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Jul 25, 2019 | www.unz.com
They're going to do it, I tell you: The whole touchy-feely do-gooding ratpack of Microaggression worriers, reparations freaks, weird sexual curiosities, race hustlers, bat.-Antifa psychos, and egalitarian enstupidators of universities. They are going to elect Trump. Again.
Washington, where I shortly will be for a bit, is crazy. It has not the slightest, wan, etiolated idea of what is going on in America. The Democrats are fielding as candidates a roster of middle-school clowns and unflavored tapioca. Are they secretly in Trump's pay? Like Clinton with her "Deplorables" suicide line?
Probably the Russians are behind it.
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Jul 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
2016 a Russia-Trump campaign collusion conspiracy was afoot and unfolding right before our eyes, we were told, as during his roll-out foreign policy speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., then candidate Trump said [ gasp! ]:
NPR and others had breathlessly reported at the time, "Sergey Kislyak, then the Russian ambassador to the U.S., was sitting in the front row" [ more gasps! ]." Common sense says this cycle, this horrible cycle of hostility must end and ideally will end soon. Good for both countries. Some say the Russians won't be reasonable. I intend to find out."
This 'suspicious' "coincidence or something more?" event and of course the infamous Steele 'Dodgy Dossier' were followed by over two more years of the following connect-the-dots mere tiny sampling of unrestrained theorizing and avalanche of accusations...
Here's a very brief trip down memory lane:
2017, Politico: The Hidden History of Trump's First Trip to Moscow
2017, NYT: Trump's Russia Motives (where we were told: "President Trump certainly seems to have a strange case of Russophilia.")
2017, Business Insider: James Clapper: Putin is handling Trump like a Russian 'asset'
2017, USA Today: Donald Trump's ties to Russia go back 30 years
2018, NYT: Trump, Treasonous Traitor
2018, AP: Russia had 'Trump over a barrel'
2018, BBC: Russia: The 'cloud' over the Trump White House
2018, NYT: From the Start, Trump Has Muddied a Clear Message: Putin Interfered
2018, USA Today: " From Putin with love"
2019, WaPo: Here are 18 reasons Trump could be a Russian asset
2019, Vanity Fair: "The President Has Been Acting On Russia's Behalf": U.S. Officials Are Shocked By Trump's Asset-Like Behavior
2019, Wired: Trump Must Be A Russian Agent... (where we were told...ahem: " It would be rather embarrassing ... if Robert Mueller were to declare that the president isn't an agent of Russian intelligence." )
Embarrassing indeed.
"The walls are closing in!" - we were assured just about every 24 hours .
It's especially worth noting that a July 2018 New York Times op-ed argued that President Trump -- dubbed a "treasonous traitor" for meeting with Putin in Helsinki -- should "be directing all resources at his disposal to punish Russia."
Fast-forward to a July 2019 NY Times Editorial Board piece entitled "What's America's Winning Hand if Russia Plays the China Card?" How dizzying fast all of the above has been wiped from America's collective memory! Or at least the Times is engaged in hastily pushing it all down the memory hole Orwell-style in order to cover its own dastardly tracks which contributed in no small measure to non-stop national Russiagate hype and hysteria, with this astounding line:
President Trump is correct to try to establish a sounder relationship with Russia... -- Editorial Board, New York Times, 7-22-19
That's right, The Times' pundits have already pivoted to the new bogeyman while stating they agree with Trump on Russian relations :
"Given its economic, military and technological trajectory, together with its authoritarian model, China, not Russia , represents by far the greater challenge to American objectives over the long term . That means President Trump is correct to try to establish a sounder relationship with Russia and peel it away from China ."
[... Mueller who? ]
Remember how recently we were told PUTIN IS WEAPONIZING EVERYTHING! from space to deep-sea exploration to extreme climate temperatures to humor to racial tensions to even 'weaponized whales' ?
It's 2019, and we've now come full circle . This is The New York Times editorial board continuing their call for Trump to establish "sounder" ties and "cooperation" with Russia :
"Even during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union often made progress in one facet of their relationship while they remained in conflict over other aspects. The United States and Russia could expand their cooperation in space . They could also continue to work closely in the Arctic And they could revive cooperation on arms control."
Could we imagine if a mere six months ago Trump himself had uttered these same words? Now the mainstream media apparently agrees that peace is better than war with Russia.
With 'Russiagate' now effectively dead, the NY Times' new criticism appears to be that Trump-Kremlin relations are not close enough , as Trump's "approach has been ham-handed " - the 'paper of record' now tells us.
Or imagine if Trump had called for peaceful existence with Russia almost four years ago? Oh wait...
" Common sense says this cycle, this horrible cycle of hostility must end and ideally will end soon. Good for both countries." -- Then candidate Trump on April 27, 2016
Cue ultra scary red Trump-Kremlin montage.
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Jun 20, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org
A way to capture this change was thinking in terms of the traditional task of journalists to interview or consult a variety of sources to determine was is truth or true. The shift gradually became one of now interviewing or consulting various sources and reporting those opinions.
Old-school journalism was like being assigned the task of finding out what "1+1 =?" and the task was to report the answer was "1."
Now the task would be to report that "Some say it is 1, some say it is 2, some say it is 3."
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Jun 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
freedommusic , 23 minutes ago link
hooligan2009 , 14 minutes ago linkDEFENSE ATTORNEY: Agent Smith, you testified that the Russians hacked the DNC computers, is that correct?
FBI AGENT JOHN SMITH: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Upon what information did you base your testimony?
AGENT: Information found in reports analyzing the breach of the computers.
DEF ATT: So, the FBI prepared these reports?
AGENT: (cough) . (shift in seat) No, a cyber security contractor with the FBI.
DEF ATT: Pardon me, why would a contractor be preparing these reports? Do these contractors run the FBI laboratories where the server was examined?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: No? No what? These contractors don't run the FBI Laboratories?
AGENT: No. The laboratories are staffed by FBI personnel.
DEF ATT: Well I don't understand. Why would contractors be writing reports about computers that are forensically examined in FBI laboratories?
AGENT: Well, the servers were not examined in the FBI laboratory.
(silence)
DEF ATT: Oh, so the FBI examined the servers on site to determine who had hacked them and what was taken?
AGENT: Uh .. no.
DEF ATT: They didn't examine them on site?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Well, where did they examine them?
AGENT: Well, uh .. the FBI did not examine them.
DEF ATT: What?
AGENT: The FBI did not directly examine the servers.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, the FBI has presented to the Grand Jury and to this court and SWORN AS FACT that the Russians hacked the DNC computers. You are basing your SWORN testimony on a report given to you by a contractor, while the FBI has NEVER actually examined the computer hardware?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, who prepared the analysis reports that the FBI relied on to give this sworn testimony?
AGENT: Crowdstrike, Inc.
DEF ATT: So, which Crowdstrike employee gave you the report?
AGENT: We didn't receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: What?
AGENT: We did not receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: Well, where did you find this report?
AGENT: It was given to us by the people who hired Crowdstrike to examine and secure their computer network and hardware.
DEF ATT: Oh, so the report was given to you by the technical employees for the company that hired Crowdstrike to examine their servers?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Well, who gave you the report?
AGENT: Legal counsel for the company that hired Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: Why would legal counsel be the ones giving you the report?
AGENT: I don't know.
DEF ATT: Well, what company hired Crowdstrike?
AGENT: The Democratic National Committee.
DEF ATT: Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You are giving SWORN testimony to this court that Russia hacked the servers of the Democratic National Committee. And you are basing that testimony on a report given to you by the LAWYERS for the Democratic National Committee. And you, the FBI, never actually saw or examined the computer servers?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Well, can you provide a copy of the technical report produced by Crowdstrike for the Democratic National Committee?
AGENT: No, I cannot.
DEF ATT: Well, can you go back to your office and get a copy of the report?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why? Are you locked out of your office?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: I don't understand. Why can you not provide a copy of this report?
AGENT: Because I do not have a copy of the report.
DEF ATT: Did you lose it?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why do you not have a copy of the report?
AGENT: Because we were never given a final copy of the report.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, if you didn't get a copy of the report, upon what information are you basing your testimony?
AGENT: On a draft copy of the report.
DEF ATT: A draft copy?
AGENT: Yes.
DEF ATT: Was a final report ever delivered to the FBI?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, did you get to read the entire report?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why not?
AGENT: Because large portions were redacted.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, let me get this straight. The FBI is claiming that the Russians hacked the DNC servers. But the FBI never actually saw the computer hardware, nor examined it? Is that correct?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: And the FBI never actually examined the log files or computer email or any aspect of the data from the servers? Is that correct?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: And you are basing your testimony on the word of Counsel for the Democratic National Committee, the people who provided you with a REDACTED copy of a DRAFT report, not on the actual technical personnel who supposedly examined the servers?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Your honor, I have a few motions I would like to make at this time.
PRESIDING JUDGE: I'm sure you do, Counselor. (as he turns toward the prosecutors) And I feel like I am in a mood to grant them.
( source )
Brilliant! that sums it up nicely. of course, if the servers were not hacked and were instead "thumbnailed" that leads to a whole pile of other questions (including asking wiileaks for their source and about the murder of seth rich).
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Dec 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
librul , Dec 29 2019 22:21 utc | 28
@Posted by: sleepy | Dec 29 2019 17:38 utc | 8Thanks sleeply,
But underlying your comment is an assumption of *logic* in this world. If it ever existed it certainly does not apply any longer. Look how much mileage the MSM and the anti-Democracy Party got out of the nothingburger Russiagate.
The MSM doesn't even need to smell real blood, they will run with anything to continue the coup.
Anything negative that involves Edward Gallagher between now and election day could be magnified 1 million-fold and
repeated 1000 million times by the MSM and dropped in Trump's lap.If the CIA/MI6/FBI did attempt to create a sting it need not be as dramatic as the Skripal fakery. What would you dream up if you were tasked by the CIA to propose something? KISS.
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Dec 26, 2019 | astutenews.com
Europe is willing to defy the U.S. on Nordstream to the point of forcing the U.S. to openly and nakedly destroy its reputation with European contractors and governments to stop one pipeline in a place where multiple gas pipelines will be needed for future growth.
This is the diplomatic equivalent of the nuclear option. And the neocons in the Senate just pushed the button. Europe understands what this is really about, the U.S. retaining its imperial position as the policy setter for all the world. If it can set energy policy for Europe then it can set everything else.
And it's clear that the leadership in Europe is done with that status quo. The Trump administration from the beginning has used NATO as an excuse to mask its real intentions towards Europe, which is continued domination of its policies. Trump complains that the U.S. pays into NATO to protect Europe from Russia but then Europe buys its energy from Russia. That's unfair, Donald complains, like a little bitch, frankly, even though he right on the surface. But if the recent NATO summit is any indication, Europe is no longer interested in NATO performing that function. French President Emmanuel Macron wants NATO re-purposed to fight global terror, a terrible idea. NATO should just be ended.
But you'll notice how Trump doesn't talk about that anymore. He wants more billions pumped into NATO while the U.S. still sets its policies. This is not a boondoggle for the MIC as much as it's a Sword of Damocles to hold over Europe's head. The U.S.'s involvement in should be ended immediately, the troops brought home and the billions of dollars spent here as opposed to occupying most of Europe to point missiles at a Russia wholly uninterested in imperial ambitions no less harboring any of them.
And Trump also knows this but thinks stopping Nordstream 2 is the price Europe has to pay him for this privilege. It's insane. The time has come for Europe to act independently from the U.S. As much as I despise the EU, to untangle it from the U.S. on energy policy is the means by which for it to then deal with its problems internally. It can't do that while the U.S. is threatening it. Circling the wagons against the immediate threat, as it were.
And that means protecting its companies and citizens from the economic depredations of power-mad neoconservatives in the U.S. Senate like Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham.
Allseas, the Swiss company laying the pipe for Nordstream 2, has halted construction for now , awaiting instructions from the U.S. Gazprom will likely step in to finish the job and Germany will green light any of the necessary permits to get the pipeline done. Those people will be put out of work just in time for Christmas, turning thousands of people against the U.S. Commerce drives people together, politics drives them apart.
But, at the same time, the urgency to finish Nordstream 2 on time is wholly irrelevant now because Ukraine and Russia came to terms on a new five-year gas transit contract. This ensures Gazprom can meet its contractual deliveries to Europe that no one thought could be done on time. But when the Nazi threat to Zelensky meeting with Merkel, Macron and Putin in Paris failed to materialize, a gas deal was on the horizon.
And, guess what? U.S. LNG will still not have the marginal lever over Europe's energy policy because of that. Putin and Zelensky outmaneuvered Cruz, Graham and Trump on this. Because that's what this boils down to. By keeping Russian gas out of Europe, it was supposed to constrain not only Russia's growth but also Europe's. Because then the U.S. government can control who and how much energy can make it into European markets at critical junctures politically.
That was the Bolton Doctrine to National Security. And that doctrine brought nothing but misery to millions.
And if you look back over the past five years of U.S./EU relations you will see this gambit clearly for what it was, a way to continue European vassalage at the hands of the U.S. by forcing market share of U.S. providers into European markets.
Again, it gets back to Trump's ideas about Emergy Dominance and becoming the supplier of the marginal erg of energy to important economies around the world.
The smart play for the EU now that the gas transit deal is in place is to threaten counter-sanctions against the U.S. and bar all LNG shipments into Europe. Gas prices are at historic lows, gas supplies are overflowing thanks to fears of a deal not being in place.
So, a three to six month embargo of U.S. LNG into Europe to bleed off excess supply while Nordstream 2 is completed would be the right play politically.
But, in reality, they won't need to, because the U.S. won't be able to import much into Europe under current prices and market conditions. And once Nordstream 2 is complete, LNG sales to Europe should crater.
In the end, I guess it's too bad for Ted Cruz that economics and basic human ingenuity are more powerful than legislatures. Because Nordstream 2 will be completed. Turkstream's other trains into Europe will be built. Venezuela will continue rebuilding its energy sector with Russian and Chinese help.
There is no place for U.S. LNG in Europe outside of the Poles literally burning money virtue signaling their Russophobia. Nordstream 2 was a response to the revolt in Ukraine, to replace any potential losses in market share to Europe. Now Russia will have what it had before passing through Ukraine along with Nordstream 2. By 2024 there will be at least two trains from Turkstream coming into Europe.
Iran will keep expanding exports, settling its oil and gas trade through Russian banks. And the U.S. will continue to fulminate and make itself even more irrelevant over time. What men like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump refuse to understand is that when you go nuclear you can't ever go back. If you threaten the nuclear option, there's no fall back position.
And when those that you threaten with annihilation survive they are made all the stronger for passing through the eye of the needle. Looking at Gazprom's balance sheet right now, that's my take.
By Tom Luongo. Source: Gold Goats 'n Guns
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Dec 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Kali , Dec 29 2019 19:01 utc | 13
New article about Tulsi Gabbard being viciously attacked over religion during Christmas.Angry Bernie Sanders supporters whom I guess forgot to take their meds over the holidaze are viciously attacking Tulsi because of Jesus? LOL. This new article is specifically about Mike Figueroa from The Humanist Report, a semi-popular vlogger, and also a fanatic atheist type.
He used to be a Tulsi supporter, but since he is connected to the TYT network which is funded by Hollywood Billionaire and major DNC Clinton funder Katzenberg, he must have recently been told to toe the party line on smearing Tulsi if he wanted to reap the funding benefits of TYT who are hardcore Tulsi haters, following the DNC line.
I guess Tulsi showing the Christmas spirit gave him a reason to look hardcore to his fellow fanatics and appease TYT money folks. Anyways, here is the new article Like, In The Year 2024
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Dec 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
librul , Dec 29 2019 22:21 utc | 28
@Posted by: sleepy | Dec 29 2019 17:38 utc | 8Thanks sleeply,
But underlying your comment is an assumption of *logic* in this world. If it ever existed it certainly does not
apply any longer. Look how much mileage the MSM and the anti-Democracy Party got out of the nothingburger Russiagate.
The MSM doesn't even need to smell real blood, they will run with anything to continue the coup.Anything negative that involves Edward Gallagher between now and election day could be magnified 1 million-fold and
repeated 1000 million times by the MSM and dropped in Trump's lap.If the CIA/MI6/FBI did attempt to create a sting it need not be as dramatic as the Skripal fakery. What would you dream up if you were tasked by the CIA to propose something? KISS.
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Dec 30, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com
1 day ago Maddow is really a propagandist. She really isn't a journalist. Because her credibility and ratings have gone south because so many of the big stories she has been obliged to push have been fake from the get-go. People start to notice that after a while. You can't fool all of the people all of the time as Abe observed. 1 day ago It has been determined to have been a fabrication. It is not just controversial. Maddow may be spot on in fooling her drooling sycophants, but facts seldom ever interfere with her fairy tales and TDS motivated delusions.
10 hours ago Rational Agent:
The CIA told the FBI that the material in the Steele dossier is merely Internet gossip and bar room talk. This is in the inspector general's report (issued Dec 9) and public testimony under oath before Congress (Dec 11).There were several agents in the FBI who were disturbed about the unverified nature of this material, and they were overruled by other agents and their supervisors and this material was then presented to the FISA court four times in the knowledge that it was unverified but the court was told it was verified. That is also in the inspector general's Report and public testimony.
The result of this misconduct was that the head judge of the FISA court Rosemary Collyer, issued on Dec 16 an unprecedented and angry public rebuke of the FBI for repeatedly deceiving the court about the veracity of the Steele dossier.
Enough for you? 1 day ago With apologies to Bob Dylan:
"A man (or woman) sees what he (she) wants to see and disregards the rest."
If you're tuned into cable 'news' at 9 p.m. eastern time looking for objective journalism, well, good luck with that. Cuomo is probably the best bet; he offers a little bit.
Not withstanding that, your point is well made. Not much in the way of great thought on the telly at that time on any station.
1 day ago Independents view Rachael Maddow, Chris Cuomo and Sean Hannity as hate peddlers who spin, lie and twist every single issue to fit their fantasy of how the world exists. I cannot imagine how anyone with a brain or any semblance of logic could be a regular viewer of these hate mongers. If one does a cursory analysis of the predictions these people have made over the past couple of years, you will quickly see how ridiculous and wrong they have been. The bigger problem is that they represent their news organizations and only add to the distrust and declining reliance that rational folks have of the Media.
2 days ago [she is] Just another CIA mouthpiece.
Maddows is furiously back pedalling, not standing by what she said. This speaks volumes.
Maddows is evil.
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Dec 30, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com
The Horowitz team didn't attempt an independent fact-check of the dossier, opting instead to report what the FBI had concluded about the document. Unflattering revelations pop up at every turn in the 400-page-plus report. It reveals that the CIA considered it a hodgepodge of "internet rumor"; that the FBI considered one of its central allegations -- that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen had traveled to Prague for a collusive meeting with Russians -- "not true"; that Steele's sources weren't quite a crack international spy team. After the 2016 election, for instance, Steele directed his primary source to seek corroboration of the claims. "According to [an FBI official], during an interview in May 2017, the Primary Sub-source said the corroboration was 'zero,'" reads the report.
The ubiquity of Horowitz's debunking passages suggests that he wanted the public to come away with the impression that the dossier was a flabby, hasty, precipitous, conclusory charade of a document.
... ... ...
The case for Maddow is that her dossier coverage stemmed from public documents, congressional proceedings and published reports from outlets with solid investigative histories. She included warnings about the unverified assertions and didn't use the dossier as a source for wild claims. There is something fishy, furthermore, about that Mueller footnote regarding the "tapes." In their recent book on the dossier, " Crime in Progress ," the Fusion GPS co-founders wrote that Steele believes the document is 70-percent accurate.
The case against Maddow is far stronger. When small bits of news arose in favor of the dossier, the franchise MSNBC host pumped air into them. At least some of her many fans surely came away from her broadcasts thinking the dossier was a serious piece of investigative research, not the flimflam, quick-twitch game of telephone outlined in the Horowitz report. She seemed to be rooting for the document. Rachel Maddow rooted for the Steele dossier to be true. Then it fell apart. - The Washington Post
And when large bits of news arose against the dossier, Maddow found other topics more compelling.
She was there for the bunkings, absent for the debunkings -- a pattern of misleading and dishonest asymmetry.
In an October edition of the podcast "Skullduggery," Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News pressed Maddow on her show's approach to Russia. Here's a key exchange:
Isikoff: Do you accept that there are times that you overstated what the evidence was and you made claims and suggestions that Trump was totally in Vladimir Putin's pocket and they had something on him and that he was perhaps a Russian asset and we can't really conclude that?
Maddow: What have I claimed that's been disproven?
Isikoff: Well, you've given a lot of credence to the Steele dossier.
Maddow: I have?
Isikoff: Well, you've talked about it quite a bit, I mean, you've suggested it.
Maddow: I feel like you're arguing about impressions of me, rather than actually basing this on something you've seen or heard me do.
After some back and forth about particulars of the Mueller report and the dossier with Isikoff, Maddow ripped: "You're trying to litigate the Steele dossier through me as if I am the embodiment of the Steele dossier, which I think is creepy, and I think it's unwarranted. And it's not like I've been making the case for the accuracy of the Steele dossier and that's been the basis of my Russia reporting. That's just not true."
Asked to comment on how she approached the dossier, Maddow declined to provide an on-the-record response to the Erik Wemple Blog. Rachel Maddow rooted for the Steele dossier to be true. Then it fell apart. - The Washington Post
Read more from Erik Wemple:
Part 2: Horowitz report confirms John Solomon's scoop on FBI 'spreadsheet' regarding Steele dossier
Part 3: 'Disinformation' claim 'galls' dossier author Christopher Steele
Part 4: CNN lands an interview with its own contributor
Part 6: A much-cited defense of the Steele dossier has a problem
An untouchable Rachel Maddow busts her bosses at NBC News
Rachel Maddow: 'I don't necessarily want to hear from the White House on almost anything' 2 hours ago She's the left's version of Hannity or Tucker. This is not a good thing to be.
Another plain truth: the Mueller Report was a stunning blow to the Democratic Party establishment and the media and a victory for Trump, the extent of which is still to be determined, no matter how you try to spin it. Democrats and their media allies were willing to take at face value and without further evidence the pronouncements of people like John Brennan and other national security figures who had lengthy, documented histories of lying to the American people and the press. Skepticism went out the window because the spooks were telling the Democrats and the media what they wanted to hear. Rachel Maddow and MSNBC are the Judy Millers of this story, and the rest of the media just ran with it.
The ramifications of that miscalculation are still playing out. Senate conviction of Trump on ANY basis is now dead letter for the remainder of this election cycle because the Democrats' credibility and motives have been blown sky-high -- no small feat given Trump's historic levels of mendacity! It is why the public isn't getting behind the current effort even though Trump has literally been caught red-handed. But the Democratic establishment was just SO eager to blame it all on Russia, so they could exonerate themselves for their horrible strategies and worse policies that led to the 2016 debacle and fend off challenges from the progressives! What have they accomplished instead? Handing Trump a second term.
7 hours ago Rachel Maddow has "Hillary Clinton 2016" branded on her ace. She is totally owned by the corporate liberal establishment.
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Dec 30, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com
14 hours ago If this version of events is true then the Steele dossier was one of the most successful Russian intelligence operations since 1917 or anyway 1991. It up-ended the American government for three full years, and is still having a deleterious impact even after being proven false. And deliciously, it was all paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC!
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Dec 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
reported that TV network OAN had filed a lawsuit against Rachel Maddow for the time the host said that OAN "really, literally is paid Russian propaganda."Now, Maddow finds herself having to come up with a defense for her statement in court. And she has also apparently hired Lionel Hutz as her legal adviser.
According to Culttture , her lawyers argued in a recent motion that " the liberal host was clearly offering up her 'own unique expression' of her views to capture what she saw as the 'ridiculous' nature of the undisputed facts. Her comment, therefore, is a quintessential statement 'of rhetorical hyperbole, incapable of being proved true or false."
Oh, it's capable of being proved false, alright. Maddow had previously claimed, on air, about one of OAN's reporters:
"In this case, the most obsequiously pro-Trump right wing news outlet in America is really literally is paid Russian propaganda," and added, "Their on-air politics reporter ( Kristian Rouz) is paid by the Russian government to produce propaganda for that government."
The testimony of UC Santa Barbara linguistics professor Stefan Thomas Gries, however, stands at odds with Maddow's defense. Gries said: "It is very unlikely that an average or reasonable/ordinary viewer would consider the sentence in question to be a statement of opinion."
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Dec 29, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
" Rachel Maddow rooted for the Steele dossier to be true. Then it fell apart ":
She was there for the bunkings, absent for the debunkings -- a pattern of misleading and dishonest asymmetry.
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Dec 29, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Despite fond youthful memories of Bill Clinton/Kenneth Starr/Monica Lewinsky jokes on late-night television, my interest in the current impeachment saga can pretty much be summed up as follows: "Get back to me when they launch an impeachment inquiry over Yemen ." Watching the House vote along party lines to impeach President Donald Trump while barely stifling a yawn over the Afghanistan Papers does little to alter my skepticism about this constitutional crisis built for cable news.
Progressive commentator Michael Tracey offered this apt summary of Washington's bizarre priorities: "This last week teaches us that temporarily freezing and then unfreezing future military aid to one of our many far-flung client states is [a] huge national emergency but the government systematically lying about every aspect of the longest war in U.S. history is a forgettable non-issue."
Nobody will be impeached for lying about Afghanistan. There will be no intelligence community whistleblower setting in motion an impeachment inquiry over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In fact, the same Nancy Pelosi who ultimately caved to the Resistance shut down antiwar Democrats who wanted such hearings into George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. But here John Bolton, an advocate of preventive presidential war during this very administration, may finally get his wish of being greeted as a liberator .
Even as Representative Adam Schiff led the drive to impeach Trump, the California Democrat voted for a defense bill that lavishes the executive branch with money without restraining presidential war powers. But this seeming inconsistency is practically the point -- the entire impeachment inquiry was wrapped in hawkish assumptions and rhetoric as liberal Democrats unthinkingly stumbled into a Cold War 2.0 mindset that few of them this side of Hillary Clinton would have willingly embraced absent frequently overhyped Trump-Russia headlines dating back to the 2016 campaign.
No, Trump isn't Jesus Christ being handed over by Pontius Pilate. His phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wasn't " perfect " and neither side of this partisan morality tale has exactly covered itself in glory. Rudy Giuliani's escapades seem particularly likely to end badly. One need not even necessarily defend Trump's conduct to oppose an impeachment inquiry largely predicated on threat inflation. Arm Ukraine, Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan testified, so they can "fight the Russians there and we don't have to fight them here." She could have been starring in a Democratic reboot of Red Dawn decades after the Soviet Union disintegrated.
There's no question Trump to some extent dangled a White House visit and congressionally authorized aid to Ukraine before Kyiv in pursuit of the talking point that Joe Biden was under investigation. The only matters in dispute are how determined the effort was, whether Trump's motives were at least partially publicly spirited, the degree of the Bidens' shadiness, and why the aid was ultimately disbursed (Byron York makes the case that it wasn't necessarily because of the whistleblower).
House Democrats began with a presumption of corrupt intent on all counts and a definition of foreign election interference elastic enough to include Trump utterances about WikiLeaks and Hillary's deleted emails but not Ukraine's (smaller, less systematic and arguably less effective than Russia's) 2016 influence campaign . And while not all investigations are created equal -- if Hunter Biden's business dealings are to be probed, it should not be as a favor to any president -- the impeachment inquiry itself is an investigation of a political rival, who was also investigated during his previous campaign .
If shortcuts were taken in the beginning of the Trump-Russia investigation, the origins of Trump-Ukraine resemble a template for undermining any seriously antiwar or civil libertarian president. Trump is not that president himself, of course -- his acquiescence to the Beltway blob on lethal military aid is precisely what increased his leverage over Ukraine -- but some plausible and even the occasional Republican could be. Trump's mild rhetorical dissents on foreign policy are clearly a factor in why he has reason to be suspicious of his own subordinates (it's also why it is disingenuous to suggest that replacing Trump with Mike Pence is no different than replacing Bill Clinton with ideologically identical Al Gore or that people who have worked for Bush, Cheney or John McCain would have no reason to oppose Trump).
Many Democrats sincerely believed they were impeaching Trump for the least of his crimes, like Al Capone and tax evasion, and that Robert Mueller let him escape last time. They are also making a case against Trump's ability to separate personal and national interests in a way that speaks to his fitness for the office, with Ukraine merely being their specific example. But in doing so, they are also ratifying a bipartisan foreign policy consensus that has failed the American people, and that's bigger than any one president.
W. James Antle III is the editor of The American Conservative.
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Dec 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
subgen , 57 minutes ago link
Nth Degree , 1 hour ago linkThis Russian stuff has a longer half life than herpes
Decimus Lunius Luvenalis , 1 hour ago linkWhiners. They're all whiners. I don't understand why Maddow is worried. Hell, if she goes to the slammer she'll have her pick of all those incarcerated Honeys with which she will reside.
dlweld , 2 hours ago linkWhen you realize that Rachel Maddow is actually Joe Scarborough with different makeup....
You have to assume that Rachel is a Russian mole - how else can you explain her so effectively working to destroy the credibility of the Western media. She talks to her audience like she thinks she's on Sesame Street - Rachel: folks can pick up when they're being patronized - it's getting tired.
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Dec 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Senior OPCW Official Busted: Leaked Email Exposes Orders To "Delete All Traces" Of Dissent On Douma by Tyler Durden Sat, 12/28/2019 - 10:30 0 SHARES
Wikileaks has released their fourth set of leaks from the OPCW's Douma investigation, revealing new details about the alleged deletion of important information regarding the fact-finding mission.
RELEASE: OPCW-Douma Docs 4. Four leaked documents from the OPCW reveal that toxicologists ruled out deaths from chlorine exposure and a senior official ordered the deletion of the dissenting engineering report from OPCW's internal repository of documents. https://t.co/ndK4sRikNk
-- WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 27, 2019"One of the documents is an e-mail exchange dated 27 and 28 February between members of the fact finding mission (FFM) deployed to Douma and the senior officials of the OPCW. It includes an e-mail from Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW , where he instructs that an engineering report from Ian Henderson should be removed from the secure registry of the organisation," WikiLeaks writes. Included in the email is the following directive:
" Please get this document out of DRA [Documents Registry Archive] And please remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA.'"
According to Wikileaks, the main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma, was that two of the cylinders were most likely manually placed at the site, rather than dropped.
"The main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma and two cylinders that were found on the site of the alleged attack, was that they were more likely manually placed there than dropped from a plane or helicopter from considerable heights. His findings were omitted from the official final OPCW report on the Douma incident," the Wikileaks report said.
It must be remembered that the U.S. launched an attack on Damascus, Syria on April 14, 2018 over alleged chemical weapons usage by pro-Assad forces at Douma.
AP file image.Another document released Friday is minutes from a meeting on 6 June 2018 where four staff members of the OPCW had discussions with "three Toxicologists/Clinical pharmacologists, one bioanalytical and toxicological chemist" (all specialists in chemical weapons, according to the minutes).
Minutes from an OPCW meeting with toxicologists specialized in chemical weapons: "the experts were conclusive in their statements that there was
-- WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 27, 2019
no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure". https://t.co/j5Jgjiz8UY pic.twitter.com/vgPaTtsdQNThe purpose of this meeting was two-fold. The first objective was "to solicit expert advice on the value of exhuming suspected victims of the alleged chemical attack in Douma on 7 April 2018". According to the minutes, the OPCW team was advised by the experts that there would be little use in conducting exhumations. The second point was "To elicit expert opinions from the forensic toxicologists regarding the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims."
More specifically, " whether the symptoms observed in victims were consistent with exposure to chlorine or other reactive chlorine gas."
According to the minutes leaked Friday: "With respect to the consistency of the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims with possible exposure to chlorine gas or similar, the experts were conclusive in their statements that there was no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure ."
The OPCW team members wrote that the key "take-away message" from the meeting was "that the symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine and no other obvious candidate chemical causing the symptoms could be identified".
* * *
See full details at Wikileaks.org
JohnFrodo , 28 minutes ago link
africoman , 38 minutes ago linkpity the human pawns at the center of this mess.
ponyboy99 , 40 minutes ago linkThere has been a Newsweek reporter who quite over editorial block of this OPCW case here also another interview by Grayzone
The isisrahell have such long hand to pull the plug any stories implicating their crime in progress otherwise they can put out some bs spins as bombshell reporting about US lies in Afghanistan war on their wapo for public for those who read it was nothing important revealed except being a misdirected na
ponyboy99 , 47 minutes ago linkIf you want to pay off that student loan you're going to print what they tell you to print. You're going to inject kids with what they tell you to inject them with. You're going to think what they tell you to think or you're going to spend your days in a Prole bar drinking Blatz.
Ace006 , 57 minutes ago linkIf you go thru life assuming every single thing is a farce and a lie (Roddy Piper) these events can not only be explained, they can be predicted.
Weihan , 58 minutes ago linkSOMEbody's got to ensure the intergrity of the Documents Registry Archive
Nothing , 1 hour ago linkThe globalist deep-state's reach is legendary.
Greed is King , 36 minutes ago linkyes, an attack was launched, 50 missiles I believe, after loud warnings that it was coming, and none of them actually hit anything significant ... this is the way the game is played .... the good news is that the missiles cost $50 million, and now they will have to be replaced, by the Pentagon, first borrowing the money through the US Treasury offerings, and then paying for them from new money printed by the Federal Reserve. capische?
africoman , 16 minutes ago linkThat`s the way it`s always been, it`s the eternal war of good against evil.
And when one evil enemy is defeated, it`s necessary to create a new evil enemy, how else can the Establishment Elite make money from war, death and destruction.
Thordoom , 1 hour ago linkIt's really very awkward & telling how ***** these bunch of western nations are looking tough on taking out poor defenceless country like Syria on ******** & at the satried to ease real kickass Russian as you described when they launch the attacks
I kind wish the US & their Zionist clown launch such huge attacks on Iran based on false flag
I really wanted these evil aggressive powers to taste what it is like to get bombed back even one they used to throw on multiple weaker nations freely with nothing to fear as retribution etc
DCFusor , 1 hour ago linkThis organisations are all set up in Europe and US run by the filthiest filth on earth who still think they have God given right to imperial rule over the world.
British elite is the worst of all.
St. TwinkleToes , 1 hour ago linkYour military-industrial-intelligence complex at work, creating justification for more funding, like always - and who cares if people die as a result? Like Soros said, if they didn't do it, someone else would. (do I need /sarc?).
They don't like to be shown to be in charge, just to be in charge. And if you think this is a function of the current admin, you've been slow in the head and deaf and blind for quite some time.
I've watched since Eisenhower, and "it's always something". Doesn't matter what color the clown in chief's tie is.
veritas semper vinces , 2 hours ago linkImagine millions of government employees paid for by America's tax payer class, involved in covert operations undermining nation states for the benefit of war mongering shadow overlords counting on more never ending chaos feeding their hunger for power.
This isn't Orwell's 1984, this Team America on opioids.
holgerdanske , 1 hour ago linkSenior OPCW official had orders from US/ the Donald. Remember that the Donald bombed Syria based on this fake report , after a false flag done by Al Qaeda's artistic branch, the White Helmets.
lwilland1012 , 3 hours ago linkIt was May that insisted on this attack. Remember the "poison" attack and the evil Russians?
ken , 1 hour ago linkPray, do tell where are the consequences for these literal demons that engaged in war crimes? It is quite clear: as long as you are a member of the establishment, you can do whatever the f*ck you want. Why do we even follow the law, then? Given the precedent that is being set, we might as well not have any.
WorkingClassMan , 3 hours ago linkWell, they are looking forward to using all those Israeli weapons, er, uh, products, that local law enforcement has purchased...so watch out for Co-Intel Pro elicitation going forward....?
turkey george palmer , 3 hours ago linkEverybody knows the Golem (USA) does Isn'treal's bidding in Syria and elsewhere in the Near East. Hopefully they keep hammering in the fact that this "gas attack" was an obvious set-up to use as a pretext (flimsy itself on the face of it) to brutalize Assad and Syria on behalf of Isn'treal.
The whole thing is built on ******* lies. Worst part about it is, nothing will happen.
adonisdemilo , 3 hours ago linkOnly official news is to believed. You see it and it is a lie. they tell you to believe it. A lot of people casually believe whatever is spoken on TV. They become teachers and are taught in college what is right and wrong. We only have a few years before all the brain dead are in charge and robotically following the message like zombies with no brain
johnnycanuck , 3 hours ago linkThird rate script, third rate actors and crooked investigators. TPTB seem to have a plan worked out. Their problem now is that we, the hoi-polloi, have seen it all before, many times, and we can now recognise ******** when it's used to try to influence us.
5fingerdiscount , 3 hours ago linkIt is difficult to underestimate the seriousness of this manipulative act by the OPCW. In a response to the conservative author Peter Hitchens, who also writes for the Mail on Sunday – he is of course the brother of the late Christopher Hitchens – the OPCW admits that its so-called technical secretariat "is conducting an internal investigation about the unauthorised [sic] release of the document".
Then it adds: "At this time, there is no further public information on this matter and the OPCW is unable to accommodate [sic] requests for interviews". It's a tactic that until now seems to have worked: not a single news media which reported the OPCW's official conclusions has followed up the story of the report which the OPCW suppressed.
And you bet the OPCW is not going to "accommodate" interviews. For here is an institution investigating a war crime in a conflict which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives – yet its only response to an enquiry about the engineers' "secret" assessment is to concentrate on its own witch-hunt for the source of the document it wished to keep secret from the world.
If this is not lamentable enough, the OPCW – whose final report came to more than a hundred pages and which even issued an easy-to-read precis version for journalists – now slams shut its steel doors in the hope of preventing even more information reaching the press.
Helg Saracen , 3 hours ago linkInstead of these pieces concentrating on the whistleblower how about putting a little heat on the 50 lying bastards who initiated the coverup?
carbonmutant , 4 hours ago linkThe destruction of the countries of the Middle East for the sake of a dwarf with giant ambitions is the most stupid thing the United States has done over the past 30 years in its foreign policy. And yes, all the wars in the Middle East were grounded in lies. And the Americans paid for it all from start to finish. When Americans realize that they need to defend their national interests, and not other people's national interests, maybe something in the Middle East will change for the better. True, I am afraid that with the hight level of stupidity and shortsightedness that is common among Americans, the United States is more likely to be destroyed faster. No offense.
And I propose to remember the Syrian Christians who were destroyed by the Saudi Wahhabis, hired by the CIA with the money of American taxpayers and at the request of Israel. Until the Americans begin to investigate the activities of the CIA (and this activity causes the United States only harm), the responsibility for this genocide (you heard right) will be on the American nation. It turns out that in the Middle East you are primarily destroying Christians. How interesting, why such zeal.
dogbert8 , 4 hours ago linkYou gotta wonder how much the deep state has deleted about their interference in Trump's administration...
Joiningupthedots , 4 hours ago linkPretty much everyone with a brain realizes this all was a lie; only the M5M and the DC swamp continue to pretend it wasn't.
ClickNLook , 3 hours ago linkWho really made the order though?
Condor_0000 , 4 hours ago linkSebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW needs to be interrogated to find out.
Newsweek Reporter Quits After Editors Block Coverage of OPCW Syria Scandal
Aaron Mate
According to whistleblower testimony and leaked documents, OPCW officials raised alarm about the suppression of critical findings that undermine the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. Haddad's editors at Newsweek rejected his attempts to cover the story. "If I don't find another position in journalism because of this, I'm perfectly happy to accept that consequence," Haddad says. "It's not desirable. But there is no way I could have continued in that job knowing that I couldn't report something like this."
New leaks continue to expose a cover-up by the OPCW – the world's top chemical weapons watchdog – over a critical event in Syria. Documents, emails, and testimony from OPCW officials have raised major doubts about the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. The leaked OPCW information has been released in pieces by Wikileaks. The latest documents contain a number of significant revelations – including that that about 20 OPCW officials voiced concerns that their scientific findings and on-the-ground evidence was suppressed and excluded.
This is, without a doubt, a major global scandal: the OPCW, under reported US pressure, suppressing vital evidence about allegations of chemical weapons. But that very fact exposes another global scandal: with the exception of small outlets like The Grayzone, the mass media has widely ignored or whitewashed this story. And this widespread censorship of the OPCW scandal has just led one journalist to resign. Up until recently, Tareq Haddad was a reporter at Newsweek. But in early December, Tareq announced that he had quit his position after Newsweek refused to publish his story about the OPCW cover up over Syria.
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Dec 28, 2019 | www.unz.com
Summary of Broadcast Produced by Yvonne Lorenzo:
As the New Cold War gathers up speed and escalates, we are entering a "fact free world" as allegations are made that are proved not to be true are promoted; for example, the allegation that the DNC was hacked by Russia has been officially debunked -- no one could name the seventeen intelligence agencies, the Coast Guard was one. The notion of the hacking was cooked up by two agencies: by the DNI's head James Clapper and Brennan at the CIA. Nevertheless, recently News Anchor Chuck Todd of NBC (the most pro-Russiagate network, the ones who shamelessly accused presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard of being a Russian asset) took it one step further: ignoring the facts, Todd again stated that seventeen intelligence agencies agreed that the Russians not only interfered in the election but that they swung the election to Trump. While interference is one thing, no one has previously made that allegation. Consequently, we are now in a fact free discourse in America: no evidence is necessary to prove anything, falsehoods are taken up by the legacy media, what Professor Cohen would call a world of tabloid gossip media, except in their favor the tabloids, fearing lawsuits, will do some fact checking, which is conspicuous in its absence in the legacy media. And Professor Cohen noted that it's hard to get traction and you can't have a conversation with someone when you don't agree upon the facts.
In conversation on a cruise with fellow liberals, Professor Cohen noted most take the view that where there is smoke there is fire and there is something to these allegations of Russiagate and Putin's control over Trump; they state the media wouldn't continue to promote these conspiracy theories, these allegations about Trump's nefarious relations with the Kremlin, without reason and so there must be something to them. Yet while facts have become absolutely critical Cohen notes you can't get people to focus on the facts; for that reason, he feels despair and observes that for the first time in his life in his public discussions of Russia there are no basic premises that people accept any more, for if you say "If there's smoke, there's fire," that is just not a logical way of thinking: you either have the facts or you don't.
Batchelor also points out in the impeachment charges there is a great deal of presumption; there are no facts regarding the president as well, and he cites Trump's letter to Nancy Pelosi and poses this question: what does the Kremlin think about the impeachment?
Cohen answers that the Russian high policy class in the 1990s -- the America worship period -- they and not just the youth, strongly believed that Russia's future was with the West and America in particular, and now what strikes Russians most is the role of Russian intelligence services in the Western allegations. Pro-America Russians thought that American intelligence services didn't play the role that the Soviet ones did. In Russian history classes and as a staple of popular culture, the sinister role of the "secret police" goes back to the Czarist era but what distinguished America was that it didn't have anything comparable in abuses by its intelligence services -- or so it was believed. Consequently, for those who looked up to America, it's a source of disillusion and shock to learn that the American special services "went off the reservation" for quite a long time, not unlike Russia's, and so they have become disillusioned while for those who tried to get Russians to be more nationalistic, their perspective is to say with gratification, "We told you so. Now will you please grow up!"
Russians call the American agencies "the organs" perhaps not being clear on the difference between the CIA and the FBI and conflating them. For Russians, the role of such agencies is baked into the culture and this has resulted in rethinking not only about America but about their own special services. An Op-Ed piece in a Russian liberal newspaper the Russian liberal author wrote, after watching what's unfolding in America, we used to beat up on our intelligence services for decades but now maybe we need them. Contrary to a "cult of the intelligence services," Cohen thinks what must be determined is the role of the American intelligence services in creating Russiagate from the very beginning.
Yet what is critical is to know how Russiagate began in America, with the Barr-Durham probe into the origins of Russia and Russiagate will continue to be a major issue in the 2020 election. What struck Cohen about the letter from Trump to Pelosi -- which was so eloquent he doubts Trump wrote it -- was that he understands it will be an issue in the 2020 elections, and it was a campaign document. That aside, Trump is aware that Democrats are campaigning still on Russiagate; nothing has turned up that it factual. Therefore, despite the absence of facts, this will be a major issue. Ukraine has turned into a stand-in for Russia.
Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post, once a quintessential conservative, published an article titled "Time to Call out and Remove Putin's Propagandist in America." While the article is slightly cagier than that headline, essentially she wants to shutdown and deprive access to media who aren't espousing and promoting the Russiagate/Russophobic narratives. Cohen condemns that kind of behavior is that. On opposite side of Rubin, Cohen stated he himself has never advocated the silencing and removal of those who promote among other falsehoods the provably false Russiagate narrative. He asks where are things drifting and he answers discourse and relations are becoming ugly and awful.
Returning to the past, he notes there was an assumption that Russia under Yeltsin would emerge as a replica and junior partner of America; Cohen believes those who promote the Russiagate narrative and demonize Trump because their "impossible dream" failed -- Russia is too old, too vast to ever be a replica of America. What took Professor Cohen aback in the testimony from Fiona Hill and others was how deep and wide the Russophobia runs in the Washington think tanks. Until she spoke and testified he had no idea how much she -- and the other Russia experts -- hate Russia.
Batchelor noted this is the language of civil war in Trump's letter; Trump uses the term "Star Chamber of partisan persecution" and "coup" which are the language of a country torn in half and he asked the question whether the weakening of the civil contract to be an advantage to Putin and Russia. Cohen notes every newspaper and media source in America say Putin is delighted since it is his goal is to foment disarray in America.
The fact is, however, this chaos and dysfunction and enmity is one of the last things Putin wants. Putin's purpose is to rebuild Russia from the economic and political catastrophes of the 1990s; Putin's role is to reverse the demographic trend -- men died in their fifties in the 1990s -- and spend funds on modernization; that would be his legacy. Four hundred billion dollars has been saved to implement the modernization program. That attempt would be taken with modernizing partnerships with the West. Therefore, the last thing he wants is a new Cold War; the last thing he wants is political turmoil in America or in any Western nation. Cohen points out President Macron of France appears to understand that; he called for a rethinking of relations and said there could be no European security without Russia. Macron has broken with Washington and there will be a hell of fight because Washington is against it. But the notion that Putin wants to disrupt American society is wrong; Putin wants stability and partners.
Cohen still thinks that leadership -- the new President of Ukraine, Trump and Putin --
RJJCDA , says: December 27, 2019 at 9:13 pm GMT
I always listen to the Prof's podcast shows at Batchelor. What bothers me is that so many Trump supporters and public commentators BELIEVE, or at least parrot the idea that Russia INVADED both western Ukraine and Crimea.Dan Hayes , says: December 27, 2019 at 9:16 pm GMTAs the Prof has pointed out and seconded by many others, Crimea has been a part of Russia since late 18th century. Because Khrushchev "gave' it to Ukraine in 50s when it was all one country does not obviate the fact that Crimeans consider themselves Russians as proved by all polling and a plebiscite. They had permanent bases there and the alleged invasion was nothing more than politely escorting the Ukrainian military off from the peninsula without any injuries to either side. Some invasion.
Surely some Russians (whether incognito military/intelligence forces or private citizens) were part of the Donbass forces that rebelled against Kiev. And they had good reasons to rebel witness the horrors of Odessa when 40 something citizens of Russian ancestry were burned alive trapped in a building by Ultra-Ukrainian nazi-like forces.
Now Senate Foreign Relations committee, chaired by Senator from my state, has called for designating Russia as a "terror supporting state." I emailed him and asked if he was insane. He returned a long letter that is full of obfuscations and lies, and I will compose a detailed response soon. But the question presents: is the Deep State and their globalists' master deliberately trying to force Russia into a military alliance with China? Could we prevail against that combination? Haunting resemblance to conditions that created Ribbentrop/Molotov pact in late 30s. And what that foretell?
Note that this article is the thorough paraphrase of the podcast appearing at the base of the article.Isabella , says: December 28, 2019 at 1:04 am GMTWell, I guess when you have such luminaries as members of the Council on Foreign Relations spieling the same level of ignorance, blindness, prejudice, propaganda and plain perverseness, you have to expect it from all levels of "Governance"anonymous [356] Disclaimer , says: December 28, 2019 at 2:32 am GMT
For anyone who knows even a small amount about Russia and her leader, go listen to a recent YouTube convention headed Russia's Resurgence: Prospects for stability in Russia-US relationship.
One thing is for sure – as long as these supposed "think tank leaders" can deliberately blind themselves to reality as this trio did, and spout the utterly brain dead stupidity they used to instigate a Q & A, there is no hope whatsoever of any stability in Russia – US relationship.The people of the media lie because they are for sale and are paid to lie. Rather uninspiring but understandable: they do it for the money and to stay in front of the cameras. But what's everyone else's excuse? Putin is a Svengali who mind-controls Trump? I thought people like that wore turbans and robes. How stupid are Americans, anyway? Who'd have thought something like this would have any traction whatsoever? It's simply incredible.WorkingClass , says: December 28, 2019 at 4:28 am GMTI was born into the Cold War in 1944. I got my draft notice in 1965. I had been expecting it all my young life. The Berlin wall did not fall until 1989.Vaterland , says: December 28, 2019 at 6:27 am GMTThis new Cold War will be over soon. It will turn hot and we will all die or the "West" will collapse and will repatriate it's legions. The Anglo/Zio Empire is in steep decline while Russia and her allies are ascendant.
I agree that the truth is no defense against the "left". Their long march is completed and they occupy the high ground whether it's politics or culture. They have taken over the country just in time to preside over its demise.
Russians who thought their future was with the West were not completely wrong. If the U.S. has a future it is probably with Russia.
There is a couple of points I would like to add on a changing European perspective on the dynamics between the USA and Russia, with Europe caught in-between.EdNels , says: December 28, 2019 at 6:59 am GMT1.) After the Second World War the choice between Bolshevism and US liberal democracy seemed blatantly obvious; for Germany especially it was a question of national survival, since Stalin was viewed as a serious threat by the Adenauer government. Germany had actually enjoyed more internal independence from leading US doctrines in this period. US rule of law, the character of its elites and the general morality of the society had not completely degraded yet either. Today institutional erosion of American democracy, the rule of law and a cynical Neocon approach towards "promoting democracy abroad" turned the USA into a non-appealing leader of 'the West'. The increasing "Sovietization" of its state apparatus emphasizes this point: the expansion of the surveillance state, selective access to real political and economic access to a select few of the privileged; often hereditary dynasties of oligarchs, a political-media complex of agitation and propaganda. Thus, the accusations against Russia (or China for that matter) about a lack of transparency, pluralism and the rule of law sound entirely hollow.
2.) Thus secondly NATO has turned from a credible alliance of defense against the Soviet Union into a tool of US imperialism; especially after the USA has declared victory in the Cold War. Wars surrounding Europe and even inside of it – The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and in Ukraine – were the result. Nations were destroyed, heads of state publicly executed or tortured to death like Muammar Gaddafi and millions of people were killed; many more were made homeless and a refugee crisis was created. And concealing wars of aggression as "human rights promotion" opened a can of worms for cynical nihilism as the new norm of US foreign policy – WMD lies, Abu-Ghuraib and NSA scandals included. Just as the established political-media apparatus is guilty of everything populism is accused of: post factual parallel realities, fake news and fake realities, systematic disinformation, social engineering and conditioning into hysteria and the frenzy of the mob. The pathology of the new US ruling class personified by Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright
3.) There is indeed no lasting European stability imaginable without a permanent peaceful agreement between Western- and Eastern-Europe and Russia. Russia's role as the Eurasian land bridge to China is also essential this century. Mutual agreement has to be found to settle old grievances and fears regarding Napoleon and Hitler on the Russian side and Stalinism and the Soviet Union on the European side. A situation which the USA also currently exploits for political destabilization – especially in Poland.
4.) Germany, currently the central country in the EU, owes its unification largely to Russia. Unfortunately it was a mistake on the Russian side when they had unilaterally withdrawn all their troops from German territory, that they did not demand the same from US/NATO forces. In that moment the transformation of NATO was sealed and the New Cold War had begun. Yet while the attitudes of the older generations are shaped by the US-Soviet Union Cold War, for new generations it's a different story. Increasingly the USA is seen as a more credible threat and/or bully with its war policy, real political meddling and especially in my country the fact that Germany was both forced to sanction Russia, which went against its own vital interests, and then be sanctioned as well.
5.) I am leaving out the value and identity politics debate. Fundamentally the general public on both sides of the Atlantic agrees on the theory on foundations of functioning democracy. Although I do think that since the end of the last Cold War the influence of the USA has been more harmful and corrosive than helpful and stabilizing.
Conclusion: In this new Cold War which was, I think, initiated by the US establishment, we could see a future in which Germany and Russia begin to view themselves more in the light of the Prussian-Russian coalition against the new "Napoleon", the United States. Although this arising conflict could rightly be dubbed: The Unnecessary Cold War.
@WorkingClass It's funny to hear "animalogic , says: December 28, 2019 at 7:09 am GMTthat the truth is no defense against the "left". Their long march is completed and they occupy the high ground whether it's politics or culture.'
'
Left ? Do you believe that the establishment crowd of Democrats (Liberals,) and the managed news (Liberals,) and others Liberals, neoliberals, neocons, or anything else comprising the Russiagate hoax can be describes as Leftist?
It's been determined that the Democrats intentionally jettisoned the Working Class decades ago. It shouldn't be news to working people that they don't have a party!
It was a rational decision to unload the workers, and substitute special interest and identity politics, because of trends of the decline of union membership in age of technology, automation, and YUPPIES! The Democrats are now slick pretenders of social justice, but not left.
@RJJCDA " is the Deep State and their globalists' master deliberately trying to force Russia into a military alliance with China? "jack daniels , says: December 28, 2019 at 8:11 am GMT
Hard to say what their intentions are. (The old ploy of unity at home by means of an external enemy ?) Whatever they are -- US foreign policy (FO) re Russia should go down with Iraq (II) as among the US's greatest FO blunders.
As the Saker has pointed out– Russia & China are in symbiosis, which runs deeper than an alliance.
Russiagate is a kind of "two birds with one stone" deal: you get to bash Trump & Russia using each as a club to beat the other. That this whole base concoction of lies seems to still have legs speaks volumes as to the deep of Trump derangement syndrome & the universality of msm propaganda.@Dan Hayes Yes but the paraphraser should not go anonymous. Bad form.GMC , says: December 28, 2019 at 8:28 am GMTMr Cohen is so far ahead of Washington , when it comes to Russia and other foreign matters, it just boggles the mind of us normies. The Ukraine Gate is all about the Kyivian Jew Oligarchs, trying to oust the thief Democrats from all the IMF looting , that those Kyivians , had their eyes/hands on. It's like – thanks for doing the Coup but all the money we get is – Ours for the looting. And there are hundreds of millions – missing. Russia Gate will go on, until the American public – " Grows Up " as Mr. Cohen says.jack daniels , says: December 28, 2019 at 8:28 am GMTWhat damns the US media, both anti-Trump and Fox News, is that America has been massively meddling in elections all over the globe since Day One, including Russia, and this is known or should be known to anyone with a basic knowledge of international relations, yet it is almost NEVER mentioned when the subject of Russian meddling comes up.SeekerofthePresence , says: December 28, 2019 at 8:58 am GMTThere is a feeling that it would be unpatriotic (treasonous?) to admit it. This is something new for America. In the old days American foreign policy was sharply debated and America's sins were much discussed by the left. But now, the left is on the CIA's side. This probably has to do with the Jewishness of the left. Jews tend to hate Russia as much as they tended to like the Soviet Union. They see post-Communist Russia as politically incorrect (e.g. anti-gay) and Christian, a potentially nationalistic society that could turn anti-Semitic.
Because of Russia's nuclear capability it is not possible for the US to invade it, so we are relying on internal subversion and economic tactics to bring down Putin, leading to the installation of a US lackey with neocon approval. Even as we speak of Russian meddling the CIA is busy organizing and funding anti-Putin elements in Russia.
"We're just trying to spread democracy. What's wrong with that!?"
Yes, the nation has gone mad.sally , says: December 28, 2019 at 9:13 am GMT
Result is measured in rads.@Back1 Stupidity does not produce the invention and promotion of lie after lie,Truth3 , says: December 28, 2019 at 10:15 am GMT
Nor is stupidity consistent with the selection of the best lies from those total of lies generated.
Only lies that work on the minds targeted are repeated.Repeat the lie but hide it, camouflage the lie with some truth, and embedded the lie into the propaganda that establishes the narrative, and then mass produce the lie embedded propaganda that establishes the false or misleading narrative is a complicated process. Repeat and repeat the false narrative is a hat trick that often deceives innocent minds into adopting, embedding and acting on beliefs established in innocent minds by mind control technology. These process are not consistent with stupidity, but instead suggest diabolical genius at work.
When only the lies that work; that is, that control, deceive or influence innocent minds are repeated you are looking process which took intelligence to make work. Inventing lies takes imagination, producing them into propaganda takes skill, and promoting the produced invented lie takes money, power and access.
Selection (of the best or most suitable lie) is an process that requires identification and sufficient intelligence to sort; while repetition requires the selected object be either committed to memory, or to be continuously and precisely regenerated for each promotion(campaign). Promotion is a delicate process; its success so dependant on so many things, that many people have obtained Phds from the subject matter that surround the technology of deceit.
The point is that promoting false narratives is an invented developing technology that takes professionally trained persons to make work. Someone is paying the mind control professionals (MCPs) that are working to embed false narrative into the memory of the minds of the governed masses. MCPs are not stupid people. Not only are they highly trained professionals but also they don't work for free. So who is paying them.
for example look at the rul below. You might need first to visit the url https://duckduckgo.com and when at duckduckgo,com to paste it into the search space and hit go. It seems many browsers and search engines deny or make difficult user access to this website https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/12/28/614755/Russia-Poland-politics-World-war-NATO <in the url you will see the argument between fact and fiction.
Larry King (excuse me I mean Lawrence Harvey Zeiger) on RT is a real oxymoron with RT being the oxy and Zeiger being the moron.Robert Magill , says: December 28, 2019 at 10:28 am GMTThis clown gave NeoCons a free pass for decades. No surprise there, for a Tribal "Kagan" of the Jews.
Why is Steven Cohen credited with this article when obviously it is written by another? What gives, Unz? It is an example of the same facts twisting it rails against.gotmituns , says: December 28, 2019 at 10:48 am GMTI don't give a rat's butt about trump's impeachment or russia.Tom Welsh , says: December 28, 2019 at 10:59 am GMT@Antiwar7 "If there's smoke, there's fire" is not so much stupid as devious. You have to understand that many political leaders nowadays have realised that they don't need hard facts and figures or logic to sway opinion.Monotonous Languor , says: December 28, 2019 at 11:19 am GMTIncreasingly, political divisions are tribal; and the worst condemnation is "you are not one of us". Disagreeing with the party line shows that a person is "not one of us".
That is especially the case when the party line is obviously untrue. Then sticking to it is an absolute proof of devoted, unthinking loyalty. It's more like a pledge of allegiance than a rational statement of fact.
Foreigners have never understood that there are two Americas, nor how to differentiate which one they're dealing with at any point in time.Realist , says: December 28, 2019 at 11:34 am GMT@RJJCDARealist , says: December 28, 2019 at 11:43 am GMTI always listen to the Prof's podcast shows at Batchelor.
I do as well enjoy them very much.
I agree with your comments.
He returned a long letter that is full of obfuscations and lies, and I will compose a detailed response soon.
You are wasting your time he is paid extremely well to promulgate the dumbass dictates of the Deep State.
@Dan Hayes The author of this article is listed as Stephen F Cohen, but if that's the case it's written in the third person.Realist , says: December 28, 2019 at 11:48 am GMTWTF
@WorkingClassJohnny Walker Read , says: December 28, 2019 at 12:29 pm GMTI agree that the truth is no defense against the "left". Their long march is completed and they occupy the high ground whether it's politics or culture. They have taken over the country just in time to preside over its demise.
It is the right as well on important issue to the Deep State there is no right and left.
Does it really matter? America is already a Jewish/Bolshevik occupied nation?9/11 Inside job , says: December 28, 2019 at 12:39 pm GMTTo achieve absolute power, Lenin focused on fomenting a class war, while Hitler set his sights on a race war. Either way, the divide-and-conquer modus operandi of fascist and communist demagogues is pretty much the same, no matter what each side might claim about the other. Their propaganda content may differ, but not so much their divide-and-conquer methods. Attitudes of supremacy come in a virtual rainbow of flavors and colors.
https://thefederalist.com/2017/11/06/bolshevik-revolution-reveals-six-phases-freedom-communist-misery/
Wake up fools, and quit putting your faith in political hacks, red or blue!!theamericanconservative.com : "Forget Trump : The Military-Industrial-Complex is still running the show " By Bruce Fein , July 18, 2018Sean , says: December 28, 2019 at 1:11 pm GMT
theintercept.com " Defense contractors say Russian threat is great for business "Did Russian believe that any assurances could prevent Nato being drawn right up to the borders of Russia? Did Ukrainians believe the UK and US's security assurances 'against the threat or use of force against Ukraine's territory or political independence' could replace Ukraine's possession of nuclear weapons? Zbigniew Brzezinski did speak of Russia "increasingly passing into de facto western receivership" .Dan Hayes , says: December 28, 2019 at 1:28 pm GMTThey say the Russians only heard what that wanted to hear, but the record suggests the Americans misrepresented their intentions, and gave assurances that the Russians took at face value. Russia permitted an American campaign to spent vast sums and organise Yeltsin's reelection, which would not have happened without them. The Russian foreign minister at that time, Andrei Kozyrev, now lives in Miami.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2018-03-16/nato-expansion-what-yeltsin-heardD.C ., March 16, 2018 – Declassified documents from U.S. and Russian archives show that U.S. officials led Russian President Boris Yeltsin to believe in 1993 that the Partnership for Peace was the alternative to NATO expansion, rather than a precursor to it, while simultaneously planning for expansion after Yeltsin's re-election bid in 1996 and telling the Russians repeatedly that the future European security system would include, not exclude, Russia.
The declassified U.S. account of one key conversation on October 22, 1993, (Document 8) shows Secretary of State Warren Christopher assuring Yeltsin in Moscow that the Partnership for Peace was about including Russia together with all European countries, not creating a new membership list of just some European countries for NATO; and Yeltsin responding, "this is genius!"
Christopher later claimed in his memoir that Yeltsin misunderstood – perhaps from being drunk – the real message that the Partnership for Peace would in fact "lead to gradual expansion of NATO";[1] but the actual American-written cable reporting the conversation supports subsequent Russian complaints about being misled.[2]
After obtaining a succession of huge US-backed IMF loans, being found on Pennsylvania Avenue, drunk, in his underwear and trying to hail a taxi cab in order to find pizza in 1995, Yeltsin chose Putin the teetotal former counterintelligence specialist to succeed him. What a sense of humour Yeltsin must have had.
@jack daniels I agree that the paraphraser should not go anonymous. But more important is to bring to the reader's attention that a broadcast podcast is available at the article's end.Wizard of Oz , says: December 28, 2019 at 1:30 pm GMT@Vaterland The American elutes might be forgiven theirvicious follies by Americans if they had not impoverished so many Americans and,at best leaving them struggling.Patrikios Stetsonis , says: December 28, 2019 at 1:33 pm GMT@9/11 Inside job We do not call it "the Military-Industrial-Complex".WorkingClass , says: December 28, 2019 at 1:39 pm GMT
We do not call it "the Banks".
We do not call it "the FED"
We do not call it "the Wall Street"
We do not call it "the Media"Once for all, we call it: "the Jews".
@Realist Agreed. Truth is no defense against the Deep State which is neither left nor right.. Still, it is the ideological left that denies the existence of objective reality. For them there are no facts. Only subjective experience. Useful idiots and propagandists for the Deep State, they "know" Trump is a Russian agent because they can feel it. They don't need no steenking evidence.Onebornfree , says: Website December 28, 2019 at 1:57 pm GMTThe (left) media promote hatred. Orange Man Bad. The ideological left understands and enjoys hatred. They can feel it. When you hate somebody you are ready and eager to believe the worst about them.
@WorkingClass "I agree that the truth is no defense against the "left"."journey80 , says: December 28, 2019 at 2:22 pm GMTIn other words, 2 + 2 = 5 [ to roughly quote Orwell]
Polylogism rules! : https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Polylogism
Regards, onebornfree
@EdNels Thank you. Well said, and not nearly enough.Dan Hayes , says: December 28, 2019 at 2:25 pm GMTIt's my opinion that the relentless use of "left" to describe the neoliberal half of the Republicrat/Wall Street/war industry party is no accident.
Describing the "Democrats" of the Clinton DNC as "left" is useful to discredit and marginalize any political stance that, fairly and realistically, could be considered "left." It produces chaos and confusion, which is the objective of the neocon/neoliberal grifters who control both halves of the war party.
@Realist I suspect that the paraphraser is our own Ron Unz since he strikes me as a hands-on operator. Secondary suspect is Phil Giraldi, UR's National Security Editor.Anonymous [645] Disclaimer , says: December 28, 2019 at 2:45 pm GMTIn any event it's important to dissimulate Cohen's views since he's literally A Geopolitical Voice Crying Out in the Wilderness! For this both Batchelor and Unz are to be commended!!
@Realist There's a left alright; there's just no right. Since the 1960's the conservative movement and Republican Party have conserved exactly nothing while the left has completely transformed America, successfully implementing much of the 1930's communist agenda and turning the government into the enemy of the society at large.Christo , says: December 28, 2019 at 2:51 pm GMTIn his Myth of Religious Violence William T Cavanaugh points out that before the arrival of Frankfurter on the Supreme Court, religion, meaning chiefly Christianity, was held by the court to be the fundamental source of social cohesion and peace in America, while since the late 1940s and post-Frankfurter, religion, now meaning only Christianity, has been consistently held to be not only divisive, but the fundamental source of violence. The point is, this upending of society was accomplished by legislating from the bench, while the Republicans and Conservatism Inc, as we now learn, were funded to neutralize opposition, blowing smoke in Americans' eyes about legalisms at a time when at least 90% of this country was conservative.
Sites like The American Conservative and American Thinker, for example, are apparently funded to publish fawning material about the Jews and Israel that the latter would be too ashamed to write themselves, which also pretty much sums up the Republican's m.o. in Congress.
It's about time the American electorate saw candidates for national and state office as figureheads for their largest donors, who're presently portrayed as almost incidental by the msm. Instead of saying that Mitch McConnell or Lindsey Graham said this or that, accuracy requires we say Paul Singer and Sheldon Adelson's spokesman in the Senate, some so-and-so stooge, said this or that. It's the same on both sides of the aisle, obviously, and it turns out that the owners of both parties are kin when it comes to destroying the social fabric of this country for their own hateful reasons.
@Patrikios Stetsonis You forgot , an aspect. "We do not call it Z.O.G."Bill Jones , says: December 28, 2019 at 3:06 pm GMT
Which commands and guides the US government in both domestic and foreign policy.On similar note to your closing statement ,
To quote Treitschke 1879 "The Jews are our misfortune"Meanwhile, the barking mad cow Maddow now claims:Bill Jones , says: December 28, 2019 at 3:09 pm GMT""really, literally is paid Russian propaganda.""
Is not meant to be a statement of facts.
@jack daniels I see this line, at the beginningAntiwar7 , says: December 28, 2019 at 3:20 pm GMT"Summary of Broadcast Produced by Yvonne Lorenzo:"
Not good enough?
Or is it a later (unacknowledged) addition?
Do we now need a correction to the correction?
@Tom Welsh I totally agree with you. I'm just trying to heap public scorn on that approach. Because if you look at it clearly, it's ridiculous.Desert Fox , says: December 28, 2019 at 3:36 pm GMTThe zionists hate Christians and since Russia is becoming more Christian the zionists hate towards Russia has reached a hysteria that is only matched by their demonic hate of Christians and one of the ways to strike at Russia is through lies and false flags blamed on Russia.Justvisiting , says: December 28, 2019 at 3:59 pm GMTThe ZUS is winning the war against Christians here in America with abortions and pedophilia in high places and the worship of satan in Hellywood and elsewhere and the penetration of the Christian churches by zionist elements.
The zionists will not stop until America is destroyed, zionism is the most dangerous element in America.
Read the Protocols of Zion, it is all right there.
@Back1Anonymous [645] Disclaimer , says: December 28, 2019 at 4:06 pm GMT*All* mainstream media is propaganda from clown world. This defines our era in US. Mass psychosis is the new reality.
The Russia nonsense tells me that US establishment people are stupid and self deluded, truly sad sack dummies.
Several commenters around here have claimed the Apollo moon landing hoax "does not matter".
[MORE]
It is old news, not relevant to today, too controversial, etc.The problem is that once the elites get away with lying, it encourages them to do more of it. This hoax _is_ going to be exposed, and fairly soon–and it may unravel the whole ball of string of intelligence agency and mass media lies.
It is _not_ a left/right issue, so folks of any and all political persuasions will be able to accept it without crushing their ideological dreams.
Check out this article from NASA itself: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/rbsp/news/third-belt.html
This and related new discoveries (on why the Apollo manned moon missions were technically impossible) are discussed in this recent book:
https://read.amazon.com/kp/card?preview=inline&linkCode=kpd&ref_=k4w_oembed_cIFBq8Qs4dgS8X&asin=B07RCCKH1L&tag=kpembed-20
Every space program (national, private) _must_ solve this problem. Lying won't work. They have to deal with it–and the truth is going to get out–soon.
@Desert Fox Judaic identity is essentially about hating Christians, as the Talmud makes clear, and as most anyone who's worked with Jews on Wall Street will attest. Michael Hoffman proves this in his books on Judaism, pointing out that modern Talmudic Judaism came into being nearly two centuries after the rise of Christianity and in opposition to it.Ahoy , says: December 28, 2019 at 4:16 pm GMTEzra Pound. Is there around a literature professor, that can hold the weight of the title, to talk about him to American youth? Hell noooo!!Miro23 , says: December 28, 2019 at 5:04 pm GMTFasten your seat belts then, because the historic American nation is crushing.
@animalogicRealist , says: December 28, 2019 at 5:19 pm GMT" is the Deep State and their globalists' master deliberately trying to force Russia into a military alliance with China? "
Hard to say what their intentions are. (The old ploy of unity at home by means of an external enemy ?) Whatever they are -- US foreign policy (FO) re Russia should go down with Iraq (II) as among the US's greatest FO blunders.
Agreed that it's a mistake, but when they've successfully pulled off the WMD lies, the 9/11 fakery, the destruction of Iraq, Libya etc., control the US media, and can dictate to Congress, then it's understandable that they get rather arrogant.
They simply want to kick Russia and Putin because he was the one that spoiled their Yeltsin looting party – and worst of all arrested and imprisoned their top guy Khodorkovsky. That it drives Germany and the EU towards Russia and strengthens Russian ties with China is secondary. After all, Hitler (after great military success), likened invading Russia to kicking down a rotten barn door, and he didn't work out the implications of declaring war on the US.
@Anonymous I agreed with you, except there is a Deep State and it is not made up of just Jews. But I do concede that Jews are disproportionately represented, as both sponsors and minions, for their demographics.Realist , says: December 28, 2019 at 5:30 pm GMTI believe the Deep State consists of the very wealthy who are greedy for more wealth and power. There are 607 billionaires in the US. There is no reason for the Deep State members to formally collude they all know what needs to be done and how to do it. They use a relatively small amount of their money to place their minions in positions of power heads of the movie industry, the media, the federal government, academia. From then on if the lessers in these groups want to keep their jobs/lives they will toe the line. It becomes self sustaining from tax money and the Deep State glories in more wealth and power. Here is an excellent example of the Deep State in action: The SCOTUS has passed down egregious decisions that abridge the First Amendment and show contempt for the concept of a representative democracy. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1976 and exacerbated by continuing stupid SCOTUS decisions First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission.
These decisions have codified that money is free speech thereby giving entities of wealth and power almost total influence in elections. By gaining control of the SCOTUS the Deep State is able to further their goals.Another take on the Deep State:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/11/14/understanding-the-deep-states-propaganda/@Dan Hayes Agreed.vinteuil , says: December 28, 2019 at 5:33 pm GMT@VaterlandBack1 , says: December 28, 2019 at 5:33 pm GMTNATO has turned from a credible alliance of defense against the Soviet Union into a tool of US imperialism
That's the bottom line, here.
NATO may once have had a reason for being. But now it's just a monstrous golem, lurching uncontrollably towards global catastrophe.
@sally Ok. I'll pass on clarification of my too brief comment. Your elaboration is food for thought.Andrei Martyanov , says: Website December 28, 2019 at 5:40 pm GMTNote that MCP in Tron was Master Control Program.
@EdNels9/11 Inside job , says: December 28, 2019 at 5:45 pm GMTThe Democrats are now slick pretenders of social justice, but not left.
Excellent summary. What goes under "left" moniker (Cultural Marxist, "communists", socialists etc.) in the West nowadays is not left. Agree. it is just another iteration of Neo-liberal politics serving as a substitution for dealing with actual problems of Labor.
@Patrikios Stetsonis politico.com : "The happy-go-lucky Jewish group [Chabad-Lubavitch] that connects Trump and Putin":sally , says: December 28, 2019 at 6:00 pm GMT"Their respective ambitions led the two men[Trump and Putin] – along with Trump's future son-in-law, Jared Kushner -to build a set of close, over-lapping relationships in a small world that overlaps on Chabad , an international Hasidic movement most people have never heard of ."
@gotmituns @ gotmituns <=Why then did you read the article?WorkingClass , says: December 28, 2019 at 6:13 pm GMTAt the heart of the impeachment process (Article II, Section 2, paragraph 3 and 4) are two questions that should interest most folks: @ paragraph 3 lays out a big part of Trump's defense in my view "Section 3 requires ..that the President shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, <=execution requires action so which law did the President not execute faithfully? <= I do not see such a question in the Articles of Impeachment.. @ Sec II, Art. II, paragraph 4 "The President shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.. " < the house found evidence it says, strong enough to indite the president on charges that .. he violated which of these 4 things?
Some think Trump should have been impeached for failure to deliver his tax Return.. but I do not see failure to deliver a tax return as failure to execute a law, or as a high crime, or as treason, or as an act of Bribery, or as a misdemeanor.. so the current impeachment indictment by the House against Trump reveals that the constitution is inadequate. The constitution does not express a government that can protect the Americans such a government governs; from the possibility, or the reality, that a deceitful president will be empowered to that job?
The best governed Americans can hope for from the USA is that the Congress of the USA rather than impeaching will decide to amend the constitution, so that the constitution denies any one that can be shown to be deceitful, to be the President. This one amendment could eliminate making campaign promises and do just the opposite once in office.
Of course such an amendment would mean few in politics today could be the President.
Most likely no matter the outcome of the impeachment, Trump will probably be reappointed President by the electoral college.. (recall that persons who animate the functions allowed to the USA to governed Americans are not elected by those who the USA governs. (Americans c/n vote for their president or their vice president because President and VP are article II persons; and article II persons are appointed to office by processes conducted at the state level, that appoint persons to the electoral college, and it is the electoral college that elects the President and the Vice President). Who has written a book on the electoral college? I have requested information from the government on the electoral college activities since the beginning and to date have received nothing but referrals to others.@EdNels Left ? Do you believe that the establishment crowd of Democrats (Liberals,) and the managed news (Liberals,) and others Liberals, neoliberals, neocons, or anything else comprising the Russiagate hoax can be describes as Leftist?Exile , says: December 28, 2019 at 7:00 pm GMTNo. I do not believe that. I agree with you entirely. But common usage has the people you are talking about as LEFT and I am tired of bitching about it.
@RJJCDA Russia no more "invaded" Ukraine than the United States "invaded" Texas, Ohio or Florida. Ukraine has been a Russian fiefdom for centuries longer than it has ever been "independent," and its fate is no more the business of the United States or Western Europe than the fate of Hong Kong or Syria should be.Exile , says: December 28, 2019 at 7:02 pm GMT@Realist Exactly. Convergent interests are sufficient – no grand cabal or conspiracy is necessary to explain what we observe with our lying eyes.Skeptikal , says: December 28, 2019 at 7:13 pm GMTTo the extent one is ever necessary, that's where guys like Epstein come in.
@Antiwar7 I agree that someone is making the fake smoke.gotmituns , says: December 28, 2019 at 7:25 pm GMT
A.K.A. lies.@sally I never read the articles.Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: December 28, 2019 at 7:30 pm GMTPlease just let me ask americans some opinions aboutanon [232] Disclaimer , says: December 28, 2019 at 8:15 pm GMTif pastor John Hagee and his followers are jews or christians ? , if the thousands of pastors in the USA like Hagee and their millions of followers are jews or christians ? if the US puritan founding fathers were jews of christians ? , if the british angloisraelites are jews or christians ? , if the yankees are jews or christians ? if the wasps are jews or christians ? if the US " deep state " is jew or chistian ? , if the US masses are jew or christian ?
. because blaming the jews all the time of every problem and pretending that that the anglo-yankees are so pure and naive does not seem to be very realistic
Maybe " Jews Я US " ? what do you think ?
@Antiwar7 Americans should have believed into the existenceMichael888 , says: December 28, 2019 at 8:16 pm GMT
of thousands Mayan gods when they first saw the smoke billowing out of the sacrificial pit in front of the menacing idols.Some things never change. Russiagate is no aberration. Establishment Authority, police state apparatuses and religious catechisms, are NOT based on reasoning and evidence, but rather fact-free Narratives handed down from above and grounded by Fear of the Other, the bogeymen (be it Russians, White Supremacists, Black men, Assad, Trump, the Devil, etc), without which authority will collapse. As the historian Will Durant noted, Strabo said it best 2000 years ago:Kolya Krassotkin , says: December 28, 2019 at 9:54 pm GMT"For in dealing with a crowd of women a philosopher cannot influence them by reason or exhort them to reverence, piety or faith; nay, there is need of religious fear also, and this cannot be aroused without myths and marvels the founders of states gave their sanctions to these things as bugbears wherewith to scare the simple-minded."
@Anon John Hagee, his followers and other Christian Zionists are morons. Happily, they are not nearly as common as you imply. Being a Christian Zionist takes a special kind of stupidsteinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: December 28, 2019 at 10:05 pm GMTI cannot see Haggee without immediately recalling Christ's warning to beware of obese wolves in sheep's clothing, who take jiggly church secretaries and XXXL Italian silk suits as proof of God's blessing.
Cohen is another Jewish voice in the Jewish Mafia War between factions. I don't consider him that insightful or honest, as he never mentions the glaringly obvious: the attempt to oust Trump is a Jew Coup.Ilyana_Rozumova , says: December 28, 2019 at 10:08 pm GMT
Start telling the truth about the Hostile Elite destroying America Cohen. Until then you are just another lying Jew destroying the country that welcomed your ancestors.
When will the Traitors be routed out and hung?
No country can withstand Treason from Within going unpunished for any length of time. We either destroy these scum or they will destroy America.@Anon Do you work for free? It is the payroll stupid,Z-man , says: December 28, 2019 at 10:16 pm GMTI gotta hand it to Larry King, even with one foot in the grave he's still doing these interviews and with Professor Cohen no less. Kudos to the old coot. (Grin)
Steven Cohen should be a special advisor to the POTUS. It would be a demotion for Cohen but good for Trump and for America.
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ak74 , Dec 24 2019 4:19 utc | 78
The imperial lie machine sure is disgruntled that the 1990s attempt to economically and biologically crush Russia once and for all was a failure and Russia has since been reasserting itself. It wasn't "the end of history" after all.That was the source of the underlying current of Russia Derangement among the US elite classes (political, economic, media, academia, professional etc.), the many provocations, and then the total meltdown beginning in late 2016.
Since it really seems to be a collective mental illness (I mean that literally) afflicting a power group which is already psychotic and violent, and since it coincides with the accelerating erosion of the US imperial position, it's looking more and more likely that this must eventually lead to all-out war. I just can't imagine the US stepping back, any more than I could imagine Hitler doing so.
America's obsessive bashing of Russia (and now China) is suggestive of a deep psychological disorder.
Though the Americans and their allied apologists will insist that it is sincerely motivated by a humanitarian concern for Freedom, Democracy, and Human Rights(TM), that is quite laughable given America's concentration camps for undocumented immigrants; its incarceration of immigrant children in cages; or the US Prison Industrial Complex in general, which has been called America's new Jim Crow in that it imprisons millions of African Americans and other minorities and relegates them to a new racist caste system.
No, cut through the barrage of American Moral Supremacism and other delusions, the United States is enraged that, despite its attempt to economically rape Russia in the 1990s through American-promoted Free Market reforms and Neoliberal "shock therapy," Russia is still standing and indeed resurgent.
THAT is what enrages the Americans and triggers them in rug-chewing fits of frenzy.
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Dec 24, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
cartman December 22, 2019 at 9:55 am
Today in Russophrenia:In other news, @RANDCorporation report firmly establishes that Van Gogh was a Russian Agent. May be, the dastardly Kremlin plot drove him to cut his ear off?.. At any rate, NATO is now on alert. pic.twitter.com/9k9j5K9rx1
-- Constantin Gurdgiev (@GTCost) December 22, 2019
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Dec 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
vk , Dec 24 2019 14:40 utc | 101
Looks like it's Europe's turn in smearing Russia:Putin slams European Parliament resolution on WWII outbreak as 'complete nonsense'
vk , Dec 24 2019 14:53 utc | 102
More on Putin's response to the EP resolution:Headache , Dec 24 2019 15:30 utc | 103We don't need to guess which member is behind the resolution.
Voltairenet has a very interesting article about this subject (also discussed in the last open thread) by prof. Michael Jabara Carley of the University of Montreal: "Justin Trudeau Needs A History Lesson", in which he describes the unsuccessful efforts of Soviet diplomats to create an alliance of European countries against the nazis.karlof1 , Dec 24 2019 20:16 utc | 111I am afraid to mess up the thread, so no link.
People may have read that Putin has said a few more things about the documents he reviewed with his CIS peers; and in doing so, Putin revealed an aspect about himself few have seen previously. Putin made his statement at the annual year-end Defense Ministry Board Meeting . IMO, Putin has had more than enough of the extreme Russophobia now in circulation and he sees it as being very similar to that of prior historical periods where Russia was then subjected to attack from the West. I won't post Putin's diatribe here; you'll need to read it for yourself--I've never seen him so angry or speak undiplomatically. What I will post is what he said after, which IMO is even more important, although removed from the overall context:"I just want to note that this kind of people, people like the ones who were negotiating with Hitler back then, they now deface monuments to the liberator soldiers, Red Army soldiers who liberated the countries of Europe and the European peoples from Nazism. These are their followers. In this sense, unfortunately, little has changed. And we must keep this in mind, also with regard to the development of our Armed Forces . [My Emphasis]
"Here is what I would like to say in this regard, which I think is critically important. Please note: neither the Soviet Union, nor Russia have ever tried to create a threat to other countries. We were always catching up in this regard. The United States created the atomic bomb, and the Soviet Union caught up with it. We did not have nuclear weapon delivery vehicles or carriers. There was no such thing as strategic aviation, and the Soviet Union was catching up in this area, as well. The first intercontinental missiles actually were not built here, and the Soviet Union was trying to catch up.
"Today, we have a unique situation in our new and recent history. They try to catch up with us."
Also note the word Putin chose to describe the Outlaw US Empire's withdraw from the INF Treaty. Clearly, Putin desires to impress upon those charged with Russia's defense that the times are indeed perilous, that the old lies are being spread without any resistance. As with the other three transcripts I linked, this one also demands to be read in full and also in close association with the other three. The Poles will scream along with their sycophants, but Putin is correct about both the past and the present and the danger present within the future.
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Dec 24, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Carey , December 23, 2019 at 5:15 pm
According to MoA this NYT RussiaRussia piece was originally headlined 'It's Putin's World. We Just Live in It':
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/23/world/europe/russia-putin.html
they're getting frantic
Summer , December 23, 2019 at 5:41 pm
"That the diminutive new president had grown in her memory " They really are throwing everything in the psyops kitchen sink.
polecat , December 23, 2019 at 5:51 pm
It's all just corny starch & flint water. It looks solid until it doesn't
LifelongLib , December 23, 2019 at 6:27 pm
Easier to demonize Putin than to have long boring articles about how different countries have different national interests, and how he works for Russia not us. To say nothing about discussing who exactly is it that decides what national interests are anyway
CoryP , December 24, 2019 at 1:26 am
I very much enjoy watching or reading Putin's speeches. No doubt he's lying in the same way all politicians do. Yet, when he castigates the West he is right on target and I like him for it.
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Dec 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
FSD , Dec 23 2019 14:48 utc | 1
The USA desperately need another resource-rich country to loot and can't find suitable candidate other then Russia. So MIC prostitute Madcow is just a dog of war. The USA deperately need another resource-rich country to loot and can't find sutable candiadate othe then Russia
There is no credible analyst not shackled to the MIC trough who ventures such an analysis beyond of course GE's W-2 harpie, Rachel Maddow.The Western elites have long decided. WW3 is coming. In recent years, the Russians have repeatedly tried to get this message through the western Mediadrome, but to little effect.
The job of the GE spokespeople (Maddow et al) is diversionary/ preparatory spadework i.e. to drill with numbing repetition into the American consciousness who the enemy is. And you can bet the enemy is not who signs their paychecks. Their employers though happen to be OUR enemy.
Thus we find ourselves in the odd position of having Russia's top general attempting to shout through the Maddow racket that our two nations are on a collision course for war. Strange messenger. Or maybe not. They want to live too.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ /russias-top-general-warns-wor
Russia is in demographic collapse. It lacks the human capital to exploit even its own vast resource trove. The western banking system is over-leveraged. The imaginary numbers have gotten too big. Its 'denominator of the real' badly needs shoring up.
Russian resource wealth, Iran's massive South Pars LNG field are viewed with watering eyes as prolongations of the doomed Ponzi. Europe is energy-poor, geriatric and overrun with Islamic jihadists. With all due respect, who would want it at this late stage? At best, it is a funding source --and a battleground-- for WW3.
Meanwhile the Ponzi is ravenous and never sleeps. No growth - negative interest rates is a bell-ringer for WW3. The alternative is deflationary collapse. Maddow's been mysteriously cranked up again: Rushah Rushah!
So we find ourselves in another Goebellian shift: accuse the opposition of your own ulterior motives. They have no designs on us. Our overlords have designs on them.
Americans are just the People in the middle, hostages in a sense yet seemingly feared enough that our minds are still worth battling over. Trump's affinities are too populist. He's a dodgy helmsman for the massive undertaking of a world war where the people are only to be galvanized, not consulted.
Far from a duteous seat-warmer, he's a leader who squeaked through. The Oval Office is no place for leaders. It was thought to have been neutered of all that leadership malarkey post-JFK. Trump's not enough to hold back the MIC. No POTUS is. He either must depart the job or be compromised into executing the plan. But he's a bad Lieutenant. They'll never be comfortable with him.
Then some evil, diseased mind had an epiphany. Don't just Get Trump! Get a twofer! Get Trump and Russah! Weld them together for one kill-shot. Collusion means no daylight and one bullet. Yes, there's a genius to it, a very sick genius.
Annie , Dec 23 2019 15:29 utc | 4
B, great article as usual but disappointed that you didn't write about the latest sanctions on N2.Piotr Berman , Dec 23 2019 15:30 utc | 5Another act of WAR by the US. These sanctions now cover the comoany, Allseas, laying the pipeline to Germany. They ceased operations and will not complete the project and Gazprom does not have the expertise. Would love to see your
analysis on that.
The NYT propaganda, true to form and loyal to Dem Russophobes just one more attempt to manufacture consentThis is maddening. These crazies are looking for war on Russia. Are the American people stupid enough to give that consent?
My NYT site has the title "Russia Is a Mess. Why Is Putin Such a Formidable Enemy?"Some quotes:
---- 1 ----
Under Mr. Putin, Vladislav Surkov, a longtime Kremlin adviser, wrote in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, a Moscow newspaper, earlier this year, Russia "is playing with the West's minds."Also its own.
---- 2 ----
All the same, said Gleb Pavlovsky, a political scientist who worked for more than a decade as a Kremlin adviser, Russia under Mr. Putin still reminds him of a sci-fi movie exoskeleton: "Inside is sitting a small, weak and perhaps frightened person, but from the outside it looks terrifying."
---- 3 ----
Whatever its problems, Mr. Surkov, the Kremlin adviser, said, Russia has created "the ideology of the future" by dispensing with the "illusion of choice" offered by the West and rooting itself in the will of a single leader capable of swiftly making the choices without constraint.China, too, has advocated autocracy as the way to get results fast, but even Xi Jinping, the head of the Chinese Communist Party, can't match the lightening speed with which Mr. Putin ordered and executed the seizure of Crimea. The decision to grab the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine was made at a single all-night Kremlin meeting in February 2014 and then carried out just four days later with the dispatch of a few score Russian special forces officers to seize a handful of government buildings in Simferopol, the Crimean capital.
==========
If true, the resources committed to "Crimea takeover" were comparable with what Israel committed to assassinate one person, Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, dispatching a team of 33 to Dubai in January 2010. Wasn't the superior productivity the strength of the West?And this is not a joke. Putin is a maniac for balanced budgets, and compared to the expansive American style, the resources committed by Syria were minuscule. And by all accounts, spend well.
REUTERS. Oct 2, 2015 - U.S. President Barack Obama warned Russia on Friday that its bombing campaign against Syrian rebels will suck Moscow into a "quagmire," after a third straight day of air raids in support of President Bashar al-Assad. <<-- Obama was well aware that Russia committed a very small number of troops, and smallish air force that his military expert were describing as obsolete. Russia could not be many times more effective than USA, could it?
No sign of Obama's predicted 'quagmire' as Russia's ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com › world › 2016/09/30
Sep 30, 2016 - BEIRUT -- In the year since Russia began conducting airstrikes in support of the Syrian government, the intervention has worked to secure two ...That explains the next quote from today NYT
---- 4 ----
"Maybe he's holding small cards, but he seems unafraid to play them," said Michael McFaul, a former United States ambassador to Moscow and now a scholar at Stanford. "That's what makes Putin so scary."
=========
Seems that Establishment scours most elite universities, Harvard, Yale, Stanford , Princeton etc. for the dumbest possible graduates. I know from private sources that not all graduates are dumb, many are actually brilliant. Does it occur to McFaul that boldness in playing small cards is even worse than playing large card? Russia (and Assad's partisans in Syria) had to do something well that USA (in government supporters in Afghanistan) did not do at all or did badly.
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Dec 23, 2019 | www.nytimes.com
John H. Durham, the United States attorney leading the investigation, has requested Mr. Brennan's emails, call logs and other documents from the C.I.A., according to a person briefed on his inquiry. He wants to learn what Mr. Brennan told other officials, including the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, about his and the C.I.A.'s views of a notorious dossier of assertions about Russia and Trump associates.
... ... ...
Mr. Durham is also examining whether Mr. Brennan privately contradicted his public comments, including May 2017 testimony to Congress , about both the dossier and about any debate among the intelligence agencies over their conclusions on Russia's interference, the people said.
... ... ..
"The president bore the burden of probably one of the greatest conspiracy theories -- baseless conspiracy theories -- in American political history," Mr. Barr told Fox News. He has long expressed skepticism that the F.B.I. had enough information to begin its inquiry in 2016, publicly criticizing an inspector general report released last week that affirmed that the bureau did.
Mr. Barr has long been interested in the conclusion about Mr. Putin ordering intervention on Mr. Trump's behalf, perhaps the intelligence report's most explosive assertion. The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. reported high confidence in the conclusion, while the N.S.A., which conducts electronic surveillance, had a moderate degree of confidence.
... ... ...
Critics of the intelligence assessment, like Representative Chris Stewart, Republican of Utah, said the C.I.A.'s sourcing failed to justify the high level of confidence about Moscow's intervention on behalf of Mr. Trump.
"I don't agree with the conclusion, particularly that it's such a high level of confidence," Mr. Stewart said, citing raw intelligence that he said he reviewed.
"I just think there should've been allowances made for some of the ambiguity in that and especially for those who didn't also share in the conclusion that it was a high degree of confidence," he added.
Mr. Durham's investigators also want to know more about the discussions that prompted intelligence community leaders to include Mr. Steele's allegations in the appendix of their assessment.
Mr. Brennan has repeatedly said, including in his 2017 congressional testimony, that the C.I.A. did not rely on the dossier when it helped develop the assessment, and the former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has also testified before lawmakers that the same was true for the intelligence agencies more broadly. But Mr. Trump's allies have long asked pointed questions about the dossier, including how it was used in the intelligence agency's assessment.
Some C.I.A. analysts and officials insisted that the dossier be left out of the assessment, while some F.B.I. leaders wanted to include it and bristled at its relegation to the appendix. Their disagreements were captured in the highly anticipated report released last week by Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general, examining aspects of the F.B.I.'s Russia investigation.
Mr. Steele's information "was a topic of significant discussion within the F.B.I. and with the other agencies participating in drafting" the declassified intelligence assessment about Russia interference, Mr. Horowitz wrote. The F.B.I. shared Mr. Steele's information with the team of officials from multiple agencies drafting the assessment.
Mr. Comey also briefed Mr. Brennan and other top Obama administration intelligence officials including the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, and Mr. Clapper about the bureau's efforts to assess the information in the dossier, Mr. Comey told the inspector general. He said that analysts had found it to be "credible on its face."
... ... ...
Andrew G. McCabe, then the deputy director of the F.B.I., pushed back, according to the inspector general report, accusing the intelligence chiefs of trying to minimize Mr. Steele's information.
Ultimately the two sides compromised by placing Mr. Steele's material in the appendix. After BuzzFeed News published the dossier in January 2017, days after the intelligence assessment about Russia's election sabotage was released, Mr. Comey complained to Mr. Clapper about his decision to publicly state that the intelligence community "has not made any judgment" about the document's reliability.
Mr. Comey said that the F.B.I. had concluded that Mr. Steele was reliable, according to the inspector general report. Mr. Clapper ignored Mr. Comey, the report said.
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Dec 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Danny , Dec 23 2019 17:09 utc | 16
In Canada the cost of living outpaces wages by a considerable margin, consumer debt is the highest in the G7, permanent homeless camps are a fixture in major cities and popping up in smaller ones, people, including families, living in their vehicles is becoming normalized, an ongoing opioid epidemic is still killing hundreds of people a month, etc. etc.But the media keeps telling me unemployment is at record lows and the economy is "red hot" and "booming" so it's all good, nothing to worry about thank God because the free and democratic media here in the west never lies or traffics in distorted facts and disinformation. It only prints and broadcasts The Truth and I'm really happy about that, very relieved that everything is just fine and wonderful and all the bad things and the bad people and the bad economies are in China, Russia and scary places like that. It's great living in a place that's so free and awesome and knows only joy and prosperity!
If Putin was smart and freedom loving he'd get some western economic experts, from Harvard Business School say, to help get the Russian economy booming but he's paranoid and doesn't trust the west for some reason.
The uneasiness I feel as I stumble over the sleeping homeless people on my way to the bus stop in the morning is irrational and foolish and was planted in my mind by Russian troll bots on Facebook. I understand this now. Everything is wonderful here, now and always. With Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland at the helm and a first class media dedicated to Truth why would anyone worry or be mistrustful of our great Leaders and our Democratic Institutions? We are the envy of the world and that makes Putin's Russia jealous and meddlesome. I understand this now and channel all my news through an Atlantic Council Fake News Filter plugin so all the Putinist mind warping stuff on Facebook can't affect me anymore.
Sorry that was a long post, lol. Anyways my friend I hope you are well even though I am sad that you still have a false paranoia about Our Western Media spreading Fake News. It's Putin bro, not "us"! I understand this now broke lurker cover to share my insight with you so that you too can learn to speak only Teh Truth. The Russian economy is spluttering badly and here in Canada everything is wonderful! In Germany too! They hate our freedom and therefore it's always bad there. The Democratic West will save the Putinist economy when Putin learns to love and trust the West like I do (and hopefully you)! Peace out bro and much love, eh, haha.
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Aug 18, 2018 | russia-insider.com
It is debatable how much of the US government Trump actually controls. The baseless CW finding by the State Department (with heavy pressure from Congress) is the work of Trump's globalist enemies in the bureaucracy and in Congress ( all of the Democrats, and almost all of the Republicans ), with the complicity of his own appointees, to undermine his overtures to Moscow and further erode his Executive authority. Besides blocking every possible path to détente with Russia, this is another step to setting Trump up for removal from office.
Regarding the timing of a second set of sanctions set to kick in November, it's hard to see how that will be avoided. Russia will not submit to inspections, which the US is arrogantly demanding of Russia, as if she were some pipsqueak country like Libya. Given that the OPCW certified in 2017 that the Russians had completed destruction of 100% of their CW stockpile (cf., the US still has almost 10% of our stocks, which are not expected to be completely gone until 2023), the demand is the equivalent of proving that you have stopped beating your wife (to the satisfaction of someone who admittedly continues to beat his own wife).
In the absence of capitulating to the US demand, which Russia will not do, legally Trump can waive the sanctions. But that option is no doubt part of the political trap being laid for him, presenting him a Hobson's choice.
On the one hand, he can waive the sanctions, further hyping the charges of treason against him (and, if the waiver is before the elections, giving the Democrats another red flag to wave), as well as inviting new legislation passed by a margin "Putin's puppet" cannot veto;
or he can let them go into effect.
If, as seems likely, the harsher measures are applied it is hard to overstate the danger created. These are the kind of things that countries do just one step from totally breaking relations in advance of war: cutting off access to American banks, barring Aeroflot from the US (in context, the least of our concerns, though symbolic), effectively blocking all exports and imports, and downgrading or suspending diplomatic ties. With respect to the last – a direct assault on Trump's presidential authority to send and receive ambassadors under Article II of the Constitution (oddly, no one in Congress seems to care that presidents routinely usurp their authority to make war) – this likely would mean withdrawing the US ambassador from Moscow and expelling the Russian ambassador in Washington, while maintaining relations if at all at the chargé d'affaires level.
In word, this is insanity. What's perhaps worse is that this political warfare is being conducted with total disregard for the truth, much less an honest attempt to find it. It's worse than a presumption of guilt; it's a positive, unambiguous verdict of culpability under circumstances where the accusers in Washington and London (I would guess but cannot prove) know perfectly well that the CW finger pointing is false.
It has been clear from the beginning of Trump's meteoric rise on the American political scene that he and his American First agenda were perceived by the beneficiaries of the globalist, neoliberal order as a mortal danger to the system which has enriched them. Maintaining and intensifying hostility toward Russia, even at the risk of a catastrophic, uncontainable conflict, lies at the center of their efforts . This political war to save globalism at all hazards is intensifying.
It would be a mistake, however, to understand hostility to Russia as just a cold calculation of pecuniary and social advantage by a corrupt mandarin class. It is all that of course, but it is also deeply ideological, reflecting the agenda of the entrenched pseudo-elites to dismantle the traditional national identities and Christian moral values of the West – and impose their godless agenda on the East as well .
But there is something else too, something that touches the emotional heart of both Russophobia in a global context and anti-Trumpism domestically. That is the accusation of racism .
Unsurprisingly one of the first to give voice to this concept was Hillary Clinton, who in her August 2016 "tinfoil hat speech" sought to portray Trump as a creature of the "Alt-Right " because, among other things, he once complimented Infowars ' Alex Jones: "Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down." But in Hillary's estimation, who is "the grand godfather" of the worldwide Alt-Right? You guessed it: "Russian President Vladimir Putin." A month later she doubled down in her infamous " basket of deplorables " speech, branding Trump's tens of millions of supporters "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it." (In an evident oversight, she omitted mention of Putin.)
Give the warmongering old girl credit for her doggedness. Hillary has stuck to this theme even as she sinks into irrelevance (while still reportedly harboring ambitions of a 2020 presidential run !), in June 2018 calling Putin the leader of the worldwide "authoritarian, white-supremacist, and xenophobic movement" who is "emboldening right-wing nationalists, separatists, racists, and even neo-Nazis."
Hillary is not alone. As summed up by Jodi Jacobson of Rewire.News (" Putin, Trump, and Kavanaugh: A Triad of White Supremacy and Oligarchy "):
'Putin is a dictator. His interests are in amassing wealth and power at any cost, both in Russia and globally. He is an ethnic nationalist , a white supremacist , and an Islamophobe . He aligns himself with radical right-wing religious and political groups to marginalize and attack the rights of women, LGBTQ communities, and religious and ethnic groups outside his power base.'
But perhaps the most revealing description comes from putative comedian Bill Maher on a recent episode of his HBO program, explaining that "Race Explains Shift From Party Of Reagan To Party Of Putin" and excoriating not just Putin but Russians as such for their genetic characteristics:
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Dec 22, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Stormcrow , December 21, 2019 at 11:54 am
The Long, Dark History of Russia's Murder, Inc. New York Review of Books
Up next: The bright, sunny history of the CIA
Carolinian , December 21, 2019 at 1:27 pm
Speaking of that.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/12/20/gladio-the-story-of-a-conspiracy/
Acacia , December 22, 2019 at 12:15 am
No surprise. NYRB has had a b*ner for Muh Russia since the early days of the hysteria.
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Dec 22, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Mark McCarty , 21 December 2019 at 02:34 PM
Here's a key point - on June 12, Assange announces that Wikileaks will soon be releasing info pertinent to Hillary. HE DOES NOT SAY THAT HE WILL BE RELEASING DNC EMAILS.And yet, on June 14, Crowdstrike reports a Russian hack of the DNC servers - and a day later, Guccifer 2.0 emerges and proclaims himself to be the hacker, takes credit for the upcoming Wikileaks DNC releases, publishes the Trump oppo research which Crowdstrike claimed he had taken, and intentionally adds "Russian footprints" to his metadata.
So how did Crowdstrike and G2.0 know that DNC EMAILS would be released?
Because, as Larry postulates, the US intelligence community had intercepted communications between Seth Rich and Wikileaks in which Seth had offered the DNC emails (consistent with the report of Sy Hersh's source within the FBI).
So US intelligence tipped off the DNC that their emails were about to be leaked to Wikileaks.
That's when the stratagem of attributing the impending Wikileaks release to a Russian hack was born - distracting from the incriminating content of the emails, while vilifying the Deep State's favorite enemies, Assange and Russia, all in one neat scam.
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Dec 22, 2019 | twitter.com
Bellingcat's transparency model is similar to the Tor Project's. It lists a bunch of innocuous, little-known non-profits and human rights-type organizations. To understand who they and why they'd fund an outfit like Bellingcat takes a lot more digging.
-- Yasha Levine (@yashalevine) December 20, 2019
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Dec 22, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
akaPatience , 20 December 2019 at 05:57 PM
SO, to assist Crowdstrike's efforts, "On the afternoon of Friday, June 10, all DNC employees were instructed to leave their laptops in the office."Factotum said in reply to akaPatience ... , 20 December 2019 at 07:11 PMWas this typical protocol when it comes to investigating possible hacking or were they looking for a leaker?
Maybe they were worried someone had bear spray in their purse of backpack, when Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear showed and put their paw prints on the DNC computers.The Twisted Genius -> akaPatience ... , 20 December 2019 at 09:23 PMAkaPatience, that is exactly how it is done. Once the decision is made to totally clean the network, it has to be done to EVERY computer and device on the network. Hackers leave dormant code throughout the network that allows them to reenter the network after they are booted out.akaPatience -> The Twisted Genius ... , 20 December 2019 at 10:37 PMThank you. I suspected you would answer my question!JamesT -> The Twisted Genius ... , 21 December 2019 at 10:39 PMTTG,I don't know if you care to comment on this, but I met a marine 10 years ago who talked about how he was administrating Windows Server when he was in the corps. I was flabbergasted. I don't understand why more effort has not been put into running a secure OS - something with a microkernel architecture and an application stack and GUI fully locked down with Mandatory Access Control . I presume that the assumption is that any advances we make will be quickly matched by Iran, Russia, and China, and that leadership is more interested in offence than defence.
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Dec 22, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Ed Snack , 21 December 2019 at 01:41 PM
Other points to note:Ed Snack , 20 December 2019 at 10:56 PM1.
Other points to note:1. G2 released nothing remotely damaging to the DNC, the first document was even the DNC's oppo file on DJT
2. G2 did some copying and compress/decompress on files. Imbedded timestamps strongly suggest a US Timezone location
3. G2 released some files claiming to be from the DNC, but which demonstrably came from John Podesta's account
4. G2 did not claim to be involved with the Podesta account, which was phished and not hacked as such
5. As an aside, both the Fancy and Cosy Bear packages had been available for third parties to obtain since 2013-4 or so. So their use is not proof of Russian involvement. One or other has been used in bank exploits before 2016.I believe that G2 is arguably US based (the timestamps are reasonably conclusive), and is either CIA or Crowdstrike. The existence of G2 is a diversionary one to strengthen the case for blaming the Russians. It may be connected to wanting to divert attention from Seth Rich and his subsequent murder, but may not be - that is Seth Rich's death may be just an unfortunate coincidence, we have inadequate information to conclude either way.
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Dec 21, 2019 | off-guardian.org
s Putin losing his grip? Why did Russian disinformation operations fail so dramatically in the UK election? Not only did the "rabid socialist" Corbyn fail to seize power from the Russophobic cold-war warriors of Whitehall but Russia's man in the White House is already planning to move in with them!
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Apr 09, 2019 | failedevolution.blogspot.com
The start of current decade revealed the most ruthless face of a global neo-colonialism. From Syria and Libya to Europe and Latin America, the old colonial powers of the West tried to rebound against an oncoming rival bloc led by Russia and China, which starts to threaten their global domination.
Inside a multi-polar, complex terrain of geopolitical games, the big players start to abandon the old-fashioned, inefficient direct wars. They use today other, various methods like brutal proxy wars , economic wars, financial and constitutional coups, provocative operations, 'color revolutions', etc. In this highly complex and unstable situation, when even traditional allies turn against each other as the global balances change rapidly, the forces unleashed are absolutely destructive. Inevitably, the results are more than evident.
Proxy Wars - Syria/Libya
After the US invasion in Iraq, the gates of hell had opened in the Middle East. Obama continued the Bush legacy of US endless interventions, but he had to change tactics because a direct war would be inefficient, costly and extremely unpopular to the American people and the rest of the world.
The result, however, appeared to be equally (if not more) devastating with the failed US invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US had lost total control of the armed groups directly linked with the ISIS terrorists, failed to topple Assad, and, moreover, instead of eliminating the Russian and Iranian influence in the region, actually managed to increase it. As a result, the US and its allies failed to secure their geopolitical interests around the various pipeline games.In addition, the US sees Turkey, one of its most important ally, changing direction dangerously, away from the Western bloc. Probably the strongest indication for this, is that Turkey, Iran and Russia decided very recently to proceed in an agreement on Syria without the presence of the US.
Yet, the list of US failures does not end here. The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya.
Evidence from WikiLeaks has shown that the old colonial powers have started a new round of ruthless competition on Libya's resources. The usual story propagated by the Western media, about another tyrant who had to be removed, has now completely collapsed. They don't care neither to topple an 'authoritarian' regime, nor to spread Democracy. All they care about is to secure each country's resources for their big companies.
The Gaddafi case is quite interesting because it shows that the Western hypocrites were using him according to their interests .Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course, his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed.
Economic Wars, Financial Coups Greece/Eurozone
It would be unthinkable for the neo-colonialists to conduct proxy wars inside European soil, especially against countries which belong to Western institutions like NATO, EU, eurozone, etc. The wave of the US-made major economic crisis hit Greece and Europe at the start of the decade, almost simultaneously with the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutionary wave and the subsequent disaster in Middle East and Libya.
Greece was the easy victim for the global neoliberal dictatorship to impose catastrophic measures in favor of the plutocracy. The Greek experiment enters its seventh year and the plan is to be used as a model for the whole eurozone. Greece has become also the model for the looting of public property, as happened in the past with the East Germany and the Treuhand Operation after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
While Greece was the major victim of an economic war, Germany used its economic power and control of the European Central Bank to impose unprecedented austerity, sado-monetarism and neoliberal destruction through silent financial coups in Ireland , Italy and Cyprus . The Greek political establishment collapsed with the rise of SYRIZA in power, and the ECB was forced to proceed in an open financial coup against Greece when the current PM, Alexis Tsipras, decided to conduct a referendum on the catastrophic measures imposed by the ECB, IMF and the European Commission, through which the Greek people clearly rejected these measures, despite the propaganda of terror inside and outside Greece. Due to the direct threat from Mario Draghi and the ECB, who actually threatened to cut liquidity sinking Greece into a financial chaos, Tsipras finally forced to retreat, signing another catastrophic memorandum.
Through similar financial and political pressure, the Brussels bureaufascists and the German sado-monetarists along with the IMF economic hitmen, imposed neoliberal disaster to other eurozone countries like Portugal, Spain etc. It is remarkable that even the second eurozone economy, France, rushed to impose anti-labor measures midst terrorist attacks, succumbing to a - pre-designed by the elites - neo-Feudalism, under the 'Socialist' Franηois Hollande, despite the intense protests in many French cities.
Germany would never let the United States to lead the neo-colonization in Europe, as it tries (again) to become a major power with its own sphere of influence, expanding throughout eurozone and beyond. As the situation in Europe becomes more and more critical with the ongoing economic and refugee crisis and the rise of the Far-Right and the nationalists, the economic war mostly between the US and the German big capital, creates an even more complicated situation.
The decline of the US-German relations has been exposed initially with the NSA interceptions scandal , yet, progressively, the big picture came on surface, revealing a transatlantic economic war between banking and corporate giants. In times of huge multilevel crises, the big capital always intensifies its efforts to eliminate competitors too. As a consequence, the US has seen another key ally, Germany, trying to gain a certain degree of independence in order to form its own agenda, separate from the US interests.
Note that, both Germany and Turkey are medium powers that, historically, always trying to expand and create their own spheres of influence, seeking independence from the traditional big powers.
Economic Wars, Constitutional Coups, Provocative Operations Argentina/Brazil/Venezuela
A wave of neoliberal onslaught shakes currently Latin America. While in Argentina, Mauricio Macri allegedly took the power normally, the constitutional coup against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as, the usual actions of the Right opposition in Venezuela against Nicolαs Maduro with the help of the US finger, are far more obvious.
The special weight of these three countries in Latin America is extremely important for the US imperialism to regain ground in the global geopolitical arena. Especially the last ten to fifteen years, each of them developed increasingly autonomous policies away from the US close custody, under Leftist governments, and this was something that alarmed the US imperialism components.Brazil appears to be the most important among the three, not only due to its size, but also as a member of the BRICS, the team of fast growing economies who threaten the US and generally the Western global dominance. The constitutional coup against Rousseff was rather a sloppy action and reveals the anxiety of the US establishment to regain control through puppet regimes. This is a well-known situation from the past through which the establishment attempts to secure absolute dominance in the US backyard.
The importance of Venezuela due to its oil reserves is also significant. When Maduro tried to approach Russia in order to strengthen the economic cooperation between the two countries, he must had set the alarm for the neocons in the US. Venezuela could find an alternative in Russia and BRICS, in order to breathe from the multiple economic war that was set off by the US. It is characteristic that the economic war against Russia by the US and the Saudis, by keeping the oil prices in historically low levels, had significant impact on the Venezuelan economy too. It is also known that the US organizations are funding the opposition since Chαvez era, in order to proceed in provocative operations that could overthrow the Leftist governments.
The case of Venezuela is really interesting. The US imperialists were fiercely trying to overthrow the Leftist governments since Chαvez administration. They found now a weaker president, Nicolαs Maduro - who certainly does not have the strength and personality of Hugo Chαvez - to achieve their goal.
The Western media mouthpieces are doing their job, which is propaganda as usual. The recipe is known. You present the half truth, with a big overdose of exaggeration. The establishment parrots are demonizing Socialism , but they won't ever tell you about the money that the US is spending, feeding the Right-Wing groups and opposition to proceed in provocative operations, in order to create instability. They won't tell you about the financial war conducted through the oil prices, manipulated by the Saudis, the close US ally.
Regarding Argentina, former president, Cristina Kirchner, had also made some important moves towards the stronger cooperation with Russia, which was something unacceptable for Washington's hawks. Not only for geopolitical reasons, but also because Argentina could escape from the vulture funds that sucking its blood since its default. This would give the country an alternative to the neoliberal monopoly of destruction. The US big banks and corporations would never accept such a perspective because the debt-enslaved Argentina is a golden opportunity for a new round of huge profits. It's happening right now in eurozone's debt colony, Greece.
'Color Revolutions' - Ukraine
The events in Ukraine have shown that, the big capital has no hesitation to ally even with the neo-nazis, in order to impose the new world order. This is not something new of course. The connection of Hitler with the German economic oligarchs, but also with other major Western companies, before and during the WWII, is well known.
The most terrifying of all however, is not that the West has silenced in front of the decrees of the new Ukrainian leadership, through which is targeting the minorities, but the fact that the West allied with the neo-nazis, while according to some information has also funded their actions as well as other extreme nationalist groups during the riots in Kiev.
Plenty of indications show that US organizations have 'put their finger' on Ukraine. A video , for example, concerning the situation in Ukraine has been directed by Ben Moses (creator of the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam"), who is connected with American government executives and organizations like National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress. This video shows a beautiful young female Ukrainian who characterizes the government of the country as "dictatorship" and praise some protesters with the neo-nazi symbols of the fascist Ukranian party Svoboda on them.
The same organizations are behind 'color revolutions' elsewhere, as well as, provocative operations against Leftist governments in Venezuela and other countries.
Ukraine is the perfect place to provoke Putin and tight the noose around Russia. Of course the huge hypocrisy of the West can also be identified in the case of Crimea. While in other cases, the Western officials were 'screaming' for the right of self-determination (like Kosovo, for example), after they destroyed Yugoslavia in a bloodbath, they can't recognize the will of the majority of Crimeans to join Russia.
The war will become wilder
The Western neo-colonial powers are trying to counterattack against the geopolitical upgrade of Russia and the Chinese economic expansionism.
Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. Besides, Trump has already shown his hostile feelings against China, despite his friendly approach to Russia and Putin.
We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact.
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Dec 21, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Kali , Dec 21 2019 22:03 utc | 22
There have been numerous smears of Tulsi Gabbard that have been repeated over and over the last few years after she went to Syria. She started to give the foreign policy blob a lot of grief for their support of the overthrow of Syria to install a theocratic jihadi government controlled by the usual suspects.One smear they like to use is to call Tulsi an Islamophobe. That began years ago when she criticized Our Savior Obama (pbaj) for claiming ISIS was not a religious extremist organization, that it was a criminal group and the US needed to give Iraqi men more to do and then they wouldn't join those criminal gangs like...ISIS.
Anyways, this article goes into a deeper state (yup, deeper than usual) conspiracy by various actors to smear Tulsi for a variety of reasons subservient to foreign interests, with a surprise intro to another often unspoken of interest with a lot of hidden power in Washington.
Anatomy of A Smear: How Liberals Have Become Willing Dupes of Foreign Political Psy-Ops
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Dec 21, 2019 | astutenews.com
Washington's Proposed New Sanctions Against Turkey also Aimed Against Russia December 18, 2019 A Opinion Leave a comment With the world fixated on Turkish actions against Syria, Greece and Libya at the moment, the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Senate of the United States Congress approved a bill, "Promoting American National Security and Preventing the Resurgence of ISIS Act," spearheaded and thoroughly promoted by staunch anti-Syria/Venezuela/Iran/Russia Democratic Senator Robert Menendez who celebrated the bills passing on his Twitter . The Republican-led Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 18-4 to send the bill for a vote in the full Senate.
The approval of the bill was widely reported in the mainstream media as an "anti-Turkey bill." Senator Jim Risch, the panel's Republican chairman, a fellow endorser of the bill with Menendez, said that the approval of this bill is because of the "drift by this country, Turkey, to go in an entirely different direction than what they have in the past. They've thumbed their nose at us, and they've thumbed their nose at their other NATO allies."
According to the draft bill , the Turkish acquisition of the powerful S-400 missile defense system gives grounds to impose sanctions against this country, under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). In particular, the document restricts the sale of U.S. weapons to Turkey and imposes sanctions on Turkish officials responsible for supplying weapons towards their illegal military operation in Syria.
Turkey signed in December 2017 the first contract with Russia for the purchase of the S-400 for a value of $2.5 billion, which caused tension in relations between Ankara and Washington. The U.S. demanded that Ankara renounce that transaction and buy U.S. Patriot systems, and threatened to delay or cancel the sale of the F-35 fighters to Turkey. Ankara refused to make concessions and assured that its purpose of acquiring Russian systems remains firm.
What was missed, perhaps intentionally by the majority of the mainstream media is that this bill has a heavy anti-Russian/Syrian component to it. Although not as detailed and expansive as the Turkish section of the bill, it claims that "the Russian Federation and Iran continue to exploit a security vacuum in Syria and continue to pose a threat to vital United States national security interests," without explaining what these security interests are, exactly as we have become accustomed to.
According to the bill, there will be a
"list of each Russian person that, on or after such date of enactment, knowingly exports, transfers, or otherwise provides to Syria significant financial, material, or technological support that contributes materially to the ability of the Government of Syria to acquire defense articles, defense services, and related information."
Although the bill has not said which specific Russians, the nature of the bill means that there will be inevitable sanctions against Russia as it is a top weapon exporter to Syria, which will unlikely change despite of the new sanctions. Those in the eventual sanction list will face an American blacklist, which means a ban on entry, freezing of assets in the United States, a ban on doing business with this person for American citizens or companies. At the same time, the bill allows that the US President can consider each case separately and refuse to impose sanctions.
These proposed new sanctions that will have to pass the House of Representatives, which passed its own anti-Turkish sanctions bill by an overwhelming 403-16 vote in October, is part of a wider effort for the U.S. to keep pressurizing Russia's economy. On December 9, the committees of both chambers of the U.S. Congress previously agreed on the military budget for 2020, which includes restrictions against the Nord Stream 2 and Turk Stream pipelines to bring Russian energy to Europe, infrastructures designed to raise Europe's energy security. The U.S. bill that provides sanctions against companies participating in the laying of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline aims to obtain unilateral advantages in the gas area to the detriment of the interests of the countries of Europe. This prompted the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Russian-German Foreign Chamber of Commerce, Matthias Schepp, to explain that the new measures against Nord Stream 2 affect not only Russia, but, above all, European companies and Germany's energy interests.
Washington is frustrated that European energy policy is decided in Europe, not in the U.S., which calls into question the cooperation between the U.S. and Europe. It is a very risky measure and Europe would need to have a blunt attitude of rejection of these measures imposed by the U.S., because its own economy is at risk.
Effectively, the "Promoting American National Security and Preventing the Resurgence of ISIS Act," which strangely targets Russia who had a greater role than the U.S. in defeating ISIS terrorists, is just another way for Washington to warn other countries not to buy the S-400 or Russian military equipment or engage in energy diplomacy with Moscow. It is unlikely that this will deter states from conducting arms and energy deals with Russia as Moscow has been pioneering anti-sanction measures to protect financial transactions without punishment, and rather it demonstrates a Washington that is becoming increasingly desperate in the Era of Multipolarity.
By Paul Antonopoulos
Source: Infobrics
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Dec 20, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report insists that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were created by Russia's military intelligence organization, the GRU, as part of a Russian plot to meddle in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Election. But this is a lie. Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were created by Brennan's CIA and this action by the CIA should be a target of U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation. Let me explain why.
Let us start with the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment aka ICA. Only three agencies of the 17 in the U.S. intelligence community contributed to and coordinated on the ICA--the FBI, the CIA and NSA. In the preamble to the ICA, you can read the following explanation about methodology:
When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as "we assess" or "we judge," they are conveying an analytic assessment or judgment
To be clear, the phrase,"We assess", is intel community jargon for "opinion". If there was actual evidence or source material for a judgment the writer of the assessment would state, "According to a reliable source" or "knowledgeable source" or "documentary evidence."
Pay close attention to what the analysts writing the ICA stated about the GRU and Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks:
We assess with high confidence that the GRU used the Guccifer 2.0 persona, DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets.
- Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be an independent Romanian hacker, made multiple contradictory statements and false claims about his likely Russian identity throughout the election. Press reporting suggests more than one person claiming to be Guccifer 2.0 interacted with journalists.
- Content that we assess was taken from e-mail accounts targeted by the GRU in March 2016 appeared on DCLeaks.com starting in June.
We assess with high confidence that the GRU relayed material it acquired from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks. Moscow most likely chose WikiLeaks because of its self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity. Disclosures through WikiLeaks did not contain any evident forgeries.
Not one piece of corroborating intelligence. It is all based on opinion and strong belief. There was no human source report or electronic intercept pointing to a relationship between the GRU and the two alleged creations of the GRU--Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com. Now consider the spin that Robert Mueller put on this opinion in his report on possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Mueller bluffs the unsuspecting reader into believing that it is a proven fact that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were Russian assets. But he is relying on a mere opinion from a handpicked group of intel analysts working under the direction of then CIA Director John Brennan.
Here's Mueller's take (I apologize for the lengthy quote but it is important that you read how the Mueller team presents this):
DCLeaks
"The GRU began planning the releases at least as early as April 19, 2016, when Unit 26165 registered the domain dcleaks.com through a service that anonymized the registrant.137 Unit 26165 paid for the registration using a pool of bitcoin that it had mined.138 The dcleaks.com landing page pointed to different tranches of stolen documents, arranged by victim or subject matter. Other dcleaks.com pages contained indexes of the stolen emails that were being released (bearing the sender, recipient, and date of the email). To control access and the timing of releases, pages were sometimes password-protected for a period of time and later made unrestricted to the public.
Starting in June 2016, the GRU posted stolen documents onto the website dcleaks.com, including documents stolen from a number of individuals associated with the Clinton Campaign. These documents appeared to have originated from personal email accounts (in particular, Google and Microsoft accounts), rather than the DNC and DCCC computer networks. DCLeaks victims included an advisor to the Clinton Campaign, a former DNC employee and Clinton Campaign employee, and four other campaign volunteers.139 The GRU released through dcleaks.com thousands of documents, including personal identifying and financial information, internal correspondence related to the"Clinton Campaign and prior political jobs, and fundraising files and information.140
GRU officers operated a Facebook page under the DCLeaks moniker, which they primarily used to promote releases of materials.141 The Facebook page was administered through a small number of preexisting GRU-controlled Facebook accounts.142
GRU officers also used the DCLeaks Facebook account, the Twitter account @dcleaks__, and the email account [email protected] to communicate privately with reporters and other U.S. persons. GRU officers using the DCLeaks persona gave certain reporters early access to archives of leaked files by sending them links and passwords to pages on the dcleaks.com website that had not yet become public. For example, on July 14, 2016, GRU officers operating under the DCLeaks persona sent a link and password for a non-public DCLeaks webpage to a U.S. reporter via the Facebook account.143 Similarly, on September 14, 2016, GRU officers sent reporters Twitter direct messages from @dcleaks_, with a password to another non-public part of the dcleaks.com website.144
The dcleaks.com website remained operational and public until March 2017."Guccifer 2.0
On June 14, 2016, the DNC and its cyber-response team announced the breach of the DNC network and suspected theft of DNC documents. In the statements, the cyber-response team alleged that Russian state-sponsored actors (which they referred to as "Fancy Bear") were responsible for the breach.145 Apparently in response to that announcement, on June 15, 2016, GRU officers using the persona Guccifer 2.0 created a WordPress blog. In the hours leading up to the launch of that WordPress blog, GRU officers logged into a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455 and searched for a number of specific words and phrases in English, including "some hundred sheets," "illuminati," and "worldwide known." Approximately two hours after the last of those searches, Guccifer 2.0 published its first post, attributing the DNC server hack to a lone Romanian hacker and using several of the unique English words and phrases that the GRU officers had searched for that day.146
That same day, June 15, 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 WordPress blog to begin releasing to the public documents stolen from the DNC and DCCC computer networks.
The Guccifer 2.0 persona ultimately released thousands of documents stolen from the DNC and DCCC in a series of blog posts between June 15, 2016 and October 18, 2016.147 Released documents included opposition research performed by the DNC (including a memorandum analyzing potential criticisms of candidate Trump), internal policy documents (such as recommendations on how to address politically sensitive issues), analyses of specific congressional races, and fundraising documents. Releases were organized around thematic issues, such as specific states (e.g., Florida and Pennsylvania) that were perceived as competitive in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Beginning in late June 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 persona to release documents directly to reporters and other interested individuals. Specifically, on June 27, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 sent an email to the news outlet The Smoking Gun offering to provide "exclusive access to some leaked emails linked [to] Hillary Clinton's staff."148 The GRU later sent the reporter a password and link to a locked portion of the dcleaks.com website that contained an archive of emails stolen by Unit 26165 from a Clinton Campaign volunteer in March 2016.149 "That the Guccifer 2.0 persona provided reporters access to a restricted portion of the DCLeaks website tends to indicate that both personas were operated by the same or a closely-related group of people.150
The GRU continued its release efforts through Guccifer 2.0 into August 2016. For example, on August 15, 2016, the Guccifer 2.0 persona sent a candidate for the U.S. Congress documents related to the candidate's opponent.151 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer 2.0 persona transferred approximately 2.5 gigabytes of Florida-related data stolen from the DCCC to a U.S. blogger covering Florida politics.152 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer 2.0 persona sent a U.S. reporter documents stolen from the DCCC pertaining to the Black Lives Matter movement.153"
Wow. Sounds pretty convincing. The documents referencing communications by DCLeaks or Guccifer 2.0 with Wikileaks are real. What is not true is that these entities were GRU assets.
In October 2015 John Brennan reorganized the CIA . As part of that reorganization he created a new directorate--DIRECTORATE OF DIGITAL INNOVATION. Its mission was to "manipulate digital footprints." In other words, this was the Directorate that did the work of creating Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. One of their specialties, creating Digital Dust.
We also know, thanks to Wikileaks, that the CIA was using software specifically designed to mask CIA activity and make it appear like it was done by a foreign entity. Wikipedia describes the Vault 7 documents :
Vault 7 is a series of documents that WikiLeaks began to publish on 7 March 2017, that detail activities and capabilities of the United States' Central Intelligence Agency to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare. The files, dated from 2013–2016, include details on the agency's software capabilities, such as the ability to compromise cars, smart TVs,[1] web browsers (including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera Software ASA),[2][3][4] and the operating systems of most smartphones (including Apple's iOS and Google's Android), as well as other operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux[5][6
One of the tools in Vault 7 carries the innocuous name, MARBLE. Hackernews explains the purpose and function of MARBLE:
Dubbed "Marble," the part 3 of CIA files contains 676 source code files of a secret anti-forensic Marble Framework, which is basically an obfuscator or a packer used to hide the true source of CIA malware.
The CIA's Marble Framework tool includes a variety of different algorithm with foreign language text intentionally inserted into the malware source code to fool security analysts and falsely attribute attacks to the wrong nation.Marble is used to hamper[ing] forensic investigators and anti-virus companies from attributing viruses, trojans and hacking attacks to the CIA," says the whistleblowing site.
"...for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese, but then showing attempts to conceal the use of Chinese, drawing forensic investigators even more strongly to the wrong conclusion," WikiLeaks explains.
So guess what gullible techies "discovered" in mid-June 2016? The meta data in the Guccifer 2.0 communications had "Russian fingerprints."
We still don't know who he is or whether he works for the Russian government, but one thing is for sure: Guccifer 2.0 -- the nom de guerre of the person claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee and published hundreds of pages that appeared to prove it -- left behind fingerprints implicating a Russian-speaking person with a nostalgia for the country's lost Soviet era.
Exhibit A in the case is this document created and later edited in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word format. Metadata left inside the file shows it was last edited by someone using the computer name "Феликс Эдмундович." That means the computer was configured to use the Russian language and that it was connected to a Russian-language keyboard. More intriguing still, "Феликс Эдмундович" is the colloquial name that translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the 20th Century Russian statesman who is best known for founding the Soviet secret police. (The metadata also shows that the purported DNC strategy memo was originally created by someone named Warren Flood, which happens to be the name of a LinkedIn user claiming to provide strategy and data analytics services to Democratic candidates.)
Just use your common sense. If the Russians were really trying to carry out a covert cyberattack, do you really think they are so sloppy and incompetent to insert the name of the creator of the Soviet secret police in the metadata? No. The Russians are not clowns. This was a clumsy attempt to frame the Russians.
Why would the CIA do this? The CIA knew that Podesta's emails had been hacked and were circulating on the internet. But they had no evidence about the identity of the culprit. If they had such evidence, they would have cited it in the 2017 ICA.
The U.S. intelligence community became aware around May 26, 2016 that someone with access to the DNC network was offering those emails to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Julian Assange and people who spoke to him indicate that the person was Seth Rich. Whether or not it was Seth, the Trump Task Force at CIA was aware that the emails, which would be embarrassing to the Clinton campaign, would be released at some time in the future. Hence the motive to create Guccifer 2.0 and pin the blame on Russia.
It is essential to recall the timeline of the alleged Russian intrusion into the DNC network. The only source for the claim that Russia hacked the DNC is a private cyber security firm, CrowdStrike. Here is the timeline for the DNC "hack."
Here are the facts on the public record. They are at odds with the claims of the Intelligence Community:
- It was 29 April 2016 , when the DNC claims it became aware its servers had been penetrated. No claim yet about who was responsible. And no claim that there had been a prior warning by the FBI of a penetration of the DNC by Russian military intelligence.
- According to CrowdStrike founder , Dimitri Alperovitch, his company first supposedly detected the Russians mucking around inside the DNC server on 6 May 2016. A CrowdStrike intelligence analyst reportedly told Alperovitch that:
- Falcon had identified not one but two Russian intruders: Cozy Bear, a group CrowdStrike's experts believed was affiliated with the FSB, Russia's answer to the CIA; and Fancy Bear, which they had linked to the GRU, Russian military intelligence.
- The Wikileaks data shows that the last message copied from the DNC network is dated Wed, 25 May 2016 08:48:35.
- 10 June 2016 --CrowdStrike waited until 10 June 2016 to take concrete steps to clean up the DNC network. Alperovitch told Esquire's Vicky Ward that: 'Ultimately, the teams decided it was necessary to replace the software on every computer at the DNC. Until the network was clean, secrecy was vital. On the afternoon of Friday, June 10, all DNC employees were instructed to leave their laptops in the office."
- On June 14, 2016 , Ellen Nakamura, a Washington Post reporter who had been briefed by computer security company hired by the DNC -- Crowdstrike--, wrote:
- Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach.
- The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC's system that they also were able to read all email and chat traffic, said DNC officials and the security experts.
- The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some Republican political action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available.
- 15 June, 2016 , an internet "personality" self-described as Guccifer 2.0 surfaces and claims to be responsible for the hacks but denies being Russian. The people/entity behind Guccifer 2.0:
- Used a Russian VPN service provider to conceal their identity.
- Created an email account with AOL.fr (a service that exposes the sender's IP address) and contacted the press (exposing his VPN IP address in the process).
- Contacted various media outlets through this set up and claimed credit for hacking the DNC, sharing copies of files purportedly from the hack (one of which had Russian error messages embedded in them) with reporters from Gawker, The Smoking Gun and other outlets.
- Carried out searches for terms that were mostly in English, several of which would appear in Guccifer 2.0's first blog post. They chose to do this via a server based in Moscow. (this is from the indictment,
"On or about June 15, 2016, the Conspirators logged into a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455")- Created a blog and made an initial blog post claiming to have hacked the DNC, providing links to various documents as proof.
- Carelessly dropped a "Russian Smiley" into his first blog post.
- Managed to add the name "Феликс Эдмундович" (which translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, also known as "Iron Felix") to the metadata of several documents. (Several sources went beyond what the evidence shows and made claims about Guccifer 2.0 using a Russian keyboard, however, these claims are just assumptions made in response to the presence of cyrillic characters.)
The only thing that the Guccifer 2.0 character did not do to declare its Russian heritage was to take out full page ads in the New York Times and Washington Post. But the "forensic" fingerprints that Guccifer 2.0 was leaving behind is not the only inexplicable event.
Time for the common sense standard again. Crowdstrike detected the Russians on the 6th of May, according to CEO Dimitri Alperovitch, but took no steps to shutdown the network, eliminate the malware and clean the computers until 34 days later, i.e., the 10th of June. That is 34 days of inexcusable inaction.
It is only AFTER Julian Assange announces on 12 June 2016 that WikiLeaks has emails relating to Hillary Clinton that DCLeaks or Guccifer 2.0 try to contact Assange.
The actions attributed to DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 should be priority investigative targets for U.S. Attorney John Durham's team of investigators. This potential use of a known CIA tool, developed under Brennan with the sole purpose to obfuscate the source of intrusions, pointing to another nation, as a false flag operation, is one of the actions and issues that U.S. Attorney John Durham should be looking into as a potential act of "Seditious conspiracy. It needs to be done. To quote the CIA, I strongly assess that the only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU.
Posted at 02:13 PM in Larry Johnson , Russiagate | Permalink
Factotum , 20 December 2019 at 02:45 PM
LJ bottom line: "The only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU."Paul Damascene , 20 December 2019 at 02:54 PMLarry, thanks -- vital clarifications and reminders. In your earlier presentation of this material did you not also distinguish between the way actually interagency assessments are titled, and ICA which seemed to have been framed to allow journalists or the unwary to link the ICA with more rigorous standards used by more authentic assessments?walrus , 20 December 2019 at 03:51 PMThank you Larry. You have discovered one more vital key to the conspiracy. We now need the evidence of Julian Assange. He is kept incommunicado and He is being tortured by the British in jail and will be murdered by the American judicial system if he lasts long enough to be extradited.Ghost Ship , 20 December 2019 at 04:04 PMYou can be sure he will be "Epsteined" before he appears in open court because he knows the source of what Wikileaks published. Once he is gone, mother Clinton is in the clear.
I can understand the GRU or SVR hacking the DNC and other e-mail servers because as intelligence services that is their job, but can anyone think of any examples of Russia (or the Soviet Union) using such information to take overt action?With the Russians not having the advantages that the NSA does (back doors in all US-designed network hardware/software and taps all over the internet), would Russia reveal anything unless it involved an immediate major national security threat. I doubt that would cover Trump.
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Dec 18, 2019 | off-guardian.org
Larry Johnson & Bill Binney Helping the President Dismantle the Empire - YouTube
Streamed live on Dec 12, 2019
On December 12th, the retired NSA whistleblower and former Technical Director of the NS A, Bill Binney asserted (at 39:00-44:00 in the above video):
BILL BINNEY: I basically have always been saying that all of this Russian hack never happened, but we have some more evidence coming out recently.We haven't published it yet, but what we have seen is that there are at least five items that we've found that were produced by Guccifer 2.0 back on June 15th, where they had the Russian fingerprints in them, suggesting the Russians made the hack. Well, we found the same five items published by Wikileaks in the Podesta emails.
Those items do not have the Russian fingerprints, which directly implies that Guccifer 2.0 was inserting these into the files to make it look like the Russians did this hack. Taking that into account with all the other evidence we have; like the download speeds from Guccifer 2.0 were too fast, and they couldn't be managed by the web.
And that the files he was putting together and saying that he actually hacked, the two files he said he had were really one file, and he was playing with the data; moving it to two different files to claim two hacks.
Taking that into account with the fabrication of the Russian fingerprints, it leads us back to inferring that in fact the marble framework out of the Vault 7 compromise of CIA hacking routines was a possible user in this case.
In other words, it looked like the CIA did this, and that it was a matter of the CIA making it look like the Russians were doing the hack. So, when you look at that and also look at the DNC emails that were published by Wikileaks that have this phat file format in them, all 35,813 of these emails have rounded off times to the nearest even second.
That's a phat file format property; that argues that those files were, in fact, downloaded to a thumb drive or CD-rom and physically transported before Wikileaks posted them. Which again argues that it wasn't a hack.
So, all of the evidence we're finding is clearly evidence that the Russians were not in fact hacking; it was probably our own people. It's very hard for us to get this kind of information out. The mainstream media won't cover it; none of them will. It's very hard. We get some bloggers to do that and some radio shows.
Also, I put all of this into a sworn affidavit in the Roger Stone case. I did that because all of the attack on him was predicated on him being connected with this Russian hack which was false to being with.
All the evidence we're accumulating clearly says and implies, the US government -- namely the FBI, CIA, the DOJ, and of course State Department -- all these people involved in this hack, bought a dossier and all of the information going forward to the FISA court.
All of them knew that this was a fake from the very beginning, because this Guccifer 2.0 character was fabricating it. They were using him plus the Internet Research Agency [IRA] as "supposed trolls of the Russian government".
Well, when they sent their lawyers over to challenge that in a court of law, the government failed to prove they had any connection with the Russian government.
They basically were chastised by the judge for fabricating a charge against this company. So, if you take the IRA and the trolls away from that argument, and Guccifer 2.0, then the entire Mueller report is a provable fabrication; because it's based on Guccifer 2.0 and the IRA.
Then the entire Rosenstein indictment is also a fabrication and a fake and a fraud for the same reasons. The judges seem to be involved in trying to keep this information out of the public domain.
So, we have a really extensive shadow government here at work, trying to keep the understanding and knowledge of what's really happening away from the public of the United States. That's the really bad part. And the mainstream media is a participant in this; they're culpable.
The CIA-edited and written Wikipedia, in its article about Binney , accuses him by saying:
His dissent from the consensus view that Russia interfered with the 2016 US election appears to be based on Russian disinformation."
They provide no footnote or linked-to source for their allegation
Ever since Binney went public criticizing U.S. intelligence agencies, they have been trying to discredit him.
Thus far, however, their efforts have been nothing more than insinuations against his person, without any specific allegation of counter-evidence that discredits any of his actual assertions.
Martin Usher ,
The "Russia" thing was never able to differentiate between "Russians" and "the Russian state". Its a product of a Cold War mindset that can't conceive of that country without it being 150 million puppets all controlled by string from an office in the Kremlin. In reality its just another country, one that offers goods and services to the world just like anywhere else. So while we just assume that a company like SCL (Cambridge Analytica's parent) would have personnel from and offices in many countries and have contracts with various political parties in many countries we just can't seem to get our heads around the idea that a company operating inside -- or even headquartered -- in Russia isn't automatically some kind of Kremlin front. (Well, yes, it could be but the same way that a company in the UK could be a front for the UK government, e.g. the Gateside Mill story in Scotland's Daily Record).Another factor that might come into play is the idea that 'analytics', the key to business on the Internet, is actually nothing more than a sophisticated form of traffic analysis, a well known espionage tool. Any government worth its salt that's likely to be on the receiving end of a propaganda campaign would be very interested in understanding the reach of such a tool and learning how to manage that reach. So its possible that if we find the Russian government taking out advertisements on Facebook through a front company to 'influence' people its likely that they're more interested in evaluating that reach than the simplistic view that they're 'trying to influence an election' (its not as if foreign interests or even governments ever try to influence elections)(color revolution, anyone?). Allowing unfettered access by these tools to one's nation is a bit like taking down one's defenses -- fine if you're happy with vassal state ("ally") status but not if you're potentially an adversary -- so its important to know how to control it, no less important than having a decent air defense system.
RobG ,
And in a further retort to all this nonsense, Harold Wilson, the last socialist leader of the Labour Party back in the 1970s, won four general elections, a feat that's never been repeated by any party leader.Here's the Wiki nonsense/propaganda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Wilson
And here's a more historical record
https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/harold-wilson
This does directly relate to this thread, because the Americans overthrew Wilson. Just as they have done now with Corbyn. You really need to take your country back, whether you're a Brit or American.
paul ,
We are fortunate that there are still persons of integrity even in the spook organisations – Binney, Kyriakou, Manning, Snowden. Without them and Assange a lot of this criminality would never have seen the light of day.Jack_Garbo ,
Diagnosing the disease does not imply the cure has been found. You simply know how much sicker you are. Not helpful. Nothing has changed despite all the revelations of intelligence shenanigans. Apologies do not cure the patient when they're still spreading the disease. In fact, the opposite.paul ,
Wikipedia holds out the begging bowl to anybody who uses it now. I don't know why – they get plenty of CIA and Soros money.RobG ,
All they've got to do now is wheel out the psychopath and war criminal, Tony Blair, to say: "it's the Russians wot dunnit".Oh my God
Jen ,
They don't need to, they have Tony Blair's fellow Brit psycho Boris Johnson to go on autopilot and blame the Russians the moment something happens and just before London Met start their investigations.ZigZagWanderer ,
@ 1.15.58 "Intelligence community has become a self licking ice cream cone"Larry Johnson and Bill Binney always worth listening to. Try to find the time.
Antonym ,
True except for Trump. Just look how hard deep state tries to unseat him.
Damaging your own puppet is not normal for a puppeteer.J_Garbo ,
I suspected that Deep State has at least two opposing factions. The Realistists want him to break up the empire, turn back into a republic; the Delusionals want to extend the empire, continue to exploit and destroy the world. If so, the contradictions, reversals, incoherence make sense. IMO as I said.Gary Weglarz ,
I predict that all Western MSM will begin to accurately and vocally cover Mr. Binney's findings about this odious and treasonous U.S. government psyop at just about the exact time that – "hell freezes over" – as they say.Thanks for posting this latest info.
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Dec 20, 2019 | www.unz.com
Realist , says: December 19, 2019 at 5:17 pm GMT
The Year of Manufactured Hysteria
The purpose of manufactured hysteria in the US is to obfuscate the issues important to the Deep State like destroying the first amendment, renewing the 'Patriot' act, extremely increasing the war/hegemony budget, etc.
The unimportant internecine squabbles of the 'two parties' strengthens the false perception that there is a choice when voting.
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.amazon.com
karenann , August 8, 2015
A deeply biased bookR. L. Huff , April 23, 2015Hill and Gaddy are pretty good scholars. They do a good job of providing a psychological profile of Vladimir Putin and the way he operates in the Kremlin. But they have their limitations. One of the more annoying aspects of the book is that the authors return again and again both to Putin's graduate thesis on an American management book and his 1999 manifesto on his millenial goals for Russia. A better set of writers would have covered both subjects in one section and then moved on. But Hill and Gaddy sprinkle references to these documents about five times each throughout the book, which leads me to suspect that they are padding what would otherwise be a much shorter book.
As I was reading, I felt that there was a strong bias against Putin and Russia by the authors, but I couldn't quite pinpoint their slant until the last sentence, which is a doozy:
"The onus will now be on the West to shore up its own home defenses, reduce the economic and political vulnerabilities, and create its own contingency plans if it wants to counter Vladimir Putin's new twenty-first century warfare."
For anyone who is a Russian scholar, this is proof that the authors get Russia very wrong. They reveal themselves to be in the neocon camp of hawks who want to reactivate a new Cold War very badly. And in their analysis, they ignore the fact that Russia as a country is in fact deeply defensive country far more concerned with its internal boundaries and control than some aggressive Soviet power after World War II. To be sure, Mr. Putin is no choir boy. Interestingly enough, the authors do not fully investigate the potentially criminal behavior that Putin performed with Russia's war on Chechnya. Hill and Gaddy could have strengthened their case if they had included some deeper analysis of Putin's behavior on this troublesome part of the Russian Empire. But instead they were intent on plowing their own rut, which while somewhat interesting -- ultimately becomes a little bit too pedantic.
I am reminded of some books in the 1950s that were secretly backed by the CIA, and this book certainly feels like it has the same flavor. Hill and Gaddy totally ignore Russian scholars like Stephen Cohen in his analysis of the Russian situation, which is totally the opposite of mainstream thinking unfortunately these days. But in ignoring what Cohen has to say, the predominant attitude of the American and European foreign policy establishment is in lock step with Hill and Gaddy, which is why the book has been so heavily publicized.
The neocon vision of what's wrong with Russia is so biased that it also ignores the writings of such foreign policy figures as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Briezinski, former US Secretarys of State, both of whom are much more closer in their visions of Russia to Cohen than they are to Hill and Gaddy.
Yes, this book is all about sticking to the Rooskies, unfortunately. And the hidden motivator are all of the defense contracts that NATO can suck up, as well as all the bankers' books in reaming the Ukrainian economy as badly as they've reamed Greece. But the authors never tell you that this is their motivation, until the last paragraph.
Ultimately, this is an unsatisfying work.
karenann, 2 years ago (Edited)
Kissinger has had the good sense to state that the best hope for peace in the region is to have Ukraine as a totally neutral country, similar to Finland before the USSR collapsed. The Budapest Memorandum of NATO calls for the full military integration of Ukraine and Georgia.
As a thought experiment, what if the Soviets undermined the provincial governments of Alberta and British Columbia, and then wanted to include these governments in the Warsaw Pact? What do you think the reaction of the US would be?
OK but blinkered- look at Vladimir Putin and Mr. Putin's Russia. The book is based on intensive research and interviews with Putin, but I find it skewed by the Western biases it brings to the table. Yet it's not a demonization, as is so much of the Western Putin literature. It gives him credit for standing by the multi-racial and cultural realities of post-Soviet Russia. Compared to the real hardcore nationalists, Putin in fact has come across as a domestic liberal. The rising tide of Russian arch-nationalism, however, has taken its toll. Authors Hill and Gaddy correctly assess Putin's playing the nationalist card as a political manouver to keep one step ahead of his opponents - most of whom are not pro-Western liberal dissidents by any means. Courting the Russian Orthodox Church in recent years was one such strategy.
Yet the authors see only politics in Mr. Putin's tactics, and play down the West's own role in making him an antagonist. They take him to task for painting the Ukrainian insurrection of 2014 as a "fascist coup," and for denouncing Ukrainian nationalist partisan Stepan Bandera as a Nazi collaborator. Bandera and Hitler may have never met, but this was not necessary for the arming and use of Bandera's OUN to commit atrocities and war crimes on then-Soviet territory. Contrary to the authors' whitewash, Bandera's later persecution by Nazis consisted of special treatment in German camps, held on ice for postwar use. Of relevance is that the "regime change" of 2014 was largely the work of west Ukrainians - the backbone of the OUN movement and the very folks who today make Bandera a national hero. When he paints west Ukraine as again collaborating with Russia's enemy, Putin stands on solid historical ground. The West continues destabilizing actions all the while it blames Putin for the same.
The authors also lecture us on Putin's inability to grasp "Western values" as the root of his refusal to take the West on its own terms; on "how little Putin understands about us - our motives, our mentality, and, also, our values" (p.385) I rather think Putin grasps these "motives, mentality, and values" very well, as they seem inseparable from European economic hegemony and NATO expansion. His managed democracy comes off looking rather clean cut compared to US politics following the Citizens United ruling, where American oligarch David Koch engineered a fundamental change for the worse via the Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Putin has indeed been repeatedly "rebuffed" by the West for proposing anything that makes Russia a leading equal in its sphere. This shows not limited contacts with the West, but rather ongoing and painful ones.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking but tragically familiar. It's rather the West's (and the authors') failure to grasp regional history, and Putin's actions based on it, that fuel the "misunderstanding." Ukraine, for instance, had strong nationalist animosity toward the "Moskali" long before the 1930s holodomor/famine. Crimea was not transferred to Ukraine out of any degree of recognition of said suffering, as the authors allege on p. 367; but as part of a geo-political manouver to Russify east Ukraine with more "loyal" ethnic Russians, exactly as in the Baltic states.
His aggressive handling of terrorists within Chechnya is "decried" by the West, the authors note. Yet within a decade the US and its NATO partners would be pursuing an aggressive course in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen that make Russia look the provincial amateur. Putin in fact is *not* trying to recreate the USSR, as so often charged by Western pundits with an axe to grind, nor even the old Russian empire. His strategic thinking is dominated by security rationales. A wider invasive course would only threaten Russian security. At all times he sees his actions as defensive responses. If this is self-serving, it only puts him in good company: recall the American angst over the "dissident" Dixie Chicks; the livid anger over Edward Snowden.
In truth, Vladimir Putin is the Russian Ronald Reagan, bidding his citizens to "stand tall" against enemies from without and within working against the homeland. His stance on Ukraine, arming its "contras" in a border war against an enemy "satellite regime", may make him look the intolerant war jingo; but thus did Ronald Reagan appear outside the US. Ironically it's Reagan partisans who don't grasp the working parallels. In general, I can recommend this book as a good introduction on Vladimir Putin, but it's hardly the last word and certainly not the definitive narrative.
Anon II, 4 years ago (Edited)
It is refreshing to read something on Russia written by a reviewer who knows what he is talking about. This book is full of data, but the authors lack any intellectual basis on which to organize it. They are trying to publish a book in which there will be reader interest, but they really have nothing to say. If you are eager to make an enemy of Russia, this book will be useful to you. If you are simply trying to understand what is happening, it won't be.
D.B.4 years ago
Thank you for an excellent countervailing perspective!
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Dec 19, 2019 | angrybearblog.com
likbez, December 19, 2019 6:58 pm
Afghan war demonstrated that the USA got into the trap, the Catch 22 situation: it can't stop following an expensive and self-destructive positive feedback loop of threat inflation and larger and large expenditures on MIC, because there is no countervailing force for the MIC since WWII ended. Financial oligarchy is aligned with MIC.
This is the same suicidal grip of MIC on the country that was one of the key factors in the collapse of the USSR means that in this key area the USA does not have two party system, It is a Uniparty: a singe War party with two superficially different factions.
Feeding and care MIC is No.1 task for both. Ordinary Americans wellbeing does matter much for either party. New generation of Americans is punished with crushing debt and low paying jobs. They do not care that people over 50 who lost their jobs are essentially thrown out like a garbage.
"41 Million people in the US suffer from hunger and lack of food security"–US Dept. of Agriculture. FDR addressed the needs of this faction of the population when he delivered his One-Third of a Nation speech for his 2nd Inaugural. About four years later, FDR expanded on that issue in his Four Freedoms speech: 1.Freedom of speech; 2.Freedom of worship; 3.Freedom from want; 4.Freedom from fear.
Items 3 and 4 are probably unachievable under neoliberalism. And fear is artificially instilled to unite the nation against the external scapegoat much like in Orwell 1984. Currently this is Russia, later probably will be China. With regular minutes of hate replaced by Rachel Maddow show ;-)
Derailing Tulsi had shown that in the USA any politician, who try to challenge MIC, will be instantly attacked by MIC lapdogs in MSM and neutered in no time.
One interesting tidbit from Fiona Hill testimony is that neocons who dominate the USA foreign policy establishment make their living off threat inflation. They literally are bought by MIC, which indirectly finance Brookings institution, Atlantic Council and similar think tanks. And this isn't cheap cynicism. It is simply a fact. Rephrasing Samuel Johnson's famous quote, we can say, "MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last refuge of scoundrels."
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Russ , Dec 18 2019 22:00 utc | 19
Historically the ability of unelected, unaccountable, secretive bureaucracies (aka the "Deep State") to exercise their own policy without regard for the public or elected officials, often in defiance of these, has always been the hallmark of the destruction of democracy and incipient tyranny.Today's Deep State most resembles the colonial administrations during the heyday of European imperialism. These too worked to run their own secret foreign policy, and to bring their power to bear on domestic policy as well.
Although both halves of the One-Party really want the effective tyranny of state and corporate bureaucracies, it's not surprising that it's the Democrats (along with the MSM) taking the lead in openly defending the tyrannical proposition that the CIA should be running its own foreign (and implicitly domestic) policy, and that the president should be just a figurehead which follows orders. That goes with the Democrats' more avowedly technocratic style, and it goes with the ratchet effect whereby it's usually Democrats which push the policy envelope toward ever greater inequality, ecocide and tyranny.
Now is a time of rising irredentism and the decline of all the ideas of globalization and technocracy, though the reality is likely to hang on for awhile. The whole Deep State-Zionist-Russia-Deranged-Trump-Deranged-MSM-social media censorship campaign is globalization trying to maintain its monopoly of ideas by force, since it knows it can never win in a free clash of ideas.
Impeachment, and the pro-bureaucracy anti-democracy campaign related to it, besides its more petty purposes (distraction from real social problems; forestalling Sanders), is the culmination of technocracy's attempted coup against a president who, even though he agrees with this cabal on all policy matters, is considered too unreliable, too undisciplined, too damn honest about the evil of the US empire. If they can take him down, they think they can restore the full business-as-usual status quo including the compliance of the rest of the world.
Since impeachment's going to fail, we can expect the system to try other ways.
james , Dec 19 2019 1:51 utc | 57
hey b... i like your title - "How The Deep State Sunk The Democratic Party" ... could change it to" How the Deep State Sunk the USA" could work just as well...ptb , Dec 19 2019 2:07 utc | 62Seven of the 11 security state representatives who had joined the Democrats in 2018 gave the impulse for impeachment.
is this intentional?? it sort of looks like it...
good quote from @ 26 lk - "The contradictions of US empire and global capitalism cannot be mitigated by either more liberal strategies or realist ones."
@babyl-on 35
yes that is about right. The top power networks are all a tight mix of names from govt, MIC, and private equity (incl. top 2-3 investment banks). With the latter group naturally paying the salaries of the whole policy making ecosystem, and holding the positions that select future generations who will eventually take their place.They want the security of knowing noone in the world will mess with them. This necessitates that noone in the world *can* mess with them. Pretty straightforward from there.
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
The EveryThing Bubble , 57 minutes ago link
Zero Schmeero , 54 minutes ago linkGOP: Government Of Putin.
RNC: Russian National Committeesticky_pickles , 54 minutes ago linkLike anyone believes the words of a lying *** that upvotes itself. Rev. 2:9 and 3:9, words from a real ***. That must just eat you alive khazar.
attah-boy-Luther , 2 minutes ago linkDNC. Democratic Nation of China
silverer , 1 hour ago linkLed by Feinstein and her driver....
Aha! PROOF! Putin runs the US Senate now! Hear all about it on the Rachel Maddow show.
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
uncle tungsten , Dec 19 2019 6:17 utc | 81
evilempire #40Horowitz put the telescope to his blind eye, its an old deep state trick that Lord Nelson used in an illegal war that the British mythologize about. IMO Horowitz is a whitewash man and there most likely will be questions that Durham will be asking Priestap IF that is the Giuliani plan. Wont hold my breath though. Trump seems to be acting MAD as hell but then so do wrestlers in their fake as fake can be.
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
evilempire , Dec 18 2019 23:48 utc | 40
There is one glaring contradiction that I did not see addressed in the Horowitz hearing. Priestap has testified that he inherited (page 14 of the pdf) operation crossfire hurricane. If he inherited the investigation then how could he have played any role in opening crossfire hurricane? Yet in the FISA report, Horowitz's finding that there was no bias in opening the investigation was almost exclusively based on finding no bias in Priestap. I have not seen this contradiction addressed anywhere.
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
evilempire , Dec 18 2019 22:32 utc | 28
If anyone was watching The Horowitz hearing in the senate today it would be hard to conclude that RussiaGate and Ukrainegate will not have serious consequences going forward.The whole sordid, nasty conspiracy seems on the verge of being exposed, maybe as high as Obama himself, although he is just a puppet himself, and indictments are sure to follow. I don't see how anyone could think that this will not be catastrophic for the democratic party.
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Dec 19, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
It still amazes me... that people actually think impeachment accomplishes anything other than diverting attention from the Dems giving Trump everything he wants.
Kayfabe.
Impeachment without conviction means next to nothing.
The Senate will not convict. Trumps chances of being re-elected are continuing to improve as Democratic Party insiders work overtime to see to it that Bernie Sanders has to fight the Republican Party, a MSM that either dismisses or ignores his candidacy, AND the Democratic Party which has, once again, stacked the deck against him.
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Dec 19, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
WoodsDweller on Wed, 12/18/2019 - 9:30pm
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/12/trump-has-joined-the-losers-of-presiden...... Never-Trump conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin released a scorching assessment ... "Even Trump knows he will be lumped in with the 'losers' in the presidential history rankings such as Richard Nixon and Andrew Johnson," wrote Rubin. "Impeachment will define his presidency, dwarfing any other foreign or domestic action. No wonder he rages against a speaker he is powerless to stop. His worst nightmare is to be humiliated, and if not now, history certainly will regard him as a pitiful, damaged man utterly unfit for the role he won through a series of improbable events ... Just as Watergate figures ... were lionized as defenders of the Constitution, so too will Pelosi and House Democrats ... be among those admired for their lucidity, intellect and character. ... For every clownish, contemptible, screeching and dishonest House Republican, there is a sober, admirable, restrained and honest Democrat.
"No letter, no tweet, no Fox News spin can repair the reputations of Trump enablers," Rubin wrote. The right-wing media that cheered them on will, like outlets that rooted for Jim Crow and demonized Freedom Riders, be shunned by decent, freedom-loving people who reaffirm objective reality. The Republican Party will be known not as the Party of Lincoln but the Party of Trump, a quisling party that lost its bearings and its soul to defend an unhinged narcissist.
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.youtube.com
Nathan Pickrell , 2 days agoThis guy is neck deep in the attempted coup to overthrow a duly elected president
ensign j , 2 days agoWhy continue this interview? He is still lying, he is so full of himself its nuts!
Leigh Ann Everett , 1 day agoNo no. These are not mistakes but rather deliberate criminal activity
Red Oz , 1 day agoComey knew that everything was wrong and illegal. Once again, he is lying.
Why is Roger Stone in prison and Comey is a free man?
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Jackrabbit , Dec 18 2019 21:58 utc | 16
b:Trump's letter notes that talk about impeachment started as soon as he stepped into office:
IMO the Deep State wanted to initiate a new McCarthyism.Russiagate was the means to do so and that means that Impeachment was always a possibility (though likely a red-herring, as I explain below).
IMO After the Mueller investigation progressives pressed for Impeachment but establishment Democratics (led by Pelosi and Hillary) wouldn't allow it. People were (rightfully) asking why establishment Democrats were protecting Trump.
With this in mind, Ukrainegate is a convenient diversion from Russiagate while providing the Impeachment satisfaction that progressives had clamored for.
It's difficult NOT to notice that ...
... America First Trump actually furthered Russiagate when he hired Manafort (who was known to have worked for pro-Russian Parties in Ukraine and had NO recent experience in US elections) and called upon Russia to publish Hillary's emails (which were KNOWN to contain top-secret information - making any publication a crime under US law);One might excuse this in many ways: Trump's ego; his unfamiliarity with politics and statecraft; or just bad luck. But one can also see these actions, in a larger context, as disturbing part of the effort to initiate the new McCarthyism.... and America First Trump furthered Ukrainegate by the mentioning the name of an announced political opponent when talking about investigating corruption on a call with Zelensky.
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Teamtc321 , 12 minutes ago link
BREAKING BIG: John Durham Is Investigating Former CIA Director John Brennan's Role in 2016 Election Interference and His LIES TO CONGRESS! (Video)
The New York Times reported tonight that federal prosecutor John Durham is investigating former CIA Director John Brennan's role in the 2016 election. Durham has called for Brennan's emails, call logs and other documents.
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
uncle tungsten , Dec 19 2019 4:38 utc | 76
psychohistorian #73I read in a couple of places today that the strategy of the Dems is to not forward the impeachment to the Senate for an indeterminate amount of time......let the stew, the Senate and Trump simmer a bit.....more kabuki for the masses while the public continues to be screwed economically.Thank you for that observation and I have seen that idea about the traps too.
I don't see the impeachment as being held up for too long as Durham will likely press on hard with his prosecutions and may even go after Biden for wire fraud or some such very soon. The minute Durham moves the demoncrazies will try to obstruct, They dont have much dry powder right now but then they are good at imagining things so they might try and manifest more powder. If speculation confirms that it is a kabuki hoax to kill their own leftish insurgency then that too will emerge mighty soon.
I am unfamiliar with the USA system but if the Congress has made a clear resolution and its next destination is normally the Senate then what is to stop the Senate Leader Mitch McConnel from tabling the decision of the Congress for immediate vote. Does the impeachment referral to the Senate actually have to be moved by the Minority Leader representing the Democrats or is that just a polite convention?
Good to see Tulsi keep her distance from this turd just dropped the Congress.
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Dec 17, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org
The Washington Post , through documents released through the Freedom of Information Act, has published a long investigation into Afghanistan. Journalists have collected over 400 testimonies from American diplomats, NATO generals and other NATO personnel, that show that reports about Afghanistan were falsified to deceive the public about the real situation on the ground.
After the tampering with and falsification of the report of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), we are witnessing another event that will certainly discomfit those who have hitherto relied on the official reports of the Pentagon, the US State Department and international organizations like the OPCW for the last word.
There are very deliberate reasons for such disinformation campaigns. In the case of the OPCW, as I wrote some time back, the aim was to paint the Syrian government as the fiend and the al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked "moderate rebels" as the innocent souls, thereby likely justifying a responsibility-to-protect armed intervention by the likes of the US, the UK and France. In such circumstances, the standing and status of the reporting organization (like the OPCW) is commandeered to validate Western propaganda that is duly disseminated through the corporate-controlled mainstream media.
In this particular case, various Western capitals colluded with the OPCW to lay the groundwork for the removal of Assad and his replacement with the al-Nusra Front as well as the very same al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked armed opposition officially responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
As if the massaging of the OPCW reports were not enough in themselves to provoke international outrage, this dossier serves to give aid and comfort to jihadi groups supported by the Pentagon who are known to be responsible for the worst human-rights abuses, as seen in Syria and Iraq in the last 6 years.
False or carefully manipulated reports paint a picture vastly different from the reality on the ground. The United States has never really declared war on Islamic terrorism, its proclamations of a "War on Terror" notwithstanding. In reality, it has simply used this justification to occupy or destabilize strategically important areas of the world in the interests of maintaining US hegemony, intending in so doing to hobble the energy policies and national security of rival countries like China, Iran and the Russian Federation.
The Post investigation lays bare how the US strategy had failed since its inception, the data doctored to represent a reality very different from that on the ground. The inability of the United States to clean up Afghanistan is blamed by the Post on incorrect military planning and incorrect political choices. While this could certainly be the case, the Post's real purpose in its investigation is to harm Trump, even as it reveals the Pentagon's efforts to continue its regional presence for grand geopolitical goals by hiding inconvenient truths.
The real issue lies in the built-in mendacity of the bureaucratic and military apparatus of the United States. No general has ever gone on TV to say that the US presence in Iraq is needed to support any war against Iran; or that Afghanistan is a great point of entry for the destabilization of Eurasia, because this very heart of the Heartland is crucial to the Sino-Russian transcontinental integration projects like the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Belt and Road Initiative. In the same vein, the overthrow of the Syrian government would have ensured Israel a greater capacity to expand its interests in the Middle East, as well as to weaken Iran's main regional ally.
The Post investigation lays bare the hypocrisy of the military-industrial complex as well as the prevailing political establishments of Europe and the United States. These parties are not interested in human rights, the wellbeing of civilians or justice in general. Their only goal is to try and maintain their global hegemony indefinitely by preventing any other powers from being able to realize their potential and thereby pose a threat to Atlanticist preeminence.
The war in Iraq was launched to destabilize the Middle East, China's energy-supply basin crucial to fueling her future growth. The war in Syria served the purpose of further dismantling the Middle East to favor Saudi Arabia and Israel, the West's main strategic allies in the Persian Gulf. The war in Afghanistan was to slow down the Eurasian integration of China and Russia. And the war in Ukraine was for the purposes of generating chaos and destruction on Russia's border, with the initial hope of wresting the very strategically area of Crimea from Russia.
The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and this has been on full display in recent times. Almost all of Washington's recent strategic objectives have ended up producing results worse than the status quo ante. In Iraq there is the type of strong cooperation between Baghdad and Tehran reminiscent of the time prior to 1979. Through Hezbollah, Iran has strengthened its position in Syria in defense of Damascus. Moscow has found itself playing the role of crucial decider in the Middle East (and soon in North Africa), until only a few years ago the sole prerogative of Washington. Turkey's problems with NATO, coupled with Tel Aviv's open relation with Moscow are both a prime example of Washington's diminishing influence in the region and Moscow's corresponding increase in influence.
The situation in Afghanistan is not very different, with a general recognition that peace is the only option for the region being reflected in the talks between the Afghans, the Taliban, the Russians, Chinese, Indians and Pakistanis. Beijing and Moscow have well known for over a decade the real intent behind Washington's presence in the country, endeavoring to blunt its impact.
The Post investigation only further increases the public's war weariness, the war in Afghanistan now having lasted 18 years, the longest war in US history. Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Post , is a bitter opponent of Trump and wants the president to come clean on the Afghanistan debacle by admitting that the troops cannot be withdrawn. Needless to say, admitting such would not help Trump's strategy for the 2020 election. Trump cannot afford to humiliate the US military, given that it, along with the US dollar, is his main weapon of "diplomacy". Were it to be revealed that some illiterate peasants holed up in caves and armed with AK-47s some 40 years ago are responsible for successfully keeping the most powerful army in history at bay, all of Washington's propaganda, disseminated by a compliant media, will cease to be of any effect. Such a revelation would also humiliate military personnel, an otherwise dependable demographic Trump cannot afford to alienate.
The Washington Post performed a service to the country by shedding light on the disinformation used to sustain endless war. But the Post's intentions are also political, seeking to undermine Trump's electoral chances by damaging Trump's military credentials as well as his standing amongst military personnel. What Washington's elite and the Post do not know, or perhaps prefer to ignore, is that such media investigations directed against political opponents actually end up doing irreparable damage to the political and military prestige of the United States.
In other words, when journalist do their job, the military industrial complex finds it difficult to lie its way through wars and failures, but when a country relies on Hollywood to sustain its make-believe world, as well as on journalists on the CIA payroll, on compliant publishers and on censored news, then any such revelations of forbidden truths threaten to bring the whole facade crashing down.
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Dec 18, 2019 | www.unz.com
thotmonger , says: December 17, 2019 at 7:02 am GMT
How would it fly if Trump's EO instead forbade criticism of Russia in schools and colleges in USA?Very strange that something like this could ever be written and signed. A fast budding and explicit "Judeo lese majetse" is unfolding before our eyes. And if it is meant to protect Jews as a race and nation, then that will naturally induce people to see them as exactly that: a separate nation. Will this quell concern about loyalty or raise more doubt?
p.s. In 2018, Israeli army expert snipers made a turkey shoot of Palestinians marching on the 70th anniversary of their people being ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homeland. A "shoot to cripple" policy only murdered several score but, with high speed dum dum bullets, they blasted bloody wreckage through the flesh and bones of many thousands of unarmed people. You may not see them on your porno channels and game shows, but a large number will be crippled for the rest of their lives.
This is a good example of a very recent state sponsored atrocity on a large scale. Students in our schools and colleges might want to examine this in a variety of ways. The history, legality, ethics, demographic dilemmas etc. Sure, it might roll over into some criticism and activism, e.g. DBS Israel, but is that to be prohibited by our government? What sort of citizens are our schools and colleges supposed to be cultivating if students are not permitted to exercise their freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of conscience?
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Dec 17, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
karlof1 , Dec 16 2019 20:51 utc | 22
Neocons lie should properly be called "threat inflation"
The underlying critical point-at-issue is credibility as I noted in my comment on b's 2017 article. I've since linked to tweets and other items by that trio; the one major change seems to have been the epiphany by them that they needed to go to where the action is and report it from there to regain their credibility.The fact remains that used car salespeople have a stereotypical reputation for lacking credibility sans a confession as to why they feel the need to lie to sell cars.
Their actions belie the guilt they feel for their choices, but a confession works much better at assuaging the soul while helping convince the audience that the change in heart's genuine. And that's the point as b notes--genuineness, whose first predicate is credibility.
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Dec 14, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Massive win, Colonel, that as far as I know nobody predicted. Not the polls, not the political blogs. But I didn't follow it that closely so that's just a general impression.
My man, Nigel Farage, got squeezed mercilessly. I was looking around the BBC site to find out how mercilessly when I came across a picture of the bete noir of my father's time, Harold Wilson. Wilson was convinced that MI something was out to get him - bugged his office, spread smear stories about him around the press, even a possible coup.
The odd rumour of all this had spread to my corner of the English provinces and I'd always wondered if there was anything in it. So I clicked on the BBC article -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-49939123
- and came across this -
" .. A 1987 inquiry concluded the allegations of a security service plot against Wilson were untrue. However, an inquiry by cabinet secretary Lord Hunt in 1996 concluded that "a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5" had "spread damaging malicious stories".
Well, if a cabinet secretary says that it must be true. MI5, not MI6 - I think MI5's the heavy mob - but I just wondered if our spooks had passed these tricks on to the lads who put the Steele dossier about.
On another security matter I note with concern above - "Those are Jacobite tribesmen at the top. Some of my ancestors were such as they." I thought so. '15 and '45 caused us a lot of trouble and just in case the tradition remained in your family I'm opening a file. We're very happy with our present Queen, thank you, and we don't want you replacing her with some Stuart relic you might happen to have dug up.
Though I suppose it would only be poetic justice. We've just had a go at toppling your President so why shouldn't you return the compliment and topple Her Majesty.
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Dec 17, 2019 | www.washingtontimes.com
At a time of one of the greatest political upheavals in American history that could spill over into foreign affairs, especially U.S.-Russian relations with unpredictable and devastating results, I thought Christmas might offer a chance for all of us to take a pause and search for an exit from the megacrisis.
Many people believe miracles do happen at Christmastime. However, it looks like we need President Trump , Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to perform at least three of them.
Those who wonder why Mr. Zelensky is on this list should recall that the Trump impeachment process started because of his phone call with this guy whose country the Democrats and their pathetic witnesses deem no less than vital to America's national security.
Let us start with Mr. Putin because someone has to take the first difficult step and he is the only one in a clear position to do it.
Dear Mr. Putin, please make a public statement that Russia pledges not to interfere in the next and future American elections. It would be good if the two chambers of the Russian parliament, the Duma and Federation Council, ratify this pledge as well. Please do it unilaterally without asking Mr. Trump and the U.S. Congress to respond in kind.
Dear Mr. Trump , please return to your earlier thinking about NATO as an obsolete organization that lost its purpose in 1991 after the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw military bloc. Since then, it has been searching desperately for new missions and enemies to justify its existence.
Recall that NATO's continuous expansion drive is the major factor that squandered the exceptional opportunity for U.S.-Russian rapprochement that all Russian leaders, starting with Mikhail Gorbachev, kept proposing. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, New York Democrat, and 18 other senators voted against President Clinton's first round of NATO expansion. "We'll be back on a hair-trigger. We're talking about nuclear war," they said.
At the same time, NATO has failed to counter international terrorism -- the real threat to European and American security. It is NATO that boosted the jihadi peril by overthrowing Libya's government, allowing that prosperous country to morph into a terrorist playground and staging point for millions of unvetted migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Europe.
Is NATO making America and our allies more secure? During the Cold War, when NATO allowed the West to stand firm against Soviet communist designs on Europe, the answer was an easy yes, but today, with NATO's reckless poking of the Russian bear, the answer is a resounding no.
A rebuilt NATO or a new organization, IATO -- International Anti-Terrorist Organization -- specifically targeting global jihad, would have a future with new partners including Russia, for which terrorism represents a major security threat. Georgia and Ukraine could join IATO as well, thus taking the first step toward reconciliation with Russia that NATO's insatiable expansion drive helped destroy.
French President Emmanuel Macron is the first Western leader who agrees with this point of view and is not afraid to say that "NATO's brain is dead." However, the U.S. president must take the lead to move past legacy NATO.Dear Mr. Zelensky , I believe that you sincerely want to end the war in your country. It is not an easy job since you face a strong and vocal radical nationalistic opposition with strong neo-Nazi overtones that declares that any compromise on your side will be met with the violent resistance and another "Maidan revolution" that may lead to your overthrow. The leader of this opposition is former President Petro Poroshenko, whom Washington supported all these years and who was given a rare privilege to speak at a joint session of Congress, where members greeted him with numerous standing ovations. At the same time, Ukrainian people hated him so much that they decided to replace him with a Jewish comic actor with no political experience.
Mr. Zelensky , I wonder if you have read the book "Shooting Stars" by Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig, which describes some important episodes in which fate gave an individual a chance at a historical turning point. Zweig says fate usually chooses for this purpose a strong personality, but sometimes it falls to mediocrities who fail miserably.
You are in a position to decide which you will be, and the pass to historical Olympus is obvious.
After a Western-backed coup overthrew the legitimate Ukrainian president in February 2014, it brought to power a government largely picked by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland. People in the Donbass region did not accept the new government and made two conditions for remaining a part of Ukraine: special autonomy status and two state languages. This is exactly what Canada provides for its large French-speaking minority.
Those with even rudimentary knowledge of Ukrainian history and its huge ethnic Russian population would agree that these demands are not unreasonable, but the post-coup government called the separatist forces terrorists, sent aviation and tanks, and started a civil war that has been raging for five years. Washington, which was in total control of the Ukrainian political class, could have resolved this crisis easily by telling the new government to accept these modest conditions. Instead, the U.S. supported Kyiv with money, weapons, military training and political support.
Mr. Zelensky , nowadays you and your country are used as pawns in the attempts to impeach Mr. Trump , but your prime responsibility is before Ukrainian people who dismissed the party of war and placed the fate of your country and its people in your hands. They expect you to make the right decision by choosing the road to peace.
While waiting for these miracles to materialize, I wish all a merry Christmas , happy Hanukkah and peace on earth in 2020.
Edward Lozansky is president of American University in Moscow.
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Dec 17, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
novictim , 1 hour ago link
SoDamnMad , 15 minutes ago linkthis committee is responsible for overseeing the Intelligence Community and exposing abuses. Yet when the IG identified gross abuses in our jurisdiction, you expressed full faith in the agencies we're supposed to be vigilantly monitoring. and you rejected any oversight whatsoever of their supposed clean-up efforts.
Nailed it.
I so much wanted the Senate to subpoena Eric Ciamarella and ask him under oath about is contact with Schiff and the Schiff team.
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Dec 17, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Kelley , 2 hours ago link
ComeAndTakeIt , 2 hours ago linkNunes's frank letter might have a surprising effect. He has declared open season on Schiff. It's like the child in the Emperor's New Clothes. Once the cat is out of the bag like this and "what must not be spoken" gets spoken, it could send shock waves.
There are Democrats on the edge of flipping. When they see the letter, it could have the effect of crystallizing their decision to leave the Democrat party. They certainly don't want to be associated with Schiff, the pariah to their own reelection chances.
Witchy-witch , 2 hours ago linkA scathing letter does nothing to a man that has no conscience.
Who the **** thinks this will make Schitt-*** even think twice at all? He probably wont even bother to read it.
this was inspired by a writer here
here is our letter to our congressman
copy and paste it if you feel the same angry way and send it to your congress person
https://www.house.gov/representatives
Dear Congressman,
We are writing today to let you know that we are fed up with all the insanity and stupidity coming from the democrat party. We have been loyal democrats all our lives, and we are appalled at the lunacy of the impeachment trial. It's all an out right waste of time that the democrat Adam Schiff is showing the nation. We did not even watch it because he is an in your face liar.
What you better understand and know is, many like ourselves are sick and tired of the unacceptable behavior of the democrat party. We are sick and tired of paying our tax dollars to pay you and the democrat party that has not done a darn thing for us, the American People.
We are here to tell you that if you vote for impeachment, you are saying to all us voters that you are just as stupid and insane to back up with your vote, the highly unfair partisan impeachment process based on nothing or any real evidence. We do not want anyone that is that ignorant as our representative.
Do you understand that the leadership in the democrat party has made us all look like stupid insane idiots and we have seen enough? You must know that if you vote for this fake impeachment process, WE WILL VOTE YOU OUT! We will vote for any other democrat, or if we have too, the republican candidate that is running against you.
Please do the right thing not for the democrat party, but for the American people who voted for you. Get back to the business of America and the American People! This is the bottom line, if you vote for impeachment, you are out of there. Do not discount our stead fast position on this issue.
Thank you in advance for your consideration of our request.
Signed, Concerned citizen in your District.
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Dec 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
"As part of your rehabilitation, it's crucial that you admit you have a problem - you are hijacking the Intelligence Committee for political purposes while excusing and covering up intelligence agency abuses ." -Devin Nunes to Adam Schiff
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Dec 15, 2019 | twitter.com
Nathan Brand 3:00 PM - 8 Dec 2019
The Washington Post Opinion page: If you don't agree with us, you must be a Russian asset
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Dec 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Jayne , Dec 15 2019 14:26 utc | 4
Hey *Politifact*:"...Obama did sign H.R. 4310 into law, also passing the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012. But the bill did not make it legal for independent, private-sector media outlets to present outright false information to the public. Instead, it allowed government-sponsored news like Voice of American to be broadcast in the United States. It removed restrictions on U.S.-generated news from being presented to American audiences.'''"
Oki doki so what about those < cough > "independent, private-sector media outlets" that are blatant 'governement funded fronts' that only 'claim' to be our independent, private-sector media...
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Dec 15, 2019 | www.truthdig.com
gustave courbet KurtV • 12 hours ago ,gustave courbet KurtV • 11 hours ago ,"There is little point trying to convince someone like Johnstone of what every sane person in the world knows to be almost certainly true, that Russia hacked the DNC and attempted to swing the election in favor of" ~ Donald Trump."
Count me among the insane, but such fact-free assertions are pretty standard examples of what passes for facts in the post-post-modern era of Trump. While this is certainly a minority position, competent journalists like Aaron Mate, Matt Taibbi, Michael Tracey and others have been doing good work in pointing out the deep flaws in the Russiagate narrative.
corruptclintons gustave courbet • 6 hours ago ,I'm not sure what neo-progressivism is, but I know a farce when I see it. The Mueller investigation failed to interview two central persons of interest in it's investigation: Craig Murray and Julian Assange. The fact that they did not interview them underscores that this was not a good faith investigation but one working backwards from it's conclusion. Hail Putin (JK, I couldn't care less about the Kleptocrat-in-chief).
gustave courbet corruptclintons • 5 hours ago ,I call it fake progressivism or the alt-left but neo-progressivism works too. They are easy to identify because they all listen to (and frequently cite) the same social media pundits and their logic is so painfully flawed.
They are useful idiots for the right because they advance the same talking points as the right, with a few variations that are designed to appeal to the left. In short, they are lefties who have been neutralized by clever propaganda and "alt-media" pied pipers.
corruptclintons gustave courbet • 5 hours ago ,Funny, I would apply your description of "useful idiots" to centrist Democrats for advancing an agenda that severely hamstring the Democrats' political effectiveness and marries them to historically reactionary forces like neoconservatives and the intelligence community.
In the same way that your "neo-progressives" are labeled "Putin puppets" or "Assad apologists" for opposing destructive and bellicose foreign policy positions, this neo-red-scare language was used to tar principled anti-war voices during the Cold War (MLK Jr comes to mind).
Instead of debating policy positions, we must now try to cut through the Orwellian neologism game just to get to a discussion of substance.
gustave courbet corruptclintons • 3 hours ago ,The anti-war narrative is a great hook with which to reel in some people on the left.
Yes, the level of propaganda being utilized is Orwellian, and until progressives realize they are being propagandized rather than informed, they will be used like pawns on a chess board.
gustave courbet KurtV • 7 hours ago ,Considering that our political establishment, including both parties, our media system including both ostensibly informational and entertainment content, and our civil society are deeply committed to US military and intelligence endeavors, I would "first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye," as the saying goes.
The propaganda system that shapes public opinion around matters of geopolitics is extensive and pervasive. There is a relatively small community of academics, activists, and concerned citizens who are students of history, and more importantly, the history of propaganda and have watched what it can do. I've no doubt you're well-intentioned but I can't help but disagree with your perception. The pro-RTP humanitarian interventionist canard is a great way to get people who consider themselves on the left to back the same military/intelligence apparatus that has been waging war on the third world in pursuit of American political and economic hegemony since the end of WWII.
I'm reminded of the legacy media's reaction after MLK Jr's Beyond Vietnam speech: "Time magazine called the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi." The Washington Post wrote that King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."" The pro-war establishment has had 52 years to come up with new false equivalencies and flawed analyses to disparage the moral and practical clarity of its critics, and they have not.
gustave courbet corruptclintons • 5 hours ago ,It has occurred to me that their contentions are false, but that's precisely the point- if you're doing a competent, exhaustive investigation, you interview people that claim to have information of central importance, if only to exclude those possibilities from consideration. Not doing so is the hallmark of incompetence or something worse.
Of course, these aren't the only issues with Russiagate, only the most glaring. I'll mention briefly that perhaps the great sin of Russiagate (even if it turned out to be true) is that is has neatly distracted from election fraud in the US by US actors, both the DNC's rigging of primaries and the GOP's perennial voter suppression that likely gave Trump the election by securing him electoral college votes in key states.
Instead of looking at the damning evidence of GOP crimes (a hallowed tradition among Democrats), they did the thing convenient to DC insiders and national security apparatchiks: blame Russia. Even if Russia had hacked the DNC, their interference pales in comparison to demonstrable GOP manipulation, yet gets 98% of the coverage (and this will likely be repeated in 2020, thanks to this circus). Presuming Russiagate is entirely legit (which I don't), it's the hangnail distracting the body politic from stage 4 cancer.
Lastly, why on earth would one trust BCCI Bob and the intelligence community, on Russiagate or anything else considering their long history of lying to the American people? Maybe they're not in this case but the burden of proof is extremely high when dealing with serial liars.
"the conspiracy to fabricate the Mueller report would have involved tens of thousands and all would have had to keep quite."
No it wouldn't. It's clear from this statement alone that you haven't studied many conspiracies involving high-profile reports and political narratives that mislead the public. A small number of people can set the agenda, pick witnesses that will back them up either due to credulity, confirmation bias, or ambition, and use a compliant media as a megaphone to broadcast their perspective, then cite that same media (as Dick Cheney was fond of doing). Beyond that, there is a deep dearth of critical thinking in DC, and incentives not to rock the boat. Why put your career at risk to voice an unpopular opinion? A massive conspiracy isn't required, nor is it plausible. People that work in large bureaucracies can infer what the consensus is and go with it. From the JFK assassination to Vietnam, to Iran Contra, to Iraq, to the MANY minor scandals in between that have faded from the public's memory, this is a sadly common phenomenon.
I'm not dismissing the idea that Russians didn't interfere per se, but rather that this interference had an impact on the election (bombshell after bombshell failed to detonate). The media circus around Russiagate, an incident that, insofar as it happened, didn't impact the election, when compared to voter purges that literally handed Trump the White house, has been nearly entirely absent. Why the overwhelming focus, day after day after day of the former to the scant mention of the latter? I would argue that it's because one fits neatly into a jingoistic narrative held by the MIC while the other reveals bipartisan corruption and dereliction.
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Dec 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
snake , Dec 15 2019 14:03 utc | 2
NATO's fake humanitarian pretext catching up to them very interesting piece that fits into the to jo6pac post @ 1 of the smell of propaganda..
It does not matter who publishes smelly propaganda?At the moment there is no way for concerned, affected or just plain good humans to either eradicate the stench or to jail and make liable the producers, inventors, distributors, publisher or the liars that deny the wrongful facts often found in smelly propaganda..
It is a violation of basic human rights to produce false, deceptive or misleading propaganda.. Maybe there will someday be a war on wrongful propaganda and those involved will find themselves labeled Terrorist.
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Dec 14, 2019 | www.youtube.com
In an exclusive interview, Attorney General William Barr spoke to NBC News' Pete Williams about the findings on the Justice Department Inspector General's report on the Russia investigation and his criticisms of the FBI.
Gary Ellis , 2 days agoIt appears that none of AG Barr's answers were what Pete Williams wanted to hear.
greg j , 2 days agoI sincerely hope that the Durham investigation brings people to justice for what they have done to our country.
Jeremy Elice , 3 days agoThe man just admitted "this may be the biggest conspiracy in U.S Political History." Ouch!
JOHN DRUMHELLER , 2 days agoShame we didn't get to see Pete William's face during Barr's answer accusing "an irresponsible press of fanning the flames."
Hart , 1 day agoHere's the adult in the room. Look out children.
Russell McAfee , 1 day ago (edited)This is like if Watergate was on steroids and then some. Everyone involved should be prosecuted including the person who bought the dossier
Richard McLeod , 1 day agoThe FBI never got the actual DNC server. Crowdstrike has it. The FBI got a 'forensic copy'
King Eris , 1 day agoThe FBI has now been proven to be corrupt at its' highest levels.
Noble Victory , 1 day agoI could listen to AG Barr talk for hours. He's so calm and professional.
Nolan Gleason , 3 days agoBarr is so intelligent and just. He's smoothe like the way he plays the Bagpipes. Pretty amazing! 🇺🇸👍
ctafrance , 1 day agoDeath to the swamp
Roman King , 1 day ago (edited)The press is hopelessly corrupt. If we didn't know it already, this interview proves it.
Clarion Call , 2 days agoI'm So glade we have a competent attorney General pushing back on the massive disinformation narrative that comes from Giant News outlets of which are used to being unchallenged, unchecked by today's "journalistic standards"
wkcw1 , 2 days agoI so respect and admire this man's brain and logical thinking. His vocabulary is great as well.
barbandrob1 , 1 day agoNBC realizing they need to take a bath on this whole thing. Probably a bit too late now.
Faris Hamarneh , 3 days agoBarr just basically clarified and justified Fox news reporting over the last 2 years.. Thanks NBC
Craig Bigelow , 2 days agoI love Barr's nonchalant style. But this is real big and heads are going to roll
Luis Santiago , 1 day agoObama spied on Trump. Obama should have known about the FISA warrant!
macfan128 , 1 day agoso this guy really asked Bahr"why not open an investigation even with little evidence?" because is a violation of civil liberties to invade the privacy of law abiding citizens. You need compelling evidence for something so huge
David , 3 days ago17:44 "Why should the Attorney General care that the FBI was spying on a presidential candidate?" LOLOLOLOL Our media is a jooooooooke.
Bill the Cat , 2 days agoNBC did a straight up interview??? This is shocking. Who told them that they could start doing journalism again?
Clapper and Brennan will be shaking in their boots after watching Barr's interview.
MegaTrucker65 , 1 day agoHorowitz should be instructed to edit or update his Report to discuss The Question of Bias and Evidence of Bias. He has clearly misguided Americans with his choice of words and has omitted important facts underpinning bias.
Gamer John3:18 , 1 day agoI haven't looked into Ukraine YET.
Yo Mama , 2 days agoAG Barr is an outstanding role model, a man of integrity and wisdom, calm in a raging political storm. I have full confidence he will make those who fabricated evidence and hid exculpatory evidence finally face justice. AG Barr for President 2024!
Barr is a straight shooter and I love it. It sounds like we will get to the real truth eventually through Durhams investigation I just hope it doesnt take another year to get to the prosecutions.
Wolverines Fight , 1 day agoSo, I watched the interview... The video is called, "Full Interview: Barr Criticizes Inspector General Report On The Russia Investigation." Not once did I hear him criticize the I.G.'s report. In fact, A.G. Barr clarified that the I.G.'s report was limited in scope because of the limitations put on the I.G. He said that the report was appropriate.
Benny .Burmeister Jørgensen , 3 days agoIt's scary to see how powerful the corruption of the Democratic Party has grown. It represents a serious threat to all our personal freedom. The Democratic Party has to be stopped.
Mike Dorsey , 1 day agoOk after watching this interview its quite clear that Barr and Durham is going after these criminals and people are going to jail. Maybe there is hope for US yet becuase this dane consider US atm a banana republic. Spying on political candidates? Forging documents? You FBI behaving like Stalins secret police. Lets see what happen.
protochris , 1 day agoGod Bless Bill Barr. I'm glad there's still some adults in government that will speak their mind intelligently, rationally and unabashedly.
Dan Kuo , 1 day agoThis guy is brilliant; he's clearly exposing the FBI and the barking dogs on the alphabet networks.
Jbyrd Texas , 2 days agoAmazing for the AG to go in deep into enemy territory at the heart of the opposition media to lay out a case for the criminal activities that undermined our country prior to and after the 2016 election. The deep state is trembling at the prospect of being held accountable after all the facts are laid out to the american people that these activities cannot be brushed aside or swept under the carpet if we are to continue as a country.
Stephan Coutts , 1 day agoThe corrupt media is trying to act like they have not been involved in this treasonous scam since the beginning working directly with the treasonous cabal. The media has been lying and pushing fake news for 3 years calling Trump a Russia agent and called him treasonous. I knew the whole time that they were lying there was evidence from day one that this was all lies and if I can see that from the public then they can definitely see that from the inside they are purposefully lying.
Worlds Best Metal Detectorist , 2 days agoI dare anyone on here to research Barr's History back to his involvement in the assignation of JFK, the cover up, defending Nixon, Epstein, and many other illegal and immoral activities. After reviewing the evidence, I walked away believing that Barr is trying to cover up his tracks so he does do jail time. No need to reply. Either take my dare or not. God Bless America and ALL her people, Stephan
Right Thinking , 3 days agoThe public are sick of waiting . I find myself skipping through a half hour news show in 5 minutes flat looking for arrests ,whereas before I was rivited to every minute of the half hour show but it goes on and on and at the there is Nothiing .The Democrats are the masters , it's obvious . If they break the law they get off scott free . If you are republican wave bye bye , you will be in jail for years . America is not the free and fair country it is all cracked up to be . It is corrupted by the democrats who have peoiple in high places that thwart real justice.
dethtrk Jones , 3 days agoMifsud approached George! Who was Mifsud working for (western asset) and why did he approach George? He’s the one who offered George dirt on Hill. Then invited him to meet the fake “niece”, of Putin, in England! What about this information? Someone set George up to make this happen outside the US, because of EO 12333. It had to happen outside the US so they could go to the fisa court!
Brad Brown , 2 days agoI dont trust Christopher Wrey. He keeps slow-walking all the FBI documents and declassifications. He also fights judicial watch and judges that rule in their favor and continue not giving over what is ordered! This last judge was ready to hold him in contempt for refusing to cooperate with court ordered documents.
Why did the FBI continue to investigate Trump after January when the case collapsed? To try and find a way to impeach Trump. Remember the Washington Post headlined article right after the inauguration "The effort to impeach President Donald John Trump is already underway." The FBI "insurance" policy was essential!
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Dec 08, 2019 | consortiumnews.com
Retired Australian diplomat Tony Kevin, in conversation with former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, says the West is unnecessarily determined to undermine Russia.
A t an event last week in Sydney, Kevin and Carr discussed how the West, led by the United States, has been on an aggressive campaign to destabilize Russia, without cause.
When Kevin said he returned to Russia after more than 40 years in 2016 he realized he "had to take sides" in the U.S.-Russia standoff when all Nato countries boycotted the Moscow celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
"I had to take a moral position that it is not right for the West to be ganging up on Russia," Kevin says in his conversation with the former Australian foreign minister.
The New Cold War can traced back to a broken promise made to Moscow on Nato expansion eastward. "London and Washington are orchestrating a disinformation" campaign today against Russia, as the New Cold War has heated up over Syria, Ukraine, NATO troops on Russia's borders and Russiagate.
Watch the hour-long in depth discussion which was filmed and produced by Consortium News' CN Live! Executive Producer Cathy Vogan.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/dJiS3nFzsWg?feature=oembed
Tags: Bob Carr Russia Russiagate Russophobia Tony Kevin Vladimir Putin
Tom Culpeper , December 11, 2019 at 16:03
Putin & the Russian citizenry play chess on this 3-dimensional world.! The Americas and their inane elites attempt checkers on their flat Earth . Pity, some such as Noam Chomsky are admirable world citizens..! Pity again.! WE will miss men of this honest calibre and down- to-earth intelligence. Bob Carr is of this cohort.
Eugenie Basile , December 10, 2019 at 03:36
The 'Russia did it' mantra is a gift for the powers in the Kremlin. It rallies most Russians behind their leaders because they are proud of their country and don't accept the West's moral hypocrite grandstanding.
Just recently the WADA proclaimed sporting ban against Russia is a perfect example. It excludes all Russian athletes because they happen to represent their country while U.S. athletes who have been caught cheating in the past are allowed to participate .
Jerry Alatalo , December 10, 2019 at 00:30
It is very encouraging to know there are good people like Mr. Tony Kevin and Mr. Bob Carr alive and sharing their powerful wisdom at this dangerous historical point on planet Earth. Mr. Kevin and Mr. Carr's immensely important and courageously honest discussion should become immediately, and for many years to come required study in university classrooms and government halls around this world.
Peace.
ElderD , December 9, 2019 at 15:03
Tony's (especially!) and Bob's sane and sensible view of this dangerous and destructive state of affairs deserve the widest possible distribution and attention.
George McGlynn , December 9, 2019 at 13:27
A quarter century has passed since the fall of the Soviet Union, and little has changed. Cold War patterns of thinking about Russia show no sign of weakening in America. The further we distance ourselves from the end of the Cold War, the closer we come to its revival. Hostility to Russia is the oldest continuous foreign policy tradition in the United States. It is now so much of a part of America's identity that it is unlikely to be ever cured.
peter mcloughlin , December 9, 2019 at 10:45
It is a dangerous miscalculation to think the "New Cold War" will end like the first. Russia (the USSR) had a buffer zone then, it doesn't today. For Moscow the coming war (world war) will be about survival. All that is left is the fall-back position of nuclear deterrence doctrine annihilation. I don't think western capitals see how perilous the situation is.
Lois Gagnon , December 9, 2019 at 17:30
I agree. Putin made it clear when he said the next war would not be fought inside Russia. The troglodytes in the West are unable to grasp not only what that means, but why he said it.
AnneR , December 9, 2019 at 07:48
The latest efforts at attacking Russia via smear, allegation and Doublespeak have been, are via that US supported supposed oversight committee, WADA which has done what the US-UK wanted: banned Russia for four years from international sporting events including the upcoming Tokyo Olympics and World Cup (Football soccer to Americans).
Then there were allegations of those "highly likely" (therefore one knows to be untrue and unadulterated propaganda to increase Russophobia) sort about Russian hackers (always giving the impression that the "Kremlin" is behind itl) being the Labour Party's source of the Tory party's US-UK trade deal which would/will deliberately and finally destroy the NHS and replace it with (of course) US "health" insurance company profiteering.
(Always the Tory intention from the NHS's initiation in May of 1948; only its popularity among many Tory party supporters among the working and lower middle classes prevented them from a full-frontal killing off the NHS; the Snatcher's government began the undermining, via installing a top-heavy bureaucratization, siphoning off a sizable proportion of the funds that would otherwise have gone to medical care, demanding that hospitals not "lose" money a concept completely beyond the remit of the NHS as originally conceived and constructed and like exactions.)
Then there are snide remarks about the meeting today concerning the Ukrainian Azov (Neo-Nazi) attacks on the Donbass (NOT how either the BBC or NPR speaks of this of course) in France. This struggle, between the Russian-speaking Donbass peoples and the neo-Nazis of western Ukraine, has killed many thousands of people (most likely mostly those of the Donbass). The Donbass fighters are spoken of as "Russian-supported" in an attempt to deny them and the reasons for their struggle *any* legitimacy (meanwhile the support for the neo-Nazis goes unmentioned, leaving the listener with the impression that they are the Ukrainian military, thus legitimately fighting a foreign funded and manned insurgency).
Someone even suggested that President Putin needed to be diplomatic. Really? From what I've read the man is the most diplomatic and intelligent politician (not just political leader) along with Xi Jinping and the Iranian government that exist on the world stage. None of them are hubristic, solipsistic, eager beaver killers of peoples in other countries. Unlike their western "world" political counterparts.
Jeff Harrison , December 8, 2019 at 18:30
Mad Dog Mattis spoke the truth when he said that an opponent wasn't defeated until they agreed they were defeated. The US merely assumed that Russia agreed that they were defeated and are doubling down when they now suddenly realize that Russia never said any such thing.
St. Ronnie's whole thing back in the 80's was to outspend Russia militarily and it worked well. We're trying to do it again but Russia isn't playing the same game this time and now it is the US that has a mountain of debt and Russia that doesn't.
SIPIRI tags US military spending at $650B and Russian military spending at $62B. But we know that the $650B number is bogus because it doesn't include our in-violation-of-the-NNPT nuclear program which is in the energy department or our veteran's expenses which are in HHS. I don't know what's missing from Russia's $62B but I'll bet they can sustain that a whole lot better than we can sustain our $650B and rising bill.
Antonio Costa , December 9, 2019 at 13:17
Good point regarding Russia's downsizing the Soviet Union. From Gorbachev to Putin there was NEVER a surrender, intended in any way. The intent has been multilateral partnerships. For Russia the US/West won nothing at all except the opportunity to live and work in peace. (By the way this policy has a long Russian history.)
They gave up the Warsaw Pact and America with our worthless "word" expanded NATO.
The US foreign policy has lost even the semblance of sanity. Our naked aggression is clear as never before, a mad man throwing a global fit armed with megaton nuclear projectiles on trigger first strike alert. What could go wrong?
nondimenticare , December 8, 2019 at 15:56
If, magically, Consortium News/CN Live! were a mass-distribution network/magazine (hence universally consulted), allowing the light in for the mass of the viewing and listening public, it could change the world both an exalting and despairing thought.
Lily , December 8, 2019 at 09:52
It is a great joy to listen to this conversation!
I am really sick of the smearing of Russia done by the US and UK. The Skripal as well as the MH17 case are plain ridiculus. Anybody can see through these silly plants. US and UK obviously don't feel obliged to respect any international rules any more. (The one person who is suffering most at the moment from the decline in respect is Julian Assange, an Australian citizen!)
I wish people would have the courage to break away from the group pressure originated by a nation which has been started by killing more than 90% of the indigenous people in their country and since then has turned the worl into a very insecure place.
Chapeau, Tony Kevin! Thanks to Bob Carr and Consortiums News.
Lily , December 9, 2019 at 01:18
It seems that some facts are beginning to be realized in the military department.
www(dot)zerohedge(dot)com/geopolitical/pentagon-alarmed-russia-gaining-sympathy-among-us-troops
JOHN CHUCKMAN , December 8, 2019 at 07:30
"At an event last week in Sydney, Kevin and Carr discussed how the West, led by the United States, has been on an aggressive campaign to destabilize Russia, without cause."
The American establishment's problem with Russia is simply that Russia is the only country on earth capable of obliterating the United States. Not even China has yet reached that capacity.
"Carthago delenda est"
Skip Scott , December 9, 2019 at 06:13
There is "cause." Russia was our latest vassal under Yeltsin. Putin stopped the looting, and worked to benefit average Russian citizens. Just watch "The Magnitsky Act, behind the scenes" to know the "cause".
Bruno DP , December 8, 2019 at 02:34
The West is ganging up on Russia? Replace "West" by "United States of America", and I will agree.
Much of the West (i.e. Germany) has been dragged by force into damage control mode. The Magnitsky Act monster, the election interference hysteria, are just 2 crying examples met with shock and disbelief across the pond. The Fiona Hill testimony was a very telling moment for the inner workings of a self perpetuating logic.
Russia is no lightweight by any means, and not always friendly.
But it has regularly done the right thing in international conflicts which the Kremlin seems to understand better than all of "the Western" intelligence combined.
Martin Schuchert , December 8, 2019 at 17:33
I'm German, living in the US, and I agree with your comment. I especially love the last two sentences:
"Russia is no lightweight by any means, and not always friendly. But it has regularly done the right thing in international conflicts which the Kremlin seems to understand better than all of "the Western" intelligence combined."
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Dec 14, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
One aspect of this report in the NYT is very troubling but not a great surprise to those who pay attention to Asian affairs.The reports that US military leaders had no idea of what to do in Afghanistan and constantly lied to the public should rouse citizens in America to take a different view of military leaders. That view must be to trust nothing coming from the Pentagon or from spokespersons for the military. Included must be any and all secretaries of defence, and all branches of the military.
It is totally unacceptable that 1-2 trillion dollars and several thousand lives were spent by America for some nebulous cause. This does not include many thousands of civilians.
During the Vietnam disaster, it became obvious that American military was lying to the public and taking many causalities in an unwinnable war. Nothing was learned about Asia or Asian culture because America entered Afghanistan without a real plan and no understanding of the country or it's history.
The experience of the USSR in that country should have sent up all kinds of red flags to the invading US military but it apparently did not. Both USSR and America lost thousands of military lives -- but nothing has changed in the country. Life in Afghanistan is actually worse now than before the multiple invasions. The only think which has improved is the cultivation of poppies and the export of opium.
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Dec 14, 2019 | www.youtube.com
Tim Burton , 4 days agoThe dems slandered Barr and Durham but not Horowitz, now we know why .
SwapPart, LLC , 4 days agoGraham running cover for the Deep-State and directing us to low-level offenders NOT obama/hillary/DNC and their FAILED CoupD'etat's
William Bailey , 4 days agoHorowitz is just afraid of being added to the Clinton's body count.
Rice Family , 4 days ago (edited)Well folks there you have it. The deep state investigated themselves and found no evidence of wrongdoing.
It's insane to say there were "17 material omissions, miss-representations (lies) and errors" - but no evidence of bias. This is like accidentally shooting someone 17 times.
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Dec 14, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
It would appear all the escalating rhetoric from a month of impeachment hearings - including one Democratic congressman asking fellow lawmakers to imagine the teenage daughter of Ukraine's president tied up in Trump's basement - have sparked more than just verbal assaults on Republicans ( just as Maxine Waters would had suggested previously ).
The Hill reports that a man in Illinois has been charged after allegedly threatening to shoot Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) and accusing the congressman of "backing the Russians."
Rodney Lee Davis
64-year-old Randall Tar of Rochester, Ill. was charged with communicating threats to injure a person and threatening to assault, kidnap or murder a federal official, according to court documents released this week (full release below).
Contacted at his home Thursday, Tarr said he saw a television ad in which Davis, a Republican from Taylorville, claimed that Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections , and it angered him enough to call.
Prosecutors say Tarr called Davis's district office last month and left a profanity-filled voicemail, saying:
"I just saw you ... on the TV. You backing the Russians, boy?"
"Stupid son of a bitch, you're gonna go against our military and back the Russians?" he allegedly added.
"I'm a sharpshooter. ... I'd like to shoot your f---ing head off you stupid motherf---er."
Tarrlater reportedly told The Associated Press :
"I screwed up," Tarr said.
"I don't even have a weapon to do it, is the silliest thing."
"I wish I could just take it all back and just say he's a lousy (expletive) for backing the Russian theory."
Of course, the only problem with all this is that the Democrats' constant spewing of the narrative that Ukraine did not 'meddle' in the 2016 election is entirely false .
Dr Anon , 45 minutes ago link
greek mafia , 46 minutes ago linkThe bigger story is the number of mentally unstable Americans. When you go driving next, remember that about 20% of them are gorked on prescribed medications. The behavior you will observe makes complete sense in that context.
Pendolino , 47 minutes ago linkDamn...64 and still stupid as hell
" I'm a sharpshooter "
Well he certainly knows how to shoot his mouth off.
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Dec 14, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
squid, 7 hours ago link
Meme Iamfurst , 6 hours ago linkThey want to do it by Christmas in the vain hope that this circus will all blow over by November. I think not.
While the typical BubisAmericanus will have forgotten all the details by then, me thinks the hard core democrats, I mean nomal'ish people that usually vote blue, simply stay home.
Part of me, however, thinks back to something that Harry Truman said, "in politics there are no accidents" .
Was this whole impeachment thing completely designed for the dems to fall on their sword and put the Donald back in for another 4? Dunno.
The Republicans will have both houses when in 2024 the the tax take will barley cover interest.
designed for the dems to fall on their sword and put the Donald back in for another 4? Dunno.
Been thinking along the same lines. May be the last thing they want is to be "on line" in 2021. I even wonder if CNN and BSNBC, etc, are there to DRIVE the decent Democrat to the Republicians.
I do think that things are not adding up.
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Dec 14, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Md4 , 8 hours ago link
No reputable legal authority would fear ensuring due process for an accused, unless it had no evidence of an actual crime to justify prosecution...but DID have ulterior motives and nefarious purposes for doing so.
Let's be clear.
To date, not a single shred of actual evidence has ever been produced to prove Russian involvement or interference in the 2016 presidential election.
***.
Nada.
We have the opinion of domestic intelligence agencies, but we have no physical or direct evidence.
On the contrary, we have as much reason to believe some or all of them interfered in the Trump campaign, to orchestrate and execute a foreign interference hoax against Trump, before and after his election.
Daily, and throughout this sick prog left congressional abuse of power, we have repeatedly heard claims of an "ongoing war with Russia" in Ukraine.
Which war is this? Is this a continuation of the non-invasion of the Donbas in 2014? The specious and false claims of Russian troop concentrations, and tanks rolling, that even spy satellites didn't see? Are we still lying about this? If so, where are the media reports of Russian airstrikes, burning Ukrainian villages, or body bags?
In any "on-going" war with Russia, we would've been treated to near-constant news video of Russian armor all over eastern Ukraine. Have we? Perhaps this war they keep telling us about is like the Russian "invasion" of Crimea that didn't happen either.
We clearly remember the two Crimean-initiated referenda which put them back in their ancestral Russian homelands, but none of that had anything to do with invading Russians, who already had a substantial military presence in Crimea for decades.
No sir, Professor Turley.
There is no basis whatsoever for Trump's impeachment.
There is mounting evidence of a continued coup against this president, and the substantial number of Americans who actually elected him.
We too are closely monitoring the actual situation...
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Dec 13, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
... Women have proven over the centuries that they can be just as bloodthirsty when in power. Indeed one of them is busy in The Hague as we speak.
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Dec 12, 2019 | theintercept.com
Just as was true when the Mueller investigation closed without a single American being charged with criminally conspiring with Russia over the 2016 election, Wednesday's issuance of the long-waited report from the Department of Justice's Inspector General reveals that years of major claims and narratives from the U.S. media were utter frauds .Before evaluating the media component of this scandal, the FBI's gross abuse of its power – its serial deceit – is so grave and manifest that it requires little effort to demonstrate it. In sum, the IG Report documents multiple instances in which the FBI – in order to convince a FISA court to allow it spy on former Trump campaign operative Carter Page during the 2016 election – manipulated documents, concealed crucial exonerating evidence, and touted what it knew were unreliable if not outright false claims.
If you don't consider FBI lying, concealment of evidence, and manipulation of documents in order to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a presidential campaign to be a major scandal, what is? But none of this is aberrational: the FBI still has its headquarters in a building named after J. Edgar Hoover – who constantly blackmailed elected officials with dossiers and tried to blackmail Martin Luther King into killing himself – because that's what these security state agencies are. They are out-of-control, virtually unlimited police state factions that lie, abuse their spying and law enforcement powers, and subvert democracy and civic and political freedoms as a matter of course.
In this case, no rational person should allow standard partisan bickering to distort or hide this severe FBI corruption. The IG Report leaves no doubt about it. It's brimming with proof of FBI subterfuge and deceit, all in service of persuading a FISA court of something that was not true: that U.S. citizen and former Trump campaign official Carter Page was an agent of the Russian government and therefore needed to have his communications surveilled.
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Dec 13, 2019 | www.unz.com
Kratoklastes , says: December 12, 2019 at 3:42 am GMT
started by an unemployed Englishman named Eliot Higgins
Good on him – being able to create a thing that rises to such prominence in such a short space of time speaks volumes about this Higgins guy's entrepreneurial ability. And if he wasn't mobbed-up to begin with, he sure as fuck is now – which is a double- mitzvah (for him).
If he did so starting from being unemployed, then anybody who turned down a job application from the guy must be kicking themselves. (' Unemployed ' is obviously used pejoratively in the blockquote; 'Englishman' is purely-descriptive).
.
Also, the entire article accepts Bernays' conclusion, but disagrees as to which objectives should be pursued.
Bernays' conclusions are hardly controversial: most people are gullible imbeciles . It's not clear to me how much more empirical evidence we need before that becomes just a thing that everyone with an IQ above 115 accepts.
So the question then becomes " OK, now what? ".
As usual, the right answer is " Depends " – and not just for those with bladder control problems.
If you want to do things that are just , exploiting gullible imbeciles would appear to violate the playing conditions. It would be hors jeu ; not done; just not cricket .
As the Laconian famously said . " IF ."
For those for whom the 'if' condition returns 'false', it does very little to bleat about how awful they are. You're not going to cause a little switch in their brain to flick on (or off?), whereupon they realise the error of their ways and make a conscious decision to leave the gullible imbeciles unexploited.
It's even unlikely to affect their victims (remember, they're imbeciles) – because otherwise some infra-marginal imbeciles would have to process their way through quite a bit of cognitive dissonance, and they're not wired for introspection (or processing).
So the sole real purpose (apart from κάθαρσις catharsis ) is prophylaxis (προ + φύλαξις – guarding ). Both good enough aims obviously the writer is the one who gets the cathartic benefit, but who is going to be on heightened alert as a result of this Cassandra -ish jeremiad -ing?
Non-imbeciles don't need it; imbeciles won't benefit.
Here's the thing: the gullible imbeciles are going to be exploited by someone .
.
This is something that people of my persuasion struggle with. It boils down to the following:
Let's assume that a reprehensible thing exists already, and is unlikely to be overthrown by my opposition to it. Should I just participate and line my pockets?
The resources used are going to be used whether I participate or not, so it may as well be me who gets them. After all, I will put them to moral uses – and while inside, I can do things that are contrary to the interests of the reprehensible thing.
There is no satisfactory counter-argument to that line of reasoning, and yet I reject it.
Then again: I was dropped on my head as an infant, so YMMV.
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Dec 13, 2019 | irrussianality.wordpress.com
Unprecedented brazenness December 11, 2019 PaulR 6 Comments 'Something is rotten with the state of Denmark', or if not Denmark then certainly the United States of America. It's the only conclusion one can draw from the way the absolutely normal is nowadays treated as the most extraordinary drama.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump met Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. It's about as normal a diplomatic event as one could possibly imagine, but it caused much of the American commentariat to go into a collective meltdown.
'Trump welcoming Russia's top diplomat to the Oval Office is one of his most brazen moves yet,' declared the Washington Post , which makes you think that Trump really needs to step up his game on the brazenness front. The Post isn't alone in thinking this way, however. What one might call the 'liberal' TV channels leapt on the story too, dragging in some representatives of the American security apparatus to ram home the point (there was a time when liberals regarded the FBI and CIA with suspicion, but such days are apparently long gone).
And so it was that CNN brought on as a guest former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe to 'explain why the photograph tweeted by President Trump of his meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov is so extraordinary.' As McCabe told CNN :
There's no doubt there's something deeply odd about the way this president interacts with Russia. We've never seen anything like this before. Russia is our most significant enemy on the world stage. I don't think that we've ever seen a photograph out of the Oval Office on the lines of the one we saw today.
Meanwhile, MSNBC had its own star witness, former Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel. 'Why is a head of state meeting with the Russian foreign minister?' Stengel asked , 'Vladimir Putin doesn't meet with Mike Pompeo when he comes to Moscow. So it's very curious and it's very strange.'
Actually Rick, dear boy, Putin does meet with Pompeo, as you can see from this photo here. But when did one ever let little details like factual accuracy get in the way of a good line?
Stengel wasn't MSNBC's only witness to Trump's suspicious behaviour. Former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul also put in an appearance. 'He's obsessed with the East, like a certain world leader in the 1940s was obsessed with the East. Why is this guy obsessed with meeting with Russians all over the place', the host asked McFaul. The latter let pass the gratuitous Hitler comparison, and gave his learned response: 'It's truly bizarre. I confess I do not have a rational explanation for it,' said McFaul .
Just in case you think it was only the media, FBI, and the State Department, others were on the ball too. The Trump-Lavrov meeting had Twitter abuzz. Anne Applebaum, for instance, had the following to say.
It's all simply nuts. Trump is Hitler. A former ambassador can't think of any reason why representatives of two major powers might wish to meet. A former deputy head of the US foreign service thinks that heads of state never meet foreign ministers. And all of them believe that a photograph of the US President and the Russian foreign minister is totally unprecedented and suggestive of something deeply suspicious, though exactly what they can't quite tell us. Which makes you wonder what they'd all make of this picture.
I don't know about you, but that looks a lot like Sergei Lavrov and President Obama to me. So, was Obama a Russian agent? Was he secretly selling out US interests to a foreign power? Should we be investigating him as well? It's all rather suspicious, don't you think?
I'll leave the last word to the excellent Fred Weir of the Christian Science Monitor:
It's pretty clear by now that no normal dialog is going to be possible between Russia and the US. Perhaps ever again. It's not my job to advise the Russians what to do, but if it were I would suggest they just give it up. Spend your time going to Beijing, Delhi, Ankara, even Berlin and Paris, but give Washington a miss.
It's the most peculiar damned thing I have ever seen. Even at the lowest depths of the Cold War, the Washington Post would never have run a headline that described a US president meeting a Soviet leader in the Oval Office as "one of his most brazen moves yet."
Analyzing the official photo of Trump and Lavrov in the Oval Office, the main -- disapproving -- takeaway the WaPo has to offer here is: "Judging by the expressions on their faces, the conversation does not seem to have been particularly acrimonious." Geez.
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Dec 11, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
John Glaser and Christopher Preble have written a valuable study of the history and causes of threat inflation. Here is their conclusion:If war is the health of the state, so is its close cousin, fear. America's foreign policy in the 21st century serves as compelling evidence of that. Arguably the most important task, for those who oppose America's apparently constant state of war, is to correct the threat inflation that pervades national security discourse. When Americans and their policymakers understand that the United States is fundamentally secure, U.S. military activism can be reined in, and U.S. foreign policy can be reset accordingly.
Threat inflation is how American politicians and policymakers manipulate public opinion and stifle foreign policy dissent. When hawks engage in threat inflation, they never pay a political price for sounding false alarms, no matter how ridiculous or over-the-top their warnings may be. They have created their own ecosystem of think tanks and magazines over the decades to ensure that there are ready-made platforms and audiences for promoting their fictions. This necessarily warps every policy debate as one side is permitted to indulge in the most baseless speculation and fear-mongering, and in order to be taken "seriously" the skeptics often feel compelled to pay lip service to
