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Oct 31, 2020 | greenwald.substack.com
Willow Oct 29Tru Oct 29The ban against domestic propaganda that had been in place since shortly after WW2 was repealed in 2013. It was known as the Smith-Mundt Act. As part of the repeal, NDAA authorized a huge grant program for NGOs, think tanks, civil society and other experts outside government who are engaged in "counter-propaganda" related work. Sounds like doublespeak for censorship and support for "fake news." I hope Glenn will investigate and connect the dots some day.
omg. I read the whole article...and I'm not really that smart.
Best line: " ...but in journalism, evidence is required before news outlets can validly start blaming some foreign government for the release of information. And none has ever been presented."
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Stephanie Shaw Oct 29Oct 31, 2020 | greenwald.substack.com
Abbybwood 22 hr
ReplyFour years ago I was railing against Hillary Clinton on Facebook without any censoring.
Tonight I watched an interview Tucker Carlson did with Glenn Greenwald regarding the Hunter Biden/Joe Biden scandal and Tucker showed a poll revealing that 51% of those polled believe this scandal is "Russian Disinformation" with ZERO evidence.
Why do those being polled believe this? Because the bulk of the MSM they watch have told them so and the major tech platforms have ALL censored the pertinent information so there is NO debate amongst the electorate. All of this less than one week from our national election.
With Facebook and Twitter and Google's and the bulk of the MSM's heavy fingers on the scales of public information there are only two words to describe this:
ELECTION INTERFERENCE.
And this with over 70 million voters already having cast their ballots!
Regardless of the outcome next Tuesday, these tech/media corporations should ALL be brought down at least to the point where they can never be allowed to interfere in another American election again, regardless of the higher-ups personal political preferences.
And this is the system the war-mongering DNC wants to "spread around the world" with their "regime change wars"?!
No thank you.
Reply Frank P Huguenard Oct 29Glenn-I'm a new subscriber this evening. I want Trump gone. But I appreciate your non-partisan search of truth.
Reply Calbeck 19 hrStephanie, why do you want Trump gone? Trump is bait. His presence is resulting in many, many bad actors revealing themselves to be nefarious. Just look at Twitter/Facebook censoring this blockbuster news (along with the rest of the media). We, The People, are finally seeing first had the level of tyranny that's upon us. None of it has anything to do with Trump. But it's Trump's existence in the White House that is bringing it to light. Without him, we would have never seen it for what it is. Think about that.
Reply bitskipper 13 hrI may disagree with your take on CIA involvement, but the above paragraph couldn't be more accurate. Trump's election was like throwing a brick through a rotten, wasp-infested beehive.
Reply Calbeck 9 hrI'll second that. Though perhaps to be fair to the original sentiment, perhaps the brick has only knicked the beehive, and then smashed a window or two along it's way. He is arguably inevitable, even desirable from some perspective, but the degree of nuisance is not erased, so much as outweighed, by the necessity. We would be living in a better world, by definition, if someone like him had never been required to improve it.
Agreed. I have been telling Democrats all they need do is run better candidates - and virtually every time, I get people trying to claim there was never anything wrong with Hillary or Joe and also Trump is Literally Hitler Incarnate.
I grew up watching psychos in the Extreme Right talk that way about whoever THEY didn't like politically. Arguing that Bill Clinton was going to send Janet Reno to take their guns and cart them off to FEMA camps like a scene out of "Red Dawn" or something. But this isn't the fringes talking anymore. It's the mainstream, and it's on the Left.
Seriously chilling.
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Frank P Huguenard Oct 29Oct 31, 2020 | greenwald.substack.com
Frank P Huguenard Oct 29
ReplyGlen, I just paid for a subscription so that I can say this one FACT. The PODESTA EMAILS WERE NOT THE RESULT OF A HACK.
Please stop reporting this nonsense. The cover story was all part of the plan (approved by HRC) to shift attention to a Trump-Russia collusion narrative that has always been fiction. Guccifer 2.0 was created out of this same scheme. The meta data on the files prove that it's impossible that those emails were hacked, they had to be downloaded on a local device (thumbdrive most likely).
The FISA Abuse, the spying on Trump, The plan to implicate collusion, the Flynn frameup, the Impeachment, The Mueller investigation were not the base crimes, those were all part of a cover up. By you insinuating that the DNC server got hacked (which there is zero evidence for), you are wittingly or unwittingly complicit in perpetuating the lie that it was. You're missing a much, much bigger story here. The biden laptop isn't even the tip of the icebeg here.
Ask yourself this; "Why would dozens of high level DOJ, FBI, CIA and Whitehouse officials in the Obama Administration put their careers on the line and commit literally hundreds of felonies all in an effort to obstruct/neutralize Trump?" That is first question any true journo should be asking right now.
Reply Elizabeth Renee Oct 29You mention in this article that the media is basically over-compensating for helping Trump win in 2016. That is extremely naive on your part. The media/twitter/facebook/CNN/MSNBC, etc. is too well orchestrated, too well coordinated to be operating even vaguely independently. This is project Mockingbird happening on a scale almost unimaginable. Maybe even the Intercept was intercepted. Why would the publication that you founded not allow you to publish this? If you look back at 2016, the entire media industrial complex was just as coordinated as it is now, they just got sloppy because they were certain Trump wasn't going to win. Who's being naive now Kay?
Reply Frank P Huguenard Oct 29I also get frustrated with what I see as a naive interpretation, by figures like Dan Bongino, Tim Pool, etc. I wonder if there is a fear by some to point behind the curtain, that they will be attacked and cancelled for "conspiracy theories."
Reply ScuzzaMan 15 hrNeither Tim or Dan are really journalists and besides, this story is so massive and so incomprehensibly large in scope/scale/magnitude that we shouldn't get too frustrated.
The main point to remember here is that none of this has anything to do with Trump. Look at the timeline in its entirety, the best we are able to do and then plot a graph of the Media Industrial Complex's behavior. They were out to derail Trump from the moment he came down the escalator and it's not because he's a womanizer or that he's a game show host. They couldn't afford to have an non-establishment player come in and wreck their plans. The question is, what the f#$% were their plans? Why did they risk so much to keep him out of the WH?
Reply 13 replies Ron Wagner 21 hrMy view is that the constant sturm und drang about the corruption of the elections (voter suppression, mail fraud, ballot harvesting, etc, etc) is a ploy to distract from the fact that the real corruption already happened long before the election.
The real corruption is even mentioned by Glenn in his draft: the SELECTION process.
The media do what they're told, and what they are doing is keeping up the drumbeat of election corruption. In other words, they've been told to distract all attention from the real story.
The real story is that, to the people who control candidate selection, IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO WINS.
That is the whole point of controlling the selection process. Oh yes, I know the media hates Trump and so do the establishment. Really? The same establishment that just benefitted from the greatest upward transfer of wealth in human history, during a pandemic panic, under Trump? Bezos has gained over 70 billion in net worth this year, under Trump. You think he hates Trump? Really?
You think Biden will do less? Or perhaps you think he would do more than the greatest upward transfer of wealth in human history?
Republicans versus Democrats is a con game. It's a kabuki theatre of manipulation of parochial tribalism, a Punch n Judy Show for the rubes.
As was once mentioned in the UT threads at Salon, isn't it time for a second political party, Mr Greenwald?
Reply Substack Commenter 34 12 hrBecause they were sure Hillary would win and they would be protected and rewarded.
Reply 2 new replies Bob Oct 29It's not about their plans. It's just a non-violent (so far) class war. Trump is a vessel for the working classes to carry their dissatisfaction of elite leadership. It's easier to communicate directly to the people now due to social media, so the traditional media can't tell the people how to vote (can't declare a candidate to be beyond the pale any more, squashing their chances, and they used to have that power). The media are part of the elite leadership, they don't like the working classes not listening to them, and they don't like the loss of power. That's their agenda.
They have taken to "any means necessary" to keep that power, even though now it's basically lying and obfuscation. They are trading off their legacy trustworthiness for short term benefit, but they are destroying that foundation of trust as well. That happens slowly but surely as more people see through them. Takes too long in the experience of everyone who is reading this, because we're well ahead of the curve. The average mid level elite is a working professional with kids too busy and not interested enough to dig to the next level and has been taking their word - but they too see the truth every time they really look and over time that is going to go as we all hope it will. It's just going to take a while.
Reply 2 replies Calbeck 21 hrExcept Trump was/is good for ratings and business.
Reply 5 replies Bob Oct 29"The guy who co-founded one of the current-day major online journalism outlets isn't really a journalist" - Someone Posting to the Comments on an Article by a Guy Who Co-Founded One of the Current-Day Major Online Journalism Outlets
Reply Frank P Huguenard Oct 29not to mention ;The Intercept (Omidyar et.al .), intercepting their cache of the "Snowden Files" from the public..
Reply Scott 22 hrThere is good cause to question the Snowden story. He was CIA. Once a CIA agent, always a CIA agent. It's plausible that he was inserted into booz allen hamilton in an attempt to harm the NSA (on behalf of the CIA). Tell me this Glen, how did Snowden evade the largest dragnet/manhunt ever on the planet to evade the authorities and make it to Moscow? Am I the only one who finds this a little fishy? As someone who has been in software for 40 years, when I heard him on Joe Rogan podcast about a year ago, I didn't find his backstory credible at all. He sounds intelligent, but when you get beyond that and listen to him from a technological perspective, his story doesn't add up. I find it hard to believe.
Reply 13 replies e.pierce 2 hrWhy would a "patriot" doing work on behalf of the CIA be thrown to the wolves? Why wouldn't they cover for him after it was released? I haven't been in software for 40 years, but I believe that the Snowden story is extremely credible.
Reply Calbeck 21 hrSnowden was a libertarian high school dropout hacker
The Deep State hired 800,000 employees/contractors around the Beltway after 9/11 on a war footing, so anyone that was seen as clean and patriotic may not have needed a lot of standard credentials by the usual bureaucratic managerial idiot types working for the Feds
I've been told that military field grade IT is all from the 1990s, dunno about national security agencies, but unless you have actually worked with national security IT stuff I'm not sure why your views should hold much weight
Senior people I know in the military and national security apparatus have told me that corruption, waste and inefficiency are rampant (80-90%?)
Reply 13 replies Hugo Mossner 19 hrSorry, but I've heard that "anything CIA is automatically X" way too many times in my life. Often from people trying to sell books about how we never landed on the Moon (you'd be amazed how many ex-[alphabet agency] agents "back up" these claims with the worst sort of pseudo-authoritative malarkey).
Reply 1 reply Bob 23 hrI thought Snowden was NSA vice CIA.
Reply 3 replies Calbeck 21 hrAfter reading Surveillance Valley by Yasha Levine; things really smell fishy
Reply Frank P Huguenard 14 hrHah! They "helped" Trump by running two billion dollars' worth of 95% negative coverage. It made Trump look like the victim of a massive smear campaign by partisan hacks. What have they been doing to "over-compensate", exactly? Make it 99%?
Reply Calbeck 10 hrWhether or not they helped Trump, Greenwald's article claimst that journalists feel responsible for Trump being elected last time so they are trying not to make the same 'mistake'. At least that's what Glenn is asserting here.
Reply 2 replies Liz Burton 9 hrThey're not wrong. They helped elect him with their sheer negativity. I've seen these people argue the point, and they always point the finger at other journalists somehow NOT being negative enough. It's never themselves.
So there's no collective soul-searching going on, no self-awareness, only a drive to be angrier and finger-wagging with less concern for the actual facts of any given matter. They don't realize how transparent it's become for those not already personally invested in the extant narratives.
This, I think, is why we are seeing many more people defect to Trump rather than away from him; when one is personally and deeply invested in a narrative, it's an article of faith. Imagine you walk into church one day and the pastor says "this just in: the Archangel Gabriel was a child molestor who felt up Baby Jesus". Next week, they accuse the Virgin Mary of the same. Would a member of the faithful just roll with that, or consider moving to another church altogether just to avoid the emotional whiplash?
Reply Rochelle Levy 23 hrMore to the point, the head of Crowdstrike, the company run by a known Russia-hater the Democrats sent their server to instead of the FBI, and who never provided that server to the FBI, admitted in a Senate hearing that there was, in fact, no evidence of hacking. He was under oath that time. Russiagate remains one of the most successful propaganda campaign in history.
Reply Linda Jansen Oct 29What Frank Huguenot said is likely.
Just before or just after Trump's 2016 election I was in a Manhattan restaurant with my domestic partner talking with strangers from DC. It turned out that they worked in the State Dept. and they told us that since Trump questioned the veracity of some things the intelligence establishment had said, they would absolutely bring him down. We were shocked but have remembered this throughout the FISA debacle,the Mueller mess,the impeachment and this election cycle.
Reply Frank P Huguenard Oct 29Right. Thank you. I wrote to Matt T. about this same issue in his article. I'm hoping they will do the investigation required for them to amend their articles. It really is a fundamental mistake to perpetuate this propaganda.
Reply e.pierce 3 hrIt's literally in the Mueller report that the DNC server was hacked, without a shred of evidence. As Fox Mulder said "Trust No One". Matt & Glen really need to get to the point where they chuck everything they think they know and start over. Everything has been a lie. Why would anyone believe ANYTHING the FBI or DOJ of Obama WH put out at this point? The MSM has no credibility, FBI/DOJ/CIA? This cancer has metasticized to the point where the patient is on life support.
We need to understand that Trump is Chemo. It takes an outsider to come in, someone who didn't need this job, someone who couldn't be bought, to come in and kill that cancer.
Reply Bernard 16 hrSee Matt Taibbi's reporting on how CNN groomed Trump to run in 2015/16 to increase views/clicks and advertising $$$
Reply e.pierce 2 hrJust to offer some confirmation for that, Here is a CNN article from the time: "A phishing email sent to Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta may have been so sophisticated that it fooled the campaign's own IT staffers, who at one point advised him it was a legitimate warning to change his password."
https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/28/politics/phishing-email-hack-john-podesta-hillary-clinton-wikileaks/
However, they also report that the link was from " [email protected] ." I searched for whether that email address had been reported as malicious on the day that the story broke. Far from being "sophisticated", it was just a phishing link that was going around randomly, and had already been reported to this spam reporting site:
And in fact people were talking about the phishing link on reddit as much as two years before the 2016 election:
https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/1vqzza/suspicious_sign_in_prevented/
So, despite (much of) the media converging on a "sophisticated spear phishing" narrative, this looks to be a link that was sent to a large number of people over a long period, and just a case of random spam phishing that got lucky.
Reply Frank P Huguenard 14 hrre: "so sophisticated that it fooled the campaign's own IT staffers"
I'm not a google mail user, but in general it is pretty rare for a phishing email to NOT have extended headers (server route log) that reveal a bogus or weird looking origin.
Reply Calbeck 10 hrummmm....did you just quote CNN in a thread about how CNN is a misinformation/disinformation arm of the CIA?
Reply Ron Wagner 21 hr"Alleging" would be more accurate. They've been acting quite more brazenly as a misinfo/disinfo arm of the DNC. Whether or not the DNC has deep enough connections with the CIA to provide a useful and reliable data/policy bridge is another question, but both DNC and GOP likely have enough connections to establish semi-functional "lamprey" networks just due to their longevity and resulting personal/professional contacts therein.
Reply David G Horsman 17 hrFrank, you need to be frank with yourself. You are fooling yourself by evading the obvious truth. Democrats are now demoncrats.
Reply Frank P Huguenard 14 hrHi Frank. " The PODESTA EMAILS WERE NOT THE RESULT OF A HACK.
Please stop reporting this nonsense. The cover story was all part of the plan (approved by HRC) to shift attention to a Trump-Russia collusion narrative that has always been fiction. Guccifer 2.0 was created out of this same scheme. The meta data on the files prove that it's impossible that those emails were hacked, they had to be downloaded on a local device (thumbdrive most likely)."
Based on the forensics that was my conclusion but beware of these rabbit holes. It has never been discussed that those details can also be faked (the meta data.) Certainly Gucifer which seemed like damage control. I am unsure of the claims about his being backtracked tho.
So it's possible that the evidence is faked having accepted the conclusions of VIPS analysts.
Reply David G Horsman 17 hrCould be. It would also mean that it was the first time Wikileaks published something that wasn't authentic. Assange knows where the emails came from and he asserted that they didn't come from Russia.
Reply Substack Commenter 34 9 hrNote to all: You must use actual (historical) ISP speeds as of the specific months in question. They increased a good deal in the months that followed in that area.
Reply Alex G. 23 hrI agree that there was a massive fake Russia story created by GPS Fusion, the Clinton campaign, Clinton allies, with the help of US intelligence, often willing and sometimes just incompetent.
But there is definitely some evidence of a DNC hack. Among other things, the Dutch intelligence services seem to have observed evidence in their spying on the Internet Research Agency - reported by mutliple sources including Dutch media. What the nature of the hack was and how it gibes with the evidence that there must have been a person on the ground to transfer the data files that fast is of course fair to discuss.
There is also evidence, both purposely forgotten in media coverage after Jan 2017, of an attempted RNC hack and the overt public hack and release of Colin Powell's email to embarass and hurt Trump. There is plenty of other evidence of Internet Research Agency activity that was pro-BLM and anti-Trump, making their more likely overall goal the sowing of chaos than only supporting Trump. Thus the need for GPS/Clintonistas/Intelligence/Mueller's team to spin a narrative.
Reply Rupert Giles 11 hrI became a fan of yours when I was in law school at UC Hastings in 2003. Your the best, for sure. But fuck...
I got to be honest...I'm glad the press is ignoring this story. There's just too much at stake. Biden might be losing his edge, his family might be trading in his name, but who gives a shit? The alternative is worse by light years.
And yeah, I don't trust the "people" out there to get it right. The "people" are rubes. Those idiots voted for this piece of shit once before, they'll do it again, in a heartbeat.
More importantly, you really want to do Rudy Giuliani's work for him? I don't know, I don't get it...why so eager to make the campaign's case for them? It's not a rhetorical question. I just don't get it.
Reply Calbeck 10 hrAlex: you are saying that we should not have independent press, that the media ought to be agents of propaganda, consciously decieving the public for the greater good.
Maybe Biden is the lesser evil in this election. But without actual journalists like Glenn we could never know.
I get the frustrations over Trump. He is a disaster. But the answer to that disaster does not concist in advocating for more lies and propaganda.
Reply Calbeck 11 hrI have yet to hear a reasonable case for Trump being either the greater evil or a disaster. Many of the allegations against Trump have remained that - allegations - but in Biden's case some of the same accusations (particular about racism) is in his Senate record. He was a terrible candidate to position against Trump, and he picked as his veep the only person in the entire primary season to get blown out by a single phrase from Tulsi Gabbard - who the rest of the party's establishment absolutely despised because Hillary said so.
With Trump? Roaring economy brought to a halt not even by coronavirus, but massive economic lockdowns that break the economy down to virtually Blue-State (down) / Red-State (up) comparisons. Democrats were accusing Trump of "meddling" when he was still a candidate and nonetheless pressured a Detroit factory into staying in the US. The man understands economic leverage, and to ignore or deny that is like denying the Sun heats the Earth.
Three Middle East peace deals leading to an equal number of Nobel nominations. He is roasted for de-escalating international tensions, lauded only when he fires missiles at nations Democrats think need shooting at, and then castigated for killing a terrorist leader in the same nation they were cheering him for firing missiles at.
I see very little criticism of Trump that isn't associated with bald-faced party-based opposition, from establishment Republicans who hated his cockblocking of JEB BUSH FOR GODSAKE to Democrats who still think Hillary's shit job as Secretary of State (ruining more nations than Trump has cut peace deals for) is beyond reproach.
Speaking as a lifetime independent, please: the naked, incessant and baseless fury demonstrated by Democrats and the Radical Left since 2016 has NOT been a selling point for us.
Reply AZJeff 10 hr"The alternative is worse by light years"
Biden has been credibly accused of actually pinning a staffer against the wall and stuffing his fingers up her vagina. The media didn't attack her story, but her college credentials, and dumped the story after.
Biden has actually authored racist legislation and in recent years spoke of "being able to work across the aisle" - with racist segregationists.
Trump's been merely ACCUSED of a shit-ton of things. But I don't join lynch-mobs. Same reason the lynching of Justice Kavanaugh (seriously, you guys went after him over "I like beer" and school calendars you had to try and reinterpret as codebooks?) made me see the Democratic Party as a progressively more lunatic outfit. Reducing impeachment to "who needs criminal charges? we really just hate the guy" wasn't a winner with us independents either, not just speaking for myself there.
A pox on both your damned parties, and thank Trump for being that pox.
Reply LookingforTrubble 1 hrGee Alex, elitist much? You don't like Trump so the people making an informed choice is not a worthy goal? Anyone who disagrees with your world view is a rube who is not smart enough to see the light - as defined by you? And you wonder why Trump won last time. The left is populated by arrogant asses who think because they came out of college with a degree in some worthless major, they are smarter than everyone else. Well, I went to college to but got a degree in engineering vice sociology but I guess I'm just an educated rube.
Reply tp3192000 22 hrYour law school tuition dollars were clearly wasted. Most of the people/rubes/idiots I know and love learned the difference between "your" and "you're" in high school - and acquired critical thinking skills at the same time. Too bad you missed out.
Reply Alex G. 22 hrYeah, we the people (rubes) are fn sick of the fn lawyers (especially from UC Hastings) being in political control of our country and want a non-political person to clean up. What's so hard for you to understand?
Reply tp3192000 22 hrHow's your guy doing you fucking rube? Great choice! Job well done!! If you ever wonder why nobody gives a shit about your opinion, the fact that you chose a fucking reality star who ran every business he ever owned into the ground, and fancies a bizarre hairdo, that's why no one cares what you say. You're fucking stupid.
Reply Alex G. 22 hrMeet me.
Reply 5 replies Calbeck 11 hrbahahahahaha...go crawl back into your fucking prol shit hole dwelling and latch onto Tucker's teat. You're a fucking joke and always will be, no matter how special your dear leader makes you feel.
Reply 11Bravo 9 hrThree Nobel nominations for actual peace deals, to start. Wow, you're a hateful person. Have you considered therapy?
Reply Smaack 7 hrYou are a lawyer? You sound more like a garbage truck driver. You learn to talk in a trash can?
Reply Eric 7 hrIt would appear that either UC Hastings has low admission standards or that Alex was short-changed in his education.
Reply Urepiphany 2 hrOur local sanitation workers are much more thoughtful and respectful actually. I am voting for Biden but I find this lawyer's response detestable. We need to grow up and stop with ad hominem attacks that do nothing to advance the discussion.
Reply CJ4700 7 hrYou're a bit of a bully. Have you noticed how cruel your side has become? You ever read Don Quixote?
Reply Scott 22 hrAnyone who feels the need to not-so-subtlety brag that they're an attorney should know the difference between "your" and "you're"...
Reply Piper Scott 5 hrMorals and ethics obviously mean nothing to a lawyer. If this was Don Jr, you would be out for blood. As an independent voter, I want to know that I'm not voting for a piece of shit that has been compromised by the Russians and Chinese! People like you, the FAKE NEWS media, and antifa, etc are a major reason why I won't ever give my vote to Biden!
Reply Urepiphany 2 hrElitists like Alex G. made the election of Donald Trump as president both inevitable and necessary. The more he disses the "people" aka "rubes," the more President Trump's re-election becomes equally inevitable and necessary. To borrow from Sen. Ted Cruz's exchange with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, "Who the hell made Alex G. the final authority on how and what people should think, say and do?"
One thing we know for sure is Alex G. never learned any humility or manners growing up. To substantiate this, he stands condemned out of his own mouth. Last thing this country needs is to have an authoritarian demagogue like him anywhere near the levers of power.
Reply Political Economist 15 hrPlease go back and fact check the old stories that made us hate Trump in the first place. They've proven to be lies. He isn't perfect, but Biden will destroy this country. He's beyond corrupt. Go look at the source materials.
Reply e.pierce 3 hrSo after Biden wins, assuming he does, you think the press will suddenly become interested in these things. Most lawyers aren't that naive.
Reply NYEngineer 12 hrArrogant, smug D party loyalist goons and assholes like you are a very large part of why people voted for Trump in 2016 and will vote for him in this election. T-R-0-L-L
---
Drunk? On drugs? Ran out of psych meds?
Reply Bottlethrower 4 hrI believe in the democratic system. The people may make mistakes, but so can anyone else. An average of all the people is more accurate than randomly picking subsets of people to make decisions. You say that you and your friends are not a random subset, you are better than average. Your opponents say the same thing. We have a system for resolving these disputes. Maybe you can invent a better one, but "I'm right and my opponents are wrong" is not a new approach.
In answer to your "Why" question, perhaps Mr. Greenwald believes the same thing.
I'm a Biden voter.
Reply KTA Oct 29Why report it?
*thinking*
Because it's important news, serious allegations concerning possibly the next POTUS?
Am I close?
Btw, got really depressed after your 3rd paragraph, when I realized you weren't joking
Quite an anti-democratic edge for someone who calls himself a "Democrat"
Reply Eric 17 minGlenn - new subscriber today (saw you with Tucker Carlson). As a conservative voter, I support your new venture, not because your story is critical or suspicious of Biden, but because we need more talented journalists willing to just investigate possible corruption and inform the public. I also support Matt Taibbi for the same reason. The last line of your article sums it up best for me.
"The whole point is that the press loses its way when it cares more about who benefits from information than whether it's true."
Good luck, I hope you find this new path rewarding professionally and financially.
Reply Frank P Huguenard 14 hrAgreed, I also like reading Quillette for it's equal publication of articles (they printed that big article from the Environmentalist who demonized Environmentalism after he was banned from his original publisher), and I also like reading Sharyl Attkisson as well.
Reply NV Oct 29I find it interesting how Glenn sees all the propoganda from these agencies in the media, but fails to see the full extent of it in social media and therefore is unable to report on it adequately. The DNC server hack is more of the same.
Reply 11Bravo 8 hrI paid for a subscription precisely because I believe that, despite what you may or may not personally believe, you don't allow it to influence your pursuit of the truth. I want the truth - nothing less and nothing more.
Reply fidelity Oct 29I just signed up, too, for that very reason. When those in positions of power put on a mask and practice deception, they must be exposed. Sunlight is the cure for the disease of corruption.
Reply Herbie Oct 29Personally, having read your work going back to Cato Institute and Volokh, I'm happy you're independent and I can directly fund you. I'm willing to throw even more money at your projects. Consider crowdfunding video documentary teams and other large projects. Your following after all of this is going to be as large as ever.
Reply Political Economist Oct 29I've supported him here as well because I think he is an important voice right now. There are few journos out there right now who have Glenn's credibility who are willing to take on media groupthink. But it is a tough environment. With NYT offering their digital for 4$ a month that gives access to all of their writers/content, it is very difficult for writers like Glenn to compete.
Reply John Oct 29For me it's easy. Glenn is worth a multiple of the NYT. I can read their take anywhere. His is much harder to find.
Now if I lived in NYC it might be different, but, luckily for me, I do not.
Reply David G Horsman 18 hrI have, and it's still worth the multiple
Reply bamage Oct 29I had a rule to never use paywalls but this is Glenn Greenwald we are talking about here. He's worth every Canadian ruble I forked over.
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Oct 31, 2020 | greenwald.substack.com
It's beyond what Orwell could have ever possibly imagined. Targeted gaslighting on an individual basis using social media to brainwash people into believing whatever they want you to believe?
B.A. Berg Oct 29I just paid for an annual subscription out of a total frustration with the current outrageous, unfair, evil and dishonest media situation in the US (and elsewhere also). Totalitarism is approaching and I have decided to participate in the fight against the threatening darkness. Good luck.
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Oct 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Caliman , Oct 29 2020 16:04 utc | 6
After more than four years of Russiagate we finally learn (paywalled original ) where the Steele dossier allegations about nefarious relations between Trump and Russia came from:
A Wall Street Journal investigation provides an answer: a 40-year-old Russian public-relations executive named Olga Galkina fed notes to a friend and former schoolmate who worked for Mr. Steele. The Journal relied on interviews, law-enforcement records, declassified documents and the identification of Ms. Galkina by a former top U.S. national security official.In 2016, Ms. Galkina was working in Cyprus at an affiliate of XBT Holding SA, a web-services company best known for its Webzilla internet hosting unit. XBT is owned by Russian internet entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev.
That summer, she received a request from an employee of Mr. Steele to help unearth potentially compromising information on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump 's links to Russia, according to people familiar with the matter. Ms. Galkina was friends with the employee, Igor Danchenko, since their school days in Perm, a Russian provincial city near the Ural mountains.
Ms. Galkina often came drunk to work and eventually got fired by her company. She took revenge by alleging that the company and its owner Gubarev were involved in the alleged hacking of the Democratic National Committee. A bunch of other false allegations in the dossier were equally based on Ms. Galkina's fantasies.
Mark Ames @MarkAmesExiled - 18:39 UTC · Oct 28, 2020So the Steele Dossier that kicked off 4 years of Russiagate hysteria among the US ruling class was cooked up by two Russian alcoholics from Perm. "Gogolesque" does not begin to describe the grotesque credulity & stupidity of the American elites.
The tales in the dossier were real disinformation from Russians but not ' Russian disinformation ' of the American Newspeak variant.
The FBI, and others involved, knew very early on that the Steele dossier was a bunch of lies. But the issue was kept in the public eyes by continues leaks of additional nonsense. All this was to press Trump to take more and more anti-Russian measures which he did with unprecedented generosity . The accusations about a Trump-Russia connection were the 'Russia bad' narrative that pressed and allowed Trump to continue the anti-Russian policies of the Obama/Biden administration.
A similar string of continuous policies from the Obama/Biden administration's 'Pivot to Asia' and throughout the four years of Trump is the anti-China campaign.
We now hear a lot about Hunter and Joe Biden's corrupt deals with Chinese entities. These accusations come with more evidence and are far more plausible than the stupid Steele dossier claims. Their importance is again twofold. They will be used to press a potential President Joe Biden to act against China but they will primarily be used to intensify a public anti-China narrative that creates public support for such policies.
As Caitlin Johnstone points out :
I don't know how or at what level, but we are being played. A narrative is being aggressively rammed down our throats about China in exactly the same way it was being aggressively rammed down our throats about Russia four years ago; two unabsorbed nations the US government has long had plans to attack and undermine .Russiagate was never really about Trump. It was never about his campaign staff meeting with Russians, it was never about a pee tape, it was never about an investigation into any kind of hidden loyalties to the Kremlin. Russiagate was about narrative managing the United States into a new cold war with Russia with the ultimate target being its far more powerful ally China, and ensuring that Trump played along with that agenda.
...
If Biden gets in we can expect the same thing: a president who advances escalations against both Russia and China while being accused of the other party of being soft on China. Both parties will have their foot on the gas toward brinkmanship with a nuclear-armed nation, with no one's foot anywhere near the brakes.It is thus assured that the verbal attacks on China , the search for new anti-China allies like the Hindu-fascist India and the dangerous weaponizing of Taiwan will all continue under a Biden administration.
""Gogolesque" does not begin to describe the grotesque credulity & stupidity of the American elites."
Not at all. The "elites" know what's going on; it's being done for their benefit, after all. It's the "normals" who are being sheared of the little wool left on our backs. Just one more true grand larceny before the whole thing falls apart. And for this we need a real enemy. From the great Antiwar.com:
Bemildred , Oct 29 2020 16:10 utc | 7
ptb , Oct 29 2020 16:17 utc | 8It's like living in a "B" movie. Probably many of the same sorts of people behind it too. The lack of imagination and knowledge in these propaganda narratives tells you a lot about the mediocrities behind them. In considering these US foreign policy excesses, real and imagined, I keep thinking at some point reality is going to raise its ugly head and Washington will collapse in a puddle of spite. I expect the next adminstration to be overwhelmed by its domestic problems, along with quite a few other countries. I look at what is going on in Western societies today and I think of the movie Brazil.
I think this stuff will matter more if Trump wins than if Biden wins. (I'm thinking 3:2 odds in favor of Biden, by the way).Down South , Oct 29 2020 16:28 utc | 9If Biden wins, Republicans will make a lot of noise, but that's about it. Without a huge majority of Congress, they can't do even what little token effects Democrats had to "stop Trump". Then, whenever Harris takes over, she can just distance herself from the whole thing.
If Trump wins, however, the flag humpers in the administration will have the ammunition they need in the fight over Russiagate. Not to shut it down, but to take control of it for their own political ends, and perhaps take down someone famous in the media and intimidate the rest - in a replay of the post-9/11 Bush era (not that it ever stopped). So you can thank Democrats for handing them the setup to do all that, not to mention for nominating Biden, if that is the path we take.
More realistically, Trump still loses, but Dems might fail to get an effective majority in the Senate (something like a 51-49 majority might not be enough in practice, because the most conservative Democrats in the Senate vote Republican half the time.). Again it makes no difference for foreign policy, but it could really change how the country responds to economic hardship, now baked in due to the virus.
The MIC needs a Cold War to boost military expenditure. The bigger the boogeyman the more money will be spent the more profits will be generated.Noirette , Oct 29 2020 17:11 utc | 13They don't want a hot war as all those profits are meaningless if you are reduced to ashes.
The last thing the MIC can afford is for peace and goodwill amongst nations to break out. There is absolutely no profit in that.
Eisenhower warned against the rise of the MIC for this very reason. If war is profitable then to keep generating more profits you need to keep on generating more wars.
karlof1 , Oct 29 2020 17:16 utc | 14Trump proposed to ally with Russia against China. MAGA clearly implies the US was, is weakening, one way out (classical) is to ally (perhaps only lightly) with one of the other two strong powers. This was total anathema to part of the PTB, mostly represented (officially) by Dems. An all-out attack on Trump thus took place (before he was elected, because all was known) as a stooge for Russia, etc. Russia 3x, Russiagate, all of it clumsily made-up rubbish.
Surely now with Hunter's lap-top and the exposé of Biden-China ties (pay to play at the highest level, potentially billions, not minor corruption chicken-sh*t..) it is possible to grasp that one faction of what some call the Deep State is more pro-China i.e. the aspirations towards that type of society (I leave that aspect aside ..) and the opportunities for money extraction / deals - see tech etc. / also sales (MIC, etc.) favor China. The noise about Chinese incursions (Tibet, sea.. etc.), Chinese human-rights violations (Uighurs, etc.), and the OBOR initiative have always been somewhat glancing more pro-forma than anything else..
It was the 'Dem' faction of the duopoly, Obiman + Biden who 'did' Ukraine, an anti-Russian move (on the face of it. Perhaps it was just an extraction scheme, Mafia style. Of course they had the keen involvement of Germany and support from France.)
I have boiled down complex issues to just one "narrative arc", a simplification if you will, I am aware there is much more to it all
Question. There is a well-know board on which sit, amongst many others:
Mary T. Barra (CEO Gen. Mot.)
Carlos Ghosn (Renault etc.)
H. Kruger (BMW)
Elon MuskHenry Paulson
Lloyd Blankfein
Laurence Fink (Blackrock)
M. L. Corbat (Citigroup)Tim Cook
Michael Dell (Dell co.)
S. Nadella (Microsoft)answer:
https://www.sem.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/aboutsem/advMem.html
Here is the Board of Trustees of Moscow University, Lavrov in first place:
https://english.mgimo.ru/basic-facts/board-of-trustees
I believe such minor examples are quite telling.
Yes the elites know what is going on. (Caliman 6)
IMO, the current Imperial policy goals of the Outlaw US Empire will continue regardless who wins. IMO, the ultimate question is if the Empire has enough power to continue on its current track. As most know, I see a drowning empire trying to disrupt the rapid rise of two strategically bound nations and those allied with them. China just finished planning and publishing its 14th 5-year plan. This Global Times editorial is supremely confidant for good reason:Ilya G Poimandres , Oct 29 2020 17:27 utc | 15"The fifth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee is leading the country forward. China has the capital and ability to do so. In this turbulent world, the meeting has provided a practical and significant guide for our direction, goal and tactics. Despite the many problems, China's political philosophy can constantly generate positive energy to solve the problems, instead of letting the problems crush positive energy.
"At the moment, China is facing the most problems and challenges. However, the country is also the most confident now. Other countries have posed many difficulties, but they provide reference and proof that we are doing better . As the world suffers from shrinking demand and negative growth, we are demanding real and comprehensive growth to realize new achievements in six areas. The country is self-driven ." [My Emphasis]
It's been announced that "The 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) will hold a press conference Friday to introduce the guiding principles of its fifth plenary session."
Here are two important articles related to China's next phase that demand reading, "China sets 'pragmatic' targets through 2035 ; and "CPC vows to grasp opportunities amid major strategic [development] period" . I intend to use these and other items in a follow up to the article I wrote in anticipation of China's new phase while recapping the one just concluded.
As for Russia's direction, that was very clearly mapped out by Putin and Lavrov's recent Valdai Club speeches and Q & A sessions and other interviews over the past ten days or so. Compared to the drowning Outlaw US Empire, China and Russia combine to offer the world two not so different examples that are clearly superior to Neoliberal Parasitism. And the longstanding Imperial edict of the Outlaw US Empire saying no threat of a better example can be allowed to exist forms the basis for the confrontation. However, it's no longer just China and Russia that provide such threats as a majority of the world's nations want to join Win-Win and scupper Zero-sum. So the already joined contest between two differing ideological blocs will escalate until the drowning Outlaw US Empire finds it no longer possess the power to dominate outside its borders, but will still have its domestic populace to exploit until they too revolt.
The similarities are there, except that Trump's investigation had not one document of compromat even after 3 years, whilst Biden's already has many from day 1.Babyl-on , Oct 29 2020 17:32 utc | 16Yes, the deepstate attacks Russia from the left, and China from the right, but this does not imply that members of the body politic are not subservient to either side, ever.
Only that Trump was never a Russian stooge, nor did they ever hold compromising documents over him, whilst Biden seems the Cleon of the modern age, that his business partners say he is. Is this compromat? Maybe, but at the very least this is graft. And that should be enough to send him into the gutter.
This is a good report as is usually the case here at MoA. Yet, there is nothing really new in this at all other than the details of how the Western empire goes about enforcing its will on the world.wagelaborer , Oct 29 2020 18:22 utc | 24
Sense August 6, 1945 the Imperial policy has been "Global full spectrum domination." and to that end it was determined that Russia and China were to be considered one enemy and must be attacked simultaneously.
In the 75 years sense that date when the Western empire declared the world belonged to it and it alone to rule the Western empire has slaughtered innocent people across the globe tens of millions of them, additionally in the last 20 years alone the Western empire has displaced over 37 million people, kicked them out of their homes destroyed their towns and communities. For 75 years non stop slaughter of innocent people.
Western Liberal Democracy and indeed Western civilization itself is an utter and contemptible failure irredeemable in any form which we might recognize as "democracy'Sunny Runny Burger , Oct 29 2020 18:23 utc | 25Why do media corporations put out remake after remake of popular movies? Is it because they lack imagination, or is it that audiences prefer the familiar.
They use the same war propaganda time after time because the audience falls for it more easily if they've heard it before.
I agree with Michael, however, that we are in dire planetary straits at this point.
Apparently, our ruling overlords are putting in a Hail Mary plan to slow down the destruction of the ecosystem. I don't believe that it is the virus that made them screech the brakes on the global economy back in March. They have a plan to reset and scale back consumption.
We all knew it couldn't last forever, anyway, right?Roger , Oct 29 2020 18:25 utc | 26I'm not so sure about the overall conclusions, instead I'm sidetracked by the attempt to whitewash Russiagate. I guess they finally figured out they had to come up with some kind of lame excuse to brush it off.
"It wasn't me! It was some crazy drunk Russian woman from Perm! She was angry!"
Well that explains everything. They must have been so scared :D
Because that's what people do when they get fired isn't it? Instead of getting a new job (or drinking a bit more, or sliding down the slippery slope of society) they make up and tell stories about politicians in other countries. Not to blackmail anyone, oh no, only to try to tarnish the reputation of the old boss to get revenge. Stuff like this is why watching soap operas (including "Friends") is bad for you :)
"We need a scapegoat but we don't have any good ones available right now, however someone we know has an aunt in Perm who will do anything for money"
It still doesn't make sense but now instead of a problem that doesn't make sense they have a solution that doesn't make sense. They probably threw a party to celebrate how smart they were.
Abe , Oct 29 2020 18:39 utc | 31"A narrative is being aggressively rammed down our throats about China": I usually respect Caitlin's work a lot but how does this jive with the MSM and Techno-platforms desperate attempts to block all circulation of anything to do with the Biden corruption scandals? Digging deeper into these issues is toxic not just for Biden, but for a significant segment of the neoliberal elite.
The economic elites need time to decouple their profits from China before any real head-to-head battle commences, Biden (or Kamala) will bark a lot but bite much less given the probable wealth-vaporization of increased hostilities with China.
P.S. the number of COVID cases in Sweden is exploding, so to quote one of my favourite movie reviewers (The Critical Drinker) can the Sweden trolls please "just go away now".
Christian J. Chuba , Oct 29 2020 18:48 utc | 34Jackrabbit @ 22
I don't argue popularity, but strength. Trump is a weakling, both as a person and as a president IMO.
US presidential system won't allow true leaders but puppets (or easily manipulated persons), it is all I'm saying. Do we need more than last 4 years of Trump's reign as a proof?
donkeytale , Oct 29 2020 21:47 utc | 54Because the U.S. public is close to brain dead We can't detect obvious lies no matter how brazen.
Let's suppose I told you something was absolutely true and I literally started out by saying, 'Once upon a time there was an evil stepmother ...'. Or I told you about about a villainous neighbor while literally playing a sad song on a violin.
I do not consider myself a genius, in fact I was a neocon but good God, I could just tell I was being lied to just by the pattern of the stories. I didn't know what the truth was but I knew they were lying.
A doozy with FOX promoting genocide against Iran
FOX news does a story about the terrorist attack in France and in the very next segment without any commercial breaks they interview a Congressman about Iran. Now they did not say Iran was responsible but clearly this was a puppet show to make just that association. In addition to the standard blood libel, the Congressman talked about a tweet the Ayatollah made in 2014, so it was not as if there even was any newsworthy item to discuss about Iran. It was just to frame them for something they did not do.
Jen , Oct 29 2020 22:57 utc | 55Correction: I outed the Bytedance board of directors. Bytedance is the parent company of tik tok.
oldhippie , Oct 29 2020 23:13 utc | 56S Brennan @ 3, Bevin @ 17, James @ 38:
China and Russia signed a friendship treaty in 2001 pledging co-operation and assistance in diplomacy and across several areas including economic and military assistance and in environmental technology (green or environmental science) and energy issues as well. In Article 6 of the treaty, both nations agreed to respect one another's borders and to preserve the status quo where there were unresolved issues.
On top of the 2001 Sino-Russian Friendship Treaty, both nations also signed an agreement in 2008 officially ending all territorial disputes between the two countries. With no exceptions, the border between Russia and China is fixed.
In addition northeast China (or that area historically known as Manchuria) is now a rustbelt area and is deindustrialising. People especially young people are moving away from this part of the country and into the cities farther south to find more job opportunities. According to this Mercatornet.com article , fertility rates in this part of Northeast Asia across all ethnic groups are the lowest in the world and this part of China is heading for demographic collapse.
Probably the only people in China and Russia who still have fantasies about seizing one another's territories in Northeast China and the Russian Far East are gameboys who spend too much time playing computer games or nattering with one another on their blogsites and who would suffer cardiac arrest the moment they step away from the screen (or who would suffer cardiac arrest anyway from playing games two or three days straight).
donkeytale , Oct 29 2020 23:36 utc | 57US economy and US life in general is wholly dependent on China. Face masks or pharmaceuticals, car parts or building materials, it comes from China. No, we cannot resume making these things in US, we do not know how. When 3M was told to get busy and make masks under Defence Procurement authority all they could do was refer to Chinese subsidiary. Clear enough it is the "subsidiary" that has the whip hand. What do we have for them? Treasury bonds? Or we can start handing over real estate. Maybe if we give them the West Coast they will supply us for a time.
One of the big stalls with the Foxconn-Racine plant has been there are no American engineers to hire. Just none. All Chinese staff would be easier. Or Chinese lords supervising American coolies.
US basically does not trade with Russia. They have unloaded US paper securities. All we get from them is service as a bogeyman. If we needed another bogey we could get that easy, make up some shit as always.
Russia and China are different.
uncle tungsten , Oct 29 2020 23:43 utc | 59Old hippie
Mostly true but it's not because the US cant make these products it's because the shareholder class decided long ago their portfolios would be better enhanced by cheaper labor costs outside the US.
And just as important, the US consumer prefers a "bargain price" and wants cheap goods more than a living wage, especially those consumers who own some stocks (52% of Amerikkkans own at least some shares, usually in a 401k plan) and believe they too are participating in the global wealth machine.
BTW, nearly as much stuff is made in Mexico and exported into the US as is made in China and products from both countries are made by multinational corporations whose ownership consists largely Amerikkkan/western elites.
The problem isn't national-based, it is class based and international .
They are only trying to trick us into believing the problem is we are lazier than the Chinese.
uncle tungsten , Oct 30 2020 0:59 utc | 63The Chinese authorities have been prosecuting corrupt officials for many years. The prospect of certain USAi officials like the Biden family carpetbaggers and their Chinese associates being prosecuted in public courts in China with no plea bargaining and all those other niceties would be a delight for eyes and ears.
Be careful with those threats USAi, it could come back to haunt you.
Corkie # 49
I hope you don't mind me opining that the story as written is most likely to be a complete fiction, designed to hide the real source of the fantasy story book that is the Steele dossier. The main mission here being to admit that the dossier was indeed a pack of lies but with the important corollary that J Steele did indeed do some sort of research to dig up the dirt on Trump. Heaven forbid that it ever was discovered that himself, Pablo Miller and Sergei Skripal made the whole thing up over a meal of Zizzi's garlic bread and risotto, washed down with white wine and a bottle of Vodka over at the Mill.I am with you Corkie. That is about the strength of it. The WSJ is BS from front page to last.
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Oct 30, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Update (1745ET): President Trump just took a minute away from the campaign trail to weigh in on the 'coming out' of Miles Taylor, the formerly "anonymous" op-ed writer and self-proclaimed leader of the internal White House #resistance,
"Who is Miles Taylor?" President Trump wrote, before recounting Taylor's association with various adversaries of the administration. He added that "they should fire, shame, and punish everybody associated with this FRAUD on the American people" - a group that would presumably include some members or former members of his own inner circle, as well as the editors of the NYT.
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1321568122017517568&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fanonymous-author-outs-himself-liberal-media-immediately-slams-him-child-separating&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=true&id=1321568126635368448&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fanonymous-author-outs-himself-liberal-media-immediately-slams-him-child-separating&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
A photo of Taylor and Trump has been circulating on Twitter since before Trump published his tweet, and we imagine Trump's response to the inevitable reporter question will be his usual "so what?".
Meanwhile, CNN has reportedly decided not to fire Taylor, even though he lied on air to one of the network's anchors (anderson cooper, clip below) despite being a paid employee of the company.
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1321565816811331584&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fanonymous-author-outs-himself-liberal-media-immediately-slams-him-child-separating&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-3&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1321568176539340800&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fanonymous-author-outs-himself-liberal-media-immediately-slams-him-child-separating&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
It's still unclear what Google's response will be.
* * *
Roughly two years have passed since an anonymous Trump Administration insider published an op-ed - then later, a whole book - warning Americans how President Trump was a danger to the nation, primarily due to his "lack of character".
Well, on Wednesday afternoon, with six days left until the big day, the MSM and their political operative allies, orchestrated the public coming-out of Miles Taylor, a former senior official within Trump's Homeland Security Department who, before today, was best known as the first former senior administration official to endorse Joe Biden for president.
In the year since Taylor has left the White House, he has parlayed his national security bona fides (which were burnished during a stint working for Dick Cheney in the Bush White House) into a top job working for Google, as well as a lucrative contract to appear as a talking head on CNN and...did we mention the book deal?
Shortly following a teaser from George Conway, who called his fellow conservative Republican a "true patriot"....
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-4&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1321481912049979392&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fanonymous-author-outs-himself-liberal-media-immediately-slams-him-child-separating&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
...Buzzfeed Ben - excuse us, Ben Smith - the former top man at Buzzfeed who left that struggling media company to take the coveted job as the NYT's media columnist (a position formerly held by both Brian Stelter and, before him, the legendary American media reporter David Carr), was the first to confirm Taylor's identity, followed by a tweet from Taylor acknowledging that it was all true.
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-5&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1321534426287886338&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fanonymous-author-outs-himself-liberal-media-immediately-slams-him-child-separating&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
Taylor published a statement on his reasoning for "why I'm no longer 'anonymous'" via his new Medium page, which is strange, considering he now works for CNN, technically. In the statement, Taylor wrote that Trump "sees personal criticism as subversive" followed by a Teddy Roosevelt quote condemning those who say the president must not be criticized as "not only unpatriotic and servile, but...morally treasonable to the American public." Later in the piece, he quoted Abraham Lincoln.
Though Taylor acknowledged that he has been a life-long Republican, and that he "wanted this president to succeed", he said Trump is "a man without character", and "his personal defects have resulted in leadership failures so significant that they can be measured in lost American lives."
Read the full statement below:
More than two years ago, I published an anonymous opinion piece in The New York Times about Donald Trump's perilous presidency, while I was serving under him. He responded with a short but telling tweet: "TREASON?" Trump sees personal criticism as subversive. I take a different view.
As Theodore Roosevelt wrote, "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or anyone else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about anyone else." We do not owe the President our silence. We owe him and the American people the truth. Make no mistake: I am a Republican, and I wanted this President to succeed. That's why I came into the Administration with John Kelly, and it's why I stayed on as Chief of Staff at the Department of Homeland Security. But too often in times of crisis, I saw Donald Trump prove he is a man without character, and his personal defects have resulted in leadership failures so significant that they can be measured in lost American lives.
I witnessed Trump's inability to do his job over the course of two-and-a-half years. Everyone saw it, though most were hesitant to speak up for fear of reprisals. So when I left the Administration I wrote A Warning, a character study of the current Commander in Chief and a caution to voters that it wasn't as bad as it looked inside the Trump Administration -- it was worse. While I claim sole authorship of the work, the sentiments expressed within it were widely held among officials at the highest levels of the federal government. In other words, Trump's own lieutenants were alarmed by his instability.
Much has been made of the fact that these writings were published anonymously. The decision wasn't easy, I wrestled with it, and I understand why some people consider it questionable to levy such serious charges against a sitting President under the cover of anonymity. But my reasoning was straightforward, and I stand by it. Issuing my critiques without attribution forced the President to answer them directly on their merits or not at all, rather than creating distractions through petty insults and name-calling. I wanted the attention to be on the arguments themselves. At the time I asked, "What will he do when there is no person to attack, only an idea?" We got the answer. He became unhinged. And the ideas stood on their own two feet. To be clear, writing those works was not about eminence (they were published without attribution), not about money (I declined a hefty monetary advance and pledged to donate the bulk of the proceeds), and not about crafting a score-settling "tell all" (my focus was on the President himself and his character, not denigrating former colleagues). Nevertheless, I made clear I wasn't afraid to criticize the President under my name. In fact, I pledged to do so. That is why I've already been vocal throughout the general election. I've tried to convey as best I can -- based on my own experience -- how Donald Trump has made America less safe, less certain of its identity and destiny, and less united. He has responded predictably, with personal attacks meant to obscure the underlying message that he is unfit for the office he holds. Yet Trump has failed to bury the truth.
Why? Because since the op-ed was published, I've been joined by an unprecedented number of former colleagues who've chosen to speak out against the man they once served. Donald Trump's character and record have now been challenged in myriad ways by his own former Chief of Staff, National Security Advisor, Communications Director, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and others he personally appointed. History will also record the names of those souls who had everything to lose but stood up anyway, including Trump officials Fiona Hill, Michael McKinley, John Mitnick, Elizabeth Neumann, Bob Shanks, Olivia Troye, Josh Venable, Alexander Vindman, and many more. I applaud their courage. These are not "Deep Staters" who conspired to thwart their boss. Many of them were Trump supporters, and all of them are patriots who accepted great personal risks to speak candidly about a man they've seen retaliate and even incite violence against his opponents. (I've likewise experienced the cost of condemning the President, as doing so has taken a considerable toll on my job, daily life, marriage, finances, and personal safety.) These public servants were not intimidated. And you shouldn't be either. As descendants of revolutionaries, honest dissent is part of our American character, and we must reject the culture of political intimidation that's been cultivated by this President. That's why I'm writing this note -- to urge you to speak out if you haven't.
While I hope a few more Trump officials will quickly find their consciences, your words are now more important than theirs. It's time to come forward and shine a light on the discord that's infected our public discourse. You can speak loudest with your vote and persuade others with your voice. Don't be afraid of open debate. As I've said before, there is no better screen test for truth than to see it audition next to delusion. This election is a two-part referendum: first, on the character of a man, and second, on the character of our nation. That's why I'm also urging fellow Republicans to put country over party, even if that means supporting Trump's Democratic opponent. Although former Vice President Joe Biden is likely to pursue progressive reforms that conservatives oppose (and rest assured, we will challenge them in the loyal opposition), his policy agenda cannot equal the damage done by the current President to the fabric of our Republic. I believe Joe Biden's decency will bring us back together where Donald Trump's dishonesty has torn us apart.
Trump has been exactly what we conservatives always said government should NOT be: expansive, wasteful, arbitrary, unpredictable, and prone to abuses of power. Worse still, as I've noted previously, he's waged an all-out assault on reason, preferring to enthrone emotion and impulse in the seat of government. The consequences have been calamitous, and if given four more years, he will push the limits of his power further than the "high crimes and misdemeanors" for which he was already impeached.
Trust me. We spent years trying to ameliorate Trump's poor decisions (often unsuccessfully), many of which will be back with a vengeance in a second term. Recall, this is the man who told us, "When somebody's president of the United States, the authority is total." I believe more than ever that Trump unbound will mean a nation undone -- a continued downward slide into social acrimony, with the United States fading into the background of a world stage it once commanded, to say nothing of the damage to our democratic institutions.
I was wrong, however, about one major assertion in my original op-ed. The country cannot rely on well-intentioned, unelected bureaucrats around the President to steer him toward what's right. He has purged most of them anyway. Nor can they rely on Congress to deliver us from Trump's wayward whims. The people themselves are the ultimate check on the nation's chief executive. We alone must determine whether his behavior warrants continuance in office, and we face a momentous decision, as our choice about Trump's future will affect our future for years to come. With that in mind, he doesn't deserve a second term in office, and we don't deserve to live through it.
Removing Trump will not be the end of our woes, unfortunately. While on the road visiting swing states for the past month, it's become clear to me how far apart Americans have grown from one another. We've perpetuated the seemingly endless hostility stoked by this divisive President, so if we really want to restore vibrance to our civic life, the change must begin with each of us, not just with the occupant of the Oval Office. Fortunately, past generations have lit the way toward national reconciliation in even harder times.
On the brink of a civil war that literally split our nation in two, Abraham Lincoln called on the people not to lose sight of one other. He said in his Inaugural Address:
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Heed Lincoln's words. We must return to our founding principles. We must rediscover our better angels. And we must reconcile with each other, repairing the bonds of affection that make us fellow Americans.
Mere minutes after Taylor's big coming-out, the online backlash began. Even members of the '#resistance' slammed Taylor for his involvement in executing Trump's child-separation policy, and for waiting this long to speak up.
As it turns out, Google execs reportedly misled their own employees when they insisted that Taylor wasn't involved with the child-separation policy, an issue that ranks as Trump's paramount sin among denizens of Silicon Valley.
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Many also complained about the NYT hyping up the identity of the "anonymous" insider to try and suggest that he was a top-level staffer, prompting speculation about Rex Tillerson, John Kelly or even James Mattis. Trump's current chief of staff Mark Meadows,
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For those hard-core Dems who can't understand why people are so mad at the Patriotic whistleblower, well here's @Yashar with an explanation.
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Kayleigh McEnany made a similar point.
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And journalist Judd Legum with the extended version of that explanation, in which he denounces "Anonymous" as little more than a grifter, who played a "critical role" in the family separation policy, now working to parlay his brief time in the Trump Administration into a quick buck.
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Not only did he help carry it out, but Taylor "actively helped sell" the Trump Administration zero tolerance policy for immigrants.
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-14&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=true&id=1321539331891363842&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fanonymous-author-outs-himself-liberal-media-immediately-slams-him-child-separating&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
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Taylor wasn't the only one to face criticism: some slammed the NYT for distorting "Anonymous's" role in the administration.
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Some were incredulous that Taylor left the administration and now works for Google and CNN.
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-18&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1321546046363721728&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fanonymous-author-outs-himself-liberal-media-immediately-slams-him-child-separating&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST
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With Taylor now outed as a child prison guard, as we have no doubt he will be branded by the left, we imagine Google will need to make a statement at some point about whether Taylor will continue on in his role, or be...fired.
play_arrow Unknown User , 58 minutes agoEverybodys All American , 1 hour agoA typical Neoliberal incapable of comprehending loyalty and ready to sellout anyone for a dollar.
gmrpeabody , 50 minutes agoThis little man operates like a CIA agent. I'd be shocked if that's not the case. He actually said he believes in Joe Biden's' decency. No one in their right mind is saying that ...
JLee2027 , 1 hour agoBiden's decency..? Now THAT'S funny...
Perseus-Reflected , 1 hour agoJust another one who betrayed his country for bucks and fame. Hope it was worth it.
aspen1880 , 58 minutes agoLooks like a latte-drinking little b!tch to me.
chelydra , 4 minutes agohe "identifies" with bish
hot sauce technician , 1 hour agoThe epitome of an effete, preening dandy.
LVrunner , 58 minutes agoEverything the biden campaign is doing seems to backfire on it.
Redhotfill , 1 hour agoShould be giving away puppies soon like Hilary did at this point.
44magnum , 1 hour agoWorking for Google, CNN, Book deal yeah Pay Offs! Surprised no Netflx stock options.
mrslippryFIST , 1 hour agoOr a seat on the board
OGAorSAD , 1 hour agoThe year isnt over yet.
nope-1004 , 54 minutes agoAnd we care why? Should be a headline with Section 230 being repealed, and multiple indictments of Biden's, Clinton's, and Obama's
mrslippryFIST , 1 hour agoNever heard of him.
The fact that he's a documented public liar and democrat makes complete sense though.
Willie the Pimp , 1 hour agoHah, little beta cuck didn't get his 15mins so he outs himself to get his 15 mins of fame.
This is what participation ribbons gives you.
pictur3plane , 1 hour agoWhat else would you expect from an obvious jizz guzzler? The LGBT have destroyed the USSA.
JRobby , 52 minutes agoSOY BOY NOTHING BURGER.
Friedrich not Salma , 54 minutes agoOh! Look! He shops at Amazon!!!
Pop this prick and dump him in a landfill
Md4 , 53 minutes agoDNC probably asked him to reveal himself to eat up Teevee time and distract from Hunter's story.
Boxed Merlot , 31 minutes agoZactly.
Where's Hunter?
silent one , 1 minute ago...Where's Hunter?...
Chillin with Mr. Corzine? You remember that guy don't you? He's another GS Vice President and Mr. Obama's prized confidant in his financial wizardry that ripped off his "investors" to the tune of frn1B and slunk out of the public eye.
Mr. Biden looks at him with envy. https://www.gloucestercitynews.net/clearysnotebook/2013/08/sound-off-a-beach-bum.html
enjoy
fxrxexexdxoxmx2 , 1 hour agoHunt Hunter
whether underground , 1 hour agoNow there is man who really loves men.
freedommusic , 52 minutes ago+1 for making me laugh
Salsa Verde , 1 hour agoWho are these people? Look at the way they dress. Look at the smug arrogant look on their faces.
They are caught in a bubble and are totally divorced from reality.
It should be requirement of every individual who enters government to spend at least one year unclogging apartment building sewer stoppages.
Having a basic grasp of reality and a first hand look at where sewage actually goes is vital to a healthy reality based outlook on life.
Peace
EnoughBS21 , 56 minutes agoScumbags gonna scum.
Md4 , 54 minutes agoHow's it feel, little traitor? You threw Trump under the bus and now your "new friends" are tossing you away.
A Mister nobody!
44magnum , 1 hour agoAnd was " anonymous".
Credible?
I am more equal than others , 1 hour agoTrump has no character and Biden is senile.
So he picks Biden and the whore? She is definitely a character.
novictim , 46 minutes agoJudging character from afar. It is an amazing skill that has never existed.
JmanSilver.Gold , 44 minutes agoOn the scales of justice, Trump is light as a feather while these Leftist infiltrator-traitors and grifters, China-stooges and bribe takers, are lead weights on the American Republic. There is no parallel to the corruption that has been revealed about the Russia-Collusion hoax and now the truth about Biden's sale of US' China-policy in return for the CCP padding the Biden family nest egg.
Watergate has nothing on these latest scandals. And Trump comes away from all of this like a shining star.
Floki_Ragnarsson , 46 minutes agoJust another leftwing swamprat.
Teamtc321 , 51 minutes agoSo this weasel turd creates the problem, whines about it, and then makes a book deal, bags a CNN job, etc?
Obviously a slimy Democrud.
zerozerosevenhedgeBow1 , 1 hour ago***** shadow man talks about character? Typical Demshelvic POS.
Joe Biden is burning down.
Hipneck911 , 45 minutes agoAhh... Wallet before country, honor and integrity. I see a trend of "Public Service". Delete his security clearance before he tries to change genders, because politically then you probably couldn't afterwards.
Imagine That , 1 hour agoSo a minor level DHS obama holdover who is a lifelong democrat-donated to Obamas campaign-and probably had all of maybe ONE meeting where the President was present. AKA typical leftist LOSER.
Pvt Joker , 45 minutes agoBig fuss about a chicken-sh*t nobody, who the world will forget before he changes his silk panties.
Occams_Razor_Trader_Part_Deux , 47 minutes ago"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies"
Yeah, Imma say this guy and any one who thinks like him is my enemy.
Blaster09 , 55 minutes agoYou had me till Vindman.................... you're an operative .....................
lwilland1012 , 1 hour agoAnother POS!!!
novictim , 42 minutes agoGive people enough time, and they will always show you their true colors. Just watch and listen.
Dindu Nuffins , 45 minutes agoBut the election is on Tuesday. Millions have already voted.
The MSM has betrayed every American in ways unthinkable just a decade ago.
Not worth changing the news cycle from the laptop. No one cares who this rat is, undifferentiated as he is from the many others.
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Oct 26, 2020 | nationalinterest.org
In the final debate, Joe Biden ensured that mudslinging and innuendo about Donald Trump substituted for a discussion of what America's actual national interests are towards Russia.
Final presidential debates have traditionally centered on national security, but the October 22 showdown between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden was almost entirely devoid of any substantive foreign policy discussion. Instead, Biden launched a fusillade of attacks on Trump about Russia that represented a seamless continuity with the calumnies that many Democrats have directed at the president ever since he was first elected.
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Oct 26, 2020 | www.politico.com
There are a number of factors that make us suspicious of Russian involvement. Such an operation would be consistent with Russian objectives, as outlined publicly and recently by the Intelligence Community, to create political chaos in the United States and to deepen political divisions here but also to undermine the candidacy of former Vice President Biden and thereby help the candidacy of President Trump. For the Russians at this point, with Trump down in the polls, there is incentive for Moscow to pull out the stops to do anything possible to help Trump win and/or to weaken Biden should he win. A "laptop op" fits the bill, as the publication of the emails are clearly designed to discredit Biden.
Such an operation would be consistent with some of the key methods Russia has used in its now multi-year operation to interfere in our democracy – the hacking (via cyber operations) and the dumping of accurate information or the distribution of inaccurate or misinformation. Russia did both of these during the 2016 presidential election – judgments shared by the US Intelligence Community, the investigation into Russian activities by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and the entirety (all Republicans and Democrats) on the current Senate Intelligence Committee.
Such an operation is also consistent with several data points. The Russians, according to media reports and cybersecurity experts, targeted Burisma late last year for cyber collection and gained access to its emails. And Ukrainian politician and businessman Adriy Derkach, identified and sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for being a 10-year Russian agent interfering in the 2020 election, passed purported materials on Burisma and Hunter Biden to Giuliani.
Jim Clapper Former Director of National Intelligence Former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Former Director of the National Geospartal Intelligence Agency Former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Mike Hayden Former Director, Central Intelligence Agency Former Director, National Security Agency Former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Leon Panetta Former Director, Central Intelligence Agency Former Secretary of Defense John Brennan Former Director, Central Intelligence Agency Former White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor Former Director, Terrorism Threat Integration Center Former Analyst and Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency Thomas Finger Former Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis Former Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research, Department of State Former Chair, National Intelligence Council Rick Ledgett Former Deputy Director, National Security Agency John McLaughlin Former Acting Director, Central Intelligence Agency Former Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency Former Director of Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency Former Director, Slavic and Eurasian Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency Michael Morell Former Acting Director, Central Intelligence Agency Former Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency Former Director of Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency
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Oct 25, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Most of the commentators on yesterday's post were right. It was the Russian President Vladimir Putin who said this :
Many of us read The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry when we were children and remember what the main character said: "It's a question of discipline. When you've finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet. It's very tedious work, but very easy."I am sure that we must keep doing this "tedious work" if we want to preserve our common home for future generations. We must tend our planet.
The subject of environmental protection has long become a fixture on the global agenda. But I would address it more broadly to discuss also an important task of abandoning the practice of unrestrained and unlimited consumption – overconsumption – in favour of judicious and reasonable sufficiency, when you do not live just for today but also think about tomorrow.
We often say that nature is extremely vulnerable to human activity. Especially when the use of natural resources is growing to a global dimension. However, humanity is not safe from natural disasters, many of which are the result of anthropogenic interference. By the way, some scientists believe that the recent outbreaks of dangerous diseases are a response to this interference. This is why it is so important to develop harmonious relations between Man and Nature.
It was a part of a talk he gave at this year's Valdai Discussion Club meeting.
I found the excerpt remarkable because it included this, on might say, anti-capitalistic statement:
.. an important task of abandoning the practice of unrestrained and unlimited consumption – overconsumption – in favour of judicious and reasonable sufficiency, when you do not live just for today but also think about tomorrow.That 'green' statement will rile those people who argue for free markets and a right to sell bullshit in ever more flavors. In their view the fight against such 'communists' thinking must be renewed.
As the full English transcript of Putin's speech and the two and a half hour Q&A is now available I can also quote another interesting passage where Putin talks about capitalism and the role of the state. His standpoint seems very pragmatic to me:
Question : Mr President, there has been much talk and debate, in the context of the global economic upheavals, about the fact that the liberal market economy has ceased to be a reliable tool for the survival of states, their preservation, and for their people.Pope Francis said recently that capitalism has run its course. Russia has been living under capitalism for 30 years. Is it time to search for an alternative? Is there an alternative? Could it be the revival of the left-wing idea or something radically new?Putin: Lenin spoke about the birthmarks of capitalism, and so on. It cannot be said that we have lived these past 30 years in a full-fledged market economy. In fact, we are only gradually building it, and its institutions. [..]
You know, capitalism, the way you have described it, existed in a more or less pure form at the beginning of the previous century. But everything changed after what happened in the global economy and in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, after World War I. We have already discussed this on a number of occasions. I do not remember if I have mentioned this at Valdai Club meetings, but experts who know this subject better than I do and with whom I regularly communicate, they are saying obvious and well-known things.
When everything is fine, and the macro economic indicators are stable, various funds are building up their assets, consumption is on the rise and so on. In such times, you hear more and more that the state only stands in the way, and that a pure market economy would be more effective. But as soon as crises and challenges arise, everyone turns to the state, calling for the reinforcement of its supervisory functions. This goes on and on, like a sinusoidal curve. This is what happened during the preceding crises, including the recent ones, like in 2008.
I remember very well how the key shareholders of Russia's largest corporations that are also major European and global players came to me proposing that the state buy their assets for one dollar or one ruble. They were afraid of assuming responsibility for their employees, pressured by margin calls, and the like. This time, our businesses have acted differently. No one is seeking to evade responsibility. On the contrary, they are even using their own funds, and are quite generous in doing so. The responses may differ, but overall, businesses have been really committed to social responsibility, for which I am grateful to these people, and I want them to know this.
Therefore, at present, we cannot really find a fully planned economy, can we? Take China. Is it a purely planned economy? No. And there is not a single purely market economy either. Nevertheless, the government's regulatory functions are certainly important. [..]
We just need to determine for ourselves the reasonable level of the state's involvement in the economy; how quickly that involvement needs to be reduced, if at all, and where exactly. I often hear that Russia's economy is overregulated. But during crises like this current pandemic, when we are forced to restrict business activity, and cargo traffic shrinks, and not only cargo traffic, but passenger traffic as well, we have to ask ourselves – what do we do with aviation now that passengers avoid flying or fly rarely, what do we do? Well, the state is a necessary fixture, there is no way they could do without state support.
So, again, no model is pure or rigid, neither the market economy nor the command economy today, but we simply have to determine the level of the state's involvement in the economy. What do we use as a baseline for this decision? Expediency. We need to avoid using any templates, and so far, we have successfully avoided that.
Then comes a paragraph that shows where Russia differs from the current 'western' economic policies of negative interest rates and deflation:
Of course, the Central Bank and the Government are among the most important state institutions. Therefore, it was in fact through the joint efforts of the Central Bank and the Government that inflation was reduced to 4 percent, because the Government invests substantial resources through its social programmes and national projects and has an impact on our monetary policy. It went down to 3.9 percent, and the Governor of the Central Bank has told me that we will most likely keep it around the estimated target of around 4 percent. This is the regulating function of the state; there is no way around it. However, stifling development through an excessive presence of the state in the economy or through excessive regulation would be fatal as well. You know, this is a form of art, which the Government has been applying skilfully, at least for now.Keeping inflation up by a bit will make it easier for Russian consumers and companies to pay back their loans. It is economically healthier than the deflationary policies of western societies.
Russia is well on its way to overtake Germany as the fifth biggest economy. Putin's pragmatic positions towards the role of the state in the economy and his relative generous policies of social programs and large national projects have contributed to that.
The many questions and answers on foreign policy in the Valdai talk show a similar pragmatism on other issues. For those interested in those here is again the link to the transcript .
Posted by b on October 24, 2020 at 18:00 UTC | Permalink
ADKC , Oct 24 2020 20:08 utc | 13
Putin was (is) an important figure in rescuing Russia from the collapse, and western carpetbagging, of the nineties but in no way has he moved Russia towards communism or prepared the path (structurally) for a future communist state. Despite everything that Putin has achieved, in no way has he created a system that is separate from that of the west. The external impostion of sanctions (by the west) has had much more effect than anything Putin has done (in terms of separting from western dogma).This talk of "overconsumption" is totally irrelevant to Russia (Russians are still largely poor and "under"-consume) as well as much of the rest of the world. And Russia is a huge producer of the resources (oil, gas, coal), and a huge consumer of these same resources, that we are told are destroying the world. So Putin is not really addressing Russians or the majority of the world, and western governments are used to hearing this kind of guff (because they say the same, frequently).
So, Putin is not referring to a Communist (economic) state; he is referring to a mixed economy just like every other western state (yes you could also say "just like every other state in the world" but what I am demonstrating is that, at best, Putin desires to adhere to conventional western economic dogma).
Putin is 68 and the average life expectancy on Russia is 72 (only 65 for males). Putin will be gone soon enough and what he has built is a proud independent nation that is integrated into the world economy and is well able to defend itself. But he has not changed the fundamental economic relations that were established in Russia after the collapse of the USSR.
So, this "remarkable...anti-capitalistic statement" is either meaningless or a signal of compliance to western/world capitalist elites who, perhaps, wish to bring the free-market to an end and entrench their position as a permanent elite - and that would not be communism, rather it would be feudalism.
With the advent of the industrial revolution, capitalism, mass education, democracy and then the proto-communist states it was thought impossible (and undesireable) that social structures could regress. But, has the (within technical capacities) ability to capture data on everyone all of the time (and analyze and interpret that data in real time) and deep understandings of behavoiuralism, human psychology and sophisticated, convincing and all pervasive propaganda resulted in a fundamental change? In short, that it is no longer held that all humans are free, can make their own choices, and are capable of organising society for and by themselves (even as some kind of future objective) - and that this has been replaced by a belief that humanity is best run by a "benevolent" elite.
Laguerre , Oct 24 2020 20:13 utc | 14
I'm not sure that the concept of neo-liberalism is really applicable to Russia. What happened under Yeltsin was a simple pillage of the state, as anyone would do if they can, as he was too drunk to notice. The same thing is happening today in UK.dh-mtl , Oct 24 2020 20:44 utc | 15Putin has spent his time trying to recover from that situation to more control, as a conservative nationalist, but its not so easy.
Posted by: oldhippie | Oct 24 2020 18:22 utc | 3William Gruff , Oct 24 2020 20:54 utc | 16"... I am confident that what makes a state strong, primarily, is the confidence it's citizens have in it. That is the strength of a state. People are the source of power, we all know that."
Yes! 'People are the source of power' is the definition of democracy.
In the U.S., since 1980, money has increasingly become the source of political power. This is dictatorship. The U.S. has transformed itself from an imperfect democracy, into an almost perfect 'oligarchic dictatorship' where the corporations oversee the government, rather than the government overseeing the market. This is the very definition of fascism. And under such a system, the U.S.'s market economy has been transformed into an economy of serial monopolies.
Russia is rapidly developing; the U.S. is rapidly failing. No need to wonder why!
Depending upon who you ask , somewhere between 33% and 70% of Russia's economy is still state controlled. You can never say "we" when talking about directing a capitalist market economy because "The Market" will always be boss. Though Russia suffered a catastrophic capitalist counterrevolution, it is this large share of the economy that is not entirely subservient to market forces that gives Putin the luxury of talking in terms of "we" , despite his submissive attitude towards capitalism.Jen , Oct 24 2020 20:56 utc | 17The fact is that capitalism ( "The Market" ) cannot develop Russia. This has been the case for more than a hundred years, which is why they had a revolution in the first place and why the privatizations have been halted and are now (grudgingly) being reversed.
Putin's strength lies not in his ideology because his strength of conviction to that ideology is that of an overcooked noodle. This happens to work out OK though because his ideology is neoliberal capitalism. Clinging to that ideology isn't serving any leader in the world right now, as we can see in Europe and the US. Rather, Putin's strength is in his patriotic pragmatism. He doesn't want to build "Socialism with Russian Characteristics" , but pragmatics forces him in that direction.
Kemerd @ 11:Eric , Oct 24 2020 21:10 utc | 18Russia will be moving to a progressive income tax regime from 2021 onwards. The current personal income tax regime is a flat 13%. From next year, individuals earning 5 million rubles or more annually will be subject to a 15% tax rate. Sounds like little but these sorts of reforms have to take time and have to be done in small increments.
It's my understanding that the bulk of Russia's tax receipts currently come from the energy sector. I'm sure way back in 1998 Putin wrote a PhD dissertation on the use of natural resources as the basis of economic development and growth, and taxation of energy companies would be one method of using land resources to achieve this growth.
Paco , Oct 24 2020 21:41 utc | 19Keeping inflation up by a bit will make it easier for Russian consumers and companies to pay back their loans. It is economically healthier than the deflationary policies of western societies.That's a great idea, except both government and household debt in Russia are among the lowest in the world (probably the lowest of any industrialized country). Both Putin and the foreigners who fawn over him, including myself not very long ago, are the first to tout this fact. This way inflation in the Russian economy means consumers get to enjoy rising costs of living, and the state and companies rising costs of raw materials, energy etc. while there's virtually no debt on the other side of the equation for inflation to devalue. There's still a lot of corporate sector debt in Russia, but the bulk of it is still, incredibly, denominated in dollars, euros, Swiss franc, and so on. Ruble inflation and falling exchange rates don't make this debt to cheaper to service, but of course the opposite.
It's a great thing that the rate of home ownership (without associated mortgage debt) is so high in Russia, and it's probably the only result of the privatization drive that was actually a good outcome. There's no reason that Russians should now be loaded up with huge debts in order to own a house or an apartment. Access to personal credit for things like a car is difficult and expensive in Russia, which obviously means a lot of people can't afford a car, but on the other further helps to ensure the indebtedness of households is kept low. At the same time, like Putin (and b) does here, many in Russia apparently want to pretend that their economy is like a Western economy, and that accordingly its households are partially relieved financially by inflation when they actually only suffer from increased prices. It's absolutely bizarre.
The reality is that Russia's leadership has an unparalleled commitment toward, and talent for, getting the worst of all worlds economically. Thanks to them Russia is probably the only major economy in the world with high inflation but microscopic domestic currency debt (and correspondingly low investment in the domestic economy). This way Russia has gotten to enjoy, historically, very high inflation but much lower growth rates than other developing economies. (The high growth rates in the 2000's came from high raw materials prices, resulting merely in accumulation of foreign exchange reserves which the Russian government itself then said could not be efficiently converted into rubles and invested in the Russian economy. Growth in industrial and agricultural production, or in fixed assets like infrastructure, was accordingly much smaller, if even existent.)
There's also the continuing Wild West capitalism where oligarchs have gotten to keep their stolen assets in potash, gold mining, coal mining etc., even in strategic industrial sectors like steelmaking, power engineering or the automotive industry, while at the same time even Chinese investors are discouraged from investing through opaque regulation and unpredictable Russian state intervention. In other words, stability for the oligarchs who openly tried to destroy the Russian state and turn it into a Hong Kong-style neo-feudal hellhole, and who today just as before continue to asset strip the last residues of Soviet-era manufacturing, but a Great Wall against the Asians who want to come in and develop petrochemicals plants, e-commerce, timber industry or whatever.
Through the entire 2000-2012 era, the Russian government came down like a hawk on ruble-denominated debt, while corporations (both private and state-owned) could take out basically unlimited loans in foreign currency. State-owned companies like Rosneft actually led the foreign currency indebtedness, helping enormously to ensure that Russia's only real advantage and asset in the post-Soviet era, the trade surplus resulting from its oil and gas exports, is sent out of the country as interest payments to American and European banks, rather than (as China has done) paying for the imports of Western machinery and technologies to help develop domestic manufacturing.
Certainly, Russian companies are now much more restricted in the amounts of foreign currency credit they can accept, but access to ruble credit is highly limited as well. The result is of course austerity in the economy, with anemic growth and falling living standards.
Another important "benefit" was that the West had an easy way to put pressure on the ruble. They simply forbade Russian companies from rolling over their debt, forcing them to come up with huge sums of foreign currency in short order. That crashed the rouble, thereby dramatically forcing up prices (and equivalently, inflation) in the, by its own design, almost completely import-dependent Russian economy. The crash in oil prices (again, simply limiting Russia's income in dollar terms, much of which they needed simply to pay back Western creditors anyway) was just icing on the cake.
One could keep going like this forever. If China and South Korea had political and corporate elites with this mentality, and with this level of commitment to neo-liberalism and globalization, but (critically!) only to its worst aspects and outcomes, these countries would have been very lucky to be at the level of development of Thailand today. That's the reality and attacking people who raise these criticisms as enemies of Russia, as many did to me in the last thread about thread on these topics, does nothing to help matters. In fact, with "friends" like you, maybe Russia does not need enemies.
I've been having fun listening and reading the reactions and selected excerpts in the media to the long, very long Putin conference, three hours with the question and answer segment, the most substantial and interesting, but five hours total considering that he appeared two hours late, no doubt preparing until the last minute and over the speech as could be seen in the notes that he held and that somehow the sound technicians did not filter out completely, which was a bit annoying.Et Tu , Oct 24 2020 21:52 utc | 20Checking out the chaotic notes that I took, there is one little detail that most surely won't get any attention, his recourse to widely used popular expressions like when he asks himself rhetorically:
what is a strong state? What are its strengths?
The Russian word for strength could be translated as power too, and any an every Russian recalls the great hero of the dark 90's, the late Serguey Bodrov in the film "The Brother 2", partly filmed in Chicago, Bodrov asks a panicked businessman: Tell me American, where is the power? is the power in money? I think the power is in truth . a phrase that everybody knows and feels proud of in Russia.
Vlad not only plays complex accords for foreign consumption, he plays for the home team first, just in case .
Putin, like all politicians, is more about what he says and less about what he does.james , Oct 24 2020 22:02 utc | 21Fair enough, i challenge anyone in his position to do better... I actually admire the man, but let's not delude ourselves. Russia stands to benefit from global warming more than any other country in spite of all the damage it will still cause it. On the overall balance, it will average out ahead of everyone else, in relative terms, so don't look to them for answers.
As for "the State"... so what if it's his mates who benefit instead of oligarchs, what is the difference when most of the people in Russia are broke and have no realistic prospects or chances of progressing beyond their predetermined fates? The cynic in me ultimately thinks he just wants the oligarchs to pay their taxes to make his job easier, keep the people happy, so he can get reelected more easily.
@ Eric | Oct 24 2020 21:10 utc | 18.. eric, i was intrigued by your ideas in the previous thread and i am again here... how do you come by this particular vantage point?? do you have a particular background in finances, or is it just a special interest that you have cultivated to come by the position you share in your post here? i am genuinely curious! i don't have enough knowledge to comment and wish someone like Michael Hudson could comment on this specific topic that you seem to excel at holding a very specific and fairly negative outlook on with regard Russia... thanks for your comments either way.. it is above my pay grade to respond with any authority..Eric , Oct 24 2020 22:06 utc | 23i continue to believe the planet is being screwed by big finance.. it seems hard to see thru the maze a way out of this... your suggestion that russia is also caught in this maze would not surprise me... what is the way out, if i might be so bold??
@20, Et Tudeschutesmaple , Oct 24 2020 22:28 utc | 25I think your post points to a fundamental worrisome feature of Russia. It's very unclear who actually has a stake in the prosperity, power or even existence of the Russian state in 50 or 100 years' time. People can pretend that the Russian Orthodox Church plays this role but there's very little to suggest it really does. India, I think, unfortunately struggles with the same problem, but the destruction of India at the hands of British goes a long way to explain it in my view. In China or Iran, with all the issues of their own that those two countries have, there's however very little ambiguity in this regard.
I'm not even sure I would place the blame on Western-style representative democracy in Russia, as the same basic problem seems to have been there both before the October Revolution and at the very least during the post-Stalin era of the Soviet Union. The question is if Russia, despite everything, as a Christian civilization isn't ultimately a participant in the Western world's anomie and decline.
Yes! Absolutely capitalism is rapidly destroying the planet. Of this there is no question. Nothing can be left alone: 'undeveloped' land must be 'developed', i.e. forests cut down and replaced by subdivisions, parking lots, McDonald's, office buildings, etc. Capitalism is truly insidious: look at how the once mighty Amazon rainforest has been utterly wiped out by greedy cattle farmers looking for a quick buck with the blessing of Bolsonaro. Where there were once massive old growth forests across N. America, there are now only 'tree museums', i.e. national parks which save less than 1% of what there once was before Europeans came and destroyed everything–in the name of profit. Capitalism not only destroys natural resources, it destroys people: slavery has been replaced by wage slavery: and the wage slave's earnings from his 'mcjob' invariably go to his landlord, or other parasites. Your employer is your master in capitalism: he is your god and you serve him. Any excess profit you make all goes to him, not you. If you look at him wrong, or have a bad attitude you are replaced–and NO good reference for you! What a miserable shit system craptialism is.Eric , Oct 24 2020 22:29 utc | 26@21, jameskarlof1 , Oct 24 2020 22:44 utc | 27I have been strongly influenced by Michael Hudson's writings over several years now. Basically everything in that post is either a point he already made about Russia or a direct application of his overall thinking on Russia's economy. For this reason I was very surprised by the hostility of certain commenters, in particular karlof1, who also could be called followers of Michael Hudson. karlof1 even suggested I should spend a couple of years researching Russian economic development, even though I've quite obviously already done that (which doesn't mean everyone has to agree with my conclusions). I have to wonder if he and Martyanov either never came across Hudson's criticisms of Russian economic policy (one of the actually less harsh examples here - if you search his site michael-hudson.com you can find others) or consider him also an ignorant anti-Russian commentator but are able to appreciate him in spite of that.
I wrote about this part of Putin's speech back on the 22nd when he made this appraisal:Jen , Oct 24 2020 23:04 utc | 29" only a viable state can act effectively in a crisis ."
I bolded the text then and I've done so again because that's one of the most important points he raised, IMO, particularly in relation to the clearly unviable Outlaw US Empire and EU. I even turned my commentary into a short article at my VK space that will be expanded once I digest all the Q & A.
I recently made an observation about Russia's banking and finance systems in that they're controlled by the public via the state, not by some private entities separate from the state doing all they can to avoid any type of regulation and oversight, which was based on this item I linked here at the time. I later made the observation that the moral/ethical grounding of who/what's in charge of those systems matters greatly when it comes to making an equitable society--and it will matter even more as we get into the having steady-state economies as resource depletion mounts into the crisis it will eventually become. Putin showed that he knows and understands all that, which is well beyond the capacity of the vast majority of those known as politicians--especially those in Neoliberal nations. Putin used the term "balance" 7 times, imbalance once, in his speech. I suggest readers use the CTRL-F function to search the text for that term to see what it's in reference to so they can learn a bit more about the man and his mind and the importance of seeking balance in attaining equitability.
At the tail end of the Q & A, Putin is asked: "what you can advise and offer to Russian youth?" Putin's answer conforms completely with his policy toward the promotion of families and urging young people to strive for their aspirations -- unlike many Western politicos, he backs his admonitions with robust policies to make them possible, something I've long admired about him. Here's most of Putin's reply:
"But what can we offer? We believe we will give young people more opportunities for professional growth and create more social lifts for them. We are building up these instruments and creating conditions for people to receive a good education, make a career, start a family and receive enough income for a young family.
"We are drafting an increasing number of measures to support young families. Let me emphasise that even during the pandemic, most of our support measures were designed for families with children. What are these families? They are young people for the most part.
"We will continue doing this in the hope that young people will use their best traits – their daring striving to move ahead without looking back at formalities that probably make older generations more reserved – for positive, creative endeavours. Eventually, the younger generation will take the baton from the older generation and continue this relay race, and make Russia stronger."
The difference in that regard between Putin's vision and his actions when compared to the Outlaw US Empire and other Neoliberal nations is beyond stark--it's as if they inhabit two different solar systems.
The reason Putin's hated by the West is he took an unviable Russia and made it more than viable again. IMO, he's the unequaled Dean of what few Statesmen exist in today's world, which makes him an asset for humanity.
Eric @ 18, James @ 21:vk , Oct 24 2020 23:41 utc | 30There used to be a regular commenter at Mark Chapman's Kremlin Stooge / The New Kremlin Stooge - I forget his KS name but he was a physicist (and not a very good-tempered one at that, he had regular shouting matches with one other commenter Yalensis there) -- but he was of the opinion that interest rates set by the Central Bank of Russia have been too high and have discouraged small business investment in Russia. The head of the CBR may still be Elvira Nabiullina -- I haven't checked lately. She and others in the government who help set monetary policies in Russia are suspected of being neoliberal and Atlanticist in their outlook.
As President, Putin is not responsible for setting domestic policies - that's Prime Minister Mishustin's job.
Putin spoke all that in a very specific environment (in a room full of rabid liberals/pro-capitalists), so we should be care about its content.Jen , Oct 24 2020 23:47 utc | 31There are some incongruousness in his speech we must correct here:
1) It is a myth the State, during the golden age of liberalism (16th-19th Centuries) was "minimal". On the contrary: there was a ton of State intervention in the people's daily life - including the right of the State to separate whole families and use their children in servile labor. The difference here is that the gross of that intervention was directed to the dispossessed, i.e. the working classes. There was also a ton of regulations over slave ownership. The age of classical liberalism is considered one of minimum State because the freedom of the powerful slave owners and industrialists was almost zero; it's the History told from the point of view of the capitalists. That's why Putin clearly said "[capitalism] the way you have described it [...]"
2) The mixed system between what he calls "State intervention" (welfare of the people, command or planned economy) and "free market" is the scientific definition of socialism. Marx wasn't an idealist: he was a materialist. He knew a direct transition to communism was impossible, therefore he imagined a system of transition, where communism and capitalism would exist together. This transition system was called socialism. That's why China, still governed by a Marxist-Leninist Party, considers itself socialist and not capitalist, or even "mixed" for that matter;
Another observation: the Western countries didn't enter deflation/low inflation because of ZIRP/NIRP. They were already suffering from it before those policies. The opposite is the true: precisely because they were having a too low inflation, they resorted to ZIRP/NIRP.
Yep re my comment @ 29: Nabiullina is still CBR head according to her Wikipedia entry. Since becoming CBR head back in 2012 or 2013, she has consistently followed a policy of tackling inflation first to the extent of keeping interest rates higher than they perhaps should be. This probably helps explain some of the issues Eric @ 18 raises about Russians' access to personal credit.psychohistorian , Oct 25 2020 0:05 utc | 32Interestingly Nabiullina's Wikipedia entry shows she worked with Alexei Kudrin in the past. Kudrin has a reputation for preferring neoliberal economic policies. Currently he is Inspector General in the Russian govt's audit office where he can mouth off all he likes about how he'd reform Russian economic policies if he got the chance but not actually do much damage: a case of Putin keeping potential enemies somewhere where they can be watched.
Eric does raise the issue about how Russian oligarchs were allowed to keep their gains and not be forced to pay back taxes they owed way back in the early 2000s, but this was on condition that they not meddle in Russian federal politics and buy influence, and pay all their future taxes and other obligations, like paying their employees, promptly and in accordance with Russian laws. Those who refused ended up in prison (Khodorkovsky) or fled overseas (Berezovsky). Roman Abramovich paid an unusual penalty: he was made Governor of Chukotka in far eastern Siberia near the Bering Sea for a couple of years at least. He paid for all that territory's infrastructure improvements. Of course the people there must love him!
So why are not all barflies writing and thinking about the role of the state in the economy within the context of current private control of finance in the West?Smith , Oct 25 2020 0:14 utc | 34What is blinding you all to not state the obvious role issue of those that own global private finance not being any "state" of transparency?
We are in a civilization war about the fact that a current state in our world, China, has a public finance core of government which is opposed to the Western cult of global private finance. Wake up.
Reading the entrails of the Russian economy that has been ravaged for decades by the cult of private finance and its followers in Russia does us no service to b's question of what role the state should have in the national and world economy. Because Russia is still having to operate with the shit show called empire they are limited in their response. I was taught 50 years ago that a 2% inflation rate was optimal but because Russia is trying to build its population, it is spending more money supporting that segment of the overall population and saying the inflation rate is worth the investment.
The role of the state in the economy
History has shown positive results from what are called mixed economies. The US is a mixed economy with the state, at various levels, supporting energy, transportation, USPS, water, sewage treatment, police and fire protection, education, SSI, regulations, etc. There are and have been attempts to privatize all those things under the canard that the service can be provided "better" with profit as the motive other than service to others.
There is no magic mixed economy formula for any one state and it will change over time like Russia is choosing to do. But the state has limited control of the economy if the tools of finance are privately held and not integrated into state functionality....and it is my understanding that the Central Bank in Russia for example is not entirely a sovereign entity...what sayest our most recent barfly, Eric?
Please join in a more reasoned contextual discussion of our world. I am tired of reading about "ism"s. More reality please.
The lingering question remains: after Putin, who?juliania , Oct 25 2020 1:10 utc | 40Thank you b for continuing this conversation. The speech and Q&A were most interesting. They were consistent with what Putin has said before, but done so this time with more confidence as even the oppression of the covid situation was dealt with in honorable fashion - if one can honor a virus, that is. It is always, with Putin, that the people come first, and he made that statement at the beginning.juliania , Oct 25 2020 1:17 utc | 41Countries, all countries, have that obligation in their governance that it be for the people's welfare. So, to him, whatever system a country has is only important in that respect and each country, drawing on its own history and its assets, decides for itself what that style of governance will be.
This is different from any outside system being touted as the ideal. There isn't an ideal. It all depends on how the people wish to be governed, based on what they feel is important to them. That is democracy in its loosest terms. He said several times that any philosophy of government imposed by outsiders will never work.
At the same time, his support for the UN system on a world wide basis is as unconditional as his first premise.
One size doesn't fit all---what a relief!
I meant to add that casting my mind back to the last debate, the one thing being said about the people was Biden intensely eyeing us and telling us about the empty chair at the kitchen table - nice!circumspect , Oct 25 2020 1:20 utc | 42.. an important task of abandoning the practice of unrestrained and unlimited consumption – overconsumption – in favour of judicious and reasonable sufficiency, when you do not live just for today but also think about tomorrow.vk , Oct 25 2020 1:35 utc | 44We need to land somewhere between North Korea and the US on consumption. John Judge used to talk about how 30 houses on a street need 30 lawnmowers. Why not buy one lawnmower, share it and maintain it? I ditched my lawns long ago as that is also over consumption but I use it as an example of what type of society we have built.
"... I am confident that what makes a state strong, primarily, is the confidence it's citizens have in it. That is the strength of a state. People are the source of power, we all know that."
It is not just confidence it is having an educated competent citizenry. Our top education institutions, especially the ivy league, are cranking out students trained to protect the status quo hence things will not changed easily.
Moon is going to end up on the Russian disinformation agitators list.
@ Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 25 2020 0:05 utc | 32V , Oct 25 2020 1:49 utc | 45This "mixed economies won the Cold War" is an old story already. Eric Hobsbawn left a letter claiming just before he died, in 2012.
The problem with the Scandinavian economies is this: who's gonna do the dirty jobs? You cannot simply make a nation of designers and white collar workers. The social-democracies of the post-war solved this problem with the Third World countries, but now those countries are not accepting this role anymore.
Besides, there's the objective fact even the Scandinavian economies are declining, with inequality skyrocketing since the end of the 1990s. They, too, are susceptible to the laws of capitalism.
"Strengthening our country and looking at what is happening in the world, in other countries, I want to say to those who are still waiting for the gradual demise of Russia: in this case, we are only worried about one thing -- how not to catch a cold at your funeral", Putin said on Thursday at a meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club.Smith , Oct 25 2020 1:52 utc | 46Love it! Just so Putin...
@ vkptb , Oct 25 2020 2:03 utc | 47That's an interesting question. How are the underclass workers (construction, janitors, street sweepers) wage and social benefits in the Nordic countries in comparison with China, S. Korea and Japan?
@eric 18 et alDr. George W Oprisko , Oct 25 2020 5:59 utc | 54Those are important points. It seems to be a common pattern in neoliberal economics. The answer to "why" that I pieced together is this: It is all about the oligarchs in combination with their immediate overseas business partners. Typically they own a considerable portion of the foreign-jurisdiction bonds lent to their own nations. It is a straightforward money laundering arrangement.
The Russian government cannot simply remove the domestic oligarchs**, no more than a US or EU government could do the same against equivalent local business powers. Rather, they come to a livable equilibrium. Preventing investment from China, EU etc, is, in addition to defending national sovereignty, also a case of the government defending the domestic oligarchs from foreign rivals -- rivals who would have greater financial resources with the backing of their own larger home regions.
However, the big difference in the case of Russia, compared to most countries victimized by the neoliberal pattern, is that the government is powerful enough to quite reliably protect the local oligarchs from their foreign rivals, including pretty much anything that the foreign rival's home governments can possibly throw at them (i.e. the various regime change toolbox). This protection is a massively valuable service. For this reason, the Russian government can, if it is halfway decent and perhaps above-average in managing the difficult internal politics, negotiate a better (i.e. more long-term sustainable) arrangement with the local oligarchs, in terms of how the citizens are affected.
[** but with all the sanctions etc, this balance of power actually shifts]
You do realize that the Russians have three (3) vaccines, and the Chinese one (1) in late stage 3 trials, with Sputnik V due to complete theirs next month and to go into serial production shortly. Putin's strategy is to vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate.willie , Oct 25 2020 7:08 utc | 55Mishustin is busy holding trade fairs promoting the Russian arctic. Business residency for $$RUB$$$. Ski resorts on the Kola peninsula...
While his enemies implode under the second COVID-19 wave....
INDY
24#kiwiklown , Oct 25 2020 7:14 utc | 56Thank you Alicia for putting up that interview. I like very much the articles Orlov writes, and many of them I find translated in French. He has humour, unlike more well known geopolitics analysts. Try this one:
https://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2020/10/nefarious-objectives.html
That Valdai speech / Q&A was a master class in governance. While Putin thinks and talks like a sane man, Western leaders reveal daily that they are now not sanity-capable, not logic-capable, not sanity-capable, not shame-capable.kiwiklown , Oct 25 2020 7:21 utc | 57Putin shows a commanding grasp of his nation's people, economy, culture, history, environment, geo-strategic needs, impressively rattling off numbers, statistics, reason, rationale, logic and pragmatic good sense. In all that, he reminds me of that other great world-class leader, Lee Kuan Yew, whom Kissinger once called the Wise Man of Asia. Russia is fortunate to be governed by a world-class leader and his team today, but good luck to the Great Toilet Bowl Stirrers in the West.
Putin: "But I would address it more broadly to discuss also an important task of abandoning the practice of unrestrained and unlimited consumption – overconsumption – in favour of judicious and reasonable sufficiency, when you do not live just for today but also think about tomorrow..... After all, it is within our power to stop being egoistical, greedy, mindless and wasteful consumers.... We just need to open our eyes, look around us and see that the land, air and water are our common inheritance from above, and we must learn to cherish them, just as we must cherish every human life, which is precious. This is the only way forward in this complicated and beautiful world. I do not want to see the mistakes of the past repeated."kiwiklown , Oct 25 2020 8:59 utc | 58Was Putin talking about Russians? or about Americans? Who are those exceptional 4% of the global population who demands to consume 40% of global resources?
Putin: "So, we want the voice of our citizens to be decisive and to see constructive proposals and requests from different social forces get implemented.... what you call your political system is immaterial...."Mark2 , Oct 25 2020 9:51 utc | 59It doesn't matter if it is a 'democratic' or 'socialist', but governments that primarily serve the people's needs (not the elite's greed) will listen to, and DO, the people's will. Out of that, the people give their CONSENT to be governed.
Today, ALL governments use a mix of democratic and socialist tools, eg. China, Russia, UK, USA. But, unlike the West, who boast that their system is more perfect, China and Russia serve their people primarily.
As Deng said, it does not matter if the cat is black or white.
How much of America's policy's are run out of pure jealousy of Russia and China ? Rather than being a supper power, they have regressed into immature petulant juvenile tantrums. Self-distruction and self-harm.jadan , Oct 25 2020 11:40 utc | 64
Putin is a "statesman". A few squalid pretenders in the political class here may aspire to that title, but It is not a badge you pin on yourself, it is awarded by general acclaim. Putin has stepped into the vacuum of world leadership left by the US Idiocracy when Trump took over with the help of his free market, anti-government cohort, the Koch's, Robert Mercer, Paul Singer, and etc.William Gruff , Oct 25 2020 12:26 utc | 67Putin is the champion of arms control, multilateralism & cooperation, and following this address certainly, environmentalism. All attempts to demonize Putin on the part of the neoliberal US oligarchy collapse when the diminutive Russian Mongol begins to speak. I join in the applause. It is so refreshing to listen to a leader talking sense for a change! I don't care if he is a benevolent authoritarian anti-democrat, I am so grateful for his intelligent leadership that I salute! And I thank b for bringing this Valdai event to our attention. The poverty and ideological blindness of our media conglomerates is just outrageous!
"Overconsumption" , in and of itself, isn't the problem. The problem is the distortion of value that capitalist empire introduces. If the effort required to acquire some thing accurately reflected the effort to produce that thing then consumption would be naturally self-limiting. After all, who could every day consume products containing two days worth of effort if they had to work two days for every day worth of their consuming? "Overconsumption" can only occur because the empire expropriates massive amounts of produced value from its vassals and uses that robbed value to buy off its domestic population. Likewise, capitalism over-rewards certain portions of the domestic population (typically no-skill "professionals" such as journalists and middle managers) who act as "insulation" for the elites from the working class.H.Schmatz , Oct 25 2020 13:26 utc | 70Note that you don't see "overconsumption" among factory workers in Bangladesh or Malaysia. Child slave laborers working on African cocoa plantations for your Hershey bars could never be accused of "overconsumption" . It would even be unjust to accuse Chinese workers, as much as their standards of living have exploded over the last couple decades, of indulging in "overconsumption" .
When China is successful in replacing the US$ with a scientifically managed "currency basket" for international trade and currency reserve then the problem of "overconsumption" will correct itself and the Global North will go on a diet. I am not sure that will be possible though without some "kinetic" events between now and then.
On the role of the state on the economy...and on everything else...things not discussed at Valdai, nor at MoA for that matter, and which contribute to promote the disintegration of states so wished by the neorreactionaires due the lose of confidence of citizens in the state-steven t johnson , Oct 25 2020 13:36 utc | 71Making the broth to fascism, on the verge of coming "curfews" to be stablished in Spain ,and other European countries...One wonders why the hell Thiel & associated, those owners of hedge funds and managers of our personal data on behalf of already fascist givernment like that in the US, need to follow trying to implant their so wished feudal state where the masses are submitted into slavery, when all that is this already here...and without complaints from our part...
(...)A recent article by Carlota García Encina, an analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute, described the coronavirus pandemic as "an opportunity for NATO." Specifically, it stated that "the universality of the coronavirus means that NATO must defend the 30 as if they were one, going from" one for all and all for one "to" all for all ".In 2003, and anticipating events like the cheating poker player who anticipates his results, NATO released - it was not secret - the Urban Operations in the Year 2020 report, a socio-economic analysis of the situation in Europe where it anticipated a crisis unprecedented in the history of capitalism, where urban poverty "could grow significantly in the future, leading to possible uprisings, civil unrest and threats to security that will require the intervention of local authorities".
The analysis was only a preview of the crisis that the capitalist system was forging. The United Nations evaluated in 2019, and counting on the data as of December 31, 2018 (that is, less than a year and a half after the "coronavirus crisis"), that 26.1% of the population in Spain, and 29.5% of those under 18 years of age were in a situation of poverty. That more than 55% had difficulties to make ends meet, and that 5.4% had severe deficiencies (access to electricity, drinking water, heating, etc.). Official unemployment was 13.78%, more than double the EU average, and youth unemployment was 30.51% among those under 25 years of age. We insist, before the State of Alarm decreed on March 14, 2020.(...)
(...)Any investigation of an event ("coronavirus crisis") has to start from the circumstances that surround it to obtain accurate conclusions, and not the other way around. The origin of this crisis that is impoverishing millions of people cannot be limited to March 14, 2020, because as we have seen, the problem came from long before.If we add to this that many of the decisions that are transforming society towards a privatist model (locked up at home) and individualistic (normalizing the suppression of rights) were made based on the criteria of a "committee of experts" that has not existed, we can never set off an alarm that this is not just a "fucking virus."
But the second question that we need to verify is the deterrent effect of the exercise of those rights which imply these decisions, because even the left is accepting the official account of the events with astonishing passivity.(...)
(...)Paul Von Hindenburg, who came to power thanks to his family fortune, and with credentials manufactured by that fortune, ended the German Weimar Constitution of 1919 by signing the Reichstag Fire Decree and ushering in something that at the time of being approved no one called fascism. In the current context, the succession of regulations of this "new exceptionality" grants an extraordinary delegation of functions to the police or civil guard officers.
With this empowered power, there is no place to turn back. The curfew that will be established in the next few hours may one day be eliminated from the BOE, but the meaning of this measure is that mass psychology incorporates a disciplined attitude towards the reality that surrounds us into its behavior.
And what surrounds us is what we already know. Faced with the question of whether or not we should comply with the restrictions imposed by the State (confinement, isolation, no meetings, no leisure), we must ask ourselves (as we should have done before March 14) if we are willing to accept or not that poverty and repression are part of our lives .
The stock market crash of 1987, the savings and loan debacle, the tech bubble, the Asian tigers meltdown, the world "recession" of 2008 and today's global slump (which preceded the pandemic, a point neglected by the apologists for capitalism,) show that capitalism doesn't work as advertised, even on its own limited terrain. All claims about how "I" (whether it's Putin, Trump, Boris Johnson, Macron, a miscellaneous German, whoever) am smart enough to solve the minor details of finance responsible have been proven by history to be lies. Whether born of sincerely felt megalomania or calculated perfidy doesn't matter, instability and inequality (which is a bad thing, not a good one, no matter what secret feelings may be harbored,) *are* the normal operations of market economies.H.Schmatz , Oct 25 2020 13:42 utc | 72When you add to that the way the global capitalist system is creating a global environmental crisis, the shamelessness of the capitalist apologists is staggering. Putin is a fool.
The fraud Proyect seems to think Xi is actively commanding the Chinese economy in such a fashion as to be personally responsible for, well, everything, conveniently omits that Xi is to be condemned precisely for *not* taking charge the way needed, for advancing the power of the Chinese bourgeoisie even at the expense of the future of China. But then, Proyect is anticommunist/pro imperialist, a champion of barbarism using pious phrases.
Lastly, the notion that "overconsumption" is the problem, is basically an attack on the masses of the people. The problem is the accumulation of capital, of money, which is not consumed, but "invested" for yet more money. There's a fake left website called Crooked Timer where the oh-so-refined-sensibilities of a clot of academics is offended by the rabble eating meat...but they're not offended by billionaires having more money than they can spend! This is the same thing. The pursuit of money, profit, is not overconsumption, but that, not overconsumption, distorts the economy. Starting with vague notions like overconsumption reflects a deep ideological disorientation...or a commitment to capitalism, imperialism and ultimately barbarism.
Things not discussed at Valdai...on the "eco-scam", how the Spanish IBEX35 giants, private great corporations on energy, transports and clothing, claim thousands of millions from European Funds ( which come from tax payers money, not from the private bank accounts of European officials, do not forget...) on the alibi of "energetic transition" and "sustainability"....This is the new scam after that of rescuing big banks in 2008, for the bailing out and profit of those of always while the population impoverishes at galloping pace and without any prospect of recovery, austerity seems to be our only prospect...H.Schmatz , Oct 25 2020 14:04 utc | 73https://twitter.com/Amor_y_Rabia/status/1319182926152597504
This is why Putin is not always right, nor is he God´s envoy personified, since he tells half the film...at Valdai...
On the "pipelines war", also discussed at Valdai, of which it is part the alleged "Navalny poisoning" also briefly discussed without naming that unimportant, at Russian and world level, person, how to explain that Germany must cut off Nord Stream 2 pipeline development on the grounds of not linking its energetic sovereignty to Russia, and then Europe must link its energetic sovereignty to Israel, when the EU has been an historical defender of Palestinian people´s rights and with this link Europe will be submitted to blackmail on the part of Israel anytime it dares criticize Israel´s apartheid measures against Palestinians?willie , Oct 25 2020 15:14 utc | 78After diplomatically recognizing Israel, the UAE signed a contract through the MRLB with the Israeli company EAPC (which manages the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline) to transport crude oil to Europe without having to cross the Suez Canal64# jadanxeno , Oct 25 2020 16:11 utc | 80Very true jadan, your view on Putin, and every time I read an excerpt or a speech by him I notice he is far above our western "leaders" with their meaningless chatter and hollow phrases. That's why you will never read the slightest alinea by Putin in der Spiegel,le Monde ,or le Figaro.The vile venal journo's can't afford to print it and keep up their unmerited credibility at the same time.Same for Lavrov,Assad,Xi and Khadafi.
American grocery stores - 80 pct of the items are not necessary and are likely harmful to some degree. Junk food outlets, it's been known for decades that this stuff leads to obesity, diabetes, and who knows what else. The authorities could mandate changes to low fat, sugar and salt contents that would apply to all of them with no real harm to their business, but it doesn't get done because the right people get paid off.Noirette , Oct 25 2020 16:22 utc | 81Putin stands out like a shining light amongst what are called world leaders.Some are just bosses of crime syndicates, follow my eyes (USA). Others are just hopeless idiot figure-heads, like Trudeau. (I am biased, particularly dislike him. Macron is in the same bin.)
Putin's statements about the 'economy' are calculatedly 'judicious' and unassailable. Note, he only says one has to question the role of the State in the 'economy' in the sense of control of it, with the State as a mega-regulator + law-maker wielding authority from the top - not as negotiator, as far as I have understood Putin.
That 'State control' should be different in different conditions -- regions, epochs, etc., is a truism. Putin projects the feel of 'reasonable control' and 'piloting' (encouraging xyz.. or the opposite..) which rejects both despotic, authoritarian stances, often 'arbitrary' (or experienced as such), as well as, on the other side, anarchy and unbridled profiteering -> racketeering, monopolies, cartels, fraud, violence, coercion, etc. Some call that capitalism, others gangsterism.
Russia, land + ressource rich, with a 'low' population density, with well-educated ppl (as compared to many others), its 'economy' at least not plunging or even stagnant (GDP per capita or some such), is well positioned to put forward such 'reasonable' thoughts.
Humanity's dilemma or rather looming disaster sink-hole - see: ressource extraction, trashing the environment, irreversible tipping points, 'peak oil' (gone out of fashion with fracking in the US), and other over-consumption (sand for ex.), destruction (soils.. rivers.. ocean.. global warming..), over-population, global warming.. will not be reversed or in any way solved, by reasoned Putin-type discourse. (see pnyzx at 4, vk 30, psychohistorian 32 and others..)
For sure, Putin's job is not to solve the world's problems but to protect and nurture Russia and its people and he does that very well.
Schmoe , Oct 25 2020 18:38 utc | 83
Eric @18bystander04 , Oct 25 2020 19:01 utc | 84"while at the same time even Chinese investors are discouraged from investing through opaque regulation and unpredictable Russian state intervention."
I wonder if they are becoming more open to western investors. Nordstream 2's financing is ~50% European, and this from Oilprice.com:
". . . .No wonder, then, that a number of banks have pledged a total of $9.5 billion in funding for Novatek's second LNG project, the Arctic LNG 2. According to a Reuters report, the China Development Bank and German Euler Hermes are among the lenders that have made pledges, and French Pbifrance is yet to decide on the funding. The China Development Bank is, unsurprisingly, the most generous backer of the $21-billion Arctic LNG 2 project, with $5 billion.
Arctic LNG 2 will have a liquefaction capacity of $19.8 [sic] million tons of LNG annually divided among three liquefaction trains."
PS - Good to see you posting after you were virtually assaulted last week.
Den lille Abe,
I nowadays start to read comments from the "bottom up" - in order not to fall into the traps of some trolls, some of those I know by name, and this prevents me to read their comments. In other words, if you continue reading from top down, you don't know who's comment you read...Hoarsewhisperer , Oct 26 2020 0:02 utc | 88generate plutonium warhead fuel.
Interesting transcript. Simple, no-frills English. Judging from the English subtitles in Oliver Stone's 4-part series The Putin Interviews, Putin is no stranger to refreshingly frank, clear and unambiguous communication, No wonder Russians love him.Huge contrast with the mendacity of pseudo-Christian ratbags masquerading as Western Leaders on the world stage. Evidence of the Scum Mo Government's laughably opaque and unaccountable corruption is seeping out of every crack in the facade of what passes for 'democracy' in Oz.
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Oct 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
GlassSteagall , 49 minutes ago
07564111 , 41 minutes agoContinung to demonize Russia is a bad idea
NachoLiebor , 30 minutes agoYes because ....
A powerful & game-changing Russia/China military alliance is 'quite possible' in future but not on the cards yet, says Putin
https://www.rt.com/russia/504345-moscow-beijing-military-alliance/
And it certainly will happen ;-)
NachoLiebor , 36 minutes agoChina is looking at Russia like a hungry pork chop.
See Bear and the Dragon by Tom Clancy. But China has better tech and Russia *still* has better snipers.
Revolution_starts_now , 32 minutes agoToria Nuland and Hilldawg tried to goad Russia into a war with the EU and US over the Ukraine.
So, what's your point?
Magnum , 40 minutes agooperation "Jumping Jack Flash". Why should Trump not unleash some fica warrants on Biden?
Even if he wins he is doomed before he takes office.
They did it to Trump, why not pass along the favor?
Ron_Mexico , 21 minutes agoHighly recommended is a look at The Magnitsky Act
Specifically the role of Bill Browder, his history and involvement. Piraya Films created this and it was banned. I believe you can still watch it. Obama admin was a complete disaster. It is in everyone's interest to get along with Russians, who are different culturally but mean no harm to us.
NachoLiebor , 44 minutes agothe Amish are compelled to pit Caucasian against Caucasian. The browns are easier to control.
Ideology in Practice , 49 minutes agoNever again. Never ever again.
The people (and I use the term loosely) responsible for this fabricated Russian witch hunt
against President Trump need to be put somewhere they can't hurt anyone ever again.
NachoLiebor , 17 minutes agoThe crimes against Kavanaugh and Flynn were perhaps more heinous than the ones directly carried out against Trump.
But he should seek vengeance at this point since every person they injure is a way of injuring him too.
Xena fobe , 25 minutes agoFlynn was a lure and the [DS] swallowed him whole.
Didymus , 40 minutes agoRepublican and Trump supporter, Eric Early is challenging Adam Schiff. Early has a chance. People are furious about rioting, covid lock downs, the homeless, etc.
milo_hoffman , 13 minutes ago" Authoritarian liberals "
Nimrod doesn't understand the difference between authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Authority is good. Parents have authority. Marxist regimes are totalitarian. The USA is a totalitarian neoliberal empire.
Zorba's idea , 20 minutes agoIt will continue and continue and continue until some very high ranking prep walks happen or some people are put up against the wall.
DonGenaro , 23 minutes ago"When one chooses to decieve, what a tangled web they weave." That's as modestly as one could explain the mountainous corruption and Tyrranical Lawlessness our constitutional republic has been subjected too. Next comes Robespierre, I suppose. Jefferson's tree is parched.
bshirley1968 , 2 minutes agoI've known for some 30+ years that the USG had devolved into a glorified crime syndicate
(because nothing is beneath those that start wars for profit ).
Russiagate just made it obvious to all but the most willfully-ignorant.cjones1 , 16 minutes ago" All anybody (if they're a Democrat) has to do to escape accountability and justice for very serious crimes is to shout "Russia!"
All anybody (if their republican) has to do to escape accountability and justice for any crime or delinquency of responsibility is shout "Fake News!"
It's an old game......they call it the "blame game"......and it cuts both ways.
Just sayin'.
The fabricated Russiagate investigation was a conspiracy used against the Trump campaign and his administration by Obama administration officials who enga grrr ed in official misconduct, corruption, and worse to keep a lid on investigating rampant national security violations associated with the Clintons, Bidens, and who knows who engaged in money grubbing, "pay to play" diplomacy.
The Obama administration's deal with the Iranians provided ample cash for Gen. Soleimani to post bounties on U.S. personnel.
The Democratic party and their sympathizers in the MSM and Social Media have become a clear and present danger to our 1st Amendment rights in enjoying a free press.
Good thing Trump came along because this undermining of the United States government by the Democratic party's supporters in and outside of government is coming into clear view.
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Oct 25, 2020 | www.realclearpolitics.com
RNC Spox Liz Harrington: Everything Democrats Accuse Us Of Doing Is What They Did With The Steele Dossier Posted By Tim Hains
On Date October 23, 2020RNC's national spokesperson Liz Harrington battled CNN's Christiane Amanpour for refusing to engage with allegations of corruption against Joe Biden and his family after years of hyping unverified Trump-Russia allegations. https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1319351107253141504&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.realclearpolitics.com%2Fvideo%2F2020%2F10%2F23%2Fgop_spox_elizabeth_harrington_everything_democrats_accuse_us_of_doing_is_what_they_did_with_steele_dossier.html&siteScreenName=rcpvideo&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
"Why don't you want to report this? This is one of the most powerful families in Washington," she asked. "And you're okay with our interests being sold out to profit Joe Biden and his family, while we're suffering during a pandemic from communist China?"
https://c5x8i7c7.ssl.hwcdn.net/vplayer-parallel/20200902_2348/ima_html5/index.html
https://c5x8i7c7.ssl.hwcdn.net/vplayer-parallel/20200902_2348/videojs/show.html?controls=1&loop=60&autoplay=0&tracker=a71d2729-c152-42a5-b839-e31cfd08bff8&height=227&width=402&vurl=%2F%2Fd14c63magvk61v.cloudfront.net%2Fvideos%2Fdgv_rcp%2F20201024150810_5f9441771320b%2Fdgv_rcp_trending_articles_20201024150810_5f9441771320b_new.mp4&poster=%2F%2Fd14c63magvk61v.cloudfront.net%2Fvideos%2Fdgv_rcp%2F20201024150810_5f9441771320b%2Fdgv_rcp_trending_articles_20201024150810_5f9441771320b_new.jpg
- Trump Closing Statement: "Success Is What Will Bring Us Together"
- Joe Biden: "You Know His Character," "Our Character Is On The Ballot, Look At Us Closely"
- Hunter's Ex-Business Partner Says Joe Biden Lied About Business Deals In China, FBI Has Proof
"Absolutely, absolutely," CNN's Amanpour replied. Related Topics: Liz Harrington , Hunter Biden
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Oct 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Monkeys Or Children? Russia Chooses Neither, Dooming Germany by Tyler Durden Sat, 10/24/2020 - 09:20 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print
Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n Guns blog,
Russia is done with the European Union. At last week's Valdai Discussion Forum Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made this quite clear with this statement.
Those people in the West who are responsible for foreign policy and do not understand the necessity of mutually respectable conversation–well, we must simply stop for a while communicate with them. Especially since Ursula von der Leyen states that geopolitical partnership with current Russia's leadership is impossible. If this is the way they want it, so be it. (H/T Andrei Martyanov)
Lavrov's statements echo a number of statements made in recent months by Russian leadership that there is no opportunity for diplomacy possible with the United States.
We can now add the European Union to that list. Pepe Escobar's latest piece goes over Lavrov's comments about the European Union and they are devastating, as devastating as when he and Putin described the U.S. as " Not Agreement Capable " a few years ago.
Lavrov reiterated this with the following comments at Valdai last week.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/zV_W3b_4G50
But as badly as the U.S. has acted in recent years in international relations, unilaterally abrogating treaty after treaty, nominally with the goal of remaking them to be more inclusive, Lavrov's upbraiding of the current leadership of the European Union is far worse.
Because they have gone along with, if not openly assisted, every U.S.-backed provocation against Russia for their own advantage. From Ukraine to MH-17, to Skripal to now Belarus and the ridiculous Navalny poisoning, the EU has proved to be worse than the U.S.
Because there can be no doubt the U.S. views Russia as an antagonist. We're quite clear about this. But Europe plays off U.S. aggression, hiding in the U.S.'s skirts while telling Russia, usually through German Chancellor Angela Merkel, "Be patient, we are reluctantly going along with this." But really they're happy about it.
So Russia is ultimately caught between the U.S. and Europe on all basic issues of trade, politics, and international law.
Adding to Lavrov's frustration, Andrei Martyanov, as an astute analyst on Russian politics as anyone, is correct when he says (H/T to Pepe Escobar).
You do not negotiate with monkeys, you treat them nicely, you make sure that they are not abused, but you don't negotiate with them, same as you don't negotiate with toddlers. They want to have their Navalny as their toy–let them. I call on Russia to start wrapping economic activity up with EU for a long time. They buy Russia's hydrocarbons and hi-tech, fine. Other than that, any other activity should be dramatically reduced and necessity of the Iron Curtain must not be doubted anymore.
And the truth is that Russia is dealing with monkeys in the U.S. and toddlers in the EU. And Martanyov's right that it's time Putin et.al. simply turn their backs on the West and move forward.
Lavrov's statements at Valdai were momentous. They sent a clear signal that if Europe wants a future relationship with Russia they will have to change how they do business.
The problem is however, that the EU is suffused with arrogance on the eve of the U.S. election, mistakenly thinking Joe Biden will beat Trump.
Merkel has betrayed Putin at every turn since 2013. And Germany's appalling behavior over the Alexei Navalny poisoning was the last straw.
That what was another sabotage effort to stop the Nordstream 2 pipeline and add grist to Trump's re-election mill was given even a cursory glance by the highest levels of the German government was insulting enough.
That Merkel allowed her Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to run his mouth on the subject, and then throw the decision to sanction Russia (again) over this to the EU parliament and give it any kind of political play was truly treacherous.
And it proved, yet again, that Merkel's word is worth less than nothing. She tells Putin one thing and then does the exact opposite. Glenn Deisen writing for RT chalked this up to Germany's plans for domination. He rightly sees Germany using Russia to get what it wants in Europe.
Germany has taken the lead in advancing "European integration" and therefore prioritizes Eastern European member states that push for a more aggressive stance towards Russia. Economic connectivity with Russia is no longer an instrument for building trust and cooperation in the pan-European space, rather it was intended to strengthen Germany's position as the center of the EU. Moscow should work with Berlin to construct Nord Stream 2, but not forget why Nord Stream 1 was built while South Stream was blocked.
This is a point I've been making for years. Nordstream 2 is a political tool for Germany to reroute gas coming in from Russia which Merkel can use as a political lever over Poland and the Visegrads.
And it is the Poles who have consistently shot themselves in the foot by not reconciling their relationship with Russia, banding together with its Eastern European brothers and securing an independent source of Russian gas. Putin and Gazprom would happily provide it to them, if they would but ask.
But they don't and instead turn to the U.S. to be their protectors from both Russia and Germany, rather than conduct themselves as a sovereign nation.
That said, I think Mr. Diesen misses the larger point here. It is true Germany under Merkel is looking to expand its control over the EU and set itself up as a superpower for the next century. Putin himself acknowledged that possibility at Valdai. That may be more to dig at the U.S. and warn Europe rather than him actually believing it.
Because under Merkel and the EU Germany is losing its dynamism. And it may even lose control over the EU if it isn't careful. If you look at the current situation from a German perspective you realize that Germany's mighty export business is surrounded by hostile foreign powers.
- Russia -- Merkel cut off the country from Russian markets. Even though some of the trade with Russia has returned since sanctions over Crimea went into place in 2014 she hasn't fought the U.S.'s hyper-aggressive use of sanctions to improve Germany's position.
- The U.K. -- French President Emmanuel Macron looks like he's engineered a No-Deal Brexit with Boris Johnson which will put up major export barriers for Germany into the U.K. cutting them off from that market.
- The U.S. – Trump has all but declared Germany an enemy and when he wins a second term will tighten the screws on Merkel even tighter.
- China – They know that the incoming Great Reset, which will have its Jahr Null event in Europe likely next year, is all about consolidating power into Europe and sucking it away from the U.S., a process Trump is dead-set against.
However, don't think for a second that the Commies that run the EU and the World Economic Forum are teaming up with the Commies in China. Oh no, they have bigger plans than that.
And what's been pretty clear to me is Europe's delusions that it can subjugate the world under its rubric, forcing its rules and standards on the rest of us, including China, again allowing the U.S. to act as its proxy while it tries to maintain its standing.
I know what you're thinking. That sounds completely ludicrous.
And you're right, it is ludicrous.
But that doesn't mean it isn't true. This is clearly the mindset we're dealing with in The Davos Crowd. They engineered a mostly-fake pandemic to accelerate their plans to remake the world economy by burning it down.
The multi-polar world will see the fading U.S. and U.K. band together while Russia and China continue to stitch together Asia into a coherent economic sphere. Trump is right to pull the U.S. out of Central Asia and has gotten nothing but grief from the U.S. establishment while Europe, through NATO, continues trying to expand to the Russian border, now with openly backing the attempted coup in Belarus.
This was the dominant theme at Valdai and the focus of Putin's opening remarks.
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Oct 25, 2020 | www.rt.com
Chris Cottrell, 1 day ago
ariadnatheo, 1 day agoBlaming Russia seems to be today's version of the dog ate my homework.
TrishArch, 1 day agoI am disappointed that Russia once again interfered in the US elections without using Novichok.
The_Celotajs, 1 day agoAlways Russia's Fault. Little wonder no one listens to biden.
brianeg, 15 hours agoLike Russian President Vladimir Putin once said, Russia has no need to interfere in the United States Elections when they have the Democrats doing it to themselves.
Doodle_Dandy, 1 day agoThere was of course an obvious Russian connection and that was the $3.5 million given by the wife of the Mayor of Moscow to Hunter. Was this a birthday present or what?
One wonders when Masha and the Bear will get the blame?
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Oct 25, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
JC , Oct 23 2020 17:50 utc | 4
Guess who said this:
Many of us read The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry when we were children and remember what the main character said: "It's a question of discipline. When you've finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet. It's very tedious work, but very easy."I am sure that we must keep doing this "tedious work" if we want to preserve our common home for future generations. We must tend our planet.
The subject of environmental protection has long become a fixture on the global agenda. But I would address it more broadly to discuss also an important task of abandoning the practice of unrestrained and unlimited consumption – overconsumption – in favour of judicious and reasonable sufficiency, when you do not live just for today but also think about tomorrow.
We often say that nature is extremely vulnerable to human activity. Especially when the use of natural resources is growing to a global dimension. However, humanity is not safe from natural disasters, many of which are the result of anthropogenic interference. By the way, some scientists believe that the recent outbreaks of dangerous diseases are a response to this interference. This is why it is so important to develop harmonious relations between Man and Nature.
No cheating please. Guess. Who said the above?
Please let us know your first guess in the comments.
Putin, yesterday: http://en.special.kremlin.ru/catalog/keywords/47/events/64261
Gregory Purcell , Oct 23 2020 17:55 utc | 7
karlof1 , Oct 23 2020 18:22 utc | 18Putin's 2020 Valdai Club Speech
Jen , Oct 23 2020 19:23 utc | 27Wow! What a mind blunder! Of course, it was VVP. Too much reading! Ha!! Pepe's article has its own merits. Even more important is this revealing editorial , "How Russophobia Wrought Death of the United States:"
"The surprise election in 2016 of Donald Trump to the White House so disturbed the political class that it was compelled to delegitimize his presidency by alleging that it was due to Russian interference. The relentless and irrational Russophobia to undermine Trump by his domestic political enemies has only transpired to fatally weaken American global power. The political squabbling and infighting has wreaked havoc on the moral authority and legitimacy of American institutions of governance. The legislative government, the presidency, the judiciary, the intelligence apparatus, the legacy media, and so on. Every supposed pillar of American democracy has been eroded over the past four years with alarming speed.
"A big part of this precipitous demise is due to Russophobia: the relentless sowing of doubt and confusion in American institutions, primarily the presidency, with insinuations of Russian interference. In their attempts to delegitimize Trump, his domestic enemies among the U.S. establishment have ended up delegitimizing public esteem of American democracy. How paradoxical! America's own worst enemy turns out to be itself ." [My Emphasis]
I've long maintained that the enemies of the USA and its people are ALL Domestic and have been from the outset. Lots of truth fit into that short essay!
powerandpeople , Oct 23 2020 19:56 utc | 33The tone sounds like Vladimir Putin in English translation and the timing of B's post suggests he said it during his closing speech at this year's Valdai Club meetings. Putin has always been keen on conservation issues and often spends what free time he has in short camping adventures. The Siberian tiger conservation program is a pet project of his.
The other possibility might be Chinese President Xi Jinping as the ideas of modest consumption or consumption that fulfills a person's needs and of humans living in harmony with nature appear in the speech, and these ideas have been incorporated into recent Chinese government policies. The drive to eradicate poverty not only achieves one goal (fulfilling people's needs) but also helps achieve the other, as impoverished communities are often driven by forces beyond their control into marginal areas where they end up upsetting the ecology and destroying in order to survive. Among other things his also brings exotic pathogens in contact with humans through the disturbance of plant and animal life (insects in particular) and the consumption of bushmeat and its trade.
Significantly in recent years much of the Earth's land surface as measured by satellites that has become greener has been in China and India as a result of large-scale conservation and tree-planting schemes and better use of land. This has sometimes involved relocating entire rural communities in parts of China to areas where they can access services that help to improve their lives. An example might be a community I read about recently that lived on top of a small mountain or plateau where the only access to schools and markets was through a winding series of narrow staircases cut into the mountain's sides. One child did not start going to school until she was 11 years old because her mother was afraid that she'd fall while using the stairs. The local authority later built a bridge connecting the mountain to lower areas, cutting travel time from 3 hours to 1 hour. Recently the entire community agreed to relocate and its old village on top of the mountain is to be preserved and developed as a tourist attraction.
Note that not all the questions and answers after the speech have been transcribed yet.
This is another of Mr.Putins masterpieces of common sense and analysis, courteously and clearly telling truth as no global 'leader' even could let alone would.
It is an exceptionally important and wide-ranging analysis of the nature of humans, the planet, and governance.
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Jan 01, 2020 | www.bunicuta.net
Navalny Goes Va Banque – Part III
Этот Германн, -- продолжал Томский, -- лицо истинно романическое: у него профиль Наполеона, а душа Мефистофеля. Я думаю, что на его совести по крайней мере три злодейства. Как вы побледнели!..
"This Hermann fellow," Tomsky continued, -- "a truly romantic-era personality, the profile of a Napoleon, and the soul of Mephistopheles. I believe that on his conscience lie at least three crimes.
Oh my, you just turned pale!" -- Pushkin, The Queen of Spades "And that's not even counting KirovLes!" Tomsky should have added.
Dear Readers: Today concluding my review of this piece by reporter/analyst Petr Akopov.
Where we left off, we saw that Navalny may have overstepped the line (just a tad) by directly accusing Putin of poisoning him.
According to my blog-commenter James, Navalny is now busy on the talk-show circuit, doing a full Ginsburg on all the imperialist propaganda media.
Describing what it feels like to be poisoned – "Ow! it hurt so much!" in full pathos.
And Westie Navalny Goes Va Banque – burghers no doubt lapping up this farce because it's more entertaining than the circus. –Meanwhile, back in Russia, members of the government are not very happy with Navalny's wild improvised performance.
Vyacheslav Volodin, Speaker of the State Duma believes that Navalny has been too outspoken: "This guy is a competely shamless fraud." And pointing out how much was done to save his unworthy ass: From the pilots who emergency-landed the plane in Tomsk; to the doctors and nurses who fought ferociously to intubate him; to the President himself who personally gave permission to fly this recidivist to a prestigious German clinic Dante should have designed a special circle in Hell for such an ingrate, who now spits on the entire Russian nation.
For 7 long days, Navalny lay in a fake-coma does that work for the 7 card? Furthermore, in a no-shit kind of epiphany, Volodin opines that this whole poisoning scenario was scripted by the Westies: "In order to create tension within Russia, and to prevent Belorussia from asserting its sovereignty." Captain Obvious concludes with: "Navalny himself clearly works with the special services and organs of goverments of [various] Western countries."
After such a shocking utterance, the Kremlin felt the need to clarify: Uh, it's not so much that Navalny works for the CIA; as the CIA works for him! Uh huh, that makes perfect sense. As comedian Yakov Smirnov might say: In America, Secret Agent works for CIA. But in Russia, CIA works for him!
Putin's Press Secretary Peskov: "We should clarify that CIA specialists are working with Navalny, and give him various instructions. And moreover, this is not the first time, either."
Navalny was upset by Peskov's words, he blustered back saying that Peskov is skating on very thin ice [little joke there], and said he planned to sue the man for libel: "He must prove that I actually have ties with American intelligence." Well, that's easy: Just ask Pompeo.
Akopov himself believes that Navalny is more than just a "CIA project", he is more like a "joint venture" with all the Westie agencies. And this project also includes the Russian Neo-Liberal elite and the Westernizing section of the Oligarchy.
They are all in this together as partners. [yalensis: And these knuckle-heads couldn't come up with anybody better than Navalny as their Leader?] Akopov would not even want to venture a guess, which one of these "partners" holds the "controlling interest" in Mr.
Navalny's person.
Although it is plausible that shares might be redistributed during Navalny's stay in Germany. The question du jour is whether or not Navalny will return to Russia. Gentlemen and Countesses, you are free to place your bets on this one. Akopov believes that, yes, Navalny not only will, but must, return to Russia. Why? To complete his Quest. What is his Quest? To change the internal political structure and geopolitical vector of Russia.
Here is how Navalny himself describes the pathos of the current situation: "A struggle is taking place between those who stand for Freedom, and those who wish to push us backwards. Into the Past, into that strange Orthodox imitation of the Soviet Union, only decorated with Capitalism and Oligarchs." "I win!" Hm I hate to admit it, but Navalny's words actually have a ring of truth to them, which is why, if they were to come out of the mouth of a real freedom-fighter, then they might bear some weight.
But you know what people say: If you want to sell a lie, then you have to sprinkle it with truth.
Everybody who has studied Navalny and Navalniada, know what is actually going on here: Navalny and his neo-Liberal kreakle supporters represent that class of bourgeois intelligentsia who came along maybe 5 or 10 years too late to participate in the Yeltsinite plundering of the Russian people.
They regret this, and wish for an opportunity to make their own fortunes, on the backs of said Russian people.
They are only millionaires now, but they want to be billionaires. [yalensis: Although some evil tongues claim that Navalny has actually lost his fortune somehow and is fleeing from his creditors; hence the current crisis.] Putin stands in the way of the kreakles because he (and his caste of functionaries) have somewhat curbed the openly pirate proclivities of the Russian bourgeoisie; partially nationalized them, made them go to Church, and forced them to follow certain rules.
This is what drives Navalny and his ilk crazy. They want it all, and they want it now! Putin, for his part, in his endless balancing act, trying to maintain two incompatible things, as Pushkin might have said (=capitalism and Russian patriotism) has scrambled to win the support of the patriotic bourgeoisie and the clergy, the two pillars of the Lost Russia he strives to re-build.
Navalny again:
"A part of society repeats Putin's rhetoric about how the country needs to follow its own path. They are talking about restoring a kind of monarchy, based on certain spiritual values. And against them stand such people as myself, who consider this to be a lie and hypocrisy, and who are convinced that Russia must develop only according to the European model."
Ah, Navalny! You had me at "monarchy" but lost me at "European model" – you wretch! "It's curtains for you, buster!"
Akopov, it goes without saying, is one of those intellectuals whom Navalny despises as supporting the "Putinite" model of Russian development: Rely on a strong Russian state (which Navalny mockingly calls an "imitation of the USSR"), lean on the Church, develop one's own geo-political vector, etc.
Navalny and his crowd regard these types as complete zombies, whose proposed model is worthless.
But the only thing that Navalny counter-punts are equally worn-out ideas of what Lenin would call "the highest stages of capitalism" and which would, in reality, demote Russia to the level of an American colony.
Same as the rest of Europe! Akopov concedes, however, that Navalny's "vision", if one could call it that, of a European Russia imbued with "democratic values" does, in fact, enjoy mass support -- among the Muscovite intelligentsia.
This kreakle mass [Akopov does not say, but there are estimates that the Navalnyite program enjoys as much as 30% support among the residents of Moscow, not so much in the rest of the country] believe in exactly the same things that Navalny does.
And have been "fighting" for this program (in one way or another) for the past 30 years.
This section of the Russian bourgeois intelligentsia punts against Putin's "national project" and now awaits eagerly for the return of their poisoned, and poisonous, hero. [THE END]
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Oct 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the General Services Administration (GSA) undermined the Trump transition team by violating a memorandum of understanding between the Trump transition team and the GSA - when they complied with requests from the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller's office to provide private records on members of Trump's team , according to a Senate report released on Friday.
As Just the News notes:
The majority staff report from both the Senate Committee on Finance and the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs claims that officials from both the FBI and Mueller's office " secretly sought and received access to the private records of Donald J. Trump's presidential transition team, Trump for America, Inc. "
"They did so," the report continues, "despite the terms of a memorandum of understanding between the Trump transition team and the General Services Administration.. . -- the executive agency responsible for providing services to both candidates' transition teams -- that those records were the transition team's private property that would not be retained at the conclusion of the transition."
According to the report, the GSA - without notifying the White House - reached out to the FBI following Michael Flynn's resignation as national security adviser and offered to retain records from the Trump transition team in early 2017. The records compiled eventually made their way into Mueller's office, according to the report.
"At bottom," continues the report, " the GSA and the FBI undermined the transition process by preserving Trump transition team records contrary to the terms of the memorandum of understanding, hiding that fact from the Trump transition team, and refusing to provide the team with copies of its own records."
" These actions have called into question the GSA's role as a neutral service provider, and those doubts have consequences ," the report reads. "Future presidential transition teams must have confidence that their use of government resources and facilities for internal communications and deliberations -- including key decisions such as nominations, staffing, and significant policy changes -- will not expose them to exploitation by third parties, including political opponents ."
1 play_arrow
911bodysnatchers322 , 4 hours ago
3O4jF"> Macho Latte play_arrow Mzhen , 5 hours ago1) Was this illegal surveillance?
2) Was this spying before a FISA warrant was given?
3) Did this occur before the special council was incepted (ie before may 2017)?
4) Which attorneys on his team requested this information?
5) Which US employees at GSA approved the FBI's request?
6) Why did the GSA approve the request, despite the MOU from TTT?
7) Will the employees cry out for mommy or for God when they are executed for treason (participants in seditious conspiracy against a lawful president)?
8) If they aren't executed, will president trump please give any us citizen a pre-pardon for carrying out justice against these employees after they are fired, and the sum total of their assets seized and divested to the us taxpayer base and they are homeless?
Thank you congressmen. Reclaiming our time
RedDog1 , 3 hours agoNovember 29, 2019 – The history of Flynn prosecutor Brandon Van Grack – from the Special Counsel's Office to the prosecution of Flynn
booboo , 4 hours agoIt can't be repeated enough...the Weissman "investigation" and Clinton campaign were doing exactly what President Trump was falsely accused of...using disinformation obtained from RUSSIAN sources (the Steele Dossier) to influence an election and undermine the peaceful transfer of power.
4whatitsworth , 3 hours agomore specifically they knew the charge would not stick because you can't charge someone for obstruction for calling out your prosecutor.
Metastatic Debt , 3 hours agoMr Muller please confirm that the name of the firm that produced the Christopher Steele dossier was Fusion GPS.. Muller hmmm Fusion GPS "I'm not familiar with that," - what a lying peice of ****!
UserLevel9000 , 4 hours agoFeds only solve crimes they manufacture or entrap for political gain, gain internally for promos or externally for glory.
That agency was founded by a black mailing, cross dressing weirdo.
No wonder it's corrupt. That was Its core makeup.
Joebloinvestor , 4 hours agoHe was a frontman. He didn't even read the report. Didn't you see the interview?
4Y_LURKER , 3 hours agoSo the GSA has no integrity.
Who goes to jail or gets fined?
Smedley Butler Jr , 3 hours agocurtisw , 4 hours agofiring them will now be easier
yrad , 3 hours agoMueller is a swamp rat.
Mzhen , 4 hours agoShort of killing him, our government exhausted all resources in order to remove Trump. What's the term? Ah yes, a ******* coup.
Im 44yo but I hope I live long enough for the historians to connect the dots and write the story. Much like JFK, all involved will be dead and will never pay for their crimes against this country and attack on one of the most important protections we have as a Republic- a peaceful transfer of power.
Totally_Disillusioned , 3 hours agoWho, specifically, has his name on the Mueller team letter to the GSA. Brandon Van Grack. The same prosecutor who spent years persecuting General Flynn, before being forced to withdraw from the case. The same Brandon Van Grack who was part of a failed sting operation against George Papadopoulos.
High Vigilante , 4 hours agoThe ENTIRE bureaucracy was against Trump and made EVERY EFFORT to sabotage, obstruct and deny President Trump's full authority over the Executive Branch.
Contagion Deleverage , 4 hours agoAnother scandal by globalists and Demsheviks every single day. Each worse than Watergate.
Reaper , 4 hours agoThe implications of Mueller having access to SECRET information pertaining to Donal Trump is remarkable and powerful. I believe that this is the source for leaking important and damaging information on Trump, his closest advisors, and critically, their plans and capabilities!
Secret Weapon , 5 hours agoThe prosecutor was the criminal.
chubbar , 3 hours agoThe trash in DC really hates the average American. I guess they meant it when they called us "deplorable".
ConanTheContrarian1 , 1 hour agoWhen you say "GSA did this" or "FBI did that", you are being lazy in your reporting. There are actual PEOPLE who made those decisions, not some nameless entity. What has to happen is that these actual people need to be found, charged and tried for these crimes. Otherwise, let's just call everything legal if no laws are to be enforced and quit bringing up the details of their treachery.
getsometoo , 4 hours agoEver read a gov't document? "It was decided....", "It seemed best....", etc. NEVER "I decided" or "Joe and Maxine decided". Ten thousand coverups and misdirections per department.
Sigh. , 4 hours agoHow do these bureautards get off thinking they're going dispose a duly elected President? Seriously, don't they understand the people would never allow it. What would it take for the people to utterly wipe out the FBI? To execute every damn one of them for treason? There's only around 35-40,000 of them. We could hang every damn one of them in a weekend. Sonofabitches. These people must absolutely lose their jobs. Then the guilty leadership must hang.
Barrock , 4 hours agoSo. GSA is Deep State. Never would've figured that.
Walking Turtle , 3 minutes agoEven the GSA is part of the swamp! Who would've figured? The USA needs to cut the annual budget hugely. The government needs a complete rehaul.
Bigboot , 36 minutes agoSeems Mr. Trump is positioned now to do pretty much that.
His recent creation per EO of GSA "Schedule F" employment lays waste to the "non-fireable" Senior Executive Service's stranglehold on Executive Branch administrative process. Sched F appointees are strictly at-will, serving at the sole pleasure of the President. Failure to serve as directed carries severe consequences, including jail time.
Moreover, a Sched F appointee can reportedly be placed above the SES wonk at the head of a recalcitrant agency. (Currently that means ALL of them - 80+ iirc.) Puts the BRIT-LOYAL Senior Executive Service under actual Constitution-loyal Executive Branch supervision. Betsy and Thomas d of American Intelligence Media (.mp3 podcast @link) have plenty good reason LOVE this, as does YT. The SES Policy Wonk Armee, otoh, does not .
Panic in DC. Long time coming; HERE NOW. DC-region dentists are gonna' clean right UP with all the gnashing of teeth and consequent self-inflicted damage to the dentition of those Swamp Rats imvho. And that is all. 0{;-)o[
gcjohns1971 , 40 minutes agoWhat happened to all the expos\'es of the Hunter Laptop we were told were coming out?
Isn't it amazing, stultifying and incredibly nightmarish that we are heading into the
election and NOT ONE of the Democrat criminals has been indicted? My God, there's something
really rotten in the state of America (cf Shakespeare, I know America is not a state).
Total corruption at all levels. God save us from the Government and all its rotten
agencies.
Leguran , 44 minutes agoGovernment does not believe in Democracy or in the Republic.
They work for other masters. And they assert exclusive right to choose which ones.
Good questions to ask include:
Which ones?
On what basis is their choosing?
What is in it for the rest of us?
Why should we continue to enable a "government" on such a self-serving basis?
Mister Delicious , 54 minutes agoThese actions have called into question the GSA's role as a neutral service provider, and those doubts have consequences?????
No ****! Who the hell is supposed to trust government when those in top positions feel free to do exactly what they please. That MOU was an agreement, the government's word.
Republicans in the Senate, you are all dirt bags with no values. At least the Democrats do not claim to have values.
Mueller himself violated a court order
https://thefederalist.com/2019/07/31/robert-mueller-defy-court-order-stop-lying-russian-companies/
Aside from the prosecutorial rulea they violated
https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/25/5-times-mueller-probe-broke-prosecutorial-rules-ensure-justice/
That court order directed him to stop claiming the "Russian troll" company, Comcord ( their ads were typical clickbait , not 'meddling') was connected to the Russian government - because he had produced no evidence at all to substantiate that.
He also would have had access to information that casted serious doubt on the alleged hacking.. nevermind 'collusion' - they NEVER had any evidence of a hack.
How do we know, apart from the lack of any credible evidence ever actually produced?
Well, for one, the testimony of the president of CrowdStrike which Adam Schiff deliberately suppressed during impeachment.
Indict these people for seditious conspiracy and election interference or stop asking us to believe a word anyone in the governmnt says.
The FBI is a criminal mafia operating under color of law and should be dismantled.
Have Wray and Haspel complied with Trump's -alleged- orders to release the documents related to that coup effort?
If not - why have they kept their jobs?
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Oct 25, 2020 | www.rt.com
is a game and tech journalist from the US. Aside from writing for RT, he hosts the podcast Micah and The Hatman, and is an independent comic book writer. Follow Micah at @MindofMicahC
23 Oct, 2020 15:07 / Updated 1 day ago Get short URL
© Getty Images / David McNew / Staff 203 Follow RT on
Joe Biden recently suggested that stories circulating about his son Hunter were part of a Russian disinformation campaign. Whatever he has or hasn't been up to, blaming another nation is unwise and won't go down well with voters.
It's safe to say that Hunter Biden, the son of former vice president and current presidential candidate Joe Biden, is having a rough time. After the contents of his laptop, including details of his international business dealings, came into the public domain, it transpired that the computer had been the subject of a subpoena in a money-laundering investigation. Now, former business partners are beginning to turn on him, and one of them has said that he's turning " everything " over to the FBI and the Senate. Another one claimed that Biden was consulted with regard to Hunter's foreign deals.
During the second and final presidential debate, Biden made a key mistake when it came to addressing these issues. Instead of simply stating that he had no comment to make, he decided to blame Russia for the fact that Hunter's emails had been leaked from the laptop's hard drive. Ah yes. So we're back to that old 'reliable' narrative. I'm assuming that Joe may have missed the embarrassment that was the Mueller investigation .
Maybe Biden doesn't like Russia. Whether he does or doesn't is inconsequential. It is a very bad idea to blame his problems on a foreign power. In fact, it's not the proper behavior of someone who wants to be president. Here's the truth. Hunter Biden's dealings across the pond likely had some issues. It's hard to say exactly what these might be, because there's an ongoing investigation. I don't think that Biden is so dumb that he doesn't realize that this hurts his chances of the presidency. However, there is a big lack of responsibility here. Blaming what's happening on anyone except Hunter is a bit silly. I'd even argue that it's incredibly irresponsible.
ALSO ON RT.COM By backing censorship of Hunter Biden story, mainstream media only hurt their own causeWhat's even more obvious is the desperation. Biden and the Democrats in general want this story, whatever it is, to be squashed. It's why you have seen so little coverage on left-leaning TV networks. If Donald Trump Jr was in a similar situation it would be a story on every single one of them, and likely the subject of a Don Lemon lecture or five.
What Biden may not realize is that when voters see something being blamed on Russia, they tend to roll their eyes. It invokes the image of Boris and Natasha grabbing a laptop in the hopes of finally grabbing the moose and squirrel. It's cartoonish. And what happens if the worst-case scenario for Biden comes true and his son is indicted for something? Well, at that point it's more than just a ' Russian disinformation campaign' . It's very real indeed.
And this is where Biden could end up with plenty of egg on his face. If he and his son are in trouble, then no amount of blaming another country is going to change that. And it wouldn't surprise me if this becomes a major factor in the upcoming election. Why would you vote for someone who can't, or won't, take responsibility for what is going on with their own family?
What Biden needs to do at this point is come clean on what his level of involvement was, and simply be a dad to his son instead of a politician. Then again, Biden has been a politician longer than he's been a father, so it's hard saying which hat he plans on wearing for the next two weeks.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
MakeAmericaFree 1 day ago The world is witness to the blatant corruption and deceit at the highest levels of American government. Trump has tried to clean things up and he has a lot more left to do. We should wish him well in those efforts. I am starting to think Attorney General William Barr has capitulated though. Where are all the indictments, Mr. Barr? Reply 14 ariadnatheo MakeAmericaFree 1 day ago Barr? The CIA offspring? He does what he is told, not necessarily by his official boss SJMan333 1 day ago If Joe is running against another regular Republican politician, Hunter Biden's corruption would have been a non-issue. The US politics is a cesspool of corruption, money laundering, sex and all forms of moral decay. Each politician is in it for self-serving purposes. Position, power, money, etc etc. A big section of naive Americans believe their politicians are there to serve the people's interests. Politicians from both sides of the aisle have a tacit understanding NOT to cross a red line. They will never accuse their opponents of corruption. 'You make your money, I make mine.' is their omerta. They put up huge shows of debating with each other in public purportedly in defense of the people's welfare and benefits. Behind closed door, they celebrate their loots from the nation's tax money and illegal brides from businesses in camaraderie together. I don't like Trump. But his exposure of the alleged crimes of the Biden family is something to be applauded, even he's doing it for self-serving purposes. DukeLeo 1 day ago Joe Biden is using Hillary's methods. Not wise. You don't use the same fraud twice. shadow1369 DukeLeo 1 day ago Well the CIA have used the same lies for 75 years. White Elk shadow1369 1 day ago Must be a bit worn out by now. Reply 2 shadow1369 White Elk 1 day ago You would think so, you would also think that everybody would have seen through them by now, but not at all. The CIA orchestrated coup in Kiev used exactly the same methods as the one they orchestrated in Iran in 1953. The details of Operation Ajax are now publicly available, but few bother to look into it. allan Kaplan White Elk 1 day ago Not worn out but perfected! Lois Winters 1 day ago I am not surprised at anything Biden says after seeing his performance in these debates. He is obviously a tired old man and relies on sheafs of notes with the same old so called empathic statements to the citizens of America. It is a wonder that he's a presidential candidate at all. After all the original candidates finally were eliminated, no one but these two want this thankless job. allan Kaplan 1 day ago Now that the shameless "mind managers" the msm propagandists are in the opens, we, the people (an old cliche) must start making noises of holding these anti-American mouth pieces accountable. Compel to change the FCC Rules to take away their broadcasting licensees, penalized those self proclaimed journalists of zero integrities, jailed most of them, and never again allow such ego bloated nincompoops ever to come near the radio and TV stations and banned them from entering any newspaper offices as well. Other punitive measures must be enacted to deface and disregard these paid mouths of fake news and disinformation msm Complex! I'm starting a business of manufacturing toilet bowls and the pubic urinals with the faces impregnated into the ceramic of all those who exploited American freedom of speech to advance their personal careers and that would certainly include almost all the politicians and the tech giants etc. What do you think as a statement to test the real FREE SPEECH?
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Oct 25, 2020 | www.rt.com
The explosive claim comes from Lord Mark Sedwill, who until last month served as the most senior adviser and head of the civil service in Johnson's cabinet. He held the same positions under former prime minister Theresa May, during whose term the Salisbury affair unfolded.
Speaking to Times Radio, Sedwill said Russia has "some vulnerabilities that we can exploit." So London's response to the incident included not only publicly accusing Russia of being behind the attack and expelling its diplomats, but also "a series of other discreet measures including tackling some of the illicit money flows out of Russia, and covert measures as well, which obviously I can't talk about," the former official said.
The Russians know that they had to pay a higher price than they had expected for that operation.
Sedwill would not explain how stopping illicit money flowing out of Russia would hurt the Russian government or why the UK didn't act sooner to crack down on those financial crimes. Presumably, in his view, President Vladimir Putin's power relies on allowing crooked officials and businessmen to siphon the Russian national wealth and the British government was content with it as long as the UK was on the receiving end.
A different view is taken in Moscow, where officials have repeatedly accused the British of harboring Russian criminals and welcoming illicitly gained cash.
The Times implied that the "covert measures" mentioned by Sedwill included the UK using its cyber offensive capabilities against Russia.
ALSO ON RT.COM US senators suggest going after Putin's 'personal money' in response to alleged poisoning of opposition figure NavalnyThe Salisbury poisoning happened in March 2018. Former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter were injured by what the British government described as a uniquely Russian chemical weapon, but have since recovered. London identified two people from Russia as the culprits, calling them agents of the Russian military intelligence.
Moscow denied any involvement in the poisoning and said London had stonewalled all attempts to properly investigate what had happened.
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Oct 24, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Kremlin Says US Elections Have Become "Competition In Russophobia" by Tyler Durden Fri, 10/23/2020 - 20:00 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print
This week's perhaps overly dramatic announcement Wednesday night by the heads of multiple federal agencies - foremost among them Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe - alleging new major efforts by Russia and Iran to interfere in the US presidential election formed a key question and talking point by debate moderator Kristen Welker Thursday night.
Welker even referenced as somehow undisputed and settled "truth" the now debunked "Russian bounties" story . Over a month ago the Pentagon and other intelligence heads concluded after an exhaustive investigation that there's simply no evidence to suggest Russian military intelligence paid Afghan fighters to target Americans.
Final 2020 US presidential campaign debate in NashvilleRussia was certainly paying attention to the debate and was not amused. The Kremlin on Friday blasted what it said was "Russophobia" at the center of the debate .
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists Friday that " competition in Russophobia has become a constant in all US electoral processes, regrettably."
"We are fully aware of this and can only express regret," he added as quoted in TASS.
"After all, probably, it is the American electorate who is the target audience of these debates, that is, common Americans. It is up to them to decide who won the debate, not us," the spokesman said.
Indeed the American public is by and large likely growing tired of the endless Russia scapegoating too.
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National security pundit and research fellow at Columbia University's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies Richard Hanania had this to say about just how vapid foreign policy questions have become in this election (when they are offered at all):
NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOSTNotice how the entire debate on foreign policy was about who was "nicer" to China, Russia, or some other "enemy," not say whether we should go to war more or less often. There's a primitiveness and stupidity surrounding discussions of foreign policy that we don't accept elsewhere , he pointed out .
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Over the years Putin himself has increasingly mocked and laughed about the degree to which he personally gets blamed for almost all ills of American society - from election meddling to "weaponizing" race relations to supposedly seeking to take out the national power grid.
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Oct 23, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Patrick Armstrong via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
I am indebted to Bryan MacDonald for this brilliant neologism: Russophrenia -- a condition where the sufferer believes Russia is both about to collapse, and take over the world .
An early example comes from 1992 when the then- Lithuanian Defence Minister called Russia a country "with vague prospects" while at the same time asserting that "in about two years' time [it] will present a great danger to Europe" (FBIS 22 May 92 p 69).
Vague prospects but great danger. Given the vague demographic prospects of his own country , it was a rather ironic assertion given that Lithuania's future would appear to be a few nursing homes surrounded by forest. But he said it in the days of the full EU/NATO cargo cult. In 2014 U.S. President Obama immortalised this in an interview :
But I do think it's important to keep perspective. Russia doesn't make anything. Immigrants aren't rushing to Moscow in search of opportunity. The life expectancy of the Russian male is around 60 years old. The population is shrinking. And so we have to respond with resolve in what are effectively regional challenges that Russia presents.
Wrong on all counts: all he did was display how poorly advised he was .
Russia, Russia ever failing: will fail in 1992, finished in 2001, failed in 2006, failed in 2008, failing in 2010, failed in 2015. Russia's failing economy , isolation , ancient weapons , instability ; a gas station masquerading as a country . Doomed to fail in Syria and losing influence even in its neighbourhood in 2020.
In 2016 Stratfor, predicting the world of 2025, thought it unlikely that the Russian Federation will survive in its current form . And neither will Putin. He was only a petty dictator with a Swiss bank account in 2000; a Lt. Col. Kije in 2001; another Brezhnev in 2003; facing his biggest crisis in December 2011 , under dire threat and l osing his leverage in January 2015; weak and terrified in July 2015; overextending his reach in May 2016; losing his shine in June 2017; losing his grip in October 2018; losing their trust in June 2019; losing control in September 2019; his house of cards was wobbling and he was the symbol of Russia's humiliation in August 2019. His political demise was near in January 2020; more crises and coronavirus could topple him in April, another biggest crisis in May; losing popular support in June; running out of tricks in August; holed up in isolation, another gravest crisis in October . Soon gone. Russia's economy won't last much longer either: smaller than Spain's or California's in 2014; in tatters and facing a slow and steady decline in 2015; surprisingly small in 2017; about the size of Belgium plus the Netherlands and smaller than Texas' in 2018; headed for trouble in 2019. Weak energy prices its Achilles heel in 2020. And on and on: really weak in 2006; its three biggest problems in 2013; Russia is not strong. And Putin is even weaker in 2015. Don't fear Russia, marginalize it because it's weak and has a rapidly aging and shrinking population in 2018. Still weak in 2019 and Paul Gregory tells us that's it's weak but with nukes in 2020.
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Occasionally -- very occasionally -- someone, more acute than most, wonders How Did A Weak Russia Ever Become A Great Power Again? or why with less money than Canada and fewer people than Nigeria , it "runs the world now". But the explanations are facile: too much butter spent on guns or a passing situation:
In the emerging post-Cold War-era Russia, no matter how poor it is in many key areas, can be #2 in the world for many years to come. Only when China rises in the next 20 years or a new kind of President emerges in the United States will that change. Until then Vladimir Putin can play his games to his heart's content.
Of course all of these headscratchers assume that the exchange rate of the ruble is the true measure of Russia's economy; which is a pretty silly and misleading idea .
* * *
But at the same time Russia is an enormous, dangerous, existential threat functioning with enormous effectiveness in all dimensions.
Far from having the deceptively weak military of 2015, it is developing the world's most powerful nuclear weapon in 2018 and in future wars the U.S. will have nowhere to hide . The next January we're told that it and China are building Super-EMP bombs for 'Blackout Warfare' . Russia has imposed aerial denial zones and fields eye-watering EW capabilities ; it has "black hole" submarines , a generational lead in tanks , an unstoppable carrier-killer missile and devastating air defence . It's working on a new missile threat to the U.S. homeland . General Breedlove, former NATO Supreme Commander who did much to poke the bear, gives us a particularly striking example: he now fears that a war " would leave Europe helpless, cut off from reinforcements, and at the mercy of the Russian Federation ." The British army would be wiped out in an afternoon , NATO would lose quickly in the Baltics -- NATO's totally outmatched . The Russian threat is unlike anything seen since the 1990s. The worry is that Nato has under-reacted.
Putin was the world's most powerful man and, linking up with China, could soon become more powerful than the U.S. in 2018. He was wielding Russia's formidable military and powerful economic policies in 2019. And never forget Russia's major hacking threat and deadly malware . Its interference and influence in Western voting is stupendous: the 2016 U.S. election ; Brexit ; Canada ; France ; the European Union ; Germany ; Catalonia ; Netherlands ; Sweden ; Italy ; EU in particular and Europe in general ; Mexico : Newsweek gives a helpful list . And, long before Putin: " 100 years of Russian electoral interference ". As a covert influence actor and purveyor of disinformation and misinformation Russia is the primary threat in the U.S. election.
Putin was a threat to the Rules-Based International Order in February 2007 , May 2014 , January 2017 , February 2018 , May 2018 , June 2019 and many months before or since.
* * *
So, on the one hand Russia is a failing country, with a trivial economy, a greatly over-rated military led by someone who is always facing a catastrophe at home. Nothing to worry about there: presently weak and future uncertain. On the other hand, Russia has a tremendously powerful military, an economy that does whatever its ever-young autocratic permanent ruler wants it to. Its propaganda power is immense and unbeatable, the background determinant of the world's action. Russophrenia.
And, out of the blue, COVID gives him another opportunity to bamboozle the helpless West and undermine its precious Rules-Based International Order. Somehow. See if you can make sense of this incoherence :
This should worry the West once the pandemic has passed. Not because Russia poses a serious long-term threat to our interests; it doesn't, although Putin would prefer us to think that his shrivelled realm does. But because Russia is not the only authoritarian state seeking to learn lessons from the current crisis which could be used in a future conflict.
Russia's Vaccine Stunt which experts worry is dangerous is being supported by attacks on the Oxford vaccine which Russia tried to steal . Russians, Russians everywhere!
Russophrenics are unaffected by reality. Russia's success? Forget maleficence and try competence . Its military is designed to defend the country, not rule the world : a less expensive and attainable aim. Its economy -- thanks to Western sanctions -- has made it probably the only autarky in the world . Election interference is a falsehood designed to damage Trump and exculpate Clinton which has been picked up by Washington's puppies. But don't bother with mere evidence; As the author of this New Yorker piece explains :
Such externally guided operations exist, but to exaggerate their prevalence and potency ends up eroding the idea of genuine bottom-up protest -- in a way that, ironically, is entirely congenial to Putin's conspiratorial world view.
Or as the Washington Post memorably put it: " Especially clever is planting tales of supposedly far-reaching influence operations that either don't actually exist or are having little impact ."
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Scott Adams understands the process perfectly:
Absence of evidence is evidence.
Pretty crazy isn't it? And getting crazier.
All this would be funny if it were Ruritania ranting at the Duchy of Strackenz.
But it isn't: it's the country with the most destructive military in the world and a proven record of using it ad libitum that is sinking into this insanity. And that's not good for any of us.
PGR88 , 7 hours agoteutonicate , 1 hour agoRussia merely wants to protect itself, its culture, and its interests from an increasingly insane American globalist deep state.
LibertarianMenace , 5 minutes agoRussophrenia... Or How A Collapsing Country Runs The World
Much as cabalist-run propaganda mill The Strategic Cultural Foundation would like it to be true, Russia is not collapsing. The only thing wrong with Russia is that it is a predominantly White Christian country that refuses to kowtow to Israel - and therefore in cabaliist-dominated Western political circles it must be defined as the enemy - regardless of reality.
It must really irk cabalist central bankers and globalists that Russia simply doesn't need them. It is has a real economy that doesn't completely depend on being pumped up with an endless supply of rapidly devaluing fiat.
Facts have that unfortunate tendency to be, "anti-semitic, as you say, not me.
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Oct 24, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Rep. Gosar Calls To Defund NPR As Backlash Grows Over Biden Laptop Coverup
by Tyler Durden Fri, 10/23/2020 - 14:40 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print
Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar has called for defunding National Public Radio after the outlet officially refused to cover the Hunter Biden laptop scandal (while happily peddling anti-Trump rumors for years) - calling it a ' waste of time. '
"It's time to defund @NPR. This is appalling. #DefundNPR," Gosar tweeted on Thursday.
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Gosar joins a growing chorus of conservative voices who are furious over the outlet's decision to censor perhaps the biggest political bombshell in decades .
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As Jack Phillips of the Epoch Times notes:
NPR public editor Kelly McBride published an inquiry on its website Thursday from a listener who did not understand why the outlet was ignoring the story.
"Someone please explain why NPR has apparently not reported on the Joe Biden, Hunter Biden story in the last week or so that Joe did know about Hunter's business connections in Europe that Joe had previously denied having knowledge?" listener Carolyn Abbott asked.
McBride responded in saying there are "many, many red flags" in an investigation carried out by the New York Post, which last week published reports that were sourced from the alleged laptop hard drive. NPR then went on to repeat claims that Russia is attempting to interfere in the election.
" Even if Russia can't be positively connected to this information, the story of how Trump associates Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani came into a copy of this computer hard drive has not been verified and seems suspect. And if that story could be verified, the NY Post did no forensic work to convince consumers that the emails and photos that are the basis for their report have not been altered," McBride said, adding: "But the biggest reason you haven't heard much on NPR about the Post story is that the assertions don't amount to much."
Her response included a statement from NPR managing editor Terence Samuel.
" We don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories , and we don't want to waste the listeners' and readers' time on stories that are just pure distractions. And quite frankly, that's where we ended up, this was a politically driven event and we decided to treat it that way," Samuel said.
The claims that the reports are part of a Russian disinformation plot were dismissed by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe.
The FBI, meanwhile, did not dispute Ratcliffe's statements earlier this week.
FBI Assistant Director Jill C. Tyson sent a letter to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, in response to Johnson's request for more information about the emails, reports around which have alleged that Hunter Biden tried to introduce a Ukrainian businessman to his father when he served as vice president in the Obama administration. The law enforcement agency said it has "nothing to add at this time" to Ratcliffe's statement.
A number of conservatives and allies of President Donald Trump criticized NPR following its decision to publish the inquiry .
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" Wow. Foreign corruption from a major party is not considered news for taxpayer-funded #fakenews NPR, " wrote the America First PAC on Twitter in response.
It came as Twitter and Facebook also announced they would either block or limit the reach of the NY Post's reports. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany's account and a Trump campaign account were also blocked. The Senate Judiciary Committee, as a result, voted to issue subpoenas on Thursday to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to appear before the committee after raising concerns about censorship and election interference.
Biden's campaign has denied that he ever met with a Ukrainian gas company official, which was allegedly revealed in a trove of emails that purportedly were found on a laptop hard drive belonging to his son, Hunter, who sat on the company's board while his father was the vice president. The NY Post also obtained a hard drive containing the emails from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Other allegations have surfaced in recent reports over the days, including from a former Hunter Biden associate who confirmed the legitimacy of an email.
"The Attorney General of Delaware's office indicated that the FBI has 'ongoing investigations regarding the veracity of this entire story.' And it would be unsurprising for an investigation of a disinformation action involving Rudy Giuliani and those assisting him to involve questions about money laundering, especially since there are other documented inquiries into his dealings," the campaign said.
TheFederalistPapers , 22 minutes agoJeremy Roenick , 22 minutes agoI work way too hard to fund these ****ers. NPR is owned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and sneak a peek at their Board of Directors https://www.cpb.org/aboutcpb/leadership/board
NPR = Tax payer funded propaganda
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Oct 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 18:19 utc | 6
Putin's Valdai Club appearance video and beginnings of a transcript are now posted at the Kremlin's website. Here again is the paper Putin's responding to with his opening speech. What I'll call his introduction is as follows:
"From the onset of the pandemic in Russia, we have focused on preserving lives and ensuring safety of our people as our key values. This was an informed choice dictated by our culture and spiritual traditions, and our complex, sometimes dramatic, history. If we think back to the great demographic losses we suffered in the 20th century, we had no other choice but to fight for every person and the future of every Russian family.
"So, we did our best to preserve the health and the lives of our people, to help parents and children, as well as senior citizens and those who lost their jobs, to maintain employment as much as possible, to minimise damage to the economy, to support millions of entrepreneurs who run small or family businesses.
"Perhaps, like everyone else, you are closely following daily updates on the pandemic around the world. Unfortunately, the coronavirus has not retreated and still poses a major threat. Probably, this unsettling background intensifies the sense, like many people feel, that a whole new era is about to begin and that we are not just on the verge of dramatic changes, but an era of tectonic shifts in all areas of life.
"We see the rapidly, exponential development of the processes that we have repeatedly discussed at the Valdai Club before. Thus, six years ago, in 2014, we spoke about this issue when we discussed the theme The World Order: New Rules or a Game Without Rules. So, what is happening now? Regrettably, the game without rules is becoming increasingly horrifying and sometimes seems to be a fait accompli."
This is the 17th session of the Valdai Club, and I ask: Where is there an equivalent in the so-called democracies of the West which are allegedly the guardians of free speech and debate, where there supposedly exists a "marketplace of ideas"?
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Oct 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
karlof1 , Oct 23 2020 17:17 utc | 135
The Q & A portion of Putin's Valdai Club Speech transcript have been posted, and they run longer than his speech. In his first query, I completely agree with Putin that too many people have yet to learn the fundamental lesson the pandemic ought to have taught:
"However, the pandemic is playing into our hands when it comes to raising our awareness of the importance of joining forces against severe global crises. Unfortunately, it has not yet taught humanity to come together completely, as we must do in such situations."
But his answer wasn't directed at ignorant citizens. Putin's ire was directed at the Outlaw US Empire:
"I am not referring now to all these sanctions against Russia; forget about that, we will get over it. But many other countries that have suffered and are still suffering from the coronavirus do not even need any help that may come from outside, they just need the restrictions lifted, at least in the humanitarian sphere, I repeat, concerning the supply of medicines, equipment, credit resources, and the exchange of technologies. These are humanitarian things in their purest form. But no, they have not abolished any restrictions, citing some considerations that have nothing to do with the humanitarian component – but at the same time, everyone is talking about humanism .
"I would say we need to be more honest with each other and abandon double standards. I am sure that if people hear me now on the media, they are probably finding it difficult to disagree with what I have just said, difficult to deny it. Deep down in their hearts, in their minds, everyone is probably thinking, 'Yes, right, of course.' However, for political reasons, publicly, they will still say, 'No, we must keep restrictions on Iran, Venezuela, against Assad .' What does Assad even have to do with this when it is ordinary people who suffer? At least, give them medicines, give them technology, at least a small, targeted loan for medicine. No." [My Emphasis]
If I could speak to Putin, I'd tell him that they have no hearts, they are soulless, completely bereft of any sense of morality, and cannot be reasoned with whatsoever. They are ghouls, incapable of being shamed or made to feel guilt. You look at them and see a human, but they're not human at all; they are parasites cloaked in human form. They differ little from the Nazis of 75+ years ago and need to be eliminated once and for all. The pandemic has fully exposed them for what they are.
dh , Oct 23 2020 17:43 utc | 139
@134 Has anybody seen a comment yet from the Honorable Chrystia Freeland or the Lima Group regarding the election result in Bolivia? Maybe they are too busy strangling Venezuela.
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Oct 24, 2020 | themadtruther.com
There is considerable evidence that the American system of government may have been victimized by an illegal covert operation organized and executed by the U.S. intelligence and national security community. Former Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director Jim Comey appear to have played critical leadership roles in carrying out this conspiracy and they may not have operated on their own. Almost certainly what they may have done would have been explicitly authorized by the former President of the United States, Barack Obama, and his national security team.
It must have seemed a simple operation for the experienced CIA covert action operatives. To prevent the unreliable and unpredictable political upstart Donald Trump from being nominated as the GOP presidential candidate or even elected it would be necessary to create suspicion that he was the tool of a resurgent Russia, acting under direct orders from Vladimir Putin to empower Trump and damage the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Even though none of the alleged Kremlin plotters would have expected Trump to actually beat Hillary, it was plausible to maintain that they would have hoped that a weakened Clinton would be less able to implement the anti-Russian agenda that she had been promoting. Many observers in both Russia and the U.S. believed that if she had been elected armed conflict with Moscow would have been inevitable, particularly if she moved to follow her husband's example and push to have both Georgia and Ukraine join NATO, which Russia would have regarded as an existential threat.
Trump's surprising victory forced a pivot, with Clapper, Brennan and Comey adjusting the narrative to make it appear that Trump the traitor may have captured the White House due to help from the Kremlin, making him a latter-day Manchurian Candidate. The lesser allegations of Russian meddling were quickly elevated to devastating assertions that the Republican had only won with Putin's assistance.
No substantive evidence for the claim of serious Russian meddling has ever been produced in spite of years of investigation, but the real objective was to plant the story that would plausibly convince a majority of Americans that the election of Donald Trump was somehow illegitimate.
The national security team acted to protect their candidate Hillary Clinton, who represented America's Deep State. In spite of considerable naysaying, the Deep State is real, not just a wild conspiracy theory. Many Americans nevertheless do not believe that the Deep State exists, that it is a politically driven media creation much like Russiagate itself was, but if one changes the wording a bit and describes the Deep State as the Establishment, with its political power focused in Washington and its financial center in New York City, the argument that there exists a cohesive group of power brokers who really run the country becomes much more plausible.
The danger posed by the Deep State, or, if you choose, the Establishment, is that it wields immense power but is unelected and unaccountable. It also operates through relationships that are not transparent and as the media is part of it, there is little chance that its activity will be exposed.
Nevertheless, some might even argue that having a Deep State is a healthy part of American democracy, that it serves as a check or corrective element on a political system that has largely been corrupted and which no longer serves national interests. But that assessment surely might have been made before it became clear that many of the leaders of the nation's intelligence and security agencies are no longer the people's honorable servants they pretend to be. They have been heavily politicized since at least the time of Ronald Reagan and have frequently succumbed to the lure of wealth and power while identifying with and promoting the interests of the Deep State.
Indeed, a number of former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Directors have implicitly or even directly admitted to the existence of a Deep State that has as one of its roles keeping presidents like Donald Trump in check. Most recently, John McLaughlin, responding to a question about Donald Trump's concern over Deep State involvement in the ongoing impeachment process, said unambiguously "Well, you know, thank God for the 'deep state' With all of the people who knew what was going on here, it took an intelligence officer to step forward and say something about it, which was the trigger that then unleashed everything else. This is the institution within the U.S. government is institutionally committed to objectivity and telling the truth. It is one of the few institutions in Washington that is not in a chain of command that makes or implements policy. Its whole job is to speak the truth -- it's engraved in marble in the lobby."
Well, John's dedication to truth is exemplary but how does he explain his own role in support of the lies being promoted by his boss George "slam dunk" Tenet that led to the war against Iraq, the greatest foreign policy disaster ever experienced by the United States? Or Tenet's sitting in the U.N. directly behind Secretary of State Colin Powell in the debate over Iraq, providing cover and credibility for what everyone inside the system knew to be a bundle of lies? Or his close friend and colleague Michael Morell's description of Trump as a Russian agent , a claim that was supported by zero evidence and which was given credibility only by Morell's boast that "I ran the CIA."
Beyond that, more details have been revealed demonstrating exactly how Deep State associates have attempted, with considerable success, to subvert the actual functioning of American democracy. Words are one thing, but acting to interfere in an electoral process or to undermine a serving president is a rather more serious matter.
It is now known that President Barack Obama's CIA Director John Brennan created a Trump Task Force in early 2016. Rather than working against genuine foreign threats, this Task Force played a critical role in creating and feeding the meme that Donald Trump was a tool of the Russians and a puppet of President Vladimir Putin, a claim that still surfaces regularly to this day. Working with James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, Brennan fabricated the narrative that "Russia had interfered in the 2016 election." Brennan and Clapper promoted that tale even though they knew very well that Russia and the United States have carried out a broad array of covert actions against each other, including information operations, for the past seventy years, but they pretended that what happened in 2016 was qualitatively and substantively different even though the "evidence" produced to support that claim was and still is weak to nonexistent.
The Russian "election interference" narrative went on steroids on January 6, 2017, shortly before Trump was inaugurated, when an "Intelligence Community Assessment" (ICA) orchestrated by Clapper and Brennan was published. The banner headline atop The New York Times, itself an integral part of the Deep State, on the following day set the tone for what was to follow: "Putin Led Scheme to Aid Trump, Report Says."
With the help of the Establishment media, Clapper and Brennan were able to pretend that the ICA had been approved by "all 17 intelligence agencies" (as first claimed by Hillary Clinton). After several months, however Clapper revealed that the preparers of the ICA were "handpicked analysts" from only the FBI, CIA, and NSA. He explained rather unconvincingly during an interview on May 28, 2017, that "the historical practices of the Russians, who typically, are almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique," adding later that "It's in their DNA."
Task Force Trump was kept secret within the Agency itself because the CIA is not supposed to spy on Americans. Its staff was pulled together by invitation-only. Specific case officers (i.e., men and women who recruit and handle spies overseas), analysts and administrative personnel were recruited, presumably based on their political reliability. Not everyone invited accepted the offer. But many did because it came with promises of promotion and other rewards.
And this was not a CIA-only operation. Personnel from the FBI also were assigned to the Task Force with the approval of then Director James Comey. Former MI-6 agent Christopher Steele's FBI handler, Michael Gaeta, may have been one of those detailed to the Trump Task Force. Steele, of course, prepared the notorious dossier that was surfaced shortly before Donald Trump took office. It included considerable material intended to tie Trump to Russia, information that was in many cases fabricated or unsourced.
So, what kind of things would this Task Force do? The case officers would work with foreign intelligence services such as MI-6, the Italians, the Ukrainians and the Australians on identifying intelligence collection priorities that would implicate Trump and his associates in illegal activity. And there is evidence that John Brennan himself would contact his counterparts in allied intelligence services to obtain their discreet cooperation, something they would be inclined to do in collegial fashion, ignoring whatever reservations they might have about spying on a possible American presidential candidate.
Trump Task Force members could have also tasked the National Security Agency (NSA) to do targeted collection. They also would have the ability to engage in complicated covert actions that would further set up and entrap Trump and his staff in questionable activity, such as the targeting of associate George Papadopoulos. If he is ever properly interviewed, Maltese citizen Joseph Mifsud may be able to shed light on the CIA officers who met with him, briefed him on operational objectives regarding Papadopoulos and helped arrange monitored meetings. It is highly likely that Azra Turk, the woman who met with George Papadopoulos, was part of the CIA Trump Task Force.
The Task Force also could carry out other covert actions, sometimes using press or social media placements to disseminate fabrications about Trump and his associates. Information operations is a benign-sounding euphemism for propaganda fed through the Agency's friends in the media, and computer network operations can be used to create false linkages and misdirect inquiries. There has been some informed speculation that Guccifer 2.0 may have been a creation of this Task Force.
In light of what has been learned about the alleged CIA whistleblower there should be a serious investigation to determine if he was a part of this Task Force or, at minimum, reporting to them secretly after he was seconded to the National Security Council. All the CIA and FBI officers involved in the Task Force had sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, but nevertheless were involved in a conspiracy to first denigrate and then possibly bring down a legally elected president. That effort continues with repeated assertions regarding Moscow's malevolent intentions for the 2020 national elections. Some might reasonably regard the whole Brennan affair, to include its spear carriers among the current and retired national security state leadership, as a case of institutionalized treason, and it inevitably leads to the question "What did Obama know?"
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Oct 24, 2020 | www.ruptly.tv
October 13, 2020
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow might halt dialogue with the European Union, during the online presentation of the report of the international discussion club "Valdai" on Tuesday.
"Those people who are responsible for foreign policy in the West and do not understand the need for a mutually respectful conversation, perhaps we should just stop communicating with them for a while, especially since [President of the European Commission] Ursula von der Leyen says that with the current Russian authorities, the geopolitical partnership does not work.
So be it, if that's what they want," said the Russian Foreign Minister
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Oct 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
the pessimist , Oct 23 2020 7:32 utc | 90
m@84 the buzz about Navalny is that he and some partners were running an anti-corruption blackmail racket getting compromising information on various enterprises and individuals and Navalny decided to cash out without informing or consulting with his partners. Nothing to do with the Russian government.
the pessimist , Oct 23 2020 15:04 utc | 113
librul , Oct 23 2020 15:06 utc | 115m@89 I got a rather detailed explanation from a Russian friend who just spent several weeks there. Navalny started out as an anti corruption reformer but got involved with partners that figured out how to monetize the dirt he was digging up. This is over a period of years, not something recent. There is no conspiracy between the Russian government and the Germans. Navalny was not a threat to governmental power in Russia - this was strictly a business matter. See the RT article I linked to:
https://www.rt.com/russia/504238-berlin-dominates-europe-moscow/
and the Russian government is not happy about how the case was used by the Germans for their own ends.
Which are the dumbest false flags of recent memory?
My selections are:
#1) Journalist Arkady Babchenko - he gets every prize!
He faked his death, complete with blood soaked pictures,
and then showed up the next day alive at a news conference.
They should name a drink after him, "Noah's Ark Ark Ark"- glacier water mixed
with glacier water, stirred not shaken.#2) Saudi Intelligence Service - they air shipped printers
with incomplete bombs in them to the US and Britain from Yemen.
The Saudi agents revealed that they kept the tracking slips of the bombs!
I'll drink to that. And the Saudis played heroes by providing the tracking
numbers to the US and Britain in the nick of time. And I'll drink to that!#3) Just this week CrowdStrike (yes, they still enjoy "credibility" in some circles)
let us know that Iranian hackers included a video with their email threats.
And that clever video:
"The video showed the hackers' computer screen as they typed in commands to purportedly hack a voter registration system.
Investigators noticed snippets of revealing computer code, including file paths, file names and an internet protocol (IP) address."
How does the Saudi Intelligence service say, "Skol!"?
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Oct 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
gm , Oct 22 2020 19:00 utc | 9
@Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 22 2020 18:19 utc | 6
Re: "...Thus, six years ago, in 2014, we spoke about this issue when we discussed the theme The World Order: New Rules or a Game Without Rules. So, what is happening now? Regrettably, the game without rules is becoming increasingly horrifying and sometimes seems to be a fait accompli."
Putin said this virtually in the same breath directly after his previous paragraph you excerpted where he speaks of the serious ongoing challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.
What that says to me is that he is hinting with his trademark subtlety that he thinks the CV pandemic may not be a naturally arising event. In other words, a plandemic.
karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 19:12 utc | 12
gm @9--
Yes, that's the ongoing rhetorical battle between the Collectivist nations who uphold the sanctity of International Law and the Neoliberal Nations controlled by Financial Parasites that can't survive under a functional International Law System. That distinction is constantly becoming clearer particularly to those residing within the Neoliberal nations as they watch their lives being destroyed. IMO, we're on the cusp of entering the most critical decade of this century which will determine humanity's condition when 2101 is reached.
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Oct 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Silly Season
Washington Post , November 19, 2017
Justice Department pushing Iran-connected charges in HBO hack, other cases
Last month, national security prosecutors at the Justice Department were told to look at any ongoing investigations involving Iran or Iranian nationals with an eye toward making them public.The push to announce Iran-related cases has caused internal alarm, these people said, with some law enforcement officials fearing that senior Justice Department officials want to reveal the cases because the Trump administration would like Congress to impose new sanctions on Iran.
Washington Post , October 22, 2020
U.S. government concludes Iran was behind threatening emails sent to Democrats
U.S. officials on Wednesday night accused Iran of targeting American voters with faked but menacing emails and warned that both Iran and Russia had obtained voter data that could be used to endanger the upcoming election.The disclosure by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe at a hastily called news conference marked the first time this election cycle that a foreign adversary has been accused of targeting specific voters in a bid to undermine democratic confidence -- just four years after Russian online operations marred the 2016 presidential vote.
The claim that Iran was behind the email operation, which came into view on Tuesday as Democrats in several states reported receiving emails demanding they vote for President Trump, was leveled without specific evidence .
...
Metadata gathered from dozens of the emails pointed to the use of servers in Saudi Arabia, Estonia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, according to numerous analysts.Reuters , October 22, 2020
U.S. intelligence agencies say Iran, Russia have tried to interfere in 2020 election
The emails are under investigation, and one intelligence source said it was still unclear who was behind them.
...
... the evidence remains inconclusive.The claims that Iran is behind this are as stupid as the people who believe them.
I for one trust (not) those 50 former intelligence officials who say that all emails are Russian disinformation. They are intended to 'sow discord' which is something the U.S. has otherwise never ever had throughout its history.
Politico , October 19, 2020
Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say
More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails ... "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."
...
While the letter's signatories presented no new evidence, they said their national security experience had made them "deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case" and cited several elements of the story that suggested the Kremlin's hand at work."If we are right," they added, "this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this."
No, this doesn't make any sense. It is not supposed to do that.
Posted by b on October 22, 2020 at 7:21 UTC | Permalink
Debsisdead , Oct 22 2020 8:11 utc | 1
Tuyzentfloot , Oct 22 2020 8:14 utc | 3
The sustained tosh from the good old boys at state, cia, fbi & nsa isn't worthy of comment, given that it is 100% evidence-free accusations which surprise surprise 'just happens' to align with these provenly corrupt organisations' most prioritsed foreign policy goals.We know that these yarns align in syncopation with what the amerikan empire most wants to promulgate, yet bereft of even a a cunt hair's worth of evidence, the only truth which can be inferred from this foggy bottom tosh is the obvious one - that is that the empire is becoming so desperate they will happily toss their credibility with the many to the winds if they can, please sir, just convince a few of the few.
Stuff like this is a suitable test of how the media are supposed to represent our interests and help us in not getting fooled. You report, and afterwards you test what your readers believe.Antonym , Oct 22 2020 8:42 utc | 4Independently of questionable bias issues serious newspapers will defend news like this with formal justifications of journalistic code
- neutrality and objectivity: we just report but don't judge.
- null hypothesis of trustworthiness: official sources are to be trusted unless proven otherwise. At least, proven otherwise by someone we consider trustworthy.
The propaganda is already embedded in the lofty ethics codes journalists will proudly adhere to."Other documents that have emerged include FBI paper work that reveals the bureau's interactions with the shop's owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, who reported the laptop's contents to authorities. The document shows that Isaac received a subpoena to testify before the U.S. District Court in Delaware on Dec. 9, 2019 . One page appears to show the serial number for a MacBook Pro laptop and a hard drive that were seized by the agency." https://www.ibtimes.sg/signed-receipt-hunter-bidens-name-delaware-laptop-repair-store-surfaces-52672Down South , Oct 22 2020 8:46 utc | 5So the FBI kept Hunter Biden's bomb shell HDDs under wraps for almost a year. Enough time to figure out they where not filled with Russian kompromat.
hunter-biden-story-russian-disinfoRutherford82 , Oct 22 2020 8:46 utc | 6Hunter's attorneys emailed the repair shop owner asking for the hard drives back.
Giuliani has handed over pictures of underage girls found in the laptop to Delaware police so we will know soon enough if they are fake.
If you needed a leaked email to understand why it was corrupt for Hunter Biden to be getting 50k a month to be on the board of a Ukranian energy company, then you are likely already so propagandized that you will vote for Joe Biden no matter what gets printed.kiwiklown , Oct 22 2020 9:05 utc | 7Really this propaganda is a brilliant move for those who control what is in print. They have a clear circle of blame in Russia, Iran, or China, who are to blame for everything, and this allows the media to limit the scope of discussion greatly by suppressing real criticisms towards actual problems (the Bidens being corrupt across multiple generations) and deflecting that energy into hating Russia, China, and Iran, which are the main targets for imperialism. It is also a crude and vague lie to use anonymous sources to blame foreign entities for these types of things, which actually makes it an elegant argument for a simpleton as it is difficult if not impossible to disprove.
Because the media is really owned and operated by so few people who all have a hive-mind about money and power, the messages are consistent, even though ridiculous, and they resonate with many of the readers who really ought to know better, but have become inured to the damaging effects of the lies they have consumed for decades. Stories like these will keep working for a long time. If one of the sources in the article reported 'Up is Down, Left is Right!', there would be a wave of car accidents until they issued a retraction.
The Russians ( Putin / Lavrov) say ever so politely that the US is not agreement-capable.Et Tu , Oct 22 2020 9:35 utc | 10I add that the US ( politicians, Wall Streeters, MSM, think tanks ) are:
-- not truth-capable;
-- not ethics-capable;
-- not shame-capable;
-- not honour-capable.What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?
He turns into a ghoul without a soul, says I, a devil without human-ness!
How dare they call us deplorables when they are the despicables?In America, Truth is a Foreign Agent and World Peace is a threat to National Security.Miranda , Oct 22 2020 10:21 utc | 12S.O. , Oct 22 2020 10:32 utc | 13More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails ... "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."Do American journalists actually believe it's still in Russia interest to re-elect Trump? Washington-Kremlin relations have deteriorated rapidly under Trump.
@11 Mirandakiwiklown , Oct 22 2020 10:49 utc | 14It's quite doubtful many of them ever did. It's simply a useful control function.
Posted by: Et Tu | Oct 22 2020 9:35 utc | 9 -- "In America, Truth is a Foreign Agent and World Peace is a threat to National Security."Circe , Oct 22 2020 10:50 utc | 15Nice one... Meet Mr Truth, un-registered foreign agent !!! and Mr World Peace, national security threat !!!
American leadership would not be so despicable IF they do not pretend to be "spreading freedom / democracy" when they wreak their global malice.
They do not even care for their own people (covid19 fiasco, anyone?), but pretend to care for the Chinese people so much they would regime-change the CCP; they pretend to care for the Russian people so much they would sooner shoot Putin's plane from the sky; they pretend to care for the Iranian people so much they block their access to covid19 medicines.
To address the 2nd part of your post:Jen , Oct 22 2020 10:56 utc | 16Here's a part of a comment I posted back in February 2020 that none of you took seriously.
Posted by: Circe | Feb 28 2020 20:29 utc | 124:
The planet of extremely bad karma SATURN is moving into Bloomberg's sign, Aquarius, right after mid-March and forming a square to Biden's sign, Scorpio. This is a very malefic aspect.People under these two signs, Aquarius and Scorpio ie Bloomberg and Biden will experience obstacles, setbacks and challenges, create hidden enemies , and aging will be accelerated and serious health issues could emerge.
So I was criticized for injecting astrology into that election thread, mostly by AntiSpin.
Turns out as usual I hit the mark.
Bloomberg lost close to a BILLION dollars and failed badly in the primaries. That's what I call a major setback. However, as of December after a 6-month retrograde into Capricorn, Saturn is returning to Aquarius, so it ain't over for Bloomberg and things will get complicated for Biden , for the U.S. and the rest of the world.
I also stated back then that nominating Joe Biden would be a greater risk for Dems than nominating Bernie Sanders because Joe Biden was heading for serious astrological head winds relating to something unseen at the time involving a serious family issue.
While I was certain that whatever the issue was would come to light and could affect him in the Presidential campaign, I couldn't figure out the family aspect at the time, since he appears to have a solid marriage and tragedy is in the rear view now.
Last night however it all suddenly became clear and I've come to the realization that I was 100% right when I wrote that comment back in February 2020. Tonight I realized that the family issue...is Hunter Biden!
I was sounding the alarm that something bad would come to light because Saturn was headed into Aquarius, Biden's Home and Family sector squaring Biden's sign.
However, to make matters worse, it turns out that Hunter Biden is an Aquarian and Saturn the karmic taskmaster is headed on a collision course to upend his life.
At the time I wrote the comment I obviously couldn't predict exactly what would unfold, how or the precise timing, only that it would be bad and that's why I warned back then that Democrats should have chosen Bernie. I believed Bernie could beat Trump and I was right, because Trump is in total mental meltdown and self-destructing with his handling of the pandemic.
Now even if Saturn will square Biden's Scorpio that's not to say that Biden won't still win, but we are approaching a very bad full moon on October 31st. There is massive tension building, subterfuge lurking and the situation is going to get ugly. A battle royal is brewing. This is a powder keg moment.
Trump will not behave at the debate today. Must see t.v. With Obama's scorching speech yesterday seething in Trump's brain, and his Iran stunt unravelling and ineffective at distracting from the spotlight from Obama and the laptop bone clenched between his teeth; he's a rabid dog fit to be tied. Give him a padded cell, already.
As for the U.S. and the world: The pandemic started with Saturn crossing Pluto's path in Capricorn and entering full force into Aquarius in March when the world shut down.
So what will happen when karmic Saturn crosses Pluto again on it's way out of Capricorn and enters Aquarius for the next 3 years?
Fasten your seat belts everyone...we're heading into major turbulence. There's so much karmic tension gathering steam; it's very scary.
How much does it cost to get a trip to the moon?
I'll get back to sleazy Giuliani and his Pandora's box. There's too much to unpack there than meets the eye. Just know that when circumstances appear too convenient-it's because they are.
Trump's dirty play is a day late and a dollar short plus he's not playing with a full deck. Must be one of those Covid long-term effects.
It's time...to get these scum-sucking, misery mongers out of the damn White House already!
You know the US government is suffering from severe Alzheimer's disease when it claims that Iran (of all nations) sent threatening emails to Democrat voters demanding that they vote for a President who authorised the murder of a popular Iranian military general back in early January this year.Christian J. Chuba , Oct 22 2020 11:11 utc | 17Kabuki theater on FOXAbe , Oct 22 2020 11:14 utc | 18Brian Kilmeade and morning crew run the fake Iranian emails story by former CIA station Chief Daniel Hoffman.
Kabuki Actor Hoffman:
'[Uses opportunity to say Iranian Mantra] Iran has been attacking us for years, they have attacked our shipping in the Gulf (???, that's a new one) blah-blah-blah.
'Iran and Russia are attacking our democracy because that is what they fear most about America. Democracy would be the end of both regimes (Iran has no other motive to dislike the U.S. such as us killing their top General, the Stuxnet virus, murderous sanctions, ...)'
So they hate us because of our freedoms, a classic.Kabuki Actor Kilmeade:
'Can't we do something about this?' [note, the U.S. is the perpetual victim, never the bully]
'Can't we pushback?' [The aggrieved victim, the U.S. is defending itself]
'Iran is doing this, Russia is sending bombers, can't we blow up an oil well?'Kabuki Actor Kilmeade represents the entire degenerate U.S. public, unable to process information that views another country as having rational motives or our Intel agencies of being deceptive.
God, if you exist, You must hate this more than I do. How long?
Guys.Debsisdead , Oct 22 2020 11:21 utc | 19All that rubbish is distraction. Discussing it is just playing to Borg's music.
They come up with so outlandish and jaw dropping crap that half he people thinks "it is so outlandish it gotta be true, who would lie so much?" and other half that knows better is in such a shock and disbelief that it needs some time to come to its senses and start tearing apart the lie piece by piece BUT.... Time is lost, distraction worked and MSM/Borg come up with next outrageous lie for next round. Russia, China, Navalny etc. etc.
And while marry go round Borg is doing it's deeds in dark while people is obsessing with Trump's knickers.
Barack oblamblam held off until as long as he possibly could, a move most likely connected to two realities, (1) not wanting to contradict what he, oblamblam said back in march "do not underestimate Joe's ability to screw anything up" and (2) Oblamblam's desire not to be found to be associated with sleepy joe's blatant corruption. Mud sticks n all that. Oblamblam was much more subtle in lining up wedges to be trousered. eg. Try as people might they have yet to uncover how a community worker turned prez found the dough to purchase a 45 acre Martha's vineyard estate off a notorious billionaire and Oblambam is reluctant to do anything which could prompt those questions,Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 12:28 utc | 20Hence it wasn't until the 2020 election was mostly over that some DNC extortionists managed to convince oblam to say a few words, or else, to the Philadelphia african american males who chose to stay home on election day 2016.
Barack can claim 'he paid his dues' whilst keeping as much space as he can organise between himself and crooked joe, who has already brought oblamblam's prezdency into disrepute with the shameless & ugly ukraine rort that he and his bagman hunter had concocted.
There we mentioned the philly speech oh rabid, irrationally superstitious dembot.
Here's my predictionMark2 , Oct 22 2020 12:37 utc | 21
Trump re-elected I fortell will mean more racist murdering thugs on the street. an guess what they'l be In uniform and directly or indirectly trained by Israel.
And then there's the military presence on your streets -- you ain't seen nothing yet.
Wake the f up your gunna be massively oppressed by a fascist govenment ya skin couloir won't matter, nore who you voted for. You already live in a one party dictatorship.
ie the elite. Face it your redundant as a human being replaced by a micro-chip.
Revolt I tell you revolt !!The greater American public are about to become the next oppressed Palistinians ! oppressed devalued and slowly distroyed. Like a frog in a heated pan.librul , Oct 22 2020 12:52 utc | 22
You won't notice till it's to late will you ?
No really, will you ?Everything use to be blamed on witches. If your cow died - witches! If a tree fell on your fence - witches! If the reverend's wife died - witches!oldhippie , Oct 22 2020 13:14 utc | 23Now it is, I lost the election - Russians, some ducks died in a park in Salisbury - Russians, someone fell sick - Russians.
When you hear, "Russians", just substitute in your mind "witches", the weight of evidence is the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rMsgmaBV8g
Witches must feel left out these days.
So far Circe has Obama's speech described as fiery, blistering, and scorching.Jpc , Oct 22 2020 13:25 utc | 24Everyone else on this planet listens to Obama and falls asleep.
@ Tuyzentfloot 3pretzelattack , Oct 22 2020 13:29 utc | 25Journalism love's that high minded nonsense.
They write what they are paid to write.
Looking at the guardian wrt Assange
these clowns are beneath contempt.
Don't know if you are familiar with the box populi blog.
There a very good set of chapters from a book about journalist ethics.i'm just surprised they haven't brought in venezuela and bolivia yet. that's supposed to be sarcasm, but reality keeps outstripping sarcasm. i am actually worried they are ramping up for a war in biden's first 100 days, either against iran or some serious provocation of russia like provoking some incident in azerbaijan and blaming armenia. they're f/n batshit.pretzelattack , Oct 22 2020 13:32 utc | 26mark2 i think you're correct about more jackbooted government thugs on the street, but that's gonna happen under either trump or crime bill joe/copmala. you're right about the israeli training too, they trained cops in that kneeling on the throat technique. field tested on palestinians.pretzelattack , Oct 22 2020 13:42 utc | 27iirc no ducks died, it's a miracle, the deadliest nerve poison ever invented is helpless against ducks. and house pets.augusto , Oct 22 2020 13:45 utc | 28Idiotic.Josh , Oct 22 2020 13:46 utc | 29
The united States was once a nest of excellence in nearly everything. Now it s a hub of naked idiocy.
The Russians have nothing to fear from the US or Nato, except in the economy but they can fix it. The Iranians have enough of what it takes to keep the Zio anglos away and at bay: thousands of missiles to target Israel, Saudiland, a 25 year economic alliance program with Beijing.
And clearly the time and opportunity where it was possible to still erase in a single coup the Iranian military might is over.Looks like they are imagineering again...arby , Oct 22 2020 14:01 utc | 30
"Breaking WaPo: The U.S. government has concluded that Iran is behind a series of threatening emails arriving this week in the inboxes of Democratic voters, according to two U.S. officials. https://washingtonpost.com/technology/202"Richard Steven Hack , Oct 22 2020 14:08 utc | 31Posted by: librul | Oct 22 2020 12:52 utc | 22 When you hear, "Russians", just substitute in your mind "witches", the weight of evidence is the same.Christian J. Chuba , Oct 22 2020 14:21 utc | 32Absolutely correct. You win the thread.
Neither Iran nor Russia nor China give a rat's ass about the US election. There may be literally thousands of private enterprise hackers who want to breach US election servers precisely to get the Personal Identifying Information which is coin of the realm on the Dark Web, but they couldn't care less about the election itself. It's physically impossible for any country outside of the US to significantly influence the election in a country of 300 million people - and every country knows that. The only country that *doesn't* know that is the US, which is why it spends scores and hundreds of millions of dollars - up to five billion in Ukraine, allegedly - to influence foreign elections. That's the level of effort needed to influence a foreign election more than the influence of the actual inhabitants of that nation. But every time some private group in Russia launches an ad campaign for a couple hundred thousand bucks tops, with zero effect on the US election, Putin gets blamed for some plan to mastermind the overthrow of "democracy."
It's a crock.
I rather liked Obama's speech If for no other reason than the tone was completely different from the two candidates.Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 14:45 utc | 331. I'm tired of Trump's narcissism .
2. Can't stand Biden's fake 'I'm one of you'. He is corrupt, feels guilty about it, and has to reassure us that he's Lunch Box Joe .
I've noticed this about Biden for a while, he conjures up these fake memories ...
'You know what I'm talking about because I've been on that park bench at noon when you only have 20 minutes to eat your lunch because that whistle going to blow and you have to run back to your Tuna canning station or lose your job and with that your health insurance, car, and home.'Okay this is not a literal quotation but it is a pattern and you know what I'm talking about :-)
Pretzelatack @ 26Circe , Oct 22 2020 15:01 utc | 34
Yes to all you say their.
Re-reading my above comments they sound pretty harsh !
I am sorry, and do apologise !
It was part desperation and part morbid humour in the spirit of b's post.
Comparing Americans to a frog in pan may be a bit much !
I am in the U.K. we had a gen election one year ago !
I WAS THAT FROG IN A PAN.
Now I live in a pox ridden bankrupt banana republic run by a bunch of Israel bootlickers.
I don't go down well at party's.@19 DebsisdeadPaco , Oct 22 2020 15:05 utc | 35Barack can claim 'he paid his dues'
Hate to break it to ya all-knowing one...
obama-to-visit-miami-on-saturday-to-campaign-for-biden
And it's not superstition when the facts start to align with planetary motion.
How do you explain the Moon's effect on nature?
You think it's the only celestial body in the Solar System that influences life on Earth? That cosmic order is inescapable. Astrology is thousands of years old dating back to the Babylonians and has evolved through centuries of study and cannot, should not be dismissed as mere superstition.
I'm not an expert at all, but I recognize order and higher authority when I see it and believe me those planets are there for a reason and they rule everything. They're like carrots and sticks (IMHO mostly sticks). Now who put them there and to what ultimate purpose besides order and evolution is another matter.
I don't often bring it into a discussion, especially not to throw a discussion off topic, except when I intuitively feel fate present in important events both personally and on a universal scale.
This is a time of fated/karmic events, the pandemic being the most important (lesson) of these.
Two hours delay and counting, Valday Club waiting for Vlad, something hearty must be getting cooked back stage...Paul , Oct 22 2020 15:09 utc | 36It's time for Grunter Biden to discover his inner Khazar and convert to judaism, why not it worked for both the Clintons and the Trumps.Perimetr , Oct 22 2020 15:14 utc | 37I think a more appropriate title would be "Fascist Season" . . . Fascism has come of age here in the land of the fee. The "intelligence agencies" create disinformation campaigns to overthrow the elected President while the "justice department" et al withhold evidence and fail to prosecute all the oligarchs and crooks who are busy censoring information and preparing to rig and disrupt the impending presidential election.Virgile , Oct 22 2020 15:27 utc | 38There are No Consequences for Anything when the Deep State and Central Banks run the show.
Of course, US corporate fascism has been developing for a very long time (see The U.S. Did Not Defeat Fascism in WWII, It Discretely Internationalized It ) . . . maybe more accurate to go back to the takeover of the US currency by the Federal Reserve in 1913 and the first Banker World War (see All Wars are Bankers' Wars! )
But technology and the "progressive" (pun intended) destruction of the US Constitution has led the dumbed-down US masses (don't forget Canada and Australia lol) into a whole new world of Orwellian lock-downs and wholesale economic destruction aimed at finishing off what was left of the US middle class. Soon we will have our cash taken away and replaced with a digital currency that can always be taken away or tailored for limited use, subject to negative interest rates that it cannot escape, etc. And all this is ushered in via hyperinflation leading to a collapse of the bond and equities markets, and finally the collapse of the US dollar (and all other Western fiat currencies).
The USA is so naive. They have been interfering in so many elections using money, blackmail,CIA operations. There was no way for other countries with less means to do the same to the USA. Now with social media they can, and they are absolutely right to take their revenge for all the troubles they got into with the USA plotting to promote a pro-US leader.Noirette , Oct 22 2020 15:32 utc | 39
Now the battle is equal and the USA does not have the monopoly of interfering in other countries election!
Tit for tat...All these stories are risible. Note the struggle to clarify who these 'malign' Régimes are attacking the US, and why.observer today , Oct 22 2020 15:39 utc | 40Russia-R-R for Trump, but Iran-Ir-Ir for Trump doesn't quite hit the spot so now Iran is trying to damage Pres. Trump (from one of the articles..) .. is Iran trying to promote the election of Kamala Harris? What? Russia is for Trump and Iran against ?
The fall-back is a blanket, these evil leaders are trying to 'undermine democracy', influence 'US voters', meddle in 'our freedom-loving' politics, etc.
The attempt to stir up the spectre of threatening enemies far off is a hackneyed ploy. In the case of the USA, it is now melded with the promotion and control of planned internal strife, with internal enemies being natives (not islamist terrorists who sneak in and are under cover before erupting in murderous madness..) - Color Revolution Style.
-- BLM + Antifa haven't been active recently (or not in MSM top stories) as the election is approaching. Such would be upping the Trump vote for "law-and-order."
(imho from far off..) Many in the US don't take any of this seriously, it is just game-playing, false alarm, pretend concern.
"Oh wow, Iran is targetting Trump, did you know, real serious, did you hear, tell me is Zoe-chick divorcing that creep Edmond, I want to know, did you have that interview with Gov. X for the job? Is she hot? How much "
The credentialised class and the movers and shakers just roll their eyeballs, and the poor are in any case stuck in a desperado cycle of struggle against misery, what is going on with Putin / Iran / Xi is off the radar.
Look! Look! A Squirrel!gottlieb , Oct 22 2020 15:43 utc | 41Vilification of China (hate hate hate); claimed by the media and the pundits and our "Fearless Covid Conquering Leader" and all the good little parrots, to be the source of evil itself... Scapegoat extraordinaire... Hacking and Cheating and Aggressing and exercising Brutality towards its own citizens... The worst of the worst per our "intelligence" apparatus (and blind ideologues). Existential threat numero uno.
But wait!
The US is being attacked! Attacked they say; by all of the "bad" guys simultaneously.
The forces of evil out there are broad and out to get us. They hate our (imagined) freedoms.
Evidence (not):
Justice Department pushing Iran-connected charges in HBO hack, other casesU.S. government concludes Iran was behind threatening emails sent to Democrats
U.S. intelligence agencies say Iran, Russia have tried to interfere in 2020 election
Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say
Invariably in all cases, The Voice of "Intelligence" (not bloody likely from ANY of this crew) deeply intoned to impart the "certainty", neatly encapsulated in the words "highly likely", delivered without a scrap of proof but loud, prominent, regular, mind numbing pontification.Trust me! We lie, We cheat, We steal; and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
The US, all on its own, engenders distrust within the population because the US and all its political and Executive, and Legislative and Judicial and "intelligence" bureaucracies are corrupt to the core... Worse, they make no bones about it if you pay attention. And Partisanship is nothing but distraction because they are ALL corrupt and morally bankrupt; without empathy, remorse, sense of guilt or shame.
It was the US itself that thought it could subjugate the world through its faux "democratic" business practices and its claim of natural superiority... Its self declared Rules of Order instead of adhering to and supporting consensus established International LAW... Hegemon pompously declaring it has a RIGHT to Full Spectrum Dominance and slavish obedience.
Not the Iranians, not the Russians, not the Chinese, not the CCP, not the North Koreans, not the Venezuelans; none of them are disrupting, threatening or meddling in the US elections.
If you believe what the morons are smearing across the public consciousness through every communication medium possible you are a sucker... Totally disconnected any critical thinking faculties that may have been present. The very definition of sheeple... baaaa! (the sound drowns out reason and thought).
The rest of the World beyond NATO and Five Eyes isn't attacking the US or its institutions. They have all been attacked every which way from Sunday BY the US and its Satraps (targets of, victims of, and willing accomplices to our sophisticated excessively funded and supported global protection racquet).
The US, our Government, always blames our designated and non-compliant, non-obeisant existential threats for all the things we do to them.
And all this cacophony of alleged evil "attacks" from outside right now?Look!!! Look!!! Over here!
Don't pay any attention to who and what decided to put us in the position we find ourselves in and what we have done to vast swaths of the world's populations "over there".
Now go vote for one of two degenerate teams, both of which are headed by supremely unqualified psychopaths.
Dissonance of cognition anyone? Orwell???
Lawrence Miller , Oct 22 2020 15:44 utc | 42
The CIA really needs a new playbook. The Russia/Iran thing is laughable to the rest of the world, and to many 'Americans' as well. Unfortunately Partisans run the country, and those folks are addicted to the Kool Aid of MAGA – just different versions.This October is like an Advent Calendar of October Surprises with plenty of time still on the clock for some great Golden Shower or Democratic child orgy deep fakes. Who the hell knows at this point – the acceleration of events this year makes Future Shock look like an Ambien commercial.
Trump is toast and good riddance. And sure Biden et al are war criminals and corrupt creatures of the Swamp. The Establishment is a much easier target to resist vis a vis policy than a crazy cretin without any policy but his own self-aggrandizement.
@15Erelis , Oct 22 2020 15:50 utc | 43[***]
"Astrology believers tend to selectively remember predictions that turn out to be true, and do not remember those that turn out false. Astrology has not demonstrated its effectiveness in controlled studies and has no scientific validity.[6]:85;[11] The study, published in Nature in 1985, found that predictions based on natal astrology were no better than chance, and that the testing "...clearly refutes the astrological hypothesis."[10] " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology
As for getting voter US state voter databases, most states allow people to purchase part of a voter's information. Other parts like birth dates remain private. But the publicly available list is probably enough as it identifies party affiliation, voting history as when dates they voted (not how they voted). All the other private information is more useful to identity thieves and Indian scam centers. And as one poster noted, those databases like gold on dark web.james , Oct 22 2020 15:54 utc | 44As for email addresses that implies those must be acquired through party officials and candidates off donor lists. Off hand I do not know that an email address is required to register to vote--I seriously doubt it. I know that Bernie famously refused to give his donor database to Hillary. The emails imply some sort of inside job or some false flag.
@ librul | Oct 22 2020 12:52 utc | 22 When you hear, "Russians", just substitute in your mind "witches", the weight of evidence is the same.vinnieoh , Oct 22 2020 16:04 utc | 45ditto that...
Just read the story on Truthout of voters in Alaska & Florida, and possibly Pennsylvania and Arizona receiving threatening messages if they should vote against Trump. "We know you're a Democrat and we have access to your voting records..." Metadata indicates servers located in the kingdoms of Israel's new friends...Circe , Oct 22 2020 16:05 utc | 46Well, I just went to the Board of Elections website for my county here in Ohio and I can, with a few clicks, generate a report from their site of a county listing of voters filtered in over a half-dozen ways - i.e. by Party affiliation and including addresses. Comes under the heading of "Voter and Candidate Tools."
So some concoct a tale which blames Iran, Russia, etc. for information freely available from your State's BOE? This information has always been available, but not exploited before in this way by US neo Nazis.
So, even though your ballot is secret, intimidation is easy to engage in based solely on Party affiliation of record. If Trump loses, should some people expect bricks through their windows, or perhaps fire-bombings? Trump and his supporters are certainly ratcheting up the apocalyptic messaging, working themselves into a frenzy - that is obvious and not even debatable.
I never read Dante; which circle of hell are we entering now?
Everyone here knows I was 100% behind Bernie Sanders for the Presidency because I felt he was the right person for these times, but the mass is dumb and blind. I agree with the comment I read on the previous thread I think by someone called Horseman that portrays Bernie's goal as moving the Dem Party to the Left and not sheepdogging, but recognizing the stakes involved superceded Left purity.William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 16:08 utc | 47At the same time I was totally against Biden because he is much more Zionist than Bernie, therefore more corrupt, as Zionism is counter-evolutionary being inherently supremacist, entitled, and undemocratic.
However, Trump is exponentially worse! He is a fascist Zionist and totally depraved. There is a choice here of monumental significance. Short term loss for greater future gain.
Biden is very flawed, but I'm inclined to view a man who suffered multiple life-altering tragedies to reach this point and who is grappling with embracing a son, Hunter, who probably was destroying his life, than a narcissistic less than evolved baby-man pig with a god complex who squandered life and daddy's money on material and artificial pursuit and has no notion of humanity, as the only sane choice.
Yes, Joe Biden should face his flaws and answer for whatever corruption exists in him, but that laptop issue should not be a reason to stop people from getting Trump, the most corrupt President in my lifetime next to Bush OUT. That goal is paramount. This is 2nd to the pandemic in fated events. If people do not make the right choices and learn something from these events then let this planet devolve into hell because that will be what is deserved! The stakes right now are astronomical and super-fated!
Don't blow a singular opportunity to get rid of that Fascist pig Trump over a laptop that's really a Pandora's box being used by Shmeagol Gollum Giuliani as a trap to unleash misery for years to come.
This is clearly the Deep State and imperial establishment spouting obvious nonsense in order to discredit themselves and therefore to help in Trump's reelection bid! Henry Kissinger told me so! What incredibly subtle and intricate plans they have!NemesisCalling , Oct 22 2020 16:20 utc | 48Or... maybe it is just a bunch of incompetent baboons in the Deep State control room randomly flipping switches and pulling levers in the desperate hopes that something, anything, works.
Nah! This is all part of the Great Plan! It just seems like abject stupidity because we cannot grasp its intricate complexities.
All these new threads are defaulting to election threads. Sorry, b.karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 16:30 utc | 49But I'll bite.
In the case of a Biden victory, which do you think will happen first?:
1) Renewed hostilities w/ Assad in Syria leading to his violent ousting and thrusting the west into violent confrontation w/ Russia...
Or...
2) Forcible entry into the Armenian/Azerbaijan conflict and establishing a no-fly zone...
Or...
3) a combination of both and would throw us into a direct confrontation with either Russia or Iran or both?
It looks like the demonizing of Iran is ramping up with the mail-threats telling dims to vote Trump or else. Dims don't like hostile, foreign powers helping the Don and swaying elections. It's a nice tip-off as to what Biden and the dim establishment might consent to once Obama-era sycophants and technocrats move back in to the White House.
Seems to be the year of anniversaries; another's being celebrated today but not by the Outlaw US Empire. China & North Korea Celebrate 70th Anniversary of China's intervention in Outlaw US Empire's invasion of Korea , which is how it's being portrayed, "China, N. Korea stand together 'for self-protection against US hegemony' like 70 years ago" reads the headline at the link. To mark the anniversary, China has published an official history , explaining its decision "To resist US aggression and aid Korea, China had no choice but to fight a war;" the 3-volume work is The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea . From China's perspective, it defeated Outlaw US Empire forces; so, it's not "forgotten" at all. Xi's using the occasion to give a major speech, the subject of which hasn't been disclosed.arby , Oct 22 2020 16:31 utc | 50Just 12 days to go until the refusals to abide by the outcome day arrives. If one wants to look, there's lots of illegal foreign influence happening but from sources that go unmentioned: Corporations that have foreign owners, which most do, who provided campaign contributions in any form to any entity associated with the election.
Gruffy saidkarlof1 , Oct 22 2020 16:38 utc | 51"Nah! This is all part of the Great Plan! It just seems like abject stupidity because we cannot grasp its intricate complexities."
Perfect,))
HeHeHe!!! The first bits of Putin's appearance at the Valdai Club today are being published . In a jab back at those accusing Russia of interfering in elections and such Putin said:Circe , Oct 22 2020 16:47 utc | 52"Strengthening our country and looking at what is happening in the world, in other countries, I want to say to those who are still waiting for the gradual demise of Russia: in this case, we are only worried about one thing -- how not to catch a cold at your funeral."
There's more, although a transcript has yet to be published.
@48NemesisCallingvk , Oct 22 2020 16:53 utc | 53There's a thread right before this one on International Events. Why don't you go spew your poisonous Trump Kool-Aid there instead of polluting with Trumpian-laced propaganda here?
I know-I know, Election threads raise the common sense factor further and that leads to Trump's demise, so you can't help but rush in to correct that dangerous shift. Why don't you do something equally meaningless like pounding sand down a rat hole?
After the Russiagate fiasco I thought the Americans had learned their lesson, but it seems I was wrong.mk , Oct 22 2020 17:16 utc | 54Honestly, this may be the beginning of an irreversible process of ideological polarization of the American Empire.
The thing is it's one thing to wage propaganda warfare against a foreign enemy to your domestic audience: the foreign enemy will be destroyed either way, so they will never be able to tell their version of the story, plus the domestic audience can give itself the luxury of living the lie indefinitely as it doesn't affect their daily lives. Plus they'll directly benefit from the conquest of a foreign enemy, e.g. cheaper gas to your car after the destruction and conquest of Iraq; the abundance in the shelves of Walmarts after the subjugation of China, and so on.
It's a completely different story when you wage propaganda warfare against yourself: the Trump voter knows he/she didn't vote for Trump because of Russian influence, while the Hilary Clinton/Joe Biden voter knows he/she didn't vote in either of them because of Chinese influence. But each part will believe the half of the lie that benefits them against the other, creating a vicious cycle of mistrust between the two halves.
Meanwhile, the American economy (capitalism) continues to decline. Time is running up:
US economy looks to be on indefinite life support from government, Professor Wolff tells Boom Bust
At the same time, there's excess money in the USA:
It was a shock-and-awe moment when lawmakers gave the package a thumbs up. Yet in the months since, the planned punch has not materialized.The Treasury has allocated $195 billion to back Fed lending programs, less than half of the allotted sum. The programs supported by that insurance have made just $20 billion in loans, far less than the suggested trillions.
The programs have partly fallen victim to their own success: Markets calmed as the Fed vowed to intervene, making the facilities less necessary as credit began to flow again.
So, the very announcement of the Fed it would lend indefinitely and unconditionally made such loans unnecessary!
I didn't like it at the beginning, but the term "Late Capitalism" is growing on me.
This "Circe" chick is mentally retarded and should not be allowed to roam free outside a looney bin.elkern , Oct 22 2020 17:16 utc | 55Oh boy is she not deranged.
MSM pushing the the Iran angle shows that they are more anti-Iran than anti-Trump.Paco , Oct 22 2020 17:17 utc | 56What effect would Iran intend by sending fake threatening emails from right-wing guns nuts to Democrats? I doubt it would discourage those Democrats from voting (for Biden), and I doubt Iran would think it would. The only effect it would have is to increase the fear, distrust, and disgust Democrats already have for those groups - which is "sowing discord", not "meddling with elections".
The Trump regime pushes this because it makes Trump look good & makes Iran look bad (at least the way it's been framed). MSM generally doesn't like Trump, but prints this because hyping fear & loathing toward Iran matters more to them than dumping Trump.
Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 22 2020 16:38 utc | 51Paco , Oct 22 2020 17:22 utc | 57Great that they are working on it, I was taking notes but kind of lousy its not easy to listen and write at the same time. Started kind of nervous, but right now it is Putin at his most relaxed and eloquent.
Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 22 2020 16:38 utc | 51Circe , Oct 22 2020 17:36 utc | 58It is interesting to see how Putin is way more at ease when answering journalist's questions than when exposing his part of the event. Right now they asked him about his image, punk, criminal etc etc. Answer: my function is the main thing, and I do not take it personally, now the chinese will ask.
@47 William GruffTuyzentfloot , Oct 22 2020 17:45 utc | 59In case the truth gets lost in your purposely misleading translation. This hare-brained scheme was cooked up by Trump and his newly-appointed right-hand bootlicker RATcliffe, at DNI and delivered to the American people by the latter as a desperate distraction minutes after Obama smacked down Trump on every air wave.
It immediately gave off an offensive odor, as I stated previously, of Trump turd floating in golden toilet.
And that's why Chris Wray looked so awkward and uneasy behind that RAT.
@Paco , Oct 22 2020 17:53 utc | 60Three hours of serious talking about any and all world problems. I wonder how long Lunch Box Joe could hold on his own. The orange man probably could do it, but just talking about himself. The US need someone like VVP.Circe , Oct 22 2020 17:53 utc | 61@54 mkkarlof1 , Oct 22 2020 17:53 utc | 62Projecting much?
@57 Paco
I knew Paco was a strange name for a Russiabot!
Russia is now averaging 13,000 to 15,000 infections and close to 300 hundred deaths daily. I wouldn't laugh first if I were Putin.
Paco @56&57--Christian J. Chuba , Oct 22 2020 17:56 utc | 63I ought to listen while also reading the Russian close-captioning so I can rebuild my Russian language facility and catch the body language messages, but I still need to read/hear it all in English. As for his response to questions, IMO Putin knows what to expect from media reporters but not from other experts in the audience whose questions are usually more complex. Then there's the need to remain tactful, although there are times when he does need to get indignant, as with the issue of illegal sanctions that harm nations's abilities to deal with the pandemic--the utter immorality and inhumanity of the Outlaw US Empire that never gets the attention it deserves.
Haven't seen this nickname for Biden--Lieden.
Fake emails: cui bonokarlof1 , Oct 22 2020 17:58 utc | 64What would Iran gain by scaring lower end of the spectrum Democrats into voting for Trump, is that desirable for Iran?
Ah ... but it was a pump fake, Iran thought that people would think that the emails were genuine, arrest a few of the Proud Boys and this would hurt Trump by associating him with a domestic terror group. Not only is this scenario convoluted but it is extremely risky because it might scare a handful of impressionable Democrats into voting for Trump and any investigation would uncover hacking of some kind.
Most likely suspect, Israel. They have the means to hack and the contacts in the U.S. to suggest Iranian origin.
As Putin said, Russia was able to find "balance" in its reaction to COVID; and as with China but unlike the Outlaw US Empire, it put the safety of the Russian people first and foremost. The Empire is experiencing yet another big outbreak nationwide and has yet to put the interests of its citizenry first.Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 17:59 utc | 65Is Circe deranged?William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 17:59 utc | 66
I don't know but I doubt if she spends trillions of dollars each year on murdering inocent men women and children.
Mmmmm
Perhaps to people living in a ''loony bin'' (America) people outside must seem quite strange !
I live near Glastonbury finest bunch of people you'd ever meet. Not known for genocidel tendency's.
Any ways Iran, Russia interfering in America's elections -- -- - pure paranoid delusion (weaponised)
The Mighty Wurlitzer has begun to sound more like the New York Philharmonic tuning up while riding the Empire State Express as it crashes endlessly into Grand Central Station.Paco , Oct 22 2020 18:06 utc | 67Symbolism not unintentional.
Posted by: Circe | Oct 22 2020 17:53 utc | 61William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 18:06 utc | 68Dear Circe, each language is a world view, I wish I had the resources available today when I was younger, I would speak as many as possible, I consider that with the means available today speaking half a dozen would be no problem at all. You have the blessing and the curse of speaking english, so no need for anything else, but that is your problem, you are so relaxed about it that you're not able to spell correctly the name of one of your best known cities, San Francisco, with a c before the s.
Again, come up with something else, the bot label is as primitive as your knowledge of your own language and geography."I doubt if she spends trillions of dollars each year on murdering inocent men women and children."Oriental Voice , Oct 22 2020 18:19 utc | 69She votes for it, though.
kiwiklown@14:Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 18:22 utc | 70
They do not even care for their own people (covid19 fiasco, anyone?), but pretend to care for the Chinese people so much they would regime-change the CCP; they pretend to care for the Russian people so much they would sooner shoot Putin's plane from the sky; they pretend to care for the Iranian people so much they block their access to covid19 medicines.Well said, although rather sad! The last pretension reveals exactly the mentality that was behind the genocide upon the Native American centuries ago, resorting to tactics such as passing out smallpox infected blankets, dispensation of whisky, as well as outright slaughters of course.
Gruffy @ 68karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 18:43 utc | 71
Maybe but she martches to a different drum beat. Not the trump drum beat of war that you follow, and will lead you all over the cliff.
Don't get me wrong ! You'd have to squeeze my nuts pretty dam hard (tears in my eyes) before I'd vote for Biden.
But you must know two things -- -
A. Trump is bat shit crazy and has his finger on the button whilst the Dems are money mad and there is know profit in Armageddon.
And
B. I'm antifa my hobby is smashing the filthy fascists !!
Who's streets ? Our streets !!Without mentioning its name, Putin in his speech pinned the tail on the donkey regarding TrumpCo's pandemic failure:Sakineh Bagoom , Oct 22 2020 18:47 utc | 72"The values of mutual assistance, service and self-sacrifice proved to be most important. This also applies to the responsibility, composure and honesty of the authorities, their readiness to meet the demand of society and at the same time provide a clear-cut and well-substantiated explanation of the logic and consistency of the adopted measures so as not to allow fear to subdue and divide society but, on the contrary, to imbue it with confidence that together we will overcome all trials no matter how difficult they may be.
"The struggle against the coronavirus threat has shown that only a viable state can act effectively in a crisis ..." [My Emphasis]
Yes, it didn't begin with Trump, but he sure did accelerate the process of making the domestic part of the Outlaw US Empire dysfunctional, which for me makes this "silly season" even worse than usual.
I view this as shit-against-the-wall policy. You throw it up there. Sometimes it sticks, sometimes it doesn't.William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 18:53 utc | 73
This is how lowly vermin do foreign policy nowadays.
Remember the story -- first reported as Russians, then Iranians -- paying bounty to the Talibs to kill (as if they needed motivation) American soldiers?
Well, in that case, I guess neither story really stuck, but you see where I'm going with this. It's all shite
And silly season continues with self-proclaimed anti-fascists who don't know what fascists are.karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 18:59 utc | 74Fascism doesn't necessarily have anything to do with race or religion. Is there any racial difference between Ukropians and Russians? Fascism is simply a tool that capitalists use to smash class consciousness. Literally any differences can be used by the capitalists to direct the violent mobs at their victims, even differences that are completely imaginary and don't really exist except in the group mind of the mob.
Now I wonder... who is it that will attack someone for saying "But ALL lives matter!" ? Who is smashing class consciousness?
71 Cont'd--Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 19:14 utc | 75And this is why the USA is turning into a failed state and Russia isn't:
"Nevertheless, I am confident that what makes a state strong, primarily, is the confidence its citizens have in it . That is the strength of a state. People are the source of power , we all know that. And this recipe doesn't just involve going to the polling station and voting, it implies people's willingness to delegate broad authority to their elected government, to see the state, its bodies, civil servants, as their representatives – those who are entrusted to make decisions, but who also bear full responsibility for the performance of their duties .
"This kind of state can be set up any way you like. When I say 'any way,' I mean that what you call your political system is immaterial. Each country has its own political culture, traditions, and its own vision of their development. Trying to blindly imitate someone else's agenda is pointless and harmful. The main thing is for the state and society to be in harmony .
"And of course, confidence is the most solid foundation for the creative work of the state and society. Only together will they be able to find an optimal balance of freedom and security guarantees ." [My Emphasis]
What a brilliant collection of words emphasizing the absolute requirement for the state to do its utmost to support and develop its human capital--its citizens--while also saying citizens have their own duty to ensure the quality of the state, which means installing representatives that will work for them and promote their interests first and foremost since they are the backbone of the state. Don't feed and care for the citizenry as in the USA and you'll have a corrupt, feeble state when it comes to keeping itself strong. And IMO the primary difference that's making Russia stronger while the USA atrophies is that Russia listens to its people and genuinely cares for and acts in their interests while in the USA the demands of the citizenry have fallen on deaf ears for decades, regardless the political party running the government.
Gruffy is trying to conflate perpetrator as opposed to the victim/ victems !William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 19:23 utc | 76
Classic -- -
US geo-politics.
Blame shifting fascist tactic.
Learned far right tactic.
Or
Psychopathic projection.
Example -- --
US attacks Iran &Russia but blames them for attacking The US.
Also Gruffy I note how you side step a point well made by
Asking a deliberately distracting question. Yawn
"Blame shifting" absolutely is part of smashing class consciousness. Shift the blame for people's difficulties from capitalism to various parts of the working class. Those who participate violently in this process are fascists and perpetrators. Of course, they are also victims because they are destroying their own class consciousness. Class consciousness is necessary if they are ever to be able to address the real issues causing them hardship.Paco , Oct 22 2020 19:26 utc | 77Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 22 2020 18:59 utc | 74Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 19:38 utc | 78When the question and answers segment comes online it is worth reading his opinion about the Karabakh conflict and how it is a very difficult situation for Russia since both countries involved, Armenia and Azerbaijan are part of a common family. The question implied that Russia would unequivocally side with Armenia based on religion, to which Putin answered that 15% of Russia population professes the islamic faith and that he considers Azerbaijan a country as close to Russia as Armenia, with over two million nationals from each of the warring countries living in Russia and as part of a very influential and productive community.
Interesting too his take on Turkey, admitting that there are a lot of disagreements Putin had good words for Erdogan admitting that he is independent and that he is someone able to uphold his word, the Turk Stream project, it was agreed upon and completed, compared to the europeans to whom he did not spare in his almost contemptuous words insinuating their lack of sovereignty.
Gruffy error !!karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 19:46 utc | 79
In this context the 'mob'
Is trump followers.
The thugs in uniform.
The proud boys.
The US forces abroad and at home.
Gruffy 'you' ARE the mob.
I feel you watched to many cowboy films portraying native Americans as the bad guys! It shows.
I won't be replying more. as I see your very shabby diversionary tactic. Nice try though. We see you !! What you are and what you do.Paco @77--Kooshy , Oct 22 2020 19:50 utc | 80Thanks for your reply! Even before the Q&A Putin skewers both the Empire and EU in this paragraph:
"Genuine democracy and civil society cannot be imported.' I have said so many times. They cannot be a product of the activities of foreign 'well-wishers,' even if they 'want the best for us.' In theory, this is probably possible. But, frankly, I have not yet seen such a thing and do not believe much in it. We see how such imported democracy models function. They are nothing more than a shell or a front with nothing behind them, even a semblance of sovereignty. People in the countries where such schemes have been implemented were never asked for their opinion, and their respective leaders are mere vassals. As is known, the overlord decides everything for the vassal . To reiterate, only the citizens of a particular country can determine their public interest." [My Emphasis]
And that "particular country" is one where both the citizens and the government share "confidence" in each other such that they work in "harmony." Thus the #1 goal of the Outlaw US Empire to sow chaos within nations so such confidence and harmony can't be established; and if they are, then destroyed.
No one has ever lied to American people more than the American regime and her terrorizing intelligence community organization, Snowden is the living proof of this . Anyone still alive and living on this planet if it ever believed a word on anything coming out of the USG not only is a fool and a total idiot but his/her head must be seriously checked. Regardless of their party affiliations they have no shame of lying cheating steeling those United oligarchy' Secretary of State is the proof that.William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 19:58 utc | 81This poster is on neither "side" . More like Putin looking in pain over Azerbaijan and Armenia killing each other at the prompting of some third party that doesn't care about either of them. This poster is neither faux left nor right wing; however, this poster's grandmother was Cherokee. There is no anger directed your way for your failure to understand, though.Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 20:11 utc | 82If Americans had any backbone they would be on the streets protesting about this sham election prior to the election, of false choice no choice.Jams O'Donnell , Oct 22 2020 20:36 utc | 83
You earn your democracy or you loose your democracy.
Iran, Russia bashing ! Just how low have you people sunk.
No hind sight, no insight and no foresight !
No hope. Spineless.Totally weird! You all, please get behind re-electing Trump. He is doing such a good job of destroying the US empire and its pretensions. If you are really a leftist, this is a GOO:-D thing!Tom , Oct 22 2020 20:41 utc | 84The alternative is to vote Independent or Green but they don't have a chance right now.
Posted by: Circe | Oct 22 2020 10:50 utc | 15Kooshy , Oct 22 2020 20:42 utc | 85My horrorscope has Biden circling Uranus.
Walking only 3 miles on Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles , going west I have counted 47 homeless (male,females,wht,black,Asian)asking for handouts. These lost soles are the ones who have paid the price for the for ever wars to secure the Israel' realm,Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 21:07 utc | 86
The propose of yesterday's security show at FBI was to convince the public that all negative comments and cretics coming their way by internet blogs, email , media etc. is not really from disfranchised Americans public, but rather foreign countries operation that they do not like our democracy and way of life, It was solely meant to make people not to subscribe and believe what negativity they hear or read on US( non existing)democracy ,
This is a cheap standard operation by totalitarian regimes.
Thanks kooshy for that and all your comments !winston2 , Oct 22 2020 21:24 utc | 87
A true voice of sanity with heart and soul.
I hear you.53Debsisdead , Oct 22 2020 21:29 utc | 88
That money went to the ESF,what else do you think is levitating stocks and bonds ?
You assumed wrongly, but Kudlow let slip they(ESF) were broke and actually stated the money was going to them in a presser.I dunno why I'm bothering to do this because astrology is such a lame easily disproven superstition that gets by because there are just so many con artists making predictions that occasionally some must be correct - the stopped clock effect, but here goes.Richard Steven Hack , Oct 22 2020 21:39 utc | 89
The moon's effect on our planet's oceans is proven to be caused by a known phenomenon, gravity. These stars whose positions we are told influence our human lives (just another anthrocentric load of bulldust what about beings on other planets?) are thousands of light years away from earth, meaning when the con-artists draw up their star charts or WTF they call 'em, they are looking at formations that happened thousands of years ago - all different depending on a particular star's distance from earth.
Claiming to be able to predict anything rational from such a mish mash of incorrect data is risible, sad really and goes much to explain the house dembot's mania.As for oblammer in Miami? I guess the dnc know where quite a few oblammer bodies are buried.
My view is changing, Biden is so crooked that even though if he wins, the corporate media will try hard to leave him alone, but he's just too clumsy, so that some dems are going to side with the rethugs to impeach him and fast, however that may be what the oligarchy is counting on, as that brings bad karmala harris to the fore, a women so unpopular with dem rank and file she withdrew from the primary before any votes were cast, how's that for 'democracy'.This is the real issue, both dem & rethug prez candidates are crooks through and through, if the dems win, then the spotlight the corporate media shone on orangeutan will be turned off. At least some of trump's worst rorts were stopped by a fear of being found out, but if the dems win dopey joe will have no such constraint - until he does something so over the top eg kick off nuclear war, that the media finally wakes up. too late but at least now they're awake.
Posted by: vinnieoh | Oct 22 2020 16:04 utc | 45 If Trump loses, should some people expect bricks through their windows, or perhaps fire-bombings?NemesisCalling , Oct 22 2020 23:01 utc | 90That is the threat. If either side loses, there will be massive civil unrest - at least it's very likely that is (part of) "the plan" - whatever the plan actually is. In any event, plan or not, it's predictable. Most of the preppers I follow on Youtube are urging everyone to stock up on food and water because there's a good chance that everyone will be back on movement restrictions of some sort, if not full-on martial law, within the next couple months. As I said before, this country is going to start looking like Turkey or Italy in the 70's when the Grey Wolves and the Red Brigades were terrorizing those countries. It may not be "civil war", but it's likely to be uglier than what happened this summer.
@89 rshkiwiklown , Oct 23 2020 0:23 utc | 91Massive civil unrest if Trump loses?
Wtf? You...smoking? Man!
Lol.
There will be cries of joy in the streets and maybe some celebratory looting, all from the urban left.
Trump's supporters might assemble peacefully in a very sparse manner, but I would bet most would simply take the newly alotted time from the Biden-victory to prep and ready a little more before the real fireworks begin. Violence would only erupt from the urban left attacking those demonstrations.
Real men are lying in wait. The city is not their playground any longer.
Posted by: Debsisdead | Oct 22 2020 11:21 utc | 19 -- "Barack can claim 'he paid his dues' whilst keeping as much space as he can organise between himself and crooked joe, who has already brought oblamblam's prezdency into disrepute with the shameless & ugly ukraine rort that he and his bagman hunter had concocted."Smith , Oct 23 2020 0:39 utc | 92Thanks for your astute observations. Am learning much.
A compromised man never escapes blackmail: he is but a tool in the hands of his owners. It is not IF, but WHEN he will be used / abused. Over and over again, like a banker's boot stomping on his arrogant face.
But then, who is to say that Obanger Obummer was unaware of his VP, that Basement-Biding Bidet Biden's 'arrangements' for wealth accretion? And more (there is always more), who is to say that Obanging Ohumming gets NO share therefrom at some 'convenient' time?
Evil thinks himself clever to hide in the dark, yet lives in daily fear of the light. Thusly Obanging Ohummer's calculations that you noted above, and his dark demeanour these days. He knows he is walking on a knife edge, with a sword hanging over his head, and a safety net (those 17 intelligence agencies?) that can turn into a fowler's snare (sorry, mixed metaphors!)
Yet, looking at the happier demeanour (she used to scowl all through 2017/2018) on that shallow face called Michelle Ohummer, we can guess that she thinks they have escaped clean with their 'rewards of office'.
Christian J. Chuba @17 asked, "How long?" I ask, how does an immoral leadership ever going to turn moral? When does America get the leadership that she deserves?
I doubt there will be much protests if Biden wins, the "right" in America is basically toothless.Grieved , Oct 23 2020 1:00 utc | 93There will be much violence when Trump wins though, much money will be spent to rile things up, just like when he won the first time.
@71 karlof1 - "only a viable state can act effectively in a crisis" - PutinGrieved , Oct 23 2020 1:03 utc | 94What a brilliant equation from Putin. Even more penetrating and useful than the formerly existing observation that socialist-style societies have performed best in response to the virus. Putin's criterion cuts exactly to the essence of the thing.
What the US has demonstrated from the virus response is that it is not a viable state. The benchmark now exists. Thanks for bringing it over.
@81 William GruffYeah, Right , Oct 23 2020 1:18 utc | 95I have a friend of Cherokee ancestry. She told me how once she was speaking with an elder woman of the tribe, and described herself as "one-eighth Cherokee".
The old woman shook her head and said, "The Cherokee spirit cannot be diluted."
Reuters: "The emails are under investigation, and one intelligence source said it was still unclear who was behind them."Rob , Oct 23 2020 3:26 utc | 96No, it's perfectly clear who was behind them: Hunter Biden.
Honestly, the lies are now so brazen that they are no longer credible, they are just insulting.
Those are Biden Hunter's emails. QED the person "behind them" is Hunter Biden
Q: How do you know?
A: F**k me, dumbass: he wrote them, ergo, he is responsible for them.This comments thread reads like a collection of D-minus essays from a creative writing class.Formerly T-Bear , Oct 23 2020 10:15 utc | 97Should any here be interested, Wikipedia has aa extensive listing of governmental scandals for the 20th and 21st century administrations. Note the number of executive, legislative and judicial scandals for each administration. Note also the volume of scandals as administrations go from Franklin D. Roosevelt through to D.J. Trump for both executive and legislative branches. The political parties of the malfeasant are of interest as well - trending can be discerned, maybe, for the observant.Formerly T-Bear , Oct 23 2020 10:25 utc | 98https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College
@ 97That link should be:
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Oct 23, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Mister Delicious , 7 hours ago
ebear , 6 hours ago
- Introduction
- The euphemisms
- Hostility to Putin's Russia is largely a Jewish phenomenon
- The media
- A de facto violation of free speech
- Shutting down an honest examination of Russian history
- The best alt-media journalists are neutered
- Much of what is written about Russian relations and history becomes meaningless and deceptive
- A lesson in relevance from the Alt-Right
- Malice towards none
- The problem extends to all areas of public life
- We need serious scholarship and analysis
- Low expectations from the existing alt-media
- A call for articles and support
- https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/hating-russia-is-a-full-time-job/
John Hansen , 7 hours agoHas any nation on Earth suffered more destruction and loss of life in the 20th century? And yet, there they still are.
theallseeinggod , 7 hours agoI'd have more hope for Russia if the Russian ruling class weren't so obsessed with the West and didn't send their children to Western (woke) schools, etc.
Normal , 5 hours agoThey're not doing that well, but they're not repeating many of the west's mistakes.
Helg Saracen , 6 hours agoNow the West has rules only for poor people.
Nayel , 5 hours agoAdvice to Americans (for the sake of experiment): prohibit lobbying in US and the right of citizens with dual citizenship to hold public office in US. I assure - you will be surprised how quickly Russians go from non-kosher to kosher for Americans and how American politicians, the media will convince Americans of this at every intersection. :) Ha ha ha
Arising 2.0 , 1 hour agoIf the [Vichy] Left in America weren't so determined to project their own Bolshevik leanings on to a possible great ally that their ideology now fears, Russia would be just that: a great ally that could help America shake the Bolsheviks that have infiltrated the American government and plan the same program their Soviet forefathers once held over Russia...
ThePinkHole , 39 minutes agoWestern zionist controlled propaganda reminds me of Mohamed Ali- he used to talk up the ******** so much before a fight that when the time came to fight the opponent was usually traumatised or confused. Until Ali met with Joe Frazier (Russia) who didn't fall for all the pre-fight BS.
foxenburg , 3 hours agoTime for a pop quiz! Name the two countries below:
Country A - competency, attention to first principles, planning based on reality, consistency of purpose, and unity of execution.
Country B - incompetency, interfering in everything everywhere, planning based on hubris and sloppy assumptions, confusion, and disunity.
(Source: Adapted from Patrick Armstrong)
Money-Liberty , 6 hours agoThis one is always good for a laugh....the Daily Telegraph's Con Coughlin explaining in 2015 how Putin will fail in Syria...
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6990/russia-failure-syria
We have all this talk of the 'Ruskies' when in fact it is not the ordinary Russian people but rather a geopolitical power struggle. The ordinary US citizen or European just wants to maintain their liberty and be able to profit from their endeavours. The rich and powerful globalists who hide behind their military are the ones that play these games. I am no friend of Putin but equally I am no friend of our own political establishment that have been captured by Wall Street. I care about Main Street and as the US dollar loses its privilege there will be real pain to share amongst our economies. The last thing we need is for the elites of the Western alliance to profit with cold/hot wars on the backs of ourselves.
Having been behind the iron curtain as a young Merchant Navy Officer I found ordinary citizens fine and even organized football matches with the local communist parties. People have the same desires and aspirations and whether rich or poor we should respect each others cultures and territories. http://www.money-liberty.com/gallery/Predictions-2021.pdf
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Oct 23, 2020 | www.rt.com
In politicizing intelligence, America is blaming everyone but itself for its self-inflicted woes
Scott Ritter
is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ' SCORPION KING : America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf's staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter 22 Oct, 2020 18:48 Get short URL
John Ratcliffe © REUTERS/Loren Elliott 64 3 Follow RT on
You would be justified in thinking that the various news conferences put on by US law enforcement and intelligence officials in which foreign actors – Russia, China and Iran are the usual suspects – are accused of meddling in all things American are little more than a giant practical joke, a parody of how a government should behave, instead of the damning indictment of reality that they are.
The most recent iteration of this embarrassing spectacle took place on Wednesday evening, during a hastily convened press conference suspiciously timed to coincide with former president Barack Obama's inaugural stump speech in support of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Normally, the citation of such coincidences would relegate any subsequent analysis to the rabbit hole of conspiracy theory. However, we do not live in normal times. The press conference was convened by the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, who was in turn accompanied by the Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray.
ALSO ON RT.COM Iran issues diplomatic protest over 'absurd' accusation of US election meddlingRatcliffe has come under fire from Congressional Democrats for his selective declassification of documents pertaining to allegations of Russian involvement in the 2016 US presidential campaign. Former CIA director John Brennan, who was the subject of some of the leaked documents, accused Ratcliffe of releasing them to "advance the political interests" of President Donald Trump ahead of the November 3 election.
The declassification caper was followed by Ratcliffe's unsolicited intervention regarding the acquisition by the FBI of computer hard drives allegedly belonging to Joe Biden's son, Hunter. Ratcliffe declared that the contents of the drives were not part of a Russian disinformation campaign and thereby drew the ire of Democrats, who view the sordid computer story as a smear campaign against the former vice president.
The October 21 press conference followed in the path of Ratcliffe's prior interventions, and appeared to be little more than an insufficiently sourced allegation wrapped in highly politicized conclusions. Ratcliffe claimed the US intelligence community had " confirmed that some voter registration information has been obtained by Iran, and separately, by Russia ." This was the gist of the press conference, and it added virtually nothing to the statement released by Ratcliffe in August in which he noted that the US intelligence community was " primarily concerned about the ongoing and potential activity by China, Russia, and Iran ."
ALSO ON RT.COM Iran sent fake 'Proud Boys' emails to intimidate American voters & 'damage President Trump,' US spy chief and FBI director claimWhat made Ratcliffe's announcement even less spectacular was the fact that the data he accused Iran and Russia of stealing was publicly available, leading some anonymous intelligence officials to speculate that the hacking operations were little more than an effort to avoid paying the fees associated with accessing this data. As far as crimes go, this one was eminently forgettable.
Ratcliffe noted that the US officials " have already seen Iran sending spoofed emails designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest, and damage President Trump ," referring to a scheme alleged to have been implemented by Iran, using this information, to disseminate emails to potential voters claiming to be from the controversial Proud Boys organization, that threatened physical violence unless the recipient voted for Trump in the coming election.
The purpose of this scheme appears to be less about actually changing votes (voting is done in secret, so the sender of the letter would have no way of confirming an outcome, thereby negating the threat) and more about undermining confidence in the electoral process as a whole. Both Iran and the Proud Boys have denied any involvement in the letter writing campaign.
This latest incursion by the US intelligence community into the topic of election interference by outside powers has been loudly condemned by the Democrats, with the House Homeland Security Committee, chaired by Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, tweeting " Ratcliffe has TOO OFTEN politicized the Intelligence Community to carry water for the President ."
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1319095427375968256&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fop-ed%2F504300-politicizing-intelligence-election-russia-iran%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
But Ratcliffe's actions only continue in the vein of a history of electioneering by the US intelligence community during contentious presidential elections. Much of the Democrats' current ire against Ratcliffe stems from his exposing documents that point to similar politically motivated interventions by John Brennan and others during the 2016 election, ostensibly for the purpose of undermining the campaign of then-candidate Trump.
The fact is, what passes for domestic US politics is virtually impossible to manipulate by outside agencies. The effort by Cambridge Analytica to predict voting preferences in 2016 by accessing the confidential online data of millions of Americans has been shown to have been spectacularly ineffective, and it exceeded by some way the sophistication and data collection activities attributed to foreign powers such as Russia, China, and Iran.
The mind of the American voter is influenced by a wide variety of inputs that are highly individualized and, in many instances, virtually unquantifiable. The notion that a sophisticated data mining organization such as Cambridge Analytica, or the intelligence services of any of those three nations, could succeed in doing over the course of months what American political organizations have been struggling to achieve over two-plus centuries is not only laughable, but insulting.
Yet the level of domestic political insecurity that exists today is such that both political parties, lacking confidence in their own inherent messaging capability, have succumbed to the psychosis of political victimhood, blaming others for their own inherent failures. By allowing the work of the US intelligence community to be used as a foil in this self-destructive blame game, a succession of US intelligence professionals, led by John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Richard Grenell, John Ratcliffe, and others, have turned the once respected profession of intelligence into a politicized joke.
In this, however, it is in good company, joined by both political parties, the US media and, frankly speaking, the US electorate. American democracy is a mirror image of the nation it purports to serve, and, at the moment, the reflection displayed is a thoroughly tragic one.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
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Oct 23, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
play_arrowSandmann , 40 minutes ago
So Navalny was "poisoned by Putin" and sent to a Berlin hospital so that conclusion could be defined ? USSR was so incompetent with bio-weapons it cannot create a lethal organophosphate poison yet US/Uk can develop VX which worked definitively on King Jong-Un's half-brother !
Then again China can develop effective bio-weapons which expose the E=West and especially NATO armed forces as unprepared, incompetent, ineffectual and in Chinese terms "paper tigers"
So more and more sanctions on Russia and more and more orders for PPE and other goodies from China.
Russia is Post-Communist but China is VERY VERY Communist.
Putin apparently "interferes in US elections" but China simply buys up one of the parties and owns the candidate and his family
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Oct 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
kiwiklown , Oct 22 2020 9:05 utc | 7The Russians ( Putin / Lavrov) say ever so politely that the US is not agreement-capable.
I add that the US ( politicians, Wall Streeters, MSM, think tanks ) are:
- not truth-capable;
- not ethics-capable;
- not shame-capable;
- not honour-capable.
What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul? He turns into a ghoul without a soul, says I, a devil without human-ness! How dare they call us deplorables when they are the despicables?
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Oct 20, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org
"Treason doth never prosper; what is the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason." – Sir John Harrington.
As Shakespeare would state in his play Hamlet, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," like a fish that rots from head to tail, so do corrupt government systems rot from top to bottom.
This is a reference to the ruling system of Denmark and not just the foul murder that King Claudius has committed against his brother, Hamlet's father. This is showcased in the play by reference to the economy of Denmark being in a state of shambles and that the Danish people are ready to revolt since they are on the verge of starving. King Claudius has only been king for a couple of months, and thus this state of affairs, though he inflames, did not originate with him.
Thus, during our time of great upheaval we should ask ourselves; what constitutes the persisting "ruling system," of the United States, and where do the injustices in its state of affairs truly originate from?
The tragedy of Hamlet does not just lie in the action (or lack of action) of one man, but rather, it is contained in the choices and actions of all its main characters. Each character fails to see the longer term consequences of their own actions, which leads not only to their ruin but towards the ultimate collapse of Denmark. The characters are so caught up in their antagonism against one another that they fail to foresee that their very own destruction is intertwined with the other.
This is a reflection of a failing system.
A system that, though it believes itself to be fighting tooth and nail for its very survival, is only digging a deeper grave. A system that is incapable of generating any real solutions to the problems it faces.
The only way out of this is to address that very fact. The most important issue that will decide the fate of the country is what sort of changes are going to occur in the political and intelligence apparatus, such that a continuation of this tyrannical treason is finally stopped in its tracks and unable to sow further discord and chaos.
When the Matter of "Truth" Becomes a Threat to "National Security"
When the matter of truth is depicted as a possible threat to those that govern a country, you no longer have a democratic state. True, not everything can be disclosed to the public in real time, but we are sitting on a mountain of classified intelligence material that goes back more than 60 years.
How much time needs to elapse before the American people have the right to know the truth behind what their government agencies have been doing within their own country and abroad in the name of the "free" world?
From this recognition, the whole matter of declassifying material around the Russigate scandal in real time, and not highly redacted 50 years from now, is essential to addressing this festering putrefaction that has been bubbling over since the heinous assassination of President Kennedy on Nov. 22nd, 1963 and to which we are still waiting for full disclosure of classified papers 57 years later.
If the American people really want to finally see who is standing behind that curtain in Oz, now is the time.
These intelligence bureaus need to be reviewed for what kind of method and standard they are upholding in collecting their "intelligence," that has supposedly justified the Mueller investigation and the never-ending Flynn investigation which have provided zero conclusive evidence to back up their allegations and which have massively infringed on the elected government's ability to make the changes that they had committed to the American people.
Just like the Iraq and Libya war that was based off of cooked British intelligence (refer here and here ), Russiagate appears to have also had its impetus from our friends over at MI6 as well. It is no surprise that Sir Richard Dearlove, who was then MI6 chief (1999-2004) and who oversaw and stood by the fraudulent intelligence on Iraq stating they bought uranium from Niger to build a nuclear weapon, is the very same Sir Richard Dearlove who promoted the Christopher Steele dossier as something "credible" to American intelligence.
In other words, the same man who is largely responsible for encouraging the illegal invasion of Iraq, which set off the never-ending wars on "terror," that was justified with cooked British intelligence is also responsible for encouraging the Russian spook witch-hunt that has been occurring within the US for the last four years over more cooked British intelligence, and the FBI and CIA are knowingly complicit in this.
Neither the American people, nor the world as a whole, can afford to suffer any more of the so-called "mistaken" intelligence bumblings. It is time that these intelligence bureaus are held accountable for at best criminal negligence, at worst, treason against their own country.
When Great Figures of Hope Are Targeted as Threats to "National Security"
The Family Jewels report , which was an investigation conducted by the CIA to investigate itself, was spurred by the Watergate Scandal and the CIA's unconstitutional role in the whole affair. This investigation by the CIA reviewed its own conduct from the 1950s to mid-1970s.
The Family Jewels report was only partially declassified in June 25, 2007 (30 years later). Along with the release of the redacted report included a six-page summary with the following introduction:
"The Central Intelligence Agency violated its charter for 25 years until revelations of illegal wiretapping, domestic surveillance, assassination plots, and human experimentation led to official investigations and reforms in the 1970s." [emphasis added]
Despite this acknowledged violation of its charter for 25 years, which is pretty much since its inception, the details of this information were kept classified for 30 years from not just the public but major governmental bodies and it was left to the agency itself to judge how best to "reform" its ways.
On Dec. 22, 1974, The New York Times published an article by Seymour Hersh exposing illegal operations conducted by the CIA, dubbed the "family jewels". This included, covert action programs involving assassination attempts on foreign leaders and covert attempts to subvert foreign governments, which were reported for the first time. In addition, the article discussed efforts by intelligence agencies to collect information on the political activities of US citizens.
Largely as a reaction to Hersh's findings, the creation of the Church Committee was approved on January 27, 1975, by a vote of 82 to 4 in the Senate.
The Church Committee's final report was published in April 1976, including seven volumes of Church Committee hearings in the Senate.
The Church Committee also published an interim report titled "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders", which investigated alleged attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, including Patrice Lumumba of Zaire, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, Ngo Dinh Diem of Vietnam, Gen. René Schneider of Chile and Fidel Castro of Cuba. President Ford attempted to withhold the report from the public, but failed and reluctantly issued Executive Order 11905 after pressure from the public and the Church Committee.
Executive Order 11905 is a United States Presidential Executive Order signed on February 18, 1976, by a very reluctant President Ford in an attempt to reform the United States Intelligence Community, improve oversight on foreign intelligence activities, and ban political assassination.
The attempt is now regarded as a failure and was largely undone by President Reagan who issued Executive Order 12333 , which extended the powers and responsibilities of US intelligence agencies and directed leaders of the US federal agencies to co-operate fully with the CIA, which was the original arrangement that CIA have full authority over clandestine operations (for more information on this refer to my papers here and here ).
In addition, the Church Committee produced seven case studies on covert operations, but only the one on Chile was released, titled " Covert Action in Chile: 1963–1973 ". The rest were kept secret at the CIA's request.
Among the most shocking revelation of the Church Committee was the discovery of Operation SHAMROCK , in which the major telecommunications companies shared their traffic with the NSA from 1945 to the early 1970s. The information gathered in this operation fed directly into the NSA Watch List. It was found out during the committee investigations that Senator Frank Church, who was overseeing the committee, was among the prominent names under surveillance on this NSA Watch List.
In 1975, the Church Committee decided to unilaterally declassify the particulars of this operation, against the objections of President Ford's administration (refer here and here for more information).
The Church Committee's reports constitute the most extensive review of intelligence activities ever made available to the public. Much of the contents were classified, but over 50,000 pages were declassified under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.
President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on Nov. 22nd, 1963. Two days before his assassination a hate-Kennedy handbill (see picture) was circulated in Dallas accusing the president of treasonous activities including being a communist sympathizer.
On March 1st, 1967 New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested and charged Clay Shaw with conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy, with the help of David Ferrie and others. After a little over a one month long trial, Shaw was found not guilty on March 1st, 1969.
David Ferrie, a controller of Lee Harvey Oswald, was going to be a key witness and would have provided the "smoking gun" evidence linking himself to Clay Shaw, was likely murdered on Feb. 22nd, 1967, less than a week after news of Garrison's investigation broke in the media.
According to Garrison's team findings, there was reason to believe that the CIA was involved in the orchestrations of President Kennedy's assassination but access to classified material (which was nearly everything concerning the case) was necessary to continue such an investigation.
Though Garrison's team lacked direct evidence, they were able to collect an immense amount of circumstantial evidence, which should have given the justification for access to classified material for further investigation. Instead the case was thrown out of court prematurely and is now treated as if it were a circus. [Refer to Garrison's book for further details and Oliver Stone's excellently researched movie JFK ]
To date, it is the only trial to be brought forward concerning the assassination of President Kennedy.
The Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) was created in 1994 by the Congress enacted President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which mandated that all assassination-related material be housed in a single collection within the National Archives and Records Administration. In July 1998, a staff report released by the ARRB emphasized shortcomings in the original autopsy.
The ARRB wrote , "One of the many tragedies of the assassination of President Kennedy has been the incompleteness of the autopsy record and the suspicion caused by the shroud of secrecy that has surrounded the records that do exist." [emphasis added]
The staff report for the Assassinations Records Review Board contended that brain photographs in the Kennedy records are not of Kennedy's brain and show much less damage than Kennedy sustained.
The Washington Post reported :
Asked about the lunchroom episode [where he was overheard stating his notes of the autopsy went missing] in a May 1996 deposition, Finck said he did not remember it. He was also vague about how many notes he took during the autopsy but confirmed that 'after the autopsy I also wrote notes' and that he turned over whatever notes he had to the chief autopsy physician, James J. Humes.This not only shows that evidence tampering did indeed occur, as even the Warren Commission acknowledges, but this puts into question the reliability of the entire assassination record of John F. Kennedy and to what degree evidence tampering and forgery have occurred in these records.It has long been known that Humes destroyed some original autopsy papers in a fireplace at his home on Nov. 24, 1963. He told the Warren Commission that what he burned was an original draft of his autopsy report. Under persistent questioning at a February 1996 deposition by the Review Board, Humes said he destroyed the draft and his 'original notes.'
Shown official autopsy photographs of Kennedy from the National Archives, [Saundra K.] Spencer [who worked in 'the White House lab'] said they were not the ones she helped process and were printed on different paper. She said 'there was no blood or opening cavities' and the wounds were much smaller in the pictures [than what she had] worked on
John T. Stringer, who said he was the only one to take photos during the autopsy itself, said some of those were missing as well. He said that pictures he took of Kennedy's brain at a 'supplementary autopsy' were different from the official set that was shown to him. [emphasis added]
We would also do well to remember the numerous crimes that the FBI and CIA have been guilty of committing upon the American people such as during the period of McCarthyism. That the FBI's COINTELPRO has been implicated in covert operations against members of the civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1960s. That FBI director J. Edgar Hoover made no secret of his hostility towards Dr. King and his ludicrous belief that King was influenced by communists, despite having no evidence to that effect.
King was assassinated on April 4th, 1968 and the civil rights movement took a major blow.
In November 1975, as the Church Committee was completing its investigation, the Department of Justice formed a Task Force to examine the FBI's program of harassment directed at Dr. King, including the FBI's security investigations of him, his assassination and the FBI conducted criminal investigation that followed. One aspect of the Task force study was to determine "whether any action taken in relation to Dr. King by the FBI before the assassination had, or might have had, an effect, direct or indirect, on that event."
In its report , the Task Force criticized the FBI not for the opening, but for the protracted continuation of, its security investigation of Dr. King:
"We think the security investigation which included both physical and technical surveillance, should have been terminated in 1963. That it was intensified and augmented by a COINTELPRO type campaign against Dr. King was unwarranted; the COINTELPRO type campaign, moreover, was ultra vires and very probably felonious."
In 1999, King Family v. Jowers civil suit in Memphis, Tennessee occurred, the full transcript of the trial can be found here . The jury found that Lloyd Jowers and unnamed others, including those in high ranking positions within government agencies, participated in a conspiracy to assassinate Dr. King.
During the four week trial, it was pointed out that the rifle allegedly used to assassinate King did not have a scope that was sighted, which meant you could not have hit the broad side of a barn with that rifle, thus it could not have been the murder weapon.
This was only remarked on over 30 years after King was murdered and showed the level of incompetence, or more likely, evidence tampering that was committed from previous investigations conducted by the FBI.
The case of JFK and MLK are among the highest profile assassination cases in American history, and it has been shown in both cases that evidence tampering has indeed occurred, despite being in the center of the public eye. What are we then to expect as the standard of investigation for all the other cases of malfeasance? What expectation can we have that justice is ever upheld?
With a history of such blatant misconduct, it is clear that the present demand to declassify the Russiagate papers now, and not 50 years later, needs to occur if we are to address the level of criminality that is going on behind the scenes and which will determine the fate of the country.
The American People Deserve to Know
Today we see the continuation of the over seven decades' long ruse, the targeting of individuals as Russian agents without any basis, in order to remove them from the political arena. The present effort to declassify the Russiagate papers and exonerate Michael Flynn, so that he may freely speak of the intelligence he knows, is not a threat to national security, it is a threat to those who have committed treason against their country.
On Oct. 6th, 2020, President Trump ordered the declassification of the Russia Probe documents along with the classified documents on the findings concerning the Hillary Clinton emails. The release of these documents threatens to expose the entrapment of the Trump campaign by the Clinton campaign with help of the US intelligence agencies.
The Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe released some of these documents recently, including former CIA Director John Brennan's handwritten notes for a meeting with former President Obama, the notes revealing that Hillary Clinton approved a plan to "vilify Donald Trump by stirring up scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service."
Trey Gowdy, who was Chair of the House Oversight Committee from June 13th, 2017 – Jan. 3rd, 2019, has stated in an interview on Oct. 7th, 2020 that he has never seen these documents. Devin Nunes, who was Chair of the House Intelligence Committee from Jan. 3rd, 2015 – Jan. 3rd, 2019, has also said in a recent interview that he has never seen these documents.
And yet, both the FBI and CIA were aware and had access to these documents and sat on them for four years, withholding their release from several government-led investigations that were looking into the Russiagate scandal and who were requesting relevant material that was in the possession of both intelligence bureaus. Do these intelligence bureaus sound like they are working for the "national security" of the American people?
The truth must finally be brought to light, or the country will rot from its head to tail.
Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation .
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Oct 21, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
PATIENT OBSERVER October 18, 2020 at 4:15 pm
MARK CHAPMAN October 18, 2020 at 5:55 pmNavalny on CBS 60 Minutes:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alexey-navalny-poisoning-putin-russia-60-minutes-2020-10-18/
A skeptical 5-year old could see through the BS but the intrepid Leslie Stahl hangs on his every word.
PATIENT OBSERVER October 19, 2020 at 5:03 amAlexey Navalny: It's a banned substance. I think for Putin– why– he's using this chemical weapon to do– do both, kill me and, you know, terrify others. It's something really scary, where the people just drop dead without– there are no gun. There are no shots and in a couple of hours, you– you'll be dead and without any traces on your body. It's something terrifying. And Putin is enjoying it.
So am I. It's very intriguing, the constant plot twists – Navalny is recorded live 'moaning in anguish' but he was not in any pain! Perhaps the very thought of such an amazing human being and exceptional leader – himself, naturally – struck down in his prime was just so sorrowful that he could not stifle his sadness.
It's 'something really scary', is it? Why? So far nearly everyone poisoned by it has survived with no apparent medium-to-long-term damage. The deadliest toxin in the world by a wide margin has so far managed to kill one barbag who was also a drug addict, and completely incidentally – she was not ever a target.
According to the Russian record of its use as a murder weapon, though, on the sole known occasion it was so used, it killed the target in just a few hours. It also killed his secretary, who used the same phone to call an ambulance, and the pathologist who did his autopsy.
So whoever is copying Novichok for its terror effects is not doing a very good job. Like Porsche, there is no substitute.
MARK CHAPMAN October 19, 2020 at 9:42 amThe "moaning in anguish" was likely Navalny's theatrical assumption that Novichok creates intense pain. When he learned, after his performance, that Novichok does not create intense pain, he changed his story on the fly.
This, and a few other things, brings up an interesting conjecture. The Navalny stunt may have been a free-lance operation done without prior knowledge of Western intelligence agencies. He and his posse concocted the scheme betting that the the US and Germany would be backed into a corner and had to play along. They really had no choice as they could not abandon this asset without the entire "fearless opposition to the tyrant Putin" collapsing into the cesspool it was built upon.
If so, it was an audacious move that only a sociopath could do. However, it does suggest that Navalny is finished after the last bit of propaganda value is wrung out. His future could be either termination under a convenient pretext (i.e. Putin finally got him) or to become a professor of BS at some US University or the like. The main point is that he is too unreliable to conduct further operations.
ET AL October 19, 2020 at 10:57 amI think the whole thing was a carefully-concocted operation that Lyosha was fully briefed-in on. His howls and screams would have been necessary in any case, with or without pain, because it was imperative that all on board be convinced that a terrible event was taking place and that emergency actions were absolutely called for. It's hard to imagine the same dramatic effect could have been achieved by Navalny flopping out of the toilet like a gaffed bass, and whispering to the flight attendant, "I just have this feeling that says body, we are done". Everyone including the flight attendant would assume he was drunk or something that was no particular cause for alarm, and maybe even for amusement. Until they learned that the flight was being diverted so this fuckwad could get off.
MOSCOW EXILE October 19, 2020 at 10:34 amI don't know and I don't care who's cuning plan this was. It's got him all the publicity he needs and also those in the west with their standard 'no smoke without fire' level of foreign policy 'evidence.' I think he's actually looking to sell his life story for a Netflix series. Nothing else makes logical sense.
PATIENT OBSERVER October 19, 2020 at 10:57 amYes, maybe -- apart from the fact that one of his posse is British agent who has been controlling FBK investigations into corruption for quite a while now and apparently was stuck to Navalny during his last foray into the provinces like shit to an army blanket.
MOSCOW EXILE October 18, 2020 at 9:47 pmTo Mark and ME;
The Navalny show still has an ad hoc feel to it. Perhaps the plot extended beyond those who directly participated but I don't think it was a high level operation. Navalny took a gamble that his sponsors would have no choice but to follow his lead. It now makes no practical difference as to whom planned it.MARK CHAPMAN October 19, 2020 at 8:48 amMore proof that Trump is a Kremlin Stooge?
Навальный пожаловался, что Трамп не осудил произошедший с ним инцидент
19.10.2020 | 07:59Navalny has complained that Trump has not condemned what happened to him
19.10.2020 | 07:59Blogger Aleksei Navalny has expressed the opinion that US President Donald Trump should have also condemned what happened to him, as did European politicians, TASS reports.
"I think it is especially important that everyone, including, and perhaps first and foremost, the US president, speak out against the use of chemical weapons in the 21st century", Navalny said.
["Я думаю, что особенно важно, чтобы все, включая и, возможно, в первую очередь президента США, выступили против применения химического оружия в XXI веке".]
On August 20, Navalny was taken to a hospital in Omsk after he had fallen ill on an aeroplane. Omsk doctors said that the main diagnosis was metabolic disorders. Then Navalny was transported to Germany. He was in a coma for two weeks. German doctors announced that he had been poisoned with substances from the Novichok group. Russia has asked Berlin for more detailed information on the test results, but has not yet received a response.
Currently, Navalny has been discharged from the hospital and is undergoing rehabilitation.
Big gobbed gobshite shouting his big gob off -- or did his US controllers really urge him to make that statement? Is the CIA really using him as part of the Democrats "Russiagate" arsenal?
MARK CHAPMAN October 19, 2020 at 9:11 amGot it in one; I was going to say, until I read your last couple of lines, that this is further suggestion that Navalny is a Democratic project. The US State Department is full of Democratic appointees. They want to get all the mileage out of him they can before interest fades.
MARK CHAPMAN October 19, 2020 at 9:04 amMiraculously, he recovered from the poison that is so dangerous people fear to mention its name, for fear that doing so might encourage tongue cancer, and is today fit as a flea; can't wait to return to Russia for Round Two. If they were wise, they'd kill Lyosha themselves for his stem cells. Then world leaders could be protected against Russian assassination attempts.
Certainly capitalizing on his new-found fame, isn't he? Now he feels comfortable telling the US president how he ought to behave, and chiding him for not appropriately recognizing Navalny's importance to the world. Dear God, what a swellheaded prat.
If the Chief Bullshitter really feels so concerned for the safety of his family, he will leave them all abroad and return to Russia alone – I mean, he's not a bit afraid for himself, he's said as much. Go on, Lyosha – go back home and rally the great restless throng of oppressed ordinary Russians who cry out for your leadership!!
Not on your life. He's got the sweetest gig ever going on right there, newspapers beating a path to his door to find out what he likes to eat for breakfast and whose shirts he wears, no worries about income or housing, hobnobbing with world leaders who listen respectfully to his opinions, and all he has to do is rant about Putin all day long. The Americans are finally getting their money's worth out of Lyosha. Whereas what would happen if he went home?
It would quickly become clear that his support still comes exclusively from the same group – a few disaffected intelligentsia such as Boris Akunin, the Atlanticist liberatsi who endlessly predict the collapse of Putin, and the angry kiddies who feel like they are part of some great Thunberg-like global freedom movement that will bring them a comfortable life but absolve them of responsibility for working for it – you know; the way they live in America!
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Oct 21, 2020 | consortiumnews.com
October 19, 2020
Authoritarian liberals have unleashed a censorious syndrome peculiar to our national character, dating to 17th century Quaker hangings in Boston.
A n inhabitant of Twitterland named "Willow Inski" took to the keyboard on Oct. 11, asking why anyone still accepts official accounts of the crucial theft of emails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign manager John Podesta in the spring of 2016.
Excellently observed, Willow. And at just the right moment. At this point we are amid a frenzy of what Hannah Arendt called "defactualization" in a 1971 essay she titled "Lying in Politics." Facts are fragile, Arendt astutely observed, because they can so easily be manipulated to produce a desired image. "It is this fragility," she wrote, "that makes deception so very easy up to a point, and so tempting."
The latest example of this phenom concerns the emails of Hunter Biden, candidate Joe's errant son, which persuasively incriminate both in very profitable influence-peddling schemes when Papa was Barack Obama's veep.
Nobody denies the facts as published last week in The New York Post , not even Biden père et fils , but the facts are once again mutilated with assertions that it is another case of the Rrrrrrussians spreading disinformation.
This is what we get after four years of the Russia collusion b.s., otherwise known as Russiagate. Anything goes if implicating Russia solves a political problem for the Democrats and keeps the war machine going for the Pentagon and the national security state. It defers the moment -- at some point it will come -- when the press is exposed for its radically stupid overinvestment in the Russiagate nonsense. The price America has already begun to pay is very high.
Willow's expression of perplexity comes after an especially lively season of revelations as regards what must count as the largest disinformation op in U.S. history. It is now six months since the Russiagate hoax -- and I am fine with President Donald Trump's term for it -- began its final crash into a pile of piffle. While it remains to be seen whether more evidence of political chicanery is coming, what evidence we already have is more than sufficient to identify Russiagate as the probable criminal fraud it was from the start.
I am refreshed that Willow Inski, who describes herself as an "attorney, wife, mother, proud American," sees through this extravagant ruse. And yet, as she notes, a lot of people don't. A lot of people are "still taking at face value" all the misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies our newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters have purveyed incessantly for the past four years.
Why is a very large question. All possible answers are disturbing. But here is another big one we get to before that: When we consider together all its many consequences, has Russiagate destroyed what remained of American democracy before illiberal liberals, spooks, law enforcement, and the press colluded to erect the dreadful edifice?
The Damage Done
Your columnist's answer rests on the most scrupulously precise definition of Russiagate one can manage: What we have witnessed these past four years is an attempted palace coup against a sitting president.
Cold comfort it is that the gang that couldn't shoot straight bungled the job. It has also created a Democratic default position: When wrongdoing by Democrats is credibly exposed, automatically blame Russia. Among much else, that has led to unnecessary tension with a nuclear power. This damage will long stay with us.
Russiagate's foundation stone -- baseless allegations that Moscow was responsible for the 2016 DNC email intrusions -- crumbled long ago. We've known since July 2017 that nobody hacked the email servers in question.
This was confirmed by the Dec. 5, 2017, closed-door congressional testimony of Shawn Henry, president of CrowdStrike, the firm the Democrats hired to examine the DNC servers. It was made public only on May 7, 2020. Henry said under oath: "There's not evidence that they [the emails] were actually exfiltrated. There's circumstantial evidence but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated. "
The emails were most likely compromised by someone with direct access to them, probably a DNC insider. 'Twas a leak, not a hack.
But incessant propaganda and a sloppy but effective coverup have kept the fable going since then. All has been open game these past years, scabrous, apparent false-flag poisonings -- the Skripals, Alexei Navalny -- baseless tales of Russian bounties on U.S. soldiers' heads. The press has reported this sort of rubbish for years as if it were confirmed fact. Spectral evidence has reigned.
It is this coverup that has been falling apart since last spring.
First came news that the collusion case against Michael Flynn, Trump's first national security adviser, was bogus and that Flynn entered his two guilty pleas when prosecutors threatened to indict his son if he refused. When the Justice Department dropped its case against Flynn, it simultaneously forced the House Intelligence Committee to release documents showing that no "evidence" of a Russian email hack ever existed, even as the Democrats, the spooks, and the press missed no chance to bang on about it.
Those who got my goat at the time were people such as Adam Schiff, the Democratic congressman from Hollywood and leader of the charge on Capitol Hill, who knew there was no evidence of Russian involvement but repeatedly insisted they had seen it whenever they faced a CNN camera.
You are right, Ms. Inski: Crowdstrike, the grossly corrupt firm that was supposed to have all the evidence one could ever want, never had any. Former FBI Director James Comey admitted in testimony that the FBI asked for but never gained possession of the DNC server, even though this would be the "best practice." We can surmise that this was so, so that the bureau could deny responsibility for what amounts to a psyop perpetrated against Americans. In June 2019 it was reported that CrowdStrike also never gave the FBI a final report because none was ever produced since the FBI never asked for one.
Among the congressional testimonies released last spring, two top Clinton campaign operatives, Podesta and Jake Sullivan, acknowledged that they met after Trump's election with the principals of Fusion GPS, the infamous orchestrator of the Steele Dossier, to keep the Russiagate ball rolling. What a difference speaking under oath makes.
Actually, what got my goat a second time was that none of this, as in none, was reported in The New York Times or anywhere else in the mainstream media. Our once-but-no-more newspaper of record has made an absolute dog's dinner of itself since its leadership decided to buy into the Russiagate junk. At this point I am convinced its ties to the spooks are as dense and corrupt as they were during the worst of the Cold War decades, when the publisher signed a covert agreement to cooperate with the CIA.
Clinton Approved Plan
As if any more reports were needed to deflate the Russiagate balloon, the evidence continues to accumulate. At the end of September John Ratcliffe, director of national intelligence, informed Senator Lindsey Graham that intelligence agencies had information "alleging that U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians' hacking of the Democratic National Committee." Some of us knew this four years ago.
While Ratcliffe's letter adds that spookworld "does not know the accuracy of this allegation," it goes on to note that the intel in question was serious enough for John Brennan, then the CIA director, to brief President Barack Obama about it and forward it to Comey and Peter Strzok, respectively FBI director and deputy assistant director of counterintelligence at the time. This is the referral, of course, that Comey now claims he cannot recall a damn thing about.
Given the Podesta and Sullivan testimonies, the Ratcliffe disclosures stitch the case: In my view, the Clinton campaign's active role in starting and prolonging the Russiagate propaganda operation is now open-and-shut. (It was first reported in October 2017 by Consortium News and predicted by me in Salon on July 26, 2016 and three days before the 2016 election by CN 's editor).
I wrote back then in Salon :
"Making lemonade out of a lemon, the Clinton campaign now goes for a twofer. Watch as it advances the Russians-did-it thesis on the basis of nothing, then shoots the messenger, then associates Trump with its own mess -- and, finally, gets to ignore the nature of its transgression (which any paying-attention person must consider grave)."
Declassifications Ignored
In the matter of goats, the Ratcliffe letter seems to have gotten Trump's. A week later he took to Twitter calling for the declassification , without redaction, of all documents related to the Russiagate probes.
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Although Trump did not issue an official order to this effect, this amounts to a direct challenge to what he has been all along referring to as the Deep State. (Trump first "ordered" the declassification, and was ignored, in September 2018.) Last Thursday Ratcliffe formally requested an investigation of the "Intelligence Community Assessment" of January 2017, a worthless put-up job that purported to confirm Russian "meddling." The CIA's inspector general ignored an earlier such request.
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1316823015796154380&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fconsortiumnews.com%2F2020%2F10%2F19%2Fpatrick-lawrence-the-damage-russiagate-has-done%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
Will more come out? Will the investigation Trump ordered earlier this year by Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham get all the way to the bottom? This is hard to say. We've since had credible reports that CIA Director Gina Haspel, known for authorizing post–2001 torture and destroying evidence of it, has personally blocked the release of Russiagate-related documents from the CIA's files. And the repellent Haspel may win this one, given the record in such matters.
The Russiagate "narrative" is at this point so preposterous that these recent disclosures have also gone either badly reported or unreported in mainstream media. We ought not expect more in days to come. The press has only one alternative at this point: Either black it out or allege that Russia is using people such as Ratcliffe, just as we're now asked to believe Moscow is manipulating The New York Post .
What an ungodly mess Russiagate has made of our splendid republic.
We have watched an attempted coup not much different from the CIA's covert ops elsewhere over the decades, then gave the coup plotters three years to investigate the plot, and no one, as things now appear, will be brought to justice for these travesties.
Send in the historians. One hopes they're already here.
The CIA, in breach of its charter, has now licensed itself to operate on U.S. soil in a probably unprecedented alliance with domestic law enforcement and a major political party. And it has told us in open defiance that it has no intention of submitting itself to executive or congressional control. No voice is raised, we must note with astonishment.
Government Without a Press
In 1787, when he was our new nation's minister in Paris, Jefferson wrote home to a friend that "were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." We are stuck with a government without newspapers now, given the ties our press has consolidated its ties with political and bureaucratic power in the course of imposing the Russiagate ruse upon us.
They only look like newspapers now. The liberal media are now bulletin boards for those they serve -- the Democratic Party, the spooks, and all the interests these two represent. Do they think that, once Trump leaves office, they can cavalierly reclaim the credibility they have profligately squandered in the service of Russiagate?
I see no chance of this. And here we have a silver lining: Russiagate will prove a key moment in the emergence of independent media (such as Consortium News ) as important sources of accurate information and perspectives. This is already evident. At this point The New York Times is to sound reporting what Applebee's is to a proper tavern serving good draft beer.
The worst consequence of Russiagate, in my view, is the swoon of hysteria it has sent many Americans into, a syndrome peculiar to our national character dating to the Quaker hangings in Boston during the early 1660s and repeated many times since. We are divided once again between the paranoid and the rational.
And there is an ideological distinction here that we must not miss. Willow Inski is a conservative and appears to be a Trumper. She addressed Paul Sperry, a New York Post reporter closely following the Russiagate debacle and also a conservative.
The paranoids, the Puritan preachers, the witch hunters, those who think censorship is a fine thing are this time one and all authoritarian liberals apparently determined to make everyone think as they do or else see to their banishment from the circles of the elect.
Let us debate opinions until the kingdom comes. But these people propose to debate facts because they understand the fragility Arendt noted all those years ago. This is not on.
"Under normal circumstances the liar is defeated by reality, for which there is no substitute," Arendt wrote. "No matter how large the tissue of falsehood that an experienced liar has to offer, it will never be large enough, even if he enlists the help of computers, to cover the immensity of factuality."
One hopes Arendt turns out to be right. One hopes the immensity of factuality eventually prevails. "Defactualization" in the service of all the Russiagate rubbish has gravely undermined numerous of our key institutions. As things now stand, this leaves us well short of what we need to reconstruct a working democracy.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune , is a columnist, essayist, author and lecturer. His most recent book is Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century (Yale). Follow him on Twitter @thefloutist .His web site is Patrick Lawrence . Support his work via his Patreon site .
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Oct 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
On Monday the UK Ministry of Defence confirmed a hugely embarrassing incident involving a security and operations lapse aboard the British nuclear submarine HMS Vigilant while it temporarily was docked during a mission at a US naval base, specifically Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia.
The officer in charge of overseeing the vessel's nuclear warheads arrived to his shift "staggering drunk" while strangely carrying a bag of barbecue chicken .
The scene immediately sparked concern that the officer, later identified as Lt. Commander Len Louw "was not in a fit state to be in charge of nuclear weapons" as there was something "seriously wrong" according to UK media reports .
... ... ...
The BBC noted that as the weapons engineering officer on the submarine he was "responsible for all weapons and sensors on board." The sub is armed with Trident ballistic missiles and is thus subject to stringent safety and security measures.
And more astounding, according to the Daily Mail , i s that :
The Royal Navy officer had been preparing to start a shift during which they would offload the 16 nuclear missiles - which each weigh 60 tons and have the combined power to kill almost the entire population of the UK.
He reportedly clocked in for his shift after a full night of drinking aboard one of only four submarines that make up the UK's nuclear deterrent.
A week ago the nuclear sub was in the news due to a reported COVID-19 outbreak after crew members were caught breaking port call rules to go to strip clubs and bars.
No doubt American military authorities at Kings Bay naval base will also have serious questions, considering they've just witnessed a significant operations lapse aboard a foreign allied 'top secret' nuclear submarine docked in US waters.
_arrow
No1uNo , 17 hours ago
Freeman of the City , 17 hours agoI raced Yachts with a UK Submarine commander for over a decade, this story is so out of sync with the character and personalities recruited into probably one of the most responsible jobs in the world - that the narrative asks many more questions than the story.
- Either he was spiked with a narcotic behaviour cocktail or what's being asked of him is not within his ethics code that something broke.
Propaganda Phil , 17 hours agoWell stated, Military Esprit de corps standard of officer conduct, period. No one rises to this level of responsibility without deep long term vetting.
This 'news' story sounds more like agitprop to undermine confidence in elite UK submariner forces. Sedition within the UK govt, from Labour or Marxists...
No1uNo , 17 hours agoIt came out 6 years ago that most of everyone manning our missile silos were cheating on testing and using drugs. 9 USAF officers fired and around 100 were caught cheating. It only was discovered when 2 of the cheaters were caught in a drug investigation.
& Secret Service getting high and banging hookers in Colombia.
Then there was the Fat Leonard scandal in the USN. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Leonard_scandal
Getting guys wasted ain't new. He just got caught.
No1uNo , 16 hours agoMissile silos are a very different thing, such people can be inspected observed or called out as needed. Subs are gone for months at a time and decisions made on own recognisance. As Freeman says the vetting process is lengthy and those who get through it are precise thoughtful engineering types and committed team players. Aside of that Subs are frequently used to pick up and drop off espionage packages in locations that would create international incidents if caught. The recruitment process is very very careful, whatever one's views on Nuclear subs or nation states. I feel he was 'got at'
Doctor Faustus , 15 hours agoI still find this story incredible, these guys are not that well paid, most take it v. carefully before going to richer defence sector for a few years before retirement. The hammer can drop on them when they realise who they were fighting as 'enemies' were really desperate people pushed to the edge by geopolitical designs and greed acquisitions of Military Industrial Intelligence Complex. More will come out: honey trap, interrogation and drugging or possibly as Propaganda Phil says - he lost it - perhaps from a drunken epiphany that caused him to doubt belief in what he was doing?
Propaganda Phil , 14 hours agoMaybe there was a family connection somewhere that allowed this officer in. Remember Hunter Biden? Got kicked out of the Navy for cocaine. Only way he got in was through his dad, Joe Biden.
indus creed , 14 hours agoLike wrongway McCain the disaster of a pilot and admiral's son.
Arrow4Truth , 13 hours agoDidn't McCain cause some major damage on the deck with some deaths? The affair was all hushed up. He reportedly was escorted away by Navy police, as the sailors onboard wanted to kill him.
Ex-Oligarch , 14 hours ago"who they were fighting as 'enemies' were really desperate people pushed to the edge by geopolitical designs and greed acquisitions of Military Industrial Intelligence Complex." Well said. It's never, ever delivered in that package, but instead called "National defence" as Freeman put it. When one determines that the scenario you described is true it blows the national defense theory all to hell... but most never make that jump because the repetitive indoctrination has been soooo effective. Any argument that they must be alert to the possibility that the "nation" could be under attack at any moment loses all it's luster when one realizes that the "national interest" is the cause.
U4 eee aaa , 13 hours agoUpvoted, not because this behavior is unthinkable for military officers, but because of the idea that the officer may have been drugged, or intentionally removing himself from his command position.
Something about this story stinks.
Let's start with this: why was a British submarine offloading its nuclear missiles in a US port?
tyberious , 17 hours agoJust blame Putin. They do it everywhere else.
Helg Saracen , 17 hours agoDamn Russians!
Eyes Opened , 9 hours agoWas it Novichok? :)
aaronvta , 16 hours agoYeah ... he slept it off ... like the other "victims" ... 😷
Peterus , 17 hours agoIt was later verified that he had been drinking vodka. Authorities are looking into the possibility of Russian influence.
land_of_the_few , 16 hours agoOh well, that's an unfortunate lapse. But the more important thing for continuous safety and prosperity of UK is that army hit diversity quotas for 2022 in sex, sexual orientation and bame categories.
Dr. Bendover , 17 hours agoTheir army can have tr@nny parties with spin the bottle to decide who gets the clinic pass to have their t1ts sliced off -to make them a small, tubby boy! for real, yeah! - and who gets the testosterone syringe for their butt cheeks so they can be proper Barnum & Bailey sideshow exhibits.
Maybe UK needs soldiers that are already used to elective mutilation and self-inflicted degradation?
Eyes Opened , 9 hours agoNow maybe Hunter Biden has a place to look for a real job.
trysophistry , 17 hours agoI bet he curses like a sailor.. and he has a pipe... sure he's halfway qualified already !! 🧐
Westsail32 , 15 hours agoComing to a theater near you, The Hunt for a Molson Blue October.
Alice-the-dog , 16 hours agoThe Royal Navy officer had been preparing to start a shift during which they would offload the 16 nuclear missiles - which each weigh 60 tons and have the combined power to kill almost the entire population of the UK.
Definitely a missed opportunity.
thunderchief , 17 hours agoSo what? The Democratic Party is hoping you elect a senile old criminal who doesn't remember where he is and has trouble forming a comprehensible sentence to be in charge of the entirety of US nuclear weapons.
koan , 15 hours ago"His condition was as fitting and useful and also as waistful and reckless, at the same time, as the UK's need for a nuclear armed submarine fleet."
My own comment.
Svastic , 16 hours agoU.S.S Hunter Biden
Yamaoka Tesshu , 17 hours agoI am surprised he didn't turn up in full drag. It's in keeping with the British character. Furthermore, officers are often picked for their political correctness and old-boy connections. Many are ho-mos.
Mad Muppet , 8 hours agoLove how the "Daily Mail" hams up the fake nuke fear by telling us each missile can kill everyone in the UK. In truth the Vigilant can deliver less destructive power than a single B-52. But it's far more effective at looting the taxpayer while at the same time holding him hostage to the threat of annihilation.
Anyone seeing through the scamdemic can analyze that template and discover it fits nicely over the nuclear weapons con job.
This is the only conspiracy theory that cheers people up. But they downvote anyway. Just like telling gays AIDS is fake. They get mad when they should be relieved.
Herodotus , 15 hours agoLet me guess: he was drinking Vodka. Russian Vodka!!!!
I just knew it was Putin's fault.
10LBS_SHIT_5LB_BAG , 15 hours agoThe Russians drugged him. DNA samples taken from the barbecue chicken places its origin in or around the Duchy of Muscovy.
Helg Saracen , 15 hours agoThey also laced the BBQ bag with Novichocken.
Smiddywesson , 13 hours agoOy vey! :)
Genoves , 13 hours agoDrunk while returning to the ship is one thing, drunk on duty is another, a career ending incident.
TheRecluse , 13 hours agoI prefer officials drunks that officials killing people.
Captain Archer , 13 hours agoSo whats wrong with Barbecue chicken? It goes down great after getting drunk.
seryanhoj , 12 hours ago"Big Bo" Can't be beat.
oracle_man , 14 hours agoHe could reheat it real quick in the reactor.
Yo Ho Ho And A Bottle Of Rum Fifteen men on a dead man's chest Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum Drink and the devil be done for the rest Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum!
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Oct 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
"This Is Not A Russian Hoax": 'Nonpublic Information' Debunks Letter From '50 Former Intel Officials'
by Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2020 - 08:45 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print
Hours before Politico reported the existence of a letter signed by '50 former senior intelligence officials' who say the Hunter Biden laptop scandal "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation" - providing "no new evidence," while they remain "deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case," Tucker Carlson obliterated their (literal) conspiracy theory .
According to the Fox News host, he's seen 'nonpublic information that proves it was Hunter's laptop ,' adding " No one but Hunter could've known about or replicated this information ."
" This is not a Russian hoax. We are not speculating ."
Watch:
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TUCKER: "This afternoon, we received nonpublic information that proves it was Hunter's laptop. No one but Hunter could've known about or replicated this information. This is not a Russian hoax. We are not speculating." pic.twitter.com/cl2ktdmdVc
-- August Takala (@AugustTakala) October 17, 2020Meanwhile, the Delaware computer repair shop owner who believes Hunter dropped off three MacBook Pros for data recovery has a signed work order bearing Hunter's signature . When compared to the signature on a document in his paternity suit, while one looks more formal than the other, they are a match.
Going back to the '50 former senior intelligence officials' and their latest Russia fixation, one has to wonder - do they think Putin was able to compromise Biden's former business associate , Bevan Cooney, who gave investigative journalist Peter Schweizer his gmail password - revealing that Hunter and his partners were engaged in an influence-peddling operation for rich Chinese who wanted access to the Obama administration?
https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890
Did Putin further hack Joe Biden in 2011 to make him take a meeting with a Chinese delegation with ties to the CCP - arranged by Hunter's group, two years they secured a massive investment of Chinese money?
The implications boggle the mind.
Here's the clarifying sentences from the '50 former senior intelligence officials' that exposes the utter farce of it all:
While the letter's signatories presented no new evidence , they said their national security experience had made them "deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case" and cited several elements of the story that suggested the Kremlin's hand at work.
"If we are right," they added, "this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this."
It would appear these former intel officials are not aware of the current intel official views, confirmed by DNI Ratcliffe yesterday that:
"Hunter Biden's laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign."
And then there's the fact that no one from the Biden campaign has yet to deny any of the 'facts' in the emails. lay_arrow jin187 , 2 hours ago
Roacheforque , 7 hours agoTotally ridiculous. This ******** beating around the bush for both sides pisses me off. Dump all the laptop contents on Wikileaks if it's real. Let the people sort it out. If you say it's not real, prove it. If Biden wants me to believe it's not real, then stand behind a podium, and say clear as day into a pile of cameras that's it's all a forgery, and that you've done nothing wrong.
Instead we have Giuliani swearing he has a smoking gun, but as far as I can tell he's just pointing his finger underneath his shirt. Biden on the other hand, keep using weasel words to imply it's fake, but never denies it outright. It's almost like he's trying to hedge his bet that no one will manage to prove it's real before he gets into office, and makes it disappear.
East Indian , 4 hours agoTo play the "Russian Card" yet again should be beyond embarrassing. An insult to the intelligence of anyone with an IQ over 80. And so it's harmful to the left wingnut derangeables. Like Assad's chemical weapons and Saddam's WMDs, it is now code for pure ********. Not even code, just more like a signal.
A signal that say's "guilty as charged - we got nothin' but lies and BS over here".
Kayman , 4 hours agoAn insult to the intelligence of anyone with an IQ over 80.
They know their supporters wont find this insulting.
Antedeluvian , 2 hours ago@vulvishka.
538 ? North Korea has better propaganda.
Don't forget to go all in, like you did with Hillary.
4DegreesOfSeparation , 6 hours agoUnfortunately, some very bright people are sucked into the conspiracy theory. I know one. Very bright lawyer. She says, "I still think there is substantive evidence of Russian collusion." I can point to a sky criss-crossed with chemtrails (when you see these "contrails" crossing at the same altitude, this is one sure clue these are not from regular passenger jet traffic) and she refuses to look up. She KNOWS I am an idiot (a PhD scientist idiot at that) because I get news and analysis on the web from sites that just want to sell me tee shirts and coffee mugs (well, she is partly right there!) whereas she gets her news from MSNBC, a venerable and trustworthy news source.
DescendantofthePatriots , 7 hours agoMore Than 50 Former Intel Officials Say Hunter Biden Smear Smells Like Russia
"If we are right," the group wrote in a letter, "this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote."
strych10 , 8 hours agoThat ****, James Clapper, signed his name at the top of this list.
Known liar, saboteur, and sneak.
The cognitive dissonance in our country is astounding. The fact that they would take these people's opinion over hard fact is astounding.
No wonder why we're sliding down the steep, slippery slope.
Someone Else , 9 hours agoSo... let me get this straight.
50, that's 10 times five, fifty former intelligence officials are going with a convoluted narrative about a ludicrously complicated Russian Intelligence disinformation campaign involving planted laptops and at least half a dozen patsies when the two words "crack cocaine" explain the entire thing?
I'm not sure what's more terrifying; That these people think everyone else is dumb enough to believe this or that they're actually retired intelligence officials .
Who the actual **** is running this ****show? The bastard child of Barney Fife and Inspector Clouseau?
Seriously, "Pink Panther Disinformation Operation" is more believable at this point.
moneybots , 8 hours agoThis needs to get out, because a FAVORITE method of the Deep State, Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) is to parade some sort of a stupid letter with a bunch of signature hoping to look impressive but that really don't mean a damn thing.
Notre Dame graduates against the Supreme Court nominee, Intelligence agents alleging collusion, former State Department operatives against Trump. Its grandstanding that has been overdone.
otschelnik , 8 hours agoThe letter by 50 former intelligence officials is itself, disinformation.
enough of this , 8 hours agoRemember when Weiner's attorney turned over Huma's home laptop to SDNY/FBI with all of Shillary's emails, and the FBI sat on it for a month and then Comey deep sixed them without even looking at them?
So now the FBI subpeona'd Hunter's laptop and burried it? Deja vu all over again.
Cobra Commander , 7 hours agoThe FBI and DOJ constantly hide behind self-serving excuses to refuse the release of documents and, when forced to do so, they release heavily redacted files. They offer up the usual pretexts to fend off public disclosure such as: the information you seek cannot be disclosed because it involves an ongoing investigation, or the information you seek involves national security, or our methods and sources will be jeopardized if the information you seek is divulged to the public. But it seems the ones who would be most harmed by public disclosure are the corrupt FBI and DOJ officials themselves
The Fonz...before shark jump , 5 hours agoA short 4 years ago the FBI and CIA were all concerned about "Kompromat" the Ruskies might have on Candidate Trump; concerned enough to spy on his campaign and open a counter-intelligence operation.
There are troves of Kompromat material, actual emails and video, on Joe, Hunter, and the whole Biden family; not made-up DNC-funded dossiers claiming a Russian consulate in Miami.
Now when it's Candidate Biden, everyone be all like, "Meh."
Cobra!
Occams_Razor_Trader_Part_Deux , 7 hours agowe gotta listen to the 50 former intelligence agents...you know the ones that had lone superpower status in the early 90s and then pissed it all away with 9/11 and infinity wars in middle east hahahahah ok buddy lol... histories D students....
Signed by James Clapper and John Brennan;
You mean, the 2 Bozos who under the threat of perjury said there was NO evidence of Russian Collusion and the Trump campaign................. and 2 hours later called Trump 'Putin's puppet' on CNN.............
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Oct 20, 2020 | www.unz.com
Internet Resources Become Weaponized High Tech Oligarchs threaten democracy PHILIP GIRALDI OCTOBER 20, 2020 1,200 WORDS 90 COMMENTS REPLY Tweet Reddit 3 Share Share 2 Email Print More 5 SHARES
The current electoral campaign differs from that of 2016 in that the media, both conventional and online, has realized its power and has been openly playing a major role in what might well prove to be a victory across the board for the Democratic Party. At least that is the expectation, bolstered by a flood of possibly suspect opinion polls that appear to make the triumph of Joe Biden and company inevitable while at the same time denigrating President Donald Trump and covering up for Democratic Party missteps.
Most Americans no longer trust what is being reported in the mainstream media but when they look for "real" information they frequently turn to online resources that they believe to be more politically objective. That has never been true, however, and what most newshounds are actually seeking is commentary that reflects their own views. In reality, the news provided is almost always either spun or distorted and sometimes completely blocked, note particularly the resistance to reporting the tale of the shenanigans of Hunter Biden.
The New York Post is claiming that a trove of emails from a laptop reveals that "Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company."
The emails include a message of appreciation that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, allegedly sent Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015, about a year after Hunter joined the oil company Burisma's board at a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month. "Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It's realty [sic] an honor and pleasure," the email reads. An earlier email from May 2014 also shows Pozharskyi, reportedly Burisma's No. 3 exec, asking Hunter for "advice on how you could use your influence" on the company's behalf.
The correspondence, if authentic, disproves Joe Biden's claim that he's " never spoken to his son about his overseas business dealings ." One would think that the story would be a real blockbuster, welcomed by self-respecting journalists but the reality has been that the mainstream media is doing its best to kill it. Facebook and Twitter have both blocked it though Twitter has since relented, and much of the rest of the liberal media is regarding it as a hoax .
Facebook has in fact become something of a leader in reversing its self-promotion as a site for free exchange of ideas. It has removed large numbers of users and alleged suspect sites and has blocked any "denial or distortion" of the so-called holocaust in response to what it regards as a surge in anti-Semitism. It has hired a former Israeli government official to lead the censorship effort on the site.
As Facebook and Twitter are private companies, they can legally do whatever they want to set the rules for the use of their sites, but when the two most powerful social media companies choose to censor a major newspaper's story about a presidential candidate's possibly corrupt son less than three weeks before the election it suggests a more sinister agenda. They are quite likely banking on a Democratic victory and will expect to be rewarded afterwards.
Indeed, it should be assumed that Facebook and the other social media giants are reconfiguring themselves for the post-electoral environment in expectation that they will be more than ever politically and economically indispensable to aspiring politicians. This willingness to engage with politically powerful forces has led to increased involvement in the various mostly left-wing movements that have shaken the United States over the past five months. Television and radio stations as well as corporations and local businesses have rushed to endorse and even fund black lives matter without considering the damage that the group has been doing to property and persons that have had the misfortune to cross its path, not to mention some of the group's long-term more radical objectives. Individuals identified as blm leaders have demanded mandatory training to reprogram whites as well as punitive reparations, to include "white people" turning over their homes to blacks.
Some of the developments are quite dangerous, most notably the compiling of lists of organizations and individuals that are considered to be "enemies" of the new social justice order that intends to take over the United States. One has noted the desire for revenge permeating many of the comments on sites like Facebook (which claims to delete "threats" from its commentary), to include some material in recent weeks that has called for the "elimination" of Americans who do not go along with the new normal.
One of the most invidious steps taken by any of the corporate social media is a recent decision by Yelp to allow Antifa to compile the raw material on so-called "fascist businesses" that will be included on a list of "Businesses Accused of Racist Behavior Alerts." The list itself was set up to appease demands coming from the blm movement.
Yelp is a review site that provides grades and commentary on a broad range of goods and services, to include many businesses that cater to the public. The potential for abuse is enormous as Yelp is an information site that has no capability to investigate whether complaints of "racism" are true or not and Antifa, which is recognized as being at least in part behind the devastating Portland riots, is far from an objective observer. In fact, this is what Antifa has tweeted about its new role , which will allow group members to submit names of "non-friendly" businesses, defined as "also known as (AKA) any company that's hanging blue lives garbage in their store or anything else that's anti the BLM movement."
The Antifa intention is clearly to put unfriendly shops and restaurants out of business, so it will not exactly be interested in engaging in constructive criticism or changing behavior through negotiation. Using the intimidation provided by the "Alerts" list and direct threats of violence from Antifa and blm, businesses will be coerced into supporting radical groups lest they be targeted. It is somewhat reminiscent of the old Mafia protection rackets, and who can doubt that demands for money will follow on to the verbal threats?
The rise of the internet oligarchs might indeed do more serious damage to the freedoms that still survive in the United States than will victory by either Biden or Trump. What Americans are allowed to think and how they perceive themselves and the world have taken a serious hit over the past twenty years and it can only get worse.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .
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Oct 20, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
ET AL October 19, 2020 at 11:12 am
MARK CHAPMAN October 19, 2020 at 11:36 amSkyNudes: US charges six Russian hackers over global attacks that hit Novichok probe, French elections and Winter Olympics
https://news.sky.com/story/us-charges-six-russian-hackers-over-global-attacks-that-hit-novichok-probe-french-elections-and-winter-olympics-12108610"It went on to target broadcasters, a ski resort, Olympic officials and sponsors of the games in 2018. The GRU deployed data-deletion malware against the Winter Games IT systems and targeted devices across the Republic of Korea using VPNFilter."
The Russian hackers' alleged attempt to cover their tracks included using certain snippets of code and techniques to try to confuse investigators into think they were from China and North Korea.
The UK's National Cyber Security Centre, a branch of GCHQ, believe Russia's aim was to sabotage the running of the games, the Foreign Office said .
####So as usual, nothing but the Foreign Orifice's word and they wouldn't make stuff up, especially on order when the government is under heavy domestic pressure? No. Never.
I wonder if Tokyo has been asked for comment or given 'evidence?' Again, absence of information gives it away.
Other outlets are putting out this FO press release with little comment, as usual.
"The Russian hackers' alleged attempt to cover their tracks included using certain snippets of code and techniques to try to confuse investigators into think they were from China and North Korea."
Just by the most marvelous coincidence, other bogus source codes in the Marble Framework tickle trunk are those of China, North Korea and Iran.
https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/cia-marble-framework.html
So what do we have now? The CIA imitating Russia imitating China and North Korea? Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
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Oct 20, 2020 | www.redstate.com
If this is the caliber of the workforce that currently inhabits our intel agencies, someone explain to me why they still deserve to exist.
Apparently, 50 former intel agents have run to Politico to sign a letter, a favorite tactic during the Trump era to push non-authoritative nonsense as authoritative, claiming that the Hunter Biden email scandal is actually Russian misinformation.
... ... ..
Oh, it has all the classic earmarks? Well, that settles it, right? I mean, who needs actual evidence of to push a wild, partisan conspiracy theory when you are trying to counter a myriad of evidence to the contrary, including an actual receipt that shows the laptop was dropped off at the repair shop by Hunter Biden.
(see Repair Shop Receipt for Hunter Biden Laptop Revealed, Media Narrative Burns to the Ground )
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Oct 20, 2020 | www.realclearpolitics.com
Glenn Greenwald: Media and Intel Community Working Together To Manipulate The American People Posted By Ian Schwartz
On Date October 19, 2020Glenn Greenwald: Media and Intel Community Working Together To Manipulate The American People Glenn Greenwald appeared on Tucker Carlson's FOX News show Monday night to criticize the media for its lack of response to the Hunter Biden laptop story. Greenwald also criticized intel community activity in domestic elections and posed the question that even if Russians are behind the story it just requires journalistic investigation in case Biden is compromised.https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.417.2_en.html#goog_590212220
"Adam Schiff is seriously the most pathological liar in all of American politics that I've seen in all of my time covering politics and journalism," Greenwald said on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.' "He just fabricates accusations at the drop of the hat at the other people change underwear. He's simply lying when he just asserts over and over that the Russians or the Kremlin are behind the story. He has no idea whether or not that is true. There is no evidence to support it."
"And what makes it so much worse is that the reason that the Bidens aren't answering basic questions about the story," Greenwald said. "Basic questions like did Hunter Biden drop that laptop off of the repair shop? Are the emails authentic? Do you know denied that they are. Do you claim that any have been altered or are any of them fabricated? Did you in fact meet with Barisma executives? The reason they don't answer the questions is because the media has signaled that they don't have to. That journalists will be attacked and vilified simply for asking."
- Victor Davis Hanson: Will Our Next Revolution Be French, Russian, Maoist, Or American?
- Glenn Greenwald: Media and Intel Community Working Together To Manipulate The American People
- Trump Rips Coronavirus Coverage: "People Aren't Buying It CNN, You Dumb Bastards"
"The whole point of the Intelligence Community since the end of World War II was that whatever propaganda the CIA produces, whatever disinformation campaigns they engaged were never supposed to be directed domestically," he said. "That was the point of the NSA, the CIA, and all those intelligence communities."
"What we have seen since 2016 going back to the 2016 campaign is incessant involvement in U.S. domestic politics. Working with journalists to disseminate purely for partisan ends. If you want to talk about things like violating norms, and dangers to democracy, what's more dangerous than allowing the CIA constantly to be manipulating our politics by making cover for the Biden campaign by claiming anonymously that the Russians are behind the story and therefore you disregard it. Even if the Russians why does that alleviate the responsibility of journalists to evaluate the emails and to examine whether or not Joe Biden actually engaged in misconduct?" Greenwald asked.
"The much bigger point is the way that the information is being disseminated," he said. "It is a union of journalists who have decided that their only goal is to defend Joe Biden and election him president of the United States working with the FBI, CIA, NSA not to manipulate our adversaries or foreign governments, but to manipulate the American people for their own ends. It's been going on for four straight years now and there's no sign of it stopping anytime soon." Related Videos
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Oct 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Update (1930ET) : In yet another death blow to Adam Schiff and the '50 former senior intelligence officers' "Russia, Russia, Russia" claims, the FBI and DOJ have told a Fox News producer that they do not believe that Hunter Biden's laptop and its contents are part of a Russian disinformation campaign , confirming that the 'current' intelligence community agrees with DNI Ratcliffe's comments yesterday.
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1318673941624426497&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fnot-russian-hoax-tucker-carlson-has-seen-nonpublic-information-proving-laptop-was-hunter&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
Additionally, a Federal Law Enforcement Official also confirmed to Fox News' Martha MacCallum that the emails are "authentic".
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1318681219740127234&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fnot-russian-hoax-tucker-carlson-has-seen-nonpublic-information-proving-laptop-was-hunter&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
All of which leaves on big gaping unanswered question (that we all know the answer to)...
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1318703211348459521&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fnot-russian-hoax-tucker-carlson-has-seen-nonpublic-information-proving-laptop-was-hunter&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
We look forward to the reporting from other mainstream media news agencies now that federal law enforcement has confirmed this is not a 'hoax' and we assume that the NYPost will once again be allowed to tweet since this is now as 'factual' as anything thrown at Trump for the last five years.
y_arrow Fizzy Head , 9 hours agoHan Cholo , 8 hours agoExcuse me, but Who cares what these "former" senior officials think? I want names and party affiliations, that will tell the tale.
and furthermore, if these former guys can muster up a letter why can't the real officials muster up something, anything? They've known for months!! This is growing more ridiculous as time goes by.
"former" -- Meaning they are mostly looking from the outside in and have no clue.
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Oct 20, 2020 | www.themoscowtimes.com
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dropped a bombshell on Tuesday, warning that Russia might halt all dialogue with the European Union. Mr. Lavrov offered no explanation for what was probably the most severe public statement on the EU of his career. Perhaps he was reacting to extended talks he recently held with EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell -- talks that, by all appearances, did not go well.
Naturally, the EU will respond to his statement with great displeasure and indignation, but Lavrov's comment was actually rooted in a process that began long before the current crisis, all the way back to when Russian-EU relations looked positively upbeat and promising.
Common, but shaky ground
The modern Russian state and the EU came into existence at practically the same time -- the former in late December 1991 and the latter in February 1992 -- and they soon laid the groundwork for their mutual relations. The two parties signed a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement in 1994 -- and ratified it in 1997 -- that made their relations so close as to be considered "strategic" at one point.
This differs significantly from the slogan of a "Europe stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok" that former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev coined in 1989 to connote a common European homeland that, in reality, had no document or agreement to back it up.
By contrast, the Russian-EU partnership was based firmly on the idea of integration. While Brussels never offered Russia full EU membership, it offered general, though indefinite assurances that its eastern neighbor would play a suitably substantial role in the "Greater Europe" that was then being built.
At the core of this "Greater Europe," as it was then envisioned, was a rapidly expanding European Union that wound up more than doubling in size from 1992 to 2007 -- and which, it was expected, would eventually include Russia as well as other Soviet republics. A sort of pan-European space was created, although Russia's status in that new entity was never described or even discussed. Both sides simply assumed that Russia would be part of Europe. NEWS EU Sanctions FSB Chief, Senior Kremlin Officials Over Navalny Poisoning READ MORE
In hindsight, it seems that Russia and the EU understood that partnership differently.
However, they agreed at the time that everything from the structure of the state to economic regulation should be based on the legal and regulatory framework of the EU -- which they both considered clearly superior. Ideally, every country that was included in that European space would have adopted European rules and regulations, after which they would either become EU members -- some, strictly due to their size -- or else, as in the case of Russia and Ukraine, associate members. Every newcomer was expected to bring its laws and regulations into line with the European standard.
And in this regard, it differed fundamentally from Gorbachev's idea of a "Europe stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok." Although the Soviet leader did not offer any details regarding the pan-European homeland, he clearly anticipated a partnership of equals.
The Soviet leader looked to a coming convergence, a mutual rapprochement in which each player -- the Soviet Union, the European Community and the West as a whole -- would contribute their strongest qualities, each somehow coming together in a whole that was more than the sum of its parts. In was, in a word, utopia, but not a tenable plan.
Significantly, it was not former President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s who made the greatest efforts to achieve Russia's integration into the European space based on European principles, but President Vladimir Putin during his first term in the early 2000s.
Yeltsin had to overcome Russia's internal crisis before there could be any talk of integrating with Europe. By the 2000s, when the state and its apparatus had stabilized and oil revenues filled government coffers, Putin searched diligently for an opportunity to implement the partnership with the EU and to further rapprochement. This continued from 2001 until as late as 2006.
The honeymoon had ended
Russia's potential had grown significantly by that time, as had its expectations for the role it would play in a partnership with the EU.
Russia rejected as illegitimate the expectation that it comply unquestionably with European norms and felt that any partnership must be based, if not on strictly equal terms, then at least on special conditions. However, the EU never even considered Russia a special case, arguing that any reconsideration of its rules violated the very principles of European integration.
For this reason, the very idea of a strategic and integration partnership between Russia and the EU began eroding around the mid-2000s. This erosion occurred very gradually, not only because Russia's domestic and foreign policy had begun to change significantly, but also because the EU unexpectedly faced a crisis, one that reached full force in the early 2010s.
By that time, although the partnership agreement first drawn up in the early 1990s remained unchanged -- as it does today -- the reality of Russia's relationship with Europe increasingly diverged from its original configuration. Both sides' objectives and, more importantly, their self-perceptions, grew further and further apart. NEWS EU's Navalny Sanctions Miss the Mark READ MORE
The most striking illustration of this was the obvious disconnect between the words spoken at the final Russia-EU Summit, held in Brussels in late January 2014, and the reality on the ground.
The Maidan protests were raging in Kiev, only three weeks remained before Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych would flee and new authorities would come to power, and relations between Russia and the EU -- that stood on opposite sides of those barricades in Kiev -- could not have been worse.
While President Putin and EU Commission President Manuel Barroso stood before the cameras and repeated the very same mantras they had been uttering for years, even decades, about partnership, a common space, road maps and so on, their faces betrayed what they were really thinking -- namely, that nothing of the sort was going to happen.
But they had no other options on the table. Pure inertia from the process begun in the early 1990s compelled them to repeat the same tired calls for a close future partnership.
Then came the game-changing events in Ukraine, and much more besides. The long-standing framework for Russian-EU relations turned into an anachronism overnight, giving way to heated antagonism and competitiveness. Nevertheless, both sides continued paying lip service to partnership, dialogue and, in general, a state of affairs that had last existed 25 years earlier.
Fast forward to the present, and we have Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov indirectly acknowledging how bad things have actually become. In effect, he has simply stated what everyone already knew -- namely, that the old framework for Russian-EU relations no longer exists.
This does not mean an end to all relations, only an end to relations as they were.
The same, only different
A new framework is needed now, but it will probably be a long time in coming. And the framework Russia might want for its relations with Europe will not materialize for the very reasons mentioned above: present circumstances are simply too unfavorable.
Of course, no new Iron Curtain between Russia and the EU will fall from the sky. Their mutual humanitarian and economic relations remain very strong, despite some damage from sanctions, and cultural and even political ties remain intact. However, these are strictly utilitarian relations, without any pretense of common goals, and they take a backseat to Moscow's bilateral relations with individual European countries. Russia and Europe are devolving into coolly polite neighbors that have no real interest in each other, but who are forced to interact simply because they live next door to each other.
In fact, Russia must now focus more on its main neighbor, China. Although Russia's quarrel with the West plays some role in this pivot eastward, it is the enormously long Russian-Chinese border and the fact that China is rapidly becoming, if not a world hegemon, then at least one of the two pillars of the new world order that compels Moscow to devote far more attention to this neighbor than it is accustomed to.
More importantly, and what will cause fundamental change to Russia's relations with Europe, is the fact that, for better or worse, the global balance is shifting towards Asia. As a result, the focus that Russia has had on Europe and West for the past 300 years no longer corresponds to the global reality. Russia cannot afford to treat Asia as a secondary priority, although it often still does. If Moscow continues in this way, Russia could find itself facing a creeping expansionism from the east.
In any case, Russia's former model of relations with the European Union has clearly ceased to function, and one way or another, the two sides have started to acknowledge this openly.
This article was first published by Vtimes.
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Oct 20, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
MOSCOW EXILE October 19, 2020 at 12:36 am
JAMES LAKE October 19, 2020 at 5:41 amArticle 275 of the Criminal Code "High treason" certainly applies as regards the actions of Lyosha Navalny , as does article 128.1 of the Russian Criminal Code on "Slander"
But as I have already said more than once, if Alyosha is issued with a foreign passport by the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation, and Alyosha himself repeatedly violates laws and remains free whilst concurrently serving two suspended sentences, this means that someone needs him -- so much so that even these mountains of shit, which thanks to his diligence have been poured on Russia in recent months, also do not count.
There is such a term "protest sewerage". It was born of German politicians in the '50s of the last century as a tool to counter protests against social injustice and militarization. And it proved to be surprisingly effective. Roughly speaking, individual cadres were allowed a lot in exchange for their discrediting protest movements. In Russia, Navalny has long been playing this role, whilst feathering his own nest here and there. And as time passed, a big problem for Lyosha's curators was his close work with the CIA. And the threat through Navalny to such a global project as Nord Stream 2 makes not only Navalny himself, but also these very "curators" traitors to the Motherland.
ATIENT OBSERVER October 19, 2020 at 6:13 amWhat is all this Navalny publicity tour for?
The American/ European audience or the Russian audience
Is he going to be promoted like Juan Guaido ?
He just looks like a paid puppet on an anti-Russia tour.
All these stage managed images and interviews.
I am finding it difficult to see the point in all this.
In my view – he is best ignored by the government
Report in detail his disloyal behaviour – but nothing more.MARK CHAPMAN October 19, 2020 at 9:50 amNot aimed at the Russian audience, definitely not.
It serves as a pretext for more sanctions for those looking for any excuse and to force public officials to "condemn" Russia. I am 100% sure Trump is on to the game so his decision will be solely based on political expediency. If he believes he can win the election, he is likely thinking that he can not jump on the bandwagon thus will not join the Putin bashing party.
PATIENT OBSERVER October 19, 2020 at 6:20 amEasy to say, but I'm pretty sure if you were accused of something heinous and knew you were not guilty, that ample evidence was available to prove it but that it was being kept from you while the accusations went on and on that establishing your innocence would be a priority for you. Even when your attempts fell on deaf ears. Because perhaps the hardest thing, for a group or individual accused of something, is to know you did not do it, but keep silent and allow your accusers a free hand.
I imagine Washington would love to declare Navalny the 'legitimate President of the Russian Federation", and its musing on what a wonderful world it would be if Joe Biden was President of the United States and Navalny was President of Russia might well b e a tentative trial balloon to see what public opinion makes of it. But it is not a very realistic possibility, for a couple of reasons. One, Washington already has a pair of governments-in-waiting that it is supporting, to little or no effect, and adding another risks introducing too many balls for the juggler to keep in the air, plus the resulting loss of confidence in Washington as a game-changer that makes its own rules. Two, whatever blabber the media generates, the real power-brokers know Navalny has no significant support at home, and that trying to foist him on the Russian people over their clear preference for the present leader has no hope of succeeding.
They will have to continue with the make-believe for yet awhile, and hope for an opportunity.
MARK CHAPMAN October 19, 2020 at 10:08 amA pretty impressive but utterly useless display:
These guys flying jet packs that require use of hands to point the auxiliary jets for a modicum of control will be more vulnerable than clay pigeons. The noise alone will alert any vessels within a few miles that they are coming.
I suppose that they could board a very large vessel at night that has been commandeered by a few pirates without certainty of being shot down.
A far more useful application would be as part of a rescue team to bring aboard a small vessel in distress urgently needed supplies or a trained EMT. Seems like a drone could do the same.
JENNIFER HOR October 19, 2020 at 11:55 amWow. You can fly in still or light airs from a carrier vessel that is right alongside – I wonder what prospective boarding candidate is going to permit that? Added to the criticism you have already pointed out that the 'iron man' is already quite busy controlling his direction and altitude, and is essentially defenseless. A speed of 200 mph or less is like an engraved invitation to a Gatling-gun style air defense system like Phalanx or Goalkeeper, and you would not have to hit a man in a rubber suit very often with a 20mm round to make him lose interest – Goalkeeper is a 30mm system if I remember correctly, and consequently would be even less encouraging. For purposes of comparison, a .50 cal round that would lift you right out of your shoes is a .127mm.
There's no denying it is interesting technology that should stimulate discussion and ideas, but a clever new system which will revolutionize opposed boarding it is not, not yet. There might be rescue applications as you suggested, but it does not look like the system has enough lift to carry the operator plus average deadweight.
PATIENT OBSERVER October 19, 2020 at 7:03 amThe Iron Man flyboys work well in sunny weather with little wind but I wonder how well they will fare in heavier weather when visibility will be poor and landing platforms may not be stable. Shouldn't these Iron Man pilots also have better face and eye protection against the elements?
PATIENT OBSERVER October 19, 2020 at 11:01 amEven more nonsensical that the jet-pack warriors mentioned above
The US Army is developing a new cannon it claims will have a range of more than 1,000 miles, writes Popular Mechanics.
The Strategic Long Range Cannon (SLRC) is touted as potentially being able to strike targets at up to 1,150 miles (1,850 km) away and fire 50 times farther than existing guns.Earlier, the outlet had published leaked photos of the SLRC, touted as able to bring about a revolutionary breakthrough in artillery warfare.
Super duper long range artillery has been tried in the past:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP
A 1,000 mile range would require a trajectory that would peak at hundreds of miles. The shell must use rocket assist and include various electronics for guidance. It would required heat shielding to resist high temperatures during reentry into the atmosphere. The shell may leave the muzzle at a few thousand mph but need to accelerate to a much high velocity using a rocket. If the shell weighs, say, 200 pounds, then warhead certainly could not weigh more than 50 pounds with the balance being the rocket, heat shield, fins and actuators for steering and guidance electronics.
You'd think they would have learned their lessons from the Zumwalt destroyer long range gun debacle:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Gun_System
Up to $1 million per round for a gun with far less capability than now being proposed.
The main purposes are to keep the artillery boys happy and to keep the cash flow river to the MIC running deep and fast.
It's wunderweapons to the rescue!
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Oct 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
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Patrick Bateman Jr. , 44 minutes ago
Dragonlord , 59 minutes agoThe CIA's domestic propaganda campaign has been massively successful over the past four years. There are tens of millions who literally believe that Trump is a Russian agent. They believe that everyone should wear masks on their faces, forever, and they believe there are Nazis everywhere. They believe there were no riots this summer, that thousands of blacks are murdered every year by police, and that Christians are trying to establish a theocracy in the US. They believe that little children should be able to have their genitals surgically removed. They believe that the 2016 election was stolen, but that the one coming up cannot be, even if ballots without postmarks show up on trucks ten days after November 3rd.
These are just a few of their insane beliefs that have been put into their heads through social media and television.
Trump never had any power to stop this. Both the Democrats and Republicans are completely in thrall to the intelligence and police agencies. It's all an act. There's no democracy left in this country and there is no chance of reforming this system, ever. It has to collapse or be seized and turned mercilessly against those who are perpetrating this horror show.
philmannwright , 56 minutes agoFBI and CIA betraying the country is no longer surprising, what surprising is how fast tech giants jump onto the scum train even though some only exist less than 20 years. This reveal why quickly the globalists can turn anyone into scumbags.
Finally, depths of Biden corruption proves our hypothesis that the so called ruling class like Nancy, Obama, Clinton, etc, are not at the top echelon, there is a group or class of people higher than them. They are probably the overlord class of the globalists.
Gold Pedant , 1 hour agoThe FBI has always been a tool. Recall J Edgar.
Big Tech has enabled all of this. NSA/Data collection - Big brother goodbye freedom. seems like a natural progression.
4Y_LURKER , 23 minutes agoHahaha, William Colby is the third man in the newspaper clipping above, but he isn't even mentioned. Well after he retired from the CIA, he was assassinated to send a message. Look up "WHO MURDERED THE CIA CHIEF?" It's a good quick read.
4Y_LURKER , 13 minutes agoOriginal article on the death:
https://apnews.com/article/15163c14ce9e9c8387bf4c8f7a5c8eec
"Colby was fired on Nov. 2, 1975, as head of the CIA after being accused of talking too much. He was said to have been too candid in testimony to congressional investigators; he had long ago aroused the ire of the agency's old guard for trying to channel more effort into the gathering, evaluation and analysis of information and less into covert operation."
Anarchyteez , 44 minutes agoAlso: this:
FightClubPanties , 42 minutes agoPeter Strzok needs a rope n a short drop.
Eastern Whale , 1 hour agoAnd Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe, Weissman, Sally Yates, Bruce And Nellie Ord, James Baker, Comey, Rosenstein, the entire brench of the FISA Court, and about 500 Senators and Congressmen out of 535. It's a start.
PigmanExecutioner , 23 minutes ago"National Security" in the US is the get out of free card for politicians and the rich with clout. paedophile, corruption, murder you name it.
philmannwright , 1 hour agoAnytime I hear "Russia" or "Democracy" these days, I have to ponder for the fate of mankind. Imagine being that infantile in one's worldview and devoid of the ability to critically analyze information? "National Security" is a made up term to excuse criminal actions that somehow leaked out through unauthorized channels.
kudocast , 46 minutes agoSo, we have all been educated on how when the Democrats accuse, they are most likely projecting upon their target their own behavior. Over and over again we see the blatant and obvious hypocrisy in almost everything we hear from the likes of Hillary, Pelosi, Schumer, Shiff, Obama, and on and on.
It stands to reason then, that what is going on now is no different and involves all of them, including the left wing media - they are actually and in reality agents of the Kremlin/China/the communist world order, aligned in agenda, and working toward tipping the largest Domino, and I believe they have the U.S. teetering on the ropes.
It seems like it's either 1) the left is a national security risk or 2) Trumpers, welcome to reeducation camp.
PigmanExecutioner , 31 minutes agoYes we agree that JFK and MLK were assassinated by a group including the CIA, NSA, FBI, Mafia, Nixon, LBJ, Bush and more.
But to suggest that Trump is in a similar situation as JFK and MLK, and on their moral, intellectual, and visionary level is ludicrous.
Trump's a criminal, looting, lying, incompetent idiot. Why would the CIA, NSA, FBI, and others waste their time trying to destroy Trump? Fat Orange Man accomplishes that all by himself, no assistance required.
Automatic Choke , 23 minutes agoImagine thinking that the US was any different than the Soviet Union all these decades? They just hid the tyranny better due to all the material distractions.
KGB, CIA.............All the same demons.
turkey george palmer , 54 minutes agomy aha moment came when i started subscribing to John Williams "Shadow Govt Statistics" to track the markets.....way back nearly 20 years ago. it quickly became clear that our trusted government financial agencies were no more trustworthy than the old soviet "5 year plans" that we all (in the US) used to laugh at. a mirror is a painful thing.
empire looks pretty shaky. suppose a lot will go wrong. at least we have bill and melinda talking about basic human rights are a threat to the population and only those who are billionaires can decide what goes in your body. ok sure.
they say there will be a trade your debt for ubi. give up personal property. live where and how by state dictate. unplanned breeding a crime. isolation camps for non compliance. wonder where all the property will end up. I know there's only one type of person they all say are the bad ones just one color. mein
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Oct 20, 2020 | www.rt.com
Cover up of OPSW fiasco with Douma false flag ?
US charges six Russian 'intelligence agents' with hacking Ukraine, Georgia, France and 2018 Olympics 19 Oct, 2020 21:24 Get short URLFBI Deputy Director David Bowdich announces charges against 'six Russsian intelligence officers' at the Department of Justice, October 19, 2020. © Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS 14 Follow RT on
A grand jury in Pennsylvania indicted the six men for "conspiracy, computer hacking, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and false registration of a domain name," the DOJ announced on Monday, describing them as officers in Unit 74455 of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU.
The indictment identifies them as Yuriy Sergeyevich Andrienko, Sergey Vladimirovich Detistov, Pavel Valeryevich Frolov, Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev, Artem Valeryevich Ochichenko and Petr Nikolayevich Pliskin.
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According to the charges, they used malware like KillDisk, Industroyer, NotPetya and Olympic Destroyer to attack everything from networks in Ukraine and Georgia to the Olympics held in PyeongChang two years ago – in which Russian athletes were not allowed to participate under their national flag, due to doping allegations made by a disgruntled doctor.
The six are also accused of undermining "efforts to hold Russia accountable for its use of a weapons-grade nerve agent, Novichok, on foreign soil" – referring to the March 2018 claims by the British government that Russia "highly likely" used the toxin against a former spy and his daughter, an accusation Moscow repeatedly denied.
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers has claimed that "No country has weaponized its cyber capabilities as maliciously or irresponsibly as Russia, wantonly causing unprecedented damage to pursue small tactical advantages and to satisfy fits of spite."
ALSO ON RT.COM 'State actor' behind NotPetya cyberattack, expect 'countermeasures' – NATO expertsMonday's indictment is hardly a surprise, considering that NATO and US officials have blamed the 2017 NotPetya outbreak on Moscow for years, even though the malware struck numerous Russian companies – from the central bank to the oil giant Rosneft and metal-maker Evraz – as well.
The October 2019 Georgia attack was "in line with Russian tactics," declared CrowdStrike, the same security company that was tasked with dealing with the 2016 "hack" of the Democratic National Committee. CrowdStrike's president had secretly admitted to Congress that they had no actual evidence of the hack itself.
The indictment also accuses the "GRU officers" of trying to breach the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The international body faced a scandal after whistleblowers revealed that a report blaming chemical attacks in Syria on the country's government omitted details that did not fall in line with the narrative pushed by the US and the UK.
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In announcing the indictment, the DOJ thanked the authorities in Ukraine, Georgia, New Zealand, South Korea, and UK "intelligence services" – as well as Google, Facebook and Twitter – for "significant cooperation and assistance" with the investigation.
The same "GRU unit" and Kovalev specifically were previously indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for alleged "meddling" in 2016 US elections. As with Mueller's indictments, Monday's charges have largely symbolic value; the accused are not likely to ever see the inside of a US courtroom. The only indictment that was actually contested in court – against the so-called IRA troll farm – was dropped by the DOJ in March, due to lack of evidence.
Russia's military intelligence has not gone by the name of GRU since 2010.
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Oct 19, 2020 | www.rt.com
After years of focusing on combating terrorism, US Special Forces are preparing to turn their attention to the possibility of future conflict with adversaries Russia and China. The outgoing head of MI6, the UK's clandestine intelligence service, says that the perceived threat posed by Russia and China against the UK is overstated and distract from addressing the UK's domestic problems. Meanwhile, his replacement insists that the threat posed by Russia and China is real and is growing in complexity. Rick Sanchez explains. Then former US diplomat Jim Jatras and "Going Underground" host Afshin Rattansi share their insights.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is meeting for a for a final day of deliberations before the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's controversial pick for the US Supreme Court. RT America's Faran Fronczak reports. RT America's Trinity Chavez reports on the skyrocketing poverty across the US as coronavirus relief funds dry up and the White House stalls on additional stimulus. RT America's John Huddy reports on the backlash against Facebook and Twitter for their suppression of an incendiary new report about Democratic nominee Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden and his foreign entanglements.
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Oct 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via CaitlinJohnstone.com,
Fight it all you want, but there's nothing you can do. "The emails are Russian" is going to be the official dominant narrative in mainstream political discourse, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Resistance is futile.
Like the Russian hacking narrative, the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, the Russian bounties in Afghanistan narrative, and any other evidence-free framing of events that simultaneously advances pre-planned cold war agendas, is politically convenient for the Democratic party and generates clicks and ratings, the narrative that the New York Post publication of Hunter Biden's emails is a Russian operation is going to be hammered and hammered and hammered until it becomes the mainstream consensus. This will happen regardless of facts and evidence, up to and including rock solid evidence that Hunter Biden's emails were not published as a result of a Russian operation.
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1317449899860951040&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Femails-are-russian-will-be-narrative-regardless-facts-or-evidence&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
This is happening. It's following the same formula all the other fact-free Russia hysteria narratives have followed. The same media tour by pundits and political operatives saying with no evidence but very assertive voices that Russia is most certainly behind this occurrence and we should all be very upset about it.
"To me, this is just classic textbook Soviet Russian tradecraft at work," Russiagate founder and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is heard assuring CNN's audience .
"Joe Biden – and all of us – SHOULD be furious that media outlets are spreading what is very likely Russian propaganda," begins and eight-part thread by Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who claims the emails are "Kremlin constructed anti-Biden propaganda."
"It's not really surprising at all, this was always the play, but still kind of head-spinning to watch all the players from 2016 run exactly the same hack-leak-smear op in 2020. Even with everyone knowing exactly what's happening this time," tweets MSNBC's Chris Hayes.
"How are you all circling the wagons instead of being embarrassed for peddling Russian ops 18 days before the election. It's not enough that you all haven't learned from your atrocious handling of 2016 -- you are doubling down," Democratic Party think tanker Neera Tanden tweeted in admonishment of journalists who dare to report on or ask questions about the emails.
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Virtually the entirety of the Democratic Party-aligned political/media class has streamlined this narrative of Russian influence into the American consciousness with very little inertia, despite the fact that neither Joe nor Hunter Biden has disputed the authenticity of the emails and despite a complete absence of evidence for Russian involvement in their publication.
This is surely the first time, at least in recent memory, that we have ever seen such a broad consensus within the mass media that it is the civic duty of news reporters to try and influence the outcome of a presidential general election by withholding negative news coverage for one candidate. There was a lot of fascinated hatred for Trump in 2016, but people still reported on Hillary Clinton's various scandals and didn't attack one another for doing so. In 2020 that has changed, and mainstream news reporters have now largely coalesced along the doctrine that they must avoid any reporting which might be detrimental to the Biden campaign.
"Dem Party hacks (and many of their media allies) genuinely believe it's immoral to report on or even discuss stories that reflect poorly on Biden. In reality, it's the responsibility of journalists to ignore their vapid whining and ask about newsworthy stories, even about Biden," tweeted The Intercept 's Glenn Greenwald recently.
"You don't even have to think the Hunter Biden materials constitute some kind of earth-shattering story to be absolutely repulsed at the authoritarian propaganda offensive being waged to discredit them -- primarily by journalists who behave like compliant little trained robots ," tweeted journalist Michael Tracey.
Last month The Spectator 's Stephen L Miller described how the consensus formed among the mainstream press since Clinton's 2016 loss that it is their moral duty to be uncritical of Trump's opponent.
"For almost four years now, journalists have shamed their colleagues and themselves over what I will call the 'but her emails' dilemma," Miller writes. "Those who reported dutifully on the ill-timed federal investigation into Hillary Clinton's private server and spillage of classified information have been cast out and shunted away from the journalist cool kids' table. Focusing so much on what was, at the time, a considerable scandal, has been written off by many in the media as a blunder. They believe their friends and colleagues helped put Trump in the White House by focusing on a nothing-burger of a Clinton scandal when they should have been highlighting Trump's foibles. It's an error no journalist wants to repeat."
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So "the emails are Russian" narrative serves the interests of political convenience, partisan media ratings, and the national security state's pre-planned agenda to continue escalating against Russia as part of its slow motion third world war against nations which refuse to bow to US dictates, and you've got essentially no critical mainstream news coverage putting the brakes on any of it. This means this narrative is going to become mainstream orthodoxy and treated as an established fact, despite the fact that there is no actual, tangible evidence for it.
Joe Biden could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and the mainstream press would crucify any journalist who so much as tweeted about it. Very little journalism is going into vetting and challenging him, and a great deal of the energy that would normally be doing so is going into ensuring that he slides right into the White House.
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If the mainstream news really existed to tell you the truth about what's going on, everyone would know about every questionable decision that Joe Biden has ever made, Russiagate would never have happened, we'd all be acutely aware of the fact that powerful forces are pushing us into increasingly aggressive confrontations with two nuclear-armed nations, and Trump would be grilled about Yemen in every press conference.
But the mainstream news does not exist to tell you the truth about the world. The mainstream news exists to advance the interests of its wealthy owners and the status quo upon which they have built their kingdoms. That's why it's so very, very important that we find ways to break away from it and share information with each other that isn't tainted by corrupt and powerful interests.
* * *
Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack , which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported , so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following my antics on Twitter , throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal , purchasing some of my sweet merchandise , buying my books Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers . For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I'm trying to do with this platform, click here . Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I've written) in any way they like free of charge.
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Oct 19, 2020 | www.rt.com
Debunking 'fattest lie in modern political history' (Full show) 14 Oct, 2020 23:31 16 Follow RT on
Newly declassified documents continue to demolish "Russiagate," the discredited conspiracy theory that US President Trump "colluded" with Russia to win the 2016 election. The documents show how circular reporting, unverified gossip and conflicts of interest all worked to create the years-long "Russiagate" frenzy. RT America's Alex Mihailovich has the details. Then former UK MP George Galloway joins Rick Sanchez to share his analysis.
US Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett faces her final day of questions before US senators on Wednesday. RT America's Faran Fronczak has the details. Twitter has unveiled a new set of policies to try to stem misinformation from spreading on its platform during the 2020 US presidential election. RT America's John Huddy has the details. The legal and media analyst Lionel of Lionel Media and conservative commentator Steve Malzberg weigh in. Plus, RT America's Natasha Sweatte reports on NASA's search for "super-habitable" planets outside the Solar System.
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Oct 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
It appears the "Russia, Russia, Russia" cries from Adam Schiff and his dutiful media peons is dead (we can only hope) as Director of National Intel John Ratcliffe just confirmed to Foxx Business' Maria Bartiromo that:
"Hunter Biden's laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign."
As Politico's Quint Forgey details (@QuintForgey) , DNI Ratcliffe is asked directly whether accusations leveled against the Bidens in recent days are part of a Russian disinformation effort.
He says no:
"Let me be clear. The intelligence community doesn't believe that because there is no intelligence that supports that."
" We have shared no intelligence with Chairman Schiff or any other member of Congress that Hunter Biden's laptop is part of some Russian disinformation campaign. It's simply not true. "
"And this is exactly what I said would I stop when I became the director of national intelligence, and that's people using the intelligence community to leverage some political narrative."
"And in this case, apparently Chairman Schiff wants anything against his preferred political candidate to be deemed as not real and as using the intelligence community or attempting to use the intelligence community to say there's nothing to see here."
"Don't drag the intelligence community into this. Hunter Biden's laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign. And I think it's clear that the American people know that."
Of course, this 'fact' from 'intelligence' is unlikely to stop the "emails are Russian" narrative growing ever louder as MSM attempt to distract from the actual content of the emails. As Caitlin Johnstone noted:
So "the emails are Russian" narrative serves the interests of political convenience, partisan media ratings, and the national security state's pre-planned agenda to continue escalating against Russia as part of its slow motion third world war against nations which refuse to bow to US dictates, and you've got essentially no critical mainstream news coverage putting the brakes on any of it. This means this narrative is going to become mainstream orthodoxy and treated as an established fact, despite the fact that there is no actual, tangible evidence for it.
Joe Biden could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and the mainstream press would crucify any journalist who so much as tweeted about it. Very little journalism is going into vetting and challenging him, and a great deal of the energy that would normally be doing so is going into ensuring that he slides right into the White House.
If the mainstream news really existed to tell you the truth about what's going on, everyone would know about every questionable decision that Joe Biden has ever made, Russiagate would never have happened, we'd all be acutely aware of the fact that powerful forces are pushing us into increasingly aggressive confrontations with two nuclear-armed nations, and Trump would be grilled about Yemen in every press conference.
But the mainstream news does not exist to tell you the truth about the world. The mainstream news exists to advance the interests of its wealthy owners and the status quo upon which they have built their kingdoms. That's why it's so very, very important that we find ways to break away from it and share information with each other that isn't tainted by corrupt and powerful interests.
https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890
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As we detailed previously, as the Hunter Biden laptop scandal threatens to throw the 2020 election into chaos with what appears to be solid, undisputed evidence of high-level corruption by former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, the same crowd which peddled the Trump-Russia hoax is now suggesting that Russia is behind it all .
To wit, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who swore on National television that he had evidence Trump was colluding with Russia - now says that President Trump is handing the Kremlin a "propaganda coup from Vladimir Putin."
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1317432785070706688&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fhunter-bidens-laptop-not-some-russian-disinformation-campaign-dni-ratcliffe-slams-schiff&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) has gone full tin-foil , suggesting that Giuliani was a 'key target' of 'Kremlin constructed anti-Biden propaganda.'
2/ Russia knew it had to play a different game than 2016. So it built an operation to cull virulently pro-Trump Americans as pseudo-assets, so blind in their allegiance to Trump that they'll willingly launder Kremlin constructed anti-Biden propaganda.
Guiliani was a key target.
-- Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) October 17, 2020Headlines in major publications are perhaps even more conspiratorial:
And of course, propagandists are doing their thing...
https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-3&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1317443500330373120&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fhunter-bidens-laptop-not-some-russian-disinformation-campaign-dni-ratcliffe-slams-schiff&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
Yet, if one looks at the actual facts of the case - in particular, that Hunter Biden appears to have dropped his own laptops off at a computer repair shop, signed a service ticket , and the shop owner approached the FBI first and Rudy Giuliani last after Biden failed to pick them up, the left's latest Russia conspiracy theory is quickly debunked .
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Authored by Larry C Johnson via Sic Semper Tyrannis (emphasis ours)
This is the story of an American patriot, an honorable man, John Paul Mac Issac, who tried to do the right thing and is now being unfairly and maliciously slandered as an agent of foreign intelligence, specifically Russia. He is not an agent or spy for anyone. He is his own man. How do I know? I have known his dad for more than 20 years. I've known John Paul's dad as Mac. Mac is a decorated Vietnam Veteran, who flew gunships in Vietnam. And he continued his military service with an impeccable record until he retired as an Air Force Colonel. The crews of those gunships have an annual reunion and Mac usually takes John Paul along, who volunteers his computer and video skills to record and compile the stories of those brave men who served their country in a difficult war.
This story is very simple – Hunter Biden dropped off three computers with liquid damage at a repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware on April 12, 2019. The owner, John Mac Issac, examined the three and determined that one was beyond recovery, one was okay and the data on the harddrive of the third could be recovered. Hunter signed the service ticket and John Paul Mac Issac repaired the hard drive and down loaded the data . During this process he saw some disturbing images and a number of emails that concerned Ukraine, Burisma, China and other issues . With the work completed, Mr. Mac Issac prepared an invoice, sent it to Hunter Biden and notified him that the computer was ready to be retrieved. H unter did not respond . In the ensuing four months (May, June, July and August), Mr. Mac Issac made repeated efforts to contact Hunter Biden. Biden never answered and never responded. More importantly, Biden stiffed John Paul Mac Issac–i.e., he did not pay the bill.
When the manufactured Ukraine crisis surfaced in August 2019, John Paul realized he was sitting on radioactive material that might be relevant to the investigation. After conferring with his father, Mac and John Paul decided that Mac would take the information to the FBI office in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Mac walked into the Albuquerque FBI office and spoke with an agent who refused to give his name. Mac explained the material he had, but was rebuffed by the FBI. He was told basically, get lost . This was mid-September 2019.
Two months passed and then, out of the blue, the FBI contacted John Paul Mac Issac. Two FBI agents from the Wilmington FBI office–Joshua Williams and Mike Dzielak–came to John Paul's business . He offered immediately to give them the hard drive, no strings attached. Agents Williams and Dzielak declined to take the device .
Two weeks later, the intrepid agents called and asked to come and image the hard drive. John Paul agreed but, instead of taking the hard drive or imaging the drive, they gave him a subpoena. It was part of a grand jury proceeding but neither agent said anything about the purpose of the grand jury. John Paul complied with the subpoena and turned over the hard drive and the computer.
In the ensuing months, starting with the impeachment trial of President Trump, he heard nothing from the FBI and knew that none of the evidence from the hard drive had been shared with President Trump's defense team.
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The lack of action and communication with the FBI led John Paul to make the fateful decision to contact Rudy Giuliani's office and offer a copy of the drive to the former mayor. We now know that Rudy accepted John Paul's offer and that Rudy's team shared the information with the New York Post.
John Paul Mac Issac is not responsible for the emails, images and videos recovered from Hunter Biden's computer. He was hired to do a job, he did the job and submitted an invoice for the work. Hunter Biden, for some unexplained reason, never responded and never asked for the computer. But that changed last Tuesday, October 13, 2020. A person claiming to be Hunter Biden's lawyer called John Paul Mac Issac and asked for the computer to be returned. Too late. That horse had left the barn and was with the FBI.
John Paul, acting under Delaware law, understood that Hunter's computer became the property of his business 90 days after it had been abandoned.
At no time did John Paul approach any media outlet or tabloid offering to sell salacious material . A person of lesser character might have tried to profit. But that is not the essence of John Paul Mac Issac. He had information in his possession that he learned, thanks to events subsequent to receiving the computer for a repair job, was relevant to the security of our nation. He did what any clear thinking American would do–he, through his father, contacted the FBI. When the FBI finally responded to his call for help, John cooperated fully and turned over all material requested .
The failure here is not John Paul's . He did his job. The FBI dropped the ball and, by extension, the Department of Justice. Sadly, this is becoming a disturbing, repeating theme–the FBI through incompetence or malfeasance is not doing its job.
Any news outlet that is publishing the damnable lie that John Paul is part of some subversive effort to interfere in the United States Presidential election is on notice. That is slander and defamation. Fortunately, the evidence from Hunter Biden's computer is in the hands of the FBI and Rudy Giuliani and, I suspect, the U.S. Senate. Those with the power to do something must act. John Paul Mac Issac's honor is intact. We cannot say the same for those government officials who have a duty to deal with this information.
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Oct 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Dao Gen ,
Dao Gen , Oct 17 2020 18:05 utc |
