, or accepting that Bernie is screwed and wonder if Trump was initially treated fairly.

Longfisher , says: Show Comment January 28, 2020 at 4:57 pm GMT
"Hillary Clinton just officially launched her national "Nobody Likes Bernie" campaign "

Yep, that's just like the absolutely lovely, equanimity-embracing, ever-fair-minded, " lady " she's always been.

Longfisher , says: Show Comment January 28, 2020 at 5:12 pm GMT
@Dutch Boy I like some of Bernie's political stances, there are two of them, only two. But, they pale into insignificance in comparison to the near hundred of other utterly inane and unworkable political stances / policies which he advocates.

I'm a pretty run of the mill American. And, I'm an independent voter, although I lean conservative. So, I don't believe my below expressed assessment and prediction is anything but mainstream.

Bernie's toast and he's toast even without what appears to be a very concerted campaign by the elites and the Democrats (hahaha, a distinction without a difference) to end any chance that he'll be nominated.

As the author correctly points out, Trump will be re-elected if he survives the next 9 months to stand for re-election.

That said, Mr. Trump appears to be willing to betray his 2016 campaign position on opposing America's endless wars as he appears to be willing to start a war with Iran. I feel betrayed. If I'd have wanted more foreign wars and/or the deepening of already existing foreign wars I'd have voted for Killary.

So, although I'll vote in the 2020 Federal elections, I'll leave the check boxes for President on the ballot unchecked.

[Jan 31, 2020] Trump excoriates Bolton in tweets this morning

Highly recommended!
Trump is lying. Bolton was appointed by Adelson and Trump can't refuse Adelson protégé.
Jan 31, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Trump excoriates Bolton in tweets this morning:
"For a guy who couldn't get approved for the Ambassador to the U.N. years ago, couldn't get approved for anything since, 'begged' me for a non Senate approved job, which I gave him despite many saying 'Don't do it, sir,' takes the job, mistakenly says 'Libyan Model' on T.V., and ... many more mistakes of judgement [sic], gets fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?"

IMO, Trump is a fantastic POTUS for this day and age, but he wasn't on his A game when he brought Bolton onboard. He should have known better and, was, apparently, warned. Maybe Trump thought he could control him and use him as a threatening pit bull. Mistake. Bolton is greedy as well as vindictive.

Posted by: Eric Newhill | 29 January 2020 at 09:30 AM

[Jan 30, 2020] The Neocons Strike Back by Jacob Heilbrunn

Notable quotes:
"... A chorus of neocons rushed to second his praise: Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA officer and prominent Never Trumper, lauded Trump's intestinal fortitude, while Representative Liz Cheney hailed Trump's "decisive action." It was Carlson who was left sputtering about the forever wars. "Washington has wanted war with Iran for decades," Carlson said . "They still want it now. Let's hope they haven't finally gotten it." ..."
"... Neoconservatism as a foreign policy ideology has been badly discredited over the last two decades, thanks to the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in the blinding flash of one drone strike, neoconservatism was easily able to reinsert itself in the national conversation. It now appears that Trump intends to make Soleimani's killing -- which has nearly drawn the U.S. into yet another conflict in the Middle East and, in typical neoconservative fashion, ended up backfiring and undercutting American goals in the region -- a central part of his 2020 reelection bid . ..."
"... The neocons are starting to realize that Trump's presidency, at least when it comes to foreign policy, is no less vulnerable to hijacking than those of previous Republican presidents, including the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. The leading hawks inside and outside the administration shaping its approach to Iran include Robert O'Brien, Bolton's disciple and successor as national security adviser; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook; Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; David Wurmser, a former adviser to Bolton; and Senators Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton. Perhaps no one better exemplifies the neocon ethos better than Cotton, a Kristol protégé who soaked up the teachings of the political philosopher Leo Strauss while studying at Harvard. Others who have been baying for conflict with Iran include Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who is now Trump's personal lawyer and partner in Ukrainian crime. In June 2018, Giuliani went to Paris to address the National Council of Resistance of Iran, whose parent organization is the Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e-Khalq, or MeK. Giuliani, who has been on the payroll of the MeK for years, demanded -- what else? -- regime change. ..."
"... The fresh charge into battle of what Sidney Blumenthal once aptly referred to as an ideological light brigade brings to mind Hobbes's observation in Leviathan : "All men that are ambitious of military command are inclined to continue the causes of war; and to stir up trouble and sedition; for there is no honor military but by war; nor any such hope to mend an ill game, as by causing a new shuffle." The neocons, it appears, have caused a new shuffle. ..."
"... the killing of Soleimani revealed that the neocon military-intellectual complex is very much still intact, with the ability to spring back to life from a state of suspended animation in an instant. Its hawkish tendencies remain widely prevalent not only in the Republican Party but also in the media, the think-tank universe, and in the liberal-hawk precincts of the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, the influence and reach of the anti-war right remains nascent; even if this contingent has popular support, it doesn't enjoy much backing in Washington beyond the mood swings of the mercurial occupant of the Oval Office. ..."
"... The neocons supplied the patina of intellectual legitimacy for policies that might once have seemed outré. ..."
"... But it was the neoconservatives, not the paleocons, who amassed influence in the 1990s and took over the GOP's foreign policy wing. Veteran neocons like Michael Ledeen were joined by a younger generation of journalists and policymakers that included Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol (who founded The Weekly Standard in 1994), Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas J. Feith. The neocons consistently pushed for a hard line against Iraq and Iran. In his 1996 book, Freedom Betrayed, for example, Ledeen, an expert on Italian fascism, declared that the right, rather than the left, should adhere to the revolutionary tradition of toppling dictatorships. In his 2002 book, The War Against the Terror Masters, Ledeen stated , "Creative destruction is our middle name. We tear down the old order every day." ..."
"... Still, a number of neocons, including David Frum, Max Boot, Anne Applebaum, Jennifer Rubin, and Kristol himself, have continued to condemn Trump vociferously for his thuggish instincts at home and abroad. They are not seeking high-profile government careers in the Trump administration and so have been able to reinvent themselves as domestic regime-change advocates, something they have done quite skillfully. In fact, their writings are more pungent now that they have been liberated from the costive confines of the movement. ..."
"... And so, urged on by Mike Pompeo, a staunch evangelical Christian, and Iraq War–era figures like David Wurmser , Trump is apparently prepared to target Iran for destruction. In a tweet, he dismissed his national security adviser, the Bolton protégé Robert O'Brien, for declaring that the strike against Soleimani would force Iran to negotiate: "Actually, I couldn't care less if they negotiate," he said . "Will be totally up to them but, no nuclear weapons and 'don't kill your protesters.'" Neocons have been quick to recognize the new, more belligerent Trump -- and the potential maneuvering room he's now created for their movement. Jonathan S. Tobin, a former editor at Commentary and a contributor to National Review , rejoiced in Haaretz that "the neo-isolationist wing of the GOP, for which Carlson is a spokesperson, is losing the struggle for control of Trump's foreign policy." Tobin, however, added an important caveat: "When it comes to Iran, Trump needs no prodding from the likes of Bolton to act like a neoconservative. Just as important, the entire notion of anyone -- be it Carlson, former White House senior advisor Steve Bannon, or any cabinet official like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- being able to control Trump is a myth." ..."
"... One reason is institutional. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Hudson Institute, and AEI have all been sounding the tocsin about Iran for decades. Once upon a time, the neocons were outliers. Now they're the new establishment, exerting a kind of gravitational pull on debate, pulling politicians and a variety of news organizations into their orbit. The Hudson Institute, for example, recently held an event with former Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who exhorted Iran's Revolutionary Guard to "peel away" from the mullahs and endorsed the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign. ..."
"... Meanwhile, Wolfowitz, also writing in the Times , has popped up to warn Trump against trying to leave Syria: "To paraphrase Trotsky's aphorism about war, you may not be interested in the Middle East, but the Middle East is interested in you." With the "both-sides" ethos that prevails in the mainstream media, neocon ideas are just as good as any others for National Public Radio or The Washington Post, whose editorial page, incidentally, championed the Iraq War and has been imbued with a neocon, or at least liberal-hawk, tinge ever since Fred Hiatt took it over in 2000. ..."
"... Above all, Trump hired Michael Flynn as his first national security adviser. Flynn was the co-author with Ledeen of a creepy tract called Field of Fight, in which they demanded a crusade against the Muslim world ..."
"... At a minimum, the traditional Republican hard-line foreign policy approach has now fused with neoconservatism so that the two are virtually indistinguishable. At a maximum, neoconservatism shapes the dominant foreign policy worldview in Washington, which is why Democrats were falling over themselves to assure voters that Soleimani -- a "bad guy" -- had it coming. Any objections that his killing might boomerang back on the U.S. are met with cries from the right that Democrats are siding with the enemy. This truly is a policy of "maximum pressure" at home and abroad. ..."
Jan 23, 2020 | newrepublic.com

There was a time not so long ago, before President Donald Trump's surprise decision early this year to liquidate the Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, when it appeared that America's neoconservatives were floundering. The president was itching to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan. He was staging exuberant photo-ops with a beaming Kim Jong Un. He was reportedly willing to hold talks with the president of Iran, while clearly preferring trade wars to hot ones.

Indeed, this past summer, Trump's anti-interventionist supporters in the conservative media were riding high. When he refrained from attacking Iran in June after it shot down an American drone, Fox News host Tucker Carlson declared , "Donald Trump was elected president precisely to keep us out of disaster like war with Iran." Carlson went on to condemn the hawks in Trump's Cabinet and their allies, who he claimed were egging the president on -- familiar names to anyone who has followed the decades-long neoconservative project of aggressively using military force to topple unfriendly regimes and project American power over the globe. "So how did we get so close to starting [a war]?" he asked. "One of [the hawks'] key allies is the national security adviser of the United States. John Bolton is an old friend of Bill Kristol's. Together they helped plan the Iraq War."

By the time Trump met with Kim in late June, becoming the first sitting president to set foot on North Korean soil, Bolton was on the outs. Carlson was on the president's North Korean junket, while Trump's national security adviser was in Mongolia. "John Bolton is absolutely a hawk," Trump told NBC in June. "If it was up to him, he'd take on the whole world at one time, OK?" In September, Bolton was fired.

The standard-bearer of the Republican Party had made clear his distaste for the neocons' belligerent approach to global affairs, much to the neocons' own entitled chagrin. As recently as December, Bolton, now outside the tent pissing in, was hammering Trump for "bluffing" through an announcement that the administration wanted North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. "The idea that we are somehow exerting maximum pressure on North Korea is just unfortunately not true," Bolton told Axios . Then Trump ordered the drone strike on Soleimani, drastically escalating a simmering conflict between Iran and the United States. All of a sudden the roles were reversed, with Bolton praising the president and asserting that Soleimani's death was " the first step to regime change in Tehran ." A chorus of neocons rushed to second his praise: Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA officer and prominent Never Trumper, lauded Trump's intestinal fortitude, while Representative Liz Cheney hailed Trump's "decisive action." It was Carlson who was left sputtering about the forever wars. "Washington has wanted war with Iran for decades," Carlson said . "They still want it now. Let's hope they haven't finally gotten it."

Neoconservatism as a foreign policy ideology has been badly discredited over the last two decades, thanks to the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in the blinding flash of one drone strike, neoconservatism was easily able to reinsert itself in the national conversation. It now appears that Trump intends to make Soleimani's killing -- which has nearly drawn the U.S. into yet another conflict in the Middle East and, in typical neoconservative fashion, ended up backfiring and undercutting American goals in the region -- a central part of his 2020 reelection bid .

The anti-interventionist right is freaking out. Writing in American Greatness, Matthew Boose declared , "[T]he Trump movement, which was generated out of opposition to the foreign policy blob and its endless wars, was revealed this week to have been co-opted to a great extent by neoconservatives seeking regime change." James Antle, the editor of The American Conservative, a publication founded in 2002 to oppose the Iraq War, asked , "Did Trump betray the anti-war right?"

In the blinding flash of one drone strike, neoconservatism was easily able to reinsert itself in the national conversation.

Their concerns are not unmerited. The neocons are starting to realize that Trump's presidency, at least when it comes to foreign policy, is no less vulnerable to hijacking than those of previous Republican presidents, including the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. The leading hawks inside and outside the administration shaping its approach to Iran include Robert O'Brien, Bolton's disciple and successor as national security adviser; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook; Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; David Wurmser, a former adviser to Bolton; and Senators Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton. Perhaps no one better exemplifies the neocon ethos better than Cotton, a Kristol protégé who soaked up the teachings of the political philosopher Leo Strauss while studying at Harvard. Others who have been baying for conflict with Iran include Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who is now Trump's personal lawyer and partner in Ukrainian crime. In June 2018, Giuliani went to Paris to address the National Council of Resistance of Iran, whose parent organization is the Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e-Khalq, or MeK. Giuliani, who has been on the payroll of the MeK for years, demanded -- what else? -- regime change.

The fresh charge into battle of what Sidney Blumenthal once aptly referred to as an ideological light brigade brings to mind Hobbes's observation in Leviathan : "All men that are ambitious of military command are inclined to continue the causes of war; and to stir up trouble and sedition; for there is no honor military but by war; nor any such hope to mend an ill game, as by causing a new shuffle." The neocons, it appears, have caused a new shuffle.


Donald Trump has not dragged us into war with Iran (yet). But the killing of Soleimani revealed that the neocon military-intellectual complex is very much still intact, with the ability to spring back to life from a state of suspended animation in an instant. Its hawkish tendencies remain widely prevalent not only in the Republican Party but also in the media, the think-tank universe, and in the liberal-hawk precincts of the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, the influence and reach of the anti-war right remains nascent; even if this contingent has popular support, it doesn't enjoy much backing in Washington beyond the mood swings of the mercurial occupant of the Oval Office.

But there was a time when the neoconservative coalition was not so entrenched -- and what has turned out to be its provisional state of exile lends some critical insight into how it managed to hang around respectable policymaking circles in recent years, and how it may continue to shape American foreign policy for the foreseeable future. When the neoconservatives came on the scene in the late 1960s, the Republican old guard viewed them as interlopers. The neocons, former Trotskyists turned liberals who broke with the Democratic Party over its perceived weakness on the Cold War, stormed the citadel of Republican ideology by emphasizing the relationship between ideas and political reality. Irving Kristol, one of the original neoconservatives, mused in 1985 that " what communists call the theoretical organs always end up through a filtering process influencing a lot of people who don't even know they're being influenced. In the end, ideas rule the world because even interests are defined by ideas."

At pivotal moments in modern American foreign policy, the neocons supplied the patina of intellectual legitimacy for policies that might once have seemed outré. Jeane Kirkpatrick's seminal 1979 essay in Commentary, "Dictatorships and Double Standards," essentially set forth the lineaments of the Reagan doctrine. She assailed Jimmy Carter for attacking friendly authoritarian leaders such as the shah of Iran and Nicaragua's Anastasio Somoza. She contended that authoritarian regimes might molt into democracies, while totalitarian regimes would remain impregnable to outside influence, American or otherwise. Ronald Reagan read the essay and liked it. He named Kirkpatrick his ambassador to the United Nations, where she became the most influential neocon of the era for her denunciations of Arab regimes and defenses of Israel. Her tenure was also defined by the notion that it was perfectly acceptable for America to cozy up to noxious regimes, from apartheid South Africa to the shah's Iran, as part of the greater mission to oppose the red menace.

The neocons supplied the patina of intellectual legitimacy for policies that might once have seemed outré.

There was always tension between Reagan's affinity for authoritarian regimes and his hard-line opposition to Communist ones. His sunny persona never quite gelled with Kirkpatrick's more gelid view that communism was an immutable force, and in 1982, in a major speech to the British Parliament at Westminster emphasizing the power of democracy and free speech, he declared his intent to end the Cold War on American terms. As Reagan's second term progressed and democracy and free speech actually took hold in the waning days of the Soviet Union, many hawks declared that it was all a sham. Indeed, not a few neocons were livid, claiming that Reagan was appeasing the Soviet Union. But after the USSR collapsed, they retroactively blessed him as the anti-Communist warrior par excellence and the model for the future. The right was now a font of happy talk about the dawn of a new age of liberty based on free-market economics and American firepower.

The fall of communism, in other words, set the stage for a new neoconservative paradigm. Francis Fukuyama's The End of History appeared a decade after Kirkpatrick's essay in Commentary and just before the Berlin Wall was breached on November 9, 1989. Here was a sharp break with the saturnine, realpolitik approach that Kirkpatrick had championed. Irving Kristol regarded it as hopelessly utopian -- "I don't believe a word of it," he wrote in a response to Fukuyama. But a younger generation of neocons, led by Irving's son, Bill Kristol, and Robert Kagan, embraced it. Fukuyama argued that Western, liberal democracy, far from being menaced, was now the destination point of the train of world history. With communism vanquished, the neocons, bearing the good word from Fukuyama, formulated a new goal: democracy promotion, by force if necessary, as a way to hasten history and secure the global order with the U.S. at its head. The first Gulf War in 1991, precipitated by Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, tested the neocons' resolve and led to a break in the GOP -- one that would presage the rise of Donald Trump. For decades, Patrick Buchanan had been regularly inveighing against what he came to call the neocon " amen corner" in and around the Washington centers of power, including A.M. Rosenthal and Charles Krauthammer, both of whom endorsed the '91 Gulf War. The neocons were frustrated by the measured approach taken by George H.W. Bush. He refused to crow about the fall of the Berlin Wall and kicked the Iraqis out of Kuwait but declined to invade Iraq and "finish the job," as his hawkish critics would later put it. Buchanan then ran for the presidency in 1992 on an America First platform, reviving a paleoconservative tradition that would partly inform Trump's dark horse run in 2016.

But it was the neoconservatives, not the paleocons, who amassed influence in the 1990s and took over the GOP's foreign policy wing. Veteran neocons like Michael Ledeen were joined by a younger generation of journalists and policymakers that included Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol (who founded The Weekly Standard in 1994), Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas J. Feith. The neocons consistently pushed for a hard line against Iraq and Iran. In his 1996 book, Freedom Betrayed, for example, Ledeen, an expert on Italian fascism, declared that the right, rather than the left, should adhere to the revolutionary tradition of toppling dictatorships. In his 2002 book, The War Against the Terror Masters, Ledeen stated , "Creative destruction is our middle name. We tear down the old order every day."

We all know the painful consequences of the neocons' obsession with creative destruction. In his second inaugural address, three and a half years after 9/11, George W. Bush cemented neoconservative ideology into presidential doctrine: "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." The neocons' hubris had already turned into nemesis in Iraq, paving the way for an anti-war candidate in Barack Obama.

But it was Trump -- by virtue of running as a Republican -- who appeared to sound neoconservatism's death knell. He announced his Buchananesque policy of "America First" in a speech at Washington's Mayflower Hotel in 2016, signaling that he would not adhere to the long-standing Reaganite principles that had animated the party establishment.

The pooh-bahs of the GOP openly declared their disdain and revulsion for Trump, leading directly to the rise of the Never Trump movement, which was dominated by neocons. The Never Trumpers ended up functioning as an informal blacklist for Trump once he became president. Elliott Abrams, for example, who was being touted for deputy secretary of state in February 2017, was rejected when Steve Bannon alerted Trump to his earlier heresies (though he later reemerged, in January 2019, as Trump's special envoy to Venezuela, where he has pushed for regime change). Not a few other members of the Republican foreign policy establishment suffered similar fates.

Kristol's The Weekly Standard, which had held the neoconservative line through the Bush years and beyond , folded in 2018. Even the office building that used to house the American Enterprise Institute and the Standard, on the corner of 17th and M streets in Washington, has been torn down, leaving an empty, boarded-up site whose symbolism speaks for itself.


Still, a number of neocons, including David Frum, Max Boot, Anne Applebaum, Jennifer Rubin, and Kristol himself, have continued to condemn Trump vociferously for his thuggish instincts at home and abroad. They are not seeking high-profile government careers in the Trump administration and so have been able to reinvent themselves as domestic regime-change advocates, something they have done quite skillfully. In fact, their writings are more pungent now that they have been liberated from the costive confines of the movement.

It was Trump -- by virtue of running as a Republican -- who appeared to sound neoconservatism's death knell.

But other neocons -- the ones who want to wield positions of influence and might -- have, more often than not, been able to hold their noses. Stephen Wertheim, writing in The New York Review of Books, has perceptively dubbed this faction the anti-globalist neocons. Led by John Bolton, they believe Trump performed a godsend by elevating the term globalism "from a marginal slur to the central foil of American foreign policy and Republican politics," Wertheim argued . The U.S. need not bother with pesky multilateral institutions or international agreements or the entire postwar order, for that matter -- it's now America's way or the highway.

And so, urged on by Mike Pompeo, a staunch evangelical Christian, and Iraq War–era figures like David Wurmser , Trump is apparently prepared to target Iran for destruction. In a tweet, he dismissed his national security adviser, the Bolton protégé Robert O'Brien, for declaring that the strike against Soleimani would force Iran to negotiate: "Actually, I couldn't care less if they negotiate," he said . "Will be totally up to them but, no nuclear weapons and 'don't kill your protesters.'" Neocons have been quick to recognize the new, more belligerent Trump -- and the potential maneuvering room he's now created for their movement. Jonathan S. Tobin, a former editor at Commentary and a contributor to National Review , rejoiced in Haaretz that "the neo-isolationist wing of the GOP, for which Carlson is a spokesperson, is losing the struggle for control of Trump's foreign policy." Tobin, however, added an important caveat: "When it comes to Iran, Trump needs no prodding from the likes of Bolton to act like a neoconservative. Just as important, the entire notion of anyone -- be it Carlson, former White House senior advisor Steve Bannon, or any cabinet official like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- being able to control Trump is a myth."

In other words, whether the neocons themselves are occupying top positions in the Trump administration is almost irrelevant. The ideology itself has reemerged to a degree that even Trump himself seems hard pressed to resist it -- if he even wants to.

How were the neocons able to influence another Republican presidency, one that was ostensibly dedicated to curbing their sway?

One reason is institutional. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Hudson Institute, and AEI have all been sounding the tocsin about Iran for decades. Once upon a time, the neocons were outliers. Now they're the new establishment, exerting a kind of gravitational pull on debate, pulling politicians and a variety of news organizations into their orbit. The Hudson Institute, for example, recently held an event with former Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who exhorted Iran's Revolutionary Guard to "peel away" from the mullahs and endorsed the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign. The event was hosted by Michael Doran, a former senior director on George W. Bush's National Security Council and a senior fellow at the institute, who wrote in The New York Times on January 3, "The United States has no choice, if it seeks to stay in the Middle East, but to check Iran's military power on the ground." Then there's Jamie M. Fly, a former staffer to Senator Marco Rubio who was appointed this past August to head Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; he previously co-authored an essay in Foreign Affairs contending that it isn't enough to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities: "If the United States seriously considers military action, it would be better to plan an operation that not only strikes the nuclear program but aims to destabilize the regime, potentially resolving the Iranian nuclear crisis once and for all."

Meanwhile, Wolfowitz, also writing in the Times , has popped up to warn Trump against trying to leave Syria: "To paraphrase Trotsky's aphorism about war, you may not be interested in the Middle East, but the Middle East is interested in you." With the "both-sides" ethos that prevails in the mainstream media, neocon ideas are just as good as any others for National Public Radio or The Washington Post, whose editorial page, incidentally, championed the Iraq War and has been imbued with a neocon, or at least liberal-hawk, tinge ever since Fred Hiatt took it over in 2000.

But there are plenty of institutions in Washington, and neoconservatism's seemingly inescapable influence cannot be chalked up to the swamp alone. Some etiolated form of what might be called Ledeenism lingered on before taking on new life at the outset of the Trump administration. Trump's overt animus toward Muslims, for example, meant that figures such as Frank Gaffney, who opposed arms-control treaties with Moscow as a member of the Reagan administration and resigned in protest of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, achieved a new prominence. During the Obama administration, Gaffney, the head of the Center for Security Policy, claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood had infiltrated the White House and National Security Agency.

Above all, Trump hired Michael Flynn as his first national security adviser. Flynn was the co-author with Ledeen of a creepy tract called Field of Fight, in which they demanded a crusade against the Muslim world: "We're in a world war against a messianic mass movement of evil people." It was one of many signs that Trump was susceptible to ideas of a civilizational battle against "Islamo-fascism," which Norman Podhoretz and other neocons argued, in the wake of 9/11, would lead to World War III. In their millenarian ardor and inflexible support for Israel, the neocons find themselves in a position precisely cognate to evangelical Christians -- both groups of true believers trying to enact their vision through an apostate. But perhaps the neoconservatives' greatest strength lies in the realm of ideas that Irving Kristol identified more than three decades ago. The neocons remain the winners of that battle, not because their policies have made the world or the U.S. more secure, but by default -- because there are so few genuinely alternative ideas that are championed with equal zeal. The foreign policy discussion surrounding Soleimani's killing -- which accelerated Iran's nuclear weapons program, diminished America's influence in the Middle East, and entrenched Iran's theocratic regime -- has largely occurred on a spectrum of the neocons' making. It is a discussion that accepts premises of the beneficence of American military might and hegemony -- Hobbes's "ill game" -- and naturally bends the universe toward more war.

At a minimum, the traditional Republican hard-line foreign policy approach has now fused with neoconservatism so that the two are virtually indistinguishable. At a maximum, neoconservatism shapes the dominant foreign policy worldview in Washington, which is why Democrats were falling over themselves to assure voters that Soleimani -- a "bad guy" -- had it coming. Any objections that his killing might boomerang back on the U.S. are met with cries from the right that Democrats are siding with the enemy. This truly is a policy of "maximum pressure" at home and abroad.

As Trump takes an extreme hard line against Iran, the neoconservatives may ultimately get their long-held wish of a war with the ayatollahs. When it ends in a fresh disaster, they can always argue that it only failed because it wasn't prosecuted vigorously enough -- and the shuffle will begin again.

Jacob Heilbrunn is the editor of The National Interest and the author of They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons. @ JacobHeilbrunn

Read More Politics , The Soapbox , Donald Trump , Islamic Republic of Iran , Qassem Soleimani , Bill Kristol , Irving Kristol , David Frum , John Bolton , Norman Podhoretz , Doug Feith , Paul Wolfowitz , George W. Bush , George H.W. Bush , Ronald Reagan , Pat Buchanan , Mike Pompeo , Tom Cotton , Lindsey Graham , Rudy Giuliani , Gulf War , Iraq War , Cold War , Francis Fukuyama , Jeane Kirkpatrick

[Jan 29, 2020] For the last three years, all the "resistance oxygen" was sucked up by the warmongering against Russia

Highly recommended!
Jan 29, 2020 | off-guardian.org

Charlotte Russe ,

Trump doesn't have a thing to fear he's been a huge asset to the security state, whose Russiagate theatrics provided mainstream media news with just enough bullshit to distract the public, so that Trump could never be aggressively attacked from the Left. For the last three years, all the "resistance oxygen" was sucked up by the warmongering against Russia. Meanwhile, this enabled Trump to successfully pass a slew of reactionary legislation and fasttrack numerous lifetime appointments to the federal court without barely a whimper from the phony Dems. In fact, the Democrats unanimously voted for Trump's military budget. The same idiot they called unhinged was given the power to start WWIII.

No matter how much liberals complain–the wealthy are happy with the status quo and the right-wing Evangelicals are as pleased as punch. However, there's quite a large number of disaffected Trump voters looking at Tulsi, but could eventually come Bernie's way. Especially, if Tulsi endorses Bernie. This discontented bunch includes the working-poor, the indebted young, and all the folks who are not doing economically well under Trump's fabulous stock market. It especially includes the military families who were promised an end to the miserable foreign interventions. Bernie, has some appeal to these folks. His platform certainly resonates with all those who can barely pay their health insurance
premiums, and whose salary is NOT nearly considered a living wage. But Bernie could win hands-down and steal Trump's base, if he only had the courage to UNAPOLOGETICALLY speak out against US imperialism and connect all the dots explaining how the security state plundered the treasury for decades f–king over the working-class.

[Jan 27, 2020] The end of Trump? Trump betrayed all major promises of his 2016 election campaign. Trump needs to go...

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... This may well be a fatal mistake of his. And while i have thought Trump to be the lesser evil compared to Clinton, i am now at a point where i seriously fear what his ignorance and slavery to the neocon doctrine may bring the world in 4 more years. ..."
"... besides much talk and showmastery, he has not really changed anything substantial in this regard; Nothing that could seriously change the course. ..."
"... So he stripped himself of any true argument to vote for him, besides for ultra neocons and ultra fundamental evangelical Christians. And even they don't seem to trust in his intentions. ..."
Jan 27, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

EveryoneIsBiased , 26 January 2020 at 04:40 PM

Thank you Colonel; I have been waiting for your take on this. And thank you for opening the comments again. If there is a problem with my post, please point them out to me.

And i agree. This may well be a fatal mistake of his. And while i have thought Trump to be the lesser evil compared to Clinton, i am now at a point where i seriously fear what his ignorance and slavery to the neocon doctrine may bring the world in 4 more years.

Still, immigration is another important issue, but besides much talk and showmastery, he has not really changed anything substantial in this regard; Nothing that could seriously change the course.

So he stripped himself of any true argument to vote for him, besides for ultra neocons and ultra fundamental evangelical Christians. And even they don't seem to trust in his intentions.

And China? He may have changed some small to medium problems for the better, but nothing is changed in the overall trend of the US continuing to loose while China emerges as the next global superpower.

It may have been slowed for some years; It may even have been accelerated, now that China has been waken up to the extend of the threat posed by the US.

North Korea? They surely will never denuclearize. Even less after how Trump showed the world how he treats international law and even allies.

With Trump its all photo ops and showmanship. And while he senses what issues are important, it is worth a damn if he butchers the execution, or values photo ops more than substantial progress.

Not that i would see a democratic alternative. No. But at least now everyone who wants to know can see, that he is neither one.

4 years ago, democracy was corrupted, but at least there was someone who presented himself as an alternative to that rotten establishment.
Now, even that small ray of light is as dark as it gets.
And that is the saddest thing. What worth is democracy, when one does not even have a true alternative, besides Tulsi on endless wars, and Bernie for the socialist ;) ?

I just have watched again the Ken Burns documentary of the civil war. I know it is not perfect (Though i love Shelby Foote's parts), but the sense of the divided 2 Americas there, is still the same today. Today, America seems to break apart culturally, socially and economically on the fault lines that have sucked it into the civil war over 150 years ago.

And just like with seeing no real way out politically, i sadly can see no way to heal and unite this country, as it never was truly united after the civil war, if not ever before. As you Colonel said some weeks ago, the US were never a nation.

And looking at other countries, only a major national crisis may change this.
A most sad realization. But this hold true also for other western countries, including my own.

An even worse decade seems to be ahead.

[Jan 25, 2020] Trump is a typical neocon lier -- he promised to pay off the national debt in eight years and just increased it with his tax cut for the rich and outsized military spending

Jan 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

CarteroAtómico , 1 minute ago link

But why are Trump and Pompeo continuing the policy of Obama and Clinton there? Remember Trump said he would pay off the national debt in 8 years? How about stop spending our money on the War Party's foreign interventions for a starter.

[Jan 24, 2020] Now Three Years into the Reign of Trump, What's Left by Roger D. Harris

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ..."
Jan 22, 2020 | dissidentvoice.org

Class Trumps Partisan Differences

On January 20, Donald G. Trump completed his third year in office. My one blog that received five-digit Facebook shares predicted Trump would lose in 2016. I was spectacularly wrong but not alone. Even the Las Vegas bookies thought Clinton was a shoo-in with her unbeatable two-punch knockout of (1) I'm not Trump and (2) World War III with the Russians would be peachy at least until the bombs start falling. What could possibly have gone wrong?

More to the point, the unexpected victory of Trump was the historical reaction to the bankruptcy of Clinton-Bush-Obama neoliberalism. Now after three years of Mr. Trump, what's left?

During the George W. Bush years – he's now viewed favorably by a majority of Democrats – Democrats could wring their tied hands to the accolades of their base. My own Democrat Representative Lynn Woolsey stood up daily in the House and denounced Bush's Iraq war. For a while there was a resurgent peace movement against US military adventures in the Middle East, which was even backed by some left-leaning liberals.

But the moment that Obama ascended to the Oval Office, the Iraq War became Obama's war, Bush's secretary of war Gates was carried over to administer it, and Woolsey forgot she was for peace. No matter, Obama, the peace candidate, would fix it. Just give him a chance. For eight years, Obama was given a chance and the peace movement went quiescent.

Trump takes office

Surely a Republican president, I thought, would harken a rebirth of the peace movement given the ever-inflated war budget and the proliferation of US wars. The US is officially at war with Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and Niger. To the official list are any number of other states subject to drone attacks such as Iran, Pakistan, and Mali. And then there are some 30 countries targeted with illegal unilateral coercive measures as form of economic warfare. Yet a funny thing happened on the way to the demonstration.

With Republicans in control of both Congress and the White House, my expectation was that Democrats would safely take a giant step to the right in accordance with their Wall Street funders, while safely keeping a baby step to the left of the Republicans appeasing their liberal-leaning base. To certain extent, this is what happened with Trump's tax cut for the wealthy. The Democrats could and did claim that their hands were once again tied wink, wink to their Wall Street handlers.

Yet on many more fundamental issues, the Democrats did not take advantage of paying lip service to their base's economic priorities by attacking the Republicans on their weak left flank. No, the Democrats mounted an assault on the Republicans from the right with what The Hill called Pelosi's "fiscally hawkish pay-as-you-go rules," increasing the war budget , and launching Russiagate . Instead of appealing to working people on bread and butter issues, the Democrats gave us turbo-charged identity politics.

Bernie Sanders had raised genuine issues regarding runaway income inequality and plutocratic politics. However, Sanders was suppressed by a hostile corporate press and an antagonistic Democratic Party establishment, which arguably preferred to risk a Republican victory in 2016 than support anyone who questioned neoliberal orthodoxy.

Sanders' issues got asphyxiated in the juggernaut of Russiagate. His legacy – so far – has been to help contain a progressive insurgency within the Democratic Party, the perennial graveyard of social movements. Had Mr. Sanders not come along, the Democrats – now the full-throated party of neoliberal austerity at home and imperial war abroad – would have needed to invent a leftish Pied Piper to keep their base in the fold.

So, after three years of Trump, the more than ever needed mass movement against militarism has yet to resurrect in force, notwithstanding promising demonstrations in immediate response to Trump's assassination of Iran's Major General Soleimani on January 3 with more demonstrations to come.

Imperialism and neoliberalism

Dubya proved his imperialist mettle with the second Iraq war; Obama with the destruction of Libya. But Trump has yet to start a war of his own. Though, in the case of Iran, it was not from lack of trying. The last US president with a similar imperialist failing was the one-term Carter. But Trump has 12 and possibly 60 more months to go.

In his short time in office, Trump has packed his administration with former war industry executives, increased troops in Afghanistan, approved selling arms to the coup government of Ukraine, made the largest arms sale in US history to Saudi Arabia, supported the Saudi's war against Yemen, recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and killed more civilians in drone strikes than "Obomber." In the empire's "backyard," Trump tightened the blockade on Cuba, intensified Obama's sanctions on Venezuela to a blockade, oversaw the devastation of Puerto Rico , and backed the right wing coup in Bolivia. The Venezuelan Embassy Protectors are fighting the US government for a fair trial, while Julian Assange faces extradition to the US.

Now that Trump has declared the defeat of ISIS , the US National Defense Strategy is "interstate strategic competition" with Russia and China. This official guiding document of the US imperial state explicitly calls for "build[ing] a more lethal force" for world domination. Giving credit where it is due, back in 2011, Hillary Clinton and Obama had presciently decreed a " pivot to Asia ," targeting China.

Closer to home Trump has been busy deregulating environmental protections, dismantling the National Park system, weaponizing social media , and undoing net neutrality, while withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on global warming. What's not to despise?

Russiagate and impeachment

Russiagate – in case you have a real life and are not totally absorbed in mass media – is about a conspiracy that the Russians and not the US Electoral College are responsible for Hillary Clinton not getting her rightful turn to be President of the United States.

For the better part of the last three years under the shadow of Trump in the White House, a spook emerged from the netherworld of the deep state and has toiled mightily to expose wrongdoers. This man, former head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, we are told is only one miracle short of being canonized in blue state heaven. Yet even he failed to indict a single American for colluding with Russia, though he was able to hand out indictments to Americans for other wrongdoings not related to Russia.

Undeterred by this investigation to nowhere, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi initiated impeachment proceedings against the sitting president in the Democrat's first successful step to promote Mike Pence as the next POTUS.

When an unelected and unaccountable CIA operative in secret collusion with opposition politicians (e.g., Adam Schiff) and with backing from his agency seeks to take down a constitutionally elected president, that is cause for concern. Operating under the cloak of anonymity and with privileged access to information, national security operatives skilled in the craft of espionage have the undemocratic means to manipulate and even depose elected officials.

What has arisen is an emboldened national security state. The CIA, lest we forget, is the clandestine agency whose mission is to use any means necessary to affect "regime change" in countries that dare to buck the empire. Latin American leftists used to quip that the US has never suffered a coup because there is no US embassy in Washington. There may not be a US embassy there, but the CIA and the rest of the US security establishment are more than ever present and pose a danger to democracy.

Now Obama's former Director of National Intelligence and serial perjurer James Clapper holds the conflicted role of pundit on CNN while still retaining his top security clearance . Likewise, Obama's former CIA director, torture apologist, and fellow perjurer John Brennan holds forth on NBC News and MSNBC with his security clearance intact .

Class trumps partisan differences

The Democrats and Republicans mortally combat on the superficial, while remaining united in their bedrock class loyalty to the rule of capital and US world hegemony. The first article of the Democrat-backed impeachment is the president's "abuse of power." Yet, amidst the heat of the House impeachment hearings, the Democrats, by an overwhelming majority, helped renew the Patriot Act , which gives the president war time authority to shred the constitution.

Contrary to the utterances of the Democratic presidential candidates on the campaign trail about limiting US military spending, the latest $738 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is $22 billion over the last. The Democratic Progressive Caucus didn't even bother to whip members to oppose the bill. On December 11, in an orgy of bi-partisan love, the NDAA bill passed by a landslide vote of 377-48.

President Trump tweeted "Wow!" Democratic Party leader and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith called the bill "the most progressive defense bill we have passed in decades."

This bill gifts twelve more Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets than Trump had requested and green-lights funding of Trump's border wall with Mexico. Stripped from the bipartisan NDAA "compromise" bill were provisions to prohibit Trump from launching a war on Iran without Congressional authorization. Similarly dropped were limits to US participation in the genocidal war in Yemen.

A new Space Force is authorized to militarize the heavens. Meanwhile the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set the doomsday clock at 2 minutes before midnight. Unfortunately, the Democrat's concern about Trump's abuse of power does not extend to such existential matters as nuclear war.

Trump's renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement (i.e., USMCA), an acknowledged disaster , was renewed with bipartisan support. On the domestic front, Trump cut food stamps, Medicaid, and reproductive health services over the barely audible demurs of the supine Democrats.

Revolt of the dispossessed

Behind the façade of the impeachment spectacle – Ken Starr and Alan Dershowitz are now on Trump's legal team – is a ruling class consensus that trumps partisan differences. As political economist Rob Urie perceptively observed :

The American obsession with electoral politics is odd in that 'the people' have so little say in electoral outcomes and that the outcomes only dance around the edges of most people's lives. It isn't so much that the actions of elected leaders are inconsequential as that other factors -- economic, historical, structural and institutional, do more to determine 'politics.'

In the highly contested 2016 presidential contest, nearly half the eligible US voters opted out, not finding enough difference among the contenders to leave home. 2020 may be an opportunity; an opening for an alternative to neoliberal austerity at home and imperial wars abroad lurching to an increasingly oppressive national security state. The campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbord and before them Occupy point to a popular insurgency. Mass protests of the dispossessed are rocking France , India , Colombia , Chile , and perhaps here soon.

Roger D. Harris is on the state central committee of the Peace and Freedom Party , the only ballot-qualified socialist party in California. Read other articles by Roger .

This article was posted on Wednesday, January 22nd, 2020 at 9:36pm and is filed under Barack Obama , Bernie Sanders , Capitalism , CIA , Deep State , Democrats , Donald Trump , Espionage/"Intelligence" , George W. Bush , Hillary Clinton , Impeachment , Imperialism , Nancy Pelosi , Neoliberalism , Republicans , Social Movements , United States , US Foreign Policy .

[Jan 21, 2020] I don't see how Trump has actually governed much differently from any other contemporary Republican. The difference between Trump and, say Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio, is mostly style, not policy.

Jan 21, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

one vote fuow 21 hours ago

I'm a former Trump voter who could vote for Warren or Sanders but not Biden. Trump has been the biggest disappointment of my political life, and I'll never forgive him for the failures on immigration, but Biden and bis family looks to be at least as personally sleazy and corrupt as the Trumps, if not as outright sickening.
Clyde Schechter fuow 21 hours ago
Well, I'm a non-Democrat leftist (except for conservative leanings on social issues and a vehemently anti-war posture that is a minority view on both the left and right). I have voted for third-party candidates for President most of my life (and I'm a septuagenarian). For reasons of foreign policy and economics, I would probably vote for either Sanders or Warren, at least if they don't get too bonkers on identity politics. But there is no way I would vote for any of the other Democratic contenders, and there is no way I would vote for Trump.

For what it's worth, I think the whole frenzy to defeat Trump no matter what is overblown. Except for the Twitter feed, I don't see how Trump has actually governed much differently from any other contemporary Republican. The difference between Trump and, say Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio, is mostly style, not policy.

Osse Clyde Schechter 7 hours ago
That last sentence is true. But it is style that really matters to many Democrats. Obama was their ideal President almost entirely because of his style.

And Trump's style is what attracts his hard core supporters.

Alex (the one that likes Ike) fuow 15 hours ago • edited
If that means Uncle Joe, then Trump may bloody well already uncork the champagne. Remember that recent Iranian debacle of his, which is already starting being forgotten? That was the *only* real chance for Democrats to look solid in the Senate when trying to impeach him. The only way to make Republican senators look dishonest and partisan when defending him. An unexpected and unprovoked electoral gift to them from Trump (a would-have-been-serious gift - read Daniel Larison's articles as to how many American voters, no matter their partisan leanings, are anti-war now). How did the DNC manage that gift? Exactly. By directly bringing it to the trash bin without a moment of hesitation and keeping on desperately clinging to the politically stillborn clownery around Ukraine which will allow the Republican senators to laugh their Democratic colleagues out of the stage and seal Trump's victory the very moment the said clownery is brought to the upper chamber of the parliament. Now Democrats look like a poor feller in front of an insurmountable wall, who, having witnessed a door which magically/quantumly appeared in that wall, screamed "To battle!/Arriva!/Kovfefe!", slammed the said door shut, industriously broke the handle so that it could never be opened again in the quantum dimension he exists and resumed his attempts to - how to put it mildly? - shatter the reinforced concrete with his forehead.

[Jan 19, 2020] Trump's increase in the military budget blows every claim about Trump rebelling against the generals. He still is the most peaceful president since Carter and doesn't want to commit to expensive long-term interventionist projects, which is what unites the right-wing neocons and the liberal interventionists (Pelosi, Schumer).

Jan 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

steven t johnson , Jan 17 2020 21:16 utc | 24

Trump's increase in the military budget blows every claim about Trump rebelling against the general out of the water. Also, firing generals from the second career civilian positions they were never qualified for in the first place simply isn't "firing" them, especially not in any sense Trump "Your'e fired!" would consider as firing. Trump can be as abusive as he wants, just like he is with everyone apparently: Some officers will do anything but fight an equal enemy for high rank, including eating Trump's shit, then smiling. In many respects the entire US military is a mercenary army and mercenaries are not really good at serious fighting with real opponents. (In other respects, the lower ranks of the military are turning into a weird version of Mamelukes or Janissaries, a religiously defined service caste with temptations to rule. But military rule in a giant country is quite difficult.)

Further, if there is a deep state, the generals who hated Clinton and the FBI who hated Clinton are just as much a part of it as the CIA professionals who thought Trump was a moron who'd wreck everything. All deep state theories are either crackpottery or duplicity. The main supporters of Trump are rich people, not just as contributors to his campaign---after all, some are billionaires who might want to play president themselves!---but the ones who keep buying advertising from the mass media who give Trump billions in free publicity, cover up his criminal career as much as possible and encourage identity politics to keep the loyal opposition from uniting the mass of people against the billionaires.

Trump's real chances of winning are due partly to lack of opposition from the Democratic Party, which sharply limits its attacks on Trump to attacks from the right, for the good reason that in policy terms, there is a huge overlap between Trump and the mainstream Democrats. (Hence the media's assistance in trashing the Democratic Party during the primaries.) The intense campaign to keep blacks from turning out is proceeding on all fronts. And most of all, the mass media are still normalizing Trump, who is actually labeling his opponents traitors, and hinting at violence. Further, the Weinstein trial is meant to intimidate Democratic Party Hollywood donors/PR. And the Epstein case may be used to tar the Pedophile Party at a convenient time. They have already conceded that accusation=conviction, so it's doubtful they could put up a fight.


Norwegian , Jan 17 2020 21:46 utc | 27

Posted by: juliania | Jan 17 2020 21:06 utc | 22
Americans are sick of war. War anywhere.

I do not believe that for a second.

US initiated wars have been going on for decades, but I see no indication that US americans have any issues with it. The political parties are totally aligned on foreign wars, there are no people protesting in US cities.

Jon_in_AU , Jan 17 2020 21:59 utc | 33
steven t johnson@24

"The intense campaign to keep blacks from turning out is proceeding on all fronts."

That, to me (and hopefully for most people), is very disturbing. I have been loosely following Greg Palast and his team for about 15 years, and it would appear that the rot in the US electoral system has only escalated since the 2000 election farce.

In my mind it is a class-war, and it is being waged against the most marginalised, especially if of a darker skin tone (by the 'Elites', and with the acquiescence of the ever-dwindling middle-classes).

It is a horror-show.

I know it may be old hat to many here, but I would highly recommend to any who are interested in some of the manouvres (c.2000-present) that have led the US electoral system to the sewer it resides in to read:

- The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

- Billionaires and Ballot Bandits

Both by Greg Palast.

Harrison , Jan 17 2020 22:06 utc | 36
I've joked before that Trump is the most peaceful president since Carter. There is some truth to this insofar as Trump's narrow cost-benefit analysis (as opposed to incoherently broad, even internally contradictory, cost-benefit outlook promoted by 'national security' interests) means he doesn't want to commit to expensive long-term interventionist projects, which is what unites the right-wing neocons and the liberal interventionists (Pelosi, Schumer). Trump is happy to throw money at the military (like the recent 750 billion re-up approved by Congress) but also wants to keep costs down. Like a real estate developer, he spends the money to maintain the Trump brand (tough guy, not like Carter), while extorting and cheating 'contractors' (client states like S. Korea) to keep costs down, hence his wanting to pull back from Syria and Afghanistan, meeting with hysteria-level resistance from the 'deep state.' It's no Carter, but certainly better than the Bushes, Clinton, Obama/Hilary. Military still ballooning though.

The problem with the corporate/executive/military theory of elite power is that there are factions within factions, so the theory has limited explanatory power. The 'corporate' faction has largely turned against China (hence the push or approval of the trade war) but there are also important elements like Google and Apple who abhor the trade war and want to maintain the status-quo. And within the military/CIA/national security, there are vectors working at cross purposes. In some ways, the complexity can be parsed by neocon versus liberal interventionist, but these two have more commonalities than differences, while 'Full Spectrum Dominance' has different interpretations and emphases that, as a whole, can look incoherent. The rationale behind Afghanistan being one example.

karlof1: "The answer for Afghanistan is multifold: It provides a position that helps encircle Iran; it prevents the construction of the most logical transportation corridors to facilitate Eurasian integration; it allows for attacks by the Evil Outlaw US Empire's Foreign Legions into the soft underbelly of Russia and China via Central Asia; and it allows the CIA to control the international opium and heroin trade. You should also see why these truths cannot be told to the public as those aims contradict genuine American Values."

karlof1, thank you for that summary, which is probably the most concise formulation of it I've seen, and it reminds me of importance of the CIA and the opiate trade. While, taken individually, those points look like they 'make sense', but as a whole -- especially the support of proxy groups via opium funds and happily 'mispent' money like US aid -- the net result is more chaos than actions with discrete goals. If there's anything that can be said about US foreign policy, it's that the chaos is by design, not so much because it benefits 'national security interests' but because it benefits the MIC. Chaos is the biggest subsidy.

james , Jan 17 2020 22:11 utc | 37
@ 30 lysander.. "So no, Trump is not at all an anti-interventionist. He's just looking for a way to make imperialism (even more) profitable and just wants to end the none performing wars and start money making wars." i tend to think the usa - wall st and the military complex for sure - make money off these money losing wars as well... why end them either, when it is working for the top %? what i don't understand is any american thinking they are going to get anything different with either repubs or dems... i guess that is where all the msm back and forth bullshit works to keep people brainwashed and unable to see the bigger picture here.. that and americans for the most part seem totally obsessed with their own little exceptional world with little thought about there foreign policy... to me it is all about fp, but to most americans it is all about trump or sanders, or football and that is it! they seem quite happy to stay in that small little loop.. i honestly think it will not be unable they are bombed on their own soil will the collectively wake the fuck up and even then, i somehow doubt it as the brainwashing has been so successful..

[Jan 19, 2020] Donald Trump. He is a nationalist plutocrat; admittedly a lower level one, a NY casino owner who went bankrupt. Mike Bloomberg represents the other side, a globalist billionaire. Elizabeth Warren is a top level technocrat but no politician.

The 1950's triangle of power was superseded by the oligarch's counter revolution that led to supranational trade institutions
Jan 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
VietnamVet , Jan 17 2020 22:34 utc | 44

The 1950's triangle of power was superseded by the oligarch's counter revolution that led to supranational trade institutions. Democracies were relegated to a secondary status and run by technocrats for the benefit of oligarchs until Donald Trump. He is a nationalist plutocrat; admittedly a lower level one, a NY casino owner who went bankrupt. Mike Bloomberg represents the other side, a globalist billionaire. Elizabeth Warren is a top level technocrat but no politician.

The endless wars are fought to make a profit for the plutocracy and destabilize nations to make foreign corporate exploitation possible. That was why Hunter Biden was in Ukraine. The conflicts are not meant to be won.

Donald Trump is way for over his head and getting old. His competent staff are in jail or fired. Apparently no one told him about the thousands of ballistic missiles that can destroy the Gulf States' oil facilities at will and make the buildup for the invasion of Iran impossible. He makes stupid mistakes. Through the barrage of propaganda, reports of shell shocked troops, destroyed buildings and 11 concussion causalities from Iran's missile attack made it into the news. The military must be pissed. The aura of invincibility is gone.

Donald Trump should be removed by the 25th amendment before he mistakenly triggers the Apocalypse. Except the 1% politician VP, Mike Pence, believes that the End of Time is God's Will and necessary for his Ascension.

[Jan 19, 2020] With Trump we are still in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump committed an act of war against Iran,supported MBS carnage in Yemen, attempted regime change in Venezuela

Jan 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Pft , Jan 18 2020 0:12 utc | 70

I completely disagree with this article. But to be honest, none of us knows anything for sure outside our own direct experiences. We all rely on 3rd hand (even 10th hand) information and pick among the various options beliefs which fit our own biases. So if thats what b chooses to believe so be it.

All we can do is look at the present and compare it to a point in the past. So lets do that.

With Trump we are still in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump committed an act of war against Iran and violated a treaty with Iran. Has has supported MBS carnage in Yemen. He has attempted regime change in Venezuela and implemented crippling sanctions against Venezuela and Iran which causes harm to innocent people by denying access to some drugs and makes food more expensive.

He started a trade war with China that resulted in billions of dollars in tariffs , paid for by the American consumer, and the loss of income for farmers which he subsidized on the tax payers dime. His agreement with China offers incentives for US companies to invest in China and does nothing to bring manufacturing jobs back.

Manufacturing and industrial production is not much higher than when Trump took over. He gave hundreds of billions in tax cuts to the rich and corporations promising it would trickle down with more jobs and higher salaries. Its done neither and meanwhile the national debt has skyrocketed.

Retail sales are plummeting as disposable income of the bottom 90% shrink as asset inflation caused by the Fed QE make home ownership more expensive or unaffordable and causing higher rents. Tuitions continue to rise paid by increased debt to students/households and government paid tuitions for veterans. Drug prices continue to rise despite Trumps commitment to reign in Big Pharma, as do overall medical costs and insurance premiums taking more out of the bottom 90% budget.

Fifty percent of those working make less than 33k per year and 50% of households couldn't come up with 400 dollars for an emergency w/o tapping into their credit (if any). Meanwhile, while neocons in his administration plot to cut medicare, medicaid and social security, something Trump promised not to do, while Trump keeps inflating the military budget each year.

Infrastructure development which was big on his fake agenda is nowhere to be seen, aside from a partially completed wall Mexico was supposed to pay for but didn't, but was rewarded with Nafta 2 (Trump promised to scrap Nafta).

Meanwhile there seems to be as many illegal immigrants as before (after all, someone has to work the farms and slaughter houses for Big Agra) .The great health care plan Trump promised to replace Obamacare is nowhere to be seen. Relations with Russia don't seem much better with more sanctions added under Trump.

Israel is pretty happy though, their new Cyrus moved the embassy to Jerusalem as promised and signed an EO cutting of Federal funding to universities who allow criticism of Israel.

The sad thing is nobody the Dems are running offer much of a positive change. Any promises made will be broken and blamed on the other party. The DNC is beholden to the same masters as the RNC. Presidents are just stage actors.

Trumps main mission besides enriching the elite at the middle class expense, feeding the MIC beast, kissing Bibis feet is discrediting in the eyes of the rest of the world American Democracy (an illusion at this point), Capitalism (actually taken over by neoliberalism) and Christianity (his biggest supporters are Evangelical Christians). Imagine a bankrupted Casino owner associated with the mafia with multiple divorces and multiple accusations of inappropriate sexual conduct and convicted of racial discrimination not only becoming President , but representing the party of the Christian Right?

So when they finally establish the consensus for a new multi-polar global NWO they will be able to unite the world based on its anti-American sentiment , a feeling induced by the neocons with Trump as the icing on the cake. Of course, the American elite who are actually multi-national or globalist will remain unscathed, and the military will be internationalized, but for those left behind life will be much like those in countries taken over by the IMF/World Bank with reparations due instead of interest, paid via a Carbon Tax

[Jan 15, 2020] Impeachment motto: in our guts, we know Trump is nuts

Jan 06, 2020 | www.unz.com

Dumbo , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 6:46 pm GMT

Donald Trump rode to victory in 2016 on a promise to end the useless wars in the Middle East, but he has now demonstrated very clearly that he is a liar

He also promised a wall. Maybe he meant the Israeli wall?

[Jan 11, 2020] "When They Kill One Sureimani, A Thousand More Are Born": spectacular betrail by Trump of his voters

Notable quotes:
"... Peter Certo is the editorial manager of the Institute for Policy Studies and editor of Foreign Policy In Focus. ..."
Jan 03, 2020 | fpif.org

Originally published in OtherWords .

Trump's Iran Aggression Deserves Full-Throated Opposition - FPIF By Peter Certo

Trump is betraying his voters and threatening millions of lives.

In a full-blown U.S. war with Iran, up to a million people could die initially.

Hundreds of thousands more could die in the vacuum to follow. Millions would be made refugees. That's the conclusion of experts surveyed by Vox reporter Alex Ward . "The worst-case scenarios here are quite serious," Middle East scholar Michael Hanna warned.

With the brazen assassination of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani in Iraq, President Trump has brought us leaps and bounds closer to that conflagration -- a decision Trump appears to have made while golfing at Mar-a-Lago .

Lawmakers need to move before it's too late.

The Iranians may respond cautiously , perhaps forestalling a full-blown conflict. But there can be no doubt the White House has been driving in that direction from day one.

In a few short years, Trump has blown up the Iran nuclear deal, put a horrific economic stranglehold on the country, and sent a stunning 14,000 new troops to the Middle East since just last spring. Some 3,500 more are now on their way.

"Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran," John Bolton tweeted about the assassination . Bolton may have left the White House, but clearly his spirit lives on.

What next? Get ready to hear a lot about what a " bad guy " Soleimani was, and how Iran is a "state sponsor" of terrorism.

No doubt, Soleimani had blood on his hands -- he was a general. Yet after two decades of U.S. wars in the Middle East, that's the pot calling the kettle black. It was the U.S. who invaded Iraq, started a civil war, and paved the way for a literal terrorist state, ISIS, to occupy the country afterward (a force Soleimani himself was instrumental in dismantling).

That senseless war caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, exploded the terrorist threat, and is destabilizing the region to this day. Yet somehow, war hawks like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo can go on TV and -- with a straight face -- predict ordinary Iranians will essentially thank the U.S. for murdering their general.

"People not only in Iraq but in Iran will view the American action last night as giving them freedom," Pompeo said the morning after the assassination. You couldn't caricature a better callback to Dick Cheney's infamous prediction that Iraqis would "greet us as liberators" if you tried.

This war-mongering should be as toxic politically as it is morally . Trump rode into office promising to end America's wars, winning him crucial votes in swing states with large military and veteran populations. Huge bipartisan majorities, including 58 percent of Republicans, say they want U.S. troops out of the Middle East.

Trump is betraying them spectacularly.

Yet too many Democrats are merely objecting to Trump's failure to consult them. Speaker Nancy Pelosi complained the strike "was taken without the consultation of the Congress." South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg offered colorlessly that "there are serious questions about how this decision was made." Others complained about the apparent lack of a "strategy."

It's illegal for a president to unilaterally launch a war -- that's important. But these complaints make it sound like if you want to kill a million people for no reason, you just have to go to the DMV first. As if Trump's base doesn't love it when he cuts the line in Washington.

Senator Bernie Sanders, who warned that "Trump's dangerous escalation brings us closer to another disastrous war in the Middle East that could cost countless lives and trillions more dollars," came closer to communicating the real threat.

Millions of lives are at stake. Trump's aggression demands -- and voters will more likely reward -- real opposition. Call him on it before it's too late.

Peter Certo is the editorial manager of the Institute for Policy Studies and editor of Foreign Policy In Focus.

[Jan 10, 2020] Trump betrayed his voters and is not invulnerable: Shadowy Big Tech Group Raising $100 Million Warchest to Beat Trump

Jan 10, 2020 | www.breitbart.com

3:02

A shadowy Silicon Valley group that, largely unnoticed, bankrolled Democrat candidates up and down the country in the 2018 midterms, will spend up to $140 million to topple President Trump in 2020, according to Recode.

The group, called "Mind the Gap," is led by Stanford law school professor Barbara Field, former Obama staffer Graham Gottlieb, and former Hewlett Foundation president Paul Brest.

The group uses a data-driven approach to target funding to seats where donors' dollars will have the maximum impact, funded 20 Democrat candidates in 2018, ten of whom won.

Via Recode:

In 2018, the group, which is led by Stanford law school professor Barbara Fried , raised about $500,000 for 20 different Democratic congressional challengers , many of whom were underdogs to win their bids. Ten of them won. Mind the Gap became a hit in Silicon Valley in particular because it asked tech leaders to fund races where it had calculated each dollar would have the greatest marginal impact on Democrats taking back the House, which synced with the industry's data-driven thinking.

This time around, the group is asking its donors to fund three separate voter-registration programs: the Voter Participation Center (VPC) and the Center for Voter Information (CVI), which in September alone sent out 7.1 million voter registration applications by mail, according to Mind the Gap. The last endorsed group is Everybody Votes (EV), which is training organizers to sign up voters in local communities and has used some of the $35 million that Mind the Gap has already raised to register Democratic voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota. (Future money from the group is going to do the same in Florida, Arizona, and Nevada.)

In this cycle, the group aims to raise over $100 million to fund get-out-the-vote efforts and other political activities:

Mind the Gap told prospective donors last fall that it had already raised at least $35 million in political contributions for voter registration efforts, which is part of a fundraising goal that could stretch to $100 million, according to a memo obtained by Recode.

Mind the Gap is also seeking another estimated $30 million for get-out-the-vote work along with another estimated $10 million for "orphan races" -- which means primarily funding candidates for state legislatures that the group sees as wrongly under-funded.

Read the full article at Recode .

Are you an insider at Facebook, YouTube, Google, Reddit or any other tech company who wants to confidentially reveal wrongdoing or political bias at your company? Reach out to Allum Bokhari at his secure email address [email protected] .

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.

[Jan 10, 2020] It is highly doubtful that people reassert their power against National Security state and elect Sanders (as flowed as he is) in 2020?

When people thought in 2016 that they are winning against the National Security state, they were deceived by the candidate who sounded rational during election campaign, but then became Hillary II in three months after inauguration and brought Bush II neocons into his Administration.
So voters were deceived with Clinton, deceived with Bush II, deceived with Obama, deceived with Trump. You now see the tendency...
Jan 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
HarryOrd , Jan 9 2020 19:06 utc | 37
Hi first time commenter on here.

With all that is happening in the U.S right now I can't help but think that it's past time for the people to reassert their power over the National security state, as unrealistic as that might sound.

The Anti war movement is ideologically divided between progressives and libertarian/paleoconservatives, so a political party would not likely be the answer.

Instead perhaps we should consider a grassroots movement to amend the constitution to guarantee U.S neutrality in world affairs (banning both the arming or financing of foreign belligerents) and to ban the Federal government from having a standing military force except in times of actual war. I don't know what chance either would have of actually being passed, but it might at least force a debate on these issues in a way that might resonate better with the average American. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Peace and Solidarity

[Jan 09, 2020] Imagine that, the President of the United States is now viewed as no better than a backstabbing POS by the whole Muslim world, all the way from Morocco to Indonesia.

Jan 09, 2020 | www.unz.com

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: Show Comment January 8, 2020 at 11:59 pm GMT

No Wall has been built in America BUT the U.S. Embassy is in Jerusalem.
No Immigration Solution. Record numbers of f-1's and b1's.
National Debt Level WORSE than in summer 2008 Right Before Financial Meltdown.
No End to the 'Endless' Wars (Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq)
Israel got the Golan Heights. Jews have gotten an E.O. recognizing them as a Nation. All the big Jew Wall St. Firms have had easy money and tax credits from Trump.

What did America get? How can anyone believe anything other than: 'Israel first, last and always' from Donald J. Trump? He endlessly blathers about the evils of antisemitism while 80% of Jews continue to vote Democrat.
I can do nothing except conclude the man's soul has been completely and utterly drained from him through his never ending fellating of Israel and the incessant pounding BoBo Satanyahoo gives him.
At this point, it is just an embarrassment to watch Trump. I saw his press conference this afternoon and I couldn't believe the difference between that monotone, babbling idiot I saw today and the guy who used to fill Stadiums.
The America government has become the Great Satan.
Israel is it's helper.
Trump is the Great Betrayer.

[Jan 09, 2020] Impeach Trump for Acts of War on Iraq, Iran and Elsewhere - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Centre for Research on Globalizati

Jan 09, 2020 | www.globalresearch.ca

Trump's legal team reportedly prepared their strategy to challenge articles of impeachment by House Dems -- yet to be sent to the GOP-controlled Senate for trial.

According to Law Professor Jonathan Turley, "(b)y rushing the impeachment and forcing a vote before Christmas, the House gave up control over an incomplete and insufficient case for removal," adding:

"It gave up that control to a chamber controlled by the opposing party."

"Speaker Nancy Pelosi's attempt to game the system has not achieved any concession from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell."

"Few of us believed it would. Now the House will proceed on the thinnest record ever presented in a modern presidential impeachment trial."

Clearly it's going nowhere, likely to help Trump's reelection, not undermine it.

Articles of impeachment by House Dems against Trump with no legitimate standing seek political advantage in November's presidential and congressional elections.

That's what this is all about, ignoring serious Trump wrongdoing, just cause for impeachment and removal from office. More on this below.

Under the Constitution's Article II, Section 4, impeachment and conviction require proving "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."

No legitimacy exists to impeach Trump for abuse of power on grounds of seeking interference from Ukraine to aid his 2020 presidential reelection and obstruction of Congress for defying House subpoenas.

Clear just cause exists to impeach and remove him from office for crimes of war, against humanity, and betraying the public trust by serving monied interests exclusively at the expense of ordinary people he greatly harmed at home and abroad.

Breaching virtually every positive promise made to the American people proved he can never be trusted and no longer has justification to serve.

Abroad, he escalated crimes of war and against humanity against Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Somalia. He supports aggression in Libya, Donbass, Ukraine, and Occupied Palestine. He's waging economic terrorism on Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia and other countries. He supports international terrorism while pretending to combat it.

As US president and commander-in-chief, he's responsible for high crimes at home and abroad, legitimate impeachable offenses.

He committed acts of war against Iraq and Iran by terror-bombing Iraqi territory, killing deputy PMU leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and others, along with assassinating IRGC Quds Force commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

All of the above are high crimes, just cause to impeach and remove him from office, what Dems and Republicans should support.

Clearly they won't because they share guilt. The vast majority of Washington's political class is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors -- by supporting aggression, state terrorism, and other hostile actions

In response to Trump's threat to target dozens of Iranian sites, including cultural ones, President Rouhani warned him "never (to) threaten the Iranian nation."

In solidarity against imperial USA for assassinating General Soleimani, millions of Iranians took to the streets over the weekend and Monday to honor him and symbolically stand against the scourge America represents.

As a nation mourns the loss of its revered Quds Force commander, his assassination an act of war by any standard, Iran's parliament discussed an appropriate response, the body's spokesman Asadollah Abbasi saying:

"In reaction to the recent terrorist and cowardly assassination of Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani and his companions by the US and as decided by the presiding board, the triple-urgency motion will be put on the agenda of the parliament's open session," adding:

"The latest US action is viewed as 'state-sponsored terrorism' not only by the parliament's presiding board but also by most world countries, and the ratification of the triple-urgency motion lends legal credit to this issue."

On Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif denounced the US for its "blatant disregard for the jus cogens in international law as well as for universally-recognized rights and immunities," adding:

"This is the same schizophrenic approach that repugnantly threatens, in contravention of international law, to strike Iran's cultural sites which are part of the shared human cultural and civilizational heritage."

Killing Soleimani, a "voice of independence-seeking struggles" in the war-torn Middle East, was a "cowardly" attack on him and the Iranian nation, "a strategic blunder."

The only way forward for restoration of regional peace and stability is "expulsion of the US from West Asia."

Zarif stressed that Iran remains "the anchor of peace and security" in the Middle East, along with its development.

Peace and stability defeat US imperial aims. Endless wars and other hostile actions serve it -- what its imperial scourge is all about.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected] . He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

[Jan 09, 2020] Iran vs. US The Murder of General Qassem Suleimani Dissident Voice

Jan 09, 2020 | dissidentvoice.org

Iran vs. US: The Murder of General Qassem Suleimani

by Peter Koenig / January 7th, 2020

Interestingly, after the US attack on Iraqi Militia fighters on 31 December 2020, and the assassination of General Qassem Suleimani , on 2 January, the first thing President Trump could come up with was bragging that it was him who gave the order to murder the popular military leader. General Qassem Suleimani was the commander of the Iranian special Quds Force. The Quds Force was created during the Iran –Iraq War as a special unit from the broader Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ( IRGC ). It has the mission of liberating Muslim land, especially al- Quds , from which it takes its name – "Jerusalem Force ", in English.

General Suleimani was killed by a US drone. He was not only the most popular and prominent military officer in Iran, but he was also influential and respected throughout the Middle East. He was chief in training Iraqi forces who eventually defeated ISIS in Iraq within less than a year when the US and NATO estimated it would take at least 3 years. General Suleimani, along with Russia, was also instrumental in training the Syrian armed forces with the objective of defeating ISIS / IS / DEASH in Syria, and they succeeded. This US act of impunity, the General Suleimani killing, was unmistakenly targeted with precision and as such a clear declaration of war on Iran.

Trump expected applause from the public at large. Let's not forget he is entering the year 2020 of his re-election that's what he wants. So, he needs increased popularity and approval ratings. To be reelected, he, like others before him, doesn't shy away from committing murder or entering a new war, killing millions. That's what American Presidents do to win elections. That's what Obama has done. He entered the Presidency with two ongoing US wars – Afghanistan and Iraq – when he left office the US was engaged in seven wars around the globe, in Libya, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq.

Plus, numerous proxy-conflicts, meaning they are fought by mercenaries and / or US trained, funded and armed terrorists; i.e., ISIS / DAESH, Islamic State (IS) and whatever other names the empire gives its agents of terror to confuse the world. And let's not forget, the algorithmically manipulated regime-change elections in Latin America and Europe, the steady NATO advances with new military bases encircling Russia and China, including the stationing of more than 50% of the US Naval force in the South China Sea.

Most of the US Presidents are elected on the basis of their aggression, planned or ongoing, on how much they are willing to kill around the world and how well they are representing the interests of the US War Industry -- and, of course, the Israeli AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee). In other words, Americans who go to the polls are duped into believing they are electing a president, when in reality their president had been pre-selected by a small group of elitists, representing the key US interests, the War Industry, Big Finance, Big Oil, Big Pharma – and who else, of course, the State of Israel.

The unarmed Iraqi protests and attack on 31 December on the US Embassy in Baghdad was a response to a US assault on Militia Iraqi forces on 29 December – leaving at least 25 dead and more than 50 wounded.

The US has absolutely no business in Iraq. Not now, not ever – nor in Syria, nor anywhere else in the Middle East – for that matter, outside the frontiers of the United States of America. It's as simple as that.

And the world, the UN, the UN Security Council should act accordingly.

The boundless US aggression must be stopped.

The world has become used to it and, for the most part, is just silent. The ABNORMAL has become normal. That must be reversed.

Yes, the Iranian Government warned of retaliation. Understandably. However, that is precisely what Washington and the Pentagon wants; that's what they were provoking, with this assassination of General Suleimani, and earlier with confiscated oil tankers and tanker attacks in the Gulf. The US hawks are just waiting for Iran to retaliate, so they can attack in full force – or ask Israel to attack in full force with US backing, of course.

Knowing how the US is acting around the world with impunity – and especially in the countries they want to dominate – Iran has to count with the worst. So far, Iran has been acting wisely with a lot of restraint, not to risk MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction, in other words, a World War scenario.

A retaliation must be well-thought out – and foremost not be obvious. It must be strategic with long-term impact not the short-term face-saving military act. In the long-term, non-aggression, non-confrontation – the contrary of what Washington is seeking – may prevail. Let the American war hawks continue shadow boxing.

What the Middle East and world is dealing with is a dying beast. That's what the US empire has become. The beast, in its last breath, is lashing out round itself no matter how many other countries it pulls with it into the abyss, no matter how many people are killed in the process.

What will be the world's reaction to this open and flagrant murder? Do not expect much from the US-submissive West, especially the Europeans.

However, Iran can certainly count on Russia and China and on a number of other allies. And in the UN on the more than 120 non-aligned countries that also stand behind Venezuela and Cuba, and now behind Evo Morales.

This is important. These unaligned countries are now in the majority of the UN body of member states. They have to speak out in the Security Council, as well as in the General Assembly. This case of US impunity should be elevated to world attention. Therefore, Iran may want to call a special UN General Assembly Meeting to discuss the case. It would show where the UN stands and would accordingly provide Iran with more leverage on their reaction.

Iran cannot elevate this case high enough on the world stage. So that each and every nation realizes that their own sovereignty is at risk – is every day at risk – of being annihilated by the wannabe World Hegemon, the self-declared Exceptional Nation, US of A.

Only united can this monster be beaten.

Washington is weak, knows no long-term thinking, no long-term strategy – lives off instant gratification. This works for a while, by sheer military force, but not forever.

Russia and China have now far advanced precision weaponry and are allies of Iran. Short-term thinking may be a suicide mission.

• First published by the New Eastern Outlook – NEO

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for independent media. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed - fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! - Essays from the Resistance . Read other articles by Peter .

This article was posted on Tuesday, January 7th, 2020 at 6:18am and is filed under Assassinations , Donald Trump , Iran , Iraq , Israel , Qasem Soleimani , United States , US Terrorism .

[Jan 06, 2020] While Donald Trump is indeed a pathological liar and monumental fraud and it seems that the vast majority of his deplorables (I'm an ex-deplorable) have tripled down on their love and support of him despite his broken promise of ending "these stupid wars".

Jan 06, 2020 | www.unz.com

KenH , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 7:46 pm GMT

Much as been made about Soleimani's alleged responsibility for the deaths of 600 American servicemen but what people forget is that Iranian military personnel would be legitimate targets if they invaded Mexico or Canada. That 600 figure is probably a drop in the bucket compared to the number of people Trump has killed with his unprecedented number of drone strikes since taking office.

Whatever the case Donald Trump is indeed a pathological liar and monumental fraud and it seems that the vast majority of his deplorables (I'm an ex-deplorable) have tripled down on their love and support of him despite his broken promise of ending "these stupid wars".

[Jan 06, 2020] I am tired of giving Trump a free pass, just because Hillary would have been worse. Trump needs to go.

Highly recommended!
Jan 06, 2020 | www.unz.com

TG , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:07 am GMT

To some extent it is not relevant if Trump was lying during his campaign, or has been corrupted/coopted/fooled/pressured/played for a chump by the establishment. He said one thing and is doing another: that's the bottom line.

However: I note that after Barack Obama got elected, he immediately fired all of his populist advisors and hired Wall Streeters even before being sworn in. Obama was clearly lying up front.

Trump, however, initially did start moving in the direction he said he would, he kept his populist/nationalist advisors, and really did make actual moves to carry out his campaign promises. And the establishment went total nut job, he was a Russian agent, his populist advisers were targeted for legal actions, they were replaced with establishment advisors who hate him Trump was strong on stage berating a political opponent, but against establishment pressure he has turned out to be weak, caving in to "the Blob" at every turn.

Though again, a secondary point.

Cloak And Dagger , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:47 am GMT
@Gleimhart Mantooso

Had she been elected, Hillary would already have started the neocon wet dream of a war with Iran.

While that may be true, I am tired of giving Trump a free pass, just because Hillary would have been worse. Being relatively less evil, or a different incarnation of evil, is still evil.

Frankly, impeachment was just a distraction to divert attention from the real play. The dagger at his throat is from far more malevolent foes who can wield both blackmail or death as the circumstances demand to get their way. The jewish mafia is far more dangerous than the Sicilian boys could ever hope to be. The latter learned from the former.

[Dec 15, 2019] Trump has been the most anti-russian president since the 80s. Be objective. Do not look at what they say, look at what they do, the maxim says. Defacto, Trump has been far more aggressive and hostile to Russia than Obama. And he made everything possible to increase military budgets.

Dec 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Passer by , Dec 16 2019 1:39 utc | 24

Posted by: 18481917 | Dec 16 2019 1:01 utc | 21

>> On top of this Putin himself has made some critical mistakes due to his Naive personality, especially his falling for Trumps phoney reset (Trumps policies towards Russia have been harsher then any president since Pappi Bush) and in the aftermath of that flop, running into the arms of "Red" China's fake belt and Road which will be used to get Russia completely dependent on the biggest U$ satellite

I don't agree that China is pro-US, with tome China will grow and the US will diminish, BRI will leads towards that, but I do agree that Trump has been the most anti-russian president since the 80s. Be objective. Do not look at what they say, look at what they do, the maxim says. Defacto, Trump has been far more aggressive and hostile to Russia than Obama. And he made everything possible to increase military budgets.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/18/25-times-trump-has-been-dangerously-hawkish-on-russia/

She also failed to mention that Trump activated Second Fleet in the Atlantic (that Obama actually disabled) for Russia containment.

Trump is just a military puppet seeking to prolong the US Empire on the cheap. That is - no more nation building, and let others pay for propping up the US empire.

psychohistorian , Dec 16 2019 2:03 utc | 26

@ Posted by: lysias | Dec 16 2019 1:46 utc | 25 and Posted by: Passer by | Dec 16 2019 1:39 utc | 24 writing about who was instrumental in being negative towards Russia.

It was during Obama's term that Russia changed the trajectory of the war in Syria.

But lets get real, there is only one "Party" in America, the private finance/money party and both Obama and Trump are/were puppets for it. And those folks have know for some time about the integration of China/Russia geopolitical views so the policy has been "consistent" for probably a decade or more.

[Dec 15, 2019] Boris Johnson's Trumpism without Trump is about moving the party sharply left on austerity, spending on public services, tax cuts for the working poor, and a higher minimum wage. Boris Johnson outflanked the far right on Brexit and shamelessly echoed the left on economic policy

Money quote: "Johnson will have to work superhard on this if he is to re-create not the Thatcher coalition but the Disraeli nation. That's what he means when he talks about "One Nation Conservatism." That was Disraeli's reformist conservatism of the 19th century, a somewhat protectionist, supremely patriotic alliance between the conservative elites and the ordinary man and woman. It will take a huge amount of charm and policy persistence to cement that coalition if it is to last more than one election. But if Boris pulls that off, he will have found a new formula designed to kill off far-right populism, while forcing the left to regroup."
Notable quotes:
"... But just as important, he moved the party sharply left on austerity, spending on public services, tax cuts for the working poor, and a higher minimum wage. He outflanked the far right on Brexit and shamelessly echoed the left on economic policy ..."
Dec 15, 2019 | crookedtimber.org

likbez 12.15.19 at 1:33 am 9

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Brexit is an eruption of English nationalism, and the Tories are now, under that shambling parody of a drunk racist English aristo, Johnson, an English nationalist party.

IMHO this is highly questionable statement. Brexit is a form of protest against neoliberal globalization. The fact that is colored with nationalism is the secondary effect/factor: rejection of neoliberalism is almost always colored in either nationalist rhetoric, or Marxist rhetoric.

Here are some quotes from paleoconservative analysis of the elections taken from two recent articles:

While I do not share their enthusiasm about "Red Tories" rule in the UK, and the bright future for "Trumpism without Trump" movement in the USA, they IMHO provide some interesting insights into paleoconservatives view on the British elections results and elements of social protest that led to them:

[AS] It is clearer and clearer to me that the wholesale adoption of critical race, gender, and queer theory on the left makes normal people wonder what on earth they're talking about and which dictionary they are using. The white working classes are privileged? A woman can have a penis? In the end, the dogma is so crazy, and the language so bizarre, these natural left voters decided to listen to someone who does actually speak their language , even if in an absurdly plummy accent.

[AS] But just as important, he moved the party sharply left on austerity, spending on public services, tax cuts for the working poor, and a higher minimum wage. He outflanked the far right on Brexit and shamelessly echoed the left on economic policy . ... This is Trumpism without Trump. A conservative future without an ineffective and polarizing nutjob at the heart of it. Unlike Trump, he will stop E.U. mass migration, and pass a new immigration system, based on the Australian model. Unlike Trump, he will focus tax cuts on the working poor, not the decadent rich. Unlike Trump, he will stop E.U. mass migration, and pass a new immigration system, based on the Australian model. Unlike Trump, he will focus tax cuts on the working poor, not the decadent rich. It's very much the same movement of left-behind people expressing their views on the same issues, who, tragically, put their trust in Trump. What we've seen is how tenacious a voting bloc that now is, which is why Trumpism is here to stay. If we could only get rid of the human cancer at the heart of it.

[AS] Trump has bollixed it up, of course. He ran on Johnson's platform but gave almost all his tax cuts to the extremely wealthy, while Johnson will cut taxes on the poor. Trump talks a big game on immigration but has been unable to get any real change in the system out of Congress. Johnson now has a big majority to pass a new immigration bill, with Parliament in his control, which makes the task much easier. Trump is flamingly incompetent and unable to understand his constitutional role. Boris will assemble a competent team, with Michael Gove as his CEO, and Dom Cummings as strategist.

[AS] If Johnson succeeds, he'll have unveiled a new formula for the Western right: Make no apologies for your own country and culture; toughen immigration laws; increase public spending on the poor and on those who are "just about managing"; increase taxes on the very rich and redistribute to the poor; focus on manufacturing and new housing; ignore the woke; and fight climate change as the Tories are (or risk losing a generation of support).

[RD] I have no idea why the Republicans are so damned silent on wokeness, including the transgender madness. No doubt about it, the American people have accepted gay marriage and gay rights, broadly. But the Left will not accept this victory in the culture war. They cannot help bouncing the rubble, and driving people farther than they are willing to go, or that they should have to go. It's the elites -- and not just academic elites. Every week I get at least two e-mails from readers sending me examples of transgender wokeness taking over their professions -- especially big business. People hate this pronoun crap, but nobody dares to speak out against it, because they are afraid of being doxxed, cancelled, or at least marginalized in the workplace.

[RD] My friend said (I paraphrase):

"Can you blame people for not answering pollsters' questions? Everybody is told all the time that the things they believe, and the things they worry about, are backwards and bigoted. They have learned to keep it to themselves. It's the same thing here. I hate Donald Trump, but I'm probably going to end up voting for him, because at least he doesn't hate my sons. I want a good future for every child -- black, Latino, white, all of them -- but the Left thinks my sons are what's wrong with the world

[RD] Boris (and Sully) style Toryism is better than nothing, isn't it? As a general rule, in this emerging post-Christian social and political order, we conservative Christians had better not let the unachievable perfect be the enemy of the common-sense good enough.

[Dec 04, 2019] Perfect Storm Trump Admin To Cut 750,000 From Food Stamps Ahead Of Recession

First they cut unemployment benefits. Now they are cutting food stamps. Great...
Dec 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

In a bid to end the massive welfare state, the Trump administration is expected to announce new measures Wednesday that would end food stamp benefits for nearly 750,000 low-income folks. The new rules will make it difficult for "states to gain waivers from a requirement that beneficiaries work or participate in a vocational training program," according to Bloomberg sources.

Republicans have long attempted to abolish the welfare state, claiming that the redistribution of wealth for poor people keeps them in a state of perpetual poverty. They also claim the welfare state is a system of command and control and has been used by Democrats for decades as a political weapon against conservatives, hence why most inner cities vote Democrat.

House Republicans tried to cut parts of the federal food assistance program last year, but it was quickly rejected in the Senate.

The new requirements by the Trump administration would only target "able-bodied" recipients who aren't caring for children under six.

Sources said the measure would be one of three enacted by the Trump administration to wind down the massive federal food assistance program.

The measures are expected to boot nearly 3.7 million recipients from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Though it comes at a time when employment is in a downturn, manufacturing has stumbled into a recession , and the US economy could be entering a mild recession in the year ahead. As to why President Trump wants hundreds of thousands of low-income folks off SNAP ahead of an election year while the economy is rapidly decelerating could be an administrative error that may lead to social instabilities in specific regions that will be affected the hardest. Then again, no turmoil could come out of it, and it's hailed as a success during the election year.

The Department of Agriculture estimates that the new measures could save the agency $1.1 billion in year one, and $7.9 billion by year five.

Nearly 36.4 million Americans in the "greatest economy ever" are on food stamps. At least half of all Americans have low-wage jobs, barely enough to cover living expenses, nevertheless, service their credit cards with record-high interest rates . The economy as a whole is undergoing profound structural changes with automation and artificial intelligence. Tens of millions of jobs will be lost by 2030. It's likely the collision of these forces means the welfare state is going nowhere and will only grow in size when the next recession strikes.

Cutting food stamps for low-income folks is the right move into creating a more leaner government, but there are severe social implications that could be triggered if the new measures are passed.

And while President Trump wants to slash the welfare state for poor people, his supply-side policies and bailouts of corporate America have been record-setting in some respects.

Actions by the administration clearly show that corporate welfare for Wall Street elites is more important than welfare for low-income folks. Perfect Storm: Trump Admin To Cut 750,000 From Food Stamps Ahead Of Recession


naps8906 , 23 seconds ago link

this is one of the most shameful acts for any president, especially a billionaire. If he wants to save a billion/year, cut it from military. Or increase staff at SNAP to check for fraud, but this is really shameful. I think it would've been better to raise tariff on China and use that money to increase SNAP not decrease it

cheka , 1 minute ago link

i have a better way. over BMI = no taxpayer funded food handouts

taking money from the working class, at the point of a gun....to give free food to fat *****.....clown world

Wild Bill Steamcock , 4 minutes ago link

What's the need in cutting foodstamps? You can take every able-bodied recipient and have them work a reasonable number of hours per week in a fair exchange. Plenty of work to be had and you could do it WPA style where those of certain skills could apply them.

And if you want to cut welfare, START WITH CORPORATE WELFARE

Dr Anon , 4 minutes ago link

This is a positive development in terms of the nuclear family. Women can't just abscond with the kids and her husband's alimony if she knows she will have to actually get a job to pay for her own food. I'm sick of paying taxes to support whore women and their bastard children.

Zeusky Babarusky , 6 minutes ago link

"The Department of Agriculture estimates that the new measures could save the agency $1.1 billion in year one, and $7.9 billion by year five."

Today's Repo operation by the Fed is $70.1 Billion. The $1.1 Billion in annual savings due to this cut is about 1.5% of what the Fed pumped into the Repo market just today. I'm all for cutting out the fraud. If you can work, then you should work. Don't work? Don't eat! But our economy is a Service Sector for the most part now, and the wages suck for a big part in the Service Sector. Wages overall have been nearly flat for about 30 years. How about we cut the welfare **** to the banks, Wall Street? That would save trillions not just billions. Typical DC. Fix problems while ******* over the little people, and continuing corporate welfare all the while. This **** so needs to burn up!

same2u , 7 minutes ago link

In the meantime, the Fed keeps on giving to the billionaires and banksters...

Stock market is the food stamp program for the super rich...

Omega_Man , 6 minutes ago link

great... outsource manufacturing, sign new trade deals to off shore more jobs, ramp up the stock market for the rich, waste trillions on destabilizing other nations, give israel all they want, print money to infinity, ask for zero interest rate.. and a billion per year to feed poor people is too much.. Trump is in touch with the little guy

Trump will lose 2020... give the 750,000 guns and ammo and some food and water... and a map to DC... Soros can provide the buses...

Rusticus2.0 , 7 minutes ago link

In a bid to end the massive welfare state, the Trump administration is expected to announce new measures Wednesday that would end food stamp benefits for nearly 750,000 low-income folks

and yet Trump is crying for negative interest rates so the 0.1% can continue getting the welfare they deserve ?

Just Take It All , 7 minutes ago link

Do lampposts dream of central bankers?

Fishthatlived , 10 minutes ago link

A Bloomberg story? Isn't that guy running for President? What a coincidence.

NoDebt , 4 minutes ago link

The new rules will make it difficult for "states to gain waivers from a requirement that beneficiaries work or participate in a vocational training program," according to Bloomberg sources.

And... those are actually the OLD rules, which are still on the books, but which Obama waived by EO. I'm glad 750,00 are being cut from the roles.

NoDebt , 1 minute ago link

Trump Admin To Cut 750,000 From Food Stamps Ahead Of Recession

OK, so I have to ask: What recession? Well, the coming one, obviously! So let's logic this out. You wouldn't cut food stamps IN a recession (political suicide), so what's your alternative? You're either in a recession or you're on your way to the next one which will happen eventually, right? So, when would you be able to cut food stamps? I guess never by that logic.

RiskyBidness , 7 minutes ago link

If you like your foodstamps .You can't keep your foodstamps

[Nov 08, 2019] Who has Trump kept his promise to?

Nov 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Nov 8 2019 17:31 utc | 8

Who has Trump kept his promise to?

Tea Party foot soldiers?

Repeal and replace Obamacare on day one
Nope. Quietly dropped coverage for prior conditions.

Build a Wall - and Mexico's gonna pay for it!

Not really. Building sections of a wall that USA will pay for.

Drain the swamp

Nope - unless by "swamp" Trump means the Democratic Party.

"Lock her up!"

Nope. He says they're good people who have been thru a lot. Aww . . .
America?
End the "threat" from NK "Rocket man"
Nope. No follow-thru on the (sham) Summit.

End the new Cold War

Nope. Increased military spending; ended treaties; militarized space.

End "forever wars", bring the troops home

Nope.

Bring jobs home

Uncertain: trade War with China doesn't necessarily mean jobs coming back US.

= = = = = = = =

Republican Party?

Cut taxes
YES!

Cut regulations on business

YES!

Israel?

Move Embassy to Jerusalem
YES!

Recognize Golan Heights as part of Israel

YES!

End aid to Palestinians

YES!

Don't give up on Syrian regime-change

YES!

US MIC, Netanyahu, MbS?

End US participation in the JCPOA
YES!

McCain: "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran"

"locked and loaded"
!!

[Oct 28, 2019] National Neolibralism destroyed the World Trade Organisation by John Quiggin

Highly recommended!
Highly recommended !
Notable quotes:
"... Trying to head off redivision of the world into nationalist trade blocks by removing Trump via dubiously democratic upheavals (like color revolutions) with more or less fictional quasi-scandals as pro-Russian treason or anti-Ukrainian treason (which is "Huh?" on the face of it,) is futile. It stems from a desire to keep on "free" trading despite the secular stagnation that has set in, hoping that the sociopolitical nowhere (major at least) doesn't collapse until God or Nature or something restores the supposedly natural order of economic growth without end/crisis. ..."
"... I think efforts to keep the neoliberal international WTO/IMF/World Bank "free" trading system is futile because the lower orders are being ordered to be satisfied with a permanent, rigid class system ..."
"... If the pie is to shrink forever, all the vile masses (the deplorables) are going to hang together in their various ways, clinging to shared identity in race or religion or nationality, which will leave the international capitalists hanging, period. "Greed is good" mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to be very destructive. Saying "Greed is good," then expecting selflessness from the lowers is not high-minded but self-serving. Redistribution of wealth upward has been terribly destructive to social cohesion, both domestically and in the sense of generosity towards foreigners. ..."
"... The pervasive feeling that "we" are going down and drastic action has to be taken is probably why there hasn't been much traction for impeachment til now. If Biden, shown to be shady in regards to Hunter, is nominated to lead the Democratic Party into four/eight years of Obama-esque promise to continue shrinking the status quo for the lowers, Trump will probably win. Warren might have a better chance to convince voters she means to change things (despite the example of Obama,) but she's not very appealing. And she is almost certainly likely to be manipulated like Trump. ..."
"... I *think* that's more or less what likbez, said, though obviously it's not the way likbez wanted to express it. I disagree strenuously on some details, like Warren's problem being a schoolmarm, rather than being a believer in capitalism who shares Trump's moral values against socialism, no matter what voters say. ..."
Oct 27, 2019 | crookedtimber.org

...what replaces it will be even worse. That's the (slightly premature) headline for my recent article in The Conversation .

The headline will become operative in December, if as expected, the Trump Administration maintains its refusal to nominate new judges to the WTO appellate panel . That will render the WTO unable to take on new cases, and bring about an effective return to the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) which preceded the WTO .

An interesting sidelight is that Brexit No-Dealers have been keen on the merits of trading "on WTO terms", but those terms will probably be unenforceable by the time No Deal happens (if it does).

likbez 10.27.19 at 11:22 pm

That's another manifestation of the ascendance of "national neoliberalism," which now is displacing "classic neoliberalism."

Attempts to remove Trump via color revolution mechanisms (Russiagate, Ukrainegate) are essentially connected with the desire of adherents of classic neoliberalism to return to the old paradigm and kick the can down the road until the cliff. I think it is impossible because the neoliberal elite lost popular support (aka support of deplorables) and now is hanging in the air. "Greed is good" mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to be very destructive.

That's why probably previous attempts to remove Trump were unsuccessful. And if corrupt classic neoliberal Biden wins Neoliberal Dem Party nomination, the USA probably will get the second term of Trump. Warren might have a chance as "Better Trump then Trump" although she proved so far to be pretty inept politician, and like "original" Trump probably can be easily coerced by the establishment, if she wins.

All this weeping and gnashing of teeth by "neoliberal Intelligentsia" does not change the fact that neoliberalism entered the period of structural crisis demonstrated by "secular stagnation," and, as such, its survival is far from certain. We probably can argue only about how long it will take for the "national neoliberalism" to dismantle it and what shape or form the new social order will take.

That does not mean that replacing the classic neoliberalism the new social order will be better, or more just. Neoliberalism was actually two steps back in comparison with the New Deal Capitalism that it replaced. It clearly was a social regress.

John Quiggin 10.28.19 at 3:00 am ( 2 )
Exactly right!
Matt 10.28.19 at 6:28 am ( 3 )
John, I am legitimate curious what you find "exactly right" in the comment above. Other than the obvious bit in the last line about new deal vs neoliberalism, I would say it is completely wrong, band presenting an amazingly distorted view of both the last few years and recent history.
reason 10.28.19 at 8:58 am ( 5 )
I agree with Matt.

In fact, I see the problem as more nuanced.

Neo-liberalism is not a unified thing. Right wing parties are not following the original (the value of choice) paradigm of Milton Friedman that won the argument during the 1970s inflation panic, but have implemented a deceitful bait and switch strategy, followed by continually shifting the goalposts – claiming – it would of worked but we weren't pure enough.

But parts of what Milton Friedman said (for instance the danger of bad micro-economic design of welfare systems creating poverty traps, and the inherent problems of high tariff rates) had a kernel of truth. (Unfortunately, Friedman's macro-economics was almost all wrong and has done great damage.)

Tim Worstall 10.28.19 at 12:39 pm (no link) 6

"In that context it felt free to override national governments on any issue that might affect international trade, most notably environmental policies."

Not entirely sure about that. The one case where I was informed enough to really know detail was the China and rare earths WTO case. China claimed that restrictions on exports of separated but otherwise unprocessed rare earths were being made on environmental grounds. Rare earth mining is a messy business, especially the way they do it.

Well, OK. And if such exports were being limited on environmental grounds then that would be WTO compliant. Which is why the claim presumably.

It was gently or not pointed out that exports of things made from those same rare earths were not limited in any sense. Therefore that environmental justification might not be quite the real one. Possibly, it was an attempt to suck RE using industry into China by making rare earths outside in short supply, but the availability for local processing being unrestricted? Certainly, one customer of mine at the time seriously considered packing up the US factory and moving it.

China lost the WTO case. Not because environmental reasons aren't a justification for restrictions on trade but because no one believed that was the reason, rather than the justification.

I don't know about other cases – shrimp, tuna – but there is at least the possibility that it's the argument, not the environment, which wasn't sufficient justification?

Jim Harrison 10.28.19 at 5:20 pm ( 9 )
Neoliberalism gets used as a generalized term of abuse these days. Not every political and institutional development of the last 40 years comes down to the worship of the free market.

In the EU, East Asia, and North America, some of what has taken place is the rationalization of bureaucratic practices and the weakening of archaic localisms. Some of these developments have been positive.

In this respect, neoliberalism in the blanket sense used by Likbez and many others is like what the the ancien regime was, a mix of regressive and progressive tendencies. In the aftermath of the on-going upheaval, it is likely that it will be reassessed and some of its features will be valued if they manage to persist.

I'm thinking of international trade agreements, transnational scientific organizations, and confederations like the European Union.

steven t johnson 10.29.19 at 12:29 am

If I may venture to translate @1?

Right-wing populism like Orban, Salvini, the Brexiteers are sweeping the globe and this is more of the same.

Trying to head off redivision of the world into nationalist trade blocks by removing Trump via dubiously democratic upheavals (like color revolutions) with more or less fictional quasi-scandals as pro-Russian treason or anti-Ukrainian treason (which is "Huh?" on the face of it,) is futile. It stems from a desire to keep on "free" trading despite the secular stagnation that has set in, hoping that the sociopolitical nowhere (major at least) doesn't collapse until God or Nature or something restores the supposedly natural order of economic growth without end/crisis.

I think efforts to keep the neoliberal international WTO/IMF/World Bank "free" trading system is futile because the lower orders are being ordered to be satisfied with a permanent, rigid class system .

If the pie is to shrink forever, all the vile masses (the deplorables) are going to hang together in their various ways, clinging to shared identity in race or religion or nationality, which will leave the international capitalists hanging, period. "Greed is good" mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to be very destructive. Saying "Greed is good," then expecting selflessness from the lowers is not high-minded but self-serving. Redistribution of wealth upward has been terribly destructive to social cohesion, both domestically and in the sense of generosity towards foreigners.

The pervasive feeling that "we" are going down and drastic action has to be taken is probably why there hasn't been much traction for impeachment til now. If Biden, shown to be shady in regards to Hunter, is nominated to lead the Democratic Party into four/eight years of Obama-esque promise to continue shrinking the status quo for the lowers, Trump will probably win. Warren might have a better chance to convince voters she means to change things (despite the example of Obama,) but she's not very appealing. And she is almost certainly likely to be manipulated like Trump.

Again, despite the fury the old internationalism is collapsing under stagnation and weeping about it is irrelevant. Without any real ideas, we can only react to events as nationalist predatory capitals fight for their new world.

I'm not saying the new right wing populism is better. The New Deal/Great Society did more for America than its political successors since Nixon et al. The years since 1968 I think have been a regression and I see no reason–alas–that it can't get even worse.

I *think* that's more or less what likbez, said, though obviously it's not the way likbez wanted to express it. I disagree strenuously on some details, like Warren's problem being a schoolmarm, rather than being a believer in capitalism who shares Trump's moral values against socialism, no matter what voters say.

likbez 10.29.19 at 2:46 am 13

fausutsnotes 10.28.19 at 8:27 am @4

> What on earth is "national neoliberalism."

It is a particular mutation of the original concept similar to mutation of socialism into national socialism, when domestic policies are mostly preserved (including rampant deregulation) and supplemented by repressive measures (total surveillance) , but in foreign policy "might make right" and unilateralism with the stress on strictly bilateral regulations of trade (no WTO) somewhat modifies "Washington consensus". In other words, the foreign financial oligarchy has a demoted status under the "national neoliberalism" regime, while the national financial oligarchy and manufactures are elevated.

And the slogan of "financial oligarchy of all countries, unite" which is sine qua non of classic neoliberalism is effectively dead and is replaced by protection racket of the most political powerful players (look at Biden and Ukrainian oligarchs behavior here ;-)

> I think every sentence in that comment is either completely wrong or at least debatable. And is likbez actually John Hewson, because that comment reads like one of John Hewson's commentaries

I wish ;-). But it is true in the sense of sentiment expressed in his article A few bank scalps won't help unless they change their rotten culture That's a very similar approach to the problem.

politicalfootball 10.28.19 at 1:19 pm @8

> Most obviously, to define Warren and Trump as both being neoliberals drains the term of any meaning

You are way too fast even for a political football forward ;-).

Warren capitalizes on the same discontent and the feeling of the crisis of neoliberalism that allowed Trump to win. Yes, she is a much better candidate than Trump, and her policy proposals are better (unless she is coerced by the Deep State like Trump in the first three months of her Presidency).

Still, unlike Sanders in domestic policy and Tulsi in foreign policy, she is a neoliberal reformist at heart and a neoliberal warmonger in foreign policy. Most of her policy proposals are quite shallow, and are just a band-aid.

"Warren's "I have a plan" mantra sounds an awful lot like a dog whistle to Clinton voters" Elizabeth Warren's
Plan-itis Excessive Lobbying Case Study naked capitalism

Jim Harrison 10.28.19 at 5:20 pm @9

> Neoliberalism gets used as a generalized term of abuse these days. Not every political and institutional development of the last 40 years comes down to the worship of the free market.

This is a typical stance of neoliberal MSM, a popular line of attack on critics of neoliberalism.

Yes, of course, not everything political and institutional development of the last 40 years comes down to the worship of the "free market." But how can it be otherwise? Notions of human agency, a complex interaction of politics and economics in human affairs, technological progress since 1970th, etc., all play a role. But a historian needs to be able to somehow integrate the mass of evidence into a coherent and truthful story.

And IMHO this story for the last several decades is the ascendance and now decline of "classic neoliberalism" with its stress on the neoliberal globalization and opening of the foreign markets for transnational corporations (often via direct or indirect (financial) pressure, or subversive actions including color revolutions and military intervention) and replacement of it by "national neoliberalism" -- domestic neoliberalism without (or with a different type of) neoliberal globalization.

Defining features of national neoliberalism along with the rejection of neoliberal globalization and, in particular, multiparty treaties like WTO is massive, overwhelming propaganda including politicized witch hunts (via neoliberal MSM), total surveillance of citizens by the national security state institutions (three-letter agencies which now acquired a political role), as well as elements of classic nationalism built-in.

The dominant ideology of the last 30 years was definitely connected with "worshiping of free markets," a secular religion that displaced alternative views and, for several decades (say 1976 -2007), dominated the discourse. So worshiping (or pretense of worshiping) of "free market" (as if such market exists, and is not a theological construct -- a deity of some sort) is really defining feature here.

[Oct 28, 2019] New York Times Confirms It's Trump Versus the Deep State by Robert W. Merry

Oct 28, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

This is too idealizing Trump coverage. Whel thestrggle with the Deep state is real, Trump like Obama before him proved to be "betrayer of his election promises in chief" rather then the fighter. Also the oligarchs who financed his election such as Adelson were most argent Zionists, which exclude any real change from day one.

It is incorrect to say that Trump wanted to fulfill his election promises such as withdeaval from Afganistan and Syria. He was co-opted by the Deep State as ealry as in April 2017 when his ordered strikes on Syria based on clearly false flag operation about Douma poinosning ( BBC producer admits Douma attack was false flag that nearly sparked Russia - U.S. hot war (Video)

The New York Times on Thursday published a remarkable piece that essentially acknowledged the existence of an American "deep state" and its implacable hostility to Donald Trump. The Times writers (fully five on the byline: Peter Baker, Lara Jakes, Julian E. Barnes, Sharon LaFraniere, and Edward Wong) certainly don't decry the existence of this deep state, as so many conservatives and Trump supporters do. Nor do they refrain from the kinds of value-charged digs and asides against Trump that have illuminated the paper's consistent bias against the president from the beginning.

But they do portray the current impeachment drama as the likely denouement of a struggle between the outsider Trump and the insider administrative forces of government. In so doing, they implicitly give support to those who have argued that American foreign policy has become the almost exclusive domain of unelected bureaucrats impervious to the views of elected officials -- even presidents -- who may harbor outlooks different from their own.

This is a big deal because, even in today's highly charged political environment, with a sitting president under constant guerrilla attack, few have been willing to acknowledge any such deep state phenomenon. When in the spring of 2018, The National Interest asked 12 presumed experts -- historians, writers, former government officials, and think tank mavens -- to weigh in on whether there was in fact such a thing as a deep state, eight said no, two waffled with a "sort of" response, and only two said yes. Former Colorado senator Gary Hart made fun of the whole concept, warning of "sly devils meeting in the furnace room after hours, passing out assignments for subverting the current administration."

But now the Times ' Baker et al weigh in with an analysis saying that, yes, Trump has been battling something that some see as a deep state, and the deep state is winning. The headline: "Trump's War on the 'Deep State' Turns Against Him." There's an explanatory subhed that reads: "The impeachment inquiry is in some ways the culmination of a battle between the president and the government institutions he distrusted and disparaged."

As the Times reporters put it in the story text, "The House impeachment inquiry into Mr.Trump's efforts to force Ukraine to investigate Democrats is the climax of a 33-month scorched-earth struggle between a president with no record of public service and the government he inherited but never trusted." Leaving aside the requisite rapier thrust at the president ("with no record of public service"), this is a pretty good summation of the Trump presidency -- the story of entrenched government bureaucrats and a president who sought to curb their power. Or, put another way, the story of a president who sought to rein in the deep state and a deep state that sought to destroy his presidency.

Baker and his colleagues clearly think the president is on the ropes. They quote Virginia's Democratic Representative Gerald Connolly as saying the nation is headed toward a kind of "karmic justice," with the House impeachment inquiry now giving opportunity to once-anonymous officials to "speak out, speak up, testify about and against."

Connolly and the Times reporters are probably right. The House seems headed inexorably toward impeachment. The president's struggle against the deep state appears now to be a lost cause. To prevail, he needed to marshal far more public support for his agenda -- including curtailment of the deep state -- than he proved capable of doing. He is a beleaguered president and is likely to remain so throughout the remainder of his term.

The reporters note that Trump sought from the beginning to minimize the role of career officials. He gave more ambassadorships to political appointees -- "the highest rate in history," say the reporters (without noting that Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan weren't far behind). The result, they write, has been "an exodus from public service." They quote a "nonpartisan organization" saying the Trump administration lost nearly 1,200 senior career service employees in its first 18 months -- roughly 40 percent more than during President Barack Obama's first year and a half in office.

Finding a Vaccine for the Impeachment Derangement Virus No, Trump Isn't Too Stupid to Be Impeached

The reporters reveal a letter from 36 former foreign service officers to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo complaining that he had "failed to protect civil servants from political retaliation" and citing the removal of U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Another letter signed by more than 270 former employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development expressed anger at the treatment of public servants and the president's "cavalier (and quite possibly corrupt) approach to making foreign policy."

The tone of the Times piece seems to suggest these expressions and actions constitute a kind of indictment of Trump. But a more objective appraisal would be that it is merely the outward manifestation of that "33-month scorched-earth struggle" the Times was talking about. Does a president have a right to fire an ambassador? How serious an offense is it when he appoints political figures to ambassadorships at a rate slightly higher than some previous presidents? If foreign policy careerists decide to leave the government because they don't like the president's effort to rein in foreign policy careerists, is that a black mark on the president -- or merely the natural result of a fundamental intragovernmental struggle?

But the Times reporters give the game away more explicitly in cataloguing a list of instances where those careerists sought to undermine the president because they found his policy decisions contemptible. "While many career employees have left," writes the Times , " some of those who stayed have resisted some of Mr. Trump's initiatives." When the president canceled large war games with South Korea, the military held them anyway -- only on a smaller scale and without fanfare. Diplomats negotiated an agreement before a NATO summit to foreclose any Trump action based on a different outlook. When the White House ordered foreign aid frozen this year, agency officials quietly worked with Congress to get it restored. State Department officials enlisted congressional allies to hinder Trump's efforts to initiate weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and other nations.

Further, as the Times writes, "When transcripts of [Trump's] telephone calls with the leaders of Mexico and Australia were leaked, it convinced him that he could not trust the career staff and so records of subsequent call were stashed away in a classified database." And that was very early in his presidency, about the time Trump also learned there was a nasty dossier out there that was designed to provide grist for anyone interested in undermining or destroying his presidency.

And of course, now governmental officials are lining up before the House impeachment panel to slam the president over his effort to get Ukraine to investigate his Democratic rival Joe Biden and Biden's son, Hunter, and his apparently related decision to hold up $391 million in security aid to Ukraine. As I have written in this space previously, this outlandish action by Trump constituted a profound lapse in judgment that was a kind of dare for opposition Democrats to fire off the impeachment cannon. And fire it off they have. "Now," writes the Times , "[Trump] faces the counteroffensive."

But that doesn't take away from the central point of the Times story -- that Trump and the deep state have been in mortal combat since the beginning of his administration. And the stakes are huge.

Trump wanted to restore at least somewhat cordial relations with Russia, whereas the deep state considered that the height of folly. Trump wanted to get out of Afghanistan, whereas the deep state totally opposed such a move. Trump viewed America's role in Syria as focused on defeating ISIS, whereas the deep state wanted to continue favoring the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Trump was wary of letting events in Ukraine draw America into a direct confrontation with Russia, whereas the deep state wants to wrest Ukraine out of Russia's sphere of influence even if it means opening tensions with the Bear. Trump wanted to bring China to account for its widespread abuse of normal trading practices, whereas the deep state clung to "free trade'' even in the face of such abuse.

These are big issues facing America. And the question hovering over the country as the impeachment drama proceeds is: are these matters open to debate in America? Or will the deep state suppress any such debate? And can a president -- any president -- pursue the Trump policy options without being subjected to the powerful yet subtle machinations of a wily bureaucracy bent on preserving its status and outlook?

Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington journalist and publishing executive, is the author most recently of President McKinley: Architect of the American Century .

Trump=Obama 3 hours ago

Trump has been the boss for 33 months. He promised to "lock up corrupt Hillary and drain the swamp". All he has done is play the victim as though he is a powerless outsider. That is what Democrats do. Maybe, Trump is really a Democrat ?

[Oct 25, 2019] According to the latest news, Trump will send tanks into Syria to help the Kurds secure the oil. It's hard to understand why the Elders of the Deep State want to impeach Trump

Oct 25, 2019 | www.unz.com

Fool's Paradise, says: October 25, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT

And now, according to the latest news, Trump will send tanks into Syria to help the Kurds secure the oil for Israel. It's hard to understand why the Elders of the Deep State want to impeach Trump. He has done everything they wanted, moved the embassy, gave Syria's Golan Heights to Israel, never criticizes the illegal settlements in Palestine. What else do they want from him?

[Oct 23, 2019] When Trump Ignored Bad Advice He Enabled Progress In Syria

Notable quotes:
"... This "man" has never been anything else but a grifter and giant con. Virtually everything he has done, he's done to enrich himself and his family. That is, besides deconstruct the U$ govt. to enrich his class of people, (the malignantly rich) by dialing back regulations that protect everyday Americans from the greed of the mega-corporations. ..."
"... Trump had long announced that the U.S. military will leave Syria. He had made no promises to the Kurds. The State Department official did not do his job but contradicted Trump's policies. ..."
Oct 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Commentator ben and others critizised yesterday's post:

b, I've been a participant at this site for 14yrs, and I don't believe I've ever seen your take on any subject more "off base", than your take on DJT.

This "man" has never been anything else but a grifter and giant con. Virtually everything he has done, he's done to enrich himself and his family. That is, besides deconstruct the U$ govt. to enrich his class of people, (the malignantly rich) by dialing back regulations that protect everyday Americans from the greed of the mega-corporations.

He's a sycophant for the corporate monsters who now own the U$A. Anything and everything he's done, isn't because he is such an egalitarian, it's for his personal enrichment, and the monsters he works for.

When they're done with him, they'll throw him under the bus, just like all the rest of us...

I agree with ben's characterization of Trump. I dislike most of his policies. But that does not change the fact that Donald Trump is the elected president of the United States and that he is thereby entitled to direct its foreign policies as he sees fit.

Ben's and my opinion about Trump do not invalidate the point I made. Trump policies, especially in international relations, are getting sabotaged or co-opted by the Borg , the unelected establishment in the various departments and think tanks. This is a dangerous phenomenon that, more or less, hinders every elected president, especially those who want to make peace. It should be resisted.

The people in leading positions of the executive work "at the pleasure of the president". Their task is to execute his policies. When they refrain from doing so or implement their own preferences they create a mess.

Consider two additional examples, both published yesterday, which describe how James Jeffrey, the Special Representative for Syria Engagement, tried to sabotage Trump's decision to leave Syria and, while doing that, misled the Kurds:

A State Department official told a senior Syrian Kurdish leader during a meeting in Washington that the United States would not fully withdraw its forces from northeast Syria and advised her administration not to engage with Bashar al-Assad's government or with Russia.

According to two sources familiar with the Monday, October 22 meeting, a senior member of Washington's diplomatic team is said to have become angry and told Ilham Ahmed, President of the Executive Committee of the Syrian Democratic Council, that the U.S. will not allow the SDC to arrange a deal with the Assad regime or Russia for protection against the Turkey-led attack.
...
SDC officials told The Defense Post that American officials in the past have promised they would not withdraw U.S. forces until a political settlement was in place to secure their future in the Syrian political system.

Trump had long announced that the U.S. military will leave Syria. He had made no promises to the Kurds. The State Department official did not do his job but contradicted Trump's policies.

Another report on an earlier State Department meeting with the Kurds paints a similar picture :

The National Interest has learned from multiple sources about tense meetings between SDC diplomats and State Department officials who oversee the Trump administration's policy on Syria. The State Department repeatedly pushed for the SDC to work with Turkish-backed Islamist rebels while berating Syrian Kurdish officials and refusing to listen to their concerns, according to multiple sources.

One source with firsthand knowledge of the screaming session told the National Interest that Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Joel Rayburn, who is a special envoy for Syria, yelled at SDC officials and broke a pencil in a translator's face. Two sources with secondhand knowledge confirmed this version of events.

"[Rayburn] loves the Syrian Islamist groups," one of the three sources said. "He thinks they can counter Iran. He is dreaming."

"He is pushing [the SDC] to meet with jihadists," the source added.

To tell the anarcho-marxist YPG/PKK Kurds to unite with Erdogan's Jihadis is an absolutely crazy idea. Neither the Kurds nor Erdogan would ever agree to a partnership. These were impossible policies. They made no sense at all.

Jeffrey and his shop clearly worked against Trump's orders and against U.S. interests. Jeffrey clearly favors Turkey where he once worked as U.S. ambassador and, above all, Israel:

In addition to the uptick in tense verbal exchanges, the three different sources described to the National Interest how State Department officials attempted to condemn the brutal murder of Kurdish-Syrian politician Hevrin Khalaf only to have their efforts waylayed by Ambassador James Jeffrey, who oversees anti-ISIS efforts. Jeffrey blocked the statement, they said.
...
Now, even as U.S. troops are stepping aside to allow Turkey to attack U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces, Jeffrey's team is floating plans to peel off Arab components of the Syrian Democratic Forces to build a counter-Iran force far from the Turkish border.

It is Jeffrey who is pressing for a continued U.S. occupation of Syria's oilfields. These are not Trump's policies, but contradictions to them.

Aymenn Al-Tamimi makes a similar point :

When [Trump in December 2018] told his advisers that he wanted to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, he meant it. The message should have been clear: devise an orderly withdrawal plan.

But that is not what happened. Instead, efforts and attention were geared towards U.S. forces remaining indefinitely in Syria.

One can criticize Trump for not selecting advisors and envoys who follow his directions. But Trump is a New Yorker businessman and not a politician with decades of experience in Washington. He does not know who he can trust. He has to proceed by trial and error until he finds people who are willing to go work with him against those permanent powers that usually drive U.S. foreign policy.

In a congress hearing yesterday James Jeffrey admitted (vid) that Trump did not consult him before his phone call with Erdogan.

By going off-scrip in that phone call and by greenlighting the Turkish invasion Trump achieved - despite the resistance within his own administration - a win-win-win-win situation in Syria :

Erdogan could show that he was fighting against the PKK terrorists and prevented their attempts to become a proto-state. Trump could hold his campaign promise of removing U.S. troops from useless foreign interventions. Syria regained its northeast and the important economic resources of that area. Russia gained global prestige and additional influence in the Middle East.

We will have to wait for Trump's (and Putin's) memoir to learn how much of this has been coordinated behind the scenes.

I for one count this as a major foreign policy achievement for Trump and I am happy with this outcome .

[Sep 02, 2019] The Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump A Threat to American Democracy and an Agent of Chaos in the World - Global ResearchGl

Sep 02, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

The Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump: A Threat to American Democracy and an Agent of Chaos in the World? By Prof Rodrigue Tremblay Global Research, August 25, 2019 Region: USA Theme: Global Economy , Police State & Civil Rights , US NATO War Agenda

With awareness and foresight, this incisive article on the US empire and the concurrent demise of democracy in America was published on February 15, 2017 shortly after Trump's presidential inauguration.

In the words of Julius Caesar , "you cannot build an Empire with a Republic."

" In order to obtain and hold power a man must love it. Thus the effort to get it is not likely to be coupled with goodness, but with the opposite qualities of pride, craft and cruelty. Without exalting self and abasing others, without hypocrisy, lying, prisons, fortresses, penalties, killing, no power can arise or hold its own." Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), (in 'The Kingdom of God is Within You' 1894.)

"The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history." Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), (in The Conquest of Happiness, ch. 1, 1930.)

" Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. " Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th President of the United States, 1861-65; (N. B.: Originally found and attributed to Lincoln in a biography entitled " Abraham Lincoln, the Backwoods Boy " by Horatio Alger Jr., pub. in 1883.)

"Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged against provisions against danger, real or pretended from abroad." James Madison (1751-1836), Father of the US Constitution, 4th American President, (in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 13, 1798.)

" When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951), (It Can't Happen Here, 1935, a novel about the election of a fascist to the American presidency.)

When 46.1% of Americans who voted , in November 2016, to elect a real estate magnate in the person of Donald Trump as U.S. President, they did not know precisely what they were buying, because, as the quote above says, we really know how a politician will behave only once he or she assumes power. Americans surely did not expect that the promised "change" the Republican presidential candidate envisioned and promised was going to be, in fact, "chaos" and "turmoil" in the U.S. government.

President Donald Trump (1946- ) has surrounded himself with three politically inexperienced Rasputin-like advisers, i.e. his young pro-Israel Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner (1981- ), advising on foreign policy and acting as a speech writer, and his far right media executive and chief political strategist Steve Bannon (1953- ) with an apocalyptic worldview, who is, moreover, a voting permanent member of the National Security Council ( NSC ). Stephen Miller (1985- ), 31, also a young inexperienced senior White House adviser, completes the trio. He is working with Jared Kushner for domestic affairs and is also a Trump speechwriter.

Stephen Miller (1985- ) Jared Kushner (1981- )

Three weeks after his inauguration, President Trump has turned out to be a much more erratic politician than could have been expected, even after all the inanities he uttered during the U.S. Presidential campaign.

I, for one, thought that once elected president and installed in the White House, he would abandon his tweeting eccentricities. -- I was wrong .

Stephen Bannon (1953- )

In fact, for a few weeks after inauguration day, on January 20, 2017, before the nominated secretaries of various government departments were confirmed by the Senate, and anxious to " get the show going ", the Trump White House behaved like an imperial junta, issuing a string of executive orders and memos . The objective, seemingly, was to force the hands of the responsible departments and of the elected Congress, and to bend the entire U.S. bureaucracy to its agenda. It may have gone too far.

Indeed, when the heads of important departments like the Department of Defense ( James Mattis, right) and the State Department ( Rex Tillerson ) were confirmed and assumed their functions, President Trump changed his mind on many policies about Israel , China , the Iran Deal etc.

U.S. courts have also thrown a monkey wrench in the blanket executive order closing the U.S. borders without recourse to the citizens of seven Muslim countries (Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen), for spurious " security reasons ".

Let us recall how the inexperienced Trump White House has created chaos during the first weeks following inauguration day.

President Donald Trump has shown a propensity to govern by decree with a minimum input from government departments and from the elected Congress

A dangerous and potentially disastrous approach to government, in a democracy, occurs when a leader adopts the practice of governing by decree , without constitutional constraints, thus forcing the hands of responsible departments, of the elected Congress and submitting the entire U.S. bureaucracy to his will by governing as an autocrat. If it were to continue on that road, the Trump administration could turn out to be more like a would-be imperial presidency than a responsible democratic government.

This term was first coined by historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in his 1973 book The Imperial Presidency , in response to President Richard Nixon's attempt to extend the power of the U.S. president, declaring " when the president does it, that means it is not illegal ". In my own 2003 book The New American Empire , I dealt with the issue of American presidents having usurped over time the power to adopt a policy of global intervention, and the power to launch wars of aggression at will, with a minimum input from Congress.

President Trump seems to want to outdo President Nixon in considering the White House as the primary center of political power within the American government, contrary to what the U.S. Constitution says about the separation of powers.

The American Military Empire: Is Trump Its Would-be Emperor?

To be sure, other American presidents have issued executive orders and presidential memos early in their administration, but this was mainly to re-establish procedures that a previous administration had abandoned. They usually did not deal with fundamental and complex policies without debate, although many did .

In the case of President Trump, his executive orders and presidential memos have not only been multiple, they also have dealt with fundamental policies, without consulting and requesting the professional input of the Secretary and of the department responsible, be it on healthcare, abortion, international trade, immigration, oil exploration, justice, etc., and without producing policy papers to explain the rationale behind the policy changes and without outlining the objectives being pursued.

When such a development of governing by decree has occurred in other countries, democracy was the loser, and the consequences for the leader and his country turned out to be disastrous.

President Donald Trump seems to be anxious to find pretexts to pick fights with other countries: For him, it seems to be the U.S. against the world

In a March 2007 interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, the future presidential candidate Donald Trump said that President George W. Bush had been a disaster in foreign relations and that he was " the worst American president in the history of the United States ", adding that he " should have been impeached " because he lied his way into a war of aggression against Iraq and sent thousands of people to their death. This is an assessment that he has repeated on numerous occasions.

However, ironically, President Donald Trump seems to be on the same track as George W. Bush regarding the country of Iran, using lies and false claims to pick a fight with that country, and in so doing, echoing the hysterical rhetoric of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu . He has also recklessly insulted the heads of a half dozen countries , even going so far as to threaten the President of Mexico to invade his country. As to his criticism of President George W. Bush, it seems that really, " it takes one to know one "!

President Trump should be reminded of what he promised as a presidential candidate. In a foreign policy speech delivered on Wednesday April 27, 2016, he declared "Unlike other candidates for the presidency, war and aggression will not be my first instinct. You cannot have a foreign policy without diplomacy. A superpower understands that caution and restraint are really truly signs of strength. Although not in government service, I was totally against the war in Iraq, very proudly, saying for many years that it would destabilize the Middle East."

President Donald Trump has been less than candid regarding the influence of the Wall Street lobby on politicians, including himself

During the 2016 Presidential political campaign, candidate Donald Trump was very critical of politicians who do the heavy lifting for Wall Street firms in Washington D.C. On many occasions, Mr. Trump said that Wall Street is a symbol of a corrupt establishment that has been robbing America's working class and enriching the elite. He also tweeted point blank, on July 28, 2016, that Secretary Hillary Clinton was " owned by Wall Street " and that Wall Street banks had " total, total control " over his rivals Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz, implying that they were unfit for the Office of the President. On October 19, 2016, Mr. Trump tweeted that " crooked Hillary is nothing more than a Wall Street Puppet ", thus presenting himself as the populist defender of the working class against the financial elite.

But guess what? One of Mr. Trump's first moves as President was to order the undoing of the banking regulations known as the Dodd-Frank legislation , which was adopted in 2010, after the 2008 subprime financial crisis. President Trump thus quickly answered the main request made by the very Wall Street mega banks that he had accused previously of corrupting Washington politicians. He went even further when he named a former Goldman Sachs banker, Steven Mnuchin ,(right) as his Treasury Secretary.

Also, Mr. Trump has reached to the mega-bank Goldman Sachs for help and support. He name Mr. Gary Cohn (1960- ), president of Goldman Sachs , head of the President's National Economic Council, thus making sure that Wall Street bankers will have a big say in his administration's economic and financial policies.

Was his lambasting of his opponents as Wall Street banks' puppets simply campaign rhetoric without substance? That is certainly a question worth asking.

President Donald Trump's continuous attacks against the free press and against independent judges who rule against his policies is an authoritarian approach to government and is a violation of the separation of powers

On Monday February 6, President Trump launched a barrage of off-the-cuff intimidating insults at the American news media, accusing them of " refusing to report on terrorist attack s", without providing any evidence to back up such serious accusations. He has also attempted to intimidate judges who have to rule on the constitutionality of some of his decrees and threatened their judiciary independence .

Such behavior is a violation of, and contempt for the separation of powers clause in the U.S. Constitution and is a frontal attack against the free press .

This is not a trivial matter, because when an authoritarian regime wants to establish itself and avoid accountability, it usually attacks the legislative and the judiciary branches of government to pressure them to toe the line of the executive branch, and it tries to silence the very institutions that can put the false statements of politicians to the test.

President Donald Trump has a mercantilist view of international trade, which is rejected by nearly all economists

President Donald Trump seems to think that his country should have trade surpluses on goods and services vis-à-vis other countries, the latter being saddled with trade deficits, whatever the overall balance of payments of the United States, especially its capital account, and whatever the domestic and foreign economic circumstances. This is economically false. That is not the way adjustments in the balance of payments of a country work, in a multilateral world.

When Donald Trump places all the emphasis on only one part of the balance of payments, the trade balance, he misses the point. For example, if a country lives beyond its means and borrows money from abroad, such foreign borrowing appears as an inflow of foreign capital in the country. Such an inflow of foreign capital causes an excess of domestic spending over its production, and that helps finance an excess of imports over exports of goods and services with the rest of the world. The capital account of the country shows a surplus, while the trade balance (more precisely the current account) indicates a deficit, thus balancing more or less each other.

The main reason why the United States is registering trade deficits is because it borrows too much from abroad.

This is partly due to the fact that the U.S. government runs huge fiscal deficits , spending more than its tax revenues, and borrowing money both from the private sector and from foreigners, thus increasing the public debt. Such deficits often are the result of tax reductions and of increased military expenditures. The fact that the world economy uses the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency represents an interest-free loan that the rest of the world makes to the United States, which allows the USA to have a chronic trade deficit. Mr. Trump and his advisers would be wise to understand these truths of international finance.

If his administration wants to reduce the annual U.S. trade deficit with the rest of the world, the U.S. government should balance its books and reduce its foreign borrowings. Trade wars will not improve the U.S. trade balance if the country keeps over-spending and keeps borrowing from abroad. They would only make matters worse.

For many decades now, the U.S. government has piled up debt upon debt while running continuous fiscal deficits , mainly due to the fact that it has been waging costly wars abroad, while financing such interventions with foreign money. This is a problem that American politicians must understand if they don't want their country to go bankrupt. This has happened in the past to other overextended empires , and there is no reason why it should not happen today when a country continuously spends more than it produces. And wars do not produce anything, except death and destruction.

Hopes of putting an end to the Middle East chaos have greatly diminished

One of the positive results of the Trump election was the promise to end the deadly chaos in the Middle East. During the presidential campaign and once in power, Mr. Trump threw some cold water on that promise.

Firstly, in his March 21, 2016 speech to AIPAC , he flattered his rich Zionist donors by announcing his intention to break with the half-century policy of most western nations that considers the city of Jerusalem a United Nations protected zone and an international city occupied by Arabs, Christians and Jews. He declared " we will move the American embassy [from Tel Aviv] to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem ."

Secondly, on Thursday December 15, 2016, to make sure that everybody understands that he is one-sided in the more than half a century old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, President-elect Trump announced his choice of a hardliner pro-Israeli settlements on privately-owned Palestinian lands for U.S. ambassador to Israel (in fact, David Friedman , his former bankruptcy lawyer). The new ambassador didn't waste any time in professing that he was looking forward to doing his job " from the U.S. embassy in Israel's eternal capital, Jerusalem ."

And, thirdly, seemingly forgetting that he had criticized Secretary Clinton for proposing a similar dangerously reckless policy, President Trump announced, on January 25, that he " will absolutely do safe zones in Syria ", seemingly without considering if it was legal to do so without the consent of the Syrian government, and without consulting with the three principal countries (Russia, Turkey and Iran), which had just concluded a peace plan for Syria. He opted instead to talk to leaders of Saudi Arabia and of the United Arab Emirates -- two countries known to be sponsoring terrorism in Syria.

The world is afraid of President Donald Trump: Doomsday Clock scientists have concluded that humanity is just two-and-a-half minutes from the apocalypse

Late in January, the scientists in charge of the Doomsday Clock set the clock at just two-and-a-half minutes from the apocalypse, allegedly because of Donald Trump. They said that the businessman turned politician, with his disturbing and ill-considered pronouncements and policies, has the potential to drive the Planet to oblivion.

This means that they consider that the Earth is now closer to oblivion than it has ever been since 1953, at the height of the nuclear confrontation between the USA and the Soviet Union.

The existential threats facing the Earth now come from the loose talk about using nuclear weapons and the proliferation of such weapons, as well as the observed acceleration of climate change.

Conclusion

All considered, the turn of events since the election of Donald Trump has raised a number of fears that a lot of things could go wrong in the coming years. Many of the policies advanced by the Trump administration are the wrong remedies for the problems facing the United States and the world. In fact, many of these ill-conceived policies are more likely to make matters worse, possibly much worse, than to improve them.

Things seem to have begun to change somewhat with the arrival of newly confirmed secretaries in the decision-making process and new advisers. Let us hope that cooler heads will bring experience, knowledge and competence to a Trump administration that cruelly needs it.

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Economist Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay is the author of the book "The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles ", and of " The New American Empire " .

[Sep 02, 2019] Opinion Useful Idiots and Trumpist Billionaires by Paul Krugman

It is true that hate of financial oligarchy fuels anti-Semitism but here Trump is just one small step since 1980 to make this situation happen. The neoliberal elite achieves some success by trying to substitute anti-Semitism with Russophobia, but the essence of Russophobia, as displayed anti-Semitism is the same -- this is an attempt to deflect critique of neoliberal elite and patch the cracks in the neoliberal facade of the US society.
The problem is not Trump but neoliberalism. Krugman who is neoliberal stooge would never admit that. In essence he is a useful idiot for financial oligarchy in in Lenin's terminology. And always was.
The real situation is that Wall Street banks and financial oligarchs despite overrepresentation of a particular nationality in them are interested in imposing the neo-fascist regime on the country and will finance the leader and the party which strive to do that because they are afraid to lose the power and money as the result of the collapse of neoliberalism. So this 1920 in the new colorful, gadget filled packaging. Few US citizens would name US business moguls who help the rise of Hitler. They include some well known families.
Notable quotes:
"... It's true that Trump (breaking all his campaign promises) has indeed cut taxes on the wealthy, and will surely cut them further if re-elected. By contrast, whoever the Democrats nominate is likely to raise those taxes if she or he wins the general election, perhaps substantially. ..."
"... People who've studied the extremely rich argue that money, for them, is largely not about being able to buy things but is instead a way of keeping score; their satisfaction comes not from more consumption but from overtaking their perceived peers. ..."
"... And tax cuts don't help on that dimension, since your peers get the same tax breaks you do. ..."
Sep 02, 2019 | www.nytimes.com

... ... ...

It's true that Trump (breaking all his campaign promises) has indeed cut taxes on the wealthy, and will surely cut them further if re-elected. By contrast, whoever the Democrats nominate is likely to raise those taxes if she or he wins the general election, perhaps substantially.

But let's get real. If you're a billionaire, you don't need the extra money. At that level, purchasing power has nothing to do with the quality of life; having a 45,000-square-foot house instead of just 40,000, or flying to one of your multiple other residences in a bigger private jet, won't make you significantly happier.

People who've studied the extremely rich argue that money, for them, is largely not about being able to buy things but is instead a way of keeping score; their satisfaction comes not from more consumption but from overtaking their perceived peers.

And tax cuts don't help on that dimension, since your peers get the same tax breaks you do.

More to the point, Trumpism is about much more than tax cuts: It's an attempt to end the rule of law and impose an authoritarian, white nationalist regime. And even billionaires should be terrified about what their lives will be like if that attempt succeeds.

...Ross is Jewish -- and anyone Jewish has to be completely ignorant of history not to know that when bigotry runs free, we're always next in line for persecution.

In fact, the ingredients for an American pogrom are already in place. The El Paso shooting suspect, like many right-wing terrorists, is a believer in " replacement theory " -- the claim that immigration is part of a vast conspiracy to replace whites with people of color. And who's behind that conspiracy? You know who: "Jews will not replace us," declared the torch-carrying marchers in Charlottesville.

Is Trump a replacement theory guy? The replacement theorists think so.

... ... ...

By the way, the greed part is obvious. But it has also been clear since the Obama years that a fair number of the superrich aren't satisfied with being immensely wealthy; they also want adulation. They expect to be praised as heroic job creators and are enraged at any suggestion that some of their number may have behaved badly, let alone that they may have benefited from a rigged system.

Hence the hatred for even reasonable, pro-market progressives like, say, Elizabeth Warren. It's not just that these progressives might make billionaires a bit poorer, but that they make them feel small.


Socrates Downtown Verona. NJ Aug. 12

There is abundant academic research demonstrating that the rich are not nice people. People driving luxury cars are more likely to cut off other cars and pedestrians instead of waiting their turn at an intersection or crosswalk. The wealthiest 20% of Americans give significantly less to charity as a fraction of income (1.4%) than the poorest 20 % do (3.5%), according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Researchers have found that wealthier people are more likely to believe that selfishness is a virtue. They are more likely to agree with statements that say that being greedy is justified, even beneficial. The rich have a people problem; they don't like people. Greed is a disease, but there is one good way to treat it: with fair taxation. America's income tax, payroll tax and sales tax codes are giant Christmas buffets for the rich that allow them to systematically dodge taxes while feigning persecution. And the truly perverted part is that the 2017 Trump-GOP 0.1% Welfare Tax Cut Act not only gave the 0.1% untold billions in gravy, but the 0.1% then proceeded to 're-invest' part of that 0.1% welfare right back into the Trump-GOP corrupt campaign coffers, creating a sickening loop of 0.1% Republican corruption of the tax code and campaign finance corruption. In short, you can support the Grand Oligarch Party or you can support a decent American civilization, but you can't do both. It's well past time to evict the Greed Over People party from the American politiscape. 25 Replies
hen3ry Westchester, NY Aug. 13 Times Pick
One of the most interesting things about the modern British Royal Family is how often its members have served in the military. Another notable thing is how much they do for charity. They needn't do anything but it seems that they take their responsibilities as the Royal Family to heart. They do, for the most part, try to set an example to the nation they lead. (Yes, it's a constitutional monarchy and most of the power resides in Parliament but the family doesn't have to set any examples at all if it doesn't want to.) Here in America a great many of our richest families do not serve the country in any way, shape or form except one: they form PACS with innocuous names like Americans For Prosperity or Citizens for a Sound Economy and use them to push an agenda that hurts 99% of us. We had a vice president, Dick Cheney, who was quite happy to have a war in Iraq even though he avoided the draft during the Vietnam War. In other words, he liked the sound of war but had no idea about what was involved in running a war or anything else associated with a war. In America we confuse riches with intelligence, being virtuous, and wisdom. In truth all being very rich does is to insulate a person from the worst hardships of life. There is no reason to offer the rich generous tax breaks. They do not spend the money; they invest it and it's not invested in us. If they are true patriots they will pay their taxes. 8/12/2019 10:29pm
GLO NYC Aug. 13 Times Pick
This "so called democracy" here in the U.S. has long ago been superseded by a monetized democracy. Those making large monetary contributions to elected officials rule the day. Look at the NRA, Big Pharma, Big Ag, etc. Stephen Ross is doing what many of the moneyed class in the U.S.A does today in order to be heard. Time for a big change, bring back the voice of the voting public.
Mike Tucson Aug. 12
"People who've studied the extremely rich argue that money, for them, is largely not about being able to buy things but is instead a way of keeping score; their satisfaction comes not from more consumption but from overtaking their perceived peers." Veblen would find that to be an interesting observation. If the scoring can't be seen (like having one's tenth Citation) does it generate the same impact on one's dopamine "wealth" receptors. The truth is that extreme wealth turns just about everyone into somewhat of a sociopath, unable to have any empathy for "the lower orders". Oh sure, they give a lot to charity but that too is simply a variant of conspicuous consumption. When I was an executive in a health insurance company back in the 90's, the compensation consultants would come in and say that if the executive team did not get more money, they would all leave to go to higher paying companies. While this was really not true by any objective measure, the board bought it an our salaries and bonuses exploded even though we really didn't work all that much harder. It was just free money. So the marginal utility of that added money did not result in actually harder work. Now think of the poor person who IS working so much harder, often multiple jobs. They actually deserve more money. But no, it goes to the enabled wealthy. What would Marx say? Oh, and what would Jesus say?
Jim Preston Santa Clara, CA Aug. 12
Rich industrialists financed the Nazis for sure and I think the other fascist governments in Italy and Spain as I recall. They are drawn to fascism like flies. Money does not equal brains except in tech.
Plennie Wingo Weinfelden, Switzerland Aug. 13
Story yesterday on Marketwatch that the Walton family's wealth increases by $100 million per day. Meanwhile many of their workers have to apply for public assistance to stay alive. A charming time, ours.

[Sep 01, 2019] The Trump NLRB's Anti-Labor Day Capital Main

Sep 01, 2019 | capitalandmain.com

Employee rights advocates say this Labor Day's family barbecues and union solidarity picnics will take place in the shadow of a Trump administration that has quietly stacked the National Labor Relations Board with anti-labor members. The federal agency is far less well-known than the IRS or EPA, but its five presidential appointees issue rulings with often far-reaching consequences for America's working men and women. The NLRB was created in 1935 to oversee collective bargaining and protect labor standards; the majority of its current board have worked for years with pro-employer firms or on behalf of industry.

Under the Trump administration, says Henry Willis , a veteran employment rights attorney at Schwartz, Steinsapir, Dohrmann & Sommers, "They are rolling back rights as fast as they can."

Even before Trump was elected president, labor advocates had long lamented an NLRB process weighted towards employers who have the power of the paycheck and an array of tactics to shut down union organizing drives. A 2009 study , published by the liberal Economic Policy Institute think tank, found that during 57 percent of union election processes, employers threatened to shut down their workplaces; and during 34 percent of those organizing drives, employers fired workers and used one-on-one meetings with employees to threaten them.

Study author Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research and a senior lecturer at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, says those numbers have remained steady since 2009.

Moreover, Bronfenbrenner adds, when an administration changes it's not uncommon for boards to reverse some preceding labor decisions, but that "there's a different tone to this board in that it is reversing long-held law. Not just changing rules but reversing decisions that had been agreed upon for a long time."

In other words, the NLRB under Trump represents a tectonic shift in the way the agency has traditionally operated.

Bronfenbrenner cites a recent decision that allows employers to stop bargaining and call for a new union election each time a contract approaches expiration -- in effect, inviting company employees to decertify their union. "[Employers] can just say, 'I no longer believe the union has support, and then there will be an election," she says. "Employers can do that every single time a contract expires."

Willis, who litigates on the front lines, ticks off a list illustrating a piece-by-piece dismantling of employee rights.

"The current board has been attacking Obama board decisions on issues such as [establishing] who's an independent contractor and who's an employee," he says, referring to a January 2019 revision of the standard used to determine whether independent contractors are covered by the National Labor Relations Act, which, the NLRB proclaims on its website , was passed by Congress in 1935 "to protect the rights of employees and employers, to encourage collective bargaining, and to curtail certain private sector labor and management practices, and which can harm the general welfare of workers, businesses and the U.S. economy."

The January decision makes it less likely that the contractors will be given the same rights as employees.

"That's a big issue," Willis says. "Especially with the gig economy."

Another 2017 NLRB decision upended the definition of bargaining units . An employer no longer has to recognize or bargain with smaller units within a single work location, forcing a union to do large-scale organizing.

Organizing a shoe department, Willis notes, is less daunting than organizing an entire department store.

The Obama NLRB strove to proactively extend protections to unorganized shops -- where workers are less likely to know their rights. "The Trump board is taking a reactionary approach -- pulling back wherever possible," Willis says.

* * *

Currently operating with a vacant seat , the five-member board consists of three Republicans and Obama appointee Lauren McFerran, and it's set to term out in December. Conservative interests have urged President Trump to wait until McFerran leaves and then to fill the two empty seats to lock in a unanimous pro-employer majority.

Also in the works is a restructuring of the NLRB that would centralize decision-making in Washington and bring decisions now investigated and adjudicated at the regional level under scrutiny there.

Trump general counsel appointee Peter Robb issued a 2017 memo directing NLRB regional offices to submit to his Division of Advice for review cases involving "significant legal issues . " In 2018 Robb announced an intention to reorganize the agency's 26 regional offices into a smaller number of districts that report directly to Robb -- who could then present the issues to the NLRB in a way to give cover to the board to reverse local decisions and create precedent.

"The current general counsel has been trying to shift decision-making power from the regions to D.C. and creating a new layer of administration to give him more control over how the regions handle unfair labor practice charges," says Willis. "It hasn't been carried out, but the general counsel certainly has a big foot and brings it down much more frequently these days."

It's not all bleak news for labor, however. Unions are now organizing and representing contract workers, including hundreds of thousands of janitors, whether or not the NLRB designates them as employees, says Bronfenbrenner.

She sees the most vibrant aspects today's labor movement in industries where the majority are women and men and women of color -- and notes that those constituencies were largely shunned by organized labor when it was at the height of its strength.

"Organized labor only started getting a move on when their density had gone down below down to 12 percent and that's a little late. If they had done it when their density was 50 percent or 45 percent, they could have used their bargaining power."

[Aug 26, 2019] From Voodoo Economics to Evil-Eye Economics

Notable quotes:
"... Almost four decades ago then-candidate George H.W. Bush used the phrase "voodoo economic policy" to describe Ronald Reagan's claim that cutting taxes for the rich would pay for itself. He was more prescient than he could have imagined. ..."
"... For voodoo economics isn't just a doctrine based on magical thinking. It's the ultimate policy zombie, a belief that seemingly can't be killed by evidence. It has failed every time its proponents have tried to put it into practice, but it just keeps shambling along. In fact, at this point it has eaten the brains of every significant figure in the Republican Party. Even Susan Collins, the least right-wing G.O.P. senator (although that isn't saying much), insisted that the 2017 tax cut would actually reduce the deficit. ..."
"... During the 2016 campaign Donald Trump pretended to be different, claiming that he would actually raise taxes on the rich. Once in office, however, he immediately went full voodoo. In fact, he has taken magical thinking to a new level. ..."
"... My favorite until now came from Art Laffer, the original voodoo economist and recent recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Why did George W. Bush's tax-cutting presidency end not with a boom, but with the worst economic slump since the Great Depression? ..."
"... But Trump has gone one better. As it has become increasingly clear that the results of his tax cut were disappointing -- recent data revisions have marked down estimates of both G.D.P. and employment growth, to the point where it's hard to see more than a brief sugar high from $2 trillion in borrowing ..."
"... Officials have floated, then retracted, the idea of a cut in payroll taxes -- that is, a tax break for ordinary workers, rather than the corporations and wealthy individuals who mainly benefited from the 2017 tax cut. But such action seems unlikely, among other things because top administration officials denounced this policy idea when Obama proposed it. ..."
"... The truth is that Trump doesn't have a Plan B, and probably can't come up with one. On the other hand, he might not have to. Who needs competent policy when you're the chosen one and the king of Israel? ..."
Aug 26, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

anne , August 23, 2019 at 12:30 PM

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/22/opinion/trump-payroll-tax-cut.html

August 22, 2019

From Voodoo Economics to Evil-Eye Economics
Are Democrats hexing the Trump boom with bad thoughts?
By Paul Krugman

Almost four decades ago then-candidate George H.W. Bush used the phrase "voodoo economic policy" to describe Ronald Reagan's claim that cutting taxes for the rich would pay for itself. He was more prescient than he could have imagined.

For voodoo economics isn't just a doctrine based on magical thinking. It's the ultimate policy zombie, a belief that seemingly can't be killed by evidence. It has failed every time its proponents have tried to put it into practice, but it just keeps shambling along. In fact, at this point it has eaten the brains of every significant figure in the Republican Party. Even Susan Collins, the least right-wing G.O.P. senator (although that isn't saying much), insisted that the 2017 tax cut would actually reduce the deficit.

During the 2016 campaign Donald Trump pretended to be different, claiming that he would actually raise taxes on the rich. Once in office, however, he immediately went full voodoo. In fact, he has taken magical thinking to a new level.

True, whenever tax cuts fail to produce the predicted miracle, their defenders come up with bizarre explanations for their failure.

My favorite until now came from Art Laffer, the original voodoo economist and recent recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Why did George W. Bush's tax-cutting presidency end not with a boom, but with the worst economic slump since the Great Depression? According to Laffer, blame rests with Barack Obama, even though the recession began more than a year before Obama took office. You see, according to Laffer, everyone lost confidence upon realizing that Obama might win the 2008 election.

But Trump has gone one better. As it has become increasingly clear that the results of his tax cut were disappointing -- recent data revisions have marked down estimates of both G.D.P. and employment growth, to the point where it's hard to see more than a brief sugar high from $2 trillion in borrowing -- Trump has invented ever more creative ways to blame other people. In particular, he's now claiming that the promised boom hasn't arrived because his opponents are hexing the economy with bad thoughts: "The Democrats are trying to 'will' the Economy to be bad for purposes of the 2020 Election."

Can opposition politicians really cause a recession with negative thinking? This goes beyond voodoo economics; maybe we should call it evil-eye economics.

To be fair, the claim that Democrats are hexing his boom is a secondary theme in Trump's ranting. Mostly he has been blaming the Federal Reserve for its "crazy" interest rate hikes. And the truth is that last year's rate increases pretty clearly were a mistake.

But blaming the Fed for the tax cut's fizzle won't wash. For one thing, the Fed has actually raised rates less than in previous economic recoveries. Even more to the point, the Trump economic team was expecting Fed rate hikes when it made its extravagantly optimistic forecasts. Administration projections from a year ago envisioned 2019 interest rates substantially higher than what we're actually seeing.

Put it this way: The Trump tax cut was supposed to create a boom so powerful that it would not only withstand modest Fed rate hikes, but actually require such hikes to prevent inflationary overheating. You don't get to turn around and claim betrayal when the Fed does exactly what you expected it to do.

Aside from blaming everyone but himself, however, how will Trump deal with the failure of his economic promises? He has taken to demanding that the Fed roll the printing presses, slashing interest rates and buying bonds -- the actions it normally takes in the face of a serious recession -- even as he claims that the economy remains strong, and unemployment is in fact near a historic low.

As many people have noted, these are exactly the actions Republicans, including Trump, denounced as "currency debasement" when unemployment was far higher than it is today and the economy desperately needed a boost.

Since the Fed is unlikely to oblige, what else might Trump do? Officials have floated, then retracted, the idea of a cut in payroll taxes -- that is, a tax break for ordinary workers, rather than the corporations and wealthy individuals who mainly benefited from the 2017 tax cut. But such action seems unlikely, among other things because top administration officials denounced this policy idea when Obama proposed it.

Trump has also suggested using executive authority to reduce taxes on capital gains (which are overwhelmingly paid by the wealthy). This move would have the distinction of being both ineffectual and illegal.

What about calling off the trade war that has been depressing business investment? This seems unlikely, because protectionism is right up there with racism as a core Trump value. And merely postponing tariffs might not help, since it wouldn't resolve the uncertainty that may be the trade war's biggest cost.

The truth is that Trump doesn't have a Plan B, and probably can't come up with one. On the other hand, he might not have to. Who needs competent policy when you're the chosen one and the king of Israel?

Christopher H. -> anne... , August 23, 2019 at 12:46 PM
"But blaming the Fed for the tax cut's fizzle won't wash. For one thing, the Fed has actually raised rates less than in previous economic recoveries. Even more to the point, the Trump economic team was expecting Fed rate hikes when it made its extravagantly optimistic forecasts. "

Yes the Trump economic team is insane and clueless. But the Fed has been tightening since 2013 when Bernanke began tapering QE.

So now all good liberals are crying recession (which would hurt Trump in the election) but the Fed is blameless?

Monetary policy is ineffective. Then why don't we get rid of the Fed's vaunted independence? Then why does it matter if Trump tweets at Powell?

This isn't directed at Anne but at the general comment reader and Krugman admirer.

Plp -> Christopher H.... , August 24, 2019 at 05:45 AM
LARRY S
IS WAY AHEAD OF KRUGMAN

The paradigm that has governed macro policy since 1980 is dead. No more interest rate forex rate guided macro demand management

The FED is at best a servo mechanism to facilitate fiscal macro activism

[Aug 25, 2019] Is it true that "Trump is doing nothing evil" ?

Aug 25, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

WTFUD , 1 hour ago link

Done nothing EVIL bar fire 100 cruise missiles into Syria and attempting to starve millions in Venezuela & Iran, while sucking on Bibi's ****, emboldening him to continue on a genocidal path in the ME among other twisted fuckery.

Other than the above, man done good.

TheRapture , 41 minutes ago link

Trump is an oathbreaker: he broke both the WTO agreement and the bilateral agreement with China.

On non-trade issues,

  1. Trump promised to investigate 9/11. How is that coming along?
  2. The Las Vegas / Paddock false flag happened on Trump's watch. He covered it up.
  3. Trump is doing his best to start a war with Iran.
  4. Truck seems to love Israel more than he loves America.
  5. Epstein was assassinated on Trump's watch. Trump could have protected Epstein, but didn't
  6. Trump is in Saudi Arabia's pocket.
  7. Trump is helping wage Saudi Arabia's genocidal war in Yemen.
  8. Trump promised to unify the country. He's doing the opposite.
  9. Trump has increased surveillance, police state powers instead of calling for repeal of Patriot Act, NDAA, etc.
  10. Trump has not taken any concrete steps to curtail internet censorship, or protect an Open Internet.
  11. Trump promised to pull out of Syria, yet he still has U.S. troops there, and colludes with Israeli attacks on Syria.
  12. Trump promised he would cut taxes for the middle class and not cut for the rich. He did the opposite.
  13. Trump is crashing the global economy, and like Humpty Dumpty, it can't be put together again.
  14. American farmers may have lost their single biggest export market. US taxpayers will pay farmers welfare forever.

There's more, if you'd like more.

[Aug 24, 2019] Possible troubles for Trump in 2020: Trump administration might face defeats on major fronts they have opened

Aug 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

James , Aug 22 2019 18:22 utc | 7

I think Trump administration will face several defeats on may fronts they have opened very soon. Their major issue is that they have tried to tackle many things at once, which has created a cohesive opposition: China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and many other countries that don't like his unilateral decisions and moves. The major blow would be from dedollaraization down in the road. If he had problem with China, he should have dealt with it at a different time in a different manner. Pushing Iran at the same time was a major error. One wonders what is he thinking. On the issue of Iran; if they would have got along with Iran, they would have made major gains. Picking wrong partners always is the issue for these in the power.

[Aug 23, 2019] Since Day 1, this administration has been seeking out opportunity after opportunity to benefit the powerful and the privileged -- the very wealthiest Americans and big corporations

Aug 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ash (London) , Aug 22 2019 23:50 utc | 53

psychohistorian , Aug 23 2019 0:05 utc | 54

I just got this email which I think appropriate to share with fellow MoA barflies

"
Since Day 1, this administration has been seeking out opportunity after opportunity to benefit the powerful and the privileged -- the very wealthiest Americans and big corporations. From the $1.7 trillion tax break for giant corporations and their wealthy executives, to allowing more pollution by oil and gas companies, to allowing insurance companies to once again discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions, the giveaways to billion dollar corporations have been endless, while working families pay the price.

This week, the Trump administration added another critical item to the list of attacks on working families: Gutting the Volcker Rule firewall, a critical safeguard that protects Americans from the consequences of high-risk Wall Street gambling.

Make no mistake. This move is a brazen attempt by big banks and their Trump-appointed allies to reopen the Wall Street casino that led us into the Great Recession, no matter the cost to working Americans who will lose their homes, jobs and savings when the casino goes belly-up. That's not just unethical, it's dangerous.

Working Americans should not have to foot the bill for the big banks' casino games. That's why I co-authored the Volcker Rule and fought to include it in the landmark Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, which Congress passed to prevent Wall Street from repeating the causes of the Great Recession. The reality is, if we let big banks go back to the days of making huge bets on things like future stock values, foreign exchange rates, or interest rates, working families will ultimately be the ones to pay the price.

I believe that our economy is only as strong as the bottom lines of our working families, and that big banks shouldn't be calling the shots. Please know that I'm going to keep fighting for an economy that works for all of us -- not just the powerful and the privileged.

All my best,
Jeff (Merkley - Oregon Senator)
"
Our government is now controlled by the elite but not entirely silenced.

[Aug 20, 2019] Trump is about the agony. The agony of the US centered global neoliberal empire.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The current neoliberal order failed to suppress China development enough to block her from becoming the competitor (and the second largest economy.) ..."
"... That's why a faction of the USA elite decided to adopt "might makes right" policies (essentially piracy instead of international law) in a hope that it will prolong the life of the US-centered neoliberal empire. ..."
"... As much as Trump proved to be inapt politician and personally and morally despicable individual (just his known behavior toward Melania tells a lot about him; we do not need possible Epstein revelations for that) he does represent a faction of the US elite what wants this change. ..."
"... All his pro working class and pro lower middle class rhetoric was a bluff -- he is representative of faction of the US elite that is hell bent on maintaining the imperial superiority achieved after the collapse of the USSR, whatever it takes. At the expense of common people as Pentagon budget can attest. ..."
"... That also explains the appointment of Bolton and Pompeo. That are birds of the feather, not some maniacs (although they are ;-) accidentally brought into Trump administration via major donors pressure. ..."
"... In this sense Russiagate was not only a color revolution launched to depose Trump by neoliberal wing of Democratic Party and rogue, Obama-installed elements within intelligence agencies (Brennan, Comey, McCabe, etc.) , but also part of the struggle between the faction of the US elite that wants "muscular" policy of preservation of the empire (Trump supporters faction so to speak) and the faction that still wants to kick the can down the road via "classic neoliberalism" path (Clinton supporters faction so to speak.) ..."
Aug 20, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

likbez -> anne... August 04, 2019 at 04:14 PM

It is not about the strategy. It's about the agony. The agony of the US centered global neoliberal empire.

Trump and forces behind him realized that current set of treaties does not favor the preservation of the empire and allows new powerful players to emerge despite all institutionalized looting via World Bank and IMF and the imposition of Washington Consensus. The main danger here are Germany (and EU in general) and, especially, China.

The current neoliberal order failed to suppress China development enough to block her from becoming the competitor (and the second largest economy.)

That's why a faction of the USA elite decided to adopt "might makes right" policies (essentially piracy instead of international law) in a hope that it will prolong the life of the US-centered neoliberal empire.

As much as Trump proved to be inapt politician and personally and morally despicable individual (just his known behavior toward Melania tells a lot about him; we do not need possible Epstein revelations for that) he does represent a faction of the US elite what wants this change.

All his pro working class and pro lower middle class rhetoric was a bluff -- he is representative of faction of the US elite that is hell bent on maintaining the imperial superiority achieved after the collapse of the USSR, whatever it takes. At the expense of common people as Pentagon budget can attest.

That also explains the appointment of Bolton and Pompeo. That are birds of the feather, not some maniacs (although they are ;-) accidentally brought into Trump administration via major donors pressure.

In this sense Russiagate was not only a color revolution launched to depose Trump by neoliberal wing of Democratic Party and rogue, Obama-installed elements within intelligence agencies (Brennan, Comey, McCabe, etc.) , but also part of the struggle between the faction of the US elite that wants "muscular" policy of preservation of the empire (Trump supporters faction so to speak) and the faction that still wants to kick the can down the road via "classic neoliberalism" path (Clinton supporters faction so to speak.)

[Aug 18, 2019] Trump's Nationalist Report Card A Solid C

Aug 18, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Donald Trump will win reelection, or not, based primarily on his performance in office. The voters will ask, in their collective judgment, such questions as: has he scored at least one major accomplishment in domestic policy? Has he maintained strong economic growth? Has he avoided major foreign policy failures? Has he presided over a major foreign policy victory? Is he scarred by scandal? Are Americans better off than they were before his inauguration? Is the country better positioned in the world?

Looking at the Trump presidency through the prism of such questions, it is possible to produce a kind of preliminary report card. Recognizing that the voters won't render their own grades for more than a year, we can still compile a general overview of the president's likely standing when the votes are counted. This overview suggests that he resides upon a knife's edge of political fate. Events between now and November of next year could easily push him into defeat, though he could also squeak through to victory. But defeat is more likely.

Before we get to the report card, two general points need to be made. First, irrespective of Trump's fate next year, he is and will remain a significant figure in American political history. He transformed the national debate by exposing the chasm in political sensibilities between the elites of the coasts and angry Americans in the heartland. In spite of his crude and often distasteful ways (and sometimes because of them), he created a tight knot of political sentiment that stands antagonistic toward the elite vision of globalism, diversity, open borders, overseas dominance, and free trade -- most of it enforced with the cudgel of political correctness.

The heartland ethos, by contrast, includes an end to illegal immigration, a more restrictionist legal immigration system to foster the absorption of those already here, a trade system attuned to industrial America, realism and restraint in foreign policy, respect for the country's cultural heritage, and a hostility to the insidious impact of identity politics.

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This is a huge chasm, yet when the 2016 campaign began, hardly a politician on the scene perceived it or understood its ramifications. Trump did, and that got him (barely) elected. The result now is that we all now know about the chasm, and it will be America's defining political pivot for years to come.

But if this political sagacity got Trump elected, it won't help him much in 2020. Challengers can win on talk if it resonates sufficiently with the electorate; incumbents can only win on performance.

The second point is that, while the president enjoys the solid support of a highly loyal and unwavering contingent of Americans, he has proven incapable of building a governing coalition. Throughout his presidency, his approval rating, based on the aggregate numbers pulled together by the political web site FiveThirtyEight, has hovered between 39 percent and 43 percent. This doesn't mean he can't get up to the 50 percent or so needed for reelection. Ronald Reagan's rating was just 45 percent at this point in his presidency, and he went on to a landslide reelection win. But Trump's level of approval has been so consistent that it is difficult to see how he might rise above it during his final months in office.

Further, state-by-state poll numbers indicate that the president has lost considerable ground in key states needed for reelection. According to surveys conducted by the online polling firm Civiqs, his approval rating is in negative numbers in 10 states he carried in 2016, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Texas. None of the states carried by Hillary Clinton seem poised to flip to the president.

This reflects Trump's general standing with the American people, and it means that he doesn't have sufficient political juice to dominate the national debate on major issues and get Congress to take action. Trump supporters no doubt will blame the Democrats, as presidential loyalists always do when their man can't get the job done. But in our presidential system, chief executives don't get a pass by pointing fingers at the opposition.

Richard Nixon, a 43 percent victor in 1968, had to contend with a hostile Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, and still amassed a record that buoyed him to a massive reelection victory in 1972. Reagan had a hostile House Democratic majority and yet managed to galvanize the American people to such an extent that the House leadership lost control of its own chamber, as frightened Democrats crossed over to Reagan's positions on major issues, particularly fiscal ones.

How do presidents manage to overcome a hostile opposition? By shrewdly selecting issues to be pursued; by presenting brilliant and coherent narrations on what those issues mean; and by deftly negotiating at the end to bring along just enough of the opposition to carry the day. After his Democratic Party lost both houses of Congress in 1994, Bill Clinton embarked on his brilliant "triangulation" strategy. Trump hasn't demonstrated any such capacity.

Which brings us to the report card:

Health care: Trump failed all three of the tests for political success on this issue. He chose it before it was ripe for serious legislative action (GOP lawmakers wanted to repeal and replace Obamacare but didn't have anything approaching a viable replacement); he didn't explain it well because it wasn't well joined and because he didn't seem to understand it; and he didn't seek any compromise with opposition members. Grade: D.

Immigration: A massive Trump failure. He was the first president in decades who had enough credibility with restrictionists to fashion a grand bargain that might have included legal status for the so-called Dreamers (and perhaps their immediate families; not cousins and uncles). He might have also taken serious action on other illegals in the country, on stemming the inward flow through every means possible, and on overhauling current immigration policies, including ending family-based migration and the lottery, instituting a merit-based system, and curbing the inflow enough to get the percentage of foreign-born people in America returned to more historical levels.

Was this even remotely possible? Perhaps not. But Trump campaigned as a man who would address the country's festering immigration problem. That required that the issue be presented with sensitivity and clarity as to the harm that decades of neglect have done to America. Nobody wants the United States to be a heartless country, but polls also indicate that Democrats have come too close to open borders for the comfort of most. Therein was the opportunity.

But Trump didn't even talk to the American people about the issue; he communicated only to his base, thus ensuring that the immigration chasm would continue with no end in sight. Grade: D.

Economic growth: We can't issue a final grade here until the end of the semester, but prospects are good for solid marks, even if an A doesn't appear likely. If growth continues through the third quarter of next year, Trump will merit a solid B; if it slows, perhaps a B-; if it picks up, a B+. But an A would require the kind of growth seen in Reagan's last six years in office (including annual percentages of 7.9, 5.6, 4.2, 4.5, and 3.8) or Clinton's second term (4.4, 4.5, 4.9, 4.8). That isn't likely. Further, if the economy slips into recession, all bets are off. This is a wait-and-see category. Grade: B, based on midterms, though the final exam will determine the outcome.

Trade: Trump has taken a riverboat gamble on his trade dispute with China, which has been a commerce thug for years -- stealing intellectual property, forcing U.S. companies in China to transfer technology, dumping goods into U.S. markets, subsidizing state-owned companies, and manipulating its currency. White House aide Peter Navarro says these "deadly sins" have destroyed some 70,000 factories in America and five million manufacturing jobs. China has been bilking the United States in part to cadge vast sums of money to finance its geopolitical ambitions in Asia. There's a strong argument that something had to be done, and only Trump among recent presidents had the fortitude to join the issue.

In doing so, Trump has emphasized a central reality of American geopolitics, which his critics refuse to accept -- namely that China, and not Russia, represents America's greatest long-term threat. But will the American people and Congress accept the sacrifices that will likely be necessary to force China to change its ways? That may be difficult for the president to pull off, given his less-than-robust standing with the American people. He's doing the right thing in demanding reciprocal trade behavior from the Chinese, but his inability to forge a national consensus may retard his prospects for success. Grade: Incomplete.

Foreign Policy: Trump has not presided over any serious foreign policy failures, such as George W. Bush's Iraq fiasco or Barack Obama's Libyan misadventure. Indeed, he has not led the country into any serious foreign wars at all, which may be a significant accomplishment in comparison to his three predecessors. At the same time, he has kept U.S. troops in Syria and Afghanistan beyond any worthwhile rationale. And he has not scored any significant foreign policy successes -- nothing approaching Nixon's outreach to China or Jimmy Carter's Camp David Accords or Reagan's Cold War breakthrough. The problem has been that he doesn't seem to possess any kind of coherent view of the world in our time. He seems to have an instinctive understanding that the old global order is crumbling. But he doesn't have any idea of what could or should replace this fading status quo or how America should operate in a changing world.

And Trump's decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear agreement and seek to bring Iran to its knees economically through "maximum pressure" could destabilize the entire Middle East even beyond George W. Bush's mindless Iraq invasion. If so, the combustion likely won't occur until after Trump's current term, under whomever is president at the time. But the burden of responsibility for any untoward developments emanating from that questionable policy will rest firmly upon Trump. Grade: C-.

Scandal: Any serious scandal that attaches to the upper reaches of an administration becomes a net negative in the next election. It's difficult to assess the full political impact of the Russian scandal that has roiled the nation since even before Trump was sworn in. On the one hand, the allegation of electoral "collusion" has been exposed as a fraud. On the other, opponents have continued assaulting Trump for supposedly seeking to obstruct the investigation. Their arguments are largely specious, but politics unfolds on the margin, and the marginal impact of all this is likely to redound to Trump's detriment at reelection time. Besides, Trump doesn't seem to care much about how he is perceived or about the old-style niceties of political discourse. That provides an opening for opposition arguments about his loose ethics. Grade: C+.

General national welfare: On those questions regarding whether Americans are better off today than they were four years ago and whether America stands taller in the world, it's a bit of a mixed bag. The economic statistics (growth, unemployment, job market participation, productivity, inflation, the stock market) are solid, stemming largely from Trump's tax and regulatory policies. If they continue, the president will get general kudos from the electorate on this crucial area of performance.

The voters' view of America's global standing is more difficult to assess. No doubt Trump's base is comfortable with his performance on the world stage, but has he conducted himself in a way that will capture those swing voters who will be crucial to his reelection prospects? It doesn't seem likely.

And that's reflective of the overall Trump presidency. This utterly unconventional politician who got elected in utterly unconventional ways had an opportunity to fashion an unconventional brand of conservative politics -- wary of big business and the nexus between government and big finance; hostile to coastal elites; protective of working class Americans who have been abandoned and slandered by the Democratic Party; concerned about economic inequality; suspicious of vehement libertarianism; opposed to promiscuous foreign policy adventurism; anti-globalist; nationalist; and enthusiastic about the looming epic task of forging a new political order at home and a new geopolitical order in the world.

Trump has demonstrated a vague sense of this opportunity, but he never seemed to grasp its complexities and nuances or show any ability to forge a coherent strategy to make it a reality. The result: an overall grade of C. It would be a gentleman's C if Trump were a gentleman. The question is whether the voters will grade on a curve.

Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington journalist and publishing executive, is the author most recently of President McKinley: Architect of the American Century . We were unable to load Disqus. If you are a moderator please see our troubleshooting guide .


JeffK from PA 3 days ago
"Trump has demonstrated a vague sense of this opportunity, but he never
seemed to grasp its complexities and nuances or show any ability to
forge a coherent strategy to make it a reality."

That pretty much sums it up.

Sid Finster JeffK from PA 2 days ago
I don't think any national politician today, not Trump, not Bernie, not anyone, really grasps just how seething with rage the public is right now.

Wanna know why we have mass shootings? Think of those people that snap as a sort of warning sign of the public mood. Expect to see a lot more of them, no matter who is in office.

For that matter, the election of Trump is a similar indicator. Think of Trump as the " Roll the dice, we've got nothing to lose! " candidate, compared to the establishment darling HRC.

Of course, long after Trump is gone from office, the forces that gave rise to Trump will still be there. That said, the establishment will tar every populist for years to come with Trump's weakness, stupidity, recklessness and incompetence. " Remember what happened the last time you didn't vote as instructed? "

Already, Trump has proven the best campaign ad the European establishment could ask for. He prevented the election of Le Pen in France, and prevented the German establishment parties from complete meltdown. The campaign slogan goes something like this: " Vote for us, unless you want a buffoon like *him* in office! "

JeffK from PA Sid Finster 7 hours ago
I agree. For the first time in my life I am seriously concerned about the future of this country. We are one serious financial or foreign policy calamity away from serious social breakdown.
EdMan Sid Finster 6 hours ago
That's a point Ross Douthat made recently - Trump losing re-election means Trumpism will eventually return.
Bankotsu 3 days ago • edited
Wow, even Robert Merry is playing the sinophobic China card now.

Patrick Buchanan is a long time China hater, so I can understand his sinophobia, but now even Robert Merry!

Times are really changing in U.S. politics.

A new yellow peril is upon America! lol.

Hispanophobia, sinophobia, islamophobia, russophobia, all of them are coming out with full force to America.

Sid Finster Bankotsu 2 days ago
Signs of an empire in serious decline.
jijjkl Bankotsu 2 days ago
More like Anglophobia.
Bankotsu jijjkl 2 days ago • edited
Can't be, I support Trump. Loads of chinese support Trump.
nah-uh-uh Bankotsu a day ago
Eventually, people like Pamela Geller and/or Steven Bannon will become the principal UN figures
Yay!
Thomas Sharpe 3 days ago
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Rick Steven D. 2 days ago
Robert: Thank you this very sober, very reasonable assessment. I hate Trump's stinking rotten guts with the white hot fury of a thousand suns, and I disagree strongly with some of the points you are making here, but this is a terrific piece.
EdMan Rick Steven D. 6 hours ago
Well thank goodness for gentlemen like Robert Merry, then!
jijjkl 2 days ago
He gets a "C" in foreign policy, but everything domestic is so bad that he may as well not even call himself right wing at all. The illegal and legal immigration problems have exacerbated under Trump (look up the numbers). Of course he has deported very few and now advocates for increased legal immigration.That is not what anyone voted for. He incessantly proclaims how much he has done for demographics that will never vote for him, while even openly making fun of the struggles that working class white men (his base) face in society. He has now come out in support of red flag laws as well because of one event presumably. He even gave us a "criminal justice reform bill" to let out criminals to be even more of a plague on society. Why?

"fashion a grand bargain that might have included legal status for the so-called Dreamers (and perhaps their immediate families; not cousins and uncles)." --> This is not acceptable. This is not reform, but merely a concession of the inability of our country to have laws or moral legitimacy.

Sid Finster 2 days ago
A solid F. Trump's weakness has failed to lead to any major policy successes, even when he had majorities in both houses of Congress. Trump's incompetence has given the establishment loads of ammunition and recruits that they didn't have a few years ago.

Hell, Trump has made even doofus Uncle Joe Biden look like a viable alternative. Sad!

CharlesL 2 days ago
One major problem with the author's analysis of the Trump Administration's scandals is that it is limited entirely to the Russia scandal. Ignored are a host of acts of corruption that have marked the Administration of the man who constantly bragged that he would appoint "only the best people." So let's examine just a few of them. His National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was convicted of felonies and sent to prison. His Secretary of HHS Tom Price resigned in the wake of insider trading investigations. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke left the Trump administration amid mounting federal investigations into his travel, political activity and potential conflicts of interest. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt was facing more than a dozen investigations into his taxpayer-funded travel, questionable spending decisions, use of aides to conduct personal errands and other matters when he resigned. Labor Secretary Alex Acosta resigned over his scandalous granting of a sweetheart plea deal to Jeffrey Epstein. I could go on to the other members of Trump's inner circle who are in prison or who have been forced to resign under a cloud of scandal. I could point to New York State shutting down the Trump Foundation as a fraudulent charity that scammed people out of their denotations. I could note the Trump University scam whose victims received a $25 Million dollar payment from Trump after he was elected. The author gives Trump a grade of C+ on scandals? An F would be more accurate.
JeffK from PA CharlesL 7 hours ago
Even grading on the curve, a C+ is a gift.
IanDakar 2 days ago
Healthcare: I actually don't blame Trump on this one. All he really did was trust his party when they said they had plans and just needed the power to do them. It would've been great if HE had a plan himself but in the end that's Congress' job more than anything. So he gave them that power, said "DO IT!" and they failed him. He should've struck at immigration first but as far as healthcare itself.

So I give him a B for effort. Republicans get an F.

Immigration: "A massive Trump failure. He was the first president in decades who had enough credibility with restrictionists to fashion a grand bargain that might have included legal status for the so-called Dreamers (and perhaps their immediate families; not cousins and uncles). He might have also taken serious action on other illegals in the country, on stemming the inward flow through every means possible, and on overhauling current immigration policies, including ending family-based migration and the lottery, instituting a merit-based system, and curbing the inflow enough to get the percentage of foreign-born people in America returned to more historical levels."

Remotely not possible? Legal Status for Dreamers, push for more efficient deportations, merit based systems, and curbing the visa system?

That is VERY much possible to get all of most of that. The first is what the opposition is wanting and most of his side wouldn't scream against. He didn't even provide it as a bargaining chip (at best a "we'll revisit it later" delay).

Higher deportations would bring it to Obama levels. It just becomes hard to do when you open the debate with blasting all latinos as criminals sparking off the PC bee hive. Though that's moot since he could've, instead of a symbolic wall he could've asked for more funding for more centers and more judges to speed up the deportation trials (since isn't the point to actually DEPORT them, not lock them up for months under the pay of taxpayers). he used up his capital to maintain a marketing gimmick. By the time we got serious, he had moderates so pissed they tune the whole thing out and the left so angry they'll contemplate decriminalizing the whole thing just to snub him.

A merit based system WOULD'VE been a decent sell before all that mess or simply done when republicans had Congress. It also requires snubbing the "merit=europe" peanut gallery. Now no one is even listening.

The visa issue would've been an easy sell to both sides. It brings in a mass of non-citizens specifically to fill up job slots and then leaves them to be abused by their employers under threat of deportation if they don't comply. I can throw that exact line up in almost any forum and get a mob of support from the radical left to the far right.

There's insanely difficult topics about immigration. Most of your wish list was low hanging fruit in 2015. Trump turned it into the third rail. He didn't spark debate or open anything up. He got everyone so angry they aren't even discussing it properly anymore.

Lastly, if he wanted a wall that badly, he should've tried it in the first two years of his election. Trying it RIGHT AFTER it became impossible reeks of wanting to LOOK like he wanted it, sort of like if I waited until someone filled a box with cement then tried to lift it and said "I'll try HARD to make this happen."

Pure F.

I agree with you on Economics. On Trade I'm not as "China BAD" as you but overall I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, though I'm not a farmer.

Foreign Policy, There's no really any further places to GO to spark a war other than Iran itself. And as you said he's not doing well there. That said it's probably close to what you said, though I'd put him a D+ as we're not in war with Iran just yet (sadly that is an accomplishment) but I can't see any way to really fix what we ruined at this point. At BEST they'll go the way of North Korea.

Scandal: If this is on how he's handled scandal I'd give him a B-. He know how to handle angry people and keep them barking with no bite. It would've been a B+ but I think the current racial ones was a big overreach especially since it's causing his party to throw their feet into their mouths 2008 style and further souring immigration issues.

Overall: Trump's big advantage is that he touched on an area that Americans desperately needed but everyone wanted to ignore. Republicans wanted to go back to Bush. Democrats forgot that they won on "Change" not on "more of the same".

His disadvantage is that he doesn't have much to actually offer to fix it. He touched on immigration but sparks the fears of racism from the left and focuses on a symbolic, but less effective, wall. He touches on poor workers but taxes rarely affect them and the corporate elite is still tightening their grip just as effectively. He spoke of wars but his biggest accomplishment is that we've run out of places to invade-except Iran which we're 1 misfire from entering.

All he has is an economy that was rising before he joined in and is slowing down 1-2 years after his main policies have taken effect. Thankfully that's the most important. Not thankfully, presidents have the least amount of control over it.

Which means he's mostly banking on a car that was built without a steering wheel and hoping it doesn't slam into a tree.

Meanwhile I glance at the whiplash the size of a tornado that's to my left and wonder just how insane things get when they grab the reigns again.

JeffK from PA IanDakar 2 days ago
Very, very good analysis. I am a former Republican that now votes Democrat since the lunatics are running the Republican asylum. I was the only one, of all my progressive friends, that said maybe Trump can actually get something done. He owed the Republicans nothing. Nada. Zip. He beat them all, without the help of the Republican machine.

Trump could have formed a center right coalition. Starting with infrastructure that wasn't a wall. Then he could have gone after Big Pharma and the Medical Industrial Complex.

But no..... He immediately jumped as far right as possible. He went after every right wing wet dream he could. He was like a drunken 4 year old that was thrilled to break every toy of his sandbox rival (Obama). Now everything that he says that might be somewhat reasonable is drowned out and eclipsed by his insanity, narcissism, and general idiocy.

The Republicans are going to really, really hate 2020. Can't say it happened to a more deserving bunch of folk though. Bless their little hearts.

marqueemoons JeffK from PA a day ago
This is a good point; the only Republican who could have actually broken the consensus within the Republican Party and suggested that a) healthcare should be improved for everyone b) the rich could be taxed more, and the poor less and c) foreign wars of aggression are a bad thing got in to office and cut taxes massively for the rich, tried to simply repeal the only step forward in healthcare for decades, and antagonised everyone abroad (Israel and Saudi excepted)
muzan-e IanDakar a day ago
"The first [Dreamers] is what the opposition is wanting and most of his side wouldn't scream against."

I cannot echo this loudly enough. I live right in the middle of what has become red-meat hard-right Republican land -- but you can still find support for the Dreamers here. They're not desperate for those kids (illegal spouses of immigrants currently in military service dominate that conversation), but they're absolutely willing to keep them -- at least as legal, lifelong residents. And particularly if their families receive no similar benefit.

If you can swing that here, from people who're beginning to lean somewhat xenophobic and feel strongly that illegal immigration is hurting them -- then man, you have a powerful foundation from which to build.

NelsonLaw 2 days ago
Immigration is a massive Trump failure? Where was the GOP when he got elected? They have said for years if they got the House, Senate, and White House they would build the wall and fix immigration. They did nothing. Zero.
NelsonLaw 2 days ago
Obama/Hillary "misadventure" in Libya? Wow....talk about putting a sugar coating on a disaster. They put 1 million plus "refugees" into Europe and created a thriving slave market in Libya. Way to go!
NelsonLaw 2 days ago
No foreign policy success? How about calling out various NATO members for being dead beats? Especially Germany. How about getting out of that fraud "Paris Accord?". Out of the Iran Nuke Deal? Getting NK to Singapore? Taking on the failed NAFTA "deal?" Dumping TPP? ...And the big one...defeating ISIS!!!....Something the "glory boy", Obama could not accomplish.
Josep NelsonLaw 16 hours ago
How about calling out various NATO members for being dead beats? Especially Germany.

A NATO that has been obsolete for 28 years? That one?

JeffK from PA NelsonLaw 7 hours ago
He broke all the toys in the sandbox. Great job.
NelsonLaw 2 days ago
Russian scandal? No, Coup attempt by members of Deep State, i.e. Justice Dept., Intelligence agencies and the MSM. Trump failed in not having midnight SWAT team raids on hundreds of coup plotters.
NelsonLaw 2 days ago
Trump is not a "unconvential politcan". He is a civilian. He is exactly what we should have seen being elected into the White House for decades.
Dixie_Pixie 19 hours ago
As far as I know, President Trump is the first person elected to the Presidency with little to no support in any national political Party or organization.
Nor any experience in any form of government at all.
The only President that comes close is General Eisenhower.

Frankly, When I voted for him in 2016.
I did not expect him to last this long. Two years max was my guess.
As Hillary Clinton was far, far worst than any alternative.
So I am surprised he is far better that what I was lead to believe.

I will be voting for President Trump in 2020.
Because he has no support in any of the current major political parties.
But has been relatively successful despite that political situation.

As both major political parties have proven themselves not to be working in the interests of the American People. And have longstanding histories of working against the American Middle-Class. And exploiting their political positions for their political and monetary gain. At the public's expense.

Its Donald Trump or the Asteroid Strike as old the joke goes.
President Trump will do if I can not get two Asteroids striking Washington DC and New York City simultaneously.

EdMan 6 hours ago
Trump's presidency is a failure and you don't have to be a Democrat to see that. In many ways, Trump was a man ahead of his time, but a major part of his failures is his inability to personally invest any of his time into the issues. Take Afghanistan - he keeps saying he wanted out from the moment he took office, yet here we are, over two years later, with still no end in sight. The fact is, Trump's an empty vessel. I've never gotten the sense he's a true believer and, even if he were, he's become more worried about re-election, which means he's become just another politician.

I'd never vote for a Democrat, with the possible exception of Andrew Yang, in 2020. But it's time to face the music - Trump's going to lose re-election. And maybe that's a good thing, for it's not the establishment that needs to be broken up yet, it's the American right. We need to replace the Mitch McConnells and Lindsay Grahams with the Matt Gaetz and Josh Hawleys. The greatest thing Trump will ever have done is kickstart this nationalist moment, but he won't be able to sustain it. That's up to the people willing and able to do the work we expected him to do as president.

[Aug 17, 2019] Since Trump has been president, I think he's been ineffective in regard to pursuing detente with Russia for a couple of reasons. I think that the people who invented Russiagate were the enemies of detente, and they piled on

Trump proved to be Hillary in disguses "very much a hawk." I would say reckless hawk. Stephen Cohen characterization of Hillary is fully applicable to him now if you substitute Russia for China "Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, was very much a hawk. When she said publicly that Vladimir Putin has no soul, you could not commit or utter a more supreme statement of ant i-diplomacy, and particularly addressing the Russians, who put a lot of stock in soul. "
Notable quotes:
"... Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, was very much a hawk. When she said publicly that Vladimir Putin has no soul, you could not commit or utter a more supreme statement of anti-diplomacy, and particularly addressing the Russians, who put a lot of stock in soul. ..."
Apr 19, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

PAUL JAY: Well, my question is, I think when you are saying positive things about Trump diminishing tensions with Russia, which I think is correct, but I think you need to add this guy does not have peaceful intentions, he's very dangerous.

STEPHEN COHEN: I live in a social realm–to the extent that I have any social life at all anymore– where people get very angry if I say, or anybody says, anything positive about Donald Trump. When Trump was campaigning in 2016, he said, "I think it would be great to cooperate with Russia." All of my adult life, my advocacy in American foreign policy–I've known presidents, the first George Bush invited me to Camp David to consult with him before he went to the Malta Summit. I've known presidential candidates, Senators and the rest, and I've always said the same thing. American national security runs through Moscow, period. Nothing's changed.

In the era of weapons of mass destruction, not only nuclear, but primarily nuclear, ever more sophisticated, the Russians now have a new generation of nuclear weapons–Putin announced them on March 1, they were dismissed here, but they're real–that can elude any missile defense. We spent trillions on missile defense to acquire a first strike capability against Russia. We said it was against or Iran, but nobody believed it. Russia has now thwarted us; they now have missile defense-evading nuclear weapons from submarines, to aircraft, to missiles. And Putin has said, "It's time to negotiate an end to this new arms race," and he's 100 percent right. So when I heard Trump say, in 2016, we have to cooperate with Russia, I had already become convinced–and I spell this out in my new book, War with Russia?–that we were in a new cold war, but a new cold war more dangerous than the preceding one for reasons I gave in the book, one of them being these new nuclear weapons.

So I began to speak positively about Trump at that moment–that would have been probably around the summer of 2016–just on this one point, because none of the other candidates were advocating cooperation with Russia. And as I told you before, Paul, all my life I've been a detente guy. Detente means cooperate with Russia. I saw in Trump the one candidate who said this is necessary, in his own funny language. Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, was very much a hawk. When she said publicly that Vladimir Putin has no soul, you could not commit or utter a more supreme statement of anti-diplomacy, and particularly addressing the Russians, who put a lot of stock in soul. To say somebody has no soul and then go on to equate him with Hitler, I found that so irresponsible. I didn't vote for Trump, but I did begin to write and broadcast that this was of vital importance that we have this discussion, that we needed a new detente because of the new and more dangerous Cold War.

Since he's been president, I think he's been ineffective in regard to pursuing detente with Russia for a couple of reasons. I think that the people who invented Russiagate were the enemies of detente, and they piled on. So they've now demonized Russia, they've crippled Trump. Anything he does diplomatically with Putin is called collusion. No matter what Mueller says, it's collusion. This is anti-democracy, and detente is pursued through democracy. So whatever he really wants to do–it's hard to say–he's been thwarted. I think it's also one of the reasons why he put anti-detente people around him.

[Aug 17, 2019] An Anti-Trump Landslide is quite possible by Rod Dreher

Notable quotes:
"... The real concern is the US Senate. Currently, the GOP holds a six-seat majority (if you count the two Independent senators, who caucus with Democrats, as Democrats). Thirty-four seats are up in 2020. According to this analysis , at this point, 18 of them are in play, and four of those 18 are toss-ups ..."
"... An anti-Trump landslide at the top of the ticket could wash the GOP Senate majority away. We would then have a Democratic president and Congress -- and they would be in a score-settling mood. ..."
"... a recession, which is growing more likely by the day, would be something extremely hard for Trump to overcome. The new Fox poll has Trump at 56 percent unfavorable, with only 42 percent favorable -- and this is in good economic times. ..."
"... UPDATE: Douthat speculates today on what a recession would mean for the country , starting with the presidency: ..."
"... First, the easy part: Donald Trump loses re-election . It will be ugly and flailing and desperate and -- depending on recession-era geopolitics -- potentially quite dangerous, but there is no way a president so widely disliked survives the evaporation of his boom. ..."
"... But, as Douthat points out, getting rid of Trump doesn't do much to address the factors that led to his rise in the first place. ..."
"... The real truth is that the Republicans have a problem their rich globalist donors have abandoned them for Democrats blue Dog Dems as they are called, while their base will support them if they lead. Leading means angering their mega donors. ..."
"... Normally Republican Funder Hedge fund billionaire Seth Klarman said Democrats need to regain control of Congress "for the good of the country". His money has had found its way to 56 Democrats running for House seats and 22 Democrats running for the U.S. Senate. This is millions. His reason was a tax cut he neither needed nor wanted, Huh? ..."
"... if it is business as usual they will lose the Senate and not gain the house. ..."
Aug 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

( PBS News Hour screenshot ) Anything could happen between now and November 2020, but this new Fox News poll is not good news for the president. If the vote were held today, Joe Biden would clobber him, which is no surprise. But also, a geriatric New England socialist would beat the stuffing out of Trump. So would a preachy Harvard professor and a militantly progressive black woman from the San Francisco Bay Area:

Again, anything could happen, but you know what's probably going to happen between now and Election Day? A recession. That's hard for any incumbent president to overcome, but this one will already be starting out in a deep hole, and I think most of us can agree that in the event of an economic downturn, is unlikely to dazzle with his scintillating competence. New from the AP:

The financial markets signaled the possibility of a U.S. recession this week, sending a jolt of anxiety to investors, companies and consumers. That's on top of concerns over Trump's plans to impose punishing tariffs on goods from China and word from the United Kingdom and Germany that their economies are shrinking.

Though a pre-election recession here is far from certain, a downturn would be a devastating blow to the president, who has made a strong economy his central argument for a second term. Trump advisers fear a weakened economy would hurt him with moderate Republican and independent voters who have been willing to give him a pass on some his incendiary policies and rhetoric. And White House economic advisers see few options for reversing course should the economy start to slip.

Trump has taken to blaming others for the recession fears, mostly the Federal Reserve, which he is pushing for further interest rate cuts. Yet much of the uncertainty in the markets stems from his own escalation of a trade war with China, as well as weakened economies in key countries around the world.

If the economy goes into recession, what's the compelling argument for voting Trump? I know what the argument is for social and religious conservatives: judges. But only a minority of American voters care so strongly about judges.

The real concern is the US Senate. Currently, the GOP holds a six-seat majority (if you count the two Independent senators, who caucus with Democrats, as Democrats). Thirty-four seats are up in 2020. According to this analysis , at this point, 18 of them are in play, and four of those 18 are toss-ups. Only one of those four toss-ups -- Doug Jones in Alabama -- is a Democrat. Jones will probably lose no matter what -- Alabama went for Trump by 30 points, and Jones only won because his GOP opponent was creepy Roy Moore.

An anti-Trump landslide at the top of the ticket could wash the GOP Senate majority away. We would then have a Democratic president and Congress -- and they would be in a score-settling mood.

One more time: anything could happen between now and Election Day 2020. But a recession, which is growing more likely by the day, would be something extremely hard for Trump to overcome. The new Fox poll has Trump at 56 percent unfavorable, with only 42 percent favorable -- and this is in good economic times.

UPDATE: Douthat speculates today on what a recession would mean for the country , starting with the presidency:

First, the easy part: Donald Trump loses re-election . It will be ugly and flailing and desperate and -- depending on recession-era geopolitics -- potentially quite dangerous, but there is no way a president so widely disliked survives the evaporation of his boom. The rules of politics have changed, but they haven't been suspended. Polarization will keep Trump from being defeated in a landslide, but not from being beaten handily, and in a recession the Democrats can nominate any of their candidates and expect to evict the president with ease.

Read the whole thing to see why he concludes:

Having guaranteed Trump's removal from office, in other words, the recession would also set the stage for Trumpism's eventual return.

I see a number of pro-Trump commenters below are pointing out that the pundits didn't see Trump coming, so their forecasts of Trump's defeat in 2020 shouldn't be taken seriously. Sure, that's true -- but Trump in 2016 was elected in a booming economy. Had the economy not been in good shape, Trump might have been elected anyway, riding high on economic anxiety. Neither of these factors will be present should Trump have to run for re-election in a recessionary economy. And, Trump was running against a candidate representing the incumbent White House party. Now, he is a member of the incumbent White House party.

But, as Douthat points out, getting rid of Trump doesn't do much to address the factors that led to his rise in the first place.

Let me point out for the hundred-eleventieth time: anything can happen between now and November 2020. Polls aren't worth much now. But they do remind us that Trump is extremely unpopular, and will have trouble getting re-elected even if the economy is in good shape next year. If it's not, what, exactly, will he run on?


Jefferson Smith 18 hours ago • edited

Trump has had historically awful numbers since about a month after he was inaugurated. The Fox News poll is coming as a wake-up call because for a long time, the liberal media were too busy hanging out in Rust Belt diners interviewing Trump voters -- the alleged "Real Americans" -- to pay much mind to the fact that much of the actual country detests the guy. Not saying he can't win in '20, but recessions aside, one thing he won't have going for him this time is the element of surprise: Everyone will know that it's obviously possible for him to win, and that if your main goal is to prevent that then you simply have to vote for the Democrat -- no staying home, no Jill Stein or Evan McMullin-type nonsense, at least not if you're in a state whose outcome is remotely in doubt. Eight years of Obama had made too many voters complacent, and Trump has helpfully focused people's minds.
Delta Jefferson Smith 10 hours ago
I will gladly vote for the Democratic nominee, regardless of who it is. (Unless he/she is worse than Trump, which is probably impossible, since Genghis Khan is not available.) I would vote for the toad in my back garden if he/she gets the nomination. Everyone reading this knows why. Some people are able to overlook the obvious, but I find that I can't.

Unhappily I am in California, so it really doesn't matter who I vote for.

Greg Delta 6 hours ago
I live in Oregon now (from CA originally), but yes, our vote really doesn't matter!
Hector_St_Clare Jefferson Smith 7 hours ago
Yea, I think part of the reason Trump won in 2016 was because he took everyone by surprise. Few people thought he could win (except Nate Silver and the LA Times, I guess, and a few of the commenters here): even he didn't think he was going to win until the Michigan results started coming in.
Richard Parker 18 hours ago
Polls this far out are meaningless. What happened to Bush Seniors second term?
BWreSlippySlope 17 hours ago
Another weak story board based on polls that already in question. Fox is not above the fold to skew polls to keep stories going. The left and the media has made a pseudo state of fear of even wearing a MAGA hat in public. This pseudo state has armed low information and low IQ Americans willing to attack Senators while they are mowing their lawn, or enabling professors swinging bike locks at rallies against Trump supporters.

The Senate and the House will loose not on the coattails of Trump, but based on their own silence and failures, and business as usual. Again and Again these articles throw up the importance of saving the Republican party, but before Trump the party was over. The party knew that as they went after rigging of the polls rather than winning the votes through addressing problems.

The real truth is that the Republicans have a problem their rich globalist donors have abandoned them for Democrats blue Dog Dems as they are called, while their base will support them if they lead. Leading means angering their mega donors. Trump has 65 percent individual donors, far above any of the Dems, even combined. Tom Steyer is paying millions to get thousands that are from individual donors.

Normally Republican Funder Hedge fund billionaire Seth Klarman said Democrats need to regain control of Congress "for the good of the country". His money has had found its way to 56 Democrats running for House seats and 22 Democrats running for the U.S. Senate. This is millions. His reason was a tax cut he neither needed nor wanted, Huh?

Uihlein gave $2.5 million to Ives in a single week this past January -- essentially bankrolling her campaign to defeat Rauner in a Republican primary on Tuesday.

Koch Brothers also followed the same suit. I could go naming more and more that switch sides, but also tried to finance Trump Inauguration where things were more laxed and flooded in, and tried to line up on his door step. Instead he closed the door.

Trump showed that Campaign funds don't really matter if you have heart and the desire to win, having a bad candidate to run against doesn't hurt either, but the Dems have tons of bad candidates.

With Harvesting Vote laws California is lost, but the rest of the country is in play. If they lead and lead for the people they will win, if it is business as usual they will lose the Senate and not gain the house.

[Aug 16, 2019] Trump's Great Gamble by Pat Buchanan

Aug 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

KenH , says: August 16, 2019 at 1:28 am GMT

At this point who cares? Tweets aside Trump has turned into the corporate/donor class Republican he ran against in 2016 and in some cases even worse with his recent about face on the second amendment which I've been predicting since he banned bump stocks. He's now bought the lie that as long as the U.S. enjoys sustained economic growth the multiracial madhouse that is contemporary murica won't ever derail.

Trump the candidate promised:
* A strong economy which he's partially delivered on
* A wall on our Southern border
* A drastic reduction in H1B and other work visas that allow American elites to displace Americans from the work force
* Decreases in legal immigration
* Unwavering support for the 2nd amendment
* Law and order

Trump the president has given us:
* More moral, material and financial support to Israel than ever
* Moved the embassy to Jerusalem
* Forcing foreign nations to decriminalize homosexual sodomy
* Letting Antifa and other assorted left wing crazies run wild and attack people in the streets while prosecuting his right of center supporters for fighting back
* Early prison release for violent black and other felons
* Potentially the largest influx of legal immigrants and illegal aliens in U.S. history coupled with the lowest number of deportations
* No wall (yet)
* Formally condemned white nationalism and so called white supremacy but not black and brown supremacy or left wing terrorism
* Potentially infringing upon the 2nd amendment even more than Bill Clinton and far more than Barack Obama

At this rate Trump will probably give us the green new deal, black slave reparations, a white privilege tax and deny "anti-semites" first and second amendment rights should he win a second term. History has shown that the radical left makes some of its greatest political gains under Republican presidents and Trump has done nothing to buck that trend.

JasonT , says: August 16, 2019 at 1:50 am GMT
America was and is looted by wealthy Americans looking for a quick buck. Globalization and offshoring in the 19080's was all about greedy wealthy Westerners, especially Americans, wanting to make more money. To blame the looting in others just demonstrates Buchanan's stupidity.
anonymous [340] Disclaimer , says: August 16, 2019 at 1:54 am GMT
@Hanrahan Notice the continued exclusion of Representative Gabbard and her criticism of the destructive Empire -- despite focusing on Beltway politics, he hasn't typed her name since June 28. He wants the "Elizabeth Warren-Bernie Sanders-AOC Democrats" to go even kookier because this website's "Mr. Paleoconservative" has become a Beltway fixture, cheerleading for Team Red in the next Most Important Election Ever.
swamped , says: August 16, 2019 at 8:20 am GMT
"the Great Arsenal of Democracy was looted by" the military-industrial complex Arsenal & it's unending wars & nothing short of nuclear annihilation is going to change that. There is no Democrat who is willing to bet their chance at the presidency on pulling it down. And the American public, by and large, is put to sleep by lengthy discussions of the intricacies of trade policy. The election will be waged, like the primaries, around race-baiting. Biden will be the first victim. The other white candidates are running scared & becoming more shrill in their denunciations of whites in general by the hour. There's no telling where it all may lead but it's becoming clearer day by day that the hostility will outlast the primaries & the general election will be a very ugly affair. There's no turning back to the soothing center now, it will be an us-vs.-them type election & hopefully, Pat Buchanan, still America's shrewdest pundit, will keep us fully apprised.
animalogic , says: August 16, 2019 at 10:58 am GMT
@Charles Pewitt Basically I agree with Erebus's comment.
What you don't seem to get is that the China situation is of the US's own making. US Co's in the 90's & naughtier literally salivated at getting there production into China (or Mexico) Then -- they were happy to accept Chinese conditions, as was the US government.
So, your ridiculous, punitive tariffs are going to HURT the thousands of US companies who happily moved production to China. Nor will US Co's move home (unless the government acts aggressively) -- they'll move to Vietnam or where ever.
Of course such punitive tarrifs will justify the Chinese into further devaluing their currency.
Would be interesting to see the affects on US inflation were your program followed.
Implied in your comment is the apparent fact that you do not understand this US/China issue.(which is OK, because Trump & CO certainly don't understand the imperatives here)
You seem to think it's about trade. Actually it about China's sovereignty. The US position is that China NOT become a leading economy such as the US, Japan & Germany are. The US demands China cease it's drive to lead in high tech'. The Chinese simply can not give-in. US demands amount to China becoming a second rate power, essentially a US vassal.
How could any country, let alone China with its humiliating history of being a victim of western imperialism, do anything else but fight?
Anonymous [141] Disclaimer , says: August 16, 2019 at 10:59 am GMT

President Donald Trump's reelection hopes hinge on two things: the state of the economy in 2020 and the identity of the Democratic nominee.

That's the first sentence and that's where I should have stopped reading. This is the kind of out of touch political insider horse trading irradiated bullshittery that no one should waste their time on anymore.

Trump's is finished if he doesn't fulfil his US immigration promises from 2016. He's also finished if he doesn't stop channelling his Jewish handlers with embarrassingly stupid anti-white rhetoric. That's it. That's where "reelection hopes" should focus on.

[Aug 15, 2019] Trump's most obvious failed promise is not putting the deep state under constitutional control, after the Obama/Clinton escapades.

Aug 15, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

ilsm -> kurt... , August 14, 2019 at 10:15 AM

Trump's most obvious failed promise is not putting the deep state under constitutional control, after the Obama/Clinton escapades.

"Justice, FBI and ICE are turning into partisan organizations."

Wrong! The deep state is in the DNC's pocket. Barr is fixing the extent Obama attempted to coup the 2016 election using the DNC' deep state.

BTW your Leninist DNC armed appendage aka antifa is now responsible for 4 attacks on IC offices. The latest a gun shot through a window of an ICE office in San Antonio, Tx.

That the deep state has not closed them is deep state obeisance to the DNC.

[Aug 07, 2019] Initially Trump has rational ideas about the origin of 9/11, But like other rational ideas they quickly disappeared.

Aug 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

Pietro , says: August 5, 2019 at 7:11 pm GMT

President Donald Trump saw the same day that bombs must have been used on the WTC towers on 9/11/2001.

From his experience building steel sky scrapers, he knew they were built to be strong, even against a jet. He stated to the reporter that bombs must also have been involved.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rt-ldMj9y9w?feature=oembed

Note: This was an audio-only interview by reporters at Channel 9.
Rolland Smith, Alan Marcus

The photo in the thumb nail is actually from another interview by a German reporter on 9/11/2001, who looks similar to Alan.

Original same day news interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI1yX&#8230 ;
http://bcove.me/iq0pk0nz

c matt , says: August 5, 2019 at 8:24 pm GMT
What I have yet to see satisfactorily explained is how a huge (or even yuuuge) skyscraper can fall – within its footprint – when subjected to asymmetrical forces.

Put aside whether the jets had enough fuel, burned hot or long enough, etc. Taking the footage at face value, the buildings were SLAMMED from one direction. There is no way that could have caused symmetrical damage. Any structural component closer to impact received orders of magnitude of force more than those on the opposite side, resulting in unequal weakening. Yet what everyone saw was a symmetrical collapse within footprint, as though all structural components were equally and simultaneously weakened.

Who you gonna believe, the gubmint, or your own lying eyes?

[Aug 03, 2019] Obama s election and betrayal was probably the last successful bait and switch maneuver by Clinton wing of Democratic Party before it disintegrated in 2016

Notable quotes:
"... The establishment's "Democracy Works!" propaganda seeks to stifle such Movements, directing attention to establishment candidates voice those concerns. But those candidates invariably prove to be ineffective because they can never get enough support to win and their efforts largely end with the election. ..."
Aug 03, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Aug 3 2019 15:24 utc | 99

oglalla @85

Yes!

Bemildred @87:

Well you don't trust any of them, but you vote for the ones pushing policy you want to see happen, and you vote for the ones that try to make that happen, and you abandon them immediately if they renege.

Obama's election and betrayal proved that this strategy doesn't work.

Tulsi is not anti-war', she's anti- dumb wars . Just as Colin Powell was ('Powell Doctrine' LOL). Just as Obama was ("don't do stupid stuff"). Just as Trump is (amid howls of "isolationist!" LOL).

The fact is, every candidate will salute the flag as soon as the requisite false flag outrage occurs.

Furthermore, even if you ardently support Tulsi because she voices something that appears to be anti-war, you have to contend with passionate supporters of other candidates: those who want a candidate of color, those who want an older more experienced candidate, those who want a women candidate; those who want a socialist candidate, etc. In this way the electorate is played against each other and in the end the establishment's favored candidate emerges naturally as the "democratic choice" (with the help of establishment money and media support) .

Relying on voting for change is not enough . There has to be independent Movements for each fundamental change: Democracy, Anti-war; Economic fairness. Like the Yellow Vest Movement.

The establishment's "Democracy Works!" propaganda seeks to stifle such Movements, directing attention to establishment candidates voice those concerns. But those candidates invariably prove to be ineffective because they can never get enough support to win and their efforts largely end with the election.

Welcome to the rabbit hole.

[Aug 02, 2019] Trump Pretends to Like Union Members -- But He Really Likes the Fat Cats

Aug 02, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Donald Trump: billionaire of the people. When he ran for office, he said , "The American worker will finally have a president who will protect them and fight for them."

And how's that working out for the American worker? Not very well, actually, not very well. When it comes down to picking sides -- standing up for workers' rights or lining the pockets of CEOs and shareholders -- Trump aligned himself and his policies with the fat cats. This cost workers money and safety. The truth is that American corporations got a president who protected them and fought for them

[Jul 04, 2019] Looks like Trump lost anti-war right

Notable quotes:
"... I won't be voting Trump again and fall for that sting. Will vote Tulsi whether she's on ballot or not. ..."
Jul 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

freedom-cat says: July 2, 2019 at 2:52 pm GMT 100 Words

Presidential elections are a joke. It's best to vote for 3rd candidate to express your opposition to the Status quo: I won't be voting Trump again and fall for that sting. Will vote Tulsi whether she's on ballot or not.

She will never make it as she is too honest about foreign policy and the USA lies.

[May 18, 2019] Is Trump a double dealer. Why Trump Administration Withholds Information That Could Debunk Russian Interference Claims

May 16, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

tom , May 16, 2019 at 15:23

Trump Administration Withholds Information That Could Debunk Russian Interference Claims

Lavrov responded first to the question. He said that there is no evidence that shows any Russian interference in the U.S. elections. He continued:

Speaking about the most recent US presidential campaign in particular, we have had in place an information exchange channel about potential unintended risks arising in cyberspace since 2013. From October 2016 (when the US Democratic Administration first raised this issue) until January 2017 (before Donald Trump's inauguration), this channel was used to handle requests and responses. Not so long ago, when the attacks on Russia in connection with the alleged interference in the elections reached their high point, we proposed publishing this exchange of messages between these two entities, which engage in staving off cyberspace incidents. I reminded Mr Pompeo about this today. The administration, now led by President Trump, refused to do so. I'm not sure who was behind this decision, but the idea to publish this data was blocked by the United States. However, we believe that publishing it would remove many currently circulating fabrications. Of course, we will not unilaterally make these exchanges public, but I would still like to make this fact known.

The communication channel about cyber issues did indeed exist. In June 2013 the Presidents of the United States and Russia issued a Joint Statement about "Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs)". The parties agreed to establishing communication channels between each other computer emergency response teams, to use the direct communication link of the Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers for cyber issue exchanges, and to have direct communication links between high-level officials in the White House and Kremlin for such matter. A Fact Sheet published by the Obama White House detailed the implementation of these three channels.

One inference from Lavrov's statement is that the "fundamental understanding on this matter" between the two presidents that has "not been fully implemented" is the release of the communications about cyberspace incidents. The Russians clearly think that a release of the communications with the Obama administration would exculpate them. That would also exculpate Trump from any further collusion allegations. Why then does the Trump administration reject the release? Who is blocking it?

Cont. reading: Trump Administration Withholds Information That Could Debunk Russian Interference Claims

https://www.moonofalabama.org/

[May 06, 2019] Trump is a Symptom of 40 years of NeoLiberalism and the Corporate Capture of the US government.

Notable quotes:
"... Railing against Trump only sets up the next smooth-talking stooge who will start a fresh new con. ..."
"... Dore traces the problem primarily to Democratic Party's turning to identity politics instead of representing the working class. They sold us out. Clinton and Obama are just "Republican light" aka "Centrist" "Third Way" Democrats. "Centrist" = establishment-serving con artists. ..."
"... "Managed democracy" or "guided democracy" : is a formally democratic government that functions as a de facto autocracy. Such governments are legitimized by elections that are free and fair, but do not change the state's policies, motives, and goals. ..."
May 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , May 5, 2019 4:00:01 PM | 1 2 ">link

< james @6>

Jimmy Dore has a short video that describes the problem: Trump Is A Symptom Of A Larger Problem .

Dore makes the same point I have: "Trump is a Symptom of 40 years of NeoLiberalism and the Corporate Capture of the U.S. government." Railing against Trump only sets up the next smooth-talking stooge who will start a fresh new con.

Dore traces the problem primarily to Democratic Party's turning to identity politics instead of representing the working class. They sold us out. Clinton and Obama are just "Republican light" aka "Centrist" "Third Way" Democrats. "Centrist" = establishment-serving con artists.

"Managed democracy" or "guided democracy" : is a formally democratic government that functions as a de facto autocracy. Such governments are legitimized by elections that are free and fair, but do not change the state's policies, motives, and goals.

In other words, the government controls elections so that the people can exercise all their rights without truly changing public policy. While they follow basic democratic principles, there can be major deviations towards authoritarianism. Under managed democracy, the state's continuous use of propaganda techniques prevents the electorate from having a significant impact on policy.

The concept of a "guided democracy" was developed in the 20th century by Walter Lippmann in his seminal work Public Opinion (1922) and by Edward Bernays in his work Crystallizing Public Opinion.

<> <> <> <> <> <> <>

RT has a good video on Yellow Vest protestors (on rt.com homepage). It's kind long for the info that it provides. I suggest skipping some parts.

[Apr 29, 2019] 'Hard to imagine' how global market will react when US waivers on Iran oil expire Putin

Notable quotes:
"... The waivers expire in May, meaning that those countries could potentially face US sanctions beyond that deadline. China and Turkey, on their part, have strongly condemned the American restrictions, arguing the US is not in a position to intervene in their trade ties with Iran. ..."
"... We don't have any information from our Saudi partners or other OPEC members that they are ready to pull out from the deal. ..."
"... He assured that Moscow is "fulfilling its commitments" to the production cuts agreed by OPEC and several non-OPEC producers in December. Saudi Arabia is also "unlikely" to withdraw, being the driving force behind the wider coalition. ..."
Apr 29, 2019 | www.rt.com

It's hard to foresee how US efforts to bring Iranian oil exports to zero will play out in future, Vladimir Putin admitted, saying OPEC members should live up to their obligation to keep output as low as possible if it comes true. Russia has an agreement with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to cut their output by 1.2 million barrels per day, which remains in effect until July of this year, Putin said. But the US waivers – which gave a host of countries an exemption from the existing anti-Iran sanctions – expire much earlier, he reminded.

I don't imagine how the global energy market will react to that.

In November, the US re-imposed sanctions on Iran's energy, shipbuilding and banking sectors in a bid to deprive Tehran of its main sources of revenue. But it simultaneously issued waivers to China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Turkey – the main importers of Iranian crude – so that they can find alternative vendors of oil.

The waivers expire in May, meaning that those countries could potentially face US sanctions beyond that deadline. China and Turkey, on their part, have strongly condemned the American restrictions, arguing the US is not in a position to intervene in their trade ties with Iran.

Commenting on the issue, Putin said he hopes the market will eventually avoid the deficit of Iranian oil and that Iran will still be able to sell it. The comment came on the heels of conflicting reports that Donald Trump persuaded Riyadh to ramp up oil output this lowering fuel costs; these reports were denounced by OPEC officials.

Nevertheless, there is "no evidence" that any country is going to withdraw from the OPEC+ agreement to drop oil outputs, Putin said.

We don't have any information from our Saudi partners or other OPEC members that they are ready to pull out from the deal.

He assured that Moscow is "fulfilling its commitments" to the production cuts agreed by OPEC and several non-OPEC producers in December. Saudi Arabia is also "unlikely" to withdraw, being the driving force behind the wider coalition.

See also:

[Apr 28, 2019] Tit For Tat: Why Did Mueller Let Trump Off the Hook by Mike Whitney

Highly recommended!
It's a dog & pony show. Trump folded very quickly, in april 2017 or three moth after inauguration. He proved to be no fighter, a weakling, a marionette. Appointment of Bolton and Pompeo just added insult to injury. this is classic bait and switch similar to what was executed by Obama after then election. In a way Trump is a Republican version of Obama.
I wonder if he did not want to fight to the death and sacrifice himself for the course, why he entered the Presidential race at all ? He is not stupid enough not to understand the he will be covered with dirt and all skeletons in his closet will be dug out for display by the US intelligence agencies, which protect that interest of Wall Street and MIC (Israel is a part of the US MIC -- its biggest lobbyist and beneficiary) , not the USA as a sovereign state.
Notable quotes:
"... Mueller did none of these things which simply proves that his final report was what many people had expected from the very beginning; a purely political document that twists the truth to achieve Mueller's particular objectives. But to understand what those objectives are, we need to determine what the real goals of the investigation were. ..."
"... To help sabotage Trump's political agenda ..."
"... To create a cloud of illegitimacy over Trump's election ..."
"... And to prevent Trump from implementing his plan to normalize relations with Russia. ..."
"... These were the real objectives of the investigation, to create a forth branch of government (Special Counsel) that had the power to keep Trump permanently on the defensive while the media made him out to be either an unwitting accomplice in Russian espionage or, even worse, a traitor. ..."
"... The aim was to reign him in and keep the pressure on until a case could be made for his impeachment. Mueller played a key role in this travesty. His assignment was undermine Trump's moral authority by brandishing the cudgel of criminal indictment over his head. This is how a D.O.J. appointee, who had never held public office in his life, became the most powerful man in Washington. ..."
"... "We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments . Our goal is stability not chaos, because we want to rebuild our country [the United States] We will partner with any nation that is willing to join us in the effort to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism In our dealings with other countries, we will seek shared interests wherever possible and pursue a new era of peace, understanding, and good will." ..."
"... Imagine how terrified the foreign policy establishment must have been when they heard Trump utter these words. No more regime change wars? Are you kidding me? That's what we do: Regime-Change-Is-Us., ..."
"... Interesting, isn't it? Here's Hillary, the "liberal" Democrat, pushing for a no-fly zone in Syria even though the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, stated clearly that "Right now for us to control all of the airspace in Syria would require us to go to war against Syria and Russia." In other words, if Hillary had been elected, she was all ready to flip the switch and start WW3 ASAP. Is it any wonder why the establishment loved her? ..."
"... War, war and more war, that's the Hillary Doctrine in a nutshell. It was Hillary's relentless hawkishness that pushed leftists into the Trump camp, not that they ever believed that Trump was anything more than what he appeared to be, an unprincipled narcissist with an insatiable lust for power. But they did hope that his dovish comments would steer the country away from nuclear annihilation. That was the hope at least, but then everything changed. And after it changed, Mueller released his report saying: "Trump is not guilty after all!" ..."
"... Think about it: In mid December 2018, Trump announced the withdrawal of all U.S. troops in Syria within 30 days. But instead of withdrawal, the US has been sending hundreds of trucks with weapons to the front lines. The US has also increased its troop levels on the ground, the YPG (Kurdish militia, US proxies) are digging in on the Syria-Turkish border, and the US hasn't lifted a finger to implement its agreements with NATO-ally Turkey under the Manbij Roadmap. The US is not withdrawing from Syria. Washington is beefing up its defenses and settling in for the long-haul. But, why? Why did Trump change his mind and do a complete about-face? ..."
"... Trump made these outrageous demands knowing that they would never be accepted. Which was the point, because the foreign policy establishment doesn't want a deal. They want regime change, they've made that perfectly clear. But wasn't Trump supposed to change all that? Wasn't Trump going to pursue "a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past"? ..."
"... There are other signs of capitulation too; like providing lethal weapons to the Ukrainian military, or nixing the short-range nuclear missile ban, or joining the Saudi's genocidal war on Yemen, or threatening to topple the government of Venezuela, or stirring up trouble in the South China Sea. At every turn, Trump has backtracked on his promise to break with tradition and "stop toppling regimes and overthrowing governments." ' At every turn, Trump has joined the ranks of the warhawks he once criticized. ..."
"... Trump is now marching in lockstep with the foreign policy establishment. In Libya, in Sudan, in Somalia, in Iran, in Lebanon, he is faithfully implementing the neocon agenda. Trump "the peacemaker" is no where to be found, while Trump the 'madman with a knife' is on the loose. ..."
"... It's a dog & pony show. ..."
Apr 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Mike Whitney via The Unz Review,

Why did Robert Mueller end the Russia investigation when he did? He could have let it drag it out for another year or so and severely hurt Trump's chances for reelection. But he didn't do that. Why?

Of course, we're assuming that the investigation was never intended to uncover the truth. If it was, then Mueller would have interviewed Julian Assange, Craig Murray and retired members of the Intelligence Community (Ray McGovern, Bill Binney) who have shown that the Podesta emails were leaked by an insider (on a thumbdrive) not hacked by foreign agents. Mueller would have also seized the servers at DNC headquarters and done the necessary forensic investigation, which he never did.

He also would have indicted senior-level agents at the FBI and DOJ who improperly obtained FISA warrants by withholding critical information from the FISA court. He didn't do that either.

Mueller did none of these things which simply proves that his final report was what many people had expected from the very beginning; a purely political document that twists the truth to achieve Mueller's particular objectives. But to understand what those objectives are, we need to determine what the real goals of the investigation were. So, here they are:

  1. To help sabotage Trump's political agenda
  2. To create a cloud of illegitimacy over Trump's election
  3. And to prevent Trump from implementing his plan to normalize relations with Russia.

These were the real objectives of the investigation, to create a forth branch of government (Special Counsel) that had the power to keep Trump permanently on the defensive while the media made him out to be either an unwitting accomplice in Russian espionage or, even worse, a traitor.

The aim was to reign him in and keep the pressure on until a case could be made for his impeachment. Mueller played a key role in this travesty. His assignment was undermine Trump's moral authority by brandishing the cudgel of criminal indictment over his head. This is how a D.O.J. appointee, who had never held public office in his life, became the most powerful man in Washington.

My question is simply this: Why did Mueller give up all that power when he did?

I think I can answer that, but first, we need a little more background. Check out this quote from candidate Trump in 2016:

"We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments . Our goal is stability not chaos, because we want to rebuild our country [the United States] We will partner with any nation that is willing to join us in the effort to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism In our dealings with other countries, we will seek shared interests wherever possible and pursue a new era of peace, understanding, and good will."

Imagine how terrified the foreign policy establishment must have been when they heard Trump utter these words. No more regime change wars? Are you kidding me? That's what we do: Regime-Change-Is-Us., and now this upstart, New York real estate tycoon is promising to do a complete 180 and move in another direction altogether. No more destabilizing coups, no more bloody military interventions, instead, we're going to work collaboratively with countries like Russia and China to see if we can settle regional disputes and fight terrorism together? Really?

At the same time Trump was promising this new era of "peace, understanding, and good will," Hillary Clinton was issuing her war whoop at every opportunity. Here's candidate Hillary trying to drum up support for taking on the Russians in Syria:

"The situation in Syria is catastrophic. And every day that goes by, we see the results of the Assad regime in partnership with the Iranians on the ground, and the Russians in the air When I was Secretary of State, I advocated and I advocate today a no-fly zone and safe zones."

Interesting, isn't it? Here's Hillary, the "liberal" Democrat, pushing for a no-fly zone in Syria even though the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, stated clearly that "Right now for us to control all of the airspace in Syria would require us to go to war against Syria and Russia." In other words, if Hillary had been elected, she was all ready to flip the switch and start WW3 ASAP. Is it any wonder why the establishment loved her?

"We have to work more closely with our partners and allies on the ground," boomed Hillary, meaning that she fully supported the continued use of jihadist proxies in the fight against Assad. "I do think the use of special forces, the use of enablers and trainers in Iraq, which has had some positive effects, are very much in our interests, and so I do support what is happening."

War, war and more war, that's the Hillary Doctrine in a nutshell. It was Hillary's relentless hawkishness that pushed leftists into the Trump camp, not that they ever believed that Trump was anything more than what he appeared to be, an unprincipled narcissist with an insatiable lust for power. But they did hope that his dovish comments would steer the country away from nuclear annihilation. That was the hope at least, but then everything changed. And after it changed, Mueller released his report saying: "Trump is not guilty after all!"

So, what changed? Trump changed.

Think about it: In mid December 2018, Trump announced the withdrawal of all U.S. troops in Syria within 30 days. But instead of withdrawal, the US has been sending hundreds of trucks with weapons to the front lines. The US has also increased its troop levels on the ground, the YPG (Kurdish militia, US proxies) are digging in on the Syria-Turkish border, and the US hasn't lifted a finger to implement its agreements with NATO-ally Turkey under the Manbij Roadmap. The US is not withdrawing from Syria. Washington is beefing up its defenses and settling in for the long-haul. But, why? Why did Trump change his mind and do a complete about-face?

The same thing happened in Korea. For a while it looked like Trump was serious about cutting a deal with Kim Jong un. But then, sometime after the first summit, he began to backpeddle. He never honored any of his commitments under the Panmunjom Declaration and he never reciprocated for Kim's cessation of all nuclear weapons and ballistic missile testing. Trump has made no effort to "build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula" or to strengthen trust between the two leaders. Then, at the Hanoi Summit, Trump blindsided Kim by making demands that had never even been previously discussed. Kim was told that the North must destroy all of its chemical and biological weapons as well as its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs before the US will take reciprocal steps. In other words, Trump demanded that Kim completely and irreversibly disarm with the feint hope that the US would eventually lift sanctions.

Trump made these outrageous demands knowing that they would never be accepted. Which was the point, because the foreign policy establishment doesn't want a deal. They want regime change, they've made that perfectly clear. But wasn't Trump supposed to change all that? Wasn't Trump going to pursue "a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past"?

Yes, that was Trump's campaign promise. So, what happened?

There are other signs of capitulation too; like providing lethal weapons to the Ukrainian military, or nixing the short-range nuclear missile ban, or joining the Saudi's genocidal war on Yemen, or threatening to topple the government of Venezuela, or stirring up trouble in the South China Sea. At every turn, Trump has backtracked on his promise to break with tradition and "stop toppling regimes and overthrowing governments." ' At every turn, Trump has joined the ranks of the warhawks he once criticized.

Trump is now marching in lockstep with the foreign policy establishment. In Libya, in Sudan, in Somalia, in Iran, in Lebanon, he is faithfully implementing the neocon agenda. Trump "the peacemaker" is no where to be found, while Trump the 'madman with a knife' is on the loose.

Is that why Mueller let Trump off the hook? Was there a quid pro quo: "You follow our foreign policy directives and we'll make Mueller disappear?

It sure looks like it. play_arrow 2 Reply Report


Ajax-1 , 24 minutes ago link

Why? Because logical clear thinking Americans have Russia fatigue. The Deep State knows that the longer the Witch Hunt lasts, the stronger Trump gets.

stant , 24 minutes ago link

the report was finished last august. hed got all the juice in that squeeze. but i also guess he got a call from somebodys in the GOG mafia[continuity of .gov] deepstate after all is their little bitch

youshallnotkill , 27 minutes ago link

Why Did Mueller Let Trump Off the Hook? Why did Epstein only get a slap on the wrist? Why is his lawyer defending Trump on air ? Why did the MSM never look into the credible allegations against Clinton and Trump with regards to Epstein ?

I have an inkling that the answer to these questions is all one and the same.

PopeRatzo , 30 minutes ago link

Donald Trump sure isn't acting like someone who's been "let off the hook".

Francis Marx , 38 minutes ago link

Maybe it just worked out the way it did and there is no conspiracy on Mueller's part.

nmewn , 28 minutes ago link

Likely.

He had to stop before he implicated himself. For instance, still waiting on "the why" he never put Steele or McCabe or Hillary or Perkins Coie or Rosenstein or Comey etc under oath when it was...THEY... who supplied false evidence to a FISA court , "evidence gathered" (according to Steele) from...ta daaah!...Russians ;-)

LetThemEatRand , 36 minutes ago link

You can drive yourself crazy wondering whether it was all theater from the start, or whether they put a gun to the head of the guy who was going to expose it was theater until he started playing along. End result, theater.

Stop buying tickets.

Lord Raglan , 2 minutes ago link

exactly. Just like you can wonder why Justice John Roberts turned on Obamacare and **** on conservatives. Was he sincere or did he get a 3:00 am phone call that if he didn't uphold it, his wife and kids would die in an unfortunate accident?

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 38 minutes ago link

If you have to ask...perhaps you're a moron. It's a dog & pony show.

nmewn , 33 minutes ago link

"Let Him Off The Hook?"

Oh, I dunno...maybe because even with a crack team of demoncraft operatives, Deep State Hillary deadenders and a limitless supply of federal funding even they couldn't come up with "Russian collusion" because...none ever existed? ;-)

[Apr 26, 2019] More on Trump betrayal if his foreign policy campaign promises and his alliance with Israel

Notable quotes:
"... To be perfectly honest with you PL, when Trump was elected I thought to myself, WoW! for the first time since JFK or LBJ ..."
"... I thought he was going to be the first non-neoconservative president, possibly a crude 2016 resurgence of paleoconservatism, hence his intense focus on immigration, culture wars and identity politics mixed with authentic economic nationalism and non-interventionism (hence his lively attacks on the very ideology of neoconservatism) but obviously his admin is significantly more hawkish than the old Vulcans(!) back in the Bush days. ..."
"... One could even argue that from 2006 to 2008, Bush somewhat learned the ropes and distanced itself from the crazy Vulcans and more toward Realism, hence Condi Rice's handling of the 33-day war between Israel and Lebanon, as well dismissing the like of Perle, Wolfowitz, and others later on. But with Trump, given his knack for indifference to what is right and wrong and his method of shilling for whoever is willing to chip in the most, any progression toward common sense inside Donald Trump is highly unlikely to happen. ..."
Apr 26, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

E Publius said in reply to turcopolier ... , 25 April 2019 at 04:33 PM

To be perfectly honest with you PL, when Trump was elected I thought to myself, WoW! for the first time since JFK or LBJ (possibly as far back as Truman) someone "new" has become president of the U.S. who does not come from the Washington elite circle/Borg/Blob. I remember watching the debates and the way he politically neutralized the likes of Bush, Rubio, and Ted Cruz and on top of that, Hilary Clinton.

I thought he was going to be the first non-neoconservative president, possibly a crude 2016 resurgence of paleoconservatism, hence his intense focus on immigration, culture wars and identity politics mixed with authentic economic nationalism and non-interventionism (hence his lively attacks on the very ideology of neoconservatism) but obviously his admin is significantly more hawkish than the old Vulcans(!) back in the Bush days.

One could even argue that from 2006 to 2008, Bush somewhat learned the ropes and distanced itself from the crazy Vulcans and more toward Realism, hence Condi Rice's handling of the 33-day war between Israel and Lebanon, as well dismissing the like of Perle, Wolfowitz, and others later on. But with Trump, given his knack for indifference to what is right and wrong and his method of shilling for whoever is willing to chip in the most, any progression toward common sense inside Donald Trump is highly unlikely to happen.

In terms of the admin's policy in the ME, I think the immediate focus of the U.S-Israel policy in the region is "Lebanon" and Trump's ME policies among other things is deeply attached to Lebanon and that specific patch of land. Even Hassan Nasrallah has sounded the alarm and in his recent TV speech during which he warned the Lebanese people of a possible incoming war in the Summer with Israel that would be devastating to the people in the region.

Regarding Russia, in the past 1+ years it has become clear that Russia is going to play a stronger role in the ME, possibly even replacing the U.S. there, especially given the warm relations between Putin and Netanyahu where the former has not raised any objection against the latter's constant illegal bombings in Syria and Iraq among other things.

The false impression was that Putin is going to stand up to Netanyahu and form some sort of diplomatic and even military resistance to its aggression in the ME, but that is clearly not the case. Andrew Korybko of Eurasiafuture has written extensively on this interesting and unfolding new dynamic between the two. All in all I hope a shred of common sense prevails inside the head of these Hard Neocons and Trump himself and stop its belligerence against Iran and other ME countries. Nobody wants war and nobody needs war

P.S. I am an avid reader of your valuable analyses and I would like to offer my deepest thanks to you for this great website.

[Apr 24, 2019] The new narrative is they got him, Watergate 2.0

Apr 24, 2019 | www.unz.com

notanon , says: April 23, 2019 at 3:36 pm GMT

@MarkU

The new narrative is that of an embattled president trying against the odds to do the right thing

the new narrative is they got him, Watergate 2.0

*if* that is correct the changes to expect are
– media going easier on him
– corporate dems going easier on him (while smirking a lot)
– more war
– more corporate donors as they might prefer a controlled Trump to a Sanders
– they might throw him a symbolic bone on immigration to help him win in 2020

Realist , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:22 pm GMT
@notanon

– more corporate donors as they might prefer a controlled Trump to a Sanders
– they might throw him a symbolic bone on immigration to help him win in 2020

The Deep State will never allow an uncontrolled candidate to win.

[Apr 24, 2019] The analysis of possible reasons of Trump betrayal

Apr 24, 2019 | www.unz.com

Adrian E. , says: April 23, 2019 at 3:49 pm GMT

I see that there are mainly two opposing explanations:

a) Donald Trump really wanted to break with the neocons, but he is under such enormous pressure that he had to give in to them (at least temporarily, maybe, according to that interpretation, there is still hope)

b) Donald Trump wanted to behave this way from the start, and if there is a conspiracy, he is a part of it. He just said some things about not involving the US in conflicts that are not in its interest because that was popular in order to get elected, but he never had any intentions of going through with it.

I think there are problems with both explanations.

The main problem with a):
Even if Trump had to make concessions because he was under such enormous pressure, it is hardly plausible that there really was a need to surround himself with neocons to such a degree and go much further with neoconservative policies in some areas than many mainstream Republicans would probably have gone.

The main problem with b):
If Trump really belongs to the inner circle, it does not seem very plausible that intelligence services and establishment politicians would go to such lengths constructing a conspiracy theory (setting up meetings of Papadopoulos with Mifsud and Downer, the Steele dossier, campaign surveillance), which is not only a lot of effort, but also lays bare some elements of the "deep state" they would normally prefer to keep hidden.

How one might attempt to save a):
While the neocons are generally very influential in the US, they normally operate in the background. They don't have full control over lawmakers. However, some members of Congress are very close to neocons, and many of them (in both parties) were among the strictest anti-Trumpers. The most concrete danger of impeachment for Trump was that some Republicans closely connected with neocons would unite with Democrats against him. Appointing lots of neocons and increasing their influence might have been the best option of placating these neoconservative Republican anti-Trumpers (or even to make these Republican neocons stop being anti-Trumpers).

How one might attempt to save b):
While the whole Russiagate conspiracy theory is somewhat risky for the (overt and deep) establishment, it is also a great distraction. Furthermore, I think Russiagate was not primarily directed against Trump, but more against Russia and in favor of increasing military spending from which many in the establishment profit. Generally, Democrats used to be somewhat less hawkish than Republicans, and since they already hate Trump fervently (but mostly didn't care much about Russia), Russiagate was a great opportunity for making Democrats even more ardent supporters of the new cold war, the intelligence services, and the security state. One could hardly invent such an efficient means for making Democrats hate Russia and support the surveillance state except by associating their boogeyman with Russia. Many Republicans would go along with the new cold war, anyway, winning over Democrats for the CIA, anti-Russian hatred and military spending was particularly valuable.

So, I think both a) and b) are probably partially true.

I don't think Trump was really a part of an inner circle. As someone from the outside, some of the bipartisan neoconservative dogmas were probably alien to him. There are some leaks (e.g. in the book by Bob Woodward) that show that Trump questioned the large number of expensive military bases around the world. He probably looked at it from a business perspective, and it seems hard to justify such enormous expenses. Furthermore, he had some ideas about the rivalry with China, and the idea of alienating and antagonizing Russia, China, and some medium-sized countries (and to some degree even Western Europe, though it mostly still follows the US) all at once, which pushes them into closer collaboration probably seems odd to someone from the outside who has not been surrounded by people from neoconservative think tanks for most of his life. On the other hand, I don't think there were any deep convictions behind the things Trump said in his campaign. He just said things that a) seemed to be popular and b) he probably mostly agreed with himself, but when it became clear to him that it was more convenient for him to do something very different from what he had said during the campaign, he hardly hesitated.

I think that for the (both overt and deep) establishment someone "naïve" from the outside was seen as a threat. On the other hand, they probably also understood that Trump hardly has strong convictions and therefore would give in relatively easily under pressure. So, the Russiagate conspiracy theory was probably a good idea from the perspective of the (overt and deep) establishment for bringing Trump into line.

Then, I would also distinguish some things. Trump probably was very pro-Israeli from the start. But being pro-Israeli does not have to mean being anti-Russian, after all the Israeli and Russian government have relatively good relations, even though their interests diverge in many areas.

Harold Smith , says: April 23, 2019 at 3:52 pm GMT
@Bragadocious

"Your analysis fails to account for the fact that Trump essentially ran as a third party candidate."

Deep state sleeper agent Trump ran as an "outsider" opposed to everything that deep state agent Hillary Clinton stood for. His candidacy was a carefully calculated bait and switch fraud which leveraged his non-career-politician status.

"His original agenda of sealing up the border and ending Bush-Obama regime change ran counter to both parties."

Since his campaign strategy was to present himself as an outsider, of course he had to pretend to take positions that ran counter to both parties. It's now painfully obvious that his "original agenda" was nothing but disingenuous BS.

"There's been no one more hostile to Trump since Jan. 2017 than Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, both Republicans."

Talk is cheap.

"As Darren Beattie said, McConnell's tactic with Trump all along has been to block him on everything except for federal judges. And McConnell's winning."

Everything, or just the things that Trump pretends to want but doesn't really want? Funny that nobody's been able to deter him from his war crimes and his provocations and his apparent drive to start WW3.

"Now you'll probably say, it's all theater, they're all in on it together, wake up & smell the coffee."

How will smelling coffee change the fact that it is all political theater?

"I don't believe it."

LOL! You think Trump is honest? Seriously?

"Trump could have run as a Jeb Bush Republican and done just fine, but he didn't."

Or so you barely assert; and so you barely assert without explaining how Jeb Bush lost the primary to Trump.

"He took a huge risk saying the stuff he did, and won."

He won because agent Obama, agent Clinton and their deep state handlers helped him win. Or do you think it was just a coincidence that Obama attacked the Syrian army at Deir Ezzor in Sept. 2016, for example, which greatly escalated tensions with Russia just as the election was coming into the home stretch?

[Apr 24, 2019] Is Trump a part of the Deep State?

Apr 24, 2019 | www.unz.com

Realist , says: April 22, 2019 at 11:28 pm GMT

The Deep State plot to undermine the president

The President is part of the Deep State.

To understand what the Deep State will and will not tolerate answer these questions.

What do both parties agree on? If they appear to disagree, look to see if anything changes when one party has the power to cause change or does the party in power make excuses to avoid change? Those things that the populus is against but never change or get worse are what the Deep State wants

The Deep State wants a constant state of tension with 'hostile' countries (Iran, Russia, Venezuela, China, Syria and others). This scares the crap out of ignorant Americans and allows unjustifiable spending on war matériel.

The Deep State wants a steady supply of cheap foreign labor to provide wealth to the supporters of the Deep State.

The Deep State wants our financial institutions to never fail (FED 2009) even at the expense of 90% of Americans. The Deep State wants financial institutions to provide financial products to the wealthy which cripples the vast majority of Americans.

The silly internecine squabbles within the Deep State are a ruse to misdirect the public from important issues like constant war, legal and illegal immigrants taking jobs from Americans and the increased transfer of wealth for the 90% to the supper weathy.

There will never be a wall and illegal immigration will continue to be a problem.

All the investigations into Trump, the DNC, Hillary and all the rest will never come to justice.

The wealth transfer will not stop

Until Americans realize these diversions for what they are and put an end to it through what ever means necessary

renfro , says: April 23, 2019 at 4:28 am GMT

it was successful as Trump was likely forced to turn his back on his better angels and subsequently hired Pompeo, Bolton and Abrams.

Oh plezzze .you sound like you've been drugged.
Trump never had any better angels as any reporter and journalist whoever interviewed or investigated him would tell you.

And come on! .You know damn well Adelson sent Bolton and you should also know damn well why the Orange Boy staffed his adm with Zio Jews. .no one in NY except Jews would associate with Trump.

.

notanon , says: April 23, 2019 at 4:35 am GMT
i think some of the conspiracy was about controlling Trump's foreign policy going forward but i also think some of it was people like Brennan worried CIA collusion with Saudi funded jihadist groups since 9/11 (and possibly before) might come out.
Hiram of Tyre , says: April 23, 2019 at 4:41 am GMT
Right.

A plot to undermine another POTUS who does exactly what the previous ones did: bend over to Israel, continues wars, etc.

Trump is only controlled opposition.

notanon , says: Next New Comment April 23, 2019 at 4:52 am GMT
@renfro if that was true why did they invent the Russia hoax so they could bug him?
renfro , says: Next New Comment April 23, 2019 at 4:53 am GMT
Trump biggest regret is going to be that he ever ran for President. Impeached or not impeached all his dirty laundry is going to be exposed. Even if he secured a second term there is no statute of limitations on what he could be prosecuted for .so the minute he steps down from the WH he's going to have to spend everything he's got on lawyers fighting the charges the SDNY is going to bring against him.

David Cay Johnston: What Is Trump Hiding in His Tax Returns?

The Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter explains what's likely in Trump's returns.

By Jon WienerTwitter

David Cay Johnston is a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter who previously worked at The New York Times. He's the founder and editor of DCReport.org.

Jon Wiener: The chair of the House Ways and Means Committee formally requested six years of Trump's personal and business tax returns earlier this month. Trump, of course, refused to comply, and said the law is "100 percent" on his side. Does the IRS have to hand over Trump's tax returns to the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee?

David Cay Johnston: If they follow the law, they absolutely have to hand them over. Under a 1924 anti-corruption law that was passed because of Teapot Dome, a Harding-administration scandal, Congress can look at anybody's tax return at any time. In the 85-year history of this law, the IRS has always responded appropriately to the request and turned over everything that was requested.

[Hide MORE]
JW: What are the exceptions to this law?

DCJ: There aren't any. It says, "Congress shall provide upon written request." That's it. Well, they have a written request, it's a specific request, and therefore they shall provide. The statement by Donald Trump that the law is 100 percent on his side is just classic Trumpian lying: Take something that is true, and state the exact opposite.

JW: Does the IRS commissioner have any alternative to handing over Trump's tax returns? What happens if he doesn't comply?

DCJ: There's another section of the tax code which says that any federal employee dealing with any aspects of the tax code who either does not comply, or who fails to act -- covering both sins of omission and commission -- "shall be removed from office, and is subject to prosecution and upon conviction, five years in prison and a $10,000 fine."

JW: Who enforces this law? It's not just up to Attorney General William Barr -- is that right?

DCJ: That's correct. First of all, a US Attorney's office could enforce the action, although that seems unlikely in this administration. But the next administration, if it chooses, could go back, and even if the IRS commissioner has left, prosecute him for failure to turn over the documents. Of course, Congress can hold the commissioner in contempt, and Congress can also go to federal court to enforce its orders. It can. And has in the distant past even tried people itself.

JW: The IRS commissioner is a man named Charles Rettig, and he's a Trump appointee. Tell us a little about Charles Rettig.

DCJ: At DCReport we call him "Donald Trump's man at the IRS." Almost every IRS commissioner has been a tax lawyer, but Charles Rettig is not like most of those other tax lawyers. He isn't in the business of tax planning. He's in the business of representing tax cheats who get caught, and his specialty is keeping them from being indicted. As we put it, "He's one of the foxes who is not just in charge of the hen house. He's in a position to redesign the hen house."

JW: Trump's personal lawyer last week urged the Treasury Department not to hand over Trump's tax returns. He said that to comply with their request would turn the IRS into a political weapon of the radical Democrats. Is that a good legal argument?

DCJ: No. It may be a good political argument with Trump's base, but as a legal matter, if my students at Syracuse Law were to bring that up, I would have to work hard not to laugh at them -- because it's a ridiculous argument. There is no limit in Section 6103 that says you can only ask for a tax return if you're a Republican, or if you hew to certain political views. It simply says, "Upon written request, the return shall be provided." It could not be more clear.

JW: The boss of the IRS commissioner is the treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin. He said sort of the opposite of what Trump's personal lawyer said. He said, "Our intent is to follow the law." How do you explain the difference between the legal positions of Trump's personal lawyer and Trump's treasury secretary?

DCJ: This is exactly what got me onto this story. I noticed that Trump, his lawyers, and the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, were making these wild, reckless, lawless statements. But Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, and Rettig, the IRS commissioner, both made nuanced statements, and carefully avoided refusing to comply, and instead said, "We're trying to understand how to comply with law. It is our intent to comply with the law, but we need more time to learn what the law says." It should take you literally about 10 seconds to learn what the law says. That's when I thought, "What's going on here?" It's what got me on to the section of the tax code that says, in effect, that any federal employee who interferes, obstructs, or fails to act, is subject to removal, prosecution, and fine. I think what Mnuchin is trying to do here is thread a needle. He wants to continue to show his loyalty to Trump. Not to our Constitution, as his oath of office requires, but to Trump. He's trying to evade the law that says there must be compliance with the request, without going to jail.

JW: The New York Times news story on this reported that "The fight over Mr. Trump's tax returns is expected to turn into a protracted legal battle that will likely make its way to the Supreme Court." Do you think that's right, and does the Republican majority on the court have a way to rule in Trump's favor?

DCJ: It may lead to a protracted fight. It's also possible that this will get fast-tracked and get right to our Supreme Court. As someone who reads Supreme Court decisions, I don't particularly care for the jurisprudence of John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the United States, but nothing in his opinions suggests that he would sell the soul and the integrity of the court to favor Donald Trump. Every indication is that he would uphold the law. I would not be surprised if you got a 7-2 or 9-0 decision from the Supreme Court that the IRS has to turn over the documents.

JW: The really interesting question is, what do you think is in Trump's tax returns? Why do you think he's trying so hard to keep them secret?

DCJ: There are at least three reasons here. Number one, Trump's tax returns will show that he is not anywhere near as wealthy as he claimed. Remember during the campaign he kept saying he was worth more than $10 billion. But after he became president, he signed under oath his financial disclosure statement, and 90 percent of his wealth vanished. Even that statement, which I've analyzed, overstates his wealth. There's never been a scintilla of verifiable evidence that Trump is a billionaire. And I'm the guy who revealed, back in 1990 when he said he was worth $3 billion, that he wasn't a billionaire. We eventually found that he had negative net worth of about $295 million -- minus $295 million.

Secondly, Donald Trump is a tax cheat. He had two civil trials for income tax fraud, one by the State of New York and the other by the City of New York. In both cases he lost. In one of those trials, his own long-time tax attorney and accountant, Jack Mitnick, testified against him. Mitnick was shown the filed tax return, which was a photocopy, and testified, "That's my signature on the return, but neither I nor my firm prepared that tax return." That's as good a badge of fraud as you're ever going to find. It indicates that Donald Trump took the tax return that was prepared, changed it, and then with a photocopy machine put the signature of Jack Mitnick on it. Donald Trump is also a confessed sales tax cheat. Mayor Ed Koch of New York said he should have served 15 days in jail for his crime. Trump has a long history of hiding records from auditors, cheating governments, using two sets of numbers. So his tax returns are highly likely to show tax cheating.

Finally, the returns may well establish how much money he has been getting from Russians, Saudis, people from the Emirates, and elsewhere. They may show whether he has been engaged in money laundering for these people through real estate transactions and other actions that make no business sense, but, when closely examined, show exactly what we see when there's money laundering. I think the record is pretty clear that he has been doing that.

JW: A technical question: Where do you report payments from Russian oligarchs on your tax return?

DCJ: Trump has over 500 business entities, and the tax return is the beginning point for an audit. You then would examine the books and records that are behind it. Now, Trump has a long history of destroying or claiming he destroyed business records to thwart auditors. This happened particularly with the City of New York when he tried to cheat the city out of about $2.9 million. But there may actually be transactions reported right in the tax return that would tell you where money came from–because it may list entities to which he is obligated, or is in partnership with, or received money from, or shared profits with. The request by Chairman Neal of the House Ways and Means Committee was very targeted. It cited six specific Trump businesses -- out of over 500 businesses. That suggests to me that they know what they were looking for .

JW: What do you think the political effect would be if voters learned from Trump's tax return that he has been a tax cheat? As I recall, this was a huge issue in the final downfall of Richard Nixon.

DCJ: That's right. This was a big scandal in 1974. Nixon was pardoned, so nothing happened to him, but his tax lawyer went to prison. By the way, the very law that exposed Nixon as a tax cheat is the same law that the Trump people are now trying to resist. I frankly think that among people who are strong Trump supporters, this will have little impact. The impact that would matter is on people on the margin. People who have been with Trump but are uneasy with him because of all of his other behavior. And if he has committed federal tax crimes, then he has committed New York State tax crimes, because New York State tax law hews very closely to federal law. ".

[Apr 24, 2019] Germanicus

Apr 24, 2019 | www.unz.com

says: April 23, 2019 at 10:24 am GMT 100 Words

how do you explain his hiring so many Deep State denizens Bolton, Pompeo et al.?

I would suggest, they have "great guy" Epstein dirt on Trump. Seems so obvious to me, the entire swamp is either bought or blackmailed with this kind of dirt.

If the masses would find out about this kind of dirt, there was probably a violent purge taking place, a lynching of the entire swamp.
Btw, you are right, Us political circus works like WWE.

TomSchmidt , says: April 23, 2019 at 2:22 pm GMT

@Germanicus That's a good theory. Trump may not have urinated on beds in Russia, but there have to be some things on film somewhere.

[Apr 24, 2019] Trump has been giving the finger to his "base" from the outset, and his ego-driven government shutdown was probably the last straw. There are always going to be a few knuckleheads who will love him forever, and my estimate of that group would be on the order of 25%. Unless the Democrats put up a candidate who is even worse, the man is a goner in political terms.

Apr 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Zachary Smith , Apr 24, 2019 4:22:20 PM | link

"...Will Hurt Trump's Voter Support

It's just an opinion, but mine is that boat has already sailed. Trump has been giving the finger to his "base" from the outset, and his ego-driven government shutdown was probably the last straw. There are always going to be a few knuckleheads who will love him forever, and my estimate of that group would be on the order of 25%. Unless the Democrats put up a candidate who is even worse, the man is a goner in political terms.

This means Pompeo has to move quickly. If the fat slug picked up anything at West Point, he understands that to mobilize the US requires the other side to shoot first. In the case of his nominal boss, you can put that in neon lights. Trump is a gullible old man, and Pompeo needs to be able to point to something 'drastic' so as to galvanize Trump into action.

The CIA torture woman found faked pictures of dead ducks (!) and sick children worked.

Pompeo would find a sizable number of US military men or women in body bags extremely useful in his desperate efforts to suck up to the pissant apartheid state and hopefully pull the ripcord of The Second Coming.

On the other side of this, Iran needs to avoid starting the shooting, no matter what! The Confederates attacked a US fort to start the Civil War. It was about the most stupid thing possible for them to have done. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor - again the dumbest thing imaginable. I'd expect Iran has been consulting with India and China about its options. China probably has every storage tank in the country topped off, and will be immune to an "oil shock" for a long time.

In any event, it can afford to outbid everybody else is things came to that. Just off the top of my head, Iran mining the Strait of Hormuz, then making a public announcement about it looks like a workable plan. The US mine-sweeping capability is beyond-belief awful - and why that is I don't understand. Any mines there which are found and destroyed can be easily and quickly be replaced by small boats, submarines, or aircraft dropping them.

[Apr 23, 2019] Transactional Trumpism

Apr 23, 2019 | crookedtimber.org

Brian 04.21.19 at 2:43 pm

I think the real question is not whether Trump is successful or not. That question is a red herring in American politics today. The real question is whether or not the Democratic "leadership" can allow nomination of a candidate that the Democrat rank and file want. Bernie Sanders should have won the nomination last time. But the superdelegate system gives a literal handful of mandarins the ability to fake the primary process. (I say that as someone who has significant issues with some of Sanders positions.)

Trump won because Hillary was a horrific candidate. Voters stayed home, disgusted. Trump won because the Obama administration didn't deliver hope nor change. He delivered a government of the corporate criminal bankers for them. Middle and working class America got screwed. Black people got screwed worst. Trump won because the utter corruption at the heart of the DNC was exposed for all to see in the emails. Trump win because of the Obama administration making a trade deal top secret classified and trying to force a vote through congress. Not seeing any point in voting, Democrats didnt.

All the evidence since shows the DNC leadership didn't learn anything. They are just as contemptuous of voters, just as manipulative with their window dressing as ever. The Democratic party is the party of endless war even more than the Republicans. It's a party that stopped every effort by Trump to wind down or end war posture with Russia and North Korea. There's now 2 parties in Netanyahu's pocket implementing Likuds insane middle east ideas. Put some solar energy and LGBTQ butter on it with a side of women's rights bullshit and it's "Democrat". But the politicians are just as venal. The legislature just as wildly right wing war mongering.

The 1960's is long over. The Democratic party hasn't seen a new idea since and has converted to govern to the right of Nixon. Way to Nixon's right. The Democratic party is the tool of the Uber-ization of not just America, but the whole world. Flour and break the law to pauperize the working class, and suck money to a few in the SF Bay Area. That's policy now.

You can see it already. Sanders is ahead. But Buttigieg is being anointed. He's the perfect candidate. He's gay! He's out of the closet! And he's a corporate tool who can talk smoothly without speaking a clear word. Best of all, he has ZERO foreign policy experience or positions. So he'll be putty in the hands of the corporations that want endless war for profits. Wall Street wants him. And the street owns the Democratic party. Will he give a flying f*@k about the middle and working class? Will he be anything but another neo-liberal who can be differentiated from a neo-conservative only by mild difference in racism? (Overt vs.covert)

At least Buttigieg isn't Beto O'Rourke, the most completely empty skin in Congress. There's that.

All the evidence I see is no. The Democrat "leadership" don't understand. I predict a Trump win, or else a squeaker election that barely scrapes by with a win.

No matter what, the idiot Democrats won't get it. Pelosi will do her best to cast the Republicans anti-tax anti-government (federal) government culture war in concrete with balanced budget horse manure. The Democrats will continue to force a new cold war on Russia. They will keep backing companies that steal from the middle and working class. (Yes, Uber and Lyft are massive theft operations. They implemented taxi service without licenses. Those licenses cost a lot of money to those who bought them. They put the public at risk causing multiple deaths and assaults from unlicensed taxi drivers.)

Trump's appeal is that he at least talks a game of "f*@k you". Domestically it's all lies on all sides. He lies to everyone. But at least he doesn't lie smoothly like the "good Democrat" candidates do.

Jim Harrison 04.21.19 at 5:17 pm (no link)

Obviously everybody's motives are mixed. The same guys who are calculating the economic advantages of supporting Trump are likely to be cultural nativists too. That said, I think a lot of the traditional Republicans who have come around to heartfelt Trumpism supported him once he got the nomination for rational (zweckrational) reasons. A moderate Democrat like Clinton might not seem like much of a threat, but the era of triangulation is coming to an end no matter who's in charge. The imperative problems of the times -- drastic inequality, economic stagnation, a train wreck of a health care system, climate change -- will have to be faced with measures deeply threatening to the existing order of things, especially since sheer demography is undermining the white Christian base of right-wing politics. Under the circumstances, the only way to defend privilege is to embrace some kind of craziness. The incompetence of the administration and the decline of American power and prestige that goes with it are a trade-off. In any case, though Trump may be worse than necessary, any conservative government will necessarily oversee the debasement of the country in the name of race and religion. As Molly Bloom once murmured, "as well him as another."
eg 04.21.19 at 5:30 pm ( 25 )
I don't believe a whole lot of thought goes into, "I'm for Team Coke because it's not Team Pepsi"

So put me down for #4 and #6 above

Lee A. Arnold 04.22.19 at 1:22 pm (no link)
jim harrison #24: "Under the circumstances, the only way to defend privilege is to embrace some kind of craziness. The incompetence of the administration and the decline of American power and prestige that goes with it are a trade-off."

I think you've put it in a nutshell. But the recognition of this particular thought is prevented in the minds of conservatives, both upper and lower class, by an opposing thought. The conservative logic is that defending privilege is scientifically proper. It is to defend the material hierarchy in which you, yourself, may ascend on your own merits as a productive successful individual. Privilege is not simply "I got mine, so you get yours": it is conservatives' presumed key to capitalism's overall success, thus to defend privilege is to defend the US's status as the world's strongest, most vibrant economy.

There are several reasons why this law of the jungle may no longer remain operational in the US, and they started before Trump 's hastening of US decline. If these reasons ever dawn upon the lower-class conservatives, that awakening may not come yet for 10 or 20 years as the unavoidable bills become due and global financial markets begin to divest from the US as if it were a money-loser. In the meantime the upper class will have taken its money offshore, as foreign economies grow and liberalize investment. Thus it is that neoliberals (in Quinn Slobodian's particular description, of a free-floating globalized financial class that manipulates local national policies) can cut themselves free of the US as it descends further into stratified poverty and brutality. The elites, simply by following the financial markets, will gut the US.

Your quote describes a trade-off that is a vicious circle. It looks impossible to break unless there is a generally agreed-upon rewrite of political economy. I repeat "generally agreed-upon", because the real need is to change a big social preference, and as economists say,"preferences are exogenous", meaning they are prior to the application of the toolkit of modern economics. The US was the first large advanced capitalist country, and it may become the first large advanced democratic socialist country if it is to avoid fascism.

Uncle Jeffy 04.22.19 at 2:05 pm (no link)
Happy Charles Krauthammer Day!

In Memoriam, of course. But his brilliant insight (that there were WMDs in Iraq, and all we needed was a little more time to find them) will live on forever ..

Jay 04.22.19 at 11:43 pm (no link)
or maybe they weren't eager for World War 3 with Russia over Syria or the Ukraine?

I voted for Trump after previously voting for Ralph Nader. And Obama proved beyond a doubt that Nader was right. Meanwhile Trump has done exactly what I hoped he would do; he has shown that our entire election system is rigged by the CIA (obviously not very thoroughly rigged). Like or hate Trump, only a traitor would not be concerned that the CIA is giving marching order to the media and colluding to derail candidates it does not approve of.

Unless a "democrat" stands up who is willing to talk about unconstitutional wars, unconstitutional bailouts, unconstitutional surveillance and unconstitutional rigging of the two major parties, Trump is far better because he is forcing the public to see how corrupt DC is. We have been in a constitutional crisis since at least the 1990's. Of course if you are too weak and stupid to handle any of that discussion, just bury your head and pretend that "racism" is the only reason Trump won.

bruce wilder 04.23.19 at 12:21 am (no link)
Reading the post and comments, I can help but feel the entire agenda is about feeling good about one's own political fecklessness. The abject moral and economic failures of left-neoliberalism / lesser evilism Democratic Party politics are staring at you. And, you are projecting that outward as if Trump is a failure of the Republican Party and its politics!
J-D 04.23.19 at 4:25 am (no link)
Jay

Trump has done exactly what I hoped he would do; he has shown that our entire election system is rigged by the CIA (obviously not very thoroughly rigged).

If you mean that (as a result of Trump's election) most people in the US now believe that that your entire election system is rigged by the CIA, then you're wrong: most people in the US do not believe that your entire election system is rigged by the CIA. On the other hand, you can't mean that as a result of Trump's election you now believe that to be true, because (on your own say-so) you already believed it to be true before Trump's election.

If you mean that as a result of Trump's election you feel justified in priding yourself on having superior insight to the poor dupes who still believe in the system, then I would believe that's how you feel; but perhaps that's not what you mean. I hope that's not what you mean.

Trump is far better because he is forcing the public to see how corrupt DC is

No, the number of people who did not believe that DC was corrupt before Trump but who have come to believe that it is corrupt because of Trump is so small as to be insignificant.

likbez 04.23.19 at 5:58 am (no link)
@Brian 04.21.19 at 2:43 pm ( 18)

First of all thank you for your post. You insights are much appreciated. Some comments:

The real question is whether or not the Democratic "leadership" can allow nomination of a candidate that the Democrat rank and file want.

In reality intelligence agencies control the nomination. And Democratic leadership mainly consists of "CIA-democrats"

Trump won because Hillary was a horrific candidate. Voters stayed home, disgusted. Trump won because the Obama administration didn't deliver hope nor change. He delivered a government of the corporate criminal bankers for them. Middle and working class America got screwed. Black people got screwed worst. Trump won because the utter corruption at the heart of the DNC was exposed for all to see in the emails.

This is a very apt description of reasons for which Trump had won, but anti-war sentiments played also important role and probably should be added to the list. People with neocon foreign policy platform might face hard wing in 2020 as well too. That does not means that voters will not be betrayed again like in case of Trump and Obama, but still

The Democratic party is the party of endless war even more than the Republicans. It's a party that stopped every effort by Trump to wind down or end war posture with Russia and North Korea. There's now 2 parties in Netanyahu's pocket implementing Likuds insane middle east ideas. Put some solar energy and LGBTQ butter on it with a side of women's rights bullshit and it's "Democrat". But the politicians are just as venal. The legislature just as wildly right wing war mongering.

True. But in 2020 that might be their undoing. That's why this corrupt gang is more afraid of Tulsi more then of Trump.

In general the level of crisis of neoliberalism will play important role in 2002 elections, especially if the economy slows down in 2020. Wheels might start coming off the neoliberal cart in 2020; that's why Russiagate hysteria serves as an "insurance policy". It helps to cement the cracks in the neoliberal façade, or at least to attribute them to the chosen scapegoat.

One good thing that Trump has done (beside criminal justice reform) is that he helped to discredit neoliberal media. That effort should be applauded. He really turned the Twitter into a razor to slash neoliberal MSMs.

[Apr 22, 2019] Our Iran Policy Is Run By Fanatics

Apr 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The Trump administration won't be issuing any more waivers to importers of Iranian oil:

The Trump administration is poised to tell five nations, including allies Japan, South Korea and Turkey, that they will no longer be exempt from U.S. sanctions if they continue to import oil from Iran.

U.S. officials say Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to announce on Monday that the administration will not renew sanctions waivers for the five countries when they expire on May 2.

Refusing to offer new sanctions waivers is the latest sign that Trump is once again giving in to the most extreme Iran hawks. When sanctions on Iran's oil sector went into effect last November, the administration initially granted waivers to the top importers of Iranian oil to avoid a spike in the price of oil, but that is now coming to an end. The economic war that the U.S. has been waging against Iran over the last year is about to expand to include some of the world's biggest economies and some of America's leading trading partners. It is certain to inflict more hardship on the Iranian people, and it will damage relations between the U.S. and other major economic powers, including China and India, but it will have no discernible effect on the Iranian government's behavior and policies. India, China, and Turkey are practically guaranteed to ignore U.S. demands that they eliminate all Iranian oil imports.

Josh Rogin reported on the same story:

The decision to end waivers has implications for world oil markets, which have been eagerly anticipating President Trump's decision on whether to extend waivers. The officials said market disruption should be minimal for two reasons: supply is now greater than demand and Pompeo is also set to announce offsets through commitments from other suppliers such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Trump spoke about the issue Thursday with the UAE's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

Between the administration's Venezuela and Iran oil sanctions and increased instability in Libya (also supported by the Trump administration), oil prices are nonetheless likely to rise. Even if they don't, Trump's Iran obsession is causing significant economic dislocation for no good reason as part of a regime change policy that can't and won't succeed. It cannot be emphasized enough that the reimposition of sanctions on Iran is completely unwarranted and represents a betrayal of previous U.S. commitments to Iran and our allies under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The decision to refuse any new sanctions waivers is a clear sign that the most fanatical members of the Trump administration have prevailed in internal debates and U.S. Iran policy is held hostage to their whims.


liberal, says: April 21, 2019 at 11:44 pm

Maybe Trump will reap the benefits of this if oil prices go up a lot and it torpedos his reelection in 2020.

One thing I'm really not clear on how are these proposed sanctions against third parties (e.g. Japan, etc etc) not a violation of trade agreements? Are there escape clauses in those agreements that allow the US to do these things, or is it merely that these other countries are (usually) not willing to rely on the trade agreements' protections because, at the end of the day, it would mean a trade war with the US, which they're not willing to countenance?

JR , says: April 22, 2019 at 6:27 am
One would be naive to expect any truth from Pompeo. Self satisfied creature considers this funny too. How deep can one sink..

https://www.youtube.com/embed/tsnAR3yqfQ0?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

cosmo , says: April 22, 2019 at 7:19 am
Iran policy ??? What about foreign policy in general ?? Interventionism is NOT what Americans want, or can afford! No more lives & limbs (and dollars) for foreign countries!!
Dry Dock , says: April 22, 2019 at 8:34 am
"Between the administration's Venezuela and Iran oil sanctions and increased instability in Libya (also supported by the Trump administration), oil prices are nonetheless likely to rise. Even if they don't, Trump's Iran obsession is causing significant economic dislocation for no good reason "

But there is a good reason. Forcing up oil prices is a shot in the arm for the Saudi economy. Remember "Israel first, and Saudi Arabia second". That formula explains most of Trump's foreign policy, the rest being a jumble of random impulses and the consequences of infighting among his advisors.

KXB , says: April 22, 2019 at 10:24 am
Gas is already $3.20 in the Chicago suburbs, and we are not into the summer driving season yet. Overseas – India is going to the poll. India imports most of its oil, and Iran is a major supplier. Yes, the Saudis have been trying to get India to switch over to more Saudi imports – but it would look like "strong" Modi is giving in to Trump and MBS.
TheSnark , says: April 22, 2019 at 10:59 am
We are going to sanction China for buying Iranian oil? Does anyone seriously think they are going to submit to that gracefully? Japan and Korea might, they are much smaller and stuck with us. But China?

And I seriously doubt that sanctioning India for buying Iranian oil will advance our strategic alliance with them, either.

[Apr 21, 2019] Even if we got a candidate against the War Party the Party of Davos, would it matter? Trump betayal his voters, surrounded himself with neocons, continues to do Bibi's bidding, and ratcheting up tensions in Latin America, Middle East and with Russia. What's changed even with a candidate that the Swamp disliked and attempted to take down?

Highly recommended!
Here we need to look at the candidate political history, their actions before the election. "Trump scam" like "Obama scam" was based on the fact that they do not have political history, they were what Romans called "Tabula rasa". A "clean state" politician into which voters can project their wishes about domestic and foreign policy. That was a dirty. but very effective trick.
But the most important factor in Trump win was the he was competing against despicable warmonger Hillary Clinton, the establishment candidate who wanted to kick the neoliberal globalization can down the road. So the "lesser evilism" card was also in play consciously or unconscionably as well. So with Hillary as the opposition candidate it was a kind of implementation of the USSR style elections on a new level. but with the same with zero choice. Effectively the US electorate was disenfranchised when FBI has thrown Sander under the bus by exonerating Hillary. In a way FBI was the kingmaker in 2016 elections.
And please note that the Deep State launched a color revolution against Trump to keep him in check. Only later it became evident that he from the very beginning was a pro-Israel neoconservative, probably fully controlled by pro-Israel forces. That Trump electorate bought MIGA instead of MAGA from the day one.
Notable quotes:
"... The question is even if we got a candidate against the War Party & the Party of Davos, would it matter? Trump, the candidate who campaigned on the wasteful expenditures in our endless wars has surrounded himself with neocons and continues to do Bibi's bidding ratcheting up tensions in Latin America, Middle East and with Russia. What's changed even with a candidate that the Swamp disliked and attempted to take down? ..."
Apr 21, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

blue peacock -> turcopolier ... , 21 April 2019 at 12:36 PM

Col. Lang,

In a recent call from Trump requesting his opinion on China, Jimmy Carter noted that China has not spent a dime on war since 1979, whereas we've spent trillions & continue to spend even more.

China invested trillions in their infrastructure while ours crumbles. They've invested in building the world's manufacturing capacity while we dismantled ours. We spend twice per capita on healthcare compared to any other western country, yet chronic diseases like diabetes keeps growing. We spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined yet how superior is our weaponry compared to the Russians who spend one-tenth of what we spend? We've financialized our economy and socialized speculative losses of Wall St mavens but when some politicians talk about spending on the commons then socialism is labeled bad.

https://www.epsilontheory.com/this-is-water/

The question is even if we got a candidate against the War Party & the Party of Davos, would it matter? Trump, the candidate who campaigned on the wasteful expenditures in our endless wars has surrounded himself with neocons and continues to do Bibi's bidding ratcheting up tensions in Latin America, Middle East and with Russia. What's changed even with a candidate that the Swamp disliked and attempted to take down?

[Apr 20, 2019] As Trump is just a marionette of neocons and Israel lobby: Russia has only expect harsher and harsher sanctions

Apr 20, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

STEPHEN COHEN: But the point here is that Russia has been torn between East and the West forever. Its best policy, in its own best interest, is to straddle East and West, not to be of the East or the West, but it's impossible in this world today. And U.S.-led Western policy since the end of the Soviet Union, and particularly since Putin came to power in 2000, has persuaded the Russian ruling elite that Russia can not count any longer, economically, politically, militarily, on being part of the West. It has to go elsewhere. So all this talk about wanting to win Russia to an American position that's anti-Iranian and anti-Chinese is conceived in disaster and will end in disaster. They should think of some other foreign policy.

False Solace , April 19, 2019 at 12:36 pm

...Haven't these people learned anything from the implosion of their pathetic Russiagate hysteria? The Russophobes won't be happy until we're at war with a nuclear power and the nukes are about to land.

Here are things Trump has actually done, as opposed to red-limned fantasies drawn from the fever-dreams of Putin haters:

Unilaterally abandoned 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty
Expelled 60 diplomats and closed 3 Russian diplomatic annexes
Bombed Syria, a Russian ally, with Russian troops in country
Sold arms to Ukraine, which is actively at war with Russia
Threatened Germany to cancel a new Russian pipeline through the Baltic (effort failed)
Even more sanctions against Russia and Russian nationals
Stationed missile defense systems on the Russian border in violation of arms treaties
Massive military exercises in Europe on the Russian border
Stationed troops in Poland
Negotiating with Poland to build a permanent US military base in Poland

All this has certainly made the world safer. /s

[Apr 20, 2019] Trump has certainly made the world safer

Highly recommended!
Apr 20, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

False Solace , April 19, 2019 at 12:36 pm

Yet another delusional remark at odds with reality. Haven't these people learned anything from the implosion of their pathetic Russiagate hysteria? The Russophobes won't be happy until we're at war with a nuclear power and the nukes are about to land.

Here are things Trump has actually done, as opposed to red-limned fantasies drawn from the fever-dreams of Putin haters:

  1. Unilaterally abandoned 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty
  2. Expelled 60 diplomats and closed 3 Russian diplomatic annexes
  3. Bombed Syria, a Russian ally, with Russian troops in country
  4. Sold arms to Ukraine, which is actively at war with Russia
  5. Threatened Germany to cancel a new Russian pipeline through the Baltic (effort failed)
  6. Even more sanctions against Russia and Russian nationals
  7. Stationed missile defense systems on the Russian border in violation of arms treaties
  8. Massive military exercises in Europe on the Russian border
  9. Stationed troops in Poland
  10. Negotiating with Poland to build a permanent US military base in Poland

All this has certainly made the world safer. /s

[Apr 19, 2019] Pompeo Appoints Fox News Neocon as Spokesperson by Kurt Nimmo

Apr 04, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org
And the neocon-ization of the Trump administration continues. While The Donald is packing away Big Macs and Diet Cokes, his neocon secretary of state is appointing likeminded warmongers.

me title=

From Bezos' propaganda mill, The Washington Post :

Ortagus has been a fixture of the GOP foreign policy establishment for more than a decade. She has served as a press officer at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a financial intelligence officer at the Treasury Department and an intelligence officer in the US Naval Reserve. She has also worked with several political campaigns, as well as a political action committee, and has experience working on Wall Street and in foreign policy consulting.
In addition to working with spooks and a federal agency that undermines elections and foments coups in foreign lands, Ortagus "served on the boards" at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a coven of warmongers run by Kimberly Kagan, wife of notorious neocon Frederick Kagan.

ISW is funded by the death merchants -- Raytheon, General Dynamics, DynCorp, and others -- and it pushes the concept of the indispensable nation engaged in forever war around the world, a conflict promoted in the name of "democracy," which is code for mass murder campaigns waged by the financial elite in its quest for total domination and theft of everything valuable on planet Earth.

Naturally, some folks over on the so-called "New Right" support the appointment of an ardent neocon -- a former pretty face from Fox News -- at the State Department, thus demonstrating they are little different than establishment Republicans, or for that matter Democrats.

[Apr 19, 2019] You need to judge only by his actions and not his words

Apr 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Interrogator , 3 hours ago link

TALK is cheap. Trump could have and should have fired Rosenstein & Mueller and put in a constitutional attorney a long time ago. But he didn't.

He could be using the military to build the wall, as they build plenty of bases overseas with their unlimited budgets! But he hasn't and won't.

You need to judge only by his actions and not his words.

[Apr 19, 2019] Trump and General Flynn

Apr 19, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Jack , 19 April 2019 at 01:57 PM

I don't know about others on SST but while he may not have been a good DIA man or the best NSA, Gen. Flynn was thrown under the bus by Trump and Pence and railroaded by Mueller. Shameful!

https://twitter.com/JosephJFlynn1/status/1119199323823198208

[Apr 19, 2019] Behind the Omar Outrage Suppressed History of 9-11: Trump's demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who and what led to the "Day of Planes

Trump previously also voiced doubts about official narrative of 9/11. Now he emerged as an avid supporter of the official narrative. Nice metamorphose.
No matter where you personally stand on 9/11 events Trump is double dealer.
Notable quotes:
"... Today, some of their names – Zbigniew Brzezinski, Ronald Reagan, H.W. Bush – are prominently engraved on airports, federal offices, and library halls around the country. Others became the subject of rowdy bestsellers such as "Charlie Wilson's War," or saw their exploits dramatized in Cold War kitsch productions like "Rambo III." And then there were those who waged America's dirty wars from the shadows, and whose names will scarcely ever be known. ..."
"... Today, as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard – the lone foreign policy dissenter within the Democratic presidential field – pointed out , they are doing it all over again through their protection of the world's largest Al Qaeda franchise in Syria's Idlib province, which came into being thanks in large part to U.S. intervention in the country. ..."
"... These people were so hellbent on smashing the Soviet Union that they made common cause with the Islamist dictatorship of Pakistan's Zia-ul-Haq and the House of Saud. With direct assistance from the intelligence services of these U.S. allies, Osama bin Laden, the scion of Saudi wealth, set up his Services Bureau on the Afghan border as a waystation for foreign Islamist fighters. ..."
"... These people were in the CIA, USAID, and the National Security Council. Others, with names like Charlie Wilson, Jesse Helms, Jack Murtha, and Joe Biden, held seats on both sides of the aisle in Congress. ..."
"... "Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?" remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski, the former NSC director who sold President Jimmy Carter on the Afghan proxy war. "So yes, compared to the Soviet Union, and to its collapse, the Taliban were unimportant." ..."
Apr 19, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

A s Donald Trump sharpens his re-election messaging, he has sought to make a foil out of freshman Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar, homing in on her identity as a black Muslim immigrant and her brazen defiance of what was once a bipartisan pro-Israel consensus. Trump's most recent attack was the most inflammatory to date, implying through a characteristically dishonest Twitter video that Omar had played some role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Trump was referencing comments Omar made this month during a banquet of the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR): "CAIR was founded after 9/11, because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties," Omar said during a 20-minute-long denunciation of public bullying and violent attacks against Muslims living in the West. (CAIR was founded in 1994, contrary to Omar's claim).

As innocuous as Omar's comments might have seemed, they were easily spun by a right-wing bigot-sphere seeking to portray her as not merely insensitive to the deep wound Americans suffered on 9/11, but as a possible terror-sympathizer. As Bernard Kerik, the disgraced former NYPD commissioner and convicted felon , said of Omar on Fox News, "she's infatuated with Al Qaeda, with Hamas, with Hezbollah."

For Trump, the manufactured outrage offered yet another opportunity to advance his rebranded version of the Southern Strategy, painting Omar as the face of a Democratic Party overrun by socialists, Muslims, MS13 and trans radicals – as a clear and present danger to the reactionary white exurbanites commonly referred to in mainstream media as "swing voters."

Amid an onslaught of menacing condemnations and online death threats triggered by Trump's tweet, prominent Democrats mobilized to defend Omar. However, many were too timid to mention her by name, apparently fearing that doing so would play into Trump's cynical strategy. Some refused to defend her at all. And among those willing to speak up, most felt compelled to lead their defense by reinforcing the quasi-theological understanding of 9/11 that leaves anti-Muslim narratives unchallenged. "The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must be done with reverence," insisted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

In Washington, 9/11 is understood as an act of inexplicable evil that materialized out of a clear blue sky. "They hate us because we're free," Americans are still told in a semi-official drone, conveniently excising the attacks that took place on 9/11 from their historical context. This ruthlessly enforced interpretation has had the effect of displacing blame from those who bear direct or indirect responsibility for the attacks onto much more convenient scapegoats like the Islamic faith and its diverse mass of adherents.

In my new book, " The Management of Savagery ," I explain which people did what things to lay the groundwork for the worst terror attack on U.S. soil. Not all of those people were Muslim, and few have faced the kind of scrutiny Omar has for her seemingly benign comment about 9/11. As I illustrate, many of them maintained lustrous reputations well after the ash was cleared from Ground Zero. Today, some of their names – Zbigniew Brzezinski, Ronald Reagan, H.W. Bush – are prominently engraved on airports, federal offices, and library halls around the country. Others became the subject of rowdy bestsellers such as "Charlie Wilson's War," or saw their exploits dramatized in Cold War kitsch productions like "Rambo III." And then there were those who waged America's dirty wars from the shadows, and whose names will scarcely ever be known.

While these figures lay claim to the mantle of "national security," their true legacy was the callous abandonment of that concept in order to advance imperial objectives. During the Cold War, they forged partnerships with theocratic monarchies and armed Islamist militants, even distributing jihadist textbooks to children in the name of defeating the Soviet scourge. Today, as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard – the lone foreign policy dissenter within the Democratic presidential field – pointed out , they are doing it all over again through their protection of the world's largest Al Qaeda franchise in Syria's Idlib province, which came into being thanks in large part to U.S. intervention in the country.

To effectively puncture Trump's demagogic ploys, the discussion of 9/11 must move beyond a superficial defense of Omar and into an exploration of a critical history that has been suppressed. This history begins at least 20 years before the attacks occurred, when "some people did something." Many of those people served at the highest levels of U.S. government, and the things they did led to the establishment of Al Qaeda as an international network – and ultimately, to 9/11 itself.

Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly. They put heavy weapons in the hands of Islamist warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, dispatched Salafi clerics such as "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman to the battlefield, and printed millions of dollars worth of textbooks for Afghan children that contained math equations encouraging them to commit acts of violent martyrdom against Soviet soldiers. They did anything they could to wreak havoc on the Soviet-backed government in Kabul.

These people were so hellbent on smashing the Soviet Union that they made common cause with the Islamist dictatorship of Pakistan's Zia-ul-Haq and the House of Saud. With direct assistance from the intelligence services of these U.S. allies, Osama bin Laden, the scion of Saudi wealth, set up his Services Bureau on the Afghan border as a waystation for foreign Islamist fighters.

These people even channeled funding to bin Laden so he could build training camps along the Afghan-Pakistan border for the so-called freedom fighters of the mujahideen. And they kept watch over a ratline that shepherded young Muslim men from the West to the front lines of the Afghan proxy war, using them as cannon fodder for a cold-blooded, imperial operation marketed by the Wahhabi clergy in Saudi Arabia as a holy obligation.

These people were in the CIA, USAID, and the National Security Council. Others, with names like Charlie Wilson, Jesse Helms, Jack Murtha, and Joe Biden, held seats on both sides of the aisle in Congress.

When they finally got what they wanted, dislodging a secular government that had provided Afghan women with unprecedented access to education, their proxies plunged Afghanistan into a war of the warlords that saw half of Kabul turned to rubble, paving the way for the rise of the Taliban. And these people remained totally unrepentant about the monster they had created.

"Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?" remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski, the former NSC director who sold President Jimmy Carter on the Afghan proxy war. "So yes, compared to the Soviet Union, and to its collapse, the Taliban were unimportant."

... ... ...

[Apr 19, 2019] Behind the Omar Outrage is the suppressed history of 9-11: Trump's demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who and what led to the "Day of Planes

Trump previously also voiced doubts about official narrative of 9/11. Now he emerged as an avid supporter of the official narrative. Nice metamorphose.
No matter where you personally stand on 9/11 events Trump is double dealer.
Notable quotes:
"... Today, some of their names – Zbigniew Brzezinski, Ronald Reagan, H.W. Bush – are prominently engraved on airports, federal offices, and library halls around the country. Others became the subject of rowdy bestsellers such as "Charlie Wilson's War," or saw their exploits dramatized in Cold War kitsch productions like "Rambo III." And then there were those who waged America's dirty wars from the shadows, and whose names will scarcely ever be known. ..."
"... Today, as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard – the lone foreign policy dissenter within the Democratic presidential field – pointed out , they are doing it all over again through their protection of the world's largest Al Qaeda franchise in Syria's Idlib province, which came into being thanks in large part to U.S. intervention in the country. ..."
"... These people were so hellbent on smashing the Soviet Union that they made common cause with the Islamist dictatorship of Pakistan's Zia-ul-Haq and the House of Saud. With direct assistance from the intelligence services of these U.S. allies, Osama bin Laden, the scion of Saudi wealth, set up his Services Bureau on the Afghan border as a waystation for foreign Islamist fighters. ..."
"... These people were in the CIA, USAID, and the National Security Council. Others, with names like Charlie Wilson, Jesse Helms, Jack Murtha, and Joe Biden, held seats on both sides of the aisle in Congress. ..."
"... "Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?" remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski, the former NSC director who sold President Jimmy Carter on the Afghan proxy war. "So yes, compared to the Soviet Union, and to its collapse, the Taliban were unimportant." ..."
Apr 19, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

A s Donald Trump sharpens his re-election messaging, he has sought to make a foil out of freshman Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar, homing in on her identity as a black Muslim immigrant and her brazen defiance of what was once a bipartisan pro-Israel consensus. Trump's most recent attack was the most inflammatory to date, implying through a characteristically dishonest Twitter video that Omar had played some role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Trump was referencing comments Omar made this month during a banquet of the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR): "CAIR was founded after 9/11, because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties," Omar said during a 20-minute-long denunciation of public bullying and violent attacks against Muslims living in the West. (CAIR was founded in 1994, contrary to Omar's claim).

As innocuous as Omar's comments might have seemed, they were easily spun by a right-wing bigot-sphere seeking to portray her as not merely insensitive to the deep wound Americans suffered on 9/11, but as a possible terror-sympathizer. As Bernard Kerik, the disgraced former NYPD commissioner and convicted felon , said of Omar on Fox News, "she's infatuated with Al Qaeda, with Hamas, with Hezbollah."

For Trump, the manufactured outrage offered yet another opportunity to advance his rebranded version of the Southern Strategy, painting Omar as the face of a Democratic Party overrun by socialists, Muslims, MS13 and trans radicals – as a clear and present danger to the reactionary white exurbanites commonly referred to in mainstream media as "swing voters."

Amid an onslaught of menacing condemnations and online death threats triggered by Trump's tweet, prominent Democrats mobilized to defend Omar. However, many were too timid to mention her by name, apparently fearing that doing so would play into Trump's cynical strategy. Some refused to defend her at all. And among those willing to speak up, most felt compelled to lead their defense by reinforcing the quasi-theological understanding of 9/11 that leaves anti-Muslim narratives unchallenged. "The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must be done with reverence," insisted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

In Washington, 9/11 is understood as an act of inexplicable evil that materialized out of a clear blue sky. "They hate us because we're free," Americans are still told in a semi-official drone, conveniently excising the attacks that took place on 9/11 from their historical context. This ruthlessly enforced interpretation has had the effect of displacing blame from those who bear direct or indirect responsibility for the attacks onto much more convenient scapegoats like the Islamic faith and its diverse mass of adherents.

In my new book, " The Management of Savagery ," I explain which people did what things to lay the groundwork for the worst terror attack on U.S. soil. Not all of those people were Muslim, and few have faced the kind of scrutiny Omar has for her seemingly benign comment about 9/11. As I illustrate, many of them maintained lustrous reputations well after the ash was cleared from Ground Zero. Today, some of their names – Zbigniew Brzezinski, Ronald Reagan, H.W. Bush – are prominently engraved on airports, federal offices, and library halls around the country. Others became the subject of rowdy bestsellers such as "Charlie Wilson's War," or saw their exploits dramatized in Cold War kitsch productions like "Rambo III." And then there were those who waged America's dirty wars from the shadows, and whose names will scarcely ever be known.

While these figures lay claim to the mantle of "national security," their true legacy was the callous abandonment of that concept in order to advance imperial objectives. During the Cold War, they forged partnerships with theocratic monarchies and armed Islamist militants, even distributing jihadist textbooks to children in the name of defeating the Soviet scourge. Today, as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard – the lone foreign policy dissenter within the Democratic presidential field – pointed out , they are doing it all over again through their protection of the world's largest Al Qaeda franchise in Syria's Idlib province, which came into being thanks in large part to U.S. intervention in the country.

To effectively puncture Trump's demagogic ploys, the discussion of 9/11 must move beyond a superficial defense of Omar and into an exploration of a critical history that has been suppressed. This history begins at least 20 years before the attacks occurred, when "some people did something." Many of those people served at the highest levels of U.S. government, and the things they did led to the establishment of Al Qaeda as an international network – and ultimately, to 9/11 itself.

Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly. They put heavy weapons in the hands of Islamist warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, dispatched Salafi clerics such as "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman to the battlefield, and printed millions of dollars worth of textbooks for Afghan children that contained math equations encouraging them to commit acts of violent martyrdom against Soviet soldiers. They did anything they could to wreak havoc on the Soviet-backed government in Kabul.

These people were so hellbent on smashing the Soviet Union that they made common cause with the Islamist dictatorship of Pakistan's Zia-ul-Haq and the House of Saud. With direct assistance from the intelligence services of these U.S. allies, Osama bin Laden, the scion of Saudi wealth, set up his Services Bureau on the Afghan border as a waystation for foreign Islamist fighters.

These people even channeled funding to bin Laden so he could build training camps along the Afghan-Pakistan border for the so-called freedom fighters of the mujahideen. And they kept watch over a ratline that shepherded young Muslim men from the West to the front lines of the Afghan proxy war, using them as cannon fodder for a cold-blooded, imperial operation marketed by the Wahhabi clergy in Saudi Arabia as a holy obligation.

These people were in the CIA, USAID, and the National Security Council. Others, with names like Charlie Wilson, Jesse Helms, Jack Murtha, and Joe Biden, held seats on both sides of the aisle in Congress.

When they finally got what they wanted, dislodging a secular government that had provided Afghan women with unprecedented access to education, their proxies plunged Afghanistan into a war of the warlords that saw half of Kabul turned to rubble, paving the way for the rise of the Taliban. And these people remained totally unrepentant about the monster they had created.

"Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?" remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski, the former NSC director who sold President Jimmy Carter on the Afghan proxy war. "So yes, compared to the Soviet Union, and to its collapse, the Taliban were unimportant."

... ... ...

[Apr 19, 2019] Donald Trump, the Impulsive Demagogue in the White House by John Cassidy

Trump essentially rules as Bush III with Bush II coterie of neocons in his administrations and an unusual level of pandering to Isreal. All he election promises were fake.
Jan 20, 2017 | www.newyorker.com

People in other countries, meanwhile, will be looking on with awe and anxiety. For seventy years, the United States has led a global order based on mutual interest, enhanced trade, and, ultimately, America's role as the global hegemon (co-hegemon until 1989). Rhetorically, at least, Trump's accession to power marks a break with this order. Describing himself as an America Firster, he has talked scathingly about many of the institutions that have girded the Pax Americana, including NATO , the European Union, and the World Trade Organization. He has criticized American military interventions -- sometimes, it must be said, with good cause. And he has pledged to renegotiate trade deals, and, if he deems it necessary, to slap heavy tariffs on goods from Mexico, China, and other countries

Surveying Trump's victory and the rise of xenophobic populism in many other Western countries, Martin Wolf, the Financial Times' senior economics commentator, recently pronounced , "We are, in short, at the end of both an economic period -- that of western-led globalisation -- and a geopolitical one -- the post-cold war 'unipolar moment' of a US-led global order."

That judgment could still turn out to be premature. The world economy is so closely integrated these days that it would take huge shocks, or policy changes, to turn the clock back. American multinational companies, like Apple and Facebook and General Motors, are some of globalization's biggest beneficiaries and supporters. To his Cabinet, Trump has appointed both Rex Tillerson, the former head of ExxonMobil, the world's biggest oil company, and Gary Cohn, the former president of Goldman Sachs, the world's leading investment bank. Trump himself claims to favor trade, but what he terms "fair trade."

In his Inaugural Address, however, Trump made clear that he will at least try to tilt globalization in favor of American manufacturing workers. Reverting to the populist rhetoric that had propelled his campaign, he said, "The wealth of the middle class has been ripped from their homes and redistributed across the world," adding, "From this day forward, it's going to be only America first, America first. Every decision will be made to protect American workers and American families."

On the geopolitical front, it is far less clear what Trump will do, and that's the greatest concern for many people, here and around the world. Despite his claims that America's armed services have been run down, the United States remains by far the world's biggest military power, the only country able to project its will anywhere on the globe. But how will Trump live up to this responsibility? In his speech, he pledged to "reinforce old alliances and form new ones" and to "eradicate" Islamic terrorism "completely from the face of the earth." But he also sounded some of the neo-isolationist themes that he put forward during the campaign, saying that America had "subsidized the armies of other countries" and "defended other nations' borders while refusing to defend our own." His language and tone suggested that the days when America viewed itself as the benevolent global leader, willing to make sacrifices to the mutual benefit of all countries, were coming to an end.

[Apr 18, 2019] Note of those who believe that Trump betrayal of voters and allies is some kind of four dimensional chess

Apr 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

VanWinkle , 8 hours ago link

you ever hear of playing the long game?

e.g. Be strategic, don't blow your waad at once.

Betrayed , 5 hours ago link

I didn't realize Hopium was so addicting.

How long is the long game. When he's one and done?

[Apr 18, 2019] Trump

Apr 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

snake , Apr 18, 2019 3:00:45 PM | link

IRT B's request not to waste effort on challenges likely not to make a difference. I observe no Trumpy program yet, promises to improve America nor reverse the ever declining quality of life Americans are experiencing (As wages double, costs triple as federal grants increase, the corporations are getting wealthier). Make the USA Oligarchs Wealthier programs all expose Americans to more risk and greater loss of wealth. Fracking, 5g energies, wars, better internal surveillance tailored to capture the most minute behaviors of every American, and foreign management of Americans via the USA as a conduct.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/04/12/g-is-about-get-big-boost-trump-fcc/?utm_term=.c9e453858d1a&noredirect=on

and this https://www.globalresearch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Screen-Shot-2019-04-17-at-8.43.10-PM.png

[Apr 16, 2019] Trump reveals himself as a typical neocon -- a lobbyist for MIC and Isreal

Apr 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Trump Issues His Second Veto, Blocking Congressional Resolution To End US Support For Saudi-Led War In Yemen

In a statement to the Senate released by the White House, Trump called the joint resolution "unnecessary", warned it represents a "dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities" and argued it would negatively affect U.S. foreign policy. What he really meant is that the US military-industrial complex stood to lose billions in potential revenue from the biggest US weapons client. As a result countless innocent civilians will continue to die for an unknown period of time but at least the stock price of Boeing, Lockheed-Martin and Raytheon will not be put in jeopardy.

... ... ...

As a reminder, last month the Senate voted 54-46 to pass a resolution requiring the president to withdraw any troops in or "affecting" Yemen within 30 days unless they are fighting al Qaeda. The House passed the measure earlier this month with a 248-177 vote. Neither was enough to override Trump's veto.


Boing_Snap , 1 minute ago link

Hey a veto to block an end to a war?

I guess peace is bad for business.

When the hell is candidate Trump going to appear?

Noktirnal , 59 seconds ago link

That ended early 2017.

FBaggins , 5 minutes ago link

He is absolutley an oil company and Zionist shill.

SickDollar , 4 minutes ago link

well said and a baby killer

frank further , 5 minutes ago link

It's difficult to imagine the size of the disaster that is D.C.

If Chump wins a second term, that means nearly 6 more years of non-government, except for buttressing the MIC. If the Dims win, it's much worse.

WTF? What's the matter with everyone? Including ZH,of course.

Noktirnal , 2 minutes ago link

Divide and conquer, baby.

frank further , 1 minute ago link

What will be left to conquer after all that?

DivisionBell , 7 minutes ago link

What is the legal basis for the use of United States Armed Forces in any capacity in Saudi Arabia or Yemen?

Haboob , 5 minutes ago link

War on terror.

frank further , 3 minutes ago link

U forgot /s

Haboob , 1 minute ago link

Haha everyone should on the inside joke by now.

SickDollar , 3 minutes ago link

Oil and MIC And Israel

SickDollar , 7 minutes ago link

Here we go the man is officially the bitch of The MIC and Israel

he does not work for us and he now has officially blood on his hands

[Apr 16, 2019] Trump as a useful idiot of the Deep State

Apr 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Anunnaki , 11 hours ago link

If Trump pardoned Assange, I would consider that draining the swamp. But Orange Jewlius is a Deep State **** socket, so the swamp has grown to a lagoon

Anunnaki , 11 hours ago link

Jimmy Dore and Tucker Carlson nail it

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SnwC_1Pf9VQ

rtb61 , 12 hours ago link

Clearly the US government has zero respect for Australia, Australian Law or Australian citizens. The case is shite, else they would allow Assange to be deported to Australia and the extradition hearing to be heard there. They refuse because they know their case is shite and they would have to prove it in Australia before they could get extradition.

The USA is not an ally of Australia because it does not respect Australian law, not in the least. Prove US respect of Australians by deporting Assange to Australia and holding the extradition hearings there, else look as guilty as shite and never ever to be trusted by Australians.

OZZIDOWNUNDER , 9 hours ago link

The US Govt respects NOBODY but its own Interests. It's the Australian Govt that's complicit in this travesty of Nil justice. The Gutless Australian Govt has NO interest in helping Julian Assange because they were persuaded NOT to by their American masters. It hurts that your own Govt are total A$$holes & follow USA into Crimes with out question. The Australian Govt has a History of lip service only when assistance Overseas is required. **** them !

NYC80 , 13 hours ago link

Assange probably is a narcissist. So what? All the people criticizing him are, too. At least he's an honest narcissist. In everything he's published, not a single item has even been allegedly false. Can any of these other so-called "journalists" demonstrate that level of accuracy?

Ms No , 14 hours ago link

Here is a good article on Assange. Explains the cat. Things were okay for him under the real elected president of Ecuador, except no sunlight thanks to US spooks.

https://www.sott.net/article/411173-My-friend-Julian-Assange-Alicia-Castro-former-ambassador-for-Argentina

[Apr 16, 2019] No One Can Trust Trump

That's from ZeroHedge, the bastion of Trumpism ;-)
Apr 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Deep Snorkeler , 1 hour ago link

No One Can Trust Trump erratic and dysfunctional, absurd and incongruous, fantastic and ludicrous - he rules from an immoral crevasse:

he sustains massive corporate profits and upper caste power.

Fantasy Free Economics , 1 hour ago link

It is normal that others see weakness in the U.S. before we do. The notion in the United States is that what we want to be true is true. Fantasy is a comforting mechanism but it sure is painful when everything falls apart. Our reality gap has not slammed shut but it will.

http://quillian.net/blog/victims-of-fascism/

Cosmicserpent , 10 minutes ago link

It's official. Trump is a cum guzzling **** for Israel's Bentoveryahoo, and the US MIC. He wishes he was Putin's bitch.

†FreeThought† , 11 minutes ago link

What happened to "Nationalism, not globalism will be our credo"...? I voted for Trump and I got Trumpstein instead.

Empire's Frontiers , 18 minutes ago link

An exceptionally good goy, this Trump guy.

Shalom! And get back to work.

Dr. Acula , 7 minutes ago link

It's X-dimensional chess, where the value of X increases each day.

SHsparx , 30 minutes ago link

I'm starting to get the feeling that maybe Trump won't run again? And so now he feels he doesn't even have to pretend anymore.

R19 , 29 minutes ago link

Which President has been the best weapons salesman? I vote:

Trump

Obama

ThomasEdmonds , 28 minutes ago link

Like a guided missile: sure of its target.

KekistanisUnite , 28 minutes ago link

Disappointing but not surprising. I do hope at some point his mind will be changed. Give full credit to the 16 Republicans in the House and 7 Republican Senators for supporting this resolution.

warsev , 37 minutes ago link

I guess we now know fully where President Trump stands on reining in executive warmongering.

evoila , 30 minutes ago link

Better buy your call options on Tulsi Gabbard. She is going to surprise da **** out of these idiots same way Trump surprised in 2016.

jimfcarroll , 28 minutes ago link

Never voted for a democrat in my life. She might be the first. I wont vote for Trump again after this.

[Apr 16, 2019] Trump suddenly dropping any love for Wikileaks after enthusiastically stating his approval of them over 100 times during the last election is going to cause a lot of damage to his chances of being reelected

Apr 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

akka , says: April 13, 2019 at 12:52 am GMT

It is possible, now that Assange has been arrested, that the American charge against him is relatively minor only in order to encourage the UK to extradite him. Once he is in American custody those charges may well change.

btw Trump suddenly dropping any love for Wikileaks after enthusiastically stating his approval of them over 100 times during the last election is going to cause a lot of damage to his chances of being reelected.

Wikileaks is probably already putting him under the microscope, and there are all the Wikileaks fans to contend with as well.

Bad move Donald, you just sacrificed a bishop to no advantage and placed yourself in danger of checkmate. More people are starting to see your 'veracity' as the facade it is.

[Apr 16, 2019] Trump excessive love of children: 400 children killed since January 2019 in Yemen and 85,000 have died from malnutrition in the past 3 and a half years and Trump vetoes resolution to end U.S. involvement.

Notable quotes:
"... Is the NYT promoting Gina Haspel as someone who deserves a more influential position than the nation's top torturer? She wouldn't be the first such criminal being subtly encouraged to try for DJT's job in the future. ..."
"... And there was a video of him bringing her to the microphone on the subject of 5G which amazed me: Trump Invites Ivanka To Talk About 5G Deployment In The U.S. I think Trump truly believes Ivanka is presidential material! ..."
"... Tinfoil-hat opinion time: if you have a credible threat against Ivanka, you control Trump. If you want to gain a different kind of leverage - like to talk him into quitting in 2020 - promise him you'll work hard to put her in the White House. ..."
"... Still tin-foiling, but I think a version of this happened in 1992. Iran Contra was closing in, and the Democrats had the goods on Bush Senior. I buy into the conspiracy notion Bush Sr. was offered a deal where the matter would be dropped if he left office, and with a "sweetener" that one of his boys would be advanced to the White House. This didn't hurt the Powers That Be, for the chosen democrat was a rare Pro-Choice Republican posing as a democrat. ..."
"... Bill Clinton was a warmongering neocon nut who governed domestically as a Republican. ..."
"... The problem lies with people in generation after generation being fooled by the same or similar ruses used before, which is why The Who exhorted people to not let themselves "get fooled again." ..."
"... The UK & EU both face crises caused by their adherence to Neoliberal economics, but Neoliberal governments hold sway in almost every EU nation and UK despite the damage they've caused. ..."
"... Here's a link for anyone who still doesn't believe Trump is on the dark side: Trump vetoes resolution ending U.S. involvement in Yemen ..."
"... Looks like Trump is only a compassionate humanitarian on behalf of Syrian kids. With 14 school children killed in Yemen a week ago, not so much. ..."
"... Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives. ..."
"... The Brits were lying, Haspel was lying, and either Trump believed her or pretended to. ..."
Apr 16, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jen , Apr 16, 2019 8:13:24 PM | link

Karlof1 @ 36:

By "meaningful intellectual activity", Craig Murray is referring to critical thinking skills, having an open mind and being able to consider all options and possibilities. We can agree that Theresa May and the people who make up her Cabinet and government, and a sizeable proportion of the Tories, may well be deficient in these activities.

I have read something of how David Cameron worked his way up to leadership of the British Conservatives years ago. Coming from a wealthy family (his father was a stockbroker who enjoyed posthumous notoriety when his name surfaced in the Panama Papers), Cameron went to the "right" schools (which count Prince Andrew and Prince Edward as former students, btw), Eton College and then Oxford University where he enrolled in the politics / economics course that prepares students for careers in politics - it's popularly called "PPE". After university he went to work for the Conservative Party.

You could say Cameron's path had already been mapped out for him and the decision was not his to deviate from it. Probably the same can be said of some other people in Theresa May's Cabinet.

And what can be said of a UK Defence Secretary of whom the love of his life is a pet Mexican tarantula?

Kiza , Apr 16, 2019 8:14:28 PM | link

@ lysias 49

You are being sarcastic, tongue in cheek, correct? I also wonder who could have done such a thing?

But seriously, the value of Solzhenitsyn is not in the quality of his prose, which is very difficult to read, then in the relevance of his topics. He did document how power over others and ultimately totalitarianism manifest themselves in the fallible human nature. Humans cannot rule themselves properly, but usually psychopaths must rule (use & abuse) others. A whole system can be created on top of psychopathy of a few individuals (does this ring a bell?). Of course, the claim that Solzhenitsyn was a critic of Communism is equivalent to the claim that Animal Farm is a description of Communism. Both are good social critique turned into yet another political/brainwashing tool. It is art because it describes human nature across artificial boundaries, especially the ideological one: left versus right.

On another matter, I have started skipping comments where Trump is being bashed. In addition to being leftist TDS, this is a perfect indication that the commenter has got no clue what is really going on, so how could he/she explain anything to others?

Zachary Smith , Apr 16, 2019 8:34:23 PM | link
@ Jen #59
Is the NYT promoting Gina Haspel as someone who deserves a more influential position than the nation's top torturer? She wouldn't be the first such criminal being subtly encouraged to try for DJT's job in the future.

If an idea like that ever gets into Trump's head, Haspel is a goner. Have you noticed how he said he considered Ivanka for the World bank?

"Donald Trump reveals he considered making Ivanka head of World Bank because she's 'good with numbers'"

And there was a video of him bringing her to the microphone on the subject of 5G which amazed me: Trump Invites Ivanka To Talk About 5G Deployment In The U.S. I think Trump truly believes Ivanka is presidential material!

Tinfoil-hat opinion time: if you have a credible threat against Ivanka, you control Trump. If you want to gain a different kind of leverage - like to talk him into quitting in 2020 - promise him you'll work hard to put her in the White House.

Still tin-foiling, but I think a version of this happened in 1992. Iran Contra was closing in, and the Democrats had the goods on Bush Senior. I buy into the conspiracy notion Bush Sr. was offered a deal where the matter would be dropped if he left office, and with a "sweetener" that one of his boys would be advanced to the White House. This didn't hurt the Powers That Be, for the chosen democrat was a rare Pro-Choice Republican posing as a democrat.

Bill Clinton was a warmongering neocon nut who governed domestically as a Republican.

As it turns out, the "smart one" (Jeb) lost his first step by not immediately getting to be Governor of Florida. That left the Codpiece Commander, and all his sins were airbrushed away, the Supreme Court intervened, and he entered the White House. Good deal for Pappy Bush, BTW. Him and Reagan got to keep their gold shine, and President Dumbya did all which was expected of him.

karlof1 , Apr 16, 2019 8:59:37 PM | link
Thanks Jen & Piotr for your comments regarding my take on Murray's missive.

The problem lies with people in generation after generation being fooled by the same or similar ruses used before, which is why The Who exhorted people to not let themselves "get fooled again."

The UK & EU both face crises caused by their adherence to Neoliberal economics, but Neoliberal governments hold sway in almost every EU nation and UK despite the damage they've caused.

It's certainly a muddle. Trump vetoing the legislation to cease supporting Saudi in Yemen will further help the turn to the East. And tomorrow will bring something else.

Circe , Apr 16, 2019 9:13:41 PM | link
@66 karlof1

Here's a link for anyone who still doesn't believe Trump is on the dark side: Trump vetoes resolution ending U.S. involvement in Yemen

donkeytale , Apr 16, 2019 9:15:37 PM | link
Newsflash: Trump vetoes Congressional resolution to end military support for the war in Yemen.

Any of the Trump Dick Suckers care to comment? Babble-on @14? Your take please. Never enough dissembling wrt Trump.

Circe , Apr 16, 2019 9:48:08 PM | link
@61Jackrabbit

Looks like Trump is only a compassionate humanitarian on behalf of Syrian kids. With 14 school children killed in Yemen a week ago, not so much.

https://twitter.com/UNICEF_Yemen/status/1115531708063940608

400 children killed since January 2019 in Yemen and 85,000 have died from malnutrition in the past 3 and a half years and Trump vetoes resolution to end U.S. involvement.

Trump whitewashers have a lot of work to do.

S , Apr 16, 2019 11:17:30 PM | link
@Mataman #9:
The story veers into complete fiction when it claims that pictures of dead ducks had any effect on Trump. He doesn't like, nor care about animals.

Perhaps Donald Trump has a soft spot for ducks because of Donald Duck?

Jackrabbit , Apr 16, 2019 11:26:59 PM | link
Now Haspel can boast that she grabbed him by the duckie .
Zachary Smith , Apr 16, 2019 11:40:11 PM | link
@ Bart Hansen #69

So far as I understand your question, the Neocon York Times link from above had this about the kids and the ducks:

Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives.

The Brits were lying, Haspel was lying, and either Trump believed her or pretended to.

[Apr 13, 2019] Trump and Assange

Apr 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

neutral , says: April 11, 2019 at 11:37 am GMT

This will at least wake up those morons at places like Breitbart that Trump is nothing more than a neocon swine. I mean how much more evidence do they need to see that he is invite the world, invade the world. On top of that mass censorship being unleashed under Trump, how can anyone still be conned into supporting him.
John Burns, Gettysburg Partisan , says: April 11, 2019 at 12:45 pm GMT
@reiner Tor

This is why Anglo-Saxon propaganda is so very effective. They have freedom of speech, see? Though of course saying politically incorrect things might socially kill you, so it's understood you won't do that. You will say PC (including anti-Russian, etc.) platitudes always. So people will not even notice PC propaganda, like fish don't notice they're wet. And when trying to convince a normie, you have to break a very long, almost infinite chain of assumptions, which you won't know how to do.

Take a look at the career of Charles Austin Beard, for example.

He was one of the single most highly-regarded historians in America; his contributions to the field were well-known and massively important. But even he could not break through the pillars of propaganda when he published his book about the folly of Franklin Roosevelt's foreign policy. The "court historians" like Samuel Eliot Morison and Schlesinger, et al, blackballed his work and dismissed it with the most flippant arrogance and lack of care for detail. The major newspapers and periodicals followed suit. Overnight he became all but a pariah. Only a few regional newspapers were willing to treat his work with serious care. To his credit, Beard had anticipated this reaction, but published his works anyway.

After World War 1, revisionism became par for the course in America – the vast majority of historians, journalists, together with the public as a whole, came to agree that America's entry into that conflict had been a selfish mistake. But during and after World War Two, what you call "Anglo-Saxon propaganda" tightened up to a remarkably successful degree, and to this day the pro-interventionist myth of the "great crusade" is all but unimpeachable among the masses. In fact, the anti-revisionists, the "court historians," even managed to defeat the old inter-war consensus about World War One, so that even it is now regarded as an idealistic crusade for democracy! Very remarkable stuff, though sad!

Anonymous [151] Disclaimer , says: April 11, 2019 at 3:54 pm GMT
I would probably do the same thing in Putin's situation. At a very basic level you simply cannot trust people like Assange. Giving refuge to a spy is one thing; you're not going to let him near any state secrets so it's not like he could betray you even if he wanted to (and it's easy to keep an eye on him). For somebody like Assange there's the constant threat that he could turn against you: acquire damaging information and use it as leverage, or simply release it for the sake of his own ego or murky ideals. Too much potential for embarrassment. Snowden was closer in spirit to a spy imo; Assange is more like bin Laden or a mafia boss, the head of a shadowy international organization with significant reach and resources.

It's sort of like the French Foreign Legion: they take a dim view of British and American recruits and generally won't let them join unless they speak French or have prior military experience. The reason is psychological unsuitability: no sensible British or American person interested in a military career would volunteer to be a mercenary for a foreign country over serving in his own country's well-funded armed forces. Romantics and escapists are inherently flaky and unreliable people. That's also why Brazilians are regarded as the best Legion soldiers: they just do it to get EU citizenship

Dmitry , says: April 11, 2019 at 4:04 pm GMT
@Thorfinnsson

that country's national interest.

Ecuador rented a house opposite their main offices in Knightsbridge, and had three agents in the house to permanently monitor Assange on cameras (for a cost of $1 million a year).

So they might be more intelligent than we think?

At the same time, Ecuador's politicians had problems justifying the costs of this to their media.

Perhaps it seems more like this was perceived by Ecuador, as an intelligence operation, to monitor Assange, and get intelligence information they could would use as leverage with the Americans.

Today, the Ecuadorian interior minister is suddenly boasting about how they monitored and have knowledge about two hackers who worked with Assange.

The Alarmist , says: April 11, 2019 at 4:24 pm GMT
@reiner Tor But Trump did say "I love WikiLeaks" during the campaign.
The Alarmist , says: April 11, 2019 at 4:35 pm GMT
@reiner Tor Scotland yard tried to play down their own costs of hanging outside the Ecuadorian embassy, which in 2015 was already estimated to be well over £10m over the prior three years, by saying that a lot of that cost was money they would have spent on policing anyway: Tell that to the rapidly increasing numbers of families of murder victims in the Capital. Oops, careful about saying that in the UK, as the police there will pick you up for a thought-crime.
Cagey Beast , says: April 11, 2019 at 5:29 pm GMT
Trump is scum:
Endgame Napoleon , says: April 11, 2019 at 5:46 pm GMT
Elites around the globe protect each other more than they protect the interests of non-elites in their own nations and any who side with non-elites in any non-trivial way, so it makes sense that Latin American elites side with US elites who favor the mass immigration that has driven down wages for 40 years and the mass exportation of US jobs to Latin American since it 1) boosts the profits of American elites and 2) relieves pressure on Latin American elites.
Matra , says: April 11, 2019 at 6:13 pm GMT
Ecuador seemed to get fed up with Assange – cutting him off from the world, badmouthing him in MSM, etc – early 2018 when he was mostly tweeting about Catalonia. Spain is supposedly Ecuador's closest partner in Europe. The timing could've been coincidental but probably not.
neutral , says: April 11, 2019 at 6:18 pm GMT
@Cagey Beast Trump was always scum, I am endlessly amazed how it took so long for some people to see what he was.
Cagey Beast , says: April 11, 2019 at 6:20 pm GMT
@neutral He was always scum but he was still the better choice than Hillary Clinton. He may still be better than his opponent in 2020. That's how bad things are at the centre of the American empire.

Trump had the potential to be better than he is now but Washington has pushed his back against the wall and his shitty character has thus shown itself in full. He could have been a better President under different circumstances; even with these same character flaws.

Cagey Beast , says: April 11, 2019 at 6:45 pm GMT
@neutral Trump was and still is the chaos candidate. When a better option than sabotage presents itself, then Trump will become the second best choice.

Many, if not most, people knew he was the sabotage candidate when they supported him. Hillary was understood to be worse because she'd maintain and even strengthen a bad system while Trump would bugger it up.

reiner Tor , says: April 11, 2019 at 6:58 pm GMT
@Thorfinnsson The Deep State might already be beyond repair. So perhaps, come the Revolution, new, revolutionary state organs will need to be set up in a clean break with the obscurantist blank slatist regime. The state secrets of these new, revolutionary organs should be protected by any means necessary. But then we'll have free countries for ourselves.

Until then, we don't need to protect the secrets of the oppressive obscurantist regime.

g2k , says: April 11, 2019 at 7:24 pm GMT
Re:Cagey Beast

Disagree here, he's energised the left to a degree that wouldn't have happened had he not been elected and his policies are now no different to what Clinton's would have been. In American politics, what you say appears to matter much more than what you do, so we've now got the perfect storm of someone who talks like a right wing populist, and the resulting backlash, but nothing to show for it. I remember ak mentioning that the only saving grace of his administration being that it had alienated allies, but even that hasnt materialised. The guy is a conman and a sellout, but he's very clearly noticed the fact that European governments will unquestionably obey the US, so it's pointless to treat them with any respect whatsoever: THATs the one and only positive thing I can say about him. Still not looking forward to his successor.

Dmitry , says: April 11, 2019 at 7:50 pm GMT
@The Alarmist Trump said he liked Wikileaks at that time, because they released some embarrassing emails about Hilary Clinton during the 2016 Presidential election.

If they released embarrassing emails about Trump, he would have said the opposite.

Trump will not have any specific principles that would make him support asylum for leakers, or generalized protection for dissidents, unless it might specifically be explained that it would help him in some way (and unless there are emails to leak about his opponent in 2020, how will it help him?).

... ... ...

Anon [137] Disclaimer , says: April 11, 2019 at 8:08 pm GMT
@reiner Tor But Trump would say anything that would get him elected, and he would do many of these things. But, as plutocrat surrounded by plutocrats, he'll never open the market for housing (allow easier re-zoning), or transportation (dismantle the dealership racket), or hospitals / doctors. Yeah, apparently he lacks the levers to reduce housing costs, but he can always fix, or promise to fix, something about Assange, or about Christian-Obamacare conflicts – despite them being equally remote from his mandate. Watch the idiotic boomers drooling all over unz.com about Trump's "efforts" to fix immigration.

These being the highest expenses of an American, I can see who is the idiot here.

Philip Owen , says: April 11, 2019 at 10:25 pm GMT
Hours after Assange was detained, the IMF approved a loan of $4.2 Bn for Ecuador.
Anatoly Karlin , says: Website April 11, 2019 at 10:36 pm GMT
@Philip Owen I seem to have LOL'd prematurely.

It seems to have happened exactly one month ago: https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2019/03/11/ecuador-pr1972-imf-executive-board-approves-eff-for-ecuador

Cagey Beast , says: April 12, 2019 at 12:47 am GMT
@Cagey Beast Edit: She called Trump a coward but then deleted it:

Trump today: "I know nothing about Wikileaks." Trump three years ago: "Boy, I love reading these WikiLeaks." Liar, traitor, and coward.

Anatoly Karlin , says: Website April 12, 2019 at 12:57 am GMT
@Cagey Beast Lame. (Trump. And Alessandra deleting her Tweet).
Kratoklastes , says: April 12, 2019 at 3:12 am GMT
@simple_pseudonymic_handle The most obvious parallel was the UK's refusal to extradite Gary McKinnon to the US.

McKinnon gained access to 97 US military and NASA networks between early 2001 and 2002. he was also very very shit at covering his tracks.

The US sought extradition; McKinnon's lawyers challenged it on a bunch of grounds; McKinnon won.

Part of the range of stuff that got him off was the refusal of the US to make guarantees that he would not be housed in a SuperMax and that he would not be placed in solitary confinement, That, plus McKinnon's "Asperger's" (diagnosed after he was arrested), was enough for the system to tell the US government to pound sand.

Kratoklastes , says: April 12, 2019 at 3:36 am GMT
I as among the people who warned JA not to go to the UK when he was leaving Sweden. (I've known the guy as a nodding acquaintance since the 1980s and WANK; I'm in he & Suelette's book, under a different pseudonym).

He was warned against one of the classic blunders.

The first two classic blunders are known to all –
never start a land war in Asia , and
never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line .

The third is less well-known:

③ when you've been honeypotted, DO NOT SEEK REFUGE ON A FUCKING ISLAND .

When he ignored us, he was dropped from several DMSes.

For a very smart bloke, his judgement was always suspect: he allowed a fucking nappy like Dumb Shitberg (Domscheit-Berg) inside his circle of confidants.

Baxter , says: April 12, 2019 at 4:17 am GMT
This whole damn country is a pile of lies. I don't know how you guys keep your sanity.
I think America may crack in the next ten years.
I live in a "minority-majority" area. It is all bullshit.
Hey, let's take all the worlds nations, races, ethnicities, religions, cultures, lifestyles, sexual orientations, etc and stick them in one place!
On top of this we have a government that doesn't listen, ruled by special interest group.
My god, how long America?
I can't stand this place anymore.
It's going to be very interesting to see the next 10 years. The country is cracking up.
For my part, I'm learning a foreign language right now, it will come in handy when I have enough money to bail.
Gentleman, there is nothing here worth left of preserving, only rot.
Realist , says: April 12, 2019 at 8:52 am GMT
@Cagey Beast Trump said he loved Wikileaks but Trumped is such a lying, corrupt asshole how can you believe him?
Quintus Sertorius , says: April 12, 2019 at 9:24 am GMT
@Grahamsno(G64) the USA is the new USSR.
Germanicus , says: April 12, 2019 at 10:03 am GMT
I miss a consideration, that wikileaks could be a Mossad/Unit8200 operation.
If I look at the wikileak's site, menu "partners", all is clear to me, "Der Spiegel" and truth are mutually exclusive.
Wikileaks "revealed" an EU plan to use military against the poor human traffickers and Israeli NGOs who bring in these Africans and "refugees". Fascinating, they have once in their evil life a good plan in Brussels, and wikileaks shoots against it.

I think the question for Russian asylum is the same question why Russia did not spell the beans on 911.

Realist , says: April 12, 2019 at 10:10 am GMT
Assange is a hero. He exposed the corrupt, lying government we have so this is another dark episode in American history.
Felix Keverich , says: April 12, 2019 at 10:21 am GMT
@neutral Only low-IQ people still support Trump at this point. Those wouldn't even know who Assange is.
annamaria , says: April 12, 2019 at 5:14 pm GMT
@Meimou The leader of progressives, the dual-loyalty opportunist and CIA stooge Schumer:

Chuck Schumer
@SenSchumer
Now that Julian Assange has been arrested, I hope he will soon be held to account for his meddling in our elections on behalf of Putin and the Russian government.

Schumer is on for Amelec. Happy Pesach!

nsa , says: April 12, 2019 at 6:13 pm GMT
@Hyperborean Trumpstein and his sleazy family keep delivering for the vile jooies and the JudenPresse, JudenTV, and JudenNet will make sure he gets reelected especially if he attacks Iran. Where is Titus now that we need him?

[Apr 12, 2019] By all means, do not vote for Trump ever again

Notable quotes:
"... Trump has reneged on all these promises and in many cases done the exact opposite. I suspect that part of this was deliberate lying on Trump's part but a lot of it is due to his sheer, mind-boggling incompetence, coupled with modest intelligence, and some rather severe personality disorders that have manifested themselves more clearly over time. ..."
"... In his own words, Donald Trump reveals his hypocrisy about Iraq, immigration, health care, abortion, Libya, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and more. ..."
Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

Jus' Sayin'... , says: April 10, 2019 at 3:47 pm GMT

@WorkingClass Alex Graham is right. I voted for Trump because he promised:

(1) to end the wars the US is fighting as a sock puppet of Israel and her domestic agents, the so-called neocons and the traitorous Zionist fifth column in this country, exemplified by Adelson, Saban, Kushner, et al.;

(2) to restore the rule of law regarding illegal aliens in this country by removing these criminals post haste;

(3) to restore order at the border and end the massive stream of illegals and contraband entering our country every day;

(4) to establish reasonable laws and policies regulating immigration and naturalization so that new immigrants and citizens improve rather than diminish the quality of life for current citizens; and

(5) to eliminate and/or restructure trade agreements so they are bilateral and not destructive of the USA's industrial and economic base.

Trump has reneged on all these promises and in many cases done the exact opposite. I suspect that part of this was deliberate lying on Trump's part but a lot of it is due to his sheer, mind-boggling incompetence, coupled with modest intelligence, and some rather severe personality disorders that have manifested themselves more clearly over time.

By all means, do not vote for Trump ever again. I don't intend to. But please don't consider voting for a Democrat. They will just more efficiently screw us than Trump is doing now.

Agent76 , says: April 10, 2019 at 3:02 pm GMT
Jul 23, 2016 Trump Exposes Trump

In his own words, Donald Trump reveals his hypocrisy about Iraq, immigration, health care, abortion, Libya, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and more.

[Apr 12, 2019] The real meaning of MAGA for Trump administration

Apr 12, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Apr 11, 2019 9:44:47 PM | link

MAGA:

- illegally occupy territory (Syria and Afghanistan);

- support genocidal war (Yemen);

- thumb nose at UN resolutions;

- terminate treaties and embargo trade (Iran, North Korea);

- stoke tensions with adversaries (Russia, China, Iran, etc.);

- support idiotic Obama retread in Venezuela;

- shake down your allies;

- militarize space.

Winning:

- excuse killing of journalists (Khashoggi);

- torture whistle-blowers (Manning) and arrest journalists (Assange);

- cut humanitarian aid (Palestinians) to support Apartheid (Isreal);

- take hostages (Meng);

- bomb first, ask questions later (Syria);

- label anyone you don't like a "terrorist", "terrorist organization", or "terrorist state" - then invoke AUMF (Iran);

- expand the swamp (tax cuts, military spending increases, cut regulations, Jared's sweetheart deal, etc.).

<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

Not meant to be an exhaustive list.

[Apr 12, 2019] The 'deep state' IS the state! TRump serves the purpose of 'opening doors' for the rest of the gangsters, much the same way as successive Labour govts, here in the UK, opened the door for even more reactionary Tory govts.

Apr 12, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Barovsky , Apr 11, 2019 10:28:06 AM | link

Posted by: Zanon | Apr 11, 2019 10:11:05 AM | 58

Of course it's a Trump thing as well. The 'deep state' IS the state! TRump serves the purpose of 'opening doors' for the rest of the gangsters, much the same way as successive Labour govts, here in the UK, opened the door for even more reactionary Tory govts.

It's an issue of style versus substance. Ignore Trump's 'style', not that he has much, and concentrate on events. They're seamless. The process continues as it has done for decades.

[Apr 12, 2019] Trump s Betrayal of White America by Alex Graham

Notable quotes:
"... Trump's failure here is his alone. Closing the border could be accomplished with a simple executive order. It has happened before: Reagan ordered the closing of the border when DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was murdered on assignment in Mexico in 1985, for instance. ..."
"... Trump's empty threats over the past two years have had real-world consequences, prompting waves of migrants trying to sneak into the country while they still have the chance. His recent move to cut all foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador is another empty gesture that will probably have similar consequences. The funds directed to those countries were used for programs that provided citizens with incentives not to migrate elsewhere. (The situation was not ideal from an isolationist point of view, but a wiser man would have built the wall before cutting off the aid.) ..."
"... Trump's betrayal of American workers is perhaps best encapsulated by the fact that one of the members of the advisory board of his National Council for the American Worker (which claims to "enhance employment opportunities for Americans of all ages") is the CEO of IBM, a company that has expressed a preference for F-1 and H-1B visa holders in its job postings. ..."
"... There are more former Goldman Sachs employees in the Trump White House than in the Obama and Bush administrations combined. ..."
"... It is hard to escape the conclusion that Trump is not actually interested in curbing immigration and reversing America's demographic decline. He is a con artist and a coward who is willing to betray millions of white Americans so that he can remain in the good graces of establishment neoconservatives ..."
"... As Ann Coulter has put it, "He's like a waiter who compliments us for ordering the hamburger, but keeps bringing us fish. The hamburger is our signature dish, juicy and grilled to perfection, you've made a brilliant choice . . . now here's your salmon. " ..."
"... Third, he put an end to American funding for Palestinians. This coincided with the passing of a bill that codified a $38 billion, ten-year foreign aid package for Israel. Trump also authorized an act allocating an additional $550 million toward US-Israel missile and tunnel defense cooperation. ..."
"... Trump's track record on Israel shows that he is capable of exercising agency and getting things done. But he has failed to address the most pressing issue that America currently faces: mass immigration and the displacement of white Americans. The most credible explanation for his incompetence is that he has no intention of delivering on his promises. There is no "Plan," no 4-D chess game. The sooner white Americans realize this, the better. ..."
"... We elected America's first Jewish president, nothing more" ..."
Apr 08, 2019 | www.unz.com
"Unlike other presidents, I keep my promises," Trump boasted in a speech delivered on Saturday to the Republican Jewish Congress at a luxury hotel in Las Vegas. Many in the audience wore red yarmulkes emblazoned with his name. In his speech, Trump condemned Democrats for allowing "the terrible scourge of anti-Semitism to take root in their party" and emphasized his loyalty to Israel.

Trump has kept some of his promises. So far, he has kept every promise that he made to the Jewish community. Yet he has reneged on his promises to white America – the promises that got him elected in the first place. It is a betrayal of the highest order: millions of white Americans placed their hopes in Trump and wholeheartedly believed that he would be the one to make America great again. They were willing to endure social ostracism and imperil their livelihoods by supporting him. In return, Trump has turned his back on them and rendered his promises void.

The most recent example of this is Trump's failure to keep his promise to close the border. On March 29, Trump threatened to close the border if Mexico did not stop all illegal immigration into the US. This would likely have been a highly effective measure given Mexico's dependence on cross-border trade. Five days later, he suddenly retracted this threat and said that he would give Mexico a " one-year warning " before taking drastic action. He further claimed that closing the border would not be necessary and that he planned to establish a twenty-five percent tariff on cars entering the US instead.

Trump's failure here is his alone. Closing the border could be accomplished with a simple executive order. It has happened before: Reagan ordered the closing of the border when DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was murdered on assignment in Mexico in 1985, for instance.

Trump's empty threats over the past two years have had real-world consequences, prompting waves of migrants trying to sneak into the country while they still have the chance. His recent move to cut all foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador is another empty gesture that will probably have similar consequences. The funds directed to those countries were used for programs that provided citizens with incentives not to migrate elsewhere. (The situation was not ideal from an isolationist point of view, but a wiser man would have built the wall before cutting off the aid.)

The past two years have seen a surge in illegal immigration without precedent in the past decade. Since late December, the Department of Homeland Security has released 125,565 illegal aliens into the country. In the past two weeks alone, 6,000 have been admitted. According to current projections, 2019 will witness around 500,000 to 775,000 border crossings. Additionally, about 630,000 illegal aliens will be added to the population after having overstayed their visas. By the end of the year, more than one million illegal aliens will have been added to the population:

These projections put the number of illegal aliens added to the U.S. population at around one to 1.5 million, on top of the 11 to 22 million illegal aliens who are already living across the country. This finding does not factor in the illegal aliens who will be deported, die over the next year, or leave the U.S. of their own will. As DHS data has revealed, once border crossers and illegal aliens are released into the country, the overwhelming majority are never deported.

In February, Trump signed a bill allowing the DHS secretary to add another 69,320 spots to the current H-2B cap of 66,000. On March 29, DHS began this process by announcing that it would issue an additional 30,000 H-2B visas this year. The H-2B visa program allows foreign workers to come to the US and work in non-agricultural occupations. Unlike the H-1B program, a Bachelor's degree is not required; most H-2B workers are employed in construction, maintenance, landscaping, and so on. The demographic most affected by the expansion of the H-2B program will be unemployed working-class Americans. This flies in the face of Trump's promise to protect American workers and stop importing foreigners.

Trump has indicated that he has plans to expand the H-1B visa program as well. "We want to encourage talented and highly skilled people to pursue career options in the U.S.," he said in a tweet in January.

Trump's betrayal of American workers is perhaps best encapsulated by the fact that one of the members of the advisory board of his National Council for the American Worker (which claims to "enhance employment opportunities for Americans of all ages") is the CEO of IBM, a company that has expressed a preference for F-1 and H-1B visa holders in its job postings.

Trump has been working on legal immigration with Jared Kushner, who has quietly been crafting a plan to grant citizenship to more "low- and high-skilled workers, as well as permanent and temporary workers" (so, just about everyone). Kushner's plan proves the folly of the typical Republican line that legal immigration is fine and that only illegal immigration should be opposed. Under his plan, thousands of illegal aliens will become "legal" with the stroke of a pen.

There is a paucity of anti-immigration hardliners in Trump's inner circle (though Stephen Miller is a notable exception). Trump has surrounded himself with moderates: the Kushners, Mick Mulvaney, Alex Acosta, and others. There are more former Goldman Sachs employees in the Trump White House than in the Obama and Bush administrations combined.

The new DHS secretary, Kevin McAleenan, who was appointed yesterday following Kirstjen Nielsen's resignation, is a middle-of-the-road law enforcement official who served under Obama and Bush and is responsible for the revival of the " catch-and-release " policy, whereby illegal aliens are released upon being apprehended. It was reported last week that Trump was thinking of appointing either Kris Kobach or Ken Cuccinelli to a position of prominence (as an " immigration czar "), but this appears to have been another lie.

Trump's failure to deliver on his promises cannot be chalked up to congressional obstruction. Congress. As Kobach said in a recent interview , "It's not like we're powerless and it's not like we have to wait for Congress to do something. . . . No, we can actually solve the immediate crisis without Congress acting." Solving the border crisis would simply demand "leadership in the executive branch willing to act decisively." Kobach recently outlined an intelligent three-point plan that Trump could implement:

Publish the final version of the regulation that would supersede the Flores Settlement. The initial regulation was published by the Department of Homeland Security in September 2018. DHS could have published the final regulation in December. Inexplicably, DHS has dragged its feet. Finalizing that regulation would allow the United States to detain entire families together, and it would stop illegal aliens from exploiting children as get-out-of-jail free cards. Set up processing centers at the border to house the migrants and hold the hearings in one place. The Department of Justice should deploy dozens of immigration judges to hear the asylum claims at the border without releasing the migrants into the country. FEMA already owns thousands of travel trailers and mobile homes that it has used to address past hurricane disasters. Instead of selling them (which FEMA is currently doing), FEMA should ship them to the processing centers to provide comfortable housing for the migrants. In addition, a fleet of passenger planes should deployed to the processing centers. Anyone who fails in his or her asylum claim, or who is not seeking asylum and is inadmissible, should be flown home immediately. It would be possible to fly most migrants home within a few weeks of their arrival. Word would get out quickly in their home countries that entry into the United States is not as easy as advertised. The incentive to join future caravans would dissipate quickly. Publish a proposed Treasury regulation that prohibits the sending home of remittances by people who cannot document lawful presence in the United States. This will hit Mexico in the pocketbook: Mexico typically brings in well over $20 billion a year in remittances , raking in more than $26 billion in 2017. Then, tell the government of Mexico that we will finalize the Treasury regulation unless they do two things to help us address the border crisis: (1) Mexico immediately signs a "safe third country agreement" similar to our agreement with Canada. This would require asylum applicants to file their asylum application in the first safe country they set foot in (so applicants in the caravans from Central America would have to seek asylum in Mexico, rather than Canada); and (2) Mexico chips in $5 billion to help us build the wall. The threat of ending remittances from illegal aliens is a far more powerful one than threatening to close the border. Ending such remittances doesn't hurt the U.S. economy; indeed, it helps the economy by making it more likely that such capital will be spent and circulate in our own country. We can follow through easily if Mexico doesn't cooperate.

It would not be all that difficult for Trump to implement these proposals. Kobach still has faith in Trump, but his assessment of him appears increasingly to be too generous. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Trump is not actually interested in curbing immigration and reversing America's demographic decline. He is a con artist and a coward who is willing to betray millions of white Americans so that he can remain in the good graces of establishment neoconservatives . At the same time, he wants to maintain the illusion that he cares about his base.

As Ann Coulter has put it, "He's like a waiter who compliments us for ordering the hamburger, but keeps bringing us fish. The hamburger is our signature dish, juicy and grilled to perfection, you've made a brilliant choice . . . now here's your salmon. "

Nearly everything Trump has done in the name of restricting immigration has turned out to be an empty gesture and mere theatrics: threatening to close the border, offering protections to "Dreamers" in exchange for funding for the ever-elusive wall, threatening to end the "anchor baby" phenomenon with an executive order (which never came to pass), cutting off aid to Central American countries, claiming that he will appoint an "immigration czar" (and then proceeding to appoint McAleenan instead of Kobach as DHS secretary), and on and on.

While Trump has failed to keep the promises that got him elected, he has fulfilled a number of major promises that he made to Israel and the Jewish community.

First, he moved the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump claimed that the move would only cost $200,000, but in reality it will end up being more than $20 million . The construction of the embassy also led to a series of bloody protests; it is located in East Jerusalem, which is generally acknowledged to be Palestinian territory.

Second, he pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal. Netanyahu claimed on Israeli TV that Israel was responsible for convincing him to exit the deal and reimpose sanctions on Iran. (Both Trump and Netanyahu falsely alleged that Iran lied about the extent of its nuclear program; meanwhile, Israel's large arsenal of chemical and biological weapons has escaped mention.) Third, he put an end to American funding for Palestinians. This coincided with the passing of a bill that codified a $38 billion, ten-year foreign aid package for Israel. Trump also authorized an act allocating an additional $550 million toward US-Israel missile and tunnel defense cooperation.

Fourth, he recognized Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights (in defiance of the rest of the world, which recognizes the Golan Heights as Syrian territory under Israeli occupation). Trump's Golan Heights proclamation was issued on March 21 and was celebrated by Israel. Trump's track record on Israel shows that he is capable of exercising agency and getting things done. But he has failed to address the most pressing issue that America currently faces: mass immigration and the displacement of white Americans. The most credible explanation for his incompetence is that he has no intention of delivering on his promises. There is no "Plan," no 4-D chess game. The sooner white Americans realize this, the better.


aandrews , says: April 10, 2019 at 3:17 am GMT

Kushner, Inc. Book Review Part I: The Rise of The Kushner Crime Family

Kushner, Inc. Book Review Part II: The Fall of The Kushner Crime Family

If you haven't picked up a copy of Vicky Ward's book, Kushner, Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump , you really should.

I haven't read Mr. Graham's essay yet, but I thought those two links would fit in nicely. I stay in a low boil, like it is, and having plodded through both those reviews, I can't stand reading too much on this topic at once.

Something's gotta give. Or are the brainless goy just going to let themselves be led off a cliff?

Oh, yes. There's an interview with Ward on BookTV .

Thinker , says: April 10, 2019 at 4:16 am GMT
Yep. Trump's a lying POS pond scum like the rest of the DC swamp that he said he was going to drain, turns out he is one of them all along. We elected America's first Jewish president, nothing more. He needs to change his campaign slogan to MIGA, Make Israel Great Again, that was the plan of his handlers all along.

What I want to know is, who are those idiots who still keep showing up at his rallies? Are they really that dumb?

Even Sanders came out and said we can't have open borders. I've also heard him said back in 2015 that the H1b visa program is a replacement program for American workers. If he grows a pair and reverts back to that stance, teams up with Tulsi Gabbard, I'll vote for them 2020. Fuck Trump! Time for him and his whole treasonous rat family to move to Israel where they belong.

jbwilson24 , says: April 10, 2019 at 4:51 am GMT
@Thinker " We elected America's first Jewish president, nothing more"

Afraid not, there's plenty of reason to believe that the Roosevelt family and Lyndon Johnson were Jewish.

Your major point stands, though. He's basically a shabbesgoy.

peterAUS , says: April 10, 2019 at 5:05 am GMT
@Dr. Robert Morgan

His "implicitly white" supporters would have abandoned him in droves, not wanting to be associated with a racist, thus pointing up the weakness of implicit whiteness as a survival strategy. And is it actually a survival strategy? A closer look at it makes me think it's more of a racial self-extermination strategy. After all, what kind of a survival strategy is it that can't even admit its goals to itself? And it's exactly this refusal of whites to explicitly state that they collectively want to continue to exist as a race that is the greatest impediment to their doing so. It's an interesting problem with no easy solution. How do you restore the will to live to a race that seems to have lost it? And not only lost its will to live, but actually prides itself on doing so? Accordingly, this "betrayal" isn't a betrayal at all. It's what American whites voted for and want. Giving their country away and accepting their own demographic demise is proof of their virtue; proof of their Christian love for all mankind.

You are definitely onto something here.

Still, I feel it's not that deep and complicated. It could be that they simply don't believe that the danger is closing in.

Boils down to wrong judgment. People who haven't had the need to think hard about serious things tend to develop that weakness.
I guess that boils down to "good times make weak men."

Hard times are coming and they'll make hard men. The catch is simple: will be enough of them in time ?

Real Buddy Ray , says: April 10, 2019 at 5:18 am GMT
@Thomm https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trumps-proposal-for-legal-immigration/499061/
JNDillard , says: April 10, 2019 at 5:20 am GMT
Switching to the Democrats is no solution. The DNC has proven itself to be a criminal organization through sabotaging Sander's campaign and then being instrumental in creating Russophobia, in collusion with Obama, the CIA, the FBI, and the DoJ. The DNC has rules in place stating that super delegates – elitists aligned with the DNC – can vote if one nominee does not win on the first ballot at the National Convention.

Because we have a HUGE number of hats in the Democratic ring, the chances that the nomination will not be decided on a first vote are extremely high, with the result being that the Democratic nominee is not going to be decided by voters in the primaries but by super delegates, i.e., the elitists and plutocrats.

Democracy exists when we vote to support candidates chosen by the elites for the elites; when we stop doing that, the elites turn on democracy. It is a sham; we will have a choice in 2020: between Pepsi and Coke. You are free to choose which one you prefer, because you live in a democracy. For more on the rigging of the democratic primaries for 2020, see

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/04/09/packed-primary-may-let-superdelegates-screw-progressives-again/

[Apr 10, 2019] "First the poor taxpayers, robbed by the politicians of one great party and then by those of the other, turn to a group of free-lance rogues in the middle ground -- non-partisan candidates, Liberals, reformers, or what not: the name is unimportant.

Notable quotes:
"... Then, flayed and pillaged by these gentry as they never were by the old-time professionals, they go back in despair to the latter, and are flayed and pillaged again." ..."
Apr 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

jacques sheete says: April 10, 2019 at 10:50 am GMT

Reed was wrong here. The American voter, for the most part, still doesn't realize any of this.

In June 1922 the Zionist halter was firmly reaffixed
round the neck of American State policy, and though American voter only slowly
realized this, it became immaterial to him which party prevailed at elections.

-Douglas Reed, The Controversy of Zion , p 300-301

jacques sheete , says: April 10, 2019 at 10:56 am GMT

@WorkingClass

Today I switch to the Democrats.

Please, no!

"First the poor taxpayers, robbed by the politicians of one great party and then by those of the other, turn to a group of free-lance rogues in the middle ground -- non-partisan candidates, Liberals, reformers, or what not: the name is unimportant.

Then, flayed and pillaged by these gentry as they never were by the old-time professionals, they go back in despair to the latter, and are flayed and pillaged again."

-H.L.Mencken, Editorial , In The American Mercury, April 1924, pp. 408-412

Antonius , says: April 10, 2019 at 11:10 am GMT
Trump is attacked relentlessly by Israel firsters (both left and right) prior to, and after his investiture as POTUS. How does he respond? How has he responded to relentless attacks on his base? The man has no spine, and no sense of gratitude or morality.

'Not worth feeding' my late grandfather would have said. Although he has made a lot of wealthy petulant people (who despise him and laugh behind his back) even wealthier.

What is needed is a billionaire who has genuine sense of noblesse oblige. Hopeless!

Anon918 , says: April 10, 2019 at 11:30 am GMT

Of course Trump was a gamble. I clearly remember him saying he wanted to get out of Syria, put an end to the endless wars, and he declared himself neutral on the Israel/Palestine issue–those were the biggest reasons I voted for him. Turns out he lied big time.

Now what? Looking at the clown car of presidential candidates just induces political nausea. No matter who gets elected it will be a government of, by, and for Jewish/Israeli/Zionist interests.

In the meantime I see no real progress on putting the brakes on illegals flooding the country. I see no economic miracles in spite of all the spin. Actual unemployment in the US was at 21.2% in March, really not much better than it has been since the 2008 crash ( http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts ), and record numbers of people are behind on mortgages and car payments, suicide and drug casualties have been skyrocketing.

Our political system is not going to bring any solutions, it has been far too corrupt for far too long.

jacques sheete , says: April 10, 2019 at 11:32 am GMT
@Nicolás Palacios Navarro

Pity that the rest of us have to be carted along for the ride.

That’s the truth, but we ‘re being carted along not for the ride but for the porking.

[Apr 09, 2019] Kushner Extorted Qatar - Or Did He?

Notable quotes:
"... Brookfield Asset Management has agreed to lease the troubled office tower for 99 years and is paying for the lease up front, rather than in the typical yearly ground rent, the Wall Street Journal reports. The financial terms of the deal were not made public, but the New York Times reports that Brookfield is paying $1.1B. ..."
"... Thanks b and you are wise to be sceptical. The up front payment to the Kusher kleptocracy by Brookfield Partners (Asset Management) is not just unusual but more like extraordinary! One test will be how this deal compares to other deals. Was Kushner avoiding taxes by doing a lease? Is this a common practice? ..."
"... It is an old story. From February 12, Bess Levin, Vanity Fair: Qatar Shocked, Shocked to Learn It Accidentally Bailed Out Jared Kushner ..."
"... In 2015, Kushner and his family business, Kushner Cos., bought a portion of the New York Times building on West 43rd Street from Russian /Israeli real estate billionaire Lev Leviev for $295M, where $285M was borrowed from Deutsche Bank to complete the transaction, despite the 666 albatross hanging over Kushners head ..."
"... Qatar paid over a billion dollars to build and expand the US base in Qatar and charges no rent for that base. This allows Qatar to easily brush aside any question of loyalty that may be posed by USA and makes the US/US military reluctant to pressure Qatar. But Israel would have no qualms about apply pressure. The "Jared bailout" allows for a narrative of Qatari leadership as weak and corrupt - much like the ridiculous claims that Putin is pro-Israel. ..."
Mar 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Kushner Extorted Qatar - Or Did He? DG , Mar 30, 2019 5:37:23 PM | link

The Hillreporter just published a very juicy story about Jared Kushner, the son in law and senior advisor of President Trump.

It says that Kushner, with the help of the Saudi clown prince Mohammad bin Salman, extorted Qatar for $1 billion to save his families real estate business in New York.

While the story sounds plausible and fits the public known timeline of other events, there is so far no evidence that supports it.

The tale is based on the work and information of author Vicky Ward, who recently published Kushner Inc - Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump .

Ward first talked through the story on yesterday's KrassenCast , a podcast by the anti-Trump and somewhat shady Krassenstein brothers who also run the Hillreporter .

In 2007, at the hight of the real estate bubble, the Kushner family bought the 666 5th Avenue building in New York City for $1.8 billion. Ten years later the Kushners were in real trouble. Plans to replace the building with a new one found no financing. The property was losing lots of money and a huge mortgage payment was due in January 2019. The family had to look for a bail out.

In early 2017 the Kushner family had several meetings with Qatari officials to discuss a deal. The Intercept reported :

Joshua Kushner, a venture capitalist and the younger brother of White House adviser Jared Kushner, met with Qatari Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi the same week as his father, Charles Kushner, did in April 2017, in an independent effort to discuss potential investments from the Qatari government. Both meetings took place at Al Emadi's St. Regis Hotel suite in Manhattan.

This revelation comes after Charles Kushner, in an interview with the Washington Post this week, confirmed for the first time that his meeting with Al Emadi had indeed taken place on the subject of financing for the underwater Kushner property at 666 Fifth Avenue.

According to Vicky Ward this is what happened next :

"What I have learned is that in the ensuing month [May 2017] before the US visit to Riyadh, Jared Kushner got on a plane and flew to Doha, the Qatari capital, and he reamed the Qatari ruling family, the al-Thanis, for not doing the deal with his father They began to feel that he was indirectly threatening their sovereignty. The next thing they know, when they show up to the summit in Riyadh, the Emir, the ruler of Qatar, arrives with an entourage, but his entourage is suddenly cut off from him, and not allowed into the summit at the same time by the Saudis, which he felt was a move to deliberately make him look weak. You have to remember during this summit, Jared and Ivanka go off for a cozy secret unmonitored dinner with [Saudi Crown Prince] MBS. Nobody knows what they talked about."

Fifteen days later the Saudis and the UAE blockade Qatar and send troops to its border. Trump supports the Saudi blockade against the advice of his Secretary of State Tillerson and his Defense Secretary Mattis and despite the fact the the biggest U.S. base in the area is in Qatar.

Nine months later, a Canadian company, Brookfield Partners, who the Qatari Investment Authority owns a $1.8 billion or 9% stake in, bailed out Kushner Properties, with a 99-year lease agreement for 666 5th Ave.
...
Around this same time, President Trump publicly shifts course, no longer supporting the blockade, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tells Saudi Arabia to stop the embargo.

If the blockade of Qatar originates in a Kushner extortion scheme, as the story insinuates, it would have serious political consequences. But is that true?

The sequencing of the real estate deal and the change in the Trump policy on the blockade is somewhat problematic. The Trump shift was reported on April 29 2018 while the Brookfield Partner deal was first published about three weeks later on May 17:

Charles Kushner, head of the Kushner Companies, is in advanced talks with Brookfield Asset Management over a partnership to take control of the 41-story aluminum-clad tower in Midtown Manhattan, 666 Fifth Avenue, according to two real estate executives who have been briefed on the pending deal but were not authorized to discuss it.

The deal only closed in August 2018 on terms that had changed from the first report and were unusual:

Brookfield Asset Management has agreed to lease the troubled office tower for 99 years and is paying for the lease up front, rather than in the typical yearly ground rent, the Wall Street Journal reports. The financial terms of the deal were not made public, but the New York Times reports that Brookfield is paying $1.1B.

What was the real sequencing here? Was the property deal agreed upon before the Trump administration changed its stand on the Qatar blockade or after that happened? Was it related to it or not? We don't know. There is no public record of the alleged Jared Kushner flight to Qatar. There is so far no other evidence that would support the story. The tale fits the publicly known timeline, but that is not enough to believe it. Its authors may have used the public timeline to then fit a story onto it.

It is possible that the Kushner property deal and the Qatar blockade are intimately intertwined but there is, so far, no proof for it. That idea that Kushner played the Saudis is dubious. The other way around is more likely.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE had plenty of reason to blockade Qatar. Both countries fear the Qatari support for the Muslim Brotherhood. They hate Qatar's Al Jazeerah TV because it often publicly opposes their policies. The Saudis need money and annexing the very rich Qatar would solve all their problems. Brookfield Properties denies that Qatar or the Qatari investment agency had any involvement in 666 5th Ave. deal.

Even if Qatar, through Brookfield, made a deal with the Kushner family, it does not mean that it was extorted. The Qatari rulers might simply have hoped that the deal would help them. It did not. The blockade still continues despite the real estate deal. Trump had his own reasons to support the Saudis Qatar blockade. He wanted them to buy as many U.S. weapon system as possible, if only to beat out Obama, who sold the Saudis all sorts of military trash for a record amount of money.

During the Mueller Russia investigation lots of smoke seemed to show that there was a 'collusion' fire burning somewhere under the hundreds of facts and figures. There wasn't.

The story about the Kushner 'extortion of Qatar' might create a similar ' the walls are closing in ' (vid) farce only to end up with nothing. It is interesting that the Vicky Ward story was published on March 29, a day after Jared Kushner was interviewed behind closed door by the Senate Intelligence Commission:

President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner returned to the Senate Intelligence Committee for a closed door interview Thursday as part of the committee's Russia investigation.
...
The first time Kushner appeared before the panel in 2017, he was interviewed by committee staff. The committee has wanted to re-interview witnesses central to the investigation. On Thursday, senators were sitting in on the interview.

Russiagate is really finished . The Republican's rule the Senate. Why would they continue to interview Kushner and why would senators sit in on it? Might the 'Kushner extorted Qatar' be a planned sequel to Russiagate or why else was it launched right now?

Posted by b on March 30, 2019 at 05:28 PM | Permalink


Sally Snyder , Mar 30, 2019 5:42:24 PM | link

Here is an article that explains how the Trump Administration was trying to export nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/02/saudi-arabia-and-american-nuclear.html

One has to wonder whether Kushner's influence was involved in this deal which would have seen the geopolitical balance in the Middle East tilt into Saudi Arabia's favour.

uncle tungsten , Mar 30, 2019 6:27:52 PM | link
Thanks b and you are wise to be sceptical. The up front payment to the Kusher kleptocracy by Brookfield Partners (Asset Management) is not just unusual but more like extraordinary! One test will be how this deal compares to other deals. Was Kushner avoiding taxes by doing a lease? Is this a common practice?

I did like the reference to Trump outdoing Obummer in arms deals and had a good laugh at Trumps childish racism in that game. He sure hates Obummer but he sure won't go after him in any way. Trump wont even go after $hillary and her global empire shakedown Foundation. Sometimes I think he is now a sitting duck but then I am an optimist.

somebody , Mar 30, 2019 6:29:48 PM | link
It is an old story. From February 12, Bess Levin, Vanity Fair: Qatar Shocked, Shocked to Learn It Accidentally Bailed Out Jared Kushner
In addition to likely having had the chance to hear about the deal through Brookfield directly or read about it in the paper of record, one would imagine the Qataris were keeping tabs on all things Kushner on account of Jared's father, Charles Kushner, taking a meeting with Qatar's finance minister, Ali Sharif Al Emadi in April 2017. (Kushner the Elder later said he accepted the invite purely "out of respect" for the Qataris to tell them there was no way "we could do business.")

Of course Trump throwing the full weight of the US behind Saudi Arabia and UAE was a de facto shake down of Qatar. And of course, Saudi and UAE were actively lobbying for it.

james , Mar 30, 2019 7:06:05 PM | link
thanks b.. it will be interesting to see how much traction vicky wards reporting gets and whether any of it gets substantiated..

i do believe the usa is crazy enough to do another witch hunt, so anything is possible here... she works for the huffpost.. that is grounds to discredit here right there in my books..

ben , Mar 30, 2019 7:25:51 PM | link
More theatrics as diversion, while the crooks in D.C. dismantle the agencies that keep the wealthy oligarchs at bay, as they rewrite the rules to allow greed and avarice to become virtues.

"Rules and regulations never changed a man's heart, but they can restrain the heartless."

MLK...

Augustin L , Mar 30, 2019 7:29:22 PM | link
Meanwhile, propaganda organs in America won't publicize real Donald Trump scandals like the case of ''Maria'' a Waterbury 12-year old alleged child rape victim of Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The crimes allegedly occurred at a midtown Manhattan mansion owned by Epstein's friend Les Wexner.

Donald Trump recently named as his Secretary of Labor, Alex Acosta, former U.S. Attorney for South Florida, the federal official directly overseeing sweetheart future immunity deal for Grifter in Chief acolytes like Jeffrey Epstein... As Labor Secretary, Acosta is charged with overseeing federal laws designed to combat domestic and international sex trafficking.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York is currently deciding whether to unseal the documents from a 2017 lawsuit involving one of Epstein's sex trafficking victims and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's assistant.

Other possible corrupt practices involving stable genius center around China's decision to grant Ivanka Trump 38 new trademarks in the middle of a trade war dispute... Part of current trade war negotiations are EB-5 investment visas. Jared Kushner and Trump stand to benefit from EB-5 visas designed to attract Chinese investment in the United States in return for permanent residency.

Curiously an EB-5 visa scam was being run out of an office in Jupiter, Florida, located across the street from the Orchids of Asia massage parlor raided by police where Trump billionaire friend Kraft was caught in a possible Chinese Honey Trap.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article227186429.html?fbclid=IwAR1FkjigXKFOf8gcPoKRqwqfqSLRuzPNDig5sg7XWtBQClavo73RQRsVWYs

Pft , Mar 30, 2019 9:05:31 PM | link
Russiagate may be done but thats because it was defined improperly. Sometimes it helps to look back to get a big picture perspective

Starting in 1999, Putin enlisted two oligarchs Lev Leviev and Roman Abramovich, who would go on to become Chabad's biggest patrons worldwide, to create the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia under the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, who would come to be known as "Putin's rabbi."

Roman Abramovich is the owner of the Chelsea Football Club of the English Premier League. He was a victor (along with Paul Manafort's patron Oleg Deripaska) in the aluminum wars of the 1990s and reportedly the person who convinced Boris Yeltsin that Putin would be a proper successor.

Ivanka Trump is very close friends with Abramovich's wife , Dasha Zhukova. Zhukova reportedly attended the inauguration as Ivanka's personal guest. Leviev is the one with the closest links to the Trumps and Israel

It starts with Bayrock . This is the company that Donald Trump teamed up with to build his Trump Soho project. There were three main actors . One was convicted mob associate and FBI informant Felix Sater. Another was Tevfik Arif, a likely Russian intelligence connection who was once was arrested by the Turks . The third was the late Tamir Sapir, another man with ties to Russian intelligence.

The late billionaire Tamir Sapir, was born in the Soviet state of Georgia. Trump has called Sapir "a great friend." In December 2007, he hosted the wedding of Sapir's daughter, Zina, at Mar-a-Lago. The groom, Rotem Rosen, was the CEO of the American branch of Africa Israel, the Putin oligarch Leviev's holding company, and known as Leviev's right hand man.

As mentioned Leviev was one of two oligarch's who Putin had establish the "Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia" under the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, who would come to be known as 'Putin's rabbi.'" Sater, Sapier, Jared, Ivanka are all Chabad members and/or donors

Trump had business discussions in Moscow in 2013 about Moscow real estate projects with Agalarovs, Alex Sapir (son of Tamir Sapir, brother of Zina, and brother-in-law of Rotem Rosen.) and Rotem Rosen, a pair of New York-based Russian . This may also have been discussed during the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower that was attended by Kushner, Manafort and Donald Trump Jr and a Russian lawyer associated with Fusion GPS (Steele dossier) and the Leviev linked Prevezon

Agalarov is a Moscow-based property developer who had won major contracts from Putin's government. He hosted Trump's 2013 Miss Universe contest at his concert hall in Moscow. He orchestrated the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting and formed a new American shell company a month beforehand with the help of the Russian lawyer who attended the meeting.

In 2015, Kushner and his family business, Kushner Cos., bought a portion of the New York Times building on West 43rd Street from Russian /Israeli real estate billionaire Lev Leviev for $295M, where $285M was borrowed from Deutsche Bank to complete the transaction, despite the 666 albatross hanging over Kushners head

Deutsche Bank and two companies tied to Leviev, Africa Israel Investments and Prevezon, have all recently been the subject of money laundering investigations. A laundering case against Prevezon was settled two months after Trump fired Bharara, with a $6M slap on the wrist settlement that raised some eyebrows.

As for 666, Kushner gets bailed out by Brookfield who has Qatar as its 2nd largest investor. But consider that at the same time they did this deal they also acquired Westinghouse Electric, a nuclear power company. Now members of the Trump administration propose selling nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia. Interesting.

Can't seem to find a Putin/Russian oligarch connection although that's probably due to the fact you cant use anonymous shell companies to buy property in NYC any longer due to new rules by FinCEN

But so many conflict of interests here, Israel, China, Saudis, Russian oligarchs, etc and virtually no oversight or transparency. With twitter being used to manipulate markets one has to imagine rampant insider trading as well (hey guys, my tweets going out at 3 pm, get your trades in and remember my 5%).

Clueless Joe , Mar 30, 2019 9:11:34 PM | link
Ross Stanford 4: That's the notorious meeting between Roosevelt and Ibn Saud on the way from Yalta, when they made the infamous deal between the US and the Saudis: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Franklin_D._Roosevelt_with_King_Ibn_Saud_aboard_USS_Quincy_%28CA-71%29%2C_14_February_1945_%28USA-C-545%29_%281%29.jpg
For mankind, very few post-WWII events were worse than this.
Jackrabbit , Mar 30, 2019 9:12:38 PM | link
@7 savvy globalist somebody wants us to know that there's nothing to see here!

But the Vanity Fair article he links to, written by Bess L-evin, makes this unsubstantiated(!) point:

So why is Doha taking pains to insist it accidentally bailed out the First-in-Laws on their no good, very bad investment now?
1) Actually, the Reuters article that she refers to explicitly states that Qatar has a minority position and no board representation ! It is a known in the financial world as a "passive investment".

2) L-evin's wording is extremely disingenuous: the Qataris never said they bailed out anyone, accidentally or otherwise!!

Jackrabbit , Mar 30, 2019 9:22:43 PM | link
Ask yourself:

1) Why would Qatar be associated in any way with such a sweetheart deal?

2) why would the Vanity Fair author spin the Reuters story this way?
Jackrabbit , Mar 30, 2019 9:26:20 PM | link
Interestingly, Vicky Ward used to work at Vanity Fair, and is currently an editor at HuffPost (a Democratic rag). And media that broke/promoted this story (Leevin and Krasseenstein) could (naturally) rise some suspicions of a connection to Israel's conflict with Iran. Qatar shares a huge gas field with Iran so Qatar has been reluctant to join KSA and Israel against Iran.
Jackrabbit , Mar 30, 2019 9:27:23 PM | link
Qatar paid over a billion dollars to build and expand the US base in Qatar and charges no rent for that base. This allows Qatar to easily brush aside any question of loyalty that may be posed by USA and makes the US/US military reluctant to pressure Qatar. But Israel would have no qualms about apply pressure. The "Jared bailout" allows for a narrative of Qatari leadership as weak and corrupt - much like the ridiculous claims that Putin is pro-Israel.
vk , Mar 30, 2019 9:31:14 PM | link
I agree with this blog's author.

1) Documentation is scarce and the few that exist don't fit the journalist's story chronology (even though, in the concrete case, you could argue for expediency/bureacratic delay, so this criterium alone doesn't bust the journalist's chronology)

2) The whole narrative simply doesn't have social cohesion. It simply doesn't make any sense for Trump to risk be impeached in such polarized scenario just to rescue his son-in-law. It makes even less sense for the Arab royalties to submit to a much weaker political player such as Kushner. And, as b mentions, Trump had many more powerful reasons to sanction Qatar.

mourning dove , Mar 30, 2019 9:34:29 PM | link
@11 &12
Corruption abounds, but any of it that touches Zionists, the Clinton's, or the royal family (Epstein, Prince Andrew) is off limits. They are untouchable to the MSM.
j , Mar 30, 2019 10:23:04 PM | link
people like Brennan & Clapper are feeding the "trump really, really, no really hearts putin" narrative to the msdnc crowd, and this of an administration being helmed by CIA men like Pompeo.

like the fbi's manufacture wholesale of "islamo-terrorist" non-events in part to distract from the presence of the actual threat of rising fascism & racism (a la Nazism, as in NZ) from the usual suspects, much beloved of the fibbies, it's convenient for all, incl trump, to be painted as bff's with Vlad.

if the goal was to stop or in any way impede the trump admin (not just trump himself, who is a know-nothing shit golem animated by the glad-handing he receives from the people actually in charge, who just feed his narcissistic fantasies), there are other, more practical & achievable ways to do it. in-fighting among the herd who have not yet jumped off the Gadarene cliffs is not the same thing as opposition, not among the Legion possessed swine in D.C. they are just grunting & snorting at each other, occasionally, very occasionally & deliberately, trampling one of their own, as they plummet over the edge.

it's pretty clear that funny things like such pigs' full-throated support of Zionism is more important to Pelosi & Schumer than resisting the Trump admin *in any way,* no matter how much they personally despise trump. and mainly they despise him for helping to reveal what some POTUS would have sooner or later: the pointlessness of Congress; that the "unitary executive", as the titular head of the corporate security state, is already fully in charge; that "dyarchy," dual rule by legislative & executive, is non-existent.

[Apr 09, 2019] Yet Another Senator from Israel by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... Booker is a close friend of the controversial "America's rabbi" Shmuley Boteach and has taught himself enough Hebrew to pop out sentences from Torah with Jewish audiences. ..."
"... Last week the Intercept published a secret recording of Booker meeting with a group of Jews from New Jersey at the recently concluded AIPAC summit in Washington, which Booker, unlike a number of other Democratic presidential hopefuls, attended enthusiastically. Booker pandered so assiduously that it is hard to believe that he actually knows what he is saying in an effort to be more Israeli than the Israelis. ..."
"... Phil Weiss on Mondoweiss sums up the high points of what Booker said and did not say in the meeting: "Donald Trump is endangering Israel's security in Syria; there is no 'greater moral vandalism' than dividing the U.S. and Israel; ..."
"... A progressive senator who invokes Martin Luther King Jr. over and over again has not one word to say about the Jim Crow status of Palestinians while describing Israel as a 'country that I love so deeply, that changed my life from the day I went there as a 24 year old.'" ..."
"... Booker elaborated in his own words: "Israel is not political to me. It's not political. I was a supporter of Israel well before I was a United State Senator. I was coming to AIPAC conferences well before I knew that one day I would be a federal officer. If I forget thee, o Israel, may I cut off my right hand." ..."
"... Normally progressive Booker, who has criticized the endless war in Afghanistan on the campaign trail, has hypocritically condemned Trump for not continuing war in Syria to protect Israel ..."
"... Do we need a man like Cory Booker as President of the United States? He is articulate enough to cite "moral vandalism" but not perceptive enough to take the concept one step further and appreciate that uncritical close ties to Israel's feckless and fascist government could easily lead to a nuclear war that would constitute something far worse. He further believes that Israel's hand deep in the U.S. Treasury is a desirable policy, that unlimited "all resources" support of Israel is a U.S. national imperative, that ending the continued American military presence in the Middle East "would endanger our ally" Israel, and that moves to nonviolently oppose Israel's oppression of the Palestinians must be made illegal. ..."
"... Frankly, we already have an American leader who puts Israel first in Donald Trump and we don't need another round of wag the dog in our next president. ..."
Apr 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

Israel works hard to influence the United States at all levels. Its tentacles dig deep, now extending to local and state government levels where candidates for office can expect to be grilled by Jewish constituents regarding their views on the Middle East. The constituents often insist that the responses be provided in writing. The candidates being grilled understand perfectly well that their answers will determine what kind of press coverage and level of donations they will receive in return.

One of the most blatant propaganda programs is the sponsorship of free "educational" trips to Israel for all newly elected congressmen and spouses. The trips are normally led by Israel boosters in Congress like Democratic House Speaker Steny Hoyer, who recently boasted at an AIPAC gathering how he has done 15 trips to Israel and is now preparing to do another with 30 Democratic congressmen, including nearly all of those who are newly elected. The congressional trips are carefully coordinated with the Israeli government and are both organized and paid for by an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee called the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF) . Other trips sponsored by AIEF as well as by other Jewish organizations include politicians at state and even local levels as well as journalists who write about foreign policy.

As noted above, all the trips to Israel are carefully choreographed to present a polished completely Israel-slanted point of view on contentious issues. Visits to Palestinian areas are arranged selectively to avoid any contact with actual Arabs. Everyone is expected to return and sing the praises of the wonderful little democracy in the Middle East, which is of course a completely false description as Israel is a militarized ethno-theocratic kleptocracy headed by a group of corrupt right-wing fanatics who also happen to be racists.

Even progressive politicians who are aware that the Israeli message is bogus and also resent the heavy handedness of the Israelis and their diaspora friends often decide that it is better to go along for the ride rather than resist. But some embrace it enthusiastically, like Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, a liberal Democrat running for his party's nomination for president, who has, by his own admission, visited Israel many times. Israel and its friends are, of course, both courting and promoting him assiduously.

Booker inevitably reminds one of ex-President Barack Obama because he is black but the similarity goes beyond that as he is also presentable, well-spoken and slick in his policy pronouncements. One suspects that like Obama he would say one thing to get elected while doing something else afterwards, but we Americans have become accustomed to that in our presidents. More to the point, Booker was and is a complete sell-out to Israel and its Jewish supporters during his not completely successful career in New Jersey as mayor of Newark as well as in his bid for the presidential nomination. Booker is a close friend of the controversial "America's rabbi" Shmuley Boteach and has taught himself enough Hebrew to pop out sentences from Torah with Jewish audiences.

Last week the Intercept published a secret recording of Booker meeting with a group of Jews from New Jersey at the recently concluded AIPAC summit in Washington, which Booker, unlike a number of other Democratic presidential hopefuls, attended enthusiastically. Booker pandered so assiduously that it is hard to believe that he actually knows what he is saying in an effort to be more Israeli than the Israelis. He described an Israel that deserves total commitment from Washington and stated clearly that he wants to create a "unified front" against the nonviolent boycott movement (BDS). He said that there is "no greater moral vandalism than abandoning Israel."

Phil Weiss on Mondoweiss sums up the high points of what Booker said and did not say in the meeting: "Donald Trump is endangering Israel's security in Syria; there is no 'greater moral vandalism' than dividing the U.S. and Israel; Booker would cut off his right hand before abandoning Israel; he lobbied black congresspeople not to boycott Netanyahu's 2015 speech because we need to show a 'united front' with Israel; AIPAC is an 'incredible great' organization whose mission is urgent now because of rising anti-Semitism; he 'text messages back and forth like teenagers' with AIPAC's president Mort Fridman; and he swears to uphold bipartisan support in the Congress for Israel and give it even more money. And Booker says not one word about Palestinian human rights or Israel's persecution of Palestinians. That's right. A progressive senator who invokes Martin Luther King Jr. over and over again has not one word to say about the Jim Crow status of Palestinians while describing Israel as a 'country that I love so deeply, that changed my life from the day I went there as a 24 year old.'"

Booker elaborated in his own words: "Israel is not political to me. It's not political. I was a supporter of Israel well before I was a United State Senator. I was coming to AIPAC conferences well before I knew that one day I would be a federal officer. If I forget thee, o Israel, may I cut off my right hand."

Booker described how he is appalled by the rise of alleged anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. and worldwide. Rather than using that possible development as leverage to get Israel to behave more humanely, he instead prefers to punish all Americans with new legislation intended to strip all everyone of their First Amendment rights. Per Booker "We must take acts on a local stage against vicious acts that target Israel. That's why I'm cosponsor of Senate Bill 720. Israel anti-Boycott Act."

Normally progressive Booker, who has criticized the endless war in Afghanistan on the campaign trail, has hypocritically condemned Trump for not continuing war in Syria to protect Israel, saying

"This administration's seeming willingness to pull away from Syria makes it more dangerous to us, makes it more dangerous to Israel, and this is not sound policy . When you're tweeting about pulling out of Syria within days, when that would create a vacuum that would not only endanger the United States of America but it would endanger our ally Israel as well. We need a comprehensive strategy for that region because Israel's neighborhood is getting more dangerous than less. Syria is becoming a highway for Iran to move more precision guided missiles to Hezbollah. There has got to be a strategy in this country to support Israel that is bipartisan that is wise and that frankly calls upon all the resources of this country, not just military".

And because Israel always needs more money, Booker is ready to deliver: "Unequivocally 100 percent absolutely [yes] to the 3.3 billion [a year]. I have been on the front lines every time an MOU is up to make sure Israel gets the funding it needs. I even pushed for more funding."

Do we need a man like Cory Booker as President of the United States? He is articulate enough to cite "moral vandalism" but not perceptive enough to take the concept one step further and appreciate that uncritical close ties to Israel's feckless and fascist government could easily lead to a nuclear war that would constitute something far worse. He further believes that Israel's hand deep in the U.S. Treasury is a desirable policy, that unlimited "all resources" support of Israel is a U.S. national imperative, that ending the continued American military presence in the Middle East "would endanger our ally" Israel, and that moves to nonviolently oppose Israel's oppression of the Palestinians must be made illegal.

One does not see an actual American interest in any of that, but perhaps special spectacles made in Israel are needed, an environment where Booker has clearly spent a great deal of time both physically and metaphorically. Or maybe it's the Benjamins. Booker will need millions of dollars to mount his campaign and he knows where to go and what he needs to say to get it.

One struggles to see just a tiny bit of humanity in Booker vis-à-vis the Arabs who have lost their homes and livelihoods to Israeli criminality, but none of that comes through in a session in which, admittedly, the Senator from New Jersey is speaking with his Jewish donor/supporters. Booker is on record favoring an Israel-Palestine "two state solution," which is no longer viable, though he has not objected to Israeli army snipers shooting dead children, journalists, medical personnel and unarmed protesters in Gaza.

Frankly, we already have an American leader who puts Israel first in Donald Trump and we don't need another round of wag the dog in our next president.

Cory Booker should work hard to maintain his perfect attendance record at AIPAC as he texts "like a teenager" with Mort Fridman, but maybe someday he will actually grow up and learn to think for himself. As he is a U.S. Senator that certainly is something we might all hope for.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

[Apr 08, 2019] Republican Health Care Lying Syndrome: Even Trump supporters don't believe the party's promises

Notable quotes:
"... When Trump officials insisted that the 2017 tax cut would lead to a decade of miraculous growth, their claim made no sense in terms of the underlying economics, and it flew in the face of decades of evidence. But it was a prediction, not a statement of fact, and it's conceivable (barely) that Trump's people actually believed it. ..."
"... But when Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, went on TV Sunday to declare that "every single plan" Trump has put forward "covered pre-existing conditions," that was just a lie. ..."
Apr 08, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

anne , April 05, 2019 at 01:51 PM

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/opinion/republicans-health-care.html

April 1, 2019

Republican Health Care Lying Syndrome: Even Trump supporters don't believe the party's promises.
By Paul Krugman

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and Republican claims about health care.

O.K., it's not news that politicians make misleading claims, some more than others. According to a running tally kept by Daniel Dale of The Toronto Star, as of Monday morning, Donald Trump had said 4,682 false things as president.

But G.O.P. health care claims are special, in several ways. First, they're outright, clearly intentional lies -- not dubious assertions or misstatements that could be attributed to ignorance or misunderstanding. Second, they're repetitive: Rather than making a wide variety of false claims, Republicans keep telling the same few lies, over and over. Third, they keep doing this even though the public long ago stopped believing anything they say on the subject.

This syndrome demands an explanation, and I'll get there eventually. Before I do, however, let's document the things that make G.O.P. health care lies unique.

First, as I said, I'm not talking about mere dubious claims. When Trump officials insisted that the 2017 tax cut would lead to a decade of miraculous growth, their claim made no sense in terms of the underlying economics, and it flew in the face of decades of evidence. But it was a prediction, not a statement of fact, and it's conceivable (barely) that Trump's people actually believed it.

But when Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, went on TV Sunday to declare that "every single plan" Trump has put forward "covered pre-existing conditions," that was just a lie.

Here's what the Congressional Budget Office said in its assessment of the Republicans' American Health Care Act, which would have caused 23 million to lose coverage, and would have passed if John McCain hadn't voted "No": "People who are less healthy (including those with pre-existing or newly acquired medical conditions) would ultimately be unable to purchase comprehensive nongroup health insurance at premiums comparable to those under current law, if they could purchase it at all."

But Mulvaney's pre-existing conditions lie, along with his lie about nobody losing coverage if the lawsuit against Obamacare succeeds, was normal by G.O.P. standards. Which brings me to the second reason this particular form of lying is exceptional: Republicans just keep telling the same lies, over and over. Again and again they have promised to maintain coverage and protect pre-existing conditions -- then offered plans that would cause tens of millions to lose health insurance, with the worst impact on those already suffering from health problems.

The funny thing -- which is my third point -- is that almost nobody seems to believe these lies. On the eve of last year's midterm elections, the public trusted Democrats over Republicans to protect Americans with pre-existing conditions by 58 percent to 26 percent. A margin this big tells us that even Trump supporters knew their man was lying on this issue.

So what's behind the persistence of R.H.L.S. -- Republican health care lying syndrome?

Well, public opinion here is clear: Americans want everyone to have access to health care. There isn't even that much of a partisan divide: An overwhelming majority of Republicans don't believe insurance companies should be allowed to deny coverage or charge more to those with pre-existing conditions.

This public near-unanimity is one reason Medicare is so popular. Getting older -- and thus joining a group with much higher average health costs than the rest of the population -- is, after all, the ultimate pre-existing condition.

But there are only two ways to cover people with pre-existing conditions, and both are anathema to conservative ideology.

One is to have taxpayers pay the bills directly, which is what Medicare does.

The other combines regulation and subsidies. Insurance companies must be prohibited from discriminating based on medical history -- a prohibition that must include preventing them from issuing bare-bones policies that will appeal only to those in good health -- but that won't do the job by itself. Healthy people must also be induced to sign up, to provide a good risk pool, which means subsidizing premiums for those with lower incomes and, preferably although not totally necessary, imposing a penalty on those without insurance.

If the second option sounds familiar, it should. It's what countries like the Netherlands and Switzerland do; it's also a description of, you guessed it, Obamacare.

But Republicans cannot admit that the only way to protect pre-existing conditions is to emulate Democratic policies. The party of Eisenhower, or even the party of Nixon, might have been able to do such a thing, but the party of Fox News cannot.

Nor, however, do Republicans dare admit that they have no interest in providing protection that a vast majority of voters demands. So they just keep lying.

You may, by the way, have heard talk about G.O.P. members of Congress opposed to Trump's new health care push. But they share his goals; they're just questioning his timing. The whole party still wants to take away your health care. It just hopes to get through the next election before you find out.

ilsm -> anne... , April 05, 2019 at 03:50 PM
"If the second option sounds familiar, it should. It's what countries like the Netherlands and Switzerland do; it's also a description of, you guessed it, Obamacare."

Not quite:

"Unlike insurers offering the basic coverage plan, private insurers can be for-profit. Often an insurance company in Switzerland will have a non-profit branch offering mandatory public insurance and a for-profit branch offering additional private medical insurance. ... "

"Most hospitals and health insurers in the Netherlands are privately run, non-profit foundations, whereas most healthcare insurers are non-profit companies."

Why do hide the big difference between the US and other countries; that US health insurance and the majority of providers are "for profit", while most other countries that use non government insurers deny them profit?

mulp -> ilsm... , April 06, 2019 at 03:37 AM
Half of providers and INSURERS are not for profit, still.

It used to be more like 90% in the US.

Note, a not for profit must generate a return on capital or else it goes bankrupt.

Hospitals in rural America decay, then close from failing to generate a return on capital.

ilsm -> mulp ... , April 06, 2019 at 07:19 AM
List the US' not for profit insurers and a link to a description of their "business model".

I have worked with a few of DoD's federally funded R&D corps, They have no profits but their loaded rates are half again the customary and reasonable..........

Paine -> ilsm... , April 06, 2019 at 03:03 PM
Non profit is an organizational choice

Exploitation by extraction
of a share of the value created
by an organization's job force
can be conducted by non profits
No profits can be
profit producers
distributing the profits
by other means
Then share holder dividends

[Apr 08, 2019] Trump's Kakistocracy Is Also a Hackistocracy: The invasion of hucksters has reached the Federal Reserve.

Apr 08, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

anne , March 25, 2019 at 04:25 PM

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/opinion/stephen-moore-federal-reserve.html

March 25, 2019

Trump's Kakistocracy Is Also a Hackistocracy: The invasion of hucksters has reached the Federal Reserve.
By Paul Krugman

It's no secret that Donald Trump has appointed a lot of partisan, unqualified hacks to key policy positions. A few months ago my colleague Gail Collins asked readers to help her select Trump's worst cabinet member. It was a hard choice, because there were so many qualified applicants.

The winner, by the way, was Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary. That looks like an even better call now: Ross's department has reportedly prepared a report declaring that imports of European cars threaten U.S. national security. This is both ludicrous and dangerous. It gives Trump the right to start a new phase in his trade war that would inflict severe economic damage while alienating our allies -- and, as a result, undermine national security.

Until recently, however, one agency had seemed immune to the continuing hack invasion: the Federal Reserve, the single institution most crucial to economic policymaking. Trump's Fed nominees, have, by and large, been sensible, respected economists. But that all changed last week, when Trump said he planned to nominate Stephen Moore for the Fed's Board of Governors.

Moore is manifestly, flamboyantly unqualified for the position. But there's a story here that goes deeper than Moore, or even Trump; it's about the whole G.O.P.'s preference for hucksters over experts, even partisan experts.

About Moore: It goes almost without saying that he has been wrong about everything. I don't mean the occasional bad call, which all of us make. I mean a track record that includes predicting that George W. Bush's policies would produce a magnificent boom, Barack Obama's policies would lead to runaway inflation, tax cuts in Kansas would produce a "near immediate" boost to the state's economy, and much more. And, of course, never an acknowledgment of error or reflection on why he got it wrong.

Beyond that, Moore has a problem with facts. After printing a Moore op-ed in which all the key numbers were wrong, one editor vowed never to publish the man's work again. And a blizzard of factual errors is standard practice in his writing and speaking. It's actually hard to find cases where Moore got a fact right.

Yet Moore isn't some random guy who caught Trump's eye. He has long been a prominent figure in the conservative movement: a writer for the Wall Street Journal editorial page, chief economist of the Heritage Foundation, a fixture on the right-wing lecture circuit. Why?

You might say that the G.O.P. values partisan loyalty above professional competence. But that's only a partial explanation, because there are plenty of conservative economists with solid professional credentials -- and some of them are pretty naked in their partisanship, too. Thus, a who's who of well-known conservative economists rushed to endorse the Trump administration's outlandish claims about the benefits from its tax cut, claims they knew full well were unreasonable.

Nor has their partisanship been restrained and polite. Many of us are still mourning the death of Alan Krueger, the Princeton economist best known for research -- since vindicated by many other studies -- showing that increases in the minimum wage don't usually seem to reduce employment. Well, the Nobel-winning conservative economist James Buchanan denounced those pursuing that line of research as "a bevy of camp-following whores."

So conservatives could, if they wanted, turn for advice to highly partisan economists with at least some idea of what they're doing. Yet these economists, despite what often seem like pathetic attempts to curry favor with politicians, are routinely passed over for key positions, which go to almost surreally unqualified figures like Moore or Larry Kudlow, the Trump administration's chief economist.

Many people have described the Trump administration as a kakistocracy -- rule by the worst -- which it is. But it's also a hackistocracy -- rule by the ignorant and incompetent. And in this Trump is just following standard G.O.P. practice.

Why do hacks rule on the right? It may simply be that a party of apparatchiks feels uncomfortable with people who have any real expertise or independent reputation, no matter how loyal they may seem. After all, you never know when they might take a stand on principle.

In any case, there will eventually be a price to pay. True, there is, wrote Adam Smith, "a great deal of ruin in a nation." America isn't just an immensely powerful, wealthy, technologically advanced, peaceful country. We're also a nation with a long tradition of dedicated public service.

Even now -- as I can attest from personal interactions -- a great majority of those working for the Treasury Department, the State Department and so on are competent, hard-working people trying to do the best they can for their country.

But as top jobs systematically go to hacks, there is an inevitable process of corrosion. We're already seeing a degradation of the way our government responds to things like natural disasters. Well, there will be more and bigger disasters ahead. And the people in charge of dealing with those disasters will be the worst of the worst.

[Apr 08, 2019] Journalist Media's Mueller leaks are a sign of desperation

Tucker interviews Glenn Greenwald
But we need to understand the Mueller expedition was witch hunt form the beginning to the end, and the fact that Mueller backed off means that some pressure was exerted on him to stay within civilized discourse, or...
I doubt that Mueller of his anthrax investigation fame would have any problems to implicate Trump in non-existent crimes. That would means the false assumption that he has some integrity, which his 9/11 behavioud fully contradict of.
In this sense lawyers from Mueller team complain about Mueller betrayal: he carefully selected the most Trump hating lawyers and brought them for a witch hunt, but at the end he backed off. Ma be under pressure from Israel lobby.
Notable quotes:
"... The legal system isn't supposed to "damage" people, it is supposed to find them innocent or guilty. Shame on Mueller for appointing such disgraceful and unprofessional people. ..."
Apr 08, 2019 | www.youtube.com

monkeygraborange , 2 days ago

JOURNALISM NO LONGER EXISTS... NOW IT'S ONLY THE MINISTRY OF PROPAGANDA!

BlissfulXerces , 2 days ago

They are willing to damage our entire country for power. When do we end this?

Flying Gabriel , 2 days ago

Anonymous sources don't cut it anymore. You might as well say "we're making this up." Either put up or shut up.

Shelly Kennedy , 2 days ago

Greenwald is a consistent voice of sanity from the political left. Need more such sane voices to restart cultural debate. Because as we all know, politics is downstream from culture.

Chad Elmer , 2 days ago

"Continual attempt to remove independent thought and reasoning by big tech !"

kim wiser , 2 days ago

He is right tribalism is wrong. What Covington and all the fake stories should teach us it to make sure that we look at the facts. The hard part is finding the good journalists so you can support them.

Sergio Sotelo , 2 days ago

Why isn't anyone being prosecuted for these leaks?

West Kagle , 2 days ago

. Gee.....I wonder why the big media firms are having to layoff huge numbers of their workforce? Could it be that they have destroyed their own credibility and the revenue is no longer there to support the bloated staffs they once had, because people are going elsewhere for their information?

Will to Power , 2 days ago

The legal system isn't supposed to "damage" people, it is supposed to find them innocent or guilty. Shame on Mueller for appointing such disgraceful and unprofessional people.

[Apr 04, 2019] Who Does John Bolton Actually Work For by Willy B

Highly recommended!
So Trump took Adelson money and completely lost his independence, became Bolton marionette. He betrayed all major point of his election campaign.
Notable quotes:
"... The fact is, the neo conservative "Never Trumpers" began moving in on Trump almost as soon as he won the election in order to ensure that their policy perspective prevailed. Greased by Adelson's money, it appears that they have succeeded to a considerable degree, particularly on Iran, but also on other aspects of national security policy as well, including, it appears, on Venezuela. And if US relations with Russia don't improve now that Russia-gate is dead, it'll be because of this crowd as well. ..."
"... Adelson's only concern, by his own quoted words, is protecting Israel and, according to the reports below, has even advocated the nuclear bombing of Iran if it doesn't give up a nuclear weapons program that every reasonable intelligence assessment and the IAEA say it doesn't have. Adelson is also credited with facilitating the firing of both H.R. McMaster and Rex Tillerson and replacing them with Bolton and Mike Pompeo, another one of Adelson's boys. ..."
"... Goldberg, who came out of the neo-con Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is clearly part of Adelson's orbit. ..."
"... it turns out that Politico published a big piece , last Friday, basically attributing Trump's decertification decision to Haley, who is portrayed as a neo-con channel into the White House. ..."
"... According to Politico's sources, the line in Trump's speech where he said that the US could pull out of the JCPOA "at any time" was added after Bolton reached Trump on the phone on Thursday afternoon. Bolton was calling from Las Vegas where he "was visiting with Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson." Adelson's possible role in this is not further explored in the Politico article but probably bears further investigation. ..."
"... After Trump's speech, Bolton gloated: "The Iran deal may not have died today, but it will die shortly." He supports full US withdrawal from the agreement, and has reportedly transmitted his view to the White House through Jared Kushner. ..."
"... The even more lunatic John Bolton is thrilled about Trump's policy, but complains, in an op-ed in The Hill, that so far at least, it doesn't go far enough. After blaming Obama for giving the Middle East to Iran and Russia, Bolton demands that Trump recognize Kurdish independence and give the peshmerga the weapons and support they need to face the American-made tanks of the Iraqi army. ..."
"... He identifies Jared Kushner as the main conduit for the Likudist outlook into the White House. Kushner is a friend and supporter of Netanyahu and his parents have been backers of Israeli settlements. ..."
"... Adelson is a long time friend of Netanyahu, has used his assets in Israel to give Netanyahu political support and gave the Trump campaign $100 million. ..."
"... It was Bolton, Porter reports, "who worked with Israeli officials to plan a campaign to convince the world that Iran was secretly working on nuclear weapons." But the real purpose, which continues, was not so much to scare the world about an Iranian bomb, but rather, to use it as an issue to be exploited to weaken the Islamic regime and ultimately achieve regime change. Porter concludes by saying that Trump is cooperating with this objective even more enthusiastically than GW Bush did. ..."
"... Neo-cons in the Congress and elsewhere in Washington are enthusiastically following Bolton's lead. "The Iranian people want freedom and an end to the ayatollahs' reign of terror," said Senator Ted Cruz. ..."
"... Bolton's protégé, Nikki Haley, is calling for an emergency UNSC session to discuss the crisis in Iran. "The Iranian dictatorship is trying to do what it always does, which is to say that the protests were designed by enemies. We all know that is complete nonsense," Haley said (is it, realy?), yesterday. "The U.N. must speak out," Haley added. "We must not be silent. The people of Iran are crying out for freedom." ..."
"... It also likely means that Sheldon Adelson has a direct line to the White House and Nikki Haley's position at the UN has been strengthened, since she and Bolton have been reported to have a close relationship. ..."
"... Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton, writing in Lobelog, yesterday, argue that Sheldon Adelson was responsible for Trump's turnaround from populist anti-war candidate to pro-Israel hawk. In 2016, they write, Trump was mocking those, like Marco Rubio, who were seeking Adelson's support, meaning they were seeking his money. By the time of his inauguration, however, Trump had adopted Adelson's militant pro-Israel stance, including Adelson's demands to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and pursue a confrontationist approach to Iran, and Adelson occupied a prominent seat at the inauguration ceremony. ..."
"... "Trump met Adelson in Las Vegas in early October 2017. One week later, Trump announced that he would no longer certify that Iran was complying with the Iran nuclear deal, even though the U.S. intelligence community and all of Washington's European allies, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had found no evidence that Tehran was cheating," Lobe and Clifton write. ..."
"... Adelson's big protégé, as I've reported previously, is John Bolton. According to Lobe and Clifton, it was Adelson who made the arrangements to get Bolton back into the White House, overcoming efforts by White House chief of staff John Kelly keep to keep him out. Adelson also reportedly orchestrating the firing of McMaster and of Tilleson and their replacements by Bolton and Pompeo. ..."
"... According to Shaul Mofaz, former Israeli defense minister, Bolton "tried to convince me that Israel needs to attack Iran," which Mofaz recently asserted was not "a smart move – not on the part of the Americans today or anyone else until the threat is real." ..."
"... "To those who claim that the nuclear deal isn't working, regime change remains the only solution," wrote Rezaian. "For the MEK, and Bolton, if his words are to be taken at face value, the only path to that could be war. The group has long been prepared to do whatever it takes to see that happen, including presenting fake intelligence about Iran's nuclear program." ..."
"... On the JCPOA Bolton denied that the US had violated the agreement. Instead, the US is withdrawing from it. But he wouldn't acknowledged that Iran is in compliance, as the IAEA has reported numerous times. ..."
"... Sheldon Adelson has only one issue, Israel, and he has paid the Republican Party handsomely to make sure his views are the views of the party. According to Mintpress News' Whitney Webb, Adelson has lavished some $90 million on the part since 2016, including $35 million to the Trump campaign, and another $55 million to two Republican SuperPACS, Congressional Leadership Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund. ..."
"... Bolton has marginalized Mattis in national security policy making, so Mattis is turning his energies towards preventing a US attack on Iran. At the core of Mattis' concerns is, number one, it's a lot easier to start a war with Iran than to end it, and secondly, the US military services are all in poor shape after decades of wars and other never-ending contingency operations. Mattis, like many of his colleagues in the senior military leadership, have a long standing animus towards Iran, but at the same time, they don't see any good way through a war against Iran. Bolton and his co-thinkers, on the other hand, see a war to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and to change the regime in Tehran as almost a moral obligation. ..."
"... Ha'aretz's sources say, however, that Bolton is behind the scenes advancing the option of collapsing the Iranian regime. According to those sources, Bolton views the demonstrations that have broken out in Iran in recent months over the state of the country's economy as an indication of the regime's weakness. He has told Trump that increased U.S. pressure could lead to the regime's collapse. One person who recently spoke with senior White House officials on the subject summarized Bolton view in the words: "One little kick and they're done." ..."
"... If the US is really seeking to employ such groups to try to destablilize Iran along ethnic lines, this would be nothing new. Gareth Porter, in an article that appeared in Middle East Eye on May 18, reports that John Bolton, when he was in the GW Bush Administration pushed aggressively for regime change but that Bush himself wasn't interested ..."
"... Daniel Larison, writing in The American Conservative, characterized Goldberg this way: "Goldberg has been a leading opponent of the nuclear deal and a fanatical advocate for enforcing new sanctions on Iran and anyone that does business with them. Bringing Goldberg into the administration is a sign that the Iran obsession is getting worse, and by making him the 'Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction.'" One might say we've seen this playbook before, in Iraq in 2002-2003. ..."
"... This is one dangerous pack of rats. It's frightening how easily prone to manipulation Trump has proven. One would think he'd be more resistant to this sort of thing. ..."
Apr 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

A review of publicly available reporting that I have accumulated in my files over the past two years would suggest that John Bolton's boss is really Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino king who has plied the Republican Party with tens of millions of dollars in largesse in order to remake it in his image. This conclusion is irrespective of what you might think of Trump himself and whether or not you believe he really meant it when he said there should be no more regime change wars. The fact is, the neo conservative "Never Trumpers" began moving in on Trump almost as soon as he won the election in order to ensure that their policy perspective prevailed. Greased by Adelson's money, it appears that they have succeeded to a considerable degree, particularly on Iran, but also on other aspects of national security policy as well, including, it appears, on Venezuela. And if US relations with Russia don't improve now that Russia-gate is dead, it'll be because of this crowd as well.

Bolton's history goes back to the Reagan Administration in the 1980's, and his perfidy during the runup to the Iraq invasion is well known to this readership. What I focus on here is the period from January of 2017 through mid-2018, around the time of his appointment to be Trump's national security advisor, plus a couple of months, during which period a number of interesting reports were posted on Trump's lobbying of the White House to get an administration position and his sponsorship by Adelson. Adelson's only concern, by his own quoted words, is protecting Israel and, according to the reports below, has even advocated the nuclear bombing of Iran if it doesn't give up a nuclear weapons program that every reasonable intelligence assessment and the IAEA say it doesn't have. Adelson is also credited with facilitating the firing of both H.R. McMaster and Rex Tillerson and replacing them with Bolton and Mike Pompeo, another one of Adelson's boys.

What follows is a time line of summaries of news stories covering the period above in the form that I wrote them at the time with the dates over each one of them. It's not meant to be comprehensive–there's undoubtedly a great deal of insight still to be gained on how deeply these neo-con networks have actually penetrated the administration–and the news reports the summaries are based on likely vary in their quality. I hope anyone with such deeper insights will post them in the comments section.

Appended at the end of the time line is a short report on Richard Goldberg, the Z-lobby activist who Bolton brought onto the NSC in January to be his "Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction." Goldberg, who came out of the neo-con Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is clearly part of Adelson's orbit.

1) John Bolton: A Timeline for 2017-2018

Feb. 19, 2017

AP circulated a wire , yesterday, reporting that Trump was interviewing candidates for the National Security Advisor position at his estate in Florida. The names mention were Cheneyac John Bolton (who, if I remember correctly, was already rejected by the Trump administration for a State Department job) and LTG H.R. McMaster, according to one unnamed White House official. Another had said that Trump had been interested in David Petraeus but that Petraeus was not a finalist for the position. Picking Bolton would be shear lunacy, but McMaster is highly interesting. McMaster wrote a famous book about the Vietnam war in which he documented that practically everybody in the military leadership, and especially Maxwell Taylor lied about Vietnam and, like Mattis, he has a history of being a harsh critic of the RMA. I'll have more to say about him if he gets the job.

May 10, 2017

Bloomberg's Eli Lake, in a column posted on Monday, described what amounts to a factional war inside the White House, with Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus on one side and H.R. McMaster on the other. Trump himself is said to have blasted McMaster for his phone conversation with his South Korean counterpart during which he assured him that Trump didn't really mean it when he said that South Korea should pay for the THAAD deployment. "McMaster's allies and adversaries inside the White House tell me that Trump is disillusioned with him," Lake writes. "This professional military officer has failed to read the president -- by not giving him a chance to ask questions during briefings, at times even lecturing Trump."

According to Lake's sources (and I'm wondering if they might, in fact, be Bannon and Priebus, or people close to them), Trump has complained in front of McMaster in intelligence briefings about "the general undermining my policy." They say Trump has privately expressed regret for choosing McMaster and even called in neo-con John Bolton to talk being McMaster's deputy, an idea which was ultimately dropped.

Oct. 17, 2017

Nikki Haley told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that it's the administration's hope that America stays with the Iran nuclear deal if Congress takes action to keep it together. "I think right now you are going to see us stay in the deal," she said. "What we hope is that we can improve the situation," she added. "And that's the goal. So I think right now, we're in the deal to see how we can make it better. And that's the goal. It's not that we're getting out of the deal. We're just trying to make the situation better so that the American people feel safer." The NBC press report doesn't report whether or not she explained how the JCPOA is going to be made better when all of the other parties agree that it's not up for renegotiation. They note, however, that Haley was one of the few voices in the Trump administration to encourage the president to declare Iran in violation. It's well known that both Tillerson and Mattis opposed decertification, with Mattis telling the Senate Armed Services Committee, two weeks ago, that it was in the US interest to stay in the agreement.

I didn't come across this until yesterday afternoon, but it turns out that Politico published a big piece , last Friday, basically attributing Trump's decertification decision to Haley, who is portrayed as a neo-con channel into the White House. At the other end of the channel is John Bolton, who even is able to get Trump on the phone himself from time to time, despite John Kelly's efforts to obstruct him.

According to Politico's sources, the line in Trump's speech where he said that the US could pull out of the JCPOA "at any time" was added after Bolton reached Trump on the phone on Thursday afternoon. Bolton was calling from Las Vegas where he "was visiting with Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson." Adelson's possible role in this is not further explored in the Politico article but probably bears further investigation.

The article otherwise goes into great depth on how Haley is at odds with most of the rest of the administration on Iran, particularly Tillerson, her nominal boss and who is reported to have strenuously objected to her trip to Vienna in August to put pressure on the IAEA to demand inspection of military sites in Iran. One White House official described the escalating tensions between Tillerson and Haley as reaching "World War III" proportions. Two weeks after the Vienna trip, Haley appeared at the AEI in Washington where she publicly floated what became the parameters of the policy that Trump announced on Friday. "The purpose of the AEI speech was to figure out, 'Is this gonna work? Does this thread that needle?'" one official said. After Trump's speech, Bolton gloated: "The Iran deal may not have died today, but it will die shortly." He supports full US withdrawal from the agreement, and has reportedly transmitted his view to the White House through Jared Kushner.

Asked about the Politico report on Sunday, Haley said "That is just so much drama. I mean, it's really, it's all this palace intrigue."

Anti-neocon activist and former US Air Force analyst Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik that she believes that Trump was mislead by fake intelligence. "I suspect that Mr. Trump is being fed information regarding Iran as a nation and as a government that is cherry-picked and creatively elaborated, largely outside of intelligence channels, by his neoconservative advisers," she said. She noted despite Trump's 2016 promise to "drain the swamp" of discredited foreign policy interventionists, many of them have managed to weasel their way back into government service. "This faction has always slated the destruction of Iran as a regional power for several decades now, and if they have the ear of the President, there is never a better time than the present to press their case," she said. She insisted, however, that neither Trump himself, nor the U.S. military is determined on war against Iran.

Oct. 24, 2017

According to VOA (at any rate), there's a big fight in Washington over the future of U.S. adherence to the JCPOA. Lunatic Lindsey Graham fully supports the policy that Trump announced on Oct 13 (no surprise there), while the French armed forces minister, Florence Parly, who was in Washington, last week, supports the agreement. "We need the JCPOA," she said during an appearance at CSIS on Friday. "Scrapping it would be a gift to Iran's hardliners and a first step towards future wars." Tim Kaine, who has leading an effort in the Senate to write a new war authorization, echoed her. "If you weaken diplomacy, you raise the risk of unnecessary war, and that's what this president is doing. If we take a step back from the deal, Iran will take a step back. And what will they ask for, that they get to now increase centrifuges or get some of their enriched uranium back? I do not want to give Iran one thing back from this deal," said Kaine.

But, if you believe Graham, Iran will be let loose from the deal in 15 years (some people say 10 or even 8 years) to enrich as much uranium as it wants. This ignores the fact that Iran will still be a member of the NPT and will be subject to its additional protocol. Top Iranian officials have said that if the US sabotages the JCPOA, Iran will make appropriate decisions in response, but they won't be building bombs.

The even more lunatic John Bolton is thrilled about Trump's policy, but complains, in an op-ed in The Hill, that so far at least, it doesn't go far enough. After blaming Obama for giving the Middle East to Iran and Russia, Bolton demands that Trump recognize Kurdish independence and give the peshmerga the weapons and support they need to face the American-made tanks of the Iraqi army.

"Rapidly increased pressure against Iran's role as the world's central banker of international terrorism, stressed in Trump's Oct. 13 speech, cannot come fast enough," he goes on. And, of course, European commercial relations with Iran are not to be tolerated. Othewise, "Tehran will rightly conclude the United States is really not serious about confronting their threat to us and our allies. That is the legacy of the Obama administration. It should not also be the legacy of the Trump administration." Nobody wants to rush the country headlong into disastrous faster then the neo-cons.

Oct. 26, 2017

Gareth Porter, in an article that was posted on Oct. 20 (but that I didn't come across until yesterday) on the American Conservative, reports that the new policy that Trump announced on Oct. 13 not only "clearly represents a dangerous rejection of diplomacy in favor of confrontation" but also marks "a major shift toward a much closer alignment of U.S. policy with that of the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu." "Whether explicitly or not, Trump's vow to work with Congress to renegotiate the Iran nuclear agreement, and his explicit threat to withdraw from the deal if no renegotiation takes place, appear to be satisfying the hardline demands Netanyahu has made of Washington's policy toward Tehran," Porter writes. Those demands being either US withdrawal from the JCPOA altogether, or demanding changes in it that cannot be attained.

Porter goes deeper into the conduits for this policy into the White House than a Politico article I reported on earlier that came out at about the same time. He identifies Jared Kushner as the main conduit for the Likudist outlook into the White House. Kushner is a friend and supporter of Netanyahu and his parents have been backers of Israeli settlements.

He also delves deeper into the significance of Sheldon Adelson than the Politico report did, noting that Adelson is a long time friend of Netanyahu, has used his assets in Israel to give Netanyahu political support and gave the Trump campaign $100 million. "Adelson's real interest has been in supporting Israel's interests in Washington -- especially with regard to Iran," Porter notes, adding that in 2013, Adelson openly called for the nuclear intimidation of Iran. In the next few paragraphs, Porter provides a thumbnail sketch of the history of the neo-cons in order to highlight the role of John Bolton in all of this. It was Bolton, Porter reports, "who worked with Israeli officials to plan a campaign to convince the world that Iran was secretly working on nuclear weapons." But the real purpose, which continues, was not so much to scare the world about an Iranian bomb, but rather, to use it as an issue to be exploited to weaken the Islamic regime and ultimately achieve regime change. Porter concludes by saying that Trump is cooperating with this objective even more enthusiastically than GW Bush did.

Jan. 3, 2018

The protests in Iran may have started spontaneously in anger at economic conditions, and/or at the instigation of Rouhani's rival Raisi and his father -in-law in Mashad, but the evidence that they're being, at the very least, encouraged from the outside is growing. Unnamed Trump Administration officials told the Washington Free Beacon that both Trump and Pence are watching the protests very closely and the officials said they are working to ensure that Trump does not miss an opportunity to incubate a possible revolution that could topple Iran's hardline ruling regime. "With the world watching growing demonstrations across Iran, the Trump administration sees an opportunity to feed the growing protests," the Free Beacon reports, something that they and the neo-cons say that Obama failed to do in 2009, when protests erupted against Ahmedinijad's re-election. "The Trump administration's strong and vocal support for the demonstrators is a 180 from the Obama administration's approach and it's signaling to Tehran that this will not be a repeat of the 2009 demonstrations," the administration official said.

The regime change cheerleader from outside the administration is, not surprisingly, John Bolton. During an appearance on "Fox and Friends" on Monday, Bolton argued that these protests are different than the post-election protests in Iran in 2009, which questioned the legitimacy of the election of then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and who should lead the regime. "These protests are about whether the regime survives or not, and that makes them much more threatening to the ayatollahs, much more dangerous, and raises the stakes considerably," Bolton said. He called on Trump to end the nuclear deal, re-impose previous sanctions and impose new ones that increase the economic pressure on Iran and provide material support to opposition forces. "There's a lot we can do to, and we should do it," Bolton said. "Our goal should be regime change in Iran."

Neo-cons in the Congress and elsewhere in Washington are enthusiastically following Bolton's lead. "The Iranian people want freedom and an end to the ayatollahs' reign of terror," said Senator Ted Cruz.

"Iranians are looking toward America to support their struggle," Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote in The Wall Street Journal, urging the White House to continue condemning the regime, and follow up with "sanctions targeting corruption and human-rights abuses."

Bolton's protégé, Nikki Haley, is calling for an emergency UNSC session to discuss the crisis in Iran. "The Iranian dictatorship is trying to do what it always does, which is to say that the protests were designed by enemies. We all know that is complete nonsense," Haley said (is it, realy?), yesterday. "The U.N. must speak out," Haley added. "We must not be silent. The people of Iran are crying out for freedom."

March 10, 2018

John Bolton has been snooping around the White House. CNN reported on Wednesday, that Trump met with him at the White House, suggesting that he may be under consideration as an "outside expert" to help the State Department manage the North Korea portfolio. CNN says that Bolton argues that a pre-emptive strike on North Korea would not only be legal but also effective at curbing the threat.

On Tuesday, Bolton told Fox News that "The only thing North Korea is serious about is getting deliverable nuclear weapons." Bolton said direct and indirect talks with North Korea have occurred for the last 25 years and never end up successful. He said if a new round of talks begins, North Korea will possess a deliverable nuclear weapon by the end of the year. So, Bolton obviously believes that the past determines the future.

The Washington Post, in the above cited article, reports that Christopher Hill, who was on Capitol Hill this week to talk about North Korea, said that he face "withing attacks" from conservative Republicans when he was engaged in the six-party talks in 2005. "People like John Bolton said I was a traitor for talking to the North Koreans," Hill said in an interview. The Post then reports that Bolton offered conditioned praise for Trump, saying Friday that he expected the president to deliver a warning about U.S. willingness to use military force.

Daniel Davis, in an op-ed in Fox News, argues that Trump goes ahead with announced plans to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, he would open the door to potentially solving our nuclear dispute with the Communist nation short of war. This is a far better course that listening to the calls from some to give up on diplomacy and use military force against the North. The "some" include Bolton who has been making the case for a preventive military strike against North Korea. "If such a U.S. strike were ordered, it would have catastrophic consequences for us. Far from ensuring our safety, it would impose egregious levels of casualties on U.S. forces and American civilians [not to mention Koreans who would make up the bulk of casualties -cjo], and harm – not help – our security and our prosperity," Davis writes.

March 23, 2018

You've all seen the headlines by now. I'm not going to say a lot about it. The punditry is that it means more aggressive US policies towards both Iran and North Korea. It also likely means that Sheldon Adelson has a direct line to the White House and Nikki Haley's position at the UN has been strengthened, since she and Bolton have been reported to have a close relationship. The suggestion in the press coverage is that Bolton is more likely to tell Trump what he wants to hear, particularly on Iran, but we probably shouldn't automatically assume that Trump wants to go to war as badly as Bolton does.

March 25, 2018

Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton, writing in Lobelog, yesterday, argue that Sheldon Adelson was responsible for Trump's turnaround from populist anti-war candidate to pro-Israel hawk. In 2016, they write, Trump was mocking those, like Marco Rubio, who were seeking Adelson's support, meaning they were seeking his money. By the time of his inauguration, however, Trump had adopted Adelson's militant pro-Israel stance, including Adelson's demands to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and pursue a confrontationist approach to Iran, and Adelson occupied a prominent seat at the inauguration ceremony.

"Trump met Adelson in Las Vegas in early October 2017. One week later, Trump announced that he would no longer certify that Iran was complying with the Iran nuclear deal, even though the U.S. intelligence community and all of Washington's European allies, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had found no evidence that Tehran was cheating," Lobe and Clifton write.

"One month later, Adelson used his own newspaper, The Las Vegas Review Journal, to express his frustration with Trump's failure to quickly redeem his promise to move the embassy. Two months after that, Trump reversed a half century of U.S. policy by formally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital. According to Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury, Steve Bannon credited Adelson for Trump's decision."

Adelson's big protégé, as I've reported previously, is John Bolton. According to Lobe and Clifton, it was Adelson who made the arrangements to get Bolton back into the White House, overcoming efforts by White House chief of staff John Kelly keep to keep him out. Adelson also reportedly orchestrating the firing of McMaster and of Tilleson and their replacements by Bolton and Pompeo. Ands Bolton, like Adelson, has long favored a "military solution" to the Iran nuclear problem. In 2013, Adelson posted an op-ed in his newspaper, the Las Vegas Review Journal, calling for the nuclear bombing of Iran, first in some uninhabited area of the country to send Iran's leaders "a message" and if that didn't work, a second bombing of Tehran itself (this of course, would be a war crime in the first degree). Bolton, himself, in an op-ed two years later, held up the Israeli bombing of Iraq's Osirak reactor as the model for what the US should (as was later documented by a Norwegian researcher who's name I don't recall, the bombing of Osirak did not end Saddam's Hussein's nuclear bomb program. Rather, it forced it underground and out of sight, as UN weapons inspectors discovered in the 1990's after Gulf War I).

March 31, 2018

Journalist Whitney Webb, writing Mintpress News, finds Bolton's appointment as Trump's national security advisor, to be particularly dangerous. Webb puts Bolton's appointment in the context of those of Pompeo to be secretary of state and Gina Haspell to run the CIA, but finds Bolton the most dangerous of the three, "due to his bellicose rhetoric, unilateral decision-making, and his "kiss up, kick down" style of interaction with superiors and colleagues, allowing him to be remarkably effective in getting his way."

Webb's purpose is to explore what Bolton's appointment means for US national security policy and he begins with Bolton's deep ties to Israel–ties "so deep that some have posited that his commitment to extreme Zionism has led him to betray the national interest of his own country on more than one occasion." Webb cites a number of examples of this, which add up to Bolton pursuing his own warmongering policy against Iran even when the administration he was nominally working for had the opposite policy. Bolton has pressured Israeli officials to attack Iran even when calling for such an attack was not the U.S. government's position. According to Shaul Mofaz, former Israeli defense minister, Bolton "tried to convince me that Israel needs to attack Iran," which Mofaz recently asserted was not "a smart move – not on the part of the Americans today or anyone else until the threat is real."

May 8, 2018

Trump tweeted yesterday that he would be announcing his decision on Iran today at 2 PM. The Washington Post, citing the usual gaggle of unnamed officials, US and foreign, reports that he is expected to say that he will not continue a waiver of sanctions against Iran. Exactly what this means is not at all clear. Trump is not expected to renege on the nuclear deal altogether. Instead, the Post says, he will address a portion of the wide range of sanctions that were waived when the deal was first implemented, while leaving in limbo other waivers that are due in July. As for what comes next, Boris Johnson said that as far as he knows, the administration has no clear "Plan B" for what's to follow. The affected sanctions, the Post notes, not only impose restrictions on US trade with Iran but also threaten pther countries that buy Iranian oil. Officials, who spoke to the Post about the upcoming announcement on the condition of anonymity, suggested that Trump will use the threat of further measures as leverage on both the Europeans and Iran itself.

As has been too often the case, we may be seeing Trump and his advisors expressing two different policies on Iran. Rudy Giuliani, Trump's newest lawyer, delivered remarks to meeting of something called the Iran Freedom Convention for Democracy and Human Rights, during which he advocated regime change in Tehran. "We have a president who is tough," Giuliani is reported to have said. "We have a president who is as committed to regime change as we are." Confronting Iran, he added, is "more important than an Israeli-Palestinian deal." He also predicted the end of the nuclear deal. "What do you think is going to happen to that agreement!" Giuliani said of the deal, before taking a piece of paper in his hands and pretending to rip it apart.

The State Department immediately dismissed Giuliani's remarks. "He speaks for himself and not on behalf of the administration on foreign policy," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told The Associated Press on Monday. The Hill further noted that U.S. officials were alarmed by Giuliani's comments and said they weren't consistent with the White House's policy.

This is confirmed by another report in the Washington Post. "But if regime change is on the agenda, Trump has been far more circumspect about how it would happen," writes the Post's Ishaan Tharoor. "Dethroning the mullahs would likely involve waging war against Iran, a prospect at odds with his own stated desire to withdraw from Syria and disentangle the United States from a generation of costly conflicts in the Middle East." Tharoor goes on to tie the regime change crowd, including Giuliani and Bolton directly to the MeK. The MeK, Tharoor writes, was behind the event at which Giuliani spoke this weekend, "marking yet another episode in his long, cozy relationship with the organization." Tharoor cites Politico reporting that the MeK has paid Giuliani "handsomely," to include not only appearances before the group but also for lobbying to have it removed from the State Department's terror list, which was done in 2012.

Tharoor also cites Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post reporter who was detained in Iran for a year-and-a-half, reporting that the MeK is held with contempt by ordinary Iranians, who view the organization as a craven, treacherous outfit. "In the seven years I lived in Iran, many people expressed criticism of the ruling establishment -- at great potential risk to themselves," noted Rezaian. "In all that time, though, I never met a person who thought the MEK should, or could, present a viable alternative."

"To those who claim that the nuclear deal isn't working, regime change remains the only solution," wrote Rezaian. "For the MEK, and Bolton, if his words are to be taken at face value, the only path to that could be war. The group has long been prepared to do whatever it takes to see that happen, including presenting fake intelligence about Iran's nuclear program."

May 9, 2018

Before I get into the reactions following Trump's speech of yesterday, I'll cover a few other details from what Trump announced.

The memorandum that he signed after concluding his remarks states that the policy of the U.S. is "that Iran be denied a nuclear weapon and intercontinental ballistic missiles; that Iran's network and campaign of regional aggression be neutralized; to disrupt, degrade, or deny the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and its surrogates access to the resources that sustain their destabilizing activities; and to counter Iran's aggressive development of missiles and other asymmetric and conventional weapons capabilities."

In addition to directing the Secretaries of State and Treasury to begin the process of reimposing the economic sanctions that were waived as a result of the nuclear deal, it also directs the Secretary of Defense to "prepare to meet, swiftly and decisively, all possible modes of Iranian aggression against the United States, our allies, and our partners. The Department of Defense shall ensure that the United States develops and retains the means to stop Iran from developing or acquiring a nuclear weapon and related delivery systems."

Trump's speech was shortly followed by a press briefing by John Bolton. One of the matters that came up repeatedly was the question of regime change. The first question was whether or not the administration was hoping that regime change would be part of addressing Iran's supposed malign activities. "No," Bolton said. What Trump has said, he went on, "is that one of the fundamental criticisms that the President and others have made to the deal is that it sought to address only a limited aspect of Iran's unacceptable behavior -- certainly a critical aspect -- but not taking into account the fact this is, and has been for many years, the central banker of international terrorism."

Secondly, he was asked if this was a precursor for the U.S. putting boots on the ground in Iran. Anybody who believes that "would be badly mistaken if that's what they thought," Bolton said.

Thirdly, a reporter asked Bolton if the administration was in contact with the MeK or other exile groups about a government in exile. 'I'm not aware of any of that, and that's just not something that's ever come up," he said.

Bolton was then asked if the administration would support a regime change in Syria as well. "I think the President made clear in his address a couple weeks ago when he announced the response to the Syrian chemical weapons attack, that the use of military force there and our diplomatic responses was limited to the question of the use of weapons of mass destruction," he siad. He then added that the real concern was Iran extending its influence through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon."

On the JCPOA Bolton denied that the US had violated the agreement. Instead, the US is withdrawing from it. But he wouldn't acknowledged that Iran is in compliance, as the IAEA has reported numerous times. "I think there are plenty of cases where we're simply incapable of saying whether they're in compliance or not. There are others where I think they've clearly been in violation," he said. "For example, their production of heavy water has repeatedly exceeded the limits permissible under the JCPOA. They're almost in the heavy water production business. They sell excess to Oman. They've sold it to European countries. It's a way of keeping the heavy water production facilities alive. They're warm. And that's part of the danger. And they have exceeded the limits."

At the end of his speech, yesterday, Trump said that the future of Iran belongs to its people. At first, this sounded to me like the preface to a call for regime change. What he said was this: "Iran's leaders will naturally say that they refuse to negotiate a new deal; they refuse. And that's fine. I'd probably say the same thing if I was in their position. But the fact is they are going to want to make a new and lasting deal, one that benefits all of Iran and the Iranian people. When they do, I am ready, willing, and able." A reporter asked Bolton if this meant that the US was ready tot alk to the Iranians from a position of strength. He replied that what the administration is prepared to do, along with the Europeans and others, is "to talk about a much broader deal addressing all of the aspects of Iran's conduct that we find objectionable. We're prepared to do that beginning right now."

May 21, 2018

If the New York Times is to be believed, Bolton is bringing with him, the same coterie of old neo-con cronies to work for him in the NSC that he's been surrounded by since his days in the Reagan Administration in the 1980's. This includes Charles M. Kupperman, a former Reagan administration official and defense contracting executive, who has come in as a temporary advisor. The list of those under consideration for positions in the NSC includes Frederick H. Fleitz, Sarah Tinsley and David Wurmser. "Mr. Bolton's relationships with most of the associates date back decades, to his days working in positions related to foreign policy in the Reagan administration. But he continued working with them in the dozen years since he has been out of government, serving as an adviser to Mr. Wurmser's company, according to its website, while relying on Mr. Kupperman, Ms. Tinsley and several other associates to help run a constellation of conservative political organizations that he founded to advance his foreign policy views and political prospects," the Times reports. "The activity brought Mr. Bolton into regular contact with some of the biggest donors on the right, while giving him a platform to explore his own possible presidential campaign in 2016 and to be an advocate for confrontational strategies in dealing with Iran, North Korea and Russia."

The Times report is a little weak on the ideology of these folks, preferring instead to focus on Bolton's ethical lapses, but can't avoid the matter entirely. Matthew C. Freedman, a long time associate who Bolton appointed to interview prospective hires, Kupperman, Tinsley and another associate, Garrett Marquis, the Times reports further, were affiliated with a Bolton-led nonprofit, the Foundation for American Security and Freedom, which aired ads in 2015 opposing the Iran nuclear deal. The Times also notes Bolton's close relationship with Sheldon Adelson, whom the Times describes as "an influential hawk and supporter of Israel from whom Mr. Bolton has sought assistance for his political ventures."

May 22, 2018

Sheldon Adelson has only one issue, Israel, and he has paid the Republican Party handsomely to make sure his views are the views of the party. According to Mintpress News' Whitney Webb, Adelson has lavished some $90 million on the part since 2016, including $35 million to the Trump campaign, and another $55 million to two Republican SuperPACS, Congressional Leadership Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund. "After investing so heavily in the GOP in 2016, Adelson's decision to again donate tens of millions of dollars to Republican efforts to stay in power is a direct consequence of how successfully Adelson has been able to influence U.S. policy since Trump and the GOP rode to victory in the last election cycle," Webb writes. "Adelson's belief that Trump would be "good for Israel" was the main driver behind his decision to spend more than $90 million on helping Trump and other Republicans win in the last election."

June 29, 2018

Mark Perry, in an article posted in Foreign Policy, yesterday, posits that Mattis is waging a losing battle against Bolton over the question of war with Iran. He reports that since his arrival at the White House, Bolton has marginalized Mattis in national security policy making, so Mattis is turning his energies towards preventing a US attack on Iran. At the core of Mattis' concerns is, number one, it's a lot easier to start a war with Iran than to end it, and secondly, the US military services are all in poor shape after decades of wars and other never-ending contingency operations. Mattis, like many of his colleagues in the senior military leadership, have a long standing animus towards Iran, but at the same time, they don't see any good way through a war against Iran. Bolton and his co-thinkers, on the other hand, see a war to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and to change the regime in Tehran as almost a moral obligation.

Mattis' concerns are shared by the senior military leadership. "We've been in the air and in combat since 1993," a senior retired Air Force officer said, "and the wear and tear on the force has been considerable. The tempo has been crushing." Perry says this is actually an understatement, given that 30 percent of Air Force aircraft are not "mission capable," in part because of huge pilot shortfalls and a deterioration of military capability. The story is the same for the other services.

Then there's the military campaign itself. An air campaign could easily destroy Iran's nuclear facilities and its conventional military forces, but what happens afterwards? As noted by several experts that Perry consulted, the end of the air campaign would be the beginning of the war, not the end of it. There's no reason to expect that the government in Tehran would surrender and it would be able to fight on with its considerable unconventional military capabilities, not only in the IRGC but its proxy forces as well, such as Hezbollah.

In truth, the unease over any future conflict goes much deeper than these concerns, Perry notes, "and is seeded by what one senior and influential military officer called 'an underlying anxiety that after 17 years of sprinkling the Middle East with corpses, the U.S. is not any closer to a victory over terrorism now than it was on September 12.' It is this anxiety that undergirds military doubts about going to war with Iran -- that the United States would be adding bodies to the pile and not much more." In other words, it would be another forever war, only one that asborbs many times mor resources than even the ones we're in right now have done.

July 2, 2018

Ha'aretz ran a story , yesterday, very similar to the Mark Perry article I reported on last week, on the policy fight within the administration over what to do about Iran. Officially, the administration is committed to diplomatic and economic pressure to bring Iran to the negotiating table, where a new agreement should be constructed that would replace the JCPOA. Ha'aretz's sources say, however, that Bolton is behind the scenes advancing the option of collapsing the Iranian regime. According to those sources, Bolton views the demonstrations that have broken out in Iran in recent months over the state of the country's economy as an indication of the regime's weakness. He has told Trump that increased U.S. pressure could lead to the regime's collapse. One person who recently spoke with senior White House officials on the subject summarized Bolton view in the words: "One little kick and they're done."

Mattis, on the other hand, despite is long held animus towards Iran is skeptical of regime change. Mattis, the sources stated, supports increasing pressure on Iran, but with the clear objective of bringing the Iranians back to the table for a better agreement – one that would roll back their regional aggression. Pompeo is said to lie in between but is moving towards Mattis.

Ha'aretz also points to the influence of outside advisors like Rudy Giuliani–who recently addressed the annual conference of the National Council of Resistance in Iran in Paris as–as a further factor in the uncertainty around Trump's policy. What Ha'aretz doesn't mention, though, is the Russia factor and that what Trump ultimately decides to do could be determined in Helsinki on July 16.

July 26, 2018

Fazel Hawramy, an independent journalist working in Iraqi Kurdistan, reports in an article in Al Monitor, that the State Department is replacing the outgoing counsel general in Erbil with an Iran expert by the name of Steven Fagin, the director of the Office of Iranian Affairs at the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. As director of the Office of Iranian Affairs, which has several outposts around the world, including in Istanbul and Dubai, Fagin was responsible for developing, coordinating, recommending and executing US policy on Iran, Hawramy reports. Fagin's presence in Iraqi Kurdistan is significant given that the armed Iranian Kurdish opposition groups fighting the Islamic Republic are based in the region. Hawramy names the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), in particular, whose leader, Mustafa Hijri, Fagin met with last month, when he was in Washington, by invitation from the Trump Administration, for a week long series of meetings at various think tanks. Each side is said to be exploring the seriousness of the other.

The KDPI, it turns out, is a military organization that has a long history of staging attacks against the IRGC in Iran. The KDPI has also stepped up efforts to establish an entity through which all the Kurdish parties can coordinate their efforts against Tehran. Meanwhile, on July 21, the Kurdistan Free Life Party, affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party, announced the killing of 15 Iranian soldiers near the town of Marivan, close to the border with Iraqi Kurdistan. No mention is made of how much support these groups might have among Iranian Kurds, however. They may not be any more viable than the MeK, except for making trouble of course.

If the US is really seeking to employ such groups to try to destablilize Iran along ethnic lines, this would be nothing new. Gareth Porter, in an article that appeared in Middle East Eye on May 18, reports that John Bolton, when he was in the GW Bush Administration pushed aggressively for regime change but that Bush himself wasn't interested. Bolton may find history repeating itself, with Trump resisting his plan for regime change, just as Bush did in 2003, Porter writes. In the week before Porter's article came out, Bolton denied that the administration policy for Iran was regime change, despite the pullout from the JCPOA. "I've written and said a lot of things when I was a complete free agent. I certainly stand by what I said at the time, but those were my opinions then. The circumstance I'm in now is I'm the national security adviser to the president. I'm not the national security decision-maker," he told CNN's Situation Room. The implication is clear. Number one, Bolton still believes in regime change. Number two, his view has not prevailed with Trump. The recent comments by both Trump and Pompeo would seem to bear out that Trump's policy remains, as Pompeo said, to change the regime's behavior, not to change the regime.

2) Who Is Richard Goldberg?

In early January of this year, Bolton brought onto the NSC, one Richard Goldberg, to be the NSC's "Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction." Goldberg, Jewish Insider reported on Jan. 7, was the lead Congressional staff negotiator for sanctions on Iran prior to the nuclear deal in 2015 in his capacity as deputy chief of staff and senior foreign policy adviser to former Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL), and later served as chief of staff for former Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner. After leaving government in 2017, Goldberg joined the neo-con Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

The National Interest's Curt Mills confirmed Goldberg's neo-con credentials the same day. "Couldn't think of anyone better than my @FDD colleague @rich_goldberg to join NSC to maximize the maximum pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran." FDD president mark Dubowitz jubilantly tweeted. Goldberg "takes a view of Iran similar to many of Washington's most committed Iran hawks. He views the regime in Tehran as akin to the Soviet Union -- a hub of a global, anti-American counterculture and internally collapsible if Reagan-style pressure is applied," Mills reports. "For FDD, which has functioned as the administration's go-to think-tank on Iran, it's another coup. The Goldberg move to the White House comes as at a time when the organization had been publicly doubting the administration's course for the first time," Mills reports later in the article.

Daniel Larison, writing in The American Conservative, characterized Goldberg this way: "Goldberg has been a leading opponent of the nuclear deal and a fanatical advocate for enforcing new sanctions on Iran and anyone that does business with them. Bringing Goldberg into the administration is a sign that the Iran obsession is getting worse, and by making him the 'Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction.'" One might say we've seen this playbook before, in Iraq in 2002-2003.

As for Goldberg's history, we find that he's been a very militant advocate for Likudnik Israel going back to 2004 when he first arrived on Capitol Hill as a staffer (Goldberg is a young punk and was probably in his early to mid-20's in 2004). According to the FDD's biography of him, Goldberg was "A leader in efforts to expand U.S. missile defense cooperation with Israel, Richard played a key role in U.S. funding for the Arrow-3 program, Iron Dome and the deployment of an advanced missile defense radar to the Negev Desert." During his time working for Mark Kirk, Goldberg "emerged as a leading architect of the toughest sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was the lead Republican negotiator for three rounds of sanctions targeting the Central Bank of Iran, the SWIFT financial messaging service, and entire sectors of the Iranian economy. Richard also drafted and negotiated legislation promoting human rights and democracy in Iran, including sanctions targeting entities that provide the Iranian regime with the tools of repression."

In September 2017, Goldberg authored a memo that was circulated on Capitol Hill which advocated that the president should declare to Congress next month that the deal is no longer in the national security interest of the United States, Foreign Policy reported at the time. Then the president would make clear his readiness to hit Iran with a "de-facto global economic embargo" if it failed to meet certain conditions over a 90-day period, including opening military sites to international inspectors. "This would be a 21st century financial version of [John F.] Kennedy's Cuba quarantine," according to a copy of the proposal obtained by Foreign Policy. The embargo would involve reimposing sanctions lifted under the deal, as well as additional measures including restrictions on oil exports. This is clearly recognizable, now, as the policy that the Trump Administration has imposed on Iran since Trump announced the US withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018.

TTG • 3 hours ago

Willy B., thanks for pulling all this information together into a very readable piece. Well done. This is one dangerous pack of rats. It's frightening how easily prone to manipulation Trump has proven. One would think he'd be more resistant to this sort of thing.

[Mar 31, 2019] Guaido Set To Enact Uprising Rooted In US Regime-Change Operations Manual

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Given that Guaidó was trained by a group funded by USAID's sister organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) -- and is known to take his marching orders from Washington, including his self-proclamation as "interim president" and his return to Venezuela following the "humanitarian aid" showdown -- it is worth considering that this USAID document may well serve as a roadmap to the upcoming and Guaidó-led "tactical actions" that will comprise "Operation Freedom." ..."
"... Titled "Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams: Demand and Feasibility Assessment," the 75-page document was produced for the U.S. Global Development Lab, a branch of USAID. It was written as part of an effort to the "widespread sentiment" among the many military, intelligence, and development officials the report's authors interviewed "that the USG [U.S. government] is woefully underperforming in non-permissive and denied environments," including Venezuela. Notably, some of the military, intelligence and development officials interviewed by the report's authors had experience working in a covert capacity in Venezuela. ..."
"... The report goes on to state that "RED Team members would be catalytic actors, performing development activities alongside local communities while coordinating with interagency partners." It further states that "[i]t is envisioned that the priority competency of proposed RED Team development officers would be social movement theory (SMT)" and that "RED Team members would be 'super enablers,' observing situations on the ground and responding immediately by designing, funding, and implementing small-scale activities." ..."
"... Also raising the specter of a Venezuela link is the fact that the document suggests Brazil as a potential location for a RED Team pilot study. Several of those interviewed for the report asserted that "South American countries were ripe for pilots" of the RED Team program, adding that "These [countries were] under-reported, low-profile, idiot-proof locations, where USG civilian access is fairly unrestrained by DS [Diplomatic Security] and where there is a positive American relationship with the host government." ..."
"... This January, Brazil inaugurated Jair Bolsonaro as president, a fascist who has made his intention to align the country close to Washington's interests no secret. During Bolsonaro's recent visit to Washington, he became the first president of that country to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. President Donald Trump said during his meeting with Bolsonaro that "We have a great alliance with Brazil -- better than we've ever had before" and spoke in favor of Brazil joining NATO. ..."
"... This is supported by the troubling correlation between a document produced by the NED-funded group CANVAS and the recent power outages that have taken place throughout Venezuela, which were described as U.S.-led "sabotage" by the country's government. A recent report by The Grayzone detailed how a September 2010 memo by CANVAS -- which trained Juan Guaidó -- described in detail how the potential collapse of the country's electrical infrastructure, like that recently seen in Venezuela, would be "a watershed event" that "would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate." ..."
"... The document specifically named the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Plant at Guri Dam, which failed earlier this month as a result of what the Venezuelan government asserted was "sabotage" conducted by the U.S. government. That claim was bolstered by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio's apparent foreknowledge of the power outage. Thus, there is a precedent of correlation between these types of documents and actions that occur in relation to the current U.S. regime-change effort in Venezuela. ..."
Mar 31, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Guaido Set To Enact Uprising Rooted In US Regime-Change Operations Manual

by Tyler Durden Sat, 03/30/2019 - 21:30 184 SHARES Authored by Whitney Webb via MintPressNews.com,

With its hands tied when it comes to military intervention, only covert actions - such as those described in the RED Team document - are likely to be enacted by the U.S. government, at least at this stage of its ongoing "regime change" effort in Venezuela.

Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed "interim president of Venezuela" who is supported by the United States government, recently announced coming "tactical actions" that will be taken by his supporters starting April 6 as part of " Operation Freedom ," an alleged grassroots effort to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

That operation, according to Guaidó, will be led by "Freedom and Aid Committees" that in turn create "freedom cells" throughout the country -- "cells" that will spring to action when Guaidó gives the signal on April 6 and launch large-scale community protests. Guaidó's stated plan involves the Venezuelan military then taking his side, but his insistence that "all options are still on the table" (i.e., foreign military intervention) reveals his impatience with the military, which has continued to stay loyal to Maduro throughout Guaidó's "interim presidency."

However, a document released by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in February, and highlighted last month in a report by Devex, details the creation of networks of small teams, or cells, that would operate in a way very similar to what Guaidó describes in his plan for "Operation Freedom."

Given that Guaidó was trained by a group funded by USAID's sister organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) -- and is known to take his marching orders from Washington, including his self-proclamation as "interim president" and his return to Venezuela following the "humanitarian aid" showdown -- it is worth considering that this USAID document may well serve as a roadmap to the upcoming and Guaidó-led "tactical actions" that will comprise "Operation Freedom."

RED Teams

Titled "Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams: Demand and Feasibility Assessment," the 75-page document was produced for the U.S. Global Development Lab, a branch of USAID. It was written as part of an effort to the "widespread sentiment" among the many military, intelligence, and development officials the report's authors interviewed "that the USG [U.S. government] is woefully underperforming in non-permissive and denied environments," including Venezuela. Notably, some of the military, intelligence and development officials interviewed by the report's authors had experience working in a covert capacity in Venezuela.

The approach put forth in this report involves the creation of rapid expeditionary development (RED) teams, who would "be deployed as two-person teams and placed with 'non-traditional' USAID partners executing a mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations in extremis conditions." The report notes later on that these "non-traditional" partners are U.S. Special Forces (SF) and the CIA.

The report goes on to state that "RED Team members would be catalytic actors, performing development activities alongside local communities while coordinating with interagency partners." It further states that "[i]t is envisioned that the priority competency of proposed RED Team development officers would be social movement theory (SMT)" and that "RED Team members would be 'super enablers,' observing situations on the ground and responding immediately by designing, funding, and implementing small-scale activities."

In other words, these teams of combined intelligence, military and/or "democracy promoting" personnel would work as "super enablers" of "small-scale activities" focused on "social movement theory" and community mobilizations, such as the mobilizations of protests.

The decentralized nature of RED teams and their focus on engineering "social movements" and "mobilizations" is very similar to Guaidó's plan for "Operation Freedom." Operation Freedom is set to begin through "Freedom and Aid committees" that cultivate decentralized "freedom cells" throughout the country and that create mass mobilizations when Guaidó gives the go ahead on April 6. The ultimate goal of Operation Freedom is to have those "freedom cell"-generated protests converge on Venezuela's presidential palace, where Nicolás Maduro resides. Given Guaidó lack of momentum and popularity within Venezuela, it seems highly likely that U.S. government "catalytic actors" may be a key part of his upcoming plan to topple Maduro in little over a week.

Furthermore, an appendix included in the report states that RED Team members, in addition to being trained in social movement theory and community mobilization techniques, would also be trained in "weapons handling and use," suggesting that their role as "catalytic actors" could also involve Maidan-esque behavior. This is a distinct possibility raised by the report's claim that RED Team members be trained in the use of both "offensive" and "defensive" weaponry.

In addition, another appendix states that RED Team members would help "identify allies and mobilize small amounts of cash to establish community buy-in/relationship" -- i.e., bribes -- and would particularly benefit the CIA by offering a way to "transition covert action into community engagement activities."

Feeling Bolsonaro's breath on its neck

Also raising the specter of a Venezuela link is the fact that the document suggests Brazil as a potential location for a RED Team pilot study. Several of those interviewed for the report asserted that "South American countries were ripe for pilots" of the RED Team program, adding that "These [countries were] under-reported, low-profile, idiot-proof locations, where USG civilian access is fairly unrestrained by DS [Diplomatic Security] and where there is a positive American relationship with the host government."

This January, Brazil inaugurated Jair Bolsonaro as president, a fascist who has made his intention to align the country close to Washington's interests no secret. During Bolsonaro's recent visit to Washington, he became the first president of that country to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. President Donald Trump said during his meeting with Bolsonaro that "We have a great alliance with Brazil -- better than we've ever had before" and spoke in favor of Brazil joining NATO.

Though Bolsonaro's government has claimed late in February that it would not allow the U.S. to launch a military intervention from its territory, Bolsonaro's son, Eduardo Bolsonaro -- an adviser to his father and a Brazilian congressman -- said last week that "use of force will be necessary" in Venezuela "at some point" and, echoing the Trump administration, added that "all options are on the table." If Bolsonaro's government does allow the "use of force," but not a full-blown foreign military intervention per se, its closeness to the Trump administration and the CIA suggests that covert actions, such as those carried out by the proposed RED Teams, are a distinct possibility.

Frontier Design Group

The RED Team report was authored by members of Frontier Design Group (FDG) for USAID's Global Development Lab. FDG is a national security contractor and its mission statement on its website is quite revealing:

Since our founding, Frontier has focused on the challenges and opportunities that concern the "3Ds" of Defense, Development and Diplomacy and critical intersections with the intelligence community. Our work has focused on the wicked and sometimes overlapping problem sets of fragility, violent extremism, terrorism, civil war, and insurgency. Our work on these complex issues has included projects with the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, USAID, the National Counterterrorism Center and the U.S. Institute of Peace."

FDG also states on is website that it also regularly does work for the Council on Foreign Relations and the Omidyar Group -- which is controlled by Pierre Omidyar, a billionaire with deep ties to the U.S. national security establishment that were the subject of a recent MintPress series. According to journalist Tim Shorrock, who mentions the document in a recent investigation focusing on Pierre Omidyar for Washington Babylon , FDG was the "sole contractor" hired by USAID to create a "new counterinsurgency doctrine for the Trump administration" and the fruit of that effort is the "RED Team" document described above.

One of the co-authors of the document is Alexa Courtney , FDG founder and former USAID liaison officer with the Department of Defense; former manager of civilian counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan for USAID; and former counterinsurgency specialist for U.S. intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.

In addition, according to Shorrock, Courtney's name has also been found "on several Caerus [Associates] contracts with USAID and US intelligence that were leaked to me on a thumb drive, including a $77 million USAID project to track 'licit and illicit networks' in Honduras." Courtney, according to her LinkedIn account, was also recently honored by Chevron Corporation for her "demonstrated leadership and impact on development results." MintPress recently reported on the role of Chevron in the current U.S.-led effort to topple Maduro and replace him with Guaidó.

Send in the USAID

Though Devex was told last month that USAID was "still working on the details in formulating the Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams initiative," Courtney stated that the report's contents had been "received really favorably" by "very senior" and "influential" former and current government officials she had interviewed during the creation of the document.

For instance, one respondent asserted that the RED Team system would "restore the long-lost doing capacity of USAID." Another USAID official with 15 years of experience, including in "extremely denied environments," stated that:

We have to be involved in national security or USAID will not be relevant. Anybody who doesn't think we need to be working in combat elements or working with SF [special forces] groups is just naïve. We are either going to be up front or irrelevant USAID is going through a lot right now, but this is an area where we can be of utility. It must happen."

Given that the document represents the efforts of the sole contractor tasked with developing the current administration's new counterterrorism strategy, there is plenty of reason to believe that its contents -- published for over a year -- have been or are set to be put to use in Venezuela, potentially as part of the upcoming "Operation Freedom," set to begin on April 6.

This is supported by the troubling correlation between a document produced by the NED-funded group CANVAS and the recent power outages that have taken place throughout Venezuela, which were described as U.S.-led "sabotage" by the country's government. A recent report by The Grayzone detailed how a September 2010 memo by CANVAS -- which trained Juan Guaidó -- described in detail how the potential collapse of the country's electrical infrastructure, like that recently seen in Venezuela, would be "a watershed event" that "would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate."

The document specifically named the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Plant at Guri Dam, which failed earlier this month as a result of what the Venezuelan government asserted was "sabotage" conducted by the U.S. government. That claim was bolstered by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio's apparent foreknowledge of the power outage. Thus, there is a precedent of correlation between these types of documents and actions that occur in relation to the current U.S. regime-change effort in Venezuela.

Furthermore, it would make sense for the Trump administration to attempt to enact such an initiative as that described in the document, given its apparent inability to launch a military intervention in Venezuela, despite its frequent claims that "all options are on the table." Indeed, U.S. allies -- including those close to Venezuela, like Colombia -- have rejected military intervention, given the U.S.' past role in bloody coups and civil wars throughout the region.

Thus, with its hands tied when it comes to military intervention, only covert actions -- such as those described in the RED Team document -- are likely to be enacted by the U.S. government, at least at this stage of its ongoing "regime change" effort in Venezuela.

[Mar 31, 2019] Bank Regulation Can t Be Heads Banks Win, Tails Taxpayers Lose naked capitalism

Notable quotes:
"... By Thomas Ferguson, Director of Research for the Institute of New Economic Thinking; Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Boston. Originally published at the Institute of New Economic Thinking website ..."
"... Kane, who coined the term "zombie bank" and who famously raised early alarms about American savings and loans, analyzed European banks and how regulators, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, backstop them. ..."
"... We are only interested observers of the arm wrestling between the various EU countries over the costs of bank rescues, state expenditures, and such. But we do think there is a clear lesson from the long history of how governments have dealt with bank failures . [If] the European Union needs to step in to save banks, there is no reason why they have to do it for free best practice in banking rescues is to save banks, but not bankers. That is, prevent the system from melting down with all the many years of broad economic losses that would bring, but force out those responsible and make sure the public gets paid back for rescuing the financial system. ..."
"... In 2019, another question, alas, is also piercing. In country after country, Social Democratic center-left parties have shrunk, in many instances almost to nothingness. In Germany the SPD gives every sign of following the French Socialist Party into oblivion. Would a government coalition in which the SPD holds the Finance Ministry even consider anything but guaranteeing the public a huge piece of any upside if they rescue two failing institutions? ..."
Mar 31, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

[Mar 31, 2019] Russiagate The Great Tragic Comedy of Modern Journalism

Mar 31, 2019 | blog.usejournal.com

And then Stephen Cohen of The Nation , another voice of reason, sent me a copy of his book, " War With Russia? " It's a collection of his heretical writings about our new, unnecessary Cold War, and the opening essay , adapted from a talk he gave in Washington D.C., made me ashamed of my silence.

"Some people who privately share our concerns  --  again, in Congress, the media, universities and think tanks  --  do not speak out at all. For whatever reason  --  concern about being stigmatized, about their career, personal disposition  --  they are silent. But in our democracy, where the cost of dissent is relatively low, silence is no longer a patriotic option," Cohen wrote, adding, "We should exempt from this imperative young people, who have more to lose. A few have sought my guidance, and I always advise, 'Even petty penalties for dissent in regard to Russia could adversely affect your career. At this stage of life, your first obligation is to your family and thus to your future prospects. Your time to fight lies ahead'."

Well, what was my excuse?

Special Prosecutor Robert S. Mueller has now turned in his findings, and there's not much there. For weeks beforehand, mainstream media warned about this  --  exhorting readers against succumbing to feeling "disappointed".

Disappointed? I guess, as my friend Taibbi has noted , it would have been an immense relief had the U.S. president been found to be a high-level traitor. We could have all brought picnic lunches to his execution.

Right before the species-ending war with Russia.

In their fanatic loyalty to the narrative, what used to be my favorite media have stridently reminded us that, Mueller aside, "it's not over!" The "focus of the investigation" will move now to the New York prosecutors, to House committees. The American intelligentsia will continue to dream up wild theories  --  they'll be Scotch-taped on every vertical surface, connected by bits of yarn and magic marker scribbles and hyperverbal mania.

The question now is, has the Mueller report finally freed up the rest of us to challenge the more insane flights of fantasy? Or is it instead so close to the 2020 presidential elections  --  and so legally dangerous for some of the intelligence insiders who have tried to bring down the president  --  that skeptical journalists more than ever will be bullied to keep silent?

Rootless Whataboutism

As a test case  --  a first step on the road to journalistic recovery  --  can I suggest we at least retire the insane, Orwellian term "whataboutism?"

Whataboutism really deserves consideration as a "Word of the Year", and not in a good way. There have been multiple non-ironic media reports about this odious concept, on NPR , in the Huffington Post , in The Washington Post , you name it.

"His campaign may or may not have conspired with Moscow," The Washington Post told us awhile back, "but President Trump has routinely employed a durable old Soviet propaganda tactic 'whataboutism,' the practice of short-circuiting an argument by asserting moral equivalency between two things that aren't necessarily comparable."

NPR's version also claims that whataboutism is a Soviet-tainted practice. "It's not exactly a complicated tactic  --  any grade-schooler can master the 'yeah-well-you-suck-too-so-there' defense," NPR says. "But it came to be associated with the USSR because of the Soviet Union's heavy reliance upon whataboutism throughout the Cold War and afterward, as Russia."

Yet in my experience, it's not so much a Soviet tactic as an American one  --  specifically, it's a way of demanding a loyalty oath to the anti-Trump resistance.

I have occasionally dared express skepticism about the entire overblown story that Russia was involved in our 2016 elections at all. That's right. I don't buy it. I am not entirely convinced that "Russian bots and trolls" infected anyone's mind by, say, taking positions both for and against gun control after the Parkland high school mass shooting, or by setting up anti-masturbation hotlines , or by giving bad reviews to "Star Wars: the Last Jedi."

I am also not entirely convinced that the Russians, having supposedly decided at the highest levels of their government to try to sink Hilary Clinton's candidacy, couldn't think of anything more clever than to spear-phish campaign manager John Podesta's G-mail.

Nor do I share the concerns of The Times of London that the Russian animated cartoon "Masha and the Bear" is part of a soft propaganda drive to weaken the minds of Estonian children ahead of their eventual annexation by Red Army tanks.

Yet before I can even offer any subtler qualification of all this  --  sure, there is Russian-government, let's say, "illicit computer and social media activity" out there, mixed with a lot of other noise signals (click-bait farms, which explains at least some of the infamous Internet Research Agency's activities; ordinary Russians with pro-Kremlin positions and personal Facebook accounts; and yes, people sitting on their beds who weigh 400 pounds), but it has to be weighed against  --  I'll be cut off.

"That's whataboutism ," I've been told flatly.

It's actually not   --  that doesn't even meet the absurd quasi-official definitions of this new Kafkaesque term  --  but that's the whole point. Disagreement is by its very nature whataboutist . Every skeptical question, after all, could technically begin, "But what about ?"

Of course, it's far, far worse if I truly commit a whataboutism and  --   God forbid! God forbid! – I express curiosity about The New York Times reporting about millions flowing to the Clintons and associated with the Russian purchase of American uranium mines.

Whataboutism! It's so comparable to the old Soviet thought crimes  --  Trotskyite, wrecker, cosmopolitan, rootless cosmopolitanism Every time I hear someone flag a statement as guilty of whataboutism, I mentally add " rootless whataboutism."

People tell me Mueller missed the point. It's about Russian oligarch and Kremlin money, invested in Trump real estate  --  it's not over! All hail the Southern District prosecutors! OK, let's see it, I'm open to that possibility. But if all Russian money is tainted just because it's "oligarchical"  --  good luck defining that !  --  then is it O.K. for the spouse of then-Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to take $500,000 for a single hour's work, a speech in Moscow, for one of the most famous "oligarch" banks?

"That's whataboutism! NPR and The Washington Post say that's a Soviet-favored tactic! Your loyalty is thus suspect two-fold. Have you had contact with any Russian nationals?"

Communists and Crickets

"EVIDENCE POINTS TO RUSSIA AS MAIN SUSPECT IN BRAIN INJURY ATTACKS ON DOZENS OF U.S. DIPLOMATS" was the report by MSNBC in September 2017, and they flogged that big scoop for months, and have never really apologized for it.

Two dozen American diplomats in Cuba suffered headaches, dizziness and other vague symptoms they blamed on strange sounds  --  sounds some of them tape-recorded and supplied to journalists, doctors and the government. "It sounds sort of like a mass of crickets," was the opening line of the Associated Press report about the recordings (which you can listen to yourself here ).

But no. Not crickets. As MSNBC reported, our intelligence services had intercepted Russian communications (!) revealing the sounds were "some kind of microwave weapon," one so sophisticated that our top government minds were at a loss.

We might not know how it works, MSNBC reported, but we did know it was a weapon, and "now Russia is the leading suspect."

"This is not an accident," reported anchorwoman Andrea Mitchell then. "This is not a microwave listening device gone bad. This is an attack  --  against American diplomats and intelligence officers, and this was targeting."

What an amazing allegation. The Russian government was beaming a mysterious, high-tech weapon at our citizens ; we had intercepted communications that made this clear.

For more than a year, I and colleagues with Russia-reporting experience would be grilled about this, and would just have to shrug apologetically. We just didn't know what to say. It didn't make a lot of face-value sense  --  why exactly would Russian agents, amid all this rabid anti-Russia hysteria, beam a secret brain-frying weapon at two-dozen random American diplomats and their family members in Cuba, for weeks apparently? What would be the logic behind giving these random-seeming people headaches and making them dizzy and even causing "brain injuries similar to concussions"?

As a physician, I also shared the s kepticism of colleagues published about this in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Playing odds, I agreed with those critics that I would have assumed either a mass psychogenic illness or a viral infection more likely etiologies than a secret Siberian death ray. I also read "brain injuries similar to concussions" as, "brain injuries that don't show up on objective testing." (Of course, I've not examined any of these patients or reviewed their cases so it's not for me to say.)

But in our fevered Russophobic environment, no one wanted to entertain alternative scenarios  --  after all, we don't even understand this sophisticated weapon, which our intelligence agencies assure us (anonymously) they have intercepted Russian communications bragging about, so how dare we debate the logic behind its use? (Maybe this is how they control the president!)

Then three months ago, American scientists published in a peer-review journal their analysis of the dastardly recordings and identified the sounds : Crickets. Caribbean crickets.

Specifically, the echoing call of the male, short-tailed indies. During mating season.

But did MSNBC apologize, or retract?

Crickets.

Instead, during a historically cold week this winter, MSNBC star Rachel Maddow used the excuse of a government panel about energy security to go on a Jack D. Ripper about Russia someday deciding to freeze middle America to death.

"It is like negative 50 degrees in the Dakotas right now. What would happen if Russia killed the power in Fargo today? What would happen if all the natural gas lines that service Sioux Falls just 'poofed', on the coldest day in recent memories, and it wasn't in our power whether or not to turn them back on?" Maddow asked . "What would you do if you lost heat indefinitely  --  as the act of a foreign power!  --  on the same day the temperature in your front yard matched the temperature in Antarctica? I mean, what would you and your family do?"

Gee, I don't know Rachel. What would my family and I do if Russia launched a nuclear weapon at my front yard? I guess we'd all die. I guess I don't know who to trust anymore, I feel exhausted by the news, sick of it all, I just want to stop caring, and you seem to feel the same, and omigosh Rachel, we've been infected by the red virus!

'They Hate our Freedoms'

James Comey, the former FBI director, testified before the Senate after his firing that the Russians are "coming after America," because, "They think that this great experiment of ours is a threat to them, and so they're going to try to run it down and dirty it up as much as possible."

Right. It's because "they hate our freedoms."

Where have I heard that before?

People had been waiting breathlessly for Mueller's report, but in reality, everything we needed to know was right there in the first report  --  the January 6, 2017, grand announcement, the big reveal by our Intelligence Community  --  the consensus of CIA, FBI and NSA  --  "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections."

I remember finishing that report at the time and thinking: Holy Cow, they have nothing.

Nothing!

Of the 15 pages with any meat to them in that report, seven were a long, bizarre complaint about the existence and activities of RT (formerly Russia Today ), the Kremlin-sponsored English-language news channel.

Our intelligence agencies reported that RT has become "the most-watched foreign news channel in the UK," had more YouTube viewers than the BBC or CNN , and was surpassing al-Jazeera in New York and Washington D.C. ( Voice of America , which is the U.S. government version of RT , has no sense of humor or passion and so no viewers anywhere outside of Foggy Bottom.)

RT's success was, per the intelligence report, thanks to a combination of lavish Kremlin funding and an alluring editorial slant. The intelligence report quoted RT's editor as saying her station got lots of new viewers after offering sympathetic coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The intelligence report continued:

In an effort to highlight the alleged "lack of democracy" in the United States, RT broadcast, hosted, and advertised third-party candidate debates and ran reporting supportive of the political agenda of these candidates. The RT hosts asserted that the US two-party system does not represent the views of at least one-third of the population and is a "sham." RT's reports often characterize the United States as a "surveillance state" and allege widespread infringements of civil liberties, police brutality, and drone use RT has also focused on criticism of the US economic system, US currency policy, alleged Wall Street greed, and the US national debt. Some of RT's hosts have compared the United States to Imperial Rome and have predicted that government corruption and "corporate greed" will lead to US financial collapse RT runs anti-fracking programming, highlighting environmental issues and the impacts on public health

This was hilarious of course  --  a public snit by our intel communities about Russians racking up big numbers among American viewers in Washington and New York , just by offering mildly critical takes on drone killings and fracking and "alleged Wall Street greed" ("alleged"? Really ?). We were promised a major assessment of any improper Russian influences on our 2016 electoral process and we got  --  this? A formal complaint that Russian TV gave Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein too much air time?

All this bitching and moaning about RT   --  which, remember, is not some secret plot, but just a public TV station you can go watch on YouTube or not watch   --  takes up well more than half of that grand intelligence community assessment. It really speaks volumes about what was on their minds. And again, my conclusion reading it two years ago was: So, they've got nothing.

The one caveat, though, was that there was a classified appendix. There's always a classified appendix. So, who knew what was in that ? After all, immediately and in the two years since, intelligence officials have occasionally been cited  --  always anonymously!  --   in The Guardian , The New Yorker , and The New York Times   --  as claiming to have intercepted communications between the Trump team and the Russian government.

Well, by now, we should realize the appendix is a myth.

First, we now know that at least part of it   --  and, I would guess, probably all of it  --  was nothing more than the Steele report, the infamous document first posted on BuzzFeed , that collection of anti-Trump opposition research paid for by the Hilary Clinton campaign. (You know  --  the pee tape stuff.)

And we now also know, courtesy of Robert Mueller's report, that there are no "intercepted communications" between Russians and the Trump campaign teams. Just like there are no Russian intercepts about secret Siberian brain-frying rays in Cuba, because that, again, was the mating call of a short-tailed Caribbean cricket.

I don't know what's funnier about all of this  --  and it is damned funny, really  --  the fact that all of this has actually happened , or the fact that I feel the need to come out of journalistic retirement to help point it out.

A President With a Traitor's Heart  --  for Six More Years

And that's the way it is, and has been, all along for these past two years. There have been non-stop media allegations that, one way or another, our narcissistic, loud-mouthed, overtly racist U.S. president has a traitor's heart. Any errors or inaccuracies  --  and there have been a shocking number of retracted "scoops," as well as screwups like the Caribbean crickets that have just been ignored  --  are excused in service of this larger truth: Our president has a traitor's heart.

But I already knew that! We all did!

We knew it the moment he said , "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you'll be able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing"  --  referencing some official e-mails of Hilary Clinton's that were improperly handled and got deleted. (Among the onion layers of irony to this political season is that Trump pioneered the 21st century witch hunt. There has never been any evidence that Clinton's deleted emails represent anything at all  --  yet Trump hammered away at this as if it mattered, until one day it did. And he didn't even suggest investigations, he skipped straight to "lock her up!").

Being racist, or stupid, or sexist, or a bully, or a New York real estate developer  --  all of these are deep character flaws. They are not always crimes. (Sexually assaulting someone is always a crime, however, even if you are a TV star and remember your breath mints.)

And yet, again, we already knew all of this. Remember this transcript from The New York Times ?

Trump : I did try and fuck her. She was married and I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, "I'll show you where they have some nice furniture." I took her out furniture  --  I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn't get there.
Trump : Yeah, that's her [peeking out a trailer window at a different target, an approaching actress] . I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful  --  I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.
Billy Bush [a fawning minor TV personality] : Whatever you want.
Trump : Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything.

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.

I share your pain. And I have no doubt he'd trade his own son for majority ownership of a moderately nice golf course. But I'm also, frankly, no longer very interested in him. I'm much more interested in us  --  the rest of us.

What happened to us?

Well, I'll amend that slightly. I am of course quite interested in seeing Donald Trump leave office. I suspect, however, that these two-plus years of journalistic malpractice  --  a politically-motivated Red Scare at a time when we don't even have any Reds anymore, just Russians  --  has locked in his second term. (What's that? Impeachment you say? Oh please. He'd set up a government-in-exile in Mar-a-Lago and then he'd be around for twenty more years instead of six. And he'd have half the nation with him the entire time.) So thank you for that, MSNBC and NPR and New York Times.

# # #

[Mar 31, 2019] All I can see in Russigate is that two faction of the US elite seem to be fighting amongst themselves. With Russigate (IMO) providing cover for this power struggle

Notable quotes:
"... Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming. ..."
"... Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither Wolf Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into the camera and say, "I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump ..."
Mar 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

psychohistorian , Mar 30, 2019 7:51:28 PM | link

Here is an insightful read on Trump's (s)election and Russiagate that I think is not OT

Taibbi: On Russiagate and Our Refusal to Face Why Trump Won

The take away quote

" Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming.

Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither Wolf Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into the camera and say, "I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump ."

As a peedupon all I can see is that the elite seem to be fighting amongst themselves or (IMO) providing cover for ongoing elite power/control efforts. It might not be about private/public finance in a bigger picture but I can't see anything else that makes sense

Zachary Smith , Mar 30, 2019 10:07:37 PM | link
@ psychohistorian #43

Thanks for the Taibbi link. I hadn't seen it, and found him to be in good form. I do think he ought to have spoken more about how bad Trump's Primary opponents were.

Most of those reporters were going to slant their stories the way their bosses wanted. Their jobs are just too nice to do otherwise. Getting Trump as Hillary's opponent had to have been a goal for the majority of them. He was the patsy who would become squished roadkill in the treads of The Most Experienced Presidential Candidate In History. More on that for people with strong stomachs:

What Hillary Clinton's Fans Love About Her 11/03/2016

Sample:

Hillary Clinton is a knowledgeable, well-prepared, reasonable, experienced, even-tempered, hardworking candidate, while her opponent is a stubbornly uninformed demagogue who has been proven again and again to be a liar on matters big and small. There is no objective basis on which to equate Hillary Clinton to her opponent.
The author had it half right. Turns out the voters knew quite a bit about Trump, and still preferred him to the Butcher of Libya.

[Mar 30, 2019] The US desperately needs Venezuelan oil

Highly recommended!
Mar 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

dh-mtl , Mar 30, 2019 5:00:04 PM | link

The U.S. desperately needs Venezuelan oil.

They lost control of Saudi Arabia, after trying to take down MBS and then betraying him by unexpectedly allowing waivers on Iranian oil in November.

The U.S. cannot take down Iran without Venezuelan oil. What is worse, right now they don't have access to enough heavy oil to meet their own needs.

Controlling the world oil trade is central to Trump's strategy for the U.S. to continue its empire. Without Venezuelan oil, the U.S. is a bit player in the energy markets, and will remain so.

Having Russia block the U.S. in Venezuela adds insult to injury. After Crimea and Syria, now Venezuela, Russia exposes the U.S. as a loud mouthed-bully without the capacity to back up its threats, a 'toothless tiger', an 'emperor without clothes'.

If the U.S. cannot dislodge Russia from Venezuela, its days as 'global hegemon' are finished. For this reason the U.S. will continue escalating the situation with ever-riskier actions, until it succeeds or breaks.

In the same manor, if Russia backs off, its resistance to the U.S. is finished. And the U.S. will eventually move to destroy Russia, like it has been actively trying to do for the past 30 years. Russia cannot and will not back off.

Venezuela thus becomes the stage where the final act in the clash of empires plays out. Will the world become a multi-polar world, in which the U.S. becomes a relatively isolated and insignificant pole? Or will the world become more fully dominated by a brutal, erratic hegemon?

All options are on the table. For both sides!

[Mar 30, 2019] The Real Costs of Russiagate

Highly recommended!
So Russiagate smoothly transferred in Neo-McCarthyism and it will poison the US political atmosphere for a decade or two.
Notable quotes:
"... But as I foresaw well before the summary of Mueller's "Russia investigation" appeared, there is unlikely to be much, if any. Too many personal and organizational interests are too deeply invested in Russiagate. Not surprisingly, leading perpetrators instead immediately met the summary with a torrent of denials, goal-post shifts, obfuscations, and calls for more Russiagate "investigations." ..."
"... Clamorous allegations that the Kremlin "attacked our elections" and thereby put Trump in the White House, despite the lack of any evidence, cast doubt on the legitimacy of American elections ..."
"... Persistent demands to "secure our elections from hostile powers" -- a politically and financially profitable mania, it seems -- can only further abet and perpetuate declining confidence in the entire electoral process ..."
"... Still more, if some crude Russian social-media outputs could so dupe voters, what does this tell us about what US elites, which originated these allegations, really think of those voters, of the American people? ..."
"... Mainstream media are, of course, a foundational institution of American democracy, especially national ones, newspapers and television, with immense influence inside the Beltway and, in ramifying synergic ways, throughout the country. Their Russiagate media malpractice, as I have termed it, may have been the worst such episode in modern American history. ..."
"... Almost equally remarkable and lamentable, we learn that even now, after Mueller's finding is known, top executives of the Times and other leading Russiagate media outlets, including The Washington Post and CNN, " have no regrets ." ..."
"... Leading members of the party initiated, inflated, and prolonged it. They did nothing to prevent inquisitors like Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from becoming the cable-news face of the party. Or to rein in or disassociate the party from the outlandish excesses of "The Resistance." With very few exceptions, elected and other leading Democrats did nothing to stop -- and therefore further abetted -- the institutional damage being done by Russiagate allegations. ..."
"... Rachel Maddow continues to hype "the underlying reality that Russia did in fact attack us." By any reasonable definition of "attack," no, it did not, and scarcely any allegation could be more recklessly warmongering, a perception the Democratic Party will for this and other Russiagate commissions have to endure, or not. (When Mueller's full report is published, we will see if he too indulged in this dangerous absurdity. A few passages in the summary suggest he might have done so.) ..."
"... Finally, but potentially not least, the new Cold War with Russia has itself become an institution pervading American political, economic, media, and cultural life. Russiagate has made it more dangerous, more fraught with actual war, than the Cold War we survived, as I explain in War with Russia? Recall only that Russiagate allegations further demonized "Putin's Russia," thwarted Trump's necessary attempts to "cooperate with Russia" as somehow "treasonous," criminalized détente thinking and "inappropriate contacts with Russia" -- in short, policies and practices that previously helped to avert nuclear war. Meanwhile, the Russiagate spectacle has caused many ordinary Russians who once admired America to now be " derisive and scornful " toward our political life. ..."
Mar 30, 2019 | www.thenation.com

But as I foresaw well before the summary of Mueller's "Russia investigation" appeared, there is unlikely to be much, if any. Too many personal and organizational interests are too deeply invested in Russiagate. Not surprisingly, leading perpetrators instead immediately met the summary with a torrent of denials, goal-post shifts, obfuscations, and calls for more Russiagate "investigations." Joy Reid of MSNBC, which has been a citadel of Russiagate allegations along with CNN, even suggested that Mueller and Attorney General William Barr were themselves engaged in " a cover-up ."

Contrary to a number of major media outlets, from Bloomberg News to The Wall Street Journal , nor does Mueller's exculpatory finding actually mean that " Russiagate is dead " and indeed that " it expired in an instant ." Such conclusions reveal a lack of historical and political understanding. Nearly three years of Russiagate's toxic allegations have entered the American political-media elite bloodstream, and they almost certainly will reappear again and again in one form or another.

This is an exceedingly grave danger, because the real costs of Russiagate are not the estimated $25–40 million spent on the Mueller investigation but the corrosive damage it has already done to the institutions of American democracy -- damage done not by an alleged "Trump-Putin axis" but by Russsigate's perpetrators themselves. Having examined this collateral damage in my recently published book War with Russia? From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate , I will only note them here.

§ Clamorous allegations that the Kremlin "attacked our elections" and thereby put Trump in the White House, despite the lack of any evidence, cast doubt on the legitimacy of American elections everywhere -- national, state, and local. If true, or even suspected, how can voters have confidence in the electoral foundations of American democracy? Persistent demands to "secure our elections from hostile powers" -- a politically and financially profitable mania, it seems -- can only further abet and perpetuate declining confidence in the entire electoral process.

Still more, if some crude Russian social-media outputs could so dupe voters, what does this tell us about what US elites, which originated these allegations, really think of those voters, of the American people?

§ Defamatory Russsiagate allegations that Trump was a "Kremlin puppet" and thus "illegitimate" were aimed at the president but hit the presidency itself, degrading the institution, bringing it under suspicion, casting doubt on its legitimacy. And if an "agent of a hostile foreign power" could occupy the White House once, a "Manchurian candidate," why not again? Will Republicans be able to resist making such allegations against a future Democratic president? In any event, Hillary Clinton's failed campaign manager, Robby Mook, has already told us that there will be a " next time ."

§ Mainstream media are, of course, a foundational institution of American democracy, especially national ones, newspapers and television, with immense influence inside the Beltway and, in ramifying synergic ways, throughout the country. Their Russiagate media malpractice, as I have termed it, may have been the worst such episode in modern American history. No mainstream media did anything to expose, for example, two crucial and fraudulent Russiagate documents -- the so-called Steele Dossier and the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment -- but instead relied heavily on them for their own narratives. Little more need be said here about this institutional self-degradation. Glenn Greenwald and a few others followed and exposed it throughout, and now Matt Taibbi has given us a meticulously documented account of that systematic malpractice , concluding that Mueller's failure to confirm the media's Russiagate allegations "is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media."

Nor, it must be added, was this entirely inadvertent or accidental. On August 8, 2016, the trend-setting New York Times published on its front page an astonishing editorial manifesto by its media critic. Asking whether "normal standards" should apply to candidate Trump, he explained that they should not: "You have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the past half-century." Let others decide whether this Times proclamation unleashed the highly selective, unbalanced, questionably factual "journalism" that has so degraded Russiagate media or instead the publication sought to justify what was already underway. In either case, this remarkable -- and ramifying -- Times rejection of its own professed standards should not be forgotten. Almost equally remarkable and lamentable, we learn that even now, after Mueller's finding is known, top executives of the Times and other leading Russiagate media outlets, including The Washington Post and CNN, " have no regrets ."

§ For better or worse, America has a two-party political system, which means that the Democratic Party is also a foundational institution. Little more also need be pointed out regarding its self-degrading role in the Russiagate fraud. Leading members of the party initiated, inflated, and prolonged it. They did nothing to prevent inquisitors like Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from becoming the cable-news face of the party. Or to rein in or disassociate the party from the outlandish excesses of "The Resistance." With very few exceptions, elected and other leading Democrats did nothing to stop -- and therefore further abetted -- the institutional damage being done by Russiagate allegations.

As for Mueller's finding, the party's virtual network, MSNBC, remains undeterred.

Rachel Maddow continues to hype "the underlying reality that Russia did in fact attack us." By any reasonable definition of "attack," no, it did not, and scarcely any allegation could be more recklessly warmongering, a perception the Democratic Party will for this and other Russiagate commissions have to endure, or not. (When Mueller's full report is published, we will see if he too indulged in this dangerous absurdity. A few passages in the summary suggest he might have done so.)

§ Finally, but potentially not least, the new Cold War with Russia has itself become an institution pervading American political, economic, media, and cultural life. Russiagate has made it more dangerous, more fraught with actual war, than the Cold War we survived, as I explain in War with Russia? Recall only that Russiagate allegations further demonized "Putin's Russia," thwarted Trump's necessary attempts to "cooperate with Russia" as somehow "treasonous," criminalized détente thinking and "inappropriate contacts with Russia" -- in short, policies and practices that previously helped to avert nuclear war. Meanwhile, the Russiagate spectacle has caused many ordinary Russians who once admired America to now be " derisive and scornful " toward our political life.

[Mar 30, 2019] You don't like Trump? Bolton? Clinton? All of these people who are in or have passed through leadership positions in America are entirely valid representatives of Americans in general. You may imagine they are faking cluelessness to avoid acknowledging responsibility for their crimes, but the cluelessness is quite real and extends to the entire population.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... All of these people who are in or have passed through leadership positions in America are entirely valid representatives of Americans in general. You may imagine they are faking cluelessness to avoid acknowledging responsibility for their crimes, but the cluelessness is quite real and extends to the entire population. ..."
"... Decades ago while in a leftist organization debate was raised as to how to find valid information to inform ourselves with. It was well understood that the vast majority of the western corporate mass media was a brainwashing operation to keep the masses clueless and supporting imperialist war but, we reasoned, the ruling class itself would need to be kept informed with quality information in order to feel confident that they were making good decisions. ..."
"... But things change. Note how the Russiagate skeptics in the US were attacked by the desperately faithful: If you focused attention on flaws in the Russiagate conspiracy theory then the general consensus was that you were defending Trump. ..."
"... This condition has arisen from literally generations of propaganda instilling as reality in American media consumers the myth of "American Exceptionalism" . The current crop of American adults have been raised by parents who themselves have been thoroughly indoctrinated in this alter reality. The disease is literally universal across the nation, from lowliest and most oppressed Black transvestites to the CEOs of the biggest corporations. ..."
"... The Washington Post used to be one of the journals that the elites looked to in order to help inform their decisions, but now in the post-truth, or relative truth, world these information sources have increasingly sought to align their information products with the "proper" relative truths that reinforce the myth of "American Exceptionalism" , even if that is in conflict with objective and empirical reality. ..."
"... In short, Washington Bezos Post writers are not moronic or drunk. They are delusional . They are in the grips of a delusion that afflicts the entire United States, and portions of the rest of the world as well ..."
Mar 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

William Gruff , Mar 30, 2019 5:18:08 PM | link

"... Washington Bezos Post writers are moronic or drunk."

What ails them is far more complicated and vastly more sinister.

One often hears people say of other countries "It isn't the people of Elbonia whom I hate, it is their government." It may be difficult for some in Europe, where there remains a vestige of an imperative to foster a worldview based upon objective reality, to come to grips with the fact that the problem with America has metastasized and spread to the level of the individual citizens... all of them, to one degree or another. You don't like Trump? Bolton? Clinton?

All of these people who are in or have passed through leadership positions in America are entirely valid representatives of Americans in general. You may imagine they are faking cluelessness to avoid acknowledging responsibility for their crimes, but the cluelessness is quite real and extends to the entire population.

How did this happen to America?

Decades ago while in a leftist organization debate was raised as to how to find valid information to inform ourselves with. It was well understood that the vast majority of the western corporate mass media was a brainwashing operation to keep the masses clueless and supporting imperialist war but, we reasoned, the ruling class itself would need to be kept informed with quality information in order to feel confident that they were making good decisions.

With this in mind we identified journals and sources that the capitalist elites themselves relied upon to inform their decisions.

Things like the CIA World Factbook, for instance, even though created by an organization devoted to disinformation, could be trusted back then to be relatively dependable.

But things change. Note how the Russiagate skeptics in the US were attacked by the desperately faithful: If you focused attention on flaws in the Russiagate conspiracy theory then the general consensus was that you were defending Trump. The possibility that you could be defending reason and truth is still dismissed out of hand. Why is that? Because in America (it's a mind disease spreading to Europe, apparently) truth is relative and reason has become just whatever justifies what you wish to be the truth; therefore, those who propose a "truth" that conflicts with what people want to believe are agents of some enemy.

This condition has arisen from literally generations of propaganda instilling as reality in American media consumers the myth of "American Exceptionalism" . The current crop of American adults have been raised by parents who themselves have been thoroughly indoctrinated in this alter reality. The disease is literally universal across the nation, from lowliest and most oppressed Black transvestites to the CEOs of the biggest corporations.

As prior generations of the ruling elites from the post WWII era who still retained some sense for the importance of objective reality have died off they have been replaced by the newer generation for whom reality is entirely subjective. If they want to believe their gender is mountain panda then that's their right as Americans! Likewise if they want to believe that America's bombing is humanitarian and god's gift to the species, then anyone who suggests otherwise is obviously a KGB troll.

The Washington Post used to be one of the journals that the elites looked to in order to help inform their decisions, but now in the post-truth, or relative truth, world these information sources have increasingly sought to align their information products with the "proper" relative truths that reinforce the myth of "American Exceptionalism" , even if that is in conflict with objective and empirical reality.

To do otherwise would be to aid and give comfort to America's "enemies" (do keep in mind that America is a nation at war - has been for decades - and that workers in the corporate mass media are very much conscious of their roles in that ongoing war effort, to the point that they see themselves as information warriors fighting shadowy enemies that only exist in their own relative reality bubbles).

In short, Washington Bezos Post writers are not moronic or drunk. They are delusional . They are in the grips of a delusion that afflicts the entire United States, and portions of the rest of the world as well.

Some Americans have broken free from this Matrix-like delusion, but the numbers remain somewhat small... certainly less than one or two percent of the population, and those who have broken free of the delusion will never be given a soapbox to speak to the rest of the population from by the corporate elites.

mourning dove , Mar 30, 2019 6:36:14 PM | link
William Gruff @33

I think you have wildly underestimated the number of Americans who are very aware of what is going on with our country and the world. More than 40% of eligible voters elect not to participate in elections realizing the futility of it, and withholding their consent to this regime. It's a feature of propaganda to engender feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, and feelings of isolation by falsely portraying a consensus among the population for the policies of the regime. Resist!

[Mar 29, 2019] Trump Splits With Senior Advisor Former CIA Chief Woolsey

Actually it was china that hacked Hillary email server. Russiagate was CIA false flag operation to stage a color revolution against Trump.
Jan 06, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com
Trouble in paradise? Following his comments earlier in the week that it was not just the Russians (but China and Iran maybe) that hacked US and that Trump "may be playing us ," former CIA Director James Woolsey has parted ways with the president-elect and will no longer be a Senior Advisor .

Woolsey did not appear to be toeing the company-line completely...

Former CIA director James Woolsey: Possibility that more than one country is involved in hacking is there. https://t.co/cxZqeyNvOI

- New Day (@NewDay) January 3, 2017

As we noted previously, The Hill reports , Woolsey, who was a senior advisor to President-elect Donald Trump , said: "I don't think people ought to say they know for sure there's only one. I don't think they're likely to be proven correct. It shouldn't be portrayed as one guilty party," "It's much more complicated than that. This is not an organized operation that is hacking into a target. It's more like a bunch of jackals at the carcass of an antelope ."

Woolsey suggested China and Iran could be behind cyber breaches in the U.S. Is it Russian? Probably some," he said. "Is it Chinese and Iranian? Maybe. We may find out more from Mr. Trump coming up today." This follows Trump's comments on Sunday hinting he would reveal new information about alleged Russian hacking during a New Year's Eve celebration at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla.

"[I know] things that other people don't know," he said. "I just want them to be sure because it's a pretty serious charge. I think it's unfair if they don't know."

To which Woolsey contentiously also commented:

"There's a possibility that he is [playing us] a little bit."

But as is clear, Woolsey's belief that the Russians "were in there" still goes further than what Trump has said about the hacks ... which may be why Woolsey has announced in a formal statement

"Effective immediately, Ambassador Woolsey is no longer a Senior Adviser to President-elect Trump or the transition," Woolsey's spokesman, Jonathan Franks, wrote in a statement that was first reported by CNN's Jeremy Diamond.

"He wishes the President-elect and his Administration great success in their time in office."

Furthermore, The Washington Post's Philip Rucker reports, Woolsey resigned after being cut out of intelligence talks with Trump and his national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

nmewn PT Jan 5, 2017 8:51 PM

So yeah, Russian hackers.

Here we go, this is from Buzzfeed so according to the NYT's and Washington Post this source would qualify as "fake news"...lol...but!...

"The DNC had several meetings with representatives of the FBI's Cyber Division and its Washington (DC) Field Office, the Department of Justice's National Security Division, and U.S. Attorney's Offices, and it responded to a variety of requests for cooperation, but the FBI never requested access to the DNC's computer servers," Eric Walker, the DNC's deputy communications director, told BuzzFeed News in an email."

...but!...just looky here...we've got an actual non-anonymous, real life, people-type person who is not speaking from the shadows in an underground parking garage its, Eric Walker, the DNC's deputy communications director.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/alimwatkins/the-fbi-never-asked-for-access-to-h...

Oh my ;-)

847328_3527 xythras Jan 5, 2017 9:42 PM

I still think it is independent patriots assited by patriotic insiders who exposed the DNC's criminal activity.

Anyway, when do we get the criminal investigation into the contents of the leaks? That's where the meat is. Not that someone exposed the crimes; they deserve a medal.

fleur de lis ElTerco Jan 5, 2017 8:44 PM

Shit on Woolsey.

He went out of his way to get that traitorous vermin Jonathan Pollard out of jail.

He accused the whole country of anti-semitism just because Pollard got busted giving secrets away to the Israelis for years.

As if the Israelis don't get enough as it is.

http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Former-CIA-director-accuses-...

Why didn't someone on Trump's team ask him about that.

And they had better start doing some real due dilligence on these remora types.

Where there's one Israeli mole there's ten.

Woolsey thinks Pollard's release is overdue.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/James-Woolsey-Jonathan-Pollard-release...

A very, very close look at Woolsey is overdue.

And his associations, bank books, phone calls, etc.

How dare he advise any of us about security after that.

Woolsey is a Mossad crack ho.

He needs a major smackdown.

Paul Kersey localsavage Jan 5, 2017 8:25 PM

Former CIA Director James Woolsey, was a vocal advocate of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq who promoted allegations that Saddam Hussein harbored illegal weapons of mass destruction.

[Mar 29, 2019] Trump Aims To Cut The Neocon Deep State Off At The Knees

No he does not. The claim of Trump desire to cut Neocon Deep State sounds like humor now
But the idea of dual personalities of the US Deep State with "Neocon-Neoliberal Deep State" as the dominant personality -- "We came, we saw, he died" personality is still valid.
Notable quotes:
"... I have long held that America's Deep State --the unelected National Security State often referred to as the Shadow Government-- is not a unified monolith but a deeply divided ecosystem in which the dominant Neocon-Neoliberal Oligarchy is being challenged by elements which view the Neocon-Neoliberal agenda as a threat to national security and the interests of the United States. ..."
"... I call these anti-Neocon-Neoliberal elements the progressive Deep State ..."
"... If you want a working definition of the Neocon-Neoliberal Deep State, Hillary Clinton's quip-- we came, we saw, he died --is a good summary: a bullying, arrogance-soaked state-within-a-state pursuing an agenda of ceaseless intervention while operating a global Murder, Inc., supremely confident that no one in the elected government can touch them. ..."
Jan 06, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com
I have long held that America's Deep State --the unelected National Security State often referred to as the Shadow Government-- is not a unified monolith but a deeply divided ecosystem in which the dominant Neocon-Neoliberal Oligarchy is being challenged by elements which view the Neocon-Neoliberal agenda as a threat to national security and the interests of the United States.

I call these anti-Neocon-Neoliberal elements the progressive Deep State.

If you want a working definition of the Neocon-Neoliberal Deep State, Hillary Clinton's quip-- we came, we saw, he died --is a good summary: a bullying, arrogance-soaked state-within-a-state pursuing an agenda of ceaseless intervention while operating a global Murder, Inc., supremely confident that no one in the elected government can touch them.

Until Trump unexpectedly wrenched the presidency from the Neocon's candidate. The Neocon Deep State's response was to manufacture a mass-media hysteria that Russia had wrongfully deprived the Neocon's candidate (Hillary Clinton) of what was rightfully hers: the presidency. (The Neocons operate their own version of the divine right of Political Nobility .)

The Neocon-Neoliberals' strategy was to delegitimize Trump's victory by ascribing it to "Russian Hacking," a claim that remains entirely unsubstantiated. Now that this grasping-at-straws Hail Mary coup attempt by a politicized CIA and its corporate media mouthpiece has failed, the Neocon Deep State is about to find out the Progressive Deep State finally has a president who is willing and able to cut the Neocon-Neoliberals off at the knees.

Trump Is Working On A Plan To Restructure, Pare Back The CIA And America's Top Spy Agency .

If you want documented evidence of this split in the Deep State--sorry, it doesn't work that way. Nobody in the higher echelons of the Deep State is going to leak anything about the low-intensity war being waged because the one thing everyone agrees on is the Deep State's dirty laundry must be kept private.

As a result, the split is visible only by carefully reading between the lines, by examining who is being placed in positions of control in the Trump Administration, and reading the tea leaves of who is "retiring" (i.e. being fired) or quitting, which agencies are suddenly being reorganized, and the appearance of dissenting views in journals that serve as public conduits for Deep State narratives.

I have also long held that Wall Street's political dominance is part and parcel of the Neocon-Neoliberal ideology , and the progressive elements in the Deep State also want to (finally) limit the power of the big banks and the rest of the Wall Street crowd.

Is the Deep State Fracturing into Disunity? (March 14, 2014)

The split in the Deep State is a reflection of the profound political disunity that is occurring in the U.S. In other words, it isn't just disunity in the masses or the political elites--it's a division in all levels of our society.

The cause is not difficult to discern: the concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of the few is generating levels of inequality that threaten democracy, the social order and the vitality of the economy:

As someone who has studied the Deep State for 40 years, I find it ironic that so many self-identified "progressives" do not understand that the U.S. military is now the Progressive element and it's the civilian leadership--the Neocon-Neoliberals-- who are responsible for leading the nation into quagmires and handing the keys to the chicken coop to the wolves of Wall Street.

When military leaders such as Eric Shinseki questioned the Neocon's insane "strategy" in Iraq--essentially a civilian fantasy of magical-thinking--the Neocons quickly cashiered him (Shinseki was a wounded combat veteran of Vietnam who rose through the ranks--the exact opposite of the coddled never-get-my-hands-dirty Elites in the civilian Neocon-Neoliberal leadership.)

To the degree that the U.S. has become a Third World Oligarchy owned and controlled by a financial-political Elite, then the U.S. military is one of the few national institutions that hasn't been corrupted by top-down politicization and worship of Wall Street.

Shinseki et al. did not amass a fortune from Wall Street like Bill and Hillary Clinton. The simple dictum-- follow the money --maps the lay of the land rather neatly.

The Neocon-Neoliberals have run the nation into the ground. They must be fired and put out to pasture before they do any more harm. That includes the Fake-"Progressives" and the fake-"Conservatives" alike who have enriched themselves within the Neocon-Neoliberal Oligarchy.

If you are surprised that the Democratic Party, the CIA and Wall Street are all hugging each other in the same cozy Neocon-Neoliberal Oligarchic embrace, you shouldn't be. Open your eyes.

Could the Deep State Be Sabotaging Hillary? (August 8, 2016)

stizazz Jan 5, 2017 10:39 PM

W Bush: "Dad, what's a neocon?" HW Bush: "You want names or description?" W: "Description." HW: "Israel."

Chopping down the neocon deep state is to cut down Israel. Trump won't, though he should.

techies-r-us stizazz Jan 5, 2017 10:42 PM

All of America's problems in the MidEast is because of these Israel-first neocons.

Mano-A-Mano bamawatson Jan 5, 2017 10:56 PM

Why is it that no one wants to describe who the neocons are?

Which lends credence to the fact that in the Israeli-occupied West you can't criticize Israel, no matter the evil they inflict on the Middle East.

fleur de lis J S Bach Jan 5, 2017 10:56 PM

The problem is that the deep state owns most if not all the wet workers.

They will do whatever the DS says since their paychecks depend upon it.

Best thing would be to ID the wet workers and give them X amount of time to come in from the cold, then give them the choice of taking a payoff and staying out of trouble or getting their wings clipped for violating parole, or turning state's evidence in exchange for a job or getting their spawn into good schools/jobs.

If they miss the deadline they default into "problems" and get dealt with accordingly.

Rebel yell Jan 5, 2017 10:53 PM

If Trump can cut the neo-fascist deep-state off at the knees, America can be great again!

The Spanish-American Inquisition : Mexican propaganda was the reason that people voted for Hillary Clinton. NYT largest shareholder is Carlos Slim who has lost 40% of his net worth in the last 2 years as a result of the peso. Trump would diminish his own personal empire by further devaluation of the peso and by reducing Mexican manufacturing.

The Mexican propaganda was not merely limited to the NYT. Telemundo also played a large part in this. The infiltration of Mexican spies and propagandists through telemundo owned by Comcast, the country's largest media organization has completely compromised Comcast! All of their companies endorsed Hillary in order to benefit the Mexican economy!

Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post in order to spread Cuban propaganda. His adopted father was from Cuba. Since Jeff Bezos purchased WaPo, Obama has restored relations with Cuba. Coincidence?! We think not!!!

CNN is Chilean propaganda -- What lengths will they go to in order to mislead the public as the Chilean president owns Chilevisian which is a Time Warner subsidiary and Time Warner owns CNN?! Trump's plan of rewriting NAFTA would be less favorable to Chile than it is in its current form! CNN is trying to get people to put the needs of the Chilean people above the needs of American people!

Congress has the right to declare war, but the president is the commander in chief. Let congress declare war on Russia and go and fight the Russians themselves. They can declare war, but there will be nobody to fight it, unless they do it themselves!

Paul Kersey Jan 5, 2017 10:53 PM

The Fed and the TBTF banks run Deep State, and according to the latest article in the WSJ, Trump is beyond indebted to the TBTF banks. If true, this is scary and gives Trump a pretty serious reason for putting so many Goldmanites in positions of power in his Administration.

(Wall Street Journal)

"More than 150 financial institutions hold debt from President-elect Donald Trump's businesses or businesses in which he is at least a 30 percent stakeholder, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

That amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars in potential conflicts of interest as Trump prepares to begin his presidency.

When Trump submitted a required financial disclosure form with the Federal Election Commission in May 2015, he listed 16 loans, collectively worth $315 million in debt, that his businesses had received from 10 companies, according to the newspaper.

The Journal's analysis goes beyond those loans and includes debt held by companies in which Trump is at least a 30 percent stakeholder, including, for example, the companies which control 1290 Avenue of the Americas.

That building, owned by a partnership of companies that is 30 percent owned by Trump, received $950 million in loans in 2012 from UBS Group AG, Bank of China, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Deutsche Bank, according to the report.

Deutsche Bank, a German institution, is currently under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for its equity trading with wealthy Russian clients.

In the case of Goldman Sachs, the bank now counts several its former employees among the highest levels of the incoming Trump administration, including former bank president Gary Cohn, who was appointed director of Trump's National Economic Council."

DirtySanchez Jan 5, 2017 10:56 PM

"The Neocon-Neoliberals have run the nation into the ground. They must be fired and put out to pasture before they do any more harm. That includes the Fake-"Progressives" and the fake-"Conservatives" alike who have enriched themselves within the Neocon-Neoliberal Oligarchy."

My ass!!!!! Mr Trump is the right man at the right time to send these war criminals to hell where they belong! HW, W, Bozo,Their globalists war cabinets,Their corrupt underlings, #MAGA #Drain the Swamp

cheech_wizard Jan 5, 2017 11:20 PM

Trump needs to distract them quickly. So I have given this a few quick moments of thought and came up with what should be Trump's first executive order. Congress and all Federal employees are now required to use Obamacare as their health plan.

Standard Disclaimer: Aside from watching Congressional critter's heads explode, the disaster known as Obamacare would be either repealed or fixed in a NY minute.

[Mar 29, 2019] Fears that Trump will be tamed by the deep state and neocons proved to be justified: he betrayed all his election promises

There were high hopes after Trump election. now they all dissipated. He betrayed his electorate and should be fired.
Notable quotes:
"... I was one of the millions of people that believed in you. Believed what you said. Heard you. You got "hired" by 60 MILLION people. WE are your boss. YOU BECAME THE EMPLOYEE. Something you are not used to. I myself convinced nearly 20 people to vote for you over these last two years. Know what I said? "He's NOT a politician. He's a business man. He's an outsider – something Washington, D.C. SORELY needs. He's NOT the same 'business as usual' guy. Mr. Trump will change things for the better in Washington. Clean it up. Make peace with Russia – not war. Trump is a BUILDER – not a destroyer. He'll negotiate FAIR deals with countries. Install sensible immigration policies. Reverse the stranglehold on health care policies that have bankrupted millions." I made them see how biased the media was against you. How they lied by omission – and sometimes outright lied about you. (To a person, they NO LONGER WATCH, TRUST, OR HEED the media anymore.) ..."
Nov 13, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com
BabaLooey Nov 12, 2016 9:00 PM ,

An Open Letter To Donald J. Trump

THE ULTIMATE "APPRENTICE"

November 12, 2016

Dear Mr. President-Elect:

I was one of the millions of people that believed in you. Believed what you said. Heard you. You got "hired" by 60 MILLION people. WE are your boss. YOU BECAME THE EMPLOYEE. Something you are not used to. I myself convinced nearly 20 people to vote for you over these last two years. Know what I said? "He's NOT a politician. He's a business man. He's an outsider – something Washington, D.C. SORELY needs. He's NOT the same 'business as usual' guy. Mr. Trump will change things for the better in Washington. Clean it up. Make peace with Russia – not war. Trump is a BUILDER – not a destroyer. He'll negotiate FAIR deals with countries. Install sensible immigration policies. Reverse the stranglehold on health care policies that have bankrupted millions." I made them see how biased the media was against you. How they lied by omission – and sometimes outright lied about you. (To a person, they NO LONGER WATCH, TRUST, OR HEED the media anymore.)

He'll change the culture of Washington – because that's EXACTLY WHAT IT NEEDS. CHANGE."

Washington has become a den of vipers. Self-enriching criminals that have sucked the life blood out of US – YOUR EMPLOYERS . The phrase; "You're FIRED" must be repeated often to MANY people over the next few years. People that have engorged themselves because of the previous employees, who have mismanaged the nation, and lied to it's people.

Your very words from your speeches that convinced us to hire you. Your platform. Your slogans;

"Make America Great Again." "I'll take back this country for you".

You said that to 60 MILLION of us – and we hired you based on it.

We hired you because we're SICK AND TIRED OF CAREER POLITICIANS. We hired you because we are sick of the GREED, DUPLICITY, THE CORRUPTION of Congress and the past administrations that have enriched the elite, while robbing from the American taxpayer.

Already, the public has noticed that you have had a LOT of the old-guard/same ol' same ol' Republican Washington "insiders" advising you. We understand that you will need some guidance in the first few months. All "apprentices" do.

However, we, as your employers, will NOT TOLERATE THE SAME OL' SAME OL' ANYMORE.

We hired YOU to do the right THINGS. "Drain The Swamp" "Take Our Country BACK".

Commencing January 21, 2017, that's exactly what we demand of you – our new employee.

WE WILL WANT RESULTS. ACTIONS. CHANGE.

WE WILL WANT INVESTIGATIONS. ARRESTS. PROSECUTIONS OF THE PEOPLE THAT WRONGED THIS NATION. STOLE FROM IT. CORRUPTED IT. DAMAGED IT.

Just like you monitored your "apprentices", and judged them on their performances, WE ARE JUDGING YOU. And we are NOT going to be fooled, like the oppositions legions were and are; by a biased media that lies to them. No one is going to get a "pass" anymore. Especially like your immediate predecessor.

That's over. On January 21, 2017, your official duties commence. We all wish you the best, and are with you. The last thing we want to do is tell you;

You're Fired.

blue51 BabaLooey Nov 12, 2016 9:10 PM ,
One fine letter.
espirit blue51 Nov 12, 2016 9:20 PM ,
Concern that President-Elect Trump may not have foreseen what a Medusas' head of Snakes the .gov is. Think Ron Paul has forewarned him. It's a nasty and corrupt business.
Kirk2NCC1701 BabaLooey Nov 12, 2016 9:20 PM ,
What!? How does the last line jive with the rest above it? You must have meant "If you don't perform and deliver as promised, then You're Fired! In the meantime, You're Hired! Welcome Aboard."
BabaLooey Kirk2NCC1701 Nov 12, 2016 9:28 PM ,
Read it again. "On January 21, 2017, your official duties commence. We all wish you the best, and are with you. The last thing we want to do is tell you;

You're Fired."

-----------------------------

IF Trump even reads it (doubtful), he'll get it. I get your point though Captain.

dreihoden BabaLooey Nov 12, 2016 9:28 PM ,
hear! hear! i second that emotion sir!
FIAT CON BabaLooey Nov 12, 2016 9:30 PM ,
it was just yesterday that I had posted the following to a friend... very similar.

I know, well the Internet people that elected him may and can put tremendous pressure on him to do the right thing... And I expect that to happen...I expect the people to demand through social media that they keep their promises and that they do what they are told by the people that elected them.....can you imagine the damage that could happen if the trump supporters starting to Diss him because he didn't do what he was told by the people that elected him.

I think in the very near future countries will be run by the people of the country via the Internet where everybody's voice counts and the people that want to share their voice will be the actual leaders of the country and the people that want to watch sports and stick their head in the sand will be sheeple.

I think referendums will be a much more common item

BabaLooey FIAT CON Nov 12, 2016 9:55 PM ,
@ Fiat Con

I wrote that in the hopes that someone on the "TTT" (Trump Transition Team) reads it, and maybe, maybe, shows Trump himself. We all know he trolls different sites - and I'll bet he trolls ZH.

I agree with you; the "internet people" elected him. The "alt-right" (which IS the new media) elected him. If we had no internet, and had to rely on the MSM, Clinton would have been elected.

Or worse. But they are now the "old guard ". It is funny....sickening...and sad to watch them flail away like they have relevancy -

THEY don't.

In a big way, this election was a wake up call to THEM (like the NYT piece on here shows), to clean up THEIR act.

NO MORE business as usual. CFR meets and Washington insider parties of poo.

I actually DID convince 18 people to switch from Clinton to Trump (really, it was 12 from Cruz/Bush/Sanders, and 6 outright flip Clinton to Trump).. and ALL of them HAD been a daily staple of watching the MSM.

Getting them to stop was akin to getting a smoker off cigarettes. Some still do - but they NOW know how the MSM LIES.

(One way I showed them? A tape on YouTube of 60 Minutes "editing techniques", linked below, which REALLY opened some eyes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG8SjeeV7Y4

MaxThrust BabaLooey Nov 12, 2016 11:08 PM ,
Babalooey

I certainly hope Trump does get to read your post because I agree with it 100%.

We Trump supporters will not be fooled. We will not accept Neocons, CFR members or Israeli Duals.

May I suggest you send a copy of this post to all newspapers in the hope one will print it as an editorial.

BabaLooey MaxThrust Nov 13, 2016 8:31 AM ,
@ MaxThrust

Cheers Max!

The video embedded in this thread - when Ann Coulter was on Bill Maher and got mocked for her backing Trump - in several instances - was me in 2014 and 2015. I got laughed at by many for coming out for Trump back then.

However, what I wrote is true. I literally changed 18 people into Trump supporters from then to now.

The reasons are many - but the MAIN one is;

I'm. PISSED. OFF.

I'm angry as to the mis-management, lies and over-regulation that has killed the little guy in businesses. I'm angry as to the lies and deceit from the bought of main stream media. A whole LOT of other reasons as well.

I am giving free reign for anyone here to re-post this on ANY internet forum they want; Brietbart, Drudge, and ANY online newspaper comment op-ed section they wish.

I only am a commenter here. I choose not to become one on any other forum.

Please copy and paste it anywhere you'd like.

I'm just a little guy. A "peon". However, I did work hard for Trump. I expect no compensation. No recognition.

I DO expect Trump however - to DO WHAT he said. As a political outsider.

I am concerned as to the vipers, old guard Washington insiders, and of course, the Deep State - along with Israel - getting to Trump.

WE didn't elect them. We elected HIM.

So please - have at it. Post away.

I hope my post inspires others to do their own "Apprentice" type open letters to Trump.

He needs to hear from us (and I bet he does troll ZH and other finanical sites.)

[Mar 29, 2019] Alright Trump, you re in office now, drain the Swamp

That what Trump electorate wish. They got nothing... Now "drain the swap' sounds as a bad joke, similar to Obama's "change we can believe in"
Jan 21, 2017 | www.youtube.com
David B 3 hours ago (edited)

Alright Trump, you're in office now, drain the Swamp, you can start with the federal Reserve, and CIA, oh and the justice department as well.

[Mar 29, 2019] The only pre-election promises that actually will be retained are torture, Guantanamo and stealing their oil. Did you vote for these items? Anyway, that is all you are left with. Get used to it

Some people understood the situation in 2017, when most Trump voters were still full of illutions.
Notable quotes:
"... you like most losers are driven by your own projections. You projected your hopes and wishful thinking on Trump and it worked perfectly for him. He got elected. ..."
"... now after firing Bannon there is nothing left. He was the last and the only guarantor of your hopes. That's why MSM hated Bannon so much. ..."
"... torture, Guantanamo and stealing their oil ..."
"... enjoy your Trump as president ..."
Apr 06, 2017 | www.unz.com

utu , April 6, 2017 at 3:43 pm GMTn

@Buzz Mohawk
This turn of events is the biggest challenge ever to my support of Trump. If he really goes the way he is indicating, he will lose the support of people like me -- and there may be millions like me. We have no alternative candidate, but we will never again be led down this road.

If Trump turns, that is the end of everything.

" we will never again be led down this road." You will, you will because you like most losers are driven by your own projections. You projected your hopes and wishful thinking on Trump and it worked perfectly for him. He got elected.

But now after firing Bannon there is nothing left. He was the last and the only guarantor of your hopes. That's why MSM hated Bannon so much.

The only pre-election promises that actually will be retained are torture, Guantanamo and stealing their oil. Did you vote for these items? Anyway, that is all you are left with. Get used to it:

torture, Guantanamo and stealing their oil

And enjoy your Trump as president.

[Mar 29, 2019] Trump initially planned to an overhal of intelligence agencies including CIA, but it never naterialized

That never materialized... Also appointment of Pompeo show that Trump is a marionette
I was actually surprised by the amount of Trump hating comments to this article.... What is so criminal in trying to reorganize two of 12 Us intelligence agencies. Which might become too bloated and deviate from their original purposes. Is not how restructuring is used in business world ? And the number of commenters blaclmpousing Putin and Russia create great alarm. Looks like the US MSM managed to brainwash the US population like in 50th during "Red Scare". Some comments looks like hate sessions from 1984.
Notable quotes:
"... Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 - Amends the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 to authorize the Secretary of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors to provide for the preparation and dissemination of information intended for foreign audiences abroad about the United States, including about its people, its history, and the federal government's policies, through press, publications, radio, motion pictures, the Internet, and other information media, including social media, and through information centers and instructors. ..."
"... This use of propaganda on the American public effectively nullified the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which explicitly forbids information and psychological operations aimed at influencing U.S. public opinion. ..."
"... The NDAA in its current form allows the State Department and Pentagon to go beyond manipulating mainstream media outlets to directly disseminate campaigns of misinformation to the U.S. public. ..."
"... They refused to brief Congress. They were never allowed to release their findings publicly, because they still haven't. They leaked their conclusions. All to attempt to undermine the stability of their own country. And you don't see this. ..."
"... This is why Wikileaks exists. What the MSM can no longer deliver (the TRUTH and credible news), Wikileaks can deliver to the American people. ..."
"... Are you claiming the US hasn't done all it can to destabilize and destroy Russia? ..."
"... This blame Russia frenzy is a loser strategy. The sole purpose is to deligitimize Trump's victory. Can't wait for Trump to start firing a**es. ..."
Jan 06, 2017 | thehill.com

"The view from the Trump team is the intelligence world [is] becoming completely politicized," an individual close to Trump's transition operation said. "They all need to be slimmed down. The focus will be on restructuring agencies and how they interact."
Trump is targeting the CIA and the ODNI as he publicly wars with the U.S. intelligence community over its conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump wants to shrink the ODNI, as he believes the agency established in 2004 as a response to the 9/11 terror attacks has become bloated and politicized.

Guest sikaniska 2 hours ago
Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 - Amends the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 to authorize the Secretary of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors to provide for the preparation and dissemination of information intended for foreign audiences abroad about the United States, including about its people, its history, and the federal government's policies, through press, publications, radio, motion pictures, the Internet, and other information media, including social media, and through information centers and instructors.

The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 passed Congress as part of the NDAA 2013 on December 28, 2012.

The NDAA Legalizes The Use Of Propaganda On The US Public http://www.businessinsider.com...

This use of propaganda on the American public effectively nullified the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which explicitly forbids information and psychological operations aimed at influencing U.S. public opinion.

The NDAA in its current form allows the State Department and Pentagon to go beyond manipulating mainstream media outlets to directly disseminate campaigns of misinformation to the U.S. public.

But the US public learned quickly and they are not buying the misinformation anymore.

hmg, Jr. 4 hours ago
is this the revelation due early this week that he promised us?
JacksonEuler 4 hours ago
Trump knows better:

1) Renewables: "I know more about renewables than any human being on Earth." - April 2016

2) Social media: "I understand social media. I understand the power of Twitter. I understand the power of Facebook maybe better than almost
anybody, based on my results, right?" - November 2015

3) Debt: "Nobody knows more about debt. I'm like the king. I love debt." - May 2016

4) Taxes, again : "I think nobody knows more about taxes than I do, maybe in the history of the world. Nobody knows more about taxes." - May 2016. I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them. #failing@nytimes
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2016

don Jody 4 hours ago
They refused to brief Congress. They were never allowed to release their findings publicly, because they still haven't. They leaked their conclusions. All to attempt to undermine the stability of their own country. And you don't see this.
Guest 2 hours ago

This is why Wikileaks exists. What the MSM can no longer deliver (the TRUTH and credible news), Wikileaks can deliver to the American people.

Trump University 5 hours ago
OBL caused 9/11 -- and it happened on Dubya's watch. He was expressly warned OBL wanted to do it -- and he laughed and let it happen.
Vegas DB Pro Alex Cross 4 hours ago
Are you claiming the US hasn't done all it can to destabilize and destroy Russia?
DoILookAmused2u -> Vegas DB Pro 4 hours ago
No, we haven't. Putin, United Russia, and his buddies in organized crime sure have though.
Vegas DB Pro -> DoILookAmused2u ? 4 hours ago
Really? We've been interfering in theirs, and many other countries, affairs for decades, same as they've done to us. Learn some history, dummy.
DoILookAmused2u ? -> Vegas DB Pro 3 hours ago
No, we haven't, and we didn't. In fact, his former boss -- Yeltsin -- hired Republican political consultants to help his campaign. Putin would like the world to believe that Russians fed up with bribery, extortion, the fall of the ruble, and the fact that their votes don't count rising up and protesting was about outside meddling, but it was internal.

And he responded by making protests illegal, getting rid of the election of governors (he appoints them now), closing down critical reporting outlets, and some journalists were murdered.

Uncle Keef Vegas DB Pro 4 hours ago
So? whose side are you on? Don't be like Trump. Stand with the U.S.
Vegas DB Pro -> Uncle Keef 4 hours ago
You moron, I served the US for 20 years in the military, but facts are facts and we need to butt the he!! out of other countries business, and until we do, they will continue to come after us. How long were you in?
Mohammad Izzaterd 4 hours ago
This blame Russia frenzy is a loser strategy. The sole purpose is to deligitimize Trump's victory. Can't wait for Trump to start firing a**es.

[Mar 29, 2019] The president-elect requested security clearance for Kushner to attend top-secret presidential briefings

That was a classic "Nepotism 101" lesson. More to follow...
Mar 23, 2017 | www.theguardian.com

Trump has described his son-in-law as a "great guy". The president-elect has also reportedly taken the unprecedented step of requesting security clearance for Kushner to attend top-secret presidential briefings, the first one of which was on Tuesday. It's unclear if the request will be approved. It marks an astonishing departure and invites the accusation of nepotism.

Kushner's options for a White House job are limited given his family ties to the president, Richard Painter, who served as President George W Bush's White House ethics lawyer, told the Associated Press. Congress passed an anti-nepotism law in 1967 that prohibits the president from appointing a family member – including a son-in-law – to work in the office or agency they oversee. The measure was passed after President John F Kennedy appointed his brother, Robert Kennedy, as attorney general.

But the law does not appear to prevent Kushner from serving as an unpaid adviser, and few doubt that Kushner will play a decisive role in shaping the Trump presidency, acting as policy adviser and gate-keeper. As Trump and Barack Obama met privately at the White House last week, Kushner strolled the mansion's South Lawn, deep in conversation with Obama's chief of staff. As Kushner walked through the bustling West Wing during Trump's visit last week, he was heard asking Obama aides: "How many of these people stay?", apparently blissfully unaware that the entire West Wing staff will leave at the end of Obama's term.

His contacts already include Henry Kissinger and Rupert Murdoch; he has received foreign ambassadors. Like Trump, Kushner has never had a formal role in government, but he now appears set to be more important than many who do.

[Mar 29, 2019] America is a banana republic! FBI chief agrees with CIA on Russia alleged election help for Trump

Comey was a part of the coup -- a color revolution against Trump with Bremmen (possibly assigned by Obama) pulling the strings. That's right. This is a banana republic with nukes.
Notable quotes:
"... "Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials who have seen it. ..."
"... Comment: The FBI now flip-flops from its previous assessment: FBI rejects CIA assessment that Russia influenced presidential election ..."
www.sott.net
Reprinted from RT

FBI and National Intelligence chiefs both agree with the CIA assessment that Russia interfered with the 2016 US presidential elections partly in an effort to help Donald Trump win the White House, US media report.

FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper are both convinced that Russia was behind cyberattacks that targeted Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta, The Washington Post and reported Friday, citing a message sent by CIA Director John Brennan to his employees.

"Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials who have seen it.

"The three of us also agree that our organizations, along with others, need to focus on completing the thorough review of this issue that has been directed by President Obama and which is being led by the DNI," it continued.

Comment: The FBI now flip-flops from its previous assessment: FBI rejects CIA assessment that Russia influenced presidential election to help Trump win, calling info "fuzzy and ambiguous"

... ... ...

[Mar 29, 2019] Trump will have as many problems with Ayn Ryan Congress as Obama/Clinton on economic issues

If if 2016 there were some hope not we know that Trump folded. Completely. He actually is not a President. he is a marionette.
Notable quotes:
"... Bankers & Trump: Bankers know you capture catch more flies with money honey. ..."
"... " former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who has known Trump socially for decades and is currently advising the president-elect on foreign policy issues " - I really, really hope this is just Hammerin' Hank tooting his own horn, as he and his sycophants in the FP establishment and MSM are wont to do. ..."
"... "Trump dumps the TPP: conservatives rue strategic fillip to China" (Guardian) Another wedge angle for Trumps new-found RINO "friends" to play. Trump will have as many problems with Ayn Ryan Congress as Obama/Clinton on economic issues. ..."
"... And if Abe's Japan were really an independent country, they'd pick up the TPP baton and sell it to China. ..."
Nov 23, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Cry Shop November 23, 2016 at 6:16 pm

Bankers & Trump: Bankers know you capture catch more flies with money honey.

ewmayer November 23, 2016 at 6:21 pm

"The Trump campaign, meanwhile, delved into message tailoring, sentiment manipulation and machine learning." - Oh, please, this sounds like a stereotypical Google-centric view of things. They of course left out the most important part of the campaign, the key to its inception, which could be described in terms like "The Trump campaign, meanwhile, actually noticed the widespread misery and non-recovery in the parts of the US outside the elite coastal bubbles and DC beltway, and spotted a yuuuge political opportunity." In other words, not sentiment manipulation – that was, after all, the Dem-establishment-MSM-wall-street-and-the-elite-technocrats' "America is already great, and anyone who denies it is deplorable!" strategy of manufactured consent – so much as actual *reading* of sentiment. Of course if one insisted on remaining inside a protective elite echo chamber and didn't listen to anything Trump or the attendees actually said in those huge flyover-country rallies that wasn't captured in suitably outrageous evening-news soundbites, it was all too easy to believe one's own hype.

" former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who has known Trump socially for decades and is currently advising the president-elect on foreign policy issues " - I really, really hope this is just Hammerin' Hank tooting his own horn, as he and his sycophants in the FP establishment and MSM are wont to do.

Brad November 23, 2016 at 6:33 pm

"Trump dumps the TPP: conservatives rue strategic fillip to China" (Guardian) Another wedge angle for Trumps new-found RINO "friends" to play. Trump will have as many problems with Ayn Ryan Congress as Obama/Clinton on economic issues.

"The TPP excludes China, which declined to join, proposing its own rival version, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which excludes the US." You see, it is all China's fault. No info presented on why China "declined" to join.

And if Abe's Japan were really an independent country, they'd pick up the TPP baton and sell it to China.

[Mar 29, 2019] Early troubling sign of Trump: most individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated obsession with Iran

One of the rare early realistic assessments of Trump foreign policy. most were wrong. Circe was right in major points. The appointment of CIA director was the litmus test and Trump failed it by appointing neocon Pompeo.
Trump foreign policy is a typical neocon foreign policy. People just tried to overlook it in vain hopes that Trump will change the US foreign policy
Notable quotes:
"... 95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is a catastrophic error in judgment I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time. ..."
"... And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden with the death penalty, if Snowden is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him to find out who he shared intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job. He already stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back from Russia and get the death penalty for treason. ..."
"... Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against Assad and wrote this in the Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern of gratuitous and unpunished affronts to U.S. interests,". ..."
"... Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible. Among these were those that spoke of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet. The neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon -unfriendly President was elected. ..."
"... Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result in a shooting war with Iran. The 'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to fund security agencies and buy arms. ..."
"... And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a placeholder until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran, and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad as they were before the "peace deal". So all the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly. ..."
"... What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign pledge to have the "strongest" military (note: every candidate was for a strong military), the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense. ..."
"... he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't attacked like that before the election, huh? ..."
www.moonofalabama.org
Circe | Nov 19, 2016 8:37:46 PM | 23

95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is a catastrophic error in judgment I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time.

And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden with the death penalty, if Snowden is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him to find out who he shared intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job. He already stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back from Russia and get the death penalty for treason.

Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against Assad and wrote this in the Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern of gratuitous and unpunished affronts to U.S. interests,".

That's not all, Pompeo wants to enhance the surveillance state, and he too wants to tear up the Iran deal.

Many of you here are extremely naïve regarding Trump.

b's speculation has the ring of truth. I've often wondered if Trump was encouraged to run by a deep-state faction that found the neocons to be abhorrent and dangerous.

Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible. Among these were those that spoke of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet. The neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon-unfriendly President was elected.

Jackrabbit | Nov 19, 2016 10:20:57 PM | 26

Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result in a shooting war with Iran. The 'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to fund security agencies and buy arms.

And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a placeholder until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran, and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad as they were before the "peace deal". So all the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly.

What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign pledge to have the "strongest" military (note: every candidate was for a strong military), the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense.

And so it is interesting that those that want to undermine Trump have resorted to the claim that he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't attacked like that before the election, huh?

The profound changes and profound butt-hurt lead to the following poignant questions:

>> Have we just witnessed a counter-coup?

>> Isn't it sad that, in 2016(!), the only check on elites are other elite factions? An enormous cultural failure that has produced a brittle social fabric.

>> If control of NSA snooping power is so crucial, why would ANY ruling block ever allow the another to gain power?

Indeed, the answer to this question informs one's view on whether the anti-Trump protests are just Democratic Party ass-covering/distraction or a real attempt at a 'color revolution'.

[Mar 29, 2019] Trump s success of failure will be measured by one thing: number of factory jobs added or lost

Trump failed his electorate in this critical metric. And as such does not deserve a reelection
Notable quotes:
"... Trump's success of failure will be measured by one thing: number of factory jobs added or lost, series MANEMP at the St. Louis FRED website.* If he doesn't create at least about 100,000 a year, he's in trouble. ..."
"... Disruption of neoliberal status quo and sending Hillary and some other neocon warmongers packing is already an achievement, not matter how you slice it. ..."
"... And a hissy fit that some factions of CIA demonstrated just before inauguration (it should not be considered as a monolithic organization; more like feudal kingdom of competing and often hostile to each other and to Pentagon and FBI factions ) was a reaction to this setback to neoconservatives in Washington. ..."
"... If Trump does what he promised in foreign policy: to end the wars for the expansion of neoliberal empire and to end of Cold War II with Russia it will be a huge achievement, even if the US economics not recover from Obama's secular stagnation (oil prices probably will go higher this year, representing an important headwind) . ..."
"... While we are writing those posts nuclear forces of both the USA and Russia are on high alert, and if something happen (and proliferation of computers make this more rather then less likely), the leaders of both countries have less then 20 minutes to decide about launching a full scale nuclear war. Actually Russia now has less time because of forward movement of NATO forces. ..."
Jan 22, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
New Deal democrat -> Fred C. Dobbs...January 22, 2017 at 07:10 AM
Trump's success of failure will be measured by one thing: number of factory jobs added or lost, series MANEMP at the St. Louis FRED website.* If he doesn't create at least about 100,000 a year, he's in trouble.

*assuming the data continues to be reported if it goes south on him, or he doesn't insist that the method of measuring change. Something that is a real fear.

Slightly OT, there is one well-known wonky government data site I am watching. I think there are better than 50/50 odds it disappears within the next two weeks.

libezkova -> New Deal democrat... , January 22, 2017 at 09:04 AM
Disruption of neoliberal status quo and sending Hillary and some other neocon warmongers packing is already an achievement, not matter how you slice it.

And a hissy fit that some factions of CIA demonstrated just before inauguration (it should not be considered as a monolithic organization; more like feudal kingdom of competing and often hostile to each other and to Pentagon and FBI factions ) was a reaction to this setback to neoconservatives in Washington.

If Trump does what he promised in foreign policy: to end the wars for the expansion of neoliberal empire and to end of Cold War II with Russia it will be a huge achievement, even if the US economics not recover from Obama's secular stagnation (oil prices probably will go higher this year, representing an important headwind) .

No further escalation in geopolitical conflicts represents an important tailwind and might help.

While we are writing those posts nuclear forces of both the USA and Russia are on high alert, and if something happen (and proliferation of computers make this more rather then less likely), the leaders of both countries have less then 20 minutes to decide about launching a full scale nuclear war. Actually Russia now has less time because of forward movement of NATO forces.

Professor Stephen Cohen thinks that this is worse then Cuban Missile Crisis and he is an expert in this area.

[Mar 29, 2019] Has the imperator surrounded himself with the wrong praetorians?

Yes. He quickly became Bush III
Notable quotes:
"... Define unprecedented. What are your standards for a "major western nation"? Any moral standard? Do they include blowing up countries, using militarized spooks with unlimited secret funding? ..."
"... If you side with the devil what are you? In tilting with the CIA, Trump is a saint. ..."
"... Don't worry. Be happy. Nothing can be done now. The voters wanted someone to "shake things up." Trump will be applying creative destruction to government ..."
"... Obama failed to drive the NeoCons out of government. Trump may do so, but the replacement might be fundamentally more corrupt. ..."
"... Looters on the other hand love destruction. The resulting chaos affords them more opportunity to get windfalls. Trump will give the voters the radical change they think they want. But Trump will use the destruction as an opportunity for personal gain. The public will be left with a gutted government that will need to be rebuilt before it will function again ..."
"... One quibble: The destruction he applies will not be creative. It will be thorough but entirely unimaginative. ..."
"... Why do you think a war is brewing? What do you think is going to happen? They'll give him bad intel like they did with Bush? ..."
"... The meme that Trump will "get US into war" is a Clinton loser-whiner meme! Delusional and misleading; the neocon Clinton would have done Putin first CIA fictional, regime change excuse the yellow press could spread. ..."
"... Because they are already reportedly telling some of their contacts not to trust the government with information in case it ends up with hostile governments. Maybe using the word "war" is misleading. Maybe "cold war" is more accurate, but in general I mean a state of mutual distrust. ..."
Jan 16, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
reason : January 16, 2017 at 02:25 AM
Just as an aside - not really economics, but I am really worrying about what the war between the future white house team and the CIA that seems to be brewing. I don't see good solutions to this. It is sort of unprecedented in a major western country. Can you think of a similar case (where the intelligence services - and perhaps the military as well regarded there own government head as an enemy agent)?
reason -> reason ... , January 16, 2017 at 03:02 AM
Perhaps MI5 and Wilson?
Fang__z -> reason ... , January 16, 2017 at 04:03 AM
Canaris and Hitler. :p
ilsm -> reason ... , January 16, 2017 at 04:41 AM
Henry VI Pt2: dems playing Yorks

put the CIA in

the Tower

CIA been the neocon

payroll too long

who told you Soviets

were never going

tp collapse

ilsm -> reason ... , January 16, 2017 at 04:49 AM
Define unprecedented. What are your standards for a "major western nation"? Any moral standard? Do they include blowing up countries, using militarized spooks with unlimited secret funding?

If you side with the devil what are you? In tilting with the CIA, Trump is a saint.

jonny bakho -> reason ... , January 16, 2017 at 05:03 AM
Don't worry. Be happy. Nothing can be done now. The voters wanted someone to "shake things up." Trump will be applying creative destruction to government

Obama failed to drive the NeoCons out of government. Trump may do so, but the replacement might be fundamentally more corrupt.

As with Obamacare, the idea is to destroy it and replace it with something better. Most revolutions find it easy to destroy and very much harder to build Most sane leaders recognize this difficulty and modify the existing rather than destroy and never getting around to replacement or find the replacement to be worse than the existing.

Looters on the other hand love destruction. The resulting chaos affords them more opportunity to get windfalls. Trump will give the voters the radical change they think they want. But Trump will use the destruction as an opportunity for personal gain. The public will be left with a gutted government that will need to be rebuilt before it will function again

Chris G -> jonny bakho... , January 16, 2017 at 05:06 AM
One quibble: The destruction he applies will not be creative. It will be thorough but entirely unimaginative.
reason -> jonny bakho... , January 16, 2017 at 07:24 AM
I don't believe in "creative destruction", I believe in "destructive creation" which is something quite different. But that is not the point. This is not about the government as such, it is about the security apparatus in itself. It could get very nasty if that ends up either totally alienated or politicized.
Chris G -> reason ... , January 16, 2017 at 05:03 AM
If I were President, provoking an organization whose specialty is covert operations and which has track record of bringing about the demise of insufficiently agreeable leaders would not be high on my to-do list.
ilsm -> Chris G ... , January 16, 2017 at 05:20 AM
Has the imperator surrounded himself with the wrong praetorians?
Peter K. -> reason ... , January 16, 2017 at 05:37 AM
Why do you think a war is brewing? What do you think is going to happen? They'll give him bad intel like they did with Bush?
ilsm -> Peter K.... , January 16, 2017 at 05:44 AM
The meme that Trump will "get US into war" is a Clinton loser-whiner meme! Delusional and misleading; the neocon Clinton would have done Putin first CIA fictional, regime change excuse the yellow press could spread.
Peter K. -> ilsm... , January 16, 2017 at 05:54 AM
Trump is an isolationist who repeatedly said the Iraq war was a disaster, which it was. If the CIA is going after Trump they're doing a bad job. The worst they could come up with is some unverified accounts that Trump likes pee-pee parties.
reason -> Peter K.... , January 16, 2017 at 07:29 AM
Because they are already reportedly telling some of their contacts not to trust the government with information in case it ends up with hostile governments. Maybe using the word "war" is misleading. Maybe "cold war" is more accurate, but in general I mean a state of mutual distrust.

[Mar 29, 2019] If we consider two possibilities: GOP establishment chew up Trump and Trump chew up GOP establishment it is clear that possibility is more probable

This commenter Libezkova was right: Trump folded. And probably he was a phony fighter with neoliberalism and globalization from the very beginning. So voters were deceived exactly like they were with Obama.
Notable quotes:
"... It's hilarious that the progressive neoliberals like DeLong, Krugman, Drum, Yglesias etc have said exactly nothing about Trump's tweets at Congressional Republicans over the independent ethics committee. ..."
"... There is a propaganda technique where you describe straw-person characterizations then undermine them. When in fact the whole longwinded campaign depends on readers and listeners not bothering or too tired to focus and see the mischaracterizations in the straw. ..."
"... This whole thing is an apologia, for propaganda purposes, as I see it. We all need to take care. It takes a lot of money and effort to organize such propaganda exercises. Please take care in using and reusing these type things. ..."
"... Theoretically that might give Democrats a chance, but I think the Clintonized Party is too corrupt to take this chance. "An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought." ;-) ..."
"... In any case, 2018 elections will be very interesting as I think that the process of a slow collapse of neoliberal ideology and the rise of the US nationalist movements ("far right") will continue unabated. ..."
Jan 06, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
Peter K. -> Chris G ... , January 05, 2017 at 11:59 AM
I've heard otherwise. The progressive neoliberals are just putting out disinformation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/upshot/how-the-obama-coalition-crumbled-leaving-an-opening-for-trump.html

"At every point of the race, Mr. Trump was doing better among white voters without a college degree than Mitt Romney did in 2012 - by a wide margin. Mrs. Clinton was also not matching Mr. Obama's support among black voters."

"Mrs. Clinton's gains were concentrated among the most affluent and best-educated white voters, much as Mr. Trump's gains were concentrated among the lowest-income and least-educated white voters."

Peter K. -> Chris Lowery ... , January 05, 2017 at 07:30 AM
Trump won the Republican primary and general election.

""Trump dominated - in the primary and general elections - those districts represented by Congress's most conservative members," Tim Alberta wrote in National Review (he is now at Politico):

They once believed they were elected to advance a narrowly ideological agenda, but Trump's success has given them reason to question that belief.

Among these archconservatives, who in the past had been fanatical in their pursuit of ideological purity, the realization that they can no longer depend on unfailing support from their constituents has provoked deep anxiety."

These archconservatives who say that Trump's flimsy mandate is just based on just 80,000 votes in the rustbelt are in for a rude awakening. He won the primary. In Northern States. In Southern States. Everywhere.

It's hilarious that the progressive neoliberals like DeLong, Krugman, Drum, Yglesias etc have said exactly nothing about Trump's tweets at Congressional Republicans over the independent ethics committee.

Silence.

JF -> Chris Lowery ... , January 05, 2017 at 09:02 AM
There is a propaganda technique where you describe straw-person characterizations then undermine them. When in fact the whole longwinded campaign depends on readers and listeners not bothering or too tired to focus and see the mischaracterizations in the straw.

This whole thing is an apologia, for propaganda purposes, as I see it. We all need to take care. It takes a lot of money and effort to organize such propaganda exercises. Please take care in using and reusing these type things.

Libezkova -> Chris Lowery ... , January 05, 2017 at 09:49 AM
"Trump has converted the GOP into a populist, America First party" is an overstatement. He definitely made some efforts in this direction, but it is premature to declare this "fait accompli".

If we consider two possibilities: "GOP establishment chew up Trump" and "Trump chew up GOP establishment" it is clear that possibility is more probable.

Theoretically that might give Democrats a chance, but I think the Clintonized Party is too corrupt to take this chance. "An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought." ;-)

In any case, 2018 elections will be very interesting as I think that the process of a slow collapse of neoliberal ideology and the rise of the US nationalist movements ("far right") will continue unabated.

This is the same process that we see in full force in EU.

[Mar 29, 2019] How Hegelian it would be if the thesis of the Bush and Clinton dynasties, followed by the antithesis of a Trump victory, were to produce an unanticipated synthesis in 2020

The "Deep State" is too strong to allow that.
Notable quotes:
"... It was possible to say, before Warren G. Harding was elected, that he wasn't particularly well-qualified to be president. And he did turn out as president to have, as we say nowadays, some issues. But his administration was stocked with (mostly) well-qualified men who served with considerable distinction. ..."
"... To succeed in business, the brand only gets you so far. Quality matters. To succeed in the presidency, getting elected only gets you so far. Governing matters. ..."
"... But how Hegelian it would be if the thesis of the Bush and Clinton dynasties, followed by the antithesis of a Trump victory over first a Bush and then a Clinton in 2016, were to produce an unanticipated synthesis: a Trump administration marked by the reconstruction of republican normalcy in America. In its own way, that would be a genuine contribution to making America great again. ..."
"... Kristol is mad Trump lambasted the Iraq war. Was Putin against the Iraq war? I think the whole world was except for the "Coalition of the Willing." You'll never see the UK back another war like that. ..."
"... "Socialist feminist Liza Featherstone and others have denounced Clinton's uncritical praise of the "opportunity" and "freedom" of American capitalism vis-à-vis other developed nations. "With this bit of frankness," Featherstone explains, referring to the former Secretary of State's "Denmark" comments, "Clinton helpfully explained why no socialist-indeed, no non-millionaire-should support her. She is smart enough to know that women in the United States endure far more poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity than women in Denmark-yet she shamelessly made clear that she was happy to keep it that way." Indeed, Clinton's denunciation of the idea that the United States should look more like Denmark betrayed one of the glaring the fault lines within the Democratic Party, and between Clintonian liberalism and Sandersite leftism." ..."
"... Of course the progressive neoliberals in this forum regularly resort to ad hominem to any ideas or facts that don't line up with the agreed-upon party line. ..."
Jan 06, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
Fred C. Dobbs : January 05, 2017 at 07:40 AM , 2017 at 07:40 AM
(Harding redux?)

The Trump Administration http://tws.io/2iFd3rC
via @WeeklyStandard
Nov 28, 2016 - William Kristol

Who now gives much thought to the presidency of Warren G. Harding? Who ever did? Not us.

But let us briefly turn our thoughts to our 29th president (while stipulating that we're certainly no experts on his life or times). Here's our summary notion: Warren G. Harding may have been a problematic president. But the Harding administration was in some ways an impressive one, which served the country reasonably well.

It was possible to say, before Warren G. Harding was elected, that he wasn't particularly well-qualified to be president. And he did turn out as president to have, as we say nowadays, some issues. But his administration was stocked with (mostly) well-qualified men who served with considerable distinction.

Andrew Mellon was a successful Treasury secretary whose tax reforms and deregulatory efforts spurred years of economic growth. Charles Dawes, the first director of the Bureau of the Budget, reduced government expenditures and, helped by Mellon's economic policies, brought the budget into balance. Charles Evans Hughes as secretary of state dealt responsibly with a very difficult world situation his administration had inherited-though in light of what followed in the next decade, one wishes in retrospect for bolder assertions of American leadership, though in those years just after World War I, they would have been contrary to the national mood.

In addition, President Harding's first two Supreme Court appointments -- William Howard Taft and George Sutherland -- were distinguished ones. And Harding personally did some admirable things: He made pronouncements, impressive in the context of that era, in favor of racial equality; he commuted the wartime prison sentence of the Socialist leader, Eugene V. Debs. In these ways, he contributed to an atmosphere of national healing and civility.

The brief Harding administration-and for that matter the eight years constituting his administration and that of his vice president and successor, Calvin Coolidge-may not have been times of surpassing national greatness. But there were real achievements, especially in the economic sphere; those years were not disastrous; they were not dark times.

President-elect Donald J. Trump probably doesn't intend to model his administration on that of President Warren G. Harding. But he could do worse than reflect on that administration's successes-and also on its failures, particularly the scandals that exploded into public view after Harding's sudden death. These were produced by cronies appointed by Harding to important positions, where they betrayed his trust and tarnished his historical reputation.

Donald Trump manifestly cares about his reputation. He surely knows that reputation ultimately depends on performance. If a Trump hotel and casino is successful, it's not because of the Trump brand-that may get people through the door the first time-but because it provides a worthwhile experience thanks to a good management team, fine restaurants, deft croupiers, and fun shows. If a Trump golf course succeeds, it's because it has been built and is run by people who know something about golf. The failed Trump efforts-from the university to the steaks-seem to have in common the assumption that the Trump name by itself would be enough to carry mediocre or worse enterprises across the finish line.

To succeed in business, the brand only gets you so far. Quality matters. To succeed in the presidency, getting elected only gets you so far. Governing matters.

It would be ironic if Trump's very personal electoral achievement were followed by a mode of governance that restored greater responsibility to the cabinet agencies formally entrusted with the duties of governance. It would be ironic if a Trump presidency also featured a return of authority to Congress, the states, and to other civic institutions. It would be ironic if Trump's victory led not to a kind of American Caesarism but to a strengthening of republican institutions and forms. It would be ironic if the election of Donald J. Trump heralded a return to a kind of constitutional normalcy.

If we are not mistaken, it was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (though sadly unaware of the phenomena of either Warren G. Harding or Donald J. Trump) who made much of the Irony of History.

But how Hegelian it would be if the thesis of the Bush and Clinton dynasties, followed by the antithesis of a Trump victory over first a Bush and then a Clinton in 2016, were to produce an unanticipated synthesis: a Trump administration marked by the reconstruction of republican normalcy in America. In its own way, that would be a genuine contribution to making America great again.

(Harding-Coolidge-Hoover were a disastrous triumvirate that ascended to power after the Taft & Wilson administrations, as the GOP - then the embodiment of progressivism - split apart due to the efforts of Teddy Roosevelt.)

Peter K. -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1

Kristol is mad Trump lambasted the Iraq war. Was Putin against the Iraq war? I think the whole world was except for the "Coalition of the Willing." You'll never see the UK back another war like that.

ilsm -> Peter K.... , January 05, 2017 at 03:35 PM
It is the neocon's taking a back seat! Kristol is co-founder of PNAC along with a Clinton mob long time foggy bottom associate's husband.. Trump is somewhat less thrilled with tilting with Russia for the American empire which is as moral as Nero's Rome.
ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
Prescient: dumping Kristol's PNAC will strengthen the republic.
Peter K. -> Peter K.... , January 05, 2017 at 07:52 AM

"Socialist feminist Liza Featherstone and others have denounced Clinton's uncritical praise of the "opportunity" and "freedom" of American capitalism vis-à-vis other developed nations. "With this bit of frankness," Featherstone explains, referring to the former Secretary of State's "Denmark" comments, "Clinton helpfully explained why no socialist-indeed, no non-millionaire-should support her. She is smart enough to know that women in the United States endure far more poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity than women in Denmark-yet she shamelessly made clear that she was happy to keep it that way." Indeed, Clinton's denunciation of the idea that the United States should look more like Denmark betrayed one of the glaring the fault lines within the Democratic Party, and between Clintonian liberalism and Sandersite leftism."

Is it better to ignore this fault line and try to paper it over or is it better to debate the issues in a polite and congenial manner?

Of course the progressive neoliberals in this forum regularly resort to ad hominem to any ideas or facts that don't line up with the agreed-upon party line.

[Mar 29, 2019] Nickolas Kristof again demonstrates the level of neocons panic and his MIC lobbyist credentials by Nicholas Kristof

Kristof panic was premature and just shows that he is a really has no political analyst talent whatsoever. Trump was quickly co-opted by neocons.
It is interesting that Kristof, even at such an early stages of Russiagate was already "FullOfSchiff"
"... The CIA says it has "high confidence" that Russia was trying to get Trump elected, and, according to The Washington Post, the directors of the F.B.I. and national intelligence agree with that conclusion. ..."
"... Now we come to the most reckless step of all: This Russian poodle is acting in character by giving important government posts to friends of Moscow, in effect rewarding it for its attack on the United States. ..."
"... Rex Tillerson, Trump's nominee for secretary of state, is a smart and capable manager. Yet it's notable that he is particularly close to Putin, who had decorated Tillerson with Russia's "Order of Friendship." ..."
Dec 12, 2017 | nytimes.com

From Donald Trump The Russian Poodle - The New York Times

In 1972, President Richard Nixon's White House dispatched burglars to bug Democratic Party offices. That Watergate burglary and related "dirty tricks," such as releasing mice at a Democratic press conference and paying a woman to strip naked and shout her love for a Democratic candidate, nauseated Americans - and impelled some of us kids at the time to pursue journalism.

Now in 2016 we have a political scandal that in some respects is even more staggering. Russian agents apparently broke into the Democrats' digital offices and tried to change the election outcome. President Obama on Friday suggested that this was probably directed by Russia's president, saying, "Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin."

In Watergate, the break-in didn't affect the outcome of the election. In 2016, we don't know for sure. There were other factors, but it's possible that Russia's theft and release of the emails provided the margin for Donald Trump's victory.

The CIA says it has "high confidence" that Russia was trying to get Trump elected, and, according to The Washington Post, the directors of the F.B.I. and national intelligence agree with that conclusion.

Both Nixon and Trump responded badly to the revelations, Nixon by ordering a cover-up and Trump by denouncing the CIA and, incredibly, defending Russia from the charges that it tried to subvert our election. I never thought I would see a dispute between America's intelligence community and a murderous foreign dictator in which an American leader sided with the dictator.

Let's be clear: This was an attack on America, less lethal than a missile but still profoundly damaging to our system. It's not that Trump and Putin were colluding to steal an election. But if the CIA is right, Russia apparently was trying to elect a president who would be not a puppet exactly but perhaps something of a lap dog - a Russian poodle.

In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair was widely (and unfairly) mocked as President George W. Bush's poodle, following him loyally into the Iraq war. The fear is that this time Putin may have interfered to acquire an ally who likewise will roll over for him.

Frankly, it's mystifying that Trump continues to defend Russia and Putin, even as he excoriates everyone else, from CIA officials to a local union leader in Indiana.

Now we come to the most reckless step of all: This Russian poodle is acting in character by giving important government posts to friends of Moscow, in effect rewarding it for its attack on the United States.

Rex Tillerson, Trump's nominee for secretary of state, is a smart and capable manager. Yet it's notable that he is particularly close to Putin, who had decorated Tillerson with Russia's "Order of Friendship."

Whatever our personal politics, how can we possibly want to respond to Russia's interference in our election by putting American foreign policy in the hands of a Putin friend?

Tillerson's closeness to Putin is especially troubling because of Trump's other Russia links. The incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, accepted Russian money to attend a dinner in Moscow and sat near Putin. A ledger shows $12.7 million in secret payments by a pro-Russia party in Ukraine to Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort. And the Trump family itself has business connections with Russia.

[Mar 29, 2019] Neocons Trying to Sneak Into Trump Administration by Jason Ditz

In two years neocons completely occupied Trump administration.
Notable quotes:
"... It's a cliche to say that the cushiest positions of influence in any US administration go to figures who were seen to have brought something to the table during the campaign. ..."
"... a lot of high-ranking neoconservatives are expecting the exact opposite, figuring that they can step right into positions of power and influence despite openly campaigning against Trump. ..."
"... There are more than a few people who would normally be in line for top positions in a Republican White House, but who were very publicly part of the "Never Trump" crowd, attacking him throughout the primary and the general election. These same people are now making public their "willingness" to work with Trump. ..."
"... In other words, they want the usual spoils of victory, but having positioned themselves as so firmly in opposition to Trump's worldview, and to Trump in general, it's not at all clear how willing Trump's transition team is to consider such candidates for important positions. ..."
"... For many of the neocons, this is likely less about getting cushy jobs or fancy titles and more about ensuring that the US remains aggressively interventionist abroad. Indeed, many of these people split with Trump in the first place over concerns he was insufficiently hawkish, and now want jobs that would put them in a position to shift his new administration in those same hawkish directions. ..."
news.antiwar.com
Fiercely Opposed to His Election, 'Never Trump' Crowd Now Seeks Influence

It's a cliche to say that the cushiest positions of influence in any US administration go to figures who were seen to have brought something to the table during the campaign. Yet with the election of Donald Trump, a lot of high-ranking neoconservatives are expecting the exact opposite, figuring that they can step right into positions of power and influence despite openly campaigning against Trump.

There are more than a few people who would normally be in line for top positions in a Republican White House, but who were very publicly part of the "Never Trump" crowd, attacking him throughout the primary and the general election. These same people are now making public their "willingness" to work with Trump.

In other words, they want the usual spoils of victory, but having positioned themselves as so firmly in opposition to Trump's worldview, and to Trump in general, it's not at all clear how willing Trump's transition team is to consider such candidates for important positions.

The early indications are that a lot of the foreign policy-related positions are going to be led by high-ranking former military officials who backed Trump's candidacy, with officials noting that long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have left them with a lot of such officials to choose from.

For many of the neocons, this is likely less about getting cushy jobs or fancy titles and more about ensuring that the US remains aggressively interventionist abroad. Indeed, many of these people split with Trump in the first place over concerns he was insufficiently hawkish, and now want jobs that would put them in a position to shift his new administration in those same hawkish directions.

[Mar 29, 2019] Trump will struggle to find a face-saving retreat from these unnecessary conflicts and shut his ears to the siren songs of the war party and deep state which just failed to stage a soft coup to block his inauguration by Eric Margolis

Trump did not struggle at all. He just folded.
Big hopes of January 2017 ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Each new president inherits a sea of problems from his predecessor. Donald Trump's biggest legacy headaches and priority will be in the Mideast, a disaster area on its own but made far, far worse by the bungling of the Obama administration and its dimwitted attempts to put the US and Russia on a collision course. ..."
"... Thanks to George W. Bush – who dared show his face at the inauguration – and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama, Trump inherits America's longest war, Afghanistan, with our shameful support of mass drug dealing, endemic corruption and war crimes. Add the crazy mess in Iraq and now Syria. ..."
"... This week US B-2 heavy bombers attacked Libya. US forces are fighting in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and parts of Africa. For what? No one is quite sure. America's foreign wars, fueled by its $1 trillion military budget, have assumed a life of their own. Once a great power goes to war, its proponents insist, 'we can't be seen to back down or our credibility will suffer.' ..."
"... If President Trump truly wants to bring some sort of peace to the explosive Mideast, he will have to reject the advice of the hardline Zionists with whom he has chosen to surround himself. Their primary interest is Greater Israel, free of Arabs, not in a Greater America. Trump is too smart not to know this. But he may also listen to his blood and guts former generals who lost the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. ..."
"... Trump should be reminded that the 9/11 attackers cited two reasons for their attack: 1. Occupation of Saudi Arabia by the US; 2. Continued US-backed occupation of Palestine. Persistent attacks on western targets that we call terrorism are, in most cases, acts of revenge for our neo-colonial actions in the Muslim world, the 'American Raj' as I term it. ..."
Jan 21, 2017 | www.unz.com

What I found most impressive this time was the reaffirmation of America's dedication to the peaceful transfer of political power. This was the 45th time this miracle has happened. Saying this is perhaps banal, but the handover of power never fails to make me proud to be an American and thankful we had such brilliant founding fathers.

This peaceful transfer sets the United States apart from many of the world's nations, even Britain and Canada, where leaders under the parliamentary system are chosen in a process resembling a knife fight in a dark room. The US has somehow managed to retain its three branches of government in spite of the best efforts of self-serving politicians to wreck it.

Each new president inherits a sea of problems from his predecessor. Donald Trump's biggest legacy headaches and priority will be in the Mideast, a disaster area on its own but made far, far worse by the bungling of the Obama administration and its dimwitted attempts to put the US and Russia on a collision course.

Thanks to George W. Bush – who dared show his face at the inauguration – and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama, Trump inherits America's longest war, Afghanistan, with our shameful support of mass drug dealing, endemic corruption and war crimes. Add the crazy mess in Iraq and now Syria.

This week US B-2 heavy bombers attacked Libya. US forces are fighting in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and parts of Africa. For what? No one is quite sure. America's foreign wars, fueled by its $1 trillion military budget, have assumed a life of their own. Once a great power goes to war, its proponents insist, 'we can't be seen to back down or our credibility will suffer.'

Trump will struggle to find a face-saving retreat from these unnecessary conflicts and shut his ears to the siren songs of the war party and deep state which just failed to stage a 'soft' coup to block his inauguration. Waging little wars against weak nations is a multi-billion dollar national industry in the US. America has become as addicted to war as it has to debt.

If President Trump truly wants to bring some sort of peace to the explosive Mideast, he will have to reject the advice of the hardline Zionists with whom he has chosen to surround himself. Their primary interest is Greater Israel, free of Arabs, not in a Greater America. Trump is too smart not to know this. But he may also listen to his blood and guts former generals who lost the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Trump appears to have been gulled into believing the canard that Mideast-origin violence is caused by what he called in his inaugural speech, radical Islamic terrorism. This is a favorite device promoted by the hard right and Israel to de-legitimize any resistance to Israel's expansion and ethnic cleansing. The label of 'terrorism' serves the same purpose.

Trump should be reminded that the 9/11 attackers cited two reasons for their attack: 1. Occupation of Saudi Arabia by the US; 2. Continued US-backed occupation of Palestine. Persistent attacks on western targets that we call terrorism are, in most cases, acts of revenge for our neo-colonial actions in the Muslim world, the 'American Raj' as I term it.

Unfortunately, President Trump is unlikely to get this useful advice from the men who now surround him, with the possibly exception of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Let's hope that Tillerson and not Goldman Sachs bank ends up steering US foreign policy.

(Reprinted from EricMargolis.com by permission of author or representative)

[Mar 29, 2019] Donald Trump just another say-anything-to-get-elected phony by Chuck Baldwin

Early warning about Trump betrayal
Notable quotes:
"... And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow through with his rhetoric is who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Stephen Bannon as White House chief strategist. ..."
"... Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign. He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee. ..."
"... On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naïve about the New World Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it. ..."
"... To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack. ..."
"... Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). ..."
"... You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration. ..."
"... Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. ..."
"... What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties. ..."
"... The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected. ..."
Nov 17, 2016 | www.newswithviews.com

Originally from: Chuck Baldwin -- Trump Supporters Must Not Go To Sleep

After my post-election column last week, a lady wrote to me and said, "I have confidence he [Trump] plans to do what is best for the country." With all due respect, I don't! I agree wholeheartedly with Thomas Jefferson. He said, "In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

If Donald Trump is going to be anything more than just another say-anything-to-get-elected phony, he is going to have to put raw elbow grease to his rhetoric. His talk got him elected, but it is going to be his walk that is going to prove his worth.

And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow through with his rhetoric is who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Stephen Bannon as White House chief strategist.

Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign. He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee. If that doesn't tell you what he is, nothing will. Trump probably picked him because he is in so tight with House Speaker Paul Ryan (a globalist neocon of the highest order) and the GOP establishment, thinking Priebus will help him get his agenda through the GOP Congress. But ideologically, Priebus does NOT share Trump's anti-establishment agenda. So, this appointment is a risk at best and a sell-out at worst.

On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naïve about the New World Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it.

To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the globalist elite gave Newt Gingrich the assignment of cozying up to (and "supporting") Trump during his campaign with the sole intention of being in a position for Trump to think he owes Gingrich something so as to appoint him to a key cabinet post in the event that he won. Gingrich could then weave his evil magic during a Donald Trump presidential administration.

Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). If Donald Trump does not see through this man, and if he appoints him as a cabinet head in his administration, I will be forced to believe that Donald Trump is clueless about "draining the swamp." You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration.

Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. Granted, he hasn't even been sworn in yet, and it's still way too early to make a true judgment of his presidency. But for a fact, his cabinet appointments and his first one hundred days in office will tell us most of what we need to know.

What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties.

There is a reason we have lost more liberties under Republican administrations than Democratic ones over the past few decades. And that reason is the conservative, constitutionalist, Christian, pro-freedom people who should be resisting government's assaults against our liberties are sound asleep because they trust a Republican President and Congress to do the right thing -- and they give the GOP a pass as our liberties are expunged piece by piece. A pass they would NEVER give to a Democrat.

The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected.

I tell you again: this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the course of a nation. Frankly, if this opportunity is squandered, there likely will not be another one in most of our lifetimes.

[Mar 29, 2019] Trump s Foreign Policy is Based on Confrontation and Malevolence by Brian Cloughley

Notable quotes:
"... "kicked India and Turkey out of a decades-old US program that allows developing countries to export thousands of goods to the United States without paying duties," in a scheme known as the Generalized System of Preferences or GSP. ..."
"... The reasons given by the US Trade Representative for Trump's orders were that India had failed "to provide the United States with assurances that it will provide equitable and reasonable access to its markets in numerous sectors" while "Turkey's termination from the GSP follows a finding that it is sufficiently economically developed and should no longer benefit from preferential market access to the United States market." ..."
"... In the case of India, Washington has been trying for years to wean India away from its defense and trade association with Russia, concurrent with encouraging it to join the Pentagon in confronting China. The US Defence Department stated in September 2018 that "A decade ago, US arms sales to India amounted to virtually nothing. Today, the United States is the second-largest arms supplier to India, and US officials say they hope to increase that business," and the US focus on China has resulted in stronger military ties, with a joint statement last December indicating the intention "to further strengthen bilateral defence cooperation as a key pillar of the strategic partnership between India and the US." ..."
"... There is a Russia factor in the US-Turkey relationship, because Ankara has placed an order for world-beating S-400 surface-to-air missiles, which has riled Washington, as has India's forthcoming acquisition of the same system. The Military-Industrial Establishment in Washington made its feelings known on March 8, when chief Pentagon spokesman Charlie Summers told reporters that "If Turkey takes the S-400, there would be grave consequences in terms of our relationship, military relationship with them." But this doesn't seem to worry President Erdoğan, who had already made it clear that "The S-400 is a done deal, there can be no turning back. We have reached an agreement with the Russians. We will move toward a joint production. Perhaps after the S-400, we will go for the S-500." ..."
Mar 15, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

March 15, 2019 Trump's Foreign Policy is Based on Confrontation and Malevolence by Brian Cloughley

There is a saying in the worlds of politics and business that most people who come to prominence are those who in defeat bear malice and in victory seek revenge. It is therefore unsurprising that President Donald Trump displays both characteristics in international as well as domestic affairs, although his targets vary erratically between friend and foe. His near-psychotic concentration on achieving the destruction of Iran is understandably malicious and revengeful, given the nature of the man, but his latest exhibitions of would-be superiority involve allies, which even for Trump is dramatically misguided.

The Trumpian United States has few friends, mainly because in his two years in the White House Trump has gone out of his way to belittle, demean and insult long-standing partners and antagonise those who may have been considering seeking closer ties with Washington.

His announcement last December that "America is respected again" was wide of the mark, because, unfortunately, America has become a global joke -- but a dangerous joke whose president may be a raving booby, but is still powerful and appears intent on upsetting what little tranquillity remains in this turmoil-stricken world.

One recent diatribe was unprecedented in length, vulgarity and volatility. When he spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2 he set a new low for absurdity in what the commentator Stephen Colbert described as being an "epically weird" harangue which The Atlantic said was the longest presidential oration in history . Moving on from this bizarre performance, Trump turned to international affairs and, as Politico reported on March 5, "kicked India and Turkey out of a decades-old US program that allows developing countries to export thousands of goods to the United States without paying duties," in a scheme known as the Generalized System of Preferences or GSP.

The reasons given by the US Trade Representative for Trump's orders were that India had failed "to provide the United States with assurances that it will provide equitable and reasonable access to its markets in numerous sectors" while "Turkey's termination from the GSP follows a finding that it is sufficiently economically developed and should no longer benefit from preferential market access to the United States market."

In the case of India, Washington has been trying for years to wean India away from its defense and trade association with Russia, concurrent with encouraging it to join the Pentagon in confronting China. The US Defence Department stated in September 2018 that "A decade ago, US arms sales to India amounted to virtually nothing. Today, the United States is the second-largest arms supplier to India, and US officials say they hope to increase that business," and the US focus on China has resulted in stronger military ties, with a joint statement last December indicating the intention "to further strengthen bilateral defence cooperation as a key pillar of the strategic partnership between India and the US."

Washington has been intensifying its confrontation with China in the South China sea, where in addition to overflights by nuclear-capable bombers it conducts what are absurdly called "freedom of navigation patrols" in waters where there has never been a single case of interference with any of the vast number of merchant ships that pass though every year. The rationale is given as support for the Convention on the Law of the Sea which, most ironically, Washington refuses to ratify . Nevertheless, the US has been trying hard to persuade the Indian government that it should contribute warships to join US patrols in the South China Sea, which, so far, India has refused to do . So it might be thought that the Trump Administration would do its best to encourage India to buy more US weapons and to cooperate in its anti-China antics (however unwise that would be) by keeping their relationship friction-free. But this isn't the way Trump works.

Washington's unfortunate timing of the announcement that it will penalise India in trade arrangements extends to India's domestic circumstances, because there are national elections due in April, and the party of Prime Minister Modi (an arch-nationalist and no mean war-drummer himself) was already having difficulties, and is looking shakier day-by-day. Indeed the whole bizarre affair was well summed-up by Professor Harsh Pant of King's College London when he said "the discourse in this country has been that America needs India to balance China, and the question will be: Why is America doing this to India?"

But there doesn't seem to be a sensible answer to that question.

The same holds for Washington's treatment of NATO ally Turkey, whose President said on February 26 that Ankara might buy the US Patriot missile system "if you [the US] provide us good conditions." But it's blindingly obvious that the US declaration that Turkey "should no longer benefit from preferential market access to the United States market" is not going to make President Erdoğan keen on buying Patriot missiles -- or anything else stamped "made in the USA."

There is a Russia factor in the US-Turkey relationship, because Ankara has placed an order for world-beating S-400 surface-to-air missiles, which has riled Washington, as has India's forthcoming acquisition of the same system. The Military-Industrial Establishment in Washington made its feelings known on March 8, when chief Pentagon spokesman Charlie Summers told reporters that "If Turkey takes the S-400, there would be grave consequences in terms of our relationship, military relationship with them." But this doesn't seem to worry President Erdoğan, who had already made it clear that "The S-400 is a done deal, there can be no turning back. We have reached an agreement with the Russians. We will move toward a joint production. Perhaps after the S-400, we will go for the S-500."

The signals are that Turkey is moving further away from the US and is possibly considering leaving NATO. After all, the US has torn up favourable trade arrangements, and NATO has done nothing for Turkey which is working with Russia in many spheres. The most recent example of regional military cooperation was on March 6-8 when four Turkish and Russian vessels conducted a minor exercise in the Black Sea, aimed at demonstrating and sharing techniques involved in mine-avoidance.

Trust is fostered by cooperation based on preparedness to understand differing viewpoints. Even more importantly, it is stimulated by adopting pragmatic policies aimed at establishing confidence, rather than by ceaselessly confronting and confounding others. For so long as Trump considers that "Make America Great Again" depends on confrontation and malevolence then his country will achieve neither trust nor cooperation world-wide. And when he casts allies aside with sneering condescension, taking revenge for what he considers to be unwarranted favouritism in the past, he is destroying America's path to Greatness.

A version of this piece appeared in Strategic Culture Foundation on March 12.

[Mar 29, 2019] TRUMP BY THE NUMBERS by Ann Coulter

That's a devastating for Trump post by Ann Coilter. She was his supporter in previous election cucle.
Notable quotes:
"... NUMBER OF MILES OF WALL BUILT ON OUR SOUTHERN BORDER SINCE TRUMP HAS BEEN PRESIDENT: ZERO. ..."
"... NUMBER OF TIMES TRUMP HAS CLAIMED ON TWITTER HE'S ALREADY BUILDING THE WALL: 16 BY MY COUNT. ..."
"... NUMBER OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS ENDING THE ANCHOR BABY SCAM -- AS TRUMP PROMISES WHENEVER AN ELECTION IS COMING: ZERO. ..."
"... NUMBER OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS ISSUED BY TRUMP RESCINDING OBAMA'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL AMNESTY FOR ILLEGAL ALIEN "DREAMERS": ZERO. ..."
"... NUMBER OF EXTENSIONS OF THE E-VERIFY SYSTEM TO PREVENT ILLEGALS FROM BEING HIRED OVER AMERICANS: ZERO. ..."
"... NUMBER OF H1-B FOREIGN WORKERS IN THIS COUNTRY WHEN TRUMP TOOK OFFICE: APPROXIMATELY 1 MILLION. ..."
"... NUMBER OF H1-B FOREIGN WORKERS IN THIS COUNTRY TODAY: APPROXIMATELY 1 MILLION. ..."
"... NUMBER OF ASYLUM LOOPHOLES CLOSED: ZERO. ..."
"... NUMBER OF CARRIED INTEREST LOOPHOLES ELIMINATED BY PRESIDENT TRUMP: ZERO. ..."
"... NUMBER OF GOLDMAN SACHS EMPLOYEES PUT IN TOP ADMINISTRATION POSITIONS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP: 7 -- or "more than Presidents Bush and Obama combined." ..."
"... (For someone unable to fulfill the most basic of his immigration promises, Trump has been amazingly competent in accomplishing the things Wall Street wanted, but no one else did.) ..."
"... PERCENTAGE OF THE BASE THAT TRUMP CAN AFFORD TO LOSE IN 2020, AFTER MILLIONS OF OLDER, WHITER AMERICANS HAVE DIED OFF, AND MILLIONS OF IMMIGRANTS HAVE TURNED 18 AND BEGUN VOTING: ZERO. ..."
Mar 13, 2019 | www.anncoulter.com

It is now clear that Trump isn't waiting for a better moment. This was not an anomaly. It's not an accident.

After he signed his third spending bill with no wall funding, which he claims to need, all sentient beings were forced to conclude that the president has no intention of ever doing anything we wanted on immigration.

In fact, Trump is steadily moving in the precise opposite direction of what he promised.

Illegal immigration is on track to hit the highest levels in more than a decade, and Trump has willfully decided to keep amnesty advocates Jared, Ivanka, Mick Mulvaney, Marc Short and Mercedes Schlapp in the White House. For all his talk about immigration, did he ever consider hiring people who share his MAGA vision?

A (diminishing) percentage of the base is annoyed when I point this out. They think that the moment something comes out of Trump's mouth, IT HAS HAPPENED.

Yes, Trump talks a good game. He's like a waiter who compliments us for ordering the hamburger, but keeps bringing us fish. The hamburger is our signature dish, juicy and grilled to perfection, you've made a brilliant choice ... now here's your salmon.

If he refuses to do what we hired him to do, he's not getting a good Yelp review.

I've decided to discuss the Trump presidency in purely mathematical terms. It's not his fault! He's trying! Never has a president been under such attack! -- these are more in the nature of "excuses," not facts.

Under my new approach, I will provide a numerical evaluation of the Trump presidency, which I call:

TRUMP BY THE NUMBERS!

No editorializing, no invective, no opinion.

** ** **

NUMBER OF MILES OF WALL BUILT ON OUR SOUTHERN BORDER SINCE TRUMP HAS BEEN PRESIDENT: ZERO.

** ** **

NUMBER OF MILES OF FENCE, BOLLARD OR GARDEN TRELLIS BUILT ALONG OUR 2,000-MILE BORDER SINCE TRUMP HAS BEEN PRESIDENT: 26.
** ** **

NUMBER OF TIMES TRUMP HAS CLAIMED ON TWITTER HE'S ALREADY BUILDING THE WALL: 16 BY MY COUNT.

** ** **

NUMBER OF TIMES TRUMP HAS COMPLAINED ON TWITTER THAT CONGRESS WON'T GIVE HIM FUNDS TO BUILD THE WALL THAT HE SAYS HE'S ALREADY BUILDING: AT LEAST 30 BY MY COUNT.

** ** **

NUMBER OF WALL "PROTOTYPES" DESTROYED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: ALL OF THEM.

** ** **

NUMBER OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS ENDING THE ANCHOR BABY SCAM -- AS TRUMP PROMISES WHENEVER AN ELECTION IS COMING: ZERO.
** ** **

NUMBER OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS ISSUED BY TRUMP RESCINDING OBAMA'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL AMNESTY FOR ILLEGAL ALIEN "DREAMERS": ZERO.

** ** **

NUMBER OF ILLEGAL ALIENS WHOSE PRESENCE HAS BEEN EXCUSED BY TRUMP: 11 TO 50 MILLION (depending on whether you believe the propaganda or the facts).

** ** **

NUMBER OF EXTENSIONS OF THE E-VERIFY SYSTEM TO PREVENT ILLEGALS FROM BEING HIRED OVER AMERICANS: ZERO.

** ** **

NUMBER OF H1-B FOREIGN WORKERS IN THIS COUNTRY WHEN TRUMP TOOK OFFICE: APPROXIMATELY 1 MILLION.

** ** **

NUMBER OF H1-B FOREIGN WORKERS IN THIS COUNTRY TODAY: APPROXIMATELY 1 MILLION.

** ** **

NUMBER OF ASYLUM LOOPHOLES CLOSED: ZERO.

... ... ...

Apart from immigration, probably the single most important campaign promise Trump made was to end the carried interest loophole. Most Republicans would break out into a cold sweat if asked to raise taxes on George Soros. FINALLY, we had a Republican (or Democrat) who wasn't beholden to Wall Street!

During the campaign, Trump said this tax scam allowed hedge fund managers to "get away with murder" and vowed to eliminate it. Americans who hadn't voted for 30 years said: How do I register to vote?

Let's take out the slide rule!

** ** **

NUMBER OF CARRIED INTEREST LOOPHOLES ELIMINATED BY PRESIDENT TRUMP: ZERO.

** ** **

TOTAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS IN 2016 GIVEN BY GOLDMAN SACHS TO HILLARY CLINTON: $388,000.

** ** **

TOTAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS GIVEN BY GOLDMAN SACHS TO TRUMP: $5,607 (or 70 times less than Goldman gave to Hillary).

** ** **

NUMBER OF GOLDMAN SACHS EMPLOYEES PUT IN TOP ADMINISTRATION POSITIONS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP: 7 -- or "more than Presidents Bush and Obama combined."

(For someone unable to fulfill the most basic of his immigration promises, Trump has been amazingly competent in accomplishing the things Wall Street wanted, but no one else did.)

** ** **

NUMBER OF ACTIONS TAKEN TO DEFEND THE FREE SPEECH RIGHTS OF TRUMP'S BIGGEST SUPPORTERS BEING DEPLATFORMED AND CENSORED, SUCH AS MILO YIANNOPOULOS, GAVIN MCINNES, LAURA LOOMER AND ALEX JONES:

ZERO.

** ** **

PERCENTAGE OF THE BASE THAT TRUMP CAN AFFORD TO LOSE IN 2020, AFTER MILLIONS OF OLDER, WHITER AMERICANS HAVE DIED OFF, AND MILLIONS OF IMMIGRANTS HAVE TURNED 18 AND BEGUN VOTING: ZERO.

COPYRIGHT 2019 ANN COULTER

[Mar 29, 2019] America is a banana republic! FBI chief agrees with CIA on Russia alleged election help for Trump

Comey was a part of the coup -- a color revolution against Trump with Bremmen (possibly assigned by Obama) pulling the strings. That's right. This is a banana republic with nukes.
Notable quotes:
"... "Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials who have seen it. ..."
"... Comment: The FBI now flip-flops from its previous assessment: FBI rejects CIA assessment that Russia influenced presidential election ..."
www.sott.net
Reprinted from RT

FBI and National Intelligence chiefs both agree with the CIA assessment that Russia interfered with the 2016 US presidential elections partly in an effort to help Donald Trump win the White House, US media report.

FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper are both convinced that Russia was behind cyberattacks that targeted Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta, The Washington Post and reported Friday, citing a message sent by CIA Director John Brennan to his employees.

"Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials who have seen it.

"The three of us also agree that our organizations, along with others, need to focus on completing the thorough review of this issue that has been directed by President Obama and which is being led by the DNI," it continued.

Comment: The FBI now flip-flops from its previous assessment: FBI rejects CIA assessment that Russia influenced presidential election to help Trump win, calling info "fuzzy and ambiguous"

... ... ...

[Mar 29, 2019] Trumps billionaire coup détat: Donald Trump is about to break the record of withdrawing his promises faster than any other US president in history

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Donald Trump is about to break the record of withdrawing his promises faster than any other US president in history. It's not only the fact that his administration has been literally taken over by Goldman Sachs, the top vampire-bank of the Wall Street mafia. ..."
"... The 'anti-establishment Trump' joke has already collapsed and the US middle class is about be eliminated by the syndicate of the united billionaires under Trump administration. ..."
"... Paul Singer whose nickname is "the vulture", he didn't get that nickname because he is a sweet an honest businessman. This is the guy who closed the Delphi auto plants in Ohio and sent them to China and also to Monterrey-Mexico. Donald Trump as a candidate, excoriated the billionaires who sent Delphi auto parts company down to Mexico ..."
"... Paul Singer has two concerns: one of them is that we eliminate the banking regulations known as Dodd–Frank. He is called 'the vulture' cause he eats companies that died. He has invested heavily in banks that died. He makes his billions from government bail-outs, he has never made a product in his life, it's all money and billions made from your money, out of the US treasury ..."
"... The Mercers are the real big money behind Donald Trump. When Trump was in trouble in the general election he was out of money and he was out of ideas and he was losing. It was the Mercers, Robert, who is the principal at the Renaissance Technologies, basically investment banking sharks, that's all they are. They are market gamblers and banking sharks, and that's how he made his billions, he hasn't created a single job as Donald Trump himself like to mention. ..."
"... Both the vulture and the Mercers, they don't pay the same taxes as the rest. They don't pay regular income taxes. They have a special billionaires loophole called 'carried interest'. ..."
"... They were two candidates who said that they would close that loophole: one was Bernie Sanders and the other, believe it or not, was Donald Trump, it was part of his populist movie, he said ' These Wall Street sharks, they don't build anything, they don't create a single job, when they lose we pay, when they win, they get a tax-break called carried interest. I will close that loophole. ' Has he said a word about that loophole? It passed away. ..."
Mar 22, 2017 | failedevolution.blogspot.gr

Donald Trump is about to break the record of withdrawing his promises faster than any other US president in history. It's not only the fact that his administration has been literally taken over by Goldman Sachs, the top vampire-bank of the Wall Street mafia.

Recently, Trump announced another big alliance with the vulture billionaire, Paul Singer, who, initially, was supposedly against him. It looks like the Trump big show continues.

The 'anti-establishment Trump' joke has already collapsed and the US middle class is about be eliminated by the syndicate of the united billionaires under Trump administration.

As Greg Palast told to Thom Hartmann:

Paul Singer whose nickname is "the vulture", he didn't get that nickname because he is a sweet an honest businessman. This is the guy who closed the Delphi auto plants in Ohio and sent them to China and also to Monterrey-Mexico. Donald Trump as a candidate, excoriated the billionaires who sent Delphi auto parts company down to Mexico.

Paul Singer has two concerns: one of them is that we eliminate the banking regulations known as Dodd–Frank. He is called 'the vulture' cause he eats companies that died. He has invested heavily in banks that died. He makes his billions from government bail-outs, he has never made a product in his life, it's all money and billions made from your money, out of the US treasury.

He is against what Obama created, which is a system under Dodd–Frank, called 'living wills', where if a bank starts going bankrupt, they don't call the US treasury for bail-out. These banks go out of business and they are broken up so we don't have to pay for the bail-out. Singer wants to restore the system of bailouts because that's where he makes his money.

The Mercers are the real big money behind Donald Trump. When Trump was in trouble in the general election he was out of money and he was out of ideas and he was losing. It was the Mercers, Robert, who is the principal at the Renaissance Technologies, basically investment banking sharks, that's all they are. They are market gamblers and banking sharks, and that's how he made his billions, he hasn't created a single job as Donald Trump himself like to mention.

Both the vulture and the Mercers, they don't pay the same taxes as the rest. They don't pay regular income taxes. They have a special billionaires loophole called 'carried interest'.

They were two candidates who said that they would close that loophole: one was Bernie Sanders and the other, believe it or not, was Donald Trump, it was part of his populist movie, he said ' These Wall Street sharks, they don't build anything, they don't create a single job, when they lose we pay, when they win, they get a tax-break called carried interest. I will close that loophole. ' Has he said a word about that loophole? It passed away.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/z-q5R4k_3rE

Take a taste of Paul Singer from Wikipedia :

His political activities include funding the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and he has written against raising taxes for the 1% and aspects of the Dodd-Frank Act. Singer is active in Republican Party politics and collectively, Singer and others affiliated with Elliott Management are "the top source of contributions" to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

A number of sources have branded him a "vulture capitalist", largely on account of his role at EMC, which has been called a vulture fund. Elliott was termed by The Independent as "a pioneer in the business of buying up sovereign bonds on the cheap, and then going after countries for unpaid debts", and in 1996, Singer began using the strategy of purchasing sovereign debt from nations in or near default-such as Argentina, ]- through his NML Capital Limited and Congo-Brazzaville through Kensington International Inc. Singer's business model of purchasing distressed debt from companies and sovereign states and pursuing full payment through the courts has led to criticism, while Singer and EMC defend their model as "a fight against charlatans who refuse to play by the market's rules."

In 1996, Elliott bought defaulted Peruvian debt for $11.4 million. Elliott won a $58 million judgment when the ruling was overturned in 2000, and Peru had to repay the sum in full under the pari passu rule. When former president of Peru Alberto Fujimori was attempting to flee the country due to facing legal proceedings over human rights abuses and corruption, Singer ordered the confiscation of his jet and offered to let him leave the country in exchange for the $58 million payment from the treasury, an offer which Fujimori accepted. A subsequent 2002 investigation by the Government of Peru into the incident and subsequent congressional report, uncovered instances of corruption since Elliott was not legally authorized to purchase the Peruvian debt from Swiss Bank Corporation without the prior approval of the Peruvian government, and thus the purchase had occurred in breach of contract. At the same time, Elliott's representative, Jaime Pinto, had been formerly employed by the Peruvian Ministry of Economy and Finance and had contact with senior officials. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Peruvian government paid Elliott $56 million to settle the case.

After Argentina defaulted on its debt in 2002, the Elliott-owned company NML Capital Limited refused to accept the Argentine offer to pay less than 30 cents per dollar of debt. With a face value of $630 million, the bonds were reportedly bought by NML for $48 million, with Elliott assessing the bonds as worth $2.3 billion with accrued interest. Elliott sued Argentina for the debt's value, and the lower UK courts found that Argentina had state immunity. Elliott successfully appealed the case to the UK Supreme Court, which ruled that Elliott had the right to attempt to seize Argentine property in the United Kingdom. Alternatively, before 2011, US courts ruled against allowing creditors to seize Argentine state assets in the United States. On October 2, 2012 Singer arranged for a Ghanaian Court order to detain the Argentine naval training vessel ARA Libertad in a Ghanaian port, with the vessel to be used as collateral in an effort to force Argentina to pay the debt. Refusing to pay, Argentina shortly thereafter regained control of the ship after its seizure was deemed illegal by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Alleging the incident lost Tema Harbour $7.6 million in lost revenue and unpaid docking fees, Ghana in 2012 was reportedly considering legal action against NML for the amount.

His firm... is so influential that fear of its tactics helped shape the current 2012 Greek debt restructuring." Elliott was termed by The Independent as "a pioneer in the business of buying up sovereign bonds on the cheap, and then going after countries for unpaid debts", and in 1996, Singer began using the strategy of purchasing sovereign debt from nations in or near default-such as Argentina, Peru-through his NML Capital Limited and Congo-Brazzaville through Kensington International Inc. In 2004, then first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund Anne Osborn Krueger denounced the strategy, alleging that it has "undermined the entire structure of sovereign finance."

we wrote that " Trump's rhetoric is concentrated around a racist delirium. He avoids to take direct position on social matters, issues about inequality, etc. Of course he does, he is a billionaire! Trump will follow the pro-establishment agenda of protecting Wall Street and big businesses. And here is the fundamental difference with Bernie Sanders. Bernie says no more war and he means it. He says more taxes for the super-rich and he means it. Free healthcare and education for all the Americans, and he means it. In case that Bernie manage to beat Hillary, the establishment will definitely turn to Trump who will be supported by all means until the US presidency. "

Yet, we would never expect that Trump would verify us, that fast.

[Mar 28, 2019] Carlson is saying Trump s not capable of sustained focus

Notable quotes:
"... Carlson is saying Trump's not "capable" of sustained focus on the sausage-making of right-wing policy ..."
Dec 09, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

kees_popinga , December 8, 2018 at 12:43 pm

Tucker Carlson: "Trump is not capable" Weltwoche (Anita)

Carlson is saying Trump's not "capable" of sustained focus on the sausage-making of right-wing policy.

The clickbait (out of context) headline makes it sound like a more general diss. I'm not supporting Trump here [standard disclaimer], but these gotcha headlines are tiresome.

[Mar 28, 2019] Was MAGA is con job ?

Notable quotes:
"... Until the Crash of the Great Recession, after which we entered a "Punitive" stage, blaming "Those Others" for buying into faulty housing deals, for wanting a safety net of health care insurance, for resurgent terrorism beyond our borders, and, as the article above indicates, for having an equal citizen's voice in the electoral process. ..."
"... What needs to be restored is the purpose that "the economy works for the PEOPLE of the nation", not the other way around, as we've witnessed for the last four decades. ..."
Feb 26, 2019 | www.amazon.com

Kindle Customer, December 8, 2018

5.0 out of 5 stars How and Why the MAGA-myth Consumed Itself

Just finished reading this excellent book on how corporatist NeoLiberalism and the Xristianists merged their ideologies to form the Conservative Coalition in the 1970s, and to then hijack the RepubliCAN party of Abe, Teddy, Ike (and Poppy Bush).

The author describes three phases of the RepugliCONs' zero-sum game:

The "Combative" stage of Reagan sought to restore "family values" (aka patriarchal hierarchy) to the moral depravity of Sixties youth and the uppity claims to equal rights by blacks and feminists.

In the "Normative" stage of Gingrich and W Bush, the NeoConservatives claimed victory over Godless Communism and the NeoLibs took credit for an expanding economy (due mostly by technology, not to Fed policy). They were happy to say "Aren't you happy now?" with sole ownership of the Free World and its markets, yet ignoring various Black Swan events and global trends they actually had no control over.

Until the Crash of the Great Recession, after which we entered a "Punitive" stage, blaming "Those Others" for buying into faulty housing deals, for wanting a safety net of health care insurance, for resurgent terrorism beyond our borders, and, as the article above indicates, for having an equal citizen's voice in the electoral process.

What was unexpected was that the libertarian mutiny by the TeaParty would become so nasty and vicious, leading to the Pirate Trump to scavenge what little was left of American Democracy for his own treasure.

What needs to be restored is the purpose that "the economy works for the PEOPLE of the nation", not the other way around, as we've witnessed for the last four decades.

[Mar 28, 2019] Trump's Golan Heights Move Broadly Condemned Worldwide by Jason Ditz

Notable quotes:
"... The Druze minority that lives in occupied Golan was critical of the move, saying that even with Israel, and now the US, considering the Golan Heights to be part of Israel, would still be considered to have "Syrian" blood under Israeli law. ..."
"... Jordan also opposed the move , saying they still consider Golan part of Syria. It's clear why in this case, as Israel occupied parts of Syria and Jordan in the same war, and the US recognition of the annexation of the Syrian part may open Israel to annexing the West Bank and getting US approval for that as well. ..."
Mar 23, 2019 | news.antiwar.com

President Trump's recognition of the 1981 Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights has been cheered by Israel's government, which sees it as a big political win. Everywhere else, however, the reactions are just condemnations of the illegality or the ill-considered implications of the move .

Russia and France were both very clear that the US move amounts to a violation of international law, since Golan is sitll recognized internationally as part of Syria. Britain confirmed that Golan is occupied, and only said that they have no intention of following the US lead. EU officials also say the union-wide stance will not change.

The Druze minority that lives in occupied Golan was critical of the move, saying that even with Israel, and now the US, considering the Golan Heights to be part of Israel, would still be considered to have "Syrian" blood under Israeli law.

Jordan also opposed the move , saying they still consider Golan part of Syria. It's clear why in this case, as Israel occupied parts of Syria and Jordan in the same war, and the US recognition of the annexation of the Syrian part may open Israel to annexing the West Bank and getting US approval for that as well.

The most direct opposition was from Syria, who echoed Russia and Iran in saying it violates several UN resolutions on Golan's status. Syria also added that they intend to ultimately recover the territory from Israel, whether the US recognizes it or not.

[Mar 28, 2019] Dear Mr President, while many of us disagree on ideology and values, we agree on practical things like obeying the constitution and not letting big corporations and the wealthy run everything

Feb 26, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

donkeytale , Feb 25, 2019 7:56:23 AM | link

Dear Mr President,

While many of us disagree on ideology and values, we agree on practical things like obeying the constitution and not letting big corporations and the wealthy run everything.

Your 35-day government shutdown was a senseless abuse of power. So too your "national emergency" to build your wall with money Congress refused to appropriate.

When you passed your tax bill you promised our paychecks would rise by an average of $4,000 but we never got the raise. Our employers used the tax savings to buy back their shares of stock and give themselves raises instead.

Then you fooled us into thinking we were getting a cut by lowering the amounts withheld from our 2018 paychecks. We know that now because we're getting smaller tax refunds.

At the same time, many big corporations aren't paying a dime in taxes. Worse yet, they're getting refunds. For example, GM is paying zilch and claiming a $104m refund on $11.8bn of profits. Amazon is paying no taxes and claiming a $129m refund on profits of $11.2bn. (This is after New York offered it $3bn to put its second headquarters there.) They aren't breaking any tax laws or regulations. That's because they made the tax laws and regulations. You gave them a free hand.

You're supposed to be working for us, not for giant corporations. But they're doing better than ever, as are their top executives and biggest investors. Yet nothing has trickled down. We're getting shafted.

Which is why more than 75% of us (including 45% who call ourselves Republicans) support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's proposed 70% tax on dollars earned in excess of $10m a year.

And over 60% of us support Elizabeth Warren's proposed 2% annual tax on households with a new worth of $50m or more.

You've also shown you don't have a clue about healthcare. You promised us something better than the Affordable Care Act but all you've done is whittle it back.

A big reason we gave Democrats control of the House last November was your threat to eliminate protection for people with pre-existing conditions.

Are you even aware that 70% of us now favor Medicare for all?

Most of us don't pay much attention to national policy but we pay a lot of attention to home economics. You've made our own home economics worse.

We'll give you official notice you're fired on 3 November 2020, if not before. Until then, you can keep the house and perks, but you're toast.

Respectfully,

[Robert Reich]

[Mar 27, 2019] Trump as rabid militarist: In Trump budget out of every taxpayer dollar 62 cents go to the military and Department of Homeland Security. (Veterans' benefits take another seven cents)

Chickenhawks are usually more militaristic then people who served. This is kind of inferiority complex compensation. Trump is a chichenhawk.
Notable quotes:
"... One set of moral priorities – a different one – would end our endless wars and use the vast wealth of this nation to end poverty and lead to true security for all of us. It would invest in healthcare, well-paying jobs, affordable higher education, safe drinking water and clean air for all of us. ..."
"... With this budget, Trump takes more than $1tn in taxpayer money and disperses fully $750bn to the military. Out of every taxpayer dollar , in other words, 62 cents go to the military and our militarized Department of Homeland Security. (Veterans' benefits take another seven cents.) ..."
"... The budget falsely claims to adhere to strict spending limits set by Congress for the military. But it hides an extra $174bn for the Pentagon in plain sight by adding it to a war spending account – despite the fact that the president has said he wants to bring back thousands of troops from Syria and Afghanistan. This gimmick brings total military spending all the way up to $750bn, even while the administration claims it is cutting the base Pentagon budget ..."
Mar 27, 2019 | www.theguardian.com

Donald Trump recently unleashed his dark vision for our nation and our world, in the form of his budget request to Congress .

A budget shows our values more clearly than any tweet, campaign speech or political slogan. It's what marries detailed, dollar-and-cents policy decisions to deeper political – and moral – priorities.

One set of moral priorities – a different one – would end our endless wars and use the vast wealth of this nation to end poverty and lead to true security for all of us. It would invest in healthcare, well-paying jobs, affordable higher education, safe drinking water and clean air for all of us.

The proposed Trump budget drops bombs on that vision – almost literally.

With this budget, Trump takes more than $1tn in taxpayer money and disperses fully $750bn to the military. Out of every taxpayer dollar , in other words, 62 cents go to the military and our militarized Department of Homeland Security. (Veterans' benefits take another seven cents.)

... ... ...

At every turn, the Trump budget finds vast billions for militarization, while it cuts much smaller poverty and other programs, claiming the goal is to save money.

It includes $164bn in war funding, but it cuts $4.7bn in economic development and food assistance to other nations. It finds $14bn for a vanity project military branch called the space force, while it cuts $1.2bn for a program that's built and preserved more than 1m affordable homes. It includes $11bn for contractor Lockheed Martin to build more F-35 jet fighters, but it cuts $3.7bn in heating and cooling assistance for 6m poor households.

And it includes more than $12bn for a wall at our border, while it cuts $1bn for Job Corps, the program that provides yearly training and work experience to 50,000 poor (and mostly black) youths.

The budget falsely claims to adhere to strict spending limits set by Congress for the military. But it hides an extra $174bn for the Pentagon in plain sight by adding it to a war spending account – despite the fact that the president has said he wants to bring back thousands of troops from Syria and Afghanistan. This gimmick brings total military spending all the way up to $750bn, even while the administration claims it is cutting the base Pentagon budget

[Mar 25, 2019] Russiagate is looking like this generation s WMD – a catastrophe for the reputation of the news media:

Notable quotes:
"... Is it even possible to have any sense of NUANCE to debating investigations of Trump & his "Russian connections"? It's actually possible to OPPOSE Cold War II with Russia and yet, still be suspicious of Trump's dealings with foreign powers–including Russia (how about all the MONEY LAUNDERING for Russian OLIGARCHS Trump's done by selling them real estate?) ..."
"... But, REGARDLESS if "Russian interference" had ANY role in the 2016 Election, Donald Trump is being revealed as a CORRUPT LIAR who raises the WORST elements in American life: to quote a famous witness: he's a racist, a con man and a cheat. ..."
"... The USA has become a theater state. Concrete achievements, concrete evidenve, do no matter. All that matters is theatrical statements, dramatic actions. ..."
"... Of course, the US Empire is waning, its capacity to dominate gone, it will behave rather badly. However, if sufficient fervor may be stirred, the populace may yet embrace an end-times crusade and rally round the flag, once more, to deal with foul and evil Russia, with China thrown in, just for good measure. ..."
Mar 25, 2019 | www.politifact.com

There are two certainties we can rely upon as we await Mueller's final word, none a cause for relief.

Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, author, and lecturer. His most recent book is "Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century" (Yale). Follow him @thefloutist. His web site is www.patricklawrence.us. Support his work via www.patreon.com/thefloutist .

  1. Jim Coyle March 24, 2019 at 20:59

    " The chance to rebuild mutually beneficial relations with Moscow has been damaged. "

    Why else was this narrative initiated by the Corporate Democrats? Expecting the person who lead the cover up of the crimes of 9/11 was great comedy, indeed.

  1. Tom March 24, 2019 at 16:39 Matt Taibbi

    Russiagate is looking like this generation's WMD – a catastrophe for the reputation of the news media:

    https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-million

  1. Lydia Howell March 23, 2019 at 09:27

    Is it even possible to have any sense of NUANCE to debating investigations of Trump & his "Russian connections"? It's actually possible to OPPOSE Cold War II with Russia and yet, still be suspicious of Trump's dealings with foreign powers–including Russia (how about all the MONEY LAUNDERING for Russian OLIGARCHS Trump's done by selling them real estate?)

    How do any of the nay-sayers of investigating them feel about Trump's (seemly obvious) CORRUPTION of campaign & post-election trolling for Putin's permission to build his decades long dream of a TRUMP TOWER MOSCOW? or Son-In-Law-In-Charge-of-Middle-East-Peace Jared Kushner's attempts at "back channel" (NON-transparent) communications with Russian government? or Trump himself making sure there's NO RECORD of any of his one-0on-one conversations with Putin?

    At the very least, it appears thta Donald Trump has more interests in HIS MONEY than in U.S. foreign policy.

    That any progresisve/leftist could see Trump as a "peace activist" is a joke! He's had TWO YEARS to bring the troops home from Iraq & Afghanistan & the other 5 countries that President Obama started wars on & he hasn't done it. Trump has RAISED Pentagon budget & put people with ECONOMIC CONFLICTS OF INTEREST into his Cabinet–like the BOEING executive now as Sec. of Defense.

    I DISLIKE Hillary Clinton & did NOT vote for her–or Trump. I think there are MANY reasons she lost the election -- not the least of which is her long terrible record when it comes to EVERYONE–except the 1%.

    The rooted-in-PRESERVING-SLAVERY/Antiquated Electoral College was another reason. James Comey's announcements in both JULY & OCT. 106 didn't help -- nor did, what looks like Russian targeting of specific white working class Midwest voters.

    But, REGARDLESS if "Russian interference" had ANY role in the 2016 Election, Donald Trump is being revealed as a CORRUPT LIAR who raises the WORST elements in American life: to quote a famous witness: he's a racist, a con man and a cheat.

  2. nomad March 24, 2019 at 09:57 Lydia,

    If you had disconnected yourself from the 2 party system, what do you see?
    You will see one party, not two, that associates itself with the elites, not the regular voters.
    The regular voters are just pawn pieces on the political chess board that is played with or removed.
    I see a corrupt system that both parties belong to, and its members serve it for their own interests.
    If both parties were good, where are the business, military, educational, political, financial, legal, and medical reforms that apply to everyone?
    Why are most government politicians above the law?
    Why do executive-level government get executive healthcare while the majority of its citizens get
    less than this?
    Why is the U.S hated by some countries?
    Why is the U.S. government so corrupt? If you look at the corruption index, the U.S. is negatively trending downwards over time.
    https://www.transparency.org/cpi2018?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIlvH8gvOa4QIVZBh9Ch0usQonEAAYASAAEgIfj_D_BwE
    Why does the U.S. still have so much debt from the past, the present, and going towards the future?
    http://www.usdebtclock.org/

    For our government system, it does not make a difference who is in charge after this president and its congress.

    If you had watched the movie Matrix, don't be a battery.

  3. William March 22, 2019 at 17:47

    Mueller's failure to interview the absolutely vital witnesses is obvious to those who have kept up with related events and information since the beginning. This, however, amounts to such an extremely small number that it is fairly obvious that the truth about "Russia Gate" will be as quickly forgotten as the Bush administrations lying us into war with Iraq.

  4. Bob In Portland March 22, 2019 at 15:15 This: https://caucus99percent.com/content/what-mueller-wont-find
  5. Dave churbuck March 22, 2019 at 13:10 The corrup people that are and will continue to do the never ending investigations make a lot of money.
    By do the investigations they protect the guilty which are the investigators themselves.
    They also insure that the Clinton Cartel will never get caught . Think about that. Reply

  6. O Society March 22, 2019 at 11:51 Did you see James Comey let the public down gently and try to quell the riots ahead of time with the seal of his authenticity?

    http://opensociet.org/2019/03/22/james-comey-what-i-want-from-the-mueller-report/

  7. Zhu March 22, 2019 at 01:02

    The USA has become a theater state. Concrete achievements, concrete evidenve, do no matter. All that matters is theatrical statements, dramatic actions.

    O Society March 21, 2019 at 13:07 Truth is Donald Trump is a tool. Like a weedeater or a vacuum, except in reverse. His job is to make a mess like a chaos snowmachine. Crap all over the Oval Office, the military, and any coherent notion of policy and government as being for good of the people.

    With Russia (and all other simmering wars), Trump does whatever the neoconservatives tell him to do because he has no foreign policy or ideology of his own. Don't overthink it. There's no 4D chess going on here, just pissing on things, marking his territory.

    In fact, Trump has no economic, domestic, or foreign ideology other than "Me." Therefore, any benefit to anyone not named "Me" which may come from anything he does is coincidental. Collateral damage, so to speak. Inadvertent to the hoisting of the Great Leader's social status.

    Trump is against blacks because he is white. He is against women because he's a man. He's against the regular people because he's an oligarch. Simple.

    http://opensociet.org/2019/03/21/the-american-emperor-has-no-clothes

      • DH Fabian March 22, 2019 at 01:01 Agree, and take a look at what Trump did. He reinforced economic sanctions against Russia, increased US "meddling" in Ukraine, increased US/NATO troops near the Russian border, and we've been subjected to two years of anti-Russian propaganda. And yes, Trump is about Trump. Period. Reply
      • Eddie March 24, 2019 at 12:05 Yes O'S, as I've noted a number of times before, the 'Occam's razor' POV here (which I and some others subscribed to) is that Trump basically ran for office as a PR event, to help his always shady/chronically financially troubled scam empire by getting name recognition to help fool potential investors. His stated political views were by and large entirely opportunistic and irrelevant -- - for instance, he supposedly used to be a liberal Democratic supporter who reportedly supported abortion rights and advocated for Hillary Clinton. Trump was more stunned than elated when he won on election night (you could almost see him thinking 'Oh crap, NOW I might actually have to do some WORK, and it'll be in the public eye, where I can't con people as easily as I do investors'), and his wife reportedly cried, but not tears of joy. To impute any serious political policies to the man is to vastly exaggerate his interest in politics. He never previously held any elected office, which tells us a lot. Reply
    1. Gary March 21, 2019 at 08:11 It is clear the author & responders do not understand geo-politics. As US imperialism continues its hegemonic actions, like the expansion of NATO, it is clear the Russians need to foil this aggression. How do they do it short of nuclear war? They need to disrupt bourgeois democracy in order to maintain & spread real democracy, i.e., socialist democracy. It doesn't matter that the October Revolution was destroyed which Putin said recently is the worst thing that happened in the 20th century. There is still a desire to reestablish socialism. In addition the US doesn't want that nor will it tolerate a powerful capitalist Russia. Writers at Consortium don't seem to understand this facet of geo-politics. Why? Because writers & readers here are of the bourgeoisie & are not Marxists even though they seem to be defending Russia & speak about preventing a Cold War II.
  1. O Society March 20, 2019 at 14:42 There's a clear pattern in Donald Trump's life, as well as the life of his father, and his father before that.

    They'll steal and lie and scam and defraud the public, and get away with it.

    We all know that's how the American Fairytale ends: He shat all over the place and someone else cleaned it up. Again.

    https://opensociet.org/2018/09/18/the-donald-in-wonderland-down-the-financial-rabbit-hole-with-trump/

    • Eddie March 24, 2019 at 15:22 As per your link to the article by Nomi Prins, and other similar articles going back to the 80's, Trump is easily the most financially corrupt POTUS we've seen in our generation (I was born in '49), possibly the worst ever, at least on a personal-business basis (things like the Teapot Dome scandal were more 'political-financial' corrupt, a somewhat different category, though in the end it's obviously all CORRUPTION*). It's sad that the US has gotten to this point politically -- - to have someone so ill-suited and corrupt as our POTUS -- - but maybe as some critics have said Trump IS an appropriate symbol of the crass country we've become..? If that's true or not, maybe he'll serve as a 'bottoming-out' signal to enough of the US electorate to examine our overall culture and start a correction to more humanistic policies.

      * Side note: Zephyr Teachout (quoted in the link) wrote an excellent book "Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin's Snuff Box to Citizens United", which is a very readable, informative book on that timely subject.

  1. O Society March 19, 2019 at 23:55 You can't believe the president. You can't believe anything anyone says about the president either.

    Whomever had the bright idea to make sure no one believes anything coming out of Washington DC for the foreseeable future

    Ding! Ding! WINNER WINNER chicken dinner!

    https://opensociet.org/2019/03/19/usatoday/ Reply

    • Tom March 20, 2019 at 04:02 "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false"

      CIA Director William Casey

  1. Tom March 19, 2019 at 16:18 The very fact that the servers were never inspected by the FBI but a private company that has a history of being anti Russia completely ruined the investigation and chain of evidence that breached their own laws and never sought any interview with Ambassador Craig Murray who said he knows who leaked the evidence says it all.

    Craig Murray is banned from the USA.

    Why?

  1. Anarcissie March 19, 2019 at 15:00 I was quite interested in the early reports of supposed foreign influences and hacks of the 2016 election, because to some extent computer security has been part of my métier. I soon realized that very little actual evidence was being presented in comparison with the wild stories being circulated. So I don't think it's surprising that Mueller appears to be coming up with nothing substantial (unless there's a big surprise awaiting us all). Mueller did not call a number of the obvious witnesses (as noted above) because he knew they could not offer anything.

    The House investigation is motivated by two things: (1) Democrats promised that if they got control of the House they would investigate and maybe impeach Trump; (2) CYA procedures. The main effort of the Democratic Party leadership is keeping the Left down; Russiagate was supposed to distract people from concerns like climate change, health care, education costs, and so on; the Democratic leadership's donor class wants this sort of thing to be stopped or diverted. Hence the constant focus on Trump and the conspiracy fables associated by them with him. They have now made a number of gaffes, not just Russiagate, which have to be covered up and put out of mind if possible.

    Those who went along with all this, especially those who indulged in McCarthyism, should be reminded of it frequently.

  1. Lisa March 19, 2019 at 14:13 Concerning the first charge, Russian intelligence hacking the DNC computers, there is one more witness whom Mueller never contacted, although he sent a message to Mueller and volunteered to be interviewed:

    Kim Dotcom / Twitter 8. Aug. 2018
    "I certainly know that Wikileaks didn't get it from Russia. I know who was the Wikileaks DNC source. I was involved. The Mueller indictment of 12 Russians will never be tested in Court, it's a scam, initiated by Hillary Clinton. Mueller is a political hitman tasked to end Trump."

    It seems that both sides are steering the discussion to another dimension, being frustrated in advance of the coming Mueller report. The Democrats are starting new investigations on other issues on Trump, not pushing the impeachment project further, the other side is worried that the Mueller report will leave the question open, undecided, so that everyone can stick to their original suspicions, and the country is left in turmoil. Reply

    • DH Fabian March 19, 2019 at 21:56 It was reported some time ago that the DNC servers hadn't been hacked at all. It was determined that someone who had direct access to the computers had simply downloaded a huge number of files onto ordinary thumb drives, and these were passed along, ultimately to Wikileaks. Reply
    • Norumbega March 20, 2019 at 18:21 I hadn't been aware of Kim Dotcom's 2018 Tweet, but he is one of several potential witnesses to the matter in whom Mueller has shown zero interest in interviewing.

      I discuss this matter in a long post under last week's VIPS memo. In combination this witness evidence further underscores that what Mueller is doing cannot by any stretch be considered an honest investigation:

      https://consortiumnews.com/2019/03/13/vips-muellers-forensics-free-findings/ Reply

  2. Gregory Kruse March 19, 2019 at 13:34 Paranoiac hyperbole, is it? Reply
  3. Jeff Harrison March 19, 2019 at 13:32 Yes, it's pretty clear that the Democrats want to do to the Republicans what the Republicans did to the Democrats under Clinton and Obama. Hobble the president that they don't want to consider legitimate. The Democrats have a couple of problems. One is that when there was no there there in Clinton's case special persecutor Starr was able to get salacious bits on Clinton and essentially trap him into a formal form of perjury because Clinton didn't want to admit that he had had sex with "that woman". Trump doesn't give a sh*t. God and the gang know who he's been sleeping with and he doesn't care so the prudish, hypocritical sanctimony of the evangelicals won't get him. The other problem is essentially that impeachment isn't really the vehicle to remove presidents you don't like. That's what elections are for. You can't impeach him for something he did five years ago.

    It really is too bad that he didn't depose Christopher Steele. Christopher Steele gives new meaning to the line out of the Charlie Daniels hit where Uneasy Rider says, "he may look dumb, but that's just a disguise. He's a mastermind in the ways of espionage". So, not only aren't today's Democrats very competent, they can't hire competent help, either.

    It's not clear to me what the country does when neither political party is competent.

  1. O Society March 19, 2019 at 13:19 Donald Trump is nothing more than an aristocrat. He got his family millions from his dad, Fred, whose own mother, Elizabeth, started him in real estate. It's a family of rich grifters.

    Yet the Democratic party doesn't go after all the Trump's financial fraud and scams. It's all Spy vs. Spy Russia baloney instead. Why?

    https://opensociet.org/2019/03/07/exposing-trumps-tax-returns-is-way-more-important-than-his-impeachment/

    • O Society March 19, 2019 at 17:21 Oh, I think we all know Trump is as crooked as a stick in water. There's mountains of corruption in his family, at least a century's worth of fraud and scams to hold up in the sunlight.

      The so called "meritocracy" – aka aristocracy, oligarchy, elite, plutocrats, etc – don't want to turn over rocks looking for Trumps financial corruption because they're all hiding fraud and scams of their own.

      Meritocracy itself is a fraud. These aren't our best and brightest and most worthy running things, they're celebrities and vampires, just like Trump is.

      Are you ready to expose how the selfish bastards rig the game to keep the rest of us from getting any of their so called "merit?"

      The first rule of Rich Club is you don't talk about Rich Club!

      https://opensociet.org/2019/03/14/meritocracy-is-a-myth-invented-by-rich-people/

  1. Eric32 March 19, 2019 at 13:18 The US is a bizarrely corrupt dysfunctional country.

    The two countries that (past and present) interfere the most in US politics and elections are Israel and Britain. The corrupt FBI didn't include them in its politicized "investigation".

    Due to Hillary's incompetent attempts to hide her emails from examination via FOIA requests by using her own insecure servers, Russia and all other countries with competent computer intelligence capabilities likely have all her emails dealing with State Dept. classified and unclassified info. They also likely have her emails dealing with the corrupt Clinton "charity" foundation dealings.

    Despite the above, the evidence indicates Wikileaks got the DNC emails showing corrupt activities, not from Russia or any other country, but from a DNC onsite data transfer to a USB thumb drive, which was later physically transferred to wiki (involving Craig Murray) . Seth Rich, a DNC employee whose subsequent murder remains unsolved, has been all but named by Assange as the DNC source.

    Big Russian money flowed to Bill Clinton for speeches. Big Russian money flowed to the obviously corrupt Clinton foundation as "donations".

    Bill Clinton said: "I left the White House [2001] $16 million in debt". A Forbes magazine analysis of Clinton tax returns had them pulling in $240 million over the ensuing 15 years.

    What do the Clintons have to offer in books and speeches that would pull in that kind of money?

    And yet, all the legal and press attention goes to supposed Trump corruption.

    So far at least, nobody has been able to point to any any dirt on Trump that could have been used as blackmail leverage, which is somewhat amazing for an operator who was involved in New York real estate, casinos and hotels.

    • Glennn March 19, 2019 at 14:14 Russiagate has been a smashing success. It has turned the bulk of the liberal Democratic voting bloc into Russiaphobic cold warriors who don't seem overly concerned with the almost certain dire consequences of such insanity. They seem eager to see their freedoms set aside so the rebranded Democratic Neocons can protect them from boogeymen. It's never been easier in all of human history to inform oneself, yet we find ourselves surrounded by astonishing ignorance as sites like this see their traffic from search reduced by tricks done by the corporate providers of the search engines. I foolishly thought that Trump would cause a leftward movement in the population, and to a limited degree it has. I'm just shocked at how many of my friends and family are totally sucked in by Russiagate and surrounding manipulations. I see no sign that they learned anything from the 2016 debacle.
    • Skip Scott March 20, 2019 at 08:58 Yes, there would be at least as much "meat" examining the Clintons' finances as there is in examining Trump's.

      By your wording I'm not sure if you realize that you are talking about two different sets of emails. Hillary's emails for while she was SoS have no doubt been obtained by the Russians and the Chinese, and any country with an interest in monitoring US foreign policy that has hacking capability. That she got away with that without being prosecuted is astounding. The DNC emails could also have been hacked, but all evidence supports a leak being the source for Wikileaks. As Putin said, why would they bother to try to influence the election, when US foreign policy never changes no matter who is president. If the DNC and Podesta were hacked by foreign powers, it was likely just done for information.

      (I just re-read your comment more carefully and see that you are likely aware that we're talking about separate sets of emails.)

  1. hetro March 19, 2019 at 12:48 Also not investigated is the role of the Clinton forces, including Obama, in perpetuating the myth of collusion as cover action for a) a failed election b) problems with The Clinton Foundation. Further on the not emphasized includes the ICA of January 2017 relying on Crowdstrike, a dubious intelligence service to begin with in the employ of Hillary Clinton. The earmarks of a fantastic propaganda scheme, involving supposedly reliable agencies of the US government, are clear and demonstrable under the noses of those who still clamor there must be something legitimate about Mueller and his investigation fiasco. If we needed further indications of corruption in high places, following the Democratic Party's lead in fixing the 2016 presidential nomination for Clinton, it came speedily along thereafter, with an apparent, "Oh, gee, those nasty Russians are responsible!" response from a heavily brainwashed public. It would seem we need an official investigation of the investigation to join the enquiries of Mr. Lawrence, William Binney, et al.

    As to Robert Reich, he was "paranoiacally hyperbolic" back in 2016 and has only added to the TDS hysteria.

  1. DW Bartoo March 19, 2019 at 12:25 Of course, the Mueller investigation was never intended to definitively answer any serious questions, including why the FBI never insisted upon taking charge of the DNC computers allowing, instead, the allegations of a private firm to stand as "evidence".

    As you say, the harm done by the "Russia did it!" claim is immense and will have increasingly dire consequences as time goes on.

    The point and purpose of the Mueller spectacle is to allow evidence-free speculation to entrance the political system, not just to excuse Hillary and the financial class Democrats of any responsibility for their loss in the election of 2016, but also to shift attention away from the dismal failure of perpetual warfare and neoliberal austerity, in the service of military empire and global capitalist extraction, even as the capacity of the planet to support human existence is daily diminished.

    As long as the many can be kept distracted, the existential issues of nuclear war and environmental collapse may be avoided by the political class.

    Even such ideas as genuine health care or a more sane, humane, and sustainable economic system can be kept from ever becoming something that people ought think and talk about.

    If all problems may be attributed to Trump and Russia, then getting back to the Clinton-Bush-Obama daze of "business as usual" will drone on most happily and a new Cold War may be heated up as the next thrilling adventure.

    Of course, the US Empire is waning, its capacity to dominate gone, it will behave rather badly. However, if sufficient fervor may be stirred, the populace may yet embrace an end-times crusade and rally round the flag, once more, to deal with foul and evil Russia, with China thrown in, just for good measure.

    There is lots of great mileage in Russuagate.

    It might yet be all to end all.

    Pathetic?

    Yes.

    But what else have the desperate elite got? Reply

  2. exiled off mainstreet March 19, 2019 at 11:53
    This is certainly an accurate view of the problem. He mentions Robert Reich, who along with the rest of the 'mainstream" Democrats jumped the shark long ago on this issue, which has destroyed the legitimacy of the democratic party. Reich lost any claim on rationality by following the conventional wisdom. Meanwhile, Trump's defense against the false charges bolstered the neocon element in the Republican party. I don't see how this ends well.

[Mar 24, 2019] The Israel-gate Side of Russia-gate by Dennis J Bernstein

Notable quotes:
"... At Netanyahu's behest, Flynn and President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly took the lead in the lobbying to derail the U.N. resolution, which Flynn discussed in a phone call with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak (in which the Russian diplomat rebuffed Flynn's appeal to block the resolution). ..."
"... In this case, what Flynn and Kushner were doing was going directly against US foreign policy, because Obama wanted the resolution to pass; He just didn't want to vote for it because that would cross the Israel lobby in the United States. The US finally ended up abstaining on the resolution and it passed 14-0. ..."
"... But before that happened, Flynn went to the Russians and to Egypt, both members of the Security Council, and tried to get the resolution delayed. But all of Israel's machinations to derail this resolution failed and that is what Mueller was investigating, the intervention and disruption of American foreign policy by private citizens who had no official role. ..."
"... While I think Bibi is an idiot, I also think the Logan Act is overinvoked, overstated, probably of dubious legal value and also of dubious constitutional value. ..."
"... In short, especially because Trump had been elected, though not yet inaugurated, I think he is not at all guilty of a Logan Act violation. This is nothing close to Spiro Agnew calling Anna Chenault from the airplane in August 1968. ..."
"... Probably true, although evidence of extreme collusion with Israel eliminates any case against Russia, with whom we have far more reasons for amity. Bringing out the Israel collusion greatly improves public understanding of political corruption. Perhaps it will awaken some to the Agnew-Chennault betrayal of the people of the US. ..."
"... It's ironic that Russia-gate is turning out to be Israel's effort to distract attention from its complete control over the Democratic party in 2016. From Israeli billionaires behind the scenes to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz at the helm. ..."
"... "Whether we like it or not, the former and current administration view Russia is as an enemy state." So that is how it works, the White House says it is an enemy state and therefore it is. The so called declaration is the hammer used for trying to make contact with Russia a criminal offense. We are not at war with Russia although we see our leaders doing their best to provoke Russia into one. ..."
"... The Israel connection disclosed by the malpracticer hack Mueller in the recent Flynn-flam just made Trump bullet-proof (so to speak). ..."
"... So Mueller caught Kushner and Flynn red-handed, sabotaging the Obama administration? What of it? He can't use that evidence, because it would inculpate the Zionist neocons that are orchestrating his farcical, Stalinist witchhunt. And Mueller, being an efficient terminator bot, knows that his target is Russia, not Israel. ..."
"... So Mueller will just have to continue swamp-fishing for potential perjurers ahem witnesses, for the upcoming show trials (to further inflame public opinion against Russia and Russia sympathizers). And continue he will, because (as we all know from Schwarzenegger's flicks), the only way to stop the terminator is to terminate him/it first. ..."
"... Trump and Kushner have nothing to worry about, even if a smoking gun is found that proves their collusion with Israel. That's because the entire political and media establishment will simply ignore the Israeli connection. ..."
"... Journalists and politicians will even continue to present Mike Flynn's contacts as evidence of collusion with Russia. They'll keep on repeating that "Flynn lied about his phone call to the Russian ambassador". But there will be no mention of the fact that the purpose of this contact was to support Israel and not any alleged Russian interference. ..."
"... I think you have it right Brendan. The MSM, Intelligence Community, and Mueller would never go down any path that popularized undue Israeli influence on US foreign policy. "Nothing to see here folks, move along." ..."
"... The Nice Zionists responsible for the thefts and murders for the past 69 years along with the "Jewish Community" in the rest of the world will resolve the matter so as to be fair to both parties. This is mind-boggling fantasy. ..."
"... FFS, Netanyahu aired a political commercial in Florida for Romney saying vote for this guy (against Obama)! I mean, it doesn't get any more overtly manipulative than that. Period. End of story. ..."
"... God, I hate to go all "Israel controls the media" but there it is. Not even a discussion. Just a fact. ..."
"... I also have to point out that he "fist pumped" Hillary Clinton at Mohammed Ali's eulogy. If he's as astute as he purports to be, he has to know that Hillary would have invaded Syria and killed a few hundred thousand more Syrians for the simple act of defiantly preserving their country. By almost any read of Ali's history, he would have been adamantly ("killing brown people") against that. But there was Silverstein using the platform to promote, arguably, perpetual war. ..."
"... Yeah I found a couple of Silverstein's statements to be closer to neocon propaganda than reality: "Because this is Israel and because we have a conflicted relationship with the Israel lobby . . ." "Instead of going directly to the Obama administration, with which they had terrible relations, they went to Trump instead." My impression was that the whole "terrible relationship between Obama and Netanyahu" was manufactured by the Israel lobby to bully Obama. However these are small blips within an otherwise solid critique of the Israel lobby's influence. ..."
Dec 25, 2017 | consortiumnews.com

The Israel-gate Side of Russia-gate December 23, 2017

While unproven claims of Russian meddling in U.S. politics have whipped Official Washington into a frenzy, much less attention has been paid to real evidence of Israeli interference in U.S. politics, as Dennis J Bernstein describes.

In investigating Russia's alleged meddling in U.S. politics, special prosecutor Robert Mueller uncovered evidence that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressured the Trump transition team to undermine President Obama's plans to permit the United Nations to censure Israel over its illegal settlement building on the Palestinian West Bank, a discovery referenced in the plea deal with President Trump's first National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

At Netanyahu's behest, Flynn and President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly took the lead in the lobbying to derail the U.N. resolution, which Flynn discussed in a phone call with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak (in which the Russian diplomat rebuffed Flynn's appeal to block the resolution).

I spoke on Dec, 18 with independent journalist and blogger Richard Silverstein, who writes on national security and other issues for a number of blogs at Tikun Olam .

Dennis Bernstein: A part of Michael Flynn's plea had to do with some actions he took before coming to power regarding Israel and the United Nations. Please explain.

Richard Silverstein:

The Obama administration was negotiating in the [UN] Security Council just before he left office about a resolution that would condemn Israeli settlements. Obviously, the Israeli government did not want this resolution to be passed. Instead of going directly to the Obama administration, with which they had terrible relations, they went to Trump instead. They approached Michael Flynn and Jared Kushner became involved in this. While they were in the transition and before having any official capacity, they negotiated with various members of the Security Council to try to quash the settlement resolution.

One of the issues here which is little known is the Logan Act, which was passed at the foundation of our republic and was designed to prevent private citizens from usurping the foreign policy prerogatives of the executive. It criminalized any private citizen who attempted to negotiate with an enemy country over any foreign policy issue.

In this case, what Flynn and Kushner were doing was going directly against US foreign policy, because Obama wanted the resolution to pass; He just didn't want to vote for it because that would cross the Israel lobby in the United States. The US finally ended up abstaining on the resolution and it passed 14-0.

But before that happened, Flynn went to the Russians and to Egypt, both members of the Security Council, and tried to get the resolution delayed. But all of Israel's machinations to derail this resolution failed and that is what Mueller was investigating, the intervention and disruption of American foreign policy by private citizens who had no official role.

This speaks to the power of the Israel lobby and of Israel itself to disrupt our foreign policy. Very few people have ever been charged with committing an illegal act by advocating on behalf of Israel. That is one of the reasons why this is such an important development. Until now, the lobby has really ruled supreme on the issue of Israel and Palestine in US foreign policy. Now it is possible that a private citizen will actually be made to pay a price for that.

This is an important development because the lobby till now has run roughshod over our foreign policy in this area and this may act as a restraining order against blatant disruption of US foreign policy by people like this.

Bernstein: So this information is a part of Michael Flynn's plea. Anyone studying this would learn something about Michael Flynn and it would be part of the prosecution's investigation.

Silverstein:

That's absolutely right. One thing to note here is that it is reporters who have raised the issue of the Logan Act, not Mueller or Flynn's people or anyone in the Trump administration. But I do think that Logan is a very important part of this plea deal, even if it is not mentioned explicitly.

Bernstein: If the special prosecutor had smoking-gun information that the Trump administration colluded with Russia, in the way they colluded with Israel before coming to power, this would be a huge revelation. But it is definitely collusion when it comes to Israel.

Silverstein: Absolutely. If this were Russia, it would be on the front page of every major newspaper in the United States and the leading story on the TV news. Because this is Israel and because we have a conflicted relationship with the Israel lobby and they have so much influence on US policy concerning Israel, it has managed to stay on the back burner. Only two or three media outlets besides mine have raised this issue of Logan and collusion. Kushner and Flynn may be the first American citizens charged under the Logan Act for interfering on behalf of Israel in our foreign policy. This is a huge issue and it has hardly been raised at all.

Bernstein: As you know, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC has made a career out of investigating the Russia-gate charges. She says that she has read all this material carefully, so she must have read about Flynn and Israel, but I haven't heard her on this issue at all.

Silverstein:

Even progressive journalists, who you'd think would be going after this with a vengeance, are frightened off by the fact the lobby really bites back. So, aside from outlets like the Intercept and the Electronic Intifada, there is a lot of hesitation about going after the Israel lobby. People are afraid because they know that there is a high price to be paid. It goes from being purely journalism to being a personal and political vendetta when they get you in their sights. In fact, one of the reasons I feel my blog is so important is that what I do is challenge Israeli policy and Israeli intervention in places where it doesn't belong.

Bernstein: Jared Kushner is the point man for the Trump administration on Israel. He has talked about having a "vision for peace." Do you think it is a problem that this is someone with a long, close relationship with the prime minister of Israel and, in fact, runs a foundation that invests in the building of illegal Israeli settlements? Might this be problematic?

Silverstein:

It is quite nefarious, actually. When Jared Kushner was a teenager, Netanyahu used to stay at the Kushner family home when he visited the United States. This relationship with one of the most extreme right political figures in Israel goes back decades. And it is not just Kushner himself, but all the administration personnel dealing with these so-called peace negotiations, including Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman, the ambassador. These are all orthodox Jews who tend to have very nationalist views when it comes to Israel. They all support settlements financially through foundations. These are not honest brokers.

We could talk at length about the history of US personnel who have been negotiators for Middle East peace. All of them have been favorable to Israel and answerable to the Israel lobby, including Dennis Ross and Makovsky, who served in the last administration. These people are dyed-in-the-wool ultra-nationalist supporters of [Israeli] settlements. They have no business playing any role in negotiating a peace deal.

My prediction all along has been that these peace negotiations will come to naught, even though they seem to have bought the cooperation of Saudi Arabia, which is something new in the process. The Palestinians can never accept a deal that has been negotiated by Kushner and company because it will be far too favorable to Israel and it will totally neglect the interests of the Palestinians.

Bernstein: It has been revealed that Kushner supports the building of settlements in the West Bank. Most people don't understand the politics of what is going on there, but it appears to be part of an ethnic cleansing.

Silverstein:

The settlements have always been a violation of international law, ever since Israel conquered the West Bank in 1967. The Geneva Conventions direct an occupying power to withdraw from territory that was not its own. In 1967 Israel invaded Arab states and conquered the West Bank and Gaza but this has never been recognized or accepted by any nation until now.

The fact that Kushner and his family are intimately involved in supporting settlements–as are David Friedman and Jason Greenblatt–is completely outrageous. No member of any previous US administration would have been allowed to participate with these kinds of financial investments in support of settlements. Of course, Trump doesn't understand the concept of conflict of interest because he is heavily involved in such conflicts himself. But no party in the Middle East except Israel is going to consider the US an honest broker and acceptable as a mediator.

When they announce this deal next January, no one in the Arab World is going to accept it, with the possible exception of Saudi Arabia because they have other fish to fry in terms of Iran. The next three years are going to be interesting, supposing Trump lasts out his term. My prediction is that the peace plan will fail and that it will lead to greater violence in the Middle East. It will not simply lead to a vacuum, it will lead to a deterioration in conditions there.

Bernstein: The Trump transition team was actually approached directly by the Israeli government to try to intercede at the United Nations.

Silverstein:

I'm assuming it was Netanyahu who went directly to Kushner and Trump. Now, we haven't yet found out that Trump directly knew about this but it is very hard to believe that Trump didn't endorse this. Now that we know that Mueller has access to all of the emails of the transition team, there is little doubt that they have been able to find their smoking gun. Flynn's plea meant that they basically had him dead to rights. It remains to be seen what will happen with Kushner but I would think that this would play some role in either the prosecution of Kushner or some plea deal.

Bernstein: The other big story, of course, is the decision by the Trump administration to move the US embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem. Was there any pre-election collusion in that regard and what are the implications?

Silverstein:

Well, it's a terrible decision which goes against forty to fifty years of US foreign policy. It also breaches all international understanding. All of our allies in the European Union and elsewhere are aghast at this development. There is now a campaign in the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution condemning the announcement, which we will veto, but the next step will be to go to the General Assembly, where such a resolution will pass easily.

The question is how much anger, violence and disruption this is going to cause around the world, especially in the Arab and Muslim world. This is a slow-burning fuse. It is not going to explode right now. The issue of Jerusalem is so vital that this is not something that is simply going to go away. This is going to be a festering sore in the Muslim world and among Palestinians. We have already seen attacks on Israeli soldiers and citizens and there will be many more.

As to collusion in all of this, since Trump always said during the campaign that this was what he was going to do, it might be difficult to treat this in the same way as the UN resolution. The UN resolution was never on anybody's radar and nobody knew the role that Trump was playing behind the scenes with that–as opposed to Trump saying right from the get-go that Jerusalem was going to be recognized as the capital of Jerusalem.

By doing that, they have completely abrogated any Palestinian interest in Jerusalem. This is a catastrophic decision that really excludes the United States from being an honest broker here and shows our true colors in terms of how pro-Israel we are.

Dennis J Bernstein is a host of "Flashpoints" on the Pacifica radio network and the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom . You can access the audio archives at www.flashpoints.net .

Drew Hunkins , December 23, 2017 at 5:37 pm

As most regular readers of CN already know, some dynamite books on the inordinate amount of influence pro-Israel zealots have on Washington:

1.) 'The Host and the Parasite' by Greg Felton
2.) 'Power of Israel in the United States' by James Petras
3.) 'They Dare to Speak Out' by Paul Findley
4.) 'The Israel Lobby' by Mearsheimer and Walt
5.) 'Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of U.S. Power' by James Petras

I suggest that anyone relatively knew to this neglected topic peruse a few of the aforementioned titles. An inevitable backlash by the citizens of the United States is eventually forthcoming against the Zionist Power Configuration. It's crucial that this impending backlash remain democratic, non-violent, eschews anti-Semitism, and travels in a progressive in direction.

Annie , December 23, 2017 at 5:47 pm

Which one would you suggest? I already read "The Israel Lobby."

Sam F , December 23, 2017 at 8:38 pm

Findley and Mearsheimer are certainly worthwhile. I will look for Petras.

Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 6:38 pm

If you haven't already read them, the end/footnotes in "The Israel Lobby" are more illuminating.

SocraticGadfly , December 23, 2017 at 6:10 pm

That influence is also shown, of course, by the fact that Obama waited until the midnight hours of his tenure and after the 2016 election to even start working on this resolution.

SocraticGadfly , December 23, 2017 at 6:05 pm

While I think Bibi is an idiot, I also think the Logan Act is overinvoked, overstated, probably of dubious legal value and also of dubious constitutional value.

In short, especially because Trump had been elected, though not yet inaugurated, I think he is not at all guilty of a Logan Act violation. This is nothing close to Spiro Agnew calling Anna Chenault from the airplane in August 1968.

Sam F , December 23, 2017 at 8:41 pm

Probably true, although evidence of extreme collusion with Israel eliminates any case against Russia, with whom we have far more reasons for amity. Bringing out the Israel collusion greatly improves public understanding of political corruption. Perhaps it will awaken some to the Agnew-Chennault betrayal of the people of the US.

JWalters , December 24, 2017 at 3:32 am

It's ironic that Russia-gate is turning out to be Israel's effort to distract attention from its complete control over the Democratic party in 2016. From Israeli billionaires behind the scenes to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz at the helm.

The leaked emails showed the corruption plainly, and based on the ACTUAL evidence (recorded download time), most likely came from a highly disgruntled insider. The picture was starting to spill into public view. I'd estimate the real huge worry was that if this stuff came out, it could bring out other Israeli secrets, like their involvement in 9/11. That would mean actual jail time. Might be hard to buy your way out of that no matter how much money you have.

Annie , December 23, 2017 at 10:48 pm

The Logan act states that anyone who negotiates with an enemy of the US, and Israel is not defined as an enemy.

Annie , December 23, 2017 at 6:59 pm

The Logan act would not apply here, although I wish it would. I don't think anyone has been convicted based on this act, and they were part of a transition team not to mention the Logan act clearly states a private citizen who attempts to negotiate with an enemy state, and that certainly doesn't apply to Israel. In this administration their bias is so blatant that they can install Kushner as an honest broker in the Israeli-Palestine peace process while his family has a close relationship with Netanyahu, and he runs a foundation that invests in the building of illegal settlements which goes against the Geneva conventions. Hopefully Trump's blatant siding with Israel will receive a lot of backlash as did his plan to make Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

I also found that so called progressive internet sites don't cover this the way they should.

Al Pinto , December 24, 2017 at 9:16 am

@Annie

"The Logan act would not apply here, although I wish it would."

You and me both .

From the point of starting to read this article, it has been in my mind that the Logan act would not apply here. After reading most of the comments, it became clear that not many people viewed this as such. Yes, Joe Tedesky did as well

The UN is the "clearing house" for international politics, where countries freely contact each other's for getting support for their cause behind the scene. The support sought after could be voting for or against the resolution on hand. At times, as Israel did, countries reach out to perceived enemies as well, if they could not secure sufficient support for their cause. This is the normal activity of the UN diplomacy.

Knowing that the outgoing administration would not support its cause, Israel reached out to the incoming administration to delay the vote on the UN resolution. I fail to see anything wrong with Israel's action even in this case; Israel is not an enemy state to the US. As such, there has been no violation of any acts by the incoming administration, even if they tried to secure veto vote for Israel. I do not like it, but no action by Mueller in this case is correct.

People, just like the article in itself, implying that the Logan Act applies in this case are just plain wrong. Not just wrong, but their anti-Israel bias is in plain view.

Whether we like it or not, the former and current administration view Russia is as an enemy state. Even then, Russia contacting the incoming administration is not a violation of the Logan Act. That is just normal diplomacy in the background between countries. What would be a violation is that the contacted official acted on the behalf of Russia and tried to influence the outgoing administration's decision. That is what the Mueller investigation tries to prove hopelessly

Herman , December 24, 2017 at 10:54 am

"Whether we like it or not, the former and current administration view Russia is as an enemy state." So that is how it works, the White House says it is an enemy state and therefore it is. The so called declaration is the hammer used for trying to make contact with Russia a criminal offense. We are not at war with Russia although we see our leaders doing their best to provoke Russia into one.

Annie , December 24, 2017 at 1:55 pm

Thanks for your reply. When I read the article and it referenced the Logan Act, which I am familiar with in that I've read about it before, I was surprised that Bernstein and Silverstein even brought it up because it so obviously does not apply in this case, since Israel is not considered an enemy state. Many have even referenced it as flimsy when it comes to convictions against those in Trump's transition team who had contacts with Russia. No one has ever been convicted under the Logan Act.

Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 6:41 pm

The Logan Act either should apply equally, or not apply at all. This "Russia-gate" hype seems to apply it selectively.

mrtmbrnmn , December 23, 2017 at 7:36 pm

You guys are blinded by the light. The Israel connection disclosed by the malpracticer hack Mueller in the recent Flynn-flam just made Trump bullet-proof (so to speak).

There is no doubt that Trump is Bibi's and the Saudi's ventriloquist dummy and Jared has been an Israel agent of influence since he was 12.

But half the Dementedcrat Sore Loser Brigade will withdraw from the field of battle (not to mention most of the GOP living dead too) if publically and noisily tying Israel to Trump's tail becomes the only route to his removal. Which it would have to be, as there is no there there regarding the yearlong trumped-up PutinPutinPutin waterboarding of Trump.

Immediately (if not sooner) the mighty (pro-Israel) Donor Bank of Singer (Paul), Saban (Haim), Sachs (Goldman) & Adelson (Sheldon), would change their passwords and leave these politicians/beggars with empty begging bowls. End of $ordid $tory.

alley cat , December 23, 2017 at 7:45 pm

So Mueller caught Kushner and Flynn red-handed, sabotaging the Obama administration? What of it? He can't use that evidence, because it would inculpate the Zionist neocons that are orchestrating his farcical, Stalinist witchhunt. And Mueller, being an efficient terminator bot, knows that his target is Russia, not Israel.

Mueller can use that evidence of sabotage and/or obstruction of justice to try to coerce false confessions from Kushner and Flynn. But what are the chances of that, barring short stayovers for them at some CIA black site?

So Mueller will just have to continue swamp-fishing for potential perjurers ahem witnesses, for the upcoming show trials (to further inflame public opinion against Russia and Russia sympathizers). And continue he will, because (as we all know from Schwarzenegger's flicks), the only way to stop the terminator is to terminate him/it first.

Leslie F. , December 23, 2017 at 8:28 pm

He used it, along with other info, to turn flip Flynn and possibly can use it the same way again Kusher. Not all evidence has end up in court to be useful.

JWalters , December 23, 2017 at 8:40 pm

This is an extremely important story, excellently reported. All the main "facts" Americans think they know about Israel are, amazingly, flat-out lies.

1. Israel was NOT victimized by powerful Arab armies. Israel overpowered and victimized a defenseless, civilian Arab population. Military analysts knew the Arab armies were in poor shape and would not be able to resist the zionist army.

2. Muslim "citizens" of Israel do NOT have all the same rights as Jews.

3. Israelis are NOT under threat from the indigineous Palestinians, but Palestinians are under constant threats of theft and death from the Israelis.

4. Israel does NOT share America's most fundamental values, which rest on the principle of equal human rights for all.

Maintaining such a blanket of major lies for decades requires immense power. And this power would have to be exercised "under the radar" to be effective. That requires even more power. Both Congress and the press have to be controlled. How much power does it take to turn "Progressive Rachel" into "Tel Aviv Rachel"? To turn "It Takes a Village" Hillary into "Slaughter a Village" Hillary? It takes immense power AND ruthlessness.

War profiteers have exactly this combination of immense war profits and the ruthlessness to victimize millions of people.
"War Profiteers and the Roots of the War on Terror"
http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com

Vast war profits easily afford to buy the mainstream media. And controlling campaign contributions for members of Congress is amazingly cheap in the big picture. Such a squalid sale of souls.

And when simple bribery is not enough, they ruin a person's life through blackmail or false character assassination. And if those don't work they use death threats, including to family members, and finally murder. Their ruthlessness is unrestrained. John Perkins has described these tactics in "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man".

For readers who haven't seen it, here is an excellent riff on the absurdly overwhelming evidence for Israel's influence compared to that of Russia, at a highly professional news and analysis website run by Jewish anti-Zionists.
"Let's talk about Russian influence"
http://mondoweiss.net/2016/08/about-russian-influence/

mike k , December 23, 2017 at 8:44 pm

Hitler and Mussolini, Trump and Netanyahoo – matches made in Hell. These characters are so obviously, blatantly evil that it is deeply disturbing that people fail to see that, and instead go to great lengths to find some complicated flaws in these monsters.

mike k , December 23, 2017 at 8:49 pm

Keep it simple folks. No need for complex analyses. Just remember that these characters as simply as evil as it gets, and proceed from there. These asinine shows that portray mobsters as complex human beings are dangerously deluding. If you want to be victimized by these types, this kind of overthinking is just the way to go.

Sam F , December 23, 2017 at 9:00 pm

There is a modern theory of fiction that insists upon the portrayal of inconsistency in characters, both among the good guys and the bad guys. It is useful to show how those who do wrongs have made specific kinds of errors that make them abnormal, and that those who do right are not perfect but nonetheless did the right thing. Instead it is used by commercial writers to argue that the good are really bad, and the bad are really good, which is of course the philosophy of oligarchy-controlled mass publishers.

Sam F , December 23, 2017 at 8:54 pm

A very important article by Dennis Bernstein, and it is very appropriate that non-zionist Jews are active against the extreme zionist corruption of our federal government. I am sure that they are reviled by the zionists for interfering with the false denunciations of racism against the opponents of zionism. Indeed critics face a very nearly totalitarian power of zionism, which in league with MIC/WallSt opportunism has displaced democracy altogether in the US.

backwardsevolution , December 23, 2017 at 9:18 pm

A nice little set-up by the Obama administration. Perhaps it was entrapment? Who set it up? Flynn and Kushner should have known better to fall for it. So at the end of his Presidency, Obama suddenly gets balls and wants to slap down Israel? Yeah, right.

Nice to have leverage over people, though, isn't it? If you're lucky and play your cards right, you might even be lucky enough to land an impeachment.

Of course, I'm just being cynical. No one would want to overturn democracy, would they?

Certainly people like Comey, Brenner, Clinton, Clapper, Mueller, Rosenstein wouldn't want that, would they?

Joe Tedesky , December 23, 2017 at 10:33 pm

I just can't see any special prosecutor investigating Israel-Gate. Between what the Zionist donors donate to these creepy politicians, too what goods they have on these same mischievous politicians, I just can't see any investigation into Israel's collusion with the Trump Administration going anywhere. Netanyahu isn't Putin, and Russia isn't Israel. Plus, Israel is considered a U.S. ally, while Russia is being marked as a Washington rival. Sorry, this news regarding Israel isn't going to be ranted on about for the next 18 months, like the MSM has done with Russia, because our dear old Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, or so they tell us. So, don't get your hopes up.

JWalters , December 24, 2017 at 3:33 am

It's true the Israelis have America's politicians by the ears and the balls. But as this story gets better known, politicians will start getting questions at their town meetings. Increasingly the politicians will gag on what Israel is force-feeding them, until finally they reach a critical mass of vomit in Congress.

Joe Tedesky , December 24, 2017 at 11:12 am

I hope you are right JWalters. Although relying on a Zionist controlled MSM doesn't give hope for the news getting out properly. Again I hope you are right JWalters. Joe

Jeff Blankfort , December 24, 2017 at 12:18 am

Actually, Netanyahu was so desperate to have the resolution pulled and not voted on that he reached out to any country that might help him after the foreign minister of New Zealand, one of its co-sponsors refused to pull the plug after a testy phone exchange with the Israeli PM ending up threatening an Israeli boycott oturnef the KIwis.

He then turned to his buddy, Vladimir Putin, who owed him a favor for having Israel's UN delegate absent himself for the UNGA vote on sanctioning Russia after its annexation of Crimea.

Putin then called Russia's UN Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, since deceased, and asked him to get the other UNSC ambassadors to postpone the vote until Trump took over the White House but the other ambassadors weren't buying it. Given Russia's historic public position regarding the settlements, Churkin had no choice to vote Yes with the others.

This story was reported in detail in the Israeli press but blacked out in the US which, due to Zionist influence on the media, does not want the American public to know about the close ties between Putin and Netanyahu which has led to the Israeli PM making five state visits there in the last year and a half.

Had Clinton won the White House we can assume that there would have been no US veto. That Netanyahu apparently knew in advance that the US planned to veto the resolution was, I suspect, leaked to the Israelis by US delegate Samantha Power, who was clearly unhappy at having to abstain.

Abe , December 24, 2017 at 12:39 am

The Israeli Prime Minister made five state visits to Russia in the last year and a half to make sure the Russians don't accidentally on purpose blast Israeli warplanes from the sky over Syria (like they oughtta). Putin tries not to snicker when Netanyahu bloviates ad nauseum about the purported "threat" posed by Iran.

argos , December 24, 2017 at 7:00 am

He thinks Putin is a RATS ASS like the yankee government

JWalters , December 24, 2017 at 3:34 am

"This story was reported in detail in the Israeli press but blacked out in the US"

We've just had a whole cluster of big stories involving Israel that have all been essentially blacked out in the US press. e.g.
"Dionne and Shields ignore the Adelson in the room"
http://mondoweiss.net/2017/12/jerusalem-israels-capital

This is not due to chance. There is no doubt that the US mainstream media is wholly controlled by the Israelis.

alley cat , December 24, 2017 at 4:49 am

"He [Netanyahu] then turned to his buddy, Vladimir Putin "

Jeff, that characterization of Putin and Netanyahu's relationship makes no sense, since the Russians have consistently opposed Zionism and Putin has been no exception, having spoiled Zionist plans for the destruction of Syria.

"Had Clinton won the White House we can assume that there would have been no US veto."

Not sure where you're going with that, since the US vote was up to Obama, who wanted to get some payback for all of Bibi's efforts to sabotage Obama's treaty with Iran.

For the record, Zionism has had no more rabid supporter than the Dragon Lady. If we're going to make assumptions, we could start by assuming that if she had won the White House we'd all be dead by now, thanks to her obsession (at the instigation of her Zionist/neocon sponsors) with declaring no-fly zones in Syria.

Brendan , December 24, 2017 at 6:18 am

Trump and Kushner have nothing to worry about, even if a smoking gun is found that proves their collusion with Israel. That's because the entire political and media establishment will simply ignore the Israeli connection.

Journalists and politicians will even continue to present Mike Flynn's contacts as evidence of collusion with Russia. They'll keep on repeating that "Flynn lied about his phone call to the Russian ambassador". But there will be no mention of the fact that the purpose of this contact was to support Israel and not any alleged Russian interference.

Skip Scott , December 24, 2017 at 7:59 am

I think you have it right Brendan. The MSM, Intelligence Community, and Mueller would never go down any path that popularized undue Israeli influence on US foreign policy. "Nothing to see here folks, move along."

argos , December 24, 2017 at 6:57 am

The zionist will stop at nothing to control the middle east with American taxpayers money/military equiptment its a win win for the zionist they control America lock stock and barrel a pity though it is a great country to be led by a jewish entity.

Herman , December 24, 2017 at 10:47 am

What will Israel-Palestine look like twenty years from now? Will it remain an apartheid regime, a regime without any Palestinians, or something different. The Trump decision, which the world rejects, brings the issue of "final" settlement to the fore. In a way we can go back to the thirties and the British Mandate. Jewish were fleeing Europe, many coming to Palestine. The British, on behalf of the Zionists, were delaying declaring Palestine a state with control of its own affairs. Seeing the mass immigration and chafing at British foot dragging, the Arabs rebelled, What happened then was that the British, responding to numerous pressures notably war with Germany, acted by granting independence and granting Palestine control of its borders.

With American pressure and the mass exodus of Jews from Europe, Jews defied the British resulting in Jewish resistance. What followed then was a UN plan to divide the land with a Jerusalem an international city administered by the UN. The Arabs rebelled and lost much of what the UN plan provided and Jerusalem as an international city was scrapped.

Will there be a second serious attempt to settle the issue of the land and the status of Jerusalem? Will there be a serious move toward a single state? How will the matter of Jerusalem be resolved. The two state solution has always been a fantasy and acquiescence of Palestinians to engage in this charade exposes their leaders to charges of posturing for perks. Imagined options could go on and on but will there be serious options placed before the world community or will the boots on the ground Israeli policies continue?

As I have commented before, it will most probably be the Jewish community in Israel and the world that shapes the future and if the matter is to be resolved that is fair to both parties, it will be they that starts the ball rolling.

Zachary Smith , December 24, 2017 at 1:34 pm

As I have commented before, it will most probably be the Jewish community in Israel and the world that shapes the future and if the matter is to be resolved that is fair to both parties, it will be they that starts the ball rolling.

The Nice Zionists responsible for the thefts and murders for the past 69 years along with the "Jewish Community" in the rest of the world will resolve the matter so as to be fair to both parties. This is mind-boggling fantasy.

Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 5:56 pm

Truly mind-boggling. Ahistorical, and as you say, fantasy.

Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 5:48 pm

FFS, Netanyahu aired a political commercial in Florida for Romney saying vote for this guy (against Obama)! I mean, it doesn't get any more overtly manipulative than that. Period. End of story.

$50K of Facebook ads about puppies pales in comparison to that blatant, prima facia, public manipulation. God, I hate to go all "Israel controls the media" but there it is. Not even a discussion. Just a fact.

Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 6:11 pm

Just for the record, Richard Silverstein blocked me on Twitter because I pointed out that he slammed someone who was suggesting that the Assad government was fighting for its (Syria's) life by fighting terrorists. Actually, more specifically, because of that he read my "Free Palestine" bio on Twitter and called me a Hamas supporter (no Hamas mentioned) and a "moron" for some seeming contradiction.

I also have to point out that he "fist pumped" Hillary Clinton at Mohammed Ali's eulogy. If he's as astute as he purports to be, he has to know that Hillary would have invaded Syria and killed a few hundred thousand more Syrians for the simple act of defiantly preserving their country. By almost any read of Ali's history, he would have been adamantly ("killing brown people") against that. But there was Silverstein using the platform to promote, arguably, perpetual war.

Silverstein is probably not a good (ie. consistent) arbiter of Israeli impact on US politics. Just sayin'.

I wish it were otherwise.

Taras 77 , December 24, 2017 at 6:35 pm

https://www.therussophile.org/virus-found-inside-dnc-server-is-linked-to-a-company-based-in-pakistan.html/

This may be a tad ot but it relates to the alleged hacking of the DNC, the role debbie wasserman schultz plays in the spy ring (awan bros) in house of rep servers: I have long suspected that mossad has their fingers in this entire mess. FWIW

Good site, BTW.

Zachary Smith , December 24, 2017 at 7:35 pm

I can't recall why I removed the Tikun Olam site from my bookmarks – it happened quite a while back. Generally I do that when I feel the blogger crossed some kind of personal red line. Something Mr. Silverstein wrote put him over that line with me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/us/06leak.html?hp

In the course of a search I found that at the neocon NYT. Mr. Silverstein claims several things I find unbelievable, and from that alone I wonder about his ultimate motives. I may be excessively touchy about this, but that's how it is.

Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 8:51 pm

Yeah Zachary, "wondering about ultimate motives" is probably a good way to put it/his views. He's obviously conflicted, if not deferential in some aspects of Israeli policy. He really was a hero of mine, but now I just don't get whether what he says is masking something or a true belief. He says some good stuff, but, but, but .

P. Michael Garber , December 24, 2017 at 11:54 pm

Yeah I found a couple of Silverstein's statements to be closer to neocon propaganda than reality: "Because this is Israel and because we have a conflicted relationship with the Israel lobby . . ." "Instead of going directly to the Obama administration, with which they had terrible relations, they went to Trump instead." My impression was that the whole "terrible relationship between Obama and Netanyahu" was manufactured by the Israel lobby to bully Obama. However these are small blips within an otherwise solid critique of the Israel lobby's influence.

[Mar 17, 2019] The Folly of Arming Ukraine and the GOP Platform

And then Trump administration supplied weapons to Ukraine
Notable quotes:
"... This is not much of a dissent from the hawkish line on foreign policy, but it is a rejection of one of the more thoughtless and irresponsible foreign policy proposals out there. The report predictably puts the most negative spin possible on this move, perhaps because this is the first sign in months that Trump and his allies aren't just going to roll over for whatever the most hawkish Republicans want. Whatever their reasons for doing this, it happens to be the right call as a matter of policy. ..."
Jul 18, 2016 | The American Conservative

Daniel DePetris observes that most of the Republican platform on foreign policy and national security shows that the hawks remain firmly in charge of the party's agenda, and I agree. It is worth noting, though, that the Trump campaign has gone against the hawkish consensus on at least one issue. Josh Rogin reports that Trump campaign operatives managed to work with pro-Trump delegates to delete language that called for sending weapons to Ukraine:

The Trump campaign worked behind the scenes last week to make sure the new Republican platform won't call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces, contradicting the view of almost all Republican foreign policy leaders in Washington.

This is not much of a dissent from the hawkish line on foreign policy, but it is a rejection of one of the more thoughtless and irresponsible foreign policy proposals out there. The report predictably puts the most negative spin possible on this move, perhaps because this is the first sign in months that Trump and his allies aren't just going to roll over for whatever the most hawkish Republicans want. Whatever their reasons for doing this, it happens to be the right call as a matter of policy.

[Mar 02, 2019] Is Trump Already Finished

Yes he was
Jan 14, 2017 | www.unz.com
It did not take long before we knew there was no hope of change from President Obama. But at least he went into his inauguration with an unprecedented number of Americans on the Mall showing their support for the President of Change. Hope was abundant.

But with Trump, we are already losing faith, if not yet with him, at least with his choice of those who comprise his government even before Trump is inaugurated.

Trump's choice for Secretary of State not only sounds like the neoconservatives in declaring Russia to be a threat to the United States and all of Europe, but also sounds like Hillary Clinton in declaring the South China Sea to be an area of US dominance. One would think that the chairman of Exxon was not an idiot, but I am no longer sure. In his confirmation hearing, Rex Tillerson said that China's access to its own South China Sea is "not going to be allowed."

Here is Tillerson's statement: "We're going to have to send China a clear signal that first, the island-building stops, and second, your access to those islands also not going to be allowed."

I mean, really, what is Tillerson going to do about it except get the world blown up. China's response was as pointed as a response can be:

Tillerson "should not be misled into thinking that Beijing will be fearful of threats. If Trump's diplomatic team shapes future Sino-US ties as it is doing now, the two sides had better prepare for a military clash. Tillerson had better bone up on nuclear power strategies if he wants to force a big nuclear power to withdraw from its own territories."

So Trump is not even inaugurated and his idiot nominee for Secretary of State has already created an animosity relationship with two nuclear powers capable of completely destroying all of the West for eternity. And this makes the US Senate comfortable with Tillerson. The imbeciles should be scared out of their wits, assuming they have any.

One of the reasons that Russia rescued Syria from Washington's overthrow is that Russia understood that Washington's next target would be Iran and from a destroyed Iran terrorism would be exported into the Russian Federation. There is an axis of countries threatened by US supported terrorism-Syria, Iran, Russia, China.

Trump says he wants to normalize relations with Russia and to open up business opportunities in the place of conflict. But to normalize relations with Russia requires also normalizing relations with Iran and China.

Judging from their public statements, Trump's announced government has targeted Iran for destabilization. Trump's appointees as National Security Advisor, Secretary of Defense, and Director of the CIA all regard Iran incorrectly as a terrorist state that must be overthrown.

But Russia cannot allow Washington to overthrow the stable government in Iran and will not allow it. China's investments in Iranian oil imply that China also will not permit Washington's overthrow of Iran. China has already suffered from its lost investments in Libyan oil as the result of the Obama regimes overthrow of the Libyan government.

Realistically speaking, it looks like the Trump Presidency is already defeated by his own appointees independently of the ridiculous and completely unbelievable propaganda put out by the CIA and broadcast by the presstitute media in the US, UK, and Europe. The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and BBC have lowered themselves below the National Enquirer.

Possibly, as I wrote earlier today ( http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/01/13/the-establishment-is-trying-to-steal-the-presidency-from-trump-paul-craig-roberts/ ), these statements from Trump's appointees are nothing but what is required to be confirmed and are not operational in any sense. However, it is possible to stand up to the bastards in confirmation hearings. I stood up in my confirming hearing, and the embarrassed Democrats requested that the entire hearing be deleted from the record.

If the Chairman of Exxon and a Lt. General are not capable of standing up to the imbecilic Congress, they are unfit for office. That they did not stand up is an indication that they lack the strength that Trump needs if he is to bring change from the top.

If Trump is unable to change US foreign policy, thermonuclear war and the destruction of Earth are inevitable.

[Mar 02, 2019] CIA careerists are likely upset at the prospect of being shipped abroad, hence their outrage at Trump and Michael Flynn

Those Trump plans were quickly shelved...
Notable quotes:
"... I like the use of "careerist" ; it should be used more often, as it describes the motivation of a rather large number of decision-makers I've met. ..."
"... I would hate to see it used more often. I have heard of its being applied to a grad student who–wait for it!–actually hoped to have an academic career and recognized the forms that had to be gone through to achieve that. There are places where it is an appropriate description, but it is one of those vogue words (like narcissistic) which become void of meaning through overuse. ..."
Jan 15, 2017 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
nonsense factory , January 14, 2017 at 3:30 pm

CIA careerists are likely upset at the prospect of being shipped abroad, hence their outrage at Trump and Michael Flynn.
Foreign Policy Blogy 1/07 CIA restructuring proposed

Team Trump is working on a plan "to restructure the Central Intelligence Agency, cutting back on staffing at its Virginia headquarters and pushing more people out into field posts around the world,"

And the main reason Clinton Democrats are jumping on this bandwagon is that they want to blame their gross electoral failure on "external forces", not their own terrible record of sabotaging the middle class in favor of elite Wall Street interests. Their current fear is progressive Sanders Democrats kicking them out of the DNC and other party organization leadership positions (which just happened in California); hence their willingness to get behind bogus claims on DNC hacking and Russians running Trump.

As far as the FBI's Comey, notably he acted to protect Clinton when the great fear was that she'd be defeated by Sanders; notably the FBI didn't access DNC servers to look for evidence of a hack (it was probably an internal leak), and Comey's refusal to recommend criminal charges for Clinton during the primary was a service to the Clinton Democrats.

And the DNC was just so sleazy, no wonder they alienated all the Sanders supporters for the general election:

It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.- DNC CFO Brad Marshall

TedHunter , January 14, 2017 at 2:33 am

The argument is convincing.

I like the use of "careerist" ; it should be used more often, as it describes the motivation of a rather large number of decision-makers I've met.

Katharine , January 14, 2017 at 10:37 am

I would hate to see it used more often. I have heard of its being applied to a grad student who–wait for it!–actually hoped to have an academic career and recognized the forms that had to be gone through to achieve that. There are places where it is an appropriate description, but it is one of those vogue words (like narcissistic) which become void of meaning through overuse.

[Mar 02, 2019] I gather our President lectured our President Elect on the necessity to stand up to Russia

Looks like Obama really persuasive...
Notable quotes:
"... I gather our President lectured our President Elect on the necessity to stand up to Russia. (My first thought is that like that stupid charitable campaign to Stand Up to Cancer!, another place where the phrase was either meaningless or foolhardy.) ..."
"... IF Russia ever started actually interfering in our relations with our neighbors or attempted to get us thrown out of our legal bases in foreign nations, I would say that Barack Obama might have a point. Since we are the party guilty of such actions, he would do better to clean up his own administration's relations with Russia, apologize to Russia, and then STFU. ..."
"... 'Obama Urges Trump to Maintain Pointless, Hyper-Aggresive Encirclement of Russia Strategy, Acknowledge Nuclear Apocalypse "Inevitable"' ..."
"... In the best of circumstances, Obama in his post-presidency will be akin to Jimmy Carter and stay out of politics, less or less. (I think he has exhausted all trust and value.) If he goes the Jimmy Carter route; he is bound to do worse and will fade away. I don't think he'll go the Clinton route unless Michelle tries to run for office. ..."
"... The good people of the US are awaiting DHS' final report on Russia's attempts to hack our elections. We deserve as much. ..."
"... If there's any basis to the allegations it's about time someone provided it. Up till now it's been unfounded assertions. Highly suspect at that. ..."
"... My guess is the whole Russian boogeyman was a ploy to attract those "moderate Republicans" who liked Romney. ..."
"... "My hope is that the president-elect coming in takes a similarly constructive approach, finding areas where we can cooperate with Russia where our values and interests align, but that the president-elect also is willing to stand up to Russia when they are deviating from our values and international norms," Obama said. "But I don't expect that the president-elect will follow exactly our approach." ..."
"... Yes, because "U.S. values" as defined by the actions of the last 16 years have been so enlightened and successful and because the U.S. is a sterling example of adhering to international norms ..."
"... Just how deluded, ignorant or sociopathic does a person need to be that they can say things like that without vomiting? ..."
Nov 18, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Pat November 17, 2016 at 2:38 pm

I gather our President lectured our President Elect on the necessity to stand up to Russia. (My first thought is that like that stupid charitable campaign to Stand Up to Cancer!, another place where the phrase was either meaningless or foolhardy.)

IF Russia ever started actually interfering in our relations with our neighbors or attempted to get us thrown out of our legal bases in foreign nations, I would say that Barack Obama might have a point. Since we are the party guilty of such actions, he would do better to clean up his own administration's relations with Russia, apologize to Russia, and then STFU.

Which I am sure he will do once everyone recognizes that that is the appropriate thing to do. But as we well know everyone else will have to do the heavy lifting of figuring that out before he will even acknowledge the possibility.

Katharine November 17, 2016 at 3:26 pm

The Guardian headline struck me as hilarious:

Obama urges Trump against realpolitik in relations with Russia
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/17/obama-urges-trump-against-realpolitik-in-relations-with-russia

I mean, we can't have people actually taking our real interests into consideration in foreign relations, can we? That would be so–unexceptional.

JSM November 17, 2016 at 10:15 pm

Why not make it affirmative?

'Obama Urges Trump to Maintain Pointless, Hyper-Aggresive Encirclement of Russia Strategy, Acknowledge Nuclear Apocalypse "Inevitable"'

Knot Galt November 17, 2016 at 3:46 pm

In the best of circumstances, Obama in his post-presidency will be akin to Jimmy Carter and stay out of politics, less or less. (I think he has exhausted all trust and value.) If he goes the Jimmy Carter route; he is bound to do worse and will fade away. I don't think he'll go the Clinton route unless Michelle tries to run for office.

In this case, Obama is probably too vain and Michelle being the saner of the two might rein him in? Best of any world would, as you say, STFU. (As the Ex Prez. Obamamometer, that is probably not in the cards.)

OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL November 18, 2016 at 12:28 am

Maybe he will end up like Geo Bush, sitting in the bathtub drooling while he paints childish self-portraits
Or maybe he will end up like OJ, where he tries to go hang out with all his cool friends and they tell him to get lost

Adamski November 18, 2016 at 5:18 am

Ppl still mention him as a master orator, etc. Lots of post presidency speaking engagements I suppose. I'd prefer him not to but then again if he makes enough annually from it to beat the Clintons we might get the satisfaction of annoying them

JTMcPhee November 17, 2016 at 3:53 pm

"legal bases in foreign nations " Another reason why "we" are Fokked, thinking like that.

JSM November 17, 2016 at 4:48 pm

The good people of the US are awaiting DHS' final report on Russia's attempts to hack our elections. We deserve as much.

Steve C November 17, 2016 at 5:08 pm

If there's any basis to the allegations it's about time someone provided it. Up till now it's been unfounded assertions. Highly suspect at that.

NotTimothyGeithner November 17, 2016 at 6:11 pm

My guess is the whole Russian boogeyman was a ploy to attract those "moderate Republicans" who liked Romney.

timbers November 17, 2016 at 5:43 pm

"My hope is that the president-elect coming in takes a similarly constructive approach, finding areas where we can cooperate with Russia where our values and interests align, but that the president-elect also is willing to stand up to Russia when they are deviating from our values and international norms," Obama said. "But I don't expect that the president-elect will follow exactly our approach." What Obama is saying is he wants Russia to join America in bombing hospitals, schools, children, doctors, public facilities like water treatment plants, bridges, weddings, homes, and civilians to list just few – while arming and supporting terrorists for regime change. And if anyone points this out, Russia like the US is supposed to say "I know you are but what am I?"

RMO November 17, 2016 at 6:28 pm

Yes, because "U.S. values" as defined by the actions of the last 16 years have been so enlightened and successful and because the U.S. is a sterling example of adhering to international norms

Just how deluded, ignorant or sociopathic does a person need to be that they can say things like that without vomiting?

Lemmy November 17, 2016 at 2:42 pm

Is this the same Russia that just hacked our election and subverted our fine democracy? Why, President Obama, I believe it behooves you to stand up to Russia yourself. Show President-Elect Trump how it is done sir!

[Mar 02, 2019] Cohen Testimony is the Beginning of the End of Russiagate

Mar 02, 2019 | nationalinterest.org

The National Interest

Cohen tried to describe his former boss to those gathered and watching in terms befitting the unique political phenomenon that has captured American politics for almost four years. "Mr. Trump is an enigma," said Cohen. "He is complicated, as am I. He has both good and bad, as do we all. But the bad far outweighs the good, and since taking office, he has become the worst version of himself."

[Mar 01, 2019] ...a nation divided against itself ...

Feb 28, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"For more than two years, the United States and the world have had two competing narratives: that an elected president of the United States was a Russian agent whom the Kremlin helped elect; and its rival narrative that senior officials of the Justice Department, FBI, CIA, and other national intelligence organizations had repeatedly lied under oath, misinformed federal officials, and meddled in partisan political matters illegally and unconstitutionally and had effectively tried to influence the outcome of a presidential election, and then undo its result by falsely propagating the first narrative. It is now obvious and indisputable that the second narrative is the correct one.

The authors, accomplices, and dupes of this attempted overthrow of constitutional government are now well along in reciting their misconduct without embarrassment or remorse because -- in fired FBI Director James Comey's formulation -- a "higher duty" than the oath they swore to uphold the Constitution compelled them.

Or -- in fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's words -- "the threat" was too great. Nevermind that the nature of "the threat" was that the people might elect someone he and Comey disapproved of as president, and that that person might actually serve his term, as elected." Black

----------

Baron Black of Crossharbour, is an interesting fellow. In this piece he (or someone) makes the case for the reality of the "soft coup" that the Borg (foreign policy establishment) and the Deep State mandarins (SES ers) scattered across the Executive Branch undertook and for which they only now are being driven back into their dens. Black reminds me of Lord Beaverbrook, another Canadian who was a member of the War Cabinet in WW2?

The caste of US general and admirals are not I think part of the coup plot. They have their own game as a group and it is not a neocon game except for a few outliers like Jack Keane, a priest of the neocon cult.

Nevertheless, IMO Black is wrong when he thinks that the present situation is the worst constitutional crisis since the outbreak of the WBS. No, IMO, this is far worse than that. It is the worst ever. In 1860 the seceding states did not seek to overthrow Lincoln, the legally elected president of the US, even though he had been elected by a plurality in the popular vote and not a single electoral vote from the South. They simply wished to depart what they saw as a voluntary union of the states.

In this case the forces arrayed against Trump wish to overthrow the constitutional order. That is much worse. pl

http://www.conradmblack.com/1449/the-greatest-constitutional-crisis-since?fbclid=IwAR2qWyKRRnX94rYAZ4xBeWE8yscLdMA8U-bWfPYirVfCXjFiigyUcf_nIM4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Black


MP98 , 5 hours ago

Unfortunately nothing will happen to these people.
No one will be charged, much less tried..
The swamp is above the law - "laws are for little people."
We are not governed, we are ruled.
Pat Lang Mod -> MP98 , 3 hours ago
Ok. I will quit.
Keith Harbaugh , 7 hours ago
"In this case the forces arrayed against Trump wish to overthrow the constitutional order. That is much worse. pl"

Just want to point out someone who seems to agree with you on many issues, such as this: David A. Stockman .
For a sample of his thinking and writing, see
"The New Gray Lady – Comfort Woman for the War Party" , 2019-01-16

The Donald has been on a red hot twitter rampage, and he's completely justified. Actually, we didn't think the Russian Collusion Hoax could get any stupider until we saw the New York Times' Friday evening bushwhack. ...

And for lots of his columns, see his archive at antiwar.com . There you will find not only the titles of his articles, but also short summaries.

Interesting (actually quite disappointing) how little he is quoted in the MSM. What an echo chamber it is!

[Feb 27, 2019] Mueller investigation was clearly was part of the leverage used to get control of Trump

Feb 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Zachary Smith , Feb 26, 2019 1:37:24 AM | link

@Circe @100

Tump can go back and keep his job pleasing the Zionist elite that installed him.

So far as I'm concerned Hillary was the dream candidate for the apartheid Jewish state. That the Zionists have made a terrific rebound in capturing Trump seems to me to be another story entirely. At a guess, I'd say the job was done with a combination of flattery, bribery, and naked force.

I've tuned out the Mueller thing, but suspect it was part of the leverage used to get control of Trump. Again a guess, but I'd say Trump was totally in bed with the Russians - and everybody else with whom he thought he might run a scam. But this was "business", as in making promises and squeezing money out of them. Things like Trump University. With proper handling the cost of the failures would fall mostly on the "investors". And in the worst case, there was always the fifth or sixth bankruptcy.

Trump didn't expect to be president - that was a humongous publicity campaign financed by the Corporate Media. I don't think Pence was expecting anything besides getting some national exposure which might lead him becoming Senator from Indiana in 2018.

I'm very glad Hillary isn't perched in the White House, but the price of avoiding that has been higher than I expected. Speaking of the devil, I read some ugly stuff at the 2:00 news part of Naked Capitalism.

Clinton (2): "EX-CLINTON POLLSTER: Hillary will run if Biden doesn't -- or field is 'too far left'" [The American Mirror]. "After defending Clinton's credentials as 'one of the most experienced politicians around,' [Mark] Penn went on to say of the reported recent confabs between Hillary and declared candidates, "Those meetings are going to be somewhat awkward because she hasn't declared that she's not definitely running, and she, in fact, at the same time is looking over the field and I think will make a decision later in the year whether or not to run herself. Penn said the chances of Hillary running depends on how the field shapes up. 'If the party looks too far to the left and there's no front runner, she'll get in,' he said. 'I think if Joe Biden gets in, that probably means she won't run if he gets in. If he doesn't get in, I think the field will be open for her,' Penn said." • She's tanned, rested, and ready!

That fits right in with my belief that the corporate Dems would prefer Trump's second term or Pence's first term to any decent Democrat being elected. I'll be saying this over and over - while Sander's foreign policy credentials stink to high heaven, the prospect of him being "decent" in domestic matters isn't too awfully bad.

Jackrabbit , Feb 26, 2019 2:26:48 AM | link

Zachary Smith | Feb 26, 2019 1:37:24 AM | 102

Mueller [investigation]... suspect it was part of the leverage used to get control of Trump.
Well, the "Russia meddled" scare-mongering has worked well as a means of reviving anti-Russian McCarthyism. It even ensnared Wikileaks and Michael Flynn (both of whom were CIA/Deep State targets).

And, why would the Deep State allow an unvetted person to assume control of the Presidency? They are too careful for that. In fact, all recent President's have some connection to CIA: Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama. Felix Slater, an FBI informant worked for Trump for over a decade while informing on the Russian mob, and most of Trump dubious Russian oligarch connections are actually more loyal to Israel than Russia.

Trump didn't expect to be president
That's funny, given the fact that he bragged that he would win and that he was the ONLY populist running for the Republican nomination (out of 19 contenders!). And none of the other candidates (many of whom are seasoned campaigners) sought to alter their strategy when the saw Trump pulling ahead?!?!

Oh, and Hillary helped her friend Trump win when she alienated key constituencies (Sanders progressives, Blacks) and energized Trump's base by calling them "deploreables".

<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

Oh, sorry, these things are supposed to be memory-holed. Hope you and MoA readers don't suffer from too much cognitive dissonance from such facts.

[Feb 27, 2019] Trump or no Trump the next couple of years might be very interesting

Feb 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

Mike from Jersey , says: February 26, 2019 at 4:53 pm GMT

Great article.

I honestly think that had the media and the deep state treated Trump fairly, they would have still have some credibility now. But the blatant attempt to derail his candidacy only egged on his supporters. Then, the concerted attempts to nullify the election results convinced people all over the political spectrum that our "democracy" is only a "simulation of democracy" as Hopkins points out.

Don't the people pulling the strings behind the media understand what they have done? They have convinced a large part of the nation that everything that they were taught from childhood is a fraud.

Civilizations are only held together by the "glue" of shared beliefs. The deep-state-media-complex has just applied a solvent to the very glue that holds the entire culture together.

This is going to make the next couple of years very interesting.

[Feb 26, 2019] The DNC takes Deep State to a whole new level. They have this thing called "Superdelegates", which has veto power over the little people

Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

Anon [427] Disclaimer , says: February 26, 2019 at 7:51 pm GMT

The DNC takes Deep State to a whole new level. They have this thing called "Superdelegates", which has veto power over the little people.

The SJWs and Bernie bots may be too dumb to know who their real daddies are, but the Superdelegates know exactly whose ring they need to kiss to regain power: the same globalist capitalist Davos scums who now have Trump exactly where they want him, between their legs sucking up while busy implementing their agendas of endless wars and endless immigration.

The Superdelegates will never let things get too far with the socialists, they're good for entertainment, to give off the pretense of a real race. I'm betting my money on Kirsten Gillibrand -- Dems know if there's a woman who could beat Trump, she needs to be a blonde. Uncle Joe has too many skeletons in his closet. It's just a matter of time before the cockroaches come out of the woodwork and #MeToo him into the orbits.

[Feb 26, 2019] So Bolton and the like are actually acting within a current Washington school of thought. And how well the concept of interventionism has been captured by neoliberalism. The concept of individual sovereignty was used to dissolve the borders of national sovereignty, but it wasn't the individual who won

Feb 26, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Grieved , Feb 25, 2019 12:40:46 AM | link

@karlof1

I stopped by to thank you for the link to Greg Grandin you offered in the last thread. I just finished reading it, and it's a gem of historical storytelling, weaving great themes of law in a superbly easy read. The concept of national sovereignty originated for the world in the Latin American colonies, and over time the US embraced it as international law, only to discard it later, from about the Nixon era on.

What's at Stake in Venezuela? - Greg Grandin

So Bolton and the like are actually acting within a current Washington school of thought. And how well the concept of interventionism has been captured by neoliberalism. The concept of individual sovereignty was used to dissolve the borders of national sovereignty, but it wasn't the individual who won. As Grandin states towards the end:

"Economic globalisation promised a prosperous, borderless world, even as its promoters signed a raft of treaties that freed capital but effectively criminalised labour mobility."

This matter of the mobility of capital and the demise of the individual is something shown clearly in that other excellent piece you linked a couple of weeks back:

Capitalism Has Failed -- What Next? - John Bellamy Foster

I've wanted to come here to comment on it but the task seemed daunting. Foster's magisterial article traces the history of neoliberalism - almost 100 years old - and shows how the mobility of capital was always what it aimed towards. And this financially borderless world is what we live in now - how ironic that the US can enforce imperial borders through financial sanctions.

~~

So the stories told by Grandin and Foster seem to intertwine. The rich desire a borderless world to move capital freely. This has killed the prosperity of the working classes because of the ease of offshoring industry - the ultimate threat against the worker. And you can no longer restore equity to a society simply by taxing wealth, because it's too easy for wealth to flee to other havens. The only thing you can do is nationalize it, to force it to stay in-country.

I've seen this point made well in this essay on the Gilets Jaunes in France: The Yellow Vests, the Crisis of the Welfare State and Socialism by Michèle Brand . Michael Hudson also reinforced this same point in that interview on Venezuela with Saker that you linked to.

Indeed, Venezuela is the enemy of the US on both of these crucial fronts: it insists on the national sovereignty of its resources and it insists on sharing that wealth with its workers. It becomes ever more clear that the struggle for true national sovereignty can only come with the empowerment of the sovereign people, through fair law and fair distribution of national wealth.

But to do all this, in an era of borderless capitalism, takes socialism.

And this is the crucial aspect of the time we live in. Justice Holmes I think said that he paid taxes as the price for civilization. But moving forward the only way we can pay for civilization now is through socialism. This is the dynamic that all the roads lead to, inexorably.

You see what trouble you stir up when you share links?

[Feb 24, 2019] David Stockman on Peak Trump : Undrainable swamp (which is on Pentagon side of Potomac river) and fantasy of MAGA (which become MIGA -- make Israel great again)

Highly recommended!
Interview is about forthcoming book "Peak Trump" In "Peak Trump", Stockman goes after all the sacred cows: Military spending, entitlement spending, MAGA, Trump's tax cut, the intelligence budget, and the Wall. Trump is a symptom of the problem. He wanted to drain the swamp but failed to do so. He never really had a good chance of doing that, but he failed to make the most of the chance he had. We are where we are because of decades of Congressional and monetary mismanagement
All in the name of empire... the Deep state in non-particular and Trump proved to be a "naked king"
At 15:49 min Ron Paul asks the question about Tulsi... She positioned herself as noninterventionists and has similar foreign policy as Ron Paul used to have. Stockman answer was very interesting and informative.. MSM journalists are essentially federal contractor, lobbyists of MIC.
He also mentioned that Trump falls from the bait. And the appointment of Elliot Abrams was real betrayal of his voters.
Notable quotes:
"... He was smart enough to understand that the commonplace observation codified as the Laffer Curve, while true, didn't mean that DC could just go on an endless spending spree and expect increased tax revenues to exceed the avarice of politicians, though. ..."
"... No, I don't think Stockman's rhetoric was a lie. He did end up getting shoved out of the Reagan regime, after all, precisely because he resisted giving every cabinet secretary all the money they wanted and, as you say, insisted that the tax cuts needed to be accompanied by spending cuts. ..."
"... But supply-side economics is, perversely, a departure from sound economic policy in the direction of central planning . Its premise is that instead of production being driven by diffuse demand, money should be concentrated in the hands of a few who "know better" what should be produced. ..."
"... And in practice, the "entrepreneurs" intended to benefit were the businesses who already had the clout to make themselves part of the political class, not the guy in his garage designing a better mousetrap. ..."
"... The Laffer Curve is an interesting but much over-used (and badly used) observation: There is a tax revenue curve with a top to it. That is, as you raise taxes, revenues go up ... until the taxation gets onerous enough that additional earnings beyond bare subsistence strike people as not worth the input, beyond which point tax INcreases produce revenue DEcreases. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.antiwar.com

supremeborg 19 days ago ,

David Stockman was one of my conservative heroes during the Reagan years. He was the one person in the Administration who seemed to have an honest understanding of economics. It's nice to see that his experiences with the reality of the DC swamp have made him go all the way to describing himself as a libertarian, rather than a conservative.

He could have sold out, given up any modicum of principle, and simply become a multi-millionaire Republican Party establishment hack.

I would venture to say he and I have some policy differences, but it's always nice to see when someone embraces their best, rather than their worst, instincts.

Thomas L. Knapp Mod supremeborg 19 days ago ,

My recollection of Stockman's economics from those years (based on e.g. The Triumph of Politics) was that he was all-in on "supply side" economics, which is twaddle. He was smart enough to understand that the commonplace observation codified as the Laffer Curve, while true, didn't mean that DC could just go on an endless spending spree and expect increased tax revenues to exceed the avarice of politicians, though.

supremeborg Thomas L. Knapp 19 days ago ,

Yes, supply side is bogus, but my observations were that Stockman was quite critical of the spending increases that the Administration put forth. He approved of the so called tax-cuts, but he did so with the understanding that there would be spending cuts along with them.

My own recollections (I was alive back then, but not as politically conscious as I am now) were that Stockman was not endorsing the supply side theory so much as his own idea that cuts in government spending were necessary, and that tax cuts would put pressure on Congress and the administration to cut spending. The irony is that, for whatever reason, tax revenues overall increased by 60% in Reagan's two terms, yet spending increased almost 100%. This certainly disproves the idea that there was ever a revenue problem, and that it has always been a spending problem.

In any event, Stockman was just about the only person with an official capacity in DC, who actually worked toward spending cuts. Unless you are saying that his rhetoric was a lie, and he was just like all the others. If that is the case then, of course, you could always be right.

Thomas L. Knapp Mod supremeborg 18 days ago ,

No, I don't think Stockman's rhetoric was a lie. He did end up getting shoved out of the Reagan regime, after all, precisely because he resisted giving every cabinet secretary all the money they wanted and, as you say, insisted that the tax cuts needed to be accompanied by spending cuts.

But supply-side economics is, perversely, a departure from sound economic policy in the direction of central planning . Its premise is that instead of production being driven by diffuse demand, money should be concentrated in the hands of a few who "know better" what should be produced.

True, the central planning class in question was, broadly and not very honestly defined, "entrepreneurs" rather than government bureaucrats, but the principle was the same. And in practice, the "entrepreneurs" intended to benefit were the businesses who already had the clout to make themselves part of the political class, not the guy in his garage designing a better mousetrap.

supremeborg Thomas L. Knapp 18 days ago ,

"But supply-side economics is, perversely, a departure from sound economic policy"

Perhaps the most damning thing about it was that the stated goal was to increase the federal government's revenue. What person in their right mind would wish to give even more money and power to the federal government?

Thomas L. Knapp Mod supremeborg 18 days ago ,

I think you're mixing up two different things.

The Laffer Curve is an interesting but much over-used (and badly used) observation: There is a tax revenue curve with a top to it. That is, as you raise taxes, revenues go up ... until the taxation gets onerous enough that additional earnings beyond bare subsistence strike people as not worth the input, beyond which point tax INcreases produce revenue DEcreases.

[Feb 23, 2019] FBI EXTENSIVE ILLEGAL SURVAILANCE PROGRAM

Feb 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

William Dorritt , 3 hours ago link

CREATION OF CONTROL FILES TRANSFERRED FROM FBI TO NSA

"But by then, it was already too late. The FBI's surveillance was messy and involved too many agents who could potentially blow the whistle. In the wake of 9/11, the internal surveillance program was shifted from the Bureau to the NSA, and it was not long before those surveillance powers were being directed against politicians and officials in yet another attempt to gather dirt and find blackmail-worthy material on these individuals.

As NSA whistleblower Russell Tice told The Corbett Report in 2013, he had first-hand knowledge of this surveillance, which included politicians, judges, military personnel, and even the future President of the United States.

In short, this scandal is too deep, too dark, and covers too many people from both sides of the political aisle for it to ever proceed in public. If it were to be exposed it would uncover a tale of surveillance, scandal, drug money, child prostitution and blackmail that could blow up all over Washington and make Watergate look like a minor footnote in the history of political scandal."

https://www.corbettreport.com/the-real-hastert-scandal-pedophilia-drug-money-and-blackmail/

FBI EXTENSIVE ILLEGAL SURVAILANCE PROGRAM

"In 2002 Gilbert Graham, a Special Agent in the Washington Field Office of the FBI, blew the whistle on an illegal surveillance program being conducted out of the Bureau's Washington headquarters. According to the unclassified version of his complaint, obtained by the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition in 2007, Graham alleged violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillence Act "in conducting electronic surveillance as a subterfuge to acquire evidence of criminal activity."

These allegations were backed up by a former FBI Counterintelligence Specialist in the Washington Field Office, who told the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition: " you are looking at covering up massive public corruption and espionage cases; to top that off you have major violations of FISA by the FBI Washington Field Office and HQ targeting these cases. Everyone involved has motive to cover up these reports and prevent investigation and public disclosure."

According to FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, revealing the details of this program for the first time in a series of podcasts in the wake of the Hastert revelations, this illegal surveillance program -- dubbed COINTELPRO II by the agents who were asked to implement it -- dates back to the mid-1990s, when the Clinton White House was being rocked by a series of sex scandals."

https://www.corbettreport.com/the-real-hastert-scandal-pedophilia-drug-money-and-blackmail/

The main objective of the plan was to:

[SOURCE: Probable Cause Podcast #23 | BoilingFrogsPost.com ]

[Feb 18, 2019] Do You Believe in the Deep State Now by Robert W. Merry

Highly recommended!
Feb 18, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

That's a natural reaction to the revelation of Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy FBI director, that top Justice Department officials, alarmed by Donald Trump's firing of former Bureau director James Comey, explored a plan to invoke the 25th Amendment and kick the duly elected president out of office.

According to New York Times reporters Adam Goldman and Matthew Haag, McCabe made the statement in an NBC 60 Minutes interview to be aired on Sunday. He also reportedly said that McCabe wanted the so-called Russia collusion investigation to go after Trump for obstructing justice in firing Comey and for any instances they could turn up of his working in behalf of Russia.

The idea of invoking the 25th Amendment was discussed, it seems, at two meetings on May 16, 2017. According to McCabe, top law enforcement officials pondered how they might recruit Vice President Pence and a majority of cabinet members to declare in writing, to the Senate's president pro tempore and the House speaker, that the president was "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office." That would be enough, under the 25th Amendment, to install the vice president as acting president, pushing aside Trump.

But to understand what kind of constitutional crisis this would unleash and the precedent it would set, it's necessary to ponder the rest of this section of the 25th Amendment. The text prescribes that, if the president, after being removed, transmits to the same congressional figures that he is indeed capable of discharging his duties, he shall once again be president after four days. But if the vice president and the cabinet majority reiterate their declaration within those four days that the guy can't govern, Congress is charged with deciding the issue. It then takes a two-thirds vote of both houses to keep the president removed, which would have to be done within 21 days, during which time the elected president would be sidelined and the vice president would govern. If Congress can't muster the two-thirds majority within the prescribed time period, the president "shall resume the powers and duties of his office."

It's almost impossible to contemplate the political conflagration that would ensue under this plan. Citizens would watch those in Washington struggle with the monumental question of the fate of their elected leader under an initiative that had never before been invoked, or even considered, in such circumstances. Debates would flare up over whether this comported with the original intent of the amendment; whether it was crafted to deal with physical or mental "incapacitation," as opposed to controversial actions or unsubstantiated allegations or even erratic decision making; whether such an action, if established as precedent, would destabilize the American republic for all time; and whether unelected bureaucrats should arrogate to themselves the power to set in motion the downfall of a president, circumventing the impeachment language of the Constitution.

For the past two years, the country has been struggling to understand the two competing narratives of the criminal investigation of the president.

One narrative -- let's call it Narrative A -- has it that honorable and dedicated federal law enforcement officials developed concerns over a tainted election in which nefarious Russian agents had sought to tilt the balloting towards the candidate who wanted to improve U.S.-Russian relations and who seemed generally unseemly. Thus did the notion emerge, quite understandably, that Trump had "colluded" with Russian officials to cadge a victory that otherwise would have gone to his opponent. This narrative is supported and protected by Democratic figures and organizations, by adherents of the "Russia as Threat" preoccupation, and by anti-Trumpers everywhere, particularly news outlets such as CNN, The Washington Post , and The New York Times .

Trump, the FBI, and the Final Debasement of American Politics Unlike Nixon, Trump Will Not Go Quietly

The other view -- Narrative B -- posits that certain bureaucratic mandarins of the national security state and the outgoing Obama administration resolved early on to thwart Trump's candidacy. After his election, they determined to undermine his political standing, and particularly his proposed policy toward Russia, through a relentless and expansive investigation characterized by initial misrepresentations, selective media leaks, brutal law enforcement tactics, and a barrage of innuendo. This is the narrative of most Trump supporters, conservative commentators, Fox News, and The Wall Street Journal editorial page, notably columnist Kimberley Strassel.

The McCabe revelation won't affect the battle of the two narratives. As ominous and outrageous as this "deep state" behavior may seem to those who embrace Narrative B, it will be seen by Narrative A adherents as evidence that those law enforcement officials were out there heroically on the front lines protecting the republic from Donald J. Trump.

And those Narrative A folks won't have any difficulty tossing aside the fact that McCabe was fired as deputy FBI director for violating agency policy in leaking unauthorized information to the news media. He then allegedly violated the law in lying about it to federal investigators on four occasions, including three times while under oath.

Indeed, Narrative A people have no difficulty at all brushing aside serious questions posed by Narrative B people. McCabe is a likely liar and perjurer? Doesn't matter. Peter Strzok, head of the FBI's counterespionage section, demonstrated his anti-Trump animus in tweets and emails to Justice official Lisa Page? Irrelevant. Christopher Steele's dossier of dirt on Trump, including an allegation that the Russians were seeking to blackmail and bribe him, was compiled by a man who had demonstrated to a Justice Department official that he was "desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and passionate about him not being president"? Not important. The dossier was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party? Immaterial. Nothing in the dossier was ever substantiated? So what?

Now we have a report from a participant of those meetings that top officials of the country's premier law enforcement entity sat around and pondered how to bring down a sitting president they didn't like. The Times even says that McCabe "confirmed" an earlier report that deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein suggested wearing a wire in meetings with Trump to incriminate him and make him more vulnerable to the plot.

There is no suggestion in McCabe's interview pronouncements or in the words of Scott Pelley, who conducted the interview and spoke to CBS This Morning about it, that these federal officials ever took action to further the aim of unseating the president. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that they approached cabinet members or the vice president about it. "They were speculating, 'This person would be with us, this person would not be,' and they were counting noses in that effort," said Pelley. He added, apparently in response to Rosenstein's insistence that his comments about wearing a wire were meant as a joke, "This was not perceived to be a joke."

What are we to make of this? Around the time of the meetings to discuss the 25th Amendment plot, senior FBI officials also discussed initiating a national security investigation of the president as a stooge of the Russians or perhaps even a Russian agent. These talks were revealed by The New York Times and CNN in January, based on closed-door congressional testimony by former FBI general counsel James Baker. You don't have to read very carefully to see that the reporters on these stories brought to them a Narrative A sensibility. The Times headline: "F.B.I. Opened Inquiry into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia." CNN's: "Transcripts detail how FBI debated whether Trump was 'following directions' of Russia." And of course, whoever leaked those hearing transcripts almost surely did so to bolster the Narrative A version of events.

The independent journalist Gareth Porter, writing at Consortium News, offers a penetrating exposition of the inconsistencies, fallacies, and fatuities of the Narrative A matrix, as reflected in how the Times and CNN handled the stories that resulted from what were clearly self-interested leaks.

Porter notes that a particularly sinister expression in May 2017 by former CIA director John O. Brennan, a leading Trump antagonist, has precipitated echoes in the news media ever since, particularly in the Times . Asked in a committee hearing if he had intelligence indicating that anyone in the Trump campaign was "colluding with Moscow," Brennan dodged the question. He said his experience had taught him that "the Russians try to suborn individuals, and they try to get them to act on their behalf either wittingly or unwittingly."

Of course you can't collude with anybody unwittingly. But Brennan's fancy expression has the effect of expanding what can be thrown at political adversaries, to include not just conscious and nefarious collaboration but also policy advocacy that could be viewed as wrongheaded or injurious to U.S. interests. As Porter puts it, "The real purpose is to confer on national security officials and their media allies the power to cast suspicion on individuals on the basis of undesirable policy views of Russia rather than on any evidence of actual collaboration with the Russian government."

That seems to be what's going on here. There's no doubt that McCabe and Rosenstein and Strzok and Brennan and Page and many others despised Trump and his resolve to thaw relations with Russia. They viewed him as a president "who needed to be reined in," as a CNN report described the sentiment among top FBI officials after the Comey firing.

So they expanded the definition of collusion to include "unwitting" collaboration in order to justify their machinations. It's difficult to believe that people in such positions would take such a cavalier attitude toward the kind of damage they could wreak on the body politic.

Now we learn that they actually sat around and plotted how to distort the Constitution, just as they distorted the rules of official behavior designed to hold them in check, in order to destroy a presidential administration placed in power by the American people. It's getting more and more difficult to dismiss Narrative B.

Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington journalist and publishing executive, is the author most recently of President McKinley: Architect of the American Century. MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

Alternative Facts at the NYT James Polk's Realpolitik Hide 52 comments 52 Responses to Do You Believe in the Deep State Now? ← Older Comments

Ken Zaretzke February 16, 2019 at 4:57 pm

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/trump-russia-collusion-investigation-criminalization-policy-disputes/

Also very good is the blunt force trauma inflicted on the FBI in yesterday's Wall Street Journal by Kimberly Strassel.

Fran Macadam , , February 15, 2019 at 2:19 pm
You're right, it didn't change a thing in the full-throated support to depose an elected President they disagree with. The bureaucratic cabal has long had a more informal absolute veto over who can even run for President. This guy challenged that hegemony of insider power brokers, and caused the revelation that we have morphed into a Potemkin-style, managed democracy, in which we don't choose who gets to run, just which of their choices we are allowed to approve.

Such is the decadent trajectory, of republics that transition into empires, where democratic accountabilty to the governed, domestic and foreign, decays in favor of empire administrators and their elite beneficiaries and their sinecures at the expense of the majority.

People rail against Trump as some sort of would-be Caesar, but he is elected, while those permanent unaccountable "national security" czars acting in secrecy they are willing to transfer all power to, are not.

No form of popular government can survive when secret police recording everything and spying on the population become the real power.

This is a coup, in slow motion.

Kent , , February 15, 2019 at 2:26 pm
"It's difficult to believe that people in such positions would take such a cavalier attitude toward the kind of damage they could wreak on the body politic."

What we don't want to recognize is that people in such positions are, in fact, just that dumb. It is unfortunately true. While not a Trump supporter, I would be out on the streets with them if these jacka$$es had tried to pull this off. They should ALL be immediately terminated and any benefits revoked.

Kurt Gayle , , February 15, 2019 at 2:32 pm
Last night (Feb 14, 2019) Tucker Carlson interviewed retired Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz (1:04-3:36):

Carlson: "Professor, thanks very much for coming on. So now the suspicions of many are confirmed by one of the players in it. The Department of Justice discussed trying to remove the President using the 25 Amendment. What's your reaction to that?

Dershowitz: "Well, if that's true, it is clearly an attempt at a coup d'état. Relating to what your former guest said, let's take the worst case scenario: Let's assume the President of the United States was in bed with the Russians, committed treason, committed obstruction of justice -- the 25 Amendment simply is irrelevant to that. That's why you have an impeachment provision. The 25th amendment is about Woodrow Wilson having a stroke. It's about a president being shot and not being able to perform his office. It's not about the most fundamental disagreements. It's not about impeachable offenses. And any Justice Department official who even mentioned the 25th Amendment in the context of President Trump has committed a grievous offense against the Constitution. The framers of the 25th amendment had in mind something very specific. And trying to use the 25th amendment to circumvent the impeachment provisions, or to circumvent an election is a despicable act of unconstitutional power-grabbing. And you were right when you said it reminded me of what happens in third world countries. Look, these people may have been well-intentioned. They may believe that they were serving the interests of the United States. But you have to obey the law and the law is the Constitution and the 25th Amendment is as clear as could be: incapacity, unable to perform office. That's what you need. That's why you need 2/3 of the House and 2/3 of the Senate agreeing. And it has to be on the basis of a medical or psychological incapacity. Not on the basis of even the most extreme crimes -- which there is no evidence were committed -- but even if they were, that would not be basis for invoking the 25th Amendment. And I challenge any left-wing person to get on television and to defend the use of the 25th Amendment. I challenge any of my colleagues who are in the "Get Trump At Any Cost" camp to come on television and justify the use of the 25 Amendment other than for physical or psychiatric incapacity.

Carlson: I bet they're doing that right now. This is an attack on our system, I would say, not just the President. Alan Dershowitz, thank you very much.

Dershowitz: It is an attack on our system. It's an attack on the constitution. Thank you.

Carlson: Scary.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q9OlUaeiQjQ?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Bluestem , , February 15, 2019 at 2:42 pm
How many millions of dollars did Bill and Hill receive from Russians? How much of America's uranium deposits did Hillary sell to Russians during her time in the Obama administration? The New York Times informs us:

" . . . the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton's wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One's chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.

"And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.

"At the time, both Rosatom and the United States government made promises intended to ease concerns about ceding control of the company's assets to the Russians. Those promises have been repeatedly broken, records show."

(end of NY Times excerpt. Full story: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html )

I wonder how much howling and how many allegations of "collusion" with Russia we'd be hearing if the name Clinton were removed from the NY Times article and the name Trump were inserted?

curri , , February 15, 2019 at 3:08 pm

Can't imagine why career law enforcement officials were concerned with a guy they knew to be a criminal taking over the office of the presidency.

Oh, they just knew . Maybe they just knew he wasn't an obvious reliable puppet like W and Obama.

Sid Finster , , February 15, 2019 at 3:16 pm
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/11/27/leaked-transcript-proves-russiagaters-have-been-right-all-along/

About Those Russians.

Stephen J. , , February 15, 2019 at 4:01 pm
The article states: " top officials of the country's premier law enforcement entity sat around and pondered how to bring down a sitting president they didn't like."
-- -- -- --
Which makes one wonder if "The rule of law" is becoming the rule of outlaws? When the non-elected in the justice profession appear to have their own agenda.
WorkingClass , , February 15, 2019 at 4:10 pm
Y'all Never Trump Republicans have NO future in American electoral politics.
Gerard , , February 15, 2019 at 4:22 pm
Trump is an idiot, but his enemies in the lib-Dem-media Establishment are far worse: corrupt, deceitful, arrogant, and lawless. Exhibit A is Andrew McCabe.

That's why I'll vote for the Idiot-in-Chief (again) in 2020. Because the alternative makes me vomit.

polistra , , February 15, 2019 at 4:43 pm
FBI has been destroying and paralyzing unwanted presidents forever. Lady Edgar did it far more effectively than her modern successors.
aristotle , , February 15, 2019 at 5:19 pm
"The pages of this publication drift further and further into utter insanity and despicable defense of Trump. Stand up for the values of the Constitution, or something, but not for this man who is no more than a self-enriching demagogue with no understanding of the reactionary politics he uses to delude the rubes and attract asinine threadbare pieces like this one."

Actually no. Consider me the inverse of Peter. I didn't vote for Trump due to the character weaknesses Peter describes. However, what I see is a seriously flawed man who has served the useful purpose of revealing an echo chamber of flawed and self-serving biases shared by the media and political establishment of this country. I see CNN, the NY Times, the Washington Post, and even some key leaders of our security services in a completely different light than I did two years ago. I am thankful for the clarity. I consider Merry's article to be a contribution in that direction.

Kouros , , February 15, 2019 at 5:38 pm
Cannot agree more with Fran Macadam.

On that note an interesting article by one of Mr. Putin's ideologues about Putinism and why Putinism might have more viability than the smoke and mirror exercise provided in established democracies:
https://russia-insider.com/en/vladislav-surkovs-hugely-important-new-article-about-what-putinism-full-translation/ri26259

The article admits that these bureaucracies are at times a nuisance and need to be dealt with appropriately...

Arthur Sido , , February 15, 2019 at 5:38 pm
"Peter" sez: "Can't imagine why career law enforcement officials were concerned with a guy they knew to be a criminal taking over the office of the presidency."

Weird but no one has shown any actual criminal behavior by said President. Two years later still no charges. But Peter and these "career law enforcement officials" KNEW he was a criminal. Then Peter appeals to the Constitution, apparently oblivious to the fact that the Constitution doesn't make any provisions for plotting to remove the lawfully elected President because you don't like just because you "know" he is a "criminal", in spite of any actual evidence.

JeffK , , February 15, 2019 at 5:53 pm
"After his election, they (the deep state) determined to undermine his political standing, and particularly his proposed policy toward Russia, through a relentless and expansive investigation characterized by initial misrepresentations, selective media leaks, brutal law enforcement tactics, and a barrage of innuendo. This is the narrative of most Trump supporters, conservative commentators, Fox News, and The Wall Street Journal editorial page, notably columnist Kimberley Strassel."

The trouble with that is it completely ignores the ton of evidence pointing to really nefarious stuff.

Lots of times, when there's smoke, there's fire. And when the smoke is overwhelming there probably is a fire. A big one.

Sid , , February 15, 2019 at 9:19 pm
Trump has been going after the Russians since his inauguration. Therefore, those trying to remove him from office are likely the actual Russian agents. Of course they would need smoke and mirrors to hide that fact and deflect attention from themselves. It just so happens that Russian spies are trained by the FSB to accuse others of being a spy, for just this purpose. I'm looking at you, John O. (Oleg?) Brennan
Sheila , , February 15, 2019 at 11:03 pm
No matter who the President is, there is some group of people in Washington is ALWAYS trying to bring him down. Who those people are, and how large and powerful the group is, depends on a variety of factors. But a competent president manages to enact his agenda while staying one step ahead of his intriguers. Obama and GWB accomplished both, more or less because they were intelligent men of good character (though Obama was much smarter and better man than W)

While Bill Clinton's character was too low to avoid impeachment he was a smart and able administrator. Trump has both low character and low intellect so it is not surprising A. that many people want to bring him down and B. that they have been pretty effective.

Politics may be a blood sport in Washington but that's not the same as a "deep state". And Trump can't compete and win with anyone in Washington who doesn't grovel before him like the supine Senate Republicans. And that is no one's fault but his.

You wanting Trump to be a Russian agent does not make him one. It never will. Get over it. , , February 16, 2019 at 12:08 am
"If it turns out that Trump IS a Russian asset, will you apologize, Robert Merry? Because he certainly acts like one. And, as REAL Republicans used to say, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, maybe it's a duck."

@One Guy Yeah, because sending deadly aid to Ukraine is so pro-Russian. What an idiot you are!

VikingLS , , February 16, 2019 at 12:10 am
"Can't imagine why career law enforcement officials were concerned with a guy they knew to be a criminal taking over the office of the presidency. Shame on them!"

They also "knew" Martin Luther King Jr. was a Soviet agent.

Just Curiosity , , February 16, 2019 at 12:38 am
This article must have hit a nerve. Media Matters/Soros have sent out their "goons".

{BTW, isn't it amazing that Media Matters/Soros never have to worry about having any advertisers boycotted.}

{smirk}

JK , , February 16, 2019 at 3:14 am
The issue with the 25th amendment, is that the President's character flaws or mental deficiency were known and very visible before the election. Is it constitutionally proper for Congress to suspend a President for a preexisting condition that was known to and unhidden from voters? If Congress did that, it means Congress has a veto over who the public is allowed to vote in as President.
Frank LaSaracina , , February 16, 2019 at 10:19 am
Clear and convincing evidence of a silent coup by rogue IC / law enforcement community, the genesis of which was the Obama admin. Prima facie
Oleg Gark , , February 16, 2019 at 10:40 am
Forget the Covington students, Andrew McCabe and his lady co-workers have some pretty punchable faces. (Ok, I'm enough of a sexist to not punch a lady. I'd use eye-rolling and mocking gestures instead.)
tjoe , , February 16, 2019 at 11:18 am
These are the peeps that did 9.11 and took down 3 towers with 2 planes. or maybe you believe guys with box-cutters did it.
Contra1789 , , February 16, 2019 at 12:07 pm
The problem is not the existence of the deep state. It's inevitable that there will be unelected officials who will continue to shape policy regardless of who is elected President. The problem is that the deep state is blatantly working to undermine its elected leadership. If you can't in good conscience work with your President, the honorable thing to do is resign as some undoubtedly have. It's not an excuse for insubordination.

[Feb 18, 2019] The FBI Came Close to Staging a Coup

They removed both Kennedy brothers. Why not to remove Trump?
Notable quotes:
"... This FBI/CIA (plus British intelligence etc.) attempt to destroy and remove an elected President will end the same way as the bank fraud that damaged the US economy 11 yrs ago. ..."
"... I think what the Intel Agencies were really concerned about was Trump's statement "wouldn't it be great to get along with Russia." They were worried about detente, not influence. Trump threatened to remove their number one bogeyman, which would put at risk trillions of dollars for the MIC. What if he dared to negotiate a nuclear arms reduction treaty? What if he dared to share intelligence regarding terrorists with Russia, as Obama attempted before he was brought to heel? Trump has been emasculated by RussiaGate, and Mueller's "Theater of the Absurd" continues to ensure that Trump toes the line. The intel agencies don't need to remove him from power because they are the ones with the REAL power. ..."
"... In such a world "voting" and "democracy" are simply fairy tales "told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing." They exist only as meaningless abstractions used to help insure we the populace remain compliant and don't take to the streets like the Yellow Vests in France. Which of course is our only chance whatsoever to in any meaningfully way impact this completely corrupt uber-violent corporate-feudal paradise we find ourselves now inhabiting. ..."
Feb 18, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, in an explosive interview with CBS's "60 Minutes," said that in early 2017, in the aftermath of President Donald Trump's firing of former FBI Director James Comey, he and other FBI officials discussed the possibility of recruiting a cabinet secretary to help push the president out of office by using the Constitution's 25 th Amendment

McCabe further contended that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein offered to wear a wire when he was around Trump in order to gather evidence against him. (Rosenstein

denies the allegation.) McCabe said that Justice Department officials believed at the time that Trump may have obstructed justice by firing Comey, and they worried that Trump was somehow under the influence of the Russian government. In the end, nothing came of the plan. Regardless of one's feelings toward President Trump and his policies, what McCabe is describing is nothing less than a coup attempt. It's something that happens in weak or nascent democracies, following interference by the CIA perhaps. It should never happen here.

Trump has long had an antagonistic relationship with the FBI, the CIA and other elements of the intelligence community. Indeed, in early 2017, when news of the FISA warrants and the private intelligence Steele dossier began to leak out, Trump began to tweet his disgust at news of impending investigations of him, his campaign, and his business dealings.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer responded almost immediately, saying "(The president) is being really dumb to do this." "This" was to take on the intelligence agencies, the so-called Deep State, in public. A few days later, Schumer went on MSNBC to sharpen his warning to Trump, saying, "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community -- they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you."

But Trump was right. The intelligence community -- the FBI, CIA, the NSA and other three-letter agencies -- are too powerful, too entrenched and two well-funded. And they have far too little oversight. They're a threat to our democracy, not the saviors of it. That is why it pains me to see Democrats lining up behind them to attack Trump.

Presidents Come and Go

I was a member of that "Deep State" throughout my 15 years at the CIA. I can tell you from first-hand experience that the CIA doesn't care who the president is. Neither does the FBI. Senior CIA and FBI officers are there for decades, while presidents come and go. They know that they can outwait any president they don't like. At the very least, at the CIA, they could made administrative decisions that would hamstring a president: Perhaps they don't carry out that risky operation. Maybe they don't target that well-placed source. Maybe they ignore the president's orders knowing that in four years or eight years he or she will just go away.

Even worse, these same organizations -- the FBI and the CIA -- are the ones that have sought to undermine our democracy over the years. Don't forget programs like COINTELPRO , the FBI's operation to force Martin Luther King Jr. to commit suicide ; the infiltration of peace groups; the CIA's efforts to control the media with Operation Mockingbird ; the CIA's illegal spying on American citizens ; the CIA hacking into the computers of the Senate Intelligence Committee; and the Agency's extrajudicial assassination program ; to name a few.

McCabe's almost offhanded comments on "60 Minutes," that the FBI actively considered deposing a sitting president should be cause for alarm. Set partisan politics aside for a moment. We're talking about deposing a sitting president . We're talking about wearing a wire to catch a sitting president saying something because you're angry that he fired your boss. Even the idea of it is unprecedented in American history.

John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act -- a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program.


Tom , February 17, 2019 at 4:33 pm

As if we have free and fair elections?

Hillary and the DNC stole the nomination from Sanders and gave Sanders voters a stiff middle finger meanwhile Hillary via Bill Talked Trump into Running as a REPUBLICAN ..

Hillary was the neo con neo liberal candidate ..Trump was never supposed to win and even he was shocked it happened ..Melania even cried .

its worse than you think

Why Did Bernie Abandon Tim Canova & Election Integrity

https://youtu.be/B6A452H6wA4

Anne Jaclard , February 17, 2019 at 9:14 pm

Also Integrity Initiative infiltrated the Sanders campaign and boosted anti-Jill Stein messaging. The only good thing about all this investigations nonsense is that we see how blatantly rigged and/or manipulated US elections are by intelligence agencies on top of the pre-manipulation by the corporate giants.

Babyl-on , February 17, 2019 at 1:13 pm

Thomas Piketty in his typically tedious economic research, has shown that there is and has been for centuries a core block of Western capital. This core capital has not in the past 500 years ever had a year of loss, they gained in profit ALWAYS no matter the empire or democracy war or peace – that is EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

Institutions are instruments of power they are not power itself. These institutions are given instructions by those who represent the core block of Western capital. The US government and all its agencies serve ONLY the interests of core capital.

Today that block of core capital has grown to over 41 trillion dollars. It is the largest block of capital anywhere in the world, it's influence is deeply saturated throughout Western society and culture.

Peter Phillips has produced a tremendous book providing the evidence of this block of capital and the structure which communicates its orders to the World Bank, Fed and the "deep state" and the EU and its institutions. GIANTS: The Global Power Elite.

There are no secret societies running the world the power elites do it in plane sight. We know their names from history and in the present. Metici, Borgas – parts of those fortunes are in the 41 trillion. Rockefeller, Rothschild, Buffet are in the world today. Robert Kagen and his forces which represent the 41 trillion ALWAYS get what they want and they have for 500 years. Imagine, 500 years of taking more "profits" than any other faction of the population. But it is not just business, there is also theft, the way England stole in today's dollars 45 trillion dollars worth of goods from India – they simply set up a shell game and took everything and paid nothing. This is why their fortunes grow so much better than others – just outright theft. It is not a capitalist system, it is Feudalism.

This basic block of Western capital is openly pro war because within the 41 trillion are the arms corporations which they control just as one example.

The methods of this, possibly the most enduring power unit in human history, are clear throughout the historical record. They are ruthless, ALWAYS advancing pushing probing looking for opportunities. They never rest or give any quarter. Governments come and go, empires come and go but the core capital under any and all conditions profits every year.

While the phrase was first written in the years after WWII "Global full spectrum domination." has been the marching order for this capital for centuries.

This small group of elites will settle for nothing except everything. For them there is no morality, no good guys or bad buys, just winners and losers and they have won every battle for power and money for 500 years, even in years where things didn't go well they still made more that the economic growth of the economy.

It is the power of that 41 trillion which is destroying the planet and making perpetual war for their own pleasures and profit.

Talk of impeachment of a president or "The Constitution" changing the government are useless acts unless you can come up with a plan to take the assets of these monsters and to distribute them appropriately so that human institutions serve people instead of slaughtering for profit elites.

It is going to be far more difficult to deal with entrenched elites with a 500 year success record but until its power is finally dissipated.

Idimalink , February 17, 2019 at 12:08 pm

The FBI, CIA, the NSA and other three-letter agencies are the enemy. Their spooks must exposed as perpetrators of crime; heinous crimes.

errorum propagationi , February 17, 2019 at 2:55 pm

"The FBI, CIA, the NSA and other three-letter agencies are the enemy. Their spooks must exposed as perpetrators of crime; heinous crimes."

And yet despite the tough-talking, empty-rhetoric, Trump continues to bow to the same. Their crimes continue. The NSA is STILL collecting all data from EVERY citizen of the U.S., yet Trump has ensured even-greater secrecy of those actions by that agency. The CIA is STILL interfering in the politics of other countries, and STILL running drugs.

The FBI continues to ignore crimes by the .001 percent (incluing pedophilia, child trafficking, financial crimes, white collar crimes, etc.).

Trump continues to call for the draconian prosecution of those whom sought to expose the actions of these agencies.

Propaganda only works when it isn't recognized as such.

Trump's actions are called the propaganda of diversion & distraction.

Both Trump and Hillary were HIGHLY unpopular, yet the mindless masses are forced into not only accepting either, but ultimately defending the instilled "leader".

You are proof of the effectivness of that propaganda.

Trump is an Entertainer, first and foremost. His job is to lead mere followers like you to believing the roles he plays, into accepting the same wholly corrupted system. "Partisan" politics is increasingly being scripted like episodes of entertainment, like the Jerry Springer show.

Have you ever bothered to consider that the largest "news" media are similarly owned by the same corporations that own the largest entertainement media? I used to work for a image & footage library ..the firms are using stock images, video & sound for both their entertainment & "news". Have you ever bothered to examine the true underlying ownership of the highly consolidated corporate media? CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etc are all largely owned by the same firms, via large stock holdings.

Trump is an Entertainer serving each of these subsidiaries. The viewership/ratings of each has climbed. The more "contention" (mere diversion & distraction) Trump creates, the more the loyal viewers of these media continue to indulge in the nonsense.

"Partisan" followers, the sheep, are doing the same of their respective parties, each of which are controlled by the same elite.
Don't believe it, take a look at the campaign finance & investment portfolios of the largest candidates of each party (including the "Dems", "GOP", "Progs" and "Libertarians").

The true "Deep State" is much larger than Trump. Those few Agents he has called-out & sought to damage, are just small cogs in the much larger system.

Absolutely nothing has changed. The mindless masses are so easily herded. Instincts of the Herd in Peace & War – Wilfred Trotter
Propaganda – Edward Bernays

Tom , February 17, 2019 at 4:36 pm

The deep state kills presidents. It why Trump has his own security ..smart move. Trump tried to take them on and was called a TRAITOR ..and criminals like Brenner and clapper and Haden work for MSNBC and CNN now? The USSR wasnt so blatant .

O Society , February 18, 2019 at 12:09 am

Spot on. Trump is PT Barnum, not Martin Luther King. He's not fighting to "save America from the Deep State." Trump's a clown riding a unicycle juggling chainsaws. He's a circus charlatan, not some hero demolishing the FBI to save John Q Public from the spooks. Sheep indeed.

Scott Hunter , February 17, 2019 at 11:49 am

Spot on!!! Accountability is the next step Integrity is the key and has always been the key to walking a path that brings contentment.

Thank you for your service John Kiriakou!!!

Billy , February 17, 2019 at 11:47 am

The Emsils reveal Hillary cheated Bernie. She needed to distract. Brennan, Clapper and the FBI assisted her. When she lost they switched over from distract to removal mode. The entire MSM is also complicate in this illegal coup. They're not fake news they're propagandist.

Tom , February 17, 2019 at 4:40 pm

MSM fired Ed Shultz for wanting to cover Sanders . MSM fired Jesse Ventura for being anti war . MSM fiired Phil Donahue for being against the Iraq wars .. Brennan and Clapper and Haden are proved Bush criminals who now work for the MSM and CNN liars ,war mongers and torture enthusiasts .

William , February 17, 2019 at 10:45 am

I like John and the information he puts out for us. But I just don't buy this. I see this just as I did the 2016 election cycle for the republican party. A circus of over 21 candidates and everyone and the media all against Trump. But who got all the free time in the media and ended up being the president? I didn't buy the fake disdain from the republicans towards Trump because I knew they were licking their chops wanting him in their. With Trump they could take the country to the right as far as they wanted. And here we are looking at a fascist state now. The US has leaped right into the fire of the fourth reich. All that in 2016 was us being duped into a false illusion of Trump can't possibly win while the plan was make him win. I honestly believe the whole 2016 election cycle was one big illusion to take over the country. A coup over the population.

Trump and these intelligence agencies are working just fine together. This is all just another illusion as the country continues to move towards fascism with the rest of the world. Still working together in Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Africa and a list of other countries, along with right here among us is the FBI. After all, right there in the article it states as much. These entities and Trump essentially have the same agenda. And what we;re getting is a dose of perception management to duped us from the reality of it being the reality. And just like the founder of this news site has taught us, the media is the tool to make it work for them.

Anne Jaclard , February 17, 2019 at 9:19 pm

Agree that Trump is a corporate military-intelligence flunky like his predecessors but that doesn't justify the FBI/CIA manipulation, as it was based merely on dovish (but ignored in office, of course) campaign rhetoric. What if Tulsi Gabbard or Bernie Sanders, or somebody better than either of them (neither are super great) get spied upon or ousted by a militarist cabal for the same reasons?

Jeff Harrison , February 17, 2019 at 10:40 am

It can't happen here . I'm telling you my dear, it can't happen here. – Frank Zappa in a tune of the same name.

But, John, it already has. Mark Felt, aka Deep Throat, pissed off that he wasn't made FBI director at Hoover's death, brought down a President, Nixon, out of personal pique. He revealed secrets that never should have been secrets to Woodward & Bernstein and brought Nixon down. Our evil ways in the rest of the world have come home to roost. You spoke of the Church committee's reforms. I doubt there's much left of Frank Church's reforms. The three letter surveillance state is the new Praetorian Guard. There is naught to be done but disband the whole lot of 'em if we want our democracy back. I know everybody will be screaming that Oh NO! We can't do that! But, ah, yes we can (to steal someone else's bullshit line).

The Ticoes of Costa Rica, after they got their government back from the military after a 1948 coup simply disbanded the military. No more military to junta. Haven't had a coup since. There's two trite but very true lines: Bullshit walks and money talks,

What goes around comes around. (and it's starting to come around. We'd better do something about it or we will regret it. But that would mean we'd have to give up our imperial pretensions and we all know that's not going to happen.)

anon4d2 , February 17, 2019 at 9:43 pm

We could certainly re-purpose 80% of our military to building infrastructure in developing nations, without any opposition from them or additional expense, and improve our security and international standing. We could completely eliminate the unconstitutional spying upon citizens without any opposition, and use the same employees for humanitarian purposes.

But of course oligarchy must first be deposed, which historically has required invasion or revolution. Where oligarchy controls mass media and elections, education and activism won't get us there. Invasion is no longer a likely path. So the revolution will be the bloodiest in history, likely after the mass media are discredited, the economy ruined by foreign embargo, and oligarchy no longer able to provide the bread and circus needed to quell the peasants.

If that string of disasters does not happen, we may have a permanent tyranny, a society that explicitly accepts and honors tyranny, a curse upon humanity until its destruction.

JOHN WHITE , February 17, 2019 at 10:29 am

THEY DID NOT COME CLOSE TO A COUP.. THE COUP IS STILL GOING ON ..

Herman , February 17, 2019 at 9:20 am

So now I know what the 25th amendment to the Constitution is about. Impeachment would be messy incapacitation would be quick and half the public, feeling helpless, would soon forget.

Discussion of this reminds me of the things we accused the Stalin regime of doing, which they well may have. Here today, gone tomorrow.

We cannot be sure this is all true, but the mere fact that it is floating around is chilling. Impeachment with its uncertain outcome would be messy, using the 25th amendment would be relatively quick if all your ducks were lined up.

Can we describe the Trump syndrome as anything else than mass hysteria. It has gotten so bad that no matter what Trump proposes, forces go to work to prevent it from happening lest he get credit for it. The merit of what he proposes, be damned, it's his idea and we are not going to let it happen.

Who and what is at risk. A besieged President, anxious to survive, can do crazy things which his crazy enemies happen to believe are good ideas. Things like detente with Russia are set aside as is an effort to achieve normal relations with North Korea. Things like creating a crisis with Iran or pulling out of a nuclear treaty are either praised or accepted. It all started minus day one of this guys presidency and it just won't stop. Hard to say how it could end, but the options are pretty
scary.

The authors point is that we have elections to decide who shall be president and the intoxicated crew in Washington, New York and Hollywood need to accept that.

Eric32 , February 17, 2019 at 9:06 am

This FBI/CIA (plus British intelligence etc.) attempt to destroy and remove an elected President will end the same way as the bank fraud that damaged the US economy 11 yrs ago.

Nothing real will be done, and the disease will just get deeper and more widespread.

MBeaver , February 17, 2019 at 9:51 pm

I often look at politics like I look at software. If you have bugs, you fix them quickly before they can hurt your customers too much and they decide to ditch your software or look for an alternative somewhere else.

Here they are being ignored for decades and decades and many people exploit them, because they can flourish on them, like a criminal uses bugs in software to circumvent security. Like parasites. But the vast majority and the system itself is getting damaged by them. People adapt to them, and become as dishonest as the minority. It gets worse and worse until there is no way back and ends in a disaster.

Dave , February 17, 2019 at 8:18 am

Are McCabe and others going to face any consequences for their actions? I have some doubts.

Skip Scott , February 17, 2019 at 7:35 am

"McCabe said that Justice Department officials believed at the time that Trump may have obstructed justice by firing Comey, and they worried that Trump was somehow under the influence of the Russian government."

I think what the Intel Agencies were really concerned about was Trump's statement "wouldn't it be great to get along with Russia." They were worried about detente, not influence. Trump threatened to remove their number one bogeyman, which would put at risk trillions of dollars for the MIC. What if he dared to negotiate a nuclear arms reduction treaty? What if he dared to share intelligence regarding terrorists with Russia, as Obama attempted before he was brought to heel? Trump has been emasculated by RussiaGate, and Mueller's "Theater of the Absurd" continues to ensure that Trump toes the line. The intel agencies don't need to remove him from power because they are the ones with the REAL power.

Gary Weglarz , February 17, 2019 at 11:56 pm

Skip Scott – excellent post Skip.

("Trump has been emasculated by RussiaGate, and Mueller's "Theater of the Absurd" continues to ensure that Trump toes the line.")

I quite agree, and with your comment in mind I'd say that one could quite rationally argue that in fact a deep state coup "has actually taken place" and was in fact quite successful. Trump will most certainly "not" be normalizing relations with Russia if he wants to remain president. This is the power of the deep state carried out through relentless MSM propaganda, evidence and "reality" be damned.

In such a world "voting" and "democracy" are simply fairy tales "told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing." They exist only as meaningless abstractions used to help insure we the populace remain compliant and don't take to the streets like the Yellow Vests in France. Which of course is our only chance whatsoever to in any meaningfully way impact this completely corrupt uber-violent corporate-feudal paradise we find ourselves now inhabiting.

"The intel agencies don't need to remove him from power because they are the ones with the REAL power." – spot on!

jadez , February 17, 2019 at 6:46 am

MAYBE MR John Kiriakou should familiarize himself with the Constitution..and the 25th amendment which he acknowledges was to be used to "oust"..a sitting president.

i do not disagree or challenge his integrity regarding the actions of the agencies he writes about yet at the same time to dismiss out of hand a constitutional avenue of removing a president for say BEING an actual agent of a foreign government can not be dismissed based strictly on the idea that presidents "come and go"!

Abby , February 18, 2019 at 12:29 am

I'm pretty sure that Kiriakou knows all about the constitution and the 25th amendment. The problem that he's discussing here is that if a president is unfit to continue his presidency then it's up to his cabinet and congress to remove him, not the intelligence agency's job.

Where was the proof that Trump was being an actual agent of a foreign government? There was none at the time of this attempted coup and so far Mueller hasn't shown any. Manafort is guilty of breaking tax laws, not anything to do with collusion with people in Russia. Nor has he shown that anyone else was or is either. And do you honestly think that if a president was working with a foreign government that congress would just sit patiently by as Mueller dragged his feet for two years looking into that? I think not.

Seby , February 17, 2019 at 5:02 am

Excellent in more detailed analysis of this power struggle in the US plutocracy at NEO recently.

3 Major Divisions in the American Ruling Class by Caleb Maupin.

To precis

Division #1: Saudi Wahabbis vs. The Muslim Brotherhood
Division #2: The Pentagon vs. Intel Agencies
Division #3: The Rich vs. The Ultra-Rich

For more details see article. https://journal-neo.org/2019/02/15/bezos-v-trump-3-major-divisions-in-the-american-ruling-class/

[Feb 18, 2019] Weren't superdelegates people who, in the era before cars, would represent groups who are unable to travel to the voting stations (long distances)

Feb 18, 2019 | www.youtube.com

VcasF VcasF 3 days ago

Weren't superdelegates people who, in the era before cars, would represent groups who are unable to travel to the voting stations (long distances).

The superdelegates have the "right" to change the vote because their candidate could die while the superdelegate is traveling. or any major development.

When they return to cast the vote they have a choice.

In the 21st century it is unacceptable to keep such traditions and policies.

[Feb 17, 2019] Two Trump Cabinet Officials Were Ready To Support 25th Amendment Coup As Rosenstein Tallied Votes

Notable quotes:
"... Baker said McCabe was cool, calm and collected throughout the discussions, telling lawmakers: "At this point in time, Andy was unbelievably focused and unbelievably confident and squared away. I don't know how to describe it other than I was extremely proud to be around him at that point in time because I thought he was doing an excellent job at maintaining focus and dealing with a very uncertain and difficult situation. So I think he was in a good state of mind at this point in time." ..."
"... According to McCabe, Rosenstein "raised the issue and discussed it with me in the context of thinking about how many other cabinet officials might support such an effort," adding that Rosenstein was "definitely very concerned about the president, about his capacity and about his intent at that point in time." ..."
Feb 17, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Two Trump Cabinet officials were "ready to support" a DOJ scheme to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump , according to Bloomberg and Fox News , citing closed-door testimony from the FBI's former top lawyer, James Baker - who said that the claim came from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

The testimony was delivered last fall to the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees. Fox News has confirmed portions of the transcript. It provides additional insight into discussions that have returned to the spotlight in Washington as fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe revisits the matter during interviews promoting his forthcoming book. - Fox News

While Baker did not identify the two Cabinet officials, he says that McCabe and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page approached him to relay their conversations with Rosenstein, including their discussions of the 25th Amendment scheme. "I was being told by some combination of Andy McCabe and Lisa Page, that, in a conversation with the Deputy Attorney General, he had stated that he -- this was what was related to me -- that he had at least two members of the president's Cabinet who were ready to support, I guess you would call it, an action under the 25th Amendment," Baker told the Congressional committees.

The 25th Amendment allows for the removal of a sitting president from office through various mechanisms - including the majority of a president's Cabinet agreeing that the commander-in-chief is incapable of performing his duties.

Rosenstein - who is slated to leave the Justice Department in the near future, has denied the claims. Baker said McCabe was cool, calm and collected throughout the discussions, telling lawmakers: "At this point in time, Andy was unbelievably focused and unbelievably confident and squared away. I don't know how to describe it other than I was extremely proud to be around him at that point in time because I thought he was doing an excellent job at maintaining focus and dealing with a very uncertain and difficult situation. So I think he was in a good state of mind at this point in time."

McCabe, meanwhile told "60 Minutes" in an interview set to air Sunday night that Rosenstein was concerned about Trump's "capacity."

According to McCabe, Rosenstein "raised the issue and discussed it with me in the context of thinking about how many other cabinet officials might support such an effort," adding that Rosenstein was "definitely very concerned about the president, about his capacity and about his intent at that point in time."

"Rosenstein was actually openly talking about whether there was a majority of the cabinet who would vote to remove the president?" asks CBS News anchor Scott Pelly, to which McCabe replied: " That's correct. Counting votes or possible votes. "

The New York Times first reported last year that McCabe alleged in memos that Rosenstein had talked about using the 25th Amendment to oust Trump -- or wearing a wire to surreptitiously monitor the president -- in the hectic days in May 2017 after Trump fired James B. Comey as FBI director. At the time, Rosenstein disputed the reporting. - WaPo

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called the 25th Amendment scheme a " bureaucratic coup " led by enemies of President Trump. On Sunday morning, Graham said he would subpoena McCabe and Rosenstein "if that's what it takes" to get to the bottom of the 25th Amendment claim.

On Thursday, the DOJ issued a statement claiming that Rosenstein rejects McCabe's version of events "as inaccurate and factually incorrect," and also denied that Rosenstein ever approved wearing a "wire" to record Trump.

"The deputy attorney general never authorized any recording that Mr. McCabe references," reads the DOJ statement. "As the deputy attorney general previously has stated, based on his personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment, nor was the DAG in a position to consider invoking the 25th Amendment."

McCabe, meanwhile, walked back some of his "60 Minutes" statements . On Friday a spokeswoman for the former Deputy Director said: "Certain statements made by Mr. McCabe, in interviews associated with the release of his book, have been taken out of context and misrepresented," adding "To clarify, at no time did Mr. McCabe participate in any extended discussions about the use of the 25th Amendment, nor is he aware of any such discussions."

Baker acknowledged during his testimony that he was not directly involved in the May 2017 discussions, rather, McCabe and Page approached him contemporaneously following a meeting with Rosenstein in the days following former FBI Director James Comey's firing.

"I had the impression that the deputy attorney general had already discussed this with two members in the president's Cabinet and that they were onboard with this concept already," said Baker.

Question: "Do you know what direction that went? Was it Mr. Rosenstein seeking out members of the Cabinet looking to pursue this 25th Amendment approach or was it the other way around?"

Baker: "What I recall being said was that the Deputy Attorney General had two members of the Cabinet. So he – how they came to be had, I don't know, but "

Question: "So he had two members, almost like he was taking the initiative and getting the members?"

Baker: "That would be speculation on my part." - Via Fox News

Baker also suggested that "Lisa and Andy" did not know the names of the Cabinet officials who were on board with the 25th Amendment scheme.

Baker testified in October that the alleged discussions took place during an uncertain and anxious time at the FBI and DOJ after Comey's termination, and that the mood was "pretty dark":

Question: "Did people tell you that the DAG (Deputy Attorney General) was upset?"

Baker: "Yes."

Question: "Did they tell you that he was making jokes?"

Baker: "No."

Question: "Did they tell you that..."

Baker: " This was not a joking sort of time. This was pretty dark. " - Via Fox News

Pretty dark indeed.


Moneycircus , 6 minutes ago link

John Judge, executive director of the Coalition on Political Assassinations , was the most insightful political analyst besides Mae Brussell.

Speaking less than 6 months after 911, he understood more then than most commentators do now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrFm1E74wYU

"Our choice now seems to be between a "new war" and a new world. As always, the forces of reaction and wealth are telling us we have no choice but war, and no right or power to decide. They are calling for a secret investigation, a secret conviction, a secret method of execution, and a totally secret war abroad.

"The American people as a whole are the only ones in the world who have the right to decide on a national response to this tragedy, and it must be one that takes into account the rights of all the other peoples and nations of the world."

-- John Judge , 9/23/01

https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/

loop , 16 minutes ago link

Funny to think that ***-lover Trump, with a JEWISH AGENDA , could have been brought down in a Jewish-led coup.

Priceless.

Sanity Bear , 24 minutes ago link

"the claim came from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein"

and we know that the claim was not a baldfaced lie... how?

Moneycircus , 33 minutes ago link

Always like this. Way Washington works. It's an oligarchy. Power = carrot and stick. Carrot = money to buy and bribe. Stick = kompromat and blackmail.

Why was J. Edgar Hoover the most powerful man in America? Did FBI cease to be the political police when he died?

Why are institutions like the CIA more influential than any politician? How was the public so easily misled about the coup that was Watergate?

Mae Brussell laid it all out on the table 40 years ago. Understanding is within reach if you want it.

http://www.worldwatchers.info/

[Feb 17, 2019] Trump is Russian asset memo is really neocon propaganda overkill

Highly recommended!
The ability of those in power to manipulate the ways ordinary people think, act and vote has allowed for an inverted totalitarianism which turns the citizenry into their own prison wardens, allowing those with real power to continue doing as they please unhindered by the interests of the common man.
In neoliberal MSM there is positive feedback loop for "Trump is a Russian agent" stories. So the meme feeds on itself.
Notable quotes:
"... And yet the trending, most high-profile stories about Trump today all involve painting him as a Putin puppet who is working to destroy America by taking a weak stance against an alarming geopolitical threat. This has had the effect of manufacturing demand for even more dangerous escalations against a nuclear superpower that just so happens to be a longtime target of U.S. intelligence agencies. ..."
"... the mass media is not in the business of reporting facts, it's in the business of selling narratives. Even if those narratives are so shrill and stress-inducing that they imperil the health of their audience. ..."
"... Trump is clearly not a Russian asset, he's a facilitator of America's permanent unelected government just like his predecessors, and indeed as far as actual policies and administration behavior goes he's not that much different from Barack Obama and George W Bush. Hell, for all his demagogic anti-immigrant speech Trump hasn't even caught up to Obama's peak ICE deportation years ..."
"... Used to be that the U.S. mass media only killed people indirectly, by facilitating establishment war agendas in repeating government agency propaganda as objective fact and promulgating narratives that manufacture support for a status quo which won't even give Americans health insurance or safe drinking water ..."
"... Now they're skipping the middle man and killing them directly by psychologically brutalizing them so aggressively that it ruins their health, all to ensure that Democrats support war and adore the U.S. intelligence community . ..."
"... The social engineers responsible for controlling the populace of the greatest military power on the planet are watching France closely, and understand deeply what is at stake should they fail to control the narrative and herd ordinary Americans into supporting U.S. government institutions. ..."
"... The ability of those in power to manipulate the ways ordinary people think, act and vote has allowed for an inverted totalitarianism which turns the citizenry into their own prison wardens, allowing those with real power to continue doing as they please unhindered by the interests of the common man. ..."
Jan 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

The always excellent Moon of Alabama blog has just published a sarcasm-laden piece documenting the many, many aggressive maneuvers that this administration has made against the interests of Russia, from pushing for more NATO funding to undermining Russia's natural gas interests to bombing Syria to sanctioning Russian oligarchs to dangerous military posturing.

<picture deleted>

And yet the trending, most high-profile stories about Trump today all involve painting him as a Putin puppet who is working to destroy America by taking a weak stance against an alarming geopolitical threat. This has had the effect of manufacturing demand for even more dangerous escalations against a nuclear superpower that just so happens to be a longtime target of U.S. intelligence agencies.

If the mass media were in the business of reporting facts, there would be a lot less "Putin's puppet" talk and a lot more "Hey, maybe we should avoid senseless escalations which could end all life on earth" talk among news media consumers. But there isn't, because the mass media is not in the business of reporting facts, it's in the business of selling narratives. Even if those narratives are so shrill and stress-inducing that they imperil the health of their audience.

Like His Predecessors

Trump is clearly not a Russian asset, he's a facilitator of America's permanent unelected government just like his predecessors, and indeed as far as actual policies and administration behavior goes he's not that much different from Barack Obama and George W Bush. Hell, for all his demagogic anti-immigrant speech Trump hasn't even caught up to Obama's peak ICE deportation years.

If the mass media were in the business of reporting facts, people would be no more worried about this administration than they were about the previous ones, because when it comes to his administration's actual behavior, he's just as reliable an upholder of the establishment-friendly status quo as his predecessors.

Used to be that the U.S. mass media only killed people indirectly, by facilitating establishment war agendas in repeating government agency propaganda as objective fact and promulgating narratives that manufacture support for a status quo which won't even give Americans health insurance or safe drinking water.

Now they're skipping the middle man and killing them directly by psychologically brutalizing them so aggressively that it ruins their health, all to ensure that Democrats support war and adore the U.S. intelligence community .

They do this for a reason, of course. The Yellow Vests protests in France have continued unabated for their ninth consecutive week , a decentralized populist uprising resulting from ordinary French citizens losing trust in their institutions and the official narratives which uphold them.

The social engineers responsible for controlling the populace of the greatest military power on the planet are watching France closely, and understand deeply what is at stake should they fail to control the narrative and herd ordinary Americans into supporting U.S. government institutions. Right now they've got Republicans cheering on the White House and Democrats cheering on the U.S. intelligence community, but that could all change should something happen which causes them to lose control over the thoughts that Americans think about their rulers.

Propaganda is the single most-overlooked and under-appreciated aspect of human society. The ability of those in power to manipulate the ways ordinary people think, act and vote has allowed for an inverted totalitarianism which turns the citizenry into their own prison wardens, allowing those with real power to continue doing as they please unhindered by the interests of the common man.

The only thing that will lead to real change is the people losing trust in corrupt institutions and rising like lions against them. That gets increasingly likely as those institutions lose control of the narrative, and with trust in the mass media at an all-time low, populist uprisings restoring power to the people in France, and media corporations acting increasingly weird and insecure , that looks more and more likely by the day.

[Feb 17, 2019] There's No Denying It; It Was Never Anything But a Coup!

Notable quotes:
"... In interviews to boost his forthcoming book, fired former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe confirms that Obama holdovers repeatedly discussed removing President Donald Trump under the pretext of the 25th Amendment, and that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein more than once seriously offered to "wear a wire" in meetings with the President. After Trump fired James Comey as FBI Director in May 2017, McCabe, Comey's deputy director, launched a phony "obstruction of justice" investigation, and said that he began to accumulate files of memos on that and the "Russia Collusion" investigation, to try to ensure that the investigations would continue if he were fired as well. ..."
Feb 17, 2019 | larouchepub.com

In interviews to boost his forthcoming book, fired former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe confirms that Obama holdovers repeatedly discussed removing President Donald Trump under the pretext of the 25th Amendment, and that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein more than once seriously offered to "wear a wire" in meetings with the President. After Trump fired James Comey as FBI Director in May 2017, McCabe, Comey's deputy director, launched a phony "obstruction of justice" investigation, and said that he began to accumulate files of memos on that and the "Russia Collusion" investigation, to try to ensure that the investigations would continue if he were fired as well.

Now, after its own two years of investigation and 200 interviews, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Richard Burr (R-NC) has said, "There is no factual evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia." Ranking Member Mark Warner (D-VA) said he disagrees with the way Burr characterized the evidence, but declined to give his own assessment.

Veteran criminal attorney John Dowd, a member of Trump's legal team from June 2017 to March 2018, said,

"I know exactly what he [Mueller] has. I know exactly what every witness said, what every document said. I know exactly what he asked. And I know what the conclusion or the result is."

What will be the result of the probe?

"It's been a terrible waste of time.... This is one of the greatest frauds the country has ever seen. I'm just shocked that Bob Mueller didn't call it that way and say, 'I'm being used.' I would've done that.

"I'd have gone to [then Attorney General] Sessions and Rosenstein and said, 'Look. This is nonsense. We are being used by a cabal in the FBI to get even.' "

Asked about Mueller's final report, he responded, "I will be shocked if anything regarding the President is made public, other than, 'We're done.' "

At the same time, former NSA Technical Director William Binney has published new evidence which shows that the DNC documents posted by WikiLeaks in July 2016, were probably not hacked over the internet, by Russians or anyone else -- rather, the only available forensic evidence indicates that they were downloaded from within the DNC's network. His evidence is summarized in an article he co-authored with former CIA analyst Larry Johnson on Col. Pat Lang's "Sic Semper Tyrannis" blog yesterday.

[Feb 16, 2019] MSM Begs For Trust After Buzzfeed Debacle by Caitlin Johnstone

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... This is the behavior of a media class that is interested in selling narratives, not reporting truth. And yet the mass media talking heads are all telling us today that we must continue to trust them. ..."
"... More accountability in media than in politics, Chuck? Really? Accountability to whom? Your advertisers? Your plutocratic owners? Certainly not to the people whose minds you are paid exorbitant sums to influence; there are no public elections for the leadership of the mass media. ..."
"... CNN, for the record, has been guilty of an arguably even more embarrassing Russiagate flub than Buzzfeed 's when they wrongly reported that Donald Trump Jr had had access to WikiLeaks' DNC email archives prior to their 2016 publication, an error that was hilariously due to to the simple misreading of an email date by multiple people ..."
"... The mass media, including pro-Trump mass media like Fox News, absolutely deserves to be distrusted. It has earned that distrust. It had earned that distrust already with its constant promotion of imperialist wars and an oligarch-friendly status quo, and it has earned it even more with its frenzied promotion of a narrative engineered to manufacture consent for a preexisting agenda to shove Russia off the world stage. ..."
"... The mainstream media absolutely is the enemy of the people; just because Trump says it doesn't mean it's not true. The only reason people don't rise up and use the power of their numbers to force the much-needed changes that need to happen in our world is because they are being propagandized to accept the status quo day in and day out by the mass media's endless cultural engineering project . ..."
"... They are the reason why wars go unopposed, why third parties never gain traction, why people consent to money hemorrhaging upward to the wealthiest of the wealthy while everyone else struggles to survive. The sooner people wake up from the perverse narrative matrix of the plutocratic media, the better. ..."
Jan 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

Following what the Washington Post has described as "the highest-profile misstep yet for a news organization during a period of heightened and intense scrutiny of the press," mass media representatives are now flailing desperately for an argument as to why people should continue to place their trust in mainstream news outlets.

On Thursday Buzzfeed News delivered the latest "bombshell" Russiagate report to fizzle within 24 hours of its publication, a pattern that is now so consistent that I've personally made a practice of declining to comment on such stories until a day or two after their release. "BOOM!" tweets were issued by #Resistance pundits on Twitter, "If true this means X, Y and Z" bloviations were made on mass media punditry panels, and for about 20 hours Russiagaters everywhere were riding the high of their lives, giddy with the news that President Trump had committed an impeachable felony by ordering Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about a proposed Trump office tower in Moscow, a proposal which died within weeks and the Kremlin never touched .

There was reason enough already for any reasonable person to refrain from frenzied celebration, including the fact that the story's two authors, Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier, were giving the press two very different accounts of the information they'd based it on, with Cormier telling CNN that he had not personally seen the evidence underlying his report and Leopold telling MSNBC that he had. Both Leopold and Cormier, for the record, have already previously suffered a Russiagate faceplant with the clickbait viral story that Russia had financed the 2016 election, burying the fact that it was a Russian election .

Then the entire story came crashing down when Mueller's office took the extremely rare step of issuing an unequivocal statement that the Buzzfeed story was wrong , writing simply, "BuzzFeed's description of specific statements to the special counsel's office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen's congressional testimony are not accurate."

According to journalist and economic analyst Doug Henwood, the print New York Times covered the Buzzfeed report on its front page when the story broke, but the report on Mueller's correction the next day was shoved back to page 11 . This appalling journalistic malpractice makes it very funny that NYT's Wajahat Ali had the gall to tweet , "Unlike the Trump administration, journalists are fact checking and willing to correct the record if the Buzzfeed story is found inaccurate. Not really the actions of a deep state and enemy of the people, right?"

This is the behavior of a media class that is interested in selling narratives, not reporting truth. And yet the mass media talking heads are all telling us today that we must continue to trust them.

"Those trying to tar all media today aren't interested in improving journalism but protecting themselves," tweeted NBC's Chuck Todd.

"There's a lot more accountability in media these days than in our politics. We know we live in a glass house, we hope the folks we cover are as self aware."

More accountability in media than in politics, Chuck? Really? Accountability to whom? Your advertisers? Your plutocratic owners? Certainly not to the people whose minds you are paid exorbitant sums to influence; there are no public elections for the leadership of the mass media.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/rMY-zTxPCuY

"Mueller didn't do the media any favors tonight, and he did do the president one," griped the odious Chris Cuomo on CNN. "Because as you saw with Rudy Giuliani and as I'm sure you'll see with the president himself, this allows them to say 'You can't believe it! You can't believe what you read, you can't believe what you hear! You can only believe us. Even the Special Counsel says that the media doesn't get it right.'"

"The larger message that a lot of people are going to take from this story is that the news media are a bunch of leftist liars who are dying to get the president, and they're willing to lie to do it, and I don't think that's true" said Jeffrey Toobin on a CNN panel , adding "I just think this is a bad day for us."

"It does reinforce bad stereotypes about the news media," said Brian Stelter on the same CNN panel.

"I am desperate as a media reporter to always say to the audience, judge folks individually and judge brands individually. Don't fall for what these politicians out there want you to do. They want you to think we're all crooked. We're not. But Buzzfeed now, now the onus is on Buzzfeed. "

CNN, for the record, has been guilty of an arguably even more embarrassing Russiagate flub than Buzzfeed 's when they wrongly reported that Donald Trump Jr had had access to WikiLeaks' DNC email archives prior to their 2016 publication, an error that was hilariously due to to the simple misreading of an email date by multiple people.

The mass media, including pro-Trump mass media like Fox News, absolutely deserves to be distrusted. It has earned that distrust. It had earned that distrust already with its constant promotion of imperialist wars and an oligarch-friendly status quo, and it has earned it even more with its frenzied promotion of a narrative engineered to manufacture consent for a preexisting agenda to shove Russia off the world stage.

The mainstream media absolutely is the enemy of the people; just because Trump says it doesn't mean it's not true. The only reason people don't rise up and use the power of their numbers to force the much-needed changes that need to happen in our world is because they are being propagandized to accept the status quo day in and day out by the mass media's endless cultural engineering project .

They are the reason why wars go unopposed, why third parties never gain traction, why people consent to money hemorrhaging upward to the wealthiest of the wealthy while everyone else struggles to survive. The sooner people wake up from the perverse narrative matrix of the plutocratic media, the better.

* * *

The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website , which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following my antics on Twitter , throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal , purchasing some of my sweet new merchandise , buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone , or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers .

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[Feb 16, 2019] Death Of Russiagate: Mueller Team Tied To Mifsud s Network

Highly recommended!
Looks like all of them were Brennan men. CIA used FBI counterintelligence and counter-terrorism personnel to kick start the investigation/scandal.
Notable quotes:
"... We return, now, to this issue and specifically the research of Chris Blackburn, to place the final nail in the coffin of the Trump-Russia collusion charade. Blackburn's insights are incredible not only because they return us to the earliest reporting on the role of British intelligence figures in manufacturing the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, but because they also implicate members of Mueller's investigation. ..."
"... If you factor in the dreadful reporting to discredit Joseph Mifsud and leaks, it is pretty clear something rather strange happened to George Papadopoulos during the campaign while he was shuttling around Europe and the Middle East. He was working with people who have intelligence links at the London Centre of International Law Practice ..."
"... A recent article in The Telegraph also alludes to MI5, MI6, and CIA using counter-terrorism assets which would tie into the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP), and its sister organizations, doing counter-terrorism work for the Australian, UK and US governments. They quote anonymous officials who believe that their intelligence agencies used counter-terrorism personnel to kick start the investigation/scandal." ..."
"... Continuing, Blackburn pinpointed the significance of defining counter-terrorism as the starting point of the investigation, saying: "It shows that there is a high probability that intelligence was deliberately abused to make Papadopoulos' activities look like they were something else. ..."
"... It's more likely that the CIA played the FBI with the help of close allies who were suspicious and frightened of a Trump presidency." ..."
"... Zainab Ahmad , a member of Mueller's legal team, is the former Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York. As pointed out by Blackburn , Ahmad attended a Global Center on Cooperative Security event in 2017 ..."
"... "Zainab Ahmad was one of the first DOJ prosecutors to have seen the Steele dossier. In May 2017, she attended a counter-terrorism conference in New York with the Global Center on Cooperative Security (GCCS), an organization which Joseph Mifsud, the alleged Russian spy, had been working within London and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia ..."
"... I don't think it's a coincidence that Global Center on Cooperative Security is connected to various elements that popped up in the Papadopoulos case. The fact that a prosecutor on Mueller's team was at Global Center before Mueller was appointed as special counsel is also troubling ..."
"... Days ago, The Hill reported on Congressional testimony by Bruce Ohr, revealing that when served as a DOJ official, he warned FBI and DOJ figures that the Steele dossier was problematic and linked to the Clintons ..."
"... Last year, Blackburn noted the connection between Mifsud and Arvinder Sambei , writing: "LCILP director and FBI counsel, works with Mike Smith at the Global Center. They ran joint counter-terrorism conferences and training with Mifsud's London Academy. Sambei then brought Mifsud over to the [London Centre of International Law Practice]. [Global Center works with Aussies, UK and US State too." ..."
"... Disobedient Media previously reported that Robert Hannigan, then head of British spy agency GCHQ, flew to Washington DC to share 'director-to-director' level intelligence with then-CIA Chief John Brennan in the summer of 2016. This writer noted that " The Guardian reported Hannigan's announcement that he would step down from his leadership position with the agency just three days after the inauguration of President Trump, on 23 January 2017. ..."
"... Jane Mayer, in her profile of Christopher Steele published in the New Yorker, also noted that Hannigan had flown to Washington D.C. to personally brief the then-CIA Director John Brennan on alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. What is so curious about this briefing "deemed so sensitive it was handled at director-level" is why Hannigan was talking director-to-director to the CIA and not Mike Rogers at the NSA, GCHQ's Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partner." ..."
"... There are more and more articles saying that the FBI, CIA, M14 15,16 yada yada, were overly concerned about Trump. Their sin...caring too much for the USA. They attempted a coup de'etat for "our" own good...we... being "we the people". To quote Abe Lincoln "You will find that all the arguments in favour of kingcraft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, -- not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden." Lincoln did not mince words ..."
Jan 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Via Disobedient Media

In April last year, Disobedient Media broke coverage of the British involvement in the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, asking why All Russiagate Roads Lead To London , via the quasi-scholar Joseph Mifsud and others.

The issue was also raised by WikiLeaks's Julian Assange , just days before the Ecuadorian government silenced him last March. Assange's Twitter thread cited research by Chris Blackburn , who spoke with Disobedient Media on multiple occasions covering Joseph Mifsud's ties to British intelligence figures and organizations, as well as his links to Hillary Clinton's Presidential campaign, the FBI, CIA and the private cyber-security firm Crowdstrike.

We return, now, to this issue and specifically the research of Chris Blackburn, to place the final nail in the coffin of the Trump-Russia collusion charade. Blackburn's insights are incredible not only because they return us to the earliest reporting on the role of British intelligence figures in manufacturing the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, but because they also implicate members of Mueller's investigation. What we are left with is an indication of collusion between factions of the US and UK intelligence community in fabricating evidence of Trump-Russia collusion: a scandal that would have rocked the legacy press to its core, if Western establishment-backed media had a spine.

In Disobedient Media's previous coverage of Blackburn's work, he described his experience in intelligence:

"I've been involved in numerous investigations that involve counter-intelligence techniques in the past. I used to work for the 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism , one of the biggest tort actions in American history. I helped build a profile of Osama bin Laden's financial and political network, which was slightly different to the one that had been built by the CIA's Alec Station , a dedicated task force which was focused on Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Alec Station designed its profile to hunt Osama bin Laden and disrupt his network. I thought it was flawed. It had failed to take into account Osama's historical links to Pakistan's main political parties or that he was the figurehead for a couple of organizations, not just Al-Qaeda."

"I also ran a few conferences for US intelligence leaders during the Bush administration. After the 9/11 Commission published its report into the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon it created a public outreach program. The US National Intelligence Conference and Exposition ( Intelcon ) was one of the avenues it used. I was responsible for creating the 'View from Abroad' track. We had guidance from former Senator Slade Gorton and Jamie Gorelick, who both sat on the 9/11 Commission. We got leaders such as Sir John Chilcot and Baroness Pauline Neville Jones to come and help share their experiences on how the US would be able to heal the rifts after 9/11."

"The US intelligence community was suffering from severe turf wars and firewalls, which were hampering counter-terrorism efforts. They were concentrating on undermining each other rather than tackling terrorism. I had mainly concentrated on the Middle East, but in 2003 I switched my focus to terrorism in South Asia."

Counter Terrorism, Not Counter Intelligence, Sparked Probe

In an article published by The Telegraph last November, the paper acknowledged the following:

"It forces the spotlight on whether the UK played a role in the FBI's investigation launched before the 2016 presidential election into Trump campaign ties to the Kremlin... Mr. Trump's allies and former advisers are raising questions about the UK's role in the start of the probe, given many of the key figures and meetings were located in Britain... One former top White House adviser to Mr. Trump made similar insinuations, telling this newspaper: "You know the Brits are up to their neck." The source added on the Page wiretap application: "I think that stuff is going to implicate MI5 and MI6 in a bunch of activities they don't want to be implicated in, along with FBI, counter-terrorism and the CIA. " [Emphasis Added]

The article cites George Papadopoulos, who asked why the "British intelligence apparatus was weaponized against Trump and his advisers." Papadopoulos has also addressed the issue at length via Twitter. In response to the Telegraph's coverage of the issue, Chris Blackburn wrote via Twitter :

"The Telegraph story on Trump Russia acknowledges that activities involving counter-terrorism are at the heart of the scandal...not counter-intelligence. If the [London Centre for International Law Practice] was British state, not private, some Commonwealth countries are going to be seriously pissed off."

Blackburn spoke with Disobedient Media, saying:

" If you factor in the dreadful reporting to discredit Joseph Mifsud and leaks, it is pretty clear something rather strange happened to George Papadopoulos during the campaign while he was shuttling around Europe and the Middle East. He was working with people who have intelligence links at the London Centre of International Law Practice.

A recent article in The Telegraph also alludes to MI5, MI6, and CIA using counter-terrorism assets which would tie into the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP), and its sister organizations, doing counter-terrorism work for the Australian, UK and US governments. They quote anonymous officials who believe that their intelligence agencies used counter-terrorism personnel to kick start the investigation/scandal." [Emphasis Added]

Blackburn discussed this differentiation with Disobedient Media:

"Counter-terrorism is obviously involved in more kinetic, violent political actions-concerning mass casualty events, bombings, assassinations, poisonings, and hacking. But, the lines are blurring between them. Counter-intelligence cases have been known to stretch for decades- often relying on nothing more than paranoia and suspicion to fuel investigations. Counter-terrorism is also a broader discipline as it involves tactical elements like hostage rescue, crime scene investigations, and explosive specialists. Counter-Terrorism is a collaborative effort with counter-terrorism officers working closely with local and regional police forces and civic organizations. There is also a wider academic field around countering violent, and radical ideology which promotes terrorism and insurgencies. Cybersecurity has become the third major discipline in intelligence. The London Center of International Law Practice, the mysterious intelligence company that employed both Papadopoulos and Mifsud , had also been working in that area."

Continuing, Blackburn pinpointed the significance of defining counter-terrorism as the starting point of the investigation, saying: "It shows that there is a high probability that intelligence was deliberately abused to make Papadopoulos' activities look like they were something else.

As counter-terrorism and counterintelligence are close in tactics and methods, it would seem that they were used because they share the same skill sets - covert evidence gathering and deception. It's basically sleight of hand. A piece of theatre would be more precise. However, we don't know if the FBI knew it was real or make-believe. It's more likely that the CIA played the FBI with the help of close allies who were suspicious and frightened of a Trump presidency."

Mueller's Team And Joseph Mifsud

Zainab Ahmad , a member of Mueller's legal team, is the former Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York. As pointed out by Blackburn , Ahmad attended a Global Center on Cooperative Security event in 2017. In recent days, Blackburn wrote via Twitter :

"Zainab Ahmad is a major player in the Russiagate scandal at the DOJ. Does she work for SC Mueller? She was at a GCCS event in May 2017. Arvinder Sambei, a co-director of the [London Centre of International Law Practice], worked with Joseph Mifsud, [George Papadopoulos] and [Simona Mangiante]. She's a GCCS consultant."

Blackburn told this author:

"Zainab Ahmad was one of the first DOJ prosecutors to have seen the Steele dossier. In May 2017, she attended a counter-terrorism conference in New York with the Global Center on Cooperative Security (GCCS), an organization which Joseph Mifsud, the alleged Russian spy, had been working within London and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia."

Zainab Ahmad (AHMAD). Image via the Combatting Terrorism Center, West Point

"Richard Barrett, the Former Chief of Counter-Terrorism at MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence department traveled with Mifsud to Saudi Arabia to give a talk on terrorism in 2017. Ex-CIA officers, US Defense, and US Treasury officials were also there. The London Centre of International Law Practice's relationship to the Global Center had been established in 2014. The Global Center on Cooperative Security made Martin Polaine and Arvinder Sambei consultants, they then became directors at the London Centre of International Law Practice."

"The Global Center on Cooperative Security's first major UK conference was at Joseph Mifsud's London Academy of Diplomacy (LAD). Mifsud then followed Arvinder Sambei and Nagi Idris over to the London Centre of International Law Practice. Sources have told me that Mifsud was moonlighting as a specialist on counter-terrorism and Islamism while working at LAD which explains why he went to work in counter-terrorism after LAD folded."

"I don't think it's a coincidence that Global Center on Cooperative Security is connected to various elements that popped up in the Papadopoulos case. The fact that a prosecutor on Mueller's team was at Global Center before Mueller was appointed as special counsel is also troubling."

Days ago, The Hill reported on Congressional testimony by Bruce Ohr, revealing that when served as a DOJ official, he warned FBI and DOJ figures that the Steele dossier was problematic and linked to the Clintons. Critically, The Hill writes:

"Those he briefed included Andrew Weissmann, then the head of DOJ's fraud section; Bruce Swartz, longtime head of DOJ's international operations, and Zainab Ahmad , an accomplished terrorism prosecutor who, at the time, was assigned to work with Lynch as a senior counselor. Ahmad and Weissmann would go on to work for Mueller, the special prosecutor overseeing the Russia probe." [Emphasis Added]

This point is essential, as it not only describes Ahmad's role in Mueller's team but places her at a crucial pre-investigation meeting.

Last year, Blackburn noted the connection between Mifsud and Arvinder Sambei , writing: "LCILP director and FBI counsel, works with Mike Smith at the Global Center. They ran joint counter-terrorism conferences and training with Mifsud's London Academy. Sambei then brought Mifsud over to the [London Centre of International Law Practice]. [Global Center works with Aussies, UK and US State too."

Sambei has been described elsewhere as a "Former practising barrister, Senior Crown Prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service of England & Wales, and Legal Adviser at the Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ), Ministry of Defence." [British spelling has been retained]

Arvinder Sambei. Image via the Public International Law Advisory Group

That Sambei has been so thoroughly linked to organizations where Mifsud was a central figure is yet another cause of suspicion regarding allegations that Joseph Mifsud was a shadowy, unknown Russian agent until the summer of 2016 . She is also a direct link between Robert Mueller and Mifsud.

Blackburn wrote via Twitter : "Arvinder Sambei helped to organize LCILP's counter-terrorism and corruption events. She used her contacts in the US to bring in Middle Eastern government officials that were seen to be vulnerable to graft. Lisa Osofsky, former FBI Deputy General Counsel, was working with her." Below, Arvinder is pictured at a London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP) event.

Arvinder Sambei, pictured at an LCILP event. Image via Chris Blackburn, Twitter

As Chris Blackburn told this author:

" Mifsud and Papadopoulos's co-director Arvinder Sambei was also the former FBI British counsel working 9/11 cases for Robert Mueller. She also runs a consultancy which deals with Special Investigative Measure (SIMs) which is just a posh description for covert espionage and evidence gathering. She has worked for major intelligence and national law agencies in the past. She wore two hats as a director of London Centre and a consultant for the Global Center on Cooperative Security (GCCS), a counter-terrorism think tank which is sponsored by the Australia, Canada, UK and US governments. Alexander Downer's former Chief of Staff while at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade now works for the Global Center. Mifsud was also due to meet with Australian private intelligence figures in Adelaide in March 2016. So. Australia is certainly a major focus for the investigation." [Emphasis Added]

Below, former FBI Deputy General Counsel Lisa Osofsky is pictured at a London Centre for International Law Practice event . Osofsky also served as the Money Laundering Reporting Officer with Goldman Sachs International. Since 2018, she has served as the Director of the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO).

Lisa Osofsky, pictured at an LCILP event. Image via Chris Blackburn, Twitter

An Embarrassment For John Brennan?

Disobedient Media previously reported that Robert Hannigan, then head of British spy agency GCHQ, flew to Washington DC to share 'director-to-director' level intelligence with then-CIA Chief John Brennan in the summer of 2016. This writer noted that " The Guardian reported Hannigan's announcement that he would step down from his leadership position with the agency just three days after the inauguration of President Trump, on 23 January 2017.

Jane Mayer, in her profile of Christopher Steele published in the New Yorker, also noted that Hannigan had flown to Washington D.C. to personally brief the then-CIA Director John Brennan on alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. What is so curious about this briefing "deemed so sensitive it was handled at director-level" is why Hannigan was talking director-to-director to the CIA and not Mike Rogers at the NSA, GCHQ's Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partner."

Blackburn told Disobedient Media:

"Former Congressman Trey Gowdy, who has seen most of the information gathered by Congress from the intelligence community concerning the Russia investigation, said that if President Trump were to declassify files and present the truth to the American public, it would " embarrass John Brennan ." I think that is pretty concrete for me, but it's not definitive. I know the polarization and spin in Washington has become perverse, but that statement is pretty specific for me. If Brennan is involved, it is most probably through Papadopoulos who sparked off the 'official' investigation at the FBI. He also made sure the Steele dossier was spread through the US government."

Blackburn added: "Chris Steele was also working on FIFA projects, and a source has told me that he was working to investigate the Russian and Qatari World Cup bids. The London Centre of International Law Practice has been working with Majed Garoub, the former Saudi legal representative of FIFA, the world governing body for soccer. He's also been working against the Qatari bid. Steele likes to get paid twice for his investigations."

"Mifsud has also been associated with Prince Turki the former Saudi intelligence chief, Mifsud and the London Academy of Diplomacy used to train Saudi diplomats and intelligence figures while Turki was the Saudi Ambassador to London. Turki is a close friend of Bill Clinton and John Brennan. Nawaf Obaid was also courting Mifsud and tried to get him a cushy job working with CNN's Freedom Project at Link Campus in Rome. He also knows John Brennan. Intelligence agencies like to give out professional gifts like this plum academic position for completing missions. In the US, it is widely known that intelligence agencies gift the children of assets to get them into prestigious Ivy League schools."

At minimum, we can surmise that Mifsud was not a Russian agent, but was an asset of Western intelligence agencies. We are left with the impression that the Mifsud saga served as a ploy, whether he participated knowingly or not. It seems reasonable to conclude that the gambit was initially developed with participation of John Brennan and UK intelligence. Following this, Mueller inherited and developed the Mifsud narrative thread into the collusion soap opera we know today.

Ultimately, we are faced with the reality that British and US interests worked together to fabricate a collusion scandal to subvert a US Presidency, and in doing so, intentionally raised tensions between the West and a nuclear-armed power.


snodgrass , 2 hours ago link

What ********. Britain was part of the group pulling of 911 along with the American and Jewish establishment. Blackburn was the inside guy, posing as an outsider, to deflect attention from the real perpetrators. These people always have agents on both sides of every issue in the same way they fund two "opposing" political parties and fund two "opposing" sides in the media.

freedommusic , 3 hours ago link

Ultimately, we are faced with the reality that British and US interests worked together to fabricate a collusion scandal to subvert a US Presidency , and in doing so, intentionally raised tensions between the West and a nuclear-armed power .

It's called TREASON .

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies , giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere , is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years

Jung , 3 hours ago link

SteeleGate---his mate Skripal, boss Pablo Miller----novichok---Porton Down---anything to blame Russia in the end. After 30 dys of shutdown personnel of CIA, FBI and DOJ can be changed legally: draining of the swamp and DECLAS can begin with proper Military Tribunals in place. This according to Q who shared all of this, so it was not a conspiracy theory that the Q team exposed, but just MSM and Deep State in their last panic mode. Justice will now be able to follow: maybe rel end of endless wars too!

boooyaaaah , 3 hours ago link

There are more and more articles saying that the FBI, CIA, M14 15,16 yada yada, were overly concerned about Trump. Their sin...caring too much for the USA. They attempted a coup de'etat for "our" own good...we... being "we the people". To quote Abe Lincoln "You will find that all the arguments in favour of kingcraft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, -- not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden." Lincoln did not mince words

So now we have an international conspiracy of care. Not one power grubber in the group. A syndicate of misunderstood do gooders.

But not having the consent of the people, but rather trying to undo, and foil the consent of the people.

This part of the Declaration applies

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Last of the Middle Class , 4 hours ago link

Ultimately, we are faced with the reality that British and US interests worked together to fabricate a collusion scandal to subvert a US Presidency, and in doing so, intentionally raised tensions between the West and a nuclear-armed power..."

Why do you not call it a coup d'etat? That is what it is, nothing less. If it were about something Trump did you would use the harshest possible language. Why not tell the truth here. Let the American people know what happened.

[Feb 15, 2019] Trump = Obama = CIA meddling in every country. Presidents never change, only the perception of the morons changes

Notable quotes:
"... Why does the USA care about internal Venezuelan politics? Because it cares about every country's politics and demands every country bow down and kneel to the USA. The voters, aka morons, support this, both liberal and right wing, and have for generations. ..."
"... The morons pay their taxes to meddle in other countries and for a giant military to slaughter people who do not obey. ..."
Feb 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

never-anonymous says: February 14, 2019 at 6:21 pm GMT 100 Words

@nietzsche1510

Venezuela invasion thing is double-faceted: a trap for Trump & a bluff. if the invasion is, then bye-bye 2020 election, mission accomplished. if no invasion on sight then the bluff of Pompeo-Bolton-Abrams is called & the 2020 reelection assured. Venezuela in the role of bait.

The real issue lies in the voting class which cowers in fear all day long and seeks saviors every four years via rigged circus. Trump = Obama = CIA meddling in every country. Presidents never change, only the perception of the morons changes.

Why does the USA care about internal Venezuelan politics? Because it cares about every country's politics and demands every country bow down and kneel to the USA. The voters, aka morons, support this, both liberal and right wing, and have for generations.

The morons pay their taxes to meddle in other countries and for a giant military to slaughter people who do not obey. Freedom at the point of a gun. Nothing quite says democracy like having the US president tell the Venezuelans how to run their country.

[Feb 15, 2019] MSNBC "Terrified Of Anti-War Voices" Says Fired Anti-War Host Phil Donahue - YouTube

Notable quotes:
"... They divide us with race, sex, and religion. If we came together all the working class people, from every race, you'd see the oligarchs true face. They'd innact martial law in a heartbeat, and run to their underground base in the Ozarks. That's the painful truth. ..."
"... That's why Richard Nixon replaced the draft with a lottery that has evolved into a volunteer armed forces. We were nearly the verge of another civil war in this country. ..."
"... So Jimmy, once again, hit it out of the ballpark with this podcast on why the war hawks fear Tulsi ..."
"... She really scares the war hawks and just as importantly she scares the huge profits these war hawks and allied corporations (the parent company of GE which owns MSNBC makes turbine engines for the military) have made off these unnecessary and tragic wars since the 9/11 attacks. ..."
Feb 15, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Anders Stöök , 1 day ago

Phil Donahue was not a sellout like Rachel Maddow.

Humphking , 1 day ago

They divide us with race, sex, and religion. If we came together all the working class people, from every race, you'd see the oligarchs true face. They'd innact martial law in a heartbeat, and run to their underground base in the Ozarks. That's the painful truth.

George Hoffman , 1 day ago (edited)

I served in Vietnam (31 May 1967 - 31 May 1968), so I'm approximately around the same age as Phil. I told everyone I knew that if we invaded Iraq - this was during the lead-up in 2002 to vote on GWB's Iraq War resolution - having just a volunteer armed forces in the strategic sense, let alone the invasion of Iraq would violate international covenants against illegal wars of aggression - we would eventually have down the road a military blunder and a foreign policy debacle that would rival the one we had in the Vietnam War.

If GWB had somehow convinced the American people and the Congress to bring back the draft after the 9/11 attacks, I assure you we would have withdrawn from Afghanistan and Iraq long, long ago. But the war hawks in Congress and the Pentagon love their private, (essentially) quasi-mercenary volunteer armed forces after how badly they got burnt during the anti-war protests against the Vietnam War.

That's why Richard Nixon replaced the draft with a lottery that has evolved into a volunteer armed forces. We were nearly the verge of another civil war in this country.

So Jimmy, once again, hit it out of the ballpark with this podcast on why the war hawks fear Tulsi. Remember they can't smear her based on the fact that she was an officer who did two tours of duty in the war zone, so they try to smear her because she is supposedly a puppet of Putin, that is, a fifth columnist or fellow traveler as they did during the Red Scare in the McCarthy era. I would definitely vote for her as a fellow war veteran for president, but she has a very hard road to travel to win the nomination.

She really scares the war hawks and just as importantly she scares the huge profits these war hawks and allied corporations (the parent company of GE which owns MSNBC makes turbine engines for the military) have made off these unnecessary and tragic wars since the 9/11 attacks.

Rick C-137 , 1 day ago (edited)

MSNBC is complicit in the deaths of millions. As evil as evil gets.

John Henni , 1 day ago

Chris Matthews is the definition of Corporate shill.

[Feb 15, 2019] Starving Venezuela into Submission by Israel Shamir

Notable quotes:
"... First, you starve people; then you bring them humanitarian aid. This was proposed by John McNaughton at Pentagon: bomb locks and dams, by shallow-flooding the rice, cause widespread starvation (more than a million dead?) "And then we shall deliver humanitarian aid to the starving Vietnamese". Or, rather, "we could offer to do [that] at the conference table." Planning a million dead by starvation, in writing: if such a note would be found on the ruins of the Third Reich, it would seal the story of genocide, it would be quoted daily. But the story of the genocide of the Vietnamese is rarely mentioned nowadays. ..."
"... They did it in Syria, too. At first, they brought weapons for every Muslim extremist, then they blockaded Damascus, and then they sent some humanitarian aid, but only to the areas under rebel control. ..."
"... The Israelis practice it in Gaza. They block all export or import from the Strip, interdict fishing in the Mediterranean and drip-feed the captive Palestinians by 'humanitarian aid'. Jews, being Jews, make it one better: they made the EU to pay for the humanitarian aid to Gaza AND to buy the aid stuff from Israel. This made Gaza an important source of profit for the Jewish state. ..."
"... Timeo danaos et dona ferentes ..."
"... The Washington Post ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Agence France-Press ..."
"... Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected] ..."
Feb 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

You are so kind-hearted! I shed a tear thinking of American generosity. "So many delightful goodies: sacks of rice, canned tuna and protein-rich biscuits, corn flour, lentils and pasta, arrived at the border of troubled Venezuela – enough for one light meal each for five thousand people", – reported the news in a sublime reference to five thousand fed by Christ's fishes and loaves. True, Christ did not take over the bank accounts and did not seize the gold of those he fed. But 21st century Venezuela is a good deal more-prosperous than 1st century Galilee. Nowadays, you have to organise a blockade if you want people to be grateful for your humanitarian aid.

This is not a problem. The US-UK duo did it in Iraq, as marvellous Arundhati Roy wrote in April 2003 (in The Guardian of old, before it turned into an imperial tool): After Iraq was brought to its knees, its people starved, half a million of its children killed, its infrastructure severely damaged the blockade and war were followed by you guessed it! Humanitarian relief. At first, they blocked food supplies worth billions of dollars, and then they delivered 450 tonnes of humanitarian aid and celebrated their generosity for a few days of live TV broadcasts. Iraq had had enough money to buy all the food it needed, but it was blocked, and its people received only some peanuts.

And this was rather humane by American standards. In the 18th century, the British colonists in North America used more drastic methods while dispensing aid to disobedient natives. The Red Indians were expelled from their native places, and then they were provided humanitarian aid: whiskey and blankets. The blankets had been previously used by smallpox patients . The native population of North America was decimated by the ensuing epidemics from this and similar measures. Probably you haven't heard of this chapter of your history: the USA has many Holocaust museums but not a single memorial to the genocide near home. It is much more fun to discuss faults of Germans and Turks than of your own forefathers.

First, you starve people; then you bring them humanitarian aid. This was proposed by John McNaughton at Pentagon: bomb locks and dams, by shallow-flooding the rice, cause widespread starvation (more than a million dead?) "And then we shall deliver humanitarian aid to the starving Vietnamese". Or, rather, "we could offer to do [that] at the conference table." Planning a million dead by starvation, in writing: if such a note would be found on the ruins of the Third Reich, it would seal the story of genocide, it would be quoted daily. But the story of the genocide of the Vietnamese is rarely mentioned nowadays.

They did it in Syria, too. At first, they brought weapons for every Muslim extremist, then they blockaded Damascus, and then they sent some humanitarian aid, but only to the areas under rebel control.

This cruel but efficient method of breaking nations' spirit has been developed by lion tamers for years, perhaps for centuries. You have to starve the beast until it will take food from your hands and lick your fingers. 'Starvation-taming', they call it.

The Israelis practice it in Gaza. They block all export or import from the Strip, interdict fishing in the Mediterranean and drip-feed the captive Palestinians by 'humanitarian aid'. Jews, being Jews, make it one better: they made the EU to pay for the humanitarian aid to Gaza AND to buy the aid stuff from Israel. This made Gaza an important source of profit for the Jewish state.

So in Venezuela they follow an old script. The US and its London poodle seized over 20 billion dollars from Venezuela and from Venezuelan national companies. They stole over a billion in gold ingots Venezuela had trustingly deposited in the cellars of the Bank of England.

Well, they said they will give this money to a Venezuelan Random Dude, rather. To the guy who already promised to give the wealth of Venezuela to the US companies. And after this daylight robbery, they bring a few containers of humanitarian aid to the border and wait for the rush of bereft Venezuelans for food.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted : "The Venezuelan people desperately need humanitarian aid. The U.S. & other countries are trying to help, but Venezuela's military under Maduro's orders is blocking aid with trucks and shipping tankers. The Maduro regime must LET THE AID REACH THE STARVING PEOPLE."

Venezuelans aren't starving, even though they are going through difficulties. The biggest noise is made by the wealthy, as always. If Pompeo wants to help Venezuelans, he might lift the sanctions, return the funds, lift the blockade. The biscuits he wants to provide are of but little use.

President Maduro is right when he refuses to let this hypocrisy bribe the stomachs and hearts of his people. It is not just that he remembers his Virgil and knows, Timeo danaos et dona ferentes , "beware gift-bearing Greeks." There are too many American and Colombian soldiers around the pending delivery place, and this place is suspiciously close to an airport with an extra-long runway suitable for a an airlift.

The US is known for its propensity to invade its neighbours: Panama was invaded in 1989 to keep the Panama Canal in American hands and to roll back the agreement signed by the good-hearted President Jimmy Carter. President George Bush Sr sent his airborne troops in after calling Panama president "a dictator and cocaine smuggler". This is exactly what President Trump says about Venezuela's president.

They are likely to use this aid to invade and suborn Venezuela. Wisely, Maduro began large military exercises to prepare the army in case of invasion. The situation of Venezuela is dire enough even without invasion. Their money has been appropriated, their main oil company is as good as confiscated; and there is a strong fifth column waiting for Yankees in Caracas.

ORDER IT NOW

This fifth column consists mainly of compradors , well-off young folk with a smattering of Western education and upbringing, who see their future within the framework of the American Empire. They are ready to betray the unwashed masses and invite the US troops in. They are supported by the super-rich, by representatives of foreign companies, by Western secret services. Such people exist everywhere; they tried to organise the Gucci Revolution in Lebanon, the Green Revolution in Iran, the Maidan in the Ukraine. In Russia they had their chance in the winter of 2011/2012 when their Mink-Coat Revolution was played at Moscow's Bolotnaya Heath.

In Moscow they lost when their opponents, the Russia-First crowd, bettered them by fielding a much-bigger demo at Poklonnaya Hill. The Western news agencies tried to cover the defeat by broadcasting pictures of the Putin-supporters demo and saying it was the pro-Western Heath. Other Western agencies published pictures of 1991 rallies saying they were taken in 2012 on the Heath. In Moscow, nobody was fooled: the mink-coat crowd knew they were licked.

In the Ukraine, they won, for President Yanukovich, a hesitant and pusillanimous man of two minds, failed to gather massive support. It is a big question whether Maduro will be able to mobilise Venezuela-First masses. If he is, he will win the confrontation with the US as well.

Maduro is rather reticent; he hasn't disciplined unruly oligarchs; he does not control the media; he tries to play a social-democrat game in a country that is not Sweden by long shot. His subsidies have allowed ordinary people to escape dire poverty, but now they are used by black marketeers to siphon off the wealth of the nation. Far from being a disaster zone, Venezuela is a true Bonanza, a real Klondike: you can fill a tanker with petrol for pennies, smuggle it to neighbouring Colombia and sell it for market price. Many supporters of the Random Guy have made small fortunes this way, and they hope to make a large killing if and when the Americans come.

A bigger problem is that Venezuela had become a monoculture economy: it exports oil and imports everything else. It does not even produce food to feed its 35 million inhabitants. Venezuela is a victim of neoliberal doctrine claiming that you can buy what you can't produce. Now they can't buy and they do not produce. Imagine a democratic Saudi Arabia hit by blockade.

In order to save the economy, Maduro should drain the swamp, end the black market and profiteering, encourage agriculture, tax the rich, develop some industry for local consumption. It can be done. Venezuela is not a socialist state like orderly Cuba, nor a social-democratic one like Sweden and England in 1970s, but even its very modest model of allowing the masses to rise out of misery, poverty and ignorance seems too much for the West.

It is often said there are two antagonists in the West, the Populists and the Globalists, and President Trump is the Populist leader. The Venezuela crisis proved these two forces are united if there is a chance to attack and rob an outsider country. Trump is condemned at home when he calls his troops back from Afghanistan or Syria, but he gains support when he threatens Venezuela or North Korea. He can be sure he will be cheered on by Macron and Merkel and even by The Washington Post and The New York Times .

He has the real WMD, the Weapons of Mass Deception, to attack Venezuela, and these WMD had been activated with the beginning of the creeping coup. When a rather unknown young politician, the leader of a small neoliberal rabidly pro-American fraction in the Parliament, Random Dude, claimed the title of president, he was immediately recognised by Trump, and the Western media reported that the people of Venezuela went out in mass demos to greet the new president and demand Maduro's removal.

They beamed videos of huge Caracas demos back to Venezuela. Not many viewers abroad noticed that the video was old, filmed in 2016 demos, but the Venezuelans saw that at once. They weren't fooled. They knew that there is no chance for a big protest demo on that day, the day of a particularly important baseball game in the professional league between Leones of Caracas and Cardenales de Lara from Barquisimeto.

But the WMD kept lying. Here is a report by Moon of Alabama : the reports of large anti-government rallies are fake news or prophecies hoping to become self-fulfilling ones:

Agence France-Press stated at 11:10 utc yesterday that "tens of thousands" would join a rally.

AFP news agency @AFP -- 11:10 utc -- 2 Feb 2019

Tens of thousands of protesters are set to pour onto the streets of Venezuela's capital #Caracas Saturday to back opposition leader Juan Guaido's calls for early elections as international pressure increased on President #Maduro to step down http://u.afp.com/Jouu

They lie that there are army deserters spoiling for a fight with the army. The young guys CNN presented weren't deserters, and they didn't live in Venezuela. Even their military insignia were of the kind discarded years ago, as our friend The Saker noticed .

However, these lies won't avail -- my correspondents in Caracas report that there are demos for and against government (for Maduro slightly bigger crowds), but the feelings aren't strong. The crisis is manufactured in Washington, and the Venezuelans aren't keen to get involved.

That's why we can expect an American attempt to use force, preceded by some provocation. Probably it won't be a full-blown war: the US never fought an enemy that wasn't exhausted prior to the encounter. If the Maduro administration survives the blow, the crisis will take a low profile, until sanctions do their work and further undermine the economy.

ORDER IT NOW

In this struggle, President Trump is his own bitter enemy. He seeks approval of the War Party, and his own base will be disappointed by his actions. His sanctions will send more refugees to the US, wall or no wall. He undermines the unique status of the US dollar by weaponising it. In 2020, he will reap what he sow.

Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected]


Cyrano , says: February 13, 2019 at 2:57 am GMT

I am pretty sure that there won't be any military intervention by US in Venezuela. How do I know this? Well, if it was any other nation, – for example a nation of people whose brains have been turned into mush by decades long propaganda – then I would be worried.

Luckily, US have one of the best informed populations on earth – they have all those bastions of truth like CNN, CBS, NYT and so on. That's why I am fairly certain that the US wouldn't dare to attack Venezuela. Their peace-loving nation wouldn't let them.

The only way it can happen is if in the next few weeks a group of Venezuelan terrorists hijacked few planes and flew them into some tall buildings in the US. That's the only way that the public opinion in the peace loving nation can be swayed towards war.

Remember, every time the US has gone to war, they had to stage various versions of 9/11 – in order to convince the well informed and peace loving Americans that someone hates their freedoms, so they have to go over there to fight for those freedoms, rather than wait over here for someone to bring the fight to them.

Cyrano , says: February 13, 2019 at 2:57 am GMT
I am pretty sure that there won't be any military intervention by US in Venezuela. How do I know this? Well, if it was any other nation, – for example a nation of people whose brains have been turned into mush by decades long propaganda – then I would be worried.

Luckily, US have one of the best informed populations on earth – they have all those bastions of truth like CNN, CBS, NYT and so on. That's why I am fairly certain that the US wouldn't dare to attack Venezuela. Their peace-loving nation wouldn't let them.

The only way it can happen is if in the next few weeks a group of Venezuelan terrorists hijacked few planes and flew them into some tall buildings in the US. That's the only way that the public opinion in the peace loving nation can be swayed towards war.

Remember, every time the US has gone to war, they had to stage various versions of 9/11 – in order to convince the well informed and peace loving Americans that someone hates their freedoms, so they have to go over there to fight for those freedoms, rather than wait over here for someone to bring the fight to them.

israel shamir , says: February 13, 2019 at 8:58 am GMT
@Verymuchalive According to numbers from Venezuela's Ministry of Agriculture, after relatively stagnant food production throughout the 1990s, from 2003 to 2011 milk production increased by 230 percent, beef production by 19 percent, chicken by 60 percent, rice by 25 percent, corn by 116 percent, and beans by 320 percent.

As can be seen, the claims among Chavez's critics of a decrease in food production are simply false. And while it is true that there have been food shortages, the real reason is quite different from what the media reports. An impressive increase in food production in recent years has simply been outpaced by growing consumption that has increased even more rapidly, creating supply problems in many basic items and the need to import increasing amounts of food. Though often cited as a major failure of the Chavez government, it is actually the result of millions of poor Venezuelans eating better and consuming more than ever before. As one Venezuelan recently said to an opposition activist who insisted that empty supermarket shelves were proof of the government's failures and demanded to know, "Then where is the milk?": "The milk," he replied, "is in the bellies of Venezuela's poor."
https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/7513

As for the USSR, only now the Russians are coming to the levels of modest affluence circa 1985, after the disaster of anti-communist rule in 1990s.
Russian Communism is a secularised Russian Orthodox Christianity. Likewise, American system is secularised Judaism.

renfro , says: February 14, 2019 at 6:25 am GMT
BRAVO OMAR ..2 nd time in my life I have seen balls in congress.

Venezuela Envoy Elliott Abrams Lose His Cool During Tense Exchange With Rep. Ilhan Omar

Watch the video at link

"Mr. Abrams, in 1991 you pleaded guilty to two counts of withholding information from Congress regarding your involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, for which you were later pardoned by president George H.W. Bush," began Omar. "I fail to understand why members of this committee or the American people should find any testimony that you give today to be truthful."

"If I could respond to that " interjected Abrams.

"It was not a question," shot back Omar.

After a brief exchange in which Abrams protested "It was not right!" Omar cut Abrams off, saying "Thank you for your participation."

February 13, 2019

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51105.htm

Wally , says: February 14, 2019 at 8:09 pm GMT
@bluedog Please present you proof your 'forced labor living in holes in the ground, women selling themselves for bread'.
You cannot, or you would have.

We note your avoidance of the facts. Violent Stone Age 'Indians':
– kept slaves
– were in constant states of war with other tribes
– treated & traded women like cattle
– practiced genocide against other 'Indian' tribes
– used crude environmentally destructive slash & burn agricultural methods
– decimated the animal populations
– the first acts by them when they got horses from the Spaniards was to attack and decimate other tribes
– engaged in cannibalism
– roasted people alive
– routinely butchered children
– engaged in human sacrifice
– constant rapes
– took scalps from their enemies

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kw/crichton.html
"The noble savage is a fantasy, and it was never true. That anyone still believes it, 200 years after Rousseau, shows the tenacity of religious myths"

Willem , says: February 14, 2019 at 8:12 pm GMT
What the author refers to is called: 'winning hearts and minds' (wham)

John Pilger has an intersting article about wham, and how that worked in Vietnam

http://johnpilger.com/articles/mourn-on-the-fourth-of-july

Now featuring in Venezuela?

RVBlake , says: February 14, 2019 at 10:02 pm GMT
@bluedog I've read biographies of Custer and can only recall two villages attacked by him at the head of his regiment, the 7th U.S. Cavalry. In November 1868 he led an attack on the Cheyenne encampment on the Washita River, in Oklahoma. Reports differ on the casualties, but this was decidedly not a friendly village. The second is his celebrated and perhaps precipitous attack on the massive summer encampment of Lakota/Cheyenne/Arapaho on the Little Bighorn River.in June of 1876. They had refused President Grant's order to return to their reservations the previous January, and placed themselves subject to military action. He had been involved in other skirmishes with hostile Indians, in Kansas in 1867 and on the Yellowstone Expedition of 1873, but I'm unaware of any other attacks on villages.
APilgrim , says: February 14, 2019 at 10:41 pm GMT
@Wally Pock-faced smallpox survivors were immune.

Cowpox inoculations conferred immunity.

The English used biological warfare, as did the Romans.

Deal with it.

APilgrim , says: February 14, 2019 at 10:48 pm GMT
@bluedog The Cherokee committed treason in the War of 1812, by fighting for the British.

The Cherokee got their just desserts.

Whah!

APilgrim , says: February 14, 2019 at 10:58 pm GMT
@RVBlake Lt. Col. George Armstrong (Autie) Custer died by his own hand, when his mounted escape failed.

Not that I blame him for eating a bullet, in an active Indian massacre.

APilgrim , says: February 14, 2019 at 11:04 pm GMT
@Wally The 'civilized-tribes' of the Eastern Seaboard were the best of the lot.

The Pueblos were OK.

Most of the rest are as you described.

Verymuchalive , says: February 14, 2019 at 11:06 pm GMT
@Denis

I'm hardly a communist myself, but not everything can be blamed on communism. Venezuela is not a communist state by any stretch of the imagination, and Chavez and Maduro can hardly be compared to Lenin and Stalin, that's just a bit too much .

I didn't claim that Chavez and Maduro were Communists. Only that they had had a disastrous effect on Venezuelan agriculture as Lenin and Stalin had on Soviet agriculture – though of course Bolshevism was many degrees worse. I said elsewhere that Chavez used money from oil to import ever more food from abroad, rather than stimulate indigenous food production. I said that this was a very odd form of Socialism. In fact, it's not Socialism at all.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s – if, like me, you are old enough to remember – there were a number of pseudo-Communist 3rd World States, like North Yemen, Angola and Ethiopia. Beneath the very thin veneer, they were kleptocracies run to benefit those in power.
Venezuela is a similar pseudo-Socialist kleptocracy. Before he obtained power, Chavez presented himself as a Reformer, rather than a Socialist. Afterwards, he claimed he was " Bolivarian Socialist ".
Oil is a very capital intensive industry. If you fail to invest sufficiently, then production will tail off, particularly the heavy, sulphurous product Venezuela produces. Chavez took this money and used it to bribe the masses in welfare payments. Talk about being bribed by your own money ! As much money if not more was stolen by the kleptocracy for their own benefit – over $200bn or more if Forbes is to believed.
Oil production has gone down from 3.5bbp day before Chavez to 2.4bbp day on his death. It is now down to 1 bbp day. By the end of the year, it will be be 0.5bbp day or less, regardless of what America does.
I totally agree with you. The US should stay out of this conflict. Whether it wishes to embargo Venezuelan crude imports is up to the American government. Otherwise, keep out. Regardless, the Venezuelan Government would collapse within 18 months. Venezuela will need a great deal of aid, not only to reconstruct their country, but also to invest heavily in oil production. If the Us supplies this, let them have the oil. It will be the most expensive oil in the world

Gringo , says: February 15, 2019 at 1:57 am GMT
A bigger problem is that Venezuela had become a monoculture economy: it exports oil and imports everything else. It does not even produce food to feed its 35 million inhabitants. Venezuela is a victim of neoliberal doctrine claiming that you can buy what you can't produce.

Under two decades of Chavismo, Venezuela became much more a monoculture economy than it used to be. Oil exports as a percentage of Venezuelan exports increased from 71.7% in 1998, the year Chávez was elected, to 97.8% by 2013. Which implies that Chávez was following, to quote your words, a "neoliberal doctrine claiming that you can buy what you can't produce."

Yet you say this about the current Chavismo opponent.

When a rather unknown young politician, the leader of a small neoliberal rabidly pro-American fraction in the Parliament, Random Dude, claimed the title of president,

You inform us the leader of the opposition is "neoliberal," which implies that Maduro and Chavismo are NOT neoliberal, in fact are far from being neoliberal. Yet you also inform us that Chavismo, in its two decades in power followed "neoliberal doctrine claiming that you can buy what you can't produce."

You are not making sense.

Fuel exports (% of merchandise exports)
1998 71.7%
2013 97.8%

https://data.worldbank.org/country/venezuela-rb?view=chart

Gringo , says: February 15, 2019 at 2:02 am GMT
Venezuelans aren't starving, even though they are going through difficulties.

Venezuelans report big weight losses in 2017 as hunger hits (Feb 21,2018)

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelans reported losing on average 11 kilograms (24 lbs) in body weight last year and almost 90 percent now live in poverty, according to a new university study on the impact of a devastating economic crisis and food shortages.
Over 60 percent of Venezuelans surveyed said that during the previous three months they had woken up hungry because they did not have enough money to buy food. About a quarter of the population was eating two or less meals a day, the study showed.

Last year, the three universities found that Venezuelans said they had lost an average of 8 kilograms during 2016. This time, the study's dozen investigators surveyed 6,168 Venezuelans between the ages of 20 and 65 across the country of 30 million people.

Most people would term "difficulties" a euphemism for that.

Gringo , says: February 15, 2019 at 2:40 am GMT
@israel shamir As can be seen, the claims among Chavez's critics of a decrease in food production are simply false.

FAO Stats tell us otherwise. You could find no data beyond 2011? Probably because your information source, the Venezuelan Ministry of Agriculture didn't want to release embarrassing data.

Chávez was elected in 2016. FAO Stats inform us that from 1998 to 2016,
Venezuela's net per capita Crops (PIN) production has fallen 35.7%.
Venezuela's net per capita Cereals, Total production (here corn and rice) has fallen 46.9%.

Cereals production fell a further 17% in 2017. From 2014-2017, Cereals production in Venezuela fell 59%.

Cereals, total production, metric tons
2014 3,597,762
2015 2,294,532
2016 1,782,326
2017 1,475,140

"Claims among Chavez's critics of a decrease in food production are simply false ?" As they say in Venezuela, "Dime otro de vaqueros." Tell me another cowboy story. Tell me another fish tale.

FAO Stats: Production Indices
Net per capita Production Index Number (2004-2006 = 100)
Cereals,Total
Crops (PIN)

http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#country/236 Cereals production 2014-2017

[Feb 13, 2019] MoA - Russiagate Is Finished

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... You can take this to the bank. Hardcore Russiagaters will never give up their belief in collusion and Russian influence in the 2016 campaign -- never. Congress and Mueller will be accused of engaging in a coverup. ..."
"... Thus, even if the Mueller report is underwhelming, I think that the Democrats and TDS-saturated Trump opponents will attempt to rehabilitate it by pretending that it contains important loose ends that need to be pursued. In other words, to perpetuate the Mueller-driven political Russophobia by all other available means. ..."
"... Russiagate has exposed the great degree of corruption within the Justice Department bureaucracy, particularly within FBI, and within the entire Democrat Party. ..."
"... Since this is obviously not going to be allowed to happen, and since these people get away with everything, expect this to never end, despite all evidence to the contrary. It doesn't matter if they've been exposed as CIA propagandists or Integrity Initiative stooges, the game goes on...and on.... the job security of these disgraced columnists is the greatest in the Western world. ..."
"... Stephen Cohen discusses how rational viewpoints are banned from the mainstream media, and how several features of US life today resemble some of the worst features of the Soviet system. https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/12/stephen-cohen-on-war-with-russia-and-soviet-style-censorship-in-the-us/ ..."
"... The US needs an enemy, how else can they ask NATO members to cough up 2% of GDP [just for one example Germany's GDP is nearly 4 Trillion dollars [2017] for defence spending, what a crazy sum all NATO members must fork out to please the US, but then most of that money must be spent on the US MIC 'interoperability' of course. ..."
"... Another great damage of Russiagate was the instigating of a nuclear arms race directed primarily at Russia, and ideologically justified by its diabolical policies. ..."
"... Russiagate was very successful. You just have to understand the objectives. It was a great distraction. Diverting peoples attention from the continued fleecing of the "real people" which are the bottom 90% by the "Corporate People" and their Government Lackeys. ..."
"... It provided an excuse for the acting CEO (a figurehead) of the Corporate Empire to go back on many of the promises made that got him elected, and to fill the swamp with Neocon and Koch Brother creatures with the excuse the Deep State made him do it. More proof that there is no deception that is too ridiculous to be believed so long as you have enough pundits claiming it to be so ..."
"... If you've done just a cursory look into Seth Rich, you'd be very suspicious about the story of his life and death. IMO Assange/Wikilleaks were set up. And Flynn was set up too. What they are doing is Orwellian: White Helmets, election manipulation, propaganda, McCarthism, etc. If you're not angry, you're not paying attention. ..."
"... See also this primer on Mueller's MO. ..."
"... The button pushers behind the Trump collusion and Russia election hacking false narratives got what they wanted: to walk the democrats and republicans straight into Cold War v2; to start their campaign to suppress alternative voices on the internet; to increase military spending; and more, more, more war. ..."
"... Russiagate was very successful <=pls read, re-read Pft @ 46.. he listed many things. divide and conquer accomplished. a nation state is defined as an armed rule making structure, designed by those who control a territory, and constructed by the lawyers, military, and wealthy and run by the persons the designers appoint, for the appointed are called politicians. ..."
"... At the beginnng of Russiagate, I wrote on Robert Parry's Consirtium News that Russiagate is Idiocracy piggy-backing on decades and literally billions of dollars of anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda. How hard would it be to brainwash an already brainwashed population? ..."
"... The purveyors of Russiagate will re-compose themselves, brush off all reports and continue on. One just cannot get away from one's nature, even when that nature is pure idiocy. ..."
"... Russiagate will not go away unfortunately because it has evolved in the "Russiagate Industry". As mentioned by others, the Russiagate Industry has been very profitable for many industries and people. Russiagate has generated an entire cottage industry of companies around censorship and "find us a Russian". Dow Jones should have an index on the Russiagate Industry. ..."
Feb 12, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

For more than two years U.S. politicians, the media and some bloggers hyped a conspiracy theory. They claimed that Russia had somehow colluded with the Trump campaign to get him elected.

An obviously fake 'Dirty Dossier' about Trump, commissioned by the Clinton campaign, was presented as evidence. Regular business contacts between Trump flunkies and people in Ukraine or Russia were claimed to be proof for nefarious deals. A Russian click-bait company was accused of manipulating the U.S. electorate by posting puppy pictures and crazy memes on social media. Huge investigations were launched. Every rumor or irrelevant detail coming from them was declared to be - finally - the evidence that would put Trump into the slammer. Every month the walls were closing in on Trump.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/qjUvfZj-Fm0

At the same time the very real Trump actions that hurt Russia were ignored.

Finally the conspiracy theory has run out of steam. Russiagate is finished :

After two years and 200 interviews, the Senate Intelligence Committee is approaching the end of its investigation into the 2016 election, having uncovered no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to both Democrats and Republicans on the committee.
...
Democrats and other Trump opponents have long believed that special counsel Robert Mueller and Congressional investigators would unearth new and more explosive evidence of Trump campaign coordination with Russians. Mueller may yet do so, although Justice Department and Congressional sources say they believe that he, too, is close to wrapping up his investigation.

Nothing, zero, nada was found to support the conspiracy theory. The Trump campaign did not collude with Russia. A few flunkies were indicted for unrelated tax issues and for lying to the investigators about some minor details. But nothing at all supports the dramatic claims of collusion made since the beginning of the affair.

In a recent statement House leader Nancy Pelosi was reduced to accuse Trump campaign officials of doing their job:

"The indictment of Roger Stone makes clear that there was a deliberate, coordinated attempt by top Trump campaign officials to influence the 2016 election and subvert the will of the American people. ...

No one called her out for spouting such nonsense.

Russiagate created a lot of damage.

The alleged Russian influence campaign that never happened was used to install censorship on social media. It was used to undermine the election of progressive Democrats. The weapon salesmen used it to push for more NATO aggression against Russia. Maria Butina, an innocent Russian woman interested in good relation with the United States, was held in solitary confinement (recommended) until she signed a paper which claims that she was involved in a conspiracy.

In a just world the people who for more then two years hyped the conspiracy theory and caused so much damage would be pushed out of their public positions. Unfortunately that is not going to happen. They will jump onto the next conspiracy train continue from there.

Posted by b on February 12, 2019 at 01:38 PM | Permalink

Comments next page " Legally, Maria Butina was suborned into signing a false declaration. If there were the rule of law, such party or parties that suborned her would be in gaol. Considering Mueller's involvement with Lockerbie, I am not holding my breath. FWIW the Swiss company that made the timers allegedly involved in Lockerbie have some comments of its own .


james , Feb 12, 2019 2:00:14 PM | link

thanks b..

I will be really glad when this 'get Russia' craziness is over, but I suspect even if the Mueller investigation has nothing, all the same creeps will be pulling out the stops to generate something... Skripal, Integrity Initiative, and etc. etc. stuff like this just doesn't go away overnight or with the end of this 'investigation'... folks are looking for red meat i tell ya!

as for Maria Butina - i look forward to reading the article.. that was a travesty of justice but the machine moves on, mowing down anyone in it's way... she was on the receiving end of all the paranoia that i have come to associate with the western msm at this point...

Zanon , Feb 12, 2019 2:03:26 PM | link
Considering Mueller hasn't produced its report nor the House dito, its way to early to say Russia gate is "finished".
Jackrabbit , Feb 12, 2019 2:11:44 PM | link
And Russiagate was used ...
... by Hillary to justify her loss to Trump

Hillary's loss is actually best explained as her throwing the election to Trump . The Deep State wanted a nationalist to win as that would best help meet the challenge from Russia and China - a challenge that they had been slow to recognize.

=
... to smear Wikileaks as a Russian agent

The DNC leak is best explained as a CIA false flag.

=
... to remove and smear Michael Flynn

Trump said that he fired Flynn for lying to VP Pence but Flynn's conversations with the Russian Ambassador after Obama threw them out for "meddling" in the US election was an embarrassment to the Administration as Putin's Putin's decision not to respond was portrayed as favoritism toward the Trump Administration.

Rob , Feb 12, 2019 2:28:50 PM | link
You can take this to the bank. Hardcore Russiagaters will never give up their belief in collusion and Russian influence in the 2016 campaign -- never. Congress and Mueller will be accused of engaging in a coverup. This is typical behavior for conspiracy theorists.
bj , Feb 12, 2019 2:30:41 PM | link
Jimmy Dore on same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgBxfHdb4OU Enjoy!
Ort , Feb 12, 2019 2:34:14 PM | link
I hope that Russiagate is indeed "finished", but I think it needs to be draped with garlic-clove necklaces, shot up with silver bullets, sprinkled with holy water, and a wooden stake driven through its black heart just to make sure.

I don't dispute the logical argument B. presents, but it may be too dispassionately rational. I know that the Russiagate proponents and enthralled supporters of the concept are too invested psychologically in this surrealistic fantasy to let go, even if the official outcome reluctantly admits that there's no "there" there.

The Democratic Party, one of the major partners mounting the Russophobic psy-op, has already resolved to turn Democratic committee chairmen loose to dog the Trump administration with hearings aggressively flogging any and all matters that discredit and undermine Trump-- his business connections, social liaisons, etc.

They may hope to find the Holy Grail: the elusive "bombshell" that "demands" impeachment, i.e., some crime or illicit conduct so heinous that the public will stand for another farcical impeachment proceeding. But I reckon that the Dems prefer the "soft" impeachment of harassing Trump with hostile hearings in hopes of destroying his 2020 electability with the death of a thousand innuendoes and guilt-by-association.

Thus, even if the Mueller report is underwhelming, I think that the Democrats and TDS-saturated Trump opponents will attempt to rehabilitate it by pretending that it contains important loose ends that need to be pursued. In other words, to perpetuate the Mueller-driven political Russophobia by all other available means.

Put more succinctly, I fear that Russiagate won't be finished until Rachel Maddow says it's finished. ;)

worldblee , Feb 12, 2019 2:38:17 PM | link
Once a hypothesis is fixed in people's minds, whether true or not, it's hard to get them to let go of it. And let's not forget how many times the narrative changed (and this is true in the Skripal case as well), with all past facts vanishing to accommodate a new narrative.

So I, like others, expect the fake scandal to continue while many, many other real crimes (the US attempted coup in Venezuela and the genocidal war in Yemen, for instance) continue unabated.

karlof1 , Feb 12, 2019 2:43:34 PM | link
Putin solicits public input for essential national policy goals . If ever there was a template to follow for an actual MAGAgenda, Putin's Russia provides one. While US politicos argue over what is essentially Bantha Pudu, Russians are hard at work improving their nation which includes restructuring their economy.

Russiagate has exposed the great degree of corruption within the Justice Department bureaucracy, particularly within FBI, and within the entire Democrat Party.

BlunderOn , Feb 12, 2019 2:48:51 PM | link
mmm...

I very much doubt it it is over. Trump is corrupt and has links to corrupt Russians. Collusion, maybe not, but several stinking individuals are in the frame for, guess what - ...bring it on... The fact that Hilary was arguably even worse (a point made ad-nauseum on here) is frankly irrelevant. The vilification of Trump will not affect the warmongers efforts. He is a useful idiot

james , Feb 12, 2019 2:52:33 PM | link
for a take on the alternative reality some are living in emptywheel has an article up on the nbc link b provides and the article on butina is discussed in the comments section... as i said - they are looking for red meat and will not be happy until they get some... they are completely zonkers...
Blooming Barricade , Feb 12, 2019 2:55:18 PM | link
Now that this racket has been admitted as such, I expect all of the media outlets that devoted banner headlines, hundreds of thousands of hours of cable TV time, thousands of trees, and free speech online to immediately fire all of their journalists and appoint Glenn Greenwald as the publisher of the New York Times, Michael Tracey at the Post, Aaron Matte at the Guardian, and Max Blumenthal at the Daily Beast.

Since this is obviously not going to be allowed to happen, and since these people get away with everything, expect this to never end, despite all evidence to the contrary. It doesn't matter if they've been exposed as CIA propagandists or Integrity Initiative stooges, the game goes on...and on.... the job security of these disgraced columnists is the greatest in the Western world.

jayc , Feb 12, 2019 3:03:51 PM | link
Stephen Cohen discusses how rational viewpoints are banned from the mainstream media, and how several features of US life today resemble some of the worst features of the Soviet system. https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/12/stephen-cohen-on-war-with-russia-and-soviet-style-censorship-in-the-us/
Heath , Feb 12, 2019 3:18:29 PM | link
It turned out getting rid of the Clintons has been a long term project.
Harry Law , Feb 12, 2019 3:21:58 PM | link
The US needs an enemy, how else can they ask NATO members to cough up 2% of GDP [just for one example Germany's GDP is nearly 4 Trillion dollars [2017] for defence spending, what a crazy sum all NATO members must fork out to please the US, but then most of that money must be spent on the US MIC 'interoperability' of course.

Then of course Russia has to be surrounded by NATO should they try and take over Europe by surging through the Fulda gap./s

Then of course there are the professional pundits who have built careers on anti Russian propaganda, Rachel Maddow for instance who earns 30,000$ per day to spew anti Russian nonsense.

folktruther , Feb 12, 2019 3:27:32 PM | link
Another great damage of Russiagate was the instigating of a nuclear arms race directed primarily at Russia, and ideologically justified by its diabolical policies.

I'm sorry b is so down on Conspiracy Theories, since they reveal quite real staged homicidal false flag operations of US power. Feeding into the stigmatizing of the truth about reality is not in the interests of the earth's people.

frances , Feb 12, 2019 3:31:11 PM | link
somehow I see this "revelation: tied to Barr's approaching tenure. I think they (FBI/DOJ) didn't want his involvement in their noodle soup of an investigation and the best way to accomplish that was to end it themselves. I also suspect that a deal has been made with Trump, possibly in exchange for leaving his family alone.

So we will see no investigation of Hillary, her 650,000 emails or the many crimes they detailed (according to NYPD investigation of Weiner's laptop) and the US will continue to be at war all day, every day. Team Swamp rules.

Ash , Feb 12, 2019 3:35:06 PM | link
Meanwhile, MSM is prepping its readers for the possibility that the Mueller report will never be released to us proles. If that's the case, I'm sure nobody will try to use innuendo to suggest it actually contains explosive revelations after all...
Heath , Feb 12, 2019 3:38:37 PM | link
@16

Harry, its vitally important as the US desperately wants to keep Europe under its thumb and to stop this European army which means Europe lead by Paris and Berlin becomes a world power. Trump's attempts to make nice with Russia is to keep it out of the EU bloc.

Anne Jaclard , Feb 12, 2019 3:54:47 PM | link
Well, the liberal conspiracy car crash ensured downmarket Mussolini a second term, it appears...Hard Brexit Tories also look likely to win thanks to centrist sabatoge of the left. You reap what you sow, corporate presstitutes!
wagelaborer , Feb 12, 2019 4:05:25 PM | link
Sane people have predicted the end of Russiagate almost as many times as insane people have predicted that the "smoking gun that will get rid of Trump" has been found. And yet the Mighty Wurlitzer grinds on, while social media is more and more censored.

I expect it all to continue until the 2020 election circus winds up into full-throated mode, and no one talks about anything but the next puppet to be appointed. Oops, I mean "elected".

Jen , Feb 12, 2019 4:15:57 PM | link
Ort @ 7:

You also need to behead the corpse, stuff the mouth with a lemon and then place the head down in the coffin with the body in supine (facing up) position. Weight the coffin with stones and wild roses and toss it into a fast-flowing river.

Russiagate won't be finished until a wall is built around Capitol Hill and all its inhabitants and worker bees declared insane by a properly functioning court of law.

Jackrabbit , Feb 12, 2019 4:16:59 PM | link
frances @18:
I also suspect that a deal has been made with Trump, possibly in exchange for leaving his family alone. So we will see no investigation of Hillary ...
Underlying your perspective is the assumption that USA is a democracy where a populist "outsider" could be elected President, Yet you also believe that Hillary and the Deep State have the power to manipulate government and the intelligence agencies and propose a "conspiracy theory" based on that power.

Isn't it more likely that Trump made it clear (behind closed doors, of course) that he was amenable to the goals of the Deep State and that the bogus investigation was merely done to: 1) cover their own election meddling; 2) eliminate threats like Flynn and Assange/Wikileaks; 3) anti-Russian propaganda?

Jackrabbit , Feb 12, 2019 4:33:16 PM | link
Jen

Steven Cohen once lamented that there were no "wise men" left in foreign policy. All the independent realists were shut out.

Michael McNulty , Feb 12, 2019 4:49:32 PM | link
US anti-Russian hysteria is moving into that grey area beyond McCarthyism approaching Nazism.
Circe , Feb 12, 2019 4:58:40 PM | link
Dowd, Trump's former lawyer on Russiagate stated there may not even be a report. If this is the case then the Zionist rulers have gotten to Mueller who no doubt figured out that the election collusion breadcrumbs don't lead to Putin, they lead to Netanyahu and Zionist billionaire friends! So Mueller may have to come up with a nothing burger to hide the truth.
Danny , Feb 12, 2019 5:02:34 PM | link
B is the only alternative media blogger I've followed for a significant amount of time without becoming disenfranchised. Not because he has no blind spot - his is just one I can deal with... optimism.

hopehely , Feb 12, 2019 5:14:49 PM | link

I will believe Russiagate is finished when expelled Russian staff gets back, when the US returns the seized Russian properties, when the consulate is Seattle reopens and when USA issues formal apology to Russia.

Posted by: hopehely | Feb 12, 2019 5:14:49 PM | link

bevin , Feb 12, 2019 5:16:18 PM | link
Nobody has ever advanced the tiniest shred of credible evidence that 'Russia' or its government at any level was in any way implicated either in Wikileaks' acquisition of the DNC and Podesta emails or in any form of interference with the Presidential election.

This has been going on for three years and not once has anything like evidence surfaced.

On the other hand there has been an abundance of evidence that those alleging Russian involvement consistently refused to listen to explore the facts.

Incredibly, the DNC computers were never examined by the FBI or any other agency resembling an official police agency. Instead the notorious Crowdstrike professionally russophobic and caught red handed faking data for the Ukrainians against Russia were commissioned to produce a 'report.'

Nobody with any sense would have credited anything about Russiagate after that happened.

Thgen there was the proof, from VIPS and Bill Binney (?) that the computers were not hacked at all but that the information was taken by thumbdrive. A theory which not only Wikileaks but several witnesses have offered to prove.

Not one of them has been contacted by the FBI, Mueller or anyone else "investigating."

In reality the charges from the first were ludicrous on their face. There is, as b has proved and every new day's news attests, not the slightest reason why anyone in the Russian government should have preferred Trump over Clinton. And that is saying something because they are pretty well indistinguishable. And neither has the morals or brains of an adolescent groundhog.

Russiagate is over, alright, The Nothingburger is empty. But that means nothing in this 'civilisation': it will be recorded in the history books, still to be written, by historians still in diapers, that "The 2016 Presidential election, which ended in the controversial defeat of Hillary Clinton, was heavily influenced by Russian agents who hacked ..etc etc"

What will not be remembered is that every single email released was authentic. And that within those troves of correspondence there was enough evidence of criminality by Clinton and her campaign to fill a prison camp.

Another thing that will not be recalled is that there was once a young enthusiastic man, working for the DNC, who was mugged one evening after work and killed.

Baron , Feb 12, 2019 5:16:49 PM | link
The 'no collusion' result will only spur the 'beginning of the end' baboons to shout even more, they'll never stop until they die in their beds or the plebs of the Republic made them adore the street lamp posts, you'll see. The former is by far more likely, the unwashed of American have never had a penchant for foreign affairs except for the few spasms like Vietnam.
Circe , Feb 12, 2019 5:20:11 PM | link
There was collusion alright but the only Russians who helped Trump get elected and were in on the collusion are citizens of ISRAEL FIRST, likewise for the American billionaires who put Trump in the power perch. ISRAEL FIRST.

That's why Trump is on giant billboards in Israel shaking hands with the Yahoo. Trump is higher in the polls in Israel than in the U.S. If it weren't that the Zionist upper crust need Trump doing their dirty work in America, like trying today get rid of Rep. Omar Ilhan, then Trump would win the elections in Ziolandia or Ziostan by a landslide cause he's been better for the Joowish state than all preceding Presidents put together. Mazel tov to them bullshet for the rest of us servile mass in the vassal West and Palestinians the most shafted class ever. Down with Venezuela and Iran, up with oil and gas. The billionare shysters' and Trump's payola is getting closer. Onward AZ Empire!

Les , Feb 12, 2019 5:24:36 PM | link
He proved himself so easy to troll during the election. It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all along was to get him elected and have a candidate they could manipulate.
Zachary Smith , Feb 12, 2019 5:38:03 PM | link
@ Harry Law #16

At least Germany has the good sense not to throw taxpayer money at the F-35. German F-35 decision sacrifices NATO capability for Franco-German industrial cooperation I don't know what they have in mind with a proposed airplane purchase. If they need fighters, buy or lease Sweden's Gripen. If attack airplanes are what they're after, go to Boeing and get some brand new F-15X models. If the prickly French are agreeable to build a 6th generation aircraft, that would be worth a try.

Regarding Rachel Maddow, I recently had an encounter with a relative who told me 1) I visited too many oddball sites and 2) he considered Rachel M. to be the most reliable news person in existence. I think we're talking "true believer" here. :)

Zachary Smith , Feb 12, 2019 5:43:19 PM | link
@ Les @42
It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all along was to get him elected and have a candidate they could manipulate.

Considering how those "intelligence agencies" are hard pressed to find their own tails, even if you allow them to use both hands, it would surprise me.

That Trump would turn out to be a tub of jello in more than just a physical way has been a surprise to an awful lot of us.

Pft , Feb 12, 2019 5:44:54 PM | link

Russiagate was very successful. You just have to understand the objectives. It was a great distraction. Diverting peoples attention from the continued fleecing of the "real people" which are the bottom 90% by the "Corporate People" and their Government Lackeys.

It provided an excuse for the acting CEO (a figurehead) of the Corporate Empire to go back on many of the promises made that got him elected, and to fill the swamp with Neocon and Koch Brother creatures with the excuse the Deep State made him do it. More proof that there is no deception that is too ridiculous to be believed so long as you have enough pundits claiming it to be so

Allowed the bipartisan support for the clamp down on alt media with censorship by social media (Deep State Tools) and funded by the Ministry of Truth set up by Obama in his last days in office to under the false pretense of protecting us from foreign governments interference in elections (except Israel of course) . Similar agencies have been set up or planned to be in other countries followig the US example such as UK, France, Russia, etc.

Did anyone really expect Mr "Cover It Up " Mueller to find anything? Mueller is Deep State all the way and Trump is as well, not withstanding the "Fake Wrestling " drama that they are bitter enemies. All the surveillance done over the past 2-3 decades would have so much dirt on the Trumpet they could silence him forever . Trump knew that going in and I sometimes wonder if he was pressured to run as a condition to avoid prosecution. Pretty sure every President since Carter has been "Kompromat"

Jackrabbit , Feb 12, 2019 6:29:51 PM | link
james, bevin

If you've done just a cursory look into Seth Rich, you'd be very suspicious about the story of his life and death. IMO Assange/Wikilleaks were set up. And Flynn was set up too. What they are doing is Orwellian: White Helmets, election manipulation, propaganda, McCarthism, etc. If you're not angry, you're not paying attention.

stevelaudig , Feb 12, 2019 6:34:12 PM | link
Russians and likely at the behest of the Russian state interfered and it was fair payback for Yeltsin's election. It is time to move on but not in feigned ignorance of what was done. Was it "outcome" affecting, possibly, but not clearly and if the US electoral college and electoral system generally is so decrepit that a second level power in the world can influence then its the US's fault.

It's not like the 2000 election wasn't a warning shot about the rottenness of system and a system that doesn't understand a warning shot deserves pretty much what it gets. But there's enough non-hype evidence of acts and intent to say yes, the Russians tried and may have succeeded. They certainly are acting guilty enough. but still close the book move and move on to Trump's 'real' crimes which were done without a Russian assist.

spudski , Feb 12, 2019 6:52:50 PM | link
@38 bevin @47 james

I seem to recall former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray saying that it was not a hack and that he had been handed a thumb drive in a field near American University by a disgruntled Democrat whistleblower. Further, I seem to recall William Binney, former NSA Technical Leader for intelligence, conducting an experiment to show that internet speeds at the time would not allow the information to be hacked - they knew the size of the files and the period over which they were downloaded. Plus, Seth Rich. So why does anyone even believe it was a hack, @32 THN?

Johan Meyer , Feb 12, 2019 6:55:54 PM | link
Just another comment re Mueller. There is a great documentary by (Dutch, not Israeli---different person) Gideon Levy, Lockerbie Revisited. The narration is in Dutch, but the interviews are in English, and there is a small segment of a German broadcast. The documentary ends abruptly where one set of FBI personnel contradict statements by another set of FBI personnel. See also this primer on Mueller's MO.
frances , Feb 12, 2019 7:11:07 PM | link
reply to Les 42
"It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all along was to get him elected and have a candidate they could manipulate."

Not the intelligence agencies, the Military IMO. They knew HC for what she was; horrifically corrupt and,again IMO,they know she is insane.

They saw and I think still see Trump as someone they could work with, remember Rogers (Navy) of the NSA going to him immediately once he was elected? That was the Military protecting him as best they could.

They IMO have kept him alive and as long as he doesn't send any troops into "real" wars, they will keep on keeping him alive.
This doesn't mean Trump hasn't gone over to the Dark Side, just that no military action will take place that the military command doesn't fully support.

Again, I could be wrong, he could be backed by fiends from Patagonia for all I really know:)

AriusArmenian , Feb 12, 2019 8:44:27 PM | link
The button pushers behind the Trump collusion and Russia election hacking false narratives got what they wanted: to walk the democrats and republicans straight into Cold War v2; to start their campaign to suppress alternative voices on the internet; to increase military spending; and more, more, more war.
james , Feb 12, 2019 9:34:59 PM | link
ot - further to @65 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK5YFos56ZU and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK5YFos56ZU

as jr says - welcome to the rabbit hole..

ben , Feb 12, 2019 10:11:05 PM | link
Hope you're right b. Maybe now we can get on with some real truths.
  1. That there is really only one party with real influence, the party of $.
  2. That most of the Dems belong to that club, and virtually all the Repubs.
  3. That the U$A is not a real democracy, but an Oligarchy.
  4. That the corporate empire is the greatest purveyor of evil the world has ever known.

And these are just a few truths. Thanks for the therapy b, hope you feel better...

Circe , Feb 12, 2019 10:52:22 PM | link
Boy, I hope Jackrabbit sees this. Everyone knows I believe Trump is the anointed chosen of the Zionist 1%. There was no Russia collusion; it was Zionist collusion with a Russian twist...
Circe , Feb 12, 2019 11:11:17 PM | link
Oh yeah! Forgot to mention the latest. Trump is asking Kim to provide a list of his nuclear scientists! Before Kim acts on this request, he should call up the Iranian government for advise 'cause they have lots of experience and can warn Kim of what will happen to each of those scientists. They'll be put on a kill-list and will be extrajudicially wacked as in executed. Can you believe the chutzpah? Trump must think Kim is really stupid to fall for that one!

Aye! The thought of six more years of Zionist pandering Trump. Barf-inducing prospect is too tame.

PHC , Feb 13, 2019 2:25:44 AM | link

Russiagate is finished. So, now is the time to create Chinagate. But how ??

V , Feb 13, 2019 2:25:48 AM | link
The view from the hermitage is, we are in the age of distractions. Russiagate will be replaced with one of a litany of distractions, purely designed to keep us off target. The target being, corruption, vote rigging, illegal wars, war crimes, overthrowing sovereign governments, and political assasinations, both at home and abroad. Those so distracted, will focus on sillyness; not the genuine danger afoot around the planet. Get used to it; it's become the new normal.
Circe , Feb 13, 2019 3:53:19 AM | link
@76Hw
I have yet to read anything more delusional, nay, utterly preposterous. Methinks you over-project too much. Even Trump would have a belly-ache laugh reading that sheeple spiel. You're the type that sees the giant billboard of Zionist Trump and Yahoo shaking hands and drones on and on that our lying eyes deceive us and it's really Trump playing 4-D chess. I suppose when he tried to pressure Omar Ilhan into resigning her seat in Congress yesterday, that too was reverse psychology?

Trump instagramed the billboard pic, he tweeted it, he probably pasted it on his wall; maybe with your kind of wacky, Trump infatuation, you should too!

Starring role

Circe , Feb 13, 2019 4:15:37 AM | link
Russiagate is finished because Mueller discovered an embarrassing fact: The collusion was and always will be with Israel. Here's Trump professing his endless love for Zionism: Trump Resign
snake , Feb 13, 2019 5:13:14 AM | link

Russiagate was very successful <=pls read, re-read Pft @ 46.. he listed many things. divide and conquer accomplished.
a nation state is defined as an armed rule making structure, designed by those who control a territory, and constructed by the lawyers, military, and wealthy and run by the persons the designers appoint, for the appointed are called politicians.

Most designs of armed nation states provide the designers with information feedback and the designers use that information to appoint more obedient politicians and generals to run things, and to improve the design to better serve the designers. The armed rule making structure is designed to give the designers complete control over those targeted to be the governed. Why so stupid the governed? ; always they allow themselves to be manipulated like sheep.

When 10 angry folks approach you with two pieces of ropes: one to throw over the tree branch under which your horse will be supporting you while they tie the noose around your neck and the other shorter piece of rope to tie your hands behind ..your back you need at that point to make your words count , if five of the people are black and five are white. all you need do is say how smart the blacks are, and how stupid the whites are, as the two groups fight each other you manage your escape. democrat vs republican= divide to conquer. gun, no gun = divide to conquer, HRC vs DJT = divide to conquer, abortion, no abortion = divide to conquer, Trump is a Russian planted in a high level USA position of power = divide to conquer, They were all in on it together,, Muller was in the white house to keep the media supplied with XXX, to keep the law enforcement agencies in the loop, and to advise trump so things would not get out of hand ( its called Manipulation and the adherents to the economic system called Zionism
For the record, Zionism is not related to race, religion or intelligence. Zionism is a system of economics that take's no captives, its adherents must own everything, must destroy and decimate all actual or imaginary competition, for Zionist are the owners and masters of everything? Zionism is about power, absolute power, monopoly ownership and using governments everywhere to abuse the governed. Zionism has many adherents, whites, blacks, browns, Christians, Jews, Islamist, Indians, you name it among each class of person and walk of life can be found persons who subscribe to the idea that they, and only they, should own everything, and when those of us, that are content to be the governed let them, before the kill and murder us, they usually end up owning everything.

snake , Feb 13, 2019 6:08:16 AM | link
Here might the subject matter that Russia Gate sought to camouflage https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/02/13/588433/US-Saudi-Arabia-nuclear-deal-nuclear-weapons 'This comes as US Energy Secretary Rick Perry has been holding secret talks with Saudi officials on sharing US nuclear technology.'

Finally, a hypothesis to explain

1. why the Joint non nuclear agreement with Iran and the other nuclear power nations, that prevented Iran from developing nuclear weapons, was trashed? Someone needs to be able to say Iran is developing ..., at the right time.

2. Why Netanyohu made public a video that claimed Iran was developing nuclear stuff in violation of the Iran non nuclear agreement, and everybody laughed,

3. Why the nuclear non proliferation agreement with Russia, that terminated the costly useless arms race a decade ago, has been recently terminated, to reestablish the nuclear arms race, no apparent reason was given the implication might be Russia could be a target, but

4. why it might make sense to give nukes to Saudi Arabia or some other rogue nation, and

5. why no one is allowed to have nuclear weapons except the Zionist owned and controlled nation states.

Statement: Zionism is an economic system that requires the elimination of all competition of whatever kind. It is a winner get's all, takes no prisoners, targets all who would threaten or be a challenge or a threat; does not matter if the threat is in in oil and gas, technology or weapons as soon as a possibility exist, the principles of Zionism would require that it be taken out, decimated, and destroyed and made where never again it could even remotely be a threat to the Empire, that Zionism demands..

Hypothesis: A claim that another is developing nuclear weapon capabilities is sufficient to take that other out?

Kiza , Feb 13, 2019 8:26:29 AM | link
I am glad that most commenters understand that Russiagate will not go away. But the majority appear to miss the real reason. Russiagate is not an accusation, it is the state of mind.

At the beginnng of Russiagate, I wrote on Robert Parry's Consirtium News that Russiagate is Idiocracy piggy-backing on decades and literally billions of dollars of anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda. How hard would it be to brainwash an already brainwashed population?

The purveyors of Russiagate will re-compose themselves, brush off all reports and continue on. One just cannot get away from one's nature, even when that nature is pure idiocy. Of course, the most ironic in the affair is that it is the so called US "intellectuals", academics and other assorted cretins who are the most fervent proponents. If you were wondering how Russia can make such amazing defensive weapons that US can only deny exist and wet dream of having, there is your answer. It is the state of mind. The whole of US establishment are legends in their on lunch time and totally delusional about the reality surrounding them - both Russiagate and MAGA cretins, no report can help the Russiagate nation.

Finally, I am thinking of that crazy and ugly professor bitch from the British Cambridge University who gives her lectures naked to protest something or other. I am so lucky that I do not have to go to a Western university ever again. What a catastrophic decline! No Brexit can help the Skripal nation.

NemesisCalling , Feb 13, 2019 8:46:48 AM | link
Russiagate is finished, but is DJT also among the rubble?

Hardly any money for the border wall and still lingering in the ME?

If Hoarsewhisperer proves to be correct above re: DJT, he will really have to knock our socks off before election 2020. To do this he will have to unequivocally and unceremoniously withdraw from the MENA and Afghanistan and possibly declare a National Emergency for more money for the wall.

The problem is, when he does this, he will look impulsively dangerous and this may harm his mystique to the lemmings who need a president to be more "presidential."

My money is on status quo all the way to 2020 and the rethugz hoping the Dems will eat their own in an orgy of warring identities.

I would love to be proven wrong.

morongobill , Feb 13, 2019 9:52:25 AM | link
Rush Limbaugh has been on a roll with his analysis of Russiagate, in fact, his analysis is in line with the writer/editor here at MOA.
Bart Hansen , Feb 13, 2019 10:52:12 AM | link
The collusion story may be faltering, but the blame for Russia poisoning the Skripals lives on. The other night on The News Hour, "Judy" led off the program with this: "It has been almost a year since Kremlin intelligence officers attempted to kill a Russian defector in the British city of Salisbury by poisoning him with a nerve agent. That attack, and the subsequent death of a British woman, scared away tourists and shoppers, but authorities and residents are working to get the town's economy back on track. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports."
Erelis , Feb 13, 2019 12:15:48 PM | link

Russiagate will not go away unfortunately because it has evolved in the "Russiagate Industry". As mentioned by others, the Russiagate Industry has been very profitable for many industries and people. Russiagate has generated an entire cottage industry of companies around censorship and "find us a Russian". Dow Jones should have an index on the Russiagate Industry.

Here is one recent example. You know the measles outbreak in the US Pacific Northwest. Yup, the Russians. How do we know. A government funded research grant. The study found that 899 tweets caused people to doubt vaccines. Looks like money is to be had even by academics for the right results.

Measles outbreak: Anti-vaccination misinformation fueled by Russian propagandists, study finds
https://www.oregonlive.com/clark-county/2019/02/measles-outbreak-anti-vaccination-misinformation-fueled-by-russian-propagandists-study-finds.html

[Feb 13, 2019] Stephen Cohen on War with Russia and Soviet-style Censorship in the US by Russell Mokhiber

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... War with Russia. ..."
"... Cohen said the censorship that he has faced in recent years is similar to the censorship imposed on dissidents in the Soviet Union. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... "Katrina and I had a joint signed op-ed piece in the New York Times ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... "The alternatives have been excluded from both. I would welcome an opportunity to debate these issues in the mainstream media, where you can reach more people. And remember, being in these pages, for better or for worse, makes you Kosher. This is the way it works. If you have been on these pages, you are cited approvingly. You are legitimate. You are within the parameters of the debate." ..."
"... "When I lived off and on in the Soviet Union, I saw how Soviet media treated dissident voices. And they didn't have to arrest them. They just wouldn't ever mention them. Sometimes they did that (arrest them). But they just wouldn't ever mention them in the media." ..."
"... "And something like that has descended here. And it's really alarming, along with some other Soviet-style practices in this country that nobody seems to care about – like keeping people in prison until they break, that is plea, without right to bail, even though they haven't been convicted of anything." ..."
"... "That's what they did in the Soviet Union. They kept people in prison until people said – I want to go home. Tell me what to say – and I'll go home. That's what we are doing here. And we shouldn't be doing that." ..."
"... Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter.. ..."
Feb 12, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

On stage at Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C. this past week was Princeton University Professor Emeritus Stephen Cohen, author of the new book, War with Russia: From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate.

Cohen has largely been banished from mainstream media.

"I had been arguing for years -- very much against the American political media grain -- that a new US/Russian Cold War was unfolding -- driven primarily by politics in Washington, not Moscow," Cohen writes in War with Russia. "For this perspective, I had been largely excluded from influential print, broadcast and cable outlets where I had been previously welcomed."

On the stage at Busboys and Poets with Cohen was Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of The Nation magazine, and Robert Borosage, co-founder of the Campaign for America's Future.

During question time, Cohen was asked about the extent of the censorship in the context of other Americans who had been banished from mainstream American media, including Ralph Nader, whom the liberal Democratic establishment, including Borosage and Vanden Heuvel, stiff armed when he crashed the corporate political parties in the electoral arena in 2004 and 2008.

Cohen said the censorship that he has faced in recent years is similar to the censorship imposed on dissidents in the Soviet Union.

"Until some period of time before Trump, on the question of what America's policy toward Putin's Kremlin should be, there was a reasonable facsimile of a debate on those venues that had these discussions," Cohen said. "Are we allowed to mention the former Charlie Rose for example? On the long interview form, Charlie would have on a person who would argue for a very hard policy toward Putin. And then somebody like myself who thought it wasn't a good idea."

"Occasionally that got on CNN too. MSNBC not so much. And you could get an op-ed piece published, with effort, in the New York Times or Washington Post ."

"Katrina and I had a joint signed op-ed piece in the New York Times six or seven years ago. But then it stopped. And to me, that's the fundamental difference between this Cold War and the preceding Cold War."

"I will tell you off the record – no, I'm not going to do it," Cohen said. "Two exceedingly imminent Americans, who most op-ed pages would die to get a piece by, just to say they were on the page, submitted such articles to the New York Times , and they were rejected the same day. They didn't even debate it. They didn't even come back and say – could you tone it down? They just didn't want it."

"Now is that censorship? In Italy, where each political party has its own newspaper, you would say – okay fair enough. I will go to a newspaper that wants me. But here, we are used to these newspapers."

"Remember how it works. I was in TV for 18 years being paid by CBS. So, I know how these things work. TV doesn't generate its own news anymore. Their actual reporting has been de-budgeted. They do video versions of what is in the newspapers."

"Look at the cable talk shows. You see it in the New York Times and Washington Post in the morning, you turn on the TV at night and there is the video version. That's just the way the news business works now."

"The alternatives have been excluded from both. I would welcome an opportunity to debate these issues in the mainstream media, where you can reach more people. And remember, being in these pages, for better or for worse, makes you Kosher. This is the way it works. If you have been on these pages, you are cited approvingly. You are legitimate. You are within the parameters of the debate."

"If you are not, then you struggle to create your own alternative media. It's new in my lifetime. I know these imminent Americans I mentioned were shocked when they were just told no. It's a lockdown. And it is a form of censorship."

"When I lived off and on in the Soviet Union, I saw how Soviet media treated dissident voices. And they didn't have to arrest them. They just wouldn't ever mention them. Sometimes they did that (arrest them). But they just wouldn't ever mention them in the media."

"Dissidents created what is known as samizdat – that's typescript that you circulate by hand. Gorbachev, before he came to power, did read some samizdat. But it's no match for newspapers published with five, six, seven million copies a day. Or the three television networks which were the only television networks Soviet citizens had access to."

"And something like that has descended here. And it's really alarming, along with some other Soviet-style practices in this country that nobody seems to care about – like keeping people in prison until they break, that is plea, without right to bail, even though they haven't been convicted of anything."

"That's what they did in the Soviet Union. They kept people in prison until people said – I want to go home. Tell me what to say – and I'll go home. That's what we are doing here. And we shouldn't be doing that."

Cohen appears periodically on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox News. And that rankled one person in the audience at Busboys and Poets, who said he worried that Cohen's perspective on Russia can be "appropriated by the right."

"Trump can take that and run on a nationalistic platform – to hell with NATO, to hell with fighting these endless wars, to do what he did in 2016 and get the votes of people who are very concerned about the deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Russia," the man said.

Cohen says that on a personal level, he likes Tucker Carlson "and I don't find him to be a racist or a nationalist."

"Nationalism is on the rise around the world everywhere," Cohen said. "There are different kinds of nationalism. We always called it patriotism in this country, but we have always been a nationalistic country."

"Fox has about three to four million viewers at that hour," Cohen said. "If I am not permitted to give my take on American/Russian relations on any other mass media, and by the way, possibly talk directly to Trump, who seems to like his show, and say – Trump is making a mistake, he should do this or do that instead -- I don't get many opportunities – and I can't see why I shouldn't do it."

"I get three and a half to four minutes," Cohen said. "I don't see it as consistent with my mission, if that's the right word, to say no. These articles I write for The Nation , which ended up in my book, are posted on some of the most God awful websites in the world. I had to look them up to find out how bad they really are. But what can I do about it?"

Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Russell Mokhiber

Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter..

[Feb 13, 2019] Congress Has Not "By Law" Vested The Attorney General With Authority to Appoint the Special Counsel

Notable quotes:
"... Congress Has Not "By Law" Vested The Attorney General With Authority to Appoint the Special Counsel as an Inferior Officer. ..."
Feb 13, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

col from oz , Feb 13, 2019 12:23:44 AM | link

B you check out the brief awaiting adjudication, whereby they state that they will appeal to to SCOTUS. Mueller is unconstitutional and plausible criminal.
67 pages

ARGUMENT I.

Congress Has Not "By Law" Vested The Attorney General With Authority to Appoint the Special Counsel as an Inferior Officer.

The principal question before this Court is whether there is any statute that clearly conveys power to the Attorney General to appoint a private attorney as Special Counsel at the level of an inferior officer. The Special Counsel claims that §§ 515 and 533(1) do the job. But the Spe
cial Counsel's "plain-text" analysis redrafts both provisions in material ways.

He also places extensive reliance on historic practice and predecessor versions of § 515 to aid his redrafting.

None of this squares with controlling and settled law. Here, the plain text of §§ 515 and 533(1) does not clearly confer authority to appoint any special counsel, much less one as an inferior officer.

http://nlpc.org/2018/10/11/reply-brief-filed-in-constitutional-challenge-to-mueller/

[Feb 13, 2019] Rep. Walter Jones, Rest in Peace The American Conservative

Feb 13, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Jones was a longtime friend of TAC , and he delivered the opening remarks at our 2017 foreign policy conference . Listen to what he said here:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/DSnjbIrIQdk

He not only acknowledged early on that his initial support for the Iraq war was wrong, but spent the rest of his career fighting for a more restrained and peaceful foreign policy. Rep. Jones was one of the original Republican co-sponsors of the first House antiwar resolution to end U.S. involvement in the war on Yemen . He co-authored an op-ed with Reps. Khanna and Pocan in 2017 in support of their resolution:

We believe that the American people, if presented with the facts of this conflict, will oppose the use of their tax dollars to bomb and starve civilians in order to further the Saudi monarchy's regional goals. Our House resolution is a first step in expanding democracy into an arena long insulated from public accountability. Too many lives hang in the balance to allow this American war to continue without congressional consent. When our bill comes to the floor for a vote, our colleagues should consider first the solution proposed by the director of Unicef, Anthony Lake, for stopping the unimaginable suffering of millions of Yemenis: "Stop the war."

It is unfortunate that Rep. Jones did not live to see the House pass that resolution to end U.S. support for the war, but when a new version of that resolution passes later this month it will be thanks in no small part to his leadership.

Jones became a reliable scourge of unnecessary and unauthorized foreign wars wherever they happened to be . He saw the continuation of open-ended and illegal wars as an attack on the Constitution and an abuse of the men and women who volunteered to serve their country. His opposition to these wars earned him the enmity of Republican hawks , who repeatedly and unsuccessfully sought to unseat him through primary challenges. Whatever their disagreements with him may have been over the years, his constituents recognized and appreciated his integrity and his dedication to the country.

The cause of peace and restraint has lost one of its great defenders, TAC has lost one of our good friends, and America has lot one of its most honorable and decent public servants. May his memory be eternal.


Longtime TAC Reader February 11, 2019 at 3:14 am

The loss of Walter Jones is devastating.

I hope that good and true Americans inspired by his example will pick up the colors he carried so long and faithfully, carry them forward, renewing his dogged efforts to rein in military intervention and preserve true freedom.

God bless you, Walter Jones.

God bless you.

RIP , says: February 11, 2019 at 8:52 am
This is a blow, and no denying it.

For all that, you may be certain that somewhere the vermin are jumping for joy, because when it comes to their vile wars and meddling they brook no dissent, and Jones's voice was strong and sure, grounded in truth and "the better angels of our nature".

Very sorry to have lost this good and valuable American. Hats off also to the people of his district, many of them soldiers or families of soldiers, who kept sending him back to Washington. May they find someone to replace who has the same gumption, character, and commitment to basic Americanism.

Virginia Catholic Girl , says: February 11, 2019 at 9:36 am
If there were more people like him in Washington, we wouldn't be in the state we're in. I wrote him a "fan" letter back in 2006 or thereabouts, about his regrets about the Iraq war and writing to all the families of those KIA. Also appreciated him being one of the few in Congress that actually tried to follow the Constitution and do something about our national debt. He also was all about constituent service,especially for veterans and those in Eastern North Carolina affected by the recent hurricanes. Eternal rest, grant him, Oh Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

[Feb 13, 2019] The US neoliberal MSM are engaged in a "privilege protection racket"

Notable quotes:
"... Maté explains why he thinks this narrative ultimately aligns with the longstanding interests of U.S. establishment power. He calls it a "privilege protection racket" that thrives on distraction and misdirection, turning the public away from a real critique of the rise of Trumpism that would otherwise implicate the neoliberal policies of democrats and conservatives alike, foreign policy think tanks, and the media. ..."
Feb 13, 2019 | teamhuman.fm

Aaron is gong to break down "Russiagate," taking a sober look at the media frenzy of "bombshell" stories asserting a Russian conspiracy behind the 2016 election.

Maté explains why he thinks this narrative ultimately aligns with the longstanding interests of U.S. establishment power. He calls it a "privilege protection racket" that thrives on distraction and misdirection, turning the public away from a real critique of the rise of Trumpism that would otherwise implicate the neoliberal policies of democrats and conservatives alike, foreign policy think tanks, and the media.

[Feb 12, 2019] Watch MSNBC Host Squirm During Live Update On No Collusion Intel Committee News

Feb 12, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

And in a prior NBC News article Tuesday morning, Dilanian spelled out :

After two years and 200 interviews , the Senate Intelligence Committee is approaching the end of its investigation into the 2016 election, having uncovered no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia , according to both Democrats and Republicans on the committee.

MSNBC anchor Hallie Jackson and her guest panelists' faces looked visibly confused and uncomfortable as they learned the Senate report is going in the opposite direction of everything MSNBC and other mainstream outlets have been breathlessly reporting on a near 24/7 basis.

More importantly, if this is a precursor of what the Mueller report concludes in a few weeks/months, the TV station that built its current reputation on the premise of Russian collusion, may have no option but to go on indefinite hiatus.

Watch the segment below, with host Hallie Jackson appearing to grow exasperated by the 2:20 mark : "If and when the president, as he may inevitably do, points to these conclusions and says look, the Senate intelligence committee found I am not guilty of conspiracy... he would be correct in saying that? "

https://www.youtube.com/embed/a4DKItxvKfU

Dilanian noted that while the Republican chair of the committee made what he characterized as "partisan" comments the week prior, it turned out be unanimous fact. "What I found," he said, "is that Democrats don't dispute that characterization ."

But perhaps sensing how "contrary" to the network's own hysterical 'Russiagate' coverage his reporting was, he tried to soften the blow, saying, "But, again, no direct proof of a conspiracy. As one democratic aide said to me, 'we never thought we were going to find a Democrat between Trump and Vladimir Putin saying let's collude, but the question is how do we interpret all these various contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.'"

Hallie Jackson followed with further probing: "Not to put too fine a point on it, but I want to make sure I'm understanding this..." and asked "If and when the president, as he may inevitably do, points to these conclusions and says look, the Senate intelligence committee found I'm not guilty of conspiracy... he would be correct in saying that? "

Her face looking rather incredulous at this point, Dilanian responded by invoking the Mueller investigation, reassuring her his inquiry is not complete and likely could uncover more information. But then the bottom line: "That said, Trump will claim vindication through this, and he'll be partially right," he said. But Dilanian also noted the Senate intel committee has access to classified material, which means "if there was an intercept between officers suggesting they were conspiring with the Trump campaign, [the committee] would see that. And that has not emerged."

"So that evidence does not exist, and Trump will claim vindication," he repeated.

Yet after all this, during the full segment Vice News guest panelist Shawna Thomas actually invoked impeachment in what appeared a desperate attempt to grasp for anything . "There's two things I question about [the report]," she began.

"Number one, if and when the report finally comes out from the Senate intelligence committee, is there anything in there that will cause, especially some of these new House Dems, to start to clamor, even if there isn't 'conspiracy' or 'collusion', for impeachment?" said Thomas.

But then she tried to deflate the whole thing, upsetting as it was for purveyors of the collusion narrative: "The other thing is, based on what Ken is saying, it's all stuff we knew already," she said.

Right... cause in MSNBC's Russiagate-land "the walls are closing in" on Trump, constantly. Except the network just woke up to the reality that it's not the case.

We only wonder what Rachel Maddow will be left with after this.

[Feb 11, 2019] Matthew Whitaker - Wikipedia

Feb 11, 2019 | en.wikipedia.org

Matthew George Whitaker (born October 29, 1969) is an American lawyer, politician, and the Acting United States Attorney General. He was appointed by President Donald Trump on November 7, 2018, after Jeff Sessions resigned at Trump's request.[1] Whitaker previously served as Chief of Staff to Sessions from September 2017 to November 2018.[2] Trump announced his nomination of William P. Barr for Attorney General on December 7, 2018, leaving Whitaker's future at the Department of Justice in doubt.[3]

In 2002, Whitaker was the candidate of the Republican Party for Treasurer of Iowa. From 2004 to 2009 he served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa. Whitaker ran in the 2014 Iowa Republican primary for the United States Senate. He later wrote opinion pieces and appeared on talk-radio shows and cable news as the director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), a conservative advocacy group. He was also involved with World Patent Marketing, which was fined $26 million and shut down by the Federal Trade Commission in 2017 for deceiving consumers.[4][5]

The legality of Whitaker's appointment as Acting U.S. Attorney General was unsuccessfully challenged in multiple lawsuits.[6] Legal scholars, commentators, and politicians have questioned the legality and constitutionality of his appointment, arguing that his selection circumvented Senate confirmation.[7] Some also called for Whitaker to recuse himself from overseeing the Special Counsel investigation because of potential conflicts of interest.[8][9][10] The Supreme Court denied a petition challenging the appointment in January 2019.[11]

[Feb 10, 2019] Pussy John Bolton and His Codpiece Mustache by Fred Reed

We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically fascinating as now.
Appointment on Bolton essentially confirms Fred Reed diagnose of Trump: "profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law.
Notable quotes:
"... I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth ..."
"... The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive & inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation. The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's & naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer competitors. ..."
Feb 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

American government has become a collection of sordid and dangerous clowns. It was not always thus. Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be disagreed with on many grounds. They weren't crazy. Today's administration would seem unwholesome in a New York bus station at three in the morning. They are not normal American politicians.

In particular they seem to be pushing for war with Iran, China, Russia, and Venezuela. And -- this is important -- their behavior is not a matter of liberals catfighting with conservatives. All former presidents carefully avoided war with the Soviet Union, which carefully avoided war with America.

It was Reagan, a conservative and responsible president, who negotiated the INF treaty, to eliminate short-fuse nuclear weapons from Europe. By contrast, Trump is scrapping it. Pat Buchanan, the most conservative man I have met, strongly opposes aggression against Russia. The problem with the current occupants of the White House is not that they are conservatives, if they are. It is that they are nuts.

Donald the Cockatoo

Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in fury at this. All politics being herd politics, the population has coalesced into herds fanatically pro-Trump and fanatically anti-Trump. Yet Trump's past is not a secret. Well-documented biographies describe his behavior in detail, but his supporters don't read them. The following is a bit long, but worth reading.

From The Making of Donald Trump , Johnston, David Cay. (p. 23). Melville House. Kindle Edition.

"I always get even," Trump writes in the opening line of that chapter. He then launches into an attack on the same woman he had denounced in Colorado. Trump recruited the unnamed woman "from her government job where she was making peanuts," her career going nowhere. "I decided to make her somebody. I gave her a great job at the Trump Organization, and over time she became powerful in real estate. She bought a beautiful home.

"When Trump was in financial trouble in the early nineties .."I asked her to make a phone call to an extremely close friend of hers who held a powerful position at a big bank and would have done what she asked. She said, "Donald, I can't do that." Instead of accepting that the woman felt that such a call would be inappropriate, Trump fired her. She started her own business. Trump writes that her business failed. "I was really happy when I found that out," he says.

"She had turned on me after I did so much to help her. I had asked her to do me a favor in return, and she turned me down flat. She ended up losing her home. Her husband, who was only in it for the money, walked out on her and I was glad. Over the years many people have called me asking for a recommendation for her. I always gave her bad recommendation. I can't stomach disloyalty. ..and now I go out of my way to make her life miserable."

All that because (if she exists) she declined to engage in corruption for the Donald. That is your President. A draft dodger, a pampered rich kid, and Ivy brat (Penn, Wharton). This increasingly is a pattern at the top: Ivy, money, no military service.

Pussy John Bolton

A particularly loathsome sort of politician is one who dodges his country's wars when of military age, and then wants to send others to die in later wars. This is Pussy John, arch hawk, coward, amoral, bully, willing to kill any number while he prances martially in Washington. Speaking as one who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, I would like to confine this fierce darling for life in the bottom of a public latrine in Uganda.

Pussy John, an Ivy flower (Yale) wrote in a reunion books that, during the 1969 Vietnam War draft lottery, "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost." In an interview, Bolton explained that he decided to avoid service in Vietnam because "by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to take it away from."

This same Pussy John, unwilling to risk his valuable being in a war he could have attended, now wants war with Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Syria, and Afghanistan. In these wars millions would die while he waggled his silly lip broom in the West Wing. His truculence is pathological and dangerous.

Here is PJ on Iran: which has not harmed and does not threaten America: "We think the government is under real pressure and it's our intention to squeeze them very hard," Bolton said Tuesday in Singapore. "As the British say, 'squeeze them until the pips squeak'."

How very brave of him. He apparently feels sadistic delight at starving Venezuelans, inciting civil war, and ruining the lives of millions who have done nothing wrong. Whence the weird hostility of this empty jockstrap, the lack of humanity? Forgot his Midiol? Venezuela of course has done nothing to the US and couldn't if it wanted to. America under the Freak Show is destroying another country simply because it doesn't meekly obey. While PJ gloats.

Bush II

Another rich kid and Yalie, none too bright, amoral as the rest, another draft dodger, (he hid in the Air National Guard.) who got to the White House on daddy's name recognition. Not having the balls to fight in his own war, he presided over the destruction of Iraq and the killing of hundreds of thousands, for no reason. (Except oil, Israel, and Empire. Collectively, these amount to no reason.) He then had the effrontery to pose on the deck of an aircraft carrier and say, "Mission accomplished." You know, just like Alexander the Great. Amoral. No empathy. What a man.

The striking pattern of the Ivy League avoiding the war confirmed then, as it does now, that our present rulers regard the rest of America as beings of a lower order. These armchair John Waynes might have called them "deplorables," though Hillary, another Yalie bowwow hawk, had not yet made the contempt explicit. This was the attitude of Pussy John, Bushy-Bushy Two, and Cockatoo Don. Compare this with the Falklands War in which Prince Andrew did what a country's leadership should do, but ours doesn't..

Wikipedia: "He (Prince Andrew) holds the rank of commander and the honorary rank of Vice Admiral (as of February 2015) in the Royal Navy, in which he served as an active-duty helicopter pilot and instructor and as the captain of a warship. He saw active service during the Falklands War, flying on multiple missions including anti-surface warfare, Exocet missile decoy, and casualty evacuation"

The Brits still have class. Compare Andrew with the contents of the Great Double-Wide on Pennsylvania Avernus.

Gina

A measure of the moral degradation of America: It is the only country that openly and proudly engages in torture. Many countries do it, of course. We admit it, and maintain torture prisons around the globe. Now we have a major government official, Gina Haspel, head of the CIA, a known sadist. "Bloody Gina." Is this who represents us? Would any other country in the civilized world put a sadist publicly in office?

Think of Gina waterboarding some guy, or standing around and getting off on it. You don't torture people unless you like it. The guy is tied down, coughing, choking, screaming, begging, desperate, drowning, and Gina pours more water. The poor bastard vomits, chokes. Gina adds a little more water .

What kind of woman would do this? Well, Gina's kind obviously. Does she then run off to her office and lock the door for half an hour? Maybe it starts early. One imagines her as a little girl, playing with her dolls. Cheerleader Barbie, Nurse Barbie, Klaus Barbie .

Michael Pompeo

Another pathologically aggressive chickenhawk. In a piece in Foreign Affairs he describes Iran as a "rogue state that America must eliminate for the sake of all that is good. Note that Pompeo presides over a foreign policy seeking to destroy Venezuela's economy and threatens military invasion, though Venezuela is no danger to the US and is not America's business; embargoes Cuba, which in no danger to the US and is not America's business; seeks to destroy Iran's economy, though Iran is no danger to the US and none of Americas business; sanctions Europe and meddles in its politics; sanctions Russia, which is not a danger to the United States, in an attempt to destroy its economy, pushes NATO up to Russia's borders, abandons the INF arms-control treaty and establishes a Space Command which will mean nuclear weapons on hair trigger in orbit, starts another nuclear arms race; wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress; sanctions North Korea; continues a seventeen-year policy of killing Afghans for no discernible purpose; wages a war against Syria; bombs Somalis; maintains unwanted occupation forces in Iraq; increasingly puts military forces in Africa; supports regimes with ghastly human-rights records such as Saudi Arabia and Israel; and looks for a war with China in the South China Sea, which is no more America's business than the Gulf of Mexico is China's.

But Pompeo is not a loon, oh no, and America is not a rogue state. Perish forfend.

Nikki Haley

A negligible twit -- I choose my vowel carefully -- but characterized, like Trump, PJ, and Pompeo Mattis

"After being promoted to lieutenant general, Mattis took command of Marine Corps Combat Development Command. On February 1, 2005, speaking at a forum in San Diego, he said "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling."

Perhaps in air-to-air combat you want someone who regards killing as fun, or in an amphibious assault. But in a position to make policy? Can you image Dwight Eisenhower talking about the fun of squaring a man's brains across the ground?

The Upshot

We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically fascinating as now. Again, it is not a matter of Republicans and Democrats. No administration of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively toward war with so many countries. These people are not right in the head.


Gene Su , says: February 8, 2019 at 3:07 am GMT

I remember in high school one of my teachers stating how weird it seems that it would be the leadership of the US military who would call for the American government to intervene less in the affairs of other countries and to not be so quick to use military force. This was, of course, decades ago.

A few years ago, I had a conversation with one of my colleages. He remarked how scary it was that so many American politicians were calling for war with Russia (with Hillary Clinton leading the pack?). I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth (Vietnam).

animalogic , says: February 8, 2019 at 8:05 am GMT
Fred is absolutely correct: the current administration is pathological & insane.

However, it's worth remembering that their insane behavior is based on the same Imperial goals that have been in play since at least 1945.

The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive & inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation. The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's & naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer competitors.

China & Russia are real novelties -- & as such, damn scary. Taken together, they are near equal military & economic rivals of the US.

To US elites this is almost incomprehensible. How ? How did China suddenly become leaders in cutting edge tech? How did Russia suddenly appear with hypersonsic missiles ?

It's impossible ! Given the already existing moral & psychological inadequacies of individual Trump team members, insanity & juvenile behavior are fairly predictable responses .

MikeatMikedotMike , says: February 8, 2019 at 7:20 pm GMT
The fact that you left Bill Clinton off this list (you know, the president that fired Tomahawk missiles into the country of Sudan to take attention away from the Lewinsky hearings, sexually assaulted subordinate women for decades, and spent time banging underage sex slaves via the Lolita Express, pardons a bunch of Puerto Rican terrorists in 2000 to help swing PR votes to his bag of shit wife in the New York Senate race and was, oh yeah, a draft dodger) is pathetic even for you , Kiko. I guess NAFTA makes up for all that rapey shit, huh?

And when can we expect a detailed critique of the Mexican political climate, Kiko? Is it still never? A little too worried about that knock on the door if you bring up all the inconvenient murder going on down there, and all of the gutless politicians and law enforcement that turn a blind eye to it, you insufferable hypocrite?

Reactionary Utopian , says: February 8, 2019 at 10:31 pm GMT

No administration of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively toward war with so many countries. These people are not right in the head.

Now there, I will certainly agree with Mr. Reed, but in a qualified way. The Trump administration is somewhat more warlike and interventionist in its talk than previous ones have been. But, so far, all talk (except for its repudiation of the Iran nuclear deal, which is ominous).

Also, even in terms of the bellicose hot air, the current regime's increase over its predecessors is a matter of degree, not of kind. Even the increase itself I'd call incremental.

Also, I wrote, "So far, all talk." That doesn't mean I'm not concerned. As the man who jumped off a skyscraper said, when passing the 2nd floor, "All right so far!"

Truth , says: February 9, 2019 at 1:28 am GMT
@NoseytheDuke My friend, I understand what you are saying, but at some point the wise man stops playing checkers on the chessboard.

There is, functionally, no difference between The Donna and Cackles.

riversedge , says: February 9, 2019 at 1:43 am GMT
So what's the difference between Trump's neocons and the neocons who would have run Hillary? Nothing. There is no one more chicken hawkish, and slavish to Israel than Hillary.
Asagirian , says: February 9, 2019 at 2:11 am GMT
Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects,

Obama came AFTER Bush II and continued his Zionist-supremacist policies.

Asagirian , says: February 9, 2019 at 2:14 am GMT
Give Trump some credit. He tried to ease ties with Russia and end war in Syria. But look how the Jewish supremacists in media and Deep State goons all jumped on him. And almost no one in the Establishment came to his side.

Obama and his goons pushed the Russia Collusion Hoax. Obama and Bush II have more in common.

Trump tried but he's seen turned pussy.

ThreeCranes , says: February 9, 2019 at 3:15 pm GMT
@Sean wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress

"About time too. Nixon deciding the US would getting pally with China was a hostile act as far as Russia was concerned."

Exactly right. Glad someone else remembers things as they were. Getting pally with China will turn out to be the most disastrous mistake the USA has ever made in foreign policy.

Arrogantly thinking that we could make them our junior partners we have given or sold them everything which made us great. Our industries, technology, patents, education at premier research institutions etc. Now, utilizing everything we provided them, they will surpass and then suppress us. Meanwhile our ignorant politicians, blinded by traitorous, dual-citizen economists and bankers who promised a new economy based upon finance and "information", plod along, single file, to oblivion.

KenH , says: February 9, 2019 at 9:50 pm GMT

Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in fury at this.

Most of us knew that Trump is a flawed man but were willing to overlook that because he was the only one talking sense on immigration and offering solutions that would benefit white America. Of course, after two years Trump has been all tweet and little action on immigration and appears poised to sell out out to Javanka, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers and the Business Roundtable.

He's narcissistic and a bit of a con man but not profoundly ignorant. Profoundly ignorant people don't become billionaires and will themselves to the presidency.

Trump has done a 180 on his campaign foreign policy and filled his administration with Israel first neocon retreads from the George W. Bush era instead of America firsters. People like Bolton deserve all the hate and condemnation heaped upon them by Fredrico.

Fredrico just hates Trump because he doesn't worship Mexico and Mexicans like Fredrico does and spoke the truth about many Mexican illegals being predisposed to violent crime. Fredrico and his hispandering Bobbsey twin Ron Unz get easily triggered at the slightest criticism of hispanics, even if based in fact, and fly into a foaming at the mouth rage.

Carroll Price , says: February 10, 2019 at 1:29 am GMT
@KenH The first priority of any president is staying alive, which probably explains why every US president, including Donald Trump ends up doing the exact opposite of what they promise on the campaign trail. As to Trump's neocon advisors, I suspect they were appointed by the deep state, with him having no say in the matter.

[Feb 09, 2019] New York Times admission of Afghanistan fiasco provokes human rights imperialist backlash by Bill Van Auken

Notable quotes:
"... Now the Times acknowledges: "The price tag, which includes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and increased spending on veterans' care, will reach $5.9 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2019, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University. Since nearly all of that money has been borrowed, the total cost with interest will be substantially higher More than 2.7 million Americans have fought in the war since 2001. Nearly 7,000 service members-and nearly 8,000 private contractors-have been killed. More than 53,700 people returned home bearing physical wounds, and numberless more carry psychological injuries. More than one million Americans who served in a theater of the war on terror receive some level of disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs." ..."
"... Kagan has a great deal invested in the Afghanistan war. He and his wife Kimberly served as civilian advisers to top generals who directed the war and elaborated the failed strategies of counterinsurgency (COIN). He has been a vociferous supporter of every US war and every escalation, arguing most recently for the US military to confront Russian- and Iranian-backed forces in Syria. ..."
"... A leading figure in the Democratic Party, Smeal is no Jane-come-lately to the filthy campaign to promote the war in Afghanistan as a "humanitarian" exercise in promoting the rights of women ..."
"... Aside from costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Afghan women, the US war has left women, like the entire population, under worse conditions than when it began. Two-thirds of Afghan girls do not attend school, 87 percent of Afghan women are illiterate, and 70-80 percent face forced marriage, many before the age of 16. ..."
"... The attempt by the likes of Smeal and leading elements within the Democratic Party to cloak the bloodbath in Afghanistan as a crusade to "liberate" women and promote "democracy" is itself a criminal act. ..."
"... Afghanistan is a shitshow due to elite meddling. This editorial was nothing more than virtue-signaling to those that still hate war. But the anti-war movement is effectively dead anyway. There are anti-war people, but no anti-war movement. That's the crowd that the New York Times was appealing to. This is a stunt; nothing more. ..."
"... It was USA imperialism (under Carter and Brzezinski) which first had made Afghanistan a hell for women, but colonial feminists do not care for the facts. ..."
"... That is very true. "Death by a thousand cuts" was Brzezinski's scheme to destroy the Soviet Union in Central Asia. A few years ago, he was interviewed by a journalist from PRC who asked if he had any regrets with all the destruction and death it caused. Brzezinski said, "None". ..."
Feb 09, 2019 | wsws.org

An editorial published by the New York Times on February 4 titled "End the War in Afghanistan" has provoked a backlash from prominent supporters of the decades-long US "war on terrorism" and the fraud of "humanitarian intervention."

The Times editorial was a damning self-indictment by the US political establishment's newspaper of record, which has supported every US act of military aggression, from the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and the US wars for regime change in Libya and Syria beginning in 2011.

The editorial presents the "war on terror" as an unmitigated fiasco, dating it from September 14, 2001, when "Congress wrote what would prove to be one of the largest blank checks in the country's history," i.e., the Authorization for Use of Military Force against Al Qaeda and its affiliates, which is still invoked to legitimize US interventions from Syria to Somalia, Yemen and, of course, Afghanistan.

On the day that this "blank check" was written, the Times published a column titled "No Middle Ground," which stated "the Bush administration today gave the nations of the world a stark choice: stand with us against terrorism, deny safe havens to terrorists or face the certain prospect of death and destruction. The marble halls of Washington resounded with talk of war."

It continued, "The nation is rallying around its young, largely untried leader-as his rising approval ratings and the proliferation of flags across the country vividly demonstrate "

This war propaganda was sustained by the Times, which sold the invasion of Afghanistan as retribution for 9/11 and then promoted the illegal and unprovoked war against Iraq by legitimizing and embellishing the lies about "weapons of mass destruction."

With the first deployment of US ground troops in Afghanistan, the Times editorialized on October 20, 2001: "Now the nation's soldiers are going into battle in a distant and treacherous land, facing a determined and resourceful enemy. As they go, they should know that the nation supports their cause and yearns for their success."

Now the Times acknowledges: "The price tag, which includes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and increased spending on veterans' care, will reach $5.9 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2019, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University. Since nearly all of that money has been borrowed, the total cost with interest will be substantially higher More than 2.7 million Americans have fought in the war since 2001. Nearly 7,000 service members-and nearly 8,000 private contractors-have been killed. More than 53,700 people returned home bearing physical wounds, and numberless more carry psychological injuries. More than one million Americans who served in a theater of the war on terror receive some level of disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs."

The massive loss of life, destruction of social infrastructure and vast human suffering inflicted by these wars on civilian populations are at best an afterthought for the Times. Conservative estimates place the number killed by the US war in Afghanistan at 175,000. With the number of indirect fatalities caused by the war, the toll likely rises to a million. In Iraq, the death toll was even higher.

What does the Times conclude from this bloody record? "The failure of American leaders-civilians and generals through three administrations, from the Pentagon to the State Department to Congress and the White House-to develop and pursue a strategy to end the war ought to be studied for generations. Likewise, all Americans-the news media included-need to be prepared to examine the national credulity or passivity that's led to the longest conflict in modern American history."

What a cowardly and cynical evasion! Three administrations, those of Bush, Obama and Trump, have committed war crimes over the course of more than 17 years, including launching wars of aggression-the principal charge leveled against the Nazis at Nuremberg-the slaughter of civilians and torture. These crimes should not be "studied for generations," but punished.

As for the attempt to lump the news media together with "all Americans" as being guilty of "credulity" and "passivity," this is a slander against the American people and a deliberate cover-up of the crimes carried out by the corporate media, with the Times at their head, in disseminating outright lies and war propaganda. The Times editors should be "prepared to examine" the fact that journalistic agents of the Nazi regime who carried out a similar function in Germany were tried and punished at Nuremberg.

The Times editorial supporting a US withdrawal reflects the conclusions being drawn by increasing sections of the ruling establishment, including the Trump administration, which has opened up negotiations with the Taliban. It is bound up with the shift in strategy by US imperialism and the Pentagon toward the preparation for "great power" confrontations with nuclear-armed Russia and China.

The Times ' call for an Afghanistan withdrawal has provoked a heated rebuke by defenders of the "war on terrorism" and "humanitarian intervention," who have denounced the newspaper for defeatism. Such a withdrawal, a letter published by the Times on February 8 argued, would "accelerate and expand the war," "allow another extremist-terrorist phenomenon to emerge," and "result in the deaths and abuse of thousands of women."

The signatories of the letter include Frederick Kagan, David Sedney and Eleanor Smeal.

Kagan has a great deal invested in the Afghanistan war. He and his wife Kimberly served as civilian advisers to top generals who directed the war and elaborated the failed strategies of counterinsurgency (COIN). He has been a vociferous supporter of every US war and every escalation, arguing most recently for the US military to confront Russian- and Iranian-backed forces in Syria.

Likewise Sedney, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense responsible for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, now working at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Married to a top lobbyist for Chevron who worked extensively in Central Asia, he has his own interests in the continuation of US military operations in the region.

Smeal is the president of the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMD) and a former president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), who is widely described as one of "the major leaders of the modern-day American feminist movement."

A leading figure in the Democratic Party, Smeal is no Jane-come-lately to the filthy campaign to promote the war in Afghanistan as a "humanitarian" exercise in promoting the rights of women. In 2001, Smeal and her FMD circulated a petition thanking the Bush administration for its commitment to promoting the rights of women in Afghanistan. After the bombing began on October 7, she declared, "We have real momentum now in the drive to restore the rights of women." A few days later, she and representatives of other feminist organizations showed up at the White House to solidarize themselves with the US war.

Urging on the conquest of Afghanistan, she wrote, "I should hope our government doesn't retreat. We'll help rip those burqas off, I hope. This is a unique time in history. If you're going to end terrorism, you've got to end the ideology of gender apartheid."

Aside from costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Afghan women, the US war has left women, like the entire population, under worse conditions than when it began. Two-thirds of Afghan girls do not attend school, 87 percent of Afghan women are illiterate, and 70-80 percent face forced marriage, many before the age of 16.

Recent reports suggest that the maternal death rate may be higher than it was before the war began, surpassed only by South Sudan. While USAID has poured some $280 million into its Promote program, supposedly to advance the conditions of Afghan women, it has done nothing but line the pockets of corrupt officials of the US-backed puppet regime in Kabul.

The attempt by the likes of Smeal and leading elements within the Democratic Party to cloak the bloodbath in Afghanistan as a crusade to "liberate" women and promote "democracy" is itself a criminal act.

On October 9, two days after Washington launched its now 17-year-long war on Afghanistan and amid a furor of jingoistic and militarist propaganda from the US government and the corporate media, the World Socialist Web Site editorial board posted a column titled "Why we oppose the war in Afghanistan." It rejected the claim that this was a "war for justice and the security of the American people against terrorism" and insisted that "the present action by the United States is an imperialist war" in which Washington aimed to "establish a new political framework within which it will exert hegemonic control" over not only Afghanistan, but over the broader region of Central Asia, "home to the second largest deposit of proven reserves of petroleum and natural gas in the world."

The WSWS stated at the time: "Despite a relentless media campaign to whip up chauvinism and militarism, the mood of the American people is not one of gung-ho support for the war. At most, it is a passive acceptance that war is the only means to fight terrorism, a mood that owes a great deal to the efforts of a thoroughly dishonest media which serves as an arm of the state. Beneath the reluctant endorsement of military action is a profound sense of unease and skepticism. Tens of millions sense that nothing good can come of this latest eruption of American militarism.

"The United States stands at a turning point. The government admits it has embarked on a war of indefinite scale and duration. What is taking place is the militarization of American society under conditions of a deepening social crisis.

"The war will profoundly affect the conditions of the American and international working class. Imperialism threatens mankind at the beginning of the twenty-first century with a repetition on a more horrific scale of the tragedies of the twentieth. More than ever, imperialism and its depredations raise the necessity for the international unity of the working class and the struggle for socialism."

These warnings and this perspective have been borne out entirely by the criminal and tragic events of the last 17 years, even as the likes of the New York Times find themselves compelled to admit the bankruptcy of their entire record on Afghanistan, and their erstwhile "liberal" allies struggle to salvage some shred of the filthy banner of "human rights imperialism."


Charlotte Ruse12 hours ago

"The failure of American leaders -- civilians and generals through three administrations, from the Pentagon to the State Department to Congress and the White House -- to develop and pursue a strategy to end the war ought to be studied for generations. Likewise, all Americans -- the news media included -- need to be prepared to examine the national credulity or passivity that's led to the longest conflict in modern American history."

What the New York Times should propose is a Nuremberg-style trial for the war criminals responsible for the genocide of millions, the devastation of of the Middle East and Africa, and the looting of the US Treasury by war profiteers and the political duopoly.

If these criminals are NOT held accountable for their actions NOTHING will be learned and the violence, death and destruction will continue.

"The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law, acted as Head of State or responsible government official, does not relieve him from responsibility under international law."

Serenity Charlotte Ruse3 hours ago
Gore Vidal rightly named America as the United States of Amnesia. They NEVER learn from their own history and they are never told about what their terrorist government does in their name.
Pete LaPlace13 hours ago
Eleanor Smeal's comment about "ripping off those burqas" in Afghanistan reminds me of Louisiana congressman John Cooksey's post-9/11 suggestion that police should pull over and question anyone with ''a diaper on his head''. Both use religious intolerance to increase the power of the state.
solerso15 hours ago
"A leading figure in the Democratic Party, Smeal is no Jane-come-lately to the filthy campaign to promote the war in Afghanistan as a "humanitarian" exercise in promoting the rights of women."

wouldn't it be more correctly "Janey comes lately" ..as in "Johnny come lately"..?

The completely insane fraud of waging imperialist war for "women rights" has been , unfortunately, extensively documented..the US occupation has strengthened not weakened the Taliban

"The WSWS stated at the time: "Despite a relentless media campaign to whip up chauvinism and militarism, the mood of the American people is not one of gung-ho support for the war. "

Not really in agreement with this statement although, everything has changed in almost 20 years.....

ben franklin [pre death] solerso2 hours ago
There are always elements that are gung ho for war. And I'll agree that the number was abnormally high for Afghanistan. But I do think the majority still reluctantly agreed to the war as a necessary measure to fight "terrorism" as the more-than-likely-to-be-a-false-flag 9/11 event was very fresh in everyone's mind.
Master Oroko16 hours ago
Afghanistan is a shitshow due to elite meddling. This editorial was nothing more than virtue-signaling to those that still hate war. But the anti-war movement is effectively dead anyway. There are anti-war people, but no anti-war movement. That's the crowd that the New York Times was appealing to. This is a stunt; nothing more.

What's more interesting is that the liberal elites will probably do their best to continue on with the war. But either way, the USA will likely lose. In fact, it's already lost the war. The Taliban have won this one. That the elitists can't see that shows just how far gone they are.

Carolyn Zaremba Master Orokoan hour ago
The British failed in Afghanistan, too, remember.
лидия20 hours ago
Prof Bomb Libya Cole started his career of "progressive" imperialist by backing USA aggression against Afghanistan.
лидия20 hours ago
It was USA imperialism (under Carter and Brzezinski) which first had made Afghanistan a hell for women, but colonial feminists do not care for the facts.
konnections лидия3 hours ago
That is very true. "Death by a thousand cuts" was Brzezinski's scheme to destroy the Soviet Union in Central Asia. A few years ago, he was interviewed by a journalist from PRC who asked if he had any regrets with all the destruction and death it caused. Brzezinski said, "None".
Robert Montgomery лидия9 hours ago
Exactly. I believe the current term is "post-colonial feminists." Kinda takes the edge off the "colonialism."
Charlotte Ruse лидия9 hours ago
Good point!!

[Feb 09, 2019] Decameron D j vu All Over Again

It looks like a specialist on illegal transferee of weapons is needed to make the color revolution a success...
Notable quotes:
"... Elliott Abrams got a new high level job last month, Special Envoy on Venezuela. Within weeks, the United States recognized a new President of Venezuela while the elected Venezuelan President is still in office. Chatter and rumor from the White House suggests that military intervention is possible. The "new" recognized-by- the-US-President of Venezuela is a veteran of color revolution type regime change, groomed for service with the help of the snakelike National Endowment for Democracy (NED). ..."
Feb 09, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
An admiring Mike Pompeo with Elliott Abrams

It's a sad fact that the full and unconditional pardon given by President George H.W. Bush to Elliott Abrams (a member of the second generation neo-conservative royalty by way of marriage to the daughter of neo-con co-creator, Midge Decter), protected him from disbarment and possible prison. Abrams, who pled guilty to the crime of lying to Congress in the investigation of the Iran-Contra, embraced the plea option reportedly in order to avoid heavier charges from the office of then independent counsel, Lawrence E. Walsh, prosecutor in the Iran-Contra cases. Bush is gone, Walsh is gone, but Mr. Bush's Attorney General William Barr is – surprise – now Attorney General of the United States.

What that portends for future regime change adventures remains to be seen, but the historical record is ominous.

In 1992, when Bush issued the Iran-Contra pardons on the eve of his leaving office after losing reelection to President Bill Clinton, William Barr fully supported the pardons. Presidential pardons are, after all, Constitutional. But, Lawrence Walsh said at the time, reported NPR, "It demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office, deliberately abusing the public trust without consequences."

Now the Iran-Contra era neo-cons and the Dick Cheney/Iraq Invasion 2003 era neo-cons are marching back into the institution of the Presidency.

Elliott Abrams got a new high level job last month, Special Envoy on Venezuela. Within weeks, the United States recognized a new President of Venezuela while the elected Venezuelan President is still in office. Chatter and rumor from the White House suggests that military intervention is possible. The "new" recognized-by- the-US-President of Venezuela is a veteran of color revolution type regime change, groomed for service with the help of the snakelike National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Regime change, putting in questionable, if not nefarious new leaders, seems to be Abrams' delight: Nicaragua, Iraq while a government official. Many others in his dreams.

In 1986, even before the Iran-Contra debacle was revealed, as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, Elliott Abrams told Congress that Nicaraguan "Contras" involved in drug running didn't have the okay from Contra leaders. It was just underlings. This, while Abrams and company were busy doing end-runs around the Boland Amendment and other Congressional actions that barred military supplies to the Contras. Even Khomeini's Iran was not off limits in getting money for the Nicaraguan fight.

In another time and place, i.e., Saudi Arabia, present day, where regime change in Syria was a high priority, we've heard excuses similar to those made by Elliott Abrams about the Contras, about the responsibility for the killing and butchering of the corpse of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and about the financing and arming of ISIS and Al Nusra terrorists by Saudi Arabia in Syria. Deja vu.

With more neo-cons in the Administration, the trajectory is more wasted blood and treasure.

[Feb 09, 2019] Basic imperialistic struggle among former hegemon who is going down due to stupidity and bad choices and newly rising hopefuls

Feb 09, 2019 | www.unz.com

Se , rgey Krieger says: February 7, 2019 at 12:16 pm GMT

It is all moving same pieces of capitalistic BS around. Basic imperialistic struggle among former hegemon who is going down due to stupidity and bad choices and newly rising hopefuls.

Once USA is safely put out and hopefully down, new great powers will suck lesser powers dry probably by smarter and less aggressive means but nevertheless.

Souverenity is being used as a tool now, but truly sovereign can be only few great powers in capitalistic world and Venezuela will never be sovereign.

Sacker as usually lacks imagination to go beyond his narrow views. He is also contradictory.

Fighting the only successful socialist state in the world which was the only one capable to put his anglozios in place yet defending this pathetic entity pretending to be socialist.

If it is socialist how come all those oligarchs and their base is still around to keep creating troubles? They should have gotten rid off long time ago and their all assets and capitals nationalized for common good.

Sergey Krieger , says: February 7, 2019 at 12:21 pm GMT
Regarding USA I have never had any illusions about this entity. Not even in 80s. All those birth Mark's were there from the start. As with every old person they turned into marasm at certain age.

[Feb 09, 2019] Government shutdown, Venezuela Donald Trump evolves into the best propagator of neoliberal fascism that tends to become a norm

Notable quotes:
"... Indeed, a year later, Trump built a pro-war team that includes the most bloodthirsty, hawkish neocons. And then, he ordered a second airstrike against Syria, together with his neocolonial friends. ..."
"... Trump conducted the longest experiment on neoliberals' ultimate goal: abolishing the annoying presence of the state. And this was just a taste of what Trump is willing to do in order to satisfy all neoliberals' wet dreams. ..."
"... And perhaps the best proof for that is a statement by one of the most warmongering figures of the neocon/neoliberal cabal, hired by Trump . As John Bolton cynically and openly admitted recently, " It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela. " ..."
"... Donald Trump is the personification of an authoritarian system that increasingly unveils its true nature. The US empire makes the Venezuelan economy 'scream hard', as it did in Chile in 1973. The country then turned into the first laboratory of neoliberalism with the help of the Chicago Boys and a brutal dictatorship. So, as the big fraud is clear now, neoliberalism is losing ground and ideological influence over countries and societies, after decades of complete dominance. ..."
Feb 09, 2019 | failedevolution.blogspot.com

Government shutdown, Venezuela: Donald Trump evolves into the best propagator of neoliberal fascism that tends to become a norm February 07, 2019 by system failure

Even before the 2016 US presidential election, this blog supported that Donald Trump is a pure sample of neoliberal barbarism . Many almost laughed at this perception because Trump was being already promoted, more or less, as the 'terminator' of the neoliberal establishment. And many people, especially in the US, tired from the economic disasters, the growing inequality and the endless wars, were anxious to believe that this was indeed his special mission.

Right after the elections, we supported that the US establishment gave a brilliant performance by putting its reserve, Donald Trump, in power, against the only candidate that the same establishment identified as a real threat: Bernie Sanders.

Then, Trump sent the first shock wave to his supporters by literally hiring the Goldman Sachs banksters to run the economy. And right after that, he signed for more deregulation in favor of the Wall Street mafia that ruined the economy in 2008.

In 2017 , Trump bombed Syria for the first time, resembling the lies that led us to the Iraq war disaster. Despite the fact that the US Tomahawk missile attack had zero value in operational level (the United States allegedly warned Russia and Syria, while the targeted airport was operating normally just hours after the attack), Trump sent a clear message to the US deep state that he is prepared to meet all its demands - and especially the escalation of the confrontation with Russia.

Indeed, a year later, Trump built a pro-war team that includes the most bloodthirsty, hawkish neocons. And then, he ordered a second airstrike against Syria, together with his neocolonial friends.

In the middle of all this 'orgy' of pro-establishment moves, Trump offered a controversial withdrawal of US forces from Syria and Afghanistan to save whatever was possible from his 'anti-interventionist' profile. And it was indeed a highly controversial action with very little value, considering all these US military bases that are still fully operational in the broader Middle East and beyond. Not to mention the various ways through which the US intervenes in the area (training proxies, equip them with heavy weapons, supporting the Saudis and contribute to war crimes in Yemen, etc.)

And then , after this very short break, Trump returned to 'business as usual' to satisfy the neoliberal establishment with a 'glorious' record. He achieved a 35-day government shutdown, which is the "longest shutdown in US history" .

Trump conducted the longest experiment on neoliberals' ultimate goal: abolishing the annoying presence of the state. And this was just a taste of what Trump is willing to do in order to satisfy all neoliberals' wet dreams.

And now, we have the Venezuela issue. Since Hugo Chavez nationalized PDVSA, the central oil and natural gas company, the US empire launched a fierce economic war against the country. Yet, while all previous US administrations were trying to replace legitimate governments with their puppets as much silently as possible through slow-motion coup operations, Trump has no problem to do it in plain sight.

And perhaps the best proof for that is a statement by one of the most warmongering figures of the neocon/neoliberal cabal, hired by Trump . As John Bolton cynically and openly admitted recently, " It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela. "

Therefore, one should be very naive of course to believe that the Western imperialist gang seriously cares about the Venezuelan people and especially the poor. Here are three basic reasons behind the open US intervention in Venezuela:

  1. The imperialists want to grab the rich oil fields for the US big oil cartel, as well as the great untapped natural resources , particularly gold (mostly for the Canadian companies).
  2. Venezuela must not become an example for other countries in the region on social-programs policy, which is mainly funded by the oil production. The imperialists know that they must interrupt the path of Venezuela to real Socialism by force if necessary. Neoliberalism must prevail by all means for the benefit of the big banks and corporations.
  3. Venezuela must not turn to cooperation with rival powers like China and Russia. Such a prospect may give the country the ability to minimize the effects of the economic war. The country may find an alternative to escape the Western sanctions in order to fund its social programs for the benefit of the people. And, of course, the West will never accept the exploitation of the Venezuelan resources by the Sino-Russian bloc.

So, when Trump declared the unelected Juan Guaido as the 'legitimate president' of Venezuela, all the main neoliberal powers of the West rushed to follow the decision.

This is something we have never seen before. The 'liberal democracies' of the West - only by name - immediately, uncritically and without hesitation jumped on the same boat with Trump towards this outrageously undemocratic action. They recognized Washington's puppet as the legitimate president of a third country. A man that was never elected by the Venezuelan people and has very low popularity in the country. Even worse, the EU parliament approved this action , killing any last remnants of democracy in the Union.

Yet, it seems that the US is finding increasingly difficult to force many countries to align with its agenda. Even some European countries took some distance from the attempted constitutional coup, with Italy even trying to veto EU's decision to recognize Guaido.

Donald Trump is the personification of an authoritarian system that increasingly unveils its true nature. The US empire makes the Venezuelan economy 'scream hard', as it did in Chile in 1973. The country then turned into the first laboratory of neoliberalism with the help of the Chicago Boys and a brutal dictatorship. So, as the big fraud is clear now, neoliberalism is losing ground and ideological influence over countries and societies, after decades of complete dominance.

This unprecedented action by the Western neoliberal powers to recognize Guaido is a serious sign that neoliberalism returns to its roots and slips towards fascism. It appears now that this is the only way to maintain some level of power.

[Feb 06, 2019] Senate Investigating Mueller FBI's Prosecution Of Orgy Island Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein

Feb 06, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

by Tyler Durden Wed, 02/06/2019 - 19:44 251 SHARES

Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced New York financier who served 13 months in prison for soliciting an underaged girl for prostitution, has served his time, and despite all of the negative press surrounding his "Lolita Express" and the many celebrities and politicians - including former President Bill Clinton and disgraced actor Kevin Spacey - who have reportedly traveled to his "orgy island", he will likely live out his life as a free man (unless new offenses are committed).

But thanks to a series published by the Miami Herald last year that delved into how prosecutors worked with powerful defense attorneys to ensure Epstein received such a lenient sentence. The expose shed a light on the role played by Alex Acosta, who went on to become Trump's Secretary of Labour, in handing down the light sentence. Acosta was the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida at the time Epstein's sentence was handed down.

Now, thanks to those stories, the DOJ has reportedly opened an investigation into the conduct of DOJ attorneys in the case, and whether they committed "professional misconduct" in their working relationship with Epstein's attorneys.

The probe was opened in response to a request lodged by Sen. Ben Sasse, a a Nebraska Republican and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who raised questions about the case after reading the Herald's stories about how Acosta and other DOJ attorneys worked with defense attorneys to cut a lenient plea deal for Epstein back in 2008, per the Herald.

At the time, the FBI was run by Robert Mueller.

Though the reasons for the lenient deal could be rooted in the natural advantages of the wealthy, one Twitter user who did a deep dive into a cache of redacted FBI Vault documents released last year raised the possibility that Epstein could have been an informant for the FBI, providing information on executives from failed investment bank Bear Stearns in exchange for the lenient sentence (though there's nothing in his guilty plea that suggested he provided information).

To be sure, records show that Epstein passed a polygraph test showing that he didn't know any of the girls he solicited were under the age of 18 at the time. Also, the case has taken on renewed importance since opposition research shops tried to link President Trump to Epstein during the campaign.

While that hasn't been conclusively proven, it could have been part of a separate agreement that has yet to be disclosed.


PeaceForWorld , 24 seconds ago link

It is very sad that FBI has decided to just prosecute this EVIL MAN and Child Pedophilia enabler, just because Muller is investigating Trump. They are all in on it. They are sick.

If I was one of the victims or the mother, I would do anything to destroy this man. Yes, I know that Catholic church is also as guilty. But this sick faced Epstein with his evil smile, has ruined many lives for his famous clients.

Child pedophilia is a disease wired in the brain and the only way to get rid of them, is to execute them. There is no other solution. Imagine about the father who walked into his house and witnessed his son getting raped by his sitter (man).

From a personal experience, when a burglar came to rub our house "As a minor not even a teenage, I woke up with this stranger molesting me.". I had no idea what he was doing, but that event gave me insomnia for the rest of my life.

Baron von Bud , 1 minute ago link

So did Epstein provide the FBI with information for prosecutions? Doesn't seem like it. Epstein knows the Clintons, Prince Andrew, Trump, and many others and they pressured the govt to back off. Without any facts, the FBI cooperation story is just spin. His connected friends have a lot to lose if he talks. I doubt that Mr. Epstein will live a long life.

East Indian , 2 minutes ago link

Remember all those people on Clinton team who were interviewed by the FBI and granted immunity? I remember. The crowd here was excited - oh, they are going to indict her today, oh, they are going to drag her off tomorrow first thing... Turned out, all those immunities were granted to protect them from future prosecutions.

Nothing may come out of this. Nothing, perhaps, will ever come out of this. The victim of all these witch hunting is sitting in the President's chair; and when he is not interested in getting justice for himself, or to uphold justice for the people, why should I worry about justice for this world?

Know thy enemy , 20 minutes ago link

Failed Bureau of Investigation. Once a political organization, always a political organization. I feel for the rank and file who's lives are determined by a few!

Pendolino , 22 minutes ago link

" Alex Acosta, who went on to become Trump's Secretary of Labour "

Yeah, draining that ole swamp...

MsCreant , 41 minutes ago link

If this happened, if they focused on just WHAT THE **** HAPPENED in the Epstein case, I might be a believer in our justice system. Even if it was just a minute. It could sweep up Trump. It could flush the Clintons straight to hell.

Got The Wrong No , 39 minutes ago link

Trump threw Epstein out of Mar largo for messing with young girls. Fusion GPS tried to link Trump with Epstein ans failed.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-12/fusion-gps-tried-and-failed-link-trump-jeffrey-epstein

[Feb 06, 2019] Trump dirty dossier's source asked for protection Daily Mail Online

Notable quotes:
"... The 38-year-old Soviet-born businessman now lives in the United States. He trained as a military interpreter at university and changed his name when he entered the U.S., his father said ..."
"... And Millian - real name Sergei Kukut or, in Belarussian, Siarhei Kukuts - has hinted that he could be in danger, blaming shadowy forces in London. He said that thanked God he was 'alive and healthy' and is able to 'tell the truth' that he had no involvement in the allegations against Trump, with whom he has claimed to have a business relationship. Trump has angrily denied any sexual impropriety in Moscow, and also dismissed claims from Millian that the pair had a business link, while Putin has denied holding 'kompromat' on the new U.S. president. ..."
"... his father Milediy Kukut revealed: 'He has asked the US government for protection - but was told he had to sort it all himself.' ..."
Jan 31, 2017 | dailymail.co.uk
EXCLUSIVE: Russian businessman named as source for spy's dossier of filthy claims about Trump has asked for U.S. government protection - and was refused

By Will Stewart In Moscow For Dailymail.com and Valeria Sukhova In Sharkaushchyna, Belarus, For Dailymail.com

Published: 15:49 EST, 31 January 2017 | Updated: 18:10 EST, 31 January 2017

The mysterious 'source' of explosive and unsubstantiated allegations that Donald Trump cavorted with Russian prostitutes asked for 'protection' from the US government, but was turned down, his father has disclosed.

Soviet-born businessman Sergei Millian, 38, who Dailymail.com can reveal was trained as a military interpreter before moving to the U.S., allegedly boasted to third parties that Moscow had compromising video of the US president engaging in lewd sexual acts that could be used to blackmail him.

These dynamite assertions were then - it has been claimed - passed without his knowledge by at least one intermediary to British ex-MI6 agent Christoper Steele.

Those allegations formed the purported basis of the former spy's 'dirty dossier' which rocked Washington when its contents became public.

Now it can be disclosed that Millian has voiced fears for his own safety, at the same time as denying that he was in any way the source for the dossier.

Protection: Sergei Millian asked for the U.S. government to protect him after he was named as the source of the most salacious claims in the dirty dossier. He denies having information on Trump, whom he is now thought to have first met in 2007

Defiant: The 38-year-old Soviet-born businessman now lives in the United States. He trained as a military interpreter at university and changed his name when he entered the U.S., his father said

Back home: Sergei Millian (right) remains a frequent visitor to his family in a dilapidated village in the former Soviet republic of Belarus, his father Milediy Kukut (left) told DailyMail.com +17

Impoverished: One-party state Belarus is impoverished and Sharkaŭshchyna, a town 125 miles from the capital of Minsk, is among its most economically troubled areas

Upbringing: Millian's parents still live at the second-floor, Soviet-era apartment where he was brought up. His father drives the red Lada car (left), another Soviet-era h

Location: Belarus is a key ally of Vladimir Putin's Russia and Millian's native town of Sharkaŭshchyna is 125 miles from its capital, Minsk

His father told DailyMail.com that the businessman had requested protection in the U.S., where he has lived since 2001.

And Millian - real name Sergei Kukut or, in Belarussian, Siarhei Kukuts - has hinted that he could be in danger, blaming shadowy forces in London. He said that thanked God he was 'alive and healthy' and is able to 'tell the truth' that he had no involvement in the allegations against Trump, with whom he has claimed to have a business relationship. Trump has angrily denied any sexual impropriety in Moscow, and also dismissed claims from Millian that the pair had a business link, while Putin has denied holding 'kompromat' on the new U.S. president.

With Steele in hiding, and Millian last seen in Atlanta, DailyMail.com went to his native Belarus, an economic basket case labeled the last dictatorship in Europe under strongman Alexander Lukashenko, a longstanding Putin ally.

At the dilapidated town where Milliam was brought up, his father Milediy Kukut revealed: 'He has asked the US government for protection - but was told he had to sort it all himself.'

Kukut, 63, said he did not know if his son had approached the FBI or another US law enforcement agency after he was 'besieged' in the wake of The Wall Street Journal linking him to the dossier.

[Feb 06, 2019] What about Sergei Millian?

Notable quotes:
"... Who provided former British spy Christopher Steele with the salacious and unverified information in the dossier? That's one question I'd like clarity on ..."
"... And it would also be interesting to hear from Sergei Millian, who is widely reported to be an unwitting source of information contained in the dossier, which was compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. ..."
"... There is a reason why Republicans did not do so when they controlled the house. Think Uniparty! The Dems and Reps are two faces of the same party! The Uniparty did not want this to happen! Now that the Reps are minority, they can act like Reps because majority Dems won't grant their request! See how that works!!!! ..."
"... Think Uniparty! Then everything will suddenly start to make sense to you! ..."
"... Democrat politicians are lying to the people who care about MUH RUSSIA. These politicians don't care about it. They never did. From the start it was nothing more than a way to keep a certain powerful faction of their party in line by dangling MUH RUSSIA keys in front of them. ..."
"... They can't stop because the mindless rage monsters they whipped up (aka the shrieking base of the ever-growing left wing of the Party that lives on Cuntbook and Twatter) will turn on them if they do ..."
Feb 06, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Originally from: Adam Schiff Showboats, Republicans Call His Bluff On Russia Probe

The Witnesses

Making matters more interesting, Republicans today also put forward a motion to subpoena around a dozen witnesses. Those people, including officials involved in the FBI's Russia investigation as well as people likely to be familiar with the compilation of the Steele dossier. Of course, those people may not say what the Democrats want to hear so the Democrats rejected the motion.

It's actually a brilliant idea – we need more interviews. I think the Republicans should pounce on this opportunity to question these witnesses. Hopefully, they will ask some poignant questions we still don't have answers to.

Who provided former British spy Christopher Steele with the salacious and unverified information in the dossier? That's one question I'd like clarity on.

"Since the Democrats previously sought testimony from these individuals, such as James Baker and Sergei Millian, we assume they still want to speak to them," said Jack Langer, spokesman for committee Republican Rep. Devin Nunes.

"It's even possible some witnesses can help explain the 'more than circumstantial evidence' of Trump-Russia collusion that the Democrats claimed to have found two years ago but, inexplicably, never revealed to Committee Republicans or anyone else."

James Baker is the former FBI General Counsel who was close friends with former FBI Director James Comey. Baker is now the subject of a leak investigation. He reportedly accepted documents from Perkins Coie, the law firm used by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign to pay for the unverified dossier.

What about Sergei Millian?

And it would also be interesting to hear from Sergei Millian, who is widely reported to be an unwitting source of information contained in the dossier, which was compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.

These witnesses would surely have some interesting information to share if they were under questioned by the committee. I'm not sure it's information that would benefit Schiff's claim that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. But I'm certain it would shed light on what really happened with the dossier and the internal machinations of the FBI's probe into the campaign.

Read the press release below from the House Intelligence Committee:

Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued the following statement today on sending the transcripts of interviews from the committee's Russia investigation to the Special Counsel's office.

artichoke , 39 minutes ago link

... Republicans today also put forward a motion to subpoena around a dozen witnesses. Those people, including officials involved in the FBI's Russia investigation as well as people likely to be familiar with the compilation of the Steele dossier. ...

It's a damn shame they didn't make that motion a month ago when they were in the majority on the committee.

Burnt To A Crisp , 23 minutes ago link

There is a reason why Republicans did not do so when they controlled the house. Think Uniparty! The Dems and Reps are two faces of the same party! The Uniparty did not want this to happen! Now that the Reps are minority, they can act like Reps because majority Dems won't grant their request! See how that works!!!!

This is how deep state protects it crime family members Rep and Dems! Think Uniparty! Then everything will suddenly start to make sense to you!

freedommusic

Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security Submit Joint Report on Impact of Foreign Interference on Election and Political/Campaign Infrastructure in 2018 Elections

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2019/02/05/acting-attorney-general-and-secretary-homeland-security-submit-joint-report-impact

Although the specific conclusions within the joint report must remain classified, the Departments have concluded there is no evidence to date that any identified activities of a foreign government or foreign agent had a material impact on the integrity or security of election infrastructure or political/campaign infrastructure used in the 2018 midterm elections for the United States Congress.

So no Russian interference in the 2018 election. What about any domestic interference? I don't see that mentioned...

deepelemblues

MUH RUSSIA has been a never-ending chain of diminishing returns for two and three quarter years

Democrat politicians are lying to the people who care about MUH RUSSIA. These politicians don't care about it. They never did. From the start it was nothing more than a way to keep a certain powerful faction of their party in line by dangling MUH RUSSIA keys in front of them. Jingle-jangle, jingle-jangle...

They can't stop because the mindless rage monsters they whipped up (aka the shrieking base of the ever-growing left wing of the Party that lives on Cuntbook and Twatter) will turn on them if they do with a tantrum of historic proportions

Only the hyperpoliticized REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE machines whose entire lives are wrapped up in DUH STRUGGLE care about this MUH RUSSIA ********

TeraByte

I can only refer to history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proscription
In the Roman Empire enemies of the state were blacklisted and they simply vanished.

[Feb 05, 2019] When Conspiracy Is The Only Explanation For Failed Neo-Liberal Dreams by William S. Smith

Muller investigation is at least 50% about the masking cracks in neoliberal facade with Russia interference smoke screen (and, especially Hillary fiasco as War Party candidate) , as it is about deposing of Trump. It also puts pressure of Trump to behave as War Party expect him, or...
Looks like the "United War Party" (which encompass most Republicans and Democrats) felt the threat to the money flows and acted accordingly. Add to this interest of Deep State (especially CIA) are completely opposite to the end of foreign wars that Trump professed.
Notable quotes:
"... What causes otherwise intelligent people to put their faith in conspiracy theories? A common explanation on the Right is that these conspiracies are cynically concocted to overthrow the Trump presidency. Another explanation points to declining standards of journalism, i.e., reporters being too incompetent to refute groundless claims. Both reasons have merit yet both fail to explain the peculiar estrangement from reality that a belief in baseless conspiracies represents. ..."
"... When the luminescence of France began to fade and the revolutionary army began to falter, the Jacobins felt there could only be one explanation: conspiracy. Only a deep-seated plot could be preventing France the Savior from vanquishing retrograde monarchs. From the beginning, the virtuous Jacobins saw themselves as fighting a conspiracy against the rights of humanity. Hence the Reign of Terror, with the guillotine deployed against priests and nobles who were seen as forming the core opposition to a better world. ..."
"... Idealism and conspiracy theories are, it seems, opposite sides of the same coin. When the dream fails to materialize, its validity is not questioned; instead the search to find those who connived against it begins. ..."
"... Fukuyama's Hegelianism was both warmed over and unmoored from reality. And yet the foreign policy establishment swooned over him. The Bush 43 administration fell so hard for him that they tried to give history a little push by invading Iraq. ..."
"... Or consider the globalist dreaming of the elites that Samuel P. Huntington labeled "Davos men." In the Davos dream, culture, history, and religion are archaic relics of a world fading away. National borders are disappearing, and a new global order is emerging, led by secular multilateral institutions staffed by an all-knowing "cosmopolitan" elite ..."
"... With cultures clashing, nationalism on the march, and religious wars raging, the Davos men continue to worship their dream from the safety of their Gulfstream jets. ..."
"... And to the Davos men, only a conspiracy can explain the election of Donald Trump. How else could such a regressive development have occurred when history is cascading toward open borders, democracy, and international institutions? How could an American president question the value of NATO and other alliances whose glorious mission is to midwife the end of history by democratizing everything from Lisbon to the Urals? ..."
"... But Trump and Putin will not be permitted to conspire against the dream. Their conspiracy must be destroyed, even at the risk of nuclear war. Special counsels must be created, eavesdropping must be expanded, foreign spies must be employed, and jackbooted agents must break down every door linked to this insidious conspiracy. The ruling elites are prepared to tear up the Constitution itself to save humanity from this diabolical cabal. ..."
"... The resilience of the Russia conspiracy in the minds of our establishment should remind us that the primary obstacle to a sensible foreign policy is our ideologized culture, in which the Western outlook of common sense has been eroded by a Romantic utopian idealism. When people within reach of massive military power are this estranged from reality, the situation can only be described as frightening. ..."
"... With you on "Davos Man" (Love that expression!) and the Trump conspiracy idiocy, though! Two thumbs up! ..."
"... You are making this much too complicated. The cultural stuff had some importance, but much more fundamentally Trump threatened the money/power game of the War Party. They have just about won anyway, because Trump is stupid. So, maybe they will just let Russia-gate fade out. ..."
"... Neolibs and neocons are . Dreamers. GIGO. Whoever wrote the headline and lede made sense, the author might want to match that. The text as is is a useful exhibit for: "to see the world how they wish it to be rather than how it is." Jacobins at Davos? Idealists with lots of loot? ..."
"... At one time, any occurrence that the establishment of the day didn't like was automatically blamed on Jews. No evidence necessary. Because Jews. If you questioned the conspiracy theory, you were instantly accused of being in league with "them". Today's establishment does the same, except they substitute "Russia" for "Jews". Anything they don't like is automatically blamed on Russia. No evidence necessary. Because Russia. Question the conspiracy theory and get accused of being a "Russian troll". ..."
"... If only HRC and her friends were in the White House all these current conspiracies and Mueller investigation wouldn't be an issue. Be the eighth wonder of the world, if Trump survives the deep state. ..."
"... Unfortunately, this article overreaches. I agree that Russiagate is an excuse that liberals embrace to excuse the disastrous failures of Clinton and the Democratic Party, but you don't need to connect this with some grand theorizing about the history of conspiracy theories. People simply don't want to admit their side did anything wrong. ..."
"... And as SteveK9 points out, it's really about how the mainstream War Party wants to keep Trump in line. Trump is a loose cannon. They want a steady reliable warmonger. ..."
"... Call me a child, then, but wisdom often comes from the mouth of babes. There is no evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Read The phoney indictment of the Internet Research Institute. It admits it was a commercial enterprise. It was nothing but a commercial click bait operation. Similarly, the DNC was not hacked, the data was downloaded to a USB, probably by a disaffected Sanders supporter, possibly Seth Rich. Also, Germany, Macedonia, the Netherlands have investigated alleged Russian interference in their elections, and found none. ..."
Feb 05, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The Intercept 's Glenn Greenwald recently compiled a list of the top 10 "most embarrassing media failures on the Trump-Russia story." All of them exhibit a common theme: Russian conspiracies are undermining American interests everywhere. Greenwald's piece was followed by a bizarre New York Times story from January 16 with the headline: "Trump and Putin: Five Meetings Infused With Mystery." The story implied something sinister in undisclosed conversations between the two leaders while offering no evidence whatsoever.

What causes otherwise intelligent people to put their faith in conspiracy theories? A common explanation on the Right is that these conspiracies are cynically concocted to overthrow the Trump presidency. Another explanation points to declining standards of journalism, i.e., reporters being too incompetent to refute groundless claims. Both reasons have merit yet both fail to explain the peculiar estrangement from reality that a belief in baseless conspiracies represents.

In the early stages of the French Revolution, the Jacobins imagined that the beacon of a democratic France would shine across the world and tyrannical kings would topple before its luminescence. The Jacobin imagination was polluted by utopian idealism, the ideology that causes people to see the world how they wish it to be rather than how it is.

When the luminescence of France began to fade and the revolutionary army began to falter, the Jacobins felt there could only be one explanation: conspiracy. Only a deep-seated plot could be preventing France the Savior from vanquishing retrograde monarchs. From the beginning, the virtuous Jacobins saw themselves as fighting a conspiracy against the rights of humanity. Hence the Reign of Terror, with the guillotine deployed against priests and nobles who were seen as forming the core opposition to a better world.

Idealism and conspiracy theories are, it seems, opposite sides of the same coin. When the dream fails to materialize, its validity is not questioned; instead the search to find those who connived against it begins.

Like the Jacobins, the foreign policy establishment in the United States has for decades hitched its wagons to idealistic dreaming. The Romantic ideas of Hegel and Rousseau permeate their thinking. Consider the establishment's obsequious reaction to Francis Fukuyama's " end of history " thesis. Fukuyama presented himself as the all-seeing gnostic who had divined the direction of all human history. One does not need the acumen of an Aristotle to know that this was far from an original thesis. Fukuyama's Hegelianism was both warmed over and unmoored from reality. And yet the foreign policy establishment swooned over him. The Bush 43 administration fell so hard for him that they tried to give history a little push by invading Iraq.

Or consider the globalist dreaming of the elites that Samuel P. Huntington labeled "Davos men." In the Davos dream, culture, history, and religion are archaic relics of a world fading away. National borders are disappearing, and a new global order is emerging, led by secular multilateral institutions staffed by an all-knowing "cosmopolitan" elite .

The reality of a borderless world is global migration that threatens to extinguish much of Western civilization in a generation or two. With cultures clashing, nationalism on the march, and religious wars raging, the Davos men continue to worship their dream from the safety of their Gulfstream jets.

Venezuela Presents an Opportunity for Peace With Russia Russia Sure Behaves Strangely for a Country Bent on Conquest

And to the Davos men, only a conspiracy can explain the election of Donald Trump. How else could such a regressive development have occurred when history is cascading toward open borders, democracy, and international institutions? How could an American president question the value of NATO and other alliances whose glorious mission is to midwife the end of history by democratizing everything from Lisbon to the Urals?

For those in a dream world, the only possible explanation for Trump is a conspiracy. His presidency was hatched by Vladimir Putin, the world leader with the strongest reasons for slowing the progressive march of history. Trump won the election because Putin has the powers of a Rasputin. He can thwart history by crossing his eyes, pulling secret levers, and deploying hackers.

But Trump and Putin will not be permitted to conspire against the dream. Their conspiracy must be destroyed, even at the risk of nuclear war. Special counsels must be created, eavesdropping must be expanded, foreign spies must be employed, and jackbooted agents must break down every door linked to this insidious conspiracy. The ruling elites are prepared to tear up the Constitution itself to save humanity from this diabolical cabal.

The resilience of the Russia conspiracy in the minds of our establishment should remind us that the primary obstacle to a sensible foreign policy is our ideologized culture, in which the Western outlook of common sense has been eroded by a Romantic utopian idealism. When people within reach of massive military power are this estranged from reality, the situation can only be described as frightening.

William S. Smith is research fellow at and managing director of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at The Catholic University of America.


cka2nd February 3, 2019 at 9:43 pm

"In the early stages of the French Revolution, the Jacobins imagined that the beacon of a democratic France would shine across the world and tyrannical kings would topple before its luminescence. The Jacobin imagination was polluted by utopian idealism, the ideology that causes people to see the world how they wish it to be rather than how it is."

And yet, idealism or not, republican ideals DID spread around the world and WERE taken up to oppose, undercut, reign in or overthrow monarchies from Latin America through the Middle East, and from Europe (e.g., the bourgeois members of the Duma singing "La Marseillaise" after the abdication of the Tsar) to Asia and Africa.

"When the luminescence of France began to fade and the revolutionary army began to falter, the Jacobins felt there could only be one explanation: conspiracy. Only a deep-seated plot could be preventing France the Savior from vanquishing retrograde monarchs. From the beginning, the virtuous Jacobins saw themselves as fighting a conspiracy against the rights of humanity. Hence the Reign of Terror, with the guillotine deployed against priests and nobles who were seen as forming the core opposition to a better world."

I don't doubt the pernicious influence of conspiracy theories, I really don't – I'm a Trotskyist, for Heaven's sake! – but the author might also acknowledge the reality of the threats that the Jacobins faced. The armies of the united crowned heads of Europe that had been sent against France, for instance. That the church and aristocracy WERE parts of the old order (official estates, remember?), some of whose members WERE actually fighting to restore the old regime and then drown, as they always drowned past peasant and popular rebellions, in blood.

With you on "Davos Man" (Love that expression!) and the Trump conspiracy idiocy, though! Two thumbs up!

SteveK9 , says: February 3, 2019 at 10:48 pm
You are making this much too complicated. The cultural stuff had some importance, but much more fundamentally Trump threatened the money/power game of the War Party. They have just about won anyway, because Trump is stupid. So, maybe they will just let Russia-gate fade out.
b. .. . ... ... . , says: February 4, 2019 at 9:51 am
Neolibs and neocons are . Dreamers. GIGO. Whoever wrote the headline and lede made sense, the author might want to match that. The text as is is a useful exhibit for: "to see the world how they wish it to be rather than how it is." Jacobins at Davos? Idealists with lots of loot?
Sid Finster , says: February 4, 2019 at 10:10 am
At one time, any occurrence that the establishment of the day didn't like was automatically blamed on Jews. No evidence necessary. Because Jews. If you questioned the conspiracy theory, you were instantly accused of being in league with "them". Today's establishment does the same, except they substitute "Russia" for "Jews". Anything they don't like is automatically blamed on Russia. No evidence necessary. Because Russia. Question the conspiracy theory and get accused of being a "Russian troll".
CLW , says: February 4, 2019 at 1:43 pm
Are we supposed to take this seriously? Your entire "argument" against the so-called Russia Conspiracy is itself nothing more than a conspiracy theory: an overwrought, paranoid, absurd conspiracy theory involving The Establishment, Davos Elites, Neo Liberals, et al.

There isn't enough publicly-disclosed evidence to support the claim that Russian interference tilted the 2016 election decisively in Trump's favor or that Trump has conspired with or been compromised by Russia. But only a child would believe that Russia didn't actively interfere in the election, or that various Trump associates didn't have inappropriate contacts and dealings with Russian entities, which they then lied about and continue to lie about.

You can do better than this, TAC.

fabian , says: February 4, 2019 at 2:20 pm
SteveK, the military won but not because he is stupid. He just doesn't want to end up like JFK. Nor did Barrack by the way.
, the , says: February 4, 2019 at 3:22 pm
If only HRC and her friends were in the White House all these current conspiracies and Mueller investigation wouldn't be an issue. Be the eighth wonder of the world, if Trump survives the deep state.
Sid Finster , says: February 4, 2019 at 4:13 pm
CLW produces an argument from ignorance. "Just because we have no publicly available evidence to prove that Trump is in fact Mickey Mouse just means we need to look harder! In the meantime, we can safely assume that Trump has round black ears and a tail.".

In the meantime, I suggest you learn about the burden of proof – the burden of proof is on those asserting the existence of a conspiracy (and you in particular are mighty short on details!) and not on those debunking it.

Donald , says: February 4, 2019 at 6:49 pm
Unfortunately, this article overreaches. I agree that Russiagate is an excuse that liberals embrace to excuse the disastrous failures of Clinton and the Democratic Party, but you don't need to connect this with some grand theorizing about the history of conspiracy theories. People simply don't want to admit their side did anything wrong.

And as SteveK9 points out, it's really about how the mainstream War Party wants to keep Trump in line. Trump is a loose cannon. They want a steady reliable warmonger.

S , says: February 5, 2019 at 4:43 am
CLW says "But only a child would believe that Russia didn't actively interfere in the election, or that various Trump associates didn't have inappropriate contacts and dealings with Russian entities, which they then lied about and continue to lie about." It took a child to point out that the emperor had no clothes on, while the adults pretended that a falsehood was tru. Perhaps more children are needed today to point out the truth and ignore blatant propaganda.
Brendan , says: February 5, 2019 at 1:42 pm
Call me a child, then, but wisdom often comes from the mouth of babes. There is no evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Read The phoney indictment of the Internet Research Institute. It admits it was a commercial enterprise. It was nothing but a commercial click bait operation. Similarly, the DNC was not hacked, the data was downloaded to a USB, probably by a disaffected Sanders supporter, possibly Seth Rich. Also, Germany, Macedonia, the Netherlands have investigated alleged Russian interference in their elections, and found none.

[Feb 04, 2019] Targeting Venezuela suggests a geopolitical shift away from the Middle East (and Israel) to countries that are less expensive to plunder yet with vast resources to be stolen. A telling sign in the slow deteriorating US Hegemony

Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Rubicon 727 , says: February 4, 2019 at 8:30 pm GMT

@Bill Instead of looking at this issue using a microscope, reading history about how Empires fall lends wisdom and insight. Arrighi's book, (I believe) is called "The Long Twentieth Century." He details how empires and huge trading giants rise and fall.

He details the rise of Italy's banking system during the Middle Ages as well as Spain's Empire, the Dutch trading hegemonies and most enlightening how the British Empire rose and fell.

We are seeing tell-tale symptoms of a US that's in trouble with a slow erosion of the US $$ hegemony. The financial growth of China has begun degrading the US market with hi-tech and other products. Thusly, you see Tim Cook of Apple apoplectic over China's Huwaii (sp?) flooding the European market with less expensive computers, cellulars, notebooks, etc.

We see the practical nature of Exxon Mobile that views the short geographic distance between the US (its military) to Venezuela's oil and mineral-rich soil. An easy pick, rather than becoming further embroiled in the Middle East.

Targeting Venezuela suggests a geopolitical shift away from the Middle East (and Israel) to countries that are less expensive to plunder yet with vast resources to be stolen. A telling sign in the slow deteriorating US Hegemony.

[Feb 03, 2019] Why All Anti-Interventionists Will Necessarily Be Smeared As Russian Assets

Feb 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Why All Anti-Interventionists Will Necessarily Be Smeared As Russian Assets

by Tyler Durden Sun, 02/03/2019 - 19:30 83 SHARES Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

When Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard announced her candidacy for the presidency on CNN last month, I had a feeling I'd be writing about her a fair bit. Not because I particularly want her to be president, but because I knew her candidacy would cause the narrative control mechanizations of the political/media class to overextend themselves , leaving them open to attack, exposure, and the weakening of their control of the narrative.

Mere hours before her campaign officially launched, NBC News published an astonishingly blatant smear piece titled "Russia's propaganda machine discovers 2020 Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard," subtitled "Experts who track websites and social media linked to Russia have seen stirrings of a possible campaign of support for Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard." One of the article's authors shared it on Twitter with the caption, "The Kremlin already has a crush on Tulsi Gabbard."

The article reported that media outlets tied to the Russian government had been talking a lot about Gabbard's candidacy, ironically citing as an example an RT article which documented the attempts by the US mainstream media to paint Gabbard as a Kremlin agent. The article's authors cited the existence of such articles combined with the existence of "chatter" about Gabbard on the anonymous message board 8chan (relevant for God knows what reason) as evidence to substantiate its blaring headline. Even more hilariously, the source for its weird 8chan claim is named as none other than Renee DiResta of the narrative control firm New Knowledge, which was recently embroiled in a scandal for staging a "false flag operation" in an Alabama Senate race which gave one of the candidates the false appearance of being amplified by Russian bots.

me frameborder=

This pathetic, juvenile language from one of the authors of that astronomically awful NBC News article gives you a sense of what they're trying to accomplish here. Smear campaign fully underway https://t.co/jvl5pFRr0P

-- Michael Tracey (@mtracey) February 2, 2019

This article is of course absurd. As we discussed recently , you will always see Russia on the same US foreign policy page as anti-interventionists like Tulsi Gabbard, because Russia, like so many other nations, opposes US interventionism. To treat this as some sort of shocking conspiracy instead of obvious and mundane is journalistic malpractice. There are many, many very good reasons to oppose the war agendas of the US-centralized empire, none of which have anything to do with having any loyalty to or sympathies for the Russian government.

But we will continue to see this tactic used again and again and again against any and all opposition to US-led interventionism for as long as the Russiagate psyop maintains its grip upon western consciousness. And make no mistake, these smears have everything to do with anti-interventionism and nothing to do with Russia. There will never, ever be an antiwar voice who the political/media class and their centrist followers espouse as good and valid; they'll never say "Ahh, finally, someone who hates war and also isn't aligned with Russia! We can get behind this one!" That will never, ever happen, because it is the opposition to war and interventionism itself which is being rejected, and in the McCarthyite environment of Russia hysteria, tarring it as "Russian" simply makes a practical excuse for that rejection.

All the biggest conflicts in the world can be described as unipolarism vs multipolarism: the unipolarists who support the global hegemony of the US-centralized empire at any cost, versus the multipolarists who oppose that dominance and support the existence of multiple power structures in the world. The governments of Russia, China, Iran and their allies are predominantly multipolarist in their geopolitical outlook, and they tend to be more in favor of non-interventionism, since unipolarity can only be held in place by brute force and aggression. Unipolarists, therefore, can always paint western anti-interventionists as Russian assets, since the Russian government is multipolarist and opposed to the interventionism of the unipolarists.

me frameborder=

Where in the World Is the U.S. Military? https://t.co/eqpm8jZnyN Interesting bit on a new generation of small, clandestine "lily pad" bases. pic.twitter.com/0smgRDZYoC

-- Dave Dickinson 🌌🚀🔭🤘🏴‍☠️ (@Astroguyz) October 22, 2017

The nonstop propaganda campaign to keep the coals of Russia hysteria burning white hot at all times can therefore be looked at first and foremost as a psychological operation to kill support for multipolarism around the world. It can of course be used to manufacture consent for escalations against Russia, China, Syria, Venezuela, Iran etc as needed, but it can also be used to attack the ideology of anti-interventionism itself by smearing anyone who opposes unipolar oppression and aggression as an agent of a nefarious oppositional government.

The social engineers have succeeded in constructing a narrative control device which encapsulates the entire agenda of the unipolar world order in a single bumper sticker-sized talking point: "Russia opposes Big Brother, therefore anyone who opposes Big Brother is Russian." This device didn't take an amazing intellectual feat to create; all they had to do was recreate the paranoid insanity of the original cold war, and they already had a blueprint for that. It was simply a matter of shepherding us back there.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, there emerged a popular notion of a " peace dividend " in which defense spending could be reduced in the absence of America's sole rival and the abundant excess funds used to take care of the American people instead. The only problem was that a lot of people had gotten very rich and powerful as a result of that cold war defense spending, and it wasn't long before they started circulating the idea of using America's newly uncontested might for a very expensive campaign to hammer down a liberal world order led by the beneficent guidance of the United States government. Soon the neoconservatives were pushing their unipolarist narratives in high levels of influence with great effect, and shortly thereafter they got their " new Pearl Harbor " in the form of the 9/11 attacks which justified an explosion in defense spending, interventionism and expansionism, just as the neoconservative Project for a New American Century had called for . And the rest is history.

And now our collective consciousness is planted right back in the center of that paranoid, hawkish political environment of the first cold war. The main difference now is of course that Russia is nothing remotely like a superpower today, and that the establishment Russia narrative is made entirely out of narrative, but the most important difference is that this time the establishment narratives are not taking place within the hermetically sealed bubbles of major news media corporations. People are able to communicate with each other and share information far more easily than they were prior to the fall of the Berlin wall, and westerners are able to easily access Russian media and anti-interventionist narratives if they want to.

Whoever controls the narrative controls the world, as I never tire of saying. This difficulty in replicating the hermetically sealed media environment of the original cold war poses a severe challenge for narrative control, and it is for this reason reason that there is now so much skepticism of the establishment Russia narrative. It is also the reason for the establishment's aggressive maneuvers to censor the internet, to demonize Russian media, and to smear anti-interventionist perspectives.

But we can't keep living this way. We all know this, deep down. The people at the helm of the unipolar world order are advancing an ecocidal world economy which is stripping the earth bare and filling the air with poison while at the same time pushing more and more aggressively against the multipolarist powers, one of which happens to have thousands of nuclear warheads at its disposal. The unipolarity so enthusiastically promoted by the neoconservatives and their fellow travelers has reached the end of the line after just a few short years, and now it's time to dispense with it and try something else. They will necessarily smear us with everything but the kitchen sink for saying so, but we are right and they are wrong. The state of the world today proves this beyond a doubt.

* * *

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[Feb 03, 2019] Trump Should Call Congress's Bluff on Our Endless Wars by W. James Antle III

Notable quotes:
"... Afghanistan is now the longest war in U.S. history, making any withdrawal seem anything but "precipitous." Syria hasn't even been authorized by Congress. In both cases, our men and women in the armed forces have already achieved the goals that are militarily attainable. "It doesn't get much more pathetic," Congressman Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, said of the Senate vote. ..."
"... taken at face value, it inverts Congress's constitutional war powers by allowing lawmakers to shirk their power to declare war while frustrating presidential efforts to pursue peace. ..."
"... When Trump twice bombed Syria without congressional approval, the Beltway applaude ..."
"... The one bright spot in the Senate vote was that Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobuchar were all on the side of withdrawal. ..."
"... Trump has heeded the hawks in his party -- and inside his own administration -- on Yemen, Iran, and perhaps soon Venezuela. Breaking free of their stranglehold could help put his presidency back on track. Otherwise he will end up ceding foreign policy to the progressives who want to usher him out of office either by impeachment or electoral defeat. ..."
"... Trump's call to bring the troops home has left him isolated in Washington. If he makes withdrawal a priority in the State of the Union, he may find that he has more company throughout the country than he thinks. ..."
"... Seriously, he's got too many warmongers in his administration to go after Congress. If he's serious about ending these wars he needs to clean house in his administration of the perpetual warmongers. Once he's done that then go after Congress. To do anything less is Trump talking it one way, while his administration does something completely different. ..."
"... I believe the above quote shows that there are lawbreakers and warmongers in both political parties. None of the above countries "Afghanistan and Syria" invaded or attacked America. Therefore I believe they are in violation of international law. ..."
Feb 03, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The Senate has toothlessly disapproved of his troop withdrawals. At the State of the Union, he should respond.

Will Trump Hold Firm on His Syria Pullout? Hawkish Democrats, Antiwar Republicans?

Who says Democrats and Republicans can't agree on anything? Washington closed ranks Thursday behind two wars President Donald Trump has proposed winding down as the Senate voted 68-23 to advance a resolution warning against "precipitous withdrawal" from Afghanistan and Syria.

Afghanistan is now the longest war in U.S. history, making any withdrawal seem anything but "precipitous." Syria hasn't even been authorized by Congress. In both cases, our men and women in the armed forces have already achieved the goals that are militarily attainable. "It doesn't get much more pathetic," Congressman Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, said of the Senate vote.

The resolution is non-binding, like the Democrats' toothless measures to stop George W. Bush's Iraq "surge" over a decade ago. Still, taken at face value, it inverts Congress's constitutional war powers by allowing lawmakers to shirk their power to declare war while frustrating presidential efforts to pursue peace.

When Trump twice bombed Syria without congressional approval, the Beltway applaude d. Veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward's book repeats the president's probing questions about how long we must stay in Afghanistan with an air of disbelief better suited to "fake news" shared on Facebook. Trump's call late last year to bring troops home from both war-torn countries elicited bipartisan criticism and the abrupt resignation of Pentagon chief James Mattis.

To make matters worse, only three Republican senators -- Ted Cruz of Texas, John Kennedy of Louisiana, and Mike Lee of Utah -- voted to stand with their president against these endless nation-building exercises. Kentucky's Rand Paul, who was not present for the vote, would surely have been a fourth. Even Chuck Schumer, the third straight Senate Democratic leader to have voted for the Iraq war, opposed this anti-withdrawal amendment.

During the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Trump should call Congress's bluff. He should dare legislators to do their jobs and vote to authorize continuing these wars -- or he will end them. Put the onus on the House and Senate to fulfill their constitutional duties.

Trump may find that he has unlikely allies in his would-be 2020 Democratic presidential foes. The one bright spot in the Senate vote was that Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobuchar were all on the side of withdrawal. How many ambitious Democrats will vote to give a Republican president a blank check for war as an election year approaches?

GOP lawmakers will have to decide whether they stand with their president -- who wants to cut America's multi-trillion dollar losses in the Middle East -- and rank-and-file Republican voters in ending these wars. Those who want to stay in Syria and Afghanistan quite likely cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton.

Will Trump Hold Firm on His Syria Pullout? Hawkish Democrats, Antiwar Republicans?

Up until now, Trump's big fight with the establishment has been over immigration and the border wall. Amid his belated turn towards the more populist parts of his program, he should not forget to spend political capital on America's wars as well. Trump now says Republican congressional leaders misled him on the wall. It has been even worse on foreign policy.

Partisans are dug in on the border. But on war, Trump has some opportunities to win over converts. Will House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sit stone-faced behind him as he agrees with the Progressive Caucus on foreign policy?

Much is riding on whether a course correction is possible in Afghanistan and Syria. Trump has heeded the hawks in his party -- and inside his own administration -- on Yemen, Iran, and perhaps soon Venezuela. Breaking free of their stranglehold could help put his presidency back on track. Otherwise he will end up ceding foreign policy to the progressives who want to usher him out of office either by impeachment or electoral defeat.

Trump's call to bring the troops home has left him isolated in Washington. If he makes withdrawal a priority in the State of the Union, he may find that he has more company throughout the country than he thinks.

W. James Antle III is editor of .



PAX February 1, 2019 at 12:56 pm

Mearsheimer has some main tenets of realist foreign policy include:

The lobby and its fellow travelers are not used to being told no. Time for them to create and fund volunteer corps and do their own dirty work on their dime and at their own risk.

MikeCLT , , February 1, 2019 at 1:14 pm
Trump should demand Congress debate and authorize the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. It would be good policy and good politics. And good for the Constitution.

Fred Bowman , , February 1, 2019 at 1:20 pm

Wouldn't hold my breath on Trump doing any such thing on ending of the Middle Eastern Wars. Seriously, he's got too many warmongers in his administration to go after Congress. If he's serious about ending these wars he needs to clean house in his administration of the perpetual warmongers. Once he's done that then go after Congress. To do anything less is Trump talking it one way, while his administration does something completely different.

Stephen J. , , February 1, 2019 at 1:25 pm

Very concise article.

The article states: "Who says Democrats and Republicans can't agree on anything? Washington closed ranks Thursday behind two wars President Donald Trump has proposed winding down as the Senate voted 68-23 to advance a resolution warning against "precipitous withdrawal" from Afghanistan and Syria."

-- -- -- -

I believe the above quote shows that there are lawbreakers and warmongers in both political parties. None of the above countries "Afghanistan and Syria" invaded or attacked America. Therefore I believe they are in violation of international law. More info at link below.

http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-facts-on-crimes-of-war-criminals.html

Mark Thomason , , February 1, 2019 at 1:27 pm

I am extremely disappointed that both of my State's Democratic Senators voted to keep the wars going.

However, I'm sure they did so only to spite Trump.

They don't either of them support more Long War. Of course, they don't want to be blamed either in the case of another terrorist attack for not being tough enough. But this vote was not one of principle.

That means they would not fight for it. They just did it. I suspect much of the vote in the Senate was like that, and that the rather large number of non-votes is because of that.

One Guy , , February 1, 2019 at 2:27 pm

I agree that we should end the Middle East wars, but the idea of Trump pissing off his sycophants in the GOP Senate, amuses me.

George Crosley , , February 1, 2019 at 3:01 pm

During the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Trump should call Congress's bluff. He should dare legislators to do their jobs and vote to authorize continuing these wars -- or he will end them. Put the onus on the House and Senate to fulfill their constitutional duties.

Would that he would but he won't.

Mr. Trump shan't read this good advice because it seems he only reads what the Kushners put in front of him and (for the most part) hires only people who despise him–people who are married to the pro-war Blob in DC.

What a way to operate!

[Feb 03, 2019] Mocking Mueller's Collusion-Free Collusion Indictment Of Roger Stone

Feb 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Mocking Mueller's Collusion-Free Collusion Indictment Of Roger Stone

by Tyler Durden Sun, 02/03/2019 - 17:30 19 SHARES Authored by Andrew McCarthy via National Review,

There was no crime until the investigations started...

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's indictment of Roger Stone may be the most peculiar document to emerge from the Trump–Russia "collusion" saga. It is an instant classic in the Mueller genre: lots of heavy breathing, then sputtering anti-climax.

After a 20-page narrative about Russian cyber-ops, WikiLeaks' role as a witting anti-American accomplice, and Trump supporters enthralled by thousands of hacked Democratic emails and visions of the Clinton campaign's implosion, Stone, a comically inept hanger-on, ends up charged with seven process crimes. No espionage, no conspiracy, no commission of any crime until the investigations started.

This is not to say that obstruction of congressional investigations is trifling. Nor is it to say the accused has a good chance of beating the case. Some of Stone's alleged lies were mind-bogglingly stupid. Why deny written communications with people you've texted a zillion times? Why deny conversations with interlocutors (such as Trump-campaign CEO Steve Bannon) who have no reason to risk a perjury charge to protect you? And don't even get me started on the witness-tampering count, which, if I were Mueller, I'd have hesitated to include for fear of suggesting an insanity defense. ( Do it for Nixon? Pull a "Frank Pentangeli"? )

That said, the case is overcharged. The tampering count carries a 20-year penalty. Adding an obstruction or false-statements count (five years each) would have given Stone (who is 66 years old) prison exposure of up to 25 years. The most central "colluder" in the Mueller firmament to be bagged so far, George Papadopoulos, was sentenced to a grand total of two weeks' imprisonment. Surely a quarter-century of "potential" incarceration would have sufficed to give prosecutors the "this is serious stuff" headline they crave while allowing for the more representative sentence Stone will eventually receive -- who knows, maybe three weeks? But true to form, Mueller instead included six of these five-year counts -- so the press can report that Stone faces up to 50 years in the slammer.

This inflated portrait of Stone as a major criminal was further bloated by the scene of his arrest : a well-armed battalion of FBI agents sent to apprehend him as the media, conveniently on hand at 6 a.m., took it all in. But Stone is just a cameo. The big picture is the overarching Trump–Russia investigation. It's still being inflated, too.

Prosecutors ordinarily do not write an elaborate narrative about crimes they cannot prove. Here, though, Mueller uses Stone as the pretext to spell out the Big Collusion Scheme: Candidate Donald Trump instructs Stone to coordinate with WikiLeaks on the dissemination of Clinton dirt stolen by Russia; Stone directs his associate, Jerome Corsi, to have Corsi's man in London, Ted Malloch, make contact with WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange, who is holed up at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Malloch must have succeeded, because next thing you know, Corsi is reporting back to Stone: Our friends the Russian hackers have given WikiLeaks all this damaging information on Hillary, including the Podesta emails; it will all be rolled out in October, right before the election.

It's a sensational story. Only . . . it's just a story.

Mueller doesn't even pretend he can prove it. No shame in that: During a long investigation, prosecutors always develop a theory of the case. Often, the hypothesis doesn't pan out. No problem. You narrow your indictment down to what you can prove and call it a day. In Stone's case, that would dictate omitting the ambitious collusion narrative and stripping down to a two-page obstruction-of-Congress indictment. Instead, Mueller gives us the fever dream: Stone as a key cog in the collusion wheel. Where reality intrudes, the prosecutors float suggestions they cannot prove or leave out key details that blow up the narrative.

The special counsel could have contented himself with easy-to-prove false-statements charges against Stone: lying about whether his WikiLeaks communications were documented in writing; lying about whether he asked his friend Randy Credico to pass a request for specific Hillary Clinton information to Assange; lying about whether he ever told the Trump campaign about his WikiLeaks conversations with Credico.

But no, Mueller strains to accuse Stone of falsely denying that he had a second WikiLeaks "intermediary" -- whom the indictment indicates was Jerome Corsi , Stone's Infowars associate. Depending on how charitable you want to be, this claim is either risibly weak, flatly wrong, or dependent on a distortion of the word "intermediary." To repeat, the "intermediary" thread adds nothing to the case against Stone. It is a pretext for weaving the collusion narrative without having to prove it.

To amplify the indictment a bit with reporting by the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross , Credico -- a left-wing comedian and radio host -- got access to Assange through a radical lawyer, Margaret Ratner Kunstler , who has done work for WikiLeaks. That apparently did not happen until shortly before August 25, 2016, when Assange appeared as a guest on Credico's radio show. According to the indictment, Credico first texted Stone about Assange's imminent appearance on August 19.

Prosecutors, however, suggest that Stone had a line into Assange and WikiLeaks starting at least two months earlier. "By in or around June and July 2016," goes the slippery allegation, Stone was telling Trump officials he had information that WikiLeaks possessed damaging Hillary Clinton documents. In Mueller's telling, this makes Stone seem like a potentially valuable WikiLeaks insider when, on July 22, WikiLeaks began publishing thousands of DNC emails. Immediately, a "senior Trump campaign official was directed to contact STONE about any additional releases and what other damaging information [WikiLeaks] had regarding the Clinton campaign."

If not from Credico, from whom, pray tell, did Stone learn what WikiLeaks was up to? Who is the other intermediary?

In truth, he didn't need one. He had two sources of information about WikiLeaks -- neither of them Corsi, neither of them sensibly thought of as an "intermediary." These sources go unmentioned in the indictment. Worse, while the prosecutors finger Corsi as Stone's hidden "intermediary," their evidence does not support this claim -- and they know it, so they fudge it.

Let's start with the two sources Mueller omits.

Turns out it is not just Stone who was alerted long before the Democratic convention that WikiLeaks might have damaging information on Clinton. Everyone on the planet who cared to be informed about such things knew. On June 12, 2016, in an interview that was widely reported , Assange said that WikiLeaks planned to expose documents relating to Hillary Clinton that could affect the 2016 election. Was Stone, the self-styled dark-politics devotee, pressing sources for an entrée into WikiLeaks? Sure he was. But that doesn't mean he had one. And he didn't need one in order to direct the Trump campaign's attention to WikiLeaks; Assange was calling the world's attention to himself.

The second omitted source? It was James Rosen, then a top reporter at Fox News -- though Rosen seems to have had no idea he was playing that role. To understand what happened, we need to consider the July 25 Stone–Corsi email that the indictment treats like a smoking gun -- but consider it in the context of an earlier July 25 email that the indictment fails to include.

As noted above, on July 22, someone very high up in the Trump campaign -- perhaps the candidate himself, though we are not told -- ordered a top campaign official to reach out to Stone. Just three days later, Stone sent Corsi an email with the subject line "Get to [Assange]." Stone exhorted Corsi to try to reach the WikiLeaks leader "at Ecuadorian Embassy in London and get the pending emails . . . they deal with the [Clinton] Foundation allegedly " (emphasis added).

So why did Stone believe WikiLeaks had Clinton Foundation documents? Well, Stone is acquainted with Charles Ortel , an investor who dabbles in investigative journalism and has focused intently on the Clinton Foundation. Ortel has occasional correspondence with James Rosen. In an email exchange on July 25, Rosen told Ortel, "Am told WikiLeaks will be doing a massive dump of HRC emails related to the CF [i.e., the Clinton Foundation] in September." Ortel proceeded to forward this email to Stone. Only after seeing Rosen's email did Stone contact Corsi to say that Assange "allegedly" had Clinton Foundation emails that Corsi should try to acquire.

Obviously, Stone did not need a WikiLeaks intermediary to give him a heads-up about a possible Clinton Foundation dump. He happened upon that information indirectly from a member of the press (Rosen), through an acquaintance (Ortel). And he did not need Corsi as an intermediary -- Stone is the one who alerted Corsi, not the other way around.

The indictment says that, shortly after receiving Stone's July 25 email imploring him to make contact with Assange, Corsi forwarded it to a "supporter of the Trump campaign" in the United Kingdom -- reported by Chuck Ross to be Ted Malloch, a London-based American who used to be a business professor at Oxford and has ties to British populists. Subsequently, on Sunday July 31, Stone emailed Corsi to "call me MON," stressing that Corsi's associate should "see [Assange]."

Well, did that happen? Did Corsi's man Malloch make contact with WikiLeaks?

If you read nothing but Mueller's indictment, you assume he must have. After all, the next thing we are told about is Corsi's email report to Stone on Tuesday, August 2. Corsi (then vacationing in Italy) wrote: "Word is friend in embassy [i.e., Assange] plans 2 more dumps, one shortly after I'm back [which was to be in mid August]. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging." Corsi added:

Time to let more than [Podesta] to be exposed as in bed w enemy if they are not ready to drop HRC [Clinton]. That appears to be game hackers are now about. Would not hurt to start suggesting HRC old, memory bad, has stroke -- neither he nor she well. I expect that much of next dump focus, setting stage for foundation debacle.

The implication is clear: Malloch must have reached Assange, gotten the critical information, and passed it along to Corsi so it could be communicated to Stone and the Trump campaign. Corsi is the intermediary! Coordination! Collusion!

But Mueller is hiding the ball again. The indictment makes no mention of the facts that Malloch denies knowing anything about WikiLeaks , that Corsi denies having any sources with inside knowledge about WikiLeaks, and that prosecutors appear to accept these denials.

So how did Corsi get the "2 more dumps" of information (or gossip) that he dished to Stone? He made it up -- or, more benignly, he claims to have figured it out on his own. Reportedly , Mueller's prosecutors were as frustrated as they were incredulous over Corsi's unlikely claim. But they don't have a better explanation. In the negotiations over a plea offer (on a charge of lying to investigators), which Corsi has resisted, Mueller's prosecutors drafted an agreed-upon " Statement of the Offense ." In it, Corsi was to admit that "his representations to [Stone], beginning in August 2016, that he had a way of obtaining confidential information from [WikiLeaks] were false."

Corsi is another strange character in this drama. He is a notorious bomb-thrower, and his memory is spotty. But one can understand why the special counsel seems to accept his story about not having a WikiLeaks source: His information was spectacularly wrong. He surmised that Assange would release information that Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, had serious medical problems; this would be a prelude to devastating disclosures about the Clinton Foundation. Corsi's fever dream never came true, either.

But how can Corsi have been Stone's intermediary to WikiLeaks if he had no way of obtaining confidential information from WikiLeaks?

Stone, meantime, points out that neither he nor Corsi made reference to Podesta's emails. He denies any awareness that Assange had them, and plausibly contends that the reference to Podesta in his conversation with Corsi (and in his later tweet on August 21 that "the Podesta's [ sic ] in the barrel" was coming) related to a lobbying company started by John Podesta and his brother Tony. That company had done work for the same Kremlin-backed Ukrainian political party served by Paul Manafort -- Trump's campaign manager, and Stone's former business partner. It was at the very time when Stone and Corsi were discussing WikiLeaks and Podesta that a July 31 New York Times exposé appeared, outlining Manafort's lobbying entanglements with these Ukrainians. Tellingly, Mueller does not contend that Stone's denial of foreknowledge about WikiLeaks' Podesta dump is false.

Again, understand: It is not just that Mueller can't prove Corsi was Stone's intermediary. Mueller has no need to try to prove it. He has an overwhelming obstruction and witness-tampering case against Stone without it. The indictment's "intermediary" plot line is just a device for prosecutors to spin the Trump–Russia–WikiLeaks collusion yarn. They are careful not to plead it in a conspiracy count; just an "introductory" narrative -- no formal charge, no burden to prove it, and no need to reveal stubborn facts that undermine it. Since it is superfluous to the process charges against Stone, he may not even challenge it. Maybe he will plead guilty, and the narrative will stand as the government's unrebutted version of events.

And this is just the indictment of a bit player. Makes you look forward to the special counsel's final report, no?


NeverDemRino , 2 minutes ago link

Rep.Matt Gaetz gets it, when he Twittered this video: Tucker says it all, about the duplicitous hypocrisy, here:

https://twitter.com/RepMattGaetz/status/1088895788946804736/video/1

sidfalco , 5 minutes ago link

Gestapo Mueller disgraces America.

Greendawg , 6 minutes ago link

Mueller doesn't want to know the truth!!! It doesn't get any more black and white!!! https://twitter.com/kimdotcom/status/1015318349188759553?lang=en

Stan Smith , 9 minutes ago link

The left loves it's narratives, but leaves something to be desired on substance.

847328_3527 , 10 minutes ago link

You have to love this guy, Stone. I hope he continues making a mockery of the farce Meuller witch hunt that has cost taxpayers over $100 million:

Roger Stone Explains How to Dress for Court

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg_gwyMCXBs

truthalwayswinsout , 10 minutes ago link

Mueller is famous for charging crimes that do not exist. The plurality of this cases are overturned on appeal. For those of you who wonder that is 75% plus.

That alone begs the question of why he has not been disbarred.

navy62802 , 15 minutes ago link

Just accept it. The legal/justice system in the US is done. Time to bury it.

[Feb 02, 2019] Brazil, Fascism and the Left Wing of Neoliberalism

Huge external debt plus high unemployment represents two vital preconditions of rise far right nationalism and fascism in all its multiple incarnations. In this sence Ulrain, Argentina and Brasil are different links of the common chain of events.
In a way fascism is a way of reaction of nation deeply in crisis. In essence this is introduction of war time restrictions on political speech and freedoms of the population. The Catch 22 is that often this is done not so much to fight external threat, but top preserve the power of existing financial oligarchy. Which fascist after coming to power quickly include in government and and desire of which are disproportionally obeyed by fascist state.
What in new in XXI century is the huge growth of power on intelligence agencies which is way represent crippling fascism or neofascism. In a way, then intelligence agencies became political kingmakers (as was the case with the assassination of JFK, impeachment of Nixon, elections of Clinton, Bush II, and Obama, as well as establishing Mueller commission after Trump victory), we can speak about sliding the county of the county toward fascism.
Notable quotes:
"... In Italy in the 1920s, repayment of war debts from WWI led to austerity and recession that preceded the rise of fascist leader Benito Mussolini. In Germany, payment of war reparations and repayment of industrial loans limited the ability of the Weimar government to respond to the Great Depression. Liberal governments that facilitated the financialization of industrial economies in the 1920s were left to serve as debt collectors in the capitalist crisis that followed. ..."
"... The practical problem with doing this is the power of creditors. Debtors that repudiate their debts are closed out of capital markets. The power to create money that is accepted in payment is a privilege of the center countries that also happen to be creditors. Capitalist expansion creates interdependencies that produce immediate, deep shortages if debts aren't serviced. Debt is a weapon whose proceeds can be delivered to one group and the obligation to repay it to another. The U.S. position was expressed when the IMF knowingly made unpayable loans to Ukraine to support a U.S. sponsored coup there in 2015 ..."
"... Propaganda was developed and refined by Edward Bernays in the 1910s to help the Wilson administration sell WWI to a skeptical public. It has been used by the American government and in capitalist advertising since that time. The idea was to integrate psychology with words and images to get people to act according to the desires and wishes of those putting it forward. ..."
"... The operational frame of propaganda is instrumental: to use people to achieve ends they had no part in conceiving. The political perspective is dictatorial, benevolent or otherwise. Propaganda has been used by the American government ever since. Similar methods were used by the Italian and German fascists in their to rise to power. ..."
"... Following WWII, the U.S. brought 1,600 Nazi scientists and engineers (and their families) to the U.S. to work for the Department of Defense and American industry through a program called Operation Paperclip . Many were dedicated and enthusiastic Nazis. Some were reported to have been bona fide war criminals. In contrast to liberal / neoliberal assertions that Nazism was irrational politics, the Nazi scientists fit seamlessly into American military production. There was no apparent contradiction between being a Nazi and being a scientist. ..."
"... A dimensional tension of Nazism lay between romantic myths of an ancient and glorious past and the bourgeois task of moving industrialization and modernity forward. The focus of liberal and neoliberal analysis has been on this mythology as an irrational mode of reason. Missing is that Nazism wouldn't have moved past the German borders if it hadn't had bourgeois basis in the science and technology needed for industrial might. This keeps the broad project within the ontological and administrative premises of liberalism. ..."
"... The way to fight fascists is to end the threat of fascism. This means taking on Wall Street and the major institutions of Western capitalism ..."
Feb 02, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

Missing from explanations of the rise of Mr. Bolsonaro is that for the last decade Brazil has experienced the worst economic recession in the country's history (graph below). Fourteen million formerly employed, working age Brazilians are now unemployed. As was true in the U.S. and peripheral Europe from 2008 forward, the liberal response has been austerity as the Brazilian ruling class was made richer and more politically powerful.

Since 2014, Brazil's public debt/GDP ratio has climbed from 20% to 75% proclaims a worried IMF. That some fair portion of that climb came from falling GDP due to economic austerity mandated by the IMF and Wall Street is left unmentioned. A decade of austerity got liberal President Dilma Rousseff removed from office in 2016 in what can only be called a Wall Street putsch. Perhaps Bolsonaro will tell Wall Street where to stick its loans (not).

Back in the U.S., everyone knows that the liberalization of finance and trade in the 1990s was the result of political calculations. That this liberalization was/is bipartisan suggests that maybe the political calculations served certain economic interests. Never mind that these interests were given what they asked for and crashed the economy with it. If economic problems result from political calculations, the solution is political -- elect better leaders. If they are driven by economic interests, the solution is to change the way that economic relationships are organized.

Between 1928 and 1932 German industrial production fell by 58%. By 1933, six million formerly employed German workers were begging in the streets and digging through garbage looking for items to sell. The liberal (Socialist Party) response was half-measures and austerity. Within the liberal frame, the Depression was a political problem to be addressed in the realm of the political. Centrist accommodation defined the existing realm. Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, the pit of the Great Depression.

In Brazil in the early-mid 2000s, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, better known as Lula, implemented a Left program that pulled twenty million Brazilians out of poverty. The Brazilian economy briefly recovered after Wall Street crashed it in 2008 before Brazilian public debt was used to force the implementation of austerity. Dilma Rousseff capitulated and Brazil re-entered recession. Rousseff was removed from power in 2016. Hemmed in by Wall Street and IMF mandated austerity , any liberal government that might be elected would meet the same fate as Rousseff.

In Italy in the 1920s, repayment of war debts from WWI led to austerity and recession that preceded the rise of fascist leader Benito Mussolini. In Germany, payment of war reparations and repayment of industrial loans limited the ability of the Weimar government to respond to the Great Depression. Liberal governments that facilitated the financialization of industrial economies in the 1920s were left to serve as debt collectors in the capitalist crisis that followed.

Since 2008, the fiscal structure of the EU (European Union) combined with wildly unbalanced trade relationships led to a decade of austerity, recession and depression for the European periphery. In the U.S., by 2009 Wall Street was pushing austerity and cuts to Social Security and Medicare as necessary to fiscal stability. The consequences of four decades of financialized neoliberal trade policies were by no means equally shared. Internal and external class relations were made evident through narrowly distributed booms followed by widely distributed busts.

With the presumed shared goal of ending the threat of fascism:

The ideological premises behind the logic that claims fascists as the explanation of fascism emerge from liberalism. The term here is meant as description. Liberalism proceeds from specific ontological assumptions. Within this temporal frame, a bit of social logic: If fascists already existed, why didn't fascism? The question of whether to fight fascists or fascism depends on the answer. The essentialist view is that characteristics intrinsic to fascists make them fascists. This is the basis of scientific racism. And it underlies fascist race theory.

The theory of a strongman who exploits people who have a predisposition towards fascism is essentialist as well if receptivity is intrinsic, e.g. due to psychology, genetics, etc. Liberal-Left commentary in recent years has tended toward the essentialist view -- that fascists are born or otherwise predisposed toward fascism. Unconsidered is that non-fascists are equally determined in this frame. If 'deplorables' were born that way, four decades of neoliberalism is absolved.

The problem of analogy, the question of what fascism is and how European fascism of the twentieth century bears relation to the present, can't be answered in the liberal frame. The rise and fall of a global radical right have been episodic. It has tied in history to the development of global capitalism in a center-and-periphery model of asymmetrical economic power. Finance from the center facilitates economic expansion until financial crisis interrupts the process. Peripheral governments are left to manage debt repayment with collapsed economies.

Globally, debt has forced policy convergence between political parties of differing ideologies. European center-left parties have pushed austerity even when ideology would suggest the opposite. In 2015, self-identified Marxists in Greece's SYRIZA party capitulated to the austerity and privatization demands from EU creditors led by Germany. Even Lenin negotiated with Wall Street creditors (on behalf of Russia) in the months after the October Revolution. In a political frame, the solution from below is to elect leaders and parties who will act on their rhetoric.

The practical problem with doing this is the power of creditors. Debtors that repudiate their debts are closed out of capital markets. The power to create money that is accepted in payment is a privilege of the center countries that also happen to be creditors. Capitalist expansion creates interdependencies that produce immediate, deep shortages if debts aren't serviced. Debt is a weapon whose proceeds can be delivered to one group and the obligation to repay it to another. The U.S. position was expressed when the IMF knowingly made unpayable loans to Ukraine to support a U.S. sponsored coup there in 2015.

Fascist racialization has analog in existing capitalist class relations. Immigration status, race and gender define a social taxonomy of economic exploitation. Race was invented decades into the Anglo-American manifestation of slavery to naturalize exploitation of Blacks. Gender difference represents the evolution of unpaid to paid labor for women in the capitalist West. Claiming these as causing exploitation gets the temporal sequence wrong. These were / are exploitable classes before explanations of their special status were created.

This isn't to suggest that capitalist class relations form a complete explanation of fascist racialization. But the ontological premise that 'freezes,' and thereby reifies racialization, is fundamental to capitalism. This relates to the point argued below that the educated German bourgeois, in the form of the Nazi scientists and engineers brought to the U.S. following WWII, found Nazi racialization plausible through what has long been put forward as an antithetical mode of understanding. Put differently, it wasn't just the rabble that found grotesque racial caricatures plausible. The question is why?

Propaganda was developed and refined by Edward Bernays in the 1910s to help the Wilson administration sell WWI to a skeptical public. It has been used by the American government and in capitalist advertising since that time. The idea was to integrate psychology with words and images to get people to act according to the desires and wishes of those putting it forward.

The operational frame of propaganda is instrumental: to use people to achieve ends they had no part in conceiving. The political perspective is dictatorial, benevolent or otherwise. Propaganda has been used by the American government ever since. Similar methods were used by the Italian and German fascists in their to rise to power.

Since WWI, commercial propaganda has become ubiquitous in the U.S. Advertising firms hire psychologists to craft advertising campaigns with no regard for the concern that psychological coercion removes free choice from capitalism. The distinction between political and commercial propaganda is based on intent, not method. Its use by Woodrow Wilson (above) is instructive: a large and vocal anti-war movement had legitimate reasons for opposing the U.S. entry into WWI. The goal of Bernays and Wilson was to stifle political opposition.

Following WWII, the U.S. brought 1,600 Nazi scientists and engineers (and their families) to the U.S. to work for the Department of Defense and American industry through a program called Operation Paperclip . Many were dedicated and enthusiastic Nazis. Some were reported to have been bona fide war criminals. In contrast to liberal / neoliberal assertions that Nazism was irrational politics, the Nazi scientists fit seamlessly into American military production. There was no apparent contradiction between being a Nazi and being a scientist.

The problem isn't just that many committed Nazis were scientists. Science and technology created the Nazi war machine. Science and technology were fully integrated into the creation and running of the Nazi concentration camps. American race 'science,' eugenics, formed the basis of Nazi race theory. Science and technology formed the functional core of Nazism. And the Nazi scientists and engineers of Operation Paperclip were major contributors to American post-war military dominance.

A dimensional tension of Nazism lay between romantic myths of an ancient and glorious past and the bourgeois task of moving industrialization and modernity forward. The focus of liberal and neoliberal analysis has been on this mythology as an irrational mode of reason. Missing is that Nazism wouldn't have moved past the German borders if it hadn't had bourgeois basis in the science and technology needed for industrial might. This keeps the broad project within the ontological and administrative premises of liberalism.

This is no doubt disconcerting to theorists of great difference. If Bolsonaro can impose austerity while maintaining an unjust peace, Wall Street and the IMF will smile and ask for more. American business interests are already circling Brazil, knowing that captive consumers combined with enforceable property rights and a pliable workforce means profits. Where were liberals when the Wall Street that Barack Obama saved was squeezing the people of Brazil, Spain, Greece and Portugal to repay debts incurred by the oligarchs? Liberalism is the link between capitalism and fascism, not its antithesis.

Having long ago abandoned Marx, the American Left is lost in the temporal logic of liberalism. The way to fight fascists is to end the threat of fascism. This means taking on Wall Street and the major institutions of Western capitalism

Rob Urie is an artist and political economist. His book Zen Economics is published by CounterPunch Books.

[Jan 30, 2019] Just one more to a long list of Trump appointments. I believe Trump is some kind of pervert, like the ones that like to get whipped, only Trump likes to get stabbed in the back

Jan 30, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

XXX

Just one more to a long list of Trump appointments. I believe Trump is some kind of pervert, like the ones that like to get whipped, only Trump likes to get stabbed in the back. XXX , 34 minutes ago

He does what Sheldon and Bibi tell him.

You think you're so ******* smart, but this some how eludes you?

YYY, 3 hours ago (Edited)

Donald Trump's House of Cons, Clowns, Crappolas, Criminals, and Conspirators:

  1. Mike Pence
  2. Mike Pompeo
  3. Steven Mnuchin
  4. John Bolton
  5. Elliot Abrams
  6. Nikki Haley
  7. Gina Haspel
  8. Peter Navarro
  9. Wilbur Ross
  10. Kirstjen Nielsen
  11. Robert Lighthizer
  12. Dan Coats

[Jan 30, 2019] The thugs for Wall Street have taken DC. Trump might as well go home

Jan 30, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

NAV 4 hours ago

Jason Raimondo's hopes that the tide slowly was turning against the War Party with Trump's appointment of Tillerson are dashed for good with the appointments of Abrams, Bolton and Pompeo. The thugs for Wall Street have taken DC. Trump might as well go home. Raimondo wrote of Abrams in 2017 in "The End of Globalism":

Excerpt:

Oh yes, the times they are a changin', as Bob Dylan once put it, and here's the evidence :

"Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has ordered his department to redefine its mission and issue a new statement of purpose to the world. The draft statements under review right now are similar to the old mission statement, except for one thing – any mention of promoting democracy is being eliminated."

All the usual suspects are in a tizzy . Elliott Abrams , he of Contra-gate fame , and one of the purest of the neoconservative ideologues , is cited in the Washington Post piece as being quite unhappy: "The only significant difference is the deletion of justice and democracy. We used to want a just and democratic word, and now apparently we don't."

Abrams' contribution to a just and democratic world is well-known : supporting a military dictatorship in El Salvador during the 1980s that slaughtered thousand s, and then testifying before Congress that massive human rights violations by the US-supported regime were Communist "propaganda." US policy, of which he was one of the principal architects, led to the lawlessness that now plagues that country, which has a higher murder rate than Iraq: in Abrams' view, the Reagan policy of supporting a military dictatorship was "a fabulous achievement." The same murderous policy was pursued in Nicaragua while Abrams was Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, as the US tried to overthrow a democratically elected government and provoked a civil war that led to the death of many thousands . In Honduras and Guatemala , Abrams was instrumental in covering up heinous atrocities committed by US-supported regimes.

And it was all done in the name of "promoting democracy." http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2017/08/01/the-end-of-globalism/

And, now, Venezuela. The economic hit man has arrived.

" 'I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National city Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested." -- Smedley Butler

Brazen Heist II, 4 hours ago (Edited)

...The Orange Buffoon might as well open the door to Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Perle. Hell even get Scooter Libby in some cameo. You know, keep them enemies closer and all that.

napper, 4 hours ago (Edited)

He will, if he gets a second term!!!

Abrams' appointment is no accident or mistake. By now even the most casual (but intelligent) observer should have seen through Donald Trump's contemptuous disregard for legal institutions and a criminal propensity for lawlessness.

Brazen Heist II, 4 hours ago(Edited)

And most American sheeple are dumb as a pile of rocks. The few good people left are largely powerless and have to deal with so much BS in all directions. I hope they will get through the coming implosion with their sanity intact.

Glad I left that shithole. I saw it coming. What's coming won't be pretty.

CananTheConrearian1, 3 hours ago

OK, Great Mind, name a populace that is as smart as Americans. Europeans? Chinese? We're glad you left, ********.

[Jan 29, 2019] Abrams is obviously a Bush plant from left over CIA Bushes

Notable quotes:
"... War with Russia will be the agenda just as the left wanted to begin with. The " pick sides" is the warring cry of the old Bush regime of " either you're with us or against us" theme. ..."
"... Radical capitalism on the left and conservative traditional capitalism on right.... Both fighting for the same select few who run the show generation after generation. ..."
"... He's not really attacked by anyone. Its a bipartisan play to distract the gullible from the sick and subhuman policy they enact while you are distracted with the wall or fantasizing bout his tiny mushroom. ..."
"... So Trump jerks a couple of gators from the swamp, but only to make room for the T-Rex. Amazing. And why the hell is Bolton still involved in our government? He penned an article during the bush admin explaining why the posse comitatus doesn't really mean what it really says. Scary sob ..."
"... Trump is Zahpod Beeblebrox. Anyone remember the Hitchhiker's Guide? The role of the galactic president was not to wield power, but to distract attention away from it. Zaphod Beeblebrox was remarkably good at his job. ..."
"... When he bombed Syria in the first weeks of his presidency, giving the MIC, a $100 million of bomb sales ( to a company he had shares in, raytheon) was enough for me that tRump is what he always has been, a bankrupt, loud mouth yankee puppet who the plutocrats chose to continue the usual US empire evil ****. ..."
"... I had my suspicions prior with his choice of vp, mad eyes pence, a protege and smoker of **** cheney. Then pompous pompeo, 150% arsehole bolton and now this official pos. Only a trumptard or patriotard would accept this ****. ..."
"... it's just too much to keep track of it all. My scorecard booklet was all used up about the 1st week in after all the neocons and bankster slime who galloped into the WH on Trump's coattails. ..."
"... After having expressed antagonism towards nation-building during the 2000 campaign, newly elected President George W. Bush appointed Abrams as deputy national security adviser, where Abrams' role was essentially nation builder-in-chief. ..."
Jan 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
LOL123 , 33 minutes ago link

Abrams is obviously a Bush plant from left over CIA Bushys.

War with Russia will be the agenda just as the left wanted to begin with. The " pick sides" is the warring cry of the old Bush regime of " either you're with us or against us" theme.

This is the precise crap people were hoping to avoid with Trump, but the left has put Trump administration in a vice by having constant fires to put out and disyractions with FALE RUSSIAN COLLUSION

... It's a psychological ploy to wear down the President and search for legitimate excuse to gain public opinion to go against Russia and they found it. Venezuela is a **** hole from socialism which AOL and dems are embracing now. Of course having sorry liberal advisors like Kushner doesn't help... That is a huge mistake to have the opposition ( democrate Kushner and wife) in the hen house with great pursasive power over an overwhelm Trump... Strategy working.

But politics as it is run mostly out of " The City of London" and old lynn Rothschild wanted puppet Hillary in ( Rothschild's play dirty to get what they want and hold a full house of cards with the financial tools to " persuade people to their way of thinking"... A battle us penny picker uppers must live with.... It's the only change we get.

Radical capitalism on the left and conservative traditional capitalism on right.... Both fighting for the same select few who run the show generation after generation.

Onan_the_Barbarian , 23 minutes ago link

Trump is being attacked from all sides. His only "friends" in Washington are the snakes of the neocon MIC. What did you think would happen?

schroedingersrat , 16 minutes ago link

He's not really attacked by anyone. Its a bipartisan play to distract the gullible from the sick and subhuman policy they enact while you are distracted with the wall or fantasizing bout his tiny mushroom.

Southern Cross , 25 minutes ago link

So Trump jerks a couple of gators from the swamp, but only to make room for the T-Rex. Amazing. And why the hell is Bolton still involved in our government? He penned an article during the bush admin explaining why the posse comitatus doesn't really mean what it really says. Scary sob

snatchpounder , 31 minutes ago link

Abrams was convicted of lying to congress meanwhile congress lies to us all day everyday and what happens to those bastards? They vote themselves raises and sit on their *** all day taking bribes from their paymasters and writing laws and regulations to control their chattel. Yes I hate politicians because they're ******* criminals and all of them and the useless bureaucrats that infest that cesspool in D.C should be out of work permanently.

2handband , 10 minutes ago link

Trump is Zahpod Beeblebrox. Anyone remember the Hitchhiker's Guide? The role of the galactic president was not to wield power, but to distract attention away from it. Zaphod Beeblebrox was remarkably good at his job.

Aristofani , 37 minutes ago link

When he bombed Syria in the first weeks of his presidency, giving the MIC, a $100 million of bomb sales ( to a company he had shares in, raytheon) was enough for me that tRump is what he always has been, a bankrupt, loud mouth yankee puppet who the plutocrats chose to continue the usual US empire evil ****.

I had my suspicions prior with his choice of vp, mad eyes pence, a protege and smoker of **** cheney. Then pompous pompeo, 150% arsehole bolton and now this official pos. Only a trumptard or patriotard would accept this ****.

dogfish , 32 minutes ago link

Trumps first order was a raid in Yemen where an 8 year old little girl was murdered.

Aristofani , 31 minutes ago link

apologies. I forgot that example of US empire evil ****.

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 29 minutes ago link

You're excused...it's just too much to keep track of it all. My scorecard booklet was all used up about the 1st week in after all the neocons and bankster slime who galloped into the WH on Trump's coattails.

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 31 minutes ago link

But at least the swamp is about to be drained.. in Venezuela lol

Aristofani , 24 minutes ago link

:) Funny

Seriously though, it's interesting that ZH has said nothing about the big corruption scandal going on now in Brasil. The guy who won on platform of anti-corruption has been exposed within a month of taking office, surprise...surprise, as part of one of the worst. Talk is vp taking over with the backing of the military. "soft-hard" coup you could say.

TGF Texas , 28 minutes ago link

I too, got very angry about the exact things you mention. However, I perspective is something that keeps me grounded. Remember what was happening in 2016, and what the options were. Remember BLM, march's in like every city, and Cops getting ambushed every few weeks?

Remember, "We came, We saw, he died", from Queen Hillary? Or how about Queen Hillary calling Putin a Thug, and saying we had to stand up to him in Ukraine, and Syria?

PERSPECTIVE!!

Aristofani , 16 minutes ago link

dude, we all know she is part of the same ****. The ******** election is over, the plutocracy chose their puppet. Think of it, sure Killary would have done the same, but she wouldn't have been able to get away with it and the schizoid msm would have had a breakdown trying to sell the same ol, same ol us empire games. People don't like surprises. Repubelicans as aggressive warmongers doesnt surprise. Sadly they think they cant do anything about it. But they can, and not by talking **** on ZH.

See Ralph Nader's, How the Rats Re-Formed the Congress for tips.

Whoa Dammit , 15 minutes ago link

Just because some other people have done worse things does not make what Trump is doing with his personnel selections okay.

pitchforksanonymous , 37 minutes ago link

It's 10 dimensional to the fifth power chess right? Just kidding. It's a big club and you ain't in it. Trump is not going to save you. Did you really think one guy defied the odds and overcame the voter fraud and beat Hillary? Puhleez. All by design. You're watching a movie...

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 28 minutes ago link

Bonus points for you if you can name the first "third party" in American history. Oh **** it, it was the anti-masonic party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Masonic_Party

HushHushSweet , 55 minutes ago link

Look. At. That. Nose. Trump didn't appoint him; Trump's masters did.

gaasp , 57 minutes ago link

After having expressed antagonism towards nation-building during the 2000 campaign, newly elected President George W. Bush appointed Abrams as deputy national security adviser, where Abrams' role was essentially nation builder-in-chief.

Didn't W run on a 'bring the troops home and world leave us alone' platform in 2000?

Aristofani , 50 minutes ago link

They all have.

g speed , 1 hour ago link

when i think about what Trump did so far I think about that mandatory Obama care tax that I had to pay if I* didn't get Obama care Well it's gone and that was a big deal for me cause I've got four kids that would have to pay it and that would be six thousand out of pocket every year that's for starters with out Trump running interference in the FL house and senate elections we'd have Obama lite new and antique Bill still that makes a huge difference in things like taxes and EPA enforcement in this state I really think he has made the general public more aware of the Mexican invasion cause I see less and less Latinos on the jobs sites around here He has really caused the Dems to lose it Trump did that not any other politician he has exposed election fraud he has exposed the deep state like never before

Yes I'm a Trump supporter a thoughtful one I consider the options and will go with this till it impacts me negatively on an economic personal level not an emotional one brought on by pundits and MSM never Trump ilk

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 44 minutes ago link

Confirmation bias is killing you slowly. Trump is the master of it, even though I think he's the slime of the earth.

g speed , 11 minutes ago link

why don't you ask me if I think he is perfect I think his wife is pretty much ok however I hate that he is from NYC and acts like it his friends are not much to be proud of and his social skills are lacking but I think he showers regularly and has good hygiene and moral habits except for golf but that's just me He's a bossy kind of guy and I might not get along with him He doesn't do things country folks do and wouldn't fit in around here his hair sucks and is a narcissistic affectation for sure but i like his foreign policy so far how am i doing think I'm being killed slowly I liked Ike but he was weak and I liked Buchanan bur preferred Goldwater and on and on they are politicians and deserve the loyalty they give and " that's all I have to say about that"

schroedingersrat , 48 minutes ago link

Trump is a psychopath and he loves to hire even bigger psychopaths. Your whole admin is a swamp of sociopaths, psychopaths and other sick deranged people.

TGF Texas , 42 minutes ago link

When did he hire Hillary?

schroedingersrat , 38 minutes ago link

There is not much difference between Hillary and Pompeo. Pompeo is basically hillary with a **** and a religious twist

TGF Texas , 26 minutes ago link

Did CNN tell you that?

schroedingersrat , 20 minutes ago link

Im European and the only US news i read is ZH & Counterpunch

[Jan 29, 2019] WTF Is Trump Thinking - A Plum Post For A Prominent Opponent

Who is next? Paul Wolfowitz now would be the most logical choice. Id the invasion of Venezuela decided already, like Iraq war under Bush II.
That means that Rump can say goodbye to independents who votes for him because of his anti-foreign wars noises during previous election campaign
Notable quotes:
"... Abrams, who had served in the Reagan State Department, faced multiple felony charges for lying to Congress and defying U.S. law in his role as a mastermind of the Iran-Contra debacle. Abrams' dishonesty almost destroyed Ronald Reagan's presidency and put Reagan in jeopardy of impeachment. Abrams was allowed to plead guilty to two reduced charges and later was pardoned by George H.W. Bush, who feared impeachment because of his own role in Iran-Contra. ..."
"... Abrams was even more consequential as nation-wrecker. He was one of the principal architects of the invasion of Iraq. He is an inveterate advocate of "regime change" against countries whose policies he doesn't like. He has a track record in attempting to overthrow foreign governments both by covert action and outright military invasion. ..."
"... At the beginning of the Trump administration, foreign policy establishment types lobbied clueless Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to accept the convicted criminal Abrams as deputy head of the department - the person running all day-to-day affairs at State. ..."
"... Abrams suddenly appeared deus ex machina at the side of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said in a news conference that Abrams was appointed, "effective immediately" as special envoy to deal with resolution of the situation in Venezuela in a way that supposedly would advance U.S. interests. ..."
"... Abrams' special envoy post will be far more powerful than that of an ordinary ambassador or assistant secretary of state -- offices that require Senate confirmation. Should the Senate acquiesce in letting Abrams work without Senate confirmation? ..."
"... Abrams is a close friend and constant collaborator of Bill Kristol and Max Boot, both of whom are waging campaigns to impeach Trump or deny him re-election. There are no -- repeat, no -- policy differences between Abrams, Kristol, and Boot. ..."
"... If the appointment is supposed to be a sharp move to "hug your friends close and your enemies closer," then the test of its efficacy would be that Kristol, Boot, Jonah Goldberg, David French et. al., would halt their anti-Trump campaigns. One would think that if the Abrams appointment is one side of a shrewdly calculated transaction, then silencing Team Kristol would be a necessary condition. ..."
"... The Orange Buffoon might as well open the door to Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Perle. Hell even get Scooter Libby in some cameo. You know, keep them enemies closer and all that. ..."
"... Trump loves those Bush criminals. ..."
Jan 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Joseph Duggan via American Greatness,

On Friday, following the dramatic arrest of a prominent Trump supporter on charges of lying to Congress, President Trump gave one of the nation's most sensitive national security and diplomatic posts to another controversial figure who already had been convicted of lying to Congress.

Not at all. Turns out, the appointee is one of the president's worst enemies, a man forcefully opposed to almost all of Trump's policies and campaign promises, a man who repeatedly has said Trump is morally unfit for his office. He is Elliott Abrams, the 71-year-old éminence grise of the NeverTrump movement.

Abrams is the pre-eminent prophet and practitioner of hyper-interventionist approaches to destabilize or overthrow governments - of foes and friends alike - that do not pass his democracy-is-the-end-all-and-be-all litmus test. His closest friends and associates, from whom his political positions are indistinguishable, include some of President Trump's most rabid enemies, false-flag "conservatives" Bill Kristol and Max Boot.

Abrams, who had served in the Reagan State Department, faced multiple felony charges for lying to Congress and defying U.S. law in his role as a mastermind of the Iran-Contra debacle. Abrams' dishonesty almost destroyed Ronald Reagan's presidency and put Reagan in jeopardy of impeachment. Abrams was allowed to plead guilty to two reduced charges and later was pardoned by George H.W. Bush, who feared impeachment because of his own role in Iran-Contra.

After having expressed antagonism towards nation-building during the 2000 campaign, newly elected President George W. Bush appointed Abrams as deputy national security adviser, where Abrams' role was essentially nation builder-in-chief. Abrams was even more consequential as nation-wrecker. He was one of the principal architects of the invasion of Iraq. He is an inveterate advocate of "regime change" against countries whose policies he doesn't like. He has a track record in attempting to overthrow foreign governments both by covert action and outright military invasion.

At the beginning of the Trump administration, foreign policy establishment types lobbied clueless Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to accept the convicted criminal Abrams as deputy head of the department - the person running all day-to-day affairs at State. Trump, who would have had to sign off on the nomination, rejected Abrams when he learned of Abrams' background. The truth about Abrams, while not by any means a secret, came to Trump's attention from Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.). Paul, who held a deciding vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would block Abrams if he were nominated.

Abrams already knew then what Trump took nearly a year to discover, that Tillerson was hopelessly unprepared to serve as the nation's chief diplomat and indeed was, as Trump colorfully put it, "dumb as a rock." Nothing about Abrams, the NeverTrumper who believes Trump cannot govern effectively without him, has changed since then.

Following his rejection by Trump, Abrams wrote a sour-grapes article for Politico , disparaging the president, along with Vice President Pence and Abrams' erstwhile patron Tillerson, for not having international human rights policies identical to Abrams' own views.

Abrams has been outspoken against sensitive Trump international policies right up to the moment of his surprise appointment. He is unapologetic about his role in masterminding the Iraq war. He has opposed Trump concerning American troops in Syria and America's relationship with Saudi Arabia. As recently as January 14, 2019, he published a withering attack on Trump's Middle East policies and diplomacy.

As events in Venezuela last week reached a crisis with rival claimants to the nation's presidency, Abrams suddenly appeared deus ex machina at the side of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said in a news conference that Abrams was appointed, "effective immediately" as special envoy to deal with resolution of the situation in Venezuela in a way that supposedly would advance U.S. interests.

Immediately? An appointee to a sensitive post needs a background investigation and security clearance. These investigations can take months. If he indeed has a valid clearance, that means his appointment was decided long ago.

Abrams' special envoy post will be far more powerful than that of an ordinary ambassador or assistant secretary of state -- offices that require Senate confirmation. Should the Senate acquiesce in letting Abrams work without Senate confirmation?

What is Pompeo thinking? Has Pompeo read Abrams' anti-Trump articles? In particular, has he read Abrams' January 14 anti-Trump article that mocks Pompeo with a hugely unflattering photo of the secretary of state?

What is going on?

Abrams is a close friend and constant collaborator of Bill Kristol and Max Boot, both of whom are waging campaigns to impeach Trump or deny him re-election. There are no -- repeat, no -- policy differences between Abrams, Kristol, and Boot.

If the appointment is supposed to be a sharp move to "hug your friends close and your enemies closer," then the test of its efficacy would be that Kristol, Boot, Jonah Goldberg, David French et. al., would halt their anti-Trump campaigns. One would think that if the Abrams appointment is one side of a shrewdly calculated transaction, then silencing Team Kristol would be a necessary condition.

So far there are no signs of this.

What did Trump know about the new Abrams appointment, and when did he know it?

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 4 minutes ago link

It's amazing seeing the holdout Trump supporters continually writhe in mental contortions to support his every move..as I've said all along..TDS affects the sheep on both right and left equally.

Brazen Heist II 4 minutes ago (Edited)

... The Orange Buffoon might as well open the door to Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Perle. Hell even get Scooter Libby in some cameo. You know, keep them enemies closer and all that.

uhland62, 5 minutes ago

This guy is just picking up a couple more paychecks. He may think he can whip up Trump for more wars, Trump may think he can control this guy because 'I am President and you are not'. The main thing is that the military can make more wars and destroy more countries.

The-Post, 15 minutes ago

Trump loves those Bush criminals.

readerandthinker

Venezuelan army defectors appeal to Trump for weapons

Caracas, Venezuela (CNN)Venezuelan army defectors are calling on the Trump administration to arm them, in what they call their quest for "freedom."

Former soldiers Carlos Guillen Martinez and Josue Hidalgo Azuaje, who live outside the country, told CNN they want US military assistance to equip others inside the beleaguered nation. They claim to be in contact with hundreds of willing defectors and have called on enlisted Venezuelan soldiers to revolt against the Maduro regime, through television broadcasts.

"As Venezuelan soldiers, we are making a request to the US to support us, in logistical terms, with communication, with weapons, so we can realize Venezuelan freedom," Guillen Martinez told CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/29/americas/venezuela-army-defectors-plea-for-arms/index.html

[Jan 29, 2019] So which of Trump s nominees gets kneecapped by Deep State first? Michael Flynn

Dec 15, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org

pogohere , Dec 15, 2018 5:57:43 PM | link

jackrabbit @ 28

activist potato @ 78

Re: "The possibility that MAGA was, in fact, a sly misdirection to co-opt the fervour of re-ignited passions in a disenfranchised segment of the America people - to re-capture the kind of patriotic commitment and ardor that drove the war effort in two world wars - into a renewed Imperial adventure was obviated, in my view, by Trump's loud and overt criticism of past Imperial adventures such as the Iraq war and Obama's inaction regarding ISIS (the accusation that Obama "created" ISIS was a bombshell, in my opinion).

Trump engaged in a bare, pointed, often crass and bordering on contemptuous criticism of his predecessors' foreign policy. The irreverent tone was unprecedented in recent campaign history and was so plain and completely at odds with Hilary's stated positions that it essentially committed him (in my eyes anyway) to following through, or to make all efforts to follow through. If not, he would set one of the worst examples of a duplicitous politician, perhaps ever. The same applies to other bold campaign positions, such as the border wall, for example.

But when viewed in the context of a deep state "policy change," such a clear and utter denunciation and discrediting of the former policy would be necessary to shift the National mindset and would not necessarily preclude Trump from engaging in further Imperial adventures, as long as they were different from the discredited policy."

So which of Trump's nominees gets kneecapped first? Michael Flynn Former Military Chief: Iraq War Was A 'Failure' That Helped Create ISIS

12-19-16

Retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency who came up through intelligence positions in Iraq and Afghanistan, says that the George W. Bush administration's Iraq war was a tremendous blunder that helped to create the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or ISIS.

"It was a huge error," Flynn said about the Iraq war in a detailed interview with German newspaper Der Spiegel published Sunday.

"As brutal as Saddam Hussein was, it was a mistake to just eliminate him," Flynn went on to say. "The same is true for Moammar Gadhafi and for Libya, which is now a failed state. The historic lesson is that it was a strategic failure to go into Iraq. History will not be and should not be kind with that decision."

When told by Der Spiegel reporters Matthias Gebauer and Holger Stark that the Islamic State would not "be where it is now without the fall of Baghdad," Flynn, without reservations, said: "Yes, absolutely."

Read the entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/zmxd3uf

Flynn, who served in the U.S. Army for more than 30 years, also said that the American military response following 9/11 was not well thought-out at all and based on significant misunderstandings.

BTW:

Hold the Phone on Flynn Sentencing – Judge Emmet Sullivan Has Questions

12-12-18

Interesting, very interesting. As noted in the Flynn sentencing memo last night there were some curiously framed explanations of events surrounding his FBI inquisition.

Now Judge Emmet Sullivan wants expanded information, and wishes to see the actual notes (FD-302) that were mentioned by Flynn; and Judge Sullivan is directing the special counsel to provide all documents created by the FBI surrounding the Flynn interview:

from the comments:

Curt says:
December 12, 2018 at 9:56 pm
This could be big news! Judge Emmet Sullivan was the same judge that had prosecutors investigated for criminal actions they took in the Sen. Ted Stevens FALSE prosecution. Some on Mueller's team, including Weinstein, were held in contempt. One prosecutor committed suicide. Others threatened with disbarment and some were suspended. "A federal judge dismissed the ethics conviction of former Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska on Tuesday after taking the extraordinary step of naming a special prosecutor to investigate whether the government lawyers who ran the Stevens case (2008) should themselves be prosecuted for criminal wrongdoing. Mueller was also involved in that horrible attempt by prosecutors to frame Sen. Ted Stevens. Judge Sullivan has absolutely no use for this group of prosecutors. He smells a rat here and is asking for all investigative materials, including 302s. This judge will not hesitate to take action against these crooked prosecutors if he finds evidence of ANY wrong doing.


See: Cautionary Tale: The Ted Stevens Prosecution

On April 7, 2009, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia unleashed his fury before a packed courtroom. For 14 minutes, he scolded. He chastised. He fumed. "In nearly 25 years on the bench," he said, "I've never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I've seen in this case.

. . .

For months Judge Sullivan had warned U.S. prosecutors about their repeated failure to turn over evidence. Then, after the jury convicted Stevens, the Justice Department discovered previously unrevealed evidence. Meanwhile, a prosecution witness and an agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) came forward alleging prosecutorial misconduct. Finally, newly appointed U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced that he had had enough and recommended that the seven-count conviction against the former Alaska senator be dismissed.

On April 7, Judge Sullivan did just that. But he was far from done.

In an extraordinarily rare move, he ordered an inquiry into the prosecutors' handling of the case. Judge Sullivan insisted that the misconduct allegations were "too serious and too numerous" to be left to an internal Justice Department investigation. He appointed Washington lawyer Henry F. Schuelke III of Janis, Schuelke & Wechsler to investigate whether members of the trial team should be prosecuted for criminal contempt.

Judge sentencing . . . Michael Flynn orders special counsel to hand over all 302s"


12-13-18 Following the allegations, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan yesterday ordered that both the Mueller investigation and the Flynn team turn over all documents [the "302s"] relating to the fateful interview, including all contemporaneous notes, before 3pm Friday.

DiGenova slams Mueller's handling of Flynn FBI meeting

4:04

Rumor has it the next chapter of this story unfolds Monday, 17 Dec '18.

[Jan 29, 2019] Despite the deep unpopularity of US wars of aggression against Afghanistan, Lybia and Syria which have cost trillions of dollars amid the deepest economic crisis of capitalism since the 1930s, attempts by voters to end or limit them, by voting governments out of office in America and Europe, have failed

Notable quotes:
"... Capitalism has at different times or in different places offered concessions to mobilisations of the working class. It offers the fiction of political choice and representation. It provides a fig-leaf of regulation to impinge on the very worst excesses of the free market and private accumulation ..."
Dec 15, 2018 | www.wsws.org
An anti-Trotskyist rationale for supporting imperialist war The war for regime change waged in Syria by the NATO powers, in alliance with Al Qaeda, behind the backs of the peoples of America and Europe, is the outcome of three decades of US-led wars across the Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.

These crimes of US and European imperialism have not only claimed millions of lives and turned more than 60 million people into refugees. They have exposed the fact that the basic contradictions of capitalism, which led to world war and the October Revolution in the 20th century, remain unresolved.

Despite the deep unpopularity of these bloody wars, which have cost trillions of dollars amid the deepest economic crisis of capitalism since the 1930s, attempts by voters to end or limit them, by voting governments out of office in America and Europe, have failed. Successive governments of all political colorations have, on the contrary, stepped them up, and it is clear that this has become a policy endorsed by an entrenched ruling class. When the Syrian regime invited Moscow to help it fight the NATO-backed opposition militias in 2015, for example, NATO escalated the war into a military standoff with Russia, a nuclear power. A century after the outbreak of World War I and the Russian Revolution, the capitalist system is teetering on the brink of a nuclear conflagration.

SterlingMaloryArcher3 hours ago

The paragraphs quoted from Hensman in which she extols Western capitalist states providing democratic mechanisms through which the working class can "fight back" - notwithstanding the 4 decades of unbroken counterrevolution that bring us into the present - don't just embody the political dead end reached by those who broke from international revolutionary solidarity and Trotskyist struggles against both Stalinism and imperialism.

They do something much worse and, in my view, more fundamental. They highlight how the thinkers that cluster around groups like the ISO have completely lost - if they ever had it - the ability to think dialectically. Their political conclusions lead me to conclude in turn that they actually don't comprehend the most essential principles of Marxist critical analysis of capitalism or how dialectical materialism builds a complete picture of the totality that is our socio-economic environment.

Capitalism has at different times or in different places offered concessions to mobilisations of the working class. It offers the fiction of political choice and representation. It provides a fig-leaf of regulation to impinge on the very worst excesses of the free market and private accumulation.

But - and this is the key thing! - it is in its essence, in the most primitive, unchanging logic of its momentum and inexorable development, always but always a system in which the privileges and power of capital will be elevated above those of workers. It is constitutionally organised around that core function. If you don't understand that, every analysis that follows will be useless.

By proceeding in his analysis from revolutionary concepts of class struggle, exploitation, alienation, and the material basis for historical development, Marx was able to build - brick by brick - a critique of capitalism itself. Pseudo-left groups like the ISO or the DSA do the exact opposite - they start from false principles and work towards over-elaborated false conclusions. It isn't in other words just the case that they err on this or that detail. The whole premise and therefore all the conclusions are useless - and must be rejected wholesale!

[Jan 29, 2019] Once Barr is installed in office, stand by. The Department of Justice and the FBI will received the equivalent of a high powered enema. Both are sick institutions and need to have the feces flushed out

Notable quotes:
"... Then a funny thing happened. Robert Mueller's press guy issued an unprecedented statement calling the Buzzfeed story pure, unadulterated bullshit. Whoops!! ..."
"... How many of of the FBI and DOJ's top leadership from the Obama administration have gotten fired and are being investigated for criminal conduct? ..."
"... Enema works for me but reading reports on the analysis of Ohr's transcript, I'm not even sure an enema is going to be enough for the fbi. I think the only solution is liquidation. ..."
"... Bill Barr clean out the DOJ? I wouldn't count on it. He is a member in good standing of the swamp ..."
Jan 19, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Remember when Dan Rather self-immolated his credibility in a desperate attempt to take out George W. Bush? The Killian documents controversy (also referred to as Memogate or Rathergate) involved six purported documents critical of U.S. President George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard in 1972–73.

Four of these documents[1] were presented as authentic in a 60 Minutes II broadcast aired by CBS on September 8, 2004, less than two months before the 2004 presidential election, but it was later found that CBS had failed to authenticate the documents.[2][3][4] Subsequently, several typewriter and typography experts concluded the documents were forgeries.[5][6]

Well, looks like Buzzfeed did not learn from history. Buzzfeed set the media world on fire on Friday with a story that appeared well sourced that claimed Donald Trump had directed his lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about a Moscow real estate deal that never came to fruition. The mainstream media went into hyper impeachment drive.

This was the nail in the Trump coffin as far as they were concerned. Trump was as good as dead.

Then a funny thing happened. Robert Mueller's press guy issued an unprecedented statement calling the Buzzfeed story pure, unadulterated bullshit. Whoops!!

The Trump is dead meme quickly evaporated. Why did Mueller do this? The answer is simple. Bill Barr.

The soon to be new Attorney General is known as a man of impeccable integrity with a minimal tolerance for bullshit. Mueller, as an old friend of Barr, knew that he had to do something dramatic to distance himself and his staff from this toxic story.

Once Barr is installed in office, stand by. The Department of Justice and the FBI will received the equivalent of a high powered enema. Both are sick institutions and need to have the feces flushed out.


Jack , 19 hours ago

"...Bill Barr. The soon to be new Attorney General is known as a man of impeccable integrity with a minimal tolerance for bullshit."

Mr. Barr seems as swampy as they get. He played a key role in the mass surveillance of all Americans and is the classic beltway sophist who has done much to reinterpret the constitution eviscerating the Bill of Rights. His past actions don't make him a man of integrity unless of course being in service to the national security state is considered virtuous.

I believe Mr. Johnson's optimism of Barr's nomination leading to a "high powered enema" at the DOJ & FBI is unfounded. IMO, none of the seditionists will be held to account. In any case POTUS Trump seems quite content with tweeting witch hunt rather than declassifying and ordering a prosecutor convene a grand jury and have Brennan, Clapper, Comey, and all the other putschists testify.

Fred -> Jack , 12 hours ago
"He played a key role in the mass surveillance of all Americans"

He served under H.W. Bush who lost to Clinton. Obama did just what, beside get great protection from Brennan, Clapper, Comey and a list of others you haven't named yet. How many of of the FBI and DOJ's top leadership from the Obama administration have gotten fired and are being investigated for criminal conduct? What kind of support do you think the Trump administration was getting from those outstanding civil servants for the past two years?

blue peacock -> Fred , 9 hours ago
"What kind of support do you think the Trump administration was getting from those outstanding civil servants for the past two years?"

Well, it is the Trump administration that nominated Sessions, Rosenstein and Wray and now Barr. How many of those fired have testified to a grand jury? They're nicely ensconced with their lucrative sinecures until the next Borg administration. Mueller has spent tens of millions in going after Trump campaign minions. Where is the witch hunt against Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Lynch, et al? Of course its not that POTUS has no agency here. He can order declassification and the appointment of a prosecutor with a stroke of pen. Tweeting however is more like his pace.

Pat Lang Mod , a day ago
Rather interviewed me in the library of the Army and Navy Club in DC at the height of the excitement over the obviously approaching US invasion of Iraq in 2002. At one point he asked me if the Bushies were going to invade Iraq. I told himthat should not even be a question. He did not believe me.
Bill H , 10 hours ago
The only difference is that Rather had some small degree of credibility before the incident in question. I don't believe that Buzzfeed has ever had a shred of credibility to anyone with the slightest ability to think.
Taras77 , a day ago
Enema works for me but reading reports on the analysis of Ohr's transcript, I'm not even sure an enema is going to be enough for the fbi. I think the only solution is liquidation.

This is a tragedy for past good /honest fbi agents but the fbi currently is a pestilence on this country which claims to be a nation of laws.

MP98 , a day ago
Bill Barr clean out the DOJ? I wouldn't count on it. He is a member in good standing of the swamp

[Jan 29, 2019] Scheer The Illegal CIA Operation That Brought Us 9-11

Jan 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Scheer: The Illegal CIA Operation That Brought Us 9/11

by Tyler Durden Sun, 01/27/2019 - 23:50 360 SHARES Authored by Robert Scheer via TruthDig.com,

Was it conspiracy or idiocy that led to the failure of U.S. intelligence agencies to detect and prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon headquarters? That's one of the questions at the heart of "The Watchdogs Didn't Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on Terror," by John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski. In their careful and thorough investigation of the events leading up to the attacks, the authors uncover a story about the Central Intelligence Agency's neglect, possible criminal activities and a cover-up that may have allowed al-Qaida to carry out its plans uninhibited by government officials.

In the latest installment of "Scheer Intelligence," the journalists tell Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer how an interview with Richard Clarke, the counterterror adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, led them to a jaw-dropping revelation regarding two hijackers involved in the infamous attacks. As it turns out, Khalid Muhammad Abdallah al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two men linked to al-Qaida, were staying at an FBI informant's home in San Diego in 2000, and they were being tracked by the National Security Agency. Despite knowledge of the men's ties to the terrorist organization responsible for 9/11, neither was investigated by the FBI. Clarke and others believe that this may have had to do with a CIA attempt to turn the two men into agency informants.

"When we sat down with Clarke he told us he couldn't see any other explanation but that there was an op [and] that it never made it to the White House because it would have had to go through him," says Nowosielski.

"And his friend [then CIA Director] George Tenet was responsible for malfeasance and misfeasance in the runup to 9/11."

Once the plans for the 9/11 attack must have become clear to the CIA, why didn't the agency prevent it from taking place? Duffy and Nowosielski come to the simple, shocking conclusion that because the CIA is prohibited from operating on U.S. soil, those involved in the operation chose to avoid prosecution rather than come clean.

In a well-documented case study that touches senior government officials, including current special counsel Robert Mueller and other high-level individuals, crucial questions arise about who is responsible for allowing "a plot that resulted in 3,000 murders" and led to ongoing U.S. military entanglements in the Middle East to move forward.

However, our country's recent crimes and the people behind them, including President Bush, are currently being "whitewashed" by our national obsession with Donald Trump, the authors warn.

"All the crimes of the war on terror, the torture, Abu Ghraib, it's all just gone -- the unnecessary invasion of the war in Iraq, it's all just sort of under the rug now because of Trump," Duffy says.

Listen to their discussion to learn more about the stunning investigation into the tragedy that changed the course of our nation's history and the Americans who could have thwarted the attacks but decided to cover their own backs instead. You can also read a transcript of the interview below the media player .

https://www.kcrw.com/embed-player?api_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kcrw.com%2Fculture%2Fshows%2Fscheer-intelligence%2Fthe-illegal-cia-operation-that-brought-us-9-11%2Fplayer.json&autoplay=false

RS : Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of "Scheer Intelligence," where the intelligence comes from my guests. And the title is really appropriate for the book we're going to talk about today, "The Watchdogs Didn't Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on Terror." And the authors are John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski. And they are investigative reporters, and the watchdogs here are the people in our intelligence agencies that are supposed to be protecting the nation. And this book cuts very deeply into the unsolved mystery of how 9/11 happened. Why weren't we better prepared to prevent it? It's one of the most important events in American history; it certainly has shaped our lives in terms of a surveillance state, our rights and everything else, up to the present. And this book, I think, represents the most exhaustive and well-documented effort to get to the bottom of the whole thing. You're very careful in what you do and do not assert about 9/11, what we don't know about it, and particularly the role of George Tenet, who was then head of the CIA, and the role of the CIA in -- what is the right word? -- obscuring the story, even keeping information from the White House, from the FBI. So give me the gist of the book.

RN : This is Ray. The book is largely about looking at this case study of the failure leading up to 9/11, the people who were involved in that failure, how that came about, and how they were successful, to the present day, in managing to obscure the public from really fully understanding that this was, in the words of one of our sources, really just a handful of people. And the most jarring thing is that they're still, in some cases, working today in I guess Trump's CIA. And we sort of document through the second half of the book what damage was done to America because they remained in their positions.

JD: This is John. And intelligence was gathered around the time of the millennium that led people in the Bin Laden unit at the CIA to monitor a meeting in Malaysia that was a gathering of these al-Qaida figures. In monitoring this --

RS : That was in the year 2000, right?

JD : Yes. Right at the outset of the year. In monitoring this meeting, they became aware of the fact that one of the attendees had a multiple-entry visa to the United States. That man's name was Khalid al-Mihdhar. He would eventually be on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon; he was one of the hijackers. So this starts the whole thing there, the fact that the CIA becomes aware of this information; the Bin Laden unit, counterterror center, and then all the way up to George Tenet are aware of this information. There's a lot of ins, outs, and what-have-yous about where that information goes, but it ultimately does not go over to the FBI's counterterror division in New York, much to the protest of the FBI agents who were detailed to the CIA's Bin Laden unit. And it did not make it to the White House counterterror czar, Richard Clarke, who very much finds this to be, like, the crux of the whole story -- the fact that this information was kept from his office for basically a year and eight months, up until the success of the attacks. The crux is there, that they had this information, these guys were coming into the country, they had just left the terror planning summit, and this information was being held close by the Bin Laden unit, by the counterterror center, and by George Tenet. The reason for that is unknown; the speculation that Richard Clarke has was that George Tenet and these people in the Bin Laden unit and counterterror center thought having these al-Qaida people in the United States, they could possibly go through Allied proxies in the Saudi intelligence to try to get close to these guys, monitor them, potentially find out information from them or even try to flip them. That's Richard Clarke's speculation as to why this was kept from him for so long. Ultimately, the attack was successful; that they all just did their best to bury all this and, you know, hope no one noticed.

RS : Let me just start off with something that was confusing to me in reading your book. Because the FBI generally comes off looking pretty good in your book, and the real problem is with the CIA, and to a lesser degree, with the NSA. And in the San Diego story, and this is covered in the 9/11 Commission Report and others, the two San Diego guys -- they are staying at the home of an FBI informant at first. So when you say the FBI was not informed, weren't some of these calls actually made from the home of an FBI asset?

RN : It's interesting when you know, A, that according to our NSA sources they were able to be pinged every time that Mihdhar and Hazmi, the two hijackers, called from that house that you mentioned in San Diego, back to Yemen. That somebody in the NSA was getting an alert as that was happening each time, and was aware of those connections. But that the house that was being used for the phone call was that of an FBI informant, Abdussattar Shaikh. And Abdussattar was somebody the FBI recruited who was inside a popular mosque in San Diego, and who they thought might be able to feed them warnings of anybody who might be a radical Muslim terrorist. And Abdussattar claims that he simply missed the warning signs of the two tenants that he had in his home. I mean, it's kind of interesting. He's also, he's not just an FBI informant, he's also a Saudi, which kind of points to Richard Clarke's conjecture, which he first laid out to us when we sat down in his office in 2009. And that was that once the CIA monitored the meeting in Malaysia, knew that these two guys were connected to Bin Laden and were of interest, and saw that they were heading to the United States, in Clarke's words, they might well have thought that the best way to try to recruit these guys to feed information was not to send a blue-eyed, blonde-haired, American CIA agent to go to meet them. But, instead, to use our partners in Saudi Arabia and Saudi intelligence -- which George Tenet, the head of the CIA, happened to be very close with -- to try to recruit them. So I actually focus more on the fact that this guy was introduced to this house by a gentleman who's been determined to be a Saudi agent, a guy named Omar al-Bayoumi, and that this guy then was perhaps working dually for Saudi intel and as an FBI asset. And everyone sort of focuses on, oh, Abdussattar Shaikh was an FBI asset, so that seems to put blame at the feet of the FBI. Could be; could be, but I would also focus on that Saudi angle, because it recurs so often.

RS : Well, it also goes to the question of the efficiency of the surveillance society. Because after all, these phone calls could be intercepted. You know, they did; they could follow this trail. And phone calls are being made back to a suspect residence in Yemen and so forth, from the home of an FBI recruit. And I'm just wondering, there's been a lot of discussion, some of the people that you quote in your book have made this point -- you collect this haystack of information that doesn't lead you to the needle in the haystack. And so here these phone calls were, clearly could be intercepted. They didn't require any special act of Congress or anything else. This was not a case of their arms being tied, the intelligence agencies. But they're not even looking at their own data. Isn't that the takeaway from the first part of this story? These guys are acting suspiciously in San Diego, they have a suspicious background, they've participated in a suspicious conference, they're staying at the home of an FBI informant, and they're making calls that would basically outline what was going to happen in this disastrous attack -- and no one noticed. Or the ones who noticed didn't tell other people.

JD : I think what is likely to have happened there is, so those calls were going back, and I think it was about seven or eight calls. And Khalid al-Mihdhar's wife still lived at that house, and he was calling her from San Diego. So I don't think any deep operational details were being discussed in those calls, but that doesn't really matter; the fact that they're calling that home from America is a big deal. And how that would work at the NSA is there's someone who is tasked all day with basically monitoring the electronic signals going into and out of this house in Yemen, and when they see this coming in from the United States, that should ring a really big alarm bell. Now, that person working that desk would have to seek approval from the chop chain, which are these NSA managers. In order for anything to happen with that information, it has to get passed up and then brought to a FISA court, brought to the FBI. And if these managers within the NSA basically say, don't worry about it, sit on it, just collect it, sit on it -- and if they don't allow any action, then there will be no action. And it's just going to stay housed right there, in that particular data stovepipe at the NSA. If Richard Clarke's speculation is true, that there was this attempt to recruit these guys in the U.S. with Saudi proxies, part of that plan would have been George Tenet speaking to someone at the NSA, or one of George Tenet's people speaking to someone at the NSA. Basically saying, hey, before you go out getting any FISA warrants or chasing anything down regarding this specific house, come to us first. So if there is some operation going on, it would stand to reason that part of that operation would be not allowing these pings at this particular desk to turn into any action.

RS : For people listening, let me make clear, this is an incredibly detailed, researched book, which relies very heavily on intelligence veterans. No one less so than Richard Clarke, who's come up so far; another is former colonel Larry Wilkerson, obviously a key person. And what is very dramatic in your book is, where your story really comes to life for you guys as journalists, is when Richard Clarke -- you say you go in there to interview him, and you tell your crew, put the sound on as we go in. And you go in, and you think you're going to have to ask a lot of questions to get -- and for people who don't know, Richard Clarke ever since the early '70s was a major figure in the intelligence community. And at this point, when you're talking to him, he's been around the block, he's seen everything. And he was a close friend of George Tenet, who was head of the CIA; they considered themselves allies. And you're going in to get this interview, and you think you're going to have to weasel information out of him. And he just hits you over the head with an assertion that, really, is the thrust of this book. So why don't you take us to that moment?

RN : What we discovered on the day that we walked into Richard Clarke's conference room was that he'd been ready for probably about a year to talk about this, and no major journalists had called him up to ask him about this subject. Nobody had ever asked him. So going back, you know, he started in the Reagan State Department; he worked under George H.W.; Clinton, when these Al Qaeda terrorist attacks began in the early nineties, recognized that there needed to be a new position within his Cabinet, and he called it the counterterror czar, the counterterror adviser. And he created that position for Richard Clarke. As you mentioned, Clarke was close friends with George Tenet, who also was sort of on the National Security Council under Clinton early on, and then got named the head of the CIA in the midst of Clinton's first term. George W. Bush and company come in, early 2001; as it turned out, nine months ahead of this ticking clock towards 9/11. And Richard Clarke is told that he's essentially being demoted. He's still going to be the counterterror advisor, but it's not a Cabinet-level position. And so now he's kind of essentially going through the extra layer of Condoleezza Rice. But George Tenet still very much has Bush's ear. And that's kind of the back story there; then after, you know, on 9/11 Richard Clarke by nearly all accounts was running the response that morning, on that critical day; he was the top man for counterterror. Over time, he starts to get rubbed the wrong way by the fact that the Bush administration inexplicably is not really terribly still concerned about Al Qaeda after 9/11. But then Clarke leaves, and he writes a bestselling book. And he testifies before the 9/11 commission and becomes the only person to apologize to the families, to admit that there was a failure at all. But cut to a few years down the line, and he releases another book in 2008 that doesn't become a bestseller. And it's called "Your Government Failed You." And it includes a section on Mihdhar and Hazmi that he calls "Straining Credulity," in which he says that he does not believe in conspiracy theories, but in this one particular case, he's weighed it every which way and he can't see another way to explain it but by. But he sort of saved us speculation, and so we saw that part in his book and we thought, well, we've been itching -- we'd collected enough info by that time, and talked with enough people, that we thought: something happened here with these two hijackers that flew over to the U.S. Something happened when they arrived. And the big question was, if this was an operation by the CIA, did they let Clinton know? Did they then let Bush know when he came in? What was the deal there? And Richard Clarke would be the man in a position to answer that. And so you're right, that's where our journey really -- that's where we launched. Because we'd been looking into it for a few years, but when we sat down with Clarke, that was when he told us he couldn't see any other explanation but that there was an op, that it never made it to the White House because it would have had to go through him. And his friend George Tenet was responsible for malfeasance and misfeasance in the runup to 9/11.

JD : And he also, in part of that description, said that a lot of the CIA reports that would have, any other day, come directly to his computer -- when he flicked it on in the morning, it would be right there waiting for him -- just on this specific case with these two individuals, he was removed from the chain of information. And so he felt that he was getting minutiae concerning terrorism from around the world in, like, tiny micro-detail on everything except this, and that must have meant he was intentionally pulled out of the chain by someone. And that that would have taken high-level order. And when asked, you know, how high level, he said that it must have come from the director, referring to George Tenet.

RS : So let's cut to the chase here. There's an old caution, don't attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by ordinary stupidity. Or laziness, or incompetence. Is this a case where George Tenet, the admired at that time head of the CIA, was just incompetent, stupid, indifferent? Is there something more at work? Did the CIA welcome such an attack as a boon for the military-industrial complex, as some people allege? What's going on here? How could this major tragedy event be visited upon the United States, the head of our intelligence agency knows that there are these suspect characters there, and he doesn't bother to tip off the FBI, let alone the White House? And after all, the FBI is in charge of domestic surveillance; they're the ones that have to go arrest these guys, you know, at least confront them, see what they're doing. I have to tell people listening to this, this is a very careful, indeed conservative, in the best sense of the word, book. This is not a book you can just dismiss by saying it's got some wild, interesting theory. No -- you err, I would say, on the side of caution, in a way.

JD : We err on the side of caution all the time, and we're not going to try to say something that we can't really, really defend. If we start from a position that there's some level of merit to what Clarke is suggesting, that there is this operation going on to try to monitor these hijackers domestically by the CIA, as opposed to handing it off to the FBI -- presuming he's right on that, there is this --

RS : Can I just add a little note that Wilkerson actually goes further.

JD : Wilkerson later suggests that he heard it mentioned after the fact, in about 2003 or 2004, when he is at the CIA. The invasion of Iraq has begun, and they're waiting for updated satellite information, everyone's kind of standing around just kind of BS'ing. And he basically overhears a conversation about how, oh man, Tenet tried to flip these guys in the U.S. and then had to hide it because it all went wrong, and it would have come back to bite him. And yeah, Wilkerson basically claims to have overheard high-level people speaking about that, just sort of in a B.S. session.

RN : Well, and not really, not overheard; it's more like, he claimed multiple, very high-level under Tenet sources, that he was close with at that time, who were in these "yak-yak sessions," that he calls them. And they each claimed to be aware of the reality of this, supposedly.

JD : You're asking, like, how nefarious it is. In the first period of all this, presuming that it's true, presuming that there's this operation going on to try to flip these guys or follow them or whatever, gather information on them domestically, you can imagine that, OK, they're going to have some sort of setup in which to monitor these guys, or they're using Saudi proxies perhaps, or other proxies, and they're following them. Then we get to this point where, well, the attack succeeds on September 11, so how the heck does that happen? If you have this, if you're monitoring these guys and then they do this, where does the ball get dropped? And our book does go into that a bit, and we definitely say, like, there's this moment where they must have said: OK. This isn't working, it's not happening, there has got to be a point where they say, abandon ship. But what do they do? How do they abandon ship? They need to somehow turn this over to the FBI to wrap it up for them. And the way they seem to do this is not by being honest and saying, hey, we were trying to do this and it didn't work, but here's the information -- go get 'em. They definitely don't do that.

RS : The "trying to do this" -- you mean to turn these terrorists into agents for themselves? --

JD : So what I'm saying is, if at some point when it's not working, when the flip hasn't happened, when whatever goal they set for themselves, when they haven't achieved it, a time must come for them to wrap up this operation. A time must -- you can't just let them go all the way and succeed in their attack, you would think.

RN : But I think what you're asking is the intention of the operation, which would seem -- well, the CIA was created in order to prevent future Pearl Harbors. So I guess, giving them the benefit of the doubt, the intention of the operation would theoretically have been to monitor these guys so as to figure out what they're doing here in the U.S.

JD : Yes, yes. We're giving them the benefit of the doubt there. And then we look at the emails and cable traffic we can find in that summer, and we watch as -- there's no search for these guys, there's no FBI search for these guys until August 23rd of 2001. And that's the point where, surreptitiously, someone stationed at Alec Station, the Bin Laden unit, CIA, who's going through old cable traffic, goes: Oh my gosh! I found a cable that these guys came to the United States. And she alerts the FBI, and the FBI begins their domestic search. I guess what I'm suggesting is, a time would have come when they, when whoever is running this operation at the CIA, whatever the architecture of that operation looks like, they would have seen these things happening. They would have seen the connections they were making with these other guys coming to the United States. And a time would have come for them to say: OK. We have to pass this off to the FBI to shut it down. And it does --

RS : But wait a minute. When you say OK, and they've seen things -- they see people who are identified as terrorists, part of this terrorist network, traces back to Al Qaeda. And they are learning about airplanes and how to fly them, and flight paths, and everything. And you're telling me that they say, well, you know, maybe we're not going to actually recruit them, maybe we're -- we better do something. Why aren't they saying, holy cow, these guys can do great damage to this country! We got to call, what, the local San Diego police, at least, to get them to check them out! No?

RN : OK, so these guys arrive in early 2000. What happens in October 2000? The U.S.S. Cole is attacked in Yemen. FBI agents working that from top levels of the New York office of the FBI find a very direct connection not only to Al Qaeda, but to that same planning meeting that the CIA monitored. The same one where Mihdhar and Hazmi were at that planning meeting. So not only do you have an inclination -- oh, these guys are Al Qaeda, they're probably not here to, in the words of one person, go to f'ing Disneyland. They're here for something nefarious -- but now, after October 2000, for the entire year up to 9/11, the CIA has the knowledge that these two individuals that were at this meeting, that the meeting spawned the U.S.S. Cole attack, which killed 17 dead servicemen. So I think at that point, yeah, calling the local San Diego police would probably make a lot of sense.

RS : OK, and what about the FBI informant who was their link in San Diego? Why isn't he telling anyone, or why doesn't the FBI know?

JD : You have to be careful to separate what's going on at different agencies. An FBI informant's not necessarily reporting to the CIA, and the CIA informant's not reporting to the FBI. And then you also have to understand that the FBI has national headquarters and then a bunch of different field offices throughout the country. And you have field office reports coming in, like the Phoenix memo from Ken Williams mentioning that there's these, all these Muslim guys trying to learn to fly. You've got what Coleen Rowley exposes out of Minnesota, when they bust Zacarias Moussaoui, and how they're trying to get into his laptop, and they're being hampered by FBI headquarters. So I mean, you don't know what came from Abdussattar. But I don't want to move too far into the weeds and off the general thrust of your original question. And I think what you come down to is a fork in the road. At some point, either the CIA running this operation has to wrap it up, or this major attack is going to succeed. If you ask yourself, well, why didn't they wrap it up -- because obviously they didn't, and the attack did succeed–so if you ask yourself why didn't they, there's one potential answer, which is that they were afraid of being prosecuted. Because they had been running an illegal operation in the United States. So their own fear for their own lives, freedom, careers, all that stuff–

RS : For people who don't understand the law, you have to explain, the CIA was prevented from running this kind of operation domestically. This is supposed to be up to the FBI.

JD : It is a crime for them to operate within the United States.

RN : And what Richard Clarke told us, we don't know how much of the information, like the Phoenix memo and these other things that Duffy just mentioned, got to George Tenet. But what we do know, the existence of Mihdhar and Hazmi in this country should have made it to him by that point. Because his own CIA counterterror office had informed the FBI in August, and a search had begun. So that information should have been in Tenet's head. We know that he was briefed about Zacarias Moussaoui acting weird at a flight school in Minnesota. And he comes to the -- oh, man --

JD : September 4th principals meeting.

RN : -- September 4th principals meeting in the White House. Clarke has been pushing the entire Bush administration, the entire eight, nine months, to be able to brief them on Al Qaeda and make the case for why the administration should take this seriously. And he's finally got that meeting, and George Tenet is sitting there, and he doesn't say a word. And he was later asked by investigators why not, and he gave this really bizarre non-answer, which was just like: it just wasn't the right time, right place, I just can't take you any further than that. And they let him get away with leaving it at that, but Richard Clarke says the reason he doesn't tell us at that point, he believes, is because Clarke would have had him brought up on charges that day for malfeasance and misfeasance in withholding that information. Because remember, that would also make his people culpable for the Cole, because they would have known about the planning session for the Cole nine months before that one happened, too. So it looks like --

JD : And then they would have been guilty of obstruction of justice for all of the hiding of these figures once the FBI investigation into the Cole happened. So they have a long list of things they become guilty of should they just turn this over and say, like: Ah, hey guys, there's these guys, you should probably go do something about it. Now, that's one explanation. Other people have other explanations. But as I said, we don't make accusations that we cannot really, firmly back up. So this time, that's pretty much the one we typically go with.

RS : Two people in your book who take it further are Richard Clarke and Larry Wilkerson. Two of the most highly experienced, knowledgeable individuals to come out of our whole military intelligence complex. And they, put it in human terms, they say they don't know how these people sleep at night. Wilkerson, even more than Clarke, suggests that these people could have prevented 9/11, and knew about it. Now, I just want to ask you about one other person. Again, the book is devastating; it's called "The Watchdogs Didn't Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on Terror," John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski. But let me push it one step further to the contemporary moment. The book is kind of easy on the FBI. But the fact is the FBI was really the agency that should have been following these terrorists when they're in the United States. But one guy who comes up in current making of history, and who was head of the FBI at a critical point, is Mueller, who's now running the Russian, interference in our election investigation. What was his role? I'd like to conclude on that, because he's a major figure right now, the head of this special investigation. What was his role in this?

RN : I mean, it is important to remember that the guy came in, I think it was maybe 10 days before 9/11, and took over the FBI. So he was, among the CIA, NSA, and FBI, he was able to be the only one at the leadership helm in the post-9/11 days and months who you couldn't really lay any culpability at his door for any kind of failure. Remember, the CIA director George Tenet, he's right at the table with the President; he's a Cabinet-level guy. The FBI director, it's not the same way. The FBI director reports to the Attorney General in the Department of Justice, and the Attorney General gets the direct seat. We make the case in the book that when George Tenet, in the week after 9/11, made the big play, the big power grab for the CIA, what we call the wish list of every CIA director accumulated over the whole history of the agency, and essentially puts it out there to Bush and says, these are the powers we need now to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen -- he gets his green light. Mueller, on the other hand -- well, a couple things happen. For one thing, the stories–the CIA is better at keeping their skeletons hidden, for a while. So the first stories that come out that start to paint a picture of blame regarding 9/11, they're all pointing towards the FBI. Coleen Rowley comes out, and she points a finger at Mueller in May of 2002, and that sort of gets the ball rolling on the "it was the FBI's fault" story, which really didn't get corrected for quite a number of years. So our sources tell us Mueller was playing defense, he was willing to kind of go along as the Bush administration pushed that–we kind of know what happened here, so we don't need to investigate this much further; you should be putting your FBI resources towards preventing future attacks. And I can certainly understand why a man like Robert Mueller in that position would say, would not want to be the guy that missed the next one. So from what we can tell, and from what our sources told us, it does seem that he sort of wrapped up the 9/11 investigation, or just ended it midway. But what was happening was, we talked with Pat DeMoro -- he was one of our sources -- and he took us inside, he ran the 9/11 criminal investigation; remember, this was a crime, right. At least 19 guys, probably a lot more, were involved in a plot that resulted in 3,000 murders. So he was investigating that, and he was finding over about a two-year period, there would be leads that would point towards Saudi facilitators to the hijackers, Saudi helpers, Saudi royal money coming over. And every time he found these, he had to report them up to Bob Mueller. Bob Mueller would theoretically report them to the Attorney General, who would theoretically report them to Bush. And yet the end result of this was that Bush invades Iraq, and the U.S. public never heard about these Saudi connections until, officially, until just a couple of years ago, really.

JD : And you have said that our book comes off pretty light on the FBI, and I think the crucial difference to make clear is that most of the people we're talking about within the FBI are from particularly one field office. We're talking about John O'Neill's people out of New York, who are counterterror investigators. That's most of the people we're dealing -- we're not, we mention a few other people from FBI headquarters, but we don't necessarily mention them in the best light. And one of the big failures of the FBI is the search to find al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, once they are made aware that they're in the country a couple weeks before 9/11. And that is a huge story there, and we could only write so much book. So we don't want to just sit here and say, like, oh, the FBI is great and did everything right; we focus specifically on a handful of people who did do their damnedest to unearth the conspirators behind the Cole attack, and to pass information about the presence of al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi over to FBI investigators in New York in the runup to 9/11. So we don't want to necessarily sit here and say the FBI was perfect and did everything right; we're talking about a handful of individuals.

RS : And as you've just indicated, your style and the character of this book is quite scholarly. It's very thoughtful, it's incredibly well documented. And you got people really on the inside, in the know, to trust you and to talk honestly about it. You've done the gumshoe journalism, you took 10 years, you checked every record. What has been the critical response?

RN : Well, we should have put Trump's picture on the cover. [Laughs] I think that would have helped.

RS : That's a pretty profound observation, in a way. Because there's a whole bunch of people now who think all of our troubles in this country started and will end with Trump. And it really whitewashes everybody else.

JD : It's whitewashing a lot of people. There's, all of a sudden people who a few years ago we were like, this is the worst person on earth! -- like George W. Bush, is now just being embraced by Democrats as some, like, affable guy. All the crimes of the war on terror, the torture, Abu-Ghraib, it's all just gone -- the unnecessary invasion of the war in Iraq, it's all just sort of under the rug now because of Trump.

RS : Yeah, those were the adults watching the store. Everybody is angry that Trump doesn't have adults watching the store, and now he just got in trouble with his Secretary of Defense, pushing him out, and now that guy is whitewashed, right? He was considered a mad dog at one point. So you're right; your book has run into a head storm of indifference to anything that happened before Trump. But I'm asking a very pointed question. What happens? You guys spent over 10 years on this, right?

RN : Yeah. And you know, our goal was not to get famous. [Laughs] We really did want accountability for this small group of people that we thought, these people cannot stay in the CIA, right? We're not going to keep letting them run the War on Terror, are we? And maybe if people just know about this, or if we can just prove it–if we talk with enough insiders, if we get enough documents together, if we write a book. It turns out, no. There's going to be no accountability, and they're going to, the few that remain now at high levels of the CIA are going to continue to do what they do, and no one's going to know about it except for folks that listen to your show, so thank you.

RS : Well, they're going to write the history. I mean, the amazing thing–you think of a movie like "Zero Dark Thirty," you know; and you quote John Kiriakou in your book, and he was in the CIA; he was actually very successful in being involved with the capture of the highest person connected with al-Qaida, and so forth. And they spun a myth that the torture worked, and you needed torture, and blah blah blah. And it basically went unchallenged. So these people who either lied, or just lied by not talking, even to the FBI or the White House -- they get to control the narrative. And then a book like yours comes out, and -- I'm asking a very serious question. What has been the response of The New York Times, The Washington Post?

JD : [Laughing] We're still waiting to hear what The Washington Post and The New York Times think. We've gotten a lot of praise from people who have read it, but we're not getting any really major national or international reviews. Well, one thing we like to do, you mentioned "Zero Dark Thirty." And the main character, played by Jessica Chastain, is sort of an amalgamation of a handful of people who did work at the CIA, most prominently a woman by the name of Alfreda Bikowsky, who is mentioned very prominently in our book. We want people to know her name, Alfreda Bikowsky, because it's a name that was sort of an open secret in the media in, you know, New York, Washington, for many, many years. Her involvement goes from the pre-9/11 period there at Alec Station through torture and drone killings, and we want to make sure that her name gets out there so she can't hide in the shadows.

RN : Her name was never mentioned in any media until it came out on our website. It was 11 years, 10 months from the first alleged crime she'd committed that we documented, until her name came out on our website.

JD : We just like to throw her name out there every once in a while, and make sure more and more people hear it.

RS : Ah, that should be enough to inspire people to get a copy of "The Watchdogs Didn't Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on Terror." It's written by John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski. It's a very, very important book. This is the yeoman journalistic work on the story, and it's informed by people on the inside who really witnessed it, and were shocked by what they saw, high-level people. So I recommend the book. I want to thank you guys for coming on. OK, that's it for this edition of Scheer Intelligence. Our engineers at KCRW are Kat Yore and Mario Diaz. Our producers are Joshua Scheer and Isabel Carreon. I'm Robert Scheer, and we're doing this broadcast from the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where Sebastian Grubaugh, as he often does, has made the show work, and I want to thank him.

[Jan 29, 2019] FBI, CIA [supposedly] Told WaPo They Doubted Key Allegation In Steele Dossier but Wapo still run their own anti-Trump campaign popularizing Steele dossier.

Hand of Brennan? Hand of MI6?
From comments: "Miller also admits that the dossier's broad claims are more closely aligned with reality, but that the document breaks down once you focus on individual claims. " What?!?
Notable quotes:
"... FBI and CIA sources told a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter that they didn't believe a key claim contained in the "Steele Dossier ..."
"... The Post 's Greg Miller told an audience at an October event that the FBI and CIA did not believe that former longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen visited Prague during the 2016 election to pay off Russia-linked hackers who stole emails from key Democrats, reports the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross. ..."
"... Miller also admits that the dossier's broad claims are more closely aligned with reality, but that the document breaks down once you focus on individual claims. ..."
"... Steele, using Kremlin sources, claimed in his dossier that Cohen and three associates went to Prague in August 2016 to meet with Kremlin officials for the purpose of discussing "deniable cash payments" made in secret so as to cover up "Moscow's secret liaison with the TRUMP team." ..."
Dec 16, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

FBI and CIA sources told a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter that they didn't believe a key claim contained in the "Steele Dossier," the document the Obama FBI relied on to obtain a surveillance warrant on a member of the Trump campaign.

The Post 's Greg Miller told an audience at an October event that the FBI and CIA did not believe that former longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen visited Prague during the 2016 election to pay off Russia-linked hackers who stole emails from key Democrats, reports the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross.

"We've talked to sources at the FBI and the CIA and elsewhere -- they don't believe that ever happened," said Miller during the October event which aired Saturday on C-SPAN.

We literally spent weeks and months trying to run down... there's an assertion in there that Michael Cohen went to Prague to settle payments that were needed at the end of the campaign. We sent reporters to every hotel in Prague, to all over the place trying to - just to try to figure out if he was ever there, and came away empty . -Greg Miller

Ross notes that WaPo somehow failed to report this information, nor did Miller include this tidbit of narrative-killing information in his recent book, "The Apprentice: Trump, Russia, and the Subversion of American Democracy."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/7GvXI61p21k

Miller also admits that the dossier's broad claims are more closely aligned with reality, but that the document breaks down once you focus on individual claims.

Steele, using Kremlin sources, claimed in his dossier that Cohen and three associates went to Prague in August 2016 to meet with Kremlin officials for the purpose of discussing "deniable cash payments" made in secret so as to cover up "Moscow's secret liaison with the TRUMP team."

Cohen's alleged Prague visit captured attention largely because the former Trump fixer has vehemently denied it, and also because it would seem to be one of the easier claims in Steele's 35-page report to validate or invalidate.

Debate over the salacious document was reignited when McClatchy reported April 15 that special counsel Robert Mueller had evidence Cohen visited Prague. No other news outlets have verified the reporting, and Cohen denied it at the time.

Cohen last denied the dossier's allegations in late June, a period of time when he was gearing up to cooperate with prosecutors against President Donald Trump . Cohen served as a cooperating witness for prosecutors in both New York and the special counsel's office. - Daily Caller

Cohen's attorney and longtime Clinton pal Lanny Davis vehemently denied on August 22, one day after Cohen pleaded guilty in his New York case - that Cohen had never been to Prague, telling Bloomberg " Thirteen references to Mr. Cohen are false in the dossier, but he has never been to Prague in his life ."

youshallnotkill , 19 minutes ago link

Trump never ceases to crack me up. While his (terrible) current lawyer, declares on TV that there was collusion but it just didn't last long, Trump calls his former lawyer/fixer at "Rat".

This is just too funny, I mean this is the President of the United States calling his former personal lawyer a "Rat" which of course is a common mob term for a witness testifying against you.

monkeyshine

Of course it never happened, just like Manafort didn't make 3 trips to London to meet Julian Assange. These fictions were just used as a pretext for diving into the backgrounds of Trump's political supporters and find crimes to charge them with.

The Cohen raid was particularly egregious, a likely violation of attorney-client privilege. Not suprisingly the American Bar Association is silent.

brewing_it

So here is a WaPo reporter saying they sent reporters to every hotel in Prague to find out if Cohen had been there, they spent weeks and weeks researching, interviewing, and nothing. What they are not saying is that they also spent shitloads of Bezo's money exploring all the other fake dossier claims.

And nothing.....all you hillarytards have been completely scammed by, your pulses sent aflutter with clickbait and page views and thats it. So sorry you losers.

Demologos

Yeah, like rubles are worth anything outside of Russia. Gold on the other hand ...

But seriously, you two should get a room. If you can't see the conspiracy in the Strzok/Page texts, the setup of Papadapoulous by the Brits, the phony FISA warrant using the FBI informant, the setup of General Flynn, and the seedy cast of characters in the DOJ breaking laws right and left, you should be checked for brain wave activity. You probably think the Russians paid for all of the above too. Go suck a bag of Russian dicks.

[Jan 27, 2019] Roger Stone is charged with crimes about his appearance before the House Intelligence Committee by Robert Willmann

Jan 25, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Now more than ever, it is obvious that the federal criminal justice system (with help from within the intelligence community) is being corruptly used to try to remove the president of the United States, who was nominated through the Republican Party to be on the general election ballot, and who after the election and confirmation by the Electoral College, was sworn into office. Roger Stone, a long-time acquaintance of Donald Trump, was arrested on criminal charges filed by "special counsel" Robert Mueller.

What matters in the 24-page indictment are pages 21-23 (page 24 has yesterday's date). The Mueller group bootstrapped Stone's appearance on 26 September 2017 before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) into seven charges: five for making false statements under the proverbial Title 18, U.S. Code, section 1001; one charge for obstructing a "proceeding", which was the HPSCI event; and one for attempting to persuade and persuading "Person 2" (probably Randy Credico) from testifying in the HPSCI event.

The charge of obstructing the HPSCI (count 1) is alleged to be: testifying falsely and misleadingly at a HPSCI hearing in or around September 2017; failing to turn over and lying about the existence of responsive records to HPSCI's requests about documents; submitting a letter to HPSCI falsely and misleadingly describing communications with Person 2; and attempting to have Person 2 testify falsely before HPSCI or prevent him from testifying. The sections of Title 18 of the U.S. Code used in the indictment are in the notes below [1].

It would be interesting to know when and under what circumstances the transcript of Stone's testimony to the HPSCI was given to the Mueller group. The whole thing involves who may or may not have talked to whom at Wikileaks, called "Organization 1" in the indictment--

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/rogerstone_indictment.pdf

The e-mails released by Wikileaks revealed shenanigans at and by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Stone was arrested at his Florida residence at 6:00 a.m. today by gun-toting FBI agents, with the whole thing being filmed by -- surprise, surprise! -- the CNN television network, which perhaps knew to be there after consulting a Ouija Board [2].

After appearing before a federal magistrate in Florida, Stone was released on his own recognizance by a signature bond, so he did not have to deposit any bail money or get a bail bond.

He talked outside after he was released, asserting that he will have a trial -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDrulTuG50U

The case is filed in a federal district court in Washington D.C., and the presiding judge is Amy Berman Jackson, who is the judge in Paul Manafort's case that is in the D.C. federal courthouse. Cases are normally assigned to a court randomly when they are filed, and it is not known if that procedure was followed in this instance.

[Jan 27, 2019] Mueller's Desperate Roger Stone Gambit by Larry Johnson

Looks like the color revolution against Trump continues. What is interesting is that while Trump position becomes more and more shaky he does not want to fight. And he suppounded himself with people, which will sell him at the first opportunity. I means first of all this neocon warmonger Pompeo.
Notable quotes:
"... It really does tell a story that exonerates Trump of the Russian collusion narrative but also exposes the desperation of Mueller to create a crime where none exists. ..."
"... Where is President Trump in all this? These are all actions taken by his DOJ and FBI appointees. Does he believe that his responsibility ends with a tweet? Why hasn't he hauled Whitaker, Rosenstein and Wray into his office and demanded equal application of the law with respect to Hillary, Clapper, Brennan and Comey lying to Congress? Why hasn't he declassified all the information around the role of Fusion GPS, Clinton campaign, FBI, DOJ, CIA with respect to interference in the presidential campaign? ..."
"... Is he not POTUS? Or is he just a character in a VR game? ..."
"... I think, for what's it worth, that the whole point to Mueller and all the legal harassment and arrests of people associated, even to a small extent with the Trump campaign, is to scare people away from working with Trump on the 2020 campaign and leave the Donald high and dry. That and create an illusion of criminality around Trump. Again, that's an uninformed opinion; just an opinion derived from what I see. Curious to know if you think there's any truth to it. Thx ..."
"... Eric, it's called "file stuffing " a bureaucratic name for assembling a mountainous pile of allegations - 99.9% of which are either trivial or false, that is too big and convoluted for any team of humans to refute in detail at one sitting. ..."
"... Mueller is following the Department of Injustice practice of throwing multiple charges at people, even though they know many of them won't stick, so as to drive up the costs of discovery. Thus looms the prospect financial ruin for all but the wealthiest of defendants. This induces them to plead guilty to lesser charges in order to preserve their retirement savings and possibly long prison sentences. ..."
"... DoJ career prosecutors are evaluated on their out-of-court settlement rates and this is how they achieve high ones. ..."
"... So much for the de facto right of a fair trial. IIRC, when the press got to stone after the court appearance he stated that he'll take this to trial. He may have second thoughts as the legal bills pile up. ..."
Jan 27, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

I have had to shut off all of the media. The media/establishment hatred of Trump and their desire to force him from office is palpable and on near continuous display on every cable channel, including Fox. These pundits remind me of the drowning passengers from the Titanic, flailing frantically while immersed in freezing water but going no where but down. They are keen on avoiding facts. Let's be clear what the facts are about Roger Stone.

FACT ONE

Roger Stone had an extremely short tenure with the Trump campaign. He served in an undefined position as a "campaign advisor" and either quit or was fired on 8 August 2015. Politico's account of the incident attributed Stone's departure to Trump's comments regarding former Fox star, Megyn Kelly:

Regardless of who resigned or was fired first, the campaign shakeup was the first sign that Trump's election effort was seriously damaged from within after his Thursday night debate performance and his subsequent comments in which he attacked one of the Fox debate moderators, Megyn Kelly.

Stone was never a critical component or the Trump campaign. He was not an insider and he was not a "go to guy" for Trump's inner circle. The indictment smears Stone by an unsupported claim that Stone had regular, continuing contact with unnamed persons affiliated with the Trump campaign even after his August 2015 departure. Having conversations is not illegal. Moreover, Stone was never a go to guy for the campaign.

FACT TWO

Roger Stone does have a history with Paul Manafort, who served a brief tenure as Trump's campaign manager. They formed a political consulting firm in 1980-- Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly --and became known as bare knuckle brawlers in the world of electoral politics. They worked for Reagan and for George H.W. Bush. Worth noting that Manafort's time with the Trump campaign started off in March 2016--seven months after Stone's departure--as an advisor on going after delegates. He was promoted to campaign manager on May 19, 2016 and resigned from the campaign on August 19, 2016 under the cloud of being cozy with Putin :

The Trump campaign provided no reason for Manafort's resignation. But in the days immediately leading up to the announcement, the New York Times reported investigators were looking into $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments to Manafort from former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, and the Associated Press reported he helped a pro-Russian party in Ukraine funnel money to lobbying firms in Washington, D.C.

There is a lot of speculation about who Stone was talking to. Person 1 in the indictment is Jerome Corsi. Person 2 is Randy Credico. None were involved in any substantive way with the Trump campaign. I would not be surprised if it was Manafort (or someone acting at his behest) that reached out to Stone to see if he could get any additional info about Wikileaks plans.

FACT THREE

Roger Stone is a bullshitter and grand raconteur. He can tell you things that sound spot on but are not true. I have first hand experience with him on this point. I first met Roger in the spring of 1980. I was teaching in the Washington Semester Program at American University and he spoke to my class. I did not see Roger in person again until March of 2018--we were on the same flight from Fort Lauderdale enroute to Washington. I introduced myself and we got reacquainted. Subsequent to that meeting I watched the documentary on Roger Stone and was amused to see him "credited" (or blamed) for starting the Whitey rumor--i.e., the claim that there was a video tape of Michelle Obama using the phrase Whitey in a speech before a group linked to Louis Farrakhan. Why amused? I started that rumor at the direction of Sidney Blumenthal (I did not believe it was a rumor but I was gamed--but that is a story for another day).

I ran into Roger last August, again at the airport. This time it was Washington Reagan National. I walked up to him and told him that he was being blamed for something I did. I proceeded to tell the story and he laughed when he learned that this smear of Michelle came from the Clinton Campaign. Roger is a connoisseur of dirty tricks.

With this background, I want you to take a fresh look at Mueller's indictment of Stone. It really does tell a story that exonerates Trump of the Russian collusion narrative but also exposes the desperation of Mueller to create a crime where none exists. (BTW, kudos to Robert Willman for his excellent piece at Sic Semper).

Here's the Mueller narrative on Stone :

During the summer of 2016, STONE spoke to senior Trump Campaign officials (NOT FURTHER IDENTIFIED) about WIKILEAKS and information it might have had that would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign. STONE was contacted by senior Trump Campaign officials to inquire about future releases by Organization 1.

By in or around early August 2016, STONE was claiming both publicly and privately to have communicated with WIKILEAKS. By in or around mid-August 2016, WIKILEAKS made a public statement denying direct communication with STONE. Thereafter, STONE said that his communication with WIKILEAKS had occurred through a person STONE described as a "mutual friend," "go-between," and "intermediary." STONE also continued to communicate with members of the Trump Campaign about WIKILEAKS and its intended future releases.

Here is what this really demonstrates. First, Stone was talking out of his ass. He was portraying himself to people in the Trump campaign (probably Manafort) as a guy with inside knowledge. Based on what I know about Stone, I am sure he was playing this angle in hopes of getting back into the good graces of the Trump campaign. Second, if the Trump organization was actively colluding with the Russians and Wikileaks, why were they asking Stone to find out what Wikileaks had and what it intended to do with such material.

This is the most critical revelation, in my view, from this indictment--the Trump campaign did not know what Wikileaks had or what it intended to do. They were reaching out to an outsider--a third party--who claimed to have contacts with Wikileaks. But Stone did not. In typical Roger Stone fashion, his story kept changing. Initially he insisted he was in direct contact with someone there. Not true. He then admitted that he was relying on the word of Randy Credico. That probably was the truth. But Credico's information was second hand. Randy Credico knew the wife of Julian Assange's deceased attorney--Margaret Ratner Kunstler, widow of William Kunstler. She did have contacts at Wikileaks and was in a position to tell Credico that more dirt on Clinton was coming. But Stone was parlaying third hand information to present himself as a guy with inside knowledge. That's not criminal. That is typical of Washington and the world of journalism.

What is being done to Roger Stone is wrong. He was playing politics and playing according to Washington rules. It may not be pretty and may not be ethical. But it is not criminal and certainly does not justify sending out a ninja clad SWAT team to take him into custody. I hope some wealthy benefactors step up and help fund Stone's defense fund. He will win this case. Mueller and his team are the ones who have crossed an ethical and moral line.


PeterVE , 11 hours ago

Thank you for that vital point that this indictment contradicts the Official Story that the Trump campaign was in cahoots with the Russians in regards to the Wikileaks DNC info.

After Thursday's news that Trump had decided to recognize the coup government in Venezuela, I chose to subject myself to the Rachel Maddow Show to see the official reaction of the Resistance™. She spent the entire first section of the show rehashing a story about security clearances from a year ago. Obviously, the MSM is confused whether to be against it, because TRUMP BAD, or to be for it, because ST. OBAMA imposed sanctions on Venezuela.
Mueller relieved them of the need to make those hard decisions by sending a heavily armed swat team on a predawn raid of an extremely dangerous loudmouth old braggart. They could even ignore the news that Elliot Abrams had been dragged back out of obscurity to oversee the rest of the coup in Venezuela. How long before Secord and North are shipping weapons from Israel to the noble freedom fighters of Venezuela?

Stuart Wood , 6 hours ago
RE: Roger Stone and his Pinocchio problems. To f***ing bad. As long as he has been around, if he isn't smart enough to know that he can get his ass in a jam by lying to Congress or the FBI, the dude isn't thinking too straight. This administration seems to have a problem with truth telling, all the way from Trump to the numerous administration/campaign officials indicted or plead guilty to lying to the FBI or Congress. Blaming Mueller for their dishonest utterances is putting the shoe on the wrong foot.
Bill Herschel , 12 hours ago
Is this "story" more important than the prospect of troops in Argentina? I think not.
ex-PFC Chuck -> Bill Herschel , 7 hours ago
Actually it is because it pertains to what increasingly looks like a slo-mo coup in this country.
Jack , 12 hours ago
Mr. Johnson,

Where is President Trump in all this? These are all actions taken by his DOJ and FBI appointees. Does he believe that his responsibility ends with a tweet? Why hasn't he hauled Whitaker, Rosenstein and Wray into his office and demanded equal application of the law with respect to Hillary, Clapper, Brennan and Comey lying to Congress? Why hasn't he declassified all the information around the role of Fusion GPS, Clinton campaign, FBI, DOJ, CIA with respect to interference in the presidential campaign?

Is he not POTUS? Or is he just a character in a VR game?

Eric Newhill's comment is spot on. Why would anyone want to work for Trump's campaign and be ruined financially and face legal jeopardy when all he does is tweet? His actions show weakness and his opponents know it.

Valissa Rauhallinen -> Jack , 11 hours ago
Jack, I'm assuming he is not doing those things because he is completely surrounded by the Deep State who is already going after him one every front. Every time he has tried to cut back on forever war he gets sabotaged by the Borg. The gov't is yuuuuge and Trump and his small crew are peanuts compared to that. It's very difficult to make progress on his agenda given the level of internal opposition he faces and how outnumbered he is.

From what I have learned over the years the POTUS does not have much freedom. Obama talked about this too.

Fred S -> Jack , 12 hours ago
Where is Nancy Pelosi in all this; better yet where is the ACLU? I think you already know the answer.
Jack -> Fred S , 11 hours ago
Neither Nancy Pelosi nor the ACLU run the FBI and DOJ. President Trump does.
Fred S -> Jack , 9 hours ago
So Congress has no oversight responsibility like they say they have and the ACLU is not really concerned about abuses of police powers.
blue peacock -> Fred S , 9 hours ago
Why should they care when the FBI & DOJ are going after their opponent Trump's minions? He is the one that should care that his guys are the ones being being targeted and not his opponents.
Eric Newhill , 13 hours ago
Larry,

What you say sounds right enough to me - though I kind of have to take it on faith because I've never been anywhere near the world you describe.

However, I think, for what's it worth, that the whole point to Mueller and all the legal harassment and arrests of people associated, even to a small extent with the Trump campaign, is to scare people away from working with Trump on the 2020 campaign and leave the Donald high and dry. That and create an illusion of criminality around Trump. Again, that's an uninformed opinion; just an opinion derived from what I see. Curious to know if you think there's any truth to it. Thx

Walrus -> Eric Newhill , 9 hours ago
Eric, it's called "file stuffing " a bureaucratic name for assembling a mountainous pile of allegations - 99.9% of which are either trivial or false, that is too big and convoluted for any team of humans to refute in detail at one sitting.

This file is then served up to a judge (or the Republican National Convention) with the offered assumption that because the file is so voluminous, the allegations contained must be substantially true.

I would expect to hear Trump labelled as a "troubled President" because, you know, he and his campaign did all these illegal things, so he must be guilty of stuff, so he needs to be impeached and can't stand in 2020, meh or whatever..........

ex-PFC Chuck -> Walrus , 7 hours ago
Mueller is following the Department of Injustice practice of throwing multiple charges at people, even though they know many of them won't stick, so as to drive up the costs of discovery. Thus looms the prospect financial ruin for all but the wealthiest of defendants. This induces them to plead guilty to lesser charges in order to preserve their retirement savings and possibly long prison sentences.

DoJ career prosecutors are evaluated on their out-of-court settlement rates and this is how they achieve high ones.

So much for the de facto right of a fair trial. IIRC, when the press got to stone after the court appearance he stated that he'll take this to trial. He may have second thoughts as the legal bills pile up.

[Jan 24, 2019] Intelligence agency officials carefully monitor the activities of the two main parties, keeping a vigilant eye out for any deviations from the national security consensus in Washington

Essentially they are trying to control the US foreign policy. That's a sign of the slide to neofascism as under neofascism intelligence agencies have a political role and are instrumental in crashing the dissent.
Notable quotes:
"... The Times article goes on to describe how FBI officials monitored the platform adopted at the Republican National Convention, reporting that the spy agency "watched with alarm as the Republican Party softened its convention platform on the Ukraine crisis in a way that seemed to benefit Russia." That is, the nation's top police agency was concerned that the positions adopted contravened certain basic tenets of dominant sections of the foreign policy establishment. ..."
"... By what constitutional authority can the FBI, based on political positions adopted by one or the other of the two main capitalist parties, open up a secret investigation into treason and conspiracy? Such an operation bespeaks a police state and recalls the methods of the Stalinist NKVD. ..."
"... The operations of the FBI, encouraged, aided and abetted by the Times , recall the paranoid rantings of the John Birch Society, the ultra-right group formed in the 1950s, whose founder, Robert Welch, notoriously claimed that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the former World War II commander of Allied forces in Europe, was a "a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy." ..."
"... Claims that once were the province of an extremist group, on the fringes of American politics, are now embraced by the military-intelligence apparatus, appear on the front page of the most influential American daily newspaper, and dominate the network and cable television news. ..."
"... But these allegations have no credibility. Why should anyone believe claims that Trump, at age 70, after decades as a real estate mogul, con man and media celebrity, with a billion-dollar fortune, suddenly decided to throw in his lot with Vladimir Putin? Even the Times report itself concedes, in a single sentence buried in the 2,000-word text, "No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials." ..."
Jan 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

The Times claims that Trump "had caught the attention of FBI counterintelligence agents when he called on Russia during a campaign news conference in July 2016 to hack the emails of his opponent, Hillary Clinton." Given that this was a sarcastic campaign remark directed against Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, and delivered at a public news conference, Trump's sally can hardly be construed as evidence of a conspiracy.

The Times article goes on to describe how FBI officials monitored the platform adopted at the Republican National Convention, reporting that the spy agency "watched with alarm as the Republican Party softened its convention platform on the Ukraine crisis in a way that seemed to benefit Russia." That is, the nation's top police agency was concerned that the positions adopted contravened certain basic tenets of dominant sections of the foreign policy establishment.

By what constitutional authority can the FBI, based on political positions adopted by one or the other of the two main capitalist parties, open up a secret investigation into treason and conspiracy? Such an operation bespeaks a police state and recalls the methods of the Stalinist NKVD.

The agency also investigated four of Trump's campaign aides over possible ties to Russia, and even made use of the notorious Steele dossier, consisting of anti-Trump gossip collated from Russian sources by a former British intelligence agent on the payroll of the Democratic Party.

After Trump fired Comey, according to the Times , "law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president's behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president's own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence."

The operations of the FBI, encouraged, aided and abetted by the Times , recall the paranoid rantings of the John Birch Society, the ultra-right group formed in the 1950s, whose founder, Robert Welch, notoriously claimed that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the former World War II commander of Allied forces in Europe, was a "a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy."

Claims that once were the province of an extremist group, on the fringes of American politics, are now embraced by the military-intelligence apparatus, appear on the front page of the most influential American daily newspaper, and dominate the network and cable television news.

But these allegations have no credibility. Why should anyone believe claims that Trump, at age 70, after decades as a real estate mogul, con man and media celebrity, with a billion-dollar fortune, suddenly decided to throw in his lot with Vladimir Putin? Even the Times report itself concedes, in a single sentence buried in the 2,000-word text, "No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials."

While there is no evidence of a conspiracy between Trump and Moscow, the Times report itself is evidence of a conspiracy involving the intelligence agencies and the corporate media to overturn the 2016 presidential election - which Trump won, albeit within the undemocratic framework of the Electoral College - and install a government that would differ from Trump's chiefly in being more committed to military confrontation with Russia in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere.

A secret security investigation by a powerful police agency directed against an elected president or prime minister can be described as nothing other than the antechamber to a coup by the military or intelligence services.

Historically, the FBI has been at the center of such dangers in the United States. Its founding director, J. Edgar Hoover, was notorious for his unchecked power, particularly during the period of the McCarthy anticommunist witch hunt, when he accumulated dossiers on virtually every Democratic and Republican politician and authorized widespread spying on civil rights and antiwar groups.

President John F. Kennedy was so concerned that he installed his brother Robert as attorney general - and nominal superior to Hoover - to keep watch over the bureau. That did not save Kennedy from assassination in 1963 , an event linked in still undisclosed ways to ultra-right circles, including Cuban exiles embittered by the Bay of Pigs disaster, Southern segregationists, and sections of the military-intelligence apparatus up in arms over Kennedy's signing of a nuclear test ban treaty with Moscow.

The New York Times report - and a companion piece published Sunday in the Washington Post claiming that Trump has kept secret key details of his private conversations with Putin - serve to legitimize antidemocratic and unconstitutional conduct by the military-intelligence apparatus .

These reports shed light on the striking complacency in the "mainstream" media over Trump's threats to declare a national emergency, using the pretext of his conflict with congressional Democrats over funding of a border wall, which has led to a three-week-long partial shutdown of the federal government.

If one takes for good coin the main contention of the reports by the two newspapers, their acquiescence in a potential Trump declaration of emergency rule is inexplicable. After all, if Trump is Putin's agent, then a Trump declaration of a state of emergency, giving him sweeping, near-absolute authority, would put the United States under the control of Moscow.

The explanation is that the Times and the Post welcome the discussion of emergency rule, to prepare the forces of the state for coming conflicts with the working class. Their only disagreement with Trump is over which faction of the ruling elite, Trump or his opponents in the Democratic Party, should direct the repression.

One thing is certain: if Trump declares a national emergency, or if, as the Post suggested in an editorial, his opponents in the ruling elite declare a national emergency over alleged Russian "meddling" as part an effort to remove him, it will represent an irrevocable break with democracy.

It is impossible to determine which side in this sordid conflict is more reactionary. The working class is confronted with two alternatives :

[Jan 22, 2019] At this point the Collusion Narrative is like the Pee Tape

And Mueller probably called called Pee Taper.
Jan 22, 2019 | www.theglobeandmail.com

DW1 , 1 week ago

while we are waiting for the final FINAL report of the endless interminable Mueller investigation, perhaps best to review the Mueller report of Feb. 16 2018, and the conclusions it drew: it identified 13 Russian nationals who were part of an organized effort based in the Internet Research Agency. Those 13 Russians were named and indicted; if they step foot in any Western space, they will be arrested and charged.

Oh, and the Americans? none named, none charged, none involved, concludes the Mueller team. This likely presages the wet firecracker of the Mueller final report, and its look into the media echo chamber's bottomless rumour mill.

just as good as you , 1 week ago

You seem to have forgotten the 33 indictments of 'Americans'. You seem to have forgotten the 4 guilty pleas, and the 7 jail terms.

Yada yada yada.

Moseby1 , 1 week ago

Who do you think you're kidding?

Paul Manafort
Rick Gates
George Papadopoulos
Michael Flynn
Michael Cohen
Richard Pinedo
Alex Van Der Zwaan
Konstantin Killmnik

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/20/17031772/mueller-indictments-grand-jury

just as good as you , 1 week ago

Kudos. I was just getting tired of typing the list, hence the "Yada yada yada".

Thanks.

Andy_Waxman1 , 1 week ago

Some of it happened pre-campaign, some of it is seriously dumb (Manafort not reporting that he had a contract with the Ukraine), but much is Crimes of the Investigation - that is, a crime caused by investigation. 'You told us you met with him Tuesday, but you met with him Friday, you lied to the FBI, federal crime!' Like John Kelly. The actual meeting wasn't a crime, though. Someone else tried to dangle a poll, "most of which was public," said the NYT. Double dumb.

At this point the Collusion Narrative is like the Pee Tape, waaaaay more Liberal Wishful Fantasy than proof. So far, there's no there there. Just endless breathless NYT CNN and Globe headlines. 'Nuclear war this weekend with NK!' Remember that one? Right wing Birthers were fringe. Left wing Haters are MSM. Big hat, no cattle. Waiting for Bob M.

[Jan 22, 2019] At the end of the day, Trump Tower Moscow has never happened - and Trump himself has turned out to be the worst Putin Puppet ever after slapping heavy sanctions on Moscow and selling Ukraine weapons that the Obama administration wouldn t.

Jan 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

BuzzFeed Throws Hail Mary: Publishes New Trump Tower Moscow Docs

After last week's embarrassing debacle in which special counsel Robert Mueller issued a rare statement calling bullshit on BuzzFeed over their Trump Tower Moscow report that Trump ordered his attorney Michael Cohen to lie about the timeline, the beleaguered news outlet has taken a second bite at the apple with a new report (oddly written by a completely different journalist) refuting comments by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani that "no plans were ever made" for the project.

Not so fast Rudy ...

In their new report, BuzzFeed claims that the Trump Tower Moscow idea was "led by Trump's then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, and his associate Felix Sater" despite writing in November that Sater both thought of and spearheaded the idea , turning to Cohen to "get it off the ground" while overpromising that he could seal the deal through his Russian connections that never panned out.

Sater, a brash real estate promoter who pleaded guilty to racketeering in 1998 and became a longtime asset to US law enforcement and intelligence agencies, had worked with the Trump Organization on deals in the past and said he came up with the idea. Cohen, Sater recalled, said, "Great idea." - BuzzFeed

Today's "gotcha," however is that the project had progressed much further than Giuliani claimed on Monday when he told the New Yorker "no plans were ever made. There were no drafts. Nothing in the file."

Not true , writes BuzzFeed' s Azeen Ghorayshi.

The president and his representatives have dismissed the project as little more than a notion -- a rough plan led by Trump's then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, and his associate Felix Sater, of which Trump and his family said they were only loosely aware as the election campaign gathered pace.

On Monday, his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani , said "the proposal was in the earliest stage," and he went on to tell the New Yorker that "no plans were ever made. There were no drafts. Nothing in the file."

However, hundreds of pages of business documents, emails, text messages, and architectural plans, obtained by BuzzFeed News over a year of reporting, tell a very different story. Trump Tower Moscow was a richly imagined vision of upscale splendor on the banks of the Moscow River. - BuzzFeed

Trump Tower Moscow hasn't exactly been a secret, admits BuzzFeed , noting that Donald Trump tweeted about it following the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, and writing in his book The Art of the Deal that he had been trying to expand his business empire into Russia for over 30 years.

me title=

Over the last week, Giuliani admitted to the New York Times that the Trump Tower Moscow discussions were "going on from the day I announced to the day I won," Giuliani quoted Trump as saying. He then walked back those comments , claiming in a statement: "My recent statements about discussions during the 2016 campaign between Michael Cohen and then-candidate Donald Trump about a potential Trump Moscow 'project' were hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the President."

In other words, Giuliani is a walking gaffe machine - which we already knew.

That said, the Trump Tower moscow project appears to have been much more developed than anyone in the Trump camp has acknowledged.

According to a finalized letter of intent signed by Donald Trump on Oct. 28, 2015, the tower would have "approximately 250 first class, luxury residential condominiums."

It would be located in Moscow City, a former industrial complex outside of the city center that has since been converted into an ambitious commercial district clustered with several of the tallest skyscrapers in Europe.

Its hotel portion would feature "approximately 15 floors" and contain "not fewer than 150 hotel rooms," the letter of intent stated. The building would feature a luxury spa and fitness center, a commercial component "consistent with the overall luxury level of the Property," and an office space "consistent with Class A luxury office properties," as well as "luxury" parking. - BuzzFeed

Also in the plan was "The Spa By Ivanka Trump," as well as a $50 million penthouse suite that they would give to Russian President Vladimir Putin. "My idea was to give a $50 million penthouse to Putin and charge $250 million more for the rest of the units," Sater told BuzzFeed in November. "All the oligarchs would line up to live in the same building as Putin."

Show Trump the money

The Trump Organization stood to make $4 million on an up-front payment for the deal; 25% of which would be paid upon execution of the licensing agreement, another quarter when they finalized a location, and the other half a week before the project's groundbreaking - or two years after the execution of the licensing agreement, whichever came first.

From there on out, Trump's company would also get a cut of all the condominium sales at the tower, the agreement stated. From the total selling price of each unit, his company would get 5% for sales up to $100 million, 4% for the next bracket up to $250 million, 3% for anything between that and $500 million, 2% for anything up to $1 billion, and thereafter, a solid cut of 1%. For commercial and office spaces, it would get a 3% cut of all the rent. It'd get another 3% of sales on food and beverages, spa and fitness center use, and conference fees.

The deal also stipulated how much Trump's management company would get paid for running operations at Trump Tower Moscow over 25 years. For the first five years, it would get 3% of all revenue generated by operating the hotel per month. Over the next two decades, it'd receive a flat 4%. In addition, the management company would also receive a monthly "incentive fee" -- an additional 20% of the gross operating profit for the hotel -- subject to annual negotiations. - BuzzFeed

At the end of the day, Trump Tower Moscow has never happened - and Trump himself has turned out to be the worst "Putin Puppet" ever after slapping heavy sanctions on Moscow and selling Ukraine weapons that the Obama administration wouldn't.

"Let's make this happen and build a Trump Moscow," wrote Sater to Cohen in October of 2015. "And possibly fix relations between the countries by showing everyone that commerce & business are much better and more practical than politics. Help world peace and make a lot of money, I would say that's a great lifetime goal for us to go after."


Teeter , 6 minutes ago link

Talk about trying to make something out of nothing... what's the crime? So lame.

Oboneterm , 9 minutes ago link

STOP THE ******* PRESSES..........BOMB SHELL......BOMB SHELL REPORT...THE WALLS ARE CLOSING IN....ORANGE HAIR PRESIDENT SOON TO BE WARING ORANGE JUMPSUIT....

Dateline Moscow 2013........

The crime:

American Developer explores possibilities of building a hotel in Moscow.

StarGate , 10 minutes ago link

There is NO Moscow Trump Tower.

No mountain.

Not even a molehill.

Buzzfeed is frantically trying to gain relevance on this fantasy non-existent tower story. It's a big "So What?"

glenlloyd , 13 minutes ago link

Big deal. Rudy needs to be more careful about what he says but WTF does it matter that Trump's people tried to get the tower project done there?

How does any of this mean anything? So what if he did try and build it? This was ages before he ever thought about running for President.

All these leftists are hanging their hat (and hopes and dreams) on something that just didn't happen.

Sorry all you leftist loonies, there's nothing in that Mueller report to get excited about. I just hope that a lot of you crazies can handle that.

hanekhw , 17 minutes ago link

The media won't understand talking to Russians to build in Russia and not talking to George Soros first is NOT a crime. Just because that's what THEY do concerning everything doesn't mean Trump has to also.

inosent , 17 minutes ago link

zzzzzzzzzz, but the ****-0-craps will be all rage and fury over some sort of fantasy land egotistical it'll never happen building in Moscow. Pretty pictures, though.

And to the idiot poster who keeps claiming this is 'bribery', that means 1) there would have to be something to be given in return that was unlawful on some level, and 2) there was intent, and 3) a discussion about the nature and quality of the bribe actually took place between the bribor and bribee.

I get the uniparty thing, but some of the leftie dickheads that post here are really stupid. Colossally dumb.

Somebody said below we get nothing but bolshevik-speak from these marxists. They open the mouth and voila! a 'fact' is born. And on that basis a conviction. Matters not if the 'fact' disappears someday, so long as today the 'fact' gives them the pretense to destroy someone that gets in their way.

The 60's hippies 'left' was all down on the 'man'. 'I just want to be freeeeeeee man' they would say.

ha, such bulls-. The truth is they are all lining up at the govt trough to get their piece of the action. It doesn't matter that they f- people over, destroy lives, and freedom for all, so long as they get a juicy title, paycheck and pension.

Pure, 100% commie bulls-.

These people need to put on a red shirt and a bulls' eye, have a war against them declared, and then they can be mowed down one at a time until they run away from govt and never return, or they are all gone.

We are no doubt headed for all out neo-USSA communism. Better make sure you keep your guns!

And when (not if) the ****-0-craps have total power, the first thing they'll do is make it impossible to get a gun, and then find a means to confiscate them. Before any tyranny we always see the new tyrant go after the guns. Then when the ppl are unarmed, they move in for the kill - literally.

The commie jackass 'leaders' always talk about this it's for the children, safety, etc. But we all know that is a farce. The real purpose is to disarm. Culturally, they have made us all capitulate to deviancy, where nobody dares question the immoral homosexual behavioral choice. That is the kind of world we live in. Next stop, pedoland. "Don't judge me bro'".

Given that we now know (if we did not know already) that at LEAST 65% of the population is completely dependent on the government, we live in a land where there are ultimate sheep, demented immoral sheep, government dependent and not productive sheep. We are surrounded by people who are totally brainwashed, are easily swept up with the latest new world order dogma, and won't fight back against anything, but accept everything, and do as they are told - for a morsel of bread.

Not sure what the solution is, but if you are a person with a moral compass in fairly good working order, and don't want your pocket picked, and your business totally compromised by some bureaucrat. best be looking for one.

hanekhw , 17 minutes ago link

The media won't understand talking to Russians to build in Russia and not talking to George Soros first is NOT a crime. Just because that's what THEY do concerning everything doesn't mean Trump has to also.

inosent , 17 minutes ago link

zzzzzzzzzz, but the ****-0-craps will be all rage and fury over some sort of fantasy land egotistical it'll never happen building in Moscow. Pretty pictures, though.

And to the idiot poster who keeps claiming this is 'bribery', that means 1) there would have to be something to be given in return that was unlawful on some level, and 2) there was intent, and 3) a discussion about the nature and quality of the bribe actually took place between the bribor and bribee.

I get the uniparty thing, but some of the leftie dickheads that post here are really stupid. Colossally dumb.

Somebody said below we get nothing but bolshevik-speak from these marxists. They open the mouth and voila! a 'fact' is born. And on that basis a conviction. Matters not if the 'fact' disappears someday, so long as today the 'fact' gives them the pretense to destroy someone that gets in their way.

The 60's hippies 'left' was all down on the 'man'. 'I just want to be freeeeeeee man' they would say.

ha, such bulls-. The truth is they are all lining up at the govt trough to get their piece of the action. It doesn't matter that they f- people over, destroy lives, and freedom for all, so long as they get a juicy title, paycheck and pension.

Pure, 100% commie bulls-.

These people need to put on a red shirt and a bulls' eye, have a war against them declared, and then they can be mowed down one at a time until they run away from govt and never return, or they are all gone.

We are no doubt headed for all out neo-USSA communism. Better make sure you keep your guns!

And when (not if) the ****-0-craps have total power, the first thing they'll do is make it impossible to get a gun, and then find a means to confiscate them. Before any tyranny we always see the new tyrant go after the guns. Then when the ppl are unarmed, they move in for the kill - literally.

The commie jackass 'leaders' always talk about this it's for the children, safety, etc. But we all know that is a farce. The real purpose is to disarm. Culturally, they have made us all capitulate to deviancy, where nobody dares question the immoral homosexual behavioral choice. That is the kind of world we live in. Next stop, pedoland. "Don't judge me bro'".

Given that we now know (if we did not know already) that at LEAST 65% of the population is completely dependent on the government, we live in a land where there are ultimate sheep, demented immoral sheep, government dependent and not productive sheep. We are surrounded by people who are totally brainwashed, are easily swept up with the latest new world order dogma, and won't fight back against anything, but accept everything, and do as they are told - for a morsel of bread.

Not sure what the solution is, but if you are a person with a moral compass in fairly good working order, and don't want your pocket picked, and your business totally compromised by some bureaucrat. best be looking for one.

hanekhw , 17 minutes ago link

The media won't understand talking to Russians to build in Russia and not talking to George Soros first is NOT a crime. Just because that's what THEY do concerning everything doesn't mean Trump has to also.

inosent , 17 minutes ago link

zzzzzzzzzz, but the ****-0-craps will be all rage and fury over some sort of fantasy land egotistical it'll never happen building in Moscow. Pretty pictures, though.

And to the idiot poster who keeps claiming this is 'bribery', that means 1) there would have to be something to be given in return that was unlawful on some level, and 2) there was intent, and 3) a discussion about the nature and quality of the bribe actually took place between the bribor and bribee.

I get the uniparty thing, but some of the leftie dickheads that post here are really stupid. Colossally dumb.

Somebody said below we get nothing but bolshevik-speak from these marxists. They open the mouth and voila! a 'fact' is born. And on that basis a conviction. Matters not if the 'fact' disappears someday, so long as today the 'fact' gives them the pretense to destroy someone that gets in their way.

The 60's hippies 'left' was all down on the 'man'. 'I just want to be freeeeeeee man' they would say.

ha, such bulls-. The truth is they are all lining up at the govt trough to get their piece of the action. It doesn't matter that they f- people over, destroy lives, and freedom for all, so long as they get a juicy title, paycheck and pension.

Pure, 100% commie bulls-.

These people need to put on a red shirt and a bulls' eye, have a war against them declared, and then they can be mowed down one at a time until they run away from govt and never return, or they are all gone.

We are no doubt headed for all out neo-USSA communism. Better make sure you keep your guns!

And when (not if) the ****-0-craps have total power, the first thing they'll do is make it impossible to get a gun, and then find a means to confiscate them. Before any tyranny we always see the new tyrant go after the guns. Then when the ppl are unarmed, they move in for the kill - literally.

The commie jackass 'leaders' always talk about this it's for the children, safety, etc. But we all know that is a farce. The real purpose is to disarm. Culturally, they have made us all capitulate to deviancy, where nobody dares question the immoral homosexual behavioral choice. That is the kind of world we live in. Next stop, pedoland. "Don't judge me bro'".

Given that we now know (if we did not know already) that at LEAST 65% of the population is completely dependent on the government, we live in a land where there are ultimate sheep, demented immoral sheep, government dependent and not productive sheep. We are surrounded by people who are totally brainwashed, are easily swept up with the latest new world order dogma, and won't fight back against anything, but accept everything, and do as they are told - for a morsel of bread.

Not sure what the solution is, but if you are a person with a moral compass in fairly good working order, and don't want your pocket picked, and your business totally compromised by some bureaucrat. best be looking for one.

hanekhw , 17 minutes ago link

The media won't understand talking to Russians to build in Russia and not talking to George Soros first is NOT a crime. Just because that's what THEY do concerning everything doesn't mean Trump has to also.

inosent , 17 minutes ago link

zzzzzzzzzz, but the ****-0-craps will be all rage and fury over some sort of fantasy land egotistical it'll never happen building in Moscow. Pretty pictures, though.

And to the idiot poster who keeps claiming this is 'bribery', that means 1) there would have to be something to be given in return that was unlawful on some level, and 2) there was intent, and 3) a discussion about the nature and quality of the bribe actually took place between the bribor and bribee.

I get the uniparty thing, but some of the leftie dickheads that post here are really stupid. Colossally dumb.

Somebody said below we get nothing but bolshevik-speak from these marxists. They open the mouth and voila! a 'fact' is born. And on that basis a conviction. Matters not if the 'fact' disappears someday, so long as today the 'fact' gives them the pretense to destroy someone that gets in their way.

The 60's hippies 'left' was all down on the 'man'. 'I just want to be freeeeeeee man' they would say.

ha, such bulls-. The truth is they are all lining up at the govt trough to get their piece of the action. It doesn't matter that they f- people over, destroy lives, and freedom for all, so long as they get a juicy title, paycheck and pension.

Pure, 100% commie bulls-.

These people need to put on a red shirt and a bulls' eye, have a war against them declared, and then they can be mowed down one at a time until they run away from govt and never return, or they are all gone.

We are no doubt headed for all out neo-USSA communism. Better make sure you keep your guns!

And when (not if) the ****-0-craps have total power, the first thing they'll do is make it impossible to get a gun, and then find a means to confiscate them. Before any tyranny we always see the new tyrant go after the guns. Then when the ppl are unarmed, they move in for the kill - literally.

The commie jackass 'leaders' always talk about this it's for the children, safety, etc. But we all know that is a farce. The real purpose is to disarm. Culturally, they have made us all capitulate to deviancy, where nobody dares question the immoral homosexual behavioral choice. That is the kind of world we live in. Next stop, pedoland. "Don't judge me bro'".

Given that we now know (if we did not know already) that at LEAST 65% of the population is completely dependent on the government, we live in a land where there are ultimate sheep, demented immoral sheep, government dependent and not productive sheep. We are surrounded by people who are totally brainwashed, are easily swept up with the latest new world order dogma, and won't fight back against anything, but accept everything, and do as they are told - for a morsel of bread.

Not sure what the solution is, but if you are a person with a moral compass in fairly good working order, and don't want your pocket picked, and your business totally compromised by some bureaucrat. best be looking for one.

Justin Case

Keep shoveling that Russia this, that, manure narrative for general consumption. What sanctions? Umm, I'll get back to you after we extradite the Huawei CEO and extort billions from the corporation for doing business with our (Israel's) adversary.

You voted for this? He talks out of both sides of his mouth. Why do people vote to have someone rule over them?

[Jan 22, 2019] The Fetishization of the Corporate Media by C.J. Hopkins

Among few good things that Trump have done to the USA is that he destoryed credibility of neoliberal MSM. They all are now firmly belong to the "fake news" catagory.
Notable quotes:
"... C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org . ..."
Jan 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

So the corporate media have gone and done it again. As they have, repeatedly, for the last two and half years, they shook the earth with a "bombshell" story proving beyond any reasonable doubt that Donald Trump colluded with the Russians to steal the presidency from Hillary Clinton, or at least committed an impeachable felony in connection with something to do with the Russians, or Ukrainians, or other Slavic persons which story turned out to be inaccurate, or not entirely accurate, or a bunch of horseshit.

This time it was BuzzFeed's Jason Leopold, " a reporter with a checkered past " (i.e., a history of inventing his sources ) who broke the "bombshell" Russiagate story that turned out to be a bunch of horseshit. Leopold, and his colleague Anthony Cormier, reported that Trump had directed his attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about plans to construct a Trump Tower in Moscow, thus suborning perjury and obstructing justice. Their sources for this "bombshell" story were allegedly "two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter."

Approximately twenty-four hours later, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office (i.e., the office "involved in an investigation of the matter") stated that the BuzzFeed story was "not accurate," which is a legal term meaning "a bunch of horseshit." BuzzFeed is standing by its story , and is working to determine what, exactly, Mueller's office meant by "not accurate." Ben Smith, BuzzFeed's Editor-in-Chief, has called on Mueller "to make clear what he's disputing."

Liberals and other Trump-obsessives have joined in the effort to interpret the Special Counsel's office's cryptic utterance. French hermeneuticists have been reportedly called in to deconstruct the meaning of "accurate." Professional Twitter semioticians are explaining that "not accurate" doesn't mean "wrong," but, rather, refers to something that is "accurate," but which the user of the word doesn't want to disclose publicly, or that legal terms don't mean what they mean or something more or less along those lines.

Glenn Greenwald, in August 2018, reporting on another "bombshell" story that turned out to be a bunch of horseshit , compiled a partial list of Russiagate stories that the corporate media had published and promoted over the course of the previous eighteen months which turned out to be a bunch of horseshit (i.e., the stories did, not Greenwald's list). In the wake of this latest horseshit story, Greenwald revised and renamed this list " The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing U.S. Media Failures on the Trump/Russia Story. "

But Greenwald's list is just a small sample of the Russiagate stories that have turned out to be horseshit. For the record, here are several more:

"Seventeen intelligence agencies" confirm Russia interfered in the U.S. elections ( New York Times ) Russia interfered in the Brexit referendum ( The Guardian ) Russia interfered in the German elections ( Reuters ) Russia hacked the French elections ( Politico and numerous other outlets ) Michael Cohen conspired with the Russians in Prague ( BuzzFeed )

My personal favorite remains the one about how Hillary Clinton may have been poisoned by Putinist operatives back in 2016. And then there's the pot-smoking, prostitute-banging, incompetent Novichok perfume assassins , the African American-brainwashing memes , the Putin-orchestrated Yellow Vest rebellion , the brain-eating Russian-Cubano crickets , and various other bunches of horseshit.

I am using the terms "horseshit" and "a bunch of horseshit" (as opposed to terms like "failures" and "errors"), not just to be gratuitously vulgar, but, also, to try to make a point. One is not supposed to use these terms in connection with "serious," "respected" news outlets. Which is why journalists like Greenwald and Aaron Maté (who have extensively reported on the corporate media's ongoing production and dissemination of horseshit) do not use such terms in the course of their reporting, and instead use less inflammatory terms like "false," "inaccurate," "mistake," and "error." Principled journalists like Greenwald and Maté are constrained by (a) their journalistic ethics, (b) their integrity, and (c) their belief in the idea of a "free and independent press," which is one of the pillars of Western democracy.

Being neither a respected journalist nor a believer in the existence of an "independent press," I am under no such constraints. Because I'm not trying to get or keep a job, or maintain a "respectable" reputation, I'm free to call a spade a spade and a bunch of horseshit a bunch of horseshit. I am also free to describe "journalists" like Leopold, Luke Harding , Craig Timberg , Franklin Foer , and many of their corporate media colleagues (not to mention TV clowns like Rachel Maddow ) as the liars and rank propagandists they are. I don't need to pretend their fabricated stories are simply the result of "shoddy journalism," or "over-reliance on official sources," or any other type of "error" or "failure." These people know exactly what they are doing, and are being extremely well paid to do it. They went to school to learn how to do it. Then they butt-sucked and back-stabbed their way up the ladder of establishment power to be able to do it.

Yes, of course, there are still principled journalists working for the corporate media, but they are doing so by walking a very fine line. No one has to tell them where it is. Every professional journalist knows precisely where it is, and what it is there for. Though they are permitted to walk right up to it, occasionally (to keep them from feeling like abject whores), one step over it and they will be cast into the Outer Darkness of the Blogosphere and excommunicated from the Church of Respectable Journalism. If you don't believe me, just ask Seymour Hersh, or John Pilger, or any other journalistic heretic.

If Russiagate serves no other useful purpose, it is at least exposing the corporate media as the propaganda factories that they are. Given the amount of obviously fabricated horseshit they have disseminated during the last two years, you'd have to be a total moron or a diehard neoliberal cultist not to recognize the function they perform within the global capitalist ruling establishment (which is essentially no different than the function the establishment media perform in any other society, namely, to disseminate, maintain, and reify the official narrative of its ruling classes).

Sadly, there's no shortage of morons and cultists. I don't blame the morons, because well, they're morons. The cultists are another species entirely. These are people who, no matter how often the corporate media feed them another "explosive," "bombshell" Russiagate story that turns out to be a bunch of horseshit, will defend the concept of the "independent media" like head-shaven, bug-eyed Manson followers. Confront them with facts contradicting their beliefs and they close their eyes and start chanting and humming and repetitiously babbling banishing spells. The notion that the Western corporate media may serve the interests of the ruling establishment (just like the media in every other society serve that society's ruling classes) is unimaginable and tantamount to heresy.

This fetishization of "the independent press" is a phenomenon unique to Western capitalism. Basically, it's a childish fairy tale, like believing that Santa Claus is an actual person or that voting in elections in a corporate oligarchy has anything to do with actual democracy. Think about it dispassionately for a minute. Why would any ruling establishment permit a genuinely "independent" press to disseminate ideas and information willy-nilly throughout society? If it did, it wouldn't last very long.

Most people understand this intuitively, which is why the corporate media relentlessly repeat the mantra-like phrase, "free and independent press," over, and over, and over again. Seriously, switch on NPR, or have a look at The Guardian or the Washington Post, or any of the other corporate media repeatedly reminding you how "independent," "free" and "democratic" they are. It's essentially Neuro-linguistic programming.

So let's not be shocked when the corporate media continue to bombard us with "bombshell" stories about Trump and Russia that turn out to be horseshit. Personally, I welcome these stories. The more corporate media horseshit the better! Who knows, if they dish out enough blatant horseshit, more people might lose their "trust in the media," and begin to investigate matters themselves. I know, that makes me a Nazi, right? Or at least a Russian propagandist? I mean, encouraging folks to distrust the corporate media? Isn't there some kind of law against that? Or have they not quite gotten around to that yet?

C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .


Godfree Roberts , says: January 22, 2019 at 1:32 am GMT

The Associated Press (AP) reports the latest bad news for the press: " Just 6 Percent of People Say They Trust the Media ."

Carole Feldman and Emily Swanson began: Trust in the news media is being eroded by perceptions of inaccuracy and bias, fueled in part by Americans' skepticism about what they read on social media. Just 6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public's view of other institutions.

Biff , says: January 22, 2019 at 1:41 am GMT

Most people understand this intuitively, which is why the corporate media relentlessly repeat the mantra-like phrase, "free and independent press,"

People inversely brag about their short comings.
Militarized police states brag about their freedom.
A well heeled synchophant brags about his independence.
Dudes with small dicks -- big belt buckle and big hat.

Fidelios Automata , says: January 22, 2019 at 3:14 am GMT
I used to listen to the BBC and NPR until the corporo-globalist bias became unbearable. I laughed at incidents such as Marketplace mocking the public's concern about GMO's. But it went off the rails in 2016. They may have backed off from Trump Derangement Syndrome a bit since then, but I've noticed that they have to call themselves "credible." Maybe if they say that enough times we'll believe it, eh?
Bragadocious , says: January 22, 2019 at 4:32 am GMT
The Greenwald link is pretty important and I bookmarked it. These fake news outlets do everything in their power to scrub these mistakes from the Google machine once they happen. They remove stories, videos -- everything, in the hopes of shoving it all down the memory hole. And since other fake news outlets don't hold them accountable, they get away with it. This is why it's important to take screen shots of fake news and download videos if possible, to create a record that's permanent and useful when you need it.
Richard Wicks , says: January 22, 2019 at 5:48 am GMT
@Godfree Roberts 6%? I rather doubt that.

More than 6% of the population are technically, and this is the technical term, retarded -- they are mentally disabled.

I know it's obvious our media is propaganda, but I don't think it's quite so obvious such that adults watching Sesame Street who fully enjoy it (nothing wrong with that!) are aware of it.

I would like to think it's true, but I think the Associated Press article is not true, after all, can you identify their funding sources?

utu , says: January 22, 2019 at 7:22 am GMT

This fetishization of "the independent press" is a phenomenon unique to Western capitalism. Basically, it's a childish fairy tale, like believing that Santa Claus is an actual person or that voting in elections in a corporate oligarchy has anything to do with actual democracy.

Great article. Articles on this theme should be published daily. The fetish must be destroyed.

jeff stryker , says: January 22, 2019 at 10:55 am GMT
I don't think the MSM has the power and influence it had in the Big Three Networks Era before the internet.

In those days, the minds of the public were more controlled and underground newspapers were barely read.

These days, more people read websites like this than watch any particular channel.

Print journalism had a massive hold on the world up to 1997 when the internet came into the mainstream.

Not no more.

jacques sheete , says: January 22, 2019 at 12:06 pm GMT
Ah, elegant!

What a pleasure to read this article!

There is at least one other person who calls corporate media what it is, and it ain't "mainstream."

"Sparkie" ain't gonna be happy about it either."Sparky" chewed me out good for correcting the incomparable and always superb Linh Dinh for using the disgusting and inaccurate term, "mainstream" when referring to coprophilic media. Oh, and speaking of "horseshit" one wag suggested we call it main steam media, for accuracy as well as for giggles and that's fine by me.

the corporate media relentlessly repeat the mantra-like phrase, "free and independent press," over, and over, and over again. Seriously, switch on NPR, or have a look at The Guardian or the Washington Post, or any of the other corporate media repeatedly reminding you how "independent," "free" and "democratic" they are. It's essentially Neuro-linguistic programming.

It's blatantly obvious that the same can be said about the self-legitimizing term, "mainstream," too, so bless you sir, and to (bleep) with the Sparkies of the world.

Digital Samizdat , says: January 22, 2019 at 12:36 pm GMT

Confront them with facts contradicting their beliefs and they close their eyes and start chanting and humming and repetitiously babbling banishing spells.

Orange Man bad! Mueller saves! -NPC

Jake , says: January 22, 2019 at 12:46 pm GMT
Not only is Hopkins correct, but what he says about corporate media is not new. The Civil Rights movement presented by the media was false. The media promotion of the US re-engaging in Europe in the post WW1 period so we could defend dear ole England and sacred democracy. The media preparing us for our need to fight WW1 so we could end all wars was false. The media stirring us to go into Cuba and end the awfully evil Spanish Empire so we could start the process of ending all empires

Large numbers of newspapers located within the non January 22, 2019 at 3:13 pm GMT

@jacques sheete

Ah, elegant!

What a pleasure to read this article!

N o doubt it is a pleasure for you because C.J. Hopkins managed to scribble 1500 words about fake news without even once mentioning the CIA.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."

-- CIA Director, William Casey

Of course, our resident Bumpkin of Unz would have you believe that the CIA is a corporation.

"The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media."

-- former CIA Director William Colby

So you see Sheete, the term "corporate media" is entirely inaccurate -- a red herring, a misleading label, a pig in a poke -- because it entirely excludes, avoids, overlooks, and completely dismisses the role of our intelligence agencies in creating fake news , a.k.a. disinformation and propaganda.

Hail , says: Website January 22, 2019 at 3:38 pm GMT

The notion that the Western corporate media may serve the interests of the ruling establishment (just like the media in every other society serve that society's ruling classes) is unimaginable and tantamount to heresy.

This comes close to the term "regime media," which I like as a replacement for the clunky-but-common terms "Mainstream Media" or MSM. "

Hopkins uses "corporate media," which appears fifteen times here including in the title.

Several commenters have noted the problems with the term "mainstream media":

the self-legitimizing term, "mainstream,"

While better than "mainstream media," I'm not sure "corporate media" is sufficient.

"Corporate media," as a term, may wrongly convey the notion that the 'media' in question complaisantly both [1] broadcasts the ruling ideology (interventionist capitalist liberal democracy and multicultacracy) and [2] 'megaphones' (Steve Sailer's useful term) against enemies thereto, coordinating our regular Two-Minute Hates.

That characterization misses an important point, to wit:

The 'media' (in the sense of the "MSM") as we know it today, is itself consciously part of the ruling apparatus . Not complaisantly, but actively; not lackeys on the side, but right at the regime's core. A useful distinction. Hence "regime media."

Agent76 , says: January 22, 2019 at 3:41 pm GMT
Jun. 14, 2012 These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America

That's consolidated from *50* companies back in 1983. But the fact that a few companies own everything demonstrates "the illusion of choice," Frugal Dad says.

http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6

Church Committee Testimony

Tom Charles Huston testified before the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, commonly known as the Church Committee, on the 43-page plan he presented to the President Nixon and others on ways to collect information about anti-war and "radical" groups, including burglary, electronic surveillance, and opening of mail.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?408953-1/tom-charles-huston-testimony-church-committee

Sean , says: January 22, 2019 at 4:13 pm GMT
The Basic Problem of Democracy
by Walter Lippmann
The Atlantic Monthly, November 1919, pp. 616-627

http://sonicacts.com/portal/anthropocene-objects-art-and-politics-1

Lippmann-Dewey debate, which is known to academics but not the general public in the United States, the home country of both authors. Obviously, John Dewey is famous as one of the most important American philosophers, and for his international influence in the field of education. By contrast, Walter Lippmann has been somewhat forgotten, though he was a major journalist in the 1920s and 1930s. He was a widely familiar author at the time, and wrote some cynical things about American democracy. The story America tells itself politically is that since we're a democracy in which the citizens rule themselves, there is a paramount need for an excellent public education so that the citizens can vote wisely. We ourselves are the leaders. But of course it doesn't work that way in practice. We actually have a surplus of ignorant and uninformed people who pay no attention to the nuances of policy, and who vote based on the workings of demagoguery and short-sighted self-interest. Any number of foolish decisions have been made by the American public. This leads Lippmann to take the somewhat cynical line that America is destined to be ruled by technocrats. We need experts to run things; the people are too clueless to rule themselves. We'll pretend we have a democracy, but we actually don't. Now, Dewey reads this, and he is temperamentally more optimistic, and he thinks: 'This is a really stimulating book, but Lippmann is wrong. He is setting the bar too high for the people. People were never supposed to be educated in depth about every issue, which is an impossible demand. Even Lippmann doesn't have the time to master every issue, and he covers politics for a living. Instead, Dewey says, political issues generate their own publics in each case. I might care deeply about seven political issues. I might care about national health insurance, but I don't care about gay marriage, or vice versa. So I get involved in one debate and not the other. I take the trouble of becoming informed about issues that interest me.

onebornfree , says: Website January 22, 2019 at 4:14 pm GMT
@Hail Hail says: "The 'media' (in the sense of the "MSM") as we know it today, is itself consciously part of the ruling apparatus. Not complaisantly, but actively; not lackeys on the side, but right at the regime's core ":

Exactly. The MSM is the government [CIA/NSA/ etc. etc.] grinning right at you as it continually lies , albeit behind a very thin veil of supposed integrity/respectability that the general public still refuses to see through.

By way of illustration of this "outrageous" assertion of mine, here is part of a video analysis of the original 5 channel US MSM "live" coverage of the morning of Sept. 11 2001, which clearly demonstrates that on that morning, all 5 US networks broadcast entirely fake "live" footage [ i.e. C.G.I. prefabricated imagery] for about 102 minutes :

Regards, onebornfree

jacques sheete , says: January 22, 2019 at 4:23 pm GMT
@Sparkon

So you see Sheete, the term "corporate media" is entirely inaccurate

I never claimed it was perfect. I do claim that the term, "mainstream," in this context is entirely inaccurate and misleading. And you should be nice, as you admonished me, regarding the author of this article. As for your complaint that he didn't mention the CIA, may I remind you that he wrote, as you noticed, an article, not an encyclopedia.

Anyway, you have yet to establish that the CIA and our corporate masters are entirely separate entities. Even a Dumb Sheete such as myself would find it somewhat, if not entirely, incredible if they were.

But of course too everyone knows by now that Jews, Israel and Mossad did 9/11 all by their lonesomes, and the CIA and the Air Force had nothing to do with it.

Ahem, you forgot to mention big, coprophilic, media. Please try to practice the inclusiveness that you preach.

Nancy Pelosi's Latina Maid , says: January 22, 2019 at 4:30 pm GMT

one step over [the line] and they will be cast into the Outer Darkness of the Blogosphere and excommunicated from the Church of Respectable Journalism. If you don't believe me, just ask Seymour Hersh, or John Pilger, or any other journalistic heretic.

To this list I might also add CBS' Sharyl Attkisson, and Larry Conners of KMOV-TV, who had the big brass balls to question the $85 million the Obamas spent on vacations.

NR kicked Derb to the curb, but that gutter's littered with Internet flotsam who presumed integrity.

onebornfree , says: Website January 22, 2019 at 4:35 pm GMT
@Sean Sean says: "Lippmann-Dewey debate, which is known to academics but not the general public in the United States, the home country of both authors. "

Debate summary: 2 know-it-alls debating about how "best" to run everybody else's lives [and with straight faces, I've no doubt].

Two sides of the same [pro-statist] coin, in other words. Oh, and one minor issue one "thinks" that a ruling technocracy is "the answer".

Sean says: "Obviously, John Dewey is famous as one of the most important American philosophers, and for his international influence in the field of education."

You mean: Dewey was important in the field of "public education" , otherwise known as brainwashing.

" important American philosopher" my a$$.

Gawd help us all.

And so it goes

[Jan 22, 2019] There is not a single newspaper in the US that supports the views of the US President

Notable quotes:
"... Only the minor Russian RT channel provides, up-to-a-point, some alternative views, defending the American, British and French people's sovereignty, but they can't do much. Paradoxically, RT does not broadcast in Russian and its English-language broadcasts can't be seen in Russia. The rest of the Russian media doesn't differ much from the Western variety. ..."
"... And not only for politics. They want to draw and implement their agenda on all topics disregarding our views. ..."
Jan 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

There is not a single newspaper in the US that supports the views of the US President. Nobody defended him when he was accused , brazenly, in-your-face, of being a Russian agent. Nobody supported him when he called to bring the troops home from Syria. Nobody came to his aid when he mulled parting with NATO. There are tens of millions of men and women who voted for him, but he has only his Twitter account at his disposal.

The media accuses Trump of paying too little attention to Israel's needs. Israel needs US troops in Syria and in Germany, US jets in Spain and Qatar, US ships in Italy and the Gulf. Israel needs the US to lead NATO to contain Russia. If Israel needs it, the US should provide, says Daniel Shapiro, the ex-ambassador. Not a single American newspaper, not a single US statesman cared to reply that President Trump had been elected by the American people to do what is needed for them, not for Israel.

The US is not an exception. Millions of French people support the GJ, but not a single newspaper, not a single TV channel gives them a platform. They are called anti-Semites for they are revolted by Danny Cohn-Bendit and Bernard-Henri Levi, who are Jewish. They are also called homophobes because they want to ban same-sex "marriage". They are being attacked by the bankers' storm-troopers, the Antifa, and no media defends them.

Millions of Brits support Jeremy Corbyn, but all the mainstream media is against him, even the state-supported BBC, even the Labour Guardian. Corbyn is accused of anti-Semitism, for Corbyn speaks for the workers and against the bankers. Nobody defends him and there is no mainstream media to speak for him.

Only the minor Russian RT channel provides, up-to-a-point, some alternative views, defending the American, British and French people's sovereignty, but they can't do much. Paradoxically, RT does not broadcast in Russian and its English-language broadcasts can't be seen in Russia. The rest of the Russian media doesn't differ much from the Western variety.

The mainstream media from Tokyo to Paris to Los Angeles speaks in one voice. All other opinions had been pushed out of mainstream discussion. It is good that we have the internet and sites like Unz Review that allow us to express our views. The problem is with delivery. How can we deliver to the public? The real mainstream media has so many more views and viewers! For them, hundreds of thousands or even millions of views are not unusual.

We need our social networks to deliver the ideas and exchange opinions, to inform readers of our publications, to convince and rally. In over-populated, nuclearized world, with family and neighbourhood ties torn, there is no substitute for these networks. And Facebook and Twitter could help us. Google could help us.

Alas, they betrayed us, too. The social networks

And not only for politics. They want to draw and implement their agenda on all topics disregarding our views.

[Jan 22, 2019] Unscrupulous reporting BuzzFeed's 'Russiagate' stories were constant source of controversy

Jan 22, 2019 | www.rt.com

BuzzFeed's credibility has been seemingly dented by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's recent dismissal of one of its 'Russiagate' stories. However, it is not the first time its stories on Russia raised flags or were proven false. The New York-based news outlet has been holding nothing back over the recent years as it diligently pressed the so-called 'Russiagate' narrative about a supposed collusion between the US President Donald Trump and Moscow. Its recent exploits, which claimed Trump told his ex-lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress to cover up some of his dealings with Russia, however, apparently led it a bit too far, as it earned a rebuke from the office of Robert Muller – the man in charge of the investigation into the very same alleged collusion, among other aspects of perceived Russia's meddling into the 2016 elections.

'After this I don't even know if I can trust Buzzfeed's cat listicles anymore' https://t.co/b4vyIKJAUL

-- RT (@RT_com) 19 января 2019 г.

The news sparked a wave of criticism on the social media, with many people saying that the news outlet's credibility is now discredited.

But was it that flawless before?

Buzzfeed was the first to publish the infamous Steele dossier – a report by an MI6 spy-turned-private investigator – which contained unverified allegations that Russia held information on Trump which it was using to blackmail the US president. It also alleged sustained and close working contacts between Trump aides and Kremlin representatives.

None of these allegations, which were used by the FBI as a reason for obtaining a spy warrant against Trump adviser Carter Page, have been proven as of now. Instead, it was revealed that the report was based on information fed through people close to Hillary Clinton – Trump's rival at the 2016 presidential elections.

Also on rt.com What evidence? BuzzFeed fuels 'Russiagate' with bombshell report on Trump and Cohen

Meanwhile, some of the reporters, who worked with the dossier, admitted that the document's claims are "likely false." Christopher Steele himself also revealed that one of his goals in compiling the report was to provide Clinton with a legal basis to challenge the 2016 election results.

The publication of the dossier has brought a string of defamation lawsuits not only against Steele but against BuzzFeed as well. The news media outlet was sued by the owners of a Russian Alfa Bank and a Russian tech expert Aleksey Gubarev who were all mentioned in the infamous dossier. At the same time, Trump's personal lawyer also filed a defamation lawsuit against the company for pushing the Steele report.

However, Buzzfeed apparently does hope to get away with it. In case of Gubarev, a US court already ruled in favor of the news outlet in December 2018, citing a "fair report privilege." The businessman earlier scolded the publication as "one of the most reckless and irresponsible moments in modern journalism."

Judge throws out defamation lawsuit against #BuzzFeed by Russian businessman #Steele dossier portrays as hacking mastermind https://t.co/ewWHub1C5p

-- RT (@RT_com) 20 декабря 2018 г.

Steele was the source of another controversial episode in the history of BuzzFeed's attempts to propagate the 'Russiagate' narrative. In March 2018, it claimed that the FBI was covering the true causes of the death of a Russian media tycoon in Washington in 2015.

Citing a "secret report " by Steele, it claimed the man was allegedly killed by associates of a Russian oligarch, who happens to be close to the Kremlin, the news outlet said. A sheer coincidence, apparently. It also did not bother to give any plausible explanation as to why the FBI, which did not hesitate to point a finger at Moscow in the past, would hide such information at all.

Anyway, the whole story was debunked just days later when the Metropolitan Police said the death of the tycoon was an accident. This fact did not get much attention in the West, though. Neither did it cool BuzzFeed's ardor in stirring up anti-Russian hysteria.

Like this story? Share it with a friend!

[Jan 22, 2019] Mounting a campaign against plutocracy makes as much sense to the typical Washington liberal as would circulating a petition against gravity.

Jan 22, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com

"Mounting a campaign against [financial] plutocracy makes as much sense to the typical Washington liberal as would circulating a petition against gravity.

What our modernized liberal leaders offer is not confrontation but a kind of therapy for those flattened by the free-market hurricane: they counsel us to accept the inevitability of the situation."

Thomas Frank, Rendezvous With Oblivion

[Jan 22, 2019] The French Anti-Neoliberal Revolution. On the conditions for its success by Dimitris Konstantakopoulos

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The French bourgeoisie is the politically most experienced ruling class in Europe. It has no illusions about the challenge it faces. Le Point put its file on the revolt of the vests under the self-telling title "What is waiting us". ..."
"... But it's not only the king who is naked. The whole system is naked. In the many pages devoted by the magazine to demonstrate that what the Vests want is unfeasible, not even a single serious word is written about what needs to be done to deal with the deep causes which led the French to revolt. Today's capitalism of Macron, Merkel and Trump does not produce a Roosevelt and New Deal or Popular Fronts – and we have to wait to see if it will produce a Hitler as some are trying to achieve. For the time being, it only produces Yellow Vests! ..."
"... In Oscar Wilde's masterpiece "The Picture of Dorian Gray", the main character looks every night at his horrible real self in the mirror. But he looks at it alone. ..."
"... This is where Macron made his most fatal mistake, being arrogant and markedly cut off from reality – with the confidence given to him by the mighty elite forces, which elected him and by his contempt of the common people which characterizes him. ..."
"... Observing Macron, the people understood what lied ahead for them. They felt their backs against the wall – they felt that they had only themselves to rely on, that they had to take themselves action to save themselves and their country. ..."
"... This was the decisive moment, the moment the historical mission of Macron was achieved . By establishing the most absolute control of Finance over Politics, he himself invited Revolution. His triumph and his tragedy came together. ..."
"... Many established "leftists" or "radical" intellectuals, who used to feverishly haul capitalism over the coals – although the last thing they really wanted was to experience a real revolution during their lifetime – they too, stand now frightened, looking at an angry Bucephalus running ahead of them. They prefer a stable capitalism, of which they can constitute its "consciousness", writing books, appearing on shows and giving lectures, analyzing its crises and explaining its tribulations. They idea that the People could at some point take seriously what they themselves said, never crossed their minds either! ..."
"... Today, four out of five French people disapprove of Macron's policies and one in two demands that he resigns immediately. We assume that this percentage is greater than the percentage of Russians who wanted the ousting of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917. ..."
"... France is currently almost in a state of Power Vacuum . The president and the government cannot in essence govern and the people cannot tolerate them. It is not a situation of dual power, but a situation of dual legitimacy , in Mélenchon 's accurate description. ..."
"... This is a typical definition of a revolutionary situation . As history teaches us, the emergence of such a situation is necessary but not sufficient condition for a victorious Revolution. What is required in or order to turn a rebellion into a potentially victorious Revolution, is a capable and decided leadership and an adequate strategy, program and vision. These elements do not seem to exist, at last not for now, in today's France, as they did not exist in May 1968 or during the Russian Revolution of February 1917. Therefore, the present situation remains open to all possible eventualities; there must be no doubt however, that this is the beginning of a period of intense political and class conflicts in Europe, and that the Europe, as we know it, is already history. ..."
"... Or at least, for the people to be given the opportunity to develop an effective way of controlling state power. ..."
"... By reversing Marx's famous formula in German Ideology , the ideas of the dominant class do not dominate society. This is why the situation can be described as revolutionary. ..."
"... Although it is difficult to form an opinion from afar about how the situation may unfold, the formation of a such a United Front from grassroots could perhaps offer a way out with regards to the need for a political leadership for the movement, or even of the need to work out a transitional economic program for France, which must also serve as a transitional program for Europe . ..."
"... Contrary to how things were a century ago, certain factors such as the educational level of the lower social classes, the existence of a number of critical, radical thinkers with the necessary intellectual skills and the Internet, render such a possibility a much more realistic scenario today, than in the past. ..."
Jan 14, 2019 | www.defenddemocracy.press

The magazine Le Point is one of the main media outlets of the French conservative "centre-right". One of its December issues carries the cover title France Faces its History. 1648, 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871 four centuries of revolutions.

The cover features also a painting by Pierre-Jérôme Lordon, showing people clashing with the army at Rue de Babylone , in Paris, during the Revolution of 1830. Perhaps this is where Luc Ferry, Chirac's former minister, got his idea from, when, two days ago, he asked the Army to intervene and the police to start shooting and killing Yellow Vests.

Do not be surprised if you haven't heard this from your TV or if you don't know that the level of police repression and violence in France, measured in people dead, injured and arrested, has exceeded everything the country has experienced since 1968. Nor should you wonder why you don't know anything about some Yellow Vest's new campaign calling for a massive run on French banks. Or why you have been lead you to believe that the whole thing is to do with fuel taxes or increasing minimum wage.

The vast majority of European media didn't even bother to communicate to their readers or viewers the main political demands of the Yellow Vests ; and certainly, there hasn't been any meaningful attempt to offer an insightful interpretation of what's happening in France and there is just very little serious on-the-ground reporting, in the villages and motorways of France.

Totalitarianism

Following Napoleon's defeat in Waterloo, European Powers formed the Holy Alliance banning Revolutions.

Nowadays, Revolutions have just been declared inconceivable (Soros – though not just him – has been giving a relentless fight to take them out of history textbooks or, as a minimum, to erase their significance and meaning). Since they are unthinkable they cannot happen. Since they cannot happen they do not happen.

In the same vein, European media sent their journalists out to the streets in Paris on Christmas and New Year's days, counted the protesters and found that they weren't too many after all. Of course they didn't count the 150,000 police and soldiers lined up by Macron on New Year's Eve. Then they made sure that they remain "impartial" and by just comparing numbers of protesters, led viewers to think that we are almost done with it – it was just a storm, it will pass.

The other day I read a whole page article about Europe in one of the most "serious" Greek newspapers, on 30.12. The author devoted just one single meaningless phrase about the Vests. Instead, the paper still found the way to include in the article the utterly stupid statement of a European Right-Wing politician who attributed the European crisis to the existence of Russia Today and Sputnik! And when I finally found a somewhat more serious article online about the developments in France, I realized that its only purpose was to convince us that what is happening in France surely has nothing to do with 1789 or 1968!

It is only a pity that the people concerned, the French themselves, cannot read in Greek. If they could, they would have realized that it does not make any sense to have "Revolution" written on their vests or to sing the 1789 song in their demonstrations or to organize symbolic ceremonies of the public "decapitation" of Macron, like Louis XV. And the French bourgeois press would not waste time everyday comparing what happens in the country now with what happened in 1968 and 1789.

Totalitarianism is not just a threat. It's already here. Simply it has omitted to announce its arrival. We have to deduce its precence from its results.

A terrified ruling class

The French bourgeoisie is the politically most experienced ruling class in Europe. It has no illusions about the challenge it faces. Le Point put its file on the revolt of the vests under the self-telling title "What is waiting us".

A few months ago, all we had about Macron in the papers was praise, inside and outside of France – he was the "rising star" of European politics, the man who managed to pass the "reforms" one after the other, no resistance could stop him, he would be the one to save and rebuild Europe. Varoufakis admired and supported him, as early as of the first round of the 2017 elections.

Now, the "chosen one" became a burden for those who put him in office. Some of them probably want to get rid of him as fast as they can, to replace him with someone else, but it's not easy – and even more so, it is not easy given the monarchical powers conferred by the French constitution to the President. The constitution is tailored to the needs of a President who wants to safeguard power from the people. Those who drafted it could not probably imagine it would make difficult for the Oligarchy also to fire him!

Read also: Scandaleux : le fondateur du parti fasciste ukrainien Svoboda reçu à l'Assemblée et au Sénat !

And who would dare to hold a parliamentary or presidential election in such a situation, as in France today? No one knows what could come out of it. Moreover, Macron does not have a party in the sense of political power. He has a federation of friends who benefit as long as he stays in power and they are damaged when he collapses.

The King is naked

"The King is naked", points out Le Point's editorial, before, with almost sadistic callousness, posing the question: "What can a government do when a remarkable section of the people vomits it?"

But it's not only the king who is naked. The whole system is naked. In the many pages devoted by the magazine to demonstrate that what the Vests want is unfeasible, not even a single serious word is written about what needs to be done to deal with the deep causes which led the French to revolt. Today's capitalism of Macron, Merkel and Trump does not produce a Roosevelt and New Deal or Popular Fronts – and we have to wait to see if it will produce a Hitler as some are trying to achieve. For the time being, it only produces Yellow Vests!

They predicted it, they saw it coming, but they didn't believe it!

Yet they could have predicted all that. It would have sufficed, had they only taken seriously and studied a book published in France in late 2016, six months before the presidential election, highlighting the explosive nature of the social situation and warning of the danger of revolution and civil war.

The title of the book was "Revolution". Its author was none other than Emmanuel Macron himself. Six months later, he would become the President of France, to eventually verify, and indeed rather spectacularly, his predictions. But the truth is probably, that not even he himself gave much credit to what he wrote just to win the election.

By constantly lying, politicians, journalists and intellectuals reasonably came to believe that even their own words are of no importance. That they can say and do anything they want, without any consequence.

In Oscar Wilde's masterpiece "The Picture of Dorian Gray", the main character looks every night at his horrible real self in the mirror. But he looks at it alone.

This is where Macron made his most fatal mistake, being arrogant and markedly cut off from reality – with the confidence given to him by the mighty elite forces, which elected him and by his contempt of the common people which characterizes him.

Unwise and Arrogant, he made no effort to hide – this is how sure he felt of himself, this is how convinced his environment was that he could infinitely go on doing anything he wanted without any consequences (same as our Tsipras). Thus, acting foolishly and arrogantly, he left a few million eyes to see his real face. This was the last straw that made the French people realize in a definite way what they had already started figuring out during Sarkozy's and Hollande's, administration, or even earlier. Observing Macron, the people understood what lied ahead for them. They felt their backs against the wall – they felt that they had only themselves to rely on, that they had to take themselves action to save themselves and their country.

There was nobody else to make it in their place.

Macron as a Provocateur. Terror in Pompeii

This was the decisive moment, the moment the historical mission of Macron was achieved . By establishing the most absolute control of Finance over Politics, he himself invited Revolution. His triumph and his tragedy came together.

It was just then, that Bucephalus (*) sprang from the depths of historical Memory, galloping without a rider, ready to sweep away everything in his path.

Now those in power look at him with fear, but fearful too are both the "radical right" and the "radical left". Le Pen has already called on protesters to return to their homes and give her names to include in her list for the European election!

Mélenchon supports the Vests – 70% of their demands coincide with the program of his party, La France Insoumise – but so far he hasn't dared to join the people in demanding Macron's resignation, by adopting the immense, but orphan, cry of the people heard all over France: "Macron resign". Perhaps he feels that he hasn't got the steely strength and willpower required for attempting to lead such a movement.

The unions' leadership is doing everything it can to keep the working class away from the Vests, but this stand started causing increasing unrest at its base.

Read also: Macron Prepares a Social War

Many established "leftists" or "radical" intellectuals, who used to feverishly haul capitalism over the coals – although the last thing they really wanted was to experience a real revolution during their lifetime – they too, stand now frightened, looking at an angry Bucephalus running ahead of them. They prefer a stable capitalism, of which they can constitute its "consciousness", writing books, appearing on shows and giving lectures, analyzing its crises and explaining its tribulations. They idea that the People could at some point take seriously what they themselves said, never crossed their minds either!

In fact, this is also a further confirmation of the depth of the movement. Lenin , who, in any event knew something about revolutions, wrote in 1917: "In a revolutionary situation, the Party is a hundred times farther to the left than the Central Committee and the workers a hundred times farther to the left than the Party."

"Revolutionary Situation" and Power Vacuum

Today, four out of five French people disapprove of Macron's policies and one in two demands that he resigns immediately. We assume that this percentage is greater than the percentage of Russians who wanted the ousting of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917.

France is currently almost in a state of Power Vacuum . The president and the government cannot in essence govern and the people cannot tolerate them. It is not a situation of dual power, but a situation of dual legitimacy , in Mélenchon 's accurate description.

This is a typical definition of a revolutionary situation . As history teaches us, the emergence of such a situation is necessary but not sufficient condition for a victorious Revolution. What is required in or order to turn a rebellion into a potentially victorious Revolution, is a capable and decided leadership and an adequate strategy, program and vision. These elements do not seem to exist, at last not for now, in today's France, as they did not exist in May 1968 or during the Russian Revolution of February 1917. Therefore, the present situation remains open to all possible eventualities; there must be no doubt however, that this is the beginning of a period of intense political and class conflicts in Europe, and that the Europe, as we know it, is already history.

People's Sovereignty at the center of demands

Starting from fuel tax the revolting French have now put at the centre of their demands, in addition to Macron's resignation, the following:

In other words, they demand a profound and radical " transformation " of the Western bourgeois-democratic regime, as we know it, towards a form of direct democracy in order to take back the state, which has gradually and in a totalitarian manner – but while keeping up democratic appearances – passed under direct and full control of the Financial Capital and its employees. Or at least, for the people to be given the opportunity to develop an effective way of controlling state power.

These are not the demands of a fun-club of Protagoras or of some left-wing or right-wing groupuscule propagating Self-Management or of some club of intellectuals. Nor are they the demands of only the lowest social strata of the French nation.

They are supported, according to the polls and put forward by at least three quarters of French citizens, including a sizeable portion of the less poor. In such circumstances, these demands constitute in effect the Will of the People, the Will of the Nation.

The Vests are nothing more than its fighting pioneers. And precisely because it is the absolute majority of people who align with these demands, even if numbers have somewhat gone down since the beginning of December, the Vests are still wanted out on the streets.

By reversing Marx's famous formula in German Ideology , the ideas of the dominant class do not dominate society. This is why the situation can be described as revolutionary.

And also because it is not only the President and the Government, who have been debunked or at least de-legitimized, but it's also the whole range of state and political institutions, the parties, the unions, the "information" media and the "ideologists" of the regime.

The questioning of the establishment is so profound that any arguments about violence and the protesters do not weaken society's support for them. Many, but not all, condemn violence, but there are not many who don't go on immediately to add a reminder of the regime's social violence against the people. When a famous ex-boxer lost his temper and reacted by punching a number of violent police officers, protesters set up a fundraising website for his legal fees. In just two hours they managed to raise around 120.000 euro, before removing the page over officials' complaints and threats about keeping a file on anyone who contributes money to support such causes.

Read also: Greece: Creditors out to crush any trace of Syriza disobedience

Until now, an overwhelming majority of the French people supports the demands while an absolute majority shows supports for the demonstrations; but of course, it is difficult to keep such a deadlock and power-void situation going for long. They will sooner or later demand a solution, and in situations such as these it is often the case that public opinion shifts rapidly from the one end of the political spectrum to the other and vice versa, depending on which force appears to be more decisive and capable of driving society out of the crisis.

The organization of the Movement

Because the protesters have no confidence in the parties, the trade unions, or anyone else for that matter, they are driven out of necessity into self-organization, as they already do with the Citizens' Assemblies that are now emerging in villages, cities and motorway camps. Indeed, by the end of the month, if everything goes well, they will hold the first " Assembly of Assemblies ".

Similar developments have also been observed in many revolutionary movements of this kind in various countries. A classic example is the spontaneous formation of the councils ( Soviets ) during the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917.

Although it is difficult to form an opinion from afar about how the situation may unfold, the formation of a such a United Front from grassroots could perhaps offer a way out with regards to the need for a political leadership for the movement, or even of the need to work out a transitional economic program for France, which must also serve as a transitional program for Europe .

Contrary to how things were a century ago, certain factors such as the educational level of the lower social classes, the existence of a number of critical, radical thinkers with the necessary intellectual skills and the Internet, render such a possibility a much more realistic scenario today, than in the past.

Because the movement's Achilles' Heel is that, while it is already in the process of forming a political proposition, it still, at least for now, does not offer any economic alternative or a politically structured, democratically controlled leadership.

Effective Democracy is an absolute requirement in such a front, because it is the only way to synthesize the inevitably different levels of consciousness within the People and to avoid a split of the movement between "left" and "right", between those who are ready to resort to violence to achieve their ends and those who have a preference for more peaceful, gradual processes.

Such a " front " could perhaps also serve as a platform for solidifying a program and vision, to which the various parties and political organizations could contribute.

In her Critique of the Russian Revolution Rosa Luxemburg , the leader of the German Social Democracy was overly critical of the Bolsheviks , even if, I think, a bit too severe in some points. But she closes her critique with the phrase: " They at least dared "

Driven by absolute Need, guided by the specific way its historical experience has formed its consciousness, possessing a Surplus of Consciousness, that is able to feel the unavoidable conclusions coming out of the synthesis of the information we all possess, about both the "quality" of the forces governing our world and the enormous dangers threatening our countries and mankind, the French People, the French Nation has already crossed the Rubicon.

By moving practically to achieve their goals at a massive scale, and regardless of what is to come next, the French people has already made a giant leap up and forward and, once more in its history, it became the world's forerunner in tackling the terrible economic, ecological, nuclear and technological threats against human civilization and its survival.

Without the conscious entry of large masses into the historical scene, with all the dangers and uncertainties that such a thing surely implies, one can hardly imagine how humanity will survive.

Note

(*) Bucephalus was the horse of Alexander the Great, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucephalus

[Jan 21, 2019] Anti-Trump Frenzy Threatens to End Superpower Diplomacy by Stephen F. Cohen

The problem is not Russia; the problem is the crisis of neoliberalism in the USA. And related legitimization of neoliberal elite, which now Deep State is trying ot patch with anti-Russian hysteria
Notable quotes:
"... That is, in the modern history of US-Russian summits, we are told by a former American ambassador who knows, the "secrecy of presidential private meetings has been the rule, not the exception." He continues, "There's nothing unusual about withholding information from the bureaucracy about the president's private meetings with foreign leaders . Sometimes they would dictate a memo afterward, sometimes not." Indeed, President Richard Nixon, distrustful of the US "bureaucracy," sometimes met privately with Kremlin leader Leonid Brezhnev while only Brezhnev's translator was present. ..."
Jan 16, 2019 | www.thenation.com

Baseless Russiagate allegations continue to risk war with Russia. Anti-Trump Frenzy Threatens to End Superpower Diplomacy | The Nation The New Year has brought a torrent of ever-more-frenzied allegations that President Donald Trump has long had a conspiratorial relationship -- why mince words and call it "collusion"? -- with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.

Why the frenzy now? Perhaps because Russiagate promoters in high places are concerned that special counsel Robert Mueller will not produce the hoped-for "bombshell" to end Trump's presidency. Certainly, New York Times columnist David Leonhardt seems worried, demanding, "The president must go," his drop line exhorting, "What are we waiting for?" (In some countries, articles like his, and there are very many, would be read as calling for a coup.) Perhaps to incite Democrats who have now taken control of House investigative committees. Perhaps simply because Russiagate has become a political-media cult that no facts, or any lack of evidence, can dissuade or diminish.

And there is no new credible evidence, preposterous claims notwithstanding. One of The New York Times ' own recent "bombshells," published on January 12, reported, for example, that in spring 2017, FBI officials "began investigating whether [President Trump] had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests." None of the three reporters bothered to point out that those "agents and officials" almost certainly included ones later reprimanded and retired by the FBI itself for their political biases. (As usual, the Times buried its self-protective disclaimer deep in the story: "No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials.")

Whatever the explanation, the heightened frenzy is unmistakable, leading the "news" almost daily in the synergistic print and cable media outlets that have zealously promoted Russiagate for more than two years, in particular the Times , The Washington Post , MSNBC, CNN, and their kindred outlets. They have plenty of eager enablers, including the once-distinguished Strobe Talbott, President Bill Clinton's top adviser on Russia and until recently president of the Brookings Institution. According to Talbott , "We already know that the Kremlin helped put Trump into the White House and played him for a sucker . Trump has been colluding with a hostile Russia throughout his presidency." In fact, we do not "know" any of this. These remain merely widely disseminated suspicions and allegations.

In this cult-like commentary, the "threat" of "a hostile Russia" must be inflated along with charges against Trump. (In truth, Russia represents no threat to the United States that Washington itself did not provoke since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.) For its own threat inflation, the Times featured not an expert with any plausible credentials but Lisa Page, the former FBI lawyer with no known Russia expertise, and who was one of those reprimanded by the agency for anti-Trump political bias. Nonetheless, the Times quotes Page at length : "In the Russian Federation and in President Putin himself you have an individual whose aim is to disrupt the Western alliance and whose aim is to make Western democracy more fractious in order to weaken our ability to spread our democratic ideals." Perhaps we should have guessed that the democracy-promotion genes of J. Edgar Hoover were still alive and breeding in the FBI, though for the Times , in its exploitation of the hapless and legally endangered Page, it seems not to matter.

Which brings us, or rather Russiagate zealots, to the heightened "threat" represented by "Putin's Russia." If true, we would expect the US president to negotiate with the Kremlin leader, including at summit meetings, as every president since Dwight Eisenhower has done. But, we are told, we cannot trust Trump to do so, because, according to The Washington Post , he has repeatedly met with Putin alone, with only translators present, and concealed the records of their private talks, sure signs of "treasonous" behavior, as the Russiagate media first insisted following the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki in July 2018.

It's hard to know whether this is historical ignorance or Russiagate malice, though it is probably both. In any event, the truth is very different. In preparing US-Russian (Soviet and post-Soviet) summits since the 1950s, aides on both sides have arranged "private time" for their bosses for two essential reasons: so they can develop sufficient personal rapport to sustain any policy partnership they decide on; and so they can alert one another to constraints on their policy powers at home, to foes of such détente policies often centered in their respective intelligence agencies. (The KGB ran operations against Nikita Khrushchev's détente policies with Eisenhower, and, as is well established, US intelligence agencies have run operations against Trump's proclaimed goal of "cooperation with Russia.")

That is, in the modern history of US-Russian summits, we are told by a former American ambassador who knows, the "secrecy of presidential private meetings has been the rule, not the exception." He continues, "There's nothing unusual about withholding information from the bureaucracy about the president's private meetings with foreign leaders . Sometimes they would dictate a memo afterward, sometimes not." Indeed, President Richard Nixon, distrustful of the US "bureaucracy," sometimes met privately with Kremlin leader Leonid Brezhnev while only Brezhnev's translator was present.

Nor should we forget the national-security benefits that have come from private meetings between US and Kremlin leaders. In October 1986, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met alone with their translators and an American official who took notes -- the two leaders, despite their disagreements, agreed in principle that nuclear weapons should be abolished. The result, in 1987, was the first and still only treaty abolishing an entire category of such weapons, the exceedingly dangerous intermediate-range ones. (This is the historic treaty Trump has said he may abrogate.)

And yet, congressional zealots are now threatening to subpoena the American translator who was present during Trump's meetings with Putin. If this recklessness prevails, it will be the end of the nuclear-superpower summit diplomacy that has helped to keep America and the world safe from catastrophic war for nearly 70 years -- and as a new, more perilous nuclear arms race between the two countries is unfolding. It will amply confirm a thesis set out in my book War with Russia? -- that anti-Trump Russiagate allegations have become the gravest threat to our security.

The following correction and clarification were made to the original version of this article on January 17: Reagan and Gorbachev met privately with translators during their summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986, not February, and Reagan was also accompanied by an American official who took notes. And it would be more precise to say that the two leaders, despite their disagreements, agreed in principle that nuclear weapons should be abolished.

Stephen F. Cohen is professor emeritus of politics and Russian studies at Princeton and NYU and author of the new book War with Russia? From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate . This commentary is based on the most recent of his weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War with the host of the John Batchelor radio show. (The podcast is here . Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at TheNation.com . )

[Jan 21, 2019] Beyond BuzzFeed The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing US Media Failures On The Trump-Russia Story by Glenn Greenwald

Highly recommended!
Jan 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Glenn Greenwald via The Intercept,

Buzzfeed was once notorious for traffic-generating "listicles" , but has since become an impressive outlet for deep investigative journalism under editor-in-chief Ben Smith. That outlet was prominently in the news this week thanks to its "bombshell" story about President Trump and Michael Cohen: a story that, like so many others of its kind, blew up in its face , this time when the typically mute Robert Mueller's office took the extremely rare step to label its key claims "inaccurate."

But in homage to BuzzFeed's past viral glory, following are the top ten worst media failures in two-plus-years of Trump/Russia reporting. They are listed in reverse order, as measured by the magnitude of the embarrassment, the hysteria they generated on social media and cable news, the level of journalistic recklessness that produced them, and the amount of damage and danger they caused. This list was extremely difficult to compile in part because news outlets (particularly CNN and MSNBC) often delete from the internet the video segments of their most embarrassing moments. Even more challenging was the fact that the number of worthy nominees is so large that highly meritorious entrees had to be excluded, but are acknowledged at the end with (dis)honorable mention status.

Note that all of these "errors" go only in one direction: namely, exaggerating the grave threat posed by Moscow and the Trump circle's connection to it. It's inevitable that media outlets will make mistakes on complex stories. If that's being done in good faith, one would expect the errors would be roughly 50/50 in terms of the agenda served by the false stories. That is most definitely not the case here. Just as was true in 2002 and 2003, when the media clearly wanted to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and thus all of its "errors" went in that direction, virtually all of its major "errors" in this story are devoted to the same agenda and script:

10. RT Hacked Into and Took Over C-SPAN (Fortune)

On June 12, 2017, Fortune claimed that RT had hacked into and taken over C-SPAN and that C-SPAN "confirmed" it had been hacked. The whole story was false :

9. Russian Hackers Invaded the U.S. Electricity Grid to Deny Vermonters Heat During the Winter (WashPost)

On December 30, 2016, the Washington Post reported that "Russian hackers penetrated the U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont," causing predictable outrage and panic, along with threats from U.S. political leaders. But then they kept diluting the story with editor's notes – to admit that the malware was found on a laptop not connected to the U.S. electric grid at all – until finally acknowledging, days later, that the whole story was false, since the malware had nothing to do with Russia or with the U.S. electric grid:

8. A New, Deranged, Anonymous Group Declares Mainstream Political Sites on the Left and Right to be Russian Propaganda Outlets and WashPost Touts its Report to Claim Massive Kremlin Infiltration of the Internet (WashPost)

On November 24, 2016, the Washington Post published one of the most inflammatory, sensationalistic stories to date about Russian infiltration into U.S. politics using social media, accusing "more than 200 websites" of being "routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season, with combined audiences of at least 15 million Americans." It added: "stories planted or promoted by the disinformation campaign [on Facebook] were viewed more than 213 million times."

Unfortunately for the paper, those statistics were provided by a new, anonymous group that reached these conclusions by classifying long-time, well-known sites – from the Drudge Report to Clinton-critical left-wing websites such as Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Truthdig, and Naked Capitalism, as well as libertarian venues such as Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul Institute. – as "Russian propaganda outlets," producing one of the longest Editor's Note in memory appended to the top of the article (but not until two weeks later , long after the story was mindlessly spread all throughout the media ecosystem):

7. Trump Aide Anthony Scaramucci is Involved in a Russian Hedge Fund Under Senate Investigation (CNN)

On June 22, 2017, CNN reported that Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci was involved with the Russian Direct Investment Fund, under Senate investigation. He was not. CNN retracted the story and forced the three reporters who published it to leave the network.

6. Russia Attacked U.S. "Diplomats" (i.e. Spies) at the Cuban Embassy Using a Super-Sophisticated Sonic Microwave Weapon (NBC/MSNBC/CIA)

On September 11, 2017, NBC News and MSNBC spread all over its airwaves a claim from its notorious CIA puppet Ken Dilanian that Russia was behind a series of dastardly attacks on U.S. personnel at the Embassy in Cuba using a sonic or microwave weapon so sophisticated and cunning that Pentagon and CIA scientists had no idea what to make of it.

But then teams of neurologists began calling into doubt that these personnel had suffered any brain injuries at all – that instead they appear to have experienced collective psychosomatic symptoms – and then biologists published findings that the "strange sounds" the U.S. "diplomats" reported hearing were identical to those emitted by a common Caribbean male cricket during mating season.

5. Trump Created a Secret Internet Server to Covertly Communicate with a Russian Bank (Slate)

4. Paul Manafort Visited Julian Assange Three Times in the Ecuadorian Embassy and Nobody Noticed (Guardian/Luke Harding)

On November 27, 2018, the Guardian published a major "bombshell" that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort had somehow managed to sneak inside one of the world's most surveilled buildings, the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and visit Julian Assange on three different occasions. Cable and online commentators exploded.

Seven weeks later, no other media outlet has confirmed this ; no video or photographic evidence has emerged; the Guardian refuses to answer any questions; its leading editors have virtually gone into hiding; other media outlets have expressed serious doubts about its veracity; and an Ecuadorian official who worked at the embassy has called the story a complete fake:

3. CNN Explicitly Lied About Lanny Davis Being Its Source – For a Story Whose Substance Was Also False: Cohen Would Testify that Trump Knew in Advance About the Trump Tower Meeting (CNN)

On July 27, 2018, CNN published a blockbuster story : that Michael Cohen was prepared to tell Robert Mueller that President Trump knew in advanced about the Trump Tower meeting. There were, however, two problems with this story: first, CNN got caught blatantly lying when its reporters claimed that "contacted by CNN, one of Cohen's attorneys, Lanny Davis, declined to comment" (in fact, Davis was one of CNN's key sources, if not its only source, for this story), and second, numerous other outlets retracted the story after the source, Davis, admitted it was a lie. CNN, however, to this date has refused to do either:

2. Robert Mueller Possesses Internal Emails and Witness Interviews Proving Trump Directed Cohen to Lie to Congress (BuzzFeed)

1. Donald Trump Jr. Was Offered Advanced Access to the WikiLeaks Email Archive (CNN/MSNBC)

The morning of December 9, 2017, launched one of the most humiliating spectacles in the history of the U.S. media. With a tone so grave and bombastic that it is impossible to overstate, CNN went on the air and announced a major exclusive: Donald Trump, Jr. was offered by email advanced access to the trove of DNC and Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks – meaning before those emails were made public. Within an hour, MSNBC's Ken Dilanian, using a tone somehow even more unhinged, purported to have "independently confirmed" this mammoth, blockbuster scoop, which, they said, would have been the smoking gun showing collusion between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks over the hacked emails (while the YouTube clips have been removed, you can still watch one of the amazing MSNBC videos here ).

There was, alas, just one small problem with this massive, blockbuster story: it was totally and completely false. The email which Trump, Jr. received that directed him to the WikiLeaks archive was sent after WikiLeaks published it online for the whole world to see, not before. Rather than some super secretive operative giving Trump, Jr. advanced access, as both CNN and MSNBC told the public for hours they had confirmed, it was instead just some totally pedestrian message from a random member of the public suggesting Trump, Jr. review documents the whole world was already talking about. All of the anonymous sources CNN and MSNBC cited somehow all got the date of the email wrong.

To date, when asked how they both could have gotten such a massive story so completely wrong in the same way, both CNN and MSNBC have adopted the posture of the CIA by maintaining complete silence and refusing to explain how it could possibly be that all of their "multiple, independent sources" got the date wrong on the email in the same way, to be as incriminating – and false – as possible. Nor, needless to say, will they identify their sources who, in concert, fed them such inflammatory and utterly false information.

Sadly, CNN and MSNBC have deleted most traces of the most humiliating videos from the internet, including demanding that YouTube remove copies. But enough survives to document just what a monumental, horrifying, and utterly inexcusable debacle this was. Particularly amazing is the clip of the CNN reporter (see below) having to admit the error for the first time, as he awkwardly struggles to pretend that it's not the massive, horrific debacle that it so obviously is:

Dishonorable Mention:

Special mention:

As I've said many times, the U.S. media has become quite adept at expressing extreme indignation when people criticize them; when politicians conclude that it is advantageous to turn the U.S. media into their main adversary; and when people turn to "fake news" sites.

If, however, they were willing to devote just a small fraction of that energy to examining their own conduct, perhaps they would develop the tools necessary to combat those problems instead of just denouncing their critics and angrily demanding that politicians and news consumers accord them the respect to which they believe they are entitled.

[Jan 20, 2019] In fact, we don't have a real democracy anymore. We have a Potemkin Village democracy.

Notable quotes:
"... In addition, Trump is a pretend President. He doesn't control his own government. Hell, a single judge anywhere in the hinterlands evidently has the power to veto pretty much whatever the Trumpster does. It's clear that the real power resides in the hands of the Ruling Class, most of whom are unelected and unaccountable. Judges. Bureaucrats. Regulators. The Deep State. They now run the show. ..."
Jan 20, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Gerard January 17, 2019 at 3:12 pm

Great article and right on target. In fact, we don't have a real democracy anymore. We have a Potemkin Village democracy. Our national legislature is paralyzed and impotent. And honestly, that's the way its membership likes it. Pretend to govern. Hold tight to the seats of privilege and status.

In addition, Trump is a pretend President. He doesn't control his own government. Hell, a single judge anywhere in the hinterlands evidently has the power to veto pretty much whatever the Trumpster does. It's clear that the real power resides in the hands of the Ruling Class, most of whom are unelected and unaccountable. Judges. Bureaucrats. Regulators. The Deep State. They now run the show.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media plays the role of Orwell's Squealer the Pig from Animal Farm. Propagandists. Purveyors of fake news and fake truth. This is not going to end well. The only question is how and when the ending comes.

[Jan 17, 2019] The farcical DNC leadership echoes the days of Brezhnev's intransigent politburo

Jan 17, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

TempsdesRoses , 15 Jan 2019 08:47

Yep,
The party has circled its wagons.
They insist that the Evil Vlad stole the last election.
Therefore, no need to examine Obama's centrist/neoliberal policies and the socio-economic conditions that fueled the rejection of Hillary.
We're doomed to repeat our errors.

The farcical DNC leadership echoes the days of Brezhnev's intransigent politburo.

Brassic , 15 Jan 2019 08:21
Excellent article. Thank you.

This is the realistic perspective we have to adopt in the US: the Democratic establishment is part of the neoliberal machinery that has generated Bush's wars, Obama's bank bailouts, deportations, and drone executions, and now Trump's anti-democratic populism.

[Jan 17, 2019] In regards to the Hillary v Bernie question, it also didn't help that the primary vote was wildly skewed by so-called 'superdelegates,' who don't actually commit their votes until the DNC convention

Notable quotes:
"... Bernie's bid was crushed by Clinton's superdelegates. No amount of throwing money against him in the direct sense was doing any good. He took popular positions on issues and stubbornly stayed on-message. ..."
Jan 17, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

cagnusdei -> cagnusdei , 15 Jan 2019 10:53

In regards to the Hillary v Bernie question, it also didn't help that the primary vote was wildly skewed by so-called 'superdelegates,' who don't actually commit their votes until the DNC convention, but were being counted by the media as having already voted for Hillary, which made it appear to many of the uninformed that Bernie didn't have any chance of winning, which may have been intended to keep Bernie supporters home on primary day under the assumption that Hillary was unbeatable.
ehmaybe -> HobbesianWorlds , 15 Jan 2019 10:52
As sensible as your suggestions may be, what you're calling for would require at least three constitutional amendments to be practical - including scrapping the first amendment.

Maybe we should strive towards attainable goals instead?

cagnusdei -> lullu616 , 15 Jan 2019 10:50
Didn't help that the ostensibly neutral DNC was sending emails saying that they should play up Bernie Sanders' Jewish faith (among other attack strategies), fed debate questions to the Clinton campaign or tried to limit opportunities for Bernie and Hillary to share a stage together.

Bernie Sanders is widely considered by many to be one of the most popular American politicians, more than Trump and certainly more popular than Hillary. I think an interesting phenomenon to notice is the lengths the GOP, in particular, will go to in order to convince the average voter that anything that cuts taxes is inherently good for the 'little guy,' while anything that raises taxes is bad. Trump's recent tax cuts are a good example. Most of the actual cuts go toward the corporations and ultra-wealthy, which just increases the deficit while shifting the proportion of taxes paid onto the middle class. It's a con that many Americans are inexplicably susceptible to believing, for some reason.

ConBrio -> cnzewi , 15 Jan 2019 10:45

Progressive believe in inclusion and if that is "moralistic rhetoric" then so be it.

The litany goes "round and round.

Hillary Clinton:

" you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it!

"Barack Obama:

"Referring to working-class voters in old industrial towns decimated by job losses, the presidential hopeful said: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion "

There's liberal "inclusion" for you!

memo10 -> GRBnative , 15 Jan 2019 10:34
Bernie's bid was crushed by Clinton's superdelegates. No amount of throwing money against him in the direct sense was doing any good. He took popular positions on issues and stubbornly stayed on-message.

[Jan 17, 2019] The Coke or Pepsi and parties is a perfect corporatist arrangement, which guarantee filtering out any opposition to the oligarchy in 99 percent of elections

Only a severe political crisi can shake this "controlled duopoly" of the US coporatism.
Jan 16, 2019 | theguardian.com

William Williamson, 15 Jan 2019 10:38

Well put. All the USA has is Coke or Pepsi. With a lot of masquerading in between. A couple people who aren't on THE payroll, or wanting to be.
MyGenericUsername , 15 Jan 2019 07:38
Half of Americans don't bother voting for president. Why is the American media full only of people who insist that the country is divided in half between Democrat and Republican supporters? Where are the people of influence who think it's a problem and reflects poorly on the country that half of eligible voters don't see a reason to participate, and that it's worth changing things in order to get more people to change their minds about that?

Both parties are content with being unpopular, but with political mechanisms ensuring they stay in power anyway. The Democrats aren't concerned with being popular. They're content with being a token opposition party that every once in a while gets a few token years with power they don't put to any good anyway. It pays more, I guess.

CanSoc , 15 Jan 2019 07:34
It still looks like if Americans want to live in a progressive country, they'll have to move to one. But as it is clear that the neoliberalism of establishment Democrats has little or nothing to offer the poor and working class, or to non-wealthy millennials, the times they are a-changing.

[Jan 16, 2019] The travesty of the US elections

These corporate-Dem candidates are not being forced to sell out to win elections. Quite the opposite in fact. They are risking losing their elections for the sake of selling out.
Jan 16, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

BaronVonAmericano , 15 Jan 2019 07:54

Surely, many will comment that Democrats have no choice but to take the money in order to be competitive. I have one truism for such folks to ponder: Why would you trust your allegiance to those who don't care if you win?

Basic logic: rich people win the general election either way, so long as the primary-winning Democrat is in their pocket (the GOP is always on their side). So this monetary affection is certainly more about fixing an no-lose general than it is about ousting Trump, or any Republican.

[Jan 14, 2019] Liars, Leakers, and Liberals The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy by Jeanine Pirro

Jan 14, 2019 | www.amazon.com

Kenneth LeBeau 5.0 out of 5 stars Mueller Russia Probe is a witch hunt! September 2, 2018 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

Very accurate review of the agenda aimed at overturning the results of the Election of 2016. The Deep State is exposed. Corruption, deceit, bias at the upper levels of the FBI, CIA, Department of Justice, Clinton Foundation & how they attempted to undermine the President of the U.S.

[Jan 14, 2019] The Deep State How an Army of Bureaucrats Protected Barack Obama and Is Working to Destroy the Trump Agenda

OK, now Russiagate reached the level when books are written about it ;-). It is clear to any non-biased observer that a color revolution was launched against Trump by the Deep State using their stooges in Depart of Justice and FBI (Rosenstein and FBI cabal). Probably coordinated by Brennan, to who essentially McCabe and Strzok reported.
All pretention of democracy and due legal procedure were thrown into the garbage can with amazing ease. And Witch hunt was unleashed on such a scale that it would make Staling propagandists during Show Trials to blush.
It would be interesting to read a book detailing Great Britain interference and MI6 story about Steele dossier, though. See The British Role In Initiating Russiagate Shift Frequency
Jan 14, 2019 | www.amazon.com

Serenity... TOP 100 REVIEWER 4.0 out of 5 stars ~~ September 18, 2018 Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

Transparency/Checks and Balances/Civil Service Reform

First of all, I am neither a Republican or a Democrat. I have voted on the qualifications of the candidates since I was first eligible. Many years ago many. I have voted in every single election except for this last Presidential one. And, many by absentee ballot as I served 20 years in the United States Navy and am now a proud retired USN Chief Petty Officer. Notice I said except for this last election .I absolutely could not vote for either candidate.

Why? My main objection to voting for Clinton was her handling of the emails. My career in the US Navy involved handling classified material on a daily basis. And, a Top Secret clearance for the last 6 of my 20 years. And, these clearances were not given out freely. From receipt of the message to the destruction, every single step every one was recorded and upon destruction, two witnesses were required. I had more reservations about voting for her but the mishandling of the emails was the major one.

As for voting for Trump, I just could not force myself to vote for him.. Enough said.

I ordered this book to see what Jason Chaffetz , Former Congressman and Chairman of the House Oversight Committee had to say about the state of affairs in the US. To paraphrase the author the Deep State exists to control information available to the American public. They don't like exposure, accountability or responsibility in their tactics.

The Transportation Security Agency, the Secret Service, Whistle Blowers, the Veterans Administration problems including Phoenix, AZ, Fast and Furious scandal, illegal immigration (including catch and release), the Benghazi attack and many more topics are covered.

The Freedom of Information Act (1966) was detailed in depth including the 9 exceptions to this act. Requests doubled during the O'Bama Presidency and many requests were denied. It also appears that this is one area that needs to be reformed. And, along with that comes much more transparency in our government.

One thing I have never understood is the reason that it is so difficult to fire government employees. I did work for 3 agencies after I retired from the US Navy and found it mind boggling that it was nearly impossible. If one was fired, the Merit Protection Board stepped in to assist. The entire system of Federal Employees should be overhauled, in my opinion. And, the number of Federal employees not paying their taxes continues to increase...

Bottom line is that despite the checks and balances in the Congress, they are not being utilized. Our faith in government is gone and without faith, our nation is suffering.

After reading this, my eyes have been opened in many areas. Do I believe a Deep State exists in the US? Yes, I do. The author provides many, many examples which are backed up with statistics. Time to do major overhaul and put more transparency back in our government.

Wanted to edit by adding a few sentences...My AHA moment was when the author went with LCOL Wood (Utah National Guard) on 12 SEP 2012 to visit Benghazi. Jeremy Freeman was present and representing FOIA. He was denied access to a meeting due to his security clearance not being high enough. Who did he call to try and gain access in the middle of the night? Cheryl Mills, Hillary Clinton's assistant. . Didn't work as access was still denied. What was this about? It was explained in 'The Deep State'.

Highly recommended.

Note:

Nearly the last 20 % on my Kindle were acknowledgements and an Index. It was stated that the 'index does not match the edition from which it was created'. So, use the search tools for your E book instead.

Hawkeye 5.0 out of 5 stars September 27, 2018 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

Feckless Congressional oversight!

This very well written, easy to read for all, book is a composition of several stories of what should be routine successful United States Congressional oversight over the last 10 years that has allow an administration to defaecate on the rule of law. In my six years in "The Swamp" I did not meet with Mr. Chaffetz but I appreciated his speaking, now writing style, and the wit that comes across in this publication.

I ordered this book last month to hear Jason Chaffetz's, Former Congressman and Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, story regarding the state of affairs of congress during the Obama Regime. To paraphrase the author the Deep State exists to control information available to the American public. They dislike "Sunshine which is the best disinfectant", accountability or responsibility in their tactics which we are seeing exposed every night for the last 2 years!

The book confirms my impressions and experience of the existence of the deep state and the governmental groups that continue to take advantage of the American taxpayer. Chaffetz provides examples where the Deep State continues to impede progress and efficiency within the US Government. He presents congress as a "Paper Tiger" with impotent and absent oversight due to a growing government. The Obama Administration had its way with congress for eight long years probably due to the poor leadership at the top, John Boehner and Paul Ryan, which allowed and undermined the authority of congress to provide oversight (US Code 192).

Chapter eight regarding Benghazi Terrorist Attack which the president, secretary of state, and the UN ambassador outright lied is very disturbing. It is a prime example of how government agencies block and distort the truth from the American peoples' representatives. If today with almost 350 million inhabitants in the country and a government three times the size of the 1960's The Deep State can successfully manipulate the events of the last ten years and the present resist movement on the Trump agenda; with a smaller government The Deep State could have conspired to assassinate our 35th president.

In several places in the book I noticed the author's animus with government employees earning more that the legislators which was my experience and exposed to during my times in and out of government. The guide in the last chapter on how to fight the Deep State is laid out with sound logic and common sense. If congress is too small as the author states to deal with this government expansion, then allow an outside agent as Judicial Watch (who seems to be more effective) perform the oversight under contract! Thank God for Jason Chaffetz for writing this must read for every taxpayer.

Aletheuo 5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Fantastic October 3, 2018 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

This is a GREAT book for our times. Chaffetz did this country a GREAT service by writing about his first hand knowledge on how the Deep State is destroying the United States. The book is super easy to read and very interesting, so practically anyone can understand it and "enjoy" it. Some of the things that he shares/exposes follow (it's all in the book):
1. The unaccountable Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created by Elizabeth Warren and her minions was "purposely designed to bypass Congress, checks, and balances, and oversight. It is funded by the Federal Reserve," which means Congress can't cut its purse strings. What does the CFPB spend its money on? No one knows, because they aren't accountable to anyone and yet the CFPB is one of the larger government agencies. This agency needs to be shut down.
2. David Nieland (DHS inspector general's office) admitted that he and his staff were directed to delay the report of the investigation of the Secret Services trysts with prostitutes in foreign countries until after the 2012 election.
3. The DOJ refuses to accept cases of contempt of Congress unless they happen to agree with the case. Furthermore, they refuse to investigate and charge Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, Lois Lerner and other corrupt individuals. These people got off scot-free with pensions and no punishments for crimes committed.
4. John Koskinen misled and lied to Congress and got off scot-free (page 90).
5. The State Department sent a "spy" to watch over and listen to former Congressman Chaffetz' overseas investigation into the Benghazi incident. This man, Jeremy Freeman, did not have the security clearance to sit in on some of the briefings, which ultimately led to a confrontation. Freeman was apparently reporting back to Clinton and her staff so that they could be aware of what information might be made public which would counter their spin (remember Rice's false claim that the Benghazi incident was entirely cause by a You Tube video).
6. The State Dept. abandoned the American heroes from Benghazi and left them overseas (page 125) and would not pay to fly them home. They had to find their own way and pay their own way. Furthermore, these men had the security clearances revoked immediately after the incident.
7. The Deep State prints thousands of pages of irrelevant material when a demand is made to turn over documents on some subject to Congress. This is a normal operational procedure for them. They only hold back the important documents that incriminate the person in question or the issue at hand. They publicly claim having turned over tens of thousands of pages of documents to Congress, but most of them are copies of websites, copies of magazine articles and other irrelevant material that has very little (or nothing) to do with the original demand.
8. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is just as reluctant to charge Hillary Clinton as was his predecessor. He has something to hide just like the rest of them (page 154). What happened to putting criminals in prison???
9. Chaffetz wrote "It's undeniable that the campaign to discredit Flynn was well underway before Inauguration Day." (p. 158)
10. "The Deep State benefits from illegal immigration." (page 179) This is because it requires a larger government (allowing for more Deep State cronies) to "figure" out the immigration problem and they are very good at persuading illegals to vote for socialists (Democrats).
11. G--gle, A--z-n, and the big tech firms "rent" workers from other countries and pay them very, very low salaries. These are people on H1B visas. This is all while the tech leaders are calling for higher minimum wages etc... (page 180)
12. The number one H1B visa employer in Brooklyn in 2018 is JP Morgan Chase.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The stories are compelling. The facts are there from a U.S. Congressman who served 8.5 years. It's time for all patriotic American's to make a stand and fight back against the socialist Deep State. It's time to fight their guile, their mischief, their malicious lies, and their goal of tearing down the sovereignty of the United States. I highly recommend this book. Get it. Read it. Take action now.

[Jan 14, 2019] The Russia Hoax The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump by Gregg Jarrett

The books does not answer the key question: if it was not Russian influence, who of forign powers tried to influence the election: GB, Israel, Saudi, or all three. We have solid evidence of interference of British intelligence services into the election. Which means May government interference.
Also important to understand that FBI from the very beginning was apolitical tool. Nothing new here.
This dirty political witch hunt has one major goal to cement the cracks in neoliberal society that appear after 2008 Financial crash. This attempt failed and Pateigenosse Mueller is unable to change that. Confidence in the ruling neoliberal oligarchy collapsed and problem with the inequality laid now bare.
Jan 14, 2019 | www.amazon.com

KB from Illinois 5.0 out of 5 stars Very detailed. Raises many questions about politically motivated investigations. September 14, 2018 Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

My interest in this book occurred by chance. Over the past couple years reading news stories on sites like Yahoo News I sensed a very overt stance against President Trump. It appeared very obvious to me, but I wanted some confirmation whether these views may have validity, or perhaps not. So I started to investigate other opinions via some of the conservative talk radio shows. Up until this time, I rarely listened to them. One was the Sean Hannity Show and Gregg Jarrett was sitting in for Sean on one of the shows. He mentioned his book and I thought it sounded interesting. My basic assumption even prior to reading this book was I never felt there was any illegal Trump/Russian collusion in our recent election. I couldn't see how it would ever be done in such a way that would actually affect the voting outcome (other than if it were some kind of ballot box type fraud). So I had doubts about all the related investigations. When this book was mentioned I figured it would offer some factual information to help me understand the investigations better. It did accomplish that. And much more awareness.

One of the major items about this book is that it is well researched and documented. This made me feel somewhat comfortable about its content. There is so much misinformation making its rounds today that knowing what is truthful and what isn't can become a real guessing game. I could even ask 'Did Mr. Jarrett fabricate his sources'? At this point I will go on faith that they are real.

Based on that assumption, he presents a very hard case about the Russian collusion investigation as not being quite what the U.S.A. people are being led to believe by the media outlets. So much so, I hope this book could be a catalyst for other investigations (assuming that isn't already being planned). As summarized in this book, a major point is about federal investigative departments having integrity in performing their duties, and doing so legally and without prejudice or political partisanship. This book does raise some real concerns.

The author states at the end of the book "The people who should read this book, probably won't". Unfortunately he is probably correct. As a country we seem so divided today politically. It is my impression that anti-Trumpers will probably not want to acknowledge any conflicting thoughts or facts to their beliefs. But this book could be a great exercise in broadening one's knowledge regarding the investigations on Trump. It would show a different viewpoint than that being touted by much of the media, and has the facts backing it up. At the very least, it can provide some food for thought.

Grady T. Birdsong 5.0 out of 5 stars Tells the honest truth about corruption in our Government November 23, 2018 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

As Gregg Jarrett states in the Epilogue of this book, "The people who should read this book, probably won't... they are intellectually dishonest in believing that the president must have committed some crime in connection with Russia...There was never any plausible evidence that Trump or his campaign collaborated with Russia to win the presidency... Comey's scheme to trigger the appointment of his friend as special counsel was a devious maneuver by an unscrupulous man..."
As many of these events unfolded I have watched closely and performed my own "tests of reasonableness" from facts presented. Utilizing logic and common sense I often wondered if I was missing something? What crystal ball would have predicted that Donald Trump would run for the presidency? One example: The press told us he had been a political asset for many years and had been exchanging Intel with the Russians...
Then I heard about this book, purchased it and began reading it... I could hardly put it down... The information in it is astonishing! It is all to clear now...
Jarrett has researched, compiled and formatted an almost air-tight legal case (within this book) for prosecuting these "weasels." The astonishing levels of corruption and crimes committed by those in the highest levels of the DOJ and FBI are unprecedented. He has compiled an extraordinary amount of source information to back up his many claims throughout the book. I am totally perplexed that our so-called leaders in Congress are allowing this abuse to go unpunished... baffling? This disgraceful abuse of power documented by Jarrett will come back to haunt us! A well written expose by Mr. Jarrett!

E. Christine Hess 5.0 out of 5 stars Mueller, Rosenstein & the members of the Special Council SHOULD be on trial! November 24, 2018 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

Gregg Jarrett's research leaves NO DOUBT that drastic action needs to be taken to hold these people- PRETENDING to represent the law- accountable & end their "assassination" tactics on our tax dollar.
This is not Halloween, not a play. This is REALITY with our laws running amok!
And our Congress - our elected officials, supposedly servants of We, the People, - is not taking action?
How is this possible?

Amazon Customer 5.0 out of 5 stars The deep bias rooted in the Deep State, better known now as The Swamp October 8, 2018 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

Incredibly well researched and well written book which explains methodically in an easy to read style the undeniable deep seated bias against President Trump at the highest levels of the Department of Justice and the FBI. They tried to first prevent him from being elected by exonerating Hillary Clinton of a long list of crimes committed during her tenure as Secretary of State and then smearing him with a politically motivated fake "Dossier". When that didn't work, they have tried to undermine his presidency from the start with an equally politically motivated Special Prosecutor investigating "Collusion with Russia" in an investigation which had no crime to investigate from the start. A must read for all Americans.

Andrew Maile 5.0 out of 5 stars A very informative, but yet digestible, read........ September 30, 2018 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

This author writes with a very smooth, easy, but detailed style. The book brings in much law for the reader to digest, but, somehow, does not get a reader tangled up in the weeds. As for the thrust of the book: A detailed 'tick tock' of the day by day events that have taken America to the point we are today on this entire question of Trump, Russia, and the 2016 election.
This book really is vivid proof that the 'deep state' does emphatically exist. Not as a structure or organization with secret meetings,rituals or handshakes. But as a mentality, or common political/social view of government, stemming from the longevity of bureaucracy to feel invulnerable to popular will because of their simple edict that 'we'll still be here after you're long gone'. And from this, these bureaucrats build liaisons with favoring political elites that lead to deep, hidden, obscure --shall we say 'deep state'-- actions to pervert the popular will for the ends of a few.
This book vividly displays why bureaucrats (whose lifeblood is to promote more government) so turn their collective hand to supporting Democrats, the party of government. Yates covering for Comey and the blackmailing of Gen. Flynn, Comey leaking to a friend in Academia that provokes the appointment of his (Comey's) close associate --indeed, his mentor-- Robert Mueller. Senior bureaucrats (McCabe, Strzok) playing inside baseball to maneuver themselves for promotion in the expected new (Democratic) administration that they so much support and wish for. Indeed friendships with FISA judges to assure bogus warrants can be obtained against political enemies.
Where money and power are traded as coin of the realm in a way that is so antiseptic and hidden. Nobody says 'How much money will it take'; instead it's 'I can help you fund raise'. Rod Blagojevich was foolish enough to call a bribe a bribe...well, he's in jail, but Strzok's wife isn't.
It just goes on and on................it's simple corruption!!! And the band plays on......the human comedy continues........

JG Kuhl 5.0 out of 5 stars How about a media complicity sequel? September 3, 2018 Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

Excellent detailed and researched book that simply amazes me. Lynch, Comey, Clinton, Stzrok, Orr, Rosenstein, McCabe, Reid and Brennen all worked seamlessly to install Hillary and have a backup plan B to lay the groundwork to impeach Trump in case she doesn't make it. All under the oversight of Obama. Neat trick, but what follows is even more orchestrated: MEDIA COMPLICITY! You can't pull this off unless you have the full cooperation willingly or otherwise of: NBC, CBS, NPR, ABC, MSNBC, and most of all CNN, the New York Times, and Washington Post! Here's where the real story lies. The media and the Democrat party are simpatico, joint at the brain and mouth and one other orifice. This is the real story that Jarrett only pays passing attention to. Sequel maybe, I hope so. Jon Kuhl Papillion, NE & New England

Amazon Customer 5.0 out of 5 stars The Deep State Is Real September 14, 2018 Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

This book is very thorough and completely exposes the Deep State. If there were any doubts about the conspiracy to depose President Trump before reading this book, there certainly aren't any afterwards. After reading the book, I am very disappointed and discouraged to find that our government has such liars and criminals in the FBI, the DOJ, and the Congress. I have completely lost any confidence I had in the U.S. government and will never believe in it again, unless there is a complete house-cleaning in the FBI and the DOJ.

S. Martin Shelton 4.0 out of 5 stars This attack to undermine our democracy is unparalleled in the history of our republic. October 1, 2018 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

Jarrett pens a comprehensive review of the Deep State's inordinate fraud on our Constitution -- perhaps the greatest attack on our constitutional republic in the history of our country. He writes in clear and empathetic style. His narrative evolves in a coherent and logical progression that details the conspirators' skullduggery in an "ABC" type of progression. He cites exactly who violated the relevant federal statute and why and how it was violated. Unfortunately, as of 30 September 2018 -- the date I'm preparing the review -- none of the miscreants have been indicted even though the documentation of evidence is ponderous.

Larry A. Whited 4.0 out of 5 stars One Less than Five Stars August 8, 2018 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

Gregg Jarrett's study -- and that is what this book is, a study -- covers two main aspects of recent history. First and foremost it is an in-depth look at the tactics and forces arrayed against President Trump. Intertwined with this comes by necessity a parallel look at Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, her presidential run, as well as a broader look at the activities of the Clintons with the nearly full support of those same forces that are now aligned against the presidency of Donald Trump. The nature of the often overlapping issues and the personnel involved has resulted in a fair amount of repetition of key points. This was not a lazy attempt to achieve a book-length manuscript, as Jarrett's original copy by his own admission in the acknowledgments was a hefty 100,000 words before the publisher encouraged him to trim things down.

It is unfortunate that this book will be dismissed by so many who are unwilling to understand and accept that the pervasive high-level animosity against President Trump has evolved into a direct and active threat against our country -- and this threat is compounded by a complicit media that is eager to pounce. The rule of law has been twisted and contorted if not completely abandoned. Trump is the primary target, but whether by design or happenstance it is the U.S. Constitution that is being the most assaulted. The danger of this cannot be overemphasized -- we are at a critical crossroads. Gregg Jarret understands this and was motivated to bring this truth to light. He is no sycophant of President Trump. His loyalty is to the rule of law and to our Constitution rather than to political agendas on either side.

I withheld one star because a great opportunity was lost. This book will never appear in classrooms, and it will likely be stocked in few law libraries. It most certainly should be, and it needs to be read and studied. The flagrant abuses of power by the DOJ, the FBI, and others need to be brought out into a bright light and the corruption purged. As a people we need to get our head out of the sand and realize what has been going on behind closed doors -- our future is most definitely at stake. The lost opportunity that I am alluding to comes down to the expressed (albeit well deserved) disdain and disgust that Gregg Jarrett now has towards those who are participating in this hoax that he has so thoroughly revealed. I fear even the preface itself will turn away those who most need to read this book.

What will be perceived as bias before the facts are presented and developed will allow or even cause those who need to read this book to close their minds, giving them the excuse they want to dismiss the evidence. If strictly the evidence and history had alone been presented with Jarrett's (again, well-deserved) animosity being held in check and edited out, then perhaps this book could have become a classic for later generations to study assuming that we survive these perilously subversive times. I did the math, and there are 771 supporting references -- an average of 70 per chapter -- documenting Jarrett's research, plus 12 references even in the epilogue. Obviously, we are not talking about willfully blind opinion with no basis in fact.

The antagonists who post their 1-star reviews with almost all of them having obviously never read the book (Re. few verified purchases) reveal a dangerous willful ignorance that they are happy to embrace. Their mindset should concern us all.

[Jan 13, 2019] As FBI Ramped Up Witch Hunt When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion Investigation A Joke

Highly recommended!
All links are going to Brennan and CIA. Rosenstein was just a tool, necessary to appoint the Special Prosecutor. And launching the prove was the meaning of "insurance" that Strock mentioned to his mistress. Both Strzok and McCabe have their liasons (read bosses) at CIA, so in essence they were "CIA infiltration group" within the FBI. And it is also important to understand that Obama was just a CIA snowperson.
There is Stalin's NKVD chief Beria shadow over CIA and FBI now. He famously said "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime."
Notable quotes:
"... The Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross has made a brilliant observation, noting Peter Strzok - then the FBI's deputy chief of counterintelligence, admitted to his FBI lawyer mistress, Lisa Page, that there was no merit to the investigation. ..."
"... Interestingly, another series of Strzok-Page texts refers to "coordinating investigation" after Strzok apparently met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who both recommended Comey's firing, then authorized the special counsel probe ..."
"... As Ross notes in The Daily Caller , there were other text messages that between Strzok and Page which raise suspicion over whether the FBI was working on a "gotcha" against Trump. ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

As FBI Ramped Up "Witch Hunt" When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion Investigation A Joke

A Friday report in the New York Times revealing that the FBI supercharged its Trump-Russia collusion investigation after President Trump fired FBI director James Comey appears to have backfired - especially when one reviews internal FBI communications from the time period in question.

The Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross has made a brilliant observation, noting Peter Strzok - then the FBI's deputy chief of counterintelligence, admitted to his FBI lawyer mistress, Lisa Page, that there was no merit to the investigation.

Nine days after Comey was fired and the DOJ "sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia," Strzok texted Page on May 18, 2017: "You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely I'd be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there's no big there there. "

It is unclear from The Times report what information was used as a predicate to open the investigation. The article suggests that the FBI had long considered the move and that Comey's firing and Trump's subsequent comments marked a tipping point.

...

A source close to Strzok told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Jan. 26, 2018, shortly after the text was released, that the message reflected Strzok's concern that the FBI would not find evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia . - Daily Caller

The Times' explanation for the FBI's rationale that Trump may have been a Russian asset consists of Trump's call for Moscow to release Hillary Clinton's emails an election debate, and allegations contained within the unverified Steele Dossier. The Times was also quick to note that Trump may have "unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence," to temper the accusation that he was an agent of a foreign power. In short, weak sauce.

It's no wonder Strzok was hesitant to join Mueller's team.

Interestingly, another series of Strzok-Page texts refers to "coordinating investigation" after Strzok apparently met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who both recommended Comey's firing, then authorized the special counsel probe.

As Ross notes in The Daily Caller , there were other text messages that between Strzok and Page which raise suspicion over whether the FBI was working on a "gotcha" against Trump.

" And we need to open the case we've been waiting on now while Andy is acting ," Strzok texted Page the day Comey was fired, referring to then-deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe.

Meanwhile, Page - who served as McCabe's deputy, provided some additional color on the text messages during her July 2018 congressional testimony, suggesting that the "case we've been waiting on" text referred to an investigation separate of the obstruction probe we already knew about.

"Well, other than obstruction, what could it have been?" one lawmaker asked Page in her interview, details of which were published by The Epoch Times on Friday.

" I can't answer that, sir. I'm sorry ," she replied.

"If I was able to explain in more depth why the Director firing precipitated this text, I would," she continued while declining to say if the text message referred to an obstruction of justice investigation or something more. - Daily Caller

That said, Page admitted that Comey's firing prompted the text exchange.

"So the firing of Jim Comey was the precipitating event as opposed to the occupant of the Director's office?" asked one lawmaker.

"Yes, that's correct," replied Page.

Meanwhile, The Times went to great lengths to imply that the FBI was justified in their ratcheted-up collusion investigation - failing to mention who started the probe, who led it, and more importantly - waiting until the 9th paragraph to mention the fact that it turned up nothing .

"No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials. An F.B.I. spokeswoman and a spokesman for the special counsel's office both declined to comment."

VideoEng_NC

"It is unclear from The Times report what information was used as a predicate to open the investigation."

Should be pretty simple with one question. "Was it Hillary who was the responsible party to open an investigation on Trump?". About as direct as it gets & we already know the answer.

adampeart

TDS sufferers hate Trump so bad that they have become (at 70%) pro-warmonger. Pathetic. I guess that I shouldn't be surprised. They were fine with Black Jesus starting wars, overthrowing governments and bombing brown people for 8 years.

Teeter

McCabe initiated the investigation. Nobody likes McCabe, so he is likely to be the one guy that gets thrown under the bus. Of course what he knows may protect him to some extent... they won't want a trial.

Duc888

Sedition? Treason?

Yippie21

7 Days in May.... except for current version we use the DOJ and FBI! Interesting times.

[Jan 13, 2019] a former CIA guy to float the notion in public that there is a good enough case, whatever that means, to think the President of the US was an Russian Agent of Influence based on "bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence."

Jan 13, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

On Smerconish's show today, Bob Baer, spy extraordinaire, (read his books) asserted that the various bits and pieces of circumstantial "evidence" about Trump's contacts with and attitude toward Russia, as well as those of his flunkies and relatives amount to a "good enough" case for Trump being a Russian agent of influence.

That is how a HUMINT spook judges such things. It is a matter of probabilities, not hard evidence.

Assets of an alien government are not always witting (understanding) of their status from the POV of the foreign government, but that does not necessarily make other than agents. Sometimes they think they are merely cooperating in a good and normal way when, in fact, the relationship is much deeper. Jane Fonda in North Vietnam would be an example.


Mad_Max22 , a day ago

It seems injudicious, to say the least, for a former CIA guy to float the notion in public that there is a good enough case, whatever that means, to think the President of the US was an Russian Agent of Influence based on "bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence." I would say probably intemperate as well. Using it in the current climate, it ammounts to a slur.
And what exactly are we to make of the spook expression "Agent of Influence?" I would say that unless one knows a good deal about the proclivites of the very person who is using the expression and what is going on in his mind, one shouldn't want to make very much of it at all. The expression comprehends pretty much of everything and anything, for good, for bad, for indifferent; for behavior that nobody in the whole wide world would find worrisome except someone in the CIA or the CI Branches of today's FBI. Such concerns come when Agencies have been politicized.
It's dangerous enough that these people find an internal use for the term. I would speculate that some such cover set them off on Carter Page and ensuing FISA debacle.
Patrick Armstrong -> Bill Herschel , 11 hours ago
If Moscow had wanted to nobble the US election and get control of POTUS, it would have used its best weapon. It had already bought Clinton once.
ISL -> Patrick Armstrong , 4 hours ago
Bought and owned. One can guess that there is much compromising financial and probably other information on the Clinton Foundation in the missing emails that Russia (and likely every other intelligence agency on the planet), and from elsewhere, has, given her lack of comprehension of the basics of security or that classification is not only for the little people.
John Hisler , a day ago
In Bob Baer's 1st book He said that he was able to confirm that it was Israel that attacked the USS Liberty. As a CIA officer he was trying, without success ,to recruit a local government radio operator.(probably Egyptian) He said that soon after the attack the prospective recruit came to him and volunteered to cooperate.Surprised at this sudden change of heart Baer asked what had happened?.He said that he had listened to the entire attack of the USS Liberty and the communication between the Israeli planes and their command station. .The recruit said that he now believed that the US and Israel could not be allies because the US would never permit an ally to get away with attacking a US vessel and murdering American sailors.
Pat Lang Mod -> John Hisler , a day ago
As a student officer at Ft. Holabird I read the transcripts generated by NSA of the chatter between the Israeli planes and their command. There is not doubt whatever that the attack was deliberate and sustained for hours. I have written aout this many times. Look in the archive. https://turcopolier.typepad...

[Jan 13, 2019] So even if the IRA didn't manage to make a profit, the net cost for them must have been much lower than $100,000

Notable quotes:
"... Does anyone know how much revenue it made from that operation? Facebook must know but they've kept quiet about it. Same with Mueller. ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Brendan , Jan 13, 2019 5:12:30 PM | link

The Internet Research Agency (IRA) paid $100,000 for Facebook ads and then charged its customers for the clickbait service (between 25 and 50 U.S. dollars per post for promotional content). So even if the IRA didn't manage to make a profit, the net cost for them must have been much lower than $100,000.

Does anyone know how much revenue it made from that operation? Facebook must know but they've kept quiet about it. Same with Mueller.

[Jan 12, 2019] Some were even more laconic, summarizing the "scoop" as "anybody who fires corrupt Comey must be a Russian spy

This is the typical level of repression that exist in Police State: any politician who deviates from the "Inner Party" (aka Deep State) course is branded as Russian spy and "counterintelligence" dogs are send to sniff any dirty clothing that might exist to and this politician career.
Notable quotes:
"... counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president's own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence. ..."
"... "anybody who fires corrupt Comey must be a Russian spy." ..."
"... Wow, just learned in the Failing New York Times that the corrupt former leaders of the FBI, almost all fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons, opened up an investigation on me, for no reason & with no proof, after I fired Lyin' James Comey, a total sleaze! ..."
Jan 12, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

President Trump on Saturday lashed out after a Friday evening report in the New York Times that US law enforcement officials " became so concerned by the president's behavior " in the days after Trump fired James Comey as FBI director, that "t hey began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests. "

According to the NYT, agents and senior F.B.I. officials " had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump's ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign " but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude.

What happened next? Well, a collusion narrative was born and carefully crafted as the paper explains:

The president's activities before and after Mr. Comey's firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry, the people said.

The odd inquiry carried "explosive implications" as counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president's own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence.

The criminal and counterintelligence elements were coupled together into one investigation, former law enforcement officials said in interviews in recent weeks, because if Mr. Trump had ousted the head of the F.B.I. to impede or even end the Russia investigation, that was both a possible crime and a national security concern. The F.B.I.'s counterintelligence division handles national security matters.

Even so, "...some former law enforcement officials outside the investigation have questioned whether agents overstepped in opening it ."

Then, in paragraph nine we read " No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials. " Or, as The Washington Examiner 's Byron York sums it up:

Some were even more laconic, summarizing the "scoop" as "anybody who fires corrupt Comey must be a Russian spy."

Put another way:

Responding to the "bombshell" NYT report - which curiously resurrects the "Russian collusion" narrative right as Trump is set to test his Presidential authority over the border wall, the president lashed out over Twitter .

Wow, just learned in the Failing New York Times that the corrupt former leaders of the FBI, almost all fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons, opened up an investigation on me, for no reason & with no proof, after I fired Lyin' James Comey, a total sleaze!"

Funny thing about James Comey. Everybody wanted him fired, Republican and Democrat alike. After the rigged & botched Crooked Hillary investigation, where she was interviewed on July 4th Weekend, not recorded or sworn in, and where she said she didn't know anything (a lie), the FBI was in complete turmoil (see N.Y. Post) because of Comey's poor leadership and the way he handled the Clinton mess (not to mention his usurpation of powers from the Justice Department).

My firing of James Comey was a great day for America. He was a Crooked Cop who is being totally protected by his best friend, Bob Mueller, & the 13 Angry Democrats - leaking machines who have NO interest in going after the Real Collusion (and much more) by Crooked Hillary Clinton, her Campaign, and the Democratic National Committee. Just Watch!

I have been FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President. At the same time, & as I have often said, getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. I fully expect that someday we will have good relations with Russia again!

Lyin' James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter S and his lover, agent Lisa Page, & more, all disgraced and/or fired and caught in the act. These are just some of the losers that tried to do a number on your President. Part of the Witch Hunt. Remember the "insurance policy?" This is it! -Donald Trump

Update: Comey has responded over Twitter with a pithy FDR quote:

Although we seem to recall that Democrats were Comey's enemy when he reopened Hillary Clinton's email investigation during the election.

While there is nothing new here confirming Trump was colluding with Russia, as Byron York asks following the article, was the New York Times story about Trump, or about FBI malfeasance?

[Jan 12, 2019] Tucker Carlson Mitt Romney supports the status quo. But for everyone else, it's infuriating Fox News

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Adapted from Tucker Carlson's monologue from "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on January 2, 2019. ..."
Jan 02, 2019 | www.foxnews.com
Tucker: America's goal is happiness, but leaders show no obligation to voters

Voters around the world revolt against leaders who won't improve their lives.

Newly-elected Utah senator Mitt Romney kicked off 2019 with an op-ed in the Washington Post that savaged Donald Trump's character and leadership. Romney's attack and Trump's response Wednesday morning on Twitter are the latest salvos in a longstanding personal feud between the two men. It's even possible that Romney is planning to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020. We'll see.

But for now, Romney's piece is fascinating on its own terms. It's well-worth reading. It's a window into how the people in charge, in both parties, see our country.

Romney's main complaint in the piece is that Donald Trump is a mercurial and divisive leader. That's true, of course. But beneath the personal slights, Romney has a policy critique of Trump. He seems genuinely angry that Trump might pull American troops out of the Syrian civil war. Romney doesn't explain how staying in Syria would benefit America. He doesn't appear to consider that a relevant question. More policing in the Middle East is always better. We know that. Virtually everyone in Washington agrees.

Corporate tax cuts are also popular in Washington, and Romney is strongly on board with those, too. His piece throws a rare compliment to Trump for cutting the corporate rate a year ago.

That's not surprising. Romney spent the bulk of his business career at a firm called Bain Capital. Bain Capital all but invented what is now a familiar business strategy: Take over an existing company for a short period of time, cut costs by firing employees, run up the debt, extract the wealth, and move on, sometimes leaving retirees without their earned pensions. Romney became fantastically rich doing this.

Meanwhile, a remarkable number of the companies are now bankrupt or extinct. This is the private equity model. Our ruling class sees nothing wrong with it. It's how they run the country.

Mitt Romney refers to unwavering support for a finance-based economy and an internationalist foreign policy as the "mainstream Republican" view. And he's right about that. For generations, Republicans have considered it their duty to make the world safe for banking, while simultaneously prosecuting ever more foreign wars. Modern Democrats generally support those goals enthusiastically.

There are signs, however, that most people do not support this, and not just in America. In countries around the world -- France, Brazil, Sweden, the Philippines, Germany, and many others -- voters are suddenly backing candidates and ideas that would have been unimaginable just a decade ago. These are not isolated events. What you're watching is entire populations revolting against leaders who refuse to improve their lives.

Something like this has been in happening in our country for three years. Donald Trump rode a surge of popular discontent all the way to the White House. Does he understand the political revolution that he harnessed? Can he reverse the economic and cultural trends that are destroying America? Those are open questions.

But they're less relevant than we think. At some point, Donald Trump will be gone. The rest of us will be gone, too. The country will remain. What kind of country will be it be then? How do we want our grandchildren to live? These are the only questions that matter.

The answer used to be obvious. The overriding goal for America is more prosperity, meaning cheaper consumer goods. But is that still true? Does anyone still believe that cheaper iPhones, or more Amazon deliveries of plastic garbage from China are going to make us happy? They haven't so far. A lot of Americans are drowning in stuff. And yet drug addiction and suicide are depopulating large parts of the country. Anyone who thinks the health of a nation can be summed up in GDP is an idiot.

The goal for America is both simpler and more elusive than mere prosperity. It's happiness. There are a lot of ingredients in being happy: Dignity. Purpose. Self-control. Independence. Above all, deep relationships with other people. Those are the things that you want for your children. They're what our leaders should want for us, and would want if they cared.

But our leaders don't care. We are ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule. They're day traders. Substitute teachers. They're just passing through. They have no skin in this game, and it shows. They can't solve our problems. They don't even bother to understand our problems.

One of the biggest lies our leaders tell us that you can separate economics from everything else that matters. Economics is a topic for public debate. Family and faith and culture, meanwhile, those are personal matters. Both parties believe this.

Members of our educated upper-middle-classes are now the backbone of the Democratic Party who usually describe themselves as fiscally responsible and socially moderate. In other words, functionally libertarian. They don't care how you live, as long as the bills are paid and the markets function. Somehow, they don't see a connection between people's personal lives and the health of our economy, or for that matter, the country's ability to pay its bills. As far as they're concerned, these are two totally separate categories.

Social conservatives, meanwhile, come to the debate from the opposite perspective, and yet reach a strikingly similar conclusion. The real problem, you'll hear them say, is that the American family is collapsing. Nothing can be fixed before we fix that. Yet, like the libertarians they claim to oppose, many social conservatives also consider markets sacrosanct. The idea that families are being crushed by market forces seems never to occur to them. They refuse to consider it. Questioning markets feels like apostasy.

Both sides miss the obvious point: Culture and economics are inseparably intertwined. Certain economic systems allow families to thrive. Thriving families make market economies possible. You can't separate the two. It used to be possible to deny this. Not anymore. The evidence is now overwhelming. How do we know? Consider the inner cities.

Thirty years ago, conservatives looked at Detroit or Newark and many other places and were horrified by what they saw. Conventional families had all but disappeared in poor neighborhoods. The majority of children were born out of wedlock. Single mothers were the rule. Crime and drugs and disorder became universal.

What caused this nightmare? Liberals didn't even want to acknowledge the question. They were benefiting from the disaster, in the form of reliable votes. Conservatives, though, had a ready explanation for inner-city dysfunction and it made sense: big government. Decades of badly-designed social programs had driven fathers from the home and created what conservatives called a "culture of poverty" that trapped people in generational decline.

There was truth in this. But it wasn't the whole story. How do we know? Because virtually the same thing has happened decades later to an entirely different population. In many ways, rural America now looks a lot like Detroit.

This is striking because rural Americans wouldn't seem to have much in common with anyone from the inner city. These groups have different cultures, different traditions and political beliefs. Usually they have different skin colors. Rural people are white conservatives, mostly.

Yet, the pathologies of modern rural America are familiar to anyone who visited downtown Baltimore in the 1980s: Stunning out of wedlock birthrates. High male unemployment. A terrifying drug epidemic. Two different worlds. Similar outcomes. How did this happen? You'd think our ruling class would be interested in knowing the answer. But mostly they're not. They don't have to be interested. It's easier to import foreign labor to take the place of native-born Americans who are slipping behind.

But Republicans now represent rural voters. They ought to be interested. Here's a big part of the answer: male wages declined. Manufacturing, a male-dominated industry, all but disappeared over the course of a generation. All that remained in many places were the schools and the hospitals, both traditional employers of women. In many places, women suddenly made more than men.

Now, before you applaud this as a victory for feminism, consider the effects. Study after study has shown that when men make less than women, women generally don't want to marry them. Maybe they should want to marry them, but they don't. Over big populations, this causes a drop in marriage, a spike in out-of-wedlock births, and all the familiar disasters that inevitably follow -- more drug and alcohol abuse, higher incarceration rates, fewer families formed in the next generation.

This isn't speculation. This is not propaganda from the evangelicals. It's social science. We know it's true. Rich people know it best of all. That's why they get married before they have kids. That model works. But increasingly, marriage is a luxury only the affluent in America can afford.

And yet, and here's the bewildering and infuriating part, those very same affluent married people, the ones making virtually all the decisions in our society, are doing pretty much nothing to help the people below them get and stay married. Rich people are happy to fight malaria in Congo. But working to raise men's wages in Dayton or Detroit? That's crazy.

This is negligence on a massive scale. Both parties ignore the crisis in marriage. Our mindless cultural leaders act like it's still 1961, and the biggest problem American families face is that sexism is preventing millions of housewives from becoming investment bankers or Facebook executives.

For our ruling class, more investment banking is always the answer. They teach us it's more virtuous to devote your life to some soulless corporation than it is to raise your own kids.

Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook wrote an entire book about this. Sandberg explained that our first duty is to shareholders, above our own children. No surprise there. Sandberg herself is one of America's biggest shareholders. Propaganda like this has made her rich.

We are ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule. They're day traders. Substitute teachers. They're just passing through. They have no skin in this game, and it shows.

What's remarkable is how the rest of us responded to it. We didn't question why Sandberg was saying this. We didn't laugh in her face at the pure absurdity of it. Our corporate media celebrated Sandberg as the leader of a liberation movement. Her book became a bestseller: "Lean In." As if putting a corporation first is empowerment. It is not. It is bondage. Republicans should say so.

They should also speak out against the ugliest parts of our financial system. Not all commerce is good. Why is it defensible to loan people money they can't possibly repay? Or charge them interest that impoverishes them? Payday loan outlets in poor neighborhoods collect 400 percent annual interest.

We're OK with that? We shouldn't be. Libertarians tell us that's how markets work -- consenting adults making voluntary decisions about how to live their lives. OK. But it's also disgusting. If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation of Americans, whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street.

And by the way, if you really loved your fellow Americans, as our leaders should, if it would break your heart to see them high all the time. Which they are. A huge number of our kids, especially our boys, are smoking weed constantly. You may not realize that, because new technology has made it odorless. But it's everywhere.

And that's not an accident. Once our leaders understood they could get rich from marijuana, marijuana became ubiquitous. In many places, tax-hungry politicians have legalized or decriminalized it. Former Speaker of the House John Boehner now lobbies for the marijuana industry. His fellow Republicans seem fine with that. "Oh, but it's better for you than alcohol," they tell us.

Maybe. Who cares? Talk about missing the point. Try having dinner with a 19-year-old who's been smoking weed. The life is gone. Passive, flat, trapped in their own heads. Do you want that for your kids? Of course not. Then why are our leaders pushing it on us? You know the reason. Because they don't care about us.

When you care about people, you do your best to treat them fairly. Our leaders don't even try. They hand out jobs and contracts and scholarships and slots at prestigious universities based purely on how we look. There's nothing less fair than that, though our tax code comes close.

Under our current system, an American who works for a salary pays about twice the tax rate as someone who's living off inherited money and doesn't work at all. We tax capital at half of what we tax labor. It's a sweet deal if you work in finance, as many of our rich people do.

In 2010, for example, Mitt Romney made about $22 million dollars in investment income. He paid an effective federal tax rate of 14 percent. For normal upper-middle-class wage earners, the federal tax rate is nearly 40 percent. No wonder Mitt Romney supports the status quo. But for everyone else, it's infuriating.

Our leaders rarely mention any of this. They tell us our multi-tiered tax code is based on the principles of the free market. Please. It's based on laws that the Congress passed, laws that companies lobbied for in order to increase their economic advantage. It worked well for those people. They did increase their economic advantage. But for everyone else, it came at a big cost. Unfairness is profoundly divisive. When you favor one child over another, your kids don't hate you. They hate each other.

That happens in countries, too. It's happening in ours, probably by design. Divided countries are easier to rule. And nothing divides us like the perception that some people are getting special treatment. In our country, some people definitely are getting special treatment. Republicans should oppose that with everything they have.

What kind of country do you want to live in? A fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement. A country you might recognize when you're old.

A country that listens to young people who don't live in Brooklyn. A country where you can make a solid living outside of the big cities. A country where Lewiston, Maine seems almost as important as the west side of Los Angeles. A country where environmentalism means getting outside and picking up the trash. A clean, orderly, stable country that respects itself. And above all, a country where normal people with an average education who grew up in no place special can get married, and have happy kids, and repeat unto the generations. A country that actually cares about families, the building block of everything.

Video

What will it take a get a country like that? Leaders who want it. For now, those leaders will have to be Republicans. There's no option at this point.

But first, Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a religion. Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. You'd have to be a fool to worship it. Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. We do not exist to serve markets. Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society.

Internalizing all this will not be easy for Republican leaders. They'll have to unlearn decades of bumper sticker-talking points and corporate propaganda. They'll likely lose donors in the process. They'll be criticized. Libertarians are sure to call any deviation from market fundamentalism a form of socialism.

That's a lie. Socialism is a disaster. It doesn't work. It's what we should be working desperately to avoid. But socialism is exactly what we're going to get, and very soon unless a group of responsible people in our political system reforms the American economy in a way that protects normal people.

If you want to put America first, you've got to put its families first.

Adapted from Tucker Carlson's monologue from "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on January 2, 2019.

[Jan 12, 2019] Tucker Carlson has sparked the most interesting debate in conservative politics by Jane Coaston

Highly recommended!
Tucker Carlson sounds much more convincing then Trump: See Tucker Leaders show no obligation to American voters and Tucker The American dream is dying
Notable quotes:
"... America's "ruling class," Carlson says, are the "mercenaries" behind the failures of the middle class -- including sinking marriage rates -- and "the ugliest parts of our financial system." He went on: "Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society." ..."
"... He concluded with a demand for "a fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement." ..."
"... The monologue and its sweeping anti-elitism drove a wedge between conservative writers. The American Conservative's Rod Dreher wrote of Carlson's monologue, "A man or woman who can talk like that with conviction could become president. Voting for a conservative candidate like that would be the first affirmative vote I've ever cast for president. ..."
"... The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Growing Broke ..."
"... Carlson wanted to be clear: He's just asking questions. "I'm not an economic adviser or a politician. I'm not a think tank fellow. I'm just a talk show host," he said, telling me that all he wants is to ask "the basic questions you would ask about any policy." But he wants to ask those questions about what he calls the "religious faith" of market capitalism, one he believes elites -- "mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule" -- have put ahead of "normal people." ..."
"... "What does [free market capitalism] get us?" he said in our call. "What kind of country do you want to live in? If you put these policies into effect, what will you have in 10 years?" ..."
"... Carlson is hardly the first right-leaning figure to make a pitch for populism, even tangentially, in the third year of Donald Trump, whose populist-lite presidential candidacy and presidency Carlson told me he views as "the smoke alarm ... telling you the building is on fire, and unless you figure out how to put the flames out, it will consume it." ..."
"... Trump borrowed some of that approach for his 2016 campaign but in office has governed as a fairly orthodox economic conservative, thus demonstrating the demand for populism on the right without really providing the supply and creating conditions for further ferment. ..."
"... Ocasio-Cortez wants a 70-80% income tax on the rich. I agree! Start with the Koch Bros. -- and also make it WEALTH tax. ..."
"... "I'm just saying as a matter of fact," he told me, "a country where a shrinking percentage of the population is taking home an ever-expanding proportion of the money is not a recipe for a stable society. It's not." ..."
"... Carlson told me he wanted to be clear: He is not a populist. But he believes some version of populism is necessary to prevent a full-scale political revolt or the onset of socialism. Using Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a president who recognized that labor needs economic power, he told me, "Unless you want something really extreme to happen, you need to take this seriously and figure out how to protect average people from these remarkably powerful forces that have been unleashed." ..."
"... But Carlson's brand of populism, and the populist sentiments sweeping the American right, aren't just focused on the current state of income inequality in America. Carlson tackled a bigger idea: that market capitalism and the "elites" whom he argues are its major drivers aren't working. The free market isn't working for families, or individuals, or kids. In his monologue, Carlson railed against libertarian economics and even payday loans, saying, "If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation of Americans, whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street" -- sounding very much like Sanders or Warren on the left. ..."
"... Capitalism/liberalism destroys the extended family by requiring people to move apart for work and destroying any sense of unchosen obligations one might have towards one's kin. ..."
"... Hillbilly Elegy ..."
"... Carlson told me that beyond changing our tax code, he has no major policies in mind. "I'm not even making the case for an economic system in particular," he told me. "All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God or a function or raw nature." ..."
Jan 10, 2019 | www.vox.com

"All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God."

Last Wednesday, the conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson started a fire on the right after airing a prolonged monologue on his show that was, in essence, an indictment of American capitalism.

America's "ruling class," Carlson says, are the "mercenaries" behind the failures of the middle class -- including sinking marriage rates -- and "the ugliest parts of our financial system." He went on: "Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society."

He concluded with a demand for "a fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement."

The monologue was stunning in itself, an incredible moment in which a Fox News host stated that for generations, "Republicans have considered it their duty to make the world safe for banking, while simultaneously prosecuting ever more foreign wars." More broadly, though, Carlson's position and the ensuing controversy reveals an ongoing and nearly unsolvable tension in conservative politics about the meaning of populism, a political ideology that Trump campaigned on but Carlson argues he may not truly understand.

Moreover, in Carlson's words: "At some point, Donald Trump will be gone. The rest of us will be gone too. The country will remain. What kind of country will be it be then?"

The monologue and its sweeping anti-elitism drove a wedge between conservative writers. The American Conservative's Rod Dreher wrote of Carlson's monologue, "A man or woman who can talk like that with conviction could become president. Voting for a conservative candidate like that would be the first affirmative vote I've ever cast for president." Other conservative commentators scoffed. Ben Shapiro wrote in National Review that Carlson's monologue sounded far more like Sens. Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren than, say, Ronald Reagan.

I spoke with Carlson by phone this week to discuss his monologue and its economic -- and cultural -- meaning. He agreed that his monologue was reminiscent of Warren, referencing her 2003 book The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Growing Broke . "There were parts of the book that I disagree with, of course," he told me. "But there are parts of it that are really important and true. And nobody wanted to have that conversation."

Carlson wanted to be clear: He's just asking questions. "I'm not an economic adviser or a politician. I'm not a think tank fellow. I'm just a talk show host," he said, telling me that all he wants is to ask "the basic questions you would ask about any policy." But he wants to ask those questions about what he calls the "religious faith" of market capitalism, one he believes elites -- "mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule" -- have put ahead of "normal people."

But whether or not he likes it, Carlson is an important voice in conservative politics. His show is among the most-watched television programs in America. And his raising questions about market capitalism and the free market matters.

"What does [free market capitalism] get us?" he said in our call. "What kind of country do you want to live in? If you put these policies into effect, what will you have in 10 years?"

Populism on the right is gaining, again

Carlson is hardly the first right-leaning figure to make a pitch for populism, even tangentially, in the third year of Donald Trump, whose populist-lite presidential candidacy and presidency Carlson told me he views as "the smoke alarm ... telling you the building is on fire, and unless you figure out how to put the flames out, it will consume it."

Populism is a rhetorical approach that separates "the people" from elites. In the words of Cas Mudde, a professor at the University of Georgia, it divides the country into "two homogenous and antagonistic groups: the pure people on the one end and the corrupt elite on the other." Populist rhetoric has a long history in American politics, serving as the focal point of numerous presidential campaigns and powering William Jennings Bryan to the Democratic nomination for president in 1896. Trump borrowed some of that approach for his 2016 campaign but in office has governed as a fairly orthodox economic conservative, thus demonstrating the demand for populism on the right without really providing the supply and creating conditions for further ferment.

When right-leaning pundit Ann Coulter spoke with Breitbart Radio about Trump's Tuesday evening Oval Office address to the nation regarding border wall funding, she said she wanted to hear him say something like, "You know, you say a lot of wild things on the campaign trail. I'm speaking to big rallies. But I want to talk to America about a serious problem that is affecting the least among us, the working-class blue-collar workers":

Coulter urged Trump to bring up overdose deaths from heroin in order to speak to the "working class" and to blame the fact that working-class wages have stalled, if not fallen, in the last 20 years on immigration. She encouraged Trump to declare, "This is a national emergency for the people who don't have lobbyists in Washington."

Ocasio-Cortez wants a 70-80% income tax on the rich. I agree! Start with the Koch Bros. -- and also make it WEALTH tax.

-- Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 4, 2019

These sentiments have even pitted popular Fox News hosts against each other.

Sean Hannity warned his audience that New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's economic policies would mean that "the rich people won't be buying boats that they like recreationally, they're not going to be taking expensive vacations anymore." But Carlson agreed when I said his monologue was somewhat reminiscent of Ocasio-Cortez's past comments on the economy , and how even a strong economy was still leaving working-class Americans behind.

"I'm just saying as a matter of fact," he told me, "a country where a shrinking percentage of the population is taking home an ever-expanding proportion of the money is not a recipe for a stable society. It's not."

Carlson told me he wanted to be clear: He is not a populist. But he believes some version of populism is necessary to prevent a full-scale political revolt or the onset of socialism. Using Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a president who recognized that labor needs economic power, he told me, "Unless you want something really extreme to happen, you need to take this seriously and figure out how to protect average people from these remarkably powerful forces that have been unleashed."

"I think populism is potentially really disruptive. What I'm saying is that populism is a symptom of something being wrong," he told me. "Again, populism is a smoke alarm; do not ignore it."

But Carlson's brand of populism, and the populist sentiments sweeping the American right, aren't just focused on the current state of income inequality in America. Carlson tackled a bigger idea: that market capitalism and the "elites" whom he argues are its major drivers aren't working. The free market isn't working for families, or individuals, or kids. In his monologue, Carlson railed against libertarian economics and even payday loans, saying, "If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation of Americans, whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street" -- sounding very much like Sanders or Warren on the left.

Carlson's argument that "market capitalism is not a religion" is of course old hat on the left, but it's also been bubbling on the right for years now. When National Review writer Kevin Williamson wrote a 2016 op-ed about how rural whites "failed themselves," he faced a massive backlash in the Trumpier quarters of the right. And these sentiments are becoming increasingly potent at a time when Americans can see both a booming stock market and perhaps their own family members struggling to get by.

Capitalism/liberalism destroys the extended family by requiring people to move apart for work and destroying any sense of unchosen obligations one might have towards one's kin.

-- Jeremy McLallan (@JeremyMcLellan) January 8, 2019

At the Federalist, writer Kirk Jing wrote of Carlson's monologue, and a response to it by National Review columnist David French:

Our society is less French's America, the idea, and more Frantz Fanon's "Wretched of the Earth" (involving a very different French). The lowest are stripped of even social dignity and deemed unworthy of life . In Real America, wages are stagnant, life expectancy is crashing, people are fleeing the workforce, families are crumbling, and trust in the institutions on top are at all-time lows. To French, holding any leaders of those institutions responsible for their errors is "victimhood populism" ... The Right must do better if it seeks to govern a real America that exists outside of its fantasies.

J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy , wrote that the [neoliberal] economy's victories -- and praise for those wins from conservatives -- were largely meaningless to white working-class Americans living in Ohio and Kentucky: "Yes, they live in a country with a higher GDP than a generation ago, and they're undoubtedly able to buy cheaper consumer goods, but to paraphrase Reagan: Are they better off than they were 20 years ago? Many would say, unequivocally, 'no.'"

Carlson's populism holds, in his view, bipartisan possibilities. In a follow-up email, I asked him why his monologue was aimed at Republicans when many Democrats had long espoused the same criticisms of free market economics. "Fair question," he responded. "I hope it's not just Republicans. But any response to the country's systemic problems will have to give priority to the concerns of American citizens over the concerns of everyone else, just as you'd protect your own kids before the neighbor's kids."

Who is "they"?

And that's the point where Carlson and a host of others on the right who have begun to challenge the conservative movement's orthodoxy on free markets -- people ranging from occasionally mendacious bomb-throwers like Coulter to writers like Michael Brendan Dougherty -- separate themselves from many of those making those exact same arguments on the left.

When Carlson talks about the "normal people" he wants to save from nefarious elites, he is talking, usually, about a specific group of "normal people" -- white working-class Americans who are the "real" victims of capitalism, or marijuana legalization, or immigration policies.

In this telling, white working-class Americans who once relied on a manufacturing economy that doesn't look the way it did in 1955 are the unwilling pawns of elites. It's not their fault that, in Carlson's view, marriage is inaccessible to them, or that marijuana legalization means more teens are smoking weed ( this probably isn't true ). Someone, or something, did this to them. In Carlson's view, it's the responsibility of politicians: Our economic situation, and the plight of the white working class, is "the product of a series of conscious decisions that the Congress made."

The criticism of Carlson's monologue has largely focused on how he deviates from the free market capitalism that conservatives believe is the solution to poverty, not the creator of poverty. To orthodox conservatives, poverty is the result of poor decision making or a lack of virtue that can't be solved by government programs or an anti-elite political platform -- and they say Carlson's argument that elites are in some way responsible for dwindling marriage rates doesn't make sense .

But in French's response to Carlson, he goes deeper, writing that to embrace Carlson's brand of populism is to support "victimhood populism," one that makes white working-class Americans into the victims of an undefined "they:

Carlson is advancing a form of victim-politics populism that takes a series of tectonic cultural changes -- civil rights, women's rights, a technological revolution as significant as the industrial revolution, the mass-scale loss of religious faith, the sexual revolution, etc. -- and turns the negative or challenging aspects of those changes into an angry tale of what they are doing to you .

And that was my biggest question about Carlson's monologue, and the flurry of responses to it, and support for it: When other groups (say, black Americans) have pointed to systemic inequities within the economic system that have resulted in poverty and family dysfunction, the response from many on the right has been, shall we say, less than enthusiastic .

Really, it comes down to when black people have problems, it's personal responsibility, but when white people have the same problems, the system is messed up. Funny how that works!!

-- Judah Maccabeets (@AdamSerwer) January 9, 2019

Yet white working-class poverty receives, from Carlson and others, far more sympathy. And conservatives are far more likely to identify with a criticism of "elites" when they believe those elites are responsible for the expansion of trans rights or creeping secularism than the wealthy and powerful people who are investing in private prisons or an expansion of the militarization of police . Carlson's network, Fox News, and Carlson himself have frequently blasted leftist critics of market capitalism and efforts to fight inequality .

I asked Carlson about this, as his show is frequently centered on the turmoils caused by " demographic change ." He said that for decades, "conservatives just wrote [black economic struggles] off as a culture of poverty," a line he includes in his monologue .

He added that regarding black poverty, "it's pretty easy when you've got 12 percent of the population going through something to feel like, 'Well, there must be ... there's something wrong with that culture.' Which is actually a tricky thing to say because it's in part true, but what you're missing, what I missed, what I think a lot of people missed, was that the economic system you're living under affects your culture."

Carlson said that growing up in Washington, DC, and spending time in rural Maine, he didn't realize until recently that the same poverty and decay he observed in the Washington of the 1980s was also taking place in rural (and majority-white) Maine. "I was thinking, 'Wait a second ... maybe when the jobs go away the culture changes,'" he told me, "And the reason I didn't think of it before was because I was so blinded by this libertarian economic propaganda that I couldn't get past my own assumptions about economics." (For the record, libertarians have critiqued Carlson's monologue as well.)

Carlson told me that beyond changing our tax code, he has no major policies in mind. "I'm not even making the case for an economic system in particular," he told me. "All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God or a function or raw nature."

And clearly, our market economy isn't driven by God or nature, as the stock market soars and unemployment dips and yet even those on the right are noticing lengthy periods of wage stagnation and dying little towns across the country. But what to do about those dying little towns, and which dying towns we care about and which we don't, and, most importantly, whose fault it is that those towns are dying in the first place -- those are all questions Carlson leaves to the viewer to answer.

[Jan 12, 2019] Democratic Party became the party of corrupt, sclerotic, corporate Democrats

Jan 12, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com

Monday, January 07, 2019 at 03:17 PM


-> anne... , January 10, 2019 at 07:06 AM

Did Krugman just issue a veiled warning to Pelosi, Schumer, and Clinton Democrats? Did he see this as a teaching moment for them? Has he turned from unabashed megaphone for establishment Democrats to an honest broker, willing to explain economics to Demcoratic Big Money parasites? Could be... If so, this might be a turning point for Krugman from partisan hack to honest broker!

As always, Robert Reich pulls fewer punches: "Do not ever underestimate the influence of Wall Street Democrats, corporate Democrats, and the Democrats' biggest funders. I know. I've been there.
In the 2018 midterms, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, big business made more contributions to Democrats than to Republicans. The shift was particularly noticeable on Wall Street. Not since 2008 have donors in the securities and investment industry given a higher percentage to Democratic candidates and committees than to Republicans.

The moneyed interests in the Democratic party are in favor of helping America's poor and of reversing climate change – two positions that sharply distinguish them from the moneyed interests in the Republican party.

But the Democrats' moneyed interests don't want more powerful labor unions. They are not in favor of stronger antitrust enforcement against large corporations. They resist firmer regulation of Wall Street. They are unlikely to want to repeal the Trump-Republican tax cut for big corporations and the wealthy."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/06/house-democrats-donald-trump-subpoena-tax-return-impeachment

And maybe, just maybe, Krugman, in a veiled warning to Democrats enamored with Trump's tax cuts, has decided to trump partisan loyalty with economic reality...as any decent economist should do.

EMichael and kurt will be disappointed, very disappointed that Krugman sided with AOC over corrupt, sclerotic, corporate Democrats...

RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to JohnH... , January 08, 2019 at 07:27 AM
There is no reason to think that mainstream liberals would not just go along with whatever direction the liberal establishment takes. OTOH, there is a major difference in the context between the rank and file of mainstream liberals and the actual liberal establishment itself. Mainstream liberals just want to fit in and win elections. They are concerned with electability and the constraints of legislative process. There is nothing wrong with that. It is the role of the rank and file.

However, AOC is correct. It is radicals that bring about all significant change. Mainstream radical is an oxymoron. After radicals cause change then it is no longer radical, but it becomes mainstream instead.

In contrast, the liberal establishment is also concerned with electability because that is what they do for a living, either get elected or ride along on the coattails of the elected, but they are elites and elitists not to be separated from the status quo economic establishment without considerable consternation. However, the elitists' trepidation over being separated from their wealthy elite supporters would be greatly reduced by severe limits on private campaign financing. Still, it would be a rare elected official that would rather eat in a soup kitchen than a five-star restaurant both for the good food and for the good company. In both regards though that depends upon what your definition of "good" is.

JohnH -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , January 08, 2019 at 08:48 AM
"Mainstream liberals just want to fit in and win elections..." And they are precisely they kind of "go-along to get along types" who let bad things happen...and then pretend to not understand what went wrong...Vietnam, Iraq, GWOT, Glass-Steagall repeal, trade liberalization/offshoring profits, banksters who go Scot free after bringing the economy down. The list goes on.
RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to JohnH... , January 08, 2019 at 09:24 AM
There are leaders, followers, and radicals. One can choose to be any one or two or those they want, but no more than two. It is not very rewarding to be a radical from the back of the line unless there is also a radical to follow at the front of the line. Leaders that are also followers inherit the status quo and guard it like it was their own because it is. Radical leaders rarely succeed, but often die young.

Trump is a bad example of a leader, but he follows his nose at least rather than just the status quo. Trump has a nose for trouble and he cannot resist its stench any more than a jackal or hyena can resist rotting carrion. Fortunate for Trump the US has a long history of stockpiling trouble for future consumption that reaches all the way back to colonial times. Trump likes to think that orange is the new black, but the old black, brown, and red are still around and neither yellow nor orange can take their place.

The majority of people are just plain old followers. If people think that there is chaos in the world already, just imagine what it would be like if most people were not just plain old followers. The status quo always has the advantage of the natural force of inertia.

mulp said in reply to JohnH... , January 10, 2019 at 02:14 PM
"...banksters who go Scot free after bringing the economy down. The list goes on."

Because you believe in government as done by Putin, Maduro, Saddam, Saudi Arabia, etc: jail, torture, kill enemies by the people in power being the law.

You reject the US Constitution where voters are allowed to elect Republicans who legalize fraud and theft by deception based on voters wanting the free lunch of easy credit requiring bankers have no liability for the bad loans from easy credit. You reject the US Constitution prohibition on retroactive laws criminalizzing legal actions.

Only if you were leading protests in the 90s in opposition to laws making credit easy for below $80,000 workers whether buying houses or trucks/SUV.

Only if you were picketing real estate agents and car dealers from 2001 to 2005 to keep out customers, you were not doing enough to stop easy credit.

The GOP was only dellivering what voters wanted, stuff they could not afford paid for by workers saving for their retirement.

Elections have consequences.

The elections from 1994 to 2004 were votes for free lunch economics. The GOP promised and delivered free lunch economic policies.

In 2005, voters on the margins realized tanstaafl, and in 2006 elected Pelosi to power, and Pelosi, representing California knows economies are zero sum, so she increased costs to increase general welfare. One of the costs was reccognizing the costs, and benefits, of the US Constitution.

In 2008, she did not try to criminalize past action, and when she could not get the votes to punish the bankers who bankrupted the institutions they ran by prohibiting bonuses in the future,, she insread delivered the best deal possible for the US Constitutional general welfare.

I think Bernie wanted all voters who voted GOP to lose their jobs, or maybe he simply believes in free lunch economist claims that welfare payments in Ohio and Michigan are higher than union worker incomes.

Maybe he thinks bankruptcy court nationalize businesses, not liquidate them.

Or maybe he figured the solution was a 21st Century Great Depression which would elect a socialist instead of a capitalist FDR, and he would get to run all the automakers, all the food industry, and employ all the workers deciding what they can buy?

I can never figure out how the economy would work if Bernie were running it. He talks about Europe, but never advocates the cost of EU economy that is part of EU law: the VAT. All EU members must have a VAT that is a significant cost to every person in the EU.

Free lunch economics is when you promise increased benefits with no costs, or lower costs.


Free lunch Trump and free lunch Bernie differ only in their winners, but their losers are always the same.

When progressives argue for unlimited increases in debt just like Reagan, they are rejecting the pokicies of FDR, Keynes, the US when the general welfare increased most by increasing assets faster than debt.

JohnH -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , January 08, 2019 at 08:53 AM
"'elitists' trepidation over being separated from their wealthy elite supporters would be greatly reduced by severe limits on private campaign financing." Which is why so many liberal establishment politicians...per Reich...pay only lip service to real campaign finance reform. Being parasites, they feed off of their hosts and dare not disrupt the gravy train.
mulp said in reply to JohnH... , January 09, 2019 at 05:04 AM
"elitists' trepidation over being separated from their wealthy elite supporters would be greatly reduced by severe limits on private campaign financing."

So, the wealthy liberal elites who pay no taxes by cleverly paying all revenue to workers need to be punished because they pay too much to too many workers?

Warrren Buffett has never paid much in taxes even when tax rates on corporations were over 50% and individuals reached over 70%. Money paid to workers, directly or indirectly, was and still is the number one tax dodge.

Unless you go to a sales tax aka VAT which taxes all revenue, expecially business income paid to workers.

VAT is an income tax with zero tax dodges aka loopholes aka deductions.

mulp said in reply to JohnH... , January 10, 2019 at 03:04 PM
""'elitists' trepidation over being separated from their wealthy elite supporters would be greatly reduced by severe limits on private campaign financing." Which is why so many liberal establishment politicians...per Reich...pay only lip service to real campaign finance reform. Being parasites, they feed off of their hosts and dare not disrupt the gravy train."

In your view, its the poor who create high paying jobs?

It's wrong to listen to people who convince rich people to give their money to people paying US workers to build factories, wind farms, solar farms battery factories, transportation systems, vehicles, computer systems in the US?

Instead Democrats should listen to people who have never created long term paying jobs, but only pay elites who run campaigns using mostly unpaid workers, or workers paid only a few months every few years? Like Bernie does?

When it comes to how to run a "Green New Deal", I want the policy crafted by someone who listens to Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and the CEOs of California energy corporations, tech companies, who are commited to consuming more and more energy that requires no fossil fuels. Listening to Home Depot and Walmart building managers and retail sales managers should be a priority. All these guys both focus on paying more workers, and selling more to workers paid more.

AOC and Bernie seem to listen to the Lamperts who are destroying the value of companies like Sears by "taxing" both the customers, workers, and owners, by giving money to people who don't work to produce anything.

I make going to RealClearPolicy, Politics, etc a daily practice to see how bad progressives are at selling their policies, making it easy for find all sorts of costs, without any benefits to anyone.

The New Deal was not about taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor. The New Deal was about paying workers more.

In 1930, half the population still lived on farms. (They might work off the farm, but they were farmworkers first.) The problem for farmers is Europe had recovered from the war and was no longer sending gold to the US to secure loans to buy food, but instead repaying the loans by shipping high value food to the US, wine, cheese, etc, and that meant too much food drove prices down, which meant farmworkers earned less and less.

One of the first laws set minimum prices for food, enforced by destroying crops, or government overpaying for food like milk, cheese, bread, which the government gave away to the poor who could never buy this food. It was not about giving food away, but about paying workers, the farmers, ranchers, etc. Giving the food to the poor who could not afford to buy food was simply to avoid the attacks on FDR for destroying good food to drive up farmer pay. Which was the truth.

FDR talked about creating a healthy workforce to make America great, then about building a healthy soldier. Ike in the 50s and JFK in the 60s campaigned on creating healthy soldiers. And smart, educated soldiers and workers.

The policies of liberals was about better workers, richer workers.

Conservatives since Reagan has been about cutting the costs of workers. Sold based on consumers benefiting from lower cost workers, because consumees are never workers, workers never consumers, because if workers equal consumers, economics must be zero sum.

Christopher H. said in reply to RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , January 08, 2019 at 09:20 AM
Well said. It is fascinating to witness how the liberal establishment is rallying around democratic socialists AOC and Rashida Tlaib.


https://twitter.com/MattBruenig/status/1082287736550293504

Matt Bruenig‏
@MattBruenig

By attracting the intense ire of the GOP, AOC activates the negative polarization of lib pundits and makes them look for ways to defend left policy items they'd attack in any other scenario. It's very effective at pushing the discourse forward.

6:47 AM - 7 Jan 2019

RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to Christopher H.... , January 08, 2019 at 09:25 AM
Sweet. THANKS!
mulp said in reply to JohnH... , January 09, 2019 at 04:55 AM
"But the Democrats' moneyed interests don't want more powerful labor unions. They are not in favor of stronger antitrust enforcement against large corporations."

So, you think beef at $10 plus per pound, salad greens at $5 plus per pound, a fast food meal at $10 plus, is a winning issue for Democrats?

Or by powerful labor unions, you mean for only white male blue collar factory workers, long haul white truckers, white construction workers?

Making all work pay enough to reach middle class status at the low end will not happen by unions because many parts of the US, and workers, and jobs, will oppose unions. Instead, labor laws and enforcement to lift wages and working conditions rapidly in conservative regions are required.

Better to get the minimum wage in Indiana and Kansas to $10 than in California to $15.

More important to get farm workers fully covered by Federal law like factory workers, with exemptions only for farmer family members.

Raising incomes in low living cost regions will not raise prices much nationally, but increase living standards among the most disadvantaged who feel "left behind".

Automatic increases annually of 10% for 7 years, then indexed by cpi.

Constantly emphasizing this minimum is way below what the low wage is in SF, NYC, LA, but the goods produced will be bought and thus wages paid mostly by high income liberal elites. Conservatives sticking it to liberals!

Darrell in Phoenix said in reply to mulp ... , January 09, 2019 at 09:26 AM
"you think beef at $10 plus per pound,"

Wow... you need to do a lot better at shopping sales. I wait for sales and then buy burger at $2.50, crud cuts at $3-4, and can frequently get t-bone and ribeye for under $5.

BUT, on the larger scale, what is the difference if I pay $1 a pound for burger and earn $20K a year, or I pay $3 for burger and earn $60K a year?

Inflation punishes savers? Really? What is the difference if I earn 3% at 2% inflation or 1% at 0% inflation? The answer is, none.

Julio -> anne... , January 08, 2019 at 09:47 AM
"In that case, however, why do we care how hard the rich work? If a rich man works an extra hour, adding $1000 to the economy, but gets paid $1000 for his efforts, the combined income of everyone else doesn't change, does it? Ah, but it does – because he pays taxes on that extra $1000. So the social benefit from getting high-income individuals to work a bit harder is the tax revenue generated by that extra effort – and conversely the cost of their working less is the reduction in the taxes they pay."

This is not right. Heck, it's not even wrong.
Say the $1000 is for a surgery. The social benefit is the tax they pay on it? The surgery itself is irrelevant?

Krugman confuses the flow of money, which supports and correlates with production, with the actual production, the real "social benefit".

Darrell in Phoenix said in reply to Julio ... , January 08, 2019 at 04:17 PM
A point I try to make.

If you invent a widget that everyone on earth is willing to pay $1 over cost to get, congratulations, you just earned $7 billion.

Now, does that mean you get to consume $7 billion worth of stuff other people produce? I think so.

Or, does it mean you get to trap the world in $7 billion of debt servitude from which it is impossible for them to escape, because you are hoarding, and then charging interest on, the $7 billion they need to pay back their debts.

The key is to understand that money is created via debt. Money has value because people with debt need to get it to repay their debts.

If we all decide BitCoin is worthless, then BitCoin is worthless. It has no fundamental usefulness.

If we all decide money is worthless, then a bunch of people with debt will gladly take it off our hands so that they can repay their debt. Heck, they may even trade us stuff to get the debt... which is why money is NOT worthless.

mulp said in reply to Darrell in Phoenix... , January 09, 2019 at 05:15 AM
If $1 per day make everyone live better with no added climate change, PLUS paid an extra $7 billion per day to production workers, service workers, that would be good, or bad?

Say, the $7 billion in wages was to sing and dance so no matter where in the world he was, he was entertained by song and dance?

Economies are zero sum. Every cost has an equal benefit aka income or consumption. Work can't exist without consumption, consumption without work.

Money is merely work in the past or future.

Darrell in Phoenix said in reply to mulp ... , January 09, 2019 at 08:06 AM
"If $1 per day make everyone live better with no added climate change, PLUS paid an extra $7 billion per day to production workers, service workers, that would be good, or bad?"

Obviously, good. Which is what I say in my post.

"Money is merely work in the past or future."

Money is other peoples' debt. They have borrowed money into existence and then spent it into the economy, AND they have pledged to do work in the future, to get the money back so they can repay the debt.

That "doing work in the future to get the money back" is only possible if the people with the money actually spend it back into the economy.

The problem is that the people in debt also agreed to pay interest, and the people with the money want to keep collecting the interest... so keep holding the money... making it absolutely impossible for those with debt to pay it back.

I'm saying is that there is obligation on both sides. There is obligation on the part of people with debt to produce goods and services and sell them for money to repay their debts, AND for that to be possible, there is obligation on those with money to actually spend the money...

Contrary to CONservative opinion, money is not created by work, it is earned by selling, and that means for the economy to function, there has to be spending.

We need a tax code with very high top rates, but deductions for spending and capital investing... not to take from the rich, but rather to force them to spend and invest to get deductions.

[Jan 11, 2019] As Democratic Elites Reunite With Neocons, The Party's Voters Are Becoming Far More Militaristic And Pro-War Than Republicans by Glenn Greenwald

Clinton Democrats (DemoRats) are so close to neocons that the current re-alliance is only natural and only partially caused by Trump. Under Obama some of leading figures of his administration were undistinguishable from neocons (Samantha Power is a good example here -- she was as crazy as Niki Haley, if not more). There is only one "war party in the USA which continently consists of two wings: Repugs and DemoRats.
Notable quotes:
"... Both GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham , one of the country's most reliable war supporters, and Hillary Clinton , who repeatedly criticized former President Barack Obama for insufficient hawkishness, condemned Trump's decision in very similar terms, invoking standard war on terror jargon. ..."
"... That's not surprising given that Americans by a similarly large plurality agree with the proposition that "the U.S. has been engaged in too many military conflicts in places such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan for too long and should prioritize getting Americans out of harm's way" ..."
"... But what is remarkable about the new polling data on Syria is that the vast bulk of support for keeping troops there comes from Democratic Party voters, while Republicans and independents overwhelming favor their removal. The numbers are stark: Of people who voted for Clinton in 2016, only 26 percent support withdrawing troops from Syria, while 59 percent oppose it. Trump voters overwhelmingly support withdraw by 76 percent to 14 percent. ..."
"... This case is even more stark since Obama ran in 2008 on a pledge to end the war in Afghanistan and bring all troops home. Throughout the Obama years, polling data consistently showed that huge majorities of Democrats favored a withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan ..."
"... While Democrats were more or less evenly divided early last year on whether the U.S. should continue to intervene in Syria, all that changed once Trump announced his intention to withdraw, which provoked a huge surge in Democratic support for remaining ..."
"... At the same time, Democratic policy elites in Washington are once again formally aligning with neoconservatives , even to the point of creating joint foreign policy advocacy groups (a reunion that predated Trump ). The leading Democratic Party think tank, the Center for American Progress, donated $200,000 to the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute and has multilevel alliances with warmongering institutions. ..."
"... By far the most influential [neo]liberal media outlet, MSNBC, is stuffed full of former Bush-Cheney officials, security state operatives, and agents , while even the liberal stars are notably hawkish (a decade ago, long before she went as far down the pro-war and Cold Warrior rabbit hole that she now occupies, Rachel Maddow heralded herself as a "national security liberal" who was "all about counterterrorism"). ..."
"... All of this has resulted in a new generation of Democrats, politically engaged for the first time as a result of fears over Trump, being inculcated with values of militarism and imperialism, trained to view once-discredited, war-loving neocons such as Bill Kristol, Max Boot, and David Frum, and former CIA and FBI leaders as noble experts and trusted voices of conscience. It's inevitable that all of these trends would produce a party that is increasingly pro-war and militaristic, and polling data now leaves little doubt that this transformation -- which will endure long after Trump is gone -- is well under way. ..."
Jan 11, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Via Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP'S December 18 announcement that he intends to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria produced some isolated support in the anti-war wings of both parties , but largely provoked bipartisan outrage among in Washington's reflexively pro-war establishment.

Both GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the country's most reliable war supporters, and Hillary Clinton, who repeatedly criticized former President Barack Obama for insufficient hawkishness, condemned Trump's decision in very similar terms, invoking standard war on terror jargon.

But while official Washington united in opposition, new polling data from Morning Consult/Politico shows that a large plurality of Americans support Trump's Syria withdrawal announcement: 49 percent support to 33 percent opposition.

That's not surprising given that Americans by a similarly large plurality agree with the proposition that "the U.S. has been engaged in too many military conflicts in places such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan for too long and should prioritize getting Americans out of harm's way" far more than they agree with the pro-war view that "the U.S. needs to keep troops in places such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan to help support our allies fight terrorism and maintain our foreign policy interests in the region."

But what is remarkable about the new polling data on Syria is that the vast bulk of support for keeping troops there comes from Democratic Party voters, while Republicans and independents overwhelming favor their removal. The numbers are stark: Of people who voted for Clinton in 2016, only 26 percent support withdrawing troops from Syria, while 59 percent oppose it. Trump voters overwhelmingly support withdraw by 76 percent to 14 percent.

A similar gap is seen among those who voted Democrat in the 2018 midterm elections (28 percent support withdrawal while 54 percent oppose it), as opposed to the widespread support for withdrawal among 2018 GOP voters: 74 percent to 18 percent.

Identical trends can be seen on the question of Trump's announced intention to withdraw half of the U.S. troops currently in Afghanistan, where Democrats are far more supportive of keeping troops there than Republicans and independents.

This case is even more stark since Obama ran in 2008 on a pledge to end the war in Afghanistan and bring all troops home. Throughout the Obama years, polling data consistently showed that huge majorities of Democrats favored a withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan:

With Trump rather than Obama now advocating troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, all of this has changed. The new polling data shows far more support for troop withdrawal among Republicans and independents, while Democrats are now split or even opposed . Among 2016 Trump voters, there is massive support for withdrawal: 81 percent to 11 percent; Clinton voters, however, oppose the removal of troops from Afghanistan by a margin of 37 percent in favor and 47 percent opposed.

This latest poll is far from aberrational. As the Huffington Post's Ariel Edwards-Levy documented early this week , separate polling shows a similar reversal by Democrats on questions of war and militarism in the Trump era.

While Democrats were more or less evenly divided early last year on whether the U.S. should continue to intervene in Syria, all that changed once Trump announced his intention to withdraw, which provoked a huge surge in Democratic support for remaining. "Those who voted for Democrat Clinton now said by a 42-point margin that the U.S. had a responsibility to do something about the fighting in Syria involving ISIS," Edwards-Levy wrote, "while Trump voters said by a 16-point margin that the nation had no such responsibility." (Similar trends can be seen among GOP voters, whose support for intervention in Syria has steadily declined as Trump has moved away from his posture of the last two years -- escalating bombings in both Syria and Iraq and killing far more civilians , as he repeatedly vowed to do during the campaign -- to his return to his other campaign pledge to remove troops from the region.)

This is, of course, not the first time that Democratic voters have wildly shifted their "beliefs" based on the party affiliation of the person occupying the Oval Office. The party's base spent the Bush-Cheney years denouncing war on terror policies, such as assassinations, drones, and Guantánamo as moral atrocities and war crimes, only to suddenly support those policies once they became hallmarks of the Obama presidency .

But what's happening here is far more insidious. A core ethos of the anti-Trump #Resistance has become militarism, jingoism, and neoconservatism. Trump is frequently attacked by Democrats using longstanding Cold War scripts wielded for decades against them by the far right: Trump is insufficiently belligerent with U.S. enemies; he's willing to allow the Bad Countries to take over by bringing home U.S. soldiers; his efforts to establish less hostile relations with adversary countries is indicative of weakness or even treason.

At the same time, Democratic policy elites in Washington are once again formally aligning with neoconservatives , even to the point of creating joint foreign policy advocacy groups (a reunion that predated Trump ). The leading Democratic Party think tank, the Center for American Progress, donated $200,000 to the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute and has multilevel alliances with warmongering institutions.

By far the most influential [neo]liberal media outlet, MSNBC, is stuffed full of former Bush-Cheney officials, security state operatives, and agents , while even the liberal stars are notably hawkish (a decade ago, long before she went as far down the pro-war and Cold Warrior rabbit hole that she now occupies, Rachel Maddow heralded herself as a "national security liberal" who was "all about counterterrorism").

All of this has resulted in a new generation of Democrats, politically engaged for the first time as a result of fears over Trump, being inculcated with values of militarism and imperialism, trained to view once-discredited, war-loving neocons such as Bill Kristol, Max Boot, and David Frum, and former CIA and FBI leaders as noble experts and trusted voices of conscience. It's inevitable that all of these trends would produce a party that is increasingly pro-war and militaristic, and polling data now leaves little doubt that this transformation -- which will endure long after Trump is gone -- is well under way.

[Jan 11, 2019] Facts does not matter in the current propoganda environment, the narrative is everything

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Look at Russiagate. An excellent recent article by Ray McGovern for Consortium News titled "A Look Back at Clapper's Jan. 2017 'Assessment' on Russia-gate" reminds us on the two-year anniversary of the infamous ODNI assessment that the entire establishment Russia narrative is built upon nothing but the say-so of a couple dozen intelligence analysts hand-picked and guided by a man who helped deceive the world into Iraq, a man who is so virulently Russophobic that he's said on more than one occasion that Russians are genetically predisposed to subversive behavior. ..."
"... That January 2017 intelligence assessment has formed the foundation underlying every breathless, conspiratorial Russia story you see in western news media to this very day, and it's completely empty. The idea that Russia interfered in the US election in any meaningful way is based on an assessment crafted by a known liar , from which countless relevant analysts were excluded, which makes no claims of certainty, and contains no publicly available evidence. It's pure narrative from top to bottom, and therefore the "collusion" story is as well since Trump could only have colluded with an actual thing that actually happened, and there's no evidence that it did. ..."
"... So now you've got Trump being painted as a Putin lackey based on a completely fabricated election interference story, despite the fact that Trump has actually been far more hawkish towards Russia than any administration since the fall of the Soviet Union. ..."
"... The narrative matrix of America's political/media landscape is a confusing labyrinth of smoke and funhouse mirrors distorting and manipulating the public consciousness at every turn. It's psychologically torturous, which is largely why people who are deeply immersed in politics are so on-edge all the time regardless of where they're at on the political spectrum. The only potentially good thing I can see about this forceful brutalization of the public psyche is that it might push people over the edge and shatter the illusion altogether. ..."
"... Trust in the mass media is already at an all-time low while our ability to network and share information that casts doubt on official narratives is at an all-time high, which is why the establishment propaganda machine is acting so weird as it scrambles to control the narrative, and why efforts to censor the internet are getting more and more severe. ..."
Jan 11, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump tweeted the following:

"Endless Wars, especially those which are fought out of judgement mistakes that were made many years ago, & those where we are getting little financial or military help from the rich countries that so greatly benefit from what we are doing, will eventually come to a glorious end!"

The tweet was warmly received and celebrated by Trump's supporters, despite the fact that it says essentially nothing since "eventually" could mean anything.

Indeed, it's looking increasingly possible that nothing will come of the president's stated agenda to withdraw troops from Syria other than a bunch of words which allow his anti-interventionist base to feel nice feelings inside. Yet everyone laps it up, on both ends of the political aisle, just like they always do:

How are such wildly different pictures being painted about the same non-event? By the fact that both sides of the Trump-Syria debate have thus far been reacting solely to narrative.

This has consistently been the story throughout Trump's presidency: a heavy emphasis on words and narratives and a disinterest in facts and actions. A rude tweet can dominate headlines for days, while the actual behaviors of this administration can go almost completely ignored. Trump continues to more or less advance the same warmongering Orwellian globalist policies and agendas as his predecessors along more or less the same trajectory, but frantic mass media narratives are churned out every day painting him as some unprecedented deviation from the norm. Trump himself, seemingly aware that he's interacting entirely with perceptions and narratives instead of facts and reality, routinely makes things up whole cloth and often claims he's "never said" things he most certainly has said. And why not? Facts don't matter in this media environment, only narrative does.

Look at Russiagate. An excellent recent article by Ray McGovern for Consortium News titled "A Look Back at Clapper's Jan. 2017 'Assessment' on Russia-gate" reminds us on the two-year anniversary of the infamous ODNI assessment that the entire establishment Russia narrative is built upon nothing but the say-so of a couple dozen intelligence analysts hand-picked and guided by a man who helped deceive the world into Iraq, a man who is so virulently Russophobic that he's said on more than one occasion that Russians are genetically predisposed to subversive behavior.

That January 2017 intelligence assessment has formed the foundation underlying every breathless, conspiratorial Russia story you see in western news media to this very day, and it's completely empty. The idea that Russia interfered in the US election in any meaningful way is based on an assessment crafted by a known liar , from which countless relevant analysts were excluded, which makes no claims of certainty, and contains no publicly available evidence. It's pure narrative from top to bottom, and therefore the "collusion" story is as well since Trump could only have colluded with an actual thing that actually happened, and there's no evidence that it did.

So now you've got Trump being painted as a Putin lackey based on a completely fabricated election interference story, despite the fact that Trump has actually been far more hawkish towards Russia than any administration since the fall of the Soviet Union. With the nuclear brinkmanship this administration has been playing with its only nuclear rival on the planet, it would be so incredibly easy for Trump's opposition to attack him on his insanely hawkish escalation of a conflict which could easily end all life on earth if any little thing goes wrong, but they don't. Because this is all about narrative and not facts, Democrats have been paced into supporting even more sanctioning, proxy conflicts and nuclear posturing while loudly objecting to any sign of communication between the two nuclear superpowers, while Republicans are happy to see Trump increase tensions with Moscow because it combats the collusion narrative. Now both parties are supporting an anti-Russia agenda which existed in secretive US government agencies long before the 2016 election .

And this to me is the most significant thing about Trump's presidency. Not any of the things people tell me I'm supposed to care about, but the fact that the age of Trump has been highlighting in a very clear way how we're all being manipulated by manufactured narratives all the time.

Humanity lives in a world of mental narrative . We have a deeply conditioned societal habit of heaping a massive overlay of mental labels and stories on top of the raw data we take in through our senses, and those labels and stories tend to consume far more interest and attention than the actual data itself. We use labels and stories for a reason: without them it would be impossible to share abstract ideas and information with each other about what's going on in our world. But those labels and stories get imbued with an intense amount of belief and identification; we form tight, rigid belief structures about our world, our society, and our very selves that can generate a lot of fear, hatred and suffering. Which is why it feels so nice to go out into nature and relax in an environment that isn't shaped by human mental narrative.

This problem is exponentially exacerbated by the fact that these stories and labels are wildly subjective and very easily manipulated. Powerful people have learned that they can control the way everyone else thinks, acts and votes by controlling the stories they tell themselves about what's going on in the world using mass media control and financial political influence, allowing ostensible democracies to be conducted in a way which serves power far more efficiently than any dictatorship.

So now America has a president who is escalating a dangerous cold war against Russia , who is working to prosecute Julian Assange and shut down WikiLeaks , who is expanding the same war on whistleblowers and Orwellian surveillance network that was expanded by Bush and Obama before him, who has expanded existing wars and made no tangible move as yet to scale them back, who is advancing the longstanding neocon agenda of regime change in Iran with starvation sanctions and CIA covert ops , and yet the two prevailing narratives about him are that he's either (A) a swamp-draining, establishment-fighting hero of peace or that he's (B) a treasonous Putin lackey who isn't nearly hawkish enough toward Russia.

See how both A and B herd the public away from opposing the dangerous pro-establishment agendas being advanced by this administration? The dominant narratives could not possibly be more different from what's actually going on, and the only reason they're the dominant narratives is because an alliance of plutocrats and secretive government agencies exerts an immense amount of influence over the stories that are told by the political/media class.

The narrative matrix of America's political/media landscape is a confusing labyrinth of smoke and funhouse mirrors distorting and manipulating the public consciousness at every turn. It's psychologically torturous, which is largely why people who are deeply immersed in politics are so on-edge all the time regardless of where they're at on the political spectrum. The only potentially good thing I can see about this forceful brutalization of the public psyche is that it might push people over the edge and shatter the illusion altogether.

Trust in the mass media is already at an all-time low while our ability to network and share information that casts doubt on official narratives is at an all-time high, which is why the establishment propaganda machine is acting so weird as it scrambles to control the narrative, and why efforts to censor the internet are getting more and more severe. It is possible that this is what it looks like when a thinking species evolves into a sane and healthy relationship with thought. Perhaps the cracks that are appearing all over official narratives today are like the first cracks appearing in an eggshell as a bird begins to hatch into the world.

* * *

The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website , which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following my antics on Twitter , throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal , purchasing some of my sweet new merchandise , buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone , or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers .

[Jan 11, 2019] Blowback from the neoliberal policy is coming

Highly recommended!
Seeing Tucker Leaders show no obligation to American voters suggest that the collapse of neoliberalism is coming...
Notable quotes:
"... Excessive financialization is the Achilles' heel of neoliberalism. It inevitably distorts everything, blows the asset bubble, which then pops. With each pop, the level of political support of neoliberalism shrinks. Hillary defeat would have been impossible without 2008 events. ..."
Jan 11, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

bruce wilder, January 11, 2019 at 2:17 pm

Barkley insists on a left-right split for his analysis of political parties and their attachment to vague policy tendencies and that insistence makes a mess of the central issue: why the rise of right-wing populism in a "successful" economy?

Naomi Klein's book is about how and why centrist neoliberals got control of policy. The rise of right-wing populism is often supposed (see Mark Blyth) to be about the dissatisfaction bred by the long-term shortcomings of or blowback from neoliberal policy.

Barkley Rosser treats neoliberal policy as implicitly successful and, therefore, the reaction from the populist right appears mysterious, something to investigate. His thesis regarding neoliberal success in Poland is predicated on policy being less severe, less "shocky".

In his left-right division of Polish politics, the centrist neoliberals -- in the 21st century, Civic Platform -- seem to disappear into the background even though I think they are still the second largest Party in Parliament, though some seem to think they will sink in elections this year.

Electoral participation is another factor that receives little attention in this analysis. Politics is shaped in part by the people who do NOT show up. And, in Poland that has sometimes been a lot of people, indeed.

Finally, there's the matter of the neoliberal straitjacket -- the flip-side of the shock in the one-two punch of "there's no alternative". What the policy options for a Party representing the interests of the angry and dissatisfied? If you make policy impossible for a party of the left, of course that breeds parties of the right. duh.

Likbez,

Bruce,

Blowback from the neoliberal policy is coming. I would consider the current situation in the USA as the starting point of this "slow-motion collapse of the neoliberal garbage truck against the wall." Neoliberalism like Bolshevism in 1945 has no future, only the past. That does not mean that it will not limp forward in zombie (and pretty bloodthirsty ) stage for another 50 years. But it is doomed, notwithstanding recently staged revenge in countries like Ukraine, Argentina, and Brazil.

Excessive financialization is the Achilles' heel of neoliberalism. It inevitably distorts everything, blows the asset bubble, which then pops. With each pop, the level of political support of neoliberalism shrinks. Hillary defeat would have been impossible without 2008 events.

At least half of Americans now hate soft neoliberals of Democratic Party (Clinton wing of Bought by Wall Street technocrats), as well as hard neoliberal of Republican Party, which created the " crisis of confidence" toward governing neoliberal elite in countries like the USA, GB, and France. And that probably why the intelligence agencies became the prominent political players and staged the color revolution against Trump (aka Russiagate ) in the USA.

The situation with the support of neoliberalism now is very different than in 1994 when Bill Clinton came to power. Of course, as Otto von Bismarck once quipped "God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America." and another turn of the technological spiral might well save the USA. But the danger of never-ending secular stagnation is substantial and growing. This fact was admitted even by such dyed- in-the-wool neoliberals as Summers.

This illusion that advances in statistics gave neoliberal access to such fine-grained and timely economic data, that now it is possible to regulate economy indirectly, by strictly monetary means is pure religious hubris. Milton Friedman would now be laughed out the room if he tried to repeat his monetarist junk science now. Actually he himself discarded his monetarist illusions before he died.

We probably need to the return of strong direct investments in the economy by the state and nationalization of some assets, if we want to survive and compete with China. Australian politicians are already openly discussing this, we still are lagging because of "walking dead" neoliberals in Congress like Pelosi, Schumer, and company.

But we have another huge problem, which Australia and other countries (other than GB) do not have: neoliberalism in the USA is the state religion which completely displaced Christianity (and is hostile to Christianity), so it might be that the lemming will go off the cliff. I hope not.

The only thing that still keeps neoliberalism from being thrown out to the garbage bin of history is that it is unclear what would the alternative. And that means that like in 1920th far-right nationalism and fascism have a fighting chance against decadent neoliberal oligarchy.

Previously financial oligarchy was in many minds associated with Jewish bankers. Now people are more educated and probably can hang from the lampposts Anglo-Saxon and bankers of other nationalities as well ;-)

I think that in some countries neoliberal oligarchs might soon feel very uncomfortable, much like Soros in Hungary.

As far as I understood the level of animosity and suppressed anger toward financial oligarchy and their stooges including some professors in economics departments of the major universities might soon be approaching the level which existed in the Weimar Republic. And as Lenin noted, " the ideas could become a material force if they got mass support." This is true about anger as well.

[Jan 04, 2019] Eric Dubelier emerges as Robert Mueller's top courtroom adversary by Rowan Scarborough

Notable quotes:
"... Mr. Dubelier has depicted Mr. Mueller as a rogue prosecutor willfully ignoring Justice Department guidelines. ..."
"... He has accused Mr. Mueller of creating a "make-believe crime" against his Russian client, Concord Management and Consulting, which is accused of funding a troll farm that interfered in the 2016 election. ..."
"... " Mr. Dubelier is exactly right on Mr. Mueller 's motives and tactics," said Sidney Powell, whose book "License to Lie" exposes years of Justice Department scandals. "His lieutenant Weissmann is the poster boy for prosecutorial misconduct and has no regard for the facts or the law. He will make up whatever he wants to win, and the entire like-minded team views as an accomplishment everyone whose life they destroy in pursuit of their objective." ..."
"... The Washington defense attorney seemed to catch the Mueller team off guard by immediately demanding disclosure of evidence. Disclosure, Mr. Dubelier argues, is a sacred legal right in America, even for the oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, Concord 's chief with close ties to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... Mr. Dubelier argues that people are free to create fake accounts. It's done all the time, he says. "When it comes to political speech, one is free to pretend to be whomever he or she wants to be and to say whatever he or she wants to say," he said at an Oct. 15 hearing. ..."
"... "That's why in this case this special counsel made up a crime to fit the facts that they have," Mr. Dubelier said. "And that's the fundamental danger with the entire special counsel concept: that they operate outside the parameters of the Department of Justice in a way that is absolutely inconsistent with the consistent behavior of the Department of Justice in these cases for the past 30 years." ..."
"... But he wasn't done. There is an ongoing battle over Concord 's access to "sensitive" evidence that Mr. Mueller won't let its officers see because they are Russians with ties to Mr. Putin. Mr. Dubelier has expressed exasperation. "This equates to the burden of preparing for trial without any ability to discuss the evidence with the client who is to be put on trial," he said. "This has never happened before in reported case law because the notion is too ludicrous to contemplate." ..."
"... On another matter, Mr. Dubelier is accusing the Mueller team of skullduggery. Judge Friedrich last summer approved the prosecutor's request for a "firewall counsel" to review evidence for its national security implications. ..."
"... In another pre-trial argument, Mr. Dubelier is the first defense attorney to ask this question: Why isn't British ex-spy Christopher Steele, who was paid by Democrats to obtain anti- Trump information from the Kremlin to influence 2016 voting, being investigated by the Justice Department for election interference just like the Russians? ..."
"... Mr. Steele didn't register under the Justice Department 's Foreign Agent Registration Act, under which Mr. Mueller has brought charges against a number of defendants, including the Concord team. Judge Friedrich rejected Mr. Dubelier 's argument of "selective prosecution." ..."
Jan 01, 2019 | www.washingtontimes.com

A former federal prosecutor has emerged as special counsel Robert Mueller 's most persistent courtroom critic. It's not Rudolph W. Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney and now President Trump 's ubiquitous defender, or any of cable TV's prosecutors-turned-pundits. He is Eric A. Dubelier , a litigator for the Reed Smith law firm who knows international law and the D.C. playing field. He served eight years prosecuting cases as a Justice Department assistant U.S. attorney in Washington. He refers to his former employer as "the real Justice Department ," implying that Mr. Mueller 's team is something less. His biting remarks have come in months of court filings and oral arguments. Mr. Dubelier has depicted Mr. Mueller as a rogue prosecutor willfully ignoring Justice Department guidelines.

He has accused Mr. Mueller of creating a "make-believe crime" against his Russian client, Concord Management and Consulting, which is accused of funding a troll farm that interfered in the 2016 election.

So far, the federal judge presiding over the case has sided with Mr. Mueller .

Mr. Dubelier charges that the Mueller team violated the confidentially of Concord 's counter evidence while hiding documents Concord needs for its defense. The prosecutor wants to "whisper secrets to the judge," Mr. Dubelier says, as Mr. Mueller is calculating the "short-term political value of a conviction" and not worrying about an appeals court defeat years later. An example: In a Dec. 20 motion, Mr. Dubelier resurrected a botched case spearheaded by Mr. Mueller 's top prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann.

Mr. Weissmann headed the Justice Department 's Enron task force nearly two decades ago. He won a conviction against the accounting firm Arthur Andersen for shredding the defunct energy firm's financial documents. Years later, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed the conviction. The 2005 decision effectively said that Andersen, by then out of business and its 28,000 employees gone, hadn't committed a crime.

"Mr. Dubelier is exactly right on Mr. Mueller 's motives and tactics," said Sidney Powell, whose book "License to Lie" exposes years of Justice Department scandals. "His lieutenant Weissmann is the poster boy for prosecutorial misconduct and has no regard for the facts or the law. He will make up whatever he wants to win, and the entire like-minded team views as an accomplishment everyone whose life they destroy in pursuit of their objective."

'Made up a crime to fit the facts'

Concord Management and Consulting is an unlikely client. Legal observers opined that when Mr. Mueller brought charges against various Russians who hacked computers and trolled the 2016 election, no defendant would travel the nearly 5,000 miles to show up for trial.

No defendant has personally arrived. But Concord did appear quickly after the February indictment. Of 28 Russian individuals and firms charged with election interference by Mr. Mueller , only Concord has appeared in U.S. District Court, in this instance in the person of the aggressive Mr. Dubelier .

The Washington defense attorney seemed to catch the Mueller team off guard by immediately demanding disclosure of evidence. Disclosure, Mr. Dubelier argues, is a sacred legal right in America, even for the oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, Concord 's chief with close ties to Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Concord is accused of an elaborate conspiracy with another Russian operation, the Internet Research Agency. The indictment accuses Concord of providing the troll farm $1.2 million monthly to defraud the U.S. The two firms set up fake personas and false Twitter accounts, Facebook ads and other social media posts mostly to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump .

In a separate case, Mr. Mueller brought charges in July against 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking Democratic computers, stealing emails and funneling them to three websites for distribution.

Mr. Dubelier argues that people are free to create fake accounts. It's done all the time, he says. "When it comes to political speech, one is free to pretend to be whomever he or she wants to be and to say whatever he or she wants to say," he said at an Oct. 15 hearing.

"That's why in this case this special counsel made up a crime to fit the facts that they have," Mr. Dubelier said. "And that's the fundamental danger with the entire special counsel concept: that they operate outside the parameters of the Department of Justice in a way that is absolutely inconsistent with the consistent behavior of the Department of Justice in these cases for the past 30 years."

Mr. Dubelier lost that argument with U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich, who rejected his bid to dismiss the case.

But he wasn't done. There is an ongoing battle over Concord 's access to "sensitive" evidence that Mr. Mueller won't let its officers see because they are Russians with ties to Mr. Putin. Mr. Dubelier has expressed exasperation. "This equates to the burden of preparing for trial without any ability to discuss the evidence with the client who is to be put on trial," he said. "This has never happened before in reported case law because the notion is too ludicrous to contemplate."

What Mr. Mueller has turned over is often irrelevant to mounting a defense, such as promotion emails for airlines and personal naked selfie photographs, Mr. Dubelier said in a December filing. The special counsel is keeping most relevant information between himself and Judge Friedrich, excluding Mr. Dubelier .

Why no probe of dossier writer?

Mr. Mueller won the argument over "sensitive" material. He now wants to hold closed sessions with the judge over classified information -- again, without Mr. Dubelier .

Mr. Dubelier responded in a Dec. 27 filing: "The Special Counsel has made up a crime that has never been prosecuted before in the history of the United States, and now seeks to make up secret procedures for communicating ex parte [meaning no defense counsel present] to the court which have never been employed in any reported criminal case not involving classified discovery."

The defense attorney admitted his motion is "likely fruitless" because Judge Friedrich previously has ruled against Concord . Many documents are in Russian, a culturally different language than English. One Russian word, Mr. Dubelier says, "can be translated into the English words 'chief,' 'boss' or 'chef' -- a distinction that is critically important since international media often refers to Mr. Prigozhin as 'Putin's chef.'"

On another matter, Mr. Dubelier is accusing the Mueller team of skullduggery. Judge Friedrich last summer approved the prosecutor's request for a "firewall counsel" to review evidence for its national security implications.

Mr. Dubelier said he submitted evidence to the firewall lawyer only to see it fall into the hands of Mr. Mueller 's team, who began using it to further investigate Concord . "Surely a remarkable coincidence," Mr. Dubelier said.

In another pre-trial argument, Mr. Dubelier is the first defense attorney to ask this question: Why isn't British ex-spy Christopher Steele, who was paid by Democrats to obtain anti- Trump information from the Kremlin to influence 2016 voting, being investigated by the Justice Department for election interference just like the Russians?

Mr. Steele didn't register under the Justice Department 's Foreign Agent Registration Act, under which Mr. Mueller has brought charges against a number of defendants, including the Concord team. Judge Friedrich rejected Mr. Dubelier 's argument of "selective prosecution."

Mr. Mueller 's counter-motion boils down to this: Mr. Prigozhin is a criminal fugitive who blatantly interfered in the U.S. election and is not entitled to sensitive national security information he would share with the Kremlin intelligence. In a new battleground, the Mueller team wants to show the judge top secret material to persuade her to keep it from the defense. "Disclosure of such information could cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security," the Mueller filing stated. Judge Friedrich ruled in June that Mr. Prigozhin is prohibited from viewing non-classified sensitive information that details how the government obtained evidence.

The Mueller team argued: "Discovery in this case contains sensitive information about investigative techniques and cooperating witnesses that goes well beyond the information that will be disclosed at trial Information within this case's discovery identifies sources, methods, and techniques used to identify the foreign actors behind these interference operations the government has particularized concerns about discovery in this case being disclosed to Russian intelligence services."

Mr. Mueller says that as long as Mr. Prigozhin, whom the U.S. sanctioned and then indicted for election interference, remains in Russia, he isn't entitled to see sensitive evidence.

Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC.

[Jan 03, 2019] Five Political Predictions for 2019 by Daniel R. DePetris

Jan 01, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
4. Matt Whitaker will block public release of the Mueller report.

Special counsel Robert Mueller will finalize his investigation and send his report to Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, who has never been supportive of the inquiry. Using his powers as attorney general, Whitaker will block public disclosure of Mueller's conclusions and release a sanitized summary detailing no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Democrats will be outraged -- as will be Bob Mueller, who will proceed to give his first on-air, primetime interview detailing what he did and did not find. The next week, the House Judiciary Committee will debate opening an impeachment inquiry based solely on Mueller's interview.

[Jan 02, 2019] Election tampering via false identity by Democratic operatives: The cleverest trick used in propaganda against a specific country is to accuse it of what the accuser itself is doing.

Notable quotes:
"... a text book case of "projection" by demorats -their own crimes of sedition and treason projected onto trump via the russians. ..."
"... The thing that is most difficult for Americans to grasp is that they do not control their own government and have not for many decades. ..."
Jan 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Oldguy05 , 31 minutes ago link

George Carlin on some cultural issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLuZjpxmsZQ

vampirekiller , 35 minutes ago link

"The Only Meddling "Russian Bots" Were Actually Demorats Experts masquerading as progressive Republicans and Democrats"............FIFY

It's all they have left after being rendered politically irrelevant and statistically insignificant in November 2016 by the deplorables. ROFLMAO.........this civil war needs to die in federal government so we do not waste money in mass deportations to an established island nation surrounded by 1000 nautical miles of water.

Baron Samedi , 1 hour ago link

"Election tampering via false identity" sounds like the right kind of language for a federal law -- but I'm betting there is something already out there (at state/fed level), and am not wild about yet more laws (which [[[they]]] get to ignore anyway).

bh2 , 1 hour ago link

"tech specialists who lean Democratic," Tech specialists who lean criminal. A distinction without a difference, of course.

hooligan2009 , 2 hours ago link

a text book case of "projection" by demorats -their own crimes of sedition and treason projected onto trump via the russians.

one can only hope that Mueller has found the proof that DemoRats were responsible for attempts to rig the presidential elections - aided and abetted by criminal journalists also guilty of sedition and treason.

I Am Jack's Macroaggression , 2 hours ago link

The Moon of A on Hamilton 68: http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/02/russian-bots-how-an-anti-russian-lobby-creates-fake-news.html

A new and improved version of H68 coming soon! https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/hamilton-68/

it's a bunch of Ultra-Zionist Jews, which is the only reason their ******** gets published all over the (((media))) as if at all credible.

https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/about-us/advisory-council/

I mean, ******* Chertoff and Kristol's involvement says it all.

OT : Trump Gives US Troops Four Months to Leave Syria – Report I would not be surprised if US troops in Manbij are attacked/killed soon and immediate blame put on the SAA.

lincolnsteffens , 1 hour ago link

Didn't look it up but someone told me that Kristol's parents were passionate Marxists.

dcmbuffy , 2 hours ago link

democrats are corrupt- plain and simple- shameful and with no regard to who knows that are corrupt- no shame- "I'm Gettn' mines!!!"

navy62802 , 2 hours ago link

As if it ******* matters at this point. Get real. We are watching a display of raw power right now. Well connected individuals are calling the shots right now, well outside of the legal system. If you haven't realized that over the past 2 years, you haven't been paying attention. Furthermore, no amount of factual proof is going to result in the actual criminals being held to account. The thing that is most difficult for Americans to grasp is that they do not control their own government and have not for many decades. They do not have an equal system of justice. Instead, the US is ruled by a secret oligarchy which exists above the US legal code. This is the harsh reality we are watching be revealed right now.

jughead , 2 hours ago link

We're watching an attempted display of raw power...that hasn't been going as planned. If it had, Trump would either be gone or automagically transformed into the next iteration of BushBama. We are fly in the ointment...buzz buzz

loveyajimbo , 2 hours ago link

No prosecution... our DOJ does not prosecute anything political... no matter how serious the felony. Just ask the ***-maggots Hillary, Brennan, Comey, Clapper and Lynch.

Lord Raglan , 2 hours ago link

Wow! What does Sherlock Holmes Mueller think of this? This story makes Mueller out to be the biggest fraud of all time and his attorneys tantamount to the Keystone Cops. Where are they on all this?

chunga , 2 hours ago link

It's too bad there isn't any opposition to these "Democrat Operatives".

SmackDaddy , 2 hours ago link

There was. We fire bombed the **** out of them in 1945.

philipat , 2 hours ago link

Strange that this story has not featured prominently on the front pages of NYT/WaPo or on CNN?

[Jan 02, 2019] Russian bots - How An Anti-Russian Lobby Creates Fake News

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Atlantic Council ..."
"... Alliance for Securing Democracy. ..."
"... Alliance for Securing Democracy ..."
"... That's pretty rich, coming from a country and from people who actually genuinely, and in proven ways, have subverted democracy in Europe since the late 1940s - Italy being one of the clearest cases. ..."
"... For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with Russia. I can't believe it has to do with the economy. There's got to be a far better nefarious reason. Even during the real cold war we tried to avoid conflict. Absolute insanity. ..."
"... American media has graduated from simply repeating the lies of "unnamed government sources" to repeating the lies of any organization unofficially blessed by the powers that be. ..."
"... In that The Narrative is tightly controlled in the corporate media, not matter how strong the proofs or arguments about the falsity of these propaganda campaigns are, little or no circulation of those proofs or arguments wlll reach the general public. ..."
"... The thing that bothers me, is the fact that the MIC Globalists don't care what we think or how poor their deceptions are. ..."
"... The cleverest trick used in propaganda against a specific country is to accuse it of what the accuser itself is doing. ..."
"... I've always put it down to the Washington Establishment having a severe case of psychological projection. ..."
"... The warmongering is not intended to make any sense - not many people are trained in critical thinking and logic, and even when they are, they can be swamped by their own emotions or other people's emotions. ..."
"... Propaganda is intended to appeal to people's emotions and fears. You can try reading works by Edward Bernays - "Crystallizing Public Opinion" (1923) and "Propaganda" (1928) - to see how he uses his uncle Sigmund Freud's theories of the mind to create strategies for manipulating public opinion. ..."
"... The American Security State needs enemies to exist, otherwise there's no need for the "security" which translates into big bucks for the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Media Complex. They can't agree on the ranking of the enemies: North Korea is a threat to the world! Iran is....! Russia is...! China is....! But the threats are there, and they are pure evil (TPTB contend). ..."
"... Sad but definitely correct. The first casualty of war is the truth. It's dead in the USA and allies. Therefore, they're at war with Russia and China. If Russia is down, China will be dealt with. ..."
"... Some years ago, I noticed the American media and politicians were sort of going soft (actually mushy) in the brain department, but I was told not to be so judgemental. As the months went by, I saw more and more people saying "they have gone nuts". So, it turns out I am not alone after all. ..."
"... That madness comes from having no behavioural limits, no references outside of your own opinion but groupthink, and manipulating the language to suit your ambitions (the Orwellism of the US media has been repeatedly pointed at). Simply put, you don't know anymore what's what outside of the narrative your group pushes, you go nuts. The manipulators ends up caught in their lies. All the more when they makes money out of it, which would be the case of all those think tanks and media. ..."
"... Honestly, the story of democracy (by capitalist/liberal class) is a grand BS, to be modest. The only thing what was truthful, paradoxically, is who is "lesser evil" of two. Or the Bigger one in unrestrained capitalism, savage and monopoly, predatory and a fascists one. ..."
"... War or the threat of war is needed to distract attention from rapidly devolving societal bonds and immense economic inequality. ..."
"... The US is progressing toward a fascist police state; therefore, Russia is said to be a horrible dictatorship run by Putin. The US traditionally meddles in elections around the world, including Russia; therefore, the Russians are said to meddle in US elections. The US is the most aggressive country on the planet, occupying and bombing dozens of countries; therefore, the Russians are accused of "aggression." And so on ..."
"... The US actually spends $75 billion per year---more than Russia's entire $69 billion defense budget---spying on and meddling in the politics of virtually every nation on earth. An outfit within NSA called Tailored Access Operations (TAO) has a multi-billion annual budget and does nothing put troll the global internet and does so with highly educated, highly paid professionals, not $4 per hour keyboard jockeys." ..."
"... Zbignew Brzezenski explained in his 1997 book "The Grand Chessboard" why global hegemony required taking control over Russia (and how to do it, which boils down to taking the other chess pieces off the board (Iraq/Ukraine/etc. and then pulling off a "color revolution," coup or military conquest). ..."
"... Msm, bellingcat and other think tanks - they push their anti Russian racism too far making a large section of westerners just tired of their hysteria. Exposing their own racism and paranoia. ..."
"... Globalization . . . is a program to create private corporate rights to trade, invest, lend or borrow money and buy and own property anywhere in the world without much hindrance by national governments. It would bar governments from most of the common methods of helping or protecting their national industries and employment. It is a winners' program promoted chiefly by some business interests, governments and neoclassical economists in Europe and the United States. ..."
"... One of its purposes is to intensify international competition for jobs. Together with other Right policies it is likely to maintain some unemployment in the rich countries and reduce the wage rates of their lower-paid workers, and reduce the proportion of secure employment. Hugh Stretton, Economics: A New Introduction ..."
"... The anti-russian think tanks, msm, bellingcat etc push this too much, making them look stupid. ..."
"... Assange: "Regardless of whether IRA's activities were audience building through pandering to communities or whether a hare-brained Russian government plan to "heighten the differences" existed, its activities are clearly strategically insignificant compared to the other forces at play." ..."
Feb 20, 2018J | www.moonofalabama.org

The U.S. mainstream media are going nuts. They now make up and report stories based on the uncritical acceptance of an algorithm they do not want to understand and which is known to produce fake results.

See for example these three stories:

From the last link:

SAN FRANCISCO -- One hour after news broke about the school shooting in Florida last week, Twitter accounts suspected of having links to Russia released hundreds of posts taking up the gun control debate.

The accounts addressed the news with the speed of a cable news network. Some adopted the hashtag #guncontrolnow. Others used #gunreformnow and #Parklandshooting. Earlier on Wednesday, before the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., many of those accounts had been focused on the investigation by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

In other words - the "Twitter accounts suspected of having links to Russia" were following the current news just as cable news networks do. When a new sensational event happened they immediately jumped onto it. But the NYT authors go to length to claim that there is some nefarious Russian scheme behind this that uses automated accounts to spread divisive issues.

Those claims are based on this propaganda project:

Last year, the Alliance for Securing Democracy, in conjunction with the German Marshall Fund, a public policy research group in Washington, created a website that tracks hundreds of Twitter accounts of human users and suspected bots that they have linked to a Russian influence campaign.

The "Alliance for Securing Democracy" is run by military lobbyists, CIA minions and neo-conservative propagandists. Its claimed task is:

... to publicly document and expose Vladimir Putin's ongoing efforts to subvert democracy in the United States and Europe.

There is no evidence that Vladimir Putin ever made or makes such efforts.

The ASD "Hamilton 68" website shows graphics with rankings of "top items" and "trending items" allegedly used by Russian bots or influence agents. There is nothing complicate behind it. It simply tracks the tweets of 600 Twitter users and aggregates the hashtags they use. It does not say which Twitter accounts its algorithms follows. It claims that the 600 were selected by one of three criteria: 1. People who often tweet news that also appears on RT (Russia Today) and Sputnik News, two general news sites sponsored by the Russian government; 2. People who "openly profess to be pro-Russian"; 3. accounts that "appear to use automation" to boost the same themes that people in group 1 and 2 tweet about.

Nowhere does the group say how many of the 600 accounts it claims to track belong to which group. Are their 10 assumed bots or 590 in the surveyed 600 accounts? And how please does one "openly profess" to be pro-Russian? We don't know and the ASD won't say.

On December 25 2017 the "Russian influence" agents or bots who - according to NYT - want to sow divisiveness and subvert democracy, wished everyone a #MerryChristmas.


bigger

The real method the Hamilton 68 group used to select the 600 accounts it tracks is unknown. The group does not say or show how it made it up. Despite that the NYT reporters, Sheera Frenkel and Daisuke Wakabayashi, continue with the false assumptions that most or all of these accounts are automated, have something to do with Russia and are presumably nefarious:

Russian-linked bots have rallied around other divisive issues, often ones that President Trump has tweeted about. They promoted Twitter hashtags like #boycottnfl, #standforouranthem and #takeaknee after some National Football League players started kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice.

The automated Twitter accounts helped popularize the #releasethememo hashtag , ...

The Daily Beast reported earlier that the last claim is definitely false :

Twitter's internal analysis has thus far found that authentic American accounts, and not Russian imposters or automated bots, are driving #ReleaseTheMemo . There are no preliminary indications that the Twitter activity either driving the hashtag or engaging with it is either predominantly Russian.

The same is presumably true for the other hashtags.

The Dutch IT expert and blogger Marcel van den Berg was wondering how Dutch keywords and hashtags showed up on the Hamilton 68 "Russian bots" dashboard. He found ( Dutch , English auto translation) that the dashboard is a total fraud:

In recent weeks, I have been keeping a close eye on Hamilton 68. Every time a Dutch hashtag was shown on the website, I made a screenshot. Then I noted what was playing at that moment and I watched the Tweets with this hashtag. Again I could not find any Tweet that seemed to be from a Russian troll.

In all cases, the hash tags that Hamilton 68 reported were trending topics in the Netherlands . In all cases there was much to do around the subject of the hashtag in the Netherlands. Many people were angry or shared their opinion on the subject on Twitter. And even if there were a few tweets with Russian connections between them, the effect is zero. Because they do not stand out among the many other, authentic Tweets.

Van den Berg lists a dozen examples he analyzed in depth.

The anti-Russian Bellingcat group around couch blogger Eliot Higgins is sponsored by the NATO propaganda shop Atlantic Council . It sniffs through open source stuff to blame Russia or Syria wherever possible. Bellingcat was recently a victim of the "Russian bots" - or rather of the ASD website. On February 10 the hashtag #bellingcat trended to rank 2 of the dashboard.


bigger

Bellingcat was thus, according to the Hamilton 68 claims, under assault by hordes of nefarious Russian government sponsored bots.

The Bellingcat folks looked into the issue and found that only six people on Twitter, none of them an automated account , had used the #bellingcat hashtag in the last 48 hours. Some of the six may have opinions that may be "pro-Russian", but as Higgins himself says :

[I]n my opinion, it's extremely unlikely the people listed are Russian agents

The pro-NATO propaganda shop Bellingcat thus debunked the pro-NATO propaganda shop Alliance for Securing Democracy.

The fraudsters who created the Hamilton 68 crap seem to have filled their database with rather normal people from all over the world who's opinions they personally dislike. Those then are the "Russian bots" who spread "Russian influence" and divisiveness.

Moreover - what is the value of its information when six normal people out of millions of active Twitter users can push a hashtag with a handful of tweets to the top of the dashboard?

But the U.S. media writes long gushing stories about the dashboard and how it somehow shows automated Russian propaganda. They go to length to explain that this shows "Russian influence" and a "Russian" attempt to sow "divisiveness" into people's minds.

This is nuts.

Last August, when the Hamilton 68 project was first released, the Nation was the only site critical of it. It predicted :

The import of GMF's project is clear: Reporting on anything that might put the US in a bad light is now tantamount to spreading Russian propaganda.

It is now even worse than that. The top ranking of the #merrychristmas hashtag shows that the algorithm does not even care about good or bad news. The tracked twitter accounts are normal people.

The whole project is just a means to push fake stories about alleged "Russian influence" into U.S. media. Whenever some issue creeps up on its dashboard that somehow fits its false "Russian bots" and "divisiveness" narrative the Alliance for Securing Democracy contacts the media to spread its poison. The U.S. media, - CNN, Wired, the New York Times - are by now obviously devoid of thinking journalists and fact checkers. They simple re-package the venom and spread it to the public.

How long will it take until people die from it?

Posted by b on February 20, 2018 at 03:15 PM | Permalink

Comments next page " It's all too reminiscent of Duck Soup:


Clueless Joe , Feb 20, 2018 3:45:14 PM | link

"to publicly document and expose Vladimir Putin's ongoing efforts to subvert democracy in the United States and Europe."

That's pretty rich, coming from a country and from people who actually genuinely, and in proven ways, have subverted democracy in Europe since the late 1940s - Italy being one of the clearest cases.

ken , Feb 20, 2018 3:46:05 PM | link
For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with Russia. I can't believe it has to do with the economy. There's got to be a far better nefarious reason. Even during the real cold war we tried to avoid conflict. Absolute insanity.
xor , Feb 20, 2018 4:11:10 PM | link
The cleverest trick used in propaganda against a specific country is to accuse it of what the accuser itself is doing.
karlof1 , Feb 20, 2018 4:30:11 PM | link
Gee, what could go wrong formulating policy founded upon a series of Big Lies? Kim Dotcom says he has important info the FBI refuses to hear. At the Munich Security Conference , neocon Nicholas Burns, former US Ambassador to NATO, details my assertion's factual basis that current policy is being formed on a series of Big Lies: "Will NATO strengthen itself to contain Russian power in Eastern Europe giving what Russian [sic] has done illegally in Crimea, in the Donbass, and in Georgia ?" [Bolded text are the Big Lies.]

Clearly, this entire psyop was premeditated and its design was hastily done contemporaneously with Russia's Syria intervention. NSA/CIA/FBI knew of HRC's security breeches and rightly assumed their contents would find their way into the election, so the general plan was ready to go prior to WikiLeaks publications. b has uncovered much, and I hope he's planning to publish a book about the entire affair.

Jen , Feb 20, 2018 4:54:59 PM | link
Ken @ 4: There doesn't necessarily need to be One Major Reason for going to war. There may be several reasons all feeding and reinforcing one another and creating a psychological climate in which Going To War is seen as the only solution and is inevitable. The reasons are not just economic and political but cultural and historical.

In some countries allied with the US, the politicians in power are the ideological descendants of those who collaborated with Nazi Germany - so in a sense they are committed to "correcting" what they see as wrong. In the case of current Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, he is the grandson of a former prime minister who once served in General Tojo's World War II cabinet.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2012/12/26/national/formed-in-childhood-roots-of-abes-conservatism-go-deep/#.WoyZCG9uaUk

That's why pinning down the reason for wanting a war against Russia is so difficult.

Partisan , Feb 20, 2018 5:06:58 PM | link
The whole piece is just hilarious and I laughed out loud all time while reading it.

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/02/16/nyts-really-weird-russiagate-story/

Since the FBI never inspected the DNC's computers first-hand, the only evidence comes from an Irvine, California, cyber-security firm known as CrowdStrike whose chief technical officer, Dmitri Alperovitch, a well-known Putin-phobe, is a fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank that is also vehemently anti-Russian as well as a close Hillary Clinton ally.

Thus, Putin-basher Clinton hired Putin-basher Alperovitch to investigate an alleged electronic heist, and to absolutely no one's surprise, his company concluded that guilty party was Vladimir Putin. Amazing! Since then, a small army of internet critics has chipped away at CrowdStrike for praising the hackers as among the best in the business yet declaring in the same breath that they gave themselves away by uploading a document in the name of "Felix Edmundovich," i.e. Felix E. Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet secret police.

As noted cyber-security expert Jeffrey Carr observed with regard to Russia's two main intelligence agencies: "Raise your hand if you think that a GRU or FSB officer would add Iron Felix's name to the metadata of a stolen document before he released it to the world while pretending to be a Romanian hacker. Someone clearly had a wicked sense of humor."

james , Feb 20, 2018 5:17:19 PM | link
thanks b!

muddy waters.. paid for propaganda.... look at all the russian bots, lol... cold war 2 / mccarthyism 2 is in effect... the historic parallels are marked. thank you neo cons! it's working... the ordinary person in the usa can't be this stupid can they?

when does ww3 kick in? is that really what these idiots want? or is it just to prolong the huge defense budget?

Mike Maloney , Feb 20, 2018 5:24:03 PM | link
This is about conditioning voters in Europe and the United States for a long war with Russia and China. In other words, a return to the 1950s. It is not working and becoming increasingly hysterical because societies are not nearly as cohesive as they once were, and the mainstream political parties, while better funded and more top-down organized, are basically hollow. The collapse is coming. Four years or ten, take your pick.
dh , Feb 20, 2018 5:32:10 PM | link
@4 "For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with Russia."

Most Americans probably don't. Just the chosen few with the deepest fall-out shelters. The idea is to keep piling the pressure on to countries like Iran and Russia in the hope that their populations will rise up and demand the freedoms that we enjoy in the West....things like uncensored wardrobe malfunctions and transgender washrooms.

Partisan , Feb 20, 2018 6:02:58 PM | link
"Most Americans probably don't."

not true.

let's imagine that we have the pyramid of evilness, by which we measure bestiality of one regime and its constituency. my firm belief is that us would be on the top of that pyramid. Only dilemma would be between Zionist entity and the US.

"How could the masses be made to desire their own repression?" was the question Wilhelm Reich famously asked in the wake of the Reichstagsbrandverordnung (Reichstag Fire Decree, February 28, 1933), which suspended the civil rights protections afforded by the Weimar Republic's democratic constitution.

Hitler had been appointed chancellor on January 30, 1933 and Reich was trying to grapple with the fact that the German people had apparently chosen the authoritarian politics promoted by National Socialism against their own political interests.

Ever since, the question of fascism, or rather the question of why might people vote for their own oppression, has never ceased to haunt political philosophy.2 With Trump openly campaigning for less democracy in America -- and with the continued electoral success of far-right antiliberal movements across Europe -- this question has again become a pressing one.

An American people is in perfect harmony with its regime.

CarlD , Feb 20, 2018 6:06:06 PM | link
Remember the "USS MAINE"! Media have long agitated for War in US History. Nothing sells newspapers like a good ole war! Demonizing is a way to achieve it. What is sure is that this is a one way street. Once over the cliff, there is no turning back.

How do you tell people that, at the flick of your magic switch, Putin is in fact a swell guy and wonderful human being? Once love is gone who goes back to the filthy, abhorrent and estranged spouse?

Surely the US establishment is playing with fire thinking they will successfully ride out any conflict and come out on top secure in their newly reestablished hegemony on the smoldering ruins of Humanity.

Make no mistake, we are all on the road to hell. Better enjoy todays peace as tomorrow word will be filled with the sweet music of cemeteries.

"Freedom of speech"...

dh , Feb 20, 2018 6:14:14 PM | link
@15 "An American people is in perfect harmony with its regime."

I'm not so sure. I think there are many Americans who deeply distrust their government. But of course they don't want to appear unpatriotic. There are also many who are apathetic and many simply don't know how to change things.

SteveK9 , Feb 20, 2018 6:35:58 PM | link
It's horrible I know to quote a Nazi, but Goring had this right:

Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.

Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

WorldBLee , Feb 20, 2018 6:36:51 PM | link
American media has graduated from simply repeating the lies of "unnamed government sources" to repeating the lies of any organization unofficially blessed by the powers that be. The skills required to repeat the text verbatim serve them well in both cases. Skepticism is only reserved to anyone who tries to introduce logic or facts into the equation--such as when Jill Stein was interviewed on MSNBC recently. How dare Ms. Stein try to bring FACTS into the discussion!
chet380 , Feb 20, 2018 6:41:04 PM | link
In that The Narrative is tightly controlled in the corporate media, not matter how strong the proofs or arguments about the falsity of these propaganda campaigns are, little or no circulation of those proofs or arguments wlll reach the general public.
Sinc , Feb 20, 2018 6:41:57 PM | link
See info on US 'Twitter' manipulation campaign
Sinc , Feb 20, 2018 6:44:16 PM | link
Sorry, link here
ken , Feb 20, 2018 6:59:01 PM | link
Thanks Jen. It still makes no sense. As a veteran of the Vietnam fiasco, I was pretty much government oriented until McNamara outed the whole thing whining about haw sorry he was. 59,000 dead and he's sorry. They were able to hide the Gulf of Tonkin BS until then. After that I researched the reasons for each war/conflict the USA started and could find no logical reasons except hunger for power. But the little sandbox wars won't destroy the world like a major war/conflict with Russia and it goes nuclear. Almost every politician, and major news organizations are pushing for a war/conflict with Russia. This is insanity as no one will win a war like this and I am sure they know that,,, but they keep the war drums beating anyhow. It simply doesn't make sense. But Thanks again.

Same for dh, #14. Things are soooo stupid, your joking may be closer to the truth than you know. :-)

Skip , Feb 20, 2018 6:59:35 PM | link
@SteveK9 #19

Thank you for the post. I will save it and use it liberally, with proper attributions. When one challenges the tribe on places like Twitter, it is hard to tell who is a real idiot and who is a bot. How do you know? Maybe that the bots go away fairly quickly and the idiots hang around to argue ad infinitum.

oldenyoung , Feb 20, 2018 7:06:23 PM | link
The thing that bothers me, is the fact that the MIC Globalists don't care what we think or how poor their deceptions are. The public perception that "russia did it!!" continues to rise. I wonder what the public acceptance level needs to be for them to execute a MAJOR false flag event. They seem to think they are still on target, and its just a short matter or time...

They are going to do this when the perception management is complete... We really do not need another one of their disasters

Grieved , Feb 20, 2018 7:37:47 PM | link
The bully pushes and pushes until stopped by the first serious push back. The dynamic of the west and the neocon/Zionists at the core is essentially that of the bully. Nations like Venezuela and the Philippines have started to push back, and I hope and feel fairly confident that they will both survive the rage of the US. In some part, they have begun to show the actual powerlessness of the bully.

But the really killer nations - Russia and China - are holding their water as they strengthen their force. I believe that one very serious push back from either of them in the right circumstances will stop the bully. And yet, as they bide their time, we see a curious phenomenon wherein the US is destroying itself from the inside.

It's as if all of the forces that exist to control the country - the lockstep media, the fully rigged markets, the hysterical military, the bought legislature and the crooked courts - are all acting far more strongly than should be necessary. The entire system is over-reacting, over-reaching, over-boiling. And in the course of this, the US is actually shedding power, and at an amazing rate. But not from the action of Russia but from its non-action, the empty space that that allows the bully's dynamic to over-reach, all the way to complete failure.

Is it possible that deep in the security states of Russia and China there's even a study and a model for this? Is the collapse of the US actually being gamed by Russia and China - and through the totally counter-intuitive action of non-action?

Just a thought.

Ghost Ship , Feb 20, 2018 7:51:03 PM | link
>>>> xor | Feb 20, 2018 4:11:10 PM | 6
The cleverest trick used in propaganda against a specific country is to accuse it of what the accuser itself is doing.

I've always put it down to the Washington Establishment having a severe case of psychological projection.

WG , Feb 20, 2018 7:52:38 PM | link
Hey b,
Just wanted to let you know that Joe Lauria mentioned your blog and the article you wrote on the indictment of the 13 Russians. He was on Loud and Clear (Sputnik Radio, Washington DC) today and brought you up at the start of the program.
Glad to see you get some recognition for all the great work you've been doing :)
Mike , Feb 20, 2018 7:53:24 PM | link
Meanwhile, back in 2010:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/11/when-campaigns-manipulate-social-media/66351/
Jen , Feb 20, 2018 7:53:43 PM | link
Ken @ 24: The warmongering is not intended to make any sense - not many people are trained in critical thinking and logic, and even when they are, they can be swamped by their own emotions or other people's emotions.

Propaganda is intended to appeal to people's emotions and fears. You can try reading works by Edward Bernays - "Crystallizing Public Opinion" (1923) and "Propaganda" (1928) - to see how he uses his uncle Sigmund Freud's theories of the mind to create strategies for manipulating public opinion. https://archive.org/details/EdwardL.BernaysPropaganda

Bernays' books influenced Nazi and Soviet propaganda and Bernays himself was hired by the US government to justify in the public mind the 1954 US invasion of Guatemala.

You may be aware that Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corporation which owns the Wall Street Journal, FOX News and 20th Century Fox studios, is also on the Board of Directors of Genie Energy which owns a subsidiary firm that was granted a licence by an Israeli court to explore and drill for oil and natural gas in Syria's (and Israeli-occupied) Golan Heights.

simjam , Feb 20, 2018 7:59:21 PM | link
The national media speaks as one -with one consistent melody day after day. Who is the conductor? When will one representative of the mainstream media sing solo? There must be a Ray McGovern somewhere among the flock.
V. Arnold , Feb 20, 2018 8:05:33 PM | link
Grieved | Feb 20, 2018 7:37:47 PM | 27

Many of my thoughts as well. The U.S.'s greatest fault is its tacit misunderstanding of just what russia is in fact. They utterly fail to understand the Russian character; forged over 800 years culminating with the defeat of Nazi Germany, absorbing horrific losses; the U.S. fails to understand the effect upon the then Soviets, become todays Russians. Even the god's have abandoned the west...

Debsisdead , Feb 20, 2018 8:53:42 PM | link
I watched bbc news this am in the hope that I would get to see the most awful creature at the 2018 olympics cry her croc tears (long story - a speed skater who cuts off the opposition but has been found out so now when she swoops in front of the others they either skate over her leading to tearful whines from perp about having been 'pushed', or gets disqualified for barging. Last night she got disqualified so as part of my study on whether types like this believe their own bullshit I thought I'd tune in but didn't get that far into the beebs lies)

The bulk of the bulletin was devoted to a 'lets hate Russia' session which featured a quisling who works for the russian arm of BBC (prolly just like cold war days staffed exclusively by MI6/SIS types). This chap, using almost unintelligible english, claimed he had proof at least 50 Russian Mercenaries (question - why are amerikan guns for hire called contractors [remember the Fallujah massacre of 100,000 civilians because amerikan contractors were stupid] yet Russian contractors are called mercenaries by the media?) had been killed in Syria last week. The bloke had evidence of one contractor's death not 50 - the proof was a letter from the Russian government to the guy's mother telling her he didn't qualify for any honours because he wasn't in the Russian military.

The quisling (likely a Ukranian I would say) went on to rabbit about the bloke having also fought in Donbass under contract - to which the 'interviewer (don't ya love it when media 'interview' their own journos - a sure sign that a snippet of toxic nonsense is being delivered) led about how the deceitful Russians had claimed the only Russians fighting in Donbass were contractors - yeah well this bloke was a contractor surely that proves the Russians were telling the truth.

It's not what these propagandists say; they adopt a tone and the audience is meant to hate based on that even when the facts as stated conflict with the media outlet's point of view. Remember the childhood trick of saying "bad dog" ter yer mutt in loving tones - the dog comes to ya tail wagging & licks yer hand. This is that.

The next item was more Syria lies - white helmets footage (altho the beeb is now mostly giving them an alternative name to dodge the facts about white helmets) of bandaged children with flour tipped on their heads.

The evil Syrians and Russians are bombarding Gouta - nary a word about the continuous artillery barrage Gouta has subjected the citizens of Damascus to for the past 4 years, or that the Syrians have repeatedly offered truces and safe passage for civilians. Any injured children need to ask their parents why they weren't allowed to take advantage of the frequent offers of transport out. Maybe the parents are worried 'the resistance' will do its usual and blow up the busloads of children after luring them over with candy.

Anyway I switched off after that so never did learn if little miss cheat had a cry.

ben , Feb 20, 2018 9:17:54 PM | link
Reposting from TRNN: http://therealnews.com/t2/story:21178:Why-is-a-Russian-Troll-Farm-Being-Compared-to-911%3F
integer , Feb 20, 2018 9:23:42 PM | link
Thank you for reporting on this. The people behind the so-called Alliance for Securing Democracy need to be exposed for the warmongering frauds that they are. Regardless of what one thinks of him, Trump was correct when he said that NATO is obsolete.
Don Bacon , Feb 20, 2018 10:12:52 PM | link
The American Security State needs enemies to exist, otherwise there's no need for the "security" which translates into big bucks for the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Media Complex. They can't agree on the ranking of the enemies: North Korea is a threat to the world! Iran is....! Russia is...! China is....! But the threats are there, and they are pure evil (TPTB contend).

So the whole scenario makes perfect sense from that standpoint.

Petri Krohn , Feb 20, 2018 10:17:36 PM | link
The news stories become far easier to understand if you replace the word " Russia " with the word " truth ".
bevin , Feb 20, 2018 11:45:45 PM | link
re Felix E. Dzerzhinsky: Ukrainian fascists have a particular hatred of Felix because he was both a Bolshevik and a Pole.

I hate to do this but I just posted this elsewhere, at Off Guardian, where the Guardian is back into its highest gears promoting war.

"The wardrums are beating in a way not heard since 1914-there is no reason for war except the best reason of all: an imperial ruling class sees its grip slipping and will chance everything rather than endure the humiliation of adjusting to reality.

"China is in the position that the US was in 1914-it can prevent the war or wait until the combatants are too exhausted to defend their paltry gains.

Given the realities of nuclear warfare-which seem not to have sunk in among the Americans, perhaps because they mistake a bubble for a bomb shelter- the wise option is to prevent war by publicly warning against it. In the hope that brought face to face with reality the masses will besiege their governments, as we can easily do, and prevent war.'

See also http://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/02/20/the-coming-wars-to-end-all-wars/

V. Arnold , Feb 21, 2018 12:32:43 AM | link
Debsisdead | Feb 20, 2018 8:53:42 PM | 35

I have no idea who you are talking about; care to say?

Jeff Kaye , Feb 21, 2018 12:36:59 AM | link
Great analysis! Can't imagine how you continue to put out quality work day after day! Your question at the close speaks to stakes involved in this.
foo , Feb 21, 2018 1:53:45 AM | link
@ 10 - 4

Resources boils down to money. Of course. I don't think any power would lose from tapping a source of resource.

DidierF , Feb 21, 2018 2:03:08 AM | link
Sad but definitely correct. The first casualty of war is the truth. It's dead in the USA and allies. Therefore, they're at war with Russia and China. If Russia is down, China will be dealt with.

The horrible thing with the US attitude is that you do a white thing, you're attacking them and if you do a black thing, you're attacking them too. This attitude is building hostility against Russia. It's like programming a pet to be afraid of something. The western people are being programmed into hating Russia, dehumanizing her people, cutting every tie with Russia and transforming any information from Russia into life threatening propaganda. A war for our hearts is running. The US population is being coerced into believing that war against Russia is a vital necessity.

It will be a war of choice from the US "elites". Clinton announced it and the population had chosen Trump for that reason.

You're wondering why they're doing it. I suppose that their narrative is losing its grip on the western populations. They're also conscious of it. If they lose it, they'll have to face very angry mobs and face the void of their lives. Everything they did was either useless or poisonous. It means to be in a very bad spot. They're are therefore under an existential threat.

Russia proved time and again that it's possible to get out of their narrative. Remember their situation when Eltsin was reelected with the western help.

The Chicago boys were telling the Russian authorities how to run the economy and they made out of the word democrat a synonym of thief. They were in the narrative and the result was a disaster. Then, they woke up and started to clean the house. I remember the "hero" of democracy whose name was "Khodorovsky (?)". In the west he was a freedom fighter and in Russia he stole something like Rosneft. This guy and others of the same sort were described in the west as heroes, pionniers and so on. They were put back into submission to the law. The western silence about their stealings, lies and cheating is still deafening me.

It was the first Russian crime. The second one was to survive the first batch of sanctions against them (I forgot the reason of the sanctions). They not only survived they thrived. It was against the western leading economic ideology. A third crime was to push back Saakachvili and his troops with success.

The fourth was to put back into order the Tchechen. Russia was back into the world politics and history. They were not following the script written for them in Washington and Brussels. They were having a political system putting limits to the big companies. And, worst of it, it works.
Everybody in the west who can read and listen would have noticed that they are making it.

More, with RT and Sputnik giving info outside the allowed ones or asking annoying questions (western journalists lost that habit with their new formation in the schools of journalism - remember the revolution in their education was criticised and I missed why - very curious to discover why), they were exposing weaknesses of the western narrative. On the other side their narrative became so poor and so limited that any regular reader would feel bored reading the same things time and again and being asked to pay for it at a time his salary was decreased in the name of competitivity. The threat to their narrative was ready. They had to fight it.

It's becoming a crime to think outside their marks. It's becoming a crime to read outside their marks. I don't even talk about any act outside their marks. Now, it's going to be a crime of treason to them in war time.

I do feel sadness because many will die from their fear of losing their grip on our minds. I do feel sadness because they have lost and are in denial about it. I do feel sadness because those death aren't necessary. I do feel sadness because those people can't face the consequences of their actions. They don't have the necessary spine. Their lives were useless and even toxic. They could start repairing or mitigating their damages but it would need a very different worldview, a complete conversion to another meaning of life outside the immediate and maximal profit.

V. Arnold , Feb 21, 2018 2:13:54 AM | link
DidierF | Feb 21, 2018 2:03:08 AM | 46

You have aptly described the most dangerous country on this planet. That country must not be appeased, at any cost, because it would surely end us forever...

Fran , Feb 21, 2018 2:53:24 AM | link
I wonder if this is true: STUNNING: Mueller Patched Together Much of His Indictment from 2015 Radio Free Europe Article I wouldn't be surprised if it is true. It would give the entire story a whole new touch. I wanted to write a new smell, but it would be rather stink.
Partisan , Feb 21, 2018 3:38:27 AM | link
https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2016/12/russia-malware-ip-hack/

Conclusion regarding IP address data: What we're seeing in this IP data is a wide range of countries and hosting providers. 15% of the IP addresses are Tor exit nodes. These exit nodes are used by anyone who wants to be anonymous online, including malicious actors.

Overall Conclusion: The IP addresses that DHS provided may have been used for an attack by a state actor like Russia. But they don't appear to provide any association with Russia. They are probably used by a wide range of other malicious actors, especially the 15% of IP addresses that are Tor exit nodes.

The malware sample is old, widely used and appears to be Ukrainian. It has no apparent relationship with Russian intelligence and it would be an indicator of compromise for any website.

fairleft , Feb 21, 2018 5:28:09 AM | link
Partisan @15: "With Trump openly campaigning for less democracy in America -- and with the continued electoral success of far-right antiliberal movements across Europe -- this question has again become a pressing one."

The above is entirely backwards. The bottom 2/3rds is frustrated by the LACK of democracy in the US and that's a major reason many voted against the (in fact anti-democratic) elite's desired candidate, Hillary.

70% of the voting age public was dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with both candidates, and 40% of Americans didn't vote, so that means whichever of Clinton/Trump won, she/he would win with approval of only 10% of the electorate. That's the best example possible of our anti-democratic reality (it's not a worry or a threat, it's already here).

In the case of both Europe and the US, many people are generally very dissatisfied with the anti-democratic response by the elite to 'the will of the people' that there be much less immigration into countries with high unemployment and 'race to the bottom' labor conditions. That's nearly the entire basis of what the corporate media calls 'the move right'... When in fact restricting immigration is a pro-labor and therefore 'left' policy ... Except in the confused and deliberately stupid political discourse the elite media pushes so hard.

Lea , Feb 21, 2018 6:16:53 AM | link
Some years ago, I noticed the American media and politicians were sort of going soft (actually mushy) in the brain department, but I was told not to be so judgemental. As the months went by, I saw more and more people saying "they have gone nuts". So, it turns out I am not alone after all.

That madness comes from having no behavioural limits, no references outside of your own opinion but groupthink, and manipulating the language to suit your ambitions (the Orwellism of the US media has been repeatedly pointed at). Simply put, you don't know anymore what's what outside of the narrative your group pushes, you go nuts. The manipulators ends up caught in their lies. All the more when they makes money out of it, which would be the case of all those think tanks and media.

One could argue that they are not going mad, that they know full well they are lying, but I beg to differ: they don't see anymore how ridiculous or how dumb or smart their arguments are. That would be congruent with a real loss of touch with reality. One wonders what they see when they look at themselves in a mirror, a garden variety propagandist or a fearless anti-Putin crusader?

Another example of the narrative gone mad: they are sending CNN journos to meet pro-Trump folks who "have been influenced by Russian trolls on social media". https://twitter.com/yashalevine/status/966177091875168256

Partisan , Feb 21, 2018 6:20:19 AM | link
"The above is entirely backwards."

Well, it is not...if you are believer in "democracy". Honestly, the story of democracy (by capitalist/liberal class) is a grand BS, to be modest. The only thing what was truthful, paradoxically, is who is "lesser evil" of two. Or the Bigger one in unrestrained capitalism, savage and monopoly, predatory and a fascists one.

One way or other result is the same, it is: Barbarism.

ralphieboy , Feb 21, 2018 6:27:23 AM | link
When "trending on Twitter" became a news item in and of itself, I began to despair for the future of reporting, political discourse and ultimately, democracy in America. Twitter and FB are at best a source of information for news reporting, but not a source of news in themselves.

We made ourselves vulnerable to any and every sort of pernicious manipulation and in the end, we just about deserve everything we get.

WJ , Feb 21, 2018 6:38:11 AM | link
War or the threat of war is needed to distract attention from rapidly devolving societal bonds and immense economic inequality.
Partisan , Feb 21, 2018 6:41:09 AM | link
there is something illogical in your comment.

but one should never forget:

The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships.

Karl Marx

Ger , Feb 21, 2018 7:52:44 AM | link
Dan @ 4

It is partially tied direct to the economy of the warmongers as trillions of dollars of new cold war slop is laying on the ground awaiting the MICC hogs. American hegemony is primarily about stealing the natural resources of helpless countries. Now in control of all the weak ones, it is time to move to the really big prize: The massive resources of Russia. They (US and their European Lackeys) thought this was a slam dunk when Yeltsin, in his drunken stupors, was literally giving Russia to invading capitalist. Enter Putin, stopped the looting .........connect the dots.

Anon , Feb 21, 2018 8:08:35 AM | link
Media and its politicians have lost it completely, and if you criticize them, well then of course you are a... "russian bot". Unfortunately 90% of westerners buy this western MSM influence propaganda campaign, WW3 with Russia will come easy.
Florin , Feb 21, 2018 9:00:03 AM | link
News "Meet The Cabal That Are Framing Domestic American Activism As "Russian Influence" and "Fake News"
https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/01/meet-the-cabal-that-are-framing-domestic-american-activism-as-russian-influence-and-fake-news/

At risk of being censored and/or convicted of Thought Crime - it is *remarkable* how very highly disproportionate the number of Jewish Zionists is who are in the media and in Congress and in ThinkTankistan and shouting about Russian meddling, 'aggression,' and the like.

It's too bad it is forbidden to examine this phenomena as one part of the matrix of power and lies leading the US into conflict with Russia, no?

I don't think Bill Kristol and David Frum and Jeff Goldberg are either honest nor primarily concerned with American national security, nor the lives of MENA civilians. I think they care only about using American blood and treasure to facilitate Israeli lebensraum, however bloody and expensive.

Trump survives only if he dances for the Deep State *and* Likud.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/12/us-caught-faking-it-in-syria/

ex-SA , Feb 21, 2018 9:17:53 AM | link
Chris Hedges has an article on the similar situation in Germany almost 100 years ago. "In 1923 the radical socialist and feminist Clara Zetkin gave a report at the Communist International about the emergence of a political movement called fascism. ...." https://www.truthdig.com/articles/how-we-fight-fascism/
fairleft , Feb 21, 2018 10:26:45 AM | link
Partisan @54: The facts contradict the statement in the quote that Trump was "openly campaigning for less democracy." He wasn't. He in fact campaigned in part as a populist who would oust (or at least repeatedly ridicule) an anti-democratic elite. If you've overlooked that and believe more or less the opposite, you can't understand the 2016 election or the elite's virulently anti-democratic reaction to it.
Oui , Feb 21, 2018 11:18:34 AM | link
NEW CENSORSHIP - HAMILTON68 DASHBOARD

From the website of Hamilton68 :: Tracking Russian influence operations on Twitter

So easy to signal this group as a fraud, I wrote an article recently

G W F and McCarthyism In A Digital Age - Part 2

[G W F – German Marshall Fund]

Earlier I wrote about the following relationship: Khodorkovsky - The Interpreter - Henry Jackson Society (UK) .

With Bush and the Iraq War, Dutch PM Balkenende and FM de Hoop Scheffer were seen as the poodle of the White House. In recent years PM Mark Rutte [of MH-17 crash fame] can be considered its puppy. Perhaps a parrot would suit better.

I noticed a former journalist Hubert Smeets hs partnered with some people to found a "knowledge center" Window on Russia [Raam op Rusland]. Laughable, funded by the Dutch Foreign Ministry and a Dutch-Russia cultural exchange Fund. Preposturous in its simplicity and harm for honest reporting.

Noirette , Feb 21, 2018 11:38:52 AM | link
US media has gone bonkers. The original claim was Russian meddling and Russian interference in the election. Then, a sort of bridging meme showed up (see also b above), undermining democracy or subverting it. This in turn then morphed into promoting divisive issues which is new (circa 2018, not before?)

Imho. US pols make it their business to create divisive issues, diviusses (neologism), to the point of inventing rubbish ones. Part of the US public embraces that sh*t as well, > tribalism and religious economics in lieu of policy politics. So such actions should be viewed as gloriously democratic, ;) - ok easy to make fun.

The emphasis on 'divisive' is curious, it signals that some managers are calling for 'union' - 'cohesion' - 'group soldering' facing the outside enemy, threat.

Russia has really become the all-purpose épouvantail scarecrow, specter of doom, etc. An awareness of the high costs of divisiveness if uncontrolled -> massive social unrest, at extreme, civil war -- and that these are to be avoided, is evidenced.

Heh, or the whole storm is just fluff that distracts, occupies the pixels, airwaves, a jamboree of knee-jerk reactions irrelevant to the present World Situation, with practically no important body - faction of the PTB, Trump, the MIC, lame outsiders like the EU, etc. having any clue.

james , Feb 21, 2018 1:03:45 PM | link
i got a kick out of cluborlov's post from yesterday.. -
http://cluborlov.blogspot.ca/2018/02/make-russia-great-again-through.html

The accusation is a lot like accusing somebody of despoiling an outhouse by crapping in it, along with everyone else, but the outhouse in question had a sign on its door that read "No Russians!" and the 13 Russians just ignored it and crapped in it anyway.

The reason the Outhouse of American Democracy is posted "No Russians!" is because Russia is the enemy. There aren't any compelling reasons why it should be the enemy, and treating it as such is incredibly foolish and dangerous, but that's beside the point. Painting Russia as the enemy serves a psychological need rather than a rational one: Americans desperately need some entity onto which they can project their own faults.

The US is progressing toward a fascist police state; therefore, Russia is said to be a horrible dictatorship run by Putin. The US traditionally meddles in elections around the world, including Russia; therefore, the Russians are said to meddle in US elections. The US is the most aggressive country on the planet, occupying and bombing dozens of countries; therefore, the Russians are accused of "aggression." And so on

Don Bacon , Feb 21, 2018 6:35:10 PM | link
@Noirette 70
Yes, claiming that Russians are promoting polical division is silly -- the divisions were already there.
gizmodo , Jun 12, 2014:
It's Been 150 Years Since the U.S. Was This Politically Polarized

Nevertheless, now in WIRED magazine: Their [Agency] goal was to enflame "political intensity through supporting radical groups, users dissatisfied with [the] social and economic situation, and oppositional social movements."

OJS , Feb 21, 2018 8:27:10 PM | link

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-21/they-had-more-information-us-sanders-blames-clinton-not-exposing-russian-meddling

"They Had More Information Than Us" - Sanders Blames Clinton For Not Exposing Russian Meddling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=WRnBPKFcAKo

Bernie Sanders said he on Wednesday, "felt compelled to address Russian interference during the US election. Sunday.... he was not aware and believes Russian bot promoting him and went as far to said WikiLeaks published Hillary's email stolen by the Russia....."

Can you really trust that lying basted? I'm probably one of the few MoA refused to believe and trust Bernie Sanders and the fuckup Democrats .

ben , Feb 21, 2018 9:24:01 PM | link
Anti-Russia Think Tanks in US: Who Funds Them? By Bryan MacDonald http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48755.htm
daffyDuct , Feb 21, 2018 9:46:49 PM | link
Excellent article summarizing much of what B has posted and more.

"Finally, and as long was we are on the topic, here is what a real troll farm looks like. [Picture of NSA] Yet this vast suite of offices in Fort Meade, Maryland, where 20,000 SIGINT spies and technicians work for the NSA, is only the tip of the iceberg.

The US actually spends $75 billion per year---more than Russia's entire $69 billion defense budget---spying on and meddling in the politics of virtually every nation on earth. An outfit within NSA called Tailored Access Operations (TAO) has a multi-billion annual budget and does nothing put troll the global internet and does so with highly educated, highly paid professionals, not $4 per hour keyboard jockeys."

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/muellers-comic-book-indictment-how-to-prosecute-a-great-big-nothingburger/

Daniel , Feb 22, 2018 12:47:29 AM | link
Great article. Great comments. I LOVE MoA! And it's great to see b getting recognition.

james wrote: "There aren't any compelling reasons why it should be the enemy"

You know the following; I think you're just too decent a human being to understand how psychopaths operate. Russia is a huge area with enormous natural resources as well as a large, educated populace. Zbignew Brzezenski explained in his 1997 book "The Grand Chessboard" why global hegemony required taking control over Russia (and how to do it, which boils down to taking the other chess pieces off the board (Iraq/Ukraine/etc. and then pulling off a "color revolution," coup or military conquest).

Ziggy also noted that once Russia was incorporated, China is the next, and largely last target.

Jen: NICE JOB putting together a big picture, from Bernays' control of the masses all the way to Genie Energy. Add in Oded Yinon and PNAC and the "foreign policy blunders" that led to the present situation in MENA look like a carefully-constructed, long-game being played "by the book."

Fairleft. Any leftist/socialist movement which is not global is doomed to failure. This has always been true, but with "offshoring" of manufacturing jobs and the internet untethering many "white collar" jobs from any given geological location(s), workers must see ourselves as a global entity rather than national or regional players - because that is certainly how the 0.01% see us (and themselves).

"Workers of the world UNITE" is more true today than a century and a half ago.

Ghost Ship , Feb 22, 2018 5:28:36 AM | link
Did the Titanic just sink Bild ?
Partisan , Feb 22, 2018 6:20:18 AM | link
https://youtu.be/GN-tf3HM9ao New Yorker Reporter Debunks Russia Twitter Panic
ralphieboy , Feb 22, 2018 7:31:36 AM | link
@fairleft 85

nations that do not have to face costs arising from environmental, health or safety legislation will almost always prevail in the world market over those that have some concern for the environment and the workers.

That is the main issue I have with globalization.

Competing on wages is one thing; that can be a great impetus to become more efficient and productive, but if we do nothing to force other countries to clean up their act, they will have no impetus to do so and we will continue to lose jobs to the international competition, no matter how efficiently we work.

test , Feb 22, 2018 7:32:53 AM | link
Msm, bellingcat and other think tanks - they push their anti Russian racism too far making a large section of westerners just tired of their hysteria. Exposing their own racism and paranoia.
Partisan , Feb 22, 2018 9:02:22 AM | link
"....borderless globalization has been a catastrophe for most of the underdeveloped world's businesses and workers."

it is always annoying when I see the 'globalization" argument is used whether from the right or left. The globalization has started by the moment when us humans begin to roaming on this planet. there are millions of examples yet somehow globalization is of recent phenomenon. Lapis Lazuli mineral used in making blue color and paint is found on clay pottery in Mesopotamia's ancient city of Ur. That city is also place where many legend originated which were taken by major religion and can be found in their holy books. See even the myth are globalizied from very early on.

Most of the people do not even know what it is, not those who are writing about it.

Globalization . . . is a program to create private corporate rights to trade, invest, lend or borrow money and buy and own property anywhere in the world without much hindrance by national governments. It would bar governments from most of the common methods of helping or protecting their national industries and employment. It is a winners' program promoted chiefly by some business interests, governments and neoclassical economists in Europe and the United States.

One of its purposes is to intensify international competition for jobs. Together with other Right policies it is likely to maintain some unemployment in the rich countries and reduce the wage rates of their lower-paid workers, and reduce the proportion of secure employment.

Hugh Stretton, Economics: A New Introduction

test , Feb 22, 2018 10:02:35 AM | link
The anti-russian think tanks, msm, bellingcat etc push this too much, making them look stupid.
john , Feb 22, 2018 10:30:32 AM | link
Tannenhouser

the observable and demonstrable attempts are clearly futile, and have been pretty much reduced to spasms and tantrums, largely devoid of cognizance, not to mention legality, but certainly dangerous nonetheless.

no sir ree bob, we get our multipolar world or we scavenge a dead landscape of Alamogordo glass .

Tannenhouser , Feb 22, 2018 11:23:44 AM | link
John@96. We are on the same page then. I see it more like this. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1991370.The_Cool_War
karlof1 , Feb 22, 2018 4:18:56 PM | link
Really enjoyed Julian Assange's explanation of Mueller's nothingburger.

Assange: "Regardless of whether IRA's activities were audience building through pandering to communities or whether a hare-brained Russian government plan to "heighten the differences" existed, its activities are clearly strategically insignificant compared to the other forces at play."

[Jan 02, 2019] The Only Meddling "Russian Bots" Were Actually Democrat-Led "Experts" by Mac Slavo

Highly recommended!
Jan 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Cybersecurity "experts" in the United States have long alleged that "Russian bots" were used to meddle in the 2016 elections.

But, as it turns out, the authors of a Senate report on "Russian election meddling" actually ran the false flag meddling operation themselves.

A week before Christmas, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report accusing Russia of depressing Democrat voter turnout by targeting African-Americans on social media. Its authors , New Knowledge , quickly became a household name. Described by the New York Times as a group of "tech specialists who lean Democratic," New Knowledge has ties to both the U.S. military and the intelligence agencies.

The CEO and co-founder of New Knowledge, Jonathon Morgan, had previously worked for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) , the U.S. military's advanced research agency known for horrific ideas on how to control humanity . Morgan's partner, Ryan Fox, is a 15-year veteran of the NSA (National Security Agency) who also worked as a computer analyst for the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Their unique skill sets have managed to attract the eye of authoritarian investors, who pumped $11 million into the company in 2018 alone, according to a report by RT .

Morgan and Fox have both struck gold in the " Russiagate " scheme, which sprung into being after Hillary Clinton blamed Moscow for Donald Trump's presidential victory in 2016. Morgan, for example, is one of the developers of the Hamilton 68 Dashboard, the online tool that purports to monitor and expose narratives being pushed by the Kremlin on Twitter. And also worth mentioning, that dashboard is bankrolled by the German Marshall Fund's Alliance for Securing Democracy – a collection of Democrats and neoconservatives funded in part by NATO (North AtTreaty Tready Organization) and USAID (United States Agency for International Development).

It is worth noting that the 600 " Russia-linked " Twitter accounts monitored by the dashboard is not disclosed to the public either, making it impossible to verify these claims. This inconvenience has not stopped Hamilton 68 from becoming a go-to source for hysteria-hungry journalists, however. Yet on December 19, a New York Times story revealed that Morgan and his crew had created the fake army of Russian bots, as well as several fake Facebook groups, in order to discredit Republican candidate Roy Moore in Alabama's 2017 special election for the U.S. Senate.

Working on behalf of the Democrats, Morgan and his crew created an estimated 1,000 fake Twitter accounts with Russian names, and had them follow Moore. They also operated several Facebook pages where they posed as Alabama conservatives who wanted like-minded voters to support a write-in candidate instead . In an internal memo, New Knowledge boasted that it had " orchestrated an elaborate 'false flag' operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet ." – RT

This scandal is being perpetrated by the United States media and has so far deceived millions, if not more. The botnet claim made a splash on social media and was further amplified by Mother Jones , which based its story on "expert opinion" from Morgan's dubious creation, Hamilton 68.

Things got even weirder when it turned out that Scott Shane, the author of the Tim es piece, had known about the meddling for months because he spoke at an event where the organizers boasted about it!

Shane was one of the speakers at a meeting in September, organized by American Engagement Technologies, a group run by Mikey Dickerson, President Barack Obama's former tech czar. Dickerson explained how AET spent $100,000 on New Knowledge's campaign to suppress Republican votes, "enrage " Democrats to boost turnout, and execute a " false flag " to hurt Moore. He dubbed it " Project Birmingham ." -RT

There really was meddling in American democracy by " Russian bots. " Except those bots weren't run from Moscow or St. Petersburg but from the offices of Democrat operatives chiefly responsible for creating and amplifying the " Russiagate " hysteria over the past two years in a textbook case of psychological projection , brainwashing, and Nazi-style propaganda campaigns.

[Jan 02, 2019] Did Mueller Patched Together Much of His Indictment from 2015 Radio Free Europe Article ?

Highly recommended!
Jan 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Fran , Feb 21, 2018 2:53:24 AM | link

I wonder if this is true: STUNNING: Mueller Patched Together Much of His Indictment from 2015 Radio Free Europe Article I wouldn't be surprised if it is true.

It would give the entire story a whole new touch. I wanted to write a new smell, but it would be rather stink.

[Nov 17, 2018] Political War! Washington Goes Full Retard on the Russia Hoax - Antiwar.com Original

Notable quotes:
"... Even then, the Russophobes have been frantically making a mountain out of a molehill. We investigated the Russian troll farm in St. Petersburg, for example, and found that it was actually the hobby horse of a mid-sized Oligarch. The latter had been minding his own business trolling the Russian Internet, as the oligarchs of that country are wont to do – until the US sponsored coup in Kiev in 2014 became the occasion for Washington's relentless vilification of Russia and Putin. ..."
"... Still, there is no evidence that this two-bit hobby farm was an instrument of Kremlin policy or that its tiny $2 million budget could hold a candle to the $200 million per year round-the-clock propaganda of Voice of America, and multiples thereof by the other Washington propaganda venues. ..."
"... In any event, turning the Trump Tower meeting into evidence of Russian meddling and collusion actually gives the old saw about turning a molehill into a mountain an altogether new meaning. That is to say, on any given evening Anderson Cooper will be interviewing a lathered-up ex-general or ex-spook admonishing that Natalia Veselnitskaya was actually a nefarious Russian "cut out" sent by Putin to infiltrate the Trump campaign. ..."
"... The fact is, the meeting happened because Veselnitskaya wanted to reach the Trump campaign in behalf of her anti-Magnitsky Act agenda, and to do so used the good offices of what appears to be the Russian Justin Bieber! ..."
"... Specifically, the offer came to Don Trump Jr. via a London-based PR flack named Rob Goldstone, a music publicist who knew the Trumps through the Miss Universe pageant that was held in Moscow in 2013. Goldstone didn't know his head from a hole in the ground when it comes to international affairs or Russian politics, but he did represent the Russian pop singer Emin Agalarov, whose father was also a Trump-style real estate developer and had been involved in the 2013 pageant ..."
"... More fantastically yet, Natalia had meet with Simpson both before and after the Trump Tower meeting apparently to be coached by him on her anti-Magnitsky pitch to the Trump campaign. ..."
"... So if Veselnitskaya was part of a Russian collusion conspiracy, then so was the Glenn Simpson, the midwife of the Trump Dossier! ..."
Nov 17, 2018 | original.antiwar.com

Political War! Washington Goes Full Retard on the Russia Hoax

by David Stockman Posted on August 08, 2018 August 7, 2018 It's hard to identify anything that's more uncoupled from reality than the Donald's Trade War and reckless Fiscal Debauch. Together they will soon monkey-hammer today's delirious Wall Street revilers and send main street's aging and anemic recovery back into the drink.

Except, except. When it comes to unreality, Trump's crackpot economics is actually more than rivaled by the full retard Russophobia of the MSM, the Dems and the nomenclatura of Imperial Washington.

In fact, their groupthink mania about the alleged Russian attack on American democracy is so devoid of fact, logic, context, proportion and self-awareness as to give the Donald's tweet storms an aura of sanity by comparison.

Their endless obsession with the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian nobody by the name of Natalia Veselnitskaya proves the point. She was actually in New York doing god's work, as it were, defending a Russian company against hokey money-laundering charges related to the abominable Magnitsky Act and its contemptible promoter, Bill Browder.

The latter had pulled off an epic multi-billion swindle during the wild west days of post-Soviet Russia and was essentially chased from the country in 2005 by Putin for hundreds of millions in tax evasion. Thereafter he turned the murky prison death of his accountant, Sergei Magnitsky, who was also charged with massive tax evasion, into a revenge crusade against Putin.

That resulted in a huge lobbying campaign subsidized by Browder's illicit billions and spearheaded by the Senate's most bloodthirsty trio of warmongers – Senators McCain, Graham and Cardin – to enact the 2012 Magnitsky Act.

The latter, of course, is the very excrescence of Imperial Washington's arrogant meddling in the internal affairs of other countries. It imposes sweeping sanctions on Russians (and other foreigners) deemed complicit in Magnitsky's death in a Russian jail and for other alleged human rights violations in Russia and elsewhere.

Needless to say, imperial pretense doesn't get any more sanctimonious than this. Deep State apparatchiks in the US Treasury Department get to try Russian citizens in absentia and without due process for vaguely worded crimes under American law that were allegedly committed in Russia, and then to seize their property and persons when involved in any act of global commerce where Washington can browbeat local satrapies and "allies" into cooperation!

Only in an imperial capital steeped in self-conferred entitlement to function as global hegemon would such a preposterous extraterritorial arrangement be even thinkable. After all, what happens to Russians in Russian prisons is absolutely none of Washington's business – nor by any stretch of the imagination does it pose any threat whatsoever to America's homeland security.

So the irony of the Trump Tower nothingburger is that the alleged Russian agent was here fighting Washington's meddling in Russia , not hooking up with Trump's campaign to further a Kremlin plot to attack American democracy.

You could properly call this a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but Imperial Washington and its shills among the ranks of Dem politicians and megaphones in the MSM wouldn't get the joke in the slightest. That's because Washington is in the business of meddling in the domestic affairs of virtually every country in the world – friend, foe and also-ran – on a massive scale never before imagined in human history.

That's what the hideously excessive $75 billion budget of the so-called 17-agency "intelligence community" (IC) gets you. To wit, a backdoor into every access point and traffic exchange node on the entire global internet, and from there the ability to hack, surveil, exfiltrate or corrupt the communications of any government, political party, business or private citizen virtually anywhere on the planet.

And, no, this isn't being done for the noble purpose of rooting-out the terrorist needles in the global haystack of communications and Internet traffic. It's done because the IC has the resources to do it and because it has invested itself with endless missions of global hegemony.

These self-serving missions, in turn, justify its existence, keep the politicians of Washington well stocked in scary bedtime stories and, most important of all, ensure that the fiscal gravy train remains loaded to the gills and that the gilded prosperity of the beltway never falters.

Indeed, if Washington were looking for corporate pen name it would be Meddling "R" Us. And we speak here not merely of its vast and secretive spy apparatus, but also of its completely visible everyday intrusions in the affairs of other countries via the billions that are channeled through the National Endowment for Democracy and the vast NGO network funded by the State Department, DOD and other organs of the national security complex.

The $750 million per year Board For International Broadcasting, for example, is purely in the propaganda business; and despite the Cold War's end 27 years ago, still carries out relentless "agit prop" in Russia and among the reincarnated states of the old Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact via Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Voice of America.

For example, here is a Voice of America tweet from this morning falsely charging Russia with the occupation of the former Soviet state of Georgia.

In fact, Russia came to the aid of the Russian-speaking population of the breakaway province of South Ossetia in 2008; the latter felt imperiled by the grandiose pretensions of the corrupt Saakashvili government in Tbilisi, which had unilaterally launched an indiscriminate military assault on the major cities of the province.

Moreover, even an EU commission investigation came to that conclusion way back in 2009 shortly after the events that the inhabitants of South Ossetia feared would lead to a genocidal invasion by Georgia's military.

An investigation into last year's Russia-Georgia war delivered a damning indictment of President Mikheil Saakashvili today, accusing Tbilisi of launching an indiscriminate artillery barrage on the city of Tskhinvali that started the war.

In more than 1,000 pages of analysis, documentation and witness statements, the most exhaustive inquiry into the five-day conflict dismissed Georgian claims that the artillery attack was in response to a Russian invasion

The EU-commissioned report, by a fact-finding mission of more than 20 political, military, human rights and international law experts led by the Swiss diplomat, Heidi Tagliavini, was unveiled in Brussels today after nine months of work.

Flatly dismissing Saakashvili's version, the report said: "There was no ongoing armed attack by Russia before the start of the Georgian operation Georgian claims of a large-scale presence of Russian armed forces in South Ossetia prior to the Georgian offensive could not be substantiated

The point is, whatever the rights and wrongs of the statelets and provinces attempting to sort themselves out after the fall of the Soviet Union, this was all happening on Russia's doorsteps and was none of Washington business even at the time. But wasting taxpayer money 10 years later by siding with the revanchist claims of the Georgian government is just plain ludicrous.

It's also emblematic of why the Imperial City is so clueless about the rank hypocrisy implicit in the Russian meddling hoax. Believing that America is the Indispensable Nation and that Washington operates by its own hegemonic rules, they are now Shocked, Shocked! to find that the victims of their blatant intrusions might actually endeavor to fight back.

Even then, the Russophobes have been frantically making a mountain out of a molehill. We investigated the Russian troll farm in St. Petersburg, for example, and found that it was actually the hobby horse of a mid-sized Oligarch. The latter had been minding his own business trolling the Russian Internet, as the oligarchs of that country are wont to do – until the US sponsored coup in Kiev in 2014 became the occasion for Washington's relentless vilification of Russia and Putin.

Accordingly, this particular Russian patriot hired a few dozen students at $3-4 per hour who mostly spoke English as a third-language. Operating on 12-hour shifts, they randomly trolled Facebook and other US based social media, posting crude and sometimes incoherent political messages from virtually all points on the compass – messages that were instantly lost in the great sea of social media trivia and mendacity.

Still, there is no evidence that this two-bit hobby farm was an instrument of Kremlin policy or that its tiny $2 million budget could hold a candle to the $200 million per year round-the-clock propaganda of Voice of America, and multiples thereof by the other Washington propaganda venues.

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In any event, turning the Trump Tower meeting into evidence of Russian meddling and collusion actually gives the old saw about turning a molehill into a mountain an altogether new meaning. That is to say, on any given evening Anderson Cooper will be interviewing a lathered-up ex-general or ex-spook admonishing that Natalia Veselnitskaya was actually a nefarious Russian "cut out" sent by Putin to infiltrate the Trump campaign.

Really?

We have no brief for Vlad Putin, but one thing we are quite sure of is that he is anything but stupid. So would he really send a secret agent to Trump Tower – who neither speaks nor writes a word of English and has been to America only once – in order to plot a surreptitious attempt to manipulate the American election?

The fact is, the meeting happened because Veselnitskaya wanted to reach the Trump campaign in behalf of her anti-Magnitsky Act agenda, and to do so used the good offices of what appears to be the Russian Justin Bieber!

Specifically, the offer came to Don Trump Jr. via a London-based PR flack named Rob Goldstone, a music publicist who knew the Trumps through the Miss Universe pageant that was held in Moscow in 2013. Goldstone didn't know his head from a hole in the ground when it comes to international affairs or Russian politics, but he did represent the Russian pop singer Emin Agalarov, whose father was also a Trump-style real estate developer and had been involved in the 2013 pageant .

Said the London PR flack in an email to Don Jr:

"Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting .The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father .( this is) "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump."

And a very big so what!

For one thing, the last "Crown prosecutor of Russia" was assassinated by the Bolsheviks in 1917, suggesting Goldstone's grasp of the contemporary Russian government was well less than rudimentary.

Secondly, there was neither a crime nor national security issue involved when a campaign seeks to dig-up dirt from foreign nationals. The crime is when they pay for it, and do not report the expenditure to the Federal Elections Commission.

Of course, that's exactly what Hillary Clinton's campaign did with its multi-million funding of the Trump Dossier, generated by foreign national Christopher Steele and intermediated to the FBI and other IC agencies by Fusion GPS.

And that gets us to the mind-boggling silliness of the whole Trump Tower affair. Self-evidently, the dirt on Hillary suggestion was a come-on so that Veselnitskaya (through her Russian translator) could make a pitch against the Magnitsky Act; and to point out that after 33,000 Russian babies had been adopted by Americans before its enactment, that avenue of adoption had been stopped cold when the Kremlin found it necessary to retaliate.

Don's Jr. emails to his secretary from the meeting long ago proved that he immediately recognized Natalia's bait and switch operation, and that he wanted to be summoned to the phone so he could end what he saw was a complete waste of the campaign's time.

But here's the joker in the woodpile. Its seem that Glenn Simpson, proprietor of Fusion GPs, had also been hired by Veselnitskaya Russian clients to make a case in Washington against the Magnitsky Act, and to also dig up dirt on the scoundrel behind it: Bill Browder.

More fantastically yet, Natalia had meet with Simpson both before and after the Trump Tower meeting apparently to be coached by him on her anti-Magnitsky pitch to the Trump campaign.

So if Veselnitskaya was part of a Russian collusion conspiracy, then so was the Glenn Simpson, the midwife of the Trump Dossier!

It doesn't get any crazier than that – meaning that the Donald could not be more correct about this entire farce:

This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA!

In truth, the only basis for Natalia Veselnitskaya's alleged Putin ties was through Russia's prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika.

And exactly why was Chaika interested in making American contacts?

Why, because he was pursuing one Bill Browder, fugitive from Russian justice and the driving force behind the abominable Magnitsky Act – an instrument of meddling in the domestic affairs of foreign countries like no other. As one report described it:

Chaika's foray into American politics began in earnest in April 2016. That is when his office gave Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher and three other US representatives a confidential letter detailing American investor Bill Browder's "illegal scheme of buying up Gazprom shares without permission of the Government of Russia" between 1999 and 2006, one month after Rohrabacher returned from Moscow.

As it happened, Veselnitskaya had apparently brought a memo to the Trump Tower meeting that contained many of the same talking points as one written by Chaika's office two months earlier.

There you have it.

At the heart of the Russian collusion hoax and the wellspring of the current Russophobia is nothing more than a half-baked effort by Russians to tell their side of the Magnitsky story, and to expose the real villain in the piece – a monumentally greedy hedge fund operator who had stolen the Russian people blind and then conveniently gave up his American citizenship so that he would neither do time in a Russian jail or pay taxes in America.

Spoiler Alert for next part: When both economic policy and politics have gone full retard in the Imperial City is there anything which could possibly go wrong – that might pollute the punch bowl on Wall Street?

Stay tuned!

David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He's the author of three books, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed , The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America and TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin And How to Bring It Back . He also is founder of David Stockman's Contra Corner and David Stockman's Bubble Finance Trader .

[Sep 16, 2018] Looks like the key players in Steele dossier were CIA assets

Highly recommended!
'Assume, for the sake of argument, that powerful, connected people in the intelligence community and in politics worried that a wildcard Trump presidency, unlike another Clinton or Bush, might expose a decade-plus of questionable practices. Disrupt long-established money channels. Reveal secret machinations that could arguably land some people in prison.
'What exactly might an "insurance policy" against Donald Trump look like?'
All this leads me back to the suspicion that Steele's involvement may have been less in crafting the dossier, than making it possible to conceal its actual origins while giving it an appearance of credibility. It could also be the case that Nellie Ohr's sudden interest in radio transmissions had to do with communications inside the United States, rather than with Steele.
Notable quotes:
"... A great deal of evidence, I think, suggests that practically all those involved in 'Russiagate' were caught totally unprepared by Trump's victory, that they then went rushing around like headless chickens, and that part of this process involved a decision being taken to publish the dossier, without consulting British intelligence. If people like Younger were not consulted, then it would seem to me unlikely that Steele was. ..."
"... And I have immense difficulty seeing how any competent media lawyer would not have recommended, at the minimum, the redaction of the names of Aleksej Gubarev and his company from the final December 2016 memorandum. This would have made legal action unlikely, without greatly diminishing the effect of the claims. ..."
"... But if this was so, and if what they thought was accurate information was actually disinformation, the likely conduit would not have been through Steele, but from FSB cybersecurity people to their FBI counterparts. ..."
"... It it is I think material that intelligence agencies commonly include a great variety of people, ranging from very able analysts and operators to complete dolts. So, the CIA has employed both Philip Giraldi and John Brennan, MI6 both Alastair Crooke and also Christopher Steele and Alex Younger. ..."
"... It is however somewhat revealing that one now finds Giraldi and Crooke appearing on a Russian site, 'Strategic Culture Foundation', while Brennan and Younger are treated as authoritative figures by the MSM. ..."
"... My strong suspicion is that 'Russiagate' is a kind of nemesis, arising from the fact that key figures in British and American intelligence have, over a protracted period of time, got involved in intrigues where they are way out of their depth. The unintended consequences of these have meant that people like Brennan and Younger, and also Hannigan, have ended up having to resort to desperate measures to cover their backsides. ..."
"... There are many aspects to this story that don't make any sense to me if one looks at it from a rational perspective. One of course being concerns about libel litigation and the related legal discovery that you note. The second being no real contingency planning in the event Hillary loses the election. Admittedly they must have bought the media line and Nate Silver's forecast of a greater than 75% probability of a Hillary win. ..."
"... The purported "arms length" relationships don't make any sense. There's Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson playing a central role. They hire Nellie Ohr, a possible CIA asset and the wife of Bruce Ohr, the 4th highest ranking official at the DOJ. ..."
"... Glenn Simpson also hires Christopher Steele who he knows from previous "spook" associations. Steele had numerous and continuous communications including telephone, Skype, email and personal meetings with Bruce and Nellie Ohr during all this. ..."
"... Then there is Mifsud and Halper. Apparently both are CIA and FBI assets. ..."
"... You have Brennan ginning up concerns giving super secret and individual briefings to the Gang of 8 in Congress. There's Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the minority leader on the Senate Intelligence Committee texting and calling Adam Waldman, Deripaska's US attorney about setting up clandestine meetings with Steele. ..."
"... Not to be left behind there's Sen. McCain doing the same. His top aide even travels to London to meet Steele. And then there's Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page busily spending every waking moment texting each other about every twist and turn in all the political games being played. Of course there's Admiral Rogers investigating unusual searches by FBI officials and contractors on the NSA database. And he briefs President-elect Trump at Trump Tower which prompts the entire transition team to move to Trump's golf course in NJ. ..."
"... In fact the IG report on the Clinton "investigation" states that many at the FBI were accepting "gifts" from various media personalities for a quid pro quo ..."
"... There's Rod Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr's direct boss who testifies he knew nothing about Ohr being a conduit to Strzok for Steele. Of course he knew nothing but signed the FISA application on Carter Page. ..."
"... At this point I don't buy that Christopher Steele dug up real intelligence from his contacts at the highest levels of the Russian government, which caught Brennan, Clapper, Comey and Lynch's pants on fire, who then launched a formal investigation of Russia collusion with Trump. Many things just don't pass the smell test. Now of course I have no qualifications nor experience in spookdom. ..."
"... I agree that it (and Skripalmania) are almost impossible to make sense of unless you think of a bunch of highly politicised not very bright people sinking deeper and deeper into what looked like a bright idea at the time. ..."
"... I ask because, if one tries to look at it in a non-partisan way, the Western IC seemed to be a failure when it came to predicting Russian reactions in the Donbass, the Crimea, and it seems in Syria. I link this to various comments from Colonel Lang indicating that true experts were replaced over the years by less experienced and knowledgeable people. Does being "highly politicised" mean that they're not up to much when it comes to minding the shop? ..."
"... I thought I detected a protest against the politicisation of the US in the world some years ago. And we must not forget that Gen Flynn (DIA) and Adm Rogers (NSA) acted strongly against this. Flynn was the first casualty of the Trump/Russia hysteria and the Clapper claque tried to fire Rogers. ..."
"... I was born in the Depression and have seen vitriolic politics but never have seen such a massive opposition by the media, the pundits and the establishment of both parties. Over 500 print publications endorsed Hillary. Only some 20 endorsed Trump. Yet he confounds the pundits by winning the election. Clearly many voters are at odds with the political media class. ..."
"... I think there is an ideological background to this, on which the piece by Alastair Crooke – himself former MI6 – to which Patrick Armstrong links, and the piece by James George Jatras to which Crooke links, are both to the point. The 'end of history' crowd thought they were inhabiting a realised utopia, and cannot cope with the fact that their dream is collapsing. ..."
"... In relation to the millenarian undercurrents on which Crooke focuses, however, it is also worth noting that a traditional conservative suspicion has been that millenarianism is naturally linked to antinomianism: the belief that the moral law is not binding on the elect. ..."
"... It is obviously possible that Ohr did not report up the chain of command, and if so, he and his wife become pivotal figures in the conspiracy. Alternatively, it could be that Rosenstein is lying – in which case, we have large questions about who else is implicated, and specifically whether the termination of Steele by the FBI was anything more than a ruse. ..."
"... 'Yet, Simpson allegedly acknowledged that most of the information Fusion GPS and British intelligence operative Christopher Steele developed did not come from sources inside Moscow. "Much of the collection about the Trump campaign ties to Russia comes from a former Russian intelligence officer (? not entirely clear) who lives in the U.S.," Ohr scribbled in his notes.' ..."
"... And it confirms my strong suspicion that the dossier is actually a composite product, much of it assembled at Fusion, which could indeed contain material from a range of people from the former Soviet space, who could living in the United States, Britain, or elsewhere – Ukraine and the Baltics being obvious possibilities. ..."
"... So Sergei Skripal and Sergei Millian, neither of whom fit the description by Simpson, have been mentioned as possible sources, and there is also the very curiously ambiguous role of Rinat Akhmetshin. ..."
"... All these people, obviously, could simply have fabricated material or retailed gossip, and Steele himself was involved in fabricating material on an industrial scale to cover up what actually happened to Alexander Litvinenko. ..."
"... All this leads me back to the suspicion that Steele's involvement may have been less in crafting the dossier, than making it possible to conceal its actual origins while giving it an appearance of credibility. It could also be the case that Nellie Ohr's sudden interest in radio transmissions had to do with communications inside the United States, rather than with Steele. ..."
"... Apparently that organisation is doing rather well in sustaining the claiming that 'fair report privilege' could circumvent any requirement to prove truth – and a key question now is whether documents which the DOJ is being forced to produce will establish that the dossier was being used by officials in ways that would trigger the privilege as of 10 January 2017. ..."
"... That said, what Ohr reports Simpson as telling him raises fundamental questions about how anyone could have relied upon the dossier for anything – and should push people back to actually asking hard questions about its origins. ..."
"... To add: Steele was on the FBI's payroll, in addition to being on Fusion GPS's payroll. And on the payroll of Her Majesty's Government. After he got caught leaking to the media he was apparently "fired" by the FBI. But he was continuing to communicate and brief through Bruce Ohr at the DOJ. ..."
"... I think the circle of Glenn Simpson. Chris Steele, Bruce & Nellie Ohr, Adam Waldman. Peter Strzok, and Sen. Mark Warner will be very interesting to pursue. ..."
"... The other circle that should be investigated is the Brennan, Clapper, Lynch, Comey, Yates, Susan Rice. ..."
"... No investigation can exclude the active participation of key people from the media complex including people like Comey's good friend Benjamin Wittes. ..."
"... In its original version, the 'Statement of Principles' explained, among other things, that the Society: 'Believes that only modern liberal democratic states are truly legitimate, and that any international organization which admits undemocratic states on an equal basis is fundamentally flawed.' ..."
"... Ironically, it was shortly after the publication of the dossier that Anatol Lieven published in the 'National Interest' an article entitled 'Is America Becoming a Third World Country?' (See https://nationalinterest.or... .) ..."
"... Also in June, Sergei Karaganov published a piece in 'Russia in Global Affairs', of which he is publisher, entitled 'Ideology of Eastward Turn.' ..."
"... I do not think Karaganov's article is simply a reflection of changes in Russian attitudes. The changes, it seems to me, are global. ..."
"... I do think that we in the West really blew it. In 1990, we could have said, in all humility, that our way of life (IMO the key word is pluralism) had proven more survivable. So we should welcome the others into the tent. Instead, we were right and that was that. ..."
"... Just as you're asking about the origins of the dossier I wonder if it was orchestrated or something that evolved organically? If it was orchestrated, then who was the mastermind? Did Brennan, Clapper and Come sit down and hatch it or was Simpson the brains? What is astounding is the scale. So many people involved. Were they all motivated by ideology or by the need to protect their racket? ..."
"... It seems there are many sub-plots. There's the Deripaska, Steele, Waldman, Mueller, Sen. Warner angle. Then there's the Simpson, Steele, Ohr, Strzok, Page, McCabe angle. There's also the Simpson, Steele, media reporters angle. Then there's the whole Mifsud, Halper, Carter Page, Papadopolous, Downer bit. There's the Comey, Rosenstein, Yates, Strzok FISA application piece. Then there's all the stuff happening in the UK including Hannigan's resignation as soon as Trump is elected. Of course the whole Mueller appointment and the obstruction of justice thread to tie Trump's hand. There are so many elements. Who initiated and coordinated? Was each element separate? ..."
"... Together, these methods are likely to have produced a mass of information. It is important to remember, for example, that at the time of his mysterious death on 23 March 2013 Boris Berezovsky was negotiating to return to Russia, and that his head of security, Sergei Sokolov did return, with a 'cache' of documents. ..."
"... The purpose was to demonstrate that Alexei Navalny was the instrument of a 'régime change' plot in which William Browder was acting as an agent of MI6. ..."
"... An important role in the Apelbaum piece is played by the private security company Hakluyt. A quick look at the entries on Wikipedia and Powerbase will make clear that, if there is a British 'deep state', this is likely to be at its core. ..."
"... It is against this background that on has to see a specific claim which Apelbaum makes, for which I do not think any evidence is produced, about two figures whose role in 'Russiagate' is clearly central. So Luke Harding is described as 'A Guardian reporter and a Hakluyt and Orbis contractor' (note word.) Meanwhile, Edward Baumgartner is described as 'Co-founder of Edward Austin. Contractor at Orbis and Hakluyt.' ..."
"... That Harding is corrupt, as also Sir Robert Owen's 'Inquiry' into the death of the late Alexander Litvinenko, I can prove. When Owen's report was published in January 2016, a preliminary response by me was posted here on SST, which among other things listed some of the evidence establishing that the interviews supposedly recorded with Litvinenko by Detective Inspector Brent Hyatt immediately before his death were blatant forgeries. ..."
"... In relation to that part of the evidence discussed in my January 2016 post which exposes the fumbling attempts by Steele and his colleagues to cover up the truth about when and how Litvinenko travelled into central London on the day he was supposedly killed, most of this had been among a mass of material submitted by me to the Inquiry Team, which I have e-mails to prove was read. ..."
"... Further study of Owen's report has confirmed my suspicion that a strong 'prima facie case' of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice exists against very many of those involved in it. ..."
"... At the same time, materials produced on the Russian side have confirmed my suspicion that the reason why Steele and others have been able to get away with their cover-up is that the Russian intelligence services are no more enthusiastic than their British counterparts about having anything like the whole truth about how Litvinenko lived and died made public. ..."
"... Additionally, the text itself displays an odd parallelism with his assertion regarding the Steele Dossier- that is, the likelihood of multiple authors, of diverse origins. ..."
"... My curiosity about who Apelbaum might be is reinforced by the fact that the intimations he gives about his background in his responses to comments, while not incompatible with what he has said in the past, do not sit so easily with it. ..."
"... So, questions naturally arise about Apelbaum's intelligence career, in particular, who he is likely to have been employed by, and associated with, in the past, and whether he is still involved with any of those agencies which have employed him. ..."
"... 'Also, there is a large Hakluyt/Orbis "commercial intelligence" network in the US that regularly services political and federal agencies and has the power to summon Nazgûls the likes of John Brennan. So Steele is not the new kid on the block, he has been doing this type of work long before 2016. This is also why he has such a cozy relationship with the brass at the DOJ and state.' ..."
"... This is that he, the Ukrainian nationalist former KGB person Yuri Shvets, the convicted Italian disinformation peddler Mario Scaramella, and quite possibly the sometime key FBI expert on Mogilevich, Robert 'Bobby' Levinson, were involved in trying to suggest that Mogilevich was an instrument of a plot by Putin to equip Al Qaeda with a 'mini nuclear bomb.' ..."
"... In his prepared statement, Lugovoi claimed that his supposed victim used to say that everyone in Britain were ''retards', to use the translation submitted in evidence to Owen's Inquiry, or 'idiots', to use that by RT. And according to this version, the British believed in everything that 'we' – that is, the Berezovky group – said was happening in Russia. ..."
"... Whether or not Litvinenko expressed this cynical contempt, the credulity with which the claims of the 'information operations' people around Berezovsky have been accepted – well illustrated by Owen's report and perhaps most ludicrous in Harding's journalism – makes clear it is justified. ..."
"... Perhaps then, cartoons about Trump as a puppet, with the strings pulled by another puppet representing Manafort, whose strings are in turn pulled by Putin, should be replaced by ones in which Mueller is seen as a puppet manipulated by the ghost of Boris Berezovsky. ..."
"... But that is the irony. The relationship with Berezovsky blew up in the faces of all concerned, when in the wake of the successsful corruption of the investigation into the death of Litvinenko by him and his 'information operations' people, he attempted to recoup his fortunes by suing Roman Abramovich, and got taken to pieces by Lord Sumption. ..."
"... The 'Vesti Nedeli' piece uses what Elizaveta Berezovskaya says in support of the claim that Berezovsky was murdered by British 'special forces', because he was planning to return to Russia, and he 'knew too much about them.' ..."
"... One of the things I've never understood about the Trump Dossier story is the lack of any forensic analysis of its content and style anywhere in the media, even the alt media. Who was supposed to have actually written it? Steele? The style does not match someone of his background and education, and the formatting and syntax were atrocious. The font actually varied from "report" to "report." It certainly did not give me the impression of being the product of a high-end, Belgravia consultancy. ..."
"... I wonder whether it was produced by an American of one sort or another and then "laundered" by being accorded association with the UK firm. Given that Steele just happened to be hired by the USG to help in the anti-FIFA skulduggery, he and his firm seem very much to be a concern that does dirty little jobs that need discretely to be done, though in this case, the discretion was undermined. ..."
"... Most of the memos were issued before October and Fusion/Simpson authorized Steele to release information to the FBI starting in July. The question is why the memos were released after the election when a release before the election would have been enough to sink Trump. Instead the FBI and presumably those paying Fusion on Hillarys behalf sat on it, and Comey comes out days before the election ..."
"... Kind of looks like they all wanted Trump in office and the disclosure was to give Trump the excuse needed to back track on his promises to improve relations with Russia and blame that on pressure from the Deep State and Russia Gate. ..."
"... Looking at Trumps history with Sater (FBI/CIA asset) and his political aspirations that began following his Moscow visit in 1987 it seems likely Trump has been a Deep State asset for 30 years and fed intelligence to CIA/FBI on Russian oligarchs and mafia . Indeed he may well have duped Russians into believing he was working for them when in fact it was the CIA/FBI who had the best Kompromat with US RICO laws that could have beggared him ..."
"... One thing to remember about the FBI is Sy Hersh. Hersh claims the FBI has been sitting on a report for two years that fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the Wikileaks DNC email leaker (or one of them, at least.) ..."
"... I suspect the decision to publish the dossier was political. It was required to enable Clapper, Brennan, and others to opine on national media and create further media hysteria prior to the vote as well as to justify the counter-intelligence investigations underway. They were throwing the kitchen sink to sink Trump's electoral chances. I don't think a lot of thought was given about the legal ramifications. ..."
"... This seems to be a pattern. Leak information. Then use the leaked story to justify actions like apply for a FISA warrant or fan the media flames. ..."
"... I find it incredulous that former leaders of the intelligence and law enforcement agencies have gained paid access to powerful media platforms and they have used it to launch vicious attacks on a POTUS. ..."
"... I find it amazing that McCabe and Peter Strzok are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars on social media platforms. ..."
"... If the GOP retains the House and Jim Jordan becomes speaker, then there may be a possibility that Sessions, Rosenstein and Wray may be fired and another special counsel appointed who will then convene a grand jury. ..."
Aug 23, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

My strong impression is that nobody on the British side vetted the dossier for publication. A striking feature of the early news coverage is that there appeared to be total confusion, with some of the reporting suggesting that the sources quoted wanted to hang him out to dry, others that they wanted to defend him.

An interesting aspect is that not only were anonymous sources linked to MI6 quoted on both sides of the argument -- which could have been explained by disagreements within the organisation: in different stories, not however far apart in date, its head, Sir Alex Younger, was portrayed as holding radically different views.

When CNN publicised the existence of the dossier on 10 January 2017, the same day that it was published by 'BuzzFeed', it suggested that the author was British. The following day, the WSJ named Steele.

On 13 January, Martin Robinson, UK Chief Reporter for 'Mail Online', published a report whose headlines seem worth quoting in full:

'I introduced him to my wife as James Bond': Former spy Chris Steele's friends describe a "show-off" 007 figure but MI6 bosses brand him "an idiot" for an "appalling lack of judgement" over the Trump "dirty dossier": Intelligence expert Nigel West says friend is like Ian Fleming's famous character; He said: "He's James Bond. I actually introduced him to my wife as James Bond'; Mr West says Steele dislikes Putin and Kremlin for ignoring rules of espionage; Angry spy source calls him 'idiot' and blasts decision to take on the Trump work; Current MI6 boss Sir Alex Younger is said to be livid about reputation damage.'

(See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/... . )

On 15 January, however, Kim Sengupta, Defence Editor of the 'Independent', produced a report headlined: 'Head of MI6 used information from Trump dossier in first public speech; Warnings on cyberattacks show ex-spy's work is respected.'

(See https://www.independent.co.... .)

A great deal of evidence, I think, suggests that practically all those involved in 'Russiagate' were caught totally unprepared by Trump's victory, that they then went rushing around like headless chickens, and that part of this process involved a decision being taken to publish the dossier, without consulting British intelligence. If people like Younger were not consulted, then it would seem to me unlikely that Steele was.

This leads me on to another puzzle about the dossier to which I have been having a difficulty finding a solution. Long years ago I was reasonably familiar with libel law in relation to journalism. Anyone who 'served indentures', as very many of us did in those days, had to study it. Later, I got involved in a protracted libel suit -- successfully, I hasten to add -- in relation to a programme I made, and had the sobering experience of having a top-class libel barrister requiring me to justify every assertion I had made.

In the jargon then, a crucial question when an article, or programme, was being 'vetted' before publication was whether it represented a 'fair business risk.' This involved both the technical legal issues, and also judgements as to whether people were likely to sue, and how if they did the case would be likely to pan out.

On the face of things, one would not have expected that people at 'BuzzFeed' would have gone ahead and make the dossier public, without having it 'vetted' by competent lawyers. And I have difficulty seeing how, if they did, the advice could have been to publish what they published.

I have some difficulty seeing how the advice could have been to include the memorandum with the claims about the Alfa Group oligarchs, unless either these could be seriously defended or it was assumed that contesting them effectively would involve revealing more 'dirty linen' than these wanted to see aired in public.

And I have immense difficulty seeing how any competent media lawyer would not have recommended, at the minimum, the redaction of the names of Aleksej Gubarev and his company from the final December 2016 memorandum. This would have made legal action unlikely, without greatly diminishing the effect of the claims.

Trying to make sense of why such an obvious precaution was not taken, I find myself wondering whether, in fact, the reason may have been that the people responsible for the dossier may have actually believed this part of it at least.

If that is so, however, the most plausible explanation I can see is that while other claims in the dossier may well be total fabrication, either by the people at Fusion and Steele or by some of their questionable contacts, this information at least did come from what Glenn Simpson, Nellie Ohr et al thought were reliable Russian government sources.

But if this was so, and if what they thought was accurate information was actually disinformation, the likely conduit would not have been through Steele, but from FSB cybersecurity people to their FBI counterparts.

I think that the cases involving Karim Baratov and Dmitri Dokuchaev and his colleagues may be much more complex than is apparent from what looks to me like patent disinformation put out both on the Western and Russian sides.

It it is I think material that intelligence agencies commonly include a great variety of people, ranging from very able analysts and operators to complete dolts. So, the CIA has employed both Philip Giraldi and John Brennan, MI6 both Alastair Crooke and also Christopher Steele and Alex Younger.

It is however somewhat revealing that one now finds Giraldi and Crooke appearing on a Russian site, 'Strategic Culture Foundation', while Brennan and Younger are treated as authoritative figures by the MSM.

If you want to get a clear picture of quite how low-grade the latter figure is, incidentally, it is worth looking at the speech to which Kim Sengupta refers.

(See https://www.sis.gov.uk/medi... .)

A favourite line of mine comes in Younger's discussion of the -- actually largely mythical -- notion of 'hybrid warfare': 'In this arena, our opponents are often states whose very survival owes to the strength of their security capabilities; the work is complex and risky, often with the full weight of the State seeking to root us out.'

Leaving aside the fact that this is borderline illiterate, what it amazing is Younger's apparent blindness to clearly unintended implications of what he writes. If indeed, the 'very survival' of the Russian state 'owes to the strength of [its] security capabilities', the conclusions, seen from a Russian point of view, would seem rather obvious: vote Putin, and give medals to Patrushev and Bortnikov.

My strong suspicion is that 'Russiagate' is a kind of nemesis, arising from the fact that key figures in British and American intelligence have, over a protracted period of time, got involved in intrigues where they are way out of their depth. The unintended consequences of these have meant that people like Brennan and Younger, and also Hannigan, have ended up having to resort to desperate measures to cover their backsides.

Posted at 01:19 PM in Habakkuk , Intelligence | Permalink

Jack , 4 days ago

David

There are many aspects to this story that don't make any sense to me if one looks at it from a rational perspective. One of course being concerns about libel litigation and the related legal discovery that you note. The second being no real contingency planning in the event Hillary loses the election. Admittedly they must have bought the media line and Nate Silver's forecast of a greater than 75% probability of a Hillary win.

The purported "arms length" relationships don't make any sense. There's Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson playing a central role. They hire Nellie Ohr, a possible CIA asset and the wife of Bruce Ohr, the 4th highest ranking official at the DOJ.

Glenn Simpson also hires Christopher Steele who he knows from previous "spook" associations. Steele had numerous and continuous communications including telephone, Skype, email and personal meetings with Bruce and Nellie Ohr during all this. They even have discussions about Deripaska and about his visa application to visit the US. Bruce is a conduit to Strzok at FBI. Glenn Simpson also is part of these discussions with Steele and the Ohrs.

Simpson also arranges for Steele to brief "reporters" like David Corn and others at the NY Times, WaPo, WSJ, Politico and others. Then there is Mifsud and Halper. Apparently both are CIA and FBI assets. They are communicating with Carter Page and Papadopolous, who in turn is drinking and yapping with Aussie ambassador Downer.

You have Brennan ginning up concerns giving super secret and individual briefings to the Gang of 8 in Congress. There's Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the minority leader on the Senate Intelligence Committee texting and calling Adam Waldman, Deripaska's US attorney about setting up clandestine meetings with Steele. There's Sen. Harry Reid passing on the Steele "dossier" to Comey.

Not to be left behind there's Sen. McCain doing the same. His top aide even travels to London to meet Steele. And then there's Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page busily spending every waking moment texting each other about every twist and turn in all the political games being played. Of course there's Admiral Rogers investigating unusual searches by FBI officials and contractors on the NSA database. And he briefs President-elect Trump at Trump Tower which prompts the entire transition team to move to Trump's golf course in NJ.

Oh, there is also Nellie Ohr setting up ham radio to avoid detection in her communications with Steele. Then we have everyone leaking and spinning to their "cohorts" in the premier media like the NY Times, CNN and WaPo.

Comey even has his buddy a professor and ostensibly his legal counsel on the payroll of the FBI as a contractor with access to all the sensitive databases leaking to the media.

Andy McCabe has his legal counsel Lisa Page spin stories around his wife's huge campaign contributions from Clinton consigliere McAuliffe.

In fact the IG report on the Clinton "investigation" states that many at the FBI were accepting "gifts" from various media personalities for a quid pro quo.

As if all this was not enough there's AG Loretta Lynch, meeting with Bill Clinton on a tarmac ostensibly to discuss their grandkids. Not to forget there were these "unmaskings" of surveillance information by Susan Rice, Samantha Power.

There's Rod Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr's direct boss who testifies he knew nothing about Ohr being a conduit to Strzok for Steele. Of course he knew nothing but signed the FISA application on Carter Page. Then there are the FISC judges who never believed their mandate required them to verify the evidence before issuing sweeping surveillance warrants. Now all this is what I as an old farmer and winemaker have read. Those more in tune would easily add to these convoluted machinations.

I don't know how to make sense of all this. All I see is the extent of effort to prevent Donald Trump from being elected and after he won from governing. The most obvious observation is that the leadership in our law enforcement and intelligence agencies are so busy politicking spinning and leaking they have neither the time or the inclination let alone competence to do their real job for which they get paid a handsome wage and sterling benefits.

At this point I don't buy that Christopher Steele dug up real intelligence from his contacts at the highest levels of the Russian government, which caught Brennan, Clapper, Comey and Lynch's pants on fire, who then launched a formal investigation of Russia collusion with Trump. Many things just don't pass the smell test. Now of course I have no qualifications nor experience in spookdom.

If you have any speculative theories that connects some of the dots it would be my great pleasure to read.

Patrick Armstrong -> Jack , 3 days ago

I agree that it (and Skripalmania) are almost impossible to make sense of unless you think of a bunch of highly politicised not very bright people sinking deeper and deeper into what looked like a bright idea at the time.

Confident that their horse is going to win the race and that the media will cover it all up and nobody will ever hear anything about anything. Now that the unexpected happened, they're just spinning and denying faster hoping the Dems win in Nov and stop all the investigations. And, they're getting nervous wondering who's going to sell out whom next. Up and down, around and around. Gerbils -- there really isn't anything very consistent, planned or thought-out.

In this respect, this piece attempts to make sense (on a very large scale) of their panic. https://www.strategic-cultu...

English Outsider -> Patrick Armstrong , a day ago

"I agree that it (and Skripalmania) are almost impossible to make sense of unless you think of a bunch of highly politicised not very bright people sinking deeper and deeper into what looked like a bright idea at the time."

I believe your summary of what's happening is more accurate than Alastair Crooke's as set out in the article linked to.

But bright or not, what are these people in the IC doing being "highly politicised"? Does that not render them considerably less efficient?

I ask because, if one tries to look at it in a non-partisan way, the Western IC seemed to be a failure when it came to predicting Russian reactions in the Donbass, the Crimea, and it seems in Syria. I link this to various comments from Colonel Lang indicating that true experts were replaced over the years by less experienced and knowledgeable people. Does being "highly politicised" mean that they're not up to much when it comes to minding the shop?

Patrick Armstrong -> English Outsider , 5 hours ago

I thought I detected a protest against the politicisation of the US in the world some years ago. And we must not forget that Gen Flynn (DIA) and Adm Rogers (NSA) acted strongly against this. Flynn was the first casualty of the Trump/Russia hysteria and the Clapper claque tried to fire Rogers.

https://russia-insider.com/...

Jack -> Patrick Armstrong , 3 days ago

Patrick

Usually the incumbent party loses the mid-term election. The Democrats lost big in Obama's first mid-term. The Republicans won the House and gained six senators. While the punditry claims a Blue Wave and Nate Silver is giving the Dems the odds. I'm not so sure. I think the GOP will increase their majority in the Senate putting any conviction of Trump out of question.

I was born in the Depression and have seen vitriolic politics but never have seen such a massive opposition by the media, the pundits and the establishment of both parties. Over 500 print publications endorsed Hillary. Only some 20 endorsed Trump. Yet he confounds the pundits by winning the election. Clearly many voters are at odds with the political media class.

Patrick Armstrong -> Jack , 2 days ago

Yeah. My bet is that the Repubs hold onto both. 1) the economy is getting better 2) what do the Dems have to offer other than this crazy Trump/Russia thing?

Rob -> Patrick Armstrong , a day ago

Economy will slow down sharply in 2019 but there should be enough momentum to help with the mid-terms. Trump needs to stop with the endless sanction stuff. The House does look like a close one.

Pat Lang Mod -> Rob , a day ago

what is the evidence for a slowdown in 2019?

Rob -> Pat Lang , a day ago

With all the caveats that apply to financial forecasting copper, monetary indicators and equity markets are all flagging a slowdown is upon us.

David Habakkuk -> Jack , 3 days ago

Jack,

At a very general level, a 'speculative theory' which I have been mulling over for some time was rather well set out in a commentary in 'The Hill' on 9 August by Sharyl Attkisson, which opens:

'Let's begin in the realm of the fanciful.

'Assume, for the sake of argument, that powerful, connected people in the intelligence community and in politics worried that a wildcard Trump presidency, unlike another Clinton or Bush, might expose a decade-plus of questionable practices. Disrupt long-established money channels. Reveal secret machinations that could arguably land some people in prison.

'What exactly might an "insurance policy" against Donald Trump look like?'

And Attkisson goes on to outline precisely the developments that appear to have happened.

(See http://thehill.com/opinion/... .)

I think there is an ideological background to this, on which the piece by Alastair Crooke – himself former MI6 – to which Patrick Armstrong links, and the piece by James George Jatras to which Crooke links, are both to the point. The 'end of history' crowd thought they were inhabiting a realised utopia, and cannot cope with the fact that their dream is collapsing.

In relation to the millenarian undercurrents on which Crooke focuses, however, it is also worth noting that a traditional conservative suspicion has been that millenarianism is naturally linked to antinomianism: the belief that the moral law is not binding on the elect. And in turn, according to a familiar skeptical view, antinomianism can easily end up in in straightforward rascality.

On the rascality – to which Attkisson is pointing – I am working on how parts of the picture can be fleshed out. A few preliminary points raised by your remarks.

As you note, 'There's Rod Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr's direct boss who testifies he knew nothing about Ohr being a conduit to Strzok for Steele.' So, we know that Ohr and Steele were conspiring together to ensure that the latter could continue to be intimately involved in the Mueller investigation, despite the FBI termination,

It is obviously possible that Ohr did not report up the chain of command, and if so, he and his wife become pivotal figures in the conspiracy. Alternatively, it could be that Rosenstein is lying – in which case, we have large questions about who else is implicated, and specifically whether the termination of Steele by the FBI was anything more than a ruse.

If, as seems to me likely, although not certain, the second possibility is closer to the truth than the former, then before Ohr testifies on 28 August before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees he will have to consider whether he is prepared to 'take the rap' for his superiors, or 'sing sweetly.'

The fact that in a report in 'The Hill', I think on the same day as the Attkisson piece, John Solomon was quoting from Ohr's handwritten notes of a meeting with Glenn Simpson in December 2016 makes me wonder whether he may not already have made a decision. A key paragraph from the report:

'Yet, Simpson allegedly acknowledged that most of the information Fusion GPS and British intelligence operative Christopher Steele developed did not come from sources inside Moscow. "Much of the collection about the Trump campaign ties to Russia comes from a former Russian intelligence officer (? not entirely clear) who lives in the U.S.," Ohr scribbled in his notes.'

(See http://thehill.com/hilltv/r... .)

There is I think a need for caution here. There is no guarantee that Simpson was telling the literal truth to Ohr, or indeed the latter reproducing with absolute accuracy with he was told (handwritten notes can be disposed of easily, but they can also be rewritten.)

One is I think on firmer ground in relation to what it suggests was not the case – that there is any substance whatsoever in the ludicrous story of someone running a private security company in London sending out hired employees who then gain access to top Kremlin insiders, with these, of course, telling them precisely what they actually think.

And it confirms my strong suspicion that the dossier is actually a composite product, much of it assembled at Fusion, which could indeed contain material from a range of people from the former Soviet space, who could living in the United States, Britain, or elsewhere – Ukraine and the Baltics being obvious possibilities.

So Sergei Skripal and Sergei Millian, neither of whom fit the description by Simpson, have been mentioned as possible sources, and there is also the very curiously ambiguous role of Rinat Akhmetshin.

All these people, obviously, could simply have fabricated material or retailed gossip, and Steele himself was involved in fabricating material on an industrial scale to cover up what actually happened to Alexander Litvinenko.

That said, I continue to think it possible that both the second and final memoranda may incorporate some 'glitter', as well as 'chickenfeed' fed from FSB cybersecurity people to their FBI counterparts, to hark back to George Smiley says to the Minister, quite possibly included in the hope that the BS involved would be reproduced in contexts where it could provoke legal action.

All this leads me back to the suspicion that Steele's involvement may have been less in crafting the dossier, than making it possible to conceal its actual origins while giving it an appearance of credibility. It could also be the case that Nellie Ohr's sudden interest in radio transmissions had to do with communications inside the United States, rather than with Steele.

It could then be that Steele has been, in effect, hoist with his own petard, in that he is having to sustain the fiction that he had some kind of grounds for making the claims about Aleksej Gubarev and XBT. How far this matters, at least in relation to the action bought against 'BuzzFeed' in Florida, remains moot at the moment.

Apparently that organisation is doing rather well in sustaining the claiming that 'fair report privilege' could circumvent any requirement to prove truth – and a key question now is whether documents which the DOJ is being forced to produce will establish that the dossier was being used by officials in ways that would trigger the privilege as of 10 January 2017.

That said, what Ohr reports Simpson as telling him raises fundamental questions about how anyone could have relied upon the dossier for anything – and should push people back to actually asking hard questions about its origins.

fanto -> David Habakkuk , 2 days ago

Mr Habakkuk, you mention "ambiguous role of Rinat Akhmetshin" - I am not sure if you meant Akhmetov.

I am surprised and curious about you mentioning him - if you meant Akhmetov - because that is one name among all the oligarchs which has so far not been prominent. Thank you for your posts, these posts and the SST comments could and should serve as help to the congressional investigations and hearings.

blue peacock -> Jack , 4 days ago

Jack

To add: Steele was on the FBI's payroll, in addition to being on Fusion GPS's payroll. And on the payroll of Her Majesty's Government. After he got caught leaking to the media he was apparently "fired" by the FBI. But he was continuing to communicate and brief through Bruce Ohr at the DOJ.

I think the circle of Glenn Simpson. Chris Steele, Bruce & Nellie Ohr, Adam Waldman. Peter Strzok, and Sen. Mark Warner will be very interesting to pursue.

The other circle that should be investigated is the Brennan, Clapper, Lynch, Comey, Yates, Susan Rice.

No investigation can exclude the active participation of key people from the media complex including people like Comey's good friend Benjamin Wittes.

Patrick Armstrong , 3 days ago

Younger isn't the brightest bulb in the box, is he?

"If you doubt the link between legitimacy and effective counter-terrorism, then – albeit negatively – the unfolding tragedy in Syria will, I fear, provide proof. I believe the Russian conduct in Syria, allied with that of Assad's discredited regime, will, if they do not change course, provide a tragic example of the perils of forfeiting legitimacy. In defining as a terrorist anyone who opposes a brutal government, they alienate precisely that group that has to be on side if the extremists are to be defeated. Meanwhile, in Aleppo, Russia and the Syrian regime seek to make a desert and call it peace. The human tragedy is heart-breaking"

David Habakkuk -> Patrick Armstrong , 3 days ago

Patrick,

Those were indeed some of the most inane comments in an inane piece.

But then, if you read an interview given to Jay Elwes of 'Prospect' magazine in May last year by Younger's predecessor Sir Richard Dearlove, who looks to have been a significant background presence in what has been going on, you will find that, although he is much more coherent than than his successor, it is almost as inane.

(See https://www.prospectmagazin... . )

As it happens, Dearlove was one of the signatories of the 'Statement of Principles' of something called the 'Henry Jackson Society.'

This was founded in 2005, in Cambridge, by a group in whom acolytes of an historian called Maurice Cowling were prominent – Dearlove is himself a graduate in history from that university.

In its original version, the 'Statement of Principles' explained, among other things, that the Society: 'Believes that only modern liberal democratic states are truly legitimate, and that any international organization which admits undemocratic states on an equal basis is fundamentally flawed.'

(See https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... .)

Ironically, it was shortly after the publication of the dossier that Anatol Lieven published in the 'National Interest' an article entitled 'Is America Becoming a Third World Country?' (See https://nationalinterest.or... .)

Among other things, he harked back to the way that, in 1648, a century and a half of bloody ideological strife in Europe had been ended with a recognition that the legitimacy of different state forms had to be accepted, if a kind of 'war of all against all' was to be avoided.

And Lieven went on to reflect on the way that, at what was then widely seen as the end of the Cold War, the abandonment of universalisitic pretensions by Russia and China was interpreted as justifying an embrace of these by the the West.

This, he went on to argue, had actually had the paradoxical effect of relegitimising 'régimes' which do not conform to Western 'democratic' models, concluding by noting what appears to our new, quasi-Soviet, preference for not letting experience interfere with ideological dogma:

'Finally – even after the catastrophes of Iraq and Libya – there is almost no awareness among US policymakers of the fact that US attempts to change the regimes of other countries are likely to be seen not only by the elites of those countries but also by their populations as leading to – and intended to lead to – the destruction of the state itself, leading to disaster for its society and population. When the Communist regime in the USSR collapsed (though only in part under Western pressure), it took the Soviet state with it. The Russian state came close to following suit in the years that followed, Russia was reduced to impotence on the world stage, and large parts of the Russian and other populations suffered economic and social disaster. Remembering their own past experiences with state collapse, warlordism, famine and foreign invasion, Chinese people looked at this awful spectacle and huddled closer to the Chinese state – one that they may dislike in many ways, but which they certainly trust more than anything America has to offer – especially given the apparent decay of democracy throughout the West.'

( https://nationalinterest.or... .)

I read with interest your piece back in June entitled 'Putin Once Dreamed the American Dream', reprinting Charles Heberle's account of the 'Transforming Subjects Into Citizens' project, and the attitude of some people close to Putin to it.

(See https://patrickarmstrong.ca... .)

One of the things which struck me was that the question why the American Revolution succeeded, and so many others failed, which was concerning the intellectuals to whom Heberle talked, is one of the central questions of modern political thought, from Tocqueville on.

(Indeed, the question of the preconditions for what might be called 'constitutional' government, has been central to 'republican' thought, ever since it was revived by Italian thinkers, including prominently Machiavelli, when the 'Renaissance' made them reactivate and rework debates from ancient Rome and Greece.)

However, to hark back to the anxieties expressed by Lieven, nothing in the analysis of the great French thinker necessary guarantees that the success of 'Democracy in America' is stable and permanent, or indeed that the relatively civilised order of the post-war 'Pax Americana' is necessarily durable in Western Europe.

Also in June, Sergei Karaganov published a piece in 'Russia in Global Affairs', of which he is publisher, entitled 'Ideology of Eastward Turn.' A paragraph that struck me:

'Russian society should by no means abdicate from its mostly European culture. But it should certainly stop being afraid, let alone feel ashamed, of its Asianism. It should be remembered that from the standpoint of prevailing social mentality and society's attitude to the authorities Russia, just as China and many other Asian states, are offspring of Chengiss Khan's Empire. This is no reason for throwing up hands in despair or for beginning to despise one's own people, contrary to what many members of intelligencia sometimes do. It should be accepted as a fact of life and used as a strength. The more so, since amid the harsh competitive environment of the modern world the authoritarian type of government – in the context of a market economy and equitable military potentials – is certainly far more effective than modern democracy. This is what our Western partners find so worrisome. Of course, we should bear in mind that authoritarianism – just like democracy – may lead to stagnation and degradation. Russia is certainly confronted with such a risk.'

Unlike you, I cannot claim serious expertise on Russia. But, as a reasonably alert generalist television current affairs producer, I took note of the indications which were emerging in the course of 1987 that the Gorbachev 'new thinking' was underpinned by a realisation that Soviet institutions and ideas had become fundamentally dysfunctional, to which you have referred repeatedly over the years.

And, after long tedious months trying interest the powers that were in British broadcasting in what was happening, I ended up producing a couple of programmes for BBC Radio in February/March 1989 in which we interviewed some of the leading 'new thinkers', among them Karaganov's then immediate superior at the Institute of Europe, Vitaly Zhurkin.

At the Institute for the USA and Canada, by contrast, we did not interview its head, Georgiy Arbatov, but his deputy, Andrei Kokoshin, and one of the latter's mentors on military matters and collaborators General-Mayor Valentin Larionov, who I later realised had earlier been one of the foremost Soviet nuclear strategists. (At the Institute for World Economy and International Relations, we interviewed Arbatov's son, Alexei.)

Talking to these people we got a sense, although it had to be fleshed out later, of the scale of the disillusion with Soviet models, and indeed – which began to frighten me not long after – of the way many of them were romanticising the West.

What Karaganov now writes is I think a hardly very surprising reaction to the way that the Western powers responded to the 'new thinking.' Moreover, it seems to me that the disillusionment involved is in no sense particular Russian, but rather global.

If one regards 'democracy' as though it were quoted on the stock exchange, before 1914 there were very many buyers, including among the Russian élite. By 1931, in very many places, including large sections of the 'intelligentsia' in Western countries, it was a sellers' market, to put it mildly.

After 1945, a kind of long 'bull market' in 'democracy' started: for very good reasons.

The – largely but very far from entirely – peaceful retreat and collapse of Soviet power was to a very significant extent the product of this. The subsequent behaviour of Western élites has generated a vicious 'bear market', a fact they appear unable to understand.

I do not think Karaganov's article is simply a reflection of changes in Russian attitudes. The changes, it seems to me, are global.

Patrick Armstrong -> David Habakkuk , 3 days ago

I do think that we in the West really blew it. In 1990, we could have said, in all humility, that our way of life (IMO the key word is pluralism) had proven more survivable. So we should welcome the others into the tent. Instead, we were right and that was that.

PS, in light of the Henry Jackson society and all Younger's references to "values" this one rather stands out "A vital lesson I take from the Chilcot Report is the danger of group think."

Yeah. Group think, the very opposite of what I mean by pluralism.

Jack -> David Habakkuk , 3 days ago

David,

Sharyl Atkinson describes well the conspiracy. When one steps back and look at all the machinations we know now, it seems incredible.

Just as you're asking about the origins of the dossier I wonder if it was orchestrated or something that evolved organically? If it was orchestrated, then who was the mastermind? Did Brennan, Clapper and Come sit down and hatch it or was Simpson the brains? What is astounding is the scale. So many people involved. Were they all motivated by ideology or by the need to protect their racket?

It seems there are many sub-plots. There's the Deripaska, Steele, Waldman, Mueller, Sen. Warner angle. Then there's the Simpson, Steele, Ohr, Strzok, Page, McCabe angle. There's also the Simpson, Steele, media reporters angle. Then there's the whole Mifsud, Halper, Carter Page, Papadopolous, Downer bit. There's the Comey, Rosenstein, Yates, Strzok FISA application piece. Then there's all the stuff happening in the UK including Hannigan's resignation as soon as Trump is elected. Of course the whole Mueller appointment and the obstruction of justice thread to tie Trump's hand. There are so many elements. Who initiated and coordinated? Was each element separate?

There's no doubt a political thriller movie could be made.

FB -> Patrick Armstrong , 3 days ago

Thanks for the quote...LOL

I guess the comedy part is that there actually exist people with medically functioning brains, who are somehow able to contort such a worldview...Aleppo as peaceful 'desert' indeed...who knew that having bearded fanatics in charge is somehow 'better'...[and not 'heart-breaking']...

Michael Regan , 2 days ago

Some here may find blogpost from March of this year interesting as it speaks to the production of the Steele dossier. I have not seen it mentioned here before and a site search produced no results. https://apelbaum.wordpress.... Some sections seem to have gotten David Cay Johnston's hackles up.

David Habakkuk -> Michael Regan , a day ago

Michael Regan,

I had seen Yaacov Apelbaum's piece referred to by Clarice Feldman in a post on the 'American Thinker' site a few days back, but not looked at it properly.

It is indeed fascinating, and clearly repays a closer study than I have so far had time to give it. I was however relieved to find that what Apelbaum writes 'meshes' quite well with my own views of the likely authorship of the dossier.

A question I have is whether the monumental amount of labour involved in producing it can really be the work of a single IT person – however wide-ranging his abilities and interests. My suspicion is that there may be input from Russian intelligence.

This is not said in order to discredit Apelbaum's work. In matters where I have had occasion critically to examine claims from official Russian sources, I have found several unsurprising, but recurring, patterns. Sometimes, the information provided can be shown to be essentially accurate, and it is reasonably clear how it has been obtained.

At other times, claims are made which information from other sources suggests either are, or may well be, true, but the 'sources and methods' involved are deliberately obscured, making evaluation more difficult.

And then, there are many occasions when what one gets is quite patently a mixture of accurate information and disinformation. Analysing these can be very productive, if one can both sift out the accurate information, and attempt to see what the disinformation is designed to obscure.

One thing of which I am absolutely certain is that the networks which are outlined by Apelbaum are precisely those which Russian intelligence will have spent a great deal of time and ingenuity penetrating.

This will have been attempted by 'SIGINT' and surveillance methods, and also through infiltrating agents and turning people. (There are often grounds to suspect that some of those most vociferously denouncing Putin are colluding with Russian intelligence.)

Together, these methods are likely to have produced a mass of information. It is important to remember, for example, that at the time of his mysterious death on 23 March 2013 Boris Berezovsky was negotiating to return to Russia, and that his head of security, Sergei Sokolov did return, with a 'cache' of documents.

Some of these were used back in April 2016 in a 'Vesti Nedeli' edition presented by Dmitry Kiselyov, who manages Russia's informational programming resources, and an accompanying documentary on the 'Pervyi Kanal' station.

The purpose was to demonstrate that Alexei Navalny was the instrument of a 'régime change' plot in which William Browder was acting as an agent of MI6.

There is a good discussion of this, which highlights some of the problems with the documents, by Gilbert Doctorow, and Sokolov appears to have been involved in some murky activities since.

(See https://russia-insider.com/... ; https://en.crimerussia.com/... .)

But whatever the credibility or lack of it of the material, its appearance illustrates a general pattern, where the political disintegration of the London-based opposition to Putin has meant that more and more people involved in it have been supplying information to the Russians.

If, as I strongly suspect, there is fire beneath the smoke in those Russian television programmes, and if a great part of a series of projects of a related kind orchestrated in conjunction by elements in American and British intelligence were actually large run from this side, this will be creating headaches for people in Washington, as well as London.

An important role in the Apelbaum piece is played by the private security company Hakluyt. A quick look at the entries on Wikipedia and Powerbase will make clear that, if there is a British 'deep state', this is likely to be at its core.

(See https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... ; http://powerbase.info/index... .)

It is against this background that on has to see a specific claim which Apelbaum makes, for which I do not think any evidence is produced, about two figures whose role in 'Russiagate' is clearly central. So Luke Harding is described as 'A Guardian reporter and a Hakluyt and Orbis contractor' (note word.) Meanwhile, Edward Baumgartner is described as 'Co-founder of Edward Austin. Contractor at Orbis and Hakluyt.'

That Harding is corrupt, as also Sir Robert Owen's 'Inquiry' into the death of the late Alexander Litvinenko, I can prove. When Owen's report was published in January 2016, a preliminary response by me was posted here on SST, which among other things listed some of the evidence establishing that the interviews supposedly recorded with Litvinenko by Detective Inspector Brent Hyatt immediately before his death were blatant forgeries.

If this is the case, then questions are raised about how much of the apparently compelling forensic evidence is forged – and close examination suggests that key parts of it are.

(See http://turcopolier.typepad.... .)

In relation to that part of the evidence discussed in my January 2016 post which exposes the fumbling attempts by Steele and his colleagues to cover up the truth about when and how Litvinenko travelled into central London on the day he was supposedly killed, most of this had been among a mass of material submitted by me to the Inquiry Team, which I have e-mails to prove was read.

Likewise, also in January 2016, I sent the key relevant evidence on this crucial matter to Harding and senior figures at the 'Guardian', and have reason to believe it was read.

Further study of Owen's report has confirmed my suspicion that a strong 'prima facie case' of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice exists against very many of those involved in it.

At the same time, materials produced on the Russian side have confirmed my suspicion that the reason why Steele and others have been able to get away with their cover-up is that the Russian intelligence services are no more enthusiastic than their British counterparts about having anything like the whole truth about how Litvinenko lived and died made public.

Given the central role which Steele has now assumed in what looks like one of the biggest political scandals in American history, and the fact that in his book 'Collusion' Harding was again coming out in support of him, it would be of the greatest possible interest if indeed the latter had combined being a senior 'Guardian' correspondent with being paid by both Orbis and – even more important – Hakluyt.

And, particularly given the peculiar ambiguities of the role both of Fusion GPS and Baumgartner in the 'Trump Tower' meeting, it would be of great interest if the latter could be tied not only to Fusion, but to Orbis and – again even more important – Hakluyt.

This in turn might be relevant in trying to make sense of whether the fact that he and Simpson appear to have been working against Trump and Browder at the same time was or was not part of an elaborate ploy to give credibility to 'information operations' against the former.

There are accordingly two possibilities. It may be that, while much else in the Apelbaum material can be shown to be accurate, such accurate information is being used to give credibility to disinformation.

Alternatively, he is being used as a conduit for accurate and really explosive information about the British end of 'Russiagate', which he is unlikely to have unearthed all by himself, and the actual sources of which are – for very understandable reasons – being obscured.

Michael Regan -> David Habakkuk , a day ago

Mr Habakkuk-

Thank you for your reply. You have given me much to think about and I am very grateful that you took the time to respond in such a comprehensive manner, and that you have provided me and others here with some really compelling information and notions.

In particular, the issue of sources and methods you note seems spot on. The author(s)'s information gathering methodologies and expertise are certainly not those of the laiety. In fact in the comments below his post YA mentions intelligence work.

Additionally, the text itself displays an odd parallelism with his assertion regarding the Steele Dossier- that is, the likelihood of multiple authors, of diverse origins.

One thing that did catch my eye was a response he made to David Cay Johnston's pissy request for a retraction about Jacoby involvement. YA included a quote in Latin from Cicero's accusations against Cataline. Here is the English: What is there that you did last night, what the night before -- where is it that you were -- who was there that you summoned to meet you -- what design was there which was adopted by you, with which you think that any one of us is unacquainted?

While this sort of riposte isn't exactly hyper-erudite, it ain't chopped liver either. What I mean to say is that exceptional cyber skills, algorithm coding (I'm guessing crawlers) are not commonly coupled with that sort of classical formation. His recourse to various biblical quotes suggests an unusual level of education as well. And no way is he younger than 38 or so.

At any rate, thank you for the article and your kind and informative reply.

David Habakkuk -> Michael Regan , a day ago

Michael Regan,

Thanks. I have now read both a good few of Apelbaum's earlier posts, and also the comments on his discussion of the dossier. Given the importance of his analysis of that document closer study is clearly needed of all this material, but I have some preliminary reactions.

My curiosity about who Apelbaum might be is reinforced by the fact that the intimations he gives about his background in his responses to comments, while not incompatible with what he has said in the past, do not sit so easily with it.

In a July 2010 post, he explained that: 'In my previous life, I was a civil engineer. I worked for a large power marine construction company doing structural design and field engineering.' According to the account he gave then, he subsequently shifted to software development.

(See https://apelbaum.wordpress.... .)

What he now tells us is that: 'As far as how I first started, I do have an intelligence background and have been developing OSINT/cyber/intelligence platforms for many years.'

That makes sense in terms of the analysis, which – whatever other inputs there may or may not have been – looks to me like the work of someone who has a serious background in these kinds of methodology, and moreover, is clearly not any kind of 'Fachidiot.'

So, questions naturally arise about Apelbaum's intelligence career, in particular, who he is likely to have been employed by, and associated with, in the past, and whether he is still involved with any of those agencies which have employed him.

Even if he is not, questions would obviously rise about present connections arising from past work. This is in addition to the possibility that the logic of events may have provoked him to collaborate with those who might earlier have been his adversaries.

Reading Apelbaum's work, I am reminded of another interesting intervention in an embittered argument relating to the Middle East and the post-Soviet space, from what turned out to be an unexpected source.

In the period following the 'false flag' sarin attack at Ghouta on 21 August 2013 an incisive demolition of the conventional wisdom was provided in the 'crowdsourced' investigation masterminded by one 'sasa wawa' on a site entitled 'Who Attacked Ghouta?'

(See http://whoghouta.blogspot.com .)

And then, in December 2016, an Israeli high technology entrepreneur called Saar Wilf, a former employee of Unit 8200, that country's equivalent of the NSA or GCHQ, who had subsequently made a great deal of money when he and his partner sold their company to Paypal, co-founded a site called 'Rootclaim.'

(See https://www.rootclaim.com .)

The site, it was explained, was dedicated to applying Bayesian statistics to 'current affairs' problems. This is a methodology, whose modern form owes much to work done at Bletchley Park in the war, which is invaluable in 'SIGINT' analysis and also combating online fraud.

At the outset, 'Rootclaim' posted a recycled version of some of the key material from the 'Who Attacked Ghouta?' investigation. So, it seems likely, if not absolutely certain, that Saar Wilf and 'sasa wawa' are one and the same.

Following the Salisbury incident on 4 March, a blogger using the name 'sushi' produced a series of eleven posts under the title 'A Curious Incident' on the 'Vineyard of the Saker' blog.

(See https://thesaker.is/tag/sushi/ .)

Again, there are some very clear resemblances to 'sasa wawa' and Saar Wilf, which made me wonder whether the same person may be reappearing under yet another 'moniker.'

While the 'flavour' of Apelbaum seems to be different, the combination of what looks like serious technical expertise in IT techniques relating to intelligence with broad general intellectual interests looks to me similar.

I was amused by the combination of his quotation of the words from John 8:32 etched into the wall of the original CIA headquarters – 'And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free' – and the following remarks:

'The June 2016 start date of Steele's contract with Fusion GPS is the start of the "billable" activity, not the beginning of the research. Steele and Simpson/Jacoby have been collaborating on Trump/Russia going back to 2009.

'Also, there is a large Hakluyt/Orbis "commercial intelligence" network in the US that regularly services political and federal agencies and has the power to summon Nazgûls the likes of John Brennan. So Steele is not the new kid on the block, he has been doing this type of work long before 2016. This is also why he has such a cozy relationship with the brass at the DOJ and state.'

As it happens, I think that many of the collaborations involved may have started significantly earlier than this. In his response to David Cay Johnston, Apelbaum links to an April 2007' WSJ' article by Simpon and Jacoby which, among other things, deals with Semyon Mogilevich.

This is behind a paywall, but, fortunately, the fact that Ukrainian nationalists have had an obvious interest in treating it as a source of reliable information has meant that it is easily accessible.

(See www.madcowprod.com/wp-conte... )

It should I think be clear from my January 2016 post why I find this particularly interesting, in that it has to be interpreted in the context of a crucial 'key' to the mystery of the death of Alexander Litvinenko.

This is that he, the Ukrainian nationalist former KGB person Yuri Shvets, the convicted Italian disinformation peddler Mario Scaramella, and quite possibly the sometime key FBI expert on Mogilevich, Robert 'Bobby' Levinson, were involved in trying to suggest that Mogilevich was an instrument of a plot by Putin to equip Al Qaeda with a 'mini nuclear bomb.'

So, I then come back to the question of whether this notion of a 'large Haluyt/Orbis "commercial intelligence" network in the US', playing the role of Sauron with Brennan, perhaps, as the 'Witch-king of Angmar', does or does not have substance.

If it does, there would be very good reasons for a variety of people, with a range of different attitudes to events in the post-Soviet space and the Middle East, to think that they had an interest in collaborating with Russian intelligence against a common enemy.

If it does not, then there is a real possibility that Apelbaum may be involved in using accurate intelligence to disseminate inaccurate. (It seems to me that he is much too intelligent to be a plausible candidate for the role of 'useful idiot.')

One further point that may, or may not, be relevant. Many of the most influential American and British Jews, for reasons which I find somewhat hard to understand, seem to have decided that the heirs of the architects of the Lvov pogrom are nice and cuddly.

So, for example, Chrystia Freeland, the unrepentant granddaughter of the notorious Nazi collaborator Michael Chomiak, has been able to end up as Canadian Foreign Minister because made a successful journalistic career on the London 'Financial Times', a paper with a strong Jewish presence.

That the editorial staff of such a paper thought it appropriate to have someone like Freeland as their Moscow correspondent gives you a good insight into how moronic British élites have become. This may well be relevant, in trying to evaluate claims about Hakluyt and other matters.

In relation to Apelbaum, it may be quite beside the point that other Jews from a Russian/East European background, both in Russia, Israel, and the United States, have very different views on Ukraine, Russia, and the dangers posed – not least to Israel – by jihadists. It is however a fact which needs to be born in mind, when one comes across people whose views cut across conventional dividing lines in the United States and Britain.

Beside the point in relation to Apelbaum, I am confident, but also needing to be kept in mind, is the possibility that elements in the United States 'intelligence community', seeing the 'writing on the wall', may think it appropriate to shift from trying to pass the buck by blaming the Russians to doing so by blaming the Brits.

Michael Regan -> David Habakkuk , a day ago

It seems apparent that Putin's reordering of the Russian economy after the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management, Republic Bank's difficulites and the death of Edmund Safra left a bitter taste in the mouths of many who had hoped to exercise rentier rights over the Russian economy and resources. Why so much US resources and energy have been committed to recovering a contested deed is a real conundrum.

I was unaware of Freeland's grandfather and his lamentable CV. Thank you. It's funny that you mentioned both the Ghouta post and the Vineyard of the Saker. I recall reading those and thinking- this is not like common fare on the intertubes.

Your last points about failings in the quality of elite decision-making is extremely important. This dynamic of the dumb (US, UK, EU) at the wheel is, for me, the most frightening feature of the current state of play. In the worst moments I fear we are all on a bus driven by a drunk monkey, careening through the Andes. It's going to hurt all the way to the bottom.

Again, I am very grateful for your replies and all the great information and thought.

David Habakkuk -> Michael Regan , 2 hours ago

Michael Regan,

I think the question of why large elements in both American and British élites got so heavily invested, in essence, in supporting the oligarchs who refused Putin's terms in what turned into a kind of 'bare knuckles' struggle they were always likely to lose is a very interesting one.

It has long seemed to me that, even if one looked at matters from the most self-interested and cynical point of view, this represented a quite spectacular error of judgement. And, viewing the way in which 'international relations' are rearranging themselves, I am reasonably confident that this was one matter on which I got things right.

A central reason for this, I have come to think, is that Berezovsky and the 'information operations' people round him – Litvinenko is important, but the pivotal figure, the 'mastermind', if you will, was clearly Alex Goldfarb, and Yuri Shvets and Yuri Felshtinsky both played and still play important supporting roles – were telling people in the West what these wanted to hear.

It is a truth if not quite 'universally acknowledged', at least widely recognised by those who have acquired some 'worldly wisdom', that intellectually arrogant people, with limited experience of the world and a narrow education, can commonly be 'led by the nose' by figures who have more of the relevant kinds of intelligence and experience, and few scruples.

This rather basic fact is central to understanding the press conference on 31 May 2007 where the figure whom the Berezovsky group and Christopher Steele had framed in relation to the death of Litvinenko, Andrei Lugovoi, responded to the Crown Prosecution Service request for his extradition.

In his prepared statement, Lugovoi claimed that his supposed victim used to say that everyone in Britain were ''retards', to use the translation submitted in evidence to Owen's Inquiry, or 'idiots', to use that by RT. And according to this version, the British believed in everything that 'we' – that is, the Berezovky group – said was happening in Russia.

(For the RT translation, see https://www.rt.com/news/and... .)

Whether or not Litvinenko expressed this cynical contempt, the credulity with which the claims of the 'information operations' people around Berezovsky have been accepted – well illustrated by Owen's report and perhaps most ludicrous in Harding's journalism – makes clear it is justified.

What moreover became very evident, when Glenn Simpson testified to the House Intelligence and Senate Judiciary Committees, was that he was once again recycling the Berezovsky's group's version of Putin 'sistema' as the 'return of Karla.'

Given what has been emerging on the ways in which Fusion GPS and Steele were both integrated into networks involving top-level people in the FBI, DOJ, State Department and CIA, it seems clear that the 'retards'/'idiots' label is as applicable to people on your side as to people on ours.

Perhaps then, cartoons about Trump as a puppet, with the strings pulled by another puppet representing Manafort, whose strings are in turn pulled by Putin, should be replaced by ones in which Mueller is seen as a puppet manipulated by the ghost of Boris Berezovsky.

But that is the irony. The relationship with Berezovsky blew up in the faces of all concerned, when in the wake of the successsful corruption of the investigation into the death of Litvinenko by him and his 'information operations' people, he attempted to recoup his fortunes by suing Roman Abramovich, and got taken to pieces by Lord Sumption.

As to what happened next, a recent item on 'Russian Insider', providing a link to and transcript of a more recent piece presented by Dmitry Kiselyov on 'Vesti Nedeli is a good illustration of where accurate information and disinformation can be mixed in material from Russian sources.

(See https://russia-insider.com/... .)

The piece, which appeared in July, discusses, and quotes from, an interview given the previous month to Dmitry Gordon, who runs a Ukrainian nationalist site, by Berezovsky's daughter Elizaveta. Among other things, this deals with Berezovsky's death.

(See https://gordonua.com/public... . A little manipulation will get you a reasonably serviceable English translation, although it becomes comic because Berezovsky is referred to as 'pope'.)

The 'Vesti Nedeli' piece uses what Elizaveta Berezovskaya says in support of the claim that Berezovsky was murdered by British 'special forces', because he was planning to return to Russia, and he 'knew too much about them.'

As it happens, this is a patently tendentious reading of what she says. However, interesting features of the actual text of the interview are 1. that it does provide what to my mind is compelling evidence that her father was murdered, and 2. while she clearly suggests that this was covered up by the British, she is not suggesting that they were responsible – but also not making Putin 'prime suspect.'

Whether the suggestion by his daughter that her father might have been murdered by people who knew that by so doing they might get control of assets he might otherwise recoup has any merit I cannot say: I doubt it but cannot simply rule the possibility out.

What remains the case is that at that point there were very many people, including but in no way limited to elements in Western intelligence agencies, who had strong interests in avoiding a return by Berezovsky to Russia.

And the same people had the strongest possible interest in avoiding his being treated at the Inquest into Litvinenko's death by a competent barrister representing the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in the way he had been treated by Lord Sumption.

Ironically, it may have been partly because Lugovoi had made a dramatic announcement that he was withdrawing from the proceedings less than a fortnight before Berezovsky's death that before this happened a lot of people were staring at an absolutely worst-case scenario.

Time and again, in Owen's report, one finds matters where he recycles patent disinformation, which a well-briefed barrister acting for the ICRF could have easily ripped to shreds. At the same time, in this situation, the Russians could most probably have made a reasonable fist of coping with the multiple contradictions in claims made on their own side.

And, crucially, their patent weak suit – the need to obscure the actual role of Russian intelligence in the smuggling of the polonium into London, which had nothing to do with any murder plot – could have been reasonably well 'covered.'

Precisely because of these facts, the one scenario which can very easily be completely ruled out is that which is basic to the 'information operations' now coming out of London and Washington. In this, Berezovsky's death is portrayed as a key element in a systematic attempt by the Putin 'sistema' to eradicate the supposedly heroic opposition, much of it located in London.

That sustaining this fable is critical to defending the credibility of Steele, and therefore of the whole 'Russiagate' narrative, is quite evident from the 'From Russia With Blood' materials published by 'BuzzFeed' in July last year.

(See https://www.buzzfeed.com/he... .)

This, however, leads on to a paradox, which is highlighted by a piece posted by James George Jatras on the 'Strategic Culture Foundation' site on 18 August, entitled 'Have You Committed Your Three Felonies Today?'

(See https://www.strategic-cultu... .)

Among the points Jatras – who I think is an Orthodox Christian – makes is that the logic of contesting the 'Russiagate' narrative has had some strange consequences. Among these, there is one on which the actual history of the activities of Berezovsky and his 'information operations' people bears directly:

'Flipping the "Russians did it" narrative: Among the President's defenders, on say Fox News, no less than among his detractors, Russia is the enemy who (altogether now!) "interfered in our elections" in order to "undermine our democracy." Mitt Romney was right! The only argument is over who was the intended beneficiary of Muscovite mendacity, Trump or Hillary – that's the variable. The constant is that Putin is Hitler and only a traitor would want to get along with him. All sides agree that the Christopher Steele dossier is full of "Russian dirt" – though there's literally zero actual evidence of Kremlin involvement but a lot pointing to Britain's MI6 and GCHQ.'

(See https://www.strategic-cultu... .)

For reasons I have already discussed, I think what while Jatras is substantially right, 'zero evidence' is only partially correct: It seems to me that disinformation supplied by elements in Russian intelligence could quite possibly have found its way into the second and final memoranda.

That said, Jatras has pointed to a fundamental feature of the current situation, which involves multiple ironies.

The total destruction of Steele's credibility could easily be achieved by anyone who was interested in looking at the evidence about the life and death of the late Alexander Litvinenko seriously. However, because a central tactic of most of those who are attacking the 'Russiagate' narrative has generally been 'Flipping the "Russians did it" narrative', they are like people who ought to be able to see Steele's 'Achilles' heel', but in practice, often end up attacking him where his armour is, without being, not at its weakest.

Meanwhile, as I have already stressed, the ability of the Russian authorities to undermine the 'narrative' produced by the 'information operations' people around Berezovsky, of whom the most important are Alex Goldfarb and Yuri Shvets, is compromised by their fear of having to 'own up to' their actual role in the smuggling of the polonium into London in October-November 2007.

The person who had a strong interest in blowing this structure of illusion to pieces was actually Lugovoi. But it seems to me at least possible that there has been a kind of disguised covert conspiracy by elements in Western and Russian intelligence to ensure there was no risk of him doing so.

Steve Smith , 3 days ago

One of the things I've never understood about the Trump Dossier story is the lack of any forensic analysis of its content and style anywhere in the media, even the alt media. Who was supposed to have actually written it? Steele? The style does not match someone of his background and education, and the formatting and syntax were atrocious. The font actually varied from "report" to "report." It certainly did not give me the impression of being the product of a high-end, Belgravia consultancy.

I wonder whether it was produced by an American of one sort or another and then "laundered" by being accorded association with the UK firm. Given that Steele just happened to be hired by the USG to help in the anti-FIFA skulduggery, he and his firm seem very much to be a concern that does dirty little jobs that need discretely to be done, though in this case, the discretion was undermined.

Paul M , 3 days ago

Most of the memos were issued before October and Fusion/Simpson authorized Steele to release information to the FBI starting in July. The question is why the memos were released after the election when a release before the election would have been enough to sink Trump. Instead the FBI and presumably those paying Fusion on Hillarys behalf sat on it, and Comey comes out days before the election

Saying he was reopening the HC email investigation.

Kind of looks like they all wanted Trump in office and the disclosure was to give Trump the excuse needed to back track on his promises to improve relations with Russia and blame that on pressure from the Deep State and Russia Gate.

Looking at Trumps history with Sater (FBI/CIA asset) and his political aspirations that began following his Moscow visit in 1987 it seems likely Trump has been a Deep State asset for 30 years and fed intelligence to CIA/FBI on Russian oligarchs and mafia . Indeed he may well have duped Russians into believing he was working for them when in fact it was the CIA/FBI who had the best Kompromat with US RICO laws that could have beggared him

richardstevenhack , 3 days ago

One thing to remember about the FBI is Sy Hersh. Hersh claims the FBI has been sitting on a report for two years that fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the Wikileaks DNC email leaker (or one of them, at least.)

Now can we imagine that not everyone in a senior position at the FBI knows about that report? I can't. Literally everyone from the supervisor of the Special Agent or computer forensic investigator who examined Rich's computer right up to the Director HAD to know that report exists - and covered it up.

That right there is obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Literally everyone at the FBI who can't PROVE he didn't know about that report will be going to jail. The entire top administration of the FBI is going to go down.

And how many people at the Department of Justice are aware of that report? Did Rosenstein know? Who else in the Obama administration knew?

That would be motivation for a lot of desperate maneuvering. Add to that who was really behind the Steele Dossier and even more people are likely to end up in jail.

Pat Lang Mod -> richardstevenhack , 3 days ago

What is the link for Hersh saying that?

richardstevenhack -> Pat Lang , 3 days ago

You haven't heard that yet? It's the infamous audio tape that Hersh was caught on discussing it. He's since obfuscated what he said, but the tape stands on its own, and he has never said that anything he said on the tape wasn't true, despite that a lot of Democrats and Trump-bashers claim he has.

Here's one source on Youtube:

Seymour Hersh discussing Wikileaks DNC leaks Seth Rich & FBI report

https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FgYzB96_EK7s%3Ffeature%3Doembed&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DgYzB96_EK7s&image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FgYzB96_EK7s%2Fhqdefault.jpg&key=21d07d84db7f4d66a55297735025d6d1&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=youtube

Pat Lang Mod -> richardstevenhack , 3 days ago

I have told you several times and I will tell you again probably hopelessly that Hersh PERSONALLY has told me that the "tape" was made without his permission or knowledge when he was aimlessly speculating on possibilities.

richardstevenhack -> Pat Lang , 3 days ago

I am unaware of your explicitly telling me that he personally told you that the tape was "aimless speculation." My apologies if I missed that response.

Of course the tape was made without his permission. We all know that. It's irrelevant to what he said on the tape.

What I'm saying is that despite what he may have told you, nothing on that tape sounds like "aimless speculation".

When you consider that he has four good reasons for dissembling about the tape, I view it as far more likely that everything he said was true.

1) If what he said is true, he may have compromised his FBI contact. Not good for his line of work.

2) If what he said is true, compromising that contact may well make all his other contacts wary about talking to him in the future - a bad deal for a journalist who relies on his contacts.

3) If what he said is true, he may have compromised his ability to get his "long form journalism" article published - a problem he already has had in the past.

4) If what he said is true, he's accusing the FBI of sitting on that report for two years, which might well make him a target of retaliation in some way.

If you believe that everything he said on the tape is untrue and that is what he explicitly told you, fine. I'm waiting for his "long form journalism" report to explain it. So far everything he has said publicly about it has not contradicted what he said on the tape, but merely waved his hands about it.

Pat Lang Mod -> richardstevenhack , 3 days ago

Sy Hersh talks a lot both loudly and profanely. He never intended to tell Buttowski that there was more than a possibility that the FBI held more than a rumor that this might be true. He talked to Buttowski because a mutual friend of him and me asked him to do so for no good reason. Please go talk to all the other people you pester and not on SST. You are an argumentative nuisance.

Aukuu Makule -> Pat Lang , 3 days ago

I have no stake in the debate about Rich, DNC, wikileaks.
But I do notice some loose ends. Hersh may well have engaged in speculation, but it is interesting speculation:
quote:
55. During his conversation with Butowsky, Mr. Hersh claimed that he had received information from an "FBI report." Mr. Hersh had not seen the report himself, but explained: "I have somebody on the inside who will go and read a file for me. And I know this person is unbelievably accurate and careful. He's a very high level guy."

56. According to Mr. Hersh, his source told him that the FBI report states that, shortly after Seth Rich's murder, the D.C. police obtained a warrant to search his home. When they arrived at the home, the D.C. police found Seth Rich's computer, but were unable to access it.The computer was then provided to the D.C. police Cyber Unit, who also were unable to access the computer. At that point, the D.C. police contacted the Cyber Unit at the FBI's Washington D.C. field office. Again, according to the supposed FBI report, the Washington D.C. field office was able to get into the computer and found that in "late spring early summer [2016], [Seth Rich][made] contact with Wikileaks." "They found what he had done. He had submitted a series of documents, of emails. Some juicy emails from the DNC." Mr. Hersh told Butowsky that Seth Rich "offered a sample [to WikiLeaks][,] an extensive sample, you know I'm sure dozens, of emails, and said I want money."
. . .
"I hear gossip," Hersh tells NPR on Monday. "[Butowsky] took two and two and made 45 out of it."
. . .
The clip is definitely worth listening to in its entirety if you haven't already. Hersh is heard telling Butowsky that he had a high-level insider read him an FBI file confirming that Seth Rich was known to have been in contact with WikiLeaks prior to his death, which is not even a tiny bit remotely the same as having "heard rumors". Hersh's statements in the audio recording and his statement to NPR cannot both be true.
endquote
https://medium.com/@caityjo...

blue peacock , 3 days ago

All

An interview of Rep. John Ratcliffe who will lead the questioning of Bruce Ohr.

https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2Fqn23H0vMCsM%3Ffeature%3Doembed&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dqn23H0vMCsM&image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Fqn23H0vMCsM%2Fhqdefault.jpg&key=21d07d84db7f4d66a55297735025d6d1&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=youtube

Rob , 3 days ago

I suspect Buzzfeed were in the grip of Trump Derangement Syndrome, and perhaps you overestimate their professionalism.

David Habakkuk -> Rob , 3 days ago

Rob,

You may very well be right. There may be a large element of 'amateur night out' about this.

But then I come back to the question of who decided that the dossier be published, and who, if anyone, was consulted before the decision was made. For the reasons I gave, I am reasonably confident that those on this side who had been in one way or another complicit in its production and covert dissemination were taken aback by the publication.

It is not clear to me whether anything significant can be inferred from the publicly available evidence about whether those on your side who had been complicit were involved in the decision to publish without taking even elementary precautions, or whether the 'Buzzfeed' people just had a rush of blood to the head.

blue peacock -> David Habakkuk , 3 days ago

David

I suspect the decision to publish the dossier was political. It was required to enable Clapper, Brennan, and others to opine on national media and create further media hysteria prior to the vote as well as to justify the counter-intelligence investigations underway. They were throwing the kitchen sink to sink Trump's electoral chances. I don't think a lot of thought was given about the legal ramifications.

This seems to be a pattern. Leak information. Then use the leaked story to justify actions like apply for a FISA warrant or fan the media flames.

Cynthia Anne , 4 days ago

And now they are turning on one another. Hayden just slammed Clapper for making too much of losing the security clearance the he abuse for political reasons.

Pat Lang Mod -> Cynthia Anne , 4 days ago

Looks like both Clapper and Haydon made the same comment about Brennan. they said "his rhetoric was becoming a problem. Ah, the USAF intel rats are swimming for the shore. Lets see how many others (not all USAF) decide to try to save themselves.

blue peacock -> Pat Lang , 4 days ago

Col. Lang

I find it incredulous that former leaders of the intelligence and law enforcement agencies have gained paid access to powerful media platforms and they have used it to launch vicious attacks on a POTUS.

I find it amazing that McCabe and Peter Strzok are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars on social media platforms.

IMO, everyone on the list that Sarah Sanders noted, should not just lose their clearance but should be testifying to a grand jury.

MP98 -> blue peacock , 3 days ago

Not really incredulous. Just expected behavior from swamp creatures whose self-assumed importance and "rights" (that the rest of us peasants don't have) are coming under threat.

David Habakkuk -> blue peacock , 3 days ago

blue peacock

It seems to me absolutely appalling, and I am also appalled that people on this side appear to have been playing a central role in all this.

One question. It seems to me that if what seems likely to be true does prove true, a range of these people must have committed very serious offences indeed.

However, I am too ignorant to know what precisely those offences might be. If you, or anyone else, had a clear understanding, I would be interested.

English Outsider -> David Habakkuk , 3 days ago

"It seems to me absolutely appalling, and I am also appalled that people on this side appear to have been playing a central role in all this."

That says it all. We got the more discreditable side of the affair outsourced to us. Ugh. Is that all we're fit for now in the UK? White helmets and Khan Sheikhoun and Steele, all the scrubby stuff? Is that what the famous "Special Relationship" now consists of? We get to do the scrubby stuff because it's what we're fit for and we can be relied upon to keep it quiet?

Because at least on the American side there are people concerned about the political/PR involvement of parts of their own Intelligence Community, and seeking to have it looked into. Here - am I right? - it's dead silence.

I've been permitted to say before on SST that I don't think the Americans are going to resolve this affair satisfactorily until more light is cast on the UK side. But I also think that, for our own sakes, we should be looking at what exactly our IC does, and in particular, how much UK political involvement there was in what is now clear was a direct PR attack on an American President.

Pat Lang Mod -> English Outsider , 3 days ago

I strongly suspect that Steele has a future as a novelist.

blue peacock -> David Habakkuk , 3 days ago

David

I'm not a lawyer and have no experience with the federal criminal statutes. Having said that I suspect that the following could be considered crimes:

There may also be certain professional agreements with the government that may have been violated. The only way any of these people will face a grand jury is if Donald Trump chooses to take action. Left to the natural devices of the law enforcement institutions nothing will happen and they will sweep everything under the rug. The intensity of Trump's tweets and the accusations therein are rising. If the GOP retains the House and Jim Jordan becomes speaker, then there may be a possibility that Sessions, Rosenstein and Wray may be fired and another special counsel appointed who will then convene a grand jury.

Considering what has been uncovered by Congressional investigators and the DOJ IG, I am truly surprised that Sessions has resisted the appointment of a special counsel. But of course that could go the way of the Owens inquiry in your country.

[Sep 07, 2018] Elizabeth Warren Calls For Use Of 25th Amendment To Remove Trump by Lydia O'Connor

This Senator supported Hillary Clinton...
Sep 07, 2018 | www.huffingtonpost.com

Trump officials need to do more than "take documents off his desk, write anonymous op-eds," the senator told CNN.

It's time we invoke the Constitution to remove President Donald Trump from office, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Thursday.

[Sep 07, 2018] Is Trump Truly 'Insane'

Notable quotes:
"... No doctor that has examined him says he is insane. All that's presented are third-party anonymous accusations of incompetence shot through with gossip. A book written by a Hollywood trash reporter is otherwise held up as critical evidence of the inner workings of the president's mind. ..."
"... We might instead look at the actual decisions Trump has made, and those of his predecessors. One president used nuclear weapons to decimate two cities' worth of innocents , and a set of presidents squandered hundreds of thousands of American lives washing Vietnam with blood. Ronald Reagan was famously caught on an open mic saying he was going to start bombing the Soviet Union in the next few minutes. Another president spread false information about WMDs to launch an invasion of Iraq and mocked North Korea's leader as a pygmy. Obama said he "will not hesitate to use our military might" against the North, knowing that meant Armageddon. Historical psychiatrists say half of our past presidents may have suffered from some sort of mental illness. If Trump is dangerous as president, he would seem to have company. ..."
"... In the minds of the "Trump is Insane" crowd what matters most is that never-used fourth subsection, the incapacitation clause. People claim because Trump is insane he is unable to carry out his duties, and so Mike Pence, et al, must step in and transfer power away from him. Trump would legally exist in the same status as Grandpa Simpson in the nursing home, and Pence would take over. Among other problems, this imagines that the 25th Amendment's legally specific term "unable" means the same thing as "unfit." An unconscious man is unable to drive. A man who forgot his glasses is unfit, but still able, to drive. The 25th Amendment only refers to the first case. ..."
Jan 28, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The media chatterati seems to be of one mind: Donald Trump is mentally incompetent and may have to be removed from office before he blows us all to hell.

They say so on Vox , the New York Review of Books , CNN , The Intercept , CNBC , The Nation , Bill Moyers , Salon , and the New York Times . A new book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President , concludes that "Trump's mental state presents a clear and present danger to our nation and individual well-being."

http://www.youtube.com/embed/3OfV-VXyQdo?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

The solution, to their minds, lies in the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which creates a mechanism outside of impeachment to remove an "incapacitated" president. Trump's mental state, some believe, qualifies him. Is there a case?

Dr. Bandy Lee , one of the editors of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump , says yes. Her evidence includes tweets that Trump sent threatening Kim Jong-un. She really has no other ammunition: no doctor who says Trump is insane, including Lee, has examined him. No doctor that has examined him says he is insane. All that's presented are third-party anonymous accusations of incompetence shot through with gossip. A book written by a Hollywood trash reporter is otherwise held up as critical evidence of the inner workings of the president's mind.

So is there a case without the tweets? Not really. Lee adds that while Trump has not committed violent acts against himself or others, his "verbal aggressiveness, history of boasting about sexual assault, history of inciting violence at his rallies, and history of endorsing violence in his key public speeches are the best predictors of future violence," and thus concludes he will destroy the world. Lee also weakly points to Trump "being drawn to violent videos." Oh my.

We might instead look at the actual decisions Trump has made, and those of his predecessors. One president used nuclear weapons to decimate two cities' worth of innocents , and a set of presidents squandered hundreds of thousands of American lives washing Vietnam with blood. Ronald Reagan was famously caught on an open mic saying he was going to start bombing the Soviet Union in the next few minutes. Another president spread false information about WMDs to launch an invasion of Iraq and mocked North Korea's leader as a pygmy. Obama said he "will not hesitate to use our military might" against the North, knowing that meant Armageddon. Historical psychiatrists say half of our past presidents may have suffered from some sort of mental illness. If Trump is dangerous as president, he would seem to have company.

But how can we know? Trump will never voluntarily undergo a mental competency exam, though courts can order people to submit. But even Lee, who met with congressional representatives to press the case that Trump is insane, admits this is unlikely to happen. "Many lawyer groups have actually volunteered to file for a court paper to ensure that the security staff will cooperate with us," Lee said . "But we have declined, since this will really look like a coup, and while we are trying to prevent violence, we don't wish to incite it through, say, an insurrection."

Still, those arguing Trump is insane and must be removed from office will point to the 25th Amendment as just what the doctor ordered.

The framers did not originally include rules for what happens if a president dies or becomes incapacitated. It was just assumed the vice president would serve as "Acting President." The 25th Amendment, passed after the Kennedy assassination , created the first set of protocols for this sort of situation.

The amendment has four short subsections. If the presidency goes vacant (for example, after a fatal heart attack), the vice president becomes president. If the vice presidency goes vacant, the president chooses a new VP. If the president knows he'll be incapacitated (due to scheduled surgery, for example), he can voluntarily and temporarily assign his duties to the vice president. If the president is truly incapacitated (unconscious after an assassination attempt) and can't voluntarily assign away his duties, the VP and cabinet can do it for him, with a two-thirds majority confirming vote of the House and Senate.

In the minds of the "Trump is Insane" crowd what matters most is that never-used fourth subsection, the incapacitation clause. People claim because Trump is insane he is unable to carry out his duties, and so Mike Pence, et al, must step in and transfer power away from him. Trump would legally exist in the same status as Grandpa Simpson in the nursing home, and Pence would take over. Among other problems, this imagines that the 25th Amendment's legally specific term "unable" means the same thing as "unfit." An unconscious man is unable to drive. A man who forgot his glasses is unfit, but still able, to drive. The 25th Amendment only refers to the first case.

The use of the 25th Amendment to dethrone Trump is the kind of thing non-experts with too much Google time can convince themselves is true. But unlike much of the Constitution, where understanding original intent requires the Supreme Court and a close reading of the Federalist Papers, the 25th Amendment is modern legislation. We know the drafters' intent was an administrative procedure, not a political thunderbolt. The 25th Amendment premises that the president will almost always invoke succession himself, either by dying in office or by anticipating that he will be unable to discharge his duties, as in 2007 when George W. Bush went under anesthesia for his annual colonoscopy and signed things over to his vice president for a few hours.

The reason the 25th Amendment is not intended to be used adversarially is the Constitution already specifies impeachment as the way to force an unfit president out against his will, his unfitness specifically a result of "high crimes and misdemeanors." The people who wrote the 25th Amendment did not intend it to be an alternate method of impeachment or a do-over for an election.

The Constitution at its core grants ultimate power to the people to decide, deliberately, not in panic, every four years, who is president. Anything otherwise would mean the drafters of the 25th Amendment wrote a backdoor into the Constitution that would allow a group of government officials, many of whom in the Cabinet were elected by nobody, to overthrow an elected president who they simply think has turned out to be bad at his job.

Accusations of mental illness are subjective, unprovable in this case, and alarmist -- perfect fodder to displace the grinding technicalities of Russiagate. Denouncing one's political opponents as crazy was a tried-and-true Soviet and Maoist tactic, and a movie trope where the youngsters try to get the patriarch shut away to grab his fortune. We fear the mentally ill, and psychiatric name calling against Trump invokes that fear . "The 25th Amendment would require, for mental incapacity, a major psychotic break," said one former Harvard Law School professor. "This is hope over reality. If we don't like someone's politics we rail against him, we campaign against him, we don't use the psychiatric system against him. That's just dangerous."

Trump's time in office is finite, but what happens around him will outlast his tenure. It is dangerous to mess with the very fundamentals of our democracy, where the people choose the president and then replace him with a cabal called into session by pop psychologists. This is an attack on the process at its roots: you yokels voted for the wrong guy so somebody smarter has to clean up.

Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well : How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People and Hooper's War : A Novel of WWII Japan. Follow him on Twitter @WeMeantWell.


Brunchify January 25, 2018 at 10:47 pm

Yes, the concerns about Trump are all political, nothing at all do with concerns about his mental state as he said himself he is a Very Stable Genius.

Very Stable Genius

Very Stable Genius

Very Stable Genius

Very Stable Genius

Alex (the one that likes Ike) , says: January 26, 2018 at 12:15 am
Brunchify,

Judging by the fact that he's still the only president after the end of the Cold War who hasn't yet dragged the country into any new costly and unnecessary war, it indeed must be that either he's a genius or his predecessors are mentally challenged. Your choice.

EliteCommInc. , says: January 26, 2018 at 12:20 am
" . . . and a set of presidents squandered hundreds of thousands of American lives washing Vietnam with blood."

Total US losses in the Vietnam War/conflict: 58,300

It is sad that plans were made to remove the Pres. even before he was elected. It has been the use of a special prosecutor has certainly been a factor
in damaging our republics democracy.

b , says: January 26, 2018 at 2:32 am
I remember hearing a reporter comment upon Obama and Bush meeting on inauguration day that the "Peaceful transition of power is what makes our Democracy great." Now 8 years later those same people are saying we need to oust the Democratically elected candidate. The danger here is not against the offices of our government but against the press itself. As the media continues down this path they paint themselves as lunatics, hypocrites and partisans. I think our institutions will survive this and much worse. But I don't think the media as we know it will. Trust is at an all time low in most all of the media outlets. The question that needs to be asked is will our Democracy survive the death of the press and what if anything will replace what used to be called investigative and informative journalism?
Fran Macadam , says: January 26, 2018 at 4:14 am
There's a NeverTrump and Resistance checklist that's being worked through, and this was the next gambit if Russiagate failed, which was the gambit if the Electoral College revolt didn't work The next in line will be something along the arc of a politicized MeToo They're making a list, and they're checking it twice
Fran Macadam , says: January 26, 2018 at 4:15 am
There's a NeverTrump and Resistance checklist that's predictably being worked through, and this was the next gambit if Russiagate failed, which was the gambit if the Electoral College revolt didn't work The next in line will be something along the arc of a politicized MeToo They're making a list, and they're checking it twice
connecticut farmer , says: January 26, 2018 at 9:04 am
Reading this only serves as a reminder that the ones whom we really need to fear are the masses of the great Unwashed Elite (Vox, CNN, etc.), not Trump.
Elizabeth , says: January 26, 2018 at 9:44 am
Slightly off topic, but "the youngsters try to get the patriarch shut away to grab his fortune" is, sadly, no movie trope; my family is living it right now. Trying to right this outrageous wrong on behalf of the forcibly shut-away patriarch is costing us non-grabby siblings tens of thousands of dollars in legal and court fees. Justice has a crippling price in modern America and those who can't pay don't get much justice.
John Gruskos , says: January 26, 2018 at 9:49 am
In East Germany, Stasi leader Markus Wolfe took things a step further with the "zersetzung" tactic.

The idea was to *induce* a "personal crisis" through clandestine harassment, including at the hands of acquaintances secretly recruited by the Stasi.

In other words, while the Frankfort School was content to merely *label* their opponents mentally ill ("Authoritarian Personality", "Paranoid Style", etc.), Markus Wolfe was actively trying to cause *real* mental illness by relentlessly gaslighting selected individual dissidents until they cracked.

How many centuries will it take for the reputation of the mental health profession to recover from their association with various repressive left-wing regimes and pseudo-scientists such as the Freudians and the Frankfurt School?

Dan Green , says: January 26, 2018 at 10:00 am
HRC warned us of all the dumb white male deplorable's , as being a major threat. Wonder where the pop psychologist have these Americans slotted, possibly not allowed to vote ?
Allen , says: January 26, 2018 at 10:42 am
What's insane is that a married FBI agent and an FBI lawyer hooked up and conspired to bring down a President, yet both still work for the FBI! That's really insane.

Trump? He's just grumpy.

mrscracker , says: January 26, 2018 at 11:17 am
It's just silliness re. Mr Trump. He's perfectly sane.
We had a former governor- whom I actually admire- but his behavior was authentically erratic. If Pres. Trump ever acts even half this way, then we should take a serious look at his mental health 🙂 :

" Long spent ninety minutes ranting and lashing out against his opponents. Spotting Rainach in the crowd, Long launched into the salacious details of the murder of Rainach's uncle, killed by a black man who had caught him in bed with the man's wife. In one of Long's most famous remarks, he told the crowd, "After all this is over [Rainach will] probably go up there to Summerfield, get up on his front porch, take off his shoes, wash his feet, look at the moon, and get close to God." Pointing and shouting at Rainach, he continued, "And when you do, you got to recognize that n**gers is human beings!" When he concluded his tirade, Earl was rushed to the governor's mansion and locked in a bedroom where he grew violent. At one point, he stood in the smashed bedroom window shouting, "Murder!"

Concerned about his mental health, Long's family had him institutionalized in Texas before transferring him to the Louisiana State Hospital in Mandeville. With the assistance of his subordinates, however, Long won release from the asylum, firing the director in the process, and proceeded on an interstate buying spree trailed by national press agents. Many have speculated on the cause of Long's apparent breakdown, with at least one biographer convinced the politician suffered from bipolar disorder. Others speculate that Long's all-night escapades in New Orleans, including dalliances with dancer Blaze Starr, coupled with the regular ingestion of large amounts of alcohol and the powerful stimulants Dexedrine undermined Long's perception of reality. Regardless of the cause, it was clear to many, including the national press, that Long needed an extended vacation."

http://www.knowlouisiana.org/entry/earl-long-2

BobS , says: January 26, 2018 at 12:07 pm
Trrump's as sane as any other 71 year old man-baby.
Nelson , says: January 26, 2018 at 1:49 pm
If one day Trump wakes up and decides it's a good day to launch nuclear missiles at some country because their leader said disparaging remarks against him, then the 25th should be invoked. But not before then.
JK , says: January 26, 2018 at 4:14 pm
One of the hallmarks of mental illness is that a person's personality or behavior change and people close to them that love them are most alarmed by it and want them to get treated. None of this holds in Trump's case. His behavior is the same as it's always been, which is what people voted on. And the ones trying to use it are his enemies which don't care about treatment, but simply as a machination to depose him.
Susan Dawkins , says: January 26, 2018 at 4:44 pm
The author has made several errors. He assumes that discussing the possibility of a psychiatric disorder making Trump unfit means proving insanity. In reality, the most likely disorder does not meet the legal definition of insanity, but does make a person incapable of competently or faithfully performing the duties of office.

The suggestion that this is some type of superficial soviet style political maneuver ignores the fact that good diagnosis is done nowadays based to a large extent on observed behavior, history, and the reports of third parties. This is especially important when the individual shows signs of being a pathological liar. In these cases, information gained in a face-to-face interview may be virtually useless.

The condition that Mr. Trump should be assessed for is Antisocial Personality Disorder with Psychopathic Features. (Alternative PDOs in DSM-5, pg. 761-765 Some of the signs and symptoms which make such a person unfit for office include-
 Dishonesty and fraudulence
 Embellishment or fabrication when relating events
 Anger or irritability in response to minor slights and insults
 Mean, nasty, or vengeful behavior
 Boredom proneness and thoughtless initiation of activities to counter boredom
 Lack of concern for one's limitations
 Acting on the spur of the moment in response to immediate stimuli
 Acting on a momentary basis without a plan or consideration of outcomes
 Disregard for -- and failure to honor­–financial and other obligations or commitments

No one imagined that someone with this possible disorder would ever make it to the White House, however, the 25th Amendment provides an avenue for him to temporarily be removed from power while he can undergo proper evaluation by military psychiatrists and neurologists. This is all mental health professionals are requesting. These individuals can do tremendous damage when give power over others.

karsten , says: January 26, 2018 at 8:56 pm
"The condition that Mr. Trump should be assessed for is Antisocial Personality Disorder with Psychopathic Features. (Alternative PDOs in DSM-5, pg. 761-765 Some of the signs and symptoms which make such a person unfit for office include-
 Dishonesty and fraudulence
 Embellishment or fabrication when relating events
 Anger or irritability in response to minor slights and insults
 Mean, nasty, or vengeful behavior
 Boredom proneness and thoughtless initiation of activities to counter boredom
 Lack of concern for one's limitations
 Acting on the spur of the moment in response to immediate stimuli
 Acting on a momentary basis without a plan or consideration of outcomes
 Disregard for -- and failure to honor­–financial and other obligations or commitments "

An Orwellian comment like the above just proves the point of the article, and then some. As if there isn't anyone in the world who couldn't be shoehorned to fit such a diagnoses, with a crafty narrative reconfiguring of their actions.

If there are indeed any witch doctors (excuse me, "psychiatrists") pathologizing people on the basis of a laughable list like the above, then I consider them to be far more undeserving of the power they have, and far more toxic to society, than Trump in any of the actions or utterances that he has made.

Peter Van Buren , says: January 26, 2018 at 9:04 pm
Susan Dawkins, who claims my article has mistakes, didn't read it. Her amateur diagnosis that Trump has "Antisocial Personality Disorder with Psychopathic Features" does not make him UNABLE to be president, which is what the 25th Amendment is for.

She claims he is UNFIT. Fitness is judged primarily by the people, who elected him. If a president somehow becomes unfit while in office it must be because of "high crimes and misdemeanors." That's the only reason the Constitution provides for. And impeachment is the only answer.

Sorry kiddies, the 25th is a not-over for an election Rachael Maddow doesn't like.

karsten , says: January 26, 2018 at 9:07 pm
This is all mental health professionals are requesting."

"All"? That's rich.

Indeed, is that all that they're requesting? My goodness -- what a modest request! -- a request merely to have complete veto power over America's entire citizenry, in terms of who is allowed to be President; a request merely to be able to remove any President who is not to their liking.

In short, a mere request to be able to legally perform a coup d'etat at will, to overturn any election that does not yield their desired result.

How gratified we all should be that their request for power is such a small one. Imagine if they asked for something just a bit more ambitious. "Omnipotence" comes to mind.

Dale , says: January 26, 2018 at 9:38 pm
Trump is the one who messes with the very fundamentals of our democracy. Remember his voting commission and the crap they wanted? Force states to provide all the 2016 voter information to his CosaNostra buddies. And remember when they wanted all Americans to fill out a registration form similar to the one used when purchasing a gun? They said they wanted to make sure only those qualified were on the voter registration lists.
Alex (the one that likes Ike) , says: January 26, 2018 at 10:31 pm
Bob S,

Trrump's as sane as any other 71 year old man-baby.

Obviously saner and infinitely more mature than a 70 year old woman-baby, who wrecked a havoc all over the Middle East, was laughing like a bloodthirsty child when watching an old man's violent death in the hands of a barbaric crowd as one of the results of that havoc and then, out of a sheer infantile negligence, caused an American ambassadors similarly violent death in the hands of likely the same crowd as another result of the same havoc.

***

Susan Dawkins,

So, you claim that something that something that doesn't meet the legal definition of insanity is somehow a basis to invoke a legal mechanism that would require someone to be legally defined as insane ? How pathetic. Do you know that this mere writing of yours can be a sign of at least three mental disorders, assuming it was written in good faith and not as an umpteenth attempt of a comically maladroit political hackery? Note that I have certain knowledge in psychiatry and can highlight the signs of these disorders step by step, not by hysterical shrilling "I'm an MD, you philistines", which can be a sign of yet another mental disorder.

Though the most comical part of your hackery is that every point of your list meant to "describe" Trump perfectly fits Hillary Clinton. You should try better. Seriously. You have just shown that your knowledge of psychiatry is abysmal, no matter the degrees you might have.

Furor , says: January 27, 2018 at 5:39 am
Ultimately to the leftists everybody is mentally ill because they don't understand the necessities of history and they don't possess "secret" knowledge.
B , says: January 27, 2018 at 11:36 am
Susan Dawkins, that list of symptoms reminds me of most all of the people that run for political office or spend a majority of their lives up on the hill. I immediately thought of several people on both the left and the right. Let's see how HIllary does:

1&2: embellished/lied in saying she was personally shot at by a sniper in Bosnia? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1582795/Hillary-Clintons-Bosnia-sniper-story-exposed.html . Might I add that she said this while other Americans were on battlefields half a world away actually getting shot at.
3&4: Calling American Citizens deplorable 5&6&8: Voted for Iraq, pushed for action in Libya.
Hmm, I guess there is a reason voters didn't pick her.

Sid_finster , says: January 27, 2018 at 2:27 pm
Lordy, how naive.

What matters in this narrative is not law, not ethics or sanity, not anything else but power.

If those who want Trump removed will have the power to do so, they will do so. Whatever law is invoked will merely be an excuse, a cover story, if you will.

cylindrical crown , says: January 27, 2018 at 2:29 pm
Question: How many anti-Trump psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: Only one. But the psychiatrist will take a very long time, and believes the light bulb has to want to change.

Mia , says: January 27, 2018 at 3:51 pm
"The suggestion that this is some type of superficial soviet style political maneuver ignores the fact that good diagnosis is done nowadays based to a large extent on observed behavior, history, and the reports of third parties. This is especially important when the individual shows signs of being a pathological liar. In these cases, information gained in a face-to-face interview may be virtually useless."

So what happens when the third parties or the psychiatrist in question are pathological liars? Would a face-to-face interview help in that case?

[Jul 27, 2018] Was Rob Goldstone MI6 operative or MI6 stooge ?

Jul 27, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

The Trump Tower meeting was arranged by Fusion GPS associate Rob Goldstone, who said during Congressional testimony reviewed by Breitbart that he believes the June 9, 2016 meeting was a "bait and switch" by a Russian lobbyist who promised "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, and admitted that he used hyperbolic language on purpose to ensure that the meeting would take place.

"I, therefore, used the strongest hyperbolic language in order to secure this request from Donald Trump Jr. based on the bare facts I was given," said Goldstone, a UK publicist and music manager.

"It was an example of, I was given very limited information, and my job was to get a meeting, and so I used my professional use of words to emphasize what my client had only given bare-bones information about, in order to get the attention of Mr. Trump Jr. " -Rob Goldstone

Goldstone then said " it appeared to me to have been a bait and switch of somebody who appeared to be lobbying for what I now understood to be the Magnitsky act," - which sanctions Russian officials thought to be involved in the death of a Russian tax accountant.

Fusion GPS associate Natalia Veselnitskaya, an attorney for Russian businessman and Fusion GPS client Denis Katsy, said that Emin Agalarov - the son of Russian oligarch Aras Agalarov - told her to contact his representative, Irakly "Ike" Kaveladze to set up the Trump Tower meeting, which Kaveladze attended.

While both Agalarov and Katsyv opposed the Magnitsky act, Veselnitskaya worked only for Katsyv, while approaching Agalarov and his associates to participate in the Trump Tower meeting. Of ntoe, Agalarov organized the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow when it was partially owned by Donald Trump.

Veselnitskaya said Agalarov told her to get in touch with Kaveladze about the meeting because he had connections with the Trump team.

Veselnitskaya said she made a point of asking Goldstone -- who she mistakenly thought was a lawyer -- whether it was OK to include Akhmetshin, given that he was a registered lobbyist. Goldstone told her it was fine, she said. - NBC News

On June 3, 2016, Goldstone sent an email to Trump Jr. on behalf of Emin Agalarov to set up the meeting. Goldstone was described last July as "associated with Fusion GPS" by Mark Corallo - spokesman for Trump's outside legal counsel, according to the Washington Post .

"Specifically, we have learned that the person who sought the meeting is associated with Fusion GPS , a firm which according to public reports, was retained by Democratic operatives to develop opposition research on the president and which commissioned the phony Steele dossier" -Mark Corallo

From Goldstone's June 3rd email to Trump Jr. - six days before the Trump Tower meeting:

The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.

This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump -- helped along by Aras and Emin.

Trump Jr. replied to Goldstone that " if it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer ."

Breitbart News previously reported that Russian-born Washington lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, who attended the meeting with Veselnitskaya, evidenced a larger relationship with Fusion GPS and the controversial firm's co-founder Glenn Simpson , according to Akhmetshin's testimony before the same committee. - Breitbart

Fusion's fingerprints are all over this...

Hours before Veselnitskaya attended the Trump Tower meeting to lobby Trump Jr. about the Magnitsky act, she met with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson .

While most people know that Fusion GPS was paid by the Clinton campaign to produce the infamous "Steele Dossier" - assembled by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, Fusion was also working for a Russian businessman who wanted the Magnitsky act repealed, Denis Katsyv, and Veselnitskaya was his lawyer who was given special permission by the Obama DOJ to enter the U.S. to represent him.

In late November of 2017, The Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross reported that heavily redacted Fusion GPS bank records reveal DNC law firm Perkins Coie paid Fusion a total of $1,024,408 in 2016 for opposition research on then-candidate Donald Trump - including the 34-page dossier.

Ross also reported that law firm Baker Hostelter paid Fusion $523,651 between March and October 2016 on behalf of a company owned by Katsyv to research Bill Browder , a London banker who helped push through the Magnitsky Act.

Keep in mind, Veselnitskaya really doesn't like Donald Trump based on several archived Facebook posts:

me title=

So while the Trump Tower meeting may appear to some to have been a setup, the question now is whether or not Trump knew about it in advance.

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nmewn -> DingleBarryObummer Thu, 07/26/2018 - 21:59 Permalink

I'm unsure of the zeitgeist being proposed here but it sure sounds like you are offering up the theory that the Deep State actually wanted Trump.

Yet he..."colluded"...among outside parties like the DNC funded Fusion, Perkins Coie, MI6 and then the FBI, the CIA, DNI and the DoJ to manufacture FALSE EVIDENCE.

In order to produce that "evidence" to a FISA court, in order to "legally" surveil (with taxpayer funds, of course) the very same man (and his associates).

So as to, gather incriminating evidence against him (Trump) so he could be removed from office in disgrace (almost immediately) because he is actually the one the Deep State wants in office, as President of the United States.

Is that what I'm hearing here? ;-)


Yellow_Snow -> DingleBarryObummer Thu, 07/26/2018 - 23:42 Permalink

Cohen was obviously in on the 'entrapping of Trump' plan from the beginning...

Even taping his conversations with his client without his permission - huge red flag

consider me gone -> Freeze These Thu, 07/26/2018 - 22:40 Permalink

The only one telling a different story is the guy who's trying desperately to stay out of prison. Not the best witness. Particularly since he didn't remember for two years prior. Reasonable doubt anyone?

Occams_Razor_Trader -> nmewn Thu, 07/26/2018 - 22:39 Permalink

So hold on this chick is employed by Fusion GPS- who was paid to concoct a dossier against Trump- using Russian sources and UK intelligence, has dinner with the head of Fusion GPS the night before the meeting, she gets the meeting offering information- within minutes changes the course of the meeting- realizing something was wrong, Donald Trump Jr ends the meeting- and the crime is Trump may have known about it??

It's a set up plain and simple. These fucking people are dirty AS SHIT- including the Brown Clown Kenyan.

The big story is using opposition research- paid for- submitted to the court as proof to secure a FISA warrant, and if they didn't know the information was false and paid for- what the fuck is the "I" in FBI for??

e_goldstein -> Occams_Razor_Trader Thu, 07/26/2018 - 22:53 Permalink

Here Louie Gohmert goes into 45 pages of detail on how dirty Mueller actually is.

https://1zwchz1jbsr61f1c4mgf0abl-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/upl

Share it far and wide.

Menoetius -> BurningFuld Thu, 07/26/2018 - 23:46 Permalink

April 2018...."Michael is in business, he is really a businessman, a fairly big business, as I understand it. I don't know his business." He "also practices law." And, "I have many attorneys. Sadly, I have so many attorneys you wouldn't even believe it." Cohen handled only a "tiny, tiny little fraction of my overall legal work."

According to Adam Davidson of the New Yorker, Cohen was not part of the Trump Organization's Legal Team in any sense. Alan Garten was the Trump Org's attorney on real estate matters and Marc Kasowitz usually represented Trump in important cases.

Cohen's legal education was not stellar by any sense of the word. Cohen often told this joke:

Q: "What do you call a lawyer who graduated with a 2.0?"

A: "Counselor."

Would Trump actually hire a guy like this to be his "personal" attorney? He was effectively a trip-and-fall attorney up to the point he was brought into the organization by Trump Sr. In truth, Cohen was a fairly savvy real estate investor and, as such, was appointed Trump's "deal maker" for international projects. He was also Trump's personal "fixer." Cohen made things 'go away.' You don't need to be an attorney to "make things go away."

It's doubtful that there was a legitimate "attorney/client" relationship there.

June 2018...

Michael Cohen is NOT my attorney:

https://youtu.be/qX0AlO53vYw

In any case, reports are out tonight that the Trump Organization's CFO has been subpoenaed to testify in the Cohen investigation. Why? Allen Weisselberg's name came up in the recording that Lanny Davis released yesterday. While everyone was getting their thongs in a twist about who said "cash," the Weisselberg mention was actually the biggest shoe to drop on that tape. Weisselberg has a thorough knowledge of all Trump's deals, payments and income.

MoreFreedom -> natronic Thu, 07/26/2018 - 23:37 Permalink

So what? Nobody cares but the dems.

What's important about this meeting:

What people should care about, is that Democrats were attempting to frame Trump, in the dirtiest campaign trick in my lifetime, and using it as a pretext to get the government to spy on Trump. But you're right that the Dems care about it, because they think (magically) that it means Trump was colluding with Russia. LOL Consider, wouldn't Trump be doing the USA a great favor by obtaining Hillary's emails from Russia, which would prove that Putin was blackmailing her and Obama. The Democrats are completely ignoring this narrative, as if it's Trump's fault Putin has her emails. LOL

Zorba's idea -> USofAzzDownWeGo Thu, 07/26/2018 - 22:25 Permalink

You're a funny guy...The perverse inquisition by the Purple Inquisitors strike again. Nothing but a pathetic Op to "Sting" Trump by the Psyop Deep State Dip Shits. Cohen squeals on cue, check his Cayman Isle bank account. Mr Mueller is beyond desperate as you should be well able to relate to. Ha F'n Ha, but you'll always have Hillary's " "Precious" pee pee dossier...

BankSurfyMan Thu, 07/26/2018 - 21:30 Permalink

Attorney Client Privilege? "Lawyers may not reveal oral or written communications with clients that clients reasonably expect to remain private." Mueller holds a law degree? https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/attorney-client-privilege.html F'Tards in the USA! Next!

GeezerGeek -> BankSurfyMan Thu, 07/26/2018 - 21:37 Permalink

Laws only apply to [neo]Liberals. Nothing matters except getting Trump.

I love your wife Thu, 07/26/2018 - 21:39 Permalink

Isn't Christopher Steele a foreign national? Weren't his sources Russian? Didn't Hillary and the DNC pay him? What's with this bullshit?

johnwburns Thu, 07/26/2018 - 21:43 Permalink

Nothing happened at the meeting, who gives a shit.

Anunnaki Thu, 07/26/2018 - 22:02 Permalink

Trump knew about a meeting re: oppo research on Hellary. Which is the same crime Hellary and the DNC did with the bogus Russo 8ntel from the Steele Dossier against What is good for the goose not good for the gander.

Alinsky Effect on steroids.

PiratePiggy Thu, 07/26/2018 - 22:05 Permalink

The Rules allow Mueller to tamper with the witnesses, but don't allow Trump to even tweet about them.

The DOJ's corrupt rules exposed for all to see - remember it when you are on a jury- it is your duty.

Berspankme Thu, 07/26/2018 - 22:22 Permalink

Guy tries to stay out of prison by telling prosecutors what they want to hear. Seen this movie a hundred times

thebriang Thu, 07/26/2018 - 22:22 Permalink

It's like a George Webb wayback machine.
Also funny how no one ever mentions that the Podesta Group closed shop immediately after George Webb filed his lawsuit against them.
Who were in bed with Fusion... who were in bed with the DNC... who were in bed with Awan.
Also funny how that fake ass Rosenstein Russian indictment stole George Webbs lawsuits actblues paragraph almost word for word, but substituting Russians for Awan.
The Awan who also downloaded terabytes of congressional data From Pakistan, ffs.
My, what a wicked web they weave.

Zepper Thu, 07/26/2018 - 22:30 Permalink

Cohen is a plant. The guy was in no danger of anything happening to him. Once the DOJ took everything they broke the law for lawyer client confidentiality. Cohen could just stfu and say nothing and no judge would prosecute him given he never broke a law... So why is he singing like a bird? Because its all a fucking setup.

Who knows, maybe he disliked Trump, Maybe his bitch wife made him do it at the end of the day its his word against a bunch of other people.

istt Thu, 07/26/2018 - 22:54 Permalink

Incredible what they are allowing Mueller to do. He basically makes it clear to the person that if they do not say what they want to hear they are going to ruin them financially, so people say tell me what you want me to say, and Mueller backs off. I am blown away this charade is being allowed to go forward. Mueller has done more to destroy the faith people have in our justice system than any other figure in our modern history. Truly, Mueller should be rotting in prison for a very long time since it is clear that he is attempting a silent coup, the US and the American public be damned. This is all about Mueller and appeasing his puppet masters.

But slowly, ever so slowly, this charade is unraveling. This is throwing his constituents a bone.

How do I really feel? FUCK YOU, Mueller. Fuck you and your outsized ego.

MuffDiver69 Thu, 07/26/2018 - 23:13 Permalink

Was just reported Cohen has already testified to Congress under oath Trump didn't know and Lanny Davis is accusing the Trump team of leaking this made up story...Cohen getting the treatment by Trump..

[Jul 27, 2018] Cohen Ready To Flip Will Tell Mueller Trump Knew About Trump Tower Meeting

So John "911 cover-up" Mueller is still waiving this dead chicken
Jul 27, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

President Trump's former longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, is prepared to tell special counsel Robert Mueller that then-candidate Donald Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 Trump tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Fusion GPS associate Natalia Veselnitskaya - who is not a fan of Trump Sr., and several other individuals - including Cohen who says he was there, reports CNN .

[Jul 20, 2018] So many (ex-) MI6 operators (Steele, Tait, etc) involved in the story. It is interesting that the media don t question the intense involvement of the British in all this. And of course, the British haven t been laggards in adding fuel to the fire by the whole novichok hoax

Highly recommended!
So British were involved in fabricating of 'Guccifer 2.0' persona. Nice...
Notable quotes:
"... It was Matt Tait who, using the 'Twitter' handle @pwnallthethings, identified the name and patronymic of Dzerzhinsky in the 'metadata' of the 'Guccifer 2.0' material on 15 June 2016, the day after Ellen Nakashima first disseminated the BS from 'CrowdStrike' in the 'WP.' ..."
"... 'Matt Tait is a senior cybersecurity fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously he was CEO of Capital Alpha Security, a consultancy in the UK, worked at Google Project Zero, was a principal security consultant for iSEC Partners, and NGS Secure, and worked as an information security specialist for GCHQ.' ..."
"... As I have noted before on SST, a cursory examination of records at 'Companies House' establishes that 'Capital Alpha Security', which was supposed to have provided Tait with an – independent – source of income at the time he unearthed this 'smoking gun' incriminating the GRU, never did any business at all. So, a question arises: how was Tait making ends meet at that time: busking on the London underground, perhaps? ..."
"... The document, when available, may clarify a few loose ends, but the general picture seems clear. Last November, Tait filed 'dormant company accounts' for the company's first year in existence, up until February 2017. One can only do this if one has absolutely no revenue, and absolutely no expenditure. Not even the smallest contract to sort out malware on someone's computer, or to buy equipment for the office. ..."
"... He then failed to file the 'Confirmation statement', which every company must is legally obliged to produce annually, if it is not to be struck off. This failure led to a 'First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off' in May. ..."
"... However, Tait may well anticipate that there is there will never be any call for him to go back into the big wide world, as the large organisation in which he has now found employment is part of a 'Borgist' network. So much is evident from another entry on the 'Lawfare' site: ..."
"... Also relevant here is the fact that, rather transparently, this placing of the GRU centre stage is bound up with the attempt to suggest that there is some kind of 'Gerasimov doctrine', designed to undermine the West by 'hybrid warfare.' Unfortunately, the original author of this claptrap, Mark Galeotti, who, I regret to say, is, like Tait, British, has now recanted and confessed. In March, he published a piece on the 'Foreign Policy' site, under the title: 'I'm Sorry for Creating the 'Gerasimov Doctrine'; I was the first to write about Russia's infamous high-tech military strategy. One small problem: it doesn't exist.' ..."
"... Quite clearly, the 'Guccifer 2.0' persona is a crude fabrication by someone who has absolutely no understanding of, or indeed interest in, the bitter complexities of both of the history of Russia and of the 'borderlands', not only in the Soviet period but before and after. ..."
"... Jeffrey Carr is one of the latter, and his familiarity with intelligence matters is clear from his organization of the annual "Suits and Spooks" Conference. I believe he was the first to raise questions about the DNC hack which didn't pass his smell test. ..."
"... One quick way to know their bias is the AC test. Google their name plus "Atlantic Council". Ridd fails badly. ..."
"... The Comey, Brennan, Mueller claim - indeed a central one upon which the recent indictment rests- that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian State agent that hacked the DNC- was discredited and put to rest last year by the forensics conducted by Bill Binney and his colleagues. The Guccifer 2.0 metadata was analyzed for its transmission speed, and based on the internet speeds to and from numerous test locations abroad and in the U.S., it was determined to have been impossible for the so-called Guccifer 2.0 to have hacked the DNC computers over the internet. The transmission speed however did correspond to the speed of the transfer to a thumb drive. Additionally, it was found that the data had been manipulated and split into two parts to simulate a July and a September transfer, when in fact the parts merge perfectly as single file, and where, according to Binney, the probability of the split being a coincidence would be 100 to the 50th power. ..."
"... There is a pattern of abuse of formerly well regarded institutions to achieve the propaganda aims of the Deep State establishment. The depths that were plumbed to push the Iraq WMD falsehoods are well known. Yet no one was held to account nor was there any honest accounting of the abuse. There have been pretenses like the Owen inquiry that you note. ..."
"... It seems that we are marching towards a credibility crisis similar to what was experienced in the Soviet Union when no one trusted the contents in Pravda. ..."
"... What is to be gained by the leadership in Britain in promoting these biological weapons cases since Litvinenko? In the US it is quite apparent that the Deep State have become extremely powerful and the likelihood that Trump recognizes that resistance is futile is very high. Schumer may be proven right that they have six ways from Sunday to make you kowtow to their dictats. ..."
"... I agree that taken by itself, the Dzerzinsky thing would be an anomaly only and could be dismissed as "black humor" of a kind often found in hackers. However, taken with all the other evidence produced by Adam Carter, it becomes much more obviously an attempt to support a false flag "Russian hacker" narrative that otherwise is porous. ..."
"... You want us to believe that the GRU are so sloppy and so inexperienced that they would launch a hack on the DNC and not take every measure to ensure there was no link whatsoever to anything Russian? Any former intel officer worth a damn knows that an operation to disrupt the election in a country the size of the United States would start with a risk/reward assessment, would require a team of at least 100 persons and would not be writing any code that could in any way be traced to Russia. ..."
"... Doctrine-mongering and repeating birth of new faux-academic "entities", such as a "hybrid war" (any war is hybrid by definition), is a distinct feature of the Western "political science-military history" establishment. Galeotti, who for some strange reason passes as Russia "expert" is a perfect example of such "expertise" and doctrine-mongering. Military professionals largely met this "hybrid warfare" BS with disdain. ..."
"... I have to say that the more I look into this whole Russiagate affair, which is mostly in the minds of democrats (and a few republicans) and the MSM, the more it seems that there is indeed a foreign conspiracy to meddle in the internal affairs of the US (and in the presidential elections) but the meddling entity is not Russia. It is the British! ..."
"... So many (ex-) MI6 operators (Steele, Tait, etc) involved in the story. It is interesting that the media don't question the intense involvement of the British in all this. And of course, the British haven't been laggards in adding fuel to the fire by the whole novichok hoax. ..."
Jul 20, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

As some commenters on SST seem still to have difficulty grasping that the presence of 'metadata' alluding to 'Iron Felix' in the 'Guccifer 2.0' material is strong evidence that the GRU were being framed over a leak, rather than that they were responsible for a hack, an update on the British end of the conspiracy seems in order.

If you look at the 'Lawfare' blog, in which a key figure is James Comey's crony Benjamin Wittes, you will find a long piece published last Friday, entitled 'Russia Indictment 2.0: What to Make of Mueller's Hacking Indictment.'

Among the authors, in addition to Wittes himself, is the sometime GCHQ employee Matt Tait. It appears that the former head of that organisation, the Blairite 'trusty' Robert Hannigan, who must know where a good few skeletons are buried, is a figure of some moment in the conspiracy.

(See https://www.lawfareblog.com... .)

It was Matt Tait who, using the 'Twitter' handle @pwnallthethings, identified the name and patronymic of Dzerzhinsky in the 'metadata' of the 'Guccifer 2.0' material on 15 June 2016, the day after Ellen Nakashima first disseminated the BS from 'CrowdStrike' in the 'WP.'

The story was picked up the following day in a report on the 'Ars Technica' site, and Tait's own account appeared on the 'Lawfare' site, to which he has been a regular contributor, on 28 July.

(See https://arstechnica.com/inf... ; https://www.lawfareblog.com... .)

According to the CV provided in conjunction with the new article:

'Matt Tait is a senior cybersecurity fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously he was CEO of Capital Alpha Security, a consultancy in the UK, worked at Google Project Zero, was a principal security consultant for iSEC Partners, and NGS Secure, and worked as an information security specialist for GCHQ.'

As I have noted before on SST, a cursory examination of records at 'Companies House' establishes that 'Capital Alpha Security', which was supposed to have provided Tait with an – independent – source of income at the time he unearthed this 'smoking gun' incriminating the GRU, never did any business at all. So, a question arises: how was Tait making ends meet at that time: busking on the London underground, perhaps?

(See https://beta.companieshouse... .)

Actually, there has been a recent update in the records. Somewhat prematurely perhaps, there is an entry dated 24 July 2018, entitled 'Final Gazette dissolved via compulsory strike-off. This document is being processed and will be available in 5 days.'

The document, when available, may clarify a few loose ends, but the general picture seems clear. Last November, Tait filed 'dormant company accounts' for the company's first year in existence, up until February 2017. One can only do this if one has absolutely no revenue, and absolutely no expenditure. Not even the smallest contract to sort out malware on someone's computer, or to buy equipment for the office.

He then failed to file the 'Confirmation statement', which every company must is legally obliged to produce annually, if it is not to be struck off. This failure led to a 'First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off' in May.

It is, of course, possible that at the time Tait set up the company he was genuinely intending to try to make a go of a consultancy, and simply got sidetracked by other opportunities.

However – speaking from experience – people who have set up small 'one man band' companies to market skills learnt in large organisations, and then go back into such organisations, commonly think it worth their while to spend the minimal amount of time required to file the documentation required to keep the company alive.

If one sees any realistic prospect that one may either want to or need to go back into the big wide world again, this is the sensible course of action: particularly now when, with the internet, filing the relevant documentation takes about half an hour a year, and costs a trivial sum.

However, Tait may well anticipate that there is there will never be any call for him to go back into the big wide world, as the large organisation in which he has now found employment is part of a 'Borgist' network. So much is evident from another entry on the 'Lawfare' site:

'Bobby Chesney is the Charles I. Francis Professor in Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Texas School of Law. He also serves as the Director of UT-Austin's interdisciplinary research center the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law. His scholarship encompasses a wide range of issues relating to national security and the law, including detention, targeting, prosecution, covert action, and the state secrets privilege; most of it is posted here. Along with Ben Wittes and Jack Goldsmith, he is one of the co-founders of the blog.'

(See https://www.lawfareblog.com... .)

Also relevant here is the fact that, rather transparently, this placing of the GRU centre stage is bound up with the attempt to suggest that there is some kind of 'Gerasimov doctrine', designed to undermine the West by 'hybrid warfare.' Unfortunately, the original author of this claptrap, Mark Galeotti, who, I regret to say, is, like Tait, British, has now recanted and confessed. In March, he published a piece on the 'Foreign Policy' site, under the title: 'I'm Sorry for Creating the 'Gerasimov Doctrine'; I was the first to write about Russia's infamous high-tech military strategy. One small problem: it doesn't exist.'

(See https://foreignpolicy.com/2... .)

If anyone wants to grasp what the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, General Valery Gerasimov, was actually saying in the crucial February 2013 article which Galeotti was discussing, and how his thinking has developed subsequently, the place to look is, as so often, the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth.

Informed discussions by Charles Bartles and Roger McDermott are at https://www.armyupress.army... ; http://www.worldinwar.eu/wp... ; and https://jamestown.org/progr... .

In relation to the ongoing attempt to frame the GRU, it is material that, in his 2013 piece, Gerasimov harks back to two pivotal figures in the arguments of the interwar years. Of these, Georgy Isserson, the Jewish doctor's son from Kaunas who became a Civil War 'political commissar' and then a key associate of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, was the great pioneer theorist of 'deep operations.'

The ideas of the other, Aleksandr Svechin, the former Tsarist 'genstabist', born in Odessa into an ethnically Russian military family, who was the key opponent of Tukhachevky and Isserson in the arguments of the 'Twenties, provided key parts of the intellectual basis of the Gorbachev-era 'new thinking.'

The 'Ars Technica' article in which Tait's claims were initially disseminated opened:

'We still don't know who he is or whether he works for the Russian government, but one thing is for sure: Guccifer 2.0 – the nom de guerre of the person claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee and published hundreds of pages that appeared to prove it – left behind fingerprints implicating a Russian-speaking person with a nostalgia for the country's lost Soviet era.'

In his 2013 article, Gerasimov harks back to the catastrophe which overcame the Red Army in June 1941. Ironically, this was the product of the Stalinist leadership's disregard of the cautions produced not only by Svechin, but by Isserson. In regard to the latter, the article remarks that:

'The fate of this "prophet of the Fatherland" unfolded tragically. Our country paid in great quantities of blood for not listening to the conclusions of this professor of the General Staff Academy.'

As it happens, while both Svechin and Tukhachevsky were shot by the heirs of 'Felix Edmundovich', the sentence of death on Isserson was commuted, and he spent the war in prison and labour camps, while others used his ideas to devastating effect against the Germans.

Quite clearly, the 'Guccifer 2.0' persona is a crude fabrication by someone who has absolutely no understanding of, or indeed interest in, the bitter complexities of both of the history of Russia and of the 'borderlands', not only in the Soviet period but before and after.

Using this criterion as a 'filter', the obvious candidates are traditional Anglo-Saxon 'Russophobes', like Sir Richard Dearlove and Christopher Steele, or the 'insulted and injured' of the erstwhile Russian and Soviet empires, so many of them from the 'borderlands', of the type of Victoria Nuland, or the various Poles, Ukrainians and Balts and Jews who have had so much influence on American policy.

(I should note that other Jews, not only in Russia, but outside, including in Israel, think quite differently, in particular as they are very well aware, as Isserson would have been, of the extent to which 'borderlands' nationalists were enthusiastic collaborators with the Germans in the 'Final Solution'. On this, there is a large and growing academic literature.)

It is not particularly surprising that many of the victims of the Russian and Soviet empires have enjoyed seeing the tables turned, and getting their own back. But it is rather far from clear that this makes for good intelligence or sound policy. We were unable to load Disqus. If you are a moderator please see our troubleshooting guide .


blue peacock , 2 days ago
How does the objective truth get disclosed in an environment of extreme deceit by so many parties?

How to trust western intelligence when they have such a long and sordid track record of deceit, lies and propaganda? At the same time there is such a long history of Russian and Chinese intelligence and information operations against the west.

Then there is the nexus among the highest levels of US law enforcement and intelligence as well as political elites in both parties and key individuals in the media complex.

We are living in a hall of mirrors and it seems the trend is towards confirmation bias in information consumption.

richardstevenhack , 2 days ago
Excellent post, especially the debunking of the 'Gerasimov doctrine' which I always thought was more hand-waving and Russian mind-reading.

It's important to realize that there are a number of people in the infosec community who have biases against Russia, just as there are in the general population. Then there are more cautious people, who recognize the difficulty in attributing a hack to any specific person absent solid, incontrovertible, non-circumstantial and non-spoofable (and preferably offline) evidence.

Tait doesn't appear to be one of the latter. Thomas Rid would be another. There are others.

Jeffrey Carr is one of the latter, and his familiarity with intelligence matters is clear from his organization of the annual "Suits and Spooks" Conference. I believe he was the first to raise questions about the DNC hack which didn't pass his smell test.

There are also a number of companies in infosec who rely on latching onto a particular strain of hacker, the more publicly exploitable for PR purposes the better, as a means of keeping the company name in front of potential high-profile and highly billable clients. CrowdStrike and its Russia obsession isn't the only one that's been tagged with that propensity.

Mandiant could be referred to as the "Chinese, all the time" company, for example. Richard Bejtlich was at Fireeye and the became Chief Security Officer when they acquired Mandiant. He spent quite a bit of effort on his blog warning about the Chinese military buildup as a huge threat to the US. He's former USAF so perhaps that's not surprising.

Bottom line: Confirmation bias is a real thing.

David Blake -> richardstevenhack , 5 hours ago
One quick way to know their bias is the AC test. Google their name plus "Atlantic Council". Ridd fails badly.
Barbara Ann , 2 days ago
Glad David's comment has been reproduced as a post in its own right, this is a critically important topic. IMO Matt Tait plays the role of midwife in this conspiracy. His Twitter thread

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mlnw , 2 days ago
The Comey, Brennan, Mueller claim - indeed a central one upon which the recent indictment rests- that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian State agent that hacked the DNC- was discredited and put to rest last year by the forensics conducted by Bill Binney and his colleagues. The Guccifer 2.0 metadata was analyzed for its transmission speed, and based on the internet speeds to and from numerous test locations abroad and in the U.S., it was determined to have been impossible for the so-called Guccifer 2.0 to have hacked the DNC computers over the internet. The transmission speed however did correspond to the speed of the transfer to a thumb drive. Additionally, it was found that the data had been manipulated and split into two parts to simulate a July and a September transfer, when in fact the parts merge perfectly as single file, and where, according to Binney, the probability of the split being a coincidence would be 100 to the 50th power.

As for the crude trace fingerprints (e.g. the referencing of Dzerzinsky), one of the Wikileaks data dumps (Vault 7 Marble) during a period when Assange was negotiating with the Administration - there were two at the time (Vault 7 Marble and Vault 7 Grasshopper), the release of which apparently enraged Mike Pompeo- was designed to obfuscate, fabricate and frame countries such as Russia, Iran or North Korea by pretending to be the target country, including in the use of target's alphabet and language.

VIPs has written numerous articles on this in Consortium News. See also the report by Patrick Lawrence Smith in The Nation at: https://www.thenation.com/a... . (It was apparently so hot at the time- and disputed by several other VIPs members- that The Nation sought an independent assessment by third party, though those comments were easily addressed and dismissed in seriatim by Binney in an annex to the article.)

Binney has explained his forensic analysis and conclusions at numerous forums, and in a sit-down with Secretary Pompeo in October, 2017- though Mueller, the FBI, and mainstream and some of the alternative press seem either deaf, dumb and blind to it all, or interested in discrediting the study. The irony is, I'd venture to guess, that Binney, with his 40 years of experience, including as Technical Director and technical guru at the NSA, is, even in retirement, more sophisticated in these matters than any one at the Agency, or the FBI, or CIA, or certainly, the Congressional Intelligence Committees. So, it is astounding that any or all of them could have, but did not, invite him to testify as an expert.

Moreover, the NSA has a record of every transmission, and also would have it on backup files. And, the FBI has been sitting on Seth Rich's computer and his communications with Wikileaks, and presumably has a report that it has not released. And of course, as Trump asked in his press conference, where's the DNC server, any or all of which would put this question to rest.

A recent interview with Binney can be found at:

Play Hide
mlnw -> mlnw , 2 hours ago
The last clause of the first paragraph should have said: "according to Binney, the probability of the split being a coincidence would be one over 100 to the 50th power
Jack -> David Habakkuk , a day ago
David

There is a pattern of abuse of formerly well regarded institutions to achieve the propaganda aims of the Deep State establishment. The depths that were plumbed to push the Iraq WMD falsehoods are well known. Yet no one was held to account nor was there any honest accounting of the abuse. There have been pretenses like the Owen inquiry that you note.

We see the same situation of sweeping under the rug malfeasance and even outright criminality through obfuscation and obstruction in the case of the meddling in the 2016 election by top officials in intelligence and law enforcement. Clearly less and less people are buying what the Deep State sells despite their overwhelming control of the media channels.

It seems that we are marching towards a credibility crisis similar to what was experienced in the Soviet Union when no one trusted the contents in Pravda.

What is to be gained by the leadership in Britain in promoting these biological weapons cases since Litvinenko? In the US it is quite apparent that the Deep State have become extremely powerful and the likelihood that Trump recognizes that resistance is futile is very high. Schumer may be proven right that they have six ways from Sunday to make you kowtow to their dictats.

Fred -> Jack , a day ago
Jack,

"Yet no one was held to account"

That was one of the changes being hoped for when Obama was first elected. Instead we got little, except for things such as bailed out bankers and the IRS scandal which lasted until the end of his 2nd term. The panic from the left over the 2016 election issues the are still going on is that the expected candidate isn't in office and they are being exposed. Whether they get prosecuted is another story.

http://taxprof.typepad.com/...

TTG , a day ago
I think Matt Tait, David Habakkuk and many others are reading far more into this Dzerzinsky thing than what it warrants. The government dependent ID cards used by my family while I was working as a clandestine case officer overseas were signed by Robert Ludlum. Intelligence officers often have an odd sense of humor.

On a different note, I fully endorse David Habakkuk's recommendation of the writings of Bartles, McDermott and many others at the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth. They are top notch. I learned a lot from Tim Thomas many years ago.

richardstevenhack -> TTG , a day ago
I agree that taken by itself, the Dzerzinsky thing would be an anomaly only and could be dismissed as "black humor" of a kind often found in hackers. However, taken with all the other evidence produced by Adam Carter, it becomes much more obviously an attempt to support a false flag "Russian hacker" narrative that otherwise is porous.

I believe there is a phrase going something like "an attempt to add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative."

Publius Tacitus -> TTG , a day ago
TTG,

You want us to believe that the GRU are so sloppy and so inexperienced that they would launch a hack on the DNC and not take every measure to ensure there was no link whatsoever to anything Russian? Any former intel officer worth a damn knows that an operation to disrupt the election in a country the size of the United States would start with a risk/reward assessment, would require a team of at least 100 persons and would not be writing any code that could in any way be traced to Russia.

smoothieX12 . , a day ago
Unfortunately, the original author of this claptrap, Mark Galeotti, who, I regret to say, is, like Tait, British, has now recanted and confessed.

Doctrine-mongering and repeating birth of new faux-academic "entities", such as a "hybrid war" (any war is hybrid by definition), is a distinct feature of the Western "political science-military history" establishment. Galeotti, who for some strange reason passes as Russia "expert" is a perfect example of such "expertise" and doctrine-mongering. Military professionals largely met this "hybrid warfare" BS with disdain.

ancient archer , a day ago
I have to say that the more I look into this whole Russiagate affair, which is mostly in the minds of democrats (and a few republicans) and the MSM, the more it seems that there is indeed a foreign conspiracy to meddle in the internal affairs of the US (and in the presidential elections) but the meddling entity is not Russia. It is the British!

So many (ex-) MI6 operators (Steele, Tait, etc) involved in the story. It is interesting that the media don't question the intense involvement of the British in all this. And of course, the British haven't been laggards in adding fuel to the fire by the whole novichok hoax.

This needs to be looked at in more detail by the alternative media and well informed commentators like the host of this site.

[Jun 23, 2018] Comey And Lynch Will Be Subpoenaed By Senate Unless Feinstein Obstructs

Notable quotes:
"... Comey's memo was a key component in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's decision to launch a special counsel investigation headed by former FBI Director Robert Mueller. ..."
"... Some have also suggested ( Paul Sperry to be exact) that Cambridge professor and FBI "informant" (spy) Stefan Halper, may have had a much larger role in the operation. ..."
"... Halper is a longtime spook whose ex-father-in-law, Ray Cline , was the former chief Soviet analyst and Deputy Director of the CIA from 1962 - 1966. Halper also spied on the Carter campaign during the 1980 election for Reagan - whose Vice President was former CIA director George H.W. Bush ( Ray Cline denied the spying took place). ..."
"... Papadopoulos' statement of offense also detailed his April 26, 2016, meeting with Mifsud at a London hotel. Over breakfast Mifsud told Papadopoulos "he had just returned from a trip to Moscow where he had met with high-level Russian governmental officials." Mifsud explained "that on that trip he (the Professor) learned that the Russians had obtained 'dirt' on then-candidate Clinton." Mifsud told Papadopoulos "the Russians had emails of Clinton." - The Federalist ..."
Jun 22, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) says he'll issue subpoenas for former FBI Director James Comey and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, but the panel's top Democrat Dianne Feinstein (CA) has to agree to it per committee rules. Grassley also said he would be open to exploring immunity for Comey's former #2, Andrew McCabe.

"I will want to subpoena him," Grassley said of Comey during an appearance on C-SPAN's Newsmakers ."

The Iowan added that committee rules require that he and Feinstein "agree to it, and at this point I can't tell you if she would agree to it. But if she will, yeah, then we will subpoena . " - Politico

Feinstein may be hesitant to sign on, as she says she thinks Comey acted in good faith - which means she thinks Congress shouldn't have a crack at questioning a key figure in the largest political scandal in modern history.

"While I disagree with his actions, I have seen no evidence that Mr. Comey acted in bad faith or that he lied about any of his actions," said Feinstein during a Monday Judiciary panel hearing. Former Feinstein staffer and FBI investigator Dan Jones, meanwhile, continues to work with Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS on a $50 million investigation privately funded by George Soros and other "wealthy donors" to continue the investigation into Donald Trump.

Also recall that Feinstein leaked Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson's Congressional testimony in January.

Comey skipped out on appearing before Grassley's committee this week following the June 14 release of DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's (OIG) report on FBI conduct during the Hillary Clinton email investigation - which dinged Comey for being "insubordinate" and showing poor judgement. Horowitz is conducting a separate investigation into the FBI's counterintelligence operation on the Trump campaign, including allegations of FISA surveillance abuse.

Maybe Comey also decided to bail after Horowitz admitted on Monday that he's under a separate investigation for mishandling classified information after leaking a memo to the press documenting what he felt was President Trump obstructing the FBI's probe into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn - which was conducted by the FBI under dubious circumstances, and for which evidence may have been tampered with .

Comey's memo was a key component in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's decision to launch a special counsel investigation headed by former FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Loretta Lynch, on the other hand , was dinged in the IG report over an "ambiguous" incomplete recusal from the Clinton email "matter" despite a clandestine 30-minute "tarmac" meeting with Bill Clinton one week before the FBI exonerated Hillary Clinton .

All part of the bigger picture...

Despite IG Horowitz ultimately concluding that pro-Clinton / anti-Trump bias among the FBI's top brass did not make its way into the Clinton email investigation, his report revealed alarming facts about FBI officials handling parallel investigations into each candidate who received vastly different treatment.

For starters, it's clear that the FBI rushed to wrap up the Clinton email investigation before the election, while at the same time the agency launched an open-ended counterintelligence operation against those in Trump's orbit.

We also know that opposition research paid for by Hillary Clinton was used by the FBI to justify surveilling the Trump campaign - while new facts point to a multi-pronged campaign of espionage and deceit spanning several continents, governments and agencies which was deployed at the highest levels in an effort to undermine Donald Trump before and after the 2016 U.S. election.

Some have also suggested ( Paul Sperry to be exact) that Cambridge professor and FBI "informant" (spy) Stefan Halper, may have had a much larger role in the operation.

Halper is a longtime spook whose ex-father-in-law, Ray Cline , was the former chief Soviet analyst and Deputy Director of the CIA from 1962 - 1966. Halper also spied on the Carter campaign during the 1980 election for Reagan - whose Vice President was former CIA director George H.W. Bush ( Ray Cline denied the spying took place).

From 2012 - 2017, the Pentagon under Obama awarded Halper over $1 million in "research" contracts - nearly half of which was awarded during the 2016 US election .

Award ID Recipient Name Start Date End Date Amount Awarding Agency
HQ003416P0148 HALPER, STEFAN 9/26/2016 3/29/2018 $411,575 Department of Defense
HQ003415C0100 HALPER, STEFAN 9/24/2015 9/27/2016 $244,960 Department of Defense
HQ003414C0076 HALPER, STEFAN 7/29/2014 7/31/2015 $204,000 Department of Defense
HQ003412C0039 HALPER, STEFAN 5/30/2012 5/29/2013 $197,626 Department of Defense

Then there's the mysterious Maltese professor, Joseph Mifsud - a key witness in the Mueller investigation who disappeared last fall , and who told Trump aide George Papadopoulos that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Papadopoulos would drunkenly repeat the rumor to seasoned Australian diplomat (and Clinton ally ) Alexander Downer in a London Bar, only to be construed by the FBI as potential collusion in order to justify their counterintelligence operation against Trump.

And just Monday Trump advisor Roger Stone said that a second FBI informant , Henry Greenberg, tried to entrap the Trump campaign with an offer to sell dirt on Hillary Clinton in exchange for $2 million.

While the entire mosaic of events is multi-faceted and requires perhaps the world's biggest corkboard - here's a basic timeline of various espionage or other spycraft conducted against the Trump campaign.

April 26, 2016 - Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud - who told an Italian newspaper in November he's a member of the Clinton Foundation , passed a rumor to Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton.

Papadopoulos' statement of offense also detailed his April 26, 2016, meeting with Mifsud at a London hotel. Over breakfast Mifsud told Papadopoulos "he had just returned from a trip to Moscow where he had met with high-level Russian governmental officials." Mifsud explained "that on that trip he (the Professor) learned that the Russians had obtained 'dirt' on then-candidate Clinton." Mifsud told Papadopoulos "the Russians had emails of Clinton." - The Federalist

May 10, 2016 - Papadopoulos tells this to former Australian Diplomat Alexander Downer during an alleged " drunken barroom admission ."

Late May, 2016 - Roger Stone is approached by Greenberg with the $2 million offer for dirt on Clinton

July 2016 - FBI informant (spy) Stefan Halper meets with Trump campaign aide Carter Page for the first time, which would be one of many encounters.

July 31, 2016 - the FBI officially launches operation Crossfire Hurricane , the code name given to the counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign.

September, 2016 - Halper invites Papadopoulos to London, paying him $3,000 to work on an energy policy paper while wining and dining him at a 200-year-old private London club on September 15.

While the FBI has yet to find any evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, they were able to use information Mifsud planted with Papadopoulos to launch a counterintelligence operation .

And as new facts and revelations continue to emerge, and IG Horowitz continues to unravel the FBI's counterintelligence operation on Donald Trump, several rank-and-file FBI employees say they want Congress to subpoena them so that they can step forward and testify against Comey and Andrew McCabe.

Funny - for two "innocent" people, Comey and Lynch want the exact opposite!

Tags Politics

Comments

Theosebes Goodfellow -> sabaj49 Fri, 06/22/2018 - 12:00 Permalink

~Grassley also said he would be open to exploring immunity for Comey's former #2, Andrew McCabe.~

Screw you, Chuck. No one gets immunity. Stay the fuck out of what should be the business of a federal criminal grand jury. Diane has enough trouble of her own with the leaky aide.

And maybe you forgot this:

Embattled FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has reportedly stiffed the House Intelligence Committee who expected him to testify on Tuesday.

BandGap -> nmewn Fri, 06/22/2018 - 11:22 Permalink

No, I think she will. They have the goods on her for leaking like a sieve through her aide and on to the entry level Pulitzer Prize media whore (remember, they raided the newspaper. The goods are still there).

Rumor has it there is a subpoena waiting for DiFi out there. It would be best if she complied.

DosZap -> nmewn Fri, 06/22/2018 - 12:15 Permalink

She's won by a landslide against other Dems, IF she refuses she JUST vindicates their GUILT.

Even a DemoNrat could see that.

Quantify -> Stan522 Fri, 06/22/2018 - 10:45 Permalink

18 U.S. Code § 2384 - Seditious conspiracy

Seditious conspiracy

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States , conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States , or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States , or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808 ; July 24, 1956, ch. 678, § 1, 70 Stat. 623 ; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII , § 330016(1)(N), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148 .)

Jdillinger -> Quantify Fri, 06/22/2018 - 14:36 Permalink

We don't need Commey and Lynch questioned by those losers on Capitol Hill, that is a waste of money and time. What is required is a DOJ inquiry, or better yet, a special council for the HRC Mail Server and Corruption in the Meuller probe.

I am normally against a special council, but in this case the DOJ is clearly biased. They should get to the bottom of the crimes committed by hillery on her mail server including realated crime transacted on the server like uranium one. That is what the FBI would do to us, and they should be no different. Equal protection under the law means equal punishment under the law as well.

An additional special council should be formed to get to the bottom of the FISA warrant to used for surveillance on the Trump team and find out if there was any malfeasance obtaining those warrants. This would also bring up the question of whether the meuller probe obstructed justice by obscuring exonerating evidence that the probe was established with junk evidence.

If a good prosecutor was used, there is enough evidence in the public forum now to throw a bunch of the obama administration in prison for political corruption and the higher echelon members of the FBI in jail for bribery. That's right, the FBI can't take gifts, even if the media are offering them. This is corruption of the highest order and our country will not survive this if it is not prosecuted properly.

IF WE WANT THE SWAMP DRAINED PEOPLE HAVE TO GO TO PRISON FOR LIFE TO PUT THE FEAR OF GOD AND THE PEOPLE BACK INTO BUTEAUCRATS.

[Jun 09, 2018] Still Waiting for Evidence of a Russian Hack by Ray McGovern

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... That did not prevent the "handpicked" authors of that poor excuse for intelligence analysis from expressing "high confidence" that Russian intelligence "relayed material it acquired from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks." Handpicked analysts, of course, say what they are handpicked to say. ..."
"... The June 12, 14, & 15 timing was hardly coincidence. Rather, it was the start of a pre-emptive move to associate Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been about to publish and to "show" that it came from a Russian hack. ..."
"... "No one has challenged the authenticity of the original documents of Vault 7, which disclosed a vast array of cyber warfare tools developed, probably with help from NSA, by CIA's Engineering Development Group. That Group was part of the sprawling CIA Directorate of Digital Innovation – a growth industry established by John Brennan in 2015. [ (VIPS warned President Obama of some of the dangers of that basic CIA reorganization at the time.] ..."
"... "Scarcely imaginable digital tools – that can take control of your car and make it race over 100 mph, for example, or can enable remote spying through a TV – were described and duly reported in the New York Times and other media throughout March. But the Vault 7, part 3 release on March 31 that exposed the "Marble Framework" program apparently was judged too delicate to qualify as 'news fit to print' and was kept out of the Times at the time, and has never been mentioned since . ..."
"... "More important, the CIA reportedly used Marble during 2016. In her Washington Post report , Nakashima left that out, but did include another significant point made by WikiLeaks; namely, that the obfuscation tool could be used to conduct a 'forensic attribution double game' or false-flag operation because it included test samples in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi." ..."
"... The CIA's reaction to the WikiLeaks disclosure of the Marble Framework tool was neuralgic. Then Director Mike Pompeo lashed out two weeks later, calling Assange and his associates "demons," and insisting; "It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors like Russia."Our July 24 Memorandum continued: "Mr. President, we do not know if CIA's Marble Framework, or tools like it, played some kind of role in the campaign to blame Russia for hacking the DNC. Nor do we know how candid the denizens of CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate have been with you and with Director Pompeo. These are areas that might profit from early White House review. [ President Trump then directed Pompeo to invite Binney, one of the authors of the July 24, 2017 VIPS Memorandum to the President, to discuss all this. Binney and Pompeo spent an hour together at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017, during which Binney briefed Pompeo with his customary straightforwardness. ] ..."
"... Another false flag operation? Suddenly false flag operations have become the weapon of choice. Interestingly enough, they are nefariously (always) committed by the US or US allies. MH17 was a false flag with an SU-25 Ukraine jet responsible for downing the passenger jet (to blame Russia). All of the chemical attacks in Syria were false flag operations with the supply of sarin/chlorine made in Turkey or directly given to the "rebels" by the CIA or US allies. The White Helmets were of course in on all of the details. Assad was just simply not capable of doing that to "his" people. Forget that the sarin had the chemical signature of the Assad regime sarin supply. Next it was the snipers who used a false flag operation during the Maidan revolution to shoot protesters and police to oust Yanukovych. Only the neo-Nazis could be capable of shooting the Maidan protesters so they could take power. And then Seth Rich was murdered so he couldn't reveal he was the "real" source of the leak. This was hinted by Assange when he offered a reward to find the killers. ..."
"... The author tosses out that the DNC hack was (potentially) a false flag operation by the CIA obviously to undermine Trump while victimizing Russia. ..."
"... I don't seen any cause to say that any false-flag theory you don't like is merely "tossed out" propaganda. One cannot tell in your comment where you think the accounts are credible and where not. No evidence that the Syria CW attacks "had the chemical signature of the Assad regime sarin supply." ..."
"... There can be no doubt that counterintelligence tools would be pursued by our intelligence agencies as a means to create narratives and false evidence based on the production of false flags which support desired geopolitical outcomes. There would be a need to create false flags using technology to support the geopolitical agenda which would be hard or impossible to trace using the forensic tools used by cyber sleuths. ..."
"... Russia-gate is American Exceptionalism writ large which takes on a more sinister aspect as groups like BLM and others are "linked" to alleged "Russian funding"on one and and Soros funding on another ..."
"... (FWIW, this is a new neoliberal phenomenon when the ultra-rich "liberals" can quietly fund marches on Washington and "grassroots" networking making those neophyte movements too easy targets with questionable robust foundation (color revolutions are possible when anyone is able to foot the cost of 1,000 or 2000 "free" signs or t-shirts -- impecccably designed and printed. ..."
"... Excellent post. Thanks also for reminding me I need to revisit the Vault 7 information as source material. These are incredibly important leaks that help connect the dots of criminal State intelligence activities designed to have remained forever hidden. ..."
"... Actually, both Brennan and Hayden testified to Congress that only 3 agencies signed off on their claim. They also said that they'd "hand picked" a special team to run their "investigation," and no other people were involved. So, people known to be perjurers cherry picked "evidence" to make a claim. Let's invade Iraq again. ..."
"... Mueller is not interested in the truth. He can't handle the truth. His purpose is not to divulge the truth. He has no use for truthtellers including the critical possessors of the truth whom you mentioned. This aversion to the truth is the biggest clue that Mueller's activities are a complete sham. ..."
"... Thanks, Ray, for revealing that the CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate is the likely cause of the Russiagate scams. ..."
"... Your disclaimer is hilarious: "We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental." ..."
"... For whatever reason, Ray McGovern chose not to mention the murder of Seth Rich, which pretty clearly points to the real source of the leak being him, as hinted by Assange offering a reward for anyone uncovering his killer. The whole thing stinks of a democratic conspiracy. ..."
"... Ray, from what I have seen in following his writing for years, meticulously only deals in knowns. The Seth Rich issue is not a known, it is speculation still. Yes, it probably is involved, but unless Craig Murray states that Seth Rich was the one who handed him the USB drive, it is not a known. ..."
"... There is a possibility that Seth Rich was not the one who leaked the information, but that the DNC bigwigs THOUGHT he was, in which case, by neither confirming nor denying that Seth Rich was the leaker, it may be that letting the DNC continue to think it was him is being done in protection of the actual leaker. Seth Rich could also have been killed for unrelated reasons, perhaps Imran Awan thought he was on to his doings. ..."
"... Don't forget this Twitter post by Wikileaks on October 30, 2016: Podesta: "I'm definitely for making an example of a suspected leaker whether or not we have any real basis for it." https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/36082#efmAGSAH- ..."
"... Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic charade and he's left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and Russians. Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the mass media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin "hacking" the election to favor Trump. Which was the entire raison d'etre behind Rosenstein and Mueller's crusade on behalf of the deplorable DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. Sure be interesting to see how Mueller and his crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent edifice of deceit. Will they even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face? ..."
"... If they had had any evidence to inculpate Russia, we would have all seen it by now. They know that by stating that there is an investigation going on: they can blame Russia. The Democratic National Committee is integrated by a pack of liars. ..."
"... My question is simple, when will we concentrate on reading Hillary's many emails? After all wasn't this the reason for the Russian interference mania? Until we do, take apart Hillary's correspondence with her lackeys, nothing will transpire of any worth. I should not be the one saying this, in as much as Bernie Sanders should be the one screaming it for justice from the highest roof tops, but he isn't. So what's up with that? Who all is involved in this scandalous coverup? What do the masters of corruption have on everybody? ..."
Jun 09, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

If you are wondering why so little is heard these days of accusations that Russia hacked into the U.S. election in 2016, it could be because those charges could not withstand close scrutiny . It could also be because special counsel Robert Mueller appears to have never bothered to investigate what was once the central alleged crime in Russia-gate as no one associated with WikiLeaks has ever been questioned by his team.

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity -- including two "alumni" who were former National Security Agency technical directors -- have long since concluded that Julian Assange did not acquire what he called the "emails related to Hillary Clinton" via a "hack" by the Russians or anyone else. They found, rather, that he got them from someone with physical access to Democratic National Committee computers who copied the material onto an external storage device -- probably a thumb drive. In December 2016 VIPS explained this in some detail in an open Memorandum to President Barack Obama.

On January 18, 2017 President Obama admitted that the "conclusions" of U.S. intelligence regarding how the alleged Russian hacking got to WikiLeaks were "inconclusive." Even the vapid FBI/CIA/NSA "Intelligence Community Assessment of Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections" of January 6, 2017, which tried to blame Russian President Vladimir Putin for election interference, contained no direct evidence of Russian involvement. That did not prevent the "handpicked" authors of that poor excuse for intelligence analysis from expressing "high confidence" that Russian intelligence "relayed material it acquired from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks." Handpicked analysts, of course, say what they are handpicked to say.

Never mind. The FBI/CIA/NSA "assessment" became bible truth for partisans like Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, who was among the first off the blocks to blame Russia for interfering to help Trump. It simply could not have been that Hillary Clinton was quite capable of snatching defeat out of victory all by herself. No, it had to have been the Russians.

Five days into the Trump presidency, I had a chance to challenge Schiff personally on the gaping disconnect between the Russians and WikiLeaks. Schiff still "can't share the evidence" with me or with anyone else, because it does not exist.

WikiLeaks

It was on June 12, 2016, just six weeks before the Democratic National Convention, that Assange announced the pending publication of "emails related to Hillary Clinton," throwing the Clinton campaign into panic mode, since the emails would document strong bias in favor of Clinton and successful attempts to sabotage the campaign of Bernie Sanders. When the emails were published on July 22, just three days before the convention began, the campaign decided to create what I call a Magnificent Diversion, drawing attention away from the substance of the emails by blaming Russia for their release.

Clinton's PR chief Jennifer Palmieri later admitted that she golf-carted around to various media outlets at the convention with instructions "to get the press to focus on something even we found difficult to process: the prospect that Russia had not only hacked and stolen emails from the DNC, but that it had done so to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton." The diversion worked like a charm. Mainstream media kept shouting "The Russians did it," and gave little, if any, play to the DNC skullduggery revealed in the emails themselves. And like Brer' Fox, Bernie didn't say nothin'.

Meanwhile, highly sophisticated technical experts, were hard at work fabricating "forensic facts" to "prove" the Russians did it. Here's how it played out:

June 12, 2016: Assange announces that WikiLeaks is about to publish "emails related to Hillary Clinton."

June 14, 2016: DNC contractor CrowdStrike, (with a dubious professional record and multiple conflicts of interest) announces that malware has been found on the DNC server and claims there is evidence it was injected by Russians.

June 15, 2016: "Guccifer 2.0" affirms the DNC statement; claims responsibility for the "hack;" claims to be a WikiLeaks source; and posts a document that the forensics show was synthetically tainted with "Russian fingerprints."

The June 12, 14, & 15 timing was hardly coincidence. Rather, it was the start of a pre-emptive move to associate Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been about to publish and to "show" that it came from a Russian hack.

Enter Independent Investigators

A year ago independent cyber-investigators completed the kind of forensic work that, for reasons best known to then-FBI Director James Comey, neither he nor the "handpicked analysts" who wrote the Jan. 6, 2017 assessment bothered to do. The independent investigators found verifiable evidence from metadata found in the record of an alleged Russian hack of July 5, 2016 showing that the "hack" that day of the DNC by Guccifer 2.0 was not a hack, by Russia or anyone else.

Rather it originated with a copy (onto an external storage device – a thumb drive, for example) by an insider -- the same process used by the DNC insider/leaker before June 12, 2016 for an altogether different purpose. (Once the metadata was found and the "fluid dynamics" principle of physics applied, this was not difficult to disprove the validity of the claim that Russia was responsible.)

One of these independent investigators publishing under the name of The Forensicator on May 31 published new evidence that the Guccifer 2.0 persona uploaded a document from the West Coast of the United States, and not from Russia.

In our July 24, 2017 Memorandum to President Donald Trump we stated , "We do not know who or what the murky Guccifer 2.0 is. You may wish to ask the FBI."

Our July 24 Memorandum continued: "Mr. President, the disclosure described below may be related. Even if it is not, it is something we think you should be made aware of in this general connection. On March 7, 2017, WikiLeaks began to publish a trove of original CIA documents that WikiLeaks labeled 'Vault 7.' WikiLeaks said it got the trove from a current or former CIA contractor and described it as comparable in scale and significance to the information Edward Snowden gave to reporters in 2013.

"No one has challenged the authenticity of the original documents of Vault 7, which disclosed a vast array of cyber warfare tools developed, probably with help from NSA, by CIA's Engineering Development Group. That Group was part of the sprawling CIA Directorate of Digital Innovation – a growth industry established by John Brennan in 2015. [ (VIPS warned President Obama of some of the dangers of that basic CIA reorganization at the time.]

Marbled

"Scarcely imaginable digital tools – that can take control of your car and make it race over 100 mph, for example, or can enable remote spying through a TV – were described and duly reported in the New York Times and other media throughout March. But the Vault 7, part 3 release on March 31 that exposed the "Marble Framework" program apparently was judged too delicate to qualify as 'news fit to print' and was kept out of the Times at the time, and has never been mentioned since .

"The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima, it seems, 'did not get the memo' in time. Her March 31 article bore the catching (and accurate) headline: 'WikiLeaks' latest release of CIA cyber-tools could blow the cover on agency hacking operations.'

"The WikiLeaks release indicated that Marble was designed for flexible and easy-to-use 'obfuscation,' and that Marble source code includes a "de-obfuscator" to reverse CIA text obfuscation.

"More important, the CIA reportedly used Marble during 2016. In her Washington Post report , Nakashima left that out, but did include another significant point made by WikiLeaks; namely, that the obfuscation tool could be used to conduct a 'forensic attribution double game' or false-flag operation because it included test samples in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi."

A few weeks later William Binney, a former NSA technical, and I commented on Vault 7 Marble, and were able to get a shortened op-ed version published in The Baltimore Sun

The CIA's reaction to the WikiLeaks disclosure of the Marble Framework tool was neuralgic. Then Director Mike Pompeo lashed out two weeks later, calling Assange and his associates "demons," and insisting; "It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors like Russia."Our July 24 Memorandum continued: "Mr. President, we do not know if CIA's Marble Framework, or tools like it, played some kind of role in the campaign to blame Russia for hacking the DNC. Nor do we know how candid the denizens of CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate have been with you and with Director Pompeo. These are areas that might profit from early White House review. [ President Trump then directed Pompeo to invite Binney, one of the authors of the July 24, 2017 VIPS Memorandum to the President, to discuss all this. Binney and Pompeo spent an hour together at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017, during which Binney briefed Pompeo with his customary straightforwardness. ]

We also do not know if you have discussed cyber issues in any detail with President Putin. In his interview with NBC's Megyn Kelly he seemed quite willing – perhaps even eager – to address issues related to the kind of cyber tools revealed in the Vault 7 disclosures, if only to indicate he has been briefed on them. Putin pointed out that today's technology enables hacking to be 'masked and camouflaged to an extent that no one can understand the origin' [of the hack] And, vice versa, it is possible to set up any entity or any individual that everyone will think that they are the exact source of that attack.

"'Hackers may be anywhere,' he said. 'There may be hackers, by the way, in the United States who very craftily and professionally passed the buck to Russia. Can't you imagine such a scenario? I can.'

New attention has been drawn to these issues after I discussed them in a widely published 16-minute interview last Friday.

In view of the highly politicized environment surrounding these issues, I believe I must append here the same notice that VIPS felt compelled to add to our key Memorandum of July 24, 2017:

"Full Disclosure: Over recent decades the ethos of our intelligence profession has eroded in the public mind to the point that agenda-free analysis is deemed well nigh impossible. Thus, we add this disclaimer, which applies to everything we in VIPS say and do: We have no political agenda; our sole purpose is to spread truth around and, when necessary, hold to account our former intelligence colleagues.

"We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental." The fact we find it is necessary to include that reminder speaks volumes about these highly politicized times.

Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Savior in inner-city Washington. He was an Army infantry/intelligence officer before serving as a CIA analyst for 27 years. His duties included preparing, and briefing one-on-one, the President's Daily Brief.


ThomasGilroy , June 9, 2018 at 9:44 am

"More important, the CIA reportedly used Marble during 2016. In her Washington Post report, Nakashima left that out, but did include another significant point made by WikiLeaks; namely, that the obfuscation tool could be used to conduct a 'forensic attribution double game' or false-flag operation because it included test samples in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi."

Another false flag operation? Suddenly false flag operations have become the weapon of choice. Interestingly enough, they are nefariously (always) committed by the US or US allies. MH17 was a false flag with an SU-25 Ukraine jet responsible for downing the passenger jet (to blame Russia). All of the chemical attacks in Syria were false flag operations with the supply of sarin/chlorine made in Turkey or directly given to the "rebels" by the CIA or US allies. The White Helmets were of course in on all of the details. Assad was just simply not capable of doing that to "his" people. Forget that the sarin had the chemical signature of the Assad regime sarin supply. Next it was the snipers who used a false flag operation during the Maidan revolution to shoot protesters and police to oust Yanukovych. Only the neo-Nazis could be capable of shooting the Maidan protesters so they could take power. And then Seth Rich was murdered so he couldn't reveal he was the "real" source of the leak. This was hinted by Assange when he offered a reward to find the killers.

The author tosses out that the DNC hack was (potentially) a false flag operation by the CIA obviously to undermine Trump while victimizing Russia. It must be the Gulf of Tonkin all over again. While Crowdstrike might have a "dubious professional record and multiple conflicts of interest", their results were also confirmed by several other cyber-security firms (Wikipedia):

cybersecurity experts and firms, including CrowdStrike, Fidelis Cybersecurity, Mandiant, SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, and the editor for Ars Technica, have rejected the claims of "Guccifer 2.0" and have determined, on the basis of substantial evidence, that the cyberattacks were committed by two Russian state-sponsored groups (Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear).

Then there was Papadopoulas who coincidentally was given the information that Russia had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Obviously, they were illegally obtained (unless this was another CIA false flag operation). This was before the release of the emails by WikiLeaks. This was followed by the Trump Tower meeting with Russians with connections to the Russian government and the release of the emails by WikiLeaks shortly thereafter. Additionally, Russia had the motive to defeat HRC and elect Trump. Yesterday, Trump pushed for the reinstatement of Russia at the G-7 summit. What a shock! All known evidence and motive points the finger directly at Russia.

Calling everything a false flag operation is really the easy way out, but ultimately, it lets the responsible culprits off of the hook.

anon , June 9, 2018 at 11:28 am

I don't seen any cause to say that any false-flag theory you don't like is merely "tossed out" propaganda. One cannot tell in your comment where you think the accounts are credible and where not. No evidence that the Syria CW attacks "had the chemical signature of the Assad regime sarin supply."

CitizenOne , June 8, 2018 at 11:40 pm

There can be no doubt that counterintelligence tools would be pursued by our intelligence agencies as a means to create narratives and false evidence based on the production of false flags which support desired geopolitical outcomes. There would be a need to create false flags using technology to support the geopolitical agenda which would be hard or impossible to trace using the forensic tools used by cyber sleuths.

In pre computer technology days there were also many false flags which were set up to create real world scenarios which suited the geopolitical agenda. Even today, there are many examples of tactical false flag operations either organized and orchestrated or utilized by the intelligence agencies to create the narrative which supports geopolitical objectives.

Examples:

The US loaded munitions in broad daylight visible to German spies onto the passenger ship Lusitania despite German warnings that they would torpedo any vessels suspected of carrying munitions. The Lusitania then proceeded to loiter unaccompanied by escorts in an area off the Ireland coast treading over the same waters until it was spotted by a German U-Boat and was torpedoed. This was not exactly a false flag since the German U-Boat pulled the trigger but it was required to gain public support for the entrance of the US into WWI. It worked.

There is evidence that the US was deliberately caught "off guard" in the Pearl Harbor Attack. Numerous coded communication intercepts were made but somehow the advanced warning radar on the island of Hawaii was mysteriously turned off in the hours before and during the Japanese attack which guaranteed that the attack would be successful and also guaranteed that our population would instantly sign on to the war against Japan. It worked.

There is evidence that the US deliberately ignored the intelligence reports that UBL was planning to conduct an attack on the US using planes as bombs. The terrorists who carried out the attacks on the twin towers were "allowed" to conduct them. The result was the war in Iraq which was sold based on a pack of lies about WMDs and which we used to go to war with Iraq.

The Tonkin Gulf incident which historians doubt actually happened or believe if it did was greatly exaggerated by intelligence and military sources was used to justify the war in Vietnam.

The Spanish American War was ginned up by William Randolph Hearst and his yellow journalism empire to justify attacking Cuba, Panama and the Philippines. The facts revealed by forensic analysis of the exploded USS Maine have shown that the cataclysm was caused by a boiler explosion not an enemy mine. At the time this was also widely believed to not be caused by a Spanish mine in the harbor but the news sold the story of Spanish treachery and war was waged.

In each case of physical false flags created on purpose, or allowed to happen or just made up by fictions based on useful information that could be manipulated and distorted the US was led to war. Some of these wars were just wars and others were wars of choice but in every case a false flag was needed to bring the nation into a state where we believed we were under attack and under the circumstances flocked to war. I will not be the judge of history or justice here since each of these events had both negative and positive consequences for our nation. What I will state is that it is obvious that the willingness to allow or create or just capitalize on the events which have led to war are an essential ingredient. Without a publicly perceived and publicly supported cause for war there can be no widespread support for war. I can also say our leaders have always known this.

Enter the age of technology and the computer age with the electronic contraptions which enable global communication and commerce.

Is it such a stretch to imagine that the governments desire to shape world events based on military actions would result in a plan to use these modern technologies to once again create in our minds a cyber scenario in which we are once again as a result of the "cyber" false flag prepared for us to go to war? Would it be too much of a stretch to imagine that the government would use the new electronic frontier just as it used the old physical world events to justify military action?

Again, I will not go on to condemn any action by our military but will focus on how did we get there and how did we arrive at a place where a majority favored war.

Whether created by physical or cyberspace methods we can conclude that such false flags will happen for better or worse in any medium available.

susan sunflower , June 8, 2018 at 7:52 pm

I'd like "evidence" and I'd also like "context" since apparently international electoral "highjinks" and monkey-wrenching and rat-f*cking have a long tradition and history (before anyone draws a weapon, kills a candidate or sicc's death squads on the citizenry.

The DNC e-mail publication "theft" I suspect represents very small small potatoes for so many reasons As Dixon at Black Agenda Report put it . Russia-gate is American Exceptionalism writ large which takes on a more sinister aspect as groups like BLM and others are "linked" to alleged "Russian funding"on one and and Soros funding on another

https://www.blackagendareport.com/russia-gate-and-crisis-american-exceptionalism

(FWIW, this is a new neoliberal phenomenon when the ultra-rich "liberals" can quietly fund marches on Washington and "grassroots" networking making those neophyte movements too easy targets with questionable robust foundation (color revolutions are possible when anyone is able to foot the cost of 1,000 or 2000 "free" signs or t-shirts -- impecccably designed and printed.

Gary Weglarz , June 8, 2018 at 11:08 am

Excellent post. Thanks also for reminding me I need to revisit the Vault 7 information as source material. These are incredibly important leaks that help connect the dots of criminal State intelligence activities designed to have remained forever hidden.

Skip Scott , June 8, 2018 at 1:07 pm

I can't think of any single piece of evidence that our MSM is under the very strict control of our so-called intelligence agencies than how fast and completely the Vault 7 releases got flushed down the memory hole. "Nothing to see here folks, move along."

Realist , June 9, 2018 at 1:36 am

http://www.unz.com/mwhitney/dems-put-finishing-touches-on-one-party-surveillance-superstate/

Skip Scott , June 9, 2018 at 7:05 am

Mbob-

I don't think anyone can predict whether or not Sanders would have won as a 3rd party candidate. He ran a remarkable campaign, but when he caved to the Clinton machine he lost a lot of supporters, including me. If he had stood up at the convention and talked of the DNC skullduggery exposed by Wikileaks, and said "either I run as a democrat, or I run as a Green, but I'm running", he would have at least gotten 15 pct to make the TV debates, and who knows what could have happened after that. 40 pct of registered voters didn't vote. That alone tells you it is possible he might have won.

Instead he expected us to follow him like he was the f'ing Pied Piper to elect another Wall St. loving warmonger. That's why he gets no "pass" from me. He (and the Queen of Chaos) gave us Trump. BTW, Obama doesn't get a "pass" either.

willow , June 8, 2018 at 9:24 pm

It's all about the money. A big motive for the DNC to conjure up Russia-gate was to keep donors from abandoning any future
Good Ship Hillary or other Blue Dog Democrat campaigns: "Our brand/platform wasn't flawed. It was the Rooskies."

Vivian O'Blivion , June 8, 2018 at 8:22 am

An earlier time line.

March 14th. Popadopoulos has first encounter with Mifsud.

April 26th. Mifsud tells Popadopoulos that Russians have "dirt" on Clinton, including "thousands of e-mails".

May 4th. Trump last man standing in Republican primary.

May 10th. Popadopoulos gets drunk with London based Australian diplomat and talks about "dirt" but not specifically e-mails.

June 9th. Don. Jr meets in Trump tower with Russians promising "dirt" but not specifically in form of e-mails.

It all comes down to who Mifsud is, who he is working for and why he has been "off grid" to journalists (but not presumably Intelligence services) for > 6 months.

Specific points.

On March 14th Popadopoulos knew he was transferring from team Carson to team Trump but this was not announced to the (presumably underwhelmed) world 'till March 21st. Whoever put Mifsud onto Popadopoulos was very quick on their feet.
The Australian diplomat broke chain of command by reporting the drunken conversation to the State Department as opposed to his domestic Intelligence service. If Mifsud was a western asset, Australian Intelligence would likely be aware of his status.
If Mifsud was a Russian asset why would demonstrably genuine Russians be trying to dish up the dirt on Clinton in June?

There are missing pieces to this jigsaw puzzle but it's starting to look like a deep state operation to dirty Trump in the unlikely event that he went on to win.

Realist , June 8, 2018 at 4:28 pm

Ms. Clinton was personally trying to tar Trump with allusions to "Russia" and being "Putin's puppet" long before he won the presidency, in fact, quite conspicuously during the two conventions and most pointedly during the debates. She was willing to use that ruse long before her defeat at the ballot box. It was the straw that she clung to and was willing to use as a pretext for overturning the election after the unthinkable happened. But, you are right, smearing Trump through association with Russia was part of her long game going back to the early primaries, especially since her forces (both in politics and in the media) were trying mightily to get him the nomination under the assumption that he would be the easiest (more like the only) Republican candidate that she could defeat come November.

Wcb , June 8, 2018 at 5:25 pm

Steven Halper?

Rob Roy , June 8, 2018 at 1:33 am

I might add to this informative article that the reason why Julian Assange has been ostracized and isolated from any public appearance, denied a cell phone, internet and visitors is that he tells the truth, and TPTB don't want him to say yet again that the emails were leaked from the DNC. I've heard him say it several times. H. Clinton was so shocked and angry that she didn't become president as she so confidently expected that her, almost knee-jerk, reaction was to find a reason that was outside of herself on which to blame her defeat. It's always surprised me that no one talks about what was in those emails which covered her plans for Iran and Russia (disgusting).
Trump is a sociopath, but the Russians had nothing to do with him becoming elected. I was please to read here that he or perhaps just Pompeo? met with Binney. That's a good thing, though Pompeo, too, is unstable and war hungry to follow Israel into bombing yet another innocent sovereign country. Thank, Mr. McGovern for another excellent coverage of this story.

MLS , June 7, 2018 at 9:59 pm

"no one associated with WikiLeaks has ever been questioned by his team"

Do tell, Ray: How do you know what the GOP Congress appointed Special Prosecutor's investigation – with its unlimited budget, wide mandate, and notable paucity of leaks – has and has not done?

strgr-tgther , June 8, 2018 at 12:14 am

MLS: Thank you! No one stands up for what is right any more. We have 17 Intelligency agencies that say are election was stolen. And just last week the Republicans Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnel and Trey Gowdy (who I detest) said the FBI and CIA and NSA were just doing there jobs the way ALL AMERICANS woudl want them to. And even Adam Schiff, do you think he will tell any reporter what evidence he does have? #1 It is probably classified and #2 he is probably saving it for the inpeachment. We did not find out about the Nixon missing 18 minutes until the end anyways. All of these articles sound like the writer just copied Sean Hannity and wrote everything down he said, and yesterday he told all suspects in the Mueller investigation to Smash and Bleach there mobile devices, witch is OBSTRUCTION of justice and witness TAMPERING. A great American there!

Rob Roy , June 8, 2018 at 1:48 am

strgr-tgther:

Sean Hannity??? Ha, ha, ha.

As Mr. McGoven wrote .."any resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental."

John , June 8, 2018 at 5:48 am

Sorry I had to come back and point out the ultimate irony of ANYONE who supports the Butcher of Libya complaining about having an election stolen from them (after the blatant rigging of the primary that caused her to take the nomination away from the ONE PERSON who was polling ahead of Trump beyond the margin of error of the polls.)

It is people like you who gave us Trump. The Pied Piper Candidate promoted by the DNC machine (as the emails that were LEAKED, not "hacked", as the metadata proves conclusively, show.)

incontinent reader , June 8, 2018 at 7:14 am

What is this baloney? Seventeen Intelligence agencies DID NOT conclude what you are alleging, And in fact, Brennan and his cabal avoided using a National intelligence Estimate, which would have shot down his cherry-picked 'assessment' before it got off the ground – and it would have been published for all to read.

The NSA has everything on everybody, yet has never released anything remotely indicating Russian collusion. Do you think the NSA Director, who, as you may recall, did not give a strong endorsement to the Brennan-Comey assessment, would have held back from the Congress such information, if it had existed, when he was questioned? Furthermore, former technical directors of the NSA, Binney, Wiebe and Loomis- the very best of the best- have proven through forensics that the Wikileaks disclosures were not obtained by hacking the DNC computers, but by a leak, most likely to a thumb drive on the East Coast of the U.S. How many times does it have to be laid out for you before you are willing and able to absorb the facts?

As for Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, (and Trey Gowdy, who was quite skilled on the Benghazi and the Clinton private email server investigations- investigations during which Schiff ran interference for Clinton- but has seemed unwilling to digest the Strozk, Page, McCabe, et al emails and demand a Bureau housecleaning), who cares what they think or say, what matters is the evidence.

I suggest you familiarize yourself with the facts- and start by rereading Ray's articles, and the piece by Joe diGenova posted on Ray's website.

Realist , June 8, 2018 at 4:12 pm

The guy's got Schiff for brains. Everyone who cares about the truth has known since before Mueller started his charade that the "17 intelligence agency" claim was entirely a ruse, bald-faced confected propaganda to anger the public to support the coup attempted by Ms. Clinton and her zombie followers. People are NOT going to support the Democratic party now or in the future when its tactics include subverting our public institutions, including the electoral process under the constitution–whether you like the results or not! If the Democratic party is to be saved, those honest people still in it should endeavor to drain the septic tank that has become their party before we can all drain the swamp that is the federal government and its ex-officio manipulators (otherwise known as the "deep state") in Washington.

Farmer Pete , June 8, 2018 at 7:30 am

"We have 17 Intelligency agencies that say are election was stolen."

You opened up with a talking point that is factually incorrect. The team of hand-picked spooks that slapped the "high confidence" report together came from 3 agencies. I know, 17 sounds like a lot and very convincing to us peasants. Regardless, it's important to practice a few ounces of skepticism when it comes to institutions with a long rap sheet of crime and deception. Taking their word for it as a substitute for actual observable evidence is naive to say the least. The rest of your hollow argument is filled with "probably(s)". If I were you, I'd turn off my TV and stop looking for scapegoats for an epically horrible presidential campaign and candidate.

strgr-tgther , June 8, 2018 at 12:50 pm

/horrible presidential campaign and candidate/ Say you. But we all went to sleep comfortable the night before the election where 97% of all poles said Clinton was going to be are next President. And that did not happen! So Robert Mueller is going to find out EXACTLY why. Stay tuned!!!

irina , June 8, 2018 at 3:40 pm

Not 'all'. I knew she was toast after reading that she had cancelled her election night fireworks
celebration, early on the morning of Election Day. She must have known it also, too.

And she was toast in my mind after seeing the ridiculous scene of her virtual image
'breaking the glass ceiling' during the Democratic Convention. So expensively stupid.

Realist , June 8, 2018 at 3:50 pm

Mueller is simply orchestrating a dramatic charade to distract you from the obvious reason why she lost: Trump garnered more electoral votes, even after the popular votes were counted and recounted. Any evidence of ballot box stuffing in the key states pointed to the Democrats, so they gave that up. She and her supporters like you have never stopped trying to hoodwink the public either before or after the election. Too many voters were on to you, that's why she lost.

Realist , June 8, 2018 at 3:57 pm

Indeed, stop the nonsense which can't be changed short of a coup d'etat, and start focusing on opposing the bad policy which this administration has been pursuing. I don't see the Dems doing that even in their incipient campaigns leading up to the November elections. Fact is, they are not inclined to change the policies, which are the same ones that got them "shellacked" at the ballot box in 2016. (I think Obama must own lots of stock in the shellack trade.)

Curious , June 8, 2018 at 6:27 pm

Ignorance of th facts keep showing up in your posts for some unknown reason. Sentence two: "we have 17 intelligency (sic) agencies that say ". this statement was debunked a long time ago.

Have you learned nothing yet regarding the hand-picked people out of three agencies after all this time? Given that set of lies it makes your post impossible to read.
I would suggest a review of what really happened before you perpetuate more myths and this will benefit all.

Also, a good reading of the Snowden Docs and vault 7 should scare you out of your shell since our "intelligeny" community can pretend to be Chinese, Russian, Iranian just for starters, and the blame game can start after hours instead of the needed weeks and/or months to determine the veracity of a hack and/or leak.

It's past trying to win you over with the actual 'time lines' and truths. Mr McGovern has re-emphasized in this article the very things you should be reading.
Start with Mr Binney and his technical evaluation of the forensics in the DNC docs and build out from there This is just a suggestion.

What never ceases to amaze me in your posts is the 'issue' that many of the docs were bought and paid for by the Clinton team, and yet amnesia has taken over those aspects as well. Shouldn't you start with the Clintons paying for this dirt before it was ever attributed to Trump?

Daniel , June 8, 2018 at 6:38 pm

Actually, both Brennan and Hayden testified to Congress that only 3 agencies signed off on their claim. They also said that they'd "hand picked" a special team to run their "investigation," and no other people were involved. So, people known to be perjurers cherry picked "evidence" to make a claim. Let's invade Iraq again.

More than 1/2 of their report was about RT, and even though that was all easily viewable public record, they got huge claims wrong. Basically, the best they had was that RT covered Occupy Wall Street and the NO DAPL and BLM protests, and horror of horrors, aired third party debates! In a democracy! How dare they?

Why didn't FBI subpoena DNC's servers so they could run their own forensics on them? Why did they just accept the claims of a private company founded by an Atlantic Council board member? Did you know that CrowdStrike had to backpedal on the exact same claim they made about the DNC server when Ukraine showed they were completely wrong regarding Ukie artillery?

Joe Lauria , June 8, 2018 at 2:12 am

Until he went incommunicado Assange stated on several occasions that he was never questioned by Muellers team. Craig Murray has said the same. And Kim Dotcom has written to Mueller offering evidence about the source and he says they have never replied to him.

Realist , June 8, 2018 at 3:40 pm

Mueller is not interested in the truth. He can't handle the truth. His purpose is not to divulge the truth. He has no use for truthtellers including the critical possessors of the truth whom you mentioned. This aversion to the truth is the biggest clue that Mueller's activities are a complete sham.

Miranda Keefe , June 8, 2018 at 3:28 pm

MLS wrote, "How do you know what the GOP Congress appointed Special Prosecutor's investigation – with its unlimited budget, wide mandate, and notable paucity of leaks – has and has not done?"

Robert Mueller is NOT a Special Prosecutor appointed by the Congress. He is a special counsel appointed by the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, and is part of the Department of Justice.

I know no one who dislikes Trumps wants to hear it. But all Mueller's authority and power to act is derived from Donald J. Trump's executive authority because he won the 2016 presidential election. Mueller is down the chain of command in the Executive Department.

That's why this is all nonsense. What we basically have is Trump investigating himself. The framers of the Constitution never intended this. They intended Congress to investigate the Executive and that's why they gave Congress the power to remove him or her via impeachment.

As long as we continue with this folly of expecting the Justice Department to somehow investigate and prosecute a president we end up with two terrible possibilities. Either a corrupt president will exercise his legitimate authority to end the investigation like Nixon did -or- we have a Deep State beyond the reach of the elected president that can effectively investigate and prosecute a corrupt president, but also then has other powers with no democratic control.

The solution to this dilemma? An empowered Congress elected by the People operating as the Constitution intended.

As to the rest of your post? It is an example of the "will to believe." Me? I'll not act as if there is evidence of Russian interference until I'm shown evidence, not act as if it must be true, because I want to believe that, until it's fully proven that it didn't happen.

F. G. Sanford , June 7, 2018 at 8:22 pm

There must be some Trump-Russia ties.
Or so claim those CIA spies-
McCabe wants a deal, or else he won't squeal,
He'll dissemble when he testifies!

No one knows what's on Huma's computer.
There's no jury and no prosecutor.
Poor Adam Schiff hopes McCabe takes the fifth,
Special council might someday recruit her!

Assange is still embassy bound.
Mueller's case hasn't quite come unwound.
Wayne Madsen implies that there might be some ties,
To Israelis they haven't yet found!

Halper and Mifsud are players.
John Brennan used cutouts in layers.
If the scheme falls apart and the bureau is smart,
They'll go after them all as betrayers!

They needed historical fiction.
A dossier with salacious depiction!
Some urinous whores could get down on all fours,
They'd accomplish some bed sheet emiction!

Pablo Miller and Skripal were cited.
Sidney Blumenthal might have been slighted.
Christopher Steele offered Sidney a deal,
But the dossier's not copyrighted!

That story about Novichok,
Smells a lot like a very large crock.
But they can't be deposed or the story disclosed,
The Skripals have toxic brain block!

Papadopolis shot off his yap.
He told Downer, that affable chap-
There was dirt to report on the Clinton cohort,
Mifsud hooked him with that honey trap!

She was blond and a bombshell to boot.
Papadopolis thought she was cute.
She worked for Mifsud, a mysterious dude,
Now poor Paps is in grave disrepute!

But the trick was to tie it to Russians.
The Clinton team had some discussions.
Their big email scandal was easy to handle,
They'd blame Vlad for the bad repercussions!

There must have been Russian collusion.
That explained all the vote count confusion.
Guccifer Two made the Trump team come through,
If he won, it was just an illusion!

Lisa Page and Pete Strzok were disgusted
They schemed and they plotted and lusted.
If bald-headed Clapper appealed to Jake Tapper,
Brennan's Tweets might get Donald Trump busted!

There had to be cyber subversion.
It would serve as the perfect perversion.
They would claim it was missed if it didn't exist,
It's a logically perfect diversion!

Ray McGovern , June 8, 2018 at 1:03 am

BRAVO, F.G. and thanks.
Ray

Rob Roy , June 8, 2018 at 1:41 am

F.G., you've done it again, and I might add, topped even yourself! Thanks.

KiwiAntz , June 7, 2018 at 7:30 pm

What a joke, America, the most dishonest Country on Earth, has meddled, murdered & committed coups to overturn other Govts & interfered & continues to do so in just about every Country on Earth by using Trade sanctions, arming Terrorists & illegal invasions, has the barefaced cheek to puff out its chest & hypocritcally blame Russia for something that it does on a daily basis?? And the point with Mueller's investigation is not to find any Russian collusion evidence, who needs evidence when you can just make it up? The point is provide the US with a list of unfounded lies & excuses, FIRSTLY to slander & demonise RUSSIA for something they clearly didn't do! SECONDLY, was to provide a excuse for the Democrats dismal election loss result to the DONALD & his Trump Party which just happens to contain some Republicans? THIRDLY, to conduct a soft Coup by trying to get Trump impeached on "TRUMPED UP CHARGES OF RUSSIAN COLLUSION"? And FOURTLY to divert attention away from scrutiny & cover up Obama & Hillary Clinton's illegal, money grubbing activities & her treasonous behaviour with her private email server?? After two years of Russiagate nonsense with NOTHING to show for it, I think it's about time America owes Russia a public apology & compensation for its blatant lying & slander of a innocent Country for a crime they never committed?

Sam F , June 7, 2018 at 7:11 pm

Thanks, Ray, for revealing that the CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate is the likely cause of the Russiagate scams.

I am sure that they manipulate the digital voting machines directly and indirectly. True elections are now impossible.

Your disclaimer is hilarious: "We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental."

Antiwar7 , June 7, 2018 at 6:23 pm

Expecting the evil people running the show to respond to reason is futile, of course. All of these reports are really addressed to the peanut gallery, where true power lies, if only they could realize it.

Thanks, Ray and VIPS, for keeping up the good fight.

mike k , June 7, 2018 at 5:55 pm

For whatever reason, Ray McGovern chose not to mention the murder of Seth Rich, which pretty clearly points to the real source of the leak being him, as hinted by Assange offering a reward for anyone uncovering his killer. The whole thing stinks of a democratic conspiracy.

And BTW people have become shy about using the word conspiracy, for fear it will automatically brand one as a hoaxer. On the contrary, conspiracies are extremely common, the higher one climbs in the power hierarchy. Like monopolies, conspiracies are central to the way the oligarchs do business.

John , June 8, 2018 at 5:42 am

Ray, from what I have seen in following his writing for years, meticulously only deals in knowns. The Seth Rich issue is not a known, it is speculation still. Yes, it probably is involved, but unless Craig Murray states that Seth Rich was the one who handed him the USB drive, it is not a known.

There is a possibility that Seth Rich was not the one who leaked the information, but that the DNC bigwigs THOUGHT he was, in which case, by neither confirming nor denying that Seth Rich was the leaker, it may be that letting the DNC continue to think it was him is being done in protection of the actual leaker. Seth Rich could also have been killed for unrelated reasons, perhaps Imran Awan thought he was on to his doings.

Unfettered Fire , June 8, 2018 at 10:44 am

Don't forget this Twitter post by Wikileaks on October 30, 2016: Podesta: "I'm definitely for making an example of a suspected leaker whether or not we have any real basis for it." https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/36082#efmAGSAH-

Unfettered Fire , June 8, 2018 at 10:47 am

" whether or not"?!! Wow. That's an imperialistic statement.

Drew Hunkins , June 7, 2018 at 5:50 pm

Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic charade and he's left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and Russians. Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the mass media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin "hacking" the election to favor Trump. Which was the entire raison d'etre behind Rosenstein and Mueller's crusade on behalf of the deplorable DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. Sure be interesting to see how Mueller and his crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent edifice of deceit. Will they even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face?

So sickening to see the manner in which many DNC sycophants obsequiously genuflect to their godlike Mueller. A damn prosecutor who was arguably in bed with the Winter Hill Gang!

jose , June 7, 2018 at 5:13 pm

If they had had any evidence to inculpate Russia, we would have all seen it by now. They know that by stating that there is an investigation going on: they can blame Russia. The Democratic National Committee is integrated by a pack of liars.

Jeff , June 7, 2018 at 4:35 pm

Thanx, Ray. The sad news is that everybody now believes that Russia tried to "meddle" in our election and, since it's a belief, neither facts nor reality will dislodge it. Your disclaimer should also probably carry the warning – never believe a word a government official says especially if they are in the CIA, NSA, or FBI unless they provide proof. If they tell you that it's classified, that they can't divulge it, or anything of that sort, you know they are lying.

john wilson , June 7, 2018 at 4:09 pm

I suspect the real reason no evidence has been produced is because there isn't any. I know this is stating the obvious, but if you think about it, as long as the non extent evidence is supposedly being "investigated" the story remains alive. They know they aren't going to find anything even remotely plausible that would stand up to any kind of scrutiny, but as long as they are looking, it has the appearance that there might be something.

Joe Tedesky , June 7, 2018 at 4:08 pm

I first want to thank Ray and the VIPS for their continuing to follow through on this Russia-Gate story. And it is a story.

My question is simple, when will we concentrate on reading Hillary's many emails? After all wasn't this the reason for the Russian interference mania? Until we do, take apart Hillary's correspondence with her lackeys, nothing will transpire of any worth. I should not be the one saying this, in as much as Bernie Sanders should be the one screaming it for justice from the highest roof tops, but he isn't. So what's up with that? Who all is involved in this scandalous coverup? What do the masters of corruption have on everybody?

Now we have Sean Hannity making a strong case against the Clinton's and the FBI's careful handling of their crimes. What seems out of place, since this should be big news, is that CNN nor MSNBC seems to be covering this story in the same way Hannity is. I mean isn't this news, meant to be reported as news? Why avoid reporting on Hillary in such a manner? This must be that 'fake news' they all talk about boy am I smart.

In the end I have decided to be merely an observer, because there are no good guys or gals in our nation's capital worth believing. In the end even Hannity's version of what took place leads back to a guilty Russia. So, the way I see it, the swamp is being drained only to make more room for more, and new swamp creatures to emerge. Talk about spinning our wheels. When will good people arrive to finally once and for all drain this freaking swamp, once and for all?

Realist , June 7, 2018 at 5:25 pm

Ha, ha! Don't you enjoy the magic show being put on by the insiders desperately trying to hang onto their power even after being voted out of office? Their attempt to distract your attention from reality whilst feeding you their false illusions is worthy of Penn & Teller, or David Copperfield (the magician). Who ya gonna believe? Them or your lying eyes?

Joe Tedesky , June 7, 2018 at 10:00 pm

Realist, You can bet they will investigate everything but what needs investigated, as our Politico class devolves into survivalist in fighting, the mechanism of war goes uninterrupted. Joe

F. G. Sanford , June 7, 2018 at 5:34 pm

Joe, speaking of draining the swamp, check out my comment under Ray's June 1 article about Freddy Fleitz!

Sam F , June 7, 2018 at 6:59 pm

That is just what I was reminded of; here is an antiseptic but less emphatic last line:
"Swamp draining progresses apace.
It's being accomplished with grace:
They're taking great pains to clean out the drains,"
New swamp creatures will need all that space!

Unfettered Fire , June 8, 2018 at 11:00 am

We must realize that to them, "the Swamp" refers to those in office who still abide by New Deal policy. Despite the thoroughly discredited neoliberal economic policy, the radical right are driving the world in the libertarian direction of privatization, austerity, private bank control of money creation, dismantling the nation-state, contempt for the Constitution, etc.

[May 27, 2018] The Code Name Crossfire Hurricane Undermines The FBI s Russia Story by Lee Smith

So Strzok was involved with this part of the story too. Strzokgate now has distinct British accent and probably was coordinated by CIA and MI6.
Harper was definitely acted like an "agent provocateur", whose job was to ask leading questions to get Trump campaign advisers to say things that would corroborate-or seem to corroborate-evidence that the FBI believed it already had in hand. It looks like among other things Halper was tasked with the attempt elaborate on the claims made in Steele's September 14 dossier memo: "Russians do have further 'kompromat' on CLINTON (e-mails) and considering disseminating it."
London was the perfect place for such dirty games -- the territory where the agent knew he could operate safely.
"Halper's fishing expedition therefore came up with nothing to suggest the Steele dossier was true. The real story is therefore the continuing attempt to assert that the dossier, or key parts of it, are true, after large-scale investigations by the FBI, and now by special counsel Robert Mueller, have failed to turn up any evidence of a plot hatched between Trump and Vladimir Putin to take over the White House."
"... So, how many "informants" targeted the Trump campaign? Were they being paid by the U.S. government? What are their names? What were they doing? ..."
Notable quotes:
"... The New York Times' ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... So, how many "informants" targeted the Trump campaign? Were they being paid by the U.S. government? What are their names? What were they doing? ..."
"... Under whose authority were they spying on a political campaign? Did FBI and DOJ leadership sign off? Did FBI director James Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch know about it? What about other senior Obama administration officials? CIA Director John Brennan? Did President Obama know the FBI was spying on a presidential campaign? Did Hillary Clinton know? What about Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta? ..."
May 27, 2018 | thefederalist.com

The New York Times' 4,000-word report last week on the Federal Bureau of Investigation probe of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign's possible ties to Russia revealed for the first time that the investigation was called "Crossfire Hurricane."

The name, explains the paper, refers to the Rolling Stones lyric "I was born in a crossfire hurricane," from the 1968 hit "Jumpin' Jack Flash." Mick Jagger, one of the songwriters, said the song was a "metaphor" for psychedelic-drug induced states. The other, Keith Richards, said it "refers to his being born amid the bombing and air raid sirens of Dartford, England, in 1943 during World War II."

Investigation names, say senior U.S. law enforcement officials, are designed to refer to facts, ideas, or people related to the investigation. Sometimes they're explicit, and other times playful or even allusive. So what did the Russia investigation have to do with World War II, psychedelic drugs, or Keith's childhood?

The answer may be found in the 1986 Penny Marshall film named after the song, "Jumpin' Jack Flash." In the Cold War-era comedy, a quirky bank officer played by Whoopi Goldberg comes to the aid of Jonathan Pryce, who plays a British spy being chased by the KGB.

The code name "Crossfire Hurricane" is therefore most likely a reference to the former British spy whose allegedly Russian-sourced reports on the Trump team's alleged ties to Russia were used as evidence to secure a Foreign Intelligence Service Act secret warrant on Trump adviser Carter Page in October 2016: ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele.

Helping Spin a New Origin Story

It is hardly surprising that the Times refrained from exploring the meaning of the code name. The paper of record has apparently joined a campaign, spearheaded by the Department of Justice, FBI, and political operatives pushing the Trump-Russia collusion story, to minimize Steele's role in the Russia investigation.

After an October news report showed his dossier was funded by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, facts that further challenged the credibility of Steele's research, the FBI investigation's origin story shifted.

In December, The New York Times published a "scoop " on the new origin story. In the revised narrative, the probe didn't start with the Steele dossier at all. Rather, it began with an April 2016 meeting between Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and a Maltese professor named Joseph Mifsud. The professor informed him that "he had just learned from high-level Russian officials in Moscow that the Russians had 'dirt' on Mrs. Clinton in the form of 'thousands of emails.'"

Weeks later, Papadopoulos boasted to the Australian ambassador to London, Alexander Downer, that he was told the Russians had Clinton-related emails. Two months later, according to the Times , the Australians reported Papadopoulos' boasts to the FBI, and on July 31, 2016, the bureau began its investigation.

Further reinforcement of the new origin story came from congressional Democrats. A January 29 memo written by House Intelligence Committee minority staff under ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff further distances Steele from the opening of the investigation. "Christopher Steele's raw reporting did not inform the FBI's decision to initiate its counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016. In fact, the FBI's closely-held investigative team only received Steele's reporting in mid-September."

Last week's major Times article echoes the Schiff memo. Steele's reports, according to the paper, reached the "Crossfire Hurricane team" "in mid-September."

Yet the new account of how the government spying campaign against Trump started is highly unlikely. According to the thousands of favorable press reports asserting his credibility, Steele was well-respected at the FBI for his work on a 2015 case that helped win indictments of more than a dozen officials working for soccer's international governing body, FIFA. In July 2016, Steele met with the agent he worked with on the FIFA case to show his early findings on the Trump team's ties to Russia.

The FBI took Steele's reporting on Trump's ties to Russia so seriously it was later used as evidence to monitor the electronic communications of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. But, according to Schiff and the Times , the FBI somehow lost track of reports from a "credible" source who claimed to have information showing that the Republican candidate for president was compromised by a foreign government. That makes no sense.

The code name "Crossfire Hurricane" is further evidence that the FBI's cover story is absurd. A reference to a movie about a British spy evading Russian spies behind enemy lines suggests the Steele dossier was always the core of the bureau's investigation into the Trump campaign.

Was Halper an Informant, Spy, Or Agent Provocateur?

Taken together with the other significant revelation from last Times story, the purpose and structure of Crossfire Hurricane may be coming into clearer focus. According to the Times story: "At least one government informant met several times with [Trump campaign advisers Carter] Page and [George] Papadopoulos, current and former officials said."

As we now know, the informant is Stefan Halper, a former classmate of Bill Clinton's at Oxford University who worked in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations. Halper is known for his good connections in intelligence circles. His father-in-law was Ray Cline , former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Halper is also reported to have led the 1980 Ronald Reagan campaign team that collected intelligence on sitting U.S. President Jimmy Carter's foreign policy.

So what was Halper doing in this instance? He wasn't really a spy (a person who is generally tasked with stealing secrets) or an informant (a person who provides information about criminal activities from the inside). Rather, it seems he was more like an agent provocateur, whose job was to ask leading questions to get Trump campaign advisers to say things that would corroborate -- or seem to corroborate -- evidence that the bureau believed it already had in hand.

It appears Halper's job was to induce inexperienced Trump campaign figures to say things.

Halper met with at least three Trump campaign advisers: Sam Clovis, Page, and George Papadopoulos. The latter two he met with in London, where Halper had reason to feel comfortable operating.

Halper's close contacts in the intelligence world weren't limited to the CIA. They also include foreign intelligence officials like Richard Dearlove , the former head of the United Kingdom's foreign intelligence service, MI6. According to a Washington Times report , Halper and Dearlove are partners in a UK consulting firm, Cambridge Security Initiative.

Dearlove is also close to Steele. According to the Washington Post , Dearlove met with Steele in the early fall of 2016, when his former charge shared his "worries" about what he'd found on the Trump campaign and "asked for his guidance."

London was therefore the perfect place for Halper to spring a trap -- outside the direct purview of the FBI, but on territory where he knew he could operate safely. It appears Halper's job was to induce inexperienced Trump campaign figures to say things that corroborated the 35-page series of memos written by Steele -- the centerpiece of the Russiagate investigation -- in order to license a broader campaign of government spying against Trump and his associates in the middle of a presidential election.

Halper Reached Out to Trump Campaign Members

Chuck Ross's reporting in The Daily Caller provides invaluable details and insight. As Ross explained in The Daily Caller back in March, Halper emailed Papadopoulos on September 2, 2016 with an invitation to write a research paper, for which he'd be paid $3,000, and a paid trip to London. According to Ross, "Papadopoulos and Halper met several times during the London trip," with one meeting scheduled for September 13 and another two days later.

Ross writes: "According to a source with knowledge of the meeting, Halper asked Papadopoulos: 'George, you know about hacking the emails from Russia, right?' Papadopoulos told Halper he didn't know anything about emails or Russian hacking." It seems Halper was looking to elaborate on the claims made in Steele's September 14 dossier memo : "Russians do have further 'kompromat' on CLINTON (e-mails) and considering disseminating it."

Halper's fishing expedition therefore came up with nothing to suggest the Steele dossier was true.

Had Papadopoulos confirmed that a shadowy Maltese academic had told him in April about Russians holding Clinton-related emails, presumably that would have entered the dossier as something like, "Trump campaign adviser PAPADOPOULOS confirms knowledge of Russian 'kompromat.'"

Another Trump campaign adviser Halper contacted was Page. They first met in Cambridge, England at a July 11, 2016 symposium. Halper's partner Dearlove spoke at the conference, which was held just days after Page had delivered a widely reported speech at the New Economic School in Moscow. According to another Ross article reporting on Page and Halper's interactions, the Trump adviser "recalls nothing of substance being discussed other than Halper's passing mention that he knew then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort."

Page and Manafort both figure prominently in the Steele dossier's July 19 memos. According to the document , Manafort "was using foreign policy advisor, Carter PAGE, and others as intermediaries." Page had also, according to the dossier, met with senior Kremlin officials -- a charge he later denied in his November 2, 2017 testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. Evidently, he also gave Halper nothing to use in verifying the charges made against him.

Halper's fishing expedition therefore came up with nothing to suggest the Steele dossier was true. The real story is therefore the continuing attempt to assert that the dossier, or key parts of it, are true, after large-scale investigations by the FBI, and now by special counsel Robert Mueller, have failed to turn up any evidence of a plot hatched between Trump and Vladimir Putin to take over the White House.

Using Spy Powers on Political Opponents Is a Big Problem

That portions of the American national security apparatus would put their considerable powers -- surveillance, spying, legal pressure -- at the service of a partisan political campaign is a sign that something very big is broken in Washington. Our Founding Fathers would not be surprised to learn that the post-9/11 surveillance and spying apparatus built to protect Americans from al-Qaeda has now become a political tool that targets Americans for partisan purposes. That the rest of us are surprised is a sign that we have stopped taking the U.S. Constitution as seriously as we should.

The damage done to the American press is equally large. Since the November 2016 presidential election, a financially imperiled media industry gambled its remaining prestige on Russiagate. Yet after nearly a year and a half filled with thousands of stories feeding the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy, last week still represented a landmark moment in American journalism. The New York Times , which proudly published the Pentagon Papers, provided cover for an espionage operation against a presidential campaign.

The New York Times , which proudly published the Pentagon Papers, provided cover for an espionage operation against a presidential campaign.

There are significant errors and misrepresentations in the article that the Times could've easily checked, if it weren't in such a hurry to hide the FBI and DOJ's crimes and abuses. Perhaps most significantly, the Times avoided asking the key questions that the article raised with its revelation that "at least one government informant" met with Trump campaign figures.

So, how many "informants" targeted the Trump campaign? Were they being paid by the U.S. government? What are their names? What were they doing?

Under whose authority were they spying on a political campaign? Did FBI and DOJ leadership sign off? Did FBI director James Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch know about it? What about other senior Obama administration officials? CIA Director John Brennan? Did President Obama know the FBI was spying on a presidential campaign? Did Hillary Clinton know? What about Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta?

These questions are sure to be asked. What we know already is that the Times reporters did not ask them, because they do not bother to indicate that the officials interviewed for the story had declined to answer. That they did not ask these questions is evidence the Times is no longer a newspaper that sees its job as reporting the truth or holding high government officials responsible for their crimes. Lee Smith is the media columnist at Tablet.

[May 24, 2018] Most probably Veselnitskaya was a false flag operation to entrap Trump campaign played by British intelligence

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... FUsion GPS arranged the meeting at trump tower. ..."
"... IF Misfud told papaD that he had access to Hillary's emails, why did they not bother looking for him for 9 months and then let him walk free? Because he was a set up. ..."
May 24, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

Merasmus , May 21, 2018 at 12:36 am

'Collusion' would mean actively conspiring with a foreign government. To this day there is no evidence that the Russian lawyer was working for the Russian government (I have seen some media simply assert that she has Kremlin 'connections', whatever that's supposed to mean). Also, why exactly would the Trump campaign have any need to meet with someone promising dirt if, as the Steele Dossier claims, Trump had been a Russian agent for 5 years? The Kremlin would surely have already been providing any possible dirt, and more besides.

And is this really where we are now? Is this what we've come to? Russia is a country of 144 million people. Is simply being Russian, or talking to a Russian, now a crime? Because that's what our current atmosphere seems to think. It's shocking to see so many people, especially supposedly tolerant and multicultural liberals, ignore any distinction between a government and private citizens, and engage in what can only be called bigotry about 'Russians'. Replace 'Russian' with 'Jew', or a slur like 'Jap', and how incredibly ugly the atmosphere has become in the last 18 months or so becomes obvious.

That Trump is comically corrupt is a given. But the two central claims of Russiagate were that a. Trump is a Russian agent (or at least being blackmailed by Russia), and that b. Russia in some way hacked or interfered in the election to get Trump elected. There is, to this day, exactly zero evidence for either.

No, his son meeting with a Russian citizen promising political dirt (even if dirt had been exchanged, which it wasn't because she was lying and just wanted to get a meeting to lobby for some business interests), doesn't constitute 'collusion', or interference by a foreign government.

Nor does some St. Petersburg company spending a paltry amount of money to run a clickbait ad revenue scheme on Facebook. Nor do Macedonian teenagers running troll accounts (Macedonia isn't even in Russia, and to this day I've never seen any evidence that any Russian, much less the Russian government, is behind their activities).

The above two are especially damning, because they make it painfully obvious that Russiagate has exactly nothing. In the absence of any evidence that Russia hacked the election, proponents have been forced to venture far and wide to find something, anything, they can remotely pin on Russia. A few hundred thousand dollars spent on social media ads, including ads for Clinton and Sanders, many of which were seen by literally no one, and half of which didn't run until AFTER the election? Are you freaking kidding me?

As for 'shady Russian money', maybe Trump has taken some. It certainly wouldn't surprise me that he's done something like launder money for Russian oligarchs. Now prove to me took money from the Russian government. Because, again, those are two very different prospects. And if you think the Kremlin and Russian oligarchs are interchangeable or in lockstep with each other, you clearly don't know much about recent Russian history.

The Russiagate claim wasn't that Trump is skeevy and corrupt. Of course he is. The claim is that he is corrupt in very specific ways, ways that constitute treason.

Vivian O'Blivion , May 21, 2018 at 6:30 am

Marasmus.

Difficult to argue with any of your points.

Mueller has filed charges against some of the staff in the St Petersburg operation, if you can connect Trump to this entity then cooperation becomes criminal collusion. As charges have already been filed it matters not whether the St Petersburg staff are private or state employees.

The fact that America has laws prohibiting foreign interference in its elections is I guess understandable, but hypocritical and exceptionalist in the extreme given the cart blanch attitude America takes to interfering in the internal affairs of other nations.

The Donald Jr meeting with Russians is just a rats nest of conflicting stupidities. If as many others state (and I don't disagree) everyone tries to get dirt on the opposition and foreign sources of information are regularly tapped, then the secret is not to get caught. The Democrats have a plausible cut out (or two) in place between the Russian sources for the Steele dossier and themselves.

As Steve Bannon has stated, meeting directly with the Russians was weapons grade stupid, but hey it's Don Jr. and Jared Kushner we're talking about.

The really odd part is that the Russians would attend given that they must have known that their names would be logged by the Secret Service detail providing security for the Republican candidate. To me, this does not suggest an attempt to help Trump as "their man", but rather to dirty by association a candidate that could become President. This interpretation would concur with analysis of the activities of the St Petersburg operation, which was to sow chaos into American social and political discourse.

andy--s , May 23, 2018 at 12:13 am

Heres the problem with that.
FUsion GPS arranged the meeting at trump tower. The Russians paid them to connect with the trump campaign in order to discuss the magnitsky act. They did not come to the meeting with any notion of DIRT. Trump Jr was told they had DIRT.

THe problem the FBI has, is that they never investigated the Russian contacts to the extent that they investigated the Americans being contacted. Dig? :) IF Misfud told papaD that he had access to Hillary's emails, why did they not bother looking for him for 9 months and then let him walk free? Because he was a set up.

PapaD got nailed for not being able to remember if the meeting was the tuesday prior or after joing the trump Campaign. It doesnt make sense unless the FBI was looking to spy

Homer Jay , May 21, 2018 at 12:27 pm

Let's all assume for one second that all the fantasies of Russia gate are true. That every Russian that Trump and his associates/family ever had any contact with are directed by Putin himself. Who believes for one second that this collusion has had more of a negative impact 2016 election then the collusion that occured between Clinton and the DNC to subvert Sanders, Clinton and the media to 1st subvert Sanders and then Trump (side note, why doesn't Clinton/MSM collusion against Trump balance with the Trump/Russian collusion for Trump?) How about the collusion between Wall Street and the DNC to such an extent that Citi Group was exposed as having picked Obama's cabinet. And then let's remember that the Trump collusion with Kremlin has alot of guilt by association through 6 degrees of separation and the Clinton/DNC/MSM/Wall Street collusion was proven in black and white through the publication of Clinton/DNC/Podesta emails in Wikileaks.

That this point gets ignored by the MSM, is proof to me that they have lost all objectivity.

andy--s , May 23, 2018 at 12:16 am

MOre so.. Homer If Clintons personal server was a nothing burger not worthy of a single indictment, then why was it a national security issue when some stranger offered the emails to Papadopoulos? They didnt bother investigating the stranger. they investigated Papadopoulos!

Nobody will touch that with a ten foot poll in the main stream media.

[May 24, 2018] Let us consider the Trump Tower meeting with the Russian delegation. As Steve Bannon stated, meeting with the Russians at a venue under Secret Service control was monumentally stupid. The Russians intelligence can't have been that dumb.

May 24, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

Vivian O'Blivion , May 19, 2018 at 8:09 am

strngr
You cite quite a number of examples, presumably without detailed knowledge of few, if any. I will not fall into the same trap.

The Brexit vote was an outbreak of mass hysteria amongst English and Welsh working class voters. The sentiment that powered the grass roots "rebellion" against the perceived wisdom of the ruling elite was understandable frustration at social and economic neglect. My guess is that in this regard it was a mirror of the rise of Trumpism. Interestingly Scotland voted to remain in the EU by a substantially stronger margin than England voted to leave, because there was already established a vivid, informed, grass roots political discourse mainly based on Scottish social media. The Brexit outcome was influenced by some pretty underhand digital media manipulation, but those doing the manipulation were domestic and hard right wing, not Russian. The Guardian cannot be considered a source of untainted information, it is increasingly Atlantasist and Zionist.

The Scottish independence vote in 2014 was heavily influenced by digital media but it was entirely indigenous and grass roots. There was no credible claim of Russian interference then or since. The Daily Express is a far right rag owned at the time of the article you cite by a pornographer, and deeply unpleasant Zionist.

Over to a more general discussion.

Is there on any level a Russian state programme using a digital platform to influence politics and social cohesion in other states? Frankly I would be astonished if there wasn't.

The UK has had the British Council working out of its embassies since the beginning of time.

The American State Department has been creating and financing Atlantasist think tanks and associations for decades to skew British politics to meet American ends.

I doubt there is a country on the planet that has not felt the malign influence of the State Department or CIA.

In the circumstances, Russia would be entirely justified in operating troll factories and similar vehicles.

Next, what would the objectives of a Russian cyber operation be in the run up to the American Presidential election? All academic evaluation of content believed to originate in Russia and to be presented as domestic American input, suggests that the goal of the intervention was to sew discord and chaos in society. That is to say that the Kremlin did not have a favoured candidate.

How effective would the efforts of the St Petersburg troll factory be in exasperating social divisions? My guess is that it would have been analogous with taking a hair dryer outside in a category 5 hurricane.

Let us consider the Trump Tower meeting with the Russian delegation. As Steve Bannon stated, meeting with the Russians at a venue under Secret Service control was monumentally stupid. Monumentally stupid is entirely believable of Donald Jr., Jared Kushner and possibly Manafort, but the Russians can't have been that dumb. By meeting at a venue where their names would be openly logged by the State, they would be sabotaging any serious attempt to "get their man into the White House", if that was their true goal. Taking this into account, the object of the meeting from a Russian perspective can only have been to generate chaos. Seventeen months on in the new administration and if I were them I would be awarding myself an A+.

Try this though experiment and subdue your moral indignation at Russian interference for a minute. In the circumstances is Russia entitled to do that which it you accuse it of? I will not offer an answer to the question I pose, I am genuinely asking that you try and project to see an alternative perspective.

[May 18, 2018] WSJ Asks Was Trump s Campaign Set Up

Notable quotes:
"... Back in Dec., NYT assured us it was the Papadopoulos-Downer convo that inspired FBI to launch official counterintelligence operation on July 31, 2016. Which was convenient, since it diminished the role of the dossier. However . . . ..."
"... Now NYT tells us FBI didn't debrief Downer until August 2nd. And Nunes says no "official intelligence" from allies was delivered to FBI about that convo prior to July 31. So how did FBI get Downer details? (Political actors?) And what really did inspire the CI investigation? ..."
"... House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes appeared on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday, where he provided a potentially explosive hint at what's driving his demand to see documents related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Trump-Russia probe. "If the campaign was somehow set up," he told the hosts, "I think that would be a problem." ..."
"... government "officials" acknowledged that the bureau had used "at least one" human "informant" to spy on both Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. ..."
"... Think of the 2016 Trump-Russia narrative as two parallel strands -- one politics, one law enforcement. The political side involves the actions of Fusion GPS, the Hillary Clinton campaign and Obama officials -- all of whom were focused on destroying Donald Trump. The law-enforcement strand involves the FBI -- and what methods and evidence it used in its Trump investigation. At some point these strands intersected -- and one crucial question is how early that happened. ..."
"... Which brings us to timing. It's long been known that Mr. Steele went to the FBI in early July to talk about the dossier, and that's the first known intersection of the strands. But given the oddity and timing of those U.K. interactions concerning Messrs. Page and Papadopoulos, and given the history of some of the people involved in arranging them, some wonder if the two strands were converging earlier than anyone has admitted. The Intelligence Committee subpoena is designed to sort all this out: Who was pulling the strings, and what was the goal? Information? Or entrapment? ..."
"... Whatever the answer-whether it is straightforward, or whether it involves political chicanery-Congress and the public have a right to know. And a Justice Department willing to leak details of its "top secret" source to friendly media can have no excuse for not sharing with the duly elected members of Congress. ..."
"... Thanks for stopping by, Bob. Before you ask me your questions I need you to answer a few of mine: ..."
"... You have had a full year to investigate the allegations that my campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in our election. Has anyone obstructed you from doing this job to the best of your ability? If so, who have you notified of this and what corrective action have you taken or requested be taken? ..."
"... Have you found any evidence that I personally committed any crime involving collusion with the Russians to interfere with the election? ..."
"... Have you found any evidence that any member of my campaign committed any crime involving collusion with the Russians to interfere with the election? ..."
May 18, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

The Wall Street Journal continues to counter the liberal mainstream media's anti-Trump-ness with Kimberly Strassel leading the charge , dropping uncomfortable truth-bombs in a forum that is hard for the establishment to shrug off as 'Alt-Right' or 'Nazi' or be 'punished' by search- and social-media-giants.

Earlier in the week, with Trump now calling out the debacle as "possible bigger than Watergate," Strassel tweet-stormed some key points that everyone - leftist and right - should consider ... (that's wishful thinking)...

1. So a few important points on that new NYT "Hurricane Crossfire" piece. A story that, BTW, all of us following this knew had to be coming. This is DOJ/FBI leakers' attempt to get in front of the facts Nunes is forcing out, to make it not sound so bad. Don't buy it. It's bad.

2. Biggest takeaway: Govt "sources" admit that, indeed, the Obama DOJ and FBI spied on the Trump campaign. Spied . (Tho NYT kindly calls spy an "informant.") NYT slips in confirmation far down in story, and makes it out like it isn't a big deal. It is a very big deal.

3. In self-serving desire to get a sympathetic story about its actions, DOJ/FBI leakers are willing to provide yet more details about that "top secret" source (namely, that spying was aimed at Page/Papadopoulos) -- making all more likely/certain source will be outed. That's on them

4. DOJ/FBI (and its leakers) have shredded what little credibility they have in claiming they cannot comply with subpoena . They are willing to provide details to friendly media, but not Congress? Willing to risk very source they claim to need to protect?

5. Back in Dec., NYT assured us it was the Papadopoulos-Downer convo that inspired FBI to launch official counterintelligence operation on July 31, 2016. Which was convenient, since it diminished the role of the dossier. However . . .

6. Now NYT tells us FBI didn't debrief Downer until August 2nd. And Nunes says no "official intelligence" from allies was delivered to FBI about that convo prior to July 31. So how did FBI get Downer details? (Political actors?) And what really did inspire the CI investigation?

7. As for whether to believe line that FBI operated soberly/carefully/judiciously in 2016, a main source for this judgment is, um . . .uh . . . Sally Yates. Who was in middle of it all. A bit like asking Putin to reassure that Russia didn't meddle in our election.

8. On that, if u r wondering who narrated this story, note paragraphs that assure everybody that hardly anybody in DOJ knew about probe. Oh, and Comey also was given few details. Nobody knew nothin'! (Cuz when u require whole story saying u behaved, it means u know you didn't.)

And now Strassel is asking "Was Trump's Campaign 'Set Up'?" At some point, the Russia investigation became political. How early was it?

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes appeared on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday, where he provided a potentially explosive hint at what's driving his demand to see documents related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Trump-Russia probe. "If the campaign was somehow set up," he told the hosts, "I think that would be a problem."

Or an understatement. Mr. Nunes is still getting stiff-armed by the Justice Department over his subpoena, but this week his efforts did force the stunning admission that the FBI had indeed spied on the Trump campaign. This came in the form of a Thursday New York Times apologia in which government "officials" acknowledged that the bureau had used "at least one" human "informant" to spy on both Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. The Times slipped this mind-bending fact into the middle of an otherwise glowing profile of the noble bureau -- and dismissed it as no big deal.

But there's more to be revealed here, and Mr. Nunes's "set up" comment points in a certain direction. Getting to the conclusion requires thinking more broadly about events beyond the FBI's actions.

Think of the 2016 Trump-Russia narrative as two parallel strands -- one politics, one law enforcement. The political side involves the actions of Fusion GPS, the Hillary Clinton campaign and Obama officials -- all of whom were focused on destroying Donald Trump. The law-enforcement strand involves the FBI -- and what methods and evidence it used in its Trump investigation. At some point these strands intersected -- and one crucial question is how early that happened.

What may well have kicked off both, however, is a key if overlooked moment detailed in the House Intelligence Committee's recent Russia report .

In "late spring" of 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey briefed White House "National Security Council Principals" that the FBI had counterintelligence concerns about the Trump campaign. Carter Page was announced as a campaign adviser on March 21, and Paul Manafort joined the campaign March 29. The briefing likely referenced both men, since both had previously been on the radar of law enforcement. But here's what matters: With this briefing, Mr. Comey officially notified senior political operators on Team Obama that the bureau had eyes on Donald Trump and Russia. Imagine what might be done in these partisan times with such explosive information.

And what do you know? Sometime in April, the law firm Perkins Coie (on behalf the Clinton campaign) hired Fusion GPS, and Fusion turned its attention to Trump-Russia connections. The job of any good swamp operator is to gin up a fatal October surprise for the opposition candidate. And what could be more devastating than to paint a picture of Trump-Russia collusion that would provoke a full-fledged FBI investigation?

We already know of at least one way Fusion went about that project, with wild success. It hired former British spy Christopher Steele to compile that infamous dossier. In July, Mr. Steele wrote a memo that leveled spectacular conspiracy theories against two particular Trump campaign members -- Messrs. Manafort and Page. For an FBI that already had suspicions about the duo, those allegations might prove huge -- right? That is, if the FBI were to ever see them. Though, lucky for Mrs. Clinton, July is when the Fusion team decided it was a matter of urgent national security for Mr. Steele to play off his credentials and to take this political opposition research to the FBI.

The question Mr. Nunes's committee seems to be investigating is what other moments -- if any -- were engineered in the spring, summer or fall of 2016 to cast suspicion on Team Trump. The conservative press has produced some intriguing stories about a handful of odd invitations and meetings that were arranged for Messrs. Page and Papadopoulos starting in the spring -- all emanating from the United Kingdom. On one hand, that country is home to the well-connected Mr. Steele, which could mean the political actors with whom he was working were involved. On the other hand, the Justice Department has admitted it was spying on both men, which could mean government was involved. Or maybe . . . both.

Which brings us to timing. It's long been known that Mr. Steele went to the FBI in early July to talk about the dossier, and that's the first known intersection of the strands. But given the oddity and timing of those U.K. interactions concerning Messrs. Page and Papadopoulos, and given the history of some of the people involved in arranging them, some wonder if the two strands were converging earlier than anyone has admitted. The Intelligence Committee subpoena is designed to sort all this out: Who was pulling the strings, and what was the goal? Information? Or entrapment?

Whatever the answer-whether it is straightforward, or whether it involves political chicanery-Congress and the public have a right to know. And a Justice Department willing to leak details of its "top secret" source to friendly media can have no excuse for not sharing with the duly elected members of Congress.

bowie28 -> One of We Permalink

Thanks for stopping by, Bob. Before you ask me your questions I need you to answer a few of mine:

You have had a full year to investigate the allegations that my campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in our election. Has anyone obstructed you from doing this job to the best of your ability? If so, who have you notified of this and what corrective action have you taken or requested be taken?

Have you found any evidence that I personally committed any crime involving collusion with the Russians to interfere with the election?

Have you found any evidence that any member of my campaign committed any crime involving collusion with the Russians to interfere with the election?

Assuming the answers to all 3 are "No" (which they likely are or such evidence would have already leaked to CNN via Clapper) or if he refuses to answer, inform Muller the meeting and his investigation are over. He is will be escorted to his office to turn over all records gathered in the investigation to the appropriate DOJ officials, debrief them on his findings and then is fired and all security clearances revoked.

Let the MSM and Dems bitch and cry all they want. You had a year to find evidence for your phony allegations with your top investigator on the job, access to millions of documents and millions of taxpayer dollars. You failed because there was no crime committed. Time to move on.

Of course this is assuming the Mueller investigation is actually what it is purported to be which I have serious doubts about. I think it's more likely Mueller cut an immunity deal for himself when he met with Trump the day before being appointed as SC and this whole thing was nothing but a charade to keep Trump's enemies believing Mueller is their guy. This way they put all their attention and energy into this investigation only to have it blow up in their faces just before the midterms when Trump is fully vindicated by the guy all his enemies said was above reproach. If that happens watch how fast they all turn on Mueller and every MSM outlet starts running hit pieces on him the next morning.

The First Rule -> bowie28 Permalink

And no real justice is going to come until Trump cleans house at our corrupt and out of control DOJ; starting with Sessions and Rosenstein.

beemasters Richard Chesler

Has anyone seen or heard from Comey lately? May want to keep an eye out for him dangling from some branches somewhere...

Baron von Bud

Mollie Hemingway's piece on a similar vein in The Federalist. Cunts leak like a sieve to their collusional media scum, but woe-betied Congress getting access. Fuckers should be hanging from lamposts.

[May 16, 2018] 'No focus on Russian activities' - Donald Jr. on Trump Tower meeting in interview transcripts -- RT US News

Notable quotes:
"... "hear them out." ..."
"... "no focus on Russian activities" ..."
"... "the most embarrassing thing you've ever asked me to do" ..."
"... "complete loss of time" ..."
"... "answered every question asked" ..."
"... "I appreciate the opportunity to have assisted the Judiciary Committee in its inquiry," ..."
"... "The public can now see that for over five hours I answered every question asked and was candid and forthright with the Committee." ..."
May 16, 2018 | www.rt.com

The 2016 Trump Tower meeting set up to reveal dirt on Hillary Clinton "infuriated" Jared Kushner, was a "waste of time" and had nothing to do with Clinton, according to transcripts of interviews with the meeting's participants. The US Senate Judiciary Committee has released more than 1,800 pages of transcripts, which provide new insight into the controversial meeting during which Donald Trump Jr, along with Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and then campaign chairman Paul Manafort, was expecting to receive "dirt" on Hillary Clinton from Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.

Overall, the newly-released documents seem to indicate that a short 20-minute meeting resulted in hours of interviews and thousands of pages of documents for little reason.

In the transcripts, Trump Jr. said that he was skeptical that Rob Goldstone, the publicist who had been the first to contact him about a meeting, had colleagues who possessed incriminating information about Clinton, but said felt he should at least "hear them out." Read more © RT 'Wasting taxpayers' money': Lawyer Veselnitskaya talks Trump's dossier & Fusion GPS

He also said that it was important to note that when he accepted the invitation to go to the meeting there was "no focus on Russian activities" surrounding the campaign and claimed that Goldstone had not even confirmed the names of the attendees who would join them at the meeting.

Goldstone had set up the meeting on behalf of Russian musical artist Emin Agaralov, the son of a wealthy Russian businessman, but revealed in his interview that he later told Agaralov that the meeting was "the most embarrassing thing you've ever asked me to do" given that it ended up having nothing to do with Clinton. Goldstone also revealed that Veselnitskaya's apparently Clinton-free presentation in the meeting had "infuriated" Kushner.

In another indication that the meeting was not supposed to be a top-secret attempt for the Trump campaign to collude with Russia, Goldstone also revealed that he "checked in" to Trump Tower on Facebook when he arrived.

In a supplemental interview, Goldstone also told investigators that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not able to meet Trump during the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, but invited him through a phone call with his spokesman Dmitry Peskov, organized by Agaralov, to attend the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi instead. According to Goldstone, Peskov said Putin would be happy to meet him there -- but that meeting did not end up happening.

Anatoli Samochornov, a Russian translator who attended the meeting, said that no one present had said the Russian government either supported Trump or opposed Clinton for president. He also said there were no offers from the Russian side to release hacked emails, hack voting totals or anything else.

The other translator present, Ike Kaveladze, said he spoke to Agaralov about two hours after the meeting and told him it was a "complete loss of time" and a "useless" meeting.

The committee released the thousands of pages of transcripts along with hundreds of additional pages of related material, including the interviews with Goldstone, Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin and translators Samochornov and Kaveladze.

Read more A woman passes by the Al Jazeera America broadcast center in New York City, January 13, 2016 © Brendan McDermid 'Weapon of mass suppression': Russiagate now used to target any dissent in US – Max Blumenthal

The meeting has been the subject of controversy, particularly the question of whether then-candidate Trump knew about it. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has looked closely at the meeting as part of his investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election, which has not yet turned up any evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia.

Following the publication of the documents, Trump Jr. said they showed that he "answered every question asked" by the committee.

"I appreciate the opportunity to have assisted the Judiciary Committee in its inquiry," he said in a statement. "The public can now see that for over five hours I answered every question asked and was candid and forthright with the Committee."

Those who were present at the meeting said Veselnitskaya did not provide any 'dirt' on Clinton and instead focused on discussing the overturning of US sanctions placed on Russia under the Magnitsky Act. Those sanctions, which impose US entry bans and asset freezes on Russians alleged to have been involved in human rights abuses, are still in place and have since been expanded , most recently in December 2017 when five more Russian nationals were added to the Magnitsky List. 'No focus on Russian activities' - Donald Jr. on Trump Tower meeting in interview transcripts Democrats & Russians 'laughing' at 'witch hunt' collusion probe – Trump 'No focus on Russian activities' - Donald Jr. on Trump Tower meeting in interview transcripts 'Story of my meeting with Trump Jr. has been manipulated' - Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya

[May 16, 2018] Documents Show Promise, and Letdown, Around Trump Tower Meeting

Note how NYT try to hide the fact that the meeting was most probably yet another a false flag operation (along with Steele dossier) to implicate Russia staged with the help of a person connected to British intelligence service, Mr. Goldstone, a British music promoter. That in an interesting fact in additional to CIA mode within Trump campaign.
Notable quotes:
"... The intermediary, Rob Goldstone, told the committee that he proposed a second meeting between the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and members of Mr. Trump's team in November 2016. He said he contacted Mr. Trump's longtime executive assistant at the behest of Aras Agalarov, a Russia-based billionaire who knows Mr. Putin. ..."
May 16, 2018 | www.nytimes.com

Most of the participants in the meeting have already publicly described their version of events. Nonetheless, the records reveal some new details about the players involved and what happened after the meeting was reported by The New York Times last summer.

Among them: Six months after the Trump Tower meeting , an intermediary contacted Donald J. Trump's office asking for a follow-up, the newly released documents showed.

The intermediary, Rob Goldstone, told the committee that he proposed a second meeting between the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and members of Mr. Trump's team in November 2016. He said he contacted Mr. Trump's longtime executive assistant at the behest of Aras Agalarov, a Russia-based billionaire who knows Mr. Putin.

The second session never took place. But the invitation shows the determination of Russians with close Kremlin connections to convince the Trump team that the Magnitsky Act, which imposed sanctions on a host of Russian officials for human rights abuses, was a mistake. The 2012 law, which froze the bank accounts of some Russian officials and barred them from entering the United States, infuriated Mr. Putin.

In a late November 2016 email to Mr. Trump's assistant, Mr. Goldstone, a British music promoter, attached a three-page document marked "confidential" that called for "the launch of a congressional investigation into the circumstances of passing the Magnitsky Act." He wrote that Mr. Agalarov hoped the document would be delivered to "the appropriate team." Ms. Veselnitskaya also attacked the law in the June meeting.

The transcripts also highlight how lawyers for the Trump Organization tried to manage the fallout by coordinating the statements of Mr. Goldstone and others.

In testimony, Donald Trump Jr. acknowledged that his father may have helped draft the statement that he put out to the press after the meeting became public, but he said that they had not discussed the meeting when it happened.

[May 04, 2018] Mueller's team questioned Russian billionaire who attended Trump inauguration report TheHill

Any witch hunt has its own dynamics.
May 04, 2018 | thehill.com
Robert Mueller s team of investigators interviewed a Russian billionaire earlier this year, according to a New York Times report .

Investigators stopped the Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg at a New York-area airport after he stepped off a private plane, according to the Times. They proceeded to search his electronic devices and question him.

There is no indication that Vekselberg is suspected of wrongdoing. But the search and interview suggests that Mueller's team is homing in on the Trump campaign and inauguration committee's potential ties with Russians.

[Feb 22, 2018] Russiagate-Trump Gets Solved by Giant of American Investigative Journalism

Feb 22, 2018 | theduran.com

in Analysis , Latest Russiagate-Trump Gets Solved by Giant of American Investigative Journalism Some people's greed, apparently, knows no limits -- not even when it could produce a world-ending nuclear war.

by Eric Zuesse February 22, 2018, 07:51 1.9k Views

[Feb 11, 2018] A very strange story of Page surveellance extentions by Scott Ritter

Notable quotes:
"... The bottom line is that the memo exposed the ugly truth that, at least in the case of Page, the FBI and DOJ, on multiple occasions, deliberately lied to or otherwise misled the FISA court in an effort to violate Page's Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure, or that the FISA court is, in fact, little more than a rubber-stamp entity incapable of adequate oversight of the enormous responsibilities it has been entrusted with---or both. ..."
"... WSJ confirms Carter Page was cooperating with FBI before he entered campaign ..."
"... 'What's notable here that seems to have evaded previous notice is that instead of being a Russian agent of influence, Page at the time he spang briefly into a prominent role within the Trump campaign in early 2016, was already an FBI informant, something the Russians would obviously know. This becomes even more crucial later that summer after Page returned from a business trip to Moscow when he was repeatedly named in the James Steele "dirty dossier" as a close confident of Russian energy officials and bankers. Page actually appears to have all the hallmarks of an FBI informant, or an agent provocateur, who was planted into the Trump campaign as part of an intelligence operation. Only, it seems apparent, the intelligence service he was actually serving was American rather than Russian. ..."
Feb 11, 2018 | www.truthdig.com

This presupposes that the FISA renewal left unchanged the information linked to Steele that underpinned its initial application. By January 2018, however, the FBI had terminated its relationship with Steele based on the deceit of the former British intelligence officer. As such, all Steele's reporting should have been recalled as unreliable, as well as any corroborating information that could be linked to Steele in any way (such as the Isikoff article, the Papadopoulos investigation and the CIA's information as briefed to Sen. Reid). Any sworn affidavit and application used in support of a FISA renewal that sustained the Steele reporting would have been misleading at best, and most probably false, making anyone whose signature appears in any certifying capacity open to charges of making a false statement---including both Comey and Yates.

The next application for renewal occurred in April 2017. This one would have been signed off by Comey and then-acting Attorney General Dana Boente, who took over from Yates after she was fired by Trump in January 2017---shortly after she signed off on Page's FISA warrant renewal application.

What is interesting about the April 2017 application is that the level of public scrutiny of the Steele dossier engendered by BuzzFeed's publication of it in January 2017 would seem to have at least raised the issue of Steele's credibility as a source, something that should have been reflected in the FISA renewal application.

Moreover, by the time of the renewal application, Page had met with the FBI over the course of 10 hours in March 2017, when he was questioned in depth about his interactions with Russia. Following past practice, the FBI agents conducting the interview would have relied upon FISA material to try and catch Page in a "perjury trap," where it could be proved that he made a false statement to a federal agent. No such charges have been filed, strongly suggesting that Page was honest and forthright with the FBI. To what extent, if any, the Steele dossier factored in the April 2017 application for renewal, and whether the FBI informed the FISA court about the 10 hours of questioning it conducted with Page, is not known. Nor is the context, if any, the FBI provided to any intercepted communications that would raise them to the level needed to sustain a renewal of a FISA warrant.

The final FISA renewal application was submitted and approved in July 2017. This one was signed off by McCabe and acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. By this time, the media had run with numerous stories about Page being the subject of a FISA warrant, and Page himself had appealed to both Rosenstein and Mueller to make public the application used to grant his FISA warrant. Page was unemployed, his professional life ruined by the public revelations about allegations that he had colluded with the Russians and was under active FBI investigation, the totality of which could be linked back to the information Steele provided the FBI.

And yet somehow, in the face of overwhelming evidence of Page's innocence, the FISA court saw fit to grant yet another renewal of its warrant.

... ... ...

The bottom line is that the memo exposed the ugly truth that, at least in the case of Page, the FBI and DOJ, on multiple occasions, deliberately lied to or otherwise misled the FISA court in an effort to violate Page's Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure, or that the FISA court is, in fact, little more than a rubber-stamp entity incapable of adequate oversight of the enormous responsibilities it has been entrusted with---or both.

Scott Ritter spent more than a dozen years in the intelligence field, beginning in 1985 as a ground intelligence officer with the US Marine Corps, where he served with the Marine Corps component of the Rapid Deployment Force at the Brigade and Battalion level. In 1987 Ritter was hand-picked to serve with the On Site Inspection Agency, where he was responsible for carrying out the provisions of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, signed by American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Chairman Mikhail Gorbachev. Ritter served as a Deputy Site Commander of a specialized inspection team stationed outside a Soviet missile factory. For his work, Ritter received two classified commendations from the CIA. After Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, Ritter was assigned to a special planning cell that reported directly to the Commandant of the Marine Corps, where he helped plan the employment of Marine Corps combat forces in response to Iraq's actions. He was later deployed to Saudi Arabia, where he served on the intelligence staff of General Norman Schwartzkopf .


truthynesslover , February 9, 2018 1:29 PM

It gets better.......Carter Page was an FBI informant.

WSJ confirms Carter Page was cooperating with FBI before he entered campaign

'What's notable here that seems to have evaded previous notice is that instead of being a Russian agent of influence, Page at the time he spang briefly into a prominent role within the Trump campaign in early 2016, was already an FBI informant, something the Russians would obviously know. This becomes even more crucial later that summer after Page returned from a business trip to Moscow when he was repeatedly named in the James Steele "dirty dossier" as a close confident of Russian energy officials and bankers. Page actually appears to have all the hallmarks of an FBI informant, or an agent provocateur, who was planted into the Trump campaign as part of an intelligence operation. Only, it seems apparent, the intelligence service he was actually serving was American rather than Russian.

That is significant for another very important reason – according to the Washington Post, the FBI obtained a FISA warrant last summer to spy on the Trump campaign under the pretext that Page was alleged to be a Russian agent.

https://www.washingtonpost.... ...

coronaoutgloria2 , February 8, 2018 9:09 PM

First!! the agony of those democrats (union rights, civil liberties, protection of the poor etc.) is understood in the light that there is no democratic party. where have you been?? the clintons and all their charm have wrecked it. bernie sanders is nothing but 'clinton lite'. look at the record and enlighten yourself. if hellary were elected in 2016 we would be in trouble more so than trump. fascism is crawling beneath the feet of both these miscreants but hellary had the mechanism of the deep state. they failed to elect her. forget about the rules and know that, now, trump is the deep state's favorite boy (look his people). trump has failed to gain the media's favoritism but that will change. given what the FBI has done (if there is no punitive action) we will have slipped another gear into grinding fascism. we are reaching an overt state. Scott Ritter did well writing about the bungling of the FBI but that is not new. Some people are welcomed to lie to agents some are not.
But most of all do not forget what Scott Ritter did in the investigation of WMD prior to Bush (deep state) and the Iraq war. Nobody listened because they did not know how.

Kronosaurus , February 7, 2018 3:14 PM

If Ritter has the correct analysis then we are all royally screwed. The Dems will be burned for a generation, Trump will be vindicated and we will all have to drag our sorry butts to Trumps military parade and lick his shoes. I am so depressed after reading this. I hope Ritter is wrong and overlooking that he may not have all the facts himself. I find it hard to believe the FISA courts would renew three times when public skepticism was in the air. That would be a major scandal. The problem is that the GOP won't get religion and start distrusting the police state they helped create. They will ignore the fact that they just passed legislation bolstering the FISA courts and go back to locking up the plebes and shielding their big money benefactors.

What's funny about this is that this piece is way more solid then the "memo". That alone makes you wonder. I'm not sure what it means. I await the counter memo with much interest.

mulga mumblebrain Kronosaurus , February 8, 2018 12:51 AM

The Nunes memo is just a precis of good deal of information, and even that is but a part of the evidence of the Demonazi, and elements of the FBI and Justice Department, conspiracy to stop Trump. If Trump is capo di tutti capi in Thanatopolis DC, it is Clinton and her incompetent fellow conspirators' fault.

truthynesslover Kronosaurus , February 7, 2018 5:24 PM

The dems deserve to be burned to the ground........next stop republicans

truthynesslover Kronosaurus , February 8, 2018 1:59 PM

Trump ran against the GOP and neo-cons like Bush.

Democrats are now the Neo-con party and far more dangerous.

Neo -cons wanted Hillary and its why they are going after Trump.Trump was never supposed to win.Trump was a anti-gop candidate.So republicans are the anti -war party now.

Ironinc no?

How Donald Trump blasted George W. Bush in S.C. -- and won ...

▶ 2:03

https://www.cnn.com/2016/02...

Feb 21, 2016At a CNN town hall in Columbia on Thursday, Trump stopped short of repeating the claim that George W. Bush ...

Breaking taboos: Donald Trump and Bush's WMD 'lie'

| USA | Al Jazeera

▶ 8:50

www.aljazeera.com/.../break... ...

Feb 22, 2016In the Republican debate in South Carolina last weekend, presidential candidate Donald Trump declared live ...

Donald Trump in 2007: Bush's War Was Based On Lies, Iraq Will ...

https://www.realclearpoliti... ...

Sep 11, 2015In 2007 in an interview with Wolf Blitzer, Donald Trump spoke about the Bush administration and the Iraq War ...

RoloTomassi truthynesslover , February 8, 2018 8:48 AM

These people--and all these folks in law enforcement and corporate hierarchies and the list goes on and on--they LIE. They manipulate. Newsflash, that is human nature, despite all of the bogus, idealistic posturing made in these comments and in the world at large.

But my point is that these same people play by a set of rules that they defined for themselves, and now the conservative faction wants special treatment for their buffoon Trump. They need to suck it up and take their medicine. Trump is a vile, unintelligent cretin and a criminal, and I really don't care if the means by which they remove him doesn't rise to the level of your or others supposed BS-idealism.

The U.S. government is an unethical $hit show driven by the most heinous form of capitalism ever imagined, so what the hell do you expect? Do try to get in touch with reality and put down your tome of rightwing talking points.

truthynesslover RoloTomassi , February 8, 2018 2:05 PM

LOL!!

Im a left Sanders voter.Trump is literally doing what you say you want and your too bias to notice.

Newsflash........Trump is bringing to the forefront just how corrupted our system is.The $shitshow has just started........even MSNBC cant ignore the treason of the FBI and DOJ any more.

And did you miss Trump tweet about the wallstreet crash?

Didnt he call out the fact wallstreet bets against the US economy?

Trump tweeted Wednesday:

"In the 'old days,' when good news was reported, the Stock Market
would go up. Today, when good news is reported, the Stock Market goes down. Big mistake, and we have so much good (great) news about the economy!"

Didnt Trump just make an important criticism of capitalism?.....I think he did.Sorry you missed it.

truthynesslover Calvinius , February 7, 2018 7:55 PM

The entire corporate media is coming down with the Russia ruse....

from James Petras:

The Logic behind Mass Spying: Empire and Cyber Imperialism
https://petras.lahaine.org/...

The Deeper Meaning of Mass Spying in America
http://petras.lahaine.org/?...

The Two Faces of a Police State: Sheltering Tax Evaders, Financial Swindlers and Money Launderers while Policing the Citizens
http://petras.lahaine.org/?...

The Rise of the Police State and the Absence of Mass Opposition
http://petras.lahaine.org/?...

The Great Transformation: From the Welfare State to the Imperial Police State
http://petras.lahaine.org/?...

[Feb 05, 2018] CONFIRMED Mueller admits no collusion at Trump Tower meeting

Feb 05, 2018 | theduran.com

As is now becoming the way as the Russiagate scandal unravels, confirmation of the collapse of one of its central pillars – the claim of proof of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign which some have claimed to see in the meeting in Trump Tower in June 2016 between the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and Donald Trump Junior – has slipped out in the most covert way possible.

Nonetheless the confirmation is there and originates in what all the indications suggest is a deliberate leak either from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team or from the White House's legal team.

The confirmation is provided in an NBC News article which reads as follows

Two sources familiar with the questions Mueller's team have been asking about the meeting say the investigators are most interested in why the president crafted a misleading statement about the meeting much later, in July 2017, after a New York Times report about it. The sources say Mueller's office is trying to confirm every detail it can about the meeting.

Mueller's team is less interested in the meeting as a direct example of collusion, the sources said, although Trump Jr. accepted the meeting after being told he would receive incriminating information about Hillary Clinton as part of the Russian government effort to help his father.

No evidence has emerged publicly to contradict Veselnitskaya's account that she wanted to press a case about U.S. Magnitsky Act sanctions, and that she did not possess significant derogatory information about Clinton, despite the email from a music promoter to Trump Jr. promising incriminating details about the Democrat.

Moreover, no evidence has emerged publicly that connects the Russians in the meeting with the Russian intelligence effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

The issue of Donald Trump's supposedly misleading statement about the meeting is a red herring since it can have no possible connection to the collusion allegations which Mueller's inquiry is supposed to be investigating.

Even assuming that Trump's statement was misleading – which some might question – it would hardly be the first case of a US President making a misleading statement, and it is impossible to see how it can possibly give rise to a law enforcement issue for Mueller to investigate.

Of much more importance is the confirmation that Mueller's team now acknowledge that there is no evidence to connect Veselnitskaya to Russian intelligence and that her and Donald Trump Junior's accounts of their meeting must be accepted as true since there is no evidence to contradict them.

In truth this was obvious from the start as I pointed out in an article I wrote on 12th July 2017, written immediately after details of the meeting came to light

The meeting with Veselnitskaya duly took place on 9th June 2016. It turned out that she had no information about Hillary Clinton to offer and was not a "Russian government attorney". Instead she wanted to discuss the Magnitsky Act, upon which a baffled Donald Trump Junior politely showed her the door.

That is the unanimous account of all the participants of the meeting including Donald Trump Junior and Veselnitskaya herself. All agree that the meeting lasted no more than 20 minutes.

There is no evidence that contradicts their account and the absence of any follow-up to the meeting essentially corroborates their account.

It seems that Donald Trump Junior and Veselnitskaya have never met since and have had no further contact with each other.

There is no evidence here of any crime or wrongdoing being committed or – contrary to what many are saying – of any intention to commit one.

Russiagate would not however be Russiagate if this important news that Mueller and his team have come to the same conclusion was not smuggled out in an NBC News article whose title gives the impression that it is about the totally meaningless fact that Veselnitskaya after leaving the meeting with Donald Trump Junior had a brief encounter in the lift of Trump Tower with a blonde woman who might – or might not – have been Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka.

To such ridiculous lengths to conceal embarrassing truths about Russiagate is the media in the US increasingly reduced to.

Though the Veselnitskaya-Trump Junior meeting is now being finally acknowledged to be the red herring it always was, there is one further point about it to make.

In my 12th July 2017 article I speculated that the meeting might have been a sting intended to corroborate the collusion allegations between the Trump campaign and Russia which were to achieve written form in the first 20th June 2016 entry of the Trump Dossier, written a few weeks after the Veselnitskaya-Trump Junior took place.

What led others subsequently to speculate along the same lines was that there appeared to be a connection between Veselnitskaya and Fusion GPS, the political consultancy firm which commissioned the Trump Dossier on behalf of the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Glenn Simpson's testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee should put all this speculation to rest.

It turns out that Veselnitskaya was not working for Fusion GPS but rather Fusion GPS was working for her, in connection with her work on the Magnitsky case.

That in itself makes it inherently unlikely that she was acting as a catspaw for Fusion GPS when she met Donald Trump Junior.

More to the point, Glenn Simpson's comments about Veselnitskaya are anything but complimentary. He basically describes her – rather convincingly – as a self-important busybody and a minor league player, and expresses incredulity at the suggestion that she was a Russian intelligence agent who was working for the Kremlin.

Simpson's characterisation of Veselnitskaya in testimony in which he strongly promotes the Russiagate collusion allegations and vouches for the truth of the Trump Dossier makes it all but inconceivable Veselnitskaya was involved in a sting to set Trump Junior up.

Despite taking place at a time when the Trump-Russia collusion allegations were about to take off, Veselnitskaya's meeting with Trump Junior must instead be seen as one of those annoying coincidences which lawyers, journalists, policemen and the public automatically distrust, but which happen in real life.

[Jan 22, 2018] Gowdy Steve Bannon's Testimony Presented Personal 'Credibility Issue'

Notable quotes:
"... House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said that after lengthy closed-door testimony by two former top Trump aides, he found that one of the men appears to have a "credibility" problem. ..."
"... But, he said that Bannon's testimony was more eventful. Gowdy said that at one point, Bannon attempted to dodge questions by exercising a privilege that does not exist. "That was his slip-up," Gowdy said. "He got this notion that 'hey, I'm going to create a privilege that no one's ever heard of before that doesn't exist in the law." Gowdy said the only "dangerous" issue for President Donald Trump is if "credible evidence" is presented. ..."
"... He said Bannon's credibility has taken a hit, since he once said there was no chance the Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. did not meet Trump Sr. ..."
"... But, after he was fired, Bannon reportedly told author Michael Wolff that there was no chance the meeting hadn't occurred. ..."
"... "This is the same witness that said that members of the president's family committed acts of treason. So, he's got a credibility issue," Gowdy said. "If they're hinging the entire case on Steve Bannon's credibility, good luck to the prosecution." ..."
Jan 17, 2018 | Fox News Insider

As seen on The Story with Martha MacCallum

House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said that after lengthy closed-door testimony by two former top Trump aides, he found that one of the men appears to have a "credibility" problem.

Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and former White House adviser Steve Bannon spent several hours testifying before Gowdy's committee Tuesday.

Gowdy said Lewandowski wanted to answer every question posed to him, but that his lawyers advised him against answering those regarding his work after he left the campaign. "That [onus is] on the lawyer, not the witness. Corey is going to come back and answer every question anyone has," Gowdy said.

But, he said that Bannon's testimony was more eventful. Gowdy said that at one point, Bannon attempted to dodge questions by exercising a privilege that does not exist. "That was his slip-up," Gowdy said. "He got this notion that 'hey, I'm going to create a privilege that no one's ever heard of before that doesn't exist in the law." Gowdy said the only "dangerous" issue for President Donald Trump is if "credible evidence" is presented.

He said Bannon's credibility has taken a hit, since he once said there was no chance the Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. did not meet Trump Sr.

But, after he was fired, Bannon reportedly told author Michael Wolff that there was no chance the meeting hadn't occurred.

"This is the same witness that said that members of the president's family committed acts of treason. So, he's got a credibility issue," Gowdy said. "If they're hinging the entire case on Steve Bannon's credibility, good luck to the prosecution."

Watch more above.

[Jan 22, 2018] The Justice Department and FBI set up the meeting at Trump Tower between Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner with controversial Russian officials to make Trump's associates appear compromised

Highly recommended!
People are really angry, judging from comments
Notable quotes:
"... Six U.S. agencies created a stealth task force, spearhead by CIA's Brennan, to run domestic surveillance on Trump associates and possibly Trump himself. ..."
"... To feign ignorance and to seemingly operate within U.S. laws, the agencies freelanced the wiretapping of Trump associates to the British spy agency GCHQ. ..."
"... GCHQ did not work from London or the UK. In fact the spy agency worked from NSA's headquarters in Fort Meade, MD with direct NSA supervision and guidance to conduct sweeping surveillance on Trump associates. ..."
"... Following the Trump Tower sit down, GCHQ began digitally wiretapping Manafort, Trump Jr., and Kushner. ..."
"... OK Ron Johnson (R-WI), the author was Steven Boyd, Assistant for Legislative Affairs / DOJ - Hold him in contempt of congress. ..."
Jan 22, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

SethPoor -> BennyBoy Jan 22, 2018 9:47 AM Permalink

Jim in MN -> SethPoor Jan 22, 2018 9:52 AM Permalink

Bottom Line:

The party in power used the apparatus of the police state to spy on and damage an opposition candidate.

There really isn't a higher crime in our supposed system.

THEN there's the cover-up.....as in deleting files and pretending you never had them even though the IG already does.

otschelnik Jan 22, 2018 8:55 AM Permalink

OK Ron Johnson (R-WI), the author was Steven Boyd, Assistant for Legislative Affairs / DOJ - Hold him in contempt of congress. Have him arrested. During questioning, press him to the wall, get him to tell him who in the FBI told him 'they couldn't find them.' Then go arrest that guy too. Rinse and repeat. Look what these bastards did to Mike Flynn. Go get 'em. NOW!!!

VideoEng_NC Jan 22, 2018 9:10 AM Permalink

One of the silver linings in this mess is the clear view that the FBI is ridiculously compromised & has chucked its standard of non-political leanings right out the window. Shutting it down may have once seemed a long shot, now maybe not so much. If you haven't noticed, another Trump boomerang has happened to the Left with their favorite word starting with the letter S. This time I'm thinking Storm is what's about to follow instead of hole or house.

stustd Jan 22, 2018 9:14 AM Permalink

Business as usual continues: Comey to teach ethical leadership course at William & Mary:

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/369695-comey-to-teach-ethical-leadership-course-at-william-mary

wcole225 Jan 22, 2018 9:21 AM Permalink

If the republican leadership hiccup here on the release of the memo then it's things as usual and forget a full on war from them. I don't trust those bastards as far as I can throw them. Trump then needs to fire Sessions and Mueller and go full on attack mode with a press conference doing what he does and light the left's hair on fire like never before. This is war and it needs kicked off in grand fashion. The left's ability to guilt shame has been neutered and they know it and are scared to death.

CatInTheHat -> wcole225 Jan 22, 2018 11:03 AM Permalink

Why do people think Trump is going to do anything? When his actions say he is doing exactly what the WARMONGERING fuckers want??

Trump is Barry is Clinton is Bush...

the not so mig Jan 22, 2018 9:31 AM Permalink

these FBI Stazi guys are no good, shutter down

two hoots Jan 22, 2018 9:33 AM Permalink

The Genius has lost control. Washington is oozing and dripping its corrupt, manipulating, narcissistic and deceiving bile. Just one thin mint is all it will take. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJZPzQESq_0

wobblie Jan 22, 2018 9:50 AM Permalink

Nothing like a colossal waste of time to distract the herd.

https://therulingclassobserver.com/2018/01/07/unity-at-the-top-division

azusgm Jan 22, 2018 10:10 AM Permalink

At one point, Peter Strzok made reference to a phone that "could not be traced". He probably had a 2nd phone for a period. I'd be willing to bet it was a BlackBerry. While he had (if he had) that 2nd phone, he could have used that more secure phone for his communications with Lisa Page.

The IG may have all of Strzok's text messages with Lisa Page from his official phone, but none from the 2nd phone.

azusgm -> azusgm Jan 22, 2018 10:35 AM Permalink

Here's an article that includes the reference to the 2nd phone.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/peter-strzok-lisa-page-texts-trump-idiot/

The article says that it was Lisa Page who suggested using the 2nd phone. That message from her was in March 2016.

"Also in March, Page seems to be concerned about whether the things they say about Mr. Trump can be found out. "So look, you say we can text on that phone when we talk about Hillary because it cant be traced," she wrote."

Haven't read through the entire thread here, but the end date of the interval for the missing data is also the date that Mueller was appointed.

Lostinfortwalton Jan 22, 2018 10:34 AM Permalink

All of this shit is at the NSA Blufdale, Utah, facility. Why are the taxpayers spending umpteen billion dollars collecting and storing this stuff if the government is going to pretend it doesn't exist? You can bet this internet post, and anyone who replies to it, is archived there. We are supposed to be afraid of being surveiled by assholes like Clapper and Brennan. Guess what? We're not.

enough of this Jan 22, 2018 10:34 AM Permalink

If Horowitz now claims he really didn't receive all the text messages he requested, then he too is part of a massive cover-up and any report that is issued by the DOJ's Inspector General's office can't be believed by definition.

insanelysane -> enough of this Jan 22, 2018 10:41 AM Permalink

It's possible Horowitz lied then to placate the Congressional inquiry. I believe that the Deep State believes that they can get Trump impeached before the shit hits the fan with the Sedition by the FBI. There is always Plan B for the Deep State but 50 years after they rid the world of 2 Kennedys the general population isn't buying it.

BendGuyhere Jan 22, 2018 10:37 AM Permalink

The FACT PATTERN supports a RICO indictment and prosecution.

RUDY GIULIANI for SPECIAL PROSECUTOR.

Hang Comey, Lynch, Mueller, Clinton, TO MAKE SURE IT NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN!

MrBoompi Jan 22, 2018 11:00 AM Permalink

If I understand how US communication systems work, every network has a splitter which copies all transmissions to NSA, or related agencies, storage devices. I would be shocked if they didn't collect everything from FBI or DOJ employees, and I mean everything, from FBI devices or their private devices. If the files are sitting safe and secure on NSA storage devices, only the NSA could really "lose" them. And this would also be true for every one of Clinton's messages. Why don't we ever see Congress ask NSA for anything? Is that verboten?

Arrow4Truth Jan 22, 2018 11:58 AM Permalink

"This glaring contradiction suggests someone is lying or perhaps simply incompetent." Wrong! It's both.

currency Jan 22, 2018 12:34 PM Permalink

FBI and DOJ and the Weasel Liar Rosenstein are LIARS. They don't want the world and the American people know what Liars, corrupt, in the tank for Hilray to know what they did are still trying to due. Trump needs to clean house of the FBI and DOJ of all Clinton and Obama people.

[Jan 20, 2018] Will Steve Bannon s Testimony Bring Down Jared by Abigail Tracy

A more interesting question is how those testimonies might affect Bannon -- he is in a very hot water now. If he thought that the meeting was so incriminating why he did not contact FBI and just decided to feed juicy gossip to Wolff?
Also he was not present at the meeting and was not a member of Trump team until two months later. From who he got all this information ? Was is just a slander by disgruntled employee?
Notable quotes:
"... To reiterate, those comments were not aimed at Don Jr. ..."
"... Bannon has denied that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government during the election ..."
"... Wolff also quotes the former White House strategist as saying, "This is all about money laundering. [Robert] Mueller chose [senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to fucking Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr., and Jared Kushner . . . It's as plain as a hair on your face." ..."
"... Bannon then zeroed in on Kushner specifically, adding that "[i]t goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner shit. The Kushner shit is greasy. They're going to go right through that. They're going to roll those two guys up and say play me or trade me." ..."
Jan 16, 2018 | www.vanityfair.com

"The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor -- with no lawyers. They didn't have any lawyers," Bannon is quoted as saying in Fire and Fury. "Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it's all of that, you should have called the F.B.I. immediately." Bannon reportedly speculated that the chance the eldest Trump son did not involve his father in the meeting "is zero."

When Bannon's comments became public, Trump excoriated his former strategist, whom he accused of having "lost his mind." But while Bannon has since apologized for the remarks and sought to walk back a number of the quotes, he's stopped short of denying that he viewed the Trump Tower meeting as treasonous. Instead, he's merely shifted the blame away from Trump Jr. and onto Manafort. "My comments were aimed at Paul Manafort, a seasoned campaign professional with experience and knowledge of how the Russians operate. He should have known they are duplicitous, cunning, and not our friends. To reiterate, those comments were not aimed at Don Jr. ," Bannon said in a statement to Axios. ( Bannon has denied that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government during the election .)

... ... ...

Though the Trump Tower meeting took place before Bannon joined the Trump campaign, Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House panel, told CNN last week that he plans to question Bannon about "why this meeting at Trump Tower represented his treason and certainly unpatriotic at a minimum."

Jared Kushner's "greasy shit"

Wolff also quotes the former White House strategist as saying, "This is all about money laundering. [Robert] Mueller chose [senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to fucking Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr., and Jared Kushner . . . It's as plain as a hair on your face." (Trump Jr., Kushner, and Manafort have all denied wrongdoing.) Bannon then zeroed in on Kushner specifically, adding that "[i]t goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner shit. The Kushner shit is greasy. They're going to go right through that. They're going to roll those two guys up and say play me or trade me."

He and Trump's son-in-law have never seen eye to eye; their White House feuds were a poorly kept secret, and following his ouster, Bannon has given numerous interviews knocking Kushner, including one to my colleague Gabriel Sherman in which he questioned Kushner's maturity level. If Bannon has dirt on Kushner, he will likely get his chance to reveal it; Schiff also declared his intent to question Bannon on "the basis of his concern over money laundering."

[Jan 17, 2018] Inside the link between the Russian lawyer who met Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump dossier

Jan 17, 2018 | www.washingtonpost.com

Emails released Tuesday by Trump Jr. reveal that his friend Rob Goldstone pitched the meeting based on the promise of damning information on Hillary Clinton that supposedly was being offered by senior Russian government officials. On Monday, Mark Corallo , a spokesman for President Trump's outside counsel, alleged that the meeting had been set up under false pretenses and implied that Veselnitskaya's association with Fusion GPS was relevant to the alleged deception.

[Jan 17, 2018] Journalist Bannon's 'Treason' Charge Against Trump, Jr. 'Is Ridiculous'

Notable quotes:
"... "Bannon is gone, but he's now become fodder for the book by Michael Wolff which is now being mined by both Mueller and the House Intelligence Committee. We don't know what Bannon told the intelligence committee, since it was behind closed doors. But the New York Times, who broke the story, speculate that the subpoena is a way to get Bannon to agree to an interview rather than stand before the grand jury." ..."
"... Lauria also discussed Wolff's "Fire and Fury," which paints a highly negative image of the first year of the Trump White House -- including a quote from Bannon describing Donald Trump, Jr. and former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort as "treasonous." ..."
"... The conversation then turned to the specifics of Bannon's claim of treason, the meeting between Manafort, Trump, Jr. and several Russian lobbyists in Trump Tower, and its connection with the famous "dodgy dossier" compiled by Christopher Steele. ..."
"... "The difference is that intelligence reports are vetted by the intelligence agent and then by his superiors and usually by other agencies in his country's intelligence community. It's also a taxpayer-funded operation, supposedly to protect society, although that's not always what intelligence agencies do. Opposition research is a completely different thing: getting dirt on a political opponent, which is what Steele did," Lauria explained. ..."
"... "The idea that Trump, Jr. had gotten this opposition research from the Russian government, as apparently Bannon said, is completely incorrect because there was no one from the Russian government, there was a former KGB agent. The lawyer was not a member of the government and no dirt was ever turned over. [There's] only been one campaign that received opposition research from foreigners during the 2016 campaign: the Clinton campaign that paid for it via a British former intelligence agent and his supposed Russian sources. But foreign opposition research [has] never been established as a crime." ..."
Jan 17, 2018 | sputniknews.com

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon has been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury, supposedly on alleged ties between the presidential campaign of Donald Trump and Russian actors. Brian Becker on Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear was joined by Joe Lauria, a veteran journalist who has also worked for major newspapers in four countries, perhaps most notably as the Wall Street Journal's correspondent to the United Nations.

​"Mr. Bannon has fallen and I think he was the ideological force behind Trump, particularly in relations with Russia," said Lauria. "It's interesting to know why did Trump call for detente, and still seems to be pursuing detente, with Russia. Many people who believe in Russiagate believe it's because he's somehow beholden to them or has been blackmailed or whatever. But professor Jeffrey Summers with the University of Wisconsin wrote an interesting piece where he said Bannon was the one who had impressed upon Trump that he should improve relations with Russia so they can team up against Islamic extremism."

"Bannon is gone, but he's now become fodder for the book by Michael Wolff which is now being mined by both Mueller and the House Intelligence Committee. We don't know what Bannon told the intelligence committee, since it was behind closed doors. But the New York Times, who broke the story, speculate that the subpoena is a way to get Bannon to agree to an interview rather than stand before the grand jury."

© REUTERS/ Carlos Barria 'Fit For Duty': White House Physician Sees No Concerns About Trump's Health

Lauria also discussed Wolff's "Fire and Fury," which paints a highly negative image of the first year of the Trump White House -- including a quote from Bannon describing Donald Trump, Jr. and former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort as "treasonous."

"If you read the key quote in that book, the House Intelligence Committee wants to question him about an allegation against Paul Manafort and Donald Trump, Jr. for treason. I find this very curious. If Bannon wanted Trump to have better relations with Russia, it's curious that he would roll out an accusation of treason. He's far from the only one to bring the charge against Trump in this entire Russiagate fiasco, but if you look at treason, it's the only crime defined in the US Constitution. It says clearly treason against the US consists only of assisting an enemy of the US in a state of open hostility with us."

© REUTERS/ Jonathan Ernst Trump Jr.: Bannon Turned His White House Career Opportunity Into Nightmare

"Russia is not in open hostilities with the United States, no one would argue that. The idea that Trump, Jr. has committed treason is ridiculous. I don't know why Bannon used [the term]. Clearly he was angry at Trump for being fired, I don't know if he was begging for his job back as Trump tweeted," Lauria said.

The conversation then turned to the specifics of Bannon's claim of treason, the meeting between Manafort, Trump, Jr. and several Russian lobbyists in Trump Tower, and its connection with the famous "dodgy dossier" compiled by Christopher Steele.

"If I could talk a second about that Don Jr meeting, there's a core issue in it over the difference in opposition research and intelligence," Lauria said. "While Christopher Steele was an MI-6 intelligence agent for Britain, he was working for a private company at the time. He was hired by the Clinton campaign and the [Democratic National Committee] through Fusion GPS. Glenn Simpson, of Fusion, who hired Steele directly, wrote in a New York Times editorial that Steele produced intelligence memos. He was either lying or misleading the readers -- he has to know the difference between them."

© REUTERS/ Jonathan Ernst 'Enough is Enough': Trump Lawyer Sues BuzzFeed, Fusion GPS Over Trump Dossier

"The difference is that intelligence reports are vetted by the intelligence agent and then by his superiors and usually by other agencies in his country's intelligence community. It's also a taxpayer-funded operation, supposedly to protect society, although that's not always what intelligence agencies do. Opposition research is a completely different thing: getting dirt on a political opponent, which is what Steele did," Lauria explained.

"The idea that Trump, Jr. had gotten this opposition research from the Russian government, as apparently Bannon said, is completely incorrect because there was no one from the Russian government, there was a former KGB agent. The lawyer was not a member of the government and no dirt was ever turned over. [There's] only been one campaign that received opposition research from foreigners during the 2016 campaign: the Clinton campaign that paid for it via a British former intelligence agent and his supposed Russian sources. But foreign opposition research [has] never been established as a crime."

[Jan 16, 2018] Bannon Subpoenaed By Mueller In Russia Probe

It would be interesting if they get Wolff to testify too ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Fox News is reporting that Steve Bannon was told by the White House not to answer questions before House Intel Committee about the White House or the transition. Bannon testified before the committee on Tuesday. ..."
"... the NYT reports that Trump's former chief strategist was subpoenaed last week by the special counsel, Robert Mueller to testify before a grand jury as part of the investigation into possible links between Trump's associates and Russia. ..."
"... After excerpts from the book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House," were published this month, Mr. Trump derided Mr. Bannon publicly and threatened to sue him for defamation. Mr. Bannon was soon ousted as the executive chairman of the hard-right website Breitbart News. ..."
"... The experts also said it could be a signal to Mr. Bannon, who has tried to publicly patch up his falling-out with the president, that despite Mr. Trump's legal threats, Mr. Bannon must be completely forthcoming with investigators. ..."
"... Prosecutors generally prefer to interview witnesses before a grand jury when they believe they have information that the witnesses do not know or when they think they might catch the witnesses in a lie. It is much easier for a witness to stop the questioning or sidestep questions in an interview than during grand jury testimony, which is transcribed, and witnesses are required to answer every question. ..."
"... Whether or not Bannon actually knows something that can help the Mueller probe, of course, remains to be seen. ..."
"... Good! Every time Mueller has tried to tighten the noose in the past more info on his own corruption has come out. Can't wait to find out more about what a fuck-up stoolie for the Clinton eradicate america campaign he's been. ..."
"... Yes, but how long before he finds anything. A blind squirrel could find something with this much time and resources. This really is a witch hunt. ..."
"... So fucking tired of this Democrat led witch hunt. This must be how ordinary people felt in Salem back in 1692-1693. We look like fucking fools and a fucking joke to the rest of the world. ..."
"... Grand Inquisitor Mueller, drowning in a sea of DEMOCRAT Russian collusion, subpoenas...Bannon...lol. ..."
"... How much has this idiot Mueller pissed away in taxpayer money? ..."
"... First, did he even say some of that stuff to the author of the book, as has been well publicized that the author is a known liar, fabricator, creating fiction for the sake of book sales. This stinks of the collusion story from the NY Times, which was BS, that got this whole colossal crock of simmering cow crap started. ..."
"... In his emails to Trump Jr., Goldstone referred to Veselnitskaya as a "Russian government lawyer" who had damaging info on Clinton as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." ..."
"... If the above were a pedophile sting operation, Jr. would be considered beyond any doubt a child predator, even though he didn't actually get the opportunity to act upon the intent of the meeting. ..."
Jan 16, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

Update: Fox News is reporting that Steve Bannon was told by the White House not to answer questions before House Intel Committee about the White House or the transition. Bannon testified before the committee on Tuesday.

The bad news for Steve Bannon just keeps on coming.

Not long after Bannon was bounced from Breitbart following his feud with Trump over his comments in Michael Wolff's book, moments ago the NYT reports that Trump's former chief strategist was subpoenaed last week by the special counsel, Robert Mueller to testify before a grand jury as part of the investigation into possible links between Trump's associates and Russia.

And the reason why stocks dipped modestly and the VIX bounced on the news, is that the subpoena marks the first time Mueller is known to have used a grand jury subpoena to seek information from a member of Mr. Trump's inner circle.

After excerpts from the book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House," were published this month, Mr. Trump derided Mr. Bannon publicly and threatened to sue him for defamation. Mr. Bannon was soon ousted as the executive chairman of the hard-right website Breitbart News.

Mueller reportedly issued the subpoena after Mr. Bannon was quoted in a new book criticizing Mr. Trump, saying that Donald Trump Jr.'s 2016 meeting with Russians was "treasonous" and predicting that the special counsel investigation would ultimately center on money laundering.

According to the NYT, the subpoena could be a negotiating tactic:

Mr. Mueller is likely to allow Mr. Bannon to forgo the grand jury appearance if he agrees to instead be questioned by investigators in the less formal setting of the special counsel's offices in Washington, according to the person, who would not be named discussing the case. But it was not clear why Mr. Mueller treated Mr. Bannon differently than the dozen administration officials who were interviewed in the final months of last year and were never served with a subpoena.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday Bannon was testifying behind closed doors before the House Intelligence Committee, which is also investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The NYT quotes legal experts who said the subpoena could be a sign that the investigation was intensifying, while others said it may simply have been a negotiating tactic to persuade Mr. Bannon to cooperate with the investigation. The experts also said it could be a signal to Mr. Bannon, who has tried to publicly patch up his falling-out with the president, that despite Mr. Trump's legal threats, Mr. Bannon must be completely forthcoming with investigators.

Prosecutors generally prefer to interview witnesses before a grand jury when they believe they have information that the witnesses do not know or when they think they might catch the witnesses in a lie. It is much easier for a witness to stop the questioning or sidestep questions in an interview than during grand jury testimony, which is transcribed, and witnesses are required to answer every question.

The news will hardly come as a surprise to Trump: "the president appeared to ease his anger toward Mr. Bannon at the end of last week. When asked in an interview with The Wall Street Journal whether his break with Mr. Bannon was "permanent," the president replied, "I don't know what the word 'permanent' means.""

As a result, "people close to Mr. Bannon took the president's comments as a signal that Mr. Trump was aware that his fired strategist would soon be contacted by investigators."

Whether or not Bannon actually knows something that can help the Mueller probe, of course, remains to be seen.

eclectic syncretist -> Dilluminati Jan 16, 2018 11:59 AM Permalink

Good! Every time Mueller has tried to tighten the noose in the past more info on his own corruption has come out. Can't wait to find out more about what a fuck-up stoolie for the Clinton eradicate america campaign he's been.

overbet -> eclectic syncretist Jan 16, 2018 12:06 PM Permalink

Yes, but how long before he finds anything. A blind squirrel could find something with this much time and resources. This really is a witch hunt. Meanwhile mountains of evidence being ignored on Comey, Clinton, Lynch

Sir Edge -> overbet Jan 16, 2018 12:08 PM Permalink

Let's Subpoena Hilary Instead...

Unreliable Narrator -> Sir Edge Jan 16, 2018 12:11 PM Permalink

How does a probe "intensify"? Does it mean they discuss things in louder voices? Wear more colorful clothing? Increase the office lighting brightness? What I wish would "intensify" is the brainpower of journalists.

Oh . . . and "Hillary" has two l's. Like "hell" has two l's.

espirit -> Unreliable Narrator Jan 16, 2018 12:18 PM Permalink

Haha.

They think Bannon is at odds with Trump and will roll over on him.

Must.Get.Moar.Popcorn.

This episode is about to start...

Mike Masr • Jan 16, 2018 1:49 PM Permalink

So fucking tired of this Democrat led witch hunt. This must be how ordinary people felt in Salem back in 1692-1693. We look like fucking fools and a fucking joke to the rest of the world.

nmewn -> espirit Jan 16, 2018 12:50 PM Permalink

Grand Inquisitor Mueller, drowning in a sea of DEMOCRAT Russian collusion, subpoenas...Bannon...lol.

What an idiot.

FORD_FIESTA -> nmewn Jan 16, 2018 1:13 PM Permalink

How much has this idiot Mueller pissed away in taxpayer money? Washington Gov is a total waste.....beyond repair I would say. From that Idiot Black Chick who wears the Cowboy hats like a Clown from the Circus, to the 84 fucking year old senile Bitch Feinstein......to waste of time and money. This Country is lost.

Ghost of PartysOver -> Dilluminati Jan 16, 2018 12:03 PM Permalink

First, did he even say some of that stuff to the author of the book, as has been well publicized that the author is a known liar, fabricator, creating fiction for the sake of book sales. This stinks of the collusion story from the NY Times, which was BS, that got this whole colossal crock of simmering cow crap started.

Second, is Bannon that petty or does he see the bigger picture?

Dilluminati -> Ghost of PartysOver Jan 16, 2018 12:20 PM Permalink

I think it's pretty obvious when he admitted it was all a lie and said the book wasn't accurate. I think his credibility = 0.

FreeEarCandy Jan 16, 2018 1:20 PM Permalink

In his emails to Trump Jr., Goldstone referred to Veselnitskaya as a "Russian government lawyer" who had damaging info on Clinton as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump."

"If it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer," Trump Jr. replied to Goldstone in one email.

Bannon doesn't have to say a word. Trump Jr. stated he loved the idea of Russian Government support. Bannon is right. Jr.'s intent was treasonous-not to be confused with actually committing treason.

If the above were a pedophile sting operation, Jr. would be considered beyond any doubt a child predator, even though he didn't actually get the opportunity to act upon the intent of the meeting.

[Jan 16, 2018] In the emails, Goldstone said he made contact with Trump Jr at the behest of the Russian-Azeri businessman Aras Agalarov and Aglaravov's pop-star son, Emin. On Wednesday, Aras Agalarov claimed the story was invented.

Jan 16, 2018 | www.theguardian.com

Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said it was "wild" that Trump's son was being blamed for speaking with a Russian attorney. Lavrov – who met Trump last week at the G20 summit in Hamburg, together with Vladimir Putin – said he knew nothing of the meeting with the lawyer. Serious people were trying to "make a mountain out of a molehill", Lavrov said.

In the emails, Goldstone said he made contact with Trump Jr at the behest of the Russian-Azeri businessman Aras Agalarov and Aglaravov's pop-star son, Emin. The Agalarovs hosted Trump when he visited Moscow in 2013 for the Miss Universe beauty pageant.

On Wednesday, Aras Agalarov claimed the story was invented. "I think this is some sort of fiction. I don't know who is making it up," he told Russia's Business FM radio station, adding: "What has Hillary Clinton got to do with anything? I don't know."

[Jan 13, 2018] Trump lawyer: president was not aware of the meeting

Cooper is an abhorrent neoliberal shill.
Notable quotes:
"... It is amazing that the media is picking apart meetings. I have observed that what ever the deep state wants to hide they play a game of blame and twisting the facts. ..."
"... Anderson Cooper is such an arrogant self righteous elite from an elite family. Jay Sekulow is a great man an one of the greatest attorneys in American. He knows his stuff and could run circles around the entitled Cooper! ..."
"... Cooper is absolute garbage... complete and utter, absolute garbage. If he actually did a true journalistic story that wasn't just cia and deepstate bs talking points, i would have a heart attack. These "news" organizations are terrible ..."
"... CNN is fake news. Don't talk to CNN ..."
"... They conveniently over-look all the Hillary mess. Hmm, wonder why??? ..."
"... Cooper has a gay agenda. ..."
Jul 15, 2017 | www.youtube.com

TIME TO SUBSCRIBE ---- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOBD...

Peggy Fielder , 2 months ago

The Clintons and Trump were friends not too long ago. I think they're all elitists. New boss, same owners. Trump is crass but I think he's doing a surprisingly good job. I am hoping things will continue to look up, economically...because, money changes everything.

Barbara Bennett , 4 weeks ago

It is amazing that the media is picking apart meetings. I have observed that what ever the deep state wants to hide they play a game of blame and twisting the facts. It is amazing what the Liberals are emphasizing especially with the terrible things that occurred with Obama Administration, spending, loss of millions of dollars, and illegal activity.

carmell51 , 1 week ago

Anderson Cooper is such an arrogant self righteous elite from an elite family. Jay Sekulow is a great man an one of the greatest attorneys in American. He knows his stuff and could run circles around the entitled Cooper!

Absalom David , 1 month ago

Cooper is absolute garbage... complete and utter, absolute garbage. If he actually did a true journalistic story that wasn't just cia and deepstate bs talking points, i would have a heart attack. These "news" organizations are terrible

A M , 5 months ago

CNN is fake news. Don't talk to CNN

Larry Coffin, 5 days ago

Cooper sounded more like one of the nut job conspiracy theorists, just like all the rest on CNN and MSNBC. They conveniently over-look all the Hillary mess. Hmm, wonder why???

Jimi Lee , 2 months ago

He's a spoiled control brat .... if he didn't have mommy' s money he wouldn't be there! Another control freak!

John Tatum , 3 days ago

Cooper has a gay agenda.

The Holytacoman , 2 months ago

Oh no a lawyer defended his client how dare he.

[Jan 13, 2018] Anderson Cooper Gets ANGRY When Trump Aide Insults Him Insted Of Answering Questions

Gorka was actually great in very difficult situation when this smug neoliberal shill Cooper try to bully his way in best tradition of Bill Oreilly. But Cooper is so well trained in bullshit that it is impossible to 'convert" him on anything. He will try to promote his fake new lines.
Notable quotes:
"... "Why don't you report on Hillary Clinton's collusion instead?" "Because there's no active FBI investigation into it. There's literally no evidence of anything like that taking place, unlike the Trump investigation, which DOES have an active FBI investigation looking into it." "....yeah, but... why don't you report it anyway? You're fake news." ..."
Jan 13, 2018 | www.youtube.com

Kaiza , 1 month ago (edited)

"Why don't you report on Hillary Clinton's collusion instead?" "Because there's no active FBI investigation into it. There's literally no evidence of anything like that taking place, unlike the Trump investigation, which DOES have an active FBI investigation looking into it." "....yeah, but... why don't you report it anyway? You're fake news."

[Jan 11, 2018] Russian lawyer's inconsistent statements about Simpson encounters

Notable quotes:
"... Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya speaks during an interview in Moscow, Russia November 8, 2016. ..."
Jan 11, 2018 | dailycaller.com

Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya has become a central figure in the Russia investigation because of her involvement in the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

And one of the stranger wrinkles in that saga is Veselnitskaya's interactions with Simpson just hours before that controversial conclave.

Simpson's interview transcript confirms past reporting that he was with Veselnitskaya the day of that meeting as well as the day before and day after.

Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya speaks during an interview in Moscow, Russia November 8, 2016. REUTERS/Kommersant Photo/Yury Martyanov

But in her own testimony to the Judiciary committee, Veselnitskaya denied encountering Simpson on those days.

"Did you have contact with Glenn Simpson on June 8, 9, or 10, 2016?" reads one of the 94 questions posed to Veselnitskaya by the Senate panel.

"No, there had been no contacts with him on [sic] specified dates," she responded. (RELATED: Russian Lawyer At Trump Tower Meeting Submits Inconsistent Testimony)

Undercutting that testimony, Simpson said that Veselnitskaya attended dinners where he was also present on June 8 and June 10. They were also together in a Manhattan court room on the morning of the Trump Tower meeting.

Simpson's work with Veselnitskaya and Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist who also visited Trump Tower, has stoked speculation that the Russians provided information that ended up in the dossier.

But Simpson denied in his testimony that either Russian contact told him about the Trump Tower meeting. He also said he doubted that either provided information to Steele.

[Jan 07, 2018] Deep State Coup Roger Stone and Stefan Molyneux

Great interview. Information about Veselitskaya is starting from 2:16
Jan 05, 2018 | www.youtube.com

Neo Roman0 , 16 hours ago

What a wonderfully clear and uncompromising analysis of the current political situation in the US. And done by two of the sharpest and most charismatic truth-telling figures of the news landscape! Thank you both, it's such a pleasure to listen to you. I pray to our God that 2018 will be the year that sees the beginning of the swamp draining! God bless you both and God bless America!

hermanus hulsen , 2 hours ago

It seems the USA intelligent service is not very intelligent.

deplorable Dan , 4 hours ago

Take all of the clintons money, and don't let them leave the country. And never hold any government position. And life probation and monitoring on their bank funds from their minimum wage job. That would probably be the worst thing they could be made to experience. Reduced to commoners.

sos , 7 hours ago

Remarkable people remarkably capable of flipping on the light at a pivotal milestone in our time.

Andrew Benner , 8 hours ago

I'm concerned, irrationally, about how much Stone is shining right now, as a person. Like fire burning brightest before the light goes out. Christopher Lee was the same way; embraced the youth culture, wore a funny hat, and did awesome things then died. I'm selfishly desperate for Stone to stay alive and remain a champion in this fight.

WindWipper , 9 hours ago

Roger Stone continually blames Bannon as the one who brought globalist McMaster into the Trump admin. Yet McMaster was the reason Bannon was booted out, because the two of them did not agree on the agenda & did not get along. Doesn't make sense.

joe v , 16 hours ago

Sessions is a scum! He's a traitor, who needs to be brought up on charges. An act that would kill two birds with one stone! Prove the Russian Wikileaks allocations fraudulent, and get Sessions fired. Inturn getting us, an honest new AG!... Preferably one willing to do his job!

[Jan 06, 2018] NYT Is Banner trying to help Mueller?

It's Mueller move, as they say in chess.
Central to the Trump-Bannon approach to US politics has been the fist of defiance against those entities of establishment fame. There is the Central Intelligence Agency, which Trump scorned; there is the FBI, which Trump is at war with. Then there is the Department of Justice, which he regards as singularly unjust.
Now he is fraternizing with former enemy
Meantime the Trump machine, continues to function with indignant disdain toward the old Obama establishment. As long as that lasts, he will thrive.
Jan 06, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org

peter , Jan 3, 2018 9:16:51 AM | 75

It was always about the money laundering.
From today's Guardian:

Trump predicted in an interview with the New York Times last week that the special counsel was "going to be fair", though he also said the investigation "makes the country look very bad". The president and his allies deny any collusion with Russia and the Kremlin has denied interfering.

Bannon has criticised Trump's decision to fire Comey. In Wolff's book, obtained by the Guardian ahead of publication from a bookseller in New England, he suggests White House hopes for a quick end to the Mueller investigation are gravely misplaced.

"You realise where this is going," he is quoted as saying. "This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose [senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to fucking Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr and Jared Kushner It's as plain as a hair on your face."

Last month it was reported that federal prosecutors had subpoenaed records from Deutsche Bank, the German financial institution that has lent hundreds of millions of dollars to the Kushner property empire. Bannon continues: "It goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner shit. The Kushner shit is greasy. They're going to go right through that. They're going to roll those two guys up and say play me or trade me."

[Jan 03, 2018] Bannon statement about meeting with Russian lawyer doesn't pass the smell test. One minute he's against deep state and the next minute he wants to call the FBI?

Another possibility that it was attempt of entrapment
See also Natalia Veselnitskaya, Russian lawyer at Donald Trump Jr. meeting, ready to testify to Senate - CBS News "In the lengthy interview with RT, Veselnitskaya was dismissive of the tumult in the U.S. surrounding her meeting with Trump campaign officials, and she denied again links with top Russian government officials close to President Vladimir Putin. " ... "She called the controversy a "very well-orchestrated story concocted by one particular manipulator," whom she identified repeatedly as American businessman Bill Browder ."
Jan 03, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org

John , Jan 3, 2018 2:14:44 PM | 112

Off topic:

Bannon is being quoted in the Guardian from his forthcoming book, paraphrasing: "they had (sic) top officials from the new administration meeting with Russians in Trump Tower and nobody thought to have a lawyer present? The minimum they could've done was call the FBI."

This statement doesn't pass the smell test or Bannon is smoking some Colorado grass. One minute he's against deep state and the next minute he wants to call the FBI? I don't think so.

The Guardian Article

[Jan 03, 2018] Bannon Goes Nuclear Calls Don Jr. Meeting In Trump Tower Treasonous Zero Hedge

Jan 03, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

The ongoing feud between Steve Bannon and various members of Trump's inner circle, including family members Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr., is hardly a secret (we wrote about it here: Steve Bannon In "Self-Imposed Exile" After Disputes With Trump's Inner Circle ). But, if The Guardian 's reporting on excerpts from an explosive new book penned by Michael Wolff are even directionally accurate, then Bannon has just taken his White House feud to a whole new level.

According to The Guardian, which apparently got its hands on a copy of "Fire and Fury" ahead of its expected release next week, Bannon unloads on Don Jr. and Kushner saying that their meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in New York was "treasonous" and/or "unpatriotic" and the FBI should have been called immediately.

Donald Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon has described the Trump Tower meeting between the president's son and a group of Russians during the 2016 election campaign as "treasonous" and "unpatriotic", according to an explosive new book seen by the Guardian.

The meeting was revealed by the New York Times in July last year, prompting Trump Jr to say no consequential material was produced. Soon after, Wolff writes, Bannon remarked mockingly: "The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor – with no lawyers. They didn't have any lawyers.

"Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it's all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately."

Bannon went on, Wolff writes, to say that if any such meeting had to take place, it should have been set up "in a Holiday Inn in Manchester, New Hampshire, with your lawyers who meet with these people". Any information, he said, could then be "dump[ed] down to Breitbart or something like that, or maybe some other more legitimate publication".

... ... ...

Trump is not spared in the new book either. According to The Guardian, Wolff writes that Thomas Barrack Jr, the billionaire founder of Colony Capital who counts himself as one of Trump's earliest supporters, allegedly told a friend: "He's not only crazy, he's stupid."

All of which should make for some very entertaining Trump tweets once the book drops next week.

Meanwhile, even Drudge couldn't avoid getting dragged into the fray and on Wednesday morning tweeted: "No wonder schizophrenic Steve Bannon has been walking around with a small army of bodyguards..."

[Jan 03, 2018] Natalia Veselnitskaya, Russian lawyer at Donald Trump Jr. meeting, ready to testify to Senate

Interesting possible Browder-MI6 trace to Veselnitskaya Scandal
Jul 19, 2017 | www.cbsnews.com

She called the controversy a "very well-orchestrated story concocted by one particular manipulator," whom she identified repeatedly as American businessman Bill Browder.

Browder was once the biggest foreign investor in Russia, but he has since become a vocal critic of the country's leadership and has clashed with Putin's inner circle.

Browder was a driving force behind the Magnitsky Act, a U.S. law passed in 2012 that imposes economic sanctions and travel restrictions on Russians named as human rights abusers. Browder believes it is Putin's No. 1 priority to get the U.S. to lift the sanctions imposed under the act, which currently affect 44 Russians.

In her interview with Russian government-funded RT, Veselnitskaya called Browder "one of the greatest experts in the field of manipulating the mass media," and said she had "no doubt that this whole information campaign is being spun, encouraged and organized by that very man as revenge" for a legal settlement earlier this year which effectively saw his efforts to expose alleged Russian money-laundering in the U.S. hit a brick wall.

During Browder's appearance on "CBS This Morning" Tuesday, co-host Charlie Rose called attention to Browder's description of Veselnitskaya as "probably the most aggressive person I have ever encountered in all of my contacts with Russians" -- to which Browder replied, "Yes, she's a remarkable person. I should caveat that: she's not aggressive in a physical way."

[Dec 31, 2017] What Happens When A Russiagate Skeptic Debates A Professional Russiagater

Highly recommended!
What a pitiful pressitute this Like Harding is...
The fact that he is employed by Guardia tells a lot how low Guardian fall. It's a yellow press (owned by intelligence agencies if we talk about their coverage of Russia).
Notable quotes:
"... In theory, it would be hard to find two journalists more qualified to debate each side of this important issue. In practice, it was a one-sided thrashing that The Intercept 's Jeremy Scahill accurately described as "brutal". ..."
"... Russiagate only works if you allow it to remain zoomed out, where the individually weak arguments of this giant Gish gallop fallacy form the appearance of a legitimate argument. ..."
"... That's not how you're going to get the truth about Russia. He's all appeals to authority - Steele's most of all, even name dropping Kerry. To finally land on "oh well if you would read my whole book" is just getting to the silly season. Also "well this is the kind of person Putin is" is a terrible argument. This isn't about either Putin or Trump really, its about the long history of US-Russia relations and all that has occurred. Also, the ubiquitous throwing around of accusations of the murder of journalists in Russia is a straw man argument, especially when it is just thrown in as some sort of moral shielding for a shabby argument. ..."
Dec 28, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com

Have you ever wondered why mainstream media outlets, despite being so fond of dramatic panel debates on other hot-button issues, never have critics of the Russiagate narrative on to debate those who advance it? Well, in a recent Real News interview we received an extremely clear answer to that question, and it was so epic it deserves its own article.

Real News host and producer Aaron Maté has recently emerged as one of the most articulate critics of the establishment Russia narrative and the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory, and has published in The Nation some of the clearest arguments against both that I've yet seen. Luke Harding is a journalist for The Guardian where he has been writing prolifically in promotion of the Russiagate narrative, and is the author of New York Times bestseller Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win.

In theory, it would be hard to find two journalists more qualified to debate each side of this important issue. In practice, it was a one-sided thrashing that The Intercept 's Jeremy Scahill accurately described as "brutal".

The term Gish gallop , named after a Young Earth creationist who was notoriously fond of employing it, refers to a fallacious debate tactic in which a bunch of individually weak arguments are strung together in rapid-fire succession in order to create the illusion of a solid argument and overwhelm the opposition's ability to refute them all in the time allotted. Throughout the discussion the Gish gallop appeared to be the only tool that Luke Harding brought to the table, firing out a deluge of feeble and unsubstantiated arguments only to be stopped over and over again by Maté who kept pointing out when Harding was making a false or fallacious claim.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9Ikf1uZli4g

In this part here , for example, the following exchange takes place while Harding is already against the ropes on the back of a previous failed argument. I'm going to type this up so you can clearly see what's happening here:

Harding: Look, I'm a journalist. I'm a storyteller. I'm not a kind of head of the CIA or the NSA. But what I can tell you is that there have been similar operations in France, most recently when President Macron was elected ? -

Maté: Well actually Luke that's not true. That's straight up not true. After that election the French cyber-intelligence agency came out and said it could have been virtually anybody.

Harding: Yeah. But, if you'll let me finish, there've been attacks on the German parliament ? -

Maté: Okay, but wait Luke, do you concede that the France hack that you just claimed didn't happen?

Harding: [pause] What? -- ?that it didn't happen? Sorry?

Maté: Do you concede that the Russian hacking of the French election that you just claimed actually is not true?

Harding: [pause] Well, I mean that it's not true? I mean, the French report was inconclusive, but you have to look at this kind of contextually. We've seen attacks on other European states as well from Russia, they have very kind of advanced cyber capabilities.

Maté: Where else?

Harding: Well, Estonia. Have you heard of Estonia? It's a state in the Baltics which was crippled by a massive cyber attack in 2008, which certainly all kind of western European and former eastern European states think was carried out by Moscow. I mean I was in Moscow at the time, when relations between the two countries were extremely bad. This is a kind of ongoing thing. Now you might say, quite legitimately, well the US does the same thing, the UK does the same thing, and I think to a certain extent that is certainly right. I think what was different last year was the attempt to kind of dump this stuff out into kind of US public space and try and influence public opinion there. That's unusual. And of course that's a matter of congressional inquiry and something Mueller is looking at too.

Maté: Right. But again, my problem here is that the examples that are frequently presented to substantiate claims of this massive Russian hacking operation around the world prove out to be false. So France as I mentioned; you also mentioned Germany. There was a lot of worry about Russian hacking of the German elections, but it turned out? -- ?and there's plenty of articles since then that have acknowledged this? - ? that actually there was no Russian hack in Germany.

In the above exchange, Maté derailed Harding's Gish gallop, and Harding actually admonished him for doing so, telling him "let me finish" and attempting to go on listing more flimsy examples to bolster his case as though he hadn't just begun his Gish gallop with a completely false example .

That's really all Harding brought to the debate. A bunch of individually weak arguments, the fact that he speaks Russian and has lived in Moscow, and the occasional straw man where he tries to imply that Maté is claiming that Vladimir Putin is an innocent girl scout. Meanwhile Maté just kept patiently dragging the debate back on track over and over again in the most polite obliteration of a man that I have ever witnessed.

The entire interview followed this basic script. Harding makes an unfounded claim, Maté holds him to the fact that it's unfounded, Harding sputters a bit and tries to zoom things out and point to a bigger-picture analysis of broader trends to distract from the fact that he'd just made an individual claim that was baseless, then winds up implying that Maté is only skeptical of the claims because he hasn't lived in Russia as Harding has.

jeremy scahill 0
@jeremyscahill
This @aaronjmate interview is brutal. He makes mincemeat of Luke Harding, who can't seem to defend the thesis, much less the title, of his own book: Where's the 'Collusion' - YouTube
11:03 AM-Dec 25, 2017
Q 131 11597 C? 1,148

The interview ended when Harding once again implied that Maté was only skeptical of the collusion narrative because he'd never been to Russia and seen what a right-wing oppressive government it is, after which the following exchange took place:

Maté: I don't think I've countered anything you've said about the state of Vladimir Putin's Russia. The issue under discussion today has been whether there was collusion, the topic of your book.
Harding: Yeah, but you're clearly a kind of collusion rejectionist, so I'm not sure what sort of evidence short of Trump and Putin in a sauna together would convince you. Clearly nothing would convince you. But anyway it's been a pleasure.

At which point Harding abruptly logged off the video chat, leaving Maté to wrap up the show and promote Harding's book on his own.

You should definitely watch this debate for yourself , and enjoy it, because I will be shocked if we ever see another like it. Harding's fate will serve as a cautionary tale for the establishment hacks who've built their careers advancing the Russiagate conspiracy theory , and it's highly unlikely that any of them will ever make the mistake of trying to debate anyone of Maté's caliber again.

The reason Russiagaters speak so often in broad, sweeping terms? - saying there are too many suspicious things happening for there not to be a there there, that there's too much smoke for there not to be fire? - ? is because when you zoom in and focus on any individual part of their conspiracy theory, it falls apart under the slightest amount of critical thinking (or as Harding calls it, "collusion rejectionism"). Russiagate only works if you allow it to remain zoomed out, where the individually weak arguments of this giant Gish gallop fallacy form the appearance of a legitimate argument.

Well, Harding did say he's a storyteller.

* * *

Thanks for reading! My work here is entirely reader-funded so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following me on Twitter , bookmarking my website , throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal , or buying my new book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers . Our Hidden History 4 days ago (edited) That Harding tells Mate to meet Alexi Navalny, who is a far right nationalist and most certainly a tool of US intelligence (something like Russia's Richard Spencer) was all I needed to hear to understand where Luke is coming from.

He's little more than an intelligence asset himself if his idea of speaking to "Russians" is to go and speak to a bunch of people who most certainly have their own ties back to the western intelligence agencies.

That's not how you're going to get the truth about Russia. He's all appeals to authority - Steele's most of all, even name dropping Kerry. To finally land on "oh well if you would read my whole book" is just getting to the silly season. Also "well this is the kind of person Putin is" is a terrible argument. This isn't about either Putin or Trump really, its about the long history of US-Russia relations and all that has occurred. Also, the ubiquitous throwing around of accusations of the murder of journalists in Russia is a straw man argument, especially when it is just thrown in as some sort of moral shielding for a shabby argument.

Few in the US know about these cases or what occurred, or of the many forces inside of Russia that might be involved in murdering journalists just as in Mexico or Turkey. But these cases are not explained - blame is merely assigned to Putin himself. Of course if someone here discusses he death of Michael Hastings, they're a "conspiracy theorist", but if the crime involves a Russian were to assign the blame to Vladimir Putin and, no further explanation is required.

[Dec 25, 2017] The Israel-gate Side of Russia-gate Consortiumnews

Notable quotes:
"... In this case, what Flynn and Kushner were doing was going directly against US foreign policy, because Obama wanted the resolution to pass; He just didn't want to vote for it because that would cross the Israel lobby in the United States. The US finally ended up abstaining on the resolution and it passed 14-0. ..."
"... But before that happened, Flynn went to the Russians and to Egypt, both members of the Security Council, and tried to get the resolution delayed. But all of Israel's machinations to derail this resolution failed and that is what Mueller was investigating, the intervention and disruption of American foreign policy by private citizens who had no official role. ..."
"... While I think Bibi is an idiot, I also think the Logan Act is overinvoked, overstated, probably of dubious legal value and also of dubious constitutional value. ..."
"... In short, especially because Trump had been elected, though not yet inaugurated, I think he is not at all guilty of a Logan Act violation. This is nothing close to Spiro Agnew calling Anna Chenault from the airplane in August 1968. ..."
"... Probably true, although evidence of extreme collusion with Israel eliminates any case against Russia, with whom we have far more reasons for amity. Bringing out the Israel collusion greatly improves public understanding of political corruption. Perhaps it will awaken some to the Agnew-Chennault betrayal of the people of the US. ..."
"... It's ironic that Russia-gate is turning out to be Israel's effort to distract attention from its complete control over the Democratic party in 2016. From Israeli billionaires behind the scenes to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz at the helm. ..."
"... "Whether we like it or not, the former and current administration view Russia is as an enemy state." So that is how it works, the White House says it is an enemy state and therefore it is. The so called declaration is the hammer used for trying to make contact with Russia a criminal offense. We are not at war with Russia although we see our leaders doing their best to provoke Russia into one. ..."
"... The Israel connection disclosed by the malpracticer hack Mueller in the recent Flynn-flam just made Trump bullet-proof (so to speak). ..."
"... So Mueller caught Kushner and Flynn red-handed, sabotaging the Obama administration? What of it? He can't use that evidence, because it would inculpate the Zionist neocons that are orchestrating his farcical, Stalinist witchhunt. And Mueller, being an efficient terminator bot, knows that his target is Russia, not Israel. ..."
"... So Mueller will just have to continue swamp-fishing for potential perjurers ahem witnesses, for the upcoming show trials (to further inflame public opinion against Russia and Russia sympathizers). And continue he will, because (as we all know from Schwarzenegger's flicks), the only way to stop the terminator is to terminate him/it first. ..."
"... Trump and Kushner have nothing to worry about, even if a smoking gun is found that proves their collusion with Israel. That's because the entire political and media establishment will simply ignore the Israeli connection. ..."
"... Journalists and politicians will even continue to present Mike Flynn's contacts as evidence of collusion with Russia. They'll keep on repeating that "Flynn lied about his phone call to the Russian ambassador". But there will be no mention of the fact that the purpose of this contact was to support Israel and not any alleged Russian interference. ..."
"... I think you have it right Brendan. The MSM, Intelligence Community, and Mueller would never go down any path that popularized undue Israeli influence on US foreign policy. "Nothing to see here folks, move along." ..."
"... The Nice Zionists responsible for the thefts and murders for the past 69 years along with the "Jewish Community" in the rest of the world will resolve the matter so as to be fair to both parties. This is mind-boggling fantasy. ..."
"... FFS, Netanyahu aired a political commercial in Florida for Romney saying vote for this guy (against Obama)! I mean, it doesn't get any more overtly manipulative than that. Period. End of story. ..."
"... God, I hate to go all "Israel controls the media" but there it is. Not even a discussion. Just a fact. ..."
"... I also have to point out that he "fist pumped" Hillary Clinton at Mohammed Ali's eulogy. If he's as astute as he purports to be, he has to know that Hillary would have invaded Syria and killed a few hundred thousand more Syrians for the simple act of defiantly preserving their country. By almost any read of Ali's history, he would have been adamantly ("killing brown people") against that. But there was Silverstein using the platform to promote, arguably, perpetual war. ..."
"... Yeah I found a couple of Silverstein's statements to be closer to neocon propaganda than reality: "Because this is Israel and because we have a conflicted relationship with the Israel lobby . . ." "Instead of going directly to the Obama administration, with which they had terrible relations, they went to Trump instead." My impression was that the whole "terrible relationship between Obama and Netanyahu" was manufactured by the Israel lobby to bully Obama. However these are small blips within an otherwise solid critique of the Israel lobby's influence. ..."
Dec 25, 2017 | consortiumnews.com

The Israel-gate Side of Russia-gate December 23, 2017

While unproven claims of Russian meddling in U.S. politics have whipped Official Washington into a frenzy, much less attention has been paid to real evidence of Israeli interference in U.S. politics, as Dennis J Bernstein describes.

By Dennis J Bernstein

In investigating Russia's alleged meddling in U.S. politics, special prosecutor Robert Mueller uncovered evidence that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressured the Trump transition team to undermine President Obama's plans to permit the United Nations to censure Israel over its illegal settlement building on the Palestinian West Bank, a discovery referenced in the plea deal with President Trump's first National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the United Nations General Assembly (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

At Netanyahu's behest, Flynn and President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly took the lead in the lobbying to derail the U.N. resolution, which Flynn discussed in a phone call with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak (in which the Russian diplomat rebuffed Flynn's appeal to block the resolution).

I spoke on Dec, 18 with independent journalist and blogger Richard Silverstein, who writes on national security and other issues for a number of blogs at Tikun Olam .

Dennis Bernstein: A part of Michael Flynn's plea had to do with some actions he took before coming to power regarding Israel and the United Nations. Please explain.

Richard Silverstein:

The Obama administration was negotiating in the [UN] Security Council just before he left office about a resolution that would condemn Israeli settlements. Obviously, the Israeli government did not want this resolution to be passed. Instead of going directly to the Obama administration, with which they had terrible relations, they went to Trump instead. They approached Michael Flynn and Jared Kushner became involved in this. While they were in the transition and before having any official capacity, they negotiated with various members of the Security Council to try to quash the settlement resolution.

One of the issues here which is little known is the Logan Act, which was passed at the foundation of our republic and was designed to prevent private citizens from usurping the foreign policy prerogatives of the executive. It criminalized any private citizen who attempted to negotiate with an enemy country over any foreign policy issue.

In this case, what Flynn and Kushner were doing was going directly against US foreign policy, because Obama wanted the resolution to pass; He just didn't want to vote for it because that would cross the Israel lobby in the United States. The US finally ended up abstaining on the resolution and it passed 14-0.

But before that happened, Flynn went to the Russians and to Egypt, both members of the Security Council, and tried to get the resolution delayed. But all of Israel's machinations to derail this resolution failed and that is what Mueller was investigating, the intervention and disruption of American foreign policy by private citizens who had no official role.

This speaks to the power of the Israel lobby and of Israel itself to disrupt our foreign policy. Very few people have ever been charged with committing an illegal act by advocating on behalf of Israel. That is one of the reasons why this is such an important development. Until now, the lobby has really ruled supreme on the issue of Israel and Palestine in US foreign policy. Now it is possible that a private citizen will actually be made to pay a price for that.

This is an important development because the lobby till now has run roughshod over our foreign policy in this area and this may act as a restraining order against blatant disruption of US foreign policy by people like this.

Bernstein: So this information is a part of Michael Flynn's plea. Anyone studying this would learn something about Michael Flynn and it would be part of the prosecution's investigation.

Silverstein:

That's absolutely right. One thing to note here is that it is reporters who have raised the issue of the Logan Act, not Mueller or Flynn's people or anyone in the Trump administration. But I do think that Logan is a very important part of this plea deal, even if it is not mentioned explicitly.

Bernstein: If the special prosecutor had smoking-gun information that the Trump administration colluded with Russia, in the way they colluded with Israel before coming to power, this would be a huge revelation. But it is definitely collusion when it comes to Israel.

Silverstein: Absolutely. If this were Russia, it would be on the front page of every major newspaper in the United States and the leading story on the TV news. Because this is Israel and because we have a conflicted relationship with the Israel lobby and they have so much influence on US policy concerning Israel, it has managed to stay on the back burner. Only two or three media outlets besides mine have raised this issue of Logan and collusion. Kushner and Flynn may be the first American citizens charged under the Logan Act for interfering on behalf of Israel in our foreign policy. This is a huge issue and it has hardly been raised at all.

Bernstein: As you know, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC has made a career out of investigating the Russia-gate charges. She says that she has read all this material carefully, so she must have read about Flynn and Israel, but I haven't heard her on this issue at all.

Silverstein:

Even progressive journalists, who you'd think would be going after this with a vengeance, are frightened off by the fact the lobby really bites back. So, aside from outlets like the Intercept and the Electronic Intifada, there is a lot of hesitation about going after the Israel lobby. People are afraid because they know that there is a high price to be paid. It goes from being purely journalism to being a personal and political vendetta when they get you in their sights. In fact, one of the reasons I feel my blog is so important is that what I do is challenge Israeli policy and Israeli intervention in places where it doesn't belong.

Bernstein: Jared Kushner is the point man for the Trump administration on Israel. He has talked about having a "vision for peace." Do you think it is a problem that this is someone with a long, close relationship with the prime minister of Israel and, in fact, runs a foundation that invests in the building of illegal Israeli settlements? Might this be problematic?

Silverstein:

It is quite nefarious, actually. When Jared Kushner was a teenager, Netanyahu used to stay at the Kushner family home when he visited the United States. This relationship with one of the most extreme right political figures in Israel goes back decades. And it is not just Kushner himself, but all the administration personnel dealing with these so-called peace negotiations, including Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman, the ambassador. These are all orthodox Jews who tend to have very nationalist views when it comes to Israel. They all support settlements financially through foundations. These are not honest brokers.

We could talk at length about the history of US personnel who have been negotiators for Middle East peace. All of them have been favorable to Israel and answerable to the Israel lobby, including Dennis Ross and Makovsky, who served in the last administration. These people are dyed-in-the-wool ultra-nationalist supporters of [Israeli] settlements. They have no business playing any role in negotiating a peace deal.

My prediction all along has been that these peace negotiations will come to naught, even though they seem to have bought the cooperation of Saudi Arabia, which is something new in the process. The Palestinians can never accept a deal that has been negotiated by Kushner and company because it will be far too favorable to Israel and it will totally neglect the interests of the Palestinians.

Bernstein: It has been revealed that Kushner supports the building of settlements in the West Bank. Most people don't understand the politics of what is going on there, but it appears to be part of an ethnic cleansing.

Silverstein:

The settlements have always been a violation of international law, ever since Israel conquered the West Bank in 1967. The Geneva Conventions direct an occupying power to withdraw from territory that was not its own. In 1967 Israel invaded Arab states and conquered the West Bank and Gaza but this has never been recognized or accepted by any nation until now.

The fact that Kushner and his family are intimately involved in supporting settlements–as are David Friedman and Jason Greenblatt–is completely outrageous. No member of any previous US administration would have been allowed to participate with these kinds of financial investments in support of settlements. Of course, Trump doesn't understand the concept of conflict of interest because he is heavily involved in such conflicts himself. But no party in the Middle East except Israel is going to consider the US an honest broker and acceptable as a mediator.

When they announce this deal next January, no one in the Arab World is going to accept it, with the possible exception of Saudi Arabia because they have other fish to fry in terms of Iran. The next three years are going to be interesting, supposing Trump lasts out his term. My prediction is that the peace plan will fail and that it will lead to greater violence in the Middle East. It will not simply lead to a vacuum, it will lead to a deterioration in conditions there.

Bernstein: The Trump transition team was actually approached directly by the Israeli government to try to intercede at the United Nations.

Silverstein:

I'm assuming it was Netanyahu who went directly to Kushner and Trump. Now, we haven't yet found out that Trump directly knew about this but it is very hard to believe that Trump didn't endorse this. Now that we know that Mueller has access to all of the emails of the transition team, there is little doubt that they have been able to find their smoking gun. Flynn's plea meant that they basically had him dead to rights. It remains to be seen what will happen with Kushner but I would think that this would play some role in either the prosecution of Kushner or some plea deal.

Bernstein: The other big story, of course, is the decision by the Trump administration to move the US embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem. Was there any pre-election collusion in that regard and what are the implications?

Silverstein:

Well, it's a terrible decision which goes against forty to fifty years of US foreign policy. It also breaches all international understanding. All of our allies in the European Union and elsewhere are aghast at this development. There is now a campaign in the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution condemning the announcement, which we will veto, but the next step will be to go to the General Assembly, where such a resolution will pass easily.

The question is how much anger, violence and disruption this is going to cause around the world, especially in the Arab and Muslim world. This is a slow-burning fuse. It is not going to explode right now. The issue of Jerusalem is so vital that this is not something that is simply going to go away. This is going to be a festering sore in the Muslim world and among Palestinians. We have already seen attacks on Israeli soldiers and citizens and there will be many more.

As to collusion in all of this, since Trump always said during the campaign that this was what he was going to do, it might be difficult to treat this in the same way as the UN resolution. The UN resolution was never on anybody's radar and nobody knew the role that Trump was playing behind the scenes with that–as opposed to Trump saying right from the get-go that Jerusalem was going to be recognized as the capital of Jerusalem.

By doing that, they have completely abrogated any Palestinian interest in Jerusalem. This is a catastrophic decision that really excludes the United States from being an honest broker here and shows our true colors in terms of how pro-Israel we are.

Dennis J Bernstein is a host of "Flashpoints" on the Pacifica radio network and the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom . You can access the audio archives at www.flashpoints.net .

Drew Hunkins , December 23, 2017 at 5:37 pm

As most regular readers of CN already know, some dynamite books on the inordinate amount of influence pro-Israel zealots have on Washington:

1.) 'The Host and the Parasite' by Greg Felton
2.) 'Power of Israel in the United States' by James Petras
3.) 'They Dare to Speak Out' by Paul Findley
4.) 'The Israel Lobby' by Mearsheimer and Walt
5.) 'Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of U.S. Power' by James Petras

I suggest that anyone relatively knew to this neglected topic peruse a few of the aforementioned titles. An inevitable backlash by the citizens of the United States is eventually forthcoming against the Zionist Power Configuration. It's crucial that this impending backlash remain democratic, non-violent, eschews anti-Semitism, and travels in a progressive in direction.

Annie , December 23, 2017 at 5:47 pm

Which one would you suggest? I already read "The Israel Lobby."

Sam F , December 23, 2017 at 8:38 pm

Findley and Mearsheimer are certainly worthwhile. I will look for Petras.

Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 6:38 pm

If you haven't already read them, the end/footnotes in "The Israel Lobby" are more illuminating.

SocraticGadfly , December 23, 2017 at 6:10 pm

That influence is also shown, of course, by the fact that Obama waited until the midnight hours of his tenure and after the 2016 election to even start working on this resolution.

SocraticGadfly , December 23, 2017 at 6:05 pm

While I think Bibi is an idiot, I also think the Logan Act is overinvoked, overstated, probably of dubious legal value and also of dubious constitutional value.

In short, especially because Trump had been elected, though not yet inaugurated, I think he is not at all guilty of a Logan Act violation. This is nothing close to Spiro Agnew calling Anna Chenault from the airplane in August 1968.

Sam F , December 23, 2017 at 8:41 pm

Probably true, although evidence of extreme collusion with Israel eliminates any case against Russia, with whom we have far more reasons for amity. Bringing out the Israel collusion greatly improves public understanding of political corruption. Perhaps it will awaken some to the Agnew-Chennault betrayal of the people of the US.

JWalters , December 24, 2017 at 3:32 am

It's ironic that Russia-gate is turning out to be Israel's effort to distract attention from its complete control over the Democratic party in 2016. From Israeli billionaires behind the scenes to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz at the helm.

The leaked emails showed the corruption plainly, and based on the ACTUAL evidence (recorded download time), most likely came from a highly disgruntled insider. The picture was starting to spill into public view. I'd estimate the real huge worry was that if this stuff came out, it could bring out other Israeli secrets, like their involvement in 9/11. That would mean actual jail time. Might be hard to buy your way out of that no matter how much money you have.

Annie , December 23, 2017 at 10:48 pm

The Logan act states that anyone who negotiates with an enemy of the US, and Israel is not defined as an enemy.

Annie , December 23, 2017 at 6:59 pm

The Logan act would not apply here, although I wish it would. I don't think anyone has been convicted based on this act, and they were part of a transition team not to mention the Logan act clearly states a private citizen who attempts to negotiate with an enemy state, and that certainly doesn't apply to Israel. In this administration their bias is so blatant that they can install Kushner as an honest broker in the Israeli-Palestine peace process while his family has a close relationship with Netanyahu, and he runs a foundation that invests in the building of illegal settlements which goes against the Geneva conventions. Hopefully Trump's blatant siding with Israel will receive a lot of backlash as did his plan to make Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

I also found that so called progressive internet sites don't cover this the way they should.

Al Pinto , December 24, 2017 at 9:16 am

@Annie

"The Logan act would not apply here, although I wish it would."

You and me both .

From the point of starting to read this article, it has been in my mind that the Logan act would not apply here. After reading most of the comments, it became clear that not many people viewed this as such. Yes, Joe Tedesky did as well

The UN is the "clearing house" for international politics, where countries freely contact each other's for getting support for their cause behind the scene. The support sought after could be voting for or against the resolution on hand. At times, as Israel did, countries reach out to perceived enemies as well, if they could not secure sufficient support for their cause. This is the normal activity of the UN diplomacy.

Knowing that the outgoing administration would not support its cause, Israel reached out to the incoming administration to delay the vote on the UN resolution. I fail to see anything wrong with Israel's action even in this case; Israel is not an enemy state to the US. As such, there has been no violation of any acts by the incoming administration, even if they tried to secure veto vote for Israel. I do not like it, but no action by Mueller in this case is correct.

People, just like the article in itself, implying that the Logan Act applies in this case are just plain wrong. Not just wrong, but their anti-Israel bias is in plain view.

Whether we like it or not, the former and current administration view Russia is as an enemy state. Even then, Russia contacting the incoming administration is not a violation of the Logan Act. That is just normal diplomacy in the background between countries. What would be a violation is that the contacted official acted on the behalf of Russia and tried to influence the outgoing administration's decision. That is what the Mueller investigation tries to prove hopelessly

Herman , December 24, 2017 at 10:54 am

"Whether we like it or not, the former and current administration view Russia is as an enemy state." So that is how it works, the White House says it is an enemy state and therefore it is. The so called declaration is the hammer used for trying to make contact with Russia a criminal offense. We are not at war with Russia although we see our leaders doing their best to provoke Russia into one.

Annie , December 24, 2017 at 1:55 pm

Thanks for your reply. When I read the article and it referenced the Logan Act, which I am familiar with in that I've read about it before, I was surprised that Bernstein and Silverstein even brought it up because it so obviously does not apply in this case, since Israel is not considered an enemy state. Many have even referenced it as flimsy when it comes to convictions against those in Trump's transition team who had contacts with Russia. No one has ever been convicted under the Logan Act.

Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 6:41 pm

The Logan Act either should apply equally, or not apply at all. This "Russia-gate" hype seems to apply it selectively.

mrtmbrnmn , December 23, 2017 at 7:36 pm

You guys are blinded by the light. The Israel connection disclosed by the malpracticer hack Mueller in the recent Flynn-flam just made Trump bullet-proof (so to speak).

There is no doubt that Trump is Bibi's and the Saudi's ventriloquist dummy and Jared has been an Israel agent of influence since he was 12.

But half the Dementedcrat Sore Loser Brigade will withdraw from the field of battle (not to mention most of the GOP living dead too) if publically and noisily tying Israel to Trump's tail becomes the only route to his removal. Which it would have to be, as there is no there there regarding the yearlong trumped-up PutinPutinPutin waterboarding of Trump.

Immediately (if not sooner) the mighty (pro-Israel) Donor Bank of Singer (Paul), Saban (Haim), Sachs (Goldman) & Adelson (Sheldon), would change their passwords and leave these politicians/beggars with empty begging bowls. End of $ordid $tory.

alley cat , December 23, 2017 at 7:45 pm

So Mueller caught Kushner and Flynn red-handed, sabotaging the Obama administration? What of it? He can't use that evidence, because it would inculpate the Zionist neocons that are orchestrating his farcical, Stalinist witchhunt. And Mueller, being an efficient terminator bot, knows that his target is Russia, not Israel.

Mueller can use that evidence of sabotage and/or obstruction of justice to try to coerce false confessions from Kushner and Flynn. But what are the chances of that, barring short stayovers for them at some CIA black site?

So Mueller will just have to continue swamp-fishing for potential perjurers ahem witnesses, for the upcoming show trials (to further inflame public opinion against Russia and Russia sympathizers). And continue he will, because (as we all know from Schwarzenegger's flicks), the only way to stop the terminator is to terminate him/it first.

Leslie F. , December 23, 2017 at 8:28 pm

He used it, along with other info, to turn flip Flynn and possibly can use it the same way again Kusher. Not all evidence has end up in court to be useful.

JWalters , December 23, 2017 at 8:40 pm

This is an extremely important story, excellently reported. All the main "facts" Americans think they know about Israel are, amazingly, flat-out lies.

1. Israel was NOT victimized by powerful Arab armies. Israel overpowered and victimized a defenseless, civilian Arab population. Military analysts knew the Arab armies were in poor shape and would not be able to resist the zionist army.

2. Muslim "citizens" of Israel do NOT have all the same rights as Jews.

3. Israelis are NOT under threat from the indigineous Palestinians, but Palestinians are under constant threats of theft and death from the Israelis.

4. Israel does NOT share America's most fundamental values, which rest on the principle of equal human rights for all.

Maintaining such a blanket of major lies for decades requires immense power. And this power would have to be exercised "under the radar" to be effective. That requires even more power. Both Congress and the press have to be controlled. How much power does it take to turn "Progressive Rachel" into "Tel Aviv Rachel"? To turn "It Takes a Village" Hillary into "Slaughter a Village" Hillary? It takes immense power AND ruthlessness.

War profiteers have exactly this combination of immense war profits and the ruthlessness to victimize millions of people.
"War Profiteers and the Roots of the War on Terror"
http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com

Vast war profits easily afford to buy the mainstream media. And controlling campaign contributions for members of Congress is amazingly cheap in the big picture. Such a squalid sale of souls.

And when simple bribery is not enough, they ruin a person's life through blackmail or false character assassination. And if those don't work they use death threats, including to family members, and finally murder. Their ruthlessness is unrestrained. John Perkins has described these tactics in "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man".

For readers who haven't seen it, here is an excellent riff on the absurdly overwhelming evidence for Israel's influence compared to that of Russia, at a highly professional news and analysis website run by Jewish anti-Zionists.
"Let's talk about Russian influence"
http://mondoweiss.net/2016/08/about-russian-influence/

mike k , December 23, 2017 at 8:44 pm

Hitler and Mussolini, Trump and Netanyahoo – matches made in Hell. These characters are so obviously, blatantly evil that it is deeply disturbing that people fail to see that, and instead go to great lengths to find some complicated flaws in these monsters.

mike k , December 23, 2017 at 8:49 pm

Keep it simple folks. No need for complex analyses. Just remember that these characters as simply as evil as it gets, and proceed from there. These asinine shows that portray mobsters as complex human beings are dangerously deluding. If you want to be victimized by these types, this kind of overthinking is just the way to go.

Sam F , December 23, 2017 at 9:00 pm

There is a modern theory of fiction that insists upon the portrayal of inconsistency in characters, both among the good guys and the bad guys. It is useful to show how those who do wrongs have made specific kinds of errors that make them abnormal, and that those who do right are not perfect but nonetheless did the right thing. Instead it is used by commercial writers to argue that the good are really bad, and the bad are really good, which is of course the philosophy of oligarchy-controlled mass publishers.

Sam F , December 23, 2017 at 8:54 pm

A very important article by Dennis Bernstein, and it is very appropriate that non-zionist Jews are active against the extreme zionist corruption of our federal government. I am sure that they are reviled by the zionists for interfering with the false denunciations of racism against the opponents of zionism. Indeed critics face a very nearly totalitarian power of zionism, which in league with MIC/WallSt opportunism has displaced democracy altogether in the US.

backwardsevolution , December 23, 2017 at 9:18 pm

A nice little set-up by the Obama administration. Perhaps it was entrapment? Who set it up? Flynn and Kushner should have known better to fall for it. So at the end of his Presidency, Obama suddenly gets balls and wants to slap down Israel? Yeah, right.

Nice to have leverage over people, though, isn't it? If you're lucky and play your cards right, you might even be lucky enough to land an impeachment.

Of course, I'm just being cynical. No one would want to overturn democracy, would they?

Certainly people like Comey, Brenner, Clinton, Clapper, Mueller, Rosenstein wouldn't want that, would they?

Joe Tedesky , December 23, 2017 at 10:33 pm

I just can't see any special prosecutor investigating Israel-Gate. Between what the Zionist donors donate to these creepy politicians, too what goods they have on these same mischievous politicians, I just can't see any investigation into Israel's collusion with the Trump Administration going anywhere. Netanyahu isn't Putin, and Russia isn't Israel. Plus, Israel is considered a U.S. ally, while Russia is being marked as a Washington rival. Sorry, this news regarding Israel isn't going to be ranted on about for the next 18 months, like the MSM has done with Russia, because our dear old Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, or so they tell us. So, don't get your hopes up.

JWalters , December 24, 2017 at 3:33 am

It's true the Israelis have America's politicians by the ears and the balls. But as this story gets better known, politicians will start getting questions at their town meetings. Increasingly the politicians will gag on what Israel is force-feeding them, until finally they reach a critical mass of vomit in Congress.

Joe Tedesky , December 24, 2017 at 11:12 am

I hope you are right JWalters. Although relying on a Zionist controlled MSM doesn't give hope for the news getting out properly. Again I hope you are right JWalters. Joe

Jeff Blankfort , December 24, 2017 at 12:18 am

Actually, Netanyahu was so desperate to have the resolution pulled and not voted on that he reached out to any country that might help him after the foreign minister of New Zealand, one of its co-sponsors refused to pull the plug after a testy phone exchange with the Israeli PM ending up threatening an Israeli boycott oturnef the KIwis.

He then turned to his buddy, Vladimir Putin, who owed him a favor for having Israel's UN delegate absent himself for the UNGA vote on sanctioning Russia after its annexation of Crimea.

Putin then called Russia's UN Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, since deceased, and asked him to get the other UNSC ambassadors to postpone the vote until Trump took over the White House but the other ambassadors weren't buying it. Given Russia's historic public position regarding the settlements, Churkin had no choice to vote Yes with the others.

This story was reported in detail in the Israeli press but blacked out in the US which, due to Zionist influence on the media, does not want the American public to know about the close ties between Putin and Netanyahu which has led to the Israeli PM making five state visits there in the last year and a half.

Had Clinton won the White House we can assume that there would have been no US veto. That Netanyahu apparently knew in advance that the US planned to veto the resolution was, I suspect, leaked to the Israelis by US delegate Samantha Power, who was clearly unhappy at having to abstain.

Abe , December 24, 2017 at 12:39 am

The Israeli Prime Minister made five state visits to Russia in the last year and a half to make sure the Russians don't accidentally on purpose blast Israeli warplanes from the sky over Syria (like they oughtta). Putin tries not to snicker when Netanyahu bloviates ad nauseum about the purported "threat" posed by Iran.

argos , December 24, 2017 at 7:00 am

He thinks Putin is a RATS ASS like the yankee government

JWalters , December 24, 2017 at 3:34 am

"This story was reported in detail in the Israeli press but blacked out in the US"

We've just had a whole cluster of big stories involving Israel that have all been essentially blacked out in the US press. e.g.
"Dionne and Shields ignore the Adelson in the room"
http://mondoweiss.net/2017/12/jerusalem-israels-capital

This is not due to chance. There is no doubt that the US mainstream media is wholly controlled by the Israelis.

alley cat , December 24, 2017 at 4:49 am

"He [Netanyahu] then turned to his buddy, Vladimir Putin "

Jeff, that characterization of Putin and Netanyahu's relationship makes no sense, since the Russians have consistently opposed Zionism and Putin has been no exception, having spoiled Zionist plans for the destruction of Syria.

"Had Clinton won the White House we can assume that there would have been no US veto."

Not sure where you're going with that, since the US vote was up to Obama, who wanted to get some payback for all of Bibi's efforts to sabotage Obama's treaty with Iran.

For the record, Zionism has had no more rabid supporter than the Dragon Lady. If we're going to make assumptions, we could start by assuming that if she had won the White House we'd all be dead by now, thanks to her obsession (at the instigation of her Zionist/neocon sponsors) with declaring no-fly zones in Syria.

Brendan , December 24, 2017 at 6:18 am

Trump and Kushner have nothing to worry about, even if a smoking gun is found that proves their collusion with Israel. That's because the entire political and media establishment will simply ignore the Israeli connection.

Journalists and politicians will even continue to present Mike Flynn's contacts as evidence of collusion with Russia. They'll keep on repeating that "Flynn lied about his phone call to the Russian ambassador". But there will be no mention of the fact that the purpose of this contact was to support Israel and not any alleged Russian interference.

Skip Scott , December 24, 2017 at 7:59 am

I think you have it right Brendan. The MSM, Intelligence Community, and Mueller would never go down any path that popularized undue Israeli influence on US foreign policy. "Nothing to see here folks, move along."

argos , December 24, 2017 at 6:57 am

The zionist will stop at nothing to control the middle east with American taxpayers money/military equiptment its a win win for the zionist they control America lock stock and barrel a pity though it is a great country to be led by a jewish entity.

Herman , December 24, 2017 at 10:47 am

What will Israel-Palestine look like twenty years from now? Will it remain an apartheid regime, a regime without any Palestinians, or something different. The Trump decision, which the world rejects, brings the issue of "final" settlement to the fore. In a way we can go back to the thirties and the British Mandate. Jewish were fleeing Europe, many coming to Palestine. The British, on behalf of the Zionists, were delaying declaring Palestine a state with control of its own affairs. Seeing the mass immigration and chafing at British foot dragging, the Arabs rebelled, What happened then was that the British, responding to numerous pressures notably war with Germany, acted by granting independence and granting Palestine control of its borders.

With American pressure and the mass exodus of Jews from Europe, Jews defied the British resulting in Jewish resistance. What followed then was a UN plan to divide the land with a Jerusalem an international city administered by the UN. The Arabs rebelled and lost much of what the UN plan provided and Jerusalem as an international city was scrapped.

Will there be a second serious attempt to settle the issue of the land and the status of Jerusalem? Will there be a serious move toward a single state? How will the matter of Jerusalem be resolved. The two state solution has always been a fantasy and acquiescence of Palestinians to engage in this charade exposes their leaders to charges of posturing for perks. Imagined options could go on and on but will there be serious options placed before the world community or will the boots on the ground Israeli policies continue?

As I have commented before, it will most probably be the Jewish community in Israel and the world that shapes the future and if the matter is to be resolved that is fair to both parties, it will be they that starts the ball rolling.

Zachary Smith , December 24, 2017 at 1:34 pm

As I have commented before, it will most probably be the Jewish community in Israel and the world that shapes the future and if the matter is to be resolved that is fair to both parties, it will be they that starts the ball rolling.

The Nice Zionists responsible for the thefts and murders for the past 69 years along with the "Jewish Community" in the rest of the world will resolve the matter so as to be fair to both parties. This is mind-boggling fantasy.

Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 5:56 pm

Truly mind-boggling. Ahistorical, and as you say, fantasy.

Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 5:48 pm

FFS, Netanyahu aired a political commercial in Florida for Romney saying vote for this guy (against Obama)! I mean, it doesn't get any more overtly manipulative than that. Period. End of story.

$50K of Facebook ads about puppies pales in comparison to that blatant, prima facia, public manipulation. God, I hate to go all "Israel controls the media" but there it is. Not even a discussion. Just a fact.

Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 6:11 pm

Just for the record, Richard Silverstein blocked me on Twitter because I pointed out that he slammed someone who was suggesting that the Assad government was fighting for its (Syria's) life by fighting terrorists. Actually, more specifically, because of that he read my "Free Palestine" bio on Twitter and called me a Hamas supporter (no Hamas mentioned) and a "moron" for some seeming contradiction.

I also have to point out that he "fist pumped" Hillary Clinton at Mohammed Ali's eulogy. If he's as astute as he purports to be, he has to know that Hillary would have invaded Syria and killed a few hundred thousand more Syrians for the simple act of defiantly preserving their country. By almost any read of Ali's history, he would have been adamantly ("killing brown people") against that. But there was Silverstein using the platform to promote, arguably, perpetual war.

Silverstein is probably not a good (ie. consistent) arbiter of Israeli impact on US politics. Just sayin'.

I wish it were otherwise.

Taras 77 , December 24, 2017 at 6:35 pm

https://www.therussophile.org/virus-found-inside-dnc-server-is-linked-to-a-company-based-in-pakistan.html/

This may be a tad ot but it relates to the alleged hacking of the DNC, the role debbie wasserman schultz plays in the spy ring (awan bros) in house of rep servers: I have long suspected that mossad has their fingers in this entire mess. FWIW

Good site, BTW.

Zachary Smith , December 24, 2017 at 7:35 pm

I can't recall why I removed the Tikun Olam site from my bookmarks – it happened quite a while back. Generally I do that when I feel the blogger crossed some kind of personal red line. Something Mr. Silverstein wrote put him over that line with me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/us/06leak.html?hp

In the course of a search I found that at the neocon NYT. Mr. Silverstein claims several things I find unbelievable, and from that alone I wonder about his ultimate motives. I may be excessively touchy about this, but that's how it is.

Larry Larsen , December 24, 2017 at 8:51 pm

Yeah Zachary, "wondering about ultimate motives" is probably a good way to put it/his views. He's obviously conflicted, if not deferential in some aspects of Israeli policy. He really was a hero of mine, but now I just don't get whether what he says is masking something or a true belief. He says some good stuff, but, but, but .

P. Michael Garber , December 24, 2017 at 11:54 pm

Yeah I found a couple of Silverstein's statements to be closer to neocon propaganda than reality: "Because this is Israel and because we have a conflicted relationship with the Israel lobby . . ." "Instead of going directly to the Obama administration, with which they had terrible relations, they went to Trump instead." My impression was that the whole "terrible relationship between Obama and Netanyahu" was manufactured by the Israel lobby to bully Obama. However these are small blips within an otherwise solid critique of the Israel lobby's influence.

[Dec 23, 2017] Slovenia is among the Coalition of the 128 NOT willing to be punked by USA. Melania better keep a low profile around Trump and Nikki

Dec 23, 2017 | marknesop.wordpress.com

Northern Star , , December 21, 2017 at 1:13 pm

Uh Oh Slovenia is among the Coalition of the 128 NOT willing to be punked by USA..

Maybe some panic stricken late night 911 DV calls from the WH??

Melania better keep a low profile around Trump and Nikki !!!!!! LOL!!

Jen , December 21, 2017 at 2:48 pm
India was naughty as well and Nimrata Nikki Randhawa Haley ought to have taken the Indian ambassador's name down as well. Maybe she'll even declare she won't ever set foot in India again. Her relatives there will breathe sighs of relief!
Cortes , December 21, 2017 at 4:27 pm
She's made herself untouchable.
Jen , December 21, 2017 at 8:03 pm
Ha ha!
Moscow Exile , December 21, 2017 at 8:41 pm
She makes me Sikh

[Dec 13, 2017] An astute progressive critique of the Trump Administration from CNBC! by NewDealdemocrat

That's what Trump's "bastard neoliberalism" is about. He is not a New Dealer.
Notable quotes:
"... He forgot them on health care. Jettisoning his campaign pledge to "take care of everybody" regardless of income, he proposed cutting federal health subsidies for the hard-pressed blue-collar voters who put him into office. ..."
"... He forgot them on financial regulation. Abandoning talk of cracking down on Wall Street executives who "rigged" the economy to hobble the working class, he seeks to undercut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. ..."
"... And he forgot them on taxes. Discarding his vow to reshape taxation for average families at the expense of rich people like himself, he's working with Republican leaders to hand the biggest benefits to corporations and the wealthy ..."
"... The president hasn't forgotten everything. In lieu of big financial benefits, Trump has steadily given "the forgotten people" at least one visceral commodity [: ] affirmation of shared racial grievances. ..."
"... But on economic issues he has behaved exactly like a standard issue country club republican. The requirement that the GOP enact a "replacement" for Obamacare? Gone. Preventing the offshoring of manufacturing jobs? Gone. Enacting at least something like a tariff at the borders? Gone. Actually *doing* something about the opioid crisis, which is strongly correlated with areas of economic distress (as opposed to lip service)? Nothing. ..."
Dec 07, 2017 | angrybearblog.com

John Harwood of that well known lefty outlet, . ummm, CNBC . writes this morning that "Trump has Forgotten his 'Forgotten People':"

He forgot them on health care. Jettisoning his campaign pledge to "take care of everybody" regardless of income, he proposed cutting federal health subsidies for the hard-pressed blue-collar voters who put him into office.

He forgot them on financial regulation. Abandoning talk of cracking down on Wall Street executives who "rigged" the economy to hobble the working class, he seeks to undercut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

And he forgot them on taxes. Discarding his vow to reshape taxation for average families at the expense of rich people like himself, he's working with Republican leaders to hand the biggest benefits to corporations and the wealthy.

To the contrary, his budget includes big cuts to Social Security disability program. Meanwhile his much-vaunted infrastructure plan has 'failed to materialize."

But, Harwood points out:

The president hasn't forgotten everything. In lieu of big financial benefits, Trump has steadily given "the forgotten people" at least one visceral commodity [: ] affirmation of shared racial grievances.

I think this is a good summary of Trump's domestic policies as revealed by the past year. On social issues, he has governed exactly as he promised during his campaign, issuing a de facto ban on Muslim immigration, unleashing ICE against Latinos, and fulminating against protesting black NFL players.

But on economic issues he has behaved exactly like a standard issue country club republican. The requirement that the GOP enact a "replacement" for Obamacare? Gone. Preventing the offshoring of manufacturing jobs? Gone. Enacting at least something like a tariff at the borders? Gone. Actually *doing* something about the opioid crisis, which is strongly correlated with areas of economic distress (as opposed to lip service)? Nothing.

Joel , December 7, 2017 9:03 am

Forgotten? LOL! No, Trump didn't forget. He was lying.

little john , December 7, 2017 4:01 pm

I hate doing this because I am not a fan of the President but a "de facto ban on Muslim immigration"? I cannot remember but I don't think Indonesia, Pakistan, India or Turkey was on the list. Those a pretty big Muslim nations. Maybe you should look it up. "Unleashing ICE against Latinos"? I have three Latino neighbors on my street, my next door neighbor doesn't even speak English, but I haven't seen any ICE agents around. Maybe I should just wait they're on their way? "Fulminating against NFL players"? You're right about that.

As an aside I have recently had to laugh when I see your pseudonym. Here in Dallas we've taken down the statue of Robert E. Lee from Robert E. Lee Park. (Now named Oak Lawn Park.) At the opening of the park in 1936 there is a great picture of the statue with FDR, Robert E Lee IV and D.W. Griffith. I am wondering if NewDealDemocrat is a microaggression?

run75441 , December 8, 2017 9:35 am

NDD:

Before you bemoan the loss of the CSR (covered by Section 1402 of the ACA) for those making between 138 and 250% FPL, you do understand premium subsidies will pick up the difference. If the states apply the premium increase properly to the Silver plans, the impact is felt across all other levels between 138% and 400% FPL. Indeed, in many cases Bronze plans are free, Gold plans become less costly, and premiums decrease. A person can go to a lower deductible/copay for the same or less cost than the original silver plan.

I think as some will tell you here, this does nothing for those greater than 400% FPL who now find themselves being hit with the full impact of a premium increase due to Trump's action. While a much smaller percentage of the insured, it still numbers around 9 million.

spencer , December 8, 2017 1:45 pm

Isn't that 8 million being hit out of the under 20 million that had signed up for Obamacare.

So on a percent basis doesn't you quote imply about half of the relevant population is being hit?

[Oct 11, 2017] Donald Trump is exposing the contradictions of the elite by David Callahan

That's neoliberal elite after all. Why the author expects them to be ashamed is unclear
Notable quotes:
"... Business practices aimed at boosting shareholder value – like outsourcing, offshoring, automation, union-busting, predatory lending, and a range of anti-competitive abuses – have undermined the security of large swaths of the country. In turn, a flood of business dollars for campaign donations and lobbying over decades has helped thwart effective government responses to rising pain on Main Street. ..."
"... History tells us that societies with extractive and self-serving upper classes tend to fall into decline – whereas societies with inclusive elites are more likely to thrive. With the rise of Trump, we're seeing what an unraveling of the social fabric looks like after decades in which nearly all the nation's income gains have flowed upwards to a tiny sliver of households. ..."
Oct 11, 2017 | www.theguardian.com

Since January, though, we've also seen a new level of rapaciousness by corporate interests in Washington DC that seem intent on extracting as much wealth as they can from wherever they can: consumers, investors, public lands, student borrowers, the tax code and even the war in Afghanistan.

Longtime watchers of the .01% won't be surprised by this bifurcated picture. For over two decades, an ever more educated wealthy elite has trumpeted its belief in tolerance, diversity, and meritocracy – even as it's also helped usher in record levels of inequality that have left many Americans feeling economically excluded and increasingly angry.

Trump's retrograde presidency has revealed the profound contradictions at the top of the US income ladder.

... ... ...

Corporate leaders have already been supportive of Trump's sweeping push to gut regulations in ways that would tilt the rules governing the economy more in favor of business and the wealthy. Social inclusion may be a growing public mantra of the far upper class. But economic extraction remains among its core operating principles.

... ... ...

Social inclusion is a public mantra of the upper class. But economic extraction remains a core operating principle

The answer is that many corporate and financial leaders were, and still are, a big part of the problem. These leaders have fostered the economic conditions that have thrown the values of tolerance and diversity on the defensive in America.

Business practices aimed at boosting shareholder value – like outsourcing, offshoring, automation, union-busting, predatory lending, and a range of anti-competitive abuses – have undermined the security of large swaths of the country. In turn, a flood of business dollars for campaign donations and lobbying over decades has helped thwart effective government responses to rising pain on Main Street.

... ... ...

History tells us that societies with extractive and self-serving upper classes tend to fall into decline – whereas societies with inclusive elites are more likely to thrive. With the rise of Trump, we're seeing what an unraveling of the social fabric looks like after decades in which nearly all the nation's income gains have flowed upwards to a tiny sliver of households.

Rarely has the American experiment – the notion of a country united by ideas rather than shared heritage – felt more fragile than it does right now. It's an ugly picture of division and resentment, but a predictable one given the economic trauma inflicted on millions of people over recent decades.

... ... ...

David Callahan is the author of The Givers: Wealth, Power, and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age. He is the founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy

[Jul 19, 2017] Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya says Magnitsky Act lobbyist Browder behind Trump Jr. scandal

Jul 19, 2017 | gravatar.com
  1. Moscow Exile says: July 19, 2017 at 2:44 am

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZlT3kaxIlgw?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

    Reply

[Jul 11, 2017] Russian Lawyer Who Met With Trump Jr. I Didn t Have Clinton Info They Wanted

Looks like recent leak is another fake...
www.unz.com

MOSCOW - The Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. during the presidential campaign denied in an exclusive interview with NBC News that she had any connection to the Kremlin and insists she met with President Donald Trump's son to press her client's interest in the Magnitsky Act - not to hand over information about Hillary Clinton's campaign.

"I never had any damaging or sensitive information about Hillary Clinton. It was never my intention to have that," Natalia Veselnitskaya said.

When asked how Trump Jr. seemed to have the impression that she had information about the Democratic National Committee, she responded:

"It is quite possible that maybe they were longing for such an information. They wanted it so badly that they could only hear the thought that they wanted."

Trump Jr. has confirmed that the meeting occurred, saying in a statement to The New York Times that he attended "a short introductory meeting" with the lawyer, where the topic of conversation was primarily about adoption.

On Monday, Trump Jr. seemed to confirm that he had been offered information about Hillary or her campaign but insisted that nothing untoward in the meeting had occurred.

"Obviously I'm the first person on a campaign to ever take a meeting to hear info about an opponent... went nowhere but had to listen," he tweeted, seemingly sarcastic.

The New York Times on Monday reported that Trump Jr. was told in an email before the meeting that the information Veselnitskaya had was part of a Russian government effort to help his father's candidacy.

But Veselnitskaya flatly denied any connection to the Russian government.

[Jul 11, 2017] The Consequences of Donald Trump Jr.s Stupidity

This female lawyer probably can be characterized as anti-Russian lawyer. She is more probably MI6 asset then FSB asset ;-) (connection with William F. Browder ).
But attempts to stir the pot of Purple Color Revolution ( aka Russiagate) will continue. Neocons are pretty tenacious.
Notable quotes:
"... That it was, yes, ethically promiscuous!but, worse, incredibly stupid. One recalls the line, often incorrectly attributed to Talleyrand, in response to a burgeoning scandal at the French court: "It was worse than a crime; it was a blunder.'' ..."
"... But he didn't give up. At last week's G-20 Summit in Hamburg, in a long meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump sought to get beyond the matter of Russia's U.S. political interference and take up other serious matters of mutual interest to the two countries, with a hope of easing tensions. It was an important development in a crucial area of U.S. foreign policy. Now the president is back on the defensive, his back to the wall, with his opponents positioned to immobilize him on his Russian policy. ..."
"... But, in terms of Trump's command of his policy toward Russia, it almost doesn't matter because the new revelations will constrict his range of action irrespective of what may lie behind them. The forces that have wanted to destroy the president, or at least destroy his ability to bring about a détente with Putin, are once again in the saddle. One has to wonder at, perhaps even marvel at, the timing in all this. ..."
Jul 11, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com

During a post-dinner cigar session at his elegant Cleveland mansion, Hanna reported back to McKinley on the results of his mission. Another participant recalled that the excited Hanna seemed "as keen as a razor blade.''

"Now, Major," said the political operative, addressing the governor by his Civil War title, "it's all over but the shouting. You can get both New York and Pennsylvania, but there are certain conditions." He didn't show any discomfort with the conditions, but McKinley was wary.

"What are they?" he asked. Hanna explained that Quay wanted control of all federal patronage in Pennsylvania, while others wanted to dominate government jobs in New England and Maine. But Platt wanted a bigger prize!the job of secretary of the Treasury!and he wanted a promise in writing.

McKinley stared ahead, puffing on his cigar. Then he rose from his chair, paced the room a few moments, and turned to Hanna.

"Mark," he said, "there are some things in this world that come too high. If I were to accept the nomination on those terms, the place would be worth nothing to me, and less to the people. If those are the terms, I am out of it.''

Hanna was taken aback. "Not so fast," he protested, explaining that, while it would be "damned hard" to prevail over the powerful bosses, who would surely not take kindly to a rebuff, Hanna thought it could be done and he welcomed the challenge. The men in the room pondered the situation and came up with a slogan: "The People Against the Bosses.''

McKinley ultimately beat the bosses, stirring a Washington Post reporter to write that "the big three of the Republican Party hoped to find McKinley as putty in their hands. When they failed, they vowed war on him." But now, said the reporter, their war was sputtering. "And over in the Ohio city by the lake, one Mark Hanna is laughing in his sleeve.''

This little vignette from the mists of the political past comes to mind with the latest development in the ongoing saga involving suspected Russian interference in last year's presidential campaign and the search for evidence that President Trump or his top campaign officials "colluded" with Russians to influence the electoral outcome. Now it turns out that the president's son, Donald Jr., met with a Russian lawyer, at the behest of a Russian friend, with an understanding beforehand that the lawyer could provide "official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary [Clinton] and her dealings with Russia and be very useful to your father." For good measure, Donald Jr. took along his brother-in-law, Jared Kushner, a top Trump adviser, and his father's campaign manager at the time, Paul Manafort.

This is no small matter, and it is certain to roil the waters of the ongoing investigations. More significantly, it will roil the political scene, contributing mightily to the deadlock crisis that has America in its grip. White House officials and Trump supporters are defending young Trump with pronouncements that nothing was amiss here; every campaign collects dirt on opponents; nothing done was against the law; we must get beyond these "gotcha" political witch hunts, etc., etc.

Meanwhile. Trump opponents see skulky tendencies, nefarious intent, moral turpitude, and likely illegality. Both sides are trotting out criminal lawyers declaring, based on their prior political proclivities, that no laws were broken!or that laws were clearly broken. The cable channels are crackling with competition over who can be more definitive and sanctimonious on the air!Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity at Fox in defending the president; or Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews in attacking him on MSNBC.

Meanwhile, the country will continue to struggle with the question of what all this Sturm und Drang actually means. What to think? Whom to believe?

Let's stipulate, for purposes of analysis, that what we see is what there is, that what we know is not a harbinger of worse to come. How should we assess what we know thus far? What should we make of that meeting with the Russian lawyer?

That it was, yes, ethically promiscuous!but, worse, incredibly stupid. One recalls the line, often incorrectly attributed to Talleyrand, in response to a burgeoning scandal at the French court: "It was worse than a crime; it was a blunder.''

Consider that, after months of investigation, with leaks all over the place from those conducting the probe, no serious evidence emerged of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. The collusion story was receding in the national consciousness, and even in the Washington consciousness, with questions of "obstruction of justice" supplanting collusion as the more significant avenue of inquiry. Now the question of collusion is once again in the air.

The fate of Donald Trump Jr. is a puny matter in the scheme of things, but the state of the union is a huge matter. And the young man's stupidity of a year ago will have!indeed, is already having!a significant impact on the president's leadership. He campaigned on a pledge to improve relations with Russia, with an implicit acknowledgment that the West was probably equally responsible, along with Moscow, for the growing tensions between the two nations. He was right about that. Then came the evidence of Russian meddling in the U.S. election and the allegations of collusion, and Trump's effort at improving relations was killed in the crib.

But he didn't give up. At last week's G-20 Summit in Hamburg, in a long meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump sought to get beyond the matter of Russia's U.S. political interference and take up other serious matters of mutual interest to the two countries, with a hope of easing tensions. It was an important development in a crucial area of U.S. foreign policy. Now the president is back on the defensive, his back to the wall, with his opponents positioned to immobilize him on his Russian policy.

Now let's set aside, for just a moment, the previous stipulation that what we see is all there is. It's possible, of course, that this unfortunate meeting actually was part of a much bigger conspiracy that, if disclosed in full, could engulf the administration in revelations of such magnitude as to bring down the president. It's possible, but not likely.

But, in terms of Trump's command of his policy toward Russia, it almost doesn't matter because the new revelations will constrict his range of action irrespective of what may lie behind them. The forces that have wanted to destroy the president, or at least destroy his ability to bring about a détente with Putin, are once again in the saddle. One has to wonder at, perhaps even marvel at, the timing in all this.

Actions, even more than ideas, have consequences. That's what Trump Jr., Kushner, and Manafort ignored when they accepted an invitation to meet with a Russian representative with "official documents" that could harm the candidacy of the Democratic contender.

And that's precisely what William McKinley had in mind when he said he wouldn't enter into unsavory bargains with the Eastern bosses even if it meant giving up his presidential dream. Of course, McKinley was thinking in part about his own personal code of conduct!his inability to live with a decision that was beneath his concept of rectitude. But note that he also invoked the American people when he recoiled at the thought. He wouldn't take an action that he considered inconsistent with his duty to the electorate.

That was a long time ago!and a world away. Today we have the likes of the Trumps!and, for that matter, the Clintons, who leave nearly everyone in their wake when it comes to moral and ethical laxity in matters of public policy. And so it must have seemed perfectly normal for those three men, part of Donald Trump's inner circle of campaign confidantes, to accept the idea of sitting down with someone from a foreign power and talk about how official documents from that power could help upend their opponent. Did Trump himself know about all this as it was unfolding? We don't know, but probably. In any event, it probably wasn't a crime, but it was a hell of a blunder.

... ... ...

Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington, D.C., journalist and publishing executive, is editor of The American Conservative. His next book, President McKinley: Architect of the American Century , is due out from Simon & Schuster in November.

[Feb 21, 2017] David Stockman provides one of the best commentaries on Flynn assassination by deep state and Trymp betrayal of Flynn

Feb 20, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
David Stockman provides one of the best commentaries on Flynn assassination by deep state and Obama neocon holdovers in the administration. This is a really powerful astute, first class analysis of the situation:

Flynn's Gone But They're Still Gunning For You, Donald

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2017/february/17/flynns-gone-but-theyre-still-gunning-for-you-donald/

== quote ==
... ... ...
This is the real scandal as Trump himself has rightly asserted. The very idea that the already announced #1 national security advisor to a President-elect should be subject to old-fashion "bugging," albeit with modern day technology, overwhelmingly trumps the utterly specious Logan Act charge at the center of the case.

As one writer for LawNewz noted regarding acting Attorney General Sally Yates' voyeuristic pre-occupation with Flynn's intercepted conversations, Nixon should be rolling in his grave with envy:

Now, information leaks that Sally Yates knew about surveillance being conducted against potential members of the Trump administration, and disclosed that information to others. Even Richard Nixon didn't use the government agencies themselves to do his black bag surveillance operations. Sally Yates involvement with this surveillance on American political opponents, and possibly the leaking related thereto, smacks of a return to Hoover-style tactics. As writers at Bloomberg and The Week both noted, it wreaks of 'police-state' style tactics. But knowing dear Sally as I do, it comes as no surprise.

Yes, that's the same career apparatchik of the permanent government that Obama left behind to continue the 2016 election by other means. And it's working. The Donald is being rapidly emasculated by the powers that be in the Imperial City due to what can only be described as an audacious and self-evident attack on Trump's Presidency by the Deep State.

Indeed, it seems that the layers of intrigue have gotten so deep and convoluted that the nominal leadership of the permanent government machinery has lost track of who is spying on whom. Thus, we have the following curious utterance by none other than the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes:

'I expect for the FBI to tell me what is going on, and they better have a good answer,' he told The Washington Post. 'The big problem I see here is that you have an American citizen who had his phone calls recorded.'

Well, yes. That makes 324 million of us, Congressman.

But for crying out loud, surely the oh so self-important chairman of the House intelligence committee knows that everybody is bugged. But when it reaches the point that the spy state is essentially using its unconstitutional tools to engage in what amounts to "opposition research" with the aim of election nullification, then the Imperial City has become a clear and present danger to American democracy and the liberties of the American people.

As Robert Barnes of LawNewz further explained, Sally Yates, former CIA director John Brennan and a large slice of the Never Trumper intelligence community were systematically engaged in "opposition research" during the campaign and the transition:

According to published reports, someone was eavesdropping, and recording, the conversations of Michael Flynn, while Sally Yates was at the Department of Justice. Sally Yates knew about this eavesdropping, listened in herself (Pellicano-style for those who remember the infamous LA cases), and reported what she heard to others. For Yates to have such access means she herself must have been involved in authorizing its disclosure to political appointees, since she herself is such a political appointee. What justification was there for an Obama appointee to be spying on the conversations of a future Trump appointee?

Consider this little tidbit in The Washington Post . The paper, which once broke Watergate, is now propagating the benefits of Watergate-style surveillance in ways that do make Watergate look like a third-rate effort. (With the) FBI 'routinely' monitoring conversations of Americans...... Yates listened to 'the intercepted call,' even though Yates knew there was 'little chance' of any credible case being made for prosecution under a law 'that has never been used in a prosecution.'

And well it hasn't been. After all, the Logan Act was signed by President John Adams in 1799 in order to punish one of Thomas Jefferson's supporters for having peace discussions with the French government in Paris. That is, it amounted to pre-litigating the Presidential campaign of 1800 based on sheer political motivation.

According to the Washington Post itself, that is exactly what Yates and the Obama holdovers did day and night during the interregnum:
Indeed, the paper details an apparent effort by Yates to misuse her office to launch a full-scale secret investigation of her political opponents, including 'intercepting calls' of her political adversaries.

So all of the feigned outrage emanating from Democrats and the Washington establishment about Team Trump's trafficking with the Russians is a cover story. Surely anyone even vaguely familiar with recent history would have known there was absolutely nothing illegal or even untoward about Flynn's post-Christmas conversations with the Russian Ambassador.

Indeed, we recall from personal experience the thrilling moment on inauguration day in January 1981 when word came of the release of the American hostages in Tehran. Let us assure you, that did not happen by immaculate diplomatic conception -- nor was it a parting gift to the Gipper by the outgoing Carter Administration.

To the contrary, it was the fruit of secret negotiations with the Iranian government during the transition by private American citizens. As the history books would have it because it's true, the leader of that negotiation, in fact, was Ronald Reagan's national security council director-designate, Dick Allen.

As the real Washington Post later reported, under the by-line of a real reporter, Bob Woodward:

Reagan campaign aides met in a Washington DC hotel in early October, 1980, with a self-described 'Iranian exile' who offered, on behalf of the Iranian government, to release the hostages to Reagan, not Carter, in order to ensure Carter's defeat in the November 4, 1980 election.

The American participants were Richard Allen, subsequently Reagan's first national security adviser, Allen aide Laurence Silberman, and Robert McFarlane, another future national security adviser who in 1980 was on the staff of Senator John Tower (R-TX).

To this day we have not had occasion to visit our old friend Dick Allen in the US penitentiary because he's not there; the Logan Act was never invoked in what is surely the most blatant case ever of citizen diplomacy.

So let's get to the heart of the matter and be done with it. The Obama White House conducted a sour grapes campaign to delegitimize the election beginning November 9th and it was led by then CIA Director John Brennan.

That treacherous assault on the core constitutional matter of the election process culminated in the ridiculous Russian meddling report of the Obama White House in December. The latter, of course, was issued by serial liar James Clapper, as national intelligence director, and the clueless Democrat lawyer and bag-man, Jeh Johnson, who had been appointed head of the Homeland Security Department.

Yet on the basis of the report's absolutely zero evidence and endless surmise, innuendo and "assessments", the Obama White House imposed another round of its silly school-boy sanctions on a handful of Putin's cronies.

Of course, Flynn should have been telling the Russian Ambassador that this nonsense would be soon reversed!

But here is the ultimate folly. The mainstream media talking heads are harrumphing loudly about the fact that the very day following Flynn's call -- Vladimir Putin announced that he would not retaliate against the new Obama sanctions as expected; and shortly thereafter, the Donald tweeted that Putin had shown admirable wisdom.

That's right. Two reasonably adult statesman undertook what might be called the Christmas Truce of 2016. But like its namesake of 1914 on the bloody no man's land of the western front, the War Party has determined that the truce-makers shall not survive.

The Donald has been warned.

[Jan 09, 2017] Who Will Donald Trump Turn Out To Be?

Notable quotes:
"... Trump has ideas that he is not disclosing. He is new and the bureaucracy will run him instead of the other way around. Much will be half implemented because neither Trump nor GOP policies are popular. ..."
"... MinWage increases is one of the most popular policies but one the GOP is least likely to pass ..."
"... Domestic policy? Trump might act pseudo-magnanimous and come out for single payer, or something like that. The politically smartest next move would be to buy-off some progressive Berniecrats, while sticking it to Wall Street (in a phony, visual way). ..."
"... But more likely it will be Reaganoid business as usual. Why? Because: ..."
"... The system is complicated, and every thread you pull on, unravels something else. That's systems theory, folks! ..."
"... The power of the Presidency is limited, and overrated by partisans on both sides. ..."
"... A President's information is restricted to what comes in through his advisors, and this bunch are looking like, kwite a kwazy krew. ..."
"... Trump's low cognition and narcissism will result in short-sighted moves and more foreign policy quagmires for the US: "Look at the black eye the US gave itself, with the Bush-Cheney War! -- Let's make America stupid again!" ..."
"... On trade? Trump is setting up the conditions where the richest people can plunder what's remains of the U.S., before getting out of the country: ..."
"... The new global slogan will be, "Trade with China -- We're the Crooks You Can TRUST!" ..."
"... Meanwhile Trump will give big tax cuts to the richest Americans, because his knuckleheaded voters believe all the "makers vs. takers" baloney; they haven't been schtupped up the keister enough... ..."
"... Then the rich will slowly start taking that money out of the U.S. to some other country that gets a higher global ROI under the new Chinese trade rules, because U.S. exporters under protectionism won't be nearly as profitable. ..."
"... The bureaucracy is too massive for any one person to control. Change requires action from the top or its business as usual. Trump does not have enough trusted aids and insiders to manage the government ..."
"... Right now it's hard to know if Trump's administration really wants to deliver change. Its cabinet-level staffing is hard to read. It is full of establishment types who could deliver change if that is really their mission. They are not beholden to anyone for their positions and they are not in need of lucrative employment after cabinet service that might otherwise make them tend to curry favor with interests they affect in office. ..."
"... Tillerson became CEO of Exxon and has been successful there, nontrivial achievements both. He is not a professional foreign service officer, neither was HRC. For many oil-producing countries, their most important foreign patron is Exxon. Tillerson is very familiar with the inside game in the Middle East where all kinds of shit has been hitting the fan for the past 25 years without the US having much success there. HRC and Kerry have been particularly ineffective and had far less accomplishments in life before assuming SoS office than Tillerson. ..."
"... Mnuchin got rich in Hollywood because he knew what people wanted from Hollywood. he was also chief of the NY bond desk for GS and was CIO for GS for five years. That is CIO of the most technologically sophisticated investment bank in the world. ..."
"... Mnuchin knows the technology and how it can be used to execute or hide chicanery better than anyone else in the industry. If he aims to reform the TBTF banks, he is better equipped than anyone who has been Treasury secretary over the 25 years during which computer technology assumed a key role in skulduggery in the industry. ..."
"... Marine nicknames are often ironic. "Mad Dog" Mattis probably reflects recognition of his intellect and coolness by his Marine colleagues. ..."
"... Mattis has been well known to be a smart, tough, effective achiever. If pentagon reform is really the goal, he would be hard to beat. ..."
"... These men have all been very successful at running large organizations. Let's see what direction they try to take the government and how they do at it. Should be interesting. ..."
"... History without context is meaningless. ..."
"... Wars play too great a role in history as taught. Neither of the Bushes, with their limited thinking, like the generals above, should have ever been allowed near hammers ..."
"... Colonialism took a bit too long to die, but Archduke Ferdinand was indeed about the dying throws of monarchies. ..."
Jan 09, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
Brad DeLong:
Who Will Donald Trump Turn Out To Be? :

We have very little indication of what policies Donald Trump will try to follow or even what kind of president he will be. The U.S. press corps did an extraordinarily execrable job in covering the rise of Trump--even worse than it usually does. Even the most sophisticated of audiences--those interested in asset prices and how they are affected by government policies--have very little insight into Trump's views or those of his key associates.

Will Donald Trump turn out to be the equivalent of Ronald Reagan -- someone who comes into office from the world of celebrity with a great many unfixed policy intuitions, but no consistent plan?

Will he turn out to be the equivalent of Silvio Berlusconi, who regards the presidency as an opportunity to wreak his kleptocratic will on the country?

Or will he turn out to be someone worse than Berlusconi?

I would say that Trump could be any of four figures...
jonny bakho -> pgl... January 09, 2017 at 03:20 AM , 2017 at 03:20 AM
DeLong's guess is as good as anyones.

Trump has ideas that he is not disclosing. He is new and the bureaucracy will run him instead of the other way around. Much will be half implemented because neither Trump nor GOP policies are popular.

MinWage increases is one of the most popular policies but one the GOP is least likely to pass

Congress has power but they must shift from opposition mode to governing mode. I expect much overreach and 'creative' destruction

Lee A. Arnold -> jonny bakho... , January 09, 2017 at 03:43 AM

Domestic policy? Trump might act pseudo-magnanimous and come out for single payer, or something like that. The politically smartest next move would be to buy-off some progressive Berniecrats, while sticking it to Wall Street (in a phony, visual way).

But more likely it will be Reaganoid business as usual. Why? Because:

1. The system is complicated, and every thread you pull on, unravels something else. That's systems theory, folks!
2. The power of the Presidency is limited, and overrated by partisans on both sides.
3. A President's information is restricted to what comes in through his advisors, and this bunch are looking like, kwite a kwazy krew. 4. There is a mid-term election less than 2 years from now.

Foreign policy? Putin wanted Trump to win, but NOT to make the U.S. stronger. He wants a weaker US. Why? Because the Russians hate the US for screwing them economically after the Iron Curtain fell, with trying to impose a bunch of free-market fundamentalist ignorance...

Were that not bad enough, the US slapped on oil sanctions recently, after Putin tried shoring-up his borders against NATO expansion and against Islamic terrorists.

... ... ...

Whether you yourself think it's good or bad to oppose Russia -- and whatever you think of Putin's tactics in response -- is not the point here. Fact is, Putin hates the US. Therefore, Putin is not going to help anyone whom he thinks will make the US stronger or more respected in the world.

Russian psych profiling may suggest that Trump's low cognition and narcissism will result in short-sighted moves and more foreign policy quagmires for the US: "Look at the black eye the US gave itself, with the Bush-Cheney War! -- Let's make America stupid again!"

On trade? Trump is setting up the conditions where the richest people can plunder what's remains of the U.S., before getting out of the country: Trump wants to tear up the big trade deals and make every country go into bilateral negotiations with his trade team... BUT those countries are all going to say, "Forget it! We just spent 6 years negotiating, and we know we can't trust the US anymore!"...

Then, they are going to turn around and join China's new global trade organization, which was suddenly announced the DAY AFTER Trump's election (funny, that, after years of planning, building forward military bases in the Pacific, etc.) The new global slogan will be, "Trade with China -- We're the Crooks You Can TRUST!"

Meanwhile Trump will give big tax cuts to the richest Americans, because his knuckleheaded voters believe all the "makers vs. takers" baloney; they haven't been schtupped up the keister enough... Then the rich will slowly start taking that money out of the U.S. to some other country that gets a higher global ROI under the new Chinese trade rules, because U.S. exporters under protectionism won't be nearly as profitable.

"...And golly, honey, there's plenty of pretty places over there to build new mansions, for both you, AND the mistress..." Meanwhile, back in the U.S., voters will continue walking around with their thumbs up their butts, & trying to prevent other Americans from getting healthcare, trying to prevent them from voting, etc... To get cash, the U.S. can join into a big flea market with the Brexiters, and we can all swap old Beatles vinyl...

Get behind Bernie, NOW!!!

JF -> jonny bakho... , January 09, 2017 at 04:24 AM
The bureaucracy will run things? This is not going to happen, governance will stall or cease.

Let me see, a party that says our form of govt is the problem. A party who has obstructed matters to cause dysfunction in govt on purpose, and who is entertaining nominees to head these agencies who do not care that they exist, bills introduced already to allow pay even to the individual to be cut , and to smooth firing processes, with an incoming group who surfaces transition-team surveys for the purposes of chilling efforts with the agencies even before they take control, on climate change for instance, well, the bureaucracy is demoralized, and threatened. The dysfunction of the American 'experiment' in self government will be harmed, perhaps accomplished finally.

And when they get their legs about them with new judiciary appointments they then should thread cases via these courts so holdings they get won't be appealed, giving them full control, with still the purpose being dysfunction for what has been the generally applicable law before. Ok with them, it would seem.

jonny bakho -> JF... , -1
The bureaucracy is too massive for any one person to control. Change requires action from the top or its business as usual. Trump does not have enough trusted aids and insiders to manage the government
anne -> pgl... , January 09, 2017 at 07:35 AM
"Reagan did not campaign for and enter the presidency thinking that he was going to push the value of the dollar up by 70%..."

-- Brad DeLong

[ The real trade-weighted price of the dollar increased by about 45% between 1980 and March 1985 and then declined and finished the Reagan presidency about 5% below the level of 1980. ]

RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , January 09, 2017 at 07:56 AM
[I set the Way-back machine to Links for 12-31-16 and copied what mrrunangun said to me then. From my experience mrrunangun is a more reliable source than the MSM, but then so is my wife and over half of the random strangers that I meet in Walmart.]

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2016/12/links-for-12-31-16.html

mrrunangun -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron...

Right now it's hard to know if Trump's administration really wants to deliver change. Its cabinet-level staffing is hard to read. It is full of establishment types who could deliver change if that is really their mission. They are not beholden to anyone for their positions and they are not in need of lucrative employment after cabinet service that might otherwise make them tend to curry favor with interests they affect in office.

Tillerson became CEO of Exxon and has been successful there, nontrivial achievements both. He is not a professional foreign service officer, neither was HRC. For many oil-producing countries, their most important foreign patron is Exxon. Tillerson is very familiar with the inside game in the Middle East where all kinds of shit has been hitting the fan for the past 25 years without the US having much success there. HRC and Kerry have been particularly ineffective and had far less accomplishments in life before assuming SoS office than Tillerson.

Mnuchin got rich in Hollywood because he knew what people wanted from Hollywood. he was also chief of the NY bond desk for GS and was CIO for GS for five years. That is CIO of the most technologically sophisticated investment bank in the world.

Many of the big errors in banking over the past 20 years have been due to inadequate supervision of trading units. Traders learn to hide losses using the computer systems of the banks and clearing houses. The Barclay's Singapore disaster, the London whale, the UBS fiasco, the DB bond desk fiasco all got out of hand because traders' losing positions went undetected by the traders' supervisors who lacked the technical sophistication necessary to provide adequate supervision. Mnuchin knows the technology and how it can be used to execute or hide chicanery better than anyone else in the industry. If he aims to reform the TBTF banks, he is better equipped than anyone who has been Treasury secretary over the 25 years during which computer technology assumed a key role in skulduggery in the industry.

Marine nicknames are often ironic. "Mad Dog" Mattis probably reflects recognition of his intellect and coolness by his Marine colleagues. In the movie Full Metal Jacket, a dark-skinned black man was named "snowball" and, after getting slapped around for smiling at the DI's jokes, the main character was named "Joker". Victor Krulak, a Marine general during the VietNam war, got the name Brute because of his diminutive size. He became probably the only five foot four-inch Marine general of the twentieth century. Mattis has been well known to be a smart, tough, effective achiever. If pentagon reform is really the goal, he would be hard to beat.

These men have all been very successful at running large organizations. Let's see what direction they try to take the government and how they do at it. Should be interesting.

Reply Saturday, December 31, 2016 at 12:18 PM

RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , January 09, 2017 at 06:33 AM
Suri never really makes his case against belligerent deterrence because his historical references are inconsistent with his thesis. As much as I agree with TR's "Walk soft and carry a big stick" even that is a superficial take on Teddy Roosevelt's approach to diplomatic engagement, which was a superior way to conduct foreign policy even compared to Taft's dollar diplomacy.

Taft's way was more readily assessable to the mediocre men that would normally lead our country though, which is why Kissinger as Secretary of State held to it dearly. Buying peace is much cheaper than waging war.

ken melvin -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , January 09, 2017 at 06:01 AM
History without context is meaningless. War is but a consequence. Generals shouldn't be allowed hammers.
RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> ken melvin... , January 09, 2017 at 06:58 AM
Understood. Woodrow Wilson was a pacifist and the US during his administration was isolationist. That hardly sounds like a case of belligerent deterrence going wrong, but more like the opposite.

Suri's point was that circumstances can dictate significant reversals from original intentions though. WW-II did not seem like our choice and certainly was reluctant more like WW-I rather than a case of belligerent deterrence going wrong.

The US entered the Korean War because its presidents, first Truman and then Eisenhower were more afraid of Joe McCarthy than China, also not a case of belligerent deterrence, just domino theory.

Kennedy and Johnson just feared the anti-communist Republican hawks that remained after McCarthy died more than they feared China, just more domino theory there too.

When we finally got a POTUS that did the full court press on belligerent deterrence, Reagan, then peace broke out.

By this time Suri's case is getting real weak. The first Bush war, the daddy Bush war, was just a reaction function and limited at that. The next two Bush wars, the baby Bush wars, were finally belligerent deterrence on steroids, but also a reaction function or an over-reaction function to 9/11.

Suri stands empty handed on his history, but that does not mean that he is wrong on his prognostications, just unconvincing in his larger historical based argument aside from the notion of unintended consequences. That alone may however be Donald Trumps undoing, but just as easily so from domestic policy as foreign policy. Only time will tell. I prefer not to guess this one out too far myself, unintended consequences being what they are and all.

ken melvin -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , January 09, 2017 at 07:42 AM
Quite a lot; where to start? The world as it is vs. our wishful perceptions? I think remembering that most problems requiring governmental action are really quite complicated and often have more than one possible answer is essential. It's the simple arsed responses, so loved by the many, that get us into some of the worst messes. The urge to tear it down and start anew, another source of grief, again linked to the simple arsed, our most current response.

See Reagan and Ike as being dependent to a fault on their advisers (in the case of Reagan, we really lucked out with Baker, Schultz, Deaver); Bush II as being dumb enough to think he was smart when, in fact, he was too dumb for the job; and Drumpf, I suspect/fear, being of the same ilk as Bush II.

For WWI context, I see: the swell of the industrial age, the vying for raw materials and markets, all in a period when one saw the dying throes of colonialism and monarchies whilst no one seem to grasp the reality of what was going on (bout where we find ourselves). Wars play too great a role in history as taught. Neither of the Bushes, with their limited thinking, like the generals above, should have ever been allowed near hammers

RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> ken melvin... , January 09, 2017 at 08:06 AM
Colonialism took a bit too long to die, but Archduke Ferdinand was indeed about the dying throws of monarchies.

Relative to Suri's argument there was nothing about US foreign policy activism that got us into WWI unless you want to consider the negative. Had the US been more involved in European diplomacy in a cogent and persuasive manner then it may have averted the Prussian brinksmanship that ignite WW-I. Theodore Roosevelt may have been capable of that, but not Taft nor Wilson.

[Jan 06, 2017] Trump to revamp intelligence agencies: report

I am actually surprised by the amount of Trump hating comments to this article.... What is so criminal in trying to reorganize two of 12 Us intelligence agencies. Which might become too bloated and deviate from their original purposes. Is not how restructuring is used in business world ? And the number of commenters blaclmpousing Putin and Russia create great alarm. Looks like the US MSM managed to brainwash the US population like in 50th during "Red Scare". Some comments looks like hate sessions from 1984.
Notable quotes:
"... Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 - Amends the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 to authorize the Secretary of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors to provide for the preparation and dissemination of information intended for foreign audiences abroad about the United States, including about its people, its history, and the federal government's policies, through press, publications, radio, motion pictures, the Internet, and other information media, including social media, and through information centers and instructors. ..."
"... This use of propaganda on the American public effectively nullified the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which explicitly forbids information and psychological operations aimed at influencing U.S. public opinion. ..."
"... The NDAA in its current form allows the State Department and Pentagon to go beyond manipulating mainstream media outlets to directly disseminate campaigns of misinformation to the U.S. public. ..."
"... They refused to brief Congress. They were never allowed to release their findings publicly, because they still haven't. They leaked their conclusions. All to attempt to undermine the stability of their own country. And you don't see this. ..."
"... This is why Wikileaks exists. What the MSM can no longer deliver (the TRUTH and credible news), Wikileaks can deliver to the American people. ..."
"... Are you claiming the US hasn't done all it can to destabilize and destroy Russia? ..."
"... This blame Russia frenzy is a loser strategy. The sole purpose is to deligitimize Trump's victory. Can't wait for Trump to start firing a**es. ..."
Jan 06, 2017 | thehill.com

"The view from the Trump team is the intelligence world [is] becoming completely politicized," an individual close to Trump's transition operation said. "They all need to be slimmed down. The focus will be on restructuring agencies and how they interact."
Trump is targeting the CIA and the ODNI as he publicly wars with the U.S. intelligence community over its conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump wants to shrink the ODNI, as he believes the agency established in 2004 as a response to the 9/11 terror attacks has become bloated and politicized.

Guest sikaniska 2 hours ago
Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 - Amends the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 to authorize the Secretary of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors to provide for the preparation and dissemination of information intended for foreign audiences abroad about the United States, including about its people, its history, and the federal government's policies, through press, publications, radio, motion pictures, the Internet, and other information media, including social media, and through information centers and instructors.

The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 passed Congress as part of the NDAA 2013 on December 28, 2012.

The NDAA Legalizes The Use Of Propaganda On The US Public http://www.businessinsider.com...

This use of propaganda on the American public effectively nullified the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which explicitly forbids information and psychological operations aimed at influencing U.S. public opinion.

The NDAA in its current form allows the State Department and Pentagon to go beyond manipulating mainstream media outlets to directly disseminate campaigns of misinformation to the U.S. public.

But the US public learned quickly and they are not buying the misinformation anymore.

hmg, Jr. 4 hours ago
is this the revelation due early this week that he promised us?
JacksonEuler 4 hours ago
Trump knows better:

1) Renewables:
"I know more about renewables than any human being on Earth." - April 2016

2) Social media
"I understand social media. I understand the power
of Twitter. I understand the power of Facebook maybe better than almost
anybody, based on my results, right?" - November 2015

3) Debt
"Nobody knows more about debt. I'm like the king. I love debt." - May 2016

4) Taxes, again
"I think nobody knows more about taxes than I do, maybe
in the history of the world. Nobody knows more about taxes." - May 2016

I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has
ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them. #failing@nytimes
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2016

don Jody 4 hours ago
They refused to brief Congress. They were never allowed to release their findings publicly, because they still haven't. They leaked their conclusions. All to attempt to undermine the stability of their own country. And you don't see this.
Guest 2 hours ago

This is why Wikileaks exists. What the MSM can no longer deliver (the TRUTH and credible news), Wikileaks can deliver to the American people.

Trump University 5 hours ago
OBL caused 9/11 -- and it happened on Dubya's watch. He was expressly warned OBL wanted to do it -- and he laughed and let it happen.
Vegas DB Pro Alex Cross 4 hours ago
Are you claiming the US hasn't done all it can to destabilize and destroy Russia?
DoILookAmused2u ? Vegas DB Pro 4 hours ago
No, we haven't. Putin, United Russia, and his buddies in organized crime sure have though.
Vegas DB Pro DoILookAmused2u ? 4 hours ago
Really? We've been interfering in theirs, and many other countries, affairs for decades, same as they've done to us. Learn some history, dummy.
DoILookAmused2u ? Vegas DB Pro 3 hours ago
No, we haven't, and we didn't. In fact, his former boss -- Yeltsin -- hired Republican political consultants to help his campaign.

Putin would like the world to believe that Russians fed up with bribery, extortion, the fall of the ruble, and the fact that their votes don't count rising up and protesting was about outside meddling, but it was internal.

And he responded by making protests illegal, getting rid of the election of governors (he appoints them now), closing down critical reporting outlets, and some journalists were murdered.

Uncle Keef Vegas DB Pro 4 hours ago
So? whose side are you on?
Don't be like Trump. Stand with the U.S.
Vegas DB Pro Uncle Keef 4 hours ago
You moron, I served the US for 20 years in the military, but facts are facts and we need to butt the he!! out of other countries business, and until we do, they will continue to come after us. How long were you in?
Mohammad Izzaterd 4 hours ago
This blame Russia frenzy is a loser strategy. The sole purpose is to deligitimize Trump's victory. Can't wait for Trump to start firing a**es.

[Jan 06, 2017] Trump and Hegel concept of the Irony of History.

Notable quotes:
"... It was possible to say, before Warren G. Harding was elected, that he wasn't particularly well-qualified to be president. And he did turn out as president to have, as we say nowadays, some issues. But his administration was stocked with (mostly) well-qualified men who served with considerable distinction. ..."
"... But how Hegelian it would be if the thesis of the Bush and Clinton dynasties, followed by the antithesis of a Trump victory over first a Bush and then a Clinton in 2016, were to produce an unanticipated synthesis: a Trump administration marked by the reconstruction of republican normalcy in America. In its own way, that would be a genuine contribution to making America great again. ..."
"... Kristol is mad Trump lambasted the Iraq war. Was Putin against the Iraq war? I think the whole world was except for the "Coalition of the Willing." You'll never see the UK back another war like that. ..."
"... "Socialist feminist Liza Featherstone and others have denounced Clinton's uncritical praise of the "opportunity" and "freedom" of American capitalism vis-à-vis other developed nations. "With this bit of frankness," Featherstone explains, referring to the former Secretary of State's "Denmark" comments, "Clinton helpfully explained why no socialist-indeed, no non-millionaire-should support her. She is smart enough to know that women in the United States endure far more poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity than women in Denmark-yet she shamelessly made clear that she was happy to keep it that way." Indeed, Clinton's denunciation of the idea that the United States should look more like Denmark betrayed one of the glaring the fault lines within the Democratic Party, and between Clintonian liberalism and Sandersite leftism." ..."
"... Of course the progressive neoliberals in this forum regularly resort to ad hominem to any ideas or facts that don't line up with the agreed-upon party line. ..."
Jan 06, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
Fred C. Dobbs : January 05, 2017 at 07:40 AM , 2017 at 07:40 AM
(Harding redux?)

The Trump Administration
http://tws.io/2iFd3rC
via @WeeklyStandard
Nov 28, 2016 - William Kristol

Who now gives much thought to the presidency of Warren G. Harding? Who ever did? Not us.

But let us briefly turn our thoughts to our 29th president (while stipulating that we're certainly no experts on his life or times). Here's our summary notion: Warren G. Harding may have been a problematic president. But the Harding administration was in some ways an impressive one, which served the country reasonably well.

It was possible to say, before Warren G. Harding was elected, that he wasn't particularly well-qualified to be president. And he did turn out as president to have, as we say nowadays, some issues. But his administration was stocked with (mostly) well-qualified men who served with considerable distinction.

Andrew Mellon was a successful Treasury secretary whose tax reforms and deregulatory efforts spurred years of economic growth. Charles Dawes, the first director of the Bureau of the Budget, reduced government expenditures and, helped by Mellon's economic policies, brought the budget into balance. Charles Evans Hughes as secretary of state dealt responsibly with a very difficult world situation his administration had inherited-though in light of what followed in the next decade, one wishes in retrospect for bolder assertions of American leadership, though in those years just after World War I, they would have been contrary to the national mood.

In addition, President Harding's first two Supreme Court appointments -- William Howard Taft and George Sutherland -- were distinguished ones. And Harding personally did some admirable things: He made pronouncements, impressive in the context of that era, in favor of racial equality; he commuted the wartime prison sentence of the Socialist leader, Eugene V. Debs. In these ways, he contributed to an atmosphere of national healing and civility.

The brief Harding administration-and for that matter the eight years constituting his administration and that of his vice president and successor, Calvin Coolidge-may not have been times of surpassing national greatness. But there were real achievements, especially in the economic sphere; those years were not disastrous; they were not dark times.

President-elect Donald J. Trump probably doesn't intend to model his administration on that of President Warren G. Harding. But he could do worse than reflect on that administration's successes-and also on its failures, particularly the scandals that exploded into public view after Harding's sudden death. These were produced by cronies appointed by Harding to important positions, where they betrayed his trust and tarnished his historical reputation.

Donald Trump manifestly cares about his reputation. He surely knows that reputation ultimately depends on performance. If a Trump hotel and casino is successful, it's not because of the Trump brand-that may get people through the door the first time-but because it provides a worthwhile experience thanks to a good management team, fine restaurants, deft croupiers, and fun shows. If a Trump golf course succeeds, it's because it has been built and is run by people who know something about golf. The failed Trump efforts-from the university to the steaks-seem to have in common the assumption that the Trump name by itself would be enough to carry mediocre or worse enterprises across the finish line.

To succeed in business, the brand only gets you so far. Quality matters. To succeed in the presidency, getting elected only gets you so far. Governing matters.

It would be ironic if Trump's very personal electoral achievement were followed by a mode of governance that restored greater responsibility to the cabinet agencies formally entrusted with the duties of governance. It would be ironic if a Trump presidency also featured a return of authority to Congress, the states, and to other civic institutions. It would be ironic if Trump's victory led not to a kind of American Caesarism but to a strengthening of republican institutions and forms. It would be ironic if the election of Donald J. Trump heralded a return to a kind of constitutional normalcy.

If we are not mistaken, it was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (though sadly unaware of the phenomena of either Warren G. Harding or Donald J. Trump) who made much of the Irony of History.

But how Hegelian it would be if the thesis of the Bush and Clinton dynasties, followed by the antithesis of a Trump victory over first a Bush and then a Clinton in 2016, were to produce an unanticipated synthesis: a Trump administration marked by the reconstruction of republican normalcy in America. In its own way, that would be a genuine contribution to making America great again.

(Harding-Coolidge-Hoover were a disastrous triumvirate that ascended to power after the Taft & Wilson administrations, as the GOP - then the embodiment of progressivism - split apart due to the efforts of Teddy Roosevelt.)

Peter K. -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
Kristol is mad Trump lambasted the Iraq war. Was Putin against the Iraq war? I think the whole world was except for the "Coalition of the Willing." You'll never see the UK back another war like that.
ilsm -> Peter K.... , January 05, 2017 at 03:35 PM
It is the neocon's taking a back seat!

Kristol is co-founder of PNAC along with a Clinton mob long time foggy bottom associate's husband..

Trump is somewhat less thrilled with tilting with Russia for the American empire which is as moral as Nero's Rome.

ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
Prescient: dumping Kristol's PNAC will strengthen the republic.
Peter K. -> Peter K.... , January 05, 2017 at 07:52 AM
"Socialist feminist Liza Featherstone and others have denounced Clinton's uncritical praise of the "opportunity" and "freedom" of American capitalism vis-à-vis other developed nations. "With this bit of frankness," Featherstone explains, referring to the former Secretary of State's "Denmark" comments, "Clinton helpfully explained why no socialist-indeed, no non-millionaire-should support her. She is smart enough to know that women in the United States endure far more poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity than women in Denmark-yet she shamelessly made clear that she was happy to keep it that way." Indeed, Clinton's denunciation of the idea that the United States should look more like Denmark betrayed one of the glaring the fault lines within the Democratic Party, and between Clintonian liberalism and Sandersite leftism."

Is it better to ignore this fault line and try to paper it over or is it better to debate the issues in a polite and congenial manner?

Of course the progressive neoliberals in this forum regularly resort to ad hominem to any ideas or facts that don't line up with the agreed-upon party line.

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