"The truth is that the newspaper is not a place for information to be given, rather it is just hollow content, or more than
that, a provoker of content. If it prints lies about atrocities, real atrocities are the result."
Karl Kraus, 1914
WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
1984
We are the world, we are exceptional, we cannot fail. The elite will lie, and the people will pretend to believe
them. Heck about 20 percent of the American public will believe almost anything if it is wrapped with the right prejudice and
appeal to passion. Have a pleasant evening.
Controlling the narrative is how society operate -- it is a tool for preserving the society cohesion. Which is a good thing, unless
the
price is too high. If the question of controlling the narrative arise, that means that the elite became too detached from the regular
people ("let them eat cakes" situation), and there are cracks in the society facade, like now there are obvious cracks in neoliberals facade.
They are patched with lies and distortions. In this sense Russiagate is a completely natural reaction on the US neoliberal
elite on the loss of legitimacy (which actually happened in 2008 and only accelerated under Trump) -- an attempt to find a scapegoat
for the society ills. And such strategy works until it does not. In this sense Trump provided to be a huge wrecking ball that
created more cracks on the facade of neoliberal society and this is one of the few positive things about its administration.
In such cases the elite usually resort to policies which in the USA are called McCarthyism: attempt to smear and suppress dissidents
claiming that they are associated with the particular (presented as hostile like Russia today, or really hostile like the USSR was)
power.
While MSM supporting the "Party line" are masquerading as independent new outlets for all practical purposes they serve
as an extension of the USA intelligence agencies and the State Department. This is especially visible in the area of foreign policy
and the most contentious US internal issues like the question of the integrity of the recent US Presidential elections.
Correlation with the foreign power policies might be actually accidental if this particular power "see future deeper" as unforgettable
Madeline "Not So Bright" Allbright quipped. For example, now RT coverage does undermine the US foreign policy. We need
only decide whether this is a good or bad thing and whether the US imperial policies are good for American people, or only for large
transnational corporations. I think Tucker Carlson also undermines the US foreign policy and as such you can find a correlation between
his positions and RT position. Now what ?
In such case elite presents association with the foreign power as the "politically correct" reason for suppression.
Which is a blatant hypocrisy. But that's how all societies work and in this sense there is nothing special in the fact that dissident
voices are suppressed. In middle ages heretics were burned at the stake. They were send to the GULAG in the USSR. If you are a dissident you fate in most societies are far from rosy.
The current situation in the USA is interesting because neoliberalism is definitely on the decline and as such represent now (unlike
say 10 year ago) a rich target of attacks. And as the USA imperial power which it acquired since WWII, and expanded after collapse of the USSR
is starting to collapse. Attempt to preserve the neoliberal empire necessitates the attack on dissidents, as dissidents usually
undermine the legitimacy of the US foreign policy and ask inconvenient questions about neoliberal elite handing of foreign and
domestic affairs. The real question about dissidents is what alternative the particular dissident outlet proposes -- the
return to the New Deal Capitalism in some form or shape, or new socialist experiment is some form of shape, or some far-right
utopia.
We all agree that neoliberalism with its unlimited rule of financial oligarchy and lowering of the standard of living of lower
80% of population is bad and probably will self-destruct like Bolshevism in the past. But the real question is what social order
will replace it ? It this is a some variant of neo-fascism you might regret its destruction.
Meanwhile the US became "an empire of illusions", when both elite and common people entertain various myths, which have
nothing to do with the reality, the process that started after WWII and entered a new phase in 1962, when an important historic
event (JFK assassination) became distorted by the CIA and part of government bureaucracy who were discontent with JFK's policies,
which fabricated a false narrative. The narrative which eventually became an official version of the event (The
United States of America’s Doll House, by Edward Curtin):
In a 1969 interview, Jim Garrison, the District Attorney of New Orleans and the only person to ever bring to trial a case involving
the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, said that as a result of the CIA’s murderous coup d’état on behalf of the military-industrial-financial-media-intelligence
complex that rules the country to this day, the American people have been subjected to a fabricated reality that has rendered them
a nation of passive Eichmanns, who sit in their living rooms, popping pills and watching television as their country’s military machine
mows down people by the millions and the announcers tell them all the things they should be afraid of, such as bacteria on cutting
boards and Russian spies infiltrating their hair salons. Garrison said:
The creation of such inanities as acceptable reality and unacceptable reality is necessary for the self-preservation of the
super-state against its greatest danger: understanding on the part of the people as to what is really happening. All factors which
contribute to its burgeoning power are exaggerated. All factors which might reveal its corrosive effect on the nation are concealed.
The result is to place the populace in the position of persons living in a house whose windows no longer reveal the outside but
on which murals have been painted. Some of the murals are frightening and have the effect of reminding the occupants of the outside
menaces against which the paternal war machine is protecting them. Other murals are pleasant to remind them how nice things are
inside the house.
But to live like this is to live in a doll’s house. If life has one lesson to teach us, it is that to live in illusion is ultimately
disastrous.
That is not the case for most Americans. When approximately 129 million people cast their votes for Donald Trump and HilIary Clinton
in the 2016 presidential election, you know idiocy reigns and nothing has been learned. Ditto for the votes for Obama, Bush, Clinton,
et al. You can keep counting back. It is an ugly fact and sad to say. Such a repetition compulsion is a sign of a deep sickness,
and it will no doubt be repeated in the 2020 election. The systemic illusion must be preserved at all costs and the warfare state
supported in its killing. It is the American way.
It is true that average Americans have not built the doll’s house; that is the handiwork of the vast interconnected and far-reaching
propaganda arms of the U.S. government and their media accomplices. But that does not render them innocent for accepting decades
of fabricated reality for so-called peace of mind by believing that a totally corrupt system works. The will to believe is very powerful,
as is the propaganda. The lesson that Garrison spoke of has been lost on far too many people, even on those who occasionally leave
the doll house for a walk, but who only go slightly down the path for fear of seeing too much reality and connecting too many dots.
There is plain ignorance, then there is culpable ignorance, to which I shall return.
In many respects, the media creates reality, so perhaps the most effective route toward changing reality runs through the media.
"Controlling the narrative" is the major form of neoliberal MSM war on reality. By providing "prepackaged" narrative for a particular
world event and selectively suppressing alternative information channels that contradict the official narrative, neoliberals control
and channel emotions of people in the direction they want. Often in the direction of yet another war for the expansion of the
global neoliberal empire led from Washington, DC.
Maybe this is the same kind of clinical detachment doctors have to cultivate, a way of distancing oneself from the subject,
protecting yourself against a crippling empathy. I won’t say that writers or artists are more sensitive than other people,
but it may be that they’re less able to handle their own emotions.
It may be that art, like drugs, is a way of dulling or controlling pain. Eloquently articulating a feeling is one way
to avoid actually experiencing it.
Words are only symbols, noises or marks on paper, and turning the messy, ugly stuff of life into language renders it
inert and manageable for the author, even as it intensifies it for the reader.
It’s a nerdy, sensitive kid’s way of turning suffering into something safely abstract, an object of contemplation.
I suspect most of the people who write all that furious invective on the Internet, professional polemicists and semiliterate
commenters alike, are lashing out because they’ve been hurt — their sense of fairness or decency has been outraged, or they
feel personally wounded or threatened.
It is hard to disagree with the notion which was put by several authors that American society is living in a cocoon of illusion
which conveniently isolates them from reality: entertainment and escapism infuse our society, economy, and political system with severe
consequences. Among such authors are Aldous Huxley, C. Wright Mills, Sheldon Wolin, Ralph Nader, Karl Polanyi, Jared Diamond, Paul Craig
Roberts, Chris Hedge and several others.
If we compare dystopias of Huxley and Orwell, and it clear that Huxley in his famous
New Brave World predicted the future much better:
"Huxley feared was that would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one... the truth would
be drowned in a sea of irrelevance."
The central idea here is that we now live as a society in which citizens become so distracted (and by extension detached) from reality
that they lost any ability to influence their political or economic destiny. Droning anything inconvenient to the elite in a sea of
irrelevance proved to be very successful tactic and less brutal then direct repression in the style of 1984. It is the same phenomenon that
later was described by the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin in 2003 under the label
of Inverted Totalitarism.
This is one of the truly malevolent aspects of today's modern neoliberal world order and we need to confront it. It allows the old
game of blaming the weak and the marginal, a staple of neo-fascist and despotic regimes; this illusion empower the dark undercurrents
of sadism and violence in American society and deflect attention from the neoliberal financial vampires who have drained the blood of
the country
"The tragedy is that we have become a screen culture, televisions, computers, phones, tablets, etc. Our electronic hallucinations
have produced a society that has little time or patience for introspection or deep thinking. It reinforced my decision to maintain
a television free life. For some, what Chris has to say may cut to close to the bone. But those with the courage to do so are usually
the ones that care the most."
The biggest and most invisible elephant in the American psyche is this: our government has long since abandoned the goal of managing
this nation as a nation. Instead, America as a nation is managed as a means to global empire.
For example the loss of the critical skills of literacy (seven million total illiterates, another 27 million unable to read well
enough to complete a job application, and still another 50 million who read at a 4th-5th-grade level) have led large part of the
US population to become incapable of thinking for ourselves.
In fact they have become as malleable as children. 80% of U.S. families did not buy or read a single book in a year.Despite technology and internet access we are becoming a society of functionally ignorant and illiterate people.
For example there is widespread illusion of inclusion. This is the illusion that we are or will be included among the fortunate few
because misfortune happens only to those who deserve it. There are plenty of people who understand that the corporate model is one in
which there are squeezers and those who are to be squeezed. So the illusion of inclusion provides what can be called "a plantation morality"
that exalts the insiders and denigrates the outsiders. Those content with this arrangement obviously view themselves as insiders even
when they work for companies that are actively shedding employees. Many of these people are happy to be making good money for digging
graves for others, never stopping to wonder if maybe someday one of those graves might be their own.
One of the first recorded metaphors which explained this phenomenon of substitution of reality with illusion was Plato's tale
about cave dwellers, who thought the shadows on the wall were the actual reality. Illusion can also serve as a deliberate distraction,
isolation layer that protects form unpleasant reality. The point is that now it is illusions that dominate American life; both for those
that succumb to them, and for those that promote and sustains them. It is the use of illusions in the US society that become
prevalent today, converting like into the cinema or theater, where primary goal is entertainment.
Modern MSM are driven by postmodernism which includes among other things substitution of reality with artificial reality, fragmentation
of history and push for historical amnesia, substitution of the subject with emotions, and juxtaposition of opposites. But the
key feature is controlling the narrative.
The Journalist Udo Ulfkotte ashamed today that he spent 17 years in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. ...he
reveals why opinion leaders produce tendentious reports and serve as the extended Arm of the NATO press office. ...the author
also was admitted into the networks of American elite organizations, received in return for positive coverage in the US even a
certificate of honorary citizenship.
In this book you will learn about industry lobby organisations. The author calls hundreds
of names and looks behind the Scenes of those organizations, which exert bias into media, such as: Atlantic bridge, Trilateral
Commission, the German Marshall Fund, American Council on Germany, American Academy, Aspen Institute, and the Institute for European
politics. Also revealed are the intelligence backgrounds of those lobby groups, the methods and forms of propaganda and financing
used, for example, by the US Embassy. Which funds projects for the targeted influencing of public opinion in Germany
...You realize how you are being manipulated - and you know from whom and why. At the end it becomes clear that diversity
of opinion will now only be simulated. Because our "messages" are often pure brainwashing.
Controlling the narrative means control and deliberate selection of the issues which can be discussed (and by extension which are
not) in MSM. It represents real war on reality. Non-stop, 24 by 7 character of modern media help with this greatly (The
Unending Anxiety of an ICYMI World - NYTimes.com):
We used to receive media cyclically. Newspapers were published once (or sometimes twice) a day, magazines weekly or monthly. Nightly
news was broadcast, well, each night. Television programs were broadcast on one of the major networks one night a week at a specific
time, never to return until a rerun or syndication. Movies were shown first in theaters and on video much later (or, before the advent
of VCRs, not until a revival). There were not many interstices, just discrete units — and a smaller number of them.
Now we’re in the midst of the streaming era, when the news industry distributes material on a 24-hour cycle, entire seasons of
TV shows are dumped on viewers instantaneously, most movies are available at any time and the flow of the Internet and social media
is ceaseless. We are nearly all interstitial space, with comparatively few singularities.
Media became out windows to the world and this window is broken. The notion of 'controlling the narrative' points to dirty games
played by PR gurus and spin merchants with event coverage (especially foreign event coverage) to ensure the rule of elite. A good
part of the White House budget and resources is spent on controlling the narrative. Creation of the narrative and "talking points" for
MSM is the task of State Department. Former State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki was a pretty telling "incarnation" of the
trend.
And MSM are doing an exemplary job controlling the political narrative. This way they demonstrate their faithful service to the state
and the ruling political class. Nowhere is more evident then in coverage of wars.
Only social media can smash the official version of events. And in some case that has happened. The USA MSM honchos are now scratching
heads trying to understand how to control their version of events despite Twitter, Facebook and other social networks.
On Ukraine, despite the most coordinated propaganda offensive of Western MSMs, the Western elite failed to fully control the narrative:
a sizable number of Europeans are still clinging to the notion that this story had two sides. You can see this trend from analysis of
Guardian comments (The Guardian Presstitutes Slip Beyond the Reach
of Embarrassment ). More importantly the EU political establishment has failed to maintain a central lie inside official narrative
-- that the EU is benign and a force for good / peace / prosperity. EU elite has shown its ugly face supporting Ukrainian far right.
Another example were initially MSM totally controlled the narrative (the first two-three weeks) and then when the narrative start
slipping away they need to silence the subject Shooting down Malaysian flight
MH17
The thing is, once you've lost control of the narrative, as happened with coverage
MH17 tragedy, there's no way back. Once Western MSM lost it, no-one any longer believed a word they said about the tragedy.
And little can be done to win back that credibility on the particular subject. Moreover, due to this Europeans are becoming more
and more receptive of a drip of alternative media stories that completely destroy official EU narrative. They came from a multitude
of little sources, including this site and they collectively cements the loss of trust to the EU elite.
There also more subtle nuances of controlling the narrative. Actually controlling the narrative does not mean that you
need to suppress all the negative news (like propagandists in the USSR often did -- leading to complete discreditation of official
propaganda in minds of the USSR people -- it simply became the subject of jokes). As John V. Walsh noted:
There is a simple rule that is followed scrupulously by U.S. commentators of every stripe on world affairs and war – with a very
few notable exceptions, Paul Craig Roberts and Pepe Escobar among them.
This rule allows strong criticism of the U.S. But major
official adversaries of the U.S., Iran, Russia and China, must never, ever be presented as better than the US in any significant
way. The US may be depicted as equally bad (or better) than these enemies, but never worse.
In other words, any strong criticism of the US presuppose scapegoating and vicious propaganda campaign against major
official adversaries of the US such as Russia. It must never, ever be presented in a better light then the US in any significant
way. In selected cases, the US may be depicted as equally bad, but never worse.
The most recent incarnation of this rule was during Hillary Clinton campaign for POTUS in 2016.
The informational function of the media would be this to help us forget, to serve as the very agents and mechanism for our
historical amnesia.
But in that cast of two features of postmodernism on which I have dwelt here -- the transformation of reality into images,
the fragmentation of 'me' into a series of perpetual presents -- are bother extraordinary consolant with this process.
... We have seen that there is a way in which postmodernism replicates or reproduces -- reinforces -- the logic of consumer
capitalism.
Chris Hedge
Empire of Illusion is a penetrating analysis of this effort of "entertainment society" and converting everything including
politics into entertainment. It was published in 2010. Hedges discuss complex issues and a clear, succinct way. You might agree
with him, you might disagree with him but you will enjoy his brilliant prose.
Those who manipulate from the shadows our lives are the agents, publicists, marketing departments, promoters, script writers,
television and movie producers, advertisers, video technicians, photographers, bodyguards, wardrobe consultants, fitness trainers, pollsters,
public announcers, and television news personalities who create the vast stage for the Empire of Illusion. They are the puppet masters.
No one achieves celebrity status, without the approval of cultural enablers and intermediaries. The sole object is to hold attention
and satisfy an audience. These techniques of theater leeched into politics, religion, education, literature, news, commerce, warfare,
and even crime. It converts that society into wrestling ring mesh with the ongoing dramas on television, in movies, and in the news,
where "real-life" stories, especially those involving celebrities, allow news reports to become mini-dramas complete with a star, a
villain, a supporting cast, a good-looking host, and a neat, if often unexpected, conclusion (p. 15-16).
The first big achievement of Empire of Illusion was "glorification of war" after WWIII. As the veterans of WW II saw with great surprise
their bitter, brutal wartime experience were skillfully transformed into an illusion, the mythic narrative of heroism and patriotic
glory sold to the public by the Pentagon's public relations machine and Hollywood. The extreme brutality and meaninglessness of war
could not compete against the power of the illusion, the fantasy of war as a ticket to glory, honor, and manhood. It was what the government
and the military wanted to promote. It worked because it had the power to simulate experience for most viewers who were never at Iwo
Jima or in a war. Few people understood that this illusion was a lie. p. 21-22.
Media evolved into branch of entertainment. He gives great insight on American society. Several chapters should be a required read
for all sociology, film, journalism students, or government leaders. Much like Paul Craig Robert's How America Was Lost you might feel
unplugged from the matrix after reading this book. This is the book that corporate America, as well as the neoliberal elite, do not
want you to read. It's a scathing indictment against everything that's wrong with the system and those that continue to perpetuate the
lie in the name of the almighty dollar. In a way the USA as the rest of the world are amusing itself into a post apocalyptic state,
without an apocalypse. It is simply cannibalizing itself.
That books also contains succinct, and damning condemnation of globalization (and, specifically, the USA's role in it). You can compare
it with Klein's 'Shock Doctrine', but it cuts a wider swath.
The discussion the follows was by-and-large adapted from
D. Benor Amazon review of the
book
We consume countless lies daily, false promises that if we buy this brand or that product, if we vote for this candidate, we will
be respected, envied, powerful, loved, and protected. The flamboyant lives of celebrities and the outrageous characters on television,
movies, and sensational talk shows are peddled to us, promising to fill up the emptiness in our own lives. Celebrity culture encourages
everyone to think of themselves as potential celebrities, as possession unique if unacknowledged gifts. p. 26-7. Celebrity is the vehicle
used by a corporate society to sell us these branded commodities, most of which we do not need. Celebrities humanize commercial commodities.
They present the familiar and comforting face of the corporate state. p. 37.
Reporters, especially those on television, no longer ask whether the message is true but rather whether the pseudo-event worked or
did not work as political theater for supporting particular (usually State Department in case of foreign events) talking points.
Pseudo-events are judged on how effectively we have been manipulated by illusion. Those events that appear real are relished and lauded.
Those that fail to create a believable illusion are deemed failures. Truth is irrelevant. Those who succeed in politics, as in most
of the culture, are those who create the most convincing fantasies. This is the real danger of pseudo-events and why pseudo-events are
far more pernicious than stereotypes. They do not explain reality, as stereotypes attempt to, but replace reality. Pseudo-events
redefines reality by the parameters set by their creators. These creators, who make massive profits selling illusions, have a vested
interest in maintaining the power structures they control. p. 50-1.
A couple quotes: "When a nation becomes unmoored from reality, it retreats into a world of magic. Facts are accepted or discarded
according to the dictates of a preordained cosmology. The search for truth becomes irrelevant." (p. 50) "The specialized dialect and
narrow education of doctors, academics, economists, social scientists, military officers, investment bankers, and government bureaucrats
keeps each sector locked in its narrow role. The overarching structure of the corporate state and the idea of the common good are irrelevant
to specialists. They exist to make the system work, not to examine it." (p. 98) I could go on and on citing terrific passages.
The flight into illusion sweeps away the core values of the open society. It corrodes the ability to think for oneself, to draw independent
conclusions, to express dissent when judgment and common sense tell you something is wrong, to be self-critical, to challenge authority,
to grasp historical facts, to advocate for change, and to acknowledge that there are other views, different ways, and structures of
being that are morally and socially acceptable. A populace deprived of the ability to separate lies from truth, that has become hostage
to the fictional semblance of reality put forth by pseudo-events, is no longer capable of sustaining a free society.
Those who slip into this illusion ignore the signs of impending disaster. The physical degradation of the planet, the cruelty of global
capitalism, the looming oil crisis, the collapse of financial markets, and the danger of overpopulation rarely impinge to prick the
illusions that warp our consciousness. The words, images, stories, and phrases used to describe the world in pseudo-events have no relation
to what is happening around us. The advances of technology and science, rather than obliterating the world of myth, have enhanced its
power to deceive. We live in imaginary, virtual worlds created by corporations that profit from our deception. Products and experiences
- indeed, experience as a product - offered up for sale, sanctified by celebrities, are mirages. They promise us a new personality.
They promise us success and fame. They promise to mend our brokenness. p. 52-3.
We have all seen the growth of a culture of lies and deception in politics, banking, commerce and education. Hodges points out how this
has been facilitated by our abandoning the teaching of values and analysis in our schools.
The flight from the humanities has become a flight from conscience. It has created an elite class of experts who seldom look beyond
their tasks and disciplines to put what they do in a wider, social context. And by absenting themselves from the moral and social questions
raised by the humanities, they have opted to serve a corporate structure that has destroyed the culture around them.
Our elites - the ones in Congress, the ones on Wall Street, and the ones being produced at prestigious universities and business schools
- do not have the capacity to fix our financial mess. Indeed, they will make it worse. They have no concept, thanks to the educations
they have received, of how to replace a failed system with a new one. They are petty, timid, and uncreative bureaucrats superbly trained
to carry our systems management. They see only piecemeal solutions that will satisfy the corporate structure. Their entire focus is
numbers, profits, and personal advancement. They lack a moral and intellectual core. They are as able to deny gravely ill people medical
coverage to increase company profits as they are to use taxpayer dollars to peddle costly weapons systems to blood-soaked dictatorships.
The human consequences never figure into their balance sheets. The democratic system, they believe, is a secondary product of the free
market - which they slavishly serve. p. 111.
I quote Hodges at some length because of his cogent, clear summaries of the problems leading us to self-destruction and to ways we might
someday restructure society to be supportive and healing to the individual - rather than exploiting people and viewing them only as
valuable as they can be manipulated into being gullible consumers.
This is one of the clearest and best focused discussions I have seen on the problems of modern society that are leading us to societal
suicide
Hedges points out how a cycle sustains itself between elite educational institutions (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.), the Government
(think Congress in particular) and Corporations. Ivy league schools basically turn-out lackeys that do whatever is necessary to maintain
their elite, self-absorbed status. The last chapter is entitled, "The Illusion of America," and this is where Hedges does a fantastic
job of pulling together all the elements of this dysfunctional society. Other books touch the same themes, sometimes more forcefully
but in this book most important elements of this picture put together.
The book Gekaufte Journalisten by
Udo Ulfkotte was a revelation. Of cause, we suspected
many things he described, but now we know detailed methods and mechanisms of suppressing alterative opinion in German society,
methods that are probably more effective that anything propagandists in the DDR and the USSR ever attempted. One of the central
concept here is the concept of "Noble Lie".
Guardian became neoliberal as soon as Tony Blaire became Prime minister. As any neoliberal publication is subscribes to the notion
of "noble lie". The latter actually came from neocons playbook. No they knowingly try to dumb down their reader substituting
important topic with celebrity gossip and hate speech. Even political issue now are "served" to the public as dishes under heavy sauce
of personalities involved, which is a perfect way to obscure the subject and distract the readers.
geronimo -> MurkyFogsFutureLogs 14 Mar 2015 12:31
Indeed...
Under the retiring editor, all politics seems to have been reduced to 'identity' politics. Forget about class, war, class war
and so on... If it can't be reduced to Hillary's gender or Putin's, er... transcendental evil... then it's barely worth a comment
above the line.
As I've said before, for the Guardian 'the personal is the political' - or rather, for the Guardian as for Hillary, the political
reduces to the personal.
A marriage made, not so much in heaven, but somewhere in political-fashionista North London.
"The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the
CIA and at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda. These individuals provide the CIA with direct
access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations,
commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets."
According to the "Family Jewels"
report, released by the National Security Archive
on June 26, 2007, during the period from March 12, 1963, and June 15, 1963, the CIA installed telephone taps on two Washington-based
news reporters. Church argued that misinforming the world cost American taxpayers an estimated $265 million a year.[20]
In February 1976, George H. W. Bush, the recently appointed Director of the CIA, announced a new policy:
"Effective immediately, the CIA will not enter into any paid or contract relationship with any full-time or part-time news correspondent
accredited by any U.S. news service, newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station." He added that the CIA would
continue to "welcome" the voluntary, unpaid cooperation of journalists.[21]
But at this point only handlers and methods changed, not the policy. They are still all controlled by
deep state. The most recent revelations of this fact were published by
Udo Ulfkotte’s in his bestseller book
Bought Journalists. Here is one Amazon review of the book:
Unicorns & Kittenson May 1, 2015
I've managed to read a bit of the German version ...
I've managed to read a bit of the German version and now I think I understand why this is still not available in English although
it was supposed to be released in this and other languages seven months ago. I will be very surprised if this shocking and destabilizing
book (which names names) is made available to Americans ... even though it's primarily about the abusive tactics of American intelligence
agencies. Please keep asking why it isn't published - despite being a best-seller in Germany -- and how we can get it here on
Kindle.
As one Amazon reviewer said "This book will change for ever the way you read and watch the mainstream media! " Here is some
additional information from russia-insider:
... ... ...
Ironically, however, it’s likely that one of the biggest threats (especially in Europe) to Anglo-American media credibility about
Ukraine and other issues is coming from a very old-fashioned medium – a book.
Udo Ulfkotte’s bestseller Bought Journalists has
been a sensation in Germany since its publication last autumn. The journalist and former editor of one of Germany’s largest newspapers,
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, revealed that he was for years secretly on the payroll of the CIA and was spinning the news
to favour U.S. interests. Moreover he alleges that some major media are nothing more than propaganda outlets for international
think-tanks, intelligence agencies, and corporate high-finance.
“We’re talking about puppets on a string,” he says, “journalists who write or say whatever their masters tell them to say or
write. If you see how the mainstream media is reporting about the Ukraine conflict and if you know what’s really going on, you
get the picture. The masters in the background are pushing for war with Russia and western journalists are putting on their helmets.”
[8]
In another interview, Ulfkotte said:
“The German and American media tries to bring war to the people in Europe, to bring war to Russia. This is a point of no return,
and I am going to stand up and say…it is not right what I have done in the past, to manipulate people, to make propaganda against
Russia, and it is not right what my colleagues do, and have done in the past, because they are bribed to betray the people not
only in Germany, all over Europe.” [9]
... ... ...
Apparently, Pomeranzev has forgotten that important October 2004 article by Ron Suskind published in the New York Times Magazine
during the second war in Iraq (which, like the first, was based on a widely disseminated lie). Suskind quoted one of George W. Bush’s
aides (probably Karl Rove): “The aide said that guys like me [journalists, writers, historians] were ‘in what we call the reality-based
community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality…That’s
not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.
And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities which you can study
too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’.”
[12]
It’s a rather succinct description of Orwellian spin and secrecy in a media-saturated Empire, where discerning the truth becomes
ever more difficult.
That is why people believe someone like Udo Ulfkotte, who is physically ill, says he has only a few years left to live, and told
an interviewer,
“I am very fearful of a new war in Europe, and I don’t like to have this situation again, because war is never coming
from itself, there is always people who push for war, and this is not only politicians, it is journalists too… We have
betrayed our readers, just to push for war…I don’t want this anymore, I’m fed up with this propaganda. We live in a banana republic
and not in a democratic country where we have press freedom…” [13]
Recently, as Mike Whitney has pointed out in CounterPunch (March 10), Germany’s newsmagazine Der Spiegel dared to challenge the
fabrications of NATO’s top commander in Europe, General Philip Breedlove, for spreading “dangerous propaganda” that is misleading
the public about Russian “troop advances” and making “flat-out inaccurate statements” about Russian aggression.
Whitney asks, “Why this sudden willingness to share the truth? It’s because they no longer support Washington’s policy, that’s
why. No one in Europe wants the US to arm and train the Ukrainian army. No wants them to deploy 600 paratroopers to Kiev and increase
U.S. logistical support. No one wants further escalation, because no wants a war with Russia. It’s that simple.” [14] Whitney argued
that “the real purpose of the Spiegel piece is to warn Washington that EU leaders will not support a policy of military confrontation
with Moscow.”
So now we know the reason for the timing of the April 15 U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, “Confronting Russia’s Weaponization
of Information.” Literally while U.S. paratroopers were en route to Kiev, the hawks in Washington (and London) knew it was time to
crank up the rhetoric. The three witnesses were most eager to oblige.
20201021 : Information Clearing House by President Adams. I had been searching within myself for a reason as to why we humans and American citizens, in particular, appeared to be so easily manipulated as to believe that Iraq was responsible for the carnage that occurred on September11, 2001. ( Oct 21, 2020 , www.informationclearinghouse.info )
So go ahead and say whatever you want around all your networked devices, but don't be
surprised if bad things start happening.
I received another "Our Terms Have Changed" email from a Big Tech quasi-monopoly, and for a
change I actually read this one. It was a revelation on multiple fronts. I'm reprinting it here
for your reading pleasure:
We wanted to let you know that we recently updated our Conditions of Use.
What hasn't changed:
Your use constitutes your agreement to our Conditions of Use.
We own all the content you create on our platform, devices and networks, and are free to
monetize it by any means we choose.
We own all the data we collect on you, your devices, purchases, social networks, views,
associations, beliefs and illicit viewing, your location data, who you are in proximity to,
and whatever data the networked devices in your home, vehicles and workplaces collect.
We have the unrestricted right to ban you and all your content, shadow-ban you and all
your content, i.e., generate the illusion that your content is freely, publicly available,
and erase your digital presence entirely such that you cease to exist except as a corporeal
body.
What has changed:
If we detect you have positive views on anti-trust enforcement, we may report you as a
"person of interest / potential domestic extremist" to the National Security Agency and other
federal agencies.
Rather than respond to all disputes algorithmically, we have established a Star Chamber of
our most biased, fanatical employees to adjudicate customer/user disputes in which the
customer/user refuses to accept the algorithmic mediation.
If a customer/user attempts to contact any enforcement agency regarding our algorithmic
mediation or Star Chamber adjudication, we reserve the unrestricted rights to:
a. Prepare voodoo dolls representing the user and stick pins into the doll while
chanting curses.
b. Hack the targeted user's accounts and blame it on Russian or Ukrainian hackers.
c. Rendition the user to a corrupt kleptocracy in which we retain undue influence, i.e.,
the United States.
Left unsaid, of course, is the potential for "accidents" to happen to anyone publicly
promoting anti-trust enforcement of Big Tech quasi-monopolies. Once totalitarianism has been
privatized , there are no rules that can't be ignored or broken by those behind the curtain .
So go ahead and say whatever you want around all your networked devices, but don't be surprised
if bad things start happening.
Editor's note: this is satire. If I disappear, then you'll know who has no sense of irony or
humor.
On a previous thread, two readers linked to a transcript in Russian of VVP's interview on
NBC. A full English transcript is now available on katehon.com. Apologies if this is old
news.
Controversial author Michael Wolff (of
dubious Trump White House 'tell-all' and
earpiece malarkey fame) was trotted out on CNN Sunday, where he proceeded (was allowed) to
excoriate "Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter for doing a "terrible job" and being "full of
sanctimony."
"You become part of, one of the parts of the problem of the media. You know, you come on
here, and you have a monopoly on truth - you know, you know exactly how things are supposed to
be done. You know, you are why one of the reasons people can't stand the media, I'm sorry."
said Wolff.
... ... ...
Were Wolff's comments truly off-the-cuff? Or as one Zero Hedge reader suggested, could CNN
be resorting to a "very strategic capitulation" in order to "turn over a new leaf" and regain
credibility amid dismal ratings and all-time low trust in the media?
Controversial author Michael Wolff (of
dubious Trump White House 'tell-all' and
earpiece malarkey fame) was trotted out on CNN Sunday, where he proceeded (was allowed) to
excoriate "Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter for doing a "terrible job" and being "full of
sanctimony."
"You become part of, one of the parts of the problem of the media. You know, you come on
here, and you have a monopoly on truth - you know, you know exactly how things are supposed to
be done. You know, you are why one of the reasons people can't stand the media, I'm sorry."
said Wolff.
... ... ...
Were Wolff's comments truly off-the-cuff? Or as one Zero Hedge reader suggested, could CNN
be resorting to a "very strategic capitulation" in order to "turn over a new leaf" and regain
credibility amid dismal ratings and all-time low trust in the media?
My fellow whites...Israel is our greatest ally. We must daily remind ourselves of the 6
million **** who died at the hands of our fellow whites! And those 6 Isreali subs full of
innocent sailors that were torpedoed to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea by the USS
Liberty! Israel is a tiny nation of 9 million honest and industrious people that needs our
support like never before. The mere $3.3 BILLION dollars we send them every year for
military aid is a fine start as it keeps them safe from the millions of stone age
Palestinian terrorists on their doorstep. Think of the thousands of incendiary kites our
tax dollars have stopped from landing on Israeli soil! But, my fellow whites, military aid
does not go nearly far enough. There are literally thousands of elderly Israeli women on
the verge of starvation who will perish without our help. We must therefore open our
pockets as well as the coffers of our churches across this great nation and shower the tiny
nation of Israel with all the blessings our forefathers and God has bestowed upon us. As
our Israeli friends are truly God's Chosen people, we all know they certainly deserve it
and we will be rewarded many times over for our generosity.
UnicornTears 12 hours ago
/s
Ronaldo PREMIUM 12 hours ago (Edited)
Sounds like software that is very beneficial. It backs up all your important files,
manages your contacts list, and keeps track of your calendar. All without any bother to
you! /s
StaySunny3000 12 hours ago
Israel again. Are we surprised? They've got global communications cornered both
literally and figuratively.
DEMIZEN 2 hours ago remove link
meanwhile the cnn news:
Ben & Jerry's will stop selling ice cream in Palestinian territories
Imagine realizing that you didn't do your research and take it...then learn the
truth.
Timmay 1 hour ago
It's the subscription model.....
bigjim 58 minutes ago
MicroSoft Vaccine365
MoonWatcher 35 minutes ago
Just imagine all the mental gymnastics they are doing to convince themselves that their
persuasion was medically based. And not a lie being driven by mainstream media, especially
if they took the shots out of social pressure and coercion. Hilarious.
Musum 1 hour ago
I heard that if you take Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and J&J in that order. And
then in reverse order. And then a booster shot in random order, the effectiveness jumps
from 64% to 65%.
As
Peter Hitchens noted recently "the most bitterly funny story of the week is that a defector
from North Korea thinks that even her homeland is 'not as nuts' as the indoctrination now
forced on Western students."
One of Yeonmi Park's initial shocks upon starting classes at Colombia University was to be
met with a frown after revealing to a staff member that she enjoyed reading Jane Austen. "Did
you know," Ms. Park was sternly admonished, "that those writers had a colonial mind-set? They
were racists and bigots and are subconsciously brainwashing you."
But after encountering the new requirement for the use of gender-neutral pronouns, Yeonmi
concluded: "Even North Korea is not this nuts North Korea was pretty crazy, but not this
crazy." Devastatingly honest, but not exactly a compliment to what once might have been the
land of her dreams.
Sadly, Hitchens reports that her previous experience served Yeonmi well to adapt to her new
situation: "She came to fear that making a fuss would affect her grades and her degree.
Eventually, she learned to keep quiet, as people do when they try to live under intolerant
regimes, and let the drivel wash over her."
Eastern European readers will unfailingly understand what it is that Hitchens meant to
say.
You need to drink a lot of "woke coke" and wearing exclusively "woke Nike" to digest those
recommendations without laughing.
History repeats, first as tragedy, second as farce. White Guard rebels during Russian civil
War called Bolsheviks "Tovatitcshi"(Comrades) as they prohibited to say Sir to the officers.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I
choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make
words mean so many different things."
As George Orwell has taught us, language manipulation is at the frontline (yes, I have just
broken one of the cardinal rules of his "
Politics and the English Language ," but not his final injunction to "break any of these
rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous") of politicised mind-bending. The sort of
language we are permitted to use circumscribes the thinking that we shall be allowed to engage
in. The assault on language is, therefore, an integral component of the unrelenting warfare
being waged for the conquest and control of the mind. Word elimination and reassignment of
meaning, as Orwell also presciently noted, are essential elements of the campaign to reformat
the mind and eventually to subjugate it.
A breath-taking example of how this process works was recently unveiled by the thoroughly
brain-washed students of the once prestigious Brandeis University who, this time without
prompting from their faculty elders and betters, voted to ban from their campus such odious
words and phrases as "picnic" and "you guys," for being "oppressive". "Picnic" is prohibited
because it allegedly evokes the lynching of Blacks.
The precocious young intellectuals took pains to produce an entire list of objectionable
words and phrases, shocking award-winning novelist Joyce Carol Oates who tweeted in
bewilderment: "What sort of punishment is doled out for a faculty member who utters the word
'picnic' at Brandeis? Or the phrase [also proscribed – S.K.] 'trigger warning'? Loss of
tenure, public flogging, self-flagellation?"
Oppressive Language
Possible Alternatives
Explanation
Killing it
Great job!
If someone is doing well, we
don't need to equate that to
Awesome!
murder!
Take a shot at
Give it a go
These expressions needlessly use
imagery of hurting someone or
Take a stab at
Try
something.
Trigger warning
Content note
The word "trigger" has
connections to guns for many
Drop-in
people; we can give the same
head's up using language less
connected to violence.
Rule of thumb
General rule
This expression comes from an
old British law allowing men to
beat their wives with sticks no
wider than their thumb.
Pknk
Outdoor eating
Tlie term picnic is often
associated with lynchings of
Black people in the United
States, during which white
spectators were said to have
watched while eating, referring
to them as picnics or other terms
involving racial slurs against
Black people.
Go off tlte reservation
Disagree with tlie group, defect
This phrase has a harmful
from the group
history rooted in the violent
removal of indigenous people
from their land and the Itorrible
consequences for someone that
left the reservation.
_arrow
Not Your Father's ZH 8 hours ago (Edited)
"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and
to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. " ― George Orwell
The constant reconstruction of language is a highly effective tool when employed against
weak minds... as most folks have only a loose association with the words in their
heads...
As meanings of words are changed the ideas associated with those words change...
consequently a society can be transformed into a different society without ever answering a
single argument...
1748 (in Chesterfield's "Letters"), but the thing itself apparently was rare before c.
1800 as an English institution [OED]; it originally meant "a fashionable social affair (not
necessarily out of doors) in which every partaker contributed something to the general
table;" from French piquenique (1690s), perhaps a reduplication of piquer "to pick, peck,"
from Old French (see pike
(n.1)), or the second element may be nique "worthless thing," from a Germanic source.
As in many other riming names, the elements are used without precision, but the lit.
sense is appar. 'a picking or nibbling of bits,' a snatch, snack .... [Century
Dictionary]
The word also turns up 18c. in German, Danish, Swedish. Later "pleasure party the
members of which carry provisions with them on an excursion, as to some place in the
country." Figurative sense of "something easy" is from 1886. Picnic basket is by 1857.
Picnic table is by 1858, originally a folding table used for outdoor dining.
Meanwhile the top Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Indian etc. schools concentrating on STEM
are laughing their asses off.
John Grady 6 hours ago
Activism is now a career path so to differentiate yourself as an activist you have to
have an angle so you look busy. Endless bickering about minutia makes it look like they're
doing something.
For years, we have been
discussing the decline of journalism values with the rise of open bias in the media. Now, a
newly released report from
the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford has found something that would have
been unthinkable just a few years ago. The United States ranked dead last in media trust among
49 countries with just 29% saying that they trusted the media.
The are "apparatchiks" and that means that Rogan unfortunatly is closer to the truth then one
might suspect. "Ideological warriors" so to speak if we reuse Soviet term for such
creatures.
Stetler isn't the only CIA script reader there's thousands of those cockroaches, they're on
every 'news' channel in this country. Stetler looks like a pedo, he's a fat idiot he proves
that every time he opens his candyass mouth.
play_arrow 170 play_arrow
TerminalDebt
6 hours ago
I stopped at fat idiot, no proof needed
play_arrow 35 play_arrow
NoDebt
6 hours ago
They're not real humans.
I think Rogan might be closer to the truth than he realizes on that one.
Putin
Signs Law Forcing Foreign Social Media Giants To Open Russian Offices (reuters.com) 47
Posted by msmash on Thursday July 01, 2021 @12:45PM from the how-about-that dept. President
Vladimir Putin has signed a law that
obliges foreign social media giants to open offices in Russia , a document published by the
government on Thursday showed, the latest move by Moscow to exert greater control over Big
Tech. From a report: The Russian authorities are keen to strengthen their control of the
internet and to reduce their dependence on foreign companies and countries. In particular, they
have objected in the past to political opponents of the Kremlin using foreign social media
platforms to organise what they say are illegal protests and to publicise politically-tinged
investigations into alleged corruption. Moscow has fined firms for failing to delete content it
says is illegal, slowing down the speed of Twitter as punishment, and on Wednesday opened a new
case against Alphabet subsidiary Google for breaching personal data legislation. by
Vlijmen Fileer ( 120268 ) on
Thursday July 01, 2021 @12:47PM ( #61540686 )
Other countries do the same. But somehow get less media attention for it
Authorities doe not telling truth: people who already have COVID do not need to be
vaccinated. Also if Delta varient can infect vaccineted in conserable quantities how any resobale
person can maintain this goal of "herg immunity". How it can be achieved if a vaccinated person
can be infected and thus spread the disease both amoung vaccinated cohort and among the
unvaccinated cohort. The fact the vaccinated people are infected with Delta changes the game and
here Senator Paul is wrong.
Pushing vaccination on chidren in such curcumstances changes nothing is became a very
questionable move both from scientific an from ethical perspective.
America's favourite Chinese lab funding coronavirus doomonger doctor Anthony Fauci announced
Tuesday that there are now two Americas, a vaccinated America and an unvaccinated America.
As Senator Rand Paul noted
earlier this week , there is a boat load of misinformation on the matter coming from a
government that is indiscriminately pushing vaccinations:
There are now two Americas. One that's retarded. And one that wants Fauci on a
lamppost.
liberty2 1 hour ago (Edited)
Note that the officials said there's no such thing as "herd immunity" last year. Now
this year they keep saying that we can reach "herd immunity" if we are 70% vaxxed! Terms
are used if it fits their narrative.
Ride_the_kali_yuga 3 hours ago (Edited)
In the Covidian Cult, there is true believers in one side and heretics on the other
side. Vaxxed and unvaxxed.
Divide and rule strategy, as always. Do not undurestimate the ratio of retarded people
among the population, it has been growing like a cancer for decades. It amazes me how
perfectly coordinated those MSM Covidian propaganda events appears worldwide.
In here France, 2 days ago, most MSM have all simultaneously gone full berserk (without
any reason) blaming the reluctant ones. One of them on TV said something like : "if it was
me, i will use police to drag those who refuse these "vaccines" from their home and force
it on them"
This was priceless, this little man has morbid obesity. We now officialy all live on the
twilight zone on steroids. Land whales dictate how people should consider their own health.
This ride seems to never end.
We now have officialy entered the dehumanization phase of the unvaxxed. The sanitary
gulag is not far from here.
NIRP-BTFD 1 hour ago
There are 2 Americas. The 0.01% (the rulers that own everything) and the serfs.
DemandSider 1 hour ago
Exactly, parasite and host. Fauci would be the former, obviously.
"Recent research shows the vaxxinated group had a 18 point lower IQ score then the
unvaxxinated group and a 128 point higher gullibility score."
Fact Checked : True ✔️
Cirdan PREMIUM 9 hours ago
Wow! I didn't know they had a gullibility score!
bidennotmyprez99 9 hours ago remove link
Sure that's true but in my circle, it's all the super intellectual types who are getting
"vaxxed". You know, the ones who read the Guardian in the UK or the NYT in the US and sneer
at we deplorables. They pride themselves on being free and critical thinkers. Yet, they are
the ones getting the jab. Incredible. The other group I see all aroujnd me getting jabbed
are the fundamental christians: the ones who vowed never to bow to Caesar. Yeah, right.
They've been warning all their lives about the Mark of the Beast and fall at the first
hurdle. In contrast, all the ordinary working class Joes I know see it for the nasty
******** that it is.
No-Go zone 6 hours ago
The ordinary working class still has a common sense.
Smiddywesson 11 hours ago
There are two types of people today, those who still listen to media and authority
figures that are proven liars, and those who remember and are immune to further lies FROM
PROVEN LIARS. Faucci and company are proven liars, he can't tell me the time of day with
any credibility at all.
Gunston_Nutbush_Hall 7 hours ago (Edited)
h/t ZH Johnny Walker http://whale.to/vaccines.html
"If this is preventive medicine, I'll take my chances with disease." ~ Mendelsohn M.D
Dis-obey 8 hours ago
The Delta strain is weak sauce. With a mortality rate of 0.1% it's the same as H1N1.
H1N1 has been with Humanity since at least 1918 and human immunology has coped to deal with
it. Don't be fooled.
BendGuyhere 11 hours ago
1)The "case" number is pure JUNK SCIENCE. Meaningless. It is PCR cycles jacked up until
it gives a "positive". This is for people (Idiots) who get their 'science' from the
National Enquirer.
2) Corona viruses are NOTORIOUS for constantly rapidly mutating, like the Common
Cold.
3) ALL pathogenic viruses, to the extent that there even is a pathogenic covid virus
anymore, attenuate over time. That is they become LESS pathogenic and the human immune
system becomes more and more competent at recognizing and neutralizing viruses within the
same family.
4) Well "What about India?" What ABOUT India? Outside of the MSM, which has mutated into
a vast labyrinth of lies geared towards social control, we have no way of verifying what
actually happened in India.
BugMan 5 hours ago
The microorganism must be identified in all individuals affected by the disease, but not
in healthy individuals.
The microorganism can be isolated from the diseased individual and grown in culture.
When introduced into a healthy individual , the cultured microorganism should cause
disease.
The microorganism must then be re-isolated from the experimental host , and found to be
identical to the original microorganism.
I'm struck by the fact that the news media constantly push the so-called Covid-19
"vaccines." Have the news media become pharmaceutical company sales reps ?
Every day, I see news articles proclaiming that the Covid-19 "vaccines" are effective
against the variants. They cite new studies even though such studies take a lot more time
to conduct than has been alloted for concrete conclusions.
Overall, the pimping of the Covid shots by reporters is suspect at best. These so-called
journalists never mention treatments, only vaccines.
Bill of Rights 7 hours ago (Edited)
When was the last time the MEDIA was actually just that the Media? 1960s perhaps..
What you are subjected to now, or for the better term, Choose to watch now is trash
where 99% of it is made up and false.
Conductor "Corn Pop" Angelo 8 hours ago
Following a citizen's petition, a Lisbon court was forced to provide verified COVID-19
mortality data, reports AndreDias.net
.
According to the ruling , the number of
verified COVID-19 deaths from January 2020 to April 2021 is only 152, not about 17,000 as
claimed by government
ministries.
All the "others" died for various reasons, although their PCR test was positive.
"We live in a fraud of unprecedented dimensions," wrote Dias.
Not a pandemic but a manufactured DemPanic. These snarling rabid far-left-wing dogs will
seize and shake any opportunity they can get to further their RESET utopian agendas,
including population reductions and striking down capitalism. So close to their goals now,
they are gone wild in their attacks and without any reservations whatsoever.
Fear for this little Republic. Its time is almost up.
Kugelhagel 11 hours ago
It's like a priest in stone age: if harvest was low because weather was bad a priest
said "gimme all your sheet and I'll talk to the gods" . When that doesn't work he says "of
course it not worked, you not gave me enough! gimme more!" ... and some day it worked and
weather was good and the priest was celebrated.
Same here ... Snakeoil sellers.
Bill Maher slammed Big Tech on Friday's episode of his show, "Real Time with Bill Maher,"
criticizing Facebook and Google for censoring content discussing the COVID-19 lab-leak
theory.
"I find this outrageous. Facebook banned any post for four months about COVID coming from a
lab," said Maher, adding "Now, even the Biden administration is looking into it."
incharge1976 PREMIUM 1 hour ago (Edited)
Google and the like are not search engines, video sites, or social media sites. They are
propaganda machines
The First Rule 42 minutes ago (Edited)
Yeah, Yandex.com is head and shoulders
above the rest when it comes to getting around pretty much any US based web search
censorship.
It will show you the things Google is trying to hide.
Too may crazies among adjunct professors were discovered recently in the ocntext of Woke
ideology and Critical race theory. This is another one. What is interesting is the she is a
female.
[A person the claims to be] University of Ottawa adjunct professor and Canadian Lawyer Naomi
Sayers took to Twitter recently to endorse sex work for "young people," calling it "the best
thing" they can do early in their careers.
"unpopular opinion: the best thing young people can do early in their careers is do #SexWork
on the side because your early career prospects will be unstable, unpredictable, low pay,
likely contract work and very much exploitative," Sayers wrote on Twitter Sunday.
... ... ...
Campus Reform reached out to Exodus Cry
, a non-profit organization committed to fighting back against sex work and human trafficking.
Director of Intervention Helen Taylor replied calling Sayers' comments "deeply
irresponsible."
"For Professor Sayers to flippantly encourage young vulnerable students to engage in such a
harmful industry is deeply irresponsible and extremely offensive to survivors who are working
hard to heal and recover from the damage prostitution inflicted on their lives," Taylor
wrote
"The sex industry is a system of violence and gender inequality. It is not a 'job like any
other.' It puts girls at higher risk daily of rape, theft and murder. It causes long-term PTSD
comparable to torture victims"¦ We believe education leaders ought to be protecting
young women, and empowering them to aim high, not echoing pimp's advertisements for the sex
trade."
UPDATE: Sayers' publicist contacted Campus Reform after publication and insisted Sayers has
no relation with the University of Ottawa as a professor.
When Campus Reform reached out to Sayers for an interview, she replied, "my policy is not to
answer questions from media in which the answer can be found on google [sic] , which tweets are
searchable on google now (aka do their research)".
Research conducted by Campus Reform found that in Sayers LinkedIn profile, she currently touts herself as
"adjunct professor" at the university.
"... It helped defang the left. "Wokeism lent a lifeline to the people who were in charge of the big banks. They thought, 'This stuff is easy!' " They applauded diversity and inclusion, appointed token female and minority directors, and "mused about the racially disparate impact of climate change." So, in Mr. Ramaswamy's narrative, "a bunch of big banks got together with a bunch of millennials, birthed woke capitalism, and then put Occupy Wall Street up for adoption." Now, in Mr. Ramaswamy's tart verdict, "big business makes money by critiquing itself." ..."
"... Davos is "the Woke Vatican," Mr. Ramaswamy says; Al Gore and Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock , are "its archbishops." CEOs "further down the chain" -- he mentions James Quincey of Coca-Cola , Ed Bastian of Delta , Marc Benioff of Salesforce , John Donahoe of Nike and Alan Jope of Unilever -- are its "cardinals." ..."
It helped defang the left. "Wokeism lent a lifeline to the people who were in charge of
the big banks. They thought, 'This stuff is easy!' " They applauded diversity and inclusion,
appointed token female and minority directors, and "mused about the racially disparate impact
of climate change." So, in Mr. Ramaswamy's narrative, "a bunch of big banks got together with a
bunch of millennials, birthed woke capitalism, and then put Occupy Wall Street up for
adoption." Now, in Mr. Ramaswamy's tart verdict, "big business makes money by critiquing
itself."
Mr. Ramaswamy regards Klaus Schwab, founder and CEO of the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland, as the "patron saint of wokeism" for his relentless propagation of "stakeholder
capitalism" -- the view that the unspoken bargain in the grant to corporations of limited
liability is that they "must do social good on the side."
Davos is "the Woke Vatican," Mr. Ramaswamy says; Al Gore and Larry Fink, CEO of
BlackRock , are "its
archbishops." CEOs "further down the chain" -- he mentions James Quincey of Coca-Cola , Ed Bastian of Delta , Marc Benioff of
Salesforce , John
Donahoe of Nike and
Alan Jope of Unilever
-- are its "cardinals."
That Leftist "wokeism" is the brainchild of a religious cult should've been obvious decades
ago. The purely religious belief in anthropogenic global warming, for example, which closely
mimics the spiritual rituals of ancient cultures by worshiping nature over man. The hierarchy
of color and gender as fetishes through which human relative value can be determined also
mimics the hierarchy of priests or shamans in other religions. Thus, a fairly vapid group
like BLM is exalted based purely on the melanin content of their skin, even though their
claims are ridiculously flawed (They "care" about the lives of 90 or so armed felons killed
by police, but call the 7,000+ black people killed by Blacks a "distraction"). Like many
religions that plagued humanity throughout history, they will torment and punish all
"deniers." Four years of the Trump Presidency made this clear. He faced the Grand Inquisition
because he refused to kneel.
Update (0815ET) : British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he was "very sorry" after
pictures of him kissing and embracing his top aide, a friend hired last year, were splashed on
the front page of the Sun newspaper. However, he has said he will not resign .
As
Summit News' Paul Joseph Watson detailed earlier, yet another architect of the UK's
lockdown has been caught violating it as photos revealed Health Secretary Matt Hancock
passionately kissing his mistress at a time when Brits were being told they shouldn't even
shake hands.
Once again, with feeling: None of the 'control measures' does anything. End it all now.
They just want us all in their databases anyway. They don't care about death tolls, or even
vaccines. It's not about that.
The vaccine passports in the UK already link to your entire medical history, biometric,
genetic and ethnic data, criminal history, vehicle registration and employer data.
All they need is your bank account and internet/social media.
Then it's just................................CHINA.
And THAT is what they want, and what they are doing.
Back in the mid-1990s when irony was still a thing, British TV had a popular celebrity
gameshow called
Shooting Stars hosted by comedians Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer. It was filled with
slapstick, surreal, anarchic humor, and while it appeared to stick to standard gameshow
conventions, everything was actually arbitrary: rules could be made up or ignored as and when
Vic and Bob felt like it
Robin, "the Imperial Pottery Barn rule" is an extremely good analogy. I'm going to have a
hard time citing you if I ever use that. I've also seen US foreign policy described as
"rubblization," with regard to Syria especially.
I wonder who is still buying this brown high-fructose corn syrup carbonated water. Only
people completely obvious to their health do so. Boycotting Coca-cola is probably the easiest and
healthiest boycott possible. From commnets: " Woka Cola can kiss my ***. "
In a letter dated June 11, the
American Civil Rights Project (ACRP) noted that on Jan. 28, the general counsel of Coca-Cola
demanded law firms seeking to keep the company as a client must commit that at least 30 percent
of billed time would be from "diverse attorneys," and at least half of that time would be from
black attorneys.
The ACRP, speaking on behalf of "a set of concerned Coca-Cola Company shareholders,"
demanded that the soft drink company either "publicly retract the discriminatory
outside-counsel policies" or otherwise "provide access to the corporate records related to the
decision of Coca-Cola's officers and directors to adopt and retain those illegal policies."
Coca-Cola's race-specific contracting policy , according to the ACRP, has exposed the
corporation and its shareholders to "material risk of liability" for potentially violating
anti-discrimination laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits
employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.
The letter further alleged that all of Coca-Cola's decision makers knew, or should have
known, that the policy was potentially illegal. It said those who were not so aware of the
legal risks either have failed their responsibility or "relied on the inexcusably flawed advice
of counsel."
... ... ...
Coca-Cola, one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world, came under fire in
February, when its employees were allegedly instructed to be "less white" as part of a
"Confronting Racism" training course featuring interviews with sociologist Robin DiAngelo, the
author of a 2018 book called "White Fragility."
"In the U.S. and other Western nations, white people are socialized to feel that they are
inherently superior because they are white," reads one of the slides, allegedly sent from an
"internal whistleblower" and posted on Twitter by YouTube commentator Karlyn Borysenko. The
post went viral.
1 hour ago remove link
Coca Cola is brown high-fructose corn syrup carbonated water that makes one fat through
empty calories. It's perhaps the easiest and healthiest boycott possible. Do it, white man...
do it. play_arrow 51 play_arrow
Ghost of SilverIsMoney 59 minutes ago
I got off my sugary soda addiction 6years ago by switching to Seltzers.
They still have the soda bite without any garbage attached.
TacoNasty 50 minutes ago
I unfortunately got addicted to diet soda because my parents gave it to me since I was a
young toddler.
Coke's anti-White racism finally got me to quit.
I feel so much healthier... especially, my sleep is so much better!
ted41776 1 hour ago
yelp, a publicly traded company, has a category named "black-owned businesses" that they
regularly promote
discrimination laws?
crickets
overbet 1 hour ago
I regret that I already dont drink that **** so I cant boycott it any further. Avoiding
anything processed got me from a flabby 250lb desk jockey to a lean 190lb heavy lifting gym
rat after a few years.
Automatic Choke PREMIUM 49 minutes ago
you can short the stock.
TacoNasty 50 minutes ago
Good job!!! Props to you. I dropped from 220 to 180 during quarantine due to watching my
diet much more closely and lifting.
MaskTard 53 minutes ago
Woka Cola can kiss my ***. All Coke products in this household were poured down the
drain long ago.
sleepyhollow 51 minutes ago
Same here. Stopped drinking Coke, buying woke products and watching woke sports such as
the NFL, NBA, etc.
Virgil Krenshaw PREMIUM 31 minutes ago (Edited)
Sue. Them. Silly. Go on the offensive against wokeness. It's discrimination. It's
race-based harassment. And it's against the law. Document any HR sessions that are woke.
Build evidence of a pattern of behavior. Then go for the throat.
Very interesting to see shareholders threatening to sue. Courts recognize management's
fiduciary duty to shareholders, but overwhelmingly defer to executives' "business judgment"
on what's best for a company. But these woketards are now so obviously undermining company
value that I think courts will probably intervene.
How could A&E ever justify its decision to cancel "Cops," AKA the source of half its
revenue, as a sound business judgment that would add shareholder value?
William Dorritt 44 minutes ago
The following list presents notable Coca-Cola subsidiaries, brands and products:
Coca-Cola (Coke)
Diet Coke
Coca-Cola Zero
Sprite
Fanta
Dasani
Ciel
Smartwater
Minute Maid
Simply Orange
Del Valle
Powerade
Vitaminwater
Odwalla
Fuze Beverage
Honest Tea
Chimesickle007 17 minutes ago
Thank god none of them are on my shopping list
tyberious 52 minutes ago (Edited)
Started out as a poison, got rid of Cocaine and added an even more addictive and far
deadlier substance, GMO high fructose corn syrup with a healthy dose of glyphosate!
Lt. Shicekopf 42 minutes ago
I do not drink Coke, watch the NFL, use Gillette products, I eschew Starbucks, shun the
airlines, avoid the NBA like the plague...and I feel much better about myself.
Automatic Choke PREMIUM 59 minutes ago
Stop "woke"
dump Coke.
MoneyMonkey 50 minutes ago
Incidence of diabetes (aka "the sugars") is highest amongst jogger Americans, so it
seems fair they get to be scum sucking lawyers for a company slowly killing their own
kind.
Southern_Boy 9 minutes ago (Edited)
Drank Coke daily (3 to 6 cans or bottles) for almost 60 years. They've lost my business
thanks to this "Woke Business". As I understood it, they hired an activist lawyer who
basically has cost them billions in sales.
Back in the day of newspapers, the Bolsheviks had PRAVDA ( which laughingly means TRUTH
)
thoughtbubble 3 minutes ago
Democrats have Twitter (which not ironically means TWITS).
AriusArmenian 3 minutes ago remove link
All the major social media companies in the US were funded and controlled by the CIA
from startup.
There is not a future end-game - it has been the CIA's agenda from the beginning.
The CIA along with Watt Street and the MIC owns and controls the US from top to bottom -
and they intend for the lumpen white people to fall on their swords. This is all to the
interests of the rich and powerful button pushers. I pity the young people like idiots so
easily used by the elites.
Rogan took exception with Stelter being incensed that more people were watching shows on
YouTube than watching his show, according to Fox News .
"They didn't even understand the way they were describing it. They were describing it as if
they're entitled to viewers," Rogan ranted.
"They were saying, "˜There are shows on YouTube right now that get more views than
this show.' This is because the market has spoken and your show's f***in terrible . Well, Brian
Stelter's show keeps slipping and slipping and slipping in the ratings."
"How about Brian Stelter talking to the press secretary, "˜What are we doing wrong?
What are we doing wrong?' Like, hey motherf---er, you're supposed to be a journalist ," Rogan
said. "They're obviously being told a certain amount of what to do. And maybe he'd be an
interesting guy if he had his own f---in podcast that you can rely on his own personality and
be himself. I don't know. I can't imagine doing that gig."
"He's the worst," Rogan guest and progressive commentator Kyle Kulinski said. Stelter has
"outright [called] for censorship under the guise of combatting the spread of conspiracy
theories."
They "use that for f---ing everything," Kulinski said.
Rogan then turned his ire to Don Lemon's show: "So is Don Lemon's. It's the same thing.
Everyone knows they're not real. They're not real humans."
"And they wonder why they get no views," Kulinski concluded.
Recall,
this week we noted that Stelter, who just last week groveled at the feet of White House
Press Secretary Jen Psaki - asking how the media can better cover President Biden - has failed
to attract at least one million viewers for 11 straight weeks , and averaged just 752,000 on
Sunday, his smallest audience of the year.
If contemporary American liberalism has any High Priests, foremost among them would have to
be Jon Stewart. Arguably, he's the functional equivalent of a supreme pontiff. So much of
contemporary American liberalism hinges on aesthetic presentation" the ever-present need to
convey that you and your peers "get it"" and Stewart pioneered the perfect public sensibility
tailored to this ambition. For years, cultural liberals' sense of savviness and ironic
detachment, coupled with an underlying pretension to earnestness, was cultivated and affirmed
by Stewart. His method of communicating political information on The Daily Show became the
dominant style not just of mainstream corporate comedy, but of left-liberal politics as a
whole. Everyone from establishment Democrats to cynical online leftists speaks of Stewart with
worshipful reverence.
Stewart is also very smart. Like any good leader of a religious order, he knows on occasion
he must chide his fellow clergymen for their doctrinal blindspots, tactical blunders, or
personal indiscretions . He knows how to gently but firmly advise parishioners when they've
gone astray, or gone too far. He also mostly kept his head down throughout the Trump
presidency" declining to weigh in on every fleeting micro-scandal" which was a wise decision,
so as to not get himself too brain-melted by the endless frenzy of that period. He didn't even
join Twitter until this past January.
Stewart recognizes when to "read the room" and direct a course correction in the prevailing
sentiments of popular liberalism when its dogmas have become too untenable to continue. Who
else was going to do it, Joe Biden? Nowhere near enough funny-guy sway. It takes the cultural
prestige of a leader like Stewart to truly make a difference. And when he decides it's time for
one of those gentle-but-firm course corrections, liberals listen intently" because liberalism
is underrated for its ability to adapt and self-correct, at least in the arena of public
presentation. This is best accomplished by reframing its past failures as a big joke, and
there's no one better positioned to do so than Stewart.
Accordingly, the rapid transformation of the lab leak theory from shameful racist trope into
cool-kid conventional wisdom need not occasion any recriminations or blame" just more
self-deprecating laughter. Never mind that during all the Zoom banter Stewart presumably
participated in over the past 15 months, the theory was either scornfully dismissed or ignored.
That's all in the past; Trump is gone. Eventually Stewart got it.
But he wasn't imparted with this knowledge by some divine revelation. A campaign of Twitter
sleuths and Medium posts is what punctured a false consensus. Stewart merely consecrated the
shift within a certain strand of the cultural mainstream, thereby granting license to liberals
who need permission from their entertainment idols before they form opinions about
anything.
This volatility within liberalism is often fodder for mockery. It can make adherents look
and sound incoherent. But malleability is part of liberalism's strength; after all,
conservatives are always complaining that liberals control most every institution. To what do
they attribute this...?
It's why the big "face-off" this week between Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden, desperately
hyped by the flagging corporate news industry, could result in Putin lavishing Biden with
praise for his statesmanship and sterling moral character, and no Democratic elected official
taking issue. Memories of how similar
diplomatic niceties were portrayed vis-a-vis the previous President simply vanish. Stephen
Colbert didn't sneer at the "collusive" implications. The last five years of spy-thriller hype
can just wash away, with the snap of a finger.
It's why Ashli Babbitt "" an unarmed protester shot dead at point-blank range by an agent of
the state" was presumed worthy of summary execution by the nation's liberal class, even as they
make other questionable police killings the guiding impetus of their entire political program.
Babbitt had bad ideas, she was deluded by YouTube misinformation, she was a de facto white
supremacist, whatever. She might've even been trespassing at the time the bullet was pumped
into her throat. The public still doesn't have the name of her assailant" this information has
been concealed by the relevant police agency . But Jon Stewart wouldn't go near that one...
yet. Promoting a certain interpretation of January 6 still has a utility for liberals that
clinging to lab leak denialism no longer does.
So much of it all is a facade" but facades can overlay the accrual of real power . Stewart
just has enough self-awareness to poke his head through the facade every now and then, when the
conditions are safe, and help right the ship.
Last week Bill Maher of HBO's "Real Time" did a commentary on something he believes deeply
destructive. Maher, who has described his politics as liberal, libertarian, progressive and
practical, is a longtime and occasionally brave foe of wokeness in its extreme manifestations.
He zeroed in on one aspect that fuels a lot of grievance, and that is the uninformed sense that
America has largely been impervious to improvement.
Mr. Maher called this "progressophobia," a term coined by the cognitive psychologist Steven
Pinker. Mr. Maher defines it as "a brain disorder that strikes liberals and makes them
incapable of recognizing progress. It's like situational blindness, only what you can't see is
that your dorm in 2021 is better than the South before the Civil War."
His audience laughed uncertainly. You could tell they didn't want to get caught laughing at
the wrong thing and weren't certain what the wrong thing was. Normally they're asked to laugh
at right-wing idiocy, which is never in short supply.
"If you think that America is more racist now than ever, more sexist than before women could
vote, you have progressophobia," Mr. Maher said. Look at the changes America has made on
disputed issues like gay marriage and marijuana legislation. "Even something like bullying. It
still happens, but being outwardly cruel to people who are different is no longer acceptable.
That's progress. Acknowledging progress isn't saying, 'We're done,' or, 'We don't need more.'
And being gloomier doesn't mean you're a better person."
He was asking for perspective, a hard thing to do when you're a comic because a comic's
tools are exaggeration, satire and sarcasm. But Mr. Maher maintained earnestness.
"In 1958," he said, "only 4% of Americans approved of interracial marriage. Now Gallup
doesn't even bother asking. But the last time they did, in 2013, 87% approved. An overwhelming
majority of Americans now say they want to live in a multiracial neighborhood. That is a
sea change from when I was a kid." Mr. Maher was born in 1956.
He barreled on: "In a country that's 14% black, 18% of the incoming class at Harvard is
black. And since 2017, white students are not even a majority in our public colleges. Employees
of color make up 47% of Microsoft , 50% of Target, 55% of the Gap, as
companies become desperate to look like their TV commercials."
"The 'Friends' reunion we just had looked weird, because if you even suggested a show today
about six people all of whom were straight and white, the network would laugh you out of the
room and then cancel you on Twitter . And yet there is a recurrent theme
on the far left that things have never been worse."
The comedian Kevin Hart had recently told the New York Times , "You're witnessing white
power and white privilege at an all-time high." Mr. Maher: "This is one of the big problems
with wokeness, that what you say doesn't have to make sense or jibe with the facts, or ever be
challenged, lest the challenge itself be conflated with racism."
He added: "Saying white power and privilege is at an all-time high is just ridiculous.
Higher than a century ago, the year of the Tulsa race massacre? Higher than when the KKK rode
unchecked and Jim Crow unchallenged?" He acknowledged that "racism is unfortunately still with
us," and its "legacy of injustice" lingers. "I understand best I can how racism singes a
person's soul so much they might see it everywhere. But seeing clearly is necessary for
actually fixing problems, and clearly racism is no longer everywhere. It's not in my home, and
it's probably not in yours if I read my audience right, and I think I do. For most of the
country the most unhip thing you could ever be today is a racist."
You know leftist overreach is extreme when Bill Maher and Jon Stewart are calling out its
absurdities. Maher's bit is interesting--if you watch the video you'll see that he hasn't
totally wandered off the reservation of the left, but he is objectively looking around and
recognizing that all of this progressive indoctrination is causing problems.
Jon Stewart's rant brilliantly illustrated the folly of the Never Trumpers who have
allowed their disdain for the Orange Man to cloud their view of reality. He was 12 months too
late to point it out, but at least he got there eventually.
Chris Breidenbaugh
Marxist and Fascist tyrants have always required a boogey man. The Bolsheviks had the
bourgeoisie. Nazi Germany had the Jews, Castro, Chavez and the North Koreans have the US.
Today's US marxists have racism. An undeniable, invisible scourge that must be irradiated, no
matter how irrelevant it is in modern society. But it will never and can never be irradiated.
How will BLM rally the troops if there is no racism? Who will pay for Al Sharpton and Jesse
Jackson's limos if racism were "gone"? For todays US marxists, the goal is not to end racism.
It's to enact marxist policies to control the masses. Racism is just a tool; a means to an
end. You can see a direct correlation to the rise of marxist policies and the prevalence of
anti-racism fervor. When racism no longer serves it purpose for these marxists, it will be
kicked to the curb. They'll find a new boogey man and start the whole process over.
Patricia Barnes
Cultural elites (i.e. Hollywood, publishers) for decades have pushed the narrative that all
whites are one grandfather removed from a cruel Southern plantation owner wielding a bull
whip over a sniveling black slave on his knees. All to sell movie tickets and books.
RICHARD SANDOR
Patrica : Yes, I have learned quite a bit about this inter-racial part of America History
from watching " Finding Your Roots ." Quite an insight into how complicated slavery was
because even some African Americans owned slaves . The cultural divisions between the North
and South were huge . And finding a solution to this cultural divide was terribly difficult.
mrs
r fortin
To quote the racist Maxine Waters, we have to "push-back" against rewarding and giving more
power to the racist woke mob or we will become more divided than ever!
BRIAN MOORE
Maher's point will gain no traction on the left. Without "you're a racist", they would have
to produce cogent arguments, and they cannot.
SEAN ESSIG
"progressophobia," a term coined by the cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker. Mr. Maher
defines it as "a brain disorder that strikes liberals and makes them incapable of
recognizing progress.
Absolute genius!
Gary Blakely
In the past we only had two genders, now we have 72 genders. That's progressive.
In the past we had 3,446 black hangings in the US, now we have had 40,000 black people
murdered in Chicago alone. That's progressive.
I could go on. Please feel free to enhance this list.
The Free Beacon reports that U.S. intelligence officials haven't come to a conclusion about
whether or not the students being investigated were spies, but RedState is told that whether or
not one wants to use the term "spy," those students were sent back to the United States with
specific information-gathering directives with the purpose of helping Beijing understand the US
government's response to the pandemic at a much deeper level than they could through
publicly-available documents. Those students (spies) were charged with reporting back on public
policy changes, economic response and damage, impacts on the healthcare system
(equipment/hospital bed shortages, etc), supply chain impacts (including how long it took
things like semiconductors from China to reach the United States), civil unrest, and more.
In addition, Dong has provided DIA with the following information:
Early pathogenic studies of the virus we now know as SARS-CoV-2
Models of predicted COVID-19 spread and damage to the US and the world
Financial records detailing which exact organizations and governments funded the research
on SARS-CoV-2 and other biological warfare research
Names of US citizens who provide intel to China
Names of Chinese spies working in the US or attending US universities
Financial records showing US businessmen and public officials who've received money from
the Chinese government
Details of meetings US government officials had (perhaps unwittingly) with Chinese spies
and members of Russia's SVR
How the Chinese government gained access to a CIA communications system, leading to the
death of dozens of Chinese people who were working with the CIA
Dong also has provided DIA with copies of the contents of the hard drive on Hunter Biden's
laptop, showing the information the Chinese government has about Hunter's pornography problem
and about his (and Joe's) business dealings with Chinese entities. Some of the files on Dong
has provided shine a light on just how it was that the sale of Henniges Automotive (and their
stealth technology) to Chinese military manufacturer AVIC Auto was approved.
Again, according to sources, Dong told DIA debriefers that at least a third of Chinese
students attending US universities are PLA assets or part of the Thousand Talents Plan and that
many of the students are here under pseudonyms. One reason for using pseudonyms is that many of
these students are the children of high-ranking military and party leaders.
As we initially reported, DIA has high confidence in the veracity of Dong's claims. The fact
that since our original report, which was pooh-poohed by Langley apologists, the New York Times
published a rare interview with Dr. Shi Zhengli (the WIV "Bat Woman"), ABC News has started an
"investigation" into COVID-19 origins, and now the actual name of the defector has been
published in an anti-Trump, CIA-friendly blog, demonstrates what sources told RedState today:
"This defector has the rest of the intelligence community and the LEO community scared
sh**less."
The Free Beacon reports that U.S. intelligence officials haven't come to a conclusion about
whether or not the students being investigated were spies, but RedState is told that whether or
not one wants to use the term "spy," those students were sent back to the United States with
specific information-gathering directives with the purpose of helping Beijing understand the US
government's response to the pandemic at a much deeper level than they could through
publicly-available documents. Those students (spies) were charged with reporting back on public
policy changes, economic response and damage, impacts on the healthcare system
(equipment/hospital bed shortages, etc), supply chain impacts (including how long it took
things like semiconductors from China to reach the United States), civil unrest, and more.
In addition, Dong has provided DIA with the following information:
Early pathogenic studies of the virus we now know as SARS-CoV-2
Models of predicted COVID-19 spread and damage to the US and the world
Financial records detailing which exact organizations and governments funded the research
on SARS-CoV-2 and other biological warfare research
Names of US citizens who provide intel to China
Names of Chinese spies working in the US or attending US universities
Financial records showing US businessmen and public officials who've received money from
the Chinese government
Details of meetings US government officials had (perhaps unwittingly) with Chinese spies
and members of Russia's SVR
How the Chinese government gained access to a CIA communications system, leading to the
death of dozens of Chinese people who were working with the CIA
Dong also has provided DIA with copies of the contents of the hard drive on Hunter Biden's
laptop, showing the information the Chinese government has about Hunter's pornography problem
and about his (and Joe's) business dealings with Chinese entities. Some of the files on Dong
has provided shine a light on just how it was that the sale of Henniges Automotive (and their
stealth technology) to Chinese military manufacturer AVIC Auto was approved.
Again, according to sources, Dong told DIA debriefers that at least a third of Chinese
students attending US universities are PLA assets or part of the Thousand Talents Plan and that
many of the students are here under pseudonyms. One reason for using pseudonyms is that many of
these students are the children of high-ranking military and party leaders.
As we initially reported, DIA has high confidence in the veracity of Dong's claims. The fact
that since our original report, which was pooh-poohed by Langley apologists, the New York Times
published a rare interview with Dr. Shi Zhengli (the WIV "Bat Woman"), ABC News has started an
"investigation" into COVID-19 origins, and now the actual name of the defector has been
published in an anti-Trump, CIA-friendly blog, demonstrates what sources told RedState today:
"This defector has the rest of the intelligence community and the LEO community scared
sh**less."
lay_arrow
Chief Joesph 2 hours ago
This story is totally unbelievable. First of all, the DIA is the wrong agency to turn
over information to, since it only analyze stuff that has military implications, (which of
course bioagents would be of an interest to them), but they never make any releases of
information available to the public. So, it's very doubtful the author would have gotten
any information directly from them. They are literally more secretive than the CIA. And,
the business of who had F/J visas and who went to American schools is totally irrelevant to
DIA too, which also makes this report suspicious about it's authenticity. This is simply
not the way military intelligence works.
Rudolph 1 hour ago (Edited)
Reads like a fiction. Mass number of spies in US gov't even CIA FBI must not be told of
Dong's defection ?
AmadausVoltaire 1 hour ago
Yeah, my tolerance for Hopium is so high that this story barely took the edge off...
Drowsapp123 3 minutes ago
Oh so now the Deep State is going to give me the straight story!
Wow they must have gotten jeeeeeeesus.
Never mind our military wants to go after China. This information will be totally
unbiased. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Someone tell the block heads in the military that we're not going to win when all the
parts to our war machine come from China. Seriously. This. Is. Dumb.
It was Fauci who had this crap going on in labs of Fort Detrick. When it was made
illegal here the research effort was shipped to Wuhan. There it was funded by Fauci / USSA.
China is being used as a patsy. Did China put on Event 201 where they did an exercise of a
corona pandemic in Sept 2019?? NO. It's the Davos Crowd. The Banking Cartel. Never forget
it or we'll have yet ANOTHER world war where your sons / daughters die for them. WW1 / WW2
were fought to make the world safe for the Banking Cartel and allow them to loot the
world.
pro·le·tar·i·at 35 minutes ago
Names of US citizens who provide intel to China
Dr. Anthony Fauci
bombdog PREMIUM 34 minutes ago
Financial records showing US businessmen and public officials who've received money
from the Chinese government
Joe Biden
Huginn 33 minutes ago
Swallwell
Captain Carrot 28 minutes ago
Don't forget Sheldon Adelson (Trumpy's Boss)...!
Johnny Walker 2 hours ago
US has bio weapons labs in 25 countries.
"They kept tampering with the virus for a few years, trying to make it more infectious
and more deadly. After gain-of-function research was forbidden by the US government in
2014, it was promptly offshored to Wuhan lab. The research was quietly continued with US
grants coming (partly) from the notorious Dr Fauci via the equally notorious Peter Daszak
and his EcoHealth Alliance, the beneficiary of
$39 million grant from the Pentagon . The Pentagon is a great humanitarian organization
known for its love of mankind, right? "
4.5% (inflated) infection rate and 99.7% (deflated) survival rate is not any kind of
weapon. Perhaps the research was leading to it, but covid was not any kind of obviously
effective weapon. Dont believe the neocon jibberish. The weapon was the a test of the
ability to manipulate the media and politicians to create panic and fear and submission.
Obviously totally effective.
Gotta try and keep us distracted from the tribe going on a real-estate shopping spree
via BlackRock while small hat AG Garland calls "white supremacy" the greatest terrorist
threat.
"Look over there!! It's CHINA!!!"
BaNNeD oN THe RuN 1 hour ago
Models of predicted COVID-19 spread and damage to the US and the world
So what, they obtained a copy of the Event 201 document from the Johns Hopkins Center
for Health Security.
Still it was pleasant to read a speculative propaganda piece not written by Epoch Times,
well done.
Sid Finch 32 minutes ago
This feels like more theatre to keep narrative alive. If the CDC or anyone proved a
virus exists, it would be good start. Their own PCR manuals concede that it hasn't. Anyone
can read them. It's more about creating panic to get more to want the magic mystery potion
injection. I see 4 healthy British Airways pilots died this week, and fllying does increase
clotting risks.
seems the public has become bored with the china/wuhan/bats/commies narrative, so we
needs to spice it up. facts or no facts, doesn't matter. it's all about the
clicks...........
so, umm......until some real news organizations update us on this world-shattering
story, ima take it with lott's wife.
VladLenin 2 hours ago
This sounds like BS. Someone here called it... Steele...
He approached the DIA after being in the US for 2 weeks? As a counter-intel guy, he
should know DIA HUMINT is for sh!t. They're the JV team. The only reason he might go to
them is if they had already pitched him (and maybe the Chinese found out).
So in a world of compartmentalization, this guy knows everything about everything.
Even being a high level guy, we all know executive types are incapable of doing stuff for
themselves. So, in between budget meetings and picking the new picture of Mao for the
lobby, he was downloading data to a thumb drive?
If I had to guess, this guy probably did defected. But his exploits are an amalgamation
of many potential intel sources. Pin some sh!t on him so he won't re-defect.
C urious it was to
read that the Russian judiciary ruled last Wednesday that Alexei Navalny's political
network is an extremist movement. Its members should be grateful that the courts recognized it
as a movement, given Navalny's nationwide support has never exceeded 3 percent or so, but on
paper they are now liable to arrest and prosecution and, if convicted of one or another charge,
could be fined or imprisoned.
There have been no arrests, so far as has been reported. But think of all those chances
Western intel agencies and their clerks in the press may now have to lionize a new cohort of
oppositionists as Navalny's heroic followers. Let us not forget, a kooky poseur journalist
named Oleg Kashin had the nerve to call Navalny "Russia's true leader" in a recent
New York Timesopinion piece.
There is no limit to the silliness in all matters Russian, it seems. At least not at the
Times .
I say "curious" because, in the ordinary conduct of statecraft as we have had it for the
past seven decades, the Moscow's court's ruling, exactly a week prior to President Joe Biden's
first summit with President Vladimir Putin, would have to be counted obtuse. Wouldn't minding
one's manners -- especially given that the Navalny network's significance resides solely in the
minds and news pages of Western propagandists -- be the wise course?
I don't think so. I have no clue as to the independence or otherwise of the Russian
judiciary, but it is unthinkable the Russian leader did not know in advance of what the courts
were about to determine. I think Russia was indeed minding its manners -- a different and
altogether more honorable set of manners than American pols and diplomats have exhibited lo
these many decades.
In a sensible read, the court ruling was a calculated gesture in response to Biden's
commitment,
announced during a Memorial Day speech, to confront Putin in Geneva on June 16 with the
question of human rights in the Russian Federation. "We will not stand by and let him abuse
those rights," saith the man from Scranton.
We will not stand by, Moscow replied in so many words, as you grandstand at Russia's
expense. Recall in this connection, Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, has lately made
it a habit to note
that Moscow is monitoring human rights in the U.S. since the Jan. 6 protests at the Capitol.
"We have no taboo topics," Lavrov said in evident response to Biden's speech. "We will discuss
whatever we think is necessary."
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, left, and President Vladimir Putin meeting with
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi, 2017. (President of Russia)
It would be very wrong to take this matter as a passing spat as the Russian and American
presidents find their feet with one another. In my view, the court judgment last week and
Lavrov's remarks on human rights as a two-way street make the Geneva encounter far more
important than it may have otherwise turned out to be.
Five Principles
To understand this, we must go back and back and back some more until we reach the early
1950s, when newly independent India and newly socialist China were working out how two very
large neighbors ought best to conduct their relations. It was while negotiating a bilateral
agreement on this question in 1953 that Zhou Enlai, Mao's cultured, subtle, farsighted premier,
first articulated his Five Principles, the ethical code by which the People's Republic would
conduct its relations with all nations.
These were incorporated into the Sino–Indian Agreement of 1954 and have been
justifiably well-known since. Note that four of the five have to do with respectful conduct and
parity:
– Mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty;
– Mutual nonaggression;
– Noninterference in the internal affairs of other nations;
– Equality and mutual benefit among nations;
– Peaceful coexistence.
A year after New Delhi and Beijing signed their accord, Zhou's principles were reiterated at
the historically monumental conference of nonaligned nations Sukarno hosted at an Indonesian
hill station called Bandung. When the Non–Aligned Movement was formally constituted six
years after that, the Five Principles effectively became the non–West's statement -- of
aspiration, of intent -- to the West: This is what we have to offer the postcolonial world, the
NAM said in so many words. This is our contribution to a new and peaceable world order. This is
how we will manage our relations with others.
The Grand Mosque of Bandung, Indonesia, with its twin minarets, adjacent to the city square
in Asia-Afrika Street, 2008. (Prayudi Setiadharma, Wikimedia Commons)
The United States never had any time for the NAM. As readers of a certain age will recall,
it dismissed the movement, with-us-or-against-us style, as a badly dressed bunch of
crypto–Communists or Soviet dupes. The decades since are an easy lesson in why Washington
took this utterly awful position: It has not once, not in any given year, observed even one of
Zhou's principles. It has always, in any given year, abused all five.
Vladimir Putin
One may admire or detest Vladimir Putin, but he is undeniably possessed of an excellent
grasp of history, as many of his speeches attest. I doubt he thinks very specifically about the
NAM or Zhou's principles, but, without naming them, these are what he will have on the table
when he meets Joe Biden.
This is the meaning of the oddly timed court judgment against Navalny's apparatus and the
message Lavrov conveyed in response to Biden's Memorial Day speech: Internal affairs are to be
resolved internally.
Geneva will mark the start of a long and welcome process. Its importance will lie in its
formalization of a stance Russia -- and China, too -- have adopted since those two
catastrophically stupid mistakes Biden and Secretary of State Blinken made last March, when
Biden called Putin a murderer and tin-eared Blinken hollowly lectured the Chinese about human
rights and democracy.
President Joe Biden in Oval Office, April 27. (White House, Adam Schultz)
Beijing and Moscow have ever since stiffened their backs toward the U.S., giving as good as
they get on all the questions with which Washington customarily browbeats others.
If we have begun a process, where will it lead? In my read to an excellent place, where
nations mind the better set of manners noted above -- Zhou Enlai's manners, let us say.
Before this century is out, and very possibly before the midway mark, Zhou's Five Principles
stand to become the norm in international relations. Zhou's true topic was parity between West
and non–West. This will be achieved, and strange it is that the opening months of the
Biden administration have opened us to this salutary prospect. The U.S. will otherwise lead us
all into an egregiously messy period of history, and I do not think rising powers -- Russia,
China, India, others -- will find this acceptable.
One other matter must be clarified as Geneva approaches.
I do not know the merits of the case against Navalny or, since last week, the ruling against
his followers. But I have always found it curious that The New York Times and the other
major dailies recite as rote that Navalny and his people consider the two charges of
embezzlement (and the two convictions) that put him in jail in the first place to be "trumped
up" or "politically motivated." Why doesn't the Times ' Moscow bureau do the gumshoe
work and inform readers whether or not this is so?
True, Times ' Moscow correspondents are among the worst in my lifetime, but this kind
of kabuki requires one to consider carefully whether the charges are indeed legitimate.
My read: The legal case against Navalny probably holds water, and the American press uses the
power of omission to avoid acknowledging this.
Pitiful, if this is the case.
The larger point here: We must learn to put all such questions aside in contexts such as we
have now in U.S.–Russia relations. Anyone who has ever been in a Marxist reading group
knows the importance of distinguishing between primary and secondary contradictions. Let us not
forget the essential lesson, no matter anyone's political stripe.
What is the primary contradiction here? It is Washington's refusal to observe the principles
of noninterference and sovereignty, and it is vital far, far beyond bilateral relations that
Russia defends these. The Navalny case and the associated matter of human rights are, plainly
and simply, a secondary contradiction -- and one it is imperative to leave to Russians to
resolve.
Geneva in June, a rather nice place to be. Let us see if Biden and Putin mind their manners
-- and whose manners these turn out to be.
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 . 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 .
After four years of Russia, Russia, Russia is our mortal enemy and has compromised the
former US President to our great national peril, don't you think it is wonderful Biden brought
a thaw to those very same hostilities he and his party spent the last four years trying to
foment? ( /s)
Boy, was this unexpected and fun. Jon Stewart, former star of the Daily Show (back when it
was funny), hooked up Monday night with his old protege, Stephen Colbert. When Stewart was
running the Daily Show, he had a liberal bent but he would also take on liberal hypocrisy. That
bit of integrity was on display again last night (today is Tuesday) when the insufferable
Stephen Colbert asked his old boss what he thought about the Covid-19 pandemic. Here is the
exchange:
"I think we owe a great debt of gratitude to science. Science has, in many ways, helped
ease the suffering of this pandemic, which was more than likely caused by science ," Stewart
said after Colbert asked how he was feeling about the scientific response to COVID-19.
"Do you mean perhaps there's a chance that this was created in a lab?" asked Colbert,
adding "There's an investigation."
" A chance? " shot back Stewart – kicking the door open.
" Oh my god, there's a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China, what do we
do? Oh, you know who we could ask? The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab. The disease
is the same name as the lab. That's just a little too weird, don't you think? And then they
asked those scientists – they're like 'how did this so wait a minute, you work at the
Wuhan respiratory coronavirus lab. How did this happen?' and they're like ' mmmm – a
pangolin kissed a turtle? ' and you're like 'no the name of your lab! If you look at the
name! Can I let me see your business card. Show me your business card. Oh – I work at
the coronavirus lab in Wuhan. Oh, cause there's a coronavirus loose in Wuhan. How did that
happen? '
'Maybe a bat flew into the Cloaca of a turkey and then it sneezed into my chili. And now
we all have Coronavirus."
Stewart landed one final joke as Colbert desperately tried to control the situation;
"HOLD IT, HOLD IT! What about this, what about this listen to this! 'OH MY GOD, there's
been an outbreak of chocolately goodness near Hershey, Pennsylvania. What do you think
happened?'
'Oh I don't know, maybe a steam shovel mated with a cocoa bean?'
" Or it's the fucking chocolate factory ! Maybe that's it!" Stewart screamed.
Boy oh boy. Liberal land did not like that. Click
here to enjoy the tsunami of liberal hysteria in the aftermath of getting punched in the
nut sack by truth.
John Stewart always stroke me as an old-school 'New-Deal' type liberal who had a nuanced
view of the world. Ironically, when Dubya was in office Stewart was always there to criticize
and poke fun at him and the Republicans so he was pretty much their enemy no.1 in the media,
but this time around it is the batshit crazy progressives that are foaming on their mouths for
seeing him apply the same stuff he used to unleash against the Republicans. The Colbert's
interview actually sums up the insanity of the progressives nicely.
My hats off to John Stewart for standing up to non-sense when he sees it. James
says: June 17,
2021 at 9:48 am
Krystal & Saager were on Joe Rogan yesterday and the three of them watched the clip
together – quite approvingly.
Not everyone on the left is an idiot or a sellout. These three people, and Jon Stewart, have
great integrity and intelligence. Krystal & Saager are living proof that the left and the
right can work together to take on the establishment.
I see many commenters referring to President Putin as Vlad. For the last time, the
shortening of Vladimir is not Vlad, it's Volodya. Vlad is short for Vladislav. Just because
American idiots journalists didn't bother to do a little research doesn't mean you couldn't
either.
I see many commenters referring to President Putin as Vlad. For the last time, the
shortening of Vladimir is not Vlad, it's Volodya. Vlad is short for Vladislav.
...
Posted by: Andrew Ho | Jun 17 2021 0:55 utc | 74
You're forgetting that this is an English Language conversations among Speakers of
English. Their most common method of shortening a person's name is by omitting the surplus
syllables from the end of a long name.
In English, if the short version of a person's name bears no resemblance to the name itself,
then it's a Nickname.
It's not disrespectful to talk ABOUT someone using a conventional shortening of their
name. It would only be disrespectful if one used it when speaking TO the individual without
first asking how he/she prefers to be addressed. And that's a universal precaution.
Queen Elizabeth is nicknamed "Liz" by the irreverent and "BoJo" is widely recognized for
Boris. Somehow I have a vague notion Merkel has been dubbed "Tante," but this may be the
onset of dementia. ("Lilibet" has been revived for a great-granddaughter, but that was more a
WWII thing for Elizabeth II.) Before Macron was elected I off-handedly referred to him as
"monster," but that really provoked one of the regulars at another blog, Crooked Timber. (Our
host may be pleased to know they are allergic to MoA?)
Nicknames may be both expressions of affection and of scorn.
The men on the street corners with "The End is Nigh" placards are beginning to
resemble Walter Kronkite in demeanor as well as credibility.
But then again Walter was one of the CIA's finest...
Nona Yobiznes 7 hours ago
I guess the crazy conspiracy theorists were right again.
benb 3 hours ago (Edited)
Dumb Hannity used to call the FBI "The Crown Jewel of Law Enforcement,."
C Rabbit PREMIUM 7 hours ago
Why has the FBI never released the surveillance videos from the Alfred P. Murrah
Buildings and the others around it from the morning of April 19, 1995. "It's still under
investigation."
Why have the videos from all around the Pentagon taken on the morning of 9/11 never been
released?
Why does the CIA refuse to release all of their files on the JFK assassination?
Why? Why? Why?
Muffdiver2269vIII 7 hours ago
Ahh, they are waiting for Durham to complete the reports?
wootendw PREMIUM 6 hours ago
"Congressman Matt Gaetz calls on FBI Director Christopher Wray to fully disclose the
role and involvement of FBI operatives during the January 6th Capitol riot."
That would be self-incrimination.
radical-extremist 7 hours ago (Edited)
FBI will never talk because that would be revealing "classified methods and
procedures".
Why of course they troll the boards looking for "extremists" to exploit. They befriend
them and groom them, until they eventually enable them to commit the crime itself.
Conspiracy to commit the crime isn't near as sexy as the real thing, let's put these people
away for life. If there's collateral damage now and then, so be it. "Justice" comes at a
cost. /s
If the prosecutor is obliged to choose his cases, it follows that he can choose his
defendants. Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people
that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted. With the
law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of
finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a
case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for
the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the
law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him. It is in this
realm-in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass,
or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest
danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies. It is here that law enforcement becomes
personal, and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or
governing group, being attached to the wrong political views, or being personally obnoxious
to or in the way of the prosecutor himself.
One of them is only capable of having 2-3 sentence discussions and then needs to be
shuffled off out of the public eye.
toady 14 hours ago
It's amazing how he's managed to "fail up" for his entire life.
brown_hornet 14 hours ago
That's what [neoliberal] dems do.
RattieNomNom 18 hours ago
where is his cocaine-infused son? he could keep talks going
Stormtrooper 17 hours ago
This Summit will be a victory for Biden because it will be just a media show for the
American (or whatever we are now that we do not have a legitimate Federal government tying
the states into a Constitutional union) sheeples.
The Summit will be in one of the movie studios where the Biden "White House" exists.
Putin will be an actor and the whole episode will be structured to make Biden appear to
know where he is at.
Enjoy the show.
JohnnyCrypto 18 hours ago remove link
Is Obama going with them?
yerfej 18 hours ago
No, Rice and Jarrett will be there instead. Oblama will be busy ginning up race hatred
somewhere in some inner city shythole.
You are conveying information to me as to who said that. But where is evidence that this
was indeed done? I will tell you that this person has said that, that person has said this. But
where is the evidence? Where is proof? With -- when there is -- when there are charges --
without -- evidence, I can tell you, you can take your complaint to the International League of
Sexual Reform.
In his article Paul Robinson details how since the 16th century Russian imperialism had
been rooted in a specific Russian form of Christian messianism ("Third Rome") which in turn
has lead to imperial over-extension and internal break-down. But no more! Russia has learned
it`s lesson and is now a pragmatic country without exceptionalism and imperial ambitions.
In the lower half of the article RT links to another article with the headline: "Love thy
neighbor? Putin says religious values of 'mercy' & support for vulnerable underpin
Russian civilization through history "
Russia's peak was after the defeat of Napoleon's Grand Army at the start of the 1800s.
Britain and France then focused on it as the main European enemy (with Napoleon finally
defeated at Waterloo and Germany not yet unified) and destroyed its military during the
Crimean War (1853-1856). The Japanese administered the coup de grace with the Russo-Japanese
war (1904-1905) during which they destroyed the Russian fleet. The taking of Eastern Europe
after WW2 was a defensive maneuver by Stalin, as any detailed reading of the correspondence
and actions of the day would attest - for example, Stalin handed back Austria and allowed the
US/UK a free hand in Greece, Italy and Western Europe when many were ripe for
socialist/communist victories.
Russia is a weak shadow of the USSR and the Russian Empire, it has to accept the reality
of its situation. Unfortunately it will take much longer for the US to do so.
NBC pushed regular neocon garbage, so it is not very interesting interview. We saw better
executed similar attempts to attack Putin in the past. The guy is really second rate: too pushy,
too opinioned to be a good interviewer. He really is not interested in Putin opinions, he need to
push the agenda of his handlers. He demonstrated zero respect as if Russia is a US vassal (it was
in 1990 under alcoholic Yeltsin) . In other words he is a regular Pressitute. This neocon pushed
the label killer on Putin, while this label is appropritate to any recent US presendent to much
greater measure. Just look at how many people were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in attempt to
achive "full spectrum Dominance" and enhance andcement global neoliberal empire. But some moments
when Putin destroyed neocon agenda are pretty educational.
Russian President Vladimir Putin this week sat down for an interview with a US media outlet
for the first time in nearly three years . NBC's Keir Simmons talked to Putin for about 90
minutes, and released a teaser segment Friday night.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the conversation centered on the Russian leader's
perspective on American politics and his personal thoughts and comparison of Donald Trump and
Joe Biden. Putin called the former president "extraordinary" and "talented" while noting that
Biden is "radically different" and is a quintessential "career man" in politics .
https://www.youtube.com/embed/oh_obIUJ7HA
"Well even now, I believe that former U.S. president Mr. Trump is an extraordinary
individual, talented individual, otherwise he would not have become U.S. President," Putin told
Simmons.
" He is a colorful individual. You may like him or not. And, but he didn't come from the
US establishment, he had not been part of big time politics before , and some like it some
don't like it but that is a fact."
"...President Biden is a career man. He has spent virtually his entire adulthood in
politics," Putin said in part.
"That's a different kind of person, and it is my great hope that yes, there are some
advantages, some disadvantages, but there will not be any impulse-based movements, on behalf
of the sitting U.S. president."
Also interesting is Putin's response to the March George Stephanopoulos interview with Biden
wherein the US President dubbed Putin a "killer" with "no soul". Putin responded in this new
NBC clip:
"Over my tenure, I've gotten used to attacks from all kinds of angles and from all kinds
of areas under all kinds of pretext, and reasons and of different caliber and fierceness and
none of it surprises me."
Putin called the "killer" label "Hollywood macho."
Putin also took aim at a recent
Washington Post report over Russia-Iranian military relations and the transfer of advanced
satellite systems. "It's just fake news," Putin dismissed. "At the very least, I don't know
anything about this kind of thing. Those who are speaking about it probably will maybe know
more about it. It's just nonsense, garbage."
activisor 2 hours ago
Funny how Putin has become leader of the free world! He and Lavrov are streets ahead
of the rest, and have massive support outside Russia based on their common sense approach
to world events. He will be hard to replace.
yerfej 2 hours ago
EVERYONE with common sense realize Putin is the ONLY current leader who gives a ****
about his country and people and is willing to cooperate with any country that isn't
wandering around the globe looking to tell everyone else what they can say or do or
think.
No_Pretzel_Logic 2 hours ago
How fascinating that you speak for "everyone" with common sense. That's quite a
skill.
Do tell us about the responses from people you've polled in the Scandinavian
countries, Poland, UK, France, etc.?
George Bush League 2 hours ago
You can start by not being such an pathetic condescending azzhole.
smellmyfingers 54 minutes ago
Putin, articulate, intelligent, answers without a teleprompter and without babbling or
stumbling.
Is he perfect? Obviously not nor is he a messiah. But I'd bet people have more
confidence in him out in front than the corruption and lies the USA and many other
western nations have that are completely compromised.
chunga 2 hours ago remove link
Dmitry Orlov has got some interesting translations from Putin at the thing in St.
Petersburg.
For these Fauci religious cultists, if the death rate from Covid is 0.074% but the death
rate from the "vaccine" is 0.073%, the "vaccine" will be a miraculous, smashing success.
President Vladimir Putin said Russia doesn't want to stop using the dollar as he accused the
U.S. of exploiting the currency's dominance for sanctions and warned the policy may rebound on
Washington.
Russia has to adopt other payment methods because the U.S. "uses its national currency for
various kinds of sanctions," Putin said late Friday in St. Petersburg at a videoconference with
representatives of international media organizations. "We don't do this deliberately, we are
forced to do it."
Settlements in national currencies with other countries in areas such as defense sales and
reductions in foreign-exchange reserves held in dollars eventually will damage the U.S. as the
greenback's dominance declines, Putin said. "Why do U.S. political authorities do this? They're
sawing the branch on which they sit," he said.
Putin spoke a day after Russia announced it will eliminate the dollar from its oil fund to
reduce vulnerability to sanctions, a largely symbolic move as the switch in holdings will take
place within the central bank's reserves. Russia has tried with limited success to shift away
from the dollar for years amid international sanctions over Putin's 2014 annexation of Crimea
and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, as well as for alleged cyber attacks, election
meddling and espionage operations.
The Russian leader's comments came ahead of his first summit meeting with U.S. President Joe
Biden in Geneva on June 16. While he praised Biden as one of the world's most experienced
leaders, Putin said he expects no breakthrough in relations with the U.S. at the talks.
And he offered a warning at Friday's meeting for the U.S., based on what he said was his own
experiences "as a former citizen of the former Soviet Union."
"The problem with empires is that they think they can afford small errors and mistakes,"
which gradually accumulate, Putin said. "There comes a time when they can no longer be dealt
with. And the U.S., with a confident step, a confident gait, a firm step, is walking straight
along the path of the Soviet Union."
The problem with conspiracy theories (CIA invented term to whitewash CIA participation in
killing of JFK) that some of them in ten to twenty years no longer viewed as conspiracies. They
enter mainstream.
An online poll this week from Ipsos reported 15% of Americans agree that the government,
media and financial worlds are controlled by Satan-worshiping pedophiles. Not 15% of
Republicans or conservatives, but of Americans. That's a lot.
... ... ...
America is a lonely place. When you hold to a conspiracy theory, you join a community.
You're suddenly part of something. You have new friends you can talk to on the internet ...
... One of the enduring and revealing songs of America asks "Which side are you on / Which
side are you on? / You go to Harlan County / There is no neutral there / You'll either be a
union man / Or a thug for J.H. Blair."
... ... ...
Conspiracy believers don't believe what the mainstream media tell them. Why would they?
Newsrooms are undergoing their own revolution, with woke progressives vs. journalistic
traditionalists, advocacy versus old-school news values. It is ideological. "We are here to
shape and encourage a new reality." "No, we are here to find and report the news." It is
generational: The young have the upper hand and the Slack channel. The woke are winning.
...
When you think your country has grown completely bizarre...Think of what normal human beings
have been asked to absorb the past year. The whole country was shut down and everyone was told
to stay in the house. They closed the churches, and the churches agreed. There was no school
and everyone made believe""really, we all made believe!""screens were a replacement. A bunch of
13-year-old girls in the junior high decided they were boys and started getting shots, and no
adults helped them by saying, "Whoa, slow down, this is a major life decision and you're a
kid." The school board no longer argues about transgender bathrooms, they're on to transgender
boys wanting to play on the girls team. Big corporations now tell you what you should think
about local questions, and if this offends you, they don't care. There were riots and protests
last summer and local government seemed overwhelmed.
We're talking about the COVID-19 injections, of course. They were always the end game;
that's why the COVID-19 "vaccine" propaganda is so relentless. It's everywhere. The syndicate
news channels, newspapers, websites, celebrities, professional sports figures etc. continuously
pimp the toxic injection message. They don't call them injections but "vaccines", of course,
even though by definition they are not vaccines and thus it's technically illegal to formally
classify them as such. Words matter, especially when it comes to the subject of our health, and
thus we refuse to use the word "vaccine" when referencing these gene therapy experiments.
Meanwhile, people are now literally virtue-signaling that they've either already received or
are intending to get these Big Pharma injections. Shockingly, parents are
subjecting their own children to these toxic treatments ; for a disease that for anyone
under the age of 70 and in reasonably good health has effectively a zero percent chance of
dying from. We'll wager many of your friends and family members are getting it.
The left love their saint Dr Fraud and he could do no wrong in their eyes.
And they see democrats as superheroes who try to save the world when the latter are only
good at stealing.
Meat Hammer 6 hours ago
That's all of this in a nutshell: liberals see themselves as enlightened, superior
beings, and conservatives as vermin who deserve extermination. And they wonder why we keep
buying guns.
Plus Size Model 18 minutes ago remove link
Both groups see themselves this way because they have been cognitively conditioned
accordingly. It's all part of the plan.
I can go into any liberal bookstore and pick up a stack of books on protesting, civil
action, making stickers, posters, organizing, setting up fundraisers, etc. I come to ZH and
alI I see are bots and the occasional poster complaining about how things are never going
to get better. Think long and hard about this!!!
I can't emphasize enough how much people should read up on information operations and
long term strategic psychological warfare. There are plenty of good books in the open
domain and the US military does not copyright their work.
If you read the replies to this tweet, you can clearly see why Americans tolerate the
existence of billionaires: according to liberal ideology, the alternative would simply be too
much worse.
The whole legitimacy of capitalism to masses lies in the assumption it is a pure and
limitless meritocracy: you get monetarily rewarded in the exact proportion of your individual
qualities and hard work.
The moment you start to arrest and even execute billionaires for crimes related to the
economy (white collar crime), you're tacitly admitting the free market has a ceiling: you
cannot get indefinitely rich, therefore you're not entirely free. It may be a tall cage, but
it is still a cage - a precept that would kill the liberal concept of individual freedom.
That's why Westerners are completely ok with death penalties for crimes related to
individual defects (i.e. serial killers, rapists) or related to a violation of the game
(crimes against private property; robbery; rigging), but not with "white collar crimes" - no
matter how much more damaging white collar crimes are to society (e.g. only one middle
management guy got arrested in the aftermath of the crisis of 2008, and he got very little
time).
So, the problem isn't in the fact that Westerners don't recognize that extreme wealth
concentration is a problem, but that they think that this is a necessary evil, the price of
freedom. It's like the Egyptians servants building the pyramids for their dead pharaohs under
the fear the world will literally end if they don't.
The problem with conspiracy theories (CIA invented term to whitewash CIA participation in
killing of JFK) that some of them in ten to twenty years no longer viewed as conspiracies. They
enter mainstream.
An online poll this week from Ipsos reported 15% of Americans agree that the government,
media and financial worlds are controlled by Satan-worshiping pedophiles. Not 15% of
Republicans or conservatives, but of Americans. That's a lot.
... ... ...
America is a lonely place. When you hold to a conspiracy theory, you join a community.
You're suddenly part of something. You have new friends you can talk to on the internet ...
... One of the enduring and revealing songs of America asks "Which side are you on / Which
side are you on? / You go to Harlan County / There is no neutral there / You'll either be a
union man / Or a thug for J.H. Blair."
... ... ...
Conspiracy believers don't believe what the mainstream media tell them. Why would they?
Newsrooms are undergoing their own revolution, with woke progressives vs. journalistic
traditionalists, advocacy versus old-school news values. It is ideological. "We are here to
shape and encourage a new reality." "No, we are here to find and report the news." It is
generational: The young have the upper hand and the Slack channel. The woke are winning.
...
When you think your country has grown completely bizarre...Think of what normal human beings
have been asked to absorb the past year. The whole country was shut down and everyone was told
to stay in the house. They closed the churches, and the churches agreed. There was no school
and everyone made believe""really, we all made believe!""screens were a replacement. A bunch of
13-year-old girls in the junior high decided they were boys and started getting shots, and no
adults helped them by saying, "Whoa, slow down, this is a major life decision and you're a
kid." The school board no longer argues about transgender bathrooms, they're on to transgender
boys wanting to play on the girls team. Big corporations now tell you what you should think
about local questions, and if this offends you, they don't care. There were riots and protests
last summer and local government seemed overwhelmed.
Guess who has been overseeing this and making sure that it happens? Biden. Schumer.
Pelosi. McConnell, Feinstein and many others who have spent their entire life working
against we the people for their donors.
They stripped us of our jobs, wages, pursuit of
happiness and well being. They wrote away our health care through trade agreements and
imported foreign workers to keep our wages low. During Reagan people could work full time
in a grocery store and have a car, vacation home and great benefits from their employer.
Now both parents have to work full time and then some and still can't make ends meet.
They did that to us.
But they get to do insider trading, get great benefits that WE FCKING PAY FOR while they deny us the same thing.
And yet we've been returning them to
office time after time and they keep doing it. Duh! We can't vote our way out of the
current mess because the people who run the country don't get voted on. 23 Reply Share
Report Save
Well, don't forget the masters they serve (capitalists). Politicians aren't the root
of the problem. It's just important that we remember that they sure as fuck are
part of the problem and not the cure for it. 6 Reply Share Report Save
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 38 Reply Share Report Save View Entire Discussion (58
Comments) More posts from the WayOfTheBern community 2.3k Posted by u/_MyFeetSmell_ a self aware Russian Bot
6 days
ago
Believe it or not, the president says that human rights R us.
Hear that, BLM? Women? Asian Americans? Hispanics? homeless? heavily indebted students? .
. the list goes on.
Biden said so, May 30, 2021
"I had a long conversation -- for two hours -- recently with President Xi, making it clear
to him that we could do nothing but speak out for human rights around the world because
that's who we are. I'll be meeting with President Putin in a couple of weeks in Geneva,
making it clear that we will not -- we will not stand by and let him abuse those rights." . .
here
..reminds me of Aeschylus: "In war, truth is the first casualty."
"There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love
their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears , so to speak, producing a kind of
painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their
liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it."
People keep expecting a drug that you "take." We have been taking this drug willingly, after
knowing all the risks, for the last ten years.
My ultra-Liberal boss announced this AM, almost with a sense of glee, that COVID cases in
our county allegedly went back up so we'd be forced to submit to once-a-week testing
again....except for those who are vaccinated. They don't have to be tested. Immediately, I
piped up that that seemed odd the vaccinated didn't require testing seeing as the CDC says
that they can still Harbor & pass on the virus. She got pissed & screamed at me, "I
don't make the rules!". To which I responded, "If you'll notice, I never said you did. I
simply stated that the CDC says the vaccinated can still pass the virus so the rule they
don't need testing is contradictory to the "science". Either the vaccine you all are pushing
works...or it doesn't. Time for "the science" to be consistent or it's all a bunch of
crap."
I think it's pretty safe to say I won't be getting a glowing performance review this year.
Too bad... they're so flipping short-staffed she can't possibly afford to fire me.
Sky News host Rowan Dean says proof of how the Biden administration "is being run behind the
scenes by hardcore neo-Marxists" is the administration's embrace of the Durban Declaration.
"... I can't wait to see the 1000 foot long cargo ships, the 80,000 pound carrying semi trailers, the 42 million pound trains and above all (sorry) the 400 passenger jet airliners run off of solar panels or wind generators. Especially the airliners using a windmill! (We used to have much of this. It was called "the Age of Sail"). ..."
I can't wait to see the 1000 foot long cargo ships, the 80,000 pound carrying semi
trailers, the 42 million pound trains and above all (sorry) the 400 passenger jet airliners
run off of solar panels or wind generators. Especially the airliners using a windmill! (We
used to have much of this. It was called "the Age of Sail").
In other words, we can have globalism with its demands for unlimited movement of goods and
people or we can have local economies, autarky and nativism. The globalists who claim to care
about carbon footprints are being disingenuous.
It should serve as a warning. 14 years ago, obscure corners of banking businesses became
hotbeds of regulatory arbitrage, speculation and leverage. The contagion of US subprime brought
the financial system to its knees. Now, after years of low or negative interest rates, equity
finance may have become a similar hotbed.
What wokeness does mandate for my son (who is studying biology) to be told in his class
that he is the carrier of "white guilt" even though his ancestors never interacted with
blacks, let alone blacks in the USA.
Obama's follow-up to "Dreams from My Father" will be "Sins of My Mother"
" [C]orporate "America" which is now flooding all its advertisements with the "correct"
races in total disregard to that race's real percentage of the population "
Yes, for corporate America, the U.S. demographic is composed mainly of young, beautiful,
smart looking "black folks" with a few flabby, pasty white dullards to heighten the
contrast.
More Hacks, More Baseless Accusations Against Russia
In January police in various countries took down the Emotet bot-network that was at that
time the basic platform for some 25% of all cybercrimes.
Based on hearsay Wikipedia and other had falsely attributed Emotet to Russian actors.
The real people behind it were actually
Ukrainians :
The operating center of Emotet was found in the Ukraine. Today the Ukrainian national police
took control of it during a raid (video). The police found dozens of
computers, some hundred hard drives, about 50 kilogram of gold bars (current price
~$60,000/kg) and large amounts of money in multiple currencies.
Now the U.S. is accusing Russia of somehow having part in another cybercrime :
President Joe Biden said Monday that a Russia-based group was behind the ransomware attack
that forced the shutdown of the largest oil pipeline in the eastern United States.
The FBI identified the group behind the hack of Colonial Pipeline as DarkSide, a shadowy
operation that surfaced last year and attempts to lock up corporate computer systems and
force companies to pay to unfreeze them.
"So far there is no evidence ... from our intelligence people that Russia is involved,
although there is evidence that actors, ransomware is in Russia," Biden told reporters.
"They have some responsibility to deal with this," he said.
Three days after being forced to halt operations, Colonial said Monday it was moving
toward a partial reopening of its 5,500 miles (8,850 kilometers) of pipeline" the largest
fuel network between Texas and New York.
Biden however is badly informed. There is no evidence that DarkSide has anything to do with
Russia. It is, like Emotet, a commercial
'ransomware-as-a-service' criminal entity that wants to make money and does not care about
geopolitics.
Yes, a version of the DarkNet software does exclude itself from running on system with
specific
language settings :
The DarkSide malware is even built to conduct language checks on targets and to shut down if
it detects Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Armenian, Georgian, Kazakh, Turkmen, Romanian, and
other languages ...
That is a quite long list of east European languages and Russian is only one of it. Why the
authors of DarkNet do not want their software to run on machines with those language settings
is unknown. But why would a Russian actor protect machines with Ukrainian or Romanian language
settings? Both countries are hostile towards Russia. To claim that this somehow points to
Russian actors is therefore baseless.
The Kremlin has once again pointed out the importance of cooperation between Moscow and
Washington in tackling cyberthreats amid a cyber-attack on Colonial Pipeline, a US company.
"Russia has nothing to do with these hacker attacks, nor with the previous hacker attacks,"
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Preskov assured reporters on Tuesday.
"We categorically reject any accusation against us, and we can only regret that the US is
refusing to cooperate with us in any way to counter cyber-threats. We believe that such
cooperation - both international and bilateral - could indeed contribute to the common
struggle against this scourge [known as] cyber-crime," Peskov said.
The U.S. seems notoriously bad at attributing computer hacks. It claims that the recent
SolarWinds attack which intruded several government branches was also done by Russia. But that
attack
required deep insider knowledge and access to SolarWinds' computers
and processes :
The recently discovered deep intrusion into U.S. companies and government networks used a
manipulated version of the SolarWinds Orion network management software. The Washington borg
immediately attributed the hack to Russia. Then President Trump attributed it to China. But
none of those claims were backed up by facts or known evidence.
The hack was extremely complex, well managed and resourced, and likely required insider
knowledge. To this IT professional it 'felt' neither Russian nor Chinese. It is far more
likely, as Whitney Webb finds, that
Israel was behind it .
Indeed - the programmers of an Israeli company, recently bought up by SolarWinds, had all
the necessary access for such a hack. However the U.S. sanctioned Russia over the SolarWinds
hack without providing any evidence of its involvement.
If the U.S. continues to blame Russia without any evidence for each and every hack there may
come a time when Russia stops caring and really starts to hack into or destroy important U.S.
systems. The U.S. should fear that day.
Posted by b on May 11, 2021 at 17:31 UTC |
Permalink
Thanks b. I don't think Russia is going to escalate destructive attacks any time soon.
There's no upside.
They might even be reluctant to reveal their capabilities in the Ukraine.
For the moment, mockery is the best remedy while they up their game.
@ b who ended with
"
If the U.S. continues to blame Russia without any evidence for each and every hack there may
come a time when Russia stops caring and really starts to hack into or destroy important U.S.
systems.
"
How can you write such assertions that vary from the approach that both Russia and China
are taking?....strong defense but no offense.
Now if empire tried to hack into a Russian or Chinese system/network then appropriate
takedowns of malicious systems/networks would seem logical....and I expect they know
how...but will not do it on the basis of another avenue of empire lies and deceit.
You should have titled the post "Killing Two Birds With One Stone".
This pipeline is huge, running from Texas through the Southeast and all the way up to New
England. It's condition is beyond awful with multiple leaks along the route some of which
lose more than a million gallons per month and much more than can be determined since some of
the gasoline / jet fuel went into the aquifers. These faults have been well known for decades
and although some of the areas are heavily populated no remediation was done. The local
outcry recently caught the attention of the press when kids reported a gasoline smell along
the pipeline route to the police. The locals demanded the pipeline be closed for repairs and
sought answers from state officials and Federal authorities as to why this situation was
allowed. To blame the Russians for the closure of the pipeline which results in a surge in
prices and limited availability of gas for the summer is an absolute stroke of genius.
https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/local/ncdeq-colonial-pipeline-spill-huntersville/275-70e16fb6-c945-4634-b933-3975d0573f2e
It is odd that certain elements of the us intelligence community, along with negative
factions within the us political establishment, continue to absolutely refuse to enter into
verifiable and mutually binding international agreements on cyber security with exactly the
nation states that they accuse (without evidence) of malicious activity in the same sphere,
while at the same time operating in this field in an openly declared hostile manner under the
secrecy deemed necessary for 'national security'.
> In a recent book, Luke Harding, an investigative reporter at The Guardian, described how Mr. Steele had dispatched his "collector"
to surreptitiously approach a real estate broker, Sergei Millian, who was a peripheral figure in the Trump/Russia saga. "Millian
spoke at length and privately to this person, believing him or her to be trustworthy "" a kindred soul," Mr. Harding wrote.
But the trouble for Mr. Harding, who is close to both Mr. Steele and Mr. Simpson, was that he wrote those lines before the
release of the F.B.I. interview of Mr. Danchenko.
In the interview, the collector said that he and Mr. Millian might have spoken briefly over the phone, but that the two
had never met.
Mr. Harding did not respond to requests for comment. <
Here are Ten Things We Have Learned During the Covid Coup.
1. Our political system is hopelessly corrupt. Virtually all politicians are hopelessly corrupt. No political party
can be trusted. They all can be, and have been, bought.
2. Democracy is a sham. It has been a sham for a very long time. There will never be any real democracy when money and
power amount to the same thing.
3. The system will stop at nothing to hold on to its power and, if possible, increase its levels of control and exploitation.
It has no scruples. No lie is too outrageous, no hypocrisy too nauseating, no human sacrifice too great.
4. So-called radical movements are usually nothing of the sort. From whatever direction they claim to attack the system,
they are just pretending to do so, and serve to channel discontent in directions which are harmless to the power clique and even
useful to its agendas.
5. Any "dissident" voice you have ever heard of through corporate media is probably a fake. The system does not hand
out free publicity to its actual enemies.
6. Most people in our society are cowards. They will jettison all the fine values and principles which they have been
loudly boasting about all their lives merely to avoid the slightest chance of public criticism, inconvenience or even minor financial
loss.
7. The mainstream media is nothing but a propaganda machine for the system... ...and those journalists who work for
it have sold their sorry souls, placing their (often minimal) writing skills entirely at the disposition of Power.
8. Police are not servants of the public... ...but servants of a powerful and extremely wealthy minority which seeks
to control and exploit the public for its own narrow and greedy interests.
9. Scientists cannot be trusted. They will use the hypnotic power of their white coats and authoritative status for
the benefit of whoever funds their work and lifestyle. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
10. Progress is a misleading illusion. The "progress" of increasing automation and industrialisation does not go hand
in hand with a progress in the quality of human life, but in fact will "progressively" reduce it to the point of complete extinction.
Irrelevant how much the Western peoples hate China. China is not Iran, Afghanistan, Russia or some other random Third World
country, it is above the pay grade of Western public opinion.
However, it is true China is not up to the level achieved by the Soviet Union. It still has a military disproportionately weak
compared to its economic might. That problem will still take some three or more decades to solve, but it is being worked on.
This headline by the NYT (in the upper right corner of the Home Page) reflects the West's frustration with Israel. In the first
part, they try to tell the reader that the Israeli are waging a war of equals, and not genociding, the Palestinians (and that
the USA has nothing to do with it). In the second part, it laments the bad timing by the Israelis, who interrupted their propaganda
warfare operation against China on the "Uighur genocide" campaign.
It urges Israel to clean the mess as quick as possible in order for the anti-China propaganda campaign to resume.
In the case of the COVID-19 vaccines, the above statement is literal, as the USA has, so far, exported zero - I repeat, zero
(not rounding down) - vaccines so far.
Meanwhile, China has already exported 250 million doses and counting (last time I checked, a week ago) - more than the entire
Indian production (India had just exported some 60 million doses).
The inner contradictions of capitalism in plain sight.
On the one side, you have to give people money so they can keep themselves quarantined. On the other side, capitalism requires
people to keep working or to keep searching for work in order to pull down wages, thus increasing the rate of surplus value. That's
why conservatives are usually in favor of the Christian charity, that gives only food and shelter, but not cash, to the unemployed,
but not of wage raises and unemployment benefits - the fact that you're paid in cash and not in kind makes all the difference
in the world in the capitalist system.
Unemployment benefits only help capitalism is it is low enough just to keep one physically alive and in constant search for
jobs. That way, he/she incorporates the industrial reserve army, which brings wages down. The problem with the USA is that wages
were already so low before the pandemic that those USD 600.00 checks made 35% (!!) of its recently unemployed recipients richer
than when they were employed. Logically, those 35% don't want to go back to work, as their lives are objectively better now than
they were before the pandemic, and that's why the Republican congressmen and senators are pressuring Biden (as they pressured
Trump) to outright extinguish those checks.
P.S.: the top rated commentary in the article ("Great generations of Americans came here 100 years ago...") by the time I typed
this is hilarious, shows the delusion of the average American towards their own system almost perfectly. The other comments are
also very funny. The narrative that "there are a lot of jobs available, but no one is skilled enough/wants it" is used by the
capitalists every time there's an economic crisis, just search your favorite newspaper for the years of 1980-1982, 1975 etc. etc.
and you'll see the same bullshit being preached over and over again.
Talks about apartheid as the only possible synthesis between a Jewish theocratic state and a liberal bourgeois state, which
I mentioned in the past two threads about the subject.
As I said before, the system is unstable and is doomed to fail. Either Israel abandons its Zionist project and gives up the
idea of being an 100% Jewish state and thus becomes a liberal bourgeois state or it will continue to wither and degenerate until
it falls to a civil war.
It would've been the first if not for a providential last grasp effort by NASA, who used the resources it had and didn't have
to pull that off, by a few months.
The tendency, however is clear. NASA will soon cease to exist as we know it and essentially become the State façade of SpaceX.
The USA's space program will then be entirely dependent on the genius of Elon Musk.
--//--
Cuban vaccines (Abdala and Soberana 02) continue advancing on their trials:
If you had read and understood the Mars 3 link I provided you would have learned that it wasn't a rover either. Which the first
rover was has already been told. End of story.
Posted by: Norwegian | May 16 2021 18:37 utc | 37
Yes, but no. Mars 3 actually had a rover on board, PROP-M. To quote Wikipedia:
"The Mars 3 lander, a so called Passability Estimating Vehicle for Mars, was designed and manufactured in Mobile Vehicle Engineering
Institute by a team of approximately 150 engineers, led by Alexander Kemurdzhian. The vehicle had a small 'Mars rover' on board,
which was planned to move across the surface on skis while connected to the lander with a 15-meter umbilical cable. Two small
metal rods were used for autonomous obstacle avoidance, as radio signals from Earth would take too long to drive the rovers using
remote control. The rover carried a dynamic penetrometer and a gamma ray densitometer."
... although it seems it never was deployed because of the communication failure, so it cannot count as the first rover to
function on Mars.
Probably it was not a false flag. First of all the state of IT security at Colonial Pipeline
was so dismal that it was strange that this did not happened before. And there might be
some truth that they try to exploit this hack to thier advantage as maintenance of the
pipeline is also is dismal shape.
Notable quotes:
"... "As for the money-nobody really knows where it really went." If you are right about the perpetrators, my guess would be that it went into the black-ops fund, two birds one stone. ..."
"... I have become so used to false flags, I am going to be shocked when a real intrusion happens! ..."
"... an in depth article researching solarwinds hack - looks like it was Israel, not a great leap to see that colonial was a false flag https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/01/investigative-reports/another-mega-group-spy-scandal-samanage-sabotage-and-the-solarwinds-hack/ ..."
"... Regarding the ownership of Colonial Pipeline: 'IFM Investors, which is owned by 27 Australian union- and employer-backed industry superannuation funds, owns a 16 per cent stake in Colonial Pipeline, which the infrastructure manager bought in 2007 for $US651 million.' ..."
"... 'The privately held Colonial Pipeline is valued at about $US8 billion, based upon the most recent sale of a 10 per cent stake to a unit of Royal Dutch Shell in 2019.' ..."
The Colonial Pipeline Co.,ransomware attack was a false flag. They wanted to blame Russian
hackers so they could derail Nordstream II
It is common knowledge that the only real hackers that are able of such sabotage is CIA
and Israeli. It's the same attack types they do to Iranian infrastructure on a regular
basis.
The Russians are not that stupid to do something they know will be blamed on them and is
of no political use to them. And could derail Nordstream2.
As for the money-nobody really knows where it really went. CEO is ultra corrupt. They
never ever invested in their infrastructure so when it went down they came up with a
profitable excuse. Just look at their financials/balance sheet over the years. No real
investment in updating and maintaining infrastructure. Great false flag. Corruption and
profiteering.
"As for the money-nobody really knows where it really went." If you are right
about the perpetrators, my guess would be that it went into the black-ops fund, two birds one
stone.
I'm not familiar with your handle - hello. IMO, it would be counterproductive for Russia
to initiate such a hack. What really affects and debilitates US oil and gas interests is low
prices, both at the pump and on the stock exchange. The hack helped jack up prices (which
were already being jacked-up despite demand still lagging behind supply) which only HELPS
those energy interests. It has long been known, the math isn't complicated, what level crude
must trade at for US domestic oil & gas operations to be profitable. Remember that just
as the pandemic was emerging Russia and Saudi Arabia once again sent the global crude market
into the depths of despair.
I do agree the hack can be interpreted in light of the desperation of US energy interests
to try to kill NS2. I have not yet read the recent articles discussing Biden's recent moves
in that regard. If these moves are a recognition that US LNG to Europe (and elsewhere) are
diametrically opposed to climate responsibility, I'd welcome those moves. As is usually the
case though, environmental responsibility is probably the least likely reason.
Regarding the ownership of Colonial Pipeline: 'IFM Investors, which is owned by 27
Australian union- and employer-backed industry superannuation funds, owns a 16 per cent stake
in Colonial Pipeline, which the infrastructure manager bought in 2007 for $US651
million.'
also
'The privately held Colonial Pipeline is valued at about $US8 billion, based upon the
most recent sale of a 10 per cent stake to a unit of Royal Dutch Shell in 2019.'
Looks like the chance to win a million bucks can give vaccination rates a real shot in the
arm.
Ohio saw its COVID-19 vaccination rate jump 45% between May 14-19 as compared to the
previous week, thanks in part to the state's Vax-A-Million lottery,
Gov. Mike DeWine told reporters on Wednesday . Last week, the state said it recorded a 28%
spike in vaccinations in the days following the lottery announcement.
Each week, adult Ohioans who have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose will enter a
random drawing to win a million dollars. And younger vaccinated Ohio residents between the ages
of 12 and 17 will be part of a weekly random drawing to get a four-year scholarship to an Ohio
public university, which will include tuition, room, board and books. There will be five
winners for each prize selected over the next five weeks.Wednesday night, the Ohio lottery
announced the first two winners: Abbigail Bugenske of Silverton, near Cincinnati, won $1
million, while Joseph Costello of Englewood, near Dayton, won the college scholarship. Each
Wednesday moving forward, another adult and another teen winner will be revealed at 7:29 p.m.
through June 23.
More than 2.7 million adults registered for the cash prizes, and more than 100,000 teens are
vying for the scholarships.
Pretty soon we are going to hear a variation of the Casablanca "gambling at Rick's"
line.
I'm shocked, shocked that there's gain-of-function research being done at the Wuhan lab.
Pretty soon we are going to hear a variation of the Casablanca "gambling at Rick's"
line.
I'm shocked, shocked that there's gain-of-function research being done at the Wuhan
lab.
Pretty soon we are going to hear a variation of the Casablanca "gambling at
Rick's" line.
I'm shocked, shocked that there's gain-of-function research being done at the Wuhan
lab.
With the old rules a motorcycle fatality and a shooting victim were counted as covid
deaths.
With the new rules if a vaxxinated person has had a previous motor vehicle accident 20
years ago, but dies of covid now they will be counted as a car accident death or an unsolved
murder.
..Francisco José Contreras was banned from his account for 12 hours,
according to Fox News , for making the argument and backing it up by stating men have "no
uterus or eggs."
He was making the comments in response to an article about a transgender male who announced
that they had "given birth" to a baby girl and were now a father.
"... "My bureaucracy in no way funded gain of function research at the Wuhan lab on a bat virus that came to be known as Covid19." ..."
"... You've been at the top of the public health heap for at least four decades. So what have YOU done to address this situation? If your answer is "Nothing." you should consider jumping off a tall building because YOU are a racist. ..."
"... When you've got nothing intelligent to say, declare something is racist! ..."
Bold statements like that require the proper attire!
SharkBit 2 hours ago
Oh please! Dr Fraudci virtue signalling. Total embarrasment.
nmewn 2 hours ago
Dr.StrangeElf: "My bureaucracy in no way funded gain of function research at the Wuhan lab
on a bat virus that came to be known as Covid19."
That infected millions of people of color. Oh. And America is raaayzist.
NotaSheep 2 hours ago
Racism? Really? Because of inadequate access to "public health"? Really?
Well gosh, Dr. F. You've been at the top of the public health heap for at least four
decades. So what have YOU done to address this situation? If your answer is "Nothing." you
should consider jumping off a tall building because YOU are a racist. The rest of us, not so
much.
FreeSpeech1A PREMIUM 2 hours ago
When you've got nothing intelligent to say, declare something is racist!
"... Asked about the issue, Biden began, "I believe we should go back to what existed when I came to the Senate 120 years ago" – a statement that supporters defended as a joke. He then noted that there were only 58 filibuster motions in 54 years, through 1971, but five times that many in 2020. He may have forgotten that all of last year's motions came from his party, which was then the Senate minority. ..."
WATCH: Biden adds fodder to dementia speculation as spirited response on filibuster reform degenerates into word salad
Leah Millis 170
President Joe Biden apparently had some crucial things to say about reforming
the Senate filibuster, the legislative speed bump against ruling-party dominance, but his descent into unintelligibility left his
plans a mystery.
Speaking on Thursday at his first formal press conference since taking office – having taken almost twice as long as any president
in 100 years to invite reporters to ask questions – 78-year-old Biden at times struggled to express his thoughts, particularly on
the filibuster. At issue was the longstanding Senate rule that makes it more difficult for the ruling party to force through partisan
legislation, which Democrats have called for eliminating now that they control the White House and both chambers of Congress.
Asked about the issue, Biden began, "I believe we should go back to what existed when I came to the Senate 120 years ago"
– a statement that supporters defended as a joke. He then noted that there were only 58 filibuster motions in 54 years, through 1971,
but five times that many in 2020. He may have forgotten that all of last year's motions came from his party, which was then the Senate
minority.
BIDEN: "I believe we should go back to a position of a filibuster that existed just when I came to the United States Senate
120 years ago." pic.twitter.com/7X7VKDkLcn
"Do you think he knows?" former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker asked on Twitter. "He's either cynical or incompetent."
Biden said he supports reform, such as requiring opposition senators to actually deliver marathon filibuster speeches to block
action on a bill, and spoke of his desire and ability to "get things done" in the Senate. But then the mental wheels appeared
to come off.
"The best way to get something done, if you hold near and dear to you that you uh, um like to be able to uh anyway," Biden
said. "I, we're going to get a lot done. And if we have to, if there's complete lockdown and chaos as a consequence of the filibuster,
then we'll have to go beyond what I'm talking about."
Biden drifted off similarly as other reporters came back to the topic. "Our preoccupation with the filibuster is totally legitimate,
but in the meantime, there's a lot we can do while we're talking about what we can do with the filibuster," he said.
After agreeing with a previous statement by former president Barack Obama that the filibuster is "a relic of the Jim Crow era,"
meaning it's racist, Biden was pressed on why he wouldn't therefore abolish it. After a long pause, Biden said, "Successful electoral
politics is the art of the possible. Let's figure out how we can get this done and move in the direction of significantly changing
the abuse of even the filibuster rule, first. It's been abused from the time it came into being by an extreme way in the last 20
years. Let's deal with the abuse first."
Apparently mystified by Biden's comments, the reporter asked if that meant he was moving closer to eliminating the filibuster.
"I answered your question," he replied.
The performance likely did little to inspire confidence at a time when Biden was perceived by many to be avoiding being put in
a position of having to speak off script. A Rasmussen Reports poll earlier this month found that 50% of Americans aren't confident
that Biden is physically and mentally fit to be president, and 52% were troubled that he hadn't held a press conference. It took
until day 65 of his administration to hold such an event.
In an Instagram post over the weekend, Cullors praised a National Public Radio report that "highlighted" the history of
racism in the US housing market.
"Thank you @npr for highlighting the history of racism inside of the housing market and why Black homeownership has always
been a way to disrupt white supremacy," she wrote, adding a link to the report, titled 'We Hold These Truths.'
There is a viral pneumonia. I doubt bacterial and viral are separated in the numbers.
Giant Meteor 3 hours ago remove link
On a bright note .. not a single person died from the flu! Its a miracle !
aztrader 1 hour ago
They made everything look like a COVID death. What are the real numbers with only COVID
involved and not diabetes, heart conditions, cancer and motorcycle accidents?
Wuhan
Where I keep a bio lab
Next to wet markets
That's how we do
But this time
Something just escaped
And I just wanted to
Just I thought you'd wanna know
Oops my bad
I swear I never meant for this
I never meant
Don't look at me that way
It was a Chinese mistake
Don't look at me that way
It was a Chinese mistake
An honest mistake
Sometimes
When I'm in the lab
I F up
And pathogens get away
Chinese flu
I swear I never meant for this
I never meant
Don't look at me that way
It was a Chinese mistake
Don't look at me that way
It was a Chinese mistake
An honest mistake
Don't look at me that way
It was a Chinese mistake
Don't look at me that way
It was a Chinese mistake
She would need to rewire her brain to have a thought that was not programmed into her... After her Russiagate adventures there are
some doubts that this is possible. But money do not smell.
Perhaps Maddow is just sad that there's no longer official justification to intimidate and harass those who choose not to wear
masks, something that leftists have enjoyed doing for the best part of a year.
The notion that people who don't wear masks are a "threat" is of course completely ludicrous since the COVID-19 virus particle
is 1,000 times smaller than the holes in the mask anyway.
After Texas ended its mask mandate, COVID cases dropped to a
record low and a similar pattern was observed in Florida and South Dakota.
Lordflin 46 minutes ago (Edited)
She would need to rewire her brain to have a thought that was not programmed into her...
What a mindless shill... first that singer... what's her name... and now this creature...
What is the effect ZH is going for here exactly...?
takeaction 36 minutes ago (Edited)
Rachel...Pelosi...Schumer...Swalwell.....Cuomo (Both of them) Lemon, Anderson, Fauci, AOC, Maxine, etc.
With or without a mask...
takeaction 18 minutes ago (Edited) remove link
All calm....Gorgeous weather.....78 today.
Hamilcar 28 minutes ago remove link
Branch Covidians like Madcow "Love F$#%ing Science".
And by "science" they mean believing whatever braindead politicians or left-wing corporate media make up as they go along without
any critical analysis and hysterically denouncing any evidence that contradicts the narrative as heresy.
It's going to be fun when all these people become the object of universal mockery they deserve. In a JUST world they would
be severely punished though.
Lordflin 24 minutes ago
I have always been impressed by the willingness of those who know virtually nothing of the sciences to believe almost anything
if it is told to them in the name of science...
signer1 9 minutes ago
To quote Mark Twain, "It's easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled".
Citxmech 18 seconds ago
Apparently, it's also easier to get people to believe illogical arguments by telling them it's "science" than it is to get
them to actually think critically about the stupid shlt they're being asked to believe.
toiler4fiat 26 minutes ago
Madcow, like [neo]liberalism, is a disease. You can't repair a damaged brain like you can't turn a pickle into a cucumber.
"Inside BLM co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors' million-dollar real-estate buying binge.
Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors has gone on a real-estate buying binge in
recent years, snagging four high-end homes for $3.2 million in the US alone, according to
property records.":
...Biden has demonstrated an ability to do only two things; give taxpayer money away and wear a mask. Perhaps the mask is appropriate
( See Jesse James.)
"... Why is healthy 24-year-old Jennifer Gates jumping the line to get the vaccination when older at-risk Americans can't get an appointment? You may not have inherited your father's genius as you claim, but you certainly have his sense of entitlement. ..."
Why is healthy 24-year-old Jennifer Gates jumping the line to get the vaccination when older at-risk Americans can't
get an appointment? You may not have inherited your father's genius as you claim, but you certainly have his sense of
entitlement.
Why do so many people who are fully
vaccinated care whether I have been vaccinated or not? They seem to think that vaccines only "work" if everyone is vaccinated.
I am getting vax shamed by my family
for not getting the vaccine yet, especially from my brother who is a surgeon. What's wrong with waiting until there is more data
if you're young and healthy with no underlying conditions?
Quantity never equal to quality " The agency defended itself, remarking that the ad campaign had been effective. "2020 was a
standout recruitment year for the CIA, despite the pandemic... Our 2021 incoming class is the third-largest in a decade," a spokesperson
told Fox News."
Journalist Kyle Becker tweeted that the CIA needed to "stay out" of domestic politics. "You're there to serve the U.S.
flag, not the rainbow flag," he wrote.
Kyle Becker @kylenabecker ·
May 8 You're there to serve the U.S.
flag, not the rainbow flag. I wonder how much of this is about inclusivity and how much is about redefining the CIA and leading
it away from its core mission of defending the U.S. from enemies abroad. The CIA needs to stay out of domestic politics.
Other users paraphrased the lanyard rainbow anecdote to note how "much better" they now felt about CIA airstrikes and other
unpalatable dealings around the world.
St. Antonios @LoneStarTexian "I love that, as a gay man, I too
can do my part in destabilizing black & brown countries, droning their women & children & spying on my fellow Americans..."
St. Antonios
■ @LoneStarTexian
Replying to @ING2Firebrand
"I noticed a rainbow on CIA Director Brennan's lanyard & felt so much better green lighting airstrikes on starving Yemeni citizens
&
Since its launch in 2019 as part of a broader recruitment strategy, the 'Humans of CIA' social media series has depicted real
agency officers sharing their "first-hand experiences" in the intelligence organization, a CIA spokesperson told the Guardian.
While the majority of the series has attracted little pushback, part of the backlash to the Latina officer video was directed
at the agency's perceived willingness
"to weaponize their power to target their political opponents: conservatives."
The agency defended itself, remarking that the ad campaign had been effective. "2020 was a standout recruitment year for the
CIA, despite the pandemic... Our 2021 incoming class is the third-largest in a decade," a spokesperson told Fox News.
"... In 20 years, the movie Office Space will seem to young people like watching a Western. ..."
"... Possibly--but like a good western. The themes and characters in the movie are universal and timeless. Nearly everyone has worked for Lumberg at one time or another. It may seem far-fetched to future generations that there were ever programmers in this country. ..."
"... Office buildings could all readily be re-purposed to grow weed. ..."
In 20 years, the movie Office Space will seem to young people like watching a Western.
Midas 21 minutes ago
Possibly--but like a good western. The themes and characters in the movie are universal
and timeless. Nearly everyone has worked for Lumberg at one time or another. It may seem
far-fetched to future generations that there were ever programmers in this country.
Kickaha 1 hour ago
Office buildings could all readily be re-purposed to grow weed.
I think CIA counter-intelligence now is in very unenviable position. This woman is a poster girl for recruitment by
foreign agencies. This level of narcissism and lack of introspection means that she can be easily manipulated and support "the right
cause"
Katie Halper and Esha Krishnaswamy roast the "brilliance intoxicator":
The CIA Gets Woke (8 min "" Katie Halper's YouTube channel,
May 4, 2021)
Notable quotes:
"... In a mind-blowing marketing video first published on March 25, but which had escaped widespread notice until recent days, the CIA enthusiastically endorsed several key tenets of what has now indisputably become a hegemonic left/liberal ideological and rhetorical construct: ..."
"... my existence is not a box-checking exercise ..."
"... She continues, "I used to struggle with imposter syndrome . But at 36, I refuse to internalize misguided patriarchal ideas of what a woman can or should be. I am tired of feeling like I'm supposed to apologize for the space I occupy ." ..."
"... if the CIA wants to hire more such people I am all for it. Folks who can not leave their personal issues at the door typically muck up their workplace and create productivity problems. A less effective CIA will be a plus for the rest of the world. ..."
"... And for some levity, here's some much deserved satire on the CIA vid. https://twitter.com/blaireerskine/status/1389313897304399877?s=20 ..."
"... Like b suggests: never stop/prevent the enemy (which is what CIA is, for most people) from making a mistake. The sooner they replace their cadre with woke idiots the better for humanity and the chances of our survival. ..."
"... Over 50% of The Company's light lifting is subbed out to contractors, and most of the Langley smurfs are busy "analyzing" data, soooo desk jockey much? It would be fun to track where the diversity hires actually go ..."
"... Utter bullshit indeed. Listing all the boxes she checks and then adding "my existence is not a box-checking exercise" is comical in itself. Hopefully b is right and the CIA will be less effective for the inclusion of people like her. ..."
Michael Tracey writes
about a weird CIA video that is making the rounds (emphasis added):
In a mind-blowing marketing video first published on March 25, but which had escaped widespread notice until recent days, the
CIA enthusiastically endorsed several key tenets of what has now indisputably become a hegemonic left/liberal ideological and
rhetorical construct:
" I am a woman of color ," the video's
protagonist, an unnamed CIA officer, triumphantly proclaims. "I am a cisgender millennial who's been diagnosed with generalized anxiety
disorder. I am intersectional , but my existence is not a box-checking exercise ."
She continues, "I used to struggle with imposter syndrome . But at 36, I refuse to internalize misguided patriarchal ideas
of what a woman can or should be. I am tired of feeling like I'm supposed to apologize for the space I occupy ."
I have to admit that I do not know what the words in bold are supposed to mean. (Nor does my Firefox spellchecker. It flags
them.)
I also do not understand the italicized phrases. To me they sounds like utter bullshit. But if the CIA wants to hire more such people I am all for it. Folks who can not leave their personal issues at the door typically
muck up their workplace and create productivity problems. A less effective CIA will be a plus for the rest of the world.
It would be interesting if 'em spooks started cancelling each other for some 10 yo tweets, or for not being transsexual, or
for the white supremacist mindset demonstrated by remembering the multiplication table.
Oh! You definitely should learn that NewSpeak. Yes, it's ridicelous, knowing this babble hasn't any intrinsic value. It is
,however, the current ruling ideology of the USA and by extension the broader West. It's like understanding the babble of some
obscure theoretician or the basic terminology of some remote religion. You can safely ignore all of this as nonsense - as long
as such people don't run a country!
Posted by: m | May 5 2021 14:13 u
Like b suggests: never stop/prevent the enemy (which is what CIA is, for most people) from making a mistake. The sooner they
replace their cadre with woke idiots the better for humanity and the chances of our survival.
Yeah this video took a nice beating on The Hedge....frikkin hilarious!
Over 50% of The Company's light lifting is subbed out to
contractors, and most of the Langley smurfs are busy "analyzing" data, soooo desk jockey much? It would be fun to track where
the diversity hires actually go, but hey I've got a garden to build!
Utter bullshit indeed. Listing all the boxes she checks and then adding "my existence is not a box-checking exercise" is comical
in itself. Hopefully b is right and the CIA will be less effective for the inclusion of people like her.
@b In your last sentence 'the' before CIA is superfluous, it appears you cut down a larger sentence incorrectly.
In the early days of the virus pandemic, things didn't look so hot for the field of plastic survey. Hospitals were overrun with
COVID-19 infections and banned all elective procedures, limiting plastic surgeries. But sometime after, when the economy reopened,
and hospitals allowed elective surgeries, demand for butt implants soared.
Bloomberg , citing data from the
American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), says there were broad declines for minimally invasive and surgical cosmetic procedures
during 2020. Botox and soft-tissue fillers remained popular with consumers.
But it was buttock augmentation, or butt implants were
a massive hit among consumers.
Cosmetic procedures for the implants last year were up 22%, from 970 to 1,179.
I view the 2008 election as the major failing-to-turn-back-when-we-had-the-chance
point. Obama could have undone Bush's worst policies, but instead he cemented them into place
forever.
Our elites are both stupid and evil, but Bush is more stupid and Obama is more evil
.
I like to verify things myself and you can do so as well by reading the California
Department of Education Mathematics
Framework .
In its framework, the Department of Education seeks " Culturally responsive mathematics
education ."
Introduction Highlights
Active efforts in mathematics teaching are required in order to counter the cultural
forces that have led to and continue to perpetuate current inequities. Mathematics pathways
must open mathematics to all students, eliminating option-limiting tracking . [i.e. no
advance classes].
implementation of this framework and the standards, teachers must be mindful of other
considerations that are a high priority for California's education system including the
Environmental Principles and Concepts (EP&Cs) which allow students to examine issues of
environmental and social justice .
Teaching for Equity Highlights
The evolution of mathematics in educational settings has resulted in dramatic inequities
for students of color, girls, and students from low income homes.
Teachers are encouraged to align instruction with the outcomes of the California ELD
Standards, which state that linguistically and culturally diverse English learners receive
instruction that values their home cultures.
Need to Broaden Perceptions of Mathematics
I did not go through all the chapters. Reason uncovered these gems.
The inequity of mathematics tracking in California can be undone through a coordinated
approach in grades 6–12 .
Middle-school students are best served in heterogeneous classes.
The push to calculus in grade twelve is itself misguided.
To encourage truly equitable and engaging mathematics classrooms we need to broaden
perceptions of mathematics beyond methods and answers so that students come to view
mathematics as a connected, multi-dimensional subject that is about sense making and
reasoning, to which they can contribute and belong.
Sabotage the Best
Reason concludes, and I agree " If California adopts this framework, which is currently
under public review, the state will end up sabotaging its brightest students . The government
should let kids opt out of math if it's not for them. Don't let the false idea that there's no
such thing as a gifted student herald the end of advanced math entirely."
Instead, and in the name of "equity", the proposed framework aims to keep everyone learning
at the same dumbed down level for as long as possible.
The intention is clear. The California Board of Education intends to sabotage the best and
brightest, hoping to make everyone equal.
The public does not support these polices. Indeed, it is precisely this kind of talk that
nearly got Trump reelected.
Biden should speak out against such nonsense, but he won't. He is beholden to Teachers'
Unions and Boards of Education.
Care to complain? If so the California Department of Education posted these
ways.
Phone Number and Address
Phone: 916-319-0598
Instructional Quality Commission
1430 N Street, Room 3207
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: 916-319-0172
It's easy to become inured to the daily procession of flagrant falsehoods, tendentious
misrepresentations, deceitful exaggerations and narrative-driven editorial distortions from
many of the nation's leading media outlets. As opinion surveys suggest that most of these
organizations now rank in public trust a little below emailed pleas from deposed Nigerian
princes, it's easy to think the power they once wielded has been so diminished that they are
little more than a mildly diverting source of contemporary color in our lives.
"... Not a single resource on the Pfizer Executive team or Board of Directors has been injected with the Pfizer (experimental poison yet) vaccine yet. - C Weissman. Excuses allegedly provided offering the less fortunate an opportunity to go first. Don't laugh. True story. Some real humanitarians. ..."
Not a single resource on the Pfizer Executive team or Board of Directors has been injected
with the Pfizer (experimental poison yet) vaccine yet. - C Weissman. Excuses allegedly provided offering the less fortunate an opportunity to go first. Don't
laugh. True story. Some real humanitarians.
Yes just finished listening to my dose of bullshit on ABC. The amazing thing is they
actually telling you it's bullshit if people listen closely. The number of new infections in
India. Hundreds of thousands. Deaths a few hundred. In a country where the normal annual death
rate is 9.6 Million and 26,000 people die EVERY DAY. It's like a joke. Like they testing our
stupidity. And you can't say; No we not falling for it because there is no longer anywhere to
say it! I feel like I have permanent road rage over this crap.
It's the tone and emotive words like crisis, and other exaggerated terms they use that
triggers fear. The viewer remembers the number of cases, not deaths because the number is
larger. But the cases are based on testing.
Why they dusted off those remnants from Bush and Obama neocon gangs?
When interventionists and national security deep state hawks need to prolong what's already
the longest war in in US history, who're they gonna call?...
"Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee
they're worried about President Biden's plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, with
Rice suggesting the US may need to go back,"
Axios reports.
The pair's "expert" testimony was given over Zoom and appears to have been kept relatively
quiet, given it was a 'closed door' members only call, until Axios learned of it.
Rice of course infamously served as George Bush's National Security Advisor during the
initial invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, and crucially helped make the case for war to
the American public, later serving as Bush's Secretary of State through 2009.
Having helped start two failed wars, both of which have long remained deeply unpopular among
the American public, naturally Condi Rice as a pre-eminent neocon voice would be consulted as a
"stay the course" point of view . It's also deeply revealing that there's no foreign policy
space in terms of viewpoint whatsoever between Rice and Clinton - latter who pushed for the
US-NATO invasion of Libya and planned covert regime change in Syria against Assad.
Little is known about precisely what Hillary testified, but it's not difficult to imagine.
Here are a few key insights
via Axios :
"Condi Rice is like, 'You know, we’re probably gonna have to go
back,' " amid a potential surge in terrorism, the member said.
Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), the top Republican on the committee, told Axios: "With the
potential for an Islamic State, coupled with what they're going to do to our contractors in
Yemen and Afghanistan is, sadly, it's going to be tragic there and we all see it
coming."
Another member of the committee confirmed both Clinton and Rice raised concerns about
the potential fallout from a quick removal of all U.S. troops .
Both also expressed concerns about protecting U.S. diplomats on the ground following the
withdrawal and what the move will mean for the global war on terrorism.
One unnamed committee member told Axios further that "they both agreed we're going to need
to sustain a counterterrorism mission somehow outside of that country."
Well of course!...there always needs to be a war going on somehow and somewhere - otherwise
how would these warmongering ladies sleep at night?
"... We can’t leave anybody behind. We will all benefit, we will all be safer when everyone everywhere has equal access to the vaccine. ..."
"... “We must pursue equitable vaccine distribution, and in that, restore faith in our common humanity. This mission couldn’t be more critical.†..."
Generous and fair-minded Harry and Meghan have said: “ We
can’t leave anybody behind. We will all benefit, we will all be safer when
everyone everywhere has equal access to the vaccine.
“We must pursue equitable vaccine distribution, and in that, restore
faith in our common humanity. This mission couldn’t be more
critical.â€
I wonder how much Harry and Meghan will be paid for this promotion?
From comments: " Tucker is right on this one. If you wear a mask outside you truly are a
moron. You may as well add goggles and a butt plug." ... "Don't forget about those solo drivers
with masks on!", "Maskers are stupid scared virtue signalers"
As an anti-mask militant for quite a while now I've been going out of my way to ask people
with masks on outdoors why they're wearing one (I've really tried to be polite but it's
getting increasingly hard to do that). In literally hundreds of instances I haven't gotten a
straight answer yet. It's stunning that people are so gullible but it shows what the power of
propaganda really is. 99% of that is coming from teevee, which truly rots your brain.
Capt Tripps 10 hours ago remove link
They are signaling the submission to a tyrannical state. That submission makes us all less
free.
safelyG 10 hours ago
mister tucker is wrongeddy wrong wrong.
we must all wear multiple masks. indoors. outdoors. at work. at play. while we sleep.
while we bathe. while we eat. while we sing praises unto the most high.
and we must remain 8 feet apart, one from the other. at all times.
and report our whereabouts and our contacts and our body temperature. to the
authorities.
get your vacines!
lovingly,
bill n melinda
radical-extremist 10 hours ago
When Tucker Carlson says to tell people to take off their masks and call CPS on parents
who mask their children he's trolling the Left. And because the Left has no sense of humor or
irony or hypocrisy...they're of course OUTRAGED, which was his point.
Realism 10 hours ago remove link
I like it best when hiking outside, in 75 degree weather with a nice breeze, you see
people put up their mask as they walk by
Pure comedy, it's hard to understand the stupidity if you think you'll get any disease
much less Covid walking by someone
And importantly, would you really be hiking if you had Covid LOL
aztrader 10 hours ago
Mask wears see it as a badge of honor because they "care" about other people. In reality,
it's a badge of Stupidity and ignorance.
Prince Velveeta 10 hours ago (Edited) remove link
California is an open-air mental ward. I was just out there and the collective idiocy is
astounding. People jogging with masks on , exaggerating their breathing as they pass you in
some competitive virtue signaling event. I witnessed some idiot jogging up the hill past my
family member's house, with a bandana on his face, being sucked into his mouth as he's
gasping for air.....
Anytime I hear the word "justice" it makes be wary. Justice has always been in the eye of the
beholder, but now there is only one justice - the woke justice. It is catching on like a fire
and there are few media outlets left to describe that it is anything but justice.
Anytime I hear the word "justice" it makes be wary. Justice has always been in the eye of
the beholder, but now there is only one justice - the woke justice. It is catching on like
a fire and there are few media outlets left to describe that it is anything but justice.
"... The danger is that Gressel, and other 'political scientists' like him, may once take up government positions and use their learned illusions to handle the next crisis. Stuck in the idea that Russia will retreat if only 'deterred' enough they will lean to measures that are outright hostile to Russia and may have indeed very tragic consequences. ..."
Some two month ago we discussed how the
U.S. focus on narratives will let it collide with reality . It is certainly not only the
U.S. government that creates narratives, comes to believe in them, and then fails when it is
confronted with reality. Carried by think tanks and media the narrative mold has grown
throughout the wider 'western' world.
On the danger of this development the above piece quoted Alastair Crooke who wrote
:
They lose the ability to stand apart, and see themselves â€" as others see
them. They become so enraptured by the virtue of their version of the world, that they lose
all ability to empathise or accept others’ truths. They cannot hear the
signals. The point here, is that in that talking past (and not listening) to other states,
the latters’ motives and intentions will be mis-construed â€"
sometimes tragically so.
Over the last weeks we passed through a crisis that easily could have had a tragic
ending.
Since February the Ukraine built up a force to retake the renegade Donbas region in
east-Ukraine by military force. After waiting several week to see the situation more clearly
Russia started to assemble a counterforce backed up by statements that were sufficiently
strong to deter the Ukraine from continuing its plans. The danger of a Ukrainian assault has
now receded.
Today the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu gave orders for the troops to return to their bases.
Much of the equipment though will stay on training grounds near Ukraine until the regular
fall maneuvers later this year take place. That minimizes transport costs and gives a little
time advantage should someone in the Ukraine again have silly ideas.
Russia has clearly won this round.
But that is not how it looks when seen from the 'western' narrative. In that version the
Ukrainian plans and its assembling of heavy weapons and troops near the Donbas border never
happened. The narrative says that the whole incident started as a 'Russian aggression' when
Russia very publicly showed its potential force.
Only a few
analysts on the 'western' side have rejected that narrative and stuck to reality. Dmitri
Trenin of Carnegie's Moscow Center is one who got it right :
In February, Zelensky ordered troops (as part of the rotation process) and heavy weapons
(as a show of force) to go near to the conflict zone in Donbas. He did not venture out as
far as Poroshenko, who dispatched small Ukrainian naval vessels through the
Russian-controlled waters near the Kerch Strait in late 2018, but it was enough to get him
noticed in Moscow.
The fact of the matter is that even if Ukraine cannot seriously hope to win the war in
Donbas, it can successfully provoke Russia into action.
This, in turn, would produce a knee-jerk reaction from Ukraine’s
Western supporters and further aggravate Moscow’s relations,
particularly with Europe. One way or another, the fate of Nord Stream II will directly
affect Ukraine’s interests. Being seen as a victim of Russian aggression
and presenting itself as a frontline state checking Russia’s further
advance toward Europe is a major asset of Kyiv’s foreign policy.
Russia intentionally over reacted to Kiev's opening move. It demonstrated its overkill
capability and made it clear to Zelensky's western sponsors that any further provocations
would have extremely harsh consequences. As Putin
said yesterday :
Those behind provocations that threaten the core interests of our security will regret what
they have done in a way they have not regretted anything for a long time.
Zelensky's plan did not work out. While he did get verbal statements of support from Biden
and NATO everyone knew that those were empty promises. But for people who have fallen for the
false narrative the situation looks different. Consider this reaction to Shoigu's
return-to-barracks order today from a member of the European Council On Foreign Relations (a
U.S. lobby shop in Europe):
I have to congratulate (Flag of United States) @JoeBiden to deterence success and crisis
management. The right warnings were sent to Moscow, the right intelligence to Ukraine.
(Flag of Russia) could not extort concessions, could not provoke. Let's see w. these forces
aren't just redeployed to (Flag of Belarus).
Indeed Biden's order last week to
pull back two war ships that were supposed to go into the Black Sea to support Ukraine
was really great deterrence. But that was not a warning to Moscow. It did not deter Russia
from doing anything. But it did end Zelensky's illusions of U.S. support.
But for Gressel, who like others is stuck to the 'western' narrative, the sense is
different. He really seems to believe that the U.S. deterred Russia from some nefarious plans
which it never had. He ignores that Russia reacted to a Ukrainian provocation in a way that,
in the end, has made NATO and the U.S. look weak.
The danger is that Gressel, and other 'political scientists' like him, may once take
up government positions and use their learned illusions to handle the next crisis. Stuck in
the idea that Russia will retreat if only 'deterred' enough they will lean to measures that
are outright hostile to Russia and may have indeed very tragic consequences. To repeat
Crooke's warning
:
The point here, is that in that talking past (and not listening) to other states, the
latters’ motives and intentions will be mis-construed â€"
sometimes tragically so.
Posted by b on April 22, 2021 at 17:25 UTC |
Permalink
The Russians have only partly gone. Heavy weapons will remain in place which can be
reactivated easily. (Particularly in Crimea). However the Russian "Threat" to Zelnsky is
still there. Logically he should now have more difficulty in stirring up the EU and US for
cash and weapons as the "obvious and visble" threat is diminished. I don't think his troops
can stay indefinitely where they are. How can he continue to pay for all his new mercenaries,
new arms?
So how is the MSM going to react? They have a lot of "journalists" around there, waiting
for something to happen.
One obvious factor is that the supply lines of both are within their own countries
(Ukraine for Ukrainians, and Russia for the Russians). Those that have the longest supply
lines are NATO, the UK and US.
An earlier ploy (Attempted violent assassination of Lukashenko and most of the Belarusian
parliament), with Georgia and other close by countries getting involved too, is now unlikely.
BUT the US is desperate to cut the Russian-Chinese access to Europe by any means. What's
next? Plan ....F?
The Western narrative was also very clearly visible in the latest printed "Der Spiegel"
16/2021 (News magazine in Germany). They had a 4 page article about Ukraine with the title
"On the edge of war". They reported at length about russian troops near the border.
Explicitely they wrote about sabre rattling from russia and generally gave the impression
that all action is solely on the russian side and must be seen negatively or with grave
concerns.
But they failed completely to mention Ukrainian troop movements, bellicose rhetoric or even
the Zelensky's decrete 117/2021 from march 23rd with the translated title "Strategy of
de-occupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous
Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol".
b... thanks.. yes - narrative and controlling the narrative is what so much of this is
about.... people in the west are not told of ukraines role in any of this or how they are
encouraged by the west... instead what they are told is how russia is building up along the
ukraine border.... in other words only one side of the story is told, and not both..nor is
the timing of all of it shared either... people are literally given a script or narrative
tailor made for brainwashing.. and indeed it works on most...
for an example of this today - i was listening to cbc radio - national news show ''the
currenct''.. the host matt galloway discusses the situation with Mark MacKinnon, senior
international correspondent for the Globe and Mail; Nina Khrushcheva, professor of
international affairs at the New School in New York; and Michael Bociurkiw, global affairs
analyst, formerly with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
I am not so sure that this is over. The Belarus coup was intended to be around May 9.
Zelensky has called up the reserves who ever they might be. He just floated the idea of
banning Russia from the SWIFT so that it is on everyone's mind when Ukraine claims they were
attacked. The NS2 will likely be initially complete in May. The USS Cook and Roosevelt are
waiting for the British boats and will likely enter together. They have not yet given notice
that I have seen. Two frigates are transiting the Suez to join their fellow yanks. I see a
perfect storm yet coming. Shoigu is bright and knows that it looks good to announce the
return to barracks, but he has access to my data plus a ton more. He knows that the situation
is still fluid and volatile.
... But for Gressel, who like others is stuck to the 'western' narrative, the sense is
different. He really seems to believe that the U.S. deterred Russia from some nefarious plans
which it never had. He ignores that Russia reacted to a Ukrainian provocation in a way that,
in the end, has made NATO and the U.S. look weak.
This delusion reminded me of a retort, from an astute observer, to a dopey remark made by
Bush II soon after the start if the Iraq Fake War. Bush said "We're gonna turn EyeRack into
fly-paper for ter'rists! To which the observer responded...
"If Iraq was fly-paper then the only bug that got stuck to it was Bush."
I'm one of the most ardent proponents of the "imbecilization of the West" hypothesis, but
this is clearly a diplomatic style face-saving plausible deniability exit by the West.
The West knows time is not on its side in the Ukrainian issue, and its puppet president
threw a Hail Mary. Russia correctly didn't swallow the bait, and the West fell back as it
knew it would have to, since this was a long shot.
NS-2 is now getting finished, and the Ukraine will consolidate itself more than ever as a
black hole of American resources. The West, however, has one last ace in the hole: the German
Green Party, which is well positioned to form the next government after the December national
elections. The NS-2 certainly won't be finished by then, if the American diplomacy is to do
its job properly, and the Greens will have all the tools at hand to implode the project, thus
giving the Ukraine some more years to ride on American finance by its gas leverage (over
which all its sovereign T-bonds rest at this point).
The key to Ukrainian success is in Germany, not in Russia.
One advantage that Ukraine has in military terms is the number of people who willingly and
enthusiastically want to join the army for the sake of de-occupation (interesting why they
invented a replacement of "liberation" that has at least two equivalents with Slavic roots,
perhaps they do not like their current occupations). The best proof is that through their
democratically elected representatives they voted for a huge increase of punishments for
avoiding conscription.
The other proof is that, temporarily at least, Ukrainians abolished the system of rotation
in which units were staying on the fortified lines literally dying of boredom and related
risk (alcohol poisoning, explosions of stills making moonshine, drug overdoses, suicide,
stepping over their own mines, to mention a few), instead the troops to be rotated stayed in
place and the other units joined them nearby.
However, Russian conscripts without the advantage of Ukrainian enthusiasm have better
weapons. Modernizing Ukrainian military is a tall order. The budget barely supports the
troops without modernization, the domestic industry in its better years relied to selling
parts to Russia and buying other parts, remnants of industrial integration of Soviet times.
Supplying them with NATO weapons would require huge gifts that (a) could be unpopular in the
West (b) raise risk of getting the best toys of NATO to Russian in exchange for non-toxic
alcohol, fresh Afghan heroin etc. Did I mention mind-killing military service? And with not
so best toys, like missile boats that are about to be de-commissioned, say, in Canada, they
do not really change the strategic balance.
Thus Zelensky had to be saved from his own rhetoric and gestures -- the aforementioned
change in "rotation". Kiev authorities have a good practice in "never mind". For example,
they utilize fascist radicals to intimidate opposition, but they are what I call "pet
cobras", biting the hand that feeds them is what is programmed into their reptilian minds
that do not have circuits for "friends" and "gratitude". And because of some grievances they
trashed the Presidential place of work, insulting graffiti, broken windows, a broken and
burned door, so three ringleaders got arrested, Parliament spent a few hours being appalled
(after thinking for a week what to say), and now one ringleader was let free, with the
remainder probably joining him soon (one at the time, I think). See folks: nothing
happened.
It is possible that Napoleonic rhetoric and gestures were planned to get a "street cred"
with those hoodlums, or that they were discreetly encouraged by an embassy (some people think
that UK is the leader here, USA having mental problems and distractions). Or some
combination.
Our problem here in the U$A is still the same as always. Mr. Z's announcement on 3/24
about his nation's intentions to take back the Crimea, were NEVER mentioned on our MSM. It's
always Russian aggression, or China's aggression. It's NEVER our fault.
Being seen as a victim of Russian aggression and presenting itself as a frontline state
checking Russia’s further advance toward Europe is a major asset
of Kyiv’s foreign policy.
Wait...what?
I think B takes the "administration" too literally -
We know they are lying, they know they are lying, everyone knows they are lying but they are
creating a virtual world in which their behavior is rational and justified. I am not sure why
exactly such an artificial construct is seen as helpful. I suppose you could blame it on the
voting public in the democratic west but we all realize by this point that the west is in no
way democratic in a literal, functional sense - they less than do not give a damn what the
little people think in fact they could well do with a lot fewer of them and really without
the need of actual vote counting.
Possibly to their dog at night under the covers and after many martinis to help them
forget what they are, they admit something like their best attempt at the truth.
The militias with their supposed morale â€" These are the grandkids and great
grandkids of WWII collaborators. Middle class and hipsters. In a country where there
basically is no middle class. Ukraine’s economy is at African level. Only
source of funds for anything is the US embassy. There is no agenda but the agenda of 1945.
Any from the 2014 crop who had anything on the ball whatsoever is now my neighbor. What is
left in Uke is the dregs. Hipsters do not hang around in failed states.
Entire political landscape is now centered on US Embassy. Oligarchs might have some input
still, their wealth is out of country and so are they most of time.
Pure political vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum. CIA and their hired actors will fill the
stage, journalists will report their antics. They are playing to an empty house. Ukraine
could exist in same zone as Libya or Iraq for a long time. In end nothing fills the vacuum
but Russian Federation.
The Russian military's policy is not to use conscripts on the front lines, that role is
far too important to trust to what are partially trained soldiers, they are used in support
functions. The frontline is manned by professional soldiers.
Zelenski has got $300M of 'stuff' out of Congress this week so that was a result for
him.
Russia might be pulling back but the Ukrainians haven't got the message. My understanding
is there are 50,000 Ukrainian army and 20,000 Ukrainian security forces normally in the
Donbass on the frontlines against 30,000 or so NAF. This crisis came when another 30,000
troops plus heavy weapons were moved into the area. Two days ago OSCE reported that two
artillery battalions of self propelled 122mm and 152 guns have been moved up to the front.
Then apparently earlier this week, two battalions of the Azov were moved up from Mariupol
(their normal area) to the front lines facing Donetsk City. Most of these 20,000 security
forces would be your Nazi wannabe's with the Azov unit being the largest. For those of you
not watching in 2014/5 Azov are the evil bastards that make the Red Army in WW2 Germany look
like angels.
So Kiev is still building an overpowering strike force with a probable objective of a
thrust through the center to the Russian border, splitting the two 'rebel' states. Both US
and UK and no doubt other advisors are on site. The Global Hawk is sucking up data overhead
most days. There is NATO pride on the line here planning and directing. We await a false
flag.
I think b is being a bit too optimistic. Somehow they have to stop NS2, in many ways their
futures depend on transit gas and, as before, they won't care how many have to die to save
their skins and wallets.
President Putin consulted with Minster of Defense Shoigu and asks if the troops can be
scaled back from the lines of contact without significantly reducing tactical capability.
Shoigu runs the numbers and delivers the answer that Putin was looking for.
Putin is offering an olive branch to Zelensky knowing full well his military can roll over
the eastern and southern borders of Ukraine with impunity.
Does Zelensky do the same? No, instead he calls up reserve boys to make himself look
tough.
A Russian proverb that is most appropriate in this case is this:
Ð"урнаÌÑ
гоÐ"оваÌ
ногаÌм
покоÌÑ Ð½Ðµ
даÑ'Ñ‚. Translation: The stupid head doesn't leave
feet in rest or in other words, no rest for the wicked.
"... Bioâ€" Israel Shamir is a writer on international affairs, a radical political thinker, and a Biblical and Judaic scholar. His comments on current affairs are published on The Unz Review , and on his own sites www.israelshamir.net and www.israelshamir.com . His books Galilee Flowers , Cabbala of Power , Masters of Discourse are available on the Amazon… Shamir was a dissident in the USSR and in Israel where he called for full rights for the Palestinians. He is also a global dissident who calls for the dismantling the New World Order and the American Empire ..."
"... Churchill’s observation about the USA cannot be more apt, “The US will do the right thing, after it has done all others.†Hopefully, that is before nuclear Armageddon is unleashed upon us. ..."
Question 1â€" For the last 4 years, Democrat leaders have blamed Russia
for allegedly meddling in the 2016 elections. Now the Democratsâ€" who control all
three branches of government â€" have the power to reset US foreign policy and take
a more hostile approach to Moscow. But will they?
At present, there are roughly 40,000 US-NATO troops massed along the Russian border
conducting military exercises while scores of Russian tanks, artillery and an estimated 85,000
Russian troops are now located about 25 miles from Ukraine’s eastern border.
Both armies are on hair-trigger alert and prepared for any sudden provocation. If the Ukrainian
Army invades the Russian-speaking region of Ukraine (Donbas), Moscow will likely respond.
So, will there be a conflagration in the Ukraine this spring and, if so, how will Putin
respond? Will he limit the scope of his campaign to the Donbas or push onward to Kiev?
Israel Shamirâ€" If the Russian army crosses the Ukrainian border, it
won’t stop in the Donbas. The war will be brief and the Ukraine will be
split into pieces. But will it happen?
Russia’s totem animal, the Bear, is a strong and peaceful animal that is
not easily aroused, but once provoked, it is unstoppable. Russian rulers have typically fit
this image. They weren’t adventurous, but level-headed and prudent.
Putin, who is the quintessential Russian ruler, is risk-averse. He won’t
start a war he never wanted to begin with, but he will act decisively if he needs to do so.
Consider 2014, after the Ukrainian coup: the lawful Ukrainian president Mr Yanukovich ran to
Russia and asked Putin to help him regain power. At that time, the Ukrainian army was weak and
Russia could have easily retaken the country without facing any significant resistance. But,
surprisingly, Putin did not give the order to take Kiev.
Putin is unpredictable. He ordered the seizure of Crimea despite the counsel of his
advisors. It was an unexpected move, and it worked like a charm. He also pummeled Georgia in
2008 after Saakashvili invaded South Ossetia. This was another surprise move that succeeded
better than anyone could have imagined. If the Ukrainians try to retake Donbas, the Russian
army will beat them badly and continue on to Kiev. The presence of NATO’s
troops will not deter Putin.
As for the Democrats, they can push Kiev to attack, but they will end up losing the Ukraine
in the process. If the point is to poison relations between Russia and Europe, they can try to
do so, but if they think the Russo-Ukrainian war is going to drag on,
they’re mistaken. And if they think Putin won’t defend
the Donbas, they’ve made a serious miscalculation.
Biden’s recent phone call to Putin suggests that the administration has
decided not to launch a war after all. The unconfirmed report of two US ships turning away from
the Black Sea fits this assessment. However, we cannot be sure about this since the Kremlin
refused to agree to Biden’s offer for a meeting. The
Kremlin’s response was a frosty “We shall study the
proposalâ€. Russians feel that the summit proposal might be a trick aimed at buying
time to strengthen their position. Bottom line: We cannot know certain how things will play out
in the future.
Question 2â€" I have a hard time understanding what the Biden
administration hopes to gain by provoking a war in the Ukraine. Seizing the Donbas will force
the government to impose a costly, long-term military occupation that will be ferociously
resisted by Russian-speaking people who live in the area. How does that benefit Washington?
I don’t think it does. I think the real objective is to provoke Putin
into overreacting, thus, proving that Russia poses a threat to all of Europe. The only way
Washington can persuade its EU allies that they should not engage in critical business
transactions (like Nordstream) with Moscow, is if they can prove that Russia is an
“external threat†to their collective security.
Do you agree with this or do you think Washington has something to gain by launching a war
in the Ukraine?
Israel Shamirâ€" What do you mean by
‘overreacting’? Putin is not threatening to nuke
Washington or take over Brussels or storm Warsaw? But to solve the problem of Ukraine on such
occasion would be entirely reasonable .
When the regime in Kiev began to prepare for war a few months ago, they thought it would be
a repeat of 2015, where they attack Donbas, the Donbas suffers losses, and then the Russian
army steps in to prevent their defeat. They saw it as a limited war with a good chance of
regaining Donbas. But Moscow has indicated that they will respond to any unprovoked aggression
using their full strength, thereby crushing the Ukrainian state. In other words, the Russian
army won’t stop at the Donbas but will proceed to the western borders of the
Ukraine until the entire country is liberated.
Is that ‘overreacting’?
Definitely not. The people of Ukraine would be saved from the nationalist, anti-Russian
regime, and the people of Russia would be saved from a NATO base on their western flank.
Hopefully the EU will understand this. As for the US, the Russians have already made up their
minds; the United States is an enemy. There has been a tectonic shift in Russia, and that shift
is the result of Russia’s weariness with the United
States’ proxy assaults.
The US would like to see the Donbas reintegrated into the Ukrainian state because then
they’d be praised as a ‘mighty defender of an East
European country against Russia’. But then Russia would have permanent
low-level war on its border. Either way, Russia’s relations with Europe
would be poisoned and the EU would probably end up buying expensive liquefied gas from the US
rather than instead the much cheaper Russian gas.
Russia’s decision to launch a full-blown attack on the Ukraine has made
the whole plan irrelevant. Putin will not allow it to happen.
The Ukrainians are flexible folks. At present, they submit to anti-Russian
nationalist narrative, but if the Russian army were to come, the Ukrainians would quickly
remember that they were co-founders of the USSR, brothers to Russians, and they would shake off
the nightmarish nationalist rule. The Ukrainians are wonderful people, but they easily adapt to
new rulers, be they the German Wehrmacht, the Polish landlords, the Petlyura Nationalists, or
the Communists. They would adapt to a partnership with Russia, too. Similarly, the Russians
would embrace the Ukrainians as they did in 1920 and in 1945.
Question 3â€" The Russian army would have little problem capturing the
Capitol, but holding on to Kiev might be a different matter altogether.
Let’s say, Russian troops are deployed to Kiev to maintain the peace while a
provisional government is established in the run-up to free elections. What would the US
response be? What would NATO’s response be? How would this maneuver be
portrayed in the western media? Would it be portrayed as a
“liberation†or an “occupation by a ruthless
imperial power� Would this help or hurt Moscow’s relations with
its partners around the world and particularly Germany where Nordstream is still under
construction?
And wouldn’t this scenario prompt the US Intel agencies to arm, train and
fund disparate groups of far-right extremists who would carry out a protracted insurgency
against Russian troops in Kiev? How is that in Russia’s interest? Why would
Putin put himself in the same situation the US put itself in Afghanistan, where a poorly-armed,
ragtag militia has made governance impossible forcing the US to pack-up and leave 20 years
later. Is that what Putin wants?
Israel Shamirâ€"The comparison with Afghanistan is absurd. The Ukraine
is a part of Russia that became independent the moment the Soviet Union collapsed. Ukrainians
are Russians of a sort. They have the same religion, the same language, the same culture, and
the same history. Yes, the CIA did try to arm the Ukrainian insurgency after WWII, but with
little success. You could compare a takeover of Kiev with a takeover of Atlanta by Sherman.
Ukrainian independence and separation probably cannot be reversed right away, but instead of
one big unwieldy state, Ukraine can be transformed into a few coherent independent units.
Western Ukraine is likely to join Poland as an independent or semi-independent state. East and
South Ukraine could become semi-independent under Russian umbrella, or join Russian Federation.
And historical Ukraine around Poltava could try and go its own way. I think the Ukrainians
would be happy to reunite with their mother state, or at least to become friendly with Moscow.
There will be no need to deploy Russian troops in Kiev or elsewhere. There are enough
Ukrainians to govern and control the situation and to deal with remaining extreme
nationalists.
What would the US and NATO response be? How would this maneuver be portrayed in the western
media? Probably the same as their response to Crimea takeover. They will be angry, unhappy,
furious. The problem is they already are. They’ve already imposed sanctions
on Russia and reinstalled the Iron Curtain. They’ve already done everything
short of a military confrontation. Russia is so annoyed by it all, that she is beyond caring
about another bout of sanctions.
I am certain that Russia won’t start a war in the Ukraine, but if Kiev
does, the Russian army will topple the regime just like the US toppled regimes in Afghanistan,
Iraq and many other states. And, any attempt to establish US or NATO military bases in Ukraine
will undoubtedly be seen as casus belli.
Russians think that a big war is unavoidable, so it’s probably better
to have the Ukraine under Moscow’s control before that war breaks out. The
US is an enemy; that is the feeling in Russia. If the US wants to change that perception, it
should act fast .
Question 4â€" Is Washington genuinely interested in the Ukraine or is it
just a staging-ground for its war on Russia??
Israel Shamirâ€" Washington would like to initiate a low-intensity war between
Ukraine and Russia, a long-lasting war that would drain Russian resources and kill Russian
troops; a war that would divert Russia’s attention from other hotspots, like
in Syria or Libya . This is the way in which the US is laying the groundwork for an even
bigger confrontation with Russia in the future.
Putin has accepted the breakup of the USSR. He’s not trying to
reconstruct the Soviet empire nor is he particularly interested in the Ukraine. Twice he
allowed Russia’s enemies to carry Ukraine away: in 2004 and in 2014. He has
showed that he’d prefer to have as little to do with Ukraine as possible.
Being a lawyer by education, Putin has a legal mind. He thought that Minsk Treaties were good
enough a solution for all concerned. (The Minsk Treaty would
“federalize†the Ukraine) He didn’t expect
that Kiev would just ignore the treaties, but that’s what happened. Now
he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. He’s not keen
on annexing any part of Ukraine, but he might be forced to do so sooner or later.
In the last few weeks, US-Russian relations have deteriorated significantly. Russia is
deeply offended by recent developments and will not go back to “business as
usualâ€. We have entered uncharted waters and there is no way to predict what
will happen next.
Question 5â€" No one in the United States benefits from a conflict with
Russia, in fact, a military confrontation with Moscow poses a serious and, perhaps, existential
threat to Russians and Americans alike. Still, the rush to war continues apace, mainly because
the US military â€"with all of its millions of troops and high-tech
weaponryâ€" is in the hands of a foreign policy establishment that is determined to
control the vast resources and growth-potential of Central Asia despite the casualties and
destruction that strategy will undoubtedly cause.
The biggest obstacle to this plan is Russia, which is why â€"since the collapse
of the Soviet Unionâ€" the US and NATO have made every effort to encircle Russia,
deploy missile sites to its borders, conduct hostile military exercises on its perimeter, and
arm and train Islamic extremists to fight in its provinces. (Chechnya) Now that Joe Biden has
been elected president, I would expect the hostilities towards Russia will rapidly intensify in
both Ukraine and Syria. Biden has already shown that he will do whatever he is told to do by
the foreign policy “Borgâ€, which means that war with Russia
might be unavoidable.
Do you agree or disagree with this analysis?
Israel Shamirâ€" There are forces that want to control and direct mankind.
These forces use the US as their enforcer. The Trump-related part of the US elites want the
US to be the main beneficiary of the process. The Biden-related part of the US elites is more
globally-oriented. Russia is ready to adjust to some of their demands (vaccination, climate) in
order to avoid a final showdown. On the other hand, we don’t completely know
what these global elites really want. And why the sense of urgency? Why the lack of concern for
the American people or the Russians or the Europeans? Perhaps Davos is the new center of power
and they are simply upset by Putin’s disobedience?
What we can say for certain is that imperialists always seek world hegemony. Independent
Russia presents a challenge to that plan. Perhaps, western elites think they can bring Russia
into full compliance by brinkmanship and threatening war? Perhaps, what
we’re seeing in the Ukraine is an attempt to browbeat Russia into obedience?
The danger is that they will push things too far and start a war they can neither manage or
contain.
Putin remembers the fate of Saddam and Gadhafi. He’s not going to
throw in the towel and back down. He’s not going to give up or give
in.
To my American readers I’d say that the US is very strong and the people
of the US can have a wonderful life even without world hegemony, in fact, hegemony is not in
their interests at all. What they should seek is a strong nationalist policy that cares for
the American people and avoids wasteful foreign wars.
Bioâ€" Israel Shamir is a writer on international affairs, a radical
political thinker, and a Biblical and Judaic scholar. His comments on current affairs are
published on The Unz Review , and on his own
sites www.israelshamir.net
and www.israelshamir.com . His books
Galilee Flowers , Cabbala of Power , Masters of Discourse are available on
the Amazon… Shamir was a dissident in the USSR and in Israel where he
called for full rights for the Palestinians. He is also a global dissident who calls for the
dismantling the New World Order and the American Empire
NATO forces near Ukraine are there for a showy training exercise. They
don’t have the ammunition or other supplies to fight for more than 48
hours. Moreover, the troops have no interest in an idiotic and suicidal war with Russia. Most
Ukrainian soldiers feel the same way. Ukraine is not part of NATO, and NATO Generals will do
nothing without approval from their own nation, which will not come. There is no Ukraine
crisis, this is just another game to boost military budgets.
Of all the forest folks, the one most zealous in protection of her cubs is Mama Bear. If
there are any adults pulling the strings in the Di$trict of Corruption; they should
understand that elementary bit of geopolitical logic.
Shamir could be correct in assuming that the Kamala’s Foote/Biden
regime, a selected rather than elected governmental administration, being comprised mostly of
poker players, did realize that Putin called their bluff when his foreign affairs and
military people let Washington know, and not in traditional diplomatic language, that those
two American destroyers dispatched to the Black Sea would be sailing in dangerous waters.
They promptly turned tail and headed back westwards. Almost literally, the Russian move was a
traditional shot across the bow.
Nevertheless, Putin’s Russia stands in the way of not only the
world’s greatest potential resource grab, but perhaps also they block
“The Great Resetâ€, signifiying the entire globalist New World
Order agenda as ordered by the West’s ruling Bank$ter crime clans. With
Russia now having developed the world’s most advanced military technology,
training and tactics and with a nonpareil civil defense organization and with China fast
becoming the planet’s most potent economic engine; the Cabal may feel
their horizon to seize full world control is rapidly narrowing. The next several months to
maybe three or four years could be make or break time for their overarching agenda of total
control.
So the wheel’s still in spin, as the 20th Century’s
great Jewish prophet, Bob Dylan sang it out some number of years ago. One of the more
positive aspects of Judaism is that they do produce some amazing prophets, rebels questioning
authority, the lot of them over multiples of centuries.
We are said by some meta-historical observers, to have entered the opening years of the
Age of Aquarius, a 2,600 year era of change, as of December 31, 2012. Perhaps that is another
reason why the Cabal seems to be going for broke in their encroachments on Russia, China,
Iran, Syria and even little Lebanon. The Age of Pisces, with its stolen version of
“Christianityâ€, is fast fading into a past created by Imperial
Rome. Younger people all across the globe are deserting organized religion and its many
dogmas.
Geopoliticallyâ€"militarilyâ€"astute observers tend to agree that
should the puppet regime in Kiev opt to march eastwards, they will get whupped upside the
head by an enraged (but not stupidly so) Mama Bear.
Personally, my own take is that should push come to shove, it is not likely that Russian
forces would attempt to take Kiev or the region around Poltava. Nor would they countenance
the certain headache of advancing on Uniate/Catholic/fascist-dominated Galicia. Their
stopline might actuate, say a hundred kilometers east of the Ukrainian capital. However,
their units might well envelop Odessa and the entire Black Sea coast all the way to the
Transnistria/Moldavia border.
Ukraine would be reduced to rump-state status but would be guaranteed independence and
protection by a Russia-Belorus consortium. The long Polish and then Austro-Hungarian
dominated Galicia would likely seek some form of federation status with Poland and Lithuania.
Chances are that the Kremlin would be happy with that outcome.
The Evil Empire and NATO will huff and puff. Diplomats will get shuffled around. Wiser
heads would consider the speed of the Russian advance and their combat efficiency and decide
to recoup their losses and do what they can to keep Europe in thrall. Time to work on Plan
B.
To my American readers I’d say that the US is very strong and the
people of the US can have a wonderful life even without world hegemony, in fact, hegemony
is not in their interests at all. What they should seek is a strong nationalist policy
that cares for the American people and avoids wasteful foreign wars.
The problem here, is that the American people are crushed and powerless, and in the grip
of something morphing into a Neo-Bolshevik style dictatorship. Similarly to the mid
1930’s this dictatorship wants world power â€" and from this
perspective Ukraine looks more like Spain 1936 (the first act of a much bigger show).
Biden’s recent phone call to Putin suggests that the administration
has decided not to launch a war after all. The unconfirmed report of two US ships turning
away from the Black Sea fits this assessment. However, we cannot be sure about this since
the Kremlin refused to agree to Biden’s offer for a meeting. The
Kremlin’s response was a frosty “We shall study the
proposalâ€. Russians feel that the summit proposal might be a trick aimed at
buying time to strengthen their position.
Except that the US ordered two British warships to go there instead.
TASS, April 18. Two British warships will sail for the Black Sea in May. According to
The Sunday Times, a source in the Royal Navy indicated that this gesture is intended to
show solidarity with Ukraine and NATO in the region against the background of the situation
at the Russian-Ukrainian border.
According to the newspaper, one Type 45 destroyer armed with anti-aircraft missiles and
an anti-submarine Type 23 frigate will peel off from the Royal Navy’s
carrier task group in the Mediterranean and sail through the Bosphorus into the Black
Sea.
It is reported that the decision was made in order to support Ukraine after the US
cancelled its plans of sending two destroyers to the Black Sea in order to avoid further
escalation in the region and tensions with Russia. It is noted that in case of a threat on
the part of Russia, the UK is ready to send other military equipment to the region.
I would guess that the US Trotskyites plan to push the Ukrainians into a war and then
launch a massive international media barrage, “heroic Ukrainian
patriotsâ€, “Russian atrocitiesâ€,
“killer Putin†etc. sufficient to finish with Nord Stream 2
and scare France and Germany back into the US fold.
If this is right, then they’re not expecting Russia to retake the whole
of the Ukraine, and they’re not planning to start WW3.
However, Russia’s lowest risk strategy would probably still be to only
defend their existing positions making it difficult to claim a “Russian
invasionâ€. They’ve probably already lost Nord Stream (which is
really a German loss â€" and the Germans know what the ZioGlob are doing here).
This buys time, and given that the US is already on a fast downward slope, lets them keep
sliding.
The Ukrainians are flexible folks. At present, they submit to anti-Russian nationalist
narrative, but if the Russian army were to come, the Ukrainians would quickly remember that
they were co-founders of the USSR, brothers to Russians, and they would shake off the
nightmarish nationalist rule. The Ukrainians are wonderful people, but they easily adapt to
new rulers, be they the German Wehrmacht, the Polish landlords, the Petlyura Nationalists,
or the Communists. They would adapt to a partnership with Russia, too. Similarly, the
Russians would embrace the Ukrainians as they did in 1920 and in 1945.
Pure idealism.
Do not underestimate the extent to which the experience of independence, the anti-Russian
narrative, billions in remittances from migrant workers in Poland, the massive and entrenched
bribery system involving American politicians, and especially the
“annexation†of Crimea, have stoked nationalist sentiment in
every segment of Ukrainian society, short of those explicitly identifying as Russian.
I have seen Ukrainians from all over that country go as red in the face, and as fast, over
Crimea as Americans about “trans rightsâ€. It is fever-pitch
over there. We tend to look down on their small-nation complex, but at least
it’s about lebensraum and not some degenerate ideology. I assume Moscow
keeps that well in mind.
They may roll over in the end, but it will not be an embrace.
Things have changed a lot over the past 20 years. Governments and media have total control
over populations. For proof, just look at how stupid the population of countries like the UK
and Australia have become. They actually still believe that masks and lockdowns are a good
thing. They believe that they are personally threatened by a virus that hardly kills any
healthy person under the age of 70.
If the Russians get control of the centre of Kiev â€" with its mobile
telephony, TV, radio and websites â€" the game is up. It suffices to send an SMS
to all inhabitants of Kiev to say that they will be shot if they venture outdoors and that
will be the end of the matter. Gradually, shops, transport and businesses can reopen. The
police will have new orders and that will be it. There is no need for Russian troops to
patrol. There will be no ambushes by Nazis. The elite Jews who currently control the place
will panic.
There will be no repeat of Maidan. No one will be able to come by coach from Lvov to
create havoc. Most Nazis will try to pretend that they never had anything to do with it.
The personal links between all individuals is to be found in their mobile phone usage.
Anyone who spoke to Zelensky, Poroshenko etc in the last 12 months could be detained and
investigated. The same is true for their emails. Everyone uses Russian in Kiev. It would be a
cinch for the Russians to go through all the emails electronically.
Freeze all bank accounts and only allow a small withdrawal each week. Pull in all the
international transfers. Find out who has been siphoning money from the state and sending it
abroad. Arrest them.
I could go on, but you get the picture. Almost nothing we do these days is not permanently
recorded in different computer systems.
Arrest and put on trial all those involved in the atrocities in the Donbass over the past
7 years. 13,000 plus people died â€" most of them civilians. Justice must be
pursued. Hold a genuine investigation of the shootings at Maidan and the massacre in Odessa.
Those who tortured the police chief of Mariupol must be exposed and punished.
Good article- Thanks â€" Crimea didn’t need much pushing ,
in order to Vote to go back to Russia â€" they are an Autonomous Republic that
tried to go back in the 90s, but was foiled by Kyiv. Kiev made sure the Crimean Gov. was
always stacked with mafia leaders, and the monies for routine infrastructure, school,
hospital , gov. buildings, etc were pocketed.
Only the areas from Sevastopol to Yalta were kept up by Moscow itself. All the people saw
this â€" we are the size of Vermont.
Elephant in the room ? The Globalists â€" Monsanto/Bayer, Cargill, DuPont, Eli
Lili, and others that own a whole lot of Ukraine, esp. the breadbasket. Even the US Navy
guards the port near Odecca, where they export their grain etc. So, what this past skirmish
did was to move the security armies funding, from the Globalists to the US and EU taxpayer
â€" so to speak. Mr. Shamir touches on this when he speaks about the â€
Borgâ€. Globalist 5 Ukraine 0 .
The US is run by the children , grandchildren of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Russian
looters, the Babylonian Talmud Rabbi pet students, globalist stooges, and thousands of bought
off Americans that work for them. Call them what you wish â€" they are Illuminati,
Freemasons, Zionists, Bankers, Lawyers, Globalists, demented old men, opportunists
â€" many different classes. To most of us tho, they are the defined Enemy and
should be treated this way â€" mentally and physically.
Russians are totally different from todays Americans and that is what will keep Russia
alive. Putin’s personality, patience, and drive is a great example of this
. Shamir is spot on in his opinion of how laid back the Ukies are vs, the straight laced ,
serious Russians .
Churchill’s observation about the USA cannot be more apt,
“The US will do the right thing, after it has done all
others.†Hopefully, that is before nuclear Armageddon is unleashed upon
us.
The MIC would like nothing better than for the Russians to show they mean business.
Whatever it takes to justify even more outrageous military budgets in the future. The
American people will be required to sacrifice more and more because of the
“Russian threatâ€.
@Alfred
utin takes with neighboring peoples, even those Russia has just defeated, annexed, or
supported against some other nation, is characterized by conciliation. This
isn’t the 90’s; Ukraine, even the Donbas, is not
Chechnya.
I don’t believe Ukrainians could be pacified, in the event. Their
mentality has reached a level of blind hatred rivaled only by Jews for any whisper of dissent
from their worldview.
On the other hand, Washington is very much out for blood, as we all know. Whose blood
exactly is unclear, but the cost of retaining their Soros-funded Ukrainian honeypot,
obtaining Central Asian wealth and shoring up the dollar, or whatever the fuck they truly
want, would probably never be too high for others to pay.
Russia has 200,000 troops and heavy equipment on the border. The moment the first shot is
fired Ukie soldiers will be walking into a wall of lead and death. They know it so will the
Ukie gov.
In fact if they ever were crazy enough to launch such an attack they, the Ukie leadership
will almost certainly be signing their death warrants by triggering a military coup.
There’s not many humiliating military losses that don’t
end up in one for the instigators.
The US knows this so is trying a different type of escalation via Navalney hunger strike
and this absurd accusation on the Czech arms dump explosion 7 years ago
@Anonymous
finger and shriek about ‘Russian aggression’ in order
to pressure the Germans into cancelling Nordstream 2 and any other Russian supplied energy.
Of course if the Europeans weren’t run by (((banker))) stooges and if
they had any balls between them they would force the US to call the whole thing off and
pressure the Ukrainian fascists to honour the Minsk 2 agreement. Sadly we are just going to
have to prepare for the worst and hope it doesn’t go nuclear.
I see my own government (I am from the UK) has decided to send some sacrificial ships to
the Black sea (the US apparently doesn’t want to risk theirs) What else
can we expect when 2/3 of our parliament are in ‘Friends of
Israel’ groups?
Think of it like a game of geopolitical poker. About 30 years ago the US found itself with
most of the chips. Russia’s stack had dwindled to a dangerously low level.
China was husbanding its position. Now those other serious players have figured out how to
play to US weaknesses, goading him into high risk, low reward positions.
Like I’ve been saying, China won the post-Cold War quarter century,
hands down. It’s such a Sad Story, it’s been evident
for years there is no price too high to pay in terms of our national interest to cover up the
establishment’s malefactions.
In geopolitics, there’s a nasty tendency for strengths to morph into
weaknesses. That explains these two sober, informed observers â€" interviewer and
interviewee alike â€" struggling to delineate the method to the madness in US
strategy and tactics.
It’s a helluva thing to be the principal moving party in a play that
leaves the only question how big the gains will be for Russia and China, and in what ratio.
Make no mistake, it isn’t coincidental that China is very publicly
pressuring the US in the South China Sea at the moment. The land template has water
implications.
It’s impossible to overstate the deleterious effects of the
“Unipolar Moment†nonsense. Among the less consequential,
unless you want to understand geopolitical events, was that we didn’t have
to think to much about the geo-strategy of other powers. There’s been an
excuse made for all of them, so-called enemies and allies alike. Russia was down and out.
China just wanted to make a lot of washing machines. . . .
My essential point being â€" and we can file it as my suggesting you get ahead
of the curve â€" is that you cease ignoring the objectives of all of these powers.
They are not simply playing defense and, if you’re tempted to think that
they still are, then ask yourself whether that’s what you would do if you
sat in one of those big chairs with the US in such a piss poor condition?
Having succeeded with operation Get Rid Of Trump, as I predicted the payoffs have come
fast and furious. Though not fast enough for the most proactive foreign powers. I knew there
wasn’t much point in trying to figure out what the bargains were since
they would become obvious after they installed “Biden.â€
Beyond, that is, Nord Stream 2, the contours of which were visible in the Navalny
set-piece.
‘To my American readers I’d say that the US is very
strong and the people of the US can have a wonderful life even without world hegemony, in
fact, hegemony is not in their interests at all. What they should seek is a strong
nationalist policy that cares for the American people and avoids wasteful foreign
wars.’
Many Americans have recognized just that … we don’t
seem to be able to defeat our ‘Deep State’. Trump was
elected in large part because his goal was exactly that. He was defeated by the
‘Establishment’, ‘Deep
State’, whatever you want to call it.
I’ve often pointed out that the US does not need an Empire, and in fact
it is only of benefit to our oligarchs. The US does not even need trade. The US is a
continent, it has everything it needs. If anyone wants to talk about oil/energy I would point
out the existence of uranium. By the way, the same is true of Russia. It could exist
perfectly well if it were the only country in the World.
But, we cannot change human nature … there are always the greedy and
power-mad, and they are numerous … any doubts should have been removed by
one word … lockdown.
“He (Putin) didn’t expect that Kiev would just
ignore the treaties, but that’s what happened.â€
I do not think Putin is an idiot, but anyone who believed that the Ukranazis
wouldn’t ignore the Minsk accords, which they signed only as a desperate
attempt to stave off total defeat in 2015 (after being routed at the Battles of Donetsk
Airport and Debaltsevo) is an idiot. This is the first time I have ever heard anyone
suggesting that Putin (or anyone else) expected the Minsk Accord to succeed.
“Consider 2014, after the Ukrainian coup: the lawful Ukrainian
president Mr Yanukovich ran to Russia and asked Putin to help him regain power. At that
time, the Ukrainian army was weak and Russia could have easily retaken the country without
facing any significant resistance.â€
And by not doing so Putin faces a much more difficult job now than in 2014.
In 2014 the Ukranazi military was disintegrating, which is why Russia did not find any
resistance in liberating Crimea. The Ukrainian army basically ceased to exist. Many if not
most of the troops defected to Russia in Crimea. Supporters of
Yanukovych’s Party of the Unions would have openly welcomed a Russian
intervention against the Nazi coup regime. That is why the Ukranazi coup regime picked the
Nazis of Azov, Svoboda and Pravii Sektor to attack the at that time almost defenceless
Novorossiyan people (who remember had to loot weapons from museums, including still working
WWII tanks). Even later by the end of the year the Ukrainian army had to rely on Nazi
“cyborgs†to fight for it. A Russian intervention would still
have been a cakewalk.
Even during the period 2015 to 2019 while Ukranazistan was falling apart
socioeconomically, the military grew relatively cohesive, in the sense that it incorporated
Azov (thus making itself the Ukranazi army) and was no longer self destructing, but it had
still no modern anti tank weapons, no modern drones, and very importantly no NATOstani forces
in the country arming and training it openly (in reality acting as human shields). Now none
of those things are true. They have the Ottoman Bayraktars, the world’s
only combat proven drone, Javelin anti tank missiles, open arming and training and most
importantly open propaganda support from the NATOstanis to an extent not seen since 2014. It
is obvious that Russia does not believe that the Donbass armies can possibly hold off the
Ukranazis even long enough for Russia to transfer forces from further away in the Russian
interior. And from this point on the Ukranazis can only get militarily more powerful. Even if
we believed the oft repeated but as far as I can see unsupported assertion that 50% or more
of their army is comprised of conscripts too demoralised to fight, the Ukranazis are now
renting jihadi headchoppers from Sultan ErdoÄŸan, not the cannon fodder in
Azerbaijan, but Chechens, Daghestanis and Tatars who speak Russian, know the country, and are
a bit tougher than the average child beheading al Qaeda junior partner from Idlibistan. And
don’t forget that they will have the full benefit of NATOstani satellite
intelligence and propaganda and diplomatic support, apart from the NATOstani
“trainers†and “advisors†who
Putin will, if recent history is any guide, go to almost any length to avoid harming, even if
they kill Russians.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that Russia would have had to take on the
economic burden of Ukranazistan in 2014. All Russia would have to do is invade, crush the
Ukranazi coup regime (more likely than not with the enthusiastic support of most of East
Ukraine people), reinstate Yanukovych, and withdraw immediately with a statement that if
there were any more Maidans Russia would be back and this time to stay. No occupation, no
economic burden, just a souped up equivalent of the 2008 Georgia punitive expedition. Instead
Putin’s “restraint†meant:
1. Russia got none of the benefits it would have had by invading: crushing Ukranazism,
massively deterring NATO, avoiding “friends†like India
peeling away, the running expenses of having to maintain troops at the border, to say nothing
of building the Kerch bridge and subsidising the Donbass.
2. It got all the negative effects of invading: sanctions (which turned out a blessing in
disguise, yes, but which should not have been necessary to make Russia’s
economy self reliant anyway), massively increased enmity from its opponents.
3. It got all the negatives of doing nothing: NATOstani planes in Ukranazi airspace, NATO
openly arming and training the Ukranazis, the Ukrainian population becoming more
homogeneously anti Russian.
And now if Russia invades it will have to take over the ruins because there is simply
nobody else. It’s far too late to reinstate Yanukovych and leave.
Meanwhile Putin is apparently planning to address the nation on the 21st. Speculation
includes declaration of hostilities against Ukranazistan and merger of Russia with Belarus.
I’ll wait and see.
She is really bold: "Hobson, who is Black, noted that White men made up about 70% of board seats in the U.S. but only 30% of the
population in pre-2020 data." This one step from trying to examine ethnic composition of Wall Street firms. Not good for Starbucks ;-)
More content below
Anne Riley Moffat
Wed, April 21, 2021, 8:50 PM
+0.40%
More content below
SBUX
(Bloomberg) -- American
companies eschewing diversity in the boardroom risk “committing corporate suicide,†Starbucks Corp.’s Mellody Hobson said,
about a month after taking over as board chair at the coffee giant.
“You can’t be a leading
company in the world and not have a diverse board or have a real agenda around diversity without at some point dying as an
organization,†Hobson said Wednesday evening at a virtual event sponsored by Bowdoin College. “Now it may take a while, but
I do think it will be inevitable.“
All the while, unfriendly moves towards Russia have also continued unabated. Some countries
have taken up an unseemly routine where they pick on Russia for any reason, most often, for
no reason at all. It is some kind of new sport of who shouts the loudest.
In this regard, we behave in an extremely restrained manner, I would even say, modestly,
and I am saying this without irony. Often, we prefer not to respond at all, not just to
unfriendly moves, but even to outright rudeness. We want to maintain good relations with
everyone who participates in the international dialogue. But we see what is happening in
real life. As I said, every now and then they are picking on Russia, for no reason. And of
course, all sorts of petty Tabaquis are running around them like Tabaqui ran around Shere
Khan â€" everything is like in Kipling's book â€" howling along in
order to make their sovereign happy . Kipling was a great writer.
I think VVP is missing a golden opportunity to appoint an unofficial 'freelance' Court
Jester, or 2 or 3. The Court Jester's role would be to answer every childish slur from the
West's Naughty & undisciplined Little Kiddies with an equally insulting and personal slur
against the West's Spokes-Children.
If the West wants to behave like the Louts and Riff-Raff that hang around outside the
Local Saloon in the Wild West, trying to start a fight, it would be fun to encourage them to
push the boundaries. Considering the cornucopia if Silly Stuff the West believes, or pretends
to believe, it shouldn't be difficult to goad them into crossing their own Red Lines.
The Court Jester could start by asking the West to explain, comprehensively, why it wants
to Save Alexi Navalny whilst torturing Julian Assange to death?
Something strange is occurring in the gutter of "liberal comedy"... After four years of constant attacks on anything 'Trumpian'
and constant ignorance of anything 'Left', one man has begun to realize that there is plenty of farce on both sides of the aisle
and virtue-signaling to your cocktail party co-conspirators just doesn't pay the bills anymore (
cough CNN cough ).
Last week, Comedian Bill Maher used his HBO show to highlight some awkward 'facts' and ask some uncomfortable questions about
media and politicians approach to COVID .
This week, he has taken aim at the heart of the problem - American Millennials and Gen Z and their total ignorance of history.
"In India, young people touch old people's feet to show reverence. In Japan, there's a national 'respect for the aged' day.
You know the reason why advertisers in this country love the 18-34 demographic... because it's the most gullible .
A third of people under 35 say they're in favor of abolishing the police ...not defunding, but doing away with a police force
altogether... which is less of a policy position and more of a leg tattoo.
36% of Millennials think it might be a good idea to try Communism... but much of the world did try it... I know most of Millennials
think that doesn't count because they weren't alive when it happened... but it did happen, and there are people around who remember
it. Pining for communism is like pining for BetaMax or MySpace.
So when you say 'you're old, you don't get it', get what? Abolish the police? ...and the Border Patrol? ... and Capitalism?
... and cancel Lincoln?
No, "I get it"... the problem isn't that I don't get what you're saying or that I'm old. The problem is that your ideas are
stupid .
If you say "let's eat in the bathroom and shit in the kitchen" , yeah, that's a new idea, but I wouldn't call it interior design.
You think someone 80 is hopeless because they can’t use an iPhone? Maybe the one who is hopeless is the one who can’t stop
using it .
You think I'm out of it because I'm not on Twitch? Well maybe I 'get Twitch' but I just think people watching other people
play video games is a waste of fucking time .
20% of Gen Z agree with the statement that "society would be better off if all property was owned by the public and managed
by the government" and another 29% say 'they don't know if that's a good idea'...
Here's who does know... anyone who wasn't born yesterday!"
Watch the full monologues here (timestamped to begin at 5:13)
Manthong 8 hours ago (Edited)
You know when Bill Maher is right...
I hate when that happens.
But if you listen to the whole piece, he is shilling for a fool who is wholly owned and he is wrapping truth around deception
and falsity... very crafty.
But that's what they do.
various2 5 hours ago
Billionaires do not allow their direct peasants millionaires to deviate from left-right allocation. If he utters a word of
nationalism, he would be canceled fast.
Billionaires destroy America, and need firmly control over common peasants.
Money printing billionaires bought out all big tech and big media as fast as they become public.
Only Trump was allowed to speak certain limited truths like “China - enemy globalist proxyâ€, “Russia is America’s only
ally on a planetâ€.
But that was an experiment in compromise that billionaires failed.
Macho Latte 4 hours ago (Edited)
Maher is part of the problem, not part of the solution. His salary depends on that. The only reason he has "changed" his tune
is because he got permission to do it or he was told to do it.
DemonRats: The EVIL that lives among us.
Max Hunter 3 hours ago
He didn't change his tune that much, if you watch the first 5 minutes he is drooling all over Biden and shilling the orangeman
bad mantra.
"It's quite stupid to jump in the middle of a highly controversial issue," he told
reporters.
The colorful language from the typically reserved Republican leader shows the dilemma ahead
for the party in the post-Trump era. Many Trump-styled lawmakers are bucking big business and
leaning more heavily into the populist, working-class themes championed by the former president
â€" even as they rely on deep-pocketed business donors to fuel their political
campaigns.
By wading into the debate, McConnell is situating himself in the emerging culture wars on
the opposite side of progressive groups that are pressuring business not to sit by silently on
voting rights, gun violence and other big issues before Congress.
This is sort of like how Chelsea Clinton is thumping for the removal of Tucker Carlson from
Twitter; she doesn't like the back talk, something captured succinctly in this response to her
effrontery:
'Mocking Clinton, journalist Glenn Greenwald simply wrote: "Please remove from the internet
any content that displeases or otherwise causes any discomfort for Chelsea Clinton."'
So, yeah, the same principle applies here. Screw these "whited sepulchres". How I conceive
of them is as follows; those who wish these sepulchres to be venerated take great pains that
they be thickly slathered with an oh so respectable, dissimulating coating of whitewash, but in
reality, as tombs, their genuine function is as repositories for corrupt, rotting meat.
Putin promises 'asymmetrical' response to any threats made against Russia, promises those
provoking Moscow will come to regret it
Russian President Vladimir Putin has given a stern warning to anyone threatening the
national security of Russia, telling officials that those responsible will "regret their
actions like they have never regretted anything before."
IMHO NATO and D.C. need to pull their heads out of their arses, for mankind's sake.
Speaking of "hygiene theater," think of all the billions of dollars of hand sanitizer that
has been sold to prevent people from contracting the virus on surfaces. Which the recent
study shows happens in only 1-in-10,000 cases!
Ah, "never mind" .... but the makers of hand-sanitizer are a thankin' you.
Give Me Some Truth 39 minutes ago
My wife is a high school teacher. It's surprising her elbow hasn't fallen off by now from
all the scrubbing she's done of classroom desks. I guess it was good exercise for her.
Demologos 15 minutes ago
Would have been better to repurpose the alcohol as vodka.
The Tsunami of COVID-19 Bullsh!t and disinformation has Fauci's face on it. Looks like
Anthony "surprise outbreak" Fauci took just 13 months to go full circle from no masks needed
outside https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRa6t_e7dgI to
everyone should wear two masks, to no mask needed outside. The man is a national
embarrassment...
Didn't this twat say just 2 months ago we should be wearing TWO masks?
Krink26 2 hours ago
Unfortunately yes. So wear three masks...
cpt. carptastic 1 hour ago remove link
Have you been outside of your basement lately? There are idiots driving in their car alone
wearing a mask. I see people riding their bikes with masks on, and people walking around my
block wearing a mask.
So yes, plenty of morons still listen to him.
LetThemEatRand 2 hours ago
And the smug Karens who confronted people for failing to wear masks outdoors will go along
without the slightest twinge of regret for having been wrong the whole time. And they will
still be the first to be vocal and certain of the correctness of their next baseless
Karanical instructions to the rest of us.
in4mayshun 1 hour ago
Dictionary Term
KAREN , noun (karanical, karanny, karenish): to direct exacerbation, frustration, or
criticism at a person or persons while in a heightened state of illogical virtue signaling
panic; the disphoria exhibited when victimizing ones self, while projecting unrealistic fears
onto otherwise innocent bystanders, often fueled by the leftard media. 2. a person who is
Gullible; will accept any and all propaganda delivered from "official" channels. 3. An
insult, often labeling a person who overreacts. 4. A form of entertainment for politically
right-leaning persons
beekeeper 2 hours ago remove link
The highest paid employee in the federal government is an idiot. That explains a lot.
Global Hunter 1 hour ago
All the brainwashed Karens in Canada will pretend they didn't see this as it doesn't fit
their agenda. The masks have become part of their identity.
Suzy Q 1 hour ago
Do Canadian Karens have face masks made to match their outfits like Fancy Nancy does?
"Brussels and D.C. started to suspect that Russia doesn't 'want' Ukraine. What Russia
wants is for this country to rot and implode without excrement from this implosion hitting
Russia. West's paying for the clean up of this clusterf**k is also in Russian plans for
Ukrainian Bantustan"
I hate to admit it, but it sounds like Putin's got a plan.
Volkodav 15 hours ago
"The Russians saddle their horses slowly but ride fast".
- Otto von Bismarck
Malkavian 13 hours ago
"God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America." - also
Otto von Bismarck
jusstpassinthru 10 hours ago (Edited)
"The division of the United States into two federations of equal force was decided long
before the civil war by the high financial power of Europe. These bankers were afraid that
the United States, if they remained in one block and as one nation, would attain economical
and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world. The
voice of the Rothschilds predominated. They foresaw the tremendous booty if they could
substitute two feeble democracies, indebted to the financiers, to the vigorous Republic,
confident and self-providing. Therefore they started their emissaries in order to exploit the
question of slavery and thus dig an abyss between the two parts of the Republic." -- Otto von
Bismarck, 1876
Somehow the US public school system left that part out.
" Time flies like an arrow ; fruit flies like a banana" Groucho Marx
Dragon HAwk 19 minutes ago remove link
Takes a long time to sort thru documents deciding which ones are useless and can be
released. come on man give the FBI a break they are on Our Side. /s
uhland62 9 hours ago
Maybe Ghislaine knows?
And why did the sketches of two 'wanted' in Madeleine McCann case resemble the Podesta
brothers?
novictim 10 hours ago
So the FBI determined that the assassin was Jeffrinovich Epsteinokova, who, according to
signal intelligence and bar chatter, subsequently hung himself, destroying all the evidence
with him.
Which was a real shame because they really wanted to get to the bottom of it.
uhland62 9 hours ago
Good idea, but -ovich is the ending for a make and -kova for a female. Nothing is
impossible these days, but it still reads bizarre, even though the direction is
excellent.
"... The élites come to believe their narrative – forgetting that it was conceived as an illusion created to capture the imagination within their society. ..."
"... Harvard Business School ..."
"... "Over the last two decades, I've observed the consequences of our surprising metamorphosis into surveillance empires powered by global architectures of behavioural monitoring, analysis, targeting and prediction – that I have called surveillance capitalism. On the strength of their surveillance capabilities and for the sake of their surveillance profits, the new empires engineered a fundamentally anti-democratic epistemic coup, marked by unprecedented concentrations of knowledge about us and the unaccountable power that accrues to such knowledge." ..."
"... "This is the essence of the epistemic coup. They claim the authority to decide who knows [and] which now vies with democracy over the fundamental rights and principles that will define our social order in this century. Will the growing recognition of this other coup finally force us to reckon with the inconvenient truth that has loomed over the last two decades? We may have democracy, or we may have surveillance society, but we cannot have both. " (Emphasis added). ..."
The élites come to believe their narrative – forgetting that it was
conceived as an illusion created to capture the imagination within their society.
Pat Buchanan is absolutely right – that when it comes to insurrections, history
depends on who writes
the narrative. Usually that falls to the oligarchic class; (should they ultimately prevail.)
Yet, I recall quite a few 'terrorists' who subsequently to were become widely-courted
'statesmen'. So the wheel of passing time turns – and turns about, again.
Of course, fixing a narrative – an unchallengeable reality, that is perceived to be
too secure, too highly invested to fail – does not mean it will not go unchallenged.
There is an old British expression that well describes its' colonial experience of (silent)
challenge to its then dominant 'narrative' (both in Ireland and India inter alia ). It
was known as 'dumb insolence'. That is, when the performance of individual acts of rebellion
are both too costly personally and pointless, that the silent, sourly expression of dumb
contempt for their 'overlords' says it all. It infuriated the British commanding class by its
daily reminder of their legitimacy deficit. Gandhi took it to the heights. And it his narrative
ultimately, that is the one better remembered in history.
With global Big Tech's control of narrative, however, we have entered into an entirely
different order of things, to those early British efforts at keeping down dissidence – as
Harvard Business School Professor Shoshana Zuboff succinctly
notes :
"Over the last two decades, I've observed the consequences of our surprising
metamorphosis into surveillance empires powered by global architectures of behavioural
monitoring, analysis, targeting and prediction – that I have called surveillance
capitalism. On the strength of their surveillance capabilities and for the sake of their
surveillance profits, the new empires engineered a fundamentally anti-democratic epistemic
coup, marked by unprecedented concentrations of knowledge about us and the unaccountable power
that accrues to such knowledge."
Narrative control has now jumped the shark:
"This is the essence of the epistemic coup. They claim the authority to decide who knows
[and] which now vies with democracy over the fundamental rights and principles that will define
our social order in this century. Will the growing recognition of this other coup finally force
us to reckon with the inconvenient truth that has loomed over the last two decades? We may
have democracy, or we may have surveillance society, but we cannot have both. " (Emphasis
added).
This clearly represents a quite different magnitude of 'control' – and when allied
with the West's counter-insurgency techniques of 'terrorist' narrative disruption, honed during
the 'Great War on Terrorism' – is a formidable tool for curbing dissent domestically, as
well as externally.
Yet it has a fundamental weakness.
Quite simply, that being so invested, so immersed, in one particular 'reality', others'
'truths' then will not – cannot – be heard. They do not stand out proud above the
endless flat plain of consensual discourse. They cannot penetrate the hardened shell of a
prevailing narrative bubble, or claim the attention of élites so invested in managing
their
own version of reality .
The 'Big Weakness'? The élites come to believe their own narratives –
forgetting that the narrative was conceived as an illusion, one among others, created to
capture the imagination within their society (not others').
They lose the ability to stand apart, and see themselves – as others see them. They
become so enraptured by the virtue of their version of the world, that they lose all ability to
empathise or accept others' truths. They cannot hear the signals. The point here, is that in
that talking past (and not listening) to other states, the latters' motives and intentions will
be mis-construed – sometimes tragically so.
Examples are legion, but the Biden Administration's perception that time was frozen –
from the moment of Obama's departure from office – and somehow defrosted on 20 January,
just in time for Biden to pick up on that earlier era (as if time was uninterrupted), marks one
example of a belief in one's own meme. Whilst the EU's unfeigned amazement – and anger
– at being described 'as an unreliable partner' by FM Lavrov in Moscow, is just another
example of how élites have become remote from the real world and captive to their own
self-perception.
"America is back" to lead, and 'to set the rules of the road' for the rest of the world, may
be intended to radiate U.S. strength, but rather, it suggests a tenuous grasp of the realities
facing the U.S.: America's relations with Europe and Asia were growing increasingly distant
well before Biden entered the White House – and, therefore, from before Trump's
(purposefully disruptive) term, too.
Why then is the U.S. so consistently in denial about this?
On the one hand, after seven decades of global primacy, there is inevitably a certain inertia
that would hinder any dominant power from registering and assimilating the significant changes
of the recent past. However, for the U.S., another factor helps explain its' 'tin ear': It is
the wider Establishment's fixation on preventing the 2020 presidential election from validating
the previous one's results. That really overrode all else. Nothing else mattered. The focus was
so all-consuming it obscured notice of the world changing – right there – outside
of their windows.
This is not unique to America. It is easy to understand why the EU was so blind-sided by FM
Lavrov's labelling of the EU as 'unreliable partner' (which it patently has been). As former
Greek FM, Yanis Varoufakis has written from his own experience of trying to get the EU to
listen to his detailed summaries and proposals in respect to his country's financial crisis:
'They (the Euro Group) just sat grim-faced, taking not one jot of notice: I might as well have
sung the Swedish national anthem, for all the attention they gave to my contributions',
Varoufakis later related. His experience was standard EU modus operandi. The EU does not do
'negotiation'. Supplicants, whether Greece or Britain, must accept EU values – and its
'club house-rules'.
The High Representative Borrell, arrived with his long list of complaints, culled from 27
states (some of which have a historical list of complaints against Russia). He read the
demands, and no doubt, expected Lavrov, like Varoufakis, to sit quietly, as he accepted the
reprimands – and the 'club rules' appropriate to any aspirant contemplating some sort of
working relationship with the worlds' 'biggest consumer market'. This is the EU culture.
And then, the following infamous press conference at which the EU was called 'unreliable'.
Anyone who has attended a EU decision-making making body, knows the protocol – but let a
former EU high official describe it: The
Council handles Chefsachen – the stuff of high politics, not low regulation
– in closed sessions. At these, van Middelaar can report, all 28 heads of government
(pre-Brexit) call each other by their first names, and may find themselves agreeing to
decisions they had never even imagined beforehand – before emerging together for a
beaming 'family photograph' in front of the cameras of the one thousand reporters assembled to
hear their tidings, whose presence makes 'failure impossible', since every summit (with just
one upsetting exception) ends with a message of common hope and resolve.
Lavrov, like some 'rough-diamond' distant family relative, didn't know to behave in polite
EU society; you don't call the EU names. Oh no!
Varoufakis
explains : "Unlike nation states that emerge as stabilisers of conflicts between social
classes and groups, the EU was created as a cartel with a remit to stabilise the profit margins
of the large, central European corporations. (It began life as the European Coal and Steel
Community). "Seen through this prism, the EU's stubborn faithfulness to failed practices begins
to make sense. Cartels are reasonably good at distributing monopoly profits between oligarchs,
but terrible at distributing losses". We also know that, unlike proper states, cartels will
resist any democratisation or outside input into their tight circle of decision-making.
This incident in Moscow might all be faintly amusing, except for the fact that it underlines
how Brussels' navel-gazing (in a separate way to that of Team Biden), produces a similar
result: It becomes out of touch with the world beyond. It 'listens', but does not hear. The
West's hostile strategy to Russia, as Pepe Escobar has observed in his
strategic analysis of Russia's position, is conditioned on the notion that Russia has nowhere
else to go – and therefore must feel pleased and honoured by the notion of the EU
condescending to push-out an 'octopus tentacle' towards Eurasia. Whereas, now, with the centre
of geo-economic gravity shifting to China and East Asia, it is realistically more a question of
whether the Greater Eurasian heartland, with its 2.2 billion population, feels it worthwhile to
extend its tentacle out towards the rule-bound EU.
This is no small matter: The EU having a hissy-fit over Lavrov's put-down of the EU in
Moscow is one thing. The potential however, for the U.S. to listen, but not hear, on Russia and
China, is quite another. Mis-hearing, mis-conceiving these two states, touches on matters of
war and peace.
...The view from Moscow is very different, fueled by a sense of grievance that the West is
determined to weaken Russia and stoke a pro-democracy "color" revolution to topple Putin. By
this reading, the U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies have repeatedly
betrayed Russia, abandoning missile treaties and expanding ever closer to its borders, since
Putin became the first foreign leader to offer help to Washington after the Sept. 11, 2001
terrorist attacks in the U.S.
"The Kremlin feels in a fortress, under sustained pressure from the U.S. and the West in
general. With its aggressive actions, Russia is trying to deter the U.S., but Washington is
just responding with stronger measures," said Oksana Antonenko, a director at Control Risks in
London. "We are certainly at the most dangerous point since the Soviet Union collapsed."
... ... ...
On Wednesday, the day before Russia announced its troop withdrawal, Putin warned rival
nations not to cross Russia's "red line" in his annual state-of-the-nation speech, saying
pressure on his country had become "a new form of sport." But he also held out an olive branch
of talks on strategic security.
... ... ...
Prosecutors this month asked a Moscow court to declare Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation
and his campaign offices to be extremist organizations, which could subject staff and
volunteers to criminal prosecution and imprisonment. They accused them of plotting to stage a
"color" revolution in Russia on the instructions of unnamed foreign states.
A top Putin ally, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament,
described Navalny as a "tool of American policy" that allowed himself to be used for
interfering in Russia's domestic affairs.
... ... ...
In his call with Biden, Putin raised an alleged plot to stage a coup against Belarusian
President Alexander Lukashenko hatched in consultation with the U.S., according to the Kremlin.
Lukashenko, who's ruled Russia's neighbor and closest ally since 1994, has faced months of
pro-democracy opposition protests since disputed elections last August.
"The practice of organizing coups and planning political assassinations, including of top
officials, that's going too far," Putin said in his annual address. "They've overstepped all
boundaries."
In talks with Lukashenko in Moscow next day, Putin said Russia is tightening military and
security cooperation with Belarus.
... ... ...
Putin insisted in Wednesday's address that "we really don't want to burn bridges" with the
West, before adding that anyone who mistakes Russian intentions for weakness "must know that
Russia's response will be asymmetrical, swift and tough."
Comedian Ryan Long released a now viral video with Danny Polishchuk called "When Wokes and
Racists Actually Agree on Everything," poking fun at the nation's unfolding debates on
race.
The video depicts two friends, Brad and Chad, one "woke" and one "racist," agreeing on very
fundamental parts of their ideologies.
"Your racial identity is the most important thing. Everything should be looked at through
the lens of race," the men say before one of them jinxes another.
Whether it's about privilege, interracial dating, discrimination, segregation of cultures
and arts, appropriation, the two men appear to agree on pretty much everything.
"We both have a lot of opinions about people of color," one of the men quips while the other
nods in agreement.
The end of the video shows the "woke" character claiming that the only disagreement between
the two is that one believes "white people are the root of all evil." The two eventually
resolve the tension by agreeing that Jews should be the subject of their wrath.
"Technically I don't consider Jewish people white," the "woke" character says.
"Neither do I!" the "racist" character interrupts.
... ... ...
Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University
where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.
The Bidet Administration Goes Haywire 3 hours ago (Edited)
We are ruled by wicked, immoral and un-intellectual idiots who are getting far too high on
their own supply
I Write Code 2 hours ago
So Russia claims Donbas, China invades Taiwan, US annexes Greenland, Idaho claims half of
Oregon, and Mexico reclaims California. And Quebec just sits there and stews.
williambanzai7 PREMIUM 2 hours ago
And BLM claims Manhattan...
Jade_Dragon 1 hour ago
My 77 year old mom is as upset as anyone but is also still optimistic. I have other
reasons for spending May and possibly the summer in Mexico (if I get an English teaching job)
but I see little if any reason to come back if things are going well down there. America has
gone psycho. At the very least, I'm afraid the entire country will be run like California
before long
dead hobo 1 hour ago (Edited)
Agree. I'm old and set. My home is paid for and I've lived in it for over 20 years. It's
set up just like I want and a new place would have less going for it. Moving would be highly
disruptive, not to mention expensive.
Yet, I am still considering possibilities. Mexico cartels vs Democrat incited BLM mobs?
Hmm, which is better? Free states in the US offer alternatives. I live in Illinois, soon to
be a California level mess. Belize is English speaking.
The next 2 years or so will tell the tale.
2thelastman 1 hour ago
In two years you could easily see a wall built to keep people IN.
Five million people in this country die of natural causes every year. Some of them happened
to have Covid when they passed. You might just as well say they died of tooth decay.
With
rioting continuing in Brooklyn Center , Minn. and around the country, Rep. Maxine Waters,
D-CA, went to Minnesota and told the protesters that they "gotta stay on the street" and "
get more confrontational ." The statement is ironic since Waters is one of the House
members currently suing former President Donald Trump and others for inciting violence on
January 6th with his words on the Mall. Waters insists that Trump telling his supporters to go
to the Capitol to make their voice heard and "fight" for their votes was actual criminal
incitement. Conversely, Waters was speaking after multiple nights of rioting and looting and
telling protesters to stay on the streets and get even more confrontational. There was violence
after the remarks, including a shooting incident where two National Guard members were
injured.
... ... ...
After Waters remarks,
protesters confronted reporters in a tense scene. Also protesters descended upon the home
of the prosecutor responsible for the second degree manslaughter charge against the officer who
killed Daunte Wright. Also the
Minnesota National Guard was fired upon , injuring at least two Guardsman. That is not to
say that Water incited such actions but that the same claimed nexus could be raised in making
such an allegation as was done in the Trump impeachment.
Carl Jung once said that "Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an
understanding of ourselves". That certainly seems to be the case with Waters and Trump. It is
also why Waters could prove the only witness that Trump needs to call to defeat her own
lawsuit.
bshirley1968 3 minutes ago
bshirley1968 3 minutes ago
"Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg cares so much about the environment that he
decided to ride a bicycle to work at least the last two blocks.
He was caught unloading a bicycle from a black SUV a short distance from the White House
so he could finish his ride to the cabinet meeting on bike. Such a great photo
opportunity.
Security followed in the SUV.
Perfect example of everything coming out of DC. Everything is a narrative supported by some
kabuki theater.
"" Lord, if it be your will, harden my heart. Stop me from striving to see the best in
people. Stop me from being hopeful that White people can do and be better."
I wonder if this sick woman has any idea, how many good people trapped in the violence of
hoods...could feel exactly the same way about blacks?
Justifiably...
Liesel 24 minutes ago
Dear God, please help me to stop spending money on Amazon and doing Google searches...
Liesel 27 minutes ago (Edited)
If we refuse to spend money at all these businesses that are "woke", there would literally
be no place left to shop. It's really getting that bad. However, please remember the powers
that be want people divided and hating each other. In their eyes, people who are united are
the most dangerous them.
Darth-Budice 34 minutes ago
Been 7 years since I stepped foot into a Target.
If they think 13% of the population + the soy-infused can support them...
I have a different take on this. The US should move to take back Cuba. Let Russia have
Ukraine, we take back Cuba. After Cuba take back Venezuela. Then Russia and China have no
ports in the Americas. Much bigger win for the US.
permanent victim 1 hour ago
Take back?
libfrog88 56 minutes ago
That is the usual word for Americans for stealing.
"Our education and health issues come together in this alarming statistic: Seventy percent
of today's youth (ages 17-24) are not eligible for military service , essentially due to a
lack of proper education (basic reading and writing skills) or health issues (commonly
obesity or diabetes)."
When you have no standards, SJW everyone is equal, then you have ****ty results.
5G-Powered Nanobots 3 hours ago
Good. Lets cut "defense" by 25% a year for the next 10 years
Clockwork Orange is complete, unbelievable nonsense. Our current leaders would not have
cured Alex, they would have appointed him an Ambassadorship to Syria or made him Vice
President, perhaps even given him a shot at Prime Minister or President one day.
Yes, but on condition that the 'Alexes' play the game. Deep State is full of sociopaths but
they spent their years in elite schools, not stealing cars and invading homes. Go to school,
get your degree, and then you can invade entire nations and kill many more people. Turk 152 says:
April 2, 2021 at 9:33
pm GMT • 4.8 days ago ↑ @Priss Factor
I suppose it is pretty tough these days to be a mass murderer on a global scale without
Harvard or Yale on your resume. In the old days, Truman was able to drop 2 atomic bombs and
firebomb Dresden with merely a degree from Spalding's Commercial College.
Other that that this ilist is just another sign of the crisi of neoliberlaism in the USA
and elsewhere. That why neoliberal elite badly needs a scapegoat to avoid the possibility to
be hanging from lampposts. The high level of hate toward neoliberal elite( parcially
redirected by "woke" movement toward whites ) and the loss of legitimacy is not
undeniable.
...Bryan MacDonald's thread is a good opportunity to update our list of all the issues,
ideas and things Russia has weaponized.
Even while the list below now includes 111 entries - like robotic cockroaches,
postmodernism and 14-legged squids - it is likely far from being complete:
I am deeply troubled that you conveniently neglected to include another fearsome Russian
Super-Dooper Weapon: the children's cartoon Masha and the Bear .
It's obvious that Masha and the Bear is a nefarious Russian plot to steal the precious
bodily fluids of our children!
We must be constantly vigilant. The CIA, FBI, MI6, NSA, and Homeland Security must be
notified about the Masha Threat. YouTube must censor Masha. And blue check-marked Twitter
police must condemn anyone who watches Masha.
This one didn't have the word 'weaponize', close though: "opening a new front in its spy
battles".
accusing the Kremlin of opening a new front in its spy battles with the West amid the
worldwide competition to contain the pandemic.
...
American intelligence officials said the Russians were aiming to steal research to
develop their own vaccine more quickly, not to sabotage other countries' efforts. There was
likely little immediate damage to global public health, cybersecurity experts said.
The U.S. media is weaponizing ignorance. The more one absorbs their reporting, the more
the brain is reduced to mush.
I can only manage a few hundred works and I become irritated and disoriented. My hat is
off to people who can somehow look at that stuff and remain sane. Or are they...hmmm...
"... Do Mr. Biden and his people claim that the dogmatic and occasionally hysterical certitude of the woke is sufficient warrant to turn the country upside down? ..."
"... If the 2020 election meant anything, it confirmed the irreconcilable differences -- a standoff of the cobra and mongoose. The election certainly didn't give Mr. Biden marching orders from the American people to open the southern border to all comers, or to redesign the natural order of biology (in regard to gender identity and all the social arrangements that have flowed from the difference between the sexes since time immemorial), or to change the country in a hundred other ways, bundling it off on an expedition to the far left fringes of reality and grievance. What the new administration proposes may be less a transformation than a hijacking. Half the country doesn't want to be reinvented -- not on Mr. Biden's terms. ..."
"... He and his people have gone into business with a bogus, echo-chamber mandate: They manipulate a media illusion of unanimity, and presume to impose a moral narrative. The Bolsheviks, a tiny but ferociously focused minority, proceeded in this way in 1917. ..."
While Trump was rejected by electorate (Biden got 7 million votes more -- mainly in costal
states and large cities), Biden was elected only because of extention of mail-in voting and
because he was not Trump. Now people regret their choice, while main-in voting "irregularities"
deprive Biden administration of the legitimacy. Moreover due to Biden neocon foreign policy and
pandering to woke Bolsheviks, many people have "post-election remorse," But in two-party system
you can do nothing about it: the train already left the station.
Now the Biden administration, headed by a man a few years too old to be a boomer, entertains
ambitions to take a great leap forward. But wait. Does a transformation require a mandate? By
what mandate does the Biden administration undertake the work of irrevocably altering American
society? Do Mr. Biden and his people claim that the dogmatic and occasionally hysterical
certitude of the woke is sufficient warrant to turn the country upside down?
There was no mandate in the outcome of the last election. November 2020 merely confirmed
that the U.S. remains split precisely down the middle, 50-50, as it has been for more than 20
years, since the deadlock of Al Gore and George W. Bush and the hanging chads of Florida.
If the 2020 election meant anything, it confirmed the irreconcilable differences -- a
standoff of the cobra and mongoose. The election certainly didn't give Mr. Biden marching
orders from the American people to open the southern border to all comers, or to redesign the
natural order of biology (in regard to gender identity and all the social arrangements that
have flowed from the difference between the sexes since time immemorial), or to change the
country in a hundred other ways, bundling it off on an expedition to the far left fringes of
reality and grievance. What the new administration proposes may be less a transformation than a
hijacking. Half the country doesn't want to be reinvented -- not on Mr. Biden's terms.
He and his people have gone into business with a bogus, echo-chamber mandate: They
manipulate a media illusion of unanimity, and presume to impose a moral narrative. The
Bolsheviks, a tiny but ferociously focused minority, proceeded in this way in 1917.
... ... ...
Mr. Morrow is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His latest book
is "God and Mammon: Chronicles of American Money."
Peter Von Nessi SUBSCRIBER 29 minutes ago "A man of his age --
fearing that he may amount to nothing more than the great Obama's onetime sidekick -- is apt to
react to the surprise of waking up in the White House by pandering to the flashiest ideas of
the young people and their hero Bernie Sanders. Mr. Biden can, for a moment, forestall death if
he veers way left and makes his mark, however chaotically."
I think the author gives too much credit to Biden and not his handlers. After all Pinocchio
was made of wood. When was the last time you saw a piece of wood think....about anything? SHOW
MORE REPLIES
N Neil Steinhoff SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago Joe did not know which state he was in, what office
he was running for and said 150 million Americans have died of Covid Here is an update from
Joe. "I have been in government for 180 years". "I wake up every morning, look at Jill, and say
'where the he- are we?'" on February 17, 2021. What could possibly go wrong? Greg Caldwell SUBSCRIBER 58 minutes ago (Edited) Mr. Ferrara: Many
people voted for Joe's ideas because he claimed to be more of a centrist while he was running
for office. I know of quite a few people who voted for Joe (1) because he wasn't Trump, and;
(2) he claimed he would govern from the middle-left.
Those people are now saying they didn't vote for anything he has done to the jobs, to
energy, nor do they buy his lies about Covid Relief (only 9% of over $1.9T actually went to
Covid); the Infrastructure bill (of which only 7% actually has anything to do with our
infrastructure); or, finally the repeated outright lies about the Georgian Voting Law. People
who voted for him are paying attention and many are not happy.
Like thumb_up Reply reply Share link Report
flag
M Melissa Firestone SUBSCRIBER 49 minutes ago Vote counting continued on and on in pivotal
states in 2020. That's why 2016 was so different than 2020. And in 2020, pivotal states were
decided by less than 21,000 votes - WI, AZ, and GA. And PA and MI were more competitive than
the polls showed going into election night. Votes continued to be counted days after the
election and as we know in some cases weeks. That's why this wasn't a mandate for Biden. It was
a rejection of Trump by the marginal voter - the ones who in tight elections determine
outcomes. The same was true for Trump when he won - Hillary was so hated by so many voting
blocks the Republicans could have run any of their potential nominees and would have won.
G George Nesterenko SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago Claiming the WH, and both chambers of Congress
is, in deed a mandate.
The only measure by which the election was 'close' was the electoral college. By the number
of.. you know... actual people... there was no, and is no contest. That's is also, indeed, a
mandate.
And as demographics shift, the mandate deepens. Which is why the GOP is so adamant against
preventing a DC or Puerto Rico statehood. An unpopular, shrinking minority is desperately
holding on to any iota of power. Not 'half the country', as Mr. Morrow repeats on several
occasions.
A national rebirth is desperately needed. Although I doubt it will happen under Biden, we
can at least get on our way.
"... The adjectives used in the FAZ to describe Putin had overwhelmingly negative connotations, including: threatening, rough, aggressive, confrontational, anti-westem, power-political, untruthful, cool, calculated, cynical, harsh, abrasive, non-substantive (arguments) and implausible (arguments). ..."
"... The words used to describe Obama had a completely different tone: committed, fanatically welcomed, enthusiastic, conciliatory, praised, hopeful and resolute ..."
"... The former FAZ Washington correspondent Matthias Rub wrote the adulation to US President Bush cited above shortly before the Iraq War began in 2003, in violation of international law. One year later he received the Arthur F. Bums Award for a different article. The Arthur F. Bums Award is presented by Germany's Foreign Minister. So, who selects the winners today? ..."
An interesting undergraduate thesis from Munich put together a list of the adjectives and
adverbs used in select articles about Obama (USA) and Putin (Russia) in the Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung between 2000 and 2012.
The words selected were ones that implied a value judgement in their description of Obama or
Putin. The adjectives used in the FAZ to describe Putin had overwhelmingly negative
connotations, including: threatening, rough, aggressive, confrontational, anti-westem,
power-political, untruthful, cool, calculated, cynical, harsh, abrasive, non-substantive
(arguments) and implausible (arguments).
The words used to describe Obama had a completely different tone: committed, fanatically
welcomed, enthusiastic, conciliatory, praised, hopeful and resolute :' In plain language:
The reporting in the once renowned FAZ newspaper is definitely not neutral, independent,
unbiased nor objective these days. So where is this bias coming from? Does this style of
reporting possibly have anything to do with the closeness that the FAZ's writers have to
certain elites and powerful circles? In the following chapters, we won't only be considering
the FAZ when it comes to this question. We will also look into why the mainstream media doesn't
even want you to imply that they're close to the elite.
Chapter one, scene two: A few years ago, the reporter Thomas Leif painted a rather
conspiratorial picture in the ARD television documentary Strippenzieher und Hinterzimmer
(Puppet Masters and Back Rooms). In it, journalists, ministers and party officials appeared to
all be sitting in the same boat, isolated from the common folk and getting along like
gangbustcrs. Viewers got to see how politics is made in secret meetings behind the scenes. The
film was about a corrupt world of cozy connections.4 What was being shown, however, wasn't a
conspiracy theory.
The film was controversial, because die people being shown in it were the perpetrators. They
thought that this form of corruption was completely normal. The journalists portrayed in the
documentary took it as an affront when they were simply asked about these secret networks
operating in the background.
... ... ...
The manipulation of the readers has been noticeable at the FAZ for many years. Dr. Heinz
Loquai gave a famous speech in 2003 where he said the following about the FAZ:
We learn from the FAZ's Washington correspondents that, among other things, Bush
studies the bible every day, prays regularly and bases his actions on the question, "What
would Jesus do?" The president is a "paragon of modesty and close to his people." There may
be "an arrogant bone or two in Bush's body," but he is "a man of love." His "portion of
missionary fervor" is "softened by statesmanlike prudence," through "patient waiting," the
"natural political talent's decision" has been "expressed." Although Bush may know that he is
not an intellectual, he can rely on "his political instinct, his wisdom and his natural
wit."
So (...) lectured, we can continue to count on the judgement and objectivity of leading
German daily and weekly newspapers' America correspondents! Embedded with the allied troops,
embedded in the political-media network in Washington - what's the difference? 16
The former FAZ Washington correspondent Matthias Rub wrote the adulation to US President
Bush cited above shortly before the Iraq War began in 2003, in violation of international law.
One year later he received the Arthur F. Bums Award for a different article. The Arthur F. Bums
Award is presented by Germany's Foreign Minister. So, who selects the winners today? The
jury includes, for example, the journalists Sabine Christiansen and Stefan Kornclius
(Sflddeutsche Zeitung).17 Keep these names in the mind. We will come across them and their
interesting connections quite often.
In truth, the West has a very long list of reasons for which to hate Putin and everything
Russian, but I believe that there is one reason which trumps them all: the western leaders
sincerely believed that they had defeated the USSR in the Cold War (even medals were
made to commemorate this event) and following the collapse of the former superpower and the
coming to power of a clueless, alcoholic puppet, the triumph of the West was total. At least in
appearance. The reality, as always, was much more complicated.
The causes and mechanisms of the collapse of the Soviet Union are not our topic today, so I
will just indicate that I believe that the USSR never "collapsed" but that it was deliberately
destroyed by the CPSU apparatus which decided to break up the country in order for the Party
and Nomenklatura to remain in power, not at the helm of the USSR, but at the helm of the
various ex-Soviet republics. Weak leaders and ideologies which nobody really believes in do not
inspire people to fight for their rulers. This is why the Russian monarchy collapsed, this is
why the masonic democracy of Kerenskii collapsed and this is why the Soviet Union collapsed
(this is also one of the most likely reasons for the final collapse of the US as a state).
Putin, who was not very well known in the West or, for that matter, in Russia, came to power
and immediately reversed Russia's course towards the abyss. First, he dealt with the two most
urgent threats, the oligarchs and the Wahabi insurrection in the Caucasus. Many Russians,
including myself, were absolutely amazed at the speed and determination of his actions. As a
result, Putin suddenly found himself one of the most popular leaders in Russian history.
Initially, the West went into a kind of shock, then through a process reminiscent of the
so-called " Kübler-Ross model " and,
finally, the West settled into a russophobic frenzy not seen since the Nazi regime in Germany
during WWII.
In this sequence, Russia committed two very different types of "crimes" (from the
AngloZionist point of view, of course):
The minor crime of doing what Russia actually did
and The much bigger crime of never asking the Empire for the permission to do so
The West likes to treat the rest of the planet like some kind of junior partner, with very
limited autonomy and almost no real agency (the best example is what the USA did to countries
like Poland or Bulgaria). If and when any such "junior" country wants to do something in its
foreign policy, it absolutely has to ask for permission from its AngloZionist Big Brother. Not
doing so is something akin to sedition and revolt. In the past, many countries were "punished"
for daring to have an opinion or, even more so, for daring to act on it.
It would not be inaccurate to summarize it all by saying that Putin flipped his finger to
the Empire and its leaders. That "crime of crimes" was what really triggered the current
anti-Russian hysteria. Soon, however, the (mostly clueless) leaders of the Empire ran into an
extremely frustrating problem: while the russophobic hysteria did get a lot of traction in the
West, in Russia it created a very powerful blowback because of a typical Putin "judo" move: far
from trying to suppress the anti-Russian propaganda of the West, the Kremlin used its power to
make it widely available (in Russian!) through the Russian media (I wrote about this in some
detail here and here ).
The direct result of this was two fold: first, the CIA/MI6 run "opposition" began to be
strongly associated with the russophobic enemies of Russia and, second, the Russian general
public further rallied around Putin and his unyielding stance. In other words, calling Putin a
dictator and, of course, a "new Hitler", the western PSYOPs gained some limited advantage in
the western public opinion, but totally shot itself in the leg with the Russian public.
I refer to this stage as the " phase one anti-Putin strategic PSYOP ". As for the
outcome of this PSYOP, I would not only say that it almost completely failed, but I think that
it had the exact opposite intended effect inside Russia.
A change of course was urgently needed.
The redirection of US PSYOPs against Putin and Russia
I have to admit that I have a very low opinion of the US intelligence community, including
its analysts. But even the rather dull US "Russia area specialist" eventually figured out that
telling the Russian public opinion that Putin was a "dictator" or a "killer of dissidents" or a
"chemical poisoner of exiles" resulted in a typically Russian mix of laughter and support for
the Kremlin. Something had to be done.
So some smart ass somewhere in some basement came up with the following idea: it makes no
sense to accuse Putin of things which make him popular at home, so let's come up with a new
list of accusations carefully tailored to the Russian public.
Let's call this a " phase two anti-Putin PSYOP operation ".
And this is how the "Putin is in cahoots with" thing began. Specifically, these accusations
were deployed by the US PSYOPs and those in its pay:
Putin is disarming Syria Putin will
sell out the Donbass Putin is a puppet of Israel and, specifically, Netanyahu Putin is a
corrupt traitor to the Russian national interests Putin is allowing Israel to bomb Syria (see
here )
Putin is selling the Siberian riches to China and/or Putin is subjugating Russia to China Putin
is corrupt, weak and even cowardly Putin was defeated by Erdogan in the Nagorno-Karabakh war
The above are the main talking points immediately endorsed and executed by the US strategic
PSYOPs against Russia.
Was it effective?
Yes, to some degree. For one thing, these "anti-Russian PSYOPS reloaded" were immediately
picked up by at least part of what one could call the "internal patriotic opposition" (much of
it very sincerely and without any awareness of being skillfully manipulated). Even more toxic
was the emergence of a rather loud neo-Communist (or, as Ruslan Ostashko often calls them
"emo-Marxist") movement (I personally refer to as a sixth
column ) which began an internal anti-Kremlin propaganda campaign centered on the
following themes:
"All is lost" (
всепропальщики
): that is thesis which says that nothing in Russia is right, everything is either wrong or
evil, the country is collapsing, so is its economy, its science, its military, etc. etc. etc.
This is just a garden variety of defeatism, nothing more. "Nothing was achieved since Putin
came to power": this is a weird one, since it takes an absolutely spectacular amount of mental
gymnastics to not see that Putin literally saved Russia from total destruction. This stance
also completely fails to explain why Putin is so hated by the Empire (if Putin did everything
wrong, like, say Eltsin did, he would be adored in the West, not hated!). All the elections in
Russia were stolen. Here the 5th (CIA/MI6 run) column and 6th column have to agree: according
to both of them, there is absolutely no way most Russians supported Putin for so many years and
there is no way they support him now. And nevermind the fact that the vast majority of polls
show that Putin was, and still is, the most popular political figure in Russia.
Finally, the big SNAFU with the pension reform definitely did not help Putin's ratings, so
he had to take action: he "softened" some of the worst provisions of this reform and,
eventually, he successfully sidelined some of the worst Atlantic Integrationists, including
Medvedev himself.
Sadly, some putatively pro-Russian websites, blogs and individuals showed their true face
when they jumped on the bandwagon of this 2nd strategic PSYOP campaign, probably with the hope
to either become more noticed, or get some funding, or both. Hence, all the nonsense about
Russia and Israel working together or Putin "selling out" we have seen so many times recently.
The worst thing here is that these websites, blogs and individuals have seriously misled and
distressed some of the best real friends of Russia in the West.
None of these guys ever address a very simple question: if Putin is such a sellout, and if
all is lost, why does the AngloZionist Empire hate Putin so much? In almost 1000 years of
warfare (spiritual, cultural, political, economic and military) against Russia, the leaders of
the West have always hated real Russian patriots and they have always loved the (alas, many)
traitors to Russia. And now, they hate Putin because he is such a terrible leader?
This makes absolutely no sense.
Conclusion: is a war inevitable now?
The US/NATO don't engage in strategic PYSOPs just because they like or dislike somebody. The
main purpose of such PSYOPs is to break the other side's will to resist . This was also
the main objective of both (phase one and phase two) anti-Putin PSYOPs. I am happy to report
that both phases of these PYSOPs failed. The danger here is that these failures have failed to
convince the leaders of the Empire of the need to urgently change course and accept the
"Russian reality", even if they don't like it.
Ever since "Biden" (the "collective Biden", of course, not the potted plant) Administration
(illegally) seized power, what we saw was a sharp escalation of anti-Russian statements. Hence,
the latest " uhu, he is a killer " -- this was no mistake by a senile mind, this was a
carefully prepared
declaration. Even worse, the Empire has not limited itself to just words, it also did some
important "body moves" to signal its determination to seek even further confrontation with
Russia:
There has been a lot of sabre-rattling coming from the West, mostly some rather
ill-advsied (or even outright stupid) military maneuvers near/along the Russian border. As I
have explained it a billion times, these maneuvers are self-defeating from a military point of
view (the closer to the Russian border, the more dangerous for the western military
force). Politically, however, they are extremely provocative and, therefore, dangerous. The
vast majority of Russian analysts do not believe that the US/NATO will openly attack Russia, if
only because that would be suicidal (the current military balance in Europe is strongly in
Russia's favor, even without using hypersonic weapons). What many of them now fear is that
"Biden" will unleash the Ukronazi forces against the Donbass, thereby "punishing" both the
Ukraine and Russia (the former for its role in the US presidential campaign). I tend to agree
with both of these statements.
At the end of the day, the AngloZionist Empire was always racist at its core, and that
empire is still racist : for its leaders, the Ukrainian people are just cannon fodder, an
irrelevant third rate nation with no agency which has outlived its utility (US analysts do
understand that the US plan for the Ukraine has ended in yet another spectacular faceplant such
delusional plans always end up with, even if they don't say so publicly). So why not launch
these people into a suicidal war against not only the LDNR but also Russia herself? Sure,
Russia will quickly and decisively win the military war, but politically it will be a PR
disaster for Russia as the "democratic West" will always blame Russia, even when she clearly
did not attack first (as was the case in 08.08.08, most recently).
I have already written about
the absolutely disastrous situation of the Ukraine three weeks ago so I won't repeat it
all here, I will just say that since that day things have gotten even much worse: suffice to
say that the Ukraine has moved a lot of heavy armor to the line of contact while the regime in
Kiev has now banned the import of Russian toilet paper (which tells you what the ruling gang
thinks of as important and much needed measures). While it is true that the Ukraine has become
a totally failed state since the Neo-Nazi coup, there is now a clear acceleration of the
collapse of not only the regime or state, but of the country as a whole. Ukraine is falling
apart so fast that one could start an entire website tracking only all this developing horror,
not day by day, but, hour by hour. Suffice to say that "Ze" has turned out to be even worse
than Poroshenko. The only thing Poroshenko did which "Ze" has not (yet!) is to start a war.
Other than that, the rest of what he did (by action or inaction) can only be qualified as "more
of the same, only worse".
Can a war be prevented?
I don't know. Putin gave the Ukronazis a very stern warning (" grave consequences for Ukraine's statehood as such ").
I don't believe for one second that anybody in power in Kiev gives a damn about the Ukraine or
the Ukrainian statehood, but they are smart enough to realize that a Russian counter-attack in
defense of the LDNR and, even more so, Crimea, might include precision "counter-leadership"
strikes with advanced missiles. The Ukronazi leaders would be well-advised to realize that they
all have a crosshair painted on their heads. They might also think about this: what happened to
every single Wahabi gang leader in Chechnya since the end of the 2nd Chechen war? (hint: they
were all found and executed). Will that be enough to stop them?
Maybe. Let's hope so.
But we must now keep in mind that for the foreseeable future there are only two options left
for the Ukraine: " a horrible ending or a horror without end " (Russian
expression).
The best scenario for the people of the Ukraine would be a (hopefully
relatively peaceful) breakup of the country
into manageable parts . The worst option would definitely be a full-scale war against
Russia.
Judging by the rhetoric coming out of Kiev these days, most Ukrainian politicians are firmly
behind option #2, especially since that is also the only option acceptable to their overseas
masters. The Ukrainians have also adopted a new military doctrine (they call it a "military
security strategy of Ukraine") which declares Russia the aggressor state and military adversary
of the Ukraine (see here for a machine translation of the official text).
This might be the reason why Merkel and Macron recently had a videoconference with Putin
("Ze" was not invited): Putin might be trying to convince Merkel and Macron that such a war
would be a disaster for Europe. In the meantime, Russia is rapidly reinforcing her forces along
the Ukrainian border, including in Crimea.
But all these measures can only deter a regime which has no agency. The outcome shall be
decided in Washington DC, not Kiev. I am afraid that the traditional sense of total impunity of
US political leaders will, once again, give them a sense of very little risk (for them
personally or for the USA) in triggering a war in the Ukraine. The latest news on the
US-Ukrainian front is the delivery by the USN of 350 tonnes of military equipment in Odessa.
Not enough to be militarily significant, but more than enough to further egg on the regime in
Kiev to an attack on the Donbass and/or Crimea.
In fact, I would not even put it past "Biden" to launch an attack on Iran while the world
watches the Ukraine and Russia go to war. After all, the other country whose geostrategic
position has been severely degraded since Russia moved her forces to Syria is Israel, the one
country which all US politicians will serve faithfully and irrespective of any costs (including
human costs for the USA). The Israelis have been demanding a war on Iran since at least 2007,
and it would be very naive to hope that they won't eventually get their way. Last, but not
least, there is the crisis which Blinken's condescending chutzpah triggered with China which,
so far, has resulted in an economic war only, but which might also escalate at any moment,
especially considering all the many recent anti-Chinese provocations by the US Navy.
Right now the weather in the eastern Ukraine is not conducive to offensive military
operations. The snow is still melting, creating very difficult and muddy road conditions
(called " rasputitsa " in Russian) which greatly inhibit the movement of forces and
troops. These conditions will, however, change with the warmer season coming, at which point
the Ukronazi forces will be ideally poised for an attack.
In other words, barring some major development, we might be only weeks away from a major
war.
We must not forget President Putin's outrageous opinion piece in the New York Times of
September 11th 2013: delivered at the same time as he had the impertinence to propose
the voluntary relinquishment of all chemical weapons by Syria -- thwarting the traditional
wholesale bombing campaign that the "Allies" were working up to. This was an unforgivable
affront to the USA -- and to Obama in particular; who had only just invoked his "red line".
It made him look ridiculous -- and a man in his position can't afford to look ridiculous.
This behaviour by Mr. Putin has never been forgotten or forgiven and it will be quite a
while before the New York Times prints another oped by him.
Russia was "back": in 2013 Russia stopped the planned US/NATO attack on Syria (the
pretext here was Syrian chemical weapons). In 2014 Russia gave her support to the
Novorussian uprising against the Ukronazi regime in Kiev and, in the same year, Russia also
used her military to make it possible for the local population to vote on a referendum to
join Russia. Finally, in 2015, Russia stunned the West with an extremely effective military
intervention in Syria.
Don't forget what Russia did the Georgia's American trained and supplied military in
2009.
This was an unforgivable affront to the USA -- and to Obama in particular; who had only
just invoked his "red line". It made him look ridiculous -- and a man in his position can't
afford to look ridiculous.
Excellent observation.
To deal with contemporary western elites is, to a great extent, to deal with Satan
himself. The devil- and presumably, his minions- does not mind confrontation or opposition
anywhere as much as he hates being the object of derision.
"The devil the prowde spirite cannot endure to be mocked." -- St. Thomas More
"why does the AngloZionist Empire hate Putin so much?"
I have an explanation, but that would tend to get me labelled a "sixth columnist".
It is obvious to anyone who does not believe that Putin is the Saviour Of Russia, but just
a neoliberal politician who is moderately better than Yeltsin, and whose real alternatives,
not Quislings like Navalny but real alternatives, are all far more nationalist and not
beholden to international capital than he is. Since the 90s are now over, and the attempt to
destroy Russia has failed, how does one ensure that the country does not become even stronger
and, crucially, more assertive?
One possible answer is interesting: keep demonising the man in power, *even though you
know that demonising him hardens support behind him*. Especially since it hardens support
behind him. As long as you keep attacking him, the Russian people support him more, making it
less likely for someone who would be more nationalist and less neoliberal to take charge.
I've come to think that the whole "Putin the Devil" thing is pushed so hard by the
corporate-communist-left (aside: I do struggle these days with what to call them) mostly as a
distraction. "Hey! Look over there! A BAD MAN!" (and pay no mind to what I'm doing over here,
flooding the country with replacements, thrashing the constitution, coming up with vaccine
passports and enabling a totalitarian technocracy).
In fact, it's a necessary hallmark of ALL totalitarian leftist regimes to have a huge
"outside enemy" who threatens the very existence of the state and is used to distract from
domestic troubles. Try to find a single totalitarian state without one.
So the U.S. has everything to gain and little to lose (Biden gov thinks anyways) by
goading Ukraine into "taking back Crimea." The U.S. is committed to fight that war down the
very last Ukrainian.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced this week that the country's National
Security and Defense Council had approved a strategy that is aimed at retaking Crimea and
reintegrating the strategically important peninsula.
Christopher Caldwell delivered what I thought was a good assessment of Putin in 2017, and
this excellent piece by The Saker complements and updates it for me. I think Putin is even
more reviled than ever by the U.S. Dems, because Putin = a national-sovereignty proponent =
Trump.
I play online chess -- speedy games, and so I have a lot of experience with players from
Russia and Ukraine. They tend to favor what chess players call "quiet moves." Is this a
manner of thought, a philosophy, that can be extrapolated to government? (U.S. players, by
contrast, tend to be more impetuous and impulsive in their chess style.)
One thing which separates Russia and China from Western 'thinking' is that the People's
Government in each country has rules in place to prevent Billionaires from buying/owning
politicians.
THOMAS QUICK SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago I doubt it. Vaccination doesn't cure chronic grifters.
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N N Z SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago "Medical science is making such remarkable progress that soon
none of us will be well.'' ---Aldous Huxley
So, the New Normals are discussing the Unvaccinated Question. What is to be done with us?
No, not those who haven't been "vaccinated" yet. Us. The "Covidiots." The "Covid
deniers." The "science deniers." The "reality deniers." Those who refuse to get "vaccinated,"
ever.
There is no place for us in New Normal society. The New Normals know this and so do we. To
them, we are a suspicious, alien tribe of people. We do not share their ideological beliefs. We
do not perform their loyalty rituals, or we do so only grudgingly, because they force us to do
so. We traffic in arcane "conspiracy theories," like "pre-March-2020 science," "natural herd
immunity," "population-adjusted death rates," "Sweden," "Florida," and other heresies.
They do not trust us. We are strangers among them. They suspect we feel superior to them.
They believe we are conspiring against them, that we want to deceive them, confuse them, cheat
them, pervert their culture, abuse their children, contaminate their precious bodily fluids,
and perpetrate God knows what other horrors.
So they are discussing the need to segregate us, how to segregate us, when to segregate us,
in order to protect society from us. In their eyes, we are no more than
criminals , or, worse, a plague , an infestation. In the
words of someone (I can't quite recall who), "getting rid of the Unvaccinated is not a question
of ideology. It is a question of cleanliness," or something like that. (I'll have to hunt down
and fact-check that quote. I might have taken it out of context.)
Nice thoughts but the high priests of the new secular cult of scientism are playing a zero
sum game. It's an either/or for them; slavery or scalp. The rituals of the cult reinforce the
dogma. The continual washing of hands as an act of purification. The mask as an act of
penance for your defiling breath. Forced solitude to keep you in front of the 24 hour Cult
broadcasts on tv. Social distancing as a way to inculcate insular thinking. Any resistors to
the new rituals will be brought to a tribunal of neo torquemadas. Perhaps a better way to be
thinking of the resistance is in terms of knighthood.
I will bring up a "human right" that rarely is discussed in the MSM: the right to relieve
one's bladder & bowels when traveling in public places. In many cities in the U.S., there
are NO public restrooms, not even in the railway stations and bus depots! Oh, sure -- all the
airports have them because they cater to the well heeled.
Here in the two biggest California cities SF and LA, one has to find a restaurant (good
luck during the pandemic) or supermarket or else a secluded spot. I live next to an alley
where the homeless people frequently dump, and we the neighbors have to clean it up because
the city won't bother.
The authorities claim that setting out Porta-potties can't be done because homeless
addicts would use them. WTF -- those people would do drugs in their own place if they had
one. But this isn't just an issue about homelessness, which is an enormous violation of human
rights in itself, but more broadly one of DECENCY that barely exists in this society.
The authorities claim that setting out Porta-potties can't be done because homeless addicts
would use them. WTF -- those people would do drugs in their own place if they had one. But
this isn't just an issue about homelessness, which is an enormous violation of human rights
in itself, but more broadly one of DECENCY that barely exists in this society.
CHOLERA is gonna get ya.
It is sad but what has happened to the USA through neoliberal economic rules based society
is the abdication of memory and learning over centuries.
"... It is natural for bullshitters to think the world runs on bullshit. In a away, that capsulizes the entire problem that the US' establishment is having now. They have been relying on bullshit for so long that they think that's all there is. ..."
"... It is natural for bullshitters to think the world runs on bullshit. In a away, that capsulizes the entire problem that the US' establishment is having now. They have been relying on bullshit for so long that they think that's all there is. ..."
“ I wish I could summon a strong argument against it, but I can find none.”
It is natural for bullshitters to think the world runs on bullshit. In a away, that
capsulizes the entire problem that the US' establishment is having now. They have been relying
on bullshit for so long that they think that's all there is.
The truth is we have no way to know what underlies our "reality", if anything. We don't have
the tools, the senses, yet. At the limits everything dissolves into probability mush, or the
lack of time for anything to get from there to here at the speed of light, or complexity we
have no way to impose order on.
If they want to go live in the computer, I say good riddance.
@ maahaa | Mar 24 2021 17:46 utc | 5:
“ I wish I could summon a strong argument against it, but I can find
none.”
It is natural for bullshitters to think the world runs on bullshit. In a away, that
capsulizes the entire problem that the US' establishment is having now. They have been
relying on bullshit for so long that they think that's all there is.
The truth is we have no way to know what underlies our "reality", if anything. We don't
have the tools, the senses, yet. At the limits everything dissolves into probability mush, or
the lack of time for anything to get from there to here at the speed of light, or complexity
we have no way to impose order on.
If they want to go live in the computer, I say good riddance.
"... It is natural for bullshitters to think the world runs on bullshit. In a away, that capsulizes the entire problem that the US' establishment is having now. They have been relying on bullshit for so long that they think that's all there is. ..."
"... It is natural for bullshitters to think the world runs on bullshit. In a away, that capsulizes the entire problem that the US' establishment is having now. They have been relying on bullshit for so long that they think that's all there is. ..."
"High-profile proponents of what's known as the "simulation hypothesis" include SpaceX
chief Elon Musk, who recently expounded on the idea during an interview for a popular
podcast.
"If you assume any rate of improvement at all, games will eventually be indistinguishable
from reality," Musk said before concluding, "We're most likely in a simulation."
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson agrees, giving "better than 50 -- 50 odds" that the
simulation hypothesis is correct. " I wish I could summon a strong argument against it, but I
can find none."
I guess that is one way for Musk to avoid the guilt over those people his coup in Bolivia
killed. They didn't really die because it is all just make-believe; a simulation.
“ I wish I could summon a strong argument against it, but I can find none.”
It is natural for bullshitters to think the world runs on bullshit. In a away, that
capsulizes the entire problem that the US' establishment is having now. They have been relying
on bullshit for so long that they think that's all there is.
The truth is we have no way to know what underlies our "reality", if anything. We don't have
the tools, the senses, yet. At the limits everything dissolves into probability mush, or the
lack of time for anything to get from there to here at the speed of light, or complexity we
have no way to impose order on.
If they want to go live in the computer, I say good riddance.
@ maahaa | Mar 24 2021 17:46 utc | 5:
“ I wish I could summon a strong argument against it, but I can find
none.”
It is natural for bullshitters to think the world runs on bullshit. In a away, that
capsulizes the entire problem that the US' establishment is having now. They have been
relying on bullshit for so long that they think that's all there is.
The truth is we have no way to know what underlies our "reality", if anything. We don't
have the tools, the senses, yet. At the limits everything dissolves into probability mush, or
the lack of time for anything to get from there to here at the speed of light, or complexity
we have no way to impose order on.
If they want to go live in the computer, I say good riddance.
According to the Austfailian media, it was a triumph. I kid you not. They will lie and lie
and lie again about Biden's dementia, until the bitter end, and at his stage, once the meds
lose their effectiveness, the end can come quickly. Perhaps he'll rip off his nappy and fling
faeces at the fawning presstitutes. Dream on. Or, as in the comedy, Bidet will mutter 'I'm
going to the toilet. I mean, I'm going to the toilet NOW!'.
It is always helpful to remember the words of "Arthur Jensen": "You are an old man who
thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are
no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only
one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate,
multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks,
rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which
determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things
today."
"... Apparently Biden was either too senile or too inherently stupid to realize what gangrenous filth the subhuman Clintonite scum Stephanopoulis is, was and always will be. And put his stupid senile foot into Stephanopoulis's clever little bear trap. ..."
"... Pretty sure this was exactly the message Biden's people wanted to send, whether because they really think this sort of thing will "work" on the world stage or because they've gunned up the Russia nonsense so hyperbolically for so long that their domestic audience now demands it. ..."
Apparently Biden was either too senile or too inherently stupid to realize what gangrenous
filth the subhuman Clintonite scum Stephanopoulis is, was and always will be. And put his
stupid senile foot into Stephanopoulis's clever little bear trap.
Well, those are hardly trick questions or subtle ones. And Biden temporizes perfectly well
when he wants to. He didn't want to. I'd be mildly surprised if he hadn't been told to expect
these particular questions. Stephanopolous has form for lobbing cooperative softballs at the
right sort of democrats.
Pretty sure this was exactly the message Biden's people wanted to send, whether because
they really think this sort of thing will "work" on the world stage or because they've gunned
up the Russia nonsense so hyperbolically for so long that their domestic audience now demands
it.
If your interpretation of "what Stephie-poo was thinking" and what Biden was expecting are
correct, then Biden is indeed the same sort of Clintonite filth that Stephanopoulous himself
is.
And that would be very unfortunate. It means that Biden is just as war-risky with Russia
as Clinton would have been. And yes, the massed millions of "Putin stole the election" Pink
Kitty Kap Klintonites want, need and demand this sort of agitprop. They and their precious
spokes-creeps like that anti-Russianitic MSNBC news show hostess whose name I absolutely
cannot remember just now.
And do you remember who her mentor was? Roger Aisles. Yeah, him. And after an extensive
education, including a Rhodes scholarship, she sells her integrity out on her program for
about $30,000 a day now-
Maybe she never had any integrity to begin with. Maybe she was always and only about
working the media rackets, just like her reciprocal one-schtik-phoney opposite number Tucker
Carlson over at Fox.
Let's start with comic relief: the "leader of the free world" has pledged to prevent China
from becoming the "leading" nation on the planet. And to fulfill such an exceptional mission,
his "expectation" is to run again for president in 2024. Not as a hologram. And fielding the
same running mate.
It goes back to The Democrat Run Mainstream Media's narrative that Black men can only be
the poor helpless victims and NEVER the apex predators.
Which is why they only say that Black men are murdered by guns but NEVER that Black men
are murdered by other Black men. The only time they do not blame the guns is in the much less
common man bites dog White male on Black male murders.
You know the perpetrator is a Black male and not a White male when the headline is a gun
all by itself murdered a Black man!
"... This whole process was intended to be for seriously delinquent kids/parents, but, you know bureaucracy – gotta check the boxes rather than just have a 30 second phone call "please email Mrs. ABC when your kids have been absent." ..."
If underfunded means you have to use old textbooks from the 1950s through the 1970s and have no tablets or computers on class,
I'd choose an underfunded school for a better education.
@Jonathan Mason on an attendance remediation plan. The first words out of my mouth were "so this is where my tax money goes."
It went on for 15 minutes, signing forms and shit. This whole process was intended to be for seriously delinquent kids/parents,
but, you know bureaucracy – gotta check the boxes rather than just have a 30 second phone call "please email Mrs. ABC when your
kids have been absent."
After that BS, we got another certified letter, so I went to the school. "I thought we had this thing settled. What do we have
to do now?" "Oh, nah, we just sent one to everybody. It was easier that way. You're fine." How much do certified letters cost
now, Jonathan? Oh, it's free though, right?
They've got plenty of money, all of them. Wait until the SHTF. Then we'll see some frugality and some legitimate complaints.
California public schools get their funding according to the number of students present. So if your kid is a half hour late,
you get an urgent call from the attendance office. Every kid is worth money to them. Maybe something like that is driving the
overreaction you describe.
I can see why this is unfinished work, with lots more research required, requiring quite a bit more grant money. It's hard
work getting around the simple truth. Steve here had a good handle on the reasons for the big uptick in violent crime half a year
ago, without even hitting the taxpayers up for a lot of grant money. It's just that his was not the answer that the Establishment
was looking for. Try harder, Steve.
@anonymous ay. A play to gain advantage, to publicly make the Chins look weak, subject
them to a media diplomatic humiliation, and as usual control the narrative."
It is talked about in Chinese Internet that before Chinese diplomats attending the meeting,
they went through 20 (or so) different scenarios of what the other side would say or do, and
practiced the responses accordingly. So it is not a surprise they could handle this rather
obvious case easily.
You think US would do such preparation? Probably not. They probably didn't even bother to
look up basic things like Yang and Wang's backgrounds.
Like what Sun Tzu says, know yourself and know your enemy
I have written of the decline of the US likening it to a malignant tumour yet the recent
gaffs with Russia and China make it likely the hospitalisation of the patient may be more
urgent. Regarding sanctions and thier use on poor countries .
Goya and Sanctions: with some satirical nudity. Satire is a bellweather indicator of the
sophistication and progress of a civilization. When satire and humor dies history teaches us
so will that civilization. Sadly I don't expect this video to be allowed on US youtube.
Not the OP, but I'll answer. American expat here. I spent years trying to get people to at
least talk with me on issues. They just wanted to watch TV and eat fast food and let the
plutocrats run things into the ground. So I left, 10 years ago, to seek meaning and adventure
elsewhere. Haven't looked back.
I settled into a "third world anti-freedom authoritarian regime", where I enjoyed all the
freedoms I hadn't realized I had not known in America, and built a life for myself. When
I'd talk to people back home they'd tell me I was crazy for wanting to stay in an
"authoritarian nation", and ask wasn't I afraid? They didn't understand why I didn't want to
come back home. I haven't visited America in ages. I can no longer relate to America's
Afro-centric, virus-mania culture. Turning on American MSM shows is like watching the news from
Mars.
Would I leave the life I've created for myself to go back to the place I grew up and help
save the people there if I thought there was enough of them willing to fight? Maybe, if I could
do it without jeopardizing my family here. A part of me would like to.
But the sad reality is, the people in the United States do not want to be saved .
They're comfortable . Half the people I talk to back there brag to me about the vaccine
they got. I just talked to one who boasted how it "wasn't available to the masses yet" and she
had to trick her way into getting an mRNA shot. 130 million doses have been administered in the
US already, to a nation of 330 million. That doesn't seem like something "unavailable to the
masses."
So, do I want to go back to the US, to stand there screaming at people on the street like
some homeless bum as they line up to get their COVID shots, as armies of them march with
#BlackLiveMatters signs, surrounded by police protection, as the idiots on the left scream
about Russia and the idiots on the right scream about China, while nobody talks about the #1
foreign influencer of American public policy by far, because to mention its name is to have
one's life destroyed? I have better things to do with the precious few years I get on this
Earth.
When enough of the people wake up, when they are ready to be led, I may yet answer the call
to leadership when that call seriously goes out, 15 or 20 or 25 years from now. But at the
present moment, the American people are still so far from wanting anything other than football,
fast food, and racial equality that it really is not a place I have any interest in being, nor
one I have anything much to offer.
Five_Black_Eyes_Intel_Agency 2 hours ago (Edited) remove link
israel-firsters and the CIA love to milk their sugar daddy, meanwhile people are all
choked up about the Left and Right charade
Weihan 59 minutes ago remove link
Great article from Greenwald! And remember: by "domestic terrorists" and "violent
extremists," they're referring to anyone who still believes a country should have a
recognizable and enforceable border.
This uncomfortable thought came to me while listening to Joe Biden talking about "soulless
killer" Vladimir Putin. Smaller insults have sparked off wars. The "Footless, yellow
earth-worm" slur moved Kaa the Rock Python to devour Bandar Log. Luckily, easy-going Putin
replied with a smile. He said that in his
childhood, kids responded with "I am rubber, you are glue; bounces off me and sticks to you";
he only wished good health for the American president and proposed to debate him online, so
that Americans and Russians, as well as the whole world, could form their own opinion. Biden
evaded the challenge. It's not clear he remembered who Putin is. An empty suit with a
teleprompter, called him Donald Trump Jr . Biden
said Putin meddled in the US elections and he will pay a price for it. Alas, Putin couldn't
influence the US dead, and they swung the elections as they voted for Biden by whole
cemeteries. Yes, Biden is a senile dummy that couldn't even board Air Force One without
stumbling thrice
the next day, but there is somebody who operates the teleprompter, and that is the problem.
The Russians were visibly furious. When US leaders drop such invective, it's like pirates
passing a 'black spot' in Treasure Island .
It's a signal that the foreign leader has to be deposed or killed outright. That's how they
spoke of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gadhafi; both were killed and their 'rogue states'
devastated. It was clearly a show of hostile intentions, not just from Biden but also from the
US establishment speaking like ventriloquist through the current White House tenant.
Afghanistan is a great base from which to invade Central Asia and threaten Russia from the
south. The country has been occupied by the US for 20 years, and Trump was determined to pull
out the troops. Biden has already hinted that the US will renege on its agreement with the
Taliban to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. The withdrawal was supposed to be completed by
May 2021; it will be "tough" for the United States to withdraw forces from Afghanistan in six
weeks, he said. Biden has also scrapped Trump's plan to withdraw forces from Germany, and with
good reason. His administration wants Germans to drop the Nord Stream II project, and it is
easier to convince a country if you have forty military bases there.
Fighting against Iran never stopped. When the US isn't doing it her best friend Israel is
acting. It has emerged that during the last two years, Israeli frogmen sabotaged 12 Iranian
tankers, reported the Wall
Street Journal . But it all backfired. On February 16, the entire Mediterranean coast of
Israel was covered with sticky black mess.
... ... ...
The blow to Israel was terrible – animals, plants and fish died; for a long time it
will be impossible to swim and sunbathe on the oily shores. Only now the sad truth has begun to
leak out: 'the worst pollution of the century' had been done by Israelis. The first to speak
about the source of the pollution was Israeli Minister of the Environment Gila Gamliel. She
said the oil was released by the Iranian tanker Emerald carrying a cargo of
US-sanctioned oil products to Syria. This is Iranian eco-terrorism, she said. But Gila was
quickly gagged – the Israeli military censorship forbade discussion of this topic, except
in the most general terms. It appears Gila Gamliel was right – up to a point. The Israeli
dissident
Richard Silverstein wrote about it:
It was a deliberate attack by Israel on the Iranian vessel. Israel's naval commando unit,
Flotilla 13 covertly attached a mine to the Emerald . The intent was to cause minor
damage that would send a message to Iran that its own attacks on Gulf shipping would bring a
cost. This Times of London
report written by Haaretz columnist Anshel Pfeiffer confirms my source. However, the
commandos didn't realize that the Emerald was a rusty old hulk in desperately
ill-repair. The Israeli mine, which was supposed to cause minor damage, actually ripped a
hole so big that much of the contents of the ship's hold leaked into the Mediterranean. This
is what caused the Israeli environmental disaster: Israel itself.
Biden voted for Gulf War Two. Why? Because as he admits, he is a Zionist. Zionists are
traitors, terrorists and murderers. Yet Biden the terrorist accuses Putin of being a
killer?
The illusion of a US president having any actual authority is pretty much being dispelled by
this ventriloquist's dummy Biden signing whatever is placed in front of him and parroting
whatever is on the teleprompter. A stupid egotist his entire life, his mental decline isn't as
apparent as it might be quite yet because he's been carefully stage managed so far. They're
being extremely careful not to let the cat out of the bag in letting people get a glimpse of
what he's really like. And it's downhill from here.
The virus hysteria has been a test case lab in assessing what works, what doesn't, how to
improve on herding and suppressing the population, etc. Insofar as dead foreign leaders goes,
who really knows?
When tens of millions of dollars are available lots of people in some leader's circle might
be tempted to expose the target to some form of poisoning or lethal radiation. Hugo Chavez
expressed suspicion at how he and other leaders opposed to US diktat seemed to come down with
cancer.
The US itself has claimed some of it's diplomats were possibly targeted by mystery rays in
Cuba so the idea of something like this is not far-fetched; it's just a case of projection,
accusing others of what one is guilty of.
LOL, you don't know how many times, since his campaign and now as (fake) POTUS that Biden
has reminded me of Chauncey Gardiner. It's the perfect comparison.
(But, Jobotomy Xiden will be gone soon and then the bi-racial, sociopathic Hillary 2.0 will
be inaugurated. Excuse me while I go hurl.)
Think of the hysteria and histrionic nation wide wailing and teeth gnashing over Trump
calling it "the China virus" and the dead silence when Biden calls Putin:
A soulless killer. .
I wish Putin would take revenge and pull a Soleimani on Biden & Co. but perhaps he
laughs & chalks it up to the senile, demented ramblings of a clown.
Is this more theater?
To add to the insanity, the embrace and total absolution of the pathological liar, war
criminal and mass torturer and murderer, George W. Bush leaves me .stunned:
Bush on Putin, 2001:
"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We
had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul ; a man deeply
committed to his country and the best interests of his country."
Biden is a sociopath, one of limited intelligence. But a sociopath nevertheless.
If he is instructed by his controllers to initiate a nuclear war, he will do so
unhesitatingly.
I would not be surprised if both Joe and Hunter were somehow benefiting from drug traffic
across the border. Actually, I expect that is largely what is behind Biden's open border
policy.
It's impossible for normal people to understand sociopathic behavior. The American political
class has been selected for sociopathy now for generations.
"Americans should write a letter of apology to Putin, apologizing for our rude and senile
leader (and the degenerate lunatics that surround him) and ask for President Putin's
understanding and patience. "
Not a bad idea at all. I would formulate some things differently though, the idea is that
the letter should also circulate, so mind the crude tone, show that even Americans can be
tactful gentle-man. Even that would impress the whole world.
Thanatopia's attacks on Putin differ vastly from its deranged Sinophobia. Thanatopians want
Putin gone, replaced by a New Yeltsin, and Russia vivisected for further pillage. But they
don't want Russians dead, because this 'Free Russia' will be needed for the Great Purpose-the
destruction of China.
The truly Evil campaign to entirely falsely accuse China of genocide in Xinjiang, is a call
not just to war, but to genocide. A China devastated would still rise again, even if the USA
and its villainous stooges succeed in breaking it up, again, as was nearly achieved in the 19th
and 20th centuries.
The USA and the Western vassals promote, train and finance separatists in Xinjiang, Tibet,
'South' Mongolia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, even 'Manchuria'. Such civil discord would cause millions
of deaths, but it gets worse.
The Imperial hatemongers never cease to vilify the CCP. The 'New Nazis', 'It is 1939 again,
and 'appeasement' is treason', human organ harvesters etc. All lies, all the crudest
projection. But the CCP is 100 million strong, and the Chinese CCP Government enjoys 95%
satisfied or highly satisfied rating from the populace, according to the latest Harvard poll.
So the entire population is complicit, 'Xi's willing executioners' etc, and must be punished.
SARS CoV2 was obviously meant to kill millions of Chinese and devastate the economy, but the
'blowback' has been cosmic retribution, and that has only made the Western genocidists even
more enraged.
The Western oligarchy does not do mass high kultur. Kultur is a commodity and a venue for
narcissistic display and mass kultur is base, exploitative and mind-destroying, keeping the
plebs permanently obtunded, morally, intellectually and spiritually. 'Feed 'em muck' as Nellie
Melba recommended.
Worldometer/coronavirus today: Tanzania population >60 million; CV19 cases <600. Dear
Scott, that cannot be correct! (If all the brainwashing serves me right.)
RIP President Magufuli, the man who busted WHO with their fraud -- or scientific
incompetence. Ha. This story could have been the lead paragraph, and no stone should be left
unturned to find out if Magufuli was murdered. This especially includes death by a deadly viral
infection, ala Operation Zyphr ?
Minor correction: Biden does not represent the American people. Those who think they support
him are unaware of their Stockholm syndrome.
Now, let's arrest our schadenfreude about Israel's acts of sabotage spoiling their own
coastline. Our fragile seas are too precious for that sort of vindictive spirit. Nevertheless,
it is okay be encouraged about this colossal blunder, because it proves the controllers are
really not in control at all. And they damn well know it.
Finally, forget not Shere Khan totally trumps Kaa. But as fate would have it even he loses
in the end.
Unless neocons are insane, I don't think that they want to start a war with Russia and much
less China. The U.S. can't even win a war against goat herders with homemade explosives. The
U.S. military is more concerned about having black transgender soldiers than about being
efficient.
Also, China practically owns the U.S. and Canada at this point.
This is probably just another distraction to keep people from noticing that they are
(again!) being fleeced and raped.
It now appears the Russians and Chinese are using our woke BS against us like a deflector
shield.
Putin's speech of the US projecting its own psychology on others, mentioning BLM and racism
plus the Chinese mentioning the US "persecution of blacks".
They inflict this woke shit on us but didn't realize it could also be used by their
enemies.
Ultimate blow back for the dumb fuckers in Washington. Totally hilarious.
"Holy cow: 42% of Americans report undesired weight gain during Covid 19. The average weight
gain is 29 lbs. And 41 lbs for Millennials! "
Individuals are limited to one donut, but the offer can be redeemed once per day. Meaning
anybody who receives the COVID vaccine can swing by for a free glazed doughnut every day between
now and the end of the year.
Let's hope Krispy Kreme is working on a vaccine for diabetes, because it's latest
promotion isn't exactly a net-positive for the public welfare.
The donut-maker has announced that, starting Monday, anybody who presents proof of
vaccination at any Krispy Kreme location can receive one free glazed donut per visit.
"Krispy Kreme is finding ways to be sweet as the U.S. continues to scale COVID-19
vaccinations. To show our support for those who choose to get vaccinated, starting Monday,
3/22, anyone who shows their COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card will receive a free Original
Glazed® doughnut."
... ... ...
play_arrow
Ideology in Practice 4 hours ago
If you get vaccinated over a free donut, you deserve everything you get.
Donut included.
StuffyourVAXX 5 hours ago
Today, show your vaxx card to get a free donut.
Tomorrow, show your vaxx card to buy basic groceries.
Next week, show your vaxx card to keep your kids from getting taken away from you, you
@#$@ing super spreader.
reddpill 4 hours ago (Edited)
1939: "Work Sets You Free"
2019: "Vaccination Sets You Free"
Average weight gain 29 lbs ???? 41 for millenials ????
WTF??? That isn't trivial, that is huge. This a far bigger health risk than the wuphlu
!!!!
espirit 4 hours ago
Welcome to the Gates of Hell.
Have a free donut...
neocons on meathooks 4 hours ago
One of the reasons the new feudalism has such a bright future is that the serfs are
allowed to feast like kings and queens on rich animal-based, fiberless and highly processed
foods 21 times (or more) a week -- and they have the gout, heart disease, strokes,
diabetes, cancers and medical bills to prove it. Once you're woke you'll understand the
sexism of thinking obesity and sickness shouldn't be accepted. But exercise, weight loss
programs and public education (a la smoking cessation) aren't nearly as profitable as
injecting Bill Gates's poison into 7 billion customers and tracking and controlling human
movement. Sorry to cause dissension but I just got my paycheck from Vlad.
Automatic Choke PREMIUM 5 hours ago
Lemme know when the Heart-Attack-Grill starts offering free
quadruple-bacon-chili-burgers free for the jab.
Rockatanski 5 hours ago
as Mussolinil said, the fusing of goverenment and corporate give you full facism and
that is what we are seeing now.
It's a FOX World why does their stupidity bother me so much?
They develop the talking point first and then alter the 'facts' to support it. How can a
brain survive on such a diet?
FOX on the U.S. meeting w/China in Alaska re-visited the consensus from all of the
dimwitted hosts is that it was a dark day for the U.S. because ...
1. China insulted us because Biden is weak.
2. China insulted us because the Democrats have torn down our country for 4yrs
3. China insulted us because the Democrats helped BLM burn down our country
4. China insulted us because the Democrats emboldened them ! ! !
There is actually a much, much, more straightforward explanation that never occurs to
these dimbulbs, China insulted us because we insulted them for 10 minutes. We
accused them of aggression, genocide, crushing democracy and being evildoers. Only a Neocon
slaps someone in the face and expects them to smile back at you.
Old neocon still is dreaming about imperial greatness and full spectrum Dominance, when the
country is significantly and irreversibly crippled by neoliberalism and its accumulation by
dispossession which eliminated a large swats of well paid workers and professionals. It is now
the country where the Congress is now hiding from people behind barbed wall.
It is difficult to teach old dog new tricks. Intimidation of the opponent replaced diplomacy.
Semi-Dementia mixed with arrogance in action. "White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden
would continue to look to cooperate on efforts to stem Iran's nuclear program and, more broadly,
nuclear nonproliferation. But she said Biden did not regret referring to Putin as a killer and
pushed back against suggestions that the rhetoric was unhelpful."
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Director of National Intelligence came out with a report today saying
that Vladimir Putin authorized operations during the election to under -- denigrate you,
support President Trump, undermine our elections, divide our society. What price must he
pay?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: He will pay a price. I, we had a long talk, he and I, when we -- I know
him relatively well. And I-- the conversation started off, I said, "I know you and you know me.
If I establish this occurred, then be prepared."
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You said you know he doesn't have a soul.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I did say that to him, yes. And -- and his response was, "We understand
one another." It was-- I wasn't being a wise guy. I was alone with him in his office. And that
-- that's how it came about. It was when President Bush had said, "I looked in his eyes and saw
his soul."
I said, "Looked in your eyes and I don't think you have a soul." And looked back and he
said, "We understand each other." Look, most important thing dealing with foreign leaders in my
experience, and I've dealt with an awful lot of 'em over my career, is just know the other guy.
Don't expect somethin' that you're-- that -- don't expect him to-- or her to-- voluntarily
appear in the second editions of Profiles in Courage.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So you know Vladimir Putin. You think he's a killer?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Uh-huh. I do.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So what price must he pay?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: The price he's gonna pay we'll-- you'll see shortly. I'm not gonna--
there's-- by the way, we oughta be able that ol' -- that trite expression "walk and chew gum at
the same time," there're places where it's in our mutual interest to work together.
That's why I renewed the start agreement with him. That occurred while he's doin' this. But
that's overwhelmingly in the interest of humanity, that we diminish the prospect of a nuclear
exchange. But that and SolarWinds as well. He's been -- they've done some mischievous things,
to say the least. And so we're gonna have -- I'm not gonna announce what I'm doing, but he's
gonna understand that --
Vladimir Putin issues new 'kill list' - and six of the targets live in Britain
EXCLUSIVE: The warning of a deadly post-pandemic campaign comes from same spy who alerted
that Salisbury novichok victim Sergei Skripal was earmarked for assassination
Biden does seem to be keeping one promise he made from the campaign, namely that "nothing
will fundamentally change", he is basically continuing all of Trump's terrible foreign
policies (Iran, China, Russia, Syria & Venezuela). In many ways he's being even more
hawkish, issuing clownish threats to both Russia and China and even to the steadfast US
vassal Germany over Nord Stream 2. One has to ask the question, just how much of Trumps
foreign policy was his own. Afghanistan and Suria I think yes; Israel and Saudi Arabia maybe;
China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and Germany; I think the interagency consensus (aka the "Deep
State") is setting those policies and will push it into overdrive under the Biden/Harris
Regime.
With Respect to Biden, I saw that Max Keiser is already comparing Joe Biden to Borris
Yeltsin as a President who presided over the near breakup of the State and the rise of a
economic oligarchy.
recently installed "president" who can't make it up a flight of stairs or give a press
conference, who has the nuclear football following him around 24/.7. <- Posted by:
Perimetr | Mar 19 2021 22:55 utc | 54
History of American presidency had worse falls as we are reminded by New
York Post .
"President Biden's wince-inducing series of stumbles while boarding Air Force One on
Friday calls to mind Gerald Ford's 1975 fall on the same stairs -- a minor tumble that
forever tarred him as a clumsy oaf.
Chevy Chase pilloried Ford in a series of ruthless and hilarious "Saturday Night Live"
skits -- even though the object of his ridicule was just 62 years old, and an ex-University
of Michigan football star who avidly skied and golfed."
It was the very athletic ability of Gerald Ford that magnified his fall, all the way down.
When Biden started cautiously and kept his hand on the rail at all times, Ford climbed "with
a spring in his step", but, alas, he missed one step.
I'm slightly curious: if the USA insists that there is a "rules-based international order"
then - by definition - there must exist a rule-book i.e. a compendium of those rules.
That is axiomatic, because how else would anyone know if they are a rule-breaker, or when
they are in compliance with the rules.
Otherwise this isn't a "rules-based" system at all, it is merely a world based upon US
dictates.
Has any reptile of the press ever asked a State Department flunky for a copy of "the
rules"?
Wouldn't it be nice if the CPC starts backing the CPUSA with the kinds of resources that
the US backs their regime change operations through NED and USAID? That would be a game
changer.
I suspect Blinken/Sullivan/Biden need to show that they are "tough" to the Chinese in
public because otherwise, they will be roasted by the 78 millions Trump supporters for being
"weak" to China compared with Trump. Behind the close door, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi
characterized the talks to be NOT "very tense." I believe Biden actually is quite keen to get
some "achievements" from the Chinese side, probably not realistically in this meeting, but
hopefully in the near future.
Ha, but the weather is cold, the hotel is shoddy, and the Chinese delegate had to have
instant noodle for lunch - that sounds like a very low budget "Hongmen Banquet" by the
Americans. Maybe they are still waiting for their 1.9 trillion stimulus check?
That's a lovely little compilation about Putin and his family, thanks.
The narrative says that Putin's mother survived the siege of Leningrad, but it doesn't go
into the details. You can get the story from one of the several Russian documentaries about
Putin - I forget which one but I could dig for it if pressed.
Putin's father came back from the front, wounded and on crutches. He showed up just as
medics were taking his wife out to whatever transport they were using to clean up the dead
bodies - she was practically dead, and the witness to this says she was "washed up". Putin's
father fought the medics away with his crutches and took his wife back into their home, and
nursed her back to life.
Thus runs the story, and this is the woman who later gave birth to Putin, already with two
brothers dead that he never knew. It sounds exaggerated when I write out the story like that,
but I never disbelieved it when I heard it, and I still don't.
So this is the depth of the man who heads the Russian Federation. Personally touched by
war, personally grieving for the losses of Russia, personally committed to the safety of
civilians and to minimal death in general.
~~
While I'm on the subject, two other stories occur to me. One was when he first took
command of Russia and addressed the war in the Caucasus - his famous episode with his
military commanders in the tent, when he said they would not drink to success until they had
achieved it (I paraphrase), and put his glass down untouched. To drink prematurely, he said,
would be to dishonor all those who had already died in this war. First, to stop the
dying.
But the story I wanted to say about that was that he also forcefully told his generals to
be very careful how they conducted operations: they were entering places where civilians
lived - old people, those who had fought in the Great Patriotic War, those to whom everyone
present owed their lives. He was very serious about taking great care not to harm those most
honorable people.
The second story is when the Berlin Wall went down, and crowds surged to invade the Stasi
building, ripping its secrets into the open. They also came to the KGB building. The chief of
that bureau fled, leaving by the back way. That left Putin as next in command. He went down
to address the crowd. He stood in front of them and they asked who he was and he lied and
said that he was "the interpreter". He said that this building was the property of the USSR.
In his gun he had twelve bullets, he said, eleven for those whom he faced and the last for
himself. The crowd understood that this building was not East Germany but the Soviet Union,
and that this officer would defend it with his life. Whatever they thought, they turned away
and left the building unmolested.
~~
I'm impressed with the character and caliber of this human being called Putin, for good
reasons, I find. There's a heroic scale to him that comes from Russia itself and the
experiences that Putin was born into and from. And yet he personally is a naturally modest
man. He bears that heroic dimension of scale with the grace that comes from ordinariness. He
loves ordinary people. He renews his own mental health from being in their company. The
security state of Russia chose the best person it could find, in a last-ditch attempt to save
their country. It worked.
[D]ifficult, dramatic, and bloody events abound in the history of every nation and every
state. But when we evaluate other people, or even other states and nations, we are always
facing a mirror, we always see ourselves in the reflection, because we project our inner
selves onto the other person.
You know, I remember when we were children and played in the yard, we had arguments
occasionally and we used to say: whatever you call me is what you are called yourself.
This is no coincidence or just a kids' saying or joke. It has a very deep psychological
undercurrent. We always see ourselves in another person and think that he or she is just
like us, and evaluate the other person's actions based on our own outlook on life.
There is an additional passage of interest which sets out rules for future talks that I
have not seen reported in 'western' media:
I know that the United States and its leaders are determined to maintain certain
relations with us, but on matters that are of interest to the United States and on its
terms. Even though they believe we are just like them, we are different. We have a
different genetic, cultural and moral code. But we know how to uphold our interests. We
will work with the United States, but in the areas that we are interested in and on terms
that we believe are beneficial to us. They will have to reckon with it despite their
attempts to stop our development, despite the sanctions and insults. They will have to
reckon with this.
We, with our national interests in mind, will promote our relations with all
countries, including the United States.
The 'takes one to know one' quote is not a direct quote from Putin, it is a claim by
Biden.
Here is the Daily Beast's take on it. (Yeah, I know it's a ridiculous source, but it
was the first source I found that correctly attributed that quote to Biden.)
Biden recalled: "We had a long talk, he and I, when we... I know him relatively well. And
the conversation started off, I said, 'I know you and you know me. If I establish this
occurred, then be prepared.'"
The president also confirmed that, some years ago, he was alone with Putin in his
office and he brought up the topic of Putin's lack of a human soul. "I said, 'I looked in
your eyes and I don't think you have a soul,' and he looked back and said, 'We understand
each other.' The most important thing of dealing with foreign leaders... is just know the
other guy."
The Guardian's translation of "it takes one to know one," which has been amplified by
western media and social media, is absolutely incorrect. It implies that Putin is
admitting that he is a 'killer,' which he absolutely does not do. Anybody that has a
working knowledge of Russian will be able to translate the saying that Putin uses to mean
that he is suggesting that Biden is projecting. In fact, Putin provides context for this
statement by referring to US History.
I say bullshit. "It takes one to know one" - suggests some equivalence for the two
people. That meaning is not in Kremlin transcript of Putin's words. Putin is saying "you
are projecting (your own problem)".
I understand that this is just semantics, but something as widespread as this has become
in western media can have a big impact on perception of lazy westerners if the
interpretation is incorrect. This should be obvious, regardless of the supposed "elegance"
of the phrase.
"Takes one to know one" does not imply projection, it rather implies hypocrisy. Putin is
not accusing Biden of hypocrisy, he is accusing Biden of projection. "Takes one to know
one" gives a western audience the suggestion that Putin qualifies an admission of being a
killer with an accusation that Biden is also a killer. Putin, in fact, does not do
this. He only suggests that Biden is projecting and only projecting.
Minister Lavrov today confirmed Putin's words,
saying " [We] will be ready to cooperate only in those areas that are of interest to
us, and only on terms that are beneficial to us ".
In my opinion, the Chinese representatives gave a good answer to the American side,
although this answer will obviously not be heard.
The Americans have completely lost the culture of negotiation. If there are no elementary
human manners, then what kind of agreements can we talk about?
A sad picture. And dangerous. A madman with nuclear weapons (and chemical weapons, by the
way) is not the best option for a reliable negotiating partner.
"In a desperate bid to thwart the strategic partnership between Russia and Europe,
Washington is resorting to ever-more frantic threats of sanctions and other disruptive
measures. Biden is playing the personal insult card in a gambit for blowing up bilateral
relations with Russia as a way to sabotage Nord Stream 2.
"It's a pathetic move, one that actually speaks more of America's historic enfeeblement
rather than pretensions of power. Russia would do well to stay calm and let the Americans
make fools of themselves."
It seems Russia's doing just that--attending to the vital business of developing its
nation and peoples. Russia's geared for numerous patriotic celebrations throughout the
year, and Biden's comments were made on the eve of Crimean reunification with Russia, which
only served to cement Russians closer and hold Putin in even greater esteem. Talk about an
Own Goal!
Outlaw US Empire Nord Stream policy is close to being the same as literally torpedoing
it, making it an act of war against the EU and Russia. Somehow, I don't think Blinken
understands that fundamental fact.
"I know that the United States and its leaders are determined to maintain certain
relations with us, but on matters that are of interest to the United States and on its
terms. Even though they believe we are just like them, we are different. We have a
different genetic, cultural and moral code. But we know how to uphold our interests. We
will work with the United States, but in the areas that we are interested in and on terms
that we believe are beneficial to us. They will have to reckon with it despite their
attempts to stop our development, despite the sanctions and insults. They will have to
reckon with this."
This statement is a positive, that is the mark of a government that adheres to real
values, beneficial to the growth of humanity, and not just for the enrichment of a greedy
minority of it's citizens.
The most peculiar aspect of Biden's outburst is its timing.
If there was one moment in time when it would be ill advised for even the most brass
necked, cynical American exceptionalist not to restrain himself from accusing anyone of
murder, it would have to be that moment in which the bulkiest object in the "Out" tray on
the Presidential desk happened to be a crude coffin like box containing the butchered
remains of the Washington Post journalist and long established CIA asset Adnan
Khashoggi.
Now there was the victim of a killer, the Crown Prince, acting with the permission of
the US government and in the spirit of the Deep State which put Joe Biden in office.
Joe was perhaps thinking of Khashoggi-a beltway denizen he must have run into in one of
the cocktail parties or brothels on the circuit- when he murmured admiringly, to himself,
blissfully unaware of the presence of George Stephanopolous- one of the grande horizontales
of American culture- and the TV camera, "That guy, whatsisname, the one from whatsitcalled,
Russia, is a killer."
Putin fell into a trap. He should have not said a damn thing after Biden spouted off
about him being a killer. The western MSM on both sides of the Pond are now running with
the incorrect translation and narrative that Putin admitted to being a killer. The western
MSM is now also claiming that Putin's wishing Biden good health means he's threatening to
poison him.
Putin should have heeded Mark Twain's wise words:
"Don't wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it."
The western media was captured many years ago and serves only its propaganda business
model.
America is number one instigator and developer of conflict across the entire planet and is
increasingly unworthy of anyones trust or respect.
The US media has degenerated into a slave to the propaganda business model that it has
chosen to adopt.
The US is the Number One instigator and manipulator of conflict across the planet and is
unworthy of anyones trust or respect. The American way defines all that is devious and
corrupt.
None of this is new. There was some disruption for a few years recently, but now that all
obstacles are permanently neutered the destruction of the future for personal gain can get
back into top gear once again.
@Boogity | Mar 20 2021 19:42 utc | 141, and others Barflies...
Putin don't wrestle with the pig.
1) as b., and thanks for his Job, all of us must go to the original and extensive
version. MSM and chats are narrative tools reducing and calibrating our souls.
2) with regards to China and Russia stay tune about context
3) be careful about "translation".
To Biden as an old man, Putin just wish him Good health.
"I would say "stay healthy." [... ] I am saying this without irony or tongue in
cheek."
But "secondly, taking a broader approach to this matter" "to the US establishment, the ruling class – not the American people who are
mostly honest, decent and sincere people who want to live in peace and friendship with
us", he said something like [you are not qualified to speak to Russia from a position
of strength]
their mindset [of US ruling class] was formed in rather challenging circumstances which
we are all aware of. After all, the colonisation of the American continent by the
Europeans went hand-in-hand with the extermination of the local people, the genocide, as
they say today, outright genocide of the Indian tribes followed by a very tough, long
and difficult period of slavery , a very cruel period. All of that has been part of
life in America throughout the history of the United States to this day. Otherwise,
where would the Black Lives Matter movement come from? To this day, African Americans
face injustice and even extermination.
The ruling class of the United States tends to address domestic and foreign policy
issues based on these assumptions. After all, the United States is the only country to
have used nuclear weapons , mind you, against a non-nuclear state – Japan, in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of WW II. There was absolutely no military need for the
bombing. It was nothing but the extermination of civilians.
I am bringing this up, because I know that the United States and its leaders are
determined to maintain certain relations with us, but on matters that are of interest to
the United States and on its terms. Even though they believe we are just like them, we
are different. We have a different genetic, cultural and moral code. But we know how to
uphold our interets .
[...]
despite their attempts to stop our development, despite the sanctions and insults. They
will have to reckon with this.
We, with our national interests in mind, will promote our relations with all
countries"
And he said that on March 18th, 7th anniversary of Crimea reuniting to Russia.
Yang Jiechi stated China's position at his opening remarks, saying China hopes this
dialogue is sincere and honest.
Opening remarks were for 8mn (4x2mn),
But after Yang Jiechi spoke Blinken broke protocole agrement, recall journalists in order
to show is strength. They came to 90mn press conference.
Strength was on chinese side:
"we thought the US would follow the necessary diplomatic protocol In front of the Chinese
side, the US side is not qualified to speak to China from a position of
strength"
"the US must focus on its own human rights issues -- like the Black Lives Matter
movement -- and not meddle in the country's internal affairs "
Putin's elaboration of the history and founding culture of the USA was brilliantly well
done, I thought. As an academic lesson it could hardly be more concise, nor more
penetrating and accurate.
He was speaking to his home constituency of Russia, but he was well aware that the whole
world would listen. The so-called Global South listens to these words for the same reason
we do, to know what has now been said out loud and thus can now be referenced in future
discussions and in future geopolitical positions and stances.
In this sense, all of these words, and words like them, are strength to the backbone of
the world. It clarifies what Russia is now prepared to say out loud, and it suggests very
clearly where a lesser nation might stand, perhaps, and even solicit the support of Russia
- at the UN or in diplomacy at least, if not with S-400s.
And so as these words are sent out into the real world as things that can now be
"noticed", to use the judicial sense of the word, the growing world alliance coheres around
these words, and the world changes in its global attitude.
Those who believe that none of this matters - and this would obviously include the
ruling class of the US, described so perfectly by Putin - are in for a shock.
I can't easily demonstrate how greatly these words matter, other than to remind us how
things used to look half a dozen years ago, when the US was such an ogre, and how things
look now, when the US is more literally a dotard than ever before, and when the fear of
challenging the US is beginning to disappear from the world, overcome by disgust.
These are dangerous times - for the US. Being described accurately is a small step from
being in someone's cross-hairs.
"... Since the CIA controls much of the European media and their ruling class it would take quite a lot for Europeans to drop their status as vassal states ..."
I notice a lot of accusations that Washington is "stupid" but that's not true. You have to
understand how Washington works before you make such statements. The Deep State knows that it
can control the minds of most Americans by inventing "truths" without any need to prove
anything. Since Washington is now in conflict with a goodly part of the public it sees that
creating foreign policy crises and enemies as an excellent course of action to shore up
support. Americans are always ready to react against enemies no matter how slender the proof
of the wrongdoing ascribed to the enemy. There is never a penalty to pay for lying in the US
if you are in the mainstream media or in the political arena.
Since the CIA controls much of the European media and their ruling class it would take
quite a lot for Europeans to drop their status as vassal states . Remember, Washington
can throw endless amounts of money around and fund everything from terrorism, crime waves,
sexual indiscretions a la Epstein (the CIA had it's own whorehouse which my father pointed
out to me decades ago--it was in Roslyn Virginia and it used underage girls and boys to
improve its soft-power). So far, no one has paid a penalty for lying or corrupt practices in
Washington if they were "made" men or women (Trump never got that far).
As long as Europe, Japan and some other countries continue to be vassal states the US can
and will get away with anything. Nordstream 2 is the issue that may change all that. Once
Germany rebels the rest may follow.
Is not that what we see now was always the true cost of "electing" (via cheating) the
greatest crook of them all plus a dementia sufferer? Both POTUS and the vice are completely
useless but highly manipulable. This why they were pushed forward and why the presidency was
delivered into their lap. But the main problem with manipulable is the inconsistency of the
manipulation usually due to the disagreement amongst the manipulators due to their differing
interests. Simply, the model of a dummy in the spotlight and the multiple string pullers in
the shadow is not a stable model. It is a model on the opposite extreme of the good
leadership, which is stable as long as the leader lasts (cough, cough ... Putin).
Regarding all the doomsayers on US who Martyanov joined lately and unoriginally (concept
sold long ago and much better by another Russian - Dimitry Orlov), they are not completely
wrong but wrongish. Whenever I read of some crap in the US, I think - was this the way it was
in the Chinese Empire, the seemingly endless corruption, depravity and complete and constant
lying? But look at China now. If US does not manage to destroy the World during its decline,
it will come back better and stronger. But one or two generations will suffer and many
contemporaries will run away, as they are running away from the cities right now. As things
get even worse they will start running away from the country en masse.
17 March Russia withdraws it's US Ambassador for consultations:
"Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov has been summoned to Moscow
for consultations in order to analyse what needs to be done in the context of relations
with the United States.
The new US administration took office about two months ago and the symbolic 100-day
mark is not too far away, which is a good occasion for trying to appraise what Joe
Biden's team has managed to do and where it was not very successful.
The most important thing for us is to identify ways of rectifying Russia-US
relations, which have been going through hard times as Washington has, as a matter of
fact, brought them to a blind alley.
We are interested in preventing an irreversible deterioration in relations, if the
Americans become aware of the risks associated with this."
Pres. Putin invite Pres. Biden for a live on-line public discussion of issues:
"I want to invite President Biden to continue our discussion, but on the condition that
we do this actually live, as they say, online. Without any delay, but directly in an
open, direct discussion. It seems to me that it would be interesting for the people of
Russia, for the people of the United States, and for many other countries", Putin said
on air on the Rossiya 24 broadcaster.
The talk to be tomorrow (Friday). If not, then Monday, as he is spending free time in
the Taiga (oblique reference to North Korea going up the sacred mountain to re-majorly
rethink policy). This also places a live face to face in Prime media time, avoiding the
dead news weekend.
Biden is an intelligent man, but can't appear on an unedited live TV show with Putin -
not because of his age-related related memory recall difficulty - this is normal - but
because it risks exposing the cartoon-like tropes, lies, racism, & duplicity of the US
Govt. approach.
Especially when compared and contrasted with the serious and adult approach of the
Russian President. Nearly 100 days in, USA Govt. has been given the chance, and it is
clear USA Govt aggression and attempts to interfere in Russian domestic policy will
continue. Should Russia abandon soft diplomacy and strategic patience with USA?
Perhaps it is all theatre, coordinated by the Presidential envoys.
Perhaps a 'crisis' is created, Ukraine creates a threat to Europe, climate must be
cooperatively addressed, the Middle East could explode at any moment, a new peace treaty
in the Gulf required, blah blah, blah.
A live face to face airs the issues from both sides publicly, done respectfully,
sensibly, no political point scoring or spittle-mouthed fabrications from the US Govt
side.
The Press filter is sidestepped - a Trump tactic. It would be intended as a circuit
breaker, and the start of a new course for USA Govt. Russia is ready, has been for years,
and repeated it over and over.
If the USA Govt fails to step up it will hardly be the end of the world. But it will
show what a lot of short-sighted, self-interested, careerist, and functionally useless
time-servers most of the US political class are.
They will identify themselves as impediments to the health and welfare of the American
people.
The president named the fight against the pandemic, regional conflict resolution, and
strategic stability issues as possible topics, noting that he would be ready to talk to
Biden on Friday or Monday in an "open" chat.
"I would like to suggest to President Biden that we continue our discussion, but on the
condition that we actually do it live, without any delays, directly in an open, live
discussion," Putin told the Russia 24 TV channel on Thursday. "I think it would be
interesting for the people of Russia and the people of the United States and many other
countries," he added.
It would be so delicious to actually witness such a debate. By asking for it to be
streamed live, Putin is subtly calling out Biden's lie that he "told Putin he had no soul"
(whereas it's unlikely that Biden actually had a 1:1 meeting with Putin during the Obama
administration) as well as making Biden look weaker when Crash Test Dummy doesn't respond to
the invite.
Biden"s time is limited. Cannot be trusted near a microphone, no matter how well prepared
or how thoroughly edted. Has trouble walking, begins to have trouble standing up.
Kamala is still very much a problem. First, no one likes her. Not the public, not her
peers. The public is not prepared for her accession. Her competence is possibly even lower
than Biden's. She may be better able to read a TelePrompter, she still annoys everyone when
she speaks. May turn out to have some aptitude for riding herd on the advisors, we shall see.
She may be able to function as some sort of ringmaster but will contribute nothing, she knows
nothing.
It shall be government by advisors and functionaries and hidden hands. The advisors and
functionaries are all steeped in hegemony and exceptionalism. They have no idea of anything
else. Anyone who ever had a thought in their head was weeded out of academia and out of
public life a long time ago. That leaves the hidden hands. We will never know much about
that. It does appear they are perhaps ready to close down the American project and move
on.
If those within the US government were so stupid as to swallow Russiagate's bullshit thus
resulting in a "deep hatred of Russia," why would Russia want to deal with such obtuse idiots
incapable of logic or critical thinking?
IMO, the current goal of Russia/China/Iran is to completely ice-out the Outlaw US Empire
from having any practical impact on global affairs. The new initiative to Re-ratify the UN
Charter is a case in point for such a policy. The not agreement capable nation now has a
figure head that can't be allowed to talk without minders, a fact Putin would like the entire
world to observe. The world has no way to deny that it sees a nation talking like a Gangster
and acting like a Gangster as its recent behavior's been very explicit and public. IMO, such
behavior hasn't been observed since 1938, but there'll be no appeasement or betrayal of
another nation this time. China's already invited Lavrov to Beijing once its diplomats return
from Alaska. Yet the Empire lies to itself when it says it has more tools to deal with
Russia. The reality is it has no more cards to play--not even its nukes.
Absolutely no difference in foreign policy?
B, I think you're pandering to your audience.
I wonder what President Putin would think- or perhaps "feel" about teamBiden versus
Trump?.
How would you like to be called a "killer, without a soul"? Not withstanding all the
theatrical bellicosity of Pompeo, Putin at least understood that Trump admired him as a
person. I contend this is a big difference.
Do you think the Dems want any comparison with the Trump administration? They are after
contradistinction.
The Dems, the internationalists and the Blairites imagine themselves to be on a roll. Putin
is in their crosshairs.
This time the belligerence is the real thing.
International Music Festival volunteer coordinator and representative of Crimea Federal
University Polina Bolbochan: Mr President, I have a somewhat personal question for you.
Yesterday, President Biden got quite tough in his interview, including with regard to you.
What would you say to him?
Vladimir Putin: With regard to my US colleague's remark, we have, indeed, as he said,
met in person. What would I tell him? I would say "stay healthy." I wish him good health. I
am saying this without irony or tongue in cheek. This is my first point.
Secondly, taking a broader approach to this matter, I would like to say that difficult,
dramatic, and bloody events abound in the history of every nation and every state.
But when we evaluate other people, or even other states and nations, we are always
facing a mirror, we always see ourselves in the reflection, because we project our inner
selves onto the other person.
You know, I remember when we were children and played in the yard, we had arguments
occasionally and we used to say: whatever you call me is what you are called yourself. This
is no coincidence or just a kids' saying or joke. It has a very deep psychological
undercurrent.
We always see ourselves in another person and think that he or she is just like us, and
evaluate the other person's actions based on our own outlook on life.
With regard to the US establishment, the ruling class – not the American people
who are mostly honest, decent and sincere people who want to live in peace and friendship
with us, something we are aware of and appreciate, and we will rely on them in the
future – their mindset was formed in rather challenging circumstances which we are
all aware of.
After all, the colonisation of the American continent by the Europeans went hand-in-hand
with the extermination of the local people, the genocide, as they say today, outright
genocide of the Indian tribes followed by a very tough, long and difficult period of
slavery, a very cruel period.
All of that has been part of life in America throughout the history of the United States
to this day. Otherwise, where would the Black Lives Matter movement come from? To this day,
African Americans face injustice and even extermination.
The ruling class of the United States tends to address domestic and foreign policy
issues based on these assumptions. After all, the United States is the only country to
have used nuclear weapons, mind you, against a non-nuclear state – Japan, in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of WW II. There was absolutely no military need for the
bombing. It was nothing but the extermination of civilians.
I am bringing this up, because I know that the United States and its leaders are
determined to maintain certain relations with us, but on matters that are of interest to
the United States and on its terms.
Even though they believe we are just like them, we are different. We have a different
genetic, cultural and moral code .
But we know how to uphold our interests. We will work with the United States, but in
the areas that we are interested in and on terms that we believe are beneficial to
us.
They will have to reckon with it despite their attempts to stop our development,
despite the sanctions and insults.
They will have to reckon with this.
My bolds, to bring out the essence.
Essentially, he is saying 'We reject your posturing and rudeness, do what you want. We are
ready, and will go our own way. You are not worthy of our cooperation. It' over'.
So, the ball, once again, is in the USA Govt court.
The problem with coronavirus vaccine is similar to the problem with flu vaccine: the virus
mutates and it is unclear how effective the vaccination will be against the next dominant
strain.
Did you know that "49 percent of GOP men say they won't get vaccinated"? It's true.
According to a recent article in The Hill:
"Nearly half of U.S. men who identify as Republicans said they have no plans to get the
coronavirus vaccine, according to a new PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll released Thursday.
The study, which surveyed 1,227 U.S. adults from March 3 to March 8, found that approximately
30 percent of Americans overall said they do not plan on getting vaccinated.
The poll found a higher amount of opposition among Republicans, with 41 percent saying
they would not get one of the three federally approved coronavirus vaccines and 49 percent of
Republican men saying the same. Fifty percent of GOP men said they would get the vaccine or
had already got it. One percent was unsure.
I believe that people who refuse to take the vaccine will be ridiculed, humiliated,
scapegoated, deprived and isolated. Judging from the COVID 19 situation we are already living
in fascist society where people are treated as the state property.
Once you you look at the vaccination statistics, it is clear that the psychopaths are
winning. There is no escape from them. Sooner or later they will come for people like me. I
am trying to prepare myself for a painful and slow death from starvation/disease/maltreatment
in a detention/concentration/reeducation camp.
My hat is off to Mr. Whitney for an excellent article. And thank God for a real human
being and American patriot as Gov. Kristi Noem. I thought there was no such thing in
politics. This woman should be our president not the fake and false "woman of color" standing
in the wings salivating. The media can't tell if she's African or from India. Does it matter
that she was the least favored candidate in the primaries? Not to to demoncrats. All they do
is pander to color and gender confusion. This should be an insult to any real person of color
like me and it most definitely is. When are people going to realize that they are being
exploited and manipulated? We are all citizens and those sincerely aspiring to be citizens.
Not pawns in a politica chess game that no one wins but the politicians...
Apparently Chuck Todd is a
climatologist and virologist . He doesn't ASK Fauci if climate change will cause more
pandemics - or how even soon that might happen - he simply states as fact that
it will happen. For his part, Fauci largely avoids the issue, responding as generically as
possible. LOL!
In this indirect way, Americans have now been put on notice: expect more pandemics and
continuing restrictions in the not-too-distant future.
Who says our media aren't informative?!?!/sarc
Expert Chuck Todd fails to note that the world was long overdue a pandemic. Chuckie also
fails to note that highly-paid health authorities - that planned for years for the next
pandemic - failed miserably in protecting us. What health authority questioned Trump's early
lies that SARS-COV-2 was no worse than the flu?
Of course Biden is senile, but from the speech it is clear that his clique is also far from
being the sharpest knifes in the drawer.
The problem with coronavirus vaccine is similar to the problem with flu vaccine: the virus
mutates and it is unclear how effective the vaccination will be against the next dominant
strain.
Also it is unclear whether for people, say, over 70 the danger of vaccine outweighs the
danger of the virus (especially if they live alone with no children in the household -- children
usually bring new infection into the family). Half of Covid-19 deaths are over age 80 (median age
of victims is 82). If you are over age 80 and live in a big city or in a family with children ,
you have elevated, probably a 1 in 6 chance of dying from Covid-19
And again big difference is whether you live in the large city like NYC or somewhere in the
suburbs, say 70 miles from the nearest large city. People in the city are in much higher danger
to get the infection.
"Trust the government", says Biden, and yet, in survey after survey, we see that trust in
government is lower now than any time in our 245-year history. And, for good reason: the public
health officials, the media, and their Democrat allies in the statehouses have consistently and
deliberately misled the public on nearly every aspect of the pandemic...
Take a look:
"When I came into office you may recall I set a goal that many of you said was kind of way
over the top. I said I intended to get 100 million shots in people's arms in my first 100
days in office . Tonight, I can say we're not only going to meet that goal, we're going
to beat that goal. Because we're actually on track to reach this goal of 100 million shots in
arms on my 60th day in office. No other country in the world has done this, none. And I want
to talk about the next steps we're thinking about.
"Tonight, I'm announcing that I will direct all states, tribes, and territories to make
all adults, people 18 and over, eligible to be vaccinated no later than May 1. Let me say
that again. All adult Americans will be eligible to get a vaccine no later than May 1. That's
much earlier than expected.
"And let me be clear. That doesn't mean everyone's going to have that shot immediately,
but it means you'll be able to get in line beginning May 1. Every adult will be eligible to
get their shot. And to do this, we're going to go from a million shots a day that I
promised in December before I was sworn in, to maintaining, beating our current pace of 2
million shots a day, outpacing the rest of the world "
What does that mean?
It means the virus is on its last legs . It means there is enough immunity in the
community that the rate of infection is falling like a stone . Viruses don't suddenly
decide to pack their bags and leave town. No. They run out of susceptible hosts to infect. And
the reason they run out of susceptible hosts to infect, is because more people have already had
the infection and either survived or died. Either way, the pool of susceptible hosts has shrunk
dramatically. This is a long way of saying that ' At present, there is no reason to get
vaccinated.' There is no reason to inject an experimental and potentially-lethal substance
into your bloodstream to counter an infection that is nearly kaput. Capisce?
Biden knows this, his speech writers know this, and the deep-pocket oligarchs who shoehorned
his sorry a** into the White House by dumping truckloads of mail-in ballots at voting stations
around the country in the wee-hours of the morning; they know it, too.
...
Of course, he knows it. He knows the whole thing is a fraud, but that won't stop him from
doing what he's been doing for the last 50 years; carrying water for corporate honchos and
billionaire busybodies who see vaccination as an essential steppingstone to their glorious new
order. Biden is merely the face-man for this sinister project; a pallid, inconsequential
cog that helps to move the machinery of tyranny forward. That's Biden in a nutshell. Here's
more from the speech:
"I need you, the American people. I need you. I need every American to do their part. I
need you to get vaccinated when it's your turn and when you can find an opportunity.
And to help your family, your friends, your neighbors get vaccinated as well. Because
here's the point.
"If we do all this, if we do our part, if we do this together, by July the 4, there's a
good chance you, your families and friends, will be able to get together in your backyard or
in your neighborhood and have a cookout or a barbecue and celebrate Independence Day."
Get it? In other words, either you get vaccinated or no 4th of July for you!
... Do these people have any idea how despicable they are? The government's job is to
provide accurate, well-researched, empirical information on matters of public interest, like
vaccines. The government has no right to employ private contractors to persuade,
indoctrinate or brainwash the American people in order to promote the cynical and
self-serving agenda of power-mad elites and money-grubbing corporations. That is a massive
"overreach".
Last spring, the New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered nursing homes to admit patients who
had recently been treated for Covid-19.
This led to a spike in Covid deaths inside nursing homes, which are filled with elderly
people in the highest risk category for serious Covid-19 cases.
When the State Health Department issued a report on the nursing home deaths, one of Cuomo's
aides rewrote it to remove the total count of 9,250 deaths related to the policy.
The reasoning was that the death count outpaced New Jersey's -- with the second highest
nursing home death rate in the county -- by almost 3,000.
The aide who rewrote the report with the intention to mislead the public worked as a
Professor of Government Ethics at NYU's law school, before joining the Cuomo administration in
"ethics and law enforcement matters."
"The aide who rewrote the report with the intention to mislead the public worked as a
Professor of Government Ethics at NYU's law school, before joining the Cuomo administration
in "ethics and law enforcement matters."
I worked in medical ethics for a decade, so I'm not surprised. Especially since he did
that work at a LAW SCHOOL . If we didn't already know it, the focus at law schools is on
teaching students that it is their professional duty to argue for any point of view they are
paid for. And it is the professional task of "ethics experts" to make the argument that the
course of action preferred by their bosses or their institutions is the most "ethical" among
alternatives. Never mind that it's generally the most profitable as well. Pointing out the
actual moral destitution of the chosen acts is NOT conducive to a long career. Trust me on
that one.
The short-cut through the verbiage is generally, if someone refers to "morality", they're
actually talking about what's Right or Wrong. When they mention "ethics", however, they're
discussing what you can get away with.
Cityzerosix 1 day ago
Ethics; underlying morality.
Ethical- relating to beliefs that are morally right or wrong
4
weeks ago I was just watching an NBA game and thought it would be so much more enjoyable if
there was more diversity on the court. Maybe they could lower the baskets so more whites and
Asians could play in the league.
Deep State Operator: "I'll have the staff start drawing up plans for that."
Trump: "I want them out NOW!"
Deep State Operator: "Ah... that's complicated. We can't just leave right away and
leave all of our stuff there."
Trump: "OK, then make those plans! Tell me why these plans were not prepared yet? You
knew that I wanted the troops home. That was one of my campaign promises."
Deep State Operator: "But you never asked us!"
[six months pass]
Trump: "So, how about those plans?"
Deep State Operator: "What plans?"
Trump: "The ones about withdrawing from Syria that I ordered you to have
ready."
Deep State Operator: "Oh, those plans. We have our best people working on them. I'll
find out their status and get back to you."
[three months later]
Trump: "The plans!"
Deep State Operator: "What plans?"
Trump: "Do you have brain damage or something? The ones about withdrawing from Syria!
You said you would look into their status and get back to me!"
Deep State Operator: "We're doing the best that we can! There have been some
complications, but we'll have them straightened out soon!"
[three more months pass]
Trump: "The plans."
Deep State Operator: "What plans?"
Trump: "To get out of Syria."
Deep State Operator: "Oh, those plans! You never filled out the necessary paperwork. We
cannot proceed without the orders in writing. You have to be specific about what you mean by
wanting the troops out. Which parts of Syria do you want them out of and which troops do you
want the operation to apply to? Like I said before, this is really complicated."
[incredulous look from Trump]
[six months later]
Trump: "The plans."
Deep State Operator: "What plans?"
Trump: "To get out of Syria."
Deep State Operator: "Oh, those plans! You wouldn't believe this but a dog ate the
orders that you gave us. We couldn't tell which troops to get out of where, so the plans have
been developing rather slowly."
Trump: "You are right. I don't believe you. You're fired!"
Deep State Operator: "You can't fire me! I am a civil servant!"
Trump: "I can't? OK then, you're promoted to cleaning toilets at McMurdo Station.
Bye."
[six months later]
Trump: "Those plan? Or do you want to join your predecessor at McMurdo
Station?"
New Deep State Operator: "You ask too much! It takes time to learn the intricacies of
this interdepartmental work! I've just started!"
[six months later]
Trump: "Plans!"
Deep State Operator: "Can I go to McMurdo Station?"
[and so on]
[after deep state/business elites frauded election]
Deep State Operator: "Welcome Mr President, and can I say how please I am at your
victory?"
Biden: "You can say whatever the hell you want, whoever the hell you are."
Deep State Operator: "I am your Deep State interdepartmental
facilitator and liaison."
Biden: "Ah, good. They want me to ask you to get the troops back in Syria."
Deep State Operator: "Right away sir. The plans are already prepared and troops will
begin moving before the end of the hour."
Everyone knows the Deep State works this way. Infinite resistance against what the Deep
State doesn't want and immediate action on what the Deep State desires.
Vladimir Putin, you may have noticed, is everywhere. He has soldiers in Ukraine and Syria,
troublemakers in the Baltics and Finland, and a hand in elections from the Czech Republic to
France to the United States. And he is in the media. Not a day goes by without a big new
article on "
Putin's Revenge ", " The Secret Source of
Putin's Evil ", or "10 Reasons Why Vladimir Putin Is a Terrible Human Being".
Putin's recent ubiquity has brought great prominence to the practice of Putinology. This
enterprise – the production of commentary and analysis about Putin and his motivations,
based on necessarily partial, incomplete and sometimes entirely false information – has
existed as a distinct intellectual industry for over a decade.
...At no time in history have more people with less knowledge, and greater outrage, opined
on the subject of Russia's president. You might say that the reports of Trump's golden showers
in a Moscow hotel room have consecrated a golden age – for Putinology.
...
Compared to the 40-year cycle of US deindustrialisation, during which only the rich gained
in wealth; the 25-year rightwing war on the Clintons; the eight-year-old Tea Party assault on
facts, immigration and taxes; a tepid, centrist campaign; and a supposed late-breaking
revelation from the director of the FBI about the dubious investigation of Clinton's use of a
private email server – well, compared to all those factors, the leaked DNC emails must
rank low on the list of reasons for Trump's victory. And yet, according to a recent report,
Hillary Clinton and her campaign still blame the Russians – and, by extension, Barack
Obama, who did not make a big issue of the hacks before November – for her electoral
debacle. In this instance, thinking about Putin helps not to think about everything else that
went wrong, and what needs to be done to fix it.
This evasion is the essence of Putinology, which seeks solace in the undeniable but faraway
badness of Putin at the expense of confronting the far more uncomfortable badness in front of
one's face. Putinology predates the 2016 election by a decade, and yet what we have seen in
connection to Trump these past few months has been its Platonic ideal.
I was joking about Biden being reanimated, but judging from campaign videos etc. he has
troubles with longer answers to questions, looses track and temper and prattles, and he react
badly to some trigger words. That said, like Trump, he cannot be an attentive boss, so
whoever made that leak, clearance from the top was not necessary...
Just imagine how differently the Epstein story would be covered by the media if Epstein
and Maxwell were ethnic Russians, and if Maxwell's father had received a State funeral in
Russia.
Not really. They know the President's condition merely means someone else is currently
enjoying the highest form of power: power without responsibility.
"
Huawei's Harmony OS Extends to All Devices in 2021 in Bid for Tech Self-Sufficiency Amid US
Trade War."
This is interesting. Tech commentators have pointed out, correctly but without too much
insight, that Huawei will have a hard time selling phones with Harmony outside of China because
Trump cut the company off from using the Android operating system's app store. Google." Huawei
is now preloading Harmony on all of its product, making it independent of Google.
Now we have.
Huawei May Allow Chinese Smartphone Firms to Use Harmony OS to Counter Trump Trade
Bans,
This means that all of China's phone companies are independent of Android, at least in
China, as, if threatened by the US, they just switch to Harmony. It also means that China,
should it choose, could ban Android in Chinas as Trump banned Huawei in the US, and perhaps ban
iOS also, thus losing the entire Chinese market for Google and Apple. Forcing a large,
resourceful country to build competing products might charitably be called preternaturally
stupid.
Which brings us to the new Cold War, which is exactly what Trump II is engaged in. The
Beltway China hawks want to cripple China's tech industry by denying it advanced semiconductor
technology, chiefly from America's vassal states of Holland, Taiwan, and South Korea. Will this
work? I dunno. But there is a clear pattern in China's response. A sort of techy example, that
sensible readers can skip.
There is a company in Wuhan,
YMTC, Yangtze Memory Technology Company, that has developed an advanced 192-layer
dual-wafer NAND ("flash") chip using Chinese technology. Flash memory is used in huge
quantities in everything from smartphones to French fries (well, maybe not French fries.) There
is some doubt as to whether the company will be able to produce in volume, but it is building a
second fab line, so it must think it can.
If it does, American companies, notably Micron, will lose the (very large) Chinese market
for flash. Then the Chinese, nothing if not commercial, will probably flood the world market
with discount flash.
This tech-wide lunge for self-sufficiency, if Washington does not succeed in crushing it,
will close the Chinese market progressively for American firms. Well, who needs 1.4 billion
customers? The China hawks may be poking the wrong bear.
The most important thing Fred wrote in an overall great piece:
Education. China finds its brightest students with a grueling entrance exam. America
dumbs down elite high schools because they don't have enough unqualified minorities.
Thomas Jefferson High School in Virginia has already been enstupidated, and the NYC
schools are on the block. The purpose of schools is to admit students who can't do the
work.
Huawei's AppGallery has attracted over 530 million active monthly users, and 384 billion
installs in 2020–an 83% increase YoY. There are 2.3 million registered developers
working on mobile applications for AppGallery, up 77% over 2019.
Tibet, yes, that Tibet, has broader, faster 5G coverage than the San Francisco
Bay Area.
Sure. Biden has been in office 5 weeks, and that's why China is ahead of us on all of
these technologies. Maybe Marjorie Green can get us all caught up.
Congratulation to the Chinese for the economic advances of recent decades. Not all their
advances are brilliant.
Take Maglev trains. That is an extraordinary expensive technology for moving a few score
people per car. Trains make sense for moving heavy loads long distances. Loads of coal,
petroleum, cattle, lumber and manufactured goods are natural cargoes. It is a waste of
resources to move human passengers in the massive trains. To engineer trains to travel at
300 or 500 mph is a fool's errand. Might as well attach lasers to ox carts. Trains are 19th
century technology and still useful for limited purposes. If you want to ship people at
hundreds of mph use aircraft. The only profitable passenger trains were a few of the
trolleys early in the 20th century.
Fusion reactors: it is said to be the next big thing. Funny, it has had that status
since the 1950s. I hope some practical application is developed by someone.
Hydrogen fuel: it is a wonderful clean burning fuel. Minor problem: where does the
hydrogen come from? Answer: natural gas is the cheapest source but why not save a lot of
expenses and just burn natural gas? Methane fuel cells are possible although perhaps not
practical. There is a endless supply in water but the separation by electrolysis requires
more energy input than the energy yielded when hydrogen is burned.
Solar panels: a great source of electricity when reliable electric power isn't desired.
If Chinese rely on solar for 32% of their electricity they will face an imminent energy
crisis. A coal burning plant has to be running hot 24 hours per day in case there are
clouds. And there is no solar at night.
The clever Chinese do a lot of the dumb things Americans do. They imitate stupid things
as well as practical technologies. I do not doubt the Chinese will make unique
contributions eventually.
We have a criminal regime in power now, a junta, complete with troops and barbed wire.
Laws don't apply to them because all 3 branches are corrupt. The press is a near total
failure, and has simply become Pravda on steroids.
Gimmie My Stimmy 5 hours ago
Actually, razor wire. All that's really missing are the german sheppards.
ThorAss 6 hours ago
...the media and the alphabet [agencies] are all owned by the same people. Guess what,
it's a big club ......
...Additionally, groups need uniting myths which are now called narratives -- perhaps
someone can foresee the next word for myths to by used when narratives will became as
discredited as myths. Yesterday I read about "ideogems", that was used in Ukrainian,
prosecutors accusing someone of state treason committed by popularizing "ideogems that are
convenient for the Russian Federation". with a phrase "false ideogem". Perhaps "ideogem" is a
component of a "narrative".
All the democrats have to do is inact standard mail in voting as a federal law. They will
never have to worry about losing another election. Who is going to stop them? It has done
wonders for California. They have it down to an art form. Every state will have a Diane
Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi. Mindless ramblings about the glories of democracy. Fairness and
equality for all types! But especially powerful politicians smart enough to marry
investment bankers.
Just as a pointless aside, I dragged out my old DVD of a mid-1980s British comedy called
"Whoops Apocalypse", about the events leading up to nuclear Armageddon. Hilarious, despite
the grim plot.
The US President is a man way out of his depth (obviously Ronald Raygun), while the
British PM is clinically insane.
So far, so normal...
But it was the depiction of the Soviet leadership that is most striking: apparatchiks so
interchangeable that when the Soviet Premier has a heart attack while meeting the US
Ambassador they simply drag the body out and wheel in a replacement as if it were the most
natural thing in the world.
But look at the world now: the recent Presidential election was between two men of
pensionable age, with the "winner" showing definite the signs of dementia. While over in the
Kremlin there is a man who - whatever faults he may have - is definitely not an apparatchik
and certainly is not sclerotic.
Difficult to come by, but if you ever get the chance then do yourself a favor and watch
the show. It is a work of absolute genius from start to finish.
Biden front of camera (and barely managing that) with Chief of Staff Klain running the
show.
Reminds me of Obama front of camera (managing that extremely well) with Rahm Emmanuel
running the show, ensuring the interests of those who put Obama where he was.
Rahm left the position after two years to run for Mayor of Chicago, following Richard M
Daley, who's brother, William, took over the role of White House Chief of Staff (after Rouse
was interim for several months), also to ensure the interests of those who put Obama where he
was.
Why do people lose sight of Obama's political origins?
"This will likely cost them their House majority in 2022"
So what? Yes every congresscritter greatly cares about his own seat, but for the Dem
Party it only leads to embarrassment. "It was politically unfeasible", "Those evil
Repubs made us do it"--that's when Dems are in their element; Obama also ditched the
overall majorities he rode in on as soon as he could. The Dems need to look relevant, and to
have a little something to block Republican plans they don't care for, and all is good. And
'24... who knows; one way or another, Biden just beat Trump; why could't he, or his stuffed
corpse, do it again?
Anyway, the real arbiters here are the donors. And they like their pendulum swings, lest
their puppets get too uppity, and because one-party rule would be too ... overt. This is what
gloomy Repubs fail to understand these days.
"Neither the European U.S. allies, nor the Asian ones, have any interest in following the
U.S. into a confrontation with China."
Beg your pardon? Both the Canadian and Dutch parliaments have just lobbed genocide
accusations against China. Now that Bad Man Trump is gone, they're desperate to show
their servility. Fundamentally, this is who they are.
This post is an excellent diagnosis of the Anglo-American malady.
Quoting PlutoniumKun: "So in the UK they have a government run by a buffoon surrounded by
lightweights, that has made an appalling mess of Covid, screwed up Brexit, has destroyed the
UK's standing internationally, and has driven the country into an unnecessary steep
recession. But is still incredibly popular."
In the U S of A, the Monoparty, Aqua Wing plus Mauve Wing, have driven the country into
declining life expectancy, a constant petty low-level civil war, greater and greater income /
wealth inequality, and visible decline–streets falling in, broken sidewalks, tatty post
offices no longer maintained, and so on.
Yet there is no indication that the Monoparty can be broken up. Meanwhile, minimum wage is
maintained at an obscene level, the government quibbles over unemployment benefits (let alone
the manipulated unemployment rate), and the stimulus is a guaranteed shambles. Large numbers
of Americans have a sense that the whole shebang is "rigged," yet being American, they want
to fall into racial panic rather than breaking down the system of oppression.
And Joe Manchin, oh-so-conveniently, is president of this mess.
It doesn't take much to understand that the Iranian government has some eighty years of
reasons for not wanting to deal with the U.S. government. Justifiable reasons. Yet the U.S.
is still deluded enough to think that it is the center of Empire. Talk about
lightweights–the U.S. foreign policy establishment and the "intelligence communit" have
produced one disaster after another, with impunity.
As a resident of Joe Manchin's country, it is pleasing to see that the discussion of the
idiocy of what is happening politically in the US and that the discussion of MMT are finally
being presented in a rational way.
The opening of this entire blog hit it on the head – money is not an issue for a
sovereign monetary country. The EU could adopt the MMT point-of -view, whereas the individal
countries making up the EU cannot. There is only one party in the US, the party of those who
have enough money to buy the politicians.
With the above admitted, NC can now retire; there is nothing more to discuss except how do
we get rid of these problems with the governments in power?
...Hillary failed. She was organised by self confident, privileged, idiotic fools,
example: Podesta use 'password' as his password for his most confidential emailer. The
hackers had both Hillary and Podesta by the short and curleys: they were extreme risk.
The likelihood of the entire Clinton home server contents being in the possession of more
than two contending nations is quite high IMO. Add the Debbie Wasseman Shultz hacking debacle
and you get a 'trust and confidence' deficit. Trump had none of that baggage.
Better for the oligarchs to go with the guy who confessed to grabbing women by the short
and curleys than to throw your lot in with morons and where you had to share 'control' with
the hacker universe:
Trump was elected by the democracy that the USA fears to amend. Live with it.
DJT was supposed to be thrown under the bus more than four years ago. From that
perspective it was the 2016 election that was stolen... by the electorate. That wasn't
supposed to happen which is why the establishment totally lost their shi... uh, cool.
Biden is the most fitting US President in modern history. He is a fantastic representation
of the political system that has metastasized around the institutions of government. He's
almost redundant, that's not intended as an insult.
An empty husk has its political uses and as simple continuation device for the forever
war's he should do fine.
It looks almost certain that it's a question of when not if the cognitive wheels will
grind to a halt. Despite his grim determination to remember his lines you're left wondering
if the effort is even worth it. If the systems barely functioning meat suit simply drooled
over the lecturn at his next engagement what would be the substantive difference for the US,
it's people and policies.
Trump was nothing more than entertaining distraction but cucked almost every decision he
had to make and was dealt with easily by the systemic, vested interests groups mitigating the
slightest correction, the smallest bit of change. Biden is a real life deepfake, an illusion,
just like the bona fides of the American political system claiming to represent the
people.
The vested interests will continue to gorge themselves on wealth and power while Biden
gazes vaccously into the nearest camera.
How many repeat performances with known end would be required and how many acts to conceal
the crime, er, tort, before a lawyer stands up and says that pile of dead bodies was put
there by a perp?
How many dead bodies before a journalist decides there is a story?
How many times will public be fooled before wising up? Well, that one I know the
answer.
Speaker Pelosi eagerly
cancelled voting Thursday because of the bogus threat. This freed up Representative Al
Green, a Democrat from the Houston area, to undertake a stunt of surpassing stupidity that was
taken with deadpan seriousness by much of the media. The DC insider publication,
The Hill , bought into the stunt:
Rep. Al Green (D-Texas)
is sending a message to QAnon and right-wing extremist threats by sitting on the Capitol
steps on Thursday, the date authorities warned militia groups were potentially planning
another breach of the building.
"I want to make a statement to let people know, those who would threaten those of us who
cherish this freedom that we have here that we refuse to allow those threats to negate our
freedom," he told The Hill.
Green himself touted his bravery:
... The only problem is that Rep. Green was sitting behind a large protective cordon,
including National Guard troops and fencing, facing no danger, even if the phony insurrection
reports had been true.
Tucker Carlson called them out in his introductory segment Friday. It's worth watching
here .
"US announces sanctions on top Ukrainian oligarch & Zelensky ally Kolomoisky for '
undermining democratic processes ' in country." [My Emphasis] Here .
Okay, so when will the Democratic National Committee and its Republican counterpart be
sanctioned for doing the same within the USA?
TRUMP fans clashed with Antifa and BLM supporters while carrying a massive flag depicting Nancy Pelosi as a demon during a march
on Friday.
The MAGA supporters marched along Fifth Avenue in
Manhattan
towards
Trump Tower with all sorts of pro-Trump flags waving.
8
Trump supports marched in Manhattan on Friday
Credit:
Alamy Live News
8
The MAGA fans unveiled a large flag depicting
Nancy Pelosi as some sort of demon
Credit:
Getty Images - Getty
One of those flags, unfurled right in front of the former president's namesake tower, featured
House
Speaker Pelosi
fashioned as some sort of demon.
CLAIM: The White House cut President Joe Biden's feed at a virtual event with top House
Democrats because they did not have confidence in him answering questions.
AP'S ASSESSMENT: False. Biden did take questions after his introductory remarks at the
House Democratic Caucus Virtual Issues Conference on Wednesday but the event was closed to
the press after the initial comments, so the video feed was cut.
THE FACTS: Posts online are suggesting that the video proves that the White House is
limiting the president's talking time.
"'Man Has No Idea What He's Doing': Biden Says He's 'Happy to Take Question' But WH Cuts
Feed."
"' I'd be happy to take questions if that's what I'm supposed to do , Nance,' Biden
said. ' Whatever you want me to do .'" [My Emphasis]
I've refrained from calling Biden a walking corpse or otherwise making fun of his dementia
because I cared for my mom during her losing battle with Alzheimer's, and it's extremely
tragic and not at all funny. But given this evidence and the fact that his minders cut him
off, it ought to be very clear that Biden is in no way in control of his administration or
even of himself. So, there's absolutely no way that he ordered the missile strike on the
Iraqi troops, or is making any other policy decisions. The voting public can rightfully say
it was defrauded.
...it started with Teresa May alleging a "chemical weapons attack" on European soil (re:
the Skripals) and now has morphed into an alleged active Russian Chemical Weapons/WMD program
requiring sanctions and public outrage (re: Navalny).
The decline of the West can be measured by the level of constant BS.
Call it payback for the December restaurant shutdowns.
It took a few minutes after the BLS reported the impressive February jobs report, which
showed a whopping 379K total jobs added in February (and 465K private payrolls, or more than
double the 195K expected), for traders to read between the lines and realize that there was
much less than meets the eye in the latest jobs report.
To wit: of the 379K jobs, a whopping 355K, or 93%, were in leisure and hospitality, and
within this category the one and only sector that truly boomed the most under the Obama admin
was on top: employees food service and drinking places, i.e. waiter and bartenders, accounted
for a massive 286K jobs, or 75% of the total job gains in February. Call it payback for the
December collapse in restaurant workers when nearly 400K jobs were lost amid the latest round
of restaurant shutdowns.
Honest Joe is old, weak, frail, incompetent, corrupt, traitorous to his own people, and
some say maybe even a little bit sexually perverted.
You meant to say Donald Trump. Maybe Biden isn't much better, but it can't be good for the
US when the same description is perfectly valid for both rivals for power.
At the end of January, Putin was given the opportunity to address the World Economic Forum
(WEF) in Davos, Switzerland (online). The WEF is a prestigious assembly of political leaders,
corporatists and billionaire elites many of who are directly involved in the massive global
restructuring project that is currently underway behind the smokescreen of the Covid-19
pandemic. Powerful members of the WEF decided that the Coronavirus presented the perfect
opportunity to implement their dystopian strategy which includes a hasty transition to green
energy, A.I., robotics, transhumanism, universal vaccination and a comprehensive surveillance
matrix that detects the location and activities of every human being on the planet. The
proponents of this universal police state breezily refer to it as "The Great Reset" which is
the latest make-over of the more familiar, "New World Order". There's not a hairsbreadth
difference between the Reset and one-world government which has preoccupied billionaire
activists for more than a century. This is the group to which Putin made the following
remarks:
"I would like to speak in more detail about the main challenges ..the international
community is facing . The first one is socioeconomic .. Starting from 1980, global per capita
GDP has doubled in terms of real purchasing power parity. This is definitely a positive
indicator. Globalisation and domestic growth have led to strong growth in developing
countries and lifted over a billion people out of poverty .Still, the main question is
what was the nature of this global growth and who benefitted from it most ..
developing countries benefitted a lot from the growing demand for their traditional and
even new products. However, this integration into the global economy has resulted in more
than just new jobs or greater export earnings. It also had its social costs, including a
significant gap in individual incomes . According to the World Bank, 3.6 million people
subsisted on incomes of under $5.50 per day in the United States in 2000, but in 2016 this
number grew to 5.6 million people.. ..
Meanwhile, globalisation led to a significant increase in the revenue of large
multinational, primarily US and European, companies In terms of corporate profits, who got
hold of the revenue? The answer is clear: one percent of the population .
And what has happened in the lives of other people? In the past 30 years, in a number
of developed countries, the real incomes of over half of the citizens have been stagnating,
not growing . Meanwhile, the cost of education and healthcare services has gone up. Do
you know by how much? Three times
In other words, millions of people even in wealthy countries have stopped hoping for an
increase of their incomes. In the meantime, they are faced with the problem of how to keep
themselves and their parents healthy and how to provide their children with a decent
education .
These imbalances in global socioeconomic development are a direct result of the policy
pursued in the 1980s , which was often vulgar or dogmatic. This policy rested on the
so-called Washington Consensus with its unwritten rules, when the priority was given
to the economic growth based on a private debt in conditions of deregulation and low taxes on
the wealthy and the corporations .
As I have already mentioned, the coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated these problems.
In the last year, the global economy sustained its biggest decline since WWII. By July, the
labour market had lost almost 500 million jobs . In the first nine months of the past year
alone, the losses of earnings amounted to $3.5 trillion. This figure is going up and,
hence, social tension is on the rise." (" Session of Davos Agenda 2021Online Forum,
Putin Addresses World Economic Forum, Jan 27, 2021)
Why is Putin telling his elitist audience these things? Does he think these fatcats don't
know how the system works or how it was originally set up? Does he think they are unaware of
the glaring flaws in a system that shifts all of the profits to obscenely wealthy corporations
and scheming elites while working people slip further into debt and desperation?
Putin knows how globalisation works, just as he knows who it was designed to benefit. It's
no secret. Check out this quote from the Russian president in a speech nearly 5 years ago:
"Back in the late 1980s-early 1990s, there was a chance not just to accelerate the
globalization process but also to give it a different quality and make it more harmonious and
sustainable in nature. But some countries that saw themselves as victors in the Cold War,
not just saw themselves this way but said it openly, took the course of simply reshaping the
global political and economic order to fit their own interests.
In their euphoria, they essentially abandoned substantive and equal dialogue with other
actors in international life, chose not to improve or create universal institutions, and
attempted instead to bring the entire world under the spread of their own organizations,
norms and rules. They chose the road of globalization and security for their own beloved
selves, for the select few, but not for everyone." (President Vladimir Putin, Meeting of the
Valdai International Discussion Club)
"To the victor belongs the spoils"? Isn't that what Putin is saying, that Washington figured
its Cold War triumph entitled them to create a system whereby they could pillage and loot the
rest of the world with impunity?
Indeed, that is precisely what he's saying. And he knows what he's talking about, too.
Putin has followed developments in global trade for over 20 years. He knows the system is
rigged and he knows who rigged it. And now he's telling them in no uncertain terms that they
are responsible for the mess the world is in today. "The world is in crisis, because you
fu**ed up." That's what he's saying. It's not a subtle message, he's simply laying it on the
line. Check out this blurb from an earlier speech by Putin where he shows that he's not just a
capable leader but also an astute critic of social trends linked to globalization:
"It seems like elites don't see the deepening stratification in society and the erosion
of the middle class (but the situation) creates a climate of uncertainty that has a
direct impact on the public mood. Sociological studies conducted around the world show that
people in different countries and on different continents tend to see the future as murky
and bleak . This is sad. The future does not entice them, but frightens them. At the same
time, people see no real opportunities or means for changing anything, influencing events
and shaping policy. As for the claim that the fringe and populists have defeated the
sensible, sober and responsible minority – we are not talking about populists or
anything like that but about ordinary people, ordinary citizens who are losing trust in
the ruling class. That is the problem . " (President Vladimir Putin, Meeting of the
Valdai International Discussion Club)
In this one brief comment, Putin shows that he has a better grasp of 'what is going on' in
the west than any of the numbskulls in congress today. And notice how he ignores the hype about
"racial justice", BLM, "white supremacy" and the other "racialized" bunkum that's
propagated in the media today. He's not hoodwinked by that nonsense. He knows it's just
another diversion promoted by the cadres of dirtbags who use race and identity politics to
conceal their role in the ongoing class war. That's what's really going on. The men that
Putin is addressing in his speech are the very same men who are doing everything in their power
to eviscerate democracy, skewer the middle class and grind America's working population into
dust. It's plain old class war dolled-up to look like racial unrest. Here's more from
Putin:
" During the past 20 years we have created a foundation for the so-called Fourth
Industrial Revolution (AKA–"The Great Reset")based on the wide use of AI and
automation and robotics. The coronavirus pandemic has greatly accelerated such projects and
their implementation . However, this process is leading to new structural changes, I am
thinking in particular of the labor market. This means that very many people could lose
their jobs unless the state takes effective measures to prevent this . Most of these
people are from the so-called middle class, which is the basis of any modern society.
. The rise of economic problems and inequality is splitting society, triggering social,
racial and ethnic intolerance . Indicatively, these tensions are bursting out even in the
countries with seemingly civil and democratic institutions that are designed to alleviate and
stop such phenomena and excesses.
The systemic socioeconomic problems are evoking such social discontent that they
require special attention and real solutions. The dangerous illusion that they may be
ignored or pushed into the corner is fraught with serious consequences." ( Putin, WEF)
Putin understands that the Covid-related lockdowns and closing of "non-essential" businesses
is merely prelude for the massive societal restructuring project elites have in store for us.
They've already put millions of people out of work and expanded their surveillance capabilities
in anticipation of the social unrest they are deliberately inciting. Putin thinks this
futuristic strategy is unnecessarily reckless, disruptive and fails to account for intensifying
social animosities and widening political divisions that are bound to have a catastrophic
impact on democratic institutions. But Putin also knows that his appeal for a more cautious
approach will be brushed aside by the billionaire powerbrokers who set the policy and call the
shots. Here's more:
" Society will still be divided politically and socially. This is bound to happen
because people are dissatisfied not by some abstract issues but by real problems that concern
everyone regardless of the political views that people have or think they have. Meanwhile,
real problems evoke discontent. "
This is a recurrent theme with Putin and one that shows that he has a deeper understanding
of what is really happening in both the United States and Europe than any of his peers.
Populist candidates, like Trump, have not gained momentum due to thier abilities and charisma,
but because the financial situation of millions of Americans continues to deteriorate forcing
them to seek remedies outside the establishment candidates. The economic distress is real and
widespread and, as Putin notes, it is expressing itself in outbursts of discontent, frustration
and rage. Here's more:
"So, the key question today is how to build a programme of actions in order to not only
quickly restore the global and national economies affected by the pandemic, but to ensure
that this recovery is sustainable in the long run, relies on a high-quality structure and
helps overcome the burden of social imbalances. Clearly economic growth will largely rely on
fiscal incentives with state budgets and central banks playing the key role.
Actually, we can see these kinds of trends in the developed countries and also in some
developing economies as well. An increasing role of the state in the socioeconomic
sphere at the national level obviously implies greater responsibility and close
interstate interaction when it comes to issues on the global agenda.
Calls for inclusive growth and for creating decent standards of living for everyone
are regularly made at various international forums. This is how it should be, and this is an
absolutely correct view of our joint efforts.
It is clear that the world cannot continue creating an economy that will only benefit a
million people , or even the golden billion. This is a destructive precept. This model is
unbalanced by default. The recent developments, including migration crises, have reaffirmed
this once again." ( Putin, WEF )
Putin's recommendations, of course, are going to be dismissed with a wave of the hand by the
men in power. The last thing these sociopaths want is "inclusive growth.. and decent standards
of living for everyone." That's not even on their list, and why would it be. After all, they
know what they want. "They want more for themselves and less for everyone else." (George
Carlin) Which is why the system works the way it does, because it was constructed with that one
solitary goal in mind.
Putin also acknowledges the need for greater state intervention in the economy to
counterbalance the more destructive effects of "smash and grab" capitalism. And, while he
rejects the swift and far-reaching structural changes (The Great Reset) that would precipitate
massive social upheaval, he does support a larger role for the state in providing essential
fiscal stimulus, employment and a more equitable distribution of the wealth. This does not
imply that Putin supports state socialism. He does not. He merely supports a more regulated and
benign form of Capitalism that veers from the "scorched earth" model backed by powerful members
of the WEF and other elitist organizations.
With that in mind, Putin makes these specific recommendations:
"We must now proceed from stating facts to action, investing our efforts and resources
into reducing social inequalit y in individual countries and into gradually balancing the
economic development standards of different countries and regions in the world. This would
put an end to migration crises."
The focus of this policy aimed at ensuring sustainable and harmonious development
are clear. They imply the creation of new opportunities for everyone, conditions under which
everyone will be able to develop and realize their potential regardless of where they were
born and are living
I would like to point out four key priorities , as I see them.
First, everyone must have comfortable living conditions, including housing and
affordable transport, energy and public utility infrastructure. Plus, environmental
welfare, something that must not be overlooked.
Second, everyone must be sure that they will have a job that can ensure sustainable
growth of income and, hence, decent standards of living. Everyone must have access to an
effective system of lifelong education, which is absolutely indispensable now and which will
allow people to develop, make a career and receive a decent pension and social benefits upon
retirement.
Third, people must be confident that they will receive high-quality and effective
medical care whenever necessary, and that the national healthcare system will guarantee
access to modern medical services.
Fourth, regardless of the family income, children must be able to receive a decent
education and realize their potential. Every child has potential." (Putin, Davos )
What does it mean that the current president of Russia is now throwing his weight behind
a program that is nearly identical to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's economic Bill of
Rights? Doesn't that seem a bit odd? After all, Putin is a devout Orthodox Christian, a
strong proponent of the traditional family, a self-avowed social conservative, and a
hardscrabble survivor of the failed Soviet state. Who would have thought that such a man
would support a program that provides a decent standard living to every member of society
regardless of their circumstances?
But it makes sense, doesn't it? Putin is pushing for a return to the heavily-regulated
"Heyday" of 20th Century capitalism, when workers' wages were still on the rise, when college
tuition and health care were still affordable, and when the American Dream was still within
reach of the average guy. People were happier then, because they felt that if they applied
themselves, worked like hell, and stashed their savings in the bank; they'd eventually reach
their goal. But that's not true anymore. People are much more pessimistic now and no longer
believe that America is the land of opportunity.
Putin wants to rekindle that optimism. He wants to avoid social unrest by implementing
programs that provide a more equitable distribution of the wealth. This isn't a return to
Communism. It's sensible way to soften the harsher effects of unrestrained capitalism ,
which is presently ravaging the West. Here's Putin again:
"This is the only way to guarantee the cost-effective development of the modern economy,
in which people are perceived as the end, rather than the means . A strategy, also being
implemented by my country, hinges on precisely these approaches. Our priorities revolve
around people, their families, and they aim to ensure demographic development, to protect the
people, to improve their well-being and to protect their health. We are now working to
create favourable conditions for worthy and cost-effective work and successful
entrepreneurship and to ensure digital transformation as the foundation of a high-tech future
for the entire country, rather than that of a narrow group of companies.
We intend to focus the efforts of the state, the business community and civil society on
these tasks and to implement a budgetary policy with the relevant incentives in the years
ahead ." ( Putin,
Davos )
Imagine a political leader who actually put the needs and well-being of his people before
the special interests of his deep-pocket donors and shady corporate buddies. Imagine a leader
who stood eye-to-eye with the big money guys and told them that their system "sucked" and that
they were taking too much for themselves leaving nothing for anyone else. Imagine a leader who
invited more criticism, hectoring, demonizing and punitive sanctions for "speaking truth to
power" in order to stand on the side of ordinary working people, pensioners, cast-offs and the
other victims of this globalist rip-off system.
The reason Putin spoke out at the WEF confab and put himself at risk, was because Putin is
one of the "good guys" who actually believes that everyone deserves a shot at a decent life.
And that's what sets Putin apart from the other leaders in the world today. He doesn't just
"talk the talk", he also "walks the walk."
IF the above comment by BHObama is really him he is arguing that we should hold the course
of American exceptionalism and dominance. I personally, after 70 years of hearing how "we
should tell the world that only we matter" and expect them to ignore their own needs and
aspirations is why China (in particular) is on the rise and the 'myth of America' is
crashing. The recent rebellion among people sick of the way things are heading (typified by
the so-called tRUMP diversion) should serve as a wake up call that something is horribly
wrong.
It wasn't tRUMP that was the problem nor was his idiocy a solution. It is the results of
years of flagrant propaganda that created a nation that considers itself exceptional. We are
exceptionally selfish and war like.
Had the US corporate/banking/Wall Street NOT MADE the egregious mistake with millions of
jobs "offshored"
It was not a mistake. It was done consciously by design by the NWO ELITE CABAL, knowing
the Consequences is going to bring to the 99.9%. The Transnational Globalist Elites do not
have allegiance to a country any more. All they care about is more profit and power.
After reading Putin's statements and Whitney's commentaries, I am further convinced that
whenever some individual or organization constantly and consistently badmouths Putin and
Russia ; these messages come from the enemies of humanity.
It depends on what is meant by globalisation. Globalisation of trade is not necessarily a
bad thing. The problem is that "trade" is not the operative word of the elites, "loot"
is.
That thing doesn't exist. Every complex society in history has eventually collapsed and had
to be regrown from a new basis. Trying to "design a system" is self-defeating. I guess one
could rig governmental buildings with self destruct charges and sarin gas containers controlled
by random nuclear decay to keep the monster in check and to shed useless load from time to
time. "Schrödinger's Office Warmers". I'm going to patent that.
There is too much of a focus on "isms". Right policy is right policy no matter the system.
But the ghosts of Cecil Rhodes still exist. There is a certain group that believes it is their
divine right to rule over all others. There are some who dont belong to their group but will
agree with them as long as they can reap crumbs. Hence the struggles in the world. God alone
will eventually "fix" the problems of man. Until then it is a constant squabble.
The premise that Putin is not the dangerous evil that the US Military Industrial Complex
makes him out to be, is certainly valid. He is trying to carve out a profitable role for Russia
in the future, that depends on participation in Western economies. Germany is on board with
that, but not the USA.
But, like claiming Trump is a populist, there is a certain naivety in suggesting Putin is an
advocate for the common man. I agree with all his words, which fall on deaf ears in the West,
but like Trump, Putin takes care of himself first. Trump sought to destroy universal health
care and was able to pass another tax cut for the rich, designed by the Aynn Rand nutcase Paul
Ryan.
Still it should be recognized that when Clinton and Larry Summers bamboozled Russia into
reorganizing their society into a dozen Oligarchs, the average Russian suffered greatly, which
ultimately led to Yeltsin resigning in tears and handing the reins of Government over to Putin.
Under Putin the average Russian income doubled.
Meanwhile, the USA is doing its best to reignite the cold war. Given our engineered reliance
on Chinese goods today, this doesn't make a lot of sense. These Putin speeches make a lot of
sense yet contradict the current economic structure of Russia and China today, not just the
West.
For those of us in the West taxing the rich is a partial solution to designing a sustainable
economy, which promotes the general welfare, as declared in our constitution. This is an issue
which only Sanders, Warren and a fresh delegation of progressive representatives support today.
They are still a minority.
""To the victor belongs the spoils"? Isn't that what Putin is saying, that Washington
figured its Cold War triumph entitled them to create a system whereby they could pillage and
loot the rest of the world with impunity?"
Putin is an Orthodox Christian and I greatly admire that.
He is also pro family, pro traditional values and a social conservative.
But some people might think that his conservative leanings make him more "free market" than
he really is.
Putin does not worship the market or the people who are able to exploit the system to
their own advantage. Remember, in order to put Russia back on the right track, Putin had to
reign in the oligarchs who had split up the country's wealth under Yeltsin leaving the economy
in dire straits.
This is the lesson that Putin has for us all: If you can't reign in the Bill Gates,
George Soros and other cutthroat oligarchs who want to own and control everything, than you are
not going to have a free and prosperous society .
I was hoping that Trump would meet Putin so Putin could give him so pointers on this issue.
But now the oligarchs have their puppet in the White House so we're screwed.
I've been admiring Putin for several years now. However I can't get one particular thought
out of my head. And it goes to Trump too. Why did he give his credence to Covid19? Why hasn't
he, or any major leader, stood up to the 'science' and rebuked the world wide reaction to this
obvious psy-op? I'm not saying there isn't a set of symptoms (and that's the CDC definition)
that define Covid19. What I'm saying is what any one with a thinking brain is pondering: Why is
everyone wearing a useless mask, closing their pub, standing on a specific X when in line,
bumping elbows, and acting like a certain type of cattle? Why is MSM dedicating 50 minutes of
every hour to a set of symptoms we have all lived with our entire life? I'll answer my own
question. Remember 911 and the news coverage then? If you don't let me remind you. It was 24/7
Osama Bin Laden, Iraq Iraq Iraq, Muslim bad, weapons of mass destruction. Over and over again.
And today we are living with the consequences of our silent acquiescence. And if you don't know
what the consequences were you haven't been on an airplane. There's a reason the media reports
the way they do. It's not really reporting, it's a particular method, a method of
indoctrination, previously known as brainwashing. Ala Edward Bernays.
We have been criminally assaulted by Big Tech, the MMSM, and corrupt politicians, and there
should be consequences.
It was NOT a mistake. Just ask Romney or Paul Ryan or any "American" CEO. The people behind
the offshoring knew exactly what would happen. How could they not? They didn't care as long as
they made personal fortunes out of it.
Go back to the London Conference 1953 and see how The West rigged export surpluses in West
Germany's favour together with 66.2% Debt Reduction and limits on repayments to permit export
surpluses.
This deal alone guaranteed Trade Deficits in UK and USA and a violation of IMF and GATT
rules on persistent trade surpluses. Look how Germany had an undervalued D-mark made
convertible in 1957 and not until 1972 did USA try to reverse it with a Forced Revaluation of
D-Mark. That is when the Werner Plan put the EEC on course for a Single Currency. – which
1991 Germany locked in at an undervalued rate against D-Mark thus gaining persistent surpluses
when Unification should have meant trade deficits.
Distortions of World Trade to serve Western geopolitical interests led directly to higher
inflation in USA and UK which required OPEC to recycle surpluses through Western Banks into
Second World economies. The distortions are what skewed global trade and currency crises for 50
years.
Globalisation was simply a means of exploiting cheap labour and welfare standards to
FINANCIALISE the economic system and facilitate Unbalanced Budgets in The West consistently and
on an upward trend.
China has simply exploited The West and accessed technology and manufacturing capacity to
render The West a non-industrial society of paper-shufflers and transaction-traders wholly
dependent on China for physical goods
@the
grand wazoo more of the same? Bomb Syria. Check. More troops to Syrian and Afghanistan.
Check. More sanctions on Russia. Check.
In Syria, they are stealing 140,000 barrels-day. That is a Trump legacy. But Bidet is
doubling down. They now have 11 bases in Iraqi Kurdistan-North Syria province. They seem to
want to create a de facto country in North Syria.
They are also focusing on Thailand and Myanmar. This is fundamentally 'If we can't have it,
we destroy it.' And a f#ck you to China.
I expect that under Bidet we are going to see Israel dictate American Foreign policy to the
point where the U.S. is no more than a Thug. BiBi the Clown faces another election. I wonder
how that will play out?
@GMC
is why they stepped in to help Syria. Libya had the highest standard of living in Africa
– the real reason it was invaded is because Gaddafi had been influencing African leaders
to switch Africa to a gold standard and to price all African commodities in a new African
currency. That would have pushed out France and the US economic influence over Africa. So for
that he had to die – and now Libya is among the worst places in Africa. But France reaped
what it sowed. Refugees on top of refugees using Libya as their spring board.
Europeans should thank Putin because the refugee problem could be even worse from Syria
right now. But they have themselves to blame anyway.
Christianity is actually more humane than leftist secular humanism or any of its
ideological offsprings.
Did anyone compare number of victims during Christian forced conversions, inquisition and
compare it to victims of other ideologically inspired terror and atrocities?
Orthodox dogma is VERY VERY different from Vatican or Protestants that is much closer to
Plato's time when God and Mother Nature were synonymous.
@Franz
investment in clandestine media control in Russia (Max Blumenthal article), sanctions, Syria,
the neocons are circling Russia and getting ready to strike and Putin is going to this Davos
dufus derby talking about stagnant US wages. There's a deafening lack of focus here.
The whole point with Russia, in case some might have missed it, is that the Empire sees the
need to control Russia as an existential priority. Not just to eliminate it as a threat but
because they know that if China has free access to Russia's natural resources, the Empire is
finished.
It's for this reason that I think that if Putin doesn't see this, he's ceded the field
already.
@Anonymous
derstands this now, but Russia is still stuck at the reaction part of the
problem-reaction-solution cycle. They are being bombarded with problems and can't catch a
break. I see some attempts by the Russian government to form some sort of a political line and
seek real political allies but it looks like they are being blocked by Germany and the
Russian oligarchs. We shall see.
Mike Whitney is reading way too much into Putin's Davos speech, it's simple politics –
praise globalization some to make Xi happy, poo-poo it some to appeal to the average Westerner,
add happy talk about fairness, stir, not shake and serve cold – there's nothing more to
it.
For all these many years now Putin has been relentlessly demonized as a thug, dictator,
threat, you name it. Many Americans have bought into these images under the influence of the
American propaganda machine. One can see the reason for this campaign when one looks at what he
actually says. Americans might get some idea that a president should be looking out for their
interests and that would be bad. Putin can give speeches, field questions, give his personal
analysis on different subjects whilst standing on his feet. Compare him to the current addled
mental midget we have and note the vast difference.
@chris
oy the USA. In an ideal world, the US Deep State would like the USA Empire to have an exclusive
monopoly on nuclear weapons while preventing other geopolitical rivals from acquiring nuclear
weapons. That is exactly what happened at the end of WWII when Truman decided to drop two
atomic bombs on Japan to intimidate Stalin who frantically embarked on a nuclear weapons
program.
What the Yanks wants to do is to 'defang' the Russian bear so they no longer have to fear
Russian nukes, without which Russia would no longer pose an 'existential threat' to the USA.
The Yanks could then do anything, such as bomb any country they want and pretty much rule the
world, FOREVER.
{" What shocked me then about Trump, and now about Putin is that they don't seem to get
it, this isn't some kind of friendly game of Cricket or something, their opponents don't just
want to beat them they want to destroy them "}
Don't be fooled by Putin & Co speeches to the West.
Don't be fooled either by them using terms like "our partners" and such.
Russian leadership got a rude awaking after Yeltsin: Putin is quite aware of what
GloboSorosaNATO is trying to do. He is a former KGB officer posted to East Germany and knows
quite a lot about West/NATO mindset.
@Flying
Dutchman han to its own? And particularly a people that suffers from the mania of
objectivity as much as the Germans. For, after all this, everyone will take the greatest pains
to avoid doing the enemy any injustice, even at the peril of seriously besmirching and even
destroying his own people and country.
Now it is entirely unlikely that a KGB agent cum President of Russia is ignorant of matters
relating to propaganda.
Isn't it perfectly understandable that the whole country ends up by lending more credence to
enemy propaganda, which is more unified and coherent, than to its own?
...I concede that here's plenty of US racism expressed by wars of aggression against
countries outside the USA but that's supported by all races within the USA and both main
parties. In foreign policy, there's only one War Party, dedicated to ruling the world, in the
most aggressive country on earth. That's nothing like the reality within the USA. Yanks don't
want to treat other Yanks like they treat disobedient foreigners and they certainly don't want
to copy Israeli Jews. [email protected]
Absolutely agree.
Russia lacks solid, political structures-from a written constitution and time honored customs
and conventions-and Putin knows this. I thought his reforms were meant to address this
area?
Russia needs some more time, some more babies and good men at the helm. We can hope.
@antibeast
ct and practical causes than the more theoretical nuclear threats it poses.
Owning the significant Russian natural resources would make the US bullying of China,
Europe, the Middle Eastern vassals all the more effective. Yeah, the official story might be
nukes but the vastly more significant pay-off is the control of all the other actors. The proof
is the fact that the neocons are absolutely in a frenzy about destroying Russia, and yet
nuclear stuff never even comes up.
And if you wanted to neutralize a threat, you don't make a frontal attack on it, you would
be better served to befriend the country and create better ties than to try to overtly destroy
them.
At 78, after a prolonged illness and without recovering consciousness, Joe Biden succumbed
to the Presidency. The last hopes of the last QAnon believers vanished like smoke in the night,
with Biden assuming the mighty US throne. This is truly a dark day for America and for the
world, as the US example will be followed by many. It is also a farewell to the real world we
were brought up in. The new world is virtual, like most of the inauguration. It is virtual and
dark, ruled by digital companies fronted by old and tired politicians.
The creepy voice of Biden, the voice of a dirty old man offering sweets to a nine-year-old,
delivered some platitudes.
... ... ...
The Biden regime is just a front for the power of Big Data, of the five giants that removed
Trump and installed Biden in the White House. We shall see soon whether the power-thirsty
politicians will be satisfied with fronting for real power...
Whenever Trump complained that it is open to fraud, Bezos' Washington Post screeched,
'President Trump has peddled false claims or imaginary threats about voting by mail'. Three
days after Trump's removal, Amazon (owned by the very same Bezos) rejected mail-in voting for its
unionising employees as the mail-in vote is notoriously unreliable. "We believe that the best
approach to a valid, fair and successful election is one that is conducted manually, in-person,
making it easy to verify",
said Amazon. The mail-in vote for the Presidency was a must because of the pandemic, but
there is no outbreak when Amazon employees try to join a trade union.
Likewise, the looting of BLM was 'largely peaceful', but selfie snapping in the Capitol was
a work of 'internal terrorists'. The victors are so dishonest, that I feel pity for Trump
– and for all of us.
Freezing Texas should commission a monument: Greta Thunberg and Bill Gates save the Texans
from global warming by turning them into icicles. So much for global warming, the reddest
herring ever caught in the Gulf of Mexico!
Even the direction of the climate drift is not certain. The Warmers (like Greta) say our
planet is warming up because of carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by mankind. Many experts say the
planet is actually enters the new Ice Age due to diminished solar activity ( here ),
connecting it to Maunder Minimum or Gleissberg Minimum.
In Israel, a popular
expert Chaim Noll says the real problem is desertification, while CO2 is good for plants
and prevents semi-arid areas turning into desert. Still others say the changes are perfectly
normal; we have been through such changes before.
LINK BOOKMARK We really do
not know for sure what's going on and whether we can or should do anything about it. And now,
at the time of the great freeze, Bill Gates has temerity to publish his Warmer's Manifesto,
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates.
The book was heavily promoted, and got fawning reviews, though it is as silly as any of
these books. Gates wants us to stop travelling (unless you can afford a private jet, of
the kind Gates has invested in), stop
eating meat (worms should be good enough for the hoi polloi, or synthetic meat produced by
the same Gates, for cows fart, and farting is warming the planet). Knowing his and his ilk's
ability to mobilise the media, I wouldn't be amazed if he succeeds in convincing the West. And
any disaster in meat-producing Texas would be grist to Gates' mill.
Besides being silly, this guy knows too much! In 2015, Gates gave a "prescient warning about
the threat of a pandemic", says a
reviewer . To what extent was it "prescient" if in the same 2015, Gates patented a coronavirus quite similar to
the one that attacked mankind in 2020? Perhaps he is prescient "for the same reason that
arsonists have the earliest knowledge of future fires", as Ron
Unz remarked .
Bill Gates never went to college, so I doubt he knows the carbon cycle. He thinks he can
talk nonsense because he is rich, and the nonsense will then make sense.
There is no global warming, but global cooling, as there was snow even in Israel:
"... Congress needs to establish an investigative body like the 9/11 Commission to determine Trump's ties to Putin so we can repair the damage to our national security and prevent a puppet from occupying the presidency ever again. ..."
Congress needs to establish an investigative body like the 9/11 Commission to
determine Trump's ties to Putin so we can repair the damage to our national security and
prevent a puppet from occupying the presidency ever again.
With hand on book– I solemnly do swear to continue Neo Liberalism, to enrich my family, and the off shore banks accounts of
those who surround me.
A-Men "I think the Chinese put Biden in power, or was it the Russians, or perhaps North Korea, maybe Iran, Syria maybe. Kuala
Lumpur perhaps "or a YouTube video that looks like
Freezing Texas should commission a monument: Greta Thunberg and Bill Gates save the Texans
from global warming by turning them into icicles. So much for global warming, the reddest
herring ever caught in the Gulf of Mexico!
The Texans have got the real New Green Deal, very expensive and uncertain. The deal is
"Freeze and pay through your nose!" The green alternative pure cheap and plentiful energy is
the stuff the dreams of AOC are made of. It is not likely to work out. Wind and sea are
wonderful but hardly a reliable source of energy for heating in sub-zero temperatures.
In an age where voting is a joke I am going to advertise that my vote is for sale. I mean it
amounts to the same thing when politicians promise free money.
REDinFL 2 minutes ago
Sorry, too late. Votes have no market value now that they can be manufactured.
"... $1.9 Trillions comes out to about $6000 per person. But a family of four gets $1400. Where is the other $22,600? Check Chuck and Nancy's pockets. ..."
"... Joe Biden is just a puppet, so let this old guy alone, his last years of life as POTUS are a gift for his marvelous (*sarcasm) political career of almost half a century, where he accomplished almost nothing, but some corrupted money grabs, together with his junkie-son ..."
Joe Biden is just a puppet, so let this old guy alone, his last years of life as POTUS are a
gift for his marvelous (*sarcasm) political career of almost half a century, where he
accomplished almost nothing, but some corrupted money grabs, together with his junkie-son 9.5
inch-Hunter.
Those behind him are the true leaders and they will instruct and push him hard to do what is
needed and help with both hands (and legs and teleprompters and earpieces) so that creepy Joe
goes the "right way" as they want him to go.
They already made him president, while hiding in his basement, so they know how it
works.
All this is just a big hoax, a farce and laughable if it weren't tragic for the American
people.
Putin is considered the richest man in the world for the amount of wealth he
controls , not the amount he owns. Alexei Navalny is considered the bravest man in the
world for returning to Russia after recovering from Novichok poisoning in Germany. Putin had
Navalny's returning flight diverted to avoid mobs of protestors, then arrested Navalny at the
airport.
Never lacking a certain Russian sense of humor, Putin charged Navalny, whom he calls "the
blogger," with violating parole
... ... ...
Putin called the EU's bluff, expelling three E.U.
diplomats from Russia during a visit by the EU's foreign minister, Josep Borrell, on
February 5. Putin's pugnacious foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, spoke disapprovingly of the
E.U. in a press conference standing right next to the humiliated minister. This is the same
Lavrov seen laughing in a famous White House
photo with U.S. President Donald J. Trump on the day after Trump fired FBI Director,
James Comey.
With the E.U. suddenly voting 28-0 against Russia, with Joe Biden proclaiming "America is
back," and with Tony Blinken promising Russia must pay for the recent SolarWinds cyber attack
against the U.S., Vlad the Underpants Poisoner must be feeling his briefs getting
uncomfortably snug.
As Putin desperately tries to wriggle out of the sanctions surrounding him and his
oligarch buddies, he faces the ultimate decline in his fortune: the green new deal.
The
majority of Putin's wealth is still in the ground , and it's worthless if the world turns
away from fossil fuels as quickly as it appears to be. Without the NORD-2 pipeline shipping
gas from Russia to Germany, without the corrupt contracts to supply satellite nations with
fuel, Russia has nothing to sell except tourism and nesting dolls.
Putin will encounter the same problem the nations of the Arab Spring encountered:
domestic youth realizing their futures look nothing like the lives they see on their phones.
The Russian people are not stupid. They know they're not enjoying the same quality of life as
their European neighbors. Even though Western Democracies fail to provide for basic living
needs, they are at least exciting and hold the possibility of getting unbelievably
rich.
... ... ...
STEVE O'KEEFE is the author of several books, most recently Set the Page on Fire:
Secrets of Successful Writers , from New World Library, based on over 250 interviews. He
is the former editorial director for Loompanics Unlimited.
The empire tricks are being called out, with their obsession to sanction and old style
western "wanted" posters what they're getting back is to be trolled. Prigozhin, the so called
Putin's Chef is trolling the FBI claiming a 250K reward for information on himself, he
provided them with his personal address, Lieutenant Schmidt Embankment Number 7, St.
Petersburg RF. He is waiting for them there, to cash his quarter million. Old western movies
are kind of old.
Biden bombs Syria, and allows congress to quash $15 minimum wage. No $2000.00 covid aid
for hungry yanks. Y'all happy you got rid of Orange Man Bad? Dementia Joe would look after
you, right? Good luck with that.
What eludes me about Russian cyber actors is their utter stupidity and their utter genius.
We are told that the Solar Winds attack was an absolutely super duper act of pure hacking
genius. But on the other hand Russian hackers cannot hide a twitter bot's point of origin.
According to The Intercept, Mueller was able to indict Russian hackers because one of them
forgot to sign into their VPN account. Go figure.
I suspect that any tweet which "takes the Kremlin line" is assumed to be tied to Russians
regardless of its point of origin. Otherwise, Twitter would have to have the resources of the
CIA to identify a multitude of cyber actors to back track them.
The interesting aspect of the Twitter ban on Trump is that it tends to reinforce the
theory that POTUS is just a Token Figurehead with Zero Power. It was an extraordinarily
myopic act for The Swamp to approve.
Narrative control has always been part of the grift. But one can always cultivate a
critical mind, read widely, understand history and try to think carefully about how ideology
works. I'm a fan of Zizek's film 'Pervert's Guide to Ideology' because it points out that
'propaganda' is never disseminated from a central point by diabolical puppet-masters.
Ideology is dispersed and decentralised, and radiates from all points. It is embodied, and in
a way this makes it even more sinister, because it cannot be countered by rationality and
argument. But we can try to understand it in its complexity, and there are plenty of
excellent thinkers who have done so to fall back on: Marx, Nietzsche, Althusser, Foucault,
Baudrillard, Zizek, not to mention all of the Frankfurt School and their successors.
But it also is astonishingly naive to expect narrative to align with a truth imagined to
lie outside narrative. Truth is an effect of narrative combined with authority. The early
Greeks grasped this in their genealogy of the Muse: she is the daughter of Zeus (sovereign
power) and Mnemosyne (memory). We just happen to live in a world where all narrative forms
are indeterminate: nothing is true, everything could be true... This is an effect of
narrative form not an intrinsic problem of content.
I am reminded of a quote from the always essential guide to bureaucracy:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
"But the plans were on display "
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That's the display department."
"With a flashlight."
"Ah, well, the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But look, you found the notice, didn't you?"
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet
stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard."
His Lights Stayed on During Texas' Storm. Now He Owes $16,752.
Posted by: vk | Feb 21 2021 15:17 utc | 3
There are wise people in Texas and not so wise. A not so wise person uses electric heating
and lighting during an ice storm, and his local utility frantically bids for available power
(I guess it is done by a computer program). Win! As a reward, for an hour both home and
office is warm and lit for an hour, using few kilowatts that cost 1000 each. Later the
country plunges in darkness, like the neighboring country that lost the bidding and thus was
cold and dark for an extra hour.
A wise person shuts everything and flies to Cancun. Plenty of warmth and light down there,
and much much cheaper! But as I was commenting before, the public frowns upon clever
politicians -- Senator Cruz in in a bit of hot water. To recover, he will need to blab for at
least a year and hide his intelligence completely.
When deregulated electricity came to my municipality it was in guise of green renewable
energy. The local Greens put two years of heavy work into that referendum. Anyone with common
sense or a particle of skepticism knew that in this case green was a stalking horse for
deregulation. Deregulation would not have passed muster here. But the Greens got it through.
They are majority Ph.D. So they have no common sense at all.
Day after referendum the sales force descended. Within a week the Greens no longer
existed. If you slammed door in salesman's face they called you on the phone. For five years
I got at least two phone calls a day and at times it was hourly.
Twice I was slammed. Slammed means suddenly you have a new electric provider. A bill
arrives in the mail from someone you have never heard of and it is hard to know if it is even
real, but it probably is. To get unslammed the remedy is infinite phone calls and hours on
hold day after day. Or you can hire an attorney. Or you can make a trip and appear in person
at your congressman's service office. I would rather never be within a kilometer of the slime
that represents me in Congress but there are times you have to compromise your
principles.
Have to mention that any and all who failed to display sufficient enthusiasm for green
renewable energy were dragged through the mud. We were called reactionaries, dinosaurs,
Libertarians, Republicans. It goes without saying we were baby killers. This was heated and
public and impossible to evade.
The tendency of liberalism to deny the consequences of society stems from its myth of the
'individual'. Liberalism imagines a world of rational subjects each making decisions in a
sovereign way (Thatcher's 'there is no such thing as society'). This allows capitalism to
erect a moral framework that represents the consequences of an economy as the consequences of
personal decisions. In this way, success (wealth) is 'reward' and failure (poverty) is
punishment. It's what Max Weber called 'secular Protestantism'. The working classes
participate in this evaluative ideology (Gramsci); it is the source of their self-loathing
and the reason they always vote against their own best interests. They all believe their lack
of means is a consequence of their lack of intelligence, work ethic, failure of
entrepreneurial spirit, etc etc. Here is Marx's own critique of the way liberalism washes its
hands of the effects of capitalism:
"The... theory... which is also expressed as a law of nature, that population grows faster
than the means of subsistence, is the more welcome to the bourgeois as it silences his
conscience, makes hard-heartedness into a moral duty and the consequences of society into
the consequences of nature, and finally gives him the opportunity to watch the destruction
of the proletariat by starvation as calmly as any other natural event without bestirring
himself, and, on the other hand, to regard the misery of the proletariat as its own fault
and to punish it. To be sure, the proletarian can restrain his natural instinct by reason,
and so, by moral supervision, halt the law of nature in its injurious course of
development." - Karl Marx, Wages, December 1847
While it may be superficially true that our poor Texan could have cunningly evaded copping
the wholesale price the fact remains that he is -- as all Texans are -- a victim of a system
structurally designed to extract exorbitant rents from his need for power. A socialist system
would not see him as a battery hen to be skimmed or as an atomized individual who should
'sink or swim' (in the words of that local mayor) but would seek to prevent power, food,
water, air, housing, education, health, etc etc from being hijacked and sequestered by vested
interests accessible only by outrageous fees. Socialism would outlaw rent-seeking, which is
the theft of meaningful life by carpetbaggers and their corrupt partners in government.
Creepy almost Dead President Biden commemorates the 500K+ Dead Covid People [who probably
ALL voted for him, several times, by mail in the Nov 2020 election].
Painful indeed! I can see why the Mockingbird mass media is trying to steer people to
read the speech rather than watch it. I suppose they are proud of the script but
underwhelmed by the delivery. They don't want to waste a whole week's worth of work by the
speechwriting committee simply because the undead talking head didn't get enough amphetamines
to appear life-like.
Re: "I can see why the Mockingbird mass media is trying to steer people to read the speech
rather than watch it..."
-William Gruff | Feb 23 2021 12:44 utc | 206
I think you are probably correct there. I looked around for other videos of that speech
with better audio/volume quality for listening on smartphones, w/o success...the Controllers
must be jiggling the crappy sound on purpose so that the fewest people will actually listen
all the way through to what the [almost] Dead President is muttering.
I think you are right about being pumped up with stimulants or something too.
Biden's eyes used to be blue-green, but nowadays they are always so dilated when he's in
public, that they look black/dark brown. He[his Caregivers] hide them behind sunglasses when
he/They can during sunny days and outside appearances.
Paco, was your series you first mentioned an adaptation of the novel I am reading? I was
puzzled by your mention that 'Bulgakov was a physician' -- the author of 'The Master and
Margarita was not, so not to confuse James any further than I have - and James, just to
clarify, the quotation I gave is not from the novel. Here's a bit, and I'll include
psychohistorian in this conversation as well:
"But here is a question that is troubling me: if there is no God, then, one may ask,who
governs human life and, in general, the whole order of things on earth?"
"Man governs it himself," Homeless angrily hastened to reply to this admittedly
none-too-clear question.
"Pardon me," the stranger responded gently, "but in order to govern, one needs, after
all, to have a precise plan for a certain, at least somewhat decent, length of time. Allow
me to ask you, then, how can man govern, if he is not only deprived of the opportunity of
making a plan for at least some ridiculously short period--well, say, a thousand years, but
cannot even vouch for his own tomorrow?
And in fact," and here the stranger turned to Berlioz, "imagine that you, for instance,
start governing, giving orders to others and yourself, generally, so to speak, acquire a
taste for it, and suddenly you get ... hem ... hem ... lung cancer ..." - here the
foreigner smiled sweetly, as if the though of lung cancer gave him pleasure - "yes, cancer"
- narrowing his eyes like a cat, he repeated the sonorous word - "and all your governing is
over!..."
@ juliania | Feb 23 2021 6:41 utc | 192 who quoted
"
"Man governs it himself," Homeless angrily hastened to reply to this admittedly
none-too-clear question.
"
You write of only two options, man or man's creation in language of the concept and
instantiation of a deity
I have always been drawn to the Lao Tze description of the latter: "The way that can be
named is not the real way."
I studied science early on in my life and when I learned that humans only know some things
about this stuff we call matter that makes up only 5% of the Cosmos, I marveled at the
anthropological hubris of humans. I think we are capable of evolving beyond this
self-centered view of our place in the Cosmos and being motivated by the awe of our ignorance
rather than the lies of our myths.
@Ron
Unz t of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times as proof of anything is a sign of
Baby Boomer Dementia Syndrome (BBDS).
@Ron Unz: Do you still subscribe to these newspapers and read them in their paper form? If
so, then likely you are a BBDS victim as well. One of its symptoms is wasting hours every
morning and evening reading unadulterated CIA propaganda and thinking that you have read "the
news". Its sister syndrome is GXDS (Gen-X Dementia Syndrome) where you rely on CNN for your
"news".
Or the pandemic guru (a female one) who declared that, after a sufficiently widespread
vaccination of the serfs, ' we would achieve herd mentality'. Dr. Freud, where art thou?
Trump has been the exposer-in-chief. He exposed the filth behind the curtain:
Russiagate, Covid, the stolen election. Maybe that's all he could do this time around.
And for this I shall be forever grateful. While I didn't get my 2,000 miles of wall, I DID
get something from Trump, me and 100 million more American-Americans like me: irrefutable
proof that mainstream media and the Swamp hate my guts. This is his legacy that shall last a
very long time, indeed.
Putin surprised me. He flatly refused the offer of Schwab and his ilk. He condemned the
manner of recent pre-Covid growth, for all the growth went into a few deep pockets. Moreover,
he noted that digital tycoons are dangerous for the world. In his own words , "Modern
technological giants, especially digital companies, are de facto competing with states. In the
opinion of these companies, their monopoly is optimal. Maybe so but society is wondering
whether such monopolism meets public interests".
The tycoons were probably amazed. In 2007 in Munich, they laughed at him. Max Boot, a
Russian Jewish émigré, called Putin,
"The louse that roared" and added, "in Putin's sinister and absurd rhetoric, you can hear an
empire dying". Mad Max didn't know yet which empire is dying.
Putin was supposed to be softened up by pro-Navalny demos on January 23 (The Davos talk was
on January 27), but he was not. Quite the reverse. The Russian President does not like to be
pushed. The demo on January 31 was met with force; those detained were sentenced to heavy (by
Russian standards) fines. Three European diplomats were expelled from Russia for joining the
demonstration. Josep Borrell, a Spanish diplomat and a representative of the EU, went to Moscow
and was harshly treated. In the concluding press-conference, the Russian minister for foreign
affairs Sergey Lavrov told the press that Russia does not (repeat, not) consider the EU to be a
"reliable partner". The expulsions were carried out at the same time. In addition, Putin warned
the West that 'sanctions' (acts of economic warfare) could cause Russia to use direct military
force. It was probably the first such warning since 1968.
At the same time, Russia practically ended corona restrictions. Bars and restaurants have
been opened for night revellers; sport events have returned; schools are open; in some parts of
Russia, the masks became "recommended" instead of "compulsory". Russians are now allowed to
travel and return freely from many countries. The Russians have easy access for their vaccine
Sputnik-V that was deemed by The Lancet the best of all existing Corona vaccines. It is a coup
comparable to the first Sputnik launched in 1957, the Western experts said. Thus Russia has
derailed the Grand Reset.
This development had caused a huge shift in consciousness in Russia. If until now (since
1970, at least) the Russian educated classes tended to feel inferior to the West, the
prosperous lands of the free, then this has now changed. One of the leading Russian theatre
directors, Constantine Bogomolov declared that
the West is undone. The West's compulsory political correctness, its culture-cancelling, its
kneeling and boot-licking of BLM, its cult of transgenders, its fear of 'harassment' and sex,
its obligatory smile, its wokeness, its fear of death (and of life!), are comparable to the
behaviour of Alex, the victim of Clockwork Orange therapy, said Bogomolov.
The young man [Alex] does not just get rid of aggression – he is sick of music, he
cannot see a naked woman, sex disgusts him. And in response to the blow, he licks the boot of
the striker. The modern West is such a criminal who has undergone chemical castration and
lobotomy. Hence this false smile of goodwill and all-acceptance, frozen on the face of a
Western person. This is not the smile of Culture. It is a smile of degeneration.
He concludes:
The West tells us: Russia is at the tail of progress.
Wrong.
Just by chance, we have found ourselves at the tail of a runaway train, rushing headlong
into [Hieronymus] Bosch's hell, where we will be greeted by smiling multicultural,
gender-neutral devils.
We should uncouple our carriage off the train, make a sign of cross and start rebuilding
our good old Europe, the Europe we dreamed of. The Europe they have lost.
Take notice of his call to 'make the sign of the cross'. In the West, the churches are
barred, service had been discontinued. The Anglican Church is on the verge of dying ,
with its Archbishop of Canterbury celebrating BLM, removing statues from the churches,
accepting every SAGE edict locking the churches up. Meanwhile Russian churches are all open and
worshippers are pouring into their cathedrals every feast and Sunday.
Russian boys and girls are flirting with each other, fearless of MeToo and harassment
charges. Russian cafes are open. Whoever wants, can get a jab against Covid, or ignore it.
For the first time in many years, Russia shows the way for the West. This is good. Perhaps,
the West, after a long-needed correction, will be able to overtake Russia again. Though Russia
showed the way of socialism to Europe, the best results of socialism were achieved elsewhere,
in the North of Europe. Good old Europe (and the US, its overseas offshoot) are still able to
repeat this feat and get rid of the plotting tycoons and their preaching of compulsory love. At
this occasion, perhaps banning all tycoons is a good idea. In the better world before their
rise, there were no multi-billionaires. History is not over; we are entering the most
interesting part of it. Be of good cheer!
Bravo! Israel Shamir. I enjoyed every syllable of that essay. It frames the shocking
reality that is nowhere treated so forcefully in print in the decadent West. These tycoons
not only purchasse their corrupted governments but are positioned to trade them in concert
like Monopoly board properties, all in plain sight of our blind mass media.
Putin courageously stepped up a notch when he said as much to the Davos crowd and then
demonstratively restored to his own countrymen many of the basic freedoms that have just been
erased in the locked-down EU.
How long will it take for Europe's venal career politicians to realize they are in danger
of becoming just expendable hirelings in the new world order they have so gleefully promoted?
Probably nothing short of a revolution could now save the United States from the new
feudalism.
But Putin's warning must have resonated among the European politicians, whose status and
relevance still derives from a long tradition of statism with a strong social components.
Will the national governments finally grasp that the gravest threat is not the hated populism
but relegation to irrelevance by corporations and plutocrats. The stakes are clear; either
governments will reassert their prerogatives or plutocrats will govern.
For the first time in many years, Russia shows the way for the West. This is good
. Perhaps, the West, after a long-needed correction, will be able to overtake Russia
again.
This is good and timely and needs to be repeated often.
Actually, near where I'm at, "Russia" has been showing the way since Putin got rolling,
even before they tried pulling the Obama rug over our eyes when our hollowed-out economy
became obvious in the days after Bush W. ("War President") made large segments of the old
working class ashamed to be American again.
By all means, let Putin pull out a dusty copy of Ron Reagan quotes and start punting them
back to the United States of Blah.
How did Ron put it in 1982? Oh Yeah: "A nation that cannot honor its own people's rights
cannot be trusted anywhere else."
Putin can simply quote the Dead Cowboy. The current Plutocracy won't get it, the
economically wrecked in the USA already knows it, and everyone else can enjoy the Old Truth
that always gives a wicked return: What goes around comes around.
thank you mr. shamir for the uplifting analysis of this brave new world order being
foisted upon us.
I don't think we will be able to throw off our billionaire overlords unfortunately, as the
average citizen is too compliant and indoctrinated to understand what is happening to
them.
We have no vladimir putin to slay the dragon here. i'm just glad that russia is here as a
counterweight to the kleptocratic cthulhu wrapping its tentacles around the world.
Max 'Jack' Boot's comment reminds one of Croesus. Contemplating whether to attack Persia
or not, he consulted the Pythia at Delphi and the oracle declared that, if he attacked, a
great kingdom would fall. He attacked, but the Empire that fell was his, not Persia. And
brilliant example of Zionazi hubris.
The State must observe intricate arcane rules, while the tycoons have no such limits. As
a result, they shape our minds and lives, making the State a poor legitimate king among
powerful and wealthy barons.
Just by chance, we have found ourselves at the tail of a runaway train, rushing headlong
into [Hieronymus] Bosch's hell, where we will be greeted by smiling multicultural,
gender-neutral devils.
We should uncouple our carriage off the train, make a sign of cross and start rebuilding
our good old Europe, the Europe we dreamed of. The Europe they have lost.
There are some fine sentiments – and many in the West would like to joint the
project.
Really, why would anyone be surprised that a candidate who did nothing to win the
Presidency should similarly do nothing once elected?
Posted by: c1ue | Feb 19 2021 21:15 utc | 30
Reporter asking Ukranian: why are you bombing Donbass?
Because Russians are there! - he says.
Reporter asks again: then why aren't you bombing Crimea too?
Because Russians are *really* there!
Do you think the state of Alaska might one day ask to be Russian again?
Posted by: passerby | Feb 17 2021 21:41 utc | 29
From memory, from somewhere on the internet, probably soon after Russia regained Crimea.
Journalist: "Is Russia going to revisit its past control of Alaska?"
Putin: "No. Russia already has enough cold."
The last outstanding nugget from Putin's conference is an admission by Putin of his
political-economic philosophy made during his reply to the Communist Party's Gennady
Zyuganov:
"The growth of unemployment during the pandemic – it is not big but it is still here
and we are seeing and recording it. I speak about this all the time and encourage the
Government to do what is necessary to reach pre-crisis levels. In general, the situation is
improving and has proven to be better than preliminary forecasts. But you are right. It is
clearly necessary to focus on this all the time .
"Of course, I know that the Communist Party is always concerned over issues of
privatisation. I have also spoken about this. Probably, our approaches to this matter do not
always coincide, but at any rate I believe we share the common view that privatisation for
the sake of privatisation is unacceptable for us, especially the way it was carried out in
the 1990s in some areas. It must be beneficial for the economy; it must improve the economic
structure. We must proceed from the premise that any step in this context must create a
better, more efficient owner de facto, in practice rather than formally . But obviously,
this must be done in a certain environment so as not to give away what costs millions and
maybe billions for next to nothing. This is the bottom line for us." [My Emphasis]
Lots of trolls accuse Putin of promoting Neoliberalism. The above proves them liars.
Putin's foremost concern has always been for the welfare of his fellow Russians. If I
haven't made that clear over the years of my reporting on his speeches and pressers, then the
failure must be on those feigning blindness when they can see perfectly well.
IMO, the four main political parties are all fundamentally nationalist, even the
Communists. I don't think anyone/party anti-Russian/pro-Neoliberalism has any chance
politically, and won't for many years. However, it's what I'll term progressive nationalism
that seeks to promote the same in its partners--even in those nations that don't deserve such
treatment. Russia takes the high road and doesn't deviate, which I find commendable. It's my
hope that the Eurasian Bloc will follow the examples of Russia and China, but selfishness and
greed are formidable obstacles, not to mention exceptionalism.
"... Change won't come to the US via the convenience of the ballot box. Elected officials are immediately corrupted by careerism, corporate money, and who knows what other forces behind the curtain. Ordinary people will achieve nothing without general strikes and civil disobedience, and more are realizing this. No doubt why this domestic "terror" bill is being pushed through. ..."
"... The completion of NS-2 is good for European liberalism: it ties up Russia to its economy as a commodity exporters (the German dream of making Russia its own Brazil). Why is the USA trying to stop this win for liberalism? ..."
"... Fascism is not necessarily Republican, the new Democratic party has a considerable fascist faction. and it aint the old people in the Dem party, a lot of youngsters are quite the brownshirt when you look carefully. ..."
"... "..One of the most significant of these falsehoods (from journalists) was the tale -- endorsed over and over without any caveats by the media for more than a month -- that Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was murdered by the pro-Trump mob when they beat him to death with a fire extinguisher. That claim was first published by The New York Times on January 8 in an article headlined "Capitol Police Officer Dies From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage." It cited "two [anonymous] law enforcement officials" to claim that Sicknick died "with the mob rampaging through the halls of Congress" and after he "was struck with a fire extinguisher." ..."
"... "Despite this alleged brutal murder taking place in one of the most surveilled buildings on the planet, filled that day with hundreds of cellphones taping the events, nobody saw video of it. No photographs depicted it. To this day, no autopsy report has been released. No details from any official source have been provided. ..."
"... The events of January 6 would not have been noticed in the Kiev insurrection that Obama et al produced- in which US trained snipers from Georgia shot into the crowds, indiscriminately killing both police and protestors, in order to be in a position to denounce peace accords reached between the parties. ..."
U.S. Focus On Narratives Will Let It Collide With Reality
The impeachment narrative circus is leaving the town and the real world work
can now begin :
With the distraction of the impeachment trial of his predecessor now over, President Biden
will quickly press for passage of his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan before moving on
to an even bigger agenda in Congress that includes infrastructure, immigration, criminal
justice reform, climate change and health care.
Without the spectacle of a constitutional clash, the new president "takes center stage now
in a way that the first few weeks didn't allow," said Jennifer Palmieri, who served as
communications director for former President Barack Obama. She said the end of the trial
means that "2021 can finally start."
"Wait!" screams the narrative industry. That does not fit our business model. The 'left'
side of the media is set up to beat up Trump every damned minute and the 'right' side is there
to constantly condemn the 'left' for beating up Trump. Over the last five years that system
produced record ratings for everyone.
The Trump trial is over but local, state & federal investigations continue. There
might be a 9/11-type commission. News organizations continue to investigate. And
@realBobWoodward is working on a book on Trump's final days in office. Bottom line: we are
going to learn a lot more.
"I hear you," responds Nancy Pelosi. And what better way to hide that Biden will pursue the
same policies as Trump (but
sprinkled with some LBGTQWERTY quackery) than to extend the
narrative circus :
Congress will move to establish an independent commission to investigate the attack on the
Capitol on Jan. 6, including facts "relating to the interference with the peaceful transfer
of power," Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California announced on Monday.
...
Calls have grown for a bipartisan, independent investigation into the law enforcement and
administrative failures that led to the first breach of the Capitol complex in two centuries,
particularly after the Senate acquitted former President Donald J. Trump in his impeachment
trial on a charge of inciting the rioters. For some lawmakers, such a commission offers the
last major opportunity to hold Mr. Trump accountable.
Keeping the eyes on Trump is of course the best way to guarantee that Republicans will
continue to stick to his narrative and that he
will come back :
Though the 2024 primary is still far off -- who knows what will happen with Trump three
months from now, let alone in three years? -- he currently swamps any potential rival.
Fifty-three percent of Republicans said they would vote for Trump if the primary were held
today.
All the other Republican hopefuls are polling in the low single digits, besides Mike
Pence, who received 12 percent. Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton, Mitt Romney, Kristi Noem, Larry
Hogan, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Tim Scott and Rick Scott all polled below 5%. Only Donald Trump
Jr. and Nikki Haley punched through at 6%.
Further investigating the Mardi Gras invasion of the Capitol will also help to push for new
'domestic terrorism' laws. Where those will be pointed at is already evident:
FBI arrests BLM protester, claiming his social media posts show he is "on a path to
radicalization". A judge determined he is dangerous bc of these posts and held him with no
bond. This is where we're headed if we accept this domestic terrorism frame:
Welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism where every rant you ever posted that
does not fit the official narrativecan
(and will) be used against you :
This clearly represents a quite different magnitude of 'control' – and when allied
with the West's counter-insurgency techniques of 'terrorist' narrative disruption, honed
during the 'Great War on Terrorism' – is a formidable tool for curbing dissent
domestically, as well as externally.
Yet it has a fundamental weakness.
Quite simply, that being so invested, so immersed, in one particular 'reality', others'
'truths' then will not – cannot – be heard. They do not stand out proud above the
endless flat plain of consensual discourse. They cannot penetrate the hardened shell of a
prevailing narrative bubble, or claim the attention of élites so invested in managing
their own
version of reality .
The 'Big Weakness'? The élites come to believe their own narratives –
forgetting that the narrative was conceived as an illusion , one among others, created to
capture the imagination within their society (not others').
...
Examples are legion, but the Biden Administration's perception that time was frozen –
from the moment of Obama's departure from office – and somehow defrosted on 20 January,
just in time for Biden to pick up on that earlier era (as if time was uninterrupted), marks
one example of a belief in one's own meme. Whilst the EU's unfeigned amazement – and
anger – at being described 'as an unreliable partner' by FM Lavrov in Moscow, is just
another example of how élites have become remote from the real world and captive to
their own self-perception.
"America is back" to lead, and 'to set the rules of the road' for the rest of the world,
may be intended to radiate U.S. strength, but rather, it suggests a tenuous grasp of the
realities facing the U.S. : America's relations with Europe and Asia were growing
increasingly distant well before Biden entered the White House – and, therefore, from
before Trump's (purposefully disruptive) term, too.
Why then is the U.S. so consistently in denial about this?
The U.S. - or at least its 'élites' - need a wake-up call that pulls them out of
their narrative world and brings them back into reality.
The alternative is a violent collision with the realities that others -domestic as well as
foreign- perceive.
Posted by b on February 16, 2021 at 19:08 UTC |
Permalink
Ahh yes the domestic terrorist boogeyman. I wondered what they would do without Trump. LOL
now we know eh? Thanks b.
Say hello to the new boss same as the old boss.
Change won't come to the US via the convenience of the ballot box. Elected officials are
immediately corrupted by careerism, corporate money, and who knows what other forces behind
the curtain. Ordinary people will achieve nothing without general strikes and civil
disobedience, and more are realizing this. No doubt why this domestic "terror" bill is being
pushed through.
Welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism where every rant you ever posted that does
not fit the official narrative can (and will) be used against you:
This reminded me of an article I read on Zerohedge. The IMF is recommending including your
online history and behaviour when assessing your "creditworthiness"
The most transformative information innovation is the increase in use of new types of data
coming from the digital footprint of customers' various online activities -- mainly for
creditworthiness analysis.
Credit scoring using so-called hard information (income, employment time, assets, and
debts) is nothing new. Typically, the more data is available, the more accurate is the
assessment. But this method has two problems. First, hard information tends to be
"procyclical": it boosts credit expansion in good times but exacerbates contraction during
downturns.
The second and most complex problem is that certain kinds of people, like new
entrepreneurs, innovators, and many informal workers, might not have enough hard data
available. Even a well-paid expatriate moving to the United States can be caught in the
conundrum of not getting a credit card for lack of credit record, and not having a credit
record for lack of credit cards.
Fintech resolves the dilemma by tapping various nonfinancial data: the type of browser
and hardware used to access the internet, the history of online searches, and
purchases.
Golly what happens to the Circus part of bread and circuses after all the elephants die? Burn
down the tent. We certainly know the Bread part of bread and circuses is an unleavened mess
caught in the sausage machine of 'let them eat cake' legislation to parse crumbs to the
starving masses one empty stomach of critical mass short of general rebellion.
What does one expect the 'elites' to do but go hardcore Orwellian to protect the 1% from
the righteous indignation of the 99%?
The Enemy of the People is the People who must be whittled away to dumbed-down compliance
at all costs. Masks are the canary in the coal mine.
The completion of NS-2 is good for European liberalism: it ties up Russia to its economy
as a commodity exporters (the German dream of making Russia its own Brazil). Why is the USA
trying to stop this win for liberalism?
Seeing the movements in Myanmar and elsewhere (i.e. hurting South Korea and Japan with the
trade war against China; hurting European economies with the trade war against Russia;
hurting the Brazilian economy with the trade negotiations with China; throwing Australia and
Taiwan as a battering ram against China etc. etc.) I can come with only one conclusion: the
American Empire is collapsing, but collapsing a la Rome, that is, from the periphery. It is
sacrificing its provinces (European Peninsula, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Brazil and even
India) in order to try to stabilize its center (USA proper and Canada).
The USA has become Cronos, the titan of the harvests, desperately devouring its children
to survive.
There's nothing left but the fall of the empire. Exactly how and when that fall happens might
be mildly controllable, at least so far as it influences what happens after the fall. But
that's it. The decline and fall is not generally, and certainly not now, avoidable. Our
problem is the same as any declining empire: the elites are the last to feel the full effects
and so have the most reason to jealously cling to whatever is left. The personality in
nominal power doesn't matter because they'll all be old, white elites or a minority striving
for acceptance by old, white elites. Trump is every bit as much a symbol of America's failing
as Joe Biden.
So who burned, pillaged, murdered and terrorized for the last 9 months? Have we forgotten BLM
and Antifa? Real insurgents and terrorists. Nothing but crickets when it comes to the Left's
foot soldiers.
Fortunately, numerous counter-narratives already exist, mostly from the Cold war, that can
easily be flipped on their head. Another that could be devastating--Wall Street stole your
American Dream from you. Now it's time to steal it back: Level Wall Street!!
I'm sure as a collective we could come up with a plethora. However IMO, it's vital the
ultimate message aims at the building of a Human Commonwealth that's not based on
exploitation which is the basis for global Neoliberalism. Putin and Xi's policy is to promote
all citizens equally--even the US Constitution agrees with that national aim. And here's one
we need to start now: The Stasi demanded family and neighbors spy on each other and that was
deemed Unamerican then; so to ask Americans to spy on their family and neighbors now must be
equally Unamerican, insidious and incompatible with Freedom, Justice, and the American
Way!
They are focusing on Trumpmania, meanwhile the stimulus is not yet out. These shows are the circus, but if the bread is not coming, people will riot anyway.
I hear Trumpists and others from the Republican party use the old "they do it too" refrain
far too often. White supremacists are less evil than black people complaining about getting
killed by cops.
If it were actually possible, I would like to ask them to tell me why Republicans are in
favor of police brutality, why they are all for the absolute power and impunity of police
officers? Why do they think black people deserve to be treated as lesser beings merely for
the color of their skin?
Antifa stands for anti fascist. if you are against antifa does that mean you believe
fascism is a wonderful thing? Has anyone who identifies as a Republican ever heard of agent
provocateurs and or false flag operations? I suspect not.
steven t johnson laid out a pretty good narrative that I personally cannot fault, yet the
only comment he got was someone trying to deny that the electoral college gave more votes to
Biden than to Trump. The fact that Biden got some 7 million more votes than Trump is not
important, nor is it worthy of consideration that Hillary Clinton got more popular votes than
Trump but nevertheless lost the electoral college to Trump in 2016.
I was always told you should never discuss politics or religion. I am beginning to
understand the wisdom in that. With religion you have to be willing to suspend disbelief,
there is no logical explanation for so many of the things believers take for fact. It appears
to me that is the exact same thing with attempting to talk to Republicans.
now, to add some balance. Black people need to get their shit together. Bad things happen
to many of them because they are doing stupid stuff. The gangsta culture is not at all
helpful.
Fascism is not necessarily Republican, the new Democratic party has a considerable fascist
faction. and it aint the old people in the Dem party, a lot of youngsters are quite the
brownshirt when you look carefully.
"Wait!" screams the narrative industry.... [which has] system produced record
ratings for everyone....
IMO the narratives are driven by Deep State Empire managers that want to keep us divided
so that they have a free hand. As a result, few can see the Empire forest for the trees of
Deep State political operatives.
IMO the "record ratings" for the political circuses on offer are not the driving force.
The hidden motive is EMPIRE. The new love that dare not speak its name is the love of EMPIRE.
No politician or media pundit is allowed to question the need for NATO, EMPIRE propaganda,
Israel's behavior, the huge amount wasted on military expenditures, etc.
... The U.S. - or at least its 'élites' - need a wake-up call
These elites know exactly what they are doing. It's the people that need a wake-up call.
They are much too gullible. And all-too-willing to follow whatever establishment stooge is
presented as their hero.
<> <> <> <> <>
A few hours ago, I wrote this comment on the preceding thread (replying to ventinLA):
vetinLA @Feb16 6:32 #60
Those beliefs led us to DJT..
Obama, Bernie and DJT have led their flocks to nowhere. What led usto
them is the establishment's desire to derail populist Movements.
One clue (among many): Each of these so-called populists is pro-Empire.
Obama conducted covert wars and regime changes. He declined to prosecute any CIA
people for rendition & torture and dismissed privacy concerns about NSA spying. He
also lied to us: 1) about a 'public option' in his healthcare plan and 2) never making
the Bush tax cuts permanent (Obama participated in the 'fiscal cliff' farce that made
most Bush tax cuts permanent while cutting social programs);
Bernie, aka "Senator F35" is a closet Zionist that supports the Empire. He was
Hillary's sheepdog in 2016. He then founded "Our Revolution", a nonprofit that accepted
money from large donors. Bernie folded like a tent in 2020 to support establishment
candidate Biden. Bernie put forth a bogus bill to end US involvement in the Saudi war on
Yemen that would not actually end that involvement due to an exception. And he has
criticized Venezuela's Maduro as USA has been trying to overthrow him.
Trump - a billionaire conman, Clinton insider, and friend of Epstein - got in front
of the Tea Party parade with slogans like "America First". His actions show that he is a
fraud who is actual "Empire First". Trump dramatically increased spending on the
military, terminated multiple peace agreements, renegged on his peace deal with North
Korea, gave Israel everything on its wish list (including killing Iranian Gen.
Soleimani), militarized space, and continued the War on Whistle-blowers with prosecution
of Assange. Along the way he lied to the American people about the severity of the
looming pandemic and excused MbS's killing of Jamal Khashoggi.
Nothing will change as long as we keep falling for compromised leaders that are promoted by
a compromised media.
And it's not just the US: Cameron, BoJo, Macron, Trudeau, and other quislings are funded and
promoted in the same way. It's not "just politics" or "media narratives", it's a deliberate
corruption of democracy itself so that those in charge serve TPTB and their Empire
priorities.
George Orwell warned of a boot on the neck of humanity forever. Although that image
horrifies, today too many people willingly offer their neck for booting by their preferred
establishment-controlled, media-driven tribal cult. We need more cynics and fewer lemmings.
Is anyone surprised that the greatest cynics in history were from the era of Roman
Empire?
So finally people of the empire will have to acknowledge something which types like many who
coagulate around sites such as MoA have known for a long time, that the empire suffers from a
condition which gamers know and loathe only too well, Ludonarrative Dissonance .
In gaming Ludonarrative Dissonance is a condition which occurs too often, especially in
games which have 'benefited' from the game developers studio being bought out (often in an
underhanded manner eg investing a small amount but stitching the impecunious development
studio in a contract which includes draconian financial penalties for failing to meet
subjectively definable 'milestones'. Publishers with expensive lawyers coming out their
arseholes sue the studio over these milestones and almost always wins complete ownership of
the nerds - modern day slavery however not the current issue) by uninterested money men who
quickly push a gang of marketeers on the game studio.
The marketeers promote some story-line into the game which is frequently little more than
a collection of what they believe are 'hot button issues'. LGBTQ & feminist issues are
always popular. The trouble begins when actual gameplay which is determined by the games
existing physics eg fighting physics - what is a game without fighting, runs at odds with the
silly superficial narrative which the marketing pop-up has foisted on the game.
Hence ludonarrative dissonance a frequently quoted example being 'Uncharted' a hugely
successful playstation game which Goomba
Stomp analyses thusly:
"In Uncharted, main character Nathan Drake is presented as the lovable everyman treasure
hunter, who also kills everyone in his way without hesitation. The Nathan Drake seen during
cutscenes isn't the same one experienced during gameplay, creating a sense of ludonarrative
dissonance."
In gameplay or shall we say reality, the lead character gets around killing anyone everyone
who he believes stands between him and the treasure, this conflicts with the character
presented in cutscenes (they are like a film clip or sound bite - the player cannot input or
affect them in any way), the cutscenes feature a very different Nathan Drake full of peace
love and woodstock all pro LGBTQ, anti-racist etc, despite the fact that many of the people
Nathan has murdered during the game are typical Hollywood caricature baddies, that is to say
dark hued, latino, russian or african american accented types.
That doesn't sound at all like what we observe out here in the real world does it? /snark.
BidenCorp are going to ensure everyone keeps talking about orangutan in that way
assisting their media backers by keeping ratings high while also distracting the masses from
far more pressing issues eg what they call the stimulus which normal humans see as eating and
having shelter or the fact that resources much needed domestically are getting sluiced down
the toilet of never ending war against the very types BidenCorp claims to most care about.
Ludonarrative dissonance.
And it's vastly important that the Cynic School of Thought originated in Greece, from whom
the Romans borrowed most everything including the idea of massive latifundia, usury, private
finance, and the need to wage Total War on anyone promoting the Jubilee Year idea or
championing the plebes. And which two "classic" nations did the British and their American
scions model themselves after--The Greeks and Romans. But then, you know all that. And I do
believe that you know there was never to be any genuine democracy at the USA's national level
as there was a Coup in 1787 that negated the form of government in place that actually held
out some promise of that.
IMO, there're well over 100 Million US Citizens ready to embrace Grassroots Populism, not
the Top->Down Trump variety, but the variety that champions All The People and steals its
motto from the Constitution: For a More Better Union, or People's Union Party if you will, or
something like that. On the other hand, the EU presents a different problem for those under
its boot that's more complex than what we face. IMO, the EU in its current form is
unreformable as it's essentially a dictatorship run by the ECB, which forms a Junta with Wall
Street, The City, NATO, and the CIA. And that latter criminal organization will need to be
overcome for us to have any hopes of democracy at the Federal level and a nationwide public
financial system to get us out of the chasm we're in and provide some hope for future
generations.
Jrabbit @ 22 said:"IMO the narratives are driven by Deep State Empire managers that want to
keep us divided so that they have a free hand. As a result, few can see the Empire forest for
the trees of Deep State political operatives."
"Obama, Bernie and DJT have led their flocks to nowhere. What led us to them is the
establishment's desire to derail populist Movements."
"One clue (among many): Each of these so-called populists is pro-Empire."
Absolutely true rabbit, good post.
And, IMO, the "deep state" are the malignant billionaires who have bought the afore
mentioned "populists", and who own 99% of the MSM....
Debs @ 26; said;"BidenCorp are going to ensure everyone keeps talking about orangeutan in
that way assisting their media backers by keeping ratings high while also distracting the
masses from far more pressing issues eg what they call the stimulus which normal humans see
as eating and having shelter or the fact that resources much needed domestically are getting
sluiced down the toilet of never ending war against the very types BidenCorp claims to most
care about. Ludonarrative dissonance."
An excellent piece from Glenn Greenwald about the events on Capitol Hill on January 6.
"..One of the most significant of these falsehoods (from journalists) was the tale --
endorsed over and over without any caveats by the media for more than a month -- that Capitol
Police officer Brian Sicknick was murdered by the pro-Trump mob when they beat him to death
with a fire extinguisher. That claim was first published by The New York Times on January 8
in an article headlined "Capitol Police Officer Dies From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage." It
cited "two [anonymous] law enforcement officials" to claim that Sicknick died "with the mob
rampaging through the halls of Congress" and after he "was struck with a fire
extinguisher."
"A second New York Times article from later that day -- bearing the more dramatic
headline: "He Dreamed of Being a Police Officer, Then Was Killed by a Pro-Trump Mob" --
elaborated on that story:...
"....The problem with this story is that it is false in all respects. From the start,
there was almost no evidence to substantiate it. The only basis were the two original New
York Times articles asserting that this happened based on the claim of anonymous law
enforcement officials.
"Despite this alleged brutal murder taking place in one of the most surveilled buildings
on the planet, filled that day with hundreds of cellphones taping the events, nobody saw
video of it. No photographs depicted it. To this day, no autopsy report has been released. No
details from any official source have been provided.
"Not only was there no reason to believe this happened from the start, the little that was
known should have caused doubt. On the same day the Times published its two articles with the
"fire extinguisher" story, ProPublica published one that should have raised serious doubts
about it.
"The outlet interviewed Sicknick's brother, who said that "Sicknick had texted [the
family] Wednesday night to say that while he had been pepper-sprayed, he was in good
spirits." That obviously conflicted with the Times' story that the mob "overpowered Sicknick"
and "struck him in the head with a fire extinguisher," after which, "with a bloody gash in
his head, Mr. Sicknick was rushed to the hospital and placed on life support."
The over reaction in the US to this minor riot, in which the only other casualties were
among the rioters would be a good joke were it not that the Congress people now telling us
that they escaped with their lives are personally and collectively responsible for the most
atrocious attacks on innocent civilians at the hands of Congressionally employed agents or
proxies every day.
The events of January 6 would not have been noticed in the Kiev insurrection that Obama et al
produced- in which US trained snipers from Georgia shot into the crowds, indiscriminately
killing both police and protestors, in order to be in a position to denounce peace accords
reached between the parties.
They would have been an unnoticed sideshow in Hong Kong last year when the US sponsored
anti-communists were beating up local police and setting subway stations on fire.
They would have gone unreported in Minsk a few months ago. As to Cochabamba in Bolivia, where
the Parliamentary building was invaded by US Embassy organised fascists little more than a
year ago and several bystanders were killed. Or Colombia any day of every week since the
socialist candidate was assassinated in the Presidential election-in 1948- a day like January
6 would be a welcome relief from the death squads and murders.
The big question the world is asking is whether the USA will grow up before it dies. The odds
would seem to be against it doing so.
You can't have it both ways: a lab that is competent enough to engineer a precise and
devastating bioweapon but sloppy enough to let a rogue virus to proliferate and leak from
its facilities.
Thea Fischer who was actually on the WHO covid origins team said the quoting of her out of
context to convey a message exactly opposite to her experience was intentional (also known as
lying).
NYT usually are subtle and crafty with their lies. With some countries like China they are
bald faced liars.
He not only knows about the Bat corona virus research in Wuhan ,he funded it!......he
knows what kind of gain of function research they were doing because he was part of it. He
was the first to come out and call anyone who had questions about the Wuhan lab and possible
leak a "conspiracy theorist".
Seeing all that snow in Moscow -as it should be in winter-will cause Greta to book an
emergency appointment with her psychiatrist.
Looneytoonsindv 4 hours ago 14 Feb, 2021 06:45 PM
All caused by global warming? I think not. Climatologists not paid by central governments
(who are using global warming as a cry for changing our way of life) say we are entering an
extended period of solar minimum. Maybe for the next 30 years. A major solar minimum last
occurred in the 1600's (the Maunder Minimum) that lasted from 1645 to 1715. During that
period, rivers and harbors froze over, crops failed and people died of starvation and
exposure. Something to look forward to!
This paragraph alone is worth the price of admission:
Well, the incident on January 6th wasn't exactly a replay of the storming of the
Bastille, but as it is all we have it will have to make do. Were those folks wandering
around inside the Capitol Building tourists who had gotten separated from their tour guide
or were they confused citizens from the Dakotas who had a couple of stamps remaining on
their hunting licenses allowing them to bag a Democrat or two? They would have been better
advised to set up a couple of feeder bait sites under the Rotunda loaded with Benjamins and
the Congress-critters would have arrived in droves. And that guy who stole Nancy Pelosi's
podium only had to announce that he was holding a Black Lives Matter meeting and good old
Nancy would have arrived tout suite on her knees with an African kente cloth stole
draped around her neck.
A sad, funny, and true observation by Phil Giraldi:
"They would have been better advised to set up a couple of feeder bait sites under the
Rotunda loaded with Benjamins and the Congress-critters would have arrived in droves."
Now you know that BLM stands for Bankers Lives Matter
Grumbleduke 7 hours ago
Or bankers love murder
lay_arrow
sgt_doom 5 hours ago
The Bankers' Boy --- the prez who gave them everything --- was Bill Clinton and it was
Clinton who pardoned convicted domestic terrorist, Susan Rosenberg, who was the real founder
of BLM -- so essentially that is correct!
You guys keep reducing it down to democrats versus republicans. Both parties are in bed
with each other. Both parties strike deals with corporations, special interest groups,
lobbyists, and any other entity which provides wealth and power. Dan Crenshaw is the exact
same thing as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. His job (like hers) is to attract right leaning
voters which may be disenchanted with contemporary American politicians. He brings the
outcasts and the exiled back to the party while reassuring them that they can trust him-
since, he claims to not be 'one of them.' This country needs to hold ALL politicians
accountable and clean house.
Putin was saying there's no single democratic model. That was eventually conceptualized
as "sovereign democracy". Democracy cannot exist without sovereignty
This is one of the key concepts here and to me the most interesting one. "Sovereign
democracy". There are actually now very few countries in the world with true sovereignty,
never mind democracy.
The ones that try to exercise sovereignty, or even that don't show sufficient servility,
are severely punished. If they aren't large or strong enough, like Syria and Lebanon, they
suffer tremendously under "sanctions", which in reality is economic warfare. If they are,
like Russia and Iran, they still suffer sanctions, but will probably ride them out.
I remember a speech by King Hussein of Jordan in 1990, in a moment of rare candor,
remarking something like, and I paraphrase: "We live in a world dictatorship". The context
was the run up to the US/Saudi/Zionist-led attack on Iraq the first time around, when George
Bush I, urged by Margaret Thatcher, assembled a huge coalition against that country. I've
never been able to locate that speech since (I would be grateful to anyone who can).
For a background on that conflict, which set up the post-Cold War order:
"Look, you paranoid, privileged, white trash, white supremacist, qtard, wignat, nazi scum --
there was no Sekret Cabal scheming to rig the election, ok? that's a Conspiracy Theory, it did
not happen
There was just a small group of billionaires and elite power brokers working together
behind-the-scenes to *fortify* the election which is totally different and not at all a bad
thing
So stop spreading baseless Conspiracy Theories; this election was not Rigged in Secret, it
was Fortified in Private -- you're welcome."
"... Apparently we have a new definition of democracy - it's when the Democratic party wins. ..."
"... I think Time magazine should be booted off Facebook, Twitter for spreading "misinformation". they sure have thought up some clever euphemisms for ballot box stuffing. ..."
"... "The table is tilted folks. The game is rigged." - George Carlin ..."
"... So, does this article say the Russians didn't interfere in the election, it was everyone else ..."
"... America the freest country in the world where you get to pick one of two THEIR carefully hand selected and groomed candidates from THEIR two approved parties. After that your told to go home and shut up because the people have spoken. ..."
"... I find it interesting that after all this "fortification", Biden is now following most of Trump's "terrible policies" like anti-China, anti-Iran, anti- Venezuela, continued pandering to Israel (of course), keeping troops in Afghanistan, hassling Russia ..."
"... Nope! Color revolution in US is nonsense: it is the only country in the world with no American embassy on its territory! ..."
Apparently we have a new definition of democracy - it's when the Democratic party wins.
Lifes_a_Hoax 1 day ago 5 Feb, 2021 04:29 PM
No surprise here, all the hallmarks of a color revolution were there, suppression of public
knowledge by the media, censorship of social media, fraudulent election and a fake
insurrection blamed on the opposition. Color revolution 101!
Jewel Gyn 1 day ago 5 Feb, 2021 09:39 PM
So the modus operandi is the same from the old playbook except that defending democracy is
now weaponised for domestic use. Once the dust is settled, the same "defending democracy"
will be launched against any country that US deemed not to be in line with its narratives. So
often used by US and its allies that you can write a similar script every time.
Pulling The Strings Jewel Gyn 1 hour ago 7 Feb, 2021 12:00 AM
Same old tactic, Radicalize the naive youth who will then in turn spread it, Organize
protests that turn into Riots, The Media will help justify/legitimize the protest, A unknown
Political figure suddenly becomes a serious rival ironically always a Right-wing party even
though they demonize the right in domestic politics for instance at the moment with Alexei
Navalny as you will see the West dodge calling him Right-wing or nationalist and just refer
to him as the opposition or anti-Kremlin.
Godspower Obasuyi 1 day ago 5 Feb, 2021 10:18 PM
The audacity of the cabal to volunteer information on how the rigged system operates is, to
me, the impressive point of Western civilization. Yet the 'enlightened' masses carry on with
the conviction that the system is equitable.
VaimacaPiru 1 day ago 5 Feb, 2021 07:10 PM
What I find astonishing is that the American peoples think they have a democracy and that
there is any difference between the two parties, no matter who wins the policy never changes,
Corporate America will still be in charge and aiming at global hegemony, the population will
be more oppressed and have less to eat!!!!
RCBreakenridge VaimacaPiru 22 hours ago 6 Feb, 2021 02:52 AM
Even the most transparent of lies becomes believable as truth if told enough times. Watch
US-based media and you'll see that the lies are told consistently and repeatedly day after
week after year. Combine with the removal of critical thinking skills from the education
system and its a surprise the transformation is not proceeding faster.
Eric Johnson 1 day ago 5 Feb, 2021 05:52 PM
I think Time magazine should be booted off Facebook, Twitter for spreading "misinformation".
they sure have thought up some clever euphemisms for ballot box stuffing.
ClairvoyantHW 1 day ago 5 Feb, 2021 06:28 PM
this is karma... most US presidents did to other nations what those conspirists did to Trump.
Now the country will suffer through the same problems, other regimes faced, who weren't voted
but installed.
Irish_Diakonos 1 day ago 5 Feb, 2021 08:33 PM
It was always this way. The US system of democracy is fundamentally flawed by design to
ensure the government of the people by the people for the (rich) people. Only now are the
'people' (i.e. the not rich ones) beginning to notice. Nothing has really changed.
VAdrian 14 hours ago 6 Feb, 2021 11:07 AM
"Time magazine is literally admitting that a secret cabal of powerful wealthy elite people
and corporations hijacked our 2020 election by steering media coverage, influencing
perceptions, and changing rules and laws." Just waiting for brainIess zombies to repeat their
favourite mantra: "cUnsPiRacY tHeOrY!"
Pulling The Strings VAdrian 2 hours ago 6 Feb, 2021 10:38 PM
Anything that goes against their "Narrative" is a Conspiracy.
Kevin Cormier 1 day ago 5 Feb, 2021 06:45 PM
So that's why they opened the gates.
WaveWolf Kevin Cormier 1 day ago 5 Feb, 2021 06:48 PM
At the Capitol? Some of the rioters got in that way. The rest either broke in or overwhelmed
the officers.
RTaccount 1 day ago 5 Feb, 2021 06:33 PM
The good news is that even the sports fans finally realize this 'democracy' stuff has to
go.
shadow1369 13 hours ago 6 Feb, 2021 11:48 AM
So there you have it, the 'election' was fraudulent, not just in the form of ballot rigging,
but in systematic voter manipulation over many months. 'Fortified' is the new term for
'manipulated', and it is clear that the democratic process in the BRA, long a charade, is now
totally controlled by the fascist DNC. There is no point in hunkering down and waiting for
the next election, with every passing day the new regime is entrenching itself, purging
dissent and rounding up the opposition. If decent americans do not unite to overthrow this
tyranny very soon they will be too late.
Pulling The Strings shadow1369 2 hours ago 6 Feb, 2021 10:32 PM
It is too late, Capitol Hill was the Reichstag moment for the Democrats.
Mistermal 15 hours ago 6 Feb, 2021 09:34 AM
"The table is tilted folks. The game is rigged." - George Carlin
Levin High 1 day ago 5 Feb, 2021 04:54 PM
So, does this article say the Russians didn't interfere in the election, it was everyone else
March31 19 hours ago 6 Feb, 2021 06:18 AM
America the freest country in the world where you get to pick one of two THEIR carefully hand
selected and groomed candidates from THEIR two approved parties. After that your told to go
home and shut up because the people have spoken.
Khanlenin jetguyone 1 day ago 5 Feb, 2021 09:24 PM
Trump was a lying, violence promoting demagogue. Murdering 8 Iranian officials because they were exploring peace initiatives
in the ME. This had sent reverberations through the ranks of the US military and caused them to go running for their guns. He
pushed the world closer to the edge of environmental collapse and nuclear war. ...
anaisanesse 16 hours ago 6 Feb, 2021 09:12 AM
I find it interesting that after all this "fortification", Biden is now following most of
Trump's "terrible policies" like anti-China, anti-Iran, anti- Venezuela, continued pandering
to Israel (of course), keeping troops in Afghanistan, hassling Russia and supporting the
fool-criminal Navalny, stopping the pipeline from Russia to the EU, leaving Julian Assange to
rot in the UK then get destroyed in the US prisons.
Ohhho 1 day ago 5 Feb, 2021 09:54 PM
Nope! Color revolution in US is nonsense: it is the only country in the world with no
American embassy on its territory!
Orwell's 1984 was supposed to be a cautionary tale, not a how-to manual.
LetThemEatRand 2 hours ago
The loss of freedom could be represented by a hockey stick chart. As someone in my 50's, I
can attest that it was very gradual up until around 2000. Now the chart is going straight up,
hockey stick style. If you invested in the Elimination Of Freedom (EOF) in 2000, you would be
very happy right now and shopping Lambos.
the_pencil 2 hours ago
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
~~HST
overbet 2 hours ago remove link
Its to the point they just come up with lies and just agree this is the truth now we're
all going to accept then repeat it over and over. So many know theyre blatant lies, but they
eventually get accepted.
Some of their lies are as outrageous as somthing like water is dry. Thats the truth now
we're all going to agree that water is dry. If you dont think water is dry youre a
terrorist.
Progressive reporter Jordan Chariton had the change of heart after YouTube took down one of
his videos.
Chariton's original advocacy for censorship occurred when he called for Big Tech giants to
target anyone who questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.
"EVERY media outlet that pushed this INSANE election fraud conspiracy for clicks should be
taken off the air. They've incited a Civil War," Chariton tweeted on January 6, the date of the
Capitol breach.
A leftist journalist expressed regret about calling for Silicon Valley to censor content
after it happened to him.
Progressive reporter Jordan Chariton had the change of heart after YouTube took down one of
his videos.
Chariton's original advocacy for censorship occurred when he called for Big Tech giants to
target anyone who questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.
"EVERY media outlet that pushed this INSANE election fraud conspiracy for clicks should be
taken off the air. They've incited a Civil War," Chariton tweeted on January 6, the date of the
Capitol breach.
However, after YouTube pulled video from his own channel featuring footage of the January 6
riot for violating the platform's policies against "spam and deceptive practices," the Chariton
reversed his position.
"With time to reflect, & seeing Silicon Valley's censorship onslaught, I regret this
tweet made in [the] heat of moment," the progressive journalist wrote. "Whether certain
cable/YouTube outlets mislead audiences w/ dishonest claims lacking real evidence, they
shouldn't be targeted." Jordan
@JordanChariton · Feb 3 THREAD: With time to
reflect, & seeing Silicon Valley's censorship onslaught, I regret this tweet made in heat
of moment. Whether certain cable/YouTube outlets mislead audiences w/ dishonest claims lacking
real evidence, they shouldn't be targeted...
Chariton noted that with the precedent having been set for blanket censorship, progressive
content was also now being unfairly targeted, while pointing out that big left-wing networks
with friendly YouTube ties like the Young Turks were not calling it out.
In a subsequent interview, the journalist noted that the purge of right-wing content was
merely an excuse for YouTube to "get rid of" all content that questioned the consensus on
subjects such as healthcare or U.S. foreign policy.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ji1olH2geJA
Chariton pointed out that big networks like CNN that carried the exact same footage from
January 6 were not targeted at all by YouTube.
@DonaldJTrumpJr So I
guess daddy is breaking another promise he made? He said if he lost this election we would
never see him again. When is he going to get lost for good?
@DonaldJTrumpJr Key
phrase "if he lost the election" . He is not going anywhere & after he is acquitted for
the 2nd impeachment sham. He will continue to command more attention & influence than the
impostors controlling DC. The next 4 years will be even more entertaining than the last
4.
"Alexandria Ocasio Smollett" and "AOC Lied" trended on Twitter amidst backlash over
Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's tale of her experiences during the
Capitol Riot.
The New York Democrat has repeatedly said she feared for her life, describing how she hid
in her office bathroom after hearing loud banging and shouting on Jan. 6 before a Capitol
Police officer burst into her office.
Critics pointed out that her office is not in the United States Capitol building, which
rioters stormed that day, but in the Cannon office building down the street.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is being compared to the actor who staged an attack on himself,
after her account of fearing for her life during the January 6 riot was fact-checked, exposing
that she wasn't in the Capitol building.
The hashtags #AlexandriaOcasioSmollett, along with #AOCLied, trended on Wednesday, following
a fact-check of AOC's (D-New York) Instagram livestream two days prior by OAN journalist Jack
Posobiec. During her emotional one-and-a-half-hour-long talk, Ocasio-Cortez admitted that she
was not in the Capitol building during the riot to begin with, but continued to claim that she
experienced a life-threatening situation.
When Ocasio-Cortez denounced it as a "manipulative take on the right," Posobiec
posted a map, with arrows pointing to the Capitol as well as two other office buildings across
the road. One of them is where AOC's own office is located, and where she claimed she
"thought I was going to die" during the January 6 events. Another is where she ended up
sheltering inside the office of Rep. Katie Porter (D-California) after leaving her office on
the instructions of the Capitol Police.
... ... ...
Whatever the truth about AOC's alleged sexual assault and near-death experience at the
Capitol, some critics of the progressive social media star noted that she had successfully
diverted attention from problems with the government and the small investor rebellion against
hedge funds.
ALBANY, NY -- In response to criticism over his handling of the pandemic, New York governor
Andrew Cuomo reportedly unveiled a plan Monday to reduce the spread of Covid-19 at nursing
homes by throwing all residents out onto the street. "The elderly are one of the groups most
vulnerable to Covid, and we will dramatically reduce nursing home deaths by closing all of
these facilities immediately and evicting all the residents," said Cuomo, who defended himself
against accusations that he had mishandled the spread of coronavirus within adult care
facilities by claiming that it never would have happened if they had closed all facilities
before the pandemic even started.
"Democrats risk unintended Medicare cuts if they pass partisan Covid relief" [
NBC ].
"But under the Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, known as PAYGO, new laws that raise the
national debt automatically trigger offsetting cuts in some safety net programs
Senate Budget
Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who will shepherd the reconciliation process and has been a supporter of expanding
safety net programs, will work to prevent the cuts, said his spokesman, Keane Bhatt."
Another Obama-era debacle (and one which Pelosi, among other top Democrats, supports.)
"... To Blinken, war as the last resort can only be understood in the same way a mugger considers shooting his victim as a last resort to stealing their wallet. ..."
To Blinken, war as the last resort can only be understood in the same way a mugger considers
shooting his victim as a last resort to stealing their wallet.
While doing some research on the reliability of the PCR test I came across a couple of
different sources that said the day ole joe was inaugurated, and the vaccine started to roll
out, that the WHO quietly changed their recommendations on the cycle rate the test should be
run from 40-45 down to 30-35.
This might explain the drop in positive cases. Has anyone else
seen this?
Scott MacFarlane @MacFarlaneNews ·
Jan 28 PERMANENT SECURITY FENCING
coming to US Capitol. New statement from acting US Capitol Police chief: "Vast improvements to the physical security infrastructure
must be made to include permanent fencing"
On the bright side, perhaps the fencing could keep the Congress critters in ?
Statement of Acting Chief Pittman Regarding U.S. Capitol Complex Physical Security
"In the days following January 6, 2021, with the assistance of our Federal and local law enforcement partners, and our Congressional
stakeholders, the United States Capitol Police (USCP) has hardened the physical security across the Capitol Complex in order to
further protect the Congress.
"Upon becoming the Acting Chief on January 8, 2021, I immediately directed my staff to conduct a physical security assessment
of the entire Capitol Complex. This assessment is in addition to the USCP's Inspector General's review of the events of January
6, 2021, and the third-party review of the Complex's physical infrastructure, processes, and command and control being conducted
at the behest of Speaker Pelosi by retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore.
"I welcome each of these reviews, and I am ensuring that the Department will provide all of the information that is necessary
to facilitate these studies. In the end, we all have the same goal - to prevent what occurred on January 6 from ever happening
again.
"As I noted earlier this week, even before September 11, 2001, security experts argued that more needed to be done to protect
the U.S. Capitol. In fact, a 2006 security assessment specifically recommended the installation of a permanent perimeter fence
around the Capitol.
"In light of recent events, I can unequivocally say that vast improvements to the physical security infrastructure must be
made to include permanent fencing, and the availability of ready, back-up forces in close proximity to the Capitol.
"I look forward to working with Congress on identifying the security improvements necessary to ensure the safety and security
of the Congress and the U.S. Capitol." ###
That fence could post a danger to members of congress and their staff as much as protection. suppose there was a massive explosion
in the capitol and they had to run away, not just out of the building, but away. The fence could serve as a trap.
It would be worse if by then that metal fence has been electrified because of demands of legislators for their "security".
Think of one very, very long bug zapper.
"Biden administration eyes Rahm Emanuel for ambassadorship" [
NBC ]. "President Joe Biden is considering former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for a
high-profile ambassadorship, potentially to China, three people with knowledge of the
discussions said." Rahm Emmanuel, China hand.
More: "Becoming the U.S. ambassador to Japan is another option that Biden administration
officials have discussed with Emanuel, one of the people with knowledge of the discussions
said."
Unpresident Biden is America's Brezhnev -- his health and stamina failing, he is merely an
old Establishment tool who has been resurrected in an attempt to prop up an order that everyone
knows is on its last legs. A telling video from the inauguration shows Biden passing a
contingent of Marines on guard duty, who any sitting president is supposed to salute, being the
Commander-in-Chief. Biden just shambles past them without a gesture, oddly mumbling "salute the
Marines" under his facemask. The quite plausible theory that has been making the rounds is that
Biden was being instructed on what to say and do through an earpiece, and that he mistakenly
repeated an instruction to salute the Marines rather than actually doing it.
A shocking example was provided Wednesday when Douglass Mackey of Delray Beach, Fla., was
arrested for creating memes that allegedly misled voters in 2016 to think they could vote by
texting instead of by actually going to the polls.
This is the equivalent of arresting Sacha
Baron Cohen for exposing the gullibility of the rich and famous.
The FBI offered no evidence
that Mackey actually convinced anyone not to vote, but even if it did, so what? Would you
rather live in a country where the FBI is hunting down pranksters -- four years after the
supposed transgression -- or a country where voters are expected to be able to recognize a joke
when they see one?
I have been dumbfounded for some time by supporters of the Izzies apparent lack of concern
about the eventual consequences of this sort of behavior. But I suppose, as with Uncle Sugar,
the notion of ones own exceptional nature prevents a sensible assessment.
Israeli intel spinoffs/cutouts, US FBI/CIA and the NSA surveillance/blackmail collection
agencies and their agents; they are facets of the same worldwide "NWO" criminal Blob-Mob,
imo.
It should be obvious by now they have the power to set up one US President, and depose him
through a ham-handed domestic election fraud coup, and install an eaaily controlled
neurodegenerating corrupt puppet, and completely control and pervert the US Judicial system,
so as to essentially get away and continue with their criminal culture and crimes against
humanity unchecked.
With such a history, of course they have the means to frame Russia, as well as to destroy
any others who stand in their way to more power and autocratic control of the planet.
"Where is the line between a successful global business, in-demand services and
consolidation of big data – and attempts to harshly and unilaterally govern society,
replace legitimate democratic institutions, restrict one's natural right to decide for
themselves how to live, what to choose, what stance to express freely?" Putin wondered.
"We've all seen this just now in the US. And everybody understands what I'm talking
about," he added.
The Russian leader was apparently referring to the crackdown by Big Tech corporations like
Twitter, Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon, mostly on Donald Trump and his supporters, during
the recent presidential election in the US. The companies, which, according to some critics,
sided with Democratic candidate Joe Biden, blocked President Trump's social media accounts over
accusations of inciting violence, with the same being done to many pages of groups and
individuals who'd backed him.
However, one-sided bias claim voiced by some might be an overestimation – the accounts
of Democrats supporters were also subject to restrictions, but on a much smaller scale.
Conservative Twitter-like platform Parler was also forced offline, and now there are calls
to block the Telegram app as well.
These events have shown that Big Tech companies "in some areas have de facto become
rivals to the government," Putin said.
Billions of users spend large parts of their lives on the platforms and, from the point of
view of those companies, their monopolistic position is favorable for organizing economic and
technological processes, the Russian president explained. "But there's a question of how
such monopolism fits the interest of society," he stressed.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
shadow1369 8 hours ago 27 Jan, 2021 07:51 AM
This is a great opportunity for Russia to create some Big Tech operators which actually allow
free speech. Russia certainly has the expertise and the means, and cannot be bullied by
western regimes.
Proton1963 shadow1369 1 hour ago 27 Jan, 2021 02:54 PM
Sure.. But only after the Russians can build a drivable car or a decent smart phone or a
laptop.
The West is surely giving Russia a lot of opportunities, through its own arrogance and
stupidity, does not it ? It keeps going backwards in its effort to diminish Russia. And the
same goes for China too.
JOHNCHUCKMAN 7 hours ago 27 Jan, 2021 08:45 AM
Putin is a remarkable statesman, and he sets a very high standard for political discourse. I
can't think of any of our Western leaders who speak in these truthful and philosophic terms.
What we hear in the West are slogans or whining or complaining.
Tenakakhan JOHNCHUCKMAN 3 hours ago 27 Jan, 2021 01:03 PM
The patriarch of the west has become extremely weak. It seems like our leaders lack any moral
authority to speak truth and common sense for fear of being cancelled. What we see now is the
virtue signaling dregs sponsored by extreme groups leading our nations down the toilet. If a
real war was to break out now we would be cannon fodder.
Hilarous 7 hours ago 27 Jan, 2021 09:04 AM
I think there's a simple explanation. Big tech is afraid to lose section 230 of the
communications act, which stipulates that online platforms are not legally responsible for
user content. Trump and some Republicans have accused social media sites of muzzling
conservative voices. They said undoing Section 230 would let people who claim they have been
slighted sue the companies. So Big Tech has a strong interest to remove Trump and run down a
few bad examples to convince people and politics that Section 230 must remain.
Count_Cash 8 hours ago 27 Jan, 2021 07:40 AM
In many cases they aren't rivals, but owners of government. Money controls everything in the
west and big tech have it. They have taken control of, or are blackmailing governments. The
Western Liberal Regime straddles both Big Tech and government!
RTaccount Count_Cash 7 hours ago 27 Jan, 2021 08:57 AM
Correct. Let us never forget that in America we are ruled by oligarchs just like the rest of
the world, and that our oligarchs are largely hidden. They are our true government, and so it
is meaningless to make this type of distinction.
i've also been in various IT roles and it's funny how people ghettoize themselves...web
design/"full stack" guys were always the worst but i had a lot of server/NAS guys who had ZERO
clue about security and would use idiot passwords like that (and torrent episodes of "the wire"
and watch sports on youtube and etc etc).
as for the israelis, the cellebrite guys and probably these jackasses are good examples of
what happens when you get to sit around on stolen land and live off free money from the US.
which is funny because a lot of skilled "1337hax0rz" also come from poor-ass areas of russia
and the other former soviet areas.
Posted by: the pair | Jan 27 2021 16:45 utc |
13 @Posted by: Bemildred | Jan 27 2021 16:35 utc | 11
I saw that headline too.
I didn't (bother) to read it, but wondered why the MSM
would do everyone a favor and warn about this guy.
His usefulness had ended? So eke out that last drop of value from him
by sowing distrust within Proud Boys and other alternate organizations. Or (heaven's forbid!) that guy is being set up for assassination
by the Deep State as a false-flag. (Outrageous, simply outrageous,
but imagine if they did a Navalny/Skripal on him - whoa!)
Posted by: librul | Jan 27 2021 16:46 utc |
14 Posted by: librul | Jan 27 2021 16:46 utc | 14
We do seem to have some disagreements among our ruling "elites" these days, and I think that
may have something to do with it, but I really don't know and that is a good question. "Why are
they telling me this" is always a good question.
Nevertheless, I think it is a good idea to warn the young these days, so I thought I'd post
it.
Posted by: Bemildred | Jan 27 2021 16:53 utc |
15 @Posted by: Bemildred | Jan 27 2021 16:53 utc | 15
For sure, that is the rub.
When to self-censor, when to post.
Better to post and then discuss
then simply censor.
Posted by: librul | Jan 27 2021 17:00 utc |
16 @Bemildred | Jan 27 2021 16:35 utc | 11
Yep. FBI is following the time-tested "proactive" standard playbook of synthetic
terror/crime creation to support the Borg's agenda.
Some congressman a few years back got a hold of, and publically released official docs
showing that FBI was budgeting a yearly payroll for nsome >15,000 paid confidential
informants/agent provacatuers circa 2014(?).
This FBI practice goes all the way back to the 1960's and probably much earlier.
In the last 60+ years, there have been oo many FBI-created/supported domestic 'crime/terror'
groups/leaderships to list in one post here.
Likely the leadership of both BLM and US antifa is also controlled by FBI (Euro
antifa=>likely CIA). [CIA Operation Ajax/Kermit Roosevelt)was running paid *rent-a-mobs* all
the way back in the 1953 overthrowal of Iran's Mossadegh govt].
Recently I've been unable to find anything on Wikipedia that has not been corrupted to some
degree or other by lies.
What a disappointment of a once grand ideal.
Posted by: Arch Bungle | Jan 27 2021 17:21 utc |
18
I know it is OT, but, I was wondering what is happening with the Huawei Princess
in Canada since the regime change in the USA?
Posted by: Young | Jan 27 2021 17:52 utc |
19 Good report. The Wikileaks Vault 7 release clearly shows the USA has tools to create
false flag cyber warfare. To say one knows where a hack originates says more about the accuser
than the accused. Ms. Webb's reporting on the Epstein case was profound, and her follow-up
reporting on various threads has been stellar. There is no reason to doubt her reporting here.
It is no accident that most of Webb's threads lead back to Israel. When one considers the USA's
blind fealty to Israel, often alone in its support, one must consider that mass blackmailing of
political leaders going back decades is a real possibility to explain the USA's Israel-centric
foreign and domestic policy.
"The Washington borg immediately attributed the hack to Russia. Then President Trump
attributed it to China."
Was there a better way for Trump to telegraph (or tweet, whatever) to the public that the
establishment had no idea who was behind the hack?
If Trump said that he didn't believe Russia did it that would just give the establishment
mass media ammunition to say he was Putin's puppet. After dozens of mass media products echo
the narrative off each other to amplify a weak and vague suggestion and build it into
something that the public perceives as truth, Trump crushed it all by just accusing someone
else. Rather than laboriously dismantling the accusation aimed at Russia he just cut it off
at the knees.
Unfortunately that is something only a President can do, and the current figurehead in
that position absolutely will not be doing anything that might undermine the establishment
narrative du jour. I miss Trump already for that alone.
I have no direct knowledge of SolarWinds specifically, but if Boeing hired HCL (formerly
Hindu Computer Limited) to develop software for its 737 max, I'll make a wild guess and
assume that SolarWinds too probably hired a bunch of Indian kids worth $10/hour each, who
come and go every few months.
And if that's indeed the case, then anything's possible.
Solar Winds was an Israeli penetration? Not Russia?
"As Russiagate played out, it became apparent that there was collusion between the Trump
campaign and a foreign power, but the nation was Israel , not
Russia . Indeed,
many of the reports that came out of Russiagate revealed
collusion with Israel , yet those instances received little coverage and generated little
media outrage. This has led some to suggest that Russiagate may have been a cover for what was
in fact Israelgate.
Similarly, in the case of the SolarWinds hack, there is the odd case and timing of
SolarWinds' acquisition of a company called Samanage in 2019. As this report will explore,
Samanage's deep ties to Israeli intelligence, venture-capital firms connected to both
intelligence and Isabel Maxwell, as well as Samange's integration with the Orion software at
the time of the back door's insertion warrant investigation every bit as much as SolarWinds'
Czech-based contractor. " unlimitedhangout
----------------
Pilgrims! I am suggesting or at least raising the possibility that Israel has massively
broken into American government IT systems. Hmmm. Does that mean that I am a Rooshan asset?
The sadly funny thing in this is how deaf, dumb and blind the main stream media are with
regard to any, any, any possibility that Israel does not think its interests are identical with
those of the US.
Natanyahu is quite open about his intention to bully Biden into continuing Israeli policy
aimed at a Morgenthau model for Iran.
People openly say on the TeeVee that not only must Iran give up its nuclear ambitions but it
must also accept Israeli hegemony in the region. Joltin' Jack Keane is one of the foremost
proponents of such a vision of the future Middle East. For him the Syrian military are merely
"Iranian surrogate forces." Perhaps someone should look carefully at the funding for the
Institute for the Study of War. Keane is the chairman thereof. pl
When friends and acquaintances question my apparent antipathy towards the State of Israel,
I suggest that they familiarize themselves with the circumstances regarding the attack on the
USS Liberty and the Pollard spy scandal.
I have been slogging through Jerome Slater's book 'Mythologies Without End: The US,
Israel, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1917 - 2020.' Frankly, after getting 3/4 of the way
through this book, I gave up because Slater's narrative was so depressingly repetitive.
Slater documents Israel's repeated intransigence and refusal to make any meaningful
concessions towards a just and lasting arrangement for peace with the Palestinians.
Probably the only event that will cause a serious reassessment of the US relationship with
Israel will be the day when we can no longer find a buyer for our debt and we are forced to
live within our means. But when that day arrives, the US/Israeli relationship will probably
be the least of our problems.
......." Parallels are obvious when one considers that SolarWinds quickly brought on the
discredited firm CrowdStrike to aid them in securing their networks and investigating the
hack. CrowdStrike had also been brought on by the DNC after the 2016 WikiLeaks publication,
and subsequently it was central in developing the false declarations regarding the
involvement of "Russian hackers" in that event......."
CrowdStrike ...CrowdStrike ......CrowdStrike.
Still think Trump's mention of CrowdStrike in his Ukraine phone call, that led to his
bogus impeachment ,was the real reason Democrats went apoplectic.
The echo chamber media treatment of the CrowdStrike element of the phone call as a "long
discredited conspiracy theory", without ever mentioning CrowdStrike by name, was the first
clue.
Is Israel First any worse than America First, or China First?
Certainly Netanyahu was eager to congratulate "President Elect Biden" before the Trump
body was even cold demonstrated Trump's history of special treatment and good will towards
Israel counted for nothing in their own version of their nation's real-politik.
Which is to also include our own self-serving interests, treating Israel in the same
fashion. I think we should all be prickly against each other. Real-politik. Give only
what one can afford to lose.
So Isabel Maxwell is sister to Ghislaine Maxwell of Jeffrey Epstein fame. The connecting
dots point to an ever shrinking world of espionage against the US in order to get at more
local targets. I wonder what they have on John Roberts.
I thought at the time how ironic it was that Netenyahu couldn't wait to throw Trump under
the bus even though Trump spent so much time kissing up to Israel.
I thought it was obvious to most Americans that Israel does not have the same interests
that the U.S.has.The source of Israel's influence in the U.S. is the evangelical vote which
is Protestant in nature going back to Plymouth Rock and naming their kids after OT heroes and
guilt from WW2. Nationalist Americans still fall in the trap of supporting Israel thinking we
are all in this together with them. Think about it, all senators and congressmen vote
uniformly for anything Israel wants and yet can't get a proper stimulus package thru. By the
way Israel first is worse than America first.
As someone who has dealt with the issue of American illusions about Israel for many
decades, I assure you that most Americans think Israel is the 51st state. I was the principal
liaison between US and Israeli military intelligence for seven long years.
Alex,
I'm not sure I can agree with your source of Israel influence going back to Plymouth Rock.
The Pilgrims were strongly reformed and promoted Covenant Theology, while current American
evangelicals largely accept Dispensationalism and pre-tribulation as developed by Darby in
the early 1800s and popularized by Schofield in the early 1900s.
Used tools such as Solar Winds extensively as engineer in wireless telcom industry.
There are much better tools.
Have read many accounts of this security breach and Israel being involved is much more
probable and likely explanation.
Also available evidence points that way.
Russia Russia Russia and China China China are easy talking points for those that are
lazy
In 1989, as an IBM contractor, I spent a month at a VQ2 det in the Med, helping install a
computer system, and instructing key personnel in its use. I became friends with the Chiefs,
male and female, that ran the place, walking around in their starched kakis with clipboards,
instructing the pilots and recon officers, slouching in their flight suits, their assignments
for the day. (Which of course came down from VQ2 itself, likely compiled by Chiefs there. As
Zhukov said when asked who ran the Russian Army: "The Sergeants and myself.") We both knew
several of the Liberty survivors: I from my previous Government employment; they from the
Navy. They all assured me privately that the Navy was determined never to let anything like
that happen again. There's undoubtedly been a complete turn over or two of personnel since
then, but I suspect the same determination prevails today: Once bitten, twice shy.
Given the publicly available evidence and information, there is no reason to rule out
Israel. They have the skill and motivation to pull this off. The same can be said for China
as well as Russia. North Korea and Iran are also strong contenders. Those two are
surprisingly capable. However, from our viewpoint any attribution is based on circumstantial
evidence only. True attribution needs more than that such as that laid out in the GRU 12
indictment for the DNC hack or the Dutch AIVD witnessing of the APT29 (SVR) hack of the
Pentagon in 2015. We need to see the adversary's traffic and infrastructure. Without that,
we're guessing.
Our inability to see Israel as an adversary is exasperating. As Ed Lindgren mentioned, the
USS Liberty and the Pollard spy ring should be reason enough to cause permanent suspicion.
The author brought up the case of Trump campaign collusion with Israel and Saudi Arabia. The
evidence for this was actually stronger than any Trump-Russia collusion. Yet that went
unnoticed outside a small group of researchers. Our blindspot towards Israel may prove fatal
some day.
Who contracted Solarwinds..? It was associated with "GITHUB"which was making enemys in the
Middle East..and was Involved with Jared Kushner as a Backer...according to the Wiki Write up
on "GitHub" Thats a Backdoor I would look at..
AIPAC and their friends on both sides of the aisle in Congress already has access to info
from the various federal agencies that were hacked. Would they endanger that open gateway by
a penetration of US government IT systems?
The Izzies are much more interested in hacking Iranians. Or those european signers of
JCPOA that are trying to negotiate with Iran. They hacked computers in various European
hotels that had Iranian guests. In the US Israeli hackers' target has been the BDS movement
(Boycott, Divest & Sanction) movement, plus any association or group that promotes civil
rights for Palestinians. I wouldn't doubt that they are also hacking congresswoman Rashida
Talib, the Arab American Institute, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, various
Arab-American lobbies, and the Palestinian diaspora in Detroit and other American cities.
However, there is suspicion that Israeli private individuals may at one time or another be
involved with or helped provide expertise to Cozy Bear & other cyber APTs operated mainly
out of Russia.
I know you can't go into specifics, but as a general rule of thumb did Israeli military
intelligence ever offer you any intel that you didn't already know?
Theologically, you have a point. Except that historically, virtually all the low-church
British protestants were very pro-Jewish anyway, regardless of theology. Remember: it was
Oliver Cromwell who let the Jews back into England after nearly three centuries of absence.
Why? I don't know. Maybe the Proddies thought the Jews would make good allies against Rome.
There is also the fact that they tended towards biblical literalism in those days, looking to
the Bible as though it were system of law--similar to the way the Jews did.
Yeah, right.
No, it was a one way street. It amounted to a firehose stream going one way. There were a lot
of meetings at which they gave us nothing of value, and that evidently was not enough because
they planted people all over the government to feed them stuff we did not want to give them.
Occasionally they got caught passing material and when that happened the politicians would
forbid prosecution. That was true of both US parties. Pollard was recruited for the purpose
of not having their significant assets put at risk. He was passed lists of specific documents
by his Israeli handlers. The documents were listed by serial number so that he would not
bring the wrong ones out of the US security envelope. He brought them to the team safe house
where they were copied and then he returned them to the Navy's safes. On one occasion I
decided to probe their willingness to actually cooperate with us. I told the liaison rep in
Washington that we maintained encyclopedic files on all the armed forces of the world. this
was a routine task. I told them that it was a waste of our time to collect basic data about
the IDF. That being the case, I asked them to give us the TO&E of a type IDF infantry
brigade so we would not waste analytic time. The request went to Tel Aviv and was
refused.
Israel has a long history of stealing US information over and above that which they are
given. They don't believe that we give them everything we have and so they steal what they
think we may be keeping from them. Compartmentation makes it impossible for them to be sure.
Remember Pollard? In Pollard's case the material he was directed to obtain for them often had
nothing to do with the ME, but it was good trading material.
More Cyber Crimes, Attributed To Russia, Are Shown To Have Come From Elsewhere
Earlier today police in Europe
took down the Emotet bot-network:
First discovered as a fairly run-of-the-mill banking trojan back in 2014, Emotet evolved over
the years into one of the most professional and resilient cyber crime services in the world,
and became a "go-to" solution for cyber criminals.
Its infrastructure acted as a mechanism to gain access to target systems, which was done
via an automated spam email process that delivered Emotet malware to its victims via
malicious attachments, often shipping notices, invoices and, since last spring, Covid-19
information or offers. If opened, victims would be promoted to enable macros that allowed
malicious code to run and instal Emotet.
This done, Emotet's operators then sold access on to other cyber criminal groups as a
means to infiltrate their victims, steal data, and drop malware and ransomware. The operators
of TrickBot and Ryuk were among the many users of Emotet.
Up to a quarter of all recent run of the mill cyber-crime was done through the Emotet
network. Closing it down is a great success.
Wikipedia falsely claimed
that Emotet was based in Russia:
Emotet is a malware strain and a cybercrime operation based in Russia.[1] The malware, also
known as Geodo and Mealybug, was first detected in 2014[2] and remains active, deemed one of
the most prevalent threats of 2019.[3]
However the Hindu report linked as source to the Russia claim under [1]
only says :
The malware is said to be operated from Russia, and its operator is nicknamed Ivan by cyber
security researchers.
"Is said to be operated from Russia" is quite a weak formulation and should not be used as
source for attribution claims. It is also definitely false.
The operating center of Emotet was found in the Ukraine. Today the Ukrainian national police
took control of it during a raid (video). The police found dozens of
computers, some hundred hard drives, about 50 kilogram of gold bars (current price ~$60,000/kg)
and large amounts of money in multiple currencies.
Since the 2016 publishing of internal emails of the DNC and the Clinton campaign attribution
of computer intrusions to Russia has become a standard propaganda feature. But in no case was
there shown evidence which proved that Russia was responsible for a hack.
The recently discovered deep intrusion into U.S. companies and government networks used a
manipulated version of the SolarWinds Orion network management software. The Washington borg
immediately attributed the hack to Russia. Then President Trump attributed it to China. But
none of those claims were backed up by facts or known evidence.
The hack was extremely complex, well managed and resourced, and likely required insider
knowledge. To this IT professional it 'felt' neither Russian nor Chinese. It is far more
likely, as Whitney Webb finds, that
Israel was behind it :
The implanted code used to execute the hack was directly injected into the source code of
SolarWinds Orion. Then, the modified and bugged version of the software was "compiled, signed
and delivered through the existing software patch release management system," per
reports . This has led US investigators and observers to conclude that the perpetrators
had direct access to SolarWinds code as they had "a high degree of familiarity with the
software." While the way the attackers gained access to Orion's code base has yet to be
determined, one possibility
being pursued by investigators is that the attackers were working with employee(s) of a
SolarWinds contractor or subsidiary.
...
Though some contractors and subsidiaries of SolarWinds are now being investigated, one that
has yet to be investigated, but should be, is Samanage. Samanage, acquired by SolarWinds in
2019, not only gained automatic access to Orion just as the malicious code was first
inserted, but it has deep ties to Israeli intelligence and a web of venture-capital firms
associated with numerous Israeli espionage scandals that have targeted the US government.
...
Samanage offers what it describes as "an IT Service Desk solution." It was acquired by
SolarWinds so Samanage's products could be added to SolarWinds' IT Operations Management
portfolio. Though US reporting and
SolarWinds press releases state that Samanage is based in Cary, North Carolina, implying
that it is an American company, Samanage is actually
an Israeli firm . It was
founded in 2007 by Doron Gordon, who previously
worked for several years at MAMRAM , the Israeli military's central computing unit .
...
Several months after the acquisition was announced, in November 2019, Samanage, renamed
SolarWinds Service Desk, became
listed as a standard feature of SolarWinds Orion software, whereas the integration of
Samanage and Orion had previously been optional since the acquisition's announcement in April
of that year. This means that complete integration was likely made standard in either October
or November. It has since been reported that the perpetrators of the recent hack gained
access to the networks of US federal agencies and major corporations at around the same time.
Samanage's automatic integration into Orion was a major modification made to the
now-compromised software during that period.
The U.S. National Security Agency has ways and means to find out who was behind the
SolarWinds hack. But if Israel is the real culprit no one will be allowed to say so publicly.
Some high ranging U.-S. general or official will fly to Israel and read his counterpart the
riot act. Israel will ignore it just as it has done every time when it was caught spying on the
U.S. government.
With more then half of Washington's politicians in its pockets it has no reason to fear any
consequences.
Posted by b on January 27, 2021 at 15:32 UTC |
Permalink
I have been dumbfounded for some time by supporters of the Izzies apparent lack of concern
about the eventual consequences of this sort of behavior. But I suppose, as with Uncle Sugar,
the notion of ones own exceptional nature prevents a sensible assessment.
I have no direct knowledge of SolarWinds specifically, but if Boeing hired HCL (formerly
Hindu Computer Limited) to develop software for its 737 max, I'll make a wild guess and
assume that SolarWinds too probably hired a bunch of Indian kids worth $10/hour each, who
come and go every few months.
And if that's indeed the case, then anything's possible.
Israeli intel spinoffs/cutouts, US FBI/CIA and the NSA surveillance/blackmail collection
agencies and their agents; they are facets of the same worldwide "NWO" criminal Blob-Mob,
imo.
It should be obvious by now they have the power to set up one US President, and depose him
through a ham-handed domestic election fraud coup, and install an eaaily controlled
neurodegenerating corrupt puppet, and completely control and pervert the US Judicial system,
so as to essentially get away and continue with their criminal culture and crimes against
humanity unchecked.
With such a history, of course they have the means to frame Russia, as well as to destroy
any others who stand in their way to more power and autocratic control of the planet.
...
With more than half of Washington's politicians in its pockets ("Israel") has no reason to
fear any consequences.
Posted by b on January 27, 2021 at 15:32 UTC | Permalink
Precisely. And it's almost as bad in Oz, and even worse in the UK. Money is the only
logical explanation for the "Israel" Worship indulged in by corrupt, amoral Western political
'leaders'.
"The Washington borg immediately attributed the hack to Russia. Then President Trump
attributed it to China."
Was there a better way for Trump to telegraph (or tweet, whatever) to the public that the
establishment had no idea who was behind the hack?
If Trump said that he didn't believe Russia did it that would just give the establishment
mass media ammunition to say he was Putin's puppet. After dozens of mass media products echo
the narrative off each other to amplify a weak and vague suggestion and build it into
something that the public perceives as truth, Trump crushed it all by just accusing someone
else. Rather than laboriously dismantling the accusation aimed at Russia he just cut it off
at the knees.
Unfortunately that is something only a President can do, and the current figurehead in
that position absolutely will not be doing anything that might undermine the establishment
narrative du jour. I miss Trump already for that alone.
b posted, "Is said to be operated from Russia" is quite a weak formulation
However, don't give the average reader of newsignorance
much credit. Even well above average readers can have a readiness for
confirmation bias.
side rant:
Human intelligence is just a tool. High intelligence does not guarantee
a dedication to a search for truth. High intelligence can give one
a developed skill at
rationalizing whatever beliefs one already holds.
-----
Privacy!
I just learned about this!
Check this out (always remember, though, "trust but verify")
And an alternative service that can rightly be trusted today
is not necessarily trustworthy tomorrow.
https://restoreprivacy.com/ lists alternative services for everything from Google Docs, iCloud, secure messengers, and
search engines.
some of the hack was semi-sophisticated ("semi" since it could have been an inside job) but
some was just a
typical PICNIC .
i've also been in various IT roles and it's funny how people ghettoize themselves...web
design/"full stack" guys were always the worst but i had a lot of server/NAS guys who had
ZERO clue about security and would use idiot passwords like that (and torrent episodes of
"the wire" and watch sports on youtube and etc etc).
as for the israelis, the cellebrite guys and probably these jackasses are good examples of
what happens when you get to sit around on stolen land and live off free money from the US.
which is funny because a lot of skilled "1337hax0rz" also come from poor-ass areas of russia
and the other former soviet areas.
@Posted by: Bemildred | Jan 27 2021 16:35 utc | 11
I saw that headline too.
I didn't (bother) to read it, but wondered why the MSM
would do everyone a favor and warn about this guy.
His usefulness had ended? So eke out that last drop of value from him
by sowing distrust within Proud Boys and other alternate organizations. Or (heaven's forbid!) that guy is being set up for assassination
by the Deep State as a false-flag. (Outrageous, simply outrageous,
but imagine if they did a Navalny/Skripal on him - whoa!)
We do seem to have some disagreements among our ruling "elites" these days, and I think
that may have something to do with it, but I really don't know and that is a good question.
"Why are they telling me this" is always a good question.
Nevertheless, I think it is a good idea to warn the young these days, so I thought I'd
post it.
Yep. FBI is following the time-tested "proactive" standard playbook of synthetic
terror/crime creation to support the Borg's agenda.
Some congressman a few years back got a hold of, and publically released official docs
showing that FBI was budgeting a yearly payroll for nsome >15,000 paid confidential
informants/agent provacatuers circa 2014(?).
This FBI practice goes all the way back to the 1960's and probably much earlier.
In the last 60+ years, there have been oo many FBI-created/supported domestic
'crime/terror' groups/leaderships to list in one post here.
Likely the leadership of both BLM and US antifa is also controlled by FBI (Euro
antifa=>likely CIA). [CIA Operation Ajax/Kermit Roosevelt)was running paid *rent-a-mobs*
all the way back in the 1953 overthrowal of Iran's Mossadegh govt].
Recently I've been unable to find anything on Wikipedia that has not been corrupted to
some degree or other by lies.
What a disappointment of a once grand ideal.
Young , Jan 27 2021 17:52 utc |
19 I know it is OT, but, I was wondering what is happening with the Huawei Princess in
Canada since the regime change in the USA?
Good report. The Wikileaks Vault 7 release clearly shows the USA has tools to create false
flag cyber warfare. To say one knows where a hack originates says more about the accuser than
the accused. Ms. Webb's reporting on the Epstein case was profound, and her follow-up
reporting on various threads has been stellar. There is no reason to doubt her reporting
here. It is no accident that most of Webb's threads lead back to Israel. When one considers
the USA's blind fealty to Israel, often alone in its support, one must consider that mass
blackmailing of political leaders going back decades is a real possibility to explain the
USA's Israel-centric foreign and domestic policy.
While US officials claim that 'far-right extremism' is one of the largest threats facing
America, the leader of the group most commonly singled out as an example - the Proud Boys -
was a 'prolific' informant for federal and local law enforcement, according to Reuters,
citing a 2014 federal court proceeding.
Enrique Tarrio repeatedly worked undercover for investigators following a 2012 arrest,
court documents reveal.
Curiously, Tarrio was ordered to stay away from Washington D.C. one day before the
January 6 Capitol riot after he was arrested on vandalism and weapons charges - upon a
request by government prosecutors that he be prohibited from attending. At least five Proud
Boys members were charged as part of the riot.
In the 2014 hearing, a federal prosecutor, an FBI agent and Tarrio's attorney describe
his undercover work - noting that the Proud Boys leader helped authorities prosecute over a
dozen people in various cases involving drugs, gambling and human smuggling, accoding to
Reuters.
In a Tuesday interview with Reuters, Tarrio denied working undercover or cooperating in
cases.
"I don't know any of this," he said, adding "I don't recall any of this."
[...]
During Tarrio's 2014 hearing, both the prosecutor and Tarrio's defense attorney asked
for a reduced prison sentence after pleading guilty in a fraud case related to the
relabeling and sale of stolen diabetes test kits. In requesting leniency for Tarrio and two
co-defendants, the prosecutor noted that Tarrio's information had resulted in the
prosecution of 13 people on federal charges in two separate cases, and helped local
authorities investigate a gambling ring.
Just
like many Trump supporters, US liberal intellectuals exist in a fantasy world in which a
leading purveyor of "international terrorism" – the US government – is perceived as
a fundamentally benign force, Noam Chomsky told RT.
"Just as you can't get the Republican mobs to admit that the election was lost, you can't
get liberal American intellectuals to recognize that the United States is a leading terrorist
state," Chomsky told RT's Chris Hedges.
The facts are that for almost the entirety of its history as a sovereign state, the US has
waged a war of aggression against somebody, Chomsky said. The so-called 'War on Terror', which
Ronald Reagan made the focus of his foreign policy, was Washington dealing with "resistance
to US terrorism in Central America and also in South Africa."
"... For a long time, I thought that record numbers of Black and Hispanic voters supporting Trump in 2020 meant that Trump was not racist, but I now realize that these poor folks just suffered from "multiracial whiteness". ..."
"... I thought that questioning voting machines that had been caught red handed manipulating elections across the world was patriotic and that somehow some conglomeration of Big Tech, the media, intelligence agencies and a thing called "deep state" were colluding to create a color revolution in the USA but I now realize that I was actually supporting conspiracy theories and thus violence and thus domestic terrorism. ..."
"... Social Media should do its civic duty and extend its censorship of "dangerous thoughts" to citizens and political officials outside of the USA in order to protect the world from itself. ..."
"... all I can say is "thank god" Joe Biden has found himself in the position of leader of the free world at this historic moment of change. ..."
"... Joe Biden is a man who understands what liberal values and the "rules-based order" are really about. ..."
"... He was wise enough to get onto the unipolar bandwagon before it was popular by drafting the 1994 surveillance bill that John Ashcroft later used verbatim for the Patriot Act after 9/11 ..."
"... He was smart enough to know that Wall Street couldn't lead America into the 21 st century as long as Glass-Steagall was in place and voted for its repeal in 1999. ..."
"... He also gave the Credit Card companies the political support they needed to stop citizens from abusing their generosity which went a long way to help Americans build character and take responsibility for their short sighted consumer decisions. ..."
"... Unlike those cultish Trumping fascists, Biden was courageous enough to proclaim even before the horrible insurrectionary riots of January 6 th , that a new Patriot Act/Domestic Terror Bill would be needed to purge the republic of dangerous terrorism and the insidious thought crimes which spread doubt in honest elections, and distrust in the benevolent political structures leading the western world. ..."
"... Sure, some people think that the 46 deaths and 32 riots caused by Antifa and BLM over the past six months might qualify as domestic terrorism, but that's only because they are infected with racist wrong think and don't realize that these groups were just fighting against fascism and racism. ..."
As many people are aware, CNN recently aired a wonderful interview by former Moonie-turned-cult-deprogrammer Steve Hassan giving
advice to Americans wishing to deprogram their MAGA-hat wearing loved ones, now that the age of Trump is coming to an end.
I was fortunate enough to have read Hassan's book and had the loving scrub-brush of truth wash my brain of all of its formerly
pro-Trump sympathies and can honestly say that I am most certainly better off for having left those old delusions in the past.
For one thing, I used to enjoy my right to free speech but thanks to the terrible events of January 6, 2021 that left 3 people
dead, horned Q supporters doing photo ops for media
, pro-Trump rioters let into
the capitol building by guards , and busloads of conspicuous
violent figures whom some say were "provocateurs" (whatever that means), I have come to realize that I was all wrong. Free speech
is actually very dangerous. Words we took for granted like "patriot", "nationalism", or "vote fraud" are actually very racist and
using them is a sure fire sign that you might be a domestic terrorist. At any rate, using them should at least be enough to get someone
banned from social media and put under surveillance.
For a long time, I thought that record numbers of Black and Hispanic voters supporting Trump in 2020 meant that Trump was
not racist, but I now realize that these poor folks just suffered
from "multiracial whiteness".
I thought that
questioning voting machines that had been caught red handed manipulating elections across the world was patriotic and that somehow
some conglomeration of Big Tech, the media, intelligence agencies and a thing called "deep state" were colluding to create a color
revolution in the USA but I now realize that I was actually supporting conspiracy theories and thus violence and thus domestic terrorism.
I was so far gone that my pre-deprogrammed self was actually persuaded in the crazy idea that depopulation agendas hid behind
the cover of a "Great Reset agenda", concocted by a shadowy elite of sociopathic oligarchs. I have now learned that this was either
a silly conspiracy theory, the result of my own delusions or if it was true, then I can at least say with certainty that it is all
for my own good.
The truth that I have now come to discover, is that free speech has just gone too far. This practice has reached its limits, and
Twitter's legal executive
Vijaya Gadde is absolutely
right . Social Media should do its civic duty and extend its censorship of "dangerous thoughts" to citizens and political
officials outside of the USA in order to protect the world from itself. If other world leaders are worried about this new truth,
then they should seriously do some soul searching and learn to think differently.
The old me is long gone, and now all I can say is "thank god" Joe Biden has found himself in the position of leader of the
free world at this historic moment of change.
For awhile it was looking like Donald Trump would actually stop
forever wars, and untie the U.S. military's
involvement from the CIA . That white supremacist actually came precariously close to destroying the foundations of globalization
that many enlightened billionaires had put decades of energy into organizing -- first destroying Obama's Transpacific Partnership,
then the Paris Climate Accords and THEN he had the nerve to scrap NAFTA itself by giving nation states a say in economic affairs!
He even committed the sin of criticizing NATO itself -- the very foundation of western collective security from the obvious threats
of Russia and China!
He called for insane things like "bringing back manufacturing to the USA", "restoring protectionism", and "making space exploration
and arctic development a priority for the nation" and everyone knows that this is all so 1963.
But now the "disturbance" is over, and the age of Biden has arrived!
Joe Biden is a man who understands what liberal values and the "rules-based order" are really about.
He was wise enough to get onto the unipolar bandwagon before it was popular by
drafting the 1994 surveillance
bill that John Ashcroft later used verbatim for the Patriot Act after 9/11.
He was smart enough to know that Wall Street couldn't lead America into the 21 st century as long as Glass-Steagall
was in place and voted for its
repeal in 1999.
He was one of the
loudest supporters of NAFTA which helped reduce carbon emissions drastically by exporting dirty industrial jobs oversees where
they should be.
He also gave the Credit Card companies
the political support they needed to stop citizens from abusing their generosity which went a long way to help Americans build
character and take responsibility for their short sighted consumer decisions.
After 9/11, Biden also brilliantly supported the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq (who may not have had anything to do
with 9/11 but at least showed the terrorists who's boss).
Unlike those cultish Trumping fascists,
Biden was courageous enough to proclaim even before the horrible insurrectionary riots of January 6 th , that a new
Patriot Act/Domestic Terror Bill would be needed to purge the republic of dangerous terrorism and the insidious thought crimes which
spread doubt in honest elections, and distrust in the benevolent political structures leading the western world. Thinking people
know, that thought does sometimes cause action and if we want to truly remedy wrong actions like the riots of January 6 th
, or dangerous COVID-denialism, then we should most certainly take the battle to the realm of the mind.
The brilliant Steve Hassan even recognized this reality in his CNN interview when he said that "the bottom line is all of America
needs deprogramming because we've all been negatively influenced by Donald Trump."
Sure, some people think that the 46 deaths and 32 riots caused by Antifa and BLM over the past six months might qualify as
domestic terrorism, but that's only because they are infected with racist wrong think and don't realize that these groups were just
fighting against fascism and racism.
Certainly, the first 100 days after Biden's inauguration will be inspired.
Already, Biden has made commitments to sign the USA back onto the legally binding Paris Climate Accords to help us win the war
against climate, and has shown the good sense to reverse Trump's disastrous decision to break the anti-China TPP in 2016. Biden always
said he would renegotiate the TPP
in order "to
hold China accountable", and everyone knows Trump's selfish decision only helped China by freeing up its neighbors to work together
on the BRI. If only Trump hadn't killed TPP, then the 14 nation strong
Regional Cooperation Economic Partnership
which China just finalized would never have happened.
Most importantly, our benevolent overlords who meet at Davos every year are happy once more and have even kicked off Biden's inauguration
with a special celebration entitled "the Davos Agenda" running from January 25-29.
According to the WEF , this event
will "mark the launch of the World Economic Forum's Great Reset Initiative and begin the preparation of the Special Annual Meeting
in the spring. Each day will focus on one of the five domains of the Great Reset Initiative."
The USA's new Special Envoy on Climate, John Kerry, captured the excitement of this wonderful moment perfectly
when
he said : "The notion of a reset is more important than ever before we're at the dawn of an extremely exciting time." According
to the
Great Reset architects, this is definitely the right idea. WEF President Klaus Schwab has taught us that the "age of owning things"
is so passe , and we know that this obsolete relic of capitalism isn't compatible in our new age of global peace and brotherhood.
Ownership of "things" just makes us selfish and forget about the real purpose of life.. which is really about sacrifice. Establishing
new supranational organizations to manage the levers of consumption and production according to evidence-based standards and scientific
realities of carrying capacity is the only remedy to the evils of populism and being ignorant to this reality doesn't lessen the
fact that boards of experts who are smarter than you say that it is so.
According to the WEF's Great Reset website global CO2 output collapsed by over 7% during the 12 months of global COVID-19 shutdowns
which means the COVID-19 is more of a blessing than many dim witted selfish nationalists who like owning things realize.
So what if the world population will contract under the shutdown of the world economy under COVID lockdowns? And so what if we
lose our capacity to support industrial civilization through the imposition of global green energy grid?
Didn't the late
great Maurice
Strong (who was WEF Executive Director and father of the Great Reset), ask the question in 1991:
"What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of
the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact
on the environment. Will they do it? The group's conclusion is 'no'. The rich countries won't do it. They won't change. So, in
order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse?
Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?"
So get ready for an exciting time in history, and hopefully China finally learns that the new world order is Unipolar – with a
big green hug for all well behaved leaders who get rid of such silly ideas as "nationalism", "industrial progress" or "ending poverty
through development" which dangerous concepts like the Belt and Road Initiative threaten to unleash. Most importantly, China has
to really deprogram itself from her belief that Russia is a worthwhile partner in the 21 st century. Xi made a good decision
to attend this month's Great Reset conference and both he and Modi would do well to abandon dirty fossil fuels, their support of
nuclear energy development or space mining in order to adapt their realities to the computer models which have been telling us how
to hitch our destinies to a world of entropy and diminishing returns.
"... Let's see, Sanders's net worth is how much again? And, let's see, after The Machine denied him the Dem nomination in both 2016 and 2020, it took him how long to endorse and sign on and generally drop trou, bend over, and grab his aged ankles? ..."
"... Yep, there's a real anticapitalist revolutionary firebrand, all right. ..."
"... I agree with Reactionary Utopian's view of Sanders, who revealed himself to be a grovelling lackey of the establishment with the way he campaigned for the harpy, signed on to the absurd anti-Russian propaganda initiative, and showed that he was only controlled opposition. The fact is, the propaganda combined with the fraud, perfected as a result of the medico-fascism discussed by Hopkins enabled the steal. The usage of the provocation discussed in the main article completed the consolidation of what is a new model of a fascist regime. This followed Goebbels' playbook usage of the Reichstag fire provocation as the Nazi regime was consolidating power. ..."
Back in 2016, the American people, sick to the gills of global capitalism and its
increasingly oppressive woke ideology, elected an unauthorized, narcissistic ass-clown to
the highest office in the land.
Well, if the American people had really been sick of global capitalism they would have
voted for Sanders. He may not be perfect, but he made a lot more sense as an anti-capitalist
candidate than Trump. Trump has done nothing to curb global capitalism during his
administration. Being narcissistic and clownish is probably of minor importance and beside
the point, and bringing it up seems more like obfuscation. Trump was the status quo every bit
as much as Hillary. He was demonized for one simple reason: there are two parties in America.
And Trump didn't make it especially hard for them.
Well, if the American people had really been sick of global capitalism they would have
voted for Sanders. He may not be perfect, but he made a lot more sense as an
anti-capitalist candidate than Trump.
Ah, thanks, I needed a good laugh today. Let's see, Sanders's net worth is how
much again? And, let's see, after The Machine denied him the Dem nomination in both 2016 and
2020, it took him how long to endorse and sign on and generally drop trou, bend over,
and grab his aged ankles?
Yep, there's a real anticapitalist revolutionary firebrand, all right.
I agree with Bras Cubas that if the American people were really sick of global capitalism
they would have voted for Sanders. The fact is, they did, and the methods of fraud developed
to deprive Sanders of his victory were a sort of rehearsal of the methods used to sideline
Trump. There was quite a bit of fraud in 2016; ballot harvesting, and the manipulation of
postal votes, etc. but Trump unexpectedly did too well for it to work. They also did not have
the virus as an excuse to go full monty on the fraud.
I agree with Reactionary Utopian's view of Sanders, who revealed himself to be a
grovelling lackey of the establishment with the way he campaigned for the harpy, signed on to
the absurd anti-Russian propaganda initiative, and showed that he was only controlled
opposition. The fact is, the propaganda combined with the fraud, perfected as a result of the
medico-fascism discussed by Hopkins enabled the steal. The usage of the provocation discussed
in the main article completed the consolidation of what is a new model of a fascist regime.
This followed Goebbels' playbook usage of the Reichstag fire provocation as the Nazi regime
was consolidating power.
Kudos again to Hopkins on this article and all of the preceding ones. As an additional
fact, we should discuss the mask deal. It is the first time in history that any regime of any
description has actually restricted the right to breathe, which at the end of the day is
limiting the right to live. The present regime for that reason seems even more odious than
the Nazi regime in that aspect.
P.S. Bernie was a rabid socialist(communist), and many in America wanted no part of
that.
Sanders is neither socialist nor communist. He's a con man. The overwhelming majority of
dumbed down America thinks socialism is communism, and actually think that finance capitalism
is friendly to them.
I see occasional mentions of Goebbels, and his words about propaganda, like this from you,
Hoppy.
But Goebbels was just a baby in his mother's arms relative to our voter "democracy" for
which, unlike the original Athenian democracy, which beyond general assembly had
representatives elected by lot, has representatives elected by voters who are already victims
of propaganda.
The word "democracy" as used today it itself pure propaganda. Again and again America
commits naked aggression against distant countries while shouting "Democracy!" Totally fake,
pure propaganda, making Goebbels look like a child.
Sometimes it seems a struggle within to assess who I detest more – Karlin or
Navalny. Both are dishonest parasites living off Western sources of funds.
I think I will call it a draw and be done with it.
Correct. I am enough familiar with the Russian language and culture to agree with you, JL.
Not that I know what is true about Mr Putin, but I find it ugly, calling him Vlad, as
ignorant people associate it with an evil creature in Romania.
There are some similarities between Navalny and Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin became known for
attacking the privileges of the nomenclature (as the Communist Party boss of Moscow, no less)
like their access to special shops, luxury cars (by Soviet standards), special healthcare
facilities, nice apartments etc. He was for a time a "star" in Soviet media with this, but
finally Gorbachev got him fired for attacking him and his cronies too.
Mais c'est excellent! Il vient tout d'un coup de monter d'un cran sur mon échelle
de gens potentiellement respectables. Et il a tout à fait raison : un peuple
armé est un peuple libre. Imaginez les Gilets jaunes armés d'AK-47, ça
aurait été une toute autre histoire, n'est-ce pas ?
"But on the off chance I am wrong, Russians will only prove themselves morons."
You would be absolutely right if it turned out that way and there would be no help for the
Russians, just as the American simpletons who balk at the notion of compensating the three
branches of the United States government adequately leading to the pernicious influence from
the likes of the late Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban among others.
We should pay our representatives one million dollars a piece and two million for senators
but the chief executive must be paid at least fifteen million dollars per anum if not more to
keep out interlopers and the whole shebang would amount to little more than one billion
dollars which would be a drop in the bucket to save the nation from the predators.
Erdogan trying to, quote, ' ..preserve human nature, ' ?
As far as I know neither Orban nor Hungary have been involved in mass murder and invasions of
sovereign countries lately.
Sutan Erdogan is an IslamoFascist dictator, who was instrumental ( .together with US, KSA,
Israel, UK, France, ..) in training, arming, and sending cannibalistic head-chopper
terrorists into Syria, resulting in the deaths of several hundred thousand innocent
Syrians.
Orban is a Hungarian Christian nationalist, trying to defend Hungary from
GloboSorosization.
Sultan Erdogan is an IslamoFascist head of a genocidal, criminal state.
The presentation of Navalni's "investigation" on YouTube has collected millions of
comments in no time. A native speaker has noticed that there were the same identical comments
that appeared thousands of times under different names. Looks like a computer-generated wave
of responses.
I'm sure many others have realized what I have; although it is rarely put into words. It
seems like the columnists here who write about Russia are falling into the idiot binary view
that can be expressed as follows: "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Sometimes this is
true. Often times, the enemy of my enemy is an even worse enemy. Just because Russia is
clearly not under the thumb of the creeps in Washington dos NOT mean that Russia is the
beacon of justice, truth, and freedom. Do not lose sight of the fact that the current
(((elites))) are GLOBAL and their original source of influence and power is international
finance (greatly expanded by fiat systems). The covid response and vaccine push as carried
out by Russia should be an eye opener to anyone who doubts the fact that they are heavily
compromised. Remember, Abortion (murdering a baby) has been legal in Russia for most of a
century and they had/have some of the highest rates of abortion in the world. It is estimated
that well over 100 million babies have been murdered, LEGALLY. The utter evil of this cannot
be put into words. I detest the post-christian, perverted west. IS Russia any better? in some
ways, perhaps. But at the end of the day, we must not allow ourselves to fall into the idiot
binary view that because one group is bad, its (alleged) adversaries are good.
@Ray
Caruso d that the US Embassy ought to explain why they had posted a series of 'protest
routes' marking the locations where demonstrators planned to mee t. "One can only imagine
what would have happened if the Russian Embassy in Washington published a map of protest
routes indicating the end point, for example, in the Capitol," Maria Zakharova said. "Giving
directions to those on the ground would have led to global hysteria among American
politicians, Russophobic slogans, threats of sanctions and the expulsion of Russian
diplomats."
It is time to remind the US Embassy staff about what was done to Maria Butina for nothing by
the lawless US. The Russian Federation should boot out the American subversives.
He must know this. He must also know that his electoral prospects are nil – even if he
was allowed to compete and given access. Short of a revolution he is done, and
revolution is not coming, too soon. That is not a good place to be. He is in theory protected
by his sponsors, but that may not amount to much if things get hot. At best he would get
exchanged. Or he can quietly slip away after a few years if he is lucky.
Mulatto did his job, now mulatto can go. A single-use politician who is endlessly promoted,
celebrated, and then discarded and forgotten, only to be listed on a sad list of names to
demonise the enemy. That enemy is his own country, is that really heroism?
There's to plenty righteous to be said about empire and all of that, but I want to write
something about how Black people have since our founding been considered the internal enemy,
so what it means to have a Black person as Secretary of Defense.
Surprise! Mail-in ballots raise the risk of fraud - according to Amazon.
In a Thursday filing with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Seattle-based
online retail giant formally requested that a group of Alabama warehouse trying to form a union
be required to vote in person , rather than by mail, according to
Bloomberg .
"... It remains to be seen if the outcome of Biden's rule will be better or worse than Yeltsin's, but my money is on Yeltsin the way things are looking. ..."
Gorbatsjov tried to reform the USSR but it ended in failure and the drunken Yeltsin
crashed the remains. His only success was to name Putin as his successor.
Trump tried to reform the USA but it ended in failure, election coup and the demented and
hyper-corrupt Biden as his successor.
It remains to be seen if the outcome of Biden's rule
will be better or worse than Yeltsin's, but my money is on Yeltsin the way things are
looking.
"... The perception that this is some sort of exclusively left-wing tactic is untrue. Recall in 2003, in the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when the lead singer for the Dixie Chicks, Natalie Maines, uttered this utterly benign political comment at a concert in London: "Just so you know, we're on the good side with y'all. We do not want this war, this violence. And we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas." In response, millions joined a boycott of their music, radio stations refused to play their songs, Bush supporters burned their albums , and country star Toby Keith performed in front of a gigantic image of Maines standing next to Saddam Hussein, as though her opposition to the war meant she admired the Iraqi dictator. ..."
"... Social media is one of the most powerful generators of group-think ever invented in human history, enabling a small number of people to make decision-makers feel besieged with scorn and threatened with ostracization if they do not obey mob demands. The other is that the liberal-left has gained cultural hegemony in the most significant institutions -- from academia and journalism to entertainment, sports, music and art -- and this weapon, which they most certainly did not invent, is now vested squarely in their hands. ..."
On Wednesday, the night of Joe Biden's inauguration, Wilkinson posted this now-deleted tweet
in which he was obviously not calling for violence. He was instead sardonically noting that
anti-Pence animus became a prevailing sentiment among some MAGA followers over the last month,
including reports that at least a few of those who breached the Capitol were calling for
Pence's hanging on treason grounds, thus ironically enabling liberals and MAGA followers to
"unite" over that desire:
The next morning, a right-wing hedge fund manager and large-money GOP donor ,
Gabe Hoffman, flagged this tweet and claimed to
believe that Wilkinson "call[ed] for former Vice President Mike Pence to be lynched." Hoffman
also tweeted at Wilkinson's New York Times bosses to ask if they have "any comment on your
'contributing opinion writer' calling for violence against a public official?," and then
tweeted
at Wilkinson's other bosses at the think tank to demand the same.
It is unclear whether Hoffman really believed what he was saying or was just trying to make
a point that liberals should be forced to live under these bad faith, repressive "cancel
culture" standards he likely blames them for creating and imposing on others. This is how he
responded when I posed that question:
I was not attempting anything. Numerous major news outlets reported on Wilkinson's tweet,
including Fox News. I simply documented the events on my Twitter feed yesterday. Clearly,
many liberal journalists were outraged at his firing, noticed my documentation, and decided
to inexplicably blame me for his firing. It's ridiculous that many liberal journalists
apparently had nothing better to do on Twitter, than blame a guy with less than 10,000
followers documenting events, for getting Wilkinson fired, considering many major news
outlets reported on Wilkinson's tweet.
When I pressed further on whether he really believed that Wilkinson's tweet was an earnest
call for assassination or whether he was just demanding that perceived "cancel culture"
standards be applied equally, he responded: "I did not take a position either way on the
matter. Wilkinson is perfectly capable of explaining the tweet and his intended meaning, since
he wrote it. Clearly, given the content, the least one can expect is that he should give that
explanation."
Either way, intentional or not, Hoffman's distorted interpretation of Wilkinson's tweet
produced instant results. That afternoon, Wilkinson posted a long and profuse apology to
Twitter in which he made clear that he did not intend to advocate violence, but still said:
"Last night I made an error of judgment and tweeted this. It was sharp sarcasm, but looked like
a call for violence. That's always wrong, even as a joke. It was especially wrong at a moment
when unity and peace are so critical. I'm deeply sorry and vow not to repeat the mistake. . . .
[T]here was no excuse for putting the point the way I did. It was wrong, period."
At least for now, that apology fell on deaf ears. The president and co-founder of the
Niskanen Center, Jerry Taylor, quickly posted a statement ( now deleted without
comment ) announcing Wilkinson's immediate firing, a statement promptly noted by Hoffman
:
Wilkinson's job with The New York Times is also clearly endangered. A spokesperson for the
paper told
Fox News : "Advocating violence of any form, even in jest, is unacceptable and against the
standards of The New York Times. We're reassessing our relationship with Will Wilkinson."
So a completely ordinary and unassuming liberal commentator is in jeopardy of having his
career destroyed because of a tweet that no person in good faith could possibly believe was
actually advocating violence and which, at worst, could be said to be irresponsibly worded. And
this is happening even though everyone knows it is all based on a totally fictitious
understanding of what he said. Why?
It is important to emphasize that Wilkinson's specific plight is the least interesting and
important aspect of this story. Unlike most people subjected to these sorts of bad faith
reputation-wrecking attacks, he has many influential media friends and allies who are already
defending him -- including New York Times columnists Ezra Klein and Ross Douthat --
and I would be unsurprised if this causes the paper to keep him and the Niskanen Center to
reverse its termination of him.
All of this is especially ironic given that the president of this colorless, sleepy think
tank -- last seen hiring the colorless, sleepy Matt Yglesias -- himself has a history of
earnestly and non-ironically advocating actual violence against people. As Aaron Sibarium
documented , Taylor took to
Twitter over the summer to say that he wishes BLM and Antifa marchers had "rushed" the St.
Louis couple which famously displayed guns outside their homes and "beat their brains in,"
adding: "excuse me if I root for antifa to punch these idiots out." So that's the profound,
pious believer in non-violence so deeply offended by Wilkinson's tweet that he quickly fired
him from his think tank.
Whatever else might be true of them, the Niskanen Center's president and The New York Times
editors are not dumb enough to believe that Wilkinson was actually advocating that Mike Pence
be lynched. It takes only a few functional brain cells to recognize what his actual intent with
that tweet was, as poorly expressed or ill-advised as it might have been given the context-free
world of Twitter and the tensions of the moment. So why would they indulge all this by firing a
perfectly inoffensive career technocrat, all to appease the blatant bad faith and
probably-not-even-serious demands of the mob?
Because this is the framework that we all now live with. It does not matter whether the
anger directed at the think tank executives or New York Times editors is in good faith or not.
It is utterly irrelevant whether there is any validity to the complaints against Wilkinson and
the demands that he be fired. The merit of these kinds of grievance campaigns is not a
factor.
All that matters to these decision-makers is societal scorn and ostracization. That is why
the only thing that can save Wilkinson is that he has enough powerful friends to defend him,
enabling them to reverse the cost-benefit calculus: make it so that there is more social scorn
from firing Wilkinson than keeping him. Without the powerful media friends he has assembled
over the years, he would have no chance to salvage his reputation and career no matter how
obvious it was that the complaints against him are baseless.
Humans are social and political animals. We do fundamentally crave and need
privacy . But we also crave and need social integration and approval. That it is why
prolonged
solitary confinement in prison is a form of torture that is almost certain to drive humans
insane. It is why John McCain said far worse than the physical abuse he endured in a North
Vietnamese prison was the long-term isolation to which he was subjected. It is why modern
society's penchant for removing what had been our sense of community -- churches, mosques, and
synagogues; union halls and bowling leagues; small-town life -- has coincided with a
significant increase in mental health pathologies, and it is why the lockdowns and isolation of
the COVID pandemic have made all of those, predictably,
so much worse .
Those who have crafted a society in which mob anger, no matter how invalid, results in
ostracization and reputation-destruction have exploited these impulses. If you are a think tank
executive in Washington or a New York Times editor, why would you want to endure the attacks on
you for "sanctioning violence" or "inciting assassinations" just to save Will Wilkinson? The
prevailing culture vests so much weight in these sorts of outrage mobs that it is almost always
easier to appease them than resist them.
The recent extraordinary removal of the
social media platform Parler from the internet was clearly driven by these dynamics. It is
inconceivable that Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos and Google executives believe that Parler is some
neo-Nazi site that played anywhere near the role in planning and advocating for the Capitol
riot as Facebook and YouTube did. But they know that significant chunks of liberal elite
culture believe this (or at least claim to), and they thus calculate -- not irrationally, even
if cowardly -- that they will have to endure a large social and reputational hit for refusing
mob demands to destroy Parler. Like the Niskanen and Times bosses with Wilkinson, they had to
decide how much pain they were willing to accept to defend Parler, and -- as is usually the
case -- it turned out the answer was not much. Thus was Parler destroyed, with nowhere near the
number of important liberal friends that Wilkinson has.
The perception that this is some sort of exclusively left-wing tactic is untrue. Recall in
2003, in the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when the lead singer for the Dixie Chicks,
Natalie Maines, uttered this utterly benign
political comment at a concert in London: "Just so you know, we're on the good side with
y'all. We do not want this war, this violence. And we're ashamed the President of the United
States is from Texas." In response, millions joined a boycott of their music, radio stations
refused to
play their songs, Bush supporters burned
their albums , and country star Toby Keith performed in front of a gigantic image of Maines
standing next to Saddam Hussein, as though her opposition to the war meant she admired the
Iraqi dictator.
But two recent trends have greatly intensified this mania. Social media is one of the most
powerful generators of group-think ever invented in human history, enabling a small number of
people to make decision-makers feel besieged with scorn and threatened with ostracization if
they do not obey mob demands. The other is that the liberal-left has gained cultural hegemony
in the most significant institutions -- from academia and journalism to entertainment, sports,
music and art -- and this weapon, which they most certainly did not invent, is now vested
squarely in their hands.
But all weapons, once unleashed onto the world, will be copied and wielded by opposing
tribes. Gabe Hoffman has likely seen powerless workers fired in the wake of the George Floyd
killing for acts as trivial as a Latino truck driver
innocently flashing an "OK" sign at a traffic light or a researcher fired for
posting data about the political effects of violent v. non-violent protests and realized
that he could use, or at least trifle with, this power against liberals instead of watching it
be used by them. So he did it.
It's exactly the same dynamic that led liberals to swoon over Donald Trump's
banning from social media and the mass-banning of his followers only to watch yesterday as
numerous Antifa
accounts were banned for the crime of organizing an anti-Biden march and how, before that,
Palestinian journalists and activists have
been banned en masse whenever Israel claims their rhetoric constitutes "incitement."
Delusion Spotter 14 hours ago (Edited)
If Trump and Conservatives are going to be silenced and kicked off of Social Media, the
Left Wing, like this Clown, should definitely be kicked off Social Media for foolish posts as
well.
Not sure what Glenn's point is or why I should care. Glenn could have focused his article
on the social media censorship of Donald Trump and skipped the irrelevant and unmissed Will
Wilkinson and Dixie Chunks altogether.
Quia Possum 14 hours ago
Maybe Greenwald thinks this will get him in Wilkinson's pants.
spam filter 3 hours ago
Lol, your comment got you an invitation!
cankles' server 13 hours ago
As a leftist, Glenn is trying to explain to leftists what they've unleashed with cancel
culture.
He could have just mentioned Robespierre but socialists can never apply history to
themselves because for them "it's different this time".
Hillary:" I would love to see his phone records to see if he was talking to Putin the day
the insurgents invaded our Capitol"
That has to be the most idiotic thing Hillary Clinton has ever said, and she has said a
great many idiotic things.
First, does she not know that the NSA and CIA and FBI would immediately be on to any such
communication?
Is she really that naïve? No, of course not, she is simply a grotesque liar.
Second, I have studied and written about Putin fairly extensively. He is a calm, pragmatic, and highly intelligent man, one with Russia's best interests
always at heart.
The last thing he would want to see is instability in the United States with all the
immense dangers that would represent.
It is precisely American politicians like Hillary who are a threat to global stability
I've copied this comment from the site below – though it was a good one ..
" Joe Biden: a virtual candidate elected in a virtual election, sworn-in via a virtual
inauguration to preside over a virtual presidency. Virtually no one has physically attended
any public event with him in attendance since 2019. See also 'Wizard of Oz ."
Look how perfectly applicable is the phase "The complaint wants the Ethics Committee to investigate whether Cruz and Hawley failed to
"[p]ut loyalty to the highest moral principles and to country above loyalty to persons, party, or Government department," to key
Russiagaters
Notable quotes:
"... they "engaged in criminal conduct, or unethical or improper behavior." ..."
"... The Democratic Senators are also asking the Ethics Committee to "offer recommendations for strong disciplinary action, including up to expulsion or censure, if warranted by the facts uncovered." ..."
"... Its as if democrats didnt spend 4 years and millions of dollars questioning the validity of the prevous election. ..."
The complaint wants the Ethics Committee to investigate whether Cruz and Hawley failed to
"[p]ut loyalty to the highest moral principles and to country above loyalty to persons, party,
or Government department," or if they engaged in "improper conduct reflecting on the Senate"
linked to the January 6 Capitol 'riot.'
The Democratic senators also outlined several questions they believed should be probed as
part of an Ethics Committee investigation including if they were in touch with coordinators
for the rally , if they encouraged any "insurrectionist" acts or if they "engaged in criminal
conduct, or unethical or improper behavior."
"While it was within Senators' rights to object to the electors, the conduct of Senators
Cruz and Hawley, and potentially others, went beyond that," they wrote in the letter to
Ethics Committee leadership.
Cruz and Hawley, two potential 2024 presidential contenders, have denounced the mob that
breached the Capitol but they've also stood by their decisions to object to the Electoral
College results from Arizona and Pennsylvania, respectively. -
The Hill
During the counting of electoral votes, Cruz objected to Arizona's results, while Hawley
objected to Pennsylvania's results following the Capitol attack, when a group of Trump
supporters and at least one prominent member of BLM breached the Capitol building and occupied
it for a brief period of time before leaving on their own.
The Democratic Senators are also asking the Ethics Committee to "offer recommendations for
strong disciplinary action, including up to expulsion or censure, if warranted by the facts
uncovered."
Forgero 3 hours ago
Its as if democrats didnt spend 4 years and millions of dollars questioning the validity
of the prevous election.
The devastating hack on SolarWinds was quickly pinned on Russia by US intelligence. A
more likely culprit, Samanage, a company whose software was integrated into SolarWinds'
software just as the "back door" was inserted, is deeply tied to Israeli intelligence and
intelligence-linked families such as the Maxwells.
In mid-December of 2020, a massive hack compromised the networks of numerous US federal agencies,
major corporations, the top five accounting firms in the country, and the military, among
others. Despite most US media attention now focusing on election-related chaos, the fallout
from the hack continues to make headlines day after day.
The hack , which
affected Texas-based software provider SolarWinds , was blamed on Russia on January
5 by the US government's Cyber Unified Coordination Group. Their statement asserted that the
attackers were "
likely Russian in origin ," but they failed to provide evidence to back up that claim.
Since then, numerous developments in the official investigation have been reported, but no
actual evidence pointing to Russia has yet to be released. Rather, mainstream media outlets
began reporting the intelligence community's "likely" conclusion as fact right away, with the
New York Timessubsequently
reporting that US investigators were examining a product used by SolarWinds that was sold
by a Czech Republic–based company, as the possible entry point for the "Russian hackers."
Interest in that company, however, comes from the fact that the attackers most likely had
access to the systems of a contractor or subsidiary of SolarWinds. This, combined with the
evidence-free report from US intelligence on "likely" Russian involvement, is said to be the
reason investigators are focusing on the Czech company, though any of SolarWinds'
contractors/subsidiaries could have been the entry point.
Such narratives clearly echo those that became prominent in the wake of the 2016 election,
when now-debunked claims were made that Russian hackers were responsible for leaked emails
published by WikiLeaks. Parallels are obvious when one considers that SolarWinds
quickly brought on the discredited firm CrowdStrike to aid them in securing their networks
and investigating the hack.
CrowdStrike had also been brought on by the DNC after the 2016 WikiLeaks publication, and
subsequently it was central in
developing the false declarations regarding the involvement of "Russian hackers" in that
event.
There are also other parallels. As Russiagate played out, it became apparent that there was
collusion between the Trump campaign and a foreign power, but the nation was Israel ,
not Russia. Indeed,
many of the reports that came out of Russiagate revealed
collusion with Israel , yet those instances received little coverage and generated little
media outrage. This has led some to suggest that Russiagate may have been a cover for what was
in fact Israelgate.
Similarly, in the case of the SolarWinds hack, there is the odd case and timing of
SolarWinds' acquisition of a company called Samanage in 2019. As this report will explore,
Samanage's deep ties to Israeli intelligence, venture-capital firms connected to both
intelligence and Isabel Maxwell, as well as Samange's integration with the Orion software at
the time of the back door's insertion warrant investigation every bit as much as SolarWinds'
Czech-based contractor.
Orion's Fall
In the month since the hack, evidence has emerged detailing the extent of the damage, with
the Justice Department
quietly announcing , the same day as the Capitol riots (January 6), that their email system
had been breached in the hack -- a "major incident" according to the department. This
terminology means that the attack "is likely to result in demonstrable harm to the national
security interests, foreign relations, or the economy of the United States or to the public
confidence, civil liberties, or public health and safety of the American people,"
per NextGov .
The Justice Department was the fourth US government agency to publicly acknowledge a breach
in connection to the hack, with the others being the Departments of Commerce and Energy and the
Treasury. Yet, while only four agencies have publicly acknowledged fallout from the hack,
SolarWinds software is
also used by the Department of Defense, the State Department, NASA, the NSA, and the
Executive Office. Given that the Cyber Unified Coordination Group stated that "fewer than ten"
US government agencies had been affected, it's likely that some of these agencies were
compromised, and some press reports have asserted that the State Department and Pentagon were
affected.
In addition to government agencies, SolarWinds
Orion software was in use by the top ten US telecommunications corporations, the top five
US accounting firms, the New York Power Authority, and numerous US government contractors such
as Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics, and the Federal Reserve. Other notable SolarWinds
clients include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Microsoft, Credit Suisse, and several
mainstream news outlets including the Economist and the New York Times .
Based on what is officially known so far, the hackers appeared to have been highly
sophisticated, with FireEye, the cybersecurity company that first discovered the implanted code
used to conduct the hack, stating that
the hackers "routinely removed their tools, including the backdoors, once legitimate remote
access was achieved -- implying a high degree of technical sophistication and attention to
operational security." In addition, top security experts have noted that the hack was "
very very carefully
orchestrated ," leading to a consensus that the hack was state sponsored.
FireEye stated that they first identified the compromise of SolarWinds after the version of
the Orion software they were using contained a back door that was used to gain access to its
"red team" suite of hacking tools. Not long after the disclosure of the SolarWinds hack, on
December 31, the hackers were able to partially access Microsoft's source code, raising
concerns that the act was preparation for future and equally devastating attacks.
FireEye's account can be taken with a grain of salt, however, as the CIA is
one of FireEye's clients , and FireEye
was launched with funding from the CIA's venture capital arm In-Q-tel. It is also worth
being skeptical of the " free tool " FireEye has
made available in the hack's aftermath for "spotting and keeping suspected Russians out of
systems."
In addition, Microsoft, another key source in the SolarWinds story, is a military contractor
with close ties to Israel's intelligence apparatus, especially Unit 8200, and their reports of
events also deserve scrutiny. Notably, it was Unit 8200 alumnus and executive at Israeli
cybersecurity firm Cycode, Ronen Slavin , who told Reuters
in a
widely quoted article that he "was worried by the possibility that the SolarWinds hackers
were poring over Microsoft's source code as prelude to a much more ambitious offensive." "To me
the biggest question is, 'Was this recon for the next big operation?'" Slavin stated .
Also odd about the actors involved in the response to the hack is the decision to bring on
not only the discredited firm CrowdStrike but also the new consultancy firm of Chris Krebs and
Alex Stamos, former chief information security officer of Facebook and Yahoo, to investigate
the hack. Chris Krebs is the former head of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity
and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and was previously a top Microsoft executive. Krebs
was fired by Donald Trump after repeatedly and publicly challenging Trump on the issue of
election fraud in the 2020 election.
As head of CISA, Krebs gave access to networks of critical infrastructure throughout the US,
with a focus on the health-care industry, to
the CTI League , a suspicious outfit of anonymous volunteers working "for free" and led by
a former Unit 8200 officer. "We have brought in the expertise of Chris Krebs and Alex Stamos to
assist in this review and provide best-in-class guidance on our journey to evolve into an
industry leading secure software development company," a SolarWinds spokesperson said in an
email cited by
Reuters.
It is also worth noting that the SolarWinds hack did benefit a few actors aside from the
attackers themselves. For instance, Israeli cybersecurity firms CheckPoint and CyberArk, which
have close ties to Israeli intelligence Unit 8200, have seen
their stocks soar in the weeks since the SolarWinds compromise was announced. Notably, in
2017, CyberArk was the company that "
discovered " one of the main tactics used in an attack, a form of SAML token manipulation
called GoldenSAML. CyberArk does not specify how they discovered this method of attack and, at
the time they announced the tactic's existence, released a free tool to identify
systems vulnerable to GoldenSAML manipulation.
In addition, the other main mode of attack, a back door program nicknamed Sunburst, was
found by
Kaspersky researchers to be similar to a piece of malware called
Kazuar that was also first discovered by
another Unit 8200-linked company , Palo Alto Networks, also in 2017. The similarities
only suggest that those who developed the Sunburst backdoor may have been inspired by
Kazuar and "they may have common members between them or a shared software developer building
their malware." Kaspersky stressed that Sunburst and Kazuar are not likely to be one and the
same. It is worth noting, as an aside, that Unit 8200 is known to
have previously hacked Kaspersky and attempted to insert a back door into their products,
per Kaspersky employees.
Crowdstrike claimed that this finding confirmed "the attribution at least to Russian
intelligence," only because an allegedly Russian hacking group is believed to have used Kazuar
before. No technical evidence linking Russia to the SolarWinds hacking has yet been
presented.
Samanage and Sabotage
The implanted code used to execute the hack was directly injected into the source code of
SolarWinds Orion. Then, the modified and bugged version of the software was "compiled, signed
and delivered through the existing software patch release management system," per
reports . This has led US investigators and observers to conclude that the perpetrators had
direct access to SolarWinds code as they had "a high degree of familiarity with the software."
While the way the attackers gained access to Orion's code base has yet to be determined, one
possibility
being pursued by investigators is that the attackers were working with employee(s) of a
SolarWinds contractor or subsidiary.
US investigators
have been focusing on offices of SolarWinds that are based abroad, suggesting that -- in
addition to the above -- the attackers were likely working for SolarWinds or were given access
by someone working for the company. That investigation has focused on offices in eastern
Europe, allegedly because "Russian intelligence operatives are deeply rooted" in those
countries.
It is worth pointing out, however, that Israeli intelligence is similarly "deeply rooted" in
eastern European states both before and
after the fall of the Soviet Union, ties well illustrated by Israeli superspy and media
tycoon Robert Maxwell's frequent and
close associations with Eastern European and Russian intelligence agencies as well as the
leaders of many of those countries. Israeli intelligence operatives like Maxwell also had cozy
ties with Russian organized crime. For instance, Maxwell enabled the access of the Russian
organized crime network headed by Semion Mogilevich into the US financial system and was also
Mogilevich's
business partner . In addition, the cross-pollination between Israeli and Russian organized crime networks (networks
which also share ties to their respective intelligence agencies) and such links should be
considered if the cybercriminals due prove to be Russian in origin, as US intelligence has
claimed.
Though some contractors and subsidiaries of SolarWinds are now being investigated, one that
has yet to be investigated, but should be, is Samanage. Samanage, acquired by SolarWinds in
2019, not only gained automatic access to Orion just as the malicious code was first inserted,
but it has deep ties to Israeli intelligence and a web of venture-capital firms associated with
numerous Israeli espionage scandals that have targeted the US government. Israel is deemed by
the NSA to be one
of the top spy threats facing US government agencies and Israel's list of espionage
scandals in the US is arguably the longest, and includes the Jonathan Pollard and PROMIS
software scandals of the 1980s to the Larry
Franklin/AIPAC espionage scandal in 2009.
Though much reporting has since been done on the recent compromise of SolarWinds Orion
software, little attention has been paid to Samanage. Samanage offers what it describes as "an
IT Service Desk solution." It was acquired by SolarWinds so Samanage's products could be added
to SolarWinds' IT Operations Management portfolio. Though US reporting and
SolarWinds press releases state that Samanage is based in Cary, North Carolina, implying
that it is an American company, Samanage is actually
an Israeli firm . It was
founded in 2007 by Doron Gordon, who previously worked
for several years at MAMRAM , the Israeli military's central computing unit .
Samanage was SolarWinds' first acquisition of an Israeli company, and, at the time, Israeli
media reported that SolarWinds was expected to set up its first development center in Israel.
It appears, however, that SolarWinds, rather than setting up a new center, merely began using
Samanage's research and development center located in Netanya, Israel.
Several months after the acquisition was announced, in November 2019, Samanage, renamed
SolarWinds Service Desk, became
listed as a standard feature of SolarWinds Orion software, whereas the integration of
Samanage and Orion had previously been optional since the acquisition's announcement in April
of that year. This means that complete integration was likely made standard in either October
or November. It has since been reported that the perpetrators of the recent hack gained access
to the networks of US federal agencies and major corporations at around the same time.
Samanage's automatic integration into Orion was a major modification made to the
now-compromised software during that period.
Samanage appears to have had access to Orion following the announcement of the acquisition
in April 2019. Integration first began with Orion version 2019.4, the earliest version believed
to contain the malicious code that enabled the hack. In addition, the integrated Samanage
component of Orion was
responsible for "ensuring the appropriate teams are quickly notified when critical events
or performance issues [with Orion] are detected," which was meant to allow "service agents to
react faster and resolve issues before . . . employees are impacted."
In other words, the Samanage component that was integrated into Orion at the same time the
compromise took place was also responsible for Orion's alert system for critical events or
performance issues. The code that was inserted into Orion by hackers in late 2019 nevertheless
went undetected by this Samanage-made component for over a year, giving the "hackers" access to
millions of devices critical to both US government and corporate networks. Furthermore, it is
this Samanage-produced component of the affected Orion software that advises end
users to exempt the software from antivirus scans and group policy object (GPO) restrictions by
providing a warning that Orion may not work properly unless those exemptions are granted.
Samanage, Salesforce, and the World Economic Forum
Around the time of Samange's acquisition by SolarWinds, it
was reported that one of Samanage's top backers was the company Salesforce, with Salesforce
being both a major investor in Samanage as well as a partner of the company.
Salesforce is run by Marc Benioff, a billionaire who got his start at the tech giant Oracle.
Oracle was originally created as a
CIA spin-off and has
deep ties to Israel's government and the outgoing Trump administration. Salesforce also has
a large presence in Israel, with much of its global research and development
based there . Salesforce also
recently partnered with the Unit 8200-linked Israeli firm Diagnostic Robotics to
"predictively" diagnose COVID-19 cases using Artificial Intelligence.
Aside from leading Salesforce, Benioff is a member of the Vatican's Council for Inclusive Capitalism
alongside Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a
close associate of Jeffrey Epstein and the Clintons, and members of the Lauder family, who
have deep ties to the Mega Group and Israeli politics.
Benioff is also a prominent member of the board of trustees of the World Economic Forum and
the inaugural
chair of the WEF's Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR), making him one of
the most critical players in the unfolding of the WEF-backed Great Reset. Other WEF leaders,
including the organization's founder Klaus Schwab, have openly discussed how massive cyberattacks
such as befell SolarWinds will soon result in "even more significant economic and social
implications than COVID-19."
Last year, the WEF's Centre for Cybersecurity, of which Salesforce is part, simulated a
"digital pandemic" cyberattack in an exercise entitled Cyber Polygon . Cyber Polygon's speakers
in 2020 included former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail
Mishustin, WEF founder Klaus Schwab, and IBM executive Wendi Whitmore , who previously
held top posts at both Crowdstrike and a FireEye subsidiary. Notably, just months before the
COVID-19 crisis, the WEF had held Event 201, which simulated a global coronavirus pandemic that
crippled the world's economy.
In addition to Samanage's ties to WEF big shots such as Marc Benioff, the other main
investors behind Samanage's rise have ties to major Israeli espionage scandals, including the
Jonathan Pollard affair and the PROMIS software scandal. There are also ties to one of the
WEF's founding " technology pioneers ," Isabel Maxwell
(the daughter of Robert Maxwell and sister of Ghislaine), who has long-standing ties to
Israel's intelligence apparatus and the country's hi-tech sector.
The Bronfmans, the Maxwells, and Viola Ventures
At the time of its acquisition by SolarWinds, Samanage's
top investor was Viola Ventures, a major Israeli venture-capital firm. Viola's investment
in Samanage, until its acquisition, was managed by Ronen Nir, who was also
on Samanage's board before it became part of SolarWinds.
Prior to working at Viola, Ronen Nir was a vice president at Verint, formerly Converse
Infosys. Verint, whose other alumni have gone on to found Israeli intelligence-front companies
such as Cybereason .
Verint has a history of
aggressively spying on US government facilities, including
the White House , and created the backdoors into all US
telecommunications systems and major tech companies, including Microsoft, Google and Facebook,
on behalf of the US' NSA.
In addition to his background at Verint, Ronen Nir is an Israeli spy , having served for thirteen
years in an elite IDF intelligence unit, and he remains a lieutenant colonel on reserve duty.
His biography also notes that he worked for two years at the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC,
which is fitting given his background in espionage and the major role that Israeli embassy has
played in several major espionage scandals.
As an aside, Nir has stated that "thought leader" Henry Kissinger is his "favorite
historical character." Notably, Kissinger
was instrumental in allowing Robert Maxwell, Israeli superspy and father of Ghislaine and
Isabel Maxwell, to sell software with a back door for Israeli intelligence to US national
laboratories, where it was used to spy on the US nuclear program. Kissinger had told Maxwell to
connect with Senator John Tower in order to gain access to US national laboratories, which
directly enabled this action, part of the larger
PROMIS software scandal .
In addition, Viola's stake was managed through a firm known
as Carmel Ventures, which is part of the Viola Group. At the time, Carmel Ventures was advised by Isabel Maxwell , whose father
had previously been
directly involved in the operation of the front company used to sell bugged software to US
national laboratories. As noted in
a previous article at Unlimited Hangout , Isabel "inherited" her father's circle of
Israeli government and intelligence contacts after his death and has been instrumental in
building the "bridge" between Israel's intelligence and military-linked hi-tech sector to
Silicon Valley.
Isabel also has ties to the Viola Group itself through Jonathan Kolber, a general partner at
Viola. Kolber previously cofounded and led the Bronfman family's private-equity fund, Claridge
Israel (based in Israel). Kolber then led Koor Industries, which he had acquired alongside the
Bronfmans via Claridge. Kolber is closely associated with Stephen Bronfman, the son of Charles
Bronfman who created Claridge and also
cofounded the Mega Group with Leslie Wexner in the early 1990s.
Kolber, like Isabel Maxwell, is a founding director of the
Peres Center for Peace and Innovation. Maxwell, who used to chair the center's board, stepped down
following the Epstein scandal, though it's not exactly clear when. Other directors of the center
include Tamir Pardo, former head of Mossad. Kolber's area of expertise, like that of Isabel
Maxwell, is "structuring complex, cross-border and cross industry business and financial
transactions," that is, arranging acquisitions and partnerships of Israeli firms by US
companies. Incidentally, this is also a major focus of the Peres Center.
Other connections to Isabel Maxwell, aside from her espionage ties, are worth noting, given
that she is a "technology pioneer" of the World Economic Forum. As previously mentioned,
Salesforce -- a major investor in Samanage -- is deeply involved with the WEF and its Great
Reset.
The links of Israeli intelligence and Salesforce to Samanage, and thus to SolarWinds, is
particularly relevant given the WEF's "prediction" of a coming "pandemic" of cyberattacks and
the early hints from former Unit 8200 officers that the SolarWinds hack is just the beginning.
It is also worth mentioning the Israeli government's considerable ties to the WEF over the
years, particularly last year when it joined the
Benioff-chaired C4IR and participated in the October 2020 WEF panel entitled "The Great
Reset: Harnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution."
Start Up Nation Central, an organization aimed at integrating Israeli start-ups with US
firms
set up by Netanyahu's longtime economic adviser Eugene Kandel and American Zionist
billionaire Paul Singer,
have asserted that Israel will serve a "key role" globally in the 4 th
Industrial Revolution following the implementation of the Great Reset.
Gemini, the BIRD Foundation, and Jonathan Pollard
In addition to Viola, another of Samange's
leading investors is Gemini Israel Ventures. Gemini is one of Israel's oldest
venture-capital firms, dating back to the Israeli government's 1993 Yozma program.
The first firm created by Yozma, Gemini was put under the control of Ed Mlavsky, who
Israel's government had chosen specifically for this position. As
previously reported by Unlimited Hangout , Mlavsky was then serving as the executive
director of the Israel-US Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation,
where "he was responsible for investments of $100 million in more than 300 joint projects
between US and Israeli high-tech companies."
A few years before Gemini was created, while Mlavsky still headed BIRD, the foundation
became embroiled in one of the worst espionage scandals in US history, the Jonathan Pollard
affair.
In the indictment of US citizen Pollard for espionage on Israel's behalf, it was noted that
Pollard delivered the documents he stole to agents of Israel at two locations, one of which was
an apartment owned by Harold Katz, the then legal counsel of the BIRD Foundation and an adviser
to Israel's military, which oversaw Israel's scientific intelligence-gathering agency, Lekem.
US officials
told the New York Times at the time that they believed Katz "has detailed knowledge
about the [Pollard] spy ring and could implicate senior Israeli officials."
Subsequent reporting by journalist Claudia Wright pointed the finger at the Mlavsky-run BIRD
Foundation as one of the ways Israeli intelligence funneled money to Pollard before his capture
by US authorities.
One of the first companies Gemini invested in was CommTouch (now Cyren), which was founded
by ex-IDF officers and later led by Isabel Maxwell. Under Maxwell's leadership, CommTouch
developed close ties to Microsoft, partially due to Maxwell's relationship with its
cofounder Bill Gates.
A Coming "Hack" of Microsoft?
If the SolarWinds hack is as serious as has been reported, it's difficult to understand why
a company like Samanage would not be looked into as part of a legitimate investigation into the
attack. The timing of Samanage employees gaining access to the Orion software and the company's
investors including Israeli spies and those with ties to past espionage scandals where Israel
used back doors to spy on the US and beyond raises obvious red flags. Yet, any meaningful
investigation of the incident is unlikely to take place, especially given the considerable
involvement of discredited firms like CrowdStrike, CIA fronts like FireEye and a consultancy
firm led by former Silicon Valley executives with their own government/intelligence ties.
There is also the added fact that both of the main methods used in the attack were analogous
or bore similarities to hacking tools that were both discovered by Unit 8200-linked companies
in 2017. Unit 8200-founded cybersecurity firms are among the few "winners" from the SolarWinds
hack, as their stocks have skyrocketed and demand for their services has increased
globally.
While some may argue that Unit 8200 alumni are not necessarily connected to the Israeli
intelligence apparatus, numerous
reports have pointed out the admitted fusion of Israeli military intelligence with Israel's
hi-tech sector and its tech-focused venture capital networks, with Israeli military and
intelligence officials themselves
noting that the line between the private cybersecurity sector and Israel's intelligence
apparatus is so blurred, it's difficult to know where one begins and the other ends. There is
also the Israeli government policy, formally launched in
2012 , whereby Israel's intelligence and military intelligence agencies began outsourcing
"activities that were previously managed in-house, with a focus on software and cyber
technologies."
Samanage certainly appears to be such a company, not only because it was founded by a former
IDF officer in the military's central computing unit, but because its main investors include
spies on "reserve duty" and venture capital firms linked to the Pollard scandal as well as the
Bronfman and Maxwell families,
both of whom have been tied to espionage and sexual blackmail
scandals over the years.
Yet, as the Epstein scandal has recently indicated, major espionage scandals involving
Israel receive little coverage and investigations into these events rarely lead anywhere.
PROMIS was covered up
largely thanks to Bill Barr during his first term as Attorney General and even the Pollard
affair has all been swept under the rug with Donald Trump
allowing Pollard to move to Israel and, more recently, pardoning the Israeli spy who recruited
Pollard during his final day as President. Also under Trump, there was the
discovery of "stingray" surveillance devices placed by Israel's government throughout
Washington DC, including next to the White House, which were quickly memory holed and oddly not
investigated by authorities. Israel had
previously wiretapped the White House's phone lines during the Clinton years.
Another cover up is likely in the case of SolarWinds, particularly if the entry point was in
fact Samanage. Though a cover up would certainly be more of the same, the SolarWinds case is
different as major tech companies and cybersecurity firms with ties to US and Israeli
intelligence now insist that Microsoft is soon to be targeted in what would clearly be a much
more devastating event than SolarWinds due to the ubiquity of Microsoft's products.
On Tuesday, CIA-linked firm FireEye, which apparently has a leadership role in investigating
the hack,
claimed that the perpetrators are still gathering data from US government agencies and that
"the hackers are moving into Microsoft 365 cloud applications from physical, on-premises
servers," meaning that changes to fix Orion's vulnerabilities will not necessarily deny hacker
access to previously compromised systems as they allegedly maintain access to those systems via
Microsoft cloud applications. In addition to Microsoft's own claims that some of its source
code was accessed by the hackers, this builds the narrative that Microsoft products are poised
to be targeted in the next high-profile hack.
Microsoft's cloud security infrastructure, set to be the next target of the SolarWinds
hackers, was largely developed and later managed
by Assaf Rappaport , a former Unit 8200 officer who was most recently the head of
Microsoft's Research and Development and Security teams at its massive Israel branch. Rappaport
left Microsoft
right before the COVID-19 crisis began last year to found a new cybersecurity company
called Wiz.
Microsoft, like some of Samanage's main backers, is part of the World Economic Forum and is
an enthusiastic supporter of and participant in the Great Reset agenda, so much so that
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote the foreword to Klaus Schwab's book " Shaping
the Fourth Industrial Revolution ." With the WEF simulating a cyber "pandemic" and both the
WEF and Israel's head of Israel's National Cyber Directorate warning of an imminent "
cyber winter ", SolarWinds does indeed appear to be just the beginning, though perhaps a
scripted one to create the foundation for something much more severe. A cyberattack on
Microsoft products globally would certainly upend most of the global economy and likely have
economic effects more severe than the COVID-19 crisis, just as the WEF has been warning. Yet,
if such a hack does occur, it will inevitably serve the aims of the Great Reset to "reset" and
then rebuild electronic infrastructure.
Regarding the article, certainly one takeaway would be that, though they're good at
acquiring power, they're no good at managing it.
Another way of putting this would be to say that, though they're good at infiltration,
subversion, radical ingratitude, betrayal, insane hatred, vindictive hysteria, denial,
projection, destruction and death, they're just no good at social management.
Case in point: A country they control whose social institutions are all in free fall, The
United States of America. Which, if we were to be perfectly honest, we'd be better off simply
referring to as The United States of Israel. In which case we'd have to replace each of the
50 stars on the flag with stars of David. Who knows? Maybe they will. Stranger things have
happened in history.
But that would draw too much attention to the USA's many, many social failures. Which, of
course, are always – always – the result of self-focused ,
low-character leadership .
And Character is, in this case, How we treat others .
A cyberattack on Microsoft products globally would certainly upend most of the global
economy and likely have economic effects more severe than the COVID-19 crisis, just as the
WEF has been warning.
A gross exaggeration, but the Western MSM can be relied upon to make such a cyberattack
appear like a massive World crisis – just like they've done with COVID-19, which is
nowhere near as virulent even as Hong Kong Flu.
Gerorge Orwell famously wrote: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the
past."
To which he should have added: Who controls the media controls the present.
For the majority, indoctrinated by the MSM, this seems sadly to be true.
The U.S. military, surveillance state, and government have willingly sold off national
security secrets and have made every American business, institution, and individual
vulnerable as a result of it.
Bill Clinton permitted technology national security secrets developed by the military,
U.S. companies, and universities, all financed by tax payers to be handed over to the CCP by
U.S. tech companies that opened factories in China which required the blue prints to the
technology in exchange for the CCP to allow them to do it.
NYC is now the new Mossad cyber front, after the NSA and US gov permitted them to all open
office in NYC managing day to day operations of US gov., US businesses, and US citizens and
residents communications systems and security.
The Negav Desert is the new home of almost every U.S. Silicon Valley company, all invited
by Israel to open fronts there, after the US gov and tax payers catapulted the Silicon Valley
Titans to unprecedented levels of wealth in world history.
The espionage perpetrated by the US government and survellance state is the primary
problem!
There is no such thing as national security as long as these these foxes are guarding the
hen house.
They really should all be tried for treason!
Cambridge Analytica was used to spy on US citizens during the 2016 election in order to
shift the burden onto another country. They frequently hire intelligence agents from foreign
countries as unofficial but frequently practiced policy.
I have noticed that spies have no loyalty to any country or institution. They often work
together with spies fro other countries. They are thieves. People spy because they are sex
offenders, thieves, intellectual property thieves, or identity thieves. There is no such
thing as an honest spy. Their entire life is a series of lies, and it has to be since what
they are doing is illegal. Then of course there is the Five Eyes apparatus strengthening
bonds in the international surveillance state.
They will sell anything to anyone, and what has happened in Ametica is 100% proof. Nothing
is off the table. Everything and everyone has a price as far they are concerned.
I'm not sure I follow the twenty years interval or the significance of the three towers
(being a 9/11 reference), but you seem to imply it's some eschatological and/or messianic
thing. Could you or someone else explain?
The only question at hand–once the electronically addicted IQistas abandon their
angle of dominating the world by means of interdependence–is that upon examining the
size of whatever as will soon lie in the dust, (be it 911 or Microsoft) whether we should
ever again allow ourselves to become so dependent upon a thing so large and vulnerable.
We did not need the computer to experience the beauty of America prior to abandoning the
gold standard, and we don't need the computer now. Yeah, rave on with all that hype Steve
Jobs gave to John Scully, ie, You want to sell sugar water all your life, or you want to come
with me and change the world?
Jobs had a good mind, yet a monolithically weak objective when it came to change. There is
nothing new under the sun. Let it crash.
"Kissinger had told Maxwell to connect with Senator John Tower in order to gain access to
US national laboratories, which directly enabled this action, part of the larger PROMIS
software scandal."
You can blame the two Jews for obviously being Jews but John Tower should have been
hanged, quartered and displayed in the four corners of these United States for
disloyalty.
Hope to see more articles like this instead of the good old beaten up concepts. Or
opinionated write up.
Does anyone know what kind of job Jonathan Pollard got in Israel? Chief of intelligence
collection agency.
Many years ago, on the Yahoo News message boards, after I was awakened to some hard truths
about our country , I made a prediction that this day would come – that one day it
would get pretty bad (free speech) in America, with the usual suspects behind it, and that
the closer Americans get to the truth, the worse it will get.
We're here.
This fine article by Whitney Webb indicates what might be next. Pretty scary.
Just a note – Gab is a good alternative in case Unz finally gets taken down. And
vice versa. They have a Dissenter browser that will allow you to comment on anything,
evidently.
I lurk here a lot because the comments are the best I've ever seen anywhere.
The hack, which affected Texas-based software provider SolarWinds, was blamed on Russia
on January 5 by the US government's Cyber Unified Coordination Group. Their statement
asserted that the attackers were "likely Russian in origin," but they failed to provide
evidence to back up that claim.
I wonder when the U.S. government last made a statement that wasn't a lie.
Democrats will never silence America. When you tell people to shut up in this country, it
just makes them MORE angry, study more, take notes, etc. Myabe Twitterbook will be open next
year maybe they won't.
As usual, the narrative being chosen for the proles and plebs involves reducing us to
spectators to the court intrigues of ruling class political fronts, whose primary function is
to (mis)represent, as heroes or villains, the realpolitik of class war. The U$ president, often
mistaken for the most powerful figure on earth, is simply the principal player among the cast
of characters in these propaganda shows for our manufactured consent, routinely produced via
staged conflicts like so many partisan performances, in which we are expected to take sides and
mistake our own supporting roles as democracy in action (Problem-Reaction-Solution).
Trump's ignominious retirement from next season's episodes is a mild reminder of more
dramatic termination with extreme prejudice of such CEOs for the Fortune 500 as JFK. As his
example hardly set up lesser mortals for such methods of disposability, always the commoners'
common lot, so the example now being made of Trump only confirms what has long prevailed as our
systemic silencing and repression as nothing more than exploitable labor resources.
Our preparation for whatever may be planned next, from ratcheting up the Big Brother
censorship of Big Tech and cybersecurity false flags to the further discrediting of established
politics for replacement by more 'efficient' technocratic rule under AI algogarchy (central
bank cashless currency, social credit scores, immunity passes and total digital colonization by
'vaccination' programs, etc.), has been a long time coming. Preceding cancel culture and
antagonistic identity politics certainly have been conditioning people to not only acquiesce
but cheer for 'others' getting their 'just deserts'. And the recruitment of the ordinary
citizen, or consumer, of screen culture into policing practices took off all the more as soon
as people were 'triggered' into such invasions of privacy as 'weaponizing' their cameras to
post proof of others' 'wrongdoing' on 'social' media like some people's tribunal for political
corrections and public pillory.
So called social trends, more than anything the result of changes from the top down in the
forces of production (e.g., cellular technology, and now 5G) leading to changes in human
relations, set the context for habitual attitudes and behaviors which make us accomplices in
our own subjugation and demise. Beyond the evanescent spectacle of political theater, it's the
everyday material conditions of our living which adapt us to whatever new normal the "masters
of mankind" (Adam Smith) have planned for us. Above all, the ranking system of class rule, and
such complementary value hierarchies like those of race and gender, prepare us from earliest
ages of schooling to a lifetime of wage slavery to be more or less passive participants never
really showing up in our own lives, captive to there being no alternative to 'the way things
are'.
Reconstituting the body politic through autonomous organization of relations of egalitarian
direct democracy beyond the authoritarian conditions of existence laid down for us remains the
best if not only form of resistance to the fascist forces ruling over us.
Well said, Niko. Its all a sopa opera and sadly, so many have been fooled into believing
this is 'how it is'. "Reality Television" – an oxymoron indeed.
I was watching the Helper-Taibbi Inauguration stream yesterday and one clever viewer
remarked that we are seeing bread and circuses ... but without the bread.
William Gruff just ended a comment on the Weekly Open thread with words that accurately
describe one on the symptoms of dystopia that Americans are afflicted with
"Just look around at all of the mouth-breathing chin-maskers in America to see how much
Americans have pitched in to defeat the Fort Detrick Flu."
Americans have been brainwashed to be more in love with their Plato's Cave Displays than
their fellow Americans. They have been taught to consume and not be citizens or members of
community......and everyone is their own gender now....how divide/conquer can you get?
"... attempts to restore "normality," or the "New Normality," or the "Great Normal Reset," or "The New Normal War on Domestic Terror" or whatever they eventually decide to call it. ..."
...going to be quite an exciting year. It is going to be the year in which GloboCap reminds
everyone who is actually in charge and restores "normality" throughout the world.
or at least attempts to restore "normality," or the "New Normality," or the "Great Normal
Reset," or "The New Normal War on Domestic Terror" or whatever they eventually decide to call
it.
"... Oh, yes, you really did it this time! You stormed the goddamned US Capitol. You and your racist, Russia-backed army of bison-hat wearing half-naked actors have meddled with the primal forces of GloboCap, and now, by God, you will atone! ..."
"... No, do not try to minimize your crimes. You entered a building without permission! The building where America simulates democracy! You walked around in there waving silly flags! You went into the Chamber, into people's offices! One of you actually put his filthy populist feet up on Pelosi's desk ON HER DESK! This aggression will not stand! ..."
So, welcome to 2021! If last week was any indication, it is going to be quite an exciting year. It is going to be the year in
which GloboCap reminds everyone who is actually in charge and restores "normality" throughout the world.
or at least attempts to restore "normality," or the "New Normality," or the "Great Normal Reset," or "The New Normal War on Domestic
Terror" or whatever they eventually decide to call it.
In any event, whatever they call it, GloboCap is done playing grab-ass. They have had it with all this "populism" malarkey that
has been going on for the last four years.
Yes, that's right, the party is over, you Russian-backed white supremacist terrorists! You Trump-loving, anti-mask grandmother
killers! You anti-vax, election-fraud-conspiracy theorists! You deviants who refuse to follow orders, wear your damn masks, vote
for who they tell you, and believe whatever completely nonsensical official propaganda they pour into your heads!
Oh, yes, you really did it this time! You stormed the goddamned US Capitol. You and your racist, Russia-backed army of
bison-hat wearing half-naked actors have meddled with the primal forces of GloboCap, and now, by God, you will atone!
No, do not try to minimize your crimes. You entered a building without permission! The building where America simulates democracy!
You walked around in there waving silly flags! You went into the Chamber, into people's offices! One of you actually
put his filthy populist feet up on Pelosi's desk ON HER DESK! This aggression will not stand!
OK, before I go any further with this essay, I need to explain to my regular readers (in case it wasn't already clear) that I've
decided to forswear every word I've ever written, and all my principles, and my common sense, and join the remainder of my old leftist
and liberal friends in the orgy of online hate and outrage they are currently mindlessly indulging in.
I'm already in enough trouble as it is for not playing ball with their "
apocalyptic plague ," and whatever else I
am, I am certainly no martyr, and I have a career in the arts to consider, so I have decided to listen to my inner coward and join
the goose-stepping global-capitalist mob, which is why this column sounds slightly out of character.
See, back in the old days, before my conversion, I would have made fun of my liberal friends for calling this "storming" of the
Capitol a "coup," or an "insurrection," and for demanding that the protesters be prosecuted as "domestic terrorists."
I probably would have scolded them a bit for taking to the Internet and spewing their hatred at
the unarmed woman
shot dead by the police like a pack of soulless, totalitarian jackals.
I might have even made a reference to that infamous scene in Schindler's List where the crowd of "normal" German citizens
all laugh and jeer as the Jews are marched away to the ghetto by the Nazi goons.
But, now that I have seen the light, I see how bad and wrong that would have been. Clearly, trespassing in the US Capitol is a
crime that should be punishable by death. And comparing contemporary American liberals to the "good Germans" during the Nazi era
is so outrageous that well, it should probably be censored.
In fact (and I hope my liberal friends are still reading this), the police should have shot the entire lot of them! All these
Russian-backed Nazi insurrectionists should have been gunned down right there on the spot, preferably by muscle-bound corporate mercenaries
and CIA snipers in Black Hawk helicopters with big Facebook and Twitter logos on them!
Actually, anyone who trespassed in the Capitol Building (which is like a cathedral), or just came to the protest wearing a MAGA
hat, should be hunted down by federal authorities, charged as a "domestic white-supremacist terrorist," frog-marched out onto Black
Lives Matter Plaza, and shot, in the face, live, on TV, so that everyone can watch and howl at their screens like the
Two Minutes
Hate in 1984 . That would teach these "insurrectionists" a lesson!
Or they could shoot them in one of those corporate-branded stadiums! We could make it a weekly televised event. It's not like
there is any shortage of Trump-supporting "domestic terrorists." They could use a different stadium every week, deck the place out
with big "New Normal" banners, play music, make speeches, the whole nine yards. Everyone would have to wear masks, of course, and
strictly adhere to social distancing. Folks could bring the kids, make a day of it.
How am I doing so far, leftist and liberal friends? No? Not fanatical and hateful enough?
OK, so what is it going to take to convince you that I have changed my tune, got my mind right, and am totally on board with the
New Normal totalitarianism? Trump? Sure, I can do Trump. I hate him! He's Hitler! He's Russian Hitler! He's Russian White Supremacist
Hitler!
Yes, I know I've spent the last four years pointing out that he isn't actually Hitler, or a Russian agent, and that he's really
just the same ridiculous, narcissistic ass clown that he has always been, but I was wrong. He's definitely Hitler, and a Russian
agent! He is certainly not just a pathetic old huckster without a single powerful ally in Washington who could not stage an actual
coup if Putin nuked every blue state on the map.
No, I soil myself in fear before his awesome power. Never mind that he's just been banned by
Facebook ,
Twitter , and
numerous other corporate platforms , and made a fool of by the corporate media, the international political establishment, the
Intelligence agencies, and the rest of GloboCap since the day he took the oath of office.
Forget the fact that, although he holds the nuclear launch codes in his tiny little hands and is Commander in Chief of the US
military, the most he could do to challenge his removal was file a buttload of hopeless lawsuits and sit around in the Oval Office
eating cheeseburgers and tweeting into the night.
No, none of that means a thing, not when he still has the power to "embolden" a few dozen pissed-off Americans to storm (
or calmly walk ) into the Capitol and
take selfies sitting in the Vice President's Chair!
Look, the point is, I hate him. And I hate his supporters. I hate everyone who doesn't hate him and his supporters. I hate everyone
who won't wear a mask. I hate the Republicans. I hate the Russians. I hate everyone who won't get the vaccine. My God do I hate them!
I am so full of hatred and mindless rage that it is making me crazy. I am so consumed with self-righteous hatred, propaganda, and
manufactured hysteria that, if Rachel Maddow, or Chris Hayes, or whoever, told me that it was time to round them all up, these "domestic
terrorists," these "insurrectionists," these "conspiracy theorists," these "anti-mask extremists" (and anyone else who won't obey
us), and put them on trains and send them to camps, I'd probably be OK with that.
How am I doing, liberals? Am I back in the club? Because, I get it. I swear! I'm cured! Praise God! I'm ready to pitch in and
do my part. I believe in GloboCap's final victory! I'm willing to work, if our leaders order me, ten, twelve, or fourteen hours a
day, and give all I have for GloboCap victory! I am ready for total ideological war an ideological war more total and radical than
anything I can even imagine!
Sure, our imaginary enemies are formidable (and this war will probably last forever or at least until the end of global capitalism),
but, in the words of one our greatest liberal heroes, George W. Bush, "bring it on!"
*
CJ Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published
by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. His dystopian novel,
Zone 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy,
Swaine & Cormorant. Volume I of his
Consent Factory Essays
is published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Content, Inc. He can be reached at
cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org
.
After condemning the pro-Trump invasion of the Capitol, the incoming Biden administration
invited Carlos Vecchio – a coup leader charged in the 2014 torching of the Venezuelan
Attorney General's office – to its inaugural ceremony.
"... Some pointed out that the accusations leveled at Trump supporters could just as easily be lobbed back at their accusers – specifically the part of Hassan's checklist in which the cult member is discouraged from seeking " outside " sources of information and gaslighted with revised versions of the past. ..."
"... Read the soldiers are being vetted to see if they're Trump supporters, resulting in some uploading photos of themselves on social media with red MAGA caps on :-) ..."
Some pointed out that the accusations leveled at Trump supporters could just as easily be
lobbed back at their accusers – specifically the part of Hassan's checklist in which the
cult member is discouraged from seeking " outside " sources of information and
gaslighted with revised versions of the past.
Read the soldiers are being vetted to
see if they're Trump supporters, resulting in some uploading photos of themselves on social
media with red MAGA caps on :-)
"... Here we are in Weirdsville, USA where most people, whether of the left, right, or center, are hypnotized by the flickering screens. That's what movies do. That's what long planned psychological operations do. That's what digital technology allows corrupt rulers and the national security state with its Silicon Valley partners in crime to do. ..."
"... We now live in a screen world where written words and logic are beside the point. Facts don't matter. Personal physical experience doesn't matter. Clear thinking doesn't matter. Hysterical reactions are what matter. Manipulated emotions are what matter. Saying "Fuck You" is now de rigueur, as if that were the answer to an argument. ..."
"... It's all a movie now with the latest theatrical performance having been the January 6, 2021 stage show filmed at the U.S. Capitol. A performance so obvious that it isn't obvious for those hypnotized by propaganda, even when the movie clearly shows that the producers arranged for the "domestic terrorists" to be ushered into the Capitol. They let the "Nazis" in on Dr. Goebbels orders. Thank God Almighty they were beaten back before they seized power in their Halloween costumes. ..."
"... Now who could have given that order to the Capitol and D.C. police, Secret Service, National Guard, and the vast array of militarized Homeland Security forces that knew well in advance of the January 6 demonstration? Who gave the stand-down orders on September 11, 2001, events that were clearly anticipated and afterwards were described by so many as if they were a movie? Surreal. Dreamlike. ..."
"... To accept that Trump and Biden are scripted actors in a highly sophisticated reality TV movie is a bit of "reality" too hard to bear. Exposing them and their minions doesn't hurt at all. There's no business but show business. ..."
"... "A magician is only an actor," ..."
"... "an actor pretending to be a magician." ..."
"... "Will wonders ever cease," ..."
"... On a conscious level, however, many people continue to rationalize their grasp of what is going on in the United States as if ..."
"... The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy .My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power. This moment calls for healing and reconciliation ..."
"... still cling to the belief that he is the man they believe in and was going to "clean the swamp" but was sabotaged by the "deep state." Biden supporters, driven by their obsessive hatred for Trump and the ongoing delusions that the Democratic Party, like the Republican, is not thoroughly corrupt, look forward to the Biden presidency and the new normal when he can "build back better." For both groups' true faith never dies. It's very touching. ..."
"... As I have written before, if the Democrats and the Republicans are at war as is often claimed, it is only over who gets the larger share of the spoils. Trump and Biden work for the same bosses, those I call the Umbrella People (those who own and run the country through their intelligence/military/media operatives), who produce and direct the movie that keeps so many Americans on the edge of their seats in the hope that their chosen good guy wins in the end. ..."
"... But if that is so, why, despite Trump and Biden's superficial differences – and Obama's, Hillary Clinton's and George W. Bush's for that matter – have the super-rich gotten richer and richer over the decades and the war on terror continued as the military budget has increased each year and the armament industries and the Wall Street crooks continued to rake in the money at the expense of everyone else? These are a few facts that can't be disputed. There are many more. So what's changed under Trump? We are talking about nuances, small changes. A clown with a big mouth versus traditional, "dignified" con men. ..."
...Life today seems like a dream, doesn't it? Surreal to the point where everything seems
haunted and betwixt and between, or this against that, or that and this against us... Or a Luis
Buñuel film. The logic of the irrational. Surrealistic. A film made to draw us into an
ongoing nightmare. Hitchcock with no resolution. Total weirdness, as Hunter Thompson said was coming
before he blew his brains out. A life movie made to hypnotize in this darkening world where
reality is created on screens, as Buñuel said of watching movies:
This kind of cinematographic hypnosis is no doubt due to the darkness of the theatre and
to the rapidly changing scenes, lights, and camera movements, which weaken the spectator's
critical intelligence and exercise over him a kind of fascination.
Here we are in Weirdsville, USA where most people, whether of the left, right, or
center, are hypnotized by the flickering screens. That's what movies do. That's what long
planned psychological operations do. That's what digital technology allows corrupt rulers and
the national security state with its Silicon Valley partners in crime to do.
We now live in a screen world where written words and logic are beside the point. Facts
don't matter. Personal physical experience doesn't matter. Clear thinking doesn't matter.
Hysterical reactions are what matter. Manipulated emotions are what matter. Saying "Fuck You"
is now de rigueur, as if that were the answer to an argument.
It's all a movie now with the latest theatrical performance having been the January 6,
2021 stage show filmed at the U.S. Capitol. A performance so obvious that it isn't obvious for
those hypnotized by propaganda, even when the movie clearly shows that the producers arranged
for the "domestic terrorists" to be ushered into the Capitol. They let the "Nazis" in on Dr.
Goebbels orders. Thank God Almighty they were beaten back before they seized power in their
Halloween costumes.
Now who could have given that order to the Capitol and D.C. police, Secret Service,
National Guard, and the vast array of militarized Homeland Security forces that knew well in
advance of the January 6 demonstration? Who gave the stand-down orders on September 11, 2001,
events that were clearly anticipated and afterwards were described by so many as if they were a
movie? Surreal. Dreamlike.
As with the events of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent anthrax attacks, the recently
staged show at the Capitol that the mainstream media laughingly call an attempted coup
d'état will result in a new "Patriot Act" aimed at the new terrorists – domestic
ones – i.e. anyone who dissents from the authoritarian crackdown long planned and
underway; anyone who questions the vast new censorship and the assault on the First Amendment;
anyone who questions the official narrative of Covid-19 and the lockdowns; anyone who suggests
that there are linkages between these events, etc.
Who, after all, introduced the Omnibus
Counterterrorism Act in 1995 that became the template for the Patriot Act in 2001 that was
passed into law after September 11, 2001? None other than former Senator Joseph Biden .
Remember Joe? He has a new plan.
Of course, the massive Patriot Act had been written well before that fateful September day
and was ready to be implemented by a Senate vote of 98-1, the sole holdout being Democratic
Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. In the House of Representatives the vote was 357-66.
For those familiar (or unfamiliar) with history and fabricated false flags, they might want
also to meditate on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964 that gave Lyndon Johnson his seal of
approval to escalate the war against Vietnam that killed so many millions. The vote for that
fake crisis was 416-0 in the House and 88-2 in the Senate.
In the words of Mark Twain:
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat
myself.
Harry Houdini, the magical performer who was able to escape from any trap, any nightmarish
enclosure, any lockdown, once said,
It's still an open question, however, as to what extent exposure really hurts a
performer.
The question has been answered. It doesn't hurt at all, for phoney events still mesmerize
millions who are eager to suspend their disbelief for the sake of a sad strand of hope that
their chosen leaders – whether Biden or Trump – are levelling with them and are not
playing them for fools. To accept that Trump and Biden are scripted actors in a highly
sophisticated reality TV movie is a bit of "reality" too hard to bear. Exposing them and their
minions doesn't hurt at all. There's no business but show business.
Houdini knew well the tricks used to deceive a gullible audience hypnotized by theatrics.
"A magician is only an actor," he said, "an actor pretending to be a
magician." This is a perfect description of the charlatans who serve as presidents of the
United States.
Life today seems like a dream, doesn't it? "Will wonders ever cease," said Houdini,
as he closed his shows.
When I was a child I had a repetitive dream that I was trapped in a maze. Trying to escape,
all I could hear as I tried desperately to find an exit was a droning sound. Droning without
end. The only way I could escape the maze was to wake up – literally. But this dream
would repeat for many years to the point where I realized my dreams were connected to my actual
family and life in the U.S.A.
Then, when I was later in the Marines and felt imprisoned and was attempting to get out as a
conscientious objector, the dream changed to being trapped in the Marines, or the prison I was
expecting if they didn't let me go. Even when I got out of the Marines and was not in prison,
the dreams that I was continued.
It took me years to learn how to escape.
I mention such dreams since they seem to encapsulate the feelings so many people have today.
A sense of being trapped in a senseless social nightmare. Prisoners. Lost in a horror movie
like Kafka's novel The Castle in which the
protagonist K futilely seeks to gain access to the rulers who control the world from their
castle but can never reach his goal. But these are dreams and The Castle is
fiction.
On a conscious level, however, many people continue to rationalize their grasp of what
is going on in the United States as if what they take to be reality is not fiction.
Trump supporters – despite what are seen by them as his betrayals when he said on January
7 that
The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American
democracy .My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power.
This moment calls for healing and reconciliation
still cling to the belief that he is the man they believe in and was going to "clean the
swamp" but was sabotaged by the "deep state." Biden supporters, driven by their obsessive
hatred for Trump and the ongoing delusions that the Democratic Party, like the Republican, is
not thoroughly corrupt, look forward to the Biden presidency and the new normal when he can
"build back better." For both groups' true faith never dies. It's very touching.
As I have written before, if the Democrats and the Republicans are at war as is often
claimed, it is only over who gets the larger share of the spoils. Trump and Biden work for the
same bosses, those I call the Umbrella People (those who own and run the country through their
intelligence/military/media operatives), who produce and direct the movie that keeps so many
Americans on the edge of their seats in the hope that their chosen good guy wins in the
end.
It might seem as if I am wrong and that because the Democrats and their accomplices have
spent years attempting to oust Trump through Russia-gate, impeachment, etc. that what seems
true is true and Trump is simply a crazy aberration who somehow slipped through the net of
establishment control to rule for four years. A Neo-Nazi billionaire who emerged from a TV
screen and a golden tower high above the streets of New York.
This seems self-evident to the Democrats and the supporters of Joseph Biden, and even to
many Republicans.
For Trump's supporters, he seems to be a true Godsend, a real patriot who emerged out of
political nowhere to restore America to its former greatness and deliver economic justice to
the forgotten middle-Americans whose livelihoods have been devastated by neo-liberal economic
policies and the outsourcing of jobs.
Two diametrically opposed perspectives.
But if that is so, why, despite Trump and Biden's superficial differences – and
Obama's, Hillary Clinton's and George W. Bush's for that matter – have the super-rich
gotten richer and richer over the decades and the war on terror continued as the military
budget has increased each year and the armament industries and the Wall Street crooks continued
to rake in the money at the expense of everyone else? These are a few facts that can't be
disputed. There are many more. So what's changed under Trump? We are talking about nuances,
small changes. A clown with a big mouth versus traditional, "dignified" con men.
Trump's followers were betrayed the day he was sworn in, as Biden's will be shortly unless
they support a crackdown on civil rights, the squelching of the First Amendment, and laws
against dissent under the aegis of a war against domestic terrorism.
I'm afraid that is so. Censorship of dissent that is happening now will increase
dramatically under the Biden administration.
Now we have the "insurrection," also known as an attempted "coup d'état," with
barbarians breaching the gates of the sacred abode of the politicians of both parties who have
supported bloody U.S. coups throughout the world for the past seventy plus years. Here is
another example of history beginning as tragedy and ending as farce.
But who is laughing?
If you were writing this script as part of long-term planning, and average people were
getting disgusted from decades of being screwed and were sick of politicians and their lying
ways, wouldn't you stop the reruns and create a new show?
Come on, this is Hollywood where creative showmen can dazzle our minds with plots so twisted
that when you leave the theater you keep wondering what it was all about and arguing with your
friends about the ending. So create a throwback film where the good guy versus the bad guy was
seemingly very clear, and while the system ground on, people would be at each other's throats
over the obvious differences, even while they were fabricated or were minor. This being the
simple and successful age-old strategy of divide and conquer.
I realize that it is very hard for many to entertain the thought that Trump and Biden are
not arch-enemies but are players in a spectacle created to confound at the deepest
psychological levels. I am not arguing that the Democrats didn't want Hillary Clinton to win in
2016. I am saying they knew Trump was a better opponent, not only because they could probably
defeat him and garner more of the spoils, but because if he possibly won he was easily
controlled because he was compromised. By whom? Not the Democrats, but the "Deep State" forces
that control Hillary Clinton and all the presidents. A compromised and corrupt lot.
The Democrats and Republicans were not in charge in 2016 or in 2020. Their bosses were. The
Umbrella people. Biden will carry out their orders, and while everyone will conveniently forget
what actually happened during Trump's tenure, as I previously mentioned, they will only
remember how the Democrats "tried" to oust this man in the black hat, while Biden will carry on
Trump's legacy with minor changes and a lot of PR. He will seem like a breath of fresh air as
he continues and expands the toxic policies of all presidents. So it goes.
Better to be a conspiracy theorist than a bootlicking fantasist who thinks a bunch of
eugenicist billionaire parasites are just 'incompetently' trying to save pensioners from a media-inflated flu, but 'mistakenly' imprisoning & fleecing the population in the
process.
We warned these people relentlessly that the despotic 'public health' policies they
demanded from the regime would immiserate millions more workers, they laughed and mocked us,
now they cry crocodile tears at the obvious consequences which they enabled.
While it's true that #1984 can't be used as a hashtag, this has nothing to do with
censorship, politics, Trump, or the Capitol riot. Twitter does not let users create hashtags
solely from numbers. You can't make a hashtag for #1234, #2021, or any other string of numbers.
But humorists and neoliberal MSM are elible to exaggerate things ;-)
Rabid fighter for gender nutral terms, the Speaker of the US Congress, Nancy Pelosi, is
eighty years old. It's time to think about something eternal. And what could be more eternal
than the great and mighty English language. Known for its vast vocabulary. Which the Democratic
congressional caucus decided to slightly reduce by voting on Monday for new rules for official
record-keeping.
Instead of the words "he" or "she", it is now recommended to use the gender-neutral terms.
Instead of "father", "mother", "son", "daughter", "brother", "sister", "uncle", "aunt" --
generalized "parent" or " child". And instead of "brother" and "sister", it is better to use
the word "sibling". And so on.
Which means Joseph Biden got very unlucky. Because every one of the forty-five presidents
before him was called " Mr. President." And "mister" is no longer allowed. Because this word
has a clear gender connotation.
And there's nothing he can do about it: the law is the law.
For ten years, humanity has been preparing to meet the coronavirus pandemic prepared, if not
from a medical point of view, then at least from the technological point of view. And maybe
with the medical one, too -- after all, we do not encounter the achievements of genetic
modeling in everyday life as often as with the achievements of digital technologies. But the
minimum time frame for the development of a coronavirus vaccine seems to tell us that in this
area, too, the past ten years have not been lost for all of us.
And here we are faced with a dialectical contradiction. On the one hand, technology has
enabled us to withstand the pandemic and adapt to to working from home for those who can allow
it. On the other hand, if it were not for technology, there would be no pandemic.
It would be
no air travel, no places of the big congestion of people, without a developed industry of
tourism and travelling. And-who knows-maybe the virus itself would not exist without
technology. Although here I am entering on a slippery slope of unsubstantiated assumptions.
It is difficult to agree that the "values" spoken of by Pompeo equate with the Washington Post report on January 14
that the National Mall in Washington will have to be closed on the day of Mr Biden's inauguration as 46 th President
of his nation.
"The extraordinary closure is the latest in a series of security measures to harden the city against
the type of violence that rocked the Capitol on January 6. Local and federal officials had already established a downtown security
zone and called up more than 20,000 National Guard troops to protect the presidential swearing in on January 20. The move is significant
because the Mall has been the traditional site where much of the general public has gathered to view the inauguration at the Capitol
in person."
It would not be surprising if a similar paragraph had appeared in the media concerning such cities as Baghdad, Tripoli or Kabul,
which have suffered grievously from U.S. attacks, simply because these places are unstable to the point of collapse.
But for this sort of military action to be necessary in the national capital of "the greatest country on earth" is a sad
indication of the depth to which Trump has taken America.
... within just 72 hours of this ban madness starting, Russian Social Media/Messenger
Platform "Telegram"
gained 25 million new users . This is unlikely to be a fluke or coincidence. Furthermore,
this new member surge brings the total user base to healthy 500 million.
This means that the majority of Telegram's audience are now not
connected to Russia in any way. The platform has reached the critical mass needed to become a
mainstay of daily life across the globe.
... During the Cold War, thanks to the dismal state of Soviet media, the youth of the USSR
was listening to Radio Freedom and doing anything that it could to jump into the Western media
sphere of influence.
It was simply the better alternative that gave them breathing room to
think about life without a framed Lenin picture in the background
The stuff about the NY consulate really sets me off, Sputnik said the phones are down for
two days running and internet intermittent.
It's hard to guess at the reason for any of it since it could be almost anything (and
pretty much entirely stupid no matter what) but what's much more noticeable is the apparent
lack of interest in truly clarifying what the hell the point is/was supposed to be (instead
of bs) from anyone inside anywhere in the US government structures, or intelligence services,
or armed forces.
Dystopian and dysfunctional become synonyms at some point.
Other than that I'm only waiting to see if anything within the Pentagon will get a move on
to clear up all the mess (rather than "worrying" about National Guards who will do whatever
they're told). If anything happens I expect it to be clean and orderly and then after the
fact maybe the NG troops will be told something or the other a little before everyone else,
and that's about it. They don't have any need to know about anything in advance or as it
happens.
That's just me, at least a little bit more realistic in my "if-so" than the FBI and Pelosi
gang? :)
Below is a list of which House Republicans voted to impeach Trump on Wednesday.
Rep. John Katko
(N.Y.) : "To allow the President of the United States to incite this attack without
consequence is a direct threat to the future of our democracy. For that reason, I cannot
sit by without taking action. I will vote to impeach this President."
Rep. Liz
Cheney (Wyo.) : " There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United
States of his office and his oath to the Constitution. I will vote to impeach the
President. "
Rep. Adam
Kinzinger (Ill.) : "There is no doubt in my mind that the President of the United
States broke his oath of office and incited this insurrection I will vote in favor of
impeachment."
Rep. Fred Upton
(Mich.) : "Enough is enough. The Congress must hold President Trump to account and send
a clear message that our country cannot and will not tolerate any effort by any President
to impede the peaceful transfer of power from one President to the next. Thus, I will vote
to impeach."
Rep. Dan Newhouse
(Wash.) : "A vote against this impeachment is a vote to validate the unacceptable
violence we witnessed in our nation's capital. ... I will vote yes on the articles of
impeachment."
Rep.
Peter Meijer (Mich.) : "With the facts at hand, I believe the article of impeachment to
be accurate. The President betrayed his oath of office by seeking to undermine our
constitutional process, and he bears responsibility for inciting the violent acts of
insurrection last week."
Rep. Anthony Gonzalez
(Ohio) : "When I consider the full scope of events leading up to January 6th including
the President's lack of response as the United States Capitol was under attack, I am
compelled to support impeachment."
Rep. Tom Rice (S.C.) : "I
have backed this President through thick and thin for four years. I campaigned for him and
voted for him twice. But, this utter failure is inexcusable."
Rep. David Valadao
(Calif.) : "Based on the facts before me, I have to go with my gut and vote my
conscience. I voted to impeach President Trump. His inciting rhetoric was un-American,
abhorrent, and absolutely an impeachable offense. It's time to put country over
politics."
There is a better chance of Joe Biden remembering his own name tomorrow than the Blue Team
admitting that the impeachment was bogus, no matter how strong the evidence.
It is unclear whether it was Russians or this is another false flag. Anatol Lieven has zero
credentials to discuss this complex subject as he has zero training in computer security and it
looks like he has zero understanding of how easy you can create a false flag in this area. Looks
like Lieven in not only incompetent but also a neocon. For example "The second entirely
appropriate response is for Washington to intensify its own existing cyber-intelligence
operations against Russia. " If this London professor thinks that GB can benefit for this, he is
deeply mistaken.
Notable quotes:
"... the only countries that have to date carried out a truly successful and destructive act of cyber-sabotage are the U.S. and Israel, through the " Stuxnet " virus, which as introduced into the Iranian nuclear system and first uncovered in 2010. ..."
The most important thing to remember in this regard is the difference between an "attack"
and an act of espionage. The SolarWinds hack has been generally described in the United States
as the former (including by incoming national security adviser
Jake Sullivan , and Biden ), but was in fact the latter.
Nobody is suggesting that the hackers in this case introduced viruses to paralyze U.S. state
systems or damage domestic infrastructure and services. This was purely an
information-gathering exercise.
This distinction is crucial. An attack on the citizens or infrastructure of another state
has traditionally been considered an act of war. Actions by the United States, Russia, Israel
and other countries in recent decades have somewhat blurred this distinction. But no one can
doubt that if another country carried out a major act of sabotage on American soil, (especially
one threatening the lives of citizens), then Washington's response would -- rightly -- be a
ferocious one.
As a matter of fact, while Russia has engaged in limited operations against Estonia and
Ukraine, the only countries that have to date carried out a truly successful and
destructive act of cyber-sabotage are the U.S. and Israel, through the " Stuxnet " virus, which as introduced into the
Iranian nuclear system and first uncovered in 2010.
Espionage by contrast is something that all states do all the time -- often to friends as
well as adversaries. We may remember the scandal under the Obama administration when U.S.
intelligence was found to have hacked
into the communications of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other senior leaders of NATO
countries. The hacking of a Belgian telecom company by British intelligence (" Operation Socialist ") is
another example. And I would be both shocked and deeply disappointed to learn that U.S.
intelligence is not trying to penetrate the state information systems of Russia and China.
And for each revealed act of espionage there is a well-established and calibrated set of
responses. The aggrieved country issues a formal protest and expels a given number of
"diplomats" from the country responsible. That country expels an equal number of diplomats. The
media and the writers of spy thriller writers have a party. Then everything goes back to
normal. For after all, everybody knows that there is no chance whatsoever that states will ever
give up spying.
There are, however, three aspects of cyber-espionage that make it different from and more
dangerous than traditional espionage.
Firstly, as Jake Sullivan has pointed out, unlike most forms of espionage, hacking can be
used both for spying and for sabotage, and one can form the basis for the other. A key goal of
responsible statecraft should be to establish a clear line between the two when it comes to
cyberspace: to develop a set of calibrated and limited responses to cyber-espionage, and to
make clear that cyber-sabotage will lead to a much fiercer and more damaging
retaliation.
Secondly, unlike traditional espionage, the cyber variety is an area where third parties,
uncontrolled by either side, can play a major role and cause serious damage to relations (and
of course this also gives all sides plausible deniability -- as with U.S. moves against
Iran).
For example, those behind the authors of the 2011 cyber-attack on the G20 summit in Paris
have never been identified. Several major hacks have been conducted by independent
cyber-anarchists, or even by clever teenagers, sometimes it seems simply for fun. In the
present atmosphere, however, all such hacks against the United States are likely to be blamed
on Russia and to lead to a further deterioration of relations.
Thirdly, and in part because of these blurred lines, no clear and understood international
traditions are in place concerning the response to cyber-espionage, and there is a serious risk
of overreaction leading to a spiraling escalation of tension and retaliation.
This is what the Biden administration must avoid. Apart from the immediate damage to
relations, overreaction would mean that when -- as is bound to happen someday -- Russia or
China eventually discover a cyber-espionage operation against them by U.S. intelligence, they
will not only look justified in a disproportionate and escalatory response -- they will
actually be justified.
One thing that Biden must definitely not do is to follow the suggestion that the United
States should shut Russia out of the SWIFT international bank transfer system which -- the most
damaging of all U.S. sanctions against Iran, and one that would have a disastrous effect on
Russian trade.
Last year, then Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia would regard such a
move as equivalent to an act of war and would respond accordingly. Various Russian responses
would be possible, including a definitive move into the Chinese geopolitical camp and massive
military aid to Iran. Without doubt however, one of them would be to move from cyber-espionage
to cyber-sabotage against the United States.
The most sensible response would in fact be to follow literally President-elect Biden's
statement that his administration will "respond in kind" to the attack is the most sensible --
that is to say in the cyber-field. The first step (as after any counter-intelligence failure)
must obviously be to strengthen U.S. cyber-defenses which. Amongst other things, this requires
using presidential orders to combine, streamline, and rationalize the competing plethora of
U.S. agencies currently responsible for cyber-security.
The second entirely appropriate response is for Washington to intensify its own existing
cyber-intelligence operations against Russia. That, however, is another reason not to engage in
overblown moral outrage over the latest hack. The American pot already has quite a global
reputation for calling kettles black, and there is no need to blacken it further.
Finally, the Biden administration should do everything possible to develop agreed
international restraints on state cyber-operations, including an absolute ban on
cyber-sabotage. This should involve opening new negotiations with Moscow on longstanding
Russian proposals for an international "arms control" treaty in the area of cyber-warfare, and
for a joint U.S.-Russian working group to establish mutual ground rules and confidence building
measures.
These Russian proposals cannot be accepted as they stand (above all because of Moscow's
desire to limit free flows of information); however, more than a decade ago, then- National
Security Agency Director Keith Alexander said
that "I do think that we have to establish the rules, and I think what Russia has put
forward is, perhaps, the starting point for international debate." This remains true today, and
the danger of a failure to reach international agreement has grown vastly since then.
One of the worst things about hysterical statements in the United States about
"cyber-attacks" is that unwary readers might mistakenly conclude from them that things can't
get any worse. They can get much, much worse.
"... Since you like Hitler analogies so much, dear Steven, why don't you contemplate the 'reactionary' aspect of those Germans who resisted, in the 1930s, the 'progress' of the National-Socialist movement. ..."
"... 'Reactionary' simply means 'opposing the change', and the changes instituted by global finance, aided by their faithful servants, your liberal comrades, -- those changes should be opposed by all decent citizens. ..."
Since you like Hitler analogies so much, dear Steven, why don't you contemplate the
'reactionary' aspect of those Germans who resisted, in the 1930s, the 'progress' of the
National-Socialist movement.
'Reactionary' simply means 'opposing the change', and the changes instituted by global
finance, aided by their faithful servants, your liberal comrades, -- those changes should be
opposed by all decent citizens.
And they are opposed by all decent citizens, and especially by the American working
class, which is why your liberal comrades have to resort to fascist methods: goebbelsian
propaganda, censorship, blacklisting, police repression.
In the reality the USA is not falling apart. It is neoliberalism that is falling apart and
this is just how common people feel during the collapse of neliberalism.
"79% of Americans think the US is falling apart" those not accounted for are possibly
homeless or illiterate and don't have the opportunity of putting their view forward.
RTaccount 1 day ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:22 PM
There will be no peace, no unity, and no prosperity. And there shouldn't be.
TheFishh RTaccount 1 day ago 15 Jan, 2021 03:38 PM
The US regimes past and present have worn out their bag of tricks. A magician is a con-man.
And the only way they can entertain and spellbind the crowd with their routines is if
everyone just ignores the sleight of hand. But people are starting to call the US out for the
tricks it is pulling, and that's where the magician's career ends.
SJMan333 23 hours ago 16 Jan, 2021 01:02 AM
America as a whole is now reaping the fruits of its decades of exceptionalism complex.
Through its propaganda machine, Americans as individuals and collectively as a society, have
been brainwashed into believing that laws, rules and basic human decency do not apply to
themselves. These are only sweetened poisons for them to shove down the throats of other
lesser countries, especially those in Africa, Latin America, Middle East and Asia ((bluntly
put, non-white countries)) when it suited America's global resource thievery and daylight
wealth grabbing. Habitualized into bullying every other countries with no resistance,
Americans are now showing their ugly faces on each other. The same exceptionalism delusion
"the laws apply to you, not me'' is driving every American (except the colored Americans
probably) to blame all the ills of the country on everyone else except himself. Nancy Pelosi
advocated total lock-down but treated herself to a total grooming in a hair saloon is just
one example. For the sins it has committed over the decades, I guess the time is right for
USA to have a dose of its own medicine. Except in this case, America never thought it
necessary to develop an antidote.
Cancel culture is
now rampant in the entertainment industry, which wants to edit Trump from Hollywood history.
Stalin would be proud, but this kind of thinking is dangerous and could have devastating
consequences for the US.
If you blinked, you'd have missed it – a brief cameo appearance by Donald Trump
speaking to child actor Macaulay Culkin in the 1992 film ' Home Alone 2: Lost in
New York' .
The now notorious scene takes place inside the iconic Plaza Hotel where Trump tells Culkin,
playing the role of Kevin McCallister in the popular Christmas film, " down the hall and to
the left ." Not exactly R-rated material. Fast forward to these touchy times and Culkin
says he is " sold " on the idea of having Trump digitally replaced from the John Hughes
film.
So it's not enough to vote out Donald Trump after four tumultuous years in the White House;
it's not enough to impeach him, twice; it's not enough to remove him from every major social
media platform, effectively alienating him from his 75 million supporters. Now the insatiable
woke wolves must work retroactively to delete from the public mind any positive associations it
may still have with the real estate magnate turned American president.
But this little harangue is not really about Donald Trump, nor is it about Hollywood, where
the annual Academy Award ceremonies have become blood-curdling 1984-style Trump hate-fests.
Even less is this about Macaulay Culkin, who, like many other famous child actors, has
struggled throughout adulthood to prove he's just as lovable as his former pintsize self.
Instead, this is about the dangers of forgetting history and being " condemned to repeat
it. "
Whether Hollywood has forgotten or not, there have been other attempts throughout history to
erase the historical record. One famous case involved that of Nikolay Yezhov, the head of the
feared NKVD under Joseph Stalin, who presided over trials and executions (1936-1938) during the
Great Purge, a rather joyless period when hundreds of thousands perished without a trace.
I am strongly against balkanization of the country. The example of the USSR shows where it
leads -- misery of common pople and dramatic drop of the standard of living, while new gand of
ruthless oligarchs emerge from the ruins.
Pushing the Trump-inspired populist movement underground may only cause it to resort to more
drastic measures. As the leftist libertarian reporter Glenn Greenwald observes ,
"these people know they are scorned and looked down upon... and the more you humiliate
and make them feel powerless, the more you take away their ability to organize and express
that rage, it's gonna find an outlet in more destructive ways."
As a former professor at a top-ranking university, I favored a Trump re-election, not
because I support Trump so much as abhor what the opposition represents and is proving itself
to be. In response to the social media threat to expression, I have inaugurated a new group on
Telegram called 'Thought Criminals'. There, fellow 'thought deviationists' like me are able to
express views that are effectively proscribed on mainstream social media platforms. No one
among us advocates violence or the overthrow of the government. None of us is 'racist'. We
advocate only the rights enshrined in the US Constitution.
But some groups, no doubt, are intent on violence. Yet the violent extremists consist mostly
of Antifa and related 'activists', who will unfortunately trick Trump supporters into another
error during the inauguration, like some appeared to do when involved
in the Capitol siege. It's not as if violent extremists among the Trump base were always there,
ready to pounce on any opportunity to express their "racist," "white nationalist"
views.
Rather, as the rising party has already demonstrated, these people stand to lose the most
under a Biden-Harris regime, whose Big Tech and mainstream media allies act as governmental
enforcement apparatuses.
Trump supporters have been hated and demonized simply for wanting to live without being
reprimanded and punished for their whiteness, their middle-Americanness, or their values. They
face an anti-white, anti-native, anti-middle-America extremism that is set to silence and crush
them into submission.
These and others will form a new underground under the prevailing ideological and political
hegemony. This banishment of millions, and not Trump, is why the nation will fall apart, if
indeed it does.
JJ_Rousseau 5 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:58 PM
The best thing that could happen is for USA to "balkanize". For the rest of the world, and
for Americans too. The founding fathers intentionally put restraints on the federal
government's power to prevent the situation we now face. Both parties (actually the duopoly)
are guilty of breaching the constitution, on so many levels we have lost count
Ronj14848 JJ_Rousseau 1 hour ago 15 Jan, 2021 07:23 PM
The USA have more American in uniform outside America than civilian Americans inside America.
You bleed yourself dry trying to be the boss of the world.
chert JJ_Rousseau 3 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 04:52 PM
Right, states should have more power than the federal government. Case in point: North Dakota
is trying to pass a law to sue Facebook and Twitter for those who have been censored on those
platforms. But federal law under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act will supersede
because federal law wins.
apothqowejh 4 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 04:17 PM
As an American, I can't say a reckoning hasn't been overdue. The myopia in this country, and
the tolerance for evil, was bound to rebound. From a refusal to honestly look at 9/11, a
refusal to accept responsibility for Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and a host of other
insanely brutal blunders, to an acceptance of such horrors as the USAPatriot Act and the
COVID scam, everyday Americans have obliviously sleepwalked into a totalitarian dystopia.
Tyranny abroad inevitably leads to tyranny at home, and we have well-earned it by refusing to
vote for peace and non-interventionism; for limited government, for responsible spending. Now
our votes no longer matter, and we are caught helpless in the whirlwind of our own
destruction.
newagerage apothqowejh 4 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 04:33 PM
The CIA, NSA, Pentagon... all these corporations lead to disaster as the employees have to
keep causing trouble to justify their jobs and spend, spend like crazy, the Army and
intelligence agencies spending the hard worked money from Silicon Valley and other sectors.
The country just doesn't make sense, first outsource jobs to China and then when they see
that Chinese people are smarter than them outsource those to India? are Indians idiots? I
don't think so... both countries will rule the World by the end of the century. And the most
important of all... where is your public education system? you can live without a proper
health system, China does, but without a decent public education system? most Americans don't
know where Portugal or Belgium is placed, no matter black or white...
ceshawn 6 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:31 PM
Trump didn't do this. The irrational reaction to Trump did this. It started with the
now-fully mythological Russia-gate nonsense (that started with an almost ridiculously made up
FISA warrant application). Continued through constant over-the-top challenges by Democrats of
Trump following Obama-era laws (separation of children and adults for illegal border
crossings) and the clear obstruction used by opponents during his entire Presidency. Trump
was a disaster, Biden will be a nightmare (or a complete liar), but the left shouldn't be
complaining when the reaction to their candidate is equally as disturbing as their reaction
to the right (and yes, the circus that was the "raid" at the Capitol is just as bad as the
intel community doing shady things against a sitting President).
Ronj14848 ceshawn 1 hour ago 15 Jan, 2021 07:27 PM
Trump didnt start new wars......but he has created a situation that foriegn wars will spring
from his actions. He has created hate for a country that during the second world war was a
much loved country.
billy brown ceshawn 4 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 03:36 PM
What could the 'rioters' do? We aren't going to let them poison us anymore. This election
will not be stolen and the new patriot act isn't going to get passed quietly. They are going
to have to crush us or allow a partition of the country
ceshawn 5 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:36 PM
If I were Russia or China, I would be watching carefully. Biden almost HAS to go after Russia
over the Crimean disaster of Obama and China will be his easy-out enemy if things are
complicated otherwise. North Korea will somehow become a big deal again as well. Let those
missiles fly, because the incoming administration has a proven track record of blowing up
innocent women and children for "funsies" (drone strikes on "suspected" terrorists...oh and
their families) without any form of due process or care for the safety of collateral damage.
Ronj14848 ceshawn 58 minutes ago 15 Jan, 2021 07:36 PM
True...the media support the military industrial complex. Their friends own the miltary
industrial complex . See who they support politically and avoid them like the plague.
Ronnie Spelbos ceshawn 2 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 06:04 PM
if I was Russia or an Eastern European nation I would offer asylum to white heterosexual men
and their families who want to leave the US. Take advantage of the brain capital and work
ethic of this group. The US is no country for white men.
Ohhho 6 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 01:41 PM
The Evil empire felt vulnerable so it lashed out with vengeance! None if it helps to fix the
issues behind the problem so I expect to see more of it in the near future!
TheFishh Ohhho 5 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 03:32 PM
There are literally just a few things the US can do to rebound as a decent country, but the
establishment doesn't want to make those moves. They rather see everything collapse than see
their wealth and power decreased by any amount.
OneHorseGuy 6 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:17 PM
"79% of Americans think the US is falling apart" those not accounted for are possibly
homeless or illiterate and don't have the opportunity of putting their view forward.
Ronnie Spelbos OneHorseGuy 2 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 06:02 PM
102% think the US is falling apart - cites Dominion.
newswithoutbord OneHorseGuy 6 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:31 PM
Spot on, mate!
RTaccount 6 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:22 PM
There will be no peace, no unity, and no prosperity. And there shouldn't be.
TheFishh RTaccount 4 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 03:38 PM
The US regimes past and present have worn out their bag of tricks. A magician is a con-man.
And the only way they can entertain and spellbind the crowd with their routines is if
everyone just ignores the sleight of hand. But people are starting to call the US out for the
tricks it is pulling, and that's where the magician's career ends.
omyomy RTaccount 5 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:54 PM
We the sane people know who is picking a fight. No matter what the propaganda outlets decree.
Tor Gjesdal 6 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:18 PM
79%,sure? OK. Very soon 85% of Westerners will understand their Countries are heading for
failures. They have been deceived for way too long.
Twenty Tor Gjesdal 5 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 03:23 PM
The alternative to western governments is dictators, one party rule. Yes, most western
governmental concepts are idealistic, but we wouldn't trade for anything else because we know
better.
JIMI JAMES Tor Gjesdal 6 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:31 PM
0 covid cases,i dont think so.
soumalinna1 4 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 03:36 PM
Correct. America will never be the same again. Democrats and CNN destroyed a once great
nation.
Ronnie Spelbos soumalinna1 2 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 06:06 PM
The 1965 Immigration Act destroyed the US. A country too diverse with little in common was
always bound the fall apart.
Drayk soumalinna1 3 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 04:42 PM
So now that BLM and ANTIFA have been implicated with the events of Jan 6th in DC, can we
just say it was a mostly peaceful protest and everyone can go on to the next manufactured
crisis?
"... They all laughed and Schummer said " What qualifications do you have to join us" the old man said. " I am old, sick and suffer from dementia" ..."
An old man went to Congress and ask to see Pelosi, Schummer and Biden, at first they refused
but he insisted and they felt sorry for him and took him in. Pelosi ask him "Why did you come
to Washington". He said " I want to join you in Congress".
They all laughed and Schummer said "
What qualifications do you have to join us" the old man said. " I am old, sick and suffer from
dementia"
In their efforts to expunge the Trump movement from memory let alone existence, these
neo-Stalinists are hellbent on nullifying constitutionally guaranteed rights – freedom of
speech, freedom of assembly, and the right to bear arms are under assault.
In place of the Bill of Rights, they would impose a Bill of Don'ts:
Don't say what we don't want to hear.
Don't gather where we don't allow, especially if you are a 'deplorable'.
Don't bother petitioning for grievances, because we don't care. Don't own weapons and don't
defend yourself when you or your property are attacked, even as the police are defunded.
Don't tell us about your right to privacy because our right to surveil you supersedes
it.
Don't tell us you have the right to confront the witnesses aligned against you, or see the
evidence alleged against you, or to present evidence and witnesses in your own defense. That's
your white privilege speaking, and we will not tolerate hate speech.
Don't expect us to be bound by due process or the rule of law. Feelings and desired outcomes
trump facts and rules, both of which are tools of oppression, relics of the fascist
patriarchy.
Don't object, or we will cancel you entirely from these Disunited States of Woketopia.
And first and foremost, don't dare have the temerity to question election results that have
handed us uncontested power.
Only authoritarians sanction this state of affairs. The harm they will do, as they neglect
and inflict further pain on the Republic, will be immeasurable. The nation is failing, not
merely because it is divided, but because a contingent has rejected its foundational
principles. That contingent is now in control.
Those are not students. Those are young neoliberals ;-) Or may be intensive studies exhausted them so that they are reaching a point of mental
stupification.
I feel like I'm in the book "The Giver" and I'm just now seeing how brain washed we all are. We're spoon fed shit by pretty
people on tv and are expected to accept it as the only truth we'll ever need.
Pelosi is an epitome of America - exceptionalism, incompetence, vindictiveness and total lack
of self awareness. It's like looking at yourself in the mirror and hating what you see.
Cop shoots lady in the back. Lady who is no threat to him at all. She is entering a small
hallway where there are three or more cops with rifles. The situation is completely under
control and a lady gets shot in the back.
And still no one is nervous, no one takes cover. They all just stand there. Cop who flouts
all rules has just discharged his firearm for no good reason ...
Posted by: oldhippie | Jan 15 2021 11:42 utc | 94
On the basis of other video of police shootings, fatal and found blameless by prosecutors
and/or grand juries, the cop action was more justified than most. For example, it is more
typical that the deceased citizen is shot in the back while trying to escape, frontally in
the chest while immobilized etc. The lady was advancing at the cop, momentarily with her
behind first, and looked quite a bit more fit. She was squeezing through a window in a door
panel that was cleared from glass mostly by others. Perhaps she took the initiative being
slimmer then the majority of the crowd -- the crowd and the cops "looked like America", i.e.
mostly chubby. Yea, that meant that most of them would not repeat what she was doing.
What I am trying to say is that the shooting was FULLY within de-facto norms in U.S.A.
Cops have an absolute right to be panicking beyond reason in a wide variety of situation, and
I never read about cops being instructed to shoot first at body parts that do not cause death
and to stop shooting once the target cannot move. For example, the target tries to open the
door of his own dwelling while keeping in the other hand a dangerously looking sandwich. I
bet he was shot in the back, but we are not suppose to second guess split second decisions
motivated by the defense of lives of common people.
"Shame, shame on the ten Republicans who joined with Speaker Pelosi & the House
Democrats in impeaching President Trump yesterday," Graham tweeted on Thursday.
"After all that he has done for our country, you would turn your back & betray him so
quickly? What was done yesterday only further divides our nation."
In a separate Facebook post, Graham, a longtime influential supporter of the president,
further elaborated on his disappointment.
House Democrats impeached him because they "hate him and want to do as much damage as
they can," he wrote. "And these ten, from [Trump's] own party, joined in the feeding
frenzy. It makes you wonder what the thirty pieces of silver were that [Democratic House]
Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi promised for this betrayal."
The Putsch Govt and Tech & Media Oligarchs are "Riding the Tiger"
The reason I'm laughing, is because Joe and the deep state are exposing themselves for
who they are, a bunch of corrupt government officials who don't have the support of the
citizens.
Joe is going to have a really hard time unless they institutionalize the election
fraud and continue it, which is my biggest fear because it means we've become a corrupt
banana republic, and poverty will quickly ensue.
Big government brings poverty to the
public (and riches to the deep state) while freedom (i.e., small government that just
protects our freedoms, rather than socialism that promises to provide for us but instead
brings government forcing us to work) brings prosperity to the people.
"... In The Transparency Project v. Department of Justice, et al., my client asked to see records indicating whether the CIA or its Directorate of Digital Innovation, its contractors, etc. inserted Russian "fingerprints" into the metadata of the emails that were released publicly. (You can review the entire request by clicking here and reading Paragraph 11). ..."
"... In a joint report filed today , the CIA informed the court that it intends to assert a Glomar response to the request, i.e., that it "cannot confirm or deny" the existence of such records. . . . [In other words], The Central Intelligence Agency will neither confirm nor deny that it fabricated the Russian "fingerprints" in Democratic National Committee emails published in 2016 by Wikileaks and "Guccifer 2.0.", and the FBI implicitly acknowledged today that it never reviewed the contents of DNC employee Seth Rich's laptop despite gaining custody of the laptop after his murder. ..."
In The Transparency Project v. Department of Justice, et al., my client asked to see
records indicating whether the CIA or its Directorate of Digital Innovation, its contractors,
etc. inserted Russian "fingerprints" into the metadata of the emails that were released
publicly. (You can review the entire request by
clicking here and reading Paragraph 11).
In a joint
report filed today , the CIA informed the court that it intends to assert a Glomar
response to the request, i.e., that it "cannot confirm or deny" the existence of such
records. . . . [In other words], The Central Intelligence Agency will neither confirm nor
deny that it fabricated the Russian "fingerprints" in Democratic National Committee emails
published in 2016 by Wikileaks and "Guccifer 2.0.", and the FBI implicitly acknowledged today
that it never reviewed the contents of DNC employee Seth Rich's laptop despite gaining
custody of the laptop after his murder.
Full disclosure--Mr. Clevenger is a friend of mine. He writes in his article that he reached
out to me and I made some phone calls to retired friends who held senior positions at the CIA.
My friends and I agreed that a GLOMAR response to the basic question, Did you spy on Mr.
Butowsky and/or Mr. Couch was a tacit admission-yes! Ty explains this point clearly and
succinctly:
Allow me to illustrate the point. If I asked the CIA for intercepted emails from the
president of another country, the CIA would rightly issue a Glomar response, because
it would not want to confirm or deny that it has been spying on the foreign president. That's
what Glomar is for, because the CIA is in the business of secretly spying
on foreign presidents, officials, agents, etc.
My client's request, on the other hand, is more akin to asking the CIA for records showing
whether it helped Lee Harvey Oswald assassinate President John F. Kennedy. We would expect
the CIA to declare that it has no such records because it would never do such a thing.
Why would the CIA spy on Mr. Butowsky, for example. Ed Butowsky was brought into the Seth
Rich saga in December 2016 by Ellen Ratner, the sister-in-law of Julian Assange's former
lawyer. Ellen spoke with Julian in November 2016 and asked Mr. Butowsky to reach out to the
parents of Seth Rich and get them some help investigating who murdered their son.
It should come as no surprise that the CIA, the NSA and Britain's GCHQ were monitoring every
communication going in and out of Wikileaks, including all communications of all personnel
working at or associated with Wikileaks.
We know this thanks to the evidence and writings of Mr. Edward Snowden. Once Snowden made
his escape to Russia with the help of Wikileaks, Wikileaks became a number one intelligence
target.
Both the United States and the United Kingdom had ample cause to ensure that no new secrets
leaked out of Wiki and caught them unawares. In light of the comprehensive monitoring of all
Wiki communications, I believe the intel folks knew exactly the contents of Ratner's chat with
Assange, which ultimately led them to Ed (i.e, Ellen Ratner talked to Julian and then talked to
Ed to relay a request from Julian to help the Rich family).
Now that
Donald Trump has finally released FBI documents on Russiagate (I do not know if there are
any CIA documents in the pile), we shall see what the FBI had to say about Mr. Rich. Too bad
the President waited so long to do this. If he had forced the issue last year the plot to steal
the 2020 election might have been disrupted.
JOKES. Just heard this one: I can make anti-Putin jokes on Russian social media. So, what, I
can make anti-Putin jokes on Western social media. (A re-tread of a Soviet-era joke). Or this:
Due to travel restrictions abroad, Americans have done a coup at home.
A major scandal is unfolding in the US naval community. It turned out that a whole class
of ships, on which America had pinned great hopes a couple of decades ago, turned out to be
utterly incapable of combat. What exactly are the problems with these ships? Why did they
only show up now? What does the massive corruption in the United States have to do with what
is happening?
Political events in the United States have overshadowed everything that happens in this
country. Including one event related to the Navy, which would indeed have exploded.
We are talking about a whole type of warships, both already delivered to the US Navy, and
those still under construction – the so-called Littoral combat ship (LCS) of the
Freedom type. And it's not that they're useless. And not at the prohibitive cost. And not
even that the gearboxes of the ship's main power plant (GEM) do not withstand the maximum
stroke, and with the speed of 47 knots, which was the ridge of this project, he will never be
able to walk – they also resigned themselves to this.
But at the end of 2020, it turned out that they generally cannot move faster than a dry
cargo ship for more or less a long time. That is, it is not just scrapping metal; it is also
almost stationary scrap metal.
I'm not sure about that. Seems to me you can always count on them to overplay their hand.
They lack the true artist's sense of when to quit, and they don't trust anyone to draw their
own conclusions. So you get these apocalyptic remarks about 'assaulting the very temple of
Democracy!' or similar nonsense, when everyone can see it was a bunch of hooligans acting out
in a demonstration that got too rowdy.
The smart thing would be to just let it slide - ignore him, treat him as something humorous
and irrelevant - and just move on. Treat it like 'this was unpleasant, but we've got more
important things to worry about'. In other words, defuse things. The one thing Trump has
always tried to be is the center of attention - so the best way of punishing him is to
relegate him to obscurity.
It is especially stupid to let the impeachment trial continue past the inauguration - it will
compete for attention with Biden's legislative agenda and you can count on Trump to drag it
out as long as possible. It is also open to challenge on constitutional grounds.
Thanks to the following website I am reminded of something I hardly remember today. Back on
November 7, 1983 the Senate was BOMBED !!!!
"[M19 member Susan] Rosenberg, sentenced to 58 years on explosives charges, was pardoned
by President Bill Clinton on his last day in office. [M19 member] Judith Clark, convicted of
murder in the Brinks case, had her sentence commuted by Gov. Andrew Cuomo "
"Susan Rosenberg [long after Bill Clinton pardoned her] has served as vice chair of the
board of directors for Thousand Currents, an organization that provides fundraising and
fiscal sponsorship for the Black Lives Matter Global Movement ."
"... "There is an ongoing investigation into Hunter Biden's laptop in being bought and paid for by Chinese communist energy companies," she continued ..."
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to Newsmax TV: Filing to Impeach Joe Biden
"I would like to announce on behalf of the American people, we have to make sure that our
leaders are held accountable. We cannot have a president of the United States that is willing
to abuse the power of the office of the presidency and be easily bought off by foreign
governments, Chinese energy companies, Ukrainian energy companies."
"We don't need a man serving in the presidency of the United States who is guilty of
committing the crime of abuse of power and is under investigation with Hunter Biden's laptop,
his very own son."
"There is an ongoing investigation into Hunter Biden's laptop in being bought and paid for
by Chinese communist energy companies," she continued
All last year we were hearing how Huawei is a threat to US national security. Chinese
state operatives would insert spyware into Huawei networking equipment. The software that
runs on Huawei equipment is open source and open to inspections. It is unlikely to contain
hidden threats. But similar backdoors and spy gates are sure to exist on Western
equipment.
The real threat to US "security" comes from the US not being able to install their spyware
on European networks.
It seems that a massive US spy operation has just been exposed. The US presidential
elections have overshadowed this from the news, but at the end of December this was the top
story in the US. Allegedly "Russian hackers" had infiltrated US government organizations.
According to Lou Dobbs on Fox News this was a new Pearl Harbor.
The story broke out in mid December when the cyber security company FireEye noticed that
their servers had been attacked and the code for their Red Team assessment tools had been
stolen. They soon discovered that the attack had utilized a backdoor in SolarWind's Orion IT
monitoring and management software. FireEye called it a supply-chain attack.
There are several layers of misinformation in the way the Western media reported this.
Supposedly 18,000 organizations were attacked. This is the number of users of the
SolarWinds network management software. No evidence has been presented that any of these
organizations were actually attacked.
The attackers were supposedly Russian. Cyber attribution is usually impossible. It
could as well have been the NSA or CIA acting as "Russians". Actually no technical analysis
has ever been presented that points the attack to Russia. The whole Russia story was
invented by the media or by their masters in the US Intelligence Community.
The real story not in how US government organizations were possibly attacked, but in
how the spyware found its way into the SolarWinds source code in the first place.
The spyware was part of the source code for the "BusinessLayer.dll" shared library. I find
it impossible that the spyware code was somehow inserted from Russia. It is likewise far
fetched to assume that some Russian mole was working for SolarWinds and secretly inserting
spyware into the source code. No such mole has been arrested. It is more likely that the
malware was inserted by US actors.
This "sophisticated supply chain attack" would have been impossible without US insiders in
the company. Most likely the whole software team was compromised. The attack vector must have
been part of the specification of the software. Proof of this comes from the fact that it has
taken several weeks and SolarWinds still has not fixed the problem. The spyware must be so
embedded and intertwined with the rest of the software that they would not know what to
remove. Instead, they said their "investigations are early and ongoing". They have the source
code, yet they have not published any part of it.
No links in this post. I have collected some links and
sources on my wiki.
"Many of us are altering our routines, working to get body armor, which is a reimbursable
purchase that we can make," Meijer told MSNBC in a Thursday interview.
Dennis Wayne Pennenga 3 hours ago 14 Jan, 2021 06:05 PM
Better wear helmets too.
Paulino Avina Dennis Wayne Pennenga 1 hour ago 14 Jan, 2021 08:29 PM
How does that work after Trump has already resigned? This is just childish idiocy, in fact
much worse. Does this mean that Biden/Harris have no other policies than being anti Trump? So
now they want to make him a martyr? This looks like it is going to blow up in their faces,
figuratively or literally.
Trump's 2nd impeachment: what it reminds me of is the impeachment of Andrew Johnson during
reconstruction, a lot of historical resonance there, the bitterness, the desire to undo as
much as possible, and I'd say that this now is in some sense unfinished business from back
then.
"...Fellow-Satanists, honored guests, ladies and gentlemen! The year 2020 has been a
banner year for our society and for His Satanic Majesty! [Applause]
Our major success of 2020, of course, was in locking down half the planet by hyping a
not-too-dangerous respiratory virus that's mostly dangerous for the old and the sick with the
help of Satanic Minion Tedros Adhanom Boutros-Boutros-Boutros Ghebreyesus at our affiliate
World Health Organization. This has allowed us to proactively set in motion a controlled
demolition of the global economy. It stands to greatly enrich our members, whereas the
inevitable spontaneous collapse would have wiped us out. [Enthusiastic applause, shouts of
"Bravo!"]
Still, we must not grow complacent; the virus ploy will stop working for us at some point.
We do not want to find ourselves in the situation of a Boutros-Boutros-Boutros who cried wolf
one time too many! The hype is wearing off already. The use of the term "lockdown" was
unfortunate; after all, it is US prison slang for locking inmates in their cells. Plus those
damnable Russians seem to have developed their Sputnik-V, a vaccine that actually works. Now
everybody seems to want it instead of our preferred toxic, fertility-destroying potions.
Still, it brought tears of joy to many a Satanist's face watching millions of people wear
face masks and stand 1,5 meters apart just as shown in Stanley Kubrik's excellent film "Eyes
Wide Shut" starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. [Confused looks; some stifled guffaws, a
smattering of applause]..." http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2020/12/world-satanic-society-2020-year-end.html#more
Across the nation, Americans are peacefully protesting to demand an end to the pattern of
racial injustice and police brutality that has killed so many innocent Americans, as we saw
most recently in the murder of George Floyd.
It is alarming that here in our nation's capital, the thousands who have turned out
peacefully have been confronted with the deployment of various security officers from
multiple jurisdictions, including unidentified federal law enforcement personnel.
We have seen soldiers on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. We have witnessed Bureau of
Prisons officers in Lafayette Square. We have seen National Park Service officers hassling
peaceful protestors. Several states have deployed members of their National Guard to D.C.
This is in addition to the FBI and other security forces operating in our nation's
capital.
We are concerned about the increased militarization and lack of clarity that may increase
chaos. I am writing to request a full list of the agencies involved and clarifications of the
roles and responsibilities of the troops and federal law enforcement resources operating in
the city. Congress and the American people need to know who is in charge, what is the chain
of command, what is the mission, and by what authority is the National Guard from other
states operating in the capital.
To make matters worse, some officers have refused to provide identification and have been
deployed without identifying insignias, badges and name plates. The practice of officers
operating with full anonymity undermines accountability, ignites government distrust and
suspicion, and is counter to the principle of procedural justice and legitimacy during this
precarious moment in our nation's history.
The Department of Justice itself in the past has stated that allowing officers to work
anonymously creates "mistrust and undermines accountability" and "conveys a message to
community members that, through anonymity, officers may seek to act with impunity." In recent
days, many former high-level DOJ officials have echoed these concerns and warned that
allowing federal law enforcement officers to operate without identification can fatally
weaken oversight efforts and fails to send the message that abuse will not be tolerated.
As peaceful people all over the country turn out to honor the memory of George Floyd and
protest for change, we must ensure that their safety and their constitutional rights are
being respected.
Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.
Sincerely,
NANCY PELOSI
Speaker of the House
Besides the obvious irony, the funniest part of this letter is that Pelosi calls crowds
that took control over parts of cities, caused over $1bn in damage, and cost the lives of
over a dozen people "peaceful"...
The DemonRats still have a week and could impeach him for a 3rd time! Like a hat trick in
hockey!
MongoStraight 4 hours ago remove link
Look! Orange Man bad! Stop looking at those pesky election irregularities!
Art_Vandelay 4 hours ago remove link
I'm glad everyone is enjoying the theater. They have to keep the masses focused on this
soap opera. Double the homelessness is not good optics during this great depression.
Speaker Pelosi names Rep. Eric Swalwell among Trump impeachment managers
boyplunger7777 1 hour ago (Edited)
Eric "Fang Fang" Swalwell leading the impeachment committee. If this doesn't say it all
about how Dems have betrayed the average American I do not know what does. Americans will not
forget this.
Thierry Meyssan:
...Blinded, the rest of the world did not see that the United States has reverted to what it
was in the first four years of its foundation: an oligarchic system, this time in the service
of a class of international billionaires. https://www.voltairenet.org/article211917.html
re: "Many protesters were recorded saying that the Capitol building belonged to the
people, not to the people working in it on behalf of the people. They are right."
The Clintonites touted (Trump) "not my president" . Well it's our turn now,
"Biden-not our President!' and like a wedding and marriage, the biblical phrase, "the two
become one" applies therefor, Harris isn't either!
Did I hear someone say, nuclear codes? Hello, America you've just muscled into office a
senile old dote who can't put two sentences together he's got his shaky finger the button
now
The Saker is capable of superb writing when he chains his inner imp and refuses to indulge
his adolescent GI Joe fantasies.
The essential question is: can Americans who do not understand Marxism or socialism
– and who seem in self-conscious refusal to understand – to be in a persistent,
calorie-burning state of willful ignorance and stupidity – can such Americans
self-govern?
@obwandiyag tol false
flag). This will be a Soviet-style gerontocracy with senile figureheads pretending to be in
power (think Biden vs Chernenko here). Looking at the old, Obama-era, names which are
circulated now for future Cabinet positions, we can bet on two things: the new rulers will be
as evil as they will be grossly incompetent, mostly due to their crass lack of education
(even Nuland and Psaki are back, it appears!). The Biden admin will be similar to the rule of
Kerensky in "democratic" Russia: chaos, violence, lots and lots of speeches and total social
and economic chaos. The next crucial, and even frightening, question now is: what will
replace this US version of a Kerensky regime?
The best we can hope for from President Biden's administration, is possibly a UBI of
$1,200/month granted to the legacy white populace. That guaranteed income would allow those
racists a modest diet, heat in the winter, some gasoline to drive their vehicles and some
basic medical care.
Joseph Biden has been in public service now for nearly 60 years. He's seen the
inequalities, the systemic racism throughout his career. The nation is fortunate that he's
still alive and possesses the energy and conviction to finally change things.
He's a wonderful man, with a gigantic heart and the will to put this country right. Also,
his spouse, Dr. Jill Biden, along with their son, Hunter (an heroic figure himself) will
guide the nation forward.
Pompeo's last shouts before he competes with Condie Rice on making conferences about
'evil' and 'nefarious' Iran.
Trump and Pompeo are now deflated balloons...
Pictures are self-explanatory. Google translation of texts under them follows Pictures are self-explanatory. Google translation of texts under them follows
The moment a group of people stormed the Capitol building last Wednesday, news companies
began the process of sorting and commoditizing information that long ago became standard in
American media.
Media firms work backward. They first ask, "How does our target demographic want to
understand what's just unfolded?" Then they pick both the words and the facts they want to
emphasize.
What happened last Wednesday was the apotheosis of the Hate Inc . era, when
this audience-first model became the primary means of communicating facts to the population.
For a hundred reasons dating back to the mid-eighties, from the advent of the Internet to the
development of the 24-hour news cycle to the end of the Fairness Doctrine and the Fox -led
discovery that news can be sold as character-driven, episodic TV in the manner of soap operas,
the concept of a "Just the facts" newscast designed to be consumed by everyone died out.
News companies now clean world events like whalers, using every part of the animal,
funneling different facts to different consumers based upon calculations about what will bring
back the biggest engagement kick. The Migrant Caravan? Fox slices off comments from a Homeland
Security official describing most of the border-crossers as single adults coming for "
economic
reasons. " The New York Times counters by running a story about how the caravan was deployed as
a political issue by a Trump White House staring at poor results in midterm elections.
Repeat this info-sifting process a few billion times and this is how we became, as none
other than Mitch McConnell
put it last week , a country:
Drifting apart into two separate tribes, with a separate set of facts and separate
realities, with nothing in common except our hostility towards each other and mistrust for
the few national institutions that we all still share.
The flaw in the system is that even the biggest news companies now operate under the
assumption that at least half their potential audience isn't listening. This leads to all sorts
of problems, and the fact that the easiest way to keep your own demographic is to feed it
negative stories about others is only the most obvious. On all sides, we now lean into
inflammatory caricatures, because the financial incentives encourage it.
Everyone monetized Trump. The Fox wing surrendered to the Trump phenomenon from the start,
abandoning its supposed fealty to "family values" from the Megyn Kelly incident on. Without a
thought, Rupert Murdoch sacrificed the paper-thin veneer of pseudo-respectability Fox had
always maintained up to a point (that point being the moment advertisers started to bail in
horror, as they did with Glenn Beck ). He
reinvented Fox as a platform for Trump's conspiratorial brand of cartoon populism, rather than
let some more-Fox-than-Fox imitator like OAN sell the
ads to Trump's voters for four years.
In between its titillating quasi-porn headlines ("
Lesbian Prison Gangs Waiting To Get Hands on Lindsay Lohan, Inmate Says " is one from years
ago that stuck in my mind), Fox 's business model has long been based on scaring the crap out
of aging Silent Majority viewers with a parade of anything-but-the-truth explanations for
America's decline. It villainized immigrants, Muslims, the new Black Panthers,
environmentalists -- anyone but ADM, Wal-Mart, Countrywide, JP Morgan Chase, and other sponsors
of Fortress America. Donald Trump was one of the people who got hooked on Fox's narrative.
The rival media ecosystem chose cash over truth also. It could have responded to the last
election by looking harder at the tensions they didn't see coming in Trump's America, which
might have meant a more intense examination of the problems that gave Trump his opening: the
jobs that never came back after bankers and retailers decided to move them to unfree labor
zones in places like China, the severe debt and addiction crises, the ridiculous contradiction
of an expanding international military garrison manned by a population fast losing belief in
the mission, etc., etc.
Instead, outlets like CNN and MSNBC took a Fox-like approach, downplaying issues in favor of
shoving Trump's agitating personality in the faces of audiences over and over, to the point
where many people could no longer think about anything else. To juice ratings, the Trump story
-- which didn't need the slightest exaggeration to be fantastic -- was more or less constantly
distorted.
Trump began to be described as a cause of America's problems, rather than a symptom, and his
followers, every last one, were demonized right along with him, in caricatures that tickled the
urbane audiences of channels like CNN but made conservatives want to reach for something sharp.
This technique was borrowed from Fox , which learned in the Bush years that you could boost
ratings by selling audiences on the idea that their liberal neighbors were terrorist traitors.
Such messaging worked better by far than bashing al-Qaeda, because this enemy was closer,
making the hate more real.
I came into the news business convinced that the traditional "objective" style of reporting
was boring, deceptive, and deserving of mockery. I used to laugh at the parade of "above the
fray" columnists and stone-dull house editorials that took no position on anything and always
ended, "Only one thing's for sure: time will tell." As a teenager I was struck by a passage in
Tim Crouse's book about the 1972 presidential campaign, The Boys in the Bus, describing the
work of Hunter Thompson:
Thompson had the freedom to describe the campaign as he actually experienced it: the
crummy hotels, the tedium of the press bus, the calculated lies of the press secretaries, the
agony of writing about the campaign when it seemed dull and meaningless, the hopeless
fatigue. When other reporters went home, their wives asked them, "What was it really like?"
Thompson's wife knew from reading his pieces.
What Rolling Stone did in giving a political reporter the freedom to write about the
banalities of the system was revolutionary at the time. They also allowed their writer to be a
sides-taker and a rooter, which seemed natural and appropriate because biases end up in media
anyway. They were just hidden in the traditional dull "objective" format.
The problem is that the pendulum has swung so far in the opposite direction of politicized
hot-taking that reporters now lack freedom in the opposite direction, i.e. the freedom to
mitigate.
If you work in conservative media, you probably felt tremendous pressure all November to
stay away from information suggesting Trump lost the election. If you work in the other
ecosystem, you probably feel right now that even suggesting what happened last Wednesday was
not a coup in the literal sense of the word (e.g. an attempt at seizing power with an actual
chance of success) not only wouldn't clear an editor, but might make you suspect in the eyes of
co-workers, a potentially job-imperiling problem in this environment.
We need a new media channel, the press version of a third party, where those financial
pressures to maintain audience are absent. Ideally, it would:
not be aligned with either Democrats or Republicans;
employ a Fairness Doctrine-inspired approach that discourages groupthink and requires at
least occasional explorations of alternative points of view;
embrace a utilitarian mission stressing credibility over ratings, including by;
operating on a distribution model that as much as possible doesn't depend upon the
indulgence of Apple, Google, and Amazon.
Innovations like Substack are great for opinionated individual voices like me, but what's
desperately needed is an institutional reporting mechanism that has credibility with the whole
population. That means a channel that sees its mission as something separate from politics, or
at least as separate from politics as possible.
The media used to derive its institutional power from this perception of separateness.
Politicians feared investigation by the news media precisely because they knew audiences
perceived them as neutral arbiters.
Now there are no major commercial outlets not firmly associated with one or the other
political party. Criticism of Republicans is as baked into New York Times coverage as the
lambasting of Democrats is at Fox, and politicians don't fear them as much because they know
their constituents do not consider rival media sources credible. Probably, they don't even read
them. Echo chambers have limited utility in changing minds.
Media companies need to get out of the audience-stroking business, and by extension the
politics business. They'd then be more likely to be believed when making pronouncements about
elections or masks or anything else, for that matter. Creating that kind of outlet also has a
much better shot of restoring sanity to the country than the current strategy, which seems
based on stamping out access to "wrong" information.
What we've been watching for four years, and what we saw explode last week, is a paradox: a
political and informational system that profits from division and conflict, and uses a
factory-style process to stimulate it, but professes shock and horror when real conflict
happens. It's time to admit this is a failed system. You can't sell hatred and seriously expect
it to end.
Parler has not only been deplatformed from the App store, it was deplatformed by Google,
amazon (AWS), and their email provider, and their lawyers.
" Additional precise and specific actions must also be taken: Reveal who is paying for
advertisements, how....." said Mozilla, and it looks like a number of people followed
instructions .
That'll keep them in line. Notice the narrative of the media that kept us informed of the
mostly peaceful blah, blah, blah all summer long?
We are about to participate in "The Great Experiment V. 2.0" in my opinion. This decides
which of the Georges, Washington and Orwell, is right. My money is on Orwell for a reason I
will tell you later.
...The checks and balances have been replaced with (Bank) checks and (Bank) balances. The
richest men in the world are overseeing this experiment which is going global quicker than you
can say"Google". They are enabled by the University academics who as Raymond Asquith once
observed are always prepared to provide an intellectual justification for vile acts if the
price is right and journalists will laud said acts to the heavens as decent, moral doings if
they want a paycheck next week from their masters.
The Legislature is bought. The Executive is bought. The Supreme Court are ninnies...
... And you enabled all this yourselves. When you applauded the Patriot Act. When you
cheered at the vilification of muslims, "sand niggers", "rag heads". When you justified the use
of torture. When you masturbated watching targeting videos of drone strikes on Afghans. When
you credulously watched fantasies on television about "Irans nuclear threat". When you listened
and watched uncritically (or perhaps with secret pleasure) as the media lied to you
breathlessly about the President disporting himself on a urine soaked bed with Russian hookers.
Where was your sense of outrage then? Every time you deny the humanity and human rights of
anyone, no matter how vile they be, you are destroying your own rights.
Investigators at the Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky said the "backdoor" used to
compromise up to 18,000 customers of the US software maker SolarWinds closely
resembled malware tied to a hacking group known as Turla, which Estonian
authorities have said operates on behalf of Russia's FSB security service.
So, the backdoor "resembles" a tool that is only "tied to" a hacking group which "Estonian
authorities" "have said" (i.e. claim without evidence) serves the FSB.
This is not the first time The Guardian uses absurd extrapolations to create a big fat
lie. Last week, it put a criminal headline - with potentially grave consequences on public
opinion and geopolitics - stating China had refused to receive a WHO team to investigate the
origins of the SARS-CoV-2. China defused the fake news by releasing on its own MSM that they
were still making the arrangements of the visit - which will happen this Thursday -, not that
it had blocked the WHO.
What did The Guardian want to achieved with that headline? Prepare the British people for
war against China? Are they insane?
Mentioning Estonia at any time would indicate pure unmitigated BS. But mentioning BOTH
Estonia and the Grauniad in the one post is just painfully obvious that the entire story is
bollocks.
The notion "presstitute" is likely far off, in that it is still too flattering.
What kind of promiscuous garden tool variety would you deem appropriate, if I may
enquire?
There is reason for some optimism for the future of White Americans, if not for the USA.
Yesterday was the proudest day of my entire life! When I saw those patriots, a great many of
them middle aged people just like myself, march on the capitol and demand entry, I saw that
the survival instinct of my fellow Americans may have been dormant, but it is not dead. It is
now awakened and nothing will put it back to sleep now.
We embark now upon an epic struggle against powerful dark forces but at least now we will
play on a field where our numbers can be brought to bear. We are the many, they the few. We
will win this war, though I fear the cost is going to be greater than any struggle this
nation has ever had to grapple with.
This will be my last post online. It is not safe to do this any longer. But please,
continue with your work so long as you can do so in safety Dr. Roberts. It is more important
now than ever. Thank you and Goodbye.
They have converted this into a sort of Reichstag fire characteristic of fascist regimes
consolidating power. Now they are labelling all opponents terrorists. They must be hoping to
incite a civil war before the opposition can adequately organize and mobilize and consolidate a
21st century version of politically correct fascism where the prejudice is against the normal
and the traditional majority.
I think the Nobel Prize for medicine should go to the Canadian scientist who just isolated
Covid by discovering it's most dangerous outside from 8pm to 5am. Thus the current curfew in
Quebec, with Ontario joining shortly.
Second nominee: to the medical staff that discovered there's no Covid in big box
stores.
'It has been an epiphany for the world to see that there are people in our country led by
this president, for the moment, who have chosen their whiteness over democracy,' Pelosi
said."
I don't think people around the world think what happened at the capital was about
whiteness. It's really too bad the Democratic Party leadership has such a simplistic view. It
also shows how anti-white some white people can be and why they want so much immigration we
don't need.
"... During last year, many government buildings were taken over by Dem-sponsored BLM activists, and in not one case did the police use lethal weapons or even rush the protesters out of buildings. ..."
During last year, many government buildings were taken over by Dem-sponsored BLM
activists, and in not one case did the police use lethal weapons or even rush the protesters
out of buildings.
"Shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the locked King
Street entrance to the Capitol, chanting "Break down the door!" and "General strike!" Moments
later, police ceded control of the State Street doors and allowed the crowd to surge inside,
joining thousands who had already gathered in the Capitol to protest the votes. The area
outside the Assembly, which is scheduled to take the bill up at 11 a.m. today, was crowded
with protesters who chanted, "We're not leaving. Not this time."
Department of Administration spokesman Tim Donovan said although protesters were being
encouraged to leave, no one would be forcibly removed. Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said he had
instructed Police Chief Noble Wray not to allow his officers to participate in removing
demonstrators from the building."
Voice of America CEO Accused Of Fraud, Misuse Of Office All In One Week
Fresh crises and fresh challenges confront the Trump-appointed CEO of the parent of Voice
of America, even with less than two weeks left of the Trump presidency.
To start, the Attorney General of the District of Columbia this week accused U.S. Agency
for Global Media CEO Michael Pack of illegally funneling more than $4 million to his private
documentary company through a not-for-profit that he also controls.
"The city of Detroit gave 95 per cent of its vote to Biden/Kamala, a number that Mr Kim
Jong-un would view with slight envy, while Mr Lukashenko would murmur, "How can it be done?"
It is highly likely this mind-boggling result was achieved in the following way.
Detroit Dems outsourced ballot harvesting to local drug lords, offering them as a prize
– recreational marijuana business licenses. These licences are the best thing since a
licence to print money. Having such licenses is like having your own ATM. Here you can read
about their profitability and the lengths criminals will go to obtain them. Detroit Dems had
changed local laws allowing the sale of marijuana in their fine city (it was forbidden until
November 2020). They changed local laws prescribing the issuing of marijuana licences to drug
dealers with previous convictions for drug dealing.
They let drug lords out of jail. They changed local laws to allow ballot harvesting; that
is, collecting postal votes and assisting with the filling in of ballots.
After that, the drug dealers went around collecting postal ballots and filling them in
immediately, if they were conscientious, or just filling them in at their leisure, if feeling
lazy. They had a judge at their disposal, Cynthia Stephens, who single-handedly changed
Michigan election laws, and then rejected Trump's claims of fraud."
When neoliberal ideology is crumbling and the US neoliberal empire is in trouble, more tight
censorship is logical step for neoliberal elite, who does not care and never believed in
democracy for prols in any case. They are Trotskyites and their ideology is neoliberalism aka
"Trotskyism for the rich". Which like was the case with Bolshevism in the USSR means that it is
neo-feudalism for everybody else.
I never heard that feudal were concerned about freedom of speech for "deplorable". Only for
their own narrow circle.
Also the stability of the society is often more important then individual freedoms. That's
why in time of war, the press is forced to publish only official propaganda. So it is naive to
expect that in crisis, and the US society is currently in crisis, freedom of speech would be
respected. It will not. And Trump ban while cynical and illogical makes perfect sence for
neoliberal oligarchy.
The problem is that the US elite has not plan other the kicking the neoliberal can down the
road. And they intentionally polarized the society by promoting identity politics as a way to
preserve thier power and split masses into warring ethic or other groups.
Tech companies were once the primary tools of US "soft power" used to overthrow
authoritarian regimes by exporting 'digital democracy'. Now they employ the same tactics of
suppression as those regimes to silence dissent at home.
The permanent suspension of President Trump's Twitter account, carried out unilaterally and
devoid of any pretense of due process or appreciation of the First Amendment rights of Donald
Trump, represents a low moment in American history. Trump's ban was followed by a decision by
Google to de-platform Parler.com, a social media alternative to Twitter favored by many of
Trump's supporters. Apple also gave Parler a "24 hour warning" asking it to provide a
detailed moderation plan. Twitter, Google, Facebook (who also banned Trump) and the political
supporters of President-elect Joe Biden cite concerns that the content of the president's
Twitter account, along with exchanges among pro-Trump users of Parler, constituted an
"incitement of violence" risk that justified the actions taken.
In the aftermath of the storming of the Capitol by protesters seemingly motivated by the
words of President Trump, there is legitimate justification for concern over the link between
political violence and social media. But if history has taught us anything, the cure can be
worse than the disease, especially when it comes to the issue of constitutionally protected
freedom of speech.
This danger is illustrated by the actions of the former First Lady Michelle Obama who
has
publicly called for tech companies like Twitter and Facebook to permanently ban Trump from
their platforms and enact policies designed "to prevent their technology from being used by the
nation's leaders to fuel insurrection." The irony of the wife of the last American President
Barack Obama, who weaponized so-called digital democracy to export "Western democratic values"
in the struggle against authoritarian regimes, to turn to Twitter to release her message of
internet suppression, is striking. The fact that neither Michelle Obama nor those who extoll
her message see this irony is disturbing.
The Obama administration first sought to use 'digital democracy', the name given to policies
which aim to use web-based social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter as vehicles to
enhance the organization and activism of young people in repressive regimes to achieve American
policy objectives of regime change, during the 2009 Iranian presidential election. US 'digital
democracy' efforts anchored a carefully orchestrated campaign to promote the candidacy of Mir
Hossein Mousavi. These efforts included a phone call from a US State Department official, Jared
Cohen, to executives at Twitter to forgo a scheduled maintenance period and keep the lines in
and out of Iran open, under the premise that it was essential to make sure that digital
messages sent by Iranian dissidents got out to an international audience. Digital democracy
became privatized when its primary architect, Jared Cohen, left the State Department in
September 2010 to take a new position with internet giant Google as the head of 'Google Ideas'
now known as 'Jigsaw'. Jigsaw is a global initiative 'think tank' intended to "spearhead
initiatives to apply technology solutions to problems faced by the developing world." This
was the same job Cohen was doing while at the State Department.
Cohen promoted the notion of a "digital democracy contagion" based upon his belief that
the "young people in the Middle East are just a mouse click away, they're just a Facebook
connection away, they're just an instant message away, they're just a text message away" from
sufficiently organizing to effect regime change. Cohen and Google were heavily involved the
January 2011 demonstrations in Egypt, using social networking sites to call for demonstrations
and political reform; the "Egyptian contagion" version of 'digital democracy' phenomena was
fueled by social networking internet sites run by Egyptian youth groups which took a very
public stance opposing the Mubarak regime and calling for political reform.
The Iranian and Egyptian experiences in digital democracy-inspired regime change represent
the nexus of the weaponization of social media by tech giants such as Twitter and Google, and
the US government, which at the time was under the stewardship of Barack Obama and then-Vice
President Joe Biden. The fact that both the Iranian and Egyptian efforts failed only
underscores the nefarious nature of this relationship. The very tools and methodologies used by
Iranian and Egyptian authorities to counter US-sponsored "digital democracy" –
suppression through de-platforming – have now been taken up by Twitter, Google, and the
political allies of Joe Biden to silence Donald Trump and his supporters from protesting an
election they believe was every bit as "stolen" as the 2009 Iranian presidential election that
gave birth to 'digital democracy' in the first place.
In a recently published
report addressing the issue of internet freedom, Freedom House, a US government-funded
non-profit, non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on democracy,
political freedom, and human rights, observed that internet connectivity "is not a
convenience, but a necessity." Virtually all human activities, including political
socialization, have moved online. This new 'digital world', the report noted, "presents
distinct challenges for human rights and democratic governance" with "State and nonstate
actors shape online narratives, censor critical speech, and build new technological systems of
social control."
Freedom House was one of the supporters of 'digital democracy' in Iran and has been highly critical of
the actions by Iranian authorities to shut down and otherwise control internet connectivity
inside Iran. It noted that such tactics are indicative of a system that is "fearful of their
own people and worr[ies] that they cannot control the information space." In its report,
Freedom House wrote that "when civic organizing and political dissent overflow from the
realm of social media onto the streets dictators shut down networks to choke off any calls for
greater democracy and human rights."
In July 2019, the US 2nd District Court of Appeals ruling on Knight
First Amendment Institute v. Trump determined that President Trump's Twitter account
"bear[s] all the trappings of an official, state-run account," meaning that the First Amendment
governed the conduct of the account. As such, "the First Amendment does not permit a public
official who utilizes a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude
persons from an otherwise open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the
official disagrees."
By banning Trump from their platform, the unelected employees of Twitter have done to the
president of the United States what he was accused of doing in Knight First Amendment Institute
v. Trump. If it was a violation of First Amendment-protected free speech for Trump to exclude
persons from an otherwise open online dialogue, then the converse is obviously also
true.
The notion that Trump's tweets somehow represented a "clear and present danger" that
required suppression is not supported by the law. In 1919 Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
wrote the majority opinion in Schenck v. United
States , a case which examined the limits of free speech protections under the First
Amendment, and famously observed that "The most stringent protection of free speech would
not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic [t]he question in
every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as
to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that
Congress has a right to prevent."
Holmes' opinion in Schenck was later limited by the Supreme Court in its 1969 decision in
Brandenburg v. Ohio ,
which replaced the "clear and present danger" standard with what is known as
"imminent lawless action," which holds that speech is not protected if it is likely to
cause violation of the law "more quickly than an officer of the law reasonably can be
summoned." By suppressing the social media expressions of Donald Trump and his supporters,
Twitter, Facebook, and Google – egged on by the political supporters of Joe Biden –
appear to have unilaterally adopted the "clear and present danger" standard which
deviates from the constitutionally-mandated norms, as established by Supreme Court precedent,
that govern the protection of speech in America.
Political speech is not just a human right – in America, it is an essential
constitutionally guaranteed freedom. When the political supporters of Joe Biden, along with the
unelected heads of media giants such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google, actively collaborate to
silence the ability of Donald Trump and the tens of millions of Americans who support him to
express themselves on social media, they become no better than the authoritarian regimes they
once sought to remove from power.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the
author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
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
"Biden: "No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting
yesterday, they wouldn't have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that
stormed the Capitol. We all know that's true, and it is unacceptable. Totally unacceptable.""
foxnews
Mr. Biden is not off to a very credible start on his campaign promise to "heal the soul of
our nation."
Are you aware that long before dirty commoners violating the sanctity, back on Jan 5th,
Apple Maps stopped navigating to Washington DC? Apparently, one couldn't get directions to DC
for driving, public transport, or walking.
Hmm....I read that Pelosi is coming unhinged because several laptops with incriminating
information are now in Trump's posession....thanks to this stunt
Obamanism666 3 hours ago
Naw they just contained her Luxury Ice cream orders..... apparently the flavors have
alcohol in them
journey80 34 minutes ago
COMING unhinged? That happened a couple of decades ago.
Can the hysterical little girls freaking out about tourists in the Capitol building do me
one little favor? I just want to see one video clip of rioting in DC back on the 6th.
All of these posts and we don't have a single link to evidence of rioting or mob-like
behavior. This is important because years from now people reading this thread may not clearly
remember what you imagined you saw and need some visual reminders of this imaginary rioting
that you are talking about. Please include some links or people of tomorrow will suspect that
what you little girls are wailing about didn't happen. In particular I want to see some
imagery of "baseball bats and metal pipes" on the scene in DC. Is this too much to ask
for?
This event is a confirmation that everything is a great show. From the election to the fight
between Trump and Biden. It is all settled long time ago. Seems that all this stuff is just
distraction, enterteniment for the masses with the old same purpose. There is no saviours
amigos. All the guys work for the same "master". So if you still have some hope that trump or
whatever the hero is gonna sace the world, i guess you are lost and u will have a big surprise.
The plan is still on. Nobody is gonna save u. Just u uniting with people and once amd for all
understand that the future is in your hands and your will.
tike , Jan 8, 2021 4:49 AM
Great coverage. Loved the expansion of the four points. What a clown show, complete with
silly costumes. Do people really fall for this sh!t? Sadly, too many do.
Here's a refreshing and insightful discussion between Ryan Cristian and Whitney Webb on
The Last American Vagabond channel:
I know! And realistically, would you even have had time from the announcement of the new
variant until now, also keeping in mind public holidays in between, that this was
scientifically tested, published and peer reviewed by people who had this as their job? NO,
there is not enough time, so what the hell is this statement based on?
It's like they are adjusting the narrative to the stupidity of the masses – they see
that most people just accept it anyway, so why bother even doing it properly when you can
make it up as you go along?
Too late for Gregory Michael MD of Mount Sinai Medical Centre, who died 'due to a strong
reaction to the COVID vaccine' (Heidi Neckelmann, his widow). RIP
President-elect likens Cruz, Hawley to Nazi propagandist Goebbels, says they share blame for
inciting violence
... Speaking to reporters on Friday, Biden said Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Josh Hawley
(R-Missouri) share responsibility with President Donald Trump for inciting the violent
protesters who breached the US Capitol on Wednesday. Rather than being forced to resign, he
said the two senators should be voted out of office when they come up for re-election.
Cruz and Hawley led opposition to certifying results of the November 3 presidential election
– at least not before an investigation – citing allegations that Biden won based on
hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes in Georgia and other swing states. "If he's the
only one saying it, that's one thing," Biden said of Trump. "But the acolytes that
follow him, like Cruz and others, they are as responsible as he is."
Biden's comments were not unlike the Nazi-invoking rhetoric that was used against Trump and
his supporters for the past four years. And the comments came one day after he leaned on
another anti-Trump theme, racism,
suggesting police failed to protect the Capitol because they responded more leniently to
Wednesday's rioters than if the protest had been a Black Lives Matter event.
"By using the 'terrorist' moniker Biden, and the media, are taking this thing into the
wrong direction. It creates more extremism and will likely have bloody consequences."
INTENTIONAL
Now half the country believes the government is fraudulent.
As someone commented on this site, Americans fall into two categories. One believes that
the election was fraudulent and it is good, the other believes that the election was
fraudulent and it is bad.
Except for the Coast Guard, which is a purely defensive military, any White American who
would want to join the other military branches has to be incurably stupid.
"... As the duly selected leader of Binomo, I will be having serious words with my Head of Intelligence over this embarrassing political imbroglio. ..."
Oh noes, I am totally gutted. It turns out the Viking Man is a GRU agent all along, and
this is all a last ditch effort by Russia to keep their man in place.
How do pacify 72 million voters, many of whom are convinced that they have been cheated?.
How do you stop them ALL from marching on the White house?
Answer; You stage a psyop . You let in a number of colourful figures disguised as
"Manhatten-cowboy style trappers " - add a bit of shoving and pushing, lots of
shouting. Cameramen(or women) at the ready. and bingo... everyone can go home afterwards
saying "we tried" or "we did our bit".
Item one, a clip: Notice the two cameramen, one following the "break-in+, and the other at
the top of the stairs. All filmed in glorious technicolour and HD by professionals)
I love the first demonstrator signaling the cop to retreat, small hand signal.
The MSM and "Governments" can all now play the " we support Democracy, look how we are
above all this mayhem ". Visible moral fibre on tap and statements prewritten?
Zuckerberg and mass media can silence any comment including Trumps or those that come from
the "deplorables". Which is what they have done to silence any revision of the narrative,
before it gains traction. (Zuckie rules, he must do as he wasn't elected, probably got
there by hereditary means )
The bit-parts were played by members of the house who had their masks ready under their
seats.
The unfortunate lady was probably an accident as the Police there just can't resist
shooting someone.
Read Trump's earlier stuff from Reuters
"
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The chaos in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday unfolded after President
Donald Trump spent weeks whipping up his supporters with false allegations of fraud in the
Nov. 3 election, culminating in a call to march to the building that represents U.S.
democracy.
The real question is was the election stolen? On balance, I would guess that
it was and that is why the courts all refused to examine the evidence, instead of allowing
the evidence to be presented and refuted. Trumps case was never answered only trashed
and ridiculed.
Turka #125
I also find it incredibly disingenuous that protestors/"rioters" made it into the Capitol
building despite sturdy doors, and the police couldn't stave it off.
just another addition to the "both sides are assholes" exhibit: the first comment on the
NPR tweet about the unarmed woman killed by a cop is "coups have consequences".
even putting aside the whole (valid) "if it was a black woman killed by a cop" argument,
i've loved seeing the past 4 years of so called "liberals" slowly losing their mask of
humanity. they complain about the MAGA types as if they're the barbarians at the gate but
they're ALL americans and therefore have violence and hatred of the "other" baked in from
birth.
also, if that shitbag thinks this was a "coup" then they're even less informed than their
idiotic comment would suggest.
Very well said. It's amazing how much you can tell about the agenda of the deep state just
by careful reading and noticing the words chosen--especially when you keep seeing the same
words repeated incessantly.
And incidentally, at first I was a bit curious about all this over-the-top sudden calls to
impeach Trump and that sort of nonsense...I was thinking it was just a matter of continued
venting of hatred at him for his "gift" of exposing the hypocrisy and duplicity of the deep
state, and the US in general. But it just occurred to me that no, it's because it has dawned
on them that a Trump drummed out of office by a clearly fraudulent election (i.e.,
righteously indignant) could be quite a rallying point for the disenfranchised regular
citizens of the US. So, they're hoping to spend these last two weeks doing everything they
can to tarnish his reputation and try to destroy his ability to rally the troops, so to
speak. I don't think it will work, but then again who knows to what depths they will sink to
permanently sink Trump. Expect a lot more craziness these last two weeks.
By allowing the protesters into the Capital Building, the chance to challenge the certification of the various states' electors
was lost. This was Trump's and his supporters' last chance. They have been played like a piano. Quite brilliant, in its way. Game over.
There was a curious
lack of resistance from the relevant authority. While Trump proved to be an incompetent and a coward, this looks like another Pelosi
dirty trick similar to Ukrainegate ? Russiagate and Ukrainegate taught him nothing.
That the incoming president declares a number of activist from the opposing party to be 'terrorists' demonstrates how unqualified
he is for that job.
Is this a terrorist? These were not terrorists but tourists who came from all over the states to Washington for fun and to register
their disagreement with the 'elites'.
Those rabbles were in no way terrorists. They were not even a mob. Most of them were out-of-town rednecks who felt that they had
been wronged. They wanted to express that. They were surprised when they found how easy it was to enter the Capitol and they apparently
took more time to take pictures than to rearrange the furniture.
[L]et's be clear about what did not take place at the Capitol Building last night. This was not a fascist coup, as so many shrill,
supposedly liberal commentators are claiming. Their flagrant use of the word 'fascist' to describe every political movement they
disapprove of is an insult to reason and history. This wasn't a coup full stop. The National Guard suppressed the morons, the
barricades were put back up, and even their hero Donald Trump told them to go home. A coup is a conscious effort to illegally
seize power from the government. These people couldn't even believe they made it into the Capitol Building. They were like children
finding a candy store unguarded.
A children's game. Indeed.
Yet Biden and others are furious about the stunt because it lifted the veil off their vaunted U.S. 'democracy' and its empty rituals:
Nicholas J. Fuentes @NickJFuentes - 21:01
UTC · Jan 7, 2021
The US Capitol is hardly a "sacred temple of democracy," it's the sleaziest brothel in the world, totally bought and controlled
by powerful interest groups and foreign governments. Who are they kidding?
Congressional processes are dirty fights about the distribution of the loot. There is nothing sacred about it. Just consider the
massive
bribes that were taken during the Georgia Senate races. Those hundreds of millions of 'donations' will have to be paid back in
kind.
The threat inflation, the wild claims about a fascist coup, are transparent efforts by the cosseted political and cultural elites
to endow their project with moral importance; to give their restoration of managerial, technocratic power after the four-year
populist experiment – which is fundamentally the project that Biden and his influential supporters are currently engaged in –
the gloss of historical urgency. It is mission creation.
Worse, this narrative-building will allow the elites to circumscribe even more forms of political thought and speech than they
already desire to do , on the basis that the latent fascism among the American rabble is likely to be stirred up by inflammatory
ideas and commentary. Indeed, we've already been given a chilling glimpse of this post-incursion clampdown on 'violent' speech
in Twitter's extraordinary decision to ban, outright, three of Trump's tweets last night and to lock him out of his account for
12 hours.
It strikes me that this unilateral use of corporate power by Silicon Valley to prevent the democratically elected president
of the United States from engaging with millions of his voters and supporters, to physically forbid him from partaking in online
discussion, is a grave assault on democracy, too. More grave, I would say, than the immoral and anti-democratic incursion of the
Capitol Building. Already, right away, we are seeing that the threat-inflating response to last night's events will likely have
longer-lasting negative consequences for open debate and democratic norms than the thing itself.
Biden is famous for mixing his words up. He meant to say that the protesters were "domestic tourists" . I'm sure he meant
to thank them for doing their part to revitalize America's service economy.
I mean, how many times do they have to say things like "totally unproven" and
"unsubstantiated" in every sentence before people start to think that they're being treated
like idiots?
Peaceful protesters only want democracy, freedom, and the realization of their civil rights.
The totalitarian American machine suppresses them, one citizen was even shot in the chest.
Monstrous barbarism and encroachment on the rights of people to peacefully protest! So awful.
It is the duty of the free world to support civic activists and sternly condemn the American
oppression machine of freedom!
I think it would be nice for the Russian Foreign Ministry to make a corresponding
statement. It would be very appropriate to troll the "western partners" well. The most
splendid trolling would be to try to call an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council
because of the events in the United States and discuss the oppression of peaceful protesters
and the repression of the American totalitarian power machine.
A resolution is also absolutely necessary urging the American authorities to immediately
end the harassment of peaceful protesters and to release the detainees. Of course, sanctions
are also needed in connection with the oppression of civil liberties by the American
authorities.
Well, the boomerang returned to those who threw it. That's wonderful.
You can't believe anything those days as false flag operation are so commonplace that you
should suspect any event being a false flag. A real "empire of illusions"
My new drinking game includes a sip every time somebody on CNN or MSNBC says the words "a
threat to our democracy". Yesterday I passed out at noon.
SelectedNotElectedBiden 7 hours ago remove link
"Either the U.S. Congress has the worst security personnel that any of us have ever seen,
or this was allowed to happen on purpose."
My immediate thought yesterday.
Democrycy 7 hours ago remove link
They were let in by the security. There's plenty of video evidence. They even removed the
statutes in the hallway for them.
wasd 7 hours ago
'security' 'tour guide' same diff
walküre 5 hours ago (Edited) remove link
Which public building that was just "stormed" and evacuated gets reopened, lawmakers
resuming the most important session of all?
No sweep for hidden toxins, viral exposure (Covid !!!!), booby traps and so on?
Even the grocery store needs to close min. 24 hours for a deep clean under Covid
rules!
How many hours before someone gave the 'all clear' and resume the process?
Do you believe this?
Smedley of Tarsus 6 hours ago remove link
This was entirely false flag.
GoldenDebt PREMIUM 5 hours ago
Remarkable how even Fox News used yesterday's even to trash and throw Trump under the
bus.
The Capitol Building event is being used as cover so that investigations of voter fraud
are brushed away as if voting fraud never happenned.
mrjinx007 7 hours ago
Like I said, it was all planned so the Con-men could certify it without hearing the
objections. The Reps are in it as much as Dems. It gave them the easy way out.
"... This is our reward for heckling the 'intelligence agencies' after Trump's vanguard bought Hillary's Broom for display purposes only, nothing to see there. Biden is now mayor of munchkinland. Still can't figure out who is 'Great Oz'. ..."
"... It's too late now, but a "win-win" solution might have been for Congress to certify Juan Guaido as President. ..."
"... That way, Trump would be replaced by his (or maybe it's Pence's) protégé, and the wokesters would have their first latino head of state. And of course in politics, other than one's identity, what the hell else matters? ..."
"... Who says there isn't a way to reconcile red and blue America? ..."
This is our reward for heckling the 'intelligence agencies' after Trump's vanguard bought
Hillary's Broom for display purposes only, nothing to see there. Biden is now mayor of
munchkinland. Still can't figure out who is 'Great Oz'.
When the going gets tuff, I listen to Frank Zappa and George Carlin, in that order while
chopping onions. Sleep well my pretties, I know I will.
It's too late now, but a "win-win" solution might have been for Congress to certify Juan
Guaido as President.
That way, Trump would be replaced by his (or maybe it's Pence's) protégé, and the
wokesters would have their first latino head of state. And of course in politics, other than
one's identity, what the hell else matters?
Who says there isn't a way to reconcile red and blue America?
In Dmitry Orlov's irreverent style addressing a very serious topic:
And this brings us to the final traditional part of the year-end report: the forecast.
According to our Satanist friends at Deagel.com (lovely understated Satanic logo, by the
way, kudos to the designers!) by 2025 the United States will lose 70% of its population,
92% of its real GDP and its economy will be slightly smaller than that of Mexico.
Meanwhile, China will remain the world's largest economy, growing slightly, while Russia
and India will skyrocket to rank second and third. The world rankings will look quite
different. Germany will find itself somewhere between Chile and South Africa. Switzerland
and the United Kingdom (should this silly anachronism still exist) will rank somewhere
between Slovakia and Greece. The Swedes will be poorer than the Romanians... and so on. The
world is changing before our eyes and nothing will ever be the same.
They aren't that organized in the US to set up a revolution. We lack a US embassy.
I agree with Grieved that Orange Man Bad will experience his peripeteia. He was only some
half rate shegetz in their opinion.
With so many anti orange man people who have shown up lately, I am surprised Woody
Guthrie's song about Orange Man's father hasn't been posted. This one's for you Mark2, you
muppet tosser! Work on your spelling, too. ( or grow a pear )
"... Thanks b for reminding us of how the Western mainstream media all presented Hong Kong rioters and thugs as "peaceful pro-democracy protesters," despite months upon months of ample violent video evidence to the contrary (which they of course never aired because it didn't fit their narrative directives.) ..."
"... Yet the Western mainstream media now somehow characterize these relatively far more peaceful pro-democracy protesters in Washington as "thugs" and "mobs", and of course their protests about election fraud concerns are all labeled by the media (again, as if by directive,) as "baseless" and "unsubstantiated" without any investigations into them. ..."
"... Meanwhile, our media has repeatedly demonstrated that it has absolutely no problem with reporting unsubstantiated claims as fact when it fits their directed narratives. (ex. White Helmets, Navalny, Uighurs, etc.) ..."
Thanks b for reminding us of how the Western mainstream media all presented Hong Kong
rioters and thugs as "peaceful pro-democracy protesters," despite months upon months of ample
violent video evidence to the contrary (which they of course never aired because it didn't
fit their narrative directives.)
Yet the Western mainstream media now somehow characterize these relatively far more
peaceful pro-democracy protesters in Washington as "thugs" and "mobs", and of course their
protests about election fraud concerns are all labeled by the media (again, as if by
directive,) as "baseless" and "unsubstantiated" without any investigations into them.
Meanwhile, our media has repeatedly demonstrated that it has absolutely no problem with
reporting unsubstantiated claims as fact when it fits their directed narratives. (ex. White
Helmets, Navalny, Uighurs, etc.)
Belarus was another example of our media's blatant double standards.
Thanks too for the reminder that Pelosi gushed "It is a beautiful sight to behold."
This line from Biden probably provoked a guffaw from most the world: "An assault on the
citadel of liberty".
The one and only difference between Democrats and Republicans is that one or the other, depending on the circumstance, prefers
to drive the handcart to hell we are riding on a little slower, or faster if you prefer. The destination remains the same. They
both use the same gang of armed goons to enforce their insanity.
"... So, IMO, as far as swamps go, Trump only wants a straight orange one, ..."
"... People who wrote the 'Verschärfte Vernehmung' rules in nazi Germany were, if caught, sent to jail or hanged. Yoo and Gonzales, in contrast, got well paid academic jobs, no prosecution at all - instead they advise Trump. It's a nightmare to think that such people now train (and worse than that - influence) students today. ..."
IMO that's an ugly and likely criminal demand. But then, Trump has a coat of arms, with the
motto "Numquam concedere" (Never concede). Obviously.
Mr. Raffensperger said that the votes, as counted, liked by Trump or not, are correct and
have been counted three times already. Well, living in alternate reality, Trump doesn't
care.
Given Trump's personal of style, he's in for being insulted as a swamp RINO, disloyal to
Trump personally and ... (if he was a woman) also ugly, facelift wreck, fat and stupid. Also,
Trump is likely to support any competitor to him, as long as he, she or it has one head and can
breathe.
Good luck for him. He'll need it since as a result of such enthusiastic trumperey
Raffensperger now needs body guards, police protection and had a number of death threats. Some
nut encouraged by stuff like that may just kill him.
As for Assange, those who would like vengeance on him can live easy with that since the UK
prison conditions are about as comfortable as Guantanamo, though without wall slamming,
waterboarding and that other physical and psychological desruction enhanced
interrogation-ery.
People who wrote the 'Verschärfte Vernehmung' rules in nazi Germany were, if caught,
sent to jail or hanged. Yoo and Gonzales, in contrast, got well paid academic jobs, no
prosecution at all - instead they advise Trump. It's a nightmare to think that such people now
train (and worse than that - influence) students today.
Point on! Trump was never 'the Russians' bitch'. He was the whore of the Russian
émigrés mafia that had relocated to the US in south Queens in New York City. A
major difference!
Of course the whole point of US and Western MSM obsession with demonising Russia and
China, and castigating those like Trump (for not going far enough to oppose either one or the
other nation, or both), is to divert public attention away from govt failings at home and to
push the public into supporting regime change against both Russia and China.
B's post should be read as a companion piece to his previous post on China as an
existential threat to the US, as an example of a nation that achieved stability, peace and
enough prosperity for most of its people by pursuing an alternate political and economic
ideology in the space of 40 years. An ideology that moreover challenges the ideology that the
West has followed for the past 500 years, and the assumptions on which that ideology is
based. Despite Western attempts to destabilise, break up and impoverish Russia in the 1990s,
in order to steal its energy and mineral resources, that nation managed to bounce back to
some level of stability and economic security. In addition Russia and China signed a
friendship treaty in 2001 and are committing to a closer political ans economic
relationship.
All this serves to marginalise the Anglosphere nations and to deny the US, the UK and
their elites the opportunity to plunder these nations and their allies for their natural
resources.
Point on! Trump was never 'the Russians' bitch'. He was the whore of the russian
emigrée mafia that had relocatet to the US in south Quens in New York City. A maijor
difference!
Exactly that, thank you. The mafia that manages the D party are of Mediterranean roots and
are totally pi$$ed of with the Russians.
Enough of this polite avoidance of the reality of the USAi gangland - it is a mafia state.
The D 'reformist' squad just blew their best chance to start the reformation. They will be
neutered well before another chance arises.
AFAICT Russiagate's neo-McCarthyism and Trump's supposed friendliness toward Putin was a
set up prior to Trump negotiations with Putin at Helsinki.
"I'm your only friend ... and your last best hope ..." is a powerful pitch -
especially when it is accompanied by generous offers of aid and support. And perhaps it
would've worked if it had come years before.
So now we have a new Cold War - with both Russia and China.
Super militarized super equipped police essentially did not put much resistance and
allowed protesters into the building.
Kalen , Jan 6, 2021 11:06 PM
Choreographed Protesters orderly following Capitol Hill visitors lines even wiped their
feet before entering House and Senate chambers making sure not to disturb nothing so usual
spectacle of anointing a new stooge of oligarchy May proceed shortly after a photo op with a
Getty Images hired photographers and live transmitting via FB MSM correspondents that happens
to be there. All fake, badly choreographed and directed with no shred of credibility
if their goal was to stop or disrupt the debate or to stop rotten political charade of
lies and deceit they did really nothing to achieve that, likely as planned. They did nothing
to prevent voting Biden in ...
. ...Corruption is embedded feature of American electoral system for over 230 years where
every election have been stolen by oligarchy from the people and where they could be no shred
of democracy existing where routinely 75% or more US citizen opposed or did not support
installed POTUS and where opinions of 95% of population are ignored or directly contradict US
congress actually enacted policies.
Although a little shitting in pants by congressmen and senators is never bad, the
existence of this abhorrent imperial regime cannot be threatened this way...
"The aphorism that in SHAM DEMOCRACY USA every "election" above that of local dog catcher
is rigged is not far from the truth. WE THE PEOPLE do not choices, we have owners."
@ v | Jan 6 2021 21:18 utc | 37 who wrote
"
Some MAGA nutter has just announced that the Kansas State Capitol has been taken over.
"
The interesting thing to me has always been that if you get the nutters on both sides of
the mythological left/right to say how they feel about the private bankers, you know, the
top/bottom reality we live in, they both agree that private banking is bad. But we can't have
that coming to the fore especially in the face of the China example of public banking.
So its MAGA, USA, MAGA, USA, MAGA, USA forever, or until another narrative gripping
opportunity comes along or is manufactured.
I see that "cookie monster" Nuland is supposed to become Deputy secretary of State under
Biden. As a new of version of Pompeo she will obviously be sending tins of fresh home baking
to Putin.
Maybe she will use her Maidan experience and let Joe sniff a bit first.
Ex-AG Barr Reportedly Met With Jeffrey Epstein's Last Cellmate Attorney General William Barr speaks at the
National Religious Broadcasters Convention Feb. 26, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark
Humphrey)
By Charlie McCarthy | Tuesday, 05 January 2021 07:06 PM
Former Attorney General William Barr investigated the suicide of Jeffrey Epstein, reportedly
even meeting with the multimillionaire sex offender's last cellmate.
Epstein was found hanging in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower
Manhattan early on Aug. 10, 2019. Efrain "Stone" Reyes had shared the cell with Epstein until
being transferred a day before the suicide.
Epstein's death rattled the highest levels of the Justice Department, according
to the New York Daily News on Monday.
Following Epstein's death, Reyes was pulled from a privately run jail in Queens to meet
frequently with authorities, once with the attorney general himself.
"Barr wanted to know about what was going on in [the Metropolitan Correctional Center]," a
source told the Daily News. "Barr told him, 'I owe you a favor, thank you for telling us the
truth.'
"He said [Barr] was a good guy. Barr was nice about it. He just wanted to know if [inmates]
were being mistreated. What [Reyes] believed happened. Just basically that. He told them
everything. He cooperated with Barr."
The Daily News source said he befriended Reyes when both were being held at the Queens jail,
per the Daily Mail .
A Justice Department spokesman declined comment to the Daily News.
The New York Times reported previously that a "livid" Barr was personally overseeing four
inquiries into Epstein's suicide.
Reyes caught coronavirus at the Queens Detention Facility earlier this year, was released in
April and died last month. He was 51.
The source said he and Reyes watched a documentary about Epstein, who associated with some
of the world's most powerful men while allegedly running an international child sex trafficking
scheme.
"[Reyes] was like, 'I just didn't see that from him. I didn't see that side of him. I never
pictured him being with young girls. Some guys like that are creepy,'" the source recalled. "He
said he never really got that side of Epstein -- like he was someone who took advantage of
girls. But we all have our secrets, you know? You never know."
US intelligence and
security agencies declared that the SolarWinds hack was 'likely Russian in origin,' echoing
evidence-free mainstream media claims as well as their own language in the 'assessments' about
the 2016 election.
In a joint
statement on Tuesday, the FBI, NSA, Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)
and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said that their investigative
work "indicates that an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actor, likely Russian in
origin" was behind the compromise of SolarWinds Orion software, first revealed three weeks
ago.
"At this time, we believe this was, and continues to be, an intelligence gathering
effort. We are taking all necessary steps to understand the full scope of this campaign and
respond accordingly," the statement added.
What does "likely of Russian origin" even mean? Don't expect the mainstream media
outlets to ask – they've all been accusing Moscow for weeks, using unverifiable
assertions by anonymous sources instead of any actual evidence.
Several things in the statement jump out. One, that CISA was put in charge of "asset
response" and mitigation. This is the same agency that on November 13 hosted a statement
– attributed to it by the media, but in reality coming from two advisory committees
– declaring the 2020 US election "the most secure in American history," hastening
to add that "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed
votes, or was in any way compromised."
That was a remarkable rush to judgment, given the subsequent claims to the contrary that
seem far more credible than any assessments of "likely" Russian hacking.
Americans can surely sleep easy knowing the FBI is the "lead agency for threat
response," which is presently still collecting evidence, and analyzing it "to determine
further attribution."
This is the agency once run by James Comey and Andrew McCabe, who discussed an "insurance
policy" in case Donald Trump gets elected with senior staff like Peter Strzok and Lisa Page
and framed General Michael
Flynn over a perfectly legal and legitimate conversation with a Russian ambassador.
This is the same FBI that hastened to send 15 agents to investigate a
garage rope pulley in Talladega, but sat on Hunter Biden's laptop
for a year and did nothing with tips about the suspected Nashville RV bomber.
Again, the mainstream media will not point any of this out, but will parse the
"likely" as "definitely" and claim the statement somehow proves their claim
Russia was behind the SolarWinds breach. Just watch.
That's precisely what happened with the infamous "Intelligence Community Assessment"
published in January 2017. A handpicked group of FBI, CIA, ODNI and NSA staff was first
conflated with "all 17 US intelligence agencies" and then their "assessment"
treated as established fact. Only in November 2018, after the midterm elections, did the source
material the ICA was based on see the light of day.
It was quickly forgotten, however, as it made clear that the assessment was based on wishful
thinking about what the US spies believed was "consistent with the methods and motivations
of Russian-directed efforts." Couldn't have this frank admission interfere with the fantasy
political interests in Washington needed to believe, after all.
Note also that no one involved in the exercise in dissembling that was Russiagate ever faced
any consequences. Only one person – a FBI lawyer named Kevin Clinesmith – has been
prosecuted for altering evidence in the Flynn case, and he got a slap on the wrist .
Meanwhile DNI James Clapper and CIA chief John Brennan got cable news sinecures, while FBI
director Comey landed lucrative book and TV deals.
McCabe, Strzok and Page went on to become media darlings and heroes of the #Resistance.
With all that in mind, it's curious that the "likely" and "believe" are doing
a lot of heavy lifting in that joining statement about the SolarWinds hack. Why should US spies
couch their claims in bureaucratic language, designed to shield the author from consequences of
being wrong, when impunity is the order of the day in Washington? Policy is based on
assessments anyway, and it's pretty obvious at this point that evidence – or lack thereof
– is an irrelevant detail to the US establishment.
But again, that's a question one shouldn't expect the mainstream media to ask.
Forget what Vice President Pence has suggested he might do this week regarding counting
the votes for president and forget President Trump's ominous military buildup near Iran, the
Sunday New York Times two-column, above-the-fold lede tells us what we should really
be worried about: "Scope of Russian Hacking Far Exceeds Initial Fears." The on-line title was
" As
Understanding of Russian Hacking Grows, So Does Alarm ."
Forget, too, that this latest NYT indictment of Russia, does not substantially
advance the story beyond the information available two weeks ago, when
"neither the actor, nor the motive, nor the damage done [was] known for certain in this
latest scare story." Although no evidence is adduced to show that Russia is behind this
latest flurry of hacking – Russia no doubt sits toward the top of a long list of
suspects. The Times ominously quotes Suzanne Spaulding, a senior cyber official during
the Obama administration, saying Russia is the foregone conclusion:
"We still don't know what Russia's strategic objectives were," she said "But we
should be concerned that part of this may go beyond reconnaissance. Their goal may be to
put themselves in a position to have leverage over the new administration, like holding a
gun to our head to deter us from acting to counter Putin."
The Sanger Sewing Machine
NYT Chief Washington Correspondent David Sanger is listed first on the byline for Sunday's
story together with Nicole Perlroth and Julian Barnes. That should give us a clue, given
Sanger's record for sewing things out of whole cloth. In a word, Sanger enjoys an unenviably
checkered record for reliability. Until we are shown more in the way of evidence attributing
the recently discovered hacking to the Russians, we would do well to review his record.
Sanger's reporting on Iraq before the war was as wrong as it was consequential. Those who
were alert at the time may remember that Sanger was second only to Judith Miller in spreading
the party line on the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Seldom do historians obtain documentary evidence of plans for a war of aggression, but on
May 1, 2005 the London Times published a paper (now known as the "Downing Street
Memos") that recorded what Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI6 (the UK counterpart to the CIA)
relayed to Prime Minister Tony Blair on July 23, 2002 about what he was told by George Tenet
at CIA headquarters on July 20, 2002. (No one has challenged the authenticity of the
minutes.)
"C (Dearlove) reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift
in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam,
through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the
intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. There was little discussion
in Washington of the aftermath after military action." [Emphasis added.]
With David Sanger and his colleague Judith Miller having cried wolf on WMD so many times
over the prior two years, the Times decided it would be best to suppress the
embarrassing revelation that the "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
So the Times ignored it for more than six weeks, when Sanger wrote an article to put
the whole thing in perspective, so to speak.
The title of Sanger's June 13, 2005 article was "Postwar British Memo Says War Decision
Wasn't Made." Those looking for a measure of Sanger's credibility could do no better than
read this masterpiece of deceptive circumlocution. Here's the lead paragraph:
WASHINGTON, June 12 – A memorandum written by Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet
office in late July 2002 explicitly states that the Bush administration had made "no
political decisions" to invade Iraq, but that American military planning for the possibility
was advanced. "
And those asking how Sanger could write that with a straight face need only to read the
Downing Street Memos , which are quite succinct and clear.
One could almost sympathize with Sanger, who had co-authored a piece with Thom Shanker, on
July 29, 2002 in which WMD were flat-facted into Iraq no fewer than seven times. See: "
U.S.
Exploring Baghdad Strike As Iraq Option of July 29, 2002 ." That was about a week after
CIA Director Tenet had briefed Dearlove on the fixing of the intelligence and the facts. It
is a safe bet that Sanger's sources in the intelligence community briefed him on what line to
take on those (non-existent) WMD.
Years Later Still Drinking at the Government Trough
On July 26, 2016 , Candidate Clinton reportedly approved a "blame-Russia" plan.
According to
a letter from Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to Sen. Lindsey Graham on
Sept. 29, 2020, CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama on "Russian intelligence
analysis" regarding "alleged approval by Hillary Clinton of a proposal from one of her
foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference
by Russian security services."
The Russian intelligence analysis report was deemed important enough that on Sept. 7,
2016, US intelligence officials forwarded an "investigative referral" to FBI Director James
Comey and Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok regarding it. ( Such
a referral usually indicates that a leak has occurred about a particularly sensitive issue or
program. Thus, it is possible that the putative leaker wished to get the information out into
the open.)
But it is one thing to leak; quite another to get an Establishment journalist to write
about it without checking beforehand with the intelligence community for a nihil
obstat . There has been no additional reporting about the "investigative referral." But
if it was about a leak, the information never saw the light of day at the time.
July 26, 2016 : The exact date timing may be coincidence, but on the same day Mrs.
Clinton was alleged to have given the go-ahead for Russia-gate, Sanger co-authored
an article with Eric Schmitt titled: "Spy Agency Consensus Grows That Russia Hacked
D.N.C.":
"WASHINGTON – American intelligence agencies have told the White House they now
have 'high confidence' that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and
documents from the Democratic National Committee, according to federal officials who have
been briefed on the evidence."
There is much more that can be said about Sanger's reporting on very consequential issues.
On Iran, for example, taking Sanger's reporting at face value, one would think he never read
the National Intelligence Estimate that helped prevent a war planned by Cheney/Bush for 2008.
I refer to the November
2007 NIE the unanimous, "high-confidence" key judgment of which was that Iran had stopped
working on a nuclear weapon at the end of 2003 and had not resumed such work. That key
judgment stands, but you would never know that from Sanger's reporting.
Beware chief Washington correspondents; or at least look at their record.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of
the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as
Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the President's Daily
Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
(VIPS).
Polls close at 7:00pm. Republican votes shredded at 8:00pm. Boxes of Democratic votes
brought out from under the tables at 9:00pm. Dems declared winners at 10:00pm.
Zeroscum 4 hours ago
I love the smell of shredded Republican votes in the morning...
1. If your preferred party loses, the whole thing was rigged. If your preferred party
wins, it was a legitimate and fair election.
2. There are a lot of good songs about Georgia. " Midnight Train to Georgia", "The Devil
Went Down to Georgia" -- lots of great songs.
... ... ...
5. Before you read any information on the election, call Mark Zuckerberg's cell to make
sure it's legit. He's there for you. Always. In every corner of your house. Watching you.
6. Pay no attention to the briefcases under the vote-counting tables. They are there for
decoration, OK?
7. This election is a clear choice between vegan Communist baby-killers and racist
Klansmen who want to kill grandma. Choose wisely. The choice is clear. We don't want vegans
in office, do we?
8. Remember to wear a poncho just in case pipes start bursting as soon as Republicans
start winning. Plumbing tends to explode at opportune times.
9. No matter what happens, Jesus is still king. Hey, I thought this was supposed to be
satire!
In that same article I posted above, Assange compared Clinton to cholera. Or maybe it was
the opposite, Trump is cholera and Clinton is gonorrhea? I forget.
In any case Politico is kind of evenhanded and has articles by both lefties and righties.
Even our host Colonel Lang has sourced Politico in the past.
If someone that President Trump knows and trusts were to convince President Trump that a
total pardon for Assange would drive the PKKK ( Pink Kitty Kap Klintonite) Democrats to a new
height of frenzied rage and hate, he might consider it worth doing.
To pardon Assange would
be to fling a drippy bag of burning snot right straight into the face of Hillary herself.
If President Trump were to see it that way himself, how could he resist the temptation to
do it?
Is Mitch McConnell a shadow lobbyist for Dominion?
Notable quotes:
"... In July, McConnell blocked two bills, one that would provide $775 million to "bolster election security," along with requiring a physical paper trail of every single ballot cast in the country, and a second that would mandate political candidates, their staff members, and their families, to notify the FBI if any foreign government offered to assist them. ..."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) quashed two election integrity bills in July
last year after receiving thousands in donations from Dominion lobbyists.
In July, McConnell blocked two bills, one that would provide $775 million to "bolster
election security," along with requiring a physical paper trail of every single ballot cast in
the country, and a second that would mandate political candidates, their staff members, and
their families, to notify the FBI if any foreign government offered to assist them.
They are not stupid, they are selfish, leading to a great capacity for evil. The love of
money, sex and power. Sex being replaced with litigation for those over 50. As most married men
know, sex is replaced by to-do lists after about the first 6 years or so....
"I am 100% confident that if @VP or members of Congress spent 15 minutes reviewing contents
of Hunter Biden laptop, they would NEVER let Joey "Bribes" Biden get within missile range of
White House.
Biden is a CCP puppet, a criminal, & a pervert. A few other things too. None good."
Bravo Mr Atkinson bravo, cancel culture is killing life as we know it. Humour and comedy is
99% at somebody's expense and if you cant laugh at yourself sometimes you dont deserve to
live.
Fort Biden, Fort Obama, Fort Clinton, Fort BLM, Fort Antifa,
Fort Weenie-Wok, Fort Pelosi, etc, Fort Apache...I could babble
on but you get the idea...if math wasn't currently considered racist they could simply be
renamed numerically to avoid future renaming's,
like Fort 1, 2, 3, etc
Names that will be selected
1. Fort George Floyd
2. Fort Breonna Taylor
3. Fort Malcolm X
4. Fort Angela Davis
5. Fort Toussaint Louverture
6. Fort Martin Luther King
7. Fort Nat Turner
8. Fort Dred Scott
........
Any objections will be met by cries of racism, and the new names will be accepted eagerly by
the Army Brass. However the effect on the soldiers morale will be devastating
"Obama Official Ben Rhodes Admits Biden Camp is Already Working With Foreign Leaders:
Exactly What Flynn Did" [ Glenn Greenwald ]. "Any
doubts about how customary it is for such calls to be made by transition officials were
unintentionally obliterated on Monday night by former Obama national security official Ben
Rhodes, who is almost certain to occupy a high-level national security position in a Biden
administration. Speaking on MSNBC -- of course -- Rhodes, while amicably chatting with former
Bush/Cheney Communications Director turned-beloved-by-liberals-MSNBC-host Nicolle Wallace,
admitted in passing that ' foreign leaders are already having phone calls with Joe Biden
talking about the agenda they're going to pursue January 20 ,' all to ensure 'as seamless
a transition as possible,' adding: 'the center of political gravity in this country and the
world is shifting to Joe Biden.'" • Presumably the FBI should be interrogating Rhodes
about his guilty knowledge. Anyhoo, I'm so old I remember when IOKIYAR was current in the
blogosphere: "It's OK If You're A Republican." But now IOKIIOG: "It's OK If It's Our Guy."
>David Sirota – "That was enough to barely defeat Trump.."
I'm getting confused, was Trump officially defeated. If not why are all these folks making
these kinds of statements without any qualifications, none, zip. He could have said "most
likely" or some other qualifier. Am I missing something here? Let the legal process of
contesting the election play out for Pete's sake.
"The most important takeaway from the COVID-19 crisis isn't the science. The 'science'
depends entirely on one's politics. Whether to get on with life and take our licks or hunker
down and ride it out at home has nothing to do with empirical evidence or peer review; it's
entirely about our ideological leanings and psychological profiles.
Thousands are dying, billions are locked down, business is shuttered; life as we knew it
has basically come to a stand still. The clocks and the oranges are in a standoff and the
stakes are probably much higher than most realize.
This is not about a pandemic. What we are deciding now is the kind of world we want to
live in. The clocks would love us to sit back, follow their sage advice and allow them to
usher in a 'new age'. Sooner or later they will get their way, but are the oranges ready to
give in just yet?
Looks like Nancy is just a regular type of gal ;-). No security at all. No even 24x7 cameras.
Did they used Photoshop with masking to deface Piglosi's .jpg garage door ?
And amazingly enough the vandals remembered to bring masking tape or at least a peace of
cardboard to protect the bricks.
When you think of your average Antifa type (
these mug shots may be representative), does that Antifa guy or gal strike you as the kind
of person who would carefully avoid getting any paint on bricks so as to spare Pelosi the
inconvenience of getting the paint off the bricks?
Soloamber 3 hours ago
No doubt this was a false flag . You don't think Pelosi has security covering her yard,
house, cars ?
Nobody gets that close to her house without a swat team there in a minute. So where is the
video showing who did it , when , and how . This will be used to justify some full time guard
house or something else .
lennysrv 2 hours ago
You are absolutely correct. Years ago, when John Kerry was a candidate in the Democrat
primaries, I was walking near his neighborhood in Boston. Near. As in about eight blocks
away. Not even close to his house. I didn't even know he was living there. I was challenged
by a Secret Service agent and his backup friend (in a vehicle behind him). SS guy asked who I
was, what I was doing, why I was there, etc. Spoke into a microphone beneath his overcoat.
Told me that my chosen route was no longer available and that if I would be well-advised to
head the other direction. The point being that nobody, not a single person, gets near
Pelosi's house without a bunch of security knowing about it and stopping it.
This entire "vandalism" thing is a complete tub of BS.
JZ123 6 hours ago
Pelosi pulled a Juicy smollet? Nah, I think the hatred is real for these people. The
volcano will erupt this year.
The Ordinal Numbers PREMIUM 4 hours ago remove link
I feel redeemed. I've been saying that these photoshopped since the news broke.
FAKE NEWS is real....
Lamejokes 7 hours ago
You don't understand. Russian agents, following the last plan written by Soleimani,
arguably his master plan, tagged poor Nancy's door, and - and there's where you can see how
tricky and evil Russians and Iranians are- they PURPOSEFULLY protected the walls, so people
would think it's fake, and accuse poor Nancy, that gorgeous woman, that Saint, of
manipulation attempt!
(Do I really need a /s here?)
SirBarksAlot 2 hours ago
And just like the Pentagon on 9-11, there were no pictures of the event
AlphaSnail 6 hours ago
the cameras were epsteined
6 hours ago
To those of you that noticed it was a hoax congratulations, you passed the ".gov finger on
the pulse of society" test. For those of you who believed it hook, line, and sinker; get more
omega 3 fatty acids in your diet, stop voting, and cut back on the high fructose corn syrup
and Cheetos.
MieleBauknecht 7 hours ago
antifa's are vegetarian. The hogshead itself is sufficient proof of false flag.
Alexander 2 hours ago
You are fricken dreaming if you think nancy would even pay someone to clean this garage
door. She's getting a new garage door and YOU are going to pay for it.
HomeBrewPrepper 2 hours ago
I thought she lived in a gated, luxurious house?
That looks like a house in Dundalk, Md. Outside of Baltimore.
toady 2 hours ago
That's her 4th house in the city where she houses her Chinese slaves.
Ms No PREMIUM 5 hours ago
...People should scream that at her: "Why did antifa use tape around your garage, you
lying b*tch?"
After pushing phony stories of 'Russian interference' and working for an agency that
interferes in elections, ex-CIA agent now Congressman Will Hurd thinks the GOP should accept
Joe Biden's win, or risk helping the US' "enemies."
A dozen Republican Senators are getting set to object to the Electoral
College's certification of Joe Biden's win in November, unless an "emergency 10-day
audit" is held in a number of key swing states won by Biden. The move is also backed by a
number of Republican representatives in the House.
However, there's a rival faction of Republicans who want to put allegations of Democrat
fraud behind them and go back to business as usual under a Biden administration. Outgoing Texas
Rep. Will Hurd is one of them, and he made a novel argument against questioning the election on
Saturday.
"When I was undercover at the CIA, I saw firsthand how our enemies steal elections and
try to interfere in ours," he tweeted. "Elected officials continuing to sow doubt
amongst the public for petty political gain is playing into our enemies' hands."
As for who these "enemies" are, Hurd was presumably referring to the reliable old
specter of "the Russians." Throughout Trump's four years in office, Hurd has repeatedly
claimed that Moscow meddled in the 2016 election, despite there literally being zero proof for
these claims.
" This is honestly one of the most hilarious mega-viral tweets I've ever seen on
Twitter," journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted. In a follow-up tweet, Greenwald joked that
Hurd "must have been in a different part of the CIA" than former Director James Woolsey, who
told Fox News' Laura Ingraham in 2018 that his agency had meddled in European elections during
the Cold War "in order to avoid the Communists taking over," and continues to dabble in
election meddling, but "only for a very good cause.
Hurd was mocked on all sides. First for condemning election interference from an agency
famed for
interfering in elections
... ... ...
And then for bragging about his undercover status...
The neoliberal "identify wedge" that gone way too far ;-) That might be a gift to Republicans
for Georgia runoffs.
In any case this is looks like an important stage in the development of Neoliberal Newspeak.
I guess Huxley got one prediction right in Brave New World, that "father" and "mother" would be
treated as offensive words.
...Terms to be struck from clause 8(c)(3) of
rule XXIII , the House's Code of Official Conduct, as outlined in the proposed rules (
pdf
), include "father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew,
niece, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law,
brother-in-law, sister-in-law, stepfather, stepmother, stepson, stepdaughter, stepbrother,
stepsister, half brother, half sister, grandson, [and] granddaughter."
Such terms would be replaced with "parent, child, sibling, parent's sibling, first cousin,
sibling's child, spouse, parent-in-law, child-in-law, sibling-in-law, stepparent, stepchild,
stepsibling, half-sibling, [and] grandchild."
According to the proposed rules, "seamen" would be replaced with "seafarers," and "Chairman"
would be replaced with "Chair" in Rule X of the House.
... ... ...
The rules package will be introduced and voted on once the new Congress
convenes.
ay_arrow
Joebloinvestor2 1 hour ago
Isn't great to see congress addressing the real important ****?
What a FARCE.
DayWear 1 hour ago (Edited)
First thing to erase is 'Madam' Speaker. Perhaps just 'Speaker" from now on to keep it
gender-free?
St. TwinkleToes 1 hour ago
That title actually represents who she is. A 'Madam' running the largest whore house in
the world.
RoboFascist 1st 1 hour ago remove link
Well... that rules me out as Speaker of the House.
I wouldn't be able to stop from using expressions like...
"The Chairman recognizes the m0ther****er from Rhode Island..."
or
"The s0n-0f a b!tch from New York has no remaining time left."
pmc 1 hour ago
Proposed House Rules Seek To Erase Gendered-Terms
If this doesn't give you a clue the inmates are running the asylum I don't know what will!
Aren't there more important things to worry about then gender terms.... like homelessness or
people losing their livelihood because of policies they're putting in place!
[Jan 02, 2021] Reuters/Ipsos polling by Republicans (67%), Democrats (17%), and Independents (31%)."
It also contains a provision to rename military bases named after Confederate generals
.
Oh yes, THAT is important.
Huh uhh ... THAT will protect the country from CCP agents like Mtch McConnell and the rest
of the Congressional scum, nursing themselves from Baphomet's engorged teets guised as the
nipples of the Chinese Communist Party ... AND ... keep the MIC swine at the public trough
well fed and fat.
Good thing McConnell kept that $2000 (wish he'd take back the $600 chump change too)
payout to the American taxpayer ... actually ... refunds and paltry compensation for being
robbed not only of their wealth, but their voting rights via a stolen election courtesy of
the congressional and judicial sucklings at the nipples of the CCP goat god.
play_arrow
Ben A Drill 1 hour ago
MIC with all their lobbyists. How did you really think this would be any different.
Dadburnitpa 34 minutes ago
It's like the scene from Animal House: "Forget it, he's rolling".
"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every
picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has
been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has
stopped. Nothing exists except the endless present in which the party is always right." -
George Orwell
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth." - George
Orwell
If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to
believe it yourself. - Joseph Goebbels
Hurricane Baby 6 minutes ago
Now that the names of Confederate generals will be removed from military bases located in
the South, we can stop pretending that they are not garrison bases for an occupation
force.
A short comedy sketch is a staple on New Year's Eve in Germany, featuring Miss Sophie and
James the butler. The introduction is in German and the skit is in English. Happy New Year to
All, and fireworks may well extend to and beyond the 6th of January--
"... I'm still stunned that the paper did a study that confirmed what people have suspected, namely that a high cycle threshold used on PCR testing was creating the appearance of a pandemic that might have long receded. The testing mania was generating wild illusions of millions of "asymptomatic" carriers and spreaders. How severe was the problem? Read this and weep ..."
"... up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus, a review by The Times found. ..."
"... A major reason for the ongoing lockdowns are due to the pouring in of positive case numbers from massive testing. If 90% of these positive tests are false, we have a major problem. The whole basis of the panic disappears. All credit to the Times for running the article but why no follow up and why no change in its editorial stance? ..."
"... I am deeply concerned that the social, economic and public health consequences of this near total meltdown of normal life -- schools and businesses closed, gatherings banned -- will be long lasting and calamitous, possibly graver than the direct toll of the virus itself. ..."
"... During the Covid-19 pandemic, the world is unwittingly conducting what amounts to the largest immunological experiment in history on our own children. We have been keeping children inside, relentlessly sanitizing their living spaces and their hands and largely isolating them ..."
"... in the course of social distancing to mitigate the spread, we may also be unintentionally inhibiting the proper development of children's immune systems. ..."
"... The psychological effects of loneliness are a health risk comparable with risk obesity or smoking. Anxiety and depression have spiked since lockdown orders went into effect. ..."
The paper of record in 2020 shifted dramatically to the most illiberal stance possible on
the virus, pushing for full lockdowns, and ignoring or burying any information that might
contradict the case for this unprecedented experiment in social and economic control. This
article highlights the exceptions.
...
Even within the blatant and aggressive pro-lockdown bias, and consistent with the way the
New York Times does its work, the paper has not been entirely barren of truth about Covid and
lockdowns. Below I list five times that the news section of the paper, however inadvertently
and however buried deep within the paper, actually told the truth.
I'm still stunned that the paper did a study that confirmed what people have suspected,
namely that a high cycle threshold used on PCR testing was creating the appearance of a
pandemic that might have long receded. The testing mania was generating wild illusions of
millions of "asymptomatic" carriers and spreaders. How severe was the problem? Read this and
weep:
In three sets of testing data that include cycle thresholds, compiled by officials in
Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried
barely any virus, a review by The Times found.
On Thursday, the United States recorded 45,604 new coronavirus cases, according to a
database maintained by The Times . If the rates of contagiousness in Massachusetts and New
York were to apply nationwide, then perhaps only 4,500 of those people may actually need to
isolate and submit to contact tracing.
The implications of this revelation are incredible. A major reason for the ongoing lockdowns
are due to the pouring in of positive case numbers from massive testing. If 90% of these
positive tests are false, we have a major problem. The whole basis of the panic disappears. All
credit to the Times for running the article but why no follow up and why no change in its
editorial stance?
Gone missing this year in public commentary has been much at all about naturally acquired
immunities from the virus, even though the immune system deserves credit for why human kind has
lasted this long even in the presence of pathogens. That the Times ran this piece was another
exception in otherwise exceptionally bad coverage. It said in part:
Scientists who have been monitoring immune responses to the virus are now starting to see
encouraging signs of strong, lasting immunity, even in people who developed only mild
symptoms of Covid-19, a flurry of new studies suggests. Disease-fighting antibodies, as well
as immune cells called B cells and T cells that are capable of recognizing the virus, appear
to persist months after infections have resolved -- an encouraging echo of the body's
enduring response to other viruses .
Researchers
have yet to
find unambiguous evidence that coronavirus reinfections are occurring, especially within
the few months that the virus has been rippling through the human population. The prospect of
immune memory "helps to explain that," Dr. Pepper said.
Data from monkeys suggests that even low levels of antibodies can prevent serious illness
from the virus, if not a re-infection. Even if circulating antibody levels are undetectable,
the body retains the memory of the pathogen. If it crosses paths with the virus again,
balloon-like cells that live in the bone marrow can mass-produce antibodies within hours.
It's still a shock that so many schools closed their doors this year, partly from disease
panic but also from compliance with orders from public health officials. Nothing like this has
happened, and the kids have been brutalized as a result, not to mention the families who found
themselves unable to cope at home. For millions of students, a whole year of schooling is gone.
And they have been taught to treat their fellow human beings as nothing more than disease
vectors. So it was amazing to read this story in the Times :
So far, schools do not seem to be stoking community transmission of the coronavirus,
according to data emerging from random testing in the United States and Britain. Elementary
schools especially seem to seed remarkably few infections.
Byline Karen Yourish, K.K. Rebecca Lai, Danielle Ivory and Mitch Smith
Another strangely missing part of mainstream coverage has been honesty about the risk
gradient in the population. It is admitted even by the World Health Organization that the case
fatality rate for Covid-19 from people under the age of 70 is 0.05%. The serious danger is for
people with low life expectancy and broken immune systems. Knowing that, as we have since
February, we should have expected the need for special protection for nursing homes. It was
incredibly obvious. Instead of doing that, some governors shoved Covid patients into nursing
homes. Astonishing. In any case, the above article (and
this one
too) was one of the few times this year that the Times actually spelled out the many thousands
times risk to the aged and sick as versus the young and healthy.
Notable Opinion
columns
The op-ed page of the paper mirrored the news coverage, with only a handful of exceptions.
Those are noted below.
I am deeply concerned that the social, economic and public health consequences of this
near total meltdown of normal life -- schools and businesses closed, gatherings banned --
will be long lasting and calamitous, possibly graver than the direct toll of the virus
itself. The stock market will bounce back in time, but many businesses never will. The
unemployment, impoverishment and despair likely to result will be public health scourges of
the first order.
Worse, I fear our efforts will do little to contain the virus, because we have a
resource-constrained, fragmented, perennially underfunded public health system. Distributing
such limited resources so widely, so shallowly and so haphazardly is a formula for failure.
How certain are you of the best ways to protect your most vulnerable loved ones? How readily
can you get tested?
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the world is unwittingly conducting what amounts to the
largest immunological experiment in history on our own children. We have been keeping
children inside, relentlessly sanitizing their living spaces and their hands and largely
isolating them. In doing so, we have prevented large numbers of them from becoming infected
or transmitting the virus. But in the course of social distancing to mitigate the spread, we
may also be unintentionally inhibiting the proper development of children's immune
systems.
Our mental health suffers, too. The psychological effects of loneliness are a health risk
comparable with risk obesity or smoking. Anxiety and depression have spiked since lockdown
orders went into effect. The weeks immediately following them saw nearly an 18 percent jump
in overdose deaths and, as of last month, more than 40 states had reported increases. One in
four young adults age 18 to 25 reported seriously considering suicide within the 30-day
window of a recent study. Experts fear that suicides may increase; for young Americans, these
concerns are even more acute. Calls to domestic violence hotlines have soared. America's
elderly are dying from the isolation that was meant to keep them safe.
Inevitable decline of the United States hastened by corrupt politicians, greedy CEOs,
dishonest MSM and the well-funded Marxists who have infected every aspect of USA, from local
mayors to the Supreme Court.
"There are times that I wonder if today's Democrats see George Orwell's 1984 not as a
warning but a model of good government."
In celebration of a 2020 that desperately needs to come to an end, here is a list of the
Top 10 Worst Mayors in the nation. These mayors most definitely use Orwell's 1984 as their
policies and procedures manual, if not their Bible.
It comes as no surprise that all 10 of the mayors on the list are Democrat (something
about that political party), and that five of the 10 are mayors of West Coast cities
(something about the Pacific Ocean).
Several of the mayors have overseen a mass exodus of people from their cities, and even
their state in a 10-month period. But most of all, every one of these mayors stand out as
abject failures of governance, with constituents that literally despise them.
Without further adieu, here is the Top 10 Worst Mayor's list for 2020:
10. Michael
Hancock (Denver)
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock could have stayed under the radar and never made it to the
Top 10 on this list. But thanks to his Holiday Hypocrisy, he landed firmly in the final
spot.
"According to the news report, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock was spotted leaving the
state to go spend Thanksgiving with his daughter in Mississippi. The Mayor's office said
that the Mayor had canceled his big holiday dinner this year, but "traveled alone" (aside
from the whole public transportation and flying from a crowded airport thing).
"His flight allegedly also took off 30 minutes after he posted this little gem to his
Twitter account:"
Local investigative reporter Nicole Vap dropped the hammer, exposing Mayor Hancock's
hypocrisy of not only telling others to stay at home, but hopping a flight from Colorado to
Mississippi without so much as an eyelash blink.
Hancock was "deeply regretful" about his decision, saying he led with his heart and not
his head.
When do they ever lead, let alone actually use their head to do so? Asking for a
friend.
9. Sam Liccardo (San Jose)
Our first Coastie Mayor enters the fray. San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, like Hancock of
Denver, probably could have avoided this list too; but, when you dictate to people that they
are required to follow certain behavior, you better make sure you're dictating to
yourself.
Liccardo decided the City of San Jose needed to be scolded and reminded
Another plug for local journalism, as I
reported :
"San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo (Democrat-Duh), ignored his own protocols <clutch the
pearls!> and had
Thanksgiving with family members outside of his own household.
" 'The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit has learned Liccardo celebrated with his elderly
parents at their Saratoga home with an unknown number of other guests. While the mayor's
staff did confirm the dinner took place, they have not disclosed how many other people
attended, how many different households were present, and whether any of those in
attendance wore masks while not eating.' "
So much for Liccardo avoiding the big gatherings and keeping people safe. The San Jose
Mayor assumed because he wasn't Governor Gavin Newsom, that no one would be watching. Dude,
we're all stuck at home -- you know we're watching.
Seeing those geriatric demonrats on their knees with their kente cloths, paying homage to
a dead drug addict was one of the more hysterical moments of 2020.
Ducks 8 hours ago
Its a disgusting image. and my Black American peers agree.
Is-Be 9 hours ago
The word missing is "chutzpah".
bobroonie 9 hours ago
Watching scummy democrats in pro slavery garb bend the knee for a POS that OD'd is comedy
gold.
u25dtp1 8 hours ago
Is that what they were doing, I thought they were looking for Nancy's Ben and Jerrys.
Sorry, My irrationality
radical-extremist 8 hours ago
They do it because it works. Democrats love the theater. They don't mind being lied to if
it benefits them. Many of them actually believe it's not theater and that their political
heroes are being authentic and sincere....with crocodile tears, feigned outrage and other
drama techniques. I would have to give Adam Schiff an Oscar, but Chuck Schumer definitely
gets second place.
I've been on vacation in Mexico for the past two weeks. But that isn't the reason content
from me has been scarcer than normal. Yes, vacations are supposed to be for recharging and
taking a break from your routine.
But as I sat down to write this morning the overwhelming sense of futility washed over me .
And nothing saps your will to work more than reading through the headlines and noting the
complete lack of conscience on display by the media, our political leadership or frankly anyone
with half a brain.
We live in a world today where the legislature of one of the most important states in the
Union, Pennsylvania, released a report where more than 200,000 votes were counted than were
actually cast. And no one in our media seems to think this is news.
Worse, most people in America can't even be bothered to care about such things. And if you
were to confront them with the evidence there must be some good reason why that 'just can't be
true.'
The FBI, which couldn't find any issues with Hunter Biden's laptop for months nor ever do
anything substantial with Anthony Weiner's laptop in FOUR YEARS somehow solved the case of the
Nashville bomber in less than 48 hours conclusively.
And that conclusion was the same as every other major terrorist event in this country's
recent history - a lone crackpot blew himself up to make a half-formed political statement. At
least this time they had the good sense to vaguely tie the patsy to the political left versus
turn him into a mouth-breathing MAGAtard with a Q-complex.
And somehow no one seems to care. Nor does anyone care about the lack of conclusion about
the shooting in Las Vegas a few years back.
Notice the trend? Major stories that are supposed to matter are dropped the moment they get
anything close to uncomfortable for those in power who are chosen to remain in power.
... ... ...
If we've reached this level of whitewashing of the news and the truth to this point, I'm
having to wonder why it is North Korea is so hated? I'm at a loss to come up with anything more
accurate than competitive envy at fiction writing.
Hundreds of millions of people's lives are being actively destroyed by overzealous governors
and heads of state issuing draconian lockdown orders over a virus with multiple vaccines that
are less effective than our own immune systems. A compromised WHO and CDC issue conflicting
recommendations weekly and Dr. Mengele Fauci openly admits to lying to us.
They all do this without any sense of shame, shedding crocodile tears so unconvincing they
could be runner-ups at a Miss America pageant. But we're supposed to think we're saved because
Congress decided to give us a $600 advance to pay our 2020 income taxes with?
The same operation has been done with COVID-19, any and all data associated with it, the
death statistics, the miraculous immunity to influenza Americans now seem to have, etc.
And if we are going to just sit back, mask up, accept the $600, put our heads down and
"believe all talking heads" then what's the point in pointing out the hypocrisy of it all?
The new Super-COVID is here and it's time to believe it all again.
Isn't that the real lesson of 2020? Don't fight the crazy just cling to the delusion that a
mask isn't a muzzle, guns can't protect you and we still live in a society with something
approximating rules.
Isn't that what all of this irreality is for, to desensitize us to their outrageousness? To
normalize their grotesquerie? I mean, really, does anyone honestly believe any single word that
comes out of Nancy Pelosi's mouth?
I didn't think they made masks big enough to contain the Pinocchio nose she has to have at
this point. Maybe she's had to have so much plastic surgery to contain it that it collapsed
like Michael Jackson's and it's actually now just negative space.
1 play_arrow
Tigbits 9 hours ago
Seeing those geriatric demonrats on their knees with their kente cloths, paying homage to
a dead drug addict was one of the more hysterical moments of 2020.
Ducks 8 hours ago
Its a disgusting image. and my Black American peers agree.
Ms No PREMIUM 9 hours ago
The biggest problem is that we are an occupied people but tools don't want to acknowledge
that fact. A tiny minority took power long ago and have pretenses to have a majority. The
innact all forms of destruction on the people and the idiots keep think writing on a piece of
paper changes that. You have no courts, you have nothing but some sheriff's left.
Stalin's quote "It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the
votes." can now be engraved over the entrance to the Supreme Court.
2 play_arrow
asteroids 8 hours ago remove link
Most of the world is amazed that the US, with all its technological advances can't hold
foolproof elections.
Ben Sequestered 6 hours ago
It's VERY easy to do, but for some odd reason, "they" don't? Why would that be??
"Eighteen percent of the survey's respondents named Trump as their most admired man,
compared to 15 percent who named Obama and 6 percent who named President-elect Joe Biden . Three percent named
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci , while 2 percent chose Pope Francis .
Biden gets only 6% - what on earth were Gallup doing wrong? This looks like a tremendous
sales opportunity for Dominion voting systems, I'm sure their special vote adjudication
process can fix the problem.
I look forward to seeing Trump's figure next year and BHO's for that matter. Let's see
what the next few days bring.
Before 2020, the world was a bleak dystopia overrun by Nazis. It never ceased to amaze me
how many Nazis I would encounter on a daily basis once I had decided that everyone but me was a
Nazi.
This was the year that intersectional identity politics went mainstream, and there is no
going back. The gender-neutral genie is out of the bottle, and xe is fabulous.
There were uprisings against systemic injustice, statues of straight white males were torn
down, and Ben and Jerry's reminded their customers how racist they all were in order to
encourage them to buy more of their New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream.
This was all made possible because Covid-19 refused to spread during our mass protests ,
which just goes to show that even pathogens have gone woke.
The world finally accepted that there are more than 400 genders , and that all of these have
been persecuted throughout history. Even the ones we invented last week.
Intersectional feminism triumphed over transphobia. All of a sudden, major companies were
using phrases such as "menstruators", "vulva owners" and "people with a cervix". All of which
is far more respectful to women: or, as I like to call them, bipedal gestation units.
We are now living in a post-BLM world, where Critical Race Theory has been received as the
hallowed truth that shall guide us towards salvation. At last, we are amplifying voices of
colour that have been historically marginalised. (Except for the ones who don't agree with
defunding the police or dismantling capitalism, who are just white-adjacent scumbags that are
best ignored.)
Best of all, Joe Biden triumphed over that malevolent incubus Donald Trump. Already Biden
has discovered a vaccine for Covid-19, which explains why he spent most of his election
campaign in a basement.
As we move into 2021, Biden's brave message resounds throughout our new woke empire. It is
time for healing. It is time for hope. Above all, it is time for unity.
So let's make a list of everyone who voted the wrong way and deal with them as soon as
possible.
Just a reminder that Joe, the candidate with the most votes in the history of the USA, had
52k views on all of his live streams COMBINED yesterday when he "won." United Spot has more
than double that in Subs.
"... Listening to Joe Biden on the campaign trail is about as painful as listening to Trump. The gaffes just keep on coming! Running for the senate or the presidency? ..."
"... That Biden didn't break a sweat and seemed to know that he wouldn't win in liberal Massachusetts on Super Tuesday is one sign of just how fucked-up the political, economic, and social systems are. ..."
"... If a person buys into the argument that elections mean anything at all, and they do to some extent, then the fact that a left/progressive coalition couldn't pull it off here speaks volumes. ..."
"... Howard Lisnoff is a freelance writer. He is the author of Against the Wall: Memoir of a Vietnam-Era War Resister (2017). ..."
Listening to Joe Biden on the campaign trail is about as painful as listening to Trump.
The gaffes just keep on coming! Running for the senate or the presidency?
That Biden breezed to a presidential primary victory in supposedly liberal Massachusetts
leaves nothing but a sense of despair for anyone on the political left. If Philip Berrigan or
Eugene Debs were alive, either leftist might say "I told you so."
That Biden didn't break a sweat and seemed to know that he wouldn't win in liberal
Massachusetts on Super Tuesday is one sign of just how fucked-up the political, economic, and
social systems are. What was the combination of demographics that gave Biden a victory in
much the same way as a runner on third base comes home and scores after the batter walks with
the bases full?
So-called moderates flocked to Biden, as did those over 50 years old and older Black voters.
Liberals, younger voters, young Black voters, and Latino voters supported Sanders. Political
analysts can go on and on, ad nauseam, but the fact remains that a vibrant and well-organized
campaign by Bernie Sanders on the ground in Massachusetts fell on its face, as did that of
Elizabeth Warren. If a person buys into the argument that elections mean anything at all,
and they do to some extent, then the fact that a left/progressive coalition couldn't pull it
off here speaks volumes. The people who went to the polls spoke, and they would rather
have a neoliberal bumbler than someone who would champion, at the very least, liberal
causes.
... ... ...
Howard Lisnoff is a freelance writer. He is the author of Against the Wall: Memoir of a
Vietnam-Era War Resister (2017).
Well, it's no way to run a country, lying your ass off all the time, as the results show.
I have long been mystified by the political hacks here faith in the efficacy of bullshit for
running a country. But then I realized that is not what they want to do, they want to exploit
the country and get rich, and then depart like their 3rd world collaborators. And bullshit is
what they do.
"Keep smirking, making your faces and rolling your eyes, Leland. I get it. I get it. You guys spent years trying
to run up the Russia hoax against the president and trying to say this is over, and the hypocrisy continues."
C3
@C_3C_3
FBI knew the Dossier was FAKE
CIA knew the Dossier was FAKE
DOJ knew the Dossier was FAKE
ODNI knew the Dossier was FAKE
Media knew the Dossier was FAKE
Mueller knew the Dossier was FAKE
Congress knew the Dossier was FAKE
BO Admin knew the Dossier was FAKE
They were all in on it
Creative_Destruct 44 minutes ago
Creative_Destruct 44 minutes ago
Biden relentlessly virtual signals to cover for both his own severe intellectual
deficiencies and insecurities and to cover for his corrupt influence-peddling, all aided and
abetted by the partisan MSM.
Only a few drops of swamp water were drained, at most, by Trump,
and that will now be more than replenished. Actually, oversupply is coming. Swamp expansion
here we come.
Nature_Boy_Wooooo 5 hours ago (Edited) Nature_Boy_Wooooo 5 hours ago
(Edited)
Imagine sitting in court for tax fraud and the prosecutor saying........ "we gotta make sure
this doesn't happen in the future.".....but you get to walk and keep the money you stole.
"... In honor of Mr. Biden's remarkable comeback from fourth place in the primaries I move that his portrait should be embossed on every $3 bill, and that Ms. Harris portrait should adorn every wooden nickel. ..."
Handful of Dust 1 hour ago (Edited) remove link Handful of Dust 1 hour ago
(Edited) remove link
Everyone likes a fair election. No one likes cheaters.
Save Americans the suffering and damage and embarrassment.
Pelosi should hand in her resignation.
Biden should be a man and concede.
Hillary should turn herself in at the nearest police station.
Dominion executives should be arrested.
Rudog 1 hour ago
In honor of Mr. Biden's remarkable comeback from fourth place in the primaries I move that
his portrait should be embossed on every $3 bill, and that Ms. Harris portrait should adorn
every wooden nickel.
I would not got so far as to claim that China has freedom of speech. You can be jailed for
many years for publishing your views. As I wrote, USA has freedom of speech so they jail
people for opinions by tagging them as "foreign agents", something that is perhaps not needed
in China. "Fomenting distrust in the institutions of the state as a foreign agent" elegantly
circumvents 1st Amendment, American judiciary is well practiced in undoing the follies of the
Founding Fathers -- without criticizing them. The effect is (un-)surprisingly similar to
Chinese formulation "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" that in turn (because of faulty
translation?) resembles
English legal tradition .
Airish1 @airish1 #millennialvoters
unironically spent the afternoon cruising around in their fossil fuel powered vehicles honking
in joy at the apparent victory for the #GreenNewDeal today.
99.99%? WOW! That level of accuracy is definitely going to piss off Kim Jong-Un. I think
he topped out at 99.965. Maybe we should keep this on the low-low.
Silentwistle 14 hours ago (Edited) Silentwistle 14 hours ago (Edited)
Biden's already been President for years. Just ask him. He was also the first man to land on
the moon. He stayed for weeks. He also lit Hitler on Fire in the bunker. Don't you remember, he
was in the car with Kennedy in Dallas. He tried to save him but he slipped on his own hair
plug.
"A study done a few years ago showed that over 2/3rds of international affairs stories in
major European newspapers were basically reprints of NYT articles"
Now we don't need a study, we can see it happening in real time on Google News. Also, which
stories are ignored or whitewashed by MSM.
The AT&T building on 2nd Avenue suffered significant damage in the blast. That facility
includes connection points for regional internet services as well as local wireless,
internet and video. In the hours that followed the explosion, our local service remained
intact through temporary battery power. Unfortunately, a combination of the explosion and
resulting water and fire damage took out a number of backup power generators intended to
provide power to the batteries. That led to service disruptions across parts of Tennessee,
Kentucky and Alabama. More than 48 hours later, some customers are still experiencing
outages. We know it is frustrating and we apologize for the inconvenience. We also thank
you for your understanding. -AT&T statement
Wake me up when the MSM gives the *explanation* how/why the alleged 63yr old 'lone bomber'
knew *exactly* the location to park [allegedly] his RV bomb to take out AT&T internet
services for big chunks of *4-5* US States...
"There are many bodies around the world that function and achieve their goals showing full
respect for the UN Charter. Among them are all bodies within the CIS space: the CIS itself,
the CSTO, the Eurasian Economic Union and the SCO. It should be remembered that 10 or so
years ago, after the 2008 crisis, the G20 began to meet regularly, because the Western G7
realized its inability to rule the world and set the rules in the economy and finance on its
own. It used to be the prerogative of the group of seven nations, and everyone else tacitly
accepted its primacy. Now with the G20 in place, the G7 is only one of many groups. The
second group is BRICS (Russia, Brazil, India, China and South Africa). A number of other G20
members think like the BRICS nations and want the global economic and financial system to
become more democratic.
"To put it bluntly, they want it to become democratic, because at the moment it is not
democratic at all. Things that are happening with the abuse of the role of the dollar are of
concern not only to the countries on which the United States is imposing illegal sanctions,
thus distorting its role as an issuer of one of the main currencies, but other countries as
well. Not only Russia, China, Iran, and the SCO member states want to switch to mechanisms
that will rely on national currencies in trade and investment settlements. Europe is
beginning to ponder, especially given the fairly strong position of the euro, moving away
from dependence on the dollar."
On this page, I've written that the Outlaw US Empire must change its ways domestically and
internationally, and Lavrov's presentation yet again provides many reasons why it must.
Twenty-three days remain until the known War Criminal and manifestly corrupt Joe Biden is
made POTUS; so, things are likely to worsen on all fronts. In today's political cartoon, the
masked donkey was selling unmasked elephants T-Shirts emblazoned with RESIST!--an excellent
reference to Seuss's Sneetches.
Closing out today by linking to "The Ever Fonky Low Down's Libretto ,
where you'll immediately be confronted by Mr. Game. Follow his jive to learn why I think this
bit of musical construction powerful and educational. I'll leave the last word for Mr.
Game:
"Leave everything up to us and we'll make sure you never have to do anything except pay.
And
while you hate each other and fight against a never-ending 'them', we will remain us. Who
is
us? Haha, we are you when you get the opportunity to be ." [Emphasis Orihginal]
Now that a majority of the country believes the election was fraudulent and the Supreme
Court has completely abdicated its authority the next obstacle in front of President Trump is
here.
And, as always, it comes from his complicit Secretary of State who undermines Trump with his
every move to turn the State, Defense and Intelligence apparatuses of the U.S. against
Russia.
Pompeo goes on Mark Levin's show, whose ratings are through the roof right now, to tell all
the slavering normie-conservatives that it was definitely the Russians who hacked our
government.
Without offering any evidence or specifics, Pompeo said Russia was "pretty clearly" behind
the cyberattack during an appearance on the conservative talk radio Mark Levin Show .
"I can't say much more, as we're still unpacking precisely what it is, and I'm sure some
of it will remain classified. But suffice it to say there was a significant effort to use a
piece of third-party software to essentially embed code inside of US government systems and
it now appears systems of private companies and companies and governments across the world as
well," Pompeo
explained .
Notice how there is no evidence given, just the typical intelligence agency, "believe me"
line, which is your first clue that whoever it was behind this attack the one group who was
definitely NOT behind it was the Russians.
This week's cyber attack on the U.S. government was perfectly timed with the Electoral
College submitting its votes to the Congress and Joe Biden claiming he's president-elect.
The reason why the release of this 'attack' on our government was perfectly timed is because
it is a distraction from the growing unrest over the Democrats' having stolen the election and
cowering the courts into irrelevance.
This is classic CIA-level misdirection from what was more likely a Chinese or, dare I say
it, homegrown operation for the very purpose of blaming the Russians to tamp down the anger and
confuse the MAGA crowd.
And it resurrects the ghost of RussiaGate for the libs by putting Trump in a Catch-22.
If he doesn't respond to this it keeps alive the smoldering embers of the TDS crowd
watching Rachel Maddow that Trump really does have deep, covert ties to Russia.
If he does react, what possible reaction could he take to escalate the tensions with
Russia that are already one step below open warfare?
Oh, and he has to respond to this while also fighting an uphill battle against the courts
and his own bureaucracy to invoke his executive order involving outside interference into the
election. And in classic Trump fashion he did:
Provoking the exact reaction you'd expect from the BlueChecked Sneetches among the
Twitterati. RussiaGate was an embarrassment that should have died years ago but it persists
precisely because Trump refuses to formally concede and continues to give his people the
opportunity to fight the Swamp.
The only way Putin and the Russians were behind this attack on the U.S. government was as a
5-d chess move where Trump invited them to do it on his behalf to 'prove' external interference
in the election and allow Trump to cross the Rubicon, invoke the Insurrection Act and his 2018
EO on election interference.
Yeah, by the way, John Le Carre died this week, life ain't a movie and Trump isn't that
savvy a player. Ye gods, I wish he was. That we are in this mess proves he isn't.
This pronouncement by Pompeo was just good ol' fashioned swamp double talk who continues his
job of maintaining continuity of U.S. foreign policy on behalf of the Neoconservatives whose
raison d'etre is the destruction of Russia to the exclusion of nearly every other consideration
of any other human on the planet.
Don't be confused by this nonsense. Whoever was behind this attack wasn't the Russians. The
motive for this operation lies squarely with China, The Davos Crowd , the Democrats and our own
intelligence agencies trying to move the Overton Window away from the real problem, a stolen
election.
Outing Solarwinds and tying it directly to Dominion Voting Systems is your smoking gun.
But the courts, as I said at the open, have left the building.
Martin Armstrong pointed out the Supreme Court denied the 'shouting behind closed doors'
because they met via Zoom call.
But they didn't deny the substance of the charge against them, that they bowed to political
pressure thanks to the Democrats' open blackmail campaign of terror this past summer.
So, at this point there really is little hope of overturning the election. From what I've
heard on the ground in Georgia the same Dominion Voting machines are in place there for the
Senate runoffs. Those who voted didn't even get a receipt this time.
So the fix is in there too, folks.
There will be no victories in this fight. Every possible avenue of hope must be crushed if
the Great Reset of The Davos Crowd is to occur. Pompeo plays his part just like everyone else
in this pantomime, one day giving Trump supporters hope by saying he's preparing for a 2nd
term, the next using that cache to undermine him with a far bigger betrayal.
This is how the Deep State works to protect itself and we have to be smart enough to see it
for what it is: preparing the ground for the next phase of the greatest intelligence show on
earth.
Same spook time, same spook channel.
* * *
Join my Patreon if you
think Russia isn't the world's ultimate evil
President Joe Biden 1 hour ago
"
"most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American
politics"
Russia made me say it.
gzorp 51 minutes ago remove link
Nope Obama did it
itstippy 1 hour ago
The Russians made the Check Engine light come on in my car today. Now I have to deal with
that tomorrow, and it's colder than a witch's tit outside. I hate those guys.
JD Rock 1 hour ago
The incessant propaganda from the clever tribe is, so the 2 largest white nations dont
align. That would set the zionists back 500 years.
MX_DOGG 58 minutes ago
... ironic that Russia will be our allies again. They know who their enemy is.
LibertarianMenace 9 minutes ago
Set them back permanently. Complete what Rome failed to.
No work on Sunday 49 minutes ago
Americans trust Russia and Putin more then ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CIA, FBI, swamp etc. that
is a pitiful testament to how far the globalist agenda has gotten.
Doom Porn Star 55 minutes ago
"Russia SOMEHOW gained unrestricted access to all the back-doors in Microsoft enterprise
software and MUST HAVE used their access to plant bugs in sensitive systems.
Bill gates and his cronies who CREATED the software and have always had access to all the
back-doors in Microsoft enterprise software CERTAINLY DID NOT do it.
I'm the guy who told you earlier that I lie cheat and steal for a living . You can believe
me . "
tion PREMIUM 1 hour ago (Edited)
'Russia' is quite literally used as a coverup code word for Israel. Hence why they
declassified almost nothing.
Really Ezra I hope you and the QuckTard do realize that the PEAD commentary wasn't exactly
an invitation either, right.
Five_Black_Eyes_Intel_Agency 48 minutes ago (Edited)
Claiming to be playing 6D chess and keeping Pompeo on the team are mutually exclusive
events.
Anyway, by now its clear as day that the Tweedle Dee Tweedle Dum American political system
is a broken circus and not export-worthy.
On one side of the swamp, you have Team Blue, a Deep State subisdiary that pins the blame
on Russia. On the other side you have Team Red, another Deep State subsidiary that pins the
blame on China. Both however, agree fully on imperialism, fundamentalist Zionism and herding
American cattle against their own interests.
How are you meant to reform this system by "voting"?>?>?
Mr. Apotheosis 55 minutes ago
Inside job, almost certainly.
tion PREMIUM 47 minutes ago
There is an extremist cult faction within the CIA that is attached to Mossad at the
hip.
Snaffew 59 minutes ago remove link
Anyone that believes anything that comes out of the US "intelligence" agencies is part of
the problem.
TheRealBilboBaggins 2 minutes ago
My first thought was . . . "inside job". Especially how quickly Russia was blamed with
zero presentation of forensic evidence. Oh, I know, methods and sources must be protected.
That usually means government criminals must be protected.
Do you ever ask yourself why the FBI, CIA, NSA, and DHS, get so little done that matters
to Americans? Do you ever ask yourself how we possible still have organized crime, foreign
gangs, and Antifa, with all the dough wasted on these "law enforcement agencies"? I do, and
my conclusion is that these agencies are not about what they say they are. They are aimed at
attacking various Americans as it helps the agencies.
Ms No PREMIUM 10 minutes ago
"This is classic CIA-level misdirection from what was more likely a Chinese or, dare I say
it, homegrown operation"
Really?
You speak of misdirection and then go from Russia to suggesting CIA target China, because
you know Trumpers have already figured out that is wasn't Russia, but still don't know they
are manipulated in the same fashion about China?
That"s rich.
Simpson 1 minute ago
They spent 25 million 4 years on investigating the Russia hoax and came up with zero. With
Hunter Biden they hid the evidence for two years till after the election. Images with under
aged girls and smoking crack.
Democrats who sit on intelligence committees screwing a CCP Intelligence officer but
nothing to see here.
FO with your gaslighting.
BendGuyhere 12 minutes ago
DC is in dire need of an attitude adjustment, as much for its own survival as the health
of the country.
The more DC walls itself off from the rest of the country, the more likely becomes an
explosive revolution that wipes their precious stats quo off the map.
Convulsively stabbing Trump in the back will not restore them, cargo cult style, to the
glory days of Dubya, Clinton and Obama.
They've done a fabulous job impoverishing this country and enriching themselves.
But the small print shows Biden, 33, won't see a day behind bars after she negotiated a plea
deal with the Montgomery County district attorney.
Instead of jail, she got five-plus months of probation, with 20 days of rehab in January
counted toward her sentence.
The walk-free plea continues a long Biden family tradition of avoiding jail time. A Post
investigation in July found at least eight other busts of Bidens resulted in wrist
slaps.
"She will be on probation Should she then violate or break the law at any time, then she
will be on the hook for the rest of the sentence," Kate Delano, a DA spokeswoman, told The
Post."
"Biden, daughter of James Biden, was busted in Lower Merion Township, Pa., in August 2019
after slamming her car into a tree. Arresting officer Jeffrey Seamans noted Biden, who was
driving without a license, "had difficulty focusing on the conversation" as he questioned
her."
"As her Uncle Joe campaigned for president, the case took more than a year crawling through
the Pennsylvania courts. Her arraignment was held on Nov. 4 --
one day after the presidential election.
A court spokesperson insisted the date was auto-generated and its post-election timing was
coincidental.
Mike Gottlieb, a Norristown, Pa., attorney with experience in DUI cases, said the ruling was
fair for a first offense. "It is not an unusual sentence to get credit for the time in the
rehab. So truthfully, I don't think she was treated any differently than any of my clients
would have been," he told The Post." foxnews
------------
So, this gal;
Borrowed a credit card from someone to pay a bill at Bigelow's Pharmacy (in New York
City?). She then used it to open a line of credit with BP and over a year charged $110,000 to
the account, but - she says she was a naughty girl and is very sorry.
And then, there is this DUI with the tree ramming while whacked incident.
And before that there is a little matter of hitting a cop who displeased her.
So, she is James' little girl. The Bidonians are not really very good at "this." You know
what "this" is. Someone (I could name them now) will write to say that the Trumps are no
better. Really? Tell us about it. pl
Summers and the financial press don't speak of asset price inflation as overheating. No, our
elites would very much like stock prices to rise to infinity forever and ever.
Trump's sincerity regarding the $2,000 can be suspect but he has some skill at making the
regulars in Washington look ridiculous hypocrites but that's not hard to do
People are angry and that creates problem for neoliberal elite. They tried Russia bogeyman to
distract people's attention (Look squirrel), but that did not work.
Yep.. 2 trillion of liquidity pumped into the economy by the Fed, 2.3 Trillion in the
CARES act.. not a peep about inflation on his Twitter. (I looked.. he fully supported all of
the spending).
But give $0.5 trillion directly to people.. inflation boogeyman comes out.
It's really kind of funny. Now that the American public has seen a side of Joe Biden that
he apparently kept hidden for years, one wonders what all the excitement was about when
President Trump said a few things that seemed radical or mean spirited. How much more radical
or mean spirited can one get than Biden challenging potential voters who don't agree with him
to a fist fight in the back alley, or calling women dog faced or donkey faced or calling a
voter that simply wanted to ask him a question and a–hole etc. Talk about mean
spirited? This clown is mean spirited. If he was asked the kind of questions and constant
agitating like the media spent four years pounding on President Trump with, Biden would go
crazy punching and kicking people, the cornpop .lol
Every time I see Gov. Whitmer on television, she reminds me of evil Nurse Rached
(wretched), played by Louise Fletcher, in the great 1970's film "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's
Nest." Psychiatric nurse Rached loved nothing more than to grind down the male patients she
lorded over, until all their manhood and self-respect were gone...
hundreds and thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at each other and we concern ourselves
with a simple virus. I would like to end the utter bullshit altogether, there is no chance
that war will ever happen again on such a grand scale. Politicians are here to keep us apart,
keep the threat going and distract. Money and power is all that matters. All the words in the
world will not change the "TRUTH". Thx for the entertainment guys and gals!
With Biden's New Threats, the Russia Discourse is More Reckless and Dangerous Than Ever
The U.S. media demands inflammatory claims be accepted with no evidence, while hacking behavior routinely engaged in by
the U.S. is depicted as aberrational.
Glenn Greenwald
Dec 23
211
332
Then-Vice
President Joe Biden speaks at the Brookings Institute May 27, 2015 in Washington, DC spoke about the Russia-Ukraine
conflict (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
To justify Hillary Clinton's 2016 loss
to Donald Trump, leading Democrats and their key media allies
for years competed with one another to depict what they called "Russia's interference in our elections" in the most
apocalyptic terms possible. They fanatically rejected the view of the Russian Federation repeatedly expressed by
President Obama -- that it is a
weak
regional power
with an economy smaller than Italy's capable of only threatening its neighbors but not the U.S. -- and
instead cast Moscow as a grave, even existential, threat to U.S. democracy, with its actions tantamount to the worst
security breaches in U.S. history.
This post-2016 mania culminated with prominent liberal politicians and journalists (
as
well as John McCain
) declaring Russia's activities surrounding the 2016 to be an "act of war" which, many of them
insisted, was
comparable
to Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 attack
-- the two most traumatic attacks in modern U.S. history which both spawned years
of savage and destructive war, among other things.
Subscribe
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
repeatedly
demanded
that Russia's 2016 "interference" be treated as "an act of war." Hillary Clinton
described
Russian
hacking as "a cyber 9/11." And here is Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) on MSNBC in early February, 2018, pronouncing Russia "a
hostile foreign power" whose 2016 meddling was the "equivalent" of Pearl Harbor, "very much on par" with the
"seriousness" of the 1941 attack in Hawaii that helped prompt four years of U.S. involvement in a world war.
With the Democrats, under Joe Biden, just weeks away from assuming control of the White House and the U.S. military and
foreign policy that goes along with it, the discourse from them and their media allies about Russia is becoming even
more unhinged and dangerous. Moscow's alleged responsibility for the recently revealed, multi-pronged hack of U.S.
Government agencies and various corporate servers is asserted -- despite not a shred of evidence, literally, having yet
been presented -- as not merely proven fact, but as so obviously true that it is off-limits from doubt or questioning.
Any questioning of this claim will be instantly vilified by the Democrats' extremely militaristic media spokespeople as
virtual treason. "Now the president is not just silent on Russia and the hack. He is deliberately running defense for
the Kremlin by contradicting his own Secretary of State on Russian responsibility,"
pronounced
CNN's
national security reporter Jim Sciutto, who
last
week depicted
Trump's attempted troop withdrawal from Syria and Germany as "ceding territory" and furnishing "gifts"
to Putin. More alarmingly, both the rhetoric to describe the hack and the retaliation being threatened are rapidly
spiraling out of control.
Democrats (along with some Republicans long obsessed with The Russian Threat, such as Mitt Romney) are casting the
latest alleged hack by Moscow in the most melodramatic terms possible, ensuring that Biden will enter the White House
with tensions sky-high with Russia and facing heavy pressure to retaliate aggressively. Biden's top national security
advisers and now Biden himself have, with no evidence shown to the public, repeatedly threatened aggressive retaliation
against the country with the world's second-largest nuclear stockpile.
Congressman Jason Crow (D-CO) -- one of the pro-war Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee who earlier this
year
joined
with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY)
to block Trump's plan to withdraw troops from Afghanistan --
announced
:
"this could be our modern day, cyber equivalent of Pearl Harbor,"
adding
:
"Our nation is under assault." The second-ranking Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin (D-IL),
pronounced
:
"This is virtually a declaration of war by Russia."
Meanwhile, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), who has for years been casting Russia as a grave threat to the U.S. while Democrats
mocked him as a relic of the Cold War (before they copied and then surpassed him),
described
the latest hack
as "the equivalent of Russian bombers flying undetected over the entire country." The GOP's 2012
presidential nominee also blasted Trump for his failure to be "aggressively speaking out and protesting and taking
punitive action," though -- like virtually every prominent figure demanding tough "retaliation" -- Romney failed to
specify what he had in mind that would be sufficient retaliation for "the equivalent of Russian bombers flying
undetected over the entire country."
For those keeping track at home: that's two separate "Pearl Harbors" in less than four years from Moscow (or, if you
prefer, one Pearl Harbor and one 9/11). If Democrats actually believe that, it stands to reason that they will be eager
to embrace a policy of belligerence and aggression toward Russia. Many of them are demanding this outright, mocking
Trump for failing to attack Russia -- despite no evidence that they were responsible -- while their
well-trained
liberal flock
is
suggesting
that
the
non-response
constitutes
some form of "high treason."
Indeed, the Biden team has been signalling that they intend to quickly fulfill demands for aggressive retaliation.
The
New York Times
reported
on Tuesday
that Biden "accused President Trump [] of 'irrational downplaying'" of the hack while "warning Russia
that he would not allow the intrusion to 'go unanswered' after he takes office." Biden emphasized that once the
intelligence assessment is complete, "we will respond, and probably respond in kind."
Threats and retaliation between the U.S. and Russia are always dangerous, but particularly so now. One of the key
nuclear arms agreements between the two nuclear-armed nations, the New START treaty,
will
expire in February
unless Putin and Biden can successfully negotiate a renewal: sixteen days after Biden is
scheduled to take office. "That will force Mr. Biden to strike a deal to prevent one threat -- a nuclear arms race --
while simultaneously threatening retaliation on another," observed the
Times.
This escalating rhetoric
from Washington about Russia, and the resulting climate of heightened
tensions, are dangerous in the extreme. They are also based in numerous myths, deceits and falsehoods:
First,
absolutely no evidence of any kind has been presented to suggest, let alone prove, that Russia
is responsible for these hacks. It goes without saying that it is perfectly plausible that Russia could have done this:
it's the sort of thing that every large power from China and Iran to the U.S. and Russia have the capability to do and
wield against virtually every other country including one another.
But if we learned nothing else over the last several decades, we should know that accepting claims that emanate from the
U.S. intelligence community about adversaries without a shred of evidence is madness of the highest order. We just had a
glaring reminder of the importance of this rule: just weeks before the election, countless mainstream media outlets
laundered and endorsed the utterly false claim that the documents from Hunter Biden's laptop
were
"Russian disinformation,"
only for officials to acknowledge once the harm was done that there was no evidence -- zero
-- of Russian involvement.
Yet that is exactly what the overwhelming bulk of media outlets are doing again: asserting that Russia is behind these
hacks despite having no evidence of its truth.
The New York Times
' Michael Barbaro, host of the paper's
popular
The Daily
podcast,
asked
his colleague
, national security reporter David Sanger, what evidence exists to assert that Russia did this. As
Barbaro put it, even Sanger is "allowing that early conclusions could all be wrong, but that it's doubtful." Indeed,
Sanger acknowledged to Barbaro that they have no proof, asserting instead that the basis on which he is relying is that
Russia possesses the sophistication to carry out such a hack (as do several other nation-states), along with claiming
that the hack has what he calls the "markings" of Russian hackers.
But this tactic was exactly the same one
used
by former intelligence officials
, echoed by these same media outlets, to circulate the false pre-election claim that
the documents from Hunter Biden's laptop were "Russian disinformation": namely, they pronounced in lockstep, the
material from Hunter's laptop "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation." This was also exactly
the same tactic used by the U.S. intelligence community in 2001
to
falsely blame Iraq for the anthrax attacks
, claiming that their chemical analysis revealed a substance that was "a
trademark of the Iraqi biological weapons program."
These media outlets will, if pressed, acknowledge their lack of proof that Russia did this. Despite this admitted lack
of proof, media outlets are repeatedly stating Russian responsibility as
proven fact
.
"Scope of Russian Hacking Becomes Clear: Multiple U.S. Agencies Were Hit,"
one
New
York Times
headline
proclaimed,
and the first line of that article, co-written by Sanger, stated definitively: "The scope of a
hacking
engineered by one of Russia's
premier intelligence agencies became clearer on Monday."
The Washington Post
deluged
the public
with identically certain headlines:
Nobody in the government has been as definitive in asserting Russian responsibility as corporate media outlets. Even
Trump's hawkish Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, crafted his accusation against Moscow
with
caveats and uncertainty
: "
I think it's the case
that now we can say
pretty clearly
that it was the
Russians that engaged in this activity."
If actual evidence ultimately emerges demonstrating Russian responsibility, it would not alter how dangerous it is that
-- less than twenty years after the Iraq WMD debacle and less than a couple of years after media endorsement of
endless
Russiagate falsehoods
-- the most influential media outlets continue to mindlessly peddle as Truth whatever the
intelligence community feeds them, without the need to see any evidence that what they're claiming is actually true.
Even more alarmingly, large sectors of the public that venerate these outlets continue to believe that what they hear
from them must be true, no matter how many times they betray that trust. The ease with which the CIA can disseminate
whatever messaging it wants through friendly media outlets is stunning.
Second
, the very idea that this hack could be compared to rogue and wildly aberrational events such as
Pearl Harbor or the 9/11 attack is utterly laughable on its face. One has to be drowning in endless amounts of
jingoistic self-delusion to believe that this hack -- or, for that matter, the 2016 "election interference" -- is a
radical departure from international norms as opposed to a perfect reflection of them.
Just as was true of 2016 fake Facebook pages and Twitter bots, it is not an exaggeration to say that the U.S. Government
engages in hacking attacks of this sort, and ones far more invasive, against virtually every country on the planet,
including Russia, on a weekly basis. That does not mean that this kind of hacking is either justified or unjustified. It
does mean, however, that depicting it as some particularly dastardly and incomparably immoral act that requires massive
retaliation requires a degree of irrationality and gullibility that is bewildering to behold.
The NSA reporting enabled by Edward Snowden by itself proved that the NSA spies on
virtually
anyone it can
. Indeed, after reviewing the archive back in 2013, I made the decision that I would not report on U.S.
hacks of large adversary countries such as China and Russia because it was so commonplace for all of these countries to
hack one another as aggressively and intrusively as they could that it was hardly newsworthy to report on this (the only
exception was when there was a substantial reason to view such spying as independently newsworthy, such as
Sweden's
partnering with NSA to spy on Russia
in direct violation of the denials Swedish officials voiced to their public).
Other news outlets who had access to Snowden documents, particularly
The New York Times
, were not nearly as
circumspect in exposing U.S. spying on large nation-state adversaries. As a result, there is ample proof published by
those outlets (sometimes provoking Snowden's strong objections) that the U.S. does exactly what Russia is alleged to
have done here -- and far worse.
"Even as the United States made a public case about the dangers of buying from [China's] Huawei, classified documents
show that the National Security Agency was creating its own back doors -- directly into Huawei's networks,"
reported
The
New York Times
'
David
Sanger and Nicole Perlroth in 2013, adding that "the agency pried its way into the servers in Huawei's sealed
headquarters in Shenzhen, China's industrial heart."
In 2013,
the
Guardian
revealed
"an
NSA attempt to eavesdrop on the Russian leader, Dmitry Medvedev, as his phone calls passed through satellite links to
Moscow," and added: "foreign politicians and officials who took part in two
G20
summit
meetings in London in 2009 had their computers monitored and their phone calls intercepted on the instructions of their
British government hosts." Meanwhile, "Sweden has been a key partner for the United States in spying on Russia and its
leadership, Swedish television said on Thursday,"
noted
Reuters
, citing what one NSA document described as "a unique collection on high-priority Russian targets, such as
leadership, internal politics."
Other reports revealed that the U.S. had
hacked
into
the Brazilian telecommunications system to collect data on the whole population, and was
spying
on
Brazil's key leaders (including then-President Dilma Rousseff) as well as its most important companies such as
its oil giant Petrobras and its Ministry of Mines and Energy.
The Washington Post
reported
:
"The National Security Agency is gathering nearly
5 billion
records a day
on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world, according to top-secret documents and interviews
with U.S. intelligence officials, enabling the agency to track the movements of individuals -- and map their
relationships -- in ways that would have been previously unimaginable." And on and on.
[One amazing though under-appreciated episode related to all this: the same
New York Times
reporter who
revealed the details about massive NSA hacking of Chinese government and industry, Nicole Perlroth, subsequently urged
(in tweets she has now deleted) that Snowden not be pardoned on the ground that, according to her, he revealed
legitimate NSA spying on U.S. adversaries. In reality, it was actually she, Perlorth, not Snowden, who chose to expose
NSA spying on China, provoking Snowden's angry objections when she did so based on his view this was a violation of the
framework he created for what should and should not be revealed; in other words, not only did Perlroth
urge the
criminal prosecution of a source on which she herself relied, an absolutely astonishing thing for any reporter to do,
but so much worse, she did so by falsely accusing that source of doing something that she, Perlroth, had done herself:
namely, reveal extensive U.S. hacking of China
].
What all of this makes demonstrably clear is that only the most deluded and uninformed person could believe that Russian
hacking of U.S. agencies and corporations -- if it happened -- is anything other than totally normal and common behavior
between these countries. Harvard Law Professor and former Bush DOJ official Jack Goldsmith, reviewing growing demands
for retaliation, wrote in
an
excellent article
last week entitled "Self-Delusion on the Russia Hack
:
The U.S. regularly hacks
foreign governmental computer systems on a massive scale":
The lack of self-awareness in these and similar reactions to the Russia breach is astounding. The U.S. government has
no principled basis to complain about the Russia hack, much less retaliate for it with military means, since the U.S.
government hacks foreign government networks on a huge scale every day. Indeed, a military response to the Russian
hack would violate international law . . . .
As the revelations from leaks of information from Edward Snowden made plain, the United States regularly penetrates
foreign governmental computer systems on a massive scale, often (as in the Russia hack) with the unwitting assistance
of the private sector, for purposes of spying. It is almost certainly the world's leader in this practice, probably
by a lot. The Snowden documents suggested as much, as does the NSA's probable budget. In 2016, after noting "problems
with cyber intrusions from Russia," Obama boasted that the United States has "more capacity than anybody
offensively" . . . .
Because of its own practices, the U.S. government has traditionally accepted the legitimacy of foreign governmental
electronic spying in U.S. government networks. After the notorious Chinese hack of the Office of Personnel Management
database, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said: "You have to kind of salute the Chinese for what
they did. If we had the opportunity to do that, I don't think we'd hesitate for a minute." The same Russian agency
that appears to have carried out the hack revealed this week also hacked into unclassified emails in the White House
and Defense and State Departments in 2014-2015. The Obama administration deemed it traditional espionage and did not
retaliate. "It was information collection, which is what nation states -- including the United States -- do," said Obama
administration cybersecurity coordinator Michael Daniel this week.
But over the last four years, Americans, particularly those who feed on liberal media outlets, have been drowned in so
much mythology about the U.S. and Russia that they have no capacity to critically assess the claims being made, and --
just as they were led to believe about "Russia's 2016 interference in Our Sacred Elections" -- are easily convinced that
what Russia did is some shocking and extreme crime the likes of which are rarely seen in international relations. In
reality, their own government is the undisputed world champion in perpetrating these acts, and has been for years if not
decades.
Third
, these demands for "retaliation" are so reckless because they are almost always unaccompanied by
any specifics. Even if Moscow's responsibility is demonstrated, what is the U.S. supposed to do in response? If your
answer is that they should hack Russia back, rest assured the NSA and CIA are always trying to hack Russia as much as it
possibly can, long before this event.
If the answer is more sanctions, that would be just performative and pointless, aside from wildly hypocritical. Any
reprisals more severe than that would be beyond reckless, particularly with the need to renew nuclear arms control
agreements looming. And if you are someone demanding retaliation, do you believe that Russia, China, Brazil and all the
other countries invaded by NSA hackers have the same right of retaliation against the U.S., or does the U.S. occupy a
special place with special entitlements that all other countries lack?
What we have here, yet again, is the classic operation of the intelligence community feeding serious accusations about a
nuclear-armed power to an eagerly gullible corporate media, with the media mindlessly disseminating it without evidence,
all toward ratcheting up tensions between these two nuclear-armed powers and fortifying a mythology of the U.S. as grand
victim but never perpetrator.
If you ever find yourself wondering how massive military budgets and a posture of Endless War are seemingly invulnerable
to challenge, this pathological behavior -- from a now-enduring union of the intelligence community, corporate media
outlets, and the Democratic Party -- provides one key piece of the puzzle.
Update, Dec. 24, 2020, 7:36 a.m. ET:
Although the tweets from
The New York Times
'
Nicole Perlroth referenced above were deleted by her, as indicated, an alert reader notes that
a
Politico
article
at the time
referenced part of my exchange with her, one prompted by anger from
Washington Post
reporters
over an editorial by their own paper that argued against a Snowden pardon, even though that paper reported extensively
on Snowden's documents and won a Pulitzer for doing so:
The editorial is nothing if not a good excuse for a Twitter debate. Some journalists continued to air outrage
yesterday over the editorial board's defenestration of Snowden, while others either agreed with the board's argument
or at least defended its right to take a stand that it knew would no doubt rankle many in the Post's newsroom. In one
of the more notable exchanges, New York Times reporter cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth tangled with Glenn
Greenwald, who broke the Snowden/NSA story for The Guardian.
Perlroth:
"Gotta say I agree w/ wapo. @Snowden leaked tens of thousands of docs that had nothing to
do with privacy violations."
http://bit.ly/2cLPeLY
Greenwald:
"They can start an august club: Journalists In Favor of Criminal Prosecution For Our
Sources"
http://bit.ly/2cLLIRz
That's precisely what I was referencing here. It's utterly repugnant that Perlroth advocated that her own source be
imprisoned on the ground that he leaked documents "that had nothing to do with privacy violations" when it was she,
Perlroth, who decided to reveal details of NSA spying on China, angering Snowden in the process. Clicking on the above
link to her tweet demonstrates that she since deleted it.
One last point: there is an
outstanding
op-ed in Thursday's
New
York Times
about anger over the alleged Russian hack by Paul Kolbe, who served as a senior CIA clandestine
operative for 25 years and is now director of the Intelligence Project at Harvard Kennedy School, entitled "With
Hacking, the United States Needs to Stop Playing the Victim." It details that "the United States is, of course, engaged
in the same type of operations at an even grander scale" and therefore "it's time for the United States to stop acting
surprised and stop posturing."
Greenwald is
mistaken on one point. He discusses the aggressive, outraged words by American politicians and media
about the recent spate of (allegedly) Russian hacking, and rushes to assume that it has a significant
chance of escalating to nuclear war. Biden's language about wanting to "respond in kind" makes it clear
enough that he's not going to do any sort of bombing, killing, invasion, or other equally warlike act in
response. Likewise for Mitt Romney's language. Although I like just about everything else Greenwald says
in this article, his repeated suggestions that the threats over this incident could end up going nuclear
are difficult to believe.
Greenwald's
perspective is that "Threats and retaliation between the U.S. and Russia are always dangerous" due to
their massive stocks of nuclear weapons, particularly now that nuclear treaties have been weakened. Look,
I get that escalation to nuclear war remains a serious danger, and that it would be better if the US and
Russia didn't raise tensions. But as Greenwald knows, things like one country making off with another
country's secret information are examples of the kind of aggressive action that it's very difficult to
stop major powers from doing to other countries. And when a large or small country experiences this kind
of aggressive action being done to it, isn't it inevitable that opinion leaders in that country are going
to say: We won't stand for this, this is similar to an act of war, we must retaliate somehow? Most
opinion leaders will always be upset when their own country is treated that way by another country, even
if their own country has done the same thing and worse.
Greenwald seems
to be looking for a world where opinion leaders in a major power like the US avoid encouraging
retaliation, and avoid even portraying the hacking as an act of war. Nothing could stop opinion leaders
as a group from doing that, unless maybe you could demonstrate to them that their rhetoric, and the
retaliations it leads to, is too likely to encourage escalation to nuclear war. But the continuing
pattern of major powers retaliating against each other by hacking and other relatively low-level
aggression is not something we can realistically stop. The United States and other countries have come to
accept that all major powers will carry out hacks and even low-level forms of violence directed at other
major powers, that countries will express their outrage when another country does it to them, and that
one country will retaliate at the same level when another country does these things. That's a pretty
stable pattern, and there is no sign that anyone wants to disproportionately escalate their retaliation
in a way that could lead to nuclear war. Given that, you can't reasonably convince opinion leaders to
moderate their rhetoric further. The rhetoric coming from opinion leaders on this subject isn't
particularly bloody anyway, at least by the standards of what historically leads to war. So for the short
term at least, I just accept that opinion leaders are going to talk that way -- I do have long-term hopes
of a more peaceful world, but there's no use pretending that the current less peaceful language puts us
in imminent danger of nuclear holocaust.
The main reason
why I am confident that outraged rhetoric about hacking secrets won't escalate into world war is because
modern countries, and especially the United States, are vulnerable to cyber threats that are much worse
than making off with information. It would be easy for an adversary to destroy most of American society
by acts of massively lethal hacking and cyber sabotage. American decision-makers know that they must
deter these kinds of attacks on the US by holding out the prospect of retaliating with nukes, world war,
or similarly lethal cyber attacks. Since American leaders need to be able to use the prospect of massive
retaliation to deter a cyber attack that would cause great destruction in the US, they can't risk using
this kind of massive retaliation for hacking that just steals a lot of secrets. It has already been
established that in the 21st century, countries routinely steal each other's secrets, so it's not
possible to deter or compensate for another country's secret-stealing by threatening to escalate to
bombing or killing or invasion.
Of the
politicians that Greenwald quoted, the two whose rhetoric is most heated still stopped short of the kind
of language that runs any risk of starting a nuclear war. Sen. Durbin said the hacking was "virtually a
declaration of war", using an adverb that cooled down his point and being careful to avoid declaring
himself that a war exists. The obscure Congressman Jason Crow said "Our nation is under assault" and that
the hacking "could be" a "cyber equivalent of Pearl Harbor", where again his point is moderated by the
words "could be" and "cyber equivalent". Sorry, I don't see a danger of a civilization-ending war there,
nor do I see it in the corporate media's language.
Although Greenwald is right to say that politicians and the media are overhyping
threats here, Greenwald is also, in his own way, overhyping a different alleged threat, the idea that
outrage over hacking secrets will escalate to nuclear war. That said, I do think we need to do more to
prevent other pathways of escalation to nuclear war that are more realistic than the one Greenwald
alludes to here, and I agree with Greenwald's other points.
Does anyone have screenshots of the deleted hypocrtiical tweets by NY Times
reporter Nicole Perlroth that Greenwald mentioned in this article? You would normally expect him to post
screenshots, but he doesn't include them or link to them. The paragraph of Greenwald's article where he
brings up her hypocrisy shows some signs of maybe being unfinished, with awkward square brackets. He
should have also included the link to the NY Times article where Perlroth does the same thing she later
condemned -- the link for that is here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/world/asia/nsa-breached-chinese-servers-seen-as-spy-peril.html
Obama won 871 counties and garnered 69 million votes . Biden won 477 counties and got 81
million votes thanks to Dominion
Salisarsims 4 hours ago remove link
All that means is he got out the vote in the cities.
Ron_Mexico 4 hours ago
yep. Nothing to see here folks. Move along now, move along . . .
DotSap 4 hours ago
Biden was also very popular with the over 120 set, too!
Chocura750 1 hour ago remove link
Biden's supporters wear masks and avoid crowds.
Uncle Sugar PREMIUM 30 minutes ago
And they're buried 6' under
Lee Harvey 6 hours ago
What is really disturbing is the fact that anyone would be stupid enough to vote for a
party that wants to eliminate the bill of rights and enslave them, and a candidate that is an
older, whiter, griftier, misogynistier, pedophilic, professional swamp creature for 47 years,
who proved he cannot even raise a decent family, let alone run a nation.
Someone, even if its only is one or two people, actually voted for Biden. Apparently,
retards are allowed to vote...
This Scott Ritter
op/ed is a good read and puts much into perspective if you've been paying attention. For
example, think of the breakneck speed Putin's trying to get Russia's national projects
underway and completed. Think of the ongoing and quickening pace of Eurasian integration. The
McFaul citation, "Russia is way more powerful today than it was 20 years ago, and it's way
more powerful today than it was four years ago," is yet another consideration. Finally, Putin
and Lavrov have spoken of the ever increasing need to negotiate an International Cyber
Security Treaty for almost all of Trump's term. And I'll wager the USA's National Debt that
Russia is very busily finishing its "for internal use only" internet that firewalls the
energy, defense and communications portions of Russian infrastructure.
The hole Obama/Biden were busy digging from 2009-2017 is now much deeper and getting
deeper daily. We've now seen the bipartisan rejection of the saner, larger, stimulus Trump
and some Rs & Ds demanded for the commonfolk, which provides an excellent signal as to
what's going to follow--nothing, aside from the hole deepening yet further. IMO, the economic
draft will soon cease as who will want to defend something that's indefensible. IMO, a
majority if not now will soon conclude that they no longer have a stake in this society, that
they're being milked for all they're worth then discarded.
Why didn't the FBI just call their good friends at CROWDSTRIKE to bust into Hunter's lap
top, instead of begging MacIsaacs to do it for them?
Too bad the DOJ already put Roger Stone behind bars, because who knows what some low level
FBI staffer could have gotten the National Enquirer to pay for those Hunter porn pics.
Under oath, how many within the FBI's inner circle will admit they got to watch those
videos.
2020 - Voting machines are totally secure. It should be interesting to see how the systems were secured during those 3 years.
Edit:
" The legal notice is also said to have specifically named Fox News hosts Lou Dobbs, Jesse
Watters, and Maria Bartiromo, and indicates that Smartmatic could pursue legal action against
them personally. "
This smacks of lawfare. Interestingly (((The Only Democracy In The Middle East))) excels at
that (via Shurat HaDin) - partly in response to attempts to hold it to account. From wiki
(yeah, I know)
"The NGO Forum of the 2001 Durban Conference (31 August 2001 - 8 September 2001) called for
the "establishment of a war crimes tribunal" against Israel."
For some reason, that appears to have gone nowhere.
As for Croomer, there is very little background. He says "I've worked in international
elections in all sorts of post-conflict countries where election violence is real and people
are getting killed over it." - That sounds straight out of CIA/USAID organised US regime change
ops.
Maybe it's a telltale that the Soviet-like demise for the US is near. Hopefully the American
empire will not come to a SUPERNOVA-like ending (inflicting great damage to the rest of the
world), before turning itself into a dwarf.
Which is fine -- victori sunt spoila and all that -- but it's already safe to say the Trump
years will be remembered as a brutal black comedy that made winners and losers alike look very,
very bad. It was supposed to be a historic, norms-smashing catastrophe, but the reality is that
almost nothing actually happened during the Trump years, except for a very long, exhausting
story. The major in-between change was a total loss of our collective grip on reality,
beginning with the fact that most of the country thinks we just went to hell and back a
thousand times, instead of making just one noisy trip in a circle, arriving just where we might
have four years ago, if Joe Biden had run instead of Hillary Clinton. The tiniest conceivable
step, but oh so much grief and self-deception to get there!
y_arrow
highwaytoserfdom 1 hour ago
Matt Im sure you know the
"The press is a gang of cruel(censored) . Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is
a cheap catch-all for (censored)offs and misfits -- a false doorway to the backside of life,
a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough
for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage."
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
RexSeven 2 hours ago
He put on display for all to see exactly what our media, deep state, and democrat party
is. And you dud nothing Matt. Nothing. Go F yourself.
incharge1976 PREMIUM 1 hour ago (Edited)
Crap article and terrible picture.
The reason Trump's 4 years were crazy was because of the corrupt Democrats who lied the
entire time with bs investigations and hearings.
Richard Chesler 1 hour ago
A breath of fresh air after corrupt charlatan Homobama.
NotKennedy 1 hour ago
An American hero, Donald Trump prevented Hillary.
Itchy and Scratchy 1 hour ago
Trump garnered a historic 75-80mm legitimate votes and a massive landslide victory and
this irrelevant dope writes a banal hit piece on him? SERIOUSLY PATHETIC!
(deplorables) should never serve in office, join a corporate board, find a faculty
position or be accepted into 'polite' society. We have a list." – Jennifer Rubin
Never interfere with an adversary who is letting their mask slip. Thank you for the
Hillary moment, Jennifer.
Robert Reich is the guy who while doing nothing as Labor Secretary under Clinton, went on
to to write books denouncing the immirseration of the working and middle classes. Talk us
cheap I guess. I've always wondered why this fake couldn't stick around in government and
made a difference when he could. He is perhaps auditioning for a role as the world's tallest
midget with his fighting talk.
"Any R now promoting rejection of an election or calling to not to follow the will of
voters or making baseless allegations of fraud should never serve in office, join a
corporate board, find a faculty position or be accepted into 'polite' society. We have a
list ."
"... the media – playing judge, jury and executioner – has leveled blame on the usual suspect. ..."
"... Did anyone actually believe that Russia would escape a major US election season without a ceremonial tarring and feathering by the media? It's almost as though frantic journalists, unable to sell the 'Trump Beats Biden with Kremlin Collusion' narrative, have dreamt up this latest work of pulp fiction to keep the ball of 'Russian villainy' bouncing into the next US administration. Heaven forbid if the media just sat by and let protracted peace break out between Washington and Moscow. ..."
"... By now it would seem that the mainstream media would use a bit more discretion before screaming 'Russia!' inside of a crowded planet every time a US computer system is hacked. After all, Russia is certainly not the only country in the world with a plethora of adventure-seeking hackers sitting around bored in their underwear, nor is it the only country in the world that may be tempted – theoretically speaking – to sneak a peek into Uncle Sam's software and, at the risk of sounding vulgar, hardware. ..."
"... Just ask Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell, who allowed himself to be lured into a honey trap by a Chinese Communist spy named – I kid you not – Fang Fang. Aside from making James Bond thrillers essential reading for all politicians, the Democrats may wish to inquire how a member of the House INTELLIGENCE Committee fell for such a scheme. More to the point, however, Swalwell was one of those deranged Democrats screaming 'Russian collusion!' at the height of the Mueller investigation, another waste of taxpayer funds that turned up zero evidence of collusion between Trump and the Kremlin ..."
As incoming nominees of a future Biden administration have
stopped short in naming a culprit in the SolarWinds hack, the media – playing judge, jury and executioner – has leveled blame on
the usual suspect.
Did anyone actually believe that Russia would escape a major US election season without a ceremonial tarring and feathering by
the media? It's almost as though frantic journalists, unable to sell the 'Trump Beats Biden with Kremlin Collusion' narrative, have
dreamt up this latest work of pulp fiction to keep the ball of 'Russian villainy' bouncing into the next US administration. Heaven
forbid if the media just sat by and let protracted peace break out between Washington and Moscow.
Indeed, when SolarWinds – a software platform that counts among its clients the Pentagon, State Department, Justice Department,
and the National Security Agency – suffered an alleged hack, the Washington Post jumped on the evil Russia connection faster than
Ian Fleming.
"The Russian hackers breached email systems,"
wrote Ellen Nakashima and Craig Timberg in the Post without offering a stitch of evidence (Timberg, readers may recall, is the
journalist who relied on a shady outfit known as PropOrNot to
report , wrongly, that some 200 news outlets were peddling Russian-inspired "fake news."). Quoting those always handy "people
who spoke on the condition of anonymity," the tag team claimed that the "scale of the Russian espionage operation appears to be
large."
Ironically, the most reliable real-life entity that Nakashima and Timberg quoted in their story comes by way of the Russian Embassy
in Washington, which called the reports of Russian hacking "baseless."
But never mind. If the Bezos-empire publication says Russia is the guilty party then who are we mere mortals to ask any questions.
So now we're off again to the 'blame Russia' races.
At this point, it must be asked: who is more responsible for writing US foreign policy, the mainstream media, with their never-ending
supply of 'anonymous sources' to substantiate their fantastic assertions, or the US government? That question seems reasonable after
listening to interviews with freshly appointed members of the Biden administration, who apparently never got the memo about 'Russian
baddies'.
Jennifer Granholm, for example, the energy secretary nominee, committed the cardinal sin of not recognizing the 'Russian bogeyman'
in an interview with ABC talking head, George Stephanopolous.
"We don't know fully what happened, the extent of it, and, quite frankly, we don't know fully for sure who did it," Granholm
said , leaving Stephanopoulos, deprived
of clickable Russophobic sound bites, looking dejected and forlorn.
Perhaps Stephanopoulos was anticipating that Granholm would simply regurgitate media talking points about Russia's unproven hack,
like the absolutely reckless one put out by Reuters.
Reporting on the SolarWinds hack, the Reuters article screamed 'Russia' from the opening gates. Yet not a single living person
is quoted from the incoming Biden administration to take responsibility for a claim that has real-life consequences, especially when
some members of Congress are calling the electronic breach an "act of war."
"President-elect Joe Biden's team will consider several options to punish Russia for its suspected role in the unprecedented
hacking of US government agencies and companies once he takes office, from new financial sanctions to cyberattacks on Russian infrastructure,
people familiar with the matter say."
The very same deplorable tactic was used in an
interview 'Face
the Nation' conducted with Ron Klain, the incoming White House chief of staff.
When pressed by the interviewer Margaret Brennan if there was "any doubt that Russia was behind [the hack]," Klain provided
an answer that Brennan was clearly not satisfied with. In other words, Klain never mentioned the perennial villain Russia as a possible
suspect.
"We should be hearing a clear and unambiguous allocation of responsibility from the White House, from the intelligence community,"
he said. "They're the ones who should be making those messages and delivering the ascertainment of responsibility."
Brennan was having none of it, however, and pushed on with the 'blame Russia' narrative.
"Well, the president-elect was pretty clear when he spoke to my colleague Stephen Colbert on CBS earlier this week, and he
was asked about Russia and he said they'll be held accountable," Brennan remarked, desperate to hear Klain pronounce the name.
"He said they'll face financial repercussions for what they did. Is that no longer the case? He no longer believes it's Russia?"
At this point, some very convenient technical problems helped to cut the pathetic excuse for journalism off the air.
By now it would seem that the mainstream media would use a bit more discretion before screaming 'Russia!' inside of a crowded
planet every time a US computer system is hacked. After all, Russia is certainly not the only country in the world with a plethora
of adventure-seeking hackers sitting around bored in their underwear, nor is it the only country in the world that may be tempted
– theoretically speaking – to sneak a peek into Uncle Sam's software and, at the risk of sounding vulgar, hardware.
Just ask Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell, who allowed himself to be lured into a honey trap by a Chinese Communist spy named
– I kid you not – Fang Fang. Aside from making James Bond thrillers essential reading for all politicians, the Democrats may wish
to inquire how a member of the House INTELLIGENCE Committee fell for such a scheme. More to the point, however, Swalwell was one
of those deranged Democrats screaming 'Russian collusion!' at the height of the Mueller investigation, another waste of taxpayer
funds that turned up zero evidence of collusion between Trump and the Kremlin.
In conclusion, it is worth noting that the timing of the purported attack on SolarWinds, coming as it does just weeks before Inauguration
Day when Joe Biden is expected to be sworn in as the 46th POTUS, is extremely suspicious in of itself. Not only is there a power
struggle going on behind the scenes for the White House, with the Trump administration claiming the election was marred by massive
fraud, but Joe Biden's own son Hunter has been accused of influence-peddling in places like Ukraine and China.
The Biden family, naturally, has rejected the claims, while the media has practically buried the story. Meanwhile, Russia, much
like in 2016 when it was accused of hacking Hillary Clinton's emails, is being dragged into another American political drama, at
the most crucial time, without rhyme or reason. At least when it comes to Russia the media can take credit for being very predictable,
albeit absolutely reckless and dangerous in its tactics. Would it kill them to take five minutes off poking the Russian bear?
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
We are dealing with compound fraud but it is not clear how anyone gains an advantage when the propaganda against Russia has saturated
the public mind.
Fenianfromcork Bill Spence 5 hours ago 21 Dec, 2020 08:45 PM
Simple magicians conjuring trick. Look here while Ido something else here.
DexterMont Bill Spence 9 hours ago 21 Dec, 2020 05:19 PM
It's just self delusion in the American political class. No one else is paying any attention to it.
It's me 9 hours ago 21 Dec, 2020 04:54 PM
Same old Same old, we don't have to prove Russians hacked the Election, because it was hacked. It's up to Russia to prove they
didn't hack the Election.
VaimacaPiru 7 hours ago 21 Dec, 2020 06:55 PM
Mr Bridge! Your title should be more accurate! 'The Transnational Corporate Class that own the media sets US foreign policy' Thank
you!
Bill Spence VaimacaPiru 7 hours ago 21 Dec, 2020 07:03 PM
Right now Donald Trump and Pompeo are setting the foreign policy not the transnational corporations who have no head. Generally
the CIA and State Department set foreign policy not those corporations. The CIA has a different point of view, the national security
point of view. Many of those corporations are happy trading with China. They have reached a contradictory position.
IslandT 2 hours ago 22 Dec, 2020 12:04 AM
According to the Trump administration, Russia is one of the actor behinds the dominion incident which helps Biden won the election,
so if Trump continue in power, he might sanction Russia. And now we have this hacking incident under Trump administration, if
you say this is a hoax and it comes from Biden camp, then this will not make sense at all because Biden has already won the election
so he does not needs to use any hoax to down Trump anymore. If Russia is indeed hacking then those previous anti-Trump FBI and
CIA directors should have used this as an issue to attack Russia and Trump before the election instead of creating the Afghan
hoax which has no prove at all (did USA has proved on the hack? Nobody knows)! The present director for both FBI and CIA are all
Trump men and thus I don't think Biden team is behinds this hacking incident hoax. I read the article and know that Trump team
(especially Mike Pompeo) calls for maximum punishment on Russia, Russia needs to prepare and to avoid the worst case scenario
before Biden takes power. I think there is no sense at all for deep state to hate Russia so much because all they want is profit,
it is time for Russia to have a friendly chat with all those parties that involve in Russia-Hate campaign. You can't get blamed
by everyone forever, this need to stop!
Jeffrey Perkins 9 hours ago 21 Dec, 2020 05:00 PM
pentagon propoganda money can control the media in many ways
Atilla863 1 hour ago 22 Dec, 2020 12:50 AM
Just wonder why the EU politicians haven't joined the US - chorus yet condemning the Russians.
EthanCarterIII 1 hour ago 22 Dec, 2020 12:49 AM
Maybe they should put more time and effort into increasing their security instead of blaming people? It seems every other month
there's another story about hackers getting into the systems, and frankly they need to start looking in the mirror. Oh, but then
Hillary wants to be Secretary of Defense and left a private top secret server in her bathroom hacked by anybody and everybody,
so maybe it isn't so much "hacking" as incompetence?
dangood013 30 minutes ago 22 Dec, 2020 02:05 AM
Nakashima and other do not make stuff up. They just regurgitate what their National Security sources tell them upon penalty of
" losing access " to their precious sources.
Fuzzerbear 2 hours ago 21 Dec, 2020 11:40 PM
oh no - not the Russians again. They are really bad bad bad - just as bad as Iran, Iraq, Syria . . . . . . .. Such a thorn for
the USA, Israel, the 5 lies, etc. How boring will the reality be without all the fake news.
liarof1776 3 hours ago 21 Dec, 2020 11:10 PM
america is having ashkenazic genetic problem: paranoia
Atilla863 1 hour ago 22 Dec, 2020 12:36 AM
Don't worry Russia is ALWAYS the convenient scapegoat. What a shame American politicians and their supporters have turned out
to be!, life is meaningless without Russian phantoms. Sad
Solecismcles 7 hours ago 21 Dec, 2020 06:41 PM
Cowhorts: Warshington & most media; though more overtly when Dem's have Executive influence. However, so much scum is entrenched
throughout the bureaucracies that their evil lurks and preys regardless of which Party controls WH.
"... the media – playing judge, jury and executioner – has leveled blame on the usual suspect. ..."
"... Did anyone actually believe that Russia would escape a major US election season without a ceremonial tarring and feathering by the media? It's almost as though frantic journalists, unable to sell the 'Trump Beats Biden with Kremlin Collusion' narrative, have dreamt up this latest work of pulp fiction to keep the ball of 'Russian villainy' bouncing into the next US administration. Heaven forbid if the media just sat by and let protracted peace break out between Washington and Moscow. ..."
As incoming nominees of a future Biden administration have
stopped short in naming a culprit in the SolarWinds hack, the media – playing judge, jury and executioner – has leveled blame on
the usual suspect.
Did anyone actually believe that Russia would escape a major US election season without a ceremonial tarring and feathering by
the media? It's almost as though frantic journalists, unable to sell the 'Trump Beats Biden with Kremlin Collusion' narrative, have
dreamt up this latest work of pulp fiction to keep the ball of 'Russian villainy' bouncing into the next US administration. Heaven
forbid if the media just sat by and let protracted peace break out between Washington and Moscow.
The only information taken that rattles US.gov is how corrupt everyone is. The fear is having that become
irrefutably public,
flyonmywall 9 hours ago
Those Russkies really kick butt. They are everywhere these days.
Unknown User 8 hours ago
The Onion puts out less ridiculous stories than the US "intelligence" agencies.
Dzerzhhinsky 6 hours ago
The Chinese are in the dark because they won't buy Australian coal, the Russian
superhackers cracked the uncrackable Tradewinds123 password, and Iran is doing something
?
It's all a diversion, don't look at me look over there.
The intensity of the disinformation is directly related to the upcoming US collapse.
yewtee 2 hours ago
Will there be civil war ?
Lee Bertin 56 minutes ago
Have you not noticed that it has been going on for four years
BGen. Jack Ripper 9 hours ago
No enemy is more terrifying than the one in our midst.
Krinkle Sach 8 hours ago
🇮🇱💩🇮🇱💩🇮🇱
Whiteman_Sachs 9 hours ago
There is another headquarters in VA, specifically Langley that's more likely the intruder.
Imagine this....The penetration of this intrusion is so vast and widespread. Access to
hundreds of companies, contractors, military, ect. I doubt the a foreign entity could get so
far inside. Imagine if our new leader ship at the Def Dept decided to shut the backdoor.
Cutoff access to the bad actors a CIA. They've already closed off operational assistance to
the CIA. The response has been so predicable....Russia Russia blah blah. I think many things
are going on behind the scene. I think Trump is kneecapping his rivals on what could be the
way out.
thezone 9 hours ago
PLEASE remember MIT Romney and all the swamp elite decried Trump for firing Chris
Krebs.
Mr. 'there's never been a more secure' election.
Now we hear that Russia has owned government systems for a full year right under his
nose.
jwoop66 8 hours ago
I just spent two hours watching this. Krebs is in it talking about all the bad actors out
there trying to subvert our elections, and that its the first thing he thinks of in the
morning, and the last thing he thinks of before he goes to bed.
yes, and then he says "perfect election" within days. f'ing frauds.
That crap of an article brought me 2 or 3 minutes closer to death.
And hell doesn't want me, Satan has a restraining order.
DurdenRae 26 minutes ago
They don't really qualify for intelligence if they all they can come up with is that kind
of malarkey...
aberfoyle_crumplehausen 7 hours ago
As an average dude, I consider my initial thoughts and reactions to things typical of most
others. When I first heard of this latest 'Russian Hack' I instantly thought "so the
transition is almost here and they launch their first psyop".
So I am obviously not alone in my intuition and this means the media is becoming laughably
irrelevant to the common folk.
Babadook 7 hours ago
See what happens when you elect incompetent, inept fools to run your government, they only
appoint incompetent, inept fools to run the country's military, FBI & intel services.
sp0rkovite 7 hours ago
Barr is a democrat now?
You_Cant_Quit_Me 8 hours ago
Has anyone considered the US was simultaneously attacked with a biological weapon known as
Covid-19 and hacked around the same time frame? Maybe the US with its constant false
allegations against Russia has forced Russia to align with China making the US the common
enemy?
Russia was not behind the hack attack despite what we are being told. It is a false flag
with someone trying to frame Russia.
Kreditanstalt 8 hours ago
The other wing of The Party has its own "CHINA! CHINA! CHINA! propaganda campaign too
JackOliver4 8 hours ago (Edited)
They hate Russia because Russia tells the TRUTH !
Everything Russia says is well thought out and makes sense !
Once the US got away with the FAKE moon landing BS - they were enabled - sad !
I caught a glimpse of a 'Who wants to be a millionaire' episode - question was 'How many
people have walked on the MOON' ?
Apparently the answer is 12 !!
The brainwashing runs DEEP !!
RKKA 8 hours ago
It's not about who breaks the networks or who attacks Nord Stream 2. The fact is that
today's situation is even more explosive than during the Cold War.
The NATO alliance already borders on Russia and all the lines that were previously "red"
are not recognized by anyone, primarily by the West.
The situation, thanks to aggressive rhetoric and the movement of military units, has
become much more dangerous than it was during the Cold War.
This is confirmed by the German Foreign Minister. Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the
confrontation between the West and Russia much more dangerous than that which took place
between NATO countries and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Five_Black_Eyes_Intel_Agency 8 hours ago (Edited)
"intelligence" agencies
LOL
This is yet more squirming by an empire that looks increasingly bloated and its own worst
enemy. Good luck clowns, but you wouldn't know what to do with it.
Xena fobe 9 hours ago
Xiden doesn't know Russia exists. No, this is not being done to persuade Xiden.
Late onset ADHD 9 hours ago (Edited)
Without the 'right' enemy, a politician is a useless appendage.
transcendent_wannabe 5 minutes ago
This youtuber gives a pretty good insider view of what has occurred. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLhk_gqYaEg
US TREASURY HACKED because of SOLARWINDS You have to watch all the way to the end to get the
full picture.
Basically its our own good-ole-boy network of insiders stealing data to sell for money.
Yeah, can you believe that our esteemed coke-addicted elite class would sell out their own
country for cash? Heh, we always wanted full transparency in government, so now the data is
exposed. I would expect the future to be sprinkled with embarrassing data revelations used to
discredit various players. There has been too much secrecy in government anyways. Let the sun
shine in on all those secrets.
Lee Bertin 52 minutes ago
This is just a distraction, just smoke and mirrors. Do not lose focus on the game that is
played in front of your wide open eyes
"While targets of the SolarWinds hack included the U.S. Treasury Department and the
National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), there is no complete
list of the government departments and agencies and U.S. companies compromised in the hack.
Bloomberg reported U.S. government departments targeted included the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS), the State Department, the National Institute of Health (NIH) as well as
some parts of the Department of Defense were targeted in the hack. The New York Times
reported SolarWinds products are used throughout nearly all Fortune 500 companies,
including the New York Times itself. The New York Times also reported SolarWinds is used by
the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which designs nuclear weapons, and by Boeing, a major
U.S. defense contractor.
"Following the hack, the Verge reported SolarWinds deleted a list of high profile
clients from its website, though an archived copy of the client page states 425 of the
Fortune 500 companies use their products, as well as all branches of the U.S. military, the
National Security Agency (NSA), and even the Office of the President of the United States.
The company's software is also used by all of the top five U.S. accounting firms and
hundreds of colleges and universities around the world. It is not immediately clear if
these SolarWinds clients specifically used the affected products listed."
Since it now seems that the Dominion software used in the Nov. 3 presidential election
was, contrary to law, connected to the internet, can we be sure that the election itself was
unaffected?
As Hunter Biden would say: "Probably not."
apparently 5 hours ago
this is likely false, for the lack of specifics and associated journalist hot air.
amanfromMars 6 hours ago
Muddying the waters or clearing the air and the decks? With so many crazy actors dependent
upon the continued existence of mad fields, one does have to expand one's horizons and
include the full list of players in such great games. So ..... in praise of such a
realisation and sensible development ......
Quote: "From the quality of the threat design, the range of techniques used, and the
nature of its victims, this was a nation state at work and in MO and capabilities most
likely Russia."
*
Rewrite required: "From the quality of the threat design, the range of techniques used,
and the nature of its victims, this was a nation state at work. It could have been the
NSA, GCHQ, the Russians or the Chinese. In MO most likely the NSA." ....... Anonymous
Coward
You'll upset Israel if you leave them out of the picture, AC. And they'd love you to
think they are capable of such a show of remote force even as they deny it straight to your
face. They've built a tiny disparate nation upon such foundations. [More folk live in
London than in Israel. That's how small it is]
The thing is, if it is none of the above and no nation state, is it something of an
alien attack you didn't see coming, and that makes a lot of other vital things extremely
vulnerable to similar unexpected events which can effortlessly deliver major catastrophic
crises ....... flash market stock crashes.
It can be, and most probably more likely certainly is, given the fact there is no concrete
evidence available to pin on a suspect and scapegoats, a wholly new APT Adept ACTive genre of
disruptive mischief and creative destruction at ITs Work, Rest and Play.
No standing before the election. Too late to complain or sue after the election.
The new Catch 22.
Definition of catch-22
1 : a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance
inherent in the problem or by a rule the show-business catch-22 -- no work unless you have
an agent, no agent unless you've worked -- Mary Murphy also : the circumstance or rule that
denies a solution
2a : an illogical, unreasonable, or senseless situation
b : a measure or policy whose effect is the opposite of what was intended
c : a situation presenting two equally undesirable alternatives
3 : a hidden difficulty or means of entrapment : catch
NoPension 6 hours ago
Heads I win. Tails you lose.
Tristan Ludlow 6 hours ago
Those that make fair elections impossible, will make violent revolutions inevitable, to
paraphrase Kennedy.
StaySunny3000 7 hours ago
What a weasel decision. How do the judges expect the plantiffs to round up all the clerks
who looked at ballots? Is it not the Sec. of State's responsibility to oversee the actions of
the clerks? Wouldn't it be more proficient and, dare I say it, logical , to focus on the man
that made the fraud possible?
Courts have been totally politicized. Justice isn't blind, it's been decapitated.
tunEphsh 7 hours ago remove link
Usual BS from courts--lack standing. No one has standing. Judges afraid of losing their
jobs if they rule against the state. Shows how corrupt Georgia is (and other states too).
yerfej 7 hours ago
The reality is the US (all western nations) is done as a country, it is now a giant
Mafioso organization run by neoliberals. After six decades the neoliberals have finally
consolidated power over the media, courts, academia, bureaucracy, and big tech. No one can
challenge the power structure, it is total and vicious, and anyone in their sights will be
destroyed. Now is when people begin to realize what has transpired and the opposition begins
to create resistance which will take a long time to formulate.
"... The analysis the corporate press has relied on came from the private cyber-security firm FireEye. This question should be raised: Why has a private contractor at extra taxpayer expense carried out this cyber analysis rather than the already publicly-funded National Security Agency? ..."
"... Similarly, why did the private firm CrowdStrike, rather than the FBI, analyze the Democratic National Committee servers in 2016? ..."
"... Sanger is as active in blaming the Kremlin for hacking, as he and his erstwhile NYT colleague, neocon hero Judith Miller, were in insisting on the presence of (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, helping to facilitate a major invasion with mass loss of life. ..."
"... The Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-MEDIA-Academia-Think-Tank complex (MICIMATT, for short) needs credible "enemies" to justify unprecedentedly huge expenditures for arms -- the more so at a time when it is clearer than ever, that that the money would be far better spent at home. (MEDIA is in all caps because it is the sine-qua-non , the cornerstone to making the MICIMATT enterprise work.) ..."
"... Wasn't Fireeye the company that faced extremes of ridicule from the global IT community for trying to engage Hillary Clinton as their keynote speaker at a Cyber Defense Summit in 2019? ..."
"... Isn't this, just perhaps, precisely the fake news construct, planted in the minds of Americans ..."
"... As alluded to in the article, no-doubt part of the reason is because of the black-eye the intel agencies got (at least outside of The Beltway) in the 2003 Iraq WMDs debacle, which caused a lot of us (at least on the left-end of the political spectrum, who were already highly skeptical of US 'intelligence') to virtually completely disregard them as credible sources ..."
"... Not only will Americans be "stupid and or crazy enough" to believe this nonsense, but they will also attack anyone who questions their belief as a Putin apologist or conspiracy theorist. ..."
"... Always with the same mouthpieces, the same backdated investigations, the unnamed "official" sources. Phooey! ..."
"... The naked fear-mongering has become the stuff of jokes. I had a good laugh with my friends (over the phone) taking apart an article in the Guardian that claimed that Putin had surrounded himself with KGB agents. The article didn't mention that the KGB (and the USSR) have not existed in over a quarter century. Foreign policy narratives are great for laughs, ridicule, and satire. Too bad most so-called journalists are too ignorant or intellectually dishonest to come clean. ..."
Neither the actor, nor the motive, nor the damage done is known for certain in this
latest scare story, write Ray McGovern and Joe Lauria.
The hyperbolic, evidence-free media reports on the "fresh outbreak" of the Russian-hacking
disease seems an obvious attempt by intelligence to handcuff President-elect Joe Biden into a
strong anti-Russian posture as he prepares to enter the White House. Biden might well need to be inoculated against the Russophobe fever.
There are obvious Biden intentions worrying the intelligence agencies, such as renewing the
Iran nuclear deal and restarting talks on strategic arms limitation with Russia. Both carry the
inherent "risk" of thawing the new Cold War.
Instead, New Cold Warriors are bent on preventing any such rapprochement with strong support
from the intelligence community's mouthpiece media. U.S. hardliners are clearly still on the
rise.
Interestingly, this latest hack story came out a day before the Electoral College formally
elected Biden, and after the intelligence community, despite numerous previous warnings, said
nothing about Russia interfering in the election. One wonders whether that would have been the
assessment had Trump won.
Instead Russia decided to hack the U.S. government.
Except there is (typically) no hard evidence pinning it on Moscow.
Uncertainties
The official
story is Russia hacked into U.S. "government networks, including in the Treasury and
Commerce Departments," as David Sanger of The New York Times
reported.
But plenty of things are uncertain. First, Sanger wrote last Sunday that "hackers have had
free rein for much of the year, though it is not clear how many email and other systems they
chose to enter."
The motive of the hack is uncertain, as well what damage may have been done.
"The motive for the attack on the agency and the Treasury Department remains elusive, two
people familiar with the matter said," Sanger reported. "One government official said it was
too soon to tell how damaging the attacks were and how much material was lost."
Sanger. (Wikimedia Commons)
On Friday, five days after the story first broke, in an
article misleadingly headlined, "Suspected Russian hack is much worse than first feared,"
NBC News admitted:
" At this stage, it's not clear what the hackers have done beyond accessing top-secret
government networks and monitoring data."
Who conducted the hack is also not certain.
NBC reported that the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency "has not said
who it thinks is the 'advanced persistent threat actor' behind the 'significant and ongoing'
campaign, but many experts are pointing to Russia."
At first Sanger was certain in his piece that Russia was behind the attack. He refers to
FireEye, "a computer security firm that first raised the alarm about the Russian campaign after
its own systems were pierced." But later in the same piece, Sanger loses his certainty: "If the Russia connection is
confirmed," he writes.
In the absence of firm evidence that damage has been done, this may well be an intrusion
into other governments' networks routinely carried out by intelligence agencies around the
world, including, if not chiefly, by the United States. It is what spies do. So neither the actor, nor the motive, nor the damage done is known for certain.
Yet across the vast networks of powerful U.S. media the story has been portrayed as a major
crisis brought on by a sinister Russian attack putting the security of the American people at
risk.
In a second piece on Wednesday, Sanger
added to the alarm by saying the hack "ranks among the greatest intelligence failures of
modern times." And on Friday Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
claimed Russia was "pretty clearly" behind the cyber attacks. But he cautioned: " we're
still unpacking precisely what it is, and I'm sure some of it will remain classified." In other
words, trust us.
Ed Loomis, a former NSA technical director, believes the suspect list should extend beyond
Russia to include China, Iran, and North Korea. Loomis also says the commercial cyber-security
firms that have been studying the latest "attacks" have not been able to pinpoint the
source.
Tom Bossert (Office of U.S. Executive)
In a New York Timesop-ed , former Trump domestic security
adviser Thomas Bossert on Wednesday called on Trump to "use whatever leverage he can muster to
protect the United States and severely punish the Russians." And he said Biden "must begin his
planning to take charge of this crisis."
[On Friday, Biden talked tough. He promised there would be "costs" and said: "A good defense
isn't enough; we need to disrupt and deter our adversaries from undertaking significant
cyberattacks in the first place. I will not stand idly by in the face of cyber-assaults on our
nation."]
While asserting throughout his piece that, without question, Russia now "controls" U.S.
government computer networks, Bossert's confidence suddenly evaporates by slipping in at one
point, "If it is Russia."
The analysis the corporate press has relied on came from the private cyber-security firm
FireEye. This question should be raised: Why has a private contractor at extra taxpayer expense
carried out this cyber analysis rather than the already publicly-funded National Security
Agency?
Similarly, why did the private firm CrowdStrike, rather than the FBI, analyze the Democratic
National Committee servers in 2016?
Could it be to give government agencies plausible deniability if these analyses, as in the
case of CrowdStrike, and very likely in this latest case of Russian "hacking," turn out to be
wrong? This is a question someone on the intelligence committees should be asking.
Sanger is as active in blaming the Kremlin for hacking, as he and his erstwhile NYT
colleague, neocon hero Judith Miller, were in insisting on the presence of (non-existent)
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, helping to facilitate a major invasion with mass loss of
life.
The Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-MEDIA-Academia-Think-Tank complex
(MICIMATT, for short) needs credible "enemies" to justify unprecedentedly huge expenditures for
arms -- the more so at a time when it is clearer than ever, that that the money would be far
better spent at home. (MEDIA is in all caps because it is the sine-qua-non , the
cornerstone to making the MICIMATT enterprise work.)
Bad Flashback
In this latest media flurry, Sanger and other intel leakers' favorites are including as
"flat fact" what "everybody knows": namely, that Russia hacked the infamous Hillary
Clinton-damaging emails from the Democratic National Committee in 2016.
Sanger wrote:
" the same group of [Russian] hackers went on to invade the systems of the Democratic
National Committee and top officials in Hillary Clinton's campaign, touching off
investigations and fears that permeated both the 2016 and 2020 contests. Another, more
disruptive Russian intelligence agency, the G.R.U., is believed to be responsible for then
making public the hacked emails at the D.N.C."
That accusation was devised as a magnificent distraction after the Clinton campaign learned
that WikiLeaks was about to publish emails that showed how Clinton and the DNC had
stacked the deck against Bernie Sanders. It was an emergency solution, but it had uncommon
success.
There was no denying the authenticity of those DNC emails published by WikiLeaks . So
the Democrats mounted an artful campaign, very strongly supported by Establishment media, to
divert attention from the content of the emails. How to do that? Blame Russian
"hacking." And for good measure, persuade then Senator John McCain to call it an "act of
war."
One experienced observer, Consortium News columnist Patrick Lawrence,
saw
through the Democratic blame-Russia offensive from the start.
Artful as the blame-Russia maneuver was, many voters apparently saw through this clever and
widely successful diversion, learned enough about the emails' contents, and decided not to vote
for Hillary Clinton.
4 Years & 7 Days Ago
Henry at the International Security Forum, Vancouver, 2009.
(Hubert K, Flickr)
On Dec. 12, 2016, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) used sensitive
intelligence revealed by Edward Snowden, the expertise of former NSA technical directors, and
basic principles of physics to show that accusations that Russia hacked those embarrassing DNC
emails were fraudulent.
A year later, on Dec. 5, 2017, Shawn Henry, the head of CrowdStrike, the cyber firm hired by
the DNC to do the forensics,
testified under oath that there was no technical evidence that the emails had been
"exfiltrated"; that is, hacked from the DNC.
His testimony was kept hidden by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff until
Schiff was forced to release it on May 7, 2020. That testimony is still being kept under
wraps by Establishment media.
What VIPS wrote four years ago is worth re-reading -- particularly for those who still
believe in science and have trusted the experienced intelligence professionals of VIPS with the
group's unblemished, no-axes-to-grind record.
Most of the Memorandum
's embedded links are to TOP SECRET charts that Snowden made available -- icing on the cake --
and, as far as VIPS's former NSA technical directors were concerned, precisely what was to be
demonstrated QED .
Many Democrats unfortunately still believe–or profess to believe–the hacking and
the Trump campaign-Russia conspiracy story, the former debunked by Henry's testimony and the
latter by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Both were legally obligated to tell the truth, while
the intelligence agencies were not.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was a Russian specialist and presidential briefer during
his 27 years as a CIA analyst. In retirement he co-created Veteran Intelligence Professionals
for Sanity (VIPS).
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief ofConsortium Newsand a former UN
correspondent forThe Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe,
and numerous other newspapers. He was an investigative reporter for theSunday
Timesof London and began his professional career as a stringer forThe
New York Times.He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter
@unjoe .
PleaseContributeto Consortium News' 25th Anniversary Winter Fund Drive
robert e williamson jr , December 21, 2020 at 10:30
I listened as the mouth piece talked about how very good the Rouskies were at this hacking
thing.
Takes me back to the days of Bill Hamilton when the U.S. government stole his PROMIS
software during the INSLAW Octopus scandal something Bill Barr was said to be involved in
BTW.
Seems the idea of secret back doors in software that allowed the users to be monitored was
very popular. So popular in fact that our government reps from DOJ and NSA quickly allowed
the Israelis to have it. ????????????? I mean our government still trusts Lyin' BeeBEE.
?????????????
If you know nothing of this story wiki it and then start you research on the history of
what all happened and when.
The first two places to look for these hackers are inside the U.S. and Israeli
governments. Maybe this is why the intelligence community is loath to give us any real proof,
you know that computer forensics stuff.
The U.S. governments love affair with Israel is killing our democracy.
As for Putti, he is still be winning even when his shill Trump lost.
Ray, Joe great stuff and an expose' on what happens when lies go unchallenged and become
accepted as truth.
Thanks CN you must make Robert very proud.
PEACE
DH Fabian , December 21, 2020 at 09:39
Maybe we could launch a fund-raising campaign to purchase some anti-malware software for
the government's (obviously unsecured) computers. If possible, we could raise enough money to
hire a teacher to instruct them on basic computer security. (Thrifty suggestion: Hire some
local high school teens). Apparently, some kids in Russia made a hobby of hacking into the
Pentagon, itself (I know this, because I just made it up), so on Monday, we need to launch
this story on MSNBC, the official media of the New Democrat Party.
You might want to remind people that Putin had made an offer to Obama in 2009 to negotiate
a treaty to ban cyberwar, which the US rejected. See
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/world/28cyber.html , U.S. and Russia Differ on a Treaty for
Cyberspace
Thanks for this important article! Alice Slater
zhu , December 21, 2020 at 06:38
Was there any "hack" at all?
DH Fabian , December 21, 2020 at 09:45
Hacking attempts are routine, daily, and nearly always business-related. Few succeed, but
when they do, it can be quite lucrative (until they're tracked down and arrested). Beyond
that, the US has maintained its lead in efforts to hack into security computers of foreign
countries. Of course, governments throughout history have used whatever tools they had, to
track other governments, usually for their own security against aggressor states.
Tina Weiser , December 20, 2020 at 21:28
When I first heard of this Russian hacking and the story about Trump cavorting w Russians,
I intuitively knew it was wrong and made up. It sounded too simplistic. What I can't fathom
is how the public swallowed it. I didn't and a few friends didn't, but most folks did.
Gerald , December 20, 2020 at 17:32
Maybe it was the Russians, sending a message to Uncle Joe and the Dems, quite brilliant
actually. It says, 'we own you' 'we know everything about you' and 'we can destroy you should
you want a war' The Dems and Washington generally have been living in their own child like
bubble for way too long, they need waking up and showing how far behind they are, military,
technically and of course something we've all known a long time, morally. No damage was done
during the hack (oh they could have been lots of damage) nothing was taken, or maybe not
much. It was a warning and a wake up call, that's all it needed to be. Now we proceed to the
negotiating table for START and maybe the Russians know a whole lot more than the US wishes
it did. Putins press conference was quite interesting last week, normally he is quite shy
about upsetting his 'western partners' this year he pulled no punches. When asked if it was
true that Russian could destroy America in 30 minutes he replied 'No, actually quicker' and
when goaded by the idiot BBC reporter about the farcical MI6 Navalny escapade, he said 'If
the security services wanted Navalny dead he already would be'. Times are a changing. Things
are warming up a little and the US are on the ropes in all spheres.
DH Fabian , December 21, 2020 at 09:50
No. I think most Americans today would be "outraged" to know how little interest Russia
has in today's US. They had turned to the East years ago. The "dirty little secret" is that
as the Western (US/UK) empire has been sinking for some years, most of the world has turned
its attention Eastward (China, now Russia), as the light guiding the international community
into the future.
Yes, and it seems, if anything, a large-scale effort to collect information, not to damage
anything.
Collecting information about others is what America's NSA, CIA, FBI, and other massive
agencies do around the clock. Ditto, Britain's GCHQ and MI6.
The word "attack" only puts an unduly harsh name to the matter. I think it fair to say it
is in keeping with America's now-always aggressive tone towards Russia, China, Iran, and
others.
And still, we have no information at all about who is responsible with Trump claiming
China and Pompeo claiming Russia, while neither of them has any information to support what
he is saying. Israel is just as likely as any other candidate to be responsible for this. The US intelligence community recognizes Israel in private as extremely aggressive at
collecting information.
Its name of course does not come up in our sanitized press, and if it proves true that it
is responsible, we'll never see it reported.
Meanwhile, just as in the case of Skripal or Navalny, great fun can be had with
Russia.
Realist , December 20, 2020 at 05:01
If any of Washington's designated enemies are NOT attempting to constantly monitor the
byzantine genuine operative policies of America's Deep State they are being totally remiss.
If all they had to go on were the strident public policies expressed and enacted by our
leaders they would surely feel existentially threatened and compelled to launch defensive
military actions just to preserve the continuity of their civilisations. Washington's endless
effluvia of formal pronouncements, accusations, economic sanctions and provocative troop
deployments fairly beg for the occasional miscalculation of a bellicose parry or
counterpunch. Our chosen enemies need to know our real intentions and capabilities to
PRECLUDE such eventualities. Moreover, the geeks in our cadre of spooks have been at the same
game for the same reasons rather longer than theirs. It's probably safe to say we invented
the game.
By way of example, Joe Biden constantly talks of making Russia "pay a price" for some list
of imaginary offenses against American "interests," of which Special Prosecutor Mueller could
not conjure up one example after nearly three years of investigation. If anyone "hacked the
vote" last month, it was sure not the Russians who made Sleepy Joe the most popular president
with the highest vote total ever elected. Talk about the implausible transformed into the new
reality. Take another example, Mike Morell, probably the incoming head of the CIA, has on
multiple occasions spoke of the need to "make Russians bleed" for attempting to limit the
death and chaos inflicted upon Syria by American foreign policy and its cultivated
mercenaries going by a different nom de guerre each week. JC did tell us that strange changes
will happen in the vineyard, apparently even al Qaeda can reconcile with Uncle Sam. In the
absence of detailed reliable information regarding the veracity of such narratives, President
Putin (or Xi, or Rouhani) might feel constrained to be less tolerant, more aggressive and
quicker to react against what can only be described as mostly baseless and far too numerous
hostile American provocations. The bully struts around with a chip the size of a redwood on
his shoulder. No one antagonizes him, they mostly try to give the crazy fellow a wide berth
while keeping a vigilant eye on him. What's truly unfortunate is that Stephan F. Cohen is no
longer on this Earth to keep the American public apprised of such truths, not that this
world's most informed man on these subjects got any recent media exposure in the present
climate of unhinged Russophrenia.
Tom Partridge , December 20, 2020 at 03:55
We know that governments and intelligence agencies tell us lies all the time. Lies that
have justified the instigation of wars and lies that have precipitated wars by default. All
of this is well documented in the written word and yet we continue to be fooled by the self
same lies. Shame on us, but when the Doomsday Clock strikes midnight, it will be too late,
there will be no one left to document the lies, there will be no more lies, instead there
will be, just silence.
Eileen Coles , December 20, 2020 at 00:01
Wasn't Fireeye the company that faced extremes of ridicule from the global IT community
for trying to engage Hillary Clinton as their keynote speaker at a Cyber Defense Summit in
2019?
michael888 , December 19, 2020 at 23:20
While I appreciate your article and agree with your conclusions, you are a voice crying in
the wilderness or at least in a small bubble of like-minded people.
There is a part of the brain which is based on evidence-free, faith-based beliefs, and while
religious impulses can be good (sometimes debatable), there is also a strong fear and hatred
of the Other, and Russia has been elevated by Hillary, the DNC, the Intelligence Agencies,
and the Establishment as the only acceptable Bogeyman. It is socially unacceptable to attack
Blacks, Jews, Muslims, Mexicans, or Chinese (remember "Hug a Chinaman!" at the critical
juncture where Covid-19 could have been stopped by shutting borders in mid-January as Asian
countries did?), but the RUSSIANS!! are an acceptable target of vitriol (even though the
Clintons and any of our other politicians will quickly take $500,000 from Putin as the
Clintons did when Hillary was Secretary of State in 2010). Calling someone a Russian asset,
as our CIA has done repeatedly, can destroy people's careers, and minimally untrack their
criticisms.
Software generally has intentional backdoors (Ghislaine Maxwell's father made a career of
selling such software so Israel could monitor their customers). We don't get much software
from Russia! China is economically and politically a bigger threat, though like Israel
probably monitoring rather than interfering through their software (which is probably the
rule for all Intelligence Agencies). However 12 year olds can probably get into these same
program backdoors, hacking is a hobby for many.
The use of non-government companies to do to questionable work is akin to big corporations
bringing in consultants; scapegoats when things go wrong!
GMCasey , December 19, 2020 at 22:44
It's very difficult to believe a lot of what passes for news in America. For example, I
always thought that if the hacking of Hillary ever happened, it was because when she was SOS,
she refused to go into a secure room to make important calls. Instead , she stood in the
hallway, but didn't want to go into the secure room. Add to that, the use of a personal
computer at her home, keeping all kinds of her government information on it , which was also
being sent to her associate's husband's computer.
I also wondered why the Russians were blamed for poisoning spies in the UK -- - spies
traded a decade before -- especially since exchanged spies lived near where the UK's poison
center was. This was supposed to be an attempt to poison 2 Russians, and this latest Russia
news story seems just as silly. I am sure that any decent spy from any nation who decided to
poison a person -- than it would be done.
I am wondering why America seems to be living back in the 1950s when that McCarthy person
was making havoc with creating so many
untruths in major media -- it's sad that myself, and many others no longer believe a lot of
the major media news -- and that is a sad state for a in a said- to- be democratic
republic
Em Sos , December 19, 2020 at 21:39
Re: "A Pandemic of 'Russian Hacking'"
Isn't this, just perhaps, precisely the fake news construct, planted in the minds of
Americans, by Trump, to which he may now turn, as his last-ditch pretext, to protect the
National Security interests of the State; by attempting to declare Martial Law, at the last
moment, just prior to January 20th 2021?
Eddie S , December 19, 2020 at 18:43
Good article! Especially the mentioning of the VERY 'convenient' timing of the latest 'Red
Scare', vis-a-vis the upcoming transition to a new POTUS who has made vague references to
modest moves towards cooling down the Cold War II (which I have little-faith will happen
anyway, given the Biden cabinet picks). Also the excellent point about these reports
apparently coming from private organizations as opposed to the massive US intelligence
agencies (ie; the 17 agencies in the USG doing intelligence work, with the CIA & NSA
being two of the largest) -- WTF are we funding them with multi-billion dollar budgets for so
that they can quote some private start-up intel-groups??
As alluded to in the article,
no-doubt part of the reason is because of the black-eye the intel agencies got (at least
outside of The Beltway) in the 2003 Iraq WMDs debacle, which caused a lot of us (at least on
the left-end of the political spectrum, who were already highly skeptical of US
'intelligence') to virtually completely disregard them as credible sources for anything other
than a right-wing indicator.
All the major powers spy on each other, and some of the minor ones too, and sometimes it's on
putative allies (ie; recall the controversy a number of years ago when Israel was caught
spying/bugging US transmissions I don't recall any bluster about THAT being 'an act of
war!'). And I not-too-long-ago read how there are constant, daily attempts by numerous
entities (most suspected to be private scammers) attempt to hack computers & networks of
ALL users (government, business, NGO's, private parties) -- it's ongoing 'background noise'.
And while we should all be strengthening our computer defenses against these intrusions,
let's be very skeptical when someone pulls 'something' (reputedly) out of that background
noise and hysterically proclaims it to be so MAJOR EVENT.
Theo , December 20, 2020 at 09:21
I agree. There was an interesting article on the Theamericanconservative.com under the
title " The Russian Cyber Pearl Harbor that wasn't ". Some time ago in Germany the computers
of big insurance companies were hacked and huge amounts of personal data of the clients were
stolen. Big issue in Germany. Russia was the top suspect. It turned out that the bad guy was
a teenage German school boy living peacefully with his parents. He was found very quickly
because he didn't cover up his trails in the web. He didn't do it for money or political
reasons. He did it just for fun and to proof to himself: Yes I can. Now he faces a prison
term.
Eric Arnow , December 19, 2020 at 16:30
The real story here is not the latest eye roller, here-we-go-again, episode of Russo
phobia, but the likelihood that majority of the Washington Consensus, and more likely, the
American people will be stupid enough or crazy enough or both, to believe this.
David , December 21, 2020 at 10:12
Not only will Americans be "stupid and or crazy enough" to believe this nonsense, but they
will also attack anyone who questions their belief as a Putin apologist or conspiracy
theorist. I'm deeply appreciative of Ray's and Joe's insights but Michael888 is right. His
voice is a "cry in the wilderness" which is "heard only by a small bubble of like minded
people." I admire his perseverance in the face of that harsh reality. Thank you, Ray and
Joe.
Robert Emmett , December 19, 2020 at 16:19
Always with the same mouthpieces, the same backdated investigations, the unnamed
"official" sources. Phooey!
Maybe while the propaganda is being propagated & then catapulted into the public
realm, nobody in "official" media remembers to check vault 7 for the inevitable Cyrillic
fingerprints until it's too late? Oops!
And "artful maneuver"? Yeah, maybe if you mean kindergarten art. Or perhaps it's a forgery
that depends on millions of uncritical viewers' unquestioning acceptance of a fake rationale
for unbinding Biden so he can veer from a direction that he never intended to follow in the
first place?
Jonny James , December 19, 2020 at 12:01
We are thankful that CN continues the tradition of Robert Parry to debunk the New Cold War
propaganda. The Russia Hysteria (New Red Scare without "the Reds") is a pathetic and
transparent attempt to manipulate public opinion.
The naked fear-mongering has become the stuff of jokes. I had a good laugh with my friends
(over the phone) taking apart an article in the Guardian that claimed that Putin had
surrounded himself with KGB agents. The article didn't mention that the KGB (and the USSR)
have not existed in over a quarter century. Foreign policy narratives are great for laughs,
ridicule, and satire. Too bad most so-called journalists are too ignorant or intellectually
dishonest to come clean.
Russia did not want to end the ABM treaty, the INF treaty etc. etc. but of course it was
the US who shredded all the treaties. The US has engaged in massive illegal activity with
impunity: fomenting coups, meddling heavily in the affairs of other nations, war crimes etc.
The US appears now to be a desperate rogue empire, pathetically clutching at notions of Full
Spectrum Dominance. No informed person should believe this latest Russia narrative – it
is ridiculous on multiple levels, just as Mr. Lauria and McGovern have outlined.
To underline the utter silliness of the narrative: my handle has become "Jonski
Jamesovich" (a common Russian name lol) and I introduce myself as a Russian Agent. I know
it's puerile and silly but that's the level of discourse we are dealing with. This
intelligence-insulting BS has grown tiresome already. My British friends and I "take the
piss" (ridicule) the narratives: the comedy material is written for us!
Realist , December 20, 2020 at 05:53
Jonny, I think your Russian name would be Ivan. Jamesovich if your father's name is James.
Your piece is brilliant.
A great characterisation of America for what it has become during my life of 73 years: an
outlaw state. What Reagan used to call an "evil empire," by which he meant the Soviet Union.
I'm sure he thought that he and Gorbachev had achieved a lasting peace between Russia and the
US. They came within an eyelash of eliminating all nukes.
The so-called "realists" in the
deep state would not allow that, but did leave several nuclear nonproliferation treaties in
place, which our foolish contemporaries have trashed. Would he be shocked if he could be
reanimated! The first step to putting things right again would be for Europe to stop enabling
Washington's warmongering in every corner of the world and to disband NATO, the biggest
threat to world peace after the US federal government.
Relentlessly, you go to stories in the New York Times. Like a dog returning to its excrement.
Everybody knows it's an intelligence shill. Why do you bother? There are far more important
things you could be reporting on.
"... In the issue of information security generally, including cyber-security and cyber-defence, it seems that there is one rule for the US and another for everyone else ..."
"... The US knows only one thing, and that is psychopathic schoolyard bullying. To have to work together with other nations, to have to accept other nations' rights to information and security, to recognise the need for compromise and continuous negotiation: all this is beyond the US ability to understand. ..."
"... Treaties would help no doubt but the only real solution is to not put things you want kept private on the internet. The internet is to publish stuff, not to store stuff securely. ..."
"... usa is not agreement capable.. they prove this time and time again, so any proposals of an agreement in any area is not realistic.. it is unfortunate.. ..."
"... the media will continue to be the service provider for the intel agencies and say whatever they want to say.. facts are irrelevant.. it is beyond naive to think that anything that gets said in the usa msm ( russia did it and etc. etc. ) have any relevance or value... ..."
"... the Wikileaks Vault 7 materials show clearly the US has tools to pin cybercrime on its 'enemies'. One thing we know for sure and that is the US government has one enemy above all others: the truth. ..."
"... The most obvious scenario is hiding in plain sight: FireEye is an corporation selling a defective, inferior product to the USG. To cut corners, it must employ a legion of non-unionized private contractors, who are a workforce of inferior quality and much lower morale (as they receive much lower salaries). In order to cut even more corners, most of these private contractors must receive a light version of clearance process, and must be more loosely managed. ..."
"... The USA is plagued with private contractors. They were the weapon of choice of the American capitalists and the USG to kill the unions and lower the value of the American labor power. When a random American tells you he/she works for, e.g. Microsoft, chances are he/she actually works for a private contractor who works for Microsoft - it's a process I like to call "domestic outsourcing": a process where, through political and structural reforms, the capitalist class of a given nation precarizes its own national labor power without literally exporting it to another country (e.g. telemarketing to India). ..."
"... enemy #1 of humanity are the global private finance elite, not Russia , nor China. ..."
"... I know quite a bit about those outages in Venezuela. I assure you that they were very well-planned. The people who did it were Venezuelan exiles in Canada and Houston, Texas (a lot of the opposition moved to Houston in addition to Miami). ..."
"... Is any evidence offered that there was any hack at all? Is the entire thing a fully fabricated false flag, yet another, in service of taking Nord Stream 2 down? ..."
"... Also note that the providers of the software are entirely responsible for making it easy to hack. As a software engineer, I have tried in vain for decades to convince companies producing critical infrastructure equipment to not use internet administration links, because they are not only hackable, but the encryption codes all have backdoors for "security" agencies. ..."
"... So no doubt SolarWinds did just that, got hacked by anybody anywhere, and is looking for an excuse to avoid losing their contract. ..."
"... The Germans and the Americans decided that it was worth to risk the entire German SCADA business to sting Iran and later Venezuela. Because that was what those attacks, in the absence of Iranian or Venezuelan capitulation meant, harm to German bussiness for no strategic gains. ..."
"... Ultimately, making a single software product secure will only achieve limited gains: Those gains evaporate in an instant one some junior cablemonkey plugs a secure server into the public DMZ using the wrong network interface. ..."
"... Where was the firewall admin in all this? Where was the Network administrator with his routing policies? ..."
"... Why, when SolarWinds has been a gaping security hole for more than 2 decades is it now all of a sudden the gateway for a massive attack from a foreign power? Shouldn't it have been a continuous vulnerability all along? By now, every vulnerable internet facing SW installation would have been wiped out ages ago due to the frequency of automated attacks carried out against infrastructure in general. ..."
"... We all know Micro$oft, Google, FB, Whatsapp, Instagram, ... are feeding US and Zionist intelligence agencies with all type of informations. Any international treaty on cyber-security would under this conditions be obsolete from the beginning. ..."
"... But it's just naive to think that CIA, NSA, Mossad are going to respect any international agreement in any area. Stuxnet virus and it's intrusion of the Iranian nuclear facilities or sabotage of Venezuelan power-grid facilities were not made by China, Russia or North Korea. ..."
"... These large, complicated, very expensive software "management" packages are largely butt-covering, to protect management from the threat of "doing nothing" when things go wrong. Some nice kickbacks in it too. ..."
"... I remember one "configuration management" package that was practically an operating system all by itself and absolutely a waste of time. Network management even more so. ..."
"... I haven't seen this level of propaganda since the buildup to the second Iraq war. They are obviously planning more aggression against Russia and have to keep the public at a fever pitch to get away with it. ..."
December 19, 2020 To Blame Russia For Cyber-Intrusions Is
Delusional - A Treaty Is The Only Way To Prevent More Damage
The New York Times continues to provide anti-Russian propaganda and to incite against
it:
Pompeo
Says Russia Was Behind Cyberattack on U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is the first member of the Trump administration to publicly
link the Kremlin to the hacking of dozens of government and private systems.
The first paragraph:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday it was clear that Russia was behind the widespread
hacking of government systems that officials this week called "a grave risk" to the United
States.
That is a quite definite statement.
But it is very wrong. Pompous did not say "that it was clear that Russia was behind" the IT
intrusions.
The third paragraph in the NYT story, which casual readers will miss, quotes Pompous
and there he does not say what the Times opener claims:
"I think it's the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians
that engaged in this activity," Mr. Pompeo said in an interview on "The Mark Levin Show."
Merriam Webster 's definition of 'pretty' as an adverb is "in some
degree : moderately". The example it gives is "pretty cold weather". The temperature of pretty
cold weather on a July day in Cairo obviously differs from the temperature of pretty cold
weather during a December night in Siberia. "Pretty xxx" It is a relative expression, not an
assertion of absolute facts.
The first paragraph of the Times statement tries to sell a vague statement as an
factual claim.
Moreover - Pompous finds it amusing that the CIA lies, steals and cheats (vid). As a former
CIA director he has not refrained from those habits. Whenever Pompous says something about a
perceived U.S. 'enemy' it safe to assume that it he does not state the truth.
Contradicting his secretary of state and other top officials, President Donald Trump on
Saturday suggested without evidence that China -- not Russia -- may be behind the cyberattack
against the United States and tried to minimized its impact.
Trump AND Pompous both made their contradicting assertions "without evidence".
It is
inappropriate for the media to accuse Russia - or China - of the recently discovered
cyber-intrusion when there is zero evidence to support such a claim.
The Times did that at least twice without having any evidence to support the
claim:
The Russians have had access to a considerable number of important and sensitive networks for
six to nine months. The Russian S.V.R. will surely have used its access to further exploit
and gain administrative control over the networks it considered priority targets.
...
While all indicators point to the Russian government, the United States, and ideally its
allies, must publicly and formally attribute responsibility for these hacks. If it is Russia,
President Trump must make it clear to Vladimir Putin that these actions are unacceptable. The
U.S. military and intelligence community must be placed on increased alert; all elements of
national power must be placed on the table.
Where are the carriers? Man the guns! Put the nukes to Def Con 1!
The situation is developing, but the more I learn this could be our modern day, cyber
equivalent of Pearl Harbor.
This is lunatic. From all we know so far the so called 'hack' was a quite nifty
cyber-intrusion for the sole purpose of gathering information. The intrusion has, as far as we
know, not even reached any systems on the specially protected 'secret' networks. This was a
normal spying operation, not an attack. To compare it to a deadly military attack like Pearl
Harbor is
self-delusional nonsense :
The lack of self-awareness in these and similar reactions to the Russia breach is astounding.
The U.S. government has no principled basis to complain about the Russia hack, much less
retaliate for it with military means, since the U.S. government hacks foreign government
networks on a huge scale every day. Indeed, a military response to the Russian hack would
violate international law. The United States does have options, but none are terribly
attractive.
The news reports have emphasized that the Russian operation thus far appears to be purely
one of espionage -- entering systems quietly, lurking around, and exfiltrating information of
interest. Peacetime government-to-government espionage is as old as the international system
and is today widely practiced, especially via electronic surveillance. It can cause enormous
damage to national security, as the Russian hack surely does. But it does not violate
international law or norms.
...
Because of its own practices, the U.S. government has traditionally accepted the legitimacy
of foreign governmental electronic spying in U.S. government networks. After the notorious
Chinese hack of the Office of Personnel Management database, then-Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper said: "You have to kind of salute the Chinese for what they did.
If we had the opportunity to do that, I don't think we'd hesitate for a minute."
One can not spy on other countries and then complain when they do something similar to
oneself. Responding by waging destruction against another country's IT systems only guarantees
that there will be a response in kind. If one wants to avert cyber-espionage and cyber-attacks
there is only one way out.
We do not know if Israel, China, Russia or someone else is responsible for the recently
discovered intrusion. But it is safe to assume that Russia's SVR is working on comparable
projects just like the spy services of most other countries do.
But Russia has, in contrast to others, for years asked for bi-lateral treaties to prohibit
malicious cyber operations. In September President Putin again offered one :
One of today's major strategic challenges is the risk of a large-scale confrontation in the
digital field. A special responsibility for its prevention lies on the key players in the
field of ensuring international information security (IIS). In this regard, we would like to
once again address the US with a suggestion to agree on a comprehensive program of practical
measures to reboot our relations in the field of security in the use of information and
communication technologies (ICTs).
...
Third. To jointly develop and conclude a bilateral intergovernmental agreement on preventing
incidents in the information space similarly to the Soviet-American Agreement on the
Prevention of Incidents On and Over the High Seas in force since 25 May 1972.
...
We call on the US to greenlight the Russian-American professional expert dialogue on IIS
without making it a hostage to our political disagreements.
Even conservative U.S. lawyers agree with Putin that such a
treaty is the only way to protect the U.S. from potentially damaging operations:
Despite many tens of billions of dollars spent on cyber defense and deterrence and Defend
Forward prevention, and despite one new strategy after another, the United States has failed
miserably for decades in protecting its public and private digital networks. What it
apparently has not done is to ask itself, in a serious way, how its aggressive digital
practices abroad invite and justify digital attacks and infiltrations by our adversaries, and
whether those practices are worth the costs. Relatedly, it has not seriously considered the
traditional third option when defense and deterrence fail in the face of a foreign threat:
mutual
restraint , whereby the United States agrees to curb certain activities in foreign
networks in exchange for forbearance by our adversaries in our networks. There are many
serious hurdles to making such cooperation work, including precise agreement on each side's
restraint, and verification. But given our deep digital dependency and the persistent failure
of defense and deterrence to protect our digital systems, cooperation is at least worth
exploring.
Dreams
of being able to prevent intrusions on one's systems while insisting on intruding the
opponent's systems are just that - dreams. There is likewise no reasonable way to deter an
adversary from using such methods to gain an advantage.
To blame, without evidence, Russia for a 'hack' and to incite against it will not solve the
above problems.
The only way to prevent potentially dangerous cyber-operations is too agree with adversaries
on what is off-limits and to (verifiably) stick to that.
Posted by b on December 19, 2020 at 19:29 UTC |
Permalink
In the issue of information security generally, including cyber-security and cyber-defence,
it seems that there is one rule for the US and another for everyone else: free and unfettered
access to everyone's secrets for the US; and for everyone else, having to pay through the
nose for anything the US deigns to dole out in amounts and at times of its own choosing.
The US knows only one thing, and that is psychopathic schoolyard bullying. To have to work
together with other nations, to have to accept other nations' rights to information and
security, to recognise the need for compromise and continuous negotiation: all this is beyond
the US ability to understand.
Good post, but about this hypothetical treaty: how would you monitor and enforce that sort of thing? It seems to me the
signatories are likely to continue doing it, and, assuming enough sophistication, proving a breach of the agreement seems
virtually impossible...
When I first read this story, I thought of the power outages in Venezuela the past year.
Those attacks must have hit especially patients in hospitals or care residences that had no
stand by generation.
I think Iran has been attacked a few times in this manner.
I can see the usefulness of treaty talks to address this issue. Talks between just two states, though, would leave a lot of
would be targets, so United Nations might address the issue. If the Security Council, & United Nations generally, is supposed
to mitigate violence of warfare, addressing cyber attacks must come under UNO purview.
I wonder if Lavrov, or a counterpart in another land, would find it useful to approach the
United Nations on this.
Putin and Lavrov have pleaded for at least 5 years now going back to Obama/Biden about the
need to negotiate a Cyber Treaty, and that it include as many nations as want to participate.
But only silence is returned. It's entirely possible that this so-called series of hacks is
no more than back-splash from some NSA or CIA hacking exercise. It certainly puts more wind
in the sails for today's excursion back to the future by Pepe
Escobar that's not behind a paywall. I will say there was one quote from it that stood
out very far from the rest and is on the way to becoming reality. As the Outlaw US Empire
falls further behind its competitors:
"the US will be able to bill itself as the first great post-industrial agrarian
society."
I'm not so sure about the "great" part given our actual condition and direction.
Treaties would help no doubt but the only real solution is to not put things you want kept
private on the internet. The internet is to publish stuff, not to store stuff securely.
"The only way to prevent potentially dangerous cyber-operations is too agree with adversaries
on what is off-limits and to (verifiably) stick to that."
Really? b with all due respect was, is, will be America ever capable or can it ever be
trusted to hold to any a Treaty/ Agreement, this outlaw rogue regime in time of hypersonic
missiles still believes she is protected by two oceans. Signing a treaty with this regime is
a distasteful joke, not worth entertaining.
Mao @3, had the same thought. Like the idea but how feasible is it?
I'd also like to see a Geneva Convention for the digital space (perhaps an expansion or
update of the existing Geneva Conventions for the digital age.) So civilian cyber
infrastructure (personal PCs, smartphones, tablets, routers, etc.) and civilian cyber content
(social media, online dating profiles, forum posts, etc.) would be off-limits for state
signatories. Again, not sure how feasible this is, but would like to see this.
I dont understand why people still waste their time writing article refuting USA's claims.
Dont people understand already USA DOES NOT NEED NO STINKING EVIDENCE?
...back int he dark ages of in 1990 USA invented the story about Iraqi solders taking babies out
of incubators and leaving them to die on the cold floor and sued that lie to attack Iraq
in 2001, USA immediately blamed Osam abin ALladin for the 9-11 attacks and used that like to
attack and occupy Afghanistan.
in 2003, USA said Saddam has weapons of mass distraction and used that lie to attack Iraq for
a 2nd time.
USA ALWAYS lies and uses that to do something.
Russia better prepare itself by buying a lot of lube and lube its collective asshole. It will
get an ass fucking of a life time. and Russia deserves it by allowing Putin to act as a
moronic wimp.
usa is not agreement capable.. they prove this time and time again, so any proposals of an
agreement in any area is not realistic.. it is unfortunate..
the media will continue to be the service provider for the intel agencies and say whatever
they want to say.. facts are irrelevant.. it is beyond naive to think that anything that gets
said in the usa msm ( russia did it and etc. etc. ) have any relevance or value...
it is the
exact opposite.. expect more delusional ranting from these same wingnuts..the usa lost any
integrity it had a long time ago.. getting it back is not going to happen quickly, or at
all.. in fact, it is more likely the usa has to continue in its MAX 737 nosedive on all
levels until they wake up and smell the coffee... until then - all bets are off for any light
going off in the brains of usa leadership."
@ 4 dave... indeed.. the cardinal rule - 'do unto others as you would have them do unto
you' is applicable here... for all the religious preaching from buffoons like pompous, the
words and actions don't match the reality on the ground.. thanks for a clear reminder... it
will be a long time before the usa gets its head out of its ass..
Sorry, folks, but as a practitioner in the field - the problem is systemic, not national or
even international.
Information Technology is a bloated mess. Banks, airports, utilities use software whose
programmers are literally dying of old age and which literally have not been made for a
generation.
Security is a laugh. You need $10M, ante, to have a moderately capable security program
between expertise and tools - which means 90% of the companies will never be able to afford
it.
Even among the 10% - the lack of even the most basic best practices mean that billion dollar
companies constantly get tripped up or knocked flat by extremely simplistic attacks or
accidents.
This is the real world of cyberspace: attackers are limited only by how much focus they want
to put on any particular target.
The "attack" which brought about this latest session of Russo/Sino phobia - as b researched
and documented well - did not employ any sophistication to gain entry. The subsequent
activity was more sophisticated but even then, nothing more complex that $20K paid to a moderately
capable programmer couldn't create.
Cold War 2.0 to keep US enemies front and center is so the MIC can keep sucking the people
dry. Additionally, the Wikileaks Vault 7 materials show clearly the US has tools to pin
cybercrime on its 'enemies'. One thing we know for sure and that is the US government has one
enemy above all others: the truth.
Contradicting his secretary of state and other top officials, President Donald Trump on
Saturday suggested without evidence that China -- not Russia -- may be behind the
cyberattack against the United States and tried to minimized its impact.
Called it. FireEye purposefully chose the term "nation with top-tier offensive
capabilities" so that they could please Greek and Trojans while at the same time exempting
itself from delivering a defective commodity. Trump, for obvious reasons, chose to blame
China; the establishment, for obvious reasons, chose to blame Russia. Trumpists will choose
to blame China; Democrats and centrist Republicans will choose to blame Russia.
China or Russia - you can build your own narrative now!
The most obvious scenario is hiding in plain sight: FireEye is an corporation selling a
defective, inferior product to the USG. To cut corners, it must employ a legion of
non-unionized private contractors, who are a workforce of inferior quality and much lower
morale (as they receive much lower salaries). In order to cut even more corners, most of
these private contractors must receive a light version of clearance process, and must be more
loosely managed.
Indeed, most of these smaller managers must also be private contractors themselves; maybe
showing up one or two times per week in the workplace just to see if the private contractors
workers are there and breathing. The whole thing must be a shitshow.
One of these private contractors probably sold the passwords or created a password which
could be easily brute forced; or simply committed a rookie mistake (leaked e-mail, written
password in the office's whiteboard, etc. etc.).
The USA is plagued with private contractors. They were the weapon of choice of the
American capitalists and the USG to kill the unions and lower the value of the American labor
power. When a random American tells you he/she works for, e.g. Microsoft, chances are he/she
actually works for a private contractor who works for Microsoft - it's a process I like to
call "domestic outsourcing": a process where, through political and structural reforms, the
capitalist class of a given nation precarizes its own national labor power without literally
exporting it to another country (e.g. telemarketing to India).
A treaty would stop the US doing this to others.
The US originated this. The US has every intention of doing this to many others. Those who
complain the loudest are exactly the ones who have no intention of stopping.
The USAi has been fleeced by an IT industry that is incapable of rendering a secure system!
Well blow me down. What don't system buyers get from the words 'shonky thieves'. The USAi and
its cosy bear partner UKi have perfected 'shonky thieves' as an industrial and financial
strategy so dont be surprised when the thieves pick their pocket FROM WITHIN. It is the share
sell off that is the clue - follow the money NOT the tabloids.
So far they have Russia being the most powerful IT centre on earth and the most hopeless
CBW centre on earth. With IT they go everywhere yet with CBW they can't kill a fly.
b doesn't like one liners much so he can delete my response as well to inform you that enemy
#1 of humanity are the global private finance elite, not Russia , nor China.
Re: cybercriminal or rogue state tampering with power generation / power grids -- Why
couldn't these computer systems be independent, isolated from the Internet and kept in high
security lockdown? Besides, they operated just fine without computers in the past, when
things were built to last.
These days, I wouldn't buy a new car that depends on sophisticated computer controls and
diagnostic tools, let alone exclusive dealer service. Farmers lost their right to buy parts
and service their own tractors independent of a dealer. How much would I bet the Chinese
manufacturers will eventually take over that market ...as with almost every other market for
durable goods short of proprietary military hardware? Unless of course, the Banksters prevent
it for reasons of "national security."
For years American governments have extracted profit from the US tax paying public, using the
simple trick of giving them a series of imaginary external enemy's. Requiring ever more arms
industry funding extra.
Profit from paranoia !!
But here's the thing --
America has now backed itself into a corner re geopolitics. It would not surprise me if these
cyberattacks are a joint effort by several nations. We could predict them. Just cause ya paranoid don't mean there not all out to get you.
I know quite a bit about those outages in Venezuela. I assure you that they were very
well-planned. The people who did it were Venezuelan exiles in Canada and Houston, Texas (a
lot of the opposition moved to Houston in addition to Miami). The opposition is very, very
good and they sit up there in the US plotting schemes to destroy the economy. For instance,
for a long time the fake exchange rate was being set by an opposition person in Houston who
ran his own exchange rate site. He always deliberately inflated the street exchange rate in
order to cause a currency crisis, which would devastate the economy. A lot of things caused
that exchange rate crisis, but that guy sitting in Houston sabotaging the exchange rates to
cause a monetary crisis was no small part of that.
The attacks were staged out of Canada and Houston. The people who did it had very intimate
knowledge of those systems, mostly because those systems were using software made in Canada.
The people in Canada had access to the source code of that software. Perhaps the company
itself was in on the sabotage in the same way that the voting machine companies are in on
rigging the voting machines to steal elections for Republicans. In that case, Rebuplican
operatives have taken over the voting machine companies and the election hacking is done by
those companies like E S & S themselves in coordination with people like Karl Rove and
the Bush and Romney families. All of those computer machine companies are owned by the Bush
and Romney families and Karl Rove also has a huge stake in them.
So it's quite possible that that Canadian software vendor was taken over by Venezuelan
opposition people to gain access to the source code so they could hack those systems. With
knowledge of that code, they hacked the systems from Canada and Houston. They were very good,
excellent hackers. It's not known if they had state help from the US and Canadian
governments, although I definitely would not rule it out.
Trudeau in particular has gone full fascist in his fanatical support for the Venezuelan
opposition fascists.
The Venezuelan elite are classic Latin American elite fascists, a somewhat distinct type.
Most of the elite down there has this "Latin American fascist" orientation.
It's generally not race-based, but the ruling elite tends to be lighter-skinned than the
darker masses, even in Haiti. Instead, it's more like the "rightwing authoritarianism" or
"rightwing dictatorships" that we saw so many of in the Cold War in Latin America and
elsewhere.
These regimes were found most of Central America in Guatemala after 1954 and El Salvador
and Honduras since forever, Nicaragua under the Somozas.
They were found in all of South America at one time or another. We can see them in the
generals after 1964 in Brazil, the democratic facade duopoly regimes in Venezuela in Colombia
(especially after 1947 and again in 1964, Ecuador, Peru until the generals' revolt in 1968,
Bolivia under Banzer after 1953, Paraguay under Strausser, Argentina and Uruguay under the
generals in the late 80's and early 90's, and Pinochet in Chile.
They were also seen in the Caribbean in Cuba under Bautista, the Dominican Republic under
Trujillo, and Haiti under the Duvaliers.
In Southeast Asia, they were found in Thieu in South Vietnam, Sihanouk in Cambodia, the
monarchy in Laos, the military regimes in Thailand, Suharto in Indonesia, the Sultan in
Brunei, Marcos in the Philippines, and Taiwan under Chiang Kai Chek.
In Northeast Asia, a regime of this type was found in South Korea from 1947-on.
They were found South Asia with Pakistan under Generals like Zia, in Central Asia in the
Shah of Iran, and in a sense, the Arab World with Saddam (Saddam was installed by the CIA),
King Hassan in Morocco, the Gulf monarchies, and Jordan. Earlier, they were found in the
monarchies in Libya and Egypt that were overthrown by Arab nationalists. Also, Israel played
this sort of role with a democratic facade.
We also found them in the Near East in the military regimes in Turkey (especially Turgut
Ozul) and for a while in Greece under the colonels in the late 1960's and early 1970's.
NATO formed the backbone of a "rightwing dictatorship" in the background of Western Europe
(especially Italy), where Operation Gladio NATO intelligence essentially ran most of those
countries as a Deep State behind the scenes. These regimes were found in Spain under Franco
and in Portugal under Salazar along with its colonies.
These regimes were not so much in evidence in Africa except in South Africa and Rhodesia
and most prominently, Mobutu in Zaire and Samuel Doe in Liberia.
The fascist forms of these rightwing dictatorships varied, most being nonracist fascism
but a few being racist fascists (Turkey), and others being Mussolinists (Suharto in Indonesia
with his "pangesila")
I can't say that I am a big Trump fan but I do like him for the very reason the
Borg hates him. For saying things off script.
EG:
"The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality. I have been fully
briefed and everything is well under control. Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant
when anything happens because Lamestream is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified
of....
-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)"
To one who has investigated cybercrime, this appears certain to be a complete fake by the
Texas company SolarWinds. Investigating internet copyright racketeering, I found two networks
of shell corporations with dozens of websites which took orders, did payments, or passed
codes between those layers to obscure the connections. One of the prominent sites had the
absurd name "TsarMedia.com" to look Russian, but was based in – you guessed it –
Texas. Recall that the Ukraine cybercrime software routinely inserted Cyrillic characters and
Russian historical names into headers to permit crooks to claim that the source was Russia.
Texans too need all-purpose monsters on whom to blame their wrongdoing.
Note that all of the responsible US government agencies Refused to investigate those
copyright racketeering operations, even when given the evidence, and were therefore likely
involved, using hundreds of websites far outnumbering legitimate sources, offering political
works for free with one click, to deny the authors their income source.
Also note that these warmonger scammers are dependents of the military industry and secret
agencies, directly or indirectly, extreme tribalist primitives whose ideology is bullying,
tyranny, and power-grabs by foul means, who are enemies of democracy let alone sane foreign
policy, and will say anything at all to get their way.
Also note that the providers of the software are entirely responsible for making it easy
to hack. As a software engineer, I have tried in vain for decades to convince companies
producing critical infrastructure equipment to not use internet administration links, because
they are not only hackable, but the encryption codes all have backdoors for "security"
agencies. It is beyond foolishness to allow any system administrator to control anything from
anywhere. So no doubt SolarWinds did just that, got hacked by anybody anywhere, and is
looking for an excuse to avoid losing their contract. Being Texans in need of a big excuse,
that excuse could only be Russia, the all-purpose monster behind every tree.
iirc the software for the hydro station came from Canada, and ran on XP (Russian Col.
'Cassad' blog)
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov 2019:
"According to the country's legitimate government headed by President Nicolas Maduro, as well
as information from other credible sources, the electricity sector of Venezuela came under
attack from abroad on March 7 of this year We provide all necessary assistance to Venezuelan
friends on the basis of requests from the legitimate government...[this was] comprehensive
remote influence on the control and monitoring systems of the main power distribution
stations where the equipment produced in one of the Western countries has been
installed...
They and the instigators of sabotage are responsible for the deaths of people,
including of those in hospitals which were left without electricity..."
The civilian programmers are criminals, in the literal sense. When found, warrants must be
placed with Interpol for their arrest.
With regard to government employees, in line with the Nuremburg trials, they cannot say
they were acting on orders. They too, are criminally responsible. They could have refused
orders, but didn't.
With regard to elected government officials, they carry diplomatic passports, and are
immune while they do.
Lack of extradition treaties and the politicised and biased International Court of Justice
means the politicians - murderers - will escape any punishment.
Notably, Blair, responsible for illegal aggression on a sovereign state resulting in mass
murder of civilians, not only escaped any form of punishment, but has been made a very highly
paid peace advisor.
I give zero weight to these opinions that only refer to anonymous 'experts' and never present
any actual data. I get that the average NYT reader isn't an IT or cyber security expert, and
has to let someone they trust interpret for them, but there are many people out there who are
quite capable of looking at the data and drawing their own conclusions.
Reuters is now reporting a 2nd attempt of SolarWinds intrusion as described in the quote
below
"Security experts told Reuters this second effort is known as "SUPERNOVA." It is a piece of
malware that imitates SolarWinds' Orion product but it is not "digitally signed" like the
other attack, suggesting this second group of hackers did not share access to the network
management company's internal systems.
It is unclear whether SUPERNOVA has been deployed against any targets, such as customers
of SolarWinds. The malware appears to have been created in late March, based on a review of
the file's compile times.
The new finding shows how more than one sophisticated hacking group viewed SolarWinds, an
Austin, Texas-based company that was not a household name until this month, as an important
gateway to penetrate other targets."
Is any evidence offered that there was any hack at all? Is the entire thing a fully
fabricated false flag, yet another, in service of taking Nord Stream 2 down?
When Maduro coalesced as a US target and his government was declared illegitimate,
one of the first thing that happened was the destruction of the water turbines feeding the
Venezuelan grid.
The US backed opposition claimed that this was the result of the Chavez and successors
negligence
towards thee maintenance of the generation equipment.
However, the Venezuelan Govt. had renovated all the dam equipment at the tune of 15+
billions with
a German Firm in 2015.
Just as Stuxnet destroyed the Irani centrifuges, some entity derailed the governing system
and led the Venezuelan turbines to death from overspeed.
Such hacking is lauded by the think tanks of the US. Was successful in causing widespread
misery to millions.
But who gives a Flying F**k in the US about these things?
What an ugly way to run a society. Moving society to public finance and abolishing private
finance is what is needed to save our species and what we can of the world we live in. I am
with China in advocating for Ad Astra because we can see the end of our ability to live on
this planet because of historical faith-based disrespect of it.
Thank you to j. casey #38 for that question. Agreed the entire thing could be a hoax and
the insider trading sting was the fee they got for going along with it.
Regardless of that the only way to ensure security is ably described by john #30:
Also note that the providers of the software are entirely responsible for making it easy to
hack. As a software engineer, I have tried in vain for decades to convince companies
producing critical infrastructure equipment to not use internet administration links,
because they are not only hackable, but the encryption codes all have backdoors for
"security" agencies.
It is beyond foolishness to allow any system administrator to control
anything from anywhere. So no doubt SolarWinds did just that, got hacked by anybody
anywhere, and is looking for an excuse to avoid losing their contract. Being Texans in need
of a big excuse, that excuse could only be Russia, the all-purpose monster behind every
tree.
Thank you for that brevity and deadly assassination of the idiots behind this.
The Germans and the Americans decided that it was worth to risk the entire German SCADA
business to sting Iran and later Venezuela. Because that was what those attacks, in the
absence of Iranian or Venezuelan capitulation meant, harm to German bussiness for no
strategic gains.
I suspect, like so much else that comes out of the Court of the Mad King and his minions,
we are dealing with a form of Hubris: "We are the only suppliers of this type of equipment
and we can abuse our customers..."
Yesterday, DW News compiled a report on Internet Anonymity focused on TOR as the most widely
known example of anonymiser networks. They explained the mechanism by which one may access
the www via the TOR network and shed one's own identity and replace it with one created in a
TOR server, multiple times, until it becomes IMPOSSIBLE to trace the original identity.
The report was aired in the context of the current US cyber-intrusion claims and, although it
didn't name names or point fingers, it concluded that anyone who says they know who expertly
hacked their system is lying.
I thought it was jolly decent of DW to spell this out, considering all the US lap-doggish
anti-Russia tropes the German govt has endorsed recently.
That is all very well fro DW to run that doco but TOR is not a wise choice to manufacture
anonymity. There is a strong view that it is a flawed CIA construct. I am happy to be proven
wrong but over the years some wise heads have urged caution.
Sorry, folks, but as a practitioner in the field - the problem is systemic, not national or
even international.
Information Technology is a bloated mess.
Posted by: c1ue | Dec 19 2020 21:21 utc | 12
I think that this is a classic case when we can productively ask "cui bono"?
Big software companies like Google and Microsoft have goals that are against the users,
and they can do it because of monopoly powers and users do not knowing any better.
From browser side, one goal is to please advertisers by enabling takeovers of your
hardware to track you, make displays that annoy you -- but at occasion entice you to spend
money on something, freeze you computer with lame attempts to make dynamic displays and so
on.
Because this is how browsers are money cows, operating systems support those shenanigans
in an increasing variety of ways. So from security point of view we have a fortress with wide
ramparts and massive walls that are riddled with tunnels, each tunnel having a rickety gate,
and hordes of people improving padlocks on those gates with weekly security fixes. For those
unfamiliar with rickety gates, when you have a fenced facility, it is easiest to climb over
the gates, you can grab the frames, barbed wire is straight up (easier than the inclined
wires on the rest of the fence, and if you are in a hurry, just hit the gate with the front
bumper.)
Next, operating system have to be out of date in few years so you are forced to buy a new
one or to buy a new computer (Apple model). Instability of systems prevent security fixes to
be completed in the lifetime of a system.
Those are commercial motivation. Then there are deep state shenanigans, they want some
openness to Trojan horses.
Also note that the providers of the software are entirely responsible for making it easy to
hack. As a software engineer, I have tried in vain for decades to convince companies
producing critical infrastructure equipment to not use internet administration links,
because they are not only hackable, but the encryption codes all have backdoors for
"security" agencies. It is beyond foolishness to allow any system administrator to control
anything from anywhere. So no doubt SolarWinds did just that, got hacked by anybody
anywhere, and is looking for an excuse to avoid losing their contract. Being Texans in need
of a big excuse, that excuse could only be Russia, the all-purpose monster behind every
tree.
I would shift the bulk of the blame off the software manufacturers and onto the IT
departments and integrators responsible for installing those products into their
infrastructure, for the following general reasons:
- No matter how secure a software/hardware product is, its security is be easily
compromised by poor deployment into existing infrastructure. The onus is on the IT department
to ensure the software is deployed securely. If a software product happens to have
internet-facing administration interfaces with default passwords settings, then it is a sign
the IT department has not locked down the solution during the deployment phase.
- It is the duty of any IT department to ensure infrastructure is deployed securely and
continuously validated for security (by installing intrusion prevention and detection
systems, multiple layers of firewalling, DMZs, zero trust infrastructure, honeypots,
centralised authentication systems etc ...). That one could have an entire SCADA system
sitting on the internet with a management interface using a default username or password.
- Frankly, every software product or network connected equipment should be considered as
insecure as swiss cheese from the moment it's unpacked, then the work should begin to lock it
down and secure it using a multi-layered security model. That is the approach taken in many
secure enterprises that have a good security record.
Ultimately, making a single software product secure will only achieve limited gains: Those
gains evaporate in an instant one some junior cablemonkey plugs a secure server into the
public DMZ using the wrong network interface. No amount of code polishing, static analysis,
secure software design is going to make even a dent when a careless admin sets the password
to pass@123, disables TLS encryption and puts the management interface on the public network
so he can easily run operations from the cafe' down the road.
Aside: I've had an on and off relationship with SolarWinds for 20 years, while it's been
the running joke of IT admins the world over, exposing it's management interfaces to the
public is something only the most amateurish IT departments would do. No, someone failed at
the network administration layer: Where was the firewall admin in all this? Where was the
Network administrator with his routing policies? Most of all the CTO/IT Director/IT managers
clearly failed in the secure deployment and management of the product. Solarwinds doesn't put
itself on the public Internet by accident!
Nothing really adds up about this whole story anyway:
- Why, when SolarWinds has been a gaping security hole for more than 2 decades is it now
all of a sudden the gateway for a massive attack from a foreign power? Shouldn't it have been
a continuous vulnerability all along? By now, every vulnerable internet facing SW
installation would have been wiped out ages ago due to the frequency of automated attacks
carried out against infrastructure in general.
Far from looking like an issue with SolarWinds, this looks like a massive and widespread
failure in basic IT security by dozens of companies possibly connected by a single large
service provider.
The media reporting around this issue also sounds to me like extreme coverup, take this
WIRED magazine snippet:
"Over the past several years, the US has invested billions of dollars in Einstein, a
system designed to detect digital intrusions. But because the SolarWinds hack was what's
known as a "supply chain" attack, in which Russia compromised a trusted tool rather than
using known malware to break in, Einstein failed spectacularly."
Really. They can't find any actual Russian malware, so instead it's
"in which Russia compromised a trusted tool rather than using known malware to break in,"
China and Russia should conclude a cyber treaty among each other, work out the details of the
verification mechanism (which is very difficult in this sphere)
and then invite other nations to join. Most other countries would probably eventually do
that.
That wouldn't deter the USA or Israel from their maligne cyber activities, but it would
make sure that any such move which becomes publicly known would come with a diplomatic
cost.
Bernhard: "The only way to prevent potentially dangerous cyber-operations is too agree with
adversaries on what is off-limits and to (verifiably) stick to that."
One can not agree. We all know Micro$oft, Google, FB, Whatsapp, Instagram, ... are feeding
US and Zionist intelligence agencies with all type of informations. Any international treaty
on cyber-security would under this conditions be obsolete from the beginning.
Another matter is that as Bernhard correctly points out:
"One can not spy on other countries and then complain when they do something similar to
oneself. Responding by waging destruction against another country's IT systems only
guarantees that there will be a response in kind. If one wants to avert cyber-espionage and
cyber-attacks there is only one way out."
But it's just naive to think that CIA, NSA, Mossad are going to respect any international
agreement in any area. Stuxnet virus and it's intrusion of the Iranian nuclear facilities or
sabotage of Venezuelan power-grid facilities were not made by China, Russia or North Korea.
US government and Zionist Apartheid regime did those, aiming to sabotage and do harm not only
on facilities but also on humans. If we go back, the much praised (in western MSM) Stuxnet
was the operation legitimizing all similar cyber attacks to follow in the future.
ZioImperialists can not expect having free hands to physically terror other nations and not
be considered as a legitim target by them.
Another issue is that by criminalizing whistle-blowing and whistle-blowers like Snowden,
Manning et al, US government and Zionists shoot in their own knee. If the price of
whistle-blowing of criminality is too high, then the whistle-blowers doesn't go public, he or
she just provide the access to those who can cover the criminal acts from the distance.
About the "Russian", "Chinese" narrative, I admit, it's a bit strange that US government and
MSM are still insisting on them. I find it somehow positive. They know who was behind, they
blame it on someone else, this could mean: "We are not going to do anything about it!"
If this is the case, then it sound wise, who knows what is going to happen if they choose
to act aggressive against one of many enemies while one of the enemies got access to among
others the entire network of their energy security administration.
And, lets not forget that Zionists Apartheid regime put USA in the current humiliating
position in the first place.
A very constructive approach by US government would be to drop all illegal sanctions against
others, pull out of ME and focus on their own domestic business instead of servicing Zionist
Apartheid regime.
"To blame, without evidence, Russia for a 'hack' and to incite against it will not solve the
above problems."
Maybe this time it really was Russia, according to Doctorow:
"The allegations of Russian hacking made by the United States in the heat of Russia-gate
were frivolous, appropriate to toddlers in a sandbox. Leaving fingerprints all over the
supposed theft over the internet to get at Hillary's communications and tip the election in
Trump's favor. Only a fool would think that the Kremlin operates at this level. And, as we
know, there are plenty of fools in the USA, though it appears a disproportionate number of
them are in the Democratic Party and its thought leaders like Chuck Schumer of New York and
Rick Blumenthal of Connecticut.
This hacking was of a different scale and different nature entirely. It was massive. It
had no friendly or other bear tags put on by the Ukrainians. It went straight for the
jugular, the most secret and sensitive corners of the US government. And it apparently was
not destructive, did nothing that could trigger a war, just make a point: gotcha!"
Sounds reasonable to me - if the US persists in threats with devastating cyber attacks
against the RF because of those idiotic Russia Gate claims - demonstrate what the RF really
can do and prevent any planned stupidity by the USA.
Relentlessly, you go to stories in the New York Times. Like a dog returning to its excrement.
Everybody knows it's an intelligence shill. Why do you bother? There are far more important
things you could be reporting on.
Posted by: Johny Conspiranoid | Dec 20 2020 10:21 utc | 51
"It makes no sense to connect something to the internet and then expect it to remain
secret."
Indeed. And yet they have been doing it vigorously for 30 years now, making a few shallow
assholes very very rich, wasting huge quantities of natural resources, allowing many feckless
bureaucrats to pretend to do something for somebody, screwing the heck out of most everybody
else, and making everybody - and I do mean everybody - less secure. But hey, your phone can
tell you how to get to the store.
We know beyond doubt that the top shelf of our society have no regard what so ever for law
and order international or national.
They will break the law with impunity, turn a blind eye to their colleagues breaking the
rules.
They will impose the law on the public like a sledgehammer
to oppress us.
Wouldn't we just love to be a 'fly on the wall' when they get together and conspire to commit
there criminality !!
ZOOM
The soft vonrable underbelly of your criminal elite.
These large, complicated, very expensive software "management" packages are largely
butt-covering, to protect management from the threat of "doing nothing" when things go wrong.
Some nice kickbacks in it too. The usual effect is to make the sysadmins spend all their time
trying to make the package work right. Security theater and treated like it too, fancy
costumes out in front, bare wall behind the curtain. I remember one "configuration
management" package that was practically an operating system all by itself and absolutely a
waste of time. Network management even more so.
I dont understand why people still waste their time writing article refuting USA's claims.
Dont people understand already USA DOES NOT NEED NO STINKING EVIDENCE?
That is plainly obvious, yes. The criminal US regime does what it does and their claims
against other countries are almost universally without evidence. Spending energy refuting
baseless claims can even provide an impression of legitimacy around those insane and baseless
claims. The question is how to expose the lies without giving the liars legitimacy.
One thing we know for sure and that is the US government has one enemy above all others:
the truth.
Unfortunately, this is true not only for the US government, but for the "western"
governments, establishments and media in general. To them, lies are no problem but truth is a
deadly enemy. I could tell a personal story about that, but it would be off topic for this
thread so I will not. But the observation that truth is the enemy to these people is key,
even if it seems simplistic. The fact is that you cannot reason with people who have truth as
their enemy.
Is any evidence offered that there was any hack at all? Is the entire thing a fully
fabricated false flag, yet another, in service of taking Nord Stream 2 down?
That's a key question, I agree. The proper position to take is that it is all baseless lies
unless verifiable evidence that the 'hack' actually occurred is presented. Never mind the
claims of 'who did it' when there is no evidence that anything happened at all.
The situation in the west now is such that all information is centrally controlled, and
face to face communication has been severely limited. It is not a coincidence.
I haven't seen this level of propaganda since the buildup to the second Iraq war. They are
obviously planning more aggression against Russia and have to keep the public at a fever
pitch to get away with it. it serves so many purposes, not just politically for the dnc and
rnc, but for nato, the vastly overfunded intel community, etc. the domestic arm of the fake
war on terror is of course the cops, and the various federal cops. Here the propaganda seems
aimed mainly at republicans, with the "marxist blm" and "marxist fascist antifa" exciting the
republican base into a frenzy, and the main foreign "villain" is said to be china. the
propaganda aimed at the democrats focuses on russia; that product already has a proven track
record of success with the democratic base, and the lies are aimed at whitewashing biden and
harris and their abysmal records of support for police violence. nato and the us intel
community have to justify their existence by stirring up the populace against imaginary
foreign aggression, and it has succeeded spectacularly with the public in the u.s.
in short, these idiots want to take us to the edge of a major world war so they can
continue to loot and control us, and they seem to think they will do just fine in a post
nuclear war future.
From browser side, one goal is to please advertisers by enabling takeovers of your hardware
to track you, make displays that annoy you -- but at occasion entice you to spend money on
something, freeze you computer with lame attempts to make dynamic displays and so on.
You have many good points, thanks. For the time being, I would recommend the Brave Browser
https://brave.com/ as a countermove to these
issues. It is super fast, ad free (or you can choose to get paid to see ads) and generally
very good. I use it under Windows, Linux, Android and on my iPhone. As for operating systems
becoming 'obsolete' forcing you to buy a new computer: Unless you have very special
requirements, Linux Ubuntu will do all you need for free on your existing hardware. It is
easy to install, very secure and virus free (the Windows virus business model does not work
everywhere).
One thing we know for sure and that is the US government has one enemy above all others:
the truth.
Unfortunately, this is true not only for the US government, but for the "western"
governments, establishments and media in general.
It is worse even than that. The aversion to truth permeates western cultures. The obese
American looks in the mirror and sees fitness. The educated fool looks in the mirror and sees
wisdom. The boy raised to believe that being a white male is bad looks in the mirror and sees
a virtuous girl trapped in the evil enemy's body, or even worse he sees a mountain panda. The
young woman with no accomplishments but endless praise and petting of her ego looks in the
mirror and sees vague exceptionality and formless superiority. The fascist looks in the
mirror and sees a noble warrior for social justice.
The US government can get away with existing in denial because the population relies upon
denial as well.
On Reuters main webpage is a heading that reads:
"Biden's options for Russian hacking punishment: sanctions, cyber retaliation"
The accusation, investigation and trial phases are as good as done,
only the setting of the punishment phase remains.
It is for the benefit of headline readers.
In the body of the article itself Reuters used the words "suspected hack" once.
When will Reuters move the goal posts and quietly drop the word "suspected".
It is guaranteed that they will, the question is how long before they weasel it away.
The timing is certainly not dependent upon "evidence", more dependent upon how long until
they
think people won't notice the change.
(actually, there are two (fa) in the headline, Russia is guilty of hacking and Biden is
President)
A scary thought is that all this is prepping the American Sheeple for a vast shutdown of
communication ("the Russian's did it!")
in the event the Deep State is not getting it's way with stealing this election.
Norwegian@60
For those who wish to use linux from windows is there is puppylinux frugal install.
You can start from pendrive install with in 10 minutes.
Rao
i'm sure the most murderous cops look in the mirror and see noble warriors for social
justice, just as many of them did when they were slaughtering Iraqis in the street from a
helicopter or in fallujah.
This time, SolarWinds didn't blame another nation. It just stated it was
"investigating". Even for Trump's rabid anti-Sinicism, it was too much, so he toned down on his
Twitter:
...discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!). There could also have been a
hit on our ridiculous voting machines during the election, which is now obvious that I won
big, making it an even more corrupted embarrassment for the USA. @DNI_Ratcliffe
@SecPompeo
-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2020
From "it was China!" to "discussing the possibility that it may be China" there's an
abyssal distance. Trump is also backing down.
There's a clear pattern here: the American Governments and MSM initiate a very virulent
propaganda attack, based on outright fake news, against Russia and/or China. A burst of
hysteria takes over the nation. Then it quickly, almost aggressively, backs down and tones
down on the propaganda warfare.
Of course that there's an element of "bend but not break" here, as credibility is a finite
resource the MSM and the USG have to use carefully and with moderation. Plausible deniability
is a necessary tool in order to not spend your whole credibility at once and to replenish it,
while also giving the masses a credible scenario (not perfect, not dystopian: in the middle
of the road).
But there's also a nobler objective with this: to preserve the company's stock market
prices. By creating a panacea over a foreign enemy, SolarWinds/FireEye calm down the
shareholders and Wall Street, thus preserving or at least softening the blow to the
realization their product is inferior in quality, even borderline useless. It's not that the
shareholders and Wall St. don't know that, but that they are now ensured the masses won't
know that.
We have a scenario here where the American MSM and the USG are now completely fused to
Wall Street. As junior partners.
So Trump is attributing the obvious issues in the election to this hack attack? Now the
pieces begin to fall together. I would say that evidence has been uncovered (but lot yet
leaked) that the vote tabulation was altered and that is why we have suddenly been treated to
the "Foreign baddies hacked us!" media spectacle while nothing has been said of what
these hackers actually did: The public needs to be primed with the diversion before the leaks
are sprung. Basically, the manipulation of the vote counts by the "We lie, we cheat, we
steal!" gang has been uncovered and the suspicion that it was a domestic job has to be
headed off. A narrative needs to be generated and installed in the public consciousness in
which the evidence that the CIA was behind the hack was actually planted by clever
Russian/Chinese/Iranian bad guys and the CIA is innocent.
A CYA operation for the CIA? That is what it is starting to look like to me.
Posted by: William Gruff | Dec 20 2020 15:41 utc | 71
re ...Denial is how so many Americans can live with themselves....
Indeed that is workably true. More broadly for all humans, might be restated as: Automatically creating justifications is how the mind* "protects" its owner from
confronting being "wrong". *mind--whatever that is; there is much disagreement about that.
Yes, the stupid avarice at the Court of the Mad King is remarkable. It demonstrates a species of Hubris which assumes that no one can retaliate against
them.
I note here that the Russians have now full legal and financial control of their aerospace
firms and their new mid-size passenger jet does not have foreign content.
Basically, the Mad King has alerted other sovereigns in the world of their vulnerabilities
and they are proceeding to address those items - likely taking 20 or 30 years.
denial is probably the way the cops who run down protestors, or shoot them in the back, live
with themselves. and true, a lot of americans cheer those cops on, and pretend they are
justified, just as many americans cheer on the troops overseas who are also thought to be
protecting freedom, like those in the wikileaks video who shot at children in the street.
"fighting terrorism for freedom" my ass. this kind of denial is certainly a lot more
consequential than the tendency to deny one is overweight or losing their hair, and i don't
think it is the same process.
i don't know about the republican caucus in iowa, but i know what the dnc rigged the
cauces in iowa against sanders, so it's not like the process can't be interfered with,
whether by an app that doesn't work or simple old fashioned cheating like pretending to flip
a coin.
another thing about cops who are about to commit violence they can't justify; they often turn
off their body cams, or claim they forgot to turn them on, or they weren't working. that's
not denial; that's premeditation.
No, cui bono is irrelevant.
IT is a mess because despite the pace of historical change, the effects on productivity are
remarkable.
If one can improve productivity by double digits with half-assed IT efforts - why bother with
more coherent and considered planning or execution?
Now repeat this every 3 years or so. The result is an ungodly hodgepodge in very little time.
I see it now simple thus: Anglo Deep $tate cannot defeat China MIL plus Russia so it
needs them split. That's how Kissinger "won" the Vietnam war by cozying up to Mao. Quite a
Pyrrhic victory on the short (Vietnam) and the long (PR China today) run.
Any crap is being hauled up to tar Russia, from MH17, via Skripal to cyber false
flaggery.
For me, the incredible truth is that greed overcame all other emotions: patriotism? ...just a
adman's final lever; exceptionalism could have no other end other than the bonfire of the
vanities. Greed, by the very few ultra rich, the lucre flowing down to control all segments
of the society, the body now being feasted on, until there are few specs left , worthy of the
effort.
I disagree. What aggression did the Russians take? A Russian pilot flying over a US
aircraft carrier and taking pictures is intelligence gathering. A Russian bomber trying to
bomb a US aircraft carrier is an act of aggression.
By that definition, this is normal intelligence gathering. Not something that requires
killing people.
Edited to add: Of course it was legitimately signed. Solarwinds signed it and pushed it
out. That only means the software came from Solarwinds internal builds. Shame on Solarwinds
for not maintaining simple checksum chains of its object code to insure it hasn't been
overwritten. Shame on the defense department for not requiring Solarwinds to maintain secure
source control.
Shame on Solarwinds for not maintaining simple checksum chains of its object code to
insure it hasn't been overwritten. Shame on the defense department for not requiring
Solarwinds to maintain secure source control.
This is the first indication i have seen anywhere on this breach which suggests SolarWinds
could have taken basic precautions in pushing out its firmware updates. I am going to look
for articles written by Cyber people on this and ignore the press.
Yes, Tech in this current era, is neglecting the most foundational checks and balances. In
a twenty-four span, we had the SolarWinds/Microsoft 365 Hack and the Google Cloud global
failure, after having the entire world's internet stopping due to a bad mass deployed
firmware update to the switches. Therefore, I believe the Federal Government is best to
create its own proprietary system than outsourcing to Microsoft, Amazon, or Google.
Some edits would be useful, like instead of: "containing a direct back door to the Russian
military" one should have written "containing a direct back door to any knowledgeable
hacker". Something that Snowden for YEARS has complained about. And this is why HUAWEI is so
hated, because it doesn't offer backdoors to be exploited, in a handshake understanding with
US intelligence corps.
Until now all I've seen were anonymous sources claiming that it kind of feels like
those dastardly Russkies were behind it again. Did I miss the part where actual evidence was
provided?
CISA is an agency full of bureaucrats, not computer specialists. So any judgement is highly
suspect. In my view "computer security bureaucrat" is typically a parasite or a charlatan.
Traditionally computer security departments in large corporations often serve as a place to exile
incompetent wannabes. I do not think the government is different. Real high quality programmers
usually prefer to write their own software not to spend their time analyzing some obtuse malware
code. Often high level honchos in such department are so obviously incompetent that it hurts.
This is the same agency that declared Presidential election 2020 to be the most secure in
history. So their statements are not worth the electrons used to put them on the screen, so say
nothing about a ppar , if they manage to get into such rags as NYT or WaPo.
We need clear-eyed assessment from a real Windows OS specialists like for Stuxnet was
Mark
Russinovich , which is difficult in current circumstances.
The supply chain attack used to breach federal agencies and at least one private company
poses a "grave risk" to the United States, in part because the attackers likely used means
other than just the SolarWinds backdoor to penetrate networks of interest, federal officials
said on Thursday. One of those networks belongs to the National Nuclear Security
Administration, which is responsible for the Los Alamos and Sandia labs, according to a report
from
Politico .
"This adversary has demonstrated an ability to exploit software supply chains and shown
significant knowledge of Windows networks," officials with the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and
Security Agency wrote in an alert . "It is likely that the adversary
has additional initial access vectors and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that have
not yet been discovered." CISA, as the agency is abbreviated, is an arm of the Department of
Homeland Security.
Elsewhere, officials wrote: "CISA has determined that this threat poses a grave risk to the
Federal Government and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical
infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations."
Reuters, meanwhile, reported that the attackers
breached a separate major technology supplier and used the compromise to get into
high-value final targets. The news services cited two people briefed on the
matter.
FURTHER READING
Premiere security firm FireEye says it was breached by nation-state hackers The attackers,
whom CISA said began their operation no later than March, managed to remain undetected until
last week when security firm FireEye reported that hackers backed by a nation-state had
penetrated deep into its network . Early this week, FireEye said that the hackers were
infecting targets using Orion, a widely used network management tool from SolarWinds. After
taking control of the Orion update mechanism, the attackers were using it to install a backdoor
that FireEye researchers are calling Sunburst. Advertisement
FURTHER READING
Russian hackers hit US government using widespread supply chain attack Sunday was also when
multiple news outlets, citing unnamed people, reported that the hackers had
used the backdoor in Orion to breach networks belonging to the Departments of Commerce,
Treasury, and possibly other agencies. The Department of Homeland Security and the National
Institutes of Health were later added to the list. Bleak assessment
Thursday's CISA alert provided an unusually bleak assessment of the hack; the threat it
poses to government agencies at the national, state, and local levels; and the skill,
persistence, and time that will be required to expel the attackers from networks they had
penetrated for months undetected.
"This APT actor has demonstrated patience, operational security, and complex tradecraft in
these intrusions," officials wrote in Thursday's alert. "CISA expects that removing this threat
actor from compromised environments will be highly complex and challenging for
organizations."
The officials went on to provide another bleak assessment: "CISA has evidence of additional
initial access vectors, other than the SolarWinds Orion platform; however, these are still
being investigated. CISA will update this Alert as new information becomes available."
The advisory didn't say what the additional vectors might be, but the officials went on to
note the skill required to infect the SolarWinds software build platform, distribute backdoors
to 18,000 customers, and then remain undetected in infected networks for months.
"This adversary has demonstrated an ability to exploit software supply chains and shown
significant knowledge of Windows networks," they wrote. "It is likely that the adversary has
additional initial access vectors and tactics, techniques, and procedures that have not yet
been discovered."
Among the many federal agencies that used SolarWinds Orion, reportedly, was the Internal
Revenue Service. On Thursday, Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a
letter to IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig asking that he provide a briefing on whether
taxpayer data was compromised.
The IRS appears to have been a customer of SolarWinds as recently as 2017. Given the
extreme sensitivity of personal taxpayer information entrusted to the IRS, and the harm both
to Americans' privacy and our national security that could result from the theft and
exploitation of this data by our adversaries, it is imperative that we understand the extent
to which the IRS may have been compromised. It is also critical that we understand what
actions the IRS is taking to mitigate any potential damage, ensure that hackers do not still
have access to internal IRS systems, and prevent future hacks of taxpayer data.
IRS representatives didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment for this
post.
The CISA alert said the key takeaways from its investigation so far are:
This is a patient, well-resourced, and focused adversary that has sustained long duration
activity on victim networks The SolarWinds Orion supply chain compromise is not the only
initial infection vector this APT actor leveraged Not all organizations that have the
backdoor delivered through SolarWinds Orion have been targeted by the adversary with
follow-on actions Organizations with suspected compromises need to be highly conscious of
operational security, including when engaging in incident response activities and planning
and implementing remediation plans
What has emerged so far is that this is an extraordinary hack whose full scope and effects
won't be known for weeks or even months. Additional shoes are likely to drop early and
often.
Until now all I've seen were anonymous sources claiming that it kind of feels like those
dastardly Russkies were behind it again. Did I miss the part where actual evidence was
provided?
The NY Times used to have an entire department focusing on selling the Iraq war. Google
"Judith Miller", who was the chief sell-Iraq-war propagandist and liar. The NY Times has a
bad record of being the "publication of record" among the corporate mainstream media.
"Your honor, you are quite right about the lack of evidence. The problem is...you
shouldn't want me to show you the evidence! That would be tantamount to revealing my
investigative techniques!"
"Well, when you put it that way..."
And of course the sources were anonymous. Don't you read the WaPo like a good citizen?
The Russian hackers, known by the nicknames APT29 or Cozy Bear, are part of that
nation's foreign intelligence service, the SVR, and they breached email systems in some
cases, said the people familiar with the intrusions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity
because of the sensitivity of the matter
Is there any precedent for declaring pure espionage/intelligence gathering, even on a very
large scale, to be an armed attack warranting an armed response? I can't think of any.
A major breach of U.S. security calls for a robust law enforcement response and
cybersecurity measures, and arguably even for the longstanding death penalty for espionage if
the offenders are caught, but not for cries of "declaration of war," like Dick Durbin's.
That applies to the same sources "informing" us about the so-called Russian hack.
Remember when we were "informed" N. Korea hacked into Sonny's and "downloaded" an entire
movie, which was not even released?! Turned out that was an inside job by a woman who had
worked at Sonny for ten years. I smell the same BS from the likes of the NY Times.
For almost three decades, we have awaited a mythical "cyber Pearl Harbor," the harbinger of
digital doom that the U.S. cybersecurity community assumes to be inevitable. Strangely enough,
some believe this cyber Pearl Harbor already happened twice within the last two months.
Though warnings of cyber Pearl Harbor emerged as early as 1991, former defense secretary
Leon Panetta is perhaps best known for promoting the idea, warning
in 2012 of an impending "cyber-Pearl Harbor that would cause physical destruction and the loss
of life, an attack that would paralyze and shock the nation." Such a grand event would be tough
to miss.
Last week, Sidney Powell, a one-time member of the president's legal team, continued to
promote her conspiracy theory that the Venezuelans, the Chinese, and "other countries" had
exploited voting machines to rig the election for President-elect Joe Biden. This fictitious
"attack," she
told Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, amounted to nothing less than "cyber Pearl Harbor."
Apparently the rest of us just missed it.
Cybersecurity experts, including Christopher Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency who was fired by President Trump in November, have refuted these
claims. Krebs
called them "farcical" and "nonsensical." Officials have
said there was no interference with voting machines of the kind claimed by Trump supporters
and that the election was "the most secure in American history."
This week began with the news of cybersecurity breaches at a
growing list of private companies and government agencies, including the Department of
Homeland Security and even the Pentagon, perpetrated by
APT29 , the Russian SVR. Dubbed SolarWinds after the company whose software served as the
vector for the intrusions, the scope of the operation and the fact that it impacted defense and
intelligence agencies sparked an online debate as to
whether it had constituted an "attack" on the United States. Others did not wait to learn the
extent of the damage before
declaring that the United States had been "hit with 'Cyber-Pearl Harbor.'" Senator Richard
Durbin went so far as to call
the hack "virtually a declaration of war."
National Review 's Jim Geraghty implied that the
United States missed the SolarWinds intrusions because it failed to take the 2015 Office of
Personnel Management (OPM) breach at the
hands of Chinese hackers seriously enough, focusing instead on Russian disinformation in the
wake of that country's interference in the 2016 presidential election. The OPM incident, he
said, "was widely described as the 'cyber Pearl Harbor' and yet most Americans didn't
notice."
Calling any of these incidents "cyber Pearl Harbor" is inaccurate at best and inherently
dangerous. The impacts of the OPM and SolarWinds hacks in no way approximate the kind of death
and destruction most often associated with the
use of the "cyber Pearl Harbor" analogy. The whole point of a cyber Pearl Harbor is that we
would not miss the significance of such a major catastrophe since it would lead to an
inevitable reconstitution of the cyber security threat environment.
This continued use of
doomsday rhetoric is dangerous because it distorts our understanding of the cyber threats
we do face, the implications of real incidents when they occur, and our possible response
options. As Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
said in 2015, the OPM breach was representative of the real cyber threats we face not
because it was the fulfillment of a long-awaited "
cyber Armageddon scenario ," but because it was not. It was not an "attack," he said, but
an incident of the kind of cyber espionage we witness regularly. That the cyber domain is
dominated by
espionage and represents a wider intelligence
contest demonstrates the continuing misapplication of strategic thought surrounding cyber
security violations.
Five years later, it is still unhelpful to frame incidents like SolarWind as the arrival of
digital apocalypse instead of another major incident of
cyber espionage . Continued hyperbole surrounding every new cyber incident encourages the
kind of craven misappropriation of fears of
cyber doom by those who seek to inflate threats for political gain.
We do not know the scope of SolarWinds mainly because the domain has no conception of
measuring impact. In an arena obsessed with battle damage estimates, the Department of Defense
simply has no interest in measuring the
impact of their operations and the utility of
defend forward operations that provide little leverage against espionage operations.
The FY2021 NDAA contains
the most significant cyber security legislation to date. Helping the government organize in
order to deny operations in the cyber environment is a critical task. There are provisions for
threat hunting, organizational coordination, and more funding for cyber operations to maintain
and defend cyberspace. Yet the deeper challenge is how we defend against espionage.
The real lesson of Pearl Harbor is the desperation of Japan to preemptively eliminate the
United States as a threat to Japanese operations in the Pacific and the U.S. intelligence
failures that enabled the attack in the first place. Taking the analogy in the correct
direction suggests that the U.S. needs to seek to deny attack options to prevent infiltrations
such as the SolarWinds event. The U.S. also needs to do better of understanding the strategic
motivations of our adversaries. In this case, being distracted by the possibility of a major
hack during the 2020 election led to a comprehensive violation of almost every government
agency.
Hyperbole needs to stop and rational consideration of the impact of the SolarWind operation
will take time and sober thought, not instant hot takes. Infiltration and extracting
information is not an act of war, but evidence of the typical espionage operations that are
conducted against near peer adversaries. Denying future operations will require a sober
assessment of how to enable the defense when the attacker has many attack options. This will
likely not come solely through government action, but collaboration between industry, the
private sector, and government agencies that provide for collective defense.
Sean Lawson is associate professor of Communication at the University of Utah and
non-resident fellow at the Krulak Center at the Marine Corps University.
Brandon Valeriano is the Donald Bren Chair of Military Innovation at the Marine Corps
University located at the Krulak Center. He also serves as a senior fellow at the Cato
Institute and a senior advisor to the U.S. Cyber Solarium Commission.
Excellent article. Hyperbole is about the last thing we need at this point in time.
Unfortunately, hyperbole is standard fare these days. The result? Misinformation and
half-truths, followed by hasty (and often erroneous) conclusions, followed by incorrect
remedies which, more often than not, tend to make what are already bad situations only
worse.
Unfortunately when it comes to cyber attacks, unlike an actual Pearl Harbor, the damage is
invisible to most of us. So are the perpetrators. We can't directly see the trail of evidence
that connects the crime to the suspects, so we have to rely on the testimony of experts.
Then we have political pressure groups that are interested in up or down playing the severity
of the breach.
On top of all, we have a population that is utterly ignorant but 'been trained to distrust
experience.
As I am typing this, I am less and less optimistic.
Even worse, we have a severely alienated population that is tired of being played by elites
with constant hype about alleged foreign enemies. We have a population that sees more immediate
threat from its own elites than Russian spies. The headline reads like "Deep State has Russkies
in its Shorts Again" and la dee dah, why do I even care? Are Russkies gonna take my job, lock
me down, or cancel me? Too late, Vlad, I've already been done.
In Plato's legendary tome, Republic, Thrasymachus, responding to Socrates' question as to
whether or not he feels justice is a vice, emphatically asserts: "No, just very high minded
simplicity." Republic was written way back in 375 BC, but unfortunately "high minded
simplicity" is alive and well in the intellectually ignominious year of 2020.
Maybe we could launch a fund-raising campaign to purchase some anti-malware software for
the government's (obviously unsecured) computers. If possible, we could raise enough money to
hire a teacher to instruct them on basic computer security. (Thrifty suggestion: Hire some
local high school teens).
Apparently, some kids in Russia made a hobby of hacking into the Pentagon, itself (I know
this, because I just made it up), so on Monday, we need to launch this story on MSNBC, the
official media of the New Democrat Party.
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who voted for President Donald Trump's deficit-exploding tax
cuts for the rich in 2017, blocked fellow Republican Sen. Josh Hawley's attempt Friday to
pass legislation that would provide $1,200 direct payments to U.S. adults and $500 to
children amid a devastating pandemic and ongoing economic collapse.
So Hawley the next move is yours. You now BLOCK this turd from passing and if you need help
with it tell Bernie to stand with you. This kabuki BS has been exposed for what it is. A ploy
that apparently on the GOP can use to make sure nothing gets passed that helps the working
class. I see so many folks only blaming the GoP or more McConnell for what's happening, but
remember Pelosi could have said OK on the bill and put the pressure on Mitch. SHE is now OK
with a much smaller bill after saying that $2.2 TRILLION didn;t go far enough. I see through
you too you old bat. Just sick that everyone can't see through their lies and games they play
with OUR lives. up 9 users have voted. --
"Restoring the soul of this nation" is just MAGA with more words
Pete Buttigieg as Secretary of transportation, Laguna Pueblo Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) as
Interior Secretary, former EPA head Gina McCarthy as climate czar (what happened to Kerry?),
Katherine Tai, Nominee for United States Trade Representative, Michigan Governor Jennifer
Granholm to serve as secretary of energy, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, and of course we
knew DecDef Lloyd 'Rayethon' Austin already.
lots of diversity, as promised! wasn't andrew yang appointed to some post?
Attorney General yet to come. Will he and obomba choose... Hellary?
on edit : arrrrgh! i'd forgotten he/they'd nominated Tom 'Mr. Monsanto/dicamba'
Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture. boy howdy: feed the nation with round-up ready GMO
foods!
I love America and its non-stop CIA psyop cyclops social media television.
The New Year will bring renewed police crackdown on private assembly, people's homes, the
continued destruction of employment, $40 checks from Uncle Joe to "tide you over," hysterical
harpies physically assaulting anyone without a mask in blue states, and a full-out propaganda
assault to destroy the defenseless minds of your friends and family.
You're going to lose a lot in the New Year. 2020 was just the beginning. Wait until summer
2021 and BLM/Antifa chaos. Conservative politicians like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul will be crying
"insurrection act!" and Tucker Carlson will launch into Season Two of 30-minute cracking-voice
monologues "this is your America!" while nothing and no one does a goddamn thing to protect
you.
We are on our own. Doctors, schools, cops, families, people you work with -- all are slowly
being sucked into the vortex of this simulacrum of hell being broadcast on their "smart"
phones. Compared to what's being sold to them, your voice sounds positively insane...
In 2012 Kaspersky Russian Virus Lab detected, decrypted a unknown computer Virus which is now
named the Flame Virus. It had been written by the CIA, Mossad and used a compromised Windows
updater server to infect Windows servers globally. Kaspersky alerted the World to this
threat. The US Gov then went all-out to punish Kaspersky AV Lab forbidding them from US Gov
contracts.
A. Smith 23 hours ago 19 Dec, 2020 02:49 PM
In 2012 didn't the CIA,Mossad create the Flame computer virus using a Windows update server
to globally infect Windows servers? Wasn't Obama and Joe Biden in Office and ordered it under
the guise of attacking Iran? Its still infecting computers across US with backdoors. Now the
same folks are blaming Russia for a similar act 8 years later?
By Caitlin Johnstone , an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her
website is here and you can follow
her on Twitter @caitoz
We've landed in a world where diplomacy,
sanctions, even war can be decided by mere claims, and evidence is optional. Yet those proudly
displaying the badge of 'public trust' are the worst of the serial, politically-driven liars.
The Communist Party of China has been covertly sending arms to extremist Antifa militants in
the United States in preparation for the civil war which is expected to take place after Joe
Biden declares himself President for Life and institutes a Marxist dictatorship. The weapons
shipments include rocket launchers, directed energy weapons, nunchucks and ninja throwing
stars.
Unfortunately I cannot provide evidence for this shocking revelation as doing so would
compromise my sources and methods, but trust me it's definitely true and must be acted upon
immediately. I recommend President Trump declare martial law without a moment's hesitation and
begin planning a military response to these Chinese aggressions.
How does this make you feel? Was your first impulse to begin scanning for evidence of the
incendiary claim I made in my opening paragraph?
It would be perfectly reasonable if it was. I am, after all, some random person on the
internet whom you have probably never met, and you've no reason to accept any bold claim I
might make on blind faith. It would make sense for you to want to see some verification of my
claim, and then dismiss my claim as baseless hogwash when I failed to provide that
verification.
If you're a more regular reader, it would have also been reasonable for you to guess that I
was doing a bit. But imagine if I wasn't? Imagine if I really was claiming that the Chinese
government is arming Antifa ninja warriors to kill patriotic Americans in the coming Biden
Wars. How crazy would you have to be to believe what I was saying without my providing hard,
verifiable evidence for my claims?
Now imagine further that this is something I've made false claims about many times in the
past. If every few years I make a new claim about some naughty government arming Antifa super
soldiers in a great communist uprising, which turns out later to have been bogus.
Well you'd dismiss me as a crackpot, wouldn't you? I wouldn't blame you. That would be the
only reasonable response to such a ridiculous spectacle.
And yet if I were an employee of a US government agency making unproven incendiary claims
about a government that isn't aligned with the US-centralized power alliance, the entire
political/media class would be parroting what I said as though it's an established fact. Even
though US government agencies have an extensive and well-documented history of lying about such things.
Today we're all expected to be freaking out about Russia again because Russia hacked the
United States again right before a new president took office again, so now it's very important
that we support new cold war escalations from both the outgoing president and the incoming
president again. We're not allowed to see the evidence that this actually happened again, but
it's of utmost importance that we trust and support new aggressions against Russia anyway.
Again.
The New York Times has a viral op-ed going around titled "I Was the Homeland
Security Adviser to Trump. We're Being Hacked. " The article's author Thomas P Bossert warns
ominously that "the networks of the federal government and much of corporate America are
compromised by a foreign nation" perpetrated by "the Russian intelligence agency known
as the S.V.R., whose tradecraft is among the most advanced in the world."
Rather than using its supreme tradecraft to interfere in the November election ensuring the
victory of the president we've been told for years is a Russian asset by outlets like The
New York Times , Bossert informs us that the SVR instead opted to hack a private American
IT company called SolarWinds whose software is widely used by the US government.
"Unsuspecting customers then downloaded a corrupted version of the software, which
included a hidden back door that gave hackers access to the victim's network," Bossert
explains, saying that "The magnitude of this ongoing attack is hard to overstate." Its
magnitude is so great that Bossert says Trump must "severely punish the Russians" for
perpetrating it, and cooperate with the incoming Biden team in helping to ensure that that
punishment continues seamlessly between administrations.
The problem is that, as usual, we've been given exactly zero evidence for any of this. As
Moon of Alabama
explains , the only technical analysis we've seen of the alleged hack (courtesy of
cybersecurity firm FireEye) makes no claim that Russia was responsible for it, yet the mass
media are flagrantly asserting as objective, verified fact that Russia is behind
this far-reaching intrusion into US government networks, citing only anonymous
sources if they cite anything at all.
And of course where the media class goes so too does the barely-separate political class.
Democratic Senator Dick Durbin told CNN in a recent interview
that this invisible, completely unproven cyberattack constitutes "virtually a declaration of
war by Russia on the United States." Which is always soothing language to hear as the
Russian government
announces the development of new hypersonic missiles as part of a new nuclear arms race it
attributes to US cold war escalations.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald is one of the few high-profile voices who've had the temerity to
stick his head above the parapet and point out the fact that we have seen exactly zero evidence
for these incendiary claims, for which he is of course currently being raked over the coals on
Twitter.
"I know it doesn't matter. I know it's wrong to ask the question. I know asking the
question raises grave doubts about one's loyalties and patriotism," Greenwald sarcastically
tweeted
. "But has there been any evidence publicly presented, let alone dispositive proof, that
Russia is responsible for this hack?"
"Perhaps they have information sources they can't describe without compromising sources
and methods?"chimed in Ars Technica
's Timothy B Lee in response to Greenwald's query, a textbook reply from establishment
narrative managers whenever anyone questions where the evidence is for any of these invisible
attacks on US sovereignty.
"Of course they can't show us the evidence!" proponents of establishment Russia
hysteria always say. "They'd compromise their sources and methods if they did!"
US spook agencies always say this about evidence for US spook agency claims about
governments long targeted for destruction by US spook agencies. We can't share the evidence
with you because the evidence is classified. It's secret evidence. The evidence is
invisible.
Which always works out very nicely for the US spook agencies, I must say.
Secret, invisible evidence is not evidence. If the public cannot see the evidence behind the
claims being made by the powerful, then those claims are unproven. It would never be acceptable
for anyone in power to say "This important thing with potentially world-altering
consequences definitely happened, but you'll just have to trust us because the evidence is
secret." In a post-Iraq invasion world it is orders of magnitude more unacceptable, and
should therefore be dismissed until hard, verifiable evidence is provided.
Isn't it interesting how all the Pearl Harbors and 9/11s of our day are completely
invisible to the public? We can't see cyber-intrusions for ourselves like we could see fallen
buildings and smoking naval bases; they're entirely hidden from our view. Not only are they
entirely hidden from our view, the evidence that they happened is kept secret from us as well.
And the mass media just treat this as normal and fine. Government agencies with an extensive
history of lying are allowed to make completely unsubstantiated and unverifiable claims about
governments long targeted by those same government agencies, and the institutions responsible
for informing the public about what's going on in the world simply repeat it as fact.
Sure it's possible that Russia hacked the US. It's possible that the US government has been
in contact with extraterrestrials, too. It's possible that the Chinese government is covertly
arming Antifa samurai in preparation for a civil war. But we do not imbue these things with the
power of belief until we are provided with an amount of evidence that rises to the level
required in a post-Iraq invasion world.
These people have not earned our trust, they have earned our pointed and aggressive
skepticism. We must act accordingly.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Midnight10 1 day ago 18 Dec, 2020 03:03 PM
The US isn't know mm for its independent thought processes. The "secret, invisible evidence"
comes right out of WADA's planbook for banning Russian athletes from the Olympics, by their
use of "disappearing positives". It would be a mistake to consider the Pentagon any smarter
then the WADA Committee. Remember Lance Armstrong was allowed to continue for seven years
without a peep from WADA, or CAS, or the US doping agency. Not a peep. Must have used magic,
like the Pentagon and WADA does now.
Frank Hood Midnight10 1 day ago 18 Dec, 2020 05:05 PM
Its astounding that U.S ath letes using ster.oids of some sort are not under the same rules
as Rus sian athletes. To ex clude many of the worlds best and still continue to compete
Vikiiing Midnight10 1 day ago 18 Dec, 2020 04:36 PM
Armstrong was cuaght doping during his first tour win, twice! UCI and other clowns bought
Drugstrongs excuse. And I mean bought 2 years later Dopestrong secretly gave the UCI over
$100,000 for fighting doping....And dont forget Armstrong stole money intended for his
charity....I'm sure he's waiting for an appropriate time to give it back....
Bill Spence 1 day ago 18 Dec, 2020 03:09 PM
Stealing a few secrets by hacking into US networks is very minor compared to the acts of war
that the United States has committed against Iran Russia China and North Korea. The whole
thing is boring because nothing was damaged according to the claims. Show me some damage or
be silent.
Frank Hood Bill Spence 1 day ago 18 Dec, 2020 05:23 PM
Even if it is minor, proof would be nice. The people are just starting to question what we
have been told for decades. Mind you Assange actually provided proof for all of us,but
regardless the world still ignored the provided proof. Allegations are the name of the game,
and a good enough reason to continue pressure on certain countries in the form of physical
and economic war since WW2. BUT, "times are a changin" folks.
MotorSlug Bill Spence 1 day ago 18 Dec, 2020 03:18 PM
thanks to Vault 7 and Wikileaks, we know 99% of the shots are taken by the CIA
EarthBotV2 1 day ago 18 Dec, 2020 03:38 PM
Here's the question well-programmed Americans never think to ask: Who gains? A coup has
occurred in the U.S.. The evidence of fraud is overwhelming. How do the coup perpetrators
plan to dispose of this evidence? -- by blaming Russia! We'll be told that Russia
manufactured the evidence, just as we were told that Russia manufactured Hunter Biden's
laptop. And those who attempt to prosecute the fraudsters will be called "Russian Agents".
shadow1369 1 day ago 19 Dec, 2020 12:13 PM
Wikileaks Vault 77 disclosures revealed that US terrorist intelligence agencies can make a
hack look like it coes from wherever they choose. Even before that, and the ease with which
CGI can make dead people talk, we were living in an entirely fake paradigm created by
corporate media.
DeathbyDissent 1 day ago 18 Dec, 2020 06:30 PM
If anyone doubts that the US would use this evidence-free false-flag as a pretext for
attacking Russia, just go to Youtube and search Russian, Hack, Bolton. There, you will see
John Bolton on MSNBC saying the US should "retaliate" in a many-fold worse way. Bolton is a
representative of the deep state in the US; he is a neocon, and neocons have driven our
foreign policy for over 20 years.
DeathbyDissent 1 day ago 18 Dec, 2020 05:34 PM
Whenever the US wants to commit crimes against other countries, it manufactures the reasons
for doing so. it's been doing this for many decades. This "hack" is nothing more than a
pretext for 1) demonizing Russia, and 2) advancing a foreign policy action in opposition to
Russia. If you don't know that the United States is the main purveyor of lies in the world by
now, you need a giant red pill.
Twills93 DeathbyDissent 1 day ago 18 Dec, 2020 05:43 PM
How many lies is too many?
Forgotten9 1 day ago 18 Dec, 2020 05:01 PM
2020 should go into genius records as the largest coincidental (propagated proxi) in the
history of the world
Forgotten9 1 day ago 18 Dec, 2020 04:57 PM
The greatest question is why has the left administration lied, covered up, misinforming the
american people of their global military actions? PROXI wars? Misuse of NATO assets for EU
and personal gains... Allied with Xi Jinping , striking chinese assets to stimulate the
cultural uprising that put Xi into power in 2012, turning full socialist communist in 2013,
deploying a centralized military power to enforce the territory display in the new map of
china presented December 2012, and full gov backed boycott of western goods, transitioned to
cut trade fully with the western conventional allies china allowed its economy to fully
contract... all covered up by liberal media and made public in their US conservative
opponent's administration..
Forgotten9 1 day ago 18 Dec, 2020 03:53 PM
Did the EU push NATO integration of such technologies making NATO suspect?
The Soviet Union went into it's twilight years under a gerontocracy. Give it 8 more years,
and the USA will have fallen. (If history repeats, that is, as it usually does)
I remember back in 80's when we mocked the Soviets for their elderly leadership that kept
dying a few months after being appointed to office until Gorbachev showed up.
It's not ageism if it's true. I'm a senior citizen and even i can see these people are too
old and set in their ways to enact legislation that changes anything for the benefit of the
people. They'll cling to their positions of power until they die and decay on their
thrones.
If you take a look at that chart, you'll see that the oldest committee chairman is in
charge of the science, space, and technology committee at the bright young age of 84, nearly
85. The political class hate the people.
It is an interesting observation, especially when you look to other western countries and
their leaders are a good 30 years younger than ours. I think there's something to be said for
a politician needing to live in the world they create post-service. Biden and Trump don't
really care because they're time here is short compared to someone like Macron or
Trudeau.
We had two young people with courage and a fresh perspective running for president, of
course the powers that be would have none of that so Gabbard and Yang were shut out. More of
the same coming our way.
US is turning more and more into USSR under Leonid Brezhnev... Just an old guard of ppl
that dies amd hand over power to another old guard, and so the cycle continues
All the geriatric "leaders" have only one plan: Our generations will not take
responsibility or pay for our self-enriching decisions that have left the earth in crisis
after crisis. And our corporate friends who are essentially our bank accounts would pay
either. Finally, someones recognizing what's really happening. Its not Dems vs GOP. Its old
politicians vs the needs of the many
These people many [of them] globalists are heavily financed by foreign powers that drives
these engines. Add in unions everywhere that is why they are there and stay there. Look at
the mechanics of why they hold power and cannot be removed then bypass them to bring this
mess down. This is a money game !
All elected officials are suppose to have term limits it is the entire reason that we have
elections and not one of those terms say 10,20,30,40,or50 years so any person that has been
in our government pass the term limits has been breaking the rules and cheating to do it
which means they have been rigging our elections for a very long time and the american people
have been asleep at the wheel and allowing them to do it because we have been completely lied
to by every single elected official that is and has been in our government not even one of
them has ever kept their word or their promises to the american people but every single one
of them has gotten rich are richer off of stealing the american people's hard earned tax
money all while making laws and regulations for them to take more and more of what we had to
pay on top of everything else our own government criminals in the government swamp has been
doing to their own people because of the simple fact that the american people have been
asleep at the wheel and allowing them to get away with it for so long that none of them even
had a clue that if Hillary Clinton would have won their wouldn't even be an America anymore
much less rights or freedoms God and his chosen one DONALD J TRUMP is saving and sparing the
united States of america one last time key words one last time
Norwegian @7: "Perhaps someone in the US can offer their perspective on how the present
situation can be resolved peacefully."
The plan is actually fairly straightforward. The corporate mass media is fully onboard
with the coup, with even presumptive pro-Trump organizations like FOX not willing to
challenge it. Alphabet/Google, Facebook, and Twitter gatekeep the vast majority of social
media in the US. All of these are pro-coup. With Trump removed from the giant soapbox that
the presidency provides then there will be no nucleus for the opposition to the establishment
to condense around, and the social media discourse can be buttoned down. In this environment
any challenges to the narratives that the establishment is trying to establish as canon du
jour can be dismissed as the rantings of a tiny and insignificant but terribly evil fringe
minority and ruthlessly purged from the national discourse.
With opposition silenced the establishment (in big business and not just government) will
ramp up efforts to "reprogram" the population by embedding the themes and perspectives
that they are pushing in all mass media. The vector for delivering this
"reprogramming" will primarily be entertainment (movies, TV serials, sports) and
education (directly dictating acceptable perspectives). Using these tools the elites will
impose their chosen norms of behavior on the population.
The elite's plan is intensely divisive. The faux left who have already largely
internalized this reprogramming are only united by a kind of common self-pity over their
socially atomized personal isolation. They are socially powerless and easily
remote-controlled by mass media suggestions and professional social media
"influencers" . With the "deplorables" likewise socially atomized then the
threat of any organized opposition to the power elite evaporates. No civil war.
That's the plan anyway. Whether the "deplorables" will roll over and take it is
another matter that remains to be seen.
@William Gruff | Dec 17 2020 17:15 utc | 19
What you describe is the implementation of tyranny, I would not call it peaceful resolution.
But you are probably right about the intentions. I hope they fail like many plans in face of
reality.
Our politicians blow over a trillion dollars a year on US "security" and they can't figure
out a way to keep hackers off of our hard drives? This shows you the quality of the overpaid
clowns in charge of our government. Now we can't even run an election fair and square and are
in the same class as El Salvador, maybe worse.
captain noob 2 hours ago
The problem with money is that it doesn't necessarily buy you things of value
If the Israelis spent all that time and energy to make 9/11 look like an al Qaeda plot, then
it's a piece of cake to make this hack look like the work of Russians.
I see no effort to make this hack look like a russian plot. It looks more organic. Once
the general attitude of disreputability has been established the secret services can sit back
and relax really, the antirussian mindset gets a momentum of its own and generates its own
new antirussian storylines.
I want to know why we aren't hiring the Russians for everything? They appear to be the
best, whether military equipment, spycraft, hacking, diplomacy, or global strategy. All we
have are butthurt bureaucrats, gay entertainers and loudmouthed athletes always eager to bend
a knee.
radical-extremist 3 hours ago
They were the best at honeypots too, until Swallwell fell for Fang Fang.
Dabooda 2 hours ago
Epstein and Mossad would be the gold standard for honeypots.
PrideOfMammon 2 hours ago
As I said, if Putin ran in a fair election in the USA, he would win hands down.
Thanks for the redfish video suggestion. Worth watching not only to get insight about the
current developments in India but also understanding the global Zeitgeist.
I couldn't avoid to identify the exact same type of developments and problems that working
class and increasingly also middle class facing in other parts of the world.
The globalization of capitalism since the fall of USSR and Warsaw pact, has caused
accelerated monopolization of political and economic power everywhere in the world,
this was achieved by enforcing the same neoliberal agenda globally. No matter if you look at
the USA, Germany, Iran or India, you discover the same type of "reforms". Reforms that result
in increased poverty, more and more middle class families are losing their socioeconomic
position and becoming part of working class.
One come to the understanding that the "Great Reset" we are talking about recently, is not
something new in the beginning and making, it's only the continuation of an agenda which has
been in implementation since 30 years ago.
Consent of the governed is the definition of legitimate authority. Kleptocrats spent decades
abusing us with corruption, violence and theft.
Now they stand 'stunned' at the giant middle fingers and weapons pointed at them.
I think the interwebz are not long for this Earth, but we can thank the infowarriors of this
period for helping many (hundreds of millions worldwide) understand that the core of the
globalist power structure is NOTHING but criminal syndicate bosses of the worst possible
kind.
Those domestic servants of these globalist slave traffickers, and their pets in the
DNC/never-Trumper/Deep State mob, are rank imbeciles, evil hollow souls, and deserve no
quarter, no discussion, and no influence of any kind, ever again.
As Putin and others noted, this was a most difficult year. I hadn't read his concluding
remarks until just now. I'm going to copy/paste them along with the question that sparked
them. And it most unequivocally answers a longstanding question Billy Joel asked at a time
that seems like it was only yesterday:
"Viktor Sineok: Izvestia, Viktor Sineok.
"Mr President, we have heard many questions about many different problems but mine is a
little different. Over the past year we have understood, we really felt what it meant to have
a very hard time, including emotionally. You said at the press conference a few years ago
that you put your emotions into your work. Here is my question: what sort of emotions have
you felt in recent years, including this difficult year of 2020? And which emotions would you
like to wish us in the coming year? Maybe you already know how you will toast the New
Year?
"Vladimir Putin: Please, be seated.
"As to which prevailed – the good or the bad You know, each year brings issues we
have to overcome, and each year brings us great joy – both family, and state, national
achievements. Against all odds, we have great achievements that we can and should be proud
of, and we are.
"Yes, the year was complicated, but what would I like to draw your attention to? You know,
this is what I thought about when you were asking me this question. Haven't we faced
difficulties in our recent history? Just now, in this meeting I remembered how hard life was
in the 1990s and the early 2000s. It seemed at that time that there was no light at the end
of the tunnel, that there was nothing. No army, no economy, a ruined social sphere and
skyrocketing unemployment. One out of three lived below the poverty line, but look at what it
is like now.
"Yes, there are problems. Yes, people are still living a very hard life, and there are
very many such people. That said, the foundations of Russian statehood, the pillars of the
Russian economy, and the potential of the state are incomparable with what they were in the
1990s and the early 2000s. This gives us tools we have never had before. This gives us an
opportunity to focus on resolving the most important, most urgent problems without forgetting
about the strategic development goals of the Russian Federation .
"As for toasts, like every person, every citizen, I always have toasts for the New Year.
It is only important that the amount of champagne and other drinks you consume is limited. As
for toasts, the number does not matter.
"Of course, we will all raise toasts to the people in our lives, our family, friends and
colleagues. But I, my family and friends always have one main toast – 'To
Russia.'
"Not to finish my remarks on this pathetic note but on something heart-felt, I would like
to say the following: during this meeting, some of my colleagues asked me what we were
planning to do to support families with children and whether we have plans for this. This is
what I would like to say. Some volunteers told me recently that they have various ideas and
initiatives on supporting children before the New Year. Unfortunately, this year large events
like children's New Year parties have been cancelled due to the restrictions. Large events in
theatres, children's studios and so on have been cancelled as well.
"But still, this is an unusual holiday. It comes with expectations and hopes for the
future and, at the same time, with difficulties. Therefore, before coming here I consulted
the Government and the Presidential Executive Office. We agreed that our country, our state
will also give a gift to our children. It is a small, modest gift, but nevertheless, we will
pay 5,000 rubles to all families with children under 7 years old; 5,000 will be paid for
every child in this age group .
"I would like to thank all of you for our common work. I would also like to wish you all
the best. I hope we have not worn each other out. I would like to hope that the people who
listened to us for more than four hours, for four and a half hours, have found this useful
and interesting.
"For my part, I would like to say that the meeting was very useful for me. We will do all
we can to give the best possible response to all your questions, concerns and problems that
are faced by the country and each Russian family.
"All the best to you!
"Thank you very much." [My Emphasis]
We now most certainly know that the Russians Love Their Children Too. However given the
behavior of the Outlaw US Empire, I very much doubt the same can be said, which makes for a
very dangerous situation. Putin has a truthful sincerity to him that is utterly vacant from
every US President I've known in my life except for JFK--he made a very positive impression
on my very young mind, something that was clearly missing from LBJ and Nixon prior to my
rather abrupt awakening in 1970. Perhaps that's because none ever promised to do anything for
Commonfolk as anything aimed at promoting the people's wellbeing was always opposed. I don't
know how the average Russian feels about Putin's words, but I would be very proud to have
such a leader as focused on the wellbeing of what makes his Nation great--its people.
I wrote this for the next thread; but after reading your comment, it belongs here since
the Trump thread didn't want to have it. "Provincials" as you said who in reality are
gutter-scum.
This may appear to be about getting Trump, but it's more likely about keeping relations
with Russia in the tank. For example, I remarked this morning that the only media report
about Putin's annual, impressive presser was the highly convoluted answer Putin gave to some
recent fake news reports about his family and how they connect to the Navalny crap. It
appears the writing has similar qualities meaning it was produced by similar sources. There's
only one way to properly illustrate this and that's to provide what Putin related.
The Question:
"Alexander Yunashev: Good afternoon, Mr President.
I will take the advice from the young reporter [from the previous question which is also
of some importance]. A number of interesting investigative reports have been released lately,
for example, about your daughter, your former son-in-law Shamalov and other people who are
allegedly close to you. This week the Alexei Navalny investigation also came out. Could you
tell us why a criminal investigation into his poisoning and who did it has not been launched
until now?
Putin: "I see.
"It is no surprise that these fake news stories emerge. It has always been this way and
always will. There is a battle unfolding in the media space. Nothing new here. Do you
remember the terrible developments in the Caucasus and efforts to fight international
terrorism? How was yours truly portrayed by the international media and, unfortunately, in
Russia as well? Remember how they portrayed me with fangs? I remember all this very well.
Still, I have invariably proceeded from the premise that I need to be doing what I believe to
be right for our country. When I do something, I do it not for the sake of pleasing someone
abroad. This is the first part of my answer.
"The second part has to do with my close ones. This report is impossible to read. I
flipped through it, since it talks about me, it seems, but it is such a cut-and-paste job,
with so many things piling up, that I was unable to finish reading it. What did I want to
point out in this regard? The report keeps repeating 'the president's son-in-law' over and
over again. At the end, however, he is referred to as the former son-in-law. This is the
first thing I wanted to say. Still, in the text they keep driving home the message that he is
my son-in-law. So this goes for point one.
"The second point is about 'President Putin forbidding the elite to hold overseas assets.'
There is no ban preventing the elite from holding assets abroad. Public servants cannot have
financial assets abroad. This was the right thing to do. They cannot hold accounts or other
financial assets abroad. The company in question is 100-percent private. The state does not
own a single share in it.
"The next question: who received shares in this company and how? It turns out that the
company released a statement on this matter and what it thinks about these allegations. The
company had a compensation scheme for its senior executives, and Mr Shamalov received stock
just like all other senior executives. There are also other programmes for executives at a
different level, and they received stock following a different scheme. Nothing special
here.
"But ultimately, in my opinion, the most important thing is this: just now, aspiring
journalist Shnurov asked about our hackers. What is written in the beginning? Note that it
says that an unknown, anonymous person is pursuing goals we do not understand and then,
apparently, this anonymous person is tracked down. What do I mean? It is said that what
happened is similar to the events in 2016 when outlawed Russian hackers associated with
Russian military intelligence hacked US Democratic Party members' emails. Here is your
anonymous person. I think we know who that is. Who called these hackers outlaws associated
with Russian military intelligence? It was the US Department of State and US intelligence
agencies, which are in fact the authors. At any rate, it is completely obvious that it was
done upon their instructions . This is the first thing.
"The second is that the reference to the insinuation that our hackers, as they believe,
interfered with US domestic policy in 2016 means that the purpose of this is clear. The
purpose is to take revenge and try to influence public opinion in our country in order to
interfere, of course, with our domestic politics. This is absolutely obvious. It is
absolutely obvious to me and, I think, it will also become clear to the majority of readers
if they pay attention to the things I have just mentioned.
"But to this end, I would like to emphasise the following:
"One should be driven by now I want to address those who ordered these publications,
not those who actually wrote them. I know that if they get an assignment from intelligence
services they have to write it. But those who order these kinds of articles, should not be
driven by revenge or act on the assumption of alleged exceptionalism; instead, they should
develop relations with their international partners based on mutual respect and the
fundamental standards of international law. Then we will be able to achieve shared success in
the areas that are essential to all of us .
"Now, with regard to the patient of a Berlin clinic. I have already mentioned it many
times, and can repeat only certain things. Mr Peskov told me just yesterday about the latest
speculations in this regard concerning our special service officers' data and so on.
Listen, we are perfectly aware of what this is all about. It is about legalisation the
first time around and now. This is not about an investigation. This is about legalising the
materials from the US special services .
"Do you really think we are unaware of the fact that they are tracking locations? Our
special services understand this well and are aware of it. Officers of the FSB and other
special services are aware of it and use telephones whenever they believe they should not be
hiding their location, etc. But if this is so – and rest assured that this is so
– it means that this patient of a Berlin clinic has the support of the special
services, those of the United States in this particular case. And if this is the case, then
it gets interesting and the special services should, of course, be looking after him.
However, this does not mean at all that he must be poisoned. Who cares about him? If they
really wanted to, they would have, most likely, carried it through . His wife addressed
me, and I gave the green light to have him treated in Germany that very second.
"There is one important thing that the general public is not paying attention to. It is a
trick to attack the people at the top. Those who perform it thus propel themselves up to a
certain level where they can say: see who I am talking to? I am a person of the same calibre,
so treat me as a person of nationwide importance. It is a well-known trick that is used in
political dealings around the world.
"I think, though, that something else, not these tricks, should be used to gain people's
respect and recognition. You need to prove your worth either by doing something important
or by putting together a realistic programme with specific goals that can be implemented in a
particular country, Russia, in this particular case .
"I urge the opponents to the current government and all political forces in our country to
be led not by personal ambitions, but by the interests of the people of the Russian
Federation, and to come up with a positive agenda in order to overcome the challenges facing
the country. And we have many of them." [My Emphasis]
The rational flow is probably better in Russian with some key emphasis lost in
translation. But Putin delivered the main point on the ordering and authorship, and IMO it's
the same for much of the crap thrown our way since 1990. The only reason we aren't being
treated to similar material about Biden is he's not one of the current targets, while
legitimate anti-Biden stories are completely suppressed until they disappear under the rug.
IMO, BigLie Media has become close to what State Media was in the USSR.
IMO, BigLie Media has become close to what State Media was in the USSR.
With one big difference, the scope is global and the tools are well, like comparing a
pencil with the most sophisticated printing press. Overall the translation sounds like what I
heard, and the main point should be that Putin is able to talk at length and just about any
subject since it is very hard to think of a pre arranged setup à la 2016 debate when
the questions to be posed had been previously provided to the Clinton team.
For next year conference, if all the players and myself are still around I'll try to take
advantage of the open offer to pose a question on line, I found out too late but there was a
very accesible setup to do it.
One of the questions was chosen by VVP or his team, and it was from a northern village
resident, complaining about the local health services, claiming that there was a single 86
year old nurse in charge, and that she was unable to tell apart a tonsillitis from a
hemorrhoid. I guess this part could have been prepared, to relax a bit a tense atmosphere.
But it had consequences, the mentioned nurse has sued the daring patient, maybe he'll get his
suppository orally, so as to heal his throat.
oregon4TRUMP @shawgerald4 • Dec 15
Replying to @kayleighmcenany
In 1915, these two bullets collided during the Battle of Gallipoli. The chances of this
happening was 1 in 1,000,000,000 or about 300x more likely than Biden winning the election
without cheating.
"... I will also state that in "real" democracies, rigging the vote count is a rarity--it is far more effective just to rig the candidates so it doesn't matter if Tweedledee or Tweedledum gets more votes. ..."
1) Biden got more votes
2) The intelligence agencies rigged the vote count via fraud
In the prior case, Biden will clearly be president. In the latter, Biden will also be
president because the agencies' authority is absolute.
I will also state that in "real" democracies, rigging the vote count is a rarity--it
is far more effective just to rig the candidates so it doesn't matter if Tweedledee or
Tweedledum gets more votes.
To be honest, I'm looking forward to a Biden administration. All the late night TV jokes
at his expense about the gaffs, mental lapses, and blank stares should be a hoot. Can't wait
for the first SNL skit! Yep, I can't wait.
SillyWabbits 9 hours ago
There was no fraud.
It was outright theft.
gilhgvc 10 hours ago (Edited)
Well, it's official...we are ruled over now. Congress and senate are dukes and duchesses,
courts are the new court JESTERS and biteme/cameltoe are the new king and king of the
realm....I want to send an apology out to our Founding Fathers and all the men and women who
died for this idea of america...we blew it guys. We are nothing like you brave souls. While
we wallow in the muck with our nikes, cell phones and nose rings, the world dies a little
more each day. I apologize for tearing statues down of great men, who merely did what was
normal in those times. You gave it all to us on a silver platter and the morons squandered
it, fat & happy to sit around bitching about being poor, while playing video games on
thier $1000 I-phones....I am sorry. play_arrow
Mzhen 10 hours ago remove link
Some lowly cyber security professional testified to the Colorado legislature yesterday,
saying that nobody at CISA has a background and qualifications that would allow them to state
that the election was the most secure in history.
The hearing came to naught because the Democrats dominating the state don't want an audit.
Colorado turned Blue almost overnight -- or it was after statewide all-mail-in voting was
instituted. Probably not a coincidence.
Hal Turner - a pretend "Nazi" who was/is an FBI informant (look it up) and was convicted
anyway of threatening a judge. I'm not clicking on a Hal Turner link because it is, by
definition, disinformation. Don't take my word for it, look it up yourself.
Totally_Disillusioned 1 day ago
Robert's intimidated by the rioting? Wonder what threats were made on him, his
family...
2020 was GloboCap Year Zero. The year when the global capitalist ruling classes did away
with the illusion of democracy and reminded everyone who is actually in charge, and exactly
what happens when anyone challenges them.
[...]
GloboCap is not insane, however. They know exactly what they are doing which is teaching us
a lesson, a lesson about power. A lesson about who has it and who doesn't. For students of
history it's a familiar lesson, a standard in the repertoire of empires, not to mention the
repertoire of penal institutions.
The name of the lesson is "Look What We Can Do to You Any Time We Fucking Want." The
point of the lesson is self-explanatory. The USA taught the world this lesson when it nuked
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. GloboCap (and the US military) taught it again when they invaded
Iraq and destabilized the entire Greater Middle East. It is regularly taught in
penitentiaries when the prisoners start to get a little too unruly and remember that they
outnumber the guards. That's where the "lockdown" concept originated. It isn't medical
terminology. It is penal institution terminology.
Operation Mokingbird2: looks like the CIA remains firmly in charge of US policy and the
mainstream media.
Notable quotes:
"... 1) If the first sentence contains a variation of the words "according to," then the story is at least partially bullsh*t . (2) If a variation of "according to" is in the headline, then every word of the story is a lie ..."
"... What is so cynical is that during the last three years of fake "Russian Collusion" certain politicians were colluding with the Chinese CCP, ie in actuality doing what they were accusing Trump of doing. ..."
I believe that there are a few golden rules that can be applied to news stories:
1) If the first sentence contains a variation of the words "according to," then the
story is at least partially bullsh*t . (2) If a variation of "according to" is in the
headline, then every word of the story is a lie
What is so cynical is that during the last three years of fake "Russian Collusion"
certain politicians were colluding with the Chinese CCP, ie in actuality doing what they were
accusing Trump of doing. Inevitable now that there is big trouble brewing in the US, I
don't see how all the fraud evidence on every level can be disregarded, let alone apparent
foreign involvement in the voting machines.
Regarding the David Sanger fantasy piece published in the NYT, I commented on the Times's
website that Sanger made the claim of Russian culpability without providing a shred of actual
evidence. Much to my surprise, my comment was accepted for publication.
Shortly thereafter, it mysteriously vanished into the ether, no doubt having been read and
removed by some editor or even by slimeball Sanger himself. Now that was not a surprise.
A memo for the Russian government: if the Western MSM condemns your actions then you did
the right thing. If it prizes whatever you did: repent and reverse!
Donald1958 19 hours ago 13 Dec, 2020 01:13 AM
Maybe Vanessa Kogan can now move back to the US or the UK and try to get justice for Julian
Assange. See how succesful she will be with that.
In these United States of the Insane, the inmates are running the asylum as American
militarism and corporate power are now deemed benign, it is declared gender doesn't exist, and
Kamala Harris is worthy of celebration while Tulsi Gabbard is deserving of denigration.
America always gets the leadership it deserves, and when Joe Biden falls, or more likely
gets pushed, down a flight of stairs and Queen Kamala ascends to the throne, we will get what
we deserve. And that certainly isn't a person of the quality and worth of Tulsi Gabbard, that's
for damn sure.
The announcement drew praise from many professional climate activists and groups, perhaps
assuming that Kerry was taking his lead from Bernie Sanders, who has for years been saying
the same thing. Executive Director of the Sunrise Movement, Varshini Prakash said his
statement was an "encouraging move," while 350.org's Bill McKibben, predicted Kerry would
be an excellent climate czar. Yet, as media critic Adam Johnson argued, Kerry's
proclamation should deeply concern progressive activists and will likely lead to expanding
the already bloated military budget.
Kerry is a founding member of the Washington think tank, the American Security Project
(ASP), whose board is a who's who of retired generals, admirals and senators. The ASP also
hailed the appointment of their man, explaining, in a little-read report, exactly what
treating the climate as a national security threat entails. And it is nothing like what
Sanders advocates.
For the ASP, climate change constitutes an "accelerant of instability" and a "threat
multiplier" that will "affect the operating environment," and notes that Kerry will have
three priorities in his role as President Biden's right-hand man. What were those three
priorities? Making sure people in the Global South could eat and have access to safe
drinking water? Reparations? Disaster relief or response teams? Cutting back on fossil fuel
use? Indeed not. For the ASP, the primary objectives were:
A huge rebuilding of the United States' military bases,
Countering China in the Pacific,
Preparing for a war with Russia in the newly-melted Arctic.
Listen, I have a lot of sensitive information from my years in gov't service. Stuff that's
rated at TOP SECRET. Please don't tell the Chinese about my highly valuable info that I
possess. However, if anyone should need my contact info for an interview from say the
Chinese/American Committee to Fight Prejudice I'd be pleased to pass it along...
They told you: -The Steele Dossier was real. -The protests were peaceful. -The Hunter Biden
story was Russian disinformation. And now? They tell you we shouldn't ask questions about the
integrity of the 2020 election.
One anonymous whistle blower was OK to impeach the President of the United States but, 1000's
of sworn affidavits of election fraud is not enough to investigate?
You'd think a democrat with a heterosexual lover would be big news to the left!
oromae 4 hours ago
I am shocked. Shocked.
gcjohns1971 4 hours ago
Where a host of legal expert called for charges for treason and other crimes against
Trump Jr., there is nothing but crickets when a liberal Democrats members is accused of far
more extensive contacts with a Chinese spy. Why?
Because their allegiance, despite their claims and oaths is not to their countrymen, to
facts, or to human rights.
Isn't it obvious?
They work for others who intend us harm.
VWAndy 3 hours ago
its just like election rigging kiddies. Nobody is really gonna turn over that rock because
everyone knows whats under it. Both parties are neck deep in it.
So some rabid Russiagaters slept with with women who are suspected to be Chine agents of
influence; Others like Biden took money from china while instigating and promoting RussiaGate .
So nice
Arthur
Schwartz @ArthurSchwartz · Dec 8 If @RepSwalwell hadn't been banging the Chinese
communist spy, he would be doing wall to wall MSNBC hits claiming that this was a Russian
disinformation campaign. Instead, all he can say is "it's classified." No one is buying it,
Eric. Jack Posobiec
@JackPosobiec · Dec 8 I'm told the unreleased
portion of the Swalwell report is far, far worse for the Congressman and he is actively
fighting to obstruct its release to the American people Nick Short @PoliticalShort · 14h China owns
Hollywood, the media, our supply chains, etc. It's idiotic to believe they wouldn't also own a
good portion of those in Congress. The question is, how big of a portion? Donald Trump Jr. @DonaldJTrumpJr ·
16h
How'd that one work out Fartwell? Quote Tweet Eric Swalwell @ericswalwell · Jan 8, 2019
"Stated plainly, the President's son met with a Russian spy." On @DeadlineWH about
#NataliaVeselnitskaya 8.2K 12.1K 46.6K
As Donald Trump Jr noted so poignantly on Twitter:
Does anyone else notice that the Chinese Spies seem to always attach themselves to
Democrats while simultaneously always attacking Republicans? That should tell us all we need
to know about who's fighting for who. Democrats are the party of China!
President-elect Joe
Biden 's campaign is the first in history to raise $1 billion from donors , adding yet
another broken record to the 2020 cycle that set a new benchmark for political fundraising.
Biden wielded a massive financial advantage over President Donald
Trump during the final months of the 2020 campaign. Biden heavily outspent Trump on the airwaves
in key swing states he ultimately won by narrow margins. He also had superior backing from
big-money super
PACs and "dark
money" groups .
"Fulton County officials illegally accepted more than $6 million in private grants that
imposed conditions on the conduct of elections without authority from the state legislature."
Follow the private grants to the election interference.
snowshooze 28 minutes ago
And so I read thay purchased ballot counters?
Waitaminute... you can't bring your own gear into an election...
Russian collusion disappeared quicker than BLM after the election.
ominous 1 hour ago
one is returning soon
High Vigilante 16 minutes ago
Demsheviks: "There was never Russia collusion, and we have always been in peace with
Eastasia"
LevelHeadedMan 26 minutes ago
Russia narrative was a scapegoat for the real cause. The Democrats lost the working class.
They became the party of the coastal suburbanite liberal middle class. And now they are the
party of fraud. lay_arrow
Francis Marximus 1 hour ago (Edited) remove link
I guess all the countries that have a higher GDP then Russia the US has in their pockets.
Hence...Russia has to be the fall guy.
The media and Democrats need simple minded people, people who are easily fooled and people
with no conscience to exist
ominous 1 hour ago
why would Russia interfere?
we're doing a bang-up job ******* things up on our own.
divide_by_zero 1 hour ago
Putin should announce his candidate has won, just to **** either as Soros will run our gov
otherwise
NotGonnaTakeItAnymore 1 hour ago
Let's all recall that genius of the senate from CT, Chris Murphy, who took every
opportunity to stand before anyone who would listen and had a camera, as repeatedly stating
that Russia was involved with Trump and with Hunter's laptop.
And now he's remarkably quiet.
Hey Chris, can you show me the Russians now??? You are so going to lose you next election.
We are sick of your games.
Baba Yaga 1 34 minutes ago
The American election is a farce in itself. Puppeteers from the Deep State have pushed
Biden's candidacy by all means. The American people are just extras in these elections,
nothing depends on them. This is the American way of democracy.
with extra foam 32 minutes ago remove link
That moment of clarity when you realize that modern America is no different than Soviet
Russia.
Bobby Farrell Can Dance 23 minutes ago (Edited)
With much worse propaganda and a bigger budget. Meaning the fall will be harder.
monty42 14 minutes ago
Worse in some ways. The devil that poses as an angel of light is actually more
dangerous.
Ms No 1 hour ago (Edited)
I have to pat the CIA on the back. This has dual purpose.
Both China and Maduro are accused of meddling in this election. They got Russia last time.
Amidst it all, thinking people are demoralized by the assholes who actually believe any of
that absurdity. It's a hideous and cruel weapon.
Well played.
youshallnotkill 1 hour ago
According to Rudy is was Chavez, don't cha know. Guy apparently just faked his death ...
/s
ouluoulu 24 minutes ago remove link
I am watching the death throes of the news business, newspapers, television and magazines.
Blogs, newsletters and individuals releasing their own videos will finally kill it off.
Investigative reporting is nonexistent, replaced by fake news that answers to the "Big
Club" that George Carlin referred to when he said "It's a big club and you ain't in it, you
and I are not in it."
Bobby Farrell Can Dance 18 minutes ago
Western MSM is all paid shilling, fully compromised by 5 Eyes + Mossad intel agency
staffers. The last place I would want to learn about the way the world works, but the first
place I would look to see their projections.
The United States' election victory of Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden has yet to
be officially confirmed. That requires the 500-plus Electoral College comprising the 50 federal
states to cast the final vote when the constitutional body meets on December 14. Biden holds a
commanding lead of over 300 delegates in the Electoral College, more than 70 above Donald
Trump's quota and decisively more than the 270 threshold required for election to the White
House.
Nonetheless, already one thing is indisputably clear. Biden's nominal victory from the
popular vote tallies is glaring proof that Russia did not interfere in the American
presidential ballot. Not in 2020. And not, we may discern, in 2016, nor in any other election.
Yet the silence in US media over this obvious conclusion is deafening.
Four years of frenetic and unsubstantiated allegations of "Russian interference" have
disappeared overnight, it seems. Poof! Gone! As if by a magic conjuring trick. Now you see it,
now you don't, so to speak.
The New York Times has declared the recent
presidential contest a "great election.. a resounding success free of fraud" . The Department
of Homeland Security pronounced the election to be the "most secure in American history." Other
US media outlets have jettisoned supposed political neutrality and can barely contain their
elation at Biden's electoral victory.
But hold on a moment.
In the months and weeks leading up to the November election, there was a fever pitch in US
media among politicians, national security chiefs, pundits and anonymous intelligence sources
that Russia was allegedly stepping up "interference efforts" to get Trump re-elected.
Those evidence-free claims were predicated on the equally absurd assertion that Trump was a
Manchurian candidate for the Kremlin. That "Russiagate" fable was first spun in 2016 and for
the past four years elaborated into a tangled web to "explain" how a maverick former reality TV
star had been elected to the White House.
Suddenly, however, the Democrats and supportive US media are now asserting that the voting
process was impeccable and unblemished by any malfeasance. Of course they would say that in
order to bolster legitimacy of Biden's win against the Republican White House incumbent Donald
Trump. But the thundering takeaway which the US political class and media are bizarrely
ignoring is that Russia did not interfere not in the 2020 race nor in any other election.
Russia has always categorically said it is not meddling in US politics and its electoral
process. Turns out that Russia is de facto vindicated in its protestations against American
slander.
The "Russiagate" nonsense was hatched by Democrats, their supportive media and intelligence
agencies because they could not come to terms with the reality of why Trump beat the then
establishment-ordained candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016. Could it have been because Clinton
and the Democrat party was repudiated by popular sentiment due to perceived corruption and
overseas wars? No, another "explanation" had to be found. And the US political establishment
came up with the "Russian interference" narrative.
No matter that the Mueller investigation found after 22 months of probing and hundreds of
millions of taxpayer-dollars spent that there was no evidence of "Russia collusion" with the
Trump campaign. Nevertheless, Mueller and the Democrats, their media and intelligence backers,
persisted in the spurious notion that Russia meddled in the 2016 election and, allegedly, was
continuing to meddle, purportedly with even more sophisticated, nefarious techniques.
How can US politicians, intelligence officials and media credibly claim that Russia
interfered in 2016 and in mid-term congressional elections in 2018, but now in 2020 it
evidently did not? The most logical explanation is simply that Russia never did.
Four years of hysterical American accusations against Russia have transpired to just that:
bogus hysteria . US politicians, media and so-called intelligence gurus should be held to
account for fabricating what is perhaps the biggest hoax ever played on the American
public.
Though, one can be sure that they won't be held accountable in a formal way. Venal power
doesn't work like that. And the US political system has built-in layers of self-protection for
the political class never to be prosecuted. But in an informal no less real way, the system is
being held to account by the wider public who are increasingly holding it in contempt and
distrust. The political class and their plaything media are losing the moral authority to
govern. This goes beyond mere Trump Derangement Syndrome. The systematic lying and deception
over alleged Russian interference perpetrated on such a grand scale has fatally damaged the
credibility of American institutions. Not just in the US, but around the world too.
Equally lamentable is the corrosive, damaging effect that the bogus hysteria has had on
bilateral US-Russia relations and international tensions. Relations are at a dangerous all time
low comparable to the depth of the Cold War. This has in turn sabotaged diplomatic efforts to
strengthen arms controls and global security. The anti-Russia hysteria has led to the US
abandonment of key nuclear weapons treaties, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty
and soon the New START.
The Russophobia that has been whipped up as a political weapon against Trump over the past
four years is not something that can be easily put aside. It has engendered deep-seated
hostility against Russia. During the presidential debates, Joe Biden vowed that the would take
a tough stand against Russia for "interfering" in US politics. The incoming administration is
being mentally held hostage by its own Russophobia which was cultivated on entirely false
grounds.
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It is disturbing how the US nation has been dragged into an obsession about alleged Russian
malign activities, an obsession which turns out to be a mirage. Not for the first time either.
Recall the Cold War Red Scares and McCarthyite witch-hunts which poisoned American society.
The implications are daunting. How can bilateral relations with Russia be restored? How can
an intelligent dialogue be conducted with a nation whose leaders are so self-deluded and
irrational?
Moreover, this is a nation whose leaders presume to have the prerogative to use overwhelming
military force whenever they deem so. It is not unlike the driver of a juggernaut vehicle on a
precipice who is hurtling along while out of his brain on misconceptions.
The fact that Cr (number of amplification cycles) was not reported, creates some bad
thoughts. Especially about Fauci and his gang ;-) Can Fauci be sued for criminal negligence?
I lost my dad due to a drunk driver. Therefore, we should ban cars and alcohol. Maybe, we
should also ban bottles because the drunk driver drank out of a bottle. Oh, and maybe we
should ban humans too because ... You see the logic!
LEEPERMAX 3 hours ago
It's worth repeating
A POSITIVE PCR TEST IS NOT A "CASE"
Lansman 2 hours ago
They will continue to manipulate the test results to ensure the desired level of fear and
panic. It is the only way to get the public to accept their absurd lockdowns and mask
requirements.
Patrick Bateman Jr. 2 hours ago
99.9992% of the US population has survived.
ThePub'Lick_Hare 2 hours ago
Time for every state to follow Florida by class action suit. This farce has gone on too
long. Kudos to Florida for taking the initiative. Now at last people can ask relevant
questions and insist on proper protocol. The Portuguese High Court saw false COVID testing
for what it is, the spark and flame of a reign of terror. Time to douse the flames and the
douche-bags inflaming the scam-demic.
Lucky Guesst 3 hours ago
The test results weren't supposed to change until after they got Trump out and after the
vaccine release so the sheep could bow to the Democrats for "saving" them. The PCR cycle
threshold will change to 5 after our 100 days of penance.
Ajax_USB_Port_Repair_Service_ 2 hours ago (Edited)
" Whoever wins the presidency " Will get the credit.
Agree, covid hysteria is being controlled by some group more powerful than our
president.
LifeNews.com @LifeNewsHQ New
Trafalgar poll of Georgia voters on whether the presidential election there was compromised
because of voter fraud: All voters: 53.2% yes, 37.9% no, 8.9% unsure. GOP voters: 74.6% yes,
15.9% no, 9.5% unsure.
..."A total of 1,974 people were sent to state prisons for marijuana-related offenses
during Harris's 2011-2016 tenure as the Golden State's lead prosecutor, the Washington Free
Beacon reported." MOSTLY blacks.
All hail to Saint Biden. With even the pope being among the first to praise him. After all,
tens of thousands of people rose from the dead to vote for him; truly a miracle! Now being
such a devout "catholic" if only he could figure out how to pronounce "psalms" correctly, or
at least figure out what a psalm actually is.
Ohhho 4 hours ago 7 Dec, 2020 07:14 PM
Usually the elections do not matter at all since both candidates are properly vetted and
virtually irrelevant. Last time they've allowed it to slip and had to correct it now. So it
was kind of forceful. But please do not assume it was out of desperation or weakness. If it
shows anything it would be the deep disrespect for the American cattle, nothing else.
If it was rigged, it was rigged for a reason. To get the worst president of USA out of
office. The GOP in 2024 will have to come up with someone better than Trump. Getting rid of
Trump was getting rid of another dictator. Trump was taking the USA down a path of
destruction and the people voted him out, plain and simple. His supporters well they are easy
picking for the con of all cons Trump. The world also wanted him gone with the exception of
the USSR.
Brod1aga trmput 2 hours ago 7 Dec, 2020 09:53 PM
Sir. may I suggest you to update your world news? Unless I am wrong there are rumors that
USSR was abolished some time ago.
The wonderful world you talk about was not experienced by the peoples of Guatemala, Iran,
Chile, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Argentinia, Haiti, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iran, Iraq,
Libya, Syria and many of the homeless and destitute in the US, UK, Japan etc. The wonderful
world you describe is an illusion.
There is a line from the 1960s Science Fiction series called the Invaders from another
galaxy who wish take over the world. At the beginning of each episode the narrator says " they
wish to take over the world and make it their world".
The Transnational Financiers have been working towards that goal for centuries!!!!
Zucker – who now presides over one of the most fervently anti-Trump media outlets in
the American corporate press – hatched the idea to give then-candidate Trump a weekly
slot on CNN during a March 2016 phone call with Micheal Cohen, a lawyer for Trump at the time,
according to audio obtained by Fox News' Tucker Carlson.
Speaking with Cohen hours before the final Republican primary debate in the 2016 race,
Zucker said that while the Trump campaign had shown "great instincts, great guts and great
understanding of everything," he insisted victory would be impossible without CNN's
backing.
"Here's the thing you cannot be elected president of the United States without CNN,"
Zucker boasted. "Fox and MSNBC are irrelevant – irrelevant – in electing a
general election candidate."
When Cohen suggested the CNN chief relay his thoughts to Trump himself, Zucker demurred,
saying he is "very conscious of not putting too much in email," as Trump – "the
boss" – might go blabbing about it on the campaign trail.
You know, as fond as I am of the boss, he also has a tendency if I call him or I email
him, he then is capable of going out at his next rally and saying that we just talked, and I
can't have that, if you know what I'm saying.
Zucker soon talked himself back into contacting Trump, however, committing to "give him a
call right now" to "wish him luck in the debate tonight" – hosted by none
other than CNN – adding "I have all these proposals for him, like I want to do a
weekly show with him and all this stuff."
He went on to lavish praise on Trump, saying he had "never lost a debate" and would
do "great" during the CNN event later that night, even offering detailed advice for how
the president-to-be could deflect allegations that he is a "con man" from other
candidates.
While the source of the recording is unclear, the leak has made waves online, given that
Zucker has since made himself into Trump's "
cable news nemesis ." The network itself, meanwhile, has fielded an endless stream of
negative coverage of the president, heavily pushing the discredited 'Russiagate' conspiracy
theory for years and throwing full weight behind the Democrats' failed impeachment effort.
Some netizens have already suggested the "damning" revelation could soon result in
Zucker's ouster from his high perch at CNN.
"You think Jeff Zucker will be fired? I actually think there's a decent chance he will
be. Trying to kiss up to Trump is on par with murder in CNN world,"wrote filmmaker and
conservative pundit Robby Starbuck.
Others were less taken aback by the audio, as many pointed to the fact that Zucker and Trump
have a lengthy history together, both working on 'The Apprentice,' the hit reality show that
helped to solidify Trump's status as a pop culture icon. In 2012, Trump even hailed Zucker's
takeover as CNN president, saying the network made a
"great move," and that Zucker "was responsible for me and The Apprentice on NBC
– became #1 show!"
"Everyone knows Zucker made Trump, it's 100% true," one user said . "Trump was down and out.
Zucker pitched him a reality TV show called the Apprentice. Why? Because he likes his New
Yorkers, he likes Trump."
Fauci has lied again the PCR maximum cycle for a accurate test results is 25 NOT 35. PCR
is run, or should be run at 21-25 cycles everything else will give a false positive. Had a
friend in Scottsdale MAYO. I had to go to this god-forsaken place to get him out. They were
running the PCR at 42 cycles to keep him in the hospital because he had very, very good UNION
insurance!! The health industries are all crooks, lying to people to get more money being
paid to the orgainizations by the feds.
U.S TOTAL DEATHS
2015: 2,602,000
2016: 2,744,248
2017: 2,649,000
2018: 2,839,205
2019: 2,909,000
According to usalivestats(dot)com, there are 2,486,700 so far this year. There could be a lag
in reports, but I doubt enough to fulfill their doomsday claims. The CDC still admits only 6%
of these "COVID" are without 2 or more comorbidities, so that's about 25,000 or so. This is a
mild flu season. Here are the recent flu numbers:
FLU DEATHS 2010's
2010: 36,656
2011: 12,447
2012: 42,570
2013: 37,930
2014: 51,376
2015: 22,705
2016: 38,230
2017: 61,099
2018: 34,157
africoman 9 hours ago
How dare you granny killer /sarc
Frito 4 hours ago
The past was erased, the erasure forgotten, the lie became truth.
"I would take this news more credibly if they came up with a vaccine and they said it
worked, like, 53% of the time. There's something about that 94.5% that just looks fishy to
me.
From this moment on I'll be the new POTUS, as there is no democratic election possible!
Guaido should support me.
TheFishh Ironmanx 41 minutes ago 4 Dec, 2020 05:41 PM
Let's just have Guiado be president. After all, he was anointed by St. Trump Himself.
Brayar 1 hour ago 4 Dec, 2020 05:14 PM
The election was stolen. Even most Democratic voters are realizing this. The only people
still denying the fraud are the media, big tech, and those who are in on the fraud.
Jeffrey Perkins 51 minutes ago 4 Dec, 2020 05:37 PM
ok then..now the citizens of the usa need a group of countries to come liberate us
Whoa, hold your horses ! Remember the CIA "regime change play book"...
Lansman7 1 hour ago 4 Dec, 2020 05:24 PM
The US election may not have been 'stolen', but if this happened in any other nation America
would brand it illegitimate and bomb the hell out of its citizens FIFY
Ibmekon Lansman7 25 minutes ago 4 Dec, 2020 06:06 PM
.if it had happened elsewhere, it would probably have CIA fingerprints all over it.
Here is what SNOPES has to say, while taking some licks at just about everything else - no
German computer raid and no election fraud. Let's see how this all checks out with the
emerging facts, not just their "fact-checking": https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gina-haspel-found-dead/
About this time in 2016, Democrats were pushing the Trump pee-pee tapes and demanding
Electors become faithless and cast their votes for Clinton ...to save the Republic.
As they say, the US sausage making factory is messy to behold.
All the news that is fit to print- and pretty close to the same stuff Schiff, Pelosi and
Nadler spent four years dishing out about Trump. Why do we do this to ourselves?
Democrats spent four years tossing bogus and heinous claims against Trump, yet the stomach
churns immediately when this same tactic is now reversed and the other side is getting in
some licks too. Bogus then and bogus now? Or is this turnabout is fair play - stop the world,
I want to get off. No, this is not how I want this game played.
2. They seem oblivious of the permanent security cameras in the room,
Sir, I seriously doubt this. If had been one of them, it would be quite easy to convince
me it was for my own security. Just in case I was accused by some poll-watchers of deviously
underhanded schemes?
But I hope Biden stays the winner because it will make the wife shut up. There is no fate
worse than being stuck living with somebody suffering with TDS.
That is the end all and be all of my interest in this "election" choice between Tweedledee
and Tweedledum.
There are times I really like this Pepe Escobar term for the Outlaw US Empire--
Stupidistan --and the incoming buch of fools are wasting no time in proving that
nomenclature is perfect:
"DNI Ratcliffe Warns Next US Administration that China Is 'the Greatest National Security
Threat'" instead of taking a look around and declaring the virus as the biggest threat
since it's on its way to having killed 300,000 US citizens while China's killed none. What a
fool, but that's par for the course.
If you think the US policy is stupid - and of course it certainly is - have a laugh at
Australia's, in this 91-second video clip that sums it up perfectly:
Biden offers 'bizarre' story of breaking foot, says he pulled dog's tail while getting out
of showe
Many also got a laugh from Biden's seemingly childish behavior. "As a non-dog owner, is it a
usual occurrence to chase after your dog fresh from the shower in an attempt to grab its tail?
Or is Joe Biden basically my four-year-old after a bath chasing a doggie?" conservative
commenter Ben Shapiro sarcastically tweeted.
Then today we found out that individuals stuck around in the Atlanta Center on election
night after the water main break occurred and everyone else was sent home.
There is a map, courtesy of the Brookings Institute, showing the roughly 500 counties
Biden won and the roughly 2,500 counties Trump won.
The bolsheviks have figured out they only have to install the dominion in 500 counties
Lost in translation 12 hours ago
"The status quo has been increasingly rigged to benefit insiders and elites as the powers
of central banks and governments have picked the winners (cronies, insiders, cartels and
monopolies) and shifted the losses and risks onto the losers (the rest of us)."
Charles displays a remarkable grasp of the obvious. I sometimes wonder if his target
audience isn't 11-year olds.
WedgeMan 3 hours ago
It is more accurately called Crony Kleptocratic Capitalism.
J J Pettigrew 6 hours ago
And we were supposed to get ..
the missing 20 pages from the 9/11 commission
the declassified Russiagate papers
the Kennedy assassination papers
NOPE
Weihan 21 hours ago
The rally today in Atlanta, GA, was very encouraging. The people who are loyal to the USA
are ready with their pitch forks to haul out the treasonous globalist thugs who have led the
country into this unprecedented morass.
sacredfire 21 hours ago
Do you have any idea on how many were there?
Don Storm 8 hours ago (Edited)
There's is no denying. The present 2020 election has abuse, manipulation, obstruction and
blatant voter and election fraud written all over it. The absentee ballots have been abused
beyond your wildest dreams with a staggering number of ballots void of a persuasive chain of
custody, much less proof that the vote was cast by a living and breathing US citizen
qualified to vote. It's a very sad tale when you think about it, the Founding Fathers are
turning in their graves. And to those who participated and facilitated the fraud and
dishonesty: shame on you, shame on you.
considering cuomo was responsible for spreading the virus exponentially in the early days, he probably has had more
influence on all of our lives than the others
Story about Fauci, at least at the time was that it was so hospitals wouldn't be liable for deaths among medical
staff. But I think it was completely bad what both Cuomo and Fauci
Dr. Fauci was the trusted expert who intentionally lied to the American people and made things far worse. Cuomo is
directly responsible for why New York's response to the virus was so bad and cost many lives. Bullshit award.
We have more intelligent and successful derivatives traders and hedge fund managers than
China. And how much do lawyers earn in China, huh? I'll bet that there aren't that many
lawyers in Beijing who earn $1,000,000-$5,000,000 per year, so take that Fred. And we got
sports, you know, Basketball, Football, Baseball, Hockey, and Hollywood and MMA too.
Important stuff. Yeah, China, huh.
You haven't even begun the list. What about America's lead in rappers, professors of black
studies, college diversity officers, critical race theorists, etc? Let's hope China doesn't
poach them with the offer of bigger salaries. A brain drain like that would be the death
knell for the Republic.
Looking back, its like some of those listening to Eisenhower saw his speech as an
opportunity: "30 schools? What a waste! Lets build that heavy bomber."
I will henceforth refer to the MSM as the regime media or RM.
We reluctantly turned off Tucker last week. I felt bad about it as after watching him for
a few years my wife slowly left behind her liberal north eastern views and came around to the
right side of things. I'll thank him for that.
As we were driving to the park, I noticed a few bike riders on the side of the road wearing
masks while biking. I thought to myself – WTF. That is completely idiotic. Then we began
walking along the miles of trails. The park was moderately busy, but you passed someone every
few minutes.
Sadly, I would estimate that 80% of the people we passed on the trails were masked and
fearful of us unmasked hooligans. I can only imagine their thoughts as they wondered why we
were risking their lives by being so careless.
I was disgusted by the lack of critical thought exhibited by these people. I might have
understood if it was only people over 70 years old wearing the masks, but most of these people
were young. They have virtually a zero risk of dying from this flu. They have virtually a zero
risk of catching it on a walking trail at a State park. But, they obediently and silently do as
they are told by their overlords.
I am saddened by how easily the totalitarians have been able to use fear, propaganda, lies
and misinformation to turn the vast majority of Americans into compliant sheep. It is so clear
to me that this engineered flu panic is nothing more than another chapter in the scheme to
enslave global populations under the thumb of global elitist billionaires who want to control
us and enrich themselves.
NotMyCircus 5 hours ago
Everyday I see people alone in their cars wearing masks - there are very few people in the
world who can think critically and use reasoning to understand the actual risks for
COVID-19.
99.63% of the people don't get it...
StubbleJumper 4 hours ago
Putting on a mask to drive in the car alone is like putting on a condom to go to bed alone
and fall asleep.
DamnSheeple 1 hour ago
I just stare at them, honk and laugh.
Omega Point 4 hours ago
I agree, it really pisses me off seeing kids with masks. It is child abuse. Not only is it
physically harming, it is doing psychological damage too. These kids will be afraid of their
own shadow.
Anyway, I'm getting a new t-shirt made that displays two children with masks on and the
title "child abuse". I should get some interesting comments.
diana_in_spain 4 hours ago remove link
Parents telling their children to wear masks outside , it's beyond belief. We are truly
doomed
trailer park boys 4 hours ago
Masks don't prevent. Masks don't minimize spread. Masks are unhealthy for the wearer.
The whitecoat bureaucrats know this. It is not about science or health. It IS all about
control.
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." - H.L.
Mencken ay_arrow
JUST THE FACTS 4 hours ago
I dip my face diaper in cheap Vodka so its all wet looking
before entering the supermarket.
People get out of my way without being asked.
fnfcst 1 hour ago (Edited)
Right! If social distancing works, stay way the F* far away from me.
sentido kumon 4 hours ago
People have always been like this. They can not grasp philosophy, history, science or any
other subject beyond eating and f'king. This whole covid hysteria has made that much obvious.
Its likely that humans devolve and relinquish their brains since they have no use for it
(other than eating and f'cking) and are just content being told.
Omega Point 4 hours ago
Perhaps the "elites" have a point. Too many useless eaters, breeders, and breathers.
Self-proclaimed President-elect Joe Biden has chosen a budget director, Neera Tanden, who
once argued the US should ease funding shortages for left-wing social programs by making
countries like Libya pay for being bombed. Biden's transition team on Monday announced its
nominations for the six people selected to fill key economic roles in the incoming
administration, led by former Federal Reserve Bank Chair Janet Yellen as treasury secretary.
Tanden, a Hillary Clinton loyalist who currently heads the Center for American Progress, will
be director of the Office of Management and Budget if Biden's media-declared election victory
withstands legal challenges from President Donald Trump.
This crisis-tested team will help lift America out of our current economic downturn and
build back better -- creating an economy that gives every single American a fair shot and an
equal chance to get ahead. https://t.co/F6JMBHUgVx
-- Biden-Harris Presidential
Transition (@Transition46) November
30, 2020
However, critics have already recalled an example of her unusual budgeting philosophy. In a
2011 email that was made public by WikiLeaks, Tanden said Libya should be made to pay for the
bombing campaign that helped to topple Muammar Gaddafi's government, which would help balance
the US domestic budget.
"We have a giant deficit, they have a lot of oil," Tanden said. "Most Americans
would choose not to engage in the world because of that deficit."
If we want to continue to engage in the world, gestures like having oil-rich countries
partially pay us back doesn't seem crazy to me.
One analysis shows that voting machines in Michigan systematically removed votes from
Trump and handed them to Biden. I saw a rebuttal (which I cannot locate now) that purported
to debunk this but did so by using a different scale on the X-axis, which I found inherently
suspicious. 19. Over 100,000 Pennsylvania absentee ballots were returned a day after they
were mailed out, on the day they were mailed out, or on the day before they were mailed out.
20. In all the contested areas, and at Dominion's website, Democrats have been systematically
failing to create or have destroyed all data that could be used to demonstrate fraud. This
creates the legal presumption that the data do, in fact, show fraud.
On behalf of all Trump voters, I say to the Democrats who are trying to gaslight us:
don't spit in my face and tell me it's raining. gary.l.wagner 7 hours ago Hundreds of
millions of Americans don't believe Biden won. Most of the world knows Biden lost. Half of
them don't care that he didn't win. They want him to replace Trump and are willing to look the
other way at unconstitutional, illegal, and fraudulent election results. lakjo65 8 hours
ago Best analysis I have read, by far. Went to see Kennedy exhibit about the time Trump was
elected and the similarities were OBVIOUS. You don't mess with the deep state (nothing
INTELLIGENT about them- they are power THUGS). This is just what happened and if Trump does not
get to the bottom of this, it will NEVER stop. kejjer 7 hours ago google --which countries
use electronic voting machines. -- No 1st world country except the USA uses them. Minsky 10
hours ago 2004 election: -irregularities in vote counting procedures in Florida and Ohio
-statistical 'discrepancies' between exit polls and voting results -strange behavior exhibited
by Diebold voting machines used in the Ohio counties that gave Bush the election Question for
all Republicans supporting Trump's post-election escapades: were you urging John Kerry not to
concede, as he did the day after the election, due to all this strangeness? Were you upset when
he did? Didn't think so.
> What's hilarious is that it looks like McKinsey gave Purdue advice between 2008-2010 on
how to boost up opioid sales, when apparently both the client and firm knew that such a
strategy would lead to overdoses, then came back in 2017 to essentially give Purdue a PR
strategy on how to apologize for all the people they killed. This was when everyone and their
mother knew that Purdue was facing an existential legal crisis. So you paid McKinsey to dig
you a hole, then paid them to help you climb back out. <
Just because Annegret Kramp [something] did not serve in military, it does not allow to
conclude that she is not qualified to oversee Defense. However, nothing in her biography in
Wikipedia suggests that she knows the difference between Clausewitz and Santa Klaus.
Since high school, she toiled as an aparatchitsa in CDU in her home Saarland. She had OK
looks, motherly demeanor (I guess, proud mother of three), nicely balanced moderate position
and led CDU to a victory in that land. While working and nurturing, she got a master in
law/politics.
This led Merkel to pick her as a Successorin. But on the federal arena she flopped and was
demoted within a year, to the (apparently unimportant) post of defense minister. There she
has some really interesting initiatives, like having some navy vessel plying seas of
Indo-Pacific to promote freedom of people and navigation.
Trump should try to stop foreign wars the day after he was inaugurated--Caitlin Johnstone has
a good grasp of the political situation in the US we had a choice between two warmongers. Biden
will likely be worse overall on starting wars, but Trump isn't some innocent spring lamb being
led to the slaughter.
That would be more accurate. Sleepy Joe (or Creepy Joe -- take your pick) will be the
Boris Yeltsin of the Oval office. At least with old Boris, it was too much vodka -- and
he could have quit the bottle. Sleepy Joe doesn't have that option.
It's just delightful to see how the room HATES being made fun of. They're also petrified
of anything even remotely edgy. You hear less "ohhhs" at a middle school assembly. Blitzer in
particular seems congenitally unable to take a joke.
The smartest comedians are the ones that can rip on anyone because they love them, the
best comedians are the ones that don't let audience reaction affect their game. Quick witted,
fast paced, she had one of the best sets out of all the comedians who have done this
dinner.
The jokes were great, specially the "what to do with my body" and those related to race
& police, but that Joe Biden joke is more relevant in 2019 than ever. XD
"My prior experience has showed me how these dinners work, if the president laughs,
everyone laughs, and if the fox news table laughs, a little girl just fell off her bike" -
lmao. I still laugh about this line at least once of week.
Washington elites are breathing a sigh of relief, as power players on both sides of the
aisle gear up for 'business as usual' following a four-year disruption in swamp-activities -
thanks to one Donald J. Trump, whose perhaps prematurely anticipated departure from the Oval
Office has the DC establishment licking their chops.
... Shoving the Uniparty's collective excitement in our plebeian faces, Roberts writes in.
full. stops. " Washington is exhausted. Washington is optimistic. Washington is desperate for
change. The aristocracy of this city is ready to move on, daring to hope that the last four
years was a fever that finally broke and life can get back to normal."
... I fondly remember Senator [Daniel] Inouye and Senator McCain all getting into these
wonderful debates about various issues on the environment and on the economy," says Marshall.
"It was very entertaining to watch. And in the end, they would lift their glass, give each
other a toast, a smile, a great laugh and carry on ."
It's such a polite virus. Obviously a special design of upper crust investors and
scientists of the first degree.
This virus will try to attack you as you walk into a restaurant and through it - so take
all available precautions. After you are seated and receive your menu, it does a courtly deep
bow, kisses it's fingers towards the ladies, then clicks it's heels smartly, and turns away.
What a marvel!
hunter Biden won the election for his dad so he did good.His sex stories added the
necessary spice.It solved the problem which was the following.....Joe Biden cannot stand
because he does not stand for anything.Sex sells.especially $21000 worth.
The Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, also referred to as the Defense Policy Board
(DPBAC or DPB), is a federal advisory committee to the United States Department of Defense. . .
.
On 25 November 2020, the Trump administration removed senior defense policy experts such as
Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright and Jane Harman from the board, and replaced them with
Anthony Tata, Kash Patel and Ezra Cohen-Watnick.
The fifth labour was to clean the stables of King Augeas. This assignment was intended to be
both humiliating and impossible, since these divine livestock were immortal, and had produced
an enormous quantity of dung. The Augean stables had not been cleaned in over 30 years, and
over 1,000 cattle lived there. However, Heracles succeeded by rerouting the rivers Alpheus and
Peneus to wash out the filth.
All soon as Biden got his nominal victory magic happens: 'Russian Interference'
disappears. Four years of unsubstantiated allegations of "Russian interference" and neoliberal MSM hysteria have
disappeared overnight, it seems. Poof! Gone! As if by a magic conjuring trick. And the silence of
the neoliberal MSM over this strange metamorphose is deafening.
The New York Times has declared the recent presidential contest a "great election.. a
resounding success free of fraud". But wait a minute. All 2020 there was a fever pitch in US
media among politicians, national security chiefs, pundits and anonymous intelligence sources
that Russia was allegedly stepping up "interference efforts" to get Trump re-elected. What a bunch of sleazy hypocrites.
Christopher Krebs, the top federal cybersecurity official who was fired by President Trump
last week due to his efforts to dispel concerns on 2020 election safety, said claims of foreign
meddling this year are "farcical."
Gerontocracy is just one problem facing Washington. Collapse of neoliberal is much more
serious problem. But combination of those two problem spells trouble for the country.
In 2008, Barack Obama received the names of his entire future cabinet already one month prior
to his election by CFR Senior Fellow (and Citigroup banker) Michael Froman, as a
Wikileaks email later revealed. Consequently, the key posts in Obama's cabinet were filled
almost exclusively by CFR members, as was the case in most
cabinets since World War II. To be sure, Obama's 2008 Republican opponent, the late John
McCain, was a CFR member, too. Michael Froman later negotiated the TPP and TTIP international
trade agreements, before returning to the CFR as a Distinguished Fellow.
In 2017, CFR nightmare President Donald Trump immediately canceled these trade agreements --
because he viewed them as detrimental to US domestic industry -- which allowed China to
conclude its own, recently announced RCEP free-trade area ,
encompassing 14 countries and a third of global trade. Trump also canceled other CFR
achievements, like the multinational Iran nuclear deal and the UN climate and migration
agreements, and he tried, but largely failed, to withdraw US troops from East Asia, Central
Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa, thus seriously endangering the global US empire built
over decades by the CFR and its 5000 elite members .
Unsurprisingly, most of the US media , whose owners and editors are themselves members of the CFR ,
didn't like President Trump. This was also true for most of the European media, whose owners
and editors are members of international CFR affiliates like the
Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission, founded by CFR directors after the conquest of
Europe during World War II. Moreover, it was none other than the CFR which in 1996
advocated a closer cooperation between the CIA and the media, i.e. a restart of the famous
CIA Operation
Mockingbird . Historically, OSS and CIA directors since William Donovan and Allen Dulles
have always
been CFR members.
This is the case for Anthony Blinken (State), Alejandro Mayorkas (Homeland Security), Janet
Yellen (Treasury), Michele Flournoy and Jeh Johnson (candidates for Defense), Linda
Thomas-Greenfield (Ambassador to the UN), Richard Stengel (US Agency for Global Media; Stengel
famously called propaganda "a good thing"
at a 2018 CFR session), John Kerry (Special Envoy for Climate), Nelson Cunningham (candidate
for Trade), and Thomas Donilon (candidate for CIA Director).
Jake Sullivan, Biden's National Security Advisor, is not (yet) a CFR member, but Sullivan
has been a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace (a think tank "promoting active international engagement by the
United States") and a member of the US German Marshall Fund's
"Alliance For Securing Democracy" (a major promoter of the "Russiagate"
disinformation campaign to restrain the Trump presidency), both of which are run by senior
CFR members.
Most of Biden's CFR-vetted nominees
supported recent US wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen as well as the
2014 regime change in Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, neoconservative Max Boot, the CFR Senior Fellow
in National Security Studies and one of the most vocal opponents of the Trump administration,
has called Biden's future cabinet "America's A-Team" .
Thus, after four years of "populism" and "isolationism", a Biden presidency will mean the
return of the Council on Foreign Relations and the continuation of a tradition of more than 70 years .
Indeed, the CFR was founded in 1921 in response to the "trauma of 1920" ,
when US President Warren Harding and the US Senate turned isolationist and renounced US global
leadership after World War I. In 2016, Donald Trump's "America First" campaign reactivated this
100 year old foreign policy trauma.
Was the 2020 presidential election "stolen", as some allege? There are certainly indications
of
significant statistical anomalies in key Democrat-run swing states. Whether these were
decisive for the election outcome may be up to courts to decide. At any rate, Joe Biden may
well be the first US President known to be involved
in international corruption before even entering office.
Why are most US and international media hardly interested in this? Well, why should
they?
I just had to write this, since foreign policies are not the main issue in OffG, so I took
the liberty of writing my concerns, because I know the window is closing.
And I must underline, it don't matter Trump or gang of Creepy Joe and the Crackheads, they
all bow to the NWO, its their religion, the Curch of the Full spectrum dominance, based up
holly scriptures as The New American century.
Trump the populist has been greatly disappointing. His accidental gift has been giving
reason for the swamp critters to out themselves. It has been hilarious to watch them and
their press pets talk about how things will go back to normal with Biden. Also how the good
and kind their war machine is. What I am stuck on is if the Ukraine's Maidan is any guide,
don't they need Trump to win the election thru the courts ? Or not?
vk @4: "As I've been observing since the last three years: the liberals (Democratic)
don't seem to have any plans..."
Where can you go when you have reached The End of History ?
Liberal capitalist ideology has gone as far as it can. Aside from spreading McDonalds and
Walmart to every corner of the planet and getting everyone signed up for Netflix, what is
there left to do?
Twitter is blocking users from sharing links to lawyer Sidney Powell's lawsuit relating to
widespread voter fraud in the 2020 Presidential election.
A number of users across Twitter have reported being unable to share links to lawyer Sidney
Powell's
lawsuit relating to voter fraud in the 2020 Presidential election. When attempting to share
the link to the document, users receive a notification stating that the link has been
identified as "potentially harmful."
... Trump has brilliantly exposed the swamp. Even now regarding election fraud he is
exposing it. The CIA interfere all over the world even in literally fixing elections. There
are forces even in the US that will intervene and brazenly disenfranchise and marginalise
(and God knows what else) the people that they hate. Hopefully this situation is becoming
clearer to "normies"
Thanks, that's very interesting. I've read that Karl Marx came from a family of wealthy
Jews that had a long line of prominent Rabbis but his father converted and became a Lutheran
and raised Karl Marx as a Lutheran. So I assume that it would be accurate to say that Marxism
was created by a Christian or at the very least a non-practicing Christian.
Let me quote Dmitry Orlov: " Biden is as fit to lead as a pig is kosher after rubbing its
side against a corner of a synagogue." In no way borderline senile Biden appeals to the committed
Sanders base.
The man is so very charming and charismatic, so mesmerizing. He's like a Rock Star among
politicians. People line up by the tens of thousands hoping to get an autograph. He delights
and draws people better than even Bill Clinton.
Only a Deplorable unworthy 0f having any voice could doubt that, publicly.
Face it, if you live in the US, you live in a totalitarian country – a soft
military / intel agency dictatorship and that's been the case since at least Eisenhower's
time.
... What's worse is that approximately half the population seems to like it that way.
At this point, it looks like Trump is going to be a one term president –
unfortunately. With that in mind, perhaps the best metaphor for his presidency would be
– to call it – "One flew over the cuckoo's nest". The cuckoo's nest being the
country he was a president of – of course – full of cuckoos.
Beside that metaphor about the title, there are plenty of similarities between the
contents of the book and the events and the players of the last 4 years of Trump's
presidency.
Trump of course is Jack Nicholson – in a lunatic asylum – where he clearly
doesn't belong. The sadistic nurse is again of course – the deep state – a
control freak who wants to punish everybody – mainly the innocents.
The Chief – Jack Nicholson's friend, in the movie – in real life is being
played by the American people – or more precisely, the deplorables. They can continue
to play dumb until the very end, but eventually they'll have to find a titanic strength in
order to break free from the lunatic asylum run by the sadistic nurse.
The moral of this story? Trump needs his native Indian friend's help in real life –
although is probably too late for him, but at least the Chief and the rest of the deplorables
from the asylum can be saved.
Excellent movie, fantastic analogy. Didn't Nicholson at one point in the movie discover
that the patients were "willingly" there? They were perfectly capable and able-bodied, and
yet they willingly let Nurse Ratched call the shots. Great name – Nurse Ratched.
Reminds me of Dicken's school superintendent in "Hard Times" – Mr. Thomas
Gradgrind.
I wouldn't rule Trump out yet. The Saker spells out the court route, but A123 (above)
correctly spells out the other route.
"... Trump and Giuliani are vulgar and buffoonish, but they play the same slimy game as their Democratic opponents. The Republicans scapegoat the deep state, communists and now, bizarrely, Venezuela; the Democrats scapegoat Russia. The widening disconnect from reality by the ruling elite is intended to mask their complicity in the seizure of power by predatory global corporations and billionaires. ..."
"... Silicon Valley billionaires, including Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz and ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, donated more than $100 million to a Democratic super PAC that created a torrent of anti-Trump TV ads in the final weeks of the campaign to elect Biden. The heavy infusion of corporate money to support Biden wasn't done to protect democracy. It was done because these corporations and billionaires know a Biden administration will serve their interests. ..."
"... Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told CNN during this campaign that Russian disinformation efforts are "more problematic" than in 2016. He warned that "this time around, the Russians have decided to cultivate U.S. citizens as assets. They are attempting to try to spread their propaganda in the mainstream media." ..."
"... This will be the official mantra of the Democratic Party, a vicious redbaiting campaign without actual reds, especially as the country spirals out of control. The reason I have a show on Russia-funded RT America ..."
"... Voice of America ..."
"... World Socialist Web Site, ..."
"... We let these companies get this monopolistic share of the distribution system. Now they're exercising that power. ..."
"... In the Soviet Union the truth was passed, often hand to hand, in underground samizdat documents, clandestine copies of news and literature banned by the state. The truth will endure. It will be heard by those who seek it out. It will expose the mendacity of the powerful, however hard it will be to obtain. Despotisms fear the truth. They know it is a mortal threat. If we remain determined to live in truth, no matter the cost, we have a chance. ..."
40
Comments on Chris Hedges: The Ruling Elite's War on Truth American political leaders
display a widening disconnect from reality intended to mask their complicity in the seizure of
power by global corporations and billionaires. By Chris Hedges / Original to ScheerPost
Joe Biden's victory instantly obliterated the Democratic Party's longstanding charge that
Russia was hijacking and compromising US elections. The Biden victory, the Democratic Party
leaders and their courtiers in the media now insist, is evidence that the democratic process is
strong and untainted, that the system works. The elections ratified the will of the people.
But imagine if Donald Trump had been reelected. Would the Democrats and pundits at The New
York Time s , CNN and MSNBC pay homage to a fair electoral process? Or, having spent
four years trying to impugn the integrity of the 2016 presidential race, would they once again
haul out the blunt instrument of Russian interference to paint Trump as Vladimir Putin's
Manchurian candidate?
Trump and Giuliani are vulgar and buffoonish, but they play the same slimy game as their
Democratic opponents. The Republicans scapegoat the deep state, communists and now, bizarrely,
Venezuela; the Democrats scapegoat Russia. The widening disconnect from reality by the ruling
elite is intended to mask their complicity in the seizure of power by predatory global
corporations and billionaires.
... ... ...
The two warring factions within the ruling elite, which fight primarily over the spoils of
power while abjectly serving corporate interests, peddle alternative realities. If the deep
state and Venezuelan socialists or Russia intelligence operatives are pulling the strings no
one in power is accountable for the rage and alienation caused by the social inequality, the
unassailability of corporate power, the legalized bribery that defines our political process,
the endless wars, austerity and de-industrialization. The social breakdown is, instead, the
fault of shadowy phantom enemies manipulating groups such as Black Lives Matters or the Green
Party.
"The people who run this country have run out of workable myths with which to distract the
public, and in a moment of extreme crisis have chosen to stoke civil war and defame the rest of
us – black and white – rather than admit to a generation of corruption, betrayal,
and mismanagement," Matt Taibbi writes.
These fictional narratives are dangerous. They erode the credibility of democratic
institutions and electoral politics. They posit that news and facts are no longer true or
false. Information is accepted or discarded based on whether it hurts or promotes one faction
over another. While outlets such as Fox News have always existed as an arm of the Republican
Party, this partisanship has now infected nearly all news organizations, including publications
such as The New York Times and The Washington Post , along with the major tech
platforms that disseminate information and news. A fragmented public with no common narrative
believes whatever it wants to believe.
... ... ...
The flagrant partisanship and discrediting of truth across the political spectrum are
swiftly fueling the rise of an authoritarian state. The credibility of democratic institutions
and electoral politics, already deeply corrupted by PACs, the electoral college, lobbyists, the
disenfranchisement of third-party candidates, gerrymandering and voter suppression, is being
eviscerated.
Silicon Valley billionaires, including Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz and ex-Google
CEO Eric Schmidt, donated more than $100 million to a Democratic super PAC that created a
torrent of anti-Trump TV ads in the final weeks of the campaign to elect Biden. The heavy
infusion of corporate money to support Biden wasn't done to protect democracy. It was done
because these corporations and billionaires know a Biden administration will serve their
interests.
The press, meanwhile, has largely given up on journalism. It has retreated into competing
echo chambers that only speak to true believers. This catering exclusively to one demographic,
which it sets against another demographic, is commercially profitable. But it also guarantees
the balkanization of the United States and edges us closer and closer to fratricide.
When Trump leaves the White House millions of his enraged supports, hermetically sealed
inside hyperventilating media platforms that feed back to them their rage and hate, will see
the vote as fraudulent, the political system as rigged, and the establishment press as
propaganda. They will target, I fear, through violence, the Democratic Party politicians,
mainstream media outlets and those they demonize as conspiratorial members of the deep state,
such as Dr. Anthony Fauci. The Democratic Party is as much to blame for this disintegration as
Trump and the Republican Party.
The election of Biden is also very bad news for journalists such as Matt Taibbi, Glen Ford,
Margaret Kimberley, Glenn Greenwald, Jeffrey St. Clair or Robert Scheer who refuse to be
courtiers to the ruling elites. Journalists that do not spew the approved narrative of the
right-wing, or, alternatively, the approved narrative of the Democratic Party, have a
credibility the ruling elite fears.
The worse things get – and they will get worse as the pandemic leaves hundreds of
thousands dead and thrusts millions of Americans into severe economic distress –the more
those who seek to hold the ruling elites, and in particular the Democratic Party, accountable
will be targeted and censored in ways familiar to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, now in a London
prison and facing possible extradition to the United States and life imprisonment.
Barack Obama's assault on civil liberties, which included the repeated misuse of the
Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers, the passage of Section 1021 of the National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA) to permit the military to act as a domestic police force and the
ordering of the assassination of U.S. citizens deemed to be terrorists in Yemen, was far worse
than those of George W. Bush. Biden's assault on civil liberties, I suspect, will surpass those
of the Obama administration.
The censorship was heavy handed during the campaign. Digital media platforms, including
Google, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, along with the establishment press worked shamelessly as
propaganda arms for the Biden campaign. They were determined not to make the "mistake" they
made in 2016 when they reported on the damaging emails, released by WikiLeaks, from Hillary
Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta. Although the emails were genuine, papers such as The
New York Times routinely refer to the Podesta emails as "disinformation." This, no doubt,
pleases its readership, 91 percent of whom identify as Democrats according to the Pew Research
Center. But it is another example of journalistic malfeasance.
Following the election of Trump, the media outlets that cater to a Democratic Party
readership made amends. The New York Times was one of the principal platforms that amplified
Russiagate conspiracies, most of which turned out to be false. At the same time, the paper
largely ignored the plight of the disposed working class that supported Trump. When the
Russiagate story collapsed, the paper pivoted to focus on race, embodied in the 1619 Project.
The root cause of social disintegration -- the neoliberal order, austerity and
deindustrialization -- was ignored since naming it would alienate the paper's corporate
advertisers and the elites on whom the paper depends for access.
Once the 2020 election started, The New York Times and other mainstream outlets censored and
discredited information that could hurt Biden, including a tape of Joe Biden speaking with
former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, which appears to be authentic. They gave
credibility to any rumor, however spurious, which was unfavorable to Trump. Twitter and
Facebook blocked access to a New York Post story about the emails allegedly found on Hunter
Biden's discarded laptop.
Twitter locked the New York Post out of its own account for over a week. Glenn Greenwald,
whose article on Hunter Biden was censored by his editors at The Intercept, which he helped
found, resigned. He released the email exchanges with his editors over his article. Ignoring
the textual evidence of censorship, editors and writers at The Intercept engaged in a public
campaign of character assassination against Greenwald. This sordid behavior by self-identified
progressive journalists is a page out of the Trump playbook and a sad commentary on the
collapse of journalistic integrity.
The censorship and manipulation of information was honed and perfected against WikiLeaks.
When WikiLeaks tries to release information, it is hit with botnets or distributed denial of
service attacks. Malware attacks WikiLeaks' domain and website. The WikiLeaks site is
routinely shut down or unable to serve its content to its readers. Attempts by WikiLeaks to
hold press conferences see the audio distorted and the visual images corrupted. Links to
WikiLeaks events are delayed or cut. Algorithms block the dissemination of WikiLeaks content.
Hosting services, including Amazon, removed WikiLeaks from its servers. Julian Assange, after
releasing the Iraqi war logs, saw his bank accounts and credit cards frozen. WikiLeaks' PayPal
accounts were disabled to cut off donations. The Freedom of the Press Foundation in December
2017 closed down the anonymous funding channel to WikiLeaks which was set up to protect the
anonymity of donors. A well-orchestrated smear campaign against Assange was amplified and given
credibility by the mass media and filmmakers such as Alex Gibney. Assange and WikiLeaks were
first. We are next.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told CNN during this campaign that Russian
disinformation efforts are "more problematic" than in 2016. He warned that "this time around,
the Russians have decided to cultivate U.S. citizens as assets. They are attempting to try to
spread their propaganda in the mainstream media."
This will be the official mantra of the Democratic Party, a vicious redbaiting campaign
without actual reds, especially as the country spirals out of control. The reason I have a show
on Russia-funded RT America is the same reason Vaclav Havel could only be heard on the
US-funded Voice of America during the communist control of Czechoslovakia. I did not
choose to leave the mainstream media. I was pushed out. And once anyone is pushed out, the
ruling elite is relentless about discrediting the few platforms left willing to give them, and
the issues they raise, a hearing.
"If the problem is 'American citizens' being cultivated as 'assets' trying to put
'interference' in the mainstream media, the logical next step is to start asking Internet
platforms to shut down accounts belonging to any American journalist with the temerity to
report material leaked by foreigners (the wrong foreigners, of course – it will continue
to be okay to report things like the 'black ledger')," writes Taibbi , who has done some of the best reporting on
the emerging censorship. "From Fox or the Daily Caller on the right
, to left-leaning outlets like Consortium or the World Socialist Web
Site, to writers like me even – we're all now clearly in range of new speech
restrictions, even if we stick to long-ago-established factual standards."
Taibbi argues that the precedent for overt censorship took place when the major digital
platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Google, Spotify, YouTube – in a coordinated move
blacklisted the right-wing talk show host Alex Jones.
"Liberal America cheered," Taibbi told me when I interviewed him for my show, " On Contact ":
They said 'Well this is a noxious figure. This is a great thing. Finally, someone's taking
action.' What they didn't realize is that we were trading an old system of speech regulation
for a new one without any public discussion. You and I were raised in a system where you got
punished for speech if you committed libel or slander or if there was imminent incitement to
lawless action, right? That was the standard that the Supreme Court set, but that was done
through litigation. There was an open process where you had a chance to rebut charges. That
is all gone now.
Now, basically there's a handful of these tech distribution platforms that control how
people get their media.
They've been pressured by the Senate, which has called all of their CEOs in, and basically
ordered them, 'We need you to come up with a plan to prevent the sowing of discord and
spreading of misinformation.' This has finally come into fruition. You see a major reputable
news organization like the New York Post -- with a 200-year history -- locked out of its own
Twitter account.
The story [Hunter Biden's emails] has not been disproven. It's not disinformation or
misinformation. It's been suppressed as it would be suppressed in a Third World country. It's
a remarkable historic moment. The danger is that we end up with a one-party informational
system. There's going to be approved dialogue and unapproved dialogue that you can only get
through certain fringe avenues. That's the problem. We let these companies get this
monopolistic share of the distribution system. Now they're exercising that power.
In the Soviet Union the truth was passed, often hand to hand, in underground samizdat
documents, clandestine copies of news and literature banned by the state. The truth will
endure. It will be heard by those who seek it out. It will expose the mendacity of the
powerful, however hard it will be to obtain. Despotisms fear the truth. They know it is a
mortal threat. If we remain determined to live in truth, no matter the cost, we have a
chance.
Chris Hedges Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who
was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years forThe New York Times,where he
served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously
worked overseas forThe Dallas Morning News,The Christian Science
Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of the Emmy Award-nominated RT America showOn Contact.paul eastonNOVEMBER
23, 2020 AT 10:28 AM
It seems like the masters are just as deluded as the slaves. But the situation is
unsustainable. When many millions of slaves become homeless and hungry that reality will become
unavoidable. Who will they blame? Will they attack one another or will they revolt against the
system? Soon we will see. Carolyn L ZarembaNOVEMBER
24, 2020 AT 10:30 AM
I share only alternative media since I don't trust "mainstream" media one iota. I post
articles from the World Socialist Web Site, Consortium News, the Grayzone, Caitlin Johnstone
and others all the time. I am a socialist. I was only banned from posting on FB once, for
criticizing Israel. No surprise there. But I suspect FB of shadow banning, i.e., making it look
like you've posted an article but making it invisible to others in their news feeds. I first
learned of this practice from Craig Murray, another whose articles I post regularly. paul
eastonNOVEMBER
25, 2020 AT 1:35 AM
That is a chilling thought. I was shadow banned by medium.com a few years ago. It appeared
to me that my posts and comments went in, but no one else could see them. At least with them I
could tell something was wrong because I had regular conversations with some people. With FB I
don't know if you could ever be sure. R ZwarichNOVEMBER
25, 2020 AT 5:37 AM
Mr. Easton is indeed correct. It is VERY chilling, especially if people would imagine what
THEY would do, if they had our Enemy's morally depraved motivations, and if they had the
control our Enemy has over ALL our communications switches.
There are three basic types of mass communications. One to many. Many to one. And many to
many.
The Enemy has complete access to 'one to many' communications, and complete control over
anyone's else's access to same. Many to one communications are ineffective for intrinsic
reasons. Many to many communications offer myriad methods of cunningly creative control.
If we send out group emails, for example, in simple old-fashioned list-serves, they who
control the switches could easily 'filter', to determine who among addressees gets any message,
and who doesn't.
I used to write comments in the Boston Globe, the wholly owned plaything of a VERY weird old
Billionaire and his proud and beautiful young trophy wife. (Less than half his age, of course).
At first I thought the Globe NEVER censored. I could write anything, and it would post. Ahh but
then I learned that the Globe is a HEAVY handed censor, but was clever enough to put a 'cookie'
in your browser folder to tell their server to let you see your own comments, so you would not
even know that no one else could see them. It was 'stealth censorship'.
We should try to remember that these people are morally depraved, in their constant
paroxysms of raw Greed and raw Lust. No force exists any longer in our nation to restrain them.
Anything we can 'see' that they CAN do, we can pretty much figure they already DO do, or else
sooner or later will. Carol ShapiroNOVEMBER
23, 2020 AT 1:44 PM
While I don't agree with you, Chris Hedges, all the time, I believe you are our one. true.
journalist. Thankful for your honesty. Insight. Huge intellect. Global experience. I am an
"unenrolled" voter -- an extremely disillusioned former Bernie Sanders supporter. Truly, I feel
like he would have been our closest attempt to achieving a real "citizen government". What a
laughable term that is these days. Bernie never would have had a chance running as a Democrat
– absurd. He should have walked out of that convention four years ago and taken his
supporters with him. Oh wait- you said that. NeverNOVEMBER
23, 2020 AT 2:59 PM
Don't forget that the selective coverage by the NY Times in this campaign didn't start when
Biden became the nominee. Up to that time, the Times ran one or two articles on Sanders it
seems. Whatever the number, it was miniscule. They almost completely ignored one of the most
significant campaigns in modern history, thus helping to ensure it died on the vine. And when
they did cover it one or two times, it was always negative.
US liberals more fascist than conservatives–long observed by historians/social
philosophers
"amerikans do not converse as Tocqueville wrote, amerikans entertain each other. amerikans do
not exchange ideas, they exchange images. the problem w amerikans is not Orwellian–it is
huxleyan: amerikans love their oppression: Neil Postman Stephen MorrellNOVEMBER
24, 2020 AT 1:18 AM
Glenn Greenwald's points need stressing: (i) some of the most vociferous proponents of
online censorship are mainstream and 'alternative' 'journalists' who on repeated occasions have
egged on the carriers to shut sites, pages, accounts or postings; (ii) these 'journalists'
aren't just serving the narrowest band of oligarchic media empires in history, but also are
ivy-league bourgeois brats with no interest at all in exposing the injustices or malfeasance of
bourgeois society, unlike many journalists of the past; and (iii) that it's not in the
immediate material interests of the carriers to conduct the censorship, especially in the
longterm, since it consumes resources and lowers traffic and profits. They'd much rather the
government do it and for them to be compensated at taxpayer expense.
To avoid future potential government antitrust measures or nationalisation (heaven forbid!),
Zuckerberg and his ilk have been censoring in heavyhanded and hamfisted ways that aren't so
'autonomous' but for the moment at least can be traced along the usual Democrat-controlled
thinktank and CIA/FBI lines, which of course also are beyond public scrutiny. Despite the
prospects for freedom of reach (and reach is what it's really about) apparently growing dimmer
with each senate committee appearance by the carrier oligarchs, ways and means will be found to
circumvent their draconian measures. While alternative non-censoring platforms have yet to gain
significant traction, it likely won't take much for one to catch on, perhaps sparked by an
outrageous event of suppression, that turns Facebook, Twitter, etc, into museum pieces. One
might imagine, for instance, Wikileaks-style YouTube, Facebook, Twitter equivalents that act as
true carriers, purely machine-based and devoid of human interference, that precludes them
becoming the 'moral guardians' that Twitter, Facebook etc, are quickly metamorphising into.
As increasing swathes of the population appear not to be aligning within the bourgeoisie's
preset ideological 'tribal' boundaries, there's a certain schadenfreude in seeing the rulers in
dread of the truth getting out and spreading uncontrollably. Their tailored counter-narratives
simply are too enfeebled and slight to square with the hard reality that's hitting everyone,
from the most educated and brainwashed to the least. That ivy-league stenographers are being
pressed into the service of censorship gives some indication of the desperation of the rulers.
We all know, as do they but can never admit it publicly, that censorship and repression are
frank admissions that they've lost all 'arguments' for their very existence.
To an extent, Trump has been responsible for letting the genie out of the bottle, as the
first president probably since before Andrew Jackson to have failed, repeatedly, to put
lipstick on the racist, capitalist imperial pig. The efforts by the ruling class at censorship
and naked suppression of freedom of reach and of access to sources of truthful information will
only increase in desperation as their myth-making narratives become ever more unable to
rationalise a crisis that's they're beginning to see as intractable and endangering their
rule.
I would love to see a campaign started where people put giant road facing signs in
graveyards that say "WE VOTED FOR BIDEN" "AND BOY WERE WE SURPRISED!!"
You would have to assume that it is no big deal based on the response to claims of
widespread fraud in the contest between President Trump and Joe Biden. Big Media says the
evidence just doesn't exist, and most Americans seem to be lost in a blue haze of blind
acceptance that whatever they are told by the talking heads on TV must be true.
This kind of unthinking obedience to authority is a frightening harbinger of an America that
is no longer a nation of laws, but rather a nation of edicts.
"... Because people are a lot more likely to click, read and share information which validates their pre-existing opinions and follow people who do the same, social media is notorious for the way it creates tightly insulated echo chambers which masturbate our confirmation bias and hide any information which might cause us cognitive dissonance by contradicting it. Whole media careers were built on this phenomenon during the years of Russiagate hysteria, and we see it play out in spheres from imperialism to Covid-19 commentary to economic policy. ..."
"... Someone benefits from this dynamic, and it isn't you. As we've discussed previously, we know from WikiLeaks documents that powerful people actively seek to build ideological echo chambers for the purpose of propaganda and indoctrination, and there is surely a lot more study going into the subject than we've seen been shown. Splitting the public up into two oppositional factions who barely interact and can't even communicate with each other because they don't share a common reality keeps the populace impotent, ignorant, and powerless to stop the unfolding of the agendas of the powerful. ..."
"... It's just people manipulating you away from your natural, healthy inclination toward peace. Get out of your echo chamber, look at the raw information instead of the narratives, and stop letting the sociopaths manipulate you. ..."
"... Hate is the only thing that holds the American Empire together. Without its Two Minutes of Hate, America will break up apart into a million pieces. ..."
This complete schism from reality, where you've got an incoming administration stacked with
Beltway insiders who want to attack Chinese interests running alongside an alternate imaginary
universe in which Biden is a subservient CCP lackey, is only made possible with the existence
of media echo chambers. It's the same exact dynamic that made it possible for liberals to spend
four years shrieking conspiracy theories about the executive branch of the US government being
run by a literal Russian agent even as Trump advanced mountains of world-threatening cold war
escalations against Moscow in the real world.
You see this dynamic at work in conventional media, where
plutocrat-controlled outlets like Breitbart are still frantically
pushing the Russiagate sequel narrative that Hunter Biden's activities in China mean that
his father is a CCP asset. You also see it in social media, where, as explained by journalist
Jonathan Cook in an article about the
documentary The Social Dilemma , "as we get herded into our echo chambers of
self-reinforcing information, we lose more and more sense of the real world and of each
other."
"We live in different information universes, chosen for us by algorithms whose only
criterion is how to maximise our attention for advertisers' products to generate greater
profits for the internet giants," writes Cook.
Because people are a lot more likely to click, read and share information which validates
their pre-existing opinions and follow people who do the same, social media is notorious for
the way it creates
tightly insulated echo chambers which masturbate our confirmation bias and hide any information
which might cause us cognitive dissonance by contradicting it. Whole media careers were built
on this phenomenon during the years of Russiagate hysteria, and we see it play out in spheres
from imperialism to Covid-19 commentary to economic policy.
Someone benefits from this dynamic, and it isn't you. As we've
discussed previously, we know from WikiLeaks documents that powerful people actively
seek to build ideological echo chambers for the purpose of propaganda and indoctrination, and
there is surely a lot more study going into the subject than we've seen been shown. Splitting
the public up into two oppositional factions who barely interact and can't even communicate
with each other because they don't share a common reality keeps the populace impotent,
ignorant, and powerless to stop the unfolding of the agendas of the powerful.
You should not be afraid of your government being too nice to China. What you should worry
about is the US-centralized power alliance advancing a multifront new cold war conducted
simultaneously against two nuclear-armed nations for the first time ever in human history.
There are far, far too many small moving parts in such a cold war for things to happen in a
safely predictable manner, which means there are far, far too many
chances for something to go very, very wrong.
Whenever someone tells you that a US president is going to be "soft" on a nation the
US government has marked as an enemy, you are being played. Always, always, always, always.
It's just people manipulating you away from your natural, healthy inclination toward peace. Get
out of your echo chamber, look at the raw information instead of the narratives, and stop
letting the sociopaths manipulate you.
By Caitlin Johnstone , an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her
website is here and you can follow
her on Twitter @caitoz
USA-MA BIN LADEN / NOVEMBER 25, 2020
America desperately needs its Two Minutes of Hate against other countries like a meth
addict needs his next hit.
For Democrats and their ilk, Hate Russia was their unifying and mobilizing ideology.
For Republicans and their ilk, Hate China is their unifying and mobilizing ideology.
Hate is the only thing that holds the American Empire together. Without its Two Minutes of Hate, America will break up apart into a million pieces.
Deep down, Americans know that – and that is why they so readily engage in these
spittle-flecked campaigns.
Welcome to the Orwellian world of America where the same American Empire that bombs,
invades, sanctions, regime changes, encircles, or colonizes multiple nations around the world
whines like a triggered little snowflake that poor innocent war criminal America is being
"threatened"!
Truly pathetic.
CHRISTIAN J. CHUBA / NOVEMBER 24, 2020
There are many good websites (in addition to this one of course). I'd always tell someone,
just look to see what speaks to you my list some are 'out there' I'll summarize.
https://www.antiwar.com/ –
Kind of like a drudgereport for decent people on world events. They go through the effort of
summarizing AP and other official news outlet stories rather than mindlessly link to them.
Just hearing the same stories minus the slavish propaganda will deprogram many people.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/ – M.E., Yemen, if
your friend is very sensitive to anything that insinuates that Israel is not the celestial
city he might be offended.
https://southfront.org/ – Ah
.. on our State Dept list of Russian disinfo. Discuss military conflicts, sympathetic to the
countries at the receiving end of our attention.
http://thesaker.is/ – Saker was an
intel guy from the 'other side' during the Cold War, values decency, Orthodox Christian, only
site that regularly publishes speeches from Nasrallah, does military analysis, arrogant but I
always feel like I learned something.
http://www.moonofalabama.org
– anonymous analyst, German Intel guy, writes very well. I put him last because he has
been on a pro-Trump binge lately. I think they are secret lovers. Given what he normally
writes about I have no idea what he sees in him.
"... Once you've learned a bit more you realize it's not quite happening that way. Most mainstream news reporters are not really witting propagandists – those are to be found more in plutocrat-funded think tanks and other narrative management firms, and in the opaque government agencies which feed news media outlets information designed to advance their interests. The predominant reason mainstream news reporters say things that aren't true is because in order to be hired by mainstream news outlets, you need to jack your mind into a power-serving worldview that is not based in truth. ..."
"... Mainstream establishment orthodoxy is essentially a religion, as fake and power-serving as any other, and if you want to work in mainstream politics or media you need to demonstrate that you are a member of that religion. ..."
"... That's all you're ever seeing when you notice blue-checkmarked reporters tweeting in promotion of imperialist interests and status quo politics. They are not laboring under the delusion that they are saying anything new or insightful that a hundred other people aren't saying at the exact same time; they are signaling. ..."
By Caitlin Johnstone , an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her
website is here and you can follow
her on Twitter @caitoz
People who are only just beginning to research what's wrong with the world often hold an
assumption that mainstream news reporters are just knowingly propagandizing people all the
time.
That they sit around scheming up ways to deceive their audiences into supporting war,
oligarchy and oppression for the benefit of their plutocratic masters.
Once you've learned a bit more you realize it's not quite happening that way. Most
mainstream news reporters are not really witting propagandists – those are to be found
more in plutocrat-funded think tanks and other narrative management firms, and in the opaque
government agencies which feed news media outlets information designed to advance their
interests. The predominant reason mainstream news reporters say things that aren't true is
because in order to be hired by mainstream news outlets, you need to jack your mind into a
power-serving worldview that is not based in truth.
A recent job listing for a New York
Times Russia Correspondent which was flagged by Russia-based
journalist Bryan MacDonald illustrates this dynamic perfectly. The listing reads as
follows:
"Vladimir Putin's Russia remains one of the biggest stories in the world.
It sends out hit squads armed with nerve agents against its enemies, most recently the
opposition leader Aleksei Navalny. It has its cyber agents sow chaos and disharmony in the West
to tarnish its democratic systems, while promoting its faux version of democracy. It has
deployed private military contractors around the globe to secretly spread its influence. At
home, its hospitals are filling up fast with Covid patients as its president hides out in his
villa.
If that sounds like a place you want to cover, then we have good news: We will have an
opening for a new correspondent as Andy Higgins takes over as our next Eastern Europe Bureau
Chief early next year."
Does this sound like the sort of job someone with a less than hostile attitude toward the
Russian government would apply to? Is it a job listing that indicates it might welcome someone
who sees mainstream Russia hysteria as cartoonish hyperbole designed to advance the
longstanding geostrategic interests of Western power structures against a government which has
long resisted bowing to the dictates of those power structures? Someone who voices skepticism
about the
plot hole - riddled
establishment narratives of Russian election meddling and
Novichok assassinations ? Someone who, as
Moon of Alabama
notes , might point out that Putin is in fact at work in the Kremlin right now and not "hiding
out" in a "villa" ?
Of course not. In order to get a job at the New York Times, you need to demonstrate that you
subscribe to the mainstream oligarchic imperialist worldview which forms the entirety of
Western mass media output. You need to demonstrate that you have been properly indoctrinated,
and that you can be guided into toeing the imperial line with simple
attaboys and tisk-tisks from your superiors rather than being explicitly told to knowingly
lie.
Because if they did tell you to knowingly lie to the public to advance the interests of the
powerful, that would be propaganda. And propaganda is what happens in evil backwards countries
like Russia.
Mainstream establishment orthodoxy is essentially a religion, as fake and power-serving as
any other, and if you want to work in mainstream politics or media you need to demonstrate that
you are a member of that religion.
That's all you're ever seeing when you notice blue-checkmarked reporters tweeting in
promotion of imperialist interests and status quo politics. They are not laboring under the
delusion that they are saying anything new or insightful that a hundred other people aren't
saying at the exact same time; they are signaling. They are letting current and prospective
peers and employers know, "I am a believer. I am a member of the faith." This way they
are ensured the continued advancement of their careers in mainstream news media.
This is why you have labels for anyone expressing skepticism of establishment narratives
like "conspiracy theorist," "useful idiot," "Russian asset" or "Assadist" ; the
powerful people who understand that whoever controls the narrative controls the world need
labels to separate the faithful from the heathens. It means the same thing as "heretic .
"
The fast and easy way to get rich and famous has always been to promote the interests of the
powerful. This is as true in every other sector as it is in media. For this reason, those who
pour their energy into criticizing existing power structures and shining a bright light on
their dynamics aren't likely to be living in fancy mansions or going to ritzy parties any time
soon, while those who do the opposite actually will. And yet when someone sets up a Substack or
a Patreon account to make criticizing the powerful their life's work, it is they who will get
called money-grubbing grifters by the propagandized.
The faces you see thrust onto screens by the plutocratic media are not spouting falsehoods
while being aware of their deception, any more than any preacher is knowingly lying when they
say you'll burn for eternity if you don't accept the gospel. Most of them believe everything they are saying ,
because they have been propagandized into becoming good acolytes and proselytizers of the
faith.
The most propagandized people on earth are those who are responsible for promulgating
propaganda.
Naughtylus 15 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 04:08 AM
Spot on article. Journalists in MSM media constantly brag about their independence,
impartiality, truthfulness, etc. and I always wanted to ask them how long they think they
would keep their job if they simply questioned the established narrative of their company.
People hired in the media these days are not hired for the job of informing or being
journalists, but to act as a mere transmission for opinion manipulation campaigns, devised by
those in real power circles.
KennethKeen 15 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 04:18 AM
Excellent explanation. I would add an additional method of climbing the career ladder. If you
do something criminal, that others in the system are aware of, then you can soar up the
ranks, as they are guaranteed the possibility of blackmailing you. That is how the house of
cards is held in place.
1justssayn 12 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 07:26 AM
Absolutely spot on. It applies to a lot of other occupations as well.
shadow1369 15 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 04:27 AM
The strange thing is that while not a single statement in the NYT summary was true of Russia,
they cvould all be applied to the us. I guess that is the point, applicants must be prepared
to simply substitute the Russia for the US whenever thery describe crimes against humanity.
So zero intelligence is required, but more importantly zero integrity either.
Fenianfromcork 12 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 07:47 AM
Sounds more like an add for joining the CIA.
Insulyn Fenianfromcork 9 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 10:11 AM
I wonder just how many who are hired either work for the CIA already or start working for the
CIA soon after? The add was possibly written with CIA direction. Embedded propagandists. The
ad just shows how journalism simply doesn't matter to the MSM, it's all narrative and spin.
Geo Graphy 12 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 07:50 AM
The fourth estate has let their ego override their common sense. They are not an elected
representation of any portion of the American or any other country's public. They are
employees of organizations that operate for profit. They do not have a public mandate to
provide their opinion as news. They are incapable of reporting news without slanting the view
they present. Since it is slanted, it is not news, it is garbage. What the media presents to
the public is pure propaganda made up by the staff and management of the so called news
organizations. If the fourth estate will not return to reporting the news, then they
rightfully belong on the trash heap of history.
PhillisStein 8 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 12:04 PM
'The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the
masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen
mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our
country.' - Edward Bernays In other words, democracy is a 'majority rules' model and, since,
in our current consciousness, you can fool most of the people most of the time, then
democracy is able to be easily manipulated, and thus is not true democracy. We cannot have
anything approaching civil society until we are able to exercise our free will with informed
consent, which requires objective information. Sadly, everything is based upon the 'victim'
model, which treats us as children - 'don't worry, we'll just do all your thinking for you
and just tell you what to think.'
bos000 11 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 08:23 AM
Propaganda for americans: "US army "heroes" are around the world to protect america,s freedom
and democracy", by killing innocents in other countries, when no one ever attack US.
Smythe_Mogg 7 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 12:38 PM
Perhaps journalists are not responsible for the content of propaganda but they are complicit
in its transmission. Journalism for the most part, if ever it was, is not a profession with
respect to practitioners upholding standards they refuse to deviate from. 'Hacks' working for
the popular press are commonly derided. These days it is those employed by 'broadsheet'
papers (and equivalent digital media) who truly merit opprobrium. The days when the Times
fielded gentlemen are long gone. Few independent thinkers are to be found among prominent
journalists. 'Broadsheet' decline has far more serious consequences than the worst the
popular press can do. The popular press always has catered for 'low brow' and 'middle brow'
readers; its lower reaches being little more than scandal sheets with titillating pictures.
These readers are not movers and shakers: they are followers. The educated class, nowadays
sadly depleted, relies on news outlets to be under editorial control capable of picking wheat
from amidst chaff of no consequence and seeking accurate reporting thereof. A concomitant is
choosing informed individuals to offer opinion pieces; top of this pile is the editorial
which at one time could shake government. Lack of a properly informed upper tier of the
population capable of challenging the self-styled political elite (and their owners) betokens
descent into oligarchy and thereby kakistocracy.
OneGenericUser Gatineau25deA 15 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 04:50 AM
I have a somewhat cliche' opinion. I don't care Americans want their country to rule the
world, I want the world to have a choice on wether they want America as a leader, and I bet
the majority of countries don't. If you're impose your "leadership" then you're not a leader,
you're a dictator.
"... Hate is the only thing that holds the American Empire together. Without its Two Minutes of Hate, America will break up apart into a million pieces. ..."
America desperately needs its Two Minutes of Hate against other countries like a meth
addict needs his next hit.
For Democrats and their ilk, Hate Russia was their unifying and
mobilizing ideology. For Republicans and their ilk, Hate China is their unifying and
mobilizing ideology.
Hate is the only thing that holds the American Empire together. Without its Two
Minutes of Hate, America will break up apart into a million pieces.
On this edition of Empire Has No Clothes, Matt, Kelley, and Daniel speak to Stephen
Wertheim, deputy director of research and policy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible
Statecraft. He discusses his new book,
Tomorrow, the World , the rise of American global supremacy, and why that idea is now
breaking down. We also talk about the foreign policy presidential debate that wasn't and the
upcoming election.
You can't find better smarter neocons to pursue the Full Spectrum Dominance Doctrine to the
total decimation of the standard of living of ordinary Americans ;-)
Since the 1990s, Flournoy and Blinken have steadily risen through the ranks of the
military-industrial complex, shuffling back and forth between the Pentagon and hawkish
think-tanks funded by the U.S. government, weapons companies, and oil giants.
Under Bill Clinton, Flournoy was the principal author of the 1996 Quadrinellial Defense
Review, the document that outlined the U.S. military's doctrine of permanent war – what
it called "full spectrum dominance."
Flournoy called for "unilateral use of military power" to ensure "uninhibited access to key
markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources."
... During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Biden declared, "In my judgment, President
Bush is right to be concerned about Saddam Hussein's relentless pursuit of weapons of mass
destruction"
As Iraq was plunged into chaos and bloodshed, Flournoy was among the authors of a paper
titled "Progressive Internationalism" that called for a "smarter and better" style of permanent
war. The paper chastised the anti-war left and stated that "Democrats will maintain the world's
most capable and technologically advanced military, and we will not flinch from using it to
defend our interests anywhere in the world."
... In 2005, Flournoy signed onto a letter
from the neoconservative think tank Project for a New American Century, asking Congress to
"increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps (by) at least 25,000
troops each year over the next several years."
"social media is notorious for the way it creates tightly insulated echo chambers which
masturbate our confirmation bias and hide any information which might cause us cognitive
dissonance by contradicting it. Whole media careers were built on this phenomenon "
.
So-called "social" media is a cancer eating away at our humanity and our sense of community
with every passing moment. It is a devil's brew of the worst of human thought and behavior
that seeks to lower the level of human interaction with every click and toxic retort. It may
be the tool that actually does us in even more than the other big threats to our
existence.
.
"Splitting the public up into two oppositional factions who barely interact and can't even
communicate with each other because they don't share a common reality keeps the populace
impotent, ignorant, and powerless to stop the unfolding of the agendas of the powerful."
.
People today have short attention spans. They don't have any depth of thinking and they
certainly don't want shades of grey. The Dark Powers successfully exploit this weakness to
their benefit with little pushback from an easily amused public. Those who love simplicity
don't want anything more challenging and they certainly aren't the least bit concerned about
those who are actively doing them in.
.
"You should not be afraid of your government being too nice to China. What you should worry
about is the US-centralized power alliance advancing a multifront new cold war conducted
simultaneously against two nuclear-armed nations for the first time ever in human history.
"
.
We should indeed be concerned about Empires measuring the size of their manhoods against each
other but since that has nothing to do with reporting on our neighbors for not wearing masks
or the speed of our internet connections or the latest video of some fool acting the fool on
the web we won't be concerned about it. You gotta have priorities, you know.
It is a sad indictment on the state of the world if 80 million people vote for a man, who
although not as crazy as Trump, nevertheless poses a real threat to the rest of the
world.
Any way you look at it, democracy has failed us yet again.
JWK / NOVEMBER 24, 2020
Gang rape is democracy in action. It's a tool of the worst tyrants, convincing their
subjects they have a say in the matter. They don't. Both of the latest POTUS candidates are
the property of the bank cartel, and we will never see one that isn't. Not as long as we have
such a huge number of people being controlled by so few. The smaller the state, the more
control the people have over it. It gives them the only votes that are effective. Their feet,
and their wallet.
JWK / NOVEMBER 24, 2020
Gang rape is democracy in action. It's a tool of the worst tyrants, convincing their
subjects they have a say in the matter. They don't. Both of the latest POTUS candidates are
the property of the bank cartel, and we will never see one that isn't. Not as long as we have
such a huge number of people being controlled by so few. The smaller the state, the more
control the people have over it. It gives them the only votes that are effective. Their feet,
and their wallet.
Sharyl Attkisson on Big Tech Censorship: Sheep Are Happy to Live in Artificial Reality
132
J.
Scott Applewhite/AP Photo
ROBERT KRAYCHIK
24 Nov 2020
111
3:54
A homogenized news media industry seeks to impose its view of acceptable parameters of political discourse on the broader
public, Attkisson stated. She highlighted technology companies' reinforcement of news media perspectives through their
restriction of access to contrary information.
"The way those who want to shape and manipulate our opinion see it, they have to portray those who are not on board with the
narrative as somebody who's off the reservation [and] not to be believed," Attkisson said.
News media and big tech will "controversialize" dissidents challenging their orthodoxies, Attkisson stated.
"As the news has been yanked further and further left, we're portrayed as the right for simply being in the middle," Attkisson
remarked, "and this is part of the redefining of n
ews
and the information landscape today."
Bad faith news media manipulators have applied their tools to the online realm, Attkisson warned.
"The people who wanted to shape public opinion were very good in the past two decades at learning how to control the news
media and make sure that they control the terms of how we talk about a story, that we interview the right people, that we
don't talk about certain topics, and we use their talking points," Attkisson stated.
The political ascendance and election of President Donald Trump "frightened" news media manipulators, Attkisson determined.
Attkisson lamented that some news media consumers are "perfectly happy" to have social media companies and other technology
firms restrict their access to information while providing "fake fact checks."
"Sheep who don't do their own research" will trust self-appointed "fact-checkers" to inform them, added Attkisson.
Attkisson remarked, "When these powerful interests found they couldn't control information online after they had pretty much
had success doing it on the news, they got busy online and these are the same forces that are trying to make sure when you get
on social media or do a Google search, what you're going to be hit with is this artificial reality that they want you to
believe and see."
Increasingly aggressive big tech censorship reveals as a lack of fear on the part of technology companies regarding
consequences from either the public or government, Attkisson estimated.
"They were doing it in a fairly secretive way with algorithms and shaping searches and so on," Attkisson said, "but I feel
like there was a sense of desperation in those weeks before the election when these powerful interests sensed that there could
be a second President Trump term, and they began just stepping in and censoring things so overtly that there was no denying
it, and they didn't care that people saw outright that accounts were being cancelled, and these crazy labels were going on
factually correct information, or opinions but claiming were false. They didn't care, because they knew -- and they rightly
calculated -- that they wouldn't be held accountable for that before the election, and quite frankly, I think they won't be
held accountable for that after the election.
Attkisson identified the coronavirus outbreak as an intensely targeted subject by the news media and big tech partnership of
information control. She held that "powerful interests" have assembled a "very organized movement" to discredit journalists
asking "logical questions" about "certain aspects of the coronavirus."
Attkisson said journalists questioning ubiquitous news media coronavirus claims are derided as "coronavirus doubters."
Breitbart News Daily broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
Damn, Krystal dropping one of her classic heaters today: "Affirmative action is the type of program that poses little
threat and only benefits to affluent white liberals. It's the college admissions version of identity politics: more
about getting brown faces in high places to make WHITE people feel good than it is about actually addressing the very
real problems it seeks to ameliorate." - Krystal Ball
As a black person I hate to admit that I've bought into the BS all of this time but she is absolutely right. All of her
data is correct. AA is just a tool for bourgeoisie blacks to get into better schools. Period. Nothing else. Stop trying
to sell it as some saving grace that it is not. The point about student loans is exactly right. If you want to help a
ton of black people with college then do something about this BS student loan situation.
"White Saviors" is a way to say what we've been saying all along. Affirmative Action IS racist. You are saying that
someone needs help because of their skin color, as if that makes them inferior. Racist.
When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America, by Ira
Katznelson (W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2005), preface, appendix, index, 238 pp.
The Klintonator missed out on getting the position of Defense Secretary and the post of US
ambassador to the UN. Never mind, whatever she needs to know what Biden, then Harris is up
to, Jake Sullivan will send the information to her through his private email server.
When I read the Janet Yellen was the Treasury pick I shuddered a bit at the thought of an
almost all female leadership cast when the ship goes down....ah, the smell of patriarchy in
the morning
Watching the demise of our current empire in what seems to be slow motion is fascinating.
How long will it take to lose faith/control of the private monetary system? Given the
incoming foreign policy team it looks like continuation of failed policies of the past.
We can only hope that the rest of the world continues to build an alternative world than
the one proscribed by the dying empire of the West.
The BBC is something, but we have NBC News giving us another lesson of professional
journalism with this headline:
Russia chases off U.S. warship in spat over territorial waters
The confrontation was the latest in a string of close contacts between Russian and
American forces across the globe.
Maybe I do not understand some hidden message, but at first sight I would imagine maybe it
is the Bering Strait or somewhere in the middle of the Pacific or Atlantic Oceans, or across
the world, but no, it is just a few miles off Vladivostok. The distance from Seattle to
Vladivostok is almost five thousand miles, so we have a US destroyer five thousand miles from
home sniffing the Russians at about 10 miles from their main city and Pacific Ocean military
base, yeah its only a spat, and it is only freedom of navigation right in the kitchen of your
main rival. Keep it on USA, maybe one of these days you're going to have the Russians or
Chinese right by the Golden Gate Bridge or by Puget Sound enforcing free navigation for all.
One more detail, the US vessel was the destroyer John McCain, a true friend of Russia and
East Asia, or maybe the navy guys are just welcoming the new Biden team.
too bad trumps a vagina because if he had balls this problem would be easy enough to
solve. but this is why trump is a one and done - when he is dealt 4 aces he folds like
origami
FreemonSandlewould , 5 hours ago
Do tell. Easy?
Go ahead. List the steps. No hand waving. List the steps.
zerofucks , 5 hours ago
step 1. recall general mattis
step 2. use the UCMJ to demote him all the way down to private
step 3. PNG anyone in his family or any known friends from any/all govt work/contracts
step 4. transfer him to coords 100 miles out of nome, AK with a 45 and 8 rounds for an
entire winter.
And that coming from Trump who put APARTHEID Israel first
and did more for that racist country than he did for America.
zerofucks , 4 hours ago
Trump knee capped himself - on purpose
Once he bombed Syria 70ish days into his term he was done with MAGA
smellmyfingers , 5 hours ago
The banksters.
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I
spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the
bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I
helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues
in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall
Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in
1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in
1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927
I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.
Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to
operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents".
The musical Biden , translated from the original Ukrainian, replaced Hamilton
on Broadway despite the controversial Obama nude scene. America's largest industry remained
Patreon accounts as Etsy devolved into a market for the wealthy to purchase human organs.
The U.S. government is currently looking for a new place for a capitol building, because
after the move out of Washington to a Brooklyn WeWork prices have really gone up. Negotiations
to invite Canada in as a roommate to share the rent are underway.
The good news is the important things are still the same. Most decisions are still made by
the heads of the intel agencies when they meet at Jeff Bezos' house. American troops are still
in Afghanistan. And the Rolling Stones have announced their for sure this time final tour. Even
after a second civil war some things don't change.
MAA @maanow · Oct 3 "It is time for all members of our profession to acknowledge that
mathematics is created by humans and therefore inherently carries human biases. Until this
occurs, our community and our students cannot reach full potential." -CMPM #MathValues http://
bit.ly/3l86j2p
Is he talking about George Soros? George Bush? Or George Washington? Quote Tweet Laura
Ingraham @IngrahamAngle · Oct 26 "Four more years of George...George"
The first thing you'd expect from the plotter of a fascist coup is a directive for the
federal government to begin the transition process to his successor. Makes total sense!
Michael Tracey @mtracey Feeding
into maximalist Trump hysteria was always a great business move for most people in the media.
Unfortunately it had nothing to do with accurately describing reality. The idea that a
fascist coup was ever held up as a real possibility is fucking lunacy
Kamala Harris received preferences in her @Hastingslaw school application due to her "adverse
background." Interesting definition of disadvantaged, given that her mom had a Ph.D. and dad
was a Professor of Economics at Stanford University. https:// at.law.com/Wxd9w6?cmp=sha re_twitter
@Mark_J_Perry
Biden isn't even sworn in and journalists are barely even pretending to do anything other
than swooning and falling all over themselves in obsequious praise. Go easy, guys: you have 4
years of resting, deference and praise: don't burn yourselves out so soon. Pace yourselves.
Erich Fromm, the renowned German-Jewish social psychologist who was forced to flee his
homeland in the early 1930s as the Nazis came to power, offered a disturbing insight later in
life on the relationship between society and the individual.
In the mid-1950s, his book The Sane
Society suggested that insanity referred not simply to the failure by specific individuals
to adapt to the society they lived in. Rather, society itself could become so pathological, so
detached from a normative way of life, that it induced a deep-seated alienation and a form of
collective insanity among its members. In modern western societies, where automation and mass
consumption betray basic human needs, insanity might not be an aberration but the norm.
TTG,
yes, the Georgian foxes recounted the hens and determined that none were missing, just like
they said the first time. Hardly what one would call a true audit.
Hey, I have an idea! Ask the Department of Homeland Security, the NSA, and the FBI what
happened! They would know! They keep all of these records of electronic communications and
have insisted on back door entries into all of our technology, so they couldn't have possibly
left election software up to Venezuelans! They couldn't be that stupid!
AReply 220, were you OK with it when CIA intervened to keep Kerry out and Bush in?
First it's GOP dupes hiding behind Mommy CIA's skirts. Then it's Dem dupes hiding behind
Mommy CIA's skirts. Either way Mommy CIA takes you home and hangs you upside down and gives
you icewater enemas like you're Sybil.
@Justvisiting
"faithless" elector. Colorado, which had entered the Union that summer, did not even hold an
election. The legislature just gave their three electors to Hayes. (As they should have.)
Hayes needed every one of them to prevail.
Hayes was called "His Fraudulency", a name that fits Joe Biden even better. It's hard to
see how Tilden's side was any cleaner, though.
I think the disputed states should "compromise" and give electors to Jo Jorgensen. That
would deprive each side of a majority, sending the decision to the House. (And Senate, for
Pence and Harris.)
Another solution is to give the Vice Presidential electors to Pence. If no
presidential decision is made by Inauguration Day, he gets the nod one way or another.
The winning candidate will be issued little stickies for her computer screen including
"Russian Aggression", "Annexed Crimea" and "Poisoned the Skripals"
"Most people writing for the Times will actually not believe the above
nonsense."
Our host is much too charitable to the presstitutes. Those in the "Mockingbird"
mass media eat their own effluent like a sort of group ouroboric scatophagia. To maintain
their perverse form of "mental hygiene" they studiously avoid information sources
outside of their own circular reprocessing of yesterday's delusions into fresh steaming piles
for today's consumption. They have become so accustomed to feeding off their own delusions
that if a hint of reality were to intrude into their looped intellectual food chain their
minds would reject it like poison. They would likely exhibit physical symptoms, which
doubtless would be attributed to evil Soviet mind rays from Havana.
nice catch, b. at first I thought the ad was a frigging joke.
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence
clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary."
― H.L. Mencken, In Defense Of Women
Fear of russia and all hobgoblin things russian has been endemic/epidemic in the West
for well over 100 years, and I don't expect for it to change any time sooner.
to me all this fear mongering, for what else can you call it, is part and parcel of a
colonial mind-set and racism now well ingrained in the West since the European powers
became colonial powers around 1500 AD. It's xenophobia, racism and economic imperialism all
rolled into one.
Any nations who haven't been taken over yet politically, economically and culturally by
the US imperial Blob will be viciously attacked and lied about in the mainstream media
'narrative' to keep the general population fearful of those alternative systems/nations and
to make any military/economic warfare sanctions/coup d'etats/color revolutions by the Blob
against those nations justified. Psychological operations (aka through the media and social
media) will always precede the harsher measures.
And since the international Elites in the US Blob consider Russia the main threat to
their world wide hegemony, Russia gets a disproportionate number of lies, fabrications,
propaganda and disinformation thrown at it. Hence, the consistent lies by the NYT and WA
Post, etc etc
This week, photos surfaced of California Governor Gavin Newsom dining at one of the most
expensive restaurants in the world. He wasn't alone, and he wasn't in a mask.
Newsom was in a tightly packed, indoor room with a dozen other people. It was a birthday
party for longtime lobbyist Jason Kinney, and a number of California Medical Association
members attended. That's right, doctors described as "top brass" were in attendance and also
flouting the rules -- the same rules doctors and politicians have been demanding everyone else
comply with in the name of "science."
"There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to
fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president."
"So let's give another big tax cut to the super-rich. That'll teach bin Laden a lesson he
won't soon forget."
"The overwhelming popularity of President
Bush , in spite of everything, finally shows us what the American people, whom we have so
sentimentalized for so long, a la Norman Rockwell, really are, thanks to TV and purposely lousy
public schools: ignorant. Count on it!"
"The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don't
acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the
Democrats, instead."
"Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler."
"The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the
whole planet would be named Bush , Dick , and Colon."
"The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post
'Thou shalt not steal,' 'Thou shalt not commit adultery,' and 'Thou shalt not lie' in a
building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment."
"I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two
institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death."
"Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters
fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?"
"These days many politicians are demanding change. Just like homeless people."
"The owners of this country know the truth: It's called the American dream because you have
to be asleep to believe it."
"I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way: I don't vote. On Election Day, I
stay home. I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. Now, some people
like to twist that around. They say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain,' but
where's the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and
they get into office and screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You
voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who
did not vote -- who did not even leave the house on Election Day -- am in no way responsible
for what these politicians have done and have every right to complain about the mess that you
created."
As Trump
again signals that he intends in the lame-duck session to withdraw troops from Afghanistan,
this same united coalition is working desperately to block it. First, Democratic Senator Tammy
Duckworth of Illinois angrily condemned the withdrawal plan with deranged reasoning: that
Generals are against withdrawal (as though we have no civilian control of the military); troops
will come home "in body bags" not by staying in Afghanistan but by leaving it; and that
withdrawing U.S. forces after a mere nineteen years of fighting will endanger "our national
security."
Anyone who will not generate a bit of effort to get to the polls in timely fashion probably should not vote anyway.
The same imbeciles who camp out in front of a store overnight waiting for Black Friday sales or spend three days on line waiting
to buy concert tickets, are often the ones who claim that getting to the voting booth is too great an inconvenience.
We ought to have accommodations for seriously disabled citizens and for citizens who are outside the country ie. our people in
military service.
Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, says a President Trump "can't happen again," so a "bipartisan
committee," rather than voters, should "vet" and approve future candidates. Figliuzzi, who worked under Robert Mueller at the FBI,
made it clear during a Thursday appearance on MSNBC he buys into conspiracy theories about Donald Trump being influenced by the Russian
government, calling him Figliuzzi, who worked under Robert Mueller at the FBI, made it clear during a Thursday appearance on MSNBC
he buys into conspiracy theories about Donald Trump being influenced by the Russian government, calling him "the most vulnerable
president in history."
Figliuzzi's suggestion of giving a vague "committee" more power over the selection of presidential candidates than actual
voters has earned criticism from both liberals and conservatives on social media, with many seeing the idea as "scary" and
a step in the direction of countries where people have little power in who is put in power.
"Reminds me of Iran's Guardian Council, which has 12 members. The Guardian Council approves candidates for president and majlis
(Congress)," Huffington Post journalist Yashar Ali tweeted, adding, "Great idea, let's become like Iran that's going to turn
out well, I'm sure."
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Why are we continuing to train these Afghanis who then shoot our soldiers in the back?
Afghanistan is a complete waste. Time to come home! 4:05 PM
· Aug 21, 2012
Barack Obama @BarackObama
VP Biden on Afghanistan: "We are leaving in 2014. Period." 4:05am
· 12 Oct 2012
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
I agree with Pres. Obama on Afghanistan. We should have a speedy withdrawal. Why should we keep
wasting our money -- rebuild the U.S.! 9:59 PM
· Jan 14, 2013
Barack Obama @BarackObama
President Obama: "By the end of next year, our war in Afghanistan will be over." 3:58am
· 13 Feb 2013
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
We should leave Afghanistan immediately. No more wasted lives. If we have to go back in, we go
in hard & quick. Rebuild the US first. 8:10 PM
· Mar 1, 2013
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
We should have the small remaining number of our BRAVE Men and Women serving in Afghanistan
home by Christmas! 1:28
AM · Oct 8, 2020
In worst scenario, Mr Trump can move to Israel and take part in Israel president election.
After elected, he can control Washington again from Jerusalem!
I don't dare speak fir my colleagues, but I can't tell you how difficult it's been as a journalist to cover this dark part
of our history. Let's hope the attacks on journalists, journalism and EVERYONE end. Time to move into the light.
Threat inflation is like Apple pie among Washington swamp national security parasites
Notable quotes:
"... The US security state, with its huge military forces and techno-industrial base, and no diplomatic need nor capability, REQUIRES (fake) "security threats" in order to exist. ..."
"... Those appointed "threats" are currently, probably not changing soon, in some order of "threat-size" . . . ..."
Applying any logic to the "threats" against the US "national security" AKA world hegemony
becomes much simpler with recognizing two simple facts:
1. The US security state, with its huge military forces and techno-industrial base, and no
diplomatic need nor capability, REQUIRES (fake) "security threats" in order to exist.
2. Those appointed "threats" are currently, probably not changing soon, in some order of
"threat-size" . . .
China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela, & African
"terrorists" -- did I miss anyone?
The Huffington Post lauded Abrams's work driving
up turnout among minorities.
"Experts say Black voter turnout in Georgia during the 2020 election likely broke records,"
read captions of a three-minute video, only for the unnamed "experts" to be shown completely
off.
According to a subsequent analysis
of updated voter data from The New York Times Tuesday, the black share of Georgia's electorate
fell to its lowest level since 2006.
The race in Georgia, the Times explained, was decided primarily by demographic changes in
the suburban ring surrounding Atlanta, where Biden outperformed former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton among wealthy and well-educated suburbanites.
... "My heart is full," Abrams wrote as Biden took the lead the week of election day.
The amount of BS propaganda levels against the American by MSM is incredible and
unprecedented ever since I have lived here for over 48 years. Do everybody notice how all
dark clouds have gone and bad news have vanished, and rosy peacefully sunny days are ahead of
us based on daily coming good news, ever since Biden was elected by all the dead voters.
We found out two very viable working vaccines, more people wearing mask and social
distance. Financial crises are over. We sent our own rocket to space station. We successfully
intercepted ICBMs, etc.etc. So we should learn, everything now is going good , we should put
our differences away, come together in a peaceful way and all help to transfer power
peacefully to Biden like good citizens our funding fathers (fogers) wanted us to be.
The recommendations of the State Department paper
listed by Axios are not practical steps but pure ideology:
The blueprint: The paper lays out "ten tasks" for the U.S. to accomplish.
Promoting constitutional government and civil society at home.
Maintaining the world's strongest military.
Fortifying the rules-based international order.
Reevaluating its alliance system.
Strengthening its alliance system and creating new international organizations to
promote democracy and human rights.
Cooperating with China when possible and constraining Beijing when appropriate.
Educating Americans about the China challenge.
Train a new generation of public servants who understand great-power competition with
China.
Reforming the U.S. education system to help students understand the responsibility of
citizenship in a complex information age.
Championing the principles of freedom in word and in deed.
Note especially the points 7 to 10.
They have nothing to do with China. They call for domestic propaganda, more domestic
propaganda and even more domestic propaganda.
Compare with Kennan characterization of Soviets in 1946:
Kennan described dealing with Soviet
Communism as "undoubtedly greatest task our diplomacy has ever faced and probably
greatest it will ever have to face". In the first two sections, he posited concepts that
became the foundation of American Cold War policy:
The Soviets perceived themselves at perpetual war with capitalism;
The Soviets viewed left-wing, but non-communist, groups in other countries as an even
worse enemy of itself than the capitalist ones;
The Soviets would use controllable Marxists in the capitalist world as
allies;
Soviet aggression was fundamentally not aligned with the views of the Russian people or with
economic reality, but rooted in historic Russian nationalism and
neurosis ;
The Soviet government 's
structure inhibited objective or accurate pictures of internal and external reality.
b's 5 bullet points covering Keenan presumptions lends itself to substitution of Soviet /
communism w/ Global Corporatist Oligarchy ... not aligned with wishes of citizenry, not
democratic, not aligned with reality, etc.
I do agree that Kennan's "long telegram" was misconstrued by the NatSec loons of the time
to justify what they wanted to do. But that is no surprise, that is how US politics works.
It's has always been a racket.
I don't know. The language Kennan used is too vague to make any specific conclusions.
The center-left certainly hated the USSR more than they hated capitalism. Indeed, it was
the intellectuals from the center-left - not the right - who created the term
"totalitarianism" as we know today.
..the New York Times -- Pravda West -- in the run-up to the election informed the nation via
Twitter that it would be the media that would call the winner of the 2020 election, even before
the votes were counted, certified, and sent to the Electoral College.
"The role of declaring the winner of a presidential election in the U.S. falls to the
media," the Democrat propaganda sheet masquerading as a newspaper proclaimed, falsely.
It later deleted the tweet and issued a sheepish "apology" for "referring imprecisely to the
role of the news media. [It] projects winners and reports results; it does not declare the
winner of the election."
It has been fascinating to see both Republicans and Democrats denounce Trump on this. NPR
yesterday was in full-on war propagation mode, all of it's "experts" warning how dangerous a
withdrawal would be. Nary a mention anywhere that we have been there for 19 years, more
mocking Trump for "what he calls never-ending wars."
Like I told a liberal I know, recently. when he was complaining how Republicans were
destroying Democracy - why so sour? You won, remember? Now take heart, the Democratic Party,
major media and the Intelligence Community will be in sync restoring Democracy.
I wonder if we made it illegal for weapons/security contractors to trade their stock in
the markets, if most of this full throated support for war amongst our elite would
evaporate?
The interesting part is that the condemnation of Trump is coupled with "we're on the cusp
of victory" talk. America has been on the cusp of victory in Afghanistan multiple times, it
seems.
The Obama surge was prompted by General McChrystal's representations back in 2009 that the
war was winnable with more troops. In excess of 100,000 troops by 2011 was not sufficient to
achieve victory. The war then became an exercise in Afghan self-determination and honorable
withdrawal, reminiscent of "Vietnamization." This has been going on for nine years with, by
all accounts, the Taliban increasing its control of the country. There is no doubt that a
final withdrawal of U.S. troops would be a repeat of Saigon 1975.
Interestingly, the war morphed from removing Al Qaeda, propping up the Kabul government,
and defeating the Taliban, to being a protracted counter-narcotic operation. Given the
feudalistic realities of Afghan society, creating a Taliban-free, central government
controlled Afghanistan based upon western concepts is not a reality.
There is no doubt as to Afghanistan's strategic importance based upon its location and
resources. At the very least, those who condemn Trump for wanting to withdraw U.S. troops
from Afghanistan can be honest about why we are still there, although it's not a mystery in
geopolitical terms.
So, in Rubio's worldview Saigon would be better today if it were still occupied by
American soldiers. This imperialistic gene has to be eradicated from within these
Establishment armchair warriors. Our election of Donald Trump was a first raising of the hand
to say..stop. Stop it. Your time is through.
And now, since Democrats have flipped from freedom-loving liberals to authoritarian
leftists, they are united with the neo-con Republicans to keep imperialism alive and
prospering. America will soon come to understand that they've made a huge blunder in
replacing the one that has both the power and the will to turn us around. Only by electing
more Donald J. Trumps will the fever finally be broken.
Its remarkable only for its fervent nationalistic delusion. The claim that the US Covid-19 response demonstrates that the US can "tolerate casualties"
is one of the most asinine statements I have ever read. All that it proves is that the US is
shockingly incompetent. Incompetence is not generally viewed as a strength.
it's so interesting when people pretend to be ignorant when it is useful to them. I
thought that was a specific American trait. So let's give the answer to the author asking the
question:
Once the Americans are indoctrinated into hating China, they will be willing to go to war
with China and will be willing to accept what the government will do in the name of "fighting
China".
Same how the Americans were indoctrinated into hating Soviet Union and Communism
during the 50s and 60s and 70s.
The government then can throw as much money into the military
in the name of "fighting China" and the Americans will be fine with it.
Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah thinks that the U.S. needs to keep troops in Afghanistan and Iraq,
stating that even after 20 years of a military presence there, "conditions for withdrawal have
not been met."
"The decision to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, and potentially elsewhere
should not be based on a U.S. political calendar," Romney said in a statement. "The
Administration has yet to explain why reducing troops in Afghanistan -- where conditions for
withdrawal have not been met -- is a wise decision for our national security interests in the
region."
If most Zionists are 'liberal', 'anti-racist', and for equal justice, how come they don't
insist to Americans, "Hey, stop favoring Zionist Israel over Palestinians and Iran. That is
'racist' and unfair. Equal treatment for all!"
and don't look for any sanity in the incoming Administration either, especially from mass
murderers in pumps such as Michele Flournoy and Susan Rice (and where is Samantha Power these
days?)
According to The New York Times, President Trump asked his advisors if he had options to
attack Iran's main nuclear site but was talked out of pulling the trigger. Four anonymous
officials told the Times that Trump discussed the options at a meeting in the Oval Office on
Thursday......
The problem with this essay is that there is Left in the USA, only various shades of Right
:-). And "identity politics" is used as a wedge to split the working class and make is less
dangerous for financial oligarchy.
Traditional Left Ideology sets out a vision of how the world 'ought to be.' The Left's view
can be summed up as the belief that social justice is the primary requirement for improving the
world, and that this better future entails the pursuit of equality in various forms. The Left
ideologist believes that it is both ethical and moral to attempt to approach equality in terms
of civil rights and material wealth.
But if the Left focuses on 'what could be,' the Right focuses on 'what is.' If the Left
operates where people 'could be,' the Right operates where people 'are' or at least, where they
believe themselves to be. The Right does not aim to change human social reality...
Left ideology, accordingly, is shaped like a 'dream.' Aiming for what 'ought to be' rather
than 'what is' induces a level of utopian illusory detachment and depicts a phantasmal
egalitarian world often removed from our abusive, oppressive and doomed reality. In this
phantasmic future, people will just drift away from greed and gluttony, they will work less and
learn to share, even to share that which they may not possess to start with.
This imaginary 'dream' helps explain why the (Western) Left's ideology rarely appealed to
the struggling classes; the masses, consumed by the pursuit of bread and butter, were hardly
going to be interested in utopian 'dreams' or futuristic social experiments. Bitten by the
daily struggle and chased by existence, working people have never really subscribed to 'the
revolution,' usually because they were just too busy working. This perhaps explains why so
often it was the middle-class and bourgeois agitators who became revolutionary icons. It was
they who had access to that little bit extra to fund their revolutionary adventures.
The 'Left dream' is certainly appealing, perhaps a bit too appealing. Social justice,
equality and even revolution may really be nothing but the addictive rush of effecting change
and this is perhaps why hard-core Leftist agitators often find it impossible to wake from their
social fantasy of transformation. They simply refuse to admit that reality has slipped from
their grasp, preferring to remain in their cozy phantasmal and delusional universe, shielded by
ghetto walls built from archaic terminology and political correctness.
In fact, the more appealing and convincing the revolutionary fantasy is, the less its
supporters are willing to be awaken by reality....
... ... ...
... political Left has failed on so many fronts: it was daydreaming when the service economy
was introduced, and it did not awaken when production and manufacturing were eviscerated. It
yawned when it should have combated corporate culture, big money and its worship, and it dozed
when higher education became a luxury. The Left was certainly snoring noisily when, one after
the other, its institutions were conquered by 'New Left' Identitarian politics.
It is most important to point at the contemporary American so-called 'Left' that was deeply
asleep when the American working classes drifted away to the Republican party. The American
Left was so deeply consumed by its 'revolutionary fantasy' that it didn't notice the
embarrassing fact that an abrasive multi-billionaire real estate tycoon morphed into a populist
revolutionary icon for hard-working people. The American Left was so thrilled by its
self-worship that it pretended not to see that its entire operation was practically sustained
by Wall Street tycoons and globalists of the worst type. The American Left has become a
controlled opposition apparatus. It practically went to bed with the bitterest enemies of peace
and justice let alone anything that resembles 'social justice' and human harmony.
This article was obviously composed by someone on the right, while dreaming. Dreaming that
the right are realists, really? Where is the$21 trillion from the Pentagon? Where was the
right when the entire nation was under house arrest and falsely imprisoned? Were they
dreaming that people would believe that people would believe the health scare scamdemic was
responsible for a banana republic economy that uses fraud as a business model under those who
claim to be conservative, but still somehow always manage to increase the national debt even
more than the Democrats? Were they believing that living under false arrest in house arrest
is the conservative American way of life? ...
According to that link, at least part of the votes were counted using the software of a
Spanish company with servers in Germany, and based on the votes of a machine made in China
and sold by a Canadian company.
Why does anyone think that the guy who authored the 1994 Violent
Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act , which led to the mass incarceration of
Black American men"super predators" , the privatization of prisons,
and the ramping up of the "school-to-prison pipeline , is any kind of godsend for
Black Americans?
Judging by actions, Trump should be seen as a champion of racial equality in
comparison to Biden.
They should bring in all new counters and have them start right after watching all the
previous counters get beaten with baseball bats for screwing up. That would probably help
accuracy.
Glenn Greenwald
@ggreenwald 'This is endlessly amazing: Brazil, a huge country, has nationwide municipal elections
today. Voting is mandatory. *All* votes will be counted & released by tonight.'
Ah, I see the problem here. The difference is that Brazil is a Third World nation that is
kept that way by morons such as Bolsanaro. America, on the other hand, is being turned into a
Third World nation because the elite is seeing a profit in doing so.
the dims are in deep trouble in ga. the hand count can't be cheated on as much as a
dominion machine can cheat so the turnaround in votes may be astonishing. because it is so
mathematically impossible to have a count vary so much from the machine count that the
machines will definitely be blamed for the vote discrepancy and all dominion machine votes in
the usa will have to audited.
i hope i am right.
philmannwright , 3 hours ago
dont "count" on it. if there was a plan to cheat the count, there is a plan to cheat a
recount, too.
The interesting question is whether Trump (a highly flawed candidate who brought us a
bigger banker bailout than Bush/Obama by far) is going to finally wake up middle America to
the fact that elections don't matter.
The names "Biden" and "Trump" have the same number of letters, so it very difficult to
them apart!
Propaganda Phil , 2 hours ago
B and T do rhyme with one another. I mean who can blame them?
wild dog , 2 hours ago
The folks I saw counting votes in Georgia probably cant read.
Peace_and_Love , 3 hours ago
So, they need to stop the whole effing process and start over, and have every damned vote
verified by both parties, with video recording the damned process.
"Biden's call to host "a global summit for democracy".
This from a man who just stole what was supposed to be a democratic election. The
hypocrisy of Biden and his minders knows no bounds.
dustinwind , 1 hour ago
So Biden plans on bending over grabbing his ankles and leading from behind like Obama did.
I'm not surprised.
not dead yet , 1 hour ago
Obama never led from behind. He just put that out there in case things went belly up. I
believe Obomber said that during the Libya "liberation" where all the NATO "allies" ran out
of bombs after a couple of days and the US had to supply them. None of these countries were
equipped to do war so it was all on the US for intelligence and coordination plus the
ordinance.
Most Americans would rather watch America's Got Talent, Dancing With The Stars or The
Masked Singer than be informed about important issues.
With the gaslighting media and newspapers doing the informing they are better off
consuming mindless entertainment than consuming lies upon lies. Even the net these days would
be near useless if not for comments sections as far as helping you inform yourself on
important issues.
[Biden] has on more than one occasion regaled audiences with a tale about his father
telling him that "You don't need to be a Jew to be a Zionist".
His reminiscences of his father need not be taken too seriously. He also tells the story
of him and his dad seeing two homosexuals kissing each other when he was a teenager. When
asked by his son what was going on, Biden Sr explained: "It's because they love each other".
Exactly what you'd expect a middle-aged Catholic used car dealer to say to his son 60 years
ago.
Nixon's secretary of state and the arch realist of Washington has given his blessing to the
former vice president. Let the bombs fall where they may...
No matter what happens in the Supreme Court, Joe Biden will always have Henry Kissinger.
The oldest-living war
criminal – Kissinger, not Biden – has made clear his preference for the oldest
living senator (Biden claimed during the campaign he'd been in the Senate for 180 years) and
perhaps come January the oldest ever president to take the oath.
Saturday during an appearance on FNC's "Justice," Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) questioned why
Democrats oppose any investigations into the integrity of the presidential election, despite
their past efforts on the 2016 presidential election.
The Ohio Republican congressman reminded Fox News viewers that Democrats dedicated for years
to the "Russia hoax" but do not want to allow four weeks for an investigation into this year's
presidential election.
How can there be a constitutional crisis when neither party, nor any federal or local law
enforcement, actually recognizes the constitution any more? It's absurd.
+ Biden surrogate John Kasich on CNN this week: "The Democrats have to make it clear to the
far-left that they almost cost him this election." Should be pointed out that with Kasich as
his political consultant, Biden lost Ohio by nearly 9 percent.
+ Of course, the Democratic elites been trying to ritually purge the party of its leftist
ranks since at least 1985, when in the aftermath of the Mondale defeat, Bill Clinton, Al Gore
and Joe Biden formed the Democratic Leadership Council. And the leftists they most wanted to
purge at the time (with the possible exception of Ralph Nader) were Jesse Jackson and his
multi-ethnic, working-class Rainbow Coalition. Instead of embracing the promise of Jackson's
remarkable movement, they moved to crush it, so that they could transform the party into a
hospitable receptacle for Wall Street money.
+ If there's anything that lends a fractal of credence to Trump's voter fraud conspiracy
it's that Biden appears to have won, while the Dems failed to take the Senate and nearly lost
the House. How bad do candidates have to be for people to vote for Biden & not them? Plenty
bad, mon, plenty bad
+ If the senate ends up in a 50/50 split after the Georgia runoffs, Joe Manchin is the most
likely Democratic senator to bolt to the Republicans. On the most important issues,
he already has : "Defund the police? Defund, my butt. I'm a proud West Virginia Democrat.
We are the party of working men and women. We want to protect Americans' jobs & healthcare.
We do not have some crazy socialist agenda, and we do not believe in defunding the police."
+ Though he may have commanded one of his serfs to read it for him, there's no question of
Trump's tiny fingers ever flipping through the pages of Machiavelli, but he acts out his
principles of power at a gut level. Biden's probably read The Prince twice, yet shows scant
evidence of even the vaguest understanding the book's most basic political messages.
+ Isn't the only rationale for Kamala Harris that in moments like this she can play the role
of a legal hard-ass? Yet, as Trump, Barr and McConnell move on different fronts to delegitimize
the election, she's MIA. (Biden is still waiting by the phone for his old buddy Mitch to call
)
+ I can understand having your presidency undermined by the Deep State. But to have your
election overturned by Trump's Superficial State? That would take some serious incompetence
from the Biden team, which they're certainly capable of
+ If Biden gets Evo'd by the Superficial State and goes into exile in Ireland, will Bernie
run again, giving his Sandernistas the chance to prove their persistent claim that "he would've
won"?
+ The Spartans had two kings serving at once, both equally war-like. We could be headed
there
+ Speaking of the "common good," there's an open cell at Abu Ghraib with your name on it,
Condi
+ Kellyanne Conway in November 2016: "They have to decide whether they're going to interfere
with him finishing his business, interfere with a peaceful transition. They're going to be a
bunch of cry babies and sore losers about an election that they can't turn around."
+ Though he may have commanded one of his serfs to read it for him, there's no question of
Trump's tiny fingers ever flipping through the pages of Machiavelli, but he acts out his
principles of power at a gut level. Biden's probably read The Prince twice, yet shows scant
evidence of even the vaguest understanding the book's most basic political messages.
+ Isn't the only rationale for Kamala Harris that in moments like this she can play the role
of a legal hard-ass? Yet, as Trump, Barr and McConnell move on different fronts to delegitimize
the election, she's MIA. (Biden is still waiting by the phone for his old buddy Mitch to call
)
+ I can understand having your presidency undermined by the Deep State. But to have your
election overturned by Trump's Superficial State? That would take some serious incompetence
from the Biden team, which they're certainly capable of
+ If Biden gets Evo'd by the Superficial State and goes into exile in Ireland, will Bernie
run again, giving his Sandernistas the chance to prove their persistent claim that "he would've
won"?
+ The Spartans had two kings serving at once, both equally war-like. We could be headed
there
+ Speaking of the "common good," there's an open cell at Abu Ghraib with your name on it,
Condi
+ Kellyanne Conway in November 2016: "They have to decide whether they're going to interfere
with him finishing his business, interfere with a peaceful transition. They're going to be a
bunch of cry babies and sore losers about an election that they can't turn around."
From comments "Creepy Joe tries to steal the election and we're supposed to heal?", "This
Deep State bullshit has been going on for decades continually getting worse.", "Pretty much every
large city is Democrat run, even in "red" states."
I'm reminded of the scene in the (true-story) movie BOYS DON'T CRY where Brandon Teena
(played by Hilary Swank) is raped by two men she knows, and afterwards one of them puts his
arm around her and says, "We're still friends?"
"It's nothing new for political religions to produce radicals that develop their own sects
or cults. This time around, rigid devotion to enforcing mask compliance has produced runaway
fanaticism based on nothing but blind faith that more mask-wearing is always better . Even the
public health experts, whom these followers all promoted as great prophets just months ago,
can't tame their fervor.
That's a problem, because a return to normalcy will require subduing radical factions that
agitate for oppression. Restrictions such as mask mandates are like oxygen to followers of
radical fundamentalist Covidianism -- the abiding belief that only lockdowns, social
distancing, and masks can deliver us from the deadly pandemic. The longer mandates stay in
place and experts continue promoting mask use -- "My mask protects you! Your mask protects me!"
-- the stronger and more widespread the extremism will grow, and the less influence experts
will have over their behavior.
The evidence is abundant, but consider these three cases of radical Covidianism and how they
trace back to an abandonment of the scientific standards necessary to maintain public health
and a functioning society." The Federalist
-------------
Yes. IMO this has gotten very much out of hand and Covidianism is launched as a basis and
justification for government/fanatic control of our lives and very way of life. The ever
present hyper-ambitious politicos and civil servants see in this pandemic an opportunity to
impose control and often do so for the mere purpose of training and conditioning the populace
to the acceptance of government authority in all things.
They have now reached a level of ambition at which they are so bold as to forbid the
ancestral tradition of the practice of a family reunion and feast on Thanksgiving Day. The
rulers know quite well that the restrictions they wish to impose in California, New York and
other satrapies will kill the tradition, but the masses will, in the minds of the autocrats, be
better off without it, as are sheep in their fold. Baa! pl
"... Meanwhile, the GloboCap propaganda has reached some new post-Orwellian level. After four long years of "RUSSIA HACKED THE ELECTION!" now, suddenly, "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ELECTION FRAUD IN THE USA!" ..."
And, of course, the most important thing is, racism in America is over again!
Yes, that's right, folks, no more racism kiss all those Confederate monuments goodbye! The
Democrats are back in the White House! According to sources, the domestic staff are already
down in the West Wing basement looking for that MLK bust that Trump
ordered removed and desecrated the moment he was sworn into office. College kids are
building pyres of racist and potentially racist books, and paintings, and films, and other
degenerate artworks. Jussie
Smollet can finally come out of hiding .
... No, this is a time for looking ahead to the Brave New Global-Capitalist
Normal , in which everyone will sit at home in their masks surfing the Internet on their
toasters with MSNBC playing in the background well, OK, not absolutely everyone. The affluent
will still need to fly around in their private jets and helicopters, and take vacations on
their yachts, and, you know, all the usual affluent stuff. But the rest of us won't have to go
anywhere or meet with anyone in person, because our lives will be one never-ending Zoom meeting
carefully monitored by official fact-checkers to ensure we're not being "misinformed" or
exposed to "dangerous conspiracy theories" which could potentially lead to the agonized deaths
(or the mild-to-moderate flu-like
illnesses ) of hundreds of millions of innocent people.
... Meanwhile, the GloboCap propaganda has reached some new post-Orwellian level. After
four long years of "RUSSIA HACKED THE ELECTION!" now, suddenly, "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS
ELECTION FRAUD IN THE USA!"
... Call it the "New Normal," or whatever you want. Pretend "democracy has triumphed" if you
want. Wear your mask. Mask your children. Terrorize them with pictures of "death trucks," tales
of "Russian hackers" and "white supremacist terrorists."
After four long years of "RUSSIA HACKED THE ELECTION!" now, suddenly, "THERE IS NO SUCH
THING AS ELECTION FRAUD IN THE USA!"
Why this is not getting more attention I do not know. It was just the other day when
Russia, Iran, and China were influence pedaling of disinformation trying to sway election
results. Facebook was censoring/deleting on a constant basis trying to stem the flow of
fraudulent information from the evil commies.
Well... he started it after his son's death from cancer but when the millions started pouring
in he suddenly realized that none of that will bring his son back and all other cancer
patients will have to cope as best they can anyway, so he told himself: "Gosh, darn it, might
as well live well." His family agreed. Pfizer also agreed. Detractors try to make this into
something objectionable but really, it is just a very touching family story."
Again, there is something exquisitely delicious about Trump's defeat. After all, Joe Biden
has been a colossal loser, not only for his wretched foreign and domestic policy record -- for
example, his work on behalf of the credit card industry, support for the Iraq war, his Zionism,
his sponsorship of the 1994 federal crime bill, and paving the way for Clarence Thomas -- but
also in running unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination twice, once in 1988
and again in 2008.
Therein lies my euphoria. Donald Trump's nightmare, something totally unacceptable to him,
is losing. What could be any worse for him than losing to a loser?
Missy Beattie has written for National Public Radio and Nashville Life Magazine. She was
an instructor of memoirs writing at Johns Hopkins' Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in
Baltimore. Email: [email protected]
Here is a view of our Great Leader, also from an alternative media source (CP). Isn't this what the UNZ Review is all about?
Different perspectives from alternative sources?:
"His mountainous orange hairpiece askew, purse strings tightening round his tiny puckered mouth, the sad friendless, cretinous,
semi-literate, misogynistic, homophobic, islamophobic, xenophobic, closet racist, white supremacist and neo-Nazi, and flat-out
serial-lying flabby ignoramus who cannot laugh and can hardly smile, applauds himself as he appears on stage, a waddling catalogue
of psychotic disorders, a paranoid, delusional, self-obsessed, egotistical, schizophrenic, narcissistic, sociopathic con man,
whose miniature mouth really does resemble an asshole. I challenge you to juxtapose close-ups of the two and try to tell the
difference."
They should understand this much earlier ;-) Fake opposition to Clinton-controlled MSM like
CNN. It's a big club and you are not in it. And your interests neither.
'Fox News sucks!': Trump supporters decry channel as it declares Biden wins
In Arizona, pro-Trump demonstrators who massed outside an election facility in Phoenix chanted: "Fox News sucks!"
The rightwing network, owned by Rupert Murdoch and built up by the late Roger Ailes, was once so closely aligned with Trump that
many observers said it functioned as "state media".
As Trump has feuded with Fox, he has lavished more praise on OAN, tweeting last
year that it "is doing incredible reporting".
@TheTrumanShow 0 votes and that fake story was given as the reason why.
They went for a softer approach in KY in 2019. The first-term Repub Gov had a Yankee's
forthrightness so they just latched onto comments he made regarding the underfunded teachers
pension program and amped-it to high heaven getting teachers all in a frightful frenzy.
In that solidly Red state, with all other prominent offices on the ballot (AG, SoS, etc.)
going overwhelmingly Repub , somehow the Repub Gov loses to the Dem by around 5000
votes. The "teachers pension" narrative was rolled-out as the reason. (Btw, it seems that
Dominion, or another type, software was used to switch the votes in that race. I've seen
video about it.)
I believe that US are truthful when they talk about "free" elections. Theoretically, the
only way you can get something "free" in life is – if you steal it, or if somebody
gives you something as a gift.
This "election" has fulfilled both of these 2 criteria. First
the deep state stole the election from Trump and then they presented it as a gift to Biden.
So it's all good. It was a free election for Biden, Trump got robbed – but hey, you
can't please everybody.
As Joe Biden's camp continues to
try and walk back talk of another national lockdown, Democratic leaders are once again
exhibiting via their behavior that social distancing restrictions and lockdown rules are "for
thee and not for me."
Kathy Boockvar, a Democrat has denied claims there is fraud or irregularities in her
state.
It's very irregular to deny poll watchers the right to view ballots being counted you
POS
synthetically derived , 3 hours ago
"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the
illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just
take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs
out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater."
― Frank Zappa
"... You are what's called a usefull idiot. The GOP doesn't care about anyone but Israel and the elites on Wall street. Every 4 years the GOP pretends to care about poor white people and they show some colored people to show "look we are not racist." ..."
"... The problem with Magatards like you is the inability to separate fantasy with reality. ..."
"... Let's all just stop pretending we don't live in a fucking banana republic and move on. ..."
The former ambassador to Russia under the Obama Administration, Michael McFaul, presumably
knows a lot about Color Revolutions, since his boss used him in Ukraine in 2014. McFaul, who
was also instrumental in the Russia-Gate disinformation campaign against Trump, also
authored, "7 Pillars of ColorRevolution,"
As this historic election continues, reporting and further analysis will highlight daily
events and their parallels that already warn that these seven pillars are seemingly right in
place here in America, as they were in the examples Ukraine, Bolivia and Venezuela, at
least.
The initial step in each example has been to use a national election as the reason for a
razor-thin and disputed vote result, one that the media stirs into a frenzy on both sides: A
frenzy so viscous that the result becomes massive civil unrest followed next by violence.
And then military intervention.
In this, the first seventy-two hours of news from the election battleground of America 2020,
this first step of a media fabricated victor, of which the other side detests and alleges
criminal behavior, would seem in play.
You are what's called a usefull idiot. The GOP doesn't care about anyone but
Israel and the elites on Wall street. Every 4 years the GOP pretends to care about poor white
people and they show some colored people to show "look we are not racist."
But to say the GOP really cares what everyone thinks and is inclusive to a fault is
ridiculous. How brainwashed are you?
The problem with Magatards like you is the inability to separate fantasy with reality. You
really think Trump is the god emperor who is fighting pedophiles and you will believe
anything other Trumptards throw up on YouTube.
Lol at the GOP by definition being conservative. Trump is a liberal who grew the size of
the government.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS)'s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
on Thursday concluded that the Nov. 3 election "was the most secure in American history,"
saying that "election officials are reviewing and double checking the entire election process
prior to finalizing the result."
Mr. Bones , 5 hours ago
Nov. 3 election "was the most secure in American history
It's a disturbing thought, but this doesn't exclude the possibility that there was
pervasive fraud.
Oilwatcher , 4 hours ago
I'm thinking the DHS Cybersecurity Office may not understand how paper mail in ballots
work.
Vote fraud is as American as apple pie. Just remember how JFK and George W. Bush managed to
sneak into the White House. America has always bee a banana republic, now it has just become
more evident.
"The difference, however, is that that was all bullshit."
But, as the programmer Alberto Brandolini is reputed to have said: "The amount of energy
necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it." This is the
unbearable asymmetry of bullshit .
Apparently disregarding Facebook's public-facing image as a fierce opponent of election
meddling by entities not legitimately involved in the political process, Zuckerberg dived into
the fray during a Thursday company-wide town hall, according to an audio of the meeting first
obtained by
Buzzfeed and later confirmed by
CNBC .
"I believe the outcome of the election is now clear and Joe Biden is going to be our next
president," Zuckerberg reportedly told the assembled crowd. "It's important that people
have confidence that the election was fundamentally fair, and that goes for the tens of
millions of people that voted for Trump."
The Democratic party reminds me of the Catholic church covering up child sex abusers. They
deny the crimes, but just continue doing it till they cant anymore
One more thing. Remember those US vassal states (Europeans and others US stooges) that
congratulated Juan Guaidó, as President of Venezuela (with Zilch support from the
people of Venezuela), they are congratulating Biden.
This 'election' seems to have unleashed an army of Dem Party Zombies. Of course the whole
'election' was filled with fake votes. It's plain as day. Watching these insane Dem Party
Zombies is disturbing to normal people. Both of the 'parties' obviously suck big time. I
would tell the Zombies to get real, but it's pointless.
I fought against voting 'machines' for years. I can see what is going on. Millions of
people are actually zombies.
Or Biden could simple announce that his first action as president will be a full
investigation of any alleged voter fraud and that he would - of course - immediately step
down should the investigation find that he has no majority. And then actually do an honest
investigation.
"... Thus, Trump has every right, indeed, the obligation to pursue this to the very end. If he does still lose, he must spend the next four years demonizing the Biden Administration. ..."
Back then, the vote totals were "incomplete," but the Supreme Court decided the contest
anyway.
Thus, Trump has every right, indeed, the obligation to pursue this to the very end. If
he does still lose, he must spend the next four years demonizing the Biden
Administration.
That 'new' rule is courtesy of Her Royal Highness Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Sauce for differently gendered flying fowl and all.
@KDKA look at these 200 years old
people that voted smh. This is all types of fraud, and they put it out for the public to see!
And this is only a small amount of them, the list goes on ..... how ya'll cant see this is
beside me
For perhaps the first time in American history, a coordinated effort to taint or overturn a presidential election may be
underway https:// trib.al/rMxYlDj
When democrats lose, it's the Russians. When democrats win, you must immediately accept the outcome of the election even if
it's going to court and getting contested over multiple incidents of impropriety, irregularities and fraud.
They're all about election integrity - where election integrity means election victory.
"New normal" as in: having Dominion software flip votes from Trump to Biden, corporate
media doing a witch hunt on Trump for 5 years, MSM lying about everything from George Floyd
not dying from a drug overdose, MSM literally fanning the flames to incite a race war? I
could go on.
By C. J. Hopkins , award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His dystopian novel, ' Zone 23 ', is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. His essays and other works can be found at,
and he can be reached via, cjhopkins.com
or consentfactory.org . OK, so,
that was not cool. For one terrifying moment there, it actually looked like GloboCap was going
to let Russian-Asset Hitler win.
Hour after hour on election night, states on the map kept turning red, or pink, or some
distinctly non-blue color. Wisconsin Michigan Georgia Florida. It could not be happening, and
yet it was. What other explanation was there? The Russians were stealing the election
again!
But, of course, GloboCap was just playing with us. They're a bunch of practical jokers,
those GloboCap guys. Naturally, they couldn't resist the chance to wind us up just one more
time.
Seriously, though, while I enjoy a good prank, I still have a number of liberal friends,
many of whom were on the verge of suffering major heart attacks as they breathlessly waited for
the corporate media to confirm that they had successfully voted a literal
dictator out of power. (A few of them suffer from IBS or other gastrointestinal disorders,
so, in light of the current toilet-paper shortage caused by the Return of the Apocalyptic
Plague, toying with them like that was especially cruel.)
But, whatever. That's water under the bridge. The good news is, the nightmare is
over! Literal Hitler and his underground army of Russia-loving white supremacists have been
vanquished! Decency has been restored! Globalization has risen from the
dead!
... ... ..
Meanwhile, the GloboCap propaganda has reached some new post-Orwellian level. After four
long years of "RUSSIA HACKED THE ELECTION!" now, suddenly, "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS
ELECTION FRAUD IN THE USA!"
That's right, once again, millions of liberals, like that scene in ' 1984' where the
Party switches official enemies right in the middle of the Hate-Week speech, have been ordered
to radically reverse their "reality," and hysterically deny the existence of the very
thing they have been hysterically alleging for four solid years and they are actually doing
it!
... ... ///
Marian1637 7 hours ago
I can not comprehend
that democrats do not blame Putin for Biden winning!
Reilly 3 hours ago
Very funny, bravo!
Nothing like a bit of slapstick, with a dose of reality also in the middle of a waking
nightmare about to happen. ;))
DeoGratias 4 hours ago
One correction : it is not GloboCap it is
GloboComs. The objective of communism is to create two classes of a society : rulers and
workers. Thus GloboCaps are GloboComs.
Winter7Mute 5 hours ago
A reliable way to make people
believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished
from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact. I'm not even
sure if most journalists or reporters know what their even talking about, when writing these
articles.
Vidarr Kerr 5 hours ago
There is such a thing as Too Much Sarcasm.
EarthBotV2 Vidarr Kerr 4 hours ago
I disagree. The liberazi "thinks" with the gut -- as in "What does your gut tell you?"...
I am following the Australian media from outside Australia. I notice the familiar
repetitive propaganda technique used to sell messages in the media to the gullible and
uneducated public. It's all in a word and that word was again deployed today in federal
parliament to describe Joe Biden. The word, wait for it...is 'decent.'
I fail to understand how someone who describes himself as a zionist can also be described
as decent. The two positions are mutually self exclusive. A better word would be ugly,
obsequious or weak. I am sure barflies have a few more adjectives to throw in, In six months
there will be a flood of useful words.
In Minnesota sounds like you get to sell your blank ballot for a few hundred dollars to
the Omar campaign. They take over the rest of the task, and hand you the "I voted" sticker
along with the cash. The streets of America are paved with gold.
He voted the same as deceased former boxing champ Joe Frazier, since the party workers
filling out the ballots knew both men were deceased. May be Jack Dempsey and Jack Johnson
also voted.
Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign communications director, tweeted a photo of a mock
Washington Times newspaper from 2000 with the headline "PRESIDENT GORE" in an attempt to show
how the media can prematurely announce a winner.
But he later quietly deleted the tweet after
it was revealed the headline had been photoshopped -- the newspaper had never run such a
headline.
So neoliberal Dems gaslighted everybody with Russiagate for four years, staged Ukrainegate,
and now cry for unity. Funny, is not it
For four years, Democrats branded Donald Trump an illegitimate president and treated him as
such. Then-President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden plotted with FBI Director James Comey a
way to oust Trump's pick for national security advisor, Michael Flynn.
Now they face the results of the attempt to depose Trump via color revolution (aka
Russiagate), the result of neo-McCarthyism hysteria and cry uncle. To paraphrase Tolstoy: all
happy democracies may resemble one another, but every unhappy democracy is apparently unhappy in
its own way.
Wayne Dupree has been to the White House to talk to President Trump about race relations
and appeared at election events for him. He was named in Newsmax's top 50 Influential
African-American Republicans in 2017, and, in 2016, served as a board member of the National
Diversity Coalition for Donald Trump. Before entering politics, he served for eight years in
the US Air Force. His website is here: www.waynedupree.com . Follow him on Twitter @WayneDupreeShow
I've participated in eight elections including this one, and I've never before witnessed the
open hostility and vitriol that's been aimed at President Trump.
No president was ever abused like Trump was from day one. The Republicans didn't cooperate
with Barack Obama at all, but any thinking person can see the difference between the way Obama
was treated and the way Trump has been treated. The past four years have set a dangerous
precedent, and you know what they say about karma.
Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer refused to work with President Trump
on anything, but now the socialists want the Republicans to work with them. Interpretation: we
want the Republicans to work with us as long as they believe everything we believe and do
everything to help us, even if, in their eyes, it destroys America. No dissent will be
accepted.
You really have to wonder about this arrogance from the Democrats and their call for unity,
don't you? Joe Biden is calling for unity because he doesn't want to face the constant
scrutiny the Trump administration faced. After all, do you think the hundreds of millions he
received in campaign contributions didn't come with strings attached?
Right now, there's not enough critical thinking for unity to happen; our emotions govern too
many of us. The media have played on that for four years. They convinced millions of
Americans they would have to be insane to consider re-electing Trump, even though most
Americans are sick of the establishment politicians and their big empty promises, sick of their
endless and expensive foreign wars, sick of a sluggish economy, and tired of the outsourcing of
American jobs.
How can unity happen when the rift between liberals and conservatives is larger than ever,
and the two sides envision this country's future in vastly different ways? How will half of
the American population ever again trust their sources of news and information when nearly
every outlet has lost all pretense of objectivity? Every bit of reporting has become an opinion
piece.
In marriage, they call these irreconcilable differences. It may not happen in my lifetime,
but this country would do well to consider a peaceful separation.
Our national media have failed us. And that's all media, including social. They caught us
all hook, line, and sinker. Why? Money. We are such a gullible species. The more people hear an
idea promoted, the more it sounds true. This is why our country is divided. We rely too heavily
on our media for information, true or not. They manipulate us with their words like modern-day
bards. Journalism is indeed dead, and it's been replaced by sensationalism. But it all boils
down to who's really at fault. To find that out, look in the mirror. Yes, we all let this
happen to us.
I wouldn't blame people for believing phony news. Think about it: why do companies spend
literally billions of dollars on commercials? Companies use commercials to change our buying
habits, and they work extremely well on a subliminal level. Likewise, the mainstream and
social media use misinformation, distortions, deceptions, and omissions to change people's
voting behavior on that same subliminal level. The only way to ensure legitimate elections in
the future is to destroy mainstream and social media's hold on our country.
In the past four years, the behavior of the Democrats has been that of junior high school
bullies with no adult supervision. What all men want most is power, and the Democrats will do
anything to get it. We can't take their low road, but should stand against their further
attempts to turn this into a one-party nation. We need a broad spectrum of ideas to keep our
country strong and our citizens cared for.
One party does not have all the answers, nor can they dictate to the other parties how to
worship, think, or even eat. When I was young, I was a Bill Clinton Democrat. I walked away
before the Obama administration and never looked back. I believe more and more people are doing
that, and, by the 2022 midterms – well, watch out, Dems!
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Distinguished Russiagate disciple Michael McFaul upset that Putin hasn't congratulated Biden
for presumed election win
Former US envoy to Russia Michael McFaul is unhappy that Moscow hasn't declared Joe Biden
the election winner without official results, apparently tossing aside years of hysteria about
Kremlin "meddling" in US internal affairs.
McFaul, who became one of the most outspoken proponents of the debunked theory that Moscow
"colluded" with the Trump campaign in 2016, expressed his disappointment on Twitter that
Russian President Vladimir Putin has yet to offer his congratulations to the Democratic
nominee, who declared himself president-elect on Saturday.
"Has Putin joined the chorus of world leaders in congratulating Biden yet? I haven't see
(sic) the statement. Do post if its (sic) out," he wrote. ... Earlier in the day, Fijian Prime
Minister Frank Bainimarama became the first world leader to offer his congratulations to the
former vice president, expressing hope that Biden would help the world navigate a "climate
emergency." Reditus_sum 7 hours ago No doubt that President Putin will be in touch with
Biden if and when he wants to and feels that it is warranted, I really can't imagine how Biden
would cope in any negotiations with one of the sharpest analytical and political minds in the
world today. orseface11 Reditus_sum 6 hours ago Good Lord, that would be a sad state of
affairs. RadicalGoat 8 hours ago So far, only the vassal states have acknowledged Biden's
victory.
As Pelosi recently said, " we have more arrows in our quiver". Nothing could bring
this country to its knees more than massive voter fraud, other than total nuclear
annuhilation.
Russia Hoax. Racism Hoax. Impeachment Hoax. Corona Hoax. Mail-in Ballot Hoax. Election Hoax.
All one big interconnected operation to sabotage and remove a President, against the will of
the people.
8 Nov, 2020 13:56 / Updated 8 hours ago Get short URL
...the Trump campaign has alleged that droves of dead people voted in Philadelphia, and that
staff there illegally counted late-arriving mail ballots.
Giuliani called the "Philadelphia Democrat machine" "brazen," and claimed that the
late heavyweight boxer Joe Frazier and actor Will Smith's grandfather both voted in previous
elections in the city after their deaths.
"I bet Biden dominated this group," he tweeted. "We will find out."
The infamous Steele Dossier has been discredited by Russian
journalists , while here in DC it's becoming clear that, whoever wins once all the votes
are counted, America will have to contend with the fact that very nearly half of voters still
chose Trump the second time around despite his handling of the coronavirus crisis and
without
much help from Moscow .
... And when Biden calls Trump Putin's puppy? Putin himself has said comments like these
lend Russia "some extraordinary
influence and power," without having to do hardly anything yourself.
If Trump leaves the White House, he may leave as a convenient optical illusion of Russia's
relative influence, but one that has created a lot more problems for Russia in his wake than it
has solved.
While many seem to prefer a multi-millionaire tycoon that inexplicably became a politician,
you prefer a politician that inexplicably became a multi-millionaire. That's fine, but I
don't recall hearing any consistent policy from Joe Biden other than his promises to not be
Donald Trump.
The truth is that you don't like Trump, or perhaps you don't like his policies. Don't
pretend you did an analysis and decided that Biden has better policies, as we haven't seen
any of Biden's policies.
You are fine with ignoring Biden's threats to withhold aid from the Ukraine unless they do
XYZ, but it's a "thug's approach" when Trump does it?
Are you asserting that no criminal action occurred, or that the criminal action that did
occur had no effect on the outcome?
There is substantial clear and concrete evidence of criminal action. Are you denying that?
Denying that undeniable fact makes you appear either hopelessly partisan or easily duped.
More on that later.
Did the criminal action which undeniably occurred affect the outcome of the election? That
is a logical question, the answer of which remains unknown. If the answer is "yes," then the
"election was stolen." If no, then it wasn't "stolen."
We don't yet know the answer to that question. If you want to remain credible, you should
wait until the answer is known. If the answer is never know (as now appears may be the case),
so be it. You should refrain from making bold assertions about things that aren't known.
I don't really care that much about Trump or Biden. I do care deeply about the integrity
of elections. I'd rather have President Biden than see Trump re-elected through fraud. While
my personal politics are closer to Trump's policies than the Democrats' (as Biden has no
policies), my respect for the system is far greater than my concern for the politics. I find
both men boorish and uninteresting.
This is a very dangerous point in our history. If you don't understand that, understand
this: There are two kinds of people in the world, predators and prey. Our system of checks
and balances is all we have to keep us from being nothing more than predators and prey. If
you choose not to see this, understand that you are lunch, nothing more.
"The statute is very, very clear," said retired Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael
Gableman - who served as a Milwaukee poll watcher on Election Day. "If an absentee ballot
does not have a witness address on it, it's not valid. That ballot is not valid."
"In defiance of and direct contradiction to the statute, the Wisconsin Elections
Commission gave guidance--that is, cover--to all 72 county clerks and turned the statute
on his head," Gableman added. "They said, 'Gee, we know the law says an absentee ballot
without the witness address is not valid, but county clerk, you have a duty to go ahead
and look up on your own the witness' address if there's no address on the absentee
ballot."
According to the report, the WEC informed voters that "your witness must sign and
provide their full address (street number, street name, city) in the Certification of
Witness section," adding "if any of the required information above is missing, your
ballot will not be counted."
On October 19, the WEC instructed clerks to 'simply fill in the witness address
themselves so that the ballot would not be invalidated.'
A street party erupted in front of the White House after Joe Biden declared himself the
victor in the electoral contest with Donald Trump on Saturday, with similar mass acts of
jubilation popping up in cities around the country.
Footage shows a sea of people, crammed like sardines, singing in front of the president's
Washington, DC residence. In New York City, merrymakers danced and chanted in Washington Square
Park. On the other side of the country, there was "fireworks, champagne and dancing in the
streets of LA," the Los Angeles Times reported , as people toasted
the projected president-elect.
The
crowd outside the White House celebrating Joe Biden's projected victory is blaring YMCA -- the
song President Trump closed out his latest rallies with.
"... I am amazed with American engineers. Russian ones managed only to preserve Lenin's corpse. American ones made their corpse speak. ..."
"... But listen to him describe the voter fraud. No stutter or slurring. He carefully picked his words. https://www.brighteon.com/d3c75a7b-96d3-474a-aac6-009110517901 ..."
Now that the American media have sanctified Joe Biden as President-Elect, despite ongoing
lawsuits, recounts, and no state certifications, many of the world's leaders were quick to
virtue-signal their support for the Harris administration.
"Kamala Harris is absolutely prepared to be president." Christine Pelosi, Chair of the
California Democratic Party Women's Caucus, says the vice president-elect Kamala Harris is in
a strong position to be the Democrats next presidential nominee in 2024.
While "declaring victory" was abhorrent just 24 hours ago, it is now apparently okay among
social media giants as massive super-spreader-events swarm across the nation to celebrate the
end of the virus, the end of oppression, the end of racism, the end of hitler, the end of white
supremacy, and the beginning of a new blue dawn... or something like that.
We suspect Biden's address will be full of the usual "unifying" themes , just as his earlier
statement was:
My fellow Americans - I am honored and humbled by the trust the American people have
placed in me and in Vice President-elect Harris. In the face of unprecedented obstacles, a
record number of Americans voted. Proving once again, that democracy beats deep in the heart
of America. With the campaign over, it's time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind
us and come together as a nation. It's time for America to unite. And to heal . We are the
United States of America. And there's nothing we can't do, if we do it together.
The pre-victory-speech warm-up...
naughty.boy , 21 minutes ago
I am amazed with American engineers. Russian ones managed only to preserve Lenin's corpse.
American ones made their corpse speak.
Billy the Poet , 20 minutes ago
There are still a few glitches in the system.
Biden: "I'll lead an effective strategy to mobilize trunalimunumaprzure."
Think November 22, 1963 minus the bullets. The Deep State employs mainstream media to get
you to believe whatever convoluted story they want to sell you. Sleepy Joe has a holster full
of magic bullets.
@Anatoly
Karlin ps would rather have more influence in governing than less, but they aren't
particularly troubled by dem victory (principled defeat forms a big part of their rhetoric
and the basis of many rep careers). Both the senior and junior members of the ruling class
would truly like to see Trump gone, the faction that Trump represents is a very small
minority in American government, without much institutional influence. And in this election
in particular they made out like bandits, flipped a lot of seats to their side, and got rid
of the primary opponent of principled cuckservatism, win-win! Seems to me when the defense
and the prosecution both want the same thing, arguments in favor of a "fair" process should
be viewed with extreme suspicion.
Well as long as there are excuses for all the horse shit, then I'm satisfied. Especially
since those excuses are coming from the same power structure that gave us weapons of mass
destruction and Trump is a Russian asset.
Lots of talk about narrative, and with good reason. Narratives control mass behavior in
that they pave the way for Directed History. Predicitive programming is essentially
brainwashing on a mass scale. As Giuliani not so famously said: "We live in a post truth
world". As we have seen policy both domestic and foreign can be predicated on outright lies
with little to no consequences. There is an art to it really. When faced with solid evidence
that the destruction of Iraq was implemented for specific reasons (other than the official
ones) using outright lies as justification, the response from the slighly informed public is
something like 'Oh well'. The oft repeated narrative is what most people base their flimsy
Reality Tunnel on. Any information that challenges this is discarded. The mechanics for this
have been fine tuned over the past few decades. With the help of media domination, meme
control and false gatekeepers, any voice that steps out of line is tarred and feathered as a
whack-0, regardless of the information that is presented. As demonstrated in this election,
near total censorship is a go. It borders on witch hunting.
Regardless of the RedBlue UniParty antics being foisted on the USAn population, The Great
Reset appears to have been sprung. Creative Destruction, Controlled Chaos, Draconian
Plutocracy are the watch-words. It is no longer convenient or even possible to keep up the
appearance of faux-democracy and the brick wall behind the curtain is exposed. Any nation
that tries to haveit's own currency, culture or trade outside the structure being forced on
the globe will be destroyed. Wesley Clark's '7 coutries in 5 years' interview comes to mind.
I dont think the billionaire class can afford a full blown world war this time to get to the
next level of control. For one, materials technology has made a few crucial leaps which means
they could be targetted. It also allows the little guy to resist more fiercely. It also would
not do to have whats left of the infrastructure razed to the ground, thus the virus
terror.
As far as the next fed-gov configuration in the USA, speculation abounds. Apparently if
Biden can last 2 years then the following 2 years occupied by Harris doesnt count as a full
term and she can run two times more. Perhaps Hillary will be selected as VP? No matter
because the forces backing these people will likely do much more destruction on the
international front than OrangeManBad. With a population that just had their livelihood
ripped from them, that's alot of dog-soldiers. Drum up enough hate-blame for Russia, China,
and everything Muslim and you might just get a flood of enlistees. PMC's can fill in the gaps
at great expense. The rest of the world has been backing away slowly for a couple of decades
and arming up. The run-up to Agenda 2030 could be explosive.
When someone serves a narrative they are not necessarily lying it might just
serve the narrative to tell the truth. When someone is lying then they are lying, period.
When someone prefers a euphemism for "telling the truth", he is probably lying.
So how many times has Donnie said he was going to do something and then didn't follow
through? ICE raids, wall, border security, Hillbags in prison, Russiagate investigations,
etc., etc., etc.
So now Donnie is going to fight this election fraud (which BTW he created a task force in
2017 and then quickly disbanded). And you actually believe it.
LOL.
fxrxexexdxoxmx2 , 20 minutes ago
Anyone surprised the same media who protected and worked for the Biden campaign are
working with him to claim an ilegall victory?
I think calling it Harris (Biden) administration is a bit childish. Harris will have about as
much effect on policy as Pence had during last 4 four years. Certainly nothing like Cheney.
And she won't be the Dems candidate in four years.
Chris Sweeney, UK reporter, says" Britain died for me, its become a Covid-obsessed police
state."He further writes that the courageous spirit that defines Britain is disappearing. Do
you feel the same about the US. I do. The response to the lockdown and masks etc. sends brave
loggers here in the Catskill into a state of child-like fear . Who said there is a sucker
born every minute.
Lukashenko-about the US elections: It's a disgrace! This is a mockery of democracy. We will
see how the OSCE responds to this and how the German Parliament will demand a second election
in America. Because everything was corrupted there!
I can now say how they will react. They will do nothing! They will be too afraid!
@Grahamsno(G64) ries and
therefore deserves to die. So, we are justified in killing them
What good would it do any commenter to provide you with data when you've already dismissed
their claims as the kind of conspiracy theory Mr. Kaplan has rubbished? Which, as
interesting and as thought-provoking as Mr. Kaplan's article is, he has not in fact
rubbished. No. You're not interested in data. You're interested in confirmation bias. Since
that is what you start with that's what you'll get – every single time.
And now we're back to why the country's falling apart. Because that's the real heart of
the matter.
You acknowledge that there is a systematic and organized effort, a conspiracy, dare I say,
on the part of the Media, Tech giants, and Democratic Party to systematically censor,
basically, the entire Country, BUT .
The very same actors couldn't organize a massive vote fraud because they would get
caught.
You have managed a twofer, logically inconsistent, and wrong. They have been "caught " it
just doesn't matter.
On election night in Portland (3 Nov., 2020), hundreds of BLM-antifa protesters shut down the streets of a residential area of
southeast Portland, Ore. They confronted people at their homes. In one instance, they stopped outside the home of a couple with a
"Biden Harris" sign, accusing them of white supremacy. They then rob another man of his phone for recording them.
I would also add Bolton to complete the list of crazy-hawk Trump appointees.
While some credit is due to Trump not starting any wars, I have to think it was
unintentional on Trump's part, as evidenced by the same list of ultra aggressive foreign
policy advisors he appointed.
More likely, the subpar crop of new wars was the result of the foreign policy apparatus
refusing to give his administration the authority to launch any original policy of their own.
Venezuela, Iran, Yemen, Syria were continuations of existing policy, and sponsored by
"respected" interests (respectively: by the Oil Industry, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and all of
the above).
The biggest foreign policy initiative of all, cold war with China, is a long term
bipartisan project.
In 2013 he told the Ukrainian government that it can't use police force against
"demonstrators".
The police were the "bad guys" if they stopped the violent protesters. This game has boomeranged back to the USA in 2020.
Ironically we got the same guy who pushed this theme in Kiev in 2013:
In 2013 Joe Biden went to Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, and warned the government not to
harm the demonstrators. That act made clear to the world that the US was allied with them,
if not orchestrating the demonstrations and then the subsequent coup against the elected
government.
@another
anon Who are destroying cities despite every single broadcast of the protests showing
fires, bricks, looting and black clad maniacs rioting in the streets while holding antifa
flags and shields with the drawings of the hammer and sickle on them.
Added to this is the
high IQ people insisting that even if the rioters are burning down democratic cities while
the democratic leadership refuses to charge them and sets them free time and again, the
protests are still peaceful.
Whatever the hell makes up the left, it is not smart high IQ people. It is a loose
coalitions of insane maniacs who have gone off their medication.
"The U.S. urged leaders in Ivory Coast to stick to a "democratic" election process hours
after President Trump prematurely declared victory."
I call for a delegation from Bolivia to come and watch the elections in the USA and make
sure they go as planned because clearly no one in the USA is capable of handling this
This tweet pretty much sums up the dysfunctionality of the election:
Dinesh D'Souza
@DineshDSouza
·
17h
If Latinos turned out for Trump in record numbers, Biden can be consoled by the fact that
dead people seem to have turned out for him in record numbers. Incredible turnout!
#ElectionResults2020
b
But hey, they found another bag of 'mailed in' ballots.
LOL. It's ok, Biden took the lead no need to "find" any more mail-in ballots.
Mature ballots often play around with the other ballots, between them, they produce from
one to over a thousands baby ballots, and baby ballots take longer to count; so please just
be patient.
A Pew poll indicated that roughly half of Clinton and Trump supporters were more motivated
by opposing the other side's candidate than backing their own.
In the end, the future of the United States and, in many ways, the rest of the world, will be
decided not by the American voter, but a much more nefarious form of life – the
American lawyer.
thanks for your analysis b, since it now looks certain that the Democrats stole this
election, what do you think the long term consequences of this will be for the US
I doubt
the Trump supporters will ever accept Biden/Harris what will they do over the next few years.
Will we see a impeach Biden/Harris movement in 2022, if the Republicans take the house?
Biden outperforms Senators in swing states, underperforms in VA, NH, RI
Biden underperforms Hillary/Obama in cities, except in MI, PA, GA, WI
Biden mail-in dumps with 100% margins
GOP lose ZERO House races
Something is definitely off.
JoePesci , 21 minutes ago
You don't get it, they perpetrated fraud in broad daylight. There is no secrecy. You don't
need to study it. It is a brazen seizure of power, message of intimidation, and demonstration
that the general populace is too mentally and physically weak to put up any resistance, and
that they system is so rotten no one would risk anything to defend it. This is a classic
socialist takeover. Our species repeats itself over and over. Go read about the October
Revolution, French Revolution, Red Revolution, or a dozen other Revolutions. What follows is
equally predictable. Redistribuion. Angry retributive terror. 5 year brutal civil war.
Political infighting. Power struggle. Totalitarianism. Total enslavement of 99.999% of
people. The answer....i dont know. The right wing resistance loses the civil war, not that it
shouldn't be fought, but that is what will happen. No matter how armed or well trained
militarily they are. If you have any creative ideas to resist this movement, you could save
humanity and change it forever by stopping this repetitious cycle.
ZENDOG , 18 minutes ago
That's nice.....now repeat after me.....
"Kamala is the president."
mtumba , 7 minutes ago
Then, repeat after me: "Kamala's handlers are president."
Remember, Hillary and all the Democrats (and virtually all the press) said that Trump
"stole" an election with a few Russian troll Facebook ads (that nobody saw).
Here, Trump's
supporters are saying there was an organized effort in heavy-Democratic/urban centers - just
in Swing States - to harvest illegal votes in a myriad of well-known ways.
DaBard51 , 21 minutes ago
DuckDuckGo gives this as the most relevant when search term is
Bernie Sanders: "We need a federal minimum wage of at least $15/hr."
Joe Biden: "I beat the Socialist!"
Florida: *Votes for $15 statewide minimum wage, and *not* Joe Biden*
Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is not socialism. It is an insurance policy,
brought to you by capitalism. Bernie Sanders is not a socialist. He is a capitalist and a
sheepdog for the Democrats. His only role is to corral the progressive vote for his party. He
is a complete fraud and he will hand the baton of fraudster to Ocasio Cortez at some time in
the future.
Quote; Democrat Abigail Spanberger was losing her race to a Republican challenger until
14,000 ballots were suddenly found on a flash drive. What a stroke of luck.
far_cough 2 hours ago i find it amazing that americans may elect a president who is barley
conscious. stunning... Reply 5 Roman far_cough 29 minutes ago Maybe they are in the same
condition...
Indeed, we can use beijing biden's words against him:
" Secondly, we're in a situation where we have put together, and you guys did it for our
administration -- President Obama's administration before this -- we have put together I
think the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American
politics. " Joe Biden - October 24, 2020
Confidence In Our Electoral Process
- We have met the enemy and it is us
----
The blather was everywhere, all the time, not just for months, but years:
Examples a plenty,
"Fiona Hill warns of Russia undermining confidence in U.S. democracy before elections"
October 27, 2020
'Chaos Is the Point': Russian disinfo undermining confidence in democracy
NED, National Endowment for Democracy January 10, 2020
Russia remains more potent threat of election interference despite administration focus on
Iran
WaPo Oct. 22, 2020
"The FBI said late Wednesday that Russia and Iran have taken action to undermine US
confidence in the upcoming elections."
CNet Oct. 22, 2020
------
We have met the enemy but will we learn?
And will the Deep State pundits ever shut up?
You already know the answer.
------
While searching out the above quotes I came across an amusing quote
from a CIA funded Russian dissident
now living in New York. What do you suppose the CIA would have
their paid mouthpiece say?
"Russian democracy is a farce."
Garry Kasparov 7/5/2020
"Maybe Trump and Biden could publicly draw straws to get over with it."
No way.
We need a combination of wrestling match, boxing, pistol duel, swordfight, jousting with
lances, arm-wrestling, chess, swim across the English Channel, motor rally, horse race,
tiddlywinks plus more that I haven't thought of yet.
I never engage in party politics. But the upcoming US elections is above and beyond all that. From a climate perspective it's
very far from enough and many of you of course supported other candidates. But, I mean you know damn! Just get organized and get
everyone to vote #Biden
It seems that we all will have to fill up our popcorn supplies as the rather comical and
disgraceful
process of U.S. vote counting is likely to continue until maybe December 8, the safe harbor date on
which the states will have to certify their electors.
The race is nowhere near where the Democrats and their supporting media had expected it to
go. Just last week polls claimed that Biden would lead in Wisconsin
by 17 percent . The current margin is a rather dubious
0.6 percent which upcoming recounts may well eliminate.
That the Democrats lose House seats, do not win the Senate and barely manage to drag their
demented presidential candidate towards a stalemate tells a lot about their lack of sane
policies. A donor party completely disinterested in what the people really want - medicare for
all, no fracking etc. - will have little chance to survive a future onslaught of conservatives
with a more competent figure head than Donald Trump.
There will be protests, probably violent ones, and more legal action from either side. I see
no comprise possible that would satisfy both parties. I fear that, should Trump lose this
election.
Trumpism will only grow and make the U.S. ungovernable.
Maybe Trump and Biden could publicly draw straws to get over with it.
The US election has finally taken place. During the campaign, both candidates have totally
avoided the critical issue that will bring the US down in the next four years. The election
campaign has been ugly but totally avoided the monumental problem facing the American
people.
Clearly neither of them wanted to tell the voters that he will take over the running of a
totally bankrupt country that is likely to collapse economically, financially and morally in
the next four years.
Funny thing on CNN site past hours, their headline claims there is a tight race and they
still have Biden at 224 and Trump 213 electoral votes, funny since Fox have Biden at 238
which they have had for like 5 hours already. https://edition.cnn.com/
Surely CNN realize their side have already won?
You just can't trust those cunning Russkies. They fake their Trump support thingy in 2016
just so they can get Biden and Harris in for 2020. They had this planned all along and the
USA deep state are planted with Russian commies. Podesta must have known this all along.
High time to send observers, otherwise the international community shall not recognize the
legitimacy of the results.... A US Guaidó is needed, then the MSM can tell the world
that over fifty countries call him president,
15 Reasons Trump wins. And I saw that as a Kanye voter
1. Karentocracy
2. Blue Lives Matter
3. Burn, Loot, Murder
4. Pudding brain Biden
5. Kamala Harris
6. Gun sales
7. Green New Deal
8. Suburban security Moms
9. Huntergate
10. Second Debate: Lockdowns, kids in cages, anti fracking
11. Millennial no shows in early voting
12. Lopsided Get Out the Vote game ground
13. Early vote parity instead of massive Dem lead
14. 20/40 - 20% black votes, 40% Hispanic votes for Trump
15. Trump hustles, while Biden hides - effort matters
Reminds me a Colombian( ?) movie I watched in my youth, with one memorable side theme. A
side character runs for the Senate in his country, as can be seen from the billboards with
his visage and slogan "Onofre e differente".
Campaigning is exhausting, so our candidate
relaxes in the company of a professional provider of relaxing services. He asks her "What do
people say about me?" "That you are worse than others." "Why?" "Because you are different."
That is what you get when you do not use professional political analysts. In this vein, Trump
is different and Biden is not.
Centrism is not the winning hand against right-wing populism, something parties in Europe
had better learn fast. In this case, the donkeys in America already knew that, but decided to
test Einstein's law to destruction. Trying the same thing over again and expecting a different
result is indeed a definition of madness.
All of the above is true, whatever the final result of the imbroglio.
Trump's brazen press conference in which he simultaneously claimed victory and fraud was
exactly what a right-wing populist would do. And perfectly timed – he was well ahead in
the Midwest rust-belt when inexplicable abandonment of counting for the night was the optimal
moment to cry-foul. Trump might be a moron, but he certainly ain't stupid.
The 'Karen' meme – which came to prominence earlier this year, describes an overly
interfering, obnoxious, self-entitled female who always tries to police other people's behavior
and 'complain to the manager'.
The left tried to hijack the meme by asserting that its common stereotype was a white woman,
almost always a Trump supporter, who unfairly called the police on black people because she is
racist.
Its other main trope was a mentally deficient but loudly boisterous white woman who got into
arguments with store employees and other customers by refusing to wear a face mask.
However, as the video below highlights, anecdotal evidence suggests 'Karens' are just as
likely to be vehement leftist control freaks who are righteously indignant in lecturing others
about not wearing masks or maintaining 'social distancing'.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/AA6_GuZOyAI
While 'Karen' is just a meme used to describe the behavior of people who may not actually be
called Karen, the fact that a clear majority of Karens are voting for Biden goes some way to
overturning the meme being used as a pejorative to ridicule people on the right and Trump
supporters.
* * *
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EXCLUSIVE: National security nightmare of Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop containing phone
numbers for the Clintons, Secret Service officers and most of the Obama cabinet plus his sex
and drug addictions - all secured by the password Hunter02 - Daily Mail
I think my favourite one is Hunter's credit card being rejected for insufficient funds by
some webcam porn site. The son of Captain Credit Cards Joe 'Mr Delaware' Biden... oh the
irony!
If this is humor, this is very dark humor. The saddest thing of all in this is that very
little of Glenn's excellent article is new. One of Donald Trump's presidency greatest
accomplishment has been to show me how the main stream media 'plays' its dirty games... The
entire mainstream media collectively abandoned its integrity during the last decade.
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?
I 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.
"... 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. ..."
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.
So 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.
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.
""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:
It'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).
If 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.
They 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.
Trump 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 Musk
Henry Paulson
Lloyd Blankfein
Laurence Fink (Blackrock)
M. L. Corbat (Citigroup)
Tim Cook
Michael Dell (Dell co.)
S. Nadella (Microsoft)
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:
"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."
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.
Yes, 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.
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'
Why 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?
I'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.
"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".
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?
Because 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.
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).
US 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.
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.
The 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.
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.
' Don't worry, though, I'll get back on the horse when the post-election rioting
begins, and Donald Trump finally goes full-Hitler, declares himself Führer, dissolves
the Congress, and orders his legions of Russia-loving white supremacists to start rounding up
the Jews, as the corporate media, the fake "left" media, the Intelligence Community, the
Democratic Party, fascism experts, Hollywood celebrities, and every hysterical liberal in
existence have been promising he would since 2016.'
What does it say that this image is starting to have its appeal?
So, according to the corporate media, this is it for Russian-backed Hitler. Game over. The
walls are closing in. It's the last days of the Trumpian Reich. Get those vuvuzelas ready!
Slappy and Kamala will immediately fly down and liberate the
concentration camps . Trump will face some sort of Nuremberg trial, where he will have to
answer for mass-murdering six million people with the Coronavirus by taking off his mask on the
White House balcony.
Hillary Clinton will be appointed something.
Exuberant liberals will pour into the streets, chanting unintelligible slogans through their
designer masks and plastic head bubbles. OK, sure, the global economy will be ruined, and
millions of people will be unemployed, and homeless, or will have needlessly died, so that
GloboCap could simulate an apocalyptic global plague, and foment racialized civil unrest, and
just generally create an atmosphere of confusion, depression, and paranoia, but the War on Populism
will finally be over and GloboCap will start to "
Build Back Better !"
Trump has been the crappiest Hitler ever. The Trump-Reich was totally fake and gay. I
think Mr. Hopkins was the one who first noted this fact in a previous article here on Unz. He
is correct that this imposter is even worse than the fake Hitler from the fake Broadway show
Springtime for Hitler . Princess Kali Hindoo-Dindoo will surely prove to be a more
accurate parallel to the fabled führer of Germany than Bad Orange Man.
Trump will chicken out, he simply does not have the personality to work from a position of
underdog, rally a real storm. in the case he is declared the loser of the election, if not,
Trump will be fine, as any other lamp-post. Any outcome will suit the agenda.
So glad our gladiator journalist helps to stir the election hype some further. It was a
long slug up to November. What's next Soccer, the Olympics, the surplus population needs a
change of heart. Christmas and Santa Claus for the kids?
Hence, the War on Populism that we have been experiencing for the last four years and
whatever new, dystopian stage of it that awaits us in the post-Trump future .
That's not for another four years, in case anyone's wondering.
Don't worry, though, I'll get back on the horse when the post-election rioting begins,
and Donald Trump finally goes full-Hitler, declares himself Führer, dissolves the
Congress, and orders his legions of Russia-loving white supremacists to start rounding up
the Jews, as the corporate media, the fake "left" media, the Intelligence Community, the
Democratic Party, fascism experts, Hollywood celebrities, and every hysterical liberal in
existence have been promising he would since 2016.
But the thing is, Trump never had to do any of those things to get leftists
triggered....
I believe that Americans' insatiable hunger for spite and spectacle can still win the day.
Even if the swamp can't be drained, at least we can vote a monkey wrench into their
machinery.
" as the corporate media, the fake "left" media, the Intelligence Community, the
Democratic Party, fascism experts, Hollywood celebrities, and every hysterical liberal in
existence have been promising he would since 2016 ."
Reminds me of how the corporate media, the fake "fair and balanced" media, the oxymoronic
Military Intelligence, the Republican Party, socialism experts, right-wing Hollywood/music
industry celebrities, and every hysterical regressive nancy in existence promised Obama was
going to take their guns! only to have Barack not change one scintilla of the
gun laws in his entire first term. No matter, the GOP trotted out the same line four years
later and once more firearm sales went through the roof. 'Cause if there's one thing the GOP
knows about their electorate, it's that they're a bunch of easily-duped fuckin' idiots.
They haven't settled on an official slogan yet. "The New Normal," "The Great Reset,"
"The Green New Deal" they're all just trial balloons at this point
I've been suggesting "The Green Leap Forward" for some time now but my genius continues to
go unrecognized.
Yesterday, former Vice President Joe Biden was again insisting that the scandal involving
Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation despite the direct refutation of that claim by
the FBI .
In her interview with Joe Biden, CBS anchor Norah O'Donnell did not push Biden to simply
confirm that the emails were fake or whether he did in fact meet with Hunter's associates
(despite his prior denials). Instead O'Donnell asked: "Do you believe the recent leak of
material allegedly from Hunter's computer is part of a Russian disinformation campaign?"
Biden responded with the same answer that has gone unchallenged dozens of times:
"From what I've read and know the intelligence community warned the president that
Giuliani was being fed disinformation from the Russians. And we also know that Putin is
trying very hard to spread disinformation about Joe Biden. And so when you put the
combination of Russia, Giuliani– the president, together– it's just what it is.
It's a smear campaign because he has nothing he wants to talk about. What is he running on?
What is he running on?"
It did not matter that the answer omitted the key assertion that this was not Hunter's
laptop or emails or that he did not leave the computer with this store.
Recently, Washington Post columnist Thomas Rid wrote
said the quiet part out loud by telling the media:
"We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation --
even if they probably aren't."
Let that sink in for a second. It does not matter if these are real emails and not Russian
disinformation. They probably are real but should be treated as disinformation even though
American intelligence has repeatedly r ebutted that claim. It does not even matter that the
computer has seized the computer as evidence in a criminal fraud investigation or that a Biden
confidant is now giving his allegations to the FBI under threat of criminal charges if he lies
to investigators.
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It simply does not matter. It is disinformation because it is simply inconvenient to treat
it as real information.
Bastiat , 3 hours ago
I should have lost the capacity for shock in reaction to this Mockingbird crap but the
sheer naked audacity of it still gets me.
Carbon Skidmark , 3 hours ago
I don't know what is worse. The concept that hiding crimes is no longer that important or
the lack of response to the crimes by so many.
jin187 , 3 hours ago
I don't know what's worse. The fact that our supposed news networks do this, or the fact
that in spite of the vast majority of Americans saying they distrust them, they still let
them get away with it. They still watch, and read, and listen. TBH, I don't think the lack of
MSM coverage is an issue with this particular story. I think the average Democrats and RINOs
are just covering their eyes and ears with this one. They want Trump to lose so bad, they
don't care if day one of the Biden administration is him handing suitcases of military
hardware blueprints to the Chinese. Anyone with a (D), never Trump, keep the swamp churning.
That's all they care about.
Four chan , 25 minutes ago
the laptop and its contents are 100% verified with clean chain of control.
UndergroundPost , 3 hours ago
It's now clear the Democrat Party under the Biden / Clinton Dynasties is nothing more than
a fully compromised, corrupt and criminal extension of the Communist Party of China
SDShack , 3 hours ago
Absolutely! The timelines of everything line up perfect. These laptops were dropped off at
the computer shop in early 2019. Work was done, but not paid for. The owner tried to get paid
and have the laptops picked up for 3 months. No go, so abandoned property now belongs to the
computer shop. All perfectly legal. It's now fall 2019 and the Impeachment Sham related to
Ukraine is starting. Computer shop realizes that laptops belonged to Demorat VP son being
caught up in the entire Impeachment Sham. Computer shop guy realizes he is holding dynamite
with lit fuse so he contacts FBI. FBI does nothing, then gets involved, then sits on the
story. This is all end of 2019.
Meanwhile, demorat primaries are starting and Bernie is the leader. DNC can't have Bernie
win, so they try to game the system to stop him just like 2016. But no one early on can do
it. Senile Joe fails first. Then Kamalho, who was the favorite, flames out. Then all the
others. It's now early 2020 and the DNC is hemorrhaging money and in disarray. Then look what
happens, the DNC miraculously unities around Senile Joe to stop the Angry Berd, with Kamalho
being the fallback position as VP. It is clear that the CCP ordered the DNC to do this
because they had the goods on Corrupt Joe, and the DNC needs the Chicom money. They all
figured they had it all covered up. They never figured on the crazy cokehead son blowing it
all up. The timelines all line up, and explain why Senile Joe rose from the dead in the
primaries to be the anointed one, along with Kamalho. The CCP got the candidates they bought
and paid for.
GoldmanSax , 1 hour ago
100% true but the republican government refuses to prosecute their buddies. The US has 1
party and we ain't invited.
Robert De Zero , 3 hours ago
It isn't real, we hope it isn't real, you can't prove it's real, 50 experts said it isn't
real, Russia planted it, Russian disinformation, Rudy is compromised, Rudy might be a Russian
agent, Rudy almost banged a 24 YO and he can't be trusted, It's not about Joe we don't care,
Hunter isn't running, Bobulinski has a funny name so he can't be trusted...NOT ONCE ASKING IF
THIS IS a MAJOR PHUCKING PROBLEM.
The problem isn't RUSSIA, it's you bastards in the Big Lies Media!
GoldmanSax , 1 hour ago
Why hasn't the patriotic republicans arrested the evil democrats? Whats the hold up?
tonye , 3 hours ago
At some point we are going to have to break up the corporate media conglomerates.
All of them.
And start racketeering prosecutions.
Salsa Verde , 3 hours ago
Facts mean nothing in a country where emotional outbursts are now considered gospel.
Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago
I think we need to bring back the death penalty in every state and not keep housing these
criminals for lifetimes.
Zorch , 2 hours ago
Wait! What does Gretta say?
VisceralFat1 , 3 hours ago
so... the hunter laptop is fake
and global warming is real
got it
jin187 , 3 hours ago
You just summed up the only thing 90% of students actually learn from 12 years of public
school.
rwe2late , 3 hours ago
correct on both points
Zerogenous_Zone , 3 hours ago
duh...
the Feds have plenty of laptops that have incriminating evidence of our elected leaders
(Wasserman Schultz, Iman Brothers, Weiner, DNC Servers, etc...), Dems and Repubs
at issue is if we REALLY knew the depths of treason from said leaders, we'd run out of
rope and tall trees...
so...anyone who votes Democrat, is complicit in my eyes (and they don't need to vote
Republican) and deserve the heat of the truth, strong enough to melt all the
snowflake-SJW's
Carbon Skidmark , 3 hours ago
ban laptops...it's so simple...no laptops and bad things stop happening
Zerogenous_Zone , 3 hours ago
/sarc
banned public schools first...they're indoctrination centers of controlled deception
NO critical thinking...NO innovative strategies
ONLY State sponsors 'information' filtered by the snowflakes anti-social media platforms
and e-encyclopedia (Schmoogle)
11b40 , 3 hours ago
Ban email & instant messages. Life would be immediately better.
CosmoJoe , 3 hours ago
Dorsey looks like a fvcking homeless person. What a clown. I'd love to rip that ring right
out of his nose.
sunhu , 2 hours ago
losers anger is always fun to watch
chubbar , 3 hours ago
The media is acting against the best interests of the USA. Think about it, "IF" the
allegations are true, we need to find out BEFORE we elect someone who is selling out our
country for personal gain, not after. WHY would the media think differently unless they don't
care whether the allegations are true or not? Are they working for China? Is the DNC? These
are appropriate lines of inquiry given the wholesale censoring the media has levied on the
Biden corruption story. The FBI sat on this for months and it has Child ****, which means
children remain at risk until the FBI goes in and stops it. WTF is wrong with Wray that he
allows this to go on?
somewhere_north , 3 hours ago
Dude, if it was for real Hunter Biden would have been arrested by now. You can't seriously
believe they're just holding back their damning evidence. The obvious conclusion is they
don't have it.
Mr. Universe , 2 hours ago
...except those pictures of a naked Hunter with his niece and the emails of the family
trying to keep a lid on Mom's protestations.
You see lots of pics of Hunter Biden with a blacked out bitch. No way of knowing who he's
actually with.
hugin-o-munin , 2 hours ago
Yeah like duh really man, I mean come on man. Stop thinking so much man, hang ten and
chill bruh.
8-(
Im4truth4all , 2 hours ago
Has Comey, Clapper, Strozk and the list goes on ad infinitum, been arrested? No.
ebear , 1 hour ago
"The obvious conclusion is they don't have it."
An inference, by itself, is not a conclusion.
Soloamber , 2 hours ago
Wray inherited a completely screwed up Comey FBI .
He is not a culture changer .
glasshour , 3 hours ago
Stop calling these people mainstream. There is nothing mainstream about them because
nobody watches their crap.
Joe Rogan's show last night got more views than all of them combined.
WhatDoYouFightFor , 3 hours ago
Hunter is still walking around free, system is F'd. Nothing will right the United States
at this point.
Zerogenous_Zone , 3 hours ago
it's the Hillary conundrum, right?
IF they get Hunter, it's 'election interference'...
deceitful godless individuals...
randocalrissian , 3 hours ago
But but but Her Emails
slightlyskeptical , 3 hours ago
he will always be free on these items as the evidence was all acquired illegally and
likely doctored to all hell.
jin187 , 3 hours ago
This is why I said the day Trump got elected that these people just need to disappear to a
blacksite in Yemen. The best way to drain the swamp is waterboarding all the ones we know to
find the ones we don't know.
Ghost of Porky , 3 hours ago
If Trump rescued 30 drowning children with his helicopter the CNN headline would read
"Trump Increases Carbon Footprint to Risk Superspreader Event.
Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago
Exactly - so tired of MSM and their opinionated lies
pstpetrov , 3 hours ago
Yes Liberals are all about disinformation and Trump has the moral high ground.
randocalrissian , 3 hours ago
Best joke I've heard in October. Well played, sir!
otschelnik , 3 hours ago
How would the MSM react if Don Jr. flew into China on AF1 with his father, met with
Chinese central committee members and intelligence officials, formed a Joint Venture with
them and then got a 5 million dollar no interest loan from the head of a private oil company,
who's chairman used to work in intelligence?
Imagine that. How would ABC MSNBC CNN NPR WaPo NYT PBS broadcast that?
glasshour , 3 hours ago
Better question, who cares. Nobody watches that junk anymore.
fanbeav , 3 hours ago
Liberal sheeple still do.
randocalrissian , 3 hours ago
Let's get the case in a court of law so allegations and wild claims can be proven or
disproven. But wait, this was timed so court isn't an option. So all we are left with is the
sniff test. Smells like baby diaper needs changed.
slightlyskeptical , 3 hours ago
How did they react when it was Kushner doing the traveling and getting the money for his
business?
Iconoclast422 , 3 hours ago
the computer has seized the computer as evidence
Why does every article have these little tidbits that make me think every writer has
stroked out in 2020?
11b40 , 3 hours ago
You see that, too? Something is wrong in the editing process. Sloppy, I guess, or
foreign.
Santiago de Mago , 3 hours ago
I noticed that in several articles today... almost like they are being written by AI
bots.
"My Macaroni And Cheese Is A Lesbian Also She Is My Lawyer"
balz , 3 hours ago
Every time you see someone saying they are a "journalist" at a MSM, don't forget to tell
them they are wrong and their job-title is "propagandist".
Shut. It. Down. , 2 hours ago
Some of the emails have already been verified by the outside recipient or sender.
Next you'll tell me all the sex videos were photoshopped by Putin.
KayaCreate , 1 hour ago
I lost 5 mins of my life watching Hunters **** getting kicked around by a probable minor
while smoking crack. You could tell it was him as his fake teeth glowed in the dark.
Cephisus , 3 hours ago
The media are scum.
Bill of Rights , 3 hours ago
Funny isn't it, every time the Globalist are exposed its " Disinformation " ..Hows that
Russian Collusion evidence coming along? its only been four years.....
American2 , 2 hours ago
The only question remaining to ask is simply this: Who is more enfeebled, Joe Biden; or
the networks and ABC, NBC, CBS, NY Times, WaPo, LA Times?
CosmoJoe , 3 hours ago
I have been out of f*cks to give when it comes to the MSM for a decade now. What is so
comical is that when the MSM so overtly covers for candidates, it backfires horribly. You
can't hyperventilate over an anonymously sourced Trump tax return story and yet ignore the
Biden laptop. People see right through that.
randocalrissian , 3 hours ago
Trump's taxes were made public. Nobody knows where Biden's (or whoever's) laptop came
from. Giuliani is already very late with the promised salacious details. How many people do
you think are really changing their vote to the Domestic Terrorist in the WH?
IndicaTive , 3 hours ago
I know of one person
Invert This MM , 3 hours ago
You are a freaking Share Blue Clown. Nobody buys your monkey dung
IndicaTive , 3 hours ago
You know me so well, after 3 months of trolling here.
Invert This MM , 2 hours ago
You really are one stupid fuuk. You just outed one of your sockpuppets and I was purged in
the Google crack down. I have been posting here for 12 years. You monkeys are really
stupid.
Invert This MM , 2 hours ago
Hey Monkey, I was purged during the Google shake dawn. Been here 14 years. Like a complete
moron, you just outed one of your sockpuppets. Dumbass
replaceme , 3 hours ago
No serious Dem thinks the laptop isn't Hunter's - your supposed to ignore it, or pretend
it has nothing to do with Joe. The Russians, booga boogah
invention13 , 3 hours ago
No, his taxes weren't made public. Claims about his taxes were made public - there is a
difference which you seem happy to elide.
CosmoJoe , 3 hours ago
Trump's taxes as reported by the NY Times were NOT made public, what gives you that idea.
The info was leaked to the Times.
jin187 , 3 hours ago
This is what I want to know. How is it that the NYP is still banned from Twitter based on
them obtaining information "illegally or illicitly", when we know for a fact now that they
didn't? At the same time, I'm pretty sure that the NYT and their followers are still happily
linking and chatting away about the story on how they illegally obtained Trump's tax
returns.
wearef_ckedwithnohope , 3 hours ago
Matt Taibbi has written a series of articles bemoaning the current state of
journalism.
replaceme , 3 hours ago
What's journalism?
invention13 , 3 hours ago
I'm beginning to think it is something that never really existed - just an ideal in some
people's minds.
Shillelagh Pog , 2 hours ago
Journalism is putting down on paper your, or someone you like, or is paying you for,
feelings, duh.
slightlyskeptical , 3 hours ago
He has the same issues with his journalism.
starcraft22 , 1 hour ago
The laptop is real. The media is the foreign disinformation.
Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago
Just shocking how MSM is so quick to dismiss this shocking evidence. We know it's not part
of their brainwashing echo chamber of lies for their low IQ and low informed voters but had
this been one of Trump's sons laptops - this would be MAJOR HEADLINES for the next 12
months.
Remember the 4 year Russiangate investigation, 40 million to Robert Mueller all based on a
bought and paid dossier paid for by the DNC/Clinton foundation, corrupt FBI, FISA warrants
all to spy and setup Trump to incriminate him for the VERY same crimes they were in FACT
committing.
Ar15ak47rpg7 , 2 hours ago
Note to all Zero HEDGERS....there seems to be no difference between the scrubbing of
comments on Twitter and Facebook and ZH. The free flow of ideas on ZH no longer exist. Just
like the Drudge Report the Deep Stater's have gotten to the Tylers. Beware
One of these is not like the others.. , 2 hours ago
I concur, the more thoughtful the post, the more likely it seems to vanish.
ebear , 1 hour ago
I must be an idiot then. As much as I'd like to add that badge to my collection, my stuff
never seems to get scrubbed. Damn!
Urfa Man , 3 minutes ago
Gulag and the shrews that run it are putting big financial pressure on ZH to censor us.
This month I've twice tried to post a URL for the news article that details the censorship
here, but go figure, those posts get scrubbed.
It's all because of you and me. The Bolsheviks at Gulag say this comment section hurts
feelings and therefore must be dominated and controlled with an iron fist.
Gulag Bans ZeroHedge From Ad Platform
If you replace "Gulag" with the name of a major search engine and conduct a search using
the words in italics above - via a search engine like duckduckgo - the results will probably
point you to the news article that gives the details of this ZH censorship and why your
comments disappear.
lacortenews com is the domain that carries the news report
Good luck. There's not much left of free speech or the original freedom of the
internet.
unionbroker , 3 hours ago
A business associate of mine told me with a straight face that he didn't trust Bobulinski
because he had a Russian sounding name. He is on Twitter a lot so maybe that explains it.
slightlyskeptical , 3 hours ago
I don't trust him either. He has already changed his story. he requested to meet Joe Biden
and then later he didn't request it. . And he met him, but he didn't have a meeting with him.
He confirmed that on Fox last night.
Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago
I trust him 100% #imwithhim
remember Dr Christine Ford and her fake as story against Kavanaugh - this is much more
realistic than her fake as
Republicans can play dirty too
jin187 , 2 hours ago
Yeah, this is what it's come to, so **** it. I hope Rudy is out there right now handing
out suitcases of cash to anyone willing to come forward with any lies about Biden, Pelosi,
Schumer, just like our side's Gloria Steinem.
Zerogenous_Zone , 3 hours ago
bring him in under oath and actually investigate...
BUT that would be 'election interference' (you know, the whole Hillary conundrum,
right?)
rule of law is now changed to morality of feelings...if it makes me feel insignificant, it
CAN'T be TRUE!!
WAAAHHHHHH
Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago
he will testify under oath watch - and he won't be like pencil neck Schiff and those other
cowards and plea the 5th
rwe2late , 3 hours ago
???
you could watch the Tucker Carlson show interview instead of your imagined one.
Uh... did watch it. And yes, the story he tells there about meeting Biden is not the same
as the one he told before. Riddle me this: if this is real, why would they hopelessly
compromise their chain of evidence by dribbling it to the public like this?
Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago
because no one in the MSM would dummy - they are all in DEEP ****
somewhere_north , 3 hours ago
They don't have to use the MSM, or any media. They simply arrest Hunter Biden, then drop
all the info at once instead of tantalizingly holding the smoking guns out of our view. All
they are doing here, if they actually have anything, is risking the lives of their witnesses
and giving the perps a lot of warning. That's to say nothing about compromising the evidence
to the point of inadmissability. It's running a risk for no gain whatsoever.
rwe2late , 3 hours ago
stuff is only out of your view if your eyes are closed
rwe2late , 3 hours ago
"not the same" ?
missed your weblink (not that you could be making stuff up, cough, cough.)
also, how that would have any significant bearing on the whole matter,
including most MSM news censorship and Russia nonsense ?
RedNeckMother , 3 hours ago
Who told you that bulls hit?
calculator , 2 hours ago
It's entirely possible he is military intelligence and was sent undercover to infiltrate
the Bidens and discover their treachery. The CIA and FBI sure as hell don't appear to be
doing it. Since we may very well be in a shooting war with the CCP at some point in the near
future, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the military is actually doing their jobs to ensure
we are not compromised.
SDShack , 3 hours ago
We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation --
even if they probably aren't."
Cmon Turley, parse these words> Why does the WaPo say 'WE MUST' treat these leaks this
way? This implies that the WaPo is BEING ORDERED to treat these leaks this way! So WHO has
power over the WaPo? Is that power direct, or financial, or BOTH? Also the assumption the
WaPo is trying to propagate is that the Foreign Intelligence Operation is...THE
RUSSIANS...but could it not actually be the CCP that is pulling the WaPo strings? Doesn't the
CCP revelation go to the central heart of the entire Corrupt Joe matter, as well as the
financial angle for the Bezo's Amazon WaPo? Even in their lies, the nuggets of hidden truth
are exposed.
Amel , 3 hours ago
Asking yourself why the CIA control of the MSM favors a Manchurian candidate over Trump ?
Because the CIA's own survival is valued above national security.
invention13 , 3 hours ago
For they same reason they had to treat the Russian collusion allegations as though they
were real.
LetThemEatRand , 3 hours ago
Same reason there was no outrage at the Obama child cages at the Mexico border. Or outrage
at all of the wars Obama started. Or outrage at all of the drone killing under Obama.
Most Blue Team members are satisfied getting their news from MSM, leaving MSM able to
shape the narrative almost completely. There are a handful of guys like Jimmy Dore on the
left who call out the rest of the left on this. Pretty scary, actually.
factorypreset , 3 hours ago
It sure seems like the press is helping to squash this whole thing by asking any questions
in such a way that Joe doesn't perjure himself.
mtl4 , 3 hours ago
Yesterday, former Vice President Joe Biden was again insisting that the scandal
involving Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation despite the direct refutation of
that claim by the FBI.
All makes perfect sense in a time when you chose your gender in the morning while getting
dressed, you only need to be accused of anything to completely ruin your reputation (unless
your a politician in which case there are no laws). So why would anyone deal with reality at
a time when we've gotten so good at simply ignoring it.
If we start with perception management, we can propose something patently absurd: the
Artificial Creamer Party.
Recognize any familiar tactics in the following campaign strategy?
1) We shall insist on the separation of milk and state, and bar any organization affiliated
with milk from being eligible for public subsidies.
2) The rights of dairy farmers to marry, adopt children, and openly serve in the military
shall be considered morally objectionable and debated at every opportunity.
3) In the event of an election, the multiple evils of milk shall be used to distract the
public from questioning the candidates on anything.
4) Think tanks, foundations, and the political correctness police shall enforce the world's
perception of Artificial Creamer as a "bridge to the future," "the salvation of the global
village," "the right of the human family," "the key to sustainable development," and "the path
to lasting peace."
5) Artificial Creamer will win a Nobel Prize, in light of everything it might do to fill the
world with sparkle ponies.
See? Something for everyone. But that's just perception management. Here's the net
effect.
The only ones to benefit will be the 0. 13% who are lactose intolerant and the 7% who make
megabucks. It won't create U. S. jobs because it will be made in Botswana at the emancipating
wage of twenty- three cents a day so 40% of Americans can afford to buy it at Walmart. For the
50% who are destitute, the FDA will declare Artificial Creamer a food group so it can be
purchased with WIC and Food Stamps, lest there be a riot against unfairness or Artificial
Creamer should fail to cash in on its share of national social programs.
Aren't we ingenious? We might demand that great- grandpa bag groceries on an oxygen tank,
thirty years into retirement, to afford his hypertension medicine, and reduce his Social
Security if someone gives him a five dollar tip that puts him over the income limit.
But, by God, he can have Creamer -- in any flavor he wants it. This is a land of choice and
opportunity, damn it.
Which is all fine and good, but when Artificial Creamer doesn't prove to be everything it
said it was, we'll go back to milk (again). And milk will get carried away in an orgy of self-
indulgence until we return to Artificial Creamer (once more). Either way, we'll have the
satisfaction and euphoria of empowerment.
Or something, anyway.
If you're confused about U. S. principles and who's supposed to benefit, you may not be to
blame. We've responded to boom and bust cycles inherent to our development choices and other
countries' criticisms with different programs and palliatives over decades of continuity.
But it doesn't take a genius to see that the tyranny of science is fighting to replace the
tyranny of royalty- teamed- with- religion we rejected in the eighteenth century. Science is
the power that buttresses democracy and capitalism, also in the name of "progress." Not that we
won't play the God card when corruption is so glaring that it requires another support system
which is conveniently available in the form of religious sanction.
It's a function of self- esteem to seek affirmation of our beliefs and share safety in
numbers, but the existence of like- minded people who hold the same fears, hopes, values and
disappointments is what makes them predictable targets and therefore most vulnerable to
strategic manipulation. It's like handing over the remote control to your decision- making
power or wearing a badge on your sleeve
The politicians are like the Intel Agencies' zoo animals.
Gerrilea , 21 minutes ago
Now that gave a good chuckle...thank you.
:)
gregga777 , 1 hour ago
The "real issue" is the elite culture that produced and supports Biden. Looking at the
family, you can tell it's just a bunch of degenerate mobster politicians. They're not even
good at what they do. Who's behind them? Who is pushing Joe forward?
Among others it's Globalist corporations like AT&T (CNN), Disney (ABC), ViacomCBS
(CBS), Comcast-Universal (NBC, MSNBC), Amazon (Washington Post). Not coincidentally those
corporations also own the B01sheviks Mainstream Media & Entertainment Oligopoly.
Cheap Chinese Crap , 3 hours ago
And, no, I don't feel bad for R. Hunter Biden, nor is he a victim.
He is a WLLLING PARTICIPANT in his father's vast corruption schemes and lived mega-large
while the living was good.
The Devil doesn't steal souls. They are sold by their owners.
He could have walked away but he didn't.
And it makes me wonder how corrupt his brother was since that was Joe's fair-haired boy
until he died from spending too much time on a cell phone.
I will take substance over style anyway. DJT is good enough for government work . He's the
one married to a super model half his age and has jets with his name on the sides btw
Recently 2018, the richest 10 percent of American households held 70 percent of total
household wealth, up from 60 percent in 1989. The lower- and middle-class saw "essentially
zero net gains in wealth" over the past 30 years. Their share of total wealth went down to
just 1 percent from 4 percent.
When will the 90% of USA households be at 0 ?
Yes, he is a blathering, bullshitting salesman who built hotels and had a reality TV show.
But he didn't start any wars. Bombed the odd airstrip, but that was about it. Who was the
last President you could say that about? If he loses, strap in for more wars, possibly even
the Big One. And as for China, before we get too awestruck about their economic 'miracle' --
which was remarkable -- note that their money supply (M2) is 2.5 times their GDP. $2.50 for
every $1 they need for their economy. Why? To prop up a banking system that is a total Ponzi
scheme. To say they have an internal debt problem doesn't begin to cover it. Sure, it allowed
them to build super fast trains and cities with no-one in them, but they can't get Chinese
people to consume because they are all desperately saving for health care. The public health
care is dreadful. It was a miracle, sure, but full of holes (which makes it no less
impressive).
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... i continue to believe the planet is being screwed by big finance.. ..."
"... Very 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. ..."
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.
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
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.
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.
Putin has spent his time trying to recover from that situation to more control, as a conservative nationalist, but its not
so easy.
"... 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.
The 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.
Russia 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.
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.
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.
Checking 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.
Fair 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..
i 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??
I 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.
I 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:
" 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.
There 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.
There 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.
Interestingly 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?
What 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.
Thank 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.
Countries, 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.
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!
.. 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 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 | 32
This "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.
That'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?
Those 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.
Mishustin 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....
Thank 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:
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.
Putin 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."
Was 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...."
It 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.
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.
Putin 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.
Note 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-
Making 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.
When 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...
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?
After 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 Canal
Very 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.
Putin 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.
"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...
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.
RNC'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.
"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?"
Blaming Russia seems to be today's version of the dog ate my homework.
ariadnatheo, 1 day ago
I am disappointed that Russia once again interfered in the US elections without using
Novichok.
TrishArch, 1 day ago
Always Russia's Fault. Little wonder no one listens to biden.
The_Celotajs, 1 day ago
Like 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.
brianeg, 15 hours ago
There 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?
Doodle_Dandy, 1 day ago
One wonders when Masha and the Bear will get the blame?
The tripartite system of government, devised by our founding "parents" 230+ years ago, has
broken down into endless partisan fighting. What's happening in today's politics is more akin
to what goes on in the parliamentary system where politicians are always at each others
throats. Bipartisanship is not natural to politics.
The presidency is an unwieldy office. It was devised as a democratically elected king with
extraordinary powers. It should be broken up into 2 parts. Neither Trump nor Biden measure up
to the job.
The USA is run by a 2 party duopoly controlled by special interests. It is a
corruption.
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.
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.
Wow! 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!
The 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.
The expense report processor Expensify is doing its best to scare its 10 million customers
into voting for Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, saying anything less is "a vote
against democracy" and may lead to "civil war."
David Barrett, CEO of the San Francisco-based company, said in an email
blasted out to all of Expensify's customers on Thursday that the US is "facing an
unprecedented attack on the foundations of democracy itself." Anyone who votes for
President Donald Trump, votes for a third-party candidate, or doesn't cast a ballot is showing
that they are "comfortable standing aside and allowing our democracy to be methodically
dismantled, in plain sight," he added.
Barrett didn't detail how he thinks Trump is destroying democracy, saying only that he
believes the president is trying to suppress votes. As a provider of expense-management
software, he said, "Expensify depends on a functioning society and economy.
Ironically, his mass email may jeopardize that position more so than Trump's re-election. In
reaction, Newsmax TV host John Cardillo said he's deleting his Expensify account and will never
use the software again. The Hill TV host Saagar Enjeti called Barrett's email "completely
insane for a $100+ million financial services company and the logical end point of woke
capital."
This was a part of Lavrov interview in which he announced changed of Russia foreign policy
toward EU... For those who understand language here is the link YouTube
It's good to see you commenting here as barflies seem more inclined to listen to you than
me.
Did you watch Russian documentary on
The Wall , which I learned about from Lavrov's meeting with those doing business
within Russia on 5 Oct? I asked The Saker if his translation team would take on the task of
providing English subtitles or a voice over but never got a reply one way or the other.
...Mr. Lavrov, he surprised the radio station interviewers by citing Semyon Slepakov's song
"America Doesn't Like Us," of which barfly Paco thankfully provided a translation of the
lyrics.
Patriotic-Erotic America doesn't like us... And England doesn't like us... And Germany
doesn't like us... For centuries - it's a fact. France also doesn't like us... Japan also
doesn't like us... Quite simply: none of them like us... But each one is bursting to fuck!
But with no love we cannot, we cannot do it... And with no love we do not, we do not want
it... This feeling for us is one of the prime importance, With none of love - we'll give them
no consent! They all starve for us as for floozy - Make us drunk, and make down in an alley.
They wanna just stealthily approach While we are all inspired of Crimea. ... ... ...
"... There is no fool like an old American fool. Like Joe Biden, for instance. In the last presidential "debate" he called Xi Jinping and Putin "thugs." What does this tell you about the state of American diplomacy? ..."
I'm not even a US American but I recall deep my embarrassment when watching the vulgar
Hillary Clinton handling herself in the presence of Sergey Lavrov – around the time of
the excruciating "reset" event.
And today you guys have Pompeo for Christ sake! How can you stand the shame – where
do you get these people?
There is no fool like an old American fool. Like Joe Biden, for instance. In the last
presidential "debate" he called Xi Jinping and Putin "thugs." What does this tell you about
the state of American diplomacy?
Sure, Joe is trying to win cheap political points by catering to the abysmally ignorant
and savagely russophobic average American voters. But at what political cost to the country
he represents! And what exactly does this old American fool want to do when he says that
Russia and China will "pay a price."
What can America do to the world's supreme military power (Russia) and to the world's
supreme economic power (China)? Particularly now that these two superpowers are working
together.
How senile and stupid has Biden become! He stopped developing intellectually about 50
years ago. And now he never will.
The senility may be new but joe biden has always been stupid. One of the only people on
the planet that can stick both of his feet in his mouth at the same time.
Crowdstrike attributed emails to Iran based upon a video attachment. Try not to laugh -
DARE YOU.
"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."
Firepower is not the only way to win a war. Today, it's not Russia, but the USA that is a
vastly overstretched empire; and the Atlanticist vassals running the EU are nothing without
their master in the White House.
I wouldn't be too confident that a country that spends both an inordinate amount of money
and an inordinate amount of time to build a piece of shit like the F-35 is ahead in military
technology. The rot has become all-pervasive in the U.S. The development of any weapons
system, as every other major endeavor in the Washington swamp, is now crippled by massive
corruption, gross incompetence, lawsuits of all kinds, "minority set-asides", and
preposterous claptrap in general. What's more, it will only get worse as "diversity"
increases and as the Democrat Party acquires a monopoly on power thanks to that
"diversity".
The US has the firepower, yes, but why? We all know the military industry is all about
money, money, money. And attacking countries that can't respond.
When the US goes to war it is not to win, its to expend expensive weaponry for years as in
Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iraq etc.
The Russians don't claim military superiority over the US, but they have developed the
defensive capability to give the US sufficient blood noses. As has China. Somebody has to
keep the hawkes in check from dropping ever more bombs.
@Ray
Caruso ption. under bidding that inevitably leads to cost overruns combined with doctored
test results (ala the stars wars program) has cost the u.s. any advantage they ever had in
technology. both the russian and chinese have provided their citizenry with low cost or no
cost quality education in math and science giving them a pool of low cost qualified personal
for their defense programs. i dont see all this in a negative light as i see the russians and
chinese as far less dangerous than the neo-con turds running the u.s. and their e.u. vassals
(into the ground). what i worry about is the monkeys knocking over the chess board when they
realize they dont know how to play the game.
We have, for instance, Lieven focusing on the current top two, great interlocking
challenges: climate change and the fact that "350 years of Western and 250 years of
Anglo-American predominance are coming to an end."
I was under the impression this was about serious topics, not liberal claptrap. My
mistake.
Every problem [neo]liberal cockroaches claim is a calamity -- discrimination against
"transgender women of color", police brutality, systemic racism, COVID-19, the Chinese
crackdown on Uyghur militants and the Hong Kong chapter of Antifa, and, of course, "climate
change" -- is imaginary, inconsequential, or an actual positive.
Everything liberals claim to be a positive or dismiss as inconsequential -- "diversity",
mass Third World immigration, Moslem barbarity, BLM and Antifa riots, rigged elections, the
normalization of sodomy, feminism, sexual liberation -- is a calamity.
"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"?
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.
@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.
For all practical purposes Biden work as a well paid lobbyist for China.
Notable quotes:
"... 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 ! ..."
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
You have the F35 program and you believe corruption to be cultural? It sure is though, 85%
of oligarchs are of a certain.. tribal persuasion after all.
youshallnotkill , 5 hours ago
No, I don't think it's cultural, I think it's funny to pretend that you are protecting
culture when in fact you are protecting corruption. Your antisemitic smear nicely rounds out
the picture.
LibertarianMenace , 5 minutes ago
Facts have that unfortunate tendency to be, "anti-semitic, as you say, not me.
Vivekwhu , 5 hours ago
Stop denigrating the US [neoliberal] Dems. Corruption is not just part of the Dems
culture.
Note to self: Don't be a criminal if you have dementia.
Note to self: Don't hire your son to commit crimes if he is a crackhead.
karzai_luver , 30 minutes ago
Back when Joe had a brain it does show a ruthless MF'er that could be a decent pres.
Now he is jello.
Automatic Choke , 22 minutes ago
Joe never had a brain. We used to make jokes about his stupidity back in 1988 for his
repeated, relentless, blatant, mindless plagarism. He has been a joke of a politician ever
since.....quietly sitting in the background at times.....occasionally rearing his head above
the crowd to be laughed back down.
Last year, Bernie had the crowds, the votes, the momentum. Then all the sudden - the baton
passed to Joe. People were saying that Joe would be the nominee even before he won any
states...the script was written.
This isn't about Joe. It is about money and party power politics. Trump may be an
arrogant, obnoxious, son-of-a-bitxh that you wouldn't want to invite over for dinner, but he
is not a player of party politics, and everybody hates him for it. God I hope he wins
re-election. Given the crowd turnout, I can't imagine why he wouldn't.
No! This is clearly the work of the criminal Genius and master Mind Putin. Don't you
realize how good Russian intelligence is? They have been working towards this point for the
last 10 years, planting evidence, sowing the seeds etc. They used their mind control device
and Forced Hunter to smoke the crack and go after the little girls and take the money from
the Ukraine and China's companies, it was mind control./s
Maltheus , 9 hours ago
Honestly, all of these e-mails did make me slightly more sympathetic to Hunter. How can
you expect him to ever do the right thing, when his own dad is shaking him down for 50%? I'd
be a crack addict too, if I came from that family. All of that money and power and none of
them are happy.
[Oct 21, 2020] Information Clearing House by President Adams. I had been searching within myself for a reason as to why we humans and American citizens, in particular, appeared to be so easily manipulated as to believe that Iraq was responsible for the carnage that occurred on September11, 2001.
What was it that enabled a government to so easily distort reality and as a result involve its
citizen in the slaughter of as many as a million innocent civilians in a far-off country that
had never threatened or attacked us in any way?
John Adam's quote had provided me with an answer. In a moment of insight, it became obvious
to me that we lacked "general knowledge" My own life experience had thought me that when I knew
better, I behaved better. Surely then the way to ensure that liberty would be restored was to
provide the information that was not reaching our people. From that moment on I felt compelled
to do my part rather than wait for others to do so.
My experience since then has thought me that ignorance is a choice and that the great
majority of humanity is not interested in anything other than our own personal security and
comfort. That is true also of those we have trusted to provide us with information and facts,
which enables us to make informed decisions. The media has disintegrated to a point where
personal bias and a desire for security has placed the world in great danger.
Our government is populated by people who share that same defect. They have attained a
position which has provided them with a sense of security and their fear of losing it has
overcome all human principles that would secure justice and liberty.
Over the last 5 or 6 years we have witnessed this decline grow to a point that partisanships
has resulted in censorship and exaggeration of facts in favor of one political party or
another. This latest Biden laptop news proves without any doubt that even independent news
websites, who have done much to fill the place of the presstitute media have in many cases
fallen in fear of losing their readership. Rather than provide information, they refuse to
publish anything that may offend their readership or their political masters.
Those who choose to act on principle find themselves tortured like Julian Assange a man who
shows the hypocrisy of our culture and reality of our supposed values. As Julian suffers in a
British prison for exposing the cruelty and destruction that our nation has inflected on the
world, those who made it possible languish with our politian's while drinking the venom that
poisons our planet.
As many of you will be aware I am not a member of any political party, I don't support any
nation or social philosophy. I am not a teacher, I am a student aware of my own ignorance and
looking for answers as to why we can't recognize that we are one human family whose only
purpose is to respect and love each other. Perhaps I'm just a dreamer, but I would prefer to
live in a dream than an nightmare . How about you?
I think the videos below demonstrate the reality I have described above.
Tom Feeley is editor of Information Clearing House . Tom is tired of
the endless self-deception that prevents our mental evolution from tribal-based wars and
suffering to an acceptance of the inherited realities of our species.
Note to the ICH community
The information available on these pages does not enjoy the support of the vast majority
of our citizens, in fact it enrages a great many of them. Yet, we are tasked to share what
little we know in the hope that there are others who fully appreciate the struggle that our
country and our species faces. If you are one of those few people who share this concern please
support our work by clicking this link.
This do not have Congressmen Schiff so this version did not got traction. Yet. Because Boris
Johnson is generally very close, as his behaviour during Skripals false flag suggests. BTW why
they need to inflate "Russian threat" if their own people can be sufficient for the annihilation
of the United Kingdom. Still let's wait for the Guardian to tell us about those evil
Russians
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
I 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.
Freeman of the City , 17 hours ago
Well 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...
Propaganda Phil , 17 hours ago
It 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.
Getting guys wasted ain't new. He just got caught.
No1uNo , 17 hours ago
Missile 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'
No1uNo , 16 hours ago
I 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?
Doctor Faustus , 15 hours ago
Maybe 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.
Propaganda Phil , 14 hours ago
Like wrongway McCain the disaster of a pilot and admiral's son.
indus creed , 14 hours ago
Didn'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.
Arrow4Truth , 13 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.
Ex-Oligarch , 14 hours ago
Upvoted, 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?
U4 eee aaa , 13 hours ago
Just blame Putin. They do it everywhere else.
tyberious , 17 hours ago
Damn Russians!
Helg Saracen , 17 hours ago
Was it Novichok? :)
Eyes Opened , 9 hours ago
Yeah ... he slept it off ... like the other "victims" ... 😷
aaronvta , 16 hours ago
It was later verified that he had been drinking vodka. Authorities are looking into the
possibility of Russian influence.
Peterus , 17 hours ago
Oh 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.
land_of_the_few , 16 hours ago
Their 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?
Dr. Bendover , 17 hours ago
Now maybe Hunter Biden has a place to look for a real job.
Eyes Opened , 9 hours ago
I bet he curses like a sailor.. and he has a pipe... sure he's halfway qualified already
!! 🧐
trysophistry , 17 hours ago
Coming to a theater near you, The Hunt for a Molson Blue October.
Westsail32 , 15 hours ago
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.
Definitely a missed opportunity.
Alice-the-dog , 16 hours ago
So 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.
thunderchief , 17 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.
koan , 15 hours ago
U.S.S Hunter Biden
Svastic , 16 hours ago
I 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.
Yamaoka Tesshu , 17 hours ago
Love 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.
Mad Muppet , 8 hours ago
Let me guess: he was drinking Vodka. Russian Vodka!!!!
I just knew it was Putin's fault.
Herodotus , 15 hours ago
The Russians drugged him. DNA samples taken from the barbecue chicken places its origin in
or around the Duchy of Muscovy.
10LBS_SHIT_5LB_BAG , 15 hours ago
They also laced the BBQ bag with Novichocken.
Helg Saracen , 15 hours ago
Oy vey! :)
Smiddywesson , 13 hours ago
Drunk while returning to the ship is one thing, drunk on duty is another, a career ending
incident.
Genoves , 13 hours ago
I prefer officials drunks that officials killing people.
TheRecluse , 13 hours ago
So whats wrong with Barbecue chicken? It goes down great after getting drunk.
Captain Archer , 13 hours ago
"Big Bo" Can't be beat.
seryanhoj , 12 hours ago
He could reheat it real quick in the reactor.
oracle_man , 14 hours ago
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!
If the hard drive contin sado masochism pictures with children, as some allege this is the
end of Biden run. This will the an interesting election when as Stalin put it They Are Both Worse!
-- "Back in the late 1920s, Stalin was asked by a journalist which deviation is worse, the
Rightist one (Bukharin&company) or the Leftist one (Trotsky&company), and he snapped
back: "They are both worse!" It is a sad sign of our predicament..."
Giuliani, according to the New York Post, was given the hard drive from a computer repair
shop owner in Delaware, who said he had alerted authorities to its existence.
"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."
"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.
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.
Former chief of staff at the CIA and Department of Defense, Jeremy Bash, reflects on how the
current effort by Trump allies to spread disinformation about Joe Biden has ties to Russian
intelligence and calls it "collusion in plain sight."
If the FBI is alone in the forest and it discovers a crime, did the crime really
occur?
two hoots , 9 hours ago
Depends on the class or connection of the perpetrator.
Other:
the elected, appointed, officials willfully defending, ignoring, tolerating, giving tacit
approval to this Biden scandal are on our payroll and deciding legislation, regulations,
legal and moral decisions that set the tone of our society? We accept this why?
More Other:
why Biden selected Harris (other than looking black): she is a aggressive prosecutor and
Biden will us her council as Biden uses offence for protection and he will need it. He
remains calm, lies and denies with that little smiley smirk and chuckle to belittle his
accusers while putting on that all American Ken Doll plastic image. He perfected this in the
last 43 years in DC. He is a false prophet.
When the narrative is oversold people became cynical. That's the classic "Crying
Wolf!" situation, repeated again and again. Excessive deaths stats does not support "COVID-19
as a new Black Death" narrative and that provide some funny situations alike with this
shirt.
While infection was dangerous and some suspect that it was result of "gain of
function" experiments, the level of response was disproportional to the threat. It's like they
stages "Covid-revolution" -- a drastic social change in the society, which affects the way we
work, the way we communicate with each and the way we entertain each other in a very profound
fashion.
I've been wearing a hand painted [by me] , in large bright red letters:" COVID -19 IS A
SCAM" , black tee-shirt and matching hand-painted mask, on a more or less daily basis for the
last 8 weeks. [The mask I only wear when I have to enter a store with an idiotic "masks are
mandatory" policy.]
To date, much to my surprise, 38 people have stopped me and said " I agree" or similar,
and only 4 have said "you're wrong" or similar, [one large Australian male halfwit has been
the only person threatening me with violence to date – he got really mad- I just gave
him the finger and didn't argue- eventually he fucked off.
Of the agreers, perhaps the most notable was a cop who was driving by me on a main road as
I waited for a bus. He slowed to a stop and I thought "Oh-oh, what's he going to book me for,
no mask?", then he lowered his passenger side window [he wasn't wearing a mask, as required
locally], and said "I agree". I said "Huh?". He said "your shirt, I agree with the message".
I was shocked and happy at the same time.
My conclusion: there are many out there , [perhaps a majority?]who know that the whole
thing is a scam, they just don't let everyone know. It's the silent majority phenomena all
over again, perhaps.
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.
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."
Monday'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.
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.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23 18 Oct, 2020 20:23
Watching the many stumbles of both President Donald Trump and Democrat challenger Joe Biden on
the campaign trail, one can't help but wonder if either really wants to win. Who'd want the
thankless job of cleaning up such a mess?
Whoever wins the 2020 election will be immediately confronted with a full plate of thorny
political issues, from impossible national debt to unwinnable (and apparently unendable)
foreign wars to artificially-amplified racial strife to metastasizing income inequality to a
pandemic that seems determined to put the last nail in the coffin of the US Empire.
No matter his actions, the winner will be blamed for everything that happens on his watch
– never mind that these catastrophes have been decades in the making, and a single man
stopping them is no more possible than halting an avalanche. In this light, Biden's
doddering-old-man persona and Trump's own bewildering missteps make perfect sense. What sane
candidate would want to be left holding the bag of crumbling American hegemony?
" President 46 " may see the long-threatened start of World War III. Thanks to
decades of overspending on unwinnable foreign wars against a vague conceptual enemy ("
terrorism ") that the mighty wurlitzer of the US propaganda establishment has tied to
countries that pose no legitimate threat to the American people, the US is has all but
bankrupted itself destroying the Middle East. Despite promising to end the devastating quagmire
in 2016, Trump poured ever more resources into the region to exert " maximum pressure "
on Iran, the one country left standing of the " seven countries in five years " General
Wesley Clark infamously claimed the Bush administration's bloodthirsty neocons had targeted for
regime change.
The US
spends more on its military than the next seven countries combined – or than 144
other countries put together, according to 2018 figures, but somehow can't keep from arming
its enemies too. Perhaps the Pentagon just feels sorry for them and wants to try to ensure
a fair fight, but this ill-thought-out policy has equipped groups like Islamic State (IS,
formerly ISIS/ISIL) to stage false-flag attacks that can then be blamed on governments like
Syria or Iran and used to
justify the expansion of the never-ending war.
After taking millions of dollars in donations from rabid pro-Israel ideologues like Sheldon
Adelson and Paul Singer, Trump basically owes them their war on Iran, as they've made it
clear that merely tearing up the JCPOA Iran nuclear deal wasn't enough. But his reluctance
to actually follow through beyond round after round of devastating sanctions suggests he
doesn't have the stomach for a full-on ground invasion. And Biden worked under Barack Obama,
who actually defied the US' Middle Eastern taskmaster to sign that nuclear deal in the first
place. Neither really wants that war, but it seems inevitable.
Whoever wins in 2020 will face a reckoning with a technology sector that has become in many
ways more powerful than the government itself. Twitter and Facebook have taken to poking the
president in the eye by shadowbanning or even removing his posts, rubbing their power in
Trump's face, and Google and Amazon have so much dirt on the CIA, FBI, and DHS they could take
down the whole system if some crusading president (or prosecutor) crosses them.
And what can Washington do? Government agencies have been using Big Tech as a workaround to
skirt the First and Fourth Amendments for years. Constitutionally barred from censoring
political speech themselves, they have merely leaned on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to shut
down 'conspiracy theories' and other wrongthink and used specially-built backdoors to
poke around in users' private lives without the hassle of warrants. Companies that allow
these abuses are rewarded with protection of their monopoly status and billions in profits.
Despite an executive order and a lot of bluster threatening Big Tech's Section 230
protections, Trump has not made any real efforts to halt the ongoing censorship by social media
of his most vociferous supporters – perhaps realizing these firms are de facto military
contractors whose participation in the information war propping up US empire is vital to that
empire's continued existence. And while Biden has been treated relatively well by Big Tech thus
far, he needs the support of progressive Democrats in order to beat Trump, a group that has
been subject to the same censorship as the pro-Trump conservative Right. The likelihood that he
will stand up to Big Tech to win over this group is approximately zero.
My Pet
Rioters
So much hype has come out of both parties about a stolen election or " coup " that,
whatever the result in November, violent street clashes are inevitable. If the winner tells the
rioters to sit down and shut up, he'll be seen as capitulating to the system he was supposed to
bring to heel. If he cheers them on, he risks losing the support of law enforcement and the
military - which could really hasten the collapse of the empire. Neither Trump nor Biden
– both old men a decade past traditional retirement age – want that kind of
trouble.
Record levels of income inequality, plus the economic fallout of suicidally-stupid
government responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, have pushed the American public into a state of
panicked desperation. More than ever, they're wondering where their next meal will come from
and how they'll pay the rent. But thanks to decades of dumbing-down imposed in the guise of
public schooling, most lack the vocabulary to articulate these problems or trace them to their
proximate causes (namely, a rapacious ruling class that is frantically asset-stripping the
nation in the hope of getting out with the cash before the whole thing blows sky-high). Neither
party's rhetoric is helping: Biden's " team " blames white supremacy, while Trump's
blames crypto-communists.
Whoever gets elected has to follow through on the absurd fantasy they've spun to explain the
nation's problems to their followers while unwinding their opponent's reasoning – not an
enviable task. The Democrats have so amplified the " threat " of racism that a white
person declaring him- or herself " not a racist " is actually deemed racist in itself,
and Republicans have bizarrely declared anyone to the left of Ronald Reagan to be " radical
leftists " bent on turning the US into Venezuela at a time when most Americans could
desperately use some socialist-style government programs to get them back on their feet.
As November 3 looms, both candidates have seemingly been campaigning for their opponent.
Biden urged
voters who thought they were better off under Trump to reelect him earlier this week), while
Trump recently
threatened to hold cash-strapped Americans' Covid-19 aid hostage until after the election,
only reversing course in the face of public outcry. Whoever is left holding the
potentially-explosive hegemonic hot potato, their job as chief rearranger of deck chairs on the
rapidly-sinking Titanic of empire is nothing to envy.
Like this story? Share it with a friend!
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Geraldmu 1 day ago The mess that the US is in,
is home made. The SARS cov 2 virus is not so dangerous, when you consider that many deaths are
those of people already close to the grave and next year there will be a deficit of deaths vz a
normal year. Some countries have reacted much better than the US or the UK or most European
countries: Taiwan, South Korea, Sweden that have not torpedoed their economy and rather test
and isolate instead of lockdowns, partial or total. Reply 21 Winter7Mute 1 day ago Divided
States of America, its been this way since when i entered the world in 1970's. And its still
divided now in 2020. Americans enjoy rationalizing, instead of seeking the truth in all facets
of life. That is why they embrace that saying "the truth hurts". I like the truth, even if it
hurts emotionally. Its simple and requires very few words.
Juan_More Winter7Mute 1 day ago Stephen Colbert when he had the "Colbert Report" came up with a
word that truly typifies the American experience. He coined the word truthiness
/ˈtro͞oTHēnis/ noun - the quality of seeming or being felt to be true, even if
not necessarily true. fazul Winter7Mute 1 day ago It was around that time when the US
presidency lost control over the MIC and the deep state. Like it or not, around that time
America was an obstacle to the new world order, so division and a demoralization campaign was
performed. Iris15 1 day ago Great article. The fact that Biden isn't eager to win the
presidency was visible many times. Trump often appears exhausted from all the criticism lobbed
his way and close to a feeling "why should I care if this turns out right". Which means, no
matter who wins, it will be Netanyahu and the Zionists who govern US policy in accord
completely with the deep state. There is nothing to win in this election for the voter and
people know it. Iris15 Iris15 1 day ago Antifa was used to stage race riots as a distraction
from the vacuum in the Dem party: racism is all it has to offer but no solution on how to
overcome it. There are no great economic solutions in the making and short of just such an
economic miracle, misery will be long and desperate. And people know it. The election lost its
luster as neither candidate has any real agenda and solution to deal with the pandemic and the
tanking economy. Juan_More 1 day ago A well written OpEd piece. But she has left out the egos
of these two clow . . er . . . politicians. Neither of them will settle for anything less than
a scorched earth victory. We see it in themselves and in their parties. My crystal ball keeps
coming up armed insurrection in the US regardless of who wins and the imposition of martial law
in many states and possibly the entire country. As always there is an unasked question, "What
will the Generals do?" Will they mobilise the troops to restore order (martial law), under
Congress or will the restore order under a military junta? Good luck to all my American
friends, you are going to need it over the next few months if there is no clear winner.
Grognardski 1 day ago Democracy is Santa Claus for adults... we want to believe it is real. But
it isn't. Especially in the USA where a rather malevolent cabal of
banksters/war-profiteers/intelligence agencies/etc. manipulates the masses through propaganda
in such an effective way that Goebbels would blush with envy. RS Priv 14 hours ago It's not
about the most stressful and honorable act of helping the people but more primal instinct of
grabbing money and influence for personal gain. Hence the perception of election the outcome of
which does not matter in this instance. Not that money matters all that much because everyone
over there is about to become at least a billionaire sooner rather than later. The real problem
is that loaf of bread will cost a trillion. The American Dream - you have to be asleep to
believe it :) fazul 1 day ago This is way bigger than the presidency, the american hegemony or
big tech. The election is about the enactment of the new world order. Reply Iris15 fazul 1 day
ago There is likely less to this new world order than what is feared: nations have many times
tried to create a new world order and failed every time. The world is too large and diverse to
force it all under one new order. The western states are bankrupt and without an economic and
financial surplus not much of any new order can be instituted. Even the Jews failed so far.
Soros is near death. His foundation without its leader will
Here we thought this man was for the working class and came from a working class.
If you are working class average Joe, you will not be able to dispense your hospital and
bank debts in a bankruptcy court. Thank you hunter and your lobbying company.
At least Trump is not a career government parasite. The Biden Crime Family corruption is
as bad as the Clintons.
LetThemEatRand , 30 minutes ago
Burisma is now paying $50,000 to $1M per month for smoking crack and getting meetings with
Joe Biden. Or if you know a guy who speaks Chinese, you can do even better! Check it out.
https://joebiden.com
And that's by design. False flags like Scripal Novichok saga are just a smoke screen over UK
problems, the ciursi of neoliberalism in the country, delegitimization of neoliberal elites and
its subservience to the USA global neoliberal empire, which wants to devour Russia like it
plundered the USSR in the past.
But why outgoing MI6 chief decided to tell us the truth? This is not in the traditions of the
agency.
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.
The constant pressure is supposed to break society - the government can analyze and
understand what is going on. But what about the people? They are the target for all these
provocations
The Navalny one was supposed to result in street demonstrations and anger - as far as I
see it did not have this affect. Purely because once they mentioned Novichok it was obvious
this was a lie.
Novichok became a joke due to the Skripal affair. Which never made sense. And produced so
many jokes about the cat, the poison on the door handle, in the buckwheat, people in Hazmat
suits- and policemen standing there close to a toxic door.
The west insulted the people's intelligence!!!
Russia has to keep educating and exposing their population to the methods and tactics of
the western governments to undermine and attack them.
I agree that there is a real racist tone to their treatment of Russia. Why can't they be
left alone? There is this desire to crush them that I do not understand.
@Dragonlord. - The TrumpTard that has gone completely out of his mind. The TrumpTard wants
to blame the Biden family for the corruption, perversion, the violence & destruction of
the moral fabric in the US - LOL
The TrumpTard believes that Trump is going to solve the corruption, the political and
racial divide in Yankeelandia - LOL
Trump should bring copies of Hunter's receipt for the Mac and copy of Hunter's lawyer
asking for the hard disk, and maybe a few pics for national TeeVee. Lots of snowflakes will
be watching who don't watch Fox. Honeybadger.
Calibabe , 8 hours ago
Just bring some copies of pixilated pictures from the videos. You can leave Hunter's face
free and clear. Then ask Joe "So your cool with what your son, this is his face, he is in
this horrible video, doing horrible things to very young girls, your OK with him doing this?
Joe, what does China have on you?" Better yet, have the DOJ arrest Hunter an hour and a half
before the debate starts. Let that rattle Joe for the 90 minutes he's on stage but don't have
Pres Trump say anything until right at the end. Joe will flip out right on TV.
radical-extremist , 8 hours ago
Instead of a "strongly worded letter" what's preventing Johnson and a few other Senators
from putting their big pants on and marching over to FBI headquarters tomorrow morning and
demanding a meeting with Wray? ...with cameras rolling. You know it's the kind of stunt the
Democrats would pull if the tables were turned.
The Big Fat Bastard , 8 hours ago
Bidens a pedophile?
This doesn't surprise me at all.
Buck-Rogers , 8 hours ago
There are pics floating around on the internet of Biden Jnr snorting coke off what appears
to be your gut. Do you have anything to say?
R.G. , 8 hours ago
As long as housing prices are falling....all is well.
" Meanwhile, if there is incriminating child **** on Hunter's computer, what has the FBI
done about it? "
Deleted it?
thesonandheir , 1 hour ago
Dumbass should have used Clinton Computer Cleaning Services, Inc.
Hoax Fatigue , 1 hour ago
Isn't that the FBI?
MitchRyderAndTheDetroitWheels , 1 hour ago
The FBI top dude is there to coverup for the Biden's. Maybe Crowdstrike can help them out
as well since we know the Russian's placed that info on the laptop. You can see this coming
from miles away.
Made in Occupied America , 1 hour ago
FBI = Friends of Biden Incorporated (in Delaware, of course)
Finally, the old mantra:
"investigated-and-debunked" "investigated-and-debunked" "investigated-and-debunked"
What took so long??
[If only the Republicans had known those magic words, we could have avoided so much misery,
Russia scam, Ukraine impeachment, and so on. They tell every junior marxist: "Remember,
little comrade. Always always always accuse the enemy of the crimes that you yourself are
committing. This is the way of the revolutionary. Learn it well."]
Putin and Lavrov are perhaps the two most skilled diplomats on the world stage. Putin has
a wicked sense of humor, to boot. Even when he's serious, he sometimes trolls his opponents
humorously. But never ruthlessly.
xrxs , 39 minutes ago
It's trolling if you look at it through the lens of decades of red baiting in a country
where communists are not a major party (as they are in Russia), and where Putin is reduced to
a gangster caricature. Not assuming malice, saying that he supports equality and fraternity,
solidarity for justice movements, and a safer world through arms reduction and control seems
like something a reasonable human would say.
Dragonlord , 1 hour ago
Wait for MSM to call this a Russian interference.
farflungstar , 1 hour ago
I would imagine like most normal human beings Putin is disgusted by this child groping,
hair sniffing, corrupt old fossil.
A Biden presidency would pick up where Barry's left off only on steroids.
loop , 1 hour ago
Meanwhile
TRUMP
is
a bona fide ISRAELI puppet .
Negative Interest , 38 minutes ago
He knows Trump is a tool of Israel. Nothing more.
lwilland1012 , 44 minutes ago
Well, is he wrong? Can you honestly say there is a difference between the Bolsheviks of
old and today's Democrats?
Negative Interest , 34 minutes ago
Putin probably disappointed in Trump. Knows he is a loose cannon and already dropped bombs
on Syria. Now in Israel's pocket 100%
Coronavirus can survive on certain surfaces, including banknotes and mobile phone screens,
for nearly a month in cooler climates, new research by Australian scientists suggests.
Covid-19 is able to survive in the open for a significantly longer length of time than was
previously thought, according to a study by the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and
Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) published by the
Virology Journal.
"Establishing how long the virus really remains viable on surfaces enables us to more
accurately predict and mitigate its spread, and do a better job of protecting our people,"
said CSIRO's chief executive, Dr. Larry Marshall.
According to the research, the virus has proven to be "extremely stable" and able to
thrive on smooth, non-porous surfaces, including paper and plastic banknotes, glass, and steel.
Kept at around room temperature – 20C (68F) – Covid-19 stayed alive for a whopping
28 days, which is some 10 days longer than the survival time of the regular flu virus. It
should be noted that the experiment was carried out in the dark, as UV light is very effective
in killing the coronavirus.
Higher temperatures are significantly less comfortable for the virus. At 40C (104F), it was
able to survive for less than 24 hours. At 30C (86F) Covid-19 demonstrated quite mixed results,
staying alive for some seven days on stainless steel, plastic notes and glass, but only three
days on vinyl and cotton cloth. On paper cash, the contagious virus was still detected after 21
days under those conditions.
The problem with American imperialism that like tiger it can't change its spots. In this
sense Trump vs Biden is false dilemma. "Bothe aare worse" as Stalin quipped on the other
occasion. Both still profess "Full Spectrum Dominance" doctrine at the expense of the standard of
living of the USA people (outside of top 10 or 20%)
The problem with Putin statement is that both candidates are marionette of more powerful
forces. Trump is a hostage of Izreal lobby, which in the USA are mostly consist of rabid
Russophobes (look art Schiff, Schumer and other members of this gang). Biden is a classic
neoliberal warmonger, much like Hillary was, who voted for Iraq war, contributed to color
revolution in Ukraine, and was instrumental in the conversion of Dems into the second war party.
So there is zero choice in the coming election unless you want to punish Trump for the betrayal
of his electorate, which probably is the oonly valid reason to vote for Biden in key states;
otherwise you san safely ignore the elections as youn; influence anythng. In a deep sense this is
a simply legitimization procedure for the role of the "Deep State", not so much real elections as
both cadidates were already vetted by neoliberal establishment
The key problem with voting for Bide is that this way you essentially legitimizing Obama
administration RussiaGate false flag operation. But as Putin said, chances for extending the
Start treaty might worse this self-betrayal.
Like much of the American public, the Russian public is no doubt weary of the prior couple
years of non-stop 'Russiagate' headlines and wild accusations out of Western press, which all
are now pretty much in complete agreement came to absolutely nothing. This is also why the
whole issue has been conspicuously dropped by the Biden campaign and as a talking point among
the Democrats, though in some corners there's been meek attempts to revive it, especially
related to claims of "expected" Kremlin interference in the impending presidential
election.
Apparently seeing in this an opportunity for some epic trolling, Russian President Vladimir
Putin in an interview with Rossiya 1 TV days ago said it was actually the Democratic Party and
the Communist Party which have most in common.
Putin was speaking in terms of historic Soviet communism in the recent interview (Wednesday)
detailed in Newsweek. "The Democratic Party is traditionally closer to the so-called liberal
values, closer to social democratic ideas," Putin began. "And it was from the social democratic
environment that the Communist Party evolved."
"After all, I was a member of the Soviet Communist Party for nearly 20 years" Putin added.
"I was a rank-and-file member, but it can be said that I believed in the party's ideas. I
still like many of these left-wing values. Equality and fraternity. What is bad about them?
In fact, they are akin to Christian values."
"Yes, they are difficult to implement, but they are very attractive, nevertheless. In
other words, this can be seen as an ideological basis for developing contacts with the
Democratic representative."
The Russian president also invoked that historically Russian communists in the Soviet era
would have been fully on board the Black Lives Matter movement and other civil rights related
causes. "So, this is something that can be seen, to a degree, as common values, if not a
unifying agent for us," the Russian president said. "People of my generation remember a time
when huge portraits of Angela Davis, a member of the U.S. Communist Party and an ardent fighter
for the rights of African Americans, were on view around the Soviet Union."
So there it is: Putin is saying his own personal ideological past could be a basis of
"shared values" with a Biden presidency, again, it what appears to be a sophisticated bit of
trolling that he knows Biden won't welcome one bit. Or let's call it a 'Russian endorsement
Putin style'. The Associated Press and others described it as Putin "hedging his bets",
however.
Another interesting part of the interview is where the Russian TV presenter asked Putin the
following question:
"The entire world is watching the final stage of the US presidential race. Much has
happened there, including things we could never imagine happening before but the one constant
in recent years is that your name is mentioned all the time," Zarubin said. "Moreover, during
the latest debates, which have provoked a public outcry, presidential candidate Biden called
candidate Trump 'Putin's puppy.'"
"Since they keep talking about you, I would like to ask a question which you probably will
not want to answer," the interviewer continued. "Nevertheless, here it is: Whose position in
this race, Trump's or Biden's, appeals to you more?"
And here's Putin's response:
"Everything that is happening in the United States is the result of the country's internal
political processes and problems," Putin said. "By the way, when anyone tries to humiliate or
insult the incumbent head of state, in this case in the context you have mentioned, this
actually enhances our prestige, because they are talking about our incredible influence and
power. In a way, it could be said that they are playing into our hands, as the saying
goes."
But on a more serious note Putin pointed out that contrary to the notion some level of
sympathy between the Trump administration and the Kremlin, much less the charge of "collusion",
it remains that US-Russia relations have reached a low-point in recent history under Trump. The
record bears this out.
Putin underscored that "the greatest number of various kinds of restrictions and sanctions
were introduced [against Russia] during the Trump presidency."
"Decisions on imposing new sanctions or expanding previous ones were made 46 times. The
incumbent's administration withdrew from the INF treaty. That was a very drastic step. After
2002, when the Bush administration withdrew from the ABM treaty, that was the second major
step. And I believe it is a big danger to international stability and security," Putin
explained.
"Now the US has announced the beginning of the procedure for withdrawing from the Open
Skies Treaty. We have good reason to be concerned about that, too. A number of our joint
projects, modest, but viable, have not been implemented – the business council project,
expert council, and so on," he concluded.
But then on Biden specifically Putin said that despite "rather sharp anti-Russian rhetoric"
from the Democratic nominee, it remains "Candidate Biden has said openly that he was ready to
extend the New START or to sign a new strategic offensive reductions treaty."
"This is already a very significant element of our potential future cooperation," Putin
added of a potential Biden presidency.
Sargon 1 day ago "The firm's multiple conflicts of
interest in the Russia investigation coincide with a series of embarrassing disclosures that
call into question its technical reliability." Then you read this: "Meanwhile, during the
several years that CrowdStrike's own uncertainty about its hacking allegation was kept from the
public, the firm has enjoyed a stratospheric rise on Wall Street." Good work, if you can get
it. Be incompetent at your job, and get rich. TheMule999 13 hours ago Crowdstrike isn't a
"cybersecurity" firm. They're a criminal services agency for when dirty members of government
want evidence destroyed and witnesses murdered.
'White Supremacist' Narrative Unravels: Whitmer Kidnap Suspect Attended BLM Rally,
Another Called Trump A 'Tyrant' by Tyler Durden Sat, 10/10/2020 - 13:40
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Last week, the FBI says it foiled a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D),
after the FBI infiltrated an anti-government militia and arrested 13 members who "talked about
murdering 'tyrants' or 'taking' a sitting governor."
And while the FBI never suggested a race-based ideology in its criminal complaint
, the MSM - as well as Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D), took the 'white supremacist'
ball and ran with it - hard .
On Friday, however, the
Washington Post profiled several members of the group. Notably absent were accusations of
'white supremacy' - perhaps after acknowledging:
" One of alleged plotters , 23-year-old Daniel Harris, attended a Black Lives Matter
protest in June , telling the Oakland County Times he was upset about the killing of George
Floyd and police violence ."
Another alleged plotter, Brandon Caserta, called President Trump a 'tyrant' - adding ' Trump
is not your friend, dude . ' Caserta notably has an anarchist flag behind him in several videos
he's recorded.
Again, there isn't a shred of evidence included in the FBI's criminal complaint, nor
subsequent reporting, that the men adhered to a white supremacist ideology - a false
narrative.
And so, it appears that the FBI busted an anarchist, anti-government militia which plotted
violence against elected officials - yet hated both sides of the aisle.
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Let's see how fast this entire affair disappears from the news cycle.
"... The hatred of Donald Trump, which certainly to some extent is legitimate if only due to his ignorance and boorishness, has driven a feeding frenzy by the moderate-to liberal media which has made them blind to their own faults. ..."
"... Just as the Israel Firsters in Congress and in the state legislative bodies have had great success in criminalizing any criticism of the Jewish state, the mainstream media's "fake news" in support of the "woke" crowd agenda has already succeeded in forcing out many alternative voices in the public space. ..."
"... This type of "thought control" has been most evident in the media, but it is beginning to dominate in other areas where conversations about policy and rights take place. Universities in particular, which once were bastions of free speech and free thought, are now defining what is acceptable language and behavior even when the alleged perpetrators are neither threatening or abusive. ..."
"... Recently, a student editor at the University of Wisconsin student newspaper was fired because he dared to write a column that objected to the current anti-police consensus. ..."
"... The worst aspect of the increasing thought control taking place in America's public space is that it is not only not over, it is increasing. To be sure, to a certain extent the upcoming election is a driver of the process as left and right increasingly man the barricades to support their respective viewpoints. If that were all, it might be considered politics as usual, but unfortunately the process is going well beyond that point. The righteousness exuded by the social justice warriors has apparently given them the mandate to attempt to control what Americans are allowed to think or say while also at the same time upending the common values that have made the country functional. It is a revolution of sorts, and those who object most strongly could well be the first to go to the guillotine. ..."
Once upon a time it was possible to rely on much of the mainstream media to report on
developments more or less objectively, relegating opinion pieces to the editorial page. But
that was a long time ago. I remember moving to Washington back in 1976 after many years of
New York Times and International Herald Tribune readership, when both those
papers still possessed editorial integrity. My first experience of the Washington Post
had my head spinning, wondering how front-page stories that allegedly reported the "news" could
sink to the level of including editorialized comments from start to finish to place the story
in context.
Today, Washington Post style reporting has become the norm and the New York
Times , if anything, might possibly be the worst exponent of news that is actually largely
unsubstantiated or at best "anonymous" opinion. In the past few weeks, stories about the
often-violent social unrest that continues in numerous states have virtually disappeared from
sight because the mainstream media has its version of reality, that the demonstrations are
legitimate protest that seek to correct "systemic racism." Likewise, counter-demonstrators are
reflexively described as "white supremacists" so they can be dismissed as unreformable racists.
Videos of rampaging mobs looting, burning and destroying while also beating and even killed
innocent citizens who are trying to protect themselves and their property are not shown or
written about to any real extent because such actions are being carried out by the groups that
the mainstream media and its political enablers favor.
The hatred of Donald Trump, which certainly to some extent is legitimate if only due to his
ignorance and boorishness, has driven a feeding frenzy by the moderate-to liberal media which
has made them blind to their own faults. The recent expose by the New
York Times on Donald Trump's taxes might well be considered a new low, with blaring
headlines declaring that the president is a tax avoider. It was a theme rapidly picked up and
promoted by much of the remainder of the television and print media as well as "public radio"
stations like NPR.
But wait a minute. Trump Inc. is a multi-faceted business that includes a great number of
smaller entities, not all of which involve real estate per se. Donald Trump, not surprisingly,
does not do his own taxes and instead employs teams of accountants and lawyers to do the work
for him. They take advantage of every break possible to reduce the taxes paid. Why are there
tax breaks for businesses that individual Americans do not enjoy? Because congress approved
legislation to make it so. So who is to blame if Donald Trump only paid $750 in tax? Congress,
but the media coverage of the issue deliberately made it look like Trump is a tax cheater.
And then there is the question how the Times got the tax returns in the first place. Tax
returns are legally protected confidential documents and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is
obligated to maintain privacy regarding them. Some of the files are currently part of an IRS
audit and it just might be that the auditors are the source of the completely illegal leak, but
we may never know as the Times is piously declaring "We are not making the records
themselves public, because we do not want to jeopardize our sources, who have taken enormous
personal risks to help inform the public." Jacob Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation
wryly observes that when it comes to avoiding taxes "I'll bet that the members of the
Times ' editorial board and its big team of reporters and columnists do the same thing.
They are just upset that they don't do it as well as Trump."
Just as the Israel Firsters in Congress and in the state legislative bodies have had great
success in criminalizing any criticism of the Jewish state, the mainstream media's "fake news"
in support of the "woke" crowd agenda has already succeeded in forcing out many alternative
voices in the public space. The Times has been a leader in bringing about this departure
from "freedom of speech" enshrined in a "free press," having recently forced
the resignation of senior editor James Bennet over the publication of an op-ed written by
Senator Tom Cotton. Cotton's views are certainly not to everyone's taste, but he provided a
reasonable account of how and when federal troops have been used in the past to repress civil
unrest, together with a suggestion that they might play that same role in the current
context.
This type of "thought control" has been most evident in the media, but it is beginning to
dominate in other areas where conversations about policy and rights take place. Universities in
particular, which once were bastions of free speech and free thought, are now defining what is
acceptable language and behavior even when the alleged perpetrators are neither threatening or
abusive.
Recently, a student editor at the University of Wisconsin student newspaper was fired
because he dared to write a column that objected to the current anti-police consensus.
Washington lawyer Jonathan Turley
observes how the case was not unique, how there has been " a crackdown on some campuses
against conservative columnists and newspapers, including the firing of a
conservative student columnist at Syracuse , the public condemnation of a
student columnist at Georgetown , and a
campaign against one of the oldest conservative student newspapers in the country at
Dartmouth. Now, The Badger Herald , a
student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin Madison, has dismissed columnist Tripp Grebe
after he wrote a column opposing the defunding of police departments." Ironically, Grebe
acknowledged in his op-ed that there is considerable police-initiated brutality and also
justified the emergence of black lives matter, but it was not enough to save him.
The worst aspect of the increasing thought control taking place in America's public space is
that it is not only not over, it is increasing. To be sure, to a certain extent the upcoming
election is a driver of the process as left and right increasingly man the barricades to
support their respective viewpoints. If that were all, it might be considered politics as
usual, but unfortunately the process is going well beyond that point. The righteousness exuded
by the social justice warriors has apparently given them the mandate to attempt to control what
Americans are allowed to think or say while also at the same time upending the common values
that have made the country functional. It is a revolution of sorts, and those who object most
strongly could well be the first to go to the guillotine.
Who reads newspapers, only liberals over the age of 60. About 70 percent of the column
inches is covered with advertisements. 30 percent is news and editorials. Why mess around
with a big, unwieldy pile of paper when more news, without pages and pages of ads is
available in a computer or a tiny phone? Plus the piles of paper accumulate.
The comment that Trump only paid "$750" is bs also -- that was an addendum to the returns
and if you read even the entire NYSlimes article it really doesn't say this -- he paid a
million etc., go read it and do some research before passing on this bs -- plus all of his
taxes are under review/audit by the IRS and if the deductions are disallowed as to the Real
Estate he will pay $100 Million -- so peddling this bs is garbage and discredits you as a
writer .
Donald Trump, not surprisingly, does not do his own taxes and instead employs teams of
accountants and lawyers to do the work for him.
This is something I have been saying for 4 years. All of the TDS sufferers seem to be
stuck on the notion that Trump burns the midnight oil swilling Coca-Cola dreaming up ways to
fix his tax returns.
Never mind the editors and writers at the NY Times, I use an accountant to do my taxes,
and have for almost 40 years. The fee is worth my just dumping everything on his desk and
picking it up later.
"He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch" is what a political constituency
(such as a political party or a cultural group) says of its own tarnished politician. This
politician is better than the opponent because he or she is a member of the group.
A Harvard lecturer, who moonlights as an "analyst" on CNN, has been busy pushing a crazy conspiracy theory that Russia has spies
in Walter Reed military hospital, where US President Donald Trump received treatment for Covid-19.
Juliette Kayyem claimed on Twitter that it is "very likely" that Russian agents infiltrated the hospital and gained access
to information about Trump's medical condition.
Juliette Kayyem @juliettekayyem ·
Oct 3 It is very likely that Russian
intelligence agencies -- through signal and human intel sources at Walter Reed, etc -- have more information about the President's
condition than we do (though I think we all know how the president is doing.)
The title to this article has to be one of the most darkly funny ones I've ever read on
ZH: "Only Full Transparency Will Save The CIA And FBI Now"
It's not just that they will never be transparent because obfuscation and opacity are
their stock-in-trade. It's that the idea that somehow becoming the opposite of what they are
(and were born to be) would "save" them.
That's like saying that auditing The Fed would "save" them. Or that fish should get out of
the water so they can breathe better. It's ridiculous in the extreme. It would kill them.
Which is why they don't do it. And never will.
2banana , 23 minutes ago
obama wesponized the FBI, CIA, DOJ, IRS and EPA to go after political enemies and those
who just had different viewpoints.
spam filter , 8 minutes ago
Is a community organizer synonymous with organized crime boss? Obama will go down as the
most corrupt potus in history.
Michael
Hudson's newest interview on the Macro N Cheese Podcast either as a transcript or via
audio is all about the coming debt deflation and what he calls the Neofeudal Empire.
If you haven't already known, Hudson reminds you that:
Who is the dumbest economic Nobel Prize winner? [Paul Krugman?] Paul Krugman. That's right.
He was given a Nobel Prize for not understanding what money was. If he would have
understood it, that would've excluded him from getting the Nobel Prize.
"Yes, the US is such a politically-ignorant country that Trump can accuse "Corporate Joe"
Biden of being a "radical socialist" and actually find believers, but Western fake-leftist
parties are increasingly being punished by voters for their "right-wing economics and
right-wing foreign policy but with political correctness" platform."
Green Party of Canada, Environmentalists with Neocon characteristics.
A buzz-phrase I keep noticing is the use of "without evidence". For example, when Trump,
or anyone the MSM wants to target, makes an accusation and the MSM has to discuss that
accusation it is unsurprising to encounter the phrase "without evidence"
as seen
here
If only the anonymous "US intelligence sources"
(here)
that the Mouthpiece Media echo so frequently were qualified with "without evidence".
I tried combining the two phrases and instead of receiving thousands of results I
received
three .
Oh the irony!
Watched a PBS program tonight. The series is called "Hacking Your Mind", the program I
watched tonight was titled "Us vs Them". The program demonstrated the natural tendency of
human beings to divide into groups – Us vs Them, and how this human tendency presents a
danger to our nation as we fall prey to media influences that make us divide one American
group against another American group (Us vs Trump supporters, for example). Us vs Them
– divided.
Irony is seen in the program as it sounds the alarm about THEM – the Russians.
Them
THem
THEM!
Here is the PBS video. The segment of interest begins at the 21 minutes mark. https://www.pbs.org/video/us-vs-them-2t0c0s/
The segment in question discusses an anti-muslim video that had been shared on the internet
since 2014.
2014.
Apparently, after the video had been shared thousands upon thousands of time since 2014 a
Russian guy also shared this video on Facebook in 2016 and thus provided convenient fodder
for Russiagate and this PBS program.
I found the segment beginning at 21 minutes very spooky and troubling and I fear for our
nation that PBS is pushing hate. Pay attention to the distressing sound effects that
accompany this segment.
Since the largest threat facing the country is white supremacists, according to FBI Director
Chris Wray and Homeland Security acting chief
Tom Wolf , the Department of Homeland Security has agreed to provide $10 million in grants
to organizations which combat 'far-right extremism and white supremacy , ' according to the
Wall Street Journal .
The department's Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention program will fund groups such as
Life After Hate - founded by reformed white supremacists, which helps people trying to do the
same. Another group, the School of Communication at American University, will develop a
strategy to combat disinformation 'circulated by the far right online,' and others. Life After
Hate was awarded nearly $750,000, while the School of Communication received a $500,000
grant.
One of the largest grants, nearly $750,000, went to Life After Hate, which was founded by
former white supremacists and neo-Nazis and works with people trying to leave violent
far-right movements. The group was first awarded funding under the Obama-era program but had
its grant rescinded soon after Mr. Trump took office. -
Wall Street Journal
Life After Hate says they will use the funding for its ExitUSA initiative. Executive
director Sammy Rangel says their work "has never been more important," adding "This project
follows years of innovation in a space that was largely uncharted."
Another group, the Counter Extremism Project, was awarded $277,755 to collaborate with
Parallel Networks, which works with inmates at a San Diego County correctional facility who
adhere to both white supremacist of jihadi ideology .
An interviewer should test this man's integrity with a simple question, such as.. "When
you retire, will promise to live off your generous pension....like Eisenhower in his rocking
chair....and not go to work for an arms manufacturer or think tank or any other paid
position?"
Rocky_Fjord 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 05:18 AM
. . .on a lighter note, this caught my eye on the web --
"Donald Trump was just one of 43,000 other Americans who tested positive for COVID
today.
While nearly all of them paid more in taxes than he did, few will have his resources to
fight the ravages of the disease and recover from its financial aftershocks . . .
Trump should have hired someone to take the COVID test for him, like he did his SAT,
then they'd have the COVID instead of him... .
Trump, a mere 10 days ago: 'It affects virtually nobody'.". . .
NEW YORK -- As the Democratic presidential nominee ramped up his in-person efforts to get
out the vote, members of the Joe Biden campaign reportedly went door-to-door Tuesday in the
JPMorgan Chase headquarters. "Door-knocking is a core part of talking to supporters and getting
our message out there, which is why we're spending the day knocking on each and every office
door in the entire building," said Biden deputy campaign manager Pete Kavanaugh, adding that
hundreds of volunteers were reaching out to every wealth manager, data analyst, and investment
associate at the 383 Madison building to seek support and donations for the Democratic nominee
before canvassing at the headquarters of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
"We explain to every potential supporter what a great candidate Biden is and how his vision
for the country will make their lives better. We hope to get a commitment to vote, of course,
but a little donation doesn't hurt either. Polls show that the 12th floor is a tossup so we're
definitely focusing on that.
A lot of these people were Hillary [Clinton] supporters in 2016, but we're not taking
anything for granted, and the Wall Street demographic represents our key supporters."
At press time, several members of the Biden campaign team expressed disappointment after
speaking with several bankers who said they didn't really see a difference between the two
candidates.
Are you ready for this week's absurdity? Here's our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous
stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, risks to your prosperity and on
occasion, inspiring poetic justice.
Beethoven is a symbol of "exclusion and elitism"
The woke mob is attempting to cancel one of the most famous pieces of music in history
– Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
Their aim? To thwart "wealthy white men who embraced Beethoven and turned his symphony into
a symbol of their superiority and importance."
Come again?
Prior to Beethoven in the mid 1700s, lower class Europeans would regularly attend
symphonies. And they were apparently quite a rowdy bunch– hooting and hollering all
throughout the performance, like a modern day rock concert.
Around the time that Beethoven rose to prominence in the early 1800s, however, the lower
classes were excluded from attending symphonies because they didn't keep quiet and applaud at
the appropriate time.
So today's woke mob believes that by playing or enjoying Beethoven's Fifth, you are
glorifying the exclusion of poor people, and by extension, women and minorities.
ay_arrow
Billy the Poet , 5 hours ago
Jon Voight as Conrack introduces his students to Beecloven:
Movies where a white person educates poor children of color are racist, obviously.
Unknown User , 4 hours ago
War is Peace / Freedom is Slavery / Ignorance is Strength
Unknown User , 3 hours ago
"He has made a marvellous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his
hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian,
the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded
to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise,
and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but
it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The *** saw them all, beat
them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no
weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive
mind. All things are mortal but the ***; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the
secret of his immortality?" - Mark Twain
yerfej , 5 hours ago
When low IQ reetaryds are manipulated to seize control they immediately attack everything
beyond their cultural status and eliminate it. The west is witnessing rich progressive elites
leveraging idiots to destroy society. What is funny is the idiots doing the manual
destruction and footwork will of course get nothing out of all their efforts. They too will
be culled, eventually, as always.
Bay Area Guy , 5 hours ago
But Beethoven was disabled (deaf at 26 or 27), so the woke crowd is prejudiced against the
hearing impaired. They better self-cancel because of that.
drjimi , 4 hours ago
People don't go to classical music concerts because of the behavioral expectations????
Seriously???
People don't go to classical music concerts because they don't like classical music.
i can just as validly argue hip hop is elitist and exclusionary because I don't care for
the chimp-like antics of its imbecilic fans.
MilwaukeeMark , 5 hours ago
Beethoven refuses to bow to the elites of his time. He demanded a place at their tables
with them. He refused to become their hired help. Of course the left is too stupid to know
that history.
Pernicious Gold Phallusy , 2 hours ago
The poem used in the last, choral, movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony was written by
Friedrich Schiller and is know as "An die Freude", translated as Ode To Joy. But Schiller
originally wrote the poem as "An die Freie" or "To the Free." Europe was in the grip of
antimonarchic sentiment. The poem was not permitted to be published in Austria by the
Emperor's censors. Schiller changed the word throughout the poem from Freie to Freude, and
the censors permitted it. But everybody in the audience would have known this story, and
realized the meaning of the poem.
Joe A , 3 hours ago
That is what communism does: it deconstructs and destroys history because it is all bad.
History is a reminder of the oppression of the poor and downtrodden, of the class struggle.
Everywhere in communist Europe they tore down churches and historical buildings and replaced
them with ugly concrete colossal monstrosities.
Communists are insane.
Savvy , 3 hours ago
Rap is the most racist violent 'music' there is and they go after Beethoven? LOL
Jethro , 4 hours ago
The left is too stupid realize that they are creating the monsters that they've been
autisticly screeching about.
Choomwagon Roof Hits , 4 hours ago
Sort of like the Old Bolsheviks back in the USSR...
Patmos , 5 hours ago
Their aim? To thwart "wealthy white men who embraced Beethoven and turned his symphony
into a symbol of their superiority and importance."
I understand the desire of youth to shake things up when things don't seem right, to break
out of the mold. It's James Dean, Rebel Without A Cause.
The modern "woke" mob isn't that though, it's rheetards without a clue.
Nobody can even imagine of inflicting on the USA the same damage as CIA/FBI sponsored
Russiagate did.
And who authorized this CIA honcho to classify other countries as "enemy states"? He revealed
himself as yet another "national security parasite" and probably should be fired on the
spot.
US intelligence, the Pentagon, and national security officials are closely monitoring how
America's rivals and enemies "react" to Thursday night's shock news of President Trump's
coronavirus diagnosis, for which he's since said to be exhibiting mild symptoms.
"The U.S. military stands ready to defend our country and its citizens," Joint Staff
spokesperson Col. Dave Butler said Friday, according to
Politico . "There's no change to the readiness or capability of our armed forces."
"What we are anticipating is that the Russian actors and probably the Iranians will play
this up," one anonymous defense official also added. Further the countries of China and North
Korea are also being monitored, according to the report.
Specifically US intelligence will scrutinizing any "subtle increase in activity against us,
knowing we are preoccupied, and the opportunity to test us, perhaps," Marc Polymeropoulos, a
former CIA Senior Intelligence Service officer,
described to Politico.
The former CIA officer emphasized that "Our enemies will see us in a vulnerable
state."
play_arrow
Thraxite , 4 hours ago
Dude forgot his paranoia medication. What a loony.
HopeToLearn , 6 hours ago
THANK GOD! for the defense industrial complex!
Is-Be , 5 hours ago
The DIC?
I like it, its got legs.
Cluster_Frak , 6 hours ago
like Biden, Pelosi, Clinton Crime Syndicate, Feinstein, etc
Dzerzhhinsky , 6 hours ago
Any adversary that giggles will get bombed, you have been warned.
Aussiestirrer , 2 hours ago
Never pass up an opportunity to run a false flag operation.
It appears the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden may have taken
precedence over watching porn for a big chunk of Americans, as Pornhub revealed its website
took a hit to its traffic during the face-off.
The US's most popular adult website revealed that visits were down 18.5 percent as Biden and
Trump traded barbs on stage in Cleveland, Ohio, on Tuesday. "That represents a significant
change in visits during one of Pornhub's peak daily traffic periods," the website said.
Even more interestingly, Pornhub revealed that the biggest declines in traffic were seen in
critical swing states – those that could reasonably be won by either the Democratic or
Republican presidential candidate by a swing in votes. Traffic to the site from Michigan and
Pennsylvania dropped by more than 20 percent, while that from Maine and Wisconsin fell by 20
and 19 percent respectively.
It appears perusers of porn were more interested in the 2020 debate than they were in
2016's, when traffic dropped by only 16 percent during the first head-to-head between Trump and
Hillary Clinton.
Wayne Smyth 1 day ago 1 Oct, 2020 03:58 PM
Equally pitiful is the competitive viewing between porn and the debate as is pitiful the
choice between Biden or Trump for president.
FelixTcat 8 hours ago 2 Oct, 2020 12:20 PM
What a sick bunch of people wasting their time watching that garbage.( I was referring to the
debates)
I keep feeling like I'm a bit player in a bad movie.
Seriously, Hope has symptoms, Trump has a positive test, Trump is likely infections right
now, and has been for a couple days. Hope for a week maybe, and all running around without
msks. This is going to be an interesting real-world experiment in how Corona spreads.
Having been jailed by the British in pre-independence India was "de rigueur" among Indian
politicians seeking office.
Seems that Bolsonaro, BoJo the Clown and now Trump are the fad setters - trendy
politicians will now all get COVID and squeeze some sympathy out of the sheep.
I am with OldHippie on this one. From a social engineering perspective this announcement
increases F.U.D. and helps to ratchet up tensions in quite a few sectors. Remember with live
in a "post truth world" -(R.Juliani)so this could be a PR ploy designed to send ripples
through the markets, both RedBlue Uniparty factions, and manipulate expectations across the
board.
Brilliant 4D chess move! BLM is largely responsible for two billion dollars in property
damage and dozens of innocent people killed or maimed since May 29th and Trump .will declare
the KKK a terrorist organization. I'd like to see how the MAGA tards are going to explain
this one.
I live in a solid red state, and I am voting third party for president. I would vote for
Trump if I lived in a swing state. I think the best outcome in the presidential election
would be a narrow EC win for Trump, and a massive popular vote loss.
Leaders are needed –someone who will be listened to and respected.
... Then the alternative is an avid Amtrak rider taking America on a spin back in
time –when USA supposedly had honest politicians and police who did a job and education
was not a get rich gimmick. No child left behind has worked wonders and perhaps now
kindergarten kids should be able to vote – the messages are aimed at their level.
I won't be voting for Trump either. There is nobody to vote for and why should we be made
fools of; like it will really matter who wins?
If Trump wins we can be sure that most of his To-Do lists will be quickly forgotten while
he continues to work closely with Israel to take Iran out and ensure the Palestinian
slow-genocide continues on as scheduled.
Trump is effectively setting up whites as "terrorists" no matter what side they are on;
left or right. By twisting what a white person says, even slightly, authorities and
"anti-racists" can label them left wing antifa or right wing "KKK".
Trump is either being used by someone very smart or he knows exactly what he's doing
(maybe both). He has a way of making many of his supporters believe he will follow through
with his promises, while simultaneously manipulating them to forget how he has done nothing
for them.
I guess at Unz we're just supposed to ignore the greatest presidential performance since
Lincoln last night. Trump took down Wallace, Biden and the entire MSM-pussyboy complex. I'd
give Trump the full power of the State to rid it of swamp creatures and reporter bitches once
and for all.
"Who is being terrorized by the Klan in 2020?" We can do better than that. Name someone
the Klan has terrorized since 1970. Has anyone seen the Klan anywhere in the last 30 years?
If someone would put on the Klan outfit in Los Angeles in 2020 would that make him a Klan
member to the organization from the deep south even if he had never met or spoken to someone
from there?
I think Trump is doing his best against the anti-white racists of the Jewish led left. If
the whites were able to get half the amount of people of a typical Trump rally and organized
rallies across the US protesting the anti-white racism that now dominates the US the whites
might have a chance of taking back some power in the USA. Jews completely dominate the US
with the whites being puppets to Jewish power and they exercise this power without
hesitation. No American white would dare criticize the Jews even when their disgusting
behavior (rapists Weinstein, Epstein, Maxwell) is on full display for the whole world to
see.
FOX news shuts down former congressman Newt Gingrich on national television when he
mentions the name George Soros.
Don't get your knickers in a twist. Trump has no intention of following through on half
the bull sh*t he promises. He just likes to hear the sound of his own voice. The stupid thing
is that blacks won't vote for him no matter what he plans to give them. Oh, and where's our
WALL?
@Zarathustra
han expected but Trump still came out slightly on top. The law and order and police support
is a big deal for Trump, a big minus for Creepy Joe.
And Trump had to deal with that POS Wallace asking loaded questions and siding with
Biden.
Covid and the riots are both jew psyops and both can be shut down anytime.
The head medical director for Los Angeles County actually said that the covid shutdown
will continue until "after the election." She totally gave it away.
Trump has fucked up in a lot of ways but Bitch Harris would have white men
slaughtered.
Once again we will have to vote for the lesser of two evils which seems to be our shitty
fate.
Trump did more for Jews in Israel than any other president before him.
Still diaspora Jews in US hate Trump unspeakably.
So Jews in US are in contradiction with Jews in Israel.
Yeah, Trump's been all show and opposite action since 2016. Just want to mention that
there is no Antifa anymore, they have rebranded as BLM during the past few months, apparently
in preparation for the fake action being announced now. The ideologies of these two groups
are in complete agreement, but Antifa's goals are only a small part BLM's extortionist
demands. In effect, Antifa has upgraded to the more radical BLM level and left an empty shell
to be used as a fake target of fake law & order activities.
Many comments here decrying Trump for pandering to non whites.
I would be willing to give good odds that not one of the people who post theses complaints
sent Trump an email asking him to pander to whites. I have sent several asking for Trump to
explicitly ask white people for our vote. Have any of you? Posting here is preaching to the
choir. Send Trump an email asking him to EXPLICITLY ask white people for our vote. I sent an
email asking for Trump to ask for the white vote the day before Trump posted the video of the
man shouting white power from the golf cart. I don't think it was because of my email but the
story that Trump did not know the man said that is a lie for sure.
Send emails to Trump telling him you will not vote for him unless he explicitly asks for
the white vote. What can it hurt?
Initially, I believed in Trump's plan to help blacks discover that they could stand on
their own two feet, determine their own income (as opposed to welfare), etc. The pre-Covid19
job numbers for black employment were amazing.
At present, though, I don't think Trump has a chance with blacks, platinum plan or not.
Take this example.
A black girl gets pregnant at 16, has a baby, starts collecting welfare, gets her own
apartment. By the time she's thirty, she has two or three kids, has no skills and no plans to
acquire any. She is completely dependent on the welfare state.
How do you think she'll vote? For a president with only four more years in office?
Ninety-some percent of blacks vote democrat for a reason.
Blacks are already pandered to in every possible way. They get preferred status for public
housing, small business loans unavailable to White males, Pell grants for tuition,
affirmative action in both the public and private sectors. If they had any honor they
wouldn't even want to be treated like permanent wards of the state, but alas, they do not.
And Trump is a scummy neocon.
Ohio's Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), the site of last night's Presidential debate
has set up dedicated 'support spaces' for students who have been triggered by the tense
exchange.
The University says "students can discuss the impact of recent national events, including
the presidential debate and upcoming election."
There are eight "presidential debate support spaces" available for students to attend,
according to the university which asks that everybody use "respectful dialogue."
The spaces will remain active from Monday through to next Friday, for 'virtual counselling
sessions'.
The university announced that the "Support Space is not a substitute for psychotherapy and
does not constitute mental health treatment."
The spaces are a throwback to 2016 when education centers offered counseling after Trump won the
election.
As Campus Reform notes, the
University of Massachusetts-Boston, sponsored a "Coping and Balance" workshop in which students
were able to interact with "Doggo, the therapy dog."
Imagine the total meltdown that will occur if Trump wins a second term.
Mills, you're. a hack. Trump had to debate not only Biden but moderator Chris Wallace too.
I've seen every Presidential debate since 1960 and without a doubt Wallace is the worst
moderator I've ever seen. Every time Biden got into trouble Wallace jumped in to rescue. him.
Critical race theory is just racial sensitivity raining.. Not only was Wallace helping Biden
old Joe was wired up to boot.
I'm not defending Trump. Just pointing out what a Hack Mills is. I've been critical of
Trump on his wasteful military spending but most of the debt is due to Covid 19. I support
Trump because the corrupt deep state and media can't be allowed to win. New revelations come
out daily about how bad the Obama administration truly was. It's amazing and all the media
outside of Fox has done is try and cover it all up. Obama should be charged with
sedition.
Glad we had an adult conversation about the additional $7 trillion in debt created in the
last 3.5 years added to the $9 trillion created under the last idiot's rule in eight years.
Americans are tax slaves in warring tribes called Republicans and Democrats, and I am just
sitting here scratching my head realizing the George Carlin was right. Garbage in. Garbage
out.
Amazing how Americans cheer their economic slavery both parties have created.
Agree, as a veteran myself I really like the fact that the Obama/Biden admin launched even
more wars and killed a lot more of us. Nothing says patriotism like endless wars, increasing
suicide rates, and young men losing their limbs and minds. (Sarcasm off)
I sacrificed for you all and watched two hours of this hearing this morning while still
suffering from the effects of too much drink needed last night to get me through the awfulness
of the debate.
Funniest debate description I've seen: "96 minutes of shouts, insults, interruptions,
stray thoughts, and loose babble. It was like witnessing an argument about an arcane
procedural rule during a senior bingo night at a nursing home in purgatory. It was vicious,
tasteless, witless, and (surprisingly, alas) painfully unfunny."
@eD
t care about diseases. They just care about control. They are evil psychopathic narcissists.
Sad thing is, most people are dumb as rocks and fall every time for the tales of these snake
oil salesmen.
These days in Montreal there was a protest for "climate action", "protection of migrants"
and "BLM" – and of course with all the people wearing masks against "Covid". A March of
Zombies if there ever was one.
Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people
Henry Kissinger
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Alan Kay
The overlords, that the bulk of the population vote into positions of power, are now
implementing a system to turn the average person into a feudal serf. Your democracy and voting
and cheering for one dirtbag versus the other doesn't matter. The end game has been determined
and by playing their game YOU are helping make it happen.
The Covid rules already have destroyed huge amounts of food by limiting harvesting (see Ice
Age Farmer) and destroying the existing food supply chains. The result will be food scarcity
for the poorer nations and high food prices for the richer ones. Better stock up while there's
still time and before hoarding laws are initiated.
All you defenders of 'government' should be ashamed of yourselves for helping cause the
destruction already unleashed by your trusted representatives and a future that's looking ever
more likely to be dystopian.
History? You mean like Michael Mann's facile and fraudulent 'hockey-stick'? When history is
deemed either 'official' or 'conspiracy-theorist' one knows that the entire subject (along
with, it must be added, most of 'science') has been shoe-horned into a very narrow box marked
'officially approved'. Why, then, might the rational and objective person have the slightest
confidence in the various strands of 'history' that remain, once all that is regarded by
officialdom as 'inconvenient' has been sent into the 'memory hole'?
Excellent article. I believe the treachery of the so-called elites have no boundaries. Evil
is their master and control of the populace is their aim. I also believe we need mass arrests
of those that are using this virus as a cover for their agenda for the world.
The video is rubbish. Nine months of economic slowdown and this idiot thinks it proves the
planet will cool down. He couldn't possibly know that. He says no-one knew what he knows, but
the (temporary) cooling effect of air pollution has been recognised since 9/11, since Pinatubo,
since Krakatoa.
Yes, it is. So, the Great Lab Experiment of 2020 (Covid) has alot to do with population
control; thinning the herd so our exalted Davos Overlords can ensure their blue-blooded
offspring will have mild temps when they winter-over on their private islands in the
Caribbean.
Thanks again for another interesting article Mr. Whitney.
I dislike Bill Gates as much or more than the next guy, primarily because I have known
individuals screwed over by his rapacious business practices and theft of others IP, and I
dislike his public persona as some sort of brilliant scientist or doctor instead of a rapacious
business geek who made a fortune stealing the work of better men.
Be that as it may, I think Bill Gates is quite right that human overpopulation is a very
dangerous problem for our species and the health of the planet. This is particularly true given
the willingness of our elites to import the excess population of the Third World into
previously stable Western Civilization nations such as much of Europe, United States, Canada,
Australia and New Zealand.
Unless the West has a zero tolerance policy towards immigration from the unassimilable and
fertile parts of the Third World, it will be destroyed given the continued reproductive
practices of these irresponsible people once imported into the West.
So what is the solution? Tie any aid to the Third World with strict and mandatory birth
control. Prevent children from dying of starvation but prevent further reproduction of the
irresponsible mother of the starving child. We cannot continue to think that people should have
a right to have as many children as they want and at the same time support their irresponsible
behavior. This behavior affects us all and leads to great suffering. They have to grow up and
so do we.
Gates is right about the problems of human overpopulation, but he cannot be trusted to solve
the problem in an ethical manner.
Anyhow most of the Earth's CO2 got locked up in Limestone rock (coral like) rock formations
and petroleum and coal deposits since Cambrian epoch. The latter are all related to
photosynthesi (solar energy) that is now locked up in hydrocarbons. Photosynthesis is the key
life driver on the Earth's surface.
So actually humans should find increased levels of CO2, still far below the Earth history
norm, to be a blessing. Maybe the real motive for ridding a hydrocarbon based energy
sources, is the scarcity issue, which is a provable scam, but the drive to depopulate the earth
of the useless eaters as Darth Kissinger seeks.
Analysts disagree about how much emissions will go down this year, but the International
Energy Agency puts the reduction around 8 percent. In real terms, that means we will release
the equivalent of around 47 billion tons of carbon, instead of 51 billion.
Reductions around 8 percent, and quite amazingly, not a hint of any effect on atmospheric
CO2 in the data from the celebrated Keeling monitoring station at Mauna Loa. It's the data from
stations like this around the world that led us to believe that industrial emissions of CO2
were going to send the world into a runaway greenhouse effect and lead us all to burn to death
in 800 degree temperatures as are found on Venus. Or at least drown Mr. Obama's newly purchased
$14 million mansion on Martha's Vineyard. But researchers have been looking for an effect for
months now, and as I say, not even a hint of any effect.
The Michael Manns and Al Gores of the world would have us believe the shutdown just hasn't
gone on long enough -- that we have to extend it another 16 gazillion quarters or so before we
will see the effect they have been predicting. It's at least just as likely, however, that
industrial emissions are not the prime driver of rising CO2 levels. As some commenters have
noted here, it could just be the 800 year lag from warming temperatures in the Medieval Warm
Period. Or it could be other human activities such as burning tropical rainforests and
oxidizing soils through intensive farming practices. Certainly the OCO-2 satellite (Orbiting
Carbon Observatory), launched in 2014, seemed to show that the biggest emissions were coming
from the tropics and not from the big industrial centers of Europe and North America. At least
it did before they stopped giving us the results from it, and not of course because they
conflicted with the narrative./s
Meanwhile the Earth is greening substantially from all the additional CO2. We seem to have
added pretty much an entire continent's worth of growing area in the past 60 years or so. It's
also becoming clear that the earth's oceans that make us a water world are the cause of
emergent effects like thunderstorms that increase our albedo when things start to warm up, and
by negative feedback make that runaway greenhouse effect most unlikely.
The major Achilles heel of the powers-that-be is that they don't have enough cops and
soldiers to enforce their desires upon us. Sure, they may try to kill and jail as many of us as
they can to enforce their dictates, but there are limits to this, as they may end up killing or
incarcerating most of the slaves they depend on for their power and wealth. And if history
shows anything, it is that murderous dictatorships never last very long.
As proof, I give you the examples of Mussolini, Ceaucescu, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Hitler and
Stalin, all of whom met rather unfortunate ends, and whose reigns were rather short-lived.
Chris Bryant, a Labour Party MP for a former coal mining constituency in South Wales, a
former privately educated schoolboy and an Oxford graduate, a former sodomist Anglican
priest, an MP who In 2003 voted for participation in the Iraq war, a member of the "Labour
Friends of Israel", a parliamentarian who claimed over £92,000 in expenses over the
five years leading up to the 2009 scandal over MPs' expenses, during which time he "flipped"
his second-home expenses twice, claiming mortgage interest expenses that started at
£7,800 per year before rising (after flipping) to £12,000 per year; he also
claimed £6,400 in stamp duty and other fees on his most recent purchase, and
£6,000 per year in service charges, has nominate Joe Biden for the Nobel Peace
Prize.
Oxford University academics interviewed two dozen former RT employees in a bid to
reveal the inner workings of our newsroom. However, they didn't need secret interviews to
find out we're a bit skeptical of the West.
In December 2018 I received a message on LinkedIn, the world's most boring social
network. It was from Mona Elswah, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute, and she and
her colleagues wanted to anonymously interview me about my experiences working at RT –
specifically how "editorial policies might influence, or not, the news content."
####
Another fishing expedition on behalf of UKGov, only for academic purposes obvs If you opne
the link to the actual study, right there at the bottom of the first page 'Abstract' is:
Key Words: Russia Today, Propaganda, Disinformation, Public Diplomacy, International
Broadcasting, and Information Warfare.
--
If you go to the end of the document and look at Table 1: A Comparison Betweenthe
Sovietand RT Media Models , you can see for Oxford 'Academics' that Soviet is Russian and
Russian is Soviet! Interchangable as convenient..
With the first presidential debate now just hours away , President Trump continues to insist
that Joe Biden take a drug test. Trump's none-too-subtle insinuation is that the former vice
president is so mentally frail that he cannot hope to match the vaulting intellect of the 45th
president of the United States on the debate stage.
It's a peculiar form of Trumpian baiting - something the President has probably learned from
the world of Mixed Martial Arts - or perhaps the product of a guilty conscience. Trump himself
famously sniffed his way through his first debate with Hillary Clinton four years ago, and
there's been plenty of speculation over the years that the President consumes medicinal
substances to combat some form of attention-deficit disorder.
Cockburn won't weigh in on the specifics. But if Biden were to use drugs for tonight's
performance, which ones should he take? Because make no mistake, Biden should absolutely be
taking drugs prior to Tuesday's debate.
Pro athletes all take performance enhancing drugs, after all, and winning a presidential
election is at least as important as hitting 40 home runs or making the Pro Bowl, or
something.
Fortunately, Cockburn is a writer, which means he has countless friends who are perpetually
in one sort of drug-induced haze or another. They quickly supplied suggestions.
1.
Aricept
Aricept is used to enhance mental acuity in patients suffering from Alzheimer's or vascular
dementia. That will certainly be handy for keeping Biden from drooling on the podium. However,
Aricept also has the side effect of increasing libido, and has been found to correlate with
inappropriate sexual behaviors in those who take it.
...actually, Biden may have been taking this drug for a long time.
... ... ...
3. Ecstasy
Arriving Tuesday night amped on MDMA would offer a host of benefits to Biden. Besides
keeping him cheerful and upbeat for the cameras, if Biden is caught, he can easily pivot in a
positive direction: by taking a party drug, he will disavow one of his tough-on-crime
achievements, the 2003 RAVE
Act. Cockburn doesn't understand how contributing to the dramatic collapse of crime rates
nationwide is a bad thing, but in 2020 everybody is convinced that it is. Biden debating while
hopped upon Molly would go a long way toward showing his remorse. 'Loved-up', Biden would also
show a winning spirit of magnanimity towards Donald Trump, which might help sway
independents.
Finally, for years Biden was known as the 'senator from MBNA' due to his pro-credit card
activism in Congress. If he rebrands as the senator on MDMA, at the least everyone will be
really confused.
"When American cities have been in flames and citizen has been pitched against citizen,
Joe has been a calming influence to bear," Bryant reportedly
said Monday. "When others have resorted to violent solutions, he has argued that the
best force is the force of argument because guns can stop a heart, but well-placed words can
change many hearts, and many hearts can change the world."
The nomination came just one day before the first US presidential debate. Biden's rival,
President Donald Trump, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times this year,
most recently on Monday by Australian law professors praising the "Trump Doctrine"
against endless wars.
Trump's other nominations came from Swedish Parliament member Magnus Jacobsson for helping
to broker a peace and economic deal between Serbia and Kosovo, and Norwegian lawmaker Christian
Tybring-Gjedde for brokering a
peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The Trump administration later
followed up on that deal by getting Bahrain to join the UAE in a normalization agreement with
Israel.
While Bryant praised Biden's efforts to ease civil unrest, Biden was largely silent about
the violent nature of many Black Lives Matter and Antifa protests this summer. Even CNN host
Don Lemon warned in
late August that riots across the US – and the failures of Biden and other Democrat
politicians to condemn and quell the violence – was a "blind spot" that could cost
Biden votes in November.
The nomination also raised eyebrows among critics of Biden's record of supporting wars and
military interventions as a Senator and later as vice president under former President Barack
Obama. The Obama-Biden administration campaigned on peace – and Obama won the Nobel Peace
Prize in 2009 largely on speculation that he would deliver on his promises – but the US
instead started new wars and prolonged existing ones. The administration finished its last full
year, 2016, by dropping more than 26,000 bombs around the world and expanded the presence of US
special forces to 70 percent of the world's nations, more than
doubling their reach under former President George W. Bush.
Biden not only voted for Bush's Iraq War in 2003 but also
argued for removing Saddam Hussein from power in 1998. He also voted to authorize former
President Bill Clinton's
bombing of Serbia (along with NATO) in 1999, as well as supported Obama's disastrous
intervention in Syria.
Mindful of that track record, Twitter users ridiculed Bryant for nominating Biden.
"Biden's never been anything but a rubber stamp for CIA bull***t," one commenter
tweeted. "I'm sure the people of Libya and Syria will be glad to hear that," one
observer said of the nomination, followed by another who added "Not to mention Yemen,
Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran."
Another commenter speculated that he saw a trend in Bryant's move: "I think the idea for
these warmongering Henry Jackson Society types is to undermine the Nobel Peace Prize with
absurd nominations."
Today, the Arctic has increasingly become identified as a domain of great prosperity
and cooperation amongst world civilizations on the one side and a domain of confrontation and
war on the other.
In 2007, the Russian government first voiced its support for the construction of the
Bering Strait rail tunnel connecting the Americas with the Eurasian continent- a policy which
has taken on new life in 2020 as Putin's Great Arctic Development strategy has wedded itself
to the northern extension of the Belt and Road Initiative (dubbed the Polar Silk Road). In
2011, the Russian government re-stated its pledge to build the $64 billion project .
####
On September 26, President Trump announced that a long-overdue project would receive
Federal support which involves connecting Alaska for the first time with Canada and the lower
48 states via a 2570 km railway.
In his Tweet announcing the project, Trump said:
####
I'd never read about the sale of Alaska to America by Russia in any detail before but just
by looking at the map it was clear that it made sense. Indefensible against a rapidly growing
country, so sell early for a good price or lose it and get nothing.
As for Ehret's hypothesis, we know that t-Rump sees things in a deal oriented way and not
simply 'You must be destroyed (TM)' way, though his methods of reaching such deals 'Maximum
Pressure (TM)' are none too bright and result in less than a normally negotiated deal. But,
if we look at the ends rather than the means, improving trade links is surely to America's
(and others) advantage.
One thing that does strike me from the maps of the proposed increased US-Asia links is
that having those function normally is not compatible with the current strategic goal of
trying to contain China. So, what is the point of the US Pacific Fleet? Just Free-Dumb of
Navigation (FONOPS) cruises for pensioners?
Putin proposed, "exchanging guarantees of non-interference in each other's internal
affairs, including electoral processes, including using information and communication
technologies and high-tech methods."..
####
That is some excellently timed next level trolling from Pootie-McPoot-Face.
Of course the USA will never agree to such a proposal, because (a) it does not regard its
meddling as 'interference' but as the bringing of the gift of freedom, (b) it stands on its
absolute right of judgment as to what is a situation that requires more democracy and what is
not, and (c) it probably knows at some level that Russia did not meddle in the US elections,
and that it would therefore in that case be constraining its own behavior in exchange for
nothing.
But then, when refused – I imagine the US will try to extract something from the
offer, such as "A-HA!! So you ADMIT to meddling in our elections!! – Russia can
obviously claim, "Well, we tried."
And the extant powers are gushing over former justice RBG who supported gay rights,
abortion rights and all the other "correct" causes–but not a word of sympathy/empathy
from the old gal on Palestinians.
Great thing is Trump doesn't have to worry about them giving Biden the questions in
advance this year... wouldn't matter if they did.
Sparehead , 1 hour ago
"Oh, wait I remember this one. I'm supposed to say..."
Stu Pedassle , 1 hour ago
End of quote
Obake158 , 1 hour ago
Biden has less than 24 hours to succumb to Coronavirus...
Dumpster Elite , 1 hour ago
First question to Biden: What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
Second question: Do you like puppies or kitties more?
Third question: Why is Trump such a bad person?
BinAnunnaki , 1 hour ago
Free advice for Pres. Trump. Don't attack Biden on his dementia. A lot of people struggle
with elderly patients in "cognitive decline". It will be obvious enough to people in Creepy's
low energy gibberish.
Wait for Biden to bring up the tax returns and then kidney punch him back over Hunter's
pay for play involving human trafficking and payoffs from Russians.
China and Joe. China and Covid. China and lost American jobs.
you made your point with the Tweets about drug testing. Leave it alone and focus on your
merits.
good luck tomorrow
Dying-Of-The-Light , 35 minutes ago
Is Wallace going to have the integrity to ask Biden why his completely unqualified, Coke
head son, got a $50,000 a month seat on a Ukrainian gas company once his lying Daddy had got
the senior prosecutor of that nation sacked so as to stop any further investigation and
possible prosecution of that gas company?
Will Wallace also ask why the wife of tbe Moscow Mayor wired over $3 million to Hunter
Biden?
While CNN, the BBC etc is throwing out the Trump tax avoidance claims night and day, the
Western MSM continues to ignore the endless, and proven, corruption of one senior Demontard
after another.
Democracy in the USA, UK and all nations under the EU Politburo, will only know they have
democracy back when Assange is a free man and both Clintons are in jail, along with numerous
other USA, UK and EU politicians, banksters and big Corp maggots. When the likes of Soros and
Gates are stopped from constantly steering their agendas by using their vast personal wealth
to buy the politics and media they want, will the West ever know democracy again.
There's as much chance of any of the above happening as Elvis being alive and well.
Doesn't mean we should all just give up and let it get worse. Even refusing to wear the
Covid-1984 mask is a start. If just more people would do that and also refuse to be made to
live like locked up chickens, it would at least blunt the elite maggots Marxist, NWO
agenda.
Soloamber , 1 hour ago
Biden through JR .
$1.5 billion from China
$50,000 per month from a Ukraine natural gas company
"The director of news service for Delaware State, Carlos Holmes, said that the former vice
president was never a student, though he has made appearances on campus twice before for
commencement speeches at the university in Dover."
"Vice President Biden did not attend DSU," Holmes said earlier last week. "However he was
the Commencement keynote speaker in 2003 and [2016], and during the former he was awarded an
honorary doctoral degree."
"Biden had made the claim during an October 2019 town hall event held at the historic Wilson
High School in Florence, which was founded in 1866 by the Freedmen's Bureau for Black children
seeking an education.
"I got started out of an HBCU, Delaware State -- now, I don't want to hear anything negative
about Delaware State," Biden told the crowd, as shown on video . "They're my
folks."
Biden went on to
win the South Carolina primary -- a turning point for the candidate -- before eventually
clinching the nomination.
Earlier this month, the Biden-Harris campaign named Delaware State University President Tony
Allen -- formerly a speechwriter in Biden's Senate office -- to its transition team
advisory council ." FN
------------
Well, pilgrims, the question is - Does Joe know that he was never a student at ole DSU? Was
this claim made in SC yet another of his old man's fantasies? You know, like his dreaminess on
the subject of the military glory that has been his family's history.
Or was this nonsense spouted at a historic Black high school merely a cynical ploy intended
to gain Black votes in the South Carolina Democratic primary election?
I think this must just be another elder incident.
He went to the Univ.of Delaware.
In the moment he conflated Delaware State Univ.with Univ of Delaware. And didn't correct
himself because he doesn't see the error.
Not a good omen.
CPM
"Then there are the Chinese. OK, they really are communists, but who is it that has
bought into the nonsense about them oppressing poor, innocent, religious head choppers? Who
cares even if those lies were true? Yep, that's millennial morons."
Actually it was the USG through funding of various think tanks and NGOs that started the
whole fiasco with the MSM pushing the narrative. You know people with power in established
organizations, who tend to be much older. I wouldn't blame the people at the bottom so much for
the decisions made at the top.
Ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections, foreign states will continue to use covert and overt
influence measures in their attempts to sway U.S. voters' preferences and perspectives, shift
U.S. policies, increase discord in the United States, and undermine the American people's
confidence in our democratic process."
What America is yet again conniving to do is to discredit any domestic political dissent
against the fraud of "American Democracy" by connecting this dissent to those nations that
are the latest targets of America's Two Minutes of Hate campaign.
This is a standard American tactic that the USA always resorts to when it fears its own
citizens are starting to question the fairy tale of American "Democracy and Freedom." Thus,
during the Cold War, the USA even to discredit some elements of the Civil Rights movement as
being assets of the Soviet Union.
The great Orwellian hypocrisy of America's pants-wetting complaints that other countries
are meddling in America's (fake) democracy is that the United States itself is guilty of
regime changing, balkanizing, and colonizing scores of foreign nations dating back over a
century to the USA's regime change and eventual colonization of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
Bottom Line: America needs to drink a big up of Shut the F*ck Up with its pathetic Pity
Party whining about foreigners trying to influence its bogus democracy.
HaHaHa, Social Security including USPS is gonna gone for sure by next year. I'm 99%
certainty he gonna to win, one way or another and privatize S/S and USPS. Given the
choice’s American's hates the Chinese with Pompeo endless racist bashing -almost
daily.
... ... ...
@ karlof1 | Aug 8 2020 22:42 utc | 35
HaHaHa, Social Security including USPS is gonna gone for sure by next year. I'm 99%
certainty he gonna to win, one way or another and privatize S/S and USPS. Given the
choice’s American's hates the Chinese with Pompeo endless racist bashing -almost
daily.
We can both be right. Russia cockblocking Israel's ability to just roll over Assad's
Syria, their relationship with Iran, etc. are big factors. It's been pretty funny to watch
American Progressives rant and rave about Russia like warmonger rednecks in the 80's who just
watched Rocky IV.
Once I'd seen this mention of The Russian Playbook (aka KGB, Kremlin or Putin's Playbook), I saw the expression all over the place.
Here's an early – perhaps the earliest – use of the term. In October 2016, the Center for Strategic and International studies ("
Ranked #1 ") informed us of the "
Kremlin Playbook " with this ominous beginning
There was a deeply held assumption that, when the countries of Central and Eastern Europe joined NATO and the European Union
in 2004, these countries would continue their positive democratic and economic transformation. Yet more than a decade later, the
region has experienced a steady decline in democratic standards and governance practices at the same time that Russia's economic
engagement with the region expanded significantly.
And asks
Are these developments coincidental, or has the Kremlin sought deliberately to erode the region's democratic institutions
through its influence to 'break the internal coherence of the enemy system'?
Well, to these people, to ask the question is to answer it: can't possibly be disappointment at the gap between 2004's expectations
and 2020's reality, can't be that they don't like the total Western values package that they have to accept, it must be those crafty
Russians deceiving them. This was the earliest reference to The Playbook that I found, but it certainly wasn't the last.
Of course, all these people are convinced Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Somehow. To some effect. Never
really specified but the latest outburst of insanity is this
video from the Lincoln Project . As Anatoly Karlin observes:
"I think it's really cool how
we Russians took over America just by shitposting online. How does it feel to be subhuman?" He has a point: the Lincoln Project,
and the others shrieking about Russian interference, take it for granted that American democracy is so flimsy and Americans so gullible
that a few Facebook ads can bring the whole facade down. A curious mental state indeed.
What can we know about The Playbook? For a start it must be written in Russian, a language that those crafty Russians insist on
speaking among themselves. Secondly such an important document would be protected the way that highly classified material is protected.
There would be a very restricted need to know; underlings participating in one of the many plays would not know how their part fitted
into The Playbook; few would ever see The Playbook itself. The Playbook would be brought to the desk of the few authorised to see
it by a courier, signed for, the courier would watch the reader and take away the copy afterwards. The very few copies in existence
would be securely locked away; each numbered and differing subtly from the others so that, should a leak occur, the authorities would
know which copy read by whom had been leaked. Printed on paper that could not be photographed or duplicated. As much protection as
human cunning could devise; right up there with
the nuclear
codes .
And so on. It's all quite ridiculous: we're supposed to believe that Moscow easily controls far-away countries but can't keep
its neighbours under control.
There is no Russian Playbook, that's just projection. But there is a "playbook" and it's written in English, it's freely available
and it's inexpensive enough that every pundit can have a personal copy: it's named "
From Dictatorship To Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation " and it's written by
Gene Sharp (1928-2018) . Whatever Sharp may have thought he
was doing, whatever good cause he thought he was assisting, his book has been used as a guide to create regime changes around the
world. Billed as "democracy" and "freedom", their results are not so benign. Witness Ukraine today. Or Libya. Or Kosovo whose long-time
leader has just been indicted for numerous crimes
. Curiously enough, these efforts always take place in countries that resist Washington's line but never in countries that don't.
Here we do see training, financing, propaganda, discord being sown, divisions exploited to effect regime change – all the things
in the imaginary "Russian Playbook". So, whatever he may have thought he was helping, Sharp's advice has been used to produce what
only the propagandists could call "
model interventions "; to the "liberated" themselves, the reality is
poverty ,
destruction ,
war and
refugees
.
Reading Sharp's book, however, makes one wonder if he was just fooling himself. Has there ever been a "dictatorship" overthrown
by "non-violent" resistance along the lines of what he is suggesting? He mentions Norwegians who resisted Hitler; but Norway was
liberated, along with the rest of Occupied Europe, by extremely violent warfare. While some Jews escaped, most didn't and it was
the conquest of Berlin that saved the rest: the nazi state was killed . The USSR went away, together with its satellite governments
in Europe but that was a top-down event. He likes Gandhi but Gandhi wouldn't have lasted a minute under Stalin.
Otpor was greatly aided by NATO's war on Serbia. And, they're only
"non-violent" because the Western media doesn't talk much about
the violence ; "non-violent" is not the first word that
comes to mind in this video of Kiev 2014 . "Colour revolutions"
are manufactured from existing grievances, to be sure, but with a great deal of outside assistance, direction and funding; upon inspection,
there's much design behind their "spontaneity". And, not infrequently, with mysterious sniping at a expedient moment – see
Katchanovski's research
on the "Heavenly Hundred" of the Maidan showing pretty convincingly that the shootings were " a false flag operation" involving
"an alliance of the far right organizations, specifically the Right Sector and Svoboda, and oligarchic parties, such as Fatherland".
There is little in Sharp's book to suggest that non-violent resistance would have had much effect on a really brutal and determined
government. He also has the naïve habit of using "democrat" and "dictator" as if these words were as precisely defined as coconuts
and codfish. But any "dictatorship" – for example Stalin's is a very complex affair with many shades of opinion in it. So, in terms
of what he was apparently trying to do, one can see it only succeeding against rather mild "dictators" presiding over extremely unpopular
polities. With a great deal of outside effort and resources.
Patrick Armstrong was an analyst in the Canadian Department of National Defence specialising in the USSR/Russia from 1984
and a Counsellor in the Canadian Embassy in Moscow in 1993-1996. He retired in 2008 and has been writing on Russia and related subjects
on the Net ever since.
"... The duplicitousness of exploiting misery is especially vile if a candidate knows from the start millions of his enthusiastic supporters comprised of minorities, the young, and the marginalized will ultimately be hoodwinked into supporting, Biden, a demented warmongering crook who is medically propped up to execute a seven minute campaign speech. ..."
"... And there you have it – democracy in action. This is the kind of democracy the US is promoting throughout the planet. This is the reason behind every regime change war. To put it simply–the US intelligence agencies want to control the sovereign leaders of every government. They wish every leader was as brain dead as Biden–their job would be a lot easier. ..."
"... I am afraid you've hit upon the crux of the matter. One would think after Bernie playing the role of sheepdog in 2016 rather than challenging the DNC and Hillary at the convention over the leaked emails exposing the utter corruption of the process that people would be less than trusting of Bernie in 2020. Yet here we are again. ..."
"... Tulsi is the only one who dares speak the truth regarding the war machine, thus she has been excluded. ..."
"... we may now adapt this old Chernenko joke: "Today, due to bad health and without regaining consciousness, Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko took up the duties of Secretary General". ..."
"Bernie Sanders has done his best to cover up: the Democratic Party is a party of the
capitalist class. It can no more be converted to socialism than the CIA can become an
instrument of the struggle against American imperialism."
The duplicitousness of exploiting misery is especially vile if a candidate knows from
the start millions of his enthusiastic supporters comprised of minorities, the young, and the
marginalized will ultimately be hoodwinked into supporting, Biden, a demented warmongering
crook who is medically propped up to execute a seven minute campaign speech.
Large campaign rallies might not be a concern for much longer, inasmuch, as the security
state will probably end rallies saying they fear large crowds will spread the coronavirus.
Once rallies are no longer a consideration the intelligence agencies will only need to prop
up "drooling Joe" in front of a gold curtain flanked by numerous American flags. Drooling
Joe, will read a short speech rehearsed numerous times and then he'll be quickly ushered off
the stage before the public can detect Joe is mentally more dead than alive.
And there you have it – democracy in action. This is the kind of democracy the
US is promoting throughout the planet. This is the reason behind every regime change war. To
put it simply–the US intelligence agencies want to control the sovereign leaders of
every government. They wish every leader was as brain dead as Biden–their job would be
a lot easier.
Trillions of working-class tax dollars are absconded by the military/security/surveillance
corporate state to fight endless NEEDLESS wars to fatten the pockets of war profiteers and
every other ancillary grifter. Genocide is committed throughout the Middle East and Africa to
spread US democracy. A democracy where the will of the people is crushed.
Skip Scott , March 10, 2020 at 09:04
I am afraid you've hit upon the crux of the matter. One would think after Bernie
playing the role of sheepdog in 2016 rather than challenging the DNC and Hillary at the
convention over the leaked emails exposing the utter corruption of the process that people
would be less than trusting of Bernie in 2020. Yet here we are again.
Tulsi is the only one who dares speak the truth regarding the war machine, thus she
has been excluded. The only way I would ever vote for Bernie would be if he picked Tulsi
for his running mate. That would likely involve both of them leaving the democratic party and
running as Independents. In the end, only a revolution has any hope for bringing meaningful
change. The evil that controls both parties, the MIC, and the MSM will not be brought under
control willingly.
Hans Suter , March 9, 2020 at 09:52
we may now adapt this old Chernenko joke: "Today, due to bad health and without
regaining consciousness, Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko took up the duties of Secretary
General".
this year large US corporate bankruptcy filings are running at a record pace and are set to
surpass levels reached during the financial crisis in 2009 (when the S&P was far from an
all time high).
According to FT calculations , as of
August 17, a record 45 companies each with more than $1 billion in assets has filed for Chapter
11 this year; this compares with 38 for the same period of 2009 during the depths of the
financial crisis and is more than double last year's figure of 18 over the comparable period
.
The Intelligence Committee report also repeats thoroughly
debunked myths about WikiLeaks and, like Mueller, the committee made no effort to interview
Julian Assange before launching its smears. Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi, who partnered
with WikiLeaks in the publication of the Podesta emails, described the report's treatment of
WikiLeaks in this Twitter thread :
2. the description of #WikiLeaks ' publishing activities by
this #SenateIntelligenceCommittee
's Report appears a true #EdgarHoover 's disinformation campaign
to make a legitimate media org completely radioactive
3. Clearly, to describe #WikiLeaks and its publishing activities the
#SenateIntelligenceCommittee's Report completely rely on #US intelligence community+
#MikePompeo's characterisation of #WikiLeaks. There is not even any pretense of an
independent approach
4. there are also unsubstantiated claims like:
– "[WikiLeaks'] disclosures have jeopardized the safety of individual Americans and
foreign allies" (p.200)
– "WikiLeaks has passed information to U.S. adversaries" (p.201)
5. it's completely false that "#WikiLeaks does not seem to weigh whether its disclosures
add any public interest value" (p.200) and any longtime media partner like me could provide
you dozens of examples on how wrong this characterisation [is].
Mouldy , 1 hour ago
So in a nutshell.. They just called half the USA too stupid to make an informed decision
for themselves.
ominous , 1 hour ago
the disagreement is over which half is the stupid half
So now maybe we will get the Gold Plan for Hispanic Americans, the Silver Plan for Asian
Americans, the Red Plan for Native Americans and then finally the Brown Plan for White
Americans who will incrementally become more brown over time because of government
"policy"..
This is not racist, it is physics and biology.
teutonicate , 3 hours ago
Trump Unveils "Platinum Plan" For Black Americans, Designates Antifa, KKK As "Terrorist
Organizations"
Just as an aside, as far as I am concerned, blacks have been on the platinum plan since
the sixties - and it hasn't helped them one bit.
A recent report from the U.S. navy stated that 22% of America's sailors suffer from
obesity. If something like that does not convince the believers in US military might, I
wonder what would do.
I was just poking a little fun at the notion of the exceptional nation getting its ass
handed to it by the natives who didn't bow down before the 'might' of Uncle Shmuel.
It goes for Russia and China just the same as the US, NAZO and the EU/UK: if they attempt
to bully little guys, I hope the little guys bust their chops.
My mother in law , born in Lithuania, has believed that the KGB has been after her for a
good part of her life. Only evidence when asked is maybe glances, or close calls when
driving. When asked why they would still be after her she says that it will be in the book
she is going to write. She is now 96, and still no book. I finally put this paranoia down to
a world view that she is the centre of.
Seems a lot like Americans view of America to me.
Egocentric, and narcissistic.
"Overview. Narcissistic personality disorder -- one of several types of personality
disorders -- is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own
importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a
lack of empathy for others."
...Finally, I will conclude with a short mention of US politicians.
First, Trump. He now declares that the Russians stole the secret of hypersonic weapons from
Obama. This reminds me of how the Brits declared that Russia stole their vaccine against the
sars-cov-2 virus. But, if the Russians stole all that, why is it that ONLY Russia has deployed
hypersonic weapons (not the US) and ONLY Russia has both two vaccines and 2 actual treatments
(and not the UK)? For a good laugh, check out Andrei Martyanov's great column " Russia
Steal Everything ".
And then there is Nancy Pelosi who, apparently, is considering, yes, you guessed it –
yet another impeachment attempt against Trump? The charge this time? Exercising this
Presidential prerogative to nominate a successor to Ruth Ginsburg. Okay, Pelosi might be
senile, but she also is in deep denial if she thinks impeaching Trump is still a viable
project. Frankly? I think that she lost it.
In fact, I think that all the Dems have gone absolutely insane: they are now considering
packing both the Supreme Court and the Senate. The fact that doing so will destroy the US
political system does not seem to bother them in the least.
Conclusion: quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat !
I know, take chess for example, where the highest rank is the title of "Master." Someone
should change this. Also note the "black" always move second, the queen serves the king and
her highest glory is to "sacrifice" herself for him. Protect the MAN! The game is so
structurally racist and sexist, is it any wonder there has never been a black or female world
champion? Sheez
Bolshevism stupidities first played as a great tragedy, which cost many scientists their life
or who were pushed into exile, now the same stupidity with the exchange of "proletarian
scientists" to "black scientist" is re-played as a farce in the USA
Some science-relevant extracts from Heather's article:
The dean of the Jacobs School of
Engineering at the University of California, San Diego, Albert ("Al") P. Pisano [ Email him ] pronounced
himself "absolutely dedicated" to turning the engineering school into an "anti-racist
organization." Doing so "crucially includes unconscious bias work we must do within ourselves,"
he added. How that work will interact with research on nanoparticles and viral transmission,
say, was unspecified.
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has unveiled a $28 billion
program to send the first woman to the moon in 2024 as part of its Artemis program.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine released a
statement Monday (Sept. 21), announcing the new mission to put a human back on the lunar
surface would be the first time since 1972.
Bridenstine said, "with bipartisan support from Congress, our 21st-century push to the Moon
is well within America's reach."
"As we've solidified more of our exploration plans in recent months, we've continued to
refine our budget and architecture. We're going back to the moon for scientific discovery,
economic benefits, and inspiration for a new generation of explorers," he said.
Bridenstine added that "a sustainable presence" on the moon will eventually pave the way for
astronauts to take their "first steps on the Red Planet," referring to NASA's future mission to
Mars.
NASA's lunar missions are part of its Artemis plan, including the first mission –
known as Artemis I – will launch the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft
around the moon for a series of tests this fall to check performance, life support, and
communication capabilities. Astronauts will be apart of the Artemis II mission in 2023. Artemis
III allows the first woman and the next man back onto the lunar surface in 2024.
"In 2024, Artemis III will be humanity's return to the surface of the moon - landing the
first astronauts on the lunar South Pole. After launching on SLS, astronauts will travel
about 240,000 miles to lunar orbit aboard Orion, at which point they will directly board one
of the new commercial human landing systems, or dock to the Gateway to inspect it and gather
supplies before boarding the landing system for their expedition to the surface," NASA's
statement read.
Whilst Russia and China are creating a truly new, unique and creative alliance and a
market of everything, in Australia the "authorities" are sicking their police dogs on poor
grannies sitting on park benches.
This image of five brainless armed state goons in a show of force over two quiet little
grannies really puts things into perspective. It must be that New World Order that Soros and
puppets always talked about.
Psssst, learning Russian is easier than Chinese and we already know a few Russian words,
such as novichok .
After the dissolution of the USSR the US elite lost the traction with reality and became mad
in a very literate sense of this word. A gang of exceptional idiots. Like in Mad Hatter in Alice
in Wonderland. For Mad Hatter that was toxic substances (mercury) used in the hat industry, for
the US elite it was toxic doze of exeptionalism and adoption of "Full spectrum dominance
doctrine" promoted by crazy neocons like Wolfowitz and Libby. The best way to destroy the empire
is to adopt "full spectrum Dominance Doctrine" which guarantee overextension and subsequent
demise. The dominance disappears like The Cheshire Cat disappearance leaving only his grin,
prompting Alice to remark that "she has often seen a cat without a grin but never a grin without
a cat".
US officials like Pompeo now often sound like some podunk UN official from a podunk country trying to impress a waitress in a
NYC bar.
But at the end of the cold war the 'west' began to ignore the actual international law and
to replace it with its own rules which others were then supposed to follow. That hubris has
come back to bite the 'west'.
Thanks b, and I will add that we here in the US also are expected to be okay with a financial
rules based order that favors the rich over the not well off and seeks the same sort of
hegemony in terms of its own citizens.
Recently I loved reading that President Roosevelt sent thousands of bankers to prison.
Wish we still had him.
Much more recently than FDR, many bankers were sent to jail during the savings and loan
crisis of the late 1980s. The difference now is that Wall Street has taken over the
Democratic Party.
It is naive to assume that Russian would waste money when there is absolutely no need for
that ;-) They probably laugh at seeing repetition of Soviet Politburo leader succession situation
after Brezhnev's death in the USA. As in famous joke that Chernenko assumed the position of the
General Secretary of the CPSU "without regaining consciousness."
In no way they do not understand that a semi-senile neocon warmonger would not be much
different for them than the current bully-in-chief, as foreign policy is not controlled by the
President, but by the "deep state"?
It is also unclear why Wray pushed this silly "denigration" narrative: how you can denigrate
a person, who is denigrating himself by participating in Presidential election, while clearly
entered a stage of cognitive decline ? Is laughing at him a denigration, or just a natural
reaction on such a situation? Or Christopher Wray thinks that White House is an assisted living
facility and all major decisions are done in CIA and FBI headquarters anyway? And that paying due
respect to any contender of the Presidential race is a duty of any foreign power?
And why Kremlin should like Biden who visited Moscow in 2011 and told both Putin and
opposition leaders the Obama oadministration think that Vladimir Putin shouldn't run for
president once more.
Notable quotes:
"... ... The Treasury Department, in the meantime, sanctioned a Ukrainian politician it known as a Russian agent for efforts to tar Biden for alleged corruption associated to his son's enterprise dealings in Ukraine. ..."
U.S. politics have become so polarized that there's little need for Russia to step in and
invent new controversies, according to a senior British intelligence official.
Russia is nonetheless conducting a "very active" campaign to denigrate Biden and sow
divisions in the U.S. political scene, FBI Director Christopher Wray said last week.
... ... ...
Russian officers deny meddling, both now or in the 2016 elections. On Friday, Putin proposed
that the US and Russia alternate ensures of non-interference in elections, in keeping with a
assertion on the Kremlin web site. He additionally known as for talks on info safety and
restoring cybersecurity cooperation, reviving a proposal he floated after the 2016
election.
Since that vote, Moscow's infatuation with Trump has dimmed. Russian officers say
"Russophobia" in the US institution received't change regardless of who's in the White House.
But the distinction between the two candidates is putting. While Trump mentioned final week
that China and mail-in voting have been higher threats than Russia, Biden has mentioned he'd
make Moscow pay for meddling, calling Russia an opponent.
... The Treasury Department, in the meantime, sanctioned a Ukrainian politician it known as
a Russian agent for efforts to tar Biden for alleged corruption associated to his son's
enterprise dealings in Ukraine.
Great clip of "Trump" in Moscow, the end scene in front of Tsoy's wall in the Arbat has a
message, a reference to the well known in the former USSR song Peremen, Changes, by the group
Kino. Trump would do fine in Moscow were he to lose the election, there is a kitsch side to
the megalopolis too, but it is such a huge and varied city, an imperial capital, that it had
to have it.
Putins apprentice is perfect for RT and I propose that Trump would need a regular foil with a
standard 30 second discussion with Joe Biden in every show. Joe could have his name board or
US flag upside down. With only 6 weeks to go to election day this show would drive the entire
dopey establishment crazy.
...A new documentary on Netflix, The Social Dilemma, is about the harms of social media. It
centres the wide-eyed gradualism of a former tech executive named in my piece, amongst others
whose careers have followed a similar trajectory from poacher to someone who thinks we should
maybe sometime think about hiring some more gamekeepers, if that's ok, though obviously not the
radical gamekeepers, and definitely not gamekeepers who think their job is something more than
game-keeping the herd so 'we' can conveniently shoot or farm it.
The film repeats the same failing of the former tech execs – it assumes that the
privileged people who made the mess we're all in should be at the centre of the conversation on
how to clean their shit up, crowding out once again those who have suffered because of their
shit, or who've wrecked their careers by speaking loudly about the existence of this shit, and
– crucially – limiting our thinking about what we do now to the homeopathic
solutionism of the slurry-drenched insider who is already defined by his insistence that what
looks, smells and acts like shit is not, in fact, shit.
I'm labouring the expletives because I'm personally tired – both exhausted and fed up
– of operating in a professional world where these guys weaponise civility, etiquette,
professionalism and all manner of toxic, power-pointed pearl-clutching to passive aggressively
coerce everyone else into pretending they and their companies don't stink to high heaven.
But the reason I want to write about this here is not to rehearse the arguments about why
centrism always loses when your opponent not only breaks the rules but owns the whole game, but
about what it is I am trying to do.
Our era is drenched in narrative. From the beguiling flame spiral of neoliberalism's end of
'grand narratives', to Trump's three and four word (lock her up / maga) ultra-short stories of
destruction, to our helpless fascination with the far right's ability to govern by unverified
sound-bite, to the fact that every shitty little marketer on the Internet now calls themselves
a 'storyteller'; story has eaten the world.
Our preferred form of storytelling is so obsessed with endings that we're convinced we're
ring-side at the biggest, baddest, worst ending ever – that of the centuries of Reason
and their faithful but unfortunately carbon-emitting Engines of Progress. We love endings,
revere protagonists, and not so secretly long for their mutual culmination in a fiery end of
glorious and gorgeously terminal self-actualisation. Our whole mode of future-imagining is a
death cult. We literally cannot imagine the world after us.
So, in the medium-term, I'm working on a book-shaped thing about how we use story to
actively imagine and build better futures than the nihilistic inevitabilism currently on offer
(especially from Big Tech.) It's currently got a LOT in the mix – from how my abusive
convent boarding school revealed the intimate relation between privacy and power, to how the
English state's origin stories that justify state coercion and soften the peasants up for
perpetual violence (Leviathan, Lord of the Flies) are historically and culturally contingent
cries for help. All that stuff shows how the stories we mindlessly reach for to understand how
the world works operate as gate-keepers of possibility and crushers of hope.
But the fun stuff, the truly important stuff, is about how utopias – be they of the
Erik Olin Wright 'real' variety, the Charlotte Perkins Gilman feminist utopia some white
feminists actually got to live in, for a while, the earthy and anthropological Ursula K. Le
Guin ones that interrogate their own ideas of order even as they encourage our brains to
generate more – are stories that not only imagine alternative futures but help us find
friends and allies who also dream of them, to build coalitions and make them real. There's also
a fucktonne in there on how to generate new ideas about the future that don't require 'us' to
be the protagonists and our deaths or failures to be the end. Some of that stuff listens to the
storytelling traditions of indigenous people who have gone on making new stories even as their
collective future was murdered before their eyes. I don't know if I'll get to write this book,
but I do know it's a significant part of my life's work.
Pieces like the Prodigal Tech Bro work for me as test-drives for how we take the stories
many of us already share, and use them to re-frame the 'facts on the ground' in ways that a)
give explanations that weren't previously obvious, and b) point the way to what to do about
them. Writing it, I very consciously took an existing story – a Biblical parable that
seems well enough known outside of Christian circles to assume familiarity – and used it
to tease out just what it was that grates about ex-Googlers hogging the public intellectual
bandwidth of how to unbreak our shattered world. Unquestioned, the prodigal son also works as a
trope that gives public figures quick and unearned redemption – but only if you don't
know the full story, only if you are unaware of or ignore the hinge around which the story
turns; the rock bottom pigsty turning point. Once that frame is overlaid on the tech bros'
too-smooth redemption arc, the missing part of the stories they tell – sorrow, remorse,
anguished regret and the relinquishing of power and status to those who did the right thing all
along – becomes visible. You can't unsee the bits they skip over and expect us to, also.
I know it's worked not because my article has gone mildly viral once more, but because the
comments people make in response are of the 'Aha, now I see it and can articulate what bugged
me. Now I'm talking to other people about that.' That's my ambition, to find better stories
that unite our intellectual and emotional capacities and direct them outward in ways that
refuse the current order of power and its chino-wearing civility police.
At the very simplest, the Prodigal Tech Bro is just an alternative framing to the
media-slick one most journalists – and documentary-makers – unthinkingly apply. The
"Center for Humane Technology", a Stanford think-tank of one of the well-got ex-Googlers
featured in the Social Dilemma documentary, emailed me last week about how "humbled and in awe"
the center's 'team' was by the film's reception, and encouraging me to "go deeper in the
conversation" by using its "discussion guide" or even organising a viewing party with my
friends. These people have always controlled the narrative by insisting there is only one
acceptable form it can take, leading to a tiny range of acceptable endings.
That's bullshit. The very least I personally can do as someone who knows a lot about tech
and also, increasingly, something about storytelling, is offer ways to resist these bullshit
framings and signal the way to spaces and possibilities that people better than me can
build.
That's my life's work. I'm forty-eight and it's just in the last year or two taken shape.
All endings are beginnings and this is a moment when I feel we each need to figure out what we
do in service of those who'll come after us into this messed up world. I don't think despair is
an option; I think it's an unearned luxury. But for some of us at this moment the life's work
may be simply to survive, to endure, and that has to be ok, too. It's a marathon, not a sprint.
Actually it's more of a relay race. Actually it's not a race at all.
What's your life's work? Do you know it yet, or did you always? Have you found ways to do
it, people to do it with? Do you have any sense that it will be enough?
"" President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to
stop funding to federal government contractors who hold critical race theory training
sessions."
YES!! "Silence is complicity" as leftarded sheep often bleat, and silence in the face of
this ultra-racist bullsh!t has gone on far too long. Never should've been allowed to begin
with.
A satirical video using "deepfake" technology to show US President Donald Trump as coming to
work for RT after the November election was taken very seriously by 'Russiagate' peddlers at
the Daily Beast and the Lincoln Project.
When Vladimir Putin got charge of Russia, there was no sign that he would do better than the
drunk he had replaced. An ex KGB officer seemed like a choice more driven by nostalgia rather
than ideology, but Putin had many more assets going for him than first met the eyes:
patriotism, humanism, a sense of justice, cunning ruse, a genius economist friend named Sergey
Glazyev whom openly despised the New World Order, but above all, he embodied the reincarnation
of the long lost Russian ideology of total political and economical independence. After a few
years spent at draining the Russian swamp from the oligarchs and mafiosis that his stumbling
predecessor had left in his trail of empty bottles, Vlad rolled his sleeves and got to
work.
Because his opponents had been looting the planet for 250 years through colonization insured
by a military dominance, Vlad knew that he had to start by building an invincible military
machine. And he did. He came up with different types of hypersonic missiles that can't be
stopped, the best defensive systems on the planet, the best electronic jamming systems, and the
best planes. Then to make sure that a nuclear war wouldn't be an option, he came up with stuff
which nightmares are made of, such as the Sarmat, the Poseidon and the Avangard, all
unstoppable and able to destroy any country in a matter of a few hours.
Putin said that Russia is the only country in the world that has hypersonic weapons even
though its military spending is a fraction of the U.S. military budget. Russian Defense
Minister Sergei Shoigu, left, and Chief of General Staff of Russia Valery Gerasimov, right,
attend the meeting.
With a new and unmatched arsenal, he could proceed to defeat any NATO force or any of its
proxies, as he did starting in September 2015 in Syria. He proved to every country that
independence from the NWO banking system was now a matter of choice. Putin not only won the
Syrian war, but he won the support of many New World Order countries that suddenly switched
sides upon realizing how invincible Russia had become. On a diplomatic level, it also got
mighty China by its side, and then managed to protect independent oil producers such as
Venezuela and Iran, while leaders like Erdogan of Turkey and Muhammad Ben Salman of Saudi
Arabia decided to side with Russia, who isn't holding the best poker hand, but the whole deck
of cards.
Ending in the conclusion that Putin now controls the all-mighty oil market, the unavoidable
energy resource that lubricates economies and armies, while the banksters' NATO can only watch,
without any means to get it back. With the unbelievable results that Putin has been getting in
the last five years, the New World Order suddenly looks like a house of cards about to crumble.
The Empire of Banks has been terminally ill for five years, but it's now on morphine, barely
realizing what's going on.
Tragedy and hope
Since there is no hope in starting WW3 which is lost in advance, the last banzai came out of
the bushes in the shape of a virus and the ensuing media creation of a fake pandemic. The main
focus was to avoid a catastrophic hyperinflation of the humongous mass of US dollar that no one
wants anymore, to have time to implement their virtual world crypto-currency, as if the
chronically failing bankers still have any legitimacy to keep controlling our money supplies.
It seemed at first that the plan could work. That's when Vlad took out his revolver to start
the Russian roulette game and bankers blew their brains out upon the pressure on the
trigger.
He called a meeting with OPEC and killed the price of oil by refusing to lower Russia's
production, taking the barrel to under 30 dollars. Without any afterthought and certainly even
less remorse, Vlad killed the costly Western oil production. All the dollars that had been
taken out of the market had to be re-injected by the Fed and other central banks to avoid a
downslide and the final disaster. By now, our dear bankers are out of solutions.
... ... ..
The New World Order is facing the two most powerful countries on the planet, and this fake
pandemic changed everything. It showed how desperate the banksters are, and if we don't want to
end up with nuclear warheads flying in both directions, Putin and Trump have to stop them
now.
Terminate the BIS, the World Bank, the IMF, the European Central bank, the EU, NATO, now.
Our world won't be perfect, but it might get much better soon.
Easter resurrection is coming. This might get biblical.
Antifa and BLM are just shows with stunts designed to distract people from the level they are
fleeced by MIC and financial oligarchy. As well as restore the legitimacy of Clinton wing of
neoliberal oligarchy which was badly shaken during 2016 election, when their candidate was send
packing.
Nicholas Kristof is member of "Clinton gang of neoliberals" and a part of this effort to
distract people. The number of people who pay attention to Nicholas Kristof bloviations is
astounding. Few understand that we do not know the facts and the real issue if the tight grip of
MIC and financial oligarchy on the society. What is interesting is that s in California, there
are 8.5 million residents born outside the country and about 150,000 homeless. "The melting pot
burned over. It is now a ... salad.
For example, if money spend on wars were used to manage thoseforests with difficult terrain
and perioc drauts, would the outcome be different?
Can those fires and destruction be viewed as God punishment for war the USA unleashed? As
Thomas Jefferson said "I tremble for my country when I consider that God is just."
BTW, the number of commenters with Russian paranoia symptom is frightening. Of course NYT
attracts specific audience, but still. In this sense NYT columnists including Nickolas Kristof
are just warmongering bottom feeders of MIC crumps. It is pathetic how he tries to hide the lack
of money for forest management and mismanagement if this issue by Oregon Dem politician under the
broad banner of "climate change" Existence of climate change does not mean that fire should burn
uncontrollably.
MIC steals half trillion dollars and then financial oligarchy steals probably another half,
if not more. What is left is not enough for proper maintenance of land, water and environment in
general. Stupid situation, but this is neoliberalism my friend, where "greed is good". And people
chose this mousetrap themselves in 1970th by electing first Carter and then Reagan and then
Clinton , allowing financial oligarchy to dismantle New Deal Capitalism. Clinton presidency was
especially destructive, In a way he should be views as the top villain in this story, a real
criminal boss.
Below I selected only more or less sane comment (which constitute probably less 1% of the
total)
Notable quotes:
"... How about a judicious Forrest management? ..."
"... So much for our useless 750 Billion dollar military budget. ..."
"... Amazing how ,close minded people become when, for them, everything is political. ..."
Wouldn't the conspiracy theories and concerns about antifa be lessened if progresses were as
vitriolic about violence committed in the name of equity, diversity and inclusion as they are
about violence committed in support of MAGA? Would the right have anything to crow about if
the NYT was as critical of physical altercations caused by social justice warriors as they
are of white supremacists? Wouldn't we all have more trust in MSM if they investigated the
facts before accusing Nick Sandman of racism or claiming a garbage pull was a noose? One
sided reporting and editorials like these fan the flames rather than squelch them.
It's amazing. You can write a column in the NY Times full of conspiracy theories -- all fully
believed by the left -- and accuse the right of being prone to believing conspiracy theories.
From Russia - collusion to rubes in the red states --a majority of dems share a set of
beliefs that are as delusional as anything a small group on the right might believe. But,
that's Kristof and the Ny Times for you.
People seemed to have lost a sense of what is plausible. While few of us know the news first
hand, we have to both trust and evaluate what is reported. Nothing is absolute. Jurors are
asked to decide cases beyond a reasonable doubt. That is how I feel taking in the news. But
within that sliver of doubt, within the fact that nothing is absolute is where conspiracy
theories begin to fester. It is where some have found solace to confirm what they want to
choose to believe despite how much there might be to question that. Events like this create
an opportunism to demonize those you hate and in doing so the essence of what we should be
debating is lost. How to prevent these fires in the first place? We will probably continue to
debate it despite the evidence on climate change, whether there is a deep state trying to
discredit Trump, whether the seriousness of covid is a hoax. Yes there is no absolute
certainty but there is taking an educated guess as opposed to an emotional response. I'll go
with the educated guess. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, I
will say it is a duck and accept that sliver of possibility I might be wrong.
Why do people attach themselves to "conspiracy theories?" It's actually quite simple. Take
QAnon for example: it is functionally just another religion competing for adherents. As with
any religion, it offers its believers an explanation of what they deem is wrong while
offering a path to right those wrongs. Certainty and simplicity: those are the essential
elements of cults/religion/bumpersticker politics. And the internet guarantees that whatever
you believe will be "validated." "Conspiracy theories" are, for the most part, not theories,
merely assertions. A theory is subject to proof and disproof by evidence. In a world where
truth has no inherent monetary value, don't expect it. Why the rapid spread? To paraphrase
Bill Clinton, "It's the internet, Stupid!" Follow the money: Agenda + Clickbaitability =
Profit That is the business model of the internet, a medium where "news" is whatever will
produce the most clicks. As in profit. Unless and until the youngest generation developes a
means of communication that does not depend on megacorporations, nothing will change. In the
Sixties, a generation which disbelieved and had no honest access to the traditional media,
created its own, the "alternative press." Hopefully, today's teenagers will develope their
own way to communicate that is reliable. It is 100% guaranteed that if their "opposition"
becomes an actual threat to the profits of Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, and the rest of
their ilk, they will be cut off.
The antifa movement has grown since the 2016 United States presidential election. As of
August 2017, approximately 200 groups existed, of varying sizes and levels of activity.[73]
It is particularly present in the Pacific Northwest.[74] Wikipedia
In an age when the US Justice Department is anything but just, more closely resembling
something akin to "just us," I call to mind Thomas Jefferson, in a somewhat different
context: "I tremble for my country when I consider that God is just."
We spend hundred of billions of dollars every year on the types of weapons that won WWII,
while the real threat to our Republic and yes, our civilization, is ,,, It's funny and
tragic, simultaneously.
Antifa has done a lot of things. They have chosen to step into the arena. Whether they did it
or not, this is accusation is a result of wading into the fight. If Antifa doesnt like to be
accused of things and cant handle it, then Antifa should step off. Or does Antifa only want
praise? Because that isnt going to happen. Many people dont like Antifa nor trust Antifa. And
rightfully so. Ask any career criminal how many times they've been wrongfully accused of
something. If an individual or group doesnt want to be accused of things, then dont get
involved from the start.
Except that about a dozen people have been arrested and charged with starting the forest
fires. Shouting "without evidence!" doesn't make it so. Facts matter.
@JQGALT There are always people who are setting fires whether accidentally or intentionally.
Do you have any proof that these arsonists were politically motivated I any way ?
Yet the Almeda fire in Oregon that destroyed more than 2,300 homes was, according to NYT
reporting, caused by human activity and is subject of a "criminal investigation." Perhaps it
would be wise to reserve total judgment until that investigation is completed.
Who needs rumors? The organization showed what it is made of when it created its free zone in
downtown Seattle and had the highest crime and murder rate per capita in its short life in
the country.
Rational people know that Antifa is not staring forest fires. However, burning and looting
and using fireworks as weapons in the recent riots make even the dumbest claims of Trump
supporters more believable.
Leftwing activists have literally been arrested for starting some of these fires. There is
video of arsonists being caught, yet the media ignores this, and actively denies it. Gee, why
could that be?
@LV Do you have any proof that these people were were left wing activist or just the kind of
people who are always starting fires ad they have in the past ?
The [neoliberal] left spends 24/7 preaching to their choir about Trump fascists dictatorship,
an illegal government installed by a foreign power, destroying the constitution while
preparing to seize power and ignore coming election results. There is a zero factual evidence
for it, such as a refusal to follow judicial injunctions for example, but their well educated
audiences are buying it whole day long. So what is so baffling that a rural audience after
watching night after night Portland burning by arson and accompanied by "peaceful protest"
graphics on TV would buy into arson speculations and rumors and ignore your disclaimers?
Facebook needs to be regulated since it has effectively organ-harvested the critical thinking
skills of a significant portion of the population. It'd be better if thinking people simply
deleted Facebook and let Facebook shrink and become the right-wing agit-prop tool that it
truly is. Mark Zuckerberg is happy to to destabilize society with his little toy invention.
You'd think with all that money, he could afford a conscience. What a wrecking ball Facebook
is.
"All this rumormongering leaves me feeling that the social fabric is unraveling, as if the
shared understanding of reality that is the basis for any society is eroding." Ya think?
@California Scientist Amen. We are more like an international terminal at this point. A bunch
of people gathered by happenstance, heading in different directions, and often with very
little in common.
@California Scientist: It is even worse than when Adlai Stevenson noted that there aren't
enough educated people to elect a liberal government in the US.
@LV - The point is that "urbanites" aren't able to boss anyone around. It's the low
population rural areas that have outsize political power thanks to the unfortunate design of
our government. Every state gets two senators, regardless of population, and that also
factors into the allocation of Electoral College votes, so that an EC vote from WY is worth 4
times as much as an EC vote from CA, for example. In 2016, Senate Democrats got 20 million
more votes than Senate Republicans, yet Republicans kept control. In 2018, Senate Democrats
got "only" 11.5 million more votes, and consequently lost seats. We're being governed by a
minority in may areas of the country, and nationally, yet the "rural rubes" or whatever you
want to call them, insist that they don't have nearly enough power.
Strange that anyone living in or just knowing the west would NOT know that arsonists could
not burn down huge chunks of forest if they where not so very dry.
Augury Unhappy Bird Watcher, State of Grave Doubt
Sept. 20
The ugly truth of Oregon's political past is asserting itself...we aren't in "Portlandia"
anymore Nick.
Ominous! There are two information ecosystems in this country and Americans increasingly live
in different realities. Much of the media is in the business of massaging the egos of their
readers by feeding them stories that confirm their biases and make them feel clever. There is
less and less fact based news and more and more propaganda. A lot of people aren't really
interested in facts. They just want to be told how right they are and how stupid and evil the
people who disagree with them are. Media corporations are providing the market with what it
desires, and what it desires is poisonous.
There is a reptilian brain need to believe this nonsense and to propagate it- because the
believers are so terrified of the facts of the truth (and the lack of knowing what might be
done to address those facts). The people who are true believers are pointless to discuss.
They are too frightened. They need to believe this stuff. It is hopeless to address them.
Dark times, indeed.
With the natural buildup of combustible matter, combined with houses everywhere now and
little land management, these fires will happen and will cause problems. Lots of things can
start them and they will.
You left out "a century of zero-tolerance policies toward wildland fires (creating
precariously dense underbrush), and resistance to traditional controlled burning at the
human/wilderness interface". It's not the whole story, but neither is climate change which,
due to global technological leveling, is evermore the responsibility of China and India than
Western civilization. Signed, a moderate progressive endlessly frustrated with breathless
liberalism
If only there were no arsonists. Here is a video of a woman who found a man on her property
with matches in his hand (and no cigarettes, which was his excuse for having matches in his
hand). She made a citizen's arrest. This happened in peaceful Oregon. Don't listen if you
can't handle harsh language by a woman who is trying to save her property. Arson is real, and
it is no joke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJW_M4pBCnY
A man was arrested for arson in Southern Oregon. His fire damaged or destroyed numerous
homes.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-charged-arson-connection-almeda-fire-southern-oregon/story?id=72960208
Rumors of antifa notwithstanding, people in Oregon were looking for arsonists because there
are arsonists.
"Conspiracy theories" are, for the most part, not theories, merely assertions. A theory is
subject to proof and disproof by evidence. In a world where truth has no inherent monetary
value, don't expect it. To paraphrase President Clinton, "It's the internet, Stupid!" Follow
the money: Agenda + Clickbaitability = Prominence That is the business model of the internet,
a medium where "news" is whatever will produce the most clicks. As in profit. Unless and
until the youngest generation developes a means of communication that does not depend on
megacorporations, nothing will change. In the Sixties, a generation which disbelieved and had
no honest access to the traditional media, created its own, the "alternative press."
Hopefully, today's teenagers will develope their own way to communicate that is reliable. It
is 100% guaranteed that if their "opposition" becomes an actual threat to the profits of
Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, and the rest of their ilk, they will be cut off. As to why
people attach themselves to "conspiracy theories", it's actually quite simple. Take QAnon for
example: it is functionally just another religion competing for adherents. As with any
religion, it offers its believers an explanation of what they deem is wrong while offering a
path to right those wrongs. Certainty and simplicity: those are the essential elements of
cults/religion/bumpersticker politics. And the internet guarantees that whatever you believe
will be "validated."
"Conspiracy theories" are, for the most part, not theories, merely assertions. A theory is
subject to proof and disproof by evidence. In a world where truth has no inherent monetary
value, don't expect it. To paraphrase President Clinton, "It's the internet, Stupid!" Follow
the money: Agenda + Clickbaitability = Prominence That is the business model of the internet,
a medium where "news" is whatever will produce the most clicks. As in profit. Unless and
until the youngest generation developes a means of communication that does not depend on
megacorporations, nothing will change. In the Sixties, a generation which disbelieved and had
no honest access to the traditional media, created its own, the "alternative press."
Hopefully, today's teenagers will develope their own way to communicate that is reliable. It
is 100% guaranteed that if their "opposition" becomes an actual threat to the profits of
Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, and the rest of their ilk, they will be cut off. As to why
people attach themselves to "conspiracy theories", it's actually quite simple. Take QAnon for
example: it is functionally just another religion competing for adherents. As with any
religion, it offers its believers an explanation of what they deem is wrong while offering a
path to right those wrongs. Certainty and simplicity: those are the essential elements of
cults/religion/bumpersticker politics. And the internet guarantees that whatever you believe
will be "validated."
" All this rumormongering leaves me feeling that the social fabric is unraveling, as if the
shared understanding of reality that is the basis for any society is eroding." You betcha.
(Palin doesn't look half bad compared to the current batch.) It's a simple formula: social
media driven disinformation + extreme capitalism which leaves us with no real will to address
it + legitimate grievances like racism and financial insecurity = craziness on all sides,
fanned by a president whose personal agenda takes precedence over absolutely everything. All
societies are constantly dealing with potentially destabilizing threats. Their institutions,
media, leadership, and understanding of a common good are their immune system. Ours is
compromised, we are destabilized.
How about a judicious Forrest management? We live in a period of global warming
because of our planet axis precision, aggravated by the presence of an unprecedented
population explosion needing more water, more food, the production of which needs more arable
land, cutting trees, displacing wild animals, exhausting the aquifer. Cutting trees increases
the CO2 in the atmosphere. More people in India, more cattle emitting methane, more old
fashioned way of cooking food and producing more CO2 ... Permanent frost melting also sends
more methane in the atmosphere ... The climate is extremely complex to permit exact modeling,
but it is clear that if we want to stay healthy, it is vital to regularly clear our western
forests of dead wood in order to prevent today's disaster of millions of people, particularly
children with asthma and old people breathing the heavily polluted air. It is time to move to
solar, wind power, electric trucks, cars etc. The technology is here. Let's hope that Biden
will support clean air as means to better health. If all these years instead of using
abstract terms like global warming or climate change, we have been appealing to people to
keep the air clean in order to have better health, perhaps they would have stopped buying the
behemoths cars, producing so much pollution?
As Nicholas and many readers on this page already know, this commentary is more evidence of
how needlessly and recklessly polarized our country has become. When tribal instincts push
people to look for anything - fact, fiction or fantasy - on social media or "rage commentary"
that supports and validates their identities they will glom onto it faster than maggots on
dead flesh. It is a sad state of affairs when so many people of all political persuasions
will not take the time - even a few minutes - to question and investigate the latest "truth"
being promoted. The new culture of low information consumers seems to be spreading as fast as
a pandemic despite the heroic efforts of honest journalism. I wonder if low information
consumption was so endemic to the citizens of Ancient Rome and Greece - long before Twitter,
Facebook and Rage TV? People, please take a moment to "click" one step further to see if the
latest conspiracy story is true. Why help propagate lies? It will only come back to haunt
you, or your children.
Antifa or not, at least some of the big fires have been started by arsonists. Of this fact we
have video proof. By downplaying or even denying it, the media are just as bad as the
conspiracy theorists in promoting disinformation.
This reminds me of a time when people saw "Reds" behind anything that was going wrong in the
country. Nothing new, but just as pathetically paranoid. I wonder how many people, or their
parents, fit into both groups?
Here's another urban myth. Ok, more a lefty myth. That we can just keep adding people to this
country (urban, suburban, rural, big city, anywhere and everywhere) and it won't have any
effect. With the corollary that it's just a matter of "green new deal" or everybody getting a
Prius or the dummies in the sticks realizing climate change is real and then we can just go
on like this forever. We can't. Not only is our much hated lifestyle, which from what I can
see, nobody really wants to give up, killing us, but believing 330 million Americans that add
2-3 million more a year is not a problem at all. Our entire way of life: endless population
and economic growth is unsustainable. We don't need to wait until 2050 to see it. Just step
outside.
It is very difficult to teach people that "research," doesn't mean you go to some TV show or
website you like and root around for stuff that tells you what you want to hear. One prob
seems to be really simple: it takes actual work to do it right. Another is that research,
done well, has an ugly habit of forcing you to think at least a little about whether your own
ideas make any sense. And a third is that people really, really don't like it when their
political views start getting contradicted by reality. It seems to be easier to change
reality than to change views, even a little. Oh, and another prob? Too few Americans really
read anything worth reading. I'm all for funsies (and I've probably read more crummy science
fiction than all y'all put together) but one of the joys of walking around in Paris is seeing
that the kiosks and bookstores still sell a ton of stuff on philosophy, lit, economics, and
that everywhere, people actually read them. Books teach thought. Newsmax don't.
@Beer Can Boyd: As a native-born American, I think the US fell down when the Congress put
"under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance in 1953, ostensibly to preclude anyone thinking
about Godless communism, and gave itself a stroke.
The melting pot burned over. It is now a word salad. But appears there is a method to the
madness. It is hard for the world to tell the madness from the method
@Carolyn then there are the lies and the demonization of China and Russia by both parties to
top it off. How can voters believe anything and decide before they vote?
Supporting this atmosphere of potential violence are some of my republican friends. They are
mostly educated and not stupid. Yet they continue to support a man whom I think holds the
responsibility for most of the violence if it comes. Now I want to get down to my point about
these supporters. I believe they have succumbed to a cult-like dynamic. I say this because no
rational person could possibly support Trump. Religious cults create this same addiction and
irrationality. When my friends disagree with me, they try to put our friendship hostage to no
further discussion of politics. They are unwilling to even be confronted with objections to
their support of Trump. I have decided that I can always make new friends. What I do not want
to do is take on the task of building a new country because I stayed silent.
@Harcourt "They are mostly educated and not stupid." In my opinion, educated persons who
behave as you describe never benefited from their education. Even worse, to me it seems like
persons who behave like that are of the opinion that what they learnt in school is only for
the purpose of writing the exams they needed to pass to get out of school. It was all just
noise to them.
You nailed it. There is no longer "a shared reality" in America. So we have wildly different
views of who Joe Biden and Donald Trump are. And how serious climate change is. And whether
it's important to wear a mask. And if left-wing anarchists set forest fires. Thank you,
Internet. Thank you, social media barons who refuse to ban Russian propaganda and manipulated
videos. Thank you FCC that does not rein in Fox News and their promotion of lies. Who will
step in and stop this madness?
@CA I agree with you completely except for the refusal to stop Russian interference. We
can't. We can't unless we stop US interference in the process. The problem is that US
interference, and rumor mongering, are the business model of these platforms which happen to
be some of our largest companies. Extreme capitalism is preventing us from addressing any and
all issues propagated by these companies. Russia is just a speck.
Antifa adherents and wildfires ? Seems pretty far-fetched. Even ridiculous. But setting fire
to occupied apartment buildings in Portland ? Oh yes, definitely. It happened, and more is on
the menu, as well as municipal and federal buildings. Don't believe it ? Read the news
releases for yourself, on the Portland Police Bureau's website.
An excellent discussion of the perils of social media. Although newspapers, TV, radio,
magazines have a historical principal of "generally" telling the truth, social media has
opened up the world to every single Tom, Dick and Harry who with to spread their message. I
believe that how we, as a nation, as a species, handle social media will define what happens
over the next decade.
The state of this country is absolutely terrifying. While the shift to ever more
conservative, insular, xenophobic, coroporate-controlled government has been going on for
years, with the faux election of trump democracy is what has become fake, while common sense,
empathy, and both fiscal and environmental responsibility have virtually disappeared. The US
has gone off the deep end...
Years ago I read a science fiction short story that is unsettling in its analogy to this
situation. I starts with aliens visiting the Earth and accidently leaving behind a device
that can allow metal to be manipulated by softening it, then hardening it. The device gets
copied and mass produced. When they returned a year later, they come back and cannot fathom
how their device could have resulted in anarchy. THAT is the internet. 5 Recommend Share
Let me ask you all a question. If your neighbor told you the fire in a nearby Oregon town was
started by antifa, how would you disprove it? Since you cannot provide evidence for a
negative statement, it's difficult. There is actually some evidence that antifa did start the
fire: a voice said it on the radio, and tv showed them lighting fireworks in Portland. This
isn't very good evidence, but it is evidence, and you can't produce any evidence that antifa
did not do it (because there can't be any.) So you are in the position of asking your
neighbor to look at the quality of the evidence. This is something very few outside the legal
and scientific world are capable of. But that is all you have. Ultimately, it really does go
back to belief. How many of us could independently prove that the earth turns around the sun?
Those of us who aren't astronomers choose to accept this belief based on what we've been
told, and that's how it is with antifa starting the fires.
Kristof is afraid that fires in the West represent the new normal. The evidence suggests that
this fear is well-founded. He is concerned about the government's paralysis. That is partly
due to Trump, who stands a good chance of being reelected on November 3. He is worried about
ordinary citizens seeking oversimplified answers and finding them in the conspiracy theories
presenting the fire as the work of antifa. I am more worried about the breakdown in
credibility of news sources like the NY Times, which finds itself in competition with Fox
News and a host of online sources. Indeed, you-tube and facebook will select news stories for
you, confirming whatever bias you bring to your reading of the news. There is no guarantee
that democracy will survive. One of the things that keeps me up at night is the realization
that not only the right, but the left, is subject to oversimplified presentations of global
warming. Global warming is a consequence of too much population growth. But as we argue over
freedoms for LGBTQ minorities liberals have neglected the importance of freedom of speech.
And voices which have warned about population growth have been simply ignored by the left. It
isn't enough to shift from Fords using gasoline to Teslas running on electricity. We also
need to control population growth. The population of earth will double again by 2072 if
current rates continue. Population growth threatens to overwhelm the attempts to move to
clean energy. 2 Recommend
The scientific consensus will also conclude that not allowing wildfires to burn compounds the
problem. While what I am about to type is not science, continued development in fire prone
areas amplifies and compounds every aspect of the problem. From my perspective the system has
evolved to socializing cost and privatizing cost in every way. I don't see it getting better,
until such time as individuals are held accountable this should be considered normal.
@secular socialist dem PG&E just paid billions in fines and PLEADED GUILTY in starting
last year's Paradise fire. They also have already admitted fault in several fires started by
their faulty, untended grid. "Individuals" don't need to be held accountable unless there are
rules in place for them to follow regarding wildfire. There already are. Most already do. Why
do folks act so proud about their 'anti-science' opinion? It's not like this conversation
isn't ongoing; nobody argues that development in fire prone areas' carries risks. So does
rebuilding in Oklahoma, Florida and Louisiana..... You're right (although confused) about
socializing RISK and privatizing PROFIT. See PG&E above.
Unsure how people lighting fires directly indicates climate change is corroborated. The
fellow who was arrested in Tacoma, WA: https://thepostmillennial.com/antifa-activist-charged-for-fire-set-in-washington
Looking to past wildfires, like the one's in Montana & Idaho in 2008, 5.5 million acres
were burned and certain interest groups advocated for them to burn out because it's apart of
the natural cycle. Federal government shouldn't send assistance unless it's possibly to
communities in threat of burning, who are humans to say we ought to stop mother nature? It's
natural to let these fires burn, if you try to hinder it's course you are stopping the cycle.
Doug Terry Maryland, Washington DC metro
Sept. 20 Times Pick
Why do people believe wild stupid things more than actual facts? Partly it is because they
like the wild stupid thing more, it gives them some weird comfort. It is also because people
are busying with their lives and don't have time to gather enough information to counter the
wild rumor that flies around faster than the speed of sound. The most important aspect of
successful conspiracy theories is they impart to the person holding them the idea that they
are smarter than other people and have "cracked the code" that explains everything or a lot
of big things that people don't understand. Reading, thinking, considering and re-considering
can seem like hard work, particularly if it is foreign to one's experience and life training.
Why not just lock on to a cool idea that comes around, even if it is weird? .
This story highlights for me an equally growing problem, the "selective framing" by media
outlets on the left and right (NYT and Fox as just two examples). To read Mr Kristof's
version, you may believe that arsonists are wild figments of the unhinged radical right
imagination. To read the same story on Fox, Antifa arsonists are working their way up your
street.
"...the shared understanding of reality that is the basis for any society is eroding." And
yet reality still exist. Normally, if someone starts to exhibit the kind of behavior that
these "vigilantes" are - screaming about boogeymen, thinking people are out to get them,
engaging in aggressive behavior based on paranoid fantasies, creating self-reinforcing
delusions, becoming obsessed with baseless conspiracy theories - we would rightly diagnose
them as being mentally ill, and to the extent that they represent a danger to others, confine
them. I don't think we can afford to see this as just a time of extreme differences of
opinion. Facts, truth and reality are still actual, tangible things. And those who have
become so disassociated from them that they are stopping vehicles and hunting down their
fellow citizen need to be dealt with appropriately.
We have been witnessing the start of the Second Civil War in America. If we accept the
definition of a civil war as a conflict between factions of citizens for either secession or
control of the government--including organizations within the existing government--then we
are in the beginning stages of a Second Civil War. The question is what the level of violence
will be (not will there be violence, but how much violence). We are beginning to see
indications of that level. When naturally or accidentally caused wildfires are attributed to
one faction as a way to stoke the fires of civil violence, then physical violence between
factions is a heartbeat away simply because of the falsity and extremity of the accusations.
The era of peaceful protest has passed because of the intensity of feelings on both sides;
the anger produced when a government begins denying civil rights, e.g., Freedom of Speech and
the Right to Assemble, through legal actions where protest organizers could be charged with
sedition (see Barr's comments, 9/16/2020, NYT), which then suggests that all protests become
illegal, the fires of violence are stoked. With a heavily-armed populace on both sides,
gunfire is a hair-trigger pull away. If Trump and the Republican's intention was to remake
America in their image (I leave it to you to supply that image), they are succeeding. If
Putin's intention was to bring down America, he is succeeding. If Xi's intention was to
dominate the world, he is on that path. Vote 33 Recommend Share
... There's an old saying "Those who the gods would destroy they first make mad." I have come
to the conclusion that America has gone qute a long way down that road.
And yet, Mr. Kristoff, you never make mention of the real threat that groups like Antifa and
other radical left rioters pose to this country (forgetting about attacks on federal
buildings in Portland? Attempts to firebomb courthouses? Violence against law enforcement
officers?). No, instead it's always Trump, or Trump supporters who are your focus. I do not
know whether Antifa has been involved in any of these recent fires, but I do know that these
violent elements on the left pose a massive danger to our democracy. You are correct about
one thing, though: We should brace ourselves. It's just "what" we need to brace for that is
off mark in your article...
It's heartbreaking to watch these three West Coast states burned. For days, the sky was red
and the air was unbreathable. But the saddest part was the feeling of helplessness.
40 years ago, I hitchhiked around the Pacific Northwest during the summer after Mt. St.
Helens blew up. Mt. Rainier was ash-coated, as were the wild blueberries I often ate. Epic
and Biblical are words inadequate to describe that destruction near Mt. St. Helens, with
millions of huge, old trees blown down, piles of mud, and rivers diverted. Yet I and others
knew that eventually, that land would regrow, and it did.
I see a lot of egotism and self-love on both sides. The so-called progressives in our
community are breeding at baby boom levels, driving SUVs, and, before the pandemic, you'd see
a dozen school buses idling outside every school. Development is out of control as people
flee from the city, and people flee from here, or downsize, and breed and breed and breed.
Two years ago, we had a flash flood and our street was under water, and there was a lot of
damage all over town. Hurricane Irene in 2011 left many with over a foot of water in their
basements. And let's not even start on Sandy. My friend lives in Pensacola; their downtown
area is under three or four feet of water from Hurricane Sally. It's not just fire, it's
floods, and it's not just the GOP which is the problem...
I don't blame anyone for guarding their roads if they think arsonists are about. The
Tillamook Burn was larger and more devastating than these fires but are we to blame climate
change ? Environmentalists and Liberals who do not even live out West, who did not rely upon
Logging, placed their concerns about the Spotted Owl and Virgin Forests about the danger of
Forest Fires and the livelihood of Loggers and the Towns and Peoples who depended upon
Logging. Managed Logging of Forests is not an inherently evil act. Clearing the bush and dead
trees is not bad in and of itself. Let Logging companies responsibly manage sections of the
Forrests, let Towns clear fire breaks around their perimeters. Place large Water towers in
strategic points throughout the Forests, huge mounds of dirt/sand/gravel next to them so that
the Firefighters have what they need to fight the fires. Force developers to build houses 50
feet apart. Require fireproof roofs, require thinning of trees in housing developments.
Require volunteer Fire Departments in every neighborhood so that if they do nothing else,
they can cut a fire break, water down the grasses around their neighborhoods, chase and
extinguish embers, something/anything versus fleeing their homes without putting up a fight.
"... dry conditions exacerbated by climate change coupled with an unusual windstorm ..." May
I add that a couple of other things have also contributed to making the fires worse or making
them harder to manage? For a century or so, in California, Oregon and Washington we have not
been letting the normal, periodic fires burn. Consequently, a great deal of fuel has built up
on the forest floor. Second, folks have increasingly been building homes or even
neighborhoods in places which have historically seen such normal, periodic fires.
@Robert Yes. But now controlled burns are a bit problematic, given the droughts, the heat,
the massive fuel loads from all the dead trees. It's just so easy for the controlled burns to
get out of control.
Hi, I am from Clackamas County metro. Every time a FaceBook "Friend" (and I personally know
all of mine) posted a rumor, I tried to find the footage from any of our 4 local news
stations to depute their post but they just shared another one. One said she didn't trust KGW
8 the local NBC station and when I told her the same story was on KPTV 12, the local Fox
station. She said, "I'm just stressed"
@David Biesecker Remember that half the people are of below average intelligence. That may
answer the existence of the small percentage of conspiracy theorists. One problem is social
media provides free and outsized loudspeaker systems that enables them to find each other.
@M.i. Estner First, let me identify myself as a liberal Democrat who has a masters degree. I
find it more than disheartening when half of the country, or half of rural or not formally
educated folks are said to have low intelligent quotas, critical thinking skills or
analytical abilities. You better believe that when a highly trained Eastern Oregon
firefighter is assessing how to save peoples lives, homes and land, has to quickly act with
their many faceted skill set and are calling on abilities you or I would not be able to
fathom. Same with farmers of large pieces of complicated crops and land. Same with city
managers, librarians, and social workers for the elderly--all having low city budgets. What
about the veterinarians, doctors and nurses in rural areas? This is exactly the same as
calling Black or Hispanics people of lower intelligence. And, there are different types of
intelligence. I know a literary critic, a liberal Democrat, who doesn't have the critical
thinking skills to run her own home or raise her children. If you look, you can see these
same differences in any group. It has to do with the way people are raised, what they are
using their skill sets for, what information they are used to consuming, money, ideology,
etc...And it has to do with being devalued for growing your food, producing your meat,
chicken and eggs. I'm not excusing the violence, guns, racism and hatred. These divides have
been with us for ages. Please don't stoke the fires.
If we have a selfish federal government, then we will have selfish states and people.
Everyone is for himself or herself. No one will think about other people or public good. It
all started from the top
In 2017, 2018, and 2019 northern California's new phenomenon of forceful 40 to 60 miles per
hour winds - in Fall, no less - caused old and aging electrical equipment to malfunction. As
a consequence, too much of Santa Rosa burnt to the ground, and the entire town of Paradise
ceased to exist. This year during the heat of a hotter than usual summer following yet
another dry winter, we had dry lightning strikes from Sonoma County to Santa Clara County and
beyond.
Yes, the science is clear and you fail to mention it. The forest fires reach critical mass
and spread because of the surplus of dead or dying trees. They are there because the federal
government essentially no longer allows logging on its vast landholdings and also fails to
allow controlled burns to clean out the tinderbox. I won't bother attaching a link because
any Google search proves the point. Why focus on hysteria and rumermongering among the
Deplorables? Come on, Mr. Kristof, you were a Deplorable once (when you were a kid growing up
in the countryside) as was I. Please defend them sometimes, particularly when the actual
causes are so well documented.
@Stuck on a mountain Western States are working to clear the brush from forests where, due to
our previous incomplete understanding of forest ecology, fires were suppressed for a century.
However, the cost is astronomical and there are millions of acres left to clear. Spending
their entire forest management budgets fighting current wildfires doesn't help. We've been
doing controlled burns for decades but in many areas, they're now too dangerous. Dry forests
and a dense understory can quickly turn a "controlled burn" into a conflagration. Many
ranchers and timber companies who profit from our state and national forests seem unwilling
to pay to keep those forests healthy. People who live in or near forests mostly have incomes
too low to pay for forest management. The National Forest Service, Department of the Interior
and USDA have made some progress, but the problem is huge. Saying we can prevent forest fires
by allowing larger timber harvests is an oversimplification. No solution to this complex
issue will be simple, perfect or cheap.
Wacky conspiracy theories to explain seemingly bizarre and unusual occurrences have been
around since the dawn of human cognition. But in an electronic/social media age, these get
spread even faster than a wind-blown fire climbs a canyon hillside. Previously, they were
spread one set of ears at a time; now millions of eyes can read them every second. And that
is a major part of the problem.
As a grad student in sociology, having lived through the 60s and participated in the
counterculture, I was deeply intrigued by the social construction of reality - how we come to
share a taken-for-granted world. This is a long-standing concern within sociological social
psychology. We examined how language, interpersonal communications, media and social
structure shaped ones perception of one's self, what is real, what's important. At the time,
however, this was considered theoretical and academic. 40 years later, understanding how
Americans' realities have come to diverge is no longer armchair social science. It's urgent
and in our faces, as is the question of how can we heal this terrible fracturing of our
world?
@DeHypnotist Yes. When studying for the degree in and then teaching sociology in my early
years, I learned that, too. But, I have to admit, it's actually taken all the decades of life
since then, and now the obvious confirmation of it by this current 'reality' to actually
realize, deep down in my guts, that we 'make up' our so-called 'social reality' simply to
serve the most basic of biological requirements: the need to dominate in the deadly
completion with the other 'tribes' of our species just to survive. We are, after all, animals
like all the others, no matter how much we blab about how much 'smarter' we are.
@Alex B The primal driver, deep in the core of our brain, is usefully thought of as
"reptilian." Cold-blooded. Egoistic. Hedonistic. And, in extreme cases, narcissistic, and,
heaven forbid when all three are present...
I lived for a few years in Brazil when it was a dictatorship. The similarities between Brazil
and what is happening in the US is startling. The police were being used to quell peaceful
protesters and the justice system co-opted by authorities, fear mongering were present, just
as now in the US....
I didn't live in the US from 1977-1999, only visiting on short trips. That enabled me to see
changes in society that were slow and not seen by those residing here. And when I came back
permanently I could feel immediately a deep change....
Perhaps an apt metaphor for the "danger sign ahead" is the approach of a Category three
hurricane and it's increasing in intensity. One of the stark disconnects is between the
message in an article like this and the politicians and citizens who are little concerned
about tempering rhetoric and elevating the importance of eschewing misinformation. We are in
the Misinformation Age and the victims of a cyber war, evolving into a civil war.
@ML What is happening here? These are the beginnings of what happened in Germany in the 30s.
Over there the reason was the loss of WWI. Here, is the obvious decline of the American
lifestyle and we have not seen anything yet. The range of the economic decline is covered by
7 trillion dollars in phony money. I fervently hope and pray that is not too late to stop the
process. All men and women of goodwill have to rally to restore a sane, and one, country .
Stay safe! It is going to get worse before it gets better.
@FunkyIrishman Right on. Water is an enormous issue waiting to happen here -- and Wisconsin
is estimated to have between 10 and 20 percent of the world's fresh water (depending on how
it's calculated and whether that includes some of Lakes Michigan and Superior. A Dept. of
Climate, Weather and Water would be a logical cabinet department.
@FunkyIrishman And polluting the potable water continues sometimes by the most resolvable
modern approaches: sewers and water treatment plants. Reagan ended federal funding for sewers
leaving septic systems (and now ancient sewers) where sewers would lead to protected fresh
water. All the medicines, chemicals, and toxins seep unseen but very real into fresh and also
salt water. We are not a modern nation any more.
Augury Unhappy Bird Watcher, State of Grave Doubt
Sept. 20
Oregon's racial demographics White alone, percent 86.7% Black or African American alone,
percent 2.2% Alabama's racial demographics White alone, percent 69.1% Black or African American
alone, percent26.8%
Those sneaky Russians are well aware Biden is doing a good enough job of subverting his
own campaign.
They know he, like his opponent, offers no relief from the constant militarism and forever
wars that the American public is fed up with.
They know he, like his opponent, is corrupt and represents corporate interests and that
the American public sees him as out of touch and incapable of offering anything in terms of
substantive change.
They know that so long as Biden doesn't offer any kind of viable alternative to the status
quo his candidacy is going to be weak and ineffectual and that there isn't much of anything
they could do that could possibly enhance that effect.
So, they're content to sit back and let nature take its course. In other words, they
realize the best way to interfere in the American elections... is by NOT interfering with
them.
And how could the Americans possibly counter such a strategy? The deviousness is off the charts. Damn those Russians!
Overage Cold War hawks and salesmen for the arms makers like to say that China is
"totalitarian," which sounds appropriately terrible without meaning anything specific. How many
people have been in a genuinely totalitarian and Communist country?
I was in the Soviet Union when it still was the Soviet Union, and it closely matched John
Bolton's onanistic fantasies: grim, poor, intimidated, no stores or consumer goods, empty
streets with cars only for the government, people sullen and dispirited.
As we flew out on Aeroflot, people spontaneously broke into applause as we passed the
Russian frontier.
... ... ...
Conservatives of formidable economic illiteracy speak of China as a communist dictatorship.
The government, perhaps not wanting to admit a mistake, calls itself communist. Geriatric hawks
make themselves foolish by referring to "Chicoms," but China is in fact a pragmatic
authoritarian oligarchy, not a dictatorship, and communist countries do not have hundreds of
thousands of private businesses. You cannot criticize the government and the Great Firewall of
China blocks the international internet. Not good, but totalitarian? Try North Korea.
... ... ...
Americans also grouse that fentanyl, which they usually pronounce "fentanol," comes from
China, just as Mexicans complain that the weaponry of the drug cartels comes from the US. True
in both cases, but it is a bit of a leap to attribute either to governmental hostility rather
than freelance criminality.
... ... ...
People in the US speak of China's brazen aggressiveness. Chinese aggressiveness? Did
China invade Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands? Has China spent almost twenty years
butchering Afghans, militarily seized Syria's oil, supported Saudi Arabia in a murderous war
against Yemen, supervised the destruction of Libya, bombed Somalia? Does China try to starve
Iran and Venezuela into giving Washington control of their oil? Does China push its
(nonexistent) NATO vassals ever closer to Russian border? Yes, China is an international
menace. No one can doubt it.
So, it appears the War on Populism is building
toward an exciting climax. All the proper pieces are in place for a Class-A GloboCap color
revolution, and maybe even civil war. You got your unauthorized Putin-Nazi president, your
imaginary apocalyptic pandemic, your violent identitarian civil unrest, your heavily-armed
politically-polarized populace, your ominous rumblings from military quarters you couldn't
really ask for much more.
OK, the plot is pretty obvious by now (as it is in all big-budget action spectacles, which
is essentially what color revolutions are), but that won't spoil our viewing experience. The
fun isn't in guessing what is going to happen. Everybody knows what's going to happen. The fun
is in watching Bruce, or Sigourney, or "the moderate rebels," or the GloboCap "Resistance,"
take down the monster, or the terrorists, or Hitler, and save the world, or democracy, or
whatever.
The show-runners at GloboCap understand this, and they are sticking to the classic Act III
formula (i.e., the one they teach in all those scriptwriting seminars, which, full disclosure,
I teach a few of those). They've been running the War on Populism by the numbers since the very
beginning. I'm going to break that down in just a moment, act by act, plot point by plot point,
but, first, let's quickly cover the basics.
The first thing every big Hollywood action picture (or GloboCap color revolution) needs is a
solid logline to build the plot around. The logline shows us: (1) our protagonist, (2) what our
protagonist is trying to do, and (3) our antagonist or antagonistic force.
For example, here's one everyone will recognize:
"A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and
his role in the war against its controllers."
In our case, the logline writes itself:
"After America is taken over by a Russian-backed Hitlerian dictator, the forces of
democracy unite to depose the tyrant and save the free world."
Donald Trump is our antagonist, of course. And what an antagonist he has been! As the
deep-state spooks and the corporate media have been relentlessly repeating for the last four
years, the man is both a Russian-backed traitor and literally the resurrection of Hitler! In
terms of baddies, it doesn't get any better.
It goes without saying that our protagonist is GloboCap (i.e., the global capitalist
empire), or "democracy," as it is known in the entertainment business.
Now, we're in the middle of Act III already, and, as in every big-budget action movie, our
protagonist suffered a series of mounting losses all throughout Act II, and the baddie was
mostly driving the action. Now it's time for the Final Push, but, before all the action gets
underway, here's a quick recap of those previous acts. Ready? All right, here we go
Act I
(status quo/inciting incident)
There democracy (i.e., GloboCap) was, peacefully operating its de facto global capitalist
empire like a normal global hegemon (i.e., destabilizing, restructuring, and privatizing
everything it hadn't already destabilized and privatized, and OK, occasionally murdering,
torturing, and otherwise mercilessly oppressing people), when out of nowhere it was viciously
attacked by Donald Trump and his Putin-Nazi "populists," who stole the 2016 election from
Clinton with those insidious Facebook ads. (For you writers, this was the Inciting
Incident.)
As is traditional at the opening of Act II, things were looking promising for GloboCap. The
"Resistance" staged those pink pussyhat protests, and the corporate media were pumping out
Russia and Hitler propaganda like a Goebbelsian piano. Yes, there were obstacles, but the
"Resistance" was growing . And then, in May of 2017, special counsel Robert Mueller was
appointed, and "Russiagate" was officially launched. It appeared that Donald Trump's days were
numbered!
(rising action/first culmination)
But, no, it was never going to be that easy. (If it was, feature films would be less than an
hour long, not to mention incredibly boring.) There was plenty of action (and an endless series
of "bombshells") throughout the ensuing two years, but by the end of March 2019, "Russiagate" had blown
up in GloboCap's face . "Populism" was still on the rise! It was time for GloboCap to get
serious. (This was the classic first culmination, sometimes known as The Point of No
Return.)
Act II (b)
(complications/subplots/higher stakes)
In the aftermath of the "Russiagate" fiasco, the GloboCap "Resistance" flailed around for a
while. An assortment of
ridiculous subplots unfolded Obstructiongate, Ukrainegate, Pornstargate (and I'm probably
forgetting some "gates"), white-supremacist non-terrorist terrorism, brain-devouring
Russian-Cubano crickets, Russian spy whales, and other such nonsense. Meanwhile, the forces of
"populism" were running amok all across the planet. The gilets jaunes were on the verge of
taking down Macron in France, and gangs of neo-nationalist boneheads had launched a series of
frontal assaults on Portlandia, GloboCap Anti-Fascist HQ, which Antifa was barely holding
off.
(second culmination/major setback)
All wasn't totally lost, however. GloboCap sprang back into action, successfully Hitlerizing
Jeremy Corbyn , the leader of leftist "populism," and thus preventing the mass exodus of
Jews from Great Britain. And the US elections were on the horizon. Trump was still
Russian-agent Hitler, after all, so he wasn't going to be too hard to beat. All that GloboCap
had to do was put forth a viable Democratic candidate, then let the corporate media do their
thing. OK, first, they had to do Bernie
Sanders (because he was another "populist" figurehead, and the point of the entire War on
Populism has been to crush the "populist" resistance to global capitalism from both the Left
and the Right), but the DNC made short work of that.
So, everything was looking hunky-dory until -- and you screenwriters saw this coming, didn't
you? -- the pivotal plot-point at the end of Act II, The Major Setback, or The Dark Night of
the Soul, when all seems lost for our protagonist.
... ... ...
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing,
Inc. His dystopian novel, Zone 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volume I of his Consent Factory
Essays is published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated
Content, Inc. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
Fundamentally, this means the press has gone from selling a vision of reality they perceive
to be acceptable to a broad mean, to selling division. For technological, commercial, and
political reasons this instinct has become more exaggerated with time, snowballing toward the
dysfunctional state we're in today.
"If at any time the United States believes Iran has failed to meet its commitments, no
other state can block our ability to snap back those multilateral sanctions," Pompeo
declared in a statement posted on his official Twitter account on Sunday evening.
The top US diplomat was referring to the avalanche of sanctions Washington has been hellbent
on slapping on Tehran after the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) overwhelmingly rejected
the US resolution to extend a 13-year arms embargo against the Islamic Republic past October
earlier this week.
The humiliating defeat , which saw only one member
of the 15-nation body (the Dominican Republic) siding with the US, while China and Russia
opposed the resolution, and all other nations, including France and the UK, abstained, did not
discourage Washington, which doubled down on its threat to hit Iran with biting sanctions.
... ... ...
"Of course other states can block America's ability to impose multilateral sanctions. The
US can impose sanctions by itself, but can't force others to do it," Nicholas Grossman,
teaching assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Illinois,
tweeted.
"That's what 'multilateral' means. Is our SecState really this dumb?" Grossman asked.
Daniel Larison, senior editor at the American Conservative, suggested that Pompeo might
be having a hard time grasping the meaning of the word 'multilateral'.
Some argued that Pompeo could not be unaware of the contradictory nature of his statement.
Dan Murphy, former Middle East and South Asia correspondent for the Christian Science
Monitor, called it "one of the most diplomatically illiterate sentences of all time."
"I guess the end game here is [to] alienate the rest of the world even further to feed his
persecution complex?" Murphy wrote.
John Twomey, 16 August, 2020
Explanation. What Pompeo understands and what many others can't grasp is that the US
decides if their sanctions are "multilateral" because the USA speaks for all other countries
whether they like it or not.
My Opinion, 17 August, 2020
Reminiscing of his shady past as a new CIA recruit he said. "We lied, we cheated and we stole". Apparently, Mikey didn't
do all too well in his literature classes, either and that's why the most suitable candidate from zionists perspective.
Nice take on imbecilization of important and complex topics by the US MSM and politicians.
Money quote about neoliberal Dems like Obama and Biden "
But there are others for whom altruism is an alien concept.
Self-interest is all they know. These people never pause. They relentlessly press for any advantage, under any circumstances. They
see human suffering as a means to increase their power."
Another money quote: "in the hands of Democratic politicians, climate change is like systemic racism in the sky: You can't see it, but it's everywhere and
it's deadly."
Notable quotes:
"... But there are others for whom altruism is an alien concept. Self-interest is all they know. These people never pause. They relentlessly press for any advantage, under any circumstances. They see human suffering as a means to increase their power. ..."
"... Joe Biden's closest friend in the world, a prominent Martha's Vineyard kite-surfer called Barack Obama, echoed that message with his trademark restraint. Obama declawed that your "life" depends on voting for Joe Biden. ..."
"... One of the few Republicans who still hold elected office in California, state Assemblyman Heath Flora, last year called on using the state's $22 billion budget surplus to implement vegetation management. ..."
"... Fires don't spread as well without huge connected forests functioning as kindling. It's obvious, which is why it's unthinkable to mention it in some Democratic circles." ..."
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS: Massive wildfires continue to sweep across huge portions of the Pacific Northwest.
In Oregon, half a million residents have been forced to evacuate -- one out of every ten people in the state.
Dozens are dead tonight, including small children. But the fires still aren't close to contained. Watch this report from Fox's
Jeff Paul:
Video report
And it continues as we speak, walls of flame consuming everything in their path: homes, animals, human beings. Tragedy on a
massive scale.
When something this awful happens, decent people pause. They put aside their own interests for a moment. They consider how they
can help. We've seen that kind of selflessness before.
This is, remember, the anniversary of 9-11.
But there are others for whom altruism is an alien concept. Self-interest is all
they know. These people never pause. They relentlessly press for any advantage, under any circumstances. They see human suffering
as a means to increase their power.
These are the people who turn funerals into political rallies and feel no shame for doing it.
As Americans burned to death, people like this swung into action immediately. They went on television with a partisan talking
point: Climate change caused these fires, they said. They didn't explain how that happened. They just kept saying it.
In the hands of Democratic politicians, climate change is like systemic racism in the sky: you can't see it, but it's everywhere,
and it's deadly. And, like systemic racism, it's your fault: The American middle class did it. They ate too many hamburgers,
drove too many SUVs, had too many children.
A lot of them wear T-shirts to work and didn't finish college. That causes climate change too. And, worst of all, some of them
may vote for Donald Trump in November.
If there's anything that absolutely, definitively causes climate change -- and literally over a hundred percent of scientists
agree with this established fact -- it's voting for Donald Trump. You might as well start a tire fire. You're destroying the ozone
layer.
Joe Biden has checked the science, and he agrees. Yesterday, the people on Biden's staff who understand the internet tweeted out
an image of the wildfires, along with the message, "Climate change is already here -- and we're witnessing its devastating effects
every single day. We have to get President Trump out of the White House."
Again, by voting for Donald Trump, you've made hundreds of thousands of Oregonians homeless tonight. You've killed people.
Joe Biden's closest friend in the world, a prominent Martha's Vineyard kite-surfer called Barack Obama, echoed that message
with his trademark restraint. Obama declawed that your "life" depends on voting for Joe Biden.
At a time when sea levels are rising and we're about to see killer whales in the Rockies? Honestly, it doesn't seem like Obama is
overly concerned about climate change? And by the way, didn't he go to law school? When he did become a climate expert?
Those seem like good questions. But lawyers pretending to be scientists are now everywhere in the Democratic Party.
Here's the governor of Washington, Jay Inslee, a proud graduate of Willamette University law school, explaining that he's already
figured out the "cause" of the fires. Watch:
INSLEE: Fires are proof we need a stronger liberal agenda Sept 8 TRT: 18 Inslee: And these are conditions that are exacerbated
by the changing climate that we are suffering. And I do not believe that we should surrender these subdivisions or these houses
to climate change-exacerbated fires. We should fight the cause of these fires.
This is a crock. In fact, there is not a single scientist on earth who knows whether, or by how much, these fires may have been
"exacerbated" by warmer temperatures caused by "climate change," whatever that means anymore.
All we have is conjecture from a handful of scientists, none of whom have reached any definitive conclusions.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA, for example, has admitted that it's, quote, "hard to determine whether climate change
played a role in sparking the fires."
Meanwhile, investigators have determined that the massive El Dorado fire in California, which has torched nearly 14,000 acres,
was caused by morons setting off some kind of fireworks. And then on Wednesday, police announced that a criminal investigation is
underway into the massive Almeda fire in Ashland, Oregon.
The sheriff there said it's too early to say what caused the fire, but he's said human remains were found at the suspected origin
point. Nothing is being ruled out, including arson.
The more you know, the more complicated it is, like everything. Serious people are just beginning to gather evidence to determine
what happened to cause this disaster.
But at the same time, unserious people are now everywhere on the media right now, drowning out nuance. Don't worry about the
facts, they say. Just trust us -- the sky orange is orange over San Francisco because households making $40,000 a year made the
mistake of voting for a Republican.
Therefore you must hand us total control of the nation's economy. Watch amateur arson detective Nancy Pelosi explain:
PELOSI: Mother Earth is angry. She's telling us, whether she's telling us with hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, fires in the
west, whatever it is, the climate crisis is real and has an impact.
Mother Nature is angry. Please. When was the last time Nancy Pelosi went outside? No one asked her. All we know is what she said:
climate change caused this. Of course.
No matter the natural disaster -- hurricanes, tornadoes, whatever -- climate change did it. Keep in mind, Nancy Pelosi owns two
sub-zero freezers. They cost $10,000 apiece.
We know because she showed them off on national television. Those use a lot of energy. Like Barack Obama, she constantly flies
private between her multi-million dollar estates all over the country.
Obviously, she doesn't care about climate change. And neither do her supporters -- otherwise, they'd be trying to destroy the
mansions she owns, not the hair salons that expose her hypocrisy.
For the left, this is really about blaming and ritually humiliating the middle-class for the election of Donald Trump. Joe Biden
knows that the Pennsylvanians who would be financially ruined by his
fracking
ban
are the same Pennsylvanians who flipped the state red in 2016 for the first time in a generation.
That's the whole point. One of the reasons Joe Biden is barely allowed outside is that he has no problem showing his contempt for
the middle-class he supposedly cares so much about.
In 2019, he openly
mocked
coal miners
and suggested they just get programming jobs once they're all fired. Watch:
BIDEN: I come from a family, an area where's coal mining – in Scranton. Anybody, that can go down 300 to 3,000 feet in a mine,
sure as hell can learn how to program as well.
Learn to code! Hilarious. Joe Biden should try it. But there isn't time. The world is ending. Last summer, Sandy Cortez [AOC] did
the math and calculated we only have
12
years left to live
.
If that sounds bad, consider this -- Just four months after that warning, Sandy Cortez tweeted that we only have 10 years to "cut
carbon emissions in half."
Think about the math here. We lost two years in just four months. At that rate, we could literally all die unless Joe Biden wins
in November. Which is of course what they're saying.
On Tuesday, California Gavin Newsom pretty much said it Newsom abandoned science long ago. Science is too stringent, too western,
too patriarchal.
Newsom is a man of faith now. He's decided
climate
change caused all of this
, and that's final. He's not listening to any other arguments. Watch:
NEWSOM: I have no patience. And I say this lovingly, not as an ideologue, but as someone who prides himself on being open to
argument, interested in evidence. But I quite literally have no patience for climate change deniers. It simply follows completely
inconsistent, that point of view, with the reality on the ground.
People like Gavin Newsom don't want to listen to any "climate change deniers." What's a "climate change denier?" Anyone who
thinks our ruling class has no idea how to run their states or protect their citizens.
Are we "climate change deniers" if we point out that California has failed to implement meaningful deforestation measures that
would have dramatically slowed the spread of these wildfires?
In 2018, a state oversight agency in California found that years of poor or nonexistent
forest
management policies
in the Sierra Nevada forests had contributed to wildfires.
One of the few Republicans who still hold elected office in California, state Assemblyman Heath Flora, last year called on
using the state's $22 billion budget surplus to implement vegetation management.
Fires don't spread as well without huge connected forests functioning as kindling. It's obvious, which is why it's
unthinkable to mention it in some Democratic circles."
Presumably, you're also a climate-change denier if you point out that six of the Oregon National Guard's wildfire-fighting
helicopters are currently in Afghanistan.
Instead of dropping water to suppress blazes, the Chinook aircraft are busy supplying a war effort that's been going on for
nearly 20 years. That seems significant. Has anyone asked Gavin Newsom or Jay Inslee about that? Do any of the Democrats who
control these states even care?
The answer, of course, is probably not. It was just last week that Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti admitted on-the-record that
his city has become completely third-world.
Of course, Garcetti didn't blame himself for this turn of events. He blamed you. Quote: "It's almost 3 p.m," Garcetti tweeted.
"Time to turn off major appliances, set the thermostat to 78 degrees (or use a fan instead, turn off excess lights and unplug any
appliances you're not using. We need every Californian to help conserve energy. Please do your part."
"Please do your part." Garcetti wants his constituents to suffer to try to solve a problem that Democrats in his state created.
Even now, as residents in Northern California are facing sweeping power outages in addition to wildfires.
In the meantime, Gavin Newsom has vowed that 50 percent of California's energy grid will be based on quote "renewable" energy
sources within a decade.
That means sources like wind and solar power -- which can't be dialed up to meet periods of extreme demand, like California is
seeing right now during its heatwave.
Newsom was asked last month whether he would consider revising this stance given the blackouts that have left millions of
Californians without power.
Newsom responded, quote, "We are going to radically change the way we produce and consume energy." In other words, The blackouts
will continue until morale improves. So will the wildfires. Get used to it.
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This is a direct result of Gavin Newsom eliminating forestation controls. Jerry Brown kept them in place, the only thing he
did correctly. Democrats are to blame for all of this.
When environmentalists pushed through their "leave forests alone, allow nature to be undisturbed" bs, California and other
states stopped clearing underbrush, also known as fire fuel and now we see a perfect example of cause and effect.
Don't get me wrong I am a conservatist , but with common sense , we can't conserve unless we protect and nurture nature to
thrive. In fact extremism in environmentalism destroys as we see. People dead, animals dead, homes destroyed, forest destroyed
because of extremism.
The narrative to leave forests alone happened long before Trump, believing otherwise makes you a useful idiot.
Congratulations.
You could Google this old narrative but will you find it, well it's Google, you have to find the people who heard and lived
the so called natural environmental push narrative, we remember and we remember the warnings. Congratulations, your ignorance
has caused harm.
Counter disinformation network can't revive the dead chicken of neoliberal ideology.
Neoliberal elite lost legitimacy and as such has difficulties controlling the narrative.
That's why all this frantic efforts were launched to rectify the situation.
Anti-Russian angle of Atlantic council revealed here quite clearly
The paper's biggest single recommendation was that the United States and EU establish a
Counter-Disinformation Coalition, a public/private group bringing together, on a regular basis,
government and non-government stakeholders, including social media companies, traditional
media, Internet service providers (ISPs), and civil society groups. The Counter-Disinformation
Coalition would develop best practices for confronting disinformation from nondemocratic
countries, consistent with democratic norms. It also recommended that this coalition start with
a voluntary code of conduct outlining principles and agreed procedures for dealing with
disinformation, drawing from the recommendations as summarized above.
In drawing up these recommendations, we were aware that disinformation most often comes from
domestic, not foreign, sources. 8 While Russian and other disinformation players are
known to work in coordination with domestic purveyors of disinformation, both overtly and
covertly, the recommendations are limited to foreign disinformation, which falls within the
scope of "political warfare." Nevertheless, it may be that these policy recommendations,
particularly those focused on transparency and social resilience, may be applicable to
combatting other forms of disinformation.
So, it appears the War on Populism is building
toward an exciting climax. All the proper pieces are in place for a Class-A GloboCap color
revolution , and maybe even civil war. You got your unauthorized Putin-Nazi president, your
imaginary apocalyptic pandemic, your violent identitarian civil unrest, your heavily-armed
politically-polarized populace, your ominous rumblings from military quarters you couldn't
really ask for much more.
OK, the plot is pretty obvious by now (as it is in all big-budget action spectacles, which
is essentially what color revolutions are), but that won't spoil our viewing experience. The
fun isn't in guessing what is going to happen. Everybody knows what's going to happen. The fun
is in watching Bruce, or Sigourney, or "the moderate rebels," or the GloboCap "Resistance,"
take down the monster, or the terrorists, or Hitler, and save the world, or democracy, or
whatever.
Presidential hopeful Joe Biden issued a stark warning to Americans, saying that "200 million
people will die" of Covid-19 by the end of his short speech. Biden's wacky math once again
raised concern over his mental fitness.
Speaking in Philadelphia on Sunday, Biden hammered President Donald Trump's handling of the
coronavirus pandemic, but one of his statements stood out from the rest of the speech.
"It's estimated that 200 million people will die, probably by the time I finish this
talk," he announced, waving his arms for emphasis.
Biden has fumbled his figures before, claiming earlier this
summer that more than 120 million Americans had died of Covid-19, overstating the true death
toll by a factor of 1,000. Back in February, he claimed during a primary debate that "150
million" Americans had died of gun violence since 2007 – nearly half the country's
population.
President Trump has made attacking Biden's mental health a key tactic in his reelection
campaign. With Biden floundering through
speeches, and relying increasingly on a teleprompter to stay on
message, Trump joked during a rally on Saturday night that his Democratic opponent is
"shot," and has "half his head left."
On Monday, Democratic nominee Joe Biden condemned President Donald Trump as a "climate
arsonist," predicting that if the president wins reelection in November, America will witness
more "hellish" events like fires in the West, flooding in the Midwest, and hurricanes on the
East Coast. He effectively promised that if he wins, America will suffer from fewer fires,
fewer floods, and fewer hurricanes.
Although Biden excoriated Trump for "ignoring the facts" and "denying reality," he focused
his remarks on the wildfires ravaging California, Oregon, and Washington State -- fires
exacerbated by bad forest management more than any sort of climate change.
"If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be
surprised if we have more of America ablaze? If you give a climate denier four more years in
the White House, why would anyone be surprised when more of America is under water?" Biden
asked.
The particular corner of capitalism featured in this story is the fine old
financial-services firm of Goldman Sachs. You may recall Goldman Sachs signaling their virtue
to the world
back in in January when they announced that they'd only do business with firms that had at
least one diverse board member, which I think means not a straight
white male.
Well, a friend of mine is employed at Goldman Sachs, and he's
been passing stuff on to me: stuff like this, which I reproduce with my friend's permission,
some names redacted
It's a memo that was prominently featured on the main page of the internal Goldman Sachs web
site August 27th, for the edification of all employees. The title of the memo is: Why
Language Can Be One of Our Biggest Allies at Goldman Sachs. The main text is over seven
hundred words, too long for me to read out in its entirety, so I'll just cherry-pick a few
representative quotes, with links added.
I guess you could say that at least the competitive spirit of capitalism is visible there.
Gotta be better than the next guy; gotta stay ahead of the market; hey, look -- we did the
capital-"B"
thing two weeks before AP!
... ... ...
So there's a glimpse into the heart of Woke Capitalism. It makes the point that this
poisonous gibberish is now universal among our ruling elites. I mean, it makes the point
because if a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs doesn't
belong
to the ruling elite,
nobody does.
It's like this throughout the Establishment: Wall Street, Big Tech, Hollywood, the
universities this is the reigning ideology. White Supremacy and Systemic Racism are in the air
we breathe, tormenting the soul even of a Wall Street MD on a high six-figure salary and a
seven-figure annual bonus.
And no, I didn't make those numbers up. In the matter of executive compensation, there is
nothing niggardly (so
to speak ) about Goldman Sachs.
This is the reigning ideology. Yes, it's crazy and stupid and bears no relation to any
actual facts in the world. You'd better pretend to believe it, though. Bend the knee and bow
the head, or you'll get nowhere in life.
Goldman Sachs doesn't even really exist. It is a galaxy of semi-independent Conflicts of
Interest, Capital-Banditism, living off "financial stimuli" and government-mandated "forced
investment" in what is now essentially the trashcan economy, influencing government decisions
and living high off other people's piggy banks. Don't they have about 2 billion USD to pay to
Malaysia (in cash!) for fraud? Where's that money coming from? Your pocket? Gee
I will take the "wokeness" of Goldman Sachs seriously if they start holding seminars about
"Jewish privilege" and "systemic anti-Gentilism". And while they are at it, why not a course
in "Jewish predatory banking"? At the end of it, if they are consistent, they should abolish
themselves.
Language, especially ideology is important, but its things like this where the rubber
meets the road.
"he [the] Indian project manager and his legacy-American subordinate who's being kept on for
three months to train his replacement, [is] an H-1B also from India -- in fact the project
manager's nephew." [my emphasis].
And don't let anyone tell you it must be this way.
These guys aren't capitalists. They are thieves looting the nation. How much hard work and
innovation is involved in importing H1-B labor? Banning the terms master and slave doesn't
change the reality that managers appropriating an ever greater share of profits for
themselves reduces labor to a status even lower than a slave. A master at least had to make
sure his slave could eat. Not so a modern CEO. He can just make an employee redundant and let
that worker figure out where his next meal will come from.
If the US keeps this up, the Chinese are going to eat us for lunch. It's all fun and
games, who gets to teach at Dutchess County Community College, but these morons are
starting to spread their religion to all aspects of life. Will not end well.
You don't have to visualize the future.
Years of black management and anti-white recruitment policies bankrupted South African
Airways. Members of staff were even using the national carrier to traffic cocaine from Latin
America.
The temper of a mob is fickle, as a group of Antifa protesters have demonstrated in
Philadelphia. In an apparent case of mistaken identity, the mob chased one of their own with
hammers, smashed his car, and terrorized his dog.
The leftist protesters gathered in Philadelphia's Clark Park on Saturday to protest a rally
organized by the right-wing Proud Boys. As conservative commentator James Klug was talking on
camera to the leftists, one masked man approached him with a baseball bat and slammed it into
the ground beside him.
According to Blaze TV's Elijah Schaffer, the mob mistook the bat-wielding man for one of the
right-wingers, and chased him out of the park, to his car.
The leftist protesters gathered in Philadelphia's Clark Park on Saturday to protest a rally
organized by the right-wing Proud Boys. As conservative commentator James Klug was talking on
camera to the leftists, one masked man approached him with a baseball bat and slammed it into
the ground beside him.
According to Blaze TV's Elijah Schaffer, the mob mistook the bat-wielding man for one of the
right-wingers, and chased him out of the park, to his car.
Surrounding the vehicle, the masked mob smashed its windows with hammers and kicked in its
panels. Though the man can't be seen inside the car, Schaffer claimed he was the same man who
was chased out of the park, as did journalist Kalen D'Almeida.
As the rioters pounded on the car, a dog inside began barking, lunging for the smashed rear
window and snarling at the mob. "F**k you and your dog," one man shouted as the driver
pulled away.
According to D'Almeida, who filmed the smash-up, none of the Proud Boys actually showed up
to the park as planned. D'Almeida wrote on Twitter that "Antifa was waiting ready to attack
anyone for any reason today," while Schaffer shared a video of the masked
miscreants physically assaulting right-wing reporter Lisa Reynolds Barbounis.
The issue surely must be why media like The New York Times (Russia paying Taliban to target
US forces in Afghanistan) and Politico (Iran planning to assassinate US ambassador to South
Africa) continue to repeat the lie over and over even when they have been found out and
everyone around the world is dying of laughter at the continued stupidity. Are the NYT and
Politico stenographers so dense and wrapped up in their own tiny worlds that they are
tone-deaf?
Are the NYT and Politico stenographers so dense and wrapped up in their own tiny
worlds that they are tone-deaf?"
Denial is a BIG river. And we've been living in a make believe world for a long time
here. And finally, it's all they've got left. It's like Vietnam all over again, same bunch
of morons, same mistakes, same wall-to-wall lying. Even a lot of the same players.
That "Black Lives Matter" picture up above, the one with the flag....WHERE ARE THE BLACK
PEOPLE???
Malcolm stated, "The white liberal differs from the white conservative in one way. The
liberal is more deceitful and hypocritical than the conservatives. Both want power. But,
the white liberal has perfected the art of posing as the [Blacks] friend and benefactor."
He accused the liberals of using the black Americans as 'political pawns' in their
political struggle against the conservatives.
"The American [Black] is nothing but a political football and the white liberals control
this ball. Through tricks, tokenism, and false promises of integration and civil rights ,"
he remarked. He blamed the Black civil rights leaders for selling the black community to
the liberals for tokenism. - Malcom X - Dec 4, 1963
The level of political correctness demonstrated by Vampire squid actually exceed the level
achieved by CPSU in the USSR, which probably contributed to the USSR dissolution as everybody was
tired of this level of primitive hypocrisy and enforced speech standard; including the CPSU
leadership.
Woke racism is a new form of financial oligarchy division and control of prols...
Notable quotes:
"... In Engineering, our colleagues [have] collaborated with others in the financial services industry to address racially insensitive terminology in computer security terms. This work included eliminating the use of "blacklist" and "whitelist," as well as of "master" and "slave," when describing the relationship between hardware components. ..."
In Engineering, our colleagues [have] collaborated with others in the financial
services industry to address racially insensitive terminology in computer security terms.
This work included eliminating the use of "blacklist"
and "whitelist," as well as of "master" and "slave," when describing the relationship
between hardware components.
Another example of a phrase that can have harmful impact is "All Lives Matter." The death
of George Floyd, and, as recently as this week, the shooting of
Jacob Blake multiple times in the back, demonstrate that until the deadly violent acts
against unarmed Black people subside, all lives will not matter until Black Lives Matter.
You didn't think we were going to get through this without a reference to the Holy Blessed
Martyr Floyd, did you?
Although I'll give a smidgen of credit here to Goldman Sachs: They merely wrote "the death of
George Floyd." It's routine in Mainstream media outlets now to see "
the killing of George Floyd ," or even "the murder of George
Floyd." The Economist , for example, has used both in straight reportage. It has of
course not yet been established to any good evidentiary standard that Floyd was killed, let alone
murdered.
It's not accurate to refer to someone's "sexual preference," which would imply a choice
that can be changed, instead we refer to an individual's "sexual orientation."
That's a bit hair-splitty, isn't it? A bit dubious, actually. An orientation may be voluntary,
mayn't it? I can orient myself to the north, south, east, or west, according to my
preference.
Goldman Sachs doesn't just rely on
memos to keep its workforce up-to-date on the Party line. Conversations! -- gotta have
conversations . To give employees the right idea, the firm records the kind of
conversations it wants them to have and puts them on YouTube so they can watch at home.
I'm not sure what the rule is for watching in office hours, but I'd guess it's OK ah, heck,
probably compulsory.
If the US keeps this up, the Chinese are going to eat us for lunch. It's all fun and games,
who gets to teach at Dutchess County Community College, but these morons are starting to spread
their religion to all aspects of life. Will not end well.
Mind-boggling. Diversity zealots have infiltrated practically every elite institution in
America. How long before the counter-revolution? At least Trump got the ball rolling by
exposing Critical Race Theory to the light of day. Maybe some more philosophical types might
have a go at "deconstructing" Cultural Relativism, the Big Mama of all this poisonous
nonsense.
The greatest goyim fought for all of this. As good goyim spawn, you should celebrate the
defeat of the Axis everyday in the name of anal (((democracy))).
Alice's "curiouser and curiouser" remark in Lewis Carroll's Adventures in Wonderland applies
to dubious twists in the Navalny novichok poisoning hoax.
No evidence or motive links Russia to what happened to him.
Was the August 20 Tomsk, Russia incident made-in-the-USA?
Was Germany pressured, bullied or bribed to go along -- at the expense of its own
self-interest?
Clearly Angela Merkel, other German officials, their Western counterparts, and establishment
media know the claim about Navalny's novichok poisoning is a colossal hoax.
They know that anyone exposed to the toxin, the world's deadliest, would be dead in
minutes.
The same goes for others in close proximity to the exposed individual.
Navalny is very much alive and recovering nearly a month after falling ill.
No one he came in contact with developed novichok poisoning symptoms.
Russian doctors treating him with state-of-the-art equipment and tests found no toxins of
any kind in his system.
They saved his life and stabilized his condition, enabling him to travel to Berlin for
further treatment.
If the Kremlin wanted him dead, he'd have been left untreated in Russia to die.
He's recovering because of heroic treatment by Russian doctors.
On Thursday, elements close to Navalny shifted the fake news novichok poisoning narrative
from tea he drank in the Tomsk, Russia airline terminal to the deadly nerve agent in his hotel
room water bottle.
Are other versions of what happened to him coming ahead?
Claiming novichok traces were found in a hotel water bottle he drank from doesn't pass the
smell test.
The deadly substance in an opened hotel room bottle would likely contaminate and kill anyone
near it.
If, in fact, Navalny was poisoned by novichok in his hotel room overnight, he'd have died in
minutes, clearly not what happened.
The novichok in a hotel room bottle scenario is implausible on its face.
Claiming members of his team entered his hotel room after learning of his illness, found it
uncleaned, and examined everything potentially useful for an investigation -- "recording,
describing, and packing" everything would have exposed them to novichok if it existed by
touching the alleged bottle with the toxin.
Whatever happened to Navalny wasn't from novichok poisoning in a bottle or from any other
source.
On Thursday, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow's
representative to the OPCW Alexander Shulgin requested copies of files the organization
received from Germany on Navalny's condition, but got no response, adding:
"According to our data Germany and a whole number of (other Western) countries (are)
cultivating the OPCW" with regard to the Navalny incident.
Since he arrived in Berlin for treatment over three weeks ago, Merkel's government
stonewalled Russia by refusing to provide evidence it claims to have about novichok poisoning
because there is none.
On Thursday, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said "(t)here is too much absurdity about this
whole situation to take anyone's word on trust, so we are not going to take anyone's word,"
adding:
"(T)he situation is as follows: the OPCW Technical Secretariat says 'we know nothing. Talk
to the Germans,' and the Germans say 'we know nothing. Talk to the OPCW."
Russian lower house State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin suggested foreign intelligence
responsibility for what happened to Navalny.
On Thursday, majority Russophobic European Parliament (EP) MPs adopted a resolution that
calls for an "immediate launch of an impartial international investigation (sic)" on the
Navalny incident by the EU, its allies, the UN, Council of Europe, and OPCW -- to frame Russia
for what happened to Navalny.
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The resolution also calls for (unjustifiably and unlawfully) sanctioning Russia and
suspending Nord Stream 2 construction.
EP resolutions are non-binding. The EP, Council of the European Union, European Council, and
European Commission operate separately from individual member states.
Time and again earlier, they irresponsibly bashed Russia in cahoots with the US, adopting
non-binding resolutions.
According to Zakharova earlier, anti-Russia propaganda is based on "paranoia phobias,
fictitious messages (and) myths."
Interviewed by Radio Sputnik in Moscow, Sergey Lavrov said Western governments want Russia
"punished both for what is happening in Belarus and for the incident with Navalny," adding:
They refuse to fulfill mandated obligations under the European Convention on Legal Aid by
not responding to official requests by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office for documented
information on Navalny's condition.
"Germany says that it cannot tell us anything. They say, go to the Organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)."
"We went there several times. They say go to Berlin."
"They loudly declare that the fact of poisoning has been established. Except for Russia
nobody could have done it. Admit it."
"All this has already happened with the" fake news Skripals novichok poisoning
incident.
Russia is a valued ally of all world community countries.
Instead of fostering cooperative relations with Moscow, actions by Germany and other EU
countries risk rupturing them.
"Lukashenko is not the legitimate president of Ukraine," Borell proclaimed, while
addressing the European Parliament on Monday. 'For us,' he added. Well, not only for them,
since Lukashenko never claimed to be the leader of that particular country.
"Sorry, Belarus," Borell apologized, with a wide smile, when he realized his mistake.
"We don't recognize Lukashenko as the legitimate president of Belarus," he clarified, to
avoid any further confusion..
####
The EU is also looking at 'naming and shaming' Russia over human rights while some of the
EU's own member states are supporting genocide in Yemen. There's certainly plenty of quid pro
quo going back decades if Russia wants to blacklist EU ex/politicians
Protests potentially nullified all potential positive effects from lookdown in large cities
like NYC, if such exist. So all economic damage was in vain and lockdown was just a capricious
and arbitrary move by ambitious and power hungry Dem politicians. And that fact alone make the
major on NYC and the governor on NY state look like completely politicized idiots.
If the crowd is dense, as often is the case in riots at places of confrontation with the
police cordon, it does not matter much if people are indoor or outdoor, what matters if the
length of the contact. Add to this that looting happens indoors.
...On Wednesday, Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh called out CNN's
hypocrisy on this matter, noting that "if people can protest in the streets by the tens of
thousands, if people can riot, if people can gamble in casinos, then certainly they can gather
peaceably under the First Amendment to hear from the president of the United States."
Butthurt from this exchange, CNN Newsroom drafted in "medical analyst" Leana Wen , who
happens to be a former Planned Parenthood president, to explain why science means COVID doesn't
affect BLM protests as much as Trump rallies.
"It does not care why it is that people are gathering but it does care about the conditions
under which they're gathering," Wen argued, adding "outdoors much safer than indoors and
wearing masks obviously much safer than not wearing masks."
"I would also in this case would distinguish between the behavior of the participants while
at protests versus rallies," she continued, arguing that BLM protesters are more "aware" of the
risks than Trump supporters.
"At protests many people are aware of the risks and doing everything they can to reduce that
risk versus at many of the rallies we are seeing people going in defiance," Wen claimed.
Question: I'll start with the hottest topic, Belarus. President of the Republic of Belarus
Alexander Lukashenko visited Bocharov Ruchei. Both sides have officially recognised that change
within the Union State is underway. This begs the question: What is this about? A common
currency, common army and common market? What will it be like?
Sergey Lavrov: It will be the way our countries decide. Work is underway. It relies on the
1999 Union Treaty. We understand that over 20 years have passed since then. That is why, a
couple of years ago, upon the decision of the two presidents, the governments of the Russian
Federation and the Republic of Belarus began to work on identifying the agreed-upon steps that
would make our integration fit current circumstances. Recently, at a meeting with Russian
journalists, President Lukashenko said that the situation had, of course, changed and we must
agree on ways to deepen integration from today's perspective.
The presidential election has taken place in Belarus. The situation there is tense, because
the opposition, backed by some of our Western colleagues, is trying to challenge the election
outcome, but I'm convinced that the situation will soon get back to normal, and the work to
promote integration processes will resume.
Everything that is written in the Union Treaty is now being analysed. Both sides have to
come to a common opinion about whether a particular provision of the Union Treaty is still
relevant, or needs to be revised. There are 31 roadmaps, and each one focuses on a specific
section of the Union Treaty. So, there's clearly a commitment to continue the reform, a fact
that was confirmed by the presidents during a recent telephone conversation. This is further
corroborated by the presidents' meeting in Sochi.
I would not want that country's neighbours, and our neighbours for that matter, including
Lithuania, for example, to try to impose their will on the Belarusian people and, in fact, to
manage the processes in which the opposition is unwittingly doing what's expected of it. I have
talked several times about Svetlana Tikhanovskaya's situation. Clearly, someone is putting
words in her mouth. She is now in the capital of Lithuania, which, like our Polish colleagues,
is strongly demanding a change of power in Belarus. You are aware that Lithuania declared Ms
Tikhanovskaya the leader of the Republic of Belarus, and Alexander Lukashenko was declared an
illegitimate president.
Ms Tikhanovskaya has made statements that give rise to many questions. She said she was
concerned that Russia and Belarus have close relations. The other day, she called on the
security and law-enforcement forces to side with the law. In her mind, this is a direct
invitation to breach the oath of office and, by and large, to commit high treason. This is
probably a criminal offense. So, those who provide her with a framework for her activities and
tell her what to say and what issues to raise should, of course, realise that they may be held
accountable for that.
Question: Commenting on the upcoming meeting of the presidents of Russia and Belarus in
Sochi, Tikhanovskaya said: "Whatever they agree on, these agreements will be illegitimate,
because the new state and the new leader will revise them." How can one work under such
circumstances?
Sergey Lavrov: She was also saying something like that when Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin
went to Belarus to meet with President Lukashenko and Prime Minister Golovchenko. She was
saying it then. Back then, the opposition was concerned about any more or less close ties
between our countries. This is despite the fact that early on during the crisis they claimed
that they in no way engaged in anti-Russia activities and wanted to be friends with the Russian
people. However, everyone could have seen the policy paper posted on Tikhanovskaya's website
during the few hours it was there. The opposition leaders removed it after realising they had
made a mistake sharing their goals and objectives with the public. These goals and objectives
included withdrawal from the CSTO, the EAEU and other integration associations that include
Russia, and drifting towards the EU and NATO, as well as the consistent banning of the Russian
language and the Belarusianisation of all aspects of life.
We are not against the Belarusian language, but when they take a cue from Ukraine, and when
the state language is used to ban a language spoken by the overwhelming majority of the
population, this already constitutes a hostile act and, in the case of Ukraine, an act that
violates its constitution. If a similar proposal is introduced into the Belarusian legal field,
it will violate the Constitution of Belarus, not to mention numerous conventions on the rights
of ethnic and language minorities, and much more.
I would like those who are rabidly turning the Belarusian opposition against Russia to
realise their share of responsibility, and the opposition themselves, including Svetlana
Tikhanovskaya and others – to find the courage to resist such rude and blatant
manipulation.
Question: If we are talking about manipulation, we certainly understand that it has many
faces and reflects on the international attitude towards Russia. Internationally, what are the
risks for us of supporting Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko? Don't you think 26 years
is enough? Maybe he has really served for too long?
Sergey Lavrov: The President of the Republic of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, did say it
might have been "too long." I believe he has proposed a very productive idea –
constitutional reform. He talked about this even before the election, and has reiterated the
proposal more than once since then. President of Russia Vladimir Putin supports this attitude.
As the Belarusian leader said, after constitutional reform, he will be ready to announce early
parliamentary and presidential elections. This proposal provides a framework where a national
dialogue will be entirely possible. But it is important that representatives of all groups of
Belarusian society to be involved in a constitutional reform process. This would ensure that
any reform is completely legitimate and understandable for all citizens. Now a few specific
proposals are needed concerning when, where and in what form this process can begin. I hope
that this will be done, because President Alexander Lukashenko has repeatedly reaffirmed
carrying out this initiative.
Question: Since we started talking about the international attitude towards Russia, let's go
over to our other partner – the United States. The elections in the US will take place
very soon. We are actively discussing this in Russia. When asked whether Russia was getting
ready for the elections in the US at the Paris forum last year, you replied: "Don't worry,
we'll resolve this problem." Now that the US elections are around the corner, I would like to
ask you whether you've resolved it.
Sergey Lavrov: Speaking seriously, of course we, like any other normal country that is
concerned about its interests and international security, are closely following the progress of
the election campaign in the US. There are many surprising things in it. Naturally, we see how
important the Russian issue is in this electoral process. The Democrats are doing all they can
to prove that Russia will exploit its hacker potential and play up to Donald Trump. We are
already being accused of promoting the idea that the Democrats will abuse the mail-in voting
option thereby prejudicing the unbiased nature of voting. I would like to note at this point
that mail-in voting has become a target of consistent attacks on behalf of President Trump
himself. Russia has nothing to do with this at all.
A week-long mail-in voting is an interesting subject in comparing election systems in
different countries. We have introduced three-day voting for governors and legislative assembly
deputies in some regions. You can see the strong criticism it is subjected to, inside Russia as
well. When the early voting in the US lasts for weeks, if not months, it is considered a model
of democracy. I don't see any criticism in this respect. In principle, we have long proposed
analysing election systems in the OSCE with a view to comparing best practices and reviewing
obviously obsolete arrangements. There have been instances in the US when, due to its
cumbersome and discriminatory election system, a nominee who received the majority of votes
could lose because in a national presidential election the voting is done through the Electoral
College process rather than directly by the people. There have been quite a few cases like
that. I once told former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in reply to her grievances
about our electoral system: "But look at your problem. Maybe you should try to correct this
discriminatory voting system?" She replied that it is discriminatory but they are used to it
and this is their problem, so I shouldn't bother.
When the United States accuses us of interference in some area of its public, political or
government life, we suggest discussing it to establish who is actually doing what. Since they
don't present any facts, we simply recite their Congressional acts. In 2014, they adopted an
act on supporting Ukraine, which directly instructed the Department of State to spend $20
million a year on support for Russian NGOs. We asked whether this didn't amount to
interference. We were told by the US National Security Council that in reality they support
democracy because we are wreaking chaos and pursuing authoritative and dictatorial trends
abroad when we interfere in domestic affairs whereas they bring democracy and prosperity. This
idea is deeply rooted in American mentality. The American elite has always considered its
country and nation exceptional and has not been shy to admit it.
I won't comment on the US election. This is US law and the US election system. Any comments
I make will be again interpreted as an attempt to interfere in their domestic affairs. I will
only say one thing that President Vladimir Putin has expressed many times, notably, that we
will respect any outcome of these elections and the will of the American people.
We realise that there will be no major changes in our relations either with the Democrats or
with the Republicans, as representatives of both parties loudly declare. However, there is hope
that common sense will prevail and no matter who becomes President, the new US Government and
administration will realise the need to cooperate with us in resolving very serious global
problems on which the international situation depends.
Question: You mentioned an example where voters can choose one president and the Electoral
College process, another. I even have that cover of Time magazine with Hillary Clinton and
congratulations, released during the election. It is a fairly well-known story, when they ran
this edition and then had to cancel it.
Sergey Lavrov: Even the President of France sent a telegramme, but then they immediately
recalled it.
And these people are now claiming that Alexander Lukashenko is an illegitimate
president.
Question: You mentioned NGOs. These people believe that NGOs in the Russian Federation
support democratic institutions, although it is no secret to anyone who has at least a basic
understanding of foreign and domestic policy that those NGOs act exclusively as institutions
that destabilise the situation in the country.
Sergey Lavrov: Not all of them.
Question: Can you tell us more about this?
Sergey Lavrov: We have adopted a series of laws – on public associations, on
non-profit organisations, on measures to protect people from human rights violations. There is
a set of laws that regulate the activities of non-government organisations on our territory,
both Russian and foreign ones.
Concepts have been introduced like "foreign agent," a practice we borrowed from "the world's
most successful democracy" – the United States. They argue that we borrowed a practice
from 1938 when the United States introduced the foreign agent concept to prevent Nazi ideology
from infiltrating from Germany. But whatever the reason they had to create the concept –
"foreign agent" – the Americans are still effectively using it, including in relation to
our organisations and citizens, to Chinese citizens, to the media.
In our law, foreign agent status, whatever they say about it, does not prevent an
organisation from operating on the territory of the Russian Federation. It just needs to
disclose its funding sources and be transparent about the resources it receives. And even that,
only if it is engaged in political activities. Initially, we introduced a requirement for these
organisations that receive funding from abroad and are involved in political projects to
initiate the disclosure process. But most of them didn't want to comply with the law, so it was
modified. Now this is done by the Russian Ministry of Justice.
Question: Do you think that NGOs are still soft power?
Sergey Lavrov: Of course. In Russia we have about 220,000 NGOs, out of which 180 have the
status of a foreign agent. It's a drop in the ocean. These are probably the organisations,
funded from abroad, that are more active than others in promoting in our public space ideas
that far from always correspond to Russian legislation.
There is also the notion of undesirable organisations. They are banned from working in the
Russian Federation. But there are only about 30 of them, no more.
Question: Speaking about our soft power, what is our concept? What do we offer the world?
What do you think the world should love us for? What is Russia's soft power policy all
about?
Sergey Lavrov: We want everything that has been created by nations and civilisations to be
respected. We believe nobody should impose any orders on anyone, so that nothing like what has
now happened in Hollywood takes place on a global scale. We think nobody should encroach on the
right of each nation to have its historical traditions and moral roots. And we see attempts to
encroach upon them.
If soft power is supposed to promote one's own culture, language and traditions, in exchange
for knowledge about the life of other nations and civilisations, then this is the approach that
the Russian Federation supports in every way.
The Americans define the term "soft power" as an attempt to influence the hearts and minds
of others politically. Their goal is not to promote their culture and language, but to change
the mood of the political class with a view to subsequent regime change. They are doing this on
a daily basis and don't even conceal it. They say everywhere that their mission is to bring
peace and democracy to all other countries.
Question: Almost any TV series out there shows the US president sitting in the Oval Office
saying he's the leader of the free world.
Sergey Lavrov: Not just TV series. Barack Obama has repeatedly stated that America is an
exceptional nation and should be seen as an example by the rest of the world. My colleague Mike
Pompeo recently said in the Czech Republic that they shouldn't let the Russians into the
nuclear power industry and should take the Russians off the list of companies that bid for
these projects. It was about the same in Hungary. He then went to Africa and was quite vocal
when he told the African countries not to do business with the Russians or the Chinese, because
they are trading with the African countries for selfish reasons, whereas the US is establishing
economic cooperation with them so they can prosper. This is a quote. It is articulated in a
very straightforward manner, much the same way they run their propaganda on television in an
unsophisticated broken language that the man in the street can relate to. So, brainwashing is
what America's soft power is known for.
Question: Not a single former Soviet republic has so far benefited from American soft
power.
Sergey Lavrov: Not only former Soviet republics. Take a look at any other region where the
Americans have effected a regime change.
Question: Libya, Syria. We stood for Syria.
Sergey Lavrov: Iraq, Libya. They tried in Syria, but failed. I hope things will be different
there. There's not a single country where the Americans changed the regime and declared victory
for democracy, like George W. Bush did on the deck of an aircraft carrier in Iraq in May 2003,
which is prosperous now. He said democracy had won in Iraq. It would be interesting to know
what the former US President thinks about the situation in Iraq today. But no one will,
probably, go back to this, because the days when presidents honestly admitted their mistakes
are gone.
Question: Here I am listening to you and wondering how many people care about this? Why is
it that no one understands this? Is this politics that is too far away from ordinary people who
are nevertheless behind it? Take Georgia or Ukraine. People are worse off now than before, and
despite this, this policy continues.
Will the Minsk agreements ever be implemented? Will the situation in southeastern Ukraine
ever be settled?
Returning to what we talked about. How independent is Ukraine in its foreign policy?
Sergey Lavrov: I don't think that under the current Ukrainian government, just like under
the previous president, we will see any progress in the implementation of the Minsk agreements,
if only because President Zelensky himself is saying so publicly, as does Deputy Prime Minister
Reznikov who is in charge of the Ukrainian settlement in the Contact Group. Foreign Minister of
Ukraine Kuleba is also saying this. They say there's a need for the Minsk agreements and they
cannot be broken, because these agreements (and accusing Russia of non-compliance) are the
foundation of the EU and the US policy in seeking to maintain the sanctions on Russia.
Nevertheless, such a distorted interpretation of the essence of the Minsk agreements, or rather
an attempt to blame everything on Russia, although Russia is never mentioned there, has stuck
in the minds of our European colleagues, including France and Germany, who, being co-sponsors
of the Minsk agreements along with us, the Ukrainians and Donbass, cannot but realise that the
Ukrainians are simply distorting their responsibilities, trying to distance themselves from
them and impose a different interpretation of the Minsk agreements. But even in this scenario,
the above individuals and former Ukrainian President Kravchuk, who now heads the Ukrainian
delegation to the Contact Group as part of the Minsk process, claim that the Minsk agreements
in their present form are impracticable and must be revised, turned upside down. Also, Donbass
must submit to the Ukrainian government and army before even thinking about conducting reforms
in this part of Ukraine.
This fully contradicts the sequence of events outlined in the Minsk agreements whereby
restoring Ukrainian armed forces' control on the border with Russia is possible only after an
amnesty, agreeing on the special status of these territories, making this status part of the
Ukrainian Constitution and holding elections there. Now they propose giving back the part of
Donbass that "rebelled" against the anti-constitutional coup to those who declared these people
terrorists and launched an "anti-terrorist operation" against them, which they later renamed a
Joint Forces Operation (but this does not change the idea behind it), and whom they still
consider terrorists. Although everyone remembers perfectly well that in 2014 no one from
Donbass or other parts of Ukraine that rejected the anti-constitutional coup attacked the
putschists and the areas that immediately fell under the control of the politicians behind the
coup. On the contrary, Alexander Turchinov, Arseniy Yatsenyuk and others like them attacked
these areas. The guilt of the people living there was solely in them saying, "You committed a
crime against the state, we do not want to follow your rules, let us figure out our own future
and see what you will do next." There's not a single example that would corroborate the fact
that they engaged in terrorism. It was the Ukrainian state that engaged in terrorism on their
territory, in particular, when they killed [Head of the Donetsk People's Republic] Alexander
Zakharchenko and a number of field commanders in Donbass. So, I am not optimistic about
this.
Question: So, we are looking at a dead end?
Sergey Lavrov: You know, we still have an undeniable argument which is the text of the Minsk
Agreements approved by the UN Security Council.
Question: But they tried to revise it?
Sergey Lavrov: No, they are just making statements to that effect. When they gather for a
Contact Group meeting in Minsk, they do their best to look constructive. The most recent
meeting ran into the Ukrainian delegation's attempts to pretend that nothing had happened. They
recently passed a law on local elections which will be held in a couple of months. It says that
elections in what are now called the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics will be held only
after the Ukrainian army takes control of the entire border and those who "committed criminal
offenses" are arrested and brought to justice even though the Minsk agreements provide for
amnesty without exemptions.
Question: When I'm asked about Crimea I recall the referendum. I was there at a closed
meeting in Davos that was attended by fairly well respected analysts from the US. They claimed
with absolute confidence that Crimea was being occupied. I reminded them about the referendum.
I was under the impression that these people either didn't want to see or didn't know how
people lived there, that they have made their choice. Returning to the previous question, I
think that nobody is interested in the opinion of the people.
Sergey Lavrov: No, honest politicians still exist. Many politicians, including European
ones, were in Crimea during the referendum. They were there not under the umbrella of some
international organisation but on their own because the OSCE and other international agencies
were controlled by our Western colleagues. Even if we had addressed them, the procedure for
coordinating the monitoring would have never ended.
Question: Just as in Belarus. As I see it, they were also invited but nobody came.
Sergey Lavrov: The OSCE refused to send representatives there. Now that the OSCE is offering
its services as a mediator, I completely understand Mr Lukashenko who says the OSCE lost its
chance. It could have sent observers and gained a first-hand impression of what was happening
there, and how the election was held. They arrogantly disregarded the invitation. We know that
the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) is practically wholly
controlled by NATO. We have repeatedly proposed that our nominees work there but they have not
been approved. This contradicts the principles of the OSCE. We will continue to seek a fairer
approach to the admission of members to the organisation, but I don't have much hope for this.
Former OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger made an effort with this for the past three
years but not everything depended on him – there is a large bloc of EU and NATO countries
that enjoy a mathematical majority and try to dictate their own rules. But this is a separate
issue.
Returning to Crimea, I have read a lot about this; let me give you two examples. One
concerns my relations with former US Secretary of State John Kerry. In April 2014, we met in
Geneva: me, John Kerry, EU High Representative Catherine Ashton and then Acting Foreign
Minister of Ukraine Andrey Deshchitsa. We compiled a one page document that was approved
unanimously. It read that we, the representatives of Russia, the US and the EU welcomed the
commitments of the Ukrainian authorities to carry out decentralisation of the country with the
participation of all the regions of Ukraine. This took place after the Crimean referendum.
Later, the Americans, the EU and of course Ukraine "forgot" about this document. John Kerry
told me at this meeting that everyone understood that Crimea was Russian, that the people
wanted to return, but that we held the referendum so quickly that it didn't fit into the
accepted standards of such events. He asked me to talk to President Vladimir Putin, organise
one more referendum, announce it in advance and invite international observers. He said he
would support their visit there, that the result would be the same but that we would be keeping
up appearances. I asked him why put on such shows if they understand that this was the
expression of the will of the people.
The second example concerns the recent statements by the EU and the European Parliament to
the effect that "the occupation" of Crimea is a crude violation of the world arrangement
established after the victory in World War II. But if this criterion is used to determine where
Crimea belongs, when the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic joined the UN after WWII in 1945,
Crimea did not belong to it. Crimea was part of the USSR. Later, Nikita Khrushchev took an
illegal action, which contradicted Soviet law, and this led to them having it. But we all
understood that this was a domestic political game as regards a Soviet republic that was the
home to Khrushchev and many of his associates.
Question: You have been Foreign Minister for 16 years now. This century's major foreign
policy challenges fell on your term in office. We faced sanctions, and we adapted to them and
coped with them. Germany said it obtained Alexey Navalny's test results. France and Sweden have
confirmed the presence of Novichok in them. Reportedly, we are now in for more sanctions. Do
you think the Navalny case can trigger new sanctions against Russia?
Sergey Lavrov: I agree with our political analysts who are convinced that if it were not for
Navalny, they would have come up with something else in order to impose more sanctions.
With regard to this situation, I think our Western partners have simply gone beyond decency
and reason. In essence, they are now demanding that we "confess." They are asking us: Don't you
believe what the German specialists from the Bundeswehr are saying? How is that possible? Their
findings have been confirmed by the French and the Swedes. You don't believe them, either?
It's a puzzling situation given that our Prosecutor General's Office filed an inquiry about
legal assistance on August 27 and hasn't received an answer yet. Nobody knows where the inquiry
has been for more than a week now. We were told it was at the German Foreign Ministry. The
German Foreign Ministry did not forward the request to the Ministry of Justice, which was our
Prosecutor General Office's ultimate addressee. Then, they said that it had been transferred to
the Berlin Prosecutor's Office, but they would not tell us anything without the consent of the
family. They are urging us to launch a criminal investigation.
We have our own laws, and we cannot take someone's word for it to open a criminal case.
Certain procedures must be followed. A pre-investigation probe initiated immediately after this
incident to consider the circumstances of the case is part of this procedure.
Some of our Western colleagues wrote that, as the German doctors discovered, it was "a sheer
miracle" that Mr Navalny survived. Allegedly, it was the notorious Novichok, but he survived
thanks to "lucky circumstances." What kind of lucky circumstances are we talking about? First,
the pilot immediately landed the plane; second, an ambulance was already waiting on the
airfield; and third, the doctors immediately started to provide help. This absolutely
impeccable behaviour of the pilots, doctors and ambulance crew is presented as "lucky
circumstances." That is, they even deny the possibility that we are acting as we should. This
sits deep in the minds of those who make up such stories.
Returning to the pre-investigation probe, everyone is fixated on a criminal case. If we had
opened a criminal case right away (we do not have legal grounds to do so yet, and that is why
the Prosecutor General's Office requested legal assistance from Germany on August 27), what
would have been done when it happened? They would have interviewed the pilot, the passengers
and the doctors. They would have found out what the doctors discovered when Navalny was taken
to the Omsk hospital, and what medications were used. They would have interviewed the people
who communicated with him. All of that was done. They interviewed the five individuals who
accompanied him and participated in the events preceding Navalny boarding the plane; they
interviewed the passengers who were waiting for a flight to Moscow in Tomsk and sat at the same
bar; they found out what they ordered and what he drank. The sixth person, a woman who
accompanied him, has fled, as you know. They say she was the one who gave the bottle to the
German lab. All this has been done. Even if all of that was referred to as a "criminal case,"
we couldn't have done more.
Our Western partners are looking down on us as if we have no right to question what they are
saying or their professionalism. If this is the case, it means that they dare to question the
professionalism of our doctors and investigators. Unfortunately, this position is reminiscent
of other times. Arrogance and a sense of infallibility have already been observed in Europe,
and that led to very regrettable consequences.
Question: How would you describe this policy of confrontation? When did it start (I mean
during your term of office)? It's simply so stable at the moment that there seems no chance
that something might change in the future.
Sergey Lavrov: President of Russia Vladimir Putin has repeatedly spoken on this topic. I
think that the onset of this policy, this era of constant pressure on Russia began with the end
of a period that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, a time when the West believed it
had Russia there in its pocket – it ended, full stop. Unfortunately, the West does not
seem to be able to wrap its head around this, to accept that there is no alternative to
Russia's independent actions, both domestically and on the international arena. This is why,
unfortunately, this agony continues by inertia.
Having bad ties with any country have never given us any pleasure. We do not like making
such statements in which we sharply criticise the position of the West. We always try to find
compromises, but there are situations where it is hard not to come face to face with one
another directly or to avoid frank assessments of what our Western friends are up to.
I have read what our respected political scientists write who are well known in the West.
And I can say this idea is starting to surface ever stronger and more often – it is time
we stop measuring our actions with the yardsticks that the West offers us and to stop trying to
please the West at all costs. These are very serious people and they are making a serious
point. The fact that the West is prodding us to this way of thinking, willingly or unwillingly,
is obvious to me. Most likely, this is being done involuntarily. But it is a big mistake to
think that Russia will play by Western rules in any case – as big a mistake as like
approaching China with the same yardstick.
Question: Then I really have to ask you. We are going through digitalisation. I think when
you started your diplomatic career, you could not even have imagined that some post on Twitter
could affect the political situation in a country. Yet – I can see your smile – we
are living in a completely different world. Film stars can become presidents; Twitter,
Instagram, or Facebook can become drivers of political campaigns – that happened more
than once – and those campaigns can be successful. We are going through digitalisation,
and because of this, many unexpected people appear in international politics – unexpected
for you, at least. How do you think Russia's foreign policy will change in this context? Are we
ready for social media to be impacting our internal affairs? Is the Chinese scenario possible
in Russia, with most Western social media blocked to avoid their influence on the internal
affairs in that country?
Sergey Lavrov: Social media are already exerting great influence on our affairs. This is the
reality in the entire post-Soviet space and developing countries. The West, primarily the
United States, is vigorously using social media to promote their preferred agenda in just about
any state. This necessitates a new approach to ensuring the national security. We have been
doing this for a long time already.
As for regulating social media, everyone does it. You know that the digital giants in the
United States have been repeatedly caught introducing censorship, primarily against us, China
or other countries they dislike, shutting off information that comes from these places.
The internet is regulated by companies based in the United States, everyone knows that. In
fact, this situation has long made the overwhelming majority of countries want to do something
about it, considering the global nature of the internet and social media, to make sure that the
management processes are approved at a global level, become transparent and understandable. The
International Telecommunication Union, a specialised UN agency, has been out there for years.
Russia and a group of other co-sponsoring countries are promoting the need to regulate the
internet in such a way that everyone understands how it works and what principles govern it, in
this International Union. Now we can see how Mark Zuckerberg and other heads of large IT
companies are invited to the Congress and lectured there and asked to explain what they are
going to do. We can see this. But a situation where it will be understandable for everyone else
and, most importantly, where everyone is happy with it, still seems far away.
For many years, we have been promoting at the UN General Assembly an initiative to agree on
the rules of responsible behaviour of states in the sphere of international information
security. This initiative has already led to set up several working groups, which have
completed their mandate with reports. The last such report was reviewed last year and another
resolution was adopted. This time, it was not a narrow group of government experts, but a group
that includes all UN member states. It was planning to meet, but things slowed down due to the
coronavirus. The rules for responsible conduct in cyberspace are pending review by this group.
These rules were approved by the SCO, meaning they already reflect a fairly large part of the
world's population.
Our other initiative is not about the use of cyberspace for undermining someone's security;
it is about fighting crimes (pedophilia, pornography, theft) in cyberspace. This topic is being
considered by another UNGA committee. We are preparing a draft convention that will oblige all
states to suppress criminal activities in cyberspace.
Question: Do you think that the Foreign Ministry is active on this front? Would you like to
be more proactive in the digital dialogue? After all, we are still bound by ethics, and have
yet to understand whether we can cross the line or not. Elon Musk feels free to make any
statements no matter how ironic and makes headlines around the world, even though anything he
says has a direct bearing on his market cap. This is a shift in the ethics of behaviour. Do you
think that this is normal? Is this how it should be? Or maybe people still need to behave
professionally?
Sergey Lavrov: A diplomat can always use irony and a healthy dose of cynicism. In this
sense, there is no contradiction here. However, this does not mean that while making ironic
remarks on the surrounding developments or comments every once in a while (witty or not so
witty), you do not have to work on resolving legal matters related to internet governance. This
is what we are doing.
The Foreign Ministry has been at the source of these processes. We have been closely
coordinating our efforts on this front with the Security Council Office, and the Ministry of
Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media and other organisations. Russian delegations
taking part in talks include representatives from various agencies. Apart from multilateral
platforms such as the International Telecommunication Union, the UN General Assembly and the
OSCE, we are working on this subject in bilateral relations with our key partners.
We are most interested in working with our Western partners, since we have an understanding
on these issues with countries that share similar views. The Americans and Europeans evade
these talks under various pretexts. There seemed to be an opening in 2012 and 2013, but after
the government coup in Ukraine, they used it as a pretext to freeze this process. Today, there
are some signs that the United States and France are beginning to revive these contacts, but
our partners have been insufficiently active. What we want is professional dialogue so that
they can raise all their concerns and accusations and back them with specific facts. We stand
ready to answer all the concerns our partners may have, and will not fail to voice the concerns
we have. We have many of them.
During the recent visit by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to Russia, I handed him a list
containing dozens of incidents we have identified: attacks against our resources, with 70
percent of them targeting state resources of the Russian Federation, and originating on German
territory. He promised to provide an answer, but more than a month after our meeting we have
not seen it so far.
Question: Let me ask you about another important initiative by the Foreign Ministry. You
decided to amend regulations enabling people to be repatriated from abroad for free, and you
proposed subjecting the repatriation guarantee to the reimbursement of its cost to the budget.
Could you tell us, please, is this so expensive for the state to foot this bill?
Sergey Lavrov: Of course, these a substantial expenses. The resolution that provided for
offering free assistance was adopted back in 2010, and was intended for citizens who find
themselves in situations when their life is at risk. Imagine a Russian ambassador. Most of the
people ask for help because they have lost money, their passport and so on. There are very few
cases when an ambassador can actually say that a person is in a life-threatening situation and
his or her life is in danger. How can an ambassador take a decision of this kind? As long as I
remember, these cases can be counted on the fingers of my two hands since 2010, when an
ambassador had to take responsibility and there were grounds for offering this assistance. We
wanted to ensure that people can get help not only when facing an imminent danger (a dozen
cases in ten years do not cost all that much). There were many more cases when our nationals
found themselves in a difficult situation after losing money or passports. We decided to follow
the practices used abroad. Specifically, this means that we provide fee-based assistance. In
most cases, people travelling abroad can afford to reimburse the cost of a return ticket.
This practice is designed to prevent fraud, which remains an issue. We had cases when people
bought one-way tickets knowing that they will have to be repatriated.
Question: And with no return ticket, they go to the embassy?
Sergey Lavrov: Yes, after that they come to the embassy. For this reason, I believe that the
system we developed is much more convenient and comprehensive for dealing with the situations
Russians get into when travelling abroad, and when we have to step in to help them through our
foreign missions.
Question: Mr Lavrov, thank you for your time. As a Georgian, I really have to ask this.
Isn't it time to simplify the visa regime with Georgia? A second generation of Georgians has
now grown up that has never seen Russia. What do you think?
Sergey Lavrov: Georgians can travel to Russia – they just need to apply for a visa.
The list of grounds for obtaining a visa has been expanded. There are practically no
restrictions on visiting Russia, after obtaining a visa in the Interests Section for the
Russian Federation in Tbilisi or another Russian overseas agency.
As for visa-free travel, as you know, we were ready for this a year ago. We were actually a
few steps away from being ready to announce it when that incident happened with the Russian
Federal Assembly delegation to the International Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy,
where they were invited in the first place, seated in their chairs, and then violence was
almost used against them.
I am confident that our relations with Georgia will recover and improve. We can see new
Georgian politicians who are interested in this. For now, there are just small parties in the
ruling elites. But I believe our traditional historical closeness, and the mutual affinity
between our peoples will ultimately triumph. Provocateurs who are trying to prevent Georgia
from resuming normal relations with Russia will be put to shame.
They are trying to use Georgia the same way as Ukraine. In Ukraine, the IMF plays a huge
role. And the IMF recently decided that each tranche allocated to Ukraine would be
short-term.
Question: Microcredits.
Sergey Lavrov: Microcredits and a short leash that can always be pulled a little.
They are trying to use Georgia the same way. We have no interest in seeing this situation
continue. We did not start it and have never acted against the Georgian people. Everyone
remembers the 2008 events, how American instructors arrived there and trained the Georgian
army. The Americans were well aware of Mikheil Saakashvili's lack of restraint. He trampled on
all agreements and issued a criminal order.
We are talking about taking their word for it. There were many cases when we took their word
for it, but then it all boiled down to zilch. In 2003, Colin Powell, a test tube – that
was an academic version. An attack on Iraq followed. Many years later, Tony Blair admitted that
there had been no nuclear weapons in Iraq. There were many such stories. In 1999, the
aggression against Yugoslavia was triggered by the OSCE representative in the Balkans, US
diplomat William Walker, who visited the village of Racak, where they found thirty corpses, and
declared it genocide of the Albanian population. A special investigation by the International
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia found they were military dressed in civilian clothes. But Mr
Walker loudly declared it was genocide. Washington immediately seized on the idea, and so did
London and other capitals. NATO launched an aggression against Yugoslavia.
After the end of the five-day military operation to enforce peace, the European Union
ordered a special report from a group of invited experts, including Swiss diplomat Heidi
Tagliavini. She was later involved in the Minsk process, and then she was asked to lead a group
of experts who investigated the outbreak of the military conflict in August 2008. The
conclusion was unambiguous. All this happened on the orders of Mikheil Saakashvili, and as for
his excuses that someone had provoked him, or someone had been waiting for him on the other
side of the tunnel, this was just raving.
Georgians are a wise nation. They love life, perhaps the same way and the same facets that
the peoples in the Russian Federation do. We will overcome the current abnormal situation and
restore normal relations between our states and people.
In addition, if you follow the Minister, follow up on this interview with Sputnik
Exclusive: Sergei Lavrov Talks About West's Historical Revisionism, US Election and Navalny
Case
Those clever and evil Russians are at the top of their game
again. For less then 20 millions dollars they dispose Hillary in 2016
and now intend to dispose Creepy Joe. Wait, is that this a valuable service to the
nation?
The collapse of neoliberalism forces the US neoliberal elite to deploy desperate measures to preserve the unity of the nation
and the US-controlled world neoliberal empire. Neo-McCarthyism in one of those dirty tricks. The pioneer in this dirty game was
Hillary, but now it is shared by both parties.
According to FBI director Christopher Wray you need to be Russian to
understand that Biden as a Presidential Candidate is DOA. And that decision of DNC to prop him
instead of Sanders or Warren was pretty idiotic, and was based on the power the neoliberal wing
(aka Clinton mafia) still holds within the Party. You have to be pretty delusional to believe
Biden has all his marbles.
And by "interference" he means reporting in the news and expressing
own opinion. Like in 2016 looks like FBI again crossed the line and had become the third
political party, which intends to be the kingmaker of the Presidential elections. So here's a
suggestion: call in UN observers to the elections.
Russian media influence is actually very easy to prove -- just ask yourself, do you trust
RT more than CNN? But if a person laugh every time Joe Biden talks and it has nothing to do
with Russia.
And if this nonsense again comes from the FBI Director, the legitimate question is "What
next?" The claim that Putin ordered the assassination of Abraham Lincoln?
Look at all those hapless intelligence agencies, helplessly watching Russian hackers
stealing election. But, wait a minute, we are talking about arguably the largest, best
equipped, best financed and most devious intelligence agencies on the Earth. So it is natural
to assume that people who want to steal the election are those who cry most loudly about the
Russian influence.
Actually If Russia really wanted to "sink" Biden all that it would need to do is noisily
support him openly. The rabid Russophobia would do the rest: Unfortunately most of of Americans
are spoon fed neoliberal propaganda and don't care much about if it's real or not. That reminds
me the USSR where the life of people was difficult enough not to pay attention to Communist
Party slogans and propaganda.
Notable quotes:
"... According to the FBI director, the Russians' primary goal seems to be not only to " sow divisiveness and discord ," but to trash Democratic nominee Joe Biden – along with " what the Russians see as a kind of anti-Russian establishment " – through social media, " use of proxies ," state-run media, and " online journals ." ..."
"... Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats even suggested Congress create another election integrity body to supervise the vote in November, apparently concerned the existing authorities – all 54 of them, one for each state plus four federal entities tasked with keeping meddlers, foreign and domestic, shut out – weren't enough. ..."
"... "Crowd pleasing claims" is spot on the money. Sounds like the FBI has been tasked to lay some groundwork for the "after party". He knows what he is doing. ..."
"... Nothing new from the man who was Comey's assistant AG when Comey was Deputy Attorney General. ..."
Russia is reprising its still-unproven 2016 election meddling efforts, this time targeting
Democratic challenger Joe Biden, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, who gave no
evidence to support his crowd-pleasing claims.
Wray told the House of Representatives that Russia is taking a " very active " role
in the 2020 US election, claiming Moscow " continues to try to influence our elections,
primarily through what we call malign foreign influence " during a Thursday hearing on
national security threats.
According to the FBI director, the Russians' primary goal seems to be not only to " sow
divisiveness and discord ," but to trash Democratic nominee Joe Biden – along with
" what the Russians see as a kind of anti-Russian establishment " – through
social media, " use of proxies ," state-run media, and " online journals ."
Wray contrasted 2020's alleged meddling with that of 2016, which he claimed involved "
an effort to target election infrastructure ," presenting no evidence to back up
either current or past claims – other than that the FBI or other intelligence agencies
had made the same claims in the past. There is no actual evidence that Russia interfered with
election infrastructure in 2016.
While four years of similarly flavored conspiracy theories blaming Russia for Donald
Trump's 2016 win have come up empty-handed, the paucity of real-world evidence for 'Russian
meddling' has not stopped Wray and other US intel officials from hyping it up as a major
threat to the integrity of the democratic process.
The National Counterintelligence and Security Center suggested last month that, while
Russia would interfere in the election in favor of Trump, China and Iran would meddle on
behalf of Biden – implying Americans couldn't vote at all without doing the bidding of
a foreign nation.
Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats even suggested Congress create another
election integrity body to supervise the vote in November, apparently concerned the existing
authorities – all 54 of them, one for each state plus four federal entities tasked with
keeping meddlers, foreign and domestic, shut out – weren't enough.
TWOhand 5 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 03:49 PM
"Crowd pleasing claims" is spot on the money. Sounds like the FBI has been tasked to lay
some groundwork for the "after party". He knows what he is doing.
danko79 4 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 04:22 PM
Can't feel anything but sympathy for those that are so easily influenced. If/when Biden
loses, perhaps blaming his lack of ability to string a few words together might be more
relevant than any kind of imaginary foreign interference.
Terry Ross 4 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 04:43 PM
Nothing new from the man who was Comey's assistant AG when Comey was Deputy Attorney General. Wray made it clear
when sworn in for position of FBI head that he believed Russia had interfered to help Trump win 2016 election. The only
question that remains is why Trump picked him for the job.
Katyusha rockets are normally fired in salvos of dozens. Two of them being launched against
the American fortress in Baghdad is just gentle prodding.
Another interesting point is that Katyusha rockets (BM-21 Grad) are dirt cheap. Whatever
was used to intercept them was several orders of magnitude more expensive. I'm sure the Iraqi
militias can keep lobbing Katyushas at the Green Zone for much longer than America can afford
to try to shoot them down.
Retired Army National Guard Lieutenant Colonel, a Junior U.S. Senator from Illinois, Ladda
Tammy Duckworth is apparently still berating Trump for not taking Russia to task for the now
utterly disproved story of the 'Russian bounties ' being discussed in this thread.
It would appear that merely being stupid isn't a quintisential requirement to enter U.S.
politics. A person obviously needs to be either an imbicile, a cretin, mentally deluded,
disturbed or disabled on top of deteminedly corrupt and dishonest.
I don't find it sad, I find it hilarious that people vote for such incompetence.
They say a country gets the government it deserves.
"Oregon's chief information security officer, Lisa Vasa, told the Washington Post in
September 2017 that her team blocks 'upwards of 14 million attempts to access our network
every day."'
This is the usual ridiculous claim from almost every organization. They treat every
Internet packet that hits their firewall as being an "attempt to access" the network (or
worse, a "breach" - which it is not.) Which is technically true, but would only be relevant
if they had *no* firewall - a setup which no organization runs these days. By definition,
99.99999% of those attempts are random mass scans of a block of IP addresses by either a
hacker or some malware on someone else's machine - or even a computer security researcher
attempting to find out how many sites are vulnerable.
The scam just gets bigger and more absurd every week.
Wait until cold and flu season when people freak out over every little case of the
sniffles. Many will have forgotten completely that one year ago it was normal for people to
catch cold, and nobody worried about it.
Patrick Bateman Jr. , 3 hours ago
In the states where the womanly instinct has prevailed over gelded men, I expect that
phone calls will be made to police when someone is coughing (even inside their mask) in
public.
So many normal things that no one ever noticed before will become criminalized. They are
playing people's minds like fiddles. Stanford Prison Experiment now looks like Utopia.
Give Me Some Truth , 3 hours ago
Where's the story of grocery check-out girls? Shouldn't these people have contracted the
virus at levels a million-fold above the general population? Or at least one-fold higher?
Who has NOT gotten the virus in statistically significant numbers? That's your intriguing
study.
Choomwagon Roof Hits , 3 hours ago
My first thought is they (and other customer-facing jobs like, say, waiters and waitresses
) have had significant exposure to the other coronaviruses that cause the common cold over
time and have substantial immunity to this virus or at the very lease enough of an immune
response to prevent any real infection.
Obamanism666 , 3 hours ago
It is an intelligent Virus. It knows when the person is an essential worker and when there
is a BLM peaceful protest and an Antifa riot.
It asks your politics before affecting you and knows that the more it affects the bigger
the mail in Voting to help the dems will be.
Choomwagon Roof Hits , 2 hours ago
Very intelligent, it's able to target schools, churches and gyms with deadly precision but
is inactivated for the benefit of essential workers (not all heroes wear capes!) once the
virus is inside of liquor stores, fast food restaurants and lottery dealers.
It spreads only when standing inside a restaurant but not when seated. It also spreads
only when alcohol is served after 10pm.
Remarkably, it's also capable of time dilation, turning "two weeks to slow the spread"
into six months and counting.
GunnerySgtHartman , 3 hours ago
I'm waiting for this headline ...
"STUDY: 100% of people who breathe air will die"
Can you imagine the meltdown that would cause among the snowflake crowd? HAHAHA
gatorengineer , 4 hours ago
Restaurants are a symbol of white privelidge and must be destroyed.
I have tried to explain this to two people I know who are insanely paranoid.
Both are men (no offense) 60+ both have high blood pressure as their only co-morbidity.
Both are convinced that if they leave the house Covid will kill them.
One lives in PA One lives in Florida.
The PA one apparently thinks that Covid can be spread by a single person for months. I
have tried, repeatedly, to explain that you are only contagious right before you develop
symptoms like Chicken pox but he believes in super spreaders and other Media BS
The other is my friend's partner he hasn't left their house since March. He won't go out,
go to a restaurant or anything. She does leave the house and when she returns he treats her
like Typhoid Mary. And says she is trying to kill him.
Both watch the news all the time. One watched the daily pressers and is on twitter
24/7
TQRock , 1 hour ago
I know people who actually sanitize their groceries that they have delivered.
TQRock , 54 minutes ago
Ontario's PM, Ford, had his power to implement emergency edicts extended indefinitely.
Funny thing about Canadians is they tend to over comply. I wear a homemade face shield when
necessary (library's the only place that refused entry), but everyone else wears soggy
germ-soaked face diaper. Even alone in cars or riding a bicycle, some do. I suspect that even
when/if the rules are lifted, we'll just keep wearing them. Like who wants any cold or
flu?
Dr. Acula , 4 hours ago
The cure for coronavirus is on the top right of your remote
In the days, weeks, and months immediately following the 9/11 attacks, Arab-Americans,
South Asian-Americans, Muslim-Americans, and Sikh-Americans were the targets of widespread
hate violence. Many of the perpetrators of these acts of hate violence claimed they were
acting patriotically by retaliating against those responsible for 9/11.
...
Just after September 11, numerous Arabs, Muslims, and individuals perceived to be Arab or
Muslim were assaulted, and some killed, by individuals who believed they were responsible
for or connected to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The first backlash
killing occurred four days after September 11.
Balbir Singh Sodhi was shot to death on September 15 as he was planting flowers outside
his Chevron gas station. The man who shot Sodhi, Frank Roque, had told an employee of an
Applebee's restaurant that he was "going to go out and shoot some towel heads." Roque
mistakenly thought Sodhi was Arab because Sodhi, an immigrant from India, had a beard and
wore a turban as part of his Sikh faith. After shooting Sodhi, Roque drove to a Mobil gas
station a few miles away and shot at a Lebanese-American clerk. He then drove to a home he
once owned and shot and almost hit an Afghani man who was coming out the front door. When
he was arrested two hours later, Roque shouted, "I stand for America all the way."
The next two killings were committed by a man named Mark Stroman. On September 15, 2001,
Stroman shot and killed Waquar Hassan, an immigrant from Pakistan, at Hassan's grocery
store in Dallas, Texas. On October 4, 2001, Stroman shot and killed Vasudev Patel, an
immigrant from India and a naturalized U.S. citizen, while Patel was working at his Shell
station convenience store. A store video camera recorded the killing, helping police to
identify Stroman as the killer. Stroman later told a Dallas television station that he shot
Hassan and Patel because, "We're at war. I did what I had to do. I did it to retaliate
against those who retaliated against us."
Beyond these killings, there were more than a thousand other anti-Muslim or anti-Arab
acts of hate which took the form of physical assaults, verbal harassment and intimidation,
arson, attacks on mosques, vandalism, and other property damage.
Instead of "calming prejudice" the GB Bush administration institutionalized hate
crimes:
First, in the weeks immediately following the September 11 attacks, the government began
secretly arresting and detaining Arab, Muslim, and South Asian men. Within the first two
months after the attacks, the government had detained at least 1,200 men.
...
Second, in November 2001, the Department of Justice began efforts to "interview"
approximately 5,000 men between the ages of 18 and 33 from Middle Eastern or Muslim nations
who had arrived in the United States within the previous two years on a temporary student,
tourist, or business visa and were lawful residents of the United States. Four months
later, the government announced it would seek to interview an additional 3,000 men from
countries with an Al Qaeda presence.
...
Third, in September 2002, the government implemented a "Special Registration" program also
known as NSEERS (National Security Entry-Exit Registration System), requiring immigrant men
from 26 mostly Muslim countries to register their name, address, telephone number, place of
birth, date of arrival in the United States, height, weight, hair and eye color, financial
information and the addresses, birth dates and phone numbers of parents and any foreign
friends with the government.
Besides all that a rather useless security theater was installed at U.S. airports which
has costs many billions in lost time and productivity ever since. The Patriot Act was
introduced which allowed for unlimited spying on private citizens. Wars were launched that
were claimed to be justified by 9/11. These were "mass outbreaks of anti-Muslim sentiment and
violence. Many were killed and maimed in them. People were tortured and vanished. All of this
happened largely to applause of a majority of the U.S. people which were glued to 24 and dreamed of being "terrorist
hunters".
Anyone with a functional memory knows that the U.S. reaction to 9/11 was anything but
"pretty calm". It is ridiculous that Krugman is claiming that.
I find it a bit humorous b that you are critical of Krugman for his 911 dementia when for
years many of us finance types have railed about how morally corrupt the logic and thinking
of Paul Krugman is.
Paul Krugman is to economics what Bernie Sanders has become for the purported "left" side
of the "right wing" uni-party....a sheep dog for the easily led.
Paul Krugman is an acolyte for the God of Mammon/global private finance elite.
b " Anyone with a functional memory knows that the U.S. reaction to 9/11 was anything
but "pretty calm". It is ridiculous that Krugman is claiming that. "
Careful with that axe b, you are talking about Biden's chief economic adviser and likely
appointee as Chair of the Fed. How does this look?
Volker
Greenspan
Bernanke
Yellen
Powell
Krugman
Those cunning, ruthless bastards in the Kremlin have developed a foolproof strategy for
interference in the USA's electoral process by, er, not interfering.
When I talk to people about that lack of closure for the victims of 911, I merely get a moment of silence and then I notice
the deer in the headlights look. A few have said I'm crazy for questioning the official story, others say that nothing will ever
change and the rest don't care enough to even think about it. Smh! Thanks to the minority who still want justice!
WHITE SUPREMACY: Replace the term "white" with the term "Financial oligarchy" and let truth
prevail. The predatory capitalist class is perfectly happy with Trump. (or Biden). Those election
dirty games with active BLM participation are really minor squabbles
If "racism" is part of the DNA of white people, shouldn't they embrace it? We're just
embracing our essential natures by being racist. How can anybody complain about us being true
to ourselves?
BLM is all about anti-white activism, black supremacy and the forcible transfer of white
wealth to blacks but Tucker Carlson keeps insisting that BLM is a smokescreen for class
struggle.
The way that BLM are acting now they could almost be called pro-White activists. They
certainly don't make diversity look like a strength or something that would be in any way
shape or form desirable.
I am sorry no! Trying to solve practical problem with theoretical solution will not bring
any positive result. It is only spinning the wheels.
All incidents did happen during when police was trying to arrest the suspect. Resisting
arrest brought out excessive response of police resulting in injuries and deaths. And Black
leaders using thee injuries and deaths for demonstrations. Some brainstorming is needed here.
Police must find some safe method to arrest people who resist arrest without causing them
injuries or deaths. I know! It is easy to say but difficult to come up with solution. But
there must be a solution out there. (Maybe some spray temporary blinding of suspect ?)
(Anything is better than just shoot him dead!)
Oh, look, no masks! And you thought that got covered up by the investigation done by the
Mueller team? Let's go over this one more time:
The document declassified by DNI Grenell shows that there were 14 unique days when the NSA
received requests to "unmask"--the first was on 30 November 2016 by UN Ambassador Samantha
Power and the last came on 12 January from Joe Biden. There were two separate requests on the
14th of December by Samantha Power, which indicates two separate NSA reports. Samantha Power
would not have to submit two requests for the same document.
Whether or not the hero salon owner in San Francisco lured Nancy Pelosi into her shop for a
hair "blow out" (whatever that is) is irrelevant. The political damage done to Pelosi is here to
stay. She is exposed as a hypocrite who preaches submission to the commandments of the God Fauci,
but then surreptitiously violates them when in her private world. Even more compelling is the
implication that her sins are caused by a lack of belief in CODIV-19 as the return of a scourge
with Black Death levels of effectiveness as a civilization buster. IOW her moaning and bitching
about COVID-19 is just political noise.
In six or twelve months a majority of people will start to get that they were had. It will
be too late.
afronaut , 15 hours ago
Doubt it. Unless the media or government says it
palmereldritch , 14 hours ago
There will be mask wearing long before then for totally different reasons.
mstyle , 11 hours ago
There's a rather large percentage of the US population that's going to die with a mask on
their face, a BLM sign in their yard, and a Lemon on their screen.
Sad :-(
_wayfarer , 9 hours ago
They were had with 9/11, never got it.
Salisarsims , 5 hours ago
Most of the United States where had by 9/11, and still are.
BlueGreen , 15 hours ago
End lockdowns around the world now! Lockdowns kill. Never again. Sweden's death rate is
lower than US, and many other countries.
Gaedamfukn democrap virus. Botox face carcinogenic hair dyed fossilized demented nasty
wicked witch of the west ... and her army of flying monkey stooge guvners and mayors keeping
their states shut down to oust Orange Julius and they could give two diarrhea schitz about
you and your family All these terds care about is power
NoDebt , 15 hours ago
It's not just that the (government) response to this virus has ****** a lot of people
royally, it's the absolute certainty that they will do it again in exactly the same manner,
pretty much every damned year moving forward forever.
MaF , 15 hours ago
In many blue states they can do it until 2022 when they are voted out...unless the people
rise up.
drendebe10 , 15 hours ago
Sheeple rise up? Phat phukn chance
PaulDF , 15 hours ago
Hey, some people think that as long as Trump is gone ~ it doesn't matter what it takes.
Nothing is too extreme.
palmereldritch , 14 hours ago
The MS-DOS virus subscription model.
Sound familiar? lay_arrow
Implied Violins , 15 hours ago
The Nobel Prize winner, Kary Mullis, who developed the PCR test called out Fraudci for his
******** during the AIDS crisis on Nightline back in 1994:
Even then that ******* was practicing fraud in order to garner more tax dollars. His
"test" ruined hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives.
Fraudci deserves to be EXECUTED for his BS.
EuroPox , 16 hours ago
Who cares how many 'cases' there are? The virus is not lethal except for a tiny number of
people, who already have other problems. Quarantine them and let the rest of us get on with
it.
SARS-CoV2 and the Rise of Medical Technocracy. Lee Merritt, M.D.
Robert De Zero , 14 hours ago
SCAM-DEMIC
PLANDEMIC
False positives
False reporting
false stories like athletes getting heart damage.
false claims of death rates.
THIS entire thing is an OPERATION .
bazboognish , 14 hours ago
The RT PCR test cannot be used to diagnose disease/infection.
It has no reference no way to get any idea on the accuracy as it is meaningless in that it
can't do what it is being used for and it is without a reference.
Imagine, if you will, people on ZioHedge telling you since January all of this.
Rat, Emmanuel/Arthur, Monty42, Empire's Frontiers, ADR, GatorEngineer, Slayer, Vasilivech,
and several more saw through this charade back in January.
Yet they were all maligned as flu bros, and where are we now?
Still trembling in fear?
naro , 15 hours ago
It is important to note that detecting viral material by PCR does not indicate that the
virus is fully intact and infectious, i.e. able to cause infection in other people. The
isolation of infectious virus from positive individuals requires virus culture methods. These
methods can only be conducted in laboratories with specialist containment facilities and are
time consuming and complex.
PCR is 90% false positive as far as detection of live infectious virus. IT IS A FRAUD
I Write Code , 15 hours ago
The "PCR" tests are only testing for fragments anyhow, if they did a full sequence it
would be much more reliable - but much more slow and expensive, too.
naro , 15 hours ago
It is important to note that detecting viral material by PCR does not indicate that the
virus is fully intact and infectious, i.e. able to cause infection in other people. The
isolation of infectious virus from positive individuals requires virus culture methods. These
methods can only be conducted in laboratories with specialist containment facilities and are
time consuming and complex.
PCR is 90% false positive as far as detection of live infectious virus. IT IS A FRAUD
I Write Code , 15 hours ago
The "PCR" tests are only testing for fragments anyhow, if they did a full sequence it
would be much more reliable - but much more slow and expensive, too.
Why didn't you mention that nearly all labs are running 35-40 cycles which guarantees a
positive test, simply from noise.
The inventor of the test said if you don't find anything after 15 cycles, it probably
isn't there. After 20 cycles the noise starts to be greater than any real information. By 30,
the test is mostly noise. More than 35, the test is completely worthless.
Of course I've been saying this for five months, but most people didn't listen. After the
NYT article came out, people I know started saying, "How did you know?"
I said, "Because I have critical thinking skills. Why didn't you believe me? Name a time
I've steered you wrong."
Identify as Ferengi , 15 hours ago
See above, Born2Bwired.
The PCR test is not useful for what they are using it for apparently. This has been
known since the beginning. Here is quote regarding AIDS:
"Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize in Science for inventing the PCR, is thoroughly
convinced that HIV is not the cause of "AIDS". With regard to the viral load tests, which
attempt to use PCR for counting viruses, Mullis has stated: "Quantitative PCR is an
oxymoron." PCR is intended to identify substances qualitatively, but by its very nature is
unsuited for estimating numbers. Although there is a common misimpression that the viral
load tests actually count the number of viruses in the blood, these tests cannot detect
free, infectious viruses at all; they can only detect proteins that are believed, in some
cases wrongly, to be unique to HIV. The tests can detect genetic sequences of viruses, but
not viruses themselves.
What PCR does is to select a genetic sequence and then amplify it enormously. It can
accomplish the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack; it can amplify that needle
into a haystack. Like an electronically amplified antenna, PCR greatly amplifies the
signal, but it also greatly amplifies the noise. Since the amplification is exponential,
the slightest error in measurement, the slightest contamination, can result in errors of
many orders of magnitude."
NYTimes article last week suggested that only 10% of Covid positive PCR tests are
clinically significant and infectious.
karzai_luver , 15 hours ago
"Scientists are doing an awful lot of damage to the world in the name of helping it. I
don't mind attacking my own fraternity because I am ashamed of it." –Kary Mullis,
Inventor of Polymerase Chain Reaction
This has been known forever. I don't understand the belief in the test.
I guess when your religion is threatened you will ignore any evidence.
For the cases that are real , this is the only disease I have ever heard of where the
advice was only show up to get treated(hospital) if you are really sick. The exact opposite
of "science".
Other motives seem at play on this covid_idiot pararde.
4 play_arrow
Born2Bwired , 15 hours ago
The PCR test is not useful for what they are using it for apparently. This has been known
since the beginning. Here is quote regarding AIDS:
"Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize in Science for inventing the PCR, is thoroughly
convinced that HIV is not the cause of "AIDS". With regard to the viral load tests, which
attempt to use PCR for counting viruses, Mullis has stated: "Quantitative PCR is an
oxymoron." PCR is intended to identify substances qualitatively, but by its very nature is
unsuited for estimating numbers. Although there is a common misimpression that the viral load
tests actually count the number of viruses in the blood, these tests cannot detect free,
infectious viruses at all; they can only detect proteins that are believed, in some cases
wrongly, to be unique to HIV. The tests can detect genetic sequences of viruses, but not
viruses themselves.
What PCR does is to select a genetic sequence and then amplify it enormously. It can
accomplish the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack; it can amplify that needle into
a haystack. Like an electronically amplified antenna, PCR greatly amplifies the signal, but
it also greatly amplifies the noise. Since the amplification is exponential, the slightest
error in measurement, the slightest contamination, can result in errors of many orders of
magnitude."
If after reading the headline you thought that is is one of the Russian universities got
financing from NED and is preparing to teach our grant-eaters "the science of color
revolutions", then you are mistaken.
It is the USA Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, which now offers 101 of
color revolution preparation in a course called "Overthrow the State" for its American students
and the subject of the course is the USA, not the xUSSR space.
According to the course description, it "puts every student at the head of a popular
revolutionary movement that seeks to overthrow the current government and create a better
society." Among questions discussed:
How will you gain power?"
How will you communicate with the masses?
How do you plan to improve people's lives?
How will you deal with the past?
These are the questions that the University course answers. To get a diploma in the course
"how to overthrow the state" you will need to pass 3 tests. It will be necessary to write your
"Manifesto" after studying historical examples and revolutionary thought from Franz Fanon to
Che Guevara, Mahatma Gandhi and representatives of the revolutionary movement. You will also
have to "write a compelling essay about rewriting history" and a "white paper" (white paper is
a kind of business plan, but it is written for an audience that is not related to
business).
Univrsity of Washington and Lee is so
progressive, that in July the faculty voted to remove the name of Robert Li from the name of
the University.
"so basically, any legitimate grievance or concern of citizens is a Russian plot ."
Other commenters tweeted that they didn't need any help from Moscow to clearly see that Biden's
mind
is failing .
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper went on CNN to accuse Russia of
interfering in US affairs including the Covid-19 pandemic, Portland and Kenosha protests, and
election meddling while giving no real evidence.
Clapper, who has previously said Russians are "typically, almost genetically driven to
co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever," was more than happy to push more xenophobic Russia
conspiracy theories during a Monday CNN interview when prompted by anchor Alisyn
Camerota.
Just one of hundreds of nuggets of 24K solid comedy gold:
"We just spent years speculating Trump was a literal agent of the Russian state, "wholly
in the pocket of Putin," as that former CIA director and ubiquitous driver of bogus
narratives, Brennan, put it. Yet according to Mueller, Russian officials couldn't even reach
Trump until after he was elected. Forget about blackmail, they didn't even have his phone
number!"
Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson is the latest Western leader to wildly jump on the
bandwagon claiming that Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny was poisoned, and by
implication insinuating the Kremlin had a sinister hand in it.
NuYawkFrankie , 2 hours ago
I have to give credit where it's due:
Nobody - absolutely NOBODY! - can recycle a Silly Schoolboy Script - with a straight face!
-as well as the THICK BRITS... even as the rest of Planet Earth laughs its a$$ off!
Roger Casement , 3 hours ago
The 1% need a diversion in case the 99% sheep stop hating on each and notice them looting
the place.
Joiningupthedots , 2 hours ago
...Even the the thickest halfwit that reads The Sun, The Mirror, The Star....the comic
strips et al understands that the monkeys in control are actually nothing more than better
read versions of themselves.
Vladimirovich , 2 hours ago
Dear Readers,
Sadly the British people are every bit a dopey as others in the western world and will
always vote for the worst possible person to 'do the job'. Please be patient.
In the UK Boris Johnson is colloquially known as "The village idiot", and he does his best
to match up to that title.
Roger Casement , 2 hours ago
Gangsters always play dumb. So do all politicians.
Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what
had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and
from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was
which.
deplorableX , 3 hours ago
Bojo appears to be struggling with alcoholism which would explain his sticking to a saga
which was pretty much fabricated from the get go. Delirium tremens.
bh2 , 3 hours ago
After the absurd plot described by British authorities in the Skripal case, nobody
believes these concocted political dramas.
Until both Skripals can be interviewed in public and without an official UK "keeper"
hovering about, nobody is going to believe them, either.
aspnaz , 2 hours ago
The Johnson is talking to the "neoliberalized" British retards, that's about 80% of the
population. If you work for the Telegraph and want to know what he really thinks, you will
have to pop round to his house for a G+T.
NuYawkFrankie , 1 hour ago
Only 80% retards???
I'd say AT LEAST 95%... and that's being charitable!
Yamaoka Tesshu , 4 hours ago
Navalny simply asked (was ordered by his Western handlers) to go to Germany. It's a free
country, ya know.
The only "victim" of these crimes is the Skripals cat (name unknown, I thought martyrs got
names). I don't know why people aren't more indignant over the cruel fate of the kitty. Ever
see Putin with a cat? Always a dog. He hates kittys, along with water (Mandrake!), freedom,
mom and Apple Pie.
...A group ... purporting to be former Amazon employees constructed a guillotine - yes, an
actual working guillotine - outside of Bezos' home in Chicago.
Gun sales were up 72% compared to this time last year, with first-time buyers leading the
pack. Americans are likely sensing that something is horribly wrong with the rigged system we
are forced to live under.
... ... ...
J S Bach , 3 hours ago
"Americans Sense Something Is Wrong: Gun Sales Up 72%"
It would be much more encouraging with this headline:
"Americans Sense Something Is Wrong: Guillotine & Noose Sales Up 72%"
Jazzyg , 3 hours ago
my little family expanded over the early summer
twin .38's
3 midget Derry's.....38...9mm...357/38 sp
muh boy's...xoxoxo
Meat Hammer , 2 hours ago
Congrats. You must be very proud. Family is everything.
Logic behind what you linked can easily be reversed with those very same stats (remember
Twain's third lie type). Sudan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan or Rwanda are safer places than the
USofA, if we use that logical scheme.
A relevant comparison should be done w/ other developed countries (Intentional homicides
rate /100,000 people):
Bemildred @215: "We go from "defund the police" to "stronger police state" in what, a
week? Two?"
That is faster than I was expecting, but it was entirely predicted. When the masses do not
find a solution in one direction, they will reverse course. The rioters are not offering a
solution, so the masses turned...
Bemildred @176: "...what happens here is going to depend a lot on what people who are
not here decide to do about us..."
You think there might be international intervention in the US? I am more worried it will
most likely be the kind Germany experienced in 1945. No modern day equivalent of the Peace
Corps handing out boxes of powdered milk and teaching us Chinese so we can integrate with the
new world economy for quite some time, I'm afraid.
^ г /conspiracy • Posted by u/MakeltRainSheckels 1 day ago
Your daily reminder that Gilead is charging $3,000 for a COVID drug that was developed with
$70,000,000 of taxpayer dollars and costs them less than $10 to
produce.
"We take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and
domestic. And sadly, the domestic enemies to our voting system and our honoring of the
Constitution are right at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with their allies in the Congress of the
United States".
Amazing that Pelosi is suddenly aware of her duty.
Thank you karlof1 - LMFAO - coffee all over the keyboard.
Perhaps Pelosi should take her own advice and discuss this belief of hers with Debbie
Wasserman Schultz. After all Schultz promoted the Awan family spy and blackmail ring to other
members of the Democrat caucus in Congress.
Another swamp pond yet to drain, take note Barr, there is still a lot of work ahead ha ha
ha.
The way Merkel and other politicians immediately jumped on the poisoning thesis is
reminiscent of May's reaction in the Skripal case. It is difficult not to become suspicious.
Looks like they like to reuse the same propaganda memes over and over. Russian bounties to the
Taliban become Iranian bounties to the Taliban, Novichok becomes cholinesterase inhibitor, rinse
and repeat.
Russia did it. Evil Putin ordered it. Horrible China sponsored it. Iran backed it.
Hezbollah played a hand as well.
Thank Glorious God for the Indispensable Nation of American Exceptionalism. Rescuing the
world from evil dictators and conspiring theorists plots. Evil doers who hate OUR way of
life stand no chance against the Glorious Christians and their Honorable Zionist
gatekeepers.
Thanks and Glory to American Gods that Juan Guaido is now the President of Venezuela.
Soon the Zionist will offer their Chosen Ones to replace Evil Dictators.
Thanks and praise to MOA for shining Gods Light and dancing on Western narratives giving
them validity against the Evil doers of Poison and injustice.
Trump and Pence are "Men of the Bible" seeking out injustice and filling the world with
Christian values of Bro Love and world Peace. May all you Christians take a knee and pray
for these Mens souls and the Soul of America for leading the way to righteousness. Oh yeah-
and pray for whatever the fuck his name is Nirvany Nalvinny poisoned guy.
If the Russians are really trying to assassinate, why do it in so theatrical a manner?
Just shoot him twice in the back of the head and call it suicide like the Americans do.
For some TAC writers and Trump cultists, Trump could fart into a microphone and they'd
think an angel just spoke. So why did Trump diddle around for three years if all he had to do
was sign a E.O.?
The same could be said about Biden and certain Team D groupies. They insist that Biden is
going to "fight for the little guy" even though he spent decades faithfully servicing the
financial services industry, when he was not cheerleading for stupid wars.
Commenting on the spotlight that U.S. intelligence officials have placed on both countries'
interference efforts (along with Iran's), Pelosi and Schiff declared that the analysis
"provided a false sense of equivalence to the actions of foreign adversaries by listing three
countries of unequal operational intent, actions, and capabilities together."
In particular, they charged, the actions of Kremlin-linked actors seeking to undermine Vice
President Biden, and seeking to help President Trump" were glossed over.
Pelosi stated subsequently, "The Chinese, they said, prefer (presumptive Democratic nominee
Joe) Biden -- we don't know that, but that's what they're saying, but they're not really
getting involved in the presidential election."
... ... ...
Also alleging that Chinese agents are increasingly active on major social media platforms --
a study from research institute Freedom House,
which reported that :
"[C]hinese state-affiliated trolls are apparently operating on [Twitter] in large numbers.
In the hours and days after Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted in support of
Hong Kong protesters in October 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported, nearly 170,000
tweets were directed at Morey by users who seemed to be based in China as part of a
coordinated intimidation campaign. Meanwhile, there have been multiple suspected efforts by
pro-Beijing trolls to manipulate the ranking of content on popular sources of information
outside China, including Google's search engine Reddit,and YouTube."
Last year, a major
Hoover Institution report issued especially disturbing findings about Beijing's efforts to
influence the views (and therefore the votes) of Chinese Americans, including exploiting the
potential hostage status of their relatives in China. According to the Hoover researchers:
"Among the Chinese American community, China has long sought to influence -- even silence
-- voices critical of the PRC or supportive of Taiwan by dispatching personnel to the United
States to pressure these individuals and while also pressuring their relatives in China.
Beijing also views Chinese Americans as members of a worldwide Chinese diaspora that presumes
them to retain not only an interest in the welfare of China but also a loosely defined
cultural, and even political, allegiance to the so-called Motherland."
In addition: "In the American media, China has all but eliminated the plethora of
independent Chinese-language media outlets that once served Chinese American communities. It
has co-opted existing Chinese language outlets and established its own new outlets."
Operations aimed at Chinese Americans are anything but trivial politically. As of 2018, they
represented nearly 2.6 million eligible U.S. voters, and they belonged to an Asian-American
super-category that reflects the fastest growing racial and ethnic population of eligible
voters in the country.
Most live in heavily Democratic states, like California, New York, and Massachusetts, but
significant concentrations are also found in the battleground states where many of the 2016
presidential election margins were razor thin, and many of which look up for grabs this year,
like Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
More broadly, according to the Hoover study:
"In American federal and state politics, China seeks to identify and cultivate rising
politicians. Like many other countries, Chinese entities employ prominent lobbying and public
relations firms and cooperate with influential civil society groups. These activities
complement China's long-standing support of visits to China by members of Congress and their
staffs. In some rare instances Beijing has used private citizens and companies to exploit
loopholes in US regulations that prohibit direct foreign contributions to elections."
But even more thoroughly overlooked than these narrower forms of Chinese political
interference is a broader, much more dangerous type of Chinese meddling that leaves Moscow's
efforts in the dust. For example, U.S.-owned multinational companies, which have long profited
at the expense of the domestic economy by offshoring production and jobs to China, have just as
long carried Beijing's water in American politics through their massive contributions to U.S.
political campaigns. The same goes for Wall Street, which hasn't sent many U.S. operations
overseas, but which has long hungered for permission to do more business in the Chinese
market.
These same big businesses continually and surreptitiously inject their views into American
political debates by heavily financing leading think tanks -- which garb their special interest
agendas in the raiment of objective scholarship.
Hollywood and the rest of the U.S. entertainment industry has become so determined to brown
nose China in search of profits that it's made nearly routine rewriting and censoring material
deemed offensive to China.
... ... ...
Alan Tonelson is the founder of RealityChek, a public policy blog focusing on
economics and national security, and the author of The Race to the Bottom.
As I reached below the conveyor belt to the checkout shelf for a bottle of water this
morning, the masked woman in front started "creating" about distancing. With some difficulty
I resisted giving her a proper response. She gave off a police vibe.
Oddly enough, I couldn't see the black helicopters outside.
Most of the feature stories published by the Columbia Journalism Review, a mostly-digital
biannual "magazine" published and edited by the Columbia School of Journalism and its staff, is
sanctimonious media naval-gazing filtered through a lens of cryptomarxist propaganda, written
by a seemingly endless
procession of washed-up magazine writers .
But every once in a while, just like the NYT, Washington Post and CNN, even CJR gets it
(mostly) right. And fortunately for us, one of those days arrived earlier this month, when the
website published this insightful piece outlining the influence of the Gates Foundation on the
media that covers it.
Most readers probably didn't realize how much money the Gates Foundation spends backing even
for-profit media companies like the New York Times and the Financial Times, some of the most
financially successful legacy media products, thanks to their dedicated readerships. For most
media companies, which don't have the financial wherewithal of the two named above, the
financial links go even deeper. Schwab opens with his strongest example: NPR.
LAST AUGUST, NPR PROFILED A HARVARD-LED EXPERIMENT to help low-income families find
housing in wealthier neighborhoods, giving their children access to better schools and an
opportunity to "break the cycle of poverty." According to researchers cited in the article,
these children could see $183,000 greater earnings over their lifetimes -- a striking
forecast for a housing program still in its experimental stage.
If you squint as you read the story, you'll notice that every quoted expert is connected
to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which helps fund the project. And if you're
really paying attention, you'll also see the editor's note at the end of the story, which
reveals that NPR itself receives funding from Gates.
NPR's funding from Gates "was not a factor in why or how we did the story," reporter Pam
Fessler says, adding that her reporting went beyond the voices quoted in her article. The
story, nevertheless, is one of hundreds NPR has reported about the Gates Foundation or the
work it funds, including myriad favorable pieces written from the perspective of Gates or its
grantees.
And that speaks to a larger trend -- and ethical issue -- with billionaire
philanthropists' bankrolling the news. The Broad Foundation, whose philanthropic agenda
includes promoting charter schools, at one point funded part of the LA Times' reporting on
education. Charles Koch has made charitable donations to journalistic institutions such as
the Poynter Institute, as well as to news outlets such as the Daily Caller, that support his
conservative politics. And the Rockefeller Foundation funds Vox's Future Perfect, a reporting
project that examines the world "through the lens of effective altruism" -- often looking at
philanthropy.
As philanthropists increasingly fill in the funding gaps at news organizations -- a role
that is almost certain to expand in the media downturn following the coronavirus pandemic --
an underexamined worry is how this will affect the ways newsrooms report on their
benefactors. Nowhere does this concern loom larger than with the Gates Foundation, a leading
donor to newsrooms and a frequent subject of favorable news coverage.
It's just the latest reminder that all of NPR's reporting on the coronavirus and China is
suspect due to its links to Gates and, by extension, the WHO. Back in April, we noted this
piece for being an egregious example of a reporter failing to make all of the sources links to
China explicitly clear. Though
a few clues were included.
Of course, even CJR left out certain salient examples of the media's penchant for protecting
Gates. He was reportedly a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein's, even reportedly maintaining ties
after the deceased pedophile's first stint in prison.
That photo never gets old.
Of course, the Gates Foundation is unusual in the level of heft it exerts, but it's not
alone. The Clinton Foundation has benefited from equally light-touch treatment from the
mainstream press, if not more so. Little unflattering reporting was done on the Clinton
Foundation until Steve Bannon helped Peter Schweizer produce "Clinton Cash".
I recently examined nearly twenty thousand charitable grants the Gates Foundation had made
through the end of June and found more than $250 million going toward journalism. Recipients
included news operations like the BBC, NBC, Al Jazeera, ProPublica, National Journal, The
Guardian, Univision, Medium, the Financial Times, The Atlantic, the Texas Tribune, Gannett,
Washington Monthly, Le Monde, and the Center for Investigative Reporting; charitable
organizations affiliated with news outlets, like BBC Media Action and the New York Times'
Neediest Cases Fund; media companies such as Participant, whose documentary Waiting for
"Superman" supports Gates's agenda on charter schools; journalistic organizations such as the
Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the National Press Foundation, and the International
Center for Journalists; and a variety of other groups creating news content or working on
journalism, such as the Leo Burnett Company, an ad agency that Gates commissioned to create a
"news site" to promote the success of aid groups. In some cases, recipients say they
distributed part of the funding as subgrants to other journalistic organizations -- which makes
it difficult to see the full picture of Gates's funding into the fourth estate.
The foundation even helped fund a 2016 report from the American Press Institute that was
used to develop guidelines on how newsrooms can maintain editorial independence from
philanthropic funders. A top-level finding: "There is little evidence that funders insist on or
have any editorial review." Notably, the study's underlying survey data showed that nearly a
third of funders reported having seen at least some content they funded before publication.
Gates's generosity appears to have helped foster an increasingly friendly media environment
for the world's most visible charity. Twenty years ago, journalists scrutinized Bill Gates's
initial foray into philanthropy as a vehicle to enrich his software company, or a PR exercise
to salvage his battered reputation following Microsoft's bruising antitrust battle with the
Department of Justice. Today, the foundation is most often the subject of soft profiles and
glowing editorials describing its good works.
During the pandemic, news outlets have widely looked to Bill Gates as a public health expert
on covid -- even though Gates has no medical training and is not a public official. PolitiFact
and USA Today (run by the Poynter Institute and Gannett, respectively -- both of which have
received funds from the Gates Foundation) have even used their fact-checking platforms to
defend Gates from "false conspiracy theories" and "misinformation," like the idea that the
foundation has financial investments in companies developing covid vaccines and therapies. In
fact, the foundation's website and most recent tax forms clearly show investments in such
companies, including Gilead and CureVac.
In the same way that the news media has given Gates an outsize voice in the pandemic, the
foundation has long used its charitable giving to shape the public discourse on everything from
global health to education to agriculture -- a level of influence that has landed Bill Gates on
Forbes's list of the most powerful people in the world. The Gates Foundation can point to
important charitable accomplishments over the past two decades -- like helping drive down polio
and putting new funds into fighting malaria -- but even these efforts have drawn expert
detractors who say that Gates may actually be introducing harm, or distracting us from more
important, lifesaving public health projects.
From virtually any of Gates's good deeds, reporters can also find problems with the
foundation's outsize power, if they choose to look. But readers don't hear these critical
voices in the news as often or as loudly as Bill and Melinda's. News about Gates these days is
often filtered through the perspectives of the many academics, nonprofits, and think tanks that
Gates funds. Sometimes it is delivered to readers by newsrooms with financial ties to the
foundation.
The Gates Foundation declined multiple interview requests for this story and would not
provide its own accounting of how much money it has put toward journalism.
In response to questions sent via email, a spokesperson for the foundation said that a
"guiding principle" of its journalism funding is "ensuring creative and editorial
independence." The spokesperson also noted that, because of financial pressures in journalism,
many of the issues the foundation works on "do not get the in-depth, consistent media coverage
they once did. When well-respected media outlets have an opportunity to produce coverage of
under-researched and under-reported issues, they have the power to educate the public and
encourage the adoption and implementation of evidence-based policies in both the public and
private sectors."
As CJR was finalizing its fact check of this article, the Gates Foundation offered a more
pointed response: "Recipients of foundation journalism grants have been and continue to be some
of the most respected journalism outlets in the world. The line of questioning for this story
implies that these organizations have compromised their integrity and independence by reporting
on global health, development, and education with foundation funding. We strongly dispute this
notion."
The foundation's response also volunteered other ties it has to the news media, including
"participating in dozens of conferences, such as the Perugia Journalism Festival, the Global
Editors Network, or the World Conference of Science Journalism," as well as "help[ing] build
capacity through the likes of the Innovation in Development Reporting fund."
The full scope of Gates's giving to the news media remains unknown because the foundation
only publicly discloses money awarded through charitable grants, not through contracts. In
response to questions, Gates only disclosed one contract -- Vox's -- but did describe how some
of this contract money is spent: producing sponsored content, and occasionally funding
"non-media nonprofit entities to support efforts such as journalist trainings, media
convenings, and attendance at events."
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Over the years, reporters have investigated the apparent blind spots in how the news media
covers the Gates Foundation, though such reflective reporting has waned in recent years. In
2015, Vox ran an article examining the widespread uncritical journalistic coverage surrounding
the foundation -- coverage that comes even as many experts and scholars raise red flags. Vox
didn't cite Gates's charitable giving to newsrooms as a contributing factor, nor did it address
Bill Gates's month-long stint as guest editor for The Verge, a Vox subsidiary, earlier that
year. Still, the news outlet did raise critical questions about journalists' tendency to cover
the Gates Foundation as a dispassionate charity instead of a structure of power.
Five years earlier, in 2010, CJR published a two-part series that examined, in part, the
millions of dollars going toward PBS NewsHour, which it found to reliably avoid critical
reporting on Gates.
In 2011, the Seattle Times detailed concerns over the ways in which Gates Foundation funding
might hamper independent reporting...
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he
won't notice you're picking his pocket . Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and
he'll empty his pockets for you." – Lyndon B Johnson
While the virus is perfectly real, its severity has been intentionally and systematically
exaggerated, and that is clearly is provable. So the working hypoethisi is that somebody badly
needed Coronavirus reset, iether for political or financial purposes or both.
"Welcome to America, the Land of Freedom" , read the signs at Washington, DC's
international airport as you line up to have your fingerprints taken and your body cavities
searched for mini nuclear devices.
... ... ...
The following bulleted list is for your ease in reading.
Look at the comments. These bozos don't care about inequality. They don't care if the rich
are eating their lunch. They don't care about the poverty rate, and think that blacks make up
all the poor, when their are actually more poor whites than poor blacks. They think the
majority of homeless are black when the majority of homeless are white. (The cross-eyed
retards.) They don't care about the wars. NIMBY is the farthest they can see. Horizons are
foreshortened for them. They actually think that, say, Nigeria or North Korea is more corrupt
than the US....
What makes US truly exceptional are its elites. Obviously this exceptionalism doesn't
extend all the way down to more than half of the population – the so called
deplorables...
If this article really does reflect the current social, political and economic state of
North America (and it seems, generally speaking it dies, possible minor exaggerations
notwithstanding)) it may give the rest of us a certain sense of smug superiority, went what
we really ought to feel is a sense of trepidation, because right now America is litterally
the Leader of the Western world. Dumb, corrupt, racist, indebted Americans lead and
we follow !
American Culture is, arguably, by far its biggest export.
Corporatism. Militarism. Racism? (Maybe the Brits or Jews invented this one and exported it
along with bygone colonialism.) Litigiousness. High level corruption and criminality within
government. Indebtedness of the peasantry. Indoctrination for education. Violent crime.
Homelessness. Poverty. U emoyment. Worstening health care. Media bias And on and on and
on
Every single westernised nation, I would suggest, is witnessing raising levels of all of the
above as global cabalists work their dark magic against us all.
Their masterstroke, "multicruralism", is new speak for mono-culturalism. And though right
now the worst excesses of that monoculture can be witnessed in North America, none of us is
immune, and none of us is in a possition to gloat!
So, what's the solution? Blame the blacks. Blame white? Blame "the jews". Blame China,
Russia, North Korea? Blame Trump? Blame Tom, Dick, Harry. Blame this, that or the other
mono-god religion, depending which mono-god cult you favour
Yeah, we can go on blaming whoever we like, even as "they" (read our own people!)
come to haul us off to FEMA camps to save the world from "covid19-20-21-22-"
It's been a while since I looked, so I can't say off the top of my head how many unique
visitors this website attracts every month, but I know it's a high number enough to light a
hot fire under the seats of power in the US and keep it burning for a good long time.
But then what? How might you organise and administer the "functions of state" (let's face
it, the overwhelming majority of people don'the even know what time of day it is without some
authority figure to tell them) when the current regime has been deposed?
Might I suggest that the time for a Pow Wow of the indigenous tribes is at hand. (I'll
give you a moment to stop laughing before I continue )
Yes, I am being serious! It's time for whitey, blacky, jewy, to shut the fuck up, stop
imagining ourselves as in any way superiour, more deserving, better, wiser, smarter, kinder,
and just shut up and listen for a change!
This world is a seriously fucked-up place because, somehow, by degrees, over generations
of mongod-worship, we have handed our individual power/life-force over for others to
weild against us, against our own best interests.
It's time we admitted that we and our ancestors have been wrong , and that we stood
aside to give Pagans, Hethans and Savages a chance to reshape society in ways that may,
might, possibly prove more beneficial for all!
Let's face it, they can't do any worse than the mono-god cultists have done in our name,
by our power!
Anyone one who wishes to argue against this notion, I suggest you read the article again
before commencing.
Some Americans continue to believe that when they go to the internet they will get a
free flow of useful information that will guide them in making decisions or coming to
conclusions about the state of the world... Google, for example, ranks the information that
it displays so it can favor certain points of view and dismiss others. Generally speaking,
progressive sites are favored and conservative sites are relegated to the bottom of the
search with the expectation that they will not be visited.
The tactics are simple -- act like China (while effectively confiscating some of their
tech firms, not that I'm too sympathetic), blame Russia, and continue to tell everyone they
have "more information at their fingertips" than ever before. Most folks don't even realize
that Google frames their entire online experience. Ergo, censoring the internet will go
relatively unnoticed by the bulk of 'Mericans as long as the special trifle (web comics,
minions, gifs, Amazon, and Netflix) stays intact.
johnny two shoes , 12 minutes ago
"Russia's disinformation and propaganda ecosystem is the collection of official, proxy,
and unattributed communication channels and platforms that Russia uses to create and amplify
false narratives."
It is really funny when Biden talks about torture... It is difficult to teach an old neocon
dog new tricks.
Notable quotes:
"... "The brave citizens of Belarus are showing their voices will not be silenced by terror or torture," ..."
"... "The U.S. should support Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya's call for fair elections. Russia must be told not to interfere -- this is not about geopolitics but the right to choose one's leaders." ..."
Joe Biden may be an uncertain election away from becoming president, but he's already
tweeting like one. Following an entirely predictable script, Biden demanded that Russia "be
told not to interfere" in Belarus' affairs.
"The brave citizens of Belarus are showing their voices will not be silenced by terror
or torture," Biden tweeted on Wednesday. "The U.S. should support Sviatlana
Tsikhanouskaya's call for fair elections. Russia must be told not to interfere -- this is not
about geopolitics but the right to choose one's leaders."
I hope I live to see the day when the "New York Times" is deemed the same caliber of
"journalism" as the "National Inquirer". Of course, those with two brain cells to rub
together already know that this is the case. However, by "deemed", I mean by the
one-brain-celled masses.
homeskillet , 23 minutes ago
The National Enquirer actually has many more believable articles.
Pernicious Gold Phallusy , 20 minutes ago
The National Enquirer broke the story of Presidential candidate John Edwards cheating on
his wife, who was undergoing breast cancer treatment at the time. Other media organizations,
including the NYT, knew about it and refused to cover it.
Stu Pedassle , 1 hour ago
Glad to see Operation Mockingbird is still going strong after 60 years
From comments: " One thing that is definitely Not Happening is the psychopaths in both
parties, the media, the medical mafia, Wall Street, and corporations taking responsibility for
their crime spree and fraud."
There are there are "disturbances," rioting, looting, etc., EVERY summer in the US. Bet
you didn't know that. It IS being reported this summer. Because it's in their interest this
summer.
So you see I agree with your conclusion, but not with your analysis. What they are not
reporting is strikes, united working class actions, all across the country.
They don't want to report the strikes, and neither do you.
Hmm. Ever hear of the term "limited hangout." You ought to. It applies to you.
The editor-in-chief of a major Chinese tabloid slammed Mike Pompeo for
comparing his country to Nazi Germany, likening his words to those of Hitler's propaganda chief
and reminding the secretary of state of America's endless wars.
Hu Xijin took to Twitter on Sunday venting his anger about Mike Pompeo's remarks.
"You are inciting radical hostility and ripping the world apart. You aren't like a top
diplomat, instead, you talk like Goebbels of Nazi Germany. I'm worried that world peace will
eventually be destroyed by extreme politicians like you," he wrote.
Needless to say, the SJW extremist groups went bonkers. (1)
the most frantic, and funniest, reaction Thursday came from City University of New York
journalism professor Jeff Jarvis, who demanded apologies and other forms of satisfaction
from the Washington Post for allowing Trump campaign ads to appear on its website.
"No, [Washington Post], no, no NO. How dare you?" he asked in a lengthy tirade posted
to social media. "Were these pieces of silver worth the price of your soul? The Post not
only sold its front page but also sold a takeover. Who the f -- decided this? I am so
ashamed of you, [Washington Post]."
Trump is causing Democrats to attack WaPo. Delightful.
"... Now, what I think is, charging blacks and injuns and all for every white invention they use, one at a time would be a motimgator long job and use more paper than eating a McDonald's hamburger. It could lead to enough of what that Wall Street newspaper calls cross licensing ..."
"... I mean, you could charge a nickel every time Lateesha or Deewan or Lasagna read a book, which might bring in twelve dollars a year, or used a Smith and Wesson, for whole boxcars of dollars. Probably the easy thing would be to rent the whole damn civilization with only one license, like driving a car. ..."
"... I reckon we'd haul in enough money to buy enough rockets to blow up a thousand weddings and little children in Afghanistan and Eye-ran and maybe some kindergartner kids in Venezuela, wherever that is. Then they'd all have American values and love us. ..."
"... I figure when she's yowling into a microphone that probably Abraham Lincoln or Moses or somebody invented, it's that Cultural Appropriation again and she owes money. I mean, without that microphone shed have to go back to smoke signals or drums. ..."
"... Anyway, women are taking over everything, most of them crazy. Along with Rachel Tension and Oprah, we've got that Clinton woman ..."
"... And now we've got Joe Biden, who ain't nothing but a titless Hillary on days when he can remember who he is, and pretty much nothing at all the rest of the time. ..."
If some people can't go as Bugs Bunny, then nobody can't go as anything. Fair is fair. So if
you little sister goes as Aunt Jemima that makes pancakes, the BLM bandits will try to lynch
her.
I reckon black folks ought to be a little quieter. Since they didn't invent writing, or
reading, or 'rithmetic or electricity or clothes or pretty much anything, then any time they
use them things they're doing Cultural Appropriation. It's just common sense. Of course, I
guess a Chinaman could say whites do it too when they use paper and gunpowder, without the
which we couldn't have bombs and rockets and federal forms nine pages long that no one since
Adam can figure out.
Now, what I think is, charging blacks and injuns and all for every white invention they use,
one at a time would be a motimgator long job and use more paper than eating a McDonald's
hamburger. It could lead to enough of what that Wall Street newspaper calls cross licensing,
Mr. McWilliams said, and he knows everything, to keep a whole rat pack of lawyers in business
forever instead of drowning them, that would be better.
I mean, you could charge a nickel every
time Lateesha or Deewan or Lasagna read a book, which might bring in twelve dollars a year, or
used a Smith and Wesson, for whole boxcars of dollars. Probably the easy thing would be to rent
the whole damn civilization with only one license, like driving a car.
I reckon we'd haul in enough money to buy enough rockets to blow up a thousand weddings and
little children in Afghanistan and Eye-ran and maybe some kindergartner kids in Venezuela,
wherever that is. Then they'd all have American values and love us.
But we got other news to gnaw on. I keep reading about this gal Rachel Tension and how she's
causing all kinds of bile along with Oprah. I don't know about Rachel but Oprah's gone all
skinny on us and I reckon it makes her want to make more fuss about whatever she's thinking
about. Oprah used to be all porked up and looked like three hundred pounds of fatback with legs
and if you'd had a oil well you wanted to shut down you could have used her for a plug. I hear
there's less Oprah now, though. Which is about how much I can use.
Anyhow, she's running on these days about how white people is criminals and brutes and they
need to get in touch with what they're feeling, that might mean their girlfriend or I don't
know what, but she don't like them. White people, I mean. Well, I guess. But I figure when
she's yowling into a microphone that probably Abraham Lincoln or Moses or somebody invented,
it's that Cultural Appropriation again and she owes money. I mean, without that microphone shed
have to go back to smoke signals or drums.
Anyway, women are taking over everything, most of them crazy. Along with Rachel Tension and
Oprah, we've got that Clinton woman that's even older than Ann Coulter and probably sleeps all
day in some cave, hanging by her toes, and Elizabeth Warren, that used to be a Injun but cured
it with a shot of DNA. And now we've got Joe Biden, who ain't nothing but a titless Hillary on
days when he can remember who he is, and pretty much nothing at all the rest of the time. Which
might be a good reason to vote for him. We've had a long string of Presidents who did know who
they were, and it ain't been real satisfactory.
Finally the world' s gone soft in the head, like Aunt Minnie that granddad used to keep in the attic. I just saw where Walt
Disney, that I thought was dead but anyway, he's going to make a movie about Peter Pan and he want's Mike Tyson to be Tinker
Belle. She´s kind of like a lightening bug in a little green dress and throws sparks everywhere. Now if I remember right, Tyson
weighs about two-forty buck nekkid and holding a helium balloon so it's hard to imagine him twinkling around in the air and
flashing like a fifty cent flashlight with a loose switch, but I don't know much about movies. Anyway there was this woman, I
think her name was Lupita Marimacha or anyway some Meskin thing, that talked for Mr. Disney, that I thought was dead. She said
these times are progressive, which I think means soft in the head, and we can't be heteronormative or chromapejorative and we
had to be gender fluid. I saw it in the newspaper or I couldn't spell it. I wasn't sure what kind of gender fluid she meant but
I knew I didn't want to think about it. I guess it means we´ll have to watch Mike Tyson flying around in some kind of girly
clothes, which is all right on a girl but I worry about them on Mike, and maybe it worries him too.
... ... ...
Write Fred at [email protected] . Put the letters pdq anywhere in the subject line so
Google don't disappear your letter.
Consider the classic m.o. back in the day when Marxists wanted to overthrow a legitimate
government in Latin America, Asia or Africa. They'd do everything in their power to wreck
the nation's economy, foment insurrection in the streets, and compromise the safety and
security of the middle classes.
Would that be like the CIA "death squads" in Central America?
Wake up! Marxism and finance capitalism are two sides of the same (((coin))). It's all about
defining the commune.
The print edition of the Wall Street Journal yesterday had a photo of Biden, his wife and
others on the front page. Balloons were hanging in the background.
In the photo, Joe looked just like the nursing home resident who was dressed up and taken
down to the community room so he could celebrate his birthday with family and friends.
Branco cartoon today says it all. Democrats pushing a Trojan horse over the moat with the
face of Biden, but inside the Trojan horse is the real prize: Pelosi, Ocasio-Cortez, Harris,
Warren,......Clinton, Sanders, Schumer, Nadler, Schift, ...etc. etc must also be lurking inside
there ready to come out of the horse's rear end.
We'll get socialism with Kamala & Biden. But it will be socialism for the Party of
Davos, not for the working class. And both Mitch and Schumer will support it
enthusiastically.
The basic thing about government and media today is, truth and facts have nothing to do
with their job.
Words are there to mould people's minds to their purpose so they don't make a nuisance of
themselves by having diverse opinions Facts are never allowed to get in the way. What about
when Bush 2 and Blair outright fabricated evidence of Baghdad .WMD...the dodgy dossier? Oh
says they, I saw intelligence reports . Yes .intelligence reports they pressured them to
write. Result. A million dead and Iraq in chaos.
And what happened to Bush 2. Re elected! At that point it was over.
bamf1411 , 2 hours ago
That damned Colin Powell last night, turning on magaman and the whole Republican party
just because Bush and Cheney and magaman make fools out of the whole country. Just because
they lie about everything doesn't mean they don't care. They do. They really care for this
country full of suckers.
seryanhoj , 2 hours ago
Bush Cheney Powell ... Christ , I almost forgot that stuff. And Clinton bombing the living
**** out of Belgrade. And torture.
When was the last time you could feel any good? For me it would be before the age of
discretion, or when drunk.
Some Americans continue to believe that when they go to the internet they will get a free
flow of useful information that will guide them in making decisions or coming to conclusions
about the state of the world. That conceit might have been true to an extent twenty years ago,
but the growth and consolidation of corporate information management firms has instead limited
access to material that it does not approve of, thereby successfully shaping the political and
economic environment to conform with their own interests. Facebook, Google and other news and
social networking sites now all have advisory panels that are authorized to ban content and
limit access by members. This de facto censorship is particularly evident when using the
internet information "search" sites themselves, a "service" that is dominated by Google. Ron
Unz has observed how when the CEO of Google Sundar Pichai faced congressional scrutiny on July
29 th together with other high-tech executives, the questioning was hardly
rigorous and no one even asked how the sites are regulated to promote certain information
that is approved of while suppressing views or sources that are considered to be
undesirable.
The "information" sites generally get a free pass from government scrutiny because they are
useful to those who run the country from Washington and Wall Street. That the internet is a
national security issue was clearly demonstrated when the Barack Obama Administration sought to
develop a switch that could be used to "kill it" in the event of a national crisis. No
politician or corporate chief executive wants to get on the bad side of Big Tech and find his
or her name largely eliminated from online searches, or, alternatively, coming up all too
frequently with negative connotations.
Google, for example, ranks the information that it displays so it can favor certain points
of view and dismiss others. Generally speaking, progressive sites are favored and conservative
sites are relegated to the bottom of the search with the expectation that they will not be
visited. In late July,
investigative journalists noted that Google was apparently testing its technical ability to
blacklist conservative media on its search engine which processes more than 3.5 billion online
searches every day, comprising 94
percent of internet searching. Sites targeted and made to effectively disappear from
results included NewsBusters, the Washington Free Beacon, The Blaze, Townhall, The Daily Wire,
PragerU, LifeNews, Project Veritas, Judicial Watch, The Resurgent, Breitbart, Drudge, Unz, the
Media Research Center and CNSNews. All the sites affected are considered to be politically
conservative and no progressive or liberal sites were included.
One has to suspect that the tech companies like Google are working hand-in-hand with some
regulators within the Trump administration to "purge" the internet, primarily by removing
foreign competition both in hardware and software from countries like China. This will give the
ostensibly U.S. companies monopoly status and will also allow the government to have sufficient
leverage to control the message. If this process continues, the internet itself will become
nationally or regionally controlled and will inevitably cease to be a vehicle for free exchange
of views. Recent steps taken by the U.S. to block Huawei 5G technology and also force the sale
of sites like TikTok
have been explained as "national security" issues, but they are more likely designed to control
aspects of the internet.
Washington is also again beating the familiar drum that Russia is interfering in American
politics, with an eye on the upcoming election. Last week saw the released of
a 77 page report produced by the State Department's Global Engagement Center (GEC) on
Russian internet based news and opinion sources that allegedly are guilty of spreading
disinformation and propaganda on behalf of the Kremlin. It is entitled "Understanding Russia's
Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem" and has a lead paragraph asserting that "Russia's
disinformation and propaganda ecosystem is the collection of official, proxy, and unattributed
communication channels and platforms that Russia uses to create and amplify false
narratives."
Perhaps not surprisingly, The New York Times is hot on the trail of Russian
malfeasance, describing the report and its conclusions in a
lengthy article "State Dept. Traces Russian Disinformation Links" that appeared on August 5
th .
The government report identifies a number of online sites that it claims are actively
involved in the "disinformation" effort. The Times article focuses on one site in
particular, describing how "The report states that the Strategic Culture Foundation [website] is directed by Russia's
foreign intelligence service, the S.V.R., and stands as 'a prime example of longstanding
Russian tactics to conceal direct state involvement in disinformation and propaganda outlets.'
The organization publishes a wide variety of fringe voices and conspiracy theories in English,
while trying to obscure its Russian government sponsorship." It also quotes Lea Gabrielle, the
GEC Director, who explained that "The Kremlin bears direct responsibility for cultivating these
tactics and platforms as part of its approach of using information and disinformation as a
weapon."
As Russia has been falsely accused of supporting the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and
the existence of alternative news sites funded wholly or in part by a foreign government is not
ipso facto an act of war, it is interesting to note the "evidence" that The Times
provides based on its own investigation to suggest that Moscow is about to disrupt the upcoming
election. It is: "Absent from the report is any mention of how one of the writers for the
Strategic Culture Foundation weighed in this spring on a Democratic primary race in New York.
The writer, Michael Averko, published articles on the foundation's website and in a local
publication in Westchester County, N.Y., attacking Evelyn N. Farkas, a former Obama
administration official who was running for Congress. In recent weeks, the F.B.I. questioned
Mr. Averko about the Strategic Culture Foundation and its ties to Russia. While those attacks
did not have a decisive effect on the election, they showed Moscow's continuing efforts to
influence votes in the United States "
Excuse me, but someone writing for an alternative website with relatively low readership
criticizing a candidate for congress does not equate to the Kremlin's interfering in an
American election. Also, the claim that the Strategic Culture Foundation is a disinformation
mechanism is overwrought. Yes, the site is located in Moscow and it may have some government
support but it features numerous American and European contributors in addition to Russians. I
have been writing for the site for nearly three years and I know many of the other Americans
who also do so. We are generally speaking antiwar and often critical of U.S. foreign policy but
the contributors include conservatives like myself, libertarians and progressives and we write
on all kinds of subjects.
And here is the interesting part: not one of us has ever been told what to write. Not one of
us has ever even had a suggestion coming from Moscow on a good topic for an article. Not one of
us has ever had an article or headline changed or altered by an editor. Putting on my
ex-intelligence officer hat for a moment, that is no way to run an influencing or
disinformation operation intended to subvert an election. Sure, Russia has a point of view on
the upcoming election and its managed media outlets will reflect that bias but the sweeping
allegations are nonsense, particularly in an election that will include billions of dollars in
real disinformation coming from the Democratic and Republican parties.
Putting together what you no longer can find when you search the internet with government
attempts to suppress alternative news sites one has to conclude that we Americans are in the
middle of an information war. Who controls the narrative controls the people, or so it seems.
It is a dangerous development, particularly at a time when no one knows whom to trust and what
to believe. How it will play out between now and the November election is anyone's guess.
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 ishttps://councilforthenationalinterest.org,address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is[email protected] .
One has to suspect that the tech companies like Google are working hand-in-hand with
some regulators within the Trump administration to "purge" the internet
Direct quote from Donald Trump EXPOSED – Israel, Zionism
DJT: And we have kids that are watching the internet and they want to be masterminds.
And then you wonder why do we lose all these kids. They go over there. They're young and
they're impressionable. They go over there. They want to join ISIS. We're losing a lot of
people because of the internet. And we have to do something. We have to go see Bill Gates
and a lot of different people that really understand what's happening. We have to talk to
them maybe in certain areas closing that internet up in some way . Somebody will say
"oh, freedom of speech, freedom of speech" These are foolish people. We have a lot of
foolish people. We have a lot of foolish people. We've gotta maybe do something with the
internet , because they are recruiting by the thousands .
It's true. Knowledge of evidence based reality is a threat to US National Security.
Those who value US National Security are right to fear general access to evidence based
reality.
Their suggestion that Russia is the sole source of knowledge of evidence based reality,
though flattering to Russia, merely illustrates an entertaining cartoon mindset.
russia-gate etc. has been a criminal conspiracy from the beginning. who didn't know this?
the US is led by psychopaths, evil people. not ignorant, misguided, etc. evil! why are people
so reluctant to use that word?
business, media, government, education, military, etc. it doesn't matter. the top brass
are monsters.
if you want a picture of the future winston, imagine psychopaths commanding armies of
autists.
eventually what will happen is something like "the troubles". and this will not be stopped
by government action. there will have to be something like the good friday accords, a second
constituional convention, and partition.
There we go again! Mr Giraldi along with his friend Larry Romanoff, reframing the
narrative into China vs US, to deflect attention away from the Deep State common to both.
Actually, after only a quick review of some of the news reports, it appears that the
Senate Committee placed great importance on the "fact" that Russia was involved in the
"hacking" of emails from the DNC. This suggests that the Committee relied on the same
intelligence sources that fabricated the Russiagate scenario in the first place. I guess that
the Republicans on the Committee have not kept up with revelations that there is no evidence
of any such hacking. Hence, the Committee's conclusions are likely based on the same old
disinformation and can be readily dismissed.
Very telling that ZH editors don't consider this newsworthy: key findings of the
Republican led Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding Russia's 2016 election
interference.
Manafort and Kilimnik talked almost daily during the campaign. They communicated through
encrypted technologies set to automatically erase their correspondence; they spoke using code
words and shared access to an email account. It's worth pausing on these facts: The chairman
of the Trump campaign was in daily contact with a Russian agent, constantly sharing
confidential information with him.
It did not find evidence that the Ukrainian government meddled in the 2016 election, as
Trump alleged. "The Committee's efforts focused on investigating Russian interference in
the 2016 election. However, during the course of the investigation, the Committee
identified no reliable evidence that the Ukrainian government interfered in the 2016 U.S.
election."
"Taken as a whole, Manafort's high-level access and willingness to share information with
individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly
[Konstantin] Kilimnik and associates of Oleg Deripaska, represented a grave
counterintelligence threat," the report said.
Kilimnik "almost certainly helped arrange some of the first public messaging that
Ukraine had interfered in the U.S. election."
Roger Stone was in communications with both WikiLeaks and the Russian hacker Guccifer 2.0
during the election; according to the Mueller report, Guccifer 2.0 was a conduit set up by
Russian military intelligence to anonymously funnel stolen information to WikiLeaks.
The Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation found "significant evidence to suggest
that, in the summer of 2016, WikiLeaks was knowingly collaborating with Russian government
officials," the report said.
The FBI gave "unjustified credence" to the so-called Steele dossier, an explosive
collections of uncorroborated memos alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian
government officials, the report said. The FBI did not take the "necessary steps to validate
assumptions about Steele's credibility" before relying on the dossier to seek renewals of a
surveillance warrant targeting the former Trump campaign aide, the report said.
Demeter55 , 47 minutes ago
It's the latest in 5 years of "Get Trump!", a sitcom featuring the Roadrunner (Trump) and
the Wiley Coyote (Deep State/Never Trumpers / etc, etc.)
This classic scenario never fails to please those who realize that the roadrunner rules,
and the coyote invariably ends up destroyed.
Democrats are in bed with the deep state, take billions from the largest corporations, and
conduct the most undemocratic nominating process ever seen in the US, but thank god they are
not fascists!
Trezrek500 , 2 hours ago
It is amazing, Bezos becomes the richest guy in the world and the delivery of his packages
is subsidized by tax payers. The USPS should triple their rates to AMZN. Problem solved.
Are y'all sure that the DNC doesn't represent the more effective evil, being alligned with
big tech, our traitorous IC, warmongering military brass, political identitarians?
DNC last night really hit on those "resistance boomer erogenous zones." What a perfectly apt
description for the DNC's messaging. Still would infinitely rather have current POTUS. And it
looks like I will get my wish.
So Youtube(=Google) allows the Democrats free campaign publicity (through CNN) but not the
Republicans? Important in 2020 because Covid-19 limits conventions to virtual mainly.
There has never been a real choice in the American elections. Whatever one can say against
the DNC line-ups, one can say much more against the other side as well. Of course the whole
show, on both sides, is a cringfest. By the way have you heard that the couple pointing guns
at protesters are scheduled to speak at RNC? Now that is a true cringfest. Happy day to
everyone!
That must be Chinese interference. The US propaganda operation that is called intelligence
says China is backing sleepy Joe.
But don't worry, the Russians are backing Trump so they'll get him on youtube ... so as long
as the Iranians don't take youtube down so no one becomes pres.
That'd be a pain. Everyone standing around waiting for the Iranians to put youtube back on
so they could have an election.
"The United States its also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance,
they have two of them." - Julius Nyerere (1922-1999), President of Tanzania
It's true. Knowledge of evidence based reality is a threat to US National Security.
Those who value US National Security are right to fear general access to evidence based
reality.
Their suggestion that Russia is the sole source of knowledge of evidence based reality,
though flattering to Russia, merely illustrates an entertaining cartoon mindset.
CBC radio today had a sound bite from former Secretary of State Colin Powell, saying
something like "I grew up in the South Bronx and Joseph Biden grew up in Scranton, where his
parents gave him the same values."
So Powell is all in for Biden, not surprising since they are both members of the Democratic
Party.
Great picture too, I remember all too well the absolute absurdity of the stunts and media
events following the September 11, 2001 thing. People I know were there in downtown NYC,
unfortunately my friend and colleague was in one of the towers and did not make it out, leaving
her husband and two children behind.
The following years were only made tolerable by David Rees's comics as he lampooned, amongst
many other horrors, the dropping of aid packages, yellow, and cluster bombs, also yellow, on
Afghanistan. Here's a link to Get Your War On , his
compilation of those comics.
Those 2 years in New York and I suppose the rest of the world opened our eyes to the reality
of what the United States of America was capable of.
Powell with his vial of "anthrax" at the United Nations was but one example of the avalanche
of propaganda that ensued.
To keep this post short I'll simply state that the current mediated world did not create
itself.
Mass media throughout the western world are uncritically passing along a press release from
the US intelligence community, because that's what passes for journalism in a world where God
is dead and everything is stupid.
If wokeness is going to survive, the scourge of actors portraying characters that are in any
way different from themselves must end now.
I consider myself a devout crusader for the Church of Wokeness, a brave Knight of the Woke
Table if you will.
... The newest and most heinous of injustices that I unearthed occurred the other day, and
was so horrifying it literally left me shaking.
... The injustice of which I speak is that Netflix just announced that on its hit show
The Crown , Princess Diana – the most iconic of British Royals, will be played
by Elizabeth Debicki who is gasp Australian!
...
I wish there was a woke time machine so we could see who Octavia Spencer would cast instead
of Oscar-winner Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot and Oscar-nominee Leonardo DiCaprio
in What's Eating Gilbert Grape .
Those able-bodied bastards are acting abominations. Their crimes are almost as bad as
cis-gendered actors playing trans characters.
... Of course, even if an actor is the same race or ethnicity as a character, they aren't
safe from the righteous sword of wokeness. ... To avoid this woke backlash and the cancel
culture mob, white actresses Jenny Slate and Kristen Bell quit their roles voicing black
characters on cartoons.
... we could be one step closer to eradicating the art of acting and finally living in the
glorious utopia of talentlessness we woke are obviously so desperate to manifest.
Rudi Rat 48 minutes ago
What ... the new Diana actress is not black? That is pretty unwoke!
Smythe_Mogg 7 minutes ago
A very amusing piece. Of course, in many of the examples offered nobody but the 'woke' would
consider watching finished films based on 'trans' nonsense and militant lesbianism. Thus
'woke' speaks unto 'woke' and everyone else just gets on with life.
rnsglobal 1 hour ago
Writers like you who subscribe to the idea of "woke" are destroying our society. We don't
want or need opinions like yours that only serve to destroy careers, reputations, or the
normals of society. You are not doing the world a favor, rather you and your woke mobs are
trying to destroy history and re-write it the way you see fit instead of keeping our history
and learning from it. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
Vargus_A_MS rnsglobal 43 minutes ago
Do you understand sarcasm? Or is this sarcasm for sarcasm.
InnocentJekyll 1 hour ago
I am like seriously literally actually offended on behalf of all people of color and
minorities right now. #NotMyArticle
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has voiced his opposition to a proposed Russian rule that
would require labeling of propaganda content, saying it would burden "independent" information
work by outlets such as Voice of America.
far_cough 11 August, 2020
pompeo better learn the phrase, 'the chickens are coming home to roost'...
Larry C Johnson over at Pat Lang's SST has a current article up about the recent
scarcity of firearms and ammo in AmeriKKKan gun shops. The examples he cites are 9mm
handguns, but also the ammo for same which has quadrupled in price since early 2020 - if
you can find any.
Look at how many words -- including these -- it has generated. All, over something that in
the end, is irrelevant to any US citizen, since their vote does not count.
The show must go on. Keep entertaining yourselves with, he said, she said. Grand ole show
it is too, where everybody gets paid.
The show, the circus, is a running jobs program. Everybody gets paid. The talking heads on
the TV, get paid. Photographers, get paid. The bus drivers, get paid. The carpenters setting
up the podiums, get paid. The electricians, get paid. The political consultants, get
paid.
If something evil is happening somewhere in the world, rest assured the CIA is involved
somehow.
Xena fobe , 16 hours ago
If BLM and Antifa had an IQ above room temperature, they would be calling for defunding
the alphabet agencies. Never mind, the rest of the population will do it when the time is
right.
Lyman54 , 16 hours ago
The alphabet agencies are funding and controlling them.
George Soros had some tough words for Donald Trump, calling him "dangerous" and willing to
do "anything to stay in power." But what about the financier himself, who operates across the
globe outside of democratic due process?
The Coca-Cola Company has always been involved in espionage for the US military and the
State Department. [1]
Oddly, neither the Coca-Cola company website nor Google have any knowledge of this, and the
State Department had no one available to discuss this with me. Since at least the 1940s, when
the company established bottling plants in a new country, OSS or CIA spies were automatically
sent in as part of the staff. It wasn't even much of a secret: when the US Senate held their
famous Iran-Contra hearings in 1987, the link between the CIA and Coca-Cola was fully
exposed.
Clever! Thus the Americans harm their designated "adversaries" in two different ways at
once.
1. Systematic spying;
2. Poisoning with water saturated with more sugar than anyone would believe physically
possible; or, instead of sugar, with insidious chemical sweeteners that may play just as much
havoc with metabolism.
Kamala is the Finnish word for terrible. ' nuff said.
Sana4va 11 hours ago
I'm just trying to understand America's race categorizing. Her father is black; her mother is
of South Asian descent. what makes her more black than Asian. Her skin tone and hair are more
like Asians. Shouldn't she be classified as Asian? I'm all confused.
Maonao 15 hours ago
Wow! I thought we had neared the bottom with 2 old loonies. This should keep zion happy as
now both sides have running mates who support the occupation and the occupying administration
currently led by nuttyahoo.
The Army's new priority was to show off how woke they are, and to make new recruits feel
safe and happy as opposed to building a lethal, highly effective fighting force.
FISA court knew they were being lied to. They are nothing but a rubber stamp. Been that
way for years.
Roberts is a sick joke.
TheFQ , 4 hours ago
So Roger Stone was arrested by a massive number of federal agents for a process crime,
Paul Manafort was arrested, General Flynn found guilty...but this federal government and DOJ
can't get it's act together to indict the REAL CRIMINALS?
So sorry, Lindsey.
I think our Constitutional Republic is probably a goner.
Gotta admit, if you're going to have a Zionist stooge then you are better off having a
clumsy and transparent one.
Pliskin , 9 hours ago
You're all idiots!
Can't you see that this is just another multi-dimensional chess move to 'drain the swamp'
by filling the swamp with swamp creatures!
Genius move...pure 'stable' genius move!
Bokkenrijder , 10 hours ago
"No Difference Between John Bolton, Brian Hook Or Elliott Abrams": Iran FM
Trump: "I'll hire the best people and drain the swamp." 🙄
What Trump meant was: I'll hire neocons and war criminals and continue the US Empire and
funnel more money to the MIC.
Thank you Trumpturds!
Oldwood , 14 hours ago
The only thing provoking Trump is the unending criminal attacks to remove him.
Most people can deal with competition until it becomes obvious the the game is rigged.
Once rigging is accepted, most will still try to figure a way to work within those biased
rules even when it is apparent that they are designed to your disadvantage..
But when the rigging is not for simple advantage but for your elimination, your demise,
then you've got to get out.
Trump can't get out. Once he loses the protection of his office, they will do all in their
power to destroy him, his family and friends and ANYONE who openly supported him.
Keep that in mind, because there's lots of deplorables out there who have been very open
in his support.
Trump MUST win reelection to simply survive. He's cornered now and will be making lots of
compromises. But he may also get dirty...dirty like a Democrat.
And given our weak *** support, our hiding I fear while complaining of his failures, he
may just risk igniting the fires of hell that progressives have been threatening him
with.
Exciting times.
May we all survive to laugh about it. Many won't.
Element , 10 hours ago
"Pardoned by George H.W. Bush in 1992, Abrams was a pivotal figure in the foreign-policy
scandal that shook the Reagan administration, lying to Congress about his knowledge of the
plot to covertly sell weapons to the Khomeini government and use the proceeds to illegally
fund the right-wing Contras rebel group in Nicaragua ,"
NY Mag reviews.
This is warped bullcrap. Iran was at war with Iraq.
The real purpose of selling weapon shipments to Iran then were as an inducement for Iran
to free western hostages being held in Lebanon, during the whole of the 1980s by Iranian
backed "paramilitary groups".
The funds from those weapon sales were eventually used in other operations in central
America, but that is not why it was done.
Read Colonel Oliver North's account of what occurred, and why it was done.
BTW, the CONTRAS were engaging large numbers of hard-core communist death-squads in the
country at that time, who were supported by Castro in Havana and Moscow. It was absolutely
the right thing to do to fund a military action to find and eliminate those communist
death-squads who were murdering people all over the country, they particularly loved to
murder Catholic Priests and Nuns at the time, who dared to speak out against the
foreign-backed communist murder-squads, who were murdering local people in very large numbers
to force them all to shut up and not resist a communist take over. The same sorts of things
were occurring in El Salvador and Honduras.
It was these people who prevented all of central America falling to communist
mass-murderers.
Jkweb007 , 10 hours ago
Seriously you back your arguement by Olly North? No the fact is the Iran Contra ordeal
happened. First we enticed Saddam lol our ally to attack Iran then we back doored a deal so
the CIA could have thier little war with the Sandinista.
I loved the part that if this wasnt done Nicaragua would likely attack us you know like
Vietnam the domino thoery where the world would fall to the commis. The military Industrial
complex made bank, poor kids died all with the front keeping freedom. Right like that exists
in south american countries, good grief look at the Mexican drug cartel runs everything. I am
surprised we havent attacked Mexico but they arent commis.
If the dollar does not die soon who knows a war with China. The dollar printing just feeds
the war machine. If we were fiscal prudent we would not be waring the past 30 years. Every
fiat currency has been destroyed the same way, no one learns or is it greed?
Makes sense since Pompeo is such a brilliant strategist when it comes to Foreign Policy.
Pompeo is not just your everyday ordinary run of the mill Washingtonian genius. Nor is Pompeo
your typical off the rack Ivy League genius. Mike Pompeo is not merely an everyday CIA
brilliant wizard like the common folk wizards in the state security apparatus, intelligence
community, secret police community, inside the beltway think tanks industry, National
Security Council type.
Ms No , 6 hours ago
" Chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United
States , in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something . They know that
there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete,
so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation
of it. " - President Woodrow Wilson
NuYawkFrankie , 9 hours ago
There's a BIG difference between Bolton and Abrams: Bolton is just a fcking
imbecile...
Behind every narrative
unfriendly to US geopolitical aims is a Russian proxy typing madly away, according to the Global Engagement Center (GEC), the
State Department's "counter-propaganda" vehicle, which released a report to that effect on Wednesday titled
"Pillars
of Russia's Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem."
More than half of the
76-page paper consists of
"proxy site profiles"
– writeups of websites deemed to be
secretly (or not-so-secretly) operated by the Kremlin. While some are openly connected to the Russian government (New Eastern
Outlook, an official publication of the Russian Academy of Sciences), others – like Montreal-based Global Research – are not.
In the eyes of the GEC,
however, all
"serve no other purpose but to push pro-Kremlin content"
(which might
be news to the websites' operators). Most have previously appeared on lists of "Russian propaganda websites" such as the
sprawling blacklist published by PropOrNot – a
shady
outfit
linked to pro-war think tank, the Atlantic Council – in November 2016.
While the report is
supposedly dedicated to
"exposing Russia's tactics so that partner and allied
governments, civil society organizations, academia, the press, and the international public"
can arm themselves against
evil Kremlin propaganda, its focus on specific websites, their social media follower counts, and the amount of traffic they
get seems tailor-made for legitimizing government censorship. Any ideas which resemble the content of these particular
websites are to be squashed, sidelined, and suppressed, as are any other sites who publish writers associated with the "proxy
sites."
The
"ecosystem"
metaphor
is deployed to explain why some alleged Russian proxies occasionally come out with material opposing the Russian government
line – they're just
"muddying the waters of the information environment in order to
confuse those trying to discern the truth."
As for
"truth,"
the
report has an interesting interpretation of the concept. The claims that it deems to constitute
"disinformation"
include
the assertion that
"financial circles and governments are using the coronavirus to
achieve [their] own financial and political goals"
(are there
any
that
aren't?).
They also include claims
that
"EU bureaucrats and affiliated propaganda bodies are blaming Russia for the crisis
over the outbreak of coronavirus"
(who knew the
Financial
Times
was a Kremlin disinfo outlet too?)
Also included are claims
that
"George Soros' tentacles entangle politics and generate chaos around the world"
(if
the shoe
fits
).
The GEC report wouldn't be
a Russia scare-sheet if it didn't include a heavy dose of projection, and this one does not disappoint. The Kremlin's
"weaponization
of social media"
and
"cyber-enabled disinformation"
are deemed
"part
of its approach to using information as a weapon,"
while Moscow is accused of
"invest[ing]
massively in its propaganda channels, its intelligence services and its proxies to conduct malicious cyber activity to support
their disinformation efforts."
But the CIA and US
military intelligence have been engaging in pre-emptive cyber-warfare for two years with the full knowledge and consent of the
executive branch – a legitimization of
covert
activities
that previously ran on a don't-ask-don't-tell basis dating at least back to the development of the Stuxnet
virus that devastated Iran's nuclear sites over a decade ago.
US weaponization of social
media is so pervasive the US Army was recently
booted
off
streaming platform Twitch for relentlessly propagandizing teenage users. The Pentagon has been
spreading
pro-US
propaganda using hordes of "sock puppets" – fake social media accounts purporting to be real people – for upwards of a decade.
Indeed, the report hints at these very operations, praising the "thriving counter-disinformation community" that is "pushing
back" against those naughty Russians.
With social media
platforms jittery over the looming US election in November, the report appears designed to serve as a handy cheat-sheet as to
which opinions to censor to avoid a repeat of President Donald Trump's upset victory in 2016 – even though none of the listed
"proxies" could be considered pro-Trump by any stretch of the imagination. It also provides a portable reference for Americans
worried about committing thought-crime, though the complete lack of fanfare accompanying its publication – Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo mentioned it in passing during a press conference on Wednesday – would seem to suggest it is not meant for the hoi
polloi.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those
of RT.
"... Like George Carlin once said "political correctness is fascism disguised as politeness" ..."
"... "Almost nobody has any idea what they are talking about." That's the problem with this internet age giving every moron a voice. ..."
"... Social Justice Warriors = political correctness on steroids. ..."
"... "It starts off as a halfway decent idea and then it goes completely wrong" Sums up all this stupidity in the wake of the BLM protests. What started out as legitimate anger about the murder of an unarmed black man by a police officer has denigrated to people trying to cancel comedy shows from 20 years ago and bitching about "inappropriate language" and just ..."
"... Take any ethical position to its extreme and if it holds together it's good. - Kant. Liberalism taken to an extreme fails. Get a clue. ..."
"... I love how Cleese puts it. Fundamentalism does not just have to do with religion, or the far right. It is taking anything to an extreme. The same goes with political correctness. ..."
"... John Cleese outclasses Bill Maher by an absolutely massive margin ..."
"... Political correctness is another way of stating: " I want to make rules of tolerance that only apply to everyone else in society. But only don't apply to everyone on the same side as the group I'm with" ..."
"... Political correctness and Social Justice isn't about protecting minorities, or protecting the LGTBQ community etc, its about control and censoring through bullying. its about telling you how to think, and what you can say. Our Great Grandparents died to protect our right to think and speak freely, and to tell me how to think and speak, you are literally pissing on the graves of the people who died to protect that right, and THAT offends me. ..."
Cleese's huge laugh at the "religion of peace -- a piece of you here, a piece of you there" was wonderful -- he laughed so
hard -- almost as though he'd never heard that before -- and perhaps he hadn't -- but he sure seemed to enjoy it, as did I!
"Almost nobody has any idea what they are talking about." That's the problem with this internet age giving every moron a voice.
Used to be that you had to have some kind of intelligence or talent to get recognition.
"It starts off as a halfway decent idea and then it goes completely wrong" Sums up all this stupidity in the wake of the
BLM protests. What started out as legitimate anger about the murder of an unarmed black man by a police officer has denigrated
to people trying to cancel comedy shows from 20 years ago and bitching about "inappropriate language" and just
I love these guys, the whole "political correctness" is an absurd illusion. In my country we love to make jokes about western
countries and specifically our neighbors, but you will most certainly get arrested if you make joke about other nationalities,
origin or "that" religion.
For John Cleese Fans.. If you've never seen an old 80,s film of his called "Clockwise" Please check it out. Small budget film
By Handmade Fims which was in part George Harrison's company.. and very very funny FYI
"...Stupidity, I've heard you're against it "!!!!! "Australians are so well balanced, because they've a chip on each shoulder"!!!!!!
3:30 "religion of piece - there's a piece of
you over there, there's a piece of you over there, ..."!!!!
Understand the following like you have understood nothing else before: (Maher and Cleese obviously had not at the time of this
interview.)
'Political Correctness' is now a construct utilised almost exclusively to trivialise and dismiss anything that seeks
to redress injustice, unfairness and the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and privilege.
Whatever the issue it will be dismissed
as being only 'political correctness' and even common decency of courtesy are disparaged as 'political correctness gone mad' .
It has also become at the same time a 'weasel' term used by cowards and bullies to avoid having to openly state that the have
no care for the rights, concerns, feelings and well-being of others.
Look for how and by whom 'political correctness' is currently
used and you will see what Maher, Cleese and posters commenting on this clip hve not and be less likely to be misled and duped.
I love how Cleese puts it. Fundamentalism does not just have to do with religion, or the far right. It is taking anything to
an extreme. The same goes with political correctness.
"Political incorrectness... Could we just bitch about that?"... And here I sense feminist hysteria storm coming Bill Maher's
way. I definately prefer the British style. John Cleese was one of those people I looked up to and thought "I want to be like
him when I grow up".
John Cleese outclasses Bill Maher by an absolutely massive margin and Bill Maher is so full of himself he always thinks he's
the smartest, most important person on the show. Bill Maher is embarassing to watch.
Despite loving Mr. Cleese, I want to point out that when you joke about oppressed group it becomes part of oppression. That's
why joking about Mexicans in USA or Britain it is different than joking about Mexicans in Mexico by Mexicans. Context is everything
Cleese's logic here is irrefutable; and really shines a light on the incredible double standards that are prevalent in contemporary
society. It's rewarding to know; watching this when he speaks about Jesus that there are religious academics, and representatives
that see the wise satirical insight of; Life of Brian. If only we had a movie now that lampooned radical Isalm. Oh wait there
is; its called; Four Lions.
Political correctness is another way of stating: "I not only want my piece of the cake to eat for myself, but I also want the
whole cake to eat for myself too." Political correctness is another way of stating: " I want to make rules of tolerance that only
apply to everyone else in society. But only don't apply to everyone on the same side as the group I'm with"
Cleese is so spot-on about the madness of political correctness. Goebbels would have loved it, except this fascism is of the
left, in the heads of "open-minded" liberals (so-called.)
Political correctness and Social Justice isn't about protecting minorities, or protecting the LGTBQ community etc, its about
control and censoring through bullying. its about telling you how to think, and what you can say. Our Great Grandparents died
to protect our right to think and speak freely, and to tell me how to think and speak, you are literally pissing on the graves
of the people who died to protect that right, and THAT offends me.
So annoying watching bill maher. He's so arrogant and conceited. He's always cutting in awkwardly to say some middle-of-the-road
boring hum-drum to get an obligatory clap from his audience. Can't we just listen to the fantastic john cleese and not the wannabe
political spokes-person?
It seems to me thar racial tensions in particular or worse now than they Were before they shoved this whole political correctness
thing down our gullets. And that statement goes back to before the Minneapolis police killed a man for using a counterfeit $20
bill(being black). Forcing political correctness on people doesn't work. You're not changing peoples ideas you're just suppressing
them. When you suppress a persons ideas those ideas fester. When suppressed ideas fester they build up pressure and eventually
explode. Instead of telling people what they can't say or do, we need to re-educate our people to except those that are different.
Humor is a very good way of getting people to see how ignorant their ideas are.
''Political correctness'' is for people who have achieved nothing, done nothing, and ARE nothing. It is their way of pretending
to have power over REAL people. That's why celebrities and Hollywood actors love being PC so much.
Radicals have never had a sense of humor. They are unbalanced. "In jest, there is truth". --
Roman proverb. Radicals has problems with truth. Therefore, they don't like humor.
"... Monty Python was the pinnacle of contemporary comedy precisely because it drew attention to the absurdity of modern society and it pompous hypocrisy ..."
big female BLM supporter wearing a nappy mask that says "i can't breathe" on it
soccer mom says "well take the stupid mask off"
MartinG , 3 hours ago
How many Wokesters does it take to change a light bulb?
One to complain that the light bulb is white.
One to complain that the light is white.
One to blame boomers for wearing out the old bulb.
One who doesn't know how.
And one Wokester who says there must be change as he changes the bulb.
tardpill , 3 hours ago
the only one that can possibly change the bulb with it out being a racist privilege is not
available because they are too busy burning **** down
DaBard51 , 2 hours ago
You forgot:
--One who complains that there isn't enough diversity in light bulbs.
--One who says "Bulb Lives Matter!"
--One who complains that screwing the bulb is sexist.
--One who can't decide whether the bulb is DC or AC.
When nine hundred years old you become, look this good you will not.
<edit> whoever up-voted, my thanks. Shadow-banned, I am not, now, I see...
Roger Casement , 3 hours ago
They are the joke.
philipat , 2 hours ago
Yes, and that is why humor is so important, especially at the margin. Politicians,
especially Democrat politicians, don't like comedy because it draws attention to the
absurdity of most of what they do.
Monty Python was the pinnacle of contemporary comedy precisely because it drew attention
to the absurdity of modern society and it pompous hypocrisy. It gave me more laughs more
consistently than anything I have come across since. 'God speed John, you stay with what you
believe and ***k the humorless wokesters who need to get a life and lighten up for their own
sake and for that of all the rest of us!
45North1 , 2 hours ago
An Antifa member, a BLM'er and a Proud Boy go into a Bar.....
EvlTheCat , 2 hours ago
"Woke" in itself is a joke and a oxymoron, which if you know the definition makes it
ironic also. Touches all bases John.
@valleyshrew He never says that having enemies makes you an extremist. He said being an extremist gives you
justification to make enemies and to blame them for everything.
I can only imagine what lead Mark Twain to write this; undoubtedly one of his own opinions
he forbore from publishing from the need to preserve his own book sales:
"In our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech,
freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either."
"... The state of US domestic insecurity: citizens don't trust the enforcers of the power structure, but don't want to be thrown to the wolves, whether it's black or white. ..."
The Gallup
poll
,
released Wednesday, was conducted throughout July and involved over 36,000 adults across the US.
A whopping 81 percent of
black respondents said they want police to spend the same amount of time in their neighborhoods that they already do or to have
even more of a presence. The results are similar across races, with 88 percent of white Americans, 83 percent of Hispanic
Americans, and 72 percent of Asian-Americans all saying the same thing.
The poll also confirmed that
black Americans are more likely to see police presence in their communities, with 73 percent of respondents answering that they
notice cops in their neighborhoods
"sometimes"
or
"very
often."
That's compared to 65 percent of non-black respondents.
The state of US domestic insecurity: citizens don't trust the enforcers of the power structure, but don't want to be thrown to
the wolves, whether it's black or white.
Personally, i am voting for Incitatus in the presidential election. Incitatus was
supposedly appointed to the Roman Senate by the emperor Caligula. He was also a horse. How
about this for a slogan:
Usually it was the US foreign policy where the art of the deal was undistinguishable from the art of shakedown.
here BTL borrowed neocon method for internal market consumption.
He took to Facebook to accuse them of 'mafia tactics'
Neoconservatism is BLM with Jewish face.
"Mafica tactics" is how we conduct ourselves on the geopolitical stage.
Welcome to America.
BaNNeD oN THe RuN , 49 minutes ago
Exactly, this is just a "lite" version of Trump threatening to ban Tik-Tok, then
encouraging Microsoft to buy it for a reduced price. Or demanding that Germany pay more
tribute to their troops occupying the country for 70+ years.
Leading by example, or the Art of the Deal (shakedown).
Yes the stupidity of Daniel Heintz
is obvious. Neoliberal Dems use Antifa and BLM as tool acting as a ram, similar to Ukrainian oligarchs,
expecting no repercussion. But than Crimea and Donbass happened all at once.
Just change the name Maidan in CHAZ :-) CHAZ did not last that long, though. But Portland might be another story.
Notable quotes:
"... The physical layout of Maidan is both impressive and inspiring. Piles of sandbags, tires, household furniture and concrete paving blocks form the barricades that guard the entrances to the square. Inside are countless tents and makeshift shelters which people have occupied for nearly four months now. ..."
Suspecting that neither Ukrainians nor people elsewhere were being given an accurate portrayal of what has been going on in Kyiv,
I felt I had no choice but to travel there and offer an honest portrait of Maidan as I saw it.
The physical layout of Maidan is both impressive and inspiring. Piles of sandbags, tires, household furniture and concrete paving
blocks form the barricades that guard the entrances to the square. Inside are countless tents and makeshift shelters which people
have occupied for nearly four months now. Graffiti, fliers and stickers, written in Ukrainian, Russian and English, cover any vacant
space on walls; dozens of Ukrainian flags flap in the wind And there's no way you can miss the flowers.
Piles upon piles of flowers, spread all over Maidan, commemorate those who lost their lives there. Scattered among the flowers
you can find photographs of Maidan's lost 'Heavenly Hundred', with a constant flow of family members, friends and fellow countrymen
quietly mourning nearby.
To all professional athletes, black and white, here is an important announcement -- the
"white" Americans who bought tickets to watch you play and plunked down thousand for sports
merchandise in the past are fed up.
If you think these pampered millionaires have struck a nerve by proclaiming to the world
that they are victims of a ruthless capitalist system of oppression that did nothing to help
them get where they are and that everyone who came before was an evil racist supremecist you're
probably on to something.
"... They're making fools of themselves. First they were blaming China for everything, now it's blame Russia time again. Maybe The UK should look in the mirror, that way they'll see the one who is responsible for all its problems. ..."
"... ...but it's good that he's able to ask a question without the threat of being pushed out of a 5th floor window ..."
They're
making fools of themselves. First they were blaming China for everything, now it's blame
Russia time again. Maybe The UK should look in the mirror, that way they'll see the one who
is responsible for all its problems.
Trump DID commit obstruction of justice... he refused to force HIS Dept of Justice to indict Hillary, Comey, Brennan and Clapper
for their obvious major felonies.
"Adding to these challenges, democracy in Latin America has also lost a champion in the
United States, which had played an important role in promoting democracy after the end of
the Cold War by financing good governance programs and calling out authoritarian abuses.
Contrary to claims by the media and the ego maniac Dr. Fauci about a tidal wave of Covid
infections, I have first hand, albeit anecdotal evidence, that there is a lot of bullshit
surrounding reports of people who have "tested" positive for Covid.
The dems have added so much Marxism to their platform and general beliefs, that they are blind to the direction they are
taking us. I see a civil insurrection in our future. It's getting that bad.
"Never use the word "whore" to refer to a sex worker; they earn an honest and respectable
living and they shouldn't be demeaned for it. That word should only ever be used for members
of the mainstream news media." - Caitlin Johnstone
You make all kinds of recommendations. You make comments on dating,
on baseball and everything you could imagine. "
Trump, who appeared to be watching the proceedings, weighed against his Democratic critics
on Twitter: "Our massive testing capability, rather than being praised, is used by the
Lamestream Media and their partner, the Do Nothing Radical Left Democrats, as a point of scorn.
This testing, and what we have so quickly done, is used as a Fake News weapon. Sad!"
A top Democratic lawmaker said Friday that it was more important to have a Black woman on
the U.S. Supreme Court than as a running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee
Joe Biden.
"The V.P. is good on style, but, on substance, give me an African American woman on the
Supreme Court," House Majority Whip James Clyburn said during a segment on PBS News
Hour . "That's where we determine how our democracy will be preserved."
... "I long for an African American woman to sit on the United States Supreme Court," he
said. "It's a shame that we have had three women to sit on the United States Supreme Court, and
no one has ever given the kind of consideration that is due to an African American woman."
Indeed, the media's commitment to tempering their descriptions of violent riots sweeping the
nation as "mostly peaceful" is relentless – that particular phrase has become
a media cliché practically overnight . Of course, America's police officers could
also be accurately described as "mostly peaceful," but any journalist who dared to give cops
the same generous benefit of the doubt would likely cause a riot in their own newsroom.
The US MSM is a giant propaganda machine used by the elites to control major narratives in
the heads of the public. They have learned the lesson well from the British and US Empires:
divide and conquer – keep the people in fear and hatred fighting with each other so the
elites can continue to acquire more power and money and wars while they drop crumbs to the
people.
The elites have bought off everything in the US – that is the gift of turbo charged
capitalist neoliberal economics which went on a privatization tear after the end of Cold War
v1.
They made millions on the outsourcing of jobs and industry to Asia but now that the
pickings are getting slim and China is going its own way they are running demonization
narratives on China to march the American people into another Cold War while they make more
millions (since they are still the insiders pushing the buttons).
And most Americans are just childlike and ignorant enough to march along blaming China for
their jobs going overseas. This will go on until US elites have turned America into a dried
out husk.
Rearranging chairs of Democratic Titanic or old wine in a new bottle... I wonder how the
organization "Well versed in de-escalation skills and mental health support" will deal with an
armed bank robber?
The Seattle City Council advanced legislation on Friday which would replace the 'racist
institution of policing' with a civilian-led activities and organizations under a new
'Department of Community Safety & Violence Prevention.'
The bill justifies the move by pointing to the prevalence of 'white supremacy culture' and
the Seattle PD's role in 'perpetuating racism and violence.'
"WHEREAS, the Council is committed to confronting the structural and institutional racism
as a fundamental step towards addressing the racist institution of policing ,"
" Whereas, these protests forced many nationwide and in Seattle to confront the racism
that has been plaguing the Black community for centuries and spread to other communities of
color, the harmful impacts of white supremacy culture , and the Seattle Police Department's
(SPD) role in perpetuating racism and violence. "
The organizations replacing the SPD will need to demonstrate several characteristics,
including:
Culturally-relevant expertise rooted in community connections
Well versed in de-escalation skills and mental health support
Rampant state propaganda, troops pulling out from Afghanistan and Germany, tanking economy and geriatric
leaders. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery lolz
sndiousdfiohgs 2 hours ago
Interesting comparison to Brezhnev. Perhaps the American empire will go through a similar decline to the
soviet one. A "stagnation" period of gerontocracy with very old fools like Trump and Biden in charge before it falls apart, maybe after
a last gasp with a charasmatic Gorbachev trying to keep it together but destroying it accidentally instead.
ninaaaaa 58 minutes ago
He is not the first one that doesn't know where he is. Should not forget Bush who seemed to be totally intellectually
retarded. Or should we forget sexual ma...c who couldn't stop laughing or the one who didn't sleep at night. And yes Reagan who went
to meet with the Pope, both of them totally mentally gone, sleeping at the meeting.
CrabCoon 1 hour ago
He is the best America has to offer.
bobRT 3 hours ago
Brezhnev slurred because he had nerve damage in his cheek from being hit by shrapnel. It got worse as he got older...
westernman 5 hours ago
You know, i think a half functioning malleable idiot is a far preferred choice over a fully functioning psychopath
allan Kaplan 3 hours ago
No price is big enough for the ordinary Americans to pay for the Deep State and its network of criminals
Pelosi upbraids counterintel chief in private briefing over Russian meddling
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top House Democrats admonished the country's top
counterintelligence official during a classified election security briefing Friday, accusing
him of keeping Americans in the dark about the details of Russia's continued interference in
the 2020 campaign. Pelosi hinted at the conflict upon emerging from the briefing Friday
morning, saying she thought the administration was "withholding" evidence of foreign election
meddling.
Yeah, all this put many other things in perspective. It may turn out that Trump is the
most decent US president of last 30 years. Who would've thought...
theory , 12 hours ago
AND........
Who was running the FBI at the time........???????
Good old Bob Mueller.......!!!!!!!!!!!!
El Chapo Read , 11 hours ago
That was "out of his purview"
MongoStraight , 12 hours ago
It's hard to believe that Marvin Minsky would have to pay for it.
Tucker Carlson described former President Obama as "one of the sleaziest and most dishonest
figures in the history of American politics" after his eulogy at the funeral of civil rights
icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) on Thursday.
Carlson, who also described the former president as "a greasy politician" for calling on
Congress to pass a new Voting Rights Act and to eliminate the filibuster, which Obama described
as a relic of the Jim Crow era that disenfranchised Black Americans, in order to do so.
"Barack Obama, one of the sleaziest and most dishonest figures in the history of American
politics, used George Floyd's death at a funeral to attack the police," Carlson said before
showing a segment of Obama's remarks.
Just when we thought the woke PC madness of 2020 couldn't get anymore absurd, a local
incident out of Michigan is so astoundingly stupid that even the AP reported on it with a tone
that aptly captures the inanity :
Owners of a Michigan bed and breakfast have removed a Norwegian flag outside of their
business after being accused of promoting racism from people who think that it is a
Confederate flag .
Kjersten and Greg Offenecker, owners of The Nordic Pineapple, hung the flag opposite of
the American flag after they moved into the Civil War-era mansion in 2018, the
Lansing State Journal reported. They took both flags down last week.
Vitam Regit Fortuna, Non Sapientia
Fortune rules the world, not Wisdom
Cicero
Caeca dea est rerum rectrix; Fortuna vocatur:
Non minus at caeci, quos dea caeca regit.
A blind goddess rules the world, called Fortune.
But they are no less blind whom the blind goddess rules.
Owen
Its difficult for me to speak objectively because I haven't read a newspaper in reliably
for about 40 years and even then I got very tired on news reporting always being biased to
the left and sensationalizing the news which was right around the time when real objective
investigatory news ended and commentator based news as well as entertainment news started to
take over.
THE HEAVENS -- Admonishing His flock for concerning themselves with human affairs beyond the
ballpark, God, Our Heavenly Father and the Creator of the Universe, reminded angels Wednesday
that helping struggling baseball teams was their number-one priority. "If I don't see you
giving a lackluster batter the strength to hit a home run, I'm shipping your ass out," said the
Lord Our Savior, clarifying that MLB players experiencing family strife, which could be solved
with a World Series win, should receive priority status. "I understand some of you are new here
and want to help poor and sick people, but you need to understand that we focus on scrappy ball
clubs. That's the point of religion. Sure, every now and then I'll grant a dying child's wish,
but that's for Me to worry about. You should spend most of your day distracting elite baseball
teams, so tenacious underdogs can score off errors." At press time, God banished six angels
from His heavenly kingdom for gambling on the Yankees.
STANFORD, CA -- In a survey of how the nation's local officials have responded to the
pandemic in the absence of a consistent federal approach, Stanford University researchers
confirmed Monday that more cities have begun offering drive-thru Covid-19 injection sites to
put citizens out of their misery. "By injecting people with SARS-CoV-2, these pop-up locations
provide an effective way to escape the endless anguish, gloom, and isolation this virus has
inflicted upon us -- and all from the convenience of one's car," said report co-author Sara
Pappas, explaining that a certain percentage of those receiving the injection inevitably die,
but whether through death or immunity, all those infected receive sweet release from an
untenable situation they just can't take anymore. "Individuals who have experienced feelings of
hopelessness or despair in recent months may wish to seek out one of these drive-up facilities.
Restaurant and service workers who interact with the public on a regular basis can generally
receive their injections for free, and those with health insurance are covered as well, with
most insurers paying the full cost of the injection and up to 10% of any subsequent
hospitalizations." Pappas went on to state that if only 80 to 90% of Americans would visit
these Covid-19 injection sites, the pandemic would be over in weeks.
Actually the fact that Ford foundation and Soros Open Society finance this cult makes the
picture below much less funny.
The picture also say something about the myth of high IQ of Asian students. Or, more
correctly, that high IQ persons can be a obscure cult members too. This girl probably understand
that at the foundation of inequalities of blacks in moden society lies neoliberalism, and
outsourcing of jobs which deprive many black so menaningful way to earn their living.
Feelings don't care about facts. The mass hysteria that's gripped
the Western world after the death of George Floyd can't be explained in rational terms
... the facts are almost irrelevant. We're dealing with faith , religious ecstasy.
We're in the midst of BLMania.
Collective frenzies aren't new. Almost every American knows about the Salem witch trials,
during which Christians claimed they saw demons and devils.
Ann Coulter analyzed mobs in her 2011 book Demonic . She heavily cited Gustave Le
Bon's famous 1895 book The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind . Miss Coulter said a mob
is "an irrational, childlike, often violent organism that derives its energy from the group"
and is "intoxicated by messianic goals."
What can we call this death-cult? Some leftists, including Ignatiev, called for "abolishing"
the white race.
The creed's violence, militancy, and destructiveness lead me to call it
Eradicationism. Like some Christian sects, whites who embrace it want collectively to abandon
the world, if not through suicide then by failing to reproduce. Instead of making the world
better "for ourselves and our posterity," they will expunge their blood guilt by ending their
line. White Saviors share a curious mix of self-hatred and self-exaltation, something we see
when white protesters post themselves indulging in BLMania online.
Worse, because this creed is impervious to truth, it must always seek new scapegoats (or
devils) for egalitarianism's continuing failure. Despite the constant funding, programs, and
repression, equality never arrives.
Black Lives Matter is more sacred than the American flag or Christ.
Federal agents , police , military ,
athletes , politicians , and many others
all genuflect before BLM. Many would never bow before God. This new, powerful faith even has a
liturgical
calendar and a hymn built on a sacred myth.
This is the thinking of a fanatic religious sect, like the one Jim Jones
led . "We were too good for this world," Jones said before the infamous mass suicide.
This ends in denying truth itself. Claire Lehmann found a slide at an education
conference in Washington that said that "if you conclude that outcomes differences [sic] by
demographic subgroup are a result of anything other than a broken system, that is, by
definition, bigotry." Actually, bigotry is "obstinate or intolerant
devotion to one's own opinions and prejudices." We've now come full circle, and define bigotry
as not being bound by opinions and prejudices.
In the next US presidential election, we are going to have a choice between a
psychologically immature moron and a senile moron. If that is Putin's fault, he should be
faulted for solar eclipses.
3.0 out of 5 stars
It's
Not Awful, But Not Great Either
Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2020
Verified Purchase
I went for the Kindle edition.. because of the large credit back to purchase other kindle
books. So I was only out of pocket a few buck to directly read for myself what Bolton has penned here.
1) Bolton is going to need prolonged physical therapy for the damage done to his arm with so much self-serving patting of his own
back. Seriously... he devalues his entire effort with this sort of narcissistic bent.
2) There is not that much new in the book, that is not already publicly known through real journalists reporting on the Trump
administration. I think some folks were gleeful to see a warhawk republican turn on Trump... but honestly.... nothing impacts
what Trump does.. so this is largely fantasy wishes by anti-Trumpers. Note: I am an anti-Trumper.
3) If you want to read the sorted snippets of "rumors" from within the white house.... this book will provide entertainment....
but again.. nothing much new. And we already have numerous books and real journalist coverage of all of this already.
4) I guess it is possible that some journalist will find some new clue to pursue in reading this book... but time will tell on
that.
5) you do get a much clearer view of Bolton's ideology and world view in this book.. and that is because that is really what
Bolton is focused on...... pushing Bolton ideology and world view in foreign policy.
6) while I rarely agree with Bolton's viewpoint on anything... at least he is honest and transparent about his viewpoints...
AND.. unlike Trump... consistent.
3 months from now.. nobody will be talking about or reading this book. So.. this is yet another flash in the pan of "inside dirt"
on Trump. Bolton will keep his big fat advance, and book royalties, but he will also have Trump hounding him in court for
years... demanding every single dime earned be taken away and given to Trump as some sort of "reparations"... and that will be
the most interesting outcome from this book... Trump V Bolton in court.
What do you call 435 lawyers and/or Congress critters on the bottom of the ocean floor? A
good start. nadler can't win the party against Barr. If this were chess Barr is a grossmeister
and Wander is a wanna-be.
One big gotcha show, offending everyone's sense of fair play. Appalling, but will play very
differently on both sides of the fence.
Democrats forget how many were totally disgusted by the media's relentless gotcha shows in
2016. So watching all the Democrat congress people engage in the exact same sh*t show for three
hours was disgusting.
Thank goodness for both Barr and Jordan not losing their cool. Favorite line was Barr
claiming they could have held the hearing without him, when one complained how long they had
waited to "ask" him questions.
Nadler looks like an arrogant narcissist of Schiff vintage. Remember politicians were the
same obnoxious kids in high school who never got over the thrill of being class secretary.
The lack of decorum create a very strong impression of a accomplished conversion to the banana republic. From comment
"Congressional porch apes flinging their feces during the Barr “hearing”.
Notable quotes:
"... Democrats don't have a shred of decency to run on in 2020. ..."
Anyone who missed watching the full hearing, you can now get the flavor of the entire
three hours in only these two minutes of takeout clips. I can only wonder what Nancy Pelosi
really thought - not what she will say - but she is a savvy pol - what she really thought.
Between the Biden-Harris ticket and the disgusting clown show today, Democrats don't have a
shred of decency to run on in 2020.
A petition to relieve US Ambassador to Iceland Jeffrey Ross Gunter of his duties has been
placed on the White House site.
In the petition, Gunter is accused of "misrepresenting" the people of the US in Iceland,
as well as mismanaging consular services and offending Iceland, an "invaluable US
ally".
One of the reasons for their discontent is that Gunter, despite being assigned to a
country that has consistently ranked as the most peaceful in the world, wanted the State
Department to obtain a special permission to carry a gun. CBS described Gunter as
"paranoid" about his security since coming to the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik and
reported that he also sought door-to-door armoured car service, as well as a stab-proof
vest. At the same time, the US Embassy in Iceland placed a job listing in Icelandic
newspapers looking for local bodyguards in what US government officials described as a bid
to "placate Gunter's irrational concerns".
Those annoying provincials. They don't know civilization...
The Chinese Communist Party wants a tributary international system where smaller countries
are deferential to larger powers, instead of a rules-based international order where
small countries enjoy equal rights.
Joe Biden's alternate reality: "I know a fair amount about American foreign policy." Reality
Check from Robert Gates, Obama/Biden's former defense secretary: Biden has "been wrong on
nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."
BTW t he US death rate per capita is below that of Belgium, the UK, Spain, Italy, Sweden,
Peru (which is surprising), Chile (another surprise), and France.
I remember signs on businesses that said "No shirts, no shoes: no service". I don't recall
morons screaming at underpaid clerks about their constitutional right not to wear a shirt or
shoes.
Population density has at least something to do with it. Big cities are the hardest hit, as
would be expected and they shoud insist of people wearnign masks in closed spaces. No
exception. .
I fail to see your problem with masks. My grandfather wore a gas mask on the front
during World War 1. I wear a mask, indeed a N99 mask, when sawing concrete or doing fine
wood sanding. When I was in the chemical process industry, some stations had Oxygen
rebreathers to deal with the hazards in case of accidents. Medical staff have always worn
respirators around patients with airborne diseases, as have researchers handling such
agents. Covid-19, Tuberculosis, and late stage plague are all airborne. Wearing a mask when
in a situation when you are potentially exposed is common sense.
So wearing my N99 mask when I go shopping is a trivial additional step. I actually wear
nitrile gloves as well - I had them for dealing with paints and solvents.
Now I have had to give up eating out and going to my professional society meetings. I am
not happy about that, but I am not willfully stupid. I am approaching 70...
People's old ways of understanding what's going on in the world just aren't holding together
anymore.
Trust in the mass media is at an all-time low, and it's only getting lower.
People are more aware than ever that anything they see can be propaganda or
disinformation.
Deepfake technology will soon be so advanced and so accessible that nobody will even trust
video anymore.
The leader of the most powerful country on earth speaks in a way that has no real
relationship with facts or reality in any way, and people have just learned to roll with
it.
Ordinary people are hurting financially but Wall Street is booming, a glaring plot hole in
the story of the economy that's only getting more pronounced.
The entire media class will now spend years leading the public on a wild goose chase for
Russian collusion and then act like it's no big deal when the whole thing turned out to be
completely baseless.
... ... ...
New Cold War escalations between the U.S.-centralized empire and the unabsorbed governments
of China and Russia are going to cause the media airwaves around the planet to become saturated
in ever-intensifying propaganda narratives which favor one side or the other and have no
interest in honestly telling people the truth about what's going on.
It's difficult to understand what's going on in the world because powerful people actively
manipulate public understanding of what's going on in the world.
Powerful people actively manipulate public understanding of what's going on in the world
because if the public understood what's going on in the world, they would rise up and use their
strength of numbers to overthrow the powerful.
The public would rise up and use their strength of numbers to overthrow the powerful if they
understood what's going on in their world because then they would understand that the powerful
have been exploiting, oppressing, robbing, cheating and deceiving them while destroying the
ecosystem, stockpiling weapons of Armageddon and waging endless wars, for no other reason than
so that they can maintain and expand their power.
The public do not rise up and use their strength of numbers to overthrow the powerful
because they have been successfully manipulated into not wanting to.
In a perfect example of the disconnect between Ivory tower Democrats and reality, Rep. Jerry
Nadler (D-NY) gave a shocking answer when writer-producer Austen Fletcher asked him if he would
disavow Antifa violence in cities like Portland.
After a brief pause, Nadler said it was a "myth that's being spread only in Washington
D.C."
To which Fleccas replies: "Sir, there's videos everywhere online. There's fires and riots
and they're throwing fireworks at federal officers. DHS is there. Look online."
If you're looking for peak idiocy from academic institutions who are falling all over
themselves to kowtow to the mob's notions of "social justice," look no further.
The English Department at Rutgers University has declared that proper use of grammar is a
hidden form of racism because it disadvantages students of "multilingual, non-standard
'academic' English backgrounds."
JoePorkChop , 19 minutes ago
This complements nicely the goal to dumb down all students attending university. Why try
and build up those so called disadvantaged when you can bring everyone else down to their
level... Brilliant.
zipit , 19 minutes ago
Ebonics, yo.
Ajax_USB_Port_Repair_Service_ , 19 minutes ago
The University of Wisconsin didn't like my English at all. My English professor told my I
was flunking her class after I submitted my first assignment. I think I could really fit in
at the Rutgers English Department.
"Looking at Biden vs Trump almost makes me long for the days of the 2016 election –
almost. As I have written, Trump is out of his depth dealing with these crises, and the
generals who could have helped him are long gone – and gone on bad terms, at that. Biden
is so visibly senile the only question is whether he drops out as soon as his VP is announced
(who then moves into the lead slot & picks her own VP), or is propped up through the
election like Brezhnev in his final year.
"Trump it seems has boxed himself into a corner. This situation needed decisive, tough
action up front, and that didn't happen. Now we have simmering violence & renewed lockdowns
to keep the pot boiling. We simply may not make it to November without a three (or four?)
– sided civil war – I would hate to make book on it either way, the right spark and
the whole thing blows up. But if we get to the election, what then? If Trump wins, the
DNC-Antifa-BLM "Axis of REAL Evil" which is fueling these crises (aided by the MSM, of course)
will shriek 'foul!' and the cities burn again, at which point old guys like me & my veteran
neighbors & younger versions of us pick up our AR-15s and fight it. If Trump loses, the
same thing happens between November & January. We are, my old friend (well, younger friend
.!) heading between political versions of Scylla & Charybdis with broken rudders. Barring a
miracle (and I hope SO much I am wrong!), this will make the 1861-65 war seem like a walk in
the park."
The good , a 5 minute segment where a guest picked winner / loser countries post
covid19 world.
Winners: Germany, Taiwan, and Russia, Loser: United States.
It was amusing to watch Zakaria's face contort at the mention of Russia being named a winner,
'wha-whaaaaaaat?' The guest had to reassure Zakaria that Russia is a crap country and only
benefits because of Putin's Fortress Russia campaign and low debt making it capable of
weathering storms. Zakaria's face still frozen in a mask of horror.
The bad a rather long segment on Russia, China, and Iran's meddling campaign for
our next election. This was more painful to me then when I had appendicitis and had to wait
several hours before anyone could drive me to the emergency room.
1. Two experts, a China hater and a Russia hater from different 'Institutes'
2. The gratuitous adding of Iran to the list without explanation. Pro-Iranian views are
invisible.
3. Russian hatefest was over the top. It was a classic case of accusing Russia of what we
do. Russia (aka United States) nihilistically creates trouble and by amplifying discord in
other countries in order to deflect from their own domestic problems and foreign adventurism
in places like Syria and Ukraine.
Nihilistic spoilers? We the U.S. lost in Syria but are now trying to create a quagmire for
Russia and are pulling out all of the stops to make Syrians brutally suffer with a full scale
trade embargo and partition of their country.
By Graham Dockery, Irish journalist, commentator, and writer at RT. Previously based in
Amsterdam, he wrote for DutchNews and a scatter of local and national newspapers.
Dark, incisive, and anti-authoritarian, George Carlin was a rebel until death. Now the woke
left have claimed him as their own, a figurehead in their anti-Trump crusade. But George's
legacy isn't one of feelgood social justice.
"They call it the American dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it,"
Carlin sneered in a famous 2005 monologue. In a devastating broadside against politicians, the
media, corporate interests, and the "dumb ass motherf**kers" who remain ignorant to the
"big red white and blue d**k jammed up their a**holes everyday," Carlin takes no
prisoners, and the crowd delights in his shredding of the status quo.
Now, a group of activists based in Portland have repackaged the famous monologue, putting it
alongside video clips of President Donald Trump's America: race riots, coronavirus deaths, and
of course, Trump shaking hands with Vladimir Putin. "#AmericaWakeUp," reads a caption at
the end of the clip.
Released on Sunday, the video was cheered by the anti-Trump brigade. "This video is
completely devastating for Trump," one activist wrote . "George Carlin
gives him the finger from the grave." More commenters shared the video, encouraging their followers
to vote Democrat in November.
However, Carlin's hatred for politicians and the elite was not just limited to the
Republican Party. Throughout his career, Carlin ripped on the "criminal" administration
of Ronald Reagan, both Bushes' fondness for "bombing brown people," and Bill Clinton,
who he said "might be full of shit, but at least he lets you know it."
The "big club" Carlin talked about in the latest video included Democrat and
Republican lawmakers, and Carlin didn't shy away from skewering both.
Furthermore, Carlin's best and most loved routines were written and performed when the right
held more cultural sway in the US. From Nancy Reagan's moralizing to the media-enforced
patriotism of the post-9/11 years, Carlin could count on the right as a reliable target. Times
have changed though, and the left holds far more power now than it did two decades ago.
Conservatives are regularly 'deplatformed' on college campuses, politically incorrect speech
can jeopardize one's career, and the consensus enforced by the mainstream media is
overwhelmingly a liberal one, no matter how many clips of Fox News' Tucker Carlson the Portland
activists can splice into their video.
"Political correctness is America's newest form of intolerance," Carlin wrote in
2004, adding "political correctness is just fascism pretending to be manners." In an
autobiography published a year after his death in 2008, he was even more explicit.
"The habits of liberals, their automatic language, their knee-jerk responses to certain
issues, deserved the epithets the right wing stuck them with," he wrote. "Here they
were, banding together in packs, so I could predict what they were going to say about some
event or conflict and it wasn't even out of their mouths yet Liberal orthodoxy was as repugnant
to me as conservative orthodoxy."
Carlin is unfortunately not alive to offer his opinion on the times we live in. However,
it's not difficult to imagine him scoffing at the media's non-stop 'Russiagate' hysteria , just as
he scoffed at the media's coverage of the Gulf War in the 1990s, accusing the press of working
as an "unofficial public relations agency for the United States government." It's also
easy to picture him tuning out of the 'Orange Man Bad' liberal consensus on Trump, even if he
would probably savage his policies and personality.
That's assuming he would even have a stage in the first place. After all, Carlin delighted
in provoking the would-be speech police, with his 1970s '7 Dirty Words' routine aimed explicitly at angering the
censors. An updated version of this routine could well see him canceled by the woke
torchbearers of the social justice movement.
Closing consulates is far from the best foreign policy and fat Pompeo known it. It just
starts the unnecessary and counter productive spiral of retaliation and Chinese have more
leverage over the USA as more the USA diplomatic personnel woks in China than the china
diplomatic personnel in the USA. They were always burned in Russia and now they stepped on the
same rake again.
Maybe fat Pompeo knows he's on his way out and desperate to make a lasting mark on the
geopolitical stage on behalf of the West Point mafia and his brothers-in-arm at the Jweish
mafia.
QABubba , 8 hours ago
Quit stealing Russian consulates, Chinese consulates, etc.
It serves no purpose.
Haboob , 7 hours ago
Closing diplomacy with nations as USA shrinks on the world stage shows America's juvenile
behavior.
Salisarsims , 7 hours ago
We are a young twenty something nation what do you expect but drama.
Haboob , 7 hours ago
It is funny how the young and arrogant always think they are right and have manifest
destiny over the old and wise. The young never listen to the old and as the story goes they
are defeated everytime. China is older than America, older than the west, they understand
this world we are living in far more than we do.
me or you , 9 hours ago
He is right!
The world has witnessed the US is not more than a banana Republic with a banana healthcare
system
To Hell In A Handbasket , 9 hours ago
I love seeing how gullible the USSA dunces are susceptible to hating an imaginary enemy.
Go on dunces wave the star spangled banner, and place the hand over the heart, you
non-critical thinking imbeciles. I told you fools years ago we are going to invoke the Yellow
Peril 2.0, and now we are living it. China bad, is just as stupid as Russia bad, while the
state stenographers at the MSM netowrks do all in their power to hide our rotten
behaviour.
Who falls for this ****? The poorly educated, and the inherently stupid.
To Hell In A Handbasket , 8 hours ago
No, it's called nationalism or self preservation.
What are the citizens of the US suppose to do,
You are wrong on so many levels, but ultimately the Chinese have beaten us at our own
rigged game. When I was riling against unfettered free-markets, and the movement of capital,
that allowed the west for centuries to move into undeveloped foreign markets and gain a
stranglehold, I was called a communist, and a protectionist.
While the USSA money printing b@stards was roaming around the planet like imperialists,
and their companies was not only raping the planet, but gouging foreign markets, the average
USSA dunce was brainwashed into believing USSA companies were the best.
Now these same market and economic rules we the west have set for the last several hundred
years no longer work for us, we want to change the rules. Again, my point is "where was you
on this position 5-10-20-30 years ago?" I've always seen this outcome, because logic said so.
To reject our own status quo, and return to mercantilism, makes us look like the biggest
hypocrites ever.
If you allow a foreigner to give advice (although I should mind my own business) this is
one proposal to save America. President Trump goes to the Republican Convention and says: "I
admit that I am problematic, we all know that it is unfair, but we had four years of lies and
derangement, and it was not my fault, but anyway I don't accept the nomination, I step back
and I propose as candidate Tucker Carlson. Please give him a standing ovation". Then have a
live TV debate between Carlson and Biden.
You know, of course, that Carlson is just as compromised, more probably, as Trump or Obama
or Biden or you name it, don't you? And just as blackmailable and just as bribable?
How can there be a constitutional crisis when neither party, nor any federal or local law
enforcement, actually recognizes the constitution any more? It's absurd.
The CIA, NSA, and all the other XYZs in the War Department believe strongly that they set
policy. In effect, that they are in charge and know best. How does that fit in with the
Constitution. Where are these powers specified?
The Treaty Clause is part of Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States
Constitution that empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly
negotiate agreements between the United States and other countries, which, upon receiving the
advice and consent of a two-thirds supermajority vote of the United States Senate, become
binding with the force of federal law .
(My Bold)
Since we ratified the UN Charter that makes all of our wars of aggression unconstitutional
and war crimes. Our use of phosphorus and napalm are war crimes.
The more money a member of Congress accepts from the defense industry, the higher the
probability that they'll vote how the defense industry wants them to vote. (So probably what
you expected.)
... ... ...
If you order the members of Congress based on the amount each of them accepted from the
defense sector (2020 cycle) with their respective votes then break your list down (roughly)
into fourths, you'll get something that looks like this:
Amount member accepts from
defense
industry Likelihood that member lets us down Less than $3,000 70% $3,000-$9,999 77%
$10,000-$29,999 84% More than $30,000 More than 98% Notes
41 House Democrats didn't let us down (in this case)
These 41 received (on average) $7,005.63 in campaign contributions from the defense
industry so far in this election cycle
179 House Democrats did let us down
These 179 received (on average) $30,075.85 in campaign contributions from the defense
industry so far in this election cycle
Adam Smith , Democratic Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, has received
$376,650.00 in campaign contributions from the defense industry so far in this election
cycle. (He also named the NDAA after his Republican counterpart.)
One by one the so-called Russiagate "evidence" have collapsed. The fake Steele Dossier,
"Russian spy" Joseph Mifsud who is actually a self-admitted member of the Clinton Foundation,
Roger Stone's non-existant Wikileaks contacts, Russian Afgan bounties, etc. But the neoliberal
mainstream media still presents these as "facts" with no retractions.
This is not journalism, its disinformation designed to distract the American public from the
failures of capitalism.
With some tweaks for technique, the same method bragged about by Bill Browder as "The
Hermitage Effect", and if truth be known, a similar method to those of venture capitalists
everywhere. Nobody has time to wait anymore for a company's stock to take off, and guess
right so that you are ahead of the curve – investors want to be rich nownownow, and
venture capitalists have learned you can make your own luck. Browder billed himself as an
'activist investor', because his claim was that he was actually doing the company a favour,
trying to help it succeed with western governance procedures and transparency and all that.
He would identify a company which he assessed was undervalued, and then begin a whisper
campaign against it – the bosses were on the take, lots of merchandise going out the
back door, cooking the books to conceal the losses, bla, bla, bla. The company's stock would
fall, and Hermitage would buy in when it felt the government's attention had been attracted
and it would try to save the company. Government investigation, some management changes and
maybe a government contract or some orders. Confidence returns, stock goes up, Browder rakes
in the cash and virtuously claims to have saved the company's bacon, when it was his
destabilizing efforts that made it shaky in the first place.
Singer is more like Richard Gere's billionaire capitalist in "Pretty Woman" – buying
up companies, busting them up, stripping off the salable assets and selling the husk; a
real-life example would be Mitt Romney.
Roger Thornhill 2 hours ago If I recall correctly, Obama gave the Russians all of 48 hours
to leave their consulate in San Francisco, which had been occupied since the 19th Century. This
was around Christmas time in 2016. So I don't find this particularly surprising. Two days to
have the diplomats, staff, and families completely out of the country.
he FBI agents who gave Donald Trump his first intelligence briefing during the 2016 election
season had already opened an investigation into ties between Trump's team and Russian
officials, a document declassified on Thursday shows.
That document is a seven-page summary of the
briefing on August 17, 2016, written about two weeks later and filed as part of the Crossfire
Hurricane investigation. The summary was written by agent Joe Pientka, who took part in the
briefing, and approved by Peter Strzok and Kevin Clinesmith. (Strzok was dismissed from the FBI
following the leak of his politically-charged, anti-Trump texts, while Clinesmith is a lawyer
accused of altering a document used to renew a FISA warrant on former Trump-campaign
adviser Carter Page.)
O MG you guys Putin hacked our coronavirus vaccine secrets!
Today mainstream media is reporting what is arguably the single dumbest Russiavape story of
all time, against some very stiff competition.
"Russian hackers are targeting health care organizations in the West in an attempt to steal
coronavirus vaccine research, the U.S. and Britain said," reportsThe New York
Times .
"Hackers backed by the Russian state are trying to steal COVID-19 vaccine and treatment
research from academic and pharmaceutical institutions around the world, Britain's National
Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said on Thursday,"
Reuters reports .
"Russian news agency RIA cited spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying the Kremlin rejected
London's allegations, which he said were not backed by proper evidence," adds Reuters.
First of all, how many more completely unsubstantiated government agency allegations about
Russian nefariousness are we the public going to accept from the corporate mass media? Since
2016 it's been wall-to-wall narrative about evil things Russia is doing to the empire-like
cluster of allies loosely centralized around the United States, and they all just happen to be
things for which nobody can actually provide hard verifiable evidence.
Ever since the shady
cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike
admitted that it never actually saw hard proof of Russia hacking the DNC servers, the
already shaky and always unsubstantiated narrative that Russian hackers interfered in the
U.S. presidential election in 2016 has been on thinner ice than ever. Yet because the mass
media converged on this narrative and
repeated it as fact over and over they've been able to get the mainstream headline-skimming
public to accept it as an established truth, priming them for an increasingly idiotic litany of
completely unsubstantiated Russia scandals, culminating most recently in the entirely
debunked claim that Russia paid Taliban-linked fighters to kill coalition forces in
Afghanistan.
Secondly, the news story doesn't even claim that these supposed Russian hackers even
succeeded in doing whatever they were supposed to have been doing in this supposed
cyberattack.
"Officials have not commented on whether the attacks were successful but also have not ruled
out that this is the case," Wired reports
.
Thirdly, this is a "vaccine" which does not even exist at this point in time, and the
research which was supposedly hacked may never lead to one. Meanwhile, Sechenov First Moscow
State Medical University
reports that it has "successfully completed tests on volunteers of the world's first
vaccine against coronavirus," in Russia.
Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly, how obnoxious and idiotic is it that coronavirus
vaccine "secrets" are even a thing?? This is a global pandemic which is hurting all of us;
scientists should be free to collaborate with other scientists anywhere in the world to find a
solution to this problem. Nobody has any business keeping "secrets" from the world about this
virus or any possible vaccine or treatment. If they do, anyone in the world is well within
their rights to pry those secrets away from them.
This intensely stupid story comes out at the same time British media are blaring stories about Russian
interference in the 2019 election, which if you actually listen carefully to the claims
being advanced amounts to literally nothing more than the assertion that Russians talked about
already leaked documents pertaining to the U.K.'s healthcare system on the internet.
"Russian actors 'sought to interfere' in last winter's general election by amplifying an
illicitly acquired NHS dossier that was seized upon by Labour during the campaign, the foreign
secretary has said,"
reports The Guardian .
"Amplifying." That's literally all there is to this story. As we learned with the ridiculous U.S. Russiagate narrative , with such
allegations, Russia "amplifying" something can mean anything from RT reporting on a
major news story to a Twitter account from St. Petersburg sharing an article from The
Washington Post . Even the
foreign secretary's claim itself explicitly admits that "there is no evidence of a broad
spectrum Russian campaign against the General Election."
"The statement is so foggy and contradictory that it is almost impossible to understand it,"
responded Russia's foreign
ministry to the allegations. "If it's inappropriate to say something then don't say it. If you
say it, produce the facts."
Instead of producing facts you've got the Murdoch press pestering Jeremy Corbyn, the
Labour Party candidate, on his doorstep over this ridiculous non-story, and popular
right-wing outlets like Guido Fawkes running the blatantly false
headline "Government Confirms Corbyn Used Russian-Hacked Documents in 2019 Election." The
completely bogus allegation that the NHS documents came to Jeremy Corbyn by way of Russian
hackers is not made anywhere in the article itself, but for the headline-skimming majority this
makes no difference. And headline skimmers get as many votes as people who read and think
critically.
All this new Cold War Russia hysteria is turning people's brains into guacamole. We've got
to find a way to snap out of the propaganda trance so we can start creating a world that is
based on truth and a desire for peace.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of
Consortium News.
Putin Apologist , July 19, 2020 at 17:50
"How many more completely unsubstantiated government agency allegations about Russian
nefariousness are we the public going to accept from the corporate mass media?"
The Answer is none. Nobody (well, nobody with a brain) believes anything the "corporate
mass media" says about Russia, or China, Iran or Venezuela or anything else for that
matter.
James Keye , July 19, 2020 at 10:26
Guy , July 18, 2020 at 15:32
But,but, but we never heard the words "highly likely" ,they must be slipping.LOL
DH Fabian , July 18, 2020 at 13:41
The Democrat right wing are robotically persistent, and count on the ignorance of their
base. By late last year, we saw them begin setting the stage to blame-away an expected 2020
defeat on Russia. Once again, proving that today's Democrats are just too dangerous to vote
for. Donald Trump owes a great deal to his "friends across the aisle."
There's no way the trillion in T-bills will be seized/defaulted/whatever. The damage to US
credibility will be unrecoverable.
It is certainly crazy time. AG Barr threatened major US corporations Disney & Apple
with having to register as "foreign agents" due to their Chinese investments. Earlier in the
year, the FBI and Congress decided to destroy the career of one of America's top scientists
over failure to submit relatively inconsequential paperwork. These are the types of things
which should result in a determined pushback against an intrusive national security state,
but the balance of power in USA may have flipped.
Agreed. It does seem almost as though there's a race for producing the dumbest in the
ongoing stories. Maybe Pompeo offers secret bounties?
Russia and China have good vaccine candidates well along in testing.
It is sad that Western, American-dominated governments commit so much time and resources
to the effort .
The flow of stories just never stops. It follows the old advertising and propaganda
principle that if you throw enough crap at the wall, some of it will stick.
Just ask yourself, are there any figures in today's world leadership more dishonest and
less trustworthy than the Trump tribe of Pompeo and Grenell and Bolton et al?
I just don't think so. Trump has been caught, again and again, lying to us about many
matters, and his own niece says he is a sociopath.
Here is a well-written, incisive piece by a former Canadian security service man, expert
on Russia, which sheds a great deal of light on all of this nonsense about Russia:
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are perfect brand ambassadors for Black Lives Matter, which
poses as a radical threat to the status quo, but, in reality, is one of the most elite-backed
movements ever.
,,, News that the LA-based formerly royal duo, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, are
"shifting their
focus " and will be putting their energy into supporting the Black Lives Matter
movement is so predictable it's positively reassuring.
According to the US publication
Entertainment Tonight , Meghan is "passionate" about supporting Black Lives Matter.
Its royal expert opines: "the...movement matters to Meghan and it matters to Harry. And I
understand that this is going to be an area where we're going to see the couple doing a lot
more work and taking a lot more interest."
Of course they are! The only surprise is that anyone thought a slipped-out announcement was
needed. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been leading us up to this point with all the
subtlety of a bulldozer in front of a Confederate statue. From the first days of their
relationship, they have highlighted every perceived slight and countered every criticism with
accusations of racism.
"Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly, how obnoxious and idiotic is it that coronavirus
vaccine "secrets" are even a thing?? "
As I started in on this piece, I desperately hoped Caitlin would make this point. Just as
soon as China sequenced the genome of this virus THEY PUBLISHED IT FOR ANYONE TO USE. Without
that crucial grunt work, efforts to create a vaccine would be stumbling around in the
dark.
But in the US it is disaster capitalism on parade.
There was a good joke posted by b, over at MoA:
Q: "What borders on insanity?"
A: "Canada and Mexico."
A UK charity arts chief has suggested British museums are hypocrites for showing solidarity
with the Black Lives Matter movement, while the colonial artefacts they display are similar to
that of Nazi-looted works.
Dr. Errol Francis, CEO and artistic director of arts charity 'Culture&', who has called
for British museums and galleries to support the decolonization of their collections and reword
racially sensitive artwork titles, has hit out at their recent public statements in support of
BLM.
Francis accused the UK cultural institutions of hypocrisy for appearing to show support for
oppressed black people on the one hand, while on the other still possessing items taken by
force from African nations, such as the Benin Bronzes that were looted by the British in the
late 19th century.
Neocon presstitutes like Appelbaum (actually a well paid MIC lobbyist in disguise) and MI6
connected criminals like like Browder are the feature of the US political landscape, not a bug. I
actually did laugh at Browder's piece on the BBC though, were a money launderer and tax evader
who left his book keeper to die in a Russian prison telling us we shouldn't trust the
Russians.
US economic problems are greatly enhanced by the tremendous amount of defense expenditures
(outspending the combined next seven leading countries in arms expenditures) and tax payer's
money being wasted on paranoid obsessions likes what's mentioned here: http://markcrispinmiller.com/2020/07/a-visit-from-the-fbi/
The article mentions Steele as a discredited participant but what about Applebaum, or are we
to forget how her Polish husband was demoted by his own government for concocting a story about
Putin offering to split Ukraine with Poland, at an alleged meeting that he was shown to have
never attended. Poland no doubt sanctioned him for fabricating such an easily disproved event,
certainly not out of any such notion as a search for truth.
That said, not having invited even a token moderate voice to this august 'panel of experts'
speaks volumes about either the ignorance, the incompetence, the perfidy or just plain 'We
don't really care what you think. We've done our duty' arrogance of the report's authors.
The Russians did it (pick from the list of provided baseless accusations or add your own
as desired, ie. the Russians stole my car) – it's the new version of "the dog ate my
homework", only weaker.
michael888 , July 18, 2020 at 05:08
"We've got to find a way to snap out of the propaganda trance so we can start creating a
world that is based on truth and a desire for peace."
Obviously Caitlin is on some strong recreational drug. This post-truth fact-free easily
manipulated world view is EXACTLY where the DNC/ CIA/ Establishment MICIMATT wants us!
Tim Jones , July 18, 2020 at 01:15
"I mean, there are just so many layers of stupid." True, and Caitlin also helped me to see
the humor in it.
The hacking fake news story indeed is very, very stupid one meant to be digested by stupid
people. Firstly the global scientific community shares findings and information and publishes
it in scientific magazines. Secondly if the UK had New or advanced research data that could
lead to an effective and reliable vaccine, why than was it Russia who was able to produce
that new vaccine and not the UK. The fake narrative simply does not add up. It's trash. The
western media is a propaganda media.
Zhu , July 17, 2020 at 22:32
Too many Americans seem to be post-modernists, convinced there are no facts, only
opinions. When reality bites their butts, they hop around like a scalded cat, looking for
scapegoats.
Randal Marlin , July 17, 2020 at 21:15
The shame is not that a country might spy on vaccination research in search of a counter
to a pandemic killing many thousands or even millions. It is that the principle of protecting
profit over lives dooms the poor while preserving the lives of the rich. I think I know what
Jesus would say about that principle.
DH Fabian , July 18, 2020 at 13:44
A pandemic requires a cooperative INTERNATIONAL effort, with scientists around the world
working together, sharing data.
Daniel P. , July 17, 2020 at 12:15
Russiagate has made unbearably righteous twits of main stream Democrats. And it is
completely disheartening to see the continued use of this psy-op to keep unthinking Dems in
line.
Shame on the D party for foisting this fraud upon the public and pitting Dems against each
other. But I guess that's what they do, isn't it?
Move comes as Libya gov't and Turkey demand an end of foreign intervention in support of
commander Khalifa Haftar.
####
I suspect In'Sultin Erd O'Grand is a mole of the garden kind. He goes about digging one
hole for himself after another. If he keeps this up, all the holes will merge in to one
and he will disappear! It would give the West a chance to have someone running Turkey with a
more reliably western perspective though I think it is clear that whatever comes next, Turkey
will not allow itself to be treated as a western annex and pawn.
Rainsford of the BBC on that report (it's labelled as an "analysis"):
What this report has done is to present a broad picture of Russia as a powerful
foe.
And I don't think in the Kremlin they will be too unhappy at that.
Cos Russia is really weak, see, and it wants to be big and strong, but it can't be because
. because they're dullards and because . well, because they don't make anything, see, and
their military is shit, it appears as terribly fearsome one, but it really is shit, Russian
crap . although it is a real threat to the "Free World" because it is strong . but at the
same time weak.
Russia is strong AND weak, see, and that's what peeves the Orcs because they want respect,
see; they want the USSR back and they want a big tough tsar as well, see, which they have
now, an autocrat, as in Russian imperial days of
glory, when everybody was scared shitless of them. But back then as now, Russia was strong
AND weak, see, but you can never be too careful with Russians: they're genetically sly and
deceitful, always denying the wicked things that we all know they have done.
They want to be the big boy on the block, see, and knock the USA off it's pedestal as
leader by example and guiding light to the "Free World". And if that happened, wel
civilization as we know it would cease and we would enter a new Dark Age.
That's why Sarah Rainsford, BBC Moscow correspondent, believes that they in the Kremlin
will not be "too unhappy" in learning that the West views Russia as a "serious foe".
Of course, she hasn't a fucking clue about what "they" think in the Kremlin.
If I were one of "them" in the Kremlin, though, I would tell Rainsford to fuck off back to
London. And to take her pal Rosenberg back with her as well.
I would tell them both to fuck off out of Russia before midnight tonight.
Heap of shite source:
Russia report: UK failed to investigate interference in elections
Maybe the real reason is that British intellience services gave little to the committee
because they saw what a useless bunch of pompous pricks they are and were likely to do more
damage if they were trusted with anything of note. After all, the Committee has nothing to
lose by Russia bashing, whereas there is still cooperation on organized crime, terrorism
(Russian tabs on western and foreign sponsored jihadis etc.) and other stuff that the UK
services that are of significant value. This stuff is not publicised of course.
This is not simply projection on the part of UK MI5/MI6 duet, this is a real war on reality.
UK false flag operation with Skripla poisoning (which probably was designed to hide possible role
of Skripal in creating Steele dossier) now will forever be textbook example of evilness MI5/MI6
honchos.
If we think that GRU is the past was able to fight Abwehr to standstill, they really would now be worried
about the blowback from Skripal mess.
A highly-anticipated report by the U.K. Parliament into Russia n interference in the country was
released on Tuesday, claiming that Russian influence in the U.K. is the "new normal."
The Russia Report, published after months of delay, is the culmination of two years of fact
finding by the U.K. Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee (ICS), providing insights
on the
Salisbury Novichok poisonings , Russian financial influence and social media
disinformation. The report said the U.K. was a "top target" for Russian interference.
The publication of the report comes a week after security services in the U.S., U.K. and
Canada said that Russian hackers had been attempting to
hack into global coronavirus vaccine research . The Kremlin has denied the accusations.
However, the report will likely disappoint observers who expected the ICS to detail
how far Russia interfered in the bitterly contested Brexit Referendum of 2016 . Prime
Minister Boris Johnson's was accused of withholding the publication of the report until after
the election of December 2019, a claim they denied.
The praetorian guard has become indistinguishable from the yellow
journalists. Indict them all for treason.
russellremmert 1 day ago
is steel in prison yet Reply
12
DonEstif -> russellremmert 1 day ago
Almost, he's an expert pundit used by CNN
Ban-me Fagggot 1 day ago
If Russia stole the election when Obama was President, why
wouldn't they steal the election when Trump is President? Democrats should protest by not
voting. It wont make a difference.
TGrade1 1 day ago
Behind all of this, hidden behind the
curtain, is a pants suit...
Justis -> TGrade1 11 hours ago
And more importantly, the then leader
of the free world, Obama...
The the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was actually on sidelines and
did not yet contribute anything signigicat in understadning this coronavirus
The level of subservience of Fauci to Big Pharma is open for review
WASHINGTON -- Dr. Anthony Fauci on Monday rejected President Donald Trump's
recent criticism of him in which he called the infectious disease expert an "alarmist."
... Fauci warned last week that the coronavirus pandemic could be as bad as the
1918 flu pandemic, which is estimated to have killed at least 50 million people worldwide. He
also warned late last month that the number of
COVID-19 cases could top 100,000 a day.
I am not a fan of military spending – following an excellent post by John about
Eisenhower's famous speech (more tanks or more hospitals), I often use it as an example
opportunity cost when teaching. One can certainly claim that the budget should be lower but,
as a share of overall economic resources, the budget has been cut substantially in the last
30 years.
I once thought the whole thing was a Big-Pharma scam to grab a shitload of cash. But Big
Pharma – I don't think – would have engineered it to start in China, and it's not
made-up;
Maybe this will give some people a different perspective on Lukashenko. He was offered ten
times the previous amount discussed in negotiations for IMF loans, if he would impose a
lockdown and follow western quarantine measures. He told them to get stuffed.
"We won two world wars. Beautiful world wars. That were vicious and horrible. And we
won them out of Fort Bragg, we won them out of all of these forts, and now they want to throw
those names away" .
Absent his usual ridiculous grandstanding and his babbling about 'I love that state' when
he probably does not know what state Fort Bragg is in, I have to broadly agree with him.
Not much different from the British public (media). UKgov was in trouble last week for
failing to have their own man as head of the toothless rubberstamping parliamentary
intelligence and security committee, shortly afterwards UKGov amped up 'Russia wot stole our
vaccine' and the whole UK media ran with it, save a couple of articles qustioning the
'timing'.
The thinking the US & UK have in common is that there is no cost to their
lying. They're only thinking of the short term obviously, but they depend on the other to
turn the cheek ignore it as 'domstic politiking.' Last saturday I saw the al-Beeb s'allah
preview of RusAmb interview to be broadcast on Sunday. The anchor had an 'expert' to help
her. Cue cherry brief picked quotes from the interview to make the Ambassador look weak and
the 'expert' saying 'that's what you would expect them to say.'
Today I see that Scotland is now the target, i.e. that Russia 'interfered' with the
independence referendum. It's not even anything goes August yet. This whole year has
been August reporting.
I just cannot see why the US public -- better said, some of the US public. -- fall for
that torrent of verbal diarrhoea that Maddow regularly gushes forth on TV about all things
Russian.
The shite that she so regularly spews out is patently untrue and clearly propagandistic.
Time and time again, the content of "The Rachel Maddow Show" (Why "show" FFS? Is it because
that is what it is -- a distraction, an entertainment vehicle for the uncritical masses?) has
repeatedly been shown to be untrue, but never an apology from Maddow.
Oh, what a surprise! Her paternal grandfather's family name was Medvedev, a Four-by-Two
who fled the Evil (Romanov) Empire and set up shop in the "Land of the Free".
Something that has often puzzled me is this: If the Russian Empire was such a "Prison of
Nations", all crushed by the autocratic state, how come Western Europe and the USA is
swarming with the descendants of the Tsar's former Jewish subjects?
To be fair to Maddow -- though I see no reason why I should be, for she is a lying cnut --
her family background is not really kosher: her mother hails from Newfoundland and is of
English/Irish descent, and one of her grandmother's forebears were from the Netherlands.
Furthermore, Maddow says that she had a conservative Catholic upbringing. I suppose that's
why she's now a liberal lesbian. And guess what: she's a Rhodes Scholar with an Oxford
PhD.
Of course, all these people are convinced Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential
election. Somehow. To some effect. Never really specified but the latest outburst of insanity
is this video from the
Lincoln Project . As Anatoly Karlin observes: "I think it's really
cool how we Russians took over America just by shitposting online. How does it feel to be
subhuman?" He has a point: the Lincoln Project, and the others shrieking about Russian
interference, take it for granted that American democracy is so flimsy and Americans so
gullible that a few Facebook ads can bring the whole facade down. A curious mental state
indeed.
So let us consider The Russian Playbook. It stands at the very heart of Russian power. It is
old: at least
a century old . Why, did not Tolstoy's 1908 Letter to a Hindu inspire Gandhi to
bring down the British Indian Empire and win the Great Game for Moscow? The Tolstoy-Putin
link is undeniable as we are told in
A Post-Soviet 'War and Peace' ...
... ... ...
What can we know about The Playbook? For a start it must be written in Russian, a language
that those crafty Russians insist on speaking among themselves. Secondly such an important
document would be protected the way that highly classified material is protected. There would
be a very restricted need to know; underlings participating in one of the many plays would not
know how their part fitted into The Playbook; few would ever see The Playbook itself. The
Playbook would be brought to the desk of the few authorised to see it by a courier, signed for,
the courier would watch the reader and take away the copy afterwards. The very few copies in
existence would be securely locked away; each numbered and differing subtly from the others so
that, should a leak occur, the authorities would know which copy read by whom had been leaked.
Printed on paper that could not be photographed or duplicated. As much protection as human
cunning could devise; right up there with
the nuclear codes .
There is no Russian Playbook, that's just projection. But there is a "playbook" and it's
written in English, it's freely available and it's inexpensive enough that every pundit can
have a personal copy: it's named "
From Dictatorship To Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation " and it's written by
Gene Sharp (1928-2018) .
Whatever Sharp may have thought he was doing, whatever good cause he thought he was assisting,
his book has been used as a guide to create regime changes around the world. Billed as
"democracy" and "freedom", their results are not so benign. Witness Ukraine today. Or Libya. Or
Kosovo whose long-time leader has just been indicted for numerous crimes .
Curiously enough, these efforts always take place in countries that resist Washington's line
but never in countries that don't. Here we do see training, financing, propaganda, discord
being sown, divisions exploited to effect regime change – all the things in the imaginary
"Russian Playbook". So, whatever he may have thought he was helping, Sharp's advice has been
used to produce what only the propagandists could call "
model interventions "; to the "liberated" themselves, the reality is poverty , destruction ,
war and
refugees .
And this Big Pharma stooge was right: in open spaces unless you are inthe dence coud there is no reason to wear any mask
Notable quotes:
"... No – for a solid hour, I heard the following: that COVID19 – in reality, at most, a moderately serious flu virus – is the worst medical threat the United States has ever faced. ..."
For anyone who has forgotten, Fauci told 60 Minutes that:
There's no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you're in the middle of an
outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little better and it might even block a
droplet, but it's not providing the perfect protection that people think it is. And often
there are unintended consequences – people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep
touching their face."
But he does make an astute point:
"Recently I had the poor judgment to turn on National Public Radio for about an hour, under the impression that I was
going to learn something about the day’s news.
... No – for a solid hour, I heard the following: that COVID19 – in reality, at most, a moderately serious flu virus – is
the worst medical threat the United States has ever faced.
...
But the real theme of the hour was masks, masks, masks: how to make them, how to wear them, their different types, who
doesn’t seem to have enough of them, and why muffling our faces (even though no such thing was ever demanded of us during
dozens of past viral outbreaks) is absolutely, positively good for us all."
Look for the last time you Media Matter or Anti Fa Twinks who come here incessantly... If
Trump was balls deep into the activities of that Island:
1)Epstein would have a video as he likely did for all of his guests.
2)The Deep State led by the Turds of the Obama administration including the Chief Turd
himself would have released said video faster than crap through a goose.
The Washington Establishment has spent four years of endless investigations and you
numbnutses think that the corrupt FBI and the intelligence agencies with guys like Mueller
Rosenstein, Strzok and a caste of others inside the bureaucracy would not have leaked such
stuff which would effectively end Trump.
But at least you are on topic here... it is about Trump. You silly sod twinks usually have
some stupid comment about Trump no matter what the topic.
JoJo Kracko , 4 hours ago
Well Trump would know first hand if it was a cesspool right?
Stonewall Jackson , 4 hours ago
Second hand due to the social circles of New York. William Jefferson Clinton would know
first hand. Epstein had an adorable portrait of him on the Island.
d_7878 , 3 hours ago
Trump's secretary of labor, Alexander Acosta, cut a sweetheart plea deal in 2008 with
Epstein allowing him to continue on his spree.
disagreeableness , 3 hours ago
You mean the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida under Obama? Who's
administration was in power when the deal was cut, and who's boss' boss was Obammy
hisself?
I'm a bit mystified by the entire Trump presidency. It's a given that the structure of
corruption is intractable, but if the point of his tenure was to drain the swamp, it just
seems there'd be a bit more muck on display by now.
It certainly could be that the plans for firing up the sumps was deferred until his second
term upon the occasion of his first inauguration, but that speaks a level of caution that I
find it difficult to muster enthusiastic support for.
"Damn the torpedoes, tomorrow"! Is not all that inspiring a battle cry.
It's mid July in an election year, if Trump had any serious intentions towards swamp
draining, he best get to it, post haste.
Johny Galt , 3 hours ago
I always enjoy quality sarcasm!
Lucius Quinctius , 58 minutes ago
Like in the cartoon ,"Peanuts", Lucy pulls the football away at the last minute.Fooled
again. Clinton and," don' t stop thinking about tomorrow" ,Obama,"Hope and change",Trump
,"make America great again".The sincere hopes of good Americans for their country offered up
to this stratum of cons and quislings.
Kinda like a digital form of chlamydia combined with binary syphilis , it never seems to wanna go away no matter how many times
you treat it.
alex kalish , 1 hour ago
Oh Yahoo News - why does ZH reprint blatant crap ? Is their source Christopher Steele ? LMAO. A 17 year old pimple face kid
could hack the CIA and they are going on the offensive ? They may blow up Hoover damn or shut down the electric grid by mistake....
Encroaching Darkness , 1 hour ago
********, top to bottom.
(A) Yahoo news - seriously, Yahoo news?
(B) Brennan wanted to overthrow Flynn / Trump - his proteges are still roaming through the agency. Why would Trump trust Brennan's
underlings to hold a cookout at Langley, let alone unsupervised operations?
(C) Why MUST the CIA be responsible for Iran's explosions? Aren't the Israelis (with much higher motivation, closer location
and more contacts) capable of doing this all by themselves?
Article full of unsupported and unsupportable assumptions, from a pseudo-news organization, trying to blame Trump for Iranian
incompetence. Major fail!
DaBard51 , 1 hour ago
The source is... Yahoo News? Yahoo News is the new "Paper of Record"?
The same Yahoo News that "corroborated" the Steele dossier?
New documents show the FBI was aware that the infamous dossier used as a pretext to spy on
President Donald Trump's campaign was unreliable, and that the New York Times published false
information about the 'Russiagate' probe.
Mickey Mic 1 day ago What on Earth does Hillary Clinton got to do to be arrested ? Wow,
still I hear no handcuffs...
The signers of the letter against the 'cancel culture' had cancelled Glenn Greenwald
from signing it. I am not sure who should be more embarrassed about this - Greenwald or the other
signers.
No reason for Greenwald to be embarrassed - he is a fake Liberal like many of the others,
and should have been allowed on the platform.
Interesting Chomsky was on the list, very contradictory character, hard to finger. I'd
be interested what other people think about Chomsky.
From a historical perspective, the term that most attracted my attention was "[the
forces of] illiberalism", which is an obvious recall of the term "totalitarianism" from the
post-war "center-left" intellectuals from the West.
History repeats twice: once as a tragedy, and once as a farce.
We know that coronavirus death counts are being inflated - we
just don't know by how much. After all, how could they not be when there is a financial
incentive for states and municipalities to report deaths as coronavirus deaths? And for some
states, there may even be a political incentive...
Which is why it shouldn't come as a total surprise when a man who suffered a fatal
motorcycle accident in Florida last week was added to the state's Covid-19 death count.
Fox 35
did an investigation where they talked to Orange County Health Officer Dr. Raul Pino about
two deaths of people in their 20s that were labeled coronavirus deaths. When they asked if the
people who died had underlying conditions, Pino responded: "The first one didn't have any. He
died in a motorcycle accident."