Nope. I've already said that George answered his own question when he asked where were all
the good people of conscience in government. He mentioned ,in Life Is Worth Losing, the people
who often end up assassinated: Jesus, Gandhi, Lincoln, JFK, RFK, MLK, Johm Lennon, Medgar Evers,
Malcolm X. Folks who talk about peace, love and doing good to one another. These folks RARELY
get elected to high office and those that do end up dead!
RagingCapitalist
If you think that the people who didn't get elected would actually be different, you need
to watch this video again a few times.
20120123 : Their bread, our circus ( Recently, in the course of one evening in the Big Apple, President Barack Obama "hosted" three fundraisers ranging from $35,800 a head to $1,000 a head and raised $2.4 million - and that wasn't even close to 1% of the funds he will need for this election season. This reflects the power, needs, fears and desires of America's 1%, and how it has turned the rest of us from citizens into viewers. - Tom Engelhardt (Dec 15, )
The signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran
nuclear deal, announced yesterday that they have found a way to "fix" the deal to make it
acceptable to US president Donald Trump.
Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif explained: "After lengthy Twitter discussions with the White
House, we learned that Trump had only one real objection to the deal: Obama got credit for it,
not him. So we decided to keep the deal intact, including the acronym, but change the name to
honor Trump. From now on, instead of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA will stand for
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Asshole."
It has always amazed me how from the start of all this Iranian nuke stuff, US officials have
alleged that Iran has facilities the IAEA doesn't know about.
If the US knows of such facilities, presumably they know where the facilities are and could
inform the IAEA, which would demand inspections.
If the US does not know where they are, it's impossible to take them out with
airstrikes.
The only way to eliminate them would be by invading and searching every square meter of
Iran, but we say we don't want to put "boots on the ground."
"Confidential sources within the U.S. government have confirmed a report that Iran has
viagra fueled rape camps populated by Kuwaiti incubator babies who are chained to test tubes
where they make weapons of mass destruction (to Iraqi specifications) that will soon be
shipped to the Gulf of Tonkin on a replica of the U.S.S. Liberty before being flown back to
Syria on highjacked airliners by jihadi flight school dropouts so Assad can gas his own
people while Putin watches."
"You won't get this story anywhere else" - said Rachel while twitching just a bit.
Meanwhile in an interview on CNN Madeline Albright lamented that her only career regret is
that she "wasn't able to kill more Iraqi children" - explaining - "we think it would have
been worth it."
Attention
Hookers : Special Counsel urgently needs your stories. We pay top dollar. Big tits, role-play,
and lying required. Television experience preferred. No drug screening. No background check.
Transportation included.
Call 1-800-George-Soros or contact the Law Offices of Wray, Mueller, and Rosenstein,
LLC.
We
hear that the documents he is said to present were compiled
by one Christopher Steele and assembled with the help of one Sergej Skripal and his MI6 handler
[redacted]. They will show that Iran attempts to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger .
This new comedy stunt by Netanyahoo is tightly coordinated with the Trump
administration.
We hear that the documents he is said to present were compiled by one Christopher Steele
and assembled with the help of one Sergej Skripal and his MI6 handler [redacted]. They will
show that Iran attempts to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger.
I think b was being sarcastic although Netanyahu and Bolton really are dumb and arrogant
enough to try it.
Trump shouda put that McMahon wrestling lady in the propaganda department,
shes pretty good at convincing 50 year old adults that wrestling is real.
Americans just aren't buying what these idiots are trying to sell us with these chemical
attacks by the brutal dicktaters.
I'm honestly confused by the stupidity lately, either Trump is a genius or he is the dumbest
person on the planet.
The totally insane actions of these morons lately is waking people up in massive numbers, is he
doing it intentionally? Like a call for help or something? Trying to show us who is really
behind all this this crap? (Israel)
Because if he isn't, thats exactly what its doing.
See BBC
interview . One really good sarcasm from Lavrov. Sergey Lavrov comperating UK beahviour with
the famous Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland episode in order to describe the new western
'weird logic' of 'Sentence First, Verdict After' has to be watched repeatedly by all...what a
masterful HardTalk show...exposing the new bench mark in western international discourse.
Sergey Lavrov: No, I said "highly likely" as a new invention of the British diplomacy to
describe why they punish people – because these people are highly likely guilty, like in
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - when he described a trial. And when they discovered that
the jury could be engaged, then the King said "Let's ask the jury" and the Queen shouted "No
jury! Sentence first – verdict afterwards." That's the logic of "highly likely".
Question: Have you got one shred, shred of evidence to suggest British intelligence tried to
kill Sergei Skripal?
Sergey Lavrov: There is an old Roman criteria "who is to benefit". The UK is grossly
benefiting from the provocations both in Syria and in the United Kingdom itself.
Sergey Lavrov: That's a problem. First, the A-234 agent in highly pure form in high concentration is already raising
suspicions.
Question: It came from Russia. In the former Soviet Union, you invented that.
Sergey Lavrov: Stephen, you are not factual. You may be hard talking, but you are not listening. This chemical substance
indeed was invented in the Soviet Union, then one the inventors fled to the United States and made the formula public. And if you
want to check before raising the issue, please do so, the United States patented this formula; and it was formally taken by United
States special services or the army, I don't remember. But A-234 is a very light, I mean, it seriously damages a person, kills him
of her, but it evaporates very fast; and the sample taken two weeks after the event cannot, according to our scientists, contain
very high concentration.
Notable quotes:
"... 'No, no!' said the Queen. 'Sentence first -- verdict afterwards.' ..."
"... give the Orange One some credit: he was a wrecking ball to the stagnant, hideous Clinton and Bush dynasties. He has also driven the DC establishment and media insane. Pure schadenfreude. ..."
They are also non-democratic, authoritarian regimes.
"By contrast, Trump is a loon, ignorant of practically everything, mentally chaotic, and
easily modified."
That's all true, especially the last bit. But give the Orange One some credit: he was a
wrecking ball to the stagnant, hideous Clinton and Bush dynasties. He has also driven the DC
establishment and media insane. Pure schadenfreude.
"Trump is a congenital liar who is devoid of empathy, a narcissist with a nihilist's view of
the world. These are not mere character defects; they have a bearing on the decisions the de
facto leader of any action in Syria would take. Among the reasons I opposed the 2003 invasion
of Iraq was my fundamental distrust of George W Bush and his circle, especially on the matter
of motive. "
That is why Tony Blair, Jack Straw and Alistair Campbell fought so hard to oppose invasion of
Iraq. In the end they had to resort an academic paper to do it. I feel terrible for them.
Trump is a typical business tycoon: a clueless moron. Pence is just a weasel. Weasels are
carnivores, but small ones: sometimes they eat, sometimes they get eaten. I hope Pence gets
eaten.
In response to a caller's concern, Oklahoma congressman Steve Russell told the C Span
Washington Journal audience this morning that there was "no danger from a chemical plume"
after missiles struck Syrian chemical plants "because the attack was designed to burn up" the
fumes.
Russell explained that while "Nazis used chemicals in the holocaust." and Russians
deliberately target hospitals and schools with barrel bombs, "no other nation takes as much
care to prevent harm to civilians" as the USA.
#111 and #144. Saud Arabia already have "troops" in Syria, Jaysh al-Islam and the rest of their inbred motley crew. That's
the problem. If that happens, poor Kurds, stuck between rock and a hard place. My bet is that 70% of Saudi troops would defect
to ISIS in no time!
I saw an interesting tweet over at Charles Shoebridge. " To be clear, I don't dispute that
as UK govt says cleaning up nerve agent may 'cost millions and take months'. But I do dispute
that the same UK govt and media saying this can also with any consistency then suggest Russia
has cleaned up Douma in just a few days. Jihadists claim that sarin was used as well as
chlorine.
"The Democratic Party is better than the Republican Party in the way that manslaughter is
slightly better than murder: It might seem like a lesser crime, but the victim can't really
tell the difference." -- Michael Harriot
There's been a whole lot of stupid put out about ScaryRussia in
the last two years, but the Pentagon managed to find a
new level of stupid today that I didn't know existed.
You know how they say that 97.3% of all statistics are made up?
"I think there's a basic reality check you can do on most statistical claims," Tim Hartford,
host of statistics podcast More or Less, told Vice. "You can just ask: Does that sound
reasonable? ... OK, so first, if you've been given a number, just ask: compared to what? ...
The second thing is -- what does the statistic actually refer to?"
2,000% 2,000,000%
The numbers are as meaningless as Pentagon body counts in Vietnam.
"... American tomahawks missiles are equipped with 'special' molecular compounds imbedded in the warheads so that when they hit chemical weapons factories it produces & releases an intoxicating floral bouquet like Chanel number 5, Old Spice, or Irish Spring soap... ..."
"Warplanes and ships from the United States, Britain and France launched more than 100
missiles at three chemical weapons storage and research facilities..." ...
American tomahawks missiles are equipped with 'special' molecular compounds imbedded in
the warheads so that when they hit chemical weapons factories it produces & releases an
intoxicating floral bouquet like Chanel number 5, Old Spice, or Irish Spring soap...
The Syrians then jump up and start doing Irish jigs and proclaim "Manly yes ~ But I like
it too"!
That dastardly Assad obviously knew his chemical weapons facilities would be attacked so
he had all of his chlorine gas moved and added to his personal swimming pool. Damn the water
looks great now but don't go for a swim for at least a few days.
The attack can be called "Operation Stormy Daniels" Rome had bread and circuses. We've got crumbs, tweets, and Tomahawk missiles
with direct TV coverage. Monica probably is crying for the day on old glory in Clinton Whitehouse ;-)
In other words: "Candidate Trump is dead. Long live President Trump" ~The Neocons. Notable quotes:
"... I think I will walk over to my neighbour and de declare his house and car and wife a "vital national interest" and see what happens..... ..."
Monica Lewinsky redux ? Trump is not right any more than a man who pulls the trigger once in a game of Russian
Roulette and gets away with it was "right".
Notable quotes:
"... Taunting the Russians via Twitter? It's not genius, it's dementia. ..."
from The Duffel Blog... Trump orders cruise missile strike against one of 3,297 factions fighting in Syria
WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump ordered a Tomahawk cruise military strike against one of
the 3,297 factions currently fighting in the Syrian civil war, sources confirmed today.
Just days after the Syrian government, one of the thousands of rebel groups, or al Qaeda
terrorists allegedly bombed civilians with chemical weapons, Trump and his military planners
launched missiles after mulling options that could potentially punish the perpetrators of
such a war crime. "Everything is on the table," Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One on Wednesday. "We're
pretty sure it's Assad who carried out this egregious attack. That's what my so-called
intelligence agencies are telling me. But they told me stuff about Russia, and that was fake
news, fake, fake news, so I'm not sure. I don't know what we're going to do, but we're going
to do something. Something."
"I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to do, because we want ISIS to be surprised by a
sneak attack," he added. . .
here
"... Concur. Clinton is sociopathic. Trump is narcissistic. The Deep State uses both. The former willing tool, she cares nothing for anyone but herself. The latter, the psychologists in CIA have his profile and manipulate him like a woman with a velvet glove. His inadequacies are easily stroked. ..."
Concur. Clinton is sociopathic. Trump is narcissistic. The Deep State uses both. The
former willing tool, she cares nothing for anyone but herself. The latter, the psychologists
in CIA have his profile and manipulate him like a woman with a velvet glove. His inadequacies
are easily stroked.
"Comrade Putin, we have successfully stockpiled novichoks in secret for ten years, and kept
them hidden from the OPCW inspectors. We have also trained our agents in secret novichok
assassination techniques. The programme has cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but now we
are ready. Naturally, the first time we use it we will expose our secret and suffer massive
international blowback. So who should be our first target? The head of a foreign intelligence
agency? A leading jihadist rebel in Syria? A key nuclear scientist? Even a Head of State?"
"No, Tovarich. There is this old retired guy I know living in Salisbury. We released him
from jail years ago "
"With respect Comrade Putin, are you sure he is the most important target to reveal a
programme we have put so much resource into for ten years?"
"Yes. I sit here every day and I cannot concentrate on the affairs of Russia or the World as
all the time am thinking of Sergei Skripal. I should never have let him out of jail to spend
his life buying lottery tickets and eating in Zizzis. But you must make absolutely certain to
kill him."
"Don't worry Comrade Putin, we have been training in secret novichok assassination
techniques for ten years. We even have an detailed manual explaining our methods. We will
spread the novichok on his outside door handle (fiendish laugh)."
"Are you sure comrade? Is there not a danger it will wash off or get diluted?"
"No Comrade Putin, it never rains in England."
That is, genuinely, in every detail the official British government version of what happened
in Salisbury, including the ten year programme and the secret assassination manual.
Despite this story being one of the most improbably wild conspiracy theories in human
history, it is those who express any doubt at all as to its veracity who are smeared as
"conspiracy theorists" or even "traitors".
All copyright on this article is waived. Feel free to use, translate and republish as you
wish.
Prime Minister May is seen at around the 0:40 (depending upon clip version) mark beating the
cat against a wall.
Also, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g
is the "Burn the Witch" scene. With Putin as the witch it is a fair representation of the type
of justice and deep thought applied to the Skripal case.
The newest theory: novichok was produced in Tehran and delivered by an Iranian agent, Persian
cat who was owned by Sergey Skripal. The cat was allowed to periodically leave home for walks
and got the poison from other Persians. As UK authorities decided to pin the blame on Russia
(they actually oppose the renewal of sanctions on Iran but want to extend sanctions on
Russia), the inconvenient witness was liquidated.
The intricate plot was to cover the palms of gloves of Mrs. Skripal so the father-daughter
pair would get into contact with the poison misleadingly far from home. The door handle got
contaminated by a gloved hand of Yulia. Later, when the pair sat on a bench after their meal,
father complemented the brand new gloves and Yulia handed them to him for a closer look. As
both handled the poisoned surface with bare hands, the onset of symptoms was swift.
I posted this theory, without the role of Persian cat mafia earlier elsewhere. It is easy
to explain how car avoided contamination: Sergey locked the seatbelt of Yulia and she set
like a proper young lady, with hands on her lap with gently curved fingers. It is harder to
explain how the gloves eventually vanished, but cats that were observing Skripals could
remove them from the scene and drop into the nearby Avon river.
Thus the cat met poetic justice, while the hapless Guinea pigs were collateral damage.
"... ++ Joseph Magill #22. That is one of my surmises too. She just picked up a bundle of cash from her deceased brother's estate too as I read somewhere. There is no doubt a price to pay to take the cash back to Russia and for wee bit of play acting she could stay with the dad in UK. Perhaps she will get a job with SCL/Cambridge Analytica too. All surmise though. When I last checked May and her manbag Boris have finally lured Jeremy Corbyn into the sights. I guess that was one of the intentions all along and well worth any price for them. ..."
"... Listening to lies , propaganda for many, many years as soon as I heard the Skripal affair I smelled the rat-false flag. Governments unfortunately kill, lie. ..."
Days ago, before the poisoning theories surfaced, I read at Sputniknews Yulia's first
statement was "it didn't taste like chicken."
Posted by: Likklemore | Apr 6, 2018 9:21:21 PM | 52
Are you sure about that? I saw that claim, but on some blog not on Sputnik and I
understood it to be the blog-owner's sarcasm. A search produced no Sputnik page with that
quote - on the contrary a claim that the menu choice had not been released. Some UK
Newspapers claimed they ate the seafood but this could easily be deliberately planted
misinformation.
Skripals' Last Restaurant Order Not Released by UK, Niece Tells Russian TV - Sputnik
International
Considered in syndromal or functional terms it could therefore be considered a 'closely
related agent' to an organophosphate based nerve agent. It is listed alongside OP agents as a
nervous system agent here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ana.21072
Also see here https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/saxitoxin/casedef.aspCase
Definition: Saxitoxin
Clinical description
. In severe poisoning, illness typically progresses rapidly and may include gastrointestinal
(nausea, vomiting) and neurological (cranial nerve dysfunction, a floating sensation,
headache, muscle weakness, parasthesias and vertigo) signs and symptoms. Respiratory failure
and death can occur from paralysis (1-5).
So accordingly, shellfish poisoning could be consistent with this: "The samples tested
positive for the presence of a Novichok class nerve agent or closely related agent."
When 'closely related agent' is understood as pertaining to a syndromal classification rather
than a chemical group.
Having read only about a third of the commentariat, what has been obvious to this point is
the food poisoning theory is appearing to be another echo chamber. Even global warming is not
enough to overcome the adage of only eating shellfish caught in months having an 'R', like in
MaRch (though this may not apply in the Russian language - having no familiarity with
Russian). Are those suggesting those alleged shellfish were caught the prior August?
Unlikely. There are two separate metabolisms, differing stomach contents, body masses, and
body compositions (fat components) in addition to differing ages and sexes. What would the
likelihood that food poisoning would happen at a similar moment with both?
Again the most likely cause would be a voluntary ingestion of some street drug by both
victims, such consumption isn't something rarely known, even in those parts of the world. No
evidence has been presented to either substantiate or disprove this, nonetheless this
provides the simplest vehicle for the two as well as a possible vector for the Detective
Sergeant poisoning as a first responder. Recall this happened on a Sunday afternoon, the DS
has not been established to be on duty that day or not; either way the presence of trained
CPR personnel would have resulted in the same response, going to aid persons in distress - no
mystery that. I suspect the time of recovery of the affected had a lot to do with the rate of
clearance of the substance from the bodies of the victims to levels difficult to detect.
Again supposition and conjecture seem to rule the public dialogue, and evidence is remarkably
missing still. YMMV
++ Joseph Magill #22. That is one of my surmises too. She just picked up a bundle of cash
from her deceased brother's estate too as I read somewhere. There is no doubt a price to pay
to take the cash back to Russia and for wee bit of play acting she could stay with the dad in
UK. Perhaps she will get a job with SCL/Cambridge Analytica too. All surmise though. When I
last checked May and her manbag Boris have finally lured Jeremy Corbyn into the sights. I
guess that was one of the intentions all along and well worth any price for them.
Listening to lies , propaganda for many, many years as soon as I heard the Skripal affair
I smelled the rat-false flag. Governments unfortunately kill, lie.
Here I see unnecessary provocation which could lead to war, as it was unfolding in Syria.
We are all in danger from stupid politicians.
Someone should tell Elliot Higgins over at Bellingcat that if he's been trying to geolocate
the expelled Russian diplomats in Belarus , he can stop now.
Anders Aslund's deep knowledge of Eastern European politics was no match for April Fool's,
when the supposedly all-knowing Russia commentator fruitlessly cheered fake news about Belarus
expelling Russian diplomats.
Aslund, who was presented by the American think tank the Atlantic Council as a
"leading specialist" on Russian economic policy and Eastern Europe in general, has
been featured on the BBC, CNN and the Washington Post as a commentator on Russian President
Vladimir Putin's administration.
The prank was carried out by Martin Kragh, of the Swedish Institute of International
Affairs, who tweeted: "Breaking: Belarus expels 5 Russian diplomats in solidarity with the UK.
'Russia is on the wrong side of history,' says [President Aleksandr] Lukashenko."
Aslund even commentated on the 'development,' stating that it revealed how Putin had
"profoundly" isolated his country. "This is not 'Global Russia' but Russia alone," he
added.
Kragh later revealed his tweet to be a prank by alluding to the date it was posted - April
1st - a day for playing practical jokes and spreading hoaxes.
Anders Aslund's deep knowledge of Eastern European politics was no match for April Fool's,
when the supposedly all-knowing Russia commentator fruitlessly cheered fake news about Belarus
expelling Russian diplomats.
Aslund, who was presented by the American think tank the Atlantic Council as a
"leading specialist" on Russian economic policy and Eastern Europe in general, has
been featured on the BBC, CNN and the Washington Post as a commentator on Russian President
Vladimir Putin's administration.
The elder Skripal awakes, tells nurses he is tired of hospital; walks out to find nearest
press mike, tells world Russia had nothing to do with it, just bad food at a Chinese
restaurant!
This slide is a good April 1 joke, courtesy of Her majesty government on Theresa May. By the way, I've heard the Russians are
now telling a joke about Boris Johnson: they're saying he was poisoned with durachok (bonehead)! but many be he is
playing fool, with vicious and calculated intention
Notable quotes:
"... All that is missing here is the mass rape of baby penguins by drunken Russian sailors in the south pole or the use of a secret "weather weapon" to send hurricanes towards the USA. ..."
In the 12 events listed as evidence of a "pattern of Russian malign activity" one is
demonstratively false (2008 invasion of Georgia), one conflates two different accusations
(occupation of Crimea and destabilization of the Ukraine), one is circular (assassination of
Skripal) and all others are completely unproven accusations.
All that is missing here is the
mass rape of baby penguins by drunken Russian sailors in the south pole or the use of a secret
"weather weapon" to send hurricanes towards the USA.
You don't need a law degree to see that,
all you need is an IQ above room temperature and a basic understanding of logic. For all my
contempt for western leaders, even I wouldn't make the claim that they all lack these. So here
is where "solidarity" kicks-in:
"Solidarity" in this context is simply a "conceptual placeholder" for Stephen Decatur 's famous " my
country, right or wrong " applied to the entire Empire. The precedent of Meine Ehre
heißt Treue just slightly rephrased into Meine Ehre heißt
Solidarität also comes to mind.
Maybe it did expand my audience. I have no idea. About the only proven use I found was being
able to get on Tinder to get laid, as you cannot have a Tinder account without a Facebook
account. Thereafter I called it Fuckbook.
speaking of "smart toasters" this 'daily show' clip from 15 years ago is a gut-busting
hoot.
i rarely if ever post links in comment sections, but this ties in quite nicely with this
article!!
THE international community has agreed to adopt a 'guilty until proven guilty' stance
towards Russia in relation to the nerve-agent poisoning of a former spy in Britain, following a
deliberation that lasted as long as it took to say 'well of course they fu**ing did it'.
The Russian government, who have previously stated in no uncertain terms that they 'don't
give a fu** what anyone thinks', categorically denied any involvement in the poisoning of
Sergei Skripal and his daughter last month, although political experts have pointed out that
the Russian spokespeople have had their hands under the table at the time and may have had
their fingers crossed.
So far, 15 EU countries, including Ireland have expelled Russian diplomats as the fallout
from the case continues, despite the lack of hard evidence that the Kremlin had anything to do
with the attempted murder of Skripal, a former double agent exiled in the UK since 2010.
Stating that 'you don't need evidence when they're clearly as guilty as sin', EU leaders have
sided with the UK government, whose secret service has never carried out shady, underhand
executions on foreign soil.
"I will miss very much the Supermacs and the Copper Faced Jacks," said the Russian diplomat
expelled from Ireland, packing his suitcase.
"But I understand the Irish people want to
stand shoulder to shoulder with their close friends in the UK. Maybe sometime in future they
will forget all about this incident and normal service will resume. How long did it take after
scandal about Russian spies using Irish passports? 18 months, maybe? I can wait that long. Save
me plate of coddle".
Meanwhile, Leo Varadkar has stated that Russia may be pardoned if Vladimir Putin visits
Ireland for a photo-op in which he sups a pint of Guinness.
The latest piece by Mr. Cyril Waugh-Monger, a very important newspaper columnist for the
NeoCon Daily, a patron of the Senator Joe McCarthy Appreciation Society and author of 'Why the
Iraq War was a Brilliant Idea' and 'The Humanitarian Case for Bombing Syria.'
...here is a Ukrainian joke.
- You say Russia occupied Ukrainian Crimea. So, why don't you fight for it?
- We are not stupid, there is Russian army there.
- But you say that there is Russian army in Donbass, yet you fight
- That's what we say, but in Crimea there really is Russian army.
I hope Melania isn't too hurt by this. Nothing says fidelity like the tender notion of a
non-disclosure agreement with your floozies . I'm sure that's how my wife would see it.
All 1,472 employees of Facebook, Inc. reportedly burst out in uncontrollable laughter
Wednesday following Albuquerque resident Jason Herrick's attempts to protect his personal
information from exploitation on the social-networking site.
" Look, he's clicking 'Friends Only' for his e-mail address. Like that's going to make a
difference! " howled infrastructure manager Evan Hollingsworth, tears streaming down his
face, to several of his doubled-over coworkers.
" Oh, sure, by all means, Jason, 'delete' that photo. Man, this is so rich ."
According to internal sources, the entire staff of Facebook was left gasping for air minutes
later when the "hilarious" Herrick believed he had actually blocked third-party ads.
The British broadcasting Corporation, or simply BBC is crying all day. And how not to cry:
The Syrian land is suffering from all sorts of iniquity. Legitimate government has already
taken control of two cities in Eastern Ghouta, where British trained and supported head
choppers have dug along with some British intelligence instructors. It's terrible and they
simply stand such an indignity! England loudly protest the fact that those nice freedom
fighters, that for some strange reason Russian view of Islamic fundamentalists and bandits are
killed and the province is liberated. Because there is another version of this reality for
England. and to add insult to injury they fed and funded, and deprived themselves to induce
those fighters to overthrow Assad. Money now lost.
And now Skripal disaster. I also see that somewhere in Sussex there a poor English Lord who
embrace as a brother Russian Jewish oligarch and they both cry and cry. All, or almost all
wealth which was acquired by back-breaking labor (aka stolen from Russians with the help of
British banks), can now go to hell.
Add to this the sad fact that those nasty Russians expelled the British Council! This news
was declared on BBC by a fellow who was almost crying dir such an undeserved and unprovoked
insult from ungrateful Russians! He really looks like so sad as if his own mother was just
buried. Looks like Russian hit in the bull's eye and a lot of MI6 guys will return to the
motherland. For the glory of God.
And BTW, it looks like that in of England over the past 17 years perishing way too many
defectors from Russia. Suddenly(!) the British began to count them and notice that something is
wrong! Now there is a talk that they say we ought to pull old files and cadavers and review.
It's a very cool idea to make same dead people a propaganda story about evil Russians the
second time! Reminds me Hollywood with unbearable continuations of popular movies. But on the
other hand, what if they run out of usable defectors who fit the propaganda scheme, and they
are simply forced to reuse the previously poisoned cadavers out of necessity? Looks like a
crisis of the genre of some kind! On the other hand Khodorkovsky and Browder might start a
little bit worrying. What if they are next.
"Sir, Further to your report ("Poison exposure leaves almost 40 needing treatment", TIMES Mar
14)' may I clarify that no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in
Salisbury and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning. Several
people have attended the emergency department concerned that they may have been exposed. None
has had symptoms of poisoning and none has needed treatment. Any blood tests performed have
shown no abnormality. No member of the public has been contaminated by the agent
involved."
Stephen Davies. Consultant in emergency medicine, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust.
Funny montage of episode of the soviet serial "17 moments of spring".
Stierlitz meets Putin in Switzerland. Casts:
V.Tikhonov, V.Putin, Y.Timoshenko, N.Savchenko, H.Clinton
Holmes, why do you think it was Teresa May who was involved in the crime in
Salisbury?
This is really elementary, Watson. There were several victims in this case. Only the real
organizer of the murder knows that the target of attempted assassination was Sergei Skripal
Stalker ABV , Sankt-Peterburg, 10 hours ago
Standing at the counter of an English pub, a man in the full protection gear tried to mix some
chemicals in the flask. Looks like he is a real beginner in such a task, "novichok" as Russians call such people,
derisively thought Sherlock Holms correctly guessing that the man is trying to prepare several ounces of nerve gas "Novichok".
"... Unfortunately events in Ghouta seem to be moving more quickly than foreseen. If the West doesn't get a move on there aren't going to be any more imaginary hospitals in Ghouta filled with non-existent children for Butcher Assad to drop fictional barrel bombs stuffed with made-up Novichok on. ..."
it's has a cumulative effect the west just has to keep the daily, weekly, or monthly
accusations on full tilt, without any substance to back it up.. but i do believe the west is
pissed they have been snookered in syria with un security res 2401 all the plans for a false
flag, chemical attack in ghouta and extra, have been turned upside down.. now, if only the
white helmets could figure a way to rescue the skripals from zizzi's restaurant and have a
real baby in the pic too, they might have had a better pr thing going here . sorry to be so
cynical, but too many of these accusations without substance to back them up wears thin after
a while.. at this point cold war 2, and a reenactment of mccarthyism is on full display in
the usa/uk .
" but i do believe the west is pissed they have been snookered in syria with un security
res 2401 all the plans for a false flag, chemical attack in ghouta and extra, have been
turned upside down "
I'm inclined to agree with you James. I think the whole thing was cooked up as a kind of
precursor: "Look! LOOK!! Putin is assassinating people in Britain with Novichok, and now
Butcher Assad has DROPPED A WHOLE BARREL BOMB STUFFED WITH NOVICHOK ON A HOSPITAL FILLED WITH
CHILDREN IN GHOUTA!!! We must take a MEASURED RESPONSE to this, and save the Syrians by by
BOMBING WHAT'S LEFT OF THEIR COUNTRY INTO RUBBLE "
Unfortunately events in Ghouta seem to be moving more quickly than foreseen. If the
West doesn't get a move on there aren't going to be any more imaginary hospitals in Ghouta
filled with non-existent children for Butcher Assad to drop fictional barrel bombs stuffed
with made-up Novichok on.
George Galloway tweeted:"IF only #Russia had access to #Novichok WHY would they choose that weapon to mount a terrorist attack
in England? Might as well leave a pair of snow covered boots at the scene of the crime and scrawl Vlad woz Here on the nearest
wall! THINK!"
This man, Clyde, and all others against you don't seem to have much knowledge of how false flags are planted and cannot think
beyond what they have already concluded.
Motives are there and false flags usually happen when there are several levels of profit.
It just happens to be the last phase of the war in Syria and we get another call from Nikki Haley to strike Syria, which happened
several times in response to so-called chemical attacks. I was waiting for it, but did not expect it to happen in the UK.
As if Putin would use such a method to kill, on the eve of elections, a former irrelevant agent, and then did not succeed.
There are other levels relating to the end of the Russia probe around collusion being declared over without result and the next
day the whole hysteria shifts to the UK. Another factor has been the ongoing Nord Stream II oil pipeline from Russia to the EU
which the US does not want (nor does Poland and some others).
Carl Jung described the lowering of the mental level in mob psychology and how this then prevents people from thinking and
rushes of their own unconscious motives and feelings dominate. Secret services who know how to play this are very good at it and
the media in the West are no longer run by independent journalists. It is tragic to see how the US and UK always manage to play
on these instincts of the masses and it works: the Wesley-Clark message about going to war with a host of Middle Eastern countries
is unfolding after using the usual demonising of the leaders, then the black propaganda and lies are used, false flags planted
and the mobs go along with it time and time again (who cares about Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Yemen etc.).
Thank you, Craig, for standing up to these low level, non thinking types who cannot help themselves and have no integrity to
even allow due process to take place.
He opened his bag as he spoke, and tumbled onto the floor a wedding-dress of watered silk, a pair of white satin shoes and
a bride's wreath and veil, all discoloured and soaked in water.
"There," said he, putting a new wedding-ring upon the top of the pile.
"There is a little nut for you to crack, Master Holmes."
"Oh, indeed!" said my friend, blowing blue rings into the air.
"You dragged them from the Serpentine?"
"No. They were found floating near the margin by a park-keeper. They have been identified as her clothes, and it seemed to me
that if the clothes were there the body would not be far off."
"By the same brilliant reasoning, every man's body is to be found in the neighbourhood of his wardrobe. And pray what did you
hope to arrive at through this?"
Arthur Conan Doyle
"The Noble Bachelor"
If it was the poison of a fugu fish, we would know for sure that the Japanese are guilty
You are over-thinking this, Craig. The fact that Boris Johnson has now stated that it's "overwhelmingly likely" that Putin
did it is incontrovertible proof that Putin is almost certainly innocent.
...UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said on Thursday that Russia "should go away and
shut up" when asked about Moscow's possible response to British sanctions.
...Lavrov said he probably lacked education. "Well he's a nice man, I'm told, maybe he wants
to claim a place in history by making some bold statements," Lavrov said. "Theresa May's main
argument about Russia's guilt is 'Highly probable', while for him it's 'Russia should go and
shut up'. Maybe he lacks education, I don't know."
The Official Enemy always does *exactly* the wrong thing:
- Saddam Hussein hid WMD even as war loomed
- Gaddafi ordered a massacre certain to bring 'intervention'
- Assad launched a gas attack exactly as inspectors entered Damascus
- And now Putin...
"... the name "Football" is reserved for a game where you carry an object which is not shaped like a ball with your hands instead of kicking a round, ball shaped object with your foot. ..."
"... Kind of like the "Forest Protection Act" removes logging protecting from National Forests and the "Clean Air Act" removes anti-pollution regulations from big polluters like coal fired power stations. ..."
In the US, where everything is named for the opposite of what it actually is, the name
"Football" is reserved for a game where you carry an object which is not shaped like a ball
with your hands instead of kicking a round, ball shaped object with your foot.
Kind of like the "Forest Protection Act" removes logging protecting from National
Forests and the "Clean Air Act" removes anti-pollution regulations from big polluters like
coal fired power stations.
Here in Canada the "Seal Protection Act" makes it illegal to protect seals, among other
"named the opposite of what they actually do" laws.
George Orwell nailed it in "1984". "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is
Strength".
The PM has said that the nerve agent was 'Novichok' which is 5 to 8 times more
potent than VX... and the authorities waited 5 days to send the army in and over a week to
tell people to wash their clothes and other items?
"Sergej Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military grade nerve agent of a
type developed by Russia.
MILITARY grade? Well then, Mrs. Prime Minister... that's pretty God damn serious
then. Because everyone knows the Russian CONSUMER -grade nerve agents are crap. I
think they sell them on Amazon (Free shipping with Amazon Prime).
Like I said in a previous thread Novichok was part of the plot of the recent "Strike Back:
Retribution" TV series on Sky TV, Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox owns a 39.14% controlling
stake in Sky PLC. So a TV series by a billionaire supporter of Teresa May just happens to
make a fictional TV series around a nerve agent and Bad Russians(TM) and is put on TV just
before Teresa May accuses Bad Russians(TM) of using said nerve agent. This is not a
coincidence.
Link in Russian. Some (very few) Jews protested and I think because of the
oxymoron–Jews are never poor (wink, wink). This is the same company which produced
ice-creams Hohol and Obamka (diminutive for Obama), Obamka, as you may have guessed it, being
a chocolate ice-cream. State Department even accused the company in anti-Americanism.
I think it is time to produce brand Katzap to put all those issues to rest. Here is how
ice-cream looks like.
This is the level of nonsense that even yellow press would shun... Probably the pressitute who wrote it was
beaten to force him/her to write such a nonsense. Or as one commenter said was "working under hostile duress"
Notable quotes:
"... It is a "working under hostile duress" beacon set off ..."
> How please can a phone that can not send or receive signals, take a call? That is
impossible. How can a fact-checker and/or editor at The NewYorker let such nonsense slip into the opening graph.
Very very simple. It is a
"working under hostile duress" beacon set off
This part of the New Yorker article could be sheer comedy gold:
'... Regardless of what others might think, it's clear that Steele believed that his
dossier was filled with important intelligence. Otherwise, he would never have subjected it,
his firm, and his reputation to the harsh scrutiny of the F.B.I. "I'm impressed that he was
willing to share it with the F.B.I.," [former CIA spook John Sipher] said. "That gives him
real credibility to me, the notion that he'd give it to the best intelligence professionals
in the world."...'
FBI, best intelligence professionals in the world? Didn't the FBI along with the CIA miss
most indications of a looming terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in the months
leading up to September 11, 2001?
A former CIA officer called John Sipher, calling a rival organisation 'the best
intelligence professionals in the world'?
"...looked much like the other businessmen heading home, except for the fact that he kept his
phones in a Faraday bag -- a pouch, of military-tested double-grade fabric, designed to block
signal detection..."
A practical man, Steele also kept a giant roll of telephone line attached to his belt.
Unrolling it as he proceeded down the high street, he glanced upwards.
A Pteranodon, perched upon the slate roof was watching him closely. A bead of sweat
appeared on his temple, just showing underneath the rim of his bowler hat, trickling down the
side of his face, the leaving a streak that resembled a long forgotten river delta.
A chimmney sweet was approaching him on his right, whistling a jaunty tune, his bag of
extendable brushes jingling and clanking, just like Steele's nerves. Obviously a Russian
operative, the sweep was whistling an excerpt from Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, an ominous
warning...
a day in the life of joe "THE TRUMP VOTER" republican--by john gray: Joe gets up
at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The
water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum
water-quality standards.
With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His
medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure
their safety and that they work as advertised.
All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan
because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical
insurance - now Joe gets it too.
He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat
because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing
industry.
In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly
labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some
crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and
how much it contained.
Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is
clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop
industries from polluting our air.
He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It
saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some
fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives
everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical
benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union
members fought and died for these working standards.
Joes employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his
employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed,
he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal
didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune. Its
noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills.
Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal
wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking
system before the Great Depression. Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten
mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal
decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and
earned more money over his lifetime. Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his
father this evening at his farm home in the country.
He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world
because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives
at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed
by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans.
The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his
nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification. He is happy to
see his father, who is now retired.
His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some
wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so
Joe wouldn't have to.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show.
The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good.
He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every
protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need
those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man
who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."
Today's 'liberal' is no liberal at all. Center-extreme righties love
to get all indignant and shitty toward 'Trumptards' however today's
liberal deludes themselves into believing that they're 'socialists',
which is utter bullshit. They're party is racist, bigots and fascist
WARMONGERS.
At least with the right you know what you're getting.
But NEOLIBERALS have done more to manipulate and exploit their base
based upon identity politics which is thinly veiled after their fraud
committed during the 2016 attempted coup. Russiagate is utter
bullshit and all of these hangers on trolls here are nothing more
than cheerleaders for fascists who are sleepwalking them right into a
third world war.
These deep state whores murdered Seth Rich.
As a reformed ',liberal', I would rather spend time on slightly
rightie ZH page than to listen to these fascist fake liberals any day
of the week.
This past September, in one of his regular interviews with the newspaper Parlamentní Listy, retired Czech Major General
Hynek Blaško commented on the possibility of a conflict between Russia and NATO with a following anecdote:
"I have seen a popular joke on the Internet about Obama and his generals in the Pentagon debating on the best timing to
attack Russia. They couldn't come to any agreement, so they decided to ask their allies.
The French said: " We do not know, but certainly not in the winter. This will end badly. "
The Germans responded: "We do not know, either, but definitely not in a summer. We have already tried."
Someone in Obama's war room had a brilliant idea to ask China, on the basis that China is developing and always has new
ideas.
The Chinese answered: "The best time for this is right now. Russia is building the Power of Siberia pipeline, the North
Stream Pipeline, Vostochny Cosmodrome Spaceport, the MegaProject bridge to Crimea; also Russian is upgrading the Trans-Siberian
railroad with a new railway bridge across Lena River and the Amur-Yakutsk Mainline. Russia is also building new sports facilities
for the World Cup and athletics, and has in development over 150 production projects in the Arctic Well, now they really need
as many POWs as possible!"
Unbelievable. Aaron: I don't believe that the Mueller investigation has delivered solid
proof that Russia did anything against the country.
Sipher: Well I think that he and the FBI are reputable sources and I'm going to believe
them and what they tell me. Even if they haven't proven anything, we know that Putin is a bad
man and he wants to sow divisions here and besides he's using chemical weapons in Syria (even
though that's so totally off topic) and when I go to bed at night I see Putin in my dreams
and yackity, yack, yack! So there. I'm a poopy head and you're not.
Good grief, how can people believe anything by this time? And Rachel? Quit lying to
yourself and others. My gawd! You have come a long way from your time at Air America that I
don't even recognize you anymore. You are creating hysteria and you have become a raving
lunatic. Enjoy your $30,000/day, $7 million a month salary for selling out to the people who
you used to despise. I despise you!
I suppose it is ok for Aaron to interview guys like this CIA agent but the agent clearly
doesn't understand the validity of an indictment. An indictment doesn't prove anything; If it
did, we wouldn't need trial courts.
The Department of Justice could indict a ham sandwich if they wanted.
The DOJ knows that this case will never go to trial and they will never have to prove
anything. It is depressing that the Democrats and MSNBC have lost all credibility. We are
very lucky to have Aaron and Max looking at this sutff.
People all over the world are delighted to see the US and Russia joining together to
call out the globalists on their blatant hypocrisy.
Notable quotes:
"... "A Russian company spends 72p on Facebook ads: interference, hybrid war, parliamentary inquiry Soros spends £400K on bringing down UK Government: nothing to worry about." ..."
"A Russian company spends 72p on Facebook ads: interference, hybrid war, parliamentary inquiry Soros spends
£400K on bringing down UK Government: nothing to worry about."
A Russian company spends 72p on Facebook ads: interference, hybrid war, parliamentary
inquiry
Soros spends £400K on bringing down UK Government: nothing to worry about
pic.twitter.com/yeCZw4Z2B1
Steve S: "My God, what a confession it is to believe that 13 non-billionaires could influence
an American election: "Horosho! Now that election goes to Trump, next we get Moose and Squirrel!"
Seriously?!"
shinola , February
20, 2018 at 3:36 pm " If special snowflake America's democracy is so fragile that a bunch of amateurish Boris
& Natasha trolls can bring it down, then let it bleed [and share the Stoli,
comrades]."
"... Are we to see all this nonsense as merely an internal US matter, with the Dems planning an attack on Trump before he was elected, and subsequently promoting Russia as a blanket external enemy - as they can't accuse the Republicans, Banks or Big Corps, need an outside bogey, though they have post hoc also blamed the electorate, not smart. ..."
"... Russia is merely a mythical figure, breathing fire and red-clawed, in the wings, invisible, serving as a prop for the major contestants. ..."
"... Naturally, ordinary US citizens are of no account beyond their role as potentially duped followers, adherents, minions, serfs, ciphers on a page, etc. Influencing opinion(s) the most efficiently is part of the competition, actualised through media, TV, internet, etc. etc. ..."
I'm confused. The ICYMI facebook page has been going for a month or so.
It does exactly what the Russian bots are accused of, raising political issues and
mocking one side or as often both sides. Perhaps more UK based than US based though.
A lot like the more humourous RT posts do (which also find their way into my timeline -
not complaining I click on a lot of them). How come it hasn't been brought down yet?
And when is the Onion going to be indicted for being funny and spotting absurdities.
More seriously. The Russkies, e.g. Zakharova and Lavrov have said that the USA has gone
mad, is in the grip of a crazed delusional hysteria (or words to that effect.) Why the
hype?
1) Are we to see all this nonsense as merely an internal US matter, with the Dems
planning an attack on Trump before he was elected, and subsequently promoting Russia as a
blanket external enemy - as they can't accuse the Republicans, Banks or Big Corps, need an
outside bogey, though they have post hoc also blamed the electorate, not smart.
Neatly fitting with that Trump did propose 'good' ( ) relations with Russia, in an attempt
to actually conserve some, or even a major part, of US hegemony in the new 'multipolar'
world. (Trump wanted to control and 'annex' the weaker partner, not a bad calculation.)
>> Russia is merely a mythical figure, breathing fire and red-clawed, in the
wings, invisible, serving as a prop for the major contestants.
Naturally, ordinary US citizens are of no account beyond their role as potentially
duped followers, adherents, minions, serfs, ciphers on a page, etc. Influencing opinion(s)
the most efficiently is part of the competition, actualised through media, TV, internet, etc.
etc.
2) The USA is *for real* gearing up for a meltdown war, against Russia in first place, and
all the Media hype is aimed at getting US, NATO citizens to support it, or at least sleep in
front of the TV and not object, and/or be controlled by various entities. The US PTB will
never accept its loss of power/status and will destroy the world in a nuclear storm before it
gives up.
News review for the week ending Feb 18th 2018, in which Robert Mueller named 13 Russians who
allegedly conspired to alter the result of the 2016 election
View the archive at:
www.calvinsworldnews.com
Or why not check out my other website with classical music cartoons:
www.maestrocartoon.com
There's a certain irony in stuff like this that supersedes even righteous outrage. It
reinforces what Mad magazine spoofed decades ago: our spies are just as dumb as theirs;
perhaps even more so. And when you wade in the swamp, expect to attract leeches.
With the moment of truth - over-hyped dud or Democratic-establishment-crushing dream - looming in less than 24 hours, the headlines,
finger-pointing, pettiness, and back-stabbing has reached 11 on the Spinal Tap amplifier of debacle... to the point where some humor
in this FISA farce may help everyone get through the weekend.
The following is the latest to cross the wires...
Stressing that such an action would be highly reckless, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Thursday that releasing the "Nunes
Memo" could potentially undermine faith in the massive, unaccountable government secret agencies of the United States.
"Making this memo public will almost certainly impede our ability to conduct clandestine activities operating outside any legal
or judicial system on an international scale," said Wray, noting that it was essential that mutual trust exist between the American
people and the vast, mysterious cabal given free rein to use any tactics necessary to conduct surveillance on U.S. citizens or
subvert religious and political groups.
"If we take away the people's faith in this shadowy monolith exempt from any consequences, all that's left is an extensive
network of rogue, unelected intelligence officers carrying out extrajudicial missions for a variety of subjective, and occasionally
personal, reasons."
At press time, Wray confirmed the massive, unaccountable government secret agencies were unaware of any wrongdoing for violating
constitutional rights.
DAVOS -- Maintaining that the notion didn't even cross his mind, President Trump reportedly
insisted Friday that he never once thought about firing Robert Mueller, feeding him to a pack
of rabid dogs, and mounting his head in the Oval Office as a trophy.
"At no point did I ever
consider firing Mr. Mueller, tossing his body to snarling, mangy hounds, and having his head
stuffed and mounted front and center above the Oval Office fireplace," said Trump, dismissing
several reports that he had ordered the special counsel to be terminated from his post and
torn limb from limb by starving Rottweilers before nailing his skull to a wooden plaque, but
backed off when a top White House lawyer threatened to quit.
"It's also totally ridiculous to
think that I would ever want Mueller gone for good, boiled alive, and chopped up into bloody
chunks. The stories you're hearing about me trying to get rid of Mueller and then gutting him
with a rusty ice pick are absolutely not true."
At press time, Trump asserted that if he ever
did one day decide to forcibly castrate Mueller and set him on fire, it would be fully within
his authority as president.
ltravisjr asks "what did she destroy evidence of?" There is just so much to choose from.
How about this joke
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are in a bar.
Donald leans over, and With A smile on his face, says, "The media are really tearing you
apart for That Scandal." Hillary:
"You mean my lying about Benghazi?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "You mean the massive voter fraud?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "You mean the military not getting their votes counted?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "Using my secret private server with classified material to Hide my Activities?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "The NSA monitoring our phone calls, emails and everything Else?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "Using the Clinton Foundation as a cover for tax evasion, Hiring Cronies, And
taking
bribes from foreign countries?
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "You mean the drones being operated in our own country without The Benefit of the
law?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "Giving 123 Technologies $300 Million, and right afterward it Declared
Bankruptcy
and was sold to the Chinese?"
Trump: "No,the other one."
Hillary: "You mean arming the Muslim Brotherhood and hiring them in the White House?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "Whitewater, Watergate committee, Vince Foster, commodity Deals?"
Trump: "No the other one:"
Hillary: "The IRS targeting conservatives?"
Trump: "No the other one:"
Hillary: "Turning Libya into chaos?"
Trump: "No the other one:"
Hillary: "Trashing Mubarak, one of our few Muslim friends?"
Trump: "No the other one:"
Hillary: "Turning our backs on Israel?"
Trump: "No the other one:"
Hillary: "The joke Iran Nuke deal? "
Trump: "No the other one:"
Hillary: "Leaving Iraq in chaos? "
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "The DOJ spying on the press?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "You mean HHS Secretary Sibelius shaking down health insurance Executives?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "Giving our cronies in SOLYNDRA $500 MILLION DOLLARS and 3 Months Later they
declared bankruptcy and then the Chinese bought it?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "The NSA monitoring citizens' ?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "The State Department interfering with an Inspector General Investigation on
departmental sexual misconduct?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "Me, The IRS, Clapper and Holder all lying to Congress?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "Threats to all of Bill's former mistresses to keep them quiet"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "I give up! Oh wait, I think I've got it! When I stole the White House
furniture,
silverware and China when Bill left Office?"
Trump: "THAT'S IT! I almost forgot about that one".
-- -- -- -- –
Sorry that doesn't actually answer your question. By the way, when I googled for
trump hillary "the other scandal"
I had trouble finding that joke, but duckduckgo.com had no trouble finding it at all.
Makes me think that google is deliberately trying to hide it.
Taking place on the set of MSNBC's Morning Joe , Armisen's Wolff told Kate McKinnon's Mika Brzezinski and Alex Moffat's
Joe Scarborough about some of the incredible anecdotes that the author omitted from Fire and Fury , including the "baby races."
"Trump would ask to have two babies placed in his office, usually of different ethnicities. Someone would put a bowl of Goldfish
crackers on the other side of the room, and Trump would say 'One-thousand bucks on the blackboard,'" Wolff said.
When pressed on whether everything in the book was rooted in non-fiction, Wolff responded by telling Scarborough and Brzezinski
to just enjoy the book. "Even the stuff that's not true, it's true," Wolff said.
"... According to the Moscow Times, another Duma deputy suggested that the address of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow should be renamed as "Severoamerikansky Tupik, 1," -- "North American Dead End, 1." ..."
Sparking an angry reaction halfway around the world, the D.C. Council voted to rename the
street outside the Russian Embassy after a leading rival to President Vladimir Putin who was
assassinated near the Kremlin in 2015. A portion of Wisconsin Avenue in front of the Russian
Embassy will now be known as "Boris Nemtsov Plaza," according to the D.C. Council .
... ... ...
According to the Moscow Times, another Duma deputy suggested that the address of the
U.S. Embassy in Moscow should be renamed as "Severoamerikansky Tupik, 1," -- "North American
Dead End, 1."
I understand why you're so angry about the new Michael Wolff book, especially some of the
quotes attributed to me. I was as shocked as you were to see them in print.
For the record, I take full responsibility for letting Mr. Wolff hang out with me in the
White House for so long. Apparently the dude was writing down everything I said, word for
word.
Who does that? Nobody here at Breitbart News, that's for sure!
Please allow me to provide some context and clarification for my seemingly nasty comments
about your family.
First, you know Ivanka and I have had our differences. It's no secret that she actually
hates my guts, which is fine. Lots of people do. Almost anybody who's spent time with me, to be
honest.
However, Wolff's book says I describe your daughter as "dumb as a brick," a phrase I've
never used in my life.
Now, it's somewhat possible that – in an unguarded moment -- I said she was "dumb as a
box of rocks," a phrase I use many times a day.
In fact, I say it so often that nobody who knows me takes it seriously anymore, or gets
their itty-bitty feelings hurt.
"The biggest rub is how stupid they think the American people are," says the Broadway star,
who traveled for hours to parody the GOP nominee's wife with a perfect pouty lip and
spot-on Slovene accent.
Many got the joke, however, many did not and it gained traction because it was "so plausible." This is what "confirmation bias"
is about.
Notable quotes:
"... The parody paragraphs, below, describe Trump's (fictitious) frustration at not having "the gorilla channel" available on his White House bedroom television, and his staffers' subsequent amusing attempt to appease him ..."
"... Some people online at first incorrectly thought that the passages were actually featured in Wolff's book, in which Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon makes claims about the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election ..."
The parody paragraphs, below, describe Trump's (fictitious) frustration at not having "the gorilla channel" available on
his White House bedroom television, and his staffers' subsequent amusing attempt to appease him
Some people online at first incorrectly thought
that the passages were actually featured in Wolff's book, in which Trump's former chief strategist
Steve Bannon makes claims about the probe into Russian
meddling in the 2016 election.
On his first night in the White House, President Trump complained that the TV in his bedroom was broken, because it didn't
have "the gorilla channel". Trump seemed to be under the impression that a TV channel existed that screened nothing but gorilla-based
content, 24 hours a day.
To appease Trump, White House staff compiled a number of gorilla documentaries into a makeshift gorilla channel, broadcast
into Trump's bedroom from a hastily-constructed transmission tower on the South Lawn. However, Trump w as unhappy with the channel
they had created, moaning that it was "boring" because "the gorillas aren't fighting".
Staff edited out all the parts of the documentaries where gorillas weren't hitting each other, and at last the president was
satisfied. "On some days he'll watch the gorilla channel for 17 hours straight," an insider told me. "He kneels in front of the
ТV with his face about four inches from the screen, and says encouraging things to the gorillas, like 'the way you hit that other
gorilla was good'. I think he thinks the gorillas can hear him."
Many got the joke, however, but said it gained traction because it was "so plausible."
Max Boot, MAX BOOT everyone, he's obviously a Russian agent, he was born in Moscow, he
MUST have ties to Putin if he was born in Moscow. He's a deep cover RUSSIAN AGENT, Max Boot
everyone !!
Last month or two, "Vovan" and "Lexus" presented their book on Moscow's bookfair - For
whom the Phone Rings . Fun read, providing not only transcriptions of their phonecalls,
but also the background information - how they acquired the phone number, who connected them
to their victim, how they prepared for the prank, the context and consequences. Most of all
they targeted Mikhail Saakashvili. The most damaging their prank was for Ihor Kolomoisky,
back when he was still governor.
Oh, and Julia Ioffe (kicked out from the Politico) mentioned them two raskals in her
latest (unreadable) article for the Atlantic - What Putin really wants .
"The US ambassador to the United Nations has fallen victim to a phone prank perpetrated by a famous Russian duo, with whom
she discussed the affairs of a fictional South China Sea island nation and the alleged harassment of the Ukrainian president
by Kevin Spacey.
Notorious Russian pranksters Vladimir Kuznetsov (Vovan) and Alexey Stolyarov (Lexus) have managed to one-up the US
government by calling Nikki Haley and tricking her into thinking that she was speaking with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz
Morawiecki.
During the phone conversation, the pranksters probed Haley's opinion about the island nation of Binomo -- a fictional country
located in the South China Sea not far from Vietnam, and invented by Vovan and Lexus for that occasion. "
When the pranksters told Haley that the country recently proclaimed independence and that the Russians have meddled in the
elections held there she immediately replied "of course they did!" The ambassador also stated that the US is aware of the
situation that it will continue to monitor it closely just as Washington deals with all issues "that keep coming up in the
South China Sea." "
I hope my virtually-unused high school German isn't too rusty after 45 years. ;)
____________________________________
@ Anonynmous | 25
The spectacle of Jens Stoltenberg and Angelina Jolie posturing as identity-politics
paragons is... speaking of German, once again I wish for one of those unique German compound
words that express a commonplace binary emotion: in this case, simultaneous amusement and
annoyance.
So I'm making one up: lustigärgerlich . I find this bumptious odd couple
lustigärgerlich.
To make a timely parallel, it's as if during the first Christmas, King Herod and Salome
issued a proclamation urging the populace to be especially kind and considerate to children
everywhere.
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!
We accompanied that with a prank in which we posed as Potanin calling the Washington Wizards
for courtside seats, Harvard University business school to purchase a degree, and the Augusta
National Golf Club -- brandishing Hiatt's article for access:
eXile : I am Russian banker, so-called robber baron capitalist, am interested in
purchasing your degree.
Harvard : ( pause ) Uh, sir, you can't buy the degree, but you can enroll in our
program. It's an intensive 9 week program, and you receive a certificate, not a degree.
eXile : No, this is no good. Do you realize who I am? Fred Hiatt wrote about me in today
Washington Post, that I am not typical robber baron. I am ze baby billionaire.
Harvard : We read a lot about Russia and it sounds very exciting.
eXile : Of course it exciting. Now I vant Harvard degree.
Harvard : You can't buy a degree.
eXile : Maybe instead I build nice cafe for you on campus. Or I can donate small nightclub
for Harvard degree.
Harvard : Sir, Harvard is a 350-year-old institution. It's not all just about money. We've
turned down princes.
"... No, the corporate ruling classes' endgame here is to reestablish neoliberal "normality," so we can get back to the War on Terror (or whatever they'll be calling it by then), and put this neo-nationalist revolt against neoliberalism episode behind us. To do that, they will need to install some sort of hopey-changey, Obama-like messiah, or at least somebody who can play the part of POTUS like a normal person and not sit around the Oval Office gobbling McDonald's and retweeting racist memes by random British fascists. ..."
According to the Chinese zodiac, 2017 has been the Year of the Rooster. Myself, I've decided
to designate it the Year of the Headless [neo]Liberal Chicken. I don't mean that to be insulting or,
all right, I guess I do, a little. But my heart goes out to [neo]Liberals, seriously. At this point,
the amount of utterly baseless, contradictory propaganda, mass hysteria, and just flat out
insanity the ruling classes have demanded they swallow is more than any human mind, no matter
how medicated, could possibly handle. Is it any wonder so many of them of lost it and started
seeing Nazis and Russians coming out of the woodwork? Just consider what the average liberal
has been forced to try to cognitively reconcile since the tragic events of last November
First came the overwhelming shock of Hillary Clinton's loss to Trump, a repulsive, word
salad-babbling buffoon with absolutely no political experience who the media had been
portraying to [neo]Liberals as the Second Coming of Adolf Hitler. This was a candidate, let's
recall, who jabbered about building a "beautiful wall" to protect us from the hordes of
"Mexican rapists" and other "bad hombres" who were invading America, and who had boasted about
grabbing women "by the pussy" like a prepubescent 6th grade boy. While he had served as a
perfect foil for Clinton, and had provided hours of entertainment in a comic book villain kind
of way, the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency was inconceivable in the minds of [neo]Liberals.
So, when it happened, it was like the Martians had invaded.
Mass hysteria gripped the nation. There was beaucoup wailing and gnashing of teeth. [neo]Liberals
began exhibiting irrational and, in some cases, rather disturbing behaviors. Many degenerated
into dissociative states and just sat there with their phones for hours obsessively reloading
the popular vote count, which Clinton had won, on FiveThirtyEight. Others festooned
themselves with safety pins and went out looking for defenseless minorities who they could
"demonstrate solidarity" with. Owen Jones flew in from London to join his colleague Steven
Thrasher, who was organizing a guerilla force to resist "
the normalization of Trump " and the global race war he was about to launch, which "not all
of us were going to get out of alive."
At that point, the media had been hammering hard on the Trump-is-Hitler narrative for
months, so they had to stick with that for a while. It had only been a few weeks, after all,
since The Wall Street
JournalThe
New York TimesThe Washington PostThe Guardian , and numerous other
establishment publications , had explained how Trump was using special fascist code words
like "global elites," "international banks," and "lobbyists" to signal his virulent hatred of
the Jews to the millions of Americans who, according to the media, were secretly Hitler-loving
fascists.
This initial post-election propaganda was understandably somewhat awkward, as the plan had
been to be able to celebrate the "Triumph of Love over the Forces of Hate," and the demise of
the latest Hitlerian bogeyman. But this was the risk the ruling classes took when they chose to
go ahead and Hitlerize Trump, which they wouldn't have done if they'd thought for a moment that
he had a chance of actually winning the election. That's the tricky thing about Hitlerizing
people. You need to be able to kill them, eventually. If you don't, when they turn out not to
be Hitler, your narrative kind of falls apart, and the people you've fear-mongered into a
frenzy of frothing, self-righteous fake-Hitler-hatred end up feeling like a bunch of dupes
who'll believe anything the government tells them. This is why, normally, you only Hitlerize
foreign despots you can kill with impunity. This is Hitlerization 101 stuff, which the ruling
classes ignored in this case, which the left poor [neo]Liberals terrified that Trump was actually
going to start building Trump-branded death camps and rounding up the Jews.
Fortunately, just in the nick of time, the ruling classes and their media mouthpieces rolled
out the Russian Propaganda story. The Washington Post (whose owner's multimillion dollar
deal with the CIA, of course, has absolutely no effect on the quality of its professional
journalism) led the charge with
this McCarthyite smear job , legitimizing the baseless allegations of some random website
and a think tank staffed by charlatans like
this "Russia expert," who appears not to speak a word of Russian or have any other "Russia
expert" credentials, but is available both for television and Senate Intelligence Committee
appearances. Numerous similar smear pieces
followed. [neo]Liberals breathed a big sigh of relief that Hitler business had been getting kind of
scary. How long can you go, after all, with Hitler stumbling around the White House before
somebody has to go in there and shoot him?
In any event, by January, the media were playing down the Hitler stuff and going balls-out
on the "Russiagate" story. According to The Washington Post (which, let's remember, is a
serious newspaper, as opposed to a propaganda organ of the so-called US "Intelligence
Community"), not only had the Russians "hacked" the election, but they had
hacked the Vermont power grid ! Editorialists at The New York Times were declaring
that Trump "
had been appointed by Putin ," and that the USA was now "at war" with Russia. This was also
around the time when [neo]Liberals first learned of the
Trump-Russia Dossier , which detailed how Putin was blackmailing Trump with a video the FSB
had shot of Trump and a bunch of Russian hookers peeing on a bed in a Moscow hotel in which
Obama had allegedly slept.
This nonsense was reported completely straight-faced, and thus [neo]Liberals were forced to take
it seriously. Imagine the cognitive dissonance they suffered. It was like that scene in
1984 when the Party abruptly switches enemies, and the war with Eurasia becomes the war
with Eastasia. Suddenly, Trump wasn't Hitler anymore. Now he was a Russian sleeper agent who
Putin had been blackmailing into destroying democracy with this incriminating "golden showers"
video. Putin had presumably been "running" Trump since Trump's visit to Russia in 2013 to
hobnob with "Russia-linked" Russian businessmen and attend the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow.
During the ensuing partying, Trump must have gotten loaded on Diet Coke and gotten carried away
with those Russian hookers. Now, Putin had him by the short hairs and was forcing him to staff
his Manchurian cabinet with corporate CEOs and Goldman Sachs guys, who probably had also been
videotaped by the FSB in Moscow hotels paying hookers to pee on furniture, or performing
whatever other type of seditious, perverted kink they were into.
Before the poor [neo]Liberals had time to process this, the ruling classes launched "the
Resistance." You remember the Pussyhat
People , don't you? And the global corporate PR campaign which accompanied their historic
"Womens' March" on Washington? Do you remember [neo]Liberals like Michael Moore shrieking for the feds to arrest
Donald Trump ? Or publications like The New York TimesSalon , and many others, and even State
Satirist Stephen Colbert accusing Trump and anyone who supported him of treason a crime,
let's recall, that is punishable by death? Do you remember folks like William Kristol and Rob "the Meathead"
Reiner demanding that the "deep state" launch a coup against Trump to rescue America from
the Russian infiltrators?
Ironically, the roll-out of this "Russiagate" hysteria was so successful that it peaked too
soon, and prematurely backlashed all over itself. By March, when Trump had not been arrested,
nor otherwise removed from office, [neo]Liberals, who by that time the corporate media had teased
into an incoherent, throbbing state of anticipation were well, rather disappointed. By April,
they were exhibiting all the hallmark symptoms of clinical psychosis. This mental breakdown was
due to the fact that the media pundits and government spooks who had been telling them that
Trump was Hitler, and then a Russian sleeper agent, were now telling them that he wasn't so
bad , because he'd pointlessly bombed a Syrian airstrip, and dropped a $314 million Massive
Ordnance Air Blast bomb on some alleged "terrorist caves" in Afghanistan.
As if [neo]Liberals' poor brains weren't rattled enough, the corporate media then switched back
to, first, the Russian Propaganda narrative (which they expanded into a global threat), then,
the Hitler stuff again, but this time Trump wasn't actually Hitler, because Putin was Hitler,
or at least he was fomenting Hitlerism throughout the West with his legions of fascist hacker
bots who were "influencing" unsuspecting consumers with their blitzkrieg of divisive "fake
news" stories. Oh, yeah, and now
Putin had also done Brexit , or Trump and Robert Mercer had, but they were working for
Putin, who had also hacked the
French election that he hadn't hacked , or whatever
this was no time to worry about what had or hadn't actually happened. The peace and prosperity
President Obama had reestablished throughout the West by incessantly bombing the Greater Middle
East and bailing out his pals at the Wall Street banks was being torn asunder by Vladimir
Putin, who at some point had apparently metamorphosized from a ruthless, former KGB autocrat
into a white supremacist megalomaniac.
Right on cue, on the weekend of August 11-12 in Charlottesville, Virginia,
where there had never been any history of racism , a "national gathering" of approximately
five hundred tiki torch-bearing neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan types, and other white supremacists,
many of them barking Nazi slogans, marched into the pages of history. Never before have so few
fascists owed so much to the mainstream media, which showered them with overwrought coverage,
triggering a national Nazi panic. [neo]Liberals poured into the streets, tearing down Confederate
monuments, and otherwise signaling their total intolerance of the racism they had tolerated
until a few days earlier.
People named after Robert E. Lee , and horses named after
General Lee's horse , went into hiding to until the panic subsided. This was wise, as by
then the so-called anti-fascists were showing up in force at anything resembling a right-wing
rally and stomping the living Hitler out of Nazis, and Trump supporters, and journalists, and
well, anyone they didn't think looked quite right. This totally preemptively self-defensive,
non-violent type of violent behavior, naturally, shocked and horrified [neo]Liberals, who are
strongly opposed to all forms of violence that aren't carried out by the US military, or the
police, or someone else wearing a uniform. Unsure as to whom they were supposed to condemn, the
Nazis or the Antifa terrorists, they turned for guidance to the corporate ruling classes, who
informed them
it was time to censor the Internet
This made about as much sense as any of the other nonsense they'd been spoonfed so far, so [neo]Liberals decided to get behind it, or at least look the other way while it happened. Facebook,
Google, Amazon, Twitter (and all the other corporations that control the Internet, the media,
Hollywood, the publishing industry, and every other means of representing "reality") surely
have people's best interests at heart. Plus, they're only censoring the Nazis, and the
terrorists, and the Russian "fake news" disseminators, and, OK, a lot of leftist publications, and
award-winning journalists , and anyone else espousing "divisive," anti-American, or
anti-corporate, "extremist" views.
Look, I know what you're probably thinking, but it isn't like [neo]Liberals don't actually care
about fundamental liberal values like freedom of the press and speech and all that. It's just
that they desperately need the Democrats to take back the House and the Senate next year, so
they can get on with impeaching Trump, and if they have to stand by while the corporations
suppress a little leftist dissent, or, you know, transform the entire Internet into a massive,
mind-numbing echo chamber of neo-McCarthyite corporate conformity well, sacrifices have to be
made.
This can't go on forever, after all. This level of full-blown mass hysteria can only be
sustained for so long. It's all fine and good to be able to whip people up into a frenzied mob,
but at some point you need to have an endgame. The neoliberal ruling classes know this. Their
endgame is actually fairly simple. Their plan is to (a) make an example of Trump to discourage
any future billionaire idiots from screwing with their simulation of democracy, and (b)
demonize anyone deviating from neoliberal ideology as a fascist, racist, or anti-Semite, or
otherwise "abnormal" or "extremist." Their plan is not to incinerate the entire planet
in a war with Russia. We're not on the brink of World War III, despite how many Twitter likes
or Facebook shares it might get me to say that. Yes, eventually, they want to force Russia to
return to the kind of "cooperation" it engaged in during the 1990s, when it was run by an
incorrigible drunkard and the Goldman Sachs boys and their oligarch pals were looting the
country for all it was worth but that has little to do with all this.
No, the corporate ruling classes' endgame here is to reestablish neoliberal "normality,"
so we can get back to the War on Terror (or whatever they'll be calling it by then), and put
this
neo-nationalist revolt against neoliberalism episode behind us. To do that, they will need
to install some sort of hopey-changey, Obama-like messiah, or at least somebody who can play
the part of POTUS like a normal person and not sit around the Oval Office gobbling McDonald's
and retweeting racist memes by random British fascists.
The way things are going, that might take a while, but rest assured they'll get there
eventually. Now that Robert Mueller has proved that Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin by
obstructing an investigation by Comey into Michael Flynn's lying to the FBI about not colluding
with the Russian ambassador on behalf of Israel at Kushner's behest, the dominoes are surely
about to fall. Once they all have, and Donald Trump's head has been mounted on a spike on the
White House lawn as a warning to any other potential usurpers, all this Russia and Nazi
hysteria that has the poor [neo]Liberals running around like headless chickens will disappear.
Russia will go back to being Russia. The North American Nazi Menace, deprived of daily media
coverage, will go back to being a fringe phenomenon. [neo]Liberals will go back to ignoring politics
(except identity politics, naturally) and obediently serving the global capitalist ruling
elites that are destroying the planet, and the lives of millions of human beings, in order to
increase their profit margins. Sure, there'll be a brief emotional hangover, once the
adrenaline rush wears off and they look back at their tweets and Facebook posts, which in
hindsight might convey the impression that they spent the better part of a year parroting
whatever insane propaganda the corporate media pumped out at them, and otherwise behaving like
Good
Americans but then, that's what the "delete" key is for. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: CJ HopkinsC. J. Hopkins is an
award-winning American playwright, novelist and 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. He can reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
Hundreds of other princes and gentlemen were tortured, too, until they agreed to surrender their ill-gotten assets, 70% of all
they have. As I write, and as you read these lines, the torture goes on, and so far MBS has already milked his victims of
hundreds of billions $$ worth of cash and assets.
"An Extortion racket", you'll exclaim. Perhaps MBS watched The Godfather in his impressionable youth and was
impressed by efficiency of their methods. However, he has solved, or rather is in the process of solving, the problem of
solvency.
Perhaps this is the method to be advised to Trump and Putin, as well as to other leaders? If the neoliberal dogma forbids
taxing, if the offshore are sacred, what remains for a diligent leader but a plush five-star hotel and a band of experienced
torturers?
You are one of the very few critical journalists today willing to print objective measures
of the truth, while the MSM spins out of control under the guise of "protecting America" (and
their vital sources), while at the same time actually undermining the very principles of a
working democracy they sanctimoniously pretend to defend. It makes me nostalgic for the
McCarthy era, when we could safely satirize the Army-McCarthy Hearings (unless you were a
witness!). I offer the following as a retrospective of a lost era.:
Top-Ten Criteria for being a Putin Stooge, and a Chance at Winning A One Way Lottery
Ticket to the Gala Gitmo Hotel:
(1) Reading Consortium News, Truth Dig, The Real News Network, RT and Al Jeziera
(2) Drinking Starbucks and vodka at the Russian Tea Room with Russian tourists (with an
embedded FSS agent) in NYC.
(3) Meeting suspicious tour guides in Red Square who accept dollars for their historical
jokes.
(4) Claiming to catch a cell phone photo of the Putin limousine passing through the
Kremlin Tower gate.
(4) Starting a joint venture with a Russian trading partner who sells grain to feed
Putin's stable of stallions.
(5) Catching the flu while being sneezed upon in Niagara Falls by a Russian violinist.
(6) Finding the hidden jewels in the Twelfth Chair were nothing but cut glass.
(7) Reading War and Peace on the Brighton Beach ferry.
(8) Playing the iPod version of Rachmaninoff's "Vespers" through ear buds while attending
mass in Dallas, TX..
(9) Water skiing on the Potomac flying a pennant saying "Wasn't Boris Good Enough?"
(10) Having audibly chuckled even once at items (1) -- (9).
The international organization for migration has published official data which shows that
every fourth prostitute in Europe is a citizen of Ukraine.
The article discusses pamphlets that are distributed to young Ukrainian girls/women advising
them on how to survive and flourish in new realities of life in the EU.
the Ukrainian labor market is being formed and is growing. Even if there is no other work
and none is expected, girls should know that Europe will take care of them. The younger
generation of Ukrainian schoolgirls will find out how to apply themselves If you are involved
in the sex business, then this brochure is for you," it is said in the introduction. "You have
chosen a very dangerous profession, but if you always follow these simple rules, then you will
get a chance to live a long life You shouldn't serve several clients alone, you should avoid
drunk clients, and also always to take payment in advance. And when you go to the client's
apartment, try to learn in what district of the city it is located, give preference to
hotels".
It's okay if you're a hooker, and all you have to sell is yourself. You have chosen a
dangerous profession, but really the writing was on the wall, wasn't it, if only you'd had
sense to read it? And the economic calamity which has come to pass in your country is really
no concern of ours, while for our part we are not too upset at being offered the choice of
some of the most beautiful young women on the planet, who will do anything you say for a
handful of euros.
Here's to your bright new future in the EU. Incredible. I wonder if Poroshenko will tout
this statistic as another validation of Ukrainians' confidence in his leadership.
These tactics do not just suppress information. They enforce conformity at much
deeper level.
Notable quotes:
"... I am using the Orwellian verb "unperson" playfully, but I'm also trying to be precise. What's happening isn't censorship, technically, at least not in the majority of cases. While there are examples of classic censorship (e.g., in the UK, France, and Germany), apart from so-called "terrorist content," most governments aren't formally banning expressions of anti-corporatist dissent. This isn't Czechoslovakia, after all. This is global capitalism, where the repression of dissent is a little more subtle. The point of Google unpersoning CounterPunch (and probably many other publications) and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists like Hedges is not to prevent them from publishing their work or otherwise render them invisible to readers. The goal is to delegitmize them, and thus decrease traffic to their websites and articles, and ultimately drive them out of business, if possible. ..."
"... Another objective of this non-censorship censorship is discouraging writers like myself from contributing to publications like CounterPunch, Truthdig, Alternet, Global Research, and any other publications the corporatocracy deems "illegitimate." Google unpersoning a writer like Hedges is a message to other non-ball-playing writers. The message is, "this could happen to you." This message is meant for other journalists, primarily, but it's also aimed at writers like myself who are making a living (to whatever degree) writing and selling what we think of as "literature." ..."
"... These tactics do not just suppress information. They enforce conformity at much deeper level. ..."
"... Chomsky explains how this system operates in What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream . It isn't a question of censorship the system operates on rewards and punishments, financial and emotional coercion, and subtler forms of intimidation. Making examples of non-cooperators is a particularly effective tactic. Ask any one of the countless women whose careers have been destroyed by Harvey Weinstein, or anyone who's been to graduate school, or worked at a major corporation. ..."
"... C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and 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. He can reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org . ..."
On November 30, 2016, presumably right at the stroke of midnight, Google Inc. unpersoned
CounterPunch. They didn't send out a press release or anything. They just quietly removed it
from the Google News aggregator. Not very many people noticed. This happened just as the "fake
news" hysteria was being unleashed by the corporate media, right around the time The Washington
Post ran
this neo-McCarthyite smear piece vicariously accusing CounterPunch, and a number of other
publications, of being "peddlers of Russian propaganda." As I'm sure you'll recall, that
astounding piece of "journalism" (which The Post was promptly forced to disavow with an absurd
disclaimer but has refused to retract) was based on the claims of an anonymous website
apparently staffed by a couple of teenagers and a formerly rabidly anti-Communist, now rabidly
anti-Putin think tank. Little did most people know at the time that these were just the opening
salvos in what has turned out to be an all-out crackdown on any and all forms of vocal
opposition to the global corporate ruling classes and their attempts to quash the ongoing
nationalist backlash against their neoliberal agenda.
Almost a year later, things are much clearer. If you haven't been following this story
closely, and you care at all about freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and that kind of
stuff, you may want to take an hour or two and catch up a bit on what's been happening. I
offered a few examples of some of the measures governments and corporations have been taking to
stifle expressions of dissent in my latest
piece in CounterPunch , and there are many more detailed articles online, like this one by Andre
Damon from July, and this follow-up he published last
week (which reports that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Chris Hedges has also
been unpersoned). Or, if you're the type of soul who only believes what corporations tell you,
and who automatically dismisses anything published by a Trotskyist website, here's
one from last December in The Guardian, and an
op-ed in The New York Times , both of which at least report what Google, Twitter, and
Facebook are up to. Or you could read this
piece by Robert Parry , who also has "legitimate" (i.e., corporate) credentials, and who
hasn't been unpersoned just yet, although I'm sure they'll get around to him eventually.
I am using the Orwellian verb "unperson" playfully, but I'm also trying to be precise.
What's happening isn't censorship, technically, at least not in the majority of cases. While
there are examples of classic censorship (e.g., in the UK, France, and Germany), apart from
so-called "terrorist content," most governments aren't formally banning expressions of
anti-corporatist dissent. This isn't Czechoslovakia, after all. This is global capitalism,
where the repression of dissent is a little more subtle. The point of Google unpersoning
CounterPunch (and probably many other publications) and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists like
Hedges is not to prevent them from publishing their work or otherwise render them invisible to
readers. The goal is to delegitmize them, and thus decrease traffic to their websites and
articles, and ultimately drive them out of business, if possible.
Another objective of this non-censorship censorship is discouraging writers like myself
from contributing to publications like CounterPunch, Truthdig, Alternet, Global Research, and
any other publications the corporatocracy deems "illegitimate." Google unpersoning a writer
like Hedges is a message to other non-ball-playing writers. The message is, "this could happen
to you." This message is meant for other journalists, primarily, but it's also aimed at writers
like myself who are making a living (to whatever degree) writing and selling what we think of
as "literature."
Yes, as you've probably guessed by now, in addition to writing political satire, I am, as
rogue journalist Caitlin Johnstone so aptly put it once, an "elitist wanker." I've spent the
majority of my adult life writing stage plays and working in the theater, and it doesn't get
any more elitist than that. My plays are published by "establishment" publishers, have won a
few awards, and have been produced internationally. I recently published my "debut novel"
(which is what you call it if you're an elitist wanker) and am currently trying to promote and
sell it. I mention this, not to blow my little horn, but to the set the stage to try to
illustrate how these post-Orwellian intimidation tactics (i.e., unpersoning people from the
Internet) work. These tactics do not just suppress information. They enforce conformity at much
deeper level.
The depressing fact of the matter is, in our brave new Internet-dominated world,
corporations like Google, Twitter, and Facebook (not to mention Amazon), are, for elitist
wankers like me, in the immortal words of Colonel Kurz, "either friends or they are truly
enemies to be feared." If you are in the elitist wanker business, regardless of whether you're
Jonathan Franzen, Garth Risk Hallberg, Margaret Atwood, or some "mid-list" or "emerging"
author, there is no getting around these corporations. So it's kind of foolish, professionally
speaking, to write a bunch of essays that will piss them off, and then publish these essays in
CounterPunch. Literary agents advise against this. Other elitist literary wankers, once they
discover what you've been doing, will avoid you like the bubonic plague. Although it's
perfectly fine to write books and movies about fictional evil corporations, writing about how
real corporations are using their power to mold societies into self-policing virtual prisons of
politically-correct, authoritarian consumers is well, it's something that is just not done in
professional elitist wanker circles.
Normally, all this goes without saying, as these days most elitist wankers are trained how
to write, and read, and think, in MFA conformity factories, where they screen out any unstable
weirdos with unhealthy interests in political matters. This is to avoid embarrassing episodes
like Harold
Pinter's Nobel Prize lecture (which, if you haven't read it, you probably should), and is
why so much of contemporary literature is so well-behaved and instantly forgettable. This
institutionalized screening system is also why the majority of journalists employed by
mainstream media outlets understand, without having to be told, what they are, and are not,
allowed to report. Chomsky explains how this system operates in What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream . It isn't a
question of censorship the system operates on rewards and punishments, financial and emotional
coercion, and subtler forms of intimidation. Making examples of non-cooperators is a
particularly effective tactic. Ask any one of the countless women whose careers have been
destroyed by Harvey Weinstein, or anyone who's been to graduate school, or worked at a major
corporation.
Or let me provide you with a personal example.
A couple weeks ago, I googled myself (which we elitist wankers are wont to do), and noticed
that two of my published books had disappeared from the "Knowledge Panel" that appears in the
upper right of the search results. I also noticed that the people "People Also Search For" in
the panel had changed. For years, consistently, the people you saw there had been a variety of
other elitist literary wankers and leftist types. Suddenly, they were all rather right-wing
types, people like Ilana Mercer and John Derbyshire, and other VDARE writers. So that was a
little disconcerting.
I set out to contact the Google Search specialists to inquire about this mysterious
development, and was directed to a series of unhelpful web pages directing me to other
unhelpful pages with little boxes where you can write and submit a complaint to Google, which
they will completely ignore. Being an elitist literary wanker, I also wrote to Google Books,
and exchanged a number of cordial emails with an entity (let's call her Ms. O'Brien) who
explained that, for "a variety of reasons," the "visibility" of my books (which had been
consistently visible for many years) was subject to change from day to day, and that,
regrettably, she couldn't assist me further, and that sending her additional cordial emails was
probably a pointless waste of time. Ms. O'Brien was also pleased to report that my books had
been restored to "visibility," which, of course, when I checked, they hadn't.
"Whatever," I told myself, "this is silly. It's probably just some IT thing, maybe Google
Books updating its records, or something." However, I was still perplexed by the "People Also
Search For" switcheroo, because it's kind of misleading to link my writing to that of a bunch
of serious right-wingers. Imagine, if you were a dystopian sci-fi fan, and you googled me to
check out my book and see what else I had written, and so on, and my Google "Knowledge Panel"
popped up and displayed all these far-right VDARE folks. Unless you're a far-right VDARE type
yourself, that might be a little bit of a turn-off.
At that point, I wondered if I was getting paranoid. Because Google Search runs on
algorithms, right? And my political satire and commentary is published, not only in
CounterPunch, but also in The Unz Review, where these far-right-wing types are also published.
Moreover, my pieces are often reposted by what appear to be "Russia-linked" websites, and
everyone knows that the Russians are all a bunch of white supremacists, right? On top of which,
it's not like I'm Stephen King here. I am hardly famous enough to warrant the attention of any
post-Orwellian corporate conspiracy to stigmatize anti-establishment dissent by manipulating
how authors are displayed on Google (i.e., subtly linking them to white supremacists,
anti-Semites, and others of that ilk).
So, okay, I reasoned, what probably happened was over the course of twenty-four hours, for
no logical reason whatsoever, all the folks who had been googling me (along with other leftist
and literary figures) suddenly stopped googling me, all at once, while, more or less at the
exact same time, hundreds of right-wingers started googling me (along with those white
supremacist types they had, theoretically, already been googling). That kind of makes sense
when you think about it, right? I mean, Google couldn't be doing this intentionally. It must
have been some sort of algorithm that detected this sudden, seismic shift in the demographic of
people googling me.
Or, I don't know, does that possibly sound like a desperate attempt to rationalize the
malicious behavior of an unaccountable, more or less god-like, global corporation that wields
the power of life and death over my book sales and profile on the Internet (a more or less
god-like global corporation that could do a lot of additional damage to my sales and reputation
with complete impunity once the piece you're reading is published)? Or am I simply getting
paranoid, and, in fact, I've developed a secret white supremacist fan base without my
knowledge? Only Google knows for sure.
Such are the conundrums elitist literary wankers have to face these days that is, those of
us wankers who haven't learned to keep our fucking mouths shut yet. Probably the safest course
of action, regardless of whether I'm being paranoid or Google does have me on some kind of
list, is to lay off the anti-corporatist essays, and definitely stop contributing to
CounterPunch, not to mention The Unz Review, and probably also give up the whole dystopian
satire novel thing, and ensure that my second novel conforms to the "normal" elitist wanker
rules (which every literary wanker knows, but which, technically, do not exist). Who knows, if
I play my cards right, maybe I can even sell the rights to Miramax, or okay, some other
corporation.
Once that happens, I assume that Google will want to restore me to normal personhood, and
return my books to visibility, and I will ride off into the Hollywood sunset with the Clintons,
Clooneys, and Pichais, and maybe even Barack Obama himself, if he isn't off jet skiing with
Richard Branson, or having dinner with Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos, who just happen to live right
down the street, or hawking the TPP on television. By that time, CounterPunch and all those
other "illegitimate" publications will have been forced onto the dark web anyway, so I won't be
giving up all that much. I know, that sounds pretty cold and cynical, but my liberal friends
will understand I just hope all my new white supremacist fans will find it in their hearts to
forgive me.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and 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. He can reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
Thank you for mustering the courage and then taking the time to spell out these outrages in a
straightforward, unemotional way. I've appreciated the humor that centers your other essays,
but there's not a damned thing funny about this.
But why are things as they are? With billions aplenty, our rulers must be driven by their
libido dominandi. We're left to wonder only whether they get off more on ostracizing the
Hopkinses, on buying the politicians, or on herding the sheep from bathrooms to statues to
flags.
... having spent $100,000 on Facebook ads, and unleashed a troll army to wrote Facebook
posts - which had a 0.004% change of being read - Putin then went for the kill, and assured
himself a Trump presidency by splurging another $4,700 for Google ads and creating an
additional 43 hours of video content. The rest is history.
Throughout What Happened , Clinton gives us a taste of her literary influences,
beginning each section, and each chapter, and sometimes inserting inside of chapters,
quotations from Harriet Tubman, Friedrich Nietzsche, A League of Their Own , Rainer
Maria Rilke, Eleanor Roosevelt, TS Eliot, George Bernard Shaw, Carl Sandburg, "a sign in my
house", Nora Ephron, Muriel Rukeyser, JM Barrie, Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Flannery O'Connor, WB Yeats, "a Chinese proverb", "an African
proverb", Fyodor Dostoevsky, Robert Frost, John F. Kennedy, Nelson Mandela , Henry James, and Pope
John XIII. I do not know who any of those people are. It seems I've lost them along with every
other person in this book. But from the quotations, you can tell that each of them is an
advocate for kindness, perseverance, truth, and decency. You can see how each of them helped
shape Clinton and her thoughts.
After learning so much about Clinton, it is difficult to read her account of the campaign
itself when it arrives slightly more than halfway through the book. It is terrible to witness
the tragedy unfold. Clinton ran for president, she says early on, because she "thought I would
be good at the job." Others agree, including the current president, Barack Obama , who announces at her
convention that she is the most qualified candidate to ever run despite -- Clinton notes --
their disagreement on issues including environmental regulation and an unspecified conflict in
Syria (their respective positions are not detailed; however, my research indicates that Clinton
was widely believed to be "the most progressive candidate" in history, so one imagines that she
disapproved of President Obama's bellicose stance on the issue). But despite her
qualifications, or perhaps due to them, Clinton endures a cruelty and depth of opposition
unlike anything endured by a candidate for the presidency before her.
First, she faces a primary against a disruptive charlatan. Senator Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat, she
tells us, but a socialist attempting to "disrupt" the party. Sanders is at once nearly
identical to Clinton on the issues ("because we agreed on so much, Bernie couldn't make an
argument against me in this area on policy, so he had to resort to innuendo and impugning my
character," she writes) and hopelessly reactionary -- a man willing to compromise on Clinton's
key issues of gun violence and racial justice in order to give free "ponies", "magic abs", and
taxpayer-funded college education to rich children. Sanders' supporters are vicious -- Clinton
calls them "Bernie Bros" twice in her book -- and go so far as to boo her at the Democratic
National Convention. Sanders himself, despite campaigning for Clinton (something she graciously
"appreciated"), refused to endorse her for nearly a month after the end of their contest.
Despite Clinton's record and character, Sanders attacked her integrity even after the delegate
math is done. This shameless new anti-Clinton strategy "[paves] the way for Donald Trump's
'Crooked Hillary' campaign" during the general and does "lasting damage" to the party.
None of this compares to what comes next. In a section called "Frustration," Clinton reveals
that it was not only her Republican opponent who she was up against in the general election
last year. Beyond Trump, Clinton must contend with a news media that operates under special
"Clinton rules" designed to make all of her behavior appear nefarious, most notably a server
management issue during her time at the State Department. She is attacked by Republican
congressmen and Senators, who haul her before pointless special committees in order to score
cheap political points on TV. She is "knifed" by FBI director James Comey, whose release of a
damning and unprecedented letter only days before the election costs Clinton essential margins
in several states. Beyond all of this, Clinton faces an unprecedented espionage effort by a man
named Vladimir Putin. Putin, Clinton tells us, has a personal grudge against her born of her
previous work as Secretary of State and in order to keep her from the presidency, he orders
Russian intelligence services to attack her candidacy on all fronts.
The Russians seed propaganda through American social media networks. They steal internal
emails from her campaign and release them at the most damaging possible times. They hack voting
systems and even collaborate directly with members of Trump's campaign. This was an act of war,
Clinton writes, and one cannot help but sense an unspoken anger at President Obama, who knew
what was going on, but chose not to make a public declaration.
In other reviews of What Happened, I have seen the claim that Clinton refuses to take
responsibility for her loss. Perhaps this is in reference to some other book or statement long
since lost to my memory, because in this book, it simply isn't true. In nearly every chapter,
Clinton repeats some version of the idea that the blame for losing the 2016 election rests with
her alone. It is only that given everything else we learn -- given the "tribalism" of the
electorate, the vendetta of the Russians, the opposition that she, like all subversive figures,
faced from even her own state's secret police -- given all of those things and how all of those
things are invariably mentioned either immediately before or immediately after any moment when
Clinton takes responsibility for her defeat, given all of that it is difficult to escape the
impression that while she might take the blame, no reasonable person would put the blame on
Clinton.
Indeed the strangest element of What Happened is the widespread belief, both within and
without the Clinton campaign, that she would win. I can only take her word that this was widely
believed, but it is difficult to fathom. The Clinton I discovered in these pages was a radical.
From the moment she left her position as president of Wellesley's Republican club (a detail she
mentioned, much to my shock, in the book's final pages), Clinton fought relentlessly against
the entrenched, reactionary forces of her nation. As a young woman, she demonstrated against
the imperial war in Vietnam. As an attorney, she was on the front lines against Jim Crow. In
public service, she stood up not only to despots like Vladimir Putin, but to the most powerful
corporations in the United States, proposing redistributive taxes and "truly universal" health
care, even flirting with a guaranteed basic income funded by capital derivatives from
nationalized resource services.
Writing about the decline of American labor solidarity, Clinton writes that "being part of a
union is an important part of someone's personal identity. It helps shape the way you view the
world and think about politics. When that's gone, it means a lot of people stop identifying
primarily as workers -- and voting accordingly -- and start identifying and voting as white,
male, rural, or all of the above." This account of class-consciousness puts Clinton to the left
of even celebrated American essayist Ta-Nehisi Coates. How could anyone be naïve enough to
believe that her victory was guaranteed? She was a radical taking on the establishment and the
establishment is never more vicious than when it is protecting itself from a figure who has
proven herself willing and able to defeat them. For the Clinton of What Happened to win the
Presidency in a country like the United States would have been miraculous. Nothing in the
history I can remember suggests that this was ever likely.
"Our justice system is represented by a blind-folded woman holding a set of scales. Those
scales do not tip to the right or the left; they do not recognize wealth, power, or social
status. The impartiality of our justice system is the bedrock of our republic..."
"... If the Senate can 'assess,' so can I! I assess that Hollywood hottie Jenifer Lawrence is secretly in love with me! Although I can't prove this, all of my assessments point to this as being fact. ..."
If the Senate can 'assess,' so can I! I assess that Hollywood hottie Jenifer Lawrence is
secretly in love with me! Although I can't prove this, all of my assessments point to this as
being fact.
It just occurred to me that the perfect Halloween decoration this year would be a Russian flag.
That is, unless someone comes out with a Zombie Putin, or Dracula Putin...
"... Now, despite what the Russian propagandists will tell you, this recent outbreak of fascistic behavior has nothing whatsoever to do with these people's frustration with neoliberalism or the supranational Corporatocracy that has been expanding its global empire with total impunity for twenty-five years. And it definitely has nothing at all to do with supranational political unions, or the supersession of national sovereignty by corporate-concocted "free trade" agreements, or the relentless privatization of everything, or the fear that a lot of people have that their cultures are being gradually erased and replaced with a globalized, corporate-friendly, multicultural, market-based culture, which is merely a simulation of culture, and which contains no actual cultural values (because exchange value is its only operative value), but which sells the empty signifiers of their eviscerated cultural values back to them so they can wear their "identities" like designer brands as they hunch together in silence at Starbucks posting pictures of themselves on Facebook. ..."
"... No, this discontent with the political establishment, corporate elites, and the mainstream media has nothing to do with any of that. It's not like global Capitalism, following the collapse of the U.S.S.R. (its last external ideological adversary), has been restructuring the entire planet in accordance with its geopolitical interests, or doing away with national sovereignty, and other nationalistic concepts that no longer serve a useful purpose in a world where a single ideological system (one backed by the most fearsome military in history) reigns completely unopposed. If that were the case, well, it might behoove us to question whether this outbreak of Nazism, racism, and other forms of "hate," was somehow connected to that historical development and maybe even try to articulate some sort of leftist analysis of that. ..."
"... a world where a single ideology rules the planet unopposed from without ..."
"... Brexit is about Britons who want their country back, a movement indeed getting stronger and stronger in EU member states, but ignored by the ruling 'elites'. ..."
"... A lot of these so called "revolutions" are fomented by the elite only to be subverted and perverted by them in the end. They've had a lot of practice co-opting revolutions and independence movements. ..."
"... "Independence" is now so fashionable (as was Communism among the "elite" back in the '30s), that they are even teaching and fostering independence to kids in kindergarten here in the US. That strikes me as most amusing. Imagine "learning" independence in state run brainwashing factories. ..."
Well all right, let's review what happened, or at least the official version of what
happened. Not Hillary Clinton's version of what happened, which Jeffrey St. Clair so
incisively skewered , but the Corporatocracy's version of what happened, which overlaps
with but is even more ridiculous than Clinton's ridiculous version. To do that, we need to
harken back to the peaceful Summer of 2016, (a/k/a the
"Summer of Fear" ), when the United States of America was still a shiny city upon a hill
whose beacon light guided freedom-loving people, the Nazis were still just a bunch of ass
clowns meeting in each other's mother's garages, and Russia was, well Russia was Russia.
Back then, as I'm sure you'll recall, Western democracy, was still primarily being menaced
by the lone
wolf terrorists, for absolutely no conceivable reason, apart from the terrorists' fanatical
desire to brutally murder all non-believers. The global Russo-Nazi Axis had not yet reared its
ugly head. President Obama, who, during his tenure, had single-handedly restored America to the
peaceful, prosperous, progressive paradise it had been before George W. Bush screwed it up, was
on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon slow
jamming home the TPP . The Wall Street banks had risen from the ashes of the 2008 financial
crisis, and were buying back all the foreclosed homes of the people they had fleeced with
subprime mortgages. American workers were enjoying the freedom and flexibility of the new gig
economy. Electioneering in the United States was underway, but it was early days. It was
already clear that Donald Trump was literally
the Second Coming of Hitler , but no one was terribly worried about him yet. The Republican
Party was in a shambles. Neither Trump nor any of the other contenders had any chance of
winning in November. Nor did Sanders, who had been defeated, fair and square, in the Democratic
primaries, mostly because of
his racist statements and crazy, quasi-Communist ideas. Basically, everything was hunky
dory. Yes, it was going to be terribly sad to have to bid farewell to Obama, who had bailed out
all those bankrupt Americans the Wall Street banks had taken to the cleaners, ended all of Bush
and Cheney's wars, closed down Guantanamo, and just generally served as a multicultural messiah
figure to affluent consumers throughout the free world, but Hope-and-Change was going to
continue. The talking heads were all in agreement Hillary Clinton was going to be President,
and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Little did we know at the time that an epidemic of Russo-Nazism had been festering just
beneath the surface of freedom-loving Western societies like some neo-fascist sebaceous cyst.
Apparently, millions of theretofore more or less normal citizens throughout the West had been
infected with a virulent strain of Russo-Nazi-engineered virus, because they simultaneously
began exhibiting the hallmark symptoms of what we now know as White Supremacist Behavioral
Disorder, or Fascist Oppositional Disorder (the folks who update the DSM are still arguing over
the official name). It started with the Brexit referendum, spread to America with the election
of Trump, and there have been a rash of outbreaks in Europe, like
the one we're currently experiencing in Germany . These fascistic symptoms have mostly
manifest as people refusing to vote as instructed, and expressing oppressive views on the
Internet, but there have also been more serious crimes, including several assaults and murders
perpetrated by white supremacists (which, of course, never happened when Obama was President,
because the Nazis hadn't been "emboldened" yet).
Now, despite what the Russian propagandists will tell you, this recent outbreak of
fascistic behavior has nothing whatsoever to do with these people's frustration with
neoliberalism or the supranational Corporatocracy that has been expanding its global empire
with total impunity for twenty-five years. And it definitely has nothing at all to do with
supranational political unions, or the supersession of national sovereignty by
corporate-concocted "free trade" agreements, or the relentless privatization of everything, or
the fear that a lot of people have that their cultures are being gradually erased and replaced
with a globalized, corporate-friendly, multicultural, market-based culture, which is merely a
simulation of culture, and which contains no actual cultural values (because exchange value is
its only operative value), but which sells the empty signifiers of their eviscerated cultural
values back to them so they can wear their "identities" like designer brands as they hunch
together in silence at Starbucks posting pictures of themselves on Facebook.
No, this discontent with the political establishment, corporate elites, and the
mainstream media has nothing to do with any of that. It's not like global Capitalism, following
the collapse of the U.S.S.R. (its last external ideological adversary), has been restructuring
the entire planet in accordance with its geopolitical interests, or doing away with national
sovereignty, and other nationalistic concepts that no longer serve a useful purpose in a world
where a single ideological system (one backed by the most fearsome military in history) reigns
completely unopposed. If that were the case, well, it might behoove us to question whether this
outbreak of Nazism, racism, and other forms of "hate," was somehow connected to that historical
development and maybe even try to articulate some sort of leftist analysis of that.
This hypothetical leftist analysis might want to focus on how Capitalism is fundamentally
opposed to Despotism, and is essentially a value-decoding machine which renders everything and
everyone it touches essentially valueless interchangeable commodities whose worth is determined
by market forces, rather than by societies and cultures, or religions, or other despotic
systems (wherein values are established and enforced arbitrarily, by the despot, the church, or
the ruling party, or by a group of people who share an affinity and decide they want to live a
certain way). This is where it would get sort of tricky, because it (i.e., this hypothetical
analysis) would have to delve into the history of Capitalism, and how it evolved out of
medieval Despotism, and how it has been decoding despotic values for something like five
hundred years. This historical delving (which would probably be too long for people to read on
their phones) would demonstrate how Capitalism has been an essentially progressive force in
terms of getting us out of Despotism (which, for most folks, wasn't very much fun) by fomenting
bourgeois revolutions and imposing some semblance of democracy on societies. It would follow
Capitalism's inexorable advance all the way up to the Twentieth Century, in which its final
external ideological adversary, fake Communism, suddenly imploded, delivering us to the world
we now live in a world where a single ideology rules the planet unopposed from without
, and where any opposition to that global ideology can only be internal, or insurgent, in
nature (e.g, terrorism, extremism, and so on). Being a hypothetical leftist analysis,
it would, at this point, need to stress that, despite the fact that Capitalism helped deliver
us from Despotism, and improved the state of society generally (compared to most societies that
preceded it), we nonetheless would like to transcend it, or evolve out of it toward some type
of society where people, and everything else, including the biosphere we live in, are not
interchangeable, valueless commodities exchanged by members of a global corporatocracy who have
no essential values, or beliefs, or principles, other than the worship of money. After having
covered all that, we might want to offer more a nuanced view of the current neo-nationalist
reaction to the Corporatocracy's ongoing efforts to restructure and privatize the rest of the
planet. Not that we would support this reaction, or in any way refrain from calling
neo-nationalism what it is (i.e., reactionary, despotic, and doomed), but this nuanced view
we'd hypothetically offer, by analyzing the larger sociopolitical and historical forces at
play, might help us to see the way forward more clearly, and who knows, maybe eventually
propose some kind of credible leftist alternative to the "global neoliberalism vs.
neo-nationalism" double bind we appear to be hopelessly stuck in at the moment.
Luckily, we don't have to do that (i.e., articulate such a leftist analysis of any such
larger historical forces). Because there is no corporatocracy not really. That's just a fake
word the Russians made up and are spreading around on the Internet to distract us while the
Nazis take over. No, the logical explanation for Trump, Brexit, and anything else that
threatens the expansion of global Capitalism, and the freedom, democracy, and prosperity it
offers, is that millions of people across the world, all at once, for no apparent reason, woke
up one day full-blown fascists and started looking around for repulsive demagogues to swear
fanatical allegiance to. Yes, that makes a lot more sense than all that complicated stuff about
history and hegemonic ideological systems, which is probably just Russian propaganda anyway, in
which case there is absolutely no reason to read any boring year-old pieces, like this one in TheEuropeanFinancialReview , or this report by
Corporate Watch , from way back in the year 2000, about the rise of global corporate
power.
So, apologies for wasting your time with all that pseudo-Marxian gobbledygook. Let's just
pretend this never happened, and get back to more important matters, like statistically proving
that Donald Trump got elected President because of racism, misogyny, transphobia, xenophobia,
or some other type of behavioral disorder, and pulling down Confederate statues, or kneeling
during the National Anthem, or whatever happens to be trending this week. Oh, yeah, and
debating punching Nazis, or people wearing MAGA hats. We definitely need to sort all that out
before we can move ahead with helping the Corporatocracy remove Trump from office, or at least
ensure he remains surrounded by their loyal generals, CEOs, and Goldman Sachs guys until the
next election. Whatever we do, let's not get distracted by that stuff I just distracted you
with. I know, it's tempting, but, given what's at stake, we need to maintain our laser focus on
issues related to identity politics, or else well, you know, the Nazis win.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and 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. He can reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
Yesterday evening on RT a USA lady, as usual forgot the name, spoke about the USA. In a
matter of fact tone she said things like 'they (Deep State) have got him (Trump) in the
box'.
They, Deep State again, are now wondering if they will continue to try to control the
world, or if they should stop the attempt, and retreat into the USA.
Also as matter of fact she said 'the CIA has always been the instrument of Deep State, from
Kenndy to Nine Eleven'.
Another statement was 'no president ever was in control'.
How USA citizens continue to believe they live in a democracy, I cannot understand.
Yesterday the intentions of the new Dutch government were made public, alas most Dutch
also dot not see that the Netherlands since 2005 no longer is a democracy, just a province of
Brussels.
Brexit is about Britons who want their country back, a movement indeed getting
stronger and stronger in EU member states, but ignored by the ruling 'elites'.
No doubt many do want their country back, but what concerns me is that all of a sudden we
have the concept of "independence" plastered all over the place. Such concepts don't get
promoted unless the ruling elites see ways to turn those sentiments to their favor.
A lot of these so called "revolutions" are fomented by the elite only to be subverted
and perverted by them in the end. They've had a lot of practice co-opting revolutions and
independence movements. (And everything else.)
"Independence" is now so fashionable (as was Communism among the "elite" back in the '30s),
that they are even teaching and fostering independence to kids in kindergarten here in the
US. That strikes me as most amusing. Imagine "learning" independence in state run
brainwashing factories.
"Now, despite what the Russian propagandists will tell you, this recent outbreak of
fascistic behavior has nothing whatsoever to do with these people's frustration with
neoliberalism or the supranational Corporatocracy that has been expanding its global empire
with total impunity for twenty-five years. And it definitely has nothing at all to do with
supranational political unions, or the supersession of national sovereignty by
corporate-concocted "free trade" agreements, or the relentless privatization of everything,
or the fear that a lot of people have that their cultures are being gradually erased and
replaced with a globalized, corporate-friendly, multicultural, market-based culture, which
is merely a simulation of culture, and which contains no actual cultural values (because
exchange value is its only operative value), but which sells the empty signifiers of their
eviscerated cultural values back to them so they can wear their "identities" like designer
brands as they hunch together in silence at Starbucks posting pictures of themselves on
Facebook."
Very impressed with this article, never really paid attention to CJ's articles but that is
now changing!
"... One possible explanation would simply be that they have all gone nuts. But since this cannot possibly be the case, this leaves just one other explanation: Russiagate itself is a clever but sinister hoax intended to make it look like our political and media class have lost their marbles, therefore undermining our democracy, our values and our way of life ..."
The Russians may have developed the capability to create elaborate hoaxes that turn the US
into a laughing stock in the eyes of outsiders Russell O'Phobe
90
For almost a year, Russia's meddling in last year's election, along with collusion with the
Trump campaign, have dominated the political and media landscape. But an explosive new
classified report produced by US intelligence may be about to blow apart the narrative, and
reveal an even bigger story that has been missed in all the commentary so far.
The report was set up to try to answer two questions: firstly, why is it that after nearly a
year, there still hasn't been a single piece of hard evidence to prove either the hacking or
the collusion? And secondly, given this lack of credible evidence, how is it that the US media
and political classes have been talking about nothing else for months and months without any
sign of letting it go, to the point of giving the impression of being obsessed with the
issue?
The report, which was signed off by all 17 agencies ! that's the DIA, CIA, FBI and NSA !
reaches a conclusion which is nothing short of sensational:
"If there hasn't actually been any hard evidence presented of meddling or collusion, we
must ask the question of how and why the entire political and media class have been talking
about nothing else for months.
One possible explanation would simply be that they have all gone nuts. But since this
cannot possibly be the case, this leaves just one other explanation: Russiagate itself is a
clever but sinister hoax intended to make it look like our political and media class have
lost their marbles, therefore undermining our democracy, our values and our way of life."
Ahh, but Obama was a peace nerd by Democratic Standards. Clinton almost started WWIII. LBJ bombed
the shit out of Vietnam. Truman dropped two atomic bombs on surrendering Japan, allegedly to scare
the shit out of Stalin. Carter was a one term wimp. Democrats are just as war hungry as Republicans,
but they lucked out with Iraq being a Republican issue, and so tried to get as many political
points as possible from it. Obama's Foreign Policy wasn't popular with the Democratic Leadership,
but it energized the youth voters, so they stayed silent. Under that context, Trump is indeed
soft.
Truman used atomic bombs to bully Russia out of Japan and Western Berlin. LBJ fought by proxy
against Russia in Vietnam. Clinton ordered a war with Russia over Kosovo. Obama was the outlier.
Also, it certainly helped his candidacy against McCain, and the Democrats in the midterms. After
Obama was reelected, it was Arab Spring, I mean business as usual. What did Trump do? Lobbed a
few missiles at the Syrians, and shot down a single plane. Just one?! What a softy! The DNC Leadership
needs to realize that the World isn't in the 1990s anymore, but I doubt that they will, and that's
an issue that will cost them the 2018 midterms.
"... I really hope Russia has learned its lesson. It does no good to talk with Washington, as it only and always means Russia harm. Despite the popular aphorism, "Jaw, jaw is better than war, war", there is no reason Russia must choose one. Any overtures by Washington – including and especially to re-open the deconfliction channel in Syria – should be met with polite non-commitment, and a vague promise to look at it, then nothing. ..."
Americans (in Washington and in the think tanks) see themselves as Lucy in Charles Shultz's "Peanuts"
comic strip, and the Russians as Charlie Brown. No matter how many times the USA has lied to
Russia, disparaged it, lied about it, cheated it .when America says, "Hey, let's play
football! I'll hold it, and you come running up and kick it!" Russia will still fall for the old
dodge, and come running and try to kick it, only to have it snatched away at the last second so
it can fall on its ass.
I really hope Russia has learned its lesson. It does no good to talk with Washington, as
it only and always means Russia harm. Despite the popular aphorism, "Jaw, jaw is better than war,
war", there is no reason Russia must choose one. Any overtures by Washington – including and especially
to re-open the deconfliction channel in Syria – should be met with polite non-commitment, and
a vague promise to look at it, then nothing.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless cankles of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear -
"My name is Ozywomandias, queen of queens:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Pilot– Chicago O'Hare I'm asking for permission to land.
Tower– Please listen closely because do upgrades our message has changed.
Chicago O'Hare I'm asking for permission to land.
Tower– Please all pilots in O'Hare landing pattern talk among yourselves to
work out who is first.
Pilot– WTF
Tower– This being the first Monday of Month there are no ground crews so
just drive around until you find a location to unload the sheeple. That is all
and Good F$$$$$$ Luck!
The Twitter went wild on the orb. I liked this one:
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Cyrus the Great was buried with a
sceptre of tremendous power. I, king of
the New World, command my people to
find his tomb & recover his sceptre. None
shall sleep until the sceptre is found!
■ Pixelated Boat
@pixelatedboat
Wow, Trump just hasn't been the same since he touched that orb
5:43 PM-21 May 2017
3,365 V 8,882
And this one:
Nick Greene @NickGreene 21 May
Trump During the Campaign: "I will NEVER touch The Orb, even
though its mysterious glow seduces and beguiles."
Trump Today: pic.twitter.com/eWoaDeXj8n
Boo
@TheSpaceHamster
@NickGreene
Spicer:the president has not and will never use
the orb to talk to sauron
45: I talked to Sauron, tremendous guy, very bright, he's great.
3:30 PM-21 May 2017
There was also a very good one for Sanders which now I can't find, but Twitter's search function
is what it is, and Google thinks I want to search on "orbital sanders." So it goes.
I suggested
back in March that the President throw this Russia stuff right back in the elites' smug weasel
faces by making the Russian ambassador an honored guest at all cabinet meetings. In the same spirit
of defiance, I now tender a further suggestion.
Mr. President, you are in need of a new FBI Director. Please consider appointing Russian ambassador
Sergey Ivanovich Kislyak
to this position.
Ambassador Kislyak is a genial and worldly fellow you should have no trouble getting along with.
As a former diplomatic functionary of the U.S.S.R., I'm sure he is well acquainted with intelligence
procedures and protocols. An ideal candidate!
You'd probably have to grant him U.S. citizenship; but I believe that can be done on an expedited
basis by a simple Act of Congress.
The upside for you would be that it would drive the opposition into shrieking, moon-howling madness.
The downside for our country would be nothing at all.
In defense of Obama making $400K while Clinton only made $225K
he was actually able to *GET ELECTED*.. She took all her bribes up front then lost to Trump
with a 2-1 money advantage and the press completely in her pocket. Truly pathetic. He should get
WAY more than 2x what she does. HE ACTUALLY DELIVERED SOMETHING TO HIS BENEFACTORS. If she had
any shame - which she obviously doesn't - she'd disappear forever. And we'd all be the better
for it.
Hillary, Bill, and Chelsea are three of the most embarrassing Americans to have ever lived.
If you think I'm being too harsh, ask yourself why the (D) party they built for 30 years prefers
fascism to democratic socialism.
Whether fair or not, it's not difficult to look at Wall Street paying $400,000 to Obama
as a reward for [not prosecuting anyone on Wall Street for the crash].
Well, something that seems fairer , if not inarguable, is that if President Obama
had prosecuted people on Wall Street, demanded Pecora investigation-style hearings, or,
y'know, acted generally in the public interest, Wall Street would not be shelling out
$400,000 to hear his views on anything.
To view Obama during his presidency as not being constrained under those circumstances
seems, to me, to be a kind of willful obliviousness.
Oh Lord, it's happening–the remanufacture of Trump by the Establishment. During the campaign,
Trump and the Basilisk had nothing in common but their hair dye. Now, almost daily, he looks more
like her.
He gets embarrassing. Regarding the alleged gassing in Syria, quoth Donald:
"When you kill innocent children, innocent babies - babies, little babies - with a chemical gas
that crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line. And I will tell you, that attack on children
yesterday had a big impact on me my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much."
God almighty. Who wrote this–a middle school girl with C's in English, or the President of the
United States? Did he retire to his bedroom for a good cry?
Apparently he ordered his missile strike without bothering to find out what happened. The usual
suspects are driving him like a sports car.
The election was a choice between fetor and a lunatic. We chose the lunatic. Whether this was
better than the alternative, we will never know, but Trump is going from bad to worse, or as the
Mexicans say, de Guatemala a Guatepeor.
Does he believe this stuff? Is he naive enough to think that there was something unusually
horrible about the attack? Horrible, yes, but not in the least unusual. Do you know what everyday,
boring artillery does to children? Five-hundred-pound bombs? Hellfire rockets? Daily Mr. Trump's
military and his allies daily drop shrapnel-producing explosives on people, cities, towns, adults,
children, weddings and goatherds in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Good draft-dodger that he
was, he probably has never seen any of this. Good psychopath that he may be, he may not care.
This whole gas-attack business smells to high heaven. It looks nicely calculated to force him
to attack Assad. Gas was important: Killing babies, little babies with explosives is so routine that
no one cares, but we have been programmed to shudder at the thought of Gas!
Actually artillery has killed several orders of magnitude more people, but never mind.
Targeting children was a nice touch. Definitely a PR bonus. So Donald goes into his Poor-widdle-fings
weep, while Americans weekly kill more children in three to seven countries, depending on the date.
Is the man consciously a liar? Hasn't got sense enough to think before operating his mouth? Actually
believes what he says when he says it?
Glance at a small part of the record and focus on his changing his tune, not on whether you agree
with a particular policy. Erratic, erratic, erratic. He was going to run out the illegals within
two years, absurd but he said it. Going to put high tariffs on Mexican goods. Didn't. On Chinese
goods. Isn't. Tear up the Iran treaty. Didn't. Declare China a currency-manipulator. Isn't. Ban Muslims.
Hasn't. Promote good relations with Russia. Isn't. Get the US out of Syria. Ha. Make NATO pay for
itself. Isn't. The man has the steely determination one associates with bean curd. You cannot trust
anything the man says.
Having been reprogrammed as a good neocon, bombing places he promised to get out of, looking for
a fight with Russia, he is now butting heads with Fat Thing in North Korea. He his said things closely
resembling, "We have run out of strategic patience with the North. If nobody else will take care
of it, we will." Grrrr. Bowwow. Woof.
The problem with growly ultimata made for television is that somebody has to back down–that is,
lose face and credibility. If Trump had quietly told Fat Thing, "If you crazy bastards scrap your
nuke program, we will drop the sanctions," it might have worked. But no. Negotiations would imply
weakness. Thus an ultimatum.
So now either (a) Fat Thing knuckles under, humiliating himself and possibly endangering his grasp
on power or (b) Trump blinks in a humiliating display of the Empire's impotence, possibly endangering
his grasp on power.
Kim Jong Il, or Il Sung Jong, or whatever the the hell the latest one of them is called, shows
not the slightest sign of backing down. So does the Donald start an utterly unpredictable war, as
usual in somebody else's country, or does he weasel off, muttering, and hope nobody notices?
Fred's Third Law of International Relations: Never butt heads with a country that has a missile
named the No Dong.
Many of us favored Trump, slightly daft though he was, because he wasn't yet Hillary, wasn't yet
a neocon robot, and didn't want war with every country he had heard of, apparently meaning a good
half dozen. At least he said he didn't, not yet having been told that he did. In particular, he didn't
want war with Russia. But when the neocons control the media and Congress, they can convince a naive
public of anything and, apparently, the President.
Why is the Hillarification of Trump important? The necessary prior question: What is the greatest
threat to the neocons' American Empire? Answer: The ongoing integration of Eurasia under Chinese
hegemony. The key countries in this are China, Iran, and Russia. (Isn't it curious that, apart from
the momentary distraction of North Korea, these countries have been the focus of New York's hostility?)
In particular if Russia and, through it, China develop large and very profitable trade with Europe,
there goes NATO and with it the Empire.
Oops.
Thus the eeeeeeeeeeek! furor about Russia as existential threat and so on. Thus sending
a few troops to Baltic countries to "deter" Russia. This was theater. The idea that a thousand garrison
troops can stop the Russian army, which hasn't gone silly as ours has, on its doorstep is loony.
Hillary was on board with the Russia hysteria and the globalization and the immigration and so
on. Trump could have screwed the whole pooch by getting along with Russia, so he had to be reconfigured.
And was. A work in progress, but going well.
ORDER
IT NOW
Too much is being asked of him. One man cannot overcome the combined hostility of the media, the
political establishment, the neocons, the myriad other special interests that he has threatened.
Mass immigration is a done deal. China develops and America, already developed, cannot keep up. The
country disintegrates socially. Washington, always depending on war and its threat, faces a new world
in which trade is the weapon, and doesn't know what to do. The culture courses. The world changes.
Yet if only Trump showed some sign of knowing what he is doing, and could remember from day to
day, if only he realized that wars are more easily started than predicted, if only he were not becoming
an unbalanced Hillary.
Yet, apparently, he is.
(Reprinted from
Fred on Everything by permission of author or representative)
"... This is the 100% true story of the #SyriaStrikes, and if you support sites like The Corbett Report that question it in any way you are a moonbeam fake news tyrant-loving hippy pinko Russian agent and should commit ritual suicide immediately. ..."
On the morning of April 4th 2017, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, on the verge of a military
victory against the terrorist insurgency in his country and on the eve of peace talks that would
secure his position as president, decided to use chemical weapons
he didn't have against a target of no military significance in front of as many cameras as
possible to cross the one red line that would insure his own government's downfall.
Without presenting a shred of evidence, President Donald Trump boldly launched a military strike
against Shayrat airfield because "national security interest," promising to help the "beautiful
children" (*offer does not apply to babies in
Gaza ,
Yemen ,
Pakistan , or basically anywhere else).
Throughout the world people rejoice as a horrible secular regime in the Middle East is replaced
by yet another peace-loving band of ragtag human rights campaigners and
child
beheaders motivated by a desire to subdue the armies of Rome in an apocalyptic confrontation
in Dabiq. (*
actual ISIS belief )
The chemicals for the previous "red line" attack in Syria have since been proven to
come from Libya with US approval , but that's probably not relevant to this case.
The CIA has released
declassified report after
declassified report showing that the plan to topple Syria's government has been in the works
for decades, but this just shows that they were right all along.
The mainstream media
unquestioningly asserts that the story is true because the US government says so, but that's
OK because we all know the msm is full of unbiased truthtellers and dig hard to get the raw facts
on every story. (" beauty
of our weapons ")
Even members of congress think the story is
a load of hogwash ,
but that's OK because they're probably crazy.
Meanwhile the White House has released
a report on its intelligence about the chemical attack that
refutes its own version of the story , but that's OK because when has the White House ever
lied people into war?
This man doesn't exist,
and if you think he does you're an enemy of humanity who should apologize for having been born.
Likewise him ,
her ,
her ,
him and
him . And him and
her .
This is the 100% true story of the #SyriaStrikes, and if you support sites like The Corbett
Report that question it in any way you are a moonbeam fake news tyrant-loving hippy pinko Russian
agent and should commit ritual suicide immediately.
If you love your country and/or liberty, NASCAR, supermodels, TV, water slides or your mother
you will not question this story in any way. Ever.
With the Russian election hacking scandal having gone from the merely strange, to the bizarre,
to the ironic, to the McCarthyist, and most recently, jumping the patently absurd shark - as of last
night, anyone who is against Hillary is "influenced
by Russia" according to a former Clinton advisor - Russia decided to have some fun at the expense
of US paranoia.
On Saturday, the ministry posted the following audio file of the "new" automated telephone switchboard
message for Russian embassies.
"You have reached the Russian embassy, your call is very important to us. To arrange a call from
a Russian diplomat to your political opponent, press 1. To use the services of Russian hackers press
2. To request election interference, press 3 and wait until the next election campaign. Please note
that all calls are recorded for quality improvement and training purposes."
Russian MFA developed automated voicemail system - please listen (Russian,
then English) and tell us your opinion. Feedback appreciated!
https://t.co/HH23WC1THi
- Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy)
April 1, 2017
And just to make it clear, it is April 1: as AP observes for the countless spy agencies, and congressional
committees still trying to explain how Moscow subliminally influenced millions of Americans to vote
for Trump instead of Hillary, a ministry officer confirmed that the post was a joke.
What does Russia do that the U.S. doesn't? Spy on it's people? Engage in state sponsored assassination?
Invade sovereign nations? Oh, I know what makes you angry! They don't allow homos access to children.
Yeah, only scumbags keep their children safe. S/
In particular, there is a popular anecdote about an American man proving the benefits
of freedom of speech to a Russian guy. The American claims he can safely go to the
White House and shout out "Screw you, Ronald Reagan!" The Soviet guy indifferently
replies: "So what? I can go to the Kremlin and yell 'Screw you, Ronald Reagan!' too."
Another well-known joke describes how various Soviet leaders responded to a
situation where a train they were travelling in suddenly stops. Vladimir Lenin
suggests uniting all workers and peasants and asking them to build a new road. Joseph
Stalin orders the train drivers shot. Nikita Khrushchev rehabilitates the executed
ones, orders that the rails be removed from behind the train and put in front of it.
And Leonid Brezhnev draws the curtains and starts swinging from side to side,
imitating the train's movement.
25th Anniversary of the USSR's Collapse: Perestroika in Pictures
20
There is also a joke about a disgruntled Soviet worker who decides to leave a line
in a liquor store because he finds it too long and instead attempt "to kill Mikhail
Gorbachev." However, later he returns, noting that "the queue there is even longer."
"Communism is an unscientific doctrine because it was not initially tested
on dogs," claims another political joke.
In another joke poking fun at the permanent shortages in stores, a man comes
into a shop and asks "You wouldn't happen to have fish, would you?" The shop
assistant replies, "comrade, you've got it wrong! This is a butcher's shop - here we
wouldn't happen to have meat. There is a fish shop across the road, that's where they
wouldn't happen to have fish!"
Finally we get Pence in control and he can carry on where Obama left off and
Hillary couldn't start, WWIII with Russia.... I so want to see what a first
strike looks like and the aftermath of what Russia will do to North America.
Attacking Russia will be the best show on TV, all the fake MSM news will have
to cover the fallout in North America in real time, awesome stuff....
WASHINGTON-Stopping and turning around as he made his way across the South Lawn after hearing
the unmanned aerial vehicle hovering just feet behind him, outgoing President Barack Obama tearfully
shooed away a loyal MQ-9 Reaper drone attempting to follow him out of the White House, sources
confirmed Friday.
"Go on now-get out of here!" said the former commander-in-chief, his lower lip
trembling and his eyes welling with tears as he affected a stern tone of voice in an attempt to
scare off the faithful hunter-killer drone that had spent the past eight years obediently at his
side.
"You can't come with me anymore, you got that? Can't you see this is for your own good?
Now scram. What are you waiting for? Go!" At press time, a heartbroken Obama had thrown a rock
in the drone's direction, causing the unmanned aerial vehicle to flee into the sky, where it paused
to look back one last time at its old master before flying off toward a Yemeni tribal wedding.
As Finland tests a program to give a universal basic
income to unemployed citizens, many wonder if a similar
initiative could work in the United States. Here are some
pros and cons of such a program:
PRO
Would make people feel valued by their government in
precise capitalist terms they can understand
Privileged elite no longer the only ones with access
to Pizza Hut Triple Treat Box
Whole basic human dignity thing
Opens up more opportunities to use the phrase "sucking
at the government's teat"
The look on some rich prick's face hearing about this
for the first time
More marks for your pyramid scheme
CON
System can be exploited by "welfare queens" who live
lavishly on the spoils of their $500 monthly allotment
Recipients might lose sight of the value of hard work,
the most noble and treasured aspect of American life
Would take forever to sign all those checks
Encourages entrepreneurship among dumb$sses who dream
of opening a f!@#ing cupcake truck or some other bull!@#$t
The long-term effects of bestowing lower class with a
sense of dignity are currently unknown
Leveling the playing field would be detrimental to the
vast minority of Americans
Here's 10 ways to spot a *real* Russian Spy in America:
1) Superior use of the English language, with a thick accent, failure to use articles such as
'the' and 'a' – such as 'take shower' instead of 'going to take a shower.' Russian Language
is far more complex but more logical and efficient in use of letters, speech, and writing.
Russian natives who master English typically have a large vocabulary, and will use proper tenses
and complex grammatical structures because they studied it, and will likely leave out slang such
as 'you know' and 'like.' (Until of course, they live here for 10 years)
2) Never smiling. Russians do not smile unless they are laughing at a joke, and maybe in
some rare cases when something funny happens. Even in this case, their dark sense of humor
is something they enjoy on the inside. It's not polite to walk around Moscow smiling.
If you do, someone may call the police (as if you have gone mad).
3) Seems to be rude – never says 'please' or 'thank you' – Russians do not have a concept of why
you should say 'thank you' to a stranger who just took $50 from you for your groceries. How
has this person really helped you or brightened your day? Isn't it their job? Should
you say 'thank you for doing your job' as if it's a miracle?
4) Does not wear shoes in his home, he has a foyer where when he enters his house takes off all
coats, scarves, hats, shoes and other 'outdoor' wear and puts on fuzzy house slippers or just wears
socks.
5) Constantly pays with physical cash. Although some Americans do this anyway who are not
necessarily Russian – nearly ALL Russians use 100% physical Rubles for everything from paying rent,
health insurance, doctors visits, buying a car, buying groceries, or investing. The electronic
economy hasn't taken hold in Russia – and partly because they are 'paranoid' that if they put their
money in a bank, the bank will seize it or bankrupt.
6) Never will open a door for a stranger, or move out of the way if you are in his walking vector,
in fact he may knock over any passersby like bowling pins if they are in the way; and certainly will
never say 'excuse me.'
7) Always well dressed, even to go grocery shopping – maybe keeps a pocket comb even if his hair
is only 2 cm long. Russians don't have a concept of wearing sweat suits or pajamas to the grocery
store. When they go out even if just to run to the corner store for a milk.
8) Wary to use air conditioner. In Russia very few buildings have A/C – in the summer months
when it's hot, it is still cool at night, when most open windows and enjoy a nice breeze. Modern
buildings of course have the conveniences of A/C but those who are older or who grew up in older
buildings do not have A/C – only heat. Therefore, they aren't used to cranking up the A/C year
round like the blue hairs in Sunny Florida. If they are hot they are more likely to take a
walk or open the windows.
9) Not likely to find Russians in paid public events unless they are formal. Russia has
a well-developed public system of parks and other free public use systems and they aren't used to
paying a few dollars to enter a public park, see Christmas lights, or $1 to view through binoculars
along side the highway. Paying $250 for theater tickets is different – they aren't cheap people,
they are just not used to being nickeled and dimed when outside their homes, because in Russia it's
all free.
10) Strange tippers. In Russia they don't use the 'tipping' system, if you eat in a café
or bar you may leave your spare change for example, if the bill is $9.50 you may leave the additional
$.50 – or if you have a few extra dollars you may leave it – or not. The majority of cafes,
restaurants, bars, and other establishments only expect tips from tourists. And if a Russian
does leave a tip, it's likely to be very small (not 10%!!).
There you have it! There are many cultural differences between USA and Russia, although
there are too many similarities. In this series of articles, we're spreading the facts about
Russia – the great unknown Bear.
"... What we ordinary folk think of as "American" interests are those interests as expressed by an entrenched foreign policy establishment to which the price of admission isn't only graduate studies in an expensive university. No, you have to walk within the lines. There's nothing as old under the sun as "group-think". ..."
"... he served a purpose when he diverged from long established consensus and said that maybe, just maybe, getting on with the Russians might not be that hard. Or that NATO is an out-dated, dead-weight non-alliance of the unwilling. Or that border-less trade ruined heartland America. ..."
The way things are supposed to work on this planet is like this: in the United States, the power
structures (public and private) decide what they want the rest of the world to do. They communicate
their wishes through official and unofficial channels, expecting automatic cooperation. If cooperation
is not immediately forthcoming, they apply political, financial and economic pressure. If that still
doesn't produce the intended effect, they attempt regime change through a color revolution or a military
coup, or organize and finance an insurgency leading to terrorist attacks and civil war in the recalcitrant
nation. If that still doesn't work, they bomb the country back to the stone age. This is the way
it worked in the 1990s and the 2000s, but as of late a new dynamic has emerged.
In the beginning it was centered on Russia, but the phenomenon has since spread around the world
and is about to engulf the United States itself. It works like this: the United States decides what
it wants Russia to do and communicates its wishes, expecting automatic cooperation. Russia says "Nyet."
The United States then runs through all of the above steps up to but not including the bombing campaign,
from which it is deterred by Russia's nuclear deterrent. The answer remains "Nyet." One could perhaps
imagine that some smart person within the US power structure would pipe up and say: "Based on the
evidence before us, dictating our terms to Russia doesn't work; let's try negotiating with Russia
in good faith as equals." And then everybody else would slap their heads and say, "Wow! That's brilliant!
Why didn't we think of that?" But instead that person would be fired that very same day because,
you see, American global hegemony is nonnegotiable. And so what happens instead is that the Americans
act baffled, regroup and try again, making for quite an amusing spectacle.
The whole Edward Snowden imbroglio was particularly fun to watch. The US demanded his extradition.
The Russians said: "Nyet, our constitution forbids it." And then, hilariously, some voices in the
West demanded in response that Russia change its constitution! The response, requiring no translation,
was "Xa-xa-xa-xa-xa!" Less funny is the impasse over Syria: the Americans have been continuously
demanding that Russia go along with their plan to overthrow Bashar Assad. The unchanging Russian
response has been: "Nyet, the Syrians get to decide on their leadership, not Russia, and not the
US." Each time they hear it, the Americans scratch their heads and try again. John Kerry was just
recently in Moscow, holding a marathon "negotiating session" with Putin and Lavrov. Above is a photo
of Kerry talking to Putin and Lavrov in Moscow a week or so ago and their facial expressions are
hard to misread. There's Kerry, with his back to the camera, babbling away as per usual. Lavrov's
face says: "I can't believe I have to sit here and listen to this nonsense again." Putin's face says:
"Oh the poor idiot, he can't bring himself to understand that we're just going to say 'nyet' again."
Kerry flew home with yet another "nyet."
What's worse, other countries are now getting into the act. The Americans told the Brits exactly
how to vote, and yet the Brits said "nyet" and voted for Brexit. The Americans told the Europeans
to accept the horrendous corporate power grab that is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
(TTIP), and the French said "nyet, it shall not pass." The US organized yet another military coup
in Turkey to replace Erdoǧan with somebody who won't try to play nice with Russia, and the Turks
said "nyet" to that too. And now, horror of horrors, there is Donald Trump saying "nyet" to all sorts
of things-NATO, offshoring American jobs, letting in a flood of migrants, globalization, weapons
for Ukrainian Nazis, free trade
The corrosive psychological effect of "nyet" on the American hegemonic psyche cannot be underestimated.
If you are supposed to think and act like a hegemon, but only the thinking part still works, then
the result is cognitive dissonance. If your job is to bully nations around, and the nations can no
longer be bullied, then your job becomes a joke, and you turn into a mental patient. The resulting
madness has recently produced quite an interesting symptom: some number of US State Department staffers
signed a letter, which was promptly leaked, calling for a bombing campaign against Syria in order
to overthrow Bashar Assad. These are diplomats. Diplomacy is the art of avoiding war by talking.
Diplomats who call for war are not being exactly diplomatic. You could say that they are incompetent
diplomats, but that wouldn't go far enough (most of the competent diplomats left the service during
the second Bush administration, many of them in disgust over having to lie about the rationale for
the Iraq war). The truth is, they are sick, deranged non-diplomatic warmongers. Such is the power
of this one simple Russian word that they have quite literally lost their minds.
But it would be unfair to single out the State Department. It is as if the entire American body
politic has been infected by a putrid miasma. It permeates all things and makes life miserable. In
spite of the mounting problems, most other things in the US are still somewhat manageable, but this
one thing-the draining away of the ability to bully the whole world-ruins everything. It's mid-summer,
the nation is at the beach. The beach blanket is moth-eaten and threadbare, the beach umbrella has
holes in it, the soft drinks in the cooler are laced with nasty chemicals and the summer reading
is boring and then there is a dead whale decomposing nearby, whose name is "Nyet." It just ruins
the whole ambiance!
The media chattering heads and the establishment politicos are at this point painfully aware of
this problem, and their predictable reaction is to blame it on what they perceive as its ultimate
source: Russia, conveniently personified by Putin. "If you aren't voting for Clinton, you are voting
for Putin" is one recently minted political trope. Another is that Trump is Putin's agent. Any public
figure that declines to take a pro-establishment stance is automatically labeled "Putin's useful
idiot." Taken at face value, such claims are preposterous. But there is a deeper explanation for
them: what ties them all together is the power of "nyet." A vote for Sanders is a "nyet" vote: the
Democratic establishment produced a candidate and told people to vote for her, and most of the young
people said "nyet." Same thing with Trump: the Republican establishment trotted out its Seven Dwarfs
and told people to vote for any one of them, and yet most of the disenfranchised working-class white
people said "nyet" and voted for Snow White the outsider.
It is a hopeful sign that people throughout the Washington-dominated world are discovering the
power of "nyet." The establishment may still look spiffy on the outside, but under the shiny new
paint there hides a rotten hull, with water coming in though every open seam. A sufficiently resounding
"nyet" will probably be enough to cause it to founder, suddenly making room for some very necessary
changes. When that happens, please remember to thank Russia or, if you insist, Putin.
NowhereMan said... Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 7:13:00 AM EDT
Beautiful! I'm going to start using that word in conversation now just to gauge people's
reactions. Nyet!!! I have one particularly stuffy friend who's just baffled by the Trump
phenomenon. He's an old school GOP conservative at heart who's chagrined that he's had to
abandon the grand old party in favor of HRC and can't understand for the life of him why the
"dirt people" are so enamored with Trump and Sanders. I just laugh and tell him that they're
abandoning the Dems for the same reasons that he's embracing them.
The rich and the near rich (which seems to include just about everybody these days, if only in
their imaginations) here in the US all suffer from fundamental attribution bias - the idea
that their own exceptionalism is why they are doing well - rather than realizing that it's all
mostly just the luck of the draw - or even worse - their own willingness to carry corporate
water like the good little Nazi's they are that has allowed them to temporarily advance their
station in life.
Fortunately for us all, the sun is setting on America's empire as we speak, and fevered dreams
of US hegemony for the rest of time will be short lived indeed, although homo sapiens' time
might be limited as well. If history keeps recording in the aftermath, US nuclear enabled
hegemony will be but a brief blip on the historical radar, and like the legend of Atlantis
before us, we'll be remembered chiefly as a society gone mad with our technologies, who
aspired to reach out and touch the face of god, but instead settled for embracing our many
inner devils. We won't be missed.
Happy Unicorn said... Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 9:26:00 AM EDT
A vote for Trump is a vote for Putin? Wouldn't THAT be nice!
Dave Stockton said... Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 9:36:00 AM EDT
This whole, "a vote against Hillary is a vote for Putin", is the best thing that could have
happened this election. The US population will now have a debate and get to vote on whether we
truly want to start World War Three. Hopefully the powers that be will be surprised by the
response... NYET!
Unknown said... Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 12:23:00 PM EDT
Nice...
Putin recently made fun of Lavrov, that he is becoming like Gromyko....
...and Gromyko was called Mr. NYET. :-)
Vyse Legendaire said... Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 12:37:00 PM EDT
I hope someone would volunteer to design a 'Nyet!' T-shirt on teepublic for advocates to
show their unity to the cause.
Shawn Sincoski said... Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 4:44:00 PM EDT
I really hope that the next time the TBTF banks need a handout, somebody, somewhere reacts
with a 'NFW' that resonates with the other plebes. Such a powerful word. But I am doubtful
that such an event will occur. With all that is going on with Hillary the house should be on
fire by now, but it is not (I am not advocating Trump by disparaging HRC). I suspect that the
coming American experience will be unique and (dis)proportionate to their apathy.
Cortes said... Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 9:01:00 PM EDT
Herbert Marcuse: The first word of freedom is "No"
Irene Parousis said... Wednesday, July 27, 2016 at 6:58:00 AM EDT
BRILLIANT!!!
Wednesday, July 27, 2016 at 12:12:00 AM EDT
d94c074a-53e8-11e6-947a-073bf9f943f9 said...
Excellent.
There is a minor twist: "The corrosive psychological effect of "nyet" on the American
hegemonic psyche cannot be underestimated". Probably GWB's "misunderestimated" left some local
linguistic traume in your brain popping up in your otherwise perfect comment. I guess you
meant "cannot be overestimated". Nevermind, you message is clear and convincing anyway :-)
Mister Roboto said... Wednesday, July 27, 2016 at 8:07:00 AM EDT
This sums up why all the usual poppycock and folderol about why I need to vote for Hillary
that always succeeded in getting under my intellectual skin in the past is now just the mere
noise of screeching cats outside the window to me: There just comes a point where, if you have
any integrity at all, you have to say, "Nyet!"
Mark said...
Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 5:42:00 AM EDT
At some point, voting for a major party candidate is just throwing away your vote.
Roger said...
Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 7:11:00 AM EDT
I always enjoy Dmitry's blogs and the fact that he pushes the Russian perspective, as a relief
from the Russophobic drivel put out by the mainstream. However, a word of caution to the wise.
Obama, Kerry, Clinton, Trump et al. are, in fact, extremely unfunny. Charlie Chaplin lampooned
the funny little man with the moustache in the Great Dictator, xa! xa! xa! The truth came out
later. Do not be afraid of Neocon America, but please remember these are dangerous people. Be
vigilant always.
Bruno said...
Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 10:55:00 AM EDT
Loved.
And sad because Brasil didn't say NYET to the coup planted here by USA.
Unknown said...
Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:02:00 PM EDT
"Putin recently made fun of Lavrov, that he is becoming like Gromyko....
...and Gromyko was called Mr. NYET. :-)"
Even better, Lavrov was subsequently quoted in the press as saying "don't make me say the four
letter word".
What a tag team!
Marty said...
Friday, July 29, 2016 at 9:20:00 AM EDT
I really believe that you have hit the crux of the issue, the Neocon psychopaths are besides
themselves over the Nyets, and they find themselves to be a once powerful now toothless lion,
the are being laughed at, even by the American people.
I hope so because the worst of the bunch is Mrs. Clinton, she is just a crazy and stupid enough
to burn it all down, perhaps the only thing that would prevent her from doing so is that this
would interfere with her Diabolical Narcissistic need to be seen as the Kleptocrat she is and
to get away with being the biggest grifter in American history.
Turkey shows that they can't even organize a proper coup any more, even when they have a major
base in the country of the government to be compromised. The NeoCons must be so disappointed.
This failed coup was probably also was a big disappointment to those Fed Banksters who were
counting on looting the Bank if Turkey's 500 or so Tonnes of gold, as they did with Ukraine.
Roger said...
Friday, July 29, 2016 at 12:53:00 PM EDT
Leon Panetta sez "we know how to do this" despite an exuberant flourishing of evidence to the
contrary. But there's a glimmer of hope, even if it comes from a way down the ranks, because
there's a Col Bacevitch who begs to differ and sez "with all due respect, we DON'T know how to
do this."
You ask, know how to do WHAT exactly? Well, the topic at issue in a PBS panel discussion was
destroying the Islamic State. But knowing how to do it or NOT knowing how to do it could refer
equally to a series of monumental American foreign policy muffs. How could it be, that America
with all its military force, screws up so mightily and predictably? Because it's as Mr Orlov
asserts, there's a lot of NYETS out there and the American foreign policy establishment can't
fathom it.
But what they most crucially can't fathom is that those damn furriners have their own
interests at heart just like the Americans have their own interests. Americans from the street
level to the highest echelons view the world through Americentric lens resulting in
ludicrously distorted fun-house views of the world.
For example, why doesn't the Iranian see things the way Americans want him to? Why is it
always "nyet" coming out of Teheran? Why are Iranians so belligerent? Americans seemingly
can't comprehend that Iran is an ancient imperial power whose roots go back millennia, right
to the origins of civilization. But could it possibly be that Iranian concerns have got more
to do with goings-on in their geographic locale and pretty much nothing to do with the United
States? And that the Iranian is highly irritated that Americans stick their noses into matters
that concern Americans only tangentially or not at all? Could it be that the Iranian has his
own life pathways in age-old places that Americans know nothing about? Could it be that an
Iranian is educated in his own traditions in ancient academies that far pre-date anything on
American soil? You can replace the words "Iranian" and "Iran" with "Chinese" and "China" or
"Japanese" and "Japan" or dozens of other places and societies including "Russian" and
"Russia". American incomprehension goes deep.
Maybe some of the world is Washington-dominated. But maybe some this domination is more
apparent than real. Maybe it only seems Washington-dominated because in many of these places
there's a concordance of interests with the United States. But in most of the globe the
interests of Americans are not the same as those of the locals. And America has not got the
will nor the reach to make it otherwise.
Happy Unicorn said...
Roger: "But in most of the globe the interests of Americans are not the same as those of the
locals."
Most of the globe, including America itself! The interests of the Americans you're talking
about are usually not the same as mine or anyone's that I know ("the locals" in America). I
suspect the people of the USA who aren't brainwashed would have a lot in common with everybody
else in the world, because the first colony of any would-be empire (colony 0, let's say) is
always the country it originated from. More and more of us are saying nyet too, though the
utterance usually takes the less exotic form also enumerated by Dmitry awhile back: "No,
because we hate you."
Friday, July 29, 2016 at 3:03:00 PM EDT
flops said...
Saturday, July 30, 2016 at 7:22:00 AM EDT
In good wronglish:
There's America, Americans, USA.
And, in some point of our decolonized memory, there's Pacha Mama, our Mother Earth, the name
given to our land by the older people.
Not by chance, the unique country in Pacha Mama continents that have a pre-colonial language
as its official - Paraguay's Guarani - was the initial focus of this antidemocratic wave
attacking our countries.
We, the united states of...? What?
"Pacha Mama" is our best nyet!
Not anymore south and central americas, south and central "americans". Pacha Mama is our real
continents' name! We are The United States of Pacha Mama!
When mentioning people from brazil, angentine, chile, bolivia, peru paraguay
colombiavenezuelahaiti,surinamepanamacubamexico and so, please call us Pachamamists. That'
what we are.
Roger said...
Saturday, July 30, 2016 at 11:27:00 AM EDT
HappyUnicorn, of course you're right.
What we ordinary folk think of as "American" interests are those interests as expressed by an
entrenched foreign policy establishment to which the price of admission isn't only graduate
studies in an expensive university. No, you have to walk within the lines. There's nothing as
old under the sun as "group-think".
The lines are long established. Just think of it: globalization, off-shoring millions of jobs,
on-shoring millions of dirt-poor immigrants, legal and otherwise. Nothing warms the cockles of
the oligarch's heart like a desperate underclass.
I know Trump is a buffoon. But he served a purpose when he diverged from long established
consensus and said that maybe, just maybe, getting on with the Russians might not be that
hard. Or that NATO is an out-dated, dead-weight non-alliance of the unwilling. Or that
border-less trade ruined heartland America.
You saw the venomous reaction. A lot of people staked a career on the status-quo. Is the
best-before expired as Trump suggested? I'll bet that if it hadn't been a blustering clown
that raised it, many more people on the street would agree.
Some regional interests are historic and easily visible for example, along the Mason-Dixon
line. But even on either side of that old divide I think that the disparity is more an
artifact of opposing elites determined to not get along. Why don't they get along? Well,
there's a country to loot. You need distractions and diversions while pension funds and
treasuries are emptied.
And so we're off chasing our tails on burning problems like gender neutral washrooms.
Brilliant, don't you think? Kudos to the Obama regime for that one. And so it's God fearin',
gun packin' "conservative" versus enlightened, high-minded "progressive". What a joke, what a
con. Yet, predictably, we fell for it. You name it, school prayer, abortion, evolution, and
now washrooms, we fall for it, we always do.
Robert T. said...
Saturday, July 30, 2016 at 1:52:00 PM EDT
It would be very nice if someone could write a piece on what life in Russia, in all its
levels, is really like nowadays. I suspect that it is not just "nyet" that terrifies the
Empire, but rather what Russia herself is now increasingly coming to represent.
A lot of people, myself included, had been brought up thinking that Russia, while indeed a
superpower, isn't and cannot be on the same page as the US. But now here are reports saying
that a good and strong leader has pulled Russia out of the rut, and made things better. What's
more, this leader did it in a manner that seems antithetical to the Empire. And what's even
better is that this new Russia can't be easily rocked, like how the other countries had been
rocked and thrown into chaos. The Empire therefore is at its wit's end. If people from other
parts of the Earth, especially in those many places where democracy has failed miserably,
begin to see that there is indeed an alternative to the empirical system, won't they then
start to follow Russia's footsteps?
Headsails said... Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 2:07:00 AM EDT
Just like a spoiled rotten child that needs to learn some manners. It needs to learn the
meaning of no. But in this case, instead of a spankng they would be chain ganged for life.
Brain Parasite Gonna Eatcha!
I've been experiencing some difficulties with commenting on the current political situation in the
US, because it's been a little too funny, whereas this is a very serious blog. But I have decided
that I must try my best. Now, these are serious matters, so as you read this, please refrain from
any and all levity and mirth.
You may have heard by now that the Russians stole the US presidential election; if it wasn't for
them, Hillary Clinton would have been president-elect, but because of their meddling we are now stuck
with Donald Trump and his 1001 oligarchs running the federal government for the next four years.
There are two ways to approach this question. One is to take the accusation of Russian hacking
of the US elections at face value, and we will certainly do that. But first let's try another way,
because it's quicker. Let's consider the accusation itself as a symptom of some unrelated disorder.
This is often the best way forward. Suppose a person walks into a doctor's office, and says, "Doctor,
I believe I have schizophrenium poisoning." Should the doctor summon the hazmat team, or check for
schizophrenia first?
And so let's first consider that this "Russians did it" refrain we keep hearing is a symptom of
something else, of which Russians are not the cause. My working hypothesis is that this behavior
is being caused by a brain parasite. Yes, this may seem outlandish at first, but as we'll see later
the theory that the Russians stole the election is no less outlandish.
Brain parasites are known to alter the behavior of the organisms they infest in a variety of subtle
ways. For instance, Toxicoplasma gondii alters the behavior of rodents, causing them to lose
fear of cats and to become attracted to the smell of cat urine, making it easy for the cats to catch
them. It also alters the behavior of humans, causing them to lavish excessive affection on cats and
to compulsively download photographs of cute kittens playing with yarn.
My hypothesis is that this particular brain parasite was specifically bioengineered by the US
to make those it infects hate Russia. I suspect that the neurological trigger it uses is Putin's
face, which the parasite somehow wires into the visual cortex. This virus was first unleashed on
the unsuspecting Ukrainians, where its effect was plain to see. This historically Russian, majority
Russian-speaking, culturally Russian and religiously Russian Orthodox region suddenly erupted in
an epidemic of Russophobia. The Ukraine cut economic ties with Russia, sending its economy into a
tailspin, and started a war with its eastern regions, which were quite recently part of Russia and
wish to become part of Russia again.
So far so good: the American bioengineers who created this virus achieved the effect they wanted,
turning a Russian region into an anti-Russian region. But as happens so often with biological agents,
it turned out to be hard to keep under control. Its next victims turned out to be NATO and the Pentagon,
whose leadership started compulsively uttering the phrase "Russian aggression" in a manner suggestive
of Tourette's Syndrome, entirely undeterred by the complete absence of evidence of any such aggression
that they could present for objective analysis. They, along with the by now fit-to-be-tied Ukrainians,
kept prattling on about "Russian invasion," waving about decades-old pictures of Russian tanks they
downloaded from their friends on Facebook.
From there the brain parasite spread to the White House, the Clinton presidential campaign, the
Democratic National Committee, and its attendant press corps, who are now all chattering away about
"Russian hacking." The few knowledgeable voices who point out that there is absolutely no hard evidence
of any such "Russian hacking" are being drowned out by the Bedlam din of the rest.
This, to me, seems like the simplest explanation that fits the facts. But to be fair and balanced,
let us also examine the other perspective: that claims of "Russian hacking" should be taken at face
value. The first difficulty we encounter is that what is being termed "Russian hacking" is not hacks
but leaks. Hacks occur where some unauthorized party breaks into a server and steals data. Leaks
occur where an insider-a "whistleblower"-violates rules of secrecy and/or confidentiality in order
to release into the public domain evidence of wrongdoing. In this case, evidence of leaking is prima
facie: Was the data in question evidence of wrongdoing? Yes. Was it released into the public domain?
Yes. Has the identity of said leaker or leakers remained secret? Yes, with good reason.
But this does not rule out hacking, because what a leaker can do, a hacker can also do, although
with difficulty. Leakers have it easy: you see evidence of wrongdoing, take umbrage at it, copy it
onto a thumb drive, smuggle it off premises, and upload it to Wikileaks through a public wifi hotspot
from an old laptop you bought off Craislist and then smashed. But what's a poor hacker to do? You
hack into server after server, running the risk of getting caught each time, only to find that the
servers contain minutes of public meetings, old press releases, backups of public web sites and-incriminating
evidence!-a mother lode of pictures of fluffy kittens playing with yarn downloaded by a secretary
afflicted with Toxicoplasma gondii .
The solution, of course, is to create something that's worth hacking, or leaking, but this is
a much harder problem. What the Russians had to do, then, was take the incorruptible, squeaky-clean
goody-two-shoes faithful public servant Hillary Clinton, infiltrate the Clinton Foundation, Hillary's
presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and somehow manipulate them all into
doing things that, when leaked (or hacked) would reliably turn the electorate against Clinton. Yes
Sir, Tovarishch Putin!
Those Russians sure are clever! They managed to turn the DNC into an anti-Bernie Sanders operation,
depriving him of electoral votes through a variety of underhanded practices while appealing to anti-Semitic
sentiments in certain parts of the country. They managed to manipulate Donna Brazile into handing
presidential debate questions to the Clinton campaign. They even managed to convince certain Ukrainian
oligarchs and Saudi princes to bestow millions upon the Clinton foundation in exchange for certain
future foreign policy concessions. The list of these leak-worthy Russian subterfuges goes on and
on But who can stop them?
And so clearly the Russians had to first corrupt the Clinton Foundation, the Clinton Presidential
campaign and the Democratic National Committee, just in order to render them hackworthy. But here
we have a problem. You see, if you can hack into a server, so can everyone else. Suppose you leave
your front door unlocked and swinging in the breeze, and long thereafter stuff goes missing. Of course
you can blame the neighbor you happen to like least, but then why would anyone believe you? Anybody
could have walked through that door and taken your shit. And so it is hard to do anything beyond
lobbing empty accusations at Russia as far as hacking is concerned; but the charge of corrupting
the incorruptible Hillary Clinton is another matter entirely.
Because here the ultimate Russian achievement was in getting Hillary Clinton to refer to over
half of her electorate as "a basket of deplorables," and this was no mean feat. It takes a superpower
to orchestrate a political blunder of this magnitude. This she did in front of an LGBT audience in
New York. Now, Hillary is no spring chicken when it comes to national politics: she's been through
quite a few federal elections, and she has enough experience to know that pissing off over half of
your electorate in one fell swoop is not a particularly smart thing to do. Obviously, she was somehow
hypnotized into uttering these words no doubt by a hyperintelligent space-based Russian operative.
The Russian covert operation into subverting American democracy started with the Russians sending
an agent into the hitherto unexplored hinter regions of America, to see what they are like. Hunched
over his desk, Putin whipped out a map of the US and a crayon, and lightly shaded in an area south
of the Mason-Dixon line, west of New York and Pennsylvania, and east of the Rockies.
Let me come clean. I have split loyalties. I have spent most of my life hobnobbing with transnational
elites on the East Coast, but I have also spent quite a few years working for a very large midwestern
agricultural equipment company, and a very large midwestern printing company, so I know the culture
of the land quite well. I am sure that what this Russian agent reported back is that the land is
thickly settled with white people of Anglo-Irish, Scottish, German and Slavic extraction, that they
are macho, that their women (for it is quite a male-centric culture) tend to vote same way as the
men for the sake of domestic tranquility, that they don't much like dark-skinned people or gays,
and that plenty of them view the East Coast and California as dens of iniquity and corruption, if
not modern-day Sodoms and Gomorras.
And what if Vladimir Putin read this report, and issued this order: "Get Clinton to piss them
all off." And so it was done: unbeknownst to her, using nefarious means, Hillary was programmed,
under hypnosis, to utter the phrase "a basket of deplorables." A Russian operative hiding in the
audience of LGBT activists flashed a sign triggering the program in Hillary's overworked brain, and
the rest is history. If that's what actually happened, then Putin should be pronounced Special Ops
Officer of the Year, while all the other "world leaders" should quietly sneak out the back entrance,
sit down on the ground in the garden and eat some dirt, then puke it up into their hands and rub
it into their eyes while wailing, because how on earth can they possibly ever hope to beat that?
Or we can just go back to my brain parasite theory. Doesn't it seem a whole lot more sane now?
Not only is it much simpler and more believable, but it also has certain predictive merits that the
"Russian hacking" theory lacks. You see, when there is parasitism involved, there is rarely just
one symptom. Usually, there is a whole cluster of symptoms. And so, just for the sake of comparison,
let's look at what has happened to the Ukraine since it was infected with the Ukrainian Brain Parasite,
and compare that to what is happening to the US now that the parasite has spread here too.
1. The Ukraine is ruled by an oligarch-Petro Poroshenko, the "candy king"-along with a clique
of other oligarchs who have been handed regional governorships and government ministries. And now
the US is about to be ruled by an oligarch-Trump, the "casino king"-along with a clique of other
oligarchs, from ExxonMobile to Goldman Sachs.
2. The Ukraine has repudiated its trade agreements with Russia, sending its economy into free-fall.
And now Trump is promising to repudiate, and perhaps renegotiate, a variety of trade agreements.
For a country that has run huge structural trade deficits for decades and pays for them by constantly
issuing debt this is not going to be easy or safe.
3. The Ukraine has been subjected to not one but two Color Revolutions, promoted by none other
than that odious oligarch George Soros. The US is now facing its own Color Revolution-the Purple
Revolution-paid for by that same Soros, with the goal of overturning the results of the presidential
election and derailing the inauguration of Donald Trump through a variety of increasingly desperate
ploys including paid-for demonstrations, vote recounts and attempts to manipulate the Electoral College.
4. For a couple of years now the Ukraine has been mired in a bloody and futile civil war. To this
day the Ukrainian troops (with NATO support) are lobbing missiles into civilian districts in the
east of the country, and getting decimated in return. So far, Trump's victory seems to have appeased
the "deplorables," but should the Purple Revolution succeed, the US may also see major social unrest,
possibly escalating into a civil war.
The Ukrainian Brain Parasite has devastated the Ukraine. It is by now too far gone for much of
anything to be done about it. All of the best people have left, mostly for Russia, and all that's
left is a rotten, hollow shell. But does it have to end this way for the US? I hope not!
There are, as I see it, two possibilities. One is to view those who are pushing the "Russian hacking"
or "Russian aggression" story as political adversaries. Another is to view them as temporarily mentally
ill. Yes, their brains are infected with the Ukrainian Brain Parasite, but that just means that their
opinions are to be disregarded-until they feel better. And since this particular brain parasite specifically
influences social behavior, if we refuse to reward that behavior with positive reinforcement-by acknowledging
it-we will suppress its most debilitating symptoms, eventually forcing the parasite to evolve toward
a more benign form. As with many infectious diseases, the fight against them starts with improved
hygiene-in this case, mental hygiene. And so that is my prescription: when you see someone going
on about "Russian hacking" or "Russian aggression" be merciful and charitable toward them as individuals,
because they are temporarily incapacitated, but do not acknowledge their mad ranting, and instead
try to coax them into learning to control it.
Companies used to pull their trucks off the road, or allow driver
discretion to pull over, in bad weather. Not so much any more. Because
corporate profits 2 people died.
nmewn
King Tut
Dec 17, 2016 12:12 PM
This just in from Fake Nuuuz Central:
Thanks for this– a much-needed Onion-esque satirical dig at the Globe/Post/NYT trifecta of
garbage. To base a headline on information gleaned from anonymous sources and unnamed officials
in secret meetings with unpublished agendas seems the most dangerous type of fake news there is.
The death of irony was greatly exaggerated, if you ask me.
"... it's truly amazing. many of these people have denounced joe mccarthy all their lives. ..."
"... I was thinking Katyusha. Besides being a very pretty diminutive name for Katherine, the sound of the Katyusha rockets made the forces of evil's collective sphincter tighten up. ..."
"... Just like the sound of the truth spoken to power here at NC is apparently tightening up some establishment sphincters :) ..."
"... Oh OIFVet, do you know where this line of snark is leading? Next, the NC will be "mischaracterized" as Stalin's News Organ! ..."
... Anyway, concerned by number of supposedly educated friends(Clinton supporters) being
taken in by this fake news/Russian ties thing. They've lost their heads and there's no discussing
it with them, they are convinced. Where does it end? Na zdorovie!
it's truly amazing. many of these people have denounced joe mccarthy all their lives. somebody
referred to invasion of the body snatchers on nc the other day, that's the only logical explanation.
I was thinking Katyusha. Besides being a very pretty diminutive name for Katherine, the
sound of the Katyusha rockets made the forces of evil's collective sphincter tighten up.
Just like the sound of the truth spoken to power here at NC is apparently tightening up
some establishment sphincters :)
"... I was thinking Katyusha. Besides being a very pretty diminutive name for Katherine, the sound of the Katyusha rockets made the forces of evil's collective sphincter tighten up. ..."
"... Just like the sound of the truth spoken to power here at NC is apparently tightening up some establishment sphincters :) ..."
"... Oh OIFVet, do you know where this line of snark is leading? Next, the NC will be "mischaracterized" as Stalin's News Organ! ..."
It's going to be a surprise and happen when everyone least expects it. Sneak attack by moose
and skwirral. Anyway, concerned by number of supposedly educated friends(Clinton supporters) being
taken in by this fake news/Russian ties thing. They've lost their heads and there's no discussing
it with them, they are convinced. Where does it end? Na zdorovie!
it's truly amazing. many of these people have denounced joe mccarthy all their lives. somebody
referred to invasion of the body snatchers on nc the other day, that's the only logical explanation.
I was thinking Katyusha. Besides being a very pretty diminutive name for Katherine, the
sound of the Katyusha rockets made the forces of evil's collective sphincter tighten up.
Just like the sound of the truth spoken to power here at NC is apparently tightening up
some establishment sphincters :)
Did anyone notice this?? This is serious as all hell! The U.S. House of Representatives just passed
H.R. 6393:
Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 This almost makes it sound like we are
at war with Israel! Here are some of the more outrageous parts:
Title V - Matters relating to foreign countries
Sec. 501. Committee to counter active measures by the State of Israel to exert covert
influence over peoples and governments.
(a)Definitions - In this section:
Active measures by the State of Israel to exert covert influence. The
term active measures by Israel to exert covert influence means activities
intended to influence a person or government that are carried out in coordination with,
or at the behest of, political leaders or the security services of the State of Israel
and the role of Israel has been hidden or not acknowledged publicly,
including the following:
(A)Establishment or funding of a front group.
(B)Covert broadcasting.
(C)Media manipulation.
(D)Disinformation and forgeries.
(E)Funding agents of influence.
(F)Incitement and offensive counterintelligence.
(G)Assassinations.
(H)Terrorist acts.
Appropriate committees of Congress
The term appropriate committees of Congress means
(A)the congressional intelligence committees;
(B)the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate;
and
(C)the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of
Representatives.
(b)Establishment
There is established within the executive branch an interagency committee to counter active
measures by the State of Israel to exert covert influence.
(c)Membership
(1)In general
(A)Appointment
Each head of an agency or department of the United States Government set out under subparagraph
(B) shall appoint one member of the committee established by subsection (b) from among
officials of such agency or department who occupy a position that is required to be appointed
by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate.
(B)Head of an agency or department
The head of an agency or department of the United States Government set out under this
subparagraph are the following:
(i)The Director of National Intelligence.
(ii)The Secretary of State.
(iii)The Secretary of Defense.
(iv)The Secretary of the Treasury.
(v)The Attorney General.
(vi)The Secretary of Energy.
(vii)The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
(viii)The head of any other agency or department of the United States Government designated
by the President for purposes of this section.
(d)Meetings
The committee shall meet on a regular basis.
(e)Duties
The duties of the committee established by subsection (b) shall be as follows:
(1)To counter active measures by Israel to exert covert influence, including
by exposing falsehoods, agents of influence, corruption, human rights abuses, terrorism,
and assassinations carried out by the security services or political elites of the State of Israel or their proxies.
(2)Such other duties as the President may designate for purposes of this section.
(f)Staff [...]
(g)Budget request [...]
(h)Annual report
Requirement
Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, and annually thereafter,
and consistent with the protection of intelligence sources and methods, the committee established
by subsection (b) shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a report describing
steps being taken by the committee to counter active measures by Israel to
exert covert influence.
Matters included
Each report under paragraph (1) shall include a summary of the following:
(A)Active measures by Israel to exert covert influence during the previous
year, including significant incidents and notable trends.
(B)Key initiatives of the committee.
(C)Implementation of the committee's initiatives by the heads of the agencies and departments
of the United States Government specified in subsection (c)(1)(B).
(D)Analysis of the success of such initiatives.
(E)Changes to such initiatives from the previous year.
Separate reporting requirement
The requirement to submit an annual report under paragraph (1) is in addition to any other
reporting requirements with respect to Israel .
502.Limitation on travel of accredited diplomats and consulars of the State of Israel in
the United States from their diplomatic post
(a)Appropriate committees of Congress defined
In this section, the term appropriate committees of Congress means-
1. the congressional intelligence committees;
2. the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate; and
3. the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives.
(b)Quarterly limitation on travel distance Accredited diplomatic personnel and consulars of
the State of Israel in the United States may not be permitted to travel a distance
in excess of 25 miles from their diplomatic post in the United States in a calendar quarter
unless, on or before the last day of the preceding calendar quarter, the Director of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation has certified in writing to the appropriate committees of Congress
that during the preceding calendar quarter the Bureau did not identify any violations by accredited
diplomatic personnel and consulars of the State of Israel of applicable requirements
to notify the United States Government in connection with travel by such diplomatic personnel
and consulars of a distance in excess of 25 miles from their diplomatic post in the United
States.
OK - I lied a little. The text of the bill is as reads above, but I have substituted the text
the State of Israel and Israel in place of the original text: the
Russian Federation and Russia . You see, some countries are more equal
than others. (Apologies to all the U.S. readers that thought "Well, it's about damn time!"
)
[Dec 06, 2016] Obama invented a new psychedelic drug: a mixture of Hopium and Ballonium...
ALEPPO, Syria - In the midst of sectarian violence that has overtaken Syria for more than five
years, nine-year-old Asil Kassab is shocked by the defeat of Democratic presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton.
"I am so unhappy that a woman was not elected President," Asil said, briefly ducking as a bomb
from an American MQ-1 Predator drone leveled the hospital behind her. "Hillary Clinton is truly a
role model for young girls like me. I was so hoping that she'd be the one to order the drone
strike that would inevitably end my life."
Despite Clinton's support for regime change in Syria, leading to what is arguably one of the
greatest humanitarian crises of the early century, Kassab surprisingly says she holds no ill
will.
"I don't put much stock in the misogynist agenda of American politics," said Kassab, who, like
many children, cannot remember a time before the war that has killed 400,000 people, including
her family, and created over 4.7 million refugees. "People will always criticize her because she
is a woman in a man's world; One who has the audacity to run for President."
"It is sexism that motivates her critics, plain and simple," she added. "It is sexism, and
racism, that caused her to lose the election!"
Anya2358
4d ago
17
18
More about Clinton and the Washington establishment than
Trump. Just as Brexit was about Wasteminster's Elitists
and not the EU. I saw wonderfully funny cartoons sent to
me by my American friends, the best one said:
Voting for an independent is like eating a salad,
it's the right thing to do, but will it really make
much difference. Voting for Trump is like eating a
spicy, greasy Burrito, fun at first, but then you have
to digest it. Voting for Clinton is like eating the
fork, and only a complete moron would do that.
It is January 20th, 2017. President Donald J. Trump is presiding over his very first meeting with
his national security team.
Trump : We must destroy ISIS immediately. No delays.
CIA : We cannot do that, sir. We created them.
Trump : The Democrats created them.
CIA : We created ISIS, sir. You need them or else you would lose funding from the natural gas lobby.
Trump : Stop funding Pakistan. Let India deal with them.
CIA : We can't do that.
Trump : Why is that?
CIA : India will cut Balochistan out of Pak.
Trump : I don't care.
CIA : India will have peace in Kashmir. They will stop buying our weapons. They will become a superpower.
We have to fund Pakistan to keep India busy in Kashmir.
Trump : But you have to destroy the Taliban.
CIA : Sir, we can't do that. We created the Taliban to keep Russia in check during the 80s. Now they
are keeping Pakistan busy and away from their nukes.
Trump : We have to destroy terror sponsoring regimes in the Middle East. Let us start with the
Saudis.
Pentagon : Sir, we can't do that. We created those regimes because we wanted their oil. We can't
have democracy there, otherwise their people will get that oil - and we cannot let their people own
it.
Trump : Then, let us invade Iran.
Pentagon : We cannot do that either, sir.
Trump : Why not?
CIA : We are talking to them, sir.
Trump : What? Why?
CIA : We want our Stealth Drones back. If we attack them, Russia will obliterate us as they did to
our buddy ISIS in Syria. Besides we need Iran to keep Israel in check.
Trump : Then let us invade Iraq again.
CIA : Sir, our friends (ISIS) are already occupying 1/3rd of Iraq.
Trump : Why not the whole of Iraq?
CIA : We need the Shi'ite govt of Iraq to keep ISIS in check.
Trump : I am banning Muslims from entering the US.
Homeland Security : We can't do that.
Trump : Why not?
Homeland Security : Then our own population will stop fearing terrorism and be harder to control.
Trump : I am deporting all illegal immigrants to south of the border.
Border patrol : You can't do that, sir.
Trump : Why not?
Border patrol : If they're gone, who will build the wall?
Trump : I am banning H1B visas.
USCIS : You cannot do that.
Trump : Why?
Chief of Staff : If you do so, we'll have to outsource White House operations to Bangalore. Which
is in India.
Trump (sweating profusely by now): What the hell should I do as President???
CIA : Enjoy the White House, sir! We'll take care of the rest!
It's only been three days, oh, worthy of Quirites, from the moment that the Epicurean Trumparamp
was elected as the new king of Parthia, but one might think that instead the depths of Hades were
unleashed upon the world and that an unstoppable stream most incredible monsters poured out of
it!
Messengers convey that in the Parthian kingdom reigns mourning, though by no means among all
of the subjects – the heart-rending screams and rolling in the dust, while scratching one's face
with the nails is popular exclusively among the adherents of the king Abamarak and his chosen
Illariya, the priestess of the temple of the Giant Golden Toad – all sorts of Greeks (in both
senses of the word), painted buffoons, owners of amphitheatres and Nubians each of whom Illariya
promised free distribution of bread and five silver coins from the treasury. It is interesting
that here in Rome takes place exactly the same thing –capital dwelling useless loafers and Judean
owners of galleries with indecent murals, all wrapped in a black cloaks and shedding fiery tears,
realizing that the flow of Parthian gold into their mad undertakings might soon dry up.
What is happening in the Umbria defies any description. The local savages made countless sacrifices
to the good deity Peremogiks, daubing it in tasty pig fat and even proclaiming it a kinsman to
the Golden Toad. But, as it appears to be, the dreadful witch Gan'ba called forth the black forces
and summoned the sinister demon Zradiks, who plunged the Umbrians into utter despair. Witnesses
say, that the grieving barbarians gorged themselves on peas, trying to scare Zradiks off with
most powerful spell known to Umbria – the blowing of trhe Black Winds – that's why after hearing
the news from Parthia the sky over the city Kuyavis was colored with multicolored fire lanes,
and some Umbrians as a result flew up to the Moon and do not know now how to return back… And
it's not only because the priestess Illariya did not become the queen – they began to realize
that rich, but cost-wise Trumparamp, now won't give Umbria even a broken copper, especially after
the local leaders slandered him with unspeakable words and even splashed the statue of Trumparamp's
genius with pig's dung!
But how did it happen that the priestess of the Giant Golden Toad was denied the throne of
Parthia? And it wasn't even due to the story about the clay tablets – Illariya sent secret dispatches
using ordinary slave, and not purposely trained guard, making Parthian judges to begin an inquiry
of the matter. The last straw was the story of the Greek Pipisyandr, husband of one of the younger
priestesses, who assisted Illariya: this Pipisyandr became infamous for his habit of nightly break
ins into the houses of Parthian matrons and even innocent girls, whom he revealed his "riches"
of questionable value, and also ran away, filling neighborhoods with sinister laughter – all of
which, of course, caused considerable outrage. Perhaps this is the first and only time in history
when the king's elections were decided by someone's phallus!
The storm that broke out, however, does not abate day after day, and the Quirites in the Forum
only shrug never before a new king of Parthia caused this kind of whirlwind, streams of tears
and wailing chorus. Let's see what will happen next.
(1) Illariya was specifically instructed by KIng Abamarak to enscribe her clay tablets using
the secret cypher known as "Caesar's 4-letter shift". And to attach them to the legs of specially
trained evasive pigeons. Yet in her arrogance and contempt for her Nubian overlord, she enscribed
her instructions in cleartext and sent them in the hands of ordinary house slaves; and
(2) Pipisyandr was even better known for making impressions in clay of his enormous phallus, then
sending such impressions to the matrons of Rome, but verify at least he did attach these clay
phalluses to the legs of sturdy pigeons, which is what they called "tweeting" or "cooing" the
disgusting replicas.
Gaius Anonymus most notably omits (although inquisitive quirites remind him in comments beneath
this news-scroll) that Illariya and the wife of Pipisyandr might have engaged in the sapphic pleasures
of the flesh. This sad fact forced the spurned husband to steal some clay tablets with sensetive
data and plant his phallos unto them – without clearing what's been written on these tablets.
Thus the general public of Parthia became partial to the most scandalous exposure of secrets of
the state.
But has it also not been whispered among patricians and plebeians alike – though few dare breathe
the rumour openly – that Illariya's husband also made regular visits to a legendary island of
nymphs said to be owned by Galfridus Eburstanius?
And verily the scandal reached into the inner workings of the Vestal Virgin network. Malicious
plebeians gossip that Illariya's husband, Bubbus Primus, who disguised himself with cloaked hood,
also went under the alias of "Bigus Dickus" as he penetrated into the Vestal sanctum, a holy place
where technically males are not allowed.
But those rules are only for plebeians.
Also Gaius Anonymous omits to say that the most senior Parthian judge Iacobus Brianus Comnenus
twice declared that the investigations begun against Illariya for her use of personal slaves instead
of government messengers to transact government business had no merit, against the wishes of his
fellow judges and their clerks, scribes and centurions, that Illariya now blames IBC for her loss
in the elections, and that the judges may now be preparing to dethrone IBC himself and to reopen
their investigations against Illariya.
Presenting...the Clinton IT Department! This has not been an especially ennobling election.
Or a rewarding one. Or even entertaining. Pretty much everything about 2016 has been boorish and
grotesque. But finally it is time to laugh.
This has not been an especially ennobling election. Or a rewarding one. Or even entertaining.
Pretty much everything about 2016 has been boorish and grotesque. But finally it is time to laugh.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present the Clinton IT department.
Over the weekend we finally found out how Clinton campaign honcho John Podesta's emails were hacked.
But first a couple disclaimers:
1) Yes, it's unpleasant to munch on the fruit of the poisoned tree. But this isn't a court of
law and you can't just ignore information that's dragged into the public domain.
2) We're all vulnerable to hackers. Even if you're a security nut who uses VPNs and special email
encryption protocols, you can be hacked. The only real security is the anonymity of the herd. Once
a hacker targets you, specifically, you're toast.
I'm a pretty tech-savvy guy and if the Chinese decided to hack my emails tonight, you'd have everything
I've ever written posted to Wikileaks before the sun was up tomorrow.
But that is … not John Podesta's situation.
What happened was this: On March 19, Podesta got what looked--kind of, sort of--like an email
from Google's Gmail team. The email claimed that someone from the Ukraine had tried to hack into
Podesta's Gmail account and that he needed to change his password immediately.
This is what's called a "phishing" scam, where hackers send legitimate-looking emails that, when
you click on the links inside them, actually take you someplace dangerous. In Podesta's case, there
was a link that the email told him to click in order to change his password.
This was not an especially good bit of phishing.
Go have a look yourself. The email calls Podesta by his first name. It uses bit.ly as a link
shortener. Heck, the subject line is the preposterous "*someone has your password*". Why would Google
say "someone has your password?" They wouldn't. They'd say that there had been log-in attempts that
failed two-step authentication, maybe. Or that the account had been compromised, perhaps. If you've
spent any time using email over the last decade, you know exactly how these account security emails
are worded.
And what's more, you know that you never click on the link in the email. If you get a notice from
your email provider or your bank or anyone who holds sensitive information of yours saying that your
account has been compromised, you leave the email, open your web browser, type in the URL of the
website, and then manually open your account information. Again, let me emphasize: You never click
on the link in the email!
But what makes this story so priceless isn't that John Podesta got fooled by an fourth-rate phishing
scam. After all, he's just the guy who's going to be running Hillary Clinton's administration. What
does he know about tech? And Podesta, to his credit, knew what he didn't know: He emailed the Clinton
IT help desk and said, Hey, is this email legit?
And the Clinton tech team's response was: Hell yes!
No, really. Here's what they said: One member of the team responded to Podesta by saying "The
gmail one is REAL." Another answered by saying "This is a legitimate email. John needs to change
his password immediately."
It's like the Clinton IT department is run by 90-year-old grandmothers. I half-expect the next
Wikileaks dump to have an email from one Clinton techie to another asking for help setting their
VCR clock.
As the other guy likes to say, "only the best people."
"You're getting better quality, even though you don't know that Obamacare is
doing it," Obama said.
"Thanks, Obama," he added jokingly…
"So why is there still such a fuss?" Obama said. "Well, part of the
problem is the fact that a Democratic president named Barack Obama passed
the law."
Yeah, I am sure that's precisely the reason, you miserable piece of
narcissistic sh!t.
3. How will you address the problem of homelessness in this country?
Rebuild the nation's infrastructure to better conceal those living
beneath it
Provide them with gainful employment opportunities as ship ballast
Instruct the U.S. Mint to use small coins as vectors for a potent new virus
All of the above
I propose a drinking game: a shot of vodka every time Hillary mentions Russia. If you want
to pace yourself, a shot of vodka every time she talks about Russian aggression in Syria.
He doesn't seem to be sniffing so much today … so there goes one idea. I think you NEED a shot
of Jack Daniels every time Hillary laughs derisively after a Trump answer. As for beer chugs,
every time Trump repeats himself within 2 sentences?
As soon as the first batch of
Democratic Party emails were leaked in the Summer of 2016,
the Blue Team started churning out Cold War propaganda,
blaming it all on Russia while ignoring the damning
contents of the emails. With each new leak of exposing
information, the media hysteria about Russia continues to
grow. If Donald Trump were to respond to his criticism
like Hillary Clinton does, it might sound something like
this... Cheers!
The press is rightfully ignoring and
discrediting ludicrous conspiracy theories! If the press is unjust in
dismissing these outlandish claims about the emails 'scandal' and
Bill's supposed rape 'victims', then why do so many people still
choose to consume these media outlets? Are you accusing the majority
of Americans of being gullible and misinformed? That seems like a
pretty wild and unfair accusation!
Accredited Book Review – Stronger Together by Hillary Clinton
Mr. Universe
Occident
Mortal
Oct
14, 2016 11:54 AM
I could laugh at the sarcasm MDB spouts
off if it wasn't for the fact that
everyday I come into contact with
someone who actually believes it. I know
to some I appear a bit defeatist, but it
comes from the knowledge that around
half of our population really IS with
Hillary. Nothing you can say will change
their minds and they are effectively
those who will spy for the state any
chance they get. While I still have
hope, from where I sit, we are divided
beyond repair, and it's all been part of
their plan.
Telling several members of the investment bank's board of directors how they had to check her out
whenever they get a chance, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein was overheard Monday describing to
friends how incredible it is to see Hillary Clinton live.
"You can forget any recordings you've heard of Hillary, because they don't even compare to the
experience of seeing her in person," said Blankfein, who excitedly recounted the first time he saw
the Democratic presidential nominee in a small, intimate venue back in 2013, noting how he was instantly
captivated by what he was hearing and found himself nodding along throughout the 90-minute solo performance.
Russian research team which claimed to have detected signs of intelligent life in
Washington has now discovered the life there not to be quite so intelligent after
all.
A Russian spokesman, who wishes to remain anonymous, told our Moscow science
correspondent -who also wishes to remain anonymous- that the Washington atmosphere
has been poisoned by huge clouds of putrid hot air belching from the corporate media.
He explained that such a hostile environment makes it almost impossible for
intelligent life to survive, let alone evolve a sustainable culture. The Russian team
believes there may still be small pockets of intelligent life elsewhere on the North
American continent but without the necessary conditions they need to thrive they are
destined to disappear without trace.
Speaking off the record, the Russian spokesman, who asked us not to disclose his
identity, added that hopes of finding intelligent life in London, Paris, Berlin and
other Western European locations, where it might be expected to flourish, are fading
fast. Though it is believed intelligent life once existed in Occiental Europe, an
atmosphere suitable for the maintenance of such life has all but evaporated.
Mr. Galifianakis then briefly interrupted the interview to play a campaign commercial for Mr.
Trump, claiming the billionaire businessman was the show's top sponsor. He then wrapped up the
exchange by telling Mrs. Clinton the two should stay in touch.
"What's the best way to reach you? Email?" he said.
The real question is whether the email are authentic or not. They are.
Neoliberal propaganda honchos just decided to use a smoke screen to conceal this
fact using Russia as a bogeyman.
Russian might be guilty of many things, but in no way it is
responsible for corruption of DNC and this subversive actions/covert operations
used for installing Hillary Clinton as a candidate from the Democratic Party. .
Notable quotes:
"... Is it OK to cheat, lie and deceive - as Clintons and DNC did - and then defend themselves by saying that "nobody would know, if it wasn't for those damn Russians"? Even the idea is preposterous: how we find out about this corruption is irrelevant, the point is there was corruption and cheating. ..."
"... So the DNC is trying to Blame Russia for their own corrupt actions. ..."
"... [Under Clintons] democracy has become conspiracy ..."
"... Are you constipated? Blame it on Russia. ..."
"... Oh and blaming Russia for revealing the truth. The truth was not attacked, but who revealed the truth is suddenly the bad guy. So desperate and out of sorts. :) ..."
"... There's no proof, besides an unsourced article in the Washington Post form 'security experts', that Russia had anything to do with this. What we do know is that immediately after the leaks became public various news outlets produced obviously planted hit pieces claiming some kind of collusion between the Trump campaign and Putin, and again with precisely zero evidence as back up. It's gob smacking that the Clinton campaign would risk an international incident with a nuclear power to cover for their shitty behaviour, but then again it's Hillary Clinton so perhaps not. ..."
"... It may indeed be Russian hackers who gained access to the emails which confirm the DNC was all along in the tank for Clinton, and was actively placing a thumb on the scale from day one in the primary process. ..."
"... But the bottom line here is that if the DNC had not so conspired, there would be no emails to leak, now would there? For Mook and others to now be placing blame on the hackers, rather than on those who produced the embarrassing material that the hackers exposed, is diversionary and inexcusable. ..."
"... The funniest thing is, they don't even deny the authenticity of the emails. Basically, DNC says that someone is guilty of revealing the truth. You can hardly stoop any lower. Blaming Russia is just a cherry on the cake. ..."
"... How nice to have an eternal scapegoat: TheRussiansAreComing!TheRussiansAreComing! This will obviously be RodHam's theme as President. Perhaps to the point of annihilation. Neo-Conne! ..."
"... My biggest issue with Hillary from the start has been her continued nonchalance when it comes to matters of national security. She acts as if she is above the need to keep sensitive information safe from potential enemies, both foreign and domestic. That's a pretty scary attitude coming from someone who is likely to be this nation's next leader. ..."
"... It's amazing. Caught red handed and still deflecting. Take responsibility for Christ sak ..."
"... ".....Several of the emails released indicate that the officials, including Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, grew increasingly agitated with Clinton's rival, Bernie Sanders, and his campaign as the primary season advanced, in one instance even floating bringing up Sanders' religion to try and minimize his support. ..."
"... The more interesting part is that this blame is just a distraction from the larger issue, that the entire political system is corrupted and broken. This is just business as usual, only this instance was revealed. ..."
I honestly can't wait for when the pro-clinron commentors arrive. I can
see it now "this doesn't matter if you vote 3rd party you're voting for
trump." It won't matter that this is all the fault of the DNC, it will be
on us. I'm calling it now ;)
Is it OK to cheat, lie and deceive - as Clintons and DNC did - and then
defend themselves by saying that "nobody would know, if it wasn't for those
damn Russians"? Even the idea is preposterous: how we find out about this
corruption is irrelevant, the point is there was corruption and cheating.
Interestingly, this is a favorite defense of all authoritarians. They
always claim that if it benefits the "enemy", it is ok to suppress it. Stalin
had a concept of "objectively aiding the enemy" - it meant that maybe the
person was not a conscious traitor, but his/her actions helped the enemy
- and that was enough. Is Guardian and Clintons now marching down this road
of extreme "us versus them" ideology?
What's is next? Will Clintons ban Bernie from speaking because it would
"aid Trump"? (and by extension in their paranoid thinking, it would aid
Russia).
"Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said on Sunday that "experts are telling
us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, stole these emails, [and
are] releasing these emails for the purpose of helping Donald Trump."
So the DNC is trying to Blame Russia for their own corrupt actions.
Another reason on the list as to why I won't be voting for Hillary. Why
did DNC act very anti-democratic?
A vote for Hillary is a vote for continued corruption.
Rather than blaming they ought to be taking responsibility for their own
words. But they'd have to be adults with integrity to do that. The tragedy
and travesty of it is the willful, routine, nonchalant effort to subvert
the Constitution and the will of the people. These kinds of machinations
have always gone on within both parties and should always be exposed. The
SuperPACS, the dark money, the secret maneuverings, the totally broken primary
system, all designed to stop our having our say. People elsewhere often
wonder about "our" choices for the White House. Now they can see how much
of that free choice has been wrested away over time, and how imperative
it is that we ordinary people start working on positive change within the
elective system. In my opinion all the DNC participants should lose their
jobs and be made to cool their heels in jail a while, because without consequences
we may as well just burn the Constitution and Bill of Rights right now and
be done with it, for all the respect these documents are given by our politicians.
What a revolting mess it all is on both sides, with ordinary people the
losers, as always.
Oh and blaming Russia for revealing the truth. The truth was not attacked,
but who revealed the truth is suddenly the bad guy. So desperate and out
of sorts. :)
There's no proof, besides an unsourced article in the Washington Post form
'security experts', that Russia had anything to do with this. What we do
know is that immediately after the leaks became public various news outlets
produced obviously planted hit pieces claiming some kind of collusion between
the Trump campaign and Putin, and again with precisely zero evidence as
back up. It's gob smacking that the Clinton campaign would risk an international
incident with a nuclear power to cover for their shitty behaviour, but then
again it's Hillary Clinton so perhaps not.
A big part of the problem is that Debbie Wasserman Schultz (DWS) is still
in her position. If the Democratic Party place a value on performance, she
should have been fired after the 2014 mid-terms.
Part of the problem is that the DNC is too closely aligned with the interests
of one political family. Competence and other considerations count for a
lot less than loyalty. DWS kept her position because of the ties to Clinton
and Clintons donors, not because she did a good job and grew the party.
The opposite has happened.
Frankly, Obama bears some degree of responsibility for this because he's
the one who canned Howard Dean, who actually had a track record of success
at winning elections and growing the party through two election cycles.
Instead Obama replaced him with a guy like Tim Kaine, who wasn't up to the
task either. Dean also did a good job of navigating the very difficult 2008
election. Kaine and DWS did poorly in the capacity as DNC Chair.
As president, Obama has done a lot right. But his neglect of the DNC
is part of his legacy, and it isn't a good one.
That's nice that those damn Russians 'stole' their email. However, those
damn Russians didn't write them. I dislike and distrust Hillary and DWS
more now that I did a week ago, and that takes some doing. Hillary is Nixon.
Paranoid. Dishonest. Devious.
how in the name of god can the overly compensated chairwoman of the democratic
party conspire against a candidate supported by nearly half of democratic
primary voters ???
Kaine is in the same boat as Clinton on the TPP - the Good Ship Hypocrite.
Both hope like hell that TPP gets passed in the lame duck so they can make
a show of being against it to gain some progressive cred. If Obama and his
colleagues Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan can't get TPP done before his term
ends, Clinton and Kaine's reservations re TPP will disappear faster than
a snowflake in July. It's like Clinton's about face on the Keystone pipeline
- she got a heads up from Obama that he wasn't going to approve it anyway,
so she came out against it.
I love the irony of the comment from the Clinton Campaign..... '' This is
further evidence the Russian Government is trying to influence the outcome
of an election ''.
Heavens forbid that the USA would ever stoop so low as to try and influence
the outcome of other Countries elections !!!
It of course being totally above Americians to indulge such devious behaviour
.
Very true, and Hillary was happy to support the violent Honduras coup of
an elected government and still very much supports that new violent regime.
And the new regime is very friendly to western big corporate 'interests'.
Of course. Hillary is old-school.
Doesn't matter who did it, the Russians, Anonymous, Edward Snowden. The
point is that the DNC is revealed as partisan and rigged. In addition to
minimizing her role at the convention, I believe Wasserman Schultz should
be dumped from any position of leadership, along with other DNC leaders.
No wonder people are fed up with politics as usual.
"Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said on Sunday that "experts are telling
us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, stole these emails, [and
are] releasing these emails for the purpose of helping Donald Trump."
And Mook is the expert who whispered that lie in his own ear.
Great photo, Mook the Spook, her lover, a few bigtime aids. They got
caught like Nixon's plumbers at Watergate. So they would like to blame the
Russians for their writing calumnies and antiSemitic slanders against Sanders.
They look pretty stupid!
Mook said on Sunday that "experts are telling us that Russian state
actors broke into the DNC, stole these emails, [and are] releasing these
emails for the purpose of helping Donald Trump."
It may indeed be Russian hackers who gained access to the emails which confirm
the DNC was all along in the tank for Clinton, and was actively placing
a thumb on the scale from day one in the primary process.
Sanders knew it, and we as his supporters also knew it and made reference
to that very issue repeatedly in countless comment threads here at the Guardian
and elsewhere.
But the bottom line here is that if the DNC had not so conspired,
there would be no emails to leak, now would there?
For Mook and others to now be placing blame on the hackers, rather than
on those who produced the embarrassing material that the hackers exposed,
is diversionary and inexcusable.
The Clinton campaign is moving closer and closer to blowing this election
completely and allowing the most dangerous candidacy I've ever seen in my
lifetime actually win this thing.
They've already selected a VP pick which effectively thumbs their nose
at the very progressives whose enthusiasm they will need at the voting booths,
and now here they are trying to deflect blame for unconscionable skullduggery
in the primary process onto foreign actors.
Debbie Wassermann Schultz should have been fired long ago, so blatant and
obvious were her shenanigans.
This kind of tone-deaf ineptitude could see all of us paying an unimaginable
price in November. All it will take at this point is a few more mass shootings
(at which we here in the US have a particular talent) to feed into Trump's
narrative and we'll all be waking up in January in a country we don't even
recognize.
The funniest thing is, they don't even deny the authenticity of the
emails. Basically, DNC says that someone is guilty of revealing the truth.
You can hardly stoop any lower. Blaming Russia is just a cherry on the cake.
Just saw Bernie on CNN basically saying the Nr1 priority is to defeat D.
Trump, then keep fighting the good fight from within the Democratic Party
trying to reform it from within.
A big thing he misses here that the top honcho Mrs Hillary Clinton is one
of the main reasons of what the Democratic Party has become. She will be
a huge obstruction to anything resembling reform. You might as well pack
up and go 3rd party and show the Dems that way what American voters want.
4 years of Trump might actually be a lot better to shake up the corrupt
DNC then 4-8 years of Hillary and who knows how many years of Republicans
2 follow (and believe me, Hillary will do a lot of damage to the democratic
brand!)
Clinton is desperate to lurk voters by anything, then let it be those Russians
that hacked her mail. A Russian proverb to the point - "A bad dancer always
blames his balls that hamper him".
If they'd backed off, allowed their MSM protectors to bury the story, this
whole thing would have died down in a week. A few angry Bernie Bros notwithstanding
there's nothing in the emails that we didn't know already. Yes the DNC and
the Hillary Clinton campaign were one and the same....shock! Yes sections
of the corporate owned media are colluding with the Democratic Party....wowsers!!
But no, they couldn't help themselves. Now we've got the Democratic nominee
for the Presidency alleging, with zero proof, that her opponent is engaged
in a conspiracy to commit criminal acts with a foreign power! Seriously
who thought this was a good idea?
How nice to have an eternal scapegoat: TheRussiansAreComing!TheRussiansAreComing!
This will obviously be RodHam's theme as President. Perhaps to the point
of annihilation. Neo-Conne!
My biggest issue with Hillary from the start has been her continued nonchalance
when it comes to matters of national security. She acts as if she is above
the need to keep sensitive information safe from potential enemies, both
foreign and domestic. That's a pretty scary attitude coming from someone
who is likely to be this nation's next leader.
Putin ate my homework (TM). What Debbie and the gang did is worse, much worse than this sorry article
tries to portray. For example, what sort of Democratic Party tries to use Bearnie's religion
agsinst him ?!?
".....Several of the emails released indicate that the officials, including
Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, grew increasingly agitated with Clinton's
rival, Bernie Sanders, and his campaign as the primary season advanced,
in one instance even floating bringing up Sanders' religion to try and minimize
his support.
****"It might may [sic] no difference, but for KY and WA can we get someone
to ask his belief," Brad Marshall, CFO of DNC, wrote in an email on May
5, 2016. "Does he believe in God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish
heritage.
I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with
my peeps. My southern baptist peeps woudl draw a big difference between
a Jew and an atheist."****
"Amy Dacey, CEO of the DNC, subsequently responded "AMEN," according
to the email"
The more interesting part is that this blame is just a distraction from
the larger issue, that the entire political system is corrupted and broken.
This is just business as usual, only this instance was revealed.
Has anyone here worked, I mean truly worked in the pre-election process,
behind the scenes, witnessing the dirty business that is gathering electoral
votes during caucuses and primaries? It is a total sham. It is where under-the-table
deals are made for promised loyalties to certain candidates, where those
that have the most, bribe others to vote a certain way, where quid pro quo
rules over democracy or a candidates stance on issues and/or policies. It
is where future cabinet positions are secured, based on allegiance to party
hierarchy and strong-arming. Your vote means nothing, only a small select
group determines candidates, and ultimately the president.
DNC Chair Wasserman is just one cog in a massive political machine, one
run rampantly out of control. And this happens on both sides, among both
parties. It is where the personal selfish love of money, power, and fame
outstrip the will of the people.
Long live hackers for keeping a check on an obviously corrupted system.
The mainstream media isn't doing their jobs anymore, someone has to. The
media have merely become the pretorian band for the super class, those elite
that truly control this country from behind the scenes, pulling the puppet
strings attached to the soulless politicians.
We are again presented with two candidates whom have each proven their
desire to negate the will of the nation, for purely selfish reasons. Neither
is truly qualified for this office.
"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought
to trust no [hu]man living with the power to endanger the public liberty".
-John Adams-
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more
corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters"
-Ben Franklin-
Lynch: How is your granddaughter Chelsea? Bubba: She's fine. How are your grandkids? Lynch: They're doing great too. Bubba: Too bad if anything were to happen to them …
I understand she said something about being a steady hand at the time
of reckoning. Funny always thought of the anti Christ would be a man.
Does this make me sexist?
There's a whole new demographic out there raised on twitter and potty jokes. What they really
want is to see Donald and Hillary on Dancing With The Stars.
Is that Huma in a blue dress under the Resolute desk?
Pairadimes d Here2Go •Aug 27, 2016 9:14 PM
Ramirez is a genius.
zeronetwork d debtor of last resort •Aug 27, 2016 8:15 PM
The thought process Donald has started is not going to fade very soon. Still
few weeks before election. I am sure Donald got some more cards in his sleeve.
are we there yet •Aug 27, 2016 8:36 PM
I have a solution for Hillary's in-continuance and mobility declining problems.
The chair behind the presidents desk should be a wheelchair with a bedpan.
Otherwise the term 'campaign trail' will take on a whole new meaning.
During a campaign rally in Nevada, US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke about the
dangers of right-wing forces in power, as well as about problems of racism.
"Clinton noted that her rival Donald Trump supported the policies of Russian President Vladimir
Putin. As for relations with Russia, the views of Donald Trump come contrary to the views of all
American presidents, from "Truman to Reagan."
"He talks casually of abandoning our NATO allies, recognizing Russia's annexation of Crimea,
giving the Kremlin a free hand in eastern Europe. American presidents from Truman, to Reagan,
to Bush, to Clinton, to Obama have rejected the kind of approach Trump is taking on Russia. And
we should, too," Clinton said.
...
"Vladimir Putin is the grand-godfather of this global brand of extreme nationalism.", Hillary
Clinton said, (while standing in front of a gigantic American Flag, without a trace of Irony detectable
in her voice).
Posted by: Shillary | Aug 26, 2016 5:22:34 PM | 50
Yep. Dangerously stupid.
Superficial and self-absorbed Hollywoodishness; the polar opposite of self-aware.
Shillary @50 -- Hillary Clinton is completely devoid of any sense of irony or humour. She's a
complete emotional and, I would add, intellectual dud. She seems to be a good lawyer, though ---
in the US lawyers as far as the eye can see.
[Aug 27, 2016] "Oh, so you don't have soul either?!
Hillary has also stated publicly that "Putin has no soul" (to which
Putin replied "at least I have a brain):
"... "Please use caution in opening the overhead bins, as Hillary's baggage may have shifted during flight," the "flight attendant" says as the ad ends. ..."
The 19-second
video,
titled "Hillary Clinton's Liberal Elite Summer Tour," begins with an image of an airplane bearing
Clinton's logo. A voiceover resembling an announcement from a flight attendant names some of the
stops on Clinton's schedule, including Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and Martha's Vineyard.
"Please use caution in opening the overhead bins, as Hillary's baggage may have shifted during
flight," the "flight attendant" says as the ad ends.
Clinton spent her weekend on Martha's Vineyard and held a fundraiser in Nantucket. On Tuesday,
Clinton is headlining a $33,400-per-guest event being hosted by Justin Timberlake and his wife, actress
Jessica Biel.
"Hillary Clinton claims she's running to be a champion for 'everyday Americans,' but her busy
week of fundraisers with her friends in the wealthy liberal elite show who she's really fighting
for," RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement. "Rather than visit flood-ravaged Louisiana
or end her more than 250-day streak without a press conference, she's taking her private jet from
coast to coast raking in piles of campaign cash to fund her status quo campaign.
"Donald Trump is the candidate of true change in this election, and he is leading a grassroots
movement to put an end to business as usual in Washington and make a difference in the lives of all
Americans."
A recent
NBC news poll
shows that 72 percent of registered Republicans still aren't
sure whether Barack Obama was born in the United States. It wasn't clear from
the poll data how many Republicans consider Hawai'i part of the US. Let's cut
them a break and assume that most of them recognize the legitimacy of the
Islands of Aloha.
I'm a little sympathetic to their theory. In fact, I'm "all in" for a US
President who was secretly born on the African continent. But don't you think
the Kenyans could have come up with a better plant than Obama?
I wonder for how many of them Slick Willie was a patron ;-).
Notable quotes:
"... According to the National Task Force on Prostitution , it's estimated that
well over 1 million people in the U.S. have worked as prostitutes - or roughly 1
percent of American women. If this campaign is a success, that could translate into
some serious voting power. ..."
"Everyday Americans need a champion," Hillary Clinton proclaimed in her
YouTube video. "And I want to be that champion."
Yes, few were surprised when Hilary Clinton announced her campaign for
the 2016 U.S. presidential race, but many were surprised by some of her
early supporters. Since that announcement, the lovable ladies of Nevada's
renowned Moonlite Bunny Ranch have come out in support of our former first
lady in a serious, potentially large-scale campaign called "Hookers for
Hillary." These Everyday Americans have chosen their candidate.
... ... ...
Bunny Ranch owner Dennis Hof agrees. "With Obamacare the girls were able
to buy good health insurance and without it they weren't able to. Since
Day One when I bought the brothel in 1992 no legal prostitute could get
health insurance," says Hof.
According to
the National Task Force on Prostitution, it's estimated that well over
1 million people in the U.S. have worked as prostitutes - or roughly 1 percent
of American women. If this campaign is a success, that could translate into
some serious voting power.
The following is a leaked transcript of Hillary Clinton's first speech to Goldman Sachs delivered
on 6/04/2013. Two other speeches are also rumored to be in circulation awaiting publication.
This is the full transcript. Secretary Clinton received $225,000 for this speech. The speech has
not been confirmed or authenticated.
CLINTON: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you
very much, Lloyd [Blankfein], and thanks to everyone at Goldman Sachs for welcoming me today. I'm
delighted to be back among friends, colleagues, collaborators, supporters, kindred spirits…
Let me jump right in. You know, over the past few months, there have been popular concerns about
an economy that still isn't delivering for the majority of Americans. It's not "delivering" the way
that they feel it should, that they feel entitled to. Most Americans that you speak to, speak a populist
rhetoric that claims it is stacked for those at the top, that those of you here have it too good.
(Laughter)
But we know the hopes that the little people have for their future - things like school, job,
food, clothing on their backs– all of those little things would not be possible without your leadership
and innovation. Since the time of the Medicis, even before, and the financing of the first joint
stock companies in the transatlantic slave trade, we know that finance and banking is what makes
our
capitalist economy not just grow but tick…
Previous generations of Americans built this economy and a middle class on a collective illusion:
that they do productive work, this creates wealth, and that this builds the economy. We all know
how misguided that is. We know that it's really due to your investing, credit, and economic stewardship,
that they have been able to work at all, that they are able to put food on their tables. It's due
to you and other banking, trading, investment houses that we have an economy that works at all. You
are why we are a truly 21st century economic power.
(Applause)
You, Lloyd, and your colleagues, have been instrumental in that. People say you are overpaid or
even parasitic, parasites on the economic body, and they quote a long line of seemingly "unethical
behavior". They equate with you everything that is wrong and immoral with Capitalism, they charge
that you have acted ruthlessly and unethically, "rigging every major market bubble since the Great
Depression".
(Hissing)
But I-contrary to populist, hysterical demonizing–firmly believe that what you do is essential
and critical: you help allocate our investment, direct our economic development, hedge risks, and
create power, policies, and alliances in ways that make our country stronger, richer, more powerful,
more innovative, competitive, and yes, more "democratic". You underwrite our elections and our political
process-taking on the huge cost of enabling democratic dialogue at its biggest, broadest capacity.
Your tireless work adds true value, and without you, we would still be struggling helplessly against
industrial powerhouses in Asia and across the world trying to compete with them on the level of industry,
technology, innovation, and hard work, at which they would beat us hands down. It's your financial
innovation, your speculative tools, which allow us new ways of creating value without sweat or struggle,
that gives us the competitive advantage. It's this vision, this technological innovation, this financial
wizardry, this is what makes America great and powerful.
(Applause)
For decades, people have argued that if we give more wealth to those at top by cutting taxes and
letting you and other corporations write the own rules, it will trickle down, it will trickle down
to everyone else. And it has! My speech here is an example!
(Cackles, Waves Check)
(Laughter).
But seriously, I believe that the work of
Goldman Sachs is critical for us, and without you, America would be a faint shadow of its current
greatness. Your work in innovating finance, in creating new sources of wealth and investment, your
tireless efforts stimulating the creation of new financial instruments, in lobbying politicians,
in monopolizing the treasury and cabinet, in setting and binding the parameters of financial regulation
that allows fluidity and flexibility in investment and speculation, this allows us to create wealth-almost
out of thin air. It's this alchemy, this genius, this Midas touch-which is one of the most under-appreciated
and under-acknowledged contributions in modern economic history.
(Applause)
It's fair to say that you have transformed the solid, clunky, friction-laiden trading of traditional
commodity speculation into responsive, intelligent, liquid flows, that have vaporized every barrier
and transformed into an expansive, responsive, endlessly expanding gas that fills every atom of our
productive economic space that generates immeasurable value everywhere it goes, and everything it
touches. Who cares that it's a little chaotic or "unethical"? That it seems tied to every financial
scandal and crisis and economic catastrophe in history? Not me. "Creative Destruction" is all part
of the game, and you are masters of it.
(Applause)
Some will say that you are simply parasitic on those who labor at menial physical production-these
are people who still subscribe to 18 Century notions of value production–and that you skim off profit
without doing anything meaningful or of value. Those people are misguided: we know that if money
never sleeps, that's because you keep it awake! You have-if I may use a metaphor–injected money with
caffeine, Adderal, crack, meth, with LSD so that it can dance the crazy dance and grow a crazy thousand
psychedelic feet tall in a rainbow minute! Money was a lazy b*tch, until you put it to
work! And look how it works! Look how it grows! Materializes out of nowhere!
(Waves check again, dances, cackles).
Some people have said that it was your irresponsible financial engineering, risk-taking, and profit-seeking,
that led to the 2008 crash; that you shorted your own toxic mortgages in the most brazen securities
fraud in financial history, dynamiting and imploding the global economy; and that the exorbitant
bonuses paid from tax payer money, the financial bailouts, the non-prosecutions created moral hazard,
rewarded avarice, incompetence, corruption and vice. You and I know it is nothing of the sort. As
leaders, innovators, captains of finance, you will always be subject of the jealous resentment, the
petty tantrums of the unwashed masses, the insolvent, the irresponsible, the invidious, the losers.
They will envy you, your successes, they will despise you, but they secretly want to be like you!
(Laughter)
As you know, my husband tried very hard to change the culture of this misbegotten underclass,
by kicking them off the government teat, by poisoning their milk with harsh, bitter regulation, and
by disciplining them with the most arbitrary, racist, punitive, devastating criminal laws in US history,
laws which Richard Nixon, the Southern strategists, the slave catchers, could only have dreamed of.
He also passed NAFTA, which told them in no uncertain terms that they needed to discipline themselves
as workers, and learn to be competitive in the global sweatshop, or face certain extinction. But
they have not learned their lesson.
(Hissing)
The effects prove themself. Under President Clinton - I like the sound of that!- America saw the
longest, most prodigious reaming of the undesirable classes in our history, putting them firmly in
their places. And they loved it! He felt their pain! And relished it! Because he was inflicting it!
(Applause)
And I will too!
(Applause)
Now today - today, another capitalist crisis looms, bigger and more dangerous than 2008, and again
we hear sentimental cries for populist reform. I believe we have to stave off these demands to reform
the banking and the financial system, and restructure the economy more equitably. You can't build
an economy without the smart people-the Titans and Gods of Finance-like you–to direct the economy,
and for the smart people to do their work, you need to be rewarded for your efforts, and you need
a free hand to exercise your brilliance.
(Applause)
Books like "The Spirit Level" and organizations working for equality, certain politicians, spew a
ridiculous myth of populism and the benefits of equality. But the fact is, we can't create profitable
businesses without exploitation, and we can't grow the economy without speculation and inequality,
and we certainly can't boost our economy into the stratosphere without allowing you to exercise your
amazing financial intelligence and acumen in fiscal number-crunching, speculation, numbers-running
and fraud!
(Applause)
Just think of this: can you imagine a football game without gambling? It would be dull, mind-numbing-who
would watch steroid-addled jocks rut and slam into each other mindlessly without having put down
money on the outcome? Who would pay the huge salaries for these vapid idiots? It's only because you
have bet on the outcome that people become excited about the sport: it becomes life-and-death-thrilling!
It becomes paint-your-face-get-shit-faced exciting! Act-stupid-exciting! That's what you do: you
add excitement, thrill, value, and enthusiasm to the dull, dirty job of growing the economy, you
make the game exciting, sexy, which draws more money into the game, the casino, that expands the
excitement, grows the customer base, develops the economy, and that's priceless! You speculate, stimulate,
titillate, dynamize, satyriasize the entire economy! I am such a fan! Go Goldman Sachs!
(Does little cheerleading number, complete with hand gestures)
Gooold-Maaan-Sachs!
(Applause)
Let's tell the truth: America is struggling-despite the endless fabrication about "the recovery"–
because we are not yet running the way we should. Banks are still over regulated. It's over-regulation
that creates financial catastrophe! Despite your huge paychecks and squirreled away assets, I know
that you are worried: worried that some "socialist" demagogue might come along and confiscate it
all and put you all in jail. With president Obama, you were in good hands: he's one of us. (Good
thing you ponied up $981K for his campaign). He took good care of you, had your back, covered your
financial rear. But populist sentiment is rising up again, more strongly than before, and the unwashed
masses are full of resentment, anger, jealousy. They are angry that they don't have jobs, that they
are in debt, that they can't scrape a living together, even though they are working, 2,3,4 jobs to
put shelter over their heads. That their children are starving. That they cannot see a light at the
end of the tunnel. They are angry about the 100 million people driven into the brink of starvation
and the global food riots that they claim you caused with your commodity futures speculation. The
$5Trillion of value lost from the markets that they claim you collapsed. The millions who lost their
homes and are now on the verge of homelessness. The trillions funneled to you in loans, write-offs,
bribes to keep the system going. Even when I was working for Barry (Goldwater), I felt that same
irrational resentment. Now it's at an all time high. Irresponsible single mothers, uneducated immigrants,
lead-drinking ghetto-strutters, homeless, crying, babies, starving senior citizens, obnoxious, entitled
African Americans who object to having bullets pumped into their bodies by police: all these people
are angry, entitled, and making noise, and they are endangering our democracy and economy, our greatness.
(Hissing)
I hear this everywhere I go. A single mother, with three children-wants to go to college, find
enjoyable, well-paid work and also enjoy the emotional luxuries of motherhood-all at the same time.
Everyone feels entitled to everything. She even wants housing. Now even I couldn't do all these things,
despite my incredible privilege and intelligence. But they want it all, now. Three children?
(Booing)
A grandmother, playing with children-it makes her happy like a cow, but she still feels entitled
to be paid. Because she wants to feed her drug habit, she wants to sell them for more money….she
wants it all!
(Booing)
A student, with an unmarketable degree in women's studies, specializing in medieval feminist villanelles,
wants debt forgiveness, and a high-paid job putting her non-existent skills analyzing romance language
texts to use and profit in a rewarding cause. She also wants a pony, a sensitive but dominant lover,
a villa on the Riviera, and World Peace!
(Cackles).
(Laughter)
Millions of working sad-sack Americans have similar fantasies. They want more money.
More pay. Decent wages for hard work. They think it grows on trees. They think that money will grow
and nuzzle up to them in their sleep, when they have no money-appeal. They think they can tax Other
People's Money to get what they want. They don't realize Money has to be jacked up the ass, stuck
in the veins with meth, dragged out and pimped to make more! You have figured out how to make your
money work, turned it into a profit-generating prostitute! The future expected earnings of
a profit-generating prostitute! That you've shorted! These people, idiots, all of them, they expect
money to come to them! Without Scheming! Without reaming others! By working hard and being good!
Like puppies and ponies! Like flowers after a downpour! Like the lilies of the valley! Like
utopian visions of a drug-addled socialist!
(Laughter)
Wages need to be kept down, and people just need to work harder. Damn harder. At least as hard
as Bill worked to keep Haiti down.
(Applause)
We must lower incomes for low-value working schmucks, so they give up on any notions of a middle-class
life. But more than that, we must reduce the slick, unsustainable bigotry of expectation: the profit-sucking
cage of entitlement, expectation, and imagination. We must drive income down steadily and siphon
that surplus wealth to you, the captains of finance, so that we can build a strong economy that is
innovative, powerful, that acknowledges and rewards your acumen…
(Applause)
And that will be my mission, from the first day I am president to the last. I…
(Applause)
I will get up every day thinking about you, the hard-working Wizards of Finance, Lords of Capital,
Economic Giants of Innovation, Noble Titans that make us strong and powerful!
(Applause)
I came from a petit-bourgeois family with a drapery business that exploited workers to give me
good middle-class life, a first-class education, and my incorrigibly elitist beliefs. It put me on
third base, instead of striking out. As I try to steal home, I will be thinking about all the Wall
Street bankers that I represented in New York and the "advice" that they gave me, and I will work
with them-for you– to give them the maximum freedom to do what's best for them. Because what's best
for Wall Street is what's best for the US. What's best for Goldman Sachs is what's best for the planet.
I promise to take on this challenge against the clamoring, whining, agitating babies demanding for
major changes in our economy and the global economy, demanding for equity and justice. These demands
are stupid beyond belief.
(Laughter)
As you know, advances in financial technology and global trade have created new areas of commercial
activity and opened new markets for our exports. Too often policy wonks want to resort to protectionist
measures because they don't realize that these treaties are designed to suck wealth out of the third
world and suck it into your portfolios. These people suffer from a lack of big-picture thinking.
They believe that they are still going to be building widgets in a factory if it were not for the
1 billion Chinese stealing their jobs. They don't understand that we are sucking the lifeblood out
of both of the Chinese and all workers-the vampire squid with the blood funnel-creating value, wealth,
growth!
(Cackles)
Today's marketplace focuses on the short-term, instantaneous financial trading, and short-term
earnings reports, and that's just how it should be. Those who are struggling need to rent out their
living rooms, garages, bathrooms, dog houses, sell trinkets on EBay, sell themselves, their time
and their bodies in the gig economy. All of this creates exciting, dynamic extra wealth, which should
go to you, the geniuses of the universe, because you are the ones driving this with your investments,
speculations, deregulation, policy capture, and of course outright bribes. There's no problem that
a little more liberalization and deregulation can't make better!
This week it's the Democrats, with their tired-looking cast-members repeating lines that
sounded hokey the first time in between guest appearances by beloved celebrities all hoping the
networks won't cancel. They've got the script and they've got the stars, but they're still trying
to find the right narrative arc, because the American public's disbelief is rapidly losing
suspension. This is not politics, not as I know it at home. This is something else. This is
pantomime.
There is a certain look that I've been sharing with other visiting foreign journalists this week
and it is just that - a look, sometimes with the hands spread in a horrified half shrug, because
sometimes there are just no words, even when there have to be, you know, because that's how we
make rent.
How to possibly express the choreographed insanity of this brassy, breadless circus? How are we
meant to actually communicate like human beings when we are trapped here, sweating on the floor
of the dream factory as they hand out buttons and baseball caps plastered with empty slogans? It
reminds me, more than anything else, of a music festival, down to the overpriced snacks, the
complicated entry system, the constant impression that the weather is trying to kill you, and the
way that normal rules are suspended as we pretend, briefly, that another world is possible.
Specifically, world where the political process is simple and unsaleable, and strong leaders can
change things for the better. A world where hope is feasible and our votes matter and we all go,
as Philip Larkin once said, down the long slide to happiness, endlessly.
... ... ...
This is not practical politics. This is pure pageantry, pure mythmaking in a nation that has
always survived by singing a song of itself. A nation of three hundred million souls and half a
billion guns torn apart by violence and uncertainty, held together by pomp and circumstance and
precious little else. What is on show at the conventions is very different from the politics that
exist, day to day, month to month, as a material force in people's material lives. The
conventions are a bubble universe where we all, press and public and PR people and random
rain-soaked flunkies, try to float on suspension-strings of disbelief. We know we're being lied
to. Those complaining about the lies have missed the point.
... ... ...
Here's the story the Democrats are selling. They cannot persuade America, or the world, that
liberalism is plausible, that change will come in a way that makes a meaningful difference to
millions of lives; what they are offering, in practical terms, is the vestige of democracy
against the certainty of dictatorship. They are offering things not getting quite so much worse
quite so fast. That's a hard sell.
I'm Hillary goddamn Clinton. I'm a political prodigy, have been since I was 16. I have an insane
network of powerful friends. I'm willing to spend the next eight years catching shit on all sides,
all so I can fix this fucking country for you. And all you little bitches need to do is get off your
asses one goddamn day in November.
"Oh but what about your eeeemaaaaillls???" Shut the fuck up. Seriously, shut the fuck up and listen
for one fucking second...
But you know what? I don't fucking care. If I gave two shits about the haters I would've dropped
the game decades ago.
A Hillary Clinton parody account on Medium wrote what the real Hillary Clinton has wanted to say
for a long time in an article titled "Let
Me Remind You Fuckers Who I Am." Here's a sample:
What the fuck is your problem, America??
I'm Hillary goddamn Clinton. I'm a political prodigy, have been since I was 16. I have an insane
network of powerful friends. I'm willing to spend the next eight years catching shit on all sides,
all so I can fix this fucking country for you. And all you little bitches need to do is get off
your asses one goddamn day in November.
"Oh but what about your eeeemaaaaillls???" Shut the fuck up. Seriously, shut the fuck up and
listen for one fucking second.
Here's all you need to know about me:
1. In 1992, I said I was proud to have followed my career instead of baking cookies.
3. Every time I have a job, y'all love me. Every time I run for anything, the GOP breaks out
the big guns again and fucks me up good. And apparently it fucking works.
But you know what? I don't fucking care. If I gave two shits about the haters I would've dropped
the game decades ago.
For the
US Ambassador to Russia John Tefft it was real pain to wake up this morning. A horrible headache,
dry mouse and feeling like a herd of frightened wild Mustangs run over him...
He suddenly remembered that the last evening everything looked so well: after coming home from the Bolshoi theater,
he drank just four shots of whiskey, looked for a while out his window on evening Moscow streets,
and then went to bed with a sense of duty well performed.
However, at 2 a.m. Tefft was awakened by a phone call on closed government line. It was Secretary
of State John Kerry, who unfortunately managed to broke his leg a few days before while skiing,
and now was forced to pay more attention to his regular duties. In the way he greeted him
John instantly recognized a hidden mocking
, beneath which was hidden the real irritation. Which happened recently more and more often...
-- Listen Tefft, are you feeling all right to be Moscow?, and Tefft immediately felt in the voice
of his boss signs of a real storm.
"I think," Kerry decided to answered the question himself, " that you feel bad, if not very bad... As I was told that you've gained as much as two kilograms in three months..."
Tefft realized that he has just two options: either to answer these rhetorical questions, or continue
to listen and hope to wait out this storm. The Ambassador chose the latter.
Meanwhile Kerry continued:
-- I get the impression that you became a complete slacker. Look at Jeffrey Payette in Ukraine.
That's an example of a real diplomat. And unlike you he did managed to organized a coup d'état the last year? Beautiful job -- And
then pushed for civil war in Eastern Ukraine. Can you match any of those achievements Tefft? Of course, I understand
that prior to 2013, it was you, who prepared the ground for all this in Ukraine, but it was Jeffrey who got
real results
Tefft continued to be humbly silent, and Kerry became even hotter:
-- BTW do you remember that you main task was to organize mass protests in Russia and unite the
opposition movement under strong leaders, which can assume the power. That's why we send you to this country. Where are
the results, I ask you? Where is the democratization of Russia? Why you just wasting money of American taxpayers? Why there are zero result
so far, I ask you ?
When we realize that it's really difficult to stage mass protests in Moscow, you were instructed to organize the
triumphal sequence of mass protests in other major cities of Russia. Money were allocated
accordingly. And what came of it? What did you achieve so far?
Tefft attempted to insert a word in the speech of the Secretary of State:
-- Look, John, everything work according to plan, all allocated funds are already transferred
to our recipients and supporters...
-- You are joking , -- immediately interrupted Kerry -- I understand that they got money.
But it looks like that was it... For example important for us "Lustration" movement died out
on the wine
completely.
After that Tefft heard some strange sounds in the tube probably belonging to a woman. He assumed that it was
iether Hillary or Victoria Nuland, who entered
the room.
-- And what about complete fiasco with he visit of Kasyanov to Novosibirsk? -- it was clear that
Kerry suddenly became more vicious -- "You should probably know that we paid for at least
ten thousands of opponents of the current Russian regime to meet him. Where were they?
-- And Kasyanov himself... Oh my God -- Even by his appearance it's clear that he had it enough,
and the only thing he wants is to return to Moscow. Were was his fighting sprit for which we pay
so much money? And what nonsense was he was blabbing? He was giver the script. Can he read?
Why his only praise Novosibirsk was like: "The roads here are just as bad. And the faces in
residents are even more sullen then in Moscow..."? And this man wants people to vote for him,
right ? He came, he was kicked in the teeth and he left without a fight... A great leader of
protest movement, nothing to say... Why he did not speak about brilliant perspectives of Russia in
case of victory of the RPR - Parnas? After all Ukrainians did believed that they will have a bright
future together with the EU and NATO? Do you think they are much dumber then Siberians? And
why he begin to complain about the rake, which somebody threw under his car back in 2008 and
pretend that this was an attempt on his life. He was in the armored car, this idiot!
-- Enough is enough.. Tell Kasyanov to get another round of training ASAP and he should never
deviate from the taking points we wrote for him.. Now the principle of cooperation changes to: first
results - then money. No results, no money. Please convey this message to him.
-- and similar blunder with Alexei Navalny visit to Novosibirsk? We agreed and discussed that
after eggs stones will be used to hit him. Were all those pre-paid stones disappeared? What happened?
Why only eggs were used? Where are the stones, Tefft? I ask you again, where are all the prepaid
stones? Where are bruises and injuries on our hero? How we can present him as the victim of a brutal
regime without any injuries? How we can organize the outrage of the world community with just eggs.
This your blunder undermines our efforts in further tightening of sanctions against Russia...
-- John, -- timidly dared to say Tefft, -- everything was organized perfectly well. The only problem
was too heavy traffic and traffic jams in Novosibirsk. It was due to jams our guys did not get stones
in time...
-- Yes, but they got the money in time, right John? - sarcastically remarked Kerry, So please
shut up and just listen...
-- If you decided to promote Russian democratic opposition in Siberia then perform this competently
and effectively as you obviously can. Like you did in Western Ukraine, after all. And if you
are unable even to provide normal numbers of protesters, please at least submit fake photos
with thousands of Novosibirsk residents in the queue willing to vote for the opposition... Or I need
to explain to you how this is done?
-- And please ensure that the number opposition press reported were very close and multiplied
by at least ten. Not like in the last case when one source reported 1104 opposition voters
and the other reported 2580. Not only those numbers are just ridiculously small, they differ
from each other way too much!
And finally, why Novosibirsk leaders of newly united RPR-Parnas party already managed to quarrel among
themselves and started to accuse each other of massive fraud. Is this about who gets our money?
Greedy bustards. Please take care about this issue and explain those jerks how they should behave.
In short, Tefft, if you don't make right conclusions, we probably will soon transfer you
to some African country. The one were there are still cannibals... All the best."
After such a conversation Tefft quickly finished the bottle. A now
this gloomy Moscow morning is upon him again and something needs to be done with all this disappearing
and lying Russian opposition who like to take money but can't produce the desired results. He cursed
his job and opened the second the bottle of whisky.
"I am starting to behave like a real Russian"
he melancholically observed and poured the first short. He instantly felt better. And somewhat proud
about this idea about becoming Russian. He drunk the second shot and thought "F*$% Kerry, if you
sucker come here I will find some ketchup to greet you". Go to hell. And poured the third shot almost immediately.
20 years ago, America was very pleased about how the elections had gone in Russia
But now it is the other way around. At granny Hillary's HQ they have become so hysterical
over the topic "Russian is manipulating our elections and pushing for Trump" that even McFaul
has become indignant:
There is no Debbie Wasserman. There has never been any Debbie Wasserman. The Party is unified.
The Party has always been unified. The Great Leader, Hillary...
TECH SUPPORT: Hi, Secretary Clinton? I'm Liz, from tech support.
Your assistant said that you needed help getting Outlook on your phone?
SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY RODHAM
CLINTON: Oh, hi. Great. Come on in.
TECH: This shouldn't take too long. Are you working on a Blackberry or an iPhone?
CLINTON: God, who knows. I have so many devices these days.
TECH: Really? How many?
CLINTON: Two.
TECH: That shouldn't be a problem. So let's get Outlook fired up here. O.K. Hmm.
It looks like you haven't set up an account yet?
CLINTON: I've been using my hdr22@clintonemail.com address.
TECH: Most State Department employees prefer to use a state.gov address.
CLINTON: I don't know that I would describe my role here as "employee."
TECH: Right. Well, it's sort of a best-practice thing. We can make sure that all
your correspondence is secure this way, and it'll make it easier to comply with FOIA
requests.
CLINTON: Why would there be a FOIA request?
TECH: You're right. There won't be. But I like to say you can never be too careful.
CLINTON: I guess. Liz, between you and me, I'm not really a big e-mailer. I pretty
much only use it for stuff like planning Chelsea's wedding and chatting with my yoga instructor about
whether we should impose sanctions on Iran.
TECH: It's still good to get this set up. Go ahead and connect your device to the
computer.
CLINTON: . . .
TECH: You can use that U.S.B. portal.
CLINTON: . . .
TECH: Here, it's just this cord. O.K., I'm noticing that you have a lot of documents
just saved to your desktop. It's really safer to save them directly on the State Department server.
CLINTON: I'll be sure to do that.
TECH: That way they're password-protected. And again, FOIA.
CLINTON: I'm less worried about that than you are.
TECH: You're the boss! O.K., next go to "Settings."
CLINTON: . . .
TECH: It looks like a little gear symbol.
CLINTON: Oh! There it is.
TECH: Then to go to "General."
CLINTON: . . .
TECH: . . .
CLINTON: . . .
TECH: It's down next to-
CLINTON: I got it, all right? Jesus.
TECH: Follow the prompt for e-mail.
CLINTON: I'm not seeing it.
TECH: It's right there next-
CLINTON: Please don't point. I'll never learn that way.
TECH: O.K., sorry. Keep scrolling.
CLINTON: Is it under Bluetooth? What is Bluetooth?
TECH: No, it's-
CLINTON: Do I need to be in Dropbox?
TECH: What? No. Just click e-mail.
CLINTON: Got it!
TECH: Great. Let's get you rolling with a username and a password. Feel free to
really be creative here. Some people use their pets' names, or the name of their high school.
CLINTON: How about just "password"?
TECH: That's sort of not ideal.
CLINTON: O.K., how about "Benghazi"?
TECH: Perfect. It's hard to spell and it doesn't have any special significance.
CLINTON: So I'm done?
TECH: Not quite, but we're close. Now input your username and password.
CLINTON: I am. It's not accepting "Benghazi."
TECH: Hmm. That's O.K. This is a known issue. Let's try "retrieve password."
CLINTON: I'm hitting it but nothing's happening.
TECH: Do you mind if I take over?
CLINTON: Fine. But I won't learn.
TECH: Here's the problem. It needs a number. Can we do a different password? Maybe
"MrsPrez16"? That's good, right?
CLINTON: That's terrible, but I don't care.
TECH: Hey, Madam Secretary, I get that this is frustrating. Believe me. Just remember
that we're on the same team here.
CLINTON: Sorry. UGH. I put in "MrsPrez16" and it's rejecting that too!
TECH: You know, it's probably because you're not using a trusted wifi network.
O.K., go back to Settings.
CLINTON: You know what, I'm just going to stick with my personal account. No one
is going to care.
TECH: You're probably right. Honestly, this system is so clunky; I've been forwarding
stuff to my Gmail since 2006.
CLINTON: Can you get me set up with a Gmail?
TECH: I'm really not supposed to.
CLINTON: Fine. But while you're here, could you help me change my Facebook picture?
I want to use this one.
TECH: Oh, nice! You look so badass texting while wearing sunglasses.
CLINTON: I know.
TECH: Meme alert!
CLINTON: Right.
TECH: Girl, I'll probably make that my profile picture, too. Or at least
my Twitter avatar.
CLINTON: Please don't call me "girl."
TECH: It just makes you look like such a tech-savvy, feminist icon.
CLINTON: I am that.
TECH: Totally. O.K., here you go. It's all set. And don't worry about the e-mail
thing.
Just reaching out again. Did you get my last few e-mails? Since you haven't replied, I worry that
they might have ended up in your spam folder. Do you know how to check that? I can have my campaign's
digital director send you instructions. Anyway, I would love to say hi, or grab coffee, or whatever,
if you have time. I'm around. Just let me know when/where works for you! Have jet; will travel! LOL.
XO
H.R.C.
... ... ...
Bess,
What is going on?
I'm going fucking crazy over here. I think we both know that I've gone above and beyond to reach
out to you and be your friend and invite you to cool shit and just be there for you, but I feel like
you're taking our relationship totally for granted. I saw you donated fifty dollars after my last
e-mail, but, honestly, that just made me feel used. I wish you'd never entered your e-mail address
into my campaign Listserv.
So I'm writing one last time to say Go to Hell, Bess. And please don't forget to text HRC to 33422016
to get real-time updates from the trail!
As I was just driving home and worrying about all the stuff going on in my life, my family's
lives, my friends' lives, and what's happening in Washington, Moscow, Ukraine, the Middle East,
Hillary Clinton's scandals, Jeb, Trump, Fox News, the downgrading of our military, the terrorists
infiltrating our border, the illegals, the refugees, and how our country is rapidly losing its
sanity and its Christianity, I saw a yard sign that said:
NEED HELP?
CALL JESUS
1-800-555-3787
Out of curiosity and desperation, I called the number.
A Mexican showed up with a lawnmower.
Over the last six months, GOP leaders have watched helpless as the Republican presidential
race has transformed from the usual loveable farce into a terrifying prequel to Mad Max: Fury
Road as tangerine reality show host
Donald Trump gained, attained and retained frontrunner status. With only a few months left
before the Republican National Convention, party luminaries, bigwigs and eminences grises have
come up with a secret blueprint for how to stop the New York business mogul from becoming their
candidate. Exclusive to the Guardian, here is their 10-point plan:
Change the Republican party rules so that all presidential candidates must disclose the
length of their fingers prior to receiving the nomination. Trump will drop out of the race by
the end of the day.
Leave a trail of spray tan canisters and ground beef leading from the door of his
penthouse to a barge about to set off for the Far East.
Lure him into a space shuttle by telling him there's a photograph of his daughter Ivanka
in a bikini onboard and then blast him into orbit.
Attach a $5 bill to a greased pig's back and set it loose backstage before his next
campaign stop. He'll chase that thing until he's out of breath, and miss the speech, which,
due to his inhumanly hectic campaign schedule will have the cumulative knock-on effect of
making him miss the next day's speech, then the next morning's chummy appearance by telephone
with his pals on Morning Joe, then the next four primaries, and before you know it he's missed
the convention and is safely back to being an appalling but harmless reality TV star.
Force Trump to spend as much as five minutes with one of his own supporters.
Remind him that the White House executive residence is a paltry 55,000 square feet and
that presidents are constitutionally prohibited from painting it gold.
Invite Trump to a pool party and before he arrives glue a bunch of nickels to the bottom
of the deep end.
Invent time travel, go back to 2008, and stop ourselves from attacking the Obama
administration with the exact same vitriolic, divisive rhetoric that Trump picked up on and
has now ridden to his present position.
Stop sheepishly acquiescing to Trump's bluster and acting like he isn't a despicable
racist monster in hopes that it's not too late to prevent the complete collapse of society.
Change election procedure so that the remaining delegates must pledge their support to
whichever nominee scores highest on a seventh grade vocabulary test. Unfortunately this will
probably give the edge to college debate champ Ted Cruz, an opportunistic, bigoted liar whose
vision for America is a theocracy engaged in an apocalyptic war against Islam run by a man who
looks like Dracula's fat cousin smugly eating a sour candy he received as a prize for
tattling. But you can't have everything.
Donald Trump answers the question 'what is 2+2?': "I have to say a lot of people
have been asking this question. No, really. A lot of people come up to me, and
they ask me. They say, 'What's 2+2'? And I tell them, look, we know what 2+2
is.
We've had almost eight years of the worst kind of math you can imagine.
Oh, my God, I can't believe it. Addition and subtraction of the 1s the 2s and
the 3s. It's terrible. It's just terrible. Look, if you want to know what 2+2
is, do you want to know what 2+2 is? I'll tell you. First of all the number
2, by the way, I love the number 2. It's probably my favorite number, no it
is my favorite number. You know what, it's probably more like the number two
but with a lot of zeros behind it. A lot. If I'm being honest, I mean, if I'm
being honest. I like a lot of zeros.
Except for Marco Rubio, now he's a zero that I don't like. Though, I probably
shouldn't say that. He's a nice guy, but he's like, '10101000101,' on and on,
like that. He's like a computer! You know what I mean? He's like a computer.
I don't know. I mean, you know. So, we have all these numbers, and we can add
them and subtract them and add them. TIMES them even. Did you know that?
We can times them OR divide them, they don't tell you that, and I'll tell
you, no one is better at the order of operations than me. You wouldn't believe
it. So, we're gonna be the best on 2+2, believe me."
Reply
Report BG
Davis
Sean Anthony Dylan , 2016-03-08 17:42:31
Priceless! Next stop, Saturday Night Live or similar.
[Feb 21, 2016] An historic breakthrough for robot rights.
A real dark night of the soul tonight for Jeb!.He sits on the couch in his hotel room, drinking
straight out of a bottle of Glenfiddich, after crawling around on his hands and knees for an hour
in a fruitless search for one of his brand new contact lenses. He finally gives up on that and
sits, with vision in only one eye, with the lights turned down low and the television with a smashed
screen. He stares at the copy of "The Art of the Deal" on the coffee table, the book a gag gift
from W. The phone rings. "Yeah, mom, I know. It doesn't look good. What am I going to tell the
money people? You know, the thing that really gets to me is that I was the only one to stand up
to Trump, the only one with the balls to go after that son of a bitch. Marco? That slime ball
really did a number on me. I'm going to call him up right now and tell him to bring that sword
I gave him over here and just stab me in the back. I got that Terri Schiavo law passed to save
her life. I wish somebody would pass a law to keep my candidacy on life support. Do you think
if Chris Christie got back in the race he'd be willing to take on Trump at the next debate? Yeah…probably
not." He takes a long pull from the bottle. "Yeah, mom, I know W did all he could. But it wasn't
enough. The shock and awe didn't happen for me tonight. There was no freakin' mission accomplished,
except I look like a loser. Maybe Trump was right.The kids and their mom aren't here, I can't
put them on the phone. Their mom didn't want the kids to see me like this so they got a different
room. What am I going to do? Well, first I'm gonna take me another little bitty drinkee-poo from
this here bottle."
Speaking at a press breakfast to launch the new Daily Show,
which starts on Monday 28 September, the South African comedian said he would use his position as
an outsider in the US to look at some of the more bizarre elements of the country's political
system without preconceptions.
... ... ...
Jon Stewart's final
year in charge at the Daily Show saw the programme
win three Emmys for outstanding variety talk series, outstanding writing for a variety series
and outstanding directing for a variety series.
[Sep 04, 2015] Clinton is transparently Fake.... Looks like Josh is a Extramarital Art Expert....
Anyone know if he has the Black Condom yet?
YoringeFri, 9/4/2015 - 9:34
am
WASHINGTON-According to a report released Monday by the U.S. Department
of Education, an increasing number of American parents are choosing to have their children raised
at school rather than at home.
Deputy Education Secretary Anthony W. Miller said that many parents
who school-home find U.S. households to be frightening, overwhelming environments for their children,
and feel that they are just not conducive to producing well-rounded members of society.
Thousands of mothers and fathers polled in the study also believe that those running American
homes cannot be trusted to keep their kids safe.
"Every year more parents are finding that their homes are not equipped to instill the right values
in their children," Miller said. "When it comes to important life skills such as proper nutrition,
safe sex, and even basic socialization, a growing number of mothers and fathers think it's better
to rely on educators to guide and nurture their kids."
"And really, who can blame them?" Miller continued. "American homes have let down our nation's
youth time and again in almost every imaginable respect."
According to the report, children raised at home were less likely to receive individual adult
attention, and were often subjected to ineffective and wildly inconsistent disciplinary measures.
The study also found that many parents expressed concerns that, when at home, their children were
being teased and bullied by those older than themselves.
In addition to providing better supervision and overall direction, school-homing has become popular
among mothers and fathers who just want to be less involved in the day-to-day lives of their children.
"Parents are finding creative ways to make this increasingly common child-rearing track work,"
Miller said. "Whether it's over-relying on after-school programs and extracurricular activities,
or simply gross neglect,† school-homing is becoming a widely accepted method of bringing children
up."
Despite the trend's growing popularity, Miller said that school programs are often jeopardized
or terminated because shortsighted individuals vote against tax increases intended to boost educational
spending.
"The terrifying reality we're facing is that the worst-equipped people you could possibly imagine
may actually be forced to take care of their children," Miller said.
Parents who have decided to school-home their children have echoed many of Miller's concerns.
Most said that an alarming number of legal guardians such as themselves lack the most basic common
sense required to give children the type of instruction they need during crucial developmental years.
"It's really a matter of who has more experience in dealing with my child," Cincinnati- resident
Kevin Dufrense said of his decision to have his 10-year-old son Jake, who suffers from ADHD and dyslexia,
school-homed. "These teachers are dealing with upwards of 40 students in their classrooms at a time,
so obviously they know a lot more about children than someone like me, who only has one son and doesn't
know where he is half the time anyway."
"Simply put, it's not the job of parents to raise these kids," Dufrense added.
Though school-homing has proven to be an ideal solution for millions of uninvolved parents, increasingly
overburdened public schools have recently led to a steady upswing in the number of students being
prison-homed.
[Jul 12, 2015] "An aggressor is anyone who attacks a country before the US does."–Czech President
Milos Zeman
"...This is bordering on hero worship with this guy and, frankly, I think that's dangerous.
That's exactly how the Ds ended up shoving Obama down everyone's throat and look how lousy that turned
out."
Republican preferences of Presidential candidates ;-)
1st choice
2nd choice
Donald Trump
15%
12%
Jeb Bush
11%
7%
Rand Paul
11%
7%
nmewn
Trump filed for bankruptcy protection in 1991, 1992, 2004 and 2009. I have zero interest in
putting him in charge of anything remotely connected to my prosperity or posterity.
But I will say this, with Hillary! the current frontrunner, fully 98% of democrats are insane
;-)
Paveway IV
Witht that kind of experience, we should make him president of Puerto Rico.
Not My Real Name
Trump is too much of an ego maniac to have that kind of power.
You mean like Obama?
Gold...Bitches
Wrong. The popularity of Trump and Sanders is they are actually talking reality versus the
papsmear crapola that comes out of the mouths of the corporate polititcians from both sides. They
also actually have policies that appeal to the majority of the people in their respective parties.
Most people oppose the crony trade deals that get signed that do nothing for the people yet enrich
the CEO and the politician that passes the bill after they are out and get massive "speaking"
fees. Not the corporatists such as Bush and Hillary - never met a trade deal favorable to corporations
they didnt like. Quid, meet Pro and Quo.
Southpark said it best regarding voting and elections: But Stan, don't you know, it's always
between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. Nearly every election since the beginning of time
has been between some douche and some turd. They're the only people who suck up enough to make
it that far in politics."
chosen
Thanks for the heads up. Is there any candidate that is not in AIPAC's pocket?
Before the people realized that behind the "most
transparent administration ever" there was nothing but double seasonal adjustments, drones
and an impenetrable layer of propaganda and lies, there was...
And change, of course.
Sadly, at some point over the past six years the hope died, first for the people (if not the
bankers), and then for the creator of the infamous "Hope" poster himself, Shepard Fairey who told
Esquire magazine in an interview that Obama has not come even close to embodying the break
with the past administration that Fairey and so many voters hoped he would.
"I mean, drones and domestic spying are the last things I would have thought [he'd
support]."
But support them he did while crushing the much promised transparency and freedom for the masses,
for one simple reason: money, the same reason why Fairey is almost willing to give Obama a pass,
again. Money, and of course, power and control of the masses by the select few.
Still, the confused artist still isn't fully ready to throw away all his idealism just yet:
I've met Obama a few times, and I think Obama's a quality human being, but I think that
he finds himself in a position where your actions are largely dictated by things out of your
control.
A "quality human being" he may be, but when it comes to personal motives, money always wins. Just ask the Clinton Foundation. Even Fairey, who says he "agrees
with Hilary on most issues" finally grasps that now:
... campaign finance structure makes me very angry, because it means that politicians are
going to have to raise a huge amount of money, which narrows the field dramatically. There
are only certain kinds of people that either have the preexisting resources or the willingness
to work in way that will get them a lot of money from donors. That narrows the field right
there. Then there's the idea that the people who you are going to have to listen to are the
people that are going to give you the biggest donation. That means lobbyists, special interest
groups, and corporations are going to have politicians eager, disproportionally.
He adds: "I'm not giving him a pass for not being more courageous, but I do think the
entire system needs an overhaul and taking money out of politics would be a really good first
step."
A systemic overhaul by whom? The same politicians who are nothing but "whores" to corporate
lobby interests?
Or maybe the infamous artist should just blame the American public for agreeing to be swindled
and manipulated by one liar after another, all of whom promise change yet end up merely perpetuating
the broken, corrupt system they inherit from their predecessor and make it even worse.
Actually, that's precisely what Fairey did. This is what he told Esquire:
We also need a public that isn't so uneducated and complacent. I hate to say Americans
are ignorant and lazy, but a lot of them are ignorant and lazy.... When you live in
a place that has a lot of good things that make life easier, it's easier to take them for granted.
But what frustrates me to no end are people who want to blame Obama or blame anything that
is something that if they were actually doing anything as simple as voting, it might not be
as bad as it is. There's a lot of finger pointing and very little action and very little
research into the dynamics that created the situation that they're unhappy about.
Actually, about that he's quite accurate
However his message will be diluted and ignored, and the media will do is what it always does
when facing a threat to the status quo: crush the messenger.
And conveniently, Fairey made it very easy for them: after all, and quite amusingly,
his Hope poster itself was a fraud.
The artist was recently sentenced to two years of probation and fined $250,000 in 2012 for
destroying documents and concealing others in an attempt to hide that he had used an Associated
Press photograph as the basis for his "Hope" poster. And even more ironic, as
Gawker wrote in 2009, Fairey himself was "lawsuit happy to artists who ape or parody his stuff."
Unfortunately, in retrospect Fairey's story is one of "tidiest little package" summaries of
the banana republic status the US, and its leadership, has devolved to.
In the classic novel Don Quixote de la Mancha, the great Spanish writer Cervantes explored
the danger of mixing delusions of grandeur with adventurous combat. Yet, today instead of the man
of la Mancha, we have the neocons playing the men (and some women) of dementia, as ex-diplomat William
R. Polk describes.
It was over half a century ago that I first read Cervantes' marvelous novel,
Don Quixote de la Mancha. I was then studying at the University of Chile, trying to learn
Spanish, and Don Quixote was the first novel I remember reading. Or, to be honest, "reading
at" because my Spanish was still weak and the text is full of unfamiliar expressions. Also, I was
very young and did not know enough about the world to understand fully what Cervantes was saying.
But he had a remarkable gift of writing on different levels. His tale could be enjoyed as just
a good story or more profoundly. So, despite my shortcomings, he caught me in his magical web. A
few years later, somewhat better equipped, I dipped into Don Quixote again in a delightful
course on satire I was taking as an undergraduate at Harvard.
So now I have gone back. Or not quite back. Not quite, because I now can put both of those early
ventures into a new perspective from experiences I have had and observations I have made over the
last half century. I now realize that what Cervantes wrote about his own times could be applied to
ours.
Cervantes was writing about themes that recur often and are particularly apposite today. Indeed,
the auguries suggest that they may be virtually a prediction. His "Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote"
can be read as an amalgam of several of our own "knights errant," and his accounts of his hidalgo's
adventures foreshadowed some of the wilder forays into combat of our own warriors.
A terrifying thought at least to me is that the hints and themes we can read into his story may
be played out in the aftermath of the next election. So, laugh with Cervantes - or shudder with me
- over a few pages of his fable.
He begins by anchoring us in place, En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme
("in a place on the Plain whose name I don't wish to remember"). As I now transpose it to Washington
D.C., he might have written, "at little town in Foggy Bottom whose name I don't wish to remember."
Then he introduces the target of his satire, Don Quixote: no ha much tiempo que vivía un hidalgo
de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor ("not much time has
passed since there lived one of those gentlemen of the sort who keeps a lance hanging on the wall,
an ancient shield, a bony mare and a greyhound"),
At this point, one stops. Who in our times might fit such a description? Are there such eccentric
would-be warriors holed up in government offices, think tanks or war colleges with the symbols of
warfare and the hunt flaunted above their desks?
A memory pops into my mind: yes, I remember when it was quite fashionable to festoon the walls
of offices in the Executive Office Building, the old State and War Departments, of the White House,
with the modern equivalents of Quixote's lance. Battle-scarred weapons fashioned by the Vietcong
were particularly favored. Some of us even brought our hounds (but not our nags) into our offices.
But in those far-off days, knights errant were few even in Foggy Bottom. Now, they seem to have
multiplied beyond counting. So, could we single out anyone as our Don Quixote? Names of candidates
flow past my inner eye. Indeed, even Cervantes puzzled over the name of his hero. He offers several
alternatives.
We might do the same. The character we need to fit his story is an arm-chair warrior who is
carried away by his occult reading to the point that he is prepared to embark (or at least to send
others to embark) on great (and disastrous) adventures in faraway lands, and whose grip on reality
is, like Don Quixote's, to say the least, faulty.
We have a legion of candidates who fit that bill. So it is hard to pick a single name. Never mind.
As Cervantes wrote, the name "matters little for our account; it is enough that the narrative does
not depart a single point from the truth." (esto importa poco a nuestro cuento; basta que en
la narracíon dél no se salga un punto de la verdad.)
Being accurate or at least suggestive within reasonable bounds was very important for Cervantes
and is also important for us because the tale we - the combination of Cervantes classically and I
in modern terms - relate is hard to believe.
The Land of Neocons
As I say, many of our great statesmen come to mind, but the richest lode is to be found in the
neoconservative movement. Whoa! I pull on the reins of my imagination. Could Cervantes have imagined
a Dick Cheney? A Paul Wolfowitz? One of the Kristols? Surely such figures are to be seen only in
our times?
Well, no. Not at all. History provides quite a few ancestors for them. However, as the text of
the book makes clear, Cervantes' hidalgo was a complex character who not only read and fantasized
but actually himself also went out and fought. Doing both narrows the field rather drastically.
It is hard to find one of the great statesmen we read about, much less those we know in our times,
who both proclaimed policy and themselves went into harm's way. In the "leisure of the theory
class," as Veblen has been amended for our times, the armchair was found to be much more comfortable
than the helicopter bucket seat. So, Cervantes would have had to invent a combination of something
like Paul Wolfowitz and David Petraeus.
And, of course, he would have transposed Don Quixote's lance, shield, bony mare and greyhound.
They don't quite do in our day. So consider our modern Don Quixote trading them in for a fighter-bomber,
a Patriot missile system, an aircraft carrier and, although this may be stretching it even for Cervantes,
a drone in place of the greyhound.
Never mind. Don't quibble about the tools of the trade. Cervantes, himself, was less concerned
with the artifacts than with the mind of his hero. As he tells us, Don Quixote had read so many romantic
tales about the glorious adventures of knights errant that "the poor fellow lost his reason to such
an extent that not even Aristotle could have untangled the wild imaginations that he believed, were
he to be brought back to life just to do that job." (Con estes razones perdía el pobre caballero
el juicio y desvelábase por entendarlas y desestrañarles el sentido que no se sacara ni las entendiera
el mesmo Aristóteles, si resucitara para solo ella.)
To try to understand what all the writings were about and what they told him to do, Don Quixote
talked with the learned priest of his village. Just so, our modern Don Quixote, having imbibed and
partly understood the neoconservative bizarre view of human affairs, consulted with the High Priest
of neoconservatism, Leo Strauss, who held forth in his "village" as the President of the University
of Chicago once referred to its department of political science. But, as we shall see, Don Quixote
chose a rather better guide than did our policy makers.
Cervantes was not kind about the writings of such philosophers. He shows his poor hero dazzled
by the intricacies and blind alleys of the outpouring of his version of the great myth peddler. Cervantes
has his spinner of tales, a man known as Feliciano de Silva, leading his avid but disoriented devoté
into a maze with "clarity of the prose and intricacy of reasoning" exemplified by such marvels as
"the reason of unreason affects my reason to such a degree that my reason withers away…" (La
razón de la sinrazón que a mi rasón se hace, de tal maner, mi razón enflaquence…)
That is, put rather more prosaically, logic and facts cease to matter. It is the vision of romantic
action against demonic forces that give the necessary energy for wild endeavors. Thought becomes
a banner to signal the grand campaign. And, as Cervantes said, razón enflaquence…reason
withers away.
Finally, as Cervantes tells us, his Don Quixote became so immersed in such readings that he passed
the nights from dusk to dawn and the days from dawn to dusk "until finally the brain dried up and
he came to lose his mind. Having filled himself with the fantasies he had read in de Silva's writings,
imaginary happenings became actual for him [and] no other interpretation of the world was more real."
"As a result, having lost his mind, he hit on the strangest plan that had ever occurred to a crazy
person anywhere: it came to seem to him appropriate and necessary both to augment his own honor and
to serve his republic to make himself a knight errant and take himself around the world with his
weapons and on his mount to seek adventures and to put into practice all he had read… becoming a
knight errant, going about the world with his arms and mount, seeking adventures, righting every
manner of wrong and by putting himself in situations of great peril to make famous his name. The
poor fellow imagined himself crowned for his valor, at the very least, with the empire of Trebizond;
so with these agreeable thoughts in mind, he immediately set out to put into effect his plan."
But he faced an immediate obstacle: having decided to venture into the dangerous world, Don Quixote
realizes that he must be properly "entitled" - that is, he could not afford to be seen as an outlaw
or a war criminal but must be recognized as a person legally or at least officially entitled to engage
in combat to overthrow and to kill the wicked.
So he seeks someone to dub him a knight, which in contemporary terms would give him legitimacy.
Just so, the neoconservatives realized that it was not enough simply to proclaim their doctrine in
their journals even if that attracted to their cause real warriors who could put it into effect.
Rather they must be vested with authority. Even intellectuals, after all, need to be "knighted" if
they are to perform acts that when done unofficially or by ordinary citizens are crimes.
Seeking Authority
So, after an agonized delay in which he found no proper authority to knight him, Don Quixote comes
upon an inn whose keeper emerges to welcome him. To our would-be knight errant the inn is a castle
and the keeper is its lord just as our Don Quixote found his authority to be the lord of
the White House. Cervantes has his Don Quixote say – and we can be sure that our Wolfowitz-Petraeus
spoke similarly - these magic words,
"My adornments are my arms,
My leisure is to fight."
Then, before the proprietor of the house, Don Quixote falls on his knees, saying "I will never
raise myself from where I am, Illustrious Lord, until you have given me what I seek, that which will
spread your fame and do good to all humanity …. that I may go forth equipped with the necessary credentials
as an armed knight such as never before was to be found in the world."
One can only imagine how the modern bond was forged. However it was done, we know that our modern
hero-to-be was welcomed into the "House" by its Great Lord who proceeded to anoint him with the signs
of high office. Neither would have been put off by the earlier hero's expectations:
"Who could doubt that in the coming times, when my glorious deeds emerge in the light of true
history … my brave deeds will deserve to be cast in bronze, carved in marble and painted on canvasses
to be seen for all time. Ah you! Wise enchanter of the future! Whoever you may be. To you will fall
the honor of chronicling my great crusade!"
He also admonished the future historian not to forget his warhorse.
And so, in our marvelous age of instant history, it happened as predicted - or requested. It was
not long before that very chronicle appeared. Written not about Don Quixote, of course, but about
his modern and only partial successor, Paul Wolfowitz, under the title Visionary Intellectual,
Policymaker and Strategist. The author was so fulsome that he certainly did not forget the "warhorse,"
the great weapons of war.
Back to the Inn/Castle/White House, the keeper/lord/president mentions that although he had not
read - he was not noted for his reading– the marvelous accounts that had so affected both the old
and the new Don Quixotes, while still a young man he too had wandered the world, seeking adventures.
In place of Seville, Malaga, Cordoba and Toledo, in the earlier account, read New Haven, Cambridge,
Austin and Dallas - and, after a number of shady enterprises, as we are told by Cervantes earlier
and by the media in our times, they both had entered their "houses."Castle lords or not, they both
were empowered to dub anyone a knight "or at least as much a knight as anyone in the world was."
(y tan caballero, que no pudeiese más en el mundo.)
So empowered, Don Quixote sets out on his first venture, rushing to "regime change" a tyranny.
It happened like this:
As Don Quixote was riding along, he heard moans coming from a forest he was passing. Looking for
a cause for which to fight, he exclaimed "I give thanks to Heaven for giving me so soon a means to
carry out my calling." With that, he rode into the forest where he saw a "stout rustic" lashing a
poor boy. Don Quixote exploded in anger and, thinking that the rustic was a knight, challenged him
to a fight. The peasant tried to excuse himself by saying that the boy had been stealing from him
and was not protecting his sheep. And "he says I am a miser who does not want to pay him what I owe
him."
Furious, our hero threatens the tyrant with his lance and orders him to pay the boy at once or
"if not, by The God, I will make an end to you." (Pagadle luego sín más réplica; si no, por el
Dios que nos rige que os concluya y aniquile en este punto. Desatadlo luego.)
So it happened also that when our modern heroes rode through the deserts of the Middle East, they
saw a robust fellow (Iraq) mistreating a little fellow (Kuwait). When our heroes accosted him, the
big fellow said that the little fellow was stealing his oil and not helping him protect his flock
(the Arab nations) from the advancing Iranians. So Iraq, who had no money "with him" as Cervantes
says of the lout Don Quixote encountered, said he could not pay Kuwait what it owed it.
In Cervantes' tale: the bully said he would take the little boy under his control and promised
eventually to pay him the money. The boy was terrified and said that he would never trust the bully.
But Don Quixote brushed his worries aside and said that he had given orders, which the peasant would
obey. The boy need not worry; all would be well. And, if the peasant did not pay, he, Don Quixote
would return and punish him.
Waiting until the valiant knight was out of sight, the peasant then tied the boy again to the
tree and lashed him nearly to death.
So what happened in the story as it unfolded in our times? Our replacement of the peasant, the
dictator of Iraq, consulted with the American ambassador who told him that we really took no position
on what happened to the boy, Kuwait. The Americans apparently meant that the Saddam Hussein should
be allowed a little "beating" of Kuwait, but not too much.
Saddam took that to give him permission, a "green light," as America had flashed to another dictator
in far-off Indonesia. So he grabbed Kuwait. The Americans were surprised by the ferocity of the attack
because they thought he would not take all of the country. That is, not beat the "boy" nearly
to death, as Cervantes's rustic set about doing.
"And in this manner," wrote Cervantes, "the valorous Don Quixote righted the wrong, being very
happy that everything turned out so well according to the high ideals of knighthood."
Wisely, Cervantes had his hero ride happily away. It was not so, as we know, in the modern version.
Infuriated that Saddam went too far, the Americans returned to punish him. Then, having announced
that they had imposed the high ideals of democracy, literally at the point of the lance, our modern
heroes stayed on at the house of the cruel peasant, tore it apart and killed many of his family –
and are still there.
As Cervantes makes clear and as we know from experience not only in Iraq but in a string of other
countries, the intervention of the great warrior resulted in the total breakdown of social institutions,
security, justice and protection of the weak.
Cervantes could not have imagined how many times and in how many places his parable would be reenacted!
But already, he realized that "regime change" gives birth to chaos and misery.
When Don Quixote finally got back to his own house, having been severely beaten in another encounter
on the way, his friends decided that it would be an act of mercy to demolish the fantasies that had
driven him mad and had nearly gotten him killed.
The great man's housekeeper thought that all that was necessary was to sprinkle Holy Water on
the books in his library, but his friends thought that the ridiculous doctrine could be erased only
by sterner action. They were too late. He was already infected by the ideas he had imbibed.
I leave it to the reader to draw the modern parallel. Is it too late for us and our valiant leaders
to realize how pernicious are the delusions they have imbed, how many lives they have cost, how much
treasure they have wasted? We cannot be sure, but the trends are against us.
Suffice it to say that the neoconservatives are again plugging their dangerous policies and myopic
views of cultures and societies and urging more mummery despite the record of their past malpractice.
Behind the buzzwords of counterinsurgency and "nation building," they caused and then justified not
only the great harm done to those who stood in their way but also violations of those principles
that have guided our democracy.
Cervantes catches this violation neatly. Since one of the books Don Quixote had been reading was
called The Knight of the Cross, Cervantes has the village priest remark that "behind the
cross stands the devil." (mas también se suele decir, "tras la cruz está el diablo.)
Or, as we might transpose it to modern terms, behind the philosophical musings of Leo Strauss lurk
the violent warmongering of the neoconservatives and the justifications for the rise of the "security
state."
These collections were both pernicious, but undoubtedly the results of the impact of Strauss were
far worse. They were directly harmful to our liberty and well-being.
Sancho Panza
It is here where Cervantes introduces Sancho Panza whom some readers find to be an even more complex
character than the great knight himself. Often a man of good sense, sometimes even noble and generous,
he was also greedy and inconsistent. He was fair game for Don Quixote, and our wild warrior quickly
brought Sancho into his court. Who was he?
As Cervantes describes him, he was "a working man, living nearby, a good man (if such a title
could be given to a poor man) but not very bright; so after inveigling him with (soothing) words
and (lavish) promises, he got the poor hick to agree to go with him and serve him as his squire.
Among other things Don Quixote argued was that he ought to be willing to go along because, if
their venture succeeded, they would win some island of which he would become governor. With these
promises and others, Sancho Panza, although himself a simple working man, gave up his fields, left
his wife and children and signed on as squire."
It is hard to avoid reading Barack Obama into the character of Sancho. Having listened to
the brave words of the neoconservatives, Obama and many members of Jefferson's, Jackson's and Roosevelt's
Party of "the common man," the Democrats, readily gave up their customary fields of concern, the
well-being of their families and fellow citizens, said goodbye to their long-time partners and rushed
off as followers of the new doctrine in pursuit some distant "island" where they could win both laurels
and emoluments.
As they rode along together, Sancho (here the opportunistic Democrat) assured Don Quixote (here
the Obama convert to Bush's policies) that "if you give me that island you promised, I will rule
it, no matter how big it is."
But, as I have said, Sancho was a complex figure and another part of his personality – his innate
common sense – comes out in the most famous of the great knight's misadventures, the attack on the
windmills.
As Cervantes tells the story, the great knight suddenly sighted some windmills and turning to
his newly commissioned acolyte said, "luck has brought us even more than we could have desired; for
there you see, Friend Sancho Panza, revealed before you 30 or a few more vicious giants with whom
I think to do battle, deprive them of their lives [and] with whose spoils we will begin to enrich
ourselves for this is a just war and is a great service to God to drive such vile species from the
Earth."
An astonished Sancho, blurted out, "What giants?"
"Those you see before you," replied Don Quixote. "those with the long arms…"
"Look, Your Excellency," Sancho replied, what you see there are not giants, only windmills and
what seems to be long arms are just wings to catch the wind and make the millstone turn."
"It is clear," continued Don Quixote, that you do not understand such matters. Those are giants.
And if you are fainthearted, stand aside and say your prayers while I engage them in fierce and unequal
battle." With that the valiant knight spurred his horse into battle. [I have condensed the beginning
section of Chapter 8.]
We all have heard the story of what happened next: the windmill's wings caught the knight's lance,
pulled him and his horse into the air and smashed them onto the ground. And, as Cervantes tells us,
he was particularly grieved over the breaking of his lance.
To convert Cervantes to our times, imagine, I ask you, that the windmill was the little perceived,
simple and otherwise engaged country of Afghanistan. Without much thought of the danger or the cost
and no perceived consideration of alternative actions, we charged in and like him were caught in
the whirling melee of its fiercely independent people.
Don Quixote was, of course, mad, but his action was unprecedented; we, in contrast, whether mad
or not, had ample warnings from the experiences of the British and the Russians. Both the British
and the Russians had lost their armies and their "lances" jousting there. Our Don Quixote, now multiplied
by tens of thousands, paid a heavy price both for knowing no history and for having believed the
wild dogmas of the neoconservatives.
Could this painful venture - and all our other escapades in Vietnam, Somalia, Libya (and now perhaps
Syria and even Ukraine) have been avoided? An attempt to answer that question takes us back to Sancho
Panza. Sancho was a realist and tried to dissuade the knight errant from some of his dementia, but
he - like modern Democrats - also sought to profit from the dementia. Recognizing Sancho's venality,
Don Quixote promised him a kingdom if he obeyed.
In our times, the "kingdom" is not a faraway and imaginary island but victory at the polls, promotions
and even the forges of "lances." These rewards come about more easily and quicker from sound and
fury than from careful and constructive action.
Cervantes got it right. Don Quixote's flights of madness are addictive. Eventually, even Sa
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