Politically Obama was a "despicable coward", or worse, a marionette.
Notable quotes:
"... A 50 state strategy, or no 50 state strategy, it really doesn't matter. Democrats were going to take losses. The key is, making sure the party is unified enough to run public policy courses. ..."
"... Your points make little sense in the face of what people wanted in 2016 that Obama could have delivered without interference from the Republicans. Things like anti-trust enforcement, SEC enforcement aka jailing the banksters, not going into Syria, not supporting the war in Yemen (remember he did both of those on his own without Congress), not making the Bush tax cuts permanent, not staying silent on union issues and actually wearing those oft mentioned comfortable shoes while walking a picket line, the list of what could have been done and that people supported goes on and on. None of which required approval from Congress. ..."
"... And speaking of the ACA, we know that Obama and others did whatever they could to kill single payer and replace it with Romneycare 1.5. The language in the bill and the controversy surrounding it show that no one thought this would give them a short term political advantage. If anything, the run up to the vote finally made enough citizens realize that they didn't hate government insurance, they just hated insurance. And here were the Democrats and Obama, forcing people to buy expensive insurance. ..."
"... He had a mandate for change. He had a majorities in both houses. He had the perfect bully pulpit. He chose not to use any of it. He and others killed the support for local parties. The Democrats needed the JFA with Hillary because Obama had pretty much bankrupted the party in 2012. A commitment to all 50 states would have been huge and would have helped Hillary get on the ground where she needed to shore up support by a few thousand votes. ..."
"... Obama and the Democrats took losses from 2008 on because they promised to do what their constituents voted them in to do and then decided not to do it. ..."
"... People don't have Republican fatigue. They don't have Democrat fatigue. They simply don't see the point in voting for people who won't do what they're voted in to do. ..."
"... The citizens of this country want change. They want higher wages and lower prices. They want less war. They want less government interference. They want their kids to grow up with more opportunities than they did. ..."
"Democratic left playing a long game to get 'Medicare for All'" [Bloomberg Law]. "'We don't have the support that we need,'
said Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, who will co-chair the Progressive Caucus. She said that she'd favor modest expansions
of Medicare or Medicaid eligibility as a step toward Medicare for All. 'I am a big bold thinker; I'm also a good practical
strategist,' Jayapal said.
'It's why the Medicare for All Caucus was started, because we want to get information to our members so people feel
comfortable talking about the attacks we know are going to come.'" • So many Democrat McClellans; so few Democrat Grants.
"Progressives set to push their agenda in Congress and on the campaign trail. The GOP can't wait." [NBC]. "While the party
has moved left on health care, many Democrats seem more comfortable offering an option to buy into Medicare or a similar public
plan rather than creating one single-payer plan that replaces private insurance and covers everyone. Progressives, led by Rep.
Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and her Medicare For All PAC, plan to whip up support for the maximalist version and advance
legislation in 2019." • The "maximalist version" is exactly what Jayapal herself, quoted by Bloomberg, says she will not seek.
Not sure whether this is Democrat cynicism, sloppy Democrat messaging, or poor reporting. Or all three!
The problem is unlike 1933 large sections of the electorate just wanted more Republican
economics to "deal" with the aftermath. That is the difference between a moderate
recession(historically) and a collapse like the early 1930's had when the British Empire and
the de Rothschild dynasty finally collapsed.
40% didn't want anything the Obama Administration came up with succeed. 40% wanted more
than they could possible politically come up with and that left 20% to actually get something
done. You see why the Democrats had to take losses.
Even if Health Care, which was controversial in the party was nixed for more "stimulus",
Democrats look weak. Politically, Stimulus wasn't that popular and "fiscal deficit" whiners were going to whine
and there are a lot of them.
Naked Capitalism ignores this reality instead, looking for esoteric fantasy. I would argue
Democrats in 2009-10 looked for short term political gain by going with Health Care reform
instead of slowly explaining the advantage of building public assets via stimulus, because
the party was to split on Health Care to create a package that would satisfy enough
people.
Similar the Republican party, since Reagan had done the opposite, took short term
political gain in 2016, which was a mistake, due to their Clinton hatred.
Which is now backfiring and the business cycle is not in a kind spot going forward, which
we knew was likely in 2016.
So not only does "Republican fatigue" hurt in 2018, your on the political defensive for
the next cycle. Short-termism in politics is death.
A 50 state strategy, or no 50 state strategy, it really doesn't matter. Democrats were
going to take losses. The key is, making sure the party is unified enough to run public
policy courses.
I truly don't understand your point of view. I also don't understand your claim that NC
deals in fantasy.
Your points make little sense in the face of what people wanted in 2016 that Obama could
have delivered without interference from the Republicans. Things like anti-trust enforcement,
SEC enforcement aka jailing the banksters, not going into Syria, not supporting the war in
Yemen (remember he did both of those on his own without Congress), not making the Bush tax
cuts permanent, not staying silent on union issues and actually wearing those oft mentioned
comfortable shoes while walking a picket line, the list of what could have been done and that
people supported goes on and on. None of which required approval from Congress.
There's even the bland procedural tactic of delaying the release of the Obamacare exchange
premium price increases until after the election in 2016. He could have delayed that notice
several months and saved Hillary a world of hurt at the polls. But he chose not to use the
administrative tools at his disposal in that case. He also could have seen the writing on the
wall with the multiple shut down threats and gotten ahead of it by asking Congress that if
you are deemed an essential employee you will continue to be paid regardless of whether your
department is funded during a shutdown. With 80% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck
that would have been a huge deal.
And speaking of the ACA, we know that Obama and others did whatever they could to kill
single payer and replace it with Romneycare 1.5. The language in the bill and the controversy
surrounding it show that no one thought this would give them a short term political
advantage. If anything, the run up to the vote finally made enough citizens realize that they
didn't hate government insurance, they just hated insurance. And here were the Democrats and
Obama, forcing people to buy expensive insurance.
Obama took a huge organization that could have helped him barnstorm the country (OFA) just
like what Bernie is doing now and killed it early in his first term. He had a mandate for
change. He had a majorities in both houses. He had the perfect bully pulpit. He chose not to
use any of it. He and others killed the support for local parties. The Democrats needed the JFA with Hillary because Obama had pretty much bankrupted the party in 2012. A commitment to
all 50 states would have been huge and would have helped Hillary get on the ground where she
needed to shore up support by a few thousand votes.
Obama and the Democrats took losses from 2008 on because they promised to do what their
constituents voted them in to do and then decided not to do it. By the time 2016 rolled
around, there were estimates which placed 90% of the counties in the US as not having
recovered from the disaster in 2007. Hillary ran on radical incrementalism aka the status
quo. Who in their right mind could have supported the status quo in 2016?
The Democrats lost seats at all levels of government because of their own incompetence,
because of their cowardice, because of their lazy assumptions that people had nowhere else to
go. So when record numbers of people didn't vote they lost by slim margins in states long
considered True Blue. There is nothing cyclical about any of that.
People don't have Republican fatigue. They don't have Democrat fatigue. They simply don't
see the point in voting for people who won't do what they're voted in to do.
The citizens of
this country want change. They want higher wages and lower prices. They want less war. They
want less government interference. They want their kids to grow up with more opportunities
than they did.
Obama and Hillary and all the rest of the Democrats stalking MSM cameras could
have delivered on some of that but chose not to. And here we are. With President Trump. And
even his broken clock gets something right twice a day, whereas Team Blue has a 50/50 chance
of making the right decision and chooses wrong everytime.
Please provide better examples of your points if you truly want to defend your
argument.
And, that often mentioned reason for voting for Democrats, the Supreme Court. Neither
Obama nor the Democrats fought for their opportunity to put their person on the Supreme
Court. Because of norms I guess. Which actually makes some sense because it broke norms.
Because they simply don't care
I truly don't understand why you think any of that. Most mystifying is your claim that
anyone thought ACA would provide short term political benefit?
You know how Obamacare could have given Hillary a short term political gain? If Obama had
directed HHS to delay releasing any premium increase notices until after the election.
Otherwise, you'd have to support your argument a lot better. NC has the least fantastical
commentary base of any website I've seen.
This is complete and utter nonsense. Your calling depicting NC as "fantasy" is a textbook
example of projection on your part.
The country was terrified and demoralized when Obama took office. Go read the press in
December 2008 and January 2009, since your memory is poor. He not only had window of
opportunity to do an updated 100 days, the country would have welcomed. But he ignored it and
the moment passed.
Obama pushed heath care because that was what he had campaigned on and had a personal
interest in it. He had no interest in banking and finance and was happy to let Geither run
that show.
As for stimulus, bullshit. Trump increased deficit spending with his tax cuts and no one
cares much if at all. The concern re deficit spending was due to the fact that the Obama
economic team was the Clinton (as in Bob Rubin) economics team, which fetishized balanced
budgets or even worse, surpluses. We have explained long form that that stance was directly
responsible for the rapid increase in unproductive household debt, most of all mortgage debt,
which produced the crisis.
Is this shadow of Integrity Initiative in the USA ? This false flag open the possibility that other similar events like
DNC (with very questionable investigation by Crowdstrike, which was a perfect venue to implement a false flag; cybersecurity area is
the perfect environment for planting false flags), MH17 (might be an incident but later it definitely was played as a false flag), Skripals
(Was Skripals poisoning a false flag decided to hide the fact that Sergey Skripal was involved in writing Steele dossier?) and Litvinenko
(probably connected with lack of safety measures in the process of smuggling of Plutonium by Litvinenko himself, but later played a
a false flag). All of those now should be re-assessed from the their potential of being yet another flag flag operation
against Russia. While Browder was a MI6 operation from the very beginning (and that explains
why he abdicated the US citizenship more convincingly that the desire to avoid taxes) .
Notable quotes:
"... Democratic operative Jonathon Morgan - bankrolled by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, pulled a Russian bot "false flag" operation against GOP candidate Roy Moore in the Alabama special election last year - creating thousands of fake social media accounts designed to influence voters . Hoffman has since apologized, while Morgan was suspended by Facebook for "coordinated inauthentic" behavior. ..."
"... Really the bigger story is here is that these guys convincingly pretended to be Russian Bots in order to influence an election (not with the message being put forth by the bots, but by their sheer existence as apparent supporters of the Moore campaign). ..."
"... By all appearances, they were Russian bots trying to influence the election. Now we know it was DNC operatives. Yet we are supposed to believe without any proof that the "Russian bots" that supposedly influenced the 2016 Presidential election were, actually, Russian bots, and worthy of a two year long probe about "Russian collusion" and "Russian meddling." ..."
"... The whole thing is probably a farce, not only in the sense that there is no evidence that Russia had any influence at all on a single voter, but also in the sense that there is no evidence that Russia even tried (just claims and allegations by people who have a vested interest in convincing us its true). ..."
For over two years now, the concepts of "Russian collusion" and "Russian election meddling" have been shoved down our throats
by the mainstream media (MSM) under the guise of legitimate concern that the Kremlin may have installed a puppet president in Donald
Trump.
Having no evidence of collusion aside from a largely unverified opposition-research dossier fabricated by a former British spy,
the focus shifted from "collusion" to "meddling" and "influence." In other words, maybe Trump didn't actually collude with Putin,
but the Kremlin used Russian tricks to influence the election in Trump's favor. To some, this looked like nothing more than an establishment
scheme to cast a permanent spectre of doubt over the legitimacy of President Donald J. Trump.
Election meddling "Russian bots" and "troll farms" became the central focus - as claims were levied of social media operations
conducted by Kremlin-linked organizations which sought to influence and divide certain segments of America.
And while scant evidence of a Russian influence operation exists outside of a handful of indictments connected to a St. Petersburg
"Troll farm" (which a liberal journalist
cast serious doubt ov er), the MSM - with all of their proselytizing over the "threat to democracy" that election meddling poses,
has largely decided to ignore actual evidence of "Russian bots" created by Democrat IT experts, used against a GOP candidate in the
Alabama special election, and amplified through the Russian bot-detecting "Hamilton 68" dashboard developed by the same IT experts.
Democratic operative Jonathon Morgan - bankrolled by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, pulled a Russian bot "false flag" operation
against GOP candidate Roy Moore in the Alabama special election last year - creating thousands of fake social media accounts designed
to influence voters . Hoffman has since apologized, while Morgan was suspended by Facebook for "coordinated inauthentic" behavior.
As Russian state-owned RT puts
it - and who could blame them for being a bit pissed over the whole thing, "it turns out there really was meddling in American democracy
by "Russian bots." Except they weren't run from Moscow or St. Petersburg, but from the offices of Democrat operatives chiefly responsible
for creating and amplifying the "Russiagate" hysteria over the past two years in a textbook case of psychological projection. "
A week before Christmas, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report accusing Russia of depressing Democrat voter turnout
by targeting African-Americans on social media. Its authors, New Knowledge, quickly became a household name.
Described by the
New York Times
as a group of "tech specialists who lean Democratic," New Knowledge has ties to both the US military and intelligence agencies.
Its CEO and co-founder Jonathon Morgan previously worked for DARPA, the US military's advanced research agenc y. His partner,
Ryan Fox, is a 15-year veteran of the National Security Agency who also worked as a computer analyst for the Joint Special Operations
Command (JSOC). Their unique skill sets have managed to attract the eye of investors, who pumped $11 million into the company
in 2018 alone.
...
On December 19, a New York Times story revealed that Morgan and his crew had created a fake army of Russian bots, as well as
fake Facebook groups, in order to discredit Republican candidate Roy Moore in Alabama's 2017 special election for the US Senate.
Working on behalf of the Democrats, Morgan and his crew created an estimated 1,000 fake Twitter accounts with Russian names,
and had them follow Moore. They also operated several Facebook pages where they posed as Alabama conservatives who wanted like-minded
voters to support a write-in candidate instead.
In an internal memo, New Knowledge boasted that it had "orchestrated an elaborate 'false flag' operation that planted the idea
that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet."
It worked. The botnet claim made a splash on social media and was further amplified by Mother Jones, which based its story
on expert opinion from Morgan's other dubious creation, Hamilton 68. -
RT
Moore ended up losing the Alabama special election by a slim margin of just
In other words: In November 2017 – when Moore and his Democratic opponent were in a bitter fight to win over voters – Morgan
openly promoted the theory that Russian bots were supporting Moore's campaign . A year later – after being caught red-handed orchestrating
a self-described "false flag" operation – Morgan now says that his team never thought that the bots were Russian and have no idea
what their purpose was . Did he think no one would notice? -
RT
Disinformation warrior @ jonathonmorgan attempts to control
damage by lying. He now claims the "false flag operation" never took place and the botnet he promoted as Russian-linked (based
on phony Hamilton68 Russian troll tracker he developed) wasn't Russian https://www.
newknowledge.com/blog/about-ala bama
Even more strange is that Scott Shane - the journalist who wrote the New York Times piece exposing the Alabama "Russian bot" scheme,
knew about it for months after speaking at an event where the organizers bragged about the false flag on Moore .
Shane was one of the speakers at a meeting in September, organized by American Engagement Technologies, a group run by Mikey
Dickerson, President Barack Obama's former tech czar. Dickerson explained how AET spent $100,000 on New Knowledge's campaign to
suppress Republican votes, " enrage" Democrats to boost turnout, and execute a "false flag" to hrt Moore. He dubbed it "Project
Birmingham." - RT
Shane told BuzzFeed that he was "shocked" by the revelations, though hid behind a nondisclosure agreement at the request of American
Engagement Technologies (AET). He instead chose to spin the New Knowledge "false flag" operation on Moore as "limited Russian tactics"
which were part of an "experiment" that had a budget of "only" $100,000 - and which had no effect on the election.
New Knowledge suggested that the false flag operation was simply a "research project," which Morgan suggested was designed "to
better understand and report on the tactics and effects of social media disinformation."
While the New York Times seemed satisfied with his explanation, others pointed out that Morgan had used the Hamilton 68 dashboard
to give his "false flag" more credibility – misleading the public about a "Russian" influence campaign that he knew was fake.
New Knowledge's protestations apparently didn't convince Facebook, which
announced last week that five
accounts linked to New Knowledge – including Morgan's – had been suspended for engaging in "coordinated inauthentic behavior."
- RT
They knew exactly what they were doing
While Morgan and New Knowledge sought to frame the "Project Birmingham" as a simple research project, a leaked copy of the operation's
after-action report reveals that they knew exactly what they were doing .
"We targeted 650,000 like AL voters, with a combination of persona accounts, astroturfing, automated social media amplification
and targeted advertising," reads the report published by entrepreneur and executive coach Jeff Giesea.
The rhetorical question remains, why did the MSM drop this election meddling story like a hot rock after the initial headlines
faded away?
criminal election meddling, but then who the **** is going to click on some morons tactic and switch votes?
anyone basing any funding, whether it is number of facebook hits or attempted mind games by egotistical cuck soyboys needs a serious
psychological examination. fake news is fake BECAUSE IT ISNT REAL AND DOES NOT MATTER TO ANYONE but those living in the excited misery
of their tiny bubble world safe spaces. SOCIAL MEDIA IS A CON AND IS NOT IMPORTANT OR RELEVANT TO ANYONE.
far more serious is destroying ballots, writing in ballots without consent, bussing voters around to vote multiple times in different
districts, registering dead voters and imperosnating the corpses, withholding votes until deadlines pass - making them invalid.
Herdee , 10 minutes ago
NATO on behalf of the Washington politicians uses the same bullsh*t propaganda for continual war.
Mugabe , 20 minutes ago
Yup "PROJECTION"...
Yippie21 , 21 minutes ago
None of this even touches on the 501c3 or whatever that was set up , concerned Alabama voters or somesuch, and was funneled
a **** load of money to be found to be in violation of the law AFTER the election and then it all just disappeared. Nothing to
see here folks, Democrat won, let's move on. There was a LOT of " tests " for the smart-set in that election and it all worked.
We saw a bunch of it used in 2018, especially in Texas with Beto and down-ballot races. Democrats cleaned up like crazy in Texas,
especially in Houston.
2020 is going to be a hot mess. And the press is in on it, and even if illegal or unseemly things are done, as long as Democrats
win, all good... let's move on. Crazy.
LetThemEatRand , 21 minutes ago
The fact that MSM is not covering this story -- which is so big it truly raises major questions about the entire Russiagate
conspiracy including why Mueller was appointed in the first place -- is proof that they have no interest in journalism or the
truth and that they are 100% agenda driven liars. Not that we needed more proof, but there it is anyway.
Oldguy05 , 19 minutes ago
Dimz corruption is a nogo. Now if it were conservatives.......
CosineCosineCosine , 23 minutes ago
I'm not a huge fan, but Jimmy Dore has a cathartic and entertaining 30 minutes on this farce. Well worth the watch:
Really the bigger story is here is that these guys convincingly pretended to be Russian Bots in order to influence an election
(not with the message being put forth by the bots, but by their sheer existence as apparent supporters of the Moore campaign).
By all appearances, they were Russian bots trying to influence the election. Now we know it was DNC operatives. Yet we
are supposed to believe without any proof that the "Russian bots" that supposedly influenced the 2016 Presidential election were,
actually, Russian bots, and worthy of a two year long probe about "Russian collusion" and "Russian meddling."
The whole thing is probably a farce, not only in the sense that there is no evidence that Russia had any influence at all
on a single voter, but also in the sense that there is no evidence that Russia even tried (just claims and allegations by people
who have a vested interest in convincing us its true).
dead hobo , 30 minutes ago
I've been watching Scandal on Netflix. Still only in season 2. Amazing how nothing changes.They nailed it and memorialized
it. The MSM are useful idiots who are happy to make money publicizing what will sell the best.
chunga , 30 minutes ago
The media is biased and sucks, yup.
The reason the reds lost the house is because they went along with this nonsense and did nothing about it, like frightened
baby chipmunks.
JRobby , 33 minutes ago
Only when "the opposition" does it is it illegal. Total totalitarian state wannabe stuff.
divingengineer , 22 minutes ago
Amazing how people can contort reality to justify their own righteous cause, but decry their opposition for the EXACT same
thing. See trump visit to troops signing hats as most recent proof. If DJT takes a piss and sprinkles the seat, it's a crime.
DarkPurpleHaze , 33 minutes ago
They're afraid to expose themselves...unlike Kevin Spacey. Trump or Whitaker will expose this with one signature. It's
coming.
divingengineer , 20 minutes ago
Spacey has totally lost it. See his latest video, it will be a powerful piece of evidence for an insanity plea.
CosineCosineCosine , 10 minutes ago
Disagree strongly. I think it was excellent - perhaps you misunderstood the point? 6 minutes Diana Davidson look at it clarifies
When we reported last week that Imran Awan and his wife had been indicted by a grand jury on
4 counts, including bank fraud and making false statements related to some home equity loans,
we also noted that those charges could simply be placeholders for further developments yet to
come. Now, according to a new report from the
Daily Caller , the more interesting component of the FBI's investigation could be tied to
precisely why New York Democrat Representative Yvette Clarke quietly agreed in early 2016 to
simply write-off $120,000 in missing electronics tied to the Awans.
A chief of staff for Democratic Rep. Yvette Clarke quietly agreed in early 2016 to sign
away a $120,000 missing electronics problem on behalf of two former IT aides now suspected of
stealing equipment from Congress, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned. Clarke's
chief of staff at the time effectively dismissed the loss and prevented it from coming up in
future audits by signing a form removing the missing equipment from a House-wide tracking
system after one of the Awan brothers alerted the office the equipment was gone. The
Pakistani-born brothers are now at the center of an FBI investigation over their IT work with
dozens of Congressional offices.
The $120,000 figure amounts to about a tenth of the office's annual budget, or enough to
hire four legislative assistants to handle the concerns of constituents in her New York
district. Yet when one of the brothers alerted the office to the massive loss, the chief of
staff signed a form that quietly reconciled the missing equipment in the office budget, the
official told TheDCNF. Abid Awan remained employed by the office for months after the loss of
the equipment was flagged.
If true, of course this new information would seem to support previously reported rumors
that the Awans orchestrated a long-running fraud scheme in which their office would purchase
equipment in a way that avoided tracking by central House-wide administrators and then sell
that equipment for a personal gain while simultaneously defrauding taxpayers of $1,000's of
dollars.
Meanwhile, according to the Daily Caller, CDW Government could have been in on the
scheme.
They're suspected of working with an employee of CDW Government Inc. -- one of the Hill's
largest technology providers -- to alter invoices in order to avoid tracking. The result
would be that no one outside the office would notice if the equipment disappeared, and
investigators think the goal of the scheme was to remove and sell the equipment outside of
Congress.
CDW spokeswoman Kelly Caraher told TheDCNF the company is cooperating with investigators,
and has assurance from prosecutors its employees are not targets of the investigation. "CDW
and its employees have cooperated fully with investigators and will continue to do so,"
Caraher said. "The prosecutors directing this investigation have informed CDW and its
coworkers that they are not subjects or targets of the investigation."
Not surprisingly, Clarke's office apparently felt no need whatsoever to report the $120,000
worth of missing IT equipment to the authorities... it's just taxpayer money afterall...
According to the official who talked to TheDCNF, Clarke's chief of staff did not alert
authorities to the huge sum of missing money when it was brought to the attention of the
office around February of 2016. A request to sign away that much lost equipment would have
been "way outside any realm of normalcy," the official said, but the office did not bring it
to the attention of authorities until months later when House administrators told the office
they were reviewing finances connected to the Awans.
The administrators informed the office that September they were independently looking into
discrepancies surrounding the Awans, including a review of finances connected to the brothers
in all the congressional offices that employed them. The House administrators asked Clarke's
then-chief of staff, Wendy Anderson, whether she had noticed any anomalies, and at that time
she alerted them to the $120,000 write-off, the official told TheDCNF.
Of course, the missing $120,000 covers only Clarke's office. As we've noted before, Imran
and his relatives worked for more than 40 current House members when they were banned from the
House network in February, and have together worked for dozens more in past years so who know
just how deep this particular rabbit hole goes.
Also makes you wonder what else Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and the Awans might be hiding.
Certainly the decision by Wasserman-Shultz to keep Awan on her taxpayer funded payroll, right
up until he was arrested by the FBI while trying to flee the country, is looking increasingly
fishy with each passing day.
The 911 protection swamp is deep, and profiteers and drug, human traffic, NGO, Body part,
war mongers runs deep.
Please stop calling it building 7 It was the Solomon building.. While you are at it look
at the 1991 Solomon bond scandal which gave the Citi Clinton Mafia all power.... Oh yea
Bush/Clinton cabal did get Saudis to buy Citi stocks and GE plastics. Swampy enough?
120k write off ! You are kidding me?
south40_dreams , 1 year ago
Blackmail was where the real money was at
pissantra , 1 year ago
The real problem here is being completely ignored -- and that is this: the Awan bros were
likely spies (with Wasserman either forced to allow them to spy or the spymaster selling
intel to Pakistan). This would mean that 21+ congress-critters have been completely
compromised. THIS is important NOW, after Trumps Afghan speech -- if he plans to lean on
Pakistan with an "either you stop helping the Taliban or we will destroy you (economically
and/or physically) along with them...."--- these compromised congress-critters will defund
Trumps war.
Freddie , 3 weeks ago
No. Pakistan is the smokescreen. Wasserscum, like Scott Israel, are dual shitizens. This
is, as is Broward County, a MO$$$$ad op. Broward County for vote theft, fraud, attorney
killings, false flags, etc. I would guess a lot more in Congress are owned.
Just watched Congress during Bibi and even ko$$her Porschenko addressing Congrez-zio. They
jump up like circus trained animals to give standing ovations for every word.
Awans and Wasserscum will get passes. George Webb on youtube appears to be doing good work
but it is probably another smoke screen because George has said he is a zioni$$t.
Ban KKiller , 1 year ago
Gee Michelle....you used the Pakistanis for your IT work? What, you like filthy muslims?
Guess so.... When will you confess that you have NO IDEA where your confidential information is? Michelle Lynn Lujan Grisham is an American lawyer and politician who is the U.S.
Representative for New Mexico's 1st congressional district, serving since 2013.
mtanimal , 1 year ago
I didn't know espionage and extortion were tax deductible. Who's her accountant?
Cardinal Fang , 1 year ago
I regret that we may never know the extent of the duplicity of our government with this
ISI stooge.
pc_babe , 1 year ago
with Jeff Session at the helm, you can rest assured you never will
Loanman26 , 1 year ago
My spidy senses are flaring. It was the Russians who stole the equipment. It was comrade Sergei Awan
Blazing in BC , 1 year ago
To whoever is "in charge"....THE STENCH IS UNBEARABLE
runnymede , 1 year ago
Institutionalized unaccountability is what makes the systemic corruption function. As long
as Wasserman's brother is in charge of D.C. prosecutions, nothing will happen. He is the
gatekeeper, which is why DWS, the DNC and the Clinton Crime Machine have not only acted with
impunity, but with extreme contempt. They know they are untouchable. Honest prosecution would
expose D.C. itself as the professional criminal operation that it is, including most Repubs.
There will never be allowed a real look into the rabbit hole, George Webb's outstanding
efforts notwithstanding.
One of We , 1 year ago
President Not Hillary needs to lock some bitches up and expose the Clinton Crime Family
Foundation. Definitely lowering the bar from my lofty hopes but I'd be happy with a partial
roto rootering of the swamp if that's all he has to show for his term.
SRV , 1 year ago
The Awans were working for DWS and The Crook... this fruad is the tip of the
iceberg...
How about doping Blackberry's for 80 House Dems to sync with servers around the Capital
(remember DWS threatening the Capital Police Chief with "consequences" if he didn't give her
back her laptop found in a Capitol Hill building. The Awans were selling the access to most
of the secrets in congress since 2004... this was a spy ring (he has serious ties to
Pakistani ISI).
JiminyCrickets , 1 year ago
As long as Debbie Wasserman Schultz's Brother Steven Wasserman is running the Seth Rich
murder investigation this wont go any where.
gregga777 , 1 year ago
Unfortunately, the Anglo-Zionist FAKE NEWS Media won't cover this story, especially the
links to Debbie Wasserman Schultz. It's anti-Semitic to discuss her criminality or to
criticize her in any other way.
JiminyCrickets , 1 year ago
George Webb's detailed 300+ day investigation indicates the Awans were shipping stolen
high end cars to foreign diplomats and depleted uranium weapons using DNC Diplomatic
Containers.
no surprise that demonRat politicians throughout all legislatures have been guilty of
defrauding the tax payer for decades - in much the same way that demonRat politicians
directly legislate for welfare benefits, free insurance and tax cuts for their family and
friends - at the expense of tax payers - and who also extract tax payer funds via the gravy
train of internships, federal grants etc for their family and friends.
this is how libtard demonRat politicians infect the swamp and then infest it with their
filth and cronyism.
aided and abetted by the MSM.
if only iy was just the demonRats, there might be a chance - however, corrupt republicRats
have been just as guilty.
one day, all this will be out in the open and perhaps demonRat and republicRat voters will
see how they have been voting for corruption all these years.
are we there yet , 1 year ago
Because you are one of the little people.
NoPension , 1 year ago
We are below " little people". We are irrelevant. Just keep paying, slave. Someone correct
me if I'm wrong..... This country was founded on the principle that the individual had
sovereign rights, imbued from God...and was the vessel of ultimate power. Today...these
illegally elected ( it's almost ALL proven a fraud) cocksuckers go in broke and come out the
other end multimillionaires with legal immunity from anything, up to and including murder.
It's high time to water the ******* tree.
"... What Are the Democrats Hiding?" http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/07/what-are-the-democrats-hiding-by-publius-tacitus.html "Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) demanded that Capitol Police Chief Matthew Verderosa return equipment belonging to her office that was seized as part of the investigation -- or face "consequences." ..."
"... "FBI agents seized smashed computer hard drives from the home of Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's information technology (IT) administrator, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation. Pakistani-born Imran Awan, long-time right-hand IT aide to the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman, has since desperately tried to get the hard drives back." ..."
"... This is not your phony Russia-gate or McCain-commissioned funny dossier on Trump. This is the documented "serious, potentially illegal, violations of the House IT network," which is a case of a free access to classified information by a group of the proven blackmailers. Would this matter be treated with the same urgency of "patriotism" as the cases of Manning and Assange? ..."
Virtually no one [from MSM] is paying attention to the fact that a group of Pakistani
Muslims, working for a Jewish Congresswoman from Florida, had full computer access to a large
number of Democrat Representatives. Most of the press is disinterested in pursuing this
matter."
"FBI agents seized smashed computer hard drives from the home of Florida Democratic
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's information technology (IT) administrator, according to two
sources with knowledge of the investigation. Pakistani-born Imran Awan, long-time right-hand
IT aide to the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman, has since desperately
tried to get the hard drives back."
This is not your phony Russia-gate or McCain-commissioned funny dossier on Trump. This
is the documented "serious, potentially illegal, violations of the House IT network," which
is a case of a free access to classified information by a group of the proven blackmailers.
Would this matter be treated with the same urgency of "patriotism" as the cases of Manning
and Assange?
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. ~ Ian Fleming
Notable quotes:
"... We believe that in all three cases Guccifer 2 was unlikely to anticipate that this Eastern timezone setting could be derived from the metadata of the documents that he published. However, one vocal critic with significant media reach objected to our East Coast finding as it related to our analysis of the ngpvan .7z file. This critic concluded instead that Guccifer 2 deliberately planted that clue to implicate a DNC worker who would die under suspicious circumstances a few days later on July 10, 2016. ..."
"... Now, we have this additional East Coast indication, which appears just one day after the ngpvan.7z files were collected. This new East Coast indication is found in a completely different group of files that Guccifer 2 published on his blog site. Further, this East Coast finding has its own unique and equally unlikely method of derivation. ..."
"... If we apply our critic's logic, what do we now conclude? That Guccifer 2 also deliberately planted this new East Coast indication? To what end? We wonder: Will this new evidence compel our out-spoken critic to retract his unsubstantiated claims and accusations? ..."
Editorial Note: The Forensicator recently published a report, titled " Guccifer
2 Returns To The East Coast ." Forensicator provided the following introduction to his
latest findings, reproduced here with the permission of the author.
In this post, we announce a new finding that confirms our previous work and is the basis for
an update that we recently made to Guccifer 2's Russian
Breadcrumbs . In our original publication of that report, we posited that there were
indications of a GMT+4 timezone offset (legacy Moscow DST) in a batch of files that Guccifer 2
posted on July 6, 2016. At the time, we viewed that as a "Russian breadcrumb" that Guccifer 2
intentionally planted.
Now, based on new information, we have revised that conclusion: The timezone offset was in
fact GMT-4 (US Eastern DST) . Here, we will describe how we arrived at this new, surprising
conclusion and relate it to our prior work.
A month/so after publication, Stephen McIntyre ( @ClimateAudit ) replicated our analysis. He ran a few
experiments and found an error in our
original conclusion.
We mistakenly interpreted the last modified time that LibreOffice wrote as
"2015-08-25T23:07:00Z" as a GMT time value. Typically, the trailing "Z" means " Zulu Time ", but
in this case, LibreOffice incorrectly added the "Z". McIntyre's tests confirm that LibreOffice
records the "last modified" time as local time (not GMT). The following section describes the
method that we used to determine the timezone offset in force when the document was saved.
LibreOffice Leaks the Time Zone Offset in Force when a Document was Last Written
Modern Microsoft Office documents are generally a collection of XML files and image files.
This collection of files is packaged as a Zip file. LibreOffice can save documents in a
Microsoft Office compatible format, but its file format differs in two important details: (1)
the GMT time that the file was saved is recorded in the Zip file components that make up the
final document and (2) the document internal last saved time is recorded as local time (unlike
Microsoft Word, which records it as a GMT [UTC] value).
If we open up a document saved by Microsoft Office using the modern Office file format (
.docx or .xlsx ) as a Zip file, we see something like the following.
LibreOffice , as shown below, will record the GMT time that the document components were
saved. This time will display as the same value independent of the time zone in force when the
Zip file metadata is viewed.
For documents saved by LibreOffice we can compare the local "last saved" time recorded in
the document's properties with the GMT time value recorded inside the document (when viewed as
a Zip file). We demonstrate this derivation using the file named
potus-briefing-05-18-16_as-edits.docx that Guccifer 2 changed using LibreOffice and then
uploaded to his blog site on July 6, 2016 (along with several other files).
Above, we calculate a time zone offset of GMT-4 (EDT) was in force, by subtracting the last
saved time expressed in GMT (2016-07-06 17:10:58) from the last saved time expressed as local
time (2016-07-06 13:10:57).
We've Been Here Before
The Eastern timezone setting found in Guccifer 2's documents published on July 6, 2016 is
significant, because as we showed in Guccifer 2.0
NGP/Van Metadata Analysis , Guccifer 2 was likely on the East Coast the previous day, when
he collected the DNC-related files found in the ngpvan.7z Zip file. Also, recall that Guccifer
2 was likely on the East Coast a couple of months later on September 1, 2016 when he built the
final ngpvan.7z file.
We believe that in all three cases Guccifer 2 was unlikely to anticipate that this Eastern
timezone setting could be derived from the metadata of the documents that he published.
However, one vocal critic with significant media reach objected to our East Coast finding as it
related to our analysis of the ngpvan .7z file. This critic concluded instead that Guccifer 2
deliberately planted that clue to implicate a DNC worker who would die under suspicious
circumstances a few days later on July 10, 2016.
Further, this critic accused the Forensicator (and Adam Carter ) of using this finding to amplify the
impact of Forensicator's report in an effort to spread disinformation. He implied that
Forensicator's report was supplied by Russian operatives via a so-called "tip-off file." The
Forensicator addresses those baseless criticisms and accusations in The Campbell
Conspiracy .
Now, we have this additional East Coast indication, which appears just one day after the
ngpvan.7z files were collected. This new East Coast indication is found in a completely
different group of files that Guccifer 2 published on his blog site. Further, this East Coast
finding has its own unique and equally unlikely method of derivation.
If we apply our critic's logic, what do we now conclude? That Guccifer 2 also deliberately
planted this new East Coast indication? To what end? We wonder: Will this new evidence compel our out-spoken critic to retract his
unsubstantiated claims and accusations?
Closing Thought: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. ~ Ian Fleming
It is curious how those running vpn's often don't bother appropriately setting their
device time zones.
Regarding the closing thought, that was my thinking regarding the Byzantine Vegetable
'ally' at /qr in a non-American time zone who repeatedly attacked me.
Perhaps I have shared some harsh words with you and William, but I do sincerely care for
your well being and my appreciation for the work you both have done remains. The Optics have
been understandably difficult to swallow for many, but I hope that in your own time, you both
will be willing to take another look at Q.
Interesting to see Fleming -- as time goes on, it is pretty clear that he was telling us a
few things about how power really works--psychopathic oligarchs with private wetworkers. Of
course now we have governments competing to hire the same mercenaries -- and the uniformed
mercenaries working oligarchs with government complicity.
"... "Tim Canova, independent candidate in Florida's 23rd Congressional District, has filed a motion for a court to invalidate the results of the 2018 general election and declare that a "new election shall proceed with hand-marked paper ballots that are counted by hand in public and reported immediately and publicly at the local precinct level." ..."
"... "Unfortunately, this is only the most recent instance of what is now a pattern of misconduct by Snipes regarding paper ballots, as it follows barely a year after Snipes unlawfully destroyed hundreds of boxes of all paper ballots cast in Broward County in the 2016 Democratic primary for Florida's 23rd Congressional district between Canova and Schultz, in violation of state and federal law and while Canova's prior lawsuit to inspect those ballots was pending, as already determined on summary judgment by the Florida Circuit Court." ..."
"... "In addition to Snipes' failure to safeguard the integrity of the paper ballots in the 2018 general election for FL-23, the certification of the purported results is based on inadequate and incomplete information, and it is therefore an invalid certification of those results. More specifically, approximately 98,000 votes are reported by Snipes to have been cast for Schultz without any indication as to how and when those votes were cast. To date, Snipes still has not provided this information about the "98,000 votes from nowhere." These votes alone are enough to change the results of this election, or at the very least to place in doubt these results." ..."
"... "Florida Gov. Rick Scott suspended Broward County elections supervisor Brenda Snipes on Friday and installed a close ally to lead an office that could play a pivotal role in the next presidential election. Peter Antonacci, president and CEO of the state's business-recruitment agency Enterprise Florida, will serve for the remainder of Snipes' term until a replacement can be chosen by voters in November 2020, the governor's office announced." ..."
Canova Contests The Results Of Congressional Race Against Wasserman-Schultz, Calls For Revote
December 1, 2018
December 1, 2018
Elizabeth Vos
Earlier today, former Congressional candidate Tim Canova announced that his legal team
filed a complaint
officially contesting the results of last month's congressional race, in which Canova
faced off against former DNC Chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
"Tim Canova, independent candidate in Florida's 23rd Congressional District, has filed a motion for a
court to invalidate the results of the 2018 general election and declare that a "new election shall proceed
with hand-marked paper ballots that are counted by hand in public and reported immediately and publicly at
the local precinct level."
" In the details of Canova's court filing, Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes [is
alleged to have] "engaged in misconduct that was sufficient to change or place in doubt the results of the
2018 election." Canova cites Snipes, Dozel Spencer, the SOE Director of Voting Equipment, and other deputy
supervisors "violated their oaths to faithfully perform their duties, engaged in repeated misconduct and
violations of state and federal laws, including criminal statutes."
Highlights of the
complaint
, via the Canova Campaign website, include:
"Unfortunately, this is only the most recent instance of what is now a pattern of misconduct by Snipes
regarding paper ballots, as it follows barely a year after Snipes unlawfully destroyed hundreds of boxes of all
paper ballots cast in Broward County in the 2016 Democratic primary for Florida's 23rd Congressional district
between Canova and Schultz, in violation of state and federal law and while Canova's prior lawsuit to inspect
those ballots was pending, as already determined on summary judgment by the Florida Circuit Court."
"In addition to Snipes' failure to safeguard the integrity of the paper ballots in the 2018 general
election for FL-23, the certification of the purported results is based on inadequate and incomplete
information, and it is therefore an invalid certification of those results. More specifically, approximately
98,000 votes are reported by Snipes to have been cast for Schultz without any indication as to how and when
those votes were cast. To date, Snipes still has not provided this information about the "98,000 votes from
nowhere." These votes alone are enough to change the results of this election, or at the very least to place in
doubt these results."
This latest news comes under 24 hours after the
Sun Sentinal
reported that Florida's Governor Rick Scott had fired Brenda Snipes, effective immediately.
The report states:
"Florida Gov. Rick Scott suspended Broward County elections supervisor Brenda Snipes on
Friday and installed a close ally to lead an office that could play a pivotal role in the next presidential
election. Peter Antonacci, president and CEO of the state's business-recruitment agency Enterprise Florida,
will serve for the remainder of Snipes' term until a replacement can be chosen by voters in November 2020, the
governor's office announced."
Disobedient Media
previously covered the disastrous aftermath of last month's midterm elections,
specifically concerning the race between Canova and Wasserman-Schultz. On election night, the official vote
count awarded a mere 5% of votes to Canova, despite a previous poll revealing the independent was tied with the
former DNC Chairwoman.
This glaring discrepancy prompted vocal calls for the invalidation of the race. Given Snipes's history of
illegal ballot destruction
which benefitted Wasserman-Schultz's interest, as well as the fact that Snipes
was photographed campaigning with Wasserman-Schultz days before voters went to the polls, it would be ludicrous
if Canova and the public failed to question the validity of the results.
In a previous appraisal of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's career,
Disobedient Media
noted her central role in seeing Bernie Sanders cheated out of the Democratic Party
nomination in 2016, as well as her probable involvement in bizarre event surrounding the
DNC Fraud lawsuit
(voice-modulated phone calls including the phrase
"okey-dokey"
),
and the grossly underreported
Awan
scandal
.
Disobedient Media
additionally noted the furor that erupted after the
publication
of video evidence of a digital scanner voting machine sending results wirelessly. Some have also
accused
Snipes
and her affiliates of falsifying ballots 'as needed,' dubbing the practice the
'Brenda Snipes Process,'
which was allegedly used routinely in order to ensure a desired election outcome.
Independent journalist and progressive activist Niko House also set the internet on fire when he published a
video of purported ballots being illegally and improperly transported. House discussed what he witnessed in
Florida on election day with Lee Camp on RT's
Redacted Tonight
.
Tim Canova
has
also called for the resignation of Snipes's Director, Dozel Spencer. As noted by this author and others, Brenda
Snipes is merely the public face of a deeply corrupt political system, and without a massive overhaul, business
will most likely continue as usual in Southern Florida – at the expense of its constituents.
Prosecution of those involved in documented, home-grown election interference is also essential moving
forward. However, one should be under no illusion that such measures are likely in the near term without
massive public pressure.
Regardless, the
significance of Canova's two races
against Wasserman-Schultz, as well as his campaign's quest for
transparency, should not be forgotten. He is one of the very few progressive candidates who has opted to fight
corruption head-on, from outside the DNC, rather than concede and meekly
endorse
the perpetrators
of it from within the Democratic Party.
Unlike the faux "
#Resistance
"
against fictional Russian-collusion or Russian-hacking, Canova is the singular example of real resistance
against actual US election rigging in one of the most corrupt political fiefdoms in the country.
It is for all of these reasons, many believe, that the discrepancy between polling and election results was
so extreme in Canova's latest race. It wasn't about "safely" beating Canova, it was about making an example of
him to such an extent that no one else would follow in his footsteps. With all of this in mind, it is critical
that the public support Tim Canova's efforts in contesting last month's election results. Donations can be made
via the
Canova campaign website
.
Disobedient Media will continue to report on the corrupt dealings surrounding Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, as
well as the efforts of Tim Canova and his campaign.
"... He might call it a "higher loyalty", but it looks to us peons like a true double-standard. Democrats get Wall Street Bankster treatment, while the rabble get tossed in the slammer. ..."
Former FBI Director James Comey appeared December 17th, 2018, for a
second round of questions by a joint House committee oversight probe into the DOJ and FBI
conduct during the 2016 presidential election and incoming Trump administration.
The Joint House Committee just released the transcript online (full pdf below).
Trey Gowdy grilled Comey on his vastly different handling of comments by Trump and Obama.
When Trump asked Comey whether he could see his way clear to easing up on Flynn, Comey
memorialized the conversation in a memo and distributed it to his leadership team, including
Andrew McCabe and James Baker.
However, when President Obama on 60 Minutes publicly exonerated Hillary Clinton's
mishandling of classified information -- setting the stage for true obstruction of justice --
Comey did nothing. He never talked to the president about potential obstruction, he never
memorialized his observations, and he didn't leak anything to the press. These were all things
he did with Trump.
He might call it a "higher loyalty", but it looks to us peons like a true double-standard.
Democrats get Wall Street Bankster treatment, while the rabble get tossed in the
slammer.
2. According to Comey, Flynn had no right to counsel
This is interesting:
Mr. Gowdy. Did Mr. Flynn have the right to have counsel present during that interview?
Mr. Comey. No.
Oooooooookay.
3. Comey confirmed McCabe called Flynn to initiate "entrapment";
contradicts himself on counsel
And:
Mr. Gowdy. Why not advise General Flynn of the consequences of making false statements to
the FBI?
Mr. Comey. ...the Deputy Director [McCabe] called him, told him what the subject matter
was, told him he was welcome to have a representative from White House Counsel there...
So Comey is saying that Flynn didn't have the right to counsel (item 2), and then states
that he does have the right to a White House counsel attending the meeting.
The lies are getting harder and harder to keep straight with this egregious
individual.
4. Comey lied about McCabe's conversation with Flynn
When asked whether McCabe was trying to set Flynn up by asserting no counsel was needed in
the interview, Comey claimed he was unaware of that critical fact. But McCabe, in a written
memo, asserted that he told Flynn, "[i]f you have a lawyer present, we'll need to involve the
Department of Justice".
In other words, McCabe was trying to ensure Flynn had no counsel present during the
interview.
5. Comey still falls back on the Logan Act scam to justify his actions
Yes, the Logan Act. When former secretary of state John Kerry meets with various Mullahs
while President Trump is unwinding the disastrous Iran deal, there's no crime there !
But let Flynn, a member of the Trump transition team, have a perfectly legitimate
conversation with a Russian diplomat, we get:
Mr. Comey. And I hesitate only with "wrong." I think a Department of Justice prosecutor
might say, on its face, it was problematic under the Logan Act because of private citizens
negotiating and all that business.
What a lying sack of gumbo. At the time, Flynn was not a private citizen. He was a member of
the incoming administration, and had anyone bothered to prosecute prior transitions for similar
"crimes", the entire Obama and Clinton posses would be breaking rocks at Leavenworth.
6.
Comey Throws James Clapper Under the Bus
When asked by Jim Jordan about his private meeting with the President to brief him on a very
tiny portion of the "salacious and unverified" (Comey's words under oath) dossier, Comey
claimed ODNI James Clapper had orchestrated the entire fiasco.
Mr. Comey. ...ultimately, it was Clapper's call. I agreed -- we agreed that it made sense
for me to do it and to do it privately, separately. So I don't want to make it sound like I
was ordered to do it.
He wasn't ordered to do it, but it was Clapper's call.
Oooooooookay.
7. Jordan Torches Comey Over His Dossier Comments
I'll just leave this here. Comey may need to put some ice on that.
Mr. Jordan. So that's what I'm not understanding, is you felt this was so important that
it required a private session with you and the President-elect, you only spoke of the
salacious part of the dossier, but yet you also say there's no way any good reporter would
print this. But you felt it was still critical that you had to talk to the President-elect
about it. And I would argue you created the very news hook that you said you were concerned
about...
...it's so inflammatory that reporters would 'get killed' for reporting it, why was it so
important to tell the President? Particularly when you weren't going to tell him the rest of
the dossier -- about the rest of the dossier?
8. Comey Concealed Critical National Security Concerns About Flynn From the
President
This is quite unbelievable: in a private dinner with the president, Comey neglected to
mention that just three days earlier he had directed the interview of Trump's ostensible
National Security Advisor.
Mr. Comey. ...at no time during the dinner was there a reference, allusion, mention by
either of
us about the FBI having contact with General Flynn or being interested in General Flynn
investigatively.
Mr. Jordan. That was what I wanted to know. So this is not just referring to the President
didn't bring it up. You didn't bring it up either.
Mr. Comey. Correct, neither of us brought it up or alluded to it.
Mr. Jordan. Why not? He's talking about General Flynn. You had just interviewed him 3 days
earlier and discovered that he was lying to the Vice President, knew he was lying to the Vice
President, and, based on what we've heard of late, that he lied tyour agents. Why not tell
his boss, why not tell the head of the executive branch, why not tell the President of the
United States, "Hey, your National Security Advisor just lied to us 3 days ago"?
Mr. Comey. Because we had an open investigation, and there would be no reason or a need to
tell the President about it.
Mr. Jordan. Really?
Mr. Comey. Really.
Mr. Jordan. You wouldn't tell the President of the United States that his National
Security Advisor wasn't being square with the FBI? ... I mean, but this is not just any
investigation, it seems to me, Director. This is a top advisor to the Commander in Chief. And
you guys, based on what we've heard, felt that he wasn't being honest with the Vice President
and wasn't honest with two of your agents. And just 3 days later, you're meeting with the
President, and, oh, by the way, the conversation is about General Flynn. And you don't tell
the President anything?
Mr. Comey. I did not.
Mr. Meadows. So, Director Comey, let me make sure I understand this. You were so concerned
that Michael Flynn may have lied or did lie to the Vice President of the United States, but
that once you got that confirmed, that he had told a falsehood, you didn't believe that it
was appropriate to tell the President of the United States that there was no national
security risk where you would actually convey that to the President of the United States? Is
that your testimony?
Mr. Comey. That is correct. We had an --
The more we learn, the dirtier a cop Comey ends up appearing.
9. Gowdy Destroys the
Double Standard of Clinton vs. Flynn
Check this out:
Mr. Gowdy. ...we are going to contrast the decision to not allow Michael Flynn to have an
attorney, or discourage him from having one, with allowing some other folks the Bureau
interviewed to have multiple attorneys in the room, including fact witnesses. Can you see the
dichotomy there, or is that an unreasonable comparison?
Mr. Comey. I'm not going to comment on that. I remember you asking me questions about that
last week. I'm happy to answer them again.
Mr. Gowdy. You will not say whether or not it is an unreasonable comparison to compare
allowing multiple attorneys, who are also fact witnesses, to be present during an interview
but discouraging another person from having counsel present?
Mr. Comey. I'm not going to answer that in a vacuum...
10. Comey May Have Been Involved With the Infamous Tarmac Meeting
Another interesting vignette, this time from John Ratcliffe :
Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. So it would appear from this that there had been some type of
briefing the day before, with reference to yesterday, June 27, 2016, where you had requested
a copy of emails between President Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Mr. Comey. I see that it says that.
Mr. Ratcliffe. ...The significance of that is, as we talked about last time, June 27th of
2016 was also the date that Attorney General Lynch and former President Bill Clinton met on a
tarmac in Phoenix, Arizona. Do you recall whether or not this briefing was held at the FBI
because of that tarmac meeting, or was it just happened to be a coincidence that it was held
on that day? Mr. Comey. It would have to have been a coincidence. I don't remember a meeting
in response to the tarmac meeting.
Muh don't know!
11. Comey confirms Obama knew Hillary Clinton was using a compromised,
insecure email server
Well, spank me on the fanny and call me Nancy!
Mr. Ratcliffe. ...Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama were communicating via email
through an unsecure, unclassified server?
Mr. Comey. Yes, they were between her Clinton email.com account and his -- I don't know
where his account, his unclassified account, was maintained. So I'm sorry. So, yes, here were
communications unclassified between two accounts, hers and then his cover account.
Mr. Ratcliffe. ...Did your review of these emails or the content of these emails impact
your decision to edit out a reference to President Obama in your July 5th, 2016, press
conference remarks?
If Trump had done 1/1,000,000th of this crap, he'd be -- yes -- breaking rocks in
Leavenworth right now.
But there's no double-standard, rabble! Just keep buying iPhones and playing Call of Duty
!
...Aaaaaaaaand I'm spent.
Okay, done for now.
But let's recap the activities of Dr. "Higher Loyalty" Comey:
Did not investigate the felony leak to the press of the conversation between the Russian
Ambassador and Flynn.
Did not advise Congress of the "investigation" into Trump-Russia collusion as required by
statute.
Lied to the FISA court -- another felony -- about Carter Page being "an agent of a
foreign power".
Wrote an exoneration memo for Hillary Clinton before more than a dozen witnesses,
including Clinton herself, had been interviewed.
But, no, there's no double-standard for the aggressiveness of law enforcement when it comes
to Democrats like Clinton and Obama.
The decision to indict Flynn ruins " esprit de corps " in the USA intelligence community. So
Partaigenosser Mulkler trying to depose Trump oversteped the "norms" of intelligence community.
And if CIA allied with FBI against DIA that's a bad sign. It looks like the US elite was split
into two warring camps that will fight for power absolutely ruthlessly.
As for "In the report, the two agents describe Flynn as being very open and noted said Flynn 'clearly saw the FBI agents
as allies.' " the question arise how he got the to position of the head of DIA with such astounding level of naivety.
If anyone from FBI does not want your lawyer to be present you should probably have a lawyer present.
Notable quotes:
"... "The agents did not provide Gen. Flynn with a warning of the penalties for making a false statement under 18 U.S.C. 1001 before, during, or after the interview," the Flynn memo says. ..."
"... According to the 302, before the interview, McCabe and other FBI officials "decided the agents would not warn Flynn that it was a crime to lie during an FBI interview because they wanted Flynn to be relaxed , and they were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely affect the rapport." ..."
"... McCabe, who has since been fired for lying to the DOJ's Office of Inspector General about leaking information to the media, also asked Flynn not to have his lawyer present during the initial meeting with the FBI agents. ..."
"... On Thursday, FBI Supervisory Agent Jeff Danik told SaraACarter.com that Sullivan must also request all the communications between the two agents, as well as their supervisors around the August 2017 time-frame in order to get a complete and accurate picture of what transpired. Danik, who is an expert in FBI policy, says it is imperative that Sullivan also request "the workflow chart, which would show one-hundred percent, when the 302s were created when they were sent to a supervisor and who approved them." ..."
"... Flynn was found guilty by Mueller on one count of lying to the FBI. Supporters of Flynn have questioned Mueller's tactics in getting the retired three-star general to plead guilty to this one count of lying. ..."
"... In the report, the two agents describe Flynn as being very open and noted said Flynn "clearly saw the FBI agents as allies." Flynn is described as discussing a variety of "subjects." The report includes his openness regarding Trump's "knack for interior design," the hotels he stayed at during his campaign, as well as other issues. ..."
"... It would appear that the branch of government that may be out of control (by the Supreme Court) is the judiciary. It is the court rules and failure of the Supreme Court to act and weed its subordinate courts, that allowed much of this to happen. The FISA Court has been a rubber stamp. No judge is held accountable for failure to obtain justice in their court. ..."
"... Could Mueller's whole appointment be meant to protect the Clinton empire? ..."
The Special Counsel's Office released key documents related to former National Security
Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn Friday. Robert Mueller's office had until 3 p.m. to get the
documents to Judge Emmet Sullivan, who demanded information Wednesday after
bombshell information surfaced in a memorandum submitted by Flynn's attorney's that led to
serious concerns regarding the FBI's initial questioning of the retired three-star general.
The highly redacted documents included notes from former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe
regarding his conversation with Flynn about arranging the interview with the FBI. The initial
interview took place at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017.
The documents also include the FBI's "302" report regarding Flynn's interview with
anti-Trump former FBI Agent Peter Strzok and FBI Agent Joe Pientka when they met with him at
the White House. It is not, however, the 302 document from the actual January, 2017 interview
but an August, 2017 report of Strzok's recollections of the interview.
Flynn's attorney's had noted in their memorandum to the courts that the documents revealed
that FBI officials made the decision not to provide Flynn with his Miranda Rights, which
would've have warned him of penalties for making false statements.
"The agents did not provide Gen. Flynn with a warning of the penalties for making a false
statement under 18 U.S.C. 1001 before, during, or after the interview," the Flynn memo
says.
According to the 302, before the interview, McCabe and other FBI officials "decided the
agents would not warn Flynn that it was a crime to lie during an FBI interview because they
wanted Flynn to be relaxed , and they were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely
affect the rapport."
McCabe, who has since been fired for lying to the DOJ's Office of Inspector General about
leaking information to the media, also asked Flynn not to have his lawyer present during the
initial meeting with the FBI agents.
The July 2017 report, however, was the interview with Strzok. It described his interview
with Flynn but was not the original Flynn interview.
Apparent discrepancies within the 302 documents are being questioned by may former senior
FBI officials, who state that there are stringent policies in place to ensure that the
documents are guarded against tampering.
On Thursday, FBI Supervisory Agent Jeff Danik told SaraACarter.com that Sullivan must also request all the
communications between the two agents, as well as their supervisors around the August 2017
time-frame in order to get a complete and accurate picture of what transpired. Danik, who is an
expert in FBI policy, says it is imperative that Sullivan also request "the workflow chart,
which would show one-hundred percent, when the 302s were created when they were sent to a
supervisor and who approved them."
He stressed, "the bureau policy – the absolute FBI policy – is that the notes
must be placed in the system in a 1-A file within five days of the interview." Danik said that
the handwritten notes get placed into the FBI Sentinel System, which is the FBI's main record
keeping system. "Anything beyond five business days is a problem, eight months is a disaster,"
he added.
In the redacted 302 report Strzok and Pientka said they "both had the impression at the time
that Flynn was not lying or did not think he was lying." Information that Flynn was not lying
was first published
and reported by SaraACarter.com.
Flynn was found guilty by Mueller on one count of lying to the FBI. Supporters of Flynn have
questioned Mueller's tactics in getting the retired three-star general to plead guilty to this
one count of lying.
In the report, the two agents describe Flynn as being very open and noted said Flynn
"clearly saw the FBI agents as allies." Flynn is described as discussing a variety of
"subjects." The report includes his openness regarding Trump's "knack for interior design," the
hotels he stayed at during his campaign, as well as other issues.
"Flynn was so talkative, and had so much time for them, that Strzok wondered if the
national security adviser did not have more important things to do than have a such a
relaxed, non-pertinent discussion with them," it said.
The documents turned over by Mueller also reveal that other FBI personnel "later argued
about the FBI's decision to interview Flynn." Tags Law Crime
Basically McCabe and others in his unit are totally discredited. He should have this
quashed and the case thrown out of court. No Miranda rights, therefore no lying to FBI.
Why didn't Flynn demand his day in court? He would have won. I am not buying the ********
argument about him being run into bankruptcy. Hell, he could have represented himself and
still won the case at trial. In addition, I am not buying this ******** argument that he
agreed to plead guilty because he was afraid the Mueller would go after his son. Does anyone
know what Flynn's son does for a living? Why would he be afraid?
Flynn was found guilty by Mueller on one count of lying to the FBI.
No! Flynn was not f ound guilty by Mueller on one count of lying. The FBI is an
investigative body (at best) not a judicial body. Only a jury or a judge acting in lieu of a
jury can find someone guilty of anything.
Flynn plead guilty to one count of lying because to have plead innocent would have
bankrupted him in legal fees. However, it's interesting that this ZH article stated that
Mueller found Flynn guilty. In federal courts these days, once you're charged with a crime
you will be found guilty. FBI, DEA, BATF, IRS...whoever, you do not get a fair trial. Federal
judges are hard-wired to find guilt. Vicious and ambitious federal prosecutors have only one
interest, to rack up successful prosecutions. Federal juries are intimidated by the brute
force of the federal system and, I suspect, fear that if they don't bring in a verdict
satisfactory to the prosecutor, they may be investigated themselves. "Investigation" in the
federal sense means that they will be relentlessly harassed forever by the federal
government
My small experience as a juror is that state prosecutors and judges are no different than
what you describe for the federal system. We found a guy non-guilty (not a close call either)
that the judge wanted convicted, and he came back and questioned us about our logic. Casually
of course. I just said the guy was innocent beyond a reasonable doubt. Judge wasn't
pleased.
Flynn is an idiot.... why agree to talk to the FBI at all.... as Martha Stewart found
out.... if they can't make the case for what they're investigating... they'll just find some
statement in your "interview" that they claim was not true.... no matter if it was your
intention to lie or just a recollection that was wrong... and charge you with that!
Simple answer is that if law enforcement wants to "talk" to you they're looking to get
information to charge you.... simple reply.... FU... I want a lawyer!
The compromise of classified docs was really sort of candy-assed, everybody knew it . .
.
Rewind the tape, and you will find the contrite Petreaus in front of any and all
microphones confessing to his affair with Broadwell, which he repeatedly stated began on some
certain date . . .conveniently AFTER his confirmation as CIA director . . .
. . .certainly Petreaus was asked in his FBI background interview if he was involved in
any affairs. And he certainly said no.
So, Paula, since I'm on all the networks at the moment, I know you can hear me, our affair
started on X date, in case the FBI gets a notion to ask you (which they did not.)
See, the FBI takes lying seriously. But somebody must have said something along the lines
of: hey, Petreaus is a good guy, I hope you can find a way to let him off easy.
But when faced with financial destruction, your kids being threatened, and false evidence
against you, you sometimes admit to the charges to make a deal...
The military is realizing they are not on the same team with FBI, CIA, DOJ.
Why do you think they have tried so hard to keep NSA under military leadership? Wink,
wink...
Leguran
It would appear that the branch of government that may be out of control (by the Supreme Court) is the judiciary. It
is the court rules and failure of the Supreme Court to act and weed its subordinate courts, that allowed much of this to
happen. The FISA Court has been a rubber stamp. No judge is held accountable for failure to obtain justice in their court.
The Chief Justice has refused to accept that judges can employ personal poliltical beliefs in court. All courts are
subordinate to the US Supreme Court and therefore the Supreme Court has a duty to ensure justice not just to decide whether
cases are 'sufficiently mature' to come before the Supreme Court. In other words, the Judiciary needs to be disturbed from
their lifetime appointments and made conditional appointments. The Supreme Court needs to deal with incapacity within its own
ranks. All told, this shocking miscarriage of justice came about because the Judicial Branch of government allowed it to
happen. The Judicial Branch has run amok.
lizzie dw
IMO, Judge Emmet Sullivan needs to demand and receive the original UNREDACTED 302 about the Strzok/Pientka interview with
General Flynn. But, really, just by reading the pre-interview discussions of the FBI members involved, the whole thing sounds
fishy.
Caloot
Hedge headline:
Could Mueller's whole appointment be meant to protect the Clinton empire?
Like Trump or not, there are serious cracks appearing in the Clintons foundation.
"... One thing that has puzzled me about Trump methods is his constant tweeting of witch hunt with respect to Mueller but his unwillingness to actually disclose what Brennan, Clapper, Comey, et al actually did by declassifying all the documents and communications among them. In your opinion what is he trying to accomplish with his method here? ..."
I believe you are spot on in your analysis of the Trump methods. No doubt based on your
personal observations up close of similar sole proprietor business hustlers. I think one
problem that Trump methods face is that he needs people around him who can make things happen
despite the byzantine ways of the vast federal bureaucracy who have their own agenda.
One thing that has puzzled me about Trump methods is his constant tweeting of witch
hunt with respect to Mueller but his unwillingness to actually disclose what Brennan,
Clapper, Comey, et al actually did by declassifying all the documents and communications
among them. In your opinion what is he trying to accomplish with his method here?
A man President Donald Trump named as a member of his foreign policy team
during the 2016 campaign began his two-week sentence on Monday for lying to the FBI about his
Russian contacts.
George Papadopoulos, the first Trump campaign aide sentenced as a result of special counsel
Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling, was ordered to report to the
Federal Bureau of Prisons after his lawyers' last-ditch motions to delay his sentence were
denied.
Papadopoulos arrived Monday at a minimum-security camp in Oxford, Wisconsin, the BOP
confirmed to USA TODAY. There are currently 153 inmates at the camp, according to the agency's website .
U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss
issued a 13-page ruling Sunday rejecting two motions filed by Papadopoulos' attorneys. Moss
said Papadopoulos' time to file an appeal expired on Sept. 25 and that his hopes of having his
plea deal voided by a case challenging Mueller's appointment were without merit.
The case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit argues that
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein did not have the constitutional authority to appoint
Mueller after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from matters dealing with the
Russia investigation. Papadopoulos' lawyers said it would be "unjust" for their client to go to
prison only to see Mueller's investigation declared illegitimate after he served his time.
But Moss said those arguments had been available to Papadopoulos for more than a year. And
he pointed out that two other judges had "issued thorough and carefully reasoned opinions
rejecting the arguments that Papadopoulos now champions."
Moss said the "prospect that the D.C. Circuit will reach a contrary conclusion is
remote."
The judge also said nothing in the Bail Reform Act cited by Papadopoulos' lawyers would
justify suspending a sentence to await "an appeal brought by a different party in a different
case."
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts while
working for the Trump campaign in 2016. In September, he was sentenced to two weeks
in prison , a year of supervised release, 200 hours of community service and a $9,500
fine.
Mueller's prosecutors had sought a six-month sentence for Papadopoulos, who asked the judge
to give him probation. A conviction for lying to the FBI can carry a sentence of up to five years in prison
.
According to Mueller, Papadopoulos "lied to the FBI regarding his interactions with a
foreign professor whom he understood to have significant ties to the Russian government, as
well as a female Russian national."
Papadopoulos identified that
professor as Joseph Mifsud , who introduced him to the Russian woman he knew as Olga.
Mifsud told Papadopoulos Olga was related to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Papadopoulos
later identified her as "Putin's niece" in a campaign email.
When asked about his contacts with Mifsud and Olga, Papadopoulos falsely told the FBI agents
that his meetings with them happened before he joined the Trump campaign.
"He's an energy and oil consultant," Trump said at the time. "Excellent guy."
According to Papadopoulos, he met with Trump, Sessions and other campaign officials at the
Trump Hotel in Washington on March 31, 2016, and told them he could use his new connections to
set up a meeting between Trump and Putin.
"While some in the room rebuffed George's offer, Mr. Trump nodded with approval and deferred
to Mr. Sessions who appeared to like the idea and stated that the campaign should look into
it," Papadopoulos' lawyers wrote in a court filing.
Summary: George Papadopoulos and his wife Simone Mangiante approached in Greece by a known
CIA/FBI operative, Charles Tawil. Mr. Tawil enlists George as a business consultant, under
the auspices of energy development interests, and hands him $10,000 in cash to take back to
the U.S. Upon arrival at the Dulles airport Robert Mueller had FBI agents waiting.
Papadopoulos was stopped and searched; however, he never had the cash because he smartly
left it in Greece with his lawyer. Further:
[W]hen he was arrested at Dulles Airport on July 27 after coming off a flight from
Munich, prosecutors had no warrant for him and no indictment or criminal complaint. The
complaint would be filed the following morning and approved by Howell in Washington.
Witch hunt has its own dynamics and it is not necessary to get any facts to inflict great damage. Mueller, the key person in 8/11
investigation, is first and foremost a loyal neocon/neolib establishment stooge, not so much a lawyer. So the shadow of McCarthyism
fall on the Washitnton, DC.
Felix Sater was FBI asset from the very beginning.
Which such Byzantium politics in Washington and intrigues between almost identical parties worth of Madrid court it is not
accidental that FBI coves with upper hand in its struggle with Russian intelligence, Russians can't get such training in
viciousness, double dealing and false flag operations anywhere.
Notable quotes:
"... Disappearing for the midterms , Russiagate has re-emerged front and center. This week's barrage of developments in the cases of indicted Trump campaign figures Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, and George Papadopoulos have renewed long-running declarations of a presidency in peril . ..."
"... They coincide with a fresh round of alarm over the fate of Mueller's investigation following Trump's ouster of attorney general Jeff Sessions and the installation of Matthew Whitaker in his place. ..."
"... Although Mueller's final report has yet to be released, the issue that sparked the FBI investigation he inherited has already been resolved. The FBI began eyeing potential Trump-Russia ties in July 2016 after getting a tip that unpaid campaign aide George Papadopoulos may have been informed that Russia was in possession of stolen Democratic Party emails well before WikiLeaks made them public. But that trail went cold. It turns out that a London-based professor, Joseph Mifsud, told Papadopoulos that the Russian government might possess thousands of Hillary Clinton's emails. ..."
"... The Russia probe's other instigating figure, Carter Page, was also a low-level, unpaid campaign official. The information that led to his investigation is even more suspect. ..."
"... But its a key source for that supposition turned out to be the Steele dossier -- the salacious, Democratic Party-funded opposition research compiled by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele. And while the FBI got Papadopoulos on lying to them, Page has not been accused of any crime... ..."
"... Just as the evidence used in Manafort's bank and tax fraud case underscored that he worked against Russian interests in Ukraine , Flynn's indictment turns up another inconvenient fact for the collusion hopeful: The foreign government that Flynn colluded with on Trump's behalf -- against the US government -- is not Russia, but Israel . ..."
"... Russians never signed on, and Cohen only grew increasingly frustrated with Sater's failure to live up to his lofty pledges. "You are putting my job in jeopardy and making me look incompetent," Cohen wrote Sater on December 31, 2015. "I gave you two months and the best you send me is some bullshit garbage invite by some no name clerk at a third-tier bank." ..."
"... It is also possible that Manafort's alleged lies have nothing to do with a Russia conspiracy; after all, his case, and that of his deputy Rick Gates, pertained not to Russia or the 2016 campaign, but instead to financial crimes during Manafort's lobbying stint in Ukraine. ..."
They coincide with a fresh round of alarm over the fate of Mueller's investigation following Trump's ouster of attorney
general Jeff Sessions and the installation of Matthew Whitaker in his place. Leading Democrats now see the probe as so paramount
that, despite having re-captured the House running on health-care issues, protecting the investigation has been deemed "our top priority"
(Representative Jerry Nadler) and "at the top of the agenda," (Representative Adam Schiff).
There is nothing objectionable about wanting to safeguard the Mueller investigation, nor about concerns that Trump's appointment
of an unqualified loyalist may jeopardize it. Mueller should complete his work, unimpeded. The question is one of priorities. After
all, the fixation on Mueller has not just raised anticipation of Trump's indictment, or even impeachment -- it has also
overshadowed many of
the actual policies that those seeking his political demise oppose him for. At this highly charged moment, it seems prudent to re-consider
whether the probe remains worthy of such attention and high hopes.
Although Mueller's final report has yet to be released, the issue that sparked the FBI investigation he inherited has already
been resolved. The FBI
began eyeing potential Trump-Russia ties in July 2016 after getting a tip that unpaid campaign aide George Papadopoulos may have
been informed that Russia was in possession of stolen Democratic Party emails well before WikiLeaks made them public. But that trail
went cold. It turns out that a London-based professor, Joseph Mifsud, told Papadopoulos that the Russian government might possess
thousands of Hillary Clinton's emails.
The FBI interviewed Mifsud in Washington, DC, in February 2017, but Mueller has never alleged that Mifsud works with the Russian
government. Papadopoulos was ultimately sentenced to just 14 days behind bars for lying to the FBI about the timing and nature of
his contacts with Mifsud. He reported to a federal prison on Monday.
The Russia probe's other instigating figure, Carter Page, was also a low-level, unpaid campaign official. The information
that led to his investigation is even more suspect. In its October 2016 application for a surveillance warrant on Page,
the FBI claimed it "believes that [Russia's]
efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with [the Trump campaign]." But its a key source
for that supposition turned out to be the Steele dossier -- the salacious, Democratic Party-funded opposition research compiled by
former MI6 agent Christopher Steele. And while the FBI got Papadopoulos on lying to them, Page has not been accused of any crime...
With the Russia investigation's catalysts coming up all but empty, there is little reason to expect that the remaining campaign
members who face prison time will reverse that trend. Former national security adviser Michael Flynn awaits sentencing in the coming
weeks on charges similar to Papadopoulos's. Just as the evidence used in Manafort's bank and tax fraud case
underscored that he
worked against Russian interests in Ukraine , Flynn's indictment turns up another inconvenient fact for the collusion
hopeful: The foreign government that Flynn colluded with on Trump's behalf -- against the US government -- is
not Russia, but Israel .
Despite much hoopla to the contrary, Muller's new indictment of former Trump fixer Michael Cohen contains more inconvenient facts.
Cohen has pleaded guilty to a single count for lying to Congress about his role in a failed attempt to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
According to the plea document, Cohen gave Congress false written answers in order to "minimize links," between the Moscow project
and Trump, and to "give the false impression" that it was abandoned earlier than it actually was. Cohen
told the court that
he made these statements to "be loyal" to Trump and to be consistent with his "political messaging."
As I noted in The Nation
in October 2017 , the attempted real-estate venture in Russia "does raise a potential conflict of interest" for Trump, who
"pursued a Moscow deal as he praised Putin on the campaign trail." But nothing in Cohen's indictment incriminates Trump. Much of
what it details was previously known, and rather than revealing an illicit, transatlantic collusion scheme, it reads more like a
slapstick mafia buddy comedy. As
Buzzfeed News reported in May , Cohen communicated extensively with Trump organization colleague Felix Sater -- identified
in the Cohen plea as "Individual 2″ -- who had promised to secure Russian financing for the proposed Moscow project. But the
Russians never signed on, and Cohen only grew increasingly frustrated with Sater's failure to live up to his lofty pledges. "You
are putting my job in jeopardy and making me look incompetent," Cohen wrote Sater on December 31, 2015. "I gave you two months and
the best you send me is some bullshit garbage invite by some no name clerk at a third-tier bank."
Cohen then took matters into his own hands. As was previously known, he did not have an email address for a Russian contact, so
he wrote to a generic email address at the office of Dmitri Peskov, the press secretary for Vladimir Putin ("Russian Official 1,"
in the indictment). We now learn from Cohen that he managed to reach Peskov's assistant, who asked him "detailed questions and took
notes." But as The New York Times noted when the Trump
Moscow story first emerged: "The project never got [Russian] government permits or financing, and died weeks later." Sater tried
to save the project. He discussed arranging visits to Russia by both Cohen and Trump, but Cohen ultimately backed out after allegations
of Russian email hacking surfaced in June 2016.
According to Buzzfeed , Sater even proposed giving Putin a $50 million penthouse as an enticement, but "the plan never went anywhere
because the tower deal ultimately fizzled, and it is not clear whether Trump knew of "Sater's idea."
Cohen now claims that he spoke to Trump about the project more than the three times that he informed Congress about. For their
part, Trump's attorneys
do not seem concerned, saying that his recently submitted answers to Mueller align with Cohen's account. That Cohen perjured
himself to Congress raises problems for him, but it is hard to see how his lies about a project that failed and a proposed trip to
Russia that never happened can hurt Trump. That could only change if, as part of his new cooperation deal with Mueller, Cohen has
more to give.
As for Manafort, his case took a major turn when Mueller canceled their cooperation agreement and accused him of "crimes and lies."
The crucial questions are what does Mueller allege he lied to him about and what evidence is there to substantiate that charge. Mueller
is expected to provide details in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we can only speculate.
The revelation that
Manafort's lawyers shared information with Trump's attorneys even after the plea deal was struck in September has inevitably
fueled speculation that Manafort is lying to benefit Trump, or even hide evidence of a Russia conspiracy. That is certainly possible.
But theories that Manafort is then banking on a pardon from Trump do not square with the
prevailing
view that his
agreement with Mueller -- which included admitting to crimes that could be re-charged in state court -- was "
pardon proof ."
It is also possible that Manafort's alleged lies have nothing to do with a Russia conspiracy; after all, his case, and that
of his deputy Rick Gates, pertained not to Russia or the 2016 campaign, but instead to financial crimes during Manafort's lobbying
stint in Ukraine. The Wall Street Journal suggests that is the case,
reporting that Manafort's alleged lies "don't appear to be central to the allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election
that Mr. Mueller is investigating." Earlier this month,
ABC News claimed , citing "multiple sources," that Mueller's investigators are "not getting what they want" from Manafort's cooperation
deal. When it comes to collusion, perhaps there is just nothing to get.
After Democratic party was co-opted by neoliberals there is no way back. And since Obama the trend of Democratic Party is
toward strengthening the wing of CIA-democratic notthe wing of the party friendly to workers. Bought by Wall Street leadership is
uncable of intruting any change that undermine thier current neoliberal platform. that's why they criminally derailed Sanders.
Notable quotes:
"... When you think about the issue of how exactly a clean-energy jobs program would address the elephant in the room of private accumulation and how such a program, under capitalism, would be able to pay living wages to the people put to work under it, it exposes how non threatening these Green New Deals actually are to capitalism. ..."
"... To quote Trotsky, "These people are capable of and ready for anything!" ..."
"... "Any serious measures to stop global warming, let alone assure a job and livable wage to everyone, would require a massive redistribution of wealth and the reallocation of trillions currently spent on US imperialism's neo-colonial wars abroad." ..."
"... "It includes various left-sounding rhetoric, but is entirely directed to and dependent upon the Democratic Party." ..."
"... "And again and again, in the name of "practicality," the most unrealistic and impractical policy is promoted -- supporting a party that represents the class that is oppressing and exploiting you! The result is precisely the disastrous situation working people and youth face today -- falling wages, no job security, growing repression and the mounting threat of world war." - New York Times tries to shame "disillusioned young voters" into supporting the Democrats ..."
"... It is an illusion that technical innovation within the capitalist system will magically fundamentally resolve the material problems produced by capitalism. But the inconvenient facts are entirely ignored by the corporate shills in the DSA and the whole lot of establishment politicians, who prefer to indulge their addiction to wealth and power with delusions of grandeur, technological utopianism, and other figments that serve the needs of their class. ..."
"... First it was Obama with his phoney "hope and change" that lured young voters to the Dumbicrats and now it's Ocacia Cortez promising a "green deal" in order to herd them back into the Democratic party--a total fraud of course--totally obvious! ..."
"... from Greenwald: The Democratic Party's deceitful game https://www.salon.com/2010/... ..."
they literally ripped this out of the 2016 Green Party platform. Jill Stein spoke repeatedly
about the same exact kind of Green New Deal, a full-employment, transition-to-100%-renewables
program that would supposedly solve all the world's problems.
When you think about the issue of how exactly a clean-energy jobs program would address
the elephant in the room of private accumulation and how such a program, under capitalism,
would be able to pay living wages to the people put to work under it, it exposes how non
threatening these Green New Deals actually are to capitalism.
In 2016, when the Greens made
this their central economic policy proposal, the Democrats responded by calling that platform
irresponsible and dangerous ("even if it's a good idea, you can't actually vote for a
non-two-party candidate!"). Why would they suddenly find a green new deal appealing now
except for its true purpose: left cover for the very system destroying the planet.
To quote
Trotsky, "These people are capable of and ready for anything!"
"Any serious measures to stop global warming, let alone assure a job and livable wage to
everyone, would require a massive redistribution of wealth and the reallocation of trillions
currently spent on US imperialism's neo-colonial wars abroad."
Their political position not only lacks seriousness, unserious is their political
position.
"It includes various left-sounding rhetoric, but is entirely directed to and dependent
upon the Democratic Party."
For subjective-idealists, what you want to believe, think and feel is just so much more
convincing than objective reality. Especially when it covers over single-minded class
interests at play.
"And again and again, in the name of "practicality," the most unrealistic and impractical
policy is promoted -- supporting a party that represents the class that is oppressing and
exploiting you! The result is precisely the disastrous situation working people and youth
face today -- falling wages, no job security, growing repression and the mounting threat of
world war." - New York Times tries to shame "disillusioned young voters" into supporting
the Democrats
It is an illusion that technical innovation within the capitalist system will magically
fundamentally resolve the material problems produced by capitalism. But the inconvenient
facts are entirely ignored by the corporate shills in the DSA and the whole lot of
establishment politicians, who prefer to indulge their addiction to wealth and power with
delusions of grandeur, technological utopianism, and other figments that serve the needs of
their class.
First it was Obama with his phoney "hope and change" that lured young voters to the
Dumbicrats and now it's Ocacia Cortez promising a "green deal" in order to herd them back
into the Democratic party--a total fraud of course--totally obvious!
Only an International Socialist program led by Workers can truly lead a "green revolution" by
expropriating the billionaire oil barons of their capital and redirecting that wealth into
the socialist reconstruction of the entire economy.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's "Green New Deal" is a nice laugh. Really, it sure is funny hearing
these lies given any credence at all. This showmanship belongs in a fantasy book, not in real
life. The Democratic Party as a force for good social change Now that's a laugh!
Lies, empty promises, meaningless tautologies and morality plays, qualified and conditional
declarations to be backpedalled pending appropriate political expediencies, devoid any
practical content that is what AOC, card carrying member of DSA, and in fact young energetic
political apparatchik of calcified political body of Dems establishment, duty engulfs. And
working for socialist revolution is no one of them.
What kind of socialist would reject socialist revolution, class struggle and class
emancipation and choose, as a suppose socialist path, accommodation with oligarchic ruling
elite via political, not revolutionary process that would have necessarily overthrown ruling
elite.
What socialist would acquiesce to legalized exploitation of people for profit, legalized
greed and inequality and would negotiate away fundamental principle of egalitarianism and
working people self rule?
Only National Socialist would; and that is exactly what AOC campaign turned out to be all
about.
National Socialism with imperial flavor is her affiliation and what her praises for
Pelosi, wife of a billionaire and dead warmonger McCain proved.
Now she is peddling magical thinking about global change and plunge herself into falacy of
entrepreneurship, Market solution to the very problem that the market solutions were designed
to create and aggravate namely horrific inequality that is robbing people from their own
opportunities to mitigate devastating effects of global change.
The insidiousness of phony socialists expresses itself in the fact that they lie that any
social problem can be fixed by current of future technical means, namely via so called
technological revolution instead by socialist revolution they deem unnecessary or
detrimental.
The technical means for achieving socialism has existed since the late 19th century, with the
telegraph, the coal-powered factory, and modern fertilizer. The improvements since then have
only made socialism even more streamlined and efficient, if such technologies could only be
liberated from capital! The idea that "we need a new technological revolution just to achieve
socialism" reflects the indoctrination in capitalism by many "socialist" theorists because it
is only in capitalism where "technological growth" is essential simply to maintain the
system. It is only in capitalism (especially America, the most advanced capitalist nation,
and thus, the one where capitalism is actually closest towards total crisis) where the dogma
of a technological savior is most entrenched because America cannot offer any other kind of
palliative to the more literate and productive sections of its population. Religion will not
convince most and any attempt at a sociological or economic understanding would inevitably
prove the truth of socialism.
In the wake of the sending of bomb-like devices of uncertain capability to prominent critics
of US President Donald Trump and of a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue (
both Trump's fault , of course) – plus a migrant invasion approaching the US through
Mexico – there have been widespread calls for toning down harsh and "divisive" political
rhetoric. Of course given the nature of the American media and other establishment voices,
these demands predictably have been aimed almost entirely against Trump and
his Deplorable supporters , almost never against the same establishment that unceasingly
vilifies Trump and
Middle American radicals as literally Hitler , all backed up by the evil
White-Nationalist-in-Chief,
Russian President Vladimir Putin .
Those appealing for more civility and a return to polite discourse can save their breath.
It's much, much too
late for that .
When Trump calls the establishment media the enemies of the people, that's because they
– together with their
passive NPC drones and active Antifa enforcers – are enemies, if by "the people" we
mean the historic American nation. Trump's sin is that he calls them out for what they are.
Trump didn't cause today's polarization, he only exacerbates it because he punches back.
Good, may he continue to do so. Pining for a more well-mannered time in a country that belongs
to another, long-gone era is futile.
American politics is no longer about a narrow range of governing styles or competing
economic interests. It is tribal. Today's "tribes" are defined in terms of affinity for or
hostility to the founding American ethnos characterized by European, overwhelming
British origin (a/k/a, "white"); Christian, mainly Protestant; and English-speaking, as
augmented by members of other groups who have totally or partially assimilated to that
ethnos or who at least identify with it (think of
Mr. Hamadura in The Camp of the Saints ).
(Unfortunately we don't have a specific word for this core American ethnic identity to
distinguish it from general references to the United States in a civic or geographic sense.
(Russian, by contrast, makes a distinction between ethnic
русский (russkiy) and civic/geographical российский (rossiiskiy).)
Maybe we could adapt Frank Lloyd Wright's " Usonian "? "Or Americaner," comparable to Afrikaner?
"Or Anglo-American
"?)
Since the Left gave up on its original focus on industrial workers as the revolutionary
class, the old bourgeois/proletarian dichotomy is out. Tribes now line up according to
categories in a plural
Cultural Marxist schematic of oppressor and victim pairings , with the latter claiming
unlimited redress from the former. As the late Joe Sobran said, it takes a lot of clout
to be a victim in America these days. The following is a helpful guide to who's who under
the new dispensation:
In most of the above categories there are variations that can increase the intensity of
oppressor or victim status. For example, certified victimhood in a recognized category confers
extra points, like Black Lives Matter for race (it is racist to suggest that " all
lives matter ") or a defined religious group marginalized by "hate" (mainly anti-Jewish or
anti-Muslim , but not something like anti-Buddhist, anti-Rastafarian, or even anti-atheist
or anti-Satanist because no one bothers about them; anti-Christian victimhood is an oxymoron
because "Christian" is inherently an oppressive category). In addition, meeting the criteria
for more than one category confers enhanced victimhood under a principle called "
intersectionality ."
In the same way, there are aggravating factors in oppressor categories, such as being a
policeman (an enforcer of the structure of oppression regardless of the officer's personal
victim attributes, but worse if straight, white, Christian, etc.) or a member of a "hate"
subculture (a Southerner who's not vocally self-loathing
is a presumed Klan sympathizer ; thus, a diabetic, unemployed, opioid-addicted Georgia cracker is an
oppressor as the beneficiary of his "white privilege" and "toxic masculinity," notwithstanding
his socio-economic and health status). Like being Southern, living
while genetically Russian is also an aggravating factor.
Creatively shuffling these descriptors suggests an entertaining game like Mad Libs , or perhaps an endless series of
jokes for which you could be fired if you told them at work:
Two people walk into a bar.
One is a Baptist, straight, male Virginia state trooper whose ancestors arrived at
Jamestown
.
The other is a one-legged, genderqueer
, Somali
DervishWIC recipient
illegally in the US on an expired student visa.
So the bartender says [insert your own punch line here] .
The victim side accuses its opponents of a litany of sins such as racism, sexism,
homophobia, Islamophobia, etc., for which the solution is
demographic and ideological replacement – even while
denying that the replacement is going on or intended. This is no longer ordinary political
competition but (in an inversion of von Clausewitz attributed to Michel Foucault) politics "
as the
continuation of war by other means ." In its immediate application this war is a second
American civil war, but it can have immense consequences for war on the international stage as
well.
To attain victory the forces of victimhood championed by the Democratic Party need to
reclaim part of the apparatus of power they lost in Trump's unexpected 2016 win. (Actually,
much of the apparatus in the Executive Branch remains in Democratic hands but is only of
limited utility as a "resistance" under the superficial Trumpian occupation.) As this
commentary appears it is expected that on November 6 the GOP will retain control of the US
Senate but the House of Representatives will flip to the Democrats.
First, on the domestic political front, while Democrats and their MSM echo chamber have
cooled down talk of impeaching Trump, it will return with a vengeance on November 7
(coincidentally, Great
October Socialist Revolution Day ) if the House changes hands. In contrast to the GOP's
dithering in the area of investigations and hearings relevant to the
US-UK Deep State conspiracy to overturn the 2016 election (which will be buried forever),
the Democrats will be utterly ruthless in using their power with the single-minded purpose of
getting Trump out of office before 2020. They won't waste much time on the phony Russian
"collusion" story (Robert Mueller's report will be an obscenely expensive dud), they'll focus
like a laser on getting Trump's tax returns and dredging up anything they can from his long
involvement in the sharp-elbowed, dog-eat-dog world of New York property development and
construction, confident they can find something that qualifies as a high crime or
misdemeanor. ( Some racist
language couldn't hurt, either.) The model will be Richard Nixon's Vice
President Spiro Agnew , who was forced out of office on charges relating to his time in
Maryland politics years earlier. Even the GOP's retention of the Senate would be far from a
guarantee that Trump won't be removed. It's easily foreseeable that a dozen-plus Republican
Senators would be thrilled to get rid of Trump and restore the party's status quo ante with
Mike Pence in the Oval Office. As with Nixon, Republicans will panic at whatever dirt the
Democrats dig up and demand Trump resign for the "good of the country and the party," as
opposed to the way Democrats formed a protective phalanx around Bill Clinton. Unlike Nixon,
Trump might choose to fight it out in the Senate and might even prevail. In any case, a
change in control of just one chamber means an extended political crisis that will keep Trump
boxed in and perpetually on the defensive.
Third and most ominously, chances of a major war could increase exponentially. If Trump
is fighting for his life, chances of purging his
terrible, horrible, no good, very bad national security team will go from slim to none.
Any hope of a
national interest-based policy along the lines Trump promised in 2016 – and which
still seems to be his personal preference – will be gone. Thankfully, South Korea's
President Moon Jae-in has run with the ball through last year's opening and hopefully
the momentum for peace in Northeast Asia will be self-sustaining. With any luck, the
Khashoggi
imbroglio between Washington and Riyadh will lead to America's " downplaying and
eventually abandoning the anti-Iranian obsession that has so far overshadowed our
regional policy" and to an end the carnage in Yemen, even as the Syria war
lurches toward resolution . Still, the US remains addicted to
ever-increasing sanctions , and despite warnings from both Russia and China that they are
prepared for war – warnings virtually ignored by the US media and political class
– the US keeps pressing on all fronts: outer space, the Arctic, Europe (withdrawal from
the INF treaty),
Ukraine , the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait,
Xinjiang , and elsewhere. Trump is expected to meet with Putin and Chinese President Xi
Jinping following the US election, but they may have to conclude that he is not capable of
restraining the war machine nominally under his command and will plan accordingly.
In Homage to
Catalonia (1938), his memoir of the Spanish Civil War, George Orwell describes how his
wife was rudely woken by a police-raid on the hotel room she was occupying in Barcelona:
In the small hours of the morning there was a pounding on the door, and six men marched
in, switched on the light, and immediately took up various positions about the room,
obviously agreed upon beforehand. They then searched both rooms (there was a bathroom
attached) with inconceivable thoroughness. They sounded the walls, took up the mats, examined
the floor, felt the curtains, probed under the bath and the radiator, emptied every drawer
and suitcase and felt every garment and held it up to the light. ( Homage to Catalonia , ch.
14)
The police conducted this search "in the recognized OGPU [then the Russian
communist secret-police] or Gestapo style for nearly two hours," Orwell says. He then notes
that in "all this time they never searched the bed." His wife was still in it, you see, and
although the police "were probably Communist Party members they were also Spaniards, and to
turn a woman out of bed was a little too much for them. This part of the job was silently
dropped, making the whole search meaningless."
Orwell's story suggests a new word to me: typhlophthalmism , meaning "the practice
of turning a blind eye to essential but inconvenient facts" (from Greek typhlos
, "blind," + ophthalmos
, "eye"). But it's a long word, so let's call it typhlism for short. Shorter is
better, because the term could be used so often today. Orwell's story is an allegory of modern
Western politics and social commentary, where so many essential but inconvenient facts are
"silently dropped" from analysis.
October
23, 2018globinfo
freexchange
Through his own humorous style, comedian Lee Camp pointed out something quite
serious. As he explained, Facebook's founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, fulfilled all the
conditions necessary to run for president of the United States.
One key condition is certain and obvious: tons of money.
Another one, is to pretend to be religious. And this condition is, of course, particularly
important in the America of Donald Trump. Indeed, as Camp says, the former Atheist Mark
Zuckerberg has suddenly found religion.
And the most recent fulfilled condition by Facebook's boss, was to secure the alliance with the
US deep state.
Indeed , on October 11, Facebook announced the removal of 559 pages and 251
accounts from its service, accusing the account holders of " spam and coordinated
inauthentic behavior. " The primary thread connecting victims of the purge seems to be that
they are critics and/or opponents of the American political "mainstream" or
"establishment."
Also, as Ben Norton of the Real
News points out, Facebook has done this multiple times now. We've seen numerous
pages that have been removed. We've also seen the scare of so-called fake news. And what's
troubling about this is that some of the partners Facebook has in its crackdown on so-called
fake news, vetting pages like these that have been removed, one of the partners is the
Atlantic Council . The Atlantic Council is essentially a kind of unofficial NATO,
funded by the United States government and the European Union along with NATO. Among the other
fact-checkers that have partnered with Facebook to screen so-called fake news is the Weekly
Standard . The Weekly Standard is a neo-conservative website that itself published
false information in the lead-up to the Iraq war, which it strongly supported.
And what about Jeff Bezos? He invested on the mainstream media propaganda power by buying "
one of the leading daily American newspapers, along with The New York Times, the Los Angeles
Times, and The Wall Street Journal. The Post has distinguished itself through its political
reporting on the workings of the White House, Congress, and other aspects of the U.S.
government. " Quite influential on the US political developments.
Right after this key move, Alternet immediately identified the conflicts of interest since the Washington Post would never
reveal the fact that Bezos signed a $600 million contract with the CIA.
It seems that another multi-billionaire rushed to proceed in the necessary actions that could
build a bridge towards the US presidency.
And recently, Jeff Bezos attempted to fix his image by raising minimum wage to $15 an hour for
Amazon workers. The move came out from the pressure exercised by Bernie Sanders and the
progressive movement. Yet, it seems to be another neoliberal-style trick
.
All these indications point to the fact that the liberal plutocracy is determined to 'fire' its
faithful political puppets in the Democratic party, who are rapidly losing popularity and have
become 'inefficient' to serve its interests.
Besides, the progressive movement has already marked some significant victories in the
ideological battlefield. For example, big money and wealthy donors become more and more
repulsive in the eyes of progressive voters and younger generations. And this has become clear
in practice, with the unprecedented victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives
who beat establishment Democrats without the help of the big money.
As the liberal plutocrats understand that it is now pointless to spend money for buying
politicians, they will attempt to take over the Democratic party by themselves. Otherwise, the
party will fall in the hands of the progressives and they will be left without political power.
The liberal plutocrats will use the power of the corporate media to sell themselves as the sole
antidote to Donald Trump.
It is highly unlikely to see this in the 2020 presidential election. The liberal plutocrats
probably prepare the ground to take over the Democratic party in 2024. We may see Mark
Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos fighting in the Democratic primaries and then, fighting for the
presidency against someone from the Trump 'school', like Nikki
Haley .
The anti-globalist part of the big capital that supported Trump will prefer this development
instead of an uncontrollable progressive movement that will hold political power. Then,
plutocrats of all sides will do what the big capital always does. They will clear up things
between them. In one thing they are unquestionably united: crushing the resistance of the
ordinary people from below.
"... For decades, it has been rumored that the Clintons have FBI files on most members of Congress and use these files for blackmail purposes. Given the events of the past few years, I actually believe this rumor to be grounded in truth. ..."
"... For decades, it has been rumored that the Clintons have FBI files on most members of Congress and use these files for blackmail purposes. Given the events of the past few years, I actually believe this rumor to be grounded in truth. ..."
Somehow I doubt that this Christmas will win the Bing Crosby star of approval. Rather, we
see the financial markets breaking under the strain of sustained institutionalized fraud, and
the social fabric tearing from persistent systemic political dishonesty. It adds up to a nation
that can't navigate through reality, a nation too dependent on sure things, safe spaces, and
happy outcomes. Every few decades a message comes from the Universe that faking it is not good
enough.
The main message from the financials is that the global debt barge has run aground, and with
it, the global economy. That mighty engine has been chugging along on promises-to-pay and now
the faith that sustained those promises is dissolving. China, Euroland, and the USA can't
possibly meet their tangled obligations, and are running out of tricks for rigging, gaming, and
jacking the bond markets, where all those promises are vested. It boils down to a whole lot of
people not getting paid, one way or the other -- and it's really bad for business.
Our President has taken full credit for the bubblicious markets, of course, and will be
Hooverized as they gurgle around the drain. Given his chimerical personality, he may try to put
on an FDR mask -- perhaps even sit in a wheelchair -- and try a few grand-scale policy tricks
to escape the vortex. But the net effect will surely be to make matters worse -- for instance,
if he can hector the Federal Reserve to buy every bond that isn't nailed to some deadly
derivative booby-trap. But then he'll only succeed in crashing the dollar. Remember, there are
two main ways you can go broke: You can run out of money; or you can have plenty of worthless
money.
On the social and political scene, I sense that some things have run their course. Is a
critical mass of supposedly educated people not fatigued and nauseated by the regime of "social
justice" good-think, and the massive mendacity it stands for , starting with the idea that
"diversity and inclusion" require the shut-down of free speech. The obvious hypocrisies and
violations of reason emanating from the campuses -- a lot, but not all of it, in response to
the Golden Golem of Greatness -- have made enough smart people stupid to endanger the country's
political future. A lot of these formerly-non-stupid people work in the news media. It's not
too late for some institutions like The New York Times and CNN to change out their editors and
producers, and go back to reporting the reality-du-jour instead of functioning as agit-prop
mills for every unsound idea ginned through the Yale humanities departments.
Shoehorned into the festivity of the season is the lame-duck session in congress, and one of
the main events it portends is the end of Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. The
Sphinx-like Mueller has maintained supernatural silence about his tendings and intentions. But
if he'd uncovered anything substantial in the way of "collusion" between Mr. Trump and Russia,
the public would know by now, since it would represent a signal threat to national security. So
it's hard not to conclude that he has nothing except a few Mickey Mouse "process" convictions
for lying to the FBI. On the other hand, it's quite impossible to imagine him ignoring the
well-documented evidence trail of Hillary Clinton colluding with Russians to influence the 2016
contest against Mr. Trump -- and to defame him after he won. There's also the Hieronymus Bosch
panorama of criminal mischief around the racketeering scheme known as the Clinton Foundation to
consider. Do these venal characters get a pass on all that?
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) has announced plans to call Federal Attorney John Huber (Utah
District) to testify about his assignment to look into these Clinton matters. It's a little
hard to see how that might produce any enlightenment, since prosecutors are bound by law to not
blab about currently open cases. The committee has also subpoenaed former Attorney General
Loretta Lynch, former FBI Director James Comey, and others who have some serious 'splainin' to
do. But if both Huber and Mueller come up empty-handed on the Clintons it will be one of the
epic marvels of official bad faith in US history.
There is a core truth to the 2016 Russia collusion story, and the Clintons are at the heart
of it. Failure to even look will have very dark consequences for the public interest.
It ought to be obvious to just about everyone who is paying attention and not a
Corporate-Whore Democrat that the "The Russians Did It" delusion and the accompanying Mueller
"investigation" is only a distraction to draw attention away from the obvious and numerous
crimeS of H. Clinton, including running an electronic drop-box for U.S. state secrets using a
server in her basement, charity fraud, pay-to-play bribe-taking, the uranium to Russia case,
etc. And, that's not counting the inexcusable Unprovoked War of Aggression WAR CRIME against
Libya. (Of course, she had an excuse: "Destroy a country in order to save a few
"protesters".
Mueller is the Deep State (Corporations [especially Military Industrial Complex
Death-Merchants, who direct the politicians and foreign policy actions (continual
War-For-Humongous-Profits that has taken and takes multiple trillions of dollars away from
potential domestic programs & Wall Street bankster-fraudsters who bankrupted the country
with the lead-up to and aftermath of the 2008-2009 financial fiasco and who sent U.S.
industrial production jobs to other countries] and Oligarchs who reap the profits of such
crimes and their results) operative who apparently was brought in the head the FBI to fail to
prevent and to coverup the real actors and actions that occurred in association with the
downing of buildings at the New York City World Trade center on 9/11.
Sorry, nobodies going to jail and all will be swept under the rug. We will have war to
cover their tracks along with all the other frauds. The political buddy buddy system at the
upper levels is set up to protect the guilty, and nobody has to pay the price lest the whole
thing crumble. It's built that way.
Our only way out is a crash and a reset, with no guarantee what happens on the other
side.
I used to be optimistic, but the level of lies, double speak and university factories
pumping out marxist leftists portends a bleak future. How anyone thinks we can reason our way
out of this situation is fooling themselves about human nature.
Nice to see Kunstler focusing on some serious issues like the Uranium One scandal for a
change. He seems to be on the concluding end of a cold-turkey or other rehab from some
long-term unholy influence. As a result, he has been producing increasingly readable articles
for the past several months. Congratulations are due him but with the warning that recovery
is always one day at a time.
" Remember, there are two main ways you can go broke: You can run out of money; or you can
have plenty of worthless money". Both pretty much sums up America's predicament. Americans
are deep in debt, and their money is worthless.
Mueller isn't going to touch the Clintons - they have way too much criminal dirt on him.
And Huber is an unknown lightweight with no Malicious Seditious Media support.
Sooooo . . . there is only one thing to do once the new Congress takes its oath: Trump
gets DOJ Acting AG to appoint the long-awaited Special Prosecutor.
There are more than enough recognized felonies to go after - unlike the Mueller fishing
expedition. That will put the Democrat investigation on ice - mainly because lots of Demo
chairs and members will be part of the investigation.
Any serious investigation of the Clinton Foundation would reveal that "Russian Collusion"
has everything to do with distraction from the crimes of the Clinton family. The fact that
Bill and Hillary have escaped accountability for their heinous crimes is one of the greatest
miscarriages of justice in US history. It is truly quite frightening.
There is a reason why the DOJ, Congress (both parties), MSM, the MIC, the Deep State don't
want ANYONE to look into corruption ... because they are ALL ******* guilty as sin and buried
neck deep in ****. Its long past time for the whole ******* thing to come down. We're all
fucked.
Weiner laptop For The Win. Give us that hard drive, Mr. President! We'll have it all
analyzed in one weekend.
Meanwhile, Seth Rich awaits Mueller's OH SO DILIGENT investigation.
Can you believe that the 'core' of Mueller's 'case' ends up being about WIKILEAKS?
What the serious ****.
If he's done zero serious looks at Seth Rich all Mueller's work will just be thrown out
of court anyway.
Ham sandwich my fat turkey-enriched ***.
For decades, it has been rumored that the Clintons have FBI files on most members of
Congress and use these files for blackmail purposes. Given the events of the past few years,
I actually believe this rumor to be grounded in truth.
This guy is dreaming if he thinks anything is going to happen to the clintons, the MSM/DOJ
is protected those 2 scumbags with the line that if they are investigated trump is going
after his political opponents, just like a banana republic. But truthfully nothing reaks more
of banana repubicism more then letting the high and mighty of on crimes.
If they weren't all on the same side, that of the international bankster cabal, Trump
would order his justice department to prosecute those people you mentioned.
The purpose of the Russia investigation is to fool you into thinking there are two sides,
and to demonized Russia to create public opinion in favor of attacking Russia because it is
not on board with the jwo totalitarian world government. WTFU.
For decades, it has been rumored that the Clintons have FBI files on most members of
Congress and use these files for blackmail purposes. Given the events of the past few years,
I actually believe this rumor to be grounded in truth.
Mueller long ago gave up the fruitless hunt for Russian collusion involving President
Trump and is now desperately seeking overdue library books or unpaid parking tickets on
anyone remotely connected to President Trump to justify his mooching taxpayer dollars.
Comey knows where all the skeletons are buried and has nothing to fear, apart from a
stitch-up behind closed doors hanging, where nobody gets to see. We all know Comey is a Deep
State puppet. This hearing is all for show, to give the dunces the illusion of a functioning
dumbocracy.
Pretty rich that he's worried about leaks....but then again, he would know.
He is damned worried about private testimony as doing so would open him up to suspicion
from guilty parties concerned he might rat them out to save his hide.
Select leaks, even if untrue (fake news turned against them) could bring great pressure
upon his life.
Former
FBI Director James Comey announced over Twitter on Thursday that he has been subpoenaed by
House Republicans.
He has demanded a public testimony (during which legislators would be unable to ask him
questions pertaining to classified or sensitive information), saying that he doesn't trust the
committee not to leak and distort what he says.
"Happy Thanksgiving. Got a subpoena from House Republicans," he tweeted " I'm still happy to
sit in the light and answer all questions. But I will resist a "closed door" thing because I've
seen enough of their selective leaking and distortion . Let's have a hearing and invite
everyone to see." In October Comey rejected a request by the House Judiciary Committee to
appear at a closed hearing as part of the GOP probe into allegations of political bias at the
FBI and Department of Justice, according to Politico
.
"Mr. Comey respectfully declines your request for a private interview," said Comey's
attorney, David Kelly, in a repsonse to the request.
The Judiciary Committee, chaired by Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) didn't appreciate Comey's
response.
" We have invited Mr. Comey to come in for a transcribed interview and we are prepared to
issue a subpoena to compel his appearance ," said a committee aide.
Goodlatte invited Comey to testify as part of a last-minute flurry of requests for
high-profile Obama administration FBI and Justice Department leaders, including former
Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. He threatened
to subpoena them if they didn't come in voluntarily. -
Politico
The House committee has been investigating whether overwhelming anti-Trump bias with in the
FBI and Department of Justice translated to their investigations of the President during and
after the 2016 US election.
Didn't Gowdy deal with this already? "When did the FBI conduct an interview limited to 5
minutes?" "When did the FBI ever conduct an interview in public?" And the rest. Sauce for the
goose is sauce for the gander.
(I happen to think Gowdy is compromised, but the points remain.)
The crook knows a public hearing will allow him to defer answering EVERY question because
it "involves a current investigation", "it's classified", "I don't recall" and every other
dodge under the sun. Put this creep away for good!
Comey knows he can't withstand real questioning. He will be forced to take the 5th. A lot
of desperation showing here. He won't show and time will run out on the House, so Lindsay
Graham needs to take up the cause.
The Democrats are politically responsible for the rise of Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... As Obama said following Trump's election, the Democrats and Republicans are "on the same team" and their differences amount to an "intramural scrimmage." They are on the team of, and owned lock stock and barrel by, the American corporate-financial oligarchy, personified by Trump. ..."
"... The Democrats are, moreover, politically responsible for the rise of Trump. The Obama administration paved the way for Trump by implementing the pro-corporate (Wall Street bailout), pro-war (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, drone killings) and anti-democratic (mass surveillance, persecution of Snowden, Assange, Manning) policies that Trump is continuing and intensifying. And by breaking all his election promises and carrying out austerity policies against the working class, Obama enabled the billionaire gangster Trump to make an appeal to sections of workers devastated by deindustrialization, presenting himself as the anti-establishment spokesman for the "forgotten man." ..."
"... This was compounded by the right-wing Clinton candidacy, which exuded contempt for the working class and appealed for support to the military and CIA and wealthy middle-class layers obsessed with identity politics. Sanders' endorsement of Clinton gave Trump an open field to exploit discontent among impoverished social layers. ..."
Pelosi's deputy in the House, Steny Hoyer, sums up the right-wing policies of the Democrats,
declaring: "His [Trump's] objectives are objectives that we share. If he really means that,
then there is an opening for us to work together."
So much for the moral imperative of voting for the Democrats to stop Trump! As Obama said
following Trump's election, the Democrats and Republicans are "on the same team" and their
differences amount to an "intramural scrimmage." They are on the team of, and owned lock stock
and barrel by, the American corporate-financial oligarchy, personified by Trump.
The Democrats are, moreover, politically responsible for the rise of Trump. The Obama
administration paved the way for Trump by implementing the pro-corporate (Wall Street bailout),
pro-war (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, drone killings) and anti-democratic (mass
surveillance, persecution of Snowden, Assange, Manning) policies that Trump is continuing and
intensifying. And by breaking all his election promises and carrying out austerity policies
against the working class, Obama enabled the billionaire gangster Trump to make an appeal to
sections of workers devastated by deindustrialization, presenting himself as the
anti-establishment spokesman for the "forgotten man."
This was compounded by the right-wing Clinton candidacy, which exuded contempt for the
working class and appealed for support to the military and CIA and wealthy middle-class layers
obsessed with identity politics. Sanders' endorsement of Clinton gave Trump an open field to
exploit discontent among impoverished social layers.
The same process is taking place internationally. While strikes and other expressions of
working class opposition are growing and broad masses are moving to the left, the right-wing
policies of supposedly "left" establishment parties are enabling far-right and neo-fascist
forces to gain influence and power in countries ranging from Germany, Italy, Hungary and Poland
to Brazil.
As for Gay's injunction to vote "pragmatically," this is a crude promotion of the bankrupt
politics that are brought forward in every election to keep workers tied to the capitalist
two-party system. "You have only two choices. That is the reality, whether you like it or not."
And again and again, in the name of "practicality," the most unrealistic and impractical policy
is promoted -- supporting a party that represents the class that is oppressing and exploiting
you! The result is precisely the disastrous situation working people and youth face today --
falling wages, no job security, growing repression and the mounting threat of world war.
The Democratic Party long ago earned the designation "graveyard of social protest
movements," and for good reason. From the Populist movement of the late 19th century, to the
semi-insurrectional industrial union movement of the 1930s, to the civil rights movement of the
1950s and 1960s, to the mass anti-war protest movements of the 1960s and the eruption of
international protests against the Iraq War in the early 2000s -- every movement against the
depredations of American capitalism has been aborted and strangled by being channeled behind
the Democratic Party.
"... Donald Trump has been transforming American society not by legislation but by using his executive powers to put people in charge of government agencies who are inimical to their stated goals. It is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse ..."
"... By contrast, Trump is imposing a regime that was incubated long ago by people such as Grover "Starve the Beast" Norquist and every other libertarian think-tank funded by the Koch Brothers et al. The big bourgeoisie might not like the bad taste, racism and thuggish behavior of the Trump administration but they couldn't be happier with the results. This is an elected government that has fulfilled its deepest policy aspirations and that shows a willingness to push the Democrats back on their heels, so much so that someone like Mikie Sherrill lacks the courage to defend policies that might win elections down the road. After all, if she is unseated, she can always go back to a job as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey. What happens to someone working in Walmart's is not her business, after all. ..."
Ever since the Democratic Party abandoned its New Deal legacy and adopted the neoliberal
centrism associated with the Carter presidency and then cast in stone by the Democratic
Leadership Council in 1985, each election loss has generated a chorus of remonstrations in the
left-liberal press about the need to run "progressive" candidates if the party wants to win.
The latest instance of this was a post to the Jacobin FB page that stated: "By running
to the right, Democrats insist on losing twice: at the polls and in constructing an inspiring
agenda. Bold left-wing politics are our only hope for long-term, substantive victory."
The question of why Democrats are so okay with losing has to be examined closely. In some
countries, elections have huge consequences, especially in Latin America where a job as an
elected official might be not only a source of income for a socialist parliamentarian but a
trigger for a civil war or coup as occurred in Costa Rica in 1948 and in Chile in 1973
respectively.
In the 2010 midterm elections, there was a massive loss of seats in the House of
Representatives for the Democrats. In this month's midterm elections, the Democrats hoped that
a "Blue Wave" would do for them what the 2010 midterms did for the Republicans -- put them in
the driver's seat. It turned out to be more of a "Blue Spray", not to speak of the toothless
response of House leader Nancy Pelosi who spoke immediately about how the Democrats can reach
across the aisle to the knuckle-dragging racists of the Republican Party.
Out of curiosity, I went to Wikipedia to follow up on what happened to the "losers" in 2010.
Did they have to go on unemployment? Like Republicans who got voted out this go-round,
Democrats had no trouble lining up jobs as lobbyists. Allen Boyd from Florida sent a letter to
Obama after the BP oil spill in 2010 asking him to back up BP's claim that seafood in the Gulf
of Mexico was okay to eat. After being voted out of office, he joined the Twenty-First Century
Group, a lobbying firm founded by a former Republican Congressman from Texas named Jack Fields.
A 1980 article on Fields describes him as a protégé of ultraright leader Paul
Weyrich.
Glenn Nye, who lost his job as a Virginia congressman, his considerable CV that included
working for the Agency for International Development (AID) and serving in various capacities
during the occupation of Iraq to land a nice gig as Senior Political Advisor for the Hanover
Investment Group.
John Spratt from South Carolina was described by Dow Jones News as "one of the staunchest
fiscal conservatives among House Democrats." That was enough for him to land a job with Barack
Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform that was supposed to come up
with a strategy to reduce the deficit. Just the sort of thing that was calculated to lift the
American economy out of the worst slump since the 1930s. Not.
Pennsylvania's Chris Carney was a helluva Democrat. From 2002 to 2004, he was a
counterterrorism analyst for the Bush administration. He not only reported to Douglas Feith in
the Office of Special Plans and at the Defense Intelligence Agency, researching links between
al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, but served as an interrogator in Guantanamo. These qualifications
landed him a job as director of homeland security and policy strategy for BAE Systems when the
House of Representatives gig ended. A British security and munitions powerhouse, BAE won a
contract worth £4.4bn to supply the Saudis with 72 fighter jets – some of which
were used to bomb Red Cross and Physician Without Borders hospitals in Yemen.
With such crumb-bums losing in 2010, you'd think that the Democrats would be convinced that
their best bet for winning elections would be to disavow candidates that had ties to the
national security apparatus and anything that smacked of the DLC's assault on the welfare
state. Not exactly. When the candidates are female, that might work in the party's favor like
sugar-coating a bitter pill.
In Virginia, former CIA officer Abigail Spanberger and retired Navy Commander Elaine Luria
defeated Republican incumbents. Air Force veteran Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, former CIA
analyst Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, and former Navy pilot Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey also
helped the Democrats regain the House. Sherill calculated that moving to the center would serve
her own and the party's interests. She told MSNBC: "As a Navy helicopter pilot I never flew
Republican missions or Democratic missions, I would have had a very short career. This is
something I do think vets bring to the table, this willingness to work with everyone."
For Sherrill, a newcomer to politics, the 11th has proved to be a tricky terrain. She is
seen as a progressive, but appears wary of carrying the "Trump resistance" banner into the
fray. At Wednesday's debate, Sherrill was determined to show she is more Morris Plains than
Montclair.
There were no heated vows to fight Trump, even though being "appalled" by the president
was what motivated her to run in the first place. The Nov. 6 midterms loom as a referendum on
Trump's presidency, but you would never have guessed that watching Wednesday's contest.
Sherrill repeatedly promised to be bipartisan -- a far cry from the combative,
confrontational tone that many in the party's grass roots are demanding.
On tax policy she sounded more centrist Republican than mainstream liberal Democrat, and
she refused to endorse issues like free community college tuition, which has become a popular
talking point for Democrats and was launched by Gov. Phil Murphy this summer.
"Without understanding how that would be paid for, I haven't supported it because it
sounds like it would raise taxes on our families,'" she said.
The moderate tone puzzled some of her ardent "resistance" activists who mobilized around
her candidacy.
For Eric Fritsch, 32, a Teamster for the film and television industry from West Orange, it
was jarring to hear Sherrill oppose Democratic Party wish-list items like free community
college tuition or "Medicare-for-all" coverage out of fear that it may raise taxes. She used
the same excuse to sidestep supporting a "carbon tax" to reduce global warming.
"By going on the defensive about taxes she is accepting a Republican framing that we don't
want to be responsible with taxes in the first place,'" said Fritsch, who insisted that he
remains a "very enthusiastic" Sherrill supporter.
It should be abundantly clear by now that the Democratic Party leadership will be selecting
a candidate in 2020 in all ways identical to Hillary Clinton but perhaps with a less tawdry
past and less of an appetite for Goldman-Sachs speaking fees. Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Joe
Biden, Andrew Cuomo, et al have no intention of allowing upstarts like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
to spoil their plans, even if it means a second term for Donald Trump.
No matter. Jacobin editor Bhaskar Sunkara urges his readers and DSA comrades to plunge ahead
trying to consolidate a "socialist" caucus in the Democratic Party. From his perspective,
working in the Democratic Party seems to be the "most promising place for advancing left
politics, at least in the short term." Keep in mind that Sherrill raised $1.9 million for her
campaign and my old boss from Salomon Brothers Michael Bloomberg ponied up another $1.8 million
just for her TV ads. Does anybody really think that "socialist" backed candidates will be able
to compete with people like Sherrill in the primaries? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was able to
defeat the hack Joe Crowley on a shoestring but that was something of a fluke. Until there is a
massive shake-up in American society that finally reveals the Democratic Party to be the
capitalist tool it has been since Andrew Jackson's presidency, it is likely that a combination
of big money and political inertia will keep the Democratic Party an agent of reaction.
Furthermore, the takeover of the House might turn out to be a hollow victory in the light of
how Trump rules. His strategy hasn't been to push through legislation except for the tax cut.
Remember the blather about investing in infrastructure? His minions in Congress have no
intention of proposing a trillion or so dollars in highway or bridge repair, etc. With Nancy
Pelosi fecklessly talking about how the two parties can collaborate on infrastructure, you can
only wonder whether she has been asleep for the past two years.
Donald Trump has been transforming American society not by legislation but by using his
executive powers to put people in charge of government agencies who are inimical to their
stated goals. It is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse as Malcolm X once put
it. Two days ago, the NY Times wrote about how the "Trump Administration Spares Corporate
Wrongdoers Billions in Penalties". It did not need legislation to help big banks rip off the
public. All it took was naming former head of BankOne Joseph Otting comptroller of the
currency. Senator Sherrod Brown, one of the few Democrats with a spine, called Trump out: "The
president's choice for watchdog of America's largest banks is someone who signed a consent
order -- over shady foreclosure practices -- with the very agency he's been selected to
run."
For all of the dozens of articles about how Trump is creating a fascist regime, hardly any
deal with the difference between Trump and Adolf Hitler. Hitler created a massive bureaucracy
that ran a quasi-planned economy with generous social benefits that put considerable restraints
on the bourgeoisie. Like FDR, he was taking measures to save capitalism. Perhaps if the USA had
a social and economic crisis as deep as Germany's and left parties as massive as those in
Germany, FDR might have embarked on a much more ambitious concentration camp program, one that
would have interred trade unionists as well as Japanese-Americans. Maybe even Jews if they
complained too much.
By contrast, Trump is imposing a regime that was incubated long ago by people such as
Grover "Starve the Beast" Norquist and every other libertarian think-tank funded by the Koch
Brothers et al. The big bourgeoisie might not like the bad taste, racism and thuggish behavior
of the Trump administration but they couldn't be happier with the results. This is an elected
government that has fulfilled its deepest policy aspirations and that shows a willingness to
push the Democrats back on their heels, so much so that someone like Mikie Sherrill lacks the
courage to defend policies that might win elections down the road. After all, if she is
unseated, she can always go back to a job as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey. What happens
to someone working in Walmart's is not her business, after all.
"... The move means that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will no longer oversee the federal Russia investigation, which he has looked over since Sessions recused himself early last year due to his work on Trump's campaign. ..."
President Trump's pick to replace ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions plans to take over
oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, the Department of Justice (DOJ)
confirmed Wednesday. "The Acting Attorney General is in charge of all matters under the purview
of the Department of Justice," DOJ spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement to The
Hill.
The move means that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will no longer oversee the
federal Russia investigation, which he has looked over since Sessions recused himself early
last year due to his work on Trump's campaign.
Trump on Wednesday afternoon announced Matthew
Whitaker, who served as Sessions's chief of staff at the DOJ, as his temporary replacement atop
the department after ousting Sessions.
"... There is only the Deep Purple Mil.Gov UniParty. The Titanic is dead in the water, lights out, bow down hard. The Rich, the Corporate Profiteers and the Military-Political Establishment have pulled away in their fur and jewel-encrusted life boats. It's one minute after midnight on the Doomsday Clock, the hands have fallen off the Debt Clock, the skies are burning and seas are rising (they say), and we are in WW3 in 8 nations. Or is it 9? ..."
"... So the Democrat faction of the Corporate One-Party took back control of the House from the Republican faction. (It's one hard-right party, of course; only liars and those ignorant of history call the Dems "centrist". By any objective or historical standard they're a right-wing party.) ..."
"... I made no prediction on what would happen in this election, but I've long predicted that if/when the Democrats win control of either house they'll do nothing with that control. Jack squat. Status quo all the way, embellished with more retarded Russia-Derangement stuff and similar nonsense. ..."
"... If there really were a difference between these corporate factions, here's the chance for the House to obstruct all Senate-passed legislation. ..."
"... They claim there's a difference between the two parties? ..."
"... But I predict this House won't lift a finger vs. the Senate, and that it'll strive to work with the Senate on legislation, and that it'll fully concur with the Senate on war budgets, police state measures, anything and everything demanded by Wall Street, Big Ag, the fossil fuel extractors, and of course the corporate welfare state in general. ..."
"... Nothing I've talked about here is anything but what is possible, what is always implicitly or explicitly promised by Dembots, and what it would seem is the minimum necessary given what Dembots claim is the scope of the crisis and what is at stake. ..."
It's not even decent theatre. Drama is much lacking, character development zilch. The outcome that dems take congress,& rethugs
improve in senate is exactly as was predicted months ago.
The dems reveal once again exactly how mendacious and uncaring of
the population they are. Nothing matters other than screwing more cash outta anyone who wants anything done so that the DC trough
stays full with the usual crew of 4th & 5th generation wannabe dem pols guzzling hard at the corporate funded 'dem aligned' think
tanks which generate much hot air yet never deliver. Hardly suprising given that actually doing something to show they give a
sh1t about the citizenry would annoy the donor who would give em all the boot, making all these no-hopers have to take up a gig
actually practising law.
These are people whose presence at the best law schools in the country prevented many who wanted to be y'know lawyers from
entering Harvard, Cornell etc law school. "one doesn't go to law school to become a lawyer It too hard to even pull down a mil
a year as a brief, nah, I studied the law to learn how to make laws that actually do the opposite of what they seem to. That is
where the real dough is."
Those who think that is being too hard on the dem slugs, should remember that the rethugs they have been indoctrinated to detest
act pretty much as printed on the side of the can. They advertise a service of licking rich arseholes and that is exactly what
they do. As venal and sociopathic as they are, at least they don't pretend to be something else; so while there is no way one
could vote for anyone spouting republican nonsense at least they don't hide their greed & corruption under a veneer of pseudo-humanist
nonsense. Dems cry for the plight of the poverty stricken then they slash welfare.
Or dems sob about the hard row african americans must hoe, then go off to the house of reps to pass laws to keep impoverished
african americans slotted up in an over crowded prison for the rest of his/her life.
Not only deceitful and vicious, 100% pointless since any Joe/Jo that votes on the basis of wanting to see more blackfellas
incarcerated is always gonna tick the rethug box anyhow.
Yeah- yeah we know all this so what?
This is what - the dems broke their arses getting tens of millions of young first time voters out to "exercise their democratic
prerogative" for the first time. Dems did this knowing full well that there would be no effective opposition to rethug demands
for more domestic oppression, that in fact it is practically guaranteed that should the trump and the rethug senate require it,
in order to ensure something particularly nasty gets passed, that sufficient dem congress people will 'cross the floor' to make
certain the bill does get up.
Of course the dems in question will allude to 'folks back home demanding' that the dem slug does vote with the nasties, but
that is the excuse, the reality is far too many dem pols are as bigoted greedy and elitist as the worst rethugs.
Anyway the upshot of persuading so many kids to get out and vote, so the kids do but the dems are content to just do more of
the same, will be another entire generation lost to elections forever.
If the DNC had been less greedy and more strategic they would have kept their powder dry and hung off press-ganging the kids
until getting such a turnout could have resulted in genuine change, prez 2020' or whenever, would be actual success for pols and
voters.
But they didn't and wouldn't ever, since for a dem pol, hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens living on the street isn't
nearly as problematic for them, as the dem wannabe pol paying off the mortgage on his/her DC townhouse by 2020, something that
would have been impossible if they hadn't taken congress as all the 'patrons' would have jerked back their cash figuring there
is no gain giving dosh to losers who couldn't win a bar raffle.
As for that Sharice Davids - a total miss she needed to be either a midget or missing an arm or leg to qualify as the classic
ID dem pol. Being a native american lezzo just doesn't tick enough boxes. I predict a not in the least illustrious career since
she cannot even qualify as the punchline in a circa 1980's joke.
As you said, nothing will get out of the House, Pelosi can't lead. They can easily swing 3 Democrats, then Mike Pence puts
the hammer down. If anything manages to crawl through, it won't even be brought to a vote in the Republican Senate. Trump can
still us his bully pulpit to circle the White wagons, fly in even more than his current 1,125,000 H-visa aliens, and No Taxes
for the Rich is now engraved in stone for the Pharoahs.
The imminent $1,500B Omnibus Deficit Bill Three will be lauded as a 'bipartisan solution' by both houses, and 2020 looks to
be a $27,000B illegal, onerous, odious National Debt open Civil War.
There is only the Deep Purple Mil.Gov UniParty. The Titanic is dead in the water, lights out, bow down hard. The Rich,
the Corporate Profiteers and the Military-Political Establishment have pulled away in their fur and jewel-encrusted life boats.
It's one minute after midnight on the Doomsday Clock, the hands have fallen off the Debt Clock, the skies are burning and seas
are rising (they say), and we are in WW3 in 8 nations. Or is it 9?
Smart money is moving toward the exits. This shyte is gonna blow. Let's move to Australia, before it becomes part of Xi's PRC
String of Girls.
Reading most of the comments explaining how the D's won/lost,,, the R's won/lost,,, Trump and company won/lost,,, but couldn't
find one post about how America is losing due to the two suffocating party's and a greedy, disunited, selfish, electorate that
wants it all free.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the Majority discovers it can vote itself
largess out of the public treasury,,,,,,, After that the Majority always votes for the candidate 'promising the most' ,,,,,,,
Alex Fraser.
So the Democrat faction of the Corporate One-Party took back control of the House from the Republican faction. (It's one hard-right
party, of course; only liars and those ignorant of history call the Dems "centrist". By any objective or historical standard they're
a right-wing party.)
It's no big surprise. Last two years it's been the normally self-assured Republicans who, because of their ambivalence about Trump,
have uncharacteristically taken on the usual Democrat role of existential confusion and doubt. Meanwhile the Democrats, in a berserk
batsh$t-insane way, have been more motivated and focused.
So what are these Democrats going to do with this control now that they have it?
I made no prediction on what would happen in this election, but I've long predicted that if/when the Democrats win control of
either house they'll do nothing with that control. Jack squat. Status quo all the way, embellished with more retarded Russia-Derangement
stuff and similar nonsense.
If there really were a difference between these corporate factions, here's the chance for the House to obstruct all Senate-passed
legislation. And as for things which are technically only in the power of the Senate such as confirming appointments, here's the
chance for the House to put public moral pressure on Democrats in the Senate. And there's plenty of back-door ways an activist
House can influence Senate business. Only morbid pedantry, so typical of liberal Dembots, babbles about what the technical powers
of this or that body are. The real world doesn't work that way. To the extent I pay attention at all to Senate affairs it'll be
to see what the House is doing about it.
They claim there's a difference between the two parties? And they claim Trump is an incipient fascist dictator? In that case there's
a lot at stake, and extreme action is called for. Let's see what kind of action we get from their "different" party in control
of the House.
But I predict this House won't lift a finger vs. the Senate, and that it'll strive to work with the Senate on legislation, and
that it'll fully concur with the Senate on war budgets, police state measures, anything and everything demanded by Wall Street,
Big Ag, the fossil fuel extractors, and of course the corporate welfare state in general.
Nor will any of these new-fangled fake "socialist" types take any action to change things one iota. Within the House Democrats,
they could take action, form any and every kind of coalition, to obstruct the corporate-Pelosi leadership faction. They will not
do so. This "new" progressive bloc will be just as fake as the old one.
Nothing I've talked about here is anything but what is possible, what is always implicitly or explicitly promised by Dembots,
and what it would seem is the minimum necessary given what Dembots claim is the scope of the crisis and what is at stake.
"... There is only the Deep Purple Mil.Gov UniParty. The Titanic is dead in the water, lights out, bow down hard. The Rich, the Corporate Profiteers and the Military-Political Establishment have pulled away in their fur and jewel-encrusted life boats. It's one minute after midnight on the Doomsday Clock, the hands have fallen off the Debt Clock, the skies are burning and seas are rising (they say), and we are in WW3 in 8 nations. Or is it 9? ..."
Anton Worter , Nov 7, 2018 11:13:25 AM |
57 ">link
@9
As you said, nothing will get out of the House, Pelosi can't lead. They can easily swing 3
Democrats, then Mike Pence puts the hammer down. If anything manages to crawl through, it
won't even be brought to a vote in the Republican Senate. Trump can still us his bully pulpit
to circle the White wagons, fly in even more than his current 1,125,000 H-visa aliens, and No
Taxes for the Rich is now engraved in stone for the Pharoahs.
The imminent $1,500B Omnibus Deficit Bill Three will be lauded as a 'bipartisan solution'
by both houses, and 2020 looks to be a $27,000B illegal, onerous, odious National Debt open
Civil War.
There is only the Deep Purple Mil.Gov UniParty. The Titanic is dead in the water,
lights out, bow down hard. The Rich, the Corporate Profiteers and the Military-Political
Establishment have pulled away in their fur and jewel-encrusted life boats. It's one minute
after midnight on the Doomsday Clock, the hands have fallen off the Debt Clock, the skies are
burning and seas are rising (they say), and we are in WW3 in 8 nations. Or is it 9?
Smart money is moving toward the exits. This shyte is gonna blow. Let's move to Australia,
before it becomes part of Xi's PRC String of Girls.
It's true that progressives lost a bunch of very close races in deep-red districts, but many
of the biggest losses of the night were center-right Democrats. Senator Joe Donnelly of
Indiana, Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota were
just some of those so-called "moderate" losers.
I say good riddance.
"... Investigating Trump for the rest of his tenure will keep them from having to do their jobs for Americans. ..."
"... They're going to spend millions of dollars and better yet, millions of hours babbling on and on about Taxes and Trump. ..."
"... With Sessions now out they're already screaming again about Rosenstein and Mueller for Gods sake. And they'll keep that up right until Nov 2020. ..."
"... In many cases, the people have won. The fresh blood going into the House in particular and some new governorships are more important than people realize yet. ..."
"... There are now over 100 women in the House -- a first. ..."
"... I hope the dems stand firm on protecting both programs plus not raising the retirement age. But with Pelosi who knows. ..."
"... Nancy Pelosi: Democrats Don't Want a New Direction ..."
should not spend their time "investigating" Trump. Leave that to real journalists (there
are still some around).
If they play it right, the Dems could triple Trump's anxiety and paranoia levels by
keeping relative silence over his corruption, rather than starting a war of words with him.
He wins if they let him weasel his way out of things. Besides that, the Dems will do a
lousy job of trying to go after Trump. They need to spend their time going after Trump's
policies period.
up 13 users have voted. --
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
The corporate Dems have no policies that represent the people who elected them. However,
they are no longer completely surrounded by like thinkers. While the number of progressives
may still be smaller than the numbers of establishment Dems, those progressives DO have an
agenda and the people who want progress MUST support them and let the old guard know that
they will not support obstruction of progressive policies.
Start by telling your congress critter to vote no on Pelosi.
@WindDancer13
The Democrats should be doing everything they can to build up themselves by aggressively
pursuing policies that benefit the people. The Democrats need to stand FOR something.
Otherwise they are just like the old guy shaking his fist at the sky. They can investigate
Trump all they want, but it is waste of time, money, and there will be no impeachment hearing
in the Senate. Besides many of them have so big skeletons in their closets too.
should not spend their time "investigating" Trump. Leave that to real journalists
(there are still some around).
If they play it right, the Dems could triple Trump's anxiety and paranoia levels by
keeping relative silence over his corruption, rather than starting a war of words with
him. He wins if they let him weasel his way out of things. Besides that, the Dems will do
a lousy job of trying to go after Trump. They need to spend their time going after
Trump's policies period.
Investigating Trump for the rest of his tenure will keep them from having to do their jobs
for Americans. The republicans came out with their balls on fire and rescinded and passed
legislation right and left and now that the democrats have the house they're going to look at
Trump's tax returns. For gawd's sake why? Okay.. they find that he did something wrong on
them. Then what? Do they think that if they show he cheated on them then he'll be kicked out
of office? Nope
Look at how many people who Obama tried to appoint were guilty of not paying theirs.
Daschle who came from a medical lobbying firm was supposed to be his secretary of health, but
he hadn't paid his taxes for a decade. Did he go to prison over it? Why no he didn't. Why?
Two Americas. Only little people go to prison for doing .... fill in the blank.
Pelosi is also spouting bipartisanship. Gack! WTF again Nancy? Don't forget pay as you
go.
#3.2 The
Democrats should be doing everything they can to build up themselves by aggressively
pursuing policies that benefit the people. The Democrats need to stand FOR something.
Otherwise they are just like the old guy shaking his fist at the sky. They can
investigate Trump all they want, but it is waste of time, money, and there will be no
impeachment hearing in the Senate. Besides many of them have so big skeletons in their
closets too.
@snoopydawg
Like really? They're going to spend millions of dollars and better yet, millions of hours
babbling on and on about Taxes and Trump. But they'll only go so far as that mess effects all
of them and they good and well know it. But it keeps the divide going and the utter fallacy
of someday sticking it to Trump. They'll come up with nothing and stone wall anything that
threatens their status quo. With Sessions now out they're already screaming again about
Rosenstein and Mueller for Gods sake. And they'll keep that up right until Nov 2020.
destroying the departments they're in charge of. If squeezed, will they sing
like canaries? Cry like babies? Youth wants to know.
If the Democrats think they are going to waste Taxpayer Money investigating us at
the House level, then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all
of the leaks of Classified Information, and much else, at the Senate level. Two can
play that game!
He did not "win," not by a long shot. Neither did the corporate Dems. It was never really
expected (except maybe by some totally unrealistic people) that the Dems would take the
Senate. The seats that were up for grabs were too limited and in some very, very red areas.
However, we need to pay attention to just how close many of those races were. Some major
dents were put into Rep armor and have left some wounds.
I too was very happy to see McCaskill and Heitcamp defeated. They were both totally
worthless. This could be viewed as the start to cleaning out the "bad" Dems, even if we have
to put up with a few Republicans to do so.
Suppression played a huge role in the results (especially governorships), and that must
not be forgotten. In fact needs to be a focal point for the next two years along with getting
corporate money out of the election system.
Another issue that needs to be dealt with is stopping Trump from dominating the news
cycle. Anyone else notice just how many non-news stories popped up regarding Kavanaugh in the
last week? The public does not need to see Dems foaming at the mouth in response to or in
imitation of Trump. If they do, let the culprit from your voting district know how displeased
you are with their actions (get a few friends to also comment).
In many cases, the people have won. The fresh blood going into the House in particular and some new governorships are
more important than people realize yet. For diversity alone, there were huge strides made yesterday. Seeing so many
progressives take a seat in the House will encourage others for 2020 who will have a lot better chance now to remove some of
the riffraff.
There are now over 100 women in the House -- a first. This means that we are still less than
half way to parity. This needs to be worked on for 2020 along with more progressives. (No,
not all women are equal--I remember Phyllis Shaffly only too well, and there is still HRC to
silence, but overall, women and certainly progressive women have different priorities most of
which align with what people really want and need.) Message to all...less time writing and
contemplating and more time taking action.
In short, I see this as a victory--albeit not as large as we would like--for
progressives.
I hope the dems stand firm on protecting both programs plus not raising the retirement
age. But with Pelosi who knows. I would like to think that she would get major push back if
she tries an Obama grand bargain bullshit. But she lives in a such a bubble though.
This is why people don't vote for the Democratic Party and why the big blue wave of cash
won't win the 2018 midterm elections for them:
In December of 2016 – right after Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Democratic
candidates lost big to Trump, the worst presidential candidate of all time – what
happened? Their leader, Nancy Pelosi was asked directly what the Democratic Party was going
to do to change this heinous defeat.
Know what she said? Do you remember? I do.
She said the Democratic Party wasn't going to change anything. Keep the same policies
they lost the 2016 elections on. Know what they were going to change?
Their marketing. Change the marketing so people "get the message."
Same shit. Different wrapper.
Nancy Pelosi: Democrats Don't Want a New Direction
"... Dems are fucking bonkers with the caravans. It's as if these fools didn't know Europe does exist and had the same thing happen, on a far bigger magnitude, or didn't learn the lesson - as if Brexit, Le Pen, Lega, Orban and others didn't really exist in their strictly America-centered world. ..."
IMO b is
right. The image works for Trump, not against, on two issues; the border and the ME.
Border
Yes the US Constitution prevents US Troops being used within the country for military
purpose. But the troops are only providing support at the Border.
The reality is the people on the march to the US border all refused an offer from Mexico to
settle in two southern (Mexican) states and receive jobs, free housing, free food, free
education and free healthcare. So much for the PR story of this group as economic
immigrants and sanctuary seekers. They are seen as being in search of the Free Lunch.
These people are being paid (not sure how much) from what I have read and the march is to
create a story of poor souls prevented (by Trump) from obtaining the supposed American
dream.
For voters in the US southwest especially this group is seen as a bunch of scroungers and
Trump as the guy who will keep them out.
The ME
I am not aware of anyone who thinks the US belongs in the ME. Yes, Israel is all for it,
but in the US no one wants troops there. We have lost country after country after country
and some military head just said that after 17 years we are not "winning" in Afghanistan.
These wars are a financial scam in the eyes of many and are for Israel's benefit in the
eyes of many others. I doubt if any troops in recent years have signed up to fight in the
ME so that statement itself is one the NYT will choke on.
But it is the Times, and they play to their now somewhat limited audience who must be told
that the lies they believe are true. If Trump paid for this cartoon, he could probably not be more pleased.
"It's not really possible to excuse the pretense that a band of beggars who plan to ask
for asylum constitute an invasion."
I suppose that is what Assad and the Syrian government thought when the CIA death squads
started trickling into their country under the pretense that they were refugees from the
violence in Libya.
The CIA built lots of death squads in Latin America.
While most of the the "band of beggars" are harmless useful idiots recruited for
the optics, there is a very real possibility that the CIA's death squads from Honduras and
possibly Mexico (have to get out now that AMLO is cracking down) are mingling amongst them.
Why? Page borrowed from the textbook CIA/State Department manual on regime change:
1) Bring protesters into conflict with authorities. 2) Death squads embedded among the protesters kill both protesters and law enforcement
officers. 3) Riots ensue. 5) Complicit corporate mass media winds up the echo chamber forcing the meme that the
violence was the authorities' fault. 6) Profit!
Anywho, it is tough to take serious any accusations of slander against a population that
has been heavily brainwashed since birth. As with a pair of bluejeans that have been washed
several times per day since they were manufactured, over-laundered minds get limp, floppy
and full of holes. Americans' minds are so frayed from daily reprogramming that they cannot
remember what they believed yesterday, much less why they would have believed it.
The possee commitatus law which prohibited federal troops from engaging in domestic law
enforcement has been repealed.
Also, you are aware that Israel is a rogue state in that it does not have a
constitution, it has never defined its borders, it has repeatedly attacked its neighbors,
it is an apartheid state, it has 200-400 illegal nuclear warheads, it engages in mass
punishment of 6 million Arabs the are the dominant peoples of Palestine, and it has pulled
strings to lure the US into wars with Iraq, Syria, Lybia, and Iran.
For these reasons it is perfectly reasonable and accurate and truthful to label such a
rogue state a 'Zionist regime.'
(Now you are informed. Now you should apologize to b.)
One wonders why the NYT is willingly playing into his hands with this.
Because the NYT (and mainstream media in general) have been such psychopathic warmongers
for so long that by now they're really incapable of understanding that there could be any
alternative idea or action. In many states they'd meet the legal definition of
insanity.
Of course Trump is just as insane. He merely wants to do both/and rather than either/or,
as the NYT would have it.
Given that the only characters with speaking parts in the cartoon are hi-profile
non-combatant pro-"Israel" warmongers masquerading as brain-washed grunts, the message it
sends is so mixed that it means whatever the consumer wants it to mean. An attempt at reverse psychology?
Posted by: morongobill | Nov 5, 2018 8:48:58 AM | 5 "I'm a deplorable and proud of it and I believe that this nation needs to make it
crystal clear that the borders mean something."
I don't reckon native americans would agree, particularly since most of those arriving
are indigenous to america. amerika the abortion, has never considered the property rights,
cultures or ethos of other humans anywhere on this old rock. Not in the ME, Asia or more
recently Africa, much less those concerns as they relate to native americans be they those
indigenous to the area that comprises amerika or those who are indigenous to other portions
of the american continents, so I reckon that using this nonsense now to justify racism is
just hypocritical, That it is about as low as it is possible to go. That is compounded to
the n th degree when one considers that the failed states which most of the caravan
peoples originate from suffered failure because amerika the abortion of a place,
deliberately engineered the failures to make amerika's theft of all resources in latin
america, easier and less expensive. Run along and study exactly how amerika has deliberately destroyed Guatemala and Honduras
then come back here and try to justify the attacks on a few hundred thousand of those
people fleeing lawlessness and corruption that the amerikan government has caused in your
name.
Not that it matters - trump or any of his ilk have no chance of preventing the Latin
American influx. Once again if you study history you will discover that over the millennia numerous other
populations have attempted to prevent needs driven migration into what they have
arbitrarily decided are 'their' lands and have used exactly the same techniques the trump
scumbags propose. They inevitably fail. Mass migrations are relentless they cannot be
'blocked' the only viable strategy has been to remove the attraction by ensuring economic
improvement in the areas that migrants come from.
If amerikans actually want to stop the migration, which is debatable since the rich who
control amerika believe increasing the population to be an excellent way to go since they
profit from more humans and increased population density, but let's pretend that ordinary
citizens actually have a say in what happens in amerika, then amerikans need to fix that
which they f**ked. Central amerikans have endured decades of corrupt amerikan installed
'governments' which regarded their primary mission (after trousering all funds in their
purview) to be confiscating all land from the people who have lived on it going back at
least a few thousand years, then selling that stolen land to amerikan corporations, hedge
funds, retirement schemes, AKA any & all of Wall St's scams.
None of the migr Everybody in amerika has been aware of this even tho they pretend they are ignorant of
their culture's rapacious thefts it is impossible for anyone with half a brain not to see 2
+ 2 = 4. So quit whining and either assist the new arrivals or, get yer arse into gear & ensure
your mendacious leadership sets about making amends for the damage done in your name.
nobody remembers anglo persian oil that was ares those iranian gypsy stole it the gas
fields 2. it was not fare fair they kicked are shar out 2 trumped is doing molechs work here hare here. it is vital that latest push on these yemeni ports is a success with a strong tail wind
victory is at hand. a redrawing of the maps is needed and an exodus of musslamics and arab and children of
christ into scotland wales,detroit noray denmark and lovely sweden germany france a big idea may need a new marshall plan trillions of dollars in bonds must be made like
lend lease in great britain it may take 50 years to pay off the debts for this final
solution maybe 100 years or more. never again the man said we must protect the innocent khazar ashkanazi from brutal
goyim. lets do this as paul greengrass said lets roll
Should several thousand knuckle heads attempt to force entry into the United States,... The news story should read as such,... 'Today, a couple thousand knuckleheads attacked our border. We shot them.'
Second: this mass immigration from Latin America is fruit of inumerous American backed
regime changes, aimed at stifling industrialization of the region, thus empoverishing its
peoples.
This
is true even for the Monroe Doctrine poster boy, Mexico .
Dems are fucking bonkers with the caravans. It's as if these fools didn't know Europe
does exist and had the same thing happen, on a far bigger magnitude, or didn't learn the
lesson - as if Brexit, Le Pen, Lega, Orban and others didn't really exist in their strictly
America-centered world.
As a matter of fact, any deliberately illegal entry of anyone into a foreign country
represents per se an invasion. it's just that it's minimal when it's a couple of people,
and not all invasions are armed gangs of conquistadores ready to loot the gold from the
temples, or Mongols on rampage. Not all invasions require military will kill on sight
orders, though. Some measure is required.
Now, where Dems are bloody idiots is that only a part of the progressive wing will see
the caravans as nice people to be welcome. Part of the uber-capitalist wing will see them
as a great opportunity as well, but for very different reasons. The thing is, the inner
subconscious of a majority of Westerners will basically have 2 very different
interpretations of a vast column of people walking towards their border.
One, which is quite recent, occurs if it's a large group of unarmed civilians and
families from a neighbouring country, fleeing it under direct threat of closeby invading
and advancing enemy armies; in this case, the obvious reference in Western psyche,
specially European one, will be WW II and the hosts of panicked civilians fleeing before
the enemy onslaught.
The other reference from the collective psyche, which obviously is the one that lurks in
the mind of most Westerners who saw the vids and pictures of the huge crowds of migrants
back in 2015/16 - and which will likely occur for some Americans as well, with the caravans
-, is obviously the far older picture of the Barbarian Invasions. The ones ironically
called nowadays as "Migration period" by revisionist history in German and Anglo-Saxon
areas, for obvious reasons (they didn't want to tarnish their ancestors by reflecting they
were bloody savages that nearly wiped out civilization, by fear that it would reflect badly
on them); karmic justice puts them now in a bad spot since they're quite forced to consider
the current wave as mere "migration" and no big deal at all, just like in 406.
Of course, there's also karmic justice in having the US tear itself apart and being
slowly invaded by those whose countries it has wrecked beyond recognition for the last
century. But we must be absolutely honest about it. Allowing masses of migrants into the US
isn't about Central Americans deserving a better life in the US, it's about punishing the
US by wrecking it and by pushing it's ever-polarizing political sides towards civil
war.
Section 1076 of the 2006 John Warner National Defense Authorization titled "Use of the
Armed Forces in major public emergencies," provides that "The President may employ the
armed forces... to... restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when,
as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency,
terrorist attack or incident, or other condition... the President determines that...
domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the
State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order... or [to] suppress, in a
State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy if such...
a condition... so hinders the execution of the laws... that any part or class of its people
is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and
secured by law... or opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or
impedes the course of justice under those laws."
So then the Possee Comitatus Act is repealed by the John Warner Act. The federal
government may send troops to the border to kill any American (Central) that throws a rock.
Killing rock-throwers = MAGA.
In answer to your question, IMHO we are witnessing a very choreographed effort at
political theater on the part of both establishment R's and D's to generate interest in the
election. The ultimate point is to divide the country, which from my perspective, as a
lefty who lives and thrives among R's is not that divided as evidenced by the 2016
election. The game is divide and rule.
The elites of the US are very perturbed that Senator Sanders had such a following in the
last go around with 75% popularity while both running establishment candidates had
negatives ratings greater than their positive ones.
Looking at polling in the US it has been reported that a great majority of people in the
country want Single Payer Health Care, including ~50% R's. Additionally, some 80% of the
population agree that climate change is a major issue and want the government to do
something about it. This cuts across both parties. Meanwhile, neither party is actively
pushing Single Payer, while some Democrats show support, while the establishment is
campaigning to save the insurance and pharmaceutical industies' bonanza of ObamaCare.
IMO we have the makings of a united insurrection on our hands and it is a requirement to
keep Americans at war with each other, rather than them realizing they have been fooled by
the media and sociopathic politicians.
Also interestingly, the biggest fear people have in the US, according to the following
poll is corrupt politicians. How do you campaign against that when you have your fingers in
the till?
Additionally, according to this poll the biggest fears other than crooked politicians,
are primarily related to the environment. Neither party is attempting to address this
issue.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here. ~William Shakespeare
Notable quotes:
"... Scum versus scum. That sums up this election season. Is it any wonder that 100 million Americans don't bother to vote? When all you are offered is Bob One or Bob Two, why bother? ..."
"... One-fourth of Democratic challengers in competitive House districts in this week's elections have backgrounds in the CIA, the military, the National Security Council or the State Department. Nearly all candidates on the ballots in House races are corporate-sponsored, with a few lonely exceptions such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, members of the Democratic Socialists of America who are running as Democrats. ..."
"... "In interviews with two dozen Wall Street executives, fund-raisers, donors and those who raise money from them, Democrats described an extraordinary level of investment and excitement from the finance sector ," The New York Times reported about current campaign contributions to the Democrats from the corporate oligarchs. ..."
There is perhaps no better illustration of the deep decay of the American political system than the Senate race in New Jersey.
Sen. Bob Menendez, running for re-election, was censured by the Senate Ethics Committee for accepting bribes from the Florida businessman
Salomon Melgen, who was convicted in 2017 of defrauding Medicare of $73 million. The senator had flown to the Dominican Republic
with Melgen on the physician's private jet and stayed in his private villa, where the men cavorted with young Dominican women who
allegedly were prostitutes. Menendez performed numerous political favors for Melgen, including helping some of the Dominican women
acquire visas to the United States. Menendez was indicted in a federal corruption trial but escaped sentencing because of a hung
jury.
Menendez has a voting record as sordid as most Democrats'. He supported the $716 billion military spending bill, along with 85
percent of his fellow Senate Democrats. He signed
a letter , along with other Democratic leaders, calling for steps to extradite
Julian Assange to
stand trial in the United States. The senator, the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, is owned by the lobby for Israel
-- a country that routinely and massively interferes in our elections -- and supported moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. He helped
cause the 2008 global financial crisis by voting to revoke
Glass-Steagall
, the Depression-era law enacted to create a firewall between commercial and investment banks.
His Republican rival in the Senate race that will be decided Tuesday is
Bob Hugin , whose reported net worth is at least $84 million. With Hugin as its CEO, the pharmaceutical firm Celgene made $200
million by conspiring to keep generic cancer drugs off the market, according to its critics. Celgene, a model of everything that
is wrong with our for-profit health care system, paid $280 million to settle a lawsuit filed by a whistleblower who accused the firm
of improperly marketing two drugs to treat several forms of cancer without getting Federal Drug Administration approval, thereby
defrauding Medicare. Celgene, over seven years, also doubled the price of
the cancer drug Revlimid to some $20,000
for a supply of 28 pills.
The Senate campaign in New Jersey has seen no discussion of substantive issues. It is dominated by both candidates' nonstop personal
attacks and negative ads, part of the typical burlesque of American politics.
Scum versus scum. That sums up this election season. Is it any wonder that 100 million Americans don't bother to vote? When all
you are offered is Bob One or Bob Two, why bother?
One-fourth of Democratic challengers in competitive
House districts in this week's elections have backgrounds in the CIA, the military, the National Security Council or the State Department.
Nearly all candidates on the ballots in House races are corporate-sponsored, with a few lonely exceptions such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
and Rashida Tlaib, members of the Democratic Socialists of America who are running as Democrats.
The securities and finance industry
has backed Democratic congressional candidates 63 percent to 37 percent over Republicans, according to data collected by the
Center for Responsive Politics . Democratic candidates and political action committees have received $56.8 million, compared
with Republicans' $33.4 million, the center reported. The broader sector of finance, insurance and real estate, it found, has given
$174 million to Democratic candidates, against $157 million to Republicans. And
Michael Bloomberg
, weighing his own presidential run, has pledged $100 million to elect a Democratic Congress.
"In interviews with two dozen Wall Street executives, fund-raisers, donors and those who raise money from them, Democrats described
an extraordinary level of investment and excitement from the finance sector ," The New York Times reported about current campaign
contributions to the Democrats from the corporate oligarchs.
Our system of legalized bribery is an equal-opportunity employer.
Of course, we are all supposed to vote Democratic to halt the tide of Trump fascism. But should the Democrats take control of
the House of Representatives, hate speech and violence as a tool for intimidation and control will increase, with much of it directed,
as we saw with the pipe bombs intended to decapitate the Democratic Party leadership, toward prominent Democratic politicians and
critics of Donald Trump. Should the white man's party of the president retain control of the House and the Senate, violence will
still be the favored instrument of political control as the last of democratic protections are stripped from us. Either way we are
in for it.
Trump is a clownish and embarrassing tool of the kleptocrats. His faux populism is a sham. Only the rich like his tax cuts, his
refusal to raise the minimum wage and his effort to destroy Obamacare. All he has left is hate. And he will use it. Which is not
to say that, if only to throw up some obstacle to Trump, you shouldn't vote for the Democratic scum, tools of the war industry and
the pharmaceutical and insurance industry, Wall Street and the fossil fuel industry, as opposed to the Republican scum. But Democratic
control of the House will do very little to halt our descent into corporate tyranny, especially with another economic crisis brewing
on Wall Street. The rot inside the American political system is deep and terminal.
The Democrats, who refuse to address the social inequality they helped orchestrate and that has given rise to Trump, are the party
of racial and ethnic inclusivity, identity politics, Wall Street and the military. Their core battle cry is: We are not Trump!
This is ultimately a losing formula. It was adopted by Hillary Clinton, who is apparently weighing another run for the presidency
after we thought we had thrust a stake through her political heart. It is the agenda of the well-heeled East Coast and West Coast
elites who want to instill corporate fascism with a friendly face.
"... Opposition to the unending and expanding wars of American imperialism has been completely excluded from the election campaigns of both the Democrats and Republicans. ..."
"... The Democrats represent a political alliance of Wall Street and privileged sections of the middle class. Over the past two years, their central focus, in addition to the anti-Russia campaign, has been the promotion of the politics of race and gender, particularly through the #MeToo campaign. ..."
"... The aim has been to divide the working class while advancing the interests of factions within the top 10 percent that are competing over positions of power, money and privilege. ..."
"... Trump is himself the product of a protracted decay of democratic forms of rule. Nodal points in this process were the Clinton impeachment in 1998, the theft of the 2000 election, the launching of the "war on terror" after the 9/11 attacks, accompanied by the erection of a massive apparatus of domestic spying, and the Obama administration's policy of drone assassination, including of US citizens. ..."
Whatever the rhetoric, and however the seats of the Senate and House of Representatives are
allocated, the basic factors that drive American politics will persist. These are:
1. The determination of the ruling class to maintain the global position of American
capitalism through military force, including world war:
This central strategy has dominated American policy for decades. Seventeen years of the "war
on terror," including wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, have devastated entire
countries and left more than one million people dead. The Trump administration has officially
announced the end of the "war on terror" and ordered the military to begin preparing for "great
power conflict" with Russia or China.
In the weeks leading up to the elections, the administration withdrew from a key Cold
War-era nuclear arms agreement (the INF Treaty) and threatened to launch preemptive strikes
against Russia. At the same time, it effectively declared a new "cold war" against China. With
no public discussion and on a bipartisan basis, the administration has initiated the largest
military buildup since the end of the Cold War.
Opposition to the unending and expanding wars of American imperialism has been
completely excluded from the election campaigns of both the Democrats and Republicans.
The Democrats fully support the strategic aim of the American ruling class to maintain its
global supremacy through military force. From the beginning of the Trump administration, the
Democrats, channeling powerful sections of the military and intelligence apparatus, have
centered their opposition to Trump on the concern that he was pulling back from war in the
Middle East and confrontation with Russia.
2. The staggering levels of social inequality, which cannot be changed by any election, and
which infect every institution of the capitalist state:
Ten years after the 2008 financial crisis, social inequality is at historic highs. Three
individuals now possess more wealth than the bottom half of the population, and just three
families have a combined fortune of $348.7 billion, four million times the median family
wealth. The vast majority of the population confronts the many manifestations of social crisis
-- declining wages, soaring health care costs, a drug overdose epidemic and decaying social
infrastructure.
These conditions are the product of the policies of the Obama administration, which
supported and oversaw the bailout of the banks following the financial meltdown in 2008. Since
Trump's election, the Democrats have collaborated in the implementation of massive tax cuts for
the rich, which they have no intention of rolling back whatever the outcome of the
elections.
The Democrats represent a political alliance of Wall Street and privileged sections of
the middle class. Over the past two years, their central focus, in addition to the anti-Russia
campaign, has been the promotion of the politics of race and gender, particularly through the
#MeToo campaign.
The aim has been to divide the working class while advancing the interests of factions
within the top 10 percent that are competing over positions of power, money and
privilege.
3. The crisis of democratic forms of rule and the turn to authoritarianism:
The crisis of American democracy, of which the Trump administration is an extreme
expression, expresses the alignment of political forms with the oligarchical character of
American society.
While Trump pursues his strategy of developing an authoritarian movement, the Democrats
likewise support the destruction of democratic rights, but in a different way. They have
focused on demands that social media companies censor the internet, under the guise of
combating "fake news" and blocking organizations that "sow discontent." In the course of their
conflict with Trump, they have hailed such enemies of democratic rights as former CIA Director
John Brennan, responsible for torture and domestic spying.
Trump is himself the product of a protracted decay of democratic forms of rule. Nodal
points in this process were the Clinton impeachment in 1998, the theft of the 2000 election,
the launching of the "war on terror" after the 9/11 attacks, accompanied by the erection of a
massive apparatus of domestic spying, and the Obama administration's policy of drone
assassination, including of US citizens.
span y gjohnsit on Mon, 11/05/2018 - 1:47pm By "win" I mean "Democrats take over the
house".
Here's my humble opinion:
1) For the Democratic establishment it won't mean much. If the drubbings in 2010, 2014, and
2016 can't cause a leadership change, or even an autopsy, then nothing will.
If anything they will blame progressives and embrace a neoliberal center-right agenda even
more.
2) For the Democratic base, OTOH, it'll be devastating. Democratic activists will lose heart
and it will begin the real start of America being a one-party state. The reason I think this is
after you call the other guy a traitor and fascist, and that still isn't enough to defeat him,
what else can you do to motivate your voters?
Expect progressive voter activism to plummet in 2020. The Green Party will probably grow,
but not as fast as the Democrats shrink.
The party is the neoliberal/neoconservative party.
The Democrats do not deserve to win. As a party, they have no policy positions and have
based their entire campaign on the we're not as bad. That does not put food on the table,
create health care security, or create living income jobs. The Democrats showed their true
colors when they voted along with the Republicans to increase the DoD budget beyond what
Trump requested and expanded the powers of surveillance under the President that they
loathe.
Most people do not want to see a phony impeachment hearing which does nothing but drain
all resources away from helping the people. If the Democrats truly wanted to win, they would
be proposing an ambitious platform aimed at helping the American people.
One more thing, would this country be better off with President Pence instead of Trump? As
bad as Trump is, I think Pence would be espousing similar hatred and therefore, would far
worse with his theocratic ideas.
Their voting base will believe the lies over the evidence before their own eyes.
I agree with most points, but disagree with this:
Expect progressive voter activism to plummet in 2020.
Given the option to just let the country turn into a full-fledged Fascist state, the
logical thing to do would be for the progressives to fight even harder. Bernie Sanders is an
example of turning a loss into more action on behalf of the people. (For those who constantly
disparage Sanders because he is not perfect, get over it...no one is and no one will ever be.
Amazon screwed their workers, not Sanders.).
Getting more and more progressives in down ballot positions will be extremely important,
no matter their label.
if the Democrats win . There are other possibilities if the corruptocrats lose -
more likely is that the true left could finally be forced to admit that the theory that the
corporatist fifth column can be reformed was always a pollyannish delusion and (for example)
Bernie will run as a Green. Without a fascist Democratic Party sabotaging him he will win
easily. (Ironically a fascist Dem, in a 3 way race, would only win NY and CA, but draw off
enough votes from Bernie so that he could lose the popular vote but would win the Electoral
College. Trump would only win AZ, TX, MS, ID, AL and SC. the final: Bernie 379, Hillscum 84,
Trump 77) On the other hand, what If 60 million people turn out and vote Democratic, and then
the corruptocrats stab them in the back again? You worry about disillusionment?
Actually it might depend on how the Democrats win or lose. I would rather see 100 Dems but 75
of them Berniecrats rather than 225 "Democrats".
Or maybe you're afraid of a racist/theocratic right coup? That is a very legitimate fear. We
have backed them up against a wall, but we don't know if they're a rat or a tiger. But they
have had 50 years to show us which, and the tiger is still hasn't eaten us. Identity politics
however, (unless you count anti-porn feminism) is less than a decade old and has already
achieved more than racism could hope for. I fear the PC SMERSH more than the racist
Gestapo.
1. For current Democratic incumbents who lose, it will mean a job change with a higher
salary.
For a while, we wondered how Democrats could be so stupid as to engage in behaviors that
might cause their constituents to primary them or vote against them in the general.
Eventually, it became clear: to ensure obedience from officeholders, their owners had been
giving officeholders unemployment insurance in the form of cushy, prestigious, well-paying
jobs to be awarded to officeholders who lost their elected slots. This insulated
officeholders very nicely from the need to cater to pain-in-the-neck constituents.
Take for example, the post-Senate career move of Senator Dodd:
Motion Picture Association of America
In February 2011, despite "repeatedly and categorically insisting that he would not work
as a lobbyist,"[23][24] Dodd replaced Dan Glickman as chairman of and chief lobbyist for
the Motion Picture Association of America.[25][26]
On January 17, 2012, Dodd released a statement criticizing "the so-called 'Blackout Day'
protesting anti-piracy legislation."[27] Referring to the websites participating in the
blackout, Dodd said, "It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely
on them for information and use their services. It is also an abuse of power... when the
platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite
their users in order to further their corporate interests."[27] In further comments, Dodd
threatened to cut off campaign contributions to politicians who did not support the
Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property
Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act, legislation supported by the Motion Picture Association
of America.[28]
Whatever do you suppose qualified Dodd to head the Motion Picture Association?
As an aside, I wonder how Dodd views censorship and/or skewing by the likes of google,
which long since started doing evil, its motto to the contrary; facebook; and twitter
For all other Democratic pols, all over the country, it will mean another two years in
which they make a public show of attacking Trump while just enough of them in D.C. vote for
his budgets, judges, etc. to give him and their corporate sponsors what they want.
2. For the Democratic base, those who eagerly vote blue, no matter who, it will mean--Oh,
screw it. Let's be candid. No one, including the Democratic Party, cares.
3. For Republicans, it would mean a minimum of two more years to be in control of the Oval
Office, both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, which is better than a demotion to a
mere trifecta. Continued control typically means larger donations to the controlling party
and its incumbents.
While some may vacillate publicly as to whether or not Trump is good for the Party (*gives
Senator Graham and his ilk the side eye fish eye*), they will, in private, be giddy with glee
about both the money and power, thereby having it both ways, the wet dream
scenario of US politicians.
span y Not Henry Kissinger on Mon, 11/05/2018 - 5:05pm
Hillary drops out of the 2020 race and spends the next two years lawyering up.
Meanwhile the Democratic party implodes in an angry round of fingerprinting that
eventually leads to all out street fight between Bernie supporting Progressives and
Establishment Liberals in the run up to the 2020 primary.
Obama tries to play mediator and runs his own slate of phony change agents, but
Berniecrats and lost Hillbots are both hip to the con and aren't having it.
Bernie decides on another run from within, fighting a green tide of corporate payola and
corrupt machine Dems that ends up in a brokered convention.
I hate it when someone only picks out one point of my argument to respond to. Don't
you?
Meanwhile, I suddenly had a picture in my head of HRC running around with a bottle of ink,
a pad to pour it onto, a roller to saturate it with and some unwilling soul grasped by the
wrist and forced to spread their fingers for said fingerprinting.
Crystal ball haze suddenly lifts, and we see the Emerald City in the distance. (Monkeys?
What monkeys?)
Hillary drops out of the 2020 race and spends the next two years lawyering up.
Meanwhile the Democratic party implodes in an angry round of fingerprinting that
eventually leads to all out street fight between Bernie supporting Progressives and
Establishment Liberals in the run up to the 2020 primary.
Obama tries to play mediator and runs his own slate of phony change agents, but
Berniecrats and lost Hillbots are both hip to the con and aren't having it.
Bernie decides on another run from within, fighting a green tide of corporate payola
and corrupt machine Dems that ends up in a brokered convention.
the rich will continue to get richer, the poor more poor, the middle class will continue
to shrink, the war and U.S. imperialism will continue, the deficit and debt will keep going
up, we won't get a nationalized health care system, climate change will continue unabated,
and we still won't live in a democracy. Then the ruling class and it's corporate media will
prepare the sheeple for another election in less than two years.
Of course, we are all supposed to vote Democratic to halt the tide of Trump fascism. But
should the Democrats take control of the House of Representatives, hate speech and violence as
a tool for intimidation and control will increase, with much of it directed, as we saw with the
pipe bombs intended to decapitate the Democratic Party leadership, toward prominent Democratic
politicians and critics of Donald Trump. Should the white man's party of the president retain
control of the House and the Senate, violence will still be the favored instrument of political
control as the last of democratic protections are stripped from us. Either way we are in for
it.
Trump is a clownish and embarrassing tool of the kleptocrats. His faux populism is a sham.
Only the rich like his tax cuts, his refusal to raise the minimum wage and his effort to
destroy Obamacare. All he has left is hate. And he will use it. Which is not to say that, if
only to throw up some obstacle to Trump, you shouldn't vote for the Democratic scum, tools of
the war industry and the pharmaceutical and insurance industry, Wall Street and the fossil fuel
industry, as opposed to the Republican scum. But Democratic control of the House will do very
little to halt our descent into corporate tyranny, especially with another economic crisis
brewing on Wall Street. The rot inside the American political system is deep and terminal.
The Democrats, who refuse to address the social inequality they helped orchestrate and that
has given rise to Trump, are the party of racial and ethnic inclusivity, identity politics,
Wall Street and the military. Their core battle cry is: We are not Trump! This is
ultimately a losing formula. It was adopted by Hillary Clinton, who is apparently weighing
another run for the presidency after we thought we had thrust a stake through her political
heart. It is the agenda of the well-heeled East Coast and West Coast elites who want to instill
corporate fascism with a friendly face.
Bertram
Gross (1912-1997) in "Friendly Fascism: The New Face of American Power" warned us that
fascism always has two looks. One is paternal, benevolent, entertaining and kind. The other is
embodied in the executioner's sadistic leer. Janus-like, fascism seeks to present itself to a
captive public as a force for good and moral renewal. It promises protection against enemies
real and invented. But denounce its ideology, challenge its power, demand freedom from
fascism's iron grip, and you are mercilessly crushed. Gross knew that if the United States'
form of fascism, expressed through corporate tyranny, was able to effectively mask its true
intentions behind its "friendly" face we would be stripped of power, shorn of our most
cherished rights and impoverished. He has been proved correct.
"Looking at the present, I see a more probable future: a new despotism creeping slowly
across America," Gross wrote. "Faceless oligarchs sit at command posts of a
corporate-government complex that has been slowly evolving over many decades. In efforts to
enlarge their own powers and privileges, they are willing to have others suffer the intended or
unintended consequences of their institutional or personal greed. For Americans, these
consequences include chronic inflation, recurring recession, open and hidden unemployment, the
poisoning of air, water, soil and bodies, and more important, the subversion of our
constitution. More broadly, consequences include widespread intervention in international
politics through economic manipulation, covert action, or military invasion."
No totalitarian state has mastered propaganda better than the corporate state. Our press has
replaced journalism with trivia, feel-good stories, jingoism and celebrity gossip. The banal
and the absurd, delivered by cheery corporate courtiers, saturate the airwaves. Our emotions
are skillfully manipulated around manufactured personalities and manufactured events. We are,
at the same time, offered elaborate diversionary spectacles including sporting events, reality
television and absurdist political campaigns. Trump is a master of this form of entertainment.
Our emotional and intellectual energy is swallowed up by the modern equivalent of the Roman
arena. Choreographed political vaudeville, which costs corporations billions of dollars, is
called free elections. Cliché-ridden slogans, which assure us that the freedoms we
cherish remain sacrosanct, dominate our national discourse as these freedoms are stripped from
us by judicial and legislative fiat. It is a vast con game.
You cannot use the word "liberty" when your government, as ours does, watches you 24 hours a
day and stores all of your personal information in government computers in perpetuity. You
cannot use the word "liberty" when you are the most photographed and monitored population in
human history. You cannot use the word "liberty" when it is impossible to vote against the
interests of Goldman Sachs or General Dynamics. You cannot use the word "liberty" when the
state empowers militarized police to use indiscriminate lethal force against unarmed citizens
in the streets of American cities. You cannot use the word "liberty" when 2.3 million citizens,
mostly poor people of color, are held in the largest prison system on earth. This is the
relationship between a master and a slave. The choice is between whom we want to clamp on our
chains -- a jailer who mouths politically correct bromides or a racist, Christian fascist.
Either way we are shackled.
Gross understood that unchecked corporate power would inevitably lead to corporate fascism.
It is the natural consequence of the ruling ideology of neoliberalism that consolidates power
and wealth into the hands of a tiny group of oligarchs. The political philosopher Sheldon
Wolin , refining Gross' thesis, would later characterize this corporate tyranny or friendly
fascism as "inverted totalitarianism." It was, as Gross and Wolin pointed out, characterized by
anonymity. It purported to pay fealty to electoral politics, the Constitution and the
iconography and symbols of American patriotism but internally had seized all of the levers of
power to render the citizen impotent. Gross warned that we were being shackled incrementally.
Most would not notice until they were in total bondage. He wrote that "a friendly fascist power
structure in the United States, Canada, Western Europe, or today's Japan would be far more
sophisticated than the 'caesarism' of fascist Germany, Italy, and Japan. It would need no
charismatic dictator nor even a titular head it would require no one-party rule, no mass
fascist party, no glorification of the State, no dissolution of legislatures, no denial of
reason. Rather, it would come slowly as an outgrowth of present trends in the
Establishment."
Gross foresaw that technological advances in the hands of corporations would be used to trap
the public in what he called "cultural ghettoization" so that "almost every individual would
get a personalized sequence of information injections at any time of the day -- or night." This
is what, of course, television, our electronic devices and the internet have done. He warned
that we would be mesmerized by the entertaining shadows on the wall of the Platonic cave as we
were enslaved.
Gross knew that the most destructive force against the body politic would be the war
profiteers and the militarists. He saw how they would siphon off the resources of the state to
wage endless war, a sum that now accounts for half of all discretionary spending. And he
grasped that warfare is the natural extension of corporatism. He wrote:
Under the militarism of German, Italian, and Japanese fascism violence was openly
glorified. It was applied regionally -- by the Germans in Europe and England, the Italians in
the Mediterranean, the Japanese in Asia. In battle, it was administered by professional
militarists who, despite many conflicts with politicians, were guided by old-fashioned
standards of duty, honor, country, and willingness to risk their own lives.
The emerging militarism of friendly fascism is somewhat different. It is global in scope.
It involves weapons of doomsday proportions, something that Hitler could dream of but never
achieve. It is based on an integration between industry, science, and the military that the
old-fashioned fascists could never even barely approximate. It points toward equally close
integration among military, paramilitary, and civilian elements. Many of the civilian leaders
-- such as Zbigniew Brzezinski or Paul Nitze -- tend to be much more bloodthirsty than any
top brass. In turn, the new-style military professionals tend to become corporate-style
entrepreneurs who tend to operate -- as Major Richard A. Gabriel and Lieutenant Colonel Paul
L. Savage have disclosed -- in accordance with the ethics of the marketplace. The old
buzzwords of duty, honor, and patriotism are mainly used to justify officer subservience to
the interests of transnational corporations and the continuing presentation of threats to
some corporate investments as threats to the interest of the American people as a whole.
Above all, in sharp contrast with classic fascism's glorification of violence, the friendly
fascist orientation is to sanitize, even hide, the greater violence of modern warfare behind
such "value-free" terms as "nuclear exchange," "counterforce" and "flexible response," behind
the huge geographical distances between the senders and receivers of destruction through
missiles or even on the "automated battlefield," and the even greater psychological distances
between the First World elites and the ordinary people who might be consigned to quick or
slow death.
We no longer live in a functioning democracy. Self-styled liberals and progressives, as they
do in every election cycle, are urging us to vote for the Democrats, although the Democratic
Party in Europe would be classified as a right-wing party, and tell us to begin to build
progressive movements the day after the election. Only no one ever builds these movements. The
Democratic Party knows there is no price to pay for selling us out and its abject service to
corporations. It knows the left and liberals become supplicants in every election cycle. And
this is why the Democratic Party drifts further and further to the right and we become more and
more irrelevant. If you stand for something, you have to be willing to fight for it. But there
is no fight in us.
The elites, Republican and Democrat, belong to the same club. We are not in it. Take a look
at the flight roster of the billionaire
Jeffrey Epstein , who was accused of prostituting dozens of underage girls and ended up
spending 13 months in prison on a single count. He flew political insiders from both parties
and the business world to his secluded Caribbean island, known as "Orgy Island," on his jet,
which the press nicknamed "the Lolita Express." Some of the names on his flight
roster, which usually included unidentified women, were Bill Clinton, who took dozens of trips,
Alan
Dershowitz , former Treasury Secretary and former Harvard President Larry Summers, the
Candide -like
Steven Pinker ,
whose fairy dust ensures we are getting better and better, and Britain's Prince Andrew. Epstein
was also a friend of Trump, whom he visited at Mar-a-Lago.
We live on the precipice, the eve of the deluge. Past civilizations have crumbled in the
same way, although as Hegel understood, the only thing we learn from history is "that people
and governments never have learned anything from history." We will not arrest the decline if
the Democrats regain control of the House. At best we will briefly slow it. The corporate
engines of pillage, oppression, ecocide and endless war are untouchable. Corporate power will
do its dirty work regardless of which face -- the friendly fascist face of the Democrats or the
demented visage of the Trump Republicans -- is pushed out front. If you want real change,
change that means something, then mobilize, mobilize, mobilize, not for one of the two
political parties but to rise up and destroy the corporate structures that ensure our doom.
"... The Democratic Party split into a four-headed monster comprised of Wall Street patrons seeking favors, war hawks and their corporate allies looking for new global rumbles, the permanent bureaucracy looking to always expand itself, and the various ethnic and sexual minorities whose needs and grievances are serviced by that bureaucracy. It's the last group that has become the party's most public face while the party's other activities – many of them sinister -- remain at least partially concealed. ..."
"... the Republicans are being forced to engage on some real issues, such as the need for a coherent and effective immigration policy and the need to redefine formal trade relations. (Other issues like the insane system of medical racketeering and the deadly racket of the college loan industry just skate along on thin ice. And then, of course, there's the national debt and all its grotesque outgrowths.) ..."
"... Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has become the party of bad ideas and bad faith, starting with the position that "diversity and inclusion" means shutting down free speech, an unforgivable transgression against common sense and common decency. It's a party that lies even more systematically than Mr. Trump, and does so knowingly (as when Google execs say they "Do no Evil"). Its dirty secret is that it relishes coercion, it likes pushing people around, telling them what to think and how to act. Its idea of "social justice" is a campus kangaroo court, where due process of law is suspended. And it is deeply corrupt, with good old-fashioned grift, new-fashioned gross political misconduct in federal law enforcement, and utter intellectual depravity in higher education. ..."
"... I hope that the party is shoved into an existential crisis and is forced to confront its astounding dishonesty. I hope that the process prompts them to purge their leadership across the board. ..."
Back in the last century, when this was a different country, the Democrats were the "smart"
party and the Republicans were the "stupid" party.
How did that work?
Well, back then the Democrats represented a broad middle class, with a base of factory
workers, many of them unionized, and the party had to be smart, especially in the courts, to
overcome the natural advantages of the owner class.
In contrast, the Republicans looked like a claque of country club drunks who staggered
home at night to sleep on their moneybags. Bad optics, as we say nowadays.
The Democrats also occupied the moral high ground as the champion of the little guy. If not
for the Dems, factory workers would be laboring twelve hours a day and children would still be
maimed in the machinery. Once the relationship between business and labor was settled in the
1950s, the party moved on to a new crusade on even loftier moral high ground: civil rights,
aiming to correct arrant and long-lived injustices against downtrodden black Americans. That
was a natural move, considering America's self-proclaimed post-war status as the world's Beacon
of Liberty. It had to be done and a political consensus that included Republicans got it done.
Consensus was still possible.
The Dems built their fortress on that high ground and fifty years later they find themselves
prisoners in it. The factory jobs all vamoosed overseas. The middle class has been pounded into
penury and addiction.
The Democratic Party split into a four-headed monster comprised of Wall Street patrons
seeking favors, war hawks and their corporate allies looking for new global rumbles, the
permanent bureaucracy looking to always expand itself, and the various ethnic and sexual
minorities whose needs and grievances are serviced by that bureaucracy. It's the last group
that has become the party's most public face while the party's other activities – many of
them sinister -- remain at least partially concealed.
The Republican Party has, at least, sobered up some after getting blindsided by Trump and
Trumpism. Like a drunk out of rehab, it's attempting to get a life. Two years in, the party
marvels at Mr. Trump's audacity, despite his obvious lack of savoir faire. And despite a
longstanding lack of political will to face the country's problems,the Republicans are being
forced to engage on some real issues, such as the need for a coherent and effective immigration
policy and the need to redefine formal trade relations. (Other issues like the insane system of
medical racketeering and the deadly racket of the college loan industry just skate along on
thin ice. And then, of course, there's the national debt and all its grotesque outgrowths.)
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has become the party of bad ideas and bad faith, starting
with the position that "diversity and inclusion" means shutting down free speech, an
unforgivable transgression against common sense and common decency. It's a party that lies even
more systematically than Mr. Trump, and does so knowingly (as when Google execs say they "Do no
Evil"). Its dirty secret is that it relishes coercion, it likes pushing people around, telling
them what to think and how to act. Its idea of "social justice" is a campus kangaroo court,
where due process of law is suspended. And it is deeply corrupt, with good old-fashioned grift,
new-fashioned gross political misconduct in federal law enforcement, and utter intellectual
depravity in higher education.
I hope that Democrats lose as many congressional and senate seats as possible.I hope that
the party is shoved into an existential crisis and is forced to confront its astounding
dishonesty. I hope that the process prompts them to purge their leadership across the board. If
there is anything to salvage in this organization, I hope it discovers aims and principles that
are unrecognizable from its current agenda of perpetual hysteria. But if the party actually
blows up and disappears, as the Whigs did a hundred and fifty years ago, I will be content. Out
of the terrible turbulence, maybe something better will be born.
Or, there's the possibility that the dregs of a defeated Democratic Party will just go
batshit crazy and use the last of its mojo to incite actual sedition. Of course, there's also a
distinct possibility that the Dems will take over congress, in which case they'll ramp up an
even more horrific three-ring-circus of political hysteria and persecution that will make the
Spanish Inquisition look like a backyard barbeque. That will happen as the US enters the most
punishing financial train wreck in our history, an interesting recipe for epic political
upheaval.
Not sure the Trump "guns instead of butter" policy is so widely supported. He proved to be a regular neocon marionette and as such
might pay the price during midterm elections, although, of course, domestics issues dominate.
Notable quotes:
"... The Democrats need to pick up 23 seats in the House to gain a majority. Of the 48 seats that are in play only 16 seem likely to change in their favor. In the Senate they need to take gain two seats to become a majority, but at least one of the Democrats' current seats is endangered and polls for the other 9 seats that potentially might change show a tossup. ..."
"... The Democrats have neither a program nor a leadership that incites to vote fro them. They wasted two years with hyping a non-existent Russiagate that no one but Washington insiders and the media cares about. Did they actually oppose anything Trump did? They tried a #metoo stunt around a Supreme Court nomination but how effective was that? On Clinton: the more she squawks the more republicans vote and the less democrats vote. That is my theory. This loser takes the fire out of everyone that counts other than her diminishing blind adherents. I think sometimes that Trump should lock her up for the greatest national security breach of all time but having her come out now blatantly proposing a rerun for president is such good luck for Trump. ..."
What are the chances that the mid-term elections in the United States, one week from now, will change the majority in the House
or Senate?
The Democrats
need to
pick up 23 seats in the House to gain a majority. Of the 48 seats that are in play only 16 seem likely to change in their favor.
In the Senate they need to take gain two seats to become a majority, but at least one of the Democrats' current seats is endangered
and polls for the other 9 seats that potentially might change show a tossup.
My personal hunch is that the Republicans will keep both houses and may even gain a few seats.
The U.S. economy is doing relatively well. The recent drop in share prices points to a more mixed outlook from here on, but
so far everything held up.
The Democrats have neither a program nor a leadership that incites to vote fro them. They wasted two years with
hyping a non-existent Russiagate
that no one but Washington insiders and the media cares about. Did they actually oppose anything Trump did? They tried a #metoo
stunt around a Supreme Court nomination but how effective was that? On Clinton: the more she squawks the more republicans vote
and the less democrats vote. That is my theory. This loser takes the fire out of everyone that counts other than her diminishing
blind adherents. I think sometimes that Trump should lock her up for the greatest national security breach of all time but having
her come out now blatantly proposing a rerun for president is such good luck for Trump.
She should be tried for her email breach of security just the same. And Trump and company tried for being hucksters and shaking
down investors. Bad luck USA you have been mugged for the past 6 decades or whatever. Can't see much chance for change either
with your totally kaput election system. Losers!
"... Department of Justice and FBI officials in the Obama administration in October of 2016 only presented to the court the evidence that made the government's case to get a warrant to spy on a Trump campaign associate ..."
"... The FBI referred to Papadopoulos in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant application - however what has been released to the public is so heavily redacted that it's unclear why he is mentioned. ..."
"... As The Hill 's John Solomon notes, based on Congressional testimony by former FBI General Counsel James Baker - the DOJ / FBI redactions aren't hiding national security issues - only embarrassment . ..."
"... President Trump issued an order to declassify the documents on September 17, but then walked it back - announcing that the DOJ would be allowed to review the documents first after two foreign allies asked him to keep them classified. ..."
"... "My opinion is that declassifying them would not expose any national security information, would not expose any sources and methods," said Ratcliffe. "It would expose certain folks at the Obama Justice Department and FBI and their actions taken to conceal material facts from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court." ..."
After hinting for months that the FBI was not forthcoming with federal surveillance court
judges when they made their case to spy on the Trump campaign, Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe (R)
said on Sunday that the agency is holding evidence which "directly refutes" its premise for
launching the probe, reports the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross.
Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe provided Sunday the clearest picture to date of what the FBI
allegedly withheld from the surveillance court.
Ratcliffe suggested that the FBI failed to include evidence regarding former Trump
campaign adviser George Papadopoulos , in an interview with Fox News.
Ratcliffe noted that the FBI opened its investigation on July 31, 2016, after receiving
information from the Australian government about a conversation that Papadopoulos had on May
10, 2016, with Alexander Downer , the
top Australian diplomat to the U.K. - Daily Caller
While Australia's Alexander Downer claimed that Papadopoulos revealed Russia had "dirt" on
Hillary Clinton, Ratcliffe - who sits on the House Judiciary Committee - suggested on Sunday
that the FBI and DOJ possess information which directly contradicts that account.
"Hypothetically, if the Department of Justice and the FBI have another piece of evidence
that directly refutes that, that directly contradicts that, what you would expect is for the
Department of Justice to present both sides of the coin to the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court to evaluate the weight and sufficiency of that evidence," Ratcliffe said,
adding: "Instead, what happened here was Department of Justice and FBI officials in the Obama
administration in October of 2016 only presented to the court the evidence that made the
government's case to get a warrant to spy on a Trump campaign associate."
The FBI referred to Papadopoulos in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant
application - however what has been released to the public is so heavily redacted that it's
unclear why he is mentioned.
As The Hill 's John Solomon notes, based on Congressional testimony by former FBI General
Counsel James Baker - the DOJ / FBI redactions aren't hiding national security issues -
only embarrassment .
Other GOP lawmakers have suggested that evidence exists which would exonerate Papadopoulos -
who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Maltese professor (and
self-professed member of the Clinton Foundation), Joseph Mifsud.
Ratcliffe suggested that declassifying DOJ / FBI documents related to the matter "would
corroborate" his claims about Papadopoulos.
Republicans have pressed President Trump to declassify the documents, which include 21
pages from a June 2016 FISA application against Page. House Intelligence Committee Chairman
Devin Nunes has said
that the FBI failed to provide "exculpatory evidence" in the FISA applications. He has also
said that Americans will be "shocked" by the information behind the FISA redactions. -
Daily Caller
President Trump issued an order to declassify the documents on September 17, but then walked
it back - announcing that the DOJ would be allowed to review the documents first after two
foreign allies asked him to keep them classified.
"My opinion is that declassifying them would not expose any national security information,
would not expose any sources and methods," said Ratcliffe. "It would expose certain folks at
the Obama Justice Department and FBI and their actions taken to conceal material facts from the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."
The Blue Wave seems to be receding. The reason; Democrats rule for the Elite 10%. They are
globalists rich from transnational world trade. They expect to cycle back into power.
However, there is no bull pen. They work against policies that would mitigate the neoliberal
winner takes all society and preserve the middle class. The Cold War restarted. Republican
Corporatists, nationalists or not, are no alternative.
The Western political-economic system, with no feedback corrections from democracy, is
tearing itself into pieces. Even though, corporate media continues to say how great things
are.
"... Third party candidates appear to have popped up in important KS races where far-right candidates might not get enough R votes, but where a 3rd party candidate could draw off moderate R votes that might otherwise to go the D candidate. ..."
"... Since getting the nomination, it seems that they caved to the establishment and diluted their platforms to tripe - Eastman did it within days of winning her primary. Same is true in solid Democrat districts that were never part of this series - I can't even view the change in MA-07 as much of a win, since on policy at least, Presley appears to have defeated Capuano from the right, not the left. I'm not at all surprised that this process leaves only 2 genuine leftists remaining, plus AOC. ..."
I sure hope the Dems take over the House. After McConnel said out loud on teevee that he
plans to Gut Social Security and Medicare to fix the deficit (created by the Trump taxcuts
for the Rich), Repubs have become a frightening breed. And what else will they attack? The
Trump presidency has turned from awful to Nightmarish. I'm not even a fan of the corporate
Dems but Congressional gridlock is our only hope.
If I'm completely honest with myself, I think it would be better for Rs to keep the house.
The D/R charade just gives hope to leftists while preventing meaningful institutional reform.
IMO things need to get worse before they can get better, and having a split Congress will
delay that. I think it'll take 3-4 terms of solid R rule before the left has a chance to make
meaningful change.
Here's a thought experiment: suppose the Dems had solid control of both houses: what would
they do? If you aren't excited about that outcome, why vote for it?
I have had similar thoughts in wondering what would be best. Maybe a complete humiliation
for the Ds in the House, like the GOP gaining 10 seats, but then a flip of the Senate, which
doesn't seem likely. It would have to be by several seats to counter Manchin, etc. I voted
straight D. It's all just speculation on my part; damned if I even know anymore what would be
best.
Historically, "the worse the better" hasn't worked out, unless you're hoping for
revolutionary conditions.
Otherwise, most people are pretty unprincipled at the end of the show -- they'll run to
join the crowd.
And the "revolutionary solution" is really, really bad historically. Really bad.
What you really want is the Dems to kick-ass, even if they're total sell-outs, to create
space on the left. But if they lose? You get a whole lot of people becoming radical right
wingers to be on the side of the winners.
flora, October 25, 2018 at 12:19 pm
KS-02 Paul Davis (D) vs Steve Watkins (R) (Jenkins is retiring, not running again.) with a libertarian candidate thrown in
as a 3rd party.
Trump was in town to rally with Watkins a short while ago. Lot of moderate Rs won't vote for far-right* Watkins, even
though this is an R district. Should be an interesting election.
Third party candidates appear to have popped up in important KS races where far-right candidates might not get enough
R votes, but where a 3rd party candidate could draw off moderate R votes that might otherwise to go the D candidate. Who
is funding these 3rd party candidates remains a mystery.
*on the same spectrum as Kris Kobach, imo.
Big River Bandido, October 25, 2018 at 12:20 pm
I think your approach of filtering out who the real candidates are from the left is correct. Dana Balter and Kara Eastman
have been particularly disheartening as general-election candidates; Eastman, especially, talked a great game on health care
back in the primary. Since getting the nomination, it seems that they caved to the establishment and diluted their
platforms to tripe - Eastman did it within days of winning her primary. Same is true in solid Democrat districts that were
never part of this series - I can't even view the change in MA-07 as much of a win, since on policy at least, Presley appears
to have defeated Capuano from the right, not the left. I'm not at all surprised that this process leaves only 2 genuine
leftists remaining, plus AOC.
"... Now there is new information, courtesy of the National Security Agency aka NSA, that confirms that the NSA has Top Secret and Secret documents that are responsive to a FOIA request for material on Seth Rich and his contacts with Julian Assange. While the content of these documents remain classified for now, they may provide documentary proof that Seth Rich "dropped boxed" the emails to Julian. If these documents are declassified, a big hole could be blown in the claim that Russia hacked the DNC. ..."
"... Another case of "Arkancide"? ..."
"... I came to this summary today after I had turned my T.V. off since all the news is now about the "bombs" being mailed to the Clintons and Obamas. (I was afraid a story line would soon continue that the bombs were from Russia via the White House. I can no longer feel certain that anything reported in the "news" is true and wonder what part of it is made up from thin air. ..."
"... And I am sad that such a huge number of American citizens simply no longer care what is true or what is not true. They believe only what they want to believe. Mostly I am sad that Seth Rich lived and died and few seem to want to know the facts surrounding his death. ..."
"... Guccifer 2.0 was nothing but an elaborate joke. ..."
If Russia had actually "hacked" the DNC emails then the National Security Agency would have had proof of such activity. In fact,
the NSA could have tracked such activity. But they did not do that. That lack of evidence did not prevent a coordinated media campaign
from spinning up to pin the blame on Russia for the "theft" and to portray Donald Trump as Putin's lackey and beneficiary.
Any effort to tell an alternative story has met with stout opposition. Fox News, for example, came under withering fire after
it published an article in May 2017 claiming that Seth Rich, a young Democrat operative, had leaked DNC emails to Julian Assange
at Wikileaks. The family of Seth Rich reacted with fury and sued Fox, Malia Zimmerman and Ed Butowsky, but that suit subsequently
was dismissed.
Now there is new information, courtesy of the National Security Agency aka NSA, that confirms that the NSA has Top Secret and
Secret documents that are responsive to a FOIA request for material on Seth Rich and his contacts with Julian Assange. While the
content of these documents remain classified for now, they may provide documentary proof that Seth Rich "dropped boxed" the emails
to Julian. If these documents are declassified, a big hole could be blown in the claim that Russia hacked the DNC.
PT, thank for the very detailed description of the entire story surrounding the supposed Russian hack of the DNC emails.
I always find myself screaming at the T.V. whenever a supposed reporter mentions the supposed Russian hack of the DNC computers
as if such an event is settled history.
I came to this summary today after I had turned my T.V. off since all the news is now about the "bombs" being mailed to the
Clintons and Obamas. (I was afraid a story line would soon continue that the bombs were from Russia via the White House. I can no longer feel certain that anything reported in the "news" is true and wonder what part of it is made up from thin air.
And I am sad that such a huge number of American citizens simply no longer care what is true or what is not true. They believe
only what they want to believe. Mostly I am sad that Seth Rich lived and died and few seem to want to know the facts surrounding his death.
So intelligence agencies are now charged with protection of elections from undesirable candidates; looks like a feature of neofascism...
Notable quotes:
"... The Department of Justice admitted in a Friday court filing that the FBI used more than one "Confidential Human Source," (also known as informants, or spies ) to infiltrate the Trump campaign through former adviser Carter Page, reports the Daily Caller ..."
"... Included in Hardy's declaration is an acknowledgement that the FBI's spies were in addition to the UK's Christopher Steele - a former MI6 operative who assembled the controversial and largely unproven "Steel Dossier" which the DOJ/FBI used to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Page. ..."
"... In addition to Steele, the FBI also employed 73-year-old University of Cambridge professor Stefan Halper, a US citizen, political veteran and longtime US Intelligence asset enlisted by the FBI to befriend and spy on three members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 US election . Halper received over $1 million in contracts from the Pentagon during the Obama years, however nearly half of that coincided with the 2016 US election. ..."
"... In short, the FBI's acknowledgement that they used multiple spies reinforces Stone's assertion that he was targeted by one. ..."
"... Stefan Halper's infiltration of the Trump campaign corresponds with the two of the four targets of the FBI's Operation Crossfire Hurricane - in which the agency sent former counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and others to a London meeting in the Summer of 2016 with former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer - who says Papadopoulos drunkenly admitted to knowing that the Russians had Hillary Clinton's emails. ..."
"... Interestingly Downer - the source of the Papadopoulos intel, and Halper - who conned Papadopoulos months later, are linked through UK-based Haklyut & Co. an opposition research and intelligence firm similar to Fusion GPS - founded by three former British intelligence operatives in 1995 to provide the kind of otherwise inaccessible research for which select governments and Fortune 500 corporations pay huge sums ..."
"... Downer - a good friend of the Clintons, has been on their advisory board for a decade, while Halper is connected to Hakluyt through Director of U.S. operations Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has co-authored two books. (h/t themarketswork.com ) ..."
The Department of Justice admitted in a
Friday court filing that the FBI used
more than one "Confidential Human Source," (also known as informants, or spies ) to infiltrate the Trump campaign through former
adviser Carter Page, reports the Daily Caller
.
"The FBI has protected information that would identify the identities of other confidential sources who provided information or
intelligence to the FBI" as well as "information provided by those sources," wrote David M. Hardy, the head of the FBI's Record/Information
Dissemination Section (RIDS), in court
papers submitted Friday.
Hardy and Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys submitted the filings in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit
for the FBI's four applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Page. The DOJ released heavily
redacted copies of the four FISA warrant applications on June 20, but USA Today reporter Brad Heath has sued for full copies of
the documents. - Daily Caller
Included in Hardy's declaration is an acknowledgement that the FBI's spies were in addition to the UK's Christopher Steele
- a former MI6 operative who assembled the controversial and largely unproven "Steel Dossier" which the DOJ/FBI used to obtain a
FISA warrant to spy on Page.
The DOJ says it redacted information in order to protect the identity of their confidential sources, which "includes nonpublic
information about and provided by Christopher Steele," reads the filing, " as well as information about and provided by other confidential
sources , all of whom were provided express assurances of confidentiality."
Government lawyers said the payment information is being withheld because disclosing specific payment amounts and dates could
"suggest the relative volume of information provided by a particular CHS. " That disclosure could potentially tip the source's
targets off and allow them to "take countermeasures, destroy or fabricate evidence, or otherwise act in a way to thwart the FBI's
activities." - Daily Caller
Steele, referred to as Source #1, met with several DOJ / FBI officials during the 2016 campaign, including husband and wife team
Bruce and Nellie Ohr. Bruce was the #4 official at the DOJ, while his CIA-linked wife Nellie was hired by Fusion GPS - who also employed
Steele, in the anti-Trump opposition research / counterintelligence effort funded by Trump's opponents, Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
In addition to Steele, the FBI also employed 73-year-old University of Cambridge professor Stefan Halper, a US citizen, political
veteran and longtime US Intelligence asset enlisted by the FBI to befriend and spy on three members of the Trump campaign during
the 2016 US election . Halper received over $1 million in contracts from the Pentagon during the Obama years, however nearly half
of that coincided with the 2016 US election.
Stefan Halper
Halper's involvement first came to light after the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross reported on his involvement with Carter Page and
George Papadopoulos, another Trump campaign aide. Ross's reporting was confirmed by the NYT and WaPo .
In June, Trump campaign aides Roger Stone and Michael Caputo claimed that a meeting Stone took in late May, 2016 with a Russian
appears to have been an " FBI sting operation " in hindsight, following
bombshell reports in May
that the DOJ/FBI used a longtime FBI/CIA asset, Cambridge professor Stefan Halper, to perform espionage on the Trump campaign.
Roger Stone
When Stone arrived at the restaurant in Sunny Isles, he said, Greenberg was wearing a Make America Great Again T-shirt and
hat. On his phone, Greenberg pulled up a photo of himself with Trump at a rally, Stone said. -
WaPo
The meeting went nowhere - ending after Stone told Greenberg " You don't understand Donald Trump... He doesn't pay for anything
." The Post independently confirmed this account with Greenberg.
After the meeting, Stone received a text message from Caputo - a Trump campaign communications official who arranged the meeting
after Greenberg approached Caputo's Russian-immigrant business partner.
" How crazy is the Russian? " Caputo wrote according to a text message reviewed by The Post. Noting that Greenberg wanted "big"
money, Stone replied: "waste of time." -
WaPo
In short, the FBI's acknowledgement that they used multiple spies reinforces Stone's assertion that he was targeted by one.
Further down the rabbit hole
Stefan Halper's infiltration of the Trump campaign corresponds with the two of the four targets of the FBI's Operation Crossfire
Hurricane - in which the agency sent former counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and others to a London meeting in the Summer of
2016 with former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer - who says Papadopoulos drunkenly admitted to knowing that the Russians had
Hillary Clinton's emails.
Interestingly Downer - the source of the Papadopoulos intel, and Halper - who conned Papadopoulos months later, are linked
through
UK-based Haklyut & Co. an opposition research and intelligence firm similar to Fusion GPS - founded by three former British intelligence
operatives in 1995 to provide the kind of otherwise inaccessible research for which select governments and Fortune 500 corporations
pay huge sums .
Alexander Downer
Downer - a good friend of the Clintons, has been on their advisory board for a decade, while Halper is connected to Hakluyt
through Director of U.S. operations Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has
co-authored two books. (h/t
themarketswork.com )
Alexander Downer, the Australian High Commissioner to the U.K. Downer said that in May 2016, Papadopoulos told him during a
conversation in London about Russians having Clinton emails.
That information was passed to other Australian government officials before making its way to U.S. officials. FBI agents flew
to London a day after "Crossfire Hurricane" started in order to interview Downer.
It is still not known what Downer says about his interaction with Papadopoulos, which TheDCNF is told occurred around May 10,
2016.
Also interesting via
Lifezette - " Downer is not the only Clinton fan in Hakluyt. Federal contribution records show several of the firm's U.S. representatives
made large contributions to two of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign organizations ."
Halper contacted Papadopoulos on September 2, 2016 according to The Caller - flying him out to London to work on a policy paper
on energy issues in Turkey, Cyprus and Israel - for which he was ultimately paid $3,000. Papadopoulos met Halper several times during
his stay, "having dinner one night at the Travellers Club, and Old London gentleman's club frequented by international diplomats."
They were accompanied by Halper's assistant, a Turkish woman named Azra Turk. Sources familiar with Papadopoulos's claims about
his trip say Turk flirted with him during their encounters and later on in email exchanges .
...
Emails were also brought up during Papadopoulos's meetings with Halper , though not by the Trump associate, according to sources
familiar with his version of events. T he sources say that during conversation, Halper randomly brought up Russians and emails.
Papadopoulos has told people close to him that he grew suspicious of Halper because of the remark. -
Daily Caller
Meanwhile, Halper targeted Carter Page two days after Page returned from a trip to Moscow.
Page's visit to Moscow, where he spoke at the New Economic School on July 8, 2016, is said to have piqued the FBI's interest
even further . Page and Halper spoke on the sidelines of an election-themed symposium held at Cambridge days later. Former Secretary
of State Madeleine Albright and Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6 and a close colleague of Halper's, spoke at the event.
...
Page would enter the media spotlight in September 2016 after Yahoo! News reported that the FBI was investigating whether he
met with two Kremlin insiders during that Moscow trip.
It would later be revealed that the Yahoo! article was based on unverified information from Christopher Steele, the former
British spy who wrote the dossier regarding the Trump campaign . Steele's report, which was funded by Democrats, also claimed
Page worked with Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on the collusion conspiracy. -
Daily Caller
A third target of Halper's was Trump campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis, whose name was revealed by the Washington Post on Friday.
In late August 2016, the professor reached out to Clovis, asking if they could meet somewhere in the Washington area, according
to Clovis's attorney, Victoria Toensing.
"He said he wanted to be helpful to the campaign" and lend the Trump team his foreign-policy experience, Toensing said.
Clovis, an Iowa political figure and former Air Force officer, met the source and chatted briefly with him over coffee, on
either Aug. 31 or Sept. 1, at a hotel cafe in Crystal City, she said. Most of the discussion involved him asking Clovis his views
on China.
"It was two academics discussing China," Toensing said. " Russia never came up. " -
WaPo
Meanwhile, Bruce Ohr is still employed by the Department of Justice, and Fusion GPS continues its hunt for Trump dirt after having
partnered with former Feinstein aide and ex-FBI counterintelligence agent, Dan Jones.
It's been nearly three years since an army of professional spies was unleashed on Trump - and he's still the President, Steele
and Downer notwithstanding.
"... Not sure about that, as at least 2 crucial allies, the UK and Australia, were pressured by the Obama and Hillary camps to set this whole narrative off...and therefore does he seriously damage those international and key security countries with info or does he compromise to keep the peace? ..."
"... I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.... That's that the UK's GCHQ initiated spying on Popadolous and Trump Tower at the request of Obummer and/or Rice and/or Brennan, BEFORE the FBI/Comey said UNDER OATH that they started in May, and were denied a FISA warrant in June 2016.... that's why they needed the 'golden shower dossier.' ..."
Some say that declassifying the documents would expose " sources and methods ".
Others say that the documents are being kept secret to prevent the DOJ and FBI from becoming
embarrassed . I say that both can be true.
If the documents expose the liars and fabrications that went into the entire Russia Gate
fraud, then declassifying the documents will indeed embarrass the DOJ and FBI by
showing that their " sources " are liars and that their " methods " are
fabrications.
Either Trump is constantly threatened, boxed into a corner, or it IS ALL FOR SHOW!
The best example is now, Trump "walking back the release" because of Aussie and UK
complicity. The threatened release of USA dirty laundry, of which there is plenty knowing how
our CIA works. Or we are being played once more.
Frankly, I'm beyond sick of these walk backs! IG report! Rosenstein resigns! FISA
Declas!!
I'm an independent voter. It's high time I WALK BACK my vote for all Republicans on
November 6th UNLESS WE THE People that they represent get a FULL UNREDACTED FISA AND IG
REPORT published .
Tell Trump and the Republican party . Protect NOT ONE Criminal. If UK or Aus threaten
exposing spies or military secrets then threaten back with annihilation should they endanger
Americans.
I'm fed up beyond return with Holder, Brennan et al.
Obama, Hillary and the DNC pressured the UK's M16 as the No.1 instigator via Steele, its
lapdog Australia's intelligence service, then told Alexander Downer to forward "salted" info
to US agencies...and 2.5 years later here we are
It's always something that causes The Never Ending Wait..
and it always makes decent sense in the short term (memory loss)..
and it always; and for years now, happens.
I can't buy that those involved are powerful, savvy, or more importantly, courageous
enough to finally stand the hell UP to the powers that be bullshitting the Citizenry. It's
clearly not the case.
And what does Sundance say of the MIA Sessions? Is he really wearing tights and cape under
those rumpled wee suits of his, and just snarling to leap out, indictments in hand, to read
off tens of thousands of the accused' names? "Stealth Jeff"; actor par excellence? Sessions
as Hero? Any day now to be proved The Truth's Hitman?
A GOP-won Midterms would benefit from the declassification of criminal intent that
supports the US President. -> Before the vote. Afterward, and if the vote gone badly, lol
it'll be as useful as John Brennan's soul. And a "Mueller surprise"; if the declassification
happened before the vote, would be tainted beyond its .. surprise.
So why the wait this time - again?
I'm sorry; I don't mean to come across rudely, but "hoping; forever" is exhausting,
damaging to fact based living, induces apathy and entirely suits those who have so much to
hide, and offers nothing to the targets involved; We, the People.
The factions in the FBI/DOJ who want to keep the Russian collusion hoax going are the same
ones who protected Hillary from the most outrageous violation of the espionage laws ever to
bubble to the surface. Office politics in that axis are a lot like any other large company,
with the exception of sending people to prison. So her supporters are still on the job.
The investigation never made first page news, living out here in the alternate press, and
now that The Donald seems to walk back obvious Donaldesque moves, it might never come to
light. Remember his campaign promise was to prosecute Sec. Clinton, and he settled for firing
Comey. So they may get away with most of this yet.
Any time the US government cooperates with the British, we get stuck. The Austrailians are
colonials and love it. So the paperwork for the Comey-McCabe-Rosenstien conspiracy might
never be published.
When the FBI wants a warrant, its presumed that they are not going to make an even-handed
case to the FISA Court. All they have to do is deny that they had sufficient infomation to
the contrary. Thats what makes this court an abomination to our freedom. This is why the US
Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act are a bunch of crap. We are now finding out that
intelligence services knew who concocted 911 (elements within the Saudi Govt along side the
wealthy dissident near-royals ie. the Khashoggis and the Bin-Ladens, and possibly the
Israelis knew too).
Everyone, none of this matters. Has everyone forgotten about 9/11 and the conspiracy
perpetrated on the American people. Frankly all is not what it seems and most of what we are
seeing is simply theatre for the masses.
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 had better not speak above
their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."
~ Woodrow Wilson (1856 – 1924), 28th President of the United States
"The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people
inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret
proceedings...Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are
advancing around the globe...no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are
awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can only say that the danger has
never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent...For we are opposed
around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert
means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on
subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by
night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material
resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines
military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its
preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its
dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no
secret is revealed."
― President John F. Kennedy
Anyone else worried that the President keeps doing an about face or being unable or
unwilling to deliver on important issues? Orders papers to be published unredacted then they are not? Hillary walking free. No Wall,
no withdrawal from Afghanistan and now backtracking on punishing Saudi Arabia....
" and now backtracking on punishing Saudi Arabia.."
And you think the Russian's really poisoned the Skripals, or that Assad merrily gassed his
own people just before entering peace talks, or that the White Helmet people being invited
into Canada are not Al Nusra terrorists?
You had better be prepared to believe all that if you think the Saudis are stupid enough
to dismember a Washington Post journalist in a Saudi consulate, and to let it be recorded to
boot. How dumb can you get? But then, maybe I misjudge you. Maybe you do believe all that. Not me, pal.
PS For extra confirmation, just look at who has decided not to attend Davos in the Desert.
Top of the list are the New Yawk banksters.
You want to might ask yourself why the Post ran this story, employed the journalist and
published that John Brennan demand that we "punish" Saudi Arabia. You might ask yourself why the NYT pushed the narrative that RR should be fired before
mid-terms.
i watched a documentary about that. basically, binney was genius who created a genius
system to find terrorists while maintaining the integrity of the constitution (and for
relatively cheap cost!). The deep state was like "piss on that," spent 100x more money than
they had to, and wiped their *** with the constitution.
dont forget that the FBI fabricated evidence about Binney and three of his colleagues.The
criminal case against Binney and his colleagues was then thrown out of court once the
fabrication was revealed. This out of control corruption has been going on a long time...
I've stated for months that rank and file are in the tank w/leadership corruption OR they
have been threatened either with harm to themselves of family members if they didn't go
along. However at this point, no whistleblowers proves the former.
Strzok testifed several CDs of ALL 680K emails that included crimes against children,
classified info was handed over to Comey who merely placed them in his office. Comey has been
gone for over six months, why have those CDs not been reviewed and acted on?
There are a LOT of dots and THEY count on YOU not connecting them. I keep a journal.
Lets suppose its all true. Which we pretty much know if you have been paying attention
that the FBI has gone rogue. Then what? Arrests? Mueller? I don't think that's even close to
what is needed. We are talking major treason from multiple levels and people through out
government.
" the DOJ would be allowed to review the documents first after two foreign allies asked
him to keep them classified. "
refers to the British and Australian governments who would be embarassed because rogue
agents wishing to arrange for the impeachment of Trump would be exposed.
as such, this would represent a threat to the apolitical use of five eyes security pact
for intelligence purposes - a pact intended to detect and prevent EXTERNAL threats to the
five eyes nations - rather than instigate POLITICAL control of INTERNAL affairs of the
democratic functioning of five eyes countries.
treason and sedition has been exposed within the US - aided and abetted by drunks and
sycophants in britain and australia,
My impression is that FIVE EYES exists so that the individual members can ask one of the
other members to spy on their own people without violating constitutional limits on such
activity.
In my humble opinion, politicians and government bureaucrats should be strictly prohibited
from falsely accusing their ideological opponents of criminal activity and then manufacturing
fake evidence to support those claims.
No amount of sanctimonious political-correctness justifies Authoritarian rule squarely in
opposition to the US Constitution.
Exactly @NoDebt. Nearly every day or multiple times a day there's something huge that
radically alters the narrative... people are worn out. This is so huge!
Not sure about that, as at least 2 crucial allies, the UK and Australia, were pressured by
the Obama and Hillary camps to set this whole narrative off...and therefore does he seriously
damage those international and key security countries with info or does he compromise to keep
the peace? Too much is at play here for Trump expose the truth
I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.... That's that the UK's GCHQ initiated spying on
Popadolous and Trump Tower at the request of Obummer and/or Rice and/or Brennan, BEFORE the
FBI/Comey said UNDER OATH that they started in May, and were denied a FISA warrant in June
2016.... that's why they needed the 'golden shower dossier.' That's i-l-l-e-g-a-l.
Oh, and Brennan said he pushed the FBI to initiate an investigation but Nunes said there
was no intelligence (EC) which they could base it on. It was a set-up from day 1.
The vast regime of
torture created by the Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks
continues to haunt
America.
The political class and most of the media have never dealt honestly with the
profound constitutional corruption that such practices inflicted. Instead, torture enablers are
permitted to pirouette as heroic figures on the flimsiest evidence.
Former FBI chief James Comey is the latest beneficiary of the media's "no fault" scoring
on the torture scandal.
In his media interviews for his new memoir,
A Higher Loyalty:
Truth, Lies, and Leadership
, Comey is portraying himself as a Boy Scout who sought only to do
good things. But his record is far more damning than most Americans realize.
Comey continues to use memos from his earlier government gigs to whitewash all of the
abuses he sanctified.
"Here I stand; I can do no other," Comey told George W. Bush in 2004
when Bush pressured Comey, who was then Deputy Attorney General, to approve an unlawful
anti-terrorist policy. Comey was quoting a line supposedly uttered by Martin Luther in 1521, when
he told Emperor Charles V and an assembly of Church officials that he would not recant his sweeping
criticisms of the Catholic Church.
The American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, and other organizations did excellent
reports prior to Comey's becoming FBI chief that laid out his role in the torture scandal. Such
hard facts, however, have long since vanished from the media radar screen.
MSNBC host
Chris Matthews recently declared, "James Comey made his bones by standing up against torture. He
was a made man before Trump came along."
Washington Post columnist Fareed Zakaria, in
a column declaring that Americans should be "deeply grateful" to lawyers such as Comey, declared,
"The Bush administration wanted to claim that its 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were lawful.
Comey believed they were not .
So Comey pushed back as much as he could.
"
Martin Luther risked death to fight against what he considered the scandalous religious
practices of his time. Comey, a top Bush administration policymaker, found a safer way to oppose
the worldwide secret U.S. torture regime widely considered a heresy against American values:
he approved brutal practices and then wrote some memos and emails fretting about the
optics.
Losing Sleep
Comey became deputy attorney general in late 2003 and "had oversight of the legal
justification used to authorize" key Bush programs in the war on terror,
as a Bloomberg
News analysis noted. At that time, the Bush White House was pushing the Justice Department to again
sign off on an array of extreme practices that had begun shortly after the 9/11 attacks. A 2002
Justice Department memo had leaked out that declared that the federal Anti-Torture Act "would be
unconstitutional if it impermissibly encroached on the President's constitutional power to conduct
a military campaign." The same Justice Department policy spurred a secret 2003 Pentagon document on
interrogation policies that openly encouraged contempt for the law: "Sometimes the greater good for
society will be accomplished by violating the literal language of the criminal law."
Photos had also leaked from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq showing the stacking of naked
prisoners with bags over their heads, mock electrocution from a wire connected to a man's penis,
guard dogs on the verge of ripping into naked men, and grinning U.S. male and female soldiers
celebrating the sordid degradation.
Legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh
published extracts in the New Yorker from a March 2004 report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba that
catalogued other U.S. interrogation abuses: "Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric
liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle
and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and
perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with
threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee."
The Bush administration responded to the revelations with a torrent of falsehoods,
complemented by attacks on the character of critics.
Bush declared, "Let me make very
clear the position of my government and our country . The values of this country are such that
torture is not a part of our soul and our being." Bush had the audacity to run for reelection as
the anti-torture candidate, boasting that "for decades, Saddam tormented and tortured the people of
Iraq. Because we acted, Iraq is free and a sovereign nation." He was hammering this theme despite a
confidential CIA Inspector General report warning that post–9/11 CIA interrogation methods might
violate the international Convention Against Torture.
James Comey had the opportunity to condemn the outrageous practices and pledge that the
Justice Department would cease providing the color of law to medieval-era abuses. Instead, Comey
merely repudiated the controversial 2002 memo.
Speaking to the media in a
not-for-attribution session on June 22, 2004, he declared that the 2002 memo was "overbroad,"
"abstract academic theory," and "legally unnecessary." He helped oversee crafting a new memo with
different legal footing to justify the same interrogation methods.
Comey twice gave explicit approval for waterboarding
, which sought to break
detainees with near-drowning. This practice had been recognized as a war crime by the U.S.
government since the Spanish-American War. A practice that was notorious when inflicted by the
Spanish Inquisition was adopted by the CIA with the Justice Department's blessing. (When Barack
Obama nominated Comey to be FBI chief in 2013, he testified that he had belatedly recognized that
waterboarding was actually torture.)
Comey wrote in his memoir that he was losing sleep over concern about
Bush-administration torture polices. But losing sleep was not an option for detainees, because
Comey approved sleep deprivation as an interrogation technique.
Detainees could be
forcibly kept awake for 180 hours until they confessed their crimes. How did that work? At Abu
Ghraib, one FBI agent reported seeing a detainee "handcuffed to a railing with a nylon sack on his
head and a shower curtain draped around him, being slapped by a soldier to keep him awake."
Numerous FBI agents protested the extreme interrogation methods they saw at Guantanamo and
elsewhere, but their warnings were ignored.
Comey also approved "wall slamming"
-- which, as law professor David Cole wrote,
meant that detainees could be thrown against a wall up to 30 times. Comey also signed off on the
CIA's using "interrogation" methods such as facial slaps, locking detainees in small boxes for 18
hours, and forced nudity. When the secret Comey memo approving those methods finally became public
in 2009, many Americans were aghast -- and relieved that the Obama administration had repudiated
Bush policies.
When it came to opposing torture, Comey's version of "Here I stand" had more loopholes
than a reverse-mortgage contract.
Though Comey in 2005 approved each of 13 controversial
extreme interrogation methods, he objected to combining multiple methods on one detainee.
The Torture Guy
In his memoir, Comey relates that his wife told him,
"Don't be the torture guy!"
Comey apparently feels that he satisfied her dictate by writing memos that opposed
combining multiple extreme interrogation methods. And since the vast majority of the American media
agree with him, he must be right.
Comey's cheerleaders seem uninterested in the damning evidence that has surfaced since
his time as a torture enabler in the Bush administration.
In 2014, the Senate Intelligence
Committee finally released a massive report on the CIA torture regime -- including death resulting
from hypothermia, rape-like rectal feeding of detainees, compelling detainees to stand long periods
on broken legs, and dozens of cases where innocent people were pointlessly brutalized.
Psychologists aided the torture regime, offering hints on how to destroy the will and resistance of
prisoners. From the start, the program was protected by phalanxes of lying federal officials.
When he first campaigned for president, Barack Obama pledged to vigorously investigate the Bush
torture regime for criminal violations. Instead, the Obama administration proffered one excuse
after another to suppress the vast majority of the evidence, pardon all U.S. government torturers,
and throttle all torture-related lawsuits. The only CIA official to go to prison for the torture
scandal was courageous whistleblower John Kiriakou. Kiriakou's fate illustrates that telling the
truth is treated as the most unforgivable atrocity in Washington.
If Comey had resigned in 2004 or 2005 to protest the torture techniques he now claims to
abhor, he would deserve some of the praise he is now receiving.
Instead, he remained in
the Bush administration but wrote an email summarizing his objections, declaring that "it was my
job to protect the department and the A.G. [Attorney General] and that I could not agree to this
because it was wrong." A 2009 New York Times analysis noted that Comey and two colleagues "have
largely escaped criticism [for approving torture] because they raised questions about interrogation
and the law." In Washington, writing emails is "close enough for government work" to confer
sainthood.
When Comey finally exited the Justice Department in August 2005 to become a lavishly paid senior
vice president for Lockheed Martin, he proclaimed in a farewell speech that protecting the Justice
Department's "reservoir" of "trust and credibility" requires "vigilance" and "an unerring
commitment to truth." But he had perpetuated policies that shattered the moral credibility of both
the Justice Department and the U.S. government. He failed to heed Martin Luther's admonition, "You
are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say."
Comey is likely to go to his grave without paying any price for his role in
perpetuating appalling U.S. government abuses.
It is far more important to recognize
the profound danger that torture and the exoneration of torturers pose to the United States. "No
free government can survive that is not based on the supremacy of the law," is one of the mottoes
chiseled into the façade of Justice Department headquarters. Unfortunately, politicians nowadays
can choose which laws they obey and which laws they trample.
And Americans are supposed
to presume that we still have the rule of law as long as politicians and bureaucrats deny their
crimes.
Tags
Comey was the hand-picked schlub that was placed in a position of
power to be a firewall... Nothing more and he has been rewarded
handsomely for playing this role... One can only hope that one day he
becomes a liability to his handlers and that there is a pack of
hungry, wild dogs that will rips him apart... Hopefully on PPV...
The Absolute, Complete,
Open, in our Faces Tyrannical Lawlessness began.
Unabated. Like a malignant Cancer.
Growing to Gargantuan proportions.
Irrefutable proof of the absolute, complete, open Lawlessness by
the Criminal Fraud UNITED STATES, CORP. INC., its CEO & Board of
Directors.
1. Torture .
2. WMD lie to the American People.
3. Lying the American People into War.
4. Illegal Wars of Aggression.
5. Arming, funding & training of terror organizations by the State
Dept. / CIA & members of CONgress.
6. BENGAZI
7. McCain meets with ISIS (Pics available).
8. Clapper lies to CONgress.
9. Brennan lies to CONgress & taps Congressional phones / computers.
10. Lynch meets Clinton on tarmac.
11. Fast & Furious deals with the Sinaloa Cartel.
12. Holder in Contempt of CONgress.
13. CIA drug / gun running / money laundering through the tax payer
bailed out TBTFB.
14. Illegal NSA Spying on the American People.
15. DNC Federal Election Crime / Debbie Wasserman Shultz.
16. Hillary Clinton email Treason.
17. Clinton Foundation pay to play RICO.
18. Anthony Weiner 650,000 #PizzaGate Pedo Crimes.
19. Secret Iran deal.
20. Lynch takes the Fifth when asked about Iran deal
21. FBI murders LaVoy Finicum
At the current moment we're completely Lawless.
We have been for quite some time. In the past, their Criminality
was "Hidden in plain view."
Now it's out in the open, in your face Criminality & Lawlessness.
Complete debachary.
Thing is, the bar & precedent has been set so high among these
Criminals I doubt we will ever see another person arrested in our
lifetime.
Comey thinks he is above the law. He and his associates feel they are
not bound by the rules and laws of the US, they are the ELITE. Comey
should go to JAIL, HARD CORE not Country Club, along with his
associates, Yates, Rosenstein, Brennan, McCabe, Stzrock, Paige and
etc. Lock him up
Changing the rules, talks of changing the constitution, and the status of the SC because
Dems can't find a positive message, or a positive candidate, or persuade the candidate to
recognize and reach out to voters the Democratic party abandoned, reeks of defeatism and
worse.
Exactly.
Clinton neoliberals (aka soft neoliberals) still control the Democratic Party but no longer
can attract working-class voters. That's why they try "identity wedge" strategy trying to
compensate their loss with the rag tag minority groups.
Their imperial jingoism only makes the situation worse. Large swaths of the USA population,
including lower middle class are tired of foreign wars and sliding standard of living. They see
exorbitant military expenses as one of the causes of their troubles.
That's why Hillary got a middle finger from several social groups which previously supported
Democrats. And that's why midterm might be interesting to watch as there is no political party
that represents working class and lower middle class in the USA.
"Lesser evil" mantra stops working when people are really angry at the ruling neoliberal
elite.
control of the Senate, a relentlessly undemocratic institution
likbez 10.08.18 at 6:24 am (no link)
I think the US society is entering a deep, sustained political crisis and it is unclear what
can bring us back from it other then the collapse, USSR-style. The USA slide into corporate
socialism (which might be viewed as a flavor of neofascism) can't be disputed.
Looks like all democracies are unstable and prone to self-destruction. In modern America,
the elite do not care about lower 80% of the population, and is over-engaged in cynical
identity politics, race and gender-mongering. Anything to win votes.
MSM is still cheering on military misadventures that kill thousands of Americans,
impoverish millions, and cost trillions. Congress looks even worse. Republican House leader
Paul Ryan looks like 100% pure bought-and-paid-for tool of multinational corporations
The scary thing for me is that the USA national problems are somewhat similar to the ones
that the USSR experienced before the collapse. At least the level of degeneration of
political elite of both parties (which in reality is a single party) is.
The only positive things is that there is viable alternative to neoliberalism on the
horizon. But that does not mean that we can't experience 1930th on a new level again. Now
several European countries such as Poland and Ukraine are already ruled by far right
nationalist parties. Brazil is probably the next. So this or military rule in the USA is not
out of question.
Some other factors are also in play: one is that a country with 320 million population
can't be governed by the same methods as a country of 76 million (1900). End of cheap oil is
near and probably will occur within the next 50 years or so. Which means the end of
neoliberalism as we know it.
Tucker states that the USA's neoliberal elite acquired control of a massive chunk of the
country's wealth. And then successfully insulated themselves from the hoi polloi. They send
their children to the Ivy League universities, live in enclosed compounds with security
guards, travel in helicopters, etc. Kind of like French aristocracy on a new level ("Let them
eat cakes"). "There's nothing more infuriating to a ruling class than contrary opinions.
They're inconvenient and annoying. They're evidence of an ungrateful population Above all,
they constitute a threat to your authority." (insert sarcasm)
Donald Trump was in many ways an unappealing figure. He never hid that. Voters knew it.
They just concluded that the options were worse -- and not just Hillary Clinton and the
Democratic Party, but the Bush family and their donors and the entire Republican
leadership, along with the hedge fund managers and media luminaries and corporate
executives and Hollywood tastemakers and think tank geniuses and everyone else who created
the world as it was in the fall of 2016: the people in charge. Trump might be vulgar and
ignorant, but he wasn't responsible for the many disasters America's leaders created .
There was also the possibility that Trump might listen. At times he seemed interested in
what voters thought. The people in charge demonstrably weren't. Virtually none of their
core beliefs had majority support from the population they governed .Beginning on election
night, they explained away their loss with theories as pat and implausible as a summer
action movie: Trump won because fake news tricked simple minded voters. Trump won because
Russian agents "hacked" the election. Trump won because mouth-breathers in the provinces
were mesmerized by his gold jet and shiny cuff links.
From a reader review:
The New Elite speaks: "The Middle Class are losers and they have made bad choices, they
haven't worked as hard as the New Elite have, they haven't gone to SAT Prep or LSAT prep so
they lose, we win. We are the Elite and we know better than you because we got high SAT
scores.
Do we have experience? Uh .well no, few of us have been in the military, pulled KP, shot
an M-16 . because we are better than that. Like they say only the losers go in the
military. We in the New Elite have little empirical knowledge but we can recognize patterns
very quickly."
Just look at Haley behavior in the UN and Trump trade wars and many things became more
clear. the bet is on destruction of existing international institutions in order to save the
USA elite. A the same time Trump trade wars threaten the neoliberal order so this might well
be a path to the USA self-destruction.
On Capital hill rancor, a lack of civility and derisive descriptions are everywhere.
Respect has gone out the window. Left and right wings of a single neoliberal party (much like
CPSU was in the USSR) behave like drunk schoolchildren. Level of pettiness is simply
amazing.
The fundamental rule of democratic electoral politics is this: tribes don't win elections,
coalitions do. Trump's appeal is strongly tribal, and he has spent two years consolidating
his appeal to that tribe rather than reaching out. But he won in 2016 (or 'won') not on the
strength of that tribal appeal, but because of a coalition between core Trumpists and more
respectable conservatives and evangelicals, including a lot of people who find Trump himself
vulgar and repellent, but who are prepared to hold their noses. The cause
célèbre (or cause de l'infâme) that Kavanaugh's appointment became
ended-up uniting these two groups; the Trumpists on the one hand ('so the Libs are saying we
can't even enjoy a beer now, are they?') and the old-school religious Conservatives,
for whom abortion is a matter of conscience.
Given the weird topographies of US democratic process, the Democrats need to build a
bigger counter-coalition than the coalition they are opposing. Metropolitan liberals are in
the bag, so that means reconnecting with the working class, and galvanising the black and
youth votes, which have a poor record of converting social media anger into actual ballot-box
votes. But it also means reaching out to moderate religious conservatives, and the Dems don't
seem to me to have a strategy for this last approach at all. Which is odd, because it would
surely, at least in some ways, be easier than persuading young people to vote at the levels
old people vote. At the moment abortion (the elephant in the Kavanaugh-confirmation room) is
handled by the Left as a simple matter of structural misogyny, the desire to oppress and
control female bodies. I see why it is treated that way; there are good reasons for that
critique. But it's electorally dumb. Come at it another way instead, accept that many
religious people oppose abortion because they see it as killing children; then lead the
campaign on the fact that the GOP is literally putting thousands upon thousands of
children in concentration camps . Shout about that fact. Determine how many kids
literally die each year because their parents can't access free healthcare and put that stat
front and centre. Confront enough voters with the false consciousness of only caring about
abortion and not these other monstrosities and some will reconsider their position.
And one more thing that I have never understood about the Dems (speaking as an outsider),
given how large a political force Christianity is in your country: make more of Jimmy Carter.
He's a man of extraordinary conscience as well as a man of faith; the contrast with how he
has lived his post-Presidential life and the present occupier of the White House could
hardly, from a Christian perspective, be greater. If the Dems can make a love-thy-neighbour
social justice Christianity part of their brand, leaving Mammon to the GOP, then they'd be in
power for a generation.
"Jessica Morse, a former State Department and AID official in Iraq, running in the Fourth
District of California, blasts the Trump administration for "giving away global leadership to
powers like China and Russia. Our security and our economy will both suffer if those
countries are left to re-write the international rules."
Former FBI agent Christopher Hunter, running in the 12th District of Florida, declares,
"Russia is a clear and present danger to the United States. We emerged victorious over the
Soviet Union in the Cold War. We must resolve anew to secure an uncompromising victory over
Russia and its tyrannical regime."
Elissa Slotkin, the former CIA agent and Pentagon official running in Michigan's Eighth
Congressional District, cites her 14 years of experience "working on some of our country's
most critical national security matters, including U.S.-Russia relations, the counter-ISIS
campaign, and the U.S. relationship with NATO." She argues that "the United States must make
investments in its military, intelligence, and diplomatic power" in order to maintain "a
unique and vital role in the world."
Max Rose, a combat commander in Afghanistan now running in New York's 11th Congressional
District (Staten Island and Brooklyn), calls for "recognizing Russia as a hostile foreign
power and holding the Kremlin accountable for its attempts to undermine the sovereignty and
democratic values of other nations." Rose is still in the military reserves, and took two
weeks off from his campaign in August to participate in small-unit drills.
Joseph Kopser, running in the 21st District of Texas, is another anti-Russian firebrand,
writing on his website, "As a retired Army Ranger, I know first hand the importance of
standing strong with your allies. Given Russia's march toward a totalitarian state showing
aggression around the region, as well as their extensive cyber and information warfare
campaign directed at the U.S., England, and others, our Article 5 [NATO] commitment to our
European allies and partners is more important than ever." He concludes, "Since the
mid-twentieth century, the United States has been a principal world leader -- a standard that
should never be changed."
Four national-security candidates add North Korea and Iran to China and Russia as specific
targets of American military and diplomatic attack.
Josh Welle, a former naval officer who was deployed to Afghanistan, now running in the
Fourth Congressional District of New Jersey, writes, "We have to stand together in the face
of threats from countries like North Korea and Iran. The human rights violations and nuclear
capabilities of these countries pose a direct threat to the stability of this world and
therefore need to be met with strong military presence and a robust defense program to
protect ourselves."
Tom Malinowski, former assistant secretary of state for human rights, running in New
Jersey's Seventh District, calls for maintaining economic sanctions on Russia "until it stops
its aggression in Ukraine and interference in our democracy," effusively endorses the state
of Israel (whose government actually interferes in US elections more than any other), and
calls for stepped up sanctions against North Korea.
Mikie Sherill, a former Navy pilot and Russian policy officer, running in New Jersey's
11th District, writes, "I have sat across the table from the Russians, and know that we need
our government to take the threat they pose seriously." She adds to this a warning about
"threats posed by North Korea and Iran," the two most immediate targets of
military-diplomatic blackmail by the Trump administration. She concludes, referring to North
Korea's nuclear program, "For that reason I support a robust military presence in the region
and a comprehensive missile defense program to defend America, our allies, and our troops
abroad."
Dan McCready, an Iraq war unit commander who claims to have been born again when he was
baptized in water from the Euphrates River, calls for war to be waged only "with overwhelming
firepower," not "sporadically, with no strategy or end in sight, while our enemies like Iran,
North Korea, Russia, and the terrorists outsmart and outlast us." He is running in North
Carolina's Ninth Congressional District, adjacent to the huge military complex at Fort
Bragg.
One military-intelligence candidate cites immigration as a national-security issue,
echoing the position of the Trump administration, which constantly peddles scare stories that
terrorists are infiltrating the United States disguised as immigrants and refugees. That is
Richard Ojeda, running in the Third Congressional District of West Virginia, who publicly
boasts of having voted for Trump in 2016, in the same election in which he won a seat in the
West Virginia state senate running as a Democrat.
Ojeda writes on his web site, "We must also ensure that terrorists do not reach American
soil by abusing our immigration process. We must keep an up to date terror watch list but
provide better vetting for those that go onto the watch list."
A career Army Airborne officer, Ojeda voices the full-blown militarism of this social
layer. "If there is one thing I am confident in, it is the ability of our nation's military,"
he declares. "The best way to keep Americans safe is to let our military do their job without
muddying up their responsibilities with our political agendas."
He openly rejects control of the military by civilian policy-makers. "War is not a social
experiment and I refuse to let politics play a role in my decision making when it comes to
keeping you and your family safe," he continues. "I will not take my marching orders from
anyone else concerning national security."
Only one of the 30 candidates, Ken Harbaugh, a retired Air Force pilot running in the
Seventh Congressional District of Ohio, centered on the industrial city of Canton,
acknowledges being part of this larger group. He notes, "In 2018, more vets are running for
office than at any moment in my lifetime. Because of the growing inability of Washington to
deal responsibly with the threats facing our nation, veterans from both sides of the aisle
are stepping into the breach."
Referring to the mounting prospect of war, he writes, "Today, we face our gravest
geopolitical challenge since 9/11. Our country remains at war in Afghanistan, we have troops
engaged in North Africa, Iraq and Syria, and Russia continues to bully our allies. Meanwhile,
North Korea has the ability to directly threaten the American mainland with nuclear
missiles." He concludes, "we need leaders with the moral authority to speak on these issues,
leaders who have themselves been on the front lines of these challenges."
These statements, taken cumulatively, present a picture of unbridled militarism and
aggression as the program of the supposed "opposition" to the Trump administration's own
saber-rattling and threats of "fire and fury like the world has never seen."
Perhaps even more remarkable is that the remaining 17 national-security candidates say
nothing at all about foreign policy (in 11 cases) or limit themselves to anodyne observations
about the necessity to provide adequate health care and other benefits to veterans (two
cases), or vague generalities about the need to combine a strong military with diplomatic
efforts (four cases). They give no specifics whatsoever.
In other words, while these candidates tout their own records as part of the
national-security apparatus as their principal credential for election to Congress, they
decline to tell the voters what they would do if they were in charge of American foreign
policy.
Given that these 17 include intelligence agents (Abigail Spanberger and Gina Ortiz Jones),
a National Security Council Iraq war planner (Andy Kim), and numerous other high-level State
Department and military commanders, the silence can have only the most ominous
interpretation.
These CIA Democrats don't want to tell voters about their plans for foreign policy and
military intervention because they know these measures are deeply unpopular. They aim to gain
office as stealth candidates, unveiling their program of militarism and war only after they
take their seats, when they may very well exercise decisive influence in the next
Congress."
I don't see the republicans being the Nazis. The US war party is composed of both Democraps
and Rethuglicans. The Republican base has values closer in line with paleocons and not the
neocons.
The values of the Democraps are pure imperialist, exceptionalist and totalitarian in the
name of PC. Obummer was neocon tool like W. Bush.
Thus it is the Democraps that are the proper heirs of the Nazis and their 4th Reich global
domination project. Paleocons are isolationist nationalists that actually believe in the
constitutional values that the USA claims to espouse. The Democraps are all about lust for
power and dirty tricks to enable the seizing of power.
Obummer weaponized the FBI and CIA into partisan instruments giving us the Russia meddling
inquisition. Truman was a foaming at the mouth racist cold warrior.
Eisenhower at least warned about the creeping influence of the MIC. Clinton was a
slimeball that continued the Reich agenda in the Balkans. And so on.
"... Why should a robed, unelected politician be redefining marriage? ..."
"... Many people here still don't get it. This fake left vs right paradigm is just a show and is no different than either professional football or wrestling. The public cheer on their teams and engage in meaningless battle while the controllers pilfer everything of value. ..."
"... Peter Hitchens has remarked that demonstrations are actually indicators of weakness rather than power or authority (something that seems to have eluded Flake and Murkowski), however shrill and enraged that they may be. ..."
"... I'm an aging New Deal Democrat. I have not changed but my former party changed with the tenure of the immoral and ethically challenged rapist, Bill Clinton and his enabler wife. In their previous lives, both were Goldwater Republicans. They switched to the Democrat Party to win elections but they never strayed too far from teats of the the Bushes and their destructive political roots. I"m willing to bet thousands of dollars that if given a fair chance at a quiz about the Clintons, most of the young SJW's, rabid homo's and the poor suckers who follow them know very little about the real Clintons. ..."
"... The Democrat party today is less a party than it is a mob of homosexuals and rabid social justice warriors duped into believing they are oppressed by the extremist college courses in Social Justice. Yet, what they have offer the world is not justice. They offer chaos and anarchy as we saw with the mob of racists black and stupid white kids attacking a man who looked lost and confused, and as it turns out, rightfully frightened by the crowd of social justice terrorists from the Alt-Left. ..."
"... The Democrat Party is gonzo, the same as Hillary and Bill Clinton's speaking tour is destined to be. ..."
Mr. Buchanan, you forgot the "treacherous" work of porn lawyer Michael Avenatti who offered
the straw that broke the camel's back by presenting such an abysmal "witness" such as Julie
Swetnick. Ms. Ramirez' alleged allegations also came down to nothing. Even the so-called Me
too movement suffered a big blow. They turned a fundamental democratic principle upside down:
The accused is innocent until proven guilty. They insisted instead that the accuser is right
because she is a woman!
I watched the whole confirmation circus on CNN. When Dr. Ford started talking my first
thought was; this entire testimony is a charade initiated by the Dems. As a journalist, I was
appalled by the CNN "colleagues." During the recesses, they held tribunals that were 95
percent staffed by anti-Trumpets. Fairness looks different.
For me, the Democratic Party and the Me too movement lost much of its credibility. To
regain it, they have to get rid of the demons of the Clinton's and their ilk. Anyone who is
acquainted with the history of the Clinton's knows that they belong to the most politically
corrupt politicians in the US.
@utu
You're thinking of Justice Kennedy, another Republican choice for whom young Mr. Kavanaugh
clerked before helping President Cheney with the Patriot Act to earn his first robe on the
Swampville Circuit. Chief Justice Roberts was the one who nailed down Big Sickness for the
pharmaceutical and insurance industries.
Like the "federal" elections held every November in even-numbered years and the 5-4
decrees of the Court, these nailbiting confirmation hearings are another part of the show
that keeps people gulled into accepting that so many things in life are to be run by people
in Washington. Mr. Buchanan for years has been proclaiming each The Most Important Ever.
I'm still inclined to the notion that the Constitution was intended, at least by some of
its authors and supporters, to create a limited national government. But even by the time of
Marbury, those entrusted with the powers have arrogated the authority to redefine them. In my
lifetime, the Court exists to deal with hot potato social issues in lieu of the invertebrate
Congress, to forebear (along with the invertebrate Congress) the warmongering and other
"foreign policy" waged under auspices of the President, and to dignify the Establishment's
shepherding and fleecing of the people.
Why should a robed, unelected politician be redefining marriage? Entrusted to
enforce the Constitutional limitations on the others? Sure, questions like these are posed
from time to time in a dissenting Justice's opinion, but that ends the discussion other than
in the context of replacing old Justice X with middle-aged Justice Y, as exemplified in this
cliche' column from Mr. Buchanan. Those of us outside the Beltway are told to tune in and
root Red. And there are pom pom shakers and color commentators just like him for Team
Blue.
Many people here still don't get it. This fake left vs right paradigm is just a show and
is no different than either professional football or wrestling. The public cheer on their
teams and engage in meaningless battle while the controllers pilfer everything of value.
Buchanan knows this but is too afraid to tell "the other half of the story."
It was a costly victory, but not a Pyrrhic one. The Left will no doubt raise the decibel
and octave levels, but if they incur a richly-deserved defeat a month from now, they won't
even make it to the peanut gallery for at least the next two years.
Peter Hitchens has remarked that demonstrations are actually indicators of weakness
rather than power or authority (something that seems to have eluded Flake and Murkowski),
however shrill and enraged that they may be. Should the Left choose to up the ante, to
REALLY take it to the streets well as the English ditty goes: We have the Maxim Gun/And they
have not.
Pat, you are one of the few thinkers with real common sense.
I'm an aging New Deal Democrat. I have not changed but my former party changed with
the tenure of the immoral and ethically challenged rapist, Bill Clinton and his enabler wife.
In their previous lives, both were Goldwater Republicans. They switched to the Democrat Party
to win elections but they never strayed too far from teats of the the Bushes and their
destructive political roots. I"m willing to bet thousands of dollars that if given a fair
chance at a quiz about the Clintons, most of the young SJW's, rabid homo's and the poor
suckers who follow them know very little about the real Clintons.
The Democrat party today is less a party than it is a mob of homosexuals and rabid
social justice warriors duped into believing they are oppressed by the extremist college
courses in Social Justice. Yet, what they have offer the world is not justice. They offer
chaos and anarchy as we saw with the mob of racists black and stupid white kids attacking a
man who looked lost and confused, and as it turns out, rightfully frightened by the crowd of
social justice terrorists from the Alt-Left.
They all slept through the Obama disaster thinking the globalist open borders would make
the world Shang Ri La instead of crime ridden, diseased, and under attack from Muslims and
their twisted ides about God and Sharia Law. Look at the Imam who proclaimed yesterday they
Sharia is the law of Britain and that Muslims are at war with the British government. Yet,
Tommy Robinson gets jailed for pointing out their sated intentions. Messed up. We cannot let
this happen in America.
They ignore the fact that the emasculated Obama failed to fight to pick a Supreme Court
Justice. Even though he was going to choose Neil Gorsuch, not a leftist, the Alt-Left no
doubt would have remained silent if he had. Why? Because Obama was black. But the Alt-Left is
shallow and they could not see that the oreo president was black on the outside but rich and
creamy white on the inside. No doubt, Obama was more like a 1980′s Republican than he
was a Democrat as I understood them to be for decades.
The Democrat Party is gonzo, the same as Hillary and Bill Clinton's speaking tour is
destined to be.
@Ludwig
Watzal Vis-a-vis #PayAttentionToMeToo, it really was a win-win. Rightists successfully
defended the firewall and kept it contained to the left. Perfect. As far as leftists are
concerned, it's still perfectly legitimate – the leftist circular firing squads will
continue.
Many people here still don't get it. This fake left vs right paradigm is just a show and
is no different than either professional football or wrestling.
Well I get it and have been saying so. Trump knows damn well that the people he has
surrounded himself with are Deep Staters Trump is a part of the Deep State. Trump has done
nothing of significance for the 99%. Trump hasn't prosecuted anyone for criminal activity
'against' his campaign or administration. Trump hasn't built a wall (he won't either).
Instead of reducing conflict and war Trump has been belligerent in his actions toward Russia,
China, Syria and Iran .risking all out war. All these things are being done to increase the
wealth and power of the Deep State. For the past ten years Republican House members have been
promising investigations and prosecutions of Democrats for criminal activities .not one god
damn thing changed. Kabuki theater is the name of the game. With such inane bullshit as
Dancing With The Stars on TV and the fake Republicans v Democrats game, it is all meant to
keep the proles from knowing how they are being screwed .a rather easy task at that.
@utu
Same sex marriage is basically irrelevant. Less than 10% of homosexuals co-habitate with a
partner. Perhaps 10% of the general population is openly homosexual (and that's definitely an
over-estimation.).
This means that if all homosexuals that cohabitate with a partner are married, it's less
than 1% of the population we're talking about.
This is a "who really cares?" situation. There's more important things to worry about when
the nation has been at war for 16 years straight, started over a bunch of lies starting with
George W. Bush and continuing with Barak Obama. We have lost the moral high ground because of
those two, identical in any important way, scumbags.
Democrats are enraged and have seen the GOP for the white supremacist evil institution
that it is
This from a group of people that have been endlessly complaining that the Butcher of
Libya, who voted for the Authorization to Use Force in Iraq (what you know as the 2nd Iraq
War) wasn't elected president just because she was running a fraudulent charity, was storing
classified information on an unsecured and compromised server illegally, and is telling you
absolutely morally bankrupt and unprincipled individuals that you have the moral high ground
because she's a woman after all, not just another war criminal like George W. Bush is, and
Obama is.
Caligula's horse would have beaten Hillary Clinton, if the voter base had any sense.
Clinton was the worst possible candidate ever. Anybody, and I mean anybody, that voted for
the Iraq War should be in prison, not in government. They are all traitors.
@Realist
Agree Big money interets have broguht us Trump not only for the tax cuts but to destroy
America's hemegomony. to start the final leg of the shift from west to east. A traitor of the
highest order Pat Buchanan has led the grievence brigade of angry white men for decades
distracted and deluded over the social issues meanwhile the Everyman/woman has lost ground
economically or stayed static no improvement.
@Jon
Baptist You can just about guarantee that the losers in the false 'Right' versus 'Left'
circus will be We The People.
Big Government/Big Insider Corporations/Big Banks feed parasitically off the population.
The role of the lawyers wearing black dresses on the SC, is to help hide the theft. They use
legal mumbo jumbo. The economists at the Fed use economics & mathematical mumbo
jumbo.
Much of current Western society is made up of bullsh*t.
In other words CIA Democrats actually are running on classic Republican foreign policy platform with some neo-McCarthyism
flavor added for appetite. . Such a convergence of two parities.
The Democratic Party is widely favored to win control of the House of Representatives in the
US midterm elections November 6, with projections that it will gain 30 to 50 seats, or even
more, well above the net gain of 23 required for a majority.
The last time the Democratic Party won control of the House from the Republicans was in
2006, when it captured 30 Republican seats on the basis of a limited appeal to the massive
antiwar sentiment among working people after three years of disastrous and bloody warfare in
Iraq, and five years after the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.
In stark contrast, there is not a hint of an antiwar campaign by the Democratic challengers
seeking Republican seats in the 2018 elections. On the contrary, the pronouncements of leading
Democrats on foreign policy issues have been strongly pro-war, attacking the Trump
administration from the right for its alleged softness on Russia and its hostility to
traditional US-led alliances like NATO.
This is particularly true of the 30 Democratic congressional nominees in competitive races
who come from a national-security background. These challengers, previously identified by the
World Socialist Web Site as the CIA Democrats , constitute the
largest single grouping among Democratic nominees in competitive seats, more than state and
local officials, lawyers or those wealthy enough to finance their own campaigns.
The 30 national-security candidates include six actual CIA, FBI or military intelligence
agents, six State Department or other civilian national security officials, 11 combat veterans
from Iraq and Afghanistan, all but one an officer, and seven other military veterans, including
pilots, naval officers and military prosecutors (JAGs).
The range of views expressed by these 30 candidates is quite limited. With only one
exception, Jared Golden , running in the First District of Maine, the military-intelligence
Democrats do not draw any negative conclusions from their experience in leading, planning or
fighting in the wars of the past 25 years, including two wars against Iraq, the invasion of
Afghanistan, and other military engagements in the Persian Gulf and North and East Africa.
Golden, who is also the only rank-and-file combat veteran -- as opposed to an officer -- and
the only one who admits to having suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, criticizes
congressional rubber-stamping of the wars of the past 20 years. "Over the past decade and a
half, America has spent trillions on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and on other conflicts
across the globe," his campaign website declares. "War should be a last resort, and only
undertaken when the security interests of America are clearly present, and the risks and costs
can be appropriately justified to the American people."
These sentiments hardly qualify as antiwar, but they sound positively radical compared to
the materials posted on the websites of many of the other military-intelligence candidates. In
some ways, Golden is the exception that proves the rule. What used to be the standard rhetoric
of Democratic Party candidates when running against the administration of George W. Bush has
been entirely scrapped in the course of the Obama administration, the first in American history
to have been engaged in a major military conflict for every day of its eight years.
All the other national-security candidates accept as a basic premise that the United States
must maintain its dominant world position. The most detailed foreign policy doctrine appears on
the website of Amy McGrath , who is now favored to win her contest against incumbent Republican
incumbent Andy Barr in the Sixth Congressional District of Kentucky.
McGrath follows closely the line of the Obama administration and the Hillary Clinton
presidential campaign, supporting the Iran nuclear deal that Trump tore up, embracing Israel,
warning of North Korea's development of nuclear weapons, and declaring it "critical that the US
work with our allies and partners in the region to counter China's advances" in the South China
Sea and elsewhere in Asia.
But Russia is clearly the main target of US national-security efforts, in her view. She
writes, "Our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has testified that Russia is the greatest
threat to American security. Russia poses an existential threat to the United States due to its
nuclear weapons and its behavior in the past several years has been disturbing. Russia's
aggression in Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine, and Syria has been alarming. It's becoming more
assertive in the Arctic, likely the most important geostrategic zone of competition in the
coming decades. The US should consider providing defensive arms to Ukraine and exerting more
pressure on Moscow using economic sanctions."
She concludes by calling for an investigation modeled on the 9/11 Commission into alleged
Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
Five other national-security candidates focus on specific warnings about the danger of
Russia and China, thus aligning themselves with the new national security orientation set in
the most recent Pentagon strategy document, which declares that the principal US national
security challenge is no longer the "war on terror," but the prospect of great power conflicts,
above all with Russia and China.
Jessica Morse , a former State Department and AID official in Iraq, running in the Fourth
District of California, blasts the Trump administration for "giving away global leadership to
powers like China and Russia. Our security and our economy will both suffer if those countries
are left to re-write the international rules."
Former FBI agent Christopher Hunter , running in the 12th District of Florida, declares,
"Russia is a clear and present danger to the United States. We emerged victorious over the
Soviet Union in the Cold War. We must resolve anew to secure an uncompromising victory over
Russia and its tyrannical regime."
Elissa Slotkin , the former CIA agent and Pentagon official running in Michigan's Eighth
Congressional District, cites her 14 years of experience "working on some of our country's most
critical national security matters, including U.S.-Russia relations, the counter-ISIS campaign,
and the U.S. relationship with NATO." She argues that "the United States must make investments
in its military, intelligence, and diplomatic power" in order to maintain "a unique and vital
role in the world."
Max Rose , a combat commander in Afghanistan now running in New York's 11th Congressional
District (Staten Island and Brooklyn), calls for "recognizing Russia as a hostile foreign power
and holding the Kremlin accountable for its attempts to undermine the sovereignty and
democratic values of other nations." Rose is still in the military reserves, and took two weeks
off from his campaign in August to participate in small-unit drills.
Joseph Kopser , running in the 21st District of Texas, is another anti-Russian firebrand,
writing on his website, "As a retired Army Ranger, I know first hand the importance of standing
strong with your allies. Given Russia's march toward a totalitarian state showing aggression
around the region, as well as their extensive cyber and information warfare campaign directed
at the U.S., England, and others, our Article 5 [NATO] commitment to our European allies and
partners is more important than ever." He concludes, "Since the mid-twentieth century, the
United States has been a principal world leader -- a standard that should never be
changed."
Four national-security candidates add North Korea and Iran to China and Russia as specific
targets of American military and diplomatic attack.
Josh Welle , a former naval officer who was deployed to Afghanistan, now running in the
Fourth Congressional District of New Jersey, writes, "We have to stand together in the face of
threats from countries like North Korea and Iran. The human rights violations and nuclear
capabilities of these countries pose a direct threat to the stability of this world and
therefore need to be met with strong military presence and a robust defense program to protect
ourselves."
Tom Malinowski , former assistant secretary of state for human rights, running in New
Jersey's Seventh District, calls for maintaining economic sanctions on Russia "until it
stops its aggression in Ukraine and interference in our democracy ,"
effusively endorses the state of Israel (whose government actually interferes in US elections
more than any other), and calls for stepped up sanctions against North Korea.
Mikie Sherill , a former Navy pilot and Russian policy officer, running in New Jersey's 11th
District, writes, "I have sat across the table from the Russians, and know that we need our
government to take the threat they pose seriously." She adds to this a warning about "threats
posed by North Korea and Iran," the two most immediate targets of military-diplomatic blackmail
by the Trump administration. She concludes, referring to North Korea's nuclear program, "For
that reason I support a robust military presence in the region and a comprehensive missile
defense program to defend America, our allies, and our troops abroad."
Dan McCready , an Iraq war unit commander who claims to have been born again when he was
baptized in water from the Euphrates River, calls for war to be waged only "with overwhelming
firepower," not "sporadically, with no strategy or end in sight, while our enemies like Iran,
North Korea, Russia, and the terrorists outsmart and outlast us." He is running in North
Carolina's Ninth Congressional District, adjacent to the huge military complex at Fort
Bragg.
One military-intelligence candidate cites immigration as a national-security issue, echoing
the position of the Trump administration, which constantly peddles scare stories that
terrorists are infiltrating the United States disguised as immigrants and refugees. That is
Richard Ojeda , running in the Third Congressional District of West Virginia, who publicly
boasts of having voted for Trump in 2016, in the same election in which he won a seat in the
West Virginia state senate running as a Democrat.
Ojeda writes on his web site, "We must also ensure that terrorists do not reach American
soil by abusing our immigration process. We must keep an up to date terror watch list but
provide better vetting for those that go onto the watch list."
A career Army Airborne officer, Ojeda voices the full-blown militarism of this social layer.
"If there is one thing I am confident in, it is the ability of our nation's military," he
declares. "The best way to keep Americans safe is to let our military do their job without
muddying up their responsibilities with our political agendas."
He openly rejects control of the military by civilian policy-makers. "War is not a social
experiment and I refuse to let politics play a role in my decision making when it comes to
keeping you and your family safe," he continues. "I will not take my marching orders from
anyone else concerning national security."
Only one of the 30 candidates, Ken Harbaugh , a retired Air Force pilot running in the
Seventh Congressional District of Ohio, centered on the industrial city of Canton, acknowledges
being part of this larger group. He notes, "In 2018, more vets are running for office than at
any moment in my lifetime. Because of the growing inability of Washington to deal responsibly
with the threats facing our nation, veterans from both sides of the aisle are stepping into the
breach."
Referring to the mounting prospect of war, he writes, "Today, we face our gravest
geopolitical challenge since 9/11. Our country remains at war in Afghanistan, we have troops
engaged in North Africa, Iraq and Syria, and Russia continues to bully our allies. Meanwhile,
North Korea has the ability to directly threaten the American mainland with nuclear missiles."
He concludes, "we need leaders with the moral authority to speak on these issues, leaders who
have themselves been on the front lines of these challenges."
These statements, taken cumulatively, present a picture of unbridled militarism and
aggression as the program of the supposed "opposition" to the Trump administration's own
saber-rattling and threats of "fire and fury like the world has never seen."
Perhaps even more remarkable is that the remaining 17 national-security candidates say
nothing at all about foreign policy (in 11 cases) or limit themselves to anodyne observations
about the necessity to provide adequate health care and other benefits to veterans (two cases),
or vague generalities about the need to combine a strong military with diplomatic efforts (four
cases). They give no specifics whatsoever.
In other words, while these candidates tout their own records as part of the
national-security apparatus as their principal credential for election to Congress, they
decline to tell the voters what they would do if they were in charge of American foreign
policy.
Given that these 17 include intelligence agents ( Abigail Spanberger and Gina Ortiz Jones ),
a National Security Council Iraq war planner ( Andy Kim ), and numerous other high-level State
Department and military commanders, the silence can have only the most ominous
interpretation.
These CIA Democrats don't want to tell voters about their plans for foreign policy and
military intervention because they know these measures are deeply unpopular. They aim to gain
office as stealth candidates, unveiling their program of militarism and war only after they
take their seats, when they may very well exercise decisive influence in the next Congress.
"... the last two Democratic presidents were centrists in favor of a big tent Democratic Party (the Clintons were co-founders of the Democratic Leadership Council, and Obama considered Joe Lieberman his mentor in the Senate) and they oversaw the collapse of their party in the states and Congress. Centrists are mainly concerned with keeping Wall Street and Silicon Valley happy, and have been purging "old-fashioned" New Deal liberals from the party for the better part of 30 years. ..."
"... It is not the Sandernistas OR the Democratic Socialists of America who are pushing identity politics or demonizing white or religious people (it's the Hillary bots at Daily Kos who go nuts when anyone on the left wing of the party expresses any interest in winning over working class Trump voters, or dares to view said Trump voters as anything but racist deadenders). ..."
Werd "I can't understand their (progressives) tactics. Why push Transgenderism literally 5
seconds after gay marriage got passed?"
Because it keeps the Democratic base from focusing on economic issues inimical to the
interests of the Democratic funding elite.
Werd "Why push poor minorities into becoming socialist identitarians instead of being the
calm centrist big tent party?"
First, Pelosi and Clinton have made it very clear that they are capitalists, and it's
their supporters "identitarian" wave (Daily Kos had an "In defense of Nancy Pelosi" article
not that lone ago), not the "socialist" or Sandernista wing of the party. Second, the
last two Democratic presidents were centrists in favor of a big tent Democratic Party (the
Clintons were co-founders of the Democratic Leadership Council, and Obama considered Joe
Lieberman his mentor in the Senate) and they oversaw the collapse of their party in the
states and Congress. Centrists are mainly concerned with keeping Wall Street and Silicon
Valley happy, and have been purging "old-fashioned" New Deal liberals from the party for the
better part of 30 years.
Werd "Why fire up the Republican base literally right before the midterm? Why turn the
dude who would've been the next Anthony Kennedy into a far-right gang rapist? The Dems and
their media apparatus just keep snatching defeat from the jaws of victory."
Stupidity? Arrogance? To keep their base within the Democratic Party, which is more
concerned about cultural issues than economic ones (like a certain part of the GOP
coalition), fired up, while demobilizing voters with mainly economic concerns?
Werd "When Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham are calling you insane, you've become
insane."
Collins and Graham are hacks, and when it comes to foreign affairs, Graham IS insane (I
exaggerate, but only a little). This may be Collins' statesmanship moment (kind of like
Democratic hack John Murtha's in 2004 over the Iraq War), but I have my doubts. As one other
commentator here said, she was always likely to vote for Kavanaugh after putting on a show of
hemming-and-hawing.
Werd "I've never voted for a Republican presidential candidate, had things stayed the
same I probably never would. Why not just wait 20 years to admit you want socialism, hate
white people and hate religious people?"
It is not the Sandernistas OR the Democratic Socialists of America who are pushing
identity politics or demonizing white or religious people (it's the Hillary bots at Daily Kos
who go nuts when anyone on the left wing of the party expresses any interest in winning over
working class Trump voters, or dares to view said Trump voters as anything but racist
deadenders).
Werd "The Blue Dogs really need to make a come back. At the very least, they might do
some trust busting and wouldn't make Donald Trump look like the sane one."
Since Fritz Hollings backed protectionism and some of the John Murtha-types voted against
NAFTA, when have any Blue Dog Democrats backed trust busting, investigating the banks and
brokerage houses that brought us the Great Recession, or backed any economic policy to the
left of (or less popular than) raising the minimum wage?
Werd, I think you should investigate the Democrats who actually call themselves
socialists. I may not vote for them – too wishy-washy reformist for me – but I
think you may actually find them to be surprisingly on your wavelength. It's the "Hillary is
TOO just as progressive as Bernie is!" types that you want to avoid.
given the years of pointless investigations of the Clintons and all the nonsense about
Obama, aren't we due an investigation or two of our own?
Harve, like all good liberals, wants to grow up to be just like the Republicans. That's
how we get progressive presidents leading us into full participation in the Great Imperialist
War.
Werd "I can't understand their (progressives) tactics. Why push Transgenderism
literally 5 seconds after gay marriage got passed?"
Because it keeps the Democratic base from focusing on economic issues inimical to the
interests of the Democratic funding elite.
There it is folks. The plain truth. I keep telling you, only socialism can save America
from the liberals.
It might not go away, but a lot of Democrats probably will. We may have to build new
prisons to hold them.
Nah. We send Scott Walker to a tropical island for an episode of "Survivor," with that
Democratic state senator who was literally in bed with a PayDay Loan lobbyist. (The lobbyist
was female, or at least identified as such in public.)
I can't understand their (progressives) tactics. Why push Transgenderism literally 5 seconds
after gay marriage got passed? Why push poor minorities into becoming socialist identitarians
instead of being the calm centrist big tent party? Why fire up the Republican base literally
right before the midterm? Why turn the dude who would've been the next Anthony Kennedy into a
far-right gang rapist? The Dems and their media apparatus just keep snatching defeat from the
jaws of victory. When Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham are calling you insane, you've become
insane. I've never voted for a Republican presidential candidate, had things stayed the same
I probably never would. Why not just wait 20 years to admit you want socialism, hate white
people and hate religious people? The Blue Dogs really need to make a come back. At the very
least, they might do some trust busting and wouldn't make Donald Trump look like the sane
one.
Werd (October 6, 9:27 am) "I can't understand their (progressives) tactics. Why push
Transgenderism literally 5 seconds after gay marriage got passed?"
It's important to remember that gay marriage didn't get "passed." Gay marriage arrived
nationwide as the result of a 2015 5-4 US Supreme Court decision authored by Justice Anthony
Kennedy, who retired from the Court in July.
I write this as a very moderate conservative who didn't vote for Trump and who has never been
fond of the GOP: Next month, and probably in 2020, I'll be voting for the Republicans. For
all their horrible flaws, they don't claim "illegitimacy" every time they lose, they don't
harass people in restaurants or on their front porches–as I see on the news the
"women's march" activists are doing to Senator Collins this afternoon. If Republicans did
this crap, the same people would be weeping about incipient fascism.
The GOP is dreadful. Trump is a buffoon. But I'm tired of 1960s-style activist anarchy,
which I consider worse for our national life than Republican directionlessness. I'm voting
against the "hey hey, ho ho " Democrats. Enough of this crap.
"... A few months ago, a dozen Russian individuals were charged with cyber-crime offenses that Mueller knew would never be tested at trial b/c the charged individuals would never be extradited. However, the indictment included charges against two Russian corporations that cleverly hired American lawyers to appear on their behalf, and enter pleas of Not Guilty. ..."
"... This tactic should have set the pre-trial discovery process to begin, causing Mueller to be obliged to turn over evidence supporting the charges as well as any exculpatory information favoring the accused corporations. ..."
A few months ago, a dozen Russian individuals were charged with cyber-crime offenses that
Mueller knew would never be tested at trial b/c the charged individuals would never be
extradited. However, the indictment included charges against two Russian corporations that
cleverly hired American lawyers to appear on their behalf, and enter pleas of Not
Guilty.
This tactic should have set the pre-trial discovery process to begin, causing Mueller
to be obliged to turn over evidence supporting the charges as well as any exculpatory
information favoring the accused corporations.
As any reference to this case can't seem to be found, can anyone help with info as to the
present status of the case?
"... James Baker, a former top FBI lawyer, told congressional investigators on Wednesday that the Russia probe was handled in an "abnormal fashion" and was rife with "political bias" according to Fox News , citing two Republican lawmakers present for the closed-door deposition. ..."
"... Lawmakers did not provide any specifics about the interview, citing a confidentiality agreement signed with Baker and his attorneys, however they said that he was cooperative and forthcoming about the beginnings of the Russia probe in 2016, as well as the FISA surveillance warrant application to spy on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. ..."
"... According to Fox , Baker "is at the heart of surveillance abuse allegations, and his deposition lays the groundwork for next week's planned closed-door interview with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein." ..."
James Baker, a former top FBI lawyer, told congressional investigators on Wednesday that the
Russia probe was handled in an "abnormal fashion" and was rife with "political bias" according
to
Fox News , citing two Republican lawmakers present for the closed-door deposition.
"Some of the things that were shared were explosive in nature," Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C.,
told Fox News. "This witness confirmed that things were done in an abnormal fashion. That's
extremely troubling."
Meadows claimed the "abnormal" handling of the probe into alleged coordination between
Russian officials and the Trump presidential campaign was "a reflection of inherent bias that
seems to be evident in certain circles." The FBI agent who opened the Russia case, Peter
Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page and others sent politically charged texts, and have since left
the bureau. -
Fox News
Baker, who worked closely with former FBI Director James Comey, left the bureau earlier this
year.
Lawmakers did not provide any specifics about the interview, citing a confidentiality
agreement signed with Baker and his attorneys, however they said that he was cooperative and
forthcoming about the beginnings of the Russia probe in 2016, as well as the FISA surveillance
warrant application to spy on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
"During the time that the FBI was putting -- that DOJ and FBI were putting together the
FISA (surveillance warrant) during the time prior to the election -- there was another source
giving information directly to the FBI, which we found the source to be pretty explosive,"
said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
Meadows and Jordan would not elaborate on the source, or answer questions about whether
the source was a reporter. They did stress that the source who provided information to the
FBI's Russia case was not previously known to congressional investigators. -
Fox News
According to Fox , Baker "is at the heart of surveillance abuse allegations, and his
deposition lays the groundwork for next week's planned closed-door interview with Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein."
As the FBI's top lawyer, baker helped secure the FISA warrant on Page, along with three
subsequent renewals .
Rosenstein is scheduled to appear on Capitol Hill on October 11 for a closed-door interview,
according to Republican House sources, "not a briefing to leadership," and comes on the heels
of a New York Times report that said Rosenstein had discussed secretly recording President
Trump and removing him from office using the 25th Amendment.
Rosenstein and Trump pushed off a scheduled meeting into limbo amid speculation of his
impending firing.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters Wednesday the meeting remains in
limbo.
America's two mainstream political parties agree furiously with one another on war,
neoliberalism, Orwellian surveillance, and every other agenda which increases the power and
profit of the plutocratic class which owns them both. The plutocrat-owned mass media plays up
the differences between Democrats and Republicans to hysterical proportions, when in reality
the debate over which one is worse is like arguing over whether a serial killer's arms or legs
are more evil.
@Justsaying
Trump's infamous campaign slogan of MAGA quickly mutated into MIGA which is the originally
intended version anyways. Obedience to Israel has become a norm in presidential election
campaigns. Even the disenfranchised minority caucuses, including and especially the Black one
is firmly in Israel's pockets now. The Black leadership role has now been essentially reduced
to making the odd noise after the shooting of an unarmed Black by a White cop.
"The Black leadership role has now been essentially reduced to making the odd noise
after the shooting of an unarmed Black by a White cop."
As a brown person in Asia I grew up inculcated with the idea that I must always be in
solidarity with black people in America and they would be with me (it was the 1970s, Malcolm
X was still a fresh memory, Muhammad Ali still strode the scene like a colossus, and Martin
Luther King Jr was still thought of as a hero in most circles).
Today, black Americans are people so wallowing in self abnegation that they mass voted for
the racist war criminal Killary Clinton, owing to whose actions black people in America were
incarcerated in hitherto unknown numbers; due to whose crimes black people in Haiti were
looted to destitution; because of whom black people in Libya are literally being sold as
slaves. Black Americans parade around saying "black lives matter", but are more than happy
voting for war criminals who loot Haitian blacks, enslave Libyan blacks, massacre Somali
blacks, deprive Sudanese blacks of life saving drugs, and plot to imperialistically occupy
Africa, a continent of black people. Forget about us brown people, to American blacks in
2018, black lives do *not* matter.
Only virtue signalling and tribal identity matters. Nothing else.
Disobedient Media has closely followed the work of the Forensicator , whose analysis has shed much light
on the publications by the Guccifer 2.0 persona for over a year. In view of the more recent
work published by the Forensicator regarding potential media collusion with Guccifer 2.0, we
are inclined to revisit an interview given by WikiLeaks Editor-In-Chief Julian Assange in
August of 2016, prior to the publication of the Podesta Emails in October, and the November US
Presidential election.
During the
interview, partially transcribed below, Assange makes a number of salient points on the
differentiation between the thousands of pristine emails WikiLeaks received, and those which
had surfaced in other US outlets by that date. Though Assange does not name the Guccifer 2.0
persona directly throughout the interview, he does name multiple outlets which publicized
Guccifer 2.0's documents.
The significance of revisiting Assange's statements is the degree to which his most
significant claim is corroborated or paralleled by the Forensicator's analysis. This is of
enhanced import in light of allegations by
Robert Mueller (not to mention the legacy media), despite a total absence of evidence, that
Guccifer 2.0 was WikiLeaks's source of the DNC and Podesta emails.
This author previously
discussed the possibility that Assange's current isolation might stem in part from the
likelihood that upon expulsion from the embassy, Julian Assange could provide evidential proof
that the DNC emails and Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks were not sourced from Russia, or
backed by the Kremlin, all without disclosing the identity of their source.
"In the US media there has been a deliberate conflation between DNC leaks, which is what
we've been publishing, and DNC hacks, of the US Democratic Party which have occurred over the
last two years, by their own admission what [Hillary Clinton] is attempting to do is to
conflate our publication of pristine emails – no one in the Democratic party argues
that a single email is not completely valid. That hasn't been done. The head of the DNC,
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, has rolled as a result.
And whatever hacking has occurred, of the DNC or other political organizations in the
United States, by a range of actors – in the middle, we have something, which is the
publication by other media organizations, of information reportedly from the DNC, and that
seems to be the case. That's the publication of word documents in pdfs published by The Hill,
by Gawker, by The Smoking Gun. This is a completely separate batch of documents, compared to
the 20,000 pristine emails that we have at WikiLeaks.
In this [separate] batch of documents, released by these other media organizations, there
are claims that in the metadata, someone has done a document to pdf conversion, and in some
cases the language of the computer that was used for that conversion was Russian. So that's
the circumstantial evidence that some Russian was involved, or someone who wanted to make it
look like a Russian was involved, with these other media organizations. That's not the case
for the material we released.
The Hillary Clinton hack campaign has a serious problem in trying to figure out how to
counter-spin our publication because the emails are un-arguable There's an attempt to bring
in a meta-story. And the meta-story is, did some hacker obtain these emails? Ok. Well, people
have suggested that there's evidence that the DNC has been hacked. I'm not at all surprised
its been hacked. If you read very carefully, they say it's been hacked many times over the
last two years. Our sources say that DNC security is like Swiss Cheese.
Hillary Clinton is saying, untruthfully, that she knows who the source of our emails are.
Now, she didn't quite say "our emails." She's playing some games, because there have been
other publications by The Hill, by Gawker, other US media, of different documents, not
emails. So, we have to separate the various DNC or RNC hacks that have occurred over the
years, and who's done that. The source: we know who the source is, it's the Democratic
National Committee itself. And our sources who gave these materials, and other pending
materials, to us. These are all different questions. "
The core assertion made by Assange in the above-transcribed segment of his 2016 interview
with RT is the differentiation between WikiLeaks's publications from the altered documents
released by Guccifer 2.0 (after being pre-released to US media outlets as referenced by
Assange). This finer point is one that is corroborated by the Forensicator's analysis, and one
which it seems much of the public has yet to entirely digest.
"Ars Technica found "Russian fingerprints" in a PDF posted by Gawker the previous day.
Apparently, both Gawker and The Smoking Gun (TSG) had received pre-release copies of Guccifer
2.0's first batch of documents; Guccifer 2.0 would post them later, on his WordPress.com blog site. Although neither Gawker nor TSG
reported on these Russian error messages, some readers noticed them and mentioned them in
social media forums; Ars Technica was likely the first media outlet to cover those "Russian
fingerprints."
The Forensicator's analysis cannot enlighten us as to the ultimate source of WikiLeaks's
releases. At present, there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that Guccifer 2.0 was, or was
not, WikiLeaks' source. There is no evidence connecting Guccifer 2.0 with WikiLeaks, but there
is likewise no evidence to rule out a connection.
It is nonetheless critically important, as Assange indicated, to differentiate between the
files published by Guccifer 2.0 and those released by WikiLeaks. None of the "altered"
documents (with supposed Russian fingerprints) published by Guccifer 2.0 appear in WikiLeaks's
publications.
It is also worth noting that, though Assange's interview took place before the publication
of the Podesta email collection, the allegations of a Russian hack based on Guccifer 2.0's
publication were ultimately contradicted by a DNC official, as reported by the Associated
Press. Disobedient
Media wrote:
" Ultimately, it is the DNC's claim that they were breached by Russian hackers, who stole
the Trump opposition report, which directly belies their allegation – because the
document did not come from the DNC, but from John Podesta's emails."
Again: The very document on which the initial "Russian hack" allegations were based did not
originate within the DNC Emails at all, but in the Podesta Emails, which at the time of
Assange's RT interview, had not yet been published.
"The fact the email to which the Trump opposition report was attached was later published
in the Podesta Email collection by WikiLeaks does not prove that Guccifer 2.0 and WikiLeaks
shared a source on the document. However, it does suggest that either the DNC, the operators
of the Guccifer 2.0 persona, or both parties had access to Podesta's emails. This raises
questions as to why the DNC would interpret the use of this particular file as evidence of
Russian penetration of the DNC."
This creates a massive contradiction within the DNC's narrative, but it does not materially
change Assange's assertion that the pristine emails obtained by WikiLeaks were fundamentally
distinct and should not be conflated with the altered documents published by Guccifer 2.0, as
the WikiLeaks publication of the Podesta emails contain none of the alterations shown in the
version of the documents published by Guccifer 2.0.
Though no establishment media outlet has reported on this point, when reviewing the evidence
at hand and especially the work of the Forensicator, it is evident that the Guccifer 2.0
persona never actually published a single email. The persona published documents and even
screenshots of emails – but never the emails themselves. Thus, again, Guccifer 2.0's
works are critically different from the DNC and Podesta email publications by WikiLeaks.
The following charts are included to help remind readers of the timeline of events relative
to Guccifer 2.0, including the date specific documents were published:
Image Courtesy Of The Forensicator
Image Courtesy of the Forensicator
This writer previously
opined on the apparent invulnerability of the Russiagate saga to factual refutation. One
cannot blame the public for such narrative immortality, as the establishment-backed press has
made every effort to confuse and conflate the alterations made to documents published by
Guccifer 2.0 and the WikiLeaks releases. One can only hope, however, that this reminder of
their distinct state will help raise public skepticism of a narrative based on no evidence
whatsoever.
It is also especially important to reconsider Julian Assange's statements and texts in light
of his ongoing isolation from the outside world, which has prevented him from commenting
further on an infinite array of subjects including Guccifer 2.0 and the "Russian hacking"
saga.
Winston S. contributed to the content of this report.
platyops , 22 minutes ago
The name was Seth Rich. They robbed him for his watch and money but forgot to take the
watch and money. Yes that makes as much sense as Dr. Ford and her imagination party!
Dems lie and maybe kill people but they do lie for sure!
Nature_Boy_Wooooo , 33 minutes ago
All signs point to a young Bernie Sanders supporter at the DNC named Seth Rich.
Surftown , 2 hours ago
Brennan is Guccifer 2.0 using NSA Toolkit ( hacked and released) to feign Russia -- to
promote the fake Russia interference narrative leading to the FISA warrant justification, or
better yet, to the Direct Obama FISA approval/override to approve surveillance of Mr
Trump.
Endgame Napoleon , 1 hour ago
There are a bunch of competing smartphone apps, letting you convert Word docs to PDFs,
believe it or not.
Maybe, they only work in limited form, but you can write a resume (or whatever) into the
app, saving it in Word, converting it to PDF and sending it to your email.
Real programmers seem to scoff at the technical precision of those apps, so maybe, they
are not as sophisticated as they appear to non-techies.
The sequencing of this is weird. If I read it right, it sounds like several publications
received the "converted" versions -- the screenshots or PDFs -- of some emails before
Wikileaks released the actual, non-converted emails.
Who released those to the media organizations, and how did they have access to the machine
containing the emails, enabling them to make screenshots, convert them to PDFs or whatever
they did to provide representations of the emails, not the actual emails that Wikileaks later
released?
bh2 , 2 hours ago
Actually, William Binney et al demonstrated the email transfer could not have been
effected outside the four walls of the DNC because the required network speeds did not exist
at that time to any external location, least of all one located outside the US.
The only way that transfer could happen in the time logged was onto a device located on
the DNC LAN.
Seth Rich is the person Assange all but directly named as the source.
These two things, taken together, provide a compelling refutation of the DNC fairy tale
that the emails were pilfered by Russia (or any other outside actor).
JimmyJones , 2 hours ago
Bunny said the download speed was indicating a USB thumb drive was used
medium giraffe , 2 hours ago
IIRC the transfer speed was similar to a USB bus speed, meaning it wasn't even transferred
over a local network, but by a USB flash device directly connected to a DNC PC or laptop.
Endgame Napoleon , 1 hour ago
The US Congress is so unprofessional, allowing this circus about high-school parties to
commandeer a SCOTUS confirmation hearing, but did you ever hear any of them trying to get to
the bottom of this complex stuff, calling in technical experts to explain this evidence to
voters?
Sic Semper Tyrannis has published a response to the Rosenstein fantastic "Indictment of
Trolls" (Part II): "Something Rotten About the DOJ Indictment of the GRU," by Publius Tacitus
http://www.turcopolier.typepad.com
"Assistant Attorney General Rosenstein announced a bizarre indictment against Russian
military intelligence operatives today that, rather than confirming the case of "Russian
meddling" in the U.S. 2016 Presidential election raises more questions. Here are the major
oddities:
1. How did the FBI obtain information about activity on the DNC and DCCC servers when the
DNC/DCCC refused to give the Feds access to the servers/computers?
2. Why does Crowdstrike get credit as being a competent computer security firm when,
according to the indictment, they completely and utterly failed to stop the "hacks?
"
3. Why does the indictment refuse to name Wikileaks by name as the Russian collaborator? Here
is the bottomline–if US officials knew as early as April that Russia was hacking the
DNC, why did it take US officials more than six months to stop the activity? The statement of
"facts" contained in the indictment also raises another troubling issue–what is the
source of the information? For example, if the FBI was not given access to the DNC/DCCC
servers and computers then how do they know what happened on specific dates as alleged in the
complaint?"
-- Why does the US national security hang on the opinions and concoctions of a visceral
Russophobe Dm. Alperovitch (a ziocon) who is an "expert" (together with the badly uneducated
Elliot Higgins) at the thoroughly corrupted and zionized Atlantic Council?
-- What kind of antisemite has been working hard to make the US Jewry at large suspected in a
massive conspiracy and treason against the United States of America?
Here is the context for the "Indictment of Trolls" (Paty II):
https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/62c97j/the_awan_brothers_compromised_at_least_80/
"The Awan brothers compromised at least 80 congressional computers and got paid 5 million to
do it. We may never know the extent of the breach.
After compromising the Congress' networks for 12 years they do a quick cleanup by breaking in
to 20 congressional offices, store data in an off site server before running of to Pakistan
and the D.C. Police are investigating. But wait there's more
Imran Awan has a longtime relationship with some members of Congress, including working for
Meeks and Becerra starting in 2004 and joining Wasserman Schultz's office in 2005. The IT
staffer position expanded to include more than 30 representatives, including work under
congressional members who were members of top secret level congressional committees (DHS,
Foreign affairs, Select intelligence committee).
Although personal office computers are not supposed to be used for Intelligence Committee
business or classified material, accessing these computers is a high priority for foreign
intelligence services because of the information they could glean about the committee's work
from unclassified emails.
• The brothers are suspected of serious violations including accessing members' computer
networks without their knowledge and stealing equipment from Congress, over billing congress
for work and parts, transferring data to a remote server, and bypassing normal security
protocols for IT staff. Their Democrat benefactors allowed the breech of policy for the sake
of convenience.
• The Awans operated an external server, which is against all protocols concerning
secured government information.
Further, there were instances where House information was discovered in an external "cloud"
server. The contractors in question reportedly were sending and storing House-related
information in that off-site server.
• The Awans had special access to the White House and for Visas.
• Multiple Democratic lawmakers have yet to cut ties with House staffers under criminal
investigation for wide-ranging equipment and data theft."
– Hey, Mueller! Hey, Rosenstein! Do your job.
The letter from the Democrats on the Gang of 8 to Coats, Rosenstein and Wray is
something. Asking them to be insubordinate by refusing the order of the President to
release unredacted documents & communications. What were the verbal assurances these
apparatchiks gave the Democrats? Did they agree to withhold information from their boss?
As Col. Lang has stated numerous times the President is the ultimate classification
authority except for atomic secrets. Coats, Rosenstein & Wray I'm sure know that. If
they disagree with his declassification order they can always resign. Insubordination is
a fireable offense.
Journalist Sara Carter told Sean Hannity during his Wednesday radio show that the FBI has
two sets of records in the Russia investigation, and that "certain people above Peter Strzok
and above Lisa Page" were aware of it - implicating former FBI Director James Comey and his #2,
Andrew McCabe.
Hannity : Sara, I'm hearing it gets worse than this–that there is potentially out
there–if you will, two sets of record among the upper echelon of the FBI–one that
was real one that was made for appearances . Is there any truth to this?
Carter : Absolutely, Sean . With the number of sources that I have been speaking with as
well as some others that there is evidence indicating that the FBI had separate sets of
books.
I will not name names until all of the evidence is out there, but there were certain
people above Peter Strzok and above Lisa Page that were aware of this . I also believe that
there are people within the FBI that have actually turned on their former employers and are
possibly even testifying and reporting what happened inside the FBI to both the Inspector
General and possibly even a Grand Jury.
That's a bold statement but cancerous growth is typical of any intelligence agency, especially CIA: all of them want more and more
budget money and try to influence both domestic and foreign policy. That's signs of cancel.
FBI actually has dual mandate: suppressing political dissent (STASI functions) and fight with criminals and organized crime.
The fact the President does not control his own administration, especially State Department isclearly visible now. He is more like
a ceremonial figura that is allowed to rant on Twitter, but can't change any thing of substance in forign policy. and Is a typucal Repiblican
in domenstic policy, betraying the electorate like Obama did
Notable quotes:
"... Sessions recused himself from the "Russia Collusion" investigation. Now that it is known to have been an extension of Democratic election rigging, and DC bureaucratic "Resistance," he could be initiate a broad sweep investigation into Washington, DC based bureaucratic bias and corruption. ..."
Shifting from Sessions to the much-maligned FBI, Trump said the agency was "a cancer" and that uncovering deep-seated corruption
in the FBI may be remembered as the "crowning achievement" of his administration, per
the Hill .
"What we've done is a great service to the country, really," Trump said in a 45-minute, wide-ranging interview in the Oval
Office.
"I hope to be able put this up as one of my crowning achievements that I was able to ... expose something that is truly a cancer
in our country."
Moreover, Trump insisted that he never trusted former FBI Director James Comey, and that he had initially planned to fire Comey
shortly after the inauguration, but had been talked out of it by his aides.
Trump also said he regretted not firing former FBI Director James Comey immediately instead of waiting until May 2017, confirming
an account his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, gave Hill.TV earlier in the day that Trump was dismayed in 2016 by the way Comey handled
the Hillary Clinton email case and began discussing firing him well before he became president.
"If I did one mistake with Comey, I should have fired him before I got here. I should have fired him the day I won the primaries,"
Trump said. "I should have fired him right after the convention, say I don't want that guy. Or at least fired him the first day
on the job. ... I would have been better off firing him or putting out a statement that I don't want him there when I get there."
The FISA Court judges who approved the initial requests allowing the FBI to surveil employees of the Trump Campaign also came
in for some criticism, with Trump claiming they used "poor Carter Page, who nobody even knew, and who I feel very badly for...as
a foil...to surveil a candidate or the presidency of the United States." Trump added that he felt the judges had been "misled" by
the FBI.
He criticizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court's approval of the warrant that authorized surveillance
of Carter Page, a low-level Trump campaign aide, toward the end of the 2016 election, suggesting the FBI misled the court.
"They know this is one of the great scandals in the history of our country because basically what they did is, they used Carter
Page, who nobody even knew, who I feel very badly for, I think he's been treated very badly. They used Carter Page as a foil in
order to surveil a candidate for the presidency of the United States."
As for the judges on the secret intelligence court: "It looks to me just based on your reporting, that they have been misled,"
the president said, citing a series of columns in The Hill newspaper identifying shortcomings in the FBI investigation. "I mean
I don't think we have to go much further than to say that they've been misled."
"One of the things I'm disappointed in is that the judges in FISA didn't, don't seem to have done anything about it. I'm very
disappointed in that Now, I may be wrong because, maybe as we sit here and talk, maybe they're well into it. We just don't know
that because I purposely have not chosen to get involved," Trump said.
Trump continued the assault on Sessions during a brief conference with reporters Wednesday morning. When asked whether he was
planning to fire Sessions, Trump replied that "we're looking into lots of different things."
To be sure, Sessions has managed to hang on thus far. And if he can somehow manage to survive past Nov. 6, his fate will perversely
rest on the Democrats' success. Basically, if they wrest back control of the Senate (which, to be sure, is unlikely), Sessions chances
of staying on would rise dramatically. But then again, how much abuse can a man realistically endure before he decides that the costs
of staying outweigh the benefits of leaving?
DingleBarryObummer , 19 minutes ago
Sessions works for Trump, because Trump is running the uniparty russia-gate stormy-gate anti-trump show. Sessions was intentionally
placed there to stonewall and make sure the kabuki goes on. Rosenstein is a Trump appointee. This **** garners sympathy for him
as the persecuted underdog, rallies his base; and distracts from the obvious zio-bankster influence over his admin and his many
unfulfilled campaign promises. He's deceiving you. Why do you think Giuliani acts like such a buffoon? It's because that's what
he was hired for. All distractions and bullshit. He will not get impeached, Hillary is not going to jail, nothing will happen.
The zio-Banksters will continue to stay at the top of the pyramid, because that's who trump works for, NOT you and me.
"While Trump's fascination with the White House still burned within him [re: 2011], he also had The Apprentice to deal with--and
it wasn't as easy as you might think. He loved doing the show and was reluctant to give it up. At one point, he was actually thinking
of hosting it from the oval office if he made it all the way to the White House. He even discussed it with Stephen Burke, the
CEO at NBCUniversal, telling Burke he would reconsider running if the network was concerned about his candidacy." -Roger Stone
"To some people the notion of consciously playing power games-no matter how indirect-seems evil, asocial, a relic of the past.
They believe they can opt out of the game by behaving in ways that have nothing to do with power. You must beware of such people,
for while they express such opinions outwardly, they are often among the most adept players at power. They utilize strategies
that cleverly disguise the nature of the manipulation involved. These types, for example, will often display their weakness and
lack of power as a kind of moral virtue. But true powerlessness, without any motive of self-interest, would not publicize its
weakness to gain sympathy or respect. Making a show of one's weakness is actually a very effective strategy, subtle and deceptive,
in the game of power." -Robert Greene
Sparkey , 31 minutes ago
This is why the 'little' people love President 'The Donald' Trump, he says the things they would like to say, but have no platform
to speak from, Mushroom man The Donald has no fear he has got Mushroom power, and he has my support in what ever he does!
Secret Weapon , 43 minutes ago
Is Sessions a Deep State firewall? Starting to look that way.
TrustbutVerify , 48 minutes ago
Sessions recused himself from the "Russia Collusion" investigation. Now that it is known to have been an extension of Democratic
election rigging, and DC bureaucratic "Resistance," he could be initiate a broad sweep investigation into Washington, DC based
bureaucratic bias and corruption.
I suspect Sessions will last until after the mid-term elections. Then Trump will fire him and bring someone like Gowdy in to
head the DOJ and to bring about investigations.
And, my gosh, there seems to be so much to investigate. And to my mind prosecute.
loop, 49 minutes ago
"I've never seen a President - I don't care who he is - stand up to them (Israel). It just boggles the mind. They always
get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down.
If the American people understood what a grip these people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms.
Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on."
- U.S. Navy Admiral and former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Thomas Moorer
mendigo, 59 minutes ago
Cool stuff. But really the cancer goes much deeper. That is the scary part. Trump is now largely controlled by the Borg.
Government employees and elected officials have a choice: can either play along and become wealthy and powerful or have
their careers destroyed, or worse.
"... A 75-year old insider that dropped out of the race in 2008, after capturing less than 1% of the vote in the Iowa caucus, and who "occupies the sensible center of the Democratic Party." That just screams excitement, does it not? ..."
Even an inbred domesticated pet can learn simple tricks, but corporate Democrats...Let's just say that they are further down the
evolutionary ladder. Joe Biden
proved that today.
"Despite losing in the courts, and in the court of opinion, these forces of intolerance remain determined to undermine and roll
back the progress you all have made," he said. "This time they - not you - have an ally in the White House. This time they have
an ally. They're a small percentage of the American people - virulent people, some of them the dregs of society."
At least he didn't say "deplorables." Why do establishment Dems think that insulting a third of the electorate is a good idea?
And why are establishment Dems incapable of learning from 2016? Why do they think Biden is the
"solution"?
Amid discussion of resistance to Trump, he surprised me with talk of 2020, when he'll turn 78. "I'll run," the
vice president deadpanned, "if I can walk." Three days later, he informed the Washington press corps that he wasn't joking.
Biden isn't likely to run, but keeping the door ajar gives him a bigger voice in Democratic Party debates. The one that worries
him most is over repositioning to win back Trump voters. He has little patience with Democrats who want to move either left or
right. " 'We gotta move to the center,' 'We gotta move to those white guys,' 'We gotta move to those working-class
people' or 'We gotta double down on the social agenda.' " It's a false choice, he said: "They are totally compatible. I have never
said anything to the A.C.L.U. that I wouldn't say to the Chamber of Commerce."
A 75-year old insider that dropped out of the race in 2008, after capturing less than 1% of the vote in the Iowa caucus, and
who "occupies the sensible center of the Democratic
Party." That just screams excitement, does it not? /s And yet the establishment continues to try to force Joe Biden down
our throats, but their recent effort is
more laughable than most.
Former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump by 7 percentage points in a head-to-head match-up, according to a
new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.
A plurality of registered voters, 44 percent, said they'd choose Biden in the 2020 presidential election, while 37 percent
of voters said they would vote for Trump.
The percentage of Democrats who would choose Biden - 80 percent - was slightly higher than the 78 percent of Republicans who
would vote for the president's reelection. The former vice president, who ran for the White House in 1988 and 2008, has been floated
as a 2020 contender, and Biden himself has said he's not ruling out a third try.
OK. You following this so far? Creepy Joe is the overwhelming favorite, especially amoung Democrats, right?
span y The Voice In th... on Tue, 09/18/2018 - 10:19am
I hope they do run Biden and he falls flat on his face. This will hasten the demise of the Democratic Party and make room in
the political spectrum for a truly progressive Party.
Regarding retreads, I see that Bill Daley has thrown his hat into the ring for Boss of All Bosses Mayor of Chicago.
Another retread but possibly a baby step up from the odious Rahm Emanuel.
Good post gj. Biden is Mr. Establishement, the epitome of what is wrong with the Dem party. Like Clinton, Bush, Trump, Obama,
a master at pretending he is there for you. But not really. He's there for corporate America. You are right they haven't learned
a thing. Look at the Hillary Atlantic piece (have barf bag handy).
They are self-righteous at a level the precludes objective reflection or introspection. They are a psychopathic mix of ego,
greed, power and war monger. They are meeting Einstein's definition of insanity very well, doing the same thing and expecting
a different result. I guess a thousand seat loss is no cause for concern.
Its those low-info dregs, and Russia, and Jill Stein, and promises of ponies. Same people running the ship into the same ground.
The same 30% of blind followers will always follow their leaders, no matter what, be it Trumpsters or DemBots.
'Assume, for the sake of argument, that powerful, connected people in the intelligence community and in politics worried that a
wildcard Trump presidency, unlike another Clinton or Bush, might expose a decade-plus of questionable practices. Disrupt long-established
money channels. Reveal secret machinations that could arguably land some people in prison.
'What exactly might an "insurance policy" against Donald Trump look like?'
All this leads me back to the suspicion that Steele's involvement may have been less in crafting the dossier, than making it
possible to conceal its actual origins while giving it an appearance of credibility. It could also be the case that Nellie Ohr's sudden
interest in radio transmissions had to do with communications inside the United States, rather than with Steele.
Notable quotes:
"... A great deal of evidence, I think, suggests that practically all those involved in 'Russiagate' were caught totally unprepared by Trump's victory, that they then went rushing around like headless chickens, and that part of this process involved a decision being taken to publish the dossier, without consulting British intelligence. If people like Younger were not consulted, then it would seem to me unlikely that Steele was. ..."
"... And I have immense difficulty seeing how any competent media lawyer would not have recommended, at the minimum, the redaction of the names of Aleksej Gubarev and his company from the final December 2016 memorandum. This would have made legal action unlikely, without greatly diminishing the effect of the claims. ..."
"... But if this was so, and if what they thought was accurate information was actually disinformation, the likely conduit would not have been through Steele, but from FSB cybersecurity people to their FBI counterparts. ..."
"... It it is I think material that intelligence agencies commonly include a great variety of people, ranging from very able analysts and operators to complete dolts. So, the CIA has employed both Philip Giraldi and John Brennan, MI6 both Alastair Crooke and also Christopher Steele and Alex Younger. ..."
"... It is however somewhat revealing that one now finds Giraldi and Crooke appearing on a Russian site, 'Strategic Culture Foundation', while Brennan and Younger are treated as authoritative figures by the MSM. ..."
"... My strong suspicion is that 'Russiagate' is a kind of nemesis, arising from the fact that key figures in British and American intelligence have, over a protracted period of time, got involved in intrigues where they are way out of their depth. The unintended consequences of these have meant that people like Brennan and Younger, and also Hannigan, have ended up having to resort to desperate measures to cover their backsides. ..."
"... There are many aspects to this story that don't make any sense to me if one looks at it from a rational perspective. One of course being concerns about libel litigation and the related legal discovery that you note. The second being no real contingency planning in the event Hillary loses the election. Admittedly they must have bought the media line and Nate Silver's forecast of a greater than 75% probability of a Hillary win. ..."
"... The purported "arms length" relationships don't make any sense. There's Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson playing a central role. They hire Nellie Ohr, a possible CIA asset and the wife of Bruce Ohr, the 4th highest ranking official at the DOJ. ..."
"... Glenn Simpson also hires Christopher Steele who he knows from previous "spook" associations. Steele had numerous and continuous communications including telephone, Skype, email and personal meetings with Bruce and Nellie Ohr during all this. ..."
"... Then there is Mifsud and Halper. Apparently both are CIA and FBI assets. ..."
"... You have Brennan ginning up concerns giving super secret and individual briefings to the Gang of 8 in Congress. There's Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the minority leader on the Senate Intelligence Committee texting and calling Adam Waldman, Deripaska's US attorney about setting up clandestine meetings with Steele. ..."
"... Not to be left behind there's Sen. McCain doing the same. His top aide even travels to London to meet Steele. And then there's Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page busily spending every waking moment texting each other about every twist and turn in all the political games being played. Of course there's Admiral Rogers investigating unusual searches by FBI officials and contractors on the NSA database. And he briefs President-elect Trump at Trump Tower which prompts the entire transition team to move to Trump's golf course in NJ. ..."
"... In fact the IG report on the Clinton "investigation" states that many at the FBI were accepting "gifts" from various media personalities for a quid pro quo ..."
"... There's Rod Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr's direct boss who testifies he knew nothing about Ohr being a conduit to Strzok for Steele. Of course he knew nothing but signed the FISA application on Carter Page. ..."
"... At this point I don't buy that Christopher Steele dug up real intelligence from his contacts at the highest levels of the Russian government, which caught Brennan, Clapper, Comey and Lynch's pants on fire, who then launched a formal investigation of Russia collusion with Trump. Many things just don't pass the smell test. Now of course I have no qualifications nor experience in spookdom. ..."
"... I agree that it (and Skripalmania) are almost impossible to make sense of unless you think of a bunch of highly politicised not very bright people sinking deeper and deeper into what looked like a bright idea at the time. ..."
"... I ask because, if one tries to look at it in a non-partisan way, the Western IC seemed to be a failure when it came to predicting Russian reactions in the Donbass, the Crimea, and it seems in Syria. I link this to various comments from Colonel Lang indicating that true experts were replaced over the years by less experienced and knowledgeable people. Does being "highly politicised" mean that they're not up to much when it comes to minding the shop? ..."
"... I thought I detected a protest against the politicisation of the US in the world some years ago. And we must not forget that Gen Flynn (DIA) and Adm Rogers (NSA) acted strongly against this. Flynn was the first casualty of the Trump/Russia hysteria and the Clapper claque tried to fire Rogers. ..."
"... I was born in the Depression and have seen vitriolic politics but never have seen such a massive opposition by the media, the pundits and the establishment of both parties. Over 500 print publications endorsed Hillary. Only some 20 endorsed Trump. Yet he confounds the pundits by winning the election. Clearly many voters are at odds with the political media class. ..."
"... I think there is an ideological background to this, on which the piece by Alastair Crooke – himself former MI6 – to which Patrick Armstrong links, and the piece by James George Jatras to which Crooke links, are both to the point. The 'end of history' crowd thought they were inhabiting a realised utopia, and cannot cope with the fact that their dream is collapsing. ..."
"... In relation to the millenarian undercurrents on which Crooke focuses, however, it is also worth noting that a traditional conservative suspicion has been that millenarianism is naturally linked to antinomianism: the belief that the moral law is not binding on the elect. ..."
"... It is obviously possible that Ohr did not report up the chain of command, and if so, he and his wife become pivotal figures in the conspiracy. Alternatively, it could be that Rosenstein is lying – in which case, we have large questions about who else is implicated, and specifically whether the termination of Steele by the FBI was anything more than a ruse. ..."
"... 'Yet, Simpson allegedly acknowledged that most of the information Fusion GPS and British intelligence operative Christopher Steele developed did not come from sources inside Moscow. "Much of the collection about the Trump campaign ties to Russia comes from a former Russian intelligence officer (? not entirely clear) who lives in the U.S.," Ohr scribbled in his notes.' ..."
"... And it confirms my strong suspicion that the dossier is actually a composite product, much of it assembled at Fusion, which could indeed contain material from a range of people from the former Soviet space, who could living in the United States, Britain, or elsewhere – Ukraine and the Baltics being obvious possibilities. ..."
"... So Sergei Skripal and Sergei Millian, neither of whom fit the description by Simpson, have been mentioned as possible sources, and there is also the very curiously ambiguous role of Rinat Akhmetshin. ..."
"... All these people, obviously, could simply have fabricated material or retailed gossip, and Steele himself was involved in fabricating material on an industrial scale to cover up what actually happened to Alexander Litvinenko. ..."
"... All this leads me back to the suspicion that Steele's involvement may have been less in crafting the dossier, than making it possible to conceal its actual origins while giving it an appearance of credibility. It could also be the case that Nellie Ohr's sudden interest in radio transmissions had to do with communications inside the United States, rather than with Steele. ..."
"... Apparently that organisation is doing rather well in sustaining the claiming that 'fair report privilege' could circumvent any requirement to prove truth – and a key question now is whether documents which the DOJ is being forced to produce will establish that the dossier was being used by officials in ways that would trigger the privilege as of 10 January 2017. ..."
"... That said, what Ohr reports Simpson as telling him raises fundamental questions about how anyone could have relied upon the dossier for anything – and should push people back to actually asking hard questions about its origins. ..."
"... To add: Steele was on the FBI's payroll, in addition to being on Fusion GPS's payroll. And on the payroll of Her Majesty's Government. After he got caught leaking to the media he was apparently "fired" by the FBI. But he was continuing to communicate and brief through Bruce Ohr at the DOJ. ..."
"... I think the circle of Glenn Simpson. Chris Steele, Bruce & Nellie Ohr, Adam Waldman. Peter Strzok, and Sen. Mark Warner will be very interesting to pursue. ..."
"... The other circle that should be investigated is the Brennan, Clapper, Lynch, Comey, Yates, Susan Rice. ..."
"... No investigation can exclude the active participation of key people from the media complex including people like Comey's good friend Benjamin Wittes. ..."
"... In its original version, the 'Statement of Principles' explained, among other things, that the Society: 'Believes that only modern liberal democratic states are truly legitimate, and that any international organization which admits undemocratic states on an equal basis is fundamentally flawed.' ..."
"... Ironically, it was shortly after the publication of the dossier that Anatol Lieven published in the 'National Interest' an article entitled 'Is America Becoming a Third World Country?' (See https://nationalinterest.or... .) ..."
"... Also in June, Sergei Karaganov published a piece in 'Russia in Global Affairs', of which he is publisher, entitled 'Ideology of Eastward Turn.' ..."
"... I do not think Karaganov's article is simply a reflection of changes in Russian attitudes. The changes, it seems to me, are global. ..."
"... I do think that we in the West really blew it. In 1990, we could have said, in all humility, that our way of life (IMO the key word is pluralism) had proven more survivable. So we should welcome the others into the tent. Instead, we were right and that was that. ..."
"... Just as you're asking about the origins of the dossier I wonder if it was orchestrated or something that evolved organically? If it was orchestrated, then who was the mastermind? Did Brennan, Clapper and Come sit down and hatch it or was Simpson the brains? What is astounding is the scale. So many people involved. Were they all motivated by ideology or by the need to protect their racket? ..."
"... It seems there are many sub-plots. There's the Deripaska, Steele, Waldman, Mueller, Sen. Warner angle. Then there's the Simpson, Steele, Ohr, Strzok, Page, McCabe angle. There's also the Simpson, Steele, media reporters angle. Then there's the whole Mifsud, Halper, Carter Page, Papadopolous, Downer bit. There's the Comey, Rosenstein, Yates, Strzok FISA application piece. Then there's all the stuff happening in the UK including Hannigan's resignation as soon as Trump is elected. Of course the whole Mueller appointment and the obstruction of justice thread to tie Trump's hand. There are so many elements. Who initiated and coordinated? Was each element separate? ..."
"... Together, these methods are likely to have produced a mass of information. It is important to remember, for example, that at the time of his mysterious death on 23 March 2013 Boris Berezovsky was negotiating to return to Russia, and that his head of security, Sergei Sokolov did return, with a 'cache' of documents. ..."
"... The purpose was to demonstrate that Alexei Navalny was the instrument of a 'régime change' plot in which William Browder was acting as an agent of MI6. ..."
"... An important role in the Apelbaum piece is played by the private security company Hakluyt. A quick look at the entries on Wikipedia and Powerbase will make clear that, if there is a British 'deep state', this is likely to be at its core. ..."
"... It is against this background that on has to see a specific claim which Apelbaum makes, for which I do not think any evidence is produced, about two figures whose role in 'Russiagate' is clearly central. So Luke Harding is described as 'A Guardian reporter and a Hakluyt and Orbis contractor' (note word.) Meanwhile, Edward Baumgartner is described as 'Co-founder of Edward Austin. Contractor at Orbis and Hakluyt.' ..."
"... That Harding is corrupt, as also Sir Robert Owen's 'Inquiry' into the death of the late Alexander Litvinenko, I can prove. When Owen's report was published in January 2016, a preliminary response by me was posted here on SST, which among other things listed some of the evidence establishing that the interviews supposedly recorded with Litvinenko by Detective Inspector Brent Hyatt immediately before his death were blatant forgeries. ..."
"... In relation to that part of the evidence discussed in my January 2016 post which exposes the fumbling attempts by Steele and his colleagues to cover up the truth about when and how Litvinenko travelled into central London on the day he was supposedly killed, most of this had been among a mass of material submitted by me to the Inquiry Team, which I have e-mails to prove was read. ..."
"... Further study of Owen's report has confirmed my suspicion that a strong 'prima facie case' of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice exists against very many of those involved in it. ..."
"... At the same time, materials produced on the Russian side have confirmed my suspicion that the reason why Steele and others have been able to get away with their cover-up is that the Russian intelligence services are no more enthusiastic than their British counterparts about having anything like the whole truth about how Litvinenko lived and died made public. ..."
"... Additionally, the text itself displays an odd parallelism with his assertion regarding the Steele Dossier- that is, the likelihood of multiple authors, of diverse origins. ..."
"... My curiosity about who Apelbaum might be is reinforced by the fact that the intimations he gives about his background in his responses to comments, while not incompatible with what he has said in the past, do not sit so easily with it. ..."
"... So, questions naturally arise about Apelbaum's intelligence career, in particular, who he is likely to have been employed by, and associated with, in the past, and whether he is still involved with any of those agencies which have employed him. ..."
"... 'Also, there is a large Hakluyt/Orbis "commercial intelligence" network in the US that regularly services political and federal agencies and has the power to summon Nazgűls the likes of John Brennan. So Steele is not the new kid on the block, he has been doing this type of work long before 2016. This is also why he has such a cozy relationship with the brass at the DOJ and state.' ..."
"... This is that he, the Ukrainian nationalist former KGB person Yuri Shvets, the convicted Italian disinformation peddler Mario Scaramella, and quite possibly the sometime key FBI expert on Mogilevich, Robert 'Bobby' Levinson, were involved in trying to suggest that Mogilevich was an instrument of a plot by Putin to equip Al Qaeda with a 'mini nuclear bomb.' ..."
"... In his prepared statement, Lugovoi claimed that his supposed victim used to say that everyone in Britain were ''retards', to use the translation submitted in evidence to Owen's Inquiry, or 'idiots', to use that by RT. And according to this version, the British believed in everything that 'we' – that is, the Berezovky group – said was happening in Russia. ..."
"... Whether or not Litvinenko expressed this cynical contempt, the credulity with which the claims of the 'information operations' people around Berezovsky have been accepted – well illustrated by Owen's report and perhaps most ludicrous in Harding's journalism – makes clear it is justified. ..."
"... Perhaps then, cartoons about Trump as a puppet, with the strings pulled by another puppet representing Manafort, whose strings are in turn pulled by Putin, should be replaced by ones in which Mueller is seen as a puppet manipulated by the ghost of Boris Berezovsky. ..."
"... But that is the irony. The relationship with Berezovsky blew up in the faces of all concerned, when in the wake of the successsful corruption of the investigation into the death of Litvinenko by him and his 'information operations' people, he attempted to recoup his fortunes by suing Roman Abramovich, and got taken to pieces by Lord Sumption. ..."
"... The 'Vesti Nedeli' piece uses what Elizaveta Berezovskaya says in support of the claim that Berezovsky was murdered by British 'special forces', because he was planning to return to Russia, and he 'knew too much about them.' ..."
"... One of the things I've never understood about the Trump Dossier story is the lack of any forensic analysis of its content and style anywhere in the media, even the alt media. Who was supposed to have actually written it? Steele? The style does not match someone of his background and education, and the formatting and syntax were atrocious. The font actually varied from "report" to "report." It certainly did not give me the impression of being the product of a high-end, Belgravia consultancy. ..."
"... I wonder whether it was produced by an American of one sort or another and then "laundered" by being accorded association with the UK firm. Given that Steele just happened to be hired by the USG to help in the anti-FIFA skulduggery, he and his firm seem very much to be a concern that does dirty little jobs that need discretely to be done, though in this case, the discretion was undermined. ..."
"... Most of the memos were issued before October and Fusion/Simpson authorized Steele to release information to the FBI starting in July. The question is why the memos were released after the election when a release before the election would have been enough to sink Trump. Instead the FBI and presumably those paying Fusion on Hillarys behalf sat on it, and Comey comes out days before the election ..."
"... Kind of looks like they all wanted Trump in office and the disclosure was to give Trump the excuse needed to back track on his promises to improve relations with Russia and blame that on pressure from the Deep State and Russia Gate. ..."
"... Looking at Trumps history with Sater (FBI/CIA asset) and his political aspirations that began following his Moscow visit in 1987 it seems likely Trump has been a Deep State asset for 30 years and fed intelligence to CIA/FBI on Russian oligarchs and mafia . Indeed he may well have duped Russians into believing he was working for them when in fact it was the CIA/FBI who had the best Kompromat with US RICO laws that could have beggared him ..."
"... One thing to remember about the FBI is Sy Hersh. Hersh claims the FBI has been sitting on a report for two years that fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the Wikileaks DNC email leaker (or one of them, at least.) ..."
"... I suspect the decision to publish the dossier was political. It was required to enable Clapper, Brennan, and others to opine on national media and create further media hysteria prior to the vote as well as to justify the counter-intelligence investigations underway. They were throwing the kitchen sink to sink Trump's electoral chances. I don't think a lot of thought was given about the legal ramifications. ..."
"... This seems to be a pattern. Leak information. Then use the leaked story to justify actions like apply for a FISA warrant or fan the media flames. ..."
"... I find it incredulous that former leaders of the intelligence and law enforcement agencies have gained paid access to powerful media platforms and they have used it to launch vicious attacks on a POTUS. ..."
"... I find it amazing that McCabe and Peter Strzok are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars on social media platforms. ..."
"... If the GOP retains the House and Jim Jordan becomes speaker, then there may be a possibility that Sessions, Rosenstein and Wray may be fired and another special counsel appointed who will then convene a grand jury. ..."
My strong impression is that nobody on the British side vetted the dossier for publication. A striking feature of the early news
coverage is that there appeared to be total confusion, with some of the reporting suggesting that the sources quoted wanted to hang
him out to dry, others that they wanted to defend him.
An interesting aspect is that not only were anonymous sources linked to MI6 quoted on both sides of the argument -- which could
have been explained by disagreements within the organisation: in different stories, not however far apart in date, its head, Sir
Alex Younger, was portrayed as holding radically different views.
When CNN publicised the existence of the dossier on 10 January 2017, the same day that it was published by 'BuzzFeed', it suggested
that the author was British. The following day, the WSJ named Steele.
On 13 January, Martin Robinson, UK Chief Reporter for 'Mail Online', published a report whose headlines seem worth quoting in
full:
'I introduced him to my wife as James Bond': Former spy Chris Steele's friends describe a "show-off" 007 figure but MI6 bosses
brand him "an idiot" for an "appalling lack of judgement" over the Trump "dirty dossier": Intelligence expert Nigel West says friend
is like Ian Fleming's famous character; He said: "He's James Bond. I actually introduced him to my wife as James Bond'; Mr West says
Steele dislikes Putin and Kremlin for ignoring rules of espionage; Angry spy source calls him 'idiot' and blasts decision to take
on the Trump work; Current MI6 boss Sir Alex Younger is said to be livid about reputation damage.'
On 15 January, however, Kim Sengupta, Defence Editor of the 'Independent', produced a report headlined: 'Head of MI6 used information
from Trump dossier in first public speech; Warnings on cyberattacks show ex-spy's work is respected.'
A great deal of evidence, I think, suggests that practically all those involved in 'Russiagate' were caught totally unprepared
by Trump's victory, that they then went rushing around like headless chickens, and that part of this process involved a decision
being taken to publish the dossier, without consulting British intelligence. If people like Younger were not consulted, then it would
seem to me unlikely that Steele was.
This leads me on to another puzzle about the dossier to which I have been having a difficulty finding a solution. Long years
ago I was reasonably familiar with libel law in relation to journalism. Anyone who 'served indentures', as very many of us did in
those days, had to study it. Later, I got involved in a protracted libel suit -- successfully, I hasten to add -- in relation to
a programme I made, and had the sobering experience of having a top-class libel barrister requiring me to justify every assertion
I had made.
In the jargon then, a crucial question when an article, or programme, was being 'vetted' before publication was whether it represented
a 'fair business risk.' This involved both the technical legal issues, and also judgements as to whether people were likely to sue,
and how if they did the case would be likely to pan out.
On the face of things, one would not have expected that people at 'BuzzFeed' would have gone ahead and make the dossier public,
without having it 'vetted' by competent lawyers. And I have difficulty seeing how, if they did, the advice could have been to publish
what they published.
I have some difficulty seeing how the advice could have been to include the memorandum with the claims about the Alfa Group oligarchs,
unless either these could be seriously defended or it was assumed that contesting them effectively would involve revealing more 'dirty
linen' than these wanted to see aired in public.
And I have immense difficulty seeing how any competent media lawyer would not have recommended, at the minimum, the redaction
of the names of Aleksej Gubarev and his company from the final December 2016 memorandum. This would have made legal action unlikely,
without greatly diminishing the effect of the claims.
Trying to make sense of why such an obvious precaution was not taken, I find myself wondering whether, in fact, the reason may
have been that the people responsible for the dossier may have actually believed this part of it at least.
If that is so, however, the most plausible explanation I can see is that while other claims in the dossier may well be total fabrication,
either by the people at Fusion and Steele or by some of their questionable contacts, this information at least did come from what
Glenn Simpson, Nellie Ohr et al thought were reliable Russian government sources.
But if this was so, and if what they thought was accurate information was actually disinformation, the likely conduit would
not have been through Steele, but from FSB cybersecurity people to their FBI counterparts.
I think that the cases involving Karim Baratov and Dmitri Dokuchaev and his colleagues may be much more complex than is apparent
from what looks to me like patent disinformation put out both on the Western and Russian sides.
It it is I think material that intelligence agencies commonly include a great variety of people, ranging from very able analysts
and operators to complete dolts. So, the CIA has employed both Philip Giraldi and John Brennan, MI6 both Alastair Crooke and also
Christopher Steele and Alex Younger.
It is however somewhat revealing that one now finds Giraldi and Crooke appearing on a Russian site, 'Strategic Culture Foundation',
while Brennan and Younger are treated as authoritative figures by the MSM.
If you want to get a clear picture of quite how low-grade the latter figure is, incidentally, it is worth looking at the speech
to which Kim Sengupta refers.
A favourite line of mine comes in Younger's discussion of the -- actually largely mythical -- notion of 'hybrid warfare': 'In
this arena, our opponents are often states whose very survival owes to the strength of their security capabilities; the work is complex
and risky, often with the full weight of the State seeking to root us out.'
Leaving aside the fact that this is borderline illiterate, what it amazing is Younger's apparent blindness to clearly unintended
implications of what he writes. If indeed, the 'very survival' of the Russian state 'owes to the strength of [its] security capabilities',
the conclusions, seen from a Russian point of view, would seem rather obvious: vote Putin, and give medals to Patrushev and Bortnikov.
My strong suspicion is that 'Russiagate' is a kind of nemesis, arising from the fact that key figures in British and American
intelligence have, over a protracted period of time, got involved in intrigues where they are way out of their depth. The unintended
consequences of these have meant that people like Brennan and Younger, and also Hannigan, have ended up having to resort to desperate
measures to cover their backsides.
There are many aspects to this story that don't make any sense to me if one looks at it from a rational perspective. One
of course being concerns about libel litigation and the related legal discovery that you note. The second being no real contingency
planning in the event Hillary loses the election. Admittedly they must have bought the media line and Nate Silver's forecast of
a greater than 75% probability of a Hillary win.
The purported "arms length" relationships don't make any sense. There's Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson playing a central
role. They hire Nellie Ohr, a possible CIA asset and the wife of Bruce Ohr, the 4th highest ranking official at the DOJ.
Glenn Simpson also hires Christopher Steele who he knows from previous "spook" associations. Steele had numerous and continuous
communications including telephone, Skype, email and personal meetings with Bruce and Nellie Ohr during all this. They even
have discussions about Deripaska and about his visa application to visit the US. Bruce is a conduit to Strzok at FBI. Glenn Simpson
also is part of these discussions with Steele and the Ohrs.
Simpson also arranges for Steele to brief "reporters" like David Corn and others at the NY Times, WaPo, WSJ, Politico and others.
Then there is Mifsud and Halper. Apparently both are CIA and FBI assets. They are communicating with Carter Page and
Papadopolous, who in turn is drinking and yapping with Aussie ambassador Downer.
You have Brennan ginning up concerns giving super secret and individual briefings to the Gang of 8 in Congress. There's
Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the minority leader on the Senate Intelligence Committee texting and calling Adam Waldman, Deripaska's
US attorney about setting up clandestine meetings with Steele. There's Sen. Harry Reid passing on the Steele "dossier" to
Comey.
Not to be left behind there's Sen. McCain doing the same. His top aide even travels to London to meet Steele. And then
there's Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page busily spending every waking moment texting each other about every twist and turn in
all the political games being played. Of course there's Admiral Rogers investigating unusual searches by FBI officials and contractors
on the NSA database. And he briefs President-elect Trump at Trump Tower which prompts the entire transition team to move to Trump's
golf course in NJ.
Oh, there is also Nellie Ohr setting up ham radio to avoid detection in her communications with Steele. Then we have everyone
leaking and spinning to their "cohorts" in the premier media like the NY Times, CNN and WaPo.
Comey even has his buddy a professor and ostensibly his legal counsel on the payroll of the FBI as a contractor with access
to all the sensitive databases leaking to the media.
Andy McCabe has his legal counsel Lisa Page spin stories around his wife's huge campaign contributions from Clinton consigliere
McAuliffe.
In fact the IG report on the Clinton "investigation" states that many at the FBI were accepting "gifts" from various media
personalities for a quid pro quo.
As if all this was not enough there's AG Loretta Lynch, meeting with Bill Clinton on a tarmac ostensibly to discuss their grandkids.
Not to forget there were these "unmaskings" of surveillance information by Susan Rice, Samantha Power.
There's Rod Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr's direct boss who testifies he knew nothing about Ohr being a conduit to Strzok for Steele.
Of course he knew nothing but signed the FISA application on Carter Page. Then there are the FISC judges who never believed
their mandate required them to verify the evidence before issuing sweeping surveillance warrants. Now all this is what I as an
old farmer and winemaker have read. Those more in tune would easily add to these convoluted machinations.
I don't know how to make sense of all this. All I see is the extent of effort to prevent Donald Trump from being elected and
after he won from governing. The most obvious observation is that the leadership in our law enforcement and intelligence agencies
are so busy politicking spinning and leaking they have neither the time or the inclination let alone competence to do their real
job for which they get paid a handsome wage and sterling benefits.
At this point I don't buy that Christopher Steele dug up real intelligence from his contacts at the highest levels of the
Russian government, which caught Brennan, Clapper, Comey and Lynch's pants on fire, who then launched a formal investigation of
Russia collusion with Trump. Many things just don't pass the smell test. Now of course I have no qualifications nor experience
in spookdom.
If you have any speculative theories that connects some of the dots it would be my great pleasure to read.
I agree that it (and Skripalmania) are almost impossible to make sense of unless you think of a bunch of highly politicised
not very bright people sinking deeper and deeper into what looked like a bright idea at the time.
Confident that their horse is going to win the race and that the media will cover it all up and nobody will ever hear anything
about anything. Now that the unexpected happened, they're just spinning and denying faster hoping the Dems win in Nov and stop
all the investigations. And, they're getting nervous wondering who's going to sell out whom next. Up and down, around and around.
Gerbils -- there really isn't anything very consistent, planned or thought-out.
"I agree that it (and Skripalmania) are almost impossible to make sense of unless you think of a bunch of highly politicised
not very bright people sinking deeper and deeper into what looked like a bright idea at the time."
I believe your summary of what's happening is more accurate than Alastair Crooke's as set out in the article linked to.
But bright or not, what are these people in the IC doing being "highly politicised"? Does that not render them considerably
less efficient?
I ask because, if one tries to look at it in a non-partisan way, the Western IC seemed to be a failure when it came to
predicting Russian reactions in the Donbass, the Crimea, and it seems in Syria. I link this to various comments from Colonel Lang
indicating that true experts were replaced over the years by less experienced and knowledgeable people. Does being "highly politicised"
mean that they're not up to much when it comes to minding the shop?
I thought I detected a protest against the politicisation of the US in the world some years ago. And we must not forget
that Gen Flynn (DIA) and Adm Rogers (NSA) acted strongly against this. Flynn was the first casualty of the Trump/Russia hysteria
and the Clapper claque tried to fire Rogers.
Usually the incumbent party loses the mid-term election. The Democrats lost big in Obama's first mid-term. The Republicans
won the House and gained six senators. While the punditry claims a Blue Wave and Nate Silver is giving the Dems the odds. I'm
not so sure. I think the GOP will increase their majority in the Senate putting any conviction of Trump out of question.
I was born in the Depression and have seen vitriolic politics but never have seen such a massive opposition by the media,
the pundits and the establishment of both parties. Over 500 print publications endorsed Hillary. Only some 20 endorsed Trump.
Yet he confounds the pundits by winning the election. Clearly many voters are at odds with the political media class.
Yeah. My bet is that the Repubs hold onto both. 1) the economy is getting better 2) what do the Dems have to offer other than
this crazy Trump/Russia thing?
Economy will slow down sharply in 2019 but there should be enough momentum to help with the mid-terms. Trump needs to stop
with the endless sanction stuff. The House does look like a close one.
At a very general level, a 'speculative theory' which I have been mulling over for some time was rather well set out in a commentary
in 'The Hill' on 9 August by Sharyl Attkisson, which opens:
'Let's begin in the realm of the fanciful.
'Assume, for the sake of argument, that powerful, connected people in the intelligence community and in politics worried that
a wildcard Trump presidency, unlike another Clinton or Bush, might expose a decade-plus of questionable practices. Disrupt long-established
money channels. Reveal secret machinations that could arguably land some people in prison.
'What exactly might an "insurance policy" against Donald Trump look like?'
And Attkisson goes on to outline precisely the developments that appear to have happened.
I think there is an ideological background to this, on which the piece by Alastair Crooke – himself former MI6 – to which
Patrick Armstrong links, and the piece by James George Jatras to which Crooke links, are both to the point. The 'end of history'
crowd thought they were inhabiting a realised utopia, and cannot cope with the fact that their dream is collapsing.
In relation to the millenarian undercurrents on which Crooke focuses, however, it is also worth noting that a traditional
conservative suspicion has been that millenarianism is naturally linked to antinomianism: the belief that the moral law is not
binding on the elect. And in turn, according to a familiar skeptical view, antinomianism can easily end up in in straightforward
rascality.
On the rascality – to which Attkisson is pointing – I am working on how parts of the picture can be fleshed out. A few preliminary
points raised by your remarks.
As you note, 'There's Rod Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr's direct boss who testifies he knew nothing about Ohr being a conduit to Strzok
for Steele.' So, we know that Ohr and Steele were conspiring together to ensure that the latter could continue to be intimately
involved in the Mueller investigation, despite the FBI termination,
It is obviously possible that Ohr did not report up the chain of command, and if so, he and his wife become pivotal figures
in the conspiracy. Alternatively, it could be that Rosenstein is lying – in which case, we have large questions about who else
is implicated, and specifically whether the termination of Steele by the FBI was anything more than a ruse.
If, as seems to me likely, although not certain, the second possibility is closer to the truth than the former, then before
Ohr testifies on 28 August before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees he will have to consider whether he is prepared
to 'take the rap' for his superiors, or 'sing sweetly.'
The fact that in a report in 'The Hill', I think on the same day as the Attkisson piece, John Solomon was quoting from Ohr's
handwritten notes of a meeting with Glenn Simpson in December 2016 makes me wonder whether he may not already have made a decision.
A key paragraph from the report:
'Yet, Simpson allegedly acknowledged that most of the information Fusion GPS and British intelligence operative Christopher
Steele developed did not come from sources inside Moscow. "Much of the collection about the Trump campaign ties to Russia comes
from a former Russian intelligence officer (? not entirely clear) who lives in the U.S.," Ohr scribbled in his notes.'
There is I think a need for caution here. There is no guarantee that Simpson was telling the literal truth to Ohr, or indeed
the latter reproducing with absolute accuracy with he was told (handwritten notes can be disposed of easily, but they can also
be rewritten.)
One is I think on firmer ground in relation to what it suggests was not the case – that there is any substance whatsoever in
the ludicrous story of someone running a private security company in London sending out hired employees who then gain access to
top Kremlin insiders, with these, of course, telling them precisely what they actually think.
And it confirms my strong suspicion that the dossier is actually a composite product, much of it assembled at Fusion, which
could indeed contain material from a range of people from the former Soviet space, who could living in the United States, Britain,
or elsewhere – Ukraine and the Baltics being obvious possibilities.
So Sergei Skripal and Sergei Millian, neither of whom fit the description by Simpson, have been mentioned as possible sources,
and there is also the very curiously ambiguous role of Rinat Akhmetshin.
All these people, obviously, could simply have fabricated material or retailed gossip, and Steele himself was involved
in fabricating material on an industrial scale to cover up what actually happened to Alexander Litvinenko.
That said, I continue to think it possible that both the second and final memoranda may incorporate some 'glitter', as well
as 'chickenfeed' fed from FSB cybersecurity people to their FBI counterparts, to hark back to George Smiley says to the Minister,
quite possibly included in the hope that the BS involved would be reproduced in contexts where it could provoke legal action.
All this leads me back to the suspicion that Steele's involvement may have been less in crafting the dossier, than making
it possible to conceal its actual origins while giving it an appearance of credibility. It could also be the case that Nellie
Ohr's sudden interest in radio transmissions had to do with communications inside the United States, rather than with Steele.
It could then be that Steele has been, in effect, hoist with his own petard, in that he is having to sustain the fiction that
he had some kind of grounds for making the claims about Aleksej Gubarev and XBT. How far this matters, at least in relation to
the action bought against 'BuzzFeed' in Florida, remains moot at the moment.
Apparently that organisation is doing rather well in sustaining the claiming that 'fair report privilege' could circumvent
any requirement to prove truth – and a key question now is whether documents which the DOJ is being forced to produce will establish
that the dossier was being used by officials in ways that would trigger the privilege as of 10 January 2017.
That said, what Ohr reports Simpson as telling him raises fundamental questions about how anyone could have relied upon
the dossier for anything – and should push people back to actually asking hard questions about its origins.
Mr Habakkuk, you mention "ambiguous role of Rinat Akhmetshin" - I am not sure if you meant Akhmetov.
I am surprised and curious about you mentioning him - if you meant Akhmetov - because that is one name among all the oligarchs
which has so far not been prominent. Thank you for your posts, these posts and the SST comments could and should serve as help
to the congressional investigations and hearings.
To add: Steele was on the FBI's payroll, in addition to being on Fusion GPS's payroll. And on the payroll of Her Majesty's
Government. After he got caught leaking to the media he was apparently "fired" by the FBI. But he was continuing to communicate
and brief through Bruce Ohr at the DOJ.
I think the circle of Glenn Simpson. Chris Steele, Bruce & Nellie Ohr, Adam Waldman. Peter Strzok, and Sen. Mark Warner
will be very interesting to pursue.
The other circle that should be investigated is the Brennan, Clapper, Lynch, Comey, Yates, Susan Rice.
No investigation can exclude the active participation of key people from the media complex including people like Comey's
good friend Benjamin Wittes.
Younger isn't the brightest bulb in the box, is he?
"If you doubt the link between legitimacy and effective counter-terrorism, then – albeit negatively – the unfolding tragedy
in Syria will, I fear, provide proof. I believe the Russian conduct in Syria, allied with that of Assad's discredited regime,
will, if they do not change course, provide a tragic example of the perils of forfeiting legitimacy. In defining as a terrorist
anyone who opposes a brutal government, they alienate precisely that group that has to be on side if the extremists are to
be defeated. Meanwhile, in Aleppo, Russia and the Syrian regime seek to make a desert and call it peace. The human tragedy
is heart-breaking"
Those were indeed some of the most inane comments in an inane piece.
But then, if you read an interview given to Jay Elwes of 'Prospect' magazine in May last year by Younger's predecessor Sir
Richard Dearlove, who looks to have been a significant background presence in what has been going on, you will find that, although
he is much more coherent than than his successor, it is almost as inane.
As it happens, Dearlove was one of the signatories of the 'Statement of Principles' of something called the 'Henry Jackson
Society.'
This was founded in 2005, in Cambridge, by a group in whom acolytes of an historian called Maurice Cowling were prominent –
Dearlove is himself a graduate in history from that university.
In its original version, the 'Statement of Principles' explained, among other things, that the Society: 'Believes that
only modern liberal democratic states are truly legitimate, and that any international organization which admits undemocratic
states on an equal basis is fundamentally flawed.'
Ironically, it was shortly after the publication of the dossier that Anatol Lieven published in the 'National Interest'
an article entitled 'Is America Becoming a Third World Country?' (See
https://nationalinterest.or...
.)
Among other things, he harked back to the way that, in 1648, a century and a half of bloody ideological strife in Europe had
been ended with a recognition that the legitimacy of different state forms had to be accepted, if a kind of 'war of all against
all' was to be avoided.
And Lieven went on to reflect on the way that, at what was then widely seen as the end of the Cold War, the abandonment of
universalisitic pretensions by Russia and China was interpreted as justifying an embrace of these by the the West.
This, he went on to argue, had actually had the paradoxical effect of relegitimising 'régimes' which do not conform to Western
'democratic' models, concluding by noting what appears to our new, quasi-Soviet, preference for not letting experience interfere
with ideological dogma:
'Finally – even after the catastrophes of Iraq and Libya – there is almost no awareness among US policymakers of the fact that
US attempts to change the regimes of other countries are likely to be seen not only by the elites of those countries but also
by their populations as leading to – and intended to lead to – the destruction of the state itself, leading to disaster for its
society and population. When the Communist regime in the USSR collapsed (though only in part under Western pressure), it took
the Soviet state with it. The Russian state came close to following suit in the years that followed, Russia was reduced to impotence
on the world stage, and large parts of the Russian and other populations suffered economic and social disaster. Remembering their
own past experiences with state collapse, warlordism, famine and foreign invasion, Chinese people looked at this awful spectacle
and huddled closer to the Chinese state – one that they may dislike in many ways, but which they certainly trust more than anything
America has to offer – especially given the apparent decay of democracy throughout the West.'
I read with interest your piece back in June entitled 'Putin Once Dreamed the American Dream', reprinting Charles Heberle's
account of the 'Transforming Subjects Into Citizens' project, and the attitude of some people close to Putin to it.
One of the things which struck me was that the question why the American Revolution succeeded, and so many others failed, which
was concerning the intellectuals to whom Heberle talked, is one of the central questions of modern political thought, from Tocqueville
on.
(Indeed, the question of the preconditions for what might be called 'constitutional' government, has been central to 'republican'
thought, ever since it was revived by Italian thinkers, including prominently Machiavelli, when the 'Renaissance' made them reactivate
and rework debates from ancient Rome and Greece.)
However, to hark back to the anxieties expressed by Lieven, nothing in the analysis of the great French thinker necessary guarantees
that the success of 'Democracy in America' is stable and permanent, or indeed that the relatively civilised order of the post-war
'Pax Americana' is necessarily durable in Western Europe.
Also in June, Sergei Karaganov published a piece in 'Russia in Global Affairs', of which he is publisher, entitled 'Ideology
of Eastward Turn.' A paragraph that struck me:
'Russian society should by no means abdicate from its mostly European culture. But it should certainly stop being afraid,
let alone feel ashamed, of its Asianism. It should be remembered that from the standpoint of prevailing social mentality and
society's attitude to the authorities Russia, just as China and many other Asian states, are offspring of Chengiss Khan's Empire.
This is no reason for throwing up hands in despair or for beginning to despise one's own people, contrary to what many members
of intelligencia sometimes do. It should be accepted as a fact of life and used as a strength. The more so, since amid the
harsh competitive environment of the modern world the authoritarian type of government – in the context of a market economy
and equitable military potentials – is certainly far more effective than modern democracy. This is what our Western partners
find so worrisome. Of course, we should bear in mind that authoritarianism – just like democracy – may lead to stagnation and
degradation. Russia is certainly confronted with such a risk.'
Unlike you, I cannot claim serious expertise on Russia. But, as a reasonably alert generalist television current affairs producer,
I took note of the indications which were emerging in the course of 1987 that the Gorbachev 'new thinking' was underpinned by
a realisation that Soviet institutions and ideas had become fundamentally dysfunctional, to which you have referred repeatedly
over the years.
And, after long tedious months trying interest the powers that were in British broadcasting in what was happening, I ended
up producing a couple of programmes for BBC Radio in February/March 1989 in which we interviewed some of the leading 'new thinkers',
among them Karaganov's then immediate superior at the Institute of Europe, Vitaly Zhurkin.
At the Institute for the USA and Canada, by contrast, we did not interview its head, Georgiy Arbatov, but his deputy, Andrei
Kokoshin, and one of the latter's mentors on military matters and collaborators General-Mayor Valentin Larionov, who I later realised
had earlier been one of the foremost Soviet nuclear strategists. (At the Institute for World Economy and International Relations,
we interviewed Arbatov's son, Alexei.)
Talking to these people we got a sense, although it had to be fleshed out later, of the scale of the disillusion with Soviet
models, and indeed – which began to frighten me not long after – of the way many of them were romanticising the West.
What Karaganov now writes is I think a hardly very surprising reaction to the way that the Western powers responded to the
'new thinking.' Moreover, it seems to me that the disillusionment involved is in no sense particular Russian, but rather global.
If one regards 'democracy' as though it were quoted on the stock exchange, before 1914 there were very many buyers, including
among the Russian élite. By 1931, in very many places, including large sections of the 'intelligentsia' in Western countries,
it was a sellers' market, to put it mildly.
After 1945, a kind of long 'bull market' in 'democracy' started: for very good reasons.
The – largely but very far from entirely – peaceful retreat and collapse of Soviet power was to a very significant extent the
product of this. The subsequent behaviour of Western élites has generated a vicious 'bear market', a fact they appear unable to
understand.
I do not think Karaganov's article is simply a reflection of changes in Russian attitudes. The changes, it seems to me,
are global.
I do think that we in the West really blew it. In 1990, we could have said, in all humility, that our way of life (IMO
the key word is pluralism) had proven more survivable. So we should welcome the others into the tent. Instead, we were right and
that was that.
PS, in light of the Henry Jackson society and all Younger's references to "values" this one rather stands out "A vital lesson
I take from the Chilcot Report is the danger of group think."
Yeah. Group think, the very opposite of what I mean by pluralism.
Sharyl Atkinson describes well the conspiracy. When one steps back and look at all the machinations we know now, it seems incredible.
Just as you're asking about the origins of the dossier I wonder if it was orchestrated or something that evolved organically?
If it was orchestrated, then who was the mastermind? Did Brennan, Clapper and Come sit down and hatch it or was Simpson the brains?
What is astounding is the scale. So many people involved. Were they all motivated by ideology or by the need to protect their
racket?
It seems there are many sub-plots. There's the Deripaska, Steele, Waldman, Mueller, Sen. Warner angle. Then there's the
Simpson, Steele, Ohr, Strzok, Page, McCabe angle. There's also the Simpson, Steele, media reporters angle. Then there's the whole
Mifsud, Halper, Carter Page, Papadopolous, Downer bit. There's the Comey, Rosenstein, Yates, Strzok FISA application piece. Then
there's all the stuff happening in the UK including Hannigan's resignation as soon as Trump is elected. Of course the whole Mueller
appointment and the obstruction of justice thread to tie Trump's hand. There are so many elements. Who initiated and coordinated?
Was each element separate?
There's no doubt a political thriller movie could be made.
I guess the comedy part is that there actually exist people with medically functioning brains, who are somehow able to contort
such a worldview...Aleppo as peaceful 'desert' indeed...who knew that having bearded fanatics in charge is somehow 'better'...[and
not 'heart-breaking']...
Some here may find blogpost from March of this year interesting as it speaks to the production of the Steele dossier. I have
not seen it mentioned here before and a site search produced no results.
https://apelbaum.wordpress....
Some sections seem to have gotten David Cay Johnston's hackles up.
I had seen Yaacov Apelbaum's piece referred to by Clarice Feldman in a post on the 'American Thinker' site a few days back,
but not looked at it properly.
It is indeed fascinating, and clearly repays a closer study than I have so far had time to give it. I was however relieved
to find that what Apelbaum writes 'meshes' quite well with my own views of the likely authorship of the dossier.
A question I have is whether the monumental amount of labour involved in producing it can really be the work of a single IT
person – however wide-ranging his abilities and interests. My suspicion is that there may be input from Russian intelligence.
This is not said in order to discredit Apelbaum's work. In matters where I have had occasion critically to examine claims from
official Russian sources, I have found several unsurprising, but recurring, patterns. Sometimes, the information provided can
be shown to be essentially accurate, and it is reasonably clear how it has been obtained.
At other times, claims are made which information from other sources suggests either are, or may well be, true, but the 'sources
and methods' involved are deliberately obscured, making evaluation more difficult.
And then, there are many occasions when what one gets is quite patently a mixture of accurate information and disinformation.
Analysing these can be very productive, if one can both sift out the accurate information, and attempt to see what the disinformation
is designed to obscure.
One thing of which I am absolutely certain is that the networks which are outlined by Apelbaum are precisely those which Russian
intelligence will have spent a great deal of time and ingenuity penetrating.
This will have been attempted by 'SIGINT' and surveillance methods, and also through infiltrating agents and turning people.
(There are often grounds to suspect that some of those most vociferously denouncing Putin are colluding with Russian intelligence.)
Together, these methods are likely to have produced a mass of information. It is important to remember, for example, that
at the time of his mysterious death on 23 March 2013 Boris Berezovsky was negotiating to return to Russia, and that his head of
security, Sergei Sokolov did return, with a 'cache' of documents.
Some of these were used back in April 2016 in a 'Vesti Nedeli' edition presented by Dmitry Kiselyov, who manages Russia's informational
programming resources, and an accompanying documentary on the 'Pervyi Kanal' station.
The purpose was to demonstrate that Alexei Navalny was the instrument of a 'régime change' plot in which William Browder was
acting as an agent of MI6.
There is a good discussion of this, which highlights some of the problems with the documents, by Gilbert Doctorow, and Sokolov
appears to have been involved in some murky activities since.
But whatever the credibility or lack of it of the material, its appearance illustrates a general pattern, where the political
disintegration of the London-based opposition to Putin has meant that more and more people involved in it have been supplying
information to the Russians.
If, as I strongly suspect, there is fire beneath the smoke in those Russian television programmes, and if a great part of a
series of projects of a related kind orchestrated in conjunction by elements in American and British intelligence were actually
large run from this side, this will be creating headaches for people in Washington, as well as London.
An important role in the Apelbaum piece is played by the private security company Hakluyt. A quick look at the entries
on Wikipedia and Powerbase will make clear that, if there is a British 'deep state', this is likely to be at its core.
It is against this background that on has to see a specific claim which Apelbaum makes, for which I do not think any evidence
is produced, about two figures whose role in 'Russiagate' is clearly central. So Luke Harding is described as 'A Guardian reporter
and a Hakluyt and Orbis contractor' (note word.) Meanwhile, Edward Baumgartner is described as 'Co-founder of Edward Austin. Contractor
at Orbis and Hakluyt.'
That Harding is corrupt, as also Sir Robert Owen's 'Inquiry' into the death of the late Alexander Litvinenko, I can prove.
When Owen's report was published in January 2016, a preliminary response by me was posted here on SST, which among other things
listed some of the evidence establishing that the interviews supposedly recorded with Litvinenko by Detective Inspector Brent
Hyatt immediately before his death were blatant forgeries.
If this is the case, then questions are raised about how much of the apparently compelling forensic evidence is forged – and
close examination suggests that key parts of it are.
In relation to that part of the evidence discussed in my January 2016 post which exposes the fumbling attempts by Steele
and his colleagues to cover up the truth about when and how Litvinenko travelled into central London on the day he was supposedly
killed, most of this had been among a mass of material submitted by me to the Inquiry Team, which I have e-mails to prove was
read.
Likewise, also in January 2016, I sent the key relevant evidence on this crucial matter to Harding and senior figures at the
'Guardian', and have reason to believe it was read.
Further study of Owen's report has confirmed my suspicion that a strong 'prima facie case' of conspiracy to pervert the
course of justice exists against very many of those involved in it.
At the same time, materials produced on the Russian side have confirmed my suspicion that the reason why Steele and others
have been able to get away with their cover-up is that the Russian intelligence services are no more enthusiastic than their British
counterparts about having anything like the whole truth about how Litvinenko lived and died made public.
Given the central role which Steele has now assumed in what looks like one of the biggest political scandals in American history,
and the fact that in his book 'Collusion' Harding was again coming out in support of him, it would be of the greatest possible
interest if indeed the latter had combined being a senior 'Guardian' correspondent with being paid by both Orbis and – even more
important – Hakluyt.
And, particularly given the peculiar ambiguities of the role both of Fusion GPS and Baumgartner in the 'Trump Tower' meeting,
it would be of great interest if the latter could be tied not only to Fusion, but to Orbis and – again even more important – Hakluyt.
This in turn might be relevant in trying to make sense of whether the fact that he and Simpson appear to have been working
against Trump and Browder at the same time was or was not part of an elaborate ploy to give credibility to 'information operations'
against the former.
There are accordingly two possibilities. It may be that, while much else in the Apelbaum material can be shown to be accurate,
such accurate information is being used to give credibility to disinformation.
Alternatively, he is being used as a conduit for accurate and really explosive information about the British end of 'Russiagate',
which he is unlikely to have unearthed all by himself, and the actual sources of which are – for very understandable reasons –
being obscured.
Thank you for your reply. You have given me much to think about and I am very grateful that you took the time to respond in
such a comprehensive manner, and that you have provided me and others here with some really compelling information and notions.
In particular, the issue of sources and methods you note seems spot on. The author(s)'s information gathering methodologies
and expertise are certainly not those of the laiety. In fact in the comments below his post YA mentions intelligence work.
Additionally, the text itself displays an odd parallelism with his assertion regarding the Steele Dossier- that is, the
likelihood of multiple authors, of diverse origins.
One thing that did catch my eye was a response he made to David Cay Johnston's pissy request for a retraction about Jacoby
involvement. YA included a quote in Latin from Cicero's accusations against Cataline. Here is the English: What is there that
you did last night, what the night before -- where is it that you were -- who was there that you summoned to meet you -- what
design was there which was adopted by you, with which you think that any one of us is unacquainted?
While this sort of riposte isn't exactly hyper-erudite, it ain't chopped liver either. What I mean to say is that exceptional
cyber skills, algorithm coding (I'm guessing crawlers) are not commonly coupled with that sort of classical formation. His recourse
to various biblical quotes suggests an unusual level of education as well. And no way is he younger than 38 or so.
At any rate, thank you for the article and your kind and informative reply.
Thanks. I have now read both a good few of Apelbaum's earlier posts, and also the comments on his discussion of the dossier.
Given the importance of his analysis of that document closer study is clearly needed of all this material, but I have some preliminary
reactions.
My curiosity about who Apelbaum might be is reinforced by the fact that the intimations he gives about his background in
his responses to comments, while not incompatible with what he has said in the past, do not sit so easily with it.
In a July 2010 post, he explained that: 'In my previous life, I was a civil engineer. I worked for a large power marine construction
company doing structural design and field engineering.' According to the account he gave then, he subsequently shifted to software
development.
What he now tells us is that: 'As far as how I first started, I do have an intelligence background and have been developing
OSINT/cyber/intelligence platforms for many years.'
That makes sense in terms of the analysis, which – whatever other inputs there may or may not have been – looks to me like
the work of someone who has a serious background in these kinds of methodology, and moreover, is clearly not any kind of 'Fachidiot.'
So, questions naturally arise about Apelbaum's intelligence career, in particular, who he is likely to have been employed
by, and associated with, in the past, and whether he is still involved with any of those agencies which have employed him.
Even if he is not, questions would obviously rise about present connections arising from past work. This is in addition to
the possibility that the logic of events may have provoked him to collaborate with those who might earlier have been his adversaries.
Reading Apelbaum's work, I am reminded of another interesting intervention in an embittered argument relating to the Middle
East and the post-Soviet space, from what turned out to be an unexpected source.
In the period following the 'false flag' sarin attack at Ghouta on 21 August 2013 an incisive demolition of the conventional
wisdom was provided in the 'crowdsourced' investigation masterminded by one 'sasa wawa' on a site entitled 'Who Attacked Ghouta?'
And then, in December 2016, an Israeli high technology entrepreneur called Saar Wilf, a former employee of Unit 8200, that
country's equivalent of the NSA or GCHQ, who had subsequently made a great deal of money when he and his partner sold their company
to Paypal, co-founded a site called 'Rootclaim.'
The site, it was explained, was dedicated to applying Bayesian statistics to 'current affairs' problems. This is a methodology,
whose modern form owes much to work done at Bletchley Park in the war, which is invaluable in 'SIGINT' analysis and also combating
online fraud.
At the outset, 'Rootclaim' posted a recycled version of some of the key material from the 'Who Attacked Ghouta?' investigation.
So, it seems likely, if not absolutely certain, that Saar Wilf and 'sasa wawa' are one and the same.
Following the Salisbury incident on 4 March, a blogger using the name 'sushi' produced a series of eleven posts under the title
'A Curious Incident' on the 'Vineyard of the Saker' blog.
Again, there are some very clear resemblances to 'sasa wawa' and Saar Wilf, which made me wonder whether the same person may
be reappearing under yet another 'moniker.'
While the 'flavour' of Apelbaum seems to be different, the combination of what looks like serious technical expertise in IT
techniques relating to intelligence with broad general intellectual interests looks to me similar.
I was amused by the combination of his quotation of the words from John 8:32 etched into the wall of the original CIA headquarters
– 'And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free' – and the following remarks:
'The June 2016 start date of Steele's contract with Fusion GPS is the start of the "billable" activity, not the beginning of
the research. Steele and Simpson/Jacoby have been collaborating on Trump/Russia going back to 2009.
'Also, there is a large Hakluyt/Orbis "commercial intelligence" network in the US that regularly services political and
federal agencies and has the power to summon Nazgűls the likes of John Brennan. So Steele is not the new kid on the block, he
has been doing this type of work long before 2016. This is also why he has such a cozy relationship with the brass at the DOJ
and state.'
As it happens, I think that many of the collaborations involved may have started significantly earlier than this. In his response
to David Cay Johnston, Apelbaum links to an April 2007' WSJ' article by Simpon and Jacoby which, among other things, deals with
Semyon Mogilevich.
This is behind a paywall, but, fortunately, the fact that Ukrainian nationalists have had an obvious interest in treating it
as a source of reliable information has meant that it is easily accessible.
It should I think be clear from my January 2016 post why I find this particularly interesting, in that it has to be interpreted
in the context of a crucial 'key' to the mystery of the death of Alexander Litvinenko.
This is that he, the Ukrainian nationalist former KGB person Yuri Shvets, the convicted Italian disinformation peddler
Mario Scaramella, and quite possibly the sometime key FBI expert on Mogilevich, Robert 'Bobby' Levinson, were involved in trying
to suggest that Mogilevich was an instrument of a plot by Putin to equip Al Qaeda with a 'mini nuclear bomb.'
So, I then come back to the question of whether this notion of a 'large Haluyt/Orbis "commercial intelligence" network in the
US', playing the role of Sauron with Brennan, perhaps, as the 'Witch-king of Angmar', does or does not have substance.
If it does, there would be very good reasons for a variety of people, with a range of different attitudes to events in the
post-Soviet space and the Middle East, to think that they had an interest in collaborating with Russian intelligence against a
common enemy.
If it does not, then there is a real possibility that Apelbaum may be involved in using accurate intelligence to disseminate
inaccurate. (It seems to me that he is much too intelligent to be a plausible candidate for the role of 'useful idiot.')
One further point that may, or may not, be relevant. Many of the most influential American and British Jews, for reasons which
I find somewhat hard to understand, seem to have decided that the heirs of the architects of the Lvov pogrom are nice and cuddly.
So, for example, Chrystia Freeland, the unrepentant granddaughter of the notorious Nazi collaborator Michael Chomiak, has been
able to end up as Canadian Foreign Minister because made a successful journalistic career on the London 'Financial Times', a paper
with a strong Jewish presence.
That the editorial staff of such a paper thought it appropriate to have someone like Freeland as their Moscow correspondent
gives you a good insight into how moronic British élites have become. This may well be relevant, in trying to evaluate claims
about Hakluyt and other matters.
In relation to Apelbaum, it may be quite beside the point that other Jews from a Russian/East European background, both in
Russia, Israel, and the United States, have very different views on Ukraine, Russia, and the dangers posed – not least to Israel
– by jihadists. It is however a fact which needs to be born in mind, when one comes across people whose views cut across conventional
dividing lines in the United States and Britain.
Beside the point in relation to Apelbaum, I am confident, but also needing to be kept in mind, is the possibility that elements
in the United States 'intelligence community', seeing the 'writing on the wall', may think it appropriate to shift from trying
to pass the buck by blaming the Russians to doing so by blaming the Brits.
It seems apparent that Putin's reordering of the Russian economy after the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management, Republic
Bank's difficulites and the death of Edmund Safra left a bitter taste in the mouths of many who had hoped to exercise rentier
rights over the Russian economy and resources. Why so much US resources and energy have been committed to recovering a contested
deed is a real conundrum.
I was unaware of Freeland's grandfather and his lamentable CV. Thank you. It's funny that you mentioned both the Ghouta post
and the Vineyard of the Saker. I recall reading those and thinking- this is not like common fare on the intertubes.
Your last points about failings in the quality of elite decision-making is extremely important. This dynamic of the dumb (US,
UK, EU) at the wheel is, for me, the most frightening feature of the current state of play. In the worst moments I fear we are
all on a bus driven by a drunk monkey, careening through the Andes. It's going to hurt all the way to the bottom.
Again, I am very grateful for your replies and all the great information and thought.
I think the question of why large elements in both American and British élites got so heavily invested, in essence, in supporting
the oligarchs who refused Putin's terms in what turned into a kind of 'bare knuckles' struggle they were always likely to lose
is a very interesting one.
It has long seemed to me that, even if one looked at matters from the most self-interested and cynical point of view, this
represented a quite spectacular error of judgement. And, viewing the way in which 'international relations' are rearranging themselves,
I am reasonably confident that this was one matter on which I got things right.
A central reason for this, I have come to think, is that Berezovsky and the 'information operations' people round him – Litvinenko
is important, but the pivotal figure, the 'mastermind', if you will, was clearly Alex Goldfarb, and Yuri Shvets and Yuri Felshtinsky
both played and still play important supporting roles – were telling people in the West what these wanted to hear.
It is a truth if not quite 'universally acknowledged', at least widely recognised by those who have acquired some 'worldly
wisdom', that intellectually arrogant people, with limited experience of the world and a narrow education, can commonly be 'led
by the nose' by figures who have more of the relevant kinds of intelligence and experience, and few scruples.
This rather basic fact is central to understanding the press conference on 31 May 2007 where the figure whom the Berezovsky
group and Christopher Steele had framed in relation to the death of Litvinenko, Andrei Lugovoi, responded to the Crown Prosecution
Service request for his extradition.
In his prepared statement, Lugovoi claimed that his supposed victim used to say that everyone in Britain were ''retards',
to use the translation submitted in evidence to Owen's Inquiry, or 'idiots', to use that by RT. And according to this version,
the British believed in everything that 'we' – that is, the Berezovky group – said was happening in Russia.
Whether or not Litvinenko expressed this cynical contempt, the credulity with which the claims of the 'information operations'
people around Berezovsky have been accepted – well illustrated by Owen's report and perhaps most ludicrous in Harding's journalism
– makes clear it is justified.
What moreover became very evident, when Glenn Simpson testified to the House Intelligence and Senate Judiciary Committees,
was that he was once again recycling the Berezovsky's group's version of Putin 'sistema' as the 'return of Karla.'
Given what has been emerging on the ways in which Fusion GPS and Steele were both integrated into networks involving top-level
people in the FBI, DOJ, State Department and CIA, it seems clear that the 'retards'/'idiots' label is as applicable to people
on your side as to people on ours.
Perhaps then, cartoons about Trump as a puppet, with the strings pulled by another puppet representing Manafort, whose
strings are in turn pulled by Putin, should be replaced by ones in which Mueller is seen as a puppet manipulated by the ghost
of Boris Berezovsky.
But that is the irony. The relationship with Berezovsky blew up in the faces of all concerned, when in the wake of the
successsful corruption of the investigation into the death of Litvinenko by him and his 'information operations' people, he attempted
to recoup his fortunes by suing Roman Abramovich, and got taken to pieces by Lord Sumption.
As to what happened next, a recent item on 'Russian Insider', providing a link to and transcript of a more recent piece presented
by Dmitry Kiselyov on 'Vesti Nedeli is a good illustration of where accurate information and disinformation can be mixed in material
from Russian sources.
The piece, which appeared in July, discusses, and quotes from, an interview given the previous month to Dmitry Gordon, who
runs a Ukrainian nationalist site, by Berezovsky's daughter Elizaveta. Among other things, this deals with Berezovsky's death.
(See
https://gordonua.com/public...
. A little manipulation will get you a reasonably serviceable English translation, although
it becomes comic because Berezovsky is referred to as 'pope'.)
The 'Vesti Nedeli' piece uses what Elizaveta Berezovskaya says in support of the claim that Berezovsky was murdered by
British 'special forces', because he was planning to return to Russia, and he 'knew too much about them.'
As it happens, this is a patently tendentious reading of what she says. However, interesting features of the actual text of
the interview are 1. that it does provide what to my mind is compelling evidence that her father was murdered, and 2. while she
clearly suggests that this was covered up by the British, she is not suggesting that they were responsible – but also not making
Putin 'prime suspect.'
Whether the suggestion by his daughter that her father might have been murdered by people who knew that by so doing they might
get control of assets he might otherwise recoup has any merit I cannot say: I doubt it but cannot simply rule the possibility
out.
What remains the case is that at that point there were very many people, including but in no way limited to elements in Western
intelligence agencies, who had strong interests in avoiding a return by Berezovsky to Russia.
And the same people had the strongest possible interest in avoiding his being treated at the Inquest into Litvinenko's death
by a competent barrister representing the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in the way he had been treated by
Lord Sumption.
Ironically, it may have been partly because Lugovoi had made a dramatic announcement that he was withdrawing from the proceedings
less than a fortnight before Berezovsky's death that before this happened a lot of people were staring at an absolutely worst-case
scenario.
Time and again, in Owen's report, one finds matters where he recycles patent disinformation, which a well-briefed barrister
acting for the ICRF could have easily ripped to shreds. At the same time, in this situation, the Russians could most probably
have made a reasonable fist of coping with the multiple contradictions in claims made on their own side.
And, crucially, their patent weak suit – the need to obscure the actual role of Russian intelligence in the smuggling of the
polonium into London, which had nothing to do with any murder plot – could have been reasonably well 'covered.'
Precisely because of these facts, the one scenario which can very easily be completely ruled out is that which is basic to
the 'information operations' now coming out of London and Washington. In this, Berezovsky's death is portrayed as a key element
in a systematic attempt by the Putin 'sistema' to eradicate the supposedly heroic opposition, much of it located in London.
That sustaining this fable is critical to defending the credibility of Steele, and therefore of the whole 'Russiagate' narrative,
is quite evident from the 'From Russia With Blood' materials published by 'BuzzFeed' in July last year.
This, however, leads on to a paradox, which is highlighted by a piece posted by James George Jatras on the 'Strategic Culture
Foundation' site on 18 August, entitled 'Have You Committed Your Three Felonies Today?'
Among the points Jatras – who I think is an Orthodox Christian – makes is that the logic of contesting the 'Russiagate' narrative
has had some strange consequences. Among these, there is one on which the actual history of the activities of Berezovsky and his
'information operations' people bears directly:
'Flipping the "Russians did it" narrative: Among the President's defenders, on say Fox News, no less than among his detractors,
Russia is the enemy who (altogether now!) "interfered in our elections" in order to "undermine our democracy." Mitt Romney was
right! The only argument is over who was the intended beneficiary of Muscovite mendacity, Trump or Hillary – that's the variable.
The constant is that Putin is Hitler and only a traitor would want to get along with him. All sides agree that the Christopher
Steele dossier is full of "Russian dirt" – though there's literally zero actual evidence of Kremlin involvement but a lot pointing
to Britain's MI6 and GCHQ.'
For reasons I have already discussed, I think what while Jatras is substantially right, 'zero evidence' is only partially correct:
It seems to me that disinformation supplied by elements in Russian intelligence could quite possibly have found its way into the
second and final memoranda.
That said, Jatras has pointed to a fundamental feature of the current situation, which involves multiple ironies.
The total destruction of Steele's credibility could easily be achieved by anyone who was interested in looking at the evidence
about the life and death of the late Alexander Litvinenko seriously. However, because a central tactic of most of those who are
attacking the 'Russiagate' narrative has generally been 'Flipping the "Russians did it" narrative', they are like people who ought
to be able to see Steele's 'Achilles' heel', but in practice, often end up attacking him where his armour is, without being, not
at its weakest.
Meanwhile, as I have already stressed, the ability of the Russian authorities to undermine the 'narrative' produced by the
'information operations' people around Berezovsky, of whom the most important are Alex Goldfarb and Yuri Shvets, is compromised
by their fear of having to 'own up to' their actual role in the smuggling of the polonium into London in October-November 2007.
The person who had a strong interest in blowing this structure of illusion to pieces was actually Lugovoi. But it seems to
me at least possible that there has been a kind of disguised covert conspiracy by elements in Western and Russian intelligence
to ensure there was no risk of him doing so.
One of the things I've never understood about the Trump Dossier story is the lack of any forensic analysis of its content
and style anywhere in the media, even the alt media. Who was supposed to have actually written it? Steele? The style does not
match someone of his background and education, and the formatting and syntax were atrocious. The font actually varied from "report"
to "report." It certainly did not give me the impression of being the product of a high-end, Belgravia consultancy.
I wonder whether it was produced by an American of one sort or another and then "laundered" by being accorded association
with the UK firm. Given that Steele just happened to be hired by the USG to help in the anti-FIFA skulduggery, he and his firm
seem very much to be a concern that does dirty little jobs that need discretely to be done, though in this case, the discretion
was undermined.
Most of the memos were issued before October and Fusion/Simpson authorized Steele to release information to the FBI starting
in July. The question is why the memos were released after the election when a release before the election would have been enough
to sink Trump. Instead the FBI and presumably those paying Fusion on Hillarys behalf sat on it, and Comey comes out days before
the election
Saying he was reopening the HC email investigation.
Kind of looks like they all wanted Trump in office and the disclosure was to give Trump the excuse needed to back track
on his promises to improve relations with Russia and blame that on pressure from the Deep State and Russia Gate.
Looking at Trumps history with Sater (FBI/CIA asset) and his political aspirations that began following his Moscow visit
in 1987 it seems likely Trump has been a Deep State asset for 30 years and fed intelligence to CIA/FBI on Russian oligarchs and
mafia . Indeed he may well have duped Russians into believing he was working for them when in fact it was the CIA/FBI who had
the best Kompromat with US RICO laws that could have beggared him
One thing to remember about the FBI is Sy Hersh. Hersh claims the FBI has been sitting on a report for two years that fingers
murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the Wikileaks DNC email leaker (or one of them, at least.)
Now can we imagine that not everyone in a senior position at the FBI knows about that report? I can't. Literally everyone from
the supervisor of the Special Agent or computer forensic investigator who examined Rich's computer right up to the Director HAD
to know that report exists - and covered it up.
That right there is obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Literally everyone at the FBI who can't PROVE he didn't know about
that report will be going to jail. The entire top administration of the FBI is going to go down.
And how many people at the Department of Justice are aware of that report? Did Rosenstein know? Who else in the Obama administration
knew?
That would be motivation for a lot of desperate maneuvering. Add to that who was really behind the Steele Dossier and even
more people are likely to end up in jail.
You haven't heard that yet? It's the infamous audio tape that Hersh was caught on discussing it. He's since obfuscated what
he said, but the tape stands on its own, and he has never said that anything he said on the tape wasn't true, despite that a lot
of Democrats and Trump-bashers claim he has.
I have told you several times and I will tell you again probably hopelessly that Hersh PERSONALLY has told me that the "tape"
was made without his permission or knowledge when he was aimlessly speculating on possibilities.
I am unaware of your explicitly telling me that he personally told you that the tape was "aimless speculation." My apologies
if I missed that response.
Of course the tape was made without his permission. We all know that. It's irrelevant to what he said on the tape.
What I'm saying is that despite what he may have told you, nothing on that tape sounds like "aimless speculation".
When you consider that he has four good reasons for dissembling about the tape, I view it as far more likely that everything
he said was true.
1) If what he said is true, he may have compromised his FBI contact. Not good for his line of work.
2) If what he said is true, compromising that contact may well make all his other contacts wary about talking to him in the
future - a bad deal for a journalist who relies on his contacts.
3) If what he said is true, he may have compromised his ability to get his "long form journalism" article published - a problem
he already has had in the past.
4) If what he said is true, he's accusing the FBI of sitting on that report for two years, which might well make him a target
of retaliation in some way.
If you believe that everything he said on the tape is untrue and that is what he explicitly told you, fine. I'm waiting for
his "long form journalism" report to explain it. So far everything he has said publicly about it has not contradicted what he
said on the tape, but merely waved his hands about it.
Sy Hersh talks a lot both loudly and profanely. He never intended to tell Buttowski that there was more than a possibility
that the FBI held more than a rumor that this might be true. He talked to Buttowski because a mutual friend of him and me asked
him to do so for no good reason. Please go talk to all the other people you pester and not on SST. You are an argumentative nuisance.
I have no stake in the debate about Rich, DNC, wikileaks. But I do notice some loose ends. Hersh may well have engaged in speculation, but it is interesting speculation:
quote: 55. During his conversation with Butowsky, Mr. Hersh claimed that he had received information from an "FBI report." Mr. Hersh
had not seen the report himself, but explained: "I have somebody on the inside who will go and read a file for me. And I know
this person is unbelievably accurate and careful. He's a very high level guy."
56. According to Mr. Hersh, his source told him that the FBI report states that, shortly after Seth Rich's murder, the D.C.
police obtained a warrant to search his home. When they arrived at the home, the D.C. police found Seth Rich's computer, but were
unable to access it.The computer was then provided to the D.C. police Cyber Unit, who also were unable to access the computer.
At that point, the D.C. police contacted the Cyber Unit at the FBI's Washington D.C. field office. Again, according to the supposed
FBI report, the Washington D.C. field office was able to get into the computer and found that in "late spring early summer [2016],
[Seth Rich][made] contact with Wikileaks." "They found what he had done. He had submitted a series of documents, of emails. Some
juicy emails from the DNC." Mr. Hersh told Butowsky that Seth Rich "offered a sample [to WikiLeaks][,] an extensive sample, you
know I'm sure dozens, of emails, and said I want money." . . . "I hear gossip," Hersh tells NPR on Monday. "[Butowsky] took two and two and made 45 out of it."
. . . The clip is definitely worth listening to in its entirety if you haven't already. Hersh is heard telling Butowsky that he had
a high-level insider read him an FBI file confirming that Seth Rich was known to have been in contact with WikiLeaks prior to
his death, which is not even a tiny bit remotely the same as having "heard rumors". Hersh's statements in the audio recording
and his statement to NPR cannot both be true. endquote https://medium.com/@caityjo...
You may very well be right. There may be a large element of 'amateur night out' about this.
But then I come back to the question of who decided that the dossier be published, and who, if anyone, was consulted before
the decision was made. For the reasons I gave, I am reasonably confident that those on this side who had been in one way or another
complicit in its production and covert dissemination were taken aback by the publication.
It is not clear to me whether anything significant can be inferred from the publicly available evidence about whether those
on your side who had been complicit were involved in the decision to publish without taking even elementary precautions, or whether
the 'Buzzfeed' people just had a rush of blood to the head.
I suspect the decision to publish the dossier was political. It was required to enable Clapper, Brennan, and others to
opine on national media and create further media hysteria prior to the vote as well as to justify the counter-intelligence investigations
underway. They were throwing the kitchen sink to sink Trump's electoral chances. I don't think a lot of thought was given about
the legal ramifications.
This seems to be a pattern. Leak information. Then use the leaked story to justify actions like apply for a FISA warrant
or fan the media flames.
And now they are turning on one another. Hayden just slammed Clapper for making too much of losing the security clearance the
he abuse for political reasons.
Looks like both Clapper and Haydon made the same comment about Brennan. they said "his rhetoric was becoming a problem. Ah,
the USAF intel rats are swimming for the shore. Lets see how many others (not all USAF) decide to try to save themselves.
I find it incredulous that former leaders of the intelligence and law enforcement agencies have gained paid access to powerful
media platforms and they have used it to launch vicious attacks on a POTUS.
I find it amazing that McCabe and Peter Strzok are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars on social media platforms.
IMO, everyone on the list that Sarah Sanders noted, should not just lose their clearance but should be testifying to a grand
jury.
Not really incredulous. Just expected behavior from swamp creatures whose self-assumed importance and "rights" (that the rest
of us peasants don't have) are coming under threat.
It seems to me absolutely appalling, and I am also appalled that people on this side appear to have been playing a central
role in all this.
One question. It seems to me that if what seems likely to be true does prove true, a range of these people must have committed
very serious offences indeed.
However, I am too ignorant to know what precisely those offences might be. If you, or anyone else, had a clear understanding,
I would be interested.
"It seems to me absolutely appalling, and I am also appalled that people on this side appear to have been playing a central
role in all this."
That says it all. We got the more discreditable side of the affair outsourced to us. Ugh. Is that all we're fit for now in
the UK? White helmets and Khan Sheikhoun and Steele, all the scrubby stuff? Is that what the famous "Special Relationship" now
consists of? We get to do the scrubby stuff because it's what we're fit for and we can be relied upon to keep it quiet?
Because at least on the American side there are people concerned about the political/PR involvement of parts of their own Intelligence
Community, and seeking to have it looked into. Here - am I right? - it's dead silence.
I've been permitted to say before on SST that I don't think the Americans are going to resolve this affair satisfactorily until
more light is cast on the UK side. But I also think that, for our own sakes, we should be looking at what exactly our IC does,
and in particular, how much UK political involvement there was in what is now clear was a direct PR attack on an American President.
I'm not a lawyer and have no experience with the federal criminal statutes. Having said that I suspect that the following could
be considered crimes:
intentionally misleading FISC
perjury
leaking classified information
launching investigations on the basis of known false information
surveillance of US citizens on the basis of false information
conspiracy to subvert the constitution
sedition/treason
There may also be certain professional agreements with the government that may have been violated. The only way any of these
people will face a grand jury is if Donald Trump chooses to take action. Left to the natural devices of the law enforcement institutions
nothing will happen and they will sweep everything under the rug. The intensity of Trump's tweets and the accusations therein
are rising. If the GOP retains the House and Jim Jordan becomes speaker, then there may be a possibility that Sessions, Rosenstein
and Wray may be fired and another special counsel appointed who will then convene a grand jury.
Considering what has been uncovered by Congressional investigators and the DOJ IG, I am truly surprised that Sessions has resisted
the appointment of a special counsel. But of course that could go the way of the Owens inquiry in your country.
"... there is strong support for egalitarian populist redistributive public policy. ..."
"... His positions against illegal immigration and free trade also beat Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton was a very experienced and savvy politician but she was tied to NAFTA thru her husband. And the Democratic party's defense of allowing ANY foreigner to walk across our borders without ANY sort of background check whatsoever, and remain in the country, was a losing proposition. ..."
"... Labor unions can claw back the "missing 10%" of overall income that a unionless labor market has squeezed out of the bottom 40% of earners; raising the bottom 40% back to 20% income share -- through higher consumer prices at Target, Walgreen's, etc. ..."
"... if fast food can pay $15/hr with 33% (!) labor costs, Target('s consumers) can easily pay $20/hr with 12% labor costs and Walmart('s consumers) can easily pay $25/hr with 7% labor costs. ..."
"... Your description of Republicans is spot on. However, other than their maniacal obsession with divisive identity politics, Democrats are hardly much better given the that they ALSO kowtow to the Wall Street and the wealthy. Neither major party represents working people–it just too bad that working people allow themselves to be forever divided by two corrupt political parties who view them with little but contempt. ..."
"... In other words Dems lost their legitimacy, identify politics did not work this time as well as in the past. I would say that the whole neoliberal elite lost its legitimacy. That's why Russiagate was launched, and Neo-McCarthyism hysteria was launched by Podesta and friends to cement those cracks that divide the USA. ..."
"... The Dem Party became a grab bag of identity groups. But this election the dominant was anti-globalization discourse, and Dems suffered a humiliating defeat. With Republican Party grabbing the the tool they created. The collies of small town America led to collapse of Dems. ..."
"... People do vote against their economic interest ("What the matter with Kansas" situation). But the level of alienation of working and lower middle class is really extreme. The opioid epidemic is just one sign of this. So Trump election was just a middle finger to the neoliberal elite. ..."
"... We actually do not have left in the USA. Because there is no real discussion about neoliberalism and alternatives. Bernie called himself "democratic socialist'. Which was at least in sense transformational. But that's it. Bernie is not anti-war and anti-American empire. ..."
As should already be clear from existing polls ( click and search for "fair" ), there is strong
support for egalitarian populist redistributive public policy.
At Data For Progress, they chose
to emphasize the positive -- four proposals with overwhelming support, but I think it is just
as striking that opinion is almost equally split on a top marginal income tax rate of 90% (2%
more oppose than support) and universal basic income (2% more oppose than support).
In particular, a (very narrow) plurality of whites without a bachelors degree support a
universal basic income. One way to summarize the results is that pundits' guesses about public
opinion match the opinions of college educated whites (surprise surprise). That is the group
least enthusiastic about universal basic income (by far) (OK I admit I am white and have
university degrees so I should say "we are" but like hell i'm going to be classed with my
fellow White American College educated opponents of UBI).
JimH , August 2, 2018 9:59 am
"The key question for Democrats (and the USA) is why did most of a group of people more of
whom support than oppose UBI vote for Trump ? How can there be such a huge gap between bread
and butter big dollar issue polling (where the median US adult is to the left of the
mainstream of the Democratic Party) and voting ?"
During the Republican primaries, candidate Trump lost in the polls and won on the ballots.
In the run up to the Republican convention, mainstream Republicans were searching for any way
to deny the nomination to candidate Trump. (Without ruining the party.)
So candidate Trump was not a traditional mainstream Republican presidential candidate.
Candidate Trump espoused most of the mainstream Republican party position. But what separated
him from the pack were his positions on illegal immigration and free trade treaties. And
Republican voters chose him.
His positions against illegal immigration and free trade also beat Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton was a very experienced and savvy politician but she was tied to NAFTA thru
her husband. And the Democratic party's defense of allowing ANY foreigner to walk across our
borders without ANY sort of background check whatsoever, and remain in the country, was a
losing proposition.
Candidate Clinton could have beaten any of the other Republican candidates.
Unbridled immigration into European countries has caused enough problems for the native
born citizens that it has become a huge political issue. Angela Merkel successfully oversaw
the uniting of east and west Germany. (A triumph!) But on immigration, her reach exceeded her
grasp, she completely misunderstood the magnitude of the problem. And she is splitting the
European Union.
Politicians in Europe and the United States speak of populism as if it was some sort of
new influence. That voters have never been seen to vote their own interests! European and
American voters have allowed their politicians almost a free rein for decades. They seemed to
assume that the political class knew best. But that period is coming to an end.
Democrats can beat Republican candidates, but first they have to accept that politics is
the art of the possible.
There is a practical, doable way to re-institute American labor unions (to German density
level) tomorrow.
Labor unions can claw back the "missing 10%" of overall income that a unionless labor
market has squeezed out of the bottom 40% of earners; raising the bottom 40% back to 20% income
share -- through higher consumer prices at Target, Walgreen's, etc.
No doubt about this: if
fast food can pay $15/hr with 33% (!) labor costs, Target('s consumers) can easily pay $20/hr
with 12% labor costs and Walmart('s consumers) can easily pay $25/hr with 7% labor costs.
Easy practical way to do this: amend the NLRA to mandate regularly scheduled cert
elections at every private workplace (I would suggest one, three or five year cycles; local
plurality rules).
Practical because no other way to rebuild American unions. Illegal (effective-penalty
free) union busting disease has so permeated our labor market that there is no normal
organizing going back. Even if we made union busting a felony, millions of businesspersons
across the country could just say: "What are you going to do, put us all in jail?"
Tear a page from the Rebublican's union busting playbook -- skip over organizing -- skip
right to elections on a regular basis:
Why Not Hold Union Representation Elections on a Regular Schedule?
Andrew Strom -- November 1st, 2017
"Republicans in Congress have already proposed a bill [Repub amend] that would require a new
election in each unionized bargaining unit whenever, through turnover, expansion, or merger,
a unit experiences at least 50 percent turnover. While no union would be happy about
expending limited resources on regular retention elections, I think it would be hard to turn
down a trade that would allow the 93% of workers who are unrepresented to have a chance to
opt for unionization on a regular schedule."
Wheels within wheels of poetic justice: a Democratic proposed labor market-make-over would
corral a lot of blue collar voters (Obama voters, remember?) back into the Democratic win
column – so we could pass said amendment in the first place.
All said, all you have to realize is that there is no other way back -- do this or do
nothing forever.
Stealing a page from Scott Walker's playbook is "the" win-win-win issue.
Karl Kolchak , August 2, 2018 10:35 am
Your description of Republicans is spot on. However, other than their maniacal obsession
with divisive identity politics, Democrats are hardly much better given the that they ALSO
kowtow to the Wall Street and the wealthy. Neither major party represents working
people–it just too bad that working people allow themselves to be forever divided by
two corrupt political parties who view them with little but contempt.
EMichael, August 2, 2018 11:11 am
KK,
"To hold President Trump accountable, the Center for American Progress Action Fund's American Worker Project is
tracking every action the president takes to weaken job protections for Americans.
Our list includes legislation and orders signed by the president; procedural changes and regulations enacted or proposed
by his administration; and official statements of policy, such as the president's proposed budget. The list does not
include political nominations and appointments of individuals with records of enacting anti-worker policies, since these
actions happened outside their role in the administration."
"Neither major party represents working people–it just too bad that working people
allow themselves to be forever divided by two corrupt political parties who view them with
little but contempt."
That's the kind of bullshit that allowed Trump to sneak into office. The Democrats may not
be your idea of pro-worker or anti-Wall Street, but the difference in voting on
bread-and-butter issues between Republicans and Democrats is dramatic. On just one issue,
with a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress, there is no doubt we already would
have seen a minimum wage to at least $10 per hour. That's not sufficient, but it's almost 40%
better than what the Republicans are happy with. Tell a family with two minimum wage workers
that an extra $11,000 in their pockets is worthless!
We also would not have seen a Janus decision, because Gorsuch would not be on the
Court.
We probably would have already had a public option added to ACA -- at least for people
aged 50-64 without employer-provided insurance having the right to buy into Medicare.
Consideration of a broader public option for everyone in the exchanges would be on the table,
too, with very strong public support (and, therefore, likely passage).
That's just three issues. This pox-on-both-your houses is truly toxic. It's uninformed.
Yes, it's deplorable.
likbez , August 4, 2018 12:30 am
"Neither major party represents working people–it just too bad that working
people allow themselves to be forever divided by two corrupt political parties who view
them with little but contempt."
That's the kind of bullshit that allowed Trump to sneak into office. The Democrats may
not be your idea of pro-worker or anti-Wall Street, but the difference in voting on
bread-and-butter issues between Republicans and Democrats is dramatic
This line of thinking is well known as "What the matter with Kansas" line. It is true that
"That's allowed Trump to sneak into office."
But you ignored the fact that Democratic Party entered a profound crisis (aka "demexit"
similar to Brexit) from which they still are unable to escape. Clinton ideas that workers do
not have alternative and will vote for peanuts Dems are willing to give them stop working.
In other words Dems lost their legitimacy, identify politics did not work this time as
well as in the past. I would say that the whole neoliberal elite lost its legitimacy. That's
why Russiagate was launched, and Neo-McCarthyism hysteria was launched by Podesta and friends
to cement those cracks that divide the USA.
The Dem Party became a grab bag of identity groups. But this election the dominant was
anti-globalization discourse, and Dems suffered a humiliating defeat. With Republican Party
grabbing the the tool they created. The collies of small town America led to collapse of
Dems.
People do vote against their economic interest ("What the matter with Kansas"
situation). But the level of alienation of working and lower middle class is really extreme.
The opioid epidemic is just one sign of this. So Trump election was just a middle finger to
the neoliberal elite.
We actually do not have left in the USA. Because there is no real discussion about neoliberalism and
alternatives. Bernie called himself "democratic socialist'. Which was at least in sense
transformational. But that's it. Bernie is not anti-war and anti-American empire.
Hillary was a traditional neocon warmonger, defender of the empire in foreign policy and
corrupt to the core, greedy politician in domestic policy (in the pocket of Wall Street and
special interests).
As somebody noted here:
The term Progressive is now so mutilated that it's no longer effective as an identifier
of political affiliation. To be a real Progressive: one must be Anti-War, except in the
most dire of circumstances, which includes being Anti-Imperialist/Anti-Empire; 2nd, one
must be Pro-Justice as in promoting Rule of Law over all else; 3rd, one must be tolerant
and willing to listen to others; and 4th, work for Win-Win outcomes and denounce Zero-sum
as the smoke screen for increasing inequality.
"... From the outset, Wikileaks' geopolitical focus on "oppressive regimes" in Eurasia and the Middle East was "appealing" to America's elites, i.e. it seemingly matched stated US foreign policy objectives. Moreover, the composition of the Wikileaks team (which included Chinese dissidents), not to mention the methodology of "exposing secrets" of foreign governments, were in tune with the practices of US covert operations geared towards triggering "regime change" and fostering "color revolutions" in different parts of the World." ..."
"... Wikileaks is not a typical alternative media initiative. The New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel are directly involved in the editing and selection of leaked documents. The London Economist has also played an important role. ..."
"... While the project and its editor Julian Assange reveal a commitment and concern for truth in media, the recent Wikileaks releases of embassy cables have been carefully "redacted" by the mainstream media in liaison with the US government. (See Interview with David E. Sanger, Fresh Air, PBS, December 8, 2010) ..."
"... This collaboration between Wikileaks and selected mainstream media is not fortuitous; it was part of an agreement between several major US and European newspapers and Wikileaks' editor Julian Assange" ..."
Hmmm ..When the limited hangout truth expose' is found to be MSM vetted lies:
"Wikileaks formulated its mandate on its website as follows:
"[Wikileaks will be] an uncensorable version of Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests
are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance
to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations," CBC News – Website wants
to take whistleblowing online, January 11, 2007, emphasis added).
This mandate was confirmed by Julian Assange in a June 2010 interview in The New Yorker:
******"Our primary targets are those highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia and Central Eurasia, but we also expect to
be of assistance to those in the West who wish to reveal illegal or immoral behavior in their own governments and corporations.
(quoted in WikiLeaks and Julian Paul Assange : The New Yorker, June 7, 2010, emphasis added)*****
Assange also intimated that "exposing secrets" "could potentially bring down many administrations that rely on concealing reality
-- including the US administration." (Ibid)
From the outset, Wikileaks' geopolitical focus on "oppressive regimes" in Eurasia and the Middle East was "appealing" to
America's elites, i.e. it seemingly matched stated US foreign policy objectives. Moreover, the composition of the Wikileaks team
(which included Chinese dissidents), not to mention the methodology of "exposing secrets" of foreign governments, were in tune
with the practices of US covert operations geared towards triggering "regime change" and fostering "color revolutions" in different
parts of the World."
"The Role of the Corporate Media: The Central Role of the New York Times
Wikileaks is not a typical alternative media initiative. The New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel are directly
involved in the editing and selection of leaked documents. The London Economist has also played an important role.
While the project and its editor Julian Assange reveal a commitment and concern for truth in media, the recent Wikileaks
releases of embassy cables have been carefully "redacted" by the mainstream media in liaison with the US government. (See Interview
with David E. Sanger, Fresh Air, PBS, December 8, 2010)
This collaboration between Wikileaks and selected mainstream media is not fortuitous; it was part of an agreement between
several major US and European newspapers and Wikileaks' editor Julian Assange"
"... "Let us linger over the perversity," he writes in "Why Millions of Ordinary Americans Support Donald Trump," one of the seventeen component essays in Rendezvous with Oblivion : "Let us linger over the perversity. Left parties the world over were founded to advance the fortunes of working people. But our left party in America -- one of our two monopoly parties -- chose long ago to turn its back on these people's concerns, making itself instead into the tribune of the enlightened professional class, a 'creative class' that makes innovative things like derivative securities and smartphone apps ..."
"... And the real bad news is not that this Creative Class, this Expert Class, this Meritocratic Class, this Professional Class -- this Liberal Class, with all its techno-ecstasy and virtue-questing and unleashing of innovation -- is so deeply narcissistic and hypocritical, but rather that it is so self-interestedly parasitical and predatory. ..."
Thomas Frank's new collection of essays: Rendezvous with Oblivion: Reports from a
Sinking Society (Metropolitan Books 2018) and Listen, Liberal; or,Whatever
Happened to the Party of the People? (ibid. 2016)
To hang out with Thomas Frank for a couple of hours is to be reminded that, going back to
1607, say, or to 1620, for a period of about three hundred and fifty years, the most archetypal
of American characters was, arguably, the hard-working, earnest, self-controlled, dependable
white Protestant guy, last presented without irony a generation or two -- or three -- ago in
the television personas of men like Ward Cleaver and Mister Rogers.
Thomas Frank, who grew up in Kansas and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, who
at age 53 has the vibe of a happy eager college nerd, not only glows with authentic Midwestern
Nice (and sometimes his face turns red when he laughs, which is often), he actually lives in
suburbia, just outside of D.C., in Bethesda, where, he told me, he takes pleasure in mowing the
lawn and doing some auto repair and fixing dinner for his wife and two children. (Until I met
him, I had always assumed it was impossible for a serious intellectual to live in suburbia and
stay sane, but Thomas Frank has proven me quite wrong on this.)
Frank is sincerely worried about the possibility of offending friends and acquaintances by
the topics he chooses to write about. He told me that he was a B oy Scout back in Kansas, but
didn't make Eagle. He told me that he was perhaps a little too harsh on Hillary Clinton in his
brilliantly perspicacious "Liberal Gilt [ sic ]" chapter at the end of Listen,
Liberal . His piercing insight into and fascination with the moral rot and the hypocrisy
that lies in the American soul brings, well, Nathaniel Hawthorne to mind, yet he refuses to say
anything (and I tried so hard to bait him!) mean about anyone, no matter how culpable he or she
is in the ongoing dissolving and crumbling and sinking -- all his
metaphors -- of our society. And with such metaphors Frank describes the "one essential story"
he is telling in Rendezvous with Oblivion : "This is what a society looks like when the
glue that holds it together starts to dissolve. This is the way ordinary citizens react when
they learn that the structure beneath them is crumbling. And this is the thrill that pulses
through the veins of the well-to-do when they discover that there is no longer any limit on
their power to accumulate" ( Thomas Frank in NYC on book tour https://youtu.be/DBNthCKtc1Y ).
And I believe that Frank's self-restraint, his refusal to indulge in bitter satire even as
he parses our every national lie, makes him unique as social critic. "You will notice," he
writes in the introduction to Rendezvous with Oblivion, "that I describe [these
disasters] with a certain amount of levity. I do that because that's the only way to confront
the issues of our time without sinking into debilitating gloom" (p. 8). And so rather than
succumbing to an existential nausea, Frank descends into the abyss with a dependable flashlight
and a ca. 1956 sitcom-dad chuckle.
"Let us linger over the perversity," he writes in "Why Millions of Ordinary Americans
Support Donald Trump," one of the seventeen component essays in Rendezvous with Oblivion
: "Let us linger over the perversity. Left parties the world over were founded to advance the
fortunes of working people. But our left party in America -- one of our two monopoly parties --
chose long ago to turn its back on these people's concerns, making itself instead into the
tribune of the enlightened professional class, a 'creative class' that makes innovative things
like derivative securities and smartphone apps " (p. 178).
And it is his analysis of this "Creative Class" -- he usually refers to it as the "Liberal
Class" and sometimes as the "Meritocratic Class" in Listen, Liberal (while Barbara
Ehrenreich uses the term " Professional Managerial Class ,"and Matthew Stewart recently
published an article entitled "The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy" in the
Atlantic ) -- that makes it clear that Frank's work is a continuation of the profound
sociological critique that goes back to Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class
(1899) and, more recently, to Christopher Lasch's The Revolt of the Elites (1994).
Unlike Veblen and Lasch, however, Frank is able to deliver the harshest news without any
hauteur or irascibility, but rather with a deftness and tranquillity of mind, for he is both in
and of the Creative Class; he abides among those afflicted by the epidemic which he diagnoses:
"Today we live in a world of predatory bankers, predatory educators, even predatory health care
providers, all of them out for themselves . Liberalism itself has changed to accommodate its
new constituents' technocratic views. Today, liberalism is the philosophy not of the sons of
toil but of the 'knowledge economy' and, specifically, of the knowledge economy's winners: the
Silicon Valley chieftains, the big university systems, and the Wall Street titans who gave so
much to Barack Obama's 2008 campaign . They are a 'learning class' that truly gets the power of
education. They are a 'creative class' that naturally rebels against fakeness and conformity.
They are an ' innovation class ' that just can't stop coming up with awesome new stuff" (
Listen, Liberal , pp. 27-29).
And the real bad news is not that this Creative Class, this Expert Class, this
Meritocratic Class, this Professional Class -- this Liberal Class, with all its
techno-ecstasy and virtue-questing and unleashing of innovation -- is so deeply narcissistic
and hypocritical, but rather that it is so self-interestedly parasitical and
predatory.
The class that now runs the so-called Party of the People is impoverishing the people; the
genius value-creators at Amazon and Google and Uber are Robber Barons, although, one must
grant, hipper, cooler, and oh so much more innovative than their historical predecessors. "In
reality," Frank writes in Listen, Liberal ,
.there is little new about this stuff except the software, the convenience, and the
spying. Each of the innovations I have mentioned merely updates or digitizes some business
strategy that Americans learned long ago to be wary of. Amazon updates the practices of
Wal-Mart, for example, while Google has dusted off corporate behavior from the days of the
Robber Barons. What Uber does has been compared to the every-man-for-himself hiring
procedures of the pre-union shipping docks . Together, as Robert Reich has written, all these
developments are 'the logical culmination of a process that began thirty years ago when
corporations began turning over full-time jobs to temporary workers, independent contractors,
free-lancers, and consultants.' This is atavism, not innovation . And if we keep going in
this direction, it will one day reduce all of us to day laborers, standing around like the
guys outside the local hardware store, hoping for work. (p. 215).
And who gets this message? The YouTube patriot/comedian Jimmy Dore, Chicago-born,
ex-Catholic, son of a cop, does for one. "If you read this b ook, " Dore said while
interviewing Frank back in January of 2017, "it'll make y ou a radical" (Frank Interview Part 4
https://youtu.be/JONbGkQaq8Q ).
But to what extent, on the other hand, is Frank being actively excluded from our elite media
outlets? He's certainly not on TV or radio or in print as much as he used to be. So is he a
prophet without honor in his own country? Frank, of course, is too self-restrained to speculate
about the motives of these Creative Class decision-makers and influencers. "But it is ironic
and worth mentioning," he told me, "that most of my writing for the last few years has been in
a British publication, The Guardian and (in translation) in Le Monde Diplomatique
. The way to put it, I think, is to describe me as an ex-pundit."
Frank was, nevertheless, happy to tell me in vivid detail about how his most fundamental
observation about America, viz. that the Party of the People has become hostile to the
people , was for years effectively discredited in the Creative Class media -- among the
bien-pensants , that is -- and about what he learned from their denialism.
JS: Going all the way back to your 2004 book What's the Matter with Kansas? -- I
just looked at Larry Bartels's attack on it, "What's the Matter with What's the Matter with
Kansas?" -- and I saw that his first objection to your book was, Well, Thomas Frank says the
working class is alienated from the Democrats, but I have the math to show that that's false.
How out of touch does that sound now?
TCF: [laughs merrily] I know.
JS: I remember at the time that was considered a serious objection to your
thesis.
TCF: Yeah. Well, he was a professor at Princeton. And he had numbers. So it looked
real. And I actually wrote a response to
that in which I pointed out that there were other statistical ways of looking at it, and he
had chosen the one that makes his point.
JS: Well, what did Mark Twain say?
TCF: Mark Twain?
JS: There are lies, damned lies --
TCF: [laughs merrily] -- and statistics! Yeah. Well, anyhow, Bartels's take became
the common sense of the highly educated -- there needs to be a term for these people by the
way, in France they're called the bien-pensants -- the "right-thinking," the people who
read The Atlantic, The New York Times op-ed page, The Washington Post op-ed page,
and who all agree with each other on everything -- there's this tight little circle of
unanimity. And they all agreed that Bartels was right about that, and that was a costly
mistake. For example, Paul Krugman, a guy whom I admire in a lot of ways, he referenced this
four or five times.
He agreed with it . No, the Democrats are not losing the white working class outside the
South -- they were not going over to the Republicans. The suggestion was that there is
nothing to worry about. Yes. And there were people saying this right up to the 2016
election. But it was a mistake.
JS: I remember being perplexed at the time. I had thought you had written this brilliant
book, and you weren't being taken seriously -- because somebody at Princeton had run some
software -- as if that had proven you wrong.
TCF: Yeah, that's correct . That was a very widespread take on it. And Bartels was
incorrect, and I am right, and [laughs merrily] that's that.
JS: So do you think Russiagate is a way of saying, Oh no no no no, Hillary didn't really
lose?
TCF: Well, she did win the popular vote -- but there's a whole set of pathologies out
there right now that all stem from Hillary Denialism. And I don't want to say that Russiagate
is one of them, because we don't know the answer to that yet.
JS: Um, ok.
TCF: Well, there are all kinds of questionable reactions to 2016 out there, and what
they all have in common is the faith that Democrats did nothing wrong. For example, this same
circle of the bien-pensants have decided that the only acceptable explanation for
Trump's victory is the racism of his supporters. Racism can be the only explanation for the
behavior of Trump voters. But that just seems odd to me because, while it's true of course that
there's lots of racism in this country, and while Trump is clearly a bigot and clearly won the
bigot vote, racism is just one of several factors that went into what happened in 2016. Those
who focus on this as the only possible answer are implying that all Trump voters are
irredeemable, lost forever.
And it comes back to the same point that was made by all those people who denied what was
happening with the white working class, which is: The Democratic Party needs to do nothing
differently . All the post-election arguments come back to this same point. So a couple
years ago they were saying about the white working class -- we don't have to worry about them
-- they're not leaving the Democratic Party, they're totally loyal, especially in the northern
states, or whatever the hell it was. And now they say, well, Those people are racists, and
therefore they're lost to us forever. What is the common theme of these two arguments? It's
always that there's nothing the Democratic Party needs to do differently. First, you haven't
lost them; now you have lost them and they're irretrievable: Either way -- you see what I'm
getting at? -- you don't have to do anything differently to win them.
JS: Yes, I do.
TCF: The argument in What's the Matter with Kansas? was that this is a
long-term process, the movement of the white working class away from the Democratic Party. This
has been going on for a long time. It begins in the '60s, and the response of the Democrats by
and large has been to mock those people, deride those people, and to move away from organized
labor, to move away from class issues -- working class issues -- and so their response has been
to make this situation worse, and it gets worse, and it gets worse, and it gets worse, and it
gets worse! And there's really no excuse for them not seeing it. But they say, believe,
rationalize, you know, come up with anything that gets then off the hook for this, that allows
them to ignore this change. Anything. They will say or believe whatever it takes.
JS: Yes.
TCF: By the way, these are the smartest people! These are tenured professors at Ivy
League institutions, these are people with Nobel Prizes, people with foundation grants, people
with, you know, chairs at prestigious universities, people who work at our most prestigious
media outlets -- that's who's wrong about all this stuff.
JS: [quoting the title of David Halberstam's 1972 book, an excerpt from which Frank uses
as an epigraph for Listen, Liberal ] The best and the brightest!
TCF: [laughing merrily] Exactly. Isn't it fascinating?
JS: But this gets to the irony of the thing. [locates highlighted passage in book] I'm
going to ask you one of the questions you ask in Rendezvous with Oblivion: "Why are
worshippers of competence so often incompetent?" (p. 165). That's a huge question.
TCF: That's one of the big mysteries. Look. Take a step back. I had met Barack Obama.
He was a professor at the University of Chicago, and I'd been a student there. And he was super
smart. Anyhow, I met him and was really impressed by him. All the liberals in Hyde Park --
that's the neighborhood we lived in -- loved him, and I was one of them, and I loved him too.
And I was so happy when he got elected.
Anyhow, I knew one thing he would do for sure, and that is he would end the reign of
cronyism and incompetence that marked the Bush administration and before them the Reagan
administration. These were administrations that actively promoted incompetent people. And I
knew Obama wouldn't do that, and I knew Obama would bring in the smartest people, and he'd get
the best economists. Remember, when he got elected we were in the pit of the crisis -- we were
at this terrible moment -- and here comes exactly the right man to solve the problem. He did
exactly what I just described: He brought in [pause] Larry Summers, the former president of
Harvard, considered the greatest economist of his generation -- and, you know, go down the
list: He had Nobel Prize winners, he had people who'd won genius grants, he had The Best and
the Brightest . And they didn't really deal with the problem. They let the Wall Street
perpetrators off the hook -- in a catastrophic way, I would argue. They come up with a health
care system that was half-baked. Anyhow, the question becomes -- after watching the great
disappointments of the Obama years -- the question becomes: Why did government-by-expert
fail?
JS: So how did this happen? Why?
TCF: The answer is understanding experts not as individual geniuses but as members
of a class . This is the great missing link in all of our talk about expertise. Experts
aren't just experts: They are members of a class. And they act like a class. They have loyalty
to one another; they have a disdain for others, people who aren't like them, who they perceive
as being lower than them, and there's this whole hierarchy of status that they are at the
pinnacle of.
And once you understand this, then everything falls into place! So why did they let the Wall
Street bankers off the hook? Because these people were them. These people are their peers. Why
did they refuse to do what obviously needed to be done with the health care system? Because
they didn't want to do that to their friends in Big Pharma. Why didn't Obama get tough with
Google and Facebook? They obviously have this kind of scary monopoly power that we haven't seen
in a long time. Instead, he brought them into the White House, he identified with them. Again,
it's the same thing. Once you understand this, you say: Wait a minute -- so the Democratic
Party is a vehicle of this particular social class! It all makes sense. And all of a sudden all
of these screw-ups make sense. And, you know, all of their rhetoric makes sense. And the way
they treat working class people makes sense. And they way they treat so many other demographic
groups makes sense -- all of the old-time elements of the Democratic Party: unions, minorities,
et cetera. They all get to ride in back. It's the professionals -- you know, the professional
class -- that sits up front and has its hands on the steering wheel.
* * *
It is, given Frank's persona, not surprising that he is able to conclude Listen,
Liberal with a certain hopefulness, and so let me end by quoting some of his final
words:
What I saw in Kansas eleven years ago is now everywhere . It is time to face the obvious:
that the direction the Democrats have chosen to follow for the last few decades has been a
failure for both the nation and for their own partisan health . The Democrats posture as the
'party of the people' even as they dedicate themselves ever more resolutely to serving and
glorifying the professional class. Worse: they combine self-righteousness and class privilege
in a way that Americans find stomach-turning . The Democrats have no interest in reforming
themselves in a more egalitarian way . What we can do is strip away the Democrats' precious
sense of their own moral probity -- to make liberals live without the comforting knowledge
that righteousness is always on their side . Once that smooth, seamless sense of liberal
virtue has been cracked, anything becomes possible. (pp. 256-257).
Regarding the hacking of Democrats computers, nothing has been proven even on the margins or
circumstantially on any of these counts. Moreover, the FBI failed to examine the affected
computers, and we now know that FBI deputy head and other FBI top officials were scheming to
undermine Trump in support of Hillary Clinton's election and that Clinton's campaign had
colluded with the Russians to produce the Steele dossier, for which the FBI also paid for.
Moreover still, independent research has demonstrated that the hack is most likely to have
occurred from inside DNC headquarters.
Even if Russia did hack the DNC – and I am sure it has at least tried to hack US
government computer systems as well – one needs to be beyond naïve to believe that
US intelligence has not hacked Russian government computers. Indeed, the NSA has hacked the
government computers of such close US allies as Germany and France
(www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/04/us-nsa-gerhard-schroeder-surveillance and http://www.bbc.com/news/33248484 ). It is
clear that much of the material in the recent indictment of 13 Russians was garnered by U.S.
intelligence accessing Russian computer systems, perhaps some governmental systems. For
example, the indictment references an intercepted email. One can be sure that some of the
compromising materials on Russian officials that appear in American and perhaps even Russian
media come from NSA hacking. Russian hacking is a drop in the bucket compared with the scale
and scope of methods the West has used to target Russia and its allies in the former USSR since
the end of the first cold war.
State Hacks Never Happened
All or most of the charges that the Kremlin hacked state voting systems have been retracted.
Even if it did, ditto the previous paragraph.
Russia-Trump 'Collusion'
The Russia-Trump collusion charges have fallen flat on their face. The only semi-maningful
result of former FBi Director Robert Mueller's 'counter-intelligence investigation' is that a
one-time campaign advisor Paul Manafort was indicted for corrupt collusion with Ukraine's
corrupt Viktor Yanukovych and his Party of Regions that occurred before Manafort was on Trump's
campaign staff. Furthermore, contrary to the Western view, Yanukovych was anything but a 'Putin
puppet.' This fact is well-illustrated by then Ukrainian president's willingness to sign the EU
Association Agreement in November 2013, a signing which was only aborted by an exorbitant offer
by Putin of $15 billion in loans and natural gas price reductions on the background of Ukraine
being on the verge of bankruptcy and the EU offering far less.
Russia's Troll Farm – An Inconsequential Spontaneous Experiment
The newest sensation in the 'hunt for Red October' is the Kremlin-tied troll farm. Assuming
that Putin's close associate and cook is indeed tied to this small effort, then the US
government has finally found an incident of 'Russian interference in the 2016 presidential
election' in the United States. Unfortunately, the effort was minimal and nothing to write home
about or worth a multi-million government investigation. It is more on the level of a research
report farmed out to one of the government-oriented and often-funded DC think tanks with a
small $5-10,000 grant attached. Indeed, RFERL already had written about the very same operation
as did an Internet news site based, in all places, in 'Putin's Russia.' The 13 indictments were
handed down not for the troll activity under an operation called 'Lakhta' – 99 percent of
which was merely posting advertisements and comments on the Internet from "around" May 2014 to
several months after the US presidential campaign – but for other crimes such as
money-laundering. To be sure, the effort to pit American against American by calling opposing
radical groups to the same location for potentially explosive counter-demonstrations is nasty
stuff. But such cases amounted to less than a handful.
Ultimately, operation Lakhta appears to have been a rather inconsequential experiment, since
prior to the US presidential campaign it had focused almost exclusively on trolling Russian
politics, expanding to foreign issues like Ukraine and then to the US. The FBI indictment sites
the budget of 'Lakhta' was several million dollars per year. Elsewhere the indictment states
that by September 2016 'Lakhta' had a monthly budget of $1.3 million ( www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download , pp.
5 and 7). Again, this is a drop in the bucket compared to Western disinformation operations in
general and the US political campaign expenditures. This is equivalent to about 10 percent of
the cost of congressional campaign, about 1 percent of the the amount Trump and Clinton spent
on Internet activity (much of which was similar trolling with ads and comments), and a fraction
of a percent of the billions of dollars the two candidates paid on their campaigns. Moreover,
this tactical campaign amounts to far less than the routine, much more strategic disinformation
communications carried out by the US government and allied media on a continuing basis since
the first cold war's end (see, for example,
https://gordonhahn.com/2015/09/19/putin-is-crazy-and-sick-the-lows-of-american-rusology/ and
https://gordonhahn.com/2015/11/11/the-myth-of-an-imminent-anti-putin-coup-rusological-fail-or-stratcomm/
).
Opposition-Promotion
In imitation and exacting revenge against past Western support for democratic and other
opposition organizations and individuals in Russia and elsewhere under various and sundry
democracy-promotion programs and much else, Russia has turned to cooperating with nationalist
and populist opposition parties in the West. However, that effort is, again, very limited and
gravely overstated by Western pundits and politicians. It amounts almost entirely to an alleged
one-time contribution to Marie Le Pen's nationalist-populist National Front party in France.
Some in the US are making much noise about a forum of legal European nationalist and populist
parties hosted in 2015 in St. Petersburg, Russia (www.kommersant.ru/doc/2683403 and
www.interpretermag.com/the-far-right-international-russian-conservative-forum-to-take-place-in-russia/
). A second conference is scheduled there on 8 April 2018 ( http://realpatriot.ru/en/ ). Presumably, these conferences
could be held elsewhere. Is it crucial that they are hosted by Russia? Does it matter where
such conferences are held? As a US presidential candidate once said: "Where's the beef?" Does
it matter more than US-government RFERL whitewashing jihadi Caucasus terrorists who killed
thousands of Russians over some six years or falsifying the reality of the 20 February 2014
Maidan snipers' massacre in Kiev? Does it matter more than the fact that Europeans have
produced such parties and why they have produced them? Should Europeans be absolved of their
agency, so blame can be redirected onto Russia? Moreover, one researcher has convincingly
demonstrated that Russia's cooperation with such parties has more to do with an overlap or
"confluence" of interests and ideology between some in Moscow and the Western far-right rather
than the former's influence on the latter
(www.ponarseurasia.org/memo/russian-and-american-far-right-connections-confluence-not-influence).
Moreover, the radical jihadist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir, regarded by almost all terrorism
experts as a precursor and recruitment organization for jihdism and jihadi groups, holds an
annual convention and several other events in the United States every year ( https://hizb-america.org/events/ ), with similar
operations across the West. Weeks ago one of America's leading conservative political
organizations, the Conservative Political Action Committee or CPAC, had Marie Le Pen's daughter
Marion Marechal`-Le Pen, the United Kingdom's Independent Party's populist firebrand and former
leader Nigel Farage, among other European populists speak at their annual convention.
Russia may move into more threatening territory, if it begins to support rising
ethno-national separatism in places in Europe or the West more generally like Catalonia. The
foreign ministry of South Ossetiya, the Russian-backed breakaway region of Georgia, opened up a
"representative office" in Catalonia in October (www.eng.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/41274/). This
could be even more dangerous territory for Moscow's 'me-two-ism' to tread on. On the other
hand, the West violated its own UN-sponsored resolution on Kosovo committing to Yugoslavia's
territorial integrity.
Conclusion
Russia is using the tools of the West, those the latter has deployed against Russia since
the collapse of the Berlin wall, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the dawn of the new world
order and a 'united Europe from Vancouver to Vladivostok.' The West moved first to back
anti-Russian parties in the former USSR and opposition parties in Russia, so Russia has now
begun to back anti-American parties and opposition parties in the West. The West first used the
Internet against Russia and its allies, and Russia followed suit using it against the West. The
West interfered in Russian presidential campaigns and other aspects of Russia's internal
political life and that of its allies, and Russia is responding in kind. The West has backed
revolutions (a priori facto and ex post facto) and separatism, including jihadism, against
Russia and its allies, and Russia began to do the same (minus the support for jihadists)
against the West.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the Author – Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., Expert Analyst at Corr Analytics,
http://www.canalyt.com and a Senior
Researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group, San
Jose, California, www.cetisresearch.org .
Dr. Hahn is the author of Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the 'New Cold
War (McFarland Publishers, 2017) and three previously and well-received books: Russia's
Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist
Regime, 1985-2000 (Transaction Publishers, 2002); Russia's Islamic Threat (Yale University
Press, 2007); and The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia's North Caucasus
and Beyond (McFarland Publishers, 2014).He has published numerous think tank reports, academic
articles, analyses, and commentaries in both English and Russian language media and has served
as a consultant and provided expert testimony to the U.S. government.
Dr. Hahn also has taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San
Francisco State Universities and as a Fulbright Scholar at Saint Petersburg State University,
Russia. He has been a senior associate and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies and the Kennan Institute in Washington DC as well as the Hoover
Institution at Stanford University.
Either way its THE SYSTEM that's at fault. EITHER ONE WAS DESTINED TO BE THE WORST
PRESIDENT OF THE USA.
You elect Clinton she will go onto be a pig at the trough of the military industrial
complex. You elect trump he will go onto be a pig at the trough of the military industrial
complex.
Russia is unimportant to the outcome of the election. Mountains of collusion with
Cambridge Analytics, Israel, Oligarchs in the USA like Robert Mercer. Facebook is subservient
to the US military industrial complex now anyway, a few meme's here and there don't swing an
election its utter bulls**t.
Then that empirically pales in comparison to a president (Obama) that did nothing for the
middle class except destroy it with junk economics after the GFC in 2008. Lethargic voters
who voted obama 2 times and got nothing didnt bother to turn up on election day there's the
empirical cause effect of trump winning.
Remember the debates? Hillary was firm in wanting a no-fly zone in Syria. This would have
led to direct conflict between USAF and Russian AF. It could have easily broken out into a
big shooting war. Heck, I get the idea that a lot of people in DC (the unelected government,
so-called deep state) would have greatly desired that. World War II hero and former U.S. Sen.
Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) once observed, in a different context: "There
exists a shadowy government with ... its own fundraising mechanism."
[danielkino...titute.org]
Also remember, just before the inauguration, that US armored brigade landed and the jokes
wrote themselves? Obama just sent tanks into Poland, that sort of thing. They then traveled
to the Russian border? That was Hillary's big stick. Plant a bunch of troops near them and
then start shit in Syria. But she wasn't elected, and they just did some training and then
left. Peace broke out instead.
... And there's still a ridiculous amount of derangement. Hilldog was a bad candidate who
few outside the neocons liked. She was caught meddling in her own party's process to boot
Bernie. She tried pretending that destroying evidence on her personal email server was an
innocent mistake. Worst of all, she pretended to be a saint when she is definitely not. That
wolf in sheeps clothing never sat well with me. Look up Hitchens thoughts on her for more
things to be unsettled about. Now 2 years later, uncountable hours have gone into trying to
shift the blame. When will the Dems admit it was a mistake to have her as the candidate?
Was anything released incorrect? Were the emails false, for instance? Was her insulting a
sizable portion of the country Russia's doing? Was Russia behind her corrupting the DNC
primary process?
Is Russia's biggest crime, in fact, that it did the job the media might have done in past
generations? Today's media was all about helping Clinton to the presidency by almost any
means necessary, and let me tell you; ironically that hurt Clinton more than it helped.
Trump just happened to be in the right place at the right time, with the right attitude to
get the job ( loud, amoral and full of shit ).
Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a close associate of Vladimir
Putin, has gone on record with
The
Hill
's John Solomon - admitting to colluding with Americans
leading up to the 2016 US election, except it might not be what
you're thinking.
Deripaska, rumored to be Donald Trump's "
back
channel
" to Putin via the Russian's former association with Paul
Manafort, says he "colluded" with the
US
Government
between 2009 and 2016.
In 2009, when
Robert
Mueller was running the FBI
, the agency asked Deripaska to
spend $25 million of his own money to bankroll an FBI-supervised
operation to rescue a retired FBI agent - Robert Levinson, who was
kidnapped in 2007 while working on a 2007 CIA contract in Iran. This
in and of itself is more than a bit strange.
Deripaska agreed, however the Obama State Department, headed by
Hillary Clinton, scuttled a last-minute deal with Iran before
Levinson could be released. He hasn't been heard from since.
FBI agents courted Deripaska in 2009 in a series of secret hotel
meetings in Paris; Vienna; Budapest, Hungary, and Washington
.
Agents persuaded the aluminum industry magnate to underwrite the
mission. The Russian billionaire insisted the operation neither
involve nor harm his homeland. -The Hill
In other words -
Trump's
alleged "back channel" to Putin was in fact an FBI asset
who
spent $25 million helping Obama's "scandal free" administration find
a kidnapped agent. Deripaska's admitted
Steele, Ohr and the 2016 US Election
Trending Articles
Earth's "Big Freeze" Looms As Sun Remains Devoid
Of
Scientists believe that Earth could experience a
"big freeze" as the sun goes through what's
known as "solar minimum."
As the
New
York Times
frames it, distancing Deripaska from the FBI (no
mention of the $25 million rescue effort, for example), the Russian
aluminum magnate was just one of several Putin-linked Oligarchs the
FBI tried to flip.
The attempt to flip Mr. Deripaska was part of a broader,
clandestine American effort to gauge the possibility of gaining
cooperation from roughly a half-dozen of Russia's richest men,
nearly
all of whom, like Mr. Deripaska, depend on President Vladimir V.
Putin to maintain their wealth, the officials said. -
NYT
Central to the recruiting effort were two central players in the
Trump-Russia investigation; twice-demoted DOJ #4 official
Bruce
Ohr and Christopher Steele
- the author of the largely
unverified "Steele Dossier."
Steele, a longtime associate of Ohr's, worked for Deripaska
beginning in 2012 researching a business rival - work which would
evolve to the point where the former British spy was interfacing
with the Obama administration on his behalf - resulting in Deripaska
regaining entry into the United States, where he visited numerous
times between 2009 and 2017.
The State Department tried to keep him from getting a U.S. visa
between 2006 and 2009 because they believed he had unspecified
connections to criminal elements in Russia as he consolidated
power in the aluminum industry. Deripaska has denied those
allegations...
Whatever the case,
it
is irrefutable that after he began helping the FBI, Deripaska
regained entry to the United States
. And he visited
numerous times between 2009 and 2017, visa entry records show. -
The
Hill
Deripaska is now banned from the United States as one of
several
Russians sanctioned
in April in response to alleged 2016
election meddling.
In a September 2016 meeting,
Deripaska
told FBI agents that it was "preposterous" that Paul Manafort was
colluding with Russia to help Trump win the 2016 election
.
This, despite the fact that Deripaska and Manafort's business
relationship "ended in lawsuits, per
The
Hill
- and the Russian would have every reason to throw
Manafort under the bus if he wanted some revenge on his old
associate.
So the
FBI
and DOJ secretly collaborated with Trump's alleged backchannel over
a seven-year period
, starting with Levinson, then on
Deripaska's Visa, and finally regarding whether Paul Manafort was an
intermediary to Putin. Deripaska vehemently denies the assertion,
and even took out newspaper advertisements in the US last year
volunteering to testify to Congress, refuting an
AP
report
that he and Manafort secretly worked on a plan to
"greatly benefit the Putin government" a decade ago.
Soon after the advertisements ran, representatives for the House
and Senate Intelligence Committees called a Washington-based
lawyer for Mr. Deripaska, Adam Waldman, inquiring about taking
his client up on the offer to testify, Mr. Waldman said in an
interview.
What happened after that has been in dispute. Mr. Waldman, who
stopped working for Mr. Deripaska after the sanctions were
levied, said he told the committee staff that his client would
be willing to testify without any grant of immunity, but would
not testify about any Russian collusion with the Trump campaign
because "he doesn't know anything about that theory and actually
doesn't believe it occurred." -
NYT
In short, Deripaska wants it known that he worked with the FBI and
DOJ, and that he had nothing to do with the Steele dossier.
Today, Deripaska is banned anew from the United States, one of
several Russians sanctioned in April by the Trump administration
as a way to punish Putin for 2016 election meddling. But he
wants to be clear about a few things, according to a statement
provided by his team.
First,
he did collude with Americans in the form of voluntarily
assisting and meeting with the FBI, the DOJ and people such as
Ohr between 2009 and 2016.
He also wants Americans to know
he
did not cooperate or assist with Steele's dossier, and he tried
to dispel the FBI notion that Russia and the Trump campaign
colluded during the 2016 election
. -
The
Hill
Interestingly, Steele's dossier which was partially funded by the
Clinton campaign, relied on
senior
Kremlin officials
.
"... For the first 15 months of his presidency, Donald Trump saw no need to appoint members to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a group of outside advisors who have historically served as watchdogs over the official intelligence community on behalf of the Chief Executive. ..."
"... There's a power struggle between trump and the IC which wants to vet US. presidents like a modern praetorian guard; I don't know who is going to win, but the IC is on the side of pushing policies that risk war with Russia, so I support Trump there. ..."
For the first 15 months of his presidency, Donald Trump saw no need to appoint members to
the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a group of outside advisors who have historically
served as watchdogs over the official intelligence community on behalf of the Chief
Executive. It fit Trump's profile and his skepticism about the USIC that he felt no need
to have more quasi-official advisors peering over his shoulder. And a year-and-a-half into the
first term, the Trump Administration is still suffering from scores of vacancies in important
posts in all the executive branch departments.
Now, lo and behold, some appointments have been made to PFIAB, and it don't look good. The
only two names I have been able to locate as appointees to the PFIAB are: Steve Feinberg, who
was named on May 11, 2018 as the PFIAB chairman, and Samantha Ravich was named more recently as
the Board's vice chairman. To date, there are no indications there are any other members. Back
in January, Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley billionaire who founded PayPal and was one of the
only Valley big wigs to back Trump for President, rejected the offer to head PFIAB. Thiel's
data mining firm Palantir has extensive contracts with the USIC and he may have felt he'd be
caught up in conflict of interest allegations. He has also expressed concerns to friends that
the Trump Presidency may be headed for oblivion.
So who are the new PFIAB chair and vice chair? Steve Feinberg is a vulture fund magnate,
whose Cerberus Capital Management has wrought havoc across the US economy. The firm, founded in
1992 and named after the mythical three-headed dog that guarded the gates of Hades, Apropos.
After looting GMAC, the financial arm of General Motors, Feinberg bought up a number of arms
manufacturers and defense contractors, including DynCorp. According to his bio on AllGov,
Feinberg was trained by ex-Army snipers and set up his own private "military base" outside of
Memphis, Tennessee.
Ever the hedger, Feinberg backed Jeb Bush for president, then switched to Donald Trump in
the final months of the 2016 campaign, while also bankrolling Chuck Schumer in his Senate
re-election campaign.
Samantha Ravich is pure neocon. She was a national security aide to Vice President Dick
Cheney and was one of the biggest promoters of the "Saddam WMD" hoax, leading to the Iraq
invasion of March 2003. She runs the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Transformative
Cyber Innovation Lab, is listed on the FDD site as "principal investigator on FDD's
Cyber-Enabled Economic Warfare project" and Board Advisor on FDD's Center on Sanctions and
Illicit Finance. She is an advisor to the Chertoff Group.
You can't get more neocon than Samantha Ravich.
Question: Has President Trump finally caved in to the neocon long march through the
institutions? Is PFIAB another romper room for son-in-law and Netanyahu captive and love slave
Jared Kushner? Will PFIAB actually have a role or simply be a window dressing that Trump
ignores as he relies on a handful of cabinet and White House advisors and his rolodex of
billionaire friends who he chats up most evenings from the East Wing?
What I don't understand is after Iraq, who in the world with any brains would listen to
the Neo-cons again? As a veteran of the NY real estate wars, Trump has run into tons of snake
oil salesmen in his life and survived because he did not listen to them. What arguments are
neo-cons now advancing that would overcome all our previous mistakes and cause Trump to not
boot them out of the room. In my previous job as interim CFO of Prudential I was involved
with the negotiations with Trump and his Japanese partner over selling the ground under the
Empire State Building in 1991. At least back then, Trump did not listen to anyone except what
his gut told him. His mannerisms and personality have not changed one iota from those days to
his Presidency so why would Trump be susceptible to the nwo-cons when it goes against the
grain of everything he has espoused in the past.
Sad, but Trump doesn't pay any attention to groups like that. For him anything like that
is just PR and shareholder relations. He is much more interested in what the true loudmouths
on the boob tube have to say.
It's amazing to me that somebody who has engaged in NYC business and politics for so long
is so oblivious of how and when the strings are pulled when something needs to get done. Is
it even humanly possible that the same person that got himself into the WH can be so
oblivious. It's really an enigma. But then again, you kindly like to point out that sometimes
the most obvious explanations are the ones staring you right in the face
Donald Trump doesn't have an ideology or think tanks backing him; only his family. He is
in his 70s. He will appoint GOP flacks who didn't diss him in the past notwithstanding if
they are neocons or not. What he has done is jump in front of the parade. The FBI ran a sting
on Mayor of Tallahassee who is now the Democrat's Florida candidate for governor. The power
class is trying to contain the parade and direct it in the direction that they want. If it
goes wild, they will jail it.
More on Stephen Feinberg and his military connections:
"Through DynCorp, Feinberg already controls one of the largest military
contractors in the U.S., one which trains Afghanistan's police force and
assists in their narcotics-trafficking countermeasures. According to the
Times, Feinberg proposed an expanded role for such contractors, and
also recommended transferring the command of paramilitary operations in
the country to the C.I.A., increasing their operating footprint while
decreasing both transparency and accountability. He reportedly discussed
Afghanistan with President Trump in person."
same bullshit from the MIC, promoting war in Syria, in the bottles of the democrats and
the republicans. both parties are supporting the Russia bullshit -- look at the politics
swirling around McCain's funeral for example.
Both parties interfere in the middle east, paying off different sides, fighting al Qaida
one place, supporting them in Syria.
Both parties promote people like Bolton, with Bolton's agenda. Trump's main value is as a
destabilizer, which is why the established republicans and the democrats hate him, but the
people he surrounds himself with are very telling.
There's a power struggle between trump and the IC which wants to vet US. presidents
like a modern praetorian guard; I don't know who is going to win, but the IC is on the side
of pushing policies that risk war with Russia, so I support Trump there.
Ok, no insights or insides to offer, Harper, but from my own reading of Trump's Foreign
Policy Speech, scripted it was, I seem to recall I was told then vs earlier ad lib
approaches, I somewhat assumed this more general road into the future under Trump.
Strictly I dislike it deeply to approach anything resembling the, I" told you so" pattern.
It could suggest I only search for bits and pieces that fit in.
Irony/sarcasm alert: How well did the respectively selected PFIAB experts conform under
Bush, Obama? And who but a master in business would fit into let's say Trump's larger
meme-strategy: we have been exploited as a nation by close to everyone for ages?
What a wonderful insightful comment. Other than missing that PFIAB helped sell the Iraq
WMD, just like they were paid to do; and this pair will do the same next time out.
"... In fact, a technical glitch prevented FBI technicians from accurately comparing the new emails with the old emails. Only 3,077 of the 694,000 emails were directly reviewed for classified or incriminating information. Three FBI officials completed that work in a single 12-hour spurt the day before Comey again cleared Clinton of criminal charges. ..."
"... "Most of the emails were never examined, even though they made up potentially 10 times the evidence" of what was reviewed in the original year-long case that Comey closed in July 2016, said a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation. ..."
"... Contradicting Comey's testimony, this included highly sensitive information dealing with Israel and the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas. The former secretary of state, however, was never confronted with the sensitive new information and it was never analyzed for damage to national security. ..."
"... Even though the unique classified material was improperly stored and transmitted on an unsecured device, the FBI did not refer the matter to U.S. intelligence agencies to determine if national security had been compromised, as required under a federally mandated "damage assessment" directive . ..."
"... "There was no real investigation and no real search," said Michael Biasello, a 27-year veteran of the FBI. "It was all just show -- eyewash -- to make it look like there was an investigation before the election." ..."
"... Many Clinton supporters believe Comey's 11th hour reopening of a case that had shadowed her campaign was a form of sabotage that cost her the election. But the evidence shows Comey and his inner circle acted only after worried agents and prosecutors in New York forced their hand. At the prodding of Attorney General Lynch, they then worked to reduce and rush through, rather than carefully examine, potentially damaging new evidence. ..."
"... However, conducting a broader and more thorough search of the Weiner laptop may still have prosecutorial justification. Other questions linger, including whether subpoenaed evidence was destroyed or false statements were made to congressional and FBI investigators from 2014 to 2016, a time frame that is within the statute of limitations. The laptop was not searched for evidence pertaining to such crimes. Investigators instead focused their search, limited as it was, on classified information. ..."
"... The headers indicated that the emails on the laptop included ones sent and/or received by Abedin at her clintonemail.com account, her personal Yahoo! email account as well as a host of Clinton-associated domains including state.gov, clintonfoundation.org, presidentclinton.com and hillaryclinton.com. ..."
"... (McCabe told Horowitz he didn't remember Sweeney briefing him about the Weiner laptop, but personal notes he took during the teleconference indicate he was briefed. Sweeney also updated McCabe in a direct call later that afternoon in which he noted there were potentially 347,000 relevant emails, and that the count was climbing. McCabe was fired earlier this year and referred to the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington, D.C., for possible criminal investigation into allegations he made false statements to federal agents working for Horowitz.) ..."
"... FBI officials in New York assumed that the bureau's brass would jump on the discovery, particularly since it included the missing emails from the start of Clinton's time at State. In fact, the emails dated from the beginning of 2007 and covered the entire period of Clinton's tenure as secretary and thereafter. The team leading the Clinton investigation, codenamed "Midyear Exam," had never been able to find Clinton's emails from her first two months as secretary. ..."
"... Lynch -- who had admonished Comey to call the Clinton case a "matter" and not an investigation, aligning FBI rhetoric with the Clinton campaign, and who inappropriately agreed to meet with Bill Clinton aboard her government plane five days before the FBI interviewed Hillary Clinton -- sought to keep the Weiner laptop search quiet and was opposed to going to Congress with the discovery so close to the election. ..."
"... But this time, Comey made no public show of his announcement. On Oct. 28, 2016, Comey quietly sent a terse and private letter to the chairs and the ranking members of the oversight committees on the Hill, informing them, vaguely, that the FBI was taking additional steps in the Clinton email investigation. ..."
"... The unnamed agent, who is identified in the IG report only as "Agent 1," is now married to another Midyear investigator, who on Election Day IM'd her then-boyfriend to say Clinton "better win," while threatening to quit if she didn't. Known as "Agent 5," she also stated, "fuck trump," while calling his voters "retarded." ..."
"... Also excluded were Abedin's Yahoo emails, even though investigators had previously found classified information on her Yahoo account and would arguably have probable cause to look at those emails, as well. ..."
"... Also removed from the search were the BlackBerry data -- even though the FBI had previously described them as the "golden emails," because they covered the dark period early in Clinton's term. ..."
"... In addition to limiting the scope of their probe, the agents were also under pressure from both Justice Department prosecutors and FBI headquarters to complete the review of the remaining emails in a hurry. ..."
"... Lynch urged Comey to process the Weiner laptop "as fast as you can," according to notes from a high-level department meeting on Oct. 31, 2016, which were obtained by the IG. ..."
"... Advanced new "de-duplicating" technology would allow them to speed through the mountain of new emails automatically flagging copies of previously reviewed material. ..."
"... But according to the IG, FBI's technology division only "attempted" to de-duplicate the emails, but ultimately was unsuccessful. The IG cited a report prepared Nov. 15, 2016, by three officials from the FBI's Boston field office. Titled "Anthony Weiner Laptop Review for Communications Pertinent to Midyear Exam," it found that "[b]ecause metadata was largely absent, the emails could not be completely, automatically de-duplicated or evaluated against prior emails recovered during the investigation." ..."
"... Contrary to Comey's claim, the FBI could not sufficiently determine how many emails containing classified information were duplicative of previously reviewed classified emails. As a result, hundreds of thousands of emails were not actually processed for evidence, law enforcement sources say. ..."
"... Later that evening of Nov. 6, after he announced to Congress that Clinton was in the clear again, an exuberant Comey gathered his inner circle in his office to watch football. ..."
"... Page noted that "Trump is talking about [Clinton]" on Fox News, and how "she's protected by a rigged system." ..."
"... RCI has learned that these highly sensitive messages include a Nov. 25, 2011, email regarding talks with Egyptian leaders and Hamas, and a July 9, 2011, "call sheet" Abedin sent Clinton in advance of a phone conversation she had that month with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The document runs four pages. ..."
"... Another previously unseen classified email, dated Nov. 25, 2010, concerns confidential high-level State Department talks with United Arab Emirates leaders. The note, including a classified "readout" of a phone call with the UAE prime minister, was written by Abedin and sent to Clinton, and then forwarded by Abedin the next day from her [email protected] account to her then-husband's account identified under the rubric "Anthony Campaign." ..."
"... Comey and Strzok also decided to close the case for a second time without interviewing its three central figures: Abedin, Weiner and Clinton. ..."
"... In a statement, Strzok's attorney blamed the delays in processing the new emails on "bureaucratic snafus," and insisted they had nothing to do with Strzok's political views, which he said never "affected his work." ..."
"... "When informed that Weiner's laptop contained Clinton emails, Strzok immediately had the matter pursued by two of his most qualified and aggressive investigators," Goelman said. Still, contemporaneous messages by Strzok reveal he was not thrilled about re-investigating Clinton. On Nov. 5, for example, he texted Page: "I hate this case." ..."
"... A final mystery remains: Where is the Weiner laptop today? ..."
"... Wherever its location, somewhere out there is a treasure trove of evidence involving potentially serious federal crimes -- including espionage, foreign influence-peddling and obstruction of justice -- that has never been properly or fully examined by law enforcement authorities. ..."
When then-FBI Director James Comey announced he was closing the Hillary Clinton email
investigation for a second time just days before the 2016 election, he certified to Congress
that his agency had "reviewed all of the communications" discovered on a personal laptop used
by Clinton's closest aide, Huma Abedin, and her husband, Anthony Weiner.
James Comey, above.
Top photo: His certification to Congress just before Election Day clearing Hillary Clinton a
second time. That certification is challenged by new reporting. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite,
File Top: AP Photo/Jon Elswick
At the time, many wondered how investigators managed over the course of one week to read the
"hundreds of thousands" of emails residing on the machine, which had been a focus of a
sex-crimes investigation of Weiner, a former Congressman.
Comey later
told Congress that "thanks to the wizardry of our technology," the FBI was able to
eliminate the vast majority of messages as "duplicates" of emails they'd previously seen.
Tireless agents, he claimed, then worked "night after night after night" to scrutinize the
remaining material.
But virtually none of his account was true, a growing body of evidence reveals.
In fact, a technical glitch prevented FBI technicians from accurately comparing the new
emails with the old emails. Only 3,077 of the 694,000 emails were directly reviewed for
classified or incriminating information. Three FBI officials completed that work in a single
12-hour spurt the day before Comey again cleared Clinton of criminal charges.
"Most of the emails were never examined, even though they made up potentially 10 times the
evidence" of what was reviewed in the original year-long case that Comey closed in July 2016,
said a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation.
Yet even the "extremely narrow" search that was finally conducted, after more than a month
of delay, uncovered more classified material sent and/or received by Clinton through her
unauthorized basement server, the official said. Contradicting Comey's testimony, this included
highly sensitive information dealing with Israel and the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas.
The former secretary of state, however, was never confronted with the sensitive new information
and it was never analyzed for damage to national security.
Even though the unique classified material was improperly stored and transmitted on an
unsecured device, the FBI did not refer the matter to U.S. intelligence agencies to determine
if national security had been compromised, as required under a federally mandated "damage
assessment" directive
.
The newly discovered classified material "was never previously sent out to the relevant
original classification authorities for security review," the official, who spoke to
RealClearInvestigations on the condition of anonymity, said.
Other key parts of the investigation remained open when the embattled director announced to
Congress he was buttoning the case back up for good just ahead of Election Day.
One career FBI special agent involved in the case complained to New York colleagues that
officials in Washington tried to "bury" the new trove of evidence, which he believed contained
the full archive of Clinton's emails -- including long-sought missing messages from her first
months at the State Department.
RealClearInvestigations pieced together the FBI's handling of the massive new email
discovery from the "Weiner laptop." This months-long investigation included a review of federal
court records and affidavits, cellphone text messages, and emails sent by key FBI personnel,
along with internal bureau memos, reviews and meeting notes documented in government reports.
Information also was gleaned through interviews with FBI agents and supervisors, prosecutors
and other law enforcement officials, as well as congressional investigators and public-interest
lawyers.
If the FBI "soft-pedaled" the original investigation of Clinton's emails, as some critics
have said, it out-and-out suppressed the follow-up probe related to the laptop, sources for
this article said.
"There was no real investigation and no real search," said Michael Biasello, a 27-year
veteran of the FBI. "It was all just show -- eyewash -- to make it look like there was an
investigation before the election."
Although the FBI's New York office first pointed headquarters to the large new volume of
evidence on Sept. 28, 2016, supervising agent Peter Strzok, who was fired on Aug. 10 for
sending anti-Trump texts and other misconduct, did not try to obtain a warrant to search the
huge cache of emails until Oct. 30, 2016. Violating department policy, he edited the warrant
affidavit on his home email account, bypassing the FBI system for recording such government
business. He also began drafting a second exoneration statement before conducting the
search.
The search warrant was so limited in scope that it excluded more than half the emails New
York agents considered relevant to the case. The cache of Clinton-Abedin communications dated
back to 2007. But the warrant to search the laptop excluded any messages exchanged before or
after Clinton's 2009-2013 tenure as secretary of state, key early periods when Clinton
initially set up her unauthorized private server and later periods when she deleted thousands
of emails sought by investigators.
Far from investigating and clearing Abedin and Weiner, the FBI did not interview them,
according to other FBI sources who say Comey closed the case prematurely. The machine was not
authorized for classified material, and Weiner did not have classified security clearance to
receive such information, which he did on at least two occasions through his Yahoo! email
account – which he also used to email snapshots of his penis.
Many Clinton supporters believe Comey's 11th hour reopening of a case that had shadowed her
campaign was a form of sabotage that cost her the election. But the evidence shows Comey and
his inner circle acted only after worried agents and prosecutors in New York forced their hand.
At the prodding of Attorney General Lynch, they then worked to reduce and rush through, rather
than carefully examine, potentially damaging new evidence.
Comey later admitted in his memoir "A Higher Loyalty," that political calculations shaped
his decisions during this period. But, he wrote, they were calibrated to help Clinton:
"Assuming, as nearly everyone did, that Hillary Clinton would be elected president of the
United States in less than two weeks, what would happen to the FBI, the Justice Department or
her own presidency if it later was revealed, after the fact, that she still was the subject of
an FBI investigation?"
What does it matter now? Republicans are clamoring for a special counsel to reopen the
Clinton email case, though a five-year statute of limitations may be an issue concerning crimes
relating to her potential mishandling of classified information.
However, conducting a broader and more thorough search of the Weiner laptop may still have
prosecutorial justification. Other questions linger, including whether subpoenaed evidence was
destroyed or false statements were made to congressional and FBI investigators from 2014 to
2016, a time frame that is within the statute of limitations. The laptop was not searched for
evidence pertaining to such crimes. Investigators instead focused their search, limited as it
was, on classified information.
Also, the FBI is still actively investigating the Clinton Foundation for alleged
foreign-tied corruption. That probe, handled chiefly out of New York, may benefit from evidence
on the laptop.
The FBI did not respond to requests for comment.
The Background
In March 2015, it was revealed that Hillary Clinton had used a private email server located
in the basement of her Chappaqua, N.Y., home to conduct State Department business during her
2009-2013 tenure as the nation's top diplomat. The emails on the unsecured server included
thousands of classified messages, including top-secret information. Federal law makes it a
felony for government employees to possess or handle classified material in an unprotected
manner.
By July, intelligence community authorities had referred the matter to the FBI.
That investigation centered on the 30,490 emails Clinton handed over after deeming them
work-related. She said she had deleted another 33,000 because she decided they were "personal."
Also missing were emails from the first two months of her tenure at State – from Jan. 21,
2009, through March 18, 2009 -- because investigators were unable to locate the BlackBerry
device she used during this period, when she set up and began using the basement server,
bypassing the government's system of archiving such public records as required by federal
statute.
Comey faces media on July 5, 2016. AP Photo/Cliff Owen
One year later, in a dramatic July 2016 press conference less than three weeks before
Clinton would accept her party's nomination for president, Comey unilaterally cleared Clinton
of criminal wrongdoing. While Clinton and her aides "were extremely careless in their handling
of very sensitive, highly classified information," he said, "no charges are appropriate in this
case."
Comey would later say he broke with normal procedures whereby the FBI collects evidence and
the Department of Justice decides whether to bring charges, because he believed Attorney
General Loretta Lynch had engaged in actions that raised doubts about her credibility,
including secretly meeting with Clinton's husband, the former president, just days before the
FBI interviewed her.
Fast-forward to September 2016.
FBI investigators in New York were analyzing a Dell laptop, shared by Abedin and Weiner, as
part of a separate sex-crimes investigation involving Weiner's contact with an underage girl. A
former Democratic congressman from New York, Weiner is serving a 21-month prison sentence after
pleading guilty to sending obscene material to a 15-year-old.
On Sept. 26, 2016, the lead New York agent assigned to the case found a large volume of
emails – "over 300,000" – on the laptop related to Abedin and Clinton, including a
large volume of messages from Clinton's old BlackBerry account.
The headers indicated that the emails on the laptop included ones sent and/or received by
Abedin at her clintonemail.com account, her personal Yahoo! email account as well as a host of
Clinton-associated domains including state.gov, clintonfoundation.org, presidentclinton.com and
hillaryclinton.com.
The agents had reason to believe that classified information resided on the laptop, since
investigators had already established that emails containing classified information were
transmitted through multiple email accounts used by Abedin, including her clintonemail.com and
Yahoo! accounts. Moreover, the preliminary count of Clinton-related emails found on the laptop
in late September 2016 -- three months after Comey closed his case -- dwarfed the total of some
60,000 originally reported by Clinton.
The agent described the discovery as an "oh-shit moment." "Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?" he asked another case agent. They agreed that the information needed "to get reported up the chain"
immediately.
The next day, Sept. 27, the official in charge of the FBI's New York office, Bill Sweeney,
was alerted to the trove and confirmed "it was clearly her stuff." Sweeney reported the find to
Comey deputy Andrew McCabe and other headquarters officials on Sept. 28, and told Justice
Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz that "everybody realized the significance of
this."
(McCabe told Horowitz he didn't remember Sweeney briefing him about the Weiner laptop, but
personal notes he took during the teleconference indicate he was briefed. Sweeney also updated
McCabe in a direct call later that afternoon in which he noted there were potentially 347,000
relevant emails, and that the count was climbing. McCabe was fired earlier this year and
referred to the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington, D.C., for possible criminal investigation
into allegations he made false statements to federal agents working for Horowitz.)
McCabe, in turn, briefed Strzok - who had led the Clinton email probe - that afternoon, text
messages show.
Comey was not on the conference call, but phone records show he and McCabe met privately
that afternoon and spoke during a flurry of phone calls late that evening. McCabe said he could
not recall what they discussed, while Comey told investigators that he did not hear about the
emails until early October -- and then quickly forgot about them. ("I kind of just put it out
of my mind," he said, because he claimed it did not "index" with him that Abedin was closely
connected to Clinton. "I don't know that I knew that [Weiner] was married to Huma Abedin at the
time.")
FBI officials in New York assumed that the bureau's brass would jump on the discovery,
particularly since it included the missing emails from the start of Clinton's time at State. In
fact, the emails dated from the beginning of 2007 and covered the entire period of Clinton's
tenure as secretary and thereafter. The team leading the Clinton investigation, codenamed
"Midyear Exam," had never been able to find Clinton's emails from her first two months as
secretary.
By Oct. 4, the Weiner case agent had finished processing the laptop, and reported that he
found at least 675,000 emails potentially relevant to the Midyear case (in fact, the final
count was 694,000). "Based on the number of emails, we could have every email that Huma and
Hillary ever sent each other," the agent remarked to colleagues. It appeared this was the
mother lode of missing Clinton emails. But Strzok remained uninterested. "This isn't a ticking
terrorist bomb," he was quoted as saying in the recently issued inspector general's report.
Besides, he had bigger concerns, such as, "You know, is the government of Russia trying to get
somebody elected here in the United States?"
Strzok and headquarters sat on the mountain of evidence for another 26 days. The career New
York agent said all he was hearing from Washington was "crickets," so he pushed the issue to
his immediate superiors, fearing he would be "scapegoated" for failing to search the pile of
digital evidence. They, in turn, went over Strzok's head, passing their concerns on to career
officials at the National Security Division of the Justice Department, who in turn set off
alarm bells at the seventh floor executive suites of the Hoover Building.
The New York agent has not been publicly identified, even in the recent IG report, which
only describes him as male. But federal court filings in the Weiner case
reviewed by RCI list two FBI agents present in court proceedings, only one of whom is male -
John Robertson. RCI has confirmed that Robertson at the time was an FBI special agent assigned
to the C-20 squad investigating "crimes against children" at the bureau's New York field office
at 26 Federal Plaza, which did not return messages.
The agent told the inspector general that he wasn't political and didn't understand all the
sensitive issues headquarters may have been weighing, but he feared Washington's inaction might
be seen as a cover-up that could wreak havoc on the bureau. "I don't care who wins this election," he said, "but this is going to make us look really,
really horrible."
Once George Toscas, the highest-ranking Justice Department official directly involved in the
Clinton email investigation, found out about the delay, he prodded headquarters to initiate a
search and to inform Congress about the discovery.
By Oct. 21, Strzok had gotten the word. "Toscas now aware NY has hrc-huma emails," he texted
McCabe's counsel, Lisa Page, who responded, "whatever."
Four days later, Page told Strzok - with whom she was having an affair - about the murmurs
she was hearing from brass about having to tell Congress about the new emails. "F them," Strzok
responded, apparently referring to oversight committee leaders on the Hill.
The next day, Oct. 26, the New York agent finally was able to brief Strzok's team directly
about what he had found on the laptop. On Oct. 27, Comey gave the green light to seek a search
warrant.
Michael Horowitz: Pressure from New York was key to
reopening email case.
"This decision resulted not from the discovery of dramatic new information about the Weiner
laptop, but rather as a result of inquiries from the Weiner case agent and prosecutors from the
U.S. Attorney's Office [in New York]," Horowitz said in his recently released report on
the Clinton investigation.
Former prosecutors say that politics is the only explanation for why FBI brass dragged their
feet for a month after the New York office alerted them about the Clinton emails.
"There's no rational explanation why, after they found over 300,000 Clinton emails on the
Wiener laptop in late September, the FBI did nothing for a month," former deputy Independent
Counsel Solomon "Sol" L. Wisenberg said in a recent interview with Fox News host Laura
Ingraham. "It's pretty clear there's a real possibility they did nothing because they thought
it would hurt Mrs. Clinton during the election."
Horowitz concurred. The IG cited suspicions that the inaction "was a politically motivated
attempt to bury information that could negatively impact the chances of Hillary Clinton in the
election."
He noted that on Nov. 3, after Comey notified Congress of the search, Strzok created a
suspiciously inaccurate "Weiner timeline" and circulated it among the FBI leadership.
The odd document, written after the fact, made it seem as if New York hadn't fully processed
the laptop until Oct. 19 and had neglected to fill headquarters in on details about what had
been found until Oct. 21. In fact, New York finished processing on Oct. 4 and first began
reporting back details to top FBI executives as early as Sept. 28.
Fearing Leaks
Fears of media leaks also played a role in the ultimate decision to reopen the case and
notify Congress.
FBI leadership worried that New York would go public with the fact it was sitting on the
Weiner emails, because the field office was leaking information on other sensitive matters at
the time, including Clinton-related conflicts dogging McCabe, which the Wall Street Journal had
exposed that October. At the same time, Trump surrogate and former New York Mayor Rudy
Giuliani, who was still in touch with FBI sources in the city, was chirping about an "October
surprise" on Fox News.
Loretta Lynch: Stop those leaks.
During the October time frame, McCabe called Sweeney in New York and chewed him out about
leaks coming out of his office. On Oct. 26, then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch was so worried
about the leaks, she called McCabe and Sweeney and angrily warned them to fix them. Sweeney
confirmed in an interview with the inspector general that they got "ripped by the AG on leaks."
McCabe said he never heard the attorney general "use more forceful language."
Lynch -- who had admonished Comey to call the Clinton case a "matter" and not an
investigation, aligning FBI rhetoric with the Clinton campaign, and who inappropriately agreed
to meet with Bill Clinton aboard her government plane five days before the FBI interviewed
Hillary Clinton -- sought to keep the Weiner laptop search quiet and was opposed to going to
Congress with the discovery so close to the election.
"We were quite confident that somebody is going to leak this fact, that we have all these
emails. That, if we don't put out a letter [to Congress], somebody is going to leak it,"
then-FBI General Counsel James Baker said. "The discussion was somebody in New York will leak
this."
Baker advised Comey that he also was under obligation to update Congress about any new
developments in the case. Just a few months earlier, the director had testified before Hill
oversight committees about his decision to close the case. Baker said the front office
rationalized that since Clinton was ahead in the polls, the notification would not have a big
impact on the race. The Democratic nominee would likely win no matter what the FBI did.
But this time, Comey made no public show of his announcement. On Oct. 28, 2016, Comey
quietly sent a terse and private letter to the chairs and the ranking members of the oversight
committees on the Hill, informing them, vaguely, that the FBI was taking additional steps in
the Clinton email investigation.
Those steps, of course, started with finally searching the laptop for relevant
emails.
'Giant Nothing-Burger'
Prosecutors and investigators alike, however, approached the search as an exercise in
futility, even prejudging the results as a "giant nothing-burger."
That was an assessment that would emerge later from David Laufman, then a lead prosecutor in
the Justice Department's national security division assigned to the Clinton email probe. He had
"a very low expectation" that any evidence found on the laptop would alter the outcome of the
Midyear investigation. And he doubted a search would turn up "anything novel or consequential,"
according to the IG report.
Mary McCord: Discounted laptop trove, and she wasn't the only
one.
Hired by former Attorney General Eric Holder, Laufman complained it was "exceptionally
inappropriate" to restart the investigation so close to the election. (Records show Laufman,
who sat in on Clinton's July 2016 interview at FBI headquarters, gave money to both of Barack
Obama's presidential campaigns.)
His boss, Mary McCord, discounted the laptop trove as emails they'd already seen. "Hopefully
all duplicates," she wrote in notes she took from an October 2016 phone call she had with
McCabe, who shared her hope. McCord opposed publicly opening the case again "because it could be a big nothing."
In an Oct. 27 email to the lead Midyear analyst, Strzok suggested the search would not be
serious, that they would just need to go through the motions, while joking about "de-duping,"
or excluding emails as ones they'd already seen.
The reactivated Midyear investigators were not eager to dive into the new emails, either.
They also prejudged the batch as evidence they had already analyzed -- while at the same time
expressing pro-Hillary and anti-Trump sentiments in internal communications.
For example, the Midyear agent who had called Clinton the "future pres[ident]" after
interviewing her in July, pooh-poohed the idea they would find emails substantively different
than what the team had previously reviewed. Even though he expected they'd find some missing
emails, even new classified material, he discounted their significance.
"My best guess -- probably uniques, maybe classified uniques, with none being any different
tha[n] what we've already seen," the agent wrote in an Oct. 28 instant message to another FBI
employee on the bureau's computer system. (Back in May 2016, as Clinton was locking up the
Democratic primary, the agent had revealed in another IM that there was "political urgency" to
wrap up her email investigation.)
The unnamed agent, who is identified in the IG report only as "Agent 1," is now married to
another Midyear investigator, who on Election Day IM'd her then-boyfriend to say Clinton
"better win," while threatening to quit if she didn't. Known as "Agent 5," she also stated,
"fuck trump," while calling his voters "retarded."
At the same time, the lead FBI attorney on the Midyear case, Sally Moyer (whose lawyers
confirmed is the anonymous "FBI Attorney 1" cited in the IG report), was in no hurry to process
the laptop. Before examining them, she expressed the belief that the massive volume of emails
"may just be duplicative of what we already have," doubting there was a "smoking gun" in the
pile.
A Hurried, Constrained Search
Moyer, a registered Democrat, was responsible for obtaining legal authority to review the
laptop's contents. She severely limited the scope of the evidence that investigators could
search on the laptop by setting unusually tight parameters.
Working closely with her was Strzok, who forwarded a draft of the warrant to his personal
email account in violation of FBI policy, where he helped edit the language in the affidavit.
By processing the document at home, no record of his changes to the document were captured in
the FBI system.
(Strzok had also edited the language in the drafts of Comey's public statement about his
original decision on the Clinton email investigation. He changed the description of Clinton's
handling of classified information from "grossly negligent" -- which is proscribed in the
federal statute -- to "extremely careless," eliminating a key phrase that could have had legal
ramifications for Clinton.)
The next day, the search warrant application drafted by Strzok and Moyer was filed in New
York. It was inexplicably self-constraining. The FBI asked the federal magistrate judge, Kevin
N. Fox, to see only a small portion of the evidence the New York agent told headquarters it
would find on the laptop.
"The FBI only reviewed emails to or from Clinton during the period in which she was
Secretary of State, and not emails from Abedin or other parties or emails outside that period,"
Horowitz pointed out in a section of his report discussing concerns that the search
warrant request was "too narrow."
That put the emails the New York case agent found between 2007 and 2009, when Clinton's
private server was set up, as well as those observed after her tenure in 2013, outside
investigators' reach. The post-tenure emails were potentially important, Horowitz noted,
because they may have offered clues concerning the intent behind the later destruction of
emails.
Also excluded were Abedin's Yahoo emails, even though investigators had previously found
classified information on her Yahoo account and would arguably have probable cause to look at
those emails, as well.
Also removed from the search were the BlackBerry data -- even though the FBI had previously
described them as the "golden emails," because they covered the dark period early in Clinton's
term.
"Noticeably absent from the search warrant application prepared by the Midyear team is both
any mention that the NYO agent had seen Clinton's emails on the laptop and any mention of the
potential presence of BlackBerry emails from early in Clinton's tenure," Horowitz noted.
Even though the BlackBerry messages were "critical to [the] assessment of the potential
significance of the emails on the Weiner laptop, the information was not included in the search
warrant application," he stressed, adding that the application appeared to misrepresent the
information provided by the New York field agent. It also grossly underestimated the extent of
the material. The affidavit warrant mentioned "thousands of emails," while the New York agent
had told them that the laptop contained "hundreds of thousands" of relevant emails.
That meant that the Midyear team never got to look, even if it wanted to, at the majority of
the communications secreted on the laptop, further raising suspicions that headquarters wasn't
really interested in finding any evidence of wrongdoing – at least on the part of Clinton
and her team.
"I had very strict instructions that all I was allowed to do within the case was look for
Hillary Clinton emails, because that was the scope of our work," an FBI analyst said, even
though Horowitz said investigators had probable cause to look at Abedin's emails as well.
In addition to limiting the scope of their probe, the agents were also under pressure from
both Justice Department prosecutors and FBI headquarters to complete the review of the
remaining emails in a hurry.
One line prosecutor, identified in the IG report only as "Prosecutor 1," argued that they
should finish up "as quickly" as possible. Baker said there was a general concern about the new
process "being too prolonged and dragged [out]."
Lynch urged Comey to process the Weiner laptop "as fast as you can," according to notes from
a high-level department meeting on Oct. 31, 2016, which were obtained by the IG.
On Nov. 3, Strzok indicated in a text that
Justice demanded he update the department twice a day on the FBI's progress in clearing the
stack. "DOJ is hyperventilating," he told Page.
De-Duplicating 'Wizardry'
Before the search warrant was issued, the Midyear team argued that the project was too vast
to complete before the election. According to Comey's recently published memoir, they insisted
it would take "many weeks" and require the enlistment of "hundreds of FBI employees." And, they
contended, not just anybody could read them: "It had to be done by people who knew the
context," and there was only a handful of investigators and analysts who could do the job.
"The team told me there was no chance the survey of the emails could be completed before the
Nov. 8 election," Comey recalled, which was right around the corner.
But after Comey decided he'd have to move forward with the search regardless, Strzok and his
investigators suddenly claimed they could finish the work in the short time remaining prior to
national polls opening.
At the same time, they cut off communications with the New York field office. "We should
essentially have no reason for contact with NYO going forward on this," Strzok texted Page on
Nov. 2.
Strzok followed up with another text that same day, which seemed to echo earlier texts about
what they viewed as their patriotic duty to stop Trump and support Clinton.
"Your country needs you now," he said in an apparent attempt to buck up Page, who was "very
angry" they were having to reopen the Clinton case. "We are going to have to be very wise about
all of this."
"We're going to make sure the right thing is done," he added. "It's gonna be ok."
Responded Page: "I have complete confidence in the [Midyear] team."
"Our team," Strzok texted back. "I'm telling you to take comfort in that." Later, he
reminded Page that any conversations she had with McCabe "would be covered under atty
[attorney-client] privilege."
Suddenly, however, the impossible project suddenly became manageable thanks to what Comey
described as a "huge breakthrough." As the new cache of emails arrived, the bureau claimed it
had solved one of the most labor-intensive aspects of the previous Midyear investigation
– having to sort through the tens of thousands of Clinton emails on various servers and
electronic devices manually.
Advanced new "de-duplicating" technology would allow them to speed through the mountain of
new emails automatically flagging copies of previously reviewed material.
Strzok, who led the effort, echoed Comey's words, later telling the IG's investigators that
technicians were able "to do amazing things" to "rapidly de-duplicate" the emails on the
laptop, which significantly lowered the number of emails that he and other investigators had to
individually review manually.
But according to the IG, FBI's technology division only "attempted" to de-duplicate the
emails, but ultimately was unsuccessful. The IG cited a report prepared Nov. 15, 2016, by three
officials from the FBI's Boston field office. Titled "Anthony Weiner Laptop Review for
Communications Pertinent to Midyear Exam," it found that "[b]ecause metadata was largely
absent, the emails could not be completely, automatically de-duplicated or evaluated against
prior emails recovered during the investigation."
Trump at rally Nov. 7, 2016, in
Manchester, N.H. : "You can't review 650,000 emails in eight days."
The absence of this metadata -- basically electronic fingerprints that reveal identifying
characteristics such as To, CC, Date, From, Subject, attachments and other fields –
informed the IG's finding that "the FBI could not determine how many of the potentially
work-related emails were duplicative of emails previously obtained in the Midyear
investigation."
Contrary to Comey's claim, the FBI could not sufficiently determine how many emails
containing classified information were duplicative of previously reviewed classified emails. As
a result, hundreds of thousands of emails were not actually processed for evidence, law
enforcement sources say.
"All those communications weren't ruled out because they were copies, they were just ruled
out," the federal investigator with direct knowledge of the case said. The official, who wished
to remain anonymous, explained that hundreds of thousands of emails were simply overlooked.
Instead of processing them all, investigators took just a sample of the batch and looked at
those documents.
After Comey announced his investigators wrapped up the review in days – then-candidate
Donald Trump expressed skepticism. "You can't review 650,000 emails in eight days," he said
during a rally on Nov. 7. He was more correct than he knew.
Exoneration Before Investigation
At the urging of Lynch, Comey began drafting a new exoneration statement several days before
investigators finished reviewing the sample of emails they took from the Weiner laptop.
High-level meeting notes reveal they even discussed sending Congress "more-clarifying"
statements during the week to "correct misimpressions out there."
A scene from the
documentary "Weiner."
As the search was under way, one of the Midyear agents – Agent 1 -- confided to
another agent in a Nov. 1 instant message on the FBI's computer network that "no one is going
to pros[ecute Clinton] even if we find unique classified [material]."
On Nov. 4 – two days before they had completed the search – Strzok talked about
"drafting" a statement. "We might have this stmt out and be substantially done," Page texted
back about an hour later.
The pair seemed confident at that point that Clinton's campaign had weathered the new
controversy and would still pull off a victory.
"[O]n Inauguration Day," Page texted Strzok, "in addition to our kegger, we should also have
a screening of the Weiner documentary!" The film, "Weiner," documented the former Democratic
lawmaker's ill-fated run for New York mayor in 2013.
Filtering
Even after the vast reservoir of emails had been winnowed down by questionable methods, the
remaining ones still had to be reviewed by hand to determine if they were relevant to the
investigation and therefore legally searchable as evidence.
Moyer, the lead FBI attorney on the Midyear team who had initially discounted the trove of
new emails as "duplicates" and failed to act upon their discovery, was also head of the
"filtering" team. After various searches of the laptop, she and the Midyear team came up with
6,827 emails they classified as being tied directly to Clinton. Moyer then culled away from
that batch emails she deemed to be personal in nature and outside the scope of legal
agreements, cutting the stack in half. That left 3,077 which she deemed "work related."
On Nov. 5, Moyer, Strzok and a third investigator divided up the remaining pool of 3,077
emails -- roughly 1,000 emails each -- and rifled through them for classified information and
incriminating evidence in less than 12 hours, even though the identification of classified
material is a complicated and prolonged process that requires soliciting input from the
original classification authorities within the intelligence community.
"We're doing it ALL," Strzok told Page late that evening. The trio ordered pizza and worked into the next morning combing through the emails. "Finishing up," Strzok texted Page around 1 a.m. that Sunday.
By about 2 a.m. Sunday, he declared they were done with their search, noting that while they
had found new State Department messages, they had found "no new classified" emails. And
allegedly nothing from the missing period at the start of Clinton's term that might suggest a
criminal motive.
Later that evening of Nov. 6, after he announced to Congress that Clinton was in the clear
again, an exuberant Comey gathered his inner circle in his office to watch football.
As news of the case's swift re-closure hit the airwaves, Page and Strzok giddily exchanged
text messages and celebrated. "Out on CNN now And fox I WANT TO WATCH THIS WITH YOU!" Strzok
said to Page. "Going to pour myself a glass of wine ."
Page noted that "Trump is talking about [Clinton]" on Fox News, and how "she's protected by
a rigged system."
New Classified Information
Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, earlier prognostications that the results of the laptop
search would not be a game-changer turned out to be accurate. Yet investigators nonetheless
found 13 classified email chains on the unauthorized laptop just in the small sample of 3,077
emails that were individually inspected, and four of those were classified as Secret at the
time.
Contrary to the FBI's public claims, at least five classified emails recovered were not
duplicates but new to investigators.
RCI has learned that these highly sensitive messages include a Nov. 25, 2011, email
regarding talks with Egyptian leaders and Hamas, and a July 9, 2011, "call sheet" Abedin sent
Clinton in advance of a phone conversation she had that month with Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu. The document runs four pages.
Another previously unseen classified email, dated Nov. 25, 2010, concerns confidential
high-level State Department talks with United Arab Emirates leaders. The note, including a
classified "readout" of a phone call with the UAE prime minister, was written by Abedin and
sent to Clinton, and then forwarded by Abedin the next day from her [email protected]
account to her then-husband's account identified under the rubric "Anthony Campaign."
Tom
Fitton: "sham" investigation.
Judicial Watch, a Washington-based government watchdog group which has filed a lawsuit
against the State Department seeking a full production of Clinton records, confirmed the
existence of several more unique classified emails it has received among the rolling release of
the 3,077 "work-related" emails.
"These classified documents are not duplicates," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told
RCI. "They are not ones the FBI had already seen prior to their November review."
He accused the FBI of conducting a "sham" investigation and called on Attorney General Jeff
Sessions to order a new investigation of Clinton's email.
The unique classified emails call into question Comey's May 2017
testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, when he maintained that although
investigators found classified email chains on the laptop, "We'd seen them all
before."
No Damage Assessment
Comey, in subsequent interviews and public testimony, maintained that the FBI left no stone
unturned. This, too, skirted the truth.
Although Comey claimed that investigators had scoured the laptop for intrusions by foreign
hackers who may have stolen the state secrets, Strzok and his team never forensically examined
the laptop to see if classified information residing on it had been hacked or compromised by a
foreign power before Nov. 6, law enforcement sources say. A complete forensic analysis was
never performed by technicians at the FBI's lab at Quantico.
Nor did they farm out the classified information found on the unsecured laptop to other
intelligence agencies for review as part of a national security damage assessment -- even
though Horowitz confirmed that Clinton's illegal email activity, in a major security breach,
gave "foreign actors" access to unknowable quantities of classified material.
Without addressing the laptop specifically, late last year the FBI's own inspection division
determined that classified information kept on Clinton's email server "was compromised by
unauthorized individuals, to include foreign governments or intelligence services, via cyber
intrusion or other means."
Judicial Watch is suing the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the State
Department to force them to conduct, as required by law, a full damage assessment, and prepare
a report on how Clinton's email practices as secretary harmed national security.
Comey and Strzok also decided to close the case for a second time without interviewing its
three central figures: Abedin, Weiner and Clinton.
Abedin was eventually interviewed, two months later, on Jan. 6, 2017. Although summaries of
her previous interviews have been made public, this one has not.
Investigators never interviewed Weiner, even though he had received at least two of the
confirmed classified emails on his Yahoo account without the appropriate security clearance to
receive them.
The IG concluded, "The FBI did not determine exactly how Abedin's emails came to reside on
Weiner's laptop."
Premature Re-Closure
In his May 2017 testimony, however, Comey maintained that both Abedin and Weiner had been
investigated.
Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana: Investigating investigators. AP
Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.): Is there an investigation with respect to the two of them?
Comey: There was, it is -- we completed it.
Pressed to answer why neither of them was charged with crimes, including mishandling
classified information, Comey explained:
"With respect to Ms. Abedin, we didn't have any indication that she had a sense that what
she was doing was in violation of the law. Couldn't prove any sort of criminal intent."
At the time, the Senate Judiciary Committee was unaware that the FBI had not interviewed
Abedin to make such a determination before the election. What about Weiner? Did he read the classified materials without proper authority? the
committee asked. "I don't think so," Comey answered, before adding, "I don't think we've been able to
interview him."
Pro-Clinton Bias
The IG report found that Strzok demonstrated intense bias for Clinton and against Trump
throughout the initial probe, followed by a stubborn reluctance to examine potentially critical
new evidence against Clinton. These included hundreds of messages exchanged with Page, embodied
by a Nov. 7 text referencing a pre-Election Day article headlined, "A victory by Mr. Trump
remains possible," about which Strzok stated, "OMG THIS IS F*CKING TERRIFYING."
Strzok is a central figure because he was a top agent on the two investigations with the
greatest bearing on the 2016 election – Clinton emails and the Trump campaign's ties to
Russia. These probes overlapped in October as the discovery of Abedin's laptop renewed Bureau
attention on Clinton's emails at the same time it was preparing to seek a Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Some Republicans have charged that the month-long delay between the New York office's
discovery of the laptop and the FBI's investigation of it can be explained by Strzok's partisan
decision to prioritize the Trump investigation over the Clinton one.
Among the evidence they cite is an Oct. 14 email to Page in which Strzok discussed applying
"hurry the F up pressure" on Justice Department attorneys to secure the FISA surveillance
warrant on Page approved before Election Day. (This also happened to be the day the Obama
administration promoted his wife, Melissa Hodgman , a big Hillary booster,
to associate director of the SEC's enforcement division.) On Oct. 21, his team filed an
application for a wiretap to spy on Carter Page.
IG Horowitz would not rule out bias as a motivating factor in the aggressive investigation
of Trump and passive probe of Clinton. "We did not have confidence that Strzok's decision to
prioritize the Russia investigation over following up on the Midyear-related investigative lead
discovered on the Weiner laptop was free from bias," he said.
Asked to elaborate in recent Senate testimony, Horowitz reaffirmed, "We did not find no bias
in regards to the October events."
Throughout that month, the facts overwhelmingly demonstrate that instead of digging into the
cache of new Clinton evidence, Strzok aggressively investigated the Trump campaign's alleged
ties to Moscow, including wiretapping at least one Trump adviser based heavily on unverified
allegations of espionage reported in a dossier commissioned by the Clinton campaign.
In a statement, Strzok's attorney blamed the delays in processing the new emails on
"bureaucratic snafus," and insisted they had nothing to do with Strzok's political views, which
he said never "affected his work."
The lawyer, Aitan D. Goelman, a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder LLP in Washington, added that
his client moved on the new information as soon as he could.
"When informed that Weiner's laptop contained Clinton emails, Strzok immediately had the
matter pursued by two of his most qualified and aggressive investigators," Goelman said. Still,
contemporaneous messages by Strzok reveal he was not thrilled about re-investigating Clinton.
On Nov. 5, for example, he texted Page: "I hate this case."
Recovering the
Laptop
A final mystery remains: Where is the Weiner laptop today?
The whistleblower agent in New York said that he was "instructed" by superiors to delete the
image of the laptop hard drive he had copied onto his work station, and to "wipe" all of the
Clinton-related emails clean from his computer.
But he said he believes the FBI "retained" possession of the actual machine, and that the
evidence on the device was preserved.
The last reported whereabouts of the laptop was the Quantico lab. However, the unusually
restrictive search warrant Strzok and his team drafted appeared to remand the laptop back into
the custody of Abedin and Weiner upon the closing of the case.
"If the government determines that the subject laptop is no longer necessary to retrieve and
preserve the data on the device," the document states on its final page, "the government will
return the subject laptop."
Wherever its location, somewhere out there is a treasure trove of evidence involving
potentially serious federal crimes -- including espionage, foreign influence-peddling and
obstruction of justice -- that has never been properly or fully examined by law enforcement
authorities.
The first tell was last summer when the first word of Russia allegedly hacking the DNC's
computers became public. As we have come to find out, the DNC announced that it had been hacked
but refused the FBI access to its servers. Why? Because the DNC preferred to have its own
cybercrime experts examine them. And who were their cybercrime experts? CrowdStrike, owned by
Dmitri Alperovitch, a Moscow-born immigrant who settled in the US as a youth. Curiously, he has
a chair at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank that spends a lot of time thinking of
reasons to go to war against Russia. How much do they want to go to war with Russia? A lot.
Saudi Arabia and the Ukrainian World Congress are among their funders.
Well, sure enough, as could have been predicted, CrowdStrike did indeed find that Russia was
hacking the DNC, although subsequently the hack information turned out to be unpersuasive. One
piece of malware misidentified by Crowdstrike as Russian was actually Ukrainian. That's a
rather big mistake, if a malware's country of origin proves anything at all, and in fact when
the software's country of origin was alleged to be Russian that was the logic in charging the
Russians as the hackers. With recent Wikileaks revealing that the CIA has in its toolbox the
ability to create hacks using others' malware and then pinning the blame elsewhere, any claim
of hacking and who authored the hacking should be open to question, as we've had enough proof
to suspect all along. And, as always, the CIA is the last institution to trust when seeking the
truth. This does not even address whether one of our moles in the Russian bureaucracy was
aiding this okeydoke.
At the same time that the first indications of the Russian hack were announced, Alexandra
Chalupa, a self-described "proud Ukrainian American" employed at the DNC, was doing opposition
research on Trump, Manafort et al for their "connections" to Russia. In interviews last summer
Chalupa was throwing around the words "treason" and "capital crime" in the direction of
Manafort and Trump.
Note what we have: A self-contained scandal within the DNC, not open to contradiction by law
enforcement (the FBI was kept out), pointing the finger at Russia for interfering with the
"democratic process". Our sacred democratic process!
Current-day Russia, and formerly when it existed as the Soviet Union, has been the number
one target for US intelligence since President Roosevelt died and generally by the West since
the Russian Revolution. I don't have enough space to describe the decades of the history of
propaganda directed against Russians, but I will briefly describe one, the shootdown of
Indonesia Airlines MH-17. I will include a few pieces of evidence reported in "fake news"
outlets and ignored in the mainstream US press, just to give the reader an idea of what the
campaign against "fake news" is all about.
In July 2014 Malaysia Flight MH-17 was shot down over a battle zone in the eastern part of
Ukraine that had refused to recognize the coup government in Kiev. That's correct, depending on
how you want to define it, the Donbass region either seceded from the greater Ukraine or the
greater Ukraine was taken over in a fascist coup backed by the US and the Donbass region
refused to recognize the fascists in Kiev.
The weapon generally blamed for the shootdown was a BUK missile, an old Soviet anti-aircraft
missile long taken out of service in Russia but still in use around the world in countries once
armed by the old Soviet Union, like Ukraine.
Within hours of the shootdown Ukrainians produced a recording of rebel chatter on radio
where it appeared that the rebels were talking about shooting down the plane. A few days later
it was determined that the recording was manufactured, using some rebel dialogue regarding
shooting down a military supply plane that had been landing at a contested airport on the front
lines of battle. What happened to the story of the recording? In the west the story about the
recording being faked was ignored, but the original story wasn't defended. It was allowed to
disappear, leaving behind its residue.
Several days after the incident the Russians released radar readings of the event. It showed
two Ukrainian fighter planes accompanying the airliner as it changed course and flew over the
battle area in the minutes before the plane was attacked. What did Ukraine say about those two
fighters? Nothing. What did the flight tower recordings with MH-17 say about those two jet
fighters? Nothing, because, depending on the version of the story you read, either all the
recordings of conversations between the control tower and the plane were made top-secret
immediately after the incident, or were lost or otherwise missing, thereby giving Ukraine the
ability to never have to answer what appeared on Russian radar to be two Ukrainian fighters
steering the civilian airliner right to the place where it was to be shot down.
At this point it should be noted that Russian BUK anti-aircraft batteries are generally
obsolete, but are complicated to operate. A BUK consists of the actual missile launcher
carrying a battery of rockets and a separate truck that operates the radar targeting aspects of
the weapon. The initial reports in the West said that it had been rebel forces that had shot
down the airliner, but the rebel forces had no operable BUK weapon and it was unlikely that the
infantry on the front lines had gone through the months of training to even operate one.
This problem was counteracted in the West by a "study" by "Bellingcat". Bellingcat is
supposed to be a somewhat anonymous citizen investigator operating from his home in Britain and
reviewing "evidence" online. Bellingcat claimed that the BUK battery used in the shootdown had
been secretly moved across the border from Russia into the rebel-occupied territory overnight,
was used to shoot down the airliner, and then was snuck back into Russia. Sound preposterous?
Of course, but not in the fog of propaganda. If it had been well known in the West that the
Ukrainian army had seventeen (!) BUK anti-aircraft batteries in the battle area while the
rebels had none, or the one "snuck in and out of the area by those tricky Russians", perhaps
the charge against the rebels and/or Russians would not have had the same effectiveness in the
West. It might further weaken the western version of events if some talking head had pointed
out that since the rebels had no air force, having anti-aircraft weapons in a battle theater
where its enemy had no aircraft was useless unless the Ukrainians planned on shooting down
someone else's aircraft.
Armies actually keep track of their ordinance. But when Russia asked for records of whether
any BUK missiles had been fired from any of the seventeen Ukrainian batteries in the battle
zone Ukraine refused.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media operated as if it had to be the Russians, or the rebels
backed by Russia. The Secretary of State, John Kerry, the weekend after the incident, declared
on Sunday morning talk shows that the US had absolute proof via its spy satellites who had
fired that missile. And, in truth, the US did know. It has spy satellites parked over Ukraine
that have the capability to read the insignia on soldiers' uniforms. One problem: the US never
released their photos. In the years since the incident the US has never released those
photographs. There have been investigations across Europe and in Australia, and yet the US
refuses to release those photographs. The family of the only American on Flight 17 has
personally asked for the photos to be released. Nothing.
Essentially, what the US intelligence and military has told the world is, "Trust us." And
most Americans do.
And while Kerry was making the rounds on the Sunday morning talk shows claiming he had
evidence of Russian guilt the rest of the media were doing their work. From the morning show to
late night TV, everyone was talking about Putin! Jimmy Kimmel and the other various cohosts
across the dial were making Putin the target of jokes, another very effective propaganda tool.
Even the darling of the Left, John Oliver, was taking his turn whacking Putin. Based on
what?
Most Americans believe that Russia shot down MH-17. For what purpose? A clue to many of the
false flags presented to the public is that they do not have a coherent motive. Why would
Russia want to smuggle a rather large, obsolete missile battery into a battle zone in the
middle of the night to shoot down an airliner? However, if in fact Ukraine shot down that
airliner and used the Mighty Wurlitzer of the CIA to promote Russia's guilt it makes much more
sense. A false flag.
What is the truth in the matter? I wasn't there, and neither were you. Who do you trust,
that evil caricature Putin, or America?
Propaganda often appears on parallel tracks. As the story of the Russian hack got more play
in the mainstream media we had stories about Russia hacking voting machines and Russia even
hacking a nuclear plant, all debunked. But because of the nature of propaganda truth was
irrelevant. A good portion of the public never hears the retractions and more often than not
there are no retractions. That fog of propaganda swirls on, and in the age of the internet
there are millions ready to repeat the propaganda. Residue.
There was a second, parallel story in the wind last fall, the Washington Post's "fake news"
story and its promotion of PropOrNot. The author of the story, Craig Timberg, is the son of
Robert Timberg, who's written a hagiography of Senator John McCain, a strong supporter of war
generally and specifically of the fascist elements in power in Ukraine.
PropOrNot designated hundreds of news sites as "fake news" sites. Considering the
decades-long history of the Washington Post working hand in hand with the CIA in disseminating
information (often false) some of us found WaPo calling the alarm on fake news to be at the
very least ironic. PropOrNot generally identified any news source that was not onboard with the
mainstream media, and not heavily against Russia, as fake.
Who is PropOrNot? They are officially anonymous, but they've left some hints, if you're
willing to look. For example, in posts at their website before the attention of WaPo, someone
on the site used the term "Heroiam Slava!" What?
"Heroiam Slava" was a fascist salute that originated in Kiev in 1942, when the Nazis put
their Banderite allies in power during their march east against the Soviet Union. In the months
afterwards the new slogan was used by Ukrainian military units during Operation Nightingale,
the local version of Germany's Holocaust. The German command had found that the constant
slaughter of civilians was taking its toll on the esprit de corps of German soldiers, so the
work mass murder was passed to the Ukrainian fascists. During their time in power it is
estimated that a million Jews were gassed, shot, garroted and shoved into mass graves. At the
same time the Banderites also slaughtered uncounted numbers of Poles, ethnic Russians and
pretty much anyone else who did not conform to Ukrainian ideas of racial purity.
So the Washington Post's source for defining fake news were anonymous people who liked to
repeat wartime slogans of the Nazis' allies. It should be noted that since the fascists came to
power in Ukraine in 2014 they have been shutting down all opposition press, frequently by
assassination. Reporters who have troubled the regime have been identified by name, address,
phone numbers et al. The Ukrainians have established an actual Ministry of Truth and have begun
rewriting the history of World War II.
Craig Timberg had another source for his story: Clint Watts of The Foreign Policy Research
Institute. The FPRI is an ultra-rightwing think tank created during The Depression which
traffics in racialist eugenics and anti-Soviet/Russian proclamations. Their founder, Robert
Strausz-Hupé, actually wrote a deranged op-ed piece for the New York Times condemning
the movie "Doctor Strangelove" as Soviet propaganda. In short, Timberg's sources of false news
were old hands at anti-Russian propaganda.
Early on I said there was something missing. Hillary Clinton isn't the President. Everyone
expected her to win. When the story of Russia hacking the DNC was first floated, the world
expected Clinton to be President. But why use only parts of the hacking story when you are
already going to win the election? As we have seen, the majority of "news" about the Russian
hacks actually occurred too close to the election to have any effect on the voting (if the DNC
leaks had any effect at all), or after the election when the hacking stories could do nothing
at all for Clinton's election chances. (Timberg's story appeared weeks after the election.) If
you are going to use this "Russia hack-Trump traitor" story to win the election, why hold any
of it back for release until after the contest was won or lost?
The hack story wasn't created to get Clinton elected. It was done to give President Clinton
her war in 2017.
Imagine now how the entire sitting government would have been behind President Clinton. We
have the dastardly Russians going so low as to try to sabotage the elections to get their buddy
Trump elected. Granted, Congress would still be completely in Republican control, as could be
estimated prior to the election, but what's the one thing Republicans stalwarts like John
McCain and Lindsay Graham can agree on? War. And the Russians hacking the DNC and tampering
with American Democracy? Outrageous. Clinton versus Putin, and this time it's personal!
As I've asked before, what is the one thing that Hillary was falling over herself to deliver
to the Deep State that Trump wouldn't and couldn't? A war with Russia. Trump is apparently too
constrained by his business dealings with various Russians (I don't think he's constrained by
any kind of loyalty; Trump has never displayed much loyalty to anyone). When Clinton announced
she would create a "no-fly zone" in Syria early on in the primary debates, it was essentially
her saying, "When I'm President I will go to war with Russia."
The "Russian hack" story was going to be our Deep State's casus belli, our reason to go to
war with Russia. With Hillary's failure in November the okeydoke was left without the most
important part, a President ready to go to war. What we see now is the okeydoke being used
against Trump. I doubt the Deep State thinks it can push Trump out for a more malleable chief
of state (like they did with Nixon and JFK). You can probably consider the public scandal to be
private negotiation behind the scenes. And the final tell will be if we are in some kind of hot
war with Russia this time next year, or living in the rubble in the aftermath of a nuclear
exchange. Tags: fake
news up 45 users have voted.
The progressive frenzy of beating war drums proceeded all our recent wars. Books have been
written about the very art of propagandizing a public, which is very much the way you
depicted. The analysis of what really happened to the MH-17 is quite enlightening. The
similarities puts this false flag right up there with Assad gassing his civilians with
Sarin--unfortunately for all concerned, Jug Ears and Medusa siphoned off some spare Sarin and
gave it to the "moderate extremists".
The Ukrainians have established an actual Ministry of Truth and have begun rewriting the
history of World War II.
Now we have our own Ministry of Truth, aided and abetted by those unbiased folks at
Facebook, Twitter, WaPo and NYT.
War on drugs--not if they're gouging us via Big Pharma. War on Terror--not if that
enriches the MIC.
Legalize marijuana? Hell no, that would cut into alcohol, tobacco, opioid revenues too
much--can't have that can we? Discussion of single-payer at this point, considering this is
c99, is pointless--but the issue is not forgotten.
Hot War with Russia? No, no, no. We must have an appetizer before the entreé" and
how do you like your Persian delicacies nuked: rare or crispy?
ubmitted by snoopydawg on Sun, 04/02/2017 - 9:39pm
You did a great job deconstructing the Russian propaganda and why they are creating more
each day.
I am pretty sure that I read that Malaysia Flight MH-17 was flying to an AIDS convention
and a lot of the passengers were AIDS experts. If that is true then that is much more than a
war crime, it's a crime against humanity. I know, redundant, but it makes the false flag that
much worse in my opinion. They don't care who they kill as long as they can get their agendas
done.
(ETA: "Among the passengers were delegates en route to the 20th International AIDS Conference
in Melbourne, including Joep Lange, a former president of the International AIDS Society,
which organised the conference.[35] Many initial reports had erroneously indicated that
around 100 delegates to the conference were aboard, but this was later revised to six.[36]
Also on board were Dutch Senator Willem Witteveen,[37] Australian author Liam Davison,[38]
and Malaysian actress Shuba Jay.[39]")
I didn't realize that the report was revised
And if Trump isn't gung ho on a war with Russia then who is calling the shots and
continuing the military buildup in the countries that surrounds Russia? The troops and the
equipment is still arriving in those countries. And who is in charge of NATO? Anyone who can
help me out with this?
I know that he has given the pentagon more authority to wage war and that is why there are
more civilians being killed in Mosul and other war areas. Is it the joint chiefs of staff who
have taken over the military? Or someone else?
As to Alligator Ed's comment, just thinking that Obama, Hillary and everyone else who was
involved with the sarin gas attack has got to be sociopaths. The inhumane indifference of
killing innocent civilians including children with the gas is another thing beyond my
comprehension. It just is.
ubmitted by snoopydawg on Sun, 04/02/2017 - 9:29pm
I think it fits here because she goes after the democrats who can't see that they are
drinking the Russian propaganda hook line and sinker.
It's the democrat's WMDs to get people on board with their war against Russia that has been
planned for over a year or more.
This is who you've allied yourselves with, Democrats. This is where you've decided to
take your stand. With war criminals like Dick Cheney, who should have stood trial at the
Hague many years ago. With John McCain, Graham and all the Bush era neocons who were
supporting Hillary over Trump because they knew that she would create their no fly zone
over Syria in order to get their war with Russia.
I look in liberal discussion circles and I see these bloodthirsty war criminals being
celebrated as heroes for standing up to Donald Trump as though they oppose his vile human
rights policies, when really they only oppose his resistance to the neocon policy of
regime-change invasions.What have you become, Democrats? How did you get here? I think it's
worth taking a few steps back to reassess your situation.
What happened to you? I've been watching you my whole life and I can honestly say I've
never seen you so crazy. You used to care about the poor, the working class, economic
justice, taking care of everyone, but now whenever I look in your direction I get blasted
in the face with McCarthyist vitriol and George W. Bush prancing around on the Ellen show
while you all cheer and talk about how you wish he could be president again instead of
Trump.
https://www.newslogue.com/debate/417/CaitlinJohnstone
A lot of these people are the ones who flocked to DK during the ramp up to the Iraq war and
were against everything that Bush and the republicans were pushing. But they are also the
same people who went silent when Obama continued PNAC's policies in the Middle East and
expanded the number of countries that he used drones on.
Oh there were a few push backs against him like when he bombed the hospital in Afghanistan,
but any time I spoke out against his use of the drones I was told that by using them it saved
our troop's lives. No thought at all about the number of people who were killed only because
they lived in the area where they dropped the bombs.
I don't believe that they don't know that by pushing the Russian propaganda that they are
saying that it's okay if there is a war with Russia because they didn't allow Hillary to
become president.
ubmitted by CB on Sun, 04/02/2017 - 9:54pm
ubmitted by travelerxxx on Mon, 04/03/2017 - 12:52am
Thanks for your work, Bob. This essay is concise, clear, and accurate.
This push for war with Russia is total insanity.
A year ago, if one had told the average Democrat that in twelve months they would be:
1) Acting as though George Bush was a hero,
2) Believing every word from the CIA and FBI as God's Own Truth,
3) Holding the evil Dick Cheney as a paragon of virtue,
4) Doing McCarthyism better than McCarthy, etc., etc. -
they would have suggested you be locked up for your own good, as you were clearly crazy.
No need to attribute (unless it's to bring folks to c99p) -- in fact, I'm certain others can
make that list quite long. That's just what popped into my head in a few seconds.
Submitted by Dr. John Carpenter on Mon, 04/03/2017 - 10:25am
@travelerxxx@travelerxxx
that the Democrats might someday be aware of the blazing irony of the points your are making
but (to appropriate a Simpsons quote) the mainstream Democrats turned into the Republicans so
gradually, they didn't even notice.
Best to be insulated from TV noise (news), some is picked up on FB by clueful writers. If my
father were alive now, he would be 98 and an anarchist, I am sure. Never rolling in his grave,
cremains are in control of his second wife, same age as me. Now our mother's ashes sit on a
closet shelf at my sister's house.
The future looks bleak. TV noise is a diversion from the causes that should be engaged, but
won't. Circus diversions, the elephants are gone from them and living in Texas.
can't even name all the countries we are currently drone bombing...mostly because of the
lack of reporting. Hollering Russia keeps the people distracted. They have no idea of our
(NATO) aggression against Russia.
The Ukraine story is obscured. Oliver Stone's movie is difficult to find in the US (2 min
trailer) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVdvp188rk4
In fact I had to watch a sub-scripted version.
The Yemen story is shameful - killing the poorest people of the middle east at the behest of
our pals the Saudis (who oppress women, have weekly beheadings, and beat you half to death if
you say anything about it).
The blindness is pervasive. Thanks for shining some light.
The United States started bombing Iraq on January 16, 1991, and, except for a few brief
intervals, hasn't stopped since. Twenty-six years this Monday, more than a quarter of a
century, and four US presidents, all of whom have bombed Iraq. Last year, the rate of bombing
increased over 20,105. The lion's share of the 26,171 bombs dropped by the United States on
the world was split evenly between Iraq and Syria, though we did reserve a dollop for Yemen.
And the United States dropped more on Libya, about 500, in 2016, than in 2015. Trump, and
Trumpism, is a symptom of the sickness, not the source.
ubmitted by detroitmechworks on Mon, 04/03/2017 - 8:52am
Why do we even bother to give the politicians "The Respect of the Office"?
They certainly didn't earn it. I didn't vote for war and neither did anybody I respect. Why
does lying your way into office, and having your bawds screaming into the airwaves about how
wonderful you are equate to respect?
The positions only have as much worth as the value we ascribe to them. We need to treat the
offices with the respect those that hold them show.
of ongoing US propaganda techniques, and for such a clear explanation of how and why they
work. I only wish all Americans could read it... it certainly deserves as wide a distribution
as possible.
Excellent work!
ubmitted by Bob In Portland on Tue, 04/04/2017 - 12:24pm
OMdearbloodyG... these pathological fruitcakes have to be stopped - I swear they're set on
destroying both any concept of civilization and planetary life and I'm not sure which they'll
achieve first. I'd ask 'what are they thinking!?' except they clearly aren't capable of
thinking - or of anything but manifesting greed, death and destruction.
This is far worse than yelling 'fire' in a crowded theatre in order to watch people being
trampled to death, far worse than setting a fire to burn a theatre full of people to a horrible
death, because they're trying to manipulate people into supporting this being done to
everything on Earth, all in the name of lunatic corporate/billionaire greed and their urge for
totalitarian power over any temporarily surviving remains.
Why can't all parties knowingly involved in propagating this lunatic projection be charged
with treason? Oh, right, because all levels of the US government almost entirely consist of the
treasonous madmen conspiring at this...
And Obama 'legalized' the use of propaganda by the US government against The People who
their public offices exist to serve... as if defying/ignoring Constitutional protections and
governmental limitations somehow over-rides them, which they cannot do unless The People are
propagandized - yet again - into accepting it as a 'done deal' and allowing it.
This is the last chance - never vote for evil again and make it obvious exactly why, while
you still can.
The Democrats' progressive wing claimed victory on Saturday after 'Superdelegates' lost the
ability to vote on the first ballot of the party's nomination process
"... First of all, the Democrats will now face increasing demands for impeachment from the impassioned members of their base whom they have riled up to see Trump as the epitome of the Putin-Nazi evil that threatens "our democracy." ..."
"... It would deeply undermine any notion that the political system holds the confidence of the people, and intensify division, disruption, and the sense of incipient civil war in the country more than any number of Russian Facebook posts. ..."
But these crimes are tax fraud, money laundering, and credit app padding that have nothing
to do with Donald Trump, and campaign-finance violations related to what a critic of Trump
aptly describes
as "a classic B-team type of bumbling screw-up of covering up mistresses." I question the level
of word play, if not fantasizing, necessary to claim that these crimes validate "
this investigation of foreign subversion." None of them has anything to do with that.
The perils of this, that, these, and those.
Do these results disprove that the Mueller probe is "a political investigation"? I think
they imply quite the opposite, and quite obviously so.
Why? Because these convictions would not have occurred if Hillary Clinton had been elected
president. There would be no convictions because there would have been no investigation.
If Hillary had been elected, all the crimes of Manafort and Cohen -- certainly those that
took place over many years before the election, but even, I think, those having to do with
campaign contributions and mistress cover-ups -- would never have been investigated, because
all would have been considered right with the political world.
The Manafort and Cohen crimes would have been ignored as the standard tactics of the elite
financial grifting -- as well as of parasitism on, and payoffs by, political campaigns -- that
they are. Indeed, there would have been no emergency,
save-our-democracy-from-Russian-collaboration, Special Counsel investigation, from which these
irrelevant charges were spun off, at all.
... ... ...
Have you heard of the Podestas? The Clinton Foundation? Besides, the economic purpose of
American electoral politics is to funnel millions to consultants and the media. Campaign
finance law violations? We'll see how the
lawsuit over $84 million worth of funds allegedly transferred illegally from state party
contributions to the Clinton campaign works out. Does the media report, does anybody know or
care, about it? Will anybody ever go to prison over it?
... ... ...
First of all, the Democrats will now face increasing demands for impeachment from the
impassioned members of their base whom they have riled up to see Trump as the epitome of the
Putin-Nazi evil that threatens "our democracy." If the Democrats insist these convictions
are not just matters of financial hijinx, irrelevant to Mueller's "Russia collusion"
investigation, and irrelevant in fact to anything of political substance; if they assert that
the payoffs to Stormy and Karen (the only acts directly involving Trump) disqualify Trump for
the presidency, then they will have no excuse but to call for Trump's impeachment, and act to
make it happen. Their base will demand that Democratic candidates run on that promise, and if
the Democrats re-take the House, that they begin impeachment proceedings immediately.
... ... ...
If they try to impeach and fail (which is likely), well, then, as happened to the
Republicans with Clinton, they will just look stupid, and will be punished for having wasted
the nation's political time and energy foolishly. And Trump will be strengthened.
If they were to impeach, convict, and remove Trump (even by forcing a resignation), a large
swath of the population would conclude, correctly, that a ginned-up litigation had been used to
overturn the result of the 2016 election, that the Democrats had gotten away with what the
Republicans couldn't in 1998-9. That swath of the population would likely withdraw completely
from electoral politics, leaving all their problems and resentments intact -- hidden for a
while, but sure to erupt in some other ways. It would deeply undermine any notion that the
political system holds the confidence of the people, and intensify division, disruption, and
the sense of incipient civil war in the country more than any number of Russian Facebook
posts.
. .. ... ...
...if they do move forward, that will initiate a political battle that will tear the country
apart and end up either with their defeat or the victory of Mike Pence.
... ... ...
By the way, for those who think that Manafort's conviction portends a smoking gun, based on
his work for "pro-Kremlin Viktor Yanukovych," as the NYT and other liberals persistently call
him, I would suggest looking at this Twitter thread by Aaron
Maté. It's a brilliant shredding of Rachel Maddow's (and, to a lesser extent, Chris
Hayes's) version of the deceptive implication -- presented as an indisputable fact -- that
Manafort's work for Yanukovych is proof that he (and by extension, Trump) was working for
Putin. As Maté shows, that is actually indisputably false. Manafort was working hard to
turn Yanukovych away from Russia to the EU and the West, and the evidence of that is
abundant and easily available. It was given in the trial, though you'd never know that from
reading the NYT or listening to MSNBC. As a former Ukraine Foreign Ministry spokesman said: "If
it weren't for Paul, Ukraine would have gone under Russia much earlier. He was the one dragging
Yanukovich to the West." And the Democrats know this.
And if you think Cohen is harboring secret knowledge of Trump-Russia collusion that he's
going to turn over to Mueller, take look at Maté's thread on that.
We are now entering a new period of intense political maneuvering that's the latest turning
point in the bizarre and flimsy "Russiagate" narrative. I've been asked to comment on that a
number of times over the past two years, and each time I or one of my fellow commentators would
say, "Why are we still talking about this?" It was originally conjured up as a Clinton campaign
attack on Trump, but, to my and many others' surprise and chagrin, it somehow morphed into the
central theme of political opposition to Trump's presidency.
... ... ...
Russiagate was a pretext to dig around everywhere in his closet. Trump was clueless about
the trap he was setting for himself, and has been relentlessly foolish in dealing with it. It
is a witch hunt, and he's riding around on his broom, skywriting self-incriminating
tweets.
There are a thousand reasons to criticize Donald Trump -- his racism, his stupidity, his
infantile narcissism, his full embrace of Zionist colonialism with its demand to attack Iran,
his enactment of Republican social and economic policies that are destroying working-class
lives, etc. That he is a Kremlin agent is not one of them. His election was a symptom of deep
pathologies of American political culture that we must address, including the failure of the
"liberal" party and of the two-party system itself. That Donald Trump is a Russian agent is not
one of them. There are a number of very good justifications for seeking his impeachment,
starting with the clear constitutional crime of launching a military attack on another country
without congressional authorization. That he is a Kremlin agent is not one of them.
Unfortunately, the Democratic Party and its allied media do not want to center the fight on
these substantive political issues. Instead, they are centering on this barrage of Russiagate
litigation -- none of which yet proves, or even charges, Russian "collusion" -- which they are
using as a substitute for politics. And, in place of opposition, they're substituting
uncritical loyalty to the heroes of the military-intelligence complex and "our democracy" that
only a complete fantasist could stomach. I mean, when you get to the point that you're
suspecting John Bolton's "
ties to Russia " .
"... Brennan is hardly a model of credibility. But in that he is simply characteristic of the national security apparatus's leaders over the decades. The starting point with these guys has always been an obvious contempt for the legislative branch and the public it represents. ..."
"... In fact, it's probably a qualification for the job. ..."
"... Not so obvious is the reference to "documentary evidence" that allegedly demonstrates how national security officials "play[ed] fast and loose with the Constitution and the law". A number of them made it clear during the campaign that they believed only one of the candidates was even remotely suitable for the presidency. ..."
"... Why people opposed to Clinton are still on about Comey is a mystery. His Prince-of-Denmark obsession with his own virtue materially contributed to her losing the election. ..."
(1) An intellectual Rubicon is crossed when Giuliani is deemed a reliable source for
anything.
(2) Brennan is hardly a model of credibility. But in that he is simply characteristic of the
national security apparatus's leaders over the decades. The starting point with these guys has
always been an obvious contempt for the legislative branch and the public it represents.
It's
not a quality unique to Brennan. In fact, it's probably a qualification for the job.
(3) Am happy to hear that Brennan wants "all Americans [to] get the answers they so rightly
deserve" [NYT] from the Mueller investigation. But he'd be more persuasive if that desire
extended equally to the Senate's investigation into torture.
(4) Not so obvious is the reference to "documentary evidence" that allegedly demonstrates
how national security officials "play[ed] fast and loose with the Constitution and the law". A
number of them made it clear during the campaign that they believed only one of the candidates
was even remotely suitable for the presidency. Where does the law come in? If the claim --
hinted at but not made explicit -- is that Brennan was part of a conspiracy to produce the
Steele dossier, allegations of fact, not to mention citation to laws violated, would be
helpful. Based on information known to date, we can reasonably surmise that some, but not all,
of the material in the dossier was the product of Russian disinformation channelled to Steele.
If there's something more, it would be good to get details.
(5) Why people opposed to Clinton are still on about Comey is a mystery. His
Prince-of-Denmark obsession with his own virtue materially contributed to her losing the
election. And, more broadly, if there really was a conspiracy by the national security
apparatus, it was an endeavor that failed. One would think that the 63 million would be pleased
on both counts.
(6) If law breaking there was, what explains the silence from the DOJ under Sessions, whose
stellar career is littered with contrived prosecutions of political opponents? It doesn't take
much to draft an indictment. Yet, here we are, nearly two years into the new dawn, and Brennan
continues to walk free and even spout off publicly. What explains that?
Degeneration os social democratic parties into soft neoliberals is a world wide tendency.
That spell troubles for them as they lost their key constituency. The level of corruption within
the party elite is staggering (exemplified by Clintons and Obama). The
"Democratic" Party is completely captured by FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real
Estate)
If this assessment has some connection to reality Dems will be unable to improve their
position during the US mid-term elections.
At the same time idea that "proletariat" is capable organizing
resistance and winning th election enforcing favorable for them changes
proved to be wrong. Most positive changes of the New Deal/fair Deal
were forced concessions in face of the possibility of open armed revolt. Now
with the dissolution of the USSR this possibility is discounted by the
ruling neoliberal elite.
Also we face the end of "cheap oil" and that means that standard of
living of working class will continue to deteriorate.
The future is really grim...
Notable quotes:
"... Most social-democratic parties in Europe have the same problem the U.S. Democrats have. The party establishments angle for the ever elusive 'liberal' center. ..."
"... This phenomenon is the micro version of a much larger trend. [neo]Liberal globalization, as promoted by the party 'elites', promises but does not deliver what the real people need and want. [neo]Liberal globalization turned out to be a class war in which only the rich can win. A revolt, locally on the level of voters, and globally on the level of nations, is underway to regain a different view. ..."
"... Wages rise when companies have to compete for workers. Immigration increases the available work force. A political program that supports both does not compute. ..."
"... Neither LGBTXYZ identity policies nor other aloof 'liberal values' will increase the income of the poor. To win back the necessary masses the Democrats and social-democrats in Europe will have to shun, or at least de-emphasize such parts of their program. It's a class war. The rich are winning. Fight. ..."
"... your last sentence is right on target. It's been a class war for many decades. Most of the Dems have been playing "good cop, bad cop" for many years now. They talk progressive, but in the end they opt for the rich man's money. ..."
"... At present, the oligarchs own everything in the U$A. Giant corporate interests own the Govt., the Media, & the voting systems. No matter the good intentions of a few, if the people don't hear it or see it, it never happened. ..."
"... "The progressive Democrats...." Uh-oh! No such thing. "Working people understand this and in 2016 many of them voted for Trump." God...German working people also understand this and voted for Hitler or, rather for the Nazis. ..."
"... I think Marx call it "Dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" ..."
"... The western fiat faction requires perpetually increasing inputs of capital, commodities and labor - labor population must increase or the debt ponzi falls. Thus, as long as we have declining birthrates in the West, immigration will continue regardless of what the peasants want... ..."
"... I agree that it is a class war, but it is one we have already lost. We are at the end of the oil era, yet our financial economic system requires perpetual growth, how do you think this will work out? (It won't) ..."
"... The "Democratic" party is completely captured by its FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) funders on Wall Street and the corporate class. The DNC crowd will stick to their losing guns election after election while not offering any benefits to working people ..."
"... Were it not for the purposefully restricted structure of the two party systems where voters bounce between two awful parties before giving up altogether, the Democratic party would have fully collapsed long ago. ..."
"... Remember: the donors don't care if the Republicans or Democrats win, as long as their agenda prevails. And most Democrats and most Republican politicians don't care about their party either, as long as they can retire and get put on the boards of big corporations and cash in etc. ..."
"... Big Money and the Political Machines it built within the USA became prominent soon after its Civil War. Those plus the oligarchical controls built into the USA's governmental organization ensured that Commonfolk would have a very difficult time trying to govern themselves and promote their own interests. ..."
"... By WW2's end, the foundation for Keynesian Militarism and its in-built [monies get redistributed upward, not downward, automatically] Class War was laid along with the basis for Big Money's recapture of government. ..."
"... Essentially, tax dollars are spent on weapons and munitions and the manufacturer endowed with excess profits which are then plowed back into the political system through campaign contributions--politico buying--which in turn further corrupts the system. ..."
"... until we get beyond predatory finance, we are all essentially screwed.. ..."
"... US Health care, despised by everyone in the U.S: doctors, nurses, patients and pharmacists, is not the only thing that needs reform. How we select and elect those who allegedly represent us is unacceptable. Private money is more important than humanity and no one can guarantee that those elected actually won. ..."
"... What's happening now in the USA is no longer democracy or capitalism at all. It's military plutocracy. The elections and voting process are a sham and certainly have been since G.W. Bush "won" the election vs Al Gore. Strangely, last year's showdown between Killary and Trump was probably the first live election in a while where the establishment didn't get their (wo)man. Killary seemed to scare a few powerful people - she'd spent too much time in Washington, was too ruthless and had too many of her own people in institutions or available as ANTIFA brownshirts. She failed a few final interviews and some key establishment players switched sides, allowing Trump a last minute real shot at the ring. ..."
"... Only by setting us at each other's throats can the establishment maintain its place for another decade or two. It seems they are prepared to take this risk ..."
"... Marx and then the Soviet Union scared the capitalists at the start of the twentieth century. National Socialism scared them even more. The Western Establishment have built a system and a plan to put off the revolution. How long can they hold us under? This is the fascinating question which The Hunger Games set out to answer. ..."
"... the Democrats, and similar "liberal" movements in Europe, Canada, etc, know exactly what they're doing, which is simply what the donors want. It's not about the strategists, and it's not about winning elections either--at least not in the first place. ..."
"... In case anybody didn't hear it Warren Buffet some time back came out with: "There is a class war and we have won it." ..."
"... Psychohistorian's stress on the importance of private finance is of course correct but it is just part of an imperial equation where finance + military = empire or vice versa. ..."
"... For a century and a half, the primary purpose of the Democratic Party has been to crush leftist/socialist movements. Eugene Debs knew this a century ago. The SDS knew this 1/2 century ago. Bernie Sanders knew this until 2016. ..."
"... Hudson's first magnum opus was SuperImperialism , but please get the updated version as the first is somewhat dated. ..."
"... Clearly, the US military is used by this "loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires" to enforce their will on those who foolishly believe their governments should serve their own citizens. But it is not the US, or even primarily the 0.01% of the US who are calling the shots. The PTSB have no allegiance to any nation-state (with one glaring exception). But they use nationalism to divide the 99% of the world into bite-sized, easily edible pieces. ..."
"... Yes exactly, a class war. Basically elites vs the rest of us. Maybe 10% of non elites go along for the ride and puck up some crumbs. Another 20% do alright for a time until they get replaced by cheaper and younger and struggle to survive to reach social security without losing their home due to medical bankruptcy. ..."
"... So long as both parties go along with the neoliberal imperialistic agenda there will be rewards, even for the minority party. Best to be a minority party with plenty of funding than one without funding ..."
"... Real median incomes are much lower than the early 70's when adjusted with the pre-1980 CPI. CPI post 1980 has been adjusted to mask the impact of neoliberalism and enhance it by lowering COLA's and keeping money cheap to fuel asset inflation which does not impact the new CPI as much ..."
Staying out of the single-payer debate, party strategists say, could help Democrats in the
general election, when they'll have to appeal to moderates skeptical of government-run health
care. Earlier this year, the DCCC warned candidates about embracing single payer, hoping to
avoid Republican attacks on "socialized" medicine.
Why is "socialized" medicine supposed to be a bad thing? Why not defend it? It is what the
voters want :
The 'strategists' say the voters can not have the nice stuff they want. Their arguments lost
the elections. If the Democrats want to win again their must tell their
voters to demand more nice stuff. Some people get that
:
Progressive insurgents believe Clinton's defeat, on top of losing control of Congress and
most state governments, proved them right. They aspire to overthrow conventional wisdom that
Democrats must stay safely in the middle to compete.
" Democrats have been fixated for 20 years on this elusive, independent, mythical middle
of the road voter that did not exist ," said Crystal Rhoades, head of the Democratic Party in
Nebraska's Douglas County, where a progressive candidate, Kara Eastman, is trying to wrest a
competitive congressional district from a Republican.
"We're going to try bold ideas."
Most social-democratic parties in Europe have the same problem the U.S. Democrats have.
The party establishments angle for the ever elusive 'liberal' center. They move the
parties further to the right and lose their natural constituencies, the working class. This
gives rise to (sometimes fascist) 'populists' (see Trump) and to an ever growing share of
people who reject the established system and do not vote at all.
This phenomenon is the micro version of a much larger trend. [neo]Liberal globalization,
as promoted by the party 'elites', promises but does not deliver what the real people need and
want. [neo]Liberal globalization turned out to be a class war in which only the rich can win. A
revolt, locally on the level of voters, and globally on the level of nations, is underway to
regain a different view.
Alastair Crooke recently
outlined the larger trend within a global, 'metaphysical' perspective.
The progressive Democrats who are pushing for single payer healthcare still miss out on
other issues. They also support higher wages, but are, at the same time, against restrictions
on immigration. Wages rise when companies have to compete for workers. Immigration
increases the available work force. A political program that supports both does not
compute.
Working people understand this and in 2016 many of them voted for Trump. Neither LGBTXYZ
identity policies nor other aloof 'liberal values' will increase the income of the poor. To win
back the necessary masses the Democrats and social-democrats in Europe will have to shun, or at
least de-emphasize such parts of their program. It's a class war. The rich are winning.
Fight.
Corporations and their lobbyists pay big money to influence both parties to ignore the will
of the proletariat in favor of the one percent. If the candidate does not deliver the goods
to his rich benefactors, he will lose his funding.
Therefore, a candidate can talk a populist game, but if he tries to implement anything of
value to the proles, he will be ousted as quickly as possible.
In this way, For the money, the Democratic Party that championed the working man (to a
degree) helped the Republicans to sabotage Labor Unions.
Now the D party is a champion of LGTBQ.
Could be difficult to win back the blue collar working man.
Thanks b, your last sentence is right on target. It's been a class war for many decades. Most
of the Dems have been playing "good cop, bad cop" for many years now. They talk progressive,
but in the end they opt for the rich man's money.
At present, the oligarchs own everything in the U$A. Giant corporate interests own the
Govt., the Media, & the voting systems. No matter the good intentions of a few, if the
people don't hear it or see it, it never happened.
It'll take torches and pitchforks to make a change, and, I just don't see that happening
until we hit rock bottom.
"The progressive Democrats...."
Uh-oh! No such thing.
"Working people understand this and in 2016 many of them voted for Trump."
God...German working people also understand this and voted for Hitler or, rather for the
Nazis.
Without a true labor party all the narrative that you mentioned is taking place within
capitalist's class, i.e. State Ideological Apparatus.
I think Marx call it "Dictatorship of the bourgeoisie"
P.S.--Even with massive voter turn-out this Nov., we have no way of knowing what the real
vote is, since our voting systems have never been vetted. The machines are privately owned by
corporations, and they refuse vetting on grounds that their systems are proprietary
information. No problem huh? Except for this..
The western fiat faction requires perpetually increasing inputs of capital, commodities and
labor - labor population must increase or the debt ponzi falls. Thus, as long as we have
declining birthrates in the West, immigration will continue regardless of what the peasants
want...
I agree that it is a class war, but it is one we have already lost. We are at the end of
the oil era, yet our financial economic system requires perpetual growth, how do you think
this will work out? (It won't)
People should be thinking of how they are going to keep their children from starving in a
couple of years, the rest is just noise...
The "Democratic" party is completely captured by its FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate)
funders on Wall Street and the corporate class. The DNC crowd will stick to their losing guns
election after election while not offering any benefits to working people.
Further, they
would rather continue to lose elections than adapting to the will of the people -- hence their
ridiculous focus on Russiagate and other phantoms rather than offering real programs of
substance that would attract voters.
Were it not for the purposefully restricted structure of the two party systems where
voters bounce between two awful parties before giving up altogether, the Democratic party
would have fully collapsed long ago.
The capitalist migration policy intentions are not just to have.. "Immigration increase
the available work force", but rather to saturate the labour market. That way they keep the
cost of labour down by having more people compete for the jobs than there are available thus
bringing the labour costs down. This leads to the kinds of ethnic ghetto's wherein rampant
unemployment for the vast majority is a way of life, which in turn fosters non integration
into the country's larger society and hence we get what you are referring to as some."living
off of freebies in their own 'no-go' Shari law enclaves"
Solution? STOP bombing other countries back into the stone age, creating millions of
destitute refugees and after that, simply regulate immigration according to the available
jobs and workforce a country can reasonably accommodate and thereby successfully integrate
any newcomers from other lands.
Q: Why did the Democrats lose the Senate, House and presidency as well as more than a
thousand state government positions?
A: They listened to their DONORS, not to their voters.
Remember: the donors don't care if the Republicans or Democrats win, as long as their
agenda prevails. And most Democrats and most Republican politicians don't care about their
party either, as long as they can retire and get put on the boards of big corporations and
cash in etc.
"The progressive Democrats who are pushing for single payer healthcare still miss out on
other issues. They also support higher wages, but are, at the same time, against restrictions
on immigration." Kudos to you for pointing out the obvious. Be careful though, this kind of
talk can easily get you labelled as a racist, a fascist, as "literally Hitler" and Vladimir
Putin's homosexual lover.
Bottom line: the Democrats give lip service to supporting higher
wages, but in reality they support low wages, hence their opposition to moderating the rate
of immigration.
My last reply on the previous thread serves well as a beginning comment here:
"IMO, too many assets that elevate/enhance one's life experiences need to be made into
publicly owned utilities, social media communication platforms being one as I explained
above. If the Outlaw US Empire's people can finally get universal healthcare for all enacted,
then other realms of the for-profit arena can be targeted as a tsunami-sized political wave
is building that will make such changes possible provided the insurrection's sustained for
decades to forestall the forces of Reaction. It's really the only political direction capable
of making America great for the first time in its history--Being a Great Nation contains a
moral aspect the USA has never attained and is nowhere near close to attaining anytime
soon."
The Class War's been raging for centuries--millennia actually. But as Michael Hudson
notes at the end of his autobiographical interview, something deliberate was done to
alter the course of political-economy:
"[Marx] showed that capitalism itself is revolutionary, capitalism itself is driving
forward, and of course he expected it to lead toward socialism, as indeed it seemed to be
doing in the nineteenth century.
But it's not working out that way. Everything changed in World War One."
( I highly suggest reading the rest of that passage .)
Elsewhere Hudson has shown Marx expected the contradictions within Capitalism to spawn its
antithesis--Socialism--in a natural, evolutionary manner; but, clearly, the forces of
Reaction stepped in to arrest that path as Kolko illustrated in his Triumph of
Conservatism .
However, popular ideas within societies forwarding the evolution to
socialism needed to be constrained and harnessed -- the populism of the late 19th Century
couldn't be allowed to resurface as it was the #1 threat to elite control. And so began The
Great Reaction as soon as WW1 ended.
Unfortunately, Capitalism's contradictions arose to temporarily derail the
Counter-Revolution as the Great Depression ushered in a return of dynamic Populism within
Europe and especially the USA. WW2 provided a golden opportunity to finally crush dynamic
Populism once and for all as the forces of Reaction emerged from their closets within FDR's
administration and tools were forged to enable societal control, which included the newly
emerging forms of mass communication and indoctrination.
Big Money and the Political Machines it built within the USA became prominent soon after
its Civil War. Those plus the oligarchical controls built into the USA's governmental
organization ensured that Commonfolk would have a very difficult time trying to govern
themselves and promote their own interests.
The changes made to the system after the very
nearly won success of the Progressive Populists greatly aided the forces of Reaction as did
the imposition of Prohibition and the Red Scare--Populist successes were a mixed bag during
the 1930s as very reactionary laws were also introduced--The House Un-American Activities
Committee in 1938 and The Smith Act in 1940.
By WW2's end, the foundation for Keynesian
Militarism and its in-built [monies get redistributed upward, not downward, automatically]
Class War was laid along with the basis for Big Money's recapture of government.
Essentially,
tax dollars are spent on weapons and munitions and the manufacturer endowed with excess
profits which are then plowed back into the political system through campaign
contributions--politico buying--which in turn further corrupts the system.
It's been ongoing
since 1938--80 years--and must be excised from the body politic if the Outlaw US Empire is
ever to go straight and become a law abiding global citizen amongst the community of
nations.
All the countries with single payer health systems have a small military. I live in Canada
and when military spending is broached the people always want the money to be spent on
health care. I personally doubt that the NATO countries will actually drastically increase
there defense budgets against the voters wishes. No western country outside the USA feels
threatened so why spend more on defense?
It is up to the American people to make similar choices when they vote.
thanks b.. the whole political system as it presently stands in the west is not working.. it
is one step up from the system in places like Saudi Arabia and etc... i go back to
psychohistorians main view that until we get beyond predatory finance, we are all essentially
screwed..
folks talk immigration but in the forest industry here on the westcoast of canada,
machines have replaced workers.. This is just one example.. robots and etc. etc. are working
towards the same end.. a corp that can get a robot or machine to do something will go that
way based on long term costs. None of the political parties i know of are addressing the
impact of technology on job opportunities.. In fact they are all cheer leaders for technology
while talking of growing the economy and etc. etc...
So we just keep ''growing the population'' while skipping over addressing the private
finances elephant in the room.. at some point the world is going to have to change or not
survive.. the political class here in Canada is abysmal.. it seems like it is much the same
everywhere in the land of democracy too, where corporations and private interests with money
are calling the shots.. plutocracy is what i think they call it..
I read
this article then discovered b had written a similar one based on the same polling
results. But is the long-denied desire within the Outlaw US Empire for universal healthcare
an actual revolt against what b describes as "liberal globalization"?
What I see is a global
revolt against the Outlaw US Empire's gross illegalities and immoral hegemony which also
contains an ideological battle with nations embracing Win-Winism while rejecting Zerosumism,
which can also be interpreted as rejection of the Millenia-long Class War.
Globalization
continues on, actually increasing its velocity through the twin Eurasian projects--BRI &
EAEU. IMO, the Eurasian projects have the potential to force Capitalism to finally evolve
into Socialism, which is what Winwinism embodies.
Today's middle is yesterday's right. Party strategists are reflecting the views of their pay
masters. Both parties dial for the same dollars. Those dollars come from billionaires who
what to protect their wealth and power. Both parties parties parties reflect this sad
reality.
US Health care, despised by everyone in the U.S: doctors, nurses, patients and pharmacists,
is not the only thing that needs reform. How we select and elect those who allegedly
represent us is unacceptable. Private money is more important than humanity and no one can
guarantee that those elected actually won.
The assertion that immigration (in the U.S., at least) is keeping wages low needs to be
questioned. The immigrants from south of the border by and large do the work that no one else
wants to do. Unemployment is low, and relatively good paying jobs in less popular
geographical areas are not getting filled.
Wages are low because the forces of regulation
making them higher have been weakened, and unionization has declined. It has to be questioned
whether the individual worker has ever had bargaining power over wages.
It's been the
collective power of governmental action and union action that has worked for the benefit of
higher wages.
Thank you for your comment, Karlof. Deep comments like your and those of Paveway and a few
others are what make the comment section an occasional joy to read.
What's happening now in the USA is no longer democracy or capitalism at all. It's military
plutocracy. The elections and voting process are a sham and certainly have been since G.W.
Bush "won" the election vs Al Gore. Strangely, last year's showdown between Killary and Trump
was probably the first live election in a while where the establishment didn't get their
(wo)man. Killary seemed to scare a few powerful people - she'd spent too much time in
Washington, was too ruthless and had too many of her own people in institutions or available
as ANTIFA brownshirts. She failed a few final interviews and some key establishment players
switched sides, allowing Trump a last minute real shot at the ring.
People all over the Western world have woken up to diminishing incomes, higher bills
(education/medicine/utilities - all of which you can't avoid if you have children) and much
worse employment opportunities even for the very motivated but only modestly capable (if you
have 110 IQ or lower and didn't grow up inside a business household, your chances
going into business for yourself are very low and you are
likely to just dig yourself or your family a deeper hole). This is not what the people were
promised during the last five elections (whether in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia or
France). The game is up.
Only by setting us at each other's throats can the establishment maintain its place for
another decade or two. It seems they are prepared to take this risk. The Hunger Games were a
surprise huge world wide hit (the films are rather boring and not particularly well made,
despite a good performance in the lead role).
The close similarity between that dystopia and
what we live now with NFL football (literally knocks the brains out of your skull, may cause
sane people to
commit suicide or
murder their wife and children ) or even Premier League Football or Tour de France where
the contestants even now are mad roiders, compromising both personal integrity and long term
health in pursuit of yellow vest.
Marx and then the Soviet Union scared the capitalists at the start of the twentieth
century. National Socialism scared them even more. The Western Establishment have built a
system and a plan to put off the revolution. How long can they hold us under? This is the
fascinating question which The Hunger Games set out to answer.
Hey, I worked In Canada For CN on the running trades for 37 years. I'm 65 plus so CCP and Old
Age pension both kick in on top of my CN pension which leaves me able to indulge in all my
bad habits.
I lease a new car every four years and my Buick Regal turbo goes back this January. I live in an upscale apartment with all the amenities I've been sick lately but have been receiving excellent healthcare. You don't get bills.
Nada.
I'm a senior and my meds have been costing $4.11 per prescription. So you'll have to excuse me if up I'm not up for a revolution right now.
How 'bout you james? You ready to take to the streets?
Even as one who opposes single-payer health care (all monopolies cause problems, be they
private or public) I have to agree with b in principle. The rich are doing to us now what
they did to Russia in the 1990's. We of the working class don't deserve to have our interests
protected because we're "deplorables."
Oh please; we've had EIGHT years of earnest-sounding, well-intentioned advice to Obama to do
the right, progressive thing. As if he ever needed it; the Democrats, and similar "liberal"
movements in Europe, Canada, etc, know exactly what they're doing, which is simply
what the donors want. It's not about the strategists, and it's not about winning elections
either--at least not in the first place.
Continuing to pay attention to this zombie party only supports it; when it's burned to the
ground, that's when you may be having an impact.
@12 karlof1... thanks for the link to the autobiography on Michael Hudson. i really enjoyed
reading about him and didn't realize all that he has done over the course of his life. it
motivates me to read one of his books.. thanks.
@13 mdroy... that also looks like a good book.. thanks..
@21 peter.. i think the question is this: when's it all going to come crashing down? i
think uncoy is right.. it is coming down sometime within mine or the younger generations
lifetime.. young folks view things very differently then you... the fall will force many to
alter their present day view and drop with the smug attitude that seems so pervasive with
those who think they have it all..
A fascinating topic tonight and so much to ponder on with so many thoughtful comments.
In case anybody didn't hear it Warren Buffet some time back came out with: "There is a class
war and we have won it."
b. references Crooke's article. The poor folks over at zerohedge were hopelessly lost when
the article was put up there; some of them got very angry when concepts such as the
enlightenment celestially orbited way beyond their limited spheres. Maybe it stank of culture
or gay paintings or something. Who knows. But maybe they had a point.
Rather than the enlightenment I see the creation of empires as the starting point - at which
the English excelled. What the English did was to literally sacrifice their pawns (pawns =
peons = peasants) for the greater game when they kicked their peasantry off the land in the
enclosure movement (they always think up a nice word for a disgusting deed). Scientific
methods began to be employed on the new larger farms sufficient to feed a burgeoning
industrial proletariat. But it was this one revolutionary act that kickstarted the British-US
empire that has ruled us for so long.
Psychohistorian's stress on the importance of private finance is of course correct but it
is just part of an imperial equation where finance + military = empire or vice versa.
I am inclined to agree with Spike @ 18 that immigration by itself does not keep wages low. In
Australia (where I live), unemployment is low in comparison with other countries.
There are
sectors where more workers are needed: more nurses are needed and more primary and secondary
school teachers are needed. English-speaking countries in particular are short of medical and
nursing staff to the extent that they are drawing (poaching?) such people away from Asian and
African countries that need these people.
At the same time young people who might consider careers in nursing and medicine are
dissuaded by the cost of pursuing degrees as universities increasingly rely more on charging
on students for university education as government funding dries up.
Yet registered nurses earn an average annual pay of about A$65,000. Lower level nurses
earn less. Average annual income in Australia (as of 2nd quarter of 2018) is about
$82,000.
In Australia, wages growth has not kept pace with the cost of living since the 1980s when
the unions struck an accord with the then Labor government under Bob Hawke. The result is
that households have turned to credit cards to finance spending. Most households as a result
carry large amounts of debt and have very little savings. At the same time, we have had
steady if not very large levels of immigration.
For a century and a half, the primary purpose of the Democratic Party has been to crush
leftist/socialist movements. Eugene Debs knew this a century ago. The SDS knew this 1/2
century ago. Bernie Sanders knew this until 2016.
Faux Newz's "Fox and Friends" did a survey after the Koch Brothers funded "study" of
Bernie's Medicare For All plan. Going on the misleading figure, they asked "Is Medicare For
All worth the $32 Trillion it will cost?"
73% said YES!
All up and down, policies which we'd label "progressive" or even "socialist" are widely
popular with USAmericans. From ending these wars to cutting military spending to increasing
taxes on the rich and corporations to tuition free public education through college or trade
schools, and on and on.
Right now, Sanders is still the most popular politician in the US by a country mile. Were
he, Tulsi Gabbard, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Nina Turner, and other well-respected
politicians with records of electoral success to join together and create a new party, it
would instantly be the most popular party in the country.
Then, all we'd have to do is establish legitimate election systems.
Hudson's first magnum opus was SuperImperialism , but please get
the updated version as the first is somewhat dated.
What I think is his crowning achievement--he seems to
think so too--is his newest, and forgive them their debts: Lending, Foreclosure and
Redemption -- From Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year , the culmination of almost 40
years of research. Funny how its only been reviewed by
Brits .
When you read the entire autobiographical interview, you'll see there're several
other joint books he's produced prior to debts I'd consider getting via a university
library--it's 5 volumes @$150 each new--although he says he's going to rewrite them with
debts being the first volume in the series. That I don't have any of those volumes or
even knew about them is rather embarrassing given my fields of study. Here's Hudson's
introducing the series via a lecture:
"The five colloquia volumes that we've published began in 1994. We decided we have to
re-write the history to free it from the modern ideological preconceptions that have
distorted much popular understanding."
Earlier in the thread, you mentioned immigration, population growth and automation. Are
you aware that China scrapped its family planning policy despite their goal of instituting a
high degree of robotics into their manufacturing system? CCP leaders seem to believe their
system can provide resilient support for 1.3-1.5 Billion people, whereas we see the USA
growing increasingly dysfunctional trying to keep 330 million content.
@30 karlof1.. yes - he talks of those books in the autobio interview, but i don't see them
listed on amazon for example.. nor is his latest book - and forgive them their debts' listed
either.. i suppose the reason for the last title is it is yet to be released.. release date
is in nov 2018.. http://michael-hudson.com/2018/08/and-forgive-them-their-debts/
i was unaware of that change in policy in china.. i wonder how they envision everything -
greater population and continued work opportunities, in the face of automation? for me -
people need greater resources in order to continue to survive.. as i understand it - eating
meat is making a much bigger carbon footprint then not.. the chinese with their new wealth
are very much into eating pork and meat... i can't see how it all works out for the planet,
while i do think china would have thought this thru... i suppose it will remain a mystery to
me how they envision the intersection of these diverse interests and developments.. thanks
again for your comments..
"it seems like it is much the same everywhere in the land of democracy too, where
corporations and private interests with money are calling the shots.. plutocracy is what i
think they call it.."
Exactly! And it is the very same supra-national banking cabal, trans-national corporations
and Zionist racial supremacists in each of these "democracies" that are calling the shots.
They are the loci of power, not the political facades of nation-states.
Clearly, the US military is used by this "loose affiliation of millionaires and
billionaires" to enforce their will on those who foolishly believe their governments should
serve their own citizens. But it is not the US, or even primarily the 0.01% of the US who are
calling the shots. The PTSB have no allegiance to any nation-state (with one glaring
exception). But they use nationalism to divide the 99% of the world into bite-sized, easily
edible pieces.
I provided this link in my above
comment to james, but I had yet to read the entire lecture. It's very important and quite
germane to this discussion as this excerpt shows:
"It's very funny: If you go into Congress – I was the economic advisor to Dennis
Kucinich – you go into Congress and there's a big mural with Moses in the center and
Hammurabi on his right. Well, you know what Moses did? He gave the law. Leviticus, right in
the center of Mosaic law, canceled the debt. What did Hammurabi do? Debt cancellation as
well. You're not going to see Congress canceling the debts like that. If you look at the
Liberty Bell, it is inscribed with a quotation from Leviticus 25: "Proclaim liberty
throughout all the land." Well now we have translation problems again. The word really isn't
liberty: The real word means Clean Slate. It means freeing society from debt, letting
everybody have their own basic housing and means of self-support. And by striking
coincidence, what does the Statue of Liberty do? She's holding aloft a flame. And in the
Babylonian historical records, when Hammurabi would cancel the debts they would say: "The
ruler raised the sacred torch." So here you have a wonderful parallelism. It's been written
out of history today, It's not what you're taught in Bible school, or in ancient studies, or
in economic history. So you have this almost revolution that's been occurring in Assyriology,
in Biblical studies and Hebrew studies, and it's all kept up among us specialists. It hasn't
become popular at all, because almost everything about the Bronze Age and about the origins
of Christianity is abhorrent to the vested interests today."
My reaction: Wow! I'm figuratively kicking myself for not diligently reading
all of Hudson's essays--this was from January 2017. Just imagine what might occur if
the global public decided to demand the genuine Old Time Religion!
Yes exactly, a class war. Basically elites vs the rest of us. Maybe 10% of non elites go
along for the ride and puck up some crumbs. Another 20% do alright for a time until they get
replaced by cheaper and younger and struggle to survive to reach social security without
losing their home due to medical bankruptcy.
The rest its basically a struggle to survive
from day 1 with these people living from paycheck to paycheck or just checking into one of
the Prison Industrial Complex Apartments
Anyways, with the Democratic Party behind even Trump in the latest popularity polls (31%
vs 38%) they stay the course and maintain their pro elitist policies. Both parties are
puppets of the elites, differing on only on social issues that divide and distract from the
major issues of importance to the elite class
So long as both parties go along with the neoliberal imperialistic agenda there will be
rewards, even for the minority party. Best to be a minority party with plenty of funding than
one without funding
Meanwhile life expectancy has been stagnating and now declining in US since 2010 (actually
declined in 2015 and 2016 and most likely 2017) while most developed countries except UK are
rising. Health care costs still the source of most individual bankruptcies although
bankruptcy laws have been changed to ensure most lose their home in going that route (unlike
owners of corporations like Trump)
Real median incomes are much lower than the early 70's when adjusted with the pre-1980
CPI. CPI post 1980 has been adjusted to mask the impact of neoliberalism and enhance it by
lowering COLA's and keeping money cheap to fuel asset inflation which does not impact the new
CPI as much
Its not just in the US, this is going on globally, some places faster than others
"The assertion that immigration (in the U.S., at least) is keeping wages low needs to be
questioned. The immigrants from south of the border by and large do the work that no one else
wants to do. "
There are plenty of countries that do not rely on large scale immigration and yet
"someone" is doing those jobs there.
"Were it not for the purposefully restricted structure of the two party systems where
voters bounce between two awful parties before giving up altogether, the Democratic party
would have fully collapsed long ago."
This is the essence of the problem. Whose problem to solve is it? The average American
citizen.
Anyone can use social media and crowdfunding to start a huge popular campaign for a
specific objective.
True representative democracy. What's not to love about that?
All the nonsense about 'revolution' blah blah then becomes redundant. Once there are
multiple parties representing multiple interests, deals have to be done. Government becomes
far more careful and conservative.
Problems don't disappear, but at least there is an intelligent airing of the issues.
Fiscal prudence becomes front and centre. Individual welfare is also elevated to a central
concern. Everyone then recognises that tax money requires healthy businesses that pay their
fair share.
Try it! In spite of the initial barrage of fear, uncertainty, doubt, you will come to a
much more engaged and civil society.
The psyops against the American people have been nothing short of astounding.
"Trickle down!"
"Multi-culturalism"
"Globalism"
"Efficient Markets"
"War on Drugs! War on Terror! Russian interference!"
Each of these may have been reasonable in moderation but were pushed to the extreme via
the oligarch-fed elite of BOTH political Parties. Starting with Bill Clinton, the Democrats
sold out the people they used to represent. They have done MORE than simply block
change, they have poisoned the well via divisive identity politics.
Obama is the poster child for the Democrats "Third Way" disaster. He proved to be a tool
of neolibs and neocons alike, masking their evil agendas with a big smile, slick slogans
("YES WE CAN!") and clever quips ("If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to
fear") . No bankers went to jail for the 2008 GFC, a trillion dollar fraud estimated
to total a YEAR of global GNP , instead his administration "foamed the runway" for Bank
home foreclosures (mostly of lower income people that couldn't fight back) .
Obama promised to include a public option as part of his 'signature' healthcare initiative
("Obamacare") but instead produced a boondoogle for insurance companies which has proven to
be the epic failure that progressive critics said it would be.
Mis-allocated resources of an oligarch-centered public policy has created a supreme
clusterf*ck, the magnitude of which has grown with every new can-kicking initiative.
IMO USA probably loses 30% of GDP to such things as:
- overpriced healthcare;
- a bloated military which is largely useless (who are we going to invade? who is going
to invade us?);
- a police state that imprisons more people than any other Western democracy largely due
to misguided social policies (why not regulate drugs and prostitution illegal? why not
provide good training/jobs and workplace childcare?) ;
- terribly inefficient transportation system where everyone strives for "the American
dream" of commuting dozens of miles from their suburban home via a big SUV;
- education costs that have skyrocketed due to failed govt educational policies;
- a pampered executive and "investor class" that siphons billions - inequality is at
record levels and CEOs make dozens of times more pay then the average worker;
- while the US govt recognizes that climate change is real, they have decided to address
it gradually and accept the cost of 'mitigation' (defensive measures like sea walls,
when necessary) .
No one trust the government to fix anything. And fixes that are contemplated or in the
works will take decades to effect any meaningful change.
The saddest part may be that most people can't see that they've been played.
Americans used to be free thinkers. Now most of them are in an unhealthy relationship with
one of the two parties. Like the jealous, emotionally abusive partner they are, each party
plays on the fears of their 'base'.
Societal Stockholm Syndrome. Is that a thing? It is now.
Immigration, in the grand scheme of things, don't bring wages down mainly for two reasons:
1) it doesn't actually change the total number of human beings in the face of the Earth,
it just reallocates them to one or another specific corner of it. Since modern capitalism is
already global, even Steven.
2) in capitalism, labor power moves according to a reverse osmosis pattern: it goes from
the corner of the Earth with less capital (in money form, therefore money-capital) to the
corner of the Earth with more money-capital. So, for example, if 1,000,000 Mexicans immigrate
-- legally or illegally, it doesn't matter to capitalism -- to the USA in one year, it is
already presupposed the USA already has a wealth differential vis-à-vis Mexico that
can accomodate 1,000,000 more people than it in one year. This movement is also known as "job
hunt": people go where jobs are.
The only case mass immigration really distorts wages is when movement of labor force is
not induced by capitalism, but by a black swan, natural, catastrophic event, e.g. if the
hotspot in Yellowstone burst tommorow, and the American population somewhat manages to
evacuate to, let's say, Mexico, then Mexico receives, in a matter of months, 400 million
people thanks to a process the capitalist society didn't forsee. Then we have a so-called
"humanitarian crisis", i.e. a crisis not induced from capitalism's inner metabolism.
As for the German case, it was a miscalculation by Merkel. She had just arrived from a
huge victory in Greece (her finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, had just put the
socialist government of Syriza on its knees), and she was cocky. She decided to move fast
and, enjoying the favorable wind from the Aegean, called for 1 million Syrians to come to
Germany.
At that time, there was a rumor stating most of the Syrians that were fleeing the war were
middle class, affluent Syrians who could afford the trip to Europe -- those were doctors,
engineers, businessmen, etc. etc. It is a known fact the German bourgeoisie uses mass
immigration from the Middle East as a leverage against the German powerful unions since the
Turks offered themselves. So, if Merkel acted impulsively in the execution, the plan was old
and had their approval with good antecedence.
Problem was Merkel appeared to be badly advised by the BND (or the CIA?).First, immigrants
can only force wages down if they are willing to work. Those "affluent Syrians", if they
existed, either were intercepted and coopted by Turkey and Saudi Arabia (where they had to
stop first, before going to Europe via Greece or Italy), or were a very tiny minority. Most
of the refugees were either already indigents, bandits, housewives with little children or
even some terrorists. They were not capable, nor willing, to "assimilate", i.e. to work for
German capitalists under German Law. So, it backfired.
Is this a joke??
Has anybody read the article from this Crooke that B is referring to in his post? This is
really the worst crap. So enlightenments is just a " totalitarian " ideology made to help the
Europeans rule the world? And Russia is just an old regime nation promoting blood based
brotherhood fighting them ? In a word the eating-babies communists versus the Teutonic aryan
Knights??
And then, I find an approving reference to the old stinking theory of " workers vs immigrants
" to explain low wages ? Btw, where have you seen democrats elites being " against
restrictions on immigrations " ? Didn't know that US under Obama was open door...
I don't recognize this website anymore! Let's hope the CIA is just fooling with me !
quot;Most social-democratic parties in Europe have the same problem the U.S.
Democrats have."
It is plain wrong to mention social-democratic parties in connection with the u.s. Dems. They
are a Wall street party very much at the right of even the most rightist, neoliberal social
democrats in Europa.
And no. Immigration is definitely not the cause for the work place competition. Not in the usa
at least. Most of the Latinos coming from the south do jobs u.s. citizen do not want,
especially in agriculture. And; the immigrants are not only workers, they are consumers too and
as such they raise the GDP and indirectly create additional work places. The capitalist system
works best if the population is on a steady, not too pronounced rise. (It is different with
inner-EU immigration though.)
"Most social-democratic parties in Europe have the same problem the U.S. Democrats have."
It is plain wrong to mention social-democratic parties in connection with the u.s. Dems. They
are a Wall street party very much at the right of even the most rightist, neoliberal social
democrats in Europa.
And no. Immigration is definitely not the cause for the work place competition. Not in the
usa at least. Most of the Latinos coming from the south do jobs u.s. citizen do not want,
especially in agriculture. And; the immigrants are not only workers, they are consumers too
and as such they raise the GDP and indirectly create additional work places. The capitalist
system works best if the population is on a steady, not too pronounced rise. (It is different
with inner-EU immigration though.)
On the subject of immigration keeping wages low. This has some truth to it of course,
although it does not explain it in its entirety. The main reason of course is the US has
extremely high unemployment/unxerempoyment rates
On the subject of immigration keeping wages low. This has some truth to it of course,
although it does not explain it in its entirety.
One reason of course is the US has extremely high unemployment/underemployment rates, far
greater than official figures.
Then you have the destruction of unions in the private sector. The few remaining unions
are coopted from within by union leadership
A principal cause of the above reasons may be globalization which has led to the
outsourcing of jobs to countries with lower wages
And of course you have minimum wages which are much lower in real dollars than they were
40 years go as both parties became corrupted by the neoliberal elite.
As for immigration. Illegal immigrants
tend to work in jobs not very appealing and are low paying but may suppress technical
innovation to make up for a low labor supply in this area at the cost of some higher paying
jobs
Legal immigration tends bring in professional labor who are willing to work at lower wages
in the hope of getting a shot at the American dream (or European Dream).
I feel both forms of immigration are minor impacts. The main purpose for the elite is to
create divisions within the society. Divide and rule. Which is why neither party has sought
to stamp it out entirely. Its simple really, jail time for anyone hiring an undocumented
worker and enforcement. Go after the corporations who hire them and not the worker.
A: They listened to their 'strategists', not to their voters.
...
Why is "socialized" medicine supposed to be a bad thing? Why not defend it? It is what
the voters want:
B: I haven't agreed with a whole lot of your posts lately, but this one I think you
nailed. Wish you would say a little more about Green Energy and AGW.
I actually think that Obama's first election was for young people in this country at that
time the equivalent of the assassination of President Kennedy in my younger years. A blow
from which there shall have to be allowed the loss of an entire generation - in my time, that
was accomplished by the Vietnam War. And indeed the generation of so-called millenials in the
US has been living through an ongoing psychological nightmare of similar proportions.
All the comments do apply, in spades. Thank you, fellow Americans.
The equivalence of which I speak is the shocking about face Obama presented after his
inauguration. He could have been a new Kennedy inspiring the young - he chose not to be. For
many, that was an assassination of an ideal - some clung on desperately refusing to believe,
but most finally knew they had been betrayed.
All I can hope is that there is some decent, anonymous Putin-like figure out there ready
to grab hold of power and throw it back to the people where it belongs. It happened there;
maybe it will happen here, sometime.
Other than calling the Trump-phenom quasi or crypto fascist in your post and in the same
breath at the end provide justification for the Trump-vote regarding the effect of an illegal
work force, you are right, b. There are many things that hurt the left in the global scene.
Do they not notice this or are they willfully biding their time to reemerge in the same
putrid swamp so us dumbasses can fawn over her like the Lady of the Lake?
I think the libs in this country, at least, are the real cheerleaders of globalism and a
stupifying urbanism that is preaching a false future of free stuff and you don't even have to
work for it!
Why would I Joe-taxpayer want to fund a student- loan debt relief program where morons the
country over are relieved of any responsibility of their idiotic line of thinking where they
believed that an overpriced degree equated to instant playboy lifestyle and on demand oral
sex?
Lower forms of employment to be occupied by natural citizens is absolutely vital to a
country's economic culture.
People have said that these are jobs that only Mexicans will take. That is BS. The market
would natutally adjust to an actual shortage in labor and pay citizens appropriately for
their menial labor. Having an abundance of black market labor prohibits this natural function
of a healthy economy.
General Lee knew that slavery was anaethma and a tragedy to America. A correlation could
be made about alien labor.
"... One thing to remember about the FBI is Sy Hersh. Hersh claims the FBI has been sitting on a report for two years that fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the Wikileaks DNC email leaker (or one of them, at least.) ..."
"... That right there is obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Literally everyone at the FBI who can't PROVE he didn't know about that report will be going to jail. The entire top administration of the FBI is going to go down. ..."
"... And how many people at the Department of Justice are aware of that report? Did Rosenstein know? Who else in the Obama administration knew? ..."
"... That would be motivation for a lot of desperate maneuvering. Add to that who was really behind the Steele Dossier and even more people are likely to end up in jail. ..."
One thing to remember about the FBI is Sy Hersh. Hersh claims the FBI has been sitting
on a report for two years that fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the Wikileaks DNC
email leaker (or one of them, at least.)
Now can we imagine that not everyone in a senior position at the FBI knows about that
report? I can't. Literally everyone from the supervisor of the Special Agent or computer
forensic investigator who examined Rich's computer right up to the Director HAD to know that
report exists - and covered it up.
That right there is obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Literally everyone at the
FBI who can't PROVE he didn't know about that report will be going to jail. The entire top
administration of the FBI is going to go down.
And how many people at the Department of Justice are aware of that report? Did
Rosenstein know? Who else in the Obama administration knew?
That would be motivation for a lot of desperate maneuvering. Add to that who was
really behind the Steele Dossier and even more people are likely to end up in jail.
You haven't heard that yet? It's the infamous audio tape that Hersh was caught on
discussing it. He's since obfuscated what he said, but the tape stands on its own, and he has
never said that anything he said on the tape wasn't true, despite that a lot of Democrats and
Trump-bashers claim he has.
I have told you several times and I will tell you again probably hopelessly that Hersh
PERSONALLY has told me that the "tape" was made without his permission or knowledge when he
was aimlessly speculating on possibilities.
I am unaware of your explicitly telling me that he personally told you that the tape was
"aimless speculation." My apologies if I missed that response.
Of course the tape was made without his permission. We all know that. It's irrelevant to
what he said on the tape.
What I'm saying is that despite what he may have told you, nothing on that tape sounds
like "aimless speculation".
When you consider that he has four good reasons for dissembling about the tape, I view it
as far more likely that everything he said was true.
1) If what he said is true, he may have compromised his FBI contact. Not good for his line
of work.
2) If what he said is true, compromising that contact may well make all his other contacts
wary about talking to him in the future - a bad deal for a journalist who relies on his
contacts.
3) If what he said is true, he may have compromised his ability to get his "long form
journalism" article published - a problem he already has had in the past.
4) If what he said is true, he's accusing the FBI of sitting on that report for two years,
which might well make him a target of retaliation in some way.
If you believe that everything he said on the tape is untrue and that is what he
explicitly told you, fine. I'm waiting for his "long form journalism" report to explain it.
So far everything he has said publicly about it has not contradicted what he said on the
tape, but merely waved his hands about it.
Sy Hersh talks a lot both loudly and profanely. He never intended to tell Buttowski that
there was more than a possibility that the FBI held more than a rumor that this might be
true. He talked to Buttowski because a mutual friend of him and me asked him to do so for no
good reason. Please go talk to all the other people you pester and not on SST. You are an
argumentative nuisance.
I have no stake in the debate about Rich, DNC, wikileaks.
But I do notice some loose ends. Hersh may well have engaged in speculation, but it is
interesting speculation:
quote:
55. During his conversation with Butowsky, Mr. Hersh claimed that he had received information
from an "FBI report." Mr. Hersh had not seen the report himself, but explained: "I have
somebody on the inside who will go and read a file for me. And I know this person is
unbelievably accurate and careful. He's a very high level guy."
56. According to Mr. Hersh, his source told him that the FBI report states that, shortly
after Seth Rich's murder, the D.C. police obtained a warrant to search his home. When they
arrived at the home, the D.C. police found Seth Rich's computer, but were unable to access
it.The computer was then provided to the D.C. police Cyber Unit, who also were unable to
access the computer. At that point, the D.C. police contacted the Cyber Unit at the FBI's
Washington D.C. field office. Again, according to the supposed FBI report, the Washington
D.C. field office was able to get into the computer and found that in "late spring early
summer [2016], [Seth Rich][made] contact with Wikileaks." "They found what he had done. He
had submitted a series of documents, of emails. Some juicy emails from the DNC." Mr. Hersh
told Butowsky that Seth Rich "offered a sample [to WikiLeaks][,] an extensive sample, you
know I'm sure dozens, of emails, and said I want money."
. . .
"I hear gossip," Hersh tells NPR on Monday. "[Butowsky] took two and two and made 45 out of
it."
. . .
The clip is definitely worth listening to in its entirety if you haven't already. Hersh is
heard telling Butowsky that he had a high-level insider read him an FBI file confirming that
Seth Rich was known to have been in contact with WikiLeaks prior to his death, which is not
even a tiny bit remotely the same as having "heard rumors". Hersh's statements in the audio
recording and his statement to NPR cannot both be true.
endquote
https://medium.com/@caityjo...
"... Also while Hillary was Secretary of State, her friend James Comey moved from the US Justice Dept to Lockheed Martin, earning millions himself, with 17 no-bid contracts for Lockheed Martin with Hillary's State Dept. ..."
"... When the Benghazi investigations uncovered the Hillary e-mail offences and placement of Top Secret information on her private servers, the investigation was in the hands of James Comey, who had returned to gov service as FBI Director, where he 'could not find' any crimes regarding Hillary. ..."
"... Lisa Barsoomian is a lawyer who, over time, worked in many cases representing James Comey, Robert Mueller, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, the FBI and the CIA. ..."
From the web the other side of the rabbit hole, key items in the utterly
corruption-tainted profile of the Robert Mueller – Hillary Clinton etc team jabbing at
Trump
From 2001 to 2005 the US gov had an ongoing investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
Governments from around the world had donated to the 'Charity', yet many of those donations
were illegally undeclared.
The investigation mysteriously ended after US Justice Dept staffer James Comey took it
over in 2005. He was assisted by Assistant Attorney General of the United States, Rod
Rosenstein, and FBI Director Robert Mueller.
James Comey's brother works for DLA Piper that handles the Clinton Foundation.
When Hillary Clinton was Obama's US Secretary of State, she supported a decision to sell
20% of US Uranium to Russia. Bill Clinton went to Moscow, was paid US $500,000 for a one-hour
speech, and met with Vladimir Putin at his home. Entities connected to the Uranium One deal
then donated US $145 million to the Clinton Foundation
FBI Director Robert Mueller oversaw the Russian 'deal' Rod Rosenstein was placed under gag
order not to speak of it.
Also while Hillary was Secretary of State, her friend James Comey moved from the US
Justice Dept to Lockheed Martin, earning millions himself, with 17 no-bid contracts for
Lockheed Martin with Hillary's State Dept.
When the Benghazi investigations uncovered the Hillary e-mail offences and placement of
Top Secret information on her private servers, the investigation was in the hands of James
Comey, who had returned to gov service as FBI Director, where he 'could not find' any crimes
regarding Hillary.
Lisa Barsoomian is a lawyer who, over time, worked in many cases representing James Comey,
Robert Mueller, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, the FBI and the CIA.
Lisa Barsoomian is the wife of US Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed
Robert Mueller to his current job.
"... The mind of the mass media: Email exchange between myself and a leading Washington Post foreign policy reporter: ..."
"... For the record, I think RT is much less biased than the Post on international affairs. And, yes, it's bias, not "fake news" that's the main problem – Cold-War/anti-Communist/anti-Russian bias that Americans have been raised with for a full century. RT defends Russia against the countless mindless attacks from the West. Who else is there to do that? Should not the Western media be held accountable for what they broadcast? Americans are so unaccustomed to hearing the Russian side defended, or hearing it at all, that when they do it can seem rather weird. ..."
"... Regard these indictments in proper perspective and we find that election interference is only listed as a supposed objective, with charges actually being for unlawful cyber operations, identity theft, and conspiracy to launder money by American individuals unconnected to the Russian government. So we're still waiting for some evidence of actual Russian interference in the election aimed at determining the winner. ..."
"... However, I have no doubt that the great majority of Americans who follow the news each day believe the official stories about the Russians. They're particularly impressed with the fact that every US intelligence agency supports the official stories. They would not be impressed at all if told that a dozen Russian intelligence agencies all disputed the charges. Group-think is alive and well all over the world. As is Cold War II ..."
"... And here is Tom Malinowski, former Assistant Secretary of State for democracy, human rights and labor (2014-2017) – last year he reported that Putin had "charged that the U.S. government had interfered 'aggressively' in Russia's 2012 presidential vote," claiming that Washington had "gathered opposition forces and financed them." Putin, wrote Malinowski, "apparently got President Trump to agree to a mutual commitment that neither country would interfere in the other's elections." ..."
"... We also have the case of the US government agency, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which has interfered in more elections than the CIA or God. Indeed, the man who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, Allen Weinstein, declared in 1991: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." On April 12, 2018 the presidents of two of NED's wings wrote: "A specious narrative has come back into circulation: that Moscow's campaign of political warfare is no different from U.S.-supported democracy assistance." ..."
"... "Democracy assistance", you see, is what they call NED's election-interferences and government-overthrows ..."
William Blum shares with us his correspondence with
Washington Post presstitute Michael Birnbaum. As you can tell from Birnbaum's replies, he comes
across as either very stupid or as a CIA asset.
When I received my briefing as staff associate, House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee,
which required top secret clearance, I was told by senior members of the staff that the
Washington Post was a CIA asset. Watching the Washington Post's takedown of President Richard
Nixon with the orchestrated Watergate story, that became obvious. President Nixon had made too
many overtures to the Soviets and too many arms limitations agreements, and he opened to China.
Watching President Nixon's peace initiatives water down the threat level from the Soviet Union
and Maoist China, the military/security complex saw a threat to its budget and power and
decided that Nixon had to go. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy had resulted in
far too much skepticism about the Warren Commission Report, so the CIA decided to use the
Washington Post to get rid of Nixon. To keep the clueless American left hating Nixon, the CIA
used its assets in the leftwing to keep Nixon blamed for the Vietnam war, a war that Nixon
inherited and did not want.
The CIA knew that Nixon's problem was that he could not exit the war without losing his
conservative base, which was convinced of the nonsensical "Domino Theory." I have always
wondered if the CIA concocted the "Domino Theory," as it so well served them. Unable to get rid
of the war "with honor," Nixon was driven to brutal methods to force the North Vietnamese to
accept a situation that he could depart without defeat and soiling America's "honor" and losing
his conservative support base. The North Vietnamese wouldn't bend, but the US Congress did, and
so the CIA succeeded in discrediting among both the leftwing and righwing Nixon's war
management. With no one to defend him, Nixon was an easy target for the CIA.
Here is Blum's exchange with Birnbaum. It is possible that Birnbaum is neither stupid nor a
CIA asset, but just a person wanting to hold on to a job. The last thing he can afford to do is
to disabuse readers of the "Russian Threat" when Bezos' Amazon and Washington Post properties
are dependent on the CIA's annual subsidy of $600 million disquised as a "contract."
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-20/cia-washington-post-and-russia-what-youre-not-being-told
The Anti-Empire Report # 159 Willian Blum
The mind of the mass media: Email exchange between myself and a leading Washington Post
foreign policy reporter: July 18, 2018
Dear Mr. Birnbaum,
You write Trump "made no mention of Russia's adventures in Ukraine". Well, neither he nor Putin
nor you made any mention of America's adventures in the Ukraine, which resulted in the
overthrow of the Ukrainian government in 2014, which led to the justified Russian adventure.
Therefore ?
If Russia overthrew the Mexican government would you blame the US for taking some action in
Mexico? William Blum
Dear Mr. Blum,
Thanks for your note. "America's adventures in the Ukraine": what are you talking about? Last
time I checked, it was Ukrainians in the streets of Kiev who caused Yanukovych to turn tail and
run. Whether or not that was a good thing, we can leave aside, but it wasn't the Americans who
did it.
It is, however, Russian special forces who fanned out across Crimea in February and March 2014,
according to Putin, and Russians who came down from Moscow who stoked conflict in eastern
Ukraine in the months after, according to their own accounts. Best, Michael Birnbaum
To MB,
I can scarcely believe your reply. Do you read nothing but the Post? Do you not know of high
State Dept official Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador in Ukraine in Maidan Square to
encourage the protesters? She spoke of 5 billion (sic) dollars given to aid the protesters who
were soon to overthrow the govt. She and the US Amb. spoke openly of who to choose as the next
president. And he's the one who became president. This is all on tape. I guess you never watch
Russia Today (RT). God forbid! I read the Post every day. You should watch RT once in a
while. William Blum
To WB,
I was the Moscow bureau chief of the newspaper; I reported extensively in Ukraine in the months
and years following the protests. My observations are not based on reading. RT is not a
credible news outlet, but I certainly do read far beyond our own pages, and of course I talk to
the actual actors on the ground myself – that's my job.
And: yes, of course Nuland was in the Maidan – but encouraging the protests, as she
clearly did, is not the same as sparking them or directing them, nor is playing favorites with
potential successors, as she clearly did, the same as being directly responsible for
overthrowing the government. I'm not saying the United States wasn't involved in trying to
shape events. So were Russia and the European Union. But Ukrainians were in the driver's seat
the whole way through. I know the guy who posted the first Facebook call to protest Yanukovych
in November 2013; he's not an American agent. RT, meanwhile, reports fabrications and terrible
falsehoods all the time. By all means consume a healthy and varied media diet – don't
stop at the US mainstream media. But ask yourself how often RT reports critically on the
Russian government, and consider how that lacuna shapes the rest of their reporting. You will
find plenty of reporting in the Washington Post that is critical of the US government and US
foreign policy in general, and decisions in Ukraine and the Ukrainian government in specific.
Our aim is to be fair, without picking sides. Best, Michael Birnbaum
======================= end of exchange =======================
Right, the United States doesn't play indispensable roles in changes of foreign governments;
never has, never will; even when they offer billions of dollars; even when they pick the new
president, which, apparently, is not the same as picking sides. It should be noticed that Mr
Birnbaum offers not a single example to back up his extremist claim that RT "reports
fabrications and terrible falsehoods all the time." "All the time", no less! That should make
it easy to give some examples.
For the record, I think RT is much less biased than the Post on international affairs. And,
yes, it's bias, not "fake news" that's the main problem –
Cold-War/anti-Communist/anti-Russian bias that Americans have been raised with for a full
century. RT defends Russia against the countless mindless attacks from the West. Who else is
there to do that? Should not the Western media be held accountable for what they broadcast?
Americans are so unaccustomed to hearing the Russian side defended, or hearing it at all, that
when they do it can seem rather weird.
To the casual observer, THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
indictments of July 14 of Russian intelligence agents (GRU) reinforced the argument that the
Soviet government interfered in the US 2016 presidential election. Regard these indictments in
proper perspective and we find that election interference is only listed as a supposed
objective, with charges actually being for unlawful cyber operations, identity theft, and
conspiracy to launder money by American individuals unconnected to the Russian government. So
we're still waiting for some evidence of actual Russian interference in the election aimed at
determining the winner.
The Russians did it (cont.)
Each day I spend about three hours reading the Washington Post. Amongst other things I'm
looking for evidence – real, legal, courtroom-quality evidence, or at least something
logical and rational – to pin down those awful Russkis for their many recent crimes, from
influencing the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election to use of a nerve agent in the UK.
But I do not find such evidence.
Each day brings headlines like these:
"U.S. to add economic sanctions on Russia: Attack with nerve agent on former spy in England
forces White House to act"
"Is Russia exploiting new Facebook goal?"
"Experts: Trump team lacks urgency on Russian threat"
These are all from the same day, August 9, which led me to thinking of doing this article,
but similar stories can be found any day in the Post and in major newspapers anywhere in
America. None of the articles begins to explain how Russia did these things, or even WHY.
Motivation appears to have become a lost pursuit in the American mass media. The one thing
sometimes mentioned, which I think may have some credibility, is Russia's preference of Trump
over Hillary Clinton in 2016. But this doesn't begin to explain how Russia could pull off any
of the electoral magic it's accused of, which would be feasible only if the United States were
a backward, Third World, Banana Republic.
There's the Facebook ads, as well as all the other ads The people who are influenced by this
story – have they read many of the actual ads? Many are pro-Clinton or anti-Trump; many
are both; many are neither. It's one big mess, the only rational explanation of this which I've
read is that they come from money-making websites, "click-bait" sites as they're known, which
earn money simply by attracting visitors.
As to the nerve agents, it makes more sense if the UK or the CIA did it to make the Russians
look bad, because the anti-Russian scandal which followed was totally predictable. Why would
Russia choose the time of the World Cup in Moscow – of which all of Russia was immensely
proud – to bring such notoriety down upon their head? But that would have been an ideal
time for their enemies to want to embarrass them.
However, I have no doubt that the great majority of Americans who follow the news each day
believe the official stories about the Russians. They're particularly impressed with the fact
that every US intelligence agency supports the official stories. They would not be impressed at
all if told that a dozen Russian intelligence agencies all disputed the charges. Group-think is
alive and well all over the world. As is Cold War II.
But we're the Good Guys, ain't we?
For a defender of US foreign policy there's very little that causes extreme heartburn more
than someone implying a "moral equivalence" between American behavior and that of Russia. That
was the case during Cold War I and it's the same now in Cold War II. It just drives them up the
wall.
After the United States passed a law last year requiring TV station RT (Russia Today) to
register as a "foreign agent", the Russians passed their own law allowing authorities to
require foreign media to register as a "foreign agent". Senator John McCain denounced the new
Russian law, saying there is "no equivalence" between RT and networks such as Voice of America,
CNN and the BBC, whose journalists "seek the truth, debunk lies, and hold governments
accountable." By contrast, he said, "RT's propagandists debunk the truth, spread lies, and seek
to undermine democratic governments in order to further Vladimir Putin's agenda."
And here is Tom Malinowski, former Assistant Secretary of State for democracy, human rights
and labor (2014-2017) – last year he reported that Putin had "charged that the U.S.
government had interfered 'aggressively' in Russia's 2012 presidential vote," claiming that
Washington had "gathered opposition forces and financed them." Putin, wrote Malinowski,
"apparently got President Trump to agree to a mutual commitment that neither country would
interfere in the other's elections."
"Is this moral equivalence fair?" Malinowski asked and answered: "In short, no. Russia's
interference in the United States' 2016 election could not have been more different from what
the United States does to promote democracy in other countries."
How do you satirize such officials and such high-school beliefs?
We also have the case of the US government agency, National Endowment for Democracy (NED),
which has interfered in more elections than the CIA or God. Indeed, the man who helped draft
the legislation establishing NED, Allen Weinstein, declared in 1991: "A lot of what we do today
was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." On April 12, 2018 the presidents of two of NED's
wings wrote: "A specious narrative has come back into circulation: that Moscow's campaign of
political warfare is no different from U.S.-supported democracy assistance."
"Democracy assistance", you see, is what they call NED's election-interferences and
government-overthrows. The authors continue: "This narrative is churned out by propaganda
outlets such as RT and Sputnik [radio station]. it is deployed by isolationists who propound a
U.S. retreat from global leadership."
"Isolationists" is what [neo]conservatives call critics of US foreign policy whose arguments they
can't easily dismiss, so they imply that such people just don't want the US to be involved in
anything abroad.
And "global leadership" is what they call being first in election-interferences and
government-overthrows.
At last – a paterfamiliar earful by none other than James Howard Kunstler, on the state
of the "Three Headed Monster" that is the Democratic Party.
This is an important tipping point, because the country is waiting for nobles of the left
to lead their children from the deep dark woods.
Every day, we ask, "Where are the adults? Who will call this madness for what it is?" I'll
provide the link to this masterful analysis of the "illness" – but first let me tempt
readers with a brief synopsis of the "first head".
" one infected with the toxic shock of losing the 2016 election. The illness took hold
during the campaign that year when the bureaucracy under President Obama sent its lymphocytes
and microphages in the "intel community" to attack the perceived disease that the election of
Donald Trump represented.
The "doctors" of this Deep State diagnosed the condition as "Russian collusion." An
overdue second opinion by doctors outside the Deep State adduced later that the malady was
actually an auto-immune disease.
The agents actually threatening the health of the state came from the intel community
itself . who colluded with pathogens in the DNC, the Hillary campaign, and the British intel
service to chew up and spit out Mr. Trump as expeditiously as possible.
With the disease now revealed by hard evidence, the chief surgeon called into the case,
Robert Mueller, is left looking ridiculous -- and perhaps subject to malpractice charges --
for trying to remove an appendix-like organ called the Manifort from the body politic instead
of attending to the cancerous mess all around him. Meanwhile, the Deep State can't stop
running its mouth -- "
This was published on his blog yesterday..... this is monumental, if only because the
masks are coming off.
Read his description of the other 2 heads.... it's wonderful.
But always remember, the FBI/DOJ is "honorable". Yeah, that's the term
they use to refer to the scumbags that "represent" us in congress. In
reality, "there is no honor amongst thieves", and government is full of
them because sociopaths gravitate to positions of power.
It's a unruly fuck show at the FBI and nobody is being held accountable. No
leadership, no standards, no neutrality, no accountability. Obama weaponized
the FBI. Fire everyone.
"... Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century ..."
"... "Democrats are lipstick on a neocon pig. " ..."
"... The headline says it all? The Russiagate lie is "to big too fail" because if this shellgame hoax concocted by the Democratic Party to mask the very thing they are accusing Russia of doing, election meddling was ever exposed, the'd be finished, as a Political Party! ..."
One year later, the VIPS memo contending that the DNC emails were leaked and not hacked has yet to be successfully challenged.
Meanwhile, the country sinks deeper into the morass of the new McCarthyism, comments Patrick Lawrence.
A year has passed since highly credentialed intelligence professionals produced the
first hard evidence that allegations of mail theft and other crimes attributed to Russia rested on purposeful falsification and subterfuge.
The initial reaction to these revelations -- a firestorm of frantic denial -- augured ill, and the time since has fulfilled one's
worst expectations. One year later we live within an institutionalized proscription of proven reality. Our discourse consists of
a series of fence posts and taboos. By any detached measure, this lands us in deep, serious trouble. The sprawl of what we call "Russia-gate"
now brings our republic and its institutions to a moment of great peril -- the gravest since the McCarthy years and possibly since
the Civil War. No, I do not consider this hyperbole.
Much has happened since Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity published its report on intrusions into the Democratic Party's
mail servers on Consortium News on July 24 last year. Parts of the intelligence apparatus -- by no means all or even most of it --
have issued official "assessments" of Russian culpability. Media have produced countless multi-part "investigations," "special reports,"
and what-have-yous that amount to an orgy of faulty syllogisms. Robert Mueller's special investigation has issued two sets of indictments
that, on scrutiny, prove as wanting in evidence as the notoriously flimsy intelligence "assessment" of January 6, 2017.
Indictments are not evidence and do not need to contain evidence. That is supposed to come out at trial, which is very
unlikely to ever happen. Nevertheless, the corporate media has treated the indictments as convictions.
Numerous sets of sanctions against Russia, individual Russians, and Russian entities have been imposed on the basis of this great
conjuring of assumption and presumption. The latest came last week, when the Trump administration announced measures in response
to the alleged attempt to murder Sergei and Yulia Skripal, a former double agent and his daughter, in England last March. No evidence
proving responsibility in the Skripal case has yet been produced. This amounts to our new standard. It prompted a reader with whom
I am in regular contact to ask, "How far will we allow our government to escalate against others without proof of anything?"
This is a very good question.
Cover of 2001 book that looks back on the earlier period of anti-Russia hysteria.
There have been many attempts to discredit VIPS50 as the group's
document is called.
There has been much amateurish journalism, false reporting, misrepresentation, distortion, misquotation, and omission. We have been
treated to much shoddy science, attempts at character assassination, a great deal of base name-calling, and much else. Russia is
routinely advanced as the greatest threat to democracy Americans now face. Is there any denying that we live amid an induced hysteria
now comparable to the "Red under every bed" period of the 1950s?
None of this has altered the basic case. VIPS and forensic scientists working with it have continued their investigations. New
facts, some of which alter conclusions drawn last year, have come to light, and these are to be addressed. But the basic evidence
that Russia-gate is a false narrative concocted by various constituents of national power stands, difficult as this is to discern.
Scrape back all that is ethically unacceptable and unscrupulously conveyed into the public sphere and you find that nothing has changed:
No one "hacked" the Democratic party's mail in the summer of 2016. It was leaked locally. From what one can make out, it was done
to expose the party leadership's corrupt efforts to sink Bernie Sanders' insurgent campaign to win the Democratic nomination.
But in another, very profound way, more has changed since VIPS50 was published than one could have imagined a year ago. American
discourse has descended to a dangerous level of irrationality. The most ordinary standards of evidentiary procedure are forgone.
Many of our key institutions -- the foreign policy apparatus, the media, key intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, the political
leadership -- are now extravagantly committed to a narrative none appears able to control. The risk of self-inflicted damage these
institutions assume, should the truth of the Russia-gate events emerge -- as one day it surely will -- is nearly incalculable. This
is what inspires my McCarthy and Civil War references. Russia-gate, in a phrase, has become too big to fail.
This column is an attack on no one. However it may be read, it is not intended as another round of vituperative argument adding
to the din and fog we already suffer daily. No shred of ideology informs it. I write a lament -- this for all we have done to ourselves
and our institutions this past year, and to the prospect of an orderly world, and for all that must somehow be done to repair the
damage once enough of us indeed recognize what has been done.
New VIPS Findings
Binney: Dares anyone to prove remote speeds .
The forensic scientists working with VIPS continued their research and experiments after VIPS50 was published. So have key members
of the VIPS group, notably William Binney, the National Security Agency's former technical director for global analysis and designer
of programs the agency still uses to monitor internet traffic. Such work continues as we speak, indeed. This was always the intent:
"Evidence to date" was the premise of VIPS50. Over the past year there have been confirmations of the original thesis and some surprises
that alter secondary aspects of it. Let us look at the most significant of these findings.
At the time I reported
on the findings of VIPS and associated forensic scientists, that the most fundamental evidence that the events of summer 2016 constituted
a leak, not a hack, was the transfer rate -- the speed at which data was copied. The speed proven then was an average of 22.7 megabytes
per second. That speed matches what is standard when someone with physical access uses an external storage device to copy data from
a computer or server and is much faster than a remote hack, reliant on communications
topology available at the time, could achieve.
Binney experimented into the autumn. By mid-autumn he had tested several routes -- from East Coast locations to cities in eastern
Europe, from New Jersey to London. The fastest internet transfer speed achieved, during the New Jersey–to–Britain test, was 12.0
megabytes of data per second. Since this time it has emerged from G-2.0's metadata that the detected average speed -- the 22.7 megabytes
per second -- included peak speeds that ran as high as 49.1 megabytes per second, impossible over the internet. "You'd need a dedicated,
leased, 400–megabit line all the way to Russia to achieve that result," Binney said in a recent interview.
To my knowledge, no one with an understanding of the science involved, including various former skeptics, any longer questions
the validity of the specific finding based on the observed transfer rate. That remains the bedrock evidence of the case VIPS and
others advance without qualification. " No one -- including the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA -- has come out against this finding,"
Binney said Monday. "Anyone who says the speed we demonstrated can be achieved remotely, our position is 'Let's see it. We'll help
any way we can.' There hasn't been anyone yet."
There is also the question of where and when leaks were executed. Research into this has turned out differently.
Evidence last year, based on analysis of the available metadata, showed that the copy operation date-stamped July 5, 2016, took
place in the Eastern U.S. time zone. But Forensicator, one of the chief forensic investigators working on the mail-theft case anonymously,
published evidence in May showing that while there was activity in the Eastern zone at the time of that copy, there was also a copy
operation in the Pacific time zone, where clocks run three hours earlier that EST. In an earlier publication he had also reported
activity in the Central time zone.
Plainly, more was awaiting discovery as to the when and where of the copy operations. The identity of Guccifer 2.0, who claimed
to be a Romanian hacker but which the latest Mueller indictment claims is a construct of the GRU, Russian military intelligence,
has never been proven. The question is what G–2.0 did with or to the data in question. It turns out that both more, and less, is
known about G–2.0 than was thought to have been previously demonstrated. This work has been completed only recently. It was done
by Binney in collaboration with Duncan Campbell, a British journalist who has followed the Russia-gate question closely.
Peak Speed Established
Binney visited Campbell in Brighton, England, early this past spring. They examined all the metadata associated with the files
G–2.0 has made public. They looked at the number of files, the size of each, and the time stamps at the end of each. It was at this
time that Binney and Campbell established the peak transfer rate at 49.1 megabytes per second.
But they discovered something else of significance, too. At some point G–2.0 had merged two sets of data, one dated July 5, 2016,
which had been known, and another dated the following September 1, which had not been known. In essence, Campbell reverse-engineered
G–2.0's work: He took the sets of data G–2.0 presented as two and combined them back into one. "G–2.0 used an algorithm to make a
downloaded file look like two files," Binney explained. "Those two shuffled back together like a deck of cards."
G–2.0 then took another step. Running another algorithm, he changed all the dates on all the files. With yet another algorithm,
he changed the hours stamped on each file. These are called "range changes" among the professionals. The conclusion was then obvious:
G–2.0 is a fabrication and a fabricator. Forensicator had already
proven that the
G–2.0 entity had inserted Russian "fingerprints" into the document known as the "Trump Opposition Report," which G-2.0 had published
on June 15, 2016. It is clear that no firm conclusions can be drawn at this point as to when or where G–2.0 did what he did.
" Now you need to prove everything you might think about him," Binney told me. "We have no way of knowing anything about him or
what he has done, apart from manipulating the files. We detected activity in the Eastern time zone. Now we have to ask again, 'Which
time zone?' The West Coast copy operation [discovered by Forensicator] has to be proven. All the data has been manipulated. It's
a fabrication."
This throws various things into question. The conclusions initially drawn on time and location in VIPS50 are now subject to these
recent discoveries. "In retrospect, giving 'equal importance' status to data pertaining to the locale was mistaken," Ray McGovern,
a prominent VIPS member, wrote in a recent note. "The key finding on transfer speed always dwarfed it in importance."
The indictments against 12 Russian intelligence officers announced in mid–July by Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney-general,
also come into question. They rest in considerable part on evidence derived from G–2.0 and DCLeaks, another online persona. How credible
are those indictments in view of what is now known about G–2.0?
Binney told me: "Once we proved G–2.0 is a fabrication and a manipulator, the timing and location questions couldn't be answered
but really didn't matter. I don't right now see a way of absolutely proving either time or location. But this doesn't change anything.
We know what we know: The intrusion into the Democratic National Committee mail was a local download -- wherever 'local' is." That
doesn't change. As to Rosenstein, he'll have a lot to prove."
What Role does Evidence Play?
Rosenstein at the Justice Department on July 13 announcing indictments against 12 GRU agents. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty
Images)
Rosenstein's predicament -- and there is no indication he understands it as one -- brings us to an essential problem: What is
the place of evidence in American public discourse? Of rational exchange?
The questions are germane far beyond the Russia-gate phenomenon, but it is there that answers are most urgent. What is implicit
in the Rosenstein indictments has been evident everywhere in our public sphere for a year or more: Make a presumption supported by
circumstantial evidence or none and build other presumptions upon it until a false narrative is constructed. The press has deployed
this device for as long as I have been a practitioner: "Might" or "could" or "possibly" becomes "perhaps," "probably" and "almost
certainly," and then moves on to unqualified fact in the course of, maybe, several weeks. Now this is how our most basic institutions
-- not least agencies of the Justice Department -- routinely operate.
This is what I mean when I refer to ours as a republic in peril.
There is the argument that certain things have been uncovered over the past year, and these are enough to conclude that Russia
plots to undermine our democracy. I refer to the small number of Facebook advertisements attributed to Russians, to strings of Twitter
messages, to various phishing exercises that occur thousands of times a day the world over. To be clear, I am no more satisfied with
the evidence of Russian involvement in these cases than I am with the evidence in any other aspect of the Russia-gate case. But for
the sake of argument, let us say it is all true.
Does this line up with the Russophobic hysteria -- not too strong a term -- that envelops us? Does this explain the astonishing
investments our public institutions, the press, and leading political parties have made in advancing this hysteria as they did a
variant of in the 1950s?
As global politics go, some serious thought should be given to a reality we have created all by ourselves: It is now likely that
America has built a new Cold War division with Russia that will prove permanent for the next 20 to 30 years. All this because of
some Facebook ads and Twitter threads of unproven origin? Am I the only one who sees a weird and worrisome gap between what we are
intent on believing -- as against thinking or knowing -- and the consequences of these beliefs?
There was an orthodoxy abroad many centuries ago called Fideism. In the simplest terms, it means the privileging of faith and
belief over reason. It was the enemy of individual conscience, among much else. Fideism has deep roots, but it was well around in
the 16 th century, when Montaigne and others had to navigate its many dangers. Closer to our time, William James landed
a variant on American shores with an 1896 address called "The Will to Believe." Bertrand Russell countered this line of thinking
a couple of decades later with "Free Thought and Official Propaganda," a lecture whose title I will let speak for itself. Twenty
years ago, none other than Pope John Paul II warned of a resurgence of Fideism. It is still around, in short.
Do we suffer from it? A variant of it, I would say, if not precisely in name. There seems to be a givenness to it in the American
character. I think we are staring into a 21 st century rendition of it.
To doubt the hollowed-out myth of American innocence is a grave sin against the faith. It is now unpatriotic to question the Russia-gate
narrative despite the absence of evidence to support it. Informal censorship of differing perspectives is perfectly routine. It is
now considered treasonous to question the word of intelligence agencies and the officials who lead them despite long records of deceit.
Do we forget that it was only 15 years ago that these same institutions and people deceived us into an invasion of Iraq the consequences
of which still persist?
This was the question Craig Murray, the former British diplomat (who has vital information on the DNC mail theft but who has never
been interviewed by American investigators) posed a few weeks ago. Eugene Robinson gave a good-enough reply in a Washington Post
opinion piece shortly afterward: "God Bless the Deep State," the headline read.
How we got here deserves a work of social psychology, and I hope someone takes up the task. Understanding our path into our self-created
crisis seems to me the first step to finding our way out of it.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist,
author, and lecturer. His most recent book is Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century (Yale). Follow him @thefloutist.
His web site is www.patricklawrence.us . Support his work via
www.patreon.com/thefloutist .
Gerry L Forbes , August 16, 2018 at 4:14 pm
Can the DNC server be used to convict anybody but the DNC and Crowdstrike since they refused to let the FBI examine the
server, breaking the chain of custody? About the indictments handed down so far all one can really say is "luncheon is served!"
("Any good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich"). And how is lying to the FBI a crime unless it meets
the standard of obstruction of justice? Do they put you under oath before questioning you? Isn't this just an infringement
of Fifth Amendment rights? Must be one of Schumer's six ways from Sunday.
The amount of discord sown by Russian trolls probably pales in comparison to that sown by American trolls and wouldn't
even register compared to the discord sown by daily headlines screaming about Russian meddling.
The solution is to teach critical thinking but this will not happen because it is not in the interests of politicians,
lobbyists, or advertisers and the businesses that these groups serve.Even Harvard University prefers to protect its students
from "fake news' by censorship rather than education.
Rob , August 17, 2018 at 12:50 pm
"Lying" to the FBI is exactly how they indicted Michael Flynn. His interrogators asked questions to which they already had
the answers (via telephone taps), and when he gave them wrong information, they nailed him. For all we know, he simply forgot
specific details in giving his answers and was not trying to deceive, but that possibility seems to be beside the point. This
is a common tactic that the FBI uses to induce suspects and witnesses to cooperate. Clever, but backhanded, IMO
irina , August 16, 2018 at 9:07 pm
1981 is not 2018.
And you might want to google 'Clinton Body Count' if you're worried about politicos offing people. In fact, a young woman investigating
Bill Clinton's sexual shenanigans just got dead rather suspiciously . . .
For those who are so vituperative about Vladimir Putin, I say "Be careful what you wish for". We can only hope his successor
is as unflappable as he seems to be. (By the way, during your trip did you learn anything about the Siege of Leningrad in WW2
?) Did you know that Putin's parents lived through that siege, and that his older brother died in childhood as a result of being
young and starving during the siege ?
I live in Alaska and remember the 'Golden Samovar Service' offered by Alaska Airlines in the late 1980's (direct flights to
the Russian Far East). Now, we must fly almost all the way around the world to get to Siberia. How does that make sense ?
Kay , August 15, 2018 at 11:39 am
What is astonishing to me is how anyone could have believed this hoax in the first place, particularly when the Democratic
party literally admitted it chooses candidates in backroom deals. It is lobbyists, defense contractors, corporations & the Israeli
lobby that owns our politicians. Russia gate is also a smokescreen that covers up another foreign government interfering in our
own & in our elections. Trumps largest donor is Sheldon Adelson, Israeli billionaire. We have 89 members of Congress who are dual
Israelis and we just gave that fascist, genocidal state 38 BILLION in welfare. All our wars have been for the colonial expansion
of greater Israel and the new NDAA literally authorizes war with Iran, on behalf of Israel & Saudi Arabia of course.
I was present throughput the 2016 election and witnessed the fraud by Clinton the DNC & the FBI's downgrading of Clinton crime
was obvioua. Where in the hell was everyone else? Democrats wanted Clinton & her intelligence agency crowd because WAR WAS ASSURED.
Democrats are addicted to war & militarism. I still meet people who had no idea that Obama was involved in five wars, with Clinton
help!! And if they do know they don't CARE.
Democrats are lipstick on a neocon pig. Their love for war & continued denial about their corruption will continue to see them
lose election after election. In a recent Gallop poll, Russia was at the bottom of the list of concerns for respondents. Democrats
do not talk to their base. They talk at them with Russiagate. It's old. I do believe the lies will be revealed and I believe that
more in America know what's really going on than not. 62 percent of Americans don't vote. There is a reason for that. In another
recent poll 56 percent of Americans want normalized relations with Russia. It's the elite that are,driving us to war.
The question is what will we do to stop it
Ed , August 16, 2018 at 11:25 pm
"Democrats are lipstick on a neocon pig. "
True, and let's not forget that the original neocons were Scoop Jackson democrats who infiltrated the GOP and now infest both
parties.
KiwiAntz , August 14, 2018 at 8:16 pm
The headline says it all? The Russiagate lie is "to big too fail" because if this shellgame hoax concocted by the Democratic
Party to mask the very thing they are accusing Russia of doing, election meddling was ever exposed, the'd be finished, as a Political
Party!
So the lie must go on using Russia as the scapegoat to divert public attention from Democrats colluding with the Intelligence
Agencies to firstly get rid of Bernie Saunders as a Presidential Candidate then to get dirt on Trump in a attempt to conduct a
soft coup to oust him from office! The corruption of the Democratic Party & the entire American establishment, comprised of its
Corporate, Financial, Political, MIC & Intelligence Agencies in lockstep with a insidious MSM propagandist arm is now, so corrupt,
evil & ingrained, that there's no hope for its citizens who now live in a Stasi, Gestopo, Fascist Country whose Leaders are blaming
Russia for everything to distract attention away from their race to the bottom, deathcult ambitions & their willing to risk Nuclear
War with Russia too advance their lunatic plans! America is lost as a Country with no hope, no values & certainly has no moral
compass or conscience
exiled off mainstreet , August 15, 2018 at 2:22 am
This is exactly how it is at present. It is a signal disgrace and war crimes, such as the Yemen thing and suggested wars with
Iran and elsewhere are the inevitable outgrowth of this situation.
The Clintons abrogated the Reagan agreements with Gorbachev to keep NATO to the west of reunified Germany, ringing Russia with
NATO bases and provoking Russian actions. American and British oligarchs (like Bill Browder) descended on Russia under American
puppet Yeltsin to plunder Russia, along with quick study Russian oligarchs (many of whom fled to the West, particularly to London,
with the money). Putin put an end to that, and the Clintons had a conniption, since they were counting on fortunes for themselves.
Clintons delivered the meaningless Kosova war, as well as in Chinagate, offshoring our technology technology jobs to permanent
free trade status China, which was designed to further pressure Russia but may come back to haunt us, as did the Clintons' repeal
of Glass Steagall in 2008. Putin is popular for reversing much of what the Clintons' did to Russia, and Russian life expectancy
has gone up by 5 years since 2005 (American life expectancy has declined, and is below the OECD countries in aggregate).
GKJames , August 15, 2018 at 6:53 am
I recognize that hyperbole is the order of the day. But to lay at Clinton's feet responsibility for "mass murder [really??]
and chaos and coups" in the countries you identify surely is carrying your highly selective rage too far. If memory serves, it
was some other guy who invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. As for her "call[ing] Putin Hitler," what she in fact said was that Putin's
actions in Ukraine -- the purported protection of the ethnic Russian minority in the east of the country in order to justify the
use of military force there -- was similar to what Hitler h
Keith , August 14, 2018 at 4:41 pm
According to Bill Binney in an interview with Jimmy Dore ( https://youtu.be/JHZXVWUxxDU
), Guccifer 2.0 released two batches of data, one on 5 July 2016 and a second on 1 Sept 2016. "But if you look at that data a
little closer," Binney said, "and you ignore the hour and the day, and just look at minutes, seconds, and milliseconds, [you can
take those] two data sets and shuffle them like a deck of cards. They fit together into one dataset without conflict." So there
was one continuous set of data. In other words, G-2.0 got hold of one dataset, but wanted it to appear as two different hacks.
Binney doesn't deviate from the claim that the speed of the download means it was done "locally"–not over the internet–but that
we don't know where "local" was (it wasn't necessarily done at the DNC). As for the possibility that the dataset was hacked over
the internet, then moved locally at the much faster speed, I'd guess that the VIPS would have identified that possibility. If
G-2.0 were so unsophisticated as to change dates and hours, but ignore minutes, seconds, and milliseconds, G-2.0 might have overlooked
any evidence that the dataset had also been moved previously over a slower internet transfer–and VIPS is sharp enough to have
picked that up. If such evidence could easily be removed, surely VIPS would have pointed out that possibility.
JWalters , August 14, 2018 at 9:02 pm
The main defense against the VIPS download speed analysis is the claim that the files might have been stolen from the DNC server
over the internet at the slower speed, and then copied to a thumb drive at the faster speed. I'd like to hear how VIPS would dispute
that theory.
In any case, there is a great deal of additional evidence that the theft was an inside job, including Julian Assange and Craig
Murry saying the emails came to Wikileaks from a disgruntled insider, and even Leon Podesta speculating that it was insider.
The were leaked. JULIAN ASSANGE HAS SAID SO MANY TIMES. Why do you think he is now isolated from the world? Now I hear he's
considering taking an offer to testify and I'm worried about his mental state. Maybe someone in isolation who goes "stir crazy"
would be willing to do anything to get out of it. No, that can't be right. He's never caved before.
michael , August 15, 2018 at 5:55 am
As Federal judge William Zloch told Bernie supporters when they sued the Hillary DNC for stealing the primaries and their donations,
the DNC is NOT a government entity. The DNC is NOT a public institution. The DNC IS a private club which by some arcane corrupt
rule befitting a Banana Republic allows it to put forth one of essentially only two candidates for President. If there was any
crime committed in this "matter" the FBI would have been all over those servers and computers like white on rice. You cannot have
it both ways. As it is, there is no chain of custody for any possible evidence, and as Hillary has said many times, No Evidence
Means No Crime.
It is quite interesting how many uninformed posters and/or trolls would love to find a way to show the "Russiagate" nonsense
is somehow plausible in spite of the evidence. They're kind of like a five year old child who desperately wants to keep believing
in Santa Claus, even though he just found dad's Santa costume in the closet and he's holding it in his own hands.
I will say that the amount of mental gymnastics required to continue not believing evidence that is right in front of one's
eyes is quite impressive – but I'd never underestimate the American people's creativity when they want to maintain their illusions/delusions.
And I'd certainly never underestimate the Russiagate troll army's persistence.
At this rate I expect to soon encounter some version of the following "observation" in the comments section for this article:
– "maybe space aliens hired by the Russians downloaded the files to a to a new fangled thig-a-ma-jig and then shape-shifted so
Craig Murray would be fooled into thinking a real-like-human insider provided him the files on a flash drive." – "oh, oh, wait,
maybe the aliens abducted Murray too, and then just made him "think" a fellow human gave him the drive in person." "yeah, yeah,
and maybe Assange just says he didn't get the files from the Russians because "he's a space alien too." "Yeah, prove to me that
it didn't happen this way – you can't – ha! there! I win!"
Sorry, but two years into this we should be way beyond this kind of – "I can't believe Santa's not real"- denying, dissembling,
rationalizing nonsense. Then again, this is America.
michael , August 15, 2018 at 6:06 am
"Two years after the Iraq War began, 70 per cent of Americans still believed Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the
9/11 attacks, according to a Washington Post survey." The Big Lie works, and since Obama gutted Smith-Mundt, the CIA/ State Department
can legally keep Americans tracking on their propaganda narratives.
Double pronged exercise: 1) Start war with Russia, steal its oil, break into tiny States
to destroy its power; 2) Destroy Trump as enemy of globalist world domination and USA
disintegration plan.
MSM propaganda arm to sell (1) and (2).
These retired Intel specialists keep interfering in the game and interjecting inconvenient
facts:
DNC server never hacked by Russia or anyone. It was an insider transfer. Insider dead.
Dead men tell no tales and so far, neither does Wikileaks.
VIPS is doing some excellent work and they show what really happened while Rosenstein is
out to Lunch, Sessions is deaf dumb and blind - useless - both Sessions and Rosenstein need
to go.
Muller does not care and he is not interested in the truth and is ignoring the facts and
the corruption in the FBI/DOJ - Muller and his band of Clinton Loyalist are trying to frame
Trump.
Rosenstein and Mueller KNOW the DNC server was not hacked by Russia or by anyone. Insider
transfer. So are they working for HilBarry? Or is this a magic act?
What Sessions is doing is unknown. He knows he was set up by Barry sending the Russian
ambassador to his office and by (FBI? Spy) Paul Ericsson offering to connect campaign thru
him to Russia. He had to recuse or be in the midst of the mess. Does he have a plan? - we
don't know.
It's not Russiagate, it's Americagate and it's your problem, not ours.
The only significant remaining question is whether you fade gracefully from the page of
History or whether you take the Samson Option and we all go out flash-bang.
I have a ton of respect for Binney. Regardless as to how fucked up this country is and its
govt, there are still people who will step up and try to set the record straight.
If you put a camera in front of a bunch of randomly selected Americans and ask them to
state their name and where they live, before answering if they voted for Trump, you get a lot
of No replies.
Now do the same questioning anonymously. The number of Nos drops.
This is the gaping hole in Goebbels argument. Anonymous polls can get closer to the truth.
Then the "accepted truth" is challenged, as in 9-11.
"There has been much amateurish journalism, false reporting, misrepresentation,
distortion, misquotation, and omission." In other words, the CIA was behind this.
so... the upshot is that G.2 and DCLeaks fabricated the leak as a hack AND the tools to do
this and to fabricate signatures/date stamps etc existed in the CIA (proven here: https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/index.html
) and possibly MI6, but not in Russia, or Romania?
the CIA has "stations" all over the world?
looks like a few facebook and twitter posts have resulted in the alphabet soup, deep
state, DNC and MSM spending tens of billions of dollars pushing a false agenda against russia
AND have caused hundreds of billions of exra dollars on military expenditure and extra
security globally.
in which case, they have won by further diverting taxes away from taxpayers and increasing
debt where insufficient taxes remain/ed.
The fact that the files were downloaded from the DNC computer, and not hacked from abroad,
should be the key to unlocking Clinton conspiracies that would destroy large portions of the
Democrat establishment if revealed.
I can achieve up to 1 Gbit/s up & downstream. The average up/downstream is probably
quite a bit lower but +50mb/s is probably average. So i lol at the VIPS LOL
The poison of partisan propaganda dumped into American polity to prevent the prosecution
of the guilty (for illegally spying on Trump campaign and the assorted crimes associated with
it, including the murder of Seth Rich) will continue to foul the atmosphere for decades. The
fight is certainly between an unelected octopus that has captured all the three wings of
American polity, and a determined if not well armed citizens. The end is not near.
There is a small, nice book by C Northecote Parkinson, "The Law and the Profits". He
describes how in 1909 the British empire started a simultaneous course of welfare state and
empire building warfare state bureacracy, and how it eventually bankrupted the people by
1945. America started its own version with L B Johnson's Great Society and Vietnam War. Since
American economy was much bigger the dichotomous struggle has lasted much longer. But now the
time to choose one over another is at hand. Candidate Trump advocated trimming the warfare
state more and first. But President Trump is sending mixed signals.
The only saving grace is the self aware American citizenry and its capacity to reform
itself.
"... What is definitely conclusive is the Gucci 2 entity forged the inclusion of Russian fingerprints in the leaked version of the documents by pasting it into a Russian language Word template. With 70 years of experience in espionage, there is no way Russian spy agencies are that sloppy and moreover, and if they were it would be absolutely unprecedented. ..."
"... the central conclusion of William Binnery's forensic analysis: that Gucifer 2.0 was a fabrication, and that the DNC emails were downloaded, not hacked by Russia. ..."
"... Were Assange be allowed to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee later this month, the lid could be blown off the entire sordid operation. ..."
"... From before the CIA's formation the US intelligence activities have been the province of the Republican Party (there are plenty of exceptions, but please follow). Allen Dulles and his ilk were friends with and shared goals with German industrialists long before World War II. These relationships continued through WWII and afterwards. The CIA has functioned as an international coal and iron police, overthrowing governments around the world that have stood in the way of corporate profits. ..."
"... This edition of Covert Action Information Bulletin, in 1990, happened just before a shift in Washington. Almost all of the operations run by our government to destabilize Eastern Europe and the USSR in 1990 were organized by the political right and run by people such as Paul Weyrich. But the nineties showed a rise in Democratic activity in these settings. I would guess that a mental image of this would be our then-First Lady lying about dodging bullets on an airstrip during the destruction of Yugoslavia. It marked the successful CIA takeover of the Democratic Party. ..."
"... The 2016 Russiagate hysteria has been an intelligence operation which has been by all measures successful. I presumed initially that the scam was done to put Hillary into the White House, but now wonder if having Trump as President was part of the long-term strategy. ..."
"... Please note that the DNC backed over fifty new candidates for Congress who have intelligence backgrounds. How do you think they will vote for the coming war resolution against Russia? ..."
"... Not sure about the theory of installing Trump in the WH is part of a long term strategy of the deep state, but the latter seems to be adapting to the disruption quite well. ..."
"... Additional info: Stephen Kinzer's "The Brothers" which documents the Dulles brother's creation of the Cold War mentality and activities. Shouldn't we add Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski. ..."
"... Citing a book from almost 30 years ago that implicated ONLY the Republicans in the CIAs machinations ignores LBJ and the CIA's involvement in Vietnam and possibly in the JFK assassination. ..."
"... One suspects that the President has revealed far less than he knows, perhaps wary of being accused of "obstruction" by Mueller in concert with the controlled media. He actually requested that William Binney present his analysis to then CIA Director Pompeo, who has since sat on it. ..."
"... But actually, to your point, the reverse is true. If the DNC and Podesta were hacked by Russians, the NSA would have been able to demonstrate that fact through evidentiary proof, a point made repeatedly by Binney. ..."
"... No such proof was or has ever been offered. Instead the main document presented to the American public was the January 6, 2017 "assessment" by analysts hand-picked by John Brennan, who has played a key role in the illegal operation against President Trump. ..."
"... I was struck by one comment particularly, why not ask Assange about the leak. ..."
"... Keeping him incommunicado certainly serves the leaders of the lynch mob and thanks goes to the new Ecuadorian President. He was asked to shut the guy up and he did. ..."
"... Herman, Assange has been asked about the identity of the leaker and replied that he couldn't comment because Wikileaks has a strict policy of maintaining sources' confidentiality. No potential source would ever trust Assange if he violated that policy. Instead, Assange offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Seth Richards' murderer. So this was his way of answering the question indirectly. ..."
I don't believe the Russians did this. I think there are
perhaps millions of people in the US capable of carrying out this action and many more with
motive. Furthermore, if they did, I am happy that the information was made available so I can't
see why I would care.
That said, I am unconvinced by this evidence. I am quite familiar with file systems on
different operating systems and I would at least need to know what device we are talking about
here. Did it come from Assange? Why doesn't somebody say so? What sort of device is it? The
simple fact that it was copied from a computer doesn't prove that the computer was the DNC
server. It might have been copied from Putin's iMac. I believe in one reading the writer
acknowledged that the dates on the drive could be manipulated and I am certain that this is
true. While this may still leave it above the level of evidence that the FBI or "intelligence"
agencies have presented (or even claimed to have) it is not conclusive.
Reply
GM , August 14, 2018 at 5:10 pm
What is definitely conclusive is the Gucci 2 entity forged the inclusion of Russian
fingerprints in the leaked version of the documents by pasting it into a Russian language
Word template. With 70 years of experience in espionage, there is no way Russian spy agencies
are that sloppy and moreover, and if they were it would be absolutely unprecedented.
Furthermore, I have no reason to disbelieve Craig Murray that the docs were handed to him
directly and transferred by him to Wikileaks. Quite the contrary, in fact, since his
reputation would undoubtedly be irreconcilably demolished for all time if the Russiagaters
ever came up with hard proof to support their conspiracy theory.
GM , August 14, 2018 at 5:12 pm
Please forgive all the typos, posted on my little bitty phone :)
j. D. D. , August 14, 2018 at 2:21 pm
The crucial premise of the ongoing British-instigated coup against President Trump and the
chief legal ground for Robert Mueller's operation against the President, is the claim that
the Russians hacked the emails of the DNC and, John Podesta, and provided the results to
WikiLeaks which published them. The authenticity of such emails showing Hillary Clinton to be
a craven puppet of Wall Street who had cheated Bernie Sanders of the nomination were never
disputed, by Clinton, or anyone else.
Nor has the central conclusion of William Binnery's forensic analysis: that Gucifer
2.0 was a fabrication, and that the DNC emails were downloaded, not hacked by
Russia.
Furthermore, the only people who really know where and by whom the download occurred are
Julian Assange, whose life is now in peril, and former British Ambassador Craig Murray.
Were Assange be allowed to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee later this
month, the lid could be blown off the entire sordid operation.
paul g. , August 14, 2018 at 3:03 pm
Craig stated he was merely a go between, who was given the data in the woods by American
University by probably another go between. Lots of cut outs here but the data was transferred
physically by thumb drive(s).
David G , August 15, 2018 at 8:27 am
"The crucial premise is the claim that the Russians hacked the emails of the DNC and, John
Podesta, and provided the results to WikiLeaks which published them."
I would like to call attention to a little slice of history of US the destabilization of
Eastern Europe and the USSR that would help to explain what is happening today.
From before the CIA's formation the US intelligence activities have been the province
of the Republican Party (there are plenty of exceptions, but please follow). Allen Dulles and
his ilk were friends with and shared goals with German industrialists long before World War
II. These relationships continued through WWII and afterwards. The CIA has functioned as an
international coal and iron police, overthrowing governments around the world that have stood
in the way of corporate profits.
This edition of Covert Action Information Bulletin, in 1990, happened just before a
shift in Washington. Almost all of the operations run by our government to destabilize
Eastern Europe and the USSR in 1990 were organized by the political right and run by people
such as Paul Weyrich. But the nineties showed a rise in Democratic activity in these
settings. I would guess that a mental image of this would be our then-First Lady lying about
dodging bullets on an airstrip during the destruction of Yugoslavia. It marked the successful
CIA takeover of the Democratic Party.
The 2016 Russiagate hysteria has been an intelligence operation which has been by all
measures successful. I presumed initially that the scam was done to put Hillary into the
White House, but now wonder if having Trump as President was part of the long-term
strategy.
Please note that the DNC backed over fifty new candidates for Congress who have
intelligence backgrounds. How do you think they will vote for the coming war resolution
against Russia?
GM , August 14, 2018 at 5:16 pm
Not sure about the theory of installing Trump in the WH is part of a long term
strategy of the deep state, but the latter seems to be adapting to the disruption quite
well.
Additional info: Stephen Kinzer's "The Brothers" which documents the Dulles brother's
creation of the Cold War mentality and activities.
Shouldn't we add Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski.
michael , August 15, 2018 at 6:33 am
Citing a book from almost 30 years ago that implicated ONLY the Republicans in the
CIAs machinations ignores LBJ and the CIA's involvement in Vietnam and possibly in the JFK
assassination. Later, Carter was the only Democrat President who may or may not have
been heavily involved with the CIA. The Clintons were likely involved with the CIA early on
in their Mena, Arkansas drug-smuggling schemes, and the CIA was definitely closely involved
in their presidential anti-Slavic foreign policy. The Clintons' neoliberal agenda fit well
with the older neocons and consolidated the Duopoly support for the crazed think tank ideas
in DC.
jeff montanye , August 17, 2018 at 7:45 am
all perhaps true, but the cia, etc. have terribly neglected their republican base (ftr:
registered democrat, sanders and trump voter) and it is baying at their heels, drool swinging
from gnashing fangs. that is a political change as profound and radical as anything i
observed around the tear gas and batons of the sixties.
"They have passed the point of no return; there is no walking it back now. If it fails
heads will roll, but most importantly these trusted institutions will have flushed their last
vestiges of credibility down the drain. Then what?"
Then nothing. It puts one mind of the comment made by one of the Robber Barons when they
were caught with their hands in the cookie jar. His comment " All that was lost was honour"
In the present mess even if eventually it all comes to light no one is going to be held
answerable. No one is going to jail. Truth does not matter. The propaganda is what matters.
if it is proven wrong it is merely swept under the rug. With the short attention spans of
Americans it would be forgotten in a New York Minute.
GM , August 14, 2018 at 5:19 pm
Perhaps this explains the need for the likely false flag poison attack in Britain and the
fake Douma nerve gas attack. Russiagate hasn't really been panning out so well and too much
info has been emerging to challenge the narrative.
David G , August 15, 2018 at 8:29 am
I fully agree.
Peter de Klerk , August 14, 2018 at 1:06 pm
If Russian hacking is a hoax, why has it not been exposed by all the Trump appointed
intelligence and FBI heads? Trump's people could shut it down with a public single statement.
Y'all are deep into a conspiracy theory that makes no sense.
AnthraxSleuth , August 14, 2018 at 1:27 pm
Pffft!
It was shown to be a hoax by Clinton's own campaign staff in their book released after the
election titled "shattered".
"Within 24 hours of her concession speech, [campaign chair John Podesta and manager Robby
Mook] assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case
that the election wasn't entirely on the up-and-up. For a couple of hours, with Shake Shack
containers littering the room, they went over the script they would pitch to the press and
the public. Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument."
The plan, according to the book, was to push journalists to cover how "Russian hacking was
the major unreported story of the campaign," and it succeeded to a fare-thee-well. After the
election, coverage of the Russian "collusion" story was relentless, and it helped pressure
investigations and hearings on Capitol Hill and even the naming of a special counsel, which
in turn has triggered virtually nonstop coverage.
Guess the only conspiracy theororist here is you.
Goebbels would be so proud.
You drank the kool-aid bruh!
Peter de Klerk , August 14, 2018 at 2:19 pm
My comment applies equally well to your response. Why doesn't Nunes, Pompeo, or Coates,
etc ever say anything about these theories?
AnthraxSleuth , August 14, 2018 at 4:28 pm
It's no longer a theory when the conspirators confess to it in their own writing.
Which I demonstrated to you in the previous post.
Peter de Klerk , August 14, 2018 at 6:18 pm
This very slanted article amplifies a few post-election statements. I'm sure Podesta and
Mook wanted to play this up. Some of that was sour grapes but most people are inclined to
think it was also true. These guys controlling most media outlets and most of the
intelligence community seems absurd to me. But I guess we all believe what we want to believe
now.
jdd , August 14, 2018 at 2:30 pm
One suspects that the President has revealed far less than he knows, perhaps wary of being
accused of "obstruction" by Mueller in concert with the controlled media. He actually
requested that William Binney present his analysis to then CIA Director Pompeo, who has since
sat on it.
But actually, to your point, the reverse is true. If the DNC and Podesta were
hacked by Russians, the NSA would have been able to demonstrate that fact through evidentiary
proof, a point made repeatedly by Binney.
No such proof was or has ever been offered. Instead
the main document presented to the American public was the January 6, 2017 "assessment" by
analysts hand-picked by John Brennan, who has played a key role in the illegal operation
against President Trump.
jeff montanye , August 17, 2018 at 7:54 am
And Donald Trump has more training in show business than most politicians or even internet
commenters. I suspect there is a fall premiere of quite an extravaganza leading up to the
midterm elections.
Read half the most intelligent commentary and had to quick. I was struck by one comment
particularly, why not ask Assange about the leak. Too simple but too much to ask, I guess.
Keeping him incommunicado certainly serves the leaders of the lynch mob and thanks goes to
the new Ecuadorian President. He was asked to shut the guy up and he did.
Modawg , August 14, 2018 at 3:28 pm
I think he has been asked and has politely refused to reveal. But his innuendo is that it
was from inside the US and definitely not the Russkies.
alley cat , August 14, 2018 at 4:44 pm
Herman, Assange has been asked about the identity of the leaker and replied that he
couldn't comment because Wikileaks has a strict policy of maintaining sources'
confidentiality. No potential source would ever trust Assange if he violated that policy. Instead, Assange offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and
conviction of Seth Richards' murderer. So this was his way of answering the question
indirectly.
A Solomonic solution that is technically not a violation of confidentiality
Andy Wilcoxson , August 14, 2018 at 12:36 pm
Can I play devil's advocate and ask a question. Can we rule out the possibility that a hacker in Russia, China, or wherever
had remote control of a computer in the United States that they used to hack the DNC?
49.1 megabytes per second is almost 400 mbps, which is a very fast transfer speed, but there were one gigabit (1000 mbps)
connections available in several US markets when these e-mails were stolen. You might not have been able to transfer the files
directly from Washington D.C. to Russia at those speeds, but you certainly could have transferred them between computers
within the United States at those speeds using gigabit internet connections.
Is there something I'm missing? How does the file transfer speed prove this was a USB download and not a hack when gigabit
internet connections existed that could have accommodated those transfer speeds -- maybe not directly to Russia or Europe, but
certainly to another US-based computer that foreign hackers may have have remotely controlled.
Desert Dave , August 14, 2018 at 6:09 pm
Actually a byte is 10 bits total because there is overhead (start and stop bits). So 49.1 MBps is about 491 Mbps. The
question of whether the DNC server was attached to a network that fast would be easy to answer, if the FBI or anybody else
wanted to check.
"... The agents actually threatening the health of the state came from the intel community itself: Mr. Brennan, Mr. Clapper, Mr. Comey, Mr. Strzok, Mr. McCabe, Mr. Ohr, Ms. Yates. Ms. Page, et. al. who colluded with pathogens in the DNC, the Hillary campaign, and the British intel service to chew up and spit out Mr. Trump as expeditiously as possible. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the Deep State can't stop running its mouth -- The New York Times , CNN, WashPo , et al -- in an evermore hysterical reaction to the truth of the matter: the Deep State itself colluded with Russia (and perhaps hates itself for it, a sure recipe for mental illness). ..."
"... The second head of this monster is a matrix of sinister interests seeking to incite conflict with Russia in order to support arms manufacturers, black box "security" companies, congressmen-on-the-take, and an army of obscenely-rewarded Washington lobbyists in concert with the military and a rabid neocon intellectual think-tank camp wishing to replay the cold war and perhaps even turn up the temperature with some nuclear fire. ..."
"... This second head functions by way of a displacement-projection dynamic. We hold war games on the Russian border and accuse them of "aggression." ..."
"... The third head of this monster is the one aflame with identity politics. It arises from a crypto-gnostic wish to change human nature to escape the woes and sorrows of the human condition -- for example, the terrible tensions of sexuality. Hence, the multiplication of new sexual categories as a work-around for the fundamental terrors of human reproduction as represented by the differences between men and women. ..."
"... "We engineer and pay for a coup against the elected government of Ukraine, and accuse Russia of aggression. We bust up one nation after another in Middle East and complain indignantly when Russia acts to keep Syria from becoming the latest failed state. We disrupt the Russian economy with sanctions, and the Russian banking system with a cut-off of SWIFT international currency clearing privileges, and accuse them of aggression. This mode of behavior used to be known as "poking the bear," a foolish and hazardous endeavor. " ..."
"... And this shit has been going on since the Soviet Union broke up and the "Harvard Boys" helped turn Russia into a corrupt Oligarchy, something the Left was first to identify. ..."
"... The rising of the Populist parties in the UK, Germany, especially Italy and now Sweden, portends an interesting trend, not just nationally, but world wide... ..."
The faction that used to be the Democratic party can be described with some precision these days as a three-headed monster driving
the nation toward danger, darkness, and incoherence.
Anyone interested in defending what remains of the sane center of American politics take heed:
The first head is the one infected with the toxic shock of losing the 2016 election. The illness took hold during the campaign
that year when the bureaucracy under President Obama sent its lymphocytes and microphages in the "intel community" -- especially
the leadership of the FBI -- to attack the perceived disease that the election of Donald Trump represented. The "doctors" of this
Deep State diagnosed the condition as "Russian collusion." An overdue second opinion by doctors outside the Deep State adduced later
that the malady was actually an auto-immune disease.
The agents actually threatening the health of the state came from the intel community itself: Mr. Brennan, Mr. Clapper, Mr.
Comey, Mr. Strzok, Mr. McCabe, Mr. Ohr, Ms. Yates. Ms. Page, et. al. who colluded with pathogens in the DNC, the Hillary campaign,
and the British intel service to chew up and spit out Mr. Trump as expeditiously as possible.
With the disease now revealed by hard evidence, the chief surgeon called into the case, Robert Mueller, is left looking ridiculous
-- and perhaps subject to malpractice charges -- for trying to remove an appendix-like organ called the Manifort from the body politic
instead of attending to the cancerous mess all around him. Meanwhile, the Deep State can't stop running its mouth -- The New
York Times , CNN, WashPo , et al -- in an evermore hysterical reaction to the truth of the matter: the Deep State itself colluded
with Russia (and perhaps hates itself for it, a sure recipe for mental illness).
The second head of this monster is a matrix of sinister interests seeking to incite conflict with Russia in order to support
arms manufacturers, black box "security" companies, congressmen-on-the-take, and an army of obscenely-rewarded Washington lobbyists
in concert with the military and a rabid neocon intellectual think-tank camp wishing to replay the cold war and perhaps even turn
up the temperature with some nuclear fire. They are apparently in deep confab with the first head and its Russia collusion storyline.
Note all the current talk about Russia already meddling in the 2018 midterm election, a full-fledged pathogenic hallucination.
This second head functions by way of a displacement-projection dynamic. We hold war games on the Russian border and accuse
them of "aggression." We engineer and pay for a coup against the elected government of Ukraine, and accuse Russia of aggression.
We bust up one nation after another in Middle East and complain indignantly when Russia acts to keep Syria from becoming the latest
failed state.We disrupt the Russian economy with sanctions, and the Russian banking system with a cut-off of SWIFT international
currency clearing privileges, and accuse them of aggression. This mode of behavior used to be known as "poking the bear," a foolish
and hazardous endeavor. The sane center never would have stood for this arrant recklessness. The world community is not fooled, though.
More and more, they recognize the USA as a national borderline personality, capable of any monstrous act.
The third head of this monster is the one aflame with identity politics. It arises from a crypto-gnostic wish to change human
nature to escape the woes and sorrows of the human condition -- for example, the terrible tensions of sexuality. Hence, the multiplication
of new sexual categories as a work-around for the fundamental terrors of human reproduction as represented by the differences between
men and women. Those differences must be abolished, and replaced with chimeras that enable a childish game of pretend, men pretending
to be women and vice-versa in one way or another: LBGTQetc. Anything BUT the dreaded "cis-hetero" purgatory of men and women acting
like men and women. The horror .
Its companion is the race hustle and its multicultural operating system. The objective has become transparent over the past year,
with rising calls to punish white people for the supposed "privilege" of being Caucasian and pay "reparations" in one way or another
to underprivileged "people of color." This comes partly from the infantile refusal to understand that life is difficult for everybody,
and that the woes and sorrows of being in this world require fortitude and intelligence to get through -- with the final reward being
absolutely the same for everybody.
"We engineer and pay for a coup against the elected government of Ukraine, and accuse Russia of aggression. We bust
up one nation after another in Middle East and complain indignantly when Russia acts to keep Syria from becoming the latest
failed state. We disrupt the Russian economy with sanctions, and the Russian banking system with a cut-off of SWIFT international
currency clearing privileges, and accuse them of aggression. This mode of behavior used to be known as "poking the bear," a
foolish and hazardous endeavor. "
And this shit has been going on since the Soviet Union broke up and the
"Harvard Boys" helped turn Russia into
a corrupt Oligarchy, something the Left was first to identify.
I was talking to someone, who knows a lot about the 'inner workings' and we were discussing, not only the US, but Europe's
situation as well.
The rising of the Populist parties in the UK, Germany, especially Italy and now Sweden, portends an interesting trend,
not just nationally, but world wide...
@Collin-
Isn't it extremely Orwellian to say that 'information isn't really information/should be
censored or disregarded if it comes from a subversive (Russia) source'?
Naturally, it allows for a very easy way to control and censor information.
Now, as far as pure security threats, aside from information that should've been public
anyway, experts deem that the DNC information came from on site:
Now this is also an appeal to authority, but VIPs has a better track record and I've seen
them actually elaborate on their claims, not just assert them.
Some people are still fighting already lost battle.
Notable quotes:
"... That's a good critique of the electoral disaster that the Democrats brought upon themselves by adopting neoliberal economic policies at the dawn of the DLC. But it's delusional to think that Trump's restoration of gilded age economic policies will help working people, white or otherwise. ..."
Still, to the extent that Trumpism has any economic policy content it's the idea that a
package of immigration restrictions and corporate tax cuts[1] will make workers better off
by reducing competition from migrants and increasing labor demand from corporations.
The emergence of Trumpism signifies deepening of the ideological crisis for the
neoliberalism. Neoclassical economics fell like a house of cards.
IMHO Trumpism can be viewed as a kind of "national neoliberalism" which presuppose
rejection of three dogmas of "classic neoliberalism":
1. Rejection of neoliberal globalization including, but not limited to, free movement
of labor. Attempt to protect domestic industries via tariff barriers.
2. Rejection of excessive financialization and primacy of financial oligarchy
Restoration of the status of manufacturing, and "traditional capitalists" status in
comparison with financial oligarchy.
3. Rejection of austerity. An attempt to fight "secular stagnation" via Military
Keysianism.
Trumpism sent "Chicago school" line of thinking to the dustbin of history. It exposed
neoliberal economists as agents of financial oligarchy and the "Enemy of the American People"
(a famous Trump phase about neoliberal MSM).
It is never clear whether ideas or interests are the prime mover in shaping historical
events, but only ideas and interests together can sustain a ruling consensus for a lengthy
interval, such as the historic period of financialization and globalization running over
the last 35 years. The role of economics in furnishing the now-rebuked narratives that have
reigned for decades in mainstream political parties can be seen in three areas.
First, there is globalization as we knew it. Mainstream economics championed
corporate-friendly trade and investment agreements to increase prosperity, and provided the
intellectual framework for multilateral trade agreements.
Second, there is financialization, which led to increasing disconnection between stock
market performance and the real economy, with large rewards going to firms that undertook
asset stripping, outsourcing, and offshoring. The combination of globalization and
financialization produced a new plutocratic class of owners, managers and those who
serviced them in global cities, alongside gentrification of those cities,
proleterianization and lumpenization of suburbs, and growing insecurity and casualization
of employment for the bulk of the middle and working class.
Financialization also led to the near-abandonment of the 'national' industrial economy
in favor of global sourcing and sales, and a handsome financial rentier economy built on
top of it. Meanwhile, automation trends led to shedding of jobs everywhere, and threaten
far more.
All of this was hardly noticed by the discipline charged with studying the economy.
Indeed, it actively provided rationales for financialization, in the form of the
efficient-markets hypothesis and related ideas; for concentration of capital through
mergers and acquisitions in the form of contestable-markets theory; for the gentrification
of the city through attacks on rent control and other urban policies; for remaking of labor
markets through the idea that unemployment was primarily a reflection of voluntary leisure
preferences, etc. The mainstream political parties, including those historically
representing the working and middle classes, in thrall to the 'scientific' sheen of market
fetishism, gambled that they could redistribute a share of the promised gains and thus
embraced policies the effect of which was ultimately to abandon and to antagonize a large
section of their electorate.
Third, there is the push for austerity, a recurrent trope of the 'neoliberal' era which,
although not favored by all, has played an important role in creating conditions for the
rise of popular movements demanding a more expansionary fiscal stance (though they can
paradoxically simultaneously disdain taxation, as with Trumpism). The often faulty
intellectual case made by many mainstream economists for central bank independence,
inflation targeting, debt sustainability thresholds, the distortive character of taxation
and the superiority of private provision of services including for health, education and
welfare, have helped to support antagonism to governmental activity. Within this
perspective, there is limited room for fiscal or even monetary stimulus, or for any direct
governmental role in service provision, even in the form of productivity-enhancing
investments. It is only the failure fully to overcome the shipwreck of 2008 that has caused
some cracks in the edifice.
The dominant economic ideas taken together created a framework in which deviation from
declared orthodoxy would be punished by dynamics unleashed by globalization and
financialization. The system depended not merely on actors having the specific interests
attributed to them, but in believing in the theory that said that they did. [This is one of
the reasons that Trumpism has generated confusion among economic actors, even as his
victory produced an early bout of stock-market euphoria. It does not rebuke neoliberalism
so much as replace it with its own heretical version, bastard neoliberalism, an orientation
without a theory, whose tale has yet to be written.]
Finally, interpretations of politics were too restrictive, conceptualizing citizens'
political choices as based on instrumental and usually economic calculations, while
indulging in a wishful account of their actual conditions -- for instance, focusing on low
measured unemployment, but ignoring measures of distress and insecurity, or the indignity
of living in hollowed-out communities.
Mainstream accounts of politics recognized the role of identities in the form of wooden
theories of group mobilization or of demands for representation. However, the psychological
and charismatic elements, which can give rise to moments of 'phase transition' in politics,
were altogether neglected, and the role of social media and other new methods in politics
hardly registered. As new political movements (such as the Tea Party and Trumpism in the
U.S.) emerged across the world, these were deemed 'populist' -- both an admission of the
analysts' lack of explanation, and a token of disdain. The essential feature of such
movements -- the obscurantism that allows them to offer many things to many people,
inconsistently and unaccountably, while serving some interests more than others -- was
little explored. The failures can be piled one upon the other. No amount of quantitative
data provided by polling, 'big data', or other techniques comprehended what might be
captured through open-eyed experiential narratives. It is evident that there is a need for
forms of understanding that can comprehend the currents within the human person, and go
beyond shallow empiricism. Mainstream social science has offered few if any resources to
understand, let alone challenge, illiberal majoritarianism, now a world-remaking
phenomenon.
I'll try to explain my previous comment from another angle:
I'll take the wage share on total income as the main index of worker's bargaining
power.
The wage share depends on two factors:
1) there is a cyclical factor, when the economy is booming unemployment falls and the wage
share rises, when the economy is depressed the opposite;
2) there are structural factors that depend on how redistributive is taxation, the power of
unions etc.; these structural factors depend on law and policy, not on technology.
A big part of the "neoliberal" policy is the concept of trickle down, that can be
summarized in (1) hope that the economy will go very well and will be in permanent boom by
(2) lowering the wage share structural components, by making workers more flexible etc..
In this kind of policy (that was followed also by center left parties) the fall in the
strucural component of the wage share is supposed to be compensated by the increase of the
cyclical component, so that, in theory, workers should not be worse off.
But in reality, trickle down doesn't really work (we can argue why), so that the overall
wage share fell.
Workers (and voters in general) then expect the economy to be in a situation of permanent
boom, a boom so big that it surpasses the fall in the structural component of the wage share;
but this never happens, and probably cannot happen for a sustained period.
So voters assume that someone is stealing their lunch, and they blame someone. Immigrants
are supposed to lower worker's wage share, but influencing the cyclical component, not the
structural one; instead we have an assumption that immigrants are lowering the structural
component of the wage share, that is a nonsense, because voters have to blame someone.
Contemporaneously, we have policies that try to create a sort of permanent boom by trickle
down, such as lowering the tax rate on high incomes. These policies resemble keynesian policy
but in reality are strongly pro-cyclical, so in some sense are the opposite of the
traditional keynesian policy.
This happens because these policies appease both workers (with the promise of a boom and thus
an increase of the cyclical component of their wage share) and capitalists (because the
government is pumping money in their pockets).
But these policies are also very pro-bubble.
From this point of view, Trump's policy (but also for example many policies of the current
Italian government) are just a beefed up version of the neoliberal policy.
The hate for immigrants, as other nasty developments of international policy, are the
effect of the fact that in reality trickle down cannot really create booms as big as to
justify the weakening of the structural component of the wage share, so someone has to be
blamed somehow; also trickle down is linked, culturally, to the concept of job creators, and
the idea that workers only have an income because of the awesomeness of said job creators,
which leads tho the idea that immigrants are also so to speak eating from the same dish, and
thus robbing workers from their income.
CDT 08.13.18 at 2:41 am (no link)
@likbez --
That's a good critique of the electoral disaster that the Democrats brought upon
themselves by adopting neoliberal economic policies at the dawn of the DLC. But it's
delusional to think that Trump's restoration of gilded age economic policies will help
working people, white or otherwise.
It's why likbez is so sure that Clinton is somehow a bigger crook than Trump. That is
just crazy.
He was just not the neoliberal establishment supported crook, or pretended to be such;-)
That was enough for many people who are fed up with the system to vote for him. Just to show
middle finger to neoliberal establishment personalized by Hillary Clinton.
On a more serious note, while I do assume that voting for Trump was a form of social
protest against the current version of neoliberalism in the USA, I do not automatically
assume that the social system that will eventually replace the current US flavor of
neoliberalism will be an improvement for bottom 90% of population.
We are in a very peculiar ideological and political place in which Democracy (oh sainted
Democracy) is a very good thing, unless the voters reject the technocrat class's leadership.
Then the velvet gloves come off. From the perspective of the elites and their technocrat
apparatchiks, elections have only one purpose: to rubberstamp their leadership.
As a general rule, this is easily managed by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on
advertising and bribes to the cartels and insider fiefdoms who pony up most of the cash.
This is why incumbents win the vast majority of elections. Once in power, they issue the
bribes and payoffs needed to guarantee funding next election cycle.
The occasional incumbent who is voted out of office made one of two mistakes:
1. He/she showed a very troubling bit of independence from the technocrat status quo, so a
more orthodox candidate is selected to eliminate him/her.
2. The incumbent forgot to put on a charade of "listening to my constituency" etc.
If restive voters can't be bamboozled into passively supporting the technocrat status quo
with the usual propaganda, divide and conquer is the preferred strategy. Only voting for the
technocrat class (of any party, it doesn't really matter) will save us from the evil Other :
Deplorables, socialists, commies, fascists, etc.
In extreme cases where the masses confound the status quo by voting against the technocrat
class (i.e. against globalization, financialization, Empire), then the elites/technocrats will
punish them with austerity or a managed recession. The technocrat's core ideology boils down to
this:
1. The masses are dangerously incapable of making wise decisions about anything, so we have
to persuade them to do our bidding. Any dissent will be punished, marginalized, censored or
shut down under some pretext of "protecting the public" or violation of some open-ended
statute.
2. To insure this happy outcome, we must use all the powers of propaganda, up to and
including rigged statistics, bogus "facts" (official fake news can't be fake news, etc.),
divide and conquer, fear-mongering, misdirection and so on.
3. We must relentlessly centralize all power, wealth and authority so the masses have no
escape or independence left to threaten us. We must control everything, for their own good of
course.
4. Globalization must be presented not as a gargantuan fraud that has stripmined the planet
and its inhabitants, but as the sole wellspring of endless, permanent prosperity.
5. If the masses refuse to rubberstamp our leadership, they will be punished and told the
source of their punishment is their rejection of globalization, financialization and
Empire.
Technocrats rule the world, East and West alike. My two favorite charts of the outcome of
technocrats running things to suit their elite masters are:
The state-cartel-crony-capitalist version: the top .1% skim the vast majority of the gains
in income and wealth. Globalization, financialization and Empire sure do rack up impressive
gains. Too bad they're concentrated in the top 1.%.
The state-crony-socialist version: the currency is destroyed, impoverishing everyone but the
top .1% who transferred their wealth to Miami, London and Zurich long ago. Hmm, do you discern
a pattern here in the elite-technocrat regime?
Ideology is just a cover you slip over the machine to mask what's really going on.
This is an interesting analysis shedding some light on how the US intelligence services have gone rogue...
Notable quotes:
"... Most recently, British "special services," which are a sort of Mini-Me to the to the Dr. Evil that is the US intelligence apparatus, saw it fit to interfere with one of their own spies, Sergei Skripal, a double agent whom they sprung from a Russian jail in a spy swap. They poisoned him using an exotic chemical and then tried to pin the blame on Russia based on no evidence. ..."
"... the Americans are doing their best to break the unwritten rule against dragging spies through the courts, but their best is nowhere near good enough. ..."
"... That said, there is no reason to believe that the Russian spies couldn't have hacked into the DNC mail server. It was probably running Microsoft Windows, and that operating system has more holes in it than a building in downtown Raqqa, Syria after the Americans got done bombing that city to rubble, lots of civilians included. When questioned about this alleged hacking by Fox News, Putin (who had worked as a spy in his previous career) had trouble keeping a straight face and clearly enjoyed the moment. ..."
"... He pointed out that the hacked/leaked emails showed a clear pattern of wrongdoing: DNC officials conspired to steal the electoral victory in the Democratic Primary from Bernie Sanders, and after this information had been leaked they were forced to resign. If the Russian hack did happen, then it was the Russians working to save American democracy from itself. So, where's the gratitude? Where's the love? Oh, and why are the DNC perps not in jail? ..."
"... The logic of US officials may be hard to follow, but only if we adhere to the traditional definitions of espionage and counterespionage -- "intelligence" in US parlance -- which is to provide validated information for the purpose of making informed decisions on best ways of defending the country. But it all makes perfect sense if we disabuse ourselves of such quaint notions and accept the reality of what we can actually observe: the purpose of US "intelligence" is not to come up with or to work with facts but to simply "make shit up." ..."
"... The objective of US intelligence is to suck all remaining wealth out of the US and its allies and pocket as much of it as possible while pretending to defend it from phantom aggressors by squandering nonexistent (borrowed) financial resources on ineffective and overpriced military operations and weapons systems. Where the aggressors are not phantom, they are specially organized for the purpose of having someone to fight: "moderate" terrorists and so on. ..."
"... "What sort of idiot are you to ask me such a stupid question? Of course they are lying! They were caught lying more than once, and therefore they can never be trusted again. In order to claim that they are not currently lying, you have to determine when it was that they stopped lying, and that they haven't lied since. And that, based on the information that is available, is an impossible task." ..."
"... "The US intelligence agencies made an outrageous claim: that I colluded with Russia to rig the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The burden of proof is on them. They are yet to prove their case in a court of law, which is the only place where the matter can legitimately be settled, if it can be settled at all. Until that happens, we must treat their claim as conspiracy theory, not as fact." ..."
"... But no such reality-based, down-to-earth dialogue seems possible. All that we hear are fake answers to fake questions, and the outcome is a series of faulty decisions. Based on fake intelligence, the US has spent almost all of this century embroiled in very expensive and ultimately futile conflicts. ..."
"... Thanks to their efforts, Iran, Iraq and Syria have now formed a continuous crescent of religiously and geopolitically aligned states friendly toward Russia while in Afghanistan the Taliban is resurgent and battling ISIS -- an organization that came together thanks to American efforts in Iraq and Syria. ..."
"... Another hypothesis, and a far more plausible one, is that the US intelligence community has been doing a wonderful job of bankrupting the country and driving it toward financial, economic and political collapse by forcing it to engage in an endless series of expensive and futile conflicts -- the largest single continuous act of grand larceny the world has ever known. How that can possibly be an intelligent thing to do to your own country, for any conceivable definition of "intelligence," I will leave for you to work out for yourself. While you are at it, you might also want to come up with an improved definition of "treason": something better than "a skeptical attitude toward preposterous, unproven claims made by those known to be perpetual liars. ..."
In today's United States, the term "espionage" doesn't get too much
use outside of some specific contexts. There is still sporadic talk of industrial espionage,
but with regard to Americans' own efforts to understand the world beyond their borders, they
prefer the term "intelligence." This may be an intelligent choice, or not, depending on how you
look at things.
First of all, US "intelligence" is only vaguely related to the game of espionage as it has
been traditionally played, and as it is still being played by countries such as Russia and
China. Espionage involves collecting and validating strategically vital information and
conveying it to just the pertinent decision-makers on your side while keeping the fact that you
are collecting and validating it hidden from everyone else.
In eras past, a spy, if discovered, would try to bite down on a cyanide capsule; these days
torture is considered ungentlemanly, and spies that get caught patiently wait to be exchanged
in a spy swap. An unwritten, commonsense rule about spy swaps is that they are done quietly and
that those released are never interfered with again because doing so would complicate
negotiating future spy swaps.
In recent years, the US intelligence agencies have decided that torturing prisoners is a
good idea, but they have mostly been torturing innocent bystanders, not professional spies,
sometimes forcing them to invent things, such as "Al Qaeda." There was no such thing before US
intelligence popularized it as a brand among Islamic terrorists.
Most recently, British "special services," which are a sort of Mini-Me to the to the Dr.
Evil that is the US intelligence apparatus, saw it fit to interfere with one of their own
spies, Sergei Skripal, a double agent whom they sprung from a Russian jail in a spy swap. They
poisoned him using an exotic chemical and then tried to pin the blame on Russia based on no
evidence.
There are unlikely to be any more British spy swaps with Russia, and British spies working
in Russia should probably be issued good old-fashioned cyanide capsules (since that supposedly
super-powerful Novichok stuff the British keep at their "secret" lab in Porton Down doesn't
work right and is only fatal 20% of the time).
There is another unwritten, commonsense rule about spying in general: whatever happens, it
needs to be kept out of the courts, because the discovery process of any trial would force the
prosecution to divulge sources and methods, making them part of the public record. An
alternative is to hold secret tribunals, but since these cannot be independently verified to be
following due process and rules of evidence, they don't add much value.
A different standard applies to traitors; here, sending them through the courts is
acceptable and serves a high moral purpose, since here the source is the person on trial and
the method -- treason -- can be divulged without harm. But this logic does not apply to proper,
professional spies who are simply doing their jobs, even if they turn out to be double agents.
In fact, when counterintelligence discovers a spy, the professional thing to do is to try to
recruit him as a double agent or, failing that, to try to use the spy as a channel for
injecting disinformation.
Americans have been doing their best to break this rule. Recently, special counsel Robert
Mueller indicted a dozen Russian operatives working in Russia for hacking into the DNC mail
server and sending the emails to Wikileaks. Meanwhile, said server is nowhere to be found (it's
been misplaced) while the time stamps on the files that were published on Wikileaks show that
they were obtained by copying to a thumb drive rather than sending them over the internet.
Thus, this was a leak, not a hack, and couldn't have been done by anyone working remotely from
Russia.
Furthermore, it is an exercise in futility for a US official to indict Russian citizens in
Russia. They will never stand trial in a US court because of the following clause in the
Russian Constitution: "61.1 A citizen of the Russian Federation may not be deported out of
Russia or extradited to another state."
Mueller may summon a panel of constitutional scholars to interpret this sentence, or he can
just read it and weep. Yes, the Americans are doing their best to break the unwritten rule
against dragging spies through the courts, but their best is nowhere near good enough.
That said, there is no reason to believe that the Russian spies couldn't have hacked
into the DNC mail server. It was probably running Microsoft Windows, and that operating system
has more holes in it than a building in downtown Raqqa, Syria after the Americans got done
bombing that city to rubble, lots of civilians included. When questioned about this alleged
hacking by Fox News, Putin (who had worked as a spy in his previous career) had trouble keeping
a straight face and clearly enjoyed the moment.
He pointed out that the hacked/leaked emails showed a clear pattern of wrongdoing: DNC
officials conspired to steal the electoral victory in the Democratic Primary from Bernie
Sanders, and after this information had been leaked they were forced to resign. If the Russian
hack did happen, then it was the Russians working to save American democracy from itself. So,
where's the gratitude? Where's the love? Oh, and why are the DNC perps not in jail?
Since there exists an agreement between the US and Russia to cooperate on criminal
investigations, Putin offered to question the spies indicted by Mueller. He even offered to
have Mueller sit in on the proceedings. But in return he wanted to question US officials who
may have aided and abetted a convicted felon by the name of William Browder, who is due to
begin serving a nine-year sentence in Russia any time now and who, by the way, donated copious
amounts of his ill-gotten money to the Hillary Clinton election campaign.
In response, the US Senate passed a resolution to forbid Russians from questioning US
officials. And instead of issuing a valid request to have the twelve Russian spies interviewed,
at least one US official made the startlingly inane request to have them come to the US
instead. Again, which part of 61.1 don't they understand?
The logic of US officials may be hard to follow, but only if we adhere to the
traditional definitions of espionage and counterespionage -- "intelligence" in US parlance --
which is to provide validated information for the purpose of making informed decisions on best
ways of defending the country. But it all makes perfect sense if we disabuse ourselves of such
quaint notions and accept the reality of what we can actually observe: the purpose of US
"intelligence" is not to come up with or to work with facts but to simply "make shit
up."
The "intelligence" the US intelligence agencies provide can be anything but; in fact, the
stupider it is the better, because its purpose is allow unintelligent people to make
unintelligent decisions. In fact, they consider facts harmful -- be they about Syrian chemical
weapons, or conspiring to steal the primary from Bernie Sanders, or Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction, or the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden -- because facts require accuracy and rigor
while they prefer to dwell in the realm of pure fantasy and whimsy. In this, their actual
objective is easily discernible.
The objective of US intelligence is to suck all remaining wealth out of the US and its
allies and pocket as much of it as possible while pretending to defend it from phantom
aggressors by squandering nonexistent (borrowed) financial resources on ineffective and
overpriced military operations and weapons systems. Where the aggressors are not phantom, they
are specially organized for the purpose of having someone to fight: "moderate" terrorists and
so on.
One major advancement in their state of the art has been in moving from real false flag
operations, à la 9/11, to fake false flag operations, à la fake East Gouta
chemical attack in Syria (since fully discredited). The Russian election meddling story is
perhaps the final step in this evolution: no New York skyscrapers or Syrian children were
harmed in the process of concocting this fake narrative, and it can be kept alive seemingly
forever purely through the furious effort of numerous flapping lips. It is now a pure
confidence scam. If you are less then impressed with their invented narratives, then you are a
conspiracy theorist or, in the latest revision, a traitor.
Trump was recently questioned as to whether he trusted US intelligence. He waffled. A
light-hearted answer would have been:
"What sort of idiot are you to ask me such a stupid question? Of course they are lying! They
were caught lying more than once, and therefore they can never be trusted again. In order to
claim that they are not currently lying, you have to determine when it was that they stopped
lying, and that they haven't lied since. And that, based on the information that is available,
is an impossible task."
A more serious, matter-of-fact answer would have been:
"The US intelligence agencies made an outrageous claim: that I colluded with Russia to rig
the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The burden of proof is on them. They are yet to
prove their case in a court of law, which is the only place where the matter can legitimately
be settled, if it can be settled at all. Until that happens, we must treat their claim as
conspiracy theory, not as fact."
And a hardcore, deadpan answer would have been:
"The US intelligence services swore an oath to uphold the US Constitution, according to
which I am their Commander in Chief. They report to me, not I to them. They must be loyal to
me, not I to them. If they are disloyal to me, then that is sufficient reason for their
dismissal."
But no such reality-based, down-to-earth dialogue seems possible. All that we hear are fake
answers to fake questions, and the outcome is a series of faulty decisions. Based on fake
intelligence, the US has spent almost all of this century embroiled in very expensive and
ultimately futile conflicts.
Thanks to their efforts, Iran, Iraq and Syria have now formed a continuous crescent of
religiously and geopolitically aligned states friendly toward Russia while in Afghanistan the
Taliban is resurgent and battling ISIS -- an organization that came together thanks to American
efforts in Iraq and Syria.
The total cost of wars so far this century for the US is reported to be $4,575,610,429,593.
Divided by the 138,313,155 Americans who file tax returns (whether they actually pay any tax is
too subtle a question), it works out to just over $33,000 per taxpayer. If you pay taxes in the
US, that's your bill so far for the various US intelligence "oopsies."
The 16 US intelligence agencies have a combined budget of $66.8 billion, and that seems like
a lot until you realize how supremely efficient they are: their "mistakes" have cost the
country close to 70 times their budget. At a staffing level of over 200,000 employees, each of
them has cost the US taxpayer close to $23 million, on average. That number is totally out of
the ballpark! The energy sector has the highest earnings per employee, at around $1.8 million
per. Valero Energy stands out at $7.6 million per. At $23 million per, the US intelligence
community has been doing three times better than Valero. Hats off! This makes the US
intelligence community by far the best, most efficient collapse driver imaginable.
There are two possible hypotheses for why this is so.
First, we might venture to guess that these 200,000 people are grossly incompetent and that
the fiascos they precipitate are accidental. But it is hard to imagine a situation where
grossly incompetent people nevertheless manage to funnel $23 million apiece, on average, toward
an assortment of futile undertakings of their choosing. It is even harder to imagine that such
incompetents would be allowed to blunder along decade after decade without being called out for
their mistakes.
Another hypothesis, and a far more plausible one, is that the US intelligence community has
been doing a wonderful job of bankrupting the country and driving it toward financial, economic
and political collapse by forcing it to engage in an endless series of expensive and futile
conflicts -- the largest single continuous act of grand larceny the world has ever known. How
that can possibly be an intelligent thing to do to your own country, for any conceivable
definition of "intelligence," I will leave for you to work out for yourself. While you are at
it, you might also want to come up with an improved definition of "treason": something better
than "a skeptical attitude toward preposterous, unproven claims made by those known to be
perpetual liars."
Chittum's work makes more sense than either of the books reviewed here. The two books
discussed above are good for the Harry Potter set but in no way conform to 2018 reality.
I frequently reread Chittum's work and am amazed at how he correctly analyzed the future into
what is contemporary USSA.
LOOK NO further, than the incipient election of a reparation Democrat governor in Georgia and
a like minded legislature,come November, for validation of Chittum's hypotheses. The one
weakness in his predictions is the belief that there will be a patriotic core in the local
police and national military that could be relied on to protect the lives and property of
traditional Americans. This just won't happen. The FBI, CIA, ATFE, Homeland Security Police
and like activities set the pace, call the shots and control the funds and the locals provide
a conditioned response.
Chittum writing 20 years back could not see the rise of the mass surveillance and correct
thought propagation that we increasingly welcome or endure today.
My bet is Unz Review will totally access denied after the massive Democrat election gains in
November.
The by product of small minds and limited options. The collapse of the Democratic Party
also represented a failure to create a bench. AOC is a person who should have been identified
and pushed to run for local or even state government by a healthy political party.
In many ways, the Democratic elite are small "c"onservatives. New ideas and such are
frightening to them.
Donna Brazille knocked the Clinton Headquarters staff for not having sex, but the pictures
of the Clinton staffers looked like a particularly boring group of College Republicans. Wow,
the President listens to Jay-Z. He's really popular with kids from the suburbs!
This morning I was reminded that Sam Power apologized for calling Hillary a monster in
2013 probably because it seemed inevitable HRC would be President, but now I see it as a lack
of creative thinking where these boring people (they are boring) couldn't envision an
alternative.
As far as the options, the energy of the political left is not with the Democrats
hence why they have to pimp Biden every few months.
HRC use to pay DavidHow much went to MSNBC to be in ads for the choir? What good was an
HRC ad during a network dedicated to "Her"?
As far as her staff, she use to pay Mark Penn. Its reasonable to expect the Clinton
campaign would simply light money on fire, but I was always puzzled by the ads on MSNBC. What
good were they beyond preaching Hillary was running for President?
We know from the DNC emails Podesta said he needed to talk to HRC about promising the VP
to everyone after she had picked Kaine long before the announcement. I'm wondering what kinds
of ad buys she promised. When Obama got to the end, he just randomly ran an infomercial and
gave the field staff a fairly decent bonus. With all her money in a slam dunk election, I
think the story is more than a campaign of would be Mark Penns.
Thank you, Lambert, for going beyond the facile "horserace" and "blue wave" tropes and
assembling enough data for us non-insiders to be able to gain some understanding of the game
the insiders are playing.
These are people who speak of the process as an end in itself, connected only nominally,
and vestigially, to the electorate and its possible concerns "Anything that brings the
process closer to the people is all to the good," George Bush declared in his 1987
autobiography, Looking Forward, accepting as given this relatively recent notion that the
people and the process need not automatically be on convergent tracks.
When we talk about the process, then, we are talking, increasingly, not about "the
democratic process," or the general mechanism affording the citizens of a state a voice in
its affairs, but the reverse: a mechanism seen as so specialized that access to it is
correctly limited to its own professionals, to those who manage policy and those who report
on it, to those who run the polls and those who quote them, to those who ask and those who
answer the questions on the Sunday shows, to the media consultants, to the columnists, to
the issues advisers, to those who give the off-the-record breakfasts and to those who
attend them; to that handful of insiders who invent, year in and year out, the narrative of
public life.
I have a simple question: Why vote? Both parties are largely control by the same donors.
It strikes me as a waste of energy. When someone such a Sanders comes around who actually
slightly challenges the status quo, the powers to be actively collude to disenfranchise the
movement.
Simple answer: It's the only thing we have that scares them. Why else would they spend so
much effort trying to suppress the vote, or not fighting voter suppression? And who knows,
some candidates you vote for might win.
I don't think it actually scares them. It's more important for them to keep the showing
going. By voting, we are actively buying into the political theatre. It's a sham. Really
democracy simply can't coexist in a Capitalistic system.
Hard question, but how much is an Obama or Clinton endorsement really worth?
They are not going to be very appealing to swing voters, independents, etc. They have
limited to appeal to getting young people and supporters of Bernie Sanders to vote.
Seems like they are most useful for just motivating Establishment Democratic voters.
Second, the Democrat Party really is split. As you can see, Obama, Clinton, and the
DCCC's endorsements overlap in only a single case (again, CA-50) with "insurgent" backers
like Justice Democrats (JD) and Our Revolution (OR). Negative confirmation: Obama did not
endorse Ocasio-Cortez ("Party Unity is for Rubes"). Her district is a safe Democrat seat
(unless Crowley, running as a straw on the Working Families line, somehow takes it away
from her), so perhaps that doesn't matter: Positive confirmation: Obama and Clinton didn't
endorse Bryce in WI-01, although -- because? -- Sanders did, even though the DCCC did, and
the seat used to be Paul Ryan's![1]
It has been split between those who got rich by neoliberalism (the 10%er base) and the
rest of us.
My sense is the importance of the Oprah endorsement of Obama wasn't the endorsement as
much as the spectacle and crowds. 10,000 people at a campaign event in New Hampshire is huge.
At that point, Obama didn't have to face the usual primary audience much like HRC where
candidates do get fairly difficult questions in comparison to the msm garbage questions
cookie recipes.
Yellow dog types who might vote for AOC over say Crowley on their own might be swayed, but
I suspect "DNC" letter head would have the same effect.
Once the Democratic Party has burned the people who fall under the marketing term
"Millennials" enough times, they'll move on to the new "hope" of Gen Z who won't have
multiple memories of lie after lie.
Some people have told me they could think better when hungry.
After the initial pangs go away, and one can think clearly, one is incentivized to really
find solutions, but thinking as in learning? They have different brains then me, let's just
say.
Marketing and advertising thrive on the same concept.
Exalting youth to exploit it.
When that doesn't work, use fear (of not being wealthy enough, attractive enough, etc,). That
base emotion gets played on throughout people's lives.
That is why those marketing terms found a comfy fit with political narratives and polling
(which is done to fit a narrative).
"... Chart: Demonization of Russia centers on competition for oil and gas revenues. Pipelines to deliver oil and gas from the Middle East to Europe run through North Africa (Libya) and Syria and / or Turkey. These pipelines are substantially controlled by Western interests with imperial / colonial ties to the U.S., Britain and 'developed' Europe. Russian oil and gas did run through Ukraine, which is now negotiating to join NATO, or otherwise hits a NATO wall before entering Europe. ..."
The indictments are a major political story, but not for the reasons given in
mainstream press coverage. Once Mr. Mueller's indictment is understood to charge the
exploitation of existing social tensions (read it and decide for yourself), the FBI, which Mr.
Mueller directed from 2001 – 2013, is precisely the wrong entity to be rendering
judgment. The FBI has been America's political police since its founding in 1908. Early on
former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover led legally dubious mass
arrests of American dissidents. He practically invented the slander of conflating
legitimate dissent with foreign agency. This is the institutional backdrop from which Mr.
Mueller proceeds.
In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s the FBI's targets included the civil rights movement, the
antiwar movement, the American Indian Movement (AIM), the Black Panther Party and any other
political organization Mr. Hoover deemed a threat. The secret (hidden) FBI program COINTELPRO was intended to
subvert political outcomes outside of allegations of criminal wrongdoing and with no regard for the lives of its
targets . Throughout its history the FBI has sided with the powerful against the powerless
to maintain an unjust social order.
Robert Mueller became FBI Director only days before the attacks of September 11, 2001. One
of his first acts as Director was to arrest 1,000 persons without any evidence of criminal
wrongdoing. None of those arrested were ever charged in association with the attacks. The frame
in which the FBI acted -- to maintain political stability threatened by 'external' forces, was
ultimately chosen by the George W. Bush administration to justify its aggressive war against
Iraq.
It is the FBI's legacy of conflating dissent with being an agent of a foreign power that Mr.
Mueller's indictment most insidiously perpetuates. Russians are 'sowing discord,' and they are
using Americans to do so, goes the allegation. Black Lives Matter and Bernie Sanders are listed
in the indictment as roadblocks to the unfettered ascension of Hillary Clinton to the
presidency. Russians are sowing discord, therefore discord is both suspect in itself and
evidence of being a foreign agent.
The posture of simple reporting at work in the indictment -- that it isn't the FBI's fault
that the Russians (allegedly) inserted themselves into the electoral process, runs against the
history of the FBI's political role, the tilt used to craft criminal charges and the facts put
forward versus those put to the side. Given the political agendas of the other agencies that
the FBI joined through the charges, they are most certainly but a small piece of a larger
story.
In the aftermath of the indictments it's easy to forget that the Pentagon created the internet ,
that the NSA
has its tentacles in all of its major chokepoints, that the CIA has been heavily
involved in funding and 'using' social media toward its own ends and that the FBI is only
reputable in the present because of Americans' near-heroic ignorance of history. The claim that
the Russian operation was sophisticated because it had corporate form and function is countered
by the fact that it was, by the various agencies' own claims, ineffectual in changing the
outcome of the election.
I Have a List
While Robert Mueller was busy charging never-to-be-tried Russians with past crimes, Dan
Coats, the Director of National Intelligence,
declared that future Russian meddling has already cast a shadow over the integrity of the
2018 election. Why the Pentagon that created the internet, the NSA that has its tentacles in
all of its major chokepoints, the CIA that has been heavily involved in funding and 'using'
social media toward its own ends and the FBI that just landed such a glorious victory of good
over evil would be quivering puddles when it comes to precluding said meddling is a question
that needs to be asked.
The political frame being put forward is that only these agencies know if particular
elections and candidates have been tainted by meddling, therefore we need to trust them to tell
us which candidates were legitimately elected and which weren't. As generous as this offer
seems, wouldn't the creation of free and fair elections be a more direct route to achieving
this end? Put differently, who among those making the offer, whether personally or as
functionaries of their respective agencies, has a demonstrated history of supporting democratic
institutions?
The 2016 election was apparently a test case for posing these agencies as the meddling
police. By getting the bourgeois electocracy -- liberal Democrats, to agree that the loathsome
Trump is illegitimate, future candidates will be vetted by the CIA, NSA and FBI with impunity.
It's apparently only the pre-'discord, ' the social angst that the decade of the Great
Recession left as its residual, that shifts this generous offer from the deterministic to the
realm of the probable. The social conditions that led to the Great Recession and its aftermath
are entirely home grown.
More broadly, how do the government agencies and people that spent the better part of the
last century undermining democracy at home and abroad intend to stop 'Russian meddling?' If the
FBI couldn't disentangle home grown 'discord' from that allegedly exploited and exacerbated by
the Russians, isn't the likely intention to edit out all discord? And if fake news is a problem
in need of addressing, wouldn't the
New York Times and the Washington Post have
been shut down years ago?
The Great Satin (sic)
While Russia is the villain of the day, week and year due to alleged election 'meddling,'
the process of demonization that Russia has undergone has shown little variation from (alleged)
villain to villain. It is thanks to cable news and the 'newspaper of record' that the true
villainy of Vladimir Putin, Muammar Gadhafi, Saddam Hussein, Nicolas Maduro and the political
leadership of Iran has been revealed. In the face of such monsters, questions of motivation are
moot. Why wouldn't Mr. Putin 'sow discord?'
The question as yet unasked, and therefore unanswered is: is there something besides base
villainy that brought these national leaders, and the nations they lead, into the crosshairs of
America's fair and wise leadership? This question might forever go unanswered were it not for
the secret list from which their names were apparently drawn. No, not that secret list. This one is publicly available -- hiding in plain sight, as it
were. It is the list of proven oil reserves by country (below). This is no doubt unduly
reductive -- evil is as evil does, but read on.
The question of how such a list could divide so evenly between heroes and villains I leave
to the philosophers. On second thought, no I won't. The heroes are allies of a small cadre of
America's political and economic elite who have made themselves fabulously rich through the
alliances. The villains have oil, gas, pipelines and other resources that this elite wants.
Reductive, yes. But this simple list certainly appears to explain American foreign policy over
the last half-century quite well.
Source: gulfbusiness.com
It's almost as if America's love for humanity, as demonstrated through humanitarian
interventions, is determined by imperial competition for natural resources -- in this case oil
and gas. Amongst these countries, only one (Canada) is 'democratic' in the American sense of
being run by a small cadre of plutocrats who use the state to further their own interests. Two
-- Iraq and Libya, were recently reduced to rubble (for the sake of humanity) by the U.S.
Nigeria is being 'brought' under the control of AFRICOM. What remains are various and sundry
petro-states plus Venezuela and Russia.
Following the untimely death of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, the horrible tyrant kept in office
via free
and fair elections , who used Venezuela's petro-dollars to feed, clothe and educate his
people and was in the process of creating a regional Left alliance to counter American abuse of
power, the CIA joined with local
plutocrats to overthrow his successor, Nicolas Maduro. The goal: to 'liberate' Venezuela's oil
revenues in their own pockets. At the moment Mr. Maduro is down the list of villains, not
nearly the stature of a 'new Hitler' like Vladimir Putin. But where he ends up will depend on
how successfully the CIA (with Robert Mueller's help) can drum up a war against nuclear armed
Russia.
What separates Russia from the other heroes and villains on the list is its history as a
competing empire as well as the manner in which Russian oil and gas is distributed. Geography
placed it closer to the population centers of Europe than to Southeastern China where Chinese
economic development has been concentrated. This makes Europe a 'natural' market for Russian
oil and gas.
The former Soviet state of Ukraine did stand between, or rather under, Russian pipelines and
Europe until Hillary Clinton had her lieutenants engineer a coup there in 2014. In contrast to
the 'new Hitler' of Mr. Putin (or was that Trump?) Mrs. Clinton and her comrades demonstrated a
preference for the old Hitler in the form of Ukrainian fascists who were the ideological
descendants of 'authentic' WWII Nazis. But rest assured, not all of the U.S.'s allies in this
affair
were ideological Nazis .
Chart: Demonization of Russia centers on competition for oil and gas revenues. Pipelines
to deliver oil and gas from the Middle East to Europe run through North Africa (Libya) and
Syria and / or Turkey. These pipelines are substantially controlled by Western interests with
imperial / colonial ties to the U.S., Britain and 'developed' Europe. Russian oil and gas did
run through Ukraine, which is now negotiating to join NATO, or otherwise hits a NATO wall
before entering Europe.
In contrast to the alternative hypotheses given
in the American press, NATO, the geopolitical extension of the U.S. military in Europe,
admits that the U.S.
engineered coup in Ukraine was 'about' oil geopolitics with Russia. The American storyline
that Crimea was seized by Russia ignores that the Russian navy has had a Black Sea port in Crimea for decades. How
amenable, precisely, might Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and his friends be if
Russia seized a major U.S. naval port given their generous offer to take over the U.S.
electoral system because of a few Russian trolls?
Although Russia is toward the bottom of the top ten countries in terms of oil reserves, it
faces a problem of distribution that the others don't. Imperial ties and recent military
incursions have left the distribution of oil and gas from the Middle East to Europe largely
under Western control. Syria, Turkey and North Africa are necessary to moving this oil and gas
through pipelines to Europe. That Syria, Libya and Turkey are now, or recently have been,
militarily contested adds credence to the contention that the 'international community's'
heroes and villains are largely determined by whose hands their oil and gas resources are
currently in.
Democratic Party loyalists who see Putin, Maduro et al as the problem first need to
answer for the candidate they put forward in 2016. Hillary Clinton led the carnage in Libya
that murdered
30,000 – 50,000 innocents for Western oil and gas interests. Russia didn't force the
U.S. into its calamitous invasion of Iraq. Russia didn't take Americans' jobs, houses and
pensions in the Great Recession. Russia didn't reward Wall Street for causing it. Democrats
need to take responsibility for their failed candidates and their failed Party.
Part of the point in relating oil reserves to American foreign entanglements is that the
countries and leaders involved are incidental. Vladimir Putin certainly seems smarter than the
American leadership. But this has no bearing on whether or not his leadership of Russia is
broadly socially beneficial. The only possible resolution of climate crisis requires both
Russia and the U.S. to greatly reduce their use of fossil fuels. Reports have it that Mr. Putin
has no interest in doing so. And once the marketing chatter is set to the side, neither do the
Americans.
By placing themselves as arbiters of the electoral process, the Director of National
Intelligence and the heads of the CIA, NSA and FBI can effectively control it. Is it accidental
that the candidate of liberal Democrats in the 2016 election was the insiders' -- the
intelligence agencies' and military contractors,' candidate as well? Implied is that these
agencies and contractors are now 'liberal.' Good luck with that program if you value peace and
prosperity.
There are lots of ways to create free and fair elections if that is the goal. Use
paper ballots that are counted in public, automatically register all eligible voters, make
election days national holidays and eliminate 'private' funding of electoral campaigns. But why
make elections free and fair when fanciful nonsense about 'meddling' will convince the liberal
class to deliver power to grey corpses in the CIA, NSA and FBI for the benefit of a tiny cabal
of stupendously rich plutocrats. Who says America isn't already great?
People. Don't miss out this recent and fascinating Interview featuring Bill Binney, former NSA IT guy and whistle blower
. The host made him the right Questions. He speak on very important issues In Particular The Russian "Hacking" of the DNC, and
even 9-11.
Binney is "The Expert" , Nobody can dispute his integrity.
"... If, on average, just seven Republicans are moderates, and Democrats need 15 additional votes, Democrats will obviously fall short. Where else then could and should Democrats look? The more promising pools of people are actually Democratic voters -- many of whom face greater economic obstacles in finding the time and transportation to get to the polls. ..."
"... In the quest for those necessary 15 votes, the number-one place Democrats should look is among the 19 percent of Democrats who voted in 2016, but are unlikely to cast ballots this year. ..."
"... In fact, the largest pool of people Democrats should be trying to tap is actually nonvoters -- the 200,000 people per district who were eligible but didn't cast ballots in 2016. It is in these sectors of society where Democrats will find the source of success and the path to winning back the House and taking back our country and winning elections for years to come. ..."
Democratic leaders have gone to great lengths, for example, to
encourage
military veterans to run for Congress
this year. Veterans can be great progressive leaders (my father and
uncle served in the military, and I was born on a military base), but if the strategic objective is to appeal to
swing voters drawn to Trump's posture and positions, the math doesn't add up. The painful truth is that there just
aren't that many swing voters.
Doing a deep data dive on the districts reveals that the number of swing voters is
far smaller than many people realize, especially when you factor in the drop-off in voter turnout in midterm
elections. In the most competitive Republican-held congressional districts, Clinton won by an average of 17,000
votes, but the incumbent GOP congressperson beat his or her Democratic foe by an average of 34,000 votes.
This reality is particularly problematic when you factor in the smaller electorate during midterms, when fewer
turn out to vote than in a presidential year. This diagram shows the total voter pool in an average competitive
district, how many people voted, and how many voted for Clinton, Trump, and the Republican member of the House. For
illustration purposes, if 100 people voted in one of these Clinton-Republican representative-won districts in 2016,
the incumbent House Republican received 54 votes, and his or her Democratic opponent received 43 votes. Of those 54
people who voted for the incumbent Republican, seven (out of 100 votes) voted for Clinton. That's seven moderate
Republicans out of 100 voters. Historically, in midterm elections, Republicans are more likely to come back out and
vote than are Democrats, and as a result, that 54-43 Republican advantage from the higher-turnout presidential year
will be about 39-25 this midterm year (based on historical turnout data). This means Democrats need to find 15 votes
in every 100 in order to flip those 23 seats. Looking at the possible sources of an additional 15 percent highlights
how few moderate Republicans there are.
If, on average, just seven Republicans are moderates, and Democrats need 15 additional votes, Democrats will
obviously fall short. Where else then could and should Democrats look? The more promising pools of people are
actually Democratic voters -- many of whom face greater economic obstacles in finding the time and transportation to get
to the polls.
In the quest for those necessary 15 votes, the number-one place Democrats should look is among the 19 percent of
Democrats who voted in 2016, but are unlikely to cast ballots this year.
In races that may well be decided by a few thousand votes (for example, Pennsylvania Democrat Conor Lamb won his
special US House election earlier this year by a mere
627 votes
), it makes sense to also target the 20,000 young people in each congressional district who were not old
enough to vote in 2016, but are now eligible.
In fact, the largest pool of people Democrats should be trying to tap is actually nonvoters -- the 200,000 people per
district who were eligible but didn't cast ballots in 2016. It is in these sectors of society where Democrats will
find the source of success and the path to winning back the House and taking back our country and winning elections
for years to come.
It is hard work to get all of these voters out, but that is the work that will determine success or failure this
fall.
"... While you are at it, you might also want to come up with an improved definition of "treason": something better than " a skeptical attitude toward preposterous, unproven claims made by those known to be perpetual liars. ..."
"... So you plan to continue this McCarthy Russian BS? You didn't speak out when you got cheated in the primaries, and you didn't seem to care that Hillary was using her own paid troll army. Integrity matters Bernie and you are losing yours. ..."
"... You stopped speaking for me and millions of others when you caved to crooked HRC. No it was NOT clear that Russia was "deeply involved in the election. What is CLEAR is your betrayal of your followers and cover up of the election fraud perpetrated by DNC! Everybody knows... ..."
"... Bernie, that's MIC propaganda. Stop helping it. There are millions of reasons Trump should not be president. We don't need a hyped up corporate fairytale to make that point https://t.co/7FAwb47LtB ..."
"... Democratic party jingoism in 2020 will be extra-ordinary with candidates each trying to out do each other how they will fuck over Putin and the Russian nation. There will be a shit load of public loyalty testing against any third party candidate by the democrats. ..."
It has been clear to everyone (except Donald Trump) that Russia was deeply involved in the 2016 election and intends to be
involved in 2018. It is the American people who should be deciding the political future of our country, not Mr. Putin and the
Russian oligarchs.
However, Sanders had already committed the unforgivable
sin of criticizing the Democratic establishment candidate from the left. There is simply no way of coming back from that treason.
Despite his stance, Sanders has also been constantly presented as another Russian agent, with the Washington Post (11/12/17) asking
its readers, "When Russia interferes with the 2020 election on behalf of Democratic nominee Bernie Sanders, how will liberals
respond?" The message is clear: The progressive wave rising across America is and will be a consequence of Russia, not of the
failures of the system, nor of the Democrats.
It isn't just progressive politicians that are all traitors. Movements like Black Lives Matter are also traitors for Russia.
It is the American people who should be deciding the political future of our country, not Mr. Putin and the Russian oligarchs.
Hey, Bernie. The American people were the ones who should have decided who won the primary, not Hillary, the DNC and the delegates.
That you are blaming Her loss on Russia instead of admitting that the American people rejected her makes you nothing more than
a democratic puppet. How embarrassing for you.
Every Black voter should abandon the DP until they apologize for their disrespect for the BLM and saying that they only started
protesting cops killing Blacks because Russia manipulated them into doing so.
Eichenwald thinks that our intelligence agencies are patriots who have spent their lives working on keeping us safe does he?
I agree with Dmitry Orlov's take on them.
The objective of US intelligence is to suck all remaining wealth out of the US and its allies and pocket as much of it as
possible while pretending to defend it from phantom aggressors by squandering nonexistent (borrowed) financial resources on
ineffective and overpriced military operations and weapons systems. Where the aggressors are not phantom, they are specially
organized for the purpose of having someone to fight: "moderate" terrorists and so on.
....
the US intelligence community has been doing a wonderful job of bankrupting the country and driving it toward financial,
economic and political collapse by forcing it to engage in an endless series of expensive and futile conflicts -- the largest
single continuous act of grand larceny the world has ever known. How that can possibly be an intelligent thing to do to your
own country, for any conceivable definition of "intelligence," I will leave for you to work out for yourself.
While you are at it, you might also want to come up with an improved definition of "treason": something better than
" a skeptical attitude toward preposterous, unproven claims made by those known to be perpetual liars. "
And let's not forget how many
coups
and false flag events they had a hand in creating that have cost so much misery and death.
One major advancement in their state of the art has been in moving from real false flag operations, ŕ la 9/11, to fake false
flag operations, ŕ la fake East Gouta chemical attack in Syria (since fully discredited). The Russian election meddling story
is perhaps the final step in this evolution: no New York skyscrapers or Syrian children were harmed in the process of concocting
this fake narrative, and it can be kept alive seemingly forever purely through the furious effort of numerous flapping lips.
It is now a pure confidence scam. If you are less then impressed with their invented narratives, then you are a conspiracy
theorist or, in the latest revision, a traitor.
The real puppets are the ones who believe in this silly story that Russia is pulling Trump's strings and that the GOP are also
Russian puppets. Good grief!
The others show that there are others out there that have seen through this propaganda crap. I'd like to see the breakdown
of Hillary supporters that believe Russia Gate and the Bernie supporters that don't. Most of the Trump supporters think it's phony
so what made Hillary's believe in something that everyone should be laughing at?
You deserve a lot of credit. Russia interfered in your favor, yet you are man enough to admit that they interfered. Thank
you Bernie!
So you plan to continue this McCarthy Russian BS? You didn't speak out when you got cheated in the primaries, and you
didn't seem to care that Hillary was using her own paid troll army. Integrity matters Bernie and you are losing yours.
You stopped speaking for me and millions of others when you caved to crooked HRC. No it was NOT clear that Russia was
"deeply involved in the election. What is CLEAR is your betrayal of your followers and cover up of the election fraud perpetrated
by DNC! Everybody knows...
Bernie, that's MIC propaganda. Stop helping it. There are millions of reasons Trump should not be president. We don't
need a hyped up corporate fairytale to make that point https://t.co/7FAwb47LtB
Democratic party jingoism in 2020 will be extra-ordinary with candidates each trying to out do each other how they will
fuck over Putin and the Russian nation. There will be a shit load of public loyalty testing against any third party candidate
by the democrats.
The democrats (and media cohorts) have become an apocolyptic death cult. The language that comes from them is infused with
the language of conspiracies, violence, treason, aggression and demonization.
And here is the thing, Bernie to survive electorally will have to become a cult member. Effectively he will have to be pro-war
with Russia. He will be giving from the the Left supposed support for aggressive action andmilitarism toward Russia.
I fear that if a democrat becomes president in 2020 (it won't be Bernie), is elected president that in the year of the midterms
in 2022, the US will start a real war with Russia which has a highly likehood of going nuclear.
"... -- William Powell, The Anarchist Cookbook (1971), from memory ..."
"... @thanatokephaloides ..."
"... Finally there's the meeting that Assange's lawyer set up with congress for him to testify to congress and tell them where he got the DNC emails that showed how they rigged the primary. Comey and Schaffer shot that down because it would have killed Russia Gate. Dead and buried and the country could move on. ..."
"... In this case, it is NOT a matter of opinion. It is a matter of FACT. The physical proof that we have right now tells us that the Wikileaks documents did not come from a "hack." We also have physical evidence that someone (no doubt Crowdstrike) manipulated copies of the leaked documents and embedded awkward amateurish evidence to make them look like they were taken by a "Russian" hacker. Here's how we know that: ..."
"... Assange's diplomatic trip to the US in mid-2017 to testify before Congress and prove where the documents came from was emergency-blocked by Comey and Rosenstein. As a consequence, Assange immediately released the extensive Vault 7 documents to the American people so we could forensically recognize the signature techniques that the US intelligence agencies would use to alter downloaded DNC documents and embed fake Russian "fingerprints." We have seen the physical evidence that that occurred. ..."
"... The US has no real physical evidence of a Russian hack or they would never have released the fake evidence. Yet they continue their attack to harm Russia's economy and the continue their attempts to provoke a hot war with Russia. The US motive for this has nothing to do with their fake hacking narrative; it is about crippling Russia (and China) to forestall the rapid rise of Eurasia, which is stripping the Neocons and war-profiteering corporations of their dream for the US to achieve total domination over all other nations. The Entitled Elite want their New American Century back! Their Empire was supposed to rule the world.... ..."
"... @Pluto's Republic ..."
"... While you are at it, you might also want to come up with an improved definition of "treason": something better than " a skeptical attitude toward preposterous, unproven claims made by those known to be perpetual liars. ..."
"... third run ..."
"... ~~Author Unknown ..."
"... ~~Martin Luther King Jr. ..."
"... @Unabashed Liberal ..."
"... @Unabashed Liberal ..."
"... ~~Martin Luther King Jr. ..."
"... Democratic party jingoism in 2020 will be extra-ordinary with candidates each trying to out do each other how they will fuck over Putin and the Russian nation. There will be a shit load of public loyalty testing against any third party candidate by the democrats. ..."
Russiagate may technically be about Trump, but in fact most of the "traitors" and Putin Puppets are progressives on the left.
Russiagate officially started in 2015 long before
the DNC hack and the Democratic primaries.
Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin
Russiagate never was actually about Russia. It's the Democrats' version of Obama's birth certificate. As
Caitlin Johnstone puts it, Russiagate is 9/11 minus 9/11.
TWIT:
Kurt Eichenwald
@kurteichenwald
Bottom line: You either support the patriots in our intelligence community and law enforcement who work endlessly for our
national security, and all of the intelligence agencies of our allies, or you support Putin.
You're either a patriot, a traitor or an idiot. Choose.
10:51 AM-16 Jul 2018
In reality, Russiagate started with Ralph Nader and the
2000 election .
They said a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush. You have a moral duty to vote for the Democrat and to be pragmatic. Your Naderite
purity came at the expense of the poor. Only affluent selfish white guys could afford this type of virtue signaling. In fact,
maybe some of these people were really Republicans in disguise. There were no Russian bots to blame just yet, but clearly some
liberals are unable to imagine good faith criticism of Democrats coming from the left.
The terms " virtue signaling", " purity pony", and of course "White Berniebro" weren't coined yet, but the the stereotype they
describe was formed in 2000. Gore lost and Nader and all his voters, in swing states or not, were vilified. They were worse than
Republicans. They were traitors. Of all the factors that caused Gore's loss, the only one that Democratic partisans really cared
about was Nader.
People that voted for Nader became responsible for the Iraq War, while Democrats who voted for Bush and the Iraq War got a free
pass. Liberals, besides their obvious double-standards when allocating responsibility, made the dubious claim that morality requires
being pragmatic in your voting. And then, as if to prove the basis of their claims to be false, they approach their target audience
in a non-pragmatic way.
The anger on open display is the opposite of pragmatic politics. They don't try to persuade people to vote for the Democrat. They
demand it. It is a moral litmus test, or rather, a judgement of one's very soul. Good people know they have to vote for the Democrat.
Bad people vote for Republicans and the very worst people of all claim to be left, but vote for Stein or maybe even voted for
Clinton, but criticized her. Democratic partisans have no interest in what you say about an issue if they perceive it as in any
way an attack or a criticism of a Democrat. If you are a third party advocate you can forget about being taken seriously on any
issue because you have already self identified as a Satanist and you need to be exorcised from the body politic. Even if you say
you support the Democrat as the lesser evil, you speak as one of the damned and deserve no mercy. Sanders played the game in 2016
exactly the way people said Nader should have played it and he and his supporters were still dismissed.
Like Nader before her, Stein is the absolute
worst traitor of all . Worse than Trump himself.
Jill Stein is a Russian agent.
Jill Stein is a Russian agent.
Jill Stein is a Russian agent.
Jill Stein is a Russian agent.
Jill Stein is a Russian agent.
Jill Stein is a Russian agent.
Jill Stein is a Russian agent.
Jill Stein is a Russian agent. https://t.co/qkDUe6yADd
Maddow cast suspicion on Stein's silence over alleged Russian attempts to interfere with the election to benefit Donald Trump, who
she claimed during her own campaign would govern no differently than Hillary Clinton.
"So everybody's like, 'Wow, how come this like super, super aggressive opposition that we saw from these third-party candidates
-- how come they haven't said anything since this scandal has broken?'" Maddow said.
"I don't know, Jill -- I can't pronounce it in Russian," Maddow said, with apparent sarcasm.
Bernie Sanders, OTOH, did everything he was told he should do. He supported the Democratic establishment candidate, and believed
the Russiagate story.
It has been clear to everyone (except Donald Trump) that Russia was deeply involved in the 2016 election and intends to be
involved in 2018. It is the American people who should be deciding the political future of our country, not Mr. Putin and the
Russian oligarchs.
However, Sanders had already committed the unforgivable
sin of criticizing the Democratic establishment candidate from the left. There is simply no way of coming back from that treason.
Despite his stance, Sanders has also been constantly presented as another Russian agent, with the Washington Post (11/12/17) asking
its readers, "When Russia interferes with the 2020 election on behalf of Democratic nominee Bernie Sanders, how will liberals
respond?" The message is clear: The progressive wave rising across America is and will be a consequence of Russia, not of the
failures of the system, nor of the Democrats.
It isn't just progressive politicians that are all traitors. Movements like Black Lives Matter are also traitors for Russia.
That's because you, Russia, funded riots in Ferguson. See 0 hour I have your connections to Trump archived via Schiller and
Scavino https://t.co/aTUDlCGkYi
If you are still confused about what is treason and what isn't, ask yourself the question: Does the issue advance the narrative
that the Democratic Party is a force for absolute good?
Oh my god: this is how deranged official Washington is. The President of the largest Dem Party think tank (funded in part by
dictators) genuinely believes Chelsea Manning's candidacy is a Kremlin plot. Conspiracy theorists thrive more in mainstream DC
than on internet fringes pic.twitter.com/e8g314iQHT
We still have the 2018 election, and then the long lead-up to the 2020 election. There is nothing to indicate that the rhetoric
won't get a lot more insane. The general indifference of the public doesn't seem to discourage the media and pundits. So how will
it likely look in Fall 2020? Probably like it looked in
1952 .
The purpose of advancing the Communist issue was not to fix the Communist problem -- it was to exploit that problem for political
and ideological advantage. That is how the Republican Party could produce its unhinged 1952 platform, which charged that the Democrats
"have shielded traitors to the Nation in high places," "work unceasingly to achieve their goal of national socialism," and "by
a long succession of vicious acts, so undermined the foundations of our Republic as to threaten its existence." (Does that kind
of talk strike you as overheated? Then you, too, are failing to take the Russia issue seriously.)
There is little to no danger for conservatives and Republicans. All of the danger is for progressives and socialists, and the
angry mob is the Democratic establishment trying to silence left-wing ideas. In comparison, the danger of the GOP to the left-wing
is trivial.
Russiagate officially started in 2015 long before the DNC hack and the Democratic primaries.
I'm finding it harder and harder to believe that people keep posting it as common knowledge and factual -- especially on this
site. Old dkos habits are hard to break, I guess. The speed at which the files were STOLEN prove it was done from within the network.
Not from Russia, or from a van parked down the street. I can only guess that the DNC can't reveal whose network account was used
to do so, because it would blow the bullshit lie of a hack out of the water.
The speed at which the files were STOLEN prove it was done from within the network. Not from Russia, or from a van parked
down the street. I can only guess that the DNC can't reveal whose network account was used to do so, because it would blow
the bullshit lie of a hack out of the water.
There was NO hack.
emphasis in original.
The term usually used by the perpetrator classes for this sort of thing is: "inside job" . And, as
with all other inside jobs, the question really is: "Who's the insider?"
"The easiest way to raise a revolutionary army is to use someone else's; especially if it belongs to your enemy." -- William Powell, The Anarchist Cookbook (1971), from memory
I've seen an article debunking the "hack was a leak" story, but it makes no difference anyway. In my book, the leak/hack just
created a more informed electorate, and that's good for American democracy.
@Deja
The truth is contained in the emails, not in their journey. Remember who else is telling you that the contents of the emails is
less important than how they got there - the Democrats.
@Deja
hypothesis has problems. Don't get me wrong, I think it holds more promise than the 'hack' hypothesis. But right now, really,
we got shit for proof either way? Would honestly look forward to your proof either way, sans the critique of the essayist. Might
I suggest that you criticize the point, not the person, please? Questions remain.
- DNC leak vs hack remains unproven (servers not provided)
- one party consent is complicated. On the tape, there was 3rd party on speaker phone. Were they in one party consent jurisdiction
as well?
- How was CNN able to confirm that this tape was recorded in NY?
in it. This is the point that matters to me. Assange has stated that the emails didn't come from Russia. Craig Murray said
that he was involved with the person who got the information from the DNC computers and that there was no connection to Russia.
The CIAs Vault 7 shows how evidence on computers can be manipulated to make it seem like someone's dawg did the deed. I think
it'd be very sloppy for trained hackers to leave their own footprints on the scene don't you think?
Finally there's the meeting that Assange's lawyer set up with congress for him to testify to congress and tell them where
he got the DNC emails that showed how they rigged the primary. Comey and Schaffer shot that down because it would have killed
Russia Gate. Dead and buried and the country could move on.
It matters profoundly. Knowing the facts surrounding critical political events or social earthquakes can be
epigenetic events. Hard truths can trigger conscious evolution while we are alive and your advanced gene expressions can be
physically inherited, changing the species.
By exercising our own critical thinking and working very hard to see through narratives to the core realities in the universe
and in all things -- we are physically evolving the species into better and more enlightened generations of humans.
In this case, it is NOT a matter of opinion. It is a matter of FACT. The physical proof that we have right now tells us
that the Wikileaks documents did not come from a "hack." We also have physical evidence that someone (no doubt Crowdstrike) manipulated
copies of the leaked documents and embedded awkward amateurish evidence to make them look like they were taken by a "Russian"
hacker. Here's how we know that:
Assange's diplomatic trip to the US in mid-2017 to testify before Congress and prove where the documents came from was
emergency-blocked by Comey and Rosenstein. As a consequence, Assange immediately released the extensive Vault 7 documents to the
American people so we could forensically recognize the signature techniques that the US intelligence agencies would use to alter
downloaded DNC documents and embed fake Russian "fingerprints." We have seen the physical evidence that that occurred.
The US has no real physical evidence of a Russian hack or they would never have released the fake evidence. Yet they continue
their attack to harm Russia's economy and the continue their attempts to provoke a hot war with Russia. The US motive for this
has nothing to do with their fake hacking narrative; it is about crippling Russia (and China) to forestall the rapid rise of Eurasia,
which is stripping the Neocons and war-profiteering corporations of their dream for the US to achieve total domination over all
other nations. The Entitled Elite want their New American Century back! Their Empire was supposed to rule the world....
If that is what your instincts tell you, you should trust them. It's a biological imperative.
It is the American people who should be deciding the political future of our country, not Mr. Putin and the Russian oligarchs.
Hey, Bernie. The American people were the ones who should have decided who won the primary, not Hillary, the DNC and the delegates.
That you are blaming Her loss on Russia instead of admitting that the American people rejected her makes you nothing more than
a democratic puppet. How embarrassing for you.
Every Black voter should abandon the DP until they apologize for their disrespect for the BLM and saying that they only started
protesting cops killing Blacks because Russia manipulated them into doing so.
Eichenwald thinks that our intelligence agencies are patriots who have spent their lives working on keeping us safe does he?
I agree with Dmitry Orlov's take on them.
The objective of US intelligence is to suck all remaining wealth out of the US and its allies and pocket as much of it as
possible while pretending to defend it from phantom aggressors by squandering nonexistent (borrowed) financial resources on
ineffective and overpriced military operations and weapons systems. Where the aggressors are not phantom, they are specially
organized for the purpose of having someone to fight: "moderate" terrorists and so on.
....
the US intelligence community has been doing a wonderful job of bankrupting the country and driving it toward financial, economic
and political collapse by forcing it to engage in an endless series of expensive and futile conflicts -- the largest single
continuous act of grand larceny the world has ever known. How that can possibly be an intelligent thing to do to your
own country, for any conceivable definition of "intelligence," I will leave for you to work out for yourself. While you
are at it, you might also want to come up with an improved definition of "treason": something better than " a skeptical attitude
toward preposterous, unproven claims made by those known to be perpetual liars. "
And let's not forget how many
coups
and false flag events they had a hand in creating that have cost so much misery and death.
One major advancement in their state of the art has been in moving from real false flag operations, ŕ la 9/11, to fake false
flag operations, ŕ la fake East Gouta chemical attack in Syria (since fully discredited). The Russian election meddling story
is perhaps the final step in this evolution: no New York skyscrapers or Syrian children were harmed in the process of concocting
this fake narrative, and it can be kept alive seemingly forever purely through the furious effort of numerous flapping lips.
It is now a pure confidence scam. If you are less then impressed with their invented narratives, then you are a conspiracy
theorist or, in the latest revision, a traitor.
The real puppets are the ones who believe in this silly story that Russia is pulling Trump's strings and that the GOP are also
Russian puppets. Good grief!
meaning the 'Russia Ruse'--IMO, has been an exercise in setting up a scenario under which the PtB can put in place a system
geared toward major social media 'censorship,' and, a face-saving exercise for FSC--just in case she decides to make a third
run in 2020. Heaven forbid!
Mollie/Blue Onyx (Reverting to my original handle)
"Every time I lose a dog, he takes a piece of my heart. Every new dog gifts me with a piece of his. Someday, my heart will
be total dog, and maybe then I will be just as generous, loving, and forgiving." ~~Author Unknown
"Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments
are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way." ~~Martin Luther King Jr.
"Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong." ~~W. R. Purche
"... has been an exercise in setting up a scenario under which the PtB can put in place a system geared toward major social
media 'censorship,'
Yup. Dan Coates directory of national intelligence came out and accused Russsia of engaging in a "messaging campaign". So how
does one stop this messaging campaign. Well, back in the day, the answer was to answer bad speech with more and better speech.
Well, with Russiagate both the media and dem/gop establishment have to come to demand censorship from the major social media
platforms. And they have responded. At first they actually didn't and thought the Russia charges were trivial. Until that is,
they were theatened by House and Senate reps. And then they hopped to it.
And just a number of days ago, Facebook proudly announced they took down some nefarious pages who seemed to be engaging in
a message campaign. And turns out they shut down a real group organizing an anti-fascist rally. There are other examples like
this.
The censorship will continue becoming more and more brazen. (BTW, youtube started ths process earlier demonitizing and hurting
a lot of popular, but alternative voices.)
BTW--the Young Turks showed the Coats clip and claimed "see the Russians are still hacking our elections".
I'm truly getting concerned regarding the direction our government appears to be taking when it comes to 'freedom of expression/speech.'
Strangely, many on the 'left' don't seem very concerned. Indeed, because the MSM is so intent on going after DT, many so-called
progressives--including the supposedly more liberal (cough, cough) lawmakers--have become major cheerleaders of the corporatist
media. Go figure.
Mollie/Blue Onyx (Reverting to my original handle)
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went." ~~Will Rogers
"Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments
are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way." ~~Martin Luther King Jr.
"Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong." ~~W. R. Purche
as well as every other person in Trump's administration that is working against him. This is insubordination and if Trump continues
to let them run their mouths then I believe that he is in on this scam and is playing along with it. Why? Look at what has been
happening since he became president. From the increasing Russian sanctions to the internet censorship to the increased military
budget with money that goes to fighting cyber warfare and many other things that are being done because of this new and improved
false flag.
As you stated YouTube has been removing lots of videos, Facebook and Twitter have been censoring alternative media sites that
are not playing along with Russia Gate and Google changed its algorithms so that traffic to those sites are down up to 90% according
to WSWS.
I once thought that this would eventually be exposed for the scam it is, but not any more. It's here to stay. And just like
in 1984 where there was that place where history was changed to fit the narrative of the day, we are seeing that here. Things
that happened last decade are being blamed on Russia hacking. I wouldn't be surprised if the KKK and Jim Crow were blamed on Russia.
This is how out of control it's gotten. And I was so looking forward to seeing Rachel trying to explain to her viewers how she
got things so wrong.
@snoopydawg
His erratic actions are the perfect distraction for the capitalist pigs the same as the "Obama is a Kenyan Muslim Marxist Communist
Fascist Socialist Radical Leftist Feminazi SJW" crap that went on during the last capitalist puppet presidency. Either way, the
world still burns and the pigs make out like bandits in the process. Keeping the plebs at each other's throats is just a bonus
for them.
@snoopydawg
Remember whom you are discussing. Alas, you must be a Russian wolfhound to think R. Madcow could ever be wrong. Apologize, then
stand in the corner until after the midterms when the GRU hauls off recalcitrant Dims and Repugnants failing to swear fealty to
Vladimir Vladimirovich.
"Russiagate is like a mirage. It looks so real from a distance you'll swear it's there and mock anyone who says otherwise,
but once you get up close and examine its component parts you find it's made of nothing but innuendo, spin, unsubstantiated claims
and dishonest omissions.
2:45 PM · Aug 3, 2018"
"
@caitoz
·
Aug 3
Nothing wrong with wanting a full investigation. There's something very, very wrong with pressuring a US president to continually
escalate dangerous cold war tensions with a nuclear superpower without ever backing down based on an "idea" with no evidence.
"
@snoopydawg
Bernie will not be able to say "Oh evil Russia but let's not go to war with them." Diplomacy itself finally became full criminalized
and made tresonous when Trump meet Putin in Finland. Any level of moderation will be attacked as soft on Putin and treasonous.
And I write "pro-war" and not "anti-Russian". One cannot be anti-Russian in any moderate way. Being anti-Russian means supporting
a harsh and aggressive military stance toward their nation. The Russians are after all destroying Western civilization and this
cannot be meant with diplomacy.
And from what I can, every national democratic candidate for House and Senate will follow suite.
For reference, these are the only 10 senators who voted AGAINST giving Trump a $717 billion war budget:
Bernie Sanders
Elizabeth Warren
Ed Markey
Kirsten Gillibrand
Dick Durban
Kamala Harris
Jeff Merkley
Ron Wyden
Mike Lee (R)
Marco Rubio (R)
So much for #Resistance huh?
The others show that there are others out there that have seen through this propaganda crap. I'd like to see the breakdown
of Hillary supporters that believe Russia Gate and the Bernie supporters that don't. Most of the Trump supporters think it's phony
so what made Hillary's believe in something that everyone should be laughing at?
You deserve a lot of credit. Russia interfered in your favor, yet you are man enough to admit that they interfered. Thank
you Bernie!
So you plan to continue this McCarthy Russian BS? You didn't speak out when you got cheated in the primaries, and you didn't
seem to care that Hillary was using her own paid troll army. Integrity matters Bernie and you are losing yours.
You stopped speaking for me and millions of others when you caved to crooked HRC. No it was NOT clear that Russia was "deeply
involved in the election. What is CLEAR is your betrayal of your followers and cover up of the election fraud perpetrated by
DNC! Everybody knows...
Bernie, that's MIC propaganda. Stop helping it. There are millions of reasons Trump should not be president. We don't need
a hyped up corporate fairytale to make that point https://t.co/7FAwb47LtB
Democratic party jingoism in 2020 will be extra-ordinary with candidates each trying to out do each other how they will
fuck over Putin and the Russian nation. There will be a shit load of public loyalty testing against any third party candidate
by the democrats.
The democrats (and media cohorts) have become an apocolyptic death cult. The language that comes from them is infused with
the language of conspiracies, violence, treason, aggression and demonization.
And here is the thing, Bernie to survive electorally will have to become a cult member. Effectively he will have to be pro-war
with Russia. He will be giving from the the Left supposed support for aggressive action andmilitarism toward Russia.
I fear that if a democrat becomes president in 2020 (it won't be Bernie), is elected president that in the year of the midterms
in 2022, the US will start a real war with Russia which has a highly likehood of going nuclear.
The Comey, Brennan, Mueller claim - indeed a central one upon which the recent indictment
rests- that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian State agent that hacked the DNC- was discredited
and put to rest last year by the forensics conducted by Bill Binney and his colleagues.
The Guccifer 2.0 metadata was analyzed for its transmission speed, and based on the
internet speeds to and from numerous test locations abroad and in the U.S., it was
determined to have been impossible for the so-called Guccifer 2.0 to have hacked the DNC
computers over the internet. The transmission speed however did correspond to the speed
of the transfer to a thumb drive. Additionally, it was found that the data had been
manipulated and split into two parts to simulate a July and a September transfer, when in
fact the parts merge perfectly as single file, and where, according to Binney, the
probability of the split being a coincidence would be 100 to the 50th power.
As for the crude trace fingerprints (e.g. the referencing of Dzerzinsky), one of the
Wikileaks data dumps (Vault 7 Marble) during a period when Assange was negotiating with
the Administration - there were two at the time (Vault 7 Marble and Vault 7 Grasshopper),
the release of which apparently enraged Mike Pompeo- was designed to obfuscate, fabricate
and frame countries such as Russia, Iran or North Korea by pretending to be the target
country, including in the use of target's alphabet and language.
VIPs has written numerous articles on this in Consortium News. See also the report by
Patrick Lawrence Smith in The Nation at:
https://www.thenation.com/a... . (It was apparently so hot at the time- and disputed
by several other VIPs members- that The Nation sought an independent assessment by third
party, though those comments were easily addressed and dismissed in seriatim by Binney in
an annex to the article.)
Binney has explained his forensic analysis and conclusions at numerous forums, and in
a sit-down with Secretary Pompeo in October, 2017- though Mueller, the FBI, and
mainstream and some of the alternative press seem either deaf, dumb and blind to it all,
or interested in discrediting the study. The irony is, I'd venture to guess, that Binney,
with his 40 years of experience, including as Technical Director and technical guru at
the NSA, is, even in retirement, more sophisticated in these matters than any one at the
Agency, or the FBI, or CIA, or certainly, the Congressional Intelligence Committees. So,
it is astounding that any or all of them could have, but did not, invite him to testify
as an expert.
Moreover, the NSA has a record of every transmission, and also would have it on backup
files. And, the FBI has been sitting on Seth Rich's computer and his communications with
Wikileaks, and presumably has a report that it has not released. And of course, as Trump
asked in his press conference, where's the DNC server, any or all of which would put this
question to rest.
The last clause of the first paragraph should have said:
"according to Binney, the probability of the split being a coincidence would be one over
100 to the 50th power
"... There is a pattern of abuse of formerly well regarded institutions to achieve the propaganda aims of the Deep State establishment. The depths that were plumbed to push the Iraq WMD falsehoods are well known. Yet no one was held to account nor was there any honest accounting of the abuse. There have been pretenses like the Owen inquiry that you note. ..."
"... We see the same situation of sweeping under the rug malfeasance and even outright criminality through obfuscation and obstruction in the case of the meddling in the 2016 election by top officials in intelligence and law enforcement. Clearly less and less people are buying what the Deep State sells despite their overwhelming control of the media channels. ..."
"... What is to be gained by the leadership in Britain in promoting these biological weapons cases since Litvinenko? In the US it is quite apparent that the Deep State have become extremely powerful and the likelihood that Trump recognizes that resistance is futile is very high. Schumer may be proven right that they have six ways from Sunday to make you kowtow to their dictats. ..."
If you look at the 'Lawfare' blog, in which a key figure is James Comey's crony Benjamin Wittes, you will find a long piece published
last Friday, entitled 'Russia Indictment 2.0: What to Make of Mueller's Hacking Indictment.'
Among the authors, in addition to Wittes himself, is the sometime GCHQ employee Matt Tait. It appears that the former head of
that organisation, the Blairite 'trusty' Robert Hannigan, who must know where a good few skeletons are buried, is a figure of some
moment in the conspiracy.
It was Matt Tait who, using the 'Twitter' handle @pwnallthethings, identified the name and patronymic of Dzerzhinsky in the 'metadata'
of the 'Guccifer 2.0' material on 15 June 2016, the day after Ellen Nakashima first disseminated the BS from 'CrowdStrike' in the
'WP.'
The story was picked up the following day in a report on the 'Ars Technica' site, and Tait's own account appeared on the 'Lawfare'
site, to which he has been a regular contributor, on 28 July.
According to the CV provided in conjunction with the new article:
'Matt Tait is a senior cybersecurity fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University
of Texas at Austin. Previously he was CEO of Capital Alpha Security, a consultancy in the UK, worked at Google Project Zero, was
a principal security consultant for iSEC Partners, and NGS Secure, and worked as an information security specialist for GCHQ.'
How does the objective truth get disclosed in an environment of extreme deceit by so many parties?
How to trust western intelligence when they have such a long and sordid track record of deceit, lies and propaganda? At the
same time there is such a long history of Russian and Chinese intelligence and information operations against the west.
Then there is the nexus among the highest levels of US law enforcement and intelligence as well as political elites in both
parties and key individuals in the media complex.
We are living in a hall of mirrors and it seems the trend is towards confirmation bias in information consumption.
Excellent post, especially the debunking of the 'Gerasimov doctrine' which I always thought was more hand-waving and Russian mind-reading.
It's important to realize that there are a number of people in the infosec community who have biases against Russia, just as
there are in the general population. Then there are more cautious people, who recognize the difficulty in attributing a hack to
any specific person absent solid, incontrovertible, non-circumstantial and non-spoofable (and preferably offline) evidence.
Tait doesn't appear to be one of the latter. Thomas Rid would be another. There are others.
Jeffrey Carr is one of the latter, and his familiarity with intelligence matters is clear from his organization of the annual
"Suits and Spooks" Conference. I believe he was the first to raise questions about the DNC hack which didn't pass his smell test.
There are also a number of companies in infosec who rely on latching onto a particular strain of hacker, the more publicly
exploitable for PR purposes the better, as a means of keeping the company name in front of potential high-profile and highly billable
clients. CrowdStrike and its Russia obsession isn't the only one that's been tagged with that propensity.
Mandiant could be referred to as the "Chinese, all the time" company, for example. Richard Bejtlich was at Fireeye and the
became Chief Security Officer when they acquired Mandiant. He spent quite a bit of effort on his blog warning about the Chinese
military buildup as a huge threat to the US. He's former USAF so perhaps that's not surprising.
The Comey, Brennan, Mueller claim - indeed a central one upon which the recent indictment rests- that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian
State agent that hacked the DNC- was discredited and put to rest last year by the forensics conducted by Bill Binney and his colleagues.
The Guccifer 2.0 metadata was analyzed for its transmission speed, and based on the internet speeds to and from numerous test
locations abroad and in the U.S., it was determined to have been impossible for the so-called Guccifer 2.0 to have hacked the
DNC computers over the internet. The transmission speed however did correspond to the speed of the transfer to a thumb drive.
Additionally, it was found that the data had been manipulated and split into two parts to simulate a July and a September transfer,
when in fact the parts merge perfectly as single file, and where, according to Binney, the probability of the split being a coincidence
would be 100 to the 50th power.
As for the crude trace fingerprints (e.g. the referencing of Dzerzinsky), one of the Wikileaks data dumps (Vault 7 Marble)
during a period when Assange was negotiating with the Administration - there were two at the time (Vault 7 Marble and Vault 7
Grasshopper), the release of which apparently enraged Mike Pompeo- was designed to obfuscate, fabricate and frame countries such
as Russia, Iran or North Korea by pretending to be the target country, including in the use of target's alphabet and language.
VIPs has written numerous articles on this in Consortium News. See also the report by Patrick Lawrence Smith in The Nation
at:
https://www.thenation.com/a... . (It was apparently so hot at the time- and disputed by several other VIPs members- that The
Nation sought an independent assessment by third party, though those comments were easily addressed and dismissed in seriatim
by Binney in an annex to the article.)
Binney has explained his forensic analysis and conclusions at numerous forums, and in a sit-down with Secretary Pompeo in October,
2017- though Mueller, the FBI, and mainstream and some of the alternative press seem either deaf, dumb and blind to it all, or
interested in discrediting the study. The irony is, I'd venture to guess, that Binney, with his 40 years of experience, including
as Technical Director and technical guru at the NSA, is, even in retirement, more sophisticated in these matters than any one
at the Agency, or the FBI, or CIA, or certainly, the Congressional Intelligence Committees. So, it is astounding that any or all
of them could have, but did not, invite him to testify as an expert.
Moreover, the NSA has a record of every transmission, and also would have it on backup files. And, the FBI has been sitting
on Seth Rich's computer and his communications with Wikileaks, and presumably has a report that it has not released. And of course,
as Trump asked in his press conference, where's the DNC server, any or all of which would put this question to rest.
The last clause of the first paragraph should have said:
"according to Binney, the probability of the split being a coincidence would be one over 100 to the 50th power
More evidence for the at least passive complicity of GCHQ – for which Matt Tait used to work, and which Robert Hannigan used
to run – in corrupt 'information operations' comes in a report yesterday on CNN.
'Police have identified two suspects in the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia,
a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN on Thursday.
'The pair left the UK in the wake of the attack on what is believed to have been a commercial flight, the source added.
'Their departure was revealed in a coded Russian message to Moscow sent after the attack, which was intercepted by a British
base in Cyprus, the source said. The British government blames the Skripals' poisoning on Russia.'
The base in question is high up in the Troodos mountains, and is formally run by the RAF but actually a key resource for both
GCHQ and NSA in monitoring communications over a wide area. According to an internal document from the former organisation, it
has 'long been regarded as a 'Jewel in the Crown' by NSA as it offers unique access to the Levant, North Africa, and Turkey'.
That the quote comes a report in 'The Intercept' in January 2016 revealing that one of the uses of the Troodos facility is
to intercept live video feeds from Israeli drones and fighter jets brings out how paradoxical the world is. For it also appears
to have emerged as an important resource in 'information operations' in support of 'Borgist' agendas.
The claim about intercepts incriminating the Russians over the Salisbury incident was first made in a piece by Marco Giannangeli
in the Daily Express on 9 April, which followed up the claims which Colonel de Bretton-Gordon had been instrumental in disseminating,
and was then widely picked up by the MSM.
It was headlined: 'REVEALED: The bombshell Russian message intercepted on DAY of Skripal poisonings,' and opened: 'AN ELECTRONIC
message to Moscow sent on the day former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a nerve agent in
Salisbury included the phrase "the package has been delivered".'
Supposedly, this 'prompted a young Flight Lieutenant to recall a separate message that had been intercepted and discounted
on the previous day.' The messages were 'understood to have formed "just one part" of the intelligence packet which later allowed
Prime Minister Theresa May to state it was "highly likely" that Russia was behind the attacks.'
As it happens, the same writer – Marco Giannangeli – had disseminated a parallel piece of palpable fiction on 1 September 2013,
in the 'Sunday Express', in relation to the Ghouta 'false flag.'
This one was headlined, even more melodramatically, 'Senior Syrian military chiefs tell captain: fire chemicals or be shot;
BRITISH intelligence chiefs have intercepted radio messages in which senior Syrian military chiefs are heard ordering the use
of chemical weapons.'
Part of the story of how bogus claims about 'smoking gun' evidence from 'SIGINT' were used to support the attempt to use the
Ghouta 'false flag' to inveigle the British and Americans into destroying the Syrian government was told in my SST post on the
incident. However, to mix metaphors, I only scratched the surface of a can of worms.
In a report on the 'Daily Caller' site on 29 August 2013, Kenneth Timmerman claimed that the sequence had started with an actual
intercept by Unit 8200 – the Israeli equivalent of GCHQ and NSA.
Claiming to base his account on Western intelligence sources, he suggested that:
'According to these officers, who served in top positions in the United States, Britain, France, Israel, and Jordan, a Syrian
military communication intercepted by Israel's famed Unit 8200 electronic intelligence outfit has been doctored so that it leads
a reader to just the opposite conclusion reached by the original report.'
While I am not in a position to establish whether his claim is or is not accurate, an AP report on the same day quoted 'U.S.
intelligence officials' explaining that 'an intercept of Syrian military officials discussing the strike was among low-level staff,
with no direct evidence tying the attack back to an Assad insider or even a senior Syrian commander'.
Meanwhile, Timmerman's claim that 'The doctored report was picked up on Israel's Channel 2 TV on Aug. 24, then by Focus magazine
in Germany, the Times of Israel, and eventually by The Cable in Washington, DC' is supported by links to the relevant stories,
which say what he claims they say.
Moreover, it seems clear that the 1 September 2013 report was an attempt to counter a – somewhat devastating – critique made
in a 31 August post entitled 'The Troodos Conundrum' by the former British Ambassador Craig Murray, who had been closely involved
with the facility during his time at the Foreign Office (and has written invaluable material on the Salisbury incident.)
Precisely because of the closeness of the GCHQ/NSA collaboration, Murray brought out, there was indeed a major problem explaining
why claims about 'SIGINT' had been central to the case made in the 'Government Assessment' released by the White House on 30 August
2013, but not even mentioned in the Joint Intelligence Community 'Assessment' produced two days before.
The answer, Murray suggested, was that the 'intelligence' came from Mossad, and so would not have been automatically shared
with the British. But, given the superior capabilities of Troodos, if Mossad had it, the British should have also. So his claims
'meshed' with those by Timmerman and the AP, and the 'Express' report looks like a lame attempt at a cover-up.
Again however, one finds the world is a paradoxical place. As I noted in my SST post, detailed demolitions of the claims about
'SIGINT' in relation to Ghouta were provided both Seymour Hersh, in the 'Whose sarin?' article, and also on the 'Who Attacked
Ghouta?' site masterminded by one 'sasa wawa.'
Later, it became clear that this was likely to be the Israeli technology entrepreneur Saar Wilf, a former employee of Unit
8200. So this may – or may not – be an indication of deep divisions within Israeli intelligence.
Between 18 March and 31 April, a fascinating series of posts on the Salisbury incident appeared on the 'Vineyard of the Saker'
blog. The author, who used the name 'sushi', was a self-professed IT professsional, who had however obviously acquired an extensive
familiarity with 'chemical forensics' and appeared to have some experience of 'SIGINT.'
In a 14 April post, 'sushi' produced a dismissal of the claims about 'SIGINT' implicating the Russians over the Salisbury incident
quite as contemptuous as that which 'sasa wawa' had produced in relation to the claims about it incriminating the Syrian government
over Ghouta. Pointing to the implausibility of the story disseminated by the 'Express', he remarked that:
'It is doubted that any message traffic is processed on Cyprus. It is more likely that the entire take is transmitted back
to GCHQ in Cheltenham via a fibre optic link. There exabytes of take are processed, not by a bored flight lieutenant, but by banks
of high speed computers.
'Clearly someone in Cheltenham has committed a programming error. Anyone with any knowledge of secret communications knows
that the code phrase used to confirm a murder in Salisbury is "small pizza, no anchovies." '
Interestingly, another paper in the 'Express' group made a parallel claim in relation to the Khan Sheikhoun incident to that
about the Ghouta incident, but the story was not picked up and may indeed have been suppressed.
On 9 April, the paper published a report headlined 'Brit spies' lead role in Syrian air strikes; RAF BASE IS 'WEAPON.' This
claimed that 'within an hour of the airstrike', Troodos had intercepted communications revealing that nerve gas had been used,
and had been delivered by jets from the Syrian Arab Air Force's Shayrat Air Base.
I was drafting a response to the comment by 'Barbara Ann' – thanks for the link to the recent posts by Adam Carter – before
going out. Returning and reading some very interesting comments, I think what I wanted to say has more general relevance.
One reason I am reading so much into 'this Dzerzhinsky thing' is the body of accumulating evidence that people like Tait are
part of a system of networks which combine sanctimoniousness, corruption and stupidity in about equal measures. So some more examples
may be to the point.
Different cases in which I have taken an interest come together in a post by Tait on the 'Lawfare' site on 13 March, entitled
'U.K. Prime Minister's Speech on the Russian Poisoning of Sergei Skripal: Decoding the Signals.'
In support of the claim that in accusing Russia of a pioneering act of chemical terrorism Theresa May was relying upon accurate
analysis from the 'U.K. intelligence community', Tait wrote that:
'May then explained that Skripal was poisoned by a "military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia one of a group
of nerve agents known as 'Novichok.'" She is laying out the basic groundwork for the government's attribution to a nation state
and, more specifically, Russia. At Porton Down, the U.K. has one of the world's best forensic labs for analyzing chemical, biological
and nuclear weapons. With the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, this lab not only established that Polonium-210 was used
but also which reactor in Russia it came from.'
In the event, as is by now well know, Boris Johnson's claim that Porton Down scientists had told him that the agent which poisoned
the Skripals came from Russia was specifically repudiated by the head of that organisation, Gary Aitkenhead, on 3 April. Our Foreign
Secretary told a flagrant lie, and was exposed.
As I have shown in previous posts on this site, the 'Inquiry' conducted by Sir Robert Owen into the death of Litvinenko was
patently corrupt. Moreover, it seems highly likely that, in fabricating 'evidence' to cover up what actually happened, Christopher
Steele was doing a 'dry-run' for the fabrication of material in the dossier published by 'BuzzFeed.'
In fact, however, Owen's report made quite clear that the role of Porton Down was marginal. Furthermore, 'Scientist A1' from
the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston quite specifically rejected the claim that 'impurity profiling' made it possible
to establish that the source of the polonium was the Avangard facility at Sarov, her arguments being accepted by Owen. Either
Tait has not bothered to read the report or very much of the coverage, or he is lying.
What Porton Down did do was to use 'impurity profiling', which can produce 'spectra' identifying even the tiniest traces of
substances, to frustrate the attempt to use the 'false flag' attack at Ghouta on 21 August 2013 to inveigle the American and British
governments into destroying the Assad 'régime' and handing the country over to jihadists.
It may well be that this display of competence and integrity led to a 'clampdown' at the organisation, which encouraged Boris
Johnson to believe he could get away with lying about what its scientists told him.
A general pattern which emerges is that the same small group of 'disinformation peddlers' resurfaces in different contexts
– and the pattern whereby 'private security companies' are used to create a spurious impression of independence also recurs.
As I bring out in my piece on Ghouta, two figures who were critical in shaping the 'narrative' acccording to which Syrian government
responsibility for the atrocity had been conclusively proved, were Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, formerly the former commanding
officer of the UK Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment, and also NATO's Rapid Reaction CBRN Battalion, and
Dan Kaszeta.
Immediately after the story of the poisoning of the Skripals on 4 March broke, the same duo reappeared, and have been as critical
to shaping the 'narrative' about the later incident as they were to that about the former.
(For the piece by Kaszeta on 'Bellingcat' which introduced the 'Novichok' theme four days later, see
https://www.bellingcat.com/... .)
This makes it particular interesting to look at the website of Kaszeta's consultancy, 'Strongpoint Security Limited', in conjunction
with the 'Companies House' documentation on the company.
One would have thought from the website that his company was a small, but hardly insignificant, player, in the field of 'physical
and operational security.' As it happens, having filed 'Total exemption small company accounts' since its incorporation in May
2011, last December it filed 'Micro company accounts' for the year to 31 May 2017.
With a turnover of Ł20,000, staff costs of a bit more than half of that, and a profit of Ł394, we can see that although unlike
Matt Tait's, Kaszeta's company did trade, if indeed it was his sole source of income, this pivotal figure in Anglo-American 'disinformation
operations' was living on something less than $15,000 a year, at current exchange rates. (Pull the other one, as we say in Britain.)
This is all the more ironic, as the website brings out quite how critical a figure Kaszeta has been in obscuring the truth.
From the bio he gives, we learn that having started as a Chemical Officer in the U.S. Army, he worked for 12 years in the White
House, dealing with CBRN matters, before moving to Britain in 2008.
Among the articles to which he links on the site, we see his response in 'NOW Lebanon' in December 2013 to Hersh's original
'Whose sarin?' piece on Ghouta, -- in which Kaszeta first introduced the famous 'hexamine hypothesis.'
This – patently preposterous – suggestion that the presence of a single 'impurity' is a 'smoking gun' incriminating the Syrian
government has echoed on into the clearly corrupt OPCW documents purporting to demonstrate that it was responsible for the 4 April
2017 Khan Sheikhoun attack.
Of some interest in understanding where Kaszeta he is coming from is what he describes as his 'oldest (and most footnoted on
Wikipedia)' piece, which is an article published in 1988 on a site called 'Lituanus', on 'Lithuanian Resistance to Foreign Occupation
1940-52.'
As to Colonel de Bretton-Gordon, it is of interest to look at the attempt to 'finger' the GRU over the Skripal poisoning published
under the title 'UK Poisoning Inquiry turns to Russian Agency in Mueller Indictments' in the 'New York Times' last Sunday, and
the response by the Russian Embassy in London to a question about it.
The response objects that 'while the British authorities keep concealing all information concerning the investigation into
the Salisbury incident, the newspaper has quoted "one former US official familiar with the inquiry".'
It also asserts that that crucial evidence which has not been made available to the Russians – and here, as with Ghouta and
Khan Sheikhoun, the results of 'impurity profiling' are critical – appears to have been shared not just with inappropriate Americans,
but with all kinds of others.
And indeed, the Embassy is quite right in suggesting that the claim made by the supposed creator of 'Novichok', Vladimir Uglev,
to the BBC in April about 'all the spectrum data I was sent recently' has neither been confirmed nor denied. This seems a general
pattern – the 'spectra' which may actually be able to provide definitive answers to questions of responsibility are only provided
to people who can be relied upon to give the 'right' answers.
The Embassy response also quite fairly refers to a report in the 'Times' also in April, about the 'intelligence' which had
been 'used to persuade world leaders that Moscow was behind the poisoning' and that the 'Novichok' had been manufactured at the
Shikhany facility at in southwest Russia, which stated that de Bretton-Gordon, 'who had seen the intelligence, called it very
compelling.' He has a long history of lying about CW in Syria – so is obviously the right person to lie about them in the UK.
It thus becomes interesting to probe into what lies behind the opening of de Bretton-Gordon's entry on the 'Military Speakers'
website ('Real Heroes; Real Stories.') According to this, he is 'Chief Operating Office of SecureBio Ltd a commercial company
offering CBRN Resilience, consultancy and deployable capabilities.'
From 'Companies House', we learn that the liquidation of 'Secure Bio', which started in in June 2015, was concluded in August
last year. The really interesting thing about the records, however, is that at the time of the liquidation the company had very
large debts, which were written off, of a kind and in a manner which suggested that de Bretton-Gordon's activities may have been
largely funded by loans from untraceable sources which were not meant to be repaid.
Actually, with the 'NYT' report we come full circle. Among those quoted is Mark Galeotti – apparently his admission that he
had totally misrepresented the thinking of the Russian General Staff has not him made more cautious about making extravagant claims
about its Main Intelligence Directorate (misreported as Main Directorate by the 'NYT.')
Also quoted are two figures who play key roles in Owen's Report – the Soviet era-GRU defector 'Viktor Suvorov' (real name 'Vladimir
Rezun') and the former KGB operative Yuri Shvets. Both of these feature prominently in the posts on the Litvinenko affair to which
I have linked, and both were key members of the 'information operations' network centred around the late Boris Berezovsky. This
now seems to have taken control of American policy, as of British.
The role of 'Suvorov'/Rezun in attempting to defend the interpretations of Stalin's policy put forward by MI6 in the run-up
to the Second World War, and those asserted later by General Keitel, and the way he was demolished by the leading American historian
of the War in the East, Colonel David Glantz, and the Israeli historian Gabriel Gorodetsky, is too large a subject to go into
here.
However, it provides further reason to wonder whether the misreadings of Stalin's policy which caused MI6 to give advice to
Chamberlain which helped destroy the last chances of preventing the Nazi-Soviet Pact, may still be the 'house view' of that organisation.
It was, obviously, the Pact which spelled 'curtains' both for Poland and the Baltics.
There is a pattern of abuse of formerly well regarded institutions to achieve the propaganda aims of the Deep State establishment.
The depths that were plumbed to push the Iraq WMD falsehoods are well known. Yet no one was held to account nor was there any
honest accounting of the abuse. There have been pretenses like the Owen inquiry that you note.
We see the same situation of sweeping under the rug malfeasance and even outright criminality through obfuscation and obstruction
in the case of the meddling in the 2016 election by top officials in intelligence and law enforcement. Clearly less and less people
are buying what the Deep State sells despite their overwhelming control of the media channels.
It seems that we are marching towards a credibility crisis similar to what was experienced in the Soviet Union when no one
trusted the contents in Pravda.
What is to be gained by the leadership in Britain in promoting these biological weapons cases since Litvinenko? In the US it
is quite apparent that the Deep State have become extremely powerful and the likelihood that Trump recognizes that resistance
is futile is very high. Schumer may be proven right that they have six ways from Sunday to make you kowtow to their dictats.
That was one of the changes being hoped for when Obama was first elected. Instead we got little, except for things such as bailed
out bankers and the IRS scandal which lasted until the end of his 2nd term. The panic from the left over the 2016 election issues
the are still going on is that the expected candidate isn't in office and they are being exposed. Whether they get prosecuted
is another story.
"... This week, under the headline " It's Been Over a Year Since MSNBC Has Mentioned U.S. War in Yemen ," journalist Adam Johnson reported for the media watchdog group FAIR about the collapse of journalistic decency at MSNBC, under the weight of the network's Russia Russia Russia obsession. Johnson's article asks a big-type question: "Why is the No. 1 outlet of alleged anti-Trump #resistance completely ignoring his most devastating war?" ..."
"... It would be easy for news watchers to see that the Democratic Party is much more committed to a hard line against Russia than a hard line against the corporate forces imposing extreme economic inequality here at home. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... "Amplifying the anti-Russia din helps to drown out the left's core messages for economic fairness, equal rights, environmental protection, diplomacy and so much more." That, of course, is the purpose and intent. Just like hobbling the 'left' with absurd identity politics. ..."
"... It is a sham since no evidence of election influence by the Russians was provided and no preventive or corrective measures our government is taking to prevent Emmanuel Goldstein (The Russians) from further attacking and usurping our elections was put forth. ..."
"... I'm surprised that some of those folks, notably Thom Hartmann, choose not to practice what they preach -- you know, the platitudes about studying the facts and coming to your own conclusions rather than following the herd. They rightly condemn acting on prejudice, out of pure self-interest, without verifiable facts (indeed at odds with empirical fact) and using group intimidation, as per McCarthyist tactics, and then they go ahead and embrace those vices to their own ends. ..."
Hammering on Russia is a losing strategy for progressives as most Americans care about
economic issues and it is the Republicans and corporate Democrats who stand to gain, argues
Norman Solomon.
Progressives should figure it out. Amplifying the
anti-Russia din helps to drown out the left's core messages for economic fairness, equal
rights, environmental protection, diplomacy and so much more. Echoing the racket of blaming
Russia for the USA's severe shortages of democracy plays into the hands of Republicans and
corporate Democrats eager to block progressive momentum.
When riding on the "Russiagate" bandwagon, progressives unwittingly aid political forces
that are eager to sideline progressive messages. And with the midterm elections now scarcely
100 days away, the torrents of
hyperbolic and
hypocritical claims about Russia keep diverting attention from why it's so important to
defeat Republicans.
As a practical matter, devoting massive amounts of time and resources to focusing on Russia
has reduced capacities to effectively challenge the domestic forces that are assaulting
democratic possibilities at home -- with such tactics as state voter ID laws, purging of voter
rolls, and numerous barriers to suppress turnout by people of color.
Instead of keeping eyes on the prize, some of the Democratic base has been watching and
trusting media outlets like MSNBC. An extreme Russia obsession at the network has left precious
little airtime to expose and challenge the vast quantity of terrible domestic-policy measures
being advanced by the Trump administration every day.
Likewise with the U.S. government's militarism. While some Democrats and Republicans in
Congress have put forward legislation to end the active U.S. role in Saudi Arabia's
mass-murderous war on Yemen, those efforts face a steeper uphill climb because of MSNBC.
This week, under the headline "
It's Been Over a Year Since MSNBC Has Mentioned U.S. War in Yemen ," journalist Adam
Johnson reported for the media watchdog group FAIR about the collapse of journalistic decency
at MSNBC, under the weight of the network's Russia Russia Russia obsession. Johnson's article
asks a big-type question: "Why is the No. 1 outlet of alleged anti-Trump #resistance completely
ignoring his most devastating war?"
Maddow: Most Americans don't care for her obsession.
The FAIR report says: "What seems most likely is MSNBC has found that attacking Russia from
the right on matters of foreign policy is the most elegant way to preserve its 'progressive'
image while still serving traditional centers of power -- namely, the Democratic Party
establishment, corporate sponsors, and their own revolving door of ex-spook and military
contractor-funded talking heads."
Russia Doesn't Concern Americans
Corporate media have been exerting enormous pressure on Democratic officeholders and
candidates to follow a thin blue party line on Russia. Yet polling shows that few Americans see
Russia as a threat to their well-being; they're far more concerned about such matters as
healthcare, education, housing and overall economic security.
The gap between most Americans and media elites is clear in a
nationwide poll taken after the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki, which was fiercely
condemned by the punditocracy. As The Hill newspaper reported this week under the
headline "Most Americans Back Trump's Call for Follow-Up Summit With Putin," 54 percent of
respondents favored plans for a second summit. "The survey also found that 61 percent of
Americans say better relations with Russia are in the best interest of the United States."
Yet most Democratic Party leaders have very different priorities. After investing so much
political capital in portraying Putin's government as an implacable enemy of the United States,
top Democrats on Capitol Hill are hardly inclined to help thaw relations between the world's
two nuclear superpowers.
It would be easy for news watchers to see that the Democratic Party is much more committed to a hard line against Russia
than a hard line against the corporate forces imposing extreme economic inequality here at home.
National polling underscores just how out of whack and out of touch the party's top dogs are. Last month, the Gallup
organization asked: "What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?" The results were telling. "Situation with Russia" came in at
below one-half of 1 percent.
The day after the Helsinki summit, TheWashington Post reported: "Citing
polls and focus groups that have put Trump and Russia far down the list of voter priorities,
Democratic strategists have counseled candidates and party leaders for months to discuss
'kitchen table' issues. Now, after a remarkable 46-minute news conference on foreign soil where
Trump stood side by side with a former KGB agent to praise his 'strong' denials of election
interference and criticize the FBI, those strategists believe the ground may have shifted."
Prominent corporate Democrats who want to beat back the current progressive groundswell
inside their party are leading the charge. Jim Kessler, a senior vice president at the
"centrist" Third Way organization, was quick to
proclaim after the summit: "It got simple real fast. I've talked to a lot of Democrats that
are running in purple and red states and districts who have said that Russia rarely comes up
back home, and I think that has now changed."
The Democratic National Committee and other official arms of the party keep sending out
Russia-bashing emails to millions of people on a nearly daily basis. At times the goals seem to
involve generating and exploiting manic panic.
At the end of last week, as soon as the White House announced plans (later postponed) for
Vladimir Putin to meet with President Trump in Washington this fall, the Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee fired off a mass email -- from "RUSSIA ALERT (via DCCC)" --
declaring that the Russian president "must NOT be allowed to set foot in our country." The
email strained to conflate a summit with Russian interference in U.S. elections. "We cannot
overstate how dangerous this is," the DCCC gravely warned. And: "We need to stop him at all
costs."
For Democrats who move in elite circles, running against Putin might seem like a smart
election move. But for voters worried about economic insecurity and many other social ills, a
political party obsessed with Russia is likely to seem aloof and irrelevant to their lives.
Norman Solomon is the national coordinator of the online activist group RootsAction.org and
the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of a dozen books
including "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death."
Nop , July 31, 2018 at 10:38 am
"Amplifying the anti-Russia din helps to drown out the left's core messages for economic
fairness, equal rights, environmental protection, diplomacy and so much more." That, of course, is the purpose and intent. Just like hobbling the 'left' with absurd
identity politics.
Bill Goldman , July 30, 2018 at 6:44 pm
If the Democrats don't turn primaries into housecleaning out establishment Dems, they will
gain no seats in the midterm election and Trump will retain his Republican majority in both
chambers. Putin is an heroic figure to the global electorates. They admire and respect him
and even wish he were running on their tickets. Most Americans want nothing to do with
mainstream media be it the NYT, WSJ, Fox, Financial Times, Guardian, MSNBC, or CNN. They are
mostly viewed as extreme liars and propagandists of the Goebbels variety. The real action is
in the alternative media who realize capitalist wars are military-industrial rackets. The
play is at RT, Sputnik International, Consortium, The Saker, New Eastern Outlook, and
Greenville Post, among others.
Taras77 , July 30, 2018 at 11:42 am
Not sure where this link would fit but here it is:
It was ok when Hillary said we need a "strong" Russia:
"We want very much to have a strong Russia because a strong, competent, prosperous, stable
Russia is , we think, in the interests of the world," Clinton said as Obama's secretary of
state in her 2010 interview with the partially Russian government-owned First Channel
Television.
Russia is not the USSR, although PMSNBC wants the ignorant to "stay ignorant, my
friend.."
Thedems are their own worst enemy.
Lois Gagnon , July 29, 2018 at 11:41 pm
Rachel Maddow is unfortunately a cult hero in my neck of the Western Mass woods as she
makes her permanent home here. It's impossible to penetrate the total brainwashing she has
managed to accomplish among the pink hat wearing crowd. It's very dispiriting.
It's sad when someone like Rachel Maddow uses their social gifts to advance tribalism. In
this case, one could say the Russia bashing amounts to racism.
H Beazley , July 29, 2018 at 9:55 pm
I have a foolproof method for proving which journalists are controlled by the C.I.A. The
agency always advocates for war and always claims that JFK was killed by a "lone nut." Rachel
Maddow always goes along with war propaganda and supports the Warren Commission every
November 22. Therefore, she is a tool for the C.I.A. and cannot be trusted.
Reference for above statement. Jim DiEugenio is a real source for the truth of the JFK
assassination, not Phil Shenon.
glitch , July 31, 2018 at 7:23 am
JFK is their most blatant "tell". Some can't even say his name without spitting it
out.
CitizenOne , July 29, 2018 at 9:26 pm
Today on ABC Martha Raddatz hosted "This Week" which featured James Lankford a Republican
from Oklahoma describing how Russia and Putin were actively trying to ruin our democracy and
also were trying to influence elections at every possible turn. The Russian Bear and Putin
according to Lankford were also trying to rewrite the Constitution, trying to upend every
election and were seeking to disrupt our national electrical grid not to be confused with our
national election grid which they were also trying to destroy as well as to control the most
local elections by a means of electronic control that was beyond any means to control.
Of course no mention was made about possible solutions to thwart the Russians was
mentioned and it is doubtful that there are any serious efforts to counteract the alleged
Russian hacking of US elections since not one single preventive action to stop the Orwellian
monster of Russia, like Emmanuel Goldstein in Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty Four" was put
forth.
Apparently ABC and the other media are trying to convince Americans that there is an
overwhelming force in Russia that is somehow able to infiltrate and control all our national
elections. Apparently the Russians are unstoppable.
It is a sham.
It is a sham since no evidence of election influence by the Russians was provided and no
preventive or corrective measures our government is taking to prevent Emmanuel Goldstein (The
Russians) from further attacking and usurping our elections was put forth.
Instead the publishers of "This Week" on ABC were content to provide evidence-free
incriminations of Russia and attribute all manner of influence in our elections to the
incredibly sneaky and unstoppable Russian-Putin election Influencing machine which is
unstoppable by our intelligence agencies.
What is missing from Martha Radditz's show? There will never be any admission that they
have jobs because of Citizens United, their corporate benefactors (Koch Industries),
Gerrymandering, Dark Money, Media Bias which ensures that the Iron Triangle of corporate
election dark money flows to hand picked political candidates that will support conservative
causes or that these are the real election influencing mechanisms which have the most power
in our country to influence elections.
As long as ABC, NBC, CBS and other cable news shows fail to correctly identify the real
reasons of election corruption which is our very near and dear corporate money funded
political organizations we will continue to be duped by the free press to believe that Russia
has control over our national elections and not believe that US Corporations hold all the
power.
Cassandra , July 29, 2018 at 8:43 pm
Hell hath no fury like a Clinton scorned. The Goldwater Girl just can't over her loss to
El Chumpo. It had to be the Russians, not the thoroughly disgusted American people who voted
with their feet by not going to the polls at all.
Thanks to Norman for reminding us of the continued waste of time and effort on the
'russiagate' stories based on allegations and indictments, NOT evidence or possible reasons
for such behavior. The USA is fully capable of unfair election practices, helped by the
undemocratic system of electoral college, partisan gerrymandering, voter suppression, lack of
response to voter desires .plus of course Israel being the very large external factor.
Trump's influence on workers, environment, USA's reputation are negative, but blaming Russia
when this is in nobody's real interest is hardly the way forward for the Democratic
Party.
SteveK9 , July 28, 2018 at 3:57 pm
Incredible as it seems, the re-election of Donald Trump (assuming he is not deposed or
killed before then) is not essential to preserve our democracy. If they bring him down
(whatever you may think of him), then we might just as well have a 'Star Chamber' of the
Military/Industrial/Intelligence complex choose the President, not that it would matter who
that might be.
It really is peculiar what's happened to these dimwit Dems. I used to listen to Thom
Hartmann and Rachel Maddow when they were on Air America, and their main political positions
were for working people. Now, all they do is partisan politics which they don't seem to
understand benefits only the Deep State war party.
Incidentally, State of the Nation website, http://www.sott.net , has an article by Alex Krainer, who wrote
the book about Bill Browder's crooked dealings in Russia. His book, which was suppressed by
Browder first, i think is "Grand Deception", now available from Red Pill Press for $25 (and
must be selling well because it's being reprinted). I wrote this hastily but you'll see it on
sott.net. Russia's resurgence under Putin is nothing short of astounding.
Also, there is a video on Youtube, "The Rise of Putin and the Fall of the Russian Jewish
Oligarchs", 2 parts. I only saw the beginning showing how the Russian people were given state
vouchers that led to the oligarchs buying them up for their own profit and plunging Russians
into shock therapy disaster instigated by IMF and other US led monetary agencies including
Harvard. This is why it is so incredible how Americans receive political "perception control"
when the truth is exactly opposite of what they are being told. At least more people are
realizing the lies being told about Russia and Putin.
Drew Hunkins , July 27, 2018 at 3:51 pm
Maddow, Corn and the rest of them are playing a dangerous game. This weekend there's a guy
over at Counterpunch ("The curious case of pro-Trump leftism") who's essentially saying that
any progressives or liberal minded folks who concede that Trump's on the righteous path in
pursuing a detente of sorts with the Kremlin is a naive fool and isn't to be taken seriously
(Thom Hartmann also had a recent piece saying similar things). He sets up a Manichean world
in which you either see Trump as the sole embodiment of evil or you're a dupe playing into
rightwing hands. I for one, and most others at CN, have been highly critical of 90% of
Trump's platform and policies but we're also not dunderheaded dolts, we know when to give the
man a modicum of credit for going against the military industrial media complex on at least
this one particular issue.
Realist , July 27, 2018 at 9:26 pm
All those loons you mentioned are effectively practicing a religion, in which there is a
dogma everyone must believe to be virtuous and a set of commandments every believer must live
by to gain salvation. Don't toe the line on every bit of it and you are rejected as an
apostate.
I'm surprised that some of those folks, notably Thom Hartmann, choose not to practice what
they preach -- you know, the platitudes about studying the facts and coming to your own
conclusions rather than following the herd. They rightly condemn acting on prejudice, out of
pure self-interest, without verifiable facts (indeed at odds with empirical fact) and using
group intimidation, as per McCarthyist tactics, and then they go ahead and embrace those
vices to their own ends.
It is my process on everything in this life to learn as much as I can on my own, without
being brainwashed by any group or movement, and only backing a cause if it is congruent with
my own conclusions. Unfortunately, most people do the opposite: they are joiners first and
analysts only if their biases are not threatened.
I feel entirely justified in agreeing with movements on some things and not others. I
doubt that human beings have arrived at definitive answers about most phenomena in the real
world or that any single organised group of us has it all down accurate and pat on
everything. Listen to any casual debate on the questions big and small in science: the give
and take, back and forth, can go on as long as the participants have the interest and energy.
I never give my interlocutors any respite, because there is always one more thing to be
considered or one more way of looking at a problem. I'm sure I would have been burned at the
stake in many previous lives and so would a lot of the readers here.
Dogmatic party-line Democrats, Republicans, Communists, Islamists, Rastafarians,
Bokononites and all the rest suffer from the same malady of checking their minds at the door
when it comes to movement politics. They will never do the unthinkable and cooperate with the
opposition even if they happen to agree on an issue. This is a manifestation of the Manichean
approach you mentioned, Drew. Admit that the opposition is right about anything and you open
the door to the possibility that they are right about more, AND that you may (heaven forbid!)
be wrong more often than absolutely never. The main exception, at least in America, seems to
be warfare, which both main factions and a lot of the marginal ones agree enthusiastically
upon and engage with relish.
"... the error message in Cyrillic can only be generated via some technical contortions with the explicit intention of doing so. ..."
"... I would challenge anyone reading Adam Carter's work to conclude that the G2 persona is anything other than misdirection specifically designed to point to Russia. The indictment itself has zero new evidence that can be analyzed and I suspect all the GRU detail is aimed at giving it the appearance of authenticity - even when subject to scrutiny by the IC itself. I think John Helmer is closest to the truth when he says: "...it may be a signal that US cyber agents can fabricate Russian tracks to deceive other US cyber agents; Mueller too." ..."
Now THIS is a really interesting development in #DncHack:
@Gawker has & is publishing the DNC's Trump oppo research
gawker.com/this-looks-lik...
4:33 PM - Jun 15, 2016
This Looks Like the DNC's Hacked Trump O...
A 200+ page document that appears to be a
Democratic anti-Trump playbook compiled by the
Democratic National Committee has leaked
gawker.com
Q? 398 Q 269 people are talking about this
of June 15th 2016 mentions several "opsec fail"s in respect of 'Russian' metadata which, as you say, were then picked up by
Ars Technica & others. So the meme was born. A key claim is that an error message in Cyrillic script appeared because one of the
leaked docs was converted to pdf before being sent to Gawker - one of 2 press outlets to get a preview before Guccifer 2.0 published
the docs on his blog. Adam Carter (@with_integrity), at
http://g-2.space/ citing theforensicator (link below) says this is not true and that the error message in Cyrillic can
only be generated via some technical contortions with the explicit intention of doing so.
I would challenge anyone reading Adam Carter's work to conclude that the G2 persona is anything other than misdirection
specifically designed to point to Russia. The indictment itself has zero new evidence that can be analyzed and I suspect
all the GRU detail is aimed at giving it the appearance of authenticity - even when subject to scrutiny by the IC itself. I think
John Helmer is closest to the truth when he says: "...it may be a signal that US cyber agents can fabricate Russian tracks
to deceive other US cyber agents; Mueller too."
For several years, a family of foreign nationals (and not only Wassermannn-Schultz) has
been surfing the congressional computers while having no security clearance.
Both Debbie and Hillary should be in federal prison already. Clinton used to be fond of
droning Assange for divulging the criminal and illegal activities of the state. What Debbie
and Hillary did has been much more dangerous to the US national security.
"... As it happens, the same writer – Marco Giannangeli – had disseminated a parallel piece of palpable fiction on 1 September 2013, in the 'Sunday Express', in relation to the Ghouta 'false flag.' ..."
More evidence for the at least passive complicity of GCHQ – for which Matt Tait used
to work, and which Robert Hannigan used to run – in corrupt 'information operations'
comes in a report yesterday on CNN.
'Police have identified two suspects in the poisoning of former Russian double agent
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN
on Thursday.
'The pair left the UK in the wake of the attack on what is believed to have been a
commercial flight, the source added.
'Their departure was revealed in a coded Russian message to Moscow sent after the attack,
which was intercepted by a British base in Cyprus, the source said. The British government
blames the Skripals' poisoning on Russia.'
The base in question is high up in the Troodos mountains, and is formally run by the RAF
but actually a key resource for both GCHQ and NSA in monitoring communications over a wide
area. According to an internal document from the former organisation, it has 'long been
regarded as a 'Jewel in the Crown' by NSA as it offers unique access to the Levant, North
Africa, and Turkey'.
That the quote comes a report in 'The Intercept' in January 2016 revealing that one of the
uses of the Troodos facility is to intercept live video feeds from Israeli drones and fighter
jets brings out how paradoxical the world is. For it also appears to have emerged as an
important resource in 'information operations' in support of 'Borgist' agendas.
The claim about intercepts incriminating the Russians over the Salisbury incident was
first made in a piece by Marco Giannangeli in the Daily Express on 9 April, which followed up
the claims which Colonel de Bretton-Gordon had been instrumental in disseminating, and was
then widely picked up by the MSM.
It was headlined: 'REVEALED: The bombshell Russian message intercepted on DAY of Skripal
poisonings,' and opened: 'AN ELECTRONIC message to Moscow sent on the day former Russian spy
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a nerve agent in Salisbury included
the phrase "the package has been delivered".'
Supposedly, this 'prompted a young Flight Lieutenant to recall a separate message that had
been intercepted and discounted on the previous day.' The messages were 'understood to have
formed "just one part" of the intelligence packet which later allowed Prime Minister Theresa
May to state it was "highly likely" that Russia was behind the attacks.'
As it happens, the same writer – Marco Giannangeli – had disseminated a
parallel piece of palpable fiction on 1 September 2013, in the 'Sunday Express', in relation
to the Ghouta 'false flag.'
This one was headlined, even more melodramatically, 'Senior Syrian military chiefs tell
captain: fire chemicals or be shot; BRITISH intelligence chiefs have intercepted radio
messages in which senior Syrian military chiefs are heard ordering the use of chemical
weapons.'
Part of the story of how bogus claims about 'smoking gun' evidence from 'SIGINT' were used
to support the attempt to use the Ghouta 'false flag' to inveigle the British and Americans
into destroying the Syrian government was told in my SST post on the incident. However, to
mix metaphors, I only scratched the surface of a can of worms.
In a report on the 'Daily Caller' site on 29 August 2013, Kenneth Timmerman claimed that
the sequence had started with an actual intercept by Unit 8200 – the Israeli equivalent
of GCHQ and NSA.
Claiming to base his account on Western intelligence sources, he suggested that:
'According to these officers, who served in top positions in the United States, Britain,
France, Israel, and Jordan, a Syrian military communication intercepted by Israel's famed
Unit 8200 electronic intelligence outfit has been doctored so that it leads a reader to just
the opposite conclusion reached by the original report.'
While I am not in a position to establish whether his claim is or is not accurate, an AP
report on the same day quoted 'U.S. intelligence officials' explaining that 'an intercept of
Syrian military officials discussing the strike was among low-level staff, with no direct
evidence tying the attack back to an Assad insider or even a senior Syrian commander'.
Meanwhile, Timmerman's claim that 'The doctored report was picked up on Israel's Channel 2
TV on Aug. 24, then by Focus magazine in Germany, the Times of Israel, and eventually by The
Cable in Washington, DC' is supported by links to the relevant stories, which say what he
claims they say.
Moreover, it seems clear that the 1 September 2013 report was an attempt to counter a
– somewhat devastating – critique made in a 31 August post entitled 'The Troodos
Conundrum' by the former British Ambassador Craig Murray, who had been closely involved with
the facility during his time at the Foreign Office (and has written invaluable material on
the Salisbury incident.)
Precisely because of the closeness of the GCHQ/NSA collaboration, Murray brought out,
there was indeed a major problem explaining why claims about 'SIGINT' had been central to the
case made in the 'Government Assessment' released by the White House on 30 August 2013, but
not even mentioned in the Joint Intelligence Community 'Assessment' produced two days
before.
The answer, Murray suggested, was that the 'intelligence' came from Mossad, and so would
not have been automatically shared with the British. But, given the superior capabilities of
Troodos, if Mossad had it, the British should have also. So his claims 'meshed' with those by
Timmerman and the AP, and the 'Express' report looks like a lame attempt at a cover-up.
Again however, one finds the world is a paradoxical place. As I noted in my SST post,
detailed demolitions of the claims about 'SIGINT' in relation to Ghouta were provided both
Seymour Hersh, in the 'Whose sarin?' article, and also on the 'Who Attacked Ghouta?' site
masterminded by one 'sasa wawa.'
Later, it became clear that this was likely to be the Israeli technology entrepreneur Saar
Wilf, a former employee of Unit 8200. So this may – or may not – be an indication
of deep divisions within Israeli intelligence.
Between 18 March and 31 April, a fascinating series of posts on the Salisbury incident
appeared on the 'Vineyard of the Saker' blog. The author, who used the name 'sushi', was a
self-professed IT professsional, who had however obviously acquired an extensive familiarity
with 'chemical forensics' and appeared to have some experience of 'SIGINT.'
In a 14 April post, 'sushi' produced a dismissal of the claims about 'SIGINT' implicating
the Russians over the Salisbury incident quite as contemptuous as that which 'sasa wawa' had
produced in relation to the claims about it incriminating the Syrian government over
Ghouta.
Pointing to the implausibility of the story disseminated by the 'Express', he remarked
that:
'It is doubted that any message traffic is processed on Cyprus. It is more likely that the
entire take is transmitted back to GCHQ in Cheltenham via a fibre optic link. There exabytes
of take are processed, not by a bored flight lieutenant, but by banks of high speed
computers.
'Clearly someone in Cheltenham has committed a programming error. Anyone with any
knowledge of secret communications knows that the code phrase used to confirm a murder in
Salisbury is "small pizza, no anchovies." '
Interestingly, another paper in the 'Express' group made a parallel claim in relation to
the Khan Sheikhoun incident to that about the Ghouta incident, but the story was not picked
up and may indeed have been suppressed.
On 9 April, the paper published a report headlined 'Brit spies' lead role in Syrian air
strikes; RAF BASE IS 'WEAPON.' This claimed that 'within an hour of the airstrike', Troodos
had intercepted communications revealing that nerve gas had been used, and had been delivered
by jets from the Syrian Arab Air Force's Shayrat Air Base.
I was drafting a response to the comment by 'Barbara Ann' – thanks for the link to
the recent posts by Adam Carter – before going out. Returning and reading some very
interesting comments, I think what I wanted to say has more general relevance.
One reason I am reading so much into 'this Dzerzhinsky thing' is the body of accumulating
evidence that people like Tait are part of a system of networks which combine
sanctimoniousness, corruption and stupidity in about equal measures. So some more examples
may be to the point.
Different cases in which I have taken an interest come together in a post by Tait on the
'Lawfare' site on 13 March, entitled 'U.K. Prime Minister's Speech on the Russian Poisoning
of Sergei Skripal: Decoding the Signals.'
In support of the claim that in accusing Russia of a pioneering act of chemical terrorism
Theresa May was relying upon accurate analysis from the 'U.K. intelligence community', Tait
wrote that:
'May then explained that Skripal was poisoned by a "military-grade nerve agent of a type
developed by Russia one of a group of nerve agents known as 'Novichok.'" She is laying out
the basic groundwork for the government's attribution to a nation state and, more
specifically, Russia. At Porton Down, the U.K. has one of the world's best forensic labs for
analyzing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. With the poisoning of Alexander
Litvinenko in 2006, this lab not only established that Polonium-210 was used but also which
reactor in Russia it came from.'
In the event, as is by now well know, Boris Johnson's claim that Porton Down scientists
had told him that the agent which poisoned the Skripals came from Russia was specifically
repudiated by the head of that organisation, Gary Aitkenhead, on 3 April. Our Foreign
Secretary told a flagrant lie, and was exposed.
As I have shown in previous posts on this site, the 'Inquiry' conducted by Sir Robert Owen
into the death of Litvinenko was patently corrupt. Moreover, it seems highly likely that, in
fabricating 'evidence' to cover up what actually happened, Christopher Steele was doing a
'dry-run' for the fabrication of material in the dossier published by 'BuzzFeed.'
In fact, however, Owen's report made quite clear that the role of Porton Down was
marginal. Furthermore, 'Scientist A1' from the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston
quite specifically rejected the claim that 'impurity profiling' made it possible to establish
that the source of the polonium was the Avangard facility at Sarov, her arguments being
accepted by Owen. Either Tait has not bothered to read the report or very much of the
coverage, or he is lying.
What Porton Down did do was to use 'impurity profiling', which can produce 'spectra'
identifying even the tiniest traces of substances, to frustrate the attempt to use the 'false
flag' attack at Ghouta on 21 August 2013 to inveigle the American and British governments
into destroying the Assad 'régime' and handing the country over to jihadists.
It may well be that this display of competence and integrity led to a 'clampdown' at the
organisation, which encouraged Boris Johnson to believe he could get away with lying about
what its scientists told him.
A general pattern which emerges is that the same small group of 'disinformation peddlers'
resurfaces in different contexts – and the pattern whereby 'private security companies'
are used to create a spurious impression of independence also recurs.
As I bring out in my piece on Ghouta, two figures who were critical in shaping the
'narrative' acccording to which Syrian government responsibility for the atrocity had been
conclusively proved, were Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, formerly the former commanding
officer of the UK Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment, and also NATO's
Rapid Reaction CBRN Battalion, and Dan Kaszeta.
Immediately after the story of the poisoning of the Skripals on 4 March broke, the same
duo reappeared, and have been as critical to shaping the 'narrative' about the later incident
as they were to that about the former.
(For the piece by Kaszeta on 'Bellingcat' which introduced the 'Novichok' theme four days
later, see
https://www.bellingcat.com/... .)
This makes it particular interesting to look at the website of Kaszeta's consultancy,
'Strongpoint Security Limited', in conjunction with the 'Companies House' documentation on
the company.
One would have thought from the website that his company was a small, but hardly
insignificant, player, in the field of 'physical and operational security.' As it happens,
having filed 'Total exemption small company accounts' since its incorporation in May 2011,
last December it filed 'Micro company accounts' for the year to 31 May 2017.
With a turnover of £20,000, staff costs of a bit more than half of that, and a
profit of £394, we can see that although unlike Matt Tait's, Kaszeta's company did
trade, if indeed it was his sole source of income, this pivotal figure in Anglo-American
'disinformation operations' was living on something less than $15,000 a year, at current
exchange rates. (Pull the other one, as we say in Britain.)
This is all the more ironic, as the website brings out quite how critical a figure Kaszeta
has been in obscuring the truth. From the bio he gives, we learn that having started as a
Chemical Officer in the U.S. Army, he worked for 12 years in the White House, dealing with
CBRN matters, before moving to Britain in 2008.
Among the articles to which he links on the site, we see his response in 'NOW Lebanon' in
December 2013 to Hersh's original 'Whose sarin?' piece on Ghouta, -- in which Kaszeta first
introduced the famous 'hexamine hypothesis.'
This – patently preposterous – suggestion that the presence of a single
'impurity' is a 'smoking gun' incriminating the Syrian government has echoed on into the
clearly corrupt OPCW documents purporting to demonstrate that it was responsible for the 4
April 2017 Khan Sheikhoun attack.
Of some interest in understanding where Kaszeta he is coming from is what he describes as
his 'oldest (and most footnoted on Wikipedia)' piece, which is an article published in 1988
on a site called 'Lituanus', on 'Lithuanian Resistance to Foreign Occupation 1940-52.'
As to Colonel de Bretton-Gordon, it is of interest to look at the attempt to 'finger' the
GRU over the Skripal poisoning published under the title 'UK Poisoning Inquiry turns to
Russian Agency in Mueller Indictments' in the 'New York Times' last Sunday, and the response
by the Russian Embassy in London to a question about it.
The response objects that 'while the British authorities keep concealing all information
concerning the investigation into the Salisbury incident, the newspaper has quoted "one
former US official familiar with the inquiry".'
It also asserts that that crucial evidence which has not been made available to the
Russians – and here, as with Ghouta and Khan Sheikhoun, the results of 'impurity
profiling' are critical – appears to have been shared not just with inappropriate
Americans, but with all kinds of others.
And indeed, the Embassy is quite right in suggesting that the claim made by the supposed
creator of 'Novichok', Vladimir Uglev, to the BBC in April about 'all the spectrum data I was
sent recently' has neither been confirmed nor denied. This seems a general pattern –
the 'spectra' which may actually be able to provide definitive answers to questions of
responsibility are only provided to people who can be relied upon to give the 'right'
answers.
The Embassy response also quite fairly refers to a report in the 'Times' also in April,
about the 'intelligence' which had been 'used to persuade world leaders that Moscow was
behind the poisoning' and that the 'Novichok' had been manufactured at the Shikhany facility
at in southwest Russia, which stated that de Bretton-Gordon, 'who had seen the intelligence,
called it very compelling.' He has a long history of lying about CW in Syria – so is
obviously the right person to lie about them in the UK.
It thus becomes interesting to probe into what lies behind the opening of de
Bretton-Gordon's entry on the 'Military Speakers' website ('Real Heroes; Real Stories.')
According to this, he is 'Chief Operating Office of SecureBio Ltd a commercial company
offering CBRN Resilience, consultancy and deployable capabilities.'
From 'Companies House', we learn that the liquidation of 'Secure Bio', which started in in
June 2015, was concluded in August last year. The really interesting thing about the records,
however, is that at the time of the liquidation the company had very large debts, which were
written off, of a kind and in a manner which suggested that de Bretton-Gordon's activities
may have been largely funded by loans from untraceable sources which were not meant to be
repaid.
Actually, with the 'NYT' report we come full circle. Among those quoted is Mark Galeotti
– apparently his admission that he had totally misrepresented the thinking of the
Russian General Staff has not him made more cautious about making extravagant claims about
its Main Intelligence Directorate (misreported as Main Directorate by the 'NYT.')
Also quoted are two figures who play key roles in Owen's Report – the Soviet era-GRU
defector 'Viktor Suvorov' (real name 'Vladimir Rezun') and the former KGB operative Yuri
Shvets. Both of these feature prominently in the posts on the Litvinenko affair to which I
have linked, and both were key members of the 'information operations' network centred around
the late Boris Berezovsky. This now seems to have taken control of American policy, as of
British.
The role of 'Suvorov'/Rezun in attempting to defend the interpretations of Stalin's policy
put forward by MI6 in the run-up to the Second World War, and those asserted later by General
Keitel, and the way he was demolished by the leading American historian of the War in the
East, Colonel David Glantz, and the Israeli historian Gabriel Gorodetsky, is too large a
subject to go into here.
However, it provides further reason to wonder whether the misreadings of Stalin's policy
which caused MI6 to give advice to Chamberlain which helped destroy the last chances of
preventing the Nazi-Soviet Pact, may still be the 'house view' of that organisation. It was,
obviously, the Pact which spelled 'curtains' both for Poland and the Baltics.
There is a pattern of abuse of formerly well regarded institutions to achieve the
propaganda aims of the Deep State establishment. The depths that were plumbed to push the
Iraq WMD falsehoods are well known. Yet no one was held to account nor was there any honest
accounting of the abuse. There have been pretenses like the Owen inquiry that you note.
We see the same situation of sweeping under the rug malfeasance and even outright
criminality through obfuscation and obstruction in the case of the meddling in the 2016
election by top officials in intelligence and law enforcement. Clearly less and less people
are buying what the Deep State sells despite their overwhelming control of the media
channels.
It seems that we are marching towards a credibility crisis similar to what was experienced
in the Soviet Union when no one trusted the contents in Pravda.
What is to be gained by the leadership in Britain in promoting these biological weapons
cases since Litvinenko? In the US it is quite apparent that the Deep State have become
extremely powerful and the likelihood that Trump recognizes that resistance is futile is very
high. Schumer may be proven right that they have six ways from Sunday to make you kowtow to
their dictats.
"... With impeachment itself on the table, Mueller has done little more than issue the equivalent of parking tickets to foreigners he has no jurisdiction over. Intelligence summaries claim the Russians meddled, but don't show that Trump was involved. Indictments against Russians are cheered as evidence, when they are just Mueller's uncontested assertions. ..."
An answer was needed, so one was created: the Russians. As World War II ended with the U.S.
the planet's predominant power, dark forces saw advantage in arousing new
fears . The Soviet Union morphed from a decimated ally in the fight against fascism into a
competitor locked in a titanic struggle with America. How did they get so powerful so quickly?
Nothing could explain it except traitors. Cold War-era America? Or 2018 Trump America? Yes, on
both counts.
To some, that fear was not a problem but a tool -- one could defeat political enemies simply
by accusing them of being Russian sympathizers. There was no need for evidence, so desperate
were Americans to believe; just an accusation that someone was in league with Russia was
enough. Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy fired his first shot on February
9, 1950, proclaiming there were 205 card-carrying members of the Communist Party working for
the Department of State. The evidence? Nothing but assertions .
Indeed, the very word " McCarthyism " came to mean making accusations
of treason without sufficient evidence. Other definitionsinclude a ggressively
questioning a person's patriotism, using accusations of disloyalty to pressure a person to
adhere to conformist politics or discredit an opponent, and subverting civil and political
rights in the name of national security.
Pretending to be saving America while he tore at its foundations, McCarthy destroyed
thousands of lives over the next four years simply by pointing a finger and saying "communist."
Whenever anyone invoked his Fifth Amendment right to silence, McCarthy answered that this was "the
most positive proof obtainable that the witness is communist." The power of accusation was used
by others as well: the Lavender
Scare , which concluded that the State Department was overrun with closeted homosexuals who
were at risk of being blackmailed by Moscow for their perversions, was an offshoot of
McCarthyism, and by 1951, 600 people had been fired based solely on evidence-free "morals"
charges. State legislatures and school boards mimicked McCarthy.
Books and movies were banned. Blacklists abounded. The FBI embarked on campaigns of political
repression (they would later claim Martin Luther King Jr. had
communist ties), even as journalists and academics voluntarily narrowed their political
thinking to exclude communism.
Watching sincere people succumb to paranoia again, today, is not something to relish. But
having trained themselves to intellectualize away Hillary Clinton's flaws, as they had with
Obama, about half of America seemed truly gobsmacked when she lost to the antithesis of
everything that she had represented to them. Every
poll (that they read) said she would win. Every
article (that they read) said it too, as did every
person (that they knew). Lacking an explanation for the unexplainable, many advanced
scenarios that would have failed high school civics, claiming that only the popular vote
mattered, or that the archaic
Emoluments Clause prevented Trump from taking office, or that Trump was insane and could be
disposed of under the
25th Amendment .
After a few trial balloons during the primaries under which
Bernie Sanders' visits to Russia and
Jill Stein's attendance at a banquet in Moscow were used to imply disloyalty, the fearful
cry that the Russians meddled in the election morphed into the claim that Trump had worked with
the Russians and/or (fear is flexible) that the Russians had something on Trump. Everyone
learned a new Russian word: kompromat .
Donald Trump became the Manchurian Candidate. That term was taken from a 1959 novel made
into a classic Cold War movie that follows an American soldier brainwashed by communists as
part of a Kremlin plot to gain influence in the Oval Office. A
Google search shows that dozens of news sources -- including
The
New York Times , Vanity
Fair ,
Salon ,
The Washington Post , and, why not, Stormy Daniels' lawyer
Michael Avenatti -- have all claimed that Trump is
a 2018 variant of the Manchurian Candidate,
controlled by ex-KGB officer Vladimir Putin.
The birth moment of Trump as a Russian asset is traceable to MI-6 intelligence
officer-turned-Democratic opposition researcher-turned FBI mole
Christopher Steele , whose "dossier" claimed the existence of the pee tape. Supposedly,
somewhere deep in the Kremlin is a surveillance video made in 2013 of Trump in Moscow's
Ritz-Carlton Hotel, watching prostitutes urinate on a bed that the Obamas had once slept in. As
McCarthy did with homosexuality, naughty sex was thrown in to keep the rubes' attention.
No one, not even Steele's alleged informants, has actually seen
the pee tape. It exists in a blurry land of certainty alongside the elevator
tape , alleged video of Trump doing something in an elevator that's so salacious it's been
called "Every Trump Reporter's White Whale." No one knows when the elevator video was made, but
a dossier-length article in
New York magazine posits that Trump has been a Russian asset since 1987.
Suddenly no real evidence is necessary, because it is always right in front of your face.
McCarthy accused
Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower of being communists or communist stooges over the
"loss" of China in 1949. Trump holds a bizarre press conference in Helsinki and the only
explanation must be that he is a traitor.
Nancy
Pelosi ("President Trump's weakness in front of Putin was embarrassing, and proves that the
Russians have something on the president, personally, financially, or politically") and
Cory Booker ("Trump is acting like he's guilty of something") and
Hillary Clinton ("now we know whose side he plays for") and John Brennan ("rises to and
exceeds the threshold of 'high crimes and misdemeanors.' It was nothing short of treasonous.
Not only were Trump's comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin") and
Rachel Maddow ("We haven't ever had to reckon with the possibility that someone had
ascended to the presidency of the United States to serve the interests of
another country rather than our own") and others have said that Trump is
controlled by Russia. As in 1954 when the press provided live TV coverage of McCarthy's
dirty assertions against the Army, the modern media uses each new assertion as "proof" of an
earlier one. Snowballs get bigger rolling downhill.
When assertion is accepted as evidence, it forces the other side to prove a negative to
break free. So until Trump "proves" he is not a Russian stooge, his denials will be seen as
attempts to wiggle out from under evidence that in fact doesn't exist. Who, pundits ask, can
come up with a better explanation for Trump's actions than blackmail, as if that was a
necessary step to clearing his name?
Joe McCarthy's victims faced similar challenges: once labeled a communist or a homosexual,
the onus shifted to them to somehow prove they weren't. Their failure to prove their innocence
became more evidence of their guilt. The Cold War version of this mindset was well illustrated
in movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or the classic Twilight Zone episode "
The Monsters Are Due on
Maple Street ." Anyone who questions this must themselves be at best a useful fool, if not
an outright Russia collaborator. (Wrote one
pundit : "They are accessories, before and after the fact, to the hijacking of a democratic
election. So, yes, goddamn them all.") In the McCarthy era, the term was "fellow traveler":
anyone, witting or unwitting, who helped the Russians. Mere skepticism, never mind actual
dissent, is muddled with disloyalty.
Blackmail? Payoffs? Deals? It isn't just the months of Mueller's investigation that have
passed without evidence. The IRS and Treasury have had Trump's tax documents and financials for
decades, even if Rachel Maddow has not. If Trump has been a Russian asset since 1987, or even
2013, he has done it behind the backs of the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and NSA. Yet at the same
time, in what history would see as the most out-in-the-open intelligence operation ever, some
claim he asked on TV for his handlers to deliver hacked emails. In TheManchurian
Candidate , the whole thing was at least done in secret as you'd expect.
With impeachment itself on the table, Mueller has done little more than issue the
equivalent of parking tickets to foreigners he has no jurisdiction over. Intelligence summaries
claim the Russians meddled, but don't show that Trump was involved. Indictments against
Russians are cheered as evidence, when they are just Mueller's uncontested assertions.
There is no evidence the president is acting on orders from Russia or is under their
influence. None.
As with McCarthy, as in those famous witch trials at Salem, allegations shouldn't be
accepted as truth, though in 2018 even pointing out that basic tenet is blasphemy. The burden
of proof should be on the accusing party, yet the standing narrative in America is that the
Russia story must be assumed plausible, if not true, until proven false. Joe McCarthy tore
America apart for four years under just such standards, until finally public opinion, led by
Edward R. Murrow , a
journalist brave enough to demand answers McCarthy did not have, turned against him. There is no
Edward R. Murrow in 2018.
When asking for proof is seen as disloyal, when demanding evidence after years of
accusations is considered a Big Ask, when a clear answer somehow always needs additional time,
there is more on the line in a democracy than the fate of one man.
Peter Van Buren, a
24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well : How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and
Minds of the Iraqi People and Hooper's War
: A Novel of WWII Japan. Follow him on Twitter @WeMeantWell .
"... AG Sessions allowed a special investigation into the new President while allowing rogue actors from the Obama Administration to lead the investigation. ..."
"... Former FBI Director and Dirty Cop Robert Mueller was selected to lead the investigation. Mueller had a history of allowing Clinton and Obama related scandals to dissolve. ..."
It's Official: The US is in a Constitutional Crisis – Only President Trump Can Save the Nation Now!The US is now in a constitutional crisis. Yesterday Attorney General
Sessions announced that he was refusing to set up a special investigation into FBI and DOJ wrongdoing even though the evidence
of corruption, illegalities and cover ups of Obama and Clinton scandals is rampant. A year ago Sessions had no problem with the creation
of an unconstitutional investigation into President Trump when no crimes were committed.
Mueller's illegal Trump-Russia investigation moves on while investigations into obvious corruption and criminal activities in
Obama's FBI, DOJ and State Department are ignored. We asked in October what does the
deep state
have on AG Sessions causing him to ignore the constitution and his duty to serve the American people? It's now clear that Sessions
must go and a new team be brought in to clean up the FBI, DOJ and other deep state led government departments.
How did we get here?
During the 2016 election one of the biggest chants at Trump rallies was – Drain the swamp!
Americans were tired of the corruption and criminal acts perpetrated by the government under the Obama administration but no one
guessed how corrupt it really was. The sinister Obama administration had the audacity to spy on the Trump campaign using the entire
apparatus of the US government and then framed the incoming President once he won.
AG Sessions allowed a special investigation into the new President while allowing rogue actors from the Obama Administration
to lead the investigation.
Former FBI Director and
Dirty Cop Robert Mueller was selected to lead the investigation. Mueller had a history of allowing Clinton and Obama related
scandals to dissolve. Emailgate, Fast and Furious, the Clinton Foundation, Clinton emails, Uranium One, and the IRS scandal
all fizzled with no wrong doing identified over Mueller's years with the FBI. Mueller also was best friends with disgraced and fired
leaker former FBI Director James Comey. Mueller should have never taken the job to lead the investigation due to his numerous conflicts
of interest.
We know that the FBI had an investigation into the Clintons and money they received from Russia in return for giving Russia 20%
of all US uranium. Prior to the Obama administration approving the very controversial Uranium One deal in 2010, the FBI had evidence
that Russian nuclear industry officials were involved in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering in order to benefit Vladimir
Putin. The
FBI approved the deal anyway. We also know that Rosenstein and Mueller were the ones who allowed the Uranium One deal to go forward.
This was the real Russia collusion story involving the US government.
Mueller brought in
a team of Obama and Clinton lackeys to form his investigative team who had no intention of performing an independent and objective
investigation. The entire team is corrupt lefties who have represented the Clinton Foundation or let Hillary go in her obvious crimes
related to her email scandal. This included the texting FBI scoundrels Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Some suspect that their efforts
are as much to cover past wrong doings as to frame the current President for unethical acts.
We know that Mueller's team
illegally
obtained emails related to the Trump transition team as reported in December and these emails were protected under attorney-client
privilege. Mueller and his entire team should have resigned after this but the investigation moves on.
Unconstitutionality of the Mueller Investigation
Not only is the Mueller investigation corrupt, it is unconstitutional. We learned
in January that Paul Manafort was suing Mueller, Rosenstein and Sessions as Head of the DOJ due to the Mueller investigation
being unconstitutional.
Gregg Jarrett at FOX News wrote when initially Mueller brought charges against Manafort that Mueller is tasked with finding a
crime that does not exist in the law. It is a legal impossibility. He is being asked to do something that is manifestly unattainable.
In addition Jarrett stated-
As I pointed out in a column last May, the law (28 CFR 600) grants legal authority to appoint a special counsel to investigate
crimes. Only crimes. He has limited jurisdiction. Yet, in his order appointing Mueller as special counsel (Order No. 3915-2017),
Rosenstein directed him to investigate "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated
with the campaign of President Donald Trump." It fails to identify any specific crimes, likely because none are applicable.
Manafort sued the DOJ, Mueller and Rosenstein because what they are doing is not supported by US Law as noted previously by Jarrett.
Manafort's case argues in paragraph 33 that the special counsel put in place by crooked Rosenstein gave crooked and criminal Mueller
powers that are not permitted by law –
But paragraph (b)(ii) of the Appointment Order purports to grant Mr. Mueller further authority to investigate and prosecute
" any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation." That grant of authority is not authorized
by DOJ's special counsel regulations. It is not a "specific factual statement of the matter to be investigated." Nor is it an
ancillary power to address efforts to impede or obstruct investigation under 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).
In addition to Jarrett and Manafort's arguments above, Robert Barnes wrote this past week at
Law
and Crimes that –
Paul Manafort's legal team brought a motion to dismiss on Tuesday, noting that Rosenstein could not appoint Mueller to any
investigation outside the scope of the 2016 campaign since Sessions did not recuse himself for anything outside the campaign.
I agree with this take on Mueller's authority. If we follow that argument that would mean Sessions himself has exclusive authority
to appoint a special counsel for non-collusion charges, and Sessions has taken no such action. Sessions himself should make that
clear to Mueller, rather than await court resolution. Doing so would remove three of the four areas of inquiry from Mueller's
requested interview with President Trump.
Sessions formally notifying Mueller that he does not have authority to act outside of campaign-related cases and cases related
to obstruction of Mueller's investigation would be doing what the Constitution compels: enforcing the Appointments Clause of the
Constitution. Additionally, Sessions notifying Mueller that he does not have authority to act outside of campaign-related cases
would be exercising Sessions' court-recognized Constitutional
obligation to "direct and supervise
litigation" conducted by the Department of Justice. Furthermore, Sessions notifying Mueller that he does not have authority to
act outside of campaign-related cases protects against the inappropriate use of the federal grand jury that defendant Manafort
now rightly complains about.
Sessions limiting Mueller to the 2016 campaign would also be restoring confidence in democratic institutions, and restore public
faith that democratically elected officials.
One thing to remember about Sessions'
recusal : Sessions only recused himself from "any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the
campaigns for President of the United States." This recusal letter limits the scope of Sessions' recusal to the 2016 campaigns;
it does not authorize Sessions' recusal for anything beyond that. Constitutionally, Sessions has a "
duty to direct and supervise
litigation" conducted by the Department of Justice. Ethically, professionally, and legally, Sessions cannot ignore his supervisory
obligations for cases that are not related to the "campaigns for President."
Not only is the Mueller investigation run by former FBI and DOJ criminals and bad cops but it is unconstitutional in the way it
was created and in the way it is currently being managed outside the scope of Sessions' recusal while incorporating Sessions duties
as AG.
The only solution
There's a lot of speculation from some Americans and Trump supporters who believe that AG Sessions is behind the scenes working
on cleaning the swamp, but this is all speculation. Little if any evidence supports these hopes.
We must look at the facts. Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation. Rosenstein was somehow recommended and hired
as Assistant AG. With a background of multiple conflicts of interest related to
Uranium One and having
signed off on at least one FISA warrant to spy on candidate and future President Trump, Rosenstein never should have been appointed.
In spite of his conflicts, Rosenstein hired Mueller to investigate President Trump and continues in his oversight role. Sessions',
Rosenstein's and Mueller's actions are unethical, illegal and unconstitutional.
We are currently in a constitutional crisis. AG Sessions will not uphold the law. He must be replaced with an aggressive, competent
and fair AG who will uphold the constitution. This is something we haven't had in at least a decade.
Only President Trump can save America. Only President Trump can replace AG Sessions and now it's time.
You're right. But the reality is being right doesn't do squat for Sessions very little credibility. For good reason...his actions
merit distrusting him. It's the height of arrogance and simply smells to high heaven that a "Man of the highest integrity"...would
knowingly allow himself to be confirmed one day and recuse himself the next day......without first telling his boss the POTUS.
That excuse dog is not going to hunt no matter how long or whomever blows that dog whistle. It's an insult to not only the
intelligence of folks but their common sense as well.
Bluntly, he is a disaster for the country and POTUS. The problem is NO THINKING ADULT TRUST SESSIONS ANY FARTHER THAN THEY CAN
THROW HIM! What he did disqualifies him for the position he took under false pretenses. That is is Deception...not...Integrity.
PERIOD!
We are in a war. Nice guys don't win wars. They clean up afterwards. He acts like Mr Magoo and not the nations Chief Law Enforcement
Officer. We are in a war and the equivalent of the Military Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of Law Enforcement has gone
missing.
Sessions is the classical..."Fool me once..your fault; Fool me twice, my fault"
My deadline for him is June 20, 2018 at the maximum. Nothing significant by then....it will be a confirmation he is part of the
problem....and always has been....a plant of the "Deep State"
Tom Fitton: "When you read the letter its pretty clear Huber isn't charged with prosecuting anyone. Sessions is not going to
appoint a special counsel to investigate anything having to do with the Obama FBI or Hillary Clinton. I don't think [Huber] has
empaneled a grand jury or is doing a prosecution, he's just looking at the record and may suggest additional resources. Nothing
is going to be done. There is no public indication of any serious investigation by the DOJ."
Had I not come across the following, I would absolutely agree with you. But below is what is really occurring behind the scenes.
They ARE fighting the Deep State which has existed for decades, but rest assured POTUS and his team of patriots are on it. If
you take the time to really go through it, you can almost predict what POTUS will do next.
It seems unbelievable at first but it checks out as the story unfolds and Q predicts things before they happen... Also, Trump
has signalled the truth of it; do you think he said "tip top tippety top" just for the heck of it at Easter speech? (He was asked
by an anon to use this in something to verify validity of Q.) It won't make sense unless you start at the beginning in Oct and
read posts from there. (And disregard MSM reports that Q is false; if he was, why even bother trying to discredit?)
Think about it - is it like POTUS to keep someone so "obviously inept" around as Sessions? Does that really sound like POTUS?
Trump and team have handled this beautifully...they even have conservatives screaming for Sessions' head. He is neither uninvolved
nor clueless as is being portrayed. It's the Art of the Deal. Many are going down and POTUS and Q team are bringing us to it live
through the posts.
I promise you, this will open your eyes to the long game that POTUS and Sessions are playing out. Check it out - it will be
the best read of your life. So many things that never made sense, so many lies, massive corruption...be prepared.
Once you've gone through Q, you will truly know that POTUS meant every single word, literally, in this short link.
Biggest problem after watching the video of Lou Dobbs tonight is that Rod Rosenstein is still acting in an oversite position.
He will never let anyone be convicted of any crime because he is a sitting member of almost every crime that was committed. I
don't think Sessions is that smart in the first place, I believe that Rosenstein is running the show and that is all it is a Dog
and Pony show for the masses. All of them should be fired
Au contraire-All you Sessions sycophants are the ones who'll have an uncomfortably full stomach! That man's public actions
are NOT those of a sly old law and order prosecutor maintaining "radio silence" while tirelessly working behind the scenes! They're
the actions of a compromised Attorney General who is NOT performing his Constitutional duties and is actively covering for known
lawbreakers and Obstructing Justice--NOT demanding it!!
"... The Awan family was banned from the House IT network February 2, but Wasserman Schultz kept Imran on her payroll until he was arrested last week. Infamously, when Capitol Police seized a laptop from Wasserman Schultz's office, she later threatened the cops with "consequences" at a hearing if the police didn't return the device. ..."
Last week, Democratic IT staffer Imran Awan was
arrested for alleged
bank fraud. In and of itself, that news would rate as a relatively minor political scandal. But Awan worked for Rep. Debbie Wasserman
Schultz, who inspires some of the weirdest conspiracy theories on Capitol Hill. Her disastrous stint as Democratic National Committee
chair has turned the centrist South Florida congresswoman into a punching bag for the left, which accuses her of "rigging" the 2016
election for Hillary Clinton, and the far right, which has spent 2017 accusing her of murdering one of her own staffers. Now the
Awan scandal is shaping up to be a classic Wasserman Schultz snafu. While Awan was involved in a litany of shady business dealings,
the congresswoman has made the case 1,000 percent worse for herself by refusing to talk to reporters and openly feuding with police.
A conservative
ethics group is now calling for a full probe . According to Politico, U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler
first hired Imran Awan
in 2004.
Unfortunately, much of the reporting on the case so far has come from Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller,
which is well known for pushing bogus stories about climate change and spewing fact-free nonsense.
According to the Daily Caller's Luke Rosiak , House staffers continued paying the family despite a series of red flags and security
issues that likely should have been addressed long before 2017. Earlier this year, the U.S. Capitol Police revealed they are investigating
the Awans for alleged data and equipment theft, but no one knows yet what might have been stolen; charges haven't been filed in that
case. But once news of that investigation broke, every Democratic office -- except Wasserman Schultz's -- fired the Awans. Wasserman
Schultz continued funneling money to Imran Awan. The Daily Caller has reported that Imran began liquidating his assets and trying
to sell his properties. Then, last week, he was caught at Washington Dulles International Airport trying to leave the country.
He was arrested on bank fraud charges, a case that's apparently separate from the ongoing Capitol Police probe. All of this paints
an extremely confusing picture that isn't helped by Rosiak's stories, which are full of speculation and hearsay. The Daily Caller
has speculated that the Awans could have been involved in a thousand scams, including
stealing
money from the government, data from Homeland Security, or emails from the Democratic National Committee. (Rosiak's stories also
consistently mention the Awans are Pakistani Muslims, which seems irrelevant.) Wasserman Schultz's involvement has led right-wing
pundits, including Fox News ham-brains Sean Hannity and Geraldo Rivera, to baselessly speculate that the Awans were behind the WikiLeaks
hack that forced Wasserman Schultz to step down as Democratic National Committee chair last year...
For Fox figureheads, the story has provided a convenient distraction to suck time away from addressing the crippling failure that
has been the Trump White House. But flaws aside, Rosiak's reporting has uncovered some genuinely troubling details. Here's a breakdown
of the biggest unanswered questions about Wasserman Schultz and the Awan scandal:
1.How many Democratic lawmakers are involved? According to Rosiak, the family members worked for at least 80 House
Democrats in their decade-plus on the Hill. Though Wasserman Schultz is certainly the highest-profile House member ensnared in the
scandal and did herself no favors by keeping Awan on her payroll long after everyone else canned him, she's far from the only lawmaker
who could have been the target of data theft or, as Rosiak claimed in a later story, blackmail. The Daily Caller released a handy
chart showing how many other Democrats were tied to the Awans: The list includes South Florida's Ted Deutch and Frederica Wilson,
and Lois Frankel.
2. What is the actual extent of the Awans' alleged data theft? Here's where things also get muddy. So far, there's no indication
as to what the Awans might have downloaded from Democratic networks. According to Rosiak, the Awans might have been funneling someone's
data to an offsite server, but the public still has no clue who might have been victimized. BuzzFeed News reported that after six
months, charges still have not been filed against the family.
3. Why did Wasserman Schultz refuse to fire Imran Awan when everyone else did, threaten the Capitol Police, and then continue
paying him? Here's where Wasserman Schultz's dreadful media presence, along with what appear to be some true red flags, really
comes into focus. Once the Awans were outed as targets of a Capitol Police criminal probe, every other Democrat in Washington immediately
kicked them to the curb. (According to federal data, Imran Awan earned $164,000 in 2016, and his wife, Hina Alvi, earned $168,300.
That's a lot of cash for government IT employees.) Also: Who in hell hires an entire family of IT employees? If, say, a local lawmaker
or someone like Gov. Rick Scott handsomely paid a husband, wife, and two of their brothers to run, say, janitorial services, every
newspaper in the nation would cry nepotism. Likewise, while multiple mainstream outlets, including the Washington Post and
BuzzFeed, have published "explainers" about the burgeoning scandal, they've glossed over major legal red flags that Rosiak uncovered
in court records, including
allegations made in court that the Awans threatened to kidnap their own family members . Rosiak also reported that the family
members seem to have
filed false financial disclosures in order to obtain their government jobs and either misreported or outright lied about their debts
to foreign businesspeople.
Anonymous sources also told Rosiak that the FBI seized smashed hard drives from Imran Awan's house, which certainly doesn't look
good.
The Awan family was banned from the House IT network February 2, but Wasserman Schultz kept Imran on her payroll until he
was arrested last week. Infamously, when Capitol Police seized a laptop from Wasserman Schultz's office, she later threatened the
cops with "consequences" at a hearing if the police didn't return the device.
4. Are the bank fraud charges and data theft allegations connected? This is where the case really gets confusing. Despite
the brouhaha over the Capitol Police investigation, that case hasn't resulted in any charges yet. Awan was arrested last week for
simple bank fraud, which doesn't appear to be a smoking gun pointing to WikiLeaks or blackmail. According to the criminal complaint,
Awan and his wife are charged with attempting to defraud the Congressional Federal Credit Union by
receiving a $165,000
loan by claiming one property was their primary residence when, in fact, they were renting the place out . (The Awans have pleaded
not guilty.) That's bad, but it's not exactly House of Cards -level political material.
5. Why are the Democrats so hush-hush about all of this? This, more than anything, is the classic Wasserman Schultz flaw:
hubris in the face of negative press. In the face of adversity, she tends to double-down and dig in her heels, which has rarely helped
her (or any lawmaker) when confronted with legitimately negative news. The Awan case is no different: She has shied away from TV
appearances and has neglected to explain why the family was hired a decade ago. So has every Democrat tied to the family. Granted,
it's difficult to say much to the media during an open criminal investigation, but the public deserves more answers than it has gotten.
Jerry Iannelli is Miami New Times ' daily-news reporter. He graduated with honors from Temple University. He then earned
a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. He moved to South Florida in 2015.
The difference between image and real server is that image is just a little bit more easy to manipulate. In other words it does
not necessary truthfully reflect that hard drive information.
There are also subtle things like the ability to restore erased files which can be done only on physical hardware using special
equipment. You still can see some erased files on the image if it was done byte wise (using dd) if the space was not reused)
Chain of custody is also important. As the requirement of working is not longer present, files and programs on it can more easily manipulated to prove whatever you need to
prove even in such a way that would not work on a real server. If you want to stage false flag operation it is better to pass only images.
In reality neither real server not images proves anything. Both can be "staged" like fake video in poisoning false flag operations.
Cyberspace is perfect environment for false flag operations. As soon as FBI was not the first to get to the servers and can be assured
that nobody touched the server "in between" (which most easily is achieved by disconnected server from the network and shutting it done
even if this wipes out memory on the server, all bets are off
Another relevant question is why Awan case was swiped undr the carpet.
Notable quotes:
"... the DNC servers were never inspected by the FBI and Crowdstrike's involvement is still suspect. ..."
"... Anyone who thinks that CrowdStrike; a group whose majority investor is Google's Eric Schmidt, who also formed "Groundwork," which was the tech group for the Clinton campaign; & whose co-founder (CrowdStrike) is a senior fellow of the openly anti-Russian Atlantic Council who is funded by Ukrainian billionaire who "donated" millions to the Clinton Foundation & even gave Hillary a frickin' award in 2013.....if you think that that group; who produced a report in exchange for money from the DNC at a time when we now know Clinton had control of DNC finances.....if you think that this report which aaaallllll this is based on would hold up in court.......you're out of your goddamn mind. ..."
"... Doing forensics on a physical machine is rarely encouraged because data can be corrupted, accidentally erased, etc, and that data is lost forever. An image can be copied and stored securely in case a forensics analysts makes a mistake, they can just restore the image and start again. Sorry Jimmy, I know you hate Russia-gate but this specific case is not a strong argument against it. ..."
Despite recent claims by the media, and despite the fact Trump is parroting the same claims, the DNC servers were never inspected
by the FBI and Crowdstrike's involvement is still suspect.
Anyone who thinks that CrowdStrike; a group whose majority investor is Google's Eric Schmidt, who also formed "Groundwork,"
which was the tech group for the Clinton campaign; & whose co-founder (CrowdStrike) is a senior fellow of the openly anti-Russian
Atlantic Council who is funded by Ukrainian billionaire who "donated" millions to the Clinton Foundation & even gave Hillary
a frickin' award in 2013.....if you think that that group; who produced a report in exchange for money from the DNC at a time
when we now know Clinton had control of DNC finances.....if you think that this report which aaaallllll this is based on would
hold up in court.......you're out of your goddamn mind. Keep up the good work Jim.
#rEVOLution#NotMeUs#NinaBernie2020
The irony that the same people in the media crying 'Russian collusion' in regards to Trump do not have the integrity ( or
are not allowed) to cry over Clinton/DNC collusion to railroad Bernie Sanders out of the Democratic Primary. George Orwell
looks smarter everyday.
As someone who works in IT, an image in this context is not a picture like you would take with your phone, but rather a
perfect copy of the system state, which you could deal with forensically, or load up in a virtual machine. With that, there's
no need to have the servers. You have a clone of the servers along with all their data and their memory state at the time the
snapshot was taken. What that article says actually makes perfect sense to me, because by powering down machine, you destroy
whatever exists only in RAM.
Jimmy, I have much love for your show and no love for the DNC, but you got this one wrong. An 'Image' in this context does
not mean picture, it is a copy of the file system(s) on the machine (server in this case). Having done some digital forensics,
this is the norm. Doing forensics on a physical machine is rarely encouraged because data can be corrupted, accidentally erased,
etc, and that data is lost forever. An image can be copied and stored securely in case a forensics analysts makes a mistake,
they can just restore the image and start again. Sorry Jimmy, I know you hate Russia-gate but this specific case is not a strong
argument against it.
Good example of people talking about things they have no idea what they are talking about... Most likely the "servers" where
virtual servers meaning images are the closest thing to what you guys believe to be physical. Of course you could ask the provider
to hand over the hosts. They would have to decide if flipping a bird or laughing out loud is more appropriate.
If you have
no idea how applied computer science works today do not assume your intuition to be more appropriate than expert statements
without asking another expert about it...
But doing nothing of that kind keeps the grounds for conspiracy theories intact,
so just go on while I load another image in one of the by now several commonly used virtualization solutions (uuups, a "server"
appears out of thin air... And if I click 140 times 140 "servers" will appear [and the swaping would kill this computer in
no time...]).
Yeah, it's amazing to watch. With Trump in 2016 they went with "Racist, Sexist, Homophobe,
insane person", etc. and now they're going with "Russia" and censorship.
Labor was such a longtime stronghold for the Democrats and they've lost it. Labor doesn't
give a shit about Russia. Everyone though, is sick of the corruption. #Walkaway. The whole
"Russia" hoax is designed to blow a huge smoke screen into the felony crimes committed
principally by Clinton allies and the deep state.
The immolation of both the legacy media and the democratic party is occurring
simultaneously. We have seen Peak Facebook.
We have some real giants out there like Stefan Molyneux. A whole galaxy of them helped
bring Trump into the White House and as legacy platforms censor, new ones arise.
I am afraid that historically we better be prepared for what the left does when it doesn't
get its way and that is violence. Look at how the media is openly inciting violence. They've
made heros out of thugs who rob, out of violent shit-and-piss hurling hooligans, and
democratic local bosses have stood down as law-abiding citizens assembled for peaceful
speech.
So the wholesale insanity is going to be more than screaming at the sky.
If Zero Hedge commenters represent a part of the US public opinion Clinton neoliberal are in
real trouble. This is real situation when the elite can't goverm as usual
Notable quotes:
"... it does seem odd that Rosenstein was part of the plan to indict charges on Russians right before Trump met Putin since he met Trump earlier that week to discuss those plans ..."
"... Mule-face is just as conflicted... he applies and interviews for the FBI job, doesn't get it... then takes on an investigation of Trump??? Bullshiiiiiiiiit!!!! Special Counsel statutes are CLEAR... but Sessions is totally corrupt. ..."
"... For those of you who have not seen this...This has been in the works since April...... https://gosar.house.gov/uploadedfiles/criminal-referral.pdf ..."
"... Recuse himself? He violated US Code with improper appointment of Special Counsel. Don't even think he didn't know. That alone is enough for Malfeasance, Abuse of Office, and a mistrial for anything Bueller can get in front of a Judge. ..."
News of the resolution comes after weeks of frustration by Congressional investigators, who
have repeatedly accused Rosenstein and the DOJ of "slow walking" documents related to their
investigations. Lawmakers say they've been given the runaround - while Rosenstein and the rest
of the DOJ have maintained that handing over vital documents would compromise ongoing
investigations.
Not even last week's
heavily redacted release of the FBI's FISA surveillance application on former Trump
campaign Carter Page was enough to dissuade the GOP lawmakers from their efforts to impeach
Rosenstein. In fact, its release may have sealed Rosenstein's fate after it was revealed that
the FISA application and subsequent renewals - at least one of which Rosenstein signed off on ,
relied heavily on the salacious and largely unproven Steele dossier.
In late June, Rosenstein along with FBI Director Christopher Wray clashed with House
Republicans during a fiery hearing over an internal DOJ report criticizing the FBI's handling
of the Hillary Clinton email investigation by special agents who harbored extreme animus
towards Donald Trump while expressing support for Clinton. Republicans on the panel grilled a
defiant Rosenstein on the Trump-Russia investigation which has yet to prove any collusion
between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
"This country is being hurt by it. We are being divided," Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) said of
Mueller's investigation. "Whatever you got," Gowdy added, " Finish it the hell up because this
country is being torn apart. "
Rosenstein pushed back - dodging responsibility for decisions made by subordinates while
claiming that Mueller was moving "as expeditiously as possible," and insisting that he was "not
trying to hide anything."
" We are not in contempt of this Congress, and we are not going to be in contempt of this
Congress ," Rosenstein told lawmakers.
Congressional GOP were not impressed.
" For over eight months, they have had the opportunity to choose transparency. But they've
instead chosen to withhold information and impede any effort of Congress to conduct
oversight," said Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, a sponsor of Thursday's House
resolution who raised the possibility of impeachment this week. " If Rod Rosenstein and the
Department of Justice have nothing to hide, they certainly haven't acted like it. " -
New York Times (6/28/18)
And now, Rosenstein's fate is in the hands of Congress.
I got directed to Meadows Twitter feed earlier and I couldn't believe some of the comments
from the Hilary crowd. Either they actually believe the CNN/MSNBC "Russia did it" bullshit or
they've decided to roll with that narrative regardless of what reality shows because they
think it gives them some kind of leverage if they keep spewing those accusations. Those
people are really sick in the head.
Somewhat. Yes, sometimes cowards need a good swift kick in the ass to get em
going...lol.
But you gotta place yourself into the mind of a bureautocracy kleptocrat like Rosenstein
to discover where his head was at (or whatever bureaucrat, pick any one)...this was "business
as usual"...for EIGHT SOLID YEARS they were able to delay/obstruct Congressional oversight at
will into any number of things, from "recycled hard drives" to "rogue agents" to "smashed
Blackberries" to "Bleachbit" to "illegal servers" to "spontaneous protests in Benghazi" to
"Car Czars" to "the benign tracking of weapons into Mexico" (lol...my personal favorite) et
fucking cetra so...there was no reason whatsoever that Rosenstein would suspect that
oversight would..."change".
See, all of this nation ending angst, hate, ill-will, divide & conquer, the rending of
clothes and gnashing of teeth could have been completely avoided if the People would have
just complied with their betters, the elites, the educated, the non-deplorables and used that
gift of, ahem, "democracy" (lol) that the rich & powerful are so insecure in trusting us
with...none of this would have happened.
There would have been a "historic" coronation of our new Queen Hillary! There were royal
wedding plans even!
And we, the deplorables, the plebes, the low-lifes, had to go and mess up their plans of
sweeping it all under the rug ;-)
Why in the Sam hell do you think they're jawboning this thing to death ..
swmnguy Wed, 07/25/2018 - 19:39 Permalink
"They'll move to impeach Rosenstein just as they voted to repeal ObamaCare 50 times or
however many. And, just like when they got the chance to re-do ObamaCare altogether and had
not the foggiest notion what to do, if they get to impeach Rosenstein they won't have any
idea how to proceed."
This ..
Damned Kabuki, will be answered! With more Kabuki ..
Also a big problem, was his CHOICE to not recuse himself from being involved in appointing
Mueller, when he was heavily involved in the investigations, such as signing a FISA warrant
to spy on Trump campaign staff when there was allegedly (in the FISA warrant) Russian
collusion.
What is the swamp hiding? This latest revelation by Republicans looking into Spygate
offers us some tantalizing clues. In this episode I address the growing efforts by the swamp
to sweep the scandal under the rug.
"Is they don't want to get into who pushed the Information into the Trump Team orbit. And,
the questions surrounding Joseph Mizut. Who was the initiator, I should say, of the
Papadopoulos, "they have dirt on Hillary story."
"If this guy was working for Western Intelligence Agencies, this whole case is going to
explode." "It's already exploding. But it's going to explode at just Nuclear Levels."
"Right?"
"Now they're starting to realize that, that may be a problem too. So, now there's a third
track. The third track Joe, is going to be:
"Verification is not necessary." "They're starting to creep this out there now."
"Remember what I told you about the "Woods Procedure." "The Woods Procedure" is a
procedure in the FBI & DOJ to verify information before it goes in front of the FISA
Court, right?"
"The new line of attack is going to be:
"Well, that's really not necessary. This thorough verification of all the information."
"Why they're going down that track I can't give you a conclusive explanation. I can only tell
you that, my guess here, is that they're realizing that whatever fork they take in the
road."
"Cater Paige who was spied on. With no verified information. Not good. Papadoplolus, who
we Prosecuted despite the fact that a potential "Western Connected Intelligence Asset,"
pushed the information into Papadopoulos. Meaning he was framed. That's not good either."
"They know there's no way out. So what are they going to do? Now, they're going to
push:
"Well, lets go back to Cater Paige. But let's say, "Alright, we may have made a mistake
but Verification is really not necessary. We were really worried he (Carter Paige) was a
terrorist or a spy. So we had to just run with it."
"Folks, they have no where to go."
"Now, how does this tie into the Bryon York piece. Remember, that they're are people up in
the House. Nunes & other folks in these Committees. Don't forget this. They're folks,
Republicans in the House & on the Senate side too who have seen the Declassified,
Unredacted documents about why this whole case stated."
"They've seen that now. They haven't seen all of the DOJ or FBI records. That is where
this fight is brewing. But the FISA application. They have seen most of what's in it. The
redacted copy the one you've seen. Obviously, has blacked out information. Hence, the
redactions. They dropped a hint yesterday. They want disclosed Joe. And, I'm quoting Bryon
York here:
"What is on pages 10-12 & 17-34. of the FISA application."
"He says, this is York:
"That is certainly a tantalizing clue dropped by the House Intel Members. But it's not
clear what is means. Comparing the relevant sections from the initial FISA application in
October & the third renewal in June much appears the same. But in pages 10-12 the date
the Republicans want redacted. Of the third renewal. There's a sightly different
headline:
"The Russian Governments coordinated effort to influence the 2016 Presidential Election."
Plus a footnote seven lines long that was not in the original."
"Folks, the Republicans know something. They have seen these redactions. now, based on
some research. I can't tell you because I have not seen the unredacted copy of the document.
I can only tell you based on research surrounding the case & some Information I've been
working hard to develop. That it may disclose, those footnotes may disclose some connections
for information streams. Again, that were not related to formal Intelligence Channels."
"In other words, the theory from the start that we've been operating on is that this case
was not developed through standard protocol. If you develop Intelligence in a Five Eyes
Country & Intelligence cooperated with the UNITED STATES against Donald Trump. You pass
that information to your domestic Intelligence Agency who passes it Central Intelligence
Agency. They vet the information before it makes it to the Presidents desk."
"That is not the way this case worked. May I suggest to you that the redactions describe
other channels. Other channels of information that developed outside of those standard
channels."
"Are we clear on this? I want to make clear what we're talking about. Standard way to do
this is Intel Agency to Intel Agency. Vet it, vet the information, check the information
before it makes it to the President. The only reason you would go outside of that network
with Intelligence, specifically against a Political Candidate in the UNITED STATES is because
you want to launder the information without vetting it. You want to clean it to make it seen
legitimate."
"We already know, based on Public admissions by State Department Officials on the Obama
Administration that they used The State Department. We already know, that there where people
working for the Clinton Team that met with people on The State Department. May I suggest that
this describes an alternative information channel outside of the standard "modus operandi"
here that is going to expose The whole thing was an information laundering operation. The
Republicans know something here folks."
Woods procedure IS required, it's not optional. And we have the FBI self-admittedly not
adhering to their own procedure. If they had, Steele would have been paid. The FBI stiffed
him.
Further, it's the Judge's responsibility to insure the Prosecutors and Agents followed the
procedure, and additionally that they vetted the sources - not just the informant. The
informant's sources. They were criminally negligent on that point as well. The Judge was no
victim here, the Judge had to be complicit in the conspiracy.
Totally illegal in their own country, so they have another country do it for them. Can it
be prosecuted as Espionage? What about when it's used in Conspiracy to commit Sedition? What
about failure to prosecute a crime of this magnitude, a direct attack on our govt by
FVEY?
What will the punishment be, nothing, be fired for incompetence, that's all. Why are they
being stubborn dicks and not handing over the information because if fucking proves they are
incompetent and gets them fired.
So either way they are fired, they just suck up more inflated salary for longer by holding
off as long as they can and fuck everyone else, fuck the government, fuck Americans, fuck
justice, they will stay there as long as they can sucking up quite a large salary well over
$100,000 per year, plus perks, plus super and we are not talking dicking around for days but
months.
Fired months and months later for not releasing the information versus fired within days
of the information being released. As simple as that and as far as they are concerned fuck
all other US citizens, they will not leave their spot at the trough of corruption until
forced.
Trump hired him but I don't think he's Trump's guy. Although it does seem odd that Rosenstein was part of the plan to indict charges on Russians right before Trump met Putin
since he met Trump earlier that week to discuss those plans. It is all theater, you got that
right, just not sure what the plot is.
Zerohedge readers might want to read this article from
theconservativetreehouse.....Rosenstein and Sessions may be up to more than meets the eye;
i.e., drain the swamp by catching the leakers:
Mule-face is just as conflicted... he applies and interviews for the FBI job, doesn't get it... then takes on an
investigation of Trump??? Bullshiiiiiiiiit!!!! Special Counsel statutes are CLEAR... but Sessions is totally corrupt.
Rosenstein signing off on the FISA documents means he should have recused himself from the
Mueller investigation instead of overseeing it. That's what is going to take him down.
Recuse himself? He violated US Code with improper appointment of Special Counsel. Don't
even think he didn't know. That alone is enough for Malfeasance, Abuse of Office, and a
mistrial for anything Bueller can get in front of a Judge.
True... but WTF is Trump thinking??? He should use this action to FIRE Rosenstein's
traitor's ass NOW. Include the useless Sessions and Wray and, obviously, McCabe and Ohr.
DiGenova for AG, David Clarke for FBI head... Maybe Andy McCarthy for new Special Counsel
to prosecute Hillary and all the rest of the Barry Obongo criminals... especially pigfart
Brennan.
"... The contrary narrative to that provided by Browder concedes that there was indeed a huge fraud related to as much as $230 million in unpaid Russian taxes on an estimated $1.5 billion of income, but that it was not carried out by corrupt officials. Instead, it was deliberately ordered and engineered by Browder with Magnitsky, who was actually an accountant, personally developing and implementing the scheme, using multiple companies and tax avoidance schemes to carry out the deception. Magnitsky, who was on cardiac medication, was indeed arrested and convicted, but he, according to his own family, reportedly died due to his heart condition, possibly exacerbated by negligent authorities who failed to medicate him adequately when he became ill. ..."
"... As Nekrasov worked on the documentary, he discovered that the Browder supported narrative was full of contradictions, omissions and fabrication of evidence . By the time he finished, he realized that the more accurate account of what had occurred with Browder and Magnitsky had been that provided by the Russian authorities. ..."
"... When one gets past all of his bluster and posturing, by one significant metric Bill Browder might well be accounted the most dangerous man in the world. ..."
"... That the U.S. media and Congress appear to be entranced by Browder and dismissive of Moscow's charges against him is symptomatic of just how far the Russia-phobia in the West has robbed people of their ability to see what is right in front of them. To suggest that what is taking place driven by Browder and his friends in high places could well lead to tragedy for all of us would be an understatement. ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. ..."
At the press
conference following their summit meeting in Helsinki, Russian President Vladimir Putin and
American President Donald Trump discussed the possibility of resolving potential criminal cases
involving citizens of the two countries by permitting interrogators from Washington and Moscow
to participate in joint questioning of the individuals named in indictments prepared by the
respective judiciaries. The predictable response by the American nomenklatura was that
it was a horrible idea as it would potentially require U.S. officials to answer questions from
Russians about their activities.
Putin argued, not unreasonably, that if Washington wants to extradite and talk to any of the
twelve recently
indicted GRU officers the Justice Department has named then reciprocity is in order for
Americans and other identified individuals who are wanted by the Russian authorities for
illegal activity while in Russia. And if Russian officials are fair game, so are American
officials.
A prime target for such an interrogation would be President Barack Obama's Ambassador to
Russia Michael McFaul, who was widely criticized while in Moscow for being on an apparent
mission to cultivate ties with the Russian political opposition and other "pro-democracy"
groups. But McFaul was not specifically identified in the press conference, though Russian
prosecutors
have asked him to answer questions related to the ongoing investigation of another leading
critic, Bill Browder, who was named by Putin during the question and answer session. Browder is
a major hedge fund figure who, inter alia , is an American by birth. He renounced his
U.S. citizenship in 1997 in exchange for British citizenship to avoid paying federal taxes on
his worldwide income.
Bill Browder is what used to be referred to as an oligarch, having set up shop in 1999 as
Hermitage Capital Management Fund, a hedge fund registered in tax havens Guernsey and the
Cayman Islands. It focused on "investing" in Russia, taking advantage initially of the
loans-for-shares scheme under
Russia's drunkard President Boris Yeltsin, and then continuing to profit greatly during the
early years of Vladimir Putin. By 2005 Hermitage was the largest foreign investor in
Russia.
Yeltsin had won a fraudulent election in 1996 supported by the oligarch-controlled media and
by President Bill Clinton, who secured a $20.2 billion IMF loan that enabled him to buy
support. Today we would refer to Clinton's action as "interference in the 1996 election," but
at that time a helpless and bankrupt Russia was not well placed to object to what was being
done to it. Yeltsin proved keen to follow oligarchical advice regarding how to strip the former
Soviet Union of its vast state-owned assets. Browder's Hermitage Investments profited hugely
from the commodities deals that were struck at that time.
Browder and his apologists portray him as an honest and honorable Western businessman
attempting to operate in a corrupt Russian business world. Nevertheless, the loans-for-shares
scheme that made him his initial fortune has been correctly characterized as the epitome of
corruption by all parties involved, an arrangement whereby foreign investors worked with local
oligarchs to strip the former Soviet economy of its assets paying pennies on each dollar of
value. Along the way, Browder
was reportedly involved in money laundering, making false representations on official
documents and bribery.
Browder was eventually charged by the Russian authorities for fraud and tax evasion. He was
banned from re-entering Russia in 2005 and began to withdraw his assets from the country, but
three companies controlled by Hermitage were eventually seized by the authorities. Browder
himself was convicted of tax evasion in absentia in 2013 and sentenced to nine years
in prison.
Browder, who refers to himself as Putin's "public enemy #1," has notably been able to sell
his tale of innocence to leading American politicians like Senators John McCain, Lindsay
Graham, Ben Cardin and ex-Senator Joe Lieberman, all of whom are always receptive when
criticizing Russia, as well as to a number of European parliamentarians and media outlets. In
the wake of the Helsinki press conference he has, for example, claimed that Putin named him
personally because he is a threat to continue to expose the crimes of the mafia that
he claims is currently running Russia, but there is, inevitably, another less discussed
alternative view of his self-serving narrative.
Central to the tale of what Browder really represents is the Magnitsky Act , which
the U.S. Congress passed into law to sanction individual Kremlin officials for their treatment
of alleged whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, arrested and imprisoned in Russia. Browder has sold
a narrative which basically says that he and his "lawyer" Sergei Magnitsky uncovered massive
tax fraud and, when they attempted to report it, were punished by a corrupt police force and
magistracy, which had actually stolen the money. Magnitsky was arrested and died in prison,
allegedly murdered by the police to silence him.
The Magnitsky case is of particular importance because both the European Union and the
United States have initiated sanctions against the identified Russian officials who were
allegedly involved. In the Magnitsky Act , sponsored by Russia-phobic Senator Ben
Cardin and signed by President Barack Obama in 2012, the U.S. asserted its willingness to
punish foreign governments for human rights abuses. The Act, initially limited to Russia, has
now been expanded by virtue of 2016's Global Magnitsky Act , which enabled U.S.
sanctions worldwide.
Russia reacted angrily to the first iteration of the Act , noting that the actions
taken by its government internally, notably the operation of its judiciary, were being
subjected to outside interference, while other judicial authorities also questioned
Washington's claimed right to respond to criminal acts committed outside the United States.
Moscow reciprocated with sanctions against U.S. officials as well as by increasing pressure on
foreign non-governmental pro-democracy groups operating in Russia. Some have referred to the
Magnitsky Act as the start of the new Cold War.
The contrary narrative to that provided by Browder concedes that there was indeed a huge
fraud related to as much as $230 million in unpaid Russian taxes on an estimated $1.5 billion
of income, but that it was not carried out by corrupt officials. Instead, it was deliberately
ordered and engineered by Browder with Magnitsky, who was actually an accountant, personally
developing and implementing the scheme, using multiple companies and tax avoidance schemes to
carry out the deception. Magnitsky, who was on cardiac medication, was indeed arrested and
convicted, but he, according to his own family, reportedly died due to his heart condition,
possibly exacerbated by negligent authorities who failed to medicate him adequately when he
became ill.
The two competing Browder narratives have been explored in some detail by a Russian
documentary film maker Andrei Nekrasov, an outspoken anti-Putin activist, who was actually
initially engaged by Browder to do the film. An affable Browder appears extensively in the
beginning describing his career and the events surrounding Magnitsky.
As Nekrasov worked on the documentary, he discovered that the Browder supported narrative
was full of contradictions, omissions and fabrication of
evidence . By the time he finished, he realized that the more accurate account of what had
occurred with Browder and Magnitsky had been that provided by the Russian authorities.
When Nekrasov prepared to air his work " The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes," he
inevitably found himself confronted by billionaire Browder and a battery of lawyers, who
together blocked the showing of the film in Europe and the United States. Anyone subsequently
attempting to promote the documentary has been immediately confronted with 300 plus pages of
supporting documents accompanying a letter threatening a lawsuit if the film were to be shown
to the public.
A single viewing of "The Magnitsky Act" in Washington in June 2016 turned into a
riot when Browder supporters used tickets given to Congressional staffers to disrupt the
proceedings. At a subsequent hearing before Congress, where he was featured as an expert
witness on Russian corruption before a fawning Senate Judiciary Committee, Bill Browder
suggested that those who had challenged his narrative and arranged the film's viewing in
Washington should be prosecuted under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA), which
includes penalties of up to five years in prison.
Because of the pressure from Browder, there has never been a second public showing of
"The Magnitsky Act" but it is possible to see it online at this site .
Bill Browder, who benefited enormously from Russian corruption, has expertly repackaged
himself as a paragon among businessmen, endearing himself to the Russia-haters in Washington
and the media. Curiously, however, he has proven reluctant to testify in cases regarding his
own business dealings. He has, for example, repeatedly
run away , literally, from attempts to subpoena him so he would have to testify under
oath.
When one gets past all of his bluster and posturing, by one significant metric Bill Browder
might well be accounted the most dangerous man in the world. Driven by extreme hatred of Putin
and of Russia, he personally and his Magnitsky Myth have together done more to launch and
sustain a dangerous new Cold War between a nuclear armed United States and a nuclear armed
Russia. Blind to what he has accomplished, he continues to pontificate about how Putin is out
to get him when instead he is the crook who quite likely stole $230 million dollars and should
be facing the consequences. That the U.S. media and Congress appear to be entranced by Browder
and dismissive of Moscow's charges against him is symptomatic of just how far the Russia-phobia
in the West has robbed people of their ability to see what is right in front of them. To
suggest that what is taking place driven by Browder and his friends in high places could well
lead to tragedy for all of us would be an understatement.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based
U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].
Please take a look at the documentary that has been quashed by Bill Browder and his
enablers, as it has not only been nixed in its premiere in many EU countriu, except Norway,
but has been deleted almost immediately when it was made available on YouTube. Now, however,
it is still available on bitchute and has almost 13K hits in almost four days after being
posted (as of this post):
As an aside, Thank you to Robin and S2C for spreading it so that people can make up their
own minds.
A special thanks should be made to Robin and S2S for distributing this film. The video is
almost at 13K as of this posting. We all have to work together in order to reveal the truth.
Perhaps we will benefit in the end, but that is to be determined yet. Nontheless, we must
try!
Sorry the video on bitchute which you have in your presentation was not present when first
losded in my browser, but I must admit from the time I first encountered this video, having
just 38 views until now, almost four days later, at almost 13K views, people are certainly
paying attention!
Please team up with Stranahan in his campaign to make Senators answer the question, "Have
you seen Bill Browder's 2015 deposition in the U.S. vs. Prevazon case?"
Full research sources here , including links to Browder's deposition. See for
yourselves how Browder contradicts himself in depositions, Senate testimony and his book.
Sad, but maybe not for us!
SAME THING HAPPENED WITH THE AL JAZEERA DOCUMENTARY ON ISRAELI LOBBY IN AMERICA
For the past year, Qatar has been under tremendous pressure from other US puppet Gulf states
(SAudi ARabia, UAE, Egypt etc) and from US and Israeli lobby. There was a economic blockade
of Qatar. WHY? Because Al Jazeera was about to release a documentary on Israeli lobby in the
US. Its documentary on Israeli lobby in UK had already been embarassing for zionists.
Because
of the extreme economic pressure put on Qatar and the threat of sanctions and worse, Qatar
(which owns Al Jazeera) shelved the documentary. They also had to grease a lot of zionist
organizations in US.
Not only did the Israeli lobby pressure Qatar into shelving the Al Jazeera documentary on the
lobby in America, they also shook them down for money.
Qatar donated $250,000 to some of the most extreme pro-Israel organizations in the United
States, including one that funds senior Israeli military officers to go on propaganda
tours.
Joseph Allaham, a lobbyist working for the Qatari government, transferred the money through
his firm Lexington Strategies in late 2017 and early 2018.
The sums included $100,000 to the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), $100,000 to Our
Soldiers Speak and $50,000 for Blue Diamond Horizons, Inc.
The USA idea about justice is best expressed by a USA law, allowing an invasion of the
Netherlands, if a USA citizen would be in the The Hague prison of the International
Court.
To liberate this USA citizen.
" far the Russia-phobia in the West has robbed people of their ability to see what is right
in front of them "
Nothing new, in the 30ties Kennan was unable to make USA ambassador Davies see through
Stalin's show trials.
George F. Kennan, ´Memoirs 1925 – 1950', New York 1967, 1972
" American politicians like Senators John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Ben Cardin and
ex-Senator Joe Lieberman "
American? I beg to differ. All of those turncoats serve their Master Israel and kiss
the nether regions of those TBTF Wall Street Casinos.
Browder is one of those nine Russian oligarchs – eight of whom are Jews – who
stole hundreds of billions from Russia when it was decompressing from being the USSR, helped
by the drunken buffoon Yeltsin and a battery of Wall Street financial sharpies who also
filled their pockets.
Watch the tough guy Browder run like a scared bunny rabbit in NYC from a process
server.
Browder needs to be arrested by Interpol, tried, convicted and spend the rest of his sorry
life in a Super Max prison for his thefts, frauds and helping to poison the relationship
between the USA & Russia, in an effort to save his sorry ass from prosecution.
"Central to the tale of what Browder really represents is the Magnitsky Act, which the U.S.
Congress passed into law to sanction individual Kremlin officials for their treatment of
alleged whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, arrested and imprisoned in Russia".
Hmmm. The USA has its whistleblowers, too. Maybe Russia (and other civilized countries)
should impose their own sanctions on all American officials in any way involved with the
persecution of Chelsea Clinton, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and others.
Although the existing US sanctions are a dead letter, since they will not get their hands
on the people they are trying to harm, they still give the world a wholly misleading
impression.
The sanctions insidiously suggest to the people and governments of the world that the US
government is somehow entitled to decide what is legal and what is illegal everywhere –
not just within its own jurisdiction – and moreover that it has the power to be
prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner against any of the world's citizens.
That is wrong, illegal, immoral, and unconscionable, and should not be tolerated.
"Yeltsin had won a fraudulent election in 1996 supported by the oligarch-controlled
media and by President Bill Clinton, who secured a $20.2 billion IMF loan that enabled him
to buy support. Today we would refer to Clinton's action as "interference in the 1996
election," but at that time a helpless and bankrupt Russia was not well placed to object
to what was being done to it."
[emphasis mine]
So Mother Russia was raped, and by Bill Clinton, of all people. Where is the outrage?
Andrei Nekrasov's documentary is absolutely damning – how, after viewing it, could
anybody see Browder as anything but a shameless serial liar? The closest I can find on the internet to a rebuttal is from the Daily Beast:
Ooops, I posted this comment before seeing that this video was already posted above in the
article. I got a link to it from an entirely different source. It shows how it's getting
around! Good.
Although I posted this comment under another thread, I think it bears repeating here
(especially relevant to your point is the bolded part):
I think debunking the vulture capitalist Bill Browder's false claim of being, of all
things, a human rights advocate is the key to unraveling the Russia-gate hoax. I also think
the following information goes a long way in doing that:
1. Nekrasov's documentary, The Magnitsky Act: Behind The Scenes, now available for
viewing
2. Alex Krainer's The Killing of William Browder, now available online; and
3. Bill Browder's Previzon deposition in which he claims "I can't remember" at least 50
times and answers "I don't know" fully 211 times.
Notwithstanding these facts, it appears Mr. Browder is an untouchable. The Russians
have issued a Red Notice at least six times and he has managed to walk away scot free on
each occasion.
The zinger was when the Senate Judiciary Committee invited him to testify as an expert
witness against Fusion GPS, arguing that it should have registered under FARA because it
was working on behalf of a foreign government, in this case the Russian. The irony of this
scene was incredible. The hallowed chamber in which this inquiry took place is completely
bought and paid for by The Lobby but not a peep about having it register under FARA.
Totally surreal!
An interesting thing about this that has gone almost completely unreported is that HSBC
quietly held a series of closed-door meetings with Russian authorities earlier this year
regarding the tax fraud charges leveled at Browder and his businesses (HSBC jointly managed
Hermitage) and decided to pay up some of the cash he illegally siphoned out of the country
(22 million dollars I believe, so a drop in the ocean given the scale of his endeavors, but
it's something.)
"Bill Browder declined to comment" according to one of the few articles on the matter.
Isn't all of that more or less tantamount to an admission of guilt?
(2) How does a respectable congress pass a law based solely on the testimony of someone
convicted of a crime by another country? No jury in the world would reach a verdict based
solely on the word of a convict, without it being substantiated by numerous pieces of other
circumstantial and direct evidence.
(3) Even if he paid everyone oodles of money and brought a thousand lawsuits, why would
gazillionaire corporations cave in to his demands to ban books, movies, organizations,
etc.?
There is something more powerful about Bill Browder than just his pile of money.
In fact, most (not all) US lawmakers long ago became a euphemism for incompetence,
corruption and lies. So, no–modern US Congress is not respectable by people and numbers
reflect that. Hopefully, sometime in the future, some honorable and loyal to their country
people will make it there.
Browder is a Zionist Bolshevik of the stripe that murdered some 60 million Russians from 1917
to 1957 and as such is not only an enemy of Russia but an even greater enemy of America and
is a typical communist who wrecks and destroys countries.
Read THE PROTOCOLS OF ZION, Browder is a poster boy for these thieves and murderers .
The 'Netherlands Invasion Act' is a former fact popularized by Noam Chomsky. The
Netherlands invasion provisions were quietly repealed because it was too embarrassing and
disruptive to US policy. What remains is a prohibition against US assistance to certain
criminal investigations. Putin poked at the same neuralgic spot in Helsinki when he proposed
reciprocity in mutual legal assistance. The issue is US impunity for war propaganda and
coercive interference.
The US government has asserted a specific reservation to the international prohibition of
war propaganda (ICCPR Article 20.) And legal experts are chipping away at the nonsense
rationale behind the US reservation. The US claims it is defending free speech, so Article 19
and other NGOs propose an important distinction:
. Dumb broke Joe Blow with his bumper sticker that says Make Iran a Parking Lot
. Concerted government and media campaigns advocating war.
Only the latter constitutes illegal war propaganda, which is illegal under conventional
international law (UN Charter Article 2(4)), customary international law (E/Conf. 6/C.i/ig of
1948 and other resolutions), and legal precedent (Nuremberg Count 1).
So when Russia gets fed up and decapitates the US regime, Browder will be in the cage at
the war crimes tribunal under the Streicher, Fritzsche, Dietrich, and von Weizsaeker
Nuremberg precedents.
Where is the outrage? You ain't gonna get it from Big Media, who sold out a long time ago.
BM has all but ignored the Clinton Administration collusion with Yeltsin in the Russian 1996
election. It was an, er, "inconvenient truth."
Can someone help me remember the names of those 9 oligarchs?
These are the ones I remember:
1) Anatoly Chubais
2) Browder
3) Boris Berezovsky
4) Mikhail Khodorkovsky
5) Vladimir Gusinsky
Who were the others? Thanks.
Of these 5, Chubais remained in Russia but the others fled. Chubais was the one who was
instrumental in starting the loans-for-shares scheme. My understanding is that those who fled
are real scum, since Putin offered all oligarchs the chance to keep their money so long as
they avoided politics. Most vulture capitalists agreed to this arrangement, but the worst of
the Jewish oligarchs were too greedy and lustful to give in. So I have heard, anyway.
"... Sanders's support for the anti-Russia and anti-Wikileaks campaign is all the more telling because he was himself the victim of efforts by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party leadership to block his 2016 campaign. In June and July 2016, Wikileaks published internal Democratic emails in which officials ridiculed the Sanders campaign, forcing the DNC to issue a public apology: "On behalf of everyone at the DNC, we want to offer a deep and sincere apology to Senator Sanders, his supporters, and the entire Democratic Party for the inexcusable remarks made over email." ..."
"... In the aftermath of his election campaign, Sanders was elevated into a top-level position in the Democratic Party caucus in the US Senate. His first response to the inauguration of Trump was to declare his willingness to "work with" the president, closely tracking remarks of Obama that the election of Trump was part of an "intramural scrimmage" in which all sides were on the same team. As the campaign of the military-intelligence agencies intensifies, however, Sanders is toeing the line. ..."
"... The Sanders campaign did not push the Democrats to the left, but rather the state apparatus of the ruling class brought Sanders in to give a "left" veneer to a thoroughly right-wing party. ..."
"... There is no contradiction between the influx of military-intelligence candidates into the Democratic Party and the Democrats' making use of the services of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez to give the party a "left" cover. Both the CIA Democrats and their pseudo-left "comrades" agree on the most important questions: the defense of the global interests of American imperialism and a more aggressive intervention in the Syrian civil war and other areas where Washington and Moscow are in conflict. ..."
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders appeared on the CBS interview program "Face the Nation"
Sunday and fully embraced the anti-Russia campaign of the US military-intelligence apparatus,
backed by the Democratic Party and much of the media.
In response to a question from CBS host Margaret Brennan, Sanders unleashed a torrent of
denunciations of Trump's meeting and press conference in Helsinki with Russian President
Vladimir Putin. A preliminary transcript reads:
SANDERS: "I will tell you that I was absolutely outraged by his behavior in Helsinki, where
he really sold the American people out. And it makes me think that either Trump doesn't
understand what Russia has done, not only to our elections, but through cyber attacks against
all parts of our infrastructure, either he doesn't understand it, or perhaps he is being
blackmailed by Russia, because they may have compromising information about him.
"Or perhaps also you have a president who really does have strong authoritarian tendencies.
And maybe he admires the kind of government that Putin is running in Russia. And I think all of
that is a disgrace and a disservice to the American people. And we have got to make sure that
Russia does not interfere, not only in our elections, but in other aspects of our lives."
These comments, which echo remarks he gave at a rally in Kansas late last week, signal
Sanders' full embrace of the right-wing campaign launched by the Democrats and backed by
dominant sections of the military-intelligence apparatus. Their opposition to Trump is centered
on issues of foreign policy, based on the concern that Trump, due to his own "America First"
brand of imperialist strategy, has run afoul of geostrategic imperatives that are considered
inviolable -- in particular, the conflict with Russia.
Sanders did not use his time on a national television program to condemn Trump's persecution
of immigrants and the separation of children from their parents, or to denounce his naming of
ultra-right jurist Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, or to attack the White House
declaration last week that the "war on poverty" had ended victoriously -- in order to justify
the destruction of social programs for impoverished working people. Nor did he seek to advance
his supposedly left-wing program on domestic issues like health care, jobs and education.
Sanders' embrace of the anti-Russia campaign is not surprising, but it is instructive. This
is, after all, an individual who presented himself as "left-wing," even a "socialist." During
the 2016 election campaign, he won the support of millions of people attracted to his call for
a "political revolution" against the "billionaire class." For Sanders, who has a long history
of opportunist and pro-imperialist politics in the orbit of the Democratic Party, the aim of
the campaign was always to direct social discontent into establishment channels, culminating in
his endorsement of the campaign of Hillary Clinton.
Sanders's support for the anti-Russia and anti-Wikileaks campaign is all the more
telling because he was himself the victim of efforts by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic
Party leadership to block his 2016 campaign. In June and July 2016, Wikileaks published
internal Democratic emails in which officials ridiculed the Sanders campaign, forcing the DNC
to issue a public apology: "On behalf of everyone at the DNC, we want to offer a deep and
sincere apology to Senator Sanders, his supporters, and the entire Democratic Party for the
inexcusable remarks made over email."
In the aftermath of his election campaign, Sanders was elevated into a top-level
position in the Democratic Party caucus in the US Senate. His first response to the
inauguration of Trump was to declare his willingness to "work with" the president, closely
tracking remarks of Obama that the election of Trump was part of an "intramural scrimmage" in
which all sides were on the same team. As the campaign of the military-intelligence agencies
intensifies, however, Sanders is toeing the line.
The experience is instructive not only in relation to Sanders, but to an entire social
milieu and the political perspective with which it is associated. This is what it means to work
within the Democratic Party. The Sanders campaign did not push the Democrats to the left,
but rather the state apparatus of the ruling class brought Sanders in to give a "left" veneer
to a thoroughly right-wing party.
New political figures, many associated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are
being brought in for the same purpose. As Sanders gave his anti-Russia rant, Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez sat next to him nodding her agreement. The 28-year-old member of the DSA last
month won the Democratic nomination in New York's 14th Congressional District, unseating the
Democratic incumbent, Joseph Crowley, the fourth-ranking member of the Democratic leadership in
the House of Representatives.
Since then, Ocasio-Cortez has been given massive and largely uncritical publicity by the
corporate media, summed up in an editorial puff piece by the New York Times that
described her as "a bright light in the Democratic Party who has brought desperately needed
energy back to New York politics "
Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders were jointly interviewed from Kansas, where the two appeared
Friday at a campaign rally for James Thompson, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the
US House of Representatives from the Fourth Congressional District, based in Wichita, in an
August 7 primary election.
Thompson might appear to be an unusual ally for the "socialist" Sanders and the DSA member
Ocasio-Cortez. His campaign celebrates his role as an Army veteran, and his website opens under
the slogan "Join the Thompson Army," followed by pledges that the candidate will "Fight for
America." In an interview with the Associated Press, Thompson indicated that despite his
support for Sanders' call for "Medicare for all," and his own endorsement by the DSA, he was
wary of any association with socialism. "I don't like the term socialist, because people do
associate that with bad things in history," he said.
Such anticommunism fits right in with the anti-Russian campaign, which is the principal
theme of the Democratic Party in the 2018 elections. As the World Socialist Web
Site has pointed out for many months, the
real thrust of the Democratic Party campaign is demonstrated by its recruitment as
congressional candidates of dozens of former CIA and military intelligence agents, combat
commanders from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and war planners from the Pentagon, State
Department and White House.
There is no contradiction between the influx of military-intelligence candidates into
the Democratic Party and the Democrats' making use of the services of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez
to give the party a "left" cover. Both the CIA Democrats and their pseudo-left "comrades" agree
on the most important questions: the defense of the global interests of American imperialism
and a more aggressive intervention in the Syrian civil war and other areas where Washington and
Moscow are in conflict.
At the now-famous Helsinki press conference with Presidents Trump and Putin the name of a
former US businessman, Bill Browder, came up as a person of interest to the Russian president.
Let's make a deal, he said: you can come to Moscow and question the 12 GRU officers you accuse
of hacking the DNC computers and we'll question Bill Browder and a group of other businessmen
who had done business in Moscow. And the former US ambassador to Moscow. While the usual
suspects shrieked at such a deal, many wondered what was wrong with trying to get to the bottom
of the indictments and "Russiagate."
So what's the deal with Browder? RPI's Daniel McAdams spoke to RT America about the former
hedge fund operator who reportedly gave up his US citizenship to avoid US taxes and is wanted
in Moscow for tax avoidance...
"... The Mueller special counsel investigation was launched to probe charges that the key FBI officials developing evidence in the case thought were baseless. That's a bombshell accusation that appears to have been confirmed by former FBI lawyer Lisa Page , according to John Solomon . It tends to confirm the suspicion that the Mueller probe is a cover-up operation to obscure the criminal use of counterintelligence capabilities to spy on a rival presidential campaign and then sabotage the presidency that resulted. ..."
"... she offered a bombshell confirmation of the meaning of one of the most enigmatic text messages that the public has seen (keep in mind that there are many yet to be released). ..."
"... The truth behind the Mueller probe is looking uglier and uglier. Pursuing bogus accusations without foundation is the very definition of a witch hunt – President Trump's term for Mueller's team of Hillary-supporters. ..."
"... We don't know anything at all about the activities of Utah U.S. attorney Peter Huber , who is investigating the potential abuse of U.S. intelligence apparatus for political purposes. That is the proper procedure for grand jury probes. But if Lisa Page is honestly answering questions under oath for a congressional committee, she probably is doing so in grand jury sessions, if summoned. ..."
The Mueller special counsel investigation was launched to probe charges that the key FBI
officials developing evidence in the case thought were baseless. That's a bombshell accusation
that appears to have been confirmed by former FBI lawyer Lisa Page , according to John Solomon
. It tends to confirm the suspicion that the Mueller probe is a cover-up operation to obscure
the criminal use of counterintelligence capabilities to spy on a rival presidential campaign
and then sabotage the presidency that resulted.
Earlier reports indicated that Page has been answering questions from the House Judiciary
Committee quite frankly and may even have
cut a deal selling out her ex-lover Peter Strzok over their professional misbehavior (and
quite possibly worse) in targeting the campaign and presidency of Donald Trump with the
intelligence-gathering tools of the FBI.
Last night, John Solomon of
The Hill revealed that he has obtained information from sources who heard Page's testimony
in two days of sworn depositions behind closed doors that she offered a bombshell
confirmation of the meaning of one of the most enigmatic text messages that the public has seen
(keep in mind that there are many yet to be released).
[T]here are just five words, among the thousands of suggestive texts Page and Strzok
exchanged, that you should read.
That passage was transmitted on May 19, 2017. "There's no big there there," Strzok
texted.
The date of the text long has intrigued investigators: It is two days after Deputy
Attorney General Rod
Rosenstein
named special counselRobert Mueller to oversee an investigation
into alleged collusion between Trump and the Russia campaign.
Since the text was turned over to Congress, investigators wondered whether it referred to
the evidence against the Trump campaign.
This month, they finally got the chance to ask. Strzok declined to say – but Page,
during a closed-door interview with lawmakers, confirmed in the most pained and contorted way
that the message in fact referred to the quality of the Russia case, according to multiple
eyewitnesses.
The admission is deeply consequential. It means Rosenstein unleashed the most awesome
powers of a special counsel to investigate an allegation that the key FBI officials, driving
the investigation for 10 months beforehand, did not think was "there."
The truth behind the Mueller probe is looking uglier and uglier. Pursuing bogus
accusations without foundation is the very definition of a witch hunt – President Trump's
term for Mueller's team of Hillary-supporters.
We don't know anything at all about the activities of Utah U.S. attorney Peter Huber ,
who is
investigating the potential abuse of U.S. intelligence apparatus for political purposes.
That is the proper procedure for grand jury probes. But if Lisa Page is honestly answering
questions under oath for a congressional committee, she probably is doing so in grand jury
sessions, if summoned.
The glacial pace of this probe is frustrating for Trump-supporters. But doing it right and
observing the ethical and legal constraints takes time and does not generate leaks.
Nevertheless, I am deeply encouraged by this leak to Solomon, as it seems to indicate that the
truth will come out.
Appearing on Hannity last night, Solomon elaborated: watch video
here .
"... The wing of the Democratic Party that looks for the dollars instead of the votes is called "The Third Way" and it presents itself as representing the supposedly vast political center, nothing "extremist" or "marginal." But didn't liberal Republicanism go out when Nelson Rockefeller did? Conservative Democrats are like liberal Republicans -- they attract flies and billionaires, but not many votes. And didn't the Rockefeller drug laws fill our prisons with millions of pathetic drug-users and small drug-dealers but not with the kingpins in either the narcotics business or the bankster rackets (such as had crashed the economy in 2008 -- and the Third Way Democrat who had been the exceptional politician and liar that was so slick he actually did attract many votes, President Barack Obama, told the banksters privately, on 27 March 2009, "I'm not out there to go after you. I'm protecting you." And, he did keep his promise to them, though not to his voters .) ..."
"... They want another Barack Obama. There aren't any more of those (unless, perhaps, Michelle Obama enters the contest). But, even if there were: How many Democrats would fall for that scam, yet again -- after the disaster of 2016? ..."
"... Maybe the Third Way is right, and there's a sucker born every minute. But if that's what the Democratic Party is going to rely upon, then America's stunningly low voter-participation rate is set to plunge even lower, because even more voters than before will either be leaving the Presidential line blank, or even perhaps voting for the Republican candidate (as some felt driven to do in 2016). ..."
"... Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010 , and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity . He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. ..."
The wing of the Democratic Party that looks for the dollars instead of the votes is
called "The Third Way" and it presents itself as representing the supposedly vast political
center, nothing "extremist" or "marginal." But didn't liberal Republicanism go out when Nelson
Rockefeller did? Conservative Democrats are like liberal Republicans -- they attract flies and
billionaires, but not many votes. And didn't the Rockefeller drug laws fill our prisons with
millions of pathetic drug-users and small drug-dealers but not with the kingpins in either the
narcotics business or the bankster rackets (such as had crashed the economy in 2008 -- and the
Third Way Democrat who had been the exceptional politician and liar that was so slick he
actually did attract many votes, President Barack Obama, told the banksters privately, on 27
March 2009, "I'm not out there to go after you.
I'm protecting you." And, he did
keep his promise to them, though not to his voters .)
They're at it, yet again. On July 22nd, NBC News's Alex Seitz-Wald headlined
"Sanders' wing of the party terrifies moderate Dems. Here's how they plan to stop it." And
he described what was publicly available from the 3-day private meeting in Columbus Ohio of The
Third Way, July 18-20, the planning conference between the Party's chiefs and its billionaires.
Evidently, they hate Bernie Sanders and are already scheming and spending in order to block
him, now a second time, from obtaining the Party's Presidential nomination. "Anxiety has
largely been kept to a whisper among the party's moderates and big donors, with some of the
major fundraisers pressing operatives on what can be done to stop the Vermonter if he runs for
the White House again." This passage in Seitz-Wald's article was especially striking to me:
The gathering here was an effort to offer an attractive alternative to the rising
Sanders-style populist left in the upcoming presidential race. Where progressives see a rare
opportunity to capitalize on an energized Democratic base, moderates see a better chance to
win over Republicans turned off by Trump.
The fact that a billionaire real estate developer, Winston Fisher, cohosted the event
and addressed attendees twice, underscored that this group is not interested in the class
warfare vilifying the "millionaires and billionaires" found in Sanders' stump speech.
"You're not going to make me hate somebody just because they're rich. I want to be
rich!" Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, a potential presidential candidate, said Friday to
laughs.
I would reply to congressman Ryan's remark: If you want to be rich, then get the hell out of
politics! Don't run for President! I don't want you there! And that's no joke!
Anyone who doesn't recognize that an inevitable trade-off exists between serving the public
and serving oneself, is a libertarian -- an Ayn Rander, in fact -- and there aren't many of
those in the Democratic Party, but plenty of them are in the Republican Party.
Just as a clergyman in some faiths is supposed to take a vow of chastity, and in some faiths
also to take a vow of poverty, in order to serve "the calling" instead of oneself, anyone who
enters 'public service' and who aspires to "be rich" is inevitably inviting corruption
-- not prepared to do war against it . That kind of politician is a Manchurian
candidate, like Obama perhaps, but certainly not what this or any country needs, in any case.
Voters like that can be won only by means of deceit, which is the way that politicians like
that do win.
No decent political leader enters or stays in politics in order to "be rich," because no
political leader can be decent who isn't in it as a calling, to public service, and as a
repudiation, of any self-service in politics.
Republican Party voters invite corrupt government, because their Party's ideology is
committed to it ("Freedom [for the rich]!"); but the only Democratic Party voters who at all
tolerate corrupt politicians (such as Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York State) are actually
Republican Democrats -- people who are confused enough so as not really to care much about what
they believe; whatever their garbage happens to be, they believe in it and don't want to know
differently than it.
The Third Way is hoping that there are
enough of such 'Democrats' so that they can, yet again, end up with a Third Way Democrat being
offered to that Party's voters in 2020, just like happened in 2016. They want another Barack
Obama. There aren't any more of those (unless, perhaps, Michelle Obama enters the contest).
But, even if there were: How many Democrats would fall for that scam, yet again -- after the
disaster of 2016?
Maybe the Third Way is right, and there's a sucker born every minute. But if that's what the
Democratic Party is going to rely upon, then America's stunningly low voter-participation rate
is set to plunge even lower, because even more voters than before will either be leaving the
Presidential line blank, or even perhaps voting for the Republican candidate (as some felt
driven to do in 2016).
The Third Way is the way to the death of democracy, if it's not already dead . It is no answer
to anything, except to the desires of billionaires -- both Republican and Democratic.
The center of American politics isn't the center of America's aristocracy. The goal
of groups such as The Third Way is to fool the American public to equate the two. The
result of such groups is the contempt that America's
public have for America's Government . But, pushed too far, mass disillusionment becomes
revolution. Is that what America's billionaires are willing to risk? They might get it.
Attached is the URL for the Nekrasov film on Browder. The producer tells me it is an illegal
pirate copy but I assured him I would buy a copy if it ever became available in Canada and he
seemed to be happy with that. He tells me "There is an upcoming proper release."
Some background. You've all heard the story: Browder hired a smart Moscow lawyer to
investigate a crime. Said lawyer, Sergey Magnitskiy, discovers that two policemen and some
thieves-in-law have managed to steal a quarter of a billion dollars from the Russian state
pretending to be Browder companies. Magnitskiy goes to the police to complain, is arrested,
tortured and beaten to death in prison. Browder has been going around the world, telling this
story over and over again and getting laws passed to sanction Russians. The story is a very
important part of the foundation of the anti-Russian house.
The film-maker Andrey Nekrasov, who has made several anti-Putin documentaries, is attracted
to the story, completely believing Browder. The first 30 minutes of the documentary are him
interviewing Browder and, through actors, running the movie as Browder says it.
But, he noticed an anomaly in the story: how can six lumpy cops plus truncheons fit into the
tiny cell to beat Magnitskiy to death. He starts pulling on that thread; he finds others, pulls
on them, and the entire sweater Browder has knitted falls apart.
Very much worth watching because it not only exposes a very important lie, every repetition
of which brings us a step closer to becoming radioactive dust, but also does it in a rather
thrilling way as the sweater is unravelled. So, apart from anything else, it's a good
mystery.
Two things we learn: 1) that everybody who has "investigated" the story has accepted
everything Browder has said without the slightest questioning 2) the whole story depends on
people being unable to read Russian so that when Browder shows them a document they are unable
to see that it doesn't actually say what Browder is telling them it says.
Also note the German "human rights expert" who is uninterested in mere details.
Oh. Magnitskiy was the "the smartest lawyer in Moscow" and specially hired by Browder to
investigate; he was actually an accountant who worked for Browder for years.
So, if you watch this, make a mental note to buy it so that the film team get the royalties
they deserve.
Thanks for this.
For those wanting background, here are some links.
Too much to comment on, but do notice that Steve Coll's 2012 article
in nyer supports passing the Magnitsky Act, while Obama opposed it.
Coll refers to Magnitsky as an attorney, which in fact Magnitsky never was.
Without knowing a ton about this character something always seemed off about this guy and
his story just on spec. So it was somewhat entertaining when Browder was invited to speak
at my uncle's PE firm for their Xmas party in Manhattan last year. I told him a little of
the back story, of which I admittedly knew only the broad strokes, and asked him for his
take after the party. He's not a geopolitics kind of guy but he had a similar reaction.
Said Browder had an "odd" vibe and seemed like he was more providing a marketing pitch
than a personal narrative. But most of the other bankers seemed impressed with the PR
from what I could gather from him, for what it's worth.
- In a 1997 New York Times profile, Browder, who at the time aligned his investments
with Yukos oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, defended the way Yukos stripped investors
into one of its subsidiaries to enrich the Yukos parent company. Browder crowed: "When a
company does terrible things to the subsidiary, I would rather be on the side with the
power."
- In 2003, Browder backed Putin's authoritarian power and his decision to arrest
Khodorkovsky, saying, "A nice, well-run authoritarian regime is better than an oligarchic
mafia regime -- and those are the choices on offer."
- The day after Khodorkovsky's arrest, Browder scoffed: "People will forget in six months
that Khodorkovsky is still sitting in jail."
- When Putin put Khodorkovsky on trial 2005, Browder attacked the jailed oligarch for the
same asset-stripping Browder supported and profited from, telling the BBC: "Mr
Khodorkovsky is no martyr. He has left in his wake aggrieved investors too numerous to
count and is widely credited with masterminding much of the financial trickery that
plagued the Russian capital markets throughout the 1990s."
- That same year, Browder told the New York Times, "Putin cares about foreign investors;
he just doesn't care about them enough to allow one oligarch to use his ill-gotten gains
to hijack the state for his own economic purposes."
I happened to just watch the documentary earlier today. The reaction and mentality of the
German 'Green' MP is priceless, completely blinkered. I just wonder whether we have been,
or ever will be given the full story on what happened in 90s Russia, with the involvement
of Edmumd Safra and his Republic National Bank of New York, the Clinton Administration,
organised crime and people like Browder. Putin was a hate figure in the West pretty early
on and it dovetails with his moves against such characters.
The is question about whether that information was classified was really important, but if take classification at face value Clinton
and her associated are guilty in obstruction of justice...
DAAAAAMMMNNN ... IT ... COMEY IS A LIAR ... DAMN IM SICK OF THIS BASTARD LYING !!! ... HE HAS BROKEN THE LAW BIG TIME ... HES
GOING TO BE UNDER THE JAIL !!! ... SON OF BITCH ... LET ONE OF US EVEN TRY TO THINK ABOUT BREAKING ONE OF THOSE CRIMES WE WOULD
BE IN GITMO ... WHAT THE F
Please write to the DOJ fellow Trump Supporter.. Here is a link you send the request to Attorney General.. I have been asking
for a Special Prosuctor to look into Hillary/Comey Hillary Clinton Foundation/Podesta / Russia (He had ties to Russia) And Obama
Hello They are all so damn corrupt.
This is seriously PISSING ME OFF!!!!!!!!!! James Comey is a lying bastard and needs to be fired immediately!!! He is either involved
or completely paid off!
AMERICANS JAMES COMEY WORKED FOR THE CLINTON FOUNDATION BEFORE HE WAS DIRECTOR OF FBI . DOES THIS EXPLAIN ANYTHING IN THAT NOGGIN
? I AM TALKING TO THE LIBTARDS . I WONDER HOW HE GOT HIS PROMOTION ? HHHHHMMMM
Comey's entire testimony and the whole of this investigation is a complete farce and he's made a mockery of one of the highest
and most elite law enforcement agencies in our nation as a result. WHY he is still the director of the FBI is beyond me... his
credibility was obliterated with this ONE case and he will NEVER regain it. As far as most Americans are concerned, everything
that comes out of the FBI and/or Comey's mouth is as worthless as shit on the bottom of your shoe.
+Brian Cunningham -- President Trump is doing HIS OWN job.. running the country. THIS is the job of the Justice department.
IF Comey is "committing perjury", then the Justice Department - NOT the President - will deal with him. Meanwhile, the
hearings have to be completed first . QUIT saying that Trump "isn't doing his job, as he IS. Not every function of our
government is *President TRUMP'S job!!*
*I give up*. Clueless....... +Brian Cunningham , PLEASE learn how our government works. Stay in school - or use the Internet in
front of you to learn something - like, how our government works, for example... that's a start... Please. Please!
+Frank Marshall -- Exactly -- I reported the title as misleading.. Go up above where it says "more"..click, and "report" comes
up. The click bait false titles (and this one is slanderous towards Congressman Gowdy) will NOT stop until enough people
get to reporting them and the uploader is warned to stop it by You Tube themselves... things like that and the filthy language
people use in comments in general. It's ALL out of hand..thus I started reporting it all. It HAS to start somewhere to shut it
down. Take care, have a good week!
In 2015 the Clinton Foundation had $225 million and 2000 employees. The decision to suspend future operations is blamed on (mostly
foreign) unfulfilled donor pledges . I wonder why? The layoff of 22 employees recently made headlines. Gonna be a lot of screaming
for termination bonus' from the rest. Any wagers they'll fall on deaf ears?
Are you kidding me. They and that is the Clintons,Comey should be put in prison then the will follow. Different strokes for different
folks that is what is destroying this country. The big shoots can do whatever they want. If it was the regular Joey they would
have been imprisoned long ago.......thats why this country is crumbles. No rule of law. Well there is for the regular citizens
but not are voted in politicians they can do whatever they want why Illinois sucks.
Wow - Comey, the guy that fixed Hillary's email problem has an urgent centrist plea.
"Democrats, please, please don't lose your minds and rush to the socialist left. This
president and his Republican Party are counting on you to do exactly that. America's great
middle wants sensible, balanced, ethical leadership."
Jimmy Dore: [Debbie say that ] "I eat the left Twix first", pretending that one identical
side is different from other. Both sides brought to her by same corporation."
There is no price to pay if you lie in defense of the US neoliberal establishment
Notable quotes:
"... I can't believe she beat Canova. There's some fuckery going on there. ..."
ABOUT THE JIMMY DORE SHOW:
The Jimmy Dore Show is a hilarious and irreverent take on news, politics and culture featuring
Jimmy Dore, a professional stand up comedian, author and podcaster. With over 5 million
downloads on iTunes, the show is also broadcast on KPFK stations throughout the country. It is
part of the Young Turks Network-- the largest online news show in the world.
It was Debbie who headed the corruption of the 2016 presidential primary with fraud and
vote rigging to keep Bernie from the presidency. It was Debbie's corruption that handed the
presidency to Trump. Debbie belongs in prison for election rigging and treason. Russia is
being investigated yet Debbie is not? Why?
What's new. The Dems courted moderate Republicans over progressives, rigged primaries,
disinfranchised half the base, colluded with the media to elevate Trump & lost in the
general for supporting NAFTA & TPP and not campaigning in rust belt. On top of that, they
blamed Russia, caused mass hysteria and public discontent to avoid taking responsibility.
I wouldn't be surprised. Schultz IS a Republican. There's TONS of Republicans in the
democratic party. They did the divide and conquer method. And it worked
Wasserman is a horrible and crooked and evil person, take her down take her down she will
scream loudly, she knows where many many bones are buried, she is an extension of
HRC
Insightful but who do you believe?? James does make many good points but without confirmation from another or two people, i.m
just wondering who is telling the truth. Still something fishy here and I think both parties are full of BS and probably James
as well. But only time will tell when historians can weed through all the smoke and mirrors
This is an interesting read. In years gone I wouldn't have been interested but the current political climate in the US is such
that I felt it worth a read. The polarity in the system and its players appears beyond what I'd expected and while there appears
to be corruption in most systems, it's amazing the Americans have been able to present an appearance of decency and leadership
this long. I guess the vail is down now and the current administration is showing just how broken and morally bankrupt the place
is and has been for a long time.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, the desire for power corrupts the very fabric of humanity
I think the title says it all, Comey has only one true loyalty and that is to himself. I enjoyed this book. It was insightful
trip through the mind of a psychopath. His deviations from procedure, his lies, half truths and lawyerisms litter the book and
highlight the forces that have corrupted this nation and agencies we rely on.
Its clear that Comey did not act independently but with the tacit guidance and approval of those above him. He makes no admission
of guilt about his demonstrated lies, but rathers blames others. His self inflated ego is too commonplace to those who have worked
in Washington DC among various political agencies and dens where politicians and their allies lurk. The book betrays no empathy
for those he shamelessly prosecuted. The book is laden with attempts at manipulation through lies, half truths, and gross distortions.
On one hand I highly recommend this book because it is sure to become the "textbook" on psychopaths and their characteristics.
On the other hand this book serves as a cautionary warning about ambition run wild, corruption at the highest levels of government,
the abuse of power. No author could pen such a novel. As an exhibit it ranks with 1984 as a warning of what evil men do in the
name of "a higher good."
This is a lying, childish, self-serving, narcissistic, money grab from a partisan author who can't even keep his story straight.
His interviews contradict his book and this book is probably illegal in that it talks about an ongoing sham "investigation" that
isn't even an investigation, it's an investigation to find something to investigate.
I went into this book with an open mind after seeing Mr Comey on alot of the morning shows. I didn't like the way he seemed
to be trying to be "holier than thou" regardless of which political he was answering to. It did, in the other hand, explain what
he was thinking on some of his decisions on some of the moves he made during the election season. But truly it just read like
he was making a lot of excuses and sour grapes. I didn't enjoy this book at all. I had to force myself to finish it. I just didn't
think it was very well written.
There is no moral high ground in this book as much as its author would like to claim that he is on it
If you read the "Author's Note" on the first page of this book, it will tell you all you need to know about this smug arrogant
self righteous man. It reads, "WHO AM I TO TELL others what ethical leadership is?" If you read the book, you may come to the
same conclusion as I did. There is no moral high ground in this book as much as its author would like to claim that he is on it.
You could read that first sentence and be done with it and you would get as much out of the book without reading more.
Just a book filled with Hatred of a former employee. The people who defend this guy are the same people who accused him of
violating the Hatch Act when he announced a few days prior to the election that the FBI was reopening the Clinton email investigation.
I must admit I was touched at nearly drawn to tears when he details the lost of his newborn son. However that does not change
the fact that Comey is a liar. James Comey:'I don't leak.'(In a memo that he leaked.)
This book is second only to What Happened by Hillary Clinton in self-serving drivel. It started out interesting enough with
Cindy's work history, but once he got to the subject of his (supposed) interactions with President Trump, it was downhill from
there. It will be interesting to see what he has to say now in light of the FBI's possible spying on the Trump campaign. I'm just
glad I read it in Overdrive and didn't waste my own money.
A higher loyalty would be to the country - not the ego of a sad individual that hates the president. Love him or hate him the
president is leading the country in a direction that shows promise. The electorate can throw him out after 4 years, just like
it rejected the previous 8 years. In the meantime all Americans should be praying for the president's success and the success
of the country. That's loyalty......
Don't waste your money, Jim wants go for sainthood
Comey is extremely bright, and knows how ( or thinks he does) how to convince his readers he is one step down from sainthood.
I am not that naieve. He could have done away with the first ten chapters, where he was born and what he wore growing up was irrelevant.
I knew what he was doing. It annoyed me. He is absolutely blameless in everything.
Having dinner with Donald ALONE four times, making sure he made a EXTENDIVE note of it and gave it to another " means nothing.
The head of the FBI does NOT meet with the president alone. Saying he did not know what to do each time insults my intelligence.
He is sport on correct what he wrote " in my opinion " about Trump, but, everyone knew all this and it was on the last 4 chapters.
Jim wanted to tell his story, simple as that. Don't waste your money, I did there is not one thing that you do not already
know, if you know politicks .
I really liked the first part of this book, learning about Comey and his background. At some point though, he started to rationalize
and justify his actions and seemed to get on a high horse about defending the reputation of the FBI no matter what. I disagree
with the premise that the honor of the FBI is more important than truth and integrity.
Comey explains that he did the things he did for the greater good of the FBI. Look where we are now. By his actions alone,
Trump won the election and is now daily attacking the FBI and the DOJ. Is this the outcome Comey really wanted? And where is he
beloved FBI's reputation now?
Comey is an excellent writer. No errors or mistakes and a very readable book. He has a sense of humor, but is a little full
of himself. When he got into the rationalization of his actions, I couldn't take it anymore and stopped reading.
I really didn't enjoy this book very much. Only the last two chapters were addressed to the problems with Trump. The rest of
the book was rather boring, mainly talking about how his career progressed, etc. If I had known what this book contained I would
never have bought it. Comey's many TV interviews were misleading in what the majority of the content was. I do not recommend this
book at all.
So the DNC announced Russia hacked them, and "proved" it with a file they say was
stolen. But that file was not the DNC's. So the "proof" of Russia hacking the DNC is
nonexistent.
Notable quotes:
"... they cite an anonymous former DNC official who asserts that Guccifer 2.0's first document (the Trump opposition report) did not originate in the DNC as initially reported. ..."
"... The importance of this contradiction, combined with earlier allegations of hacking the DNC made by Guccifer 2.0, cannot be overstated. ..."
"... " There were signs of dishonesty from the start. The first document Guccifer 2.0 published on June 15 came not from the DNC as advertised but from Podesta's inbox, according to a former DNC official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press." ..."
"... By classifying Guccifer 2.0's claim to have obtained the Trump Opposition Report through a breach of the DNC as a sign of dishonesty, the Associated Press uses the Guccifer 2.0 persona's widely held claim as an example of contradiction with their new version of the 'official' Russian hacking narrative. In so doing, the AP makes the hacking allegations entirely nebulous: a fantasy narrative that can be neither proven nor disproven but easily edited and rearranged when convenient. Incredibly, the AP's article also contradicts the claims made by the DNC themselves, and so-called papers of record, including the Washington Post. ..."
"... [Fancy Bear] broke into the network in late April and targeted the opposition research files. It was this breach that set off the alarm. The hackers stole two files,[Shawn] Henry said." ..."
"... "Investigators would have been able to rapidly determine if there were textual differences between Guccifer 2.0's document and the DNC's. If there were no textual differences, an initial determination might have been difficult, because Guccifer 2.0 went to some trouble to obscure internal metadata, known as Revision Save ID's (RSID's), which can be used to uniquely identify sections of text that have been changed and added into a Word document. However, when the Podesta emails were published in October 2016, investigators should have been able to source Guccifer 2.0's document to the Podesta emails quickly. They would have been able to do this before the 2016 election, a full year ahead of the AP report." [Emphasis Added] ..."
"... Ultimately, it is the DNC's claim that they were breached by Russian hackers, who stole the Trump opposition report, which directly belies their allegation - because the document did not come from the DNC, but from John Podesta's emails. ..."
"... What is interesting here is that the AP admits that such elements of the document's publication had been fabricated, but did not then follow that realization by questioning other possibly fabricated elements of the documents, such as the Russian-language error messages. The AP certainly did not concern themselves with why a Russian state-sponsored hacker would benefit from airbrushing "confidential" onto such a report. Their claim that it was to attract media attention seems quite weak. ..."
"... AP surmised that Guccifer 2.0 "air-brush[ed]" the word "confidential" into the document to "catch the reporter's attention." Both Carter and the Forensicator have explained that Guccifer 2.0 used a complex process, involving an intermediate template document, to inject this "alluring" fake. The Forensicator told this author that they take the position that this intermediate template file (ostensibly needed to add "CONFIDENTIAL" to the document) had an additional purpose. ..."
"... The Forensicator explained that, for some readers and researchers, the copy/paste of an intermediate (RTF) copy of the Trump opposition report into a template document might be interpreted simply as an unconventional method for injecting "confidential" into 1.doc. However, the Forensicator added, it can also be interpreted as a "cover" for the final copy/paste operation which was a necessary step in the evolution of Guccifer 2.0's first document. It was needed to embed the Russian error messages into the final document (1.doc). ..."
"... In their full analysis, the Forensicator wrote that it was surprising that neither outlet reported on the easily viewed "Last Saved By" property, which listed "Феликс Эдмундович" (aka "Iron Felix") as the user who last saved the document. This unique name was noticed by various social media observers that same day and by Ars Technica the following day. How did the journalists miss this, and why? ..."
"... Both Gawker and The Smoking Gun published Guccifer 2.0's Trump opposition report in full as a PDF file. Their PDF files have the now infamous Cyrillic error messages in them; they appear in the last few pages of their PDF files. Ars Technica dubbed these error messages, "Russian fingerprints." ..."
"... Ars Technica reported on Guccifer 2.0's publication of the Trump Opposition Report the day after Guccifer 2.0 arrived on the scene. They quickly noted that there were Russian language error messages in the PDF file posted by Gawker. They also noticed that when they viewed 1.doc themselves, they didn't see the Russian error messages. The Forensicator told Disobedient Media that this was because Ars Technica used Word for Windows, which displayed the error messages in English. ..."
"... So the DNC announced Russia hacked them, and "proved" it with a file they say was stolen.But that file was not the DNC's. So the "proof" of Russia hacking the DNC is nonexistent. ..."
Disobedient Media recently reported on discoveries made by the Forensicator in their report,
Media Mishaps: Early Guccifer 2 Coverage . In our previous coverage of the Forensicator's work,
we discussed the essential role played by the media in ensuring that the Guccifer 2.0 persona
received wide recognition by successfully linking Guccifer 2.0's documents with the DNC's
claims that Russian state-sponsored hackers had breached their servers.
This report will focus on an unreported story: After the fact, the DNC quietly changed an
important theme in their Russian hacking narrative. Initially, the DNC passively supported the
notion that Guccifer 2.0 stole a copy of a Trump opposition report by penetrating the DNC at
the behest of the Russian state. Then over a year later, an un-named ex-DNC official tells us
that this document in fact came from Podesta's emails, not the DNC. This single statement by a
DNC official invalidated the circumstantial evidence that had been used to support the DNC's
Russian hacking claims, and represents a groundbreaking contradiction that has gone unobserved
by establishment press outlets.
This report will also discuss numerous mistakes made by various legacy press outlets in
their obsessive focus on the Russian hacking narrative and their rush to judgment in the
matter.
A Late (and Quiet) Change in the DNC Russian Hacking Narrative
In November 2017, the DNC changed their Russian hacking narrative via their proxies in the
legacy media. The Associated Press published, Inside story: How Russians hacked the
Democrats' emails ; they cite an anonymous former DNC official who asserts that Guccifer
2.0's first document (the Trump opposition report) did not originate in the DNC as initially
reported.
The importance of this contradiction, combined with earlier allegations of hacking
the DNC made by Guccifer 2.0, cannot be overstated.
The Associated Press wrote in November 2017:
" There were signs of dishonesty from the start. The first document Guccifer 2.0
published on June 15 came not from the DNC as advertised but from Podesta's inbox, according to
a former DNC official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to
speak to the press."
By classifying Guccifer 2.0's claim to have obtained the Trump Opposition Report through a
breach of the DNC as a sign of dishonesty, the Associated Press uses the Guccifer 2.0
persona's widely held claim as an example of contradiction with their new version of the
'official' Russian hacking narrative. In so doing, the AP makes the hacking allegations
entirely nebulous: a fantasy narrative that can be neither proven nor disproven but easily
edited and rearranged when convenient. Incredibly, the AP's article also contradicts the claims
made by the DNC themselves, and so-called papers of record, including the Washington Post.
By returning to the genesis of the Russian hacking narrative, we find that the AP's November
report runs contrary to the DNC's initial claims, as reported by The Washington Post , in an
article titled, Russian Government Hackers Penetrated DNC, Stole Opposition Research OnTrump . When reviewing this early history of the matter, it becomes clear that it is
logically impossible to separate the Guccifer 2.0 persona from the allegations of a
Kremlin-backed hack of the DNC. Critical statements in that initial report by the Washington
Post are highlighted below for emphasis:
"Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National
Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP Presidential
candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to
the breach
[Fancy Bear] broke into the network in late April and targeted the opposition research
files. It was this breach that set off the alarm. The hackers stole two files,[Shawn] Henry
said."
By taking this later (2017) stance, the Associated Press contradicts the "official" Russian
hacking narrative involving Guccifer 2.0 (as implied by the DNC's own security firm) and which
had, until that point, been characterized by the corporate press as
Russian-hacking-gospel-truth. By seamlessly excising Guccifer 2.0 from culpability within a new
timeline of events, the Associated Press makes the entire hacking story a fantasy narrative
that can be neither proven nor disproven but must not be questioned.
The Forensicator explained to Disobedient Media:
"Investigators would have been able to rapidly determine if there were textual
differences between Guccifer 2.0's document and the DNC's. If there were no textual
differences, an initial determination might have been difficult, because Guccifer 2.0 went to
some trouble to obscure internal metadata, known as Revision Save ID's (RSID's), which can be
used to uniquely identify sections of text that have been changed and added into a Word
document. However, when the Podesta emails were published in October 2016, investigators should
have been able to source Guccifer 2.0's document to the Podesta emails quickly. They would have
been able to do this before the 2016 election, a full year ahead of the AP report."
[Emphasis Added]
The Forensicator then referred this author to a table in his report, depicting the metadata
for Podesta's version of the Trump opposition report:
As we can see, the document was saved by Tony Carrk, who worked as Research Director for
Hillary for America at the time. This document was attached to this Podesta email .
The Forensicator continued, saying: "We can see that Mr. Carrk made some change that took
less than one minute to complete. If investigators compared Carrk's version of the document to
the original DNC document, they should have been able to quickly determine that Guccifer 2's
document is sourced from Podesta's emails and not directly from the DNC. For this, an RSID
correlation would have probably been telling."
Why did the DNC, their security consultant firm Crowdstrike, and government investigators
wait so long to tell us that Guccifer 2.0 did not obtain their copy of the Trump opposition
report directly from the DNC? Why did Crowdstrike tell the Washington Post
that the opposition report files had been stolen specifically from the DNC network if that were
not the case?
The legacy press chorus had initially linked Guccifer 2.0's first document, and the "Russian
fingerprints" therein to the Trump opposition report that the DNC claimed to have been stolen
by Russian state-sponsored hackers. What prompted them to change their story, contradicting not
only Guccifer 2.0 but the DNC themselves? Should we now assess the DNC's claim that the
document had been taken by Russian hackers to be untrue?
Ultimately, it is the DNC's claim that they were breached by Russian hackers, who stole
the Trump opposition report, which directly belies their allegation - because the document did
not come from the DNC, but from John Podesta's emails.
Is it possible that Mueller's investigation may have taken a closer look into the origin of
Guccifer 2.0's initial document, realizing that it was sourced from Podesta's email? The DNC
and government investigators may have then decided that the best way to obscure the resulting
contradictory evidence was by letting it quietly leak via a "former DNC official who spoke on
the condition of anonymity," in the November 2017 article published by the Associated
Press.
Given the repeated contradictions from the DNC and corporate media in their description of
Russian interference in the 2016 US Presidential race, how can the public be expected to
believe that their other claims have any legitimacy whatsoever?
The AP's November 2017 article also noticed that Guccifer 2.0's first published document
contained the word CONFIDENTIAL, while the original document did not. This was old news to
anyone who had been paying attention; Adam Carter analyzed this artifact nine months
earlier:
What is interesting here is that the AP admits that such elements of the document's
publication had been fabricated, but did not then follow that realization by questioning other
possibly fabricated elements of the documents, such as the Russian-language error messages. The
AP certainly did not concern themselves with why a Russian state-sponsored hacker would benefit
from airbrushing "confidential" onto such a report. Their claim that it was to attract media
attention seems quite weak.
AP surmised that Guccifer 2.0 "air-brush[ed]" the word "confidential" into the document to
"catch the reporter's attention." Both Carter and the Forensicator have explained that Guccifer
2.0 used a complex process, involving an intermediate template document, to inject this
"alluring" fake. The Forensicator told this author that they take the position that this
intermediate template file (ostensibly needed to add "CONFIDENTIAL" to the document) had an
additional purpose.
The Forensicator explained that, for some readers and researchers, the copy/paste of an
intermediate (RTF) copy of the Trump opposition report into a template document might be
interpreted simply as an unconventional method for injecting "confidential" into 1.doc.
However, the Forensicator added, it can also be interpreted as a "cover" for the final
copy/paste operation which was a necessary step in the evolution of Guccifer 2.0's first
document. It was needed to embed the Russian error messages into the final document
(1.doc).
Once again, establishment media failed to pursue their cited evidence with due diligence.
This is a grave mistake, especially given the way in which Guccifer 2.0's alleged 'hacking' has
been used as a major bolstering point for increased tensions between the United States and
Russia.
Initially, Gawker and The Smoking Gun Didn't Notice Iron Felix
Guccifer 2.0 made his noisy debut on June 15, 2016 (the day after the DNC publicly claimed
it had been breached by Russian state-sponsored hackers). It also appears that Guccifer 2.0
gave advanced copies of their doctored version of the Trump opposition report to two media
outlets, The Smoking Gun and Gawker.
In their full analysis, the Forensicator wrote that it was surprising that neither outlet
reported on the easily viewed "Last Saved By" property, which listed
"Феликс
Эдмундович" (aka "Iron Felix") as
the user who last saved the document. This unique name was noticed by various social media
observers that same day and by Ars Technica the following day. How did the journalists miss
this, and why?
Initially, Gawker and The Smoking Gun Didn't Notice the Russian Error Messages
Both Gawker and The Smoking Gun published Guccifer 2.0's Trump opposition report in full as
a PDF file. Their PDF files have the now infamous Cyrillic error messages in them; they appear
in the last few pages of their PDF files. Ars Technica dubbed these error messages, "Russian
fingerprints."
Although both outlets reviewed this document in some detail, neither outlet noticed the
Russian error messages in their first reports. The Forensicator suggests that, given their
choice of word processing applications, they would have seen the Russian error messages, if
only they had viewed the last few pages of each file. That is, unless (perhaps) they received
their PDF's directly from Guccifer 2.0 or another third party and they just passed them
along.
Ars Technica was Confused When They Didn't See the Russian Error Messages in Guccifer 2.0's
Word Document
Ars Technica reported on Guccifer 2.0's publication of the Trump Opposition Report the day
after Guccifer 2.0 arrived on the scene. They quickly noted that there were Russian language
error messages in the PDF file posted by Gawker. They also noticed that when they viewed 1.doc
themselves, they didn't see the Russian error messages. The Forensicator told Disobedient Media
that this was because Ars Technica used Word for Windows, which displayed the error messages in
English.
Ars Technica suggested that The Smoking Gun's PDF may have been generated by Guccifer
2.0 on a system that had Russian language settings enabled.
While this explanation appears reasonable, it is surprising (if that was the case) that
Gawker didn't tell us that their PDF came directly from Guccifer 2.0 . The Smoking Gun also
published a PDF with Russian error messages in it. Are we to believe that The Smoking Gun also
received their PDF from Guccifer 2.0 or a third party, and failed to report on this fact?
IVN: Did Gawker Outsource Their Analysis to Russia?
An obscure media outlet, Independent Voter Network , raised various theories on the initial
reporting done by The Smoking Gun and Gawker. One of their wilder theories suggested that
Gawker had outsourced their analysis to a Russian sub-contractor. The Forensicator evaluated
that claim, ultimately concluding that Independent Voter Network had gone on a wild goose chase
because the "clue" they followed pointed to Gawker's document management service known as
"DocumentCloud." DocumentCloud uses a technology that they call "CloudCrowd," which is what IVN
saw in the PDF that Gawker uploaded. The Forensicator referred to a DocumentCloud job
advertisement for confirmation of his conclusion.
The Forensicator told Disobedient Media: "We found CloudCrowd; it is not an outsourcing
company. Probably not Russian, either."
Business Insider: Did Guccifer 2.0 Photoshop "Confidential" Into his Document
Screenshots?
When Business Insider noted the presence of "CONFIDENTIAL" in Guccifer 2.0's document, they
claimed that Guccifer 2.0 might have "photoshopped" his screenshots (placed on his blog site)
to create the watermark and page footer with "confidential" in them.
The Forensicator countered that claim by pointing out that the Business Insider journalist
likely viewed the document with "Full-Screen Reading" selected.
This mode will disable the display of the watermark and page headers and footers when viewed
by the journalist, but they will be displayed when printed to PDF. No Photoshop required.
Conclusion
The close timing of the DNC announcement and Guccifer 2.0's publication of the Trump report,
as well as reports of "Russian fingerprints" in those documents, created a strong link between
Guccifer 2.0 and the Russian hackers who allegedly stole DNC files. Over a year later, the
Associated Press tells us that this first narrative was wrong, contradicting the DNC's claims
as well as much of the early legacy press reports on the issue. Must we concurrently accept the
narrative that Russians hacked the DNC if claims that they had done so were not only based on
flimsy evidence but have now been contradicted completely?
As far as documented evidence of election interference goes, one does not have to stray far
from the actors in the Russian hacking saga to discover that the DNC and establishment
Democrats were, instead of victims of meddling, the perpetrators of such abuse of the American
Democratic process. In 2017 the
NYC Board of Elections admitted that it had illegally purged hundreds of thousands of
Democratic voters from the election roles, preventing them from voting in the 2016 Democratic
primaries. This abuse of power represents just one in a constellation of legitimate examples of
abuse that took place at the hands of corporatized Democrats in order to unfairly and illegally
ensure a Clinton nomination.
This is too complicated for the average demon rat nitwit to follow. They don't want to
know this so showing them facts has to be dumbed down. Otherwise, all new revelations will be
ignored.
Really good work and reporting here that will never be understood by the masses.
Everything that's going on is far too complex, too many moving parts, too much
compartmentalization. Trump is doing a good job dumbing it down.
So the DNC announced Russia hacked them, and "proved" it with a file they say was
stolen.But that file was not the DNC's. So the "proof" of Russia hacking the DNC is
nonexistent.
"... Guccifer 2.0's American Fingerprints Reveal An Operation Made In The USA: https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/05/guccifer-2-0s-american-fingerprints-reveal-an-operation-made-in-the-usa/ ..."
"... Sez who, ask I? Sez the trustworthy American media that would never lie to the public, sez they. You know, professional paragons of virtue like Rachel Maddow and her merry band. ..."
"... These old pols recognise a good demonizing when they see it, especially when directed at them. ..."
"... our democracy WAS hijacked, but it was NOT by the Russians. ..."
Unfortunately, what this guy says is what most Americans still seem to believe. When I
ask people what is the actual hard evidence for "Russiagate" (because I don't know of any
that has been corroborated), I get a response that there have been massive examples of
Russian hacks, Russian posts, tweets and internet adverts–all meant to sabotage
Hillary's candidacy, and very effective, mind you. Putin has been an evil genius worthy of
a comic book villain (to date myself, a regular Lex Luthor). Sez who, ask I? Sez the
trustworthy American media that would never lie to the public, sez they. You know,
professional paragons of virtue like Rachel Maddow and her merry band.
Nobody seems aware of the recent findings about Halpern, none seem to have a realistic
handle on the miniscule scope of the Russian "offenses" against American democracy. Rachel,
the NY Times and WaPo have seen to that with their sins of both commission and omission.
Even the Republican party is doing a half-hearted job of defending its own power base with
rigorous and openly disseminated fact checking. It's like even many of the committee chairs
with long seniority are reluctant to buck the conventional narrative peddled by the media.
Many have chosen to retire rather than fight the media and the Deep State. What's a better
interpretation of events? Or is one to believe that the silent voices, curious retirements
and political heat generated by the Dems, the prosecutors and the media are all independent
variables with no connections? These old pols recognise a good demonizing when they see it,
especially when directed at them.
Personally, I think that not only the GOPers should be fighting like the devil to expose
the truth (which should benefit them in this circumstance) but so should the media and all
the watchdog agencies (ngo's) out there because our democracy WAS hijacked, but it was NOT
by the Russians.
Worse than that, it was done by internal domestic enemies of the people
who must be outed and punished to save the constitution and the republic, if it is not too
late. All the misinformation by influential insiders and the purported purveyors of truth
accompanied by the deliberate silence by those who should be chirping like birds suggests
it may well be far too late.
So British were involved in fabricating of 'Guccifer 2.0' persona. Nice...
Notable quotes:
"... It was Matt Tait who, using the 'Twitter' handle @pwnallthethings, identified the name and patronymic of Dzerzhinsky in the 'metadata' of the 'Guccifer 2.0' material on 15 June 2016, the day after Ellen Nakashima first disseminated the BS from 'CrowdStrike' in the 'WP.' ..."
"... 'Matt Tait is a senior cybersecurity fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously he was CEO of Capital Alpha Security, a consultancy in the UK, worked at Google Project Zero, was a principal security consultant for iSEC Partners, and NGS Secure, and worked as an information security specialist for GCHQ.' ..."
"... As I have noted before on SST, a cursory examination of records at 'Companies House' establishes that 'Capital Alpha Security', which was supposed to have provided Tait with an – independent – source of income at the time he unearthed this 'smoking gun' incriminating the GRU, never did any business at all. So, a question arises: how was Tait making ends meet at that time: busking on the London underground, perhaps? ..."
"... The document, when available, may clarify a few loose ends, but the general picture seems clear. Last November, Tait filed 'dormant company accounts' for the company's first year in existence, up until February 2017. One can only do this if one has absolutely no revenue, and absolutely no expenditure. Not even the smallest contract to sort out malware on someone's computer, or to buy equipment for the office. ..."
"... He then failed to file the 'Confirmation statement', which every company must is legally obliged to produce annually, if it is not to be struck off. This failure led to a 'First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off' in May. ..."
"... However, Tait may well anticipate that there is there will never be any call for him to go back into the big wide world, as the large organisation in which he has now found employment is part of a 'Borgist' network. So much is evident from another entry on the 'Lawfare' site: ..."
"... Also relevant here is the fact that, rather transparently, this placing of the GRU centre stage is bound up with the attempt to suggest that there is some kind of 'Gerasimov doctrine', designed to undermine the West by 'hybrid warfare.' Unfortunately, the original author of this claptrap, Mark Galeotti, who, I regret to say, is, like Tait, British, has now recanted and confessed. In March, he published a piece on the 'Foreign Policy' site, under the title: 'I'm Sorry for Creating the 'Gerasimov Doctrine'; I was the first to write about Russia's infamous high-tech military strategy. One small problem: it doesn't exist.' ..."
"... Quite clearly, the 'Guccifer 2.0' persona is a crude fabrication by someone who has absolutely no understanding of, or indeed interest in, the bitter complexities of both of the history of Russia and of the 'borderlands', not only in the Soviet period but before and after. ..."
"... Jeffrey Carr is one of the latter, and his familiarity with intelligence matters is clear from his organization of the annual "Suits and Spooks" Conference. I believe he was the first to raise questions about the DNC hack which didn't pass his smell test. ..."
"... One quick way to know their bias is the AC test. Google their name plus "Atlantic Council". Ridd fails badly. ..."
"... The Comey, Brennan, Mueller claim - indeed a central one upon which the recent indictment rests- that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian State agent that hacked the DNC- was discredited and put to rest last year by the forensics conducted by Bill Binney and his colleagues. The Guccifer 2.0 metadata was analyzed for its transmission speed, and based on the internet speeds to and from numerous test locations abroad and in the U.S., it was determined to have been impossible for the so-called Guccifer 2.0 to have hacked the DNC computers over the internet. The transmission speed however did correspond to the speed of the transfer to a thumb drive. Additionally, it was found that the data had been manipulated and split into two parts to simulate a July and a September transfer, when in fact the parts merge perfectly as single file, and where, according to Binney, the probability of the split being a coincidence would be 100 to the 50th power. ..."
"... There is a pattern of abuse of formerly well regarded institutions to achieve the propaganda aims of the Deep State establishment. The depths that were plumbed to push the Iraq WMD falsehoods are well known. Yet no one was held to account nor was there any honest accounting of the abuse. There have been pretenses like the Owen inquiry that you note. ..."
"... It seems that we are marching towards a credibility crisis similar to what was experienced in the Soviet Union when no one trusted the contents in Pravda. ..."
"... What is to be gained by the leadership in Britain in promoting these biological weapons cases since Litvinenko? In the US it is quite apparent that the Deep State have become extremely powerful and the likelihood that Trump recognizes that resistance is futile is very high. Schumer may be proven right that they have six ways from Sunday to make you kowtow to their dictats. ..."
"... I agree that taken by itself, the Dzerzinsky thing would be an anomaly only and could be dismissed as "black humor" of a kind often found in hackers. However, taken with all the other evidence produced by Adam Carter, it becomes much more obviously an attempt to support a false flag "Russian hacker" narrative that otherwise is porous. ..."
"... You want us to believe that the GRU are so sloppy and so inexperienced that they would launch a hack on the DNC and not take every measure to ensure there was no link whatsoever to anything Russian? Any former intel officer worth a damn knows that an operation to disrupt the election in a country the size of the United States would start with a risk/reward assessment, would require a team of at least 100 persons and would not be writing any code that could in any way be traced to Russia. ..."
"... Doctrine-mongering and repeating birth of new faux-academic "entities", such as a "hybrid war" (any war is hybrid by definition), is a distinct feature of the Western "political science-military history" establishment. Galeotti, who for some strange reason passes as Russia "expert" is a perfect example of such "expertise" and doctrine-mongering. Military professionals largely met this "hybrid warfare" BS with disdain. ..."
"... I have to say that the more I look into this whole Russiagate affair, which is mostly in the minds of democrats (and a few republicans) and the MSM, the more it seems that there is indeed a foreign conspiracy to meddle in the internal affairs of the US (and in the presidential elections) but the meddling entity is not Russia. It is the British! ..."
"... So many (ex-) MI6 operators (Steele, Tait, etc) involved in the story. It is interesting that the media don't question the intense involvement of the British in all this. And of course, the British haven't been laggards in adding fuel to the fire by the whole novichok hoax. ..."
As some commenters on SST seem still to have difficulty grasping that the presence of 'metadata' alluding to 'Iron Felix' in the
'Guccifer 2.0' material is strong evidence that the GRU were being framed over a leak, rather than that they were responsible for
a hack, an update on the British end of the conspiracy seems in order.
If you look at the 'Lawfare' blog, in which a key figure is James Comey's crony Benjamin Wittes, you will find a long piece published
last Friday, entitled 'Russia Indictment 2.0: What to Make of Mueller's Hacking Indictment.'
Among the authors, in addition to Wittes himself, is the sometime GCHQ employee Matt Tait. It appears that the former head of
that organisation, the Blairite 'trusty' Robert Hannigan, who must know where a good few skeletons are buried, is a figure of some
moment in the conspiracy.
It was Matt Tait who, using the 'Twitter' handle @pwnallthethings, identified the name and patronymic of Dzerzhinsky in the 'metadata'
of the 'Guccifer 2.0' material on 15 June 2016, the day after Ellen Nakashima first disseminated the BS from 'CrowdStrike' in the
'WP.'
The story was picked up the following day in a report on the 'Ars Technica' site, and Tait's own account appeared on the 'Lawfare'
site, to which he has been a regular contributor, on 28 July.
According to the CV provided in conjunction with the new article:
'Matt Tait is a senior cybersecurity fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University
of Texas at Austin. Previously he was CEO of Capital Alpha Security, a consultancy in the UK, worked at Google Project Zero, was
a principal security consultant for iSEC Partners, and NGS Secure, and worked as an information security specialist for GCHQ.'
As I have noted before on SST, a cursory examination of records at 'Companies House' establishes that 'Capital Alpha Security',
which was supposed to have provided Tait with an – independent – source of income at the time he unearthed this 'smoking gun' incriminating
the GRU, never did any business at all. So, a question arises: how was Tait making ends meet at that time: busking on the London
underground, perhaps?
Actually, there has been a recent update in the records. Somewhat prematurely perhaps, there is an entry dated 24 July 2018, entitled
'Final Gazette dissolved via compulsory strike-off. This document is being processed and will be available in 5 days.'
The document, when available, may clarify a few loose ends, but the general picture seems clear. Last November, Tait filed 'dormant
company accounts' for the company's first year in existence, up until February 2017. One can only do this if one has absolutely no
revenue, and absolutely no expenditure. Not even the smallest contract to sort out malware on someone's computer, or to buy equipment
for the office.
He then failed to file the 'Confirmation statement', which every company must is legally obliged to produce annually, if it is
not to be struck off. This failure led to a 'First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off' in May.
It is, of course, possible that at the time Tait set up the company he was genuinely intending to try to make a go of a consultancy,
and simply got sidetracked by other opportunities.
However – speaking from experience – people who have set up small 'one man band' companies to market skills learnt in large organisations,
and then go back into such organisations, commonly think it worth their while to spend the minimal amount of time required to file
the documentation required to keep the company alive.
If one sees any realistic prospect that one may either want to or need to go back into the big wide world again, this is the sensible
course of action: particularly now when, with the internet, filing the relevant documentation takes about half an hour a year, and
costs a trivial sum.
However, Tait may well anticipate that there is there will never be any call for him to go back into the big wide world, as the
large organisation in which he has now found employment is part of a 'Borgist' network. So much is evident from another entry on
the 'Lawfare' site:
'Bobby Chesney is the Charles I. Francis Professor in Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Texas School
of Law. He also serves as the Director of UT-Austin's interdisciplinary research center the Robert S. Strauss Center for International
Security and Law. His scholarship encompasses a wide range of issues relating to national security and the law, including detention,
targeting, prosecution, covert action, and the state secrets privilege; most of it is posted here. Along with Ben Wittes and Jack
Goldsmith, he is one of the co-founders of the blog.'
Also relevant here is the fact that, rather transparently, this placing of the GRU centre stage is bound up with the attempt to
suggest that there is some kind of 'Gerasimov doctrine', designed to undermine the West by 'hybrid warfare.' Unfortunately, the original author of this claptrap, Mark Galeotti, who, I regret to say, is, like Tait, British, has now recanted
and confessed. In March, he published a piece on the 'Foreign Policy' site, under the title: 'I'm Sorry for Creating the 'Gerasimov
Doctrine'; I was the first to write about Russia's infamous high-tech military strategy. One small problem: it doesn't exist.'
If anyone wants to grasp what the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, General Valery Gerasimov,
was actually saying in the crucial February 2013 article which Galeotti was discussing, and how his thinking has developed subsequently,
the place to look is, as so often, the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth.
In relation to the ongoing attempt to frame the GRU, it is material that, in his 2013 piece, Gerasimov harks back to two pivotal
figures in the arguments of the interwar years. Of these, Georgy Isserson, the Jewish doctor's son from Kaunas who became a Civil
War 'political commissar' and then a key associate of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, was the great pioneer theorist of 'deep operations.'
The ideas of the other, Aleksandr Svechin, the former Tsarist 'genstabist', born in Odessa into an ethnically Russian military
family, who was the key opponent of Tukhachevky and Isserson in the arguments of the 'Twenties, provided key parts of the intellectual
basis of the Gorbachev-era 'new thinking.'
The 'Ars Technica' article in which Tait's claims were initially disseminated opened:
'We still don't know who he is or whether he works for the Russian government, but one thing is for sure: Guccifer 2.0 – the nom
de guerre of the person claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee and published hundreds of pages that appeared to prove
it – left behind fingerprints implicating a Russian-speaking person with a nostalgia for the country's lost Soviet era.'
In his 2013 article, Gerasimov harks back to the catastrophe which overcame the Red Army in June 1941. Ironically, this was the
product of the Stalinist leadership's disregard of the cautions produced not only by Svechin, but by Isserson. In regard to the latter,
the article remarks that:
'The fate of this "prophet of the Fatherland" unfolded tragically. Our country paid in great quantities of blood for not listening
to the conclusions of this professor of the General Staff Academy.'
As it happens, while both Svechin and Tukhachevsky were shot by the heirs of 'Felix Edmundovich', the sentence of death on Isserson
was commuted, and he spent the war in prison and labour camps, while others used his ideas to devastating effect against the Germans.
Quite clearly, the 'Guccifer 2.0' persona is a crude fabrication by someone who has absolutely no understanding of, or indeed
interest in, the bitter complexities of both of the history of Russia and of the 'borderlands', not only in the Soviet period but
before and after.
Using this criterion as a 'filter', the obvious candidates are traditional Anglo-Saxon 'Russophobes', like Sir Richard Dearlove
and Christopher Steele, or the 'insulted and injured' of the erstwhile Russian and Soviet empires, so many of them from the 'borderlands',
of the type of Victoria Nuland, or the various Poles, Ukrainians and Balts and Jews who have had so much influence on American policy.
(I should note that other Jews, not only in Russia, but outside, including in Israel, think quite differently, in particular as
they are very well aware, as Isserson would have been, of the extent to which 'borderlands' nationalists were enthusiastic collaborators
with the Germans in the 'Final Solution'. On this, there is a large and growing academic literature.)
It is not particularly surprising that many of the victims of the Russian and Soviet empires have enjoyed seeing the tables turned,
and getting their own back. But it is rather far from clear that this makes for good intelligence or sound policy. We were unable
to load Disqus. If you are a moderator please see our troubleshooting
guide .
How does the objective truth get disclosed in an environment of extreme deceit by so many parties?
How to trust western intelligence when they have such a long and sordid track record of deceit, lies and propaganda? At the
same time there is such a long history of Russian and Chinese intelligence and information operations against the west.
Then there is the nexus among the highest levels of US law enforcement and intelligence as well as political elites in both
parties and key individuals in the media complex.
We are living in a hall of mirrors and it seems the trend is towards confirmation bias in information consumption.
Excellent post, especially the debunking of the 'Gerasimov doctrine' which I always thought was more hand-waving and Russian mind-reading.
It's important to realize that there are a number of people in the infosec community who have biases against Russia, just as
there are in the general population. Then there are more cautious people, who recognize the difficulty in attributing a hack to
any specific person absent solid, incontrovertible, non-circumstantial and non-spoofable (and preferably offline) evidence.
Tait doesn't appear to be one of the latter. Thomas Rid would be another. There are others.
Jeffrey Carr is one of the latter, and his familiarity with intelligence matters is clear from his organization of the annual
"Suits and Spooks" Conference. I believe he was the first to raise questions about the DNC hack which didn't pass his smell test.
There are also a number of companies in infosec who rely on latching onto a particular strain of hacker, the more publicly
exploitable for PR purposes the better, as a means of keeping the company name in front of potential high-profile and highly billable
clients. CrowdStrike and its Russia obsession isn't the only one that's been tagged with that propensity.
Mandiant could be referred to as the "Chinese, all the time" company, for example. Richard Bejtlich was at Fireeye and the
became Chief Security Officer when they acquired Mandiant. He spent quite a bit of effort on his blog warning about the Chinese
military buildup as a huge threat to the US. He's former USAF so perhaps that's not surprising.
Glad David's comment has been reproduced as a post in its own right, this is a critically important topic. IMO Matt Tait plays
the role of midwife in this conspiracy. His
Twitter thread
The Comey, Brennan, Mueller claim - indeed a central one upon which the recent indictment rests- that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian
State agent that hacked the DNC- was discredited and put to rest last year by the forensics conducted by Bill Binney and his colleagues.
The Guccifer 2.0 metadata was analyzed for its transmission speed, and based on the internet speeds to and from numerous test
locations abroad and in the U.S., it was determined to have been impossible for the so-called Guccifer 2.0 to have hacked the
DNC computers over the internet. The transmission speed however did correspond to the speed of the transfer to a thumb drive.
Additionally, it was found that the data had been manipulated and split into two parts to simulate a July and a September transfer,
when in fact the parts merge perfectly as single file, and where, according to Binney, the probability of the split being a coincidence
would be 100 to the 50th power.
As for the crude trace fingerprints (e.g. the referencing of Dzerzinsky), one of the Wikileaks data dumps (Vault 7 Marble)
during a period when Assange was negotiating with the Administration - there were two at the time (Vault 7 Marble and Vault 7
Grasshopper), the release of which apparently enraged Mike Pompeo- was designed to obfuscate, fabricate and frame countries such
as Russia, Iran or North Korea by pretending to be the target country, including in the use of target's alphabet and language.
VIPs has written numerous articles on this in Consortium News. See also the report by Patrick Lawrence Smith in The Nation
at:
https://www.thenation.com/a... . (It was apparently so hot at the time- and disputed by several other VIPs members- that The
Nation sought an independent assessment by third party, though those comments were easily addressed and dismissed in seriatim
by Binney in an annex to the article.)
Binney has explained his forensic analysis and conclusions at numerous forums, and in a sit-down with Secretary Pompeo in October,
2017- though Mueller, the FBI, and mainstream and some of the alternative press seem either deaf, dumb and blind to it all, or
interested in discrediting the study. The irony is, I'd venture to guess, that Binney, with his 40 years of experience, including
as Technical Director and technical guru at the NSA, is, even in retirement, more sophisticated in these matters than any one
at the Agency, or the FBI, or CIA, or certainly, the Congressional Intelligence Committees. So, it is astounding that any or all
of them could have, but did not, invite him to testify as an expert.
Moreover, the NSA has a record of every transmission, and also would have it on backup files. And, the FBI has been sitting
on Seth Rich's computer and his communications with Wikileaks, and presumably has a report that it has not released. And of course,
as Trump asked in his press conference, where's the DNC server, any or all of which would put this question to rest.
The last clause of the first paragraph should have said: "according to Binney, the probability of the split being a coincidence
would be one over 100 to the 50th power
There is a pattern of abuse of formerly well regarded institutions to achieve the propaganda aims of the Deep State establishment.
The depths that were plumbed to push the Iraq WMD falsehoods are well known. Yet no one was held to account nor was there any
honest accounting of the abuse. There have been pretenses like the Owen inquiry that you note.
We see the same situation of sweeping under the rug malfeasance and even outright criminality through obfuscation and obstruction
in the case of the meddling in the 2016 election by top officials in intelligence and law enforcement. Clearly less and less people
are buying what the Deep State sells despite their overwhelming control of the media channels.
It seems that we are marching towards a credibility crisis similar to what was experienced in the Soviet Union when no
one trusted the contents in Pravda.
What is to be gained by the leadership in Britain in promoting these biological weapons cases since Litvinenko? In the
US it is quite apparent that the Deep State have become extremely powerful and the likelihood that Trump recognizes that resistance
is futile is very high. Schumer may be proven right that they have six ways from Sunday to make you kowtow to their dictats.
That was one of the changes being hoped for when Obama was first elected. Instead we got little, except for things such as
bailed out bankers and the IRS scandal which lasted until the end of his 2nd term. The panic from the left over the 2016 election
issues the are still going on is that the expected candidate isn't in office and they are being exposed. Whether they get prosecuted
is another story.
I think Matt Tait, David Habakkuk and many others are reading far more into this Dzerzinsky thing than what it warrants. The government
dependent ID cards used by my family while I was working as a clandestine case officer overseas were signed by Robert Ludlum.
Intelligence officers often have an odd sense of humor.
On a different note, I fully endorse David Habakkuk's recommendation of the writings of Bartles, McDermott and many others
at the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth. They are top notch. I learned a lot from Tim Thomas many years ago.
I agree that taken by itself, the Dzerzinsky thing would be an anomaly only and could be dismissed as "black humor" of a kind
often found in hackers. However, taken with all the other evidence produced by Adam Carter, it becomes much more obviously an
attempt to support a false flag "Russian hacker" narrative that otherwise is porous.
I believe there is a phrase going something like "an attempt to add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative."
You want us to believe that the GRU are so sloppy and so inexperienced that they would launch a hack on the DNC and not
take every measure to ensure there was no link whatsoever to anything Russian? Any former intel officer worth a damn knows that
an operation to disrupt the election in a country the size of the United States would start with a risk/reward assessment, would
require a team of at least 100 persons and would not be writing any code that could in any way be traced to Russia.
Unfortunately, the original author of this claptrap, Mark Galeotti, who, I regret to say, is, like Tait, British, has now recanted
and confessed.
Doctrine-mongering and repeating birth of new faux-academic "entities", such as a "hybrid war" (any war is hybrid by definition),
is a distinct feature of the Western "political science-military history" establishment. Galeotti, who for some strange reason
passes as Russia "expert" is a perfect example of such "expertise" and doctrine-mongering. Military professionals largely met
this "hybrid warfare" BS with disdain.
I have to say that the more I look into this whole Russiagate affair, which is mostly in the minds of democrats (and a few
republicans) and the MSM, the more it seems that there is indeed a foreign conspiracy to meddle in the internal affairs of the
US (and in the presidential elections) but the meddling entity is not Russia. It is the British!
So many (ex-) MI6 operators (Steele, Tait, etc) involved in the story. It is interesting that the media don't question
the intense involvement of the British in all this. And of course, the British haven't been laggards in adding fuel to the fire
by the whole novichok hoax.
This needs to be looked at in more detail by the alternative media and well informed commentators like the host of this site.
As the saying goes "timing is everything." I have to admit I was incredulous that you were somehow able to link to a functioning
version of the Nekrosov film. I've been trying to get my hands on that documentary for the last few years, but to no avail. I
finally managed to read a comment on another blog that recommended that people who were interested in viewing the film could do
so by reaching out to the producer to request a personalized link, after which you had to request a password from another individual
affiliated with the film.
I managed to do all of that a few weeks ago and was able to watch the video on Vimeo for the full 2 hours. It was riveting,
to say the least. After viewing it again, I thought about making it available to others.
Due to the pressures by Browder and his
lawyers, however, Nekrosov was prevented from making his film available to a wider audience. He got around this limitation by
making it available for private viewing only.
And to prevent a private viewer from uploading it onto the internet he cleverly
placed a watermark on each film, indicating the owner of each copy of the video by displaying a number on the screen.
I was surprised
to see the version you linked to indeed has this watermark shown on the screen. Somehow, this did not deter the individual tied
to that number from uploading it and being the one identified as doing so.
That said, I'm glad the film is more widely available
as it should be viewed by as many people as possible so that they can realize what a despicable liar Browder really is and how
the passage of The Magnitsky Act was a travesty of justice which must be reversed.
The very fact that this movie was deleted almost everywhere suggests that it must be true.
Lies are never so consistently deleted from all Western resources. This is only natural:
nobody is scared of lies much, as they can be debunked. The truth can only be deleted. That's
what Soviet propaganda under Stalin and German propaganda under Hitler did.
You make a good point, nagra, there are many, many evils that demand exposure, most of
them of greater importance than Browder. For example, I don't care a bit abot Clinton-Steele
dossier etc etc etc -can't be bothered to try to figure it out.
She fricking destroyed a country & laughed like a deranged hyena at the
assassination-by-sodomy, on film, of its leader! And women in USA dress up like cunts and
adore her for her righteousness!
But re Browder -- against the forces and the wealth that , ie financed the pussy hat rally
in Jan 2017, and similarly for Browder himself, who can finance his massive PR coverup. From
money he stole! ANDis tied i to HSBC, where Stuart Levey, the former head of US Dept of
Treasury Office of Terror Finance, is now head of legal department -- well, you have to
recognize that all of the things you complain about are connected: Browder is connected to
the Russian Jewish crime gang, which is connected to the American Jewish crime gang thru Ben
Cardin & US Senate, fer chrissske, and tbru Levey to USTreasury, fer chrissake!; US
Treasury may be complicit in Browder's crimes, same for Cardin.
Cicero lost his head for less.
It's a big ball of string, and you have to start somewhere to unravel it. The Loose String
of the Browder case may or may not connect t to the core of this tangled mess, but it is a
start.
First, H/T to commenter tac, who found the link. 2nd, thanks for the background. I had no idea. The whole watermark/private viewing thing
underscores, this is Limited Time Only! 3rd, in 2 days there are over 2000 views. I've been sharing this as much as possible.
Let's keep it going!
You greatly underestimate the significance of Browder re. the inflaming of a new Cold War
and the coup against Pres. Trump. He is a KEY FIGURE behind all this Russia hysteria.
The notorious Trump Tower meeting concerned Browder's Magnitsky Act, money stolen [from
Russia] by Browder, etc.
The "Deep state" honchos who created this indictment have a working assumption that the USA
remain a sole superpower and that everything is permitted, even if this is a provocation/false
flag operation conducted solely for internal consumption. That might be the assumption that is no
longer true.
Notable quotes:
"... The document itself also provides no information on how the Russian officers and their positions were identified, which suggests that it could have been a US hack or agent in place, either run by CIA or NSA, that came up with a list of those individuals connected to GRU cyber operations. That would be information involving sources and methods, codeword protected material beyond Top Secret. ..."
"... Beyond what is or is not contained in the document itself, there is a clear misunderstanding regarding how a sophisticated intelligence organization, which certainly includes the GRU, operates. ..."
"... Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation . ..."
The document itself also provides no information on how the Russian officers and their
positions were identified, which suggests that it could have been a US hack or agent in place,
either run by CIA or NSA, that came up with a list of those individuals connected to GRU cyber
operations. That would be information involving sources and methods, codeword protected
material beyond Top Secret.
If the GRU list is authentic, it would expose US ability to penetrate that organization,
leading to Moscow tightening up security to the detriment of American intelligence. But it
might alternatively be suggested that the drafters needed a group of plausible Russians and
used a generic list provided by either CIA or NSA to come up with the culprits and then used
those identities and the detailed information regarding them to provide credibility to their
account. What they did not do, however, is provide the actual evidence connecting the
individuals to the "hack/interference" or to connect the same to the Russian government. If the
information in the indictment is completely accurate, which may not be the case, there is some
suggestion that alleged Moscow linked proxies may have deliberately sought to undermine the
campaign of Hillary Clinton to favor Bernie Sanders, but absolutely no evidence that they did
anything to help Donald Trump.
Beyond what is or is not contained in the document itself, there is a clear
misunderstanding regarding how a sophisticated intelligence organization, which certainly
includes the GRU, operates. If there had been a large-scale Kremlin sanctioned plan to
disrupt the US election, it would not be run by twelve identifiable GRU officers working with
what appears to be only limited cover and resources. If the facts are correct, the activity
might have been a routine probing, collecting and selective dissemination of information effort
that all intelligence agencies engage in. The United States does so routinely in many
countries, interfering in elections worldwide, far more than Russia with its limited resources,
and even carrying out regime change.
If the Kremlin's objective were truly to undermine American democracy, a task that is
already being undertaken very ably by the GOP and Democrats, hundreds of officers would be
involved, all working under deep cover and operating securely out of dispersed sites. And no
one involved would be using computers connected to networks that could be penetrated to enable
personal identification or discovery of the ultimate source of the activity. Everyone would be
working in alias on stand-alone machines and the transmission of information would be done
using cut-outs to break any chain of custody. A cut-out might consist of using thumb drives to
transmit information from one computer to another, for example. There would be no sending or
receiving of information by channels that could be identified by NSA or CIA and
compromised.
So the idea that the United States government identified twelve culprits who were
responsible for trying to overthrow American democracy is by any measure ludicrous, if indeed
there was a major plan to disrupt the election at all. The indictment is little more than a
political document seeking to undermine any effort by Donald Trump to establish rapprochement
with Vladimir Putin. It will also serve to give fuel to the Democrats, who are still at a loss
to understand what happened to Hillary Clinton, and Republican hawks like John McCain, Lindsay
Graham, Jeff Flake and Ben Sasse who persist in seeking to refight the Cold War. As Donald
Trump and Vladimir Putin said in their Helsinki press conference, the coming together of the
leaders of the world's two most powerful nuclear armed countries is too important an
opportunity to let pass. Cold Warriors in Washington should take note.
For instance, I was a partner in the publication of the emails of John Podesta, Hillary
Clinton's 2016 campaign manager, which were published by WikiLeaks shortly after the infamous
Access Hollywood video revealed candidate Donald Trump making rude remarks about
women.
Many media outlets continue to report that the Podesta emails were released only minutes
after the Access Hollywood video aired, hinting at some sort of coordination between
WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign. In a indictment issued last Friday, Robert S. Mueller III,
the special counsel investigating the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections,
charged 12 officers of the Russian military intelligence service, GRU, for having allegedly
hacked both the DNC and Podesta emails and allegedly passed them on to WikiLeaks for
publication.
I have no idea who WikiLeaks' sources were for the Podesta emails: the whole concept of
WikiLeaks is based on the submission of secret or otherwise restricted documents by anonymous
sources. Assange said numerous times that his source for the Clinton emails was not the Russian
government nor a state party.
As I worked on the Podesta emails, I do know that their publication was not a last-second
decision. I had been alerted the day before, and their staggered release was a choice WikiLeaks
made after the organization was harshly criticized by mainstream media for publishing
the DNC documents all at once. This time the emails would trickle out to make them easier for
the public to digest. But that was criticized too by the U.S. media and the Democrats as an
attempt to leave Clinton bleeding a few weeks before the elections.
... ... ...
Russia perceives Assange as a sort of Western dissident. The country definitely loves the
idea of "Western dissidents" and is happy to stick a finger in the eyes of the West by assuring
wide coverage for Assange and his organization. Russia media highlights the contradictions in
Western democracies which, while preaching aggressive journalism and the protection of
journalistic sources, have instead put Chelsea Manning in prison, charged Snowden, investigated
WikiLeaks for the last eight years and has kept its editor arbitrarily detained with no end in
sight.
Stefania Maurizi works for the Italian daily La Repubblica as an investigative journalist,
after ten years working for the Italian newsmagazine l'Espresso. She has worked on all
WikiLeaks releases of secret documents, and partnered with Glenn Greenwald to reveal the
Snowden files about Italy. She has also interviewed A.Q. Khan, the father of the Pakistani
atomic bomb, revealed the condolence payment agreement between the US government and the family
of the Italian aid worker Giovanni Lo Porto killed in a US drone strike, and investigated the
harsh working conditions of Pakistani workers in a major Italian garment factory in Karachi.
She has started a multi-jurisdictional FOIA litigation effort to defend the right of the press
to access the full set of documents on the Julian Assange and WikiLeaks case. She authored two
books: Dossier WikiLeaks. Segreti Italiani and Una Bomba, Dieci Storie, the latter translated
into Japanese. She can be reached at [email protected]
"... McFaul: "Russia made the whole story up." Typical projection. And Browder only became a critic of Putin (the russian justice system) after his criminal enterprise was uncovered. ..."
"... As a "red blooded, Bible believing American", one who has served under oath, and know the duties and penalties, I suggest it's perhaps the best "diplomatic move" seen since Mr. Putin took up the Secretary of State's offer, took Syria's chemical weapons, and took up truly ridding the Nation of terrorists, both those of Saudi, and those my own government made. ..."
This is pure brilliance on Russia's part. It wont happen, but it draws attention to
the Browder story, and discredits McFaul by association. Very smart. Update : It
appears Michael McFaul is really getting nervous, tweeting like a teenager on meth tonight:
"I hope the White House corrects the record and denounces in categorical terms this
ridiculous request from Putin. Not doing so creates moral equivalency between a legitimacy US
indictment of Russian intelligence officers and a crazy, completely fabricated story invented
by Putin"
With The White House flip-flopping back and forth on what was actually said - and meant to
be said - in Helsinki, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders dropped the latest tape-bomb to
blow the establishment's mind during to today's press conference.
Sanders reported that President Trump is open to a proposal from Vladimir Putin to let
Russian authorities question the former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul .
While Trump reportedly made no commitments to Putin, the Russian president offered to allow
Special Counsel Robert Mueller to observe interrogations of the 12 Russian intelligence agents
indicted by a U.S. grand jury last week for hacking Democratic Party email accounts.
Trump called it an "interesting idea" and an "incredible offer" at the news conference.
Sanders left the press corps dangling by concluding that:
"The president will work with his team and we'll let you know if there's an announcement
on that front."
As The Hill reports, Russia state-owned outlet RT reported that
Russia wanted to question McFaul and the author of the so-called Steele dossier, Christopher
Steele, among others in its investigation into American financier Bill Browder.
Browder is a prominent critic of Putin who lobbied on behalf of the Magnitsky Act, which
imposed sanctions against Russia.
McFaul has denounced the possibility of his being questioned by Russian officials, and has
called on Trump to condemn the proposal .
"Putin has been harassing me for a long time," McFaul said
on Twitter on Wednesday.
"That he now wants to arrest me, however, takes it to a new level. I expect my government
to defend me and my colleagues in public and private ."
And went on...
Does he seem nervous to you?
Source: Zero HedgePutin Asked Trump Permission to Interrogate Obama's Ambassador This is pure brilliance
on Russia's part. It wont happen, but it draws attention to the Browder story, and discredits
McFaul by association. Very smart. Tyler Durden 11 hours ago | 1,727
41 MORE: Politics Update : It appears Michael
McFaul is really getting nervous, tweeting like a teenager on meth tonight:
"I hope the White House corrects the record and denounces in categorical terms this
ridiculous request from Putin. Not doing so creates moral equivalency between a legitimacy US
indictment of Russian intelligence officers and a crazy, completely fabricated story invented
by Putin"
With The White House flip-flopping back and forth on what was actually said - and meant to
be said - in Helsinki, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders dropped the latest tape-bomb to
blow the establishment's mind during to today's press conference.
Sanders reported that President Trump is open to a proposal from Vladimir Putin to let
Russian authorities question the former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul .
While Trump reportedly made no commitments to Putin, the Russian president offered to allow
Special Counsel Robert Mueller to observe interrogations of the 12 Russian intelligence agents
indicted by a U.S. grand jury last week for hacking Democratic Party email accounts.
Trump called it an "interesting idea" and an "incredible offer" at the news conference.
Sanders left the press corps dangling by concluding that:
"The president will work with his team and we'll let you know if there's an announcement
on that front."
As The Hill reports, Russia state-owned outlet RT reported that
Russia wanted to question McFaul and the author of the so-called Steele dossier, Christopher
Steele, among others in its investigation into American financier Bill Browder.
Browder is a prominent critic of Putin who lobbied on behalf of the Magnitsky Act, which
imposed sanctions against Russia.
McFaul has denounced the possibility of his being questioned by Russian officials, and has
called on Trump to condemn the proposal .
"Putin has been harassing me for a long time," McFaul said
on Twitter on Wednesday.
"That he now wants to arrest me, however, takes it to a new level. I expect my government
to defend me and my colleagues in public and private ."
McFaul: "Russia made the whole story up." Typical projection.
And Browder only became a critic of Putin (the russian justice system) after his criminal
enterprise was uncovered.
I did like this one review of your insightful book, Mr. McFoul. If I send you the
review, will you sign it? I'd be honored. Russia's Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin By Michael McFaul, Cornell University Press, 2001
http://exiledonline.com/mik...
This book is a four-hundred page testimonial to the intellectual and moral bankruptcy
of the American Russia-watching mafia. In its pages, Michael McFaul condemns himself
again and again with staggering non-sequiturs, self-serving lies, crude
misrepresentations of his own past and the recent history of Russia, and repeated
failures to meet even the most basic standards of academic rigor.
Mr McFaul seems to be unfamiliar with the concept of law and a justice system. If he
is indicted by the Russian courts and required for questioning, why is that any different
from Russian "suspects" being indicted by US courts and required for questioning? Until the justice system has made its inquiries and run its course, no one can know
for sure whether Mr McFaul is guilty of crimes or not. So why does he demand total immunity from justice in such a peremptory, entitled
way?
Surely it can't be because he feels that Americans are in any way "superior",
"exceptional", or immune from justice? Surely Mr McFaul isn't a crude common-or-garden racist? Surely...?
The rub here is the ambassador enjoys diplomatic immunity from prosecution for events
that might have occurred during his tenure in Moscow from Russian courts. If the Trump
DOJ decides he should face the music then he has no immunity.
Your third question answers your second question almost perfectly. Because he feels that Americans are in every way "superior", "exceptional", and should
be immune from justice, no matter how heinous the crimes they have committed.
There fixed it for ya. :-)
What a circus and what a lot of clowns. As they say, nobody is above the law or at least they shouldn't be. I would say that Mr McFaul does protest too much and judging by his rattled statements
appears that he has something to hide. Getting back to basics where is the $400K and how did it get there and did any
go missing on the way?
McFaul is a bag boy shabbos goy for the Jooz that are trying to re-steal (1917, 1991,
2014) Russian wealth. Browder was a discarded Rothschild foreskin.
Earl Browder was lauding Soviet Russia and its successes. He didn't fleece the Russian
people. His grandson is a parasite that hates Russia and has siphoned his ill-gotten
gains from the country. No comparison.
The interesting side of the story is Trump can say yes as president. Not much Michael
McFaul can do then?
It will turn MSM Media upside down.
Btw. NSA can give tips to the Russians about what to ask. They know everything.
Assad probably would also like to question McCain regarding illegal stay in Syria
What I like most of all is Trump´s comment "an interesting idea and an
incredible offer".
ha ha ha ha ha ha.
It will probably not be possible to realize, but it shows Trump is not stupid at all.
Pay Back Time: Puppeticians will be taken out... One at the time...the Longer the Fun
will Last...Russia just make all their Lies Visible... it is a very Strong Weapon...
People are Tired and fed up with Liars, Traitors & Deceivers... Yesterday they caught
our Foreign Minister Blok with some nice Statements...He's like a gut-Shot animal at the
moment...one more Trick and He is Exit....just keep an eye on him...
https://www.aljazeera.com/n...
Stef Blok... You are a complete idiot... take your stuff and Buzz Off...the IMF or the
European Union always can use Some Retarded Ex-Puppeticians Like You...
"Trump invited Putin to Washington for summit: White House".
Washington: President Donald Trump invited Russian leader Vladimir Putin to Washington
for a summit in the northern autumn.
"In Helsinki, @POTUS agreed to ongoing working level dialogue between the two security
council staffs," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a tweet on Thursday.
"President Trump asked @AmbJohnBolton to invite President Putin to Washington in the fall
and those discussions are already underway.
Sanders announced the invitation less than an hour after the
Republican-led Senate effectively rebuked President Donald Trump for considering Russia's
request to question US officials, giving voice to growing unease over the president's
relationship with Putin following their summit in Helsinki on Monday...
Russia should be allowed to question McFaul. We should honor the treaty.
Unfortunately, the intelligence agencies have more power than the president at this
point. They want to assassinate him.
As a "red blooded, Bible believing American", one who has served under oath, and know
the duties and penalties, I suggest it's perhaps the best "diplomatic move" seen since
Mr. Putin took up the Secretary of State's offer, took Syria's chemical weapons, and took
up truly ridding the Nation of terrorists, both those of Saudi, and those my own
government made.
I was afraid for a bit, Syria was going to be broken, and I've served
beside Syrian Army in Beirut, I respect them highly, consider them among the best
professionals, as the world can easily see they are, and I hate what a criminal cadre are
doing to my Country, while we enjoy our sit/coms and beer, and eat snacks and get
fat.
God Bless Russia and President Putin, "it take's a man to make a man", is an old saying,
and the same is true for Nations, I expect.
Semper Fidelis,
John McClain
Vanceboro, NC, USA
You did not understand the proposal. Russian police interrogates the indicted Russian
officials, and Mueller and team can be given permission to enter Russia and watch the
interrogations. American police interrogates Browder and accomplices, and Russian police
can be given permission to enter the US and watch the proceedings. Completely fair and
transparent, according to existing Treaty between the 2 countries. Nobody can be
extradited, because there is no extradition treaty between the countries.
If Russia is doing killing and poisoning, how come Soros and Browder are not killed,
if anybody deserves - here are two biggest criminals and both of them are Joos.
"... The governments of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, if their countries are to survive, must give up their deluded hopes of reaching agreements with the United States. No such possibility exists on terms that the countries can accept. ..."
"... American foreign policy rests on threat and force. It is guided by the neoconservative doctrine of US hegemony, a doctrine that is inconsistent with accepting the sovereignty of other countries. ..."
"... The Russians -- especially the naive Atlanticist Integrationists -- should take note of the extreme hostility, indeed, to the point of insanity, directed at the Helsinki meeting across the entirety of the American political, media, and intellectual scene ..."
"... There is no support for Trump's agenda of peace with Russia in the US foreign policy arena. The president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, spoke for them all when he declared that "We must deal with Putin's Russia as the rogue state it is." Russia is a " rogue state" simply because Russia does not accept Washington's overlordship. ..."
"... There is no support even in Trump's own government for normalizing relations with Russia unless the neoconservative definition of normal relations is used. By normal relations neoconservatives mean a vassal state relationship with Washington. That, and only that, is "normal." Russia can have normal relations with America only on the basis of this definition of normal. Sooner or later Putin and Lavrov will have to acknowledge this fact. ..."
"... A lie repeated over and over becomes a fact. That is what has happened to Russiagate. Despite the total absence of any evidence, it is now a fact in America that Putin himself put Trump in the Oval Office. That Trump met with Putin at Helsinki is considered proof that Trump is Putin's lackey, as the New York Times and many others now assert as self-evident. That Trump stood next to "the murderous thug Putin" and accepted Putin's word that Russia did not interfere in the election of the US president is regarded as double proof that Trump is in Putin's pocket and that the Russiagate story is true. ..."
The governments of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, if their countries are to
survive, must give up their deluded hopes of reaching agreements with the United States. No
such possibility exists on terms that the countries can accept.
American foreign policy rests on threat and force. It is guided by the neoconservative
doctrine of US hegemony, a doctrine that is inconsistent with accepting the sovereignty of
other countries. The only way that Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea can reach an agreement
with Washington is to become vassals like the UK, all of Europe, Canada, Japan, and
Australia.
The Russians -- especially the naive Atlanticist Integrationists -- should take note of the
extreme hostility, indeed, to the point of insanity, directed at the Helsinki meeting across
the entirety of the American political, media, and intellectual scene. Putin is incorrect that
US-Russian relations are being held hostage to an internal US political struggle between the
two parties. The Republicans are just as insane and just as hostile to President Trump's effort
to improve American-Russian relations as the Democrats, as Donald
Jeffries reminds us .
The American rightwing is just as opposed as the leftwing. Only a few experts, such as
Stephen Cohen and Amb. Jack Matlock , President Reagan's ambassador to the Soviet Union, have
spoken out in support of Trump's attempt to reduce the dangerous tensions between the nuclear
powers. Only a few pundits have explained the actual facts and the stakes.
There is no support for Trump's agenda of peace with Russia in the US foreign policy arena.
The president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, spoke for them all when he
declared that "We must deal with Putin's Russia as the rogue state it is." Russia is a " rogue state" simply because Russia does not accept Washington's overlordship.
Not for any other reason.
There is no support even in Trump's own government for normalizing relations with Russia
unless the neoconservative definition of normal relations is used. By normal relations
neoconservatives mean a vassal state relationship with Washington. That, and only that, is
"normal." Russia can have normal relations with America only on the basis of this definition of
normal. Sooner or later Putin and Lavrov will have to acknowledge this fact.
A lie repeated over and over becomes a fact. That is what has happened to Russiagate.
Despite the total absence of any evidence, it is now a fact in America that Putin himself put
Trump in the Oval Office. That Trump met with Putin at Helsinki is considered proof that Trump
is Putin's lackey, as the New York Times and many others now assert as self-evident. That Trump
stood next to "the murderous thug Putin" and accepted Putin's word that Russia did not
interfere in the election of the US president is regarded as double proof that Trump is in
Putin's pocket and that the Russiagate story is true.
"... Propaganda works, proved effective time and again – why it's a key tool in America's deep state playbook. ..."
"... Virtually anything repeated enough, especially through the major media megaphone, gets most people to believe it – no matter how preposterous the claim. ..."
"... Normalized relations with Russia and world peace are anathema notions in Washington. Bipartisan neocons infesting the US political establishment want none of it. America's hegemonic aims matter most – wanting dominance over planet earth, its resources and populations. Endless wars of aggression, color revolutions, and other unlawful practices harmful to human rights and welfare are its favored strategies. ..."
Propaganda works, proved effective time and again – why it's a key tool in
America's deep state playbook.
Virtually anything repeated enough, especially through the major media megaphone, gets
most people to believe it – no matter how preposterous the claim.
Not a shred of evidence suggests Russia meddled in America's political process –
nothing.
Yet an earlier NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed most Americans believe the Russia
did it Big Lie. A months earlier Gallup poll showed three-fourths of Americans view Vladimir
Putin unfavorably.
Americans are easy marks to be fooled. No matter how many times they were deceived before,
they're easily manipulated to believe most anything drummed into their minds by the power of
repetitious propaganda – fed them through through the major media megaphone – in
lockstep with the official falsified narrative.
America's dominant media serve as a propaganda platform for US imperial and monied interests
– acting as agents of deception, betraying their readers and viewers time and again
instead of informing them responsibly.
CNN
presstitute Poppy Harlow played a clip on air of Reuters reporter Jeff Mason asking Putin
in Helsinki the following question:
"Did you want President Trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials
to help him do that?"
Putin said: "Yes," he wanted Trump to win "because he talked about bringing the US-Russia
relationship back to normal," as translated from his Russian language response.
Here's the precise translation of his remark:
"Yes, I wanted him to win, because he talked about the need to normalize US-Russia
relations," adding:
"Isn't it natural to have sympathy towards a man who wants to restore relations with your
country? That's normal."
Putin did not address the fabricated official narrative notion that he directed his
officials to help Trump win. Yet CNN's Harlow claimed otherwise, falsely claiming he ordered
Kremlin officials to help Trump triumph over Hillary.
He did nothing of the kind or say it, nor did any other Kremlin officials. No evidence
proves otherwise – nothing but baseless accusations supported only by the power of
deceptive propaganda.
Time and again, CNN, the NYT, and rest of America's dominant media prove themselves
untrustworthy.
They consistently abandon journalism the way it's supposed to be, notably on geopolitical
issues, especially on war and peace and anything about Russia.
After rejecting, or at least doubting, the official narrative about alleged Russian meddling
in the US political process to aid his election, Trump backtracked post-Helsinki –
capitulating to deep state power.
First in the White House, he said he misspoke abroad – then on CBS News Wednesday
night, saying it's "true," deplorably adding:
Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election, and he "would" hold Russian President
Vladimir Putin responsible for the interference – that didn't occur, he failed to
stress.
GLOR: "You say you agree with US intelligence that Russia meddled in the election in
2016."
TRUMP: "Yeah and I've said that before, Jeff. I have said that numerous times before, and
I would say that is true, yeah."
GLOR: "But you haven't condemned Putin, specifically. Do you hold him personally
responsible?"
TRUMP: "Well, I would, because he's in charge of the country. Just like I consider myself
to be responsible for things that happen in this country. So certainly as the leader of a
country you would have to hold him responsible, yes."
GLOR: "What did you say to him?"
TRUMP: "Very strong on the fact that we can't have meddling. We can't have any of that
– now look. We're also living in a grown-up world."
"Will a strong statement – you know – President Obama supposedly made a strong
statement. Nobody heard it."
"What they did hear is a statement he made to Putin's very close friend. And that
statement was not acceptable. Didn't get very much play relatively speaking. But that
statement was not acceptable."
"But I let him know we can't have this. We're not going to have it, and that's the way
it's going to be."
There you have it – Trump capitulating to America's deep state over Russia on national
television.
From day one in power, he caved to the national security state, Wall Street, and other
monied interests over popular ones.
The sole redeeming part of his agenda was wanting improved relations with Russia and
Vladimir Putin personally – preferring peace over possible confrontation, wanting the
threat of nuclear war defused.
Despite tweeting post-Helsinki that he and Putin "got along well which truly bothered many
haters who wanted to see a boxing match," his remarks on CBS News showed he'll continue dirty
US business as usual toward Russia.
Anything positive from summit talks appears abandoned by capitulating to deep state power
controlling him and his agenda.
Normalized relations with Russia and world peace are anathema notions in Washington.
Bipartisan neocons infesting the US political establishment want none of it. America's
hegemonic aims matter most – wanting dominance over planet earth, its resources and
populations. Endless wars of aggression, color revolutions, and other unlawful practices
harmful to human rights and welfare are its favored strategies.
Will Americans go along with sacrificing vital freedoms for greater security from invented
enemies – losing both? Will US belligerent confrontation with Russia inevitably follow?
Will mushroom-shaped denouement eventually kill us all?
*
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the CRG, Correspondent of Global Research
based in Chicago.
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US
Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III. http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html "
... I had the privilege of attending the first by invitation only
screening of a documentary"The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes," produced by
Russian filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov. The documentary had been blocked in Europe through lawsuits
filed by some of the parties linked to the prevailing narrative but the Newseum in
Washington eventually
proved willing to permit rental of a viewing room in spite of threats coming from the same
individuals to sue to stop the showing.
Nekrasov by his own account had intended to do a documentary honoring Magnitsky and his
employers as champions for human rights within an increasing fragile Russian democracy. He had
previously produced documentaries highly critical of Russian actions in Chechnya, Georgia and
Ukraine, and also regarding the assassinations of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in
London as well as of journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow. He has been critical of Vladimir
Putin personally and was not regarded as someone who was friendly to the regime, quite the
contrary. Some of his work
has been banned in Russia.
After his documentary was completed using actors to play the various real-life personalities
involved and was being edited Nekrasov returned to some issues that had come up during the
interviews made during the filming. The documentary records how he sought clarification of what
he was reading and hearing but one question inevitably led to another.
The documentary began with the full participation of American born UK citizen William
Browder, who virtually served as narrator for the first section that portrayed the widely
accepted story on Magnitsky. Browder portrays himself as a human rights campaigner dedicated to
promoting the legacy of Sergei Magnitsky, but he is inevitably much more complicated than that.
The grandson of Earl Browder the former General Secretary of the American Communist Party,
William Browder
studied economics at the University of Chicago, and obtained an MBA from Stanford.
From the beginning, Browder concentrated on Eastern Europe, which was beginning to open up
to the west. In 1989 he took a position at highly respected Boston Consulting Group dealing
with reviving failing Polish socialist enterprises. He then worked as an Eastern Europe analyst
for Robert Maxwell, the unsavory British press magnate and Mossad spy, before joining the
Russia team at Wall Street's Salomon Brothers in 1992.
He left Salomon in 1996 and partnered with the controversial Edmond Safra, the
Lebanese-Brazilian-Jewish banker who died in a mysterious fire in 1999, to set up Hermitage
Capital Management Fund. Hermitage is registered in tax havens Guernsey and the Cayman Islands.
It is a hedge fund that was focused on "investing" in Russia, taking advantage initially of the
loans-for-shares scheme under Boris
Yeltsin, and then continuing to profit greatly during the early years of Vladimir Putin's
ascendancy. By 2005 Hermitage was the largest foreign investor in Russia.
Browder had renounced his U.S. citizenship in 1997 and became a British citizen apparently
to avoid American taxes, which are levied on worldwide income. In
his bookRed Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder and One Man's Fight for
Justice he depicts himself as an honest and honorable Western businessman attempting to
function in a corrupt Russian business world. That may or may not be true, but the
loans-for-shares scheme that made him his initial fortune has been correctly characterized as
the epitome of corruption, an arrangement whereby foreign investors worked with local oligarchs
to strip the former Soviet economy of its assets paying pennies on each dollar of value. Along
the way, Browder
was reportedly involved in making false representations on official documents and
bribery.
As a consequence of what came to be known as the Magnitsky scandal, Browder was eventually
charged by the Russian authorities for fraud and tax evasion. He was banned from re-entering
Russia in 2005, even before Magnitsky died, and began to withdraw his assets from the country.
Three companies controlled by Hermitage were eventually seized by the authorities, though it is
not clear if any assets remained in Russia. Browder himself was convicted of tax evasion in
absentia in 2013 and sentenced to nine years in prison.
Browder has assiduously, and mostly successfully, made his
case that he and Magnitsky have been the victims of Russian corruption both during and
since that time, though there have been skeptics
regarding many details of his personal narrative. He has been able to sell his tale to leading
American politicians like Senators John McCain, Ben Cardin and ex-Senator Joe Lieberman, always
receptive when criticizing Russia, as well as to a number of European parliamentarians and
media outlets. But there is, inevitably, another side to the story, something quite different,
which Andrei Nekrasov presents to the viewer.
Nekrasov has discovered what he believes to be holes in the narrative that has been
carefully constructed and nurtured by Browder. He provides documents and also an interview with
Magnitsky's mother maintaining that there is no clear evidence that he was beaten or tortured
and that he died instead due to the failure to provide him with medicine while in prison or
treatment shortly after he had a heart attack. A subsequent investigation ordered by then
Russian President Dimitri Medvedev in 2011 confirmed that Magnitsky had not received medical
treatment, contributing to this death, but could not confirm that he had been beaten even
though there was suspicion that that might have been the case.
Nekrasov also claims that much of the case against the Russian authorities is derived from
English language translations of relevant documents provided by Browder himself. The actual
documents sometimes say something quite different. Magnitsky is referred to as an accountant,
not a lawyer, which would make sense as a document of his deposition is apparently part of a
criminal investigation of possible tax fraud, meaning that he was no whistleblower and was
instead a suspected criminal.
Other discrepancies cited by Nekrasov include documents demonstrating that Magnitsky did not
file any complaint about police and other government officials who were subsequently cited by
Browder as participants in the plot, that the documents allegedly stolen from Magnitsky to
enable the plotters to transfer possession of three Hermitage controlled companies were
irrelevant to how the companies eventually were transferred and that someone else employed by
Hermitage other than Magnitsky actually initiated investigation of the fraud.
In conclusion, Nekrasov believes there was indeed a huge fraud related to Russian taxes but
that it was not carried out by corrupt officials. Instead, it was deliberately ordered and
engineered by Browder with Magnitsky, the accountant, personally developing and implementing
the scheme used to carry out the deception.
To be sure, Browder and his international legal team have presented documents in the case
that contradict much of what Nekrasov has presented in his film. But in my experience as an
intelligence officer I have learned that documents are easily forged, altered, or destroyed so
considerable care must be exercised in discovering the provenance and authenticity of the
evidence being provided. It is not clear that that has been the case. It might be that Browder
and Magnitsky have been the victims of a corrupt and venal state, but it just might be the
other way around. In my experience perceived wisdom on any given subject usually turns out to
be incorrect.
Given the adversarial positions staked out, either Browder or Nekrasov is essentially right,
though one should not rule out a combination of greater or lesser malfeasance coming from both
sides. But certainly Browder should be confronted more intensively on the nature of his
business activities while in Russia and not given a free pass because he is saying things about
Russia and Putin that fit neatly into a Washington establishment profile. As soon as folks
named McCain, Cardin and Lieberman jump on a cause it should be time to step back a bit and
reflect on what the consequences of proposed action might be.
One should ask why anyone who has a great deal to gain by having a certain narrative
accepted should be completely and unquestionably trusted, the venerable Cui bono?
standard. And then there is a certain evasiveness on the part of Browder. The film shows him
huffing and puffing to explain himself at times and he has
avoided being served with subpoenas on allegations connected to the Magnitsky fraud that
are making their way through American courts. In one case he can be seen on YouTube running away from a server,
somewhat unusual behavior if he has nothing to hide.
A number of Congressmen and staffers were invited to the showing of the Nekrasov documentary
at the Newseum but it is not clear if any of them actually bothered to attend,
demonstrating once again how America's legislature operates inside a bubble of willful
ignorance of its own making. Nor was the event reported in the local "newspaper of record" the
Washington Post , which has been consistently hostile to Russia on its editorial and
news pages.
A serious effort that a friend of mine described as "hell breaking loose" was also made
to disrupt the question and answer session that followed the viewing of the film, with a
handful of clearly coordinated hecklers interrupting and making it impossible for others to
speak. The organized intruders, who may have gained entry using invitations that were sent to
congressmen, suggested that someone at least considers this game being played out to have very
high stakes.
The point is that neither Nekrasov nor Browder should be taken at their word. Either or both
might be lying and the motivation to make mischief is very high if even a portion of the stolen
$230 million is still floating around and available. And by the same measure, no Congressman or
even the President should trust the established narrative, particularly if they persist in
their hypocritical conceit that global human
Gee, I know G. was a spook of some kind and I always read his articles wherever they turn
up.. but how could he get this wrong unless on purpose: Magnitsky was no lawyer. He was an
accountant and he was a co-conspirator in the frauds being perpetrated that resulted in the
charges. He died alright but there is some shading to the thesis that the fraudsters had him
bumped off because they knew he was a weak link. They bribed somebody in the prison to deny
him medical care. Hey, much like they did to Milosevic knowing they couldn't convict him of
their trumped up charges. Why would G. get wrong such a simple thing to determine? Hmm. I
wonder..
Why would you continue the falsehood of calling Magnitsky a lawyer? He was not a lawyer.
Ever. He is and was an accountant and will remain that until Judgement Day. On the other
other hand, calling him a lawyer is perhaps an even greater insult than calling him an
accountant.
"... They secured and and announced the indictments "with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States." ..."
"... That language is from 1799's Logan Act (18 U.S.C. § 953). Its constitutionality is suspect and no one has ever been indicted under it in the 219 years since its passage. Rosenstein and Mueller aren't likely to be the first two, and may not even technically have violated its letter. But I'd be hard put to name a more obvious, intentional, or flagrant act in violation of its spirit. ..."
Friday the 13th is presumably always someone's unlucky day. Just whose may not be obvious at the time, but I suspect that "Russiagate"
special counsel Robert Mueller and Deputy US Attorney General Rod Rosenstein already regret picking Friday, July 13 to announce the
indictments of 12 Russian intelligence officers on charges relating to an embarrassing 2016 leak of Democratic National Committee
emails. They should.
Legally, the indictments are of almost no value. Those indicted will never be extradited to the US for trial, and the case that
an external "hack" – as opposed to an internal DNC leak – even occurred is weak at best, if for no other reason than that the DNC
denied the FBI access to its servers, instead commissioning a private "cybersecurity analysis" to reach the conclusion it wanted
reached before hectoring government investigators to join that conclusion.
Diplomatically, on the other hand, the indictments and the timing of the announcement were a veritable pipe bomb, thrown into
preparations for a scheduled Helsinki summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
House Republicans, already incensed with Rosenstein over his attempts to stonewall their probe into the Democratic Party's use
of the FBI as a proprietary political hit squad, are planning a renewed effort to impeach him. If he goes down, Mueller likely does
as well. And at this point, it would take a heck of an actor to argue with a straight face that the effort is unjustified.
Their timing was clearly intentional. Their intent was transparently political. Mueller and Rosenstein were attempting to hijack
the Trump-Putin summit for the purpose of depriving Trump of any possible "wins" that might come out of it.
They secured and and announced the indictments "with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government
or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures
of the United States."
That language is from 1799's Logan Act (18 U.S.C. § 953). Its constitutionality is suspect and no one has ever been indicted
under it in the 219 years since its passage. Rosenstein and Mueller aren't likely to be the first two, and may not even technically
have violated its letter. But I'd be hard put to name a more obvious, intentional, or flagrant act in violation of its spirit.
Rosenstein and Mueller are attempting to conduct foreign policy by special prosecutor, a way of doing things found nowhere in
the US Constitution. Impeachment or firing should be the least of their worries. I'm guessing that there are laws other than the
Logan Act that could, and should, be invoked to have them fitted for orange coveralls and leg irons pending an appointment with a
judge.
That they even have defenders is proof positive that some of Trump's most prominent opponents consider "rule of law" a quaint
and empty concept – a useful slogan, nothing more – even as they continually, casually, and hypocritically invoke it whenever they
think doing so might politically disadvantage him.
Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William
Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism . He lives and works in north central Florida. This article is reprinted
with permission from William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism.
Washington, DC -800-FOR-DEPO www.aldersonreporting.com
DEPO www.aldersonreporting.com
Alderson Court Reporting
Page 37 Prevezon who were part of the case. Other people were brought in -- you know, were
brought in either by Prevezon or by the lawyers and I didn't always try to pin that down.
Q. In general would the decision whether you would share Fusion's information with them be
dependent then upon the attorneys introducing you to them?
A. It would be dependent on the direction of the attorneys. I basically -- you know, in all
these cases for reasons of privilege and simply just professionalism you work at the direction
of the lawyers and you do what they instruct you to do.
Q. Did anyone from Fusion ever help arrange for other entities to be hired by Prevezon or
Baker Hostetler for the Prevezon case?
A. I don't think you could say we arranged for others to be hired. If you're asking me if we
made referrals, we would refer -- you know, we made quite extensive -- fairly extensive efforts
to get a PR firm hired for the trial that we were expecting and we made a number of referrals
in that case, in that matter.
Q. What was the name of that PR firm?
A. There were several. We actually, you know, had a series of screening sessions. I think
Weber Shandwick was the one we ended up with.
Q. You mentioned that Fusion was conducting litigation support in regard to the Prevezon
case. Could you expand a little more about what type of litigation support activities you
undertook?
MR. LEVY: Beyond what he's already told you?
MR. DAVIS: With a little more detail.
BY THE WITNESS:
A. Yes. In the original period of the case the question -- the client's explanation for or
response to the government's allegations was that they originated with an organized crime
figure in Russia who had been extorting them and who they had reported to the police and who
had been jailed and convicted for blackmailing them, and they claimed that that was where these
allegations originated, which, you know, seemed remarkable because it was in a Justice
Department complaint.
So the first thing, you know, in any case really is to sort of try and figure out whether
your own client's story can be supported or whether it's not true, and the lawyers -- you know,
we work with a lot of prominent law firms and in many cases the first thing the lawyers need to
know is whether their client's story is real, whether it can be supported, you know, because in
any new case you don't know whether your own client is telling you the truth.
So originally one of the first things we were hired to do was to check out whether this was,
in fact, the case. So they claimed that the allegations originated with a mobster named Demetri
Baranovsky, B-A-R-A-N-O-V-S-K-Y, who was, in fact, jailed for running a shake-down operation in
which he posed as an anticorruption campaigner for the purpose of extorting money from people
by threatening to accuse them of some kind of corrupt activities. As you know, Russia is rife
with corruption and there's a lot of anger over corruption.
We were able to ascertain that Mr. Baranovsky was, in fact, associated with Russia's biggest
organized crime family, the Solntsevo Brotherhood, S-O-L-N-T-S-E-V-O brotherhood, which is the
major dominant mafia clan in Moscow. So as far as it went, the client seemed to be telling the
truth. You know, there was extensive record of these events and we found some indications from
western law enforcement that western law enforcement did consider Baranovsky to be a lieutenant
in this organized crime family. So we did that for a while. Edward Baumgartner helped a lot
with that because of his Russian language skills and his ability to interface with the court
system in Russia.
And, you know, around the -- similarly, there was a deposition of a customs agent by one of
the lawyers who -- you know, in this initial effort to trace the origin of these allegations,
where they came from, how they could have ended up with the Justice Department, the first thing
we did was interview the client, got their story, and interviewed the agent who worked on the
case for the DOJ and that agent said he got all his information from William Browder.
So at that point I was asked to help see if we could get an interview with William Browder.
They wrote a letter to Browder and asked him to answer questions and he refused. Then the
lawyers wanted to know, you know, whether he could be subpoenaed. So a lot of what I did in
2014 was help them figure out whether he could be subpoenaed in the United States to give a
deposition, and the first thing that we did was we researched the ownership and registration of
his hedge fund, which was registered in Delaware and filed documents with the Securities and
Exchange Commission.
was registered in Delaware and filed documents with the Securities and Exchange
Commission.
So we subpoenaed his hedge fund. A lot of the early work I did was just documenting that his
hedge fund had presence in the United States. So we subpoenaed his hedge fund. He then changed
the hedge fund registration, took his name off, said it was on there by accident, it was a
mistake, and said that he had no presence in the United States and that, you know -- as you may
know, he surrendered his citizenship in 1998 and moved outside the United States. That was
around the time he started making all the money in Russia. So he's never had to pay U.S. taxes
on his profits from his time in Russia, which became important in the case later.
In any case, he said he never came to the United States, didn't own any property here,
didn't do any business here, and therefore he was not required to participate in the U.S. court
system even though he admitted that he brought the case to the U.S. Justice Department. So we
found this to be a frustrating and somewhat curious situation.
He was willing to, you know, hand stuff off to the DOJ anonymously in the beginning and
cause them to launch a court case against somebody, but he wasn't interesting in speaking under
oath about, you know, why he did that, his own activities in Russia. So looking at the public
record we determined that he did come to the United States frequently, and I discovered through
public records that he seemed to own a house in Aspen, Colorado, a very expensive mansion, over
$10 million, which he had registered in the name of a shell company in a clear attempt to
disguise the ownership of the property. We were able to ascertain that he does use property. We
were able to ascertain that he does use that property because he registered cars to that
property with the Colorado DMV in the name of William Browder.
So we began looking for public information about when he might be in Aspen, Colorado, and I
found a listing on the Aspen Institute Website about an appearance he was going to make there
in the summer of 2014. So we -- I served him a subpoena in the parking lot of the Aspen
Institute in the summer of 2014 using two people -- two subcontractors. Actually, those other
subcontractors were -- their names escape me, but I forgot about those. We can get you that.
This is all in the Pacer court record, the public court record.
In any event, the three of us served -- there was another subcontractor working for the law
firm whose name I also forget. I did not retain him, but I was asked to work with him on this.
He is a private investigator and we can get you his name. In any event, we served him the
subpoena and he ran away. He dropped it on the ground and he ran away.
He jumped in his car and went back to his mansion.
At that point he tried to suppress -- tried to quash the subpoena on the grounds it hadn't
been properly served. We didn't get a video, but there are sworn affidavits from my servers in
the court record about the service. But he objected to it on a number of grounds. A, he
continued to insist he had nothing to do with the United States and didn't come here very often
even, though we caught him here, clearly has cars in Colorado. He also said that you can't
serve a subpoena for a case in that you can't serve a subpoena for a case in New York in the
state of Colorado, it's outside the primary jurisdiction. He also began to raise questions
about whether Baker Hostetler had a conflict of interest because of some previous work he did
with one of the Baker lawyers.
This led to a long, drawn-out discovery battle that I was in the center of because I served
the subpoenas and I helped find the information for the first set of subpoenas that lasted, you
know, through 2014. This was, you know, a lot of what I did. This was -- the main focus was on
trying to get William Browder to testify under oath about his role in this case and his
activities in Russia.
All of this -- his determined effort to avoid testifying under oath, including running away
from subpoenas and changing -- frequently changing lawyers and making lurid allegations against
us, including that, you know, he thought we were KGB assassins in the parking lot of Aspen,
Colorado when we served the subpoena, all raised questions in my mind about why he was so
determined to not have to answer questions under oath about things that happened in Russia.
I'll add that, you know, I've done a lot of Russia reporting over the years. I originally
met William Browder back when I was a journalist at the Wall Street Journal when I was doing
stories about corruption in Russia. I think the first time I met him he lectured me about -- I
was working on a story about Vladimir Putin corruption and he lectured me about how have
Vladimir Putin was not corrupt and how he was the best thing that ever happened to Russia.
There are numerous documents that he published himself, interviews he gave singing the praises
of Vladimir Putin. At that time I was already investigating corruption in Putin's Russia.
So this made me more curious about the history of his activities in Russia and what that
might tell me about corruption in Russia, and as part of the case we became curious about
whether there was something that he was hiding about his activities in Russia. So through this
period while we were attempting to get him under oath we were also investigating his business
practices in Russia and that research -- and I should add when I say "we," I mean the lawyers
were doing a lot of this work and it wasn't -- I can't take responsibility or pride of place on
having done all this work. We were doing it all together. It was a -- you know, there were a
number of lawyers involved, other people.
In the course of doing this research into
25 what he might not want to be asked about from his history in Russia we began to learn
about the history of his tax avoidance in Russia and we began to deconstruct the way that his
hedge fund structured its investments in Russia and, you know, we gradually accumulated through
public records, not all from Russia, that he set up dozens of shell companies in Cyprus and
other tax havens around the world to funnel money into Russia and to hold Russian
securities.
He also set up shell companies inside of Russia in order to avoid paying taxes in Russia and
he set up shell companies in a remote republic called Kalmykia, K-A-L-M-Y-K-I-A, which is next
to Mongolia. It's the only Buddhist republic in Russia and there's nothing much there, but if
you put your companies there you can lower your taxes. They were putting their companies in
Kalmykia that were holding investments from western investors and they were staffing these
companies -- they were using Afghan war veterans because there's a tax preference for Afghan
war veterans, and what we learned is that they got in trouble for this eventually because one
of Putin's primary rules for business was you can do a lot of things, but you've got to pay
your taxes.
In fact, William Browder famously said in 2005 at Davos everybody knows under Putin you have
to pay your taxes, which is ironic because at the time he was being investigated for not paying
taxes. Ultimately they were caught, some of these companies were prosecuted, and he was forced
to make an enormous tax payment to the government of Russia in 2006.
I will add that Sergei Magnitsky was working
10 for him at this time and all of this happened prior to the events that you are interested
in involving the Russian treasury fraud and his jailing. This precedes all that.
But returning to the detailed discussion of my work, we investigated William Browder's
business practices in Russia, we began to understand maybe what it was he didn't want to talk
about, and as we looked at that we then began to look at his decision to surrender his American
citizenship in 1998. At that point somewhere in there the Panama papers came out and we
discovered that he had incorporated shell companies offshore in the mid 1990s, in 1995 I
believe it was in the British Virgin Islands, and that at some point his hedge fund's shares
had been transferred to this offshore company.
This offshore company was managed -- several of his offshore companies were managed by the
Panamanian law firm called Mossack Fonseca, M-O-S-S-A-C-K, Fonseca, F-O-N-S-E-C-A, which is
known now for setting up offshore companies for drug kingpins, narcos, kleptos, you name it.
They were servicing every bad guy around. And I'm familiar with them from other money
laundering and corruption and tax evasion investigations that I've done.
I'll note parenthetically that William Browder talks a lot about the Panama papers and the
Russians who are in the Panama papers without ever mentioning that he's in the Panama papers.
This is, again, a public fact that you can check on-line.
So that's an overview of the sort of work I was doing on this case. In the course of that I
also began reaching back, I read his book Red Notice to understand his story and the story of
his activities in Russia. I'll add also that I was extremely sympathetic for what happened to
Sergei Magnitsky and I told him that myself and I tried to help him. It was only later from
this other case that I began to be curious and skeptical about William Browder's activities and
history in Russia.
MR. FOSTER: Can I ask you a follow-up question. I appreciate the narrative answer, but at
the very beginning of the narrative you talked about beginning this journey by interviewing --
conducting an interview of the case agent who said he'd gotten all of his information -- the
case agent or the attorney, the primary person at the DOJ, you said they got all their
information from Bill Browder. Can you tell us who that was and who conducted the
interview?
MR. LEVY: Mr. Simpson should definitely answer that question. I just want to make sure for
the record that he hadn't finished his answer. He can talk more extensively about the
litigation support that he provided for Baker -- MR. FOSTER: We're happy to get into that if he
wants to do that. We're just coming up at the end of our hour. MR. LEVY: No problem. MR.
FOSTER: and I wanted to get that follow-up in before --
A. I'll just finish with one last thing and I'm happy to answer that question. So in the
course of this, you know -- I mean, one of my interests or even obsessions over the last decade
has been corruption in Russia and Russian kleptocracy and the police state that was there. I
was stationed in Europe from 2005 to 2007 or '8. So I was there when Putin was consolidating
power and all this wave of power was coming. So it's been a subject that I've read very widely
on and I'm very interested in the history of Putin's rise.
You know, in the course of all this I'll tell you I became personally interested in where
Bill Browder came from, how he made so much money under Vladimir Putin without getting involved
in anything illicit. So I read his book and I began doing other research and I found filings at
the SEC linking him quite directly and his company, Salomon Brothers at the time, to a company
in Russia called Peter Star, and I had, as it happens, vetted Peter Star and I knew that Peter
Star was, you know, at the center of a corruption case that I covered as a reporter at the Wall
Street Journal. When I went back into the history of Peter Star I realized that Bill Browder
did business with the mayor's office in Saint Petersburg when Vladimir Putin was the deputy
mayor and was responsible for dealing with western businessmen and corporations.
I then went and looked in Red Notice, this was a large deal, it was the biggest deal ever
for Salomon at that time, they sold $98 million worth of stock on NASDAQ. There's no mention of
William Browder's deal with Peter Star in Red Notice. I can't tell you why, but I can tell you
that Peter Star later became the subject of a massive Star later became the subject of a
massive corruption investigation, Pan-European, that I exposed a lot of and that led to the
resignation of Putin's telecoms minister. So I assume he might not have -- this is kind of a
pattern with Browder, which is he tends to omit things that aren't helpful to him, and I think
we've seen a good bit of that lately in his allegations against me, which I'm sure you're going
to ask me about.
So your question about the ICE agent, he was deposed by John Moscow of the New York office
of Baker Hostetler. John is an old associate of mine from my days as a journalist. John's an
expert on tax evasion and money laundering. He was the head of the rackets bureau for the
district attorney's office in New York.
MR. FOSTER: You're talking about a formal deposition in the litigation?
MR. SIMPSON: Yeah.
MR. FOSTER: I just wanted to clarify that.
MR. SIMPSON: Again, it's in the court record. One of the frustrating things about this whole
issue for me is everything I'm talking about or most of it is in the court record. You know, I
don't take a lot of credit for my work. So you won't see my name scattered through the court
record, but a lot of this is what I did.
MR. DAVIS: I think that's concludes our first hour. Let's take a short break before we begin
a new one.
"... The documents had been doubted for some linguistic reasons discussed by Gilbert Doctorow who comes to a reasonable conclusion: "Bill Browder['s] intensity and the time he was devoting to anti-Russian sanctions in Europe was in no way comparable to the behaviour of a top level international businessman. It was clear to me that some other game was in play. But at the time, no one could stand up and suggest the man was a fraud, an operative of the intelligence agencies. ..."
"... We do not know whether Browder is, or had been, a spy. This should not surprise us, as he was closely connected to Maxwell, Safra and Berezovsky, the financiers with strong ties in the intelligence community. ..."
"... Perhaps he outlived his usefulness, Mr Browder did. He started the Cold war, now is the time to keep it in its healthy limits and to avoid a nuclear disaster or rapid armaments race. This is the task we may hope will be entertained by the next US President, Mr Donald Trump. ..."
Chapeau, Mr Browder! Hats off for this incredible man. Last month, he succeeded in stopping
a film screening in the European parliament and took off a few articles from American web
sites. This week, he turned the only US screening of a film critical to his version of events
into
a ruckus . No freedom of speech for his enemies! His lawyers prowl around and issue summons
to whoever digs in his sordid affairs. His hacks re-wrote his Wikipedia entry,
expunging even discussions of the topic: despite
hundreds of edits, nothing survived but the official version. Only a few powerful men succeed
purifying their record to such an extent. Still, good fortune (a notoriously flighty lady) is
about to desert Mr Browder.
Who is this extremely influential man? A businessman, a politician, a spy? The American-born
Jewish tycoon William Browder, says The Jewish
Chronicle , considers himself Putin's Number One enemy. For him, Putin is "no friend of the
Jews", "cold-blooded killer" and even "criminal dictator who is not too different from Hitler,
Mussolini or Gadhafi". More to a point, Browder is the man who contributed most to the new cold
war between the West and Russia. The roots were there, still he made them blossom. If the US
and Russia haven't yet exchanged nuclear salvos, do not blame Browder: he tried. For a valid
reason, too: he was hit by cruel Hitler-like Mr Putin into his most susceptible spot, namely
his pocket. Or was there even a better reason?
Browder, a grandson of the US Communist leader, came to Russia at its weakest point after
the Soviet collapse, and grabbed an enormous fortune by opaque financial transactions. Such
fortunes are not amassed by the pure of spirit. He was a ruthless man who did as much as any
oligarch to enrich himself.
Eventually he ran afoul of Mr Putin, who was (and is) very tolerant of oligarchs as long as
they play by the rules. The oligarchs would not be oligarchs if they would found that an easy
condition. Some of them tried to fight back: Khodorkovsky landed in jail, Berezovsky and
Gusinsky went to exile. Browder had a special position: he was the only Jewish oligarch in
Russia who never bothered to acquire the Russian citizenship. He was barred from returning to
Russia, and his companies were audited and found wanting.
As you'd expect, huge tax evasion was discovered. Browder thought that as long as he sucked
up to Putin, he'd get away with bloody murder, let alone tax evasion. He was mistaken. Putin is
nobody's fool. Flatterers do not get a free ride in Putin's Russia. And Browder became too big
for his boots.
It turned out that he did two unforgivable things. Russians were afraid the foreigners would
buy all their assets for a song, using favourable exchange rates and lack of native capital, as
had happened in the Baltic states and other ex-Communist East European countries. In order to
avoid that, shares of Russian blue-chip companies (Gazprom and suchlike) were traded among
Russian citizens only. Foreigners had to pay much more. Browder bought many such shares via
Russian frontmen, and he was close to getting control over Russian oil and gas. Putin suspected
that he had acted in the interests of big foreign oil companies, trying to repeat the feat of
Mr Khodorkovsky.
His second mistake was being too greedy. Russian taxation is very low; but Browder did not
want to pay even this low tax. He hired Mr Magnitsky, an experienced auditor, who used
loopholes in the Russian tax code in order to avoid taxes altogether. Magnitsky established
dummy companies based in tax-free zones of Russia, such as pastoral Kalmykia, small, Buddhist,
and autonomous. Their tax-free status had been granted in order to improve their economy and
reduce unemployment; however, Browder's companies did not contribute to economy and did not
employ people; they were paper dummies swiftly bankrupted by the owner.
Another Magnitsky trick was to form companies fronted by handicapped people who were also
freed from paying tax. In the film, some of these persons, often illiterate and of limited
intelligence, told the filmmaker of signing papers they could not read and of being paid a
little money for the millions passing through their account.
(Mr Browder does not deny these accusations; he says there is nothing criminal in trying to
avoid taxes. You can read about Browder and Magnitsky tricks
here and
here , and learn of the ways they attacked companies using minority shareholders and many
other neat schemes.)
Eventually Magnitsky's schemes were discovered and he was arrested. Ten months later, in
2009, he died in jail. By that time, his patron Mr Browder was abroad, and he began his
campaign against Russia hoping to regain his lost assets. He claimed Mr Magnitsky had been his
lawyer, who discovered misdeeds and the outright thievery of government officials, and was
imprisoned and tortured to death for this discovery.
The US Congress rushed in the Magnitsky Act, the first salvo of the Cold War Two. By this
act, any Russian person could be found responsible for Mr Magnitsky's untimely death and for
misappropriation of Browder's assets. His properties could be seized, bank accounts frozen
– without any legal process or representation. This act upset the Russians, who allegedly
had kept a cool $500 billion in the Western banks, so tit for tat started, and it goes to this
very day.
The actual effect of the Magnitsky Act was minimal: some twenty million dollars frozen and a
few dozen not-very-important people were barred from visiting the US. Its psychological effect
was much greater: the Russian elite realized that they could lose their money and houses
anytime – not in godless Putin's Russia, but in the free West, where they had preferred
to look for refuge. The Magnitsky Act paved the road to the Cyprus confiscation of Russian
deposits, to post-Crimean sanctions and to a full-fledged Cold War.
This was painful for Russia, as the first adolescent disillusionment in its love affair with
the West, and rather healthy, in my view. A spot of cold war (very cold, plenty of ice please)
is good for ordinary people, while its opposite, a Russian-American alliance, is good for the
elites. The worst times for ordinary Russian people were 1988-2001, when Russians were in love
with the US. The oligarchs stole everything there was to steal and sold it to the West for
pennies. They bought villas in Florida while Russia fell apart. That was bad time for
everybody: the US invaded Panama and Afghanistan unopposed, Iraq was sanctioned to death,
Yugoslavia was bombed and broken to pieces.
As the Cold War came back, some normalcy was restored: the Russians stopped the US from
destroying Syria, and Russian officials learned to love Sochi instead of Miami. For this reason
alone, Browder can be counted as a part of the power which eternally wills evil and eternally
works good. The Russian government, however, did not enjoy the cold shower.
The Russians denied any wrongdoing or even political reasons for dealing with Browder. They
say Magnitsky was not a lawyer, just an auditor and a tax code expert. They say that he was
arrested and tried for his tax avoidance schemes, and he died of natural causes while in jail.
Nobody listened to them, until they demanded that Browder testify under oath. He refused. For
two years
lawyers tried to give him a summons , but he was a quick runner. There are funny videos showing Browder
running away from summons.
Some good sense began to seep into American minds. The New Republicwondered : if
Browder was indeed the victim of persecution in Russia and had enlisted the U.S. justice system
to right the balance, why was he so reluctant to offer his sworn testimony in an American
courtroom?
Enter Mr Andrey Nekrasov , a
Russian dissident filmmaker. He made a few films considered to be highly critical of Russian
government. He alleged the FSB blew up houses in Moscow in order to justify the Chechnya war.
He condemned the Russian war against Georgia in 2008, and had been given a medal by Georgian
authorities. He did not doubt the official Western version of Browder-Magnitsky affair, and
decided to make a film about the noble American businessman and the brave Russian lawyer
fighting for human rights. The European organisations and parliamentarians provided the budget
for the film. They also expected the film to denounce Putin and glorify Magnitsky, the
martyr.
However, while making the film, Mr Nekrasov had his Road to Damascus moment. He realised
that the whole narrative was hinging on the unsubstantiated words of Mr Browder. After
painstaking research, he came to some totally different conclusions, and in his version,
Browder was a cheat who run afoul of law, while Magnitsky was his sidekick in those crimes.
Nekrasov discovered an interview Magnitsky gave in his jail. In this interview, the
accountant said he was afraid Browder would kill him to prevent him from denouncing Browder,
and would make him his scapegoat. It turned out Browder tried to bribe the journalist who made
the interview to have these words expunged. Browder was the main beneficiary of the
accountant's death, realised Nekrasov, while his investigators were satisfied with Magnitsky's
collaboration with them.
Nekrasov could not find any evidence that Magnitsky tried to investigate the misdeeds of
government officials. He was too busy covering his own tax evasion. And instead of fitting his
preconceived notions, Nekrasov made the film about what he learned. (
Here are some details of Nekrasov's film)
While the screening in the EU Parliament was been stopped by the powerful Mr Browder, in
Washington DC the men are made of sterner stuff. Despite Browder's threats the film was
screened , presented by the best contemporary American investigative journalist Seymour
Hersh, who is 80 if a day, and still going strong. One has to recognise that the US is second
to none for freedom of speech on the globe.
What makes Browder so powerful? He invests in politicians. This is probably a uniquely
Jewish quality: Jews outspend everybody in contributions to political figures. The Arabs will
spend more on horses and jets, the Russians prefer real estate, the Jews like politicians. The
Russian NTV channel reported that Browder lavishly financed the US lawmakers. Here they present alleged evidence of
money transfers: some hundred thousand dollars was given by Browder's structures officially to
the senators and congressmen in order to promote the Magnitsky Act.
Much bigger sums were transferred via good services of Brothers Ziff, mega-rich Jewish
American businessmen, said the researchers in two articles published on the
Veteran News Network and in The
Huffington Post .
These two articles were taken off the sites very fast under pressure of Browder's lawyers,
but they are available in the cache. They disclose the chief beneficiary of Browder's
generosity. This is Senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat from Maryland. He was the engine behind
Magnitsky Act legislation to such an extent that the Act has been often called the Cardin List . Cardin is a
fervent supporter of Hillary Clinton, also a cold warrior of good standing. More to a point,
Cardin is a prominent member of Israel Lobby.
Browder affair is a heady upper-class Jewish cocktail of money, spies, politicians and
international crime. Almost all involved figures appear to be Jewish, not only Browder,
Brothers Ziff and Ben Cardin. Even his enemy, the beneficiary of the scam that (according to
Browder) took over his Russian assets is another Jewish businessman
Dennis Katsiv (he had been partly exonerated by a New York court as is well described in
this thoughtful
piece).
Browder began his way to riches under the patronage of a very rich and very crooked Robert
Maxwell, a Czech-born Jewish businessman who assumed a Scots name. Maxwell stole a few million
dollars from his company pension fund before dying in mysterious circumstances on board of his
yacht in the Atlantic. It was claimed by a member of Israeli Military Intelligence, Ari Ben
Menashe, that Maxwell had been a Mossad agent for years, and he also said Maxwell tipped the
Israelis about Israeli whistle-blower Mordecai Vanunu. Vanunu was kidnapped and spent many
years in Israeli jails.
Geoffrey Goodman wrote
Maxwell "was almost certainly being used as – and using himself as – a two-way
intelligence conduit [between East and West]. This arrangement included passing intelligence to
the Israeli secret forces with whom he became increasingly involved towards the end of his
life."
After Maxwell, Browder switched allegiance to Edmond Safra, a very rich Jewish banker of
Lebanese origin, who also played East vs West. Safra provided him with working capital for his
investment fund. Safra's bank has been the unlikely place where the IMF loan of four billion
dollars to Russia had been transferred -- and disappeared. The Russian authorities say that
Browder has been involved in this "crime of the century," next to Safra. The banker's name has
been connected to Mossad: increasingly fearful for his life, Safra surrounded himself by
Mossad-trained gunmen. This did not help him: he died a horrible death in his bathroom when his
villa was torched by one of the guards.
The third Jewish oligarch on Browder's way was Boris Berezovsky, the king-maker of Yeltsin's
Russia. He also died in his bathroom (which seems to be a constant feature); apparently he
committed suicide. Berezovsky had been a politically active man; he supported every anti-Putin
force in Russia. However, a few months before his death, he asked for permission to return to
Russia, and some negotiations went on between him and Russian authorities.
His chief of security Sergey Sokolov came to Russia and purportedly brought with him some
documents his late master prepared for his return. These documents allege that Browder had been
an agent of Western intelligence services, of the CIA to begin with, and of MI6 in following
years. He was given a code name Solomon, as he worked for Salomon Brothers. His financial
activity was just a cover for his true intentions, that is to collect political and economic
data on Russia, and to carry out economic war on Russia. This revelation has been made in the
Russia-1 TV channel documentary Browder Effect ,
(broadcasted 13.04.2016), asserting that Browder was not after money at all, and his activities
in Russia, beside being very profitable, had a political angle.
The documents had been doubted for some linguistic reasons discussed by Gilbert Doctorow
who comes to a reasonable conclusion: "Bill Browder['s] intensity and the time he was devoting
to anti-Russian sanctions in Europe was in no way comparable to the behaviour of a top level
international businessman. It was clear to me that some other game was in play. But at the
time, no one could stand up and suggest the man was a fraud, an operative of the intelligence
agencies. Whatever the final verdict may be on the documents presented by the film "The
Browder Effect," it raises questions about Browder that should have been asked years ago in
mainstream Western media if journalists were paying attention. Yevgeny Popov deserves credit
for highlighting those questions, even if his documents demand further investigation before we
come to definitive answers".
We do not know whether Browder is, or had been, a spy. This should not surprise us, as
he was closely connected to Maxwell, Safra and Berezovsky, the financiers with strong ties in
the intelligence community.
Perhaps he outlived his usefulness, Mr Browder did. He started the Cold war, now is the
time to keep it in its healthy limits and to avoid a nuclear disaster or rapid armaments race.
This is the task we may hope will be entertained by the next US President, Mr Donald
Trump.
" Browder was not after money at all " Uh, no. Browder was notorious for his greed and
obsession with money. This is someone who had a program that calculated his personal net
worth online and would check it no less than every half hour.
Think Gordon Gekko but too
cheap to even buy a decent suit. While there may have been some intelligence connections
somewhere along the way, as the article states, he went political only when his honey pot was
removed. Without Russia, his fund management business quickly tanked.
This is priceless: "We do not know whether Browder is, or had been, a spy. This should not
surprise us, as he was closely connected to Maxwell, Safra and Berezovsky, the financiers
with strong ties in the intelligence community."
"Israel's Agent of Influence: Senator Ben Cardin shows how it's done:"
"So who does Cardin actually represent? I would suggest that he fits the mold of the
classic agent of influence in that his allegiance to the United States is constrained by his
greater loyalty to a foreign nation."
In Russia, everybody criticises Putin. No danger at all. Andrey Nekrasov was a foremost
critic of Putin, made him no harm. Russia has as much freedom of speech as Europe; still less
than the US.
Incredible–well, not really–that our mainstream media resolutely refuses to
print, much less discuss, the two main pieces of information here:
1. Browder was the one who gained most from Magnitsky's death as evidenced by the
interview in which the latter asserted a fear of being killed by Browder.
2. Nekrasov, the film's director, has a history of making films very critical of Putin and
the Russian government and state.
US media coverage either omits any mention of these two points or buries allusions to them
in the article. The NYT piece on Browder's attempt to block the film's screening at the
Newseum in Washington was filed in the "Europe" section of the paper.
Freedom of speech is under assault in the West and, again and again, we see the common
denominator of these despicable efforts to suppress key information.
How funny to hear people question Browder's Jewishness, in the Unz comments section of all
places. Lest there be any doubt, he, himself, very much identified as being a Jew, to the
extent that he had a Mezuzah on his office doorway and hired only Jewish employees.
Concerning Magnitsky's indeed unusual posthumous trial, this was actually at the behest of
his own mother who refused to sign the legal papers closing the criminal case due to his
death. This is usually a mere formality. However, the Russian legal system is a stickler for
the letter of the law and so the trial went ahead. His mother's motivation was unclear,
though it probably had something to do with extra publicity.
When I first became aware of Mr. Browder a number of years ago, I was curious about his name,
since I was aware of Earl Browder, the former head of the American Communist Party when I was
growing up. After I subsequently learned of the familial connection, I was highly amused to
discover the leap from Communist to capitalist in three generations. But then I recalled that
Dr. Armand Hammer, eventually the controlling shareholder of Occidental Petroleum, had a
father who was also a doctor, an emigrant from Odessa, and a founder of the Communist Party
U.S.A. That was a mere two generations to make the leap from Communist to capitalist.
A few years ago I happened to read an amusing memoir of the girl who was my date to my
high school prom but who went on to achieve a modest fame and acquaintance with many
prominent Americans and foreigners. (I am being intentionally vague.) When I was dating her
in high school and college, I operated under the false assumption that her mother (whom I
met) was Jewish and her natural father (whom I never met); I met her stepfather, who was
Jewish) was Catholic, which I thought was kind of cool, since I was totally nonreligious. You
can imagine my disappointment to learn nearly a half century later that both of her natural
parents were Jewish. Elsewhere in her memoir, my friend referred to her mother's sister, who
was a member of the Communist Party and got caught up in the Hollywood blacklist and lost her
job. (That was the first I heard of it, btw.) Things turned out well for her since she hooked
up with and married a wealthy Jewish doctor, who left her a sizable fortune when he died. She
eventually moved to Israel where she found nirvana, marrying a much younger man and enjoying
late in life "fantastic sex." So, it appears that what motivates many young Communists is the
dream of becoming fantastically wealthy and enjoying life as a plutocrat, not the BS of
improving life for the downtrodden. If I weren't such a natural skeptic, I would have been
very disillusioned, but not as much as I was to discover late in life that her father was
Jewish and not Catholic. Apologies to all those women I dated in my 20′s and 30′s
whom I regaled with the story of my half-Jewish, half-Catholic prom date.
It became tedious to evoke the murky relations of Bolshevism with the Jewish bank cartel
in the financing of Lenin, Trotsky &Co by Jacob Schiff ("a banker who grew up in House of
Rothschild Frankfurt, monopolized American rail system, funded the Rockefellers through First
City Bank, ADL and the NAACP. Schiff's granddaughter married Al Gore's Son" From his base on
Wall Street, he was the foremost Jewish leader from 1880 to 1920 in what later became known
as the "Schiff era", grappling with all major Jewish issues and problems of the day,
including the plight of Russian Jews under the Tsar, American and international
anti-semitism, care of needy Jewish immigrants, and the rise of Zionism" – per
Wikipedia), and Warburg ("Paul Warburg was a planner for the U.S. Federal Reserve System
which is a collection of private banks, and attended as American representative, the Treaty
of Versailles conference, where his brother Max was on the German side of the bargaining
table" by Wiki). One can see why Lenin was 'permitted' to pass through Germany!
Schiff financed the Japanese for their attack on Russia ("He extended loans to the Empire
of Japan in the amount of $200 million, through Kuhn, Loeb & Co Schiff saw this loan as a
means of answering, on behalf of the Jewish people, the anti-Semitic actions of the Russian
Empire, specifically the then-recent Kishinev pogrom"), the 1905 Revolution and the 1917
Revolution. "In addition to his famous loan to Japan, Schiff financed loans to many other
nations, including those that would come to comprise the Central Powers Schiff made sure none
of the funds from his loans ever went to the Russian Empire, which he felt oppressed Jewish
people. When the Russian Empire fell in 1917, Schiff believed that the oppression of Jews
would end. He formally repealed the impediments within his firm against lending to Russia".
It's true that Communist Russia quickly opened the door for foreign investment (NEP) and the
looting of Russia.
When Stalin tried to reduce USSR's dependence on foreign investments, he became instantly the
monster. It is remarkable that America stood behind Trotsky in the case of the so-called
"Show Trials" (The Dewey Commission).
Particularly interesting is that (per Wikipedia);
"Some ten years later, the Dewey Commission was cited in great detail, when in an open letter
to the British press dated 25 February 1946, written by George Orwell and signed by Arthur
Koestler, C. E. M. Joad, Frank Horrabin, George Padmore, Julian Symons, H. G. Wells, F. A.
Ridley, C. A. Smith and John Baird, among others, it was suggested that the Nuremberg Trials
then underway were an invaluable opportunity for establishing "historical truth and bearing
upon the political integrity" of figures of international standing. Specifically, they called
for Rudolf Hess to be interrogated about his alleged meeting with Trotsky and that the
Gestapo records then in the hands of Allied experts be examined for any proof of any "liaison
between the Nazi Party or State and Trotsky or the other old Bolshevik leaders indicted at
the Moscow trials "
BTW I wonder how many people, including posters here, are aware that the U.S., under
President Wilson, sent a military expedition to Russia after the Communist takeover there in
1917 and kept them there for about a year and a half.
When I was in college in the early 60′s, I bought a paperback of George Kennan's
"Russia and the West, Under Lenin and Stalin" (hardcover ed. 1961), the first book of Kennan
that I read, and was startled to learn of our military invasion of Russia at the end of WWI
and after, something I didn't remember being taught in high school American history a few
years earlier. That was about 50 years ago. This past year I got around to reading A. Scott
Berg's much acclaimed biography, "Wilson." I didn't remember reading anything in that
biography re Wilson's commitment of military forces to Russia. I have just reviewed the index
and found one obscure reference to "military intervention in Russia" (p. 590 of hardcover
ed.) and George Kennan.
More important, I reviewed the Bibliography and found no reference to
George Kennan's "Russia and the West, Under Lenin and Stalin." I don't know what to make of
the gross omission by a highly-regarded biographer, but it is clear that an effort has been
made to downplay this aspect of Wilson's policy, for reasons that escape me.
Maybe because I was educated in a different country I was very well aware of this item of
information. It was not only the US, then most of the Western countries from both sides of
WW1, including Britain, France, Italy, then also Czechoslovakia (Austria-Hungary), Japan,
Germany and so on, which sent troops to Russia on the side of Belaya Gvardiya fighting the
Lenin's Bolsheviks, even whilst WW1 was still ongoing.
They fought with Belaya Gvardiya in
Siberia, Ukraine and Crimea (part of Russia, not part of Ukraine until 1953 when given to
Ukraine by the Communist leader Nikita Khrushchev).
Fascinating, thank you. Reading more, I find that Wilson was motivated to safeguard almost
a billion dollars in armaments and equipment [including railway cars] given to Russia by the
U.S in the hopes of Russia prevailing over the Central Powers and thereafter adopting the
capitalist model.
Alas the men and hardware [including frozen machine guns] did not hit the
right wavelength with the Siberian winter.
Many of us are aware of the 'Allied Intervention in the Russian civil war' which occured in
the aftermath of the Peace of Brest-Litovsk while the Entante was still at war with Germany.
The chaos which ensued as a result of the misguided policies of the HLH (Hindenburg,
Ludendorff, Hoffman), especially the 'Napoleonic complex' of Ludendorff compounded by the
greedy desires of many petty German 'Fuersten' for crowns in the East, determined the Allies
to intervene, motivated by the following considerations:
- prevent the German or Bolshevik capture of Allied material stockpiles in Arkhangelsk
- mount an attack helping the Czechoslovak Legions stranded on the Trans-Siberian
Railroad
– resurrect the Eastern Front by defeating the Bolshevik army with help from the
Czechoslovak Legions and an expanded anti-Bolshevik force of local citizens and stop the
spread of communism and the Bolshevik cause in Russia.
Now, this is news only for graduates of American schools where history is no more taught.
The Wikipedia entry ('Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War') would have been
sufficient (for beginners) to set the record straight:
"Severely short of troops to spare, the British and French requested that President Wilson
provide American soldiers for the campaign. In July 1918, against the advice of the United
States Department of War, Wilson agreed to the limited participation of 5,000 United States
Army troops in the campaign. This force, which became known as the "American North Russia
Expeditionary Force" (a.k.a. the Polar Bear Expedition) were sent to Arkhangelsk while
another 8,000 soldiers, organised as the American Expeditionary Force Siberia, were shipped
to Vladivostok from the Philippines and from Camp Fremont in California. That same month, the
Canadian government agreed to the British government's request to command and provide most of
the soldiers for a combined British Empire force, which also included Australian and Indian
troops. Some of this force was the Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force; another part was
the North Russia Intervention. A Royal Navy squadron was sent to the Baltic under
Rear-Admiral Edwyn Alexander-Sinclair. This force consisted of modern C-class cruisers and V-
and W-class destroyers. In December 1918, Sinclair sailed into Estonian and Latvian ports,
sending in troops and supplies, and promising to attack the Bolsheviks "as far as my guns can
reach". In January 1919, he was succeeded in command by Rear-Admiral Walter Cowan.
The Japanese, concerned about their northern border, sent the largest military force,
numbering about 70,000. They desired the establishment of a buffer state in Siberia, and the
Imperial Japanese Army General Staff viewed the situation in Russia as an opportunity for
settling Japan's "northern problem". The Japanese government was also intensely hostile to
communism.
The Italians created the special "Corpo di Spedizione" with Alpini troops sent from Italy and
ex-POWs of Italian ethnicity from the former Austro-Hungarian army who were recruited to the
Italian Legione Redenta. They were initially based in the Italian Concession in Tientsin and
numbered about 2,500.
Romania, Greece, Poland, China, and Serbia also sent contingents in support of the
intervention."
All these troops have been involved, in a way or another, in the Russian Civil War, but by
1920 all have been withdrawn. Only the Japanese stayed in the Maritime Provinces of the
Russian Far East until 1922 and in northern Sakhalin until 1925.
There is obviously no space here to talk about the 'Treaty of Rapallo' between Russia and
Germany of 1922 and of the 'Genoa Conference' held in Genoa in 1922, where "the
representatives of 34 countries gathered to discuss global economic problems following World
War I. The purpose was to formulate strategies to rebuild central and eastern Europe,
particularly Russia, after the war, and also to negotiate a relationship between European
capitalist economies, and the new Russian Bolshevik regime". These were signals for the
introduction of NEP (New Economic Policy) and the policy of 'concessions' which was, in
Lenin's terms " a strategic retreat from socialism".
Anyhow, I think that a BA is a minimum requirement in order to gain a modicum of
understanding of these problems. For sure Wikipedia is not sufficient.
There is no question the involvement of U.S. troops in Russia following the Bolshevik
Revolution of 1917 is downplayed in the U.S. As I noted, the issue wasn't touched on in my
high school history class, and I was surprised to learn of our military involvement in
Russia's civil war only when I went to college and bought the small paperback of Kennan's
"Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin." In fact, I have a one-volume history of the
U.S. written by one of the U.S.'s leading historians, Samuel Eliot Morison, who was the
highly acclaimed biographer of Christopher Columbus and John Paul Jones and a long-time
professor of history at Harvard. He was also the author of the highly acclaimed "History of
the United States Naval Operations in World War II," a 15-volume effort. In his "The Oxford
History of the American People" (1965, 1122 pages, ending with the 1963 assassination of
JFK), he states briefly at p. 878 that "President Wilson went along [with efforts of France
and Britain to overthrow the Bolsheviks] to the extent of sending a small American force to
Archangel, ostensibly to prevent a cache of military supplies reaching Germany, and
participating in a Japanese-directed invasion of Siberia, to see that Japan did not go too
far." Rather cryptic reference to a somewhat small military involvement that lasted for more
than a year and a half, but, in defense of Morison, his history was a one-volume affair
(published by the Oxford University Press) and the American involvement in Russia had no
effect on the Russian Revolution, other than to sour the relationship between the new
Communist government and the U.S., which did not diplomatically recognize the new regime
until FDR became President in 1933.
A. Scott Berg has no such defense. His detailed biography of Wilson runs to 743 pages, and
he makes no reference at all to the U.S. military contingent that was sent to Russia in 1918
by Wilson and remained there for more than a year and a half. You would think that Berg could
have added a few brief sentences alluding to the military expeditionary force and a brief
summary of its impact, but not a word. This from an author who discusses the infamous "Palmer
raids" at the end of the Wilson Administration and the bombs which set off those raids. I am
just puzzled about the omission and fail to see what agenda is being served, other than it
highlights the utter hypocrisy of Wilson with his vaunted "Fourteen Points," which impliedly
called for respect of international borders. Wilson was also the hypocrite who won reelection
in a close race in 1916 running on a campaign that "he kept us out of war" and the declared
war against Germany a month after he was reinaugurated in March 1917.
BTW I wonder how many people, including posters here, are aware that the U.S., under
President Wilson, sent a military expedition to Russia after the Communist takeover there
in 1917 and kept them there for about a year and a half.
Actually this 'invasion' was to help stabilize Russia during the revolution and to block
Japan in the far east. Russia and the US had been good friends and allies since we helped
Russia during the Crimean War, and with the purchase of Alaska and they had helped us during
the US Civil War.
Harry Truman put an end to all that 'good neighbor policy" when he needed a scapegoat to
launch the National Security State and prevent another depression. On it goes.
Seems like the entire Browder/Magnitsky hustle is nothing more than Jews protecting Jews in a
kind of international crime syndicate. When found out, they even have the network in place to
control the narrative about their crimes to the point that trying to hold them accountable
quickly morphs into a fundamental violation of their human rights.
"What do you mean you can't rip off a country's assets and hide the loot in offshore
accounts? What do you do when you see a $10 bill laying in the street? You take it, of
course! What else is a person suppose to do? When opportunity strikes, you make the best of
it."
Browder and Magnitshy . How history repeats itself! I recall reading that something
similar happened in the Weimar Republic when Germany was stripped of its assets after WWI.
Indeed, even then there was an ((( international syndicate ))) in place to control the
narrative and protect the shysters.
"""Meaning, Putin gets a healthy cut. If he doesn't get a piece of the action, you will
suddenly be found to have evaded taxes, or worse. And, heaven forfend, if you decided to use
your wealth to oppose Putin politically, just as Khodorkovsky."""
What evidence do you have for this libellous allegation?? These assertions are made
habitually in the western media. However this article on Browder demonstrates who are the
parties making such claims and why.
We're talking about his grandson, an international businessman active in Russia at one
time. The WASP grandfather who eventually became CPUSA chief married a Jewish woman and their
mathematician son was the international businessman grandson's father.
Try to get your facts straight before you call everybody and his brother a Nazi.
Being English speaking and brought up in the Anglo-world but with good understanding of
Russia through Communism, made this Jewish Godfather much more damaging to Russia than the
other forced Jewish emigres: Berezovsky, Gusinsky and Khodorovsky.
Browder's ties with Mossad and CIA make him a prototypical Deep-Stater, spreading
Anglo-Zionist dominance of the World (Globalism) and getting personally rich in the process.
If the Anglo-Zionists manage to bring down Russia (say, kill Putin) then Browder could become
the Paul Bremer III of Russia (perhaps titled William Browder I).
There a book, a merciless, factual excoriation of the Browder Hoax: The Killing of William
Browder: Deconstructing Bill Browder's Dangerous Deception by Alex Krainer
Earl Browder, born into a Kansas Methodist farm family became the head of the Communist
party in the U.S. in the 30′s, probably for idealistic reasons. As a Communist, he
became an atheist. He went to Russia and married a Russian Jewish woman. Their son, Felix,
raised as a Jew by his mother, became a mathematician. Felix Browder married a Jewish woman
and their son is the William Browder, subject of this article. William Browder is thus 3/4
Jewish. His one grandfather, from whom he got his name, was born a Christian gentile, but
chucked it up to become a Communist leader. Through marriage to Jewish women, his grandson,
William, is a ruthless capitalist Jewish oligarch who contributed to scavenging the decaying
body of the former Soviet Union.
intensity and the time he was devoting to anti-Russian sanctions in Europe was in no way
comparable to the behaviour of a top level international businessman.
The writer does not know much about the business world, does he? Browder is still looking
to get paid off, and businessmen can be motivated by vengeance (Warren Buffet included).
Anyway, Mr. Browder seems far too focused on his wallet and effective an operator on that
account to have been directed by MI6.
There is this myth that secret intelligence agents are more competent than lesser mortals
(such as policemen). I like reading memoirs and novels about spys as much as anyone, but
rich, tax dodging/philanthropic and litigious people like Browder are the real 007s of this
world. I dare say there are a few holes in his story.
I can only tell Mr. Shamir that if he had stolen as much money as Browder, he'd be
untouchable, too. Look at any dollar bill. It says "IN GOD WE TRUST". This is THE God
Americans trust in. All the other gods are subject to freedom of religion.
Exactly right. Looting Russia– and later working to destroy it for objecting -- is
their YHWH-given right. The Jewish criminality and evil Browder embodies is of so great a
magnitude that it's difficult for a decent person to process such a creature.
Funny, I heard (((Big Media's))) glowing take on Browder the other day and figured he must be
a piece of shit. I don't base conclusions on such hunches, of course, so I guess I'll have to
read the article and check around.
But it's funny how race-realism, countersemitism, and hatred of (((Big Media))) have such
predictive power.
It was a remarkable moment in a remarkable press conference. President Donald Trump had just
finished a controversial summit meeting in Helsinki with his Russian counterpart Vladimir
Putin, and
the two were talking to the media . Jeff Mason, a political affairs reporter with Reuters,
stood up and asked Putin a question pulled straight out of the day's headlines: "Will you
consider extraditing the 12 Russian officials that were indicted last week by a U.S. grand
jury?"
The "12 Russian officials" Mason spoke of were military intelligence officers accused of
carrying out a series of cyberattacks against various American-based computer networks
(including those belonging to the Democratic National Committee), the theft of emails and other
data, and the release of a significant portion of this information to influence the outcome of
the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The names and organizational affiliations of these 12
officers were contained in a detailed 29-page indictment prepared by special
prosecutor Robert Mueller, and subsequently made public by Assistant Attorney General Rob
Rosenstein on July 13 -- a mere three days prior to the Helsinki summit.
Vladimir Putin responded, "We have an existing agreement between the United States of
America and the Russian Federation, an existing treaty, that dates back to 1999, the mutual
assistance on criminal cases. This treaty is in full effect. It works quite efficiently."
Putin then discussed the relationship between this agreement -- the 1999 Mutual Legal Assistance
Treaty -- and the Mueller indictment. "This treaty has specific legal procedures," Putin
noted, that "we can offer the appropriate commission headed by special attorney Mueller. He can
use this treaty as a solid foundation and send a formal and official request to us so that we
would interrogate, we would hold the questioning of these individuals who he believes are privy
to some crimes and our enforcement are perfectly able to do this questioning and send the
appropriate materials to the United States."
In the
uproar that followed the Trump-Putin press conference , the exchange between Mason and
Putin was largely forgotten amidst invective over Trump's seeming public capitulation on the
issue of election interference. "Today's press conference in Helsinki," Senator John McCain
observed afterwards in a typical comment, "was one of the most disgraceful performances by an
American president in memory."
It took an
interview with Putin after the summit concluded , conducted by Fox News's Chris Wallace, to
bring the specific issue of the 12 indicted Russians back to the forefront and give it context.
From Putin's perspective, this indictment and the way it was handled by the United States was a
political act. "It's the internal political games of the United States. Don't make the
relationship between Russia and the United States -- don't hold it hostage of this internal
political struggle. And it's quite clear to me that this is used in the internal political
struggle, and it's nothing to be proud of for American democracy, to use such dirty methods in
the political rivalry."
Regarding the indicted 12, Putin reiterated the points he had made earlier to Jeff Mason.
"We -- with the United States -- we have a treaty for assistance in criminal cases, an existing
treaty that exists from 1999. It's still in force, and it works sufficiently. Why wouldn't
Special Counsel Mueller send us an official request within the framework of this agreement? Our
investigators will be acting in accordance with this treaty. They will question each individual
that the American partners are suspecting of something. Why not a single request was filed?
Nobody sent us a single formal letter, a formal request."
There is no extradition treaty between the U.S. and Russia, which makes all the calls for
Trump to demand the extradition of the 12 Russians little more than a continuation of the
"internal political games" Putin alluded to in his interview. There is, however, the treaty
that Putin referenced at both the press conference and during the Wallace interview.
Signed in Moscow on June 17, 1999, the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty calls for the
"prevention, suppression and investigation of crimes" by both parties "in accordance with the
provisions of this Treaty where the conduct that is the subject of the request constitutes a
crime under the laws of both Parties."
It should be noted that the indicted 12 have not violated any Russian laws. But the Mutual
Legal Assistance Treaty doesn't close the door on cooperation in this matter. Rather, the
treaty notes that "The Requested Party may, in its discretion, also provide legal assistance
where the conduct that is the subject of the request would not constitute a crime under the
laws of the Requested Party."
It specifically precludes the process of cooperating from inferring a right "on the part of
any other persons to obtain evidence, to have evidence excluded, or to impede the execution of
a request." In short, if the United States were to avail itself of the treaty's terms, Russia
would not be able to use its cooperation as a vehicle to disrupt any legal proceedings underway
in the U.S.
The legal assistance that the treaty facilitates is not inconsequential. Through it, the
requesting party can, among other things, obtain testimony and statements from designated
persons; receive documents, records, and other items; and arrange the transfer of persons in
custody for testimony on the territory of the requesting party.
If the indictment of the 12 Russians wasn't the "dirty method" used in a domestic American
"political rivalry" that Putin described, one would imagine that Assistant Attorney General Rob
Rosenstein would have availed himself of the opportunity to gather additional evidence
regarding the alleged crimes. He would also have, at the very least, made a request to have
these officers appear in court in the United States to face the charges put forward in the
indictment. The treaty specifically identifies the attorney general of the United States "or
persons designated by the Attorney General" as the "Central Authority" for treaty
implementation. Given the fact that Jeff Sessions has recused himself from all matters
pertaining to the investigation by the Department of Justice into allegations of Russian
meddling in the 2016 election, the person empowered to act is Rosenstein.
There are several grounds under the treaty for denying requested legal assistance, including
anything that might prejudice "the security or other essential interests of the Requested
Party." However, it also requires that the reasons for the any denial of requested assistance
be put in writing. Moreover, prior to denying a request, the Requested Party "shall consult
with the Central Authority of the Requesting Party to consider whether legal assistance can be
given subject to such conditions as it deems necessary. If the Requesting Party accepts legal
assistance subject to these conditions, it shall comply with the conditions."
By twice raising the treaty in the context of the 12 Russians, Putin has clearly signaled
that Russia would be prepared to proceed along these lines.
If the indictment issued by the Department of Justice is to be taken seriously, then it is
incumbent upon Rosenstein to call Putin's bluff, and submit a detailed request for legal
assistance per the mandate and procedures specified in the treaty -- in short, compel Russia to
either put up or shut up.
Any failure to do so would only confirm Putin's assertion that the indictment was a
political game to undermine the presidency of Donald J. Trump.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former
Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert
Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author ofDeal of the Century: How Iran Blocked the West's Road to
War .
Very cogent analysis. Putin, who's incredibly well briefed, knew exactly what he was
offering, and thought that by doing so, would force the DoJ/Mueller to either take him up on
his offer or otherwise display the overt politicism of the indictments. But the American
anti-Trump mindhive is so completely addled, they of course miss the point entirely. The
absence of reason among the anti-Trump/anti-Russia collective is truly something to behold
– it's scary.
The request V. Putin proposed and Scot Ritter writes about, if send to Russia, would be
equivalent to 'go and whistle' and would be treated the same way the Russians treat the
requests from Poland to return the remains of the Polish plane that crashed in controversial
and strange circumstances near Smolensk on April 10, 2010. They, the Russians, did not return
the remains of the plane up until today and the place where the plane crashed they bulldozed
the ground and paved with very thick layer of concrete.
Such request would only give the Russians propaganda tools to delay and dilute any
responsibility from the Russian side and at the end they would blame the USA for the whole
mess with no end to their investigation, because they would investigate until the US
investigators would drop dead. Anybody who seriously thinks about V.
Putin offer to investigate anything with Russia should first have his head examined by a
very good, objective, and politically neutral head specialist.
"If the indictment issued by the Department of Justice is to be taken seriously, then it is
incumbent upon Rosenstein to call Putin's bluff, and submit a detailed request for legal
assistance per the mandate and procedures specified in the treaty -- in short, compel Russia
to either put up or shut up.
Any failure to do so would only confirm Putin's assertion that the indictment was a
political game to undermine the presidency of Donald J. Trump."
That was one long-winded way of recognizing that Putin just told the US biparty
establishment behind the manufactured "Russia!" hysteria to put up or shut up.
I don't think that Pres Putin has anything to lose here.
"ARTICLE 4 DENIAL OF LEGAL ASSISTANCE
The Central Authority of the Requested Party may deny legal assistance if:
(1) the request relates to a crime under military law that is not a crime under general
criminal law;
(2) the execution of the request would prejudice the security or other essential interests
of the Requested Party; or "whether accurate or not the treaty permits a denial of request,
if said requests threaten Russian security."
Almost by definition, an investigation interrogation by the US of the personnel in
question because said questioning might very well stray into other areas , unrelated to the
hacking charge. Now Pres. Putin has played two cards: a treaty is in place that deals with
criminal matters between the two states and surely must have known that and should have
already made the formal requests in conjunction with the treaty or he didn't know either way,
the rush to embarrass the president may very well backfire. As almost everything about this
investigation has.
Right! That's not going to happen .the DOJ has no proof .their indictment was a ploy to
queer any deal with Russia. Anybody that believes anything the 'intelligence' agencies say,
without proof, is an idiot.
"... No Russian interference in America's political process occurred in 2016, earlier, or is being cooked up for the nation's November midterm elections. ..."
"... Trump knows it and said so in Helsinki. When asked if he holds Russia accountable for anything, he said: ..."
"... Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the CRG, Correspondent of Global Research based in Chicago. ..."
"... VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected]. My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III." http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html ..."
No Russian interference in America's political process occurred in 2016, earlier, or is
being cooked up for the nation's November midterm elections.
Trump knows it and said so in Helsinki. When asked if he holds Russia accountable for
anything, he said:
"I hold both countries responsible (for dismal bilateral relations). I think that the
United States has been foolish. I think we've all been foolish And I think we're all to
blame."
Regarding election meddling, he said:
"There was no collusion at all. Everybody knows it. And people are being brought out to
the fore. So far that I know, virtually none of it related to the campaign. And they're going
to have to try really hard to find somebody that did relate to the campaign."
"My people came to me and some others (T)hey think it's Russia President Putin said it's
not Russia. I will say this: I dont see any reason why it would be."
" President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today."
Trump is wrong about most things, not this. No evidence, nothing, proves Russian meddling in
the US political process.
If it existed, it would have been revealed long ago. It never was and never will be because
there's nothing credible to reveal, Big Lies alone.
Trump's above remarks were in Helsinki. In response to a raging Russophobic firestorm of
criticism back home, he backtracked from his above comments, saying he misspoke abroad.
He accepts the intelligence community's claim about Russian US election meddling –
knowing it didn't occur.
Russiagate was cooked up by Obama's thuggish Russophobic CIA director John Brennan , media
keeping the Big Lie alive.
DNC/John Podesta emails were leaked, not hacked – an indisputable fact media
scoundrels suppress to their disgrace.
Former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray earlier explained that
"(t)he source of these emails and leaks has nothing to do with Russia at all," adding:
"I discovered what the source was when I attended the Sam Adam's whistleblower award in
Washington."
"The source of these emails (came) from within official circles in Washington DC. You
should look to Washington, not to Moscow."
"WikiLeaks has never published any material received from the Russian government or from
any proxy of the Russian government. It's simply a completely untrue claim designed to divert
attention from the content of the material" and its true source.
The Big Lie alone matters when it's the official narrative. The Russian meddling hoax and
mythical Kremlin threat to US security are central to maintaining adversarial relations with
America's key invented enemy.
It's vital to unjustifiably justifying the nation's global empire of bases, its outrageous
amount of military spending, its belligerence toward all sovereign independent states, its
endless wars of aggression, its scorn for world peace and stability, its neoliberal harshness
to pay for it all, along with transferring the nation's wealth from ordinary people to its
privileged class.
America's deeply corrupted political process is far too debauched to fix, rigged to serve
wealth, power and privilege exclusively, at war on humanity at home and abroad.
It's a tyrannical plutocracy and oligarchy, a police state, not a democracy, a cesspool of
criminality, inequity and injustice, run by sinister dark forces – monied interests and
bipartisan self-serving political scoundrels, wicked beyond redemption, threatening humanity's
survival.
Today is the most perilous time in world history. What's going on should terrify everyone
everywhere.
Washington's rage for global dominance, its military madness, its unparalleled recklessness,
threatens world peace, stability, and survival.
*
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the CRG, Correspondent of Global Research
based in Chicago.
VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
After the collapse of the USSR, under Yeltsin, a large handful of
'oligarchs' grew immensely wealthy by buying Russian assets on the cheap.
This was part of a privitization drive largely overseen by American
economists.
The oligarchs were mostly Jews. The chief economic advisors were largely
Jews.
Responding to my thanks for granting me the audience at such a hectic
time, Boris Abramovich commented with a faint smile: "You would be writing
the book in any case ..."
I understood that my visit was somewhat imposed on him so I got right to
the point:
"Boris Abramovich, the real reason for writing this book is this. As you
probably know there is a television show called 'The Puppets.' Puppets of
Yeltsin, Yastrzhembsky, Chernomyrdin, Kulikov, and others perform. But the
main puppeteer is behind the scenes -- his name is Shenderovich. And in
real life there are Yeltsin, Kiriyenko, Fedorov, Stepashin and the others.
But the main puppeteer has a long Jewish name: Berezovsky-Gusinsky-
Smolensky-Khodorkovsky, and so on.
"This is to say that for the first time in a thousand years, since the
first Jews settled in Russia, we hold the real power in this country. I
want to ask you straight out: How do you intend to use it? What do you
intend to do in this country? Cast it into the chaos of poverty or raise it
from the mud? Do you understand that a chance like this comes only once in
a thousand years? Do you understand your responsibility to our [Jewish]
people for your actions?"
Boris Abramovich responded with some difficulty: "Of course, as you see,
financial power is in Jewish hands, but we have never looked at this from
the point of view of historical responsibility."
Putin stopped the fire sale, essentially by dividing the oligarchs,
leveraging some against others.
Browder was heavily involved in the looting. He is heavy in distributing
anti-Russian propaganda in a heavily Jewish controlled media, and he was all
in for Clinton.
And he wants Trump impeached
(I recommend reading the
article below if you read just 1 link)
Most readers will identify Bill Broder with Hermitage Capital, but few
will recall that the investment firm was also funded by one Beny Steimetz,
the Israeli oligarch and financier just arrested (August 14) by Israeli and
Swiss anti-corruption officials for widescale fraud and money laundering.
The Russia privatization shark who was once Israel's richest man is a
subject for another report. I only bring him up here to point at two facets
of this war on Putin. First, the Jewish connection in all this is something
that just needs to come out. Secondly, the ring of profiteers bent on
Putin's demise all have gigantic skeletons in their wardrobes. A story
citing one Putin hater, when investigated, always leads to ten more. This
is no coincidence.
Back to Browder, his Hermitage was at one time was the largest foreign
portfolio investor in Russia. That was before Vladimir Putin put a stop to
the rape of Russia's legacy and the theft of her assets. This is undeniable
fact, and even the lowliest of Russian peasants know it by now. Browder, a
Chicago Jew, set out to profit from Russian privatization after Yeltsin,
but was thwarted like other sharks when Putin's hammer fell on other
mafiosos. RICO suits, libel cases, tax evasion charges, and ties to some of
the seediest characters in world finance highlight the man who pushed the
now famous Magnitsky Act into US foreign policy play. It's no coincidence
that Browder has emerged as a central player in the ongoing investigation
of Russian interference in the 2016 elections. The privateer who made
billions off Russia privatization turned into a human rights activist, and
now he's bent on seeing Donald Trump impeached!
The war on Russia is very heavily a product of Jews pursuing Jewish group
interests, internationally.
A man named Henry Ford once wrote a book on the topic. Of all the
criticism it received and receives, that it is 'hate,' one will seldom find
any effort to dispute its accuracy.
Terrific post I Am Jack. And also thank you for emphasising the unholy
convergence of vested interests in Putin Russia demonization - the Jewish
bankers raping Rusdia in the 90s on a scale not seen since the Mongols
hordes, and Western oligarchs seeing a chance to become even more insanely
wealthy (hence the London, Wall St, Pentagon, Fed, DC, Brussels etc
involvement).
Putin is an extraordinary and immensely intelligent and
brave individual who divided and knee-capped the world mafia. THIS is why
he is demonised, not because he is some evil Tsar of Mordor. That being
said he hasn't done it alone - the people of Russia made huge mistakes by
allowing communism in, and economic genocide in the 1990s was wilful
influcted upon them, but their resilience is extraordinary.
I hope they are all watching their backs. Putin if all people stated
that he is careful about cornering rats with now way out, so i have a
feeling that things are going to get unpredictable ...
Good article. Remember that Bill Browder's grandfather was head
of the American Communist Party in the 1930s ...
The Killing of William Browder is compulsory reading if you
want to sssure yourself about that lying theiving NPD sack of s***
Browder. Lots on him on Sott etc.
I did post about 3 months back that Browder and the trillion
dollar rape Russia in the 1990s , the Money Plane etc are the key
to understand current events, Putin and what is being covered up
now, in my opinion, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to get
traction.
I'd not seen the AP reporters question that triggered this before. It looks like the
reporter was trying to embarrass both Putin and Trump but wound up getting his ass, Clinton's
ass, and the asses of the intelligence community handed to him instead.
too right. If I remember correctly, it was in the context of Putin saying Russia is open
to have FBI guys come to question the 12 GRU guys indicted (no proof yet) by Mueller.
In return, he then said Russia would like to ask a few questions to the US officials
believed to have HELPED Browder funnel $400K to Clinton and probably avoid paying tax on 1.5
billion in Russia AND the US...
Browder has to be on top of the US wanted list in the not too distant future or there
really is no fuckin justice.
Most of you must have heard of the Magnitsky Act or even maybe of William Browder himself. You
probably know that Browder was a British businessman who founded Hermitage Capital Management
investment fund which Sergei Magnitsky represented as a lawyer
and auditor. Finally, you must have heard that Magnitsky died (was killed) in a Russian jail
while Browder was placed by the Russian government on a black list and denied entry. For the
vast majority of you, that is probably as much thought as you ever gave this topic and I have
to confess that this is also true for me. I never bothered really researching this issue
because I knew the context so well that this, by itself, gave me a quasi-certitude that I knew
what had happened. Still, when I read this book I was amazed at the fantastically detailed
account Krainer provides to what is really an amazing story.
In his book Alex Krainer offers us the truth and truly shows us how deep the rabbit hole
goes....
As Congress still swoons over the anti-Kremlin Magnitsky narrative, Western political and
media leaders refuse to let their people view a documentary that debunks the fable, reports
Robert Parry.
"... "Browder's long-standing partners in crime." ..."
"... "on even terms." ..."
"... "meet US authorities half-way" ..."
"... "on the condition" ..."
"... "Realizing that the Russian prosecutors wouldn't let go off him easily, Browder has tried to cultivate connections with political influencers in in the US, and this can be seen through the Ziff brothers, and their support for the Democratic Party in the last election," ..."
"... Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! ..."
Russia's prosecutor general will demand interviews with American congressmen, security
services staff, and other high-profile individuals as it seeks to involve the US in its
investigation into convicted financier Bill Browder. Moscow accuses Browder of illegally taking
$1.5 billion out of Russia and fabricating evidence that led to the passing of the
sanctions-imposing Magnitsky Act. As part of the investigation, the prosecutor general wants to
speak to ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele, author of the notorious Trump dossier, and former
ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul, who campaigned on behalf of Browder. Michael McFaul and
Hillary Clinton in 2016. / Reuters
Other persons of interest on what Russia said was an incomplete list included David Kramer,
former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor and president of
think tank Freedom House, and the billionaire Ziff brothers, who are described as
"Browder's long-standing partners in crime."
This was announced by Aleksandr Kurennoy, the head of the mass media department of the
prosecutor general's office in Moscow, who said that Russia was ready to share its findings
with US law enforcement agencies "on even terms."
The announcement follows hot on the heels of a proposal made by Vladimir Putin during his
press conference with Donald Trump in Helsinki on Monday, in which he offered to "meet US
authorities half-way" and allow the Mueller investigation into Moscow's election meddling
to interview suspects in Russia, "on the condition" that Russian investigators could
speak to suspects in the Browder investigation. Russia has previously tried to extradite
Browder and gain access to others, but without success, though the businessman was briefly
arrested in Spain in May, before being set free.
"Realizing that the Russian prosecutors wouldn't let go off him easily, Browder has
tried to cultivate connections with political influencers in in the US, and this can be seen
through the Ziff brothers, and their support for the Democratic Party in the last
election," said Kurennoy, explaining the intertwining of business and politics that has
led to the current investigation.
Browder has
responded to Putin's words in the Washington Post, claiming that the Russian leader's offer
meant he was "rattled" by Browder's accusations of corruption against Moscow
officials.
US-born Browder made a fortune as an investor in Russia, starting in the 1990s, but was
barred from entering the country in 2005, and has since become an arch-critic of the Kremlin.
His allegations over the treatment of one of his staff, Sergei Magnitsky, while in custody, led
to the sanctioning of select Moscow officials in the 2012 Magnitsky Act, but the legislation
has since been expanded and can be applied to any foreign official, who is deemed to have
violated human rights.
Browder was convicted in Russia in absentia in 2013 for fraud and tax evasion, and again, at
the end of last year.
The 54-year old investor has also been a prominent voice in the Mueller investigation
itself, though it does not concern him directly, and he submitted a scathing testimony about
Russia to the US Senate a year ago.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
In 2015, Bill Browder published Red Notice - purportedly a true story about his experience
in Russia between 1996 and 2005. Upon closer scrutiny however, his story doesn't add up and
demonstrably fails to stand up in a court of law. Nonetheless, on the dubious strength of that
story, Browder has been able to lobby the U.S. Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act in 2012 which
needlessly damaged the relations between the U.S. and Russia. Where he failed in courts of law,
however, his campaign of relentless demonization of Russia and of Vladimir Putin has been
successful in the court of public opinion in the West. As humanity finds itself on the
precipice of yet another great war, what we need are bridges of mutual understanding and
constructive engagement, not demonization. This book's modest hope is to contribute to the
construction of those bridges.
"I consider [this] book as a must read for any person trying to understand modern Russia and
where the new Cold War with Russia came from. ... Krainer offers us the truth and truly shows
us how deep the rabbit hole goes. ... Get the book, read it, and then give it to your friends.
This is one of the most important books to have come out in the recent years (and an excellent
read too!)." --The Saker
"True to form, Alex brings to life the shenanigans and the deception of those who have gone
out of their way to stay in the shadows, in this gripping true-life-detective non-fiction
thriller." --Daniel Estulin, author of The True Story of the Bilderberg Group
"Krainer's book is an indispensable contribution to understanding the connection between the
looting of Russia during the disastrous shock therapy of the Yeltsin years, and the dangerous
anti-Russian provocations of today. His insight into the duplicitous role of Bill Browder
provides compelling evidence of how unscrupulous greed can lead to much larger crimes."
--Harley Schlanger, Schiller Institute
A commodities trader and hedge fund manager by day, Alex Krainer took up writing in an
effort to uncover the truth about the pressing social, economic and political issues of the
day, and share it broadly with the public. He was born in Croatia, one of the republics of
former Yugoslavia, to a Croatian father and a Serbian mother. As a young man in the 1990s he
lived through the downfall of the 'Communist Bloc' and served in the Croatian Army during the
war in that country. Having observed first-hand the events that led to the destructive and
tragic wars in former Yugoslavia, he believes that truth is the single most important
requirement needed to preserve peace. This book represents Alex's personal endeavor to
contribute an important element of truth toward a peaceful resolution of the dangerous yet
needless new Cold War between the United States and Russia so that the relations between these
two great nations may develop in the spirit of friendship, mutual cooperation and widespread
prosperity.
You can visit Alex's blog at thenakedhedgie.com and the website for this book at
thirdalliance.ch.
Russia may be in much better shape economically now than during the 1990s and immediately ...
The book does make a compelling case against much of Browder's version of events in Russia over
the years from the fall of the USSR through most of Putin's time as leader of Russia. But there
is nothing about democracy in Russia since Putin came to power. How is democracy left out of
the equation? Russia may be in much better shape economically now than during the 1990s and
immediately afterward but there is no appearance of anything like democracy. We have seen
nothing in the leadership of Russia; only Putin since 2000 (alternating with Medvedev).
Read more
Very import to look behind the scenes of the demonization of Russia!
I agree with the reviews posted prior to mine. I only want to add that I feel it is
extremely important that Browder's tale, which is based on his word only, be countered. It
amazes me how many have swallowed Browder's (and his backers) bait. Alex Krainer shows that
there is probably a hook hidden by the bait. The demonization of Putin and Russia seems to me
very, very dangerous, and as best I can tell it's completely unfounded. This book shows that
it is not only unfounded, it contradicts various facts.
I bought this book because of the news that Browder was blocking distribution and
screening of Andrei Nekrasov"s documentary "The Magnitsky Act. Behind the Scenes".
This made
me very suspicious that Browder has something to hide. If Nekrasov's documentary is
untruthful I feel it would be much better to let it be distributed and then counter it with
evidence than with legal bullying and other means to prevent it's distribution.
This book starts off slow, but the more you read, the more you will realize the menacing
extent of Browder's deception. Krainer describes how Browder built a web of deception and
lies in order to paint Russia as an evil place and America's enemy. Browder's book preys on
America's wounded sense of global supremacy and casts the US as a victim in a country where
we served as predators. Anyone who read Browder's book should read this one for sure.
A highly intelligent, frank and entertaining take-down of one of the biggest hoaxes ever
perpetrated on the US public and the world - The Magnitsky Act.
The Bill Browder of the title, who has positioned himself both as victim and champion of
the downtrodden is revealed as anything but that.
The picture painted of a vulture/hedge fund manager who took advantage of the lawlessness of
the Yeltsin years to steal from the poorest of the poor of a broken USSR is chilling.
Browder's carefully cultivated and paid for image in the West (he was planning a movie
about himself with the Weinstein brothers) is so at odds with the reality exposed here as to
make up a kind of horror story effect out of Bram Stoker. Yet the way Alex Krainer tells it
is both compelling and convincing. The thing is, no one else has looked at Browder's story
critically. It was accepted as fact, with no corroboration of any sort, by a gullible, and
probably complicit, US political establishment.
An even more terrifying question raised by the very existence of this book is: What was
the interest of the US Senate and Congress in unquestionably believing this 'scheister,' Bill
Browder, and using his outlandish and unsubstantiated claims to restart the Cold War and
bring us to the brink of nuclear confrontation?
Get the book while you can. As with a documentary about him by Nekrasov, called 'The
Magnitsky Act - Behind the Scenes,' Browder has armies of lawyers trying to squelch any
information coming out about him and the events he fabricated. Understandably, since the
story he told is so shabby and full of holes that any light cast on it at all begins to
crumble the fabric of it.
Every Concerned American Should read this, then make up his or her own mind!
An interesting alternative view of Russia, Russia's President Vladimir Putin, and Bill
Browder. Something every concerned American should read and consider, and then make up his or
her own mind. Also some really good background on events in Russia since the fall of the
Soviet Union and the subsequent rise and popularity of Pres. Putin.
His explanation of the Deflationary Gap in the Appendix helped to clarify several related
ideas that I have picked up or thought of in the past,but never put together clearly the way
Mr.Krainer does.
Riveting Expose of one of the Century's Big Hoaxes.
Alex Krainer's second book, "Killing of William Browder: Bill Browder's Dangerous
Deception" is a meticulously scrupulous research of a fascinating tale whose protagonist has
all the traits of a fiendish movie villain. Needless to point out, in the cacophonic
pandemonium of relentless anti-Russian propaganda that permeates both political and
mass-media scene in the West throughout 2017, Bill Browder, by trade a vulture investor, is
depicted as akin to a holy warrior against the Devil himself, the Russian president Vladimir
Putin.
In our increasingly insane world a fascinating tale of William Browder's role in pushing
the Magnitsky Act, that was passed in the U.S. Senate in order "to punish those suspected of
being involved in the death of Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky," might have eluded you.
The Magnitsky Act that has passed the Congress on 3rd of January, 2012 resulted in
blacklisting of five Russian nationals on 9th of January, 2017 and elevated Bill Browder, at
least in his own eyes, to the status of a global human rights activist.
Enters "Killing of William Browder: Bill Browder's Dangerous Deception" and shatters that
delusion. Krainer mercilessly dissects Browder's tale in the most minute details and, as he
examines Browder's numerous statements, he portrays Browder as he truly is: not a magnanimous
human rights champion but rather a wicked purveyor of (other man's) tragedy and salesman of
(his own) self-aggrandizing fantasies. Bill Browder seems to me as a somehow cartoonish
villain who makes us chuckle even while we shudder.
Krainer writing possesses a great sense of drama and a fine sense of irony. His book reads
like a horrific thriller sprinkled with taunting humor. Even when he excoriates Browder's own
"Red Notice" and his posing, he does it with penetrating wit: "Browder didn't neglect to
throw in more ugly smears on Russia and the Russian people. He assures us that – 'Most
Russians don't operate on high-minded principles Everything in Russia was about money. Making
it, keeping it and making sure no one took it ' – (that) stands in stark contrast with
Bill Browder and his goodfellas who did everything they did out of selfless desire to make
the world a better place."
Krainer's study of Bill Browder's book and actions is a riveting, unflinching expose of
what might end up being pivotal in revealing one of this decade's big hoaxes.
"Killing of William Browder: Bill Browder's Dangerous Deception" is a monumental work of
an extraordinary skilled writer who pulls no punches as he bravely swims upstream.
Russia may be in much better shape economically now than during the 1990s and immediately
...
The book does make a compelling case against much of Browder's version of events in Russia
over the years from the fall of the USSR through most of Putin's time as leader of Russia.
But there is nothing about democracy in Russia since Putin came to power. How is democracy
left out of the equation? Russia may be in much better shape economically now than during the
1990s and immediately afterward but there is no appearance of anything like democracy. We
have seen nothing in the leadership of Russia; only Putin since 2000 (alternating with
Medvedev).
It is amazing that Browder has been able to prevent the showing ...
It is amazing that Browder has been able to prevent the showing of an important
documentary by Andrei Nekrasov on the Magnitsky Act and also prevent the distribution on the
Amazon site of this excellent well written intelligent exposé of the fraud perpetrated
by him. One wonders who is behind Browder that gives him such power and influence.
Who should
Browder fear more: those who are supporting him or Vladimir Putin?
In this book, unavailable
on Amazon, can be found:
1. one of the best summaries of the Yeltsin years;
2. a useful
review of US-Russia relations in the XIX century; 3. a counter-view of the personality of
V.V. Putin; 4. copious footnotes and a very valuable bibliography; 5. a deconstruction of
William Browder's thriller, Red Notice.
Only the people who make those decision at Amazon
know why the book is not available on their site.
Putin handed Trump a means of openly investigating Killary's/CIA's manipulation of US politics via the Browder investigation,
the crime of manipulating the DNC to remove Bernie can also loop into the mix.
Let's hope Trump follows through and exposes the nest of vipers. The majority of people are now seeing the light, only the
people with skin the game or those far too controlled through an excellent propaganda/mass mind control experiment do not.
Edward Bernays and Joseph Goebels could only dream that their methods would go this far.
"But being dependent, every day of the year and for year after year, upon certain politicians for news, the newspaper reporters
are obliged to work in harmony with their news sources."
― Edward L. Bernays ,
Propaganda
+50 Overbet. I posted before i read yours. I have tired of trying to convince people that
90s Russia and the thefts then and subsequent covering of crimes is STILL the key to
understanding the Deep States obsession and fear of Putin and Russia. Soros, Clinton's,
Chubias, the FED's off the books money printing, London money laundering , EU buying the
stolen movables etc - they are all there. Browder's animus is also driving much behind the
scenes with 'Russiagate'. Look people - you will see. Putin certainly didn't pluck that lying
idiot's name randomly.
I urge people to at least read the 90s chapter in the Killing of William Browder (free
online PDF) to begin to understand what is going on now.
The appendix on Jacob Rothschild alone and Yukos makes it worth the read. But if you read
nothing else, read the chapters on Browder's interrogation and Russia in the 1990s - easy
reads and give a great introduction to this orgy of psycopathy and mendacity. They are all
connected
Everyone messes with everyone in their elections around the world. My first
question is why is the media on both sides still pounding the American
public with the "Russia did it" bullhorn. What exactly does Russia gain ?
They're 9 times smaller than NATO. China has the most to gain.
The
Ukrainians were working with Hillary against Trump. The Deep State has the
ability to make every act of espionage look like Russia did it. The DNC
didn't turn over their server to the FBI. The Awan server disappeared too.
Something smells terrible, like Kankles Huma hole.
jesus they can accuse you of being a putin puppet if you don't...
and how do you defend yourself.. "how dare you insult every branch of
our intelligence agencies"( and the lying james clapper!!!! )how dare
you...?
Hey Groot, I think these countries hack and spy on each other 24/7.
It's bullshit. They appoint a special prosecutor and with the
exceptions of the BS Flynn and Manafort charges the only others he's
charged are non-americans. Nothing about the elephant in the room, the
billion dollar + money laundering schemes and treason of the
Obama/Clinton and their lackeys.
Looks like it was actually China which implemented forwarding of all 30K email to controlled
by them account. See sic_semper_tyrannis blog for details. This is a bombshell revelation, if
true,
For debunking of the information presented in the indictment see
To me Mueller fiction sounds like a second rate Crowdstrike "security porn" -- a bragging
about non-existent capabilities.
And I agree that the "Le Carre level of details" with names (which are obviously
classified) are extremely suspicious. It also invites a nasty retaliation, because it breaks
de-facto mode of work of intelligence agencies with each other and undermines any remnant of
trust (if such exists in respect to CIA; it probably existed for NSA).
As sessions were encrypted so to decode them you need to steal SSH key, or break SSH
encryption. Both are not very realistic, and, if realistic, disclosing such NSA capabilities
greatly damages those capabilities.
Also Guccifer 2.0 Internet personality looks more and more to me like a false flag
operation with the specific goal to implicate Russians. Mueller is actually pretty adept in
operating in such created for specific purpose "parallel reality" due to specifics of his
career. So nothing new here. Just a strong stench of a false flag operation
Another weak point is the use of CCcleaner. This is not how professionals from state
intelligence agencies operate. Any Flame-style exfiltration software (and Flame was pioneered
by the USA ;-) has those capabilities built-in, so exposing your activities in Windows logs
is just completely stupid.
The Russian government on Friday strongly denied the charges. In a statement, the Foreign
Ministry called the indictments "a shameful farce" that was not backed up by any evidence.
"Obviously, the goal of this 'mud-slinging' is to spoil the atmosphere before the
Russian-American summit," the statement said.
The Ministry added that the 12 named Russians were not agents of the GRU.
" When you dig into this indictment there are huge problems, starting with how in the world
did they identify 12 Russian intelligence officers with the GRU?" said former CIA analyst Larry
Johnson in an interview with Consortium News. Johnson pointed out that the U.S. Defense
Intelligence Agency was not allowed to take part in the January 2017 Intelligence Community
Assessment on alleged interference by the GRU. Only hand-picked analysts from the FBI, the NSA
and the CIA were involved.
" The experts in the intelligence community on the GRU is the Defense Intelligence Agency
and they were not allowed to clear on that document," Johnson said.
" When you look at the level of detail about what [the indictment is] claiming, there is no
other public source of information on this, and it was not obtained through U.S. law
enforcement submitting warrants and getting affidavits to conduct research in Russia, so it's
clearly intelligence information from the NSA, most likely," Johnson said.
CrowdStrike's Role
The indictment makes clear any evidence of an alleged hack of the DNC and DCCC computers did
not come from the FBI, which was never given access to the computers by the DNC, but instead
from the private firm CrowdStrike, which was hired by the DNC. It is referred to as Company 1
in the indictment.
" Despite the Conspirators' efforts to hide their activity, beginning in or around May 2016,
both the DCCC and DNC became aware that they had been hacked and hired a security company
("Company 1") to identify the extent of the intrusions," the indictment says.
Dimitri Alperovitch, a CrowdStrike co-founder, is also a senior fellow at the anti-Russian
Atlantic Council think tank.
The indictment doesn't mention it, but within a day, CrowdStrike claimed to find Russian
"fingerprints" in the metadata of a DNC opposition research document, which had been revealed
by DCLeaks, showing Cyrillic letters and the name of the first Soviet intelligence chief. That
supposedly implicated Russia in the hack.
CrowdStrike claimed the alleged Russian intelligence operation was extremely sophisticated
and skilled in concealing its external penetration of the server. But CrowdStrike's conclusion
about Russian "fingerprints" resulted from clues that would have been left behind by extremely
sloppy or amateur hackers -- or inserted intentionally to implicate the Russians.
One of CrowdStrike's founders has ties to the anti-Russian Atlantic Council raising
questions of political bias. And the software it used to determine Russia's alleged involvement
in the DNC hack, was later proved to be faulty in a high-profile case in Ukraine, reported
by the Voice of America.
The indictment then is based at least partially on evidence produced by an interested
private company, rather than the FBI.
Evidence Likely Never to be Seen
Other apparent sources for information in the indictment are intelligence agencies, which
normally create hurdles in a criminal prosecution.
" In this indictment there is detail after detail whose only source could be intelligence,
yet you don't use intelligence in documents like this because if these defendants decide to
challenge this in court, it opens the U.S. to having to expose sources and methods," Johnson
said.
If the U.S. invoked the states secret privilege so that
classified evidence could not be revealed in court a conviction before a civilian jury would be
jeopardized.
Such a trial is extremely unlikely however. That makes the indictment essentially a
political and not a legal document because it is almost inconceivable that the U.S. government
will have to present any evidence in court to back up its charges. This is simply because of
the extreme unlikelihood that arrests of Russians living in Russia will ever be made.
In this way it is similar to the indictment earlier this year of the Internet Research
Agency of St. Petersburg, Russia, a private click bait company that was alleged to have
interfered in the 2016 election by buying social media ads and staging political rallies for
both Clinton and Trump. It seemed that no evidence would ever have to back up the indictment
because there would never be arrests in the case.
But Special Counsel Robert Mueller was stunned when lawyers for the internet company showed
up in Washington demanding
discovery in the case. That caused Mueller to scramble and demand a delay in the first hearing,
which was
rejected by a federal judge. Mueller is now battling to keep so-called sensitive material
out of court.
In both the IRA case and Friday's indictments, the extremely remote possibility of
convictions were not what Mueller was apparently after, but rather the public perception of
Russia's guilt resulting from fevered media coverage of what are after all only accusations,
presented as though it is established fact. Once that impression is settled into the public
consciousness, Mueller's mission would appear to be accomplished.
For instance, the Times routinely dispenses with the adjective "alleged" and
reports the matter as though it is already established fact. It called Friday's indictments,
which are only unproven charges, "the most detailed accusation by the American government to
date of the [not alleged] Russian government's interference in the 2016 election, and it
includes a litany of [not alleged] brazen Russian subterfuge operations meant to foment chaos
in the months before Election Day."
GRU Named as WikiLeak's Source
The indictment claims that GRU agents, posing as Guccifer 2.0, (who says he is a Romanian
hacker) stole the Democratic documents and later emailed a link to them to WikiLeaks, named as
"Organization 1." No charges were brought against WikiLeaks on Friday.
Assange: Denied Russia was his source. (CNBC screenshot)
" After failed attempts to transfer the stolen documents starting in late June 2016, on or
about July 14, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, sent Organization 1 an email
with an attachment titled 'wk dnc linkl.txt.gpg,'" the indictment says. "The Conspirators
explained to Organization 1 that the encrypted file contained instructions on how to access an
online archive of stolen DNC documents. On or about July 18, 2016, Organization 1 confirmed it
had 'the 1Gb or so archive' and would make a release of the stolen documents' this week.'"
WikiLeaks founder and editor Julian Assange, who is in exile in the Ecuador embassy in
London, has long denied that he got the emails from any government. Instead Assange has
suggested that his source was a disgruntled Democratic Party worker, Seth Rich, whose
murder on the streets of Washington in July 2016 has never been solved.
On Friday, WikiLeaks did not repeat the denial that a government was its source. Instead it
tweeted: "Interesting timing choice by DoJ today (right before Trump-Putin meet), announcing
indictments against 12 alleged Russian intelligence officers for allegedly releasing info
through DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0."
Assange has had all communication with the outside world shut off by the Ecuadorian
government two months ago.
Since the indictments were announced, WikiLeaks has not addressed the charge that GRU
agents, posing as Guccifer 2.0, were its source. WikiLeaks' policy is to refuse to disclose any
information about its sources. WikiLeaks' denial that the Russian government gave them the
emails could be based on its belief that Guccifer 2.0 was who he said he was, and not what the
U.S. indictments allege.
Those indictments claim that the Russian military intelligence agents adopted the personas
of both Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks to publish the Democratic Party documents online, before the
Russian agents, posing as Guccifer 2.0, allegedly supplied WikiLeaks.
The emails, which the indictment does not say are untrue, damaged the Clinton campaign. They
revealed, for instance, that the campaign and the Democratic Party worked to deny the
nomination to Clinton's Democratic Party primary challenger Bernie Sanders.
The indictments also say that the Russian agents purchased the use of a computer server in
Arizona, using bitcoin to hide their financial transactions. The Arizona server was used to
receive the hacked emails from the servers of the Democratic Party and the chairman of
Clinton's campaign, the indictment alleges. If true it would mean the transfer of the emails
took place within the United States, rather than overseas, presumably to Russia.
Some members of the Veterans' Intelligence Professionals for Sanity argue
that metadata evidence points to a local download from the Democratic computers, in other words
a leak, rather than a hack. They write the NSA would have evidence of a hack and, unlike this
indictment, could make the evidence public: " Given NSA's extensive trace capability, we
conclude that DNC and HRC servers alleged to have been hacked were, in fact, not hacked. The
evidence that should be there is absent; otherwise, it would surely be brought forward, since
this could be done without any danger to sources and methods."
That argument was either ignored or dismissed by Mueller's team.
The Geopolitical Context
US enabled Yeltsin's reelection.
It is not only allies of Trump, as the Times thinks, who believe the timing of the
indictments, indeed the entire Russia-gate scandal, is intended to prevent Trump from pursuing
detente with nuclear-armed Russia. Trump said of the indictments that, "I think that really
hurts our country and it really hurts our relationship with Russia. I think that we would have
a chance to have a very good relationship with Russia and a very good chance -- a very good
relationship with President Putin."
There certainly appear to be powerful forces in the U.S. that want to stop that.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Wall Street rushed in behind Boris Yeltsin
and Russian oligarchs to asset strip virtually the entire country, impoverishing the
population. Amid widespread accounts of this grotesque corruption, Washington
intervened in Russian politics to help get Yeltsin re-elected in 1996. The political rise
of Vladimir Putin after Yeltsin resigned on New Year's Eve 1999 reversed this course, restoring
Russian sovereignty over its economy and politics.
That inflamed American hawks whose desire is to install another Yeltsin-like figure and
resume U.S. exploitation of Russia's vast natural and financial resources. To advance that
cause, U.S. presidents have supported the eastward expansion of NATO and have deployed 30,000
troops on Russia's borders.
In 2014, the Obama administration helped orchestrate a coup that
toppled the elected government of Ukraine and installed a fiercely anti-Russian regime. The
U.S. also undertook the risky policy of aiding jihadists to overthrow a secular Russian ally in
Syria. The consequences have brought the world closer to nuclear annihilation than at
any time
since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
In this context, the Democratic Party-led Russia-gate appears to have been used not only to
explain away Clinton's defeat but to stop Trump -- possibly via impeachment or by inflicting
severe political damage -- because he talks about cooperation with Russia.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent forThe Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe,Sunday
Timesof London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at[email protected]and followed
on Twitter @unjoe .
If you enjoyed this original article please consider
making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this
one.
They can't allow Assange to speak now, because if he should decide to reveal that Seth
Rich was the leaker, that would create a whole new set of circumstances. Incredible article,
Joe.
Real estate mogul Leona Helmsley is remembered for infamously stating, "Rich people don't
pay taxes. Taxes are for the little people."
Similarly, "Rich people hide evidence (real – or alleged (non-existent) for criminal
or propaganda purposes) under the umbrella of 'national security'. Evidence is for the little
people."
And the great war between truth and lies moves forward
Hank , July 15, 2018 at 9:51 am
As with the last indictment of 'Russian hackers' these GRU officers should retain an
American attorney who can then demand Mueller hand over whatever evidence he has (aka:
discovery). Last time that happened Mueller was forced to refuse (because he had none). That
was embarrassing for Mueller and you'd think he would've learned his lesson not to try the
gimmick again. You'd think.
Sam F , July 15, 2018 at 9:07 am
The entire Russia-gate invention is a diversion from Israel-gate, the control of US
elections and mass media by zionists. That is the story here, not silly disputes over who did
what to reveal DNC emails.
Red_Dog , July 15, 2018 at 8:03 am
1. Lauria is correct when he says, "Some members of the Veterans' Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity argue that metadata evidence points to a local download from the
Democratic computers, in other words a leak, rather than a hack." But he fails to give the
full story. William Binney and some members of the VIPS wrote a memo stating that computer
data showed that the files were downloaded locally to a flash drive because of transmission
speeds. This memo was challenged in a separate memo by Thomas Drake and other members of the
VIPS. To try and resolve the problem The Nation hired an independent computer expert,
Nathanial Freitas, to analyze the memos and date. He concluded that the data did fit the
Binney analysis. But it also fit several other possibilities that used remote access. So the
data could not be used to prove that the files were locally downloaded. https://www.thenation.com/article/a-leak-or-a-hack-a-forum-on-the-vips-memo/
2. Perhaps the most important part of the indictments is not in the Lauria article.
500,000 voters had their data stolen and, because most state-local voter systems are running
on outdated and dilapidated computers, it may be impossible to tell if other systems had been
hacked. Unfortunately, very few people are considering this part of the indictment. It means
that if we want a fair election in 2018 paper ballots should be used. In any case all voting
systems must be auditable.
3. Finally, the level of detail and attribution in the indictments indicates to me that
the NSA and CIA were consulted. And it was worth providing this detail because of the
incredible threat our country is under. The fact that we can now track down hacks with such
precision should give others pause.
Skip Scott , July 15, 2018 at 8:18 am
I think you are jumping to a false conclusion about the "level of detail". The NSA and the
CIA have now had enough time to cut the entire indictment out of whole cloth. Are we supposed
to trust their so called "evidence" at this point, when the entire RussiaGate theater of the
absurd was created to cover their ass and hamstring detente with Russia?
Piotr Berman , July 15, 2018 at 5:11 pm
I did not read the indictment, so I do not know if the level of detail rose to heights
exhibited by Gen. Colin Powell in his famous "white powder vial" speech. Today we know that
the white powder he showed to the entire world could be indeed harmful, as the baby powder of
Johnson and Johnson was revealed to have traces of asbestos. But then again, it could be
genuinely harmless.
On top of that, Innocence Project revealed that surprising number of successful
prosecutions leading to the death penalty were based on hoaxes. For example, the "culprit"
was implicated by his blood being found on a seat of the escape car, however when the defense
examined the vial of the sentenced person blood that was in police possession, it had DNA of
two people -- some blood was removed (presumably, splashed in the escape car) and to mask it,
blood of another person was added. This is stuff done without any political motivation, just
to get good number of solved cases -- the race and prior criminal record of the "culprit"
probably being the bonus.
Creating compelling narratives is what prosecutors do for living. I hope that more often
than not these narratives are true, but a true professional is not bound by such
constraints.
j. D. D. , July 15, 2018 at 7:44 am
Thank you for a thorough and damning report on the indicttments by the cowardly and
thuggish Mueller who, as the author notes, is confident that they nevr be answered in a court
of law. Moreover, with all the hullabaloo attached to Robert Mueller's stunt, the fact
remains that the DNC and John Podesta emails revealed a stunning and irrefutable truth:
Hillary Clinton and the DNC were rigging the election against her Democratic primary
opponent, Bernie Sanders. However, I would add two aspects which place into context the
timing of Mueller's publicity stunt. First, that it came on the heels of embattled FBI Agent
Peter Strzok's appearance before a joint House hearing on Thursday at which Strzok claimed
that the Republicans on the House Judiciary and Government Oversight Committees were doing
"Putin's work" by continuing to examine the British and Obama Administration/Democratic Party
origins of Russiagate. Strzok's charge, obviously choreographed with Congressional Democrats,
wasendlessly cycled in the news media. The Democrats otherwise sought to obstruct the
discredited FBI agent's testimony by any and all means necessary to the delight of the
"resist" social media universe. While the Justice Department's independent IG found that
Strzok's prioritization of the Trump Russiagate investigation over the Clinton email
investigation was not free from bias, an inconvenient fact largely glossed over in Thursday's
staged event, it noted that Strzok and his mistress, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe
counsel, Lisa Page, exchanged daily texts vowing to stop Trump's election, disparaging
Trump's s supporters, and declaring themselves the saviors of the nation from the current
President. The third element,of this assault on the prospect of peace was meant to cooincide
with Trump's visit to the UK, i.e.the discovery of a bottle or vial of the so-called Novichok
nerve agent allegedly used to poison former British spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. The
bottle was discovered at the home of Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess in Amesbury, England.
The British went on an international rampage around the March 4, 2018, Skripal poisoning
claiming Putin was conducting a murder of a long-retired British spy on British territory in
some form of retaliaton, demanding war-like sanctions against Russia. When their claims
failed to achieve substantive credibility, even with the British bioweapons lab, Porton Down,
Rowley and Sturgess appeared as new victims of the nerve gas poisoning on June 30th and
Sturgess subsequently died. The British press is filled with the imputation that the found
vial will somehow be traceable back to Russia, a fact which eluded the original Skripal hoax
Yet despite all of this, it appears that the desperate attempt of Mueller and his allies in
the US and British intel community to block or ruin the Helsinki summit lack the suficient
credibiltiy to succeed.
I guess I'm showing my age with this comment, but our military & intelligence
communities, our politicians and our corporate media's non-stop, fact-free, free-association,
paranoid delusional drivel about "Russian election interference" has all the solidity, yet
none of the charm, of a bad acid trip circa 1972. Offered the choice I'd certainly opt for
the bad acid flashback – especially given what is actually at stake in terms of the
prospects for human survival if this absurd and dangerous nonsense continues. The
institutions of the West have shown themselves to be completely, totally and utterly corrupt!
To bear witness to such complete corruption is absolutely breathtaking! Expecting anything
rational, ethical, fact-based or simply honest to emanate from any of our Western
institutions at this point requires an almost child-like level of trust – or –
lacking that – a willingness to enter into and embrace the world of these mad delusions
and their purveyors!
Bjorn Jensen , July 15, 2018 at 12:52 am
This is worth reading as a summary of grand jury proceedings, the prosecutor's case
presentatation and the proposal for indictment through the summary of evidence either oral or
via documents.
I think it is important to remember that grand juries are comprised of ordinary citizens
and are independent of the courts.
Yes, this era of total corruption of the US government is unprecedented.
The disputes between one corrupt branch and another condemn them all.
mrtmbrnmn , July 15, 2018 at 12:09 am
This is not breaking news anymore, but worth repeating:
The odious NY Times inadvertently stepped on its own shtick (and everyone else's) when it
front-paged the FBI's "Operation Hurricane Crossfire" against the Trump campaign. This whole
farcedy was conceived as a rolling scheme to regime change Putin when Hillary ascended the
throne, with Trump as merely a mug and patsy. When the moo-cow Hillary lost, the plan had to
be repurposed to uckfay with Putin AND regime change Trump. If it looks like a Federal crime,
smells like a Federal crime and quacks like a Federal crime, well You be the judge. There are
so many organs of the Federal Gov and the MSM in on this criminal conspiracy, they are going
to need a new wing at Gitmo to house all these scoundrels
Nabi , July 14, 2018 at 10:40 pm
Great right up to the last few paragraphs. Too hard for a logical conservative to swallow
that the prime reason we have troops (small assets at that) near the Russia border is because
of the greed of Wall Street. Up 'til then not a bad piece.
Joe Lauria , July 14, 2018 at 11:10 pm
Nabi, I suggest you read War is a Racket by General Smedley Butler if you think such a
thing is unheard of.
Yes, greed of Wall Street. And perhaps this is the most important motive. But many former
Warsaw Pact countries (or at least the ruling classes and opinion makers in those countries)
wanted to become members of NATO because they apparently feared, perhaps not without reason,
Russian domination in the future. And there's also the sheer libido dominandi of some people
in Washington, not exclusively neoconservatives. So greed, fear, and love of power.
bobzz , July 14, 2018 at 10:08 pm
In all likelihood, we'll never know who killed Seth Rich who probably leaked the emails.
The CIA did not have time to create patsies like Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray, or Sirhan
Sirhan. So RIP Rich.
jsinton , July 14, 2018 at 9:28 pm
Wouldn't it be a hoot if the alleged GRU agents decide to defend themselves in court
against the indictments and demand discovery evidence?
Skip Scott , July 15, 2018 at 8:01 am
The problem with that is that you'd be buying into a stage play that the Deep State
players get to direct. Let's not forget about the abilities detailed in the Vault 7 releases.
Unfortunately it is just as Karl Rove has stated: they can create "reality" now, and they've
had plenty of time to "create" their asses off.
jsinton , July 15, 2018 at 11:41 am
Did you not hear about the St Petersburg click-bait operation that Mueller indicted with
great fanfare back in February? Well, the 13 Russians sent lawyers to answer the indictment
and plead not guilty, much to the shock of Mueller and the investigation. The problem is when
you indict someone, they now have the right to examine the EVIDENCE against them . a process
know as "discovery". Mueller has been trying to suppress the evidence in that case ever
since. Will the GRU agents send a lawyer? I'd be laughing if they did.
Skip Scott , July 15, 2018 at 12:12 pm
Yes, I recall the click-bait operation and the demand for discovery, and Mueller's being
caught by surprise. This time will be a little different:
"Seemingly overlooked by most, Rosenstein said the indictment will now be passed-off (code
word for "buried") to the DOJ National Security Division." The public will never even get to
see any evidence due to "National Security".
Considering the actions of the USA elsewhere,and the accepted, even encouraged,
interference by Israel in all elections in the USA (as Chuck Schumer knows very well!), the
whole process is a complete put-up job. Since the emails were true, and Wikileaks is reputed
to keep to valid reports, the emphasis on finding a suitable scapegoat for the election of
DJT is to steer people away from the genuine actions now destroying the USA.
fred54 , July 14, 2018 at 3:11 pm
They won't have to arrest and extradite the Russians because they will show up in court
just like the two indicted Russians did back in May. Mueller had a heart attack and asked the
Judge to deny the defendants right in discovery to see the evidence. He thought the Russians
wouldn't show and he'd get his judgement exparte without having to produce the non-existent
evidence. The Russians knew the evidence didn't exist just like in this latest lie on the
part of Mueller where there is no evidence. The judge denied the motion and Mueller had no
choice to quietly drop the charges. The same thing will happen here. Only this time the
Russians aren't going to be so sanguine.
GM , July 14, 2018 at 7:02 pm
i don't believe that's accurate. Last I heard the judge agreed to deny the defendant
discovery to the bulk of the prosecution's purported evidence based on Mueller's fatuous
assertions of "national security", though he added that it is temporary and subject to change
in the future.
D3F1ANT , July 14, 2018 at 2:35 pm
Democrat smoke and mirrors. Sad that it's worked for so long. This entire Russia collusion
fantasy has blown up in their faces though. Not only has it failed spectacularly it's exposed
the depth and scope of their corrution and the insidious way in which they've coopted
critical components of the Federal government to their exclusive service–at taxpayer
expense (DOJ/FBI)! It really is staggering. Especially since its allowed to continue even
now!
jsinton , July 15, 2018 at 9:00 pm
Not to mention the credibility of the Deep-State MSM apparatus, which has exposed itself
at purveyors of propaganda without investigation
Jeff Harrison , July 14, 2018 at 11:57 am
A couple of things occur to me. One. Have the Russian government respond to the
indictments with discovery as occurred with the other inane indictments that Mueller
produced. Two. Have Putin respond to the Democrat's demands by demanding the same from the
US. On the one hand, the US only has alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election. On the
other, Russia has proof of US meddling in essentially every Russian election since the
collapse of the old SovU. The US won't like this. It was absolutely hilarious when that
blonde bubble head of a State Department spokeswoman complained about VOA, RFE, etc being
required to register as foreign agents only to be told by Russia to take RT off the foreign
agent list. The Russians could also repay the favor by indicting Americans who interfered in
Russian elections. They could start with Slick Willie.
In 1745, Samuel Johnson published a commentary entitled Miscellaneous Observations on
the Tragedy of Macbeth :
"Thus the doctrine of witchcraft was very powerfully inculcated; and as the greatest
part of mankind have no other reason for their opinions than that they are in fashion, it
cannot be doubted but this persuasion made a rapid progress, since vanity and credulity
cooperate in its favor. The infection soon reached the Parliament, who, in the first year
of King James, made a law, by which it was enacted, Chapter XII: That "if any person shall
use any invocation or conjuration of any evil or wicked spirit; 2. or shall consult,
covenant with, entertain, employ, feed or reward any evil or cursed spirit to or for any
intent or purpose; 3. or take up any dead man, woman or child out of the grave, –or
the skin, bone, or any part of the dead person, to be employed or used in any manner of
witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment; 4. or shall use, practice, or exercise any sort
of witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment; 5. whereby any person shall be destroyed,
killed, wasted, consumed, pined, or lamed in any part of the body; 6. that every such
person being convicted shall suffer death."
"Thus, in the time of Shakespeare, was the doctrine of witchcraft at once established by
law and by the fashion, and it became not only unpolite, but criminal, to doubt it; and as
prodigies are always seen in proportion as they are expected, witches were every day
discovered and multiplied so fast in some places that Bishop Hall mentions a village in
Lancashire where their number was greater than that of the houses."
From Through the Looking Glass , by Lewis Carroll:
"I can't believe that!" said Alice.
"Can't you?" the Queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again: draw a long breath, and shut
your eyes."
Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible
things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always
did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible
things before breakfast."
Two quick comments on the Russiagate hoax:
1. Julian Assange has always refused to compromise his sources, but did the next best thing
by offering a $20,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of Seth Rich's killer(s). There's
only one possible reason he would do this.
2. The truth of the leaked information has never been challenged. For those who insist on
believing in witches and Russiagate, the 12 Russian defendants are guilty only of defending
U.S. democracy, since the content of Clinton's emails helped save the U.S. from a Clinton
presidency.
Excellent article, but it could be improved by including a link to the indictment text:
https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download
. It's a 29-page PDF, but it's double-spaced with large margins, so only requires a few
minutes to read.
Mueller Grand Jury Indictment Does Not Prove Russia Hacked DNCSteven D on
Tue, 07/17/2018 - 1:37pm
="username">detroitmechworks
I'd
disagree, since it's one singular action.
@chuckutzman While the PTB want to think of it as OOOH, 12 indictments, when he
actually just got one group of people to agree with him. Not even ALL of them. Just most of
them. And he could get rid of any he didn't think were going to agree with him. Because of
course he fucking can.
Ugh, I'll go with my own BS stories than the government's rather boring line of same old
shit.
At the crux of the indictment is an outright absurdity – Assange announced that he
would be releasing Clinton-related material on June 10th, 2016, whereas the indictment claims
that Guccifer 2.0 gave him access to the DNC emails on July 14th. Moreover, considerable
evidence points to Guccifer 2,0 as being an affiliate of the DNC.
Mish - Six Questions: (1) Is this a trial or a witch hunt? (2) Do we need to see the evidence or do we believe known liars? (3)
Is Trump guilty of treason? Before we even see proof Putin was involved? (4) Is the CIA incapable of fabricating evidence? (5) Even
if Russia interfered in the election, why should anyone have expected otherwise? (6) Has everyone forgotten the US lies on WMDs already?
Notable quotes:
"... Sending lethal arms to Ukraine, bordering Russia, is a really serious adverse action against the interest of the Russian government. Bombing the Assad regime is, as well. Denouncing one of the most critical projects that the Russian government has, which is the pipeline to sell huge amounts of gas and oil to Germany, is, as well. ..."
"... The United States funds oppositional groups inside Russia. The United States sent advisers and all kinds of operatives to try and elect Boris Yeltsin in the mid-1990s, because they perceived, accurately, that he was a drunk who would serve the interests of the United States more than other candidates who might have won. The United States interferes in Russian politics, and they interfere in their cyber systems, and they invade their email systems, and they invade all kinds of communications all the time. And so, to treat this as though it's some kind of aberrational event, I think, is really kind of naive ..."
"... And so, I would certainly hope that we are not at the point, which I think we seem to be at, where we are now back to believing that when the CIA makes statements and assertions and accusations, or when prosecutors make statements and assertions and accusations, unaccompanied by evidence that we can actually evaluate, that we're simply going to believe those accusations on faith, especially when the accusations come from George W. Bush's former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who repeatedly lied to Congress about Iraq and a whole variety of other issues. So, I think there we need some skepticism. ..."
For example, reader Brian stated " There is zero doubt now that Putin stole the election
from Hillary. So much so that she MUST be given the nomination again in 2020. All potential
challengers must step aside. To refuse her the 2020 nomination would be evidence of traitorous
activities with Putin."'
I congratulated Brian for brilliant sarcasm but he piled on. It now seems he was
serious. Mainstream media, the Left an the Right were in general condemnation. Numerous cries of treason emerged from the Left and the Right (see the above link)
It Happened - No Trial Necessary
A friend I highly respect commented " There is simply no question that they did it. You can
legitimately claim that it's not important or that there has been no tie to Trump shown. On the
Russians' side, they can say, screw off, we were pursuing our interests. But you can't take the
view it did not happen. It happened. "
There is a question who did it. Indictments are just that, not proof.
The US fabricated evidence to start the Vietnam war and the US fabricated WMD talk on the
second war in Iraq. US intelligence had no idea the Berlin Wall was about to fall. The US
meddled in Russia supporting a drunk named Yeltsin because we erroneously thought we could
control him.
They Are All Liars
It's a mystery why anyone would believe these proven liars. That does not mean I believe
Putin either. They are all capable liars. Let's step back from the absurd points of view to reality.
US Meddling
The US tries to influence elections in other countries and has a history of assisting the
forcible overthrow of governments we don't like.
Vietnam
Iran
Iraq
Libya
Drone policy
All of the above are massive disasters of US meddling. They are all actions of war,
non-declared, and illegal. I cannot and do not condone such actions even if they were legal.
911 and ISIS resulted from US meddling. The migration crisis in the EU is a direct
consequence of US meddling. The Iranian revolution was a direct consequence of US meddling.Now we are pissing and moaning that Russia spent a few million dollars on Tweets to steal
the election. Please be serious.
Let's Assume
Let's assume for one second the DNC hack was Russia-based. Is there a reason to not be thankful for evidence that Hillary conspired to deny Bernie
Sanders the nomination? Pity Hillary? We are supposed to pity Hillary? The outrage from the Right is amazing. It's pretty obvious Senator John McCain wanted her to win. Neither faced a war or military
intervention they disapproved of.
Common Sense
Let's move on to a common sense position from Glenn Greenwald at the Intercept.
GLENN GREENWALD : In 2007, during the Democratic presidential debate, Barack Obama
was asked whether he would meet with the leaders of North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria and
Iran without preconditions. He said he would. Hillary Clinton said she wouldn't, because it
would be used as a propaganda tool for repressive dictators. And liberals celebrated Obama. It
was one of his greatest moments and one of the things that I think helped him to win the
Democratic nomination, based on the theory that it's always better to meet with leaders, even
if they're repressive, than to isolate them or to ignore them. In 1987, when President Reagan
decided that he wanted to meet with Soviet leaders, the far right took out ads against him that
sounded very much just like what we just heard from Joe, accusing him of being a useful idiot
to Soviet and Kremlin propaganda, of legitimizing Russian aggression and domestic repression at
home.
GLENN GREENWALD : It is true that Putin is an authoritarian and is domestically repressive.
That's true of many of the closest allies of the United States, as well, who are even far more
repressive, including ones that fund most of the think tanks in D.C., such as the United Arab
Emirates or Saudi Arabia. And I think the most important issue is the one that we just heard,
which is that 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons are in the hands of two countries --
the United States and Russia -- and having them speak and get along is much better than having
them isolate one another and increase the risk of not just intentional conflict, but
misperception and miscommunication, as well.
JOE CIRINCIONE : Right. Let's be clear. Glenn, there's nothing wrong with meeting. I
agree with you. Leaders should meet, and we should be negotiating with our foes, with those
people we disagree with. We're better off when we do that. And the kind of attacks you saw on
Barack Obama were absolutely uncalled for, and you're right to condemn those.
JOE CIRINCIONE : What I'm worried about is this president meeting with this leader
of Russia and what they're going to do. That's what's so wrong about this summit coming now,
when you have Donald Trump, who just attacked the NATO alliance, who calls our European allies
foes, who turns a blind eye to what his director of national intelligence called the warning
lights that are blinking red. About what? About Russian interference in our elections. So you
just had a leader of Russia, Putin, a skilled tactician, a skilled strategist, interfere in a
U.S. election. To what? To help elect Donald Trump.
GLENN GREENWALD : I think this kind of rhetoric is so unbelievably unhinged, the idea that
the phishing links sent to John Podesta and the Democratic National Committee are the greatest
threat to American democracy in decades. People are now talking about it as though it's on par
with 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, that the lights are blinking red, in terms of the threat level. This
is lunacy, this kind of talk. I spent years reading through the most top-secret documents of
the NSA, and I can tell you that not only do they send phishing links to Russian agencies of
every type continuously on a daily basis, but do far more aggressive interference in the
cybersecurity of every single country than Russia is accused of having done during the 2016
election. To characterize this as some kind of grave existential threat to American democracy
is exactly the kind of rhetoric that we heard throughout the Bush-Cheney administration about
what al-Qaeda was like .
JOE CIRINCIONE : Why does Donald Trump feel that he has to meet alone with Putin? What is
going on there? I mean, that -- when Ronald Reagan met with Gorbachev at Reykjavik, at least he
had George Shultz with him. The two of them, you know, were meeting with Gorbachev and his
foreign minister at the time. This is -- it's deeply disturbing. It makes you feel that Trump
is hiding something, that he is either trying to make a deal with Putin, reporting something to
Putin. I tell you, I know U.S. intelligence officials -- I'm probably going right into Glenn's
wheelhouse here. But U.S. intelligence officials are concerned about what Donald Trump might be
revealing to the Russian leader, the way he revealed classified information to the Russian
foreign minister when he met privately with him in the Oval Office at the beginning of his
term. No, I don't like it one bit.
GLENN GREENWALD : I continue to be incredibly frustrated by the claim that we hear over and
over, and that we just heard from Joe, that Donald Trump does everything that Vladimir Putin
wants, and that if he were a paid agent of the Russian government, there'd be -- he would be
doing nothing different. I just went through the entire list of actions that Donald Trump has
taken and statements that he has made that are legitimately adverse to the interest of the
Russian government, that Barack Obama specifically refused to do, despite bipartisan demands
that he do them, exactly because he didn't want to provoke more tensions between the United
States and Russia.
Sending lethal arms to Ukraine, bordering Russia, is a really serious
adverse action against the interest of the Russian government. Bombing the Assad regime is, as
well. Denouncing one of the most critical projects that the Russian government has, which is
the pipeline to sell huge amounts of gas and oil to Germany, is, as well.
So is expelling
Russian diplomats and imposing serious sanctions on oligarchs that are close to the Putin
regime. You can go down the list, over and over and over, in the 18 months that he's been in
office, and see all the things that Donald Trump has done that is adverse, in serious ways, to
the interests of Vladimir Putin, including ones that President Obama refused to do. So, this
film, this movie fairytale, that I know is really exciting -- it's like international intrigue
and blackmail, like the Russians have something over Trump; it's like a Manchurian candidate;
it's from like the 1970s thrillers that we all watched -- is inane -- you know, with all due
respect to Joe. I mean, it's -- but it's in the climate, because it's so contrary to what it is
that we're seeing. Now, this idea of meeting alone with Vladimir Putin, the only way that you
would find that concerning is if you believed all that.
JOE CIRINCIONE : So, Trump knew that this indictment was coming down, before he went to
Europe, and still he never says a word about it. What he does is continue his attacks on our
alliances, i.e. he continues his attacks on our free press, he continues his attacks on FBI
agents who were just doing their job, and supports this 10-hour show hearing that the House of
Representatives had. It's really unbelievable that Trump is doing these things and never says
one word about it. He still has not said a word about those indictments.
GLENN GREENWALD : That's because the reality is -- and I don't know if Donald Trump knows
this or doesn't know this, has stumbled into the truth or what -- but the reality is that what
the Russians did in 2016 is absolutely not aberrational or unusual in any way. The United --
I'm sorry to say this, but it's absolutely true. The United States and Russia have been
interfering in one another's domestic politics for since at least the end of World War II, to
say nothing of what they do in far more extreme ways to the internal politics of other
countries. Noam Chomsky was on this very program several months ago, and he talked about how
the entire world is laughing at this indignation from the United States -- "How dare you
interfere in our democracy!" -- when the United States not only has continuously in the past
done, but continues to do far more extreme interference in the internal politics of all kinds
of countries, including Russia .
GLENN GREENWALD : The United States funds oppositional groups inside Russia. The United
States sent advisers and all kinds of operatives to try and elect Boris Yeltsin in the
mid-1990s, because they perceived, accurately, that he was a drunk who would serve the
interests of the United States more than other candidates who might have won. The United States
interferes in Russian politics, and they interfere in their cyber systems, and they invade
their email systems, and they invade all kinds of communications all the time. And so, to treat
this as though it's some kind of aberrational event, I think, is really kind of naive .
GLENN GREENWALD : It wasn't just Hillary Clinton in 2016 who lost this election. The entire
Democratic Party has collapsed as a national political force over the last decade. They've lost
control of the Senate and of the House and of multiple statehouses and governorships. They're
decimated as a national political force. And the reason is exactly what Joe said. They become
the party of international globalization. They're associated with Silicon Valley and Wall
Street billionaires and corporate interests, and have almost no connection to the working
class. And that is a much harder conversation to have about why the Democrats have lost
elections than just blaming a foreign villain and saying it's because Vladimir Putin ran some
fake Facebook ads and did some phishing emails. And I think that until we put this in
perspective, about what Russia did in 2016 and the reality that the U.S. does that sort of
thing all the time to Russia and so many other countries, we're going to just not have the
conversation that we need to be having about what these international institutions, that are so
sacred -- NATO and free trade and international trade organizations -- have done to people all
over the world, and the reason they're turning to demagogues and right-wing extremists because
of what these institutions have done to them. That's the conversation we need to be having, but
we're not having, because we're evading it by blaming everything on Vladimir Putin. And that,
to me, is even more dangerous for our long-term prospects than this belligerence that's in the
air about how we ought to look at Moscow.
Indictments and First Year Law
Mish : I now wish to return to a statement my friend made regarding the idea " No question
Russia did it ".
From Glenn Greenwald
As far as the indictments from Mueller are concerned, it's certainly the most specific
accounting yet that we've gotten of what the U.S. government claims the Russian government did
in 2016. But it's extremely important to remember what every first-year law student will tell
you, which is that an indictment is nothing more than the assertions of a prosecutor
unaccompanied by evidence. The evidence won't be presented until a trial or until Robert
Mueller actually issues a report to Congress.
And so, I would certainly hope that we are not at
the point, which I think we seem to be at, where we are now back to believing that when the CIA
makes statements and assertions and accusations, or when prosecutors make statements and
assertions and accusations, unaccompanied by evidence that we can actually evaluate, that we're
simply going to believe those accusations on faith, especially when the accusations come from
George W. Bush's former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who repeatedly lied to Congress about Iraq
and a whole variety of other issues. So, I think there we need some skepticism.
But even if the
Russians did everything that Robert Mueller claims in that indictment that they did, in the
scheme of what the U.S. and the Russians do to one another and other countries, I think to say
that this is somehow something that we should treat as a grave threat, that should mean that we
don't talk to them or that we treat them as an enemy, is really irrational and really quite
dangerous.
Mish - Six Questions
Is this a trial or a witch hunt?
Do we need to see the evidence or do we believe known liars?
Is Trump guilty of treason? Before we even see proof Putin was involved?
Is the CIA incapable of fabricating evidence?
Even if Russia interfered in the election, why should anyone have expected
otherwise?
Has everyone forgotten the US lies on WMDs already?
Irrational and Dangerous
I don't know about you, but I have no reason to believe known liars and hypocrites. I
disagree with Trump all the time, in fact, more often than not. The amount of venom on Trump
over this is staggering. Adding a missing word, I stand by my previous statement: " Nearly
every political action that generates this much complete nonsense and hysteria from the Left
and Right is worthy of immense praise."
If you disagree please provide examples. The only two I can come up with are Pearl Harbor
and 911. In both, the US was directly attacked. For rebuttal purposes I offer Vietnam, Syria,
Iraq, Russia, Iran, WWI, treatment of Japanese-American citizens in WWII, and McCarthyism.
Greenwald accurately assesses the situation as "really irrational and really quite dangerous."
Indeed. And if indictments and accusations were crimes, we wouldn't need a jury.
If the DNC servers were hacked, they are evidence, where is the fucking evidence now? At the bottom of the Hudson River with
concrete shoes that's where! Where are the Anwan servers, Podesta's, Wieners....where are Hillary's emails?
Fuck this is getting out of hand. All of the top spooks in the alphabet agencies are complicit, DOJ too, right up to the skinny
faggot in the rainbow house!
Getting close to the time for some real fucking justice in America!
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Here is an update to the map I posted yesterday about where not to be, not sure I agree one way or the other, you decide:
Even if it were found to be true that Russia (and not Seth Rich) was the source of the info that revealed to the American people
(and the world) that the DNC conspired to rig its own primary election, my response would be one of gratitude for shining a light
on the cockroaches.
the zeal with which MSN and especially CNN Wolf Blitzer now defend the 'Intelligence Community' as a singular infallible flawless
entity is incredible ...
... in the context of the war they waged on that very same 'Intelligence Community' in light of it being wrong about WMD in
Iraq
... or the Snowden-gate about it spying on Americans.
most two-faced biased blindly-agended-based manipulative thing I've ever seen on CNN
Russian hack? hahaha, as if. Everybody knows it was an inside job. That sort of thing with all the emails is inside -> Seth
Rich is a good place to look.
BESIDES! LET'S NOT FORGET ABOUT THE CONTENT OF THOSE EMAILS!!!
This guy in the article above that says Hellary "must" be given the nomination because Russia 'hacked' the election. Great!
I'll be very happy to see that nasty bitch go down a second time, based on the substance of her twisted, hypocritical, and consummately
evil character.
" Deep State agent Bill Browder operated at the very nexus of the
U.S. and U.K. Intelligence Communities that conspired to produce
both the fake Russiagate and very real Spygate ."
***It is a tale, full of sound and fury, told by idiots, signifying nothing***
how can we be expected to take any of this shit seriously?
-- avowed globalist-communists opposed to any nation's sovereignty, repulsed at the faintest wiff of patriotism scolding us
for our lack of patriotism?
-- political parties, intelligence agencies, the media and much of the judiciary attempting to undermine the democratic process
for over a year and a half, delegitamize a Presidency, vilify half the nation, stoke the flames of enmity...now they kvetch about
our skepticism?
no, langley, we do not trust you. no, media, your agitprop has no currency.
of all the reasons for hillary's defeat, no one ever mentions the fact that she campaigned on a platform of war...WWIII, no
less. starting in May/June of 2016, cankles started pounding the war drums. in a scenario so stale and overused as to threadbare,
the left initiated the process of demonizing russia and russians.
Trump supporters are not only pro-American, they/we are anti-war. forever spinning in a manic and frenzied swirl of hysterics,
the left often loses sight of this...but as much is to be expected, in that the left doesn't think, they instead parrot the tropes
fed to them on a daily basis, forever unable to assemble the fragments of these disparate priorities into a cogent whole. but
if they were able to arrange this mess into coherence, the image would terrify them with its ghastliness. the left openly and
earnestly serves the forces of evil -- in fact, they are the forces of evil. they depend on the idiocy and credulity of their
minions to keep this reality obscured. fortunately for the left, their supporters are sufficiently dull and benighted to keep
the truth forever blighted.
maybe we should play the victoria nuland tapes again...as a refresher:
we not only interfered with Ukranian/Russian politics, we overtly overthrew a democratically elected government, attempted
to provoke Russia to respond militarily, started a civil war in the Ukraine, (downed a commercial airliner in a disgusting FF),
funded and trained Nazis and left the nation in shambles. these are the same people calling Trump a traitor. these are the same
forces who demand faith and fidelity.
it's gone...no one trusts (((you))) anymore...we know you're nothing but a bunch of bloodthristy satanists...your time is in
eclipse, the more you struggle, the tighter the constraints.
"fuck the EU (for balking at WWIII)" Victoria Nuland, Clinton apparatchik, globalists, communist, satanist, kike.
Zionists are a large part of the problem (and remember what Biden said) but not at all the whole problem. Don't hyperfocus
- the 'Deep State' is chock full of non-Jewish warmongers and traitors. In fact the top traitors are guys like Brennan, Comey,
McCabe, Clapper, Clinton, Obama, and Strozk.
" The US fabricated evidence to start the Vietnam war and the US fabricated WMD talk on the second war in Iraq. US intelligence
had no idea the Berlin Wall was about to fall. The US meddled in Russia supporting a drunk named Yeltsin because we erroneously
thought we could control him."
YUP! AMEN.
It's amusing to me that the Leftist's NOW have a blind-faith trust in government, whereas during the Vietnam war, and at the
start of the Iraq war the opposite was (justifiably) the case.
And remember, the [neoliberal] Left was all OVER how we manipulated Russia into an Oligarchy:
There is nothing in either the dictionary definition of "Marxism," nor the social facts, which justifies using that label for
the ruling classes, the pyramidion people of the globalized social pyramid systems.
The root of the runaway "mass hysteria" is the long history of the control over the public money supplies being captured by
the best organized gangsters, the banksters. There is an overwhelming amount of historical evidence regarding how that happened.
See Excellent Videos on Money Systems .
Some of that evidence indicates some of those banksters were behind the promotion of messianic Marxism through the Russian
Revolution which resulted in the Soviet Union. (Less compelling evidence indicates similar factors were at play in the later Chinese
Revolution.)
The original Marxism was relatively scientific, for its time and place in history. However, it was messianic Marxism which
became the ideologies of so-called "communist" movements, all of which necessarily ended up being dominated by their own kinds
of best available professional hypocrites, resulting in even steeper social pyramid systems than previously.
It is RIDICULOUS to label the banksters as "Marxists." The comment posted above by HopefulCynical only begins to make some
sense AFTER one substitutes some label which refers to the banksters , rather than to some ideologies which those banksters used
to covertly advance their overall agenda.
Ideologies which become publicly significant are always systems of organized lies, which operate robberies. There is actually
only one political system: organized crime. Therefore, contemporary geopolitical events make more sense after one recognizes who
are the best organized gangsters , which are dominating civilization, including dominating the mass media's public presentation
of those events.
While President Trump is correctly presenting the degree to which the mainstream media is based on "fake news," President Trump
deliberately does not engage in deeper analysis of that phrase "fake news," but rather, used his oratory skill to capture that
phrase, and thereby turn it against those who originally intended to use that phrase against President Trump.
The comment above by HopefulCynical was overwhelmingly up-voted by its readers. Tragically, the indicates the degree to which
so many people want to believe in bullshit.
"The Marxists who've run America (and the rest of the world) into the ground for so many decades ..."
It was NOT "Marxists," but rather the banksters, who've run America (and the rest of the world) ... for so many decades. In
particular, since 1971, when the American Dollar lost its last connection with the material world, after the last vestiges of
money backed by precious metals were cut, the banksters have been able to astronomically amplify their frauds, as enforced by
governments, to become about exponentially more fraudulent.
That about exponentially increasing fraudulence, as demonstrated by debt slavery systems generating numbers which have become
debt insanities, is at the root of the runaway manifestation of "mass hysteria" in America (and the rest of the world.)
The debt slavery systems were made and maintained by the international bankers, as the best organized gangsters, the banksters,
whose persistent and prolonged participation in the funding of all aspects of the political processes (including schooling and
mass media) has resulted in the public powers of government being primarily used to back up the privatized interests of big banks,
and the big corporations that grew up around those big banks being able to issue the public money supplies out of nothing as debts.
Those real social facts do NOT correspond to the dictionary definition of Marxism, nor to any other goofy ideologies which
were popularized to conceal the real social facts, and permit public discussion of those facts to be drowned under the bullshit
of false fundamental dichotomies and the related impossible ideals.
There continues to be a lot of awful nonsense presented in articles and comments published on Zero Hedge , because of the degree
to which the authors of those like to continue to believe in their favourite kinds of impossible ideals, by mislabeling what they
do not like in erroneous ways, which ignore both the actual facts and definitions of those labels.
BANKSTERS' "psychopathic dreams of total control" require that it will be possible for systems based on being able to enforce
frauds can continue to become about exponentially more fraudulent. However, endless exponential growth is absolutely impossible.
Rising popular awareness and resistance to the banksters is manifesting through various political movements. However, so far,
those movements continue to mostly be forms of controlled "opposition." Anyone who continues to misuse the labels such as "capitalism
versus communism," or abuses the label "Marxist," etc., is still actually a form of controlled "opposition," because of the degree
to which their thinking and communication is still based on taking for granted the biggest bullies' bullshit, which has become
the banksters' bullshit .
After the banksters kicked the shit out of Russia during the 20th Century, Russia has returned having learned something from
those experiences. The results are that Russia is slightly more able and willing to advance its national interests against the
international banksters. That is the main reason why Russia is being demonized by those who are still almost totally the banksters'
puppets.
President Trump appears to be a relative anomaly, whose social successfulness was based on the apparently increasing anomalies,
due to the systems based on enforced frauds becoming about exponentially more fraudulent. It was that diffuse awareness of mass
media propaganda being systematic lying, serving the interests of the owners of those mass media, that was one of the factors
which enabled President Trump to win the election.
Some of his most significant campaign promises were to diminish the demonization of Russia, and thereby diminish the threat
of war with weapons of mass destruction spinning out of control, which continues to potentially be the greatest of threats, which
are somewhat under human control, but which look like those are going more and more out of control.
However, in my opinion, President Trump tends to NOT go beyond superficially correct analysis of the accumulating apparent
anomalies, whose root causes are the systems of enforced frauds being amplified by about exponentially advancing technologies
to become about exponentially more fraudulent, which factors are at the root of the accumulating "mass hysteria."
The best overall ways to approach understanding current geopolitical events are that the excessively successful applications
of the methods of organized crime through the political processes are resulting in civilization manifesting runaway criminal insanities,
which situation is so serious that people who attempt to reduce that insanity are attacked by those who want to increase that
insanity.
The deeper reasons for the underlying issues are that there must be some death control systems, precisely because endless exponential
growth is absolutely impossible, and therefore, death control systems develop to stop that happening, which drives those death
control systems to become murder systems which maximize maliciousness.
The longer term consequences of the social successfulness of maximized maliciousness are that the biggest bullies' bullshit
almost totally dominates civilization, including the layers of controlled "opposition" that surround the central core of the best
organized gangsters, which have become the banksters . Hence, most of those who believe that they are "resisting" continue to
think and communicate in ways which still take for granted most of that bullshit .
Two points:
1. This indictment is nearly identical to the Jan. 6, 2017 ODNI Report, which came from a
handful of unnamed analysts from the CIA and FBI. There is very little new information in
well over a year. Right there, this raises red flags. Who were these analysts?
2. Did Mueller/Rosenstein consult with any foreign policy advisors? Does meddling in the
president's national security affairs put the country at ris?
It's a dangerous game and a slippery slope. For the sake of the country, they better be
right.
O Society July 14, 2018 at 6:20 am
Rosenstein makes the announcement. 8 minutes into this video he states:
There are no allegations in the indictment any American knew they were in contact with Russians
or with a Russian operation,
any American committed a crime in relation to this,
or that the operation changed or influenced the election.
Fist thoughts:
If there is no allegation (evidence) the operation influenced the election, then why do we care
about any of this?
Seems odd no Americans did anything worthy of investigating. Exonerating the DNC/ DCCC of all
wrong doing?
How does Rosenstein (or anyone in the FBI) know Russians did this "hack" without having access
to examine the DNC computers? Are we going by what CrowdStrike says they found? John
McCarthy , July 14, 2018 at 5:08 am
Mueller should be prosecuted for violating the Logan Act. The timing of this is an illegal
attempt to interfere with Foreign Policy.
Right on!
Apparently Mueller couldn't get a U-2 to fly over Russia and get shot down (which in 1960
scuttled a summit between President Eisenhower and Soviet Premier Khrushchev).
How coincidental that just the day before the announcement of the indictments , The Daily
Beast published an extensive hit-piece on John Mark Dougan , who has admitted setting up the
DCLeaks website that was used to release some of the earlier leaks :
"Fugitive Cop Says He's Behind the DNC Leaks. It's His Latest Hoax.
A Florida cop turned hacker who fled to Russia to escape the FBI claims Seth Rich leaked him
DNC documents. But his story is full of holes."
George Webb is not a right-winger. He is a Bernie supporter. LOL. Still, the similarity of
the wording suggests that the indictment is meant not only as an attempt to bolster the
Russiagate fiction but also to defend Hillary and Podesta against charges of corruption,
rigging the Dem primary, and incompetence and perhaps allow Hillary to run in 2020 or at
lease to choose who the Dem candidate will be. It is also, of course, meant to sabotage
detente with Russia and damage both Trump and Bernie Sanders. Sanders is probably regarded as
even more dangerous than Trump by the deep state and by the corrupt, no-talent leaders of the
pathetic Dem party -- just look at Shumer's ridiculous and unpatriotic demand that Trump
cancel the summit. The current Dem leaders have absolutely nothing positive to offer the
American people in terms of foreign policy and do nothing but repeat neocon nonsense, but the
deep state supports the Dems at the moment because they want to see Trump impeached and
Bernie make a fool of himself by criticizing Russia with no evidence. Bernie lost a lot of
support with his recent uninformed Russophobic statement. The strong implied focus on
defending Podesta and by further implication Hillary, obvious from the similarities with the
Webb lawsuit, shows the real aim of the indictments. As Lauria points out, it's all for
internal consumption. But there are several apparent contradictions in the indictment, and
those contradictions will be no doubt be pointed out in the coming days by computer experts,
so this indictment may have no lasting effect outside of people who are already True
Believers in Russiagate. Even so, the failure to interview Assange and Craig Murray is truly
shocking and disappointing.
Alcuin , July 14, 2018 at 10:49 am
George Webb has talked with Bill Binney and despite being somewhat eccentric should not be
dismissed out of hand. He is rumored to be former Mossad. From his videos of the last three
days (days 15, 16, 17) it appears that he thinks Russian-born hackers living in the USA were
indeed involved, but that they were not working for the Russian government but rather for
various Americans (including well-known American politicians), concentrating on economic
espionage.
Remember that Assange when questioned repeatedly emphasized that that the emails did not come
from Russian "state" actors. Putin recently seems to have wanted to imply the same point.
According to Webb the hackers received their training from Russian military intelligence.
Webb also ties the hacking and espionage to the wider picture of pipeline politics in Europe
and the Middle East. Even if Webb is wrong, or if he represents Israeli interests, it's an
interesting view that is worth investigating.
Alcuin , July 16, 2018 at 2:18 am
Webb (for what it's worth): "They're really not Trump's Russians; they're really not
Putin's Russians -- they're really Rosenstein and Comey's Russians."
"... Crowdstrike's Danger Close report , which was supposed to be the nail in the coffin that proved the GRU was involved in the DNC hack, has been repudiated by the Ukrainian government, the IISS whose data they misused, and the builder of the military app that they claimed was compromised. ..."
"... The Reality Winner leak of a classified NSA document contained a graphic that used different colors of lines to qualify the data (confirmed, analyst judgment, contextual information). The line that connected the "actors" who sent out the spearphishing email to various electoral organizations with the GRU was yellow (analyst judgment) and included the words "probably within"; meaning that this was not a communications intercept. ..."
"... There are many other problems with the DNC investigation starting with the fact that no government agency actually did the forensics work. It was done by a company with strong ties to the Clinton campaign and an economic incentive to blame foreign governments for cyber attacks on evidence that was either flimsy or non-existent. ..."
"... Does any of this mean that the Russian government didn't do it? No. It only means that there is insufficient public evidence to say that it did. ..."
This gist of the article was, since we can't know what the classified evidence is that
supports the U.S. government's finding in favor of Russian government intereference, there is
plenty of public evidence which should convince us.
Bump is wrong about that. The public evidence isn't enough to identify Russian government
involvement, or even identify the nationality of the hackers involved. That doesn't mean that
the Russian government isn't responsible. It means that we don't know enough to say who is
responsible based solely on the publicly known evidence, including classified evidence that's
been leaked.
Here's a recap:
The X-Agent malware used against the DNC is not exclusive to Russia. The source code
has been acquired by at least one Ukrainian hacker group and one European cybersecurity
company, which means that others have it as well. "Exclusive use" is a myth that responsible
cybersecurity companies need to stop using as proof of attribution.
The various attacks attributed to the GRU were a comedy of errors ; not
the actions of a sophisticated adversary.
The FBI/DHS Grizzly Steppe report was a disaster ( here
,
here , here , and
here ).
Crowdstrike's
Danger Close report , which was supposed to be the nail in the coffin that proved the GRU
was involved in the DNC hack, has been repudiated by the Ukrainian government, the IISS whose
data they misused, and the builder of the military app that they claimed was
compromised.
The Arizona and Illinois attacks against electoral databases that were blamed on the Russian
government were actually conducted by
English-speaking hackers .
The Reality Winner leak of a classified NSA document contained a graphic that used
different colors of lines to qualify the data (confirmed, analyst judgment, contextual
information). The line that connected the "actors" who sent out the spearphishing email to
various electoral organizations with the GRU was yellow (analyst judgment) and included the
words "probably within"; meaning that this was not a communications intercept.
There are many other problems with the DNC investigation starting with the fact that no
government agency actually did the forensics work. It was done by a company with strong ties to
the Clinton campaign and an economic incentive to blame
foreign governments for cyber attacks on evidence that was either flimsy or
non-existent.
Does any of this mean that the Russian government didn't do it? No. It only means that
there is insufficient public evidence to say that it did.
ill-gotten goods are undeserving of protection of law. The DNC and Podesta had no legitimate
expectation of privacy in their combinations to defraud the public and steal elections.
It's been imputed that the Russians did this to damage the reputation of Hillary Clinton. To
take the alleged damage to reputation angle to its conclusion, truth is an entirely sufficient
defense to any charge of libel. What was revealed by an alleged hack was the truth, something
that is entirely lacking in the rest of this affair.
As for the alleged theft and public release of email, ill-gotten goods are undeserving of
protection of law. The DNC and Podesta had no legitimate expectation of privacy in their
combinations to defraud the public and steal elections.
The Russian GRU is accused of revealing that the people who run the DNC and Clinton campaign
committee colluded with each other to steal the nomination. The allegedly hacked emails show
what they really did and thought during the fraudulent nomination of Hillary Clinton. It might
be argued, that whomever revealed the truth actually did a public service for the American
people. An odd sort of "act of war," that.
Finally, individual officials and military officers have a limited immunity and are not
normally indicted by foreign states for intelligence activities such as electronic surveillance
and hacking across borders. That is where the element of harm comes in. The only real precedent
for this is the Rainbow Warrior case. In 1985, French intelligence officers blew up and sank a
Greenpeace ship by that name anchored in Auckland, NZ harbour, killing a passenger, a Dutch
photographer. A UN arbitrator held in that case the French agents were not immune under
customary international law to prosecution in a New Zealand court and could be individually
tried and jailed, but only because of the death of the victim as part of "a criminal act of
violence against property in New Zealand . . . done without regard for innocent civilians."
Greenpeace was additionally awarded damages in the UK under international Maritime Law because
the vessel was a British-flagged ship.
Also bear in mind, the US and UK both provide immunity to their own intelligence officers
and law enforcement officers for hacking and related computer crimes committed against foreign
powers. The UK takes that a step further and exempts police officers for domestic hacking:
This is a dangerous precedent, and the likely result is to ignite retaliation and further
exacerbate U.S.-Russian tensions. The entire staffs of the NSA, GCHQ and GRU could be similarly
"prosecuted," but what will that accomplish? Even if every word of the indictment is fact, the
indictment itself violates the norms of international law and this latest "Russiagate"
escalation by Mueller seems intended to ratchet up the New Cold War.
That is why "Russiagate" is a legal sham, in my opinion. Even if the alleged Russian hack of
the DNC email actually happened as claimed, and even if the hack was with bad intent, there was
no real crime or harm in the release of that information. That information was no more the
private property of the DNC and Clinton Campaign than a plan to rob a bank belongs to the
robbers. Isn't that so, Mr. Mueller?
Tomorrow, I am going to get in contact with Special Counsel Robert Mueller and tell him
that I have found the real people behind the hacking of the 2016 US election and they aren't
Russian – they are Chinese! I am prepared to give names and so to give everybody the
scoop, here they are-
Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Zhou Qiang, Cao Jianming, Li Yuanchao, Han
Zheng, Sun Chunlan, Hu Chunhua and Liu He.
They are all real names of real Chinese government officials but unfortunately, as they
are Chinese, they cannot be extradited out of China in the same way that Russians can't be
extradited out of Russia. And like Special Counsel Robert Mueller, I have no real proof that
they did it and cannot bring them to a US court for trial so you will all have to take my
word for it so we're cool, right?
"... Rosenstein, Mueller and Strozk are clever, privileged boys who have always been able, to bamboozle their way out of a jam. So we have this scary, claptrap yarn about twelve ethereal "Russian Agents" ((1) Boris (2) Natashia (3) ..) who, being in Russia, can never be extradited or interrogated. Therefore, the narrative can be endlessly developed. The only constraint is the imagination of the second-rate story writers. An ongoing serial wow ..."
"... Credit to Isikoff for having the courage to face a skeptic, even if his attitude is indignant that Mate ain't buying what he's selling. ..."
Rosenstein, Mueller and Strozk are clever, privileged boys who have always been able,
to bamboozle their way out of a jam. So we have this scary, claptrap yarn about twelve
ethereal "Russian Agents" ((1) Boris (2) Natashia (3) ..) who, being in Russia, can never be
extradited or interrogated. Therefore, the narrative can be endlessly developed. The only
constraint is the imagination of the second-rate story writers. An ongoing serial
wow
I believe that Seth Rich was the leaker. What are the FBI/CIA/DOJ doing to investigate
Seth's murder? Not much.
However, the FBI/CIA/DOJ, ARE consumed with The Hunting of the Russian Snark ."It's a
Snark!" was the sound that first came to their ears,
And seemed almost too good to be true.
Then followed a torrent of laughter and cheers:
Then the ominous words "It's a Boo -- "
Then, silence. Some fancied they heard in the air
A weary and wandering sigh
That sounded like "-jum!" but the others declare
It was only a breeze that went by.
They hunted till darkness came on, but they found
Not a button, or feather, or mark,
By which they could tell that they stood on the ground
Where the Baker had met with the Snark.
In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away --
For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.
I have watched Rosenstein, Mueller and Strozk testifying over the last months. Creeps. I
wouldn't leave a pet Labradoodle in their care, much less entrust them with the defense of
"Our" Democracy
AARON MATE: I have no idea. Whoever it is, I think Guccifer is very sloppy. And given how
sophisticated we're told Russian military intelligence is supposed to be, they didn't do a
very good job of covering their tracks.
Maté makes an excellent observation here. Further, if you go to Guccifer's site,
his style is U.S. hipster English. It is possible that the Russians are that adept at U.S.
hipster English, or have suborned some hipster from Brooklyn, or, maybe, that Guccifer is an
American who has some other agenda.
Interestingly, in all of this hacking, we haven't heard what happened to Hillary Clinton's
30,000 yoga e-mails, which would be a masterpiece of contemplation of yoga, on the level of
Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. We read repeated allegations that the Clinton Family server was
hacked. How is it that the injured party here is only the Democratic National Committee?
And how many of these dangerous Russians will be extradited to the U S of A? You can't
have a finding of fact without a trial, and conveniently for aggrieved people like Isikoff,
there isn't going to be a trial.
Aaron Mate does a fine job in this interview of pushing back against unproven claims. No
hysteria, no yelling. But point by point he just takes Isikoff to task, calmly. He even
manages two separate digs without staking a high moral ground: Isikoff's own previous
reporting on (lack of) WMD, and a clip from a lying Robert Mueller in front of congress in
2003.
So I was very impressed with this interview. As someone who's taught myself the read the
lies in the MSM this was a clinic in how to get a major journalist (Isikoff) to make
concessions that essentially wipe out his argument without getting into a yelling match.
He's done some of the best reporting on this story that I can recall. Credit to Isikoff
for having the courage to face a skeptic, even if his attitude is indignant that Mate ain't
buying what he's selling.
It kills me that the only 'evidence' supporting Russia-gate is the public statements and
testimony of a bunch of high level government officials that are 1) proven liars and 2) have
reason to believe they'll never be held to account for these lies.
If you saw Strzok's testimony the other day, you'd have seen a number of Dems absolutely
willing to lay down in front of oncoming traffic to 'protect' the FBI. If my reps were that
dedicated to protecting me from the horror of facing a series of probing questions, I'd feel
pretty comfortable that I was untouchable, too!
Credit to Isikoff for having the courage to face a skeptic, even if his attitude is
indignant that Mate ain't buying what he's selling.
Good catch! I noticed this also, though I'm not as sure it's to Isikoff's credit. Mate has
positively ripped to shreds at least one other Isikoff like stooge (Luke Harding of The
Guardian ) in this interview: https://therealnews.com/stories/wheres-the-collusion-2
which really makes one wonder why Isikoff accepted such a challenge. (I include the link for
the benefit of others – it looks like you are already aware of it). After all, he has
basically nothing the other one didn't have other than perhaps a conviction he knows some
secret alchemy that: when lies reach a certain volume, or quantity, or momentum, they
miraculously transform to truth.
If anything, I suspect Isikoff is simply as full of himself as Luke Harding. Their basic
argument (it must be true because of the sheer volume and detail of all the allegations) is
exactly the same with Isikoff only having the advantage of yet another heaping helping of
allegation pudding that he knows full well will never see the light of verification.
As an aside, did you notice Isikoff's sour sign off? I think he was quite aware Mate had
served him some serious egg on the chin and was none too happy about it. Just my take on
it.
"... NOTE: There will likely be various amendments made to this article over the next 24 hours. ..."
"... So, in fairness, there is actually circumstantial evidence to suggest an overlap as Guccifer 2.0 clearly had Podesta's emails and it looks like the spearphishing attack used to snare Podesta's emails was identical to one that was attributed to the acquisition of emails published by DCLeaks. ..."
"... (NOTE: CrowdStrike decided to start investigating the NGP-VAN breach within a week of Podesta's emails being acquired, three months after the December 2015 incident) ..."
"... (using the publicly accessible default server in France) ..."
"... (in which he used ":)" at a far higher frequency) ..."
"... (in one of the documents, change tracking had been left on and recorded someone in a PST timezone saving one of Guccifer 2.0's documents after the documents had being manipulated in the Russian timezones!) ..."
"... (which was actually inconsistent with aspects of English language that Russians typically struggle with). ..."
This author is responding to the indictment because it features claims about Guccifer 2.0
that are inconsistent with what has been discovered about the persona, including the
following:
Virtually everything that has been claimed to indicate Guccifer 2.0 was Russian was based
on something he chose to do.
Considering that Guccifer 2.0 had access to Podesta's emails, yet never leaked anything
truly damaging to the Clinton campaign even though he would have had access to it, is highly
suspicious. In fact, Guccifer 2.0 never referenced any of the scandals that would later
explode when the DNC emails and Podesta email collections were published by WikiLeaks.
The first piece of malware at the DNC identified by Crowdstrike as relating to "Fancy Bear,"
was compiled on 25 April, 2016. This used a C2 (command and control) IP address that, for the
purposes of the APT group, had been inoperable for over a year. It was useful mostly as a
signature for attributing it to "Fancy Bear."
Two additional pieces of malware were discovered at the DNC attributed to the same APT
group. These were compiled on 5 May 2016 and 10 May 2016 while Robert Johnston was working with
the DNC on CrowdStrike's behalf to counter the intrusion reported at the end of April and
install Falcon.
This could be inferred from a number of things. DCLeaks was re-registered on 19 April 2016,
however, what they published included Republicans and individuals that were not connected to
the DNC. In fact, DCLeaks didn't start publishing anything relating to Clinton campaign staff
until June/July 2016. There was also the fact that the daily frequency of
emails in the DNC emails released by WikiLeaks increased dramatically from around 19 April
2016 , however, this wasn't indicative of the start of hacking activity but rather caused
by a 30 day email retention policy combined with the fact that the emails were acquired between
May 19th and May 25th.
There has been no technical evidence produced by those who had access to the DNC network
demonstrating files were being manipulated or that malware was engaging in activity prior to
this and by CrowdStrike's own admissions, many of the devices at the DNC were wiped in June. As
such, it's unclear where this may have come from.
There's an issue here with the conflation of Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. Why would Guccifer
2.0 have had an account at DCLeaks with which he had restricted access and could only manage a
subset of the leaks (and only those relating to the DNC) while DCLeaks featured leaks covering
those unconnected to and even opposing the DNC?
It makes no sense that the GRU would have even used Guccifer 2.0 in the manner we now know
he operated – it only caused any harm to Trump and served to undermine leaks due to the
deliberate placement of Russian metadata that would give a false perception of Russians
mishandling those documents (including the Trump research document found in Podesta's
emails).
So, in fairness, there is actually circumstantial evidence to suggest an overlap as
Guccifer 2.0 clearly had Podesta's emails and it looks like the spearphishing attack used to
snare Podesta's emails was identical to one that was attributed to the acquisition of emails
published by DCLeaks.
Is there a reason for ambiguity when referencing WikiLeaks?
While he clearly had access to the Podesta emails (NOTE: CrowdStrike decided to start
investigating the NGP-VAN breach within a week of Podesta's emails being acquired, three months
after the December 2015 incident) , Guccifer 2.0 used those materials to fabricate
evidence on 15 June 2016 implicating Russians and which, coincidentally appeared to support
(but ultimately helped refute) multiple assertions made by
CrowdStrike that the Trump Opposition report (actually sourced from Podesta's emails) was
targeted by Guccifer 2.0 at the DNC in April 2016 – and that the theft of this specific
file from the DNC – which, again, could not have been stolen from the DNC – had set
off the " first
alarm " indicating a security breach.
On 6 July 2016, Guccifer 2.0 released a batch of documents that were exclusively attachments
to DNC emails that would later be released by WikiLeaks.
Guccifer 2.0 certainly didn't make a genuine effort to "conceal a Russian identity," far
from it. The persona made decisions that would leave behind a demonstrable trail of
Russian-themed breadcrumbs, examples include:
Choosing the Russian VPN Service (using the publicly accessible default server in
France) in combination with a mail service provider that would forward the sender's IP
address .
Creating a blog and dropping a Russian emoticon in the second paragraph of the first
post, something he only ever did one other time over months of activity (in which he used
":)" at a far higher frequency) .
Tainting documents with Russian language metadata.
Going through considerable
effort to ensure Russian language errors were in the first documents provided to the
press.
Probable use of a VM set to Russian timezone while manipulating documents so that
datastore objects with timestamps implying a Russian timezone setting are saved (in one
of the documents, change tracking had been left on and recorded someone in a PST timezone
saving one of Guccifer 2.0's documents after the documents had being manipulated in the
Russian timezones!)
The deliberate and inconsistent mangling of English language (which was actually
inconsistent with aspects of English language that Russians typically struggle
with).
Guccifer 2.0 claimed credit for a hack that was already being attributed to Russians
without making any effort to counter that perception and only denied it when outright
questioned on it.
How have these identities been connected to the respective GRU officers? This query applies
to additional identities mentioned throughout the indictment.
Where have these pseudonyms been cited in any of the research or evidence published in the
past two years? Most seem to be new and were never referenced by the firms specifically
investigated the relevant phishing campaigns in the past.
Unfortunately, the indictment itself provides no reference for us to ascertain what the
individual attributions are based on.
How do we know for sure Morgachev was developing a version of it and that this is related to
the DNC?
Again, everything found on Google relating to "blablabla1234565" is in relation to the
indictment, where were these details during the past 2 years, where have they come from and how
has X-Agent development/monitoring been traced back to this individual?
It's unlikely technical evidence of his testing was left behind in deployed malware.
There is a "realblatr" profile at https://djangopackages.org/profiles/realblatr/
but this doesn't indicate anything relevant to this and other results for "realblatr" seem to
be about the indictment.
We know that whoever had the Podesta emails had far more damaging content on Hillary than
that produced by Guccifer 2.0 or DCLeaks and we know Guccifer 2.0 had access to Podesta's
emails. If it was the GRU and they wanted to harm Hillary, they had FAR better material do that
with than what they chose to release.
DCLeaks featured leaks from those that were not involved in the US presidential election.
Guccifer 2.0 only released content relating to the Democratic party and only content that was
of little harm to the DNC leadership and Clinton's campaign.
Yandex.com is the domain usually given to people outside of Russia that use the Yandex
service, in Russia it's yandex.ru by default.
"... I have read the entire indictment, more than once. As a lawyer, I suspect that little to none of what it asserts about supposed illegal activities could possibly be proven beyond a reasonable doubt according to the rules of evidence (unless some judge decides that actual evidence need not be presented, on "national-security" grounds, in which event the whole case would be exposed as nothing but a "show trial" or "kangaroo court"). The indictment appears to be little more than political theater, timed to embarrass Trump and Putin. Even Mueller cannot expect that there will ever be an actual trial of the defendants he has named. ..."
"... Even Stalin's show trials (to use a "Russian" analogy) were more credible than what Mueller has produced in the two indictments of Russians which he has obtained so far. ..."
"... More revealing is that the FBI supposedly is able to break through a maze of computer obfuscation and backtrack a highly convoluted e-conspiracy to named individuals in one of the (if not the) premier espionage outfits in the world -- the GRU -- but finds itself helpless in case after case in tracking down various perpetrators of "ransom ware" who have done significant economic damage to Americans over the last several years. How can one believe both of these observations to be true? ..."
"... Also, the indictment claims that the FBI has also broken through the maze of "anonymity" surrounding transactions in bitcoin (and apparently some other e-currencies). If this is true, that selling point for such currencies has now been exposed as hype. ..."
I have read the entire indictment, more than once. As a lawyer, I suspect that little
to none of what it asserts about supposed illegal activities could possibly be proven beyond
a reasonable doubt according to the rules of evidence (unless some judge decides that actual
evidence need not be presented, on "national-security" grounds, in which event the whole case
would be exposed as nothing but a "show trial" or "kangaroo court"). The indictment appears
to be little more than political theater, timed to embarrass Trump and Putin. Even Mueller
cannot expect that there will ever be an actual trial of the defendants he has
named.
If Putin's people have wanted to "undermine our democracy", they must be enjoying a good
laugh. Because Mueller and his team are doing a far better job of that than anything alleged
in the indictment could have done. Mueller is making "our democracy" the laughing stock of
the entire thinking world with this drivel. Even Stalin's show trials (to use a "Russian"
analogy) were more credible than what Mueller has produced in the two indictments of Russians
which he has obtained so far.
More revealing is that the FBI supposedly is able to break through a maze of computer
obfuscation and backtrack a highly convoluted e-conspiracy to named individuals in one of the
(if not the) premier espionage outfits in the world -- the GRU -- but finds itself helpless
in case after case in tracking down various perpetrators of "ransom ware" who have done
significant economic damage to Americans over the last several years. How can one believe
both of these observations to be true?
Also, the indictment claims that the FBI has also broken through the maze of
"anonymity" surrounding transactions in bitcoin (and apparently some other e-currencies). If
this is true, that selling point for such currencies has now been exposed as hype. Will
the bitcoin market now react (as it should) in a violently negative manner? If it does not,
would that not be a further indication that knowledgeable people consider the indictment
fatuous?
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) said at the time that their personal
analysis indicated the data transfer rate was far too high to have occurred over the internet
(22.7 Mbps). The organization concluded the 'hack' favoured an external device such as a
thumb drive, used by someone who had physical access to the DNC server. That does not
necessarily exclude the Russians, but it puts them near the back of a very large pack of
possibilities, and VIPS' explanation is far more compelling than the serving intelligence
agencies with their 'May haves' and 'Probablys'.
The story has always been that Russia slipped the information to Wikileaks, who are an arm
of Kremlin foreign policy. It could just as easily have been the Chinese, but it is more
likely whoever took the data passed it directly to Wikileaks without going through another
country. Regardless who took the information, it was all true, and if it made Mrs. Clinton
look bad, that is a natural consequence of her having done bad things. The sort of bad things
the electorate should know when making its decision. To suggest it should have been kept
under wraps until after the election is monstrous, and Clinton made her case much worse by
lying about the circumstances over and over in an attempt to keep the truth from the voters
until after their decision was registered. It almost worked - she won the popular vote.
"federal law states that gross negligence in handling the nation's intelligence can be
punished criminally with prison time or fines." ....
"Memos show that at least three top FBI officials were involved in helping Comey fashion
and edit the statement, including Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, General Counsel James Baker
and chief of staff Jim Rybicki."
I'd say there are plenty of people who need to be charged for their conscious conduct as
well as the cover up. The usual suspects seem to be happy to be talking abut Putin rather
than putt'n her and her associates in jail.
I have been expecting this under the theory of a scorned and frightened woman with a career
as a lawyer at risk (deals made?). Now there is concrete evidence of political bias by Strzok
and others. Inference and speculation based on text message content is over. Not so sure that
it derails Mueller though. He can claim that he dropped Strzok when the bias became obvious.
However, it certainly brings heavy suspicion onto his special investigation. Very interesting
situation.
Can we infer that you consider Mueller's latest indictment factually correct -
specifically wrt the GRU hacking the DNC & DCCC rather than it being a leak & false
flag to try and "taint anything WikiLeaks might later publish", as VIPS allege? Very
interested in your POV, as I am currently drawn towards Adam Carter's view that G2 is someone
deliberately leaving Russian breadcrumbs.
I enjoy reading your comments on this blog. First, for your experience and second you seem to
try to come to conclusions that are fair even if they are not the conclusions you desire.
If the Chinese Government stole Hillary Clinton's emails. That is proof that this whole
narrative of "yea she had a server but so what. Nobody penetrated it so it doesn't matter".
This is all I have heard for 2 plus years.
Now this. There really is no credibility left of the intelligence agency's if this can be
covered over. So why should I believe the Russians hacked the DNC and not a disgruntled
Bernie Sanders supporter named Seth Rich leaked them to Wikileaks. The former British
Ambassador Craig Murray says that is the case. And if anything he seems almost too
honest.
This is becoming a much bigger issue than Left versus Right. Right is right and wrong is
wrong. Donald Trump's thought process is to disorganized and ADD to have colluded with the
Russians.
If ideology is a cover for crime then this country is over.
Mr Podesta, how
long have you used
"PASSWORD" as a password
for your access to the
DNC?
Ons24-%&@yy zfo-%78 -
password the day before the
hack, changed daily
Password - password use
the day of the hack
I can't even buy
something from amazon with
an account password
"Password". Yet he can
control the entire DNC
without one security
question?
Trusting the gov since
Reagan is laughable.
Thinking Bush didn't create
9-11 is inexcusable.
Simply Believing anything
said by Strozck, FBI, CIA,
DOJ Clinton clapper, comer
Brennen et al is idiotic to
the level of drinking
koolaid at the church
retreat. It just isn't
being done (successfully).
Frogs gonna boil.
Say goodbye to your Dem
friends or help them see
the light of reason.
Stupid does not last long
in Darwin's evolutional
theory.
"... Sir, in my cynical old age, I have a hard time believing there will be any prosecution of the Deep State top echelons. The DOJ and FBI it seems are very focused on protecting their own. If Rosenstein is impeached then one could say the tide is turning. Otherwise it would appear to be more kabuki. ..."
"Former top FBI lawyer Lisa Page testified during two days of closed-door House hearings,
revealing shocking new Intel against her old bosses at the Bureau, according the well-placed
FBI sources.
Alarming new details on allegations of a bureau-wide cover up. Or should we say another
bureau-wide cover up.
The embattled Page tossed James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Bill Priestap among
others under the Congressional bus, alleging the upper echelon of the FBI concealed
intelligence confirming Chinese state-backed 'assets' had illegally acquired former Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton's 30,000+ "missing" emails, federal sources said.
The Russians didn't do it. The Chinese did, according to well-placed FBI sources.
And while Democratic lawmakers and the mainstream media prop up Russia as America's
boogeyman, it was the ironically Chinese who acquired Hillary's treasure trove of classified
and top secret intelligence from her home-brewed private server.
And a public revelation of that magnitude -- publicizing that a communist world power
intercepted Hillary's sensitive and top secret emails -- would have derailed Hillary Clinton's
presidential hopes. Overnight. But it didn't simply because it was concealed." True Pundit
------------
A woman scorned? Maybe, but Page has done a real job on these malefactors. And, who knows
how many other penetrations of various kinds there were in Clinton's reign as SecState?
"You mean like with a towel?" Clinton mocked a reporter with that question when asked if her
servers had been wiped clean. It is difficult to believe that there won't be prosecutions.
pl
Putin offered to allow Mueller's team to go to Russia and interrogate the suspects in the
Mueller indictment provided 1) that Russian investigators could sit in on the
interrogations, and 2) that the US would allow Russian investigators to investigate
people like Bill Browder in the US.
This would be done until the existing treaty which allows the US and Russia to
cooperate in criminal investigation cases.
Now, let's get back to the issue of this 12 alleged intelligence officers of Russia. I
don't know the full extent of the situation. But President Trump mentioned this issue. I
will look into it.
So far, I can say the following. Things that are off the top of my head. We have an
existing agreement between the United States of America and the Russian Federation, an
existing treaty that dates back to 1999. The mutual assistance on criminal cases. This
treaty is in full effect. It works quite efficiently. On average, we initiate about 100,
150 criminal cases upon request from foreign states.
For instance, the last year, there was one extradition case upon the request sent by
the United States. This treaty has specific legal procedures we can offer. The
appropriate commission headed by Special Attorney Mueller, he can use this treaty as a
solid foundation and send a formal, official request to us so that we could interrogate,
hold questioning of these individuals who he believes are privy to some
crimes. Our enforcement are perfectly able to do this questioning and send the
appropriate materials to the United States. Moreover, we can meet you halfway. We can
make another step. We can actually permit representatives of the United States, including
the members of this very commission headed by Mr. Mueller, we can let them into the
country. They can be present at questioning.
In this case, there's another condition. This kind of effort should be mutual one.
Then we would expect that the Americans would reciprocate. They would question officials,
including the officers of law enforcement and intelligence services of the United States
whom we believe have something to do with illegal actions on the territory of Russia. And
we have to request the presence of our law enforcement.
End Quote
Putin then proceeds to stick it to Hillary Clinton with the bombshell accusation that
Bill Browder - possibly with the assistance of US intelligence agencies - contributed a
whopping $400 million dollars to Clinton's election campaign!
Quote:
For instance, we can bring up Mr. Browder in this particular case. Business associates
of Mr. Browder have earned over $1.5 billion in Russia. They never paid any taxes.
Neither in Russia nor in the United States. Yet, the money escapes the country. They were
transferred to the United States. They sent huge amount of money, $400 million as a
contribution to the campaign of Hillary Clinton. [He presents no evidence to back up that
$400 million claim.] Well, that's their personal case. It might have been legal, the
contribution itself. But the way the money was earned was illegal. We have solid
reason to believe that some intelligence officers guided these transactions. [This
allegation, too, is merely an unsupported assertion here.] So we have an interest of
questioning them. That could be a first step. We can also extend it. There are many
options. They all can be found in an appropriate legal framework.
End Quote
This article mentions the above and provides background information on Browder and the
US Magnitsky Act which he finagled Congress into passing which were the original Russian
sanctions.
Despite Putin's claim that this was "off the top of his head", I'd say this was a
calculated response to the Mueller indictment as well as a calculated attack on Hillary
Clinton and the US intelligence agencies who were clearly in support of her election
campaign. Frankly, it's brilliant. It forces Mueller to "put up or shut up" just as much
as the company which challenged the previous indictment over Russian ads.
"US would allow Russian investigators to investigate people like Bill Browder in the US."
The example would be a good one, except, the US has no power to allow anybody to
investigate Bill Browder (grandson of the head of the American Communist Party, btw)
because Browder gave up his US citizenship, it is said, to avoid paying taxes
Skepticism is always prudent when it comes to any news source.
Regarding the issue of "trust"... Putin himself said that he and Trump shouldn't be
basing their discussions on trust of each other. While I trust Putin to be skillful and
strategic that doesn't mean I trust all of his words. After all, he is a politician and a
powerful leader. Respect is the key here, not trust.
From a transcript
http://time.com/5339848/don...
PUTIN (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): As to who is to be believed and to who's not to be believed,
you can trust no one if you take this.
Where did you get this idea that President Trump trusts me or I trust him? He defends
the interests of the United States of America, and I do defend the interests of the
Russian Federation.
We do have interests that are common. We are looking for points of contact. There are
issues where our postures diverge, and we are looking for ways to reconcile our
differences, how to make our effort more meaningful.
-----------------
Of course both countries spy on each other and engage in various forms of cyber
warfare, as do many other countries. It's business as usual. That's why the Mueller
investigation is bullshit. It doesn't acknowledge that most basic fact of geopolitics. It
posits Russia as the only bad actor in the relationship. I was very pleased that Trump
acknowledge that both sides created the issues the countries have with each other, though
of course the Borg and their media puppets went wild over that.
Trump and Putin both have excellent trolling skills. I very much enjoy this aspect of
the great Game!
Though perhaps Putin botched his trolling of Hillary by getting the number wrong. Or
may be he pulled a Trump maneuver and purposely gave the wrong number to force reporters
to research it and post the correction.
Let's see if "China hacked Clinton's server and got the 30,000 e-mails" goes mainstream.
This would nail the Borg dead. What has been peculiar about the last four years is that
there are concerted proxy operations to take down the Iranian and Russian governments to
get at their resources at the risk of crashing the world economy; let alone, a nuclear
war that would destroy the earth. But, nothing against China other than bleating about
freedom of passage in South China Sea. China is #2 and rising by all criteria. It is
restoring its ancient Imperial power to rule the civilized world. Europe has much more in
common with Russia. Over the centuries they keep battling the Kremlin over Crimea.
. It is difficult to believe that there won't be prosecutions.
Sir, in my cynical old age, I have a hard time believing there will be any
prosecution of the Deep State top echelons. The DOJ and FBI it seems are very focused on
protecting their own. If Rosenstein is impeached then one could say the tide is turning.
Otherwise it would appear to be more kabuki.
I don't get why President Trump does not declassify the documents that the DOJ are
withholding from Congress rather than tweet "witch hunt".
"... There was also the stunning Awan affair when a family of Pakistanis (with no security clearance) had been surfing congressional computers for years and perhaps selling the obtained classified information to the third parties. So much for the mighty mice CIA and FBI. ..."
It is hard to reconcile this, "Chinese state-backed 'assets' had illegally acquired former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 30,000+ "missing" emails" with that, "the US "defense"
budget is approximately 1.2 trillion dollars a year."
There was also the stunning Awan affair when a family of Pakistanis (with no security
clearance) had been surfing congressional computers for years and perhaps selling the obtained
classified information to the third parties. So much for the mighty mice CIA and FBI.
Everybody should watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu9DMxfTGhY
Billy boy admitting Sergei Magnicky was not a lawyer. He was an accountant who was stealing
money with shitbag Bill Browder.
I think there is much more to the comment made by Putin regarding Bill Browder and his money flows into the DNC and Clinton
campaign. That would explain why the DNC didn't hand the servers over to the FBI after being hacked. If you follow the money a
lot of what happened during the election and afterwards in regards to Russia and Trump start to make sense. Could it be that we
are finally witnessing the removal the last layers of the center of the onion?
" Deep State agent Bill Browder operated at the very nexus of the U.S. and U.K.
Intelligence Communities that conspired to produce both the fake Russiagate and very real
Spygate ."
" The US fabricated evidence to start the Vietnam war and the US fabricated WMD talk on
the second war in Iraq. US intelligence had no idea the Berlin Wall was about to fall. The US
meddled in Russia supporting a drunk named Yeltsin because we erroneously thought we could
control him."
YUP! AMEN.
It's amusing to me that the Leftist's NOW have a blind-faith trust in government, whereas
during the Vietnam war, and at the start of the Iraq war the opposite was (justifiably) the
case.
And remember, the [neoliberal] Left was all OVER how we manipulated Russia into an
Oligarchy:
Putin handed Trump a means of openly investigating Killary's/CIA's manipulation of US
politics via the Browder investigation, the crime of manipulating the DNC to remove Bernie
can also loop into the mix.
Let's hope Trump follows through and exposes the nest of vipers. The majority of people
are now seeing the light, only the people with skin the game or those far too controlled
through an excellent propaganda/mass mind control experiment do not.
Edward Bernays and Joseph Goebels could only dream that their methods would go this
far.
"But being dependent, every day of the year and for year after year, upon certain
politicians for news, the newspaper reporters are obliged to work in harmony with their news
sources."
― Edward L. Bernays ,
Propaganda
Putin handed Trump a means of openly investigating Killary's/CIA's manipulation of US
politics via the Browder investigation, the crime of manipulating the DNC to remove Bernie
can also loop into the mix.
Let's hope Trump follows through and exposes the nest of vipers. The majority of people
are now seeing the light, only the people with skin the game or those far too controlled
through an excellent propaganda/mass mind control experiment do not.
Edward Bernays and Joseph Goebels could only dream that their methods would go this
far.
"But being dependent, every day of the year and for year after year, upon certain
politicians for news, the newspaper reporters are obliged to work in harmony with their news
sources."
― Edward L. Bernays ,
Propaganda
Unless Herr fuckin Mueller comes up with some damn FUCKIN PROOF, and SOON, he should
hang.
Browder IS a major scumbag and there is plenty of fuckin proof of that. Putin knows. 400
millions to the Clinton campaign. The sooner she fuckin hangs the better.
I sure wish the mainstream media and all those critics of Donald Trump had had better civics
teachers in high school. If they had, they would understand that special counsel Robert
Mueller's indictment against those Russian officials for supposedly illegally meddling in
America's presidential election doesn't mean squat. Instead, the media and the Trump critics
have accepted the indictment as proof, even conclusive proof, that the Russians really did do
what Mueller is charging them with doing.
Of course, it's not really Mueller's indictment. It's a federal grand jury that has returned
the indictment. But, in reality, it's Mueller's indictment. He drafts it up and the grand jury
dutifully signs whatever he presents to them. As the old legal adage goes, prosecutors can get
a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.
A prosecutor can say whatever he wants in an indictment. It's not sworn to. Neither the
prosecutor nor the grand jury can be prosecuted for perjury or false allegations in an
indictment.
In this particular case, the matter is even more problematic because Mueller knows that
those Russian officials who he has indicted will never be brought to trial. That's because
there is no reasonable possibility that the Russian government would ever turn them over to the
U.S. government. That means that Mueller knows that whatever he says in that indictment is
never going to be tested in a court of law. He can say whatever he wants in that indictment
knowing full well that he will never be required to prove it.
If only the mainstream media and the Trump critics would just attend one single criminal
case, they would learn that criminal indictments don't mean squat and are not evidence of
anything. Here is what judges always tell juries, in one way or another, in criminal cases:
An indictment is not evidence; it is simply the formal notice to the defendants of the
charges against each of them. The mere fact of an indictment raises no suspicion of guilty.
The government has the burden to prove the charges against the defendants beyond a reasonable
doubt, and that burden stays with the government from start to finish. The defendants have no
burden or obligation to prove anything at all. They are presumed innocent. The defendants
started this trial with a clean slate, with no evidence at all against them, and the law
presumes that they are each innocent. This presumption of innocence stays with each defendant
unless and until the government presents evidence here in court that overcomes the
presumption, and convinces you beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants are guilty.
Is that the standard that the mainstream media and Trump critics are applying in response to
the Mueller indictment? Are you kidding? They are applying the standard that is used in
communist and other totalitarian regimes. They are pointing to the accusation as proof that
those Russian officials really are guilty! After all, their argument goes, if they weren't
guilty, former FBI Director Mueller would never have secured an indictment against them.
Anyway, everybody knows that the Russians are guilty because America's deep state -- i.e.,
the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA -- say they are. What more proof does anyone need than that?
What even needs a trial? Case closed! Grab them, take them to Gitmo, torture them, and hang
them!
Pardon me, but I thought the special counsel was appointed to determine whether President
Trump somehow illegally "colluded" with the Russians to defeat Hillary Clinton for president.
What's Mueller doing wasting time and money indicting Russian officials who he knows will never
stand trial? Isn't it time for Mueller to put up or shut up with respect to President Trump and
let the Justice Department handle other criminal prosecutions?
Maybe it's just a coincidence that Mueller announced his indictment on the eve of Trump's
meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Or maybe not.
Ever since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. deep state has done everything it can to gin up
another Cold War with Russia. Recall that at the end of the Cold War in 1989, the U.S. deep
state was caught flat-footed. They had fully expected the Cold War to last forever, which would
guarantee ever-increasing budgets for the deep state and its army of bureaucrats, contractors,
and subcontractors.
In fact, people were talking about a "peace dividend," which would have entailed deep cuts
in expenditures for the military-industrial complex, which was President Eisenhower's term for
the deep state. That threw all elements of the deep state into a full-blown panic.
That's when they went into the Middle East and began poking hornet's nests, knowing full
well that their violent and destructive interventionism would produce terrorist blowback. It
did and the terrorist blowback was then used as the excuse for continuing out of control
deep-state expenditures in order to "keep us safe" from the enemies that their interventionism
was producing. In fact, it's probably worth mentioning that Russia's supposed hacking of some
email accounts pales to insignificance compared to massive U.S. interventionism, including the
destruction of democratic regimes, in the political affairs of other countries since the advent
of the U.S. deep state, including bribery, kidnappings, assassinations, coups, embargoes,
sanctions, and invasions.
At the same time they were intervening in the Middle East, they never gave up hope of
revitalizing the Cold War crisis environment with Russia. That is what NATO expansion into
Eastern Europe, including the hope of absorbing Ukraine into NATO, was all about. The U.S. deep
state knew that the closer NATO got to Russia's border, the more likely it would be that Russia
would have to respond. When Russia finally did respond by taking over Crimea, before the U.S.
deep state could, U.S. officials responded predictably: "We are shocked -- shocked! -- at this
act of aggression, which shows that Russia is preparing to attack and invade Eastern Europe,
the Baltics, Germany, France, and undoubtedly even the United States.
It's really just a repeat of the fears that the U.S. deep state inculcated into the American
people throughout the Cold War, as a way to get Americans to support the conversion of the
federal government from a limited-government republic to a national-security or deep states.
The only thing missing is the communist part: Instead of the Reds coming to get us, it's now
just Putin and the Russkies.
What nonsense. Mueller should do the country a favor and shut down his ridiculous and
ridiculously expensive investigation. No matter how much one might dislike Donald Trump, the
fact is that he won the election, fair and square, and Hillary Clinton lost it. Accept it. Deal
with it. Wait until the 2020 election to try to oust Trump from office. Time to shut down all
the regime-change operations, including those of the U.S. deep state.
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This post was written by: Jacob G. Hornberger Jacob G. Hornberger is
founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo,
Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree
from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an
adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr.
Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for
Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across
the country as well as on Fox News' Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as
a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano's show Freedom Watch . View these
interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full
Context . Send him email .
"... Did the Russian government seek to interfere in the 2016 US presidential elections? It's certainly possible, however we don't know. None of the Justice Department's assertions have been tested in a court of law, as is thankfully required by our legal system. It is not enough to make an allegation, as Mueller has done. You have to prove it. ..."
"... That is why we should be very suspicious of these new indictments. Mueller knows he will never have to defend his assertions in a court of law so he can make any allegation he wants. ..."
"... It is interesting that one of the Russian companies indicted by Mueller earlier this year surprised the world by actually entering a "not guilty" plea and demanding to see Mueller's evidence. The Special Counsel proceeded to file several motions to delay the hand-over of his evidence. What does Mueller have to hide? ..."
"... Meanwhile, why is no one talking about the estimated 100 elections the US government has meddled in since World War II? Maybe we need to get our own house in order? ..."
July 17, 2018 The term "deep state" has been so overused in the past few years that it may
seem meaningless. It has become standard practice to label one's political adversaries as
representing the "deep state" as a way of avoiding the defense of one's positions. President
Trump has often blamed the "deep state" for his political troubles. Trump supporters have
created big conspiracies involving the "deep state" to explain why the president places neocons
in key positions or fails to fulfill his campaign promises.
But the "deep state" is no vast and secret conspiracy theory. The deep state is real, it
operates out in the open, and it is far from monolithic. The deep state is simply the
permanent, unelected government that continues to expand its power regardless of how Americans
vote.
There are factions of the deep state that are pleased with President Trump's policies, and
in fact we might say that President Trump represents some factions of the deep state.
Other factions of the deep state are determined to undermine any of President Trump's
actions they perceive as threatening. Any move toward peace with Russia is surely something
they feel to be threatening. There are hundreds of billions of reasons – otherwise known
as dollars – why the Beltway military-industrial complex is terrified of peace breaking
out with Russia and will do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening.
That is why Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's indictment on Friday of 12 Russian
military intelligence officers for allegedly interfering in the 2016 US presidential election
should immediately raise some very serious questions.
First the obvious: after more than a year of investigations which have publicly revealed
zero collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, why drop this bombshell of an allegation
at the end of the news cycle on the last business day before the historic Trump/Putin meeting
in Helsinki? The indictment could not have been announced a month ago or in two weeks? Is it
not suspicious that now no one is talking about reducing tensions with Russia but is all of a
sudden – thanks to Special Counsel Robert Mueller – talking about increasing
tensions?
Unfortunately most Americans don't seem to understand that indictments are not evidence. In
fact they are often evidence-free, as is this indictment.
Did the Russian government seek to interfere in the 2016 US presidential elections? It's
certainly possible, however we don't know. None of the Justice Department's assertions have
been tested in a court of law, as is thankfully required by our legal system. It is not enough
to make an allegation, as Mueller has done. You have to prove it.
That is why we should be very suspicious of these new indictments. Mueller knows he will
never have to defend his assertions in a court of law so he can make any allegation he
wants.
It is interesting that one of the Russian companies indicted by Mueller earlier this
year surprised the world by actually entering a "not guilty" plea and demanding to see
Mueller's evidence. The Special Counsel proceeded to file several motions to delay the
hand-over of his evidence. What does Mueller have to hide?
Meanwhile, why is no one talking about the estimated 100 elections the US government has
meddled in since World War II? Maybe we need to get our own house in order?
"... The embattled Page tossed James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Bill Priestap among others under the Congressional bus, alleging the upper echelon of the FBI concealed intelligence confirming Chinese state-backed 'assets' had illegally acquired former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 30,000+ "missing" emails, federal sources said. ..."
"Former top FBI lawyer Lisa Page testified during two days of closed-door House hearings,
revealing shocking new Intel against her old bosses at the Bureau, according the well-placed
FBI sources.
Alarming new details on allegations of a bureau-wide cover up. Or should we say another
bureau-wide cover up.
The embattled Page tossed James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Bill Priestap among
others under the Congressional bus, alleging the upper echelon of the FBI concealed
intelligence confirming Chinese state-backed 'assets' had illegally acquired former Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton's 30,000+ "missing" emails, federal sources said.
The Russians didn't do it. The Chinese did, according to well-placed FBI sources." True
Pundit
"... The discussion made by William Binney (former NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical and Military Analysis), Ed Loomis (computer scientist and former NSA Technical Director for the Office of Signals Processing), and some others, is about data taken from a computer of the DNC. They assert that it was not an intrusion from the outside over the Internet, but rather was a very high speed data transfer that could be done onto a storage device like a thumb drive (or, I think, onto another nearby device that permitted a very high transfer rate). Assuming the material they are analyzing is genuine, I agree with them. ..."
"... Note: Always remember that Google Gmail is "free" because you are not the customer, you are the product. ..."
There are at least 3 computers, computer servers, and/or computer systems involved in
the 2016 election campaign controversy: Hillary Clinton's e-mail server at her residence
that violated federal law about the handling of classified information, the Democratic
National Committee (DNC) computer system, and Google's Gmail computer system (used by
John Podesta, Hillary's campaign chairman).
TTG also mentioned a little earlier that multiple systems are involved.
The discussion made by William Binney (former NSA Technical Director for World
Geopolitical and Military Analysis), Ed Loomis (computer scientist and former NSA
Technical Director for the Office of Signals Processing), and some others, is about data
taken from a computer of the DNC. They assert that it was not an intrusion from the
outside over the Internet, but rather was a very high speed data transfer that could be
done onto a storage device like a thumb drive (or, I think, onto another nearby device
that permitted a very high transfer rate). Assuming the material they are analyzing is
genuine, I agree with them.
Numerous governments and private computer scientists, programmers, and "hackers" could
have gotten into Hillary Clinton's personal e-mail server from the outside through the
Interrnet and probably did. Furthermore, that does not end the problem. Data can be
intercepted as it goes from one location to another, whether going over a copper phone
line, a fiber optic cable, a computer network cable, the air, and so forth.
Note: Always remember that Google Gmail is "free" because you are not the customer,
you are the product.
Putin statement about $400 million 'donation' to Hillary Clinton by MI6-connected Bill Browder in his Helsinki presser is
obviously of great interest. This has given some new insights into the DNC false flag operation dynamics.
Notable quotes:
"... The FBI would get info about these hackers through the CrowdStrike team's disk images, memory dumps, network logs and other reports. CrowdStrike's Robert Johnston also said he worked with FBI investigators during his work at the DNC so the FBI also got some of their info directly. ..."
"... IMHO believing in the Crowdstrike analysis is like believing in Santa Claus. They did propagate unsubstantiated "security porno" like a hack of Ukrainians for a while. After this incident, Dmitry Alperovich looks like a sleazy used car salesman, not like a real specialist and, in any case, his qualification is limited to the SMTP protocol. ..."
"... What if it was Crowdstrike which compiled and planted the malware using Vault 7 tools and then conducted full-scale false flag operation against Russians to deflect allegations that Bernie was thrown under the bus deliberately and unlawfully. They have motivation and means to do this. ..."
PT, regarding your questions: "How did the FBI obtain information about activity on the DNC
and DCCC servers", "what is the source of the information?",
"how do they know what happened on specific dates as alleged in the complaint?", I believe
the answers are implicit in the first part of this news article:
It describes in considerable detail how, STARTING IN SEPTEMBER 2015, the FBI tried
strenuously to alert the DNC to the fact that it was being hacked by Russia, but the DNC,
remarkably, chose to ignore these warnings.
Here's how the article begins:
When Special Agent Adrian Hawkins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation called the
Democratic National Committee in September 2015 to pass along some troubling news about its
computer network, he was transferred, naturally [ sic! ], to the help desk.
His message was brief, if alarming. At least one computer system belonging to the D.N.C.
had been compromised by hackers federal investigators had named "the Dukes," a
cyberespionage team linked to the Russian government.
The F.B.I. knew it well: The bureau had spent the last few years trying to kick the
Dukes out of the unclassified email systems of the White House, the State Department and
even the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one of the government's best-protected networks.
BTW, I sincerely thank TTG for providing this link in one of his previous comments.
The FBI warned the DNC of the Dukes (aka APT29, Cozy Bear) in September 2015. These are
the hackers that the Dutch AIVD penetrated and warned the NSA in real time when they attacked
Pentagon systems in 2015. Their goal seemed to be intelligence collection as one would expect
as the Dutch said they are affiliated with the SVR.
The Fancy Bear hackers (aka APT28) are the ones referred to in the recent indictment of
the GRU officers. They penetrated the DNC systems in April 2016 and weren't discovered until
CrowdStrike identified them. They're the ones who took data and released it through DCLeaks,
Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks as part of a coordinated information operation (IO). I'm not at
all surprised that the GRU would lead this IO as a military operation. The FBI would get
info about these hackers through the CrowdStrike team's disk images, memory dumps, network
logs and other reports. CrowdStrike's Robert Johnston also said he worked with FBI
investigators during his work at the DNC so the FBI also got some of their info
directly. There is absolutely no need to take physical possession of the servers.
The detail of some of the GRU officers' online activity indicates their computers were
penetrated by US or allied IC/LEA much like the Dutch AIVD penetrated the FSB computers. This
was probably a main source for much of the indictment's evidence. That the IC would release
information about this penetration for this indictment is extraordinary. Normally this stuff
never sees the light of day. It sets the precedent for the release of further such
intelligence information in future indictments.
IMHO believing in the Crowdstrike analysis is like believing in Santa Claus. They did
propagate unsubstantiated "security porno" like a hack of Ukrainians for a while. After this
incident, Dmitry Alperovich looks like a sleazy used car salesman, not like a real specialist
and, in any case, his qualification is limited to the SMTP protocol.
What if it was Crowdstrike which compiled and planted the malware using Vault 7 tools and
then conducted full-scale false flag operation against Russians to deflect allegations that
Bernie was thrown under the bus deliberately and unlawfully. They have motivation and means
to do this.
Now we also see a DNC motivation of keeping the content of affected servers from FBI eyes
-- Browder money.
"... Fucking bought and paid for by her, just like everything else in America! ..."
"... Trump just broke a tabu by failing to do homage to the sacred cow of our intelligence community. ..."
"... From Strzok testimony we saw (what we knew already) that Shillary's server was compromised by a 'foreign actor' and Strzok and Comey did nothing. What about that?!?!?!? ..."
Our intel agencies ARE corrupt...they walk into DNC HQ and leave without the
server...cause of Hillary you know that right. Fucking bought and paid for by her, just like
everything else in America!
Lookit, Trump is on the up and up, and all the little fags are crying foul? fuck 'em!
Trump just broke a tabu by failing to do homage to the sacred cow of our intelligence
community.
From Strzok testimony we saw (what we knew already) that Shillary's server was compromised
by a 'foreign actor' and Strzok and Comey did nothing. What about that?!?!?!?
I can't believe the drivel I'm reading about this Putin thing. The US is losing its mind, and rapidly becoming a major risk
to the world. A mad country of 320 million armed to the teeth is dangerous. Russia is a minnow by comparison. Putin's not our
problem, China's not our problem, they may not be 'nice'; we don't need them to be nice; WE'RE NOT NICE. But they're sane and
predictable. WE ARE OUR PROBLEM. The madness started in Congress and our appalling phony brainless opinionated media, where we
have passionate imbeciles foaming at the mouth about supposed foreign interference in our elections when it's clear that (1) we
don't know if it's true (2) the result was unaffected anyway, so (3) it doesn't matter a fuck whether they interfered or not and
(4) the major nations have been steaming open each others envelopes forever. Sense would be that even if we think Putin's lying,
we pretend to believe him and move on.
The US is arrogant and has zero insight, so doesn't understand that it's no longer a beacon to the word but loathed by the
world - and that long precedes Trump. The very politicians, like that fool McCain, who urged and organised regime change (not
just cyberfiddling and 'interference' but actually the sending of SOLDIERS to KILL PEOPLE WE DIDN'T LIKE) .. in Central America,
Asia, the Middle East over a long period .. are now ranting and indignant that Russia might be doing what we know we've been doing
for a century.
So the CIA would stop its cyberwarfare if Putin said "please don't"? For Christ's sake. We have to grow up and stop this nonsense,
or some lunatic will do something really stupid and we'll descend into anarchy, which is inevitably and rapidly followed by an
authoritarian 'solution'. This is a terrible time. Right now, in the military, some will be making plans in case the wheels fall
off and we'll need them to replace the 242yr of self-control that we're now incapable of, with external control.
yes. we have 3 eyewitnesses and verifiable proof that Seth Rich leaked the files. Russia had nothing to do with it. real question
is who ordered the murder of seth rich.
Another example of a common tool used by sociopaths and psychopaths . . . if information comes to light that can damage you
attack the messenger and ignore the message. That's high school level psychology. What's interesting is that there is a large
segment of the population that are too stupid to realize what's really going on . . . or maybe they just want to believe the bullshit
regardless.
Someone is at the center of the destruction of the Democratic Party, but who and why? Soros? Comey? Brennan? Muller? Rothchild?
Rockerfells?, Bezo, Fuckerbergs? Finesteein, McStain? Obamer? All, plus 1,000 more?
Think about all the unified media to make the Democrats look like out of control morons (yes, yes, I know what is new). But
this is a clean sweep of all of them with no voice countering this crazy aunt syndrome. Moderates and even what used to be called
liberal Democrats are leaving this extremely radicle party and the party does not seem to care one bit. Is two party time ending?
Nothing makes any sense. The Stock market doesn't either, but folks keep buying it.
Will Bezo or Fuckerberg be the new lords of the land with Schultz of Google? Are these the new kings of America? They are helping
to destroy the Republic from the ground up with their activities. Or Am I the moron?
The problem is, (to the American Deep State that is) is that Trump is not a member of the Puppet Political Cartel that has
been bought and paid for by the shadow rulers, Trump is his own man, and the shadow rulers don`t tolerate disobedience.
Looks like a hacking operation by China. They nailed Clinton's completely unprotected system and then inserted code that gave
them all her traffic over e-mail subsequent to that.
That included all her State Department classified traffic which she had her
staff illegally scan and insert in her private e-mail. We are talking about 30,000+ messages.
Strzok was told that by the Intelligence
Community Inspector General WHILE he was running the Clinton e-mail investigation and chose to ignore it. pl
Given the likely culprits, China made the most sense. Thanks for the confirmation!
Meanwhile, under the radar, another segment of the "Gordian knot" is getting ready to be cut.
White House Orders Direct Taliban Talks to Jump-Start Afghan Negotiations
https://www.nytimes.com/201...
The Trump administration has told its top diplomats to seek direct talks with the Taliban, a significant shift in American policy
in Afghanistan, done in the hope of jump-starting negotiations to end the 17-year war.
The Taliban have long said they will first discuss peace only with the Americans, who toppled their regime in Afghanistan in
2001. But the United States has mostly insisted that the Afghan government must take part.
The recent strategy shift, which was confirmed by several senior American and Afghan officials, is intended to bring those
two positions closer and lead to broader, formal negotiations to end the long war.
-----------------------
I am an independent. I voted for Obama twice because his opponents were so unappealing. I am starting to hate the left. I view
them and the neocon establishment behavior nothing short of treasonous.
Money quote: "This is just a softer "Saddam has WMDs [scam]" And people fell for it."
The cat fight between two factions of the US elite would be funny, if it was not so dangerous.
Notable quotes:
"... The greatest irony in all this is we have hard evidence that the Clinton machine swayed the MSM to promote T-rump in the primary and squash Bernie. Isn't that election tampering? ..."
"... We also witness the blatant privilege when Comey didn't indict the $hill when she obviously and without a doubt broke the law. So we have the Clinton's above the law laundering money through their foundation But it's Russia's fault....come on. ..."
"... You have totally taken the wind out of the sails of Russia Gate. As you stated, what was the crime? The information that came from the DNC computers and Podesta's emails showed that there was a plan to rig the primary against Bernie so that Hillary would win it. I've said numerous times that was the real election interference. ..."
"... Brennan who had admitted in Jan 2017 that there was no evidence that Russia affected the election in any way has since been prattling on about Russia Gate without every offering any evidence, but that is why this country has been peddling propaganda since Wilson decided it was a great way to get people on board with anything their government want to do. Here is the latest from Brennan. ..."
"... While standing next to the American president, Putin accuses Hillary Clinton of accepting illegal Russian campaign contributions. Trump doesn't push back. ..."
"... Propaganda baby. It works. Every person I have spoken with since Her Majesty lost the election really believes that this country is being run by Putin directly and with the full knowledge and help from the GOP. Because Putin has blackmailed them too or something ..."
"... @lizzyh7 ..."
"... What this episode really proves is that the US finally has joined the USSR as a broken, bankrupt empire that is run by shifting coalitions of international bankers and splinter groups of spooks. The facade of law and democratic norms in America has fallen and shattered on Washington steps. ..."
"... Personally, I accept that in modern times all major intelligence agencies and military general staffs routinely spy on each other and meddle in politics, including elections in their own countries. That's a given and should be obvious to everyone since Yuri Andropov succeeded Brezhnev and Director George H.W Bush had three terms as President of the United States. ..."
"... What is most significant about the current spectacle is how it reveals the polarization and breakdown in discipline within US military and intelligence agencies. The internal policy dispute over Syria and Ukraine and botched election tampering has led to open infighting among the spooks. That's what "Russiagate" is really all about and it's why Flynn and Manafort were the first Mueller indicted. ..."
"... The Mueller investigation is an extension of politics by other means. ..."
"... Social media is completely insane. I've got a very large demographic of fairly open minded people given my trade, and it's unanimous: Drumpf is a Traitor and has committed Treason - both with capital Ts. ..."
The FBI never examined the DNC server. And even if they had, we learned from the vault 7 wikileaks that the CIA can leave evidence
of any country they choose when they hack into a system. I can't believe my normally rational friends can be so brainwashed as
to buy into the whole Russiagate narrative. T-rump has caused them to lose their ability to think.
The greatest irony in all this is we have hard evidence that the Clinton machine swayed the MSM to promote T-rump in the
primary and squash Bernie. Isn't that election tampering?
We also witness the blatant privilege when Comey didn't indict the $hill when she obviously and without a doubt broke the
law. So we have the Clinton's above the law laundering money through their
foundation But it's Russia's fault....come on.
Jimmy accuse people of thinking with their lizard brains...I fear he is right.
You have totally taken the wind out of the sails of Russia Gate. As you stated, what was the crime? The information that came
from the DNC computers and Podesta's emails showed that there was a plan to rig the primary against Bernie so that Hillary would
win it. I've said numerous times that was the real election interference. As to what Russia is accused of doing Obama, Brennan
and others have stated that no votes were changed from Hillary to Trump no were any voting machines hacked. Funny thing about
that though. 3 states have said that they did see signs of some entity trying to hack into their state's voting data bases but
it came from the DHS. Not a foreign country.
Could it be that Mueller is acknowledging something important here without stating it? There is no real victim in "Russiagate."
So, where is the crime? Was anyone harmed? No. Was a U.S. Navy battleship resting at anchor blown up? No, again. Not a scratch
to anything except the reputations of those who were shown to have rigged the Democratic primaries so that the DNC Chair's
favored candidate won.
Putin said that he would welcome the US investigation into those 12 military officers if the US would send someone to interview
them in Russia since the two countries have a treaty to do just that. Will anyone take him up on that offer? Anyone? Bueller?
After Trump's meeting with Putin neocons are doubling down and accusing Trump of doing all kinds of shady things.
Mueller indictments strengthen case that Trump's win was stolen. What's new? a) Strong possibility Russians monkeyed w/
voter rolls, affecting the 11/8/16 outcome and b) Trump's fall strategy may have been driven by stolen Democratic analytics.
My column: https://t.co/io2B8Nhjs7
Brennan who had admitted in Jan 2017 that there was no evidence that Russia affected the election in any way has since been
prattling on about Russia Gate without every offering any evidence, but that is why this country has been peddling propaganda
since Wilson decided it was a great way to get people on board with anything their government want to do. Here is the latest from
Brennan.
Donald Trump's press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of "high crimes & misdemeanors."
It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump's comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican
Patriots: Where are you???
A few other tweets from the joint press conference.
I'm pretty sure that no one will ask Putin a follow up question about what he meant by this.
While standing next to the American president, Putin accuses Hillary Clinton of accepting illegal Russian campaign contributions.
Trump doesn't push back. pic.twitter.com/dDt2TTV24E
Debunked? I don't see that this was debunked. In fact I don't remember anyone ever talking about the content of the emails
that showed that the primary was rigged.
Asked if he believes US intel agencies or Putin about Russia's interference in the 2016 election, Trump immediately starts
pushing debunked DNC & Hillary conspiracy theories.
"I don't see any reason why it would be" Russia, Trump says, affirming he believes Putin's denials.
pic.twitter.com/uciAoRxbxA
PUTIN doesn't deny having blackmail material on Trump
"When Trump was in Moscow back then, I didn't even know that he was there. I treat him with utmost respect, but back then
when he was private person, a businessman, nobody informed me"
What we saw *today* was collusion. Trump's refusal to treat Russian sabotage of our democracy as the crime that it is encourages
Putin to keep it up. https://t.co/9OTDPQUmpWpic.twitter.com/efyNriYSwy
Propaganda baby. It works. Every person I have spoken with since Her Majesty lost the election really believes that this country is
being run by Putin directly and with the full knowledge and help from the GOP. Because Putin has blackmailed them too or something
....
I kept waiting for the day Russia Gate exploded and became known for the farce it is. I really wanted to see Rachel's reaction
and see how she would explain to her viewers that she had just made everything up. But now I'm don't think that is going to happen.
The PTB have invested to much into it and they won't let their agendas be derailed. This is just a softer "Saddam has WMDs." And
people fell for it.
What this episode really proves is that the US finally has joined the USSR as a broken, bankrupt empire that is run by shifting
coalitions of international bankers and splinter groups of spooks. The facade of law and democratic norms in America has fallen
and shattered on Washington steps.
Personally, I accept that in modern times all major intelligence agencies and military general staffs routinely spy on each
other and meddle in politics, including elections in their own countries. That's a given and should be obvious to everyone since
Yuri Andropov succeeded Brezhnev and Director George H.W Bush had three terms as President of the United States.
What is most significant about the current spectacle is how it reveals the polarization and breakdown in discipline within
US military and intelligence agencies. The internal policy dispute over Syria and Ukraine and botched election tampering has led
to open infighting among the spooks. That's what "Russiagate" is really all about and it's why Flynn and Manafort were the first
Mueller indicted.
The Mueller investigation is an extension of politics by other means.
Social media is completely insane. I've got a very large demographic of fairly open minded people given my trade, and it's
unanimous: Drumpf is a Traitor and has committed Treason - both with capital Ts.
I could see Civil War in weeks. Completely terrifying.
@detroitmechworks He ostensibly went to seek advice on how to do his confirmation hearing for SOS. What actually happened
is the Medusa told him who to retain and what policies to pursue. Pompeo had no intention of adopting her policies (except Neocon
points) but he got valuable clues as to Clinton allies in the DOS. He then began purging them. Stupid HRC! But I hope she runs
in 2020.
"... For instance, we can bring up Mr. Browder, in this particular case. Business associates of Mr. Browder have earned over $1.5 billion in Russia and never paid any taxes neither in Russia or the United States and yet the money escaped the country. They were transferred to the United States. They sent [a] huge amount of money, $400,000,000, as a contribution to the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Well that's their personal case. ..."
"... we have solid reason to believe that some [US] intelligence officers accompanied and guided these transactions. So we have an interest in questioning them. ..."
"... Browder is notoriously the man behind the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which exploited Congressional willingness to demonize Russia and has done so much to poison relations between Washington and Moscow. ..."
"... Browder, a media favorite who self-promotes as "Putin's enemy #1," portrays himself as a selfless human rights advocate, but is he? He has used his fortune to threaten lawsuits for anyone who challenges his version of events, effectively silencing many critics. He claims that his accountant Sergei Magnitsky was a crusading "lawyer" who discovered a $230 million tax-fraud scheme that involved the Browder business interest Hermitage Capital but was, in fact, engineered by corrupt Russian police officers who arrested Magnitsky and enabled his death in a Russian jail. ..."
"... William Browder is again in the news recently in connection with testimony related to Russiagate. On December 16th Senator Diane Feinstein of the Senate Judiciary Committee released the transcript of the testimony provided by Glenn Simpson, founder of Fusion GPS. According to James Carden, Browder was mentioned 50 times, but the repeated citations apparently did not merit inclusion in media coverage of the story by the New York Times, Washington Post and Politico. ..."
Vladimir Putin made a bombshell claim during Monday's joint press conference with President
Trump in Helsinki, Finland, when the Russian President said some $400 million )should be $400K) in illegally
earned profits was funneled to the Clinton campaign by associates of American-born British
financier Bill Browder - at one time the largest foreign portfolio investors in Russia. The
scheme involved members of the U.S. intelligence community, said Putin, who he said
"accompanied and guided these transactions."
Browder made billions in Russia during the 90's. In December, a Moscow court sentenced
Browder in absentia to nine years in prison for tax fraud, while he was also found guilty of
tax evasion in a separate 2013 case. Putin accused Browder's associates of illegally earning
over than $1.5 billion without paying Russian taxes, before sending $400 million to Clinton.
After offering to allow special counsel Robert Mueller's team to come to Russia for their
investigation - as long as there was a reciprocal arrangement for Russian intelligence to
investigate in the U.S., Putin said this:
For instance, we can bring up Mr. Browder, in this particular case. Business associates of
Mr. Browder have earned over $1.5 billion in Russia and never paid any taxes neither in
Russia or the United States and yet the money escaped the country. They were transferred to
the United States. They sent [a] huge amount of money, $400,000,000, as a contribution to the
campaign of Hillary Clinton. Well that's their personal case.
It might have been legal, the contribution itself but the way the money was earned was
illegal. So we have solid reason to believe that some [US] intelligence officers accompanied
and guided these transactions. So we have an interest in questioning them.
Israel Shamir, a keen observer of the
American-Russian relationship, and celebrated American journalist Robert
Parryboth think
that one man deserves much of the credit for the new Cold War and that man is William Browder,
a hedge fund operator who made his fortune in the corrupt 1990s world of Russian commodities
trading.
Browder is also symptomatic of why the United States government is so poorly informed about
international developments as he is the source of much of the Congressional "expert testimony"
contributing to the current impasse. He has somehow emerged as a trusted source in spite of the
fact that he has self-interest in cultivating a certain outcome. Also ignored is his
renunciation of American citizenship in 1998, reportedly to avoid taxes. He is now a British
citizen.
Browder is notoriously the man behind the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which exploited Congressional
willingness to demonize Russia and has done so much to poison relations between Washington and
Moscow. The Act sanctioned individual Russian officials, which Moscow has rightly seen as
unwarranted interference in the operation of its judicial system.
Browder, a media favorite who self-promotes as "Putin's enemy #1," portrays himself as a
selfless human rights advocate, but is he? He has used his fortune to threaten lawsuits for
anyone who challenges his version of events, effectively silencing many critics. He claims that
his accountant Sergei Magnitsky was a crusading "lawyer" who discovered a $230 million
tax-fraud scheme that involved the Browder business interest Hermitage Capital but was, in
fact, engineered by corrupt Russian police officers who arrested Magnitsky and enabled his
death in a Russian jail.
Many have been skeptical of the Browder narrative, suspecting that the fraud was in fact
concocted by Browder and his accountant Magnitsky. A Russian court recently
supported that alternative narrative, ruling in late December that Browder had deliberately
bankrupted his company and engaged in tax evasion. He was sentenced to nine years prison in
absentia.
William Browder is again in the news recently in connection with testimony related to
Russiagate. On December 16th Senator Diane Feinstein of the Senate Judiciary Committee released
the transcript of the testimony provided by Glenn Simpson, founder of Fusion GPS.
According to James Carden, Browder was mentioned 50 times, but the repeated citations
apparently did not merit inclusion in media coverage of the story by the New York Times,
Washington Post and Politico.
Fusion GPS, which was involved in the research producing the Steele Dossier used to
discredit Donald Trump, was also retained to provide investigative services relating to a
lawsuit in New York City involving a Russian company called Prevezon. As information provided
by Browder was the basis of the lawsuit, his company and business practices while in Russia
became part of the investigation. Simmons maintained that Browder proved to be somewhat evasive
and his accounts of his activities were inconsistent. He claimed never to visit the United
States and not own property or do business there, all of which were untrue, to include his
ownership through a shell company of a $10 million house in Aspen Colorado. He repeatedly
ran away , literally, from attempts to subpoena him so he would have to testify under
oath.
Per Simmons, in Russia, Browder used shell companies locally and also worldwide to avoid
taxes and conceal ownership, suggesting that he was likely one of many corrupt businessmen
operating in what was a wild west business environment.
My question is, "Why was such a man granted credibility and allowed a free run to poison the
vitally important US-Russia relationship?" The answer might be follow the money. Israel Shamir
reports
that Browder was a major contributor to Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, who was the major
force behind the Magnitsky Act.
The Dems. and journalists are jumping all over themselves to fawn over the intelligence
services as the defenders of democracy.
What is the journalism equivalent for 'regulatory capture'?
And even assuming that everything in the indictments are 100% true, then the DNC were
grossly negligent in handling their communications. And Clinton too, with her email
server. And the Obama administration for letting this happen.
I just finished reading Donna Brazile's book, Hacks .
According to Brazile, the DNC's IT department was alerted by the FBI. This was back in
2015 when a G-man called the DNC headquarters and was transferred to the DNC's help desk,
which had been outsourced to a Chicago-based company called The MIS Department. And, you
guessed it, this company had connections to Obama.
Well, it gets worse. The help desk guy who answered the phone thought it was a crank call.
And, after a cursory examination of the DNC computer network, he concluded that there was no
hack.
"... as Isikoff says, "everything the US government says is a lie, or is concocted, or is made up out of 'whole cloth'." Even the Republican Senate Intelligence Committee report blames the Russians for interference. ..."
This is obviously more horse poop, timed to mess up the Trump-Putin summit. Hardly worth
time to pay any attention to.
I could read about this, or I can read a nifty book I found in PDF format,
https://kalamkopi.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/utsa-patnaik-the-agrarian-question-in-the-neoliberal-era.pdf
The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry
Utsa Patnaik and Sam Moyo with Issa G. Shivji
What do you think I'll spend my time doing? (And also finding other material from Utsa
Patnaik.) No, the deep state does not want people reading about these neoliberal and
imperialist frauds, but wants to distract them from understanding what it is really up to.
Let them keep their fairy tales or tell them to the mystified -- I'm going to keep exploring
the reality.
Mueller the ultimate connoisseur of ham sandwiches. How's the indictment of three Russian
companies coming along?
Federal judge slaps Robert Mueller with humiliating fact check in courtroom over massive
'error' :
U.S. Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey asked one of Concord's attorneys, Eric Dubelier, if
he was also representing Concord Catering. They were not because the company did not exist
during the time period Mueller alleges, Dubelier said.
"What about Concord Catering? The government makes an allegation that there's some
association. I don't mean for you to -- do you represent them, or not, today? And are we
arraigning them as well?" the judge asked. Dubelier responded: "We're not. And the reason for
that, Your Honor, is I think we're dealing with a situation of the government having indicted
the proverbial ham sandwich."
"That company didn't exist as a legal entity during the time period alleged by the
government.
Yawn I'm waiting for Mueller to take the fifth prior to indicting foreign interference of
Christopher Steele- former British M16 spy, for the Steele dossier during a presidential
election. Oh lest not we forget who the players were and who funded that too .
Now that Mueller has solved the mystery of the Russians "hijacking" an election that the
Democrats wanted to hijack, maybe he could turn his attention to helping OJ find out who
killed Nicole and Ron. The National Enquirer is now our newspaper of record. Adios America.
200 years wasn't a bad run but it's over
Until there's a call for changing the vote tabulation system to something secure and
public, DOJ can indict every single person in Russia and its nothing but tilting at
windmills. It doesn't address the problem at all.
WMD in 2003 = Remember the Maine in 1898 = Russia Russia Russia.
Since we know that CIA has tools to make hacks look like it came from any suspect source,
and this technology has been leaked (after the DNC problem though) we will never know
anything true about this, not the public, not the prosecutors. They don't have the technical
ability, if anyone has, at this point, to distinguish a real from a fake hack.
I wouldn't be surprised now, if the Russians did the hacking, because they were paid by
the Clintons to do it. Certainly the NSA and GCHQ has it all too.
I certainly believe that many folks would like to use this Russian meddling to advance a
neocon agenda and start a new cold war, but that doesn't invalidate the fact that Russians
might have done this. The US certainly does it (and far worse). Israel certainly meddles in
our elections as do the Saudis, most likely. So does the Supreme Court, as do the Republicans
with their gerrymandering and voter suppression efforts. I believe that is what the Left
should be protesting, not joining in to the belief that this is all some giant frame-up of
Putin and Russia.
I've been a cautious skeptic about this whole collusion issue up to now, but after reading
the latest indictment it seems to me that Mueller is very close to closing the ring on Trump.
Perhaps I'm wrong but I find it hard to believe that Mueller, after a lifetime of mostly very
honorable public service, would join in to such a conspiracy. I find it easy to believe Trump
and Co. would.
I can't comment for others, but frankly I have two reasons for not believing "The Russians
Did It!" boondoggle.
1st: Of Course Russia was using the technology available to them to influence the
election. So was Israel, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, France, Great Britain, etc. Any major
nation whose intelligence services were not 'hacking' into our system, using Facebook, and
every other claim against Russia was not doing their job. The idea that this was limited to
Russia, and untenable to any other nation is BS on its face. Just like the idea that we
aren't doing it everywhere else is. It is the job of our intelligence community to either
shut down intelligence breeches. I'm amazed at the everyone who looks at the stories put out
about this who doesn't recognize the level of incompetence of the CIA, FBI, NIS, etc.
2nd: The more that has come out about the so-called hacks has made it clear that the DNC
was largely responsible for being an open sieve. And most of the most the items that were
most damaging to Clinton and the Democrats were, well true, and frankly items that our
so-called free press should have been hunting down if they weren't so captured.
3rd: This truly only became a problem when Clinton wasn't running away with the polls. The
breathless announcement with the Bull about the 17 different agencies when it was a
organization that speaks for the 17 agencies that reported it. Once again what was the Coast
Guard intelligence service doing investigating a hack of DNC servers? It was all PR again.
There still wasn't all that much concern on any one's part because no one was really worried
about the actual election. What were the agencies and the DNC doing to secure things?
4th: The hysteria involved in this hit high gear when Clinton lost because she and her
campaign was incompetent. They had to find an excuse besides Clinton being intensely disliked
by almost half the country, her campaign being stupid and the policies of the Democratic
Party being disliked. They didn't lose all those state houses and governorships and both
Houses of Congress because of the Russians, but the Presidency, nope that was because of
interference.
IOW, sure there was interference, interference that no one much cared about until the guy
willing to upset the apple cart got elected. And the interference that everyone recognizes
was the one that supports further Military action beloved by our NeoCon/NeoLiberal political
class and the MIC. Gosh. Recognizing the overwhelming finger of Israel on our political
system (including with Trump) isn't being addressed at all.
It is like not recognizing that Clinton was treated differently for actual illegal
activity regarding her security breeches at State, but pretending she was cleared. All show
and little actual concern for the problems at hand.
There was a preference by Putin and many others, Russians and other nationalities, for
Trump based on, as Putin said, Clinton wanting to start a war (she said she would do a 'no
fly zone' in Syria) and Trump wanting normal relations -- but that was not tampering or
hacking. Also, as Putin said, he would deal with whoever was elected, it could not be
predicted with confidence what either would do when in office, and it is Russian policy not
to interfere with the sovereignty of other countries. Some Russians preferred Trump and some
Clinton, like most everyone in the world. Most everyone would have preferred Sanders if the
primary hadn't been rigged against him.
Just having a preference is not the same as tampering, or everyone who voted could be
accused of tampering or hacking by casting his/her vote. I don't Russia had anything to do
with swaying the election, and it is only just now, going on two years after, that Putin even
let it be known he preferred Trump and normalization of relations over Clinton and war. Putin
is diplomatic but he plays it straight.
Isikoff's responses made me curious so I went and looked it up (PBS has it as well). It's
a bit under 30 pages long and relatively easy to read. I encourage anyone following the story
to do so.
Of all the Russia theories, the bit about the Russians being behind the DNC e-mail hack
has always seemed the most credible to me, if only because they were apparently able to
convince Trump of it when they presented the evidence to him. The indictment is very detailed
and implies the existence of considerable hard evidence that would have been used to create
it. There are names, dates and times, aliases, specific servers and tasks performed on them,
and so on. Either Mueller is going all in on a bluff or he actually has this stuff. The
former would be very risky because there is so much detail in the indictment that he would
rapidly need to put up or shut up in order to maintain any kind of credibility in court. If
he tried to handwave then it would all fall apart like a house of cards. I don't completely
rule it out (especially given that they did exactly that for the Iraq WMDs) but in this case
I think a legal challenge from one of the accused would expose things pretty quickly. It will
be interesting to see whether anyone does that.
So suppose it's true and Mueller has the evidence. That would mean that agents of the
Russian military were involved in the DNC server hacks. That's it. There have to date been no
claims from the intelligence community that the election itself was compromised, and the only
dirt on the Trump campaign was from the discredited Steele dossier. I think this falls within
the realm of things that big countries do all the time (the US probably did something similar
to obtain the evidence referenced in the indictment). It might have been a bit more serious
because it was politically sensitive material during an election campaign, which likely
merited some kind of response (Obama's "I told the Russians to cut it out" would seem
appropriate). "OMG the Russians stole our democracy!" is a hysterical overreaction.
The other thing is that the activities described in the indictment are nothing
particularly special or unusual. There are bad actors out there doing this kind of thing all
the time, and the DNC would be a high value target. Having a robust security policy and
ensuring it was followed would have been enough to thwart pretty much all of it. The real
story here is that DNC security practices were sloppy enough to allow this to happen. The
fact that it was the Russians that ended up doing it (if it was) is almost incidental.
The "real story" behind all the current brouhaha and kayfabe, is that the DNC is a vastly
corrupt, organized mob (sorry, the court said they are a "private club or association), their
candidate was and is an evil POS, and they played not hardball but dirty tricks all the way
through the 2016 campaign. They are the ones who make a mockery of 'democracy," however
loosely it might be defined, and the electoral process. And one little piece of the rot has
fortuitously been uncovered, all those emails and the existence of that "public-private
partnership" server and the rest.
(If it was) the Russians, and not some little person, maybe an unpaid intern, within the
DNC, with a residue of conscience, or just building some credit with the potential
prosecutorial futures Trying to lay it off as just a failure of the DNC to "have a robust
security policy, what do they call it, "gaslighting?"
i value this site and community but you guys have a real blind spot on this russia issue
and i hope you'll own up to it when the truth is known. i hate the current milquetoast dems
as much as anyone but if you can't smell the rot on this story or see that something big is
lurking under the surface, then you are willfully blind in my opinion.
Of course that's always possible (blind spots), but do you have any particular reasons or
evidence you can point to or link to that support your accusation? Is your opinion based on
the "overwhelming detail" in the current indictment? Doesn't it bother you that these
allegations (for they ARE only allegations) will likely never have to be proven since the
possibility of getting the 12 Russians extradited to the US is virtually nil (meaning no
trial where the facts must be presented)? Doesn't the timing of this indictment also strike
you as suspicious?
i don't want to start a scrum but i'll just say i find chait's recent piece, marcy wheeler
and tpm's coverage very convincing. too many "innocent explanations" don't add up when taken
as a whole and trump's behavior surrounding russia is simply troubling. also, too, he's
pretty clearly a money launderer and criminal with ties to russian money. pile on me if you
will but we'll have to agree to disagree until more facts come out
Help me out, please. What has Trump done that is so beneficial to Russia? I'm asking a
serious question and not trolling whatsoever. I can't follow all of the news, and maybe I
have a blind spot and missed where Trump sold us out to the Russians. All these people are
convinced that "Russia has something on Trump". How are they leveraging this something?
What is Trump doing to the benefit of Russia and the detriment of the USA? If it benefits
both, IMHO, then it doesn't necessarily require Russian leverage.
From the get-go there are two questions that I haven't seen anyone address. This is before
you get to any "substantive" bits of the indictment, or of the whole Evil Russian Hacker
scandal.
1. Why GRU. WHY GRU.
GRU is the Russian military intelligence agency reporting to the General Staff. While it
has many different units and functions, the common denominator is that these have something
to do with MILITARY intelligence or activities. Battlefield intelligence, counter-terrorism
units, special forces, saboteurs, et cetera.
Meanwhile, the Russians also have the SVR – "Service of Foreign Intelligence"
– which is what the foreign intelligence departments of the KGB were folded into in the
1990s (the domestic departments went into the FSB – hence creating a CIA-FBI type
duality). Although much of the structure is classified, the SVR does have an entire
department dedicated to "information systems".
In principle, an operation against a political target with the view of affecting a
political process should involve the SVR – not the GRU. It, in fact, makes absolutely
no sense for the GRU to get involved in this, as hacking Podesta's Gmail has no discernible
military intelligence objective. And yet, the only acronym various US publications (and
indictments) have been pushing since 2017 is the GRU while the SVR does not exist?
This continues to perplex me.
2. Technically speaking, the GRU operates under a very heavy classification regime.
Meaning the names of their operatives themselves are classified information. And yet, here we
have an indictment with not less than a dozen names.
Which means that either the US has infiltrated the GRU top to bottom and sideways, and
Mueller is somehow not gun shy to reveal this fact to the world – or someone is making
stuff up. Unless someone wants to point out to me some other explanation for a dozen
classified – top secret and all that – names showing up in a public US
document
-- -
But hey, I am not a professional journalist, so what do I know about asking questions.
My fear is that many on the Left are jumping into a rabbit hole where, as Isikoff
says, "everything the US government says is a lie, or is concocted, or is made up out of
'whole cloth'." Even the Republican Senate Intelligence Committee report blames the Russians
for interference. This from Charles Blow's column in today's NYT:
"In 2016, cyber actors affiliated with the Russian Government conducted an unprecedented,
coordinated cyber campaign against state election infrastructure. Russian actors scanned
databases for vulnerabilities, attempted intrusions, and in a small number of cases
successfully penetrated a voter registration database. This activity was part of a larger
campaign to prepare to undermine confidence in the voting process."
Rather than be distracted with whether Mueller and DOJ and the Intel Community is making
it all up let's wait and see what the special counsel ultimately finds and the evidence he
produces to support it. In the meantime, the Left should be shining the light on our own,
well documented, interference in other countries' elections, our illegal regime change
operations and calling out the neocons and their fellow travelers for trying to start a new
Cold War with Russia.
isikoff has been in on this from the git go. (Remember judy miller?)
He's the one who wrote a "yahoo" article, after talking to christopher steele of dossier
fame, that was cited as "confirmation" of the dossier "evidence" when it was used to get a
fisa warrant on Carter Paige to justify the Trump campaign "wiretapping" that "never
happened."
christopher steele got "fired from the fbi," and isikoff, claiming he didn't do nuthin'
"wrong," apparently got a book deal. He now seems to have decided that his mission in life is
advocating for nuclear war with Russia because john podesta got sucked in by a phishing email
and gave away his password which was, in perfect keeping with the stupidity of it all,
"password."
Scott Ritter is not buying this,: "this indictment would ever go to trial. It simply couldn't survive the discovery to which any
competent defense would subject the government's assertions." This clearly was a political act by neocons.
Rosenstein and Mueller claim that 12 Russians like 12 Spartan manage to keep Hillary from the coronation is questionable
political backstabbing at best, the act of sedition at worst.
Notable quotes:
"... Rosenstein, by the timing and content of the indictment he publicly released Friday, committed an act that undermined the president of the United States' ability to conduct critical affairs of state -- in this case, a summit with a foreign leader the outcome of which could impact global nuclear nonproliferation policy. The hue and cry among the president's political foes for him to cancel the summit with Putin -- or, failing that, to use the summit to confront the Russian leader with the indictment -- is a direct result of Rosenstein's decision to release the Mueller indictment when he did and how he did. Through its content, the indictment was designed to shape public opinion against Russia. ..."
While the impeachment of Rosenstein is highly unlikely and the likelihood
of the FBI being found guilty of its investigations being corrupted by individual bias is equally slim,
in the world of politics, perception creates its own reality and the Mueller investigation had been
taking a public beating for some time. By releasing an indictment predicated upon the operating assertion
that 12 named Russian military intelligence officers orchestrated a series of cyberattacks that resulted
in information being stolen from computer servers belonging to the Democratic Party, and then facilitated
the release of this information in a manner designed to do damage to the candidacy of Clinton, Rosenstein
sought to silence once and for all the voices that have attacked him, along with the Department of
Justice, the FBI and the Mueller investigation, as a participant in a partisan plot against the
president.
There is one major problem with the indictment, however: It doesn't
prove that which it asserts. True, it provides a compelling narrative that reads like a spy novel, and
there is no doubt in my mind that many of the technical details related to the timing and functioning of
the malware described within are accurate. But the leap of logic that takes the reader from the inner
workings of the servers of the Democratic Party to the offices of Russian intelligence officers in Moscow
is not backed up by anything that demonstrates how these connections were made.
That's the point of an indictment, however -- it doesn't exist to provide
evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, but rather to provide only enough information to demonstrate probable
cause. No one would, or could, be convicted at trial from the information contained in the indictment
alone. For that to happen, the government would have to produce the specific evidence linking the hacks
to the named Russians, and provide details on how this evidence was collected, and by whom. In short, the
government would have to be willing to reveal some of the most sensitive sources and methods of
intelligence collection by the U.S. intelligence community and expose, and therefore ruin, the careers of
those who collected this information. This is something the government has never been willing to do, and
there is much doubt that if, for some odd reason, the Russians agreed to send one or more of these named
intelligence officers to the United States to answer the indictment, this indictment would ever go to
trial. It simply couldn't survive the discovery to which any competent defense would subject the
government's assertions.
Robert Mueller knew this when he drafted the indictment, and Rob
Rosenstein knew this when he presented it to the public. The assertions set forth in the indictment,
while cloaked in the trappings of American justice, have nothing to do with actual justice or the rule of
law; they cannot, and will never, be proved in a court of law. However, by releasing them in a manner
that suggests that the government is willing to proceed to trial, a perception is created that implies
that they can withstand the scrutiny necessary to prevail at trial.
And as we know, perception is its own reality.
Despite Rosenstein's assertions to the contrary, the decision to
release the indictment of the 12 named Russian military intelligence officers was an act of partisan
warfare designed to tip the scale of public opinion against the supporters of President Trump, and in
favor of those who oppose him politically, Democrat and Republican alike. Based upon the media coverage
since Rosenstein's press conference, it appears that in this he has been wildly successful.
But is the indictment factually correct? The biggest clue that Mueller
and Rosenstein have crafted a criminal espionage narrative from whole
cloth comes from none other than the very intelligence agency whose work
would preclude Rosenstein's indictment from ever going to trial: the National Security Agency. In June
2017 the online investigative journal The Intercept
referenced a highly classified document
from the NSA titled "Spear-Phishing Campaign TTPs Used Against U.S. And Foreign Government Political
Entities." It's a highly technical document, derived from collection sources and methods the NSA has
classified at the Top Secret/SI (i.e., Special Intelligence) level. This document was meant for internal
consumption, not public release. As such, the drafters could be honest about what they knew and what they
didn't know -- unlike those in the Mueller investigation who drafted the aforementioned indictment.
A cursory comparison of the leaked NSA document and the indictment
presented by Rosenstein suggests that the events described in Count 11 of the indictment pertaining to an
effort to penetrate state and county election offices responsible for administering the 2016 U.S.
presidential election are precisely the events captured in the NSA document. While the indictment links
the identity of a named Russian intelligence officer, Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev, to specific actions
detailed therein, the NSA document is much more circumspect. In a diagram supporting the text report, the
NSA document specifically states that the organizational ties between the unnamed operators involved in
the actions described and
an organizational entity, Unit 74455,
affiliated with Russian military intelligence is a product of the judgment of an analyst and not fact.
If we take this piece of information to its logical conclusion, then
the Mueller indictment has taken detailed data related to hacking operations directed against various
American political entities and shoehorned it into what amounts to little more than the organizational
chart of a military intelligence unit assessed -- but not known -- to have overseen the operations described.
This is a far cry from the kind of incontrovertible proof that Mueller's team suggests exists to support
its indictment of the 12 named Russian intelligence officers.
If this is indeed the case, then the indictment, as presented, is a
politically motivated fraud. Mueller doesn't know the identities of those involved in the hacking
operations he describes -- because the intelligence analysts who put the case together don't know those
names. If this case were to go to trial, the indictment would be dismissed in the preliminary hearing
phase for insufficient evidence, even if the government were willing to lay out the totality of its
case -- which, because of classification reasons, it would never do.
But the purpose of the indictment wasn't to bring to justice the
perpetrators of a crime against the American people; it was to manipulate public opinion.
And therein lies the rub.
The timing of the release of the Mueller indictment unleashed a storm
of political backlash directed at President Trump, and specifically at his scheduled July 16 summit with
Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. This summit was never popular with the president's
political opponents, given the current state of affairs between Russia and the U.S., dominated as they
are by events in Syria and Ukraine, perceived Russian threats against the northern flank of NATO,
allegations of election meddling in the U.S. and Europe, and Russia's nuclear arsenal. On that last
point, critics claim Russia's arsenal is irresponsibly expanding, operated in violation of existing arms
control agreements, and is being used to underpin foreign policy objectives through the use of nuclear
blackmail.
President Trump has publicly stated that it is his fervent desire that
relations with Russia can be improved and that he views the Helsinki summit as an appropriate venue for
initiating a process that could facilitate such an outcome. It is the president's sole prerogative to
formulate and implement foreign and national security policy on behalf of the American people. While his
political critics are free to criticize this policy, they cannot undermine it without running afoul of
sedition laws.
Rosenstein, by the timing and content of the indictment he publicly
released Friday, committed an act that undermined the president of the United States' ability to conduct
critical affairs of state -- in this case, a summit with a foreign leader the outcome of which could impact
global nuclear nonproliferation policy. The hue and cry among the president's political foes for him to
cancel the summit with Putin -- or, failing that, to use the summit to confront the Russian leader with the
indictment -- is a direct result of Rosenstein's decision to release the Mueller indictment when he did and
how he did. Through its content, the indictment was designed to shape public opinion against Russia.
This indictment, by any other name, is a political act, and should be
treated as such by the American people and the media.
"This isn't about Trump, his personality, or his other policies. It's about
whether a bunch of unelected bureaucrats are going to be granted a veto power over who sits in
that chair in the Oval Office" 7 hours ago | 2,546
75 MORE: Politics If there was ever any doubt
that the Russia-gate hoax is a scheme by the War Party to salvage their bankrupt foreign
policy, and depose a democratically-elected President, then Robert Mueller's
indictment of twelve alleged GRU agents for "interfering" in the 2016 election settles the
matter once and for all. Are we supposed to believe it was just a coincidence that the
indictment was made public just as Trump was about to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in
Helsinki?
An indictment of twelve individuals who will never contest the charges, and which will not
have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law – to whom is it addressed?
Not to any jury, but to the court of public opinion. It is, in short, pure propaganda, meant to
sabotage Trump's Helsinki peace initiative before it has even convened.
Yet the brazenness of this borderline treason is what makes it so ineffective. The American
people aren't stupid: to the extent that they're paying attention to this Beltway comic opera
they can figure out the motives and meaning of Mueller's accusations without too much
difficulty.
The indictment reads like a fourth-rate spy thriller: we are treated to alleged "real time"
transcripts of Boris and
Natasha in action, draining the DNC's email system as well as our precious bodily fluids.
This material, perhaps supplied by the National Security Agency, contains no evidence that
links either Russia or the named individuals to the actions depicted in the transcripts. We
just have to take Mueller's word for it.
What Mueller is counting on is that the defendants will never show up in court. If they did,
following the example of representatives of the indicted
Internet Research Agency – accused of running Facebook ads on Russia's behalf –
Mueller would have to provide real evidence of the defendant's guilt. In that case, the
indictment would have to be dropped, because the alleged evidence is classified.
Ominously, the indictment points to unnamed US individuals alleged to have collaborated with
supposed Russian agents: Roger Stone has been identified as one of them, and no doubt others
have been targeted by the special prosecutor's office. Anyone who thought the anti-Russian
inquisition would be content with mini-big fish Mike Flynn and Paul Manafort, and the little
tadpoles they'd managed to corral, is about to be proven dead wrong. This fishing expedition
has barely begun.
The whole shoddy affair is meant to distract attention away from the President's ambitious
foreign policy initiatives, the twin diplomatic outreach campaigns to two of our old cold war
enemies. These efforts demonstrate the overarching significance of the President's "America
First" foreign policy: Trump means to abandon the old cold war structures. In their place he
means to build a new so-called international order, one that is not overseen by any one
"superpower" but that is self-regulating, like the market order that has brought unparalleled
prosperity to this country and to the world.
That's the big picture. Focusing in on specifics, what is likely to come out of this summit
is:
· A settlement of the Syrian conflict as a prelude to US withdrawal.
· An agreement to renew and revitalize the INF treaty, which is in danger of being
nullified, and the initiation of new joint efforts to limit nuclear weapons.
· An acknowledgment of the need to normalize Russo-American relations in the interest
of world peace.
I might add that efforts to trace and capture "rogue" nukes, perhaps left over from the
immediate post-Soviet collapse, should also be on the agenda.
The disgusting – and depressing – response of the Democrats to the Helsinki
summit has been a concerted campaign to cancel it. Yes, that's how myopic and in thrall to the
Deep State these flunkies are: world peace, who cares ? Never mind that we're still on
hair-trigger alert, with our nukes aimed at their cities and their nukes targeting ours. The
slightest anomaly could spark a nuclear exchange – the end of the world, the extinction
of human life, and probably of most life, for quite some time to come.
And yet -- what does the survival of the human race matter next to the question of how and
why Hillary Clinton was denied her rightful place in history? I mean, really
!
The American people are not blaming Russia for their problems.
They don't want conflict with the Kremlin, they don't care about Ukraine, and the question of
sanctions never comes up at the dinner table of ordinary Americans. That's why Russia-gate and
the war propaganda coming out of the neocon and liberal thinktanks has had little effect on
public opinion, in marked contrast to its dominance of elite discourse inside the Beltway
bubble.
This latest effort to discredit the President's peace project and sabotage a summit with a
foreign leader underscores the battle lines in this country. On one side is the Deep State,
with its self-interested globalist leadership so invested in our interventionist foreign policy
that even Trump's limited (albeit surprisingly radical) critique poses a deadly threat to their
power. On the other side is Trump, the outsider, who often has to work against and around his
own government in order to pursue his preferred policies.
Yet this isn't about Trump, his personality, or his other policies. It's about whether a
bunch of unelected bureaucrats are going to be granted a veto power over who sits in that chair
in the Oval Office. It's as simple as that.
Debsisdead provides some consideration why the level of Mueller investigation is so low and finding are so pathetic...
Notable quotes:
"... I'm always gobsmacked at the cognitive dissonance of those who on the one hand shout that the American empire is on its last legs but as they do that they also claim that America's dumb as a rock alphabet intelligence agencies are successfully developing incredibly arcane and complicated strategies that would require having foresight to the point of omnipotence to successfully manage the plot/s. ..."
"... All that despite the fact that the known measurable outcomes that these agencies and their 'pointy end' the American military do deliver in conflicts mostly of their design and instigation reveal a miserable success rate of I would say, less than 1 in 10. ..."
"... That nonsense just does not compute. Yes they are violent crooks, but they are stupid violent crooks who cannot succeed at the simplest plan much less the intricate tactics outlined by so many here. ..."
this is all about freako psychopaths and their money, nothing more. lot's of blackmail to
keep the gravy train running
they cannot charge the Russians with what they have actually done due to a lot of these
little deep state sh%$ts would go to jail and possibly branches of government shut down if it
ever came out what the various "kompromats" were that the Russians targeted
the Russians are offensive and no innocents, however the US Gov is just disgusting
I'm always gobsmacked at the cognitive dissonance of those who on the one hand shout that the
American empire is on its last legs but as they do that they also claim that America's dumb
as a rock alphabet intelligence agencies are successfully developing incredibly arcane and
complicated strategies that would require having foresight to the point of omnipotence to
successfully manage the plot/s.
All that despite the fact that the known measurable outcomes that these agencies and their
'pointy end' the American military do deliver in conflicts mostly of their design and
instigation reveal a miserable success rate of I would say, less than 1 in 10.
That nonsense just does not compute. Yes they are violent crooks, but they are stupid
violent crooks who cannot succeed at the simplest plan much less the intricate tactics
outlined by so many here.
Once people begin believing the DC airheads' nonsense posturing , they may as well pack
their bags, throw in the towel and take off for parts unknown because falling for scumbag
tosh indicates an inability to accurately perceive the world - just the same as these DC
derps, but with less naked self interest on display.
"... How much proof would I need to lend my voice to the escalation of tensions between two nuclear superpowers? Mountains. I personally would settle for nothing less than hard proof which can be independently verified by trusted experts like the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. ..."
"... Is that a big ask? Yes. Yes it is. That's what happens when government institutions completely discredit themselves as they did with the false narratives advanced in the manufacturing of support for the Iraq invasion. You don't get to butcher a million Iraqis in a war based on lies, turn around a few years later and say "We need new cold war escalations with a nuclear superpower but we can't prove it because the evidence is secret." That's not a thing. Copious amounts of hard, verifiable proof or GTFO. So far we have no evidence besides the confident-sounding assertions of government insiders and their mass media mouthpieces, which is the same as no evidence. ..."
As
we just discussed , some major news stories have recently dropped about what a horrible horrifying menace the Russian Federation
is to the world , and as always I have nothing to offer the breathless pundits on CNN and MSNBC but my completely unsatisfied skepticism.
My skepticism of the official Russia narrative remains so completely unsatisfied that if mainstream media were my husband I would
already be cheating on it with my yoga instructor.
I do not believe the establishment Russia narrative. I do not believe that Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government to
rig the 2016 election. I do not believe the Russian government did any election rigging for Trump to collude with. This is not because
I believe Vladimir Putin is some kind of blueberry-picking girl scout, and it certainly isn't because I think the Russian government
is unwilling or incapable of meddling in the affairs of other nations to some extent when it suits them. It is simply because I am
aware that the US intelligence community lies constantly as a matter of policy, and because I understand how the burden of proof
works.
At this time, I see no reason to espouse any belief system which embraces as true the assertion that Russia meddled in the 2016
elections in any meaningful way, or that it presents a unique and urgent threat to the world which must be aggressively dealt with.
But all the establishment mouthpieces tell me that I must necessarily embrace these assertions as known, irrefutable fact. Here are
five things that would have to change in order for that to happen:
1. Proof of a hacking conspiracy to elect Trump.
The first step to getting a heretic like myself aboard the Russia hysteria train would be the existence of publicly available
evidence of the claims made about election meddling in 2016, which rises to the level required in a post-Iraq invasion world. So
far, that burden of proof for Russian hacking allegations has not come anywhere remotely close to being met.
How much proof would I need to lend my voice to the escalation of tensions between two nuclear superpowers? Mountains. I personally
would settle for nothing less than hard proof which can be independently verified by trusted experts like the Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity.
Is that a big ask? Yes. Yes it is. That's what happens when government institutions completely discredit themselves as they did
with the false narratives advanced
in the manufacturing of support for the Iraq invasion. You don't get to butcher a million Iraqis in a war based on lies, turn around
a few years later and say "We need new cold war escalations with a nuclear superpower but we can't prove it because the evidence
is secret." That's not a thing. Copious amounts of hard, verifiable proof or GTFO. So far we have no evidence besides the confident-sounding
assertions of government insiders and their mass media mouthpieces, which is the same as no evidence.
2. Proof that election meddling actually influenced the election in a meaningful way.
Even if Russian hackers did exfiltrate Democratic party emails and give them to WikiLeaks, if it didn't affect the election, who
cares? That's a single-day, second-page story at best, meriting nothing beyond a "Hmm, interesting, turns out Russia tried and failed
to influence the US election," followed by a shrug and moving on to something that actually matters.
After it has been thoroughly proven that Russia meddled in the elections in a meaningful way, it must then be established that
that meddling had an actual impact on the election results.
3. Some reason to believe Russian election meddling was unwarranted and unacceptable.
The US government,
by a very wide margin , interferes in the elections of other countries far, far more than any other government on earth does.
The US government's
own
data shows that it has deliberately meddled in the elections of 81 foreign governments between 1946 and 2000,
including Russia in the nineties.
This is public knowledge. A former CIA Director
cracked jokes about it on Fox News earlier this year.
If I'm going to abandon my skepticism and accept the Gospel According to Maddow, after meaningful, concrete election interference
has been clearly established I'm going to need a very convincing reason to believe that it is somehow wrong or improper for a government
to attempt to respond in kind to the undisputed single worst offender of this exact offense. It makes no sense for the United States
to actively create an environment in which election interference is something that governments do to one another, and then cry like
a spanked child when its election is interfered with by one of the very governments whose elections the US recently meddled in.
This is nonsense. America being far and away the worst election meddler on the planet makes it a fair target for election meddling
by not just Russia, but every country in the world. It is very obviously moral and acceptable for any government on earth to interfere
in America's elections as long as it remains the world's worst offender in that area. In order for Russia to be in the wrong if it
interfered in America's elections, some very convincing argument I've not yet heard will have to be made to support that case.
4. Proof that the election meddling went beyond simply giving Americans access to information about their government.
If all the Russians did was simply show Americans
emails of Democratic Party officials talking
to one another and circulate some
MSM articles as claimed in the
ridiculous Russian troll farm allegations , that's nothing to get upset about. If anything, Americans should be upset that they
had to hear about Democratic Party corruption through the grapevine instead of having light shed on it by the American officials
whose job it is to do so. Complaints about election meddling is only valid if that election meddling isn't comprised of truth and
facts.
5. A valid reason to believe escalated tensions between two nuclear superpowers are worthwhile.
After it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Russia did indeed meddle in the US elections in a meaningful way, and
after it has then been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Russia actually influenced election results in a significant way, and
after the case has been clearly made that it was bad and wrong for Russia to do this instead of fair and reasonable, and after it
has been clearly proven that the election meddling went beyond simply telling Americans the truth about their government, the question
then becomes what, if anything, should be done about it?
If you look at the actions that this administration has taken over the last year and a half, the answer to that question appears
to be harsh sanctions, NATO expansionism, selling arms to Ukraine, throwing out diplomats, increasing military presence along Russia's
border, a Nuclear Posture Review which is much more aggressive toward Russia, repeatedly bombing Syria, and just generally creating
more and more opportunities for something to go catastrophically wrong with one of the two nations' aging, outdated nuclear arsenals,
setting off a chain of events from which there is no turning back and no surviving.
And the pundits and politicians keep pushing for more and more escalations, at this very moment braying with one voice that Trump
must aggressively confront Putin about Mueller's indictments or withdraw from the peace talks. But is it worth it? Is it worth risking
the life of every terrestrial organism to, what? What specifically would be gained that makes increasing the risk of nuclear catastrophe
worthwhile? Making sure nobody interferes in America's fake elections? I'd need to see a very clear and specific case made, with
a 'pros' and 'cons' list and "THE POTENTIAL DEATH OF LITERALLY EVERYTHING" written in big red letters at the top of the 'cons' column.
Rallying the world to cut off Russia from the world stage and cripple its economy has been been a goal of the US power establishment
since the collapse of the Soviet Union, so there's no reason to believe that even the people who are making the claims against Russia
actually believe them. The goal is
crippling Russia to handicap China , and ultimately to shore up global hegemony for the US-centralized empire by preventing the
rise of any rival superpowers. The sociopathic alliance of plutocrats and intelligence/defense agencies who control that empire are
willing to threaten nuclear confrontation in order to ensure their continued dominance. All of their actions against Russia since
2016 have had everything to do with establishing long-term planetary dominance and nothing whatsoever to do with election meddling.
Those five things would need to happen before I'd be willing to jump aboard the "Russia! Russia! Russia!" train. Until then I'll
just keep pointing to the total lack of evidence and how very, very far the CIA/CNN Russia narrative is from credibility.
* * *
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"... "In my mind, this is a level of panic and desperation unseen in the annals of Washington D.C. coverups...this is a desperate move by Mueller...this does nothing at all to strengthen Mueller's investigation of Trump himself. It actually weakens his mandate as Special Counsel" ..."
"... Tom is a regular contributor not only here at Russia Insider but also at Seeking Alpha and Newsmax . Check out his blog, Gold Goats 'n Guns and please support his work through his Patreon where he also publishes his monthly investment newsletter. ..."
"... isolationist, conspiracy theorist, nativist and racist ..."
"... Please support my work by joining my Patreon. ..."
"In my mind, this is a level of panic and desperation unseen in the annals of Washington
D.C. coverups...this is a desperate move by Mueller...this does nothing at all to strengthen
Mueller's investigation of Trump himself. It actually weakens his mandate as Special Counsel"
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contributor not only here at Russia Insider but also at Seeking Alpha and Newsmax . Check out his blog, Gold Goats 'n Guns and please support his work through his
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So, imagine my shock, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted twelve Russian intelligence
officers on the eve of a summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir
Putin.
Despite his oh-so-earnest protestations to the contrary, Rod Rosenstein, of all people,
knows there are no coincidences in politics.
Trump is on a search and destroy mission all across Europe right now attacking the pillars
of the post-WWII institutional order.
While in Washington, Congress devolved into an episode of Jerry Springer during the Peter
Strzok hearings yesterday. Both Strzok and Rosenstein have literally destroyed their
credibility by stonewalling Congress over the investigations into Hillary Clinton's email
server, which, conveniently Mueller now has enough information to take to the Grand Jury.
In my mind, this is a level of panic and desperation unseen in the annals of Washington D.C.
coverups. Both Strzok and Rosenstein know that Attorney General Jeff Sessions is completely
compromised and can do nothing to stop them from obstructing investigations and turning our
justice system into something worse than farce.
And why do I think this is a desperate move by Mueller? Because the indictments go out of
their way to preclude any Americans having any involvement in these 'hacking events' at
all.
So, this does nothing at all to strengthen Mueller's investigation of Trump himself. It
actually weakens his mandate as Special Counsel.
On the other hand, it does a bang-up job of shifting the news cycle away from Trump's
heavy-handed but effective steam-rolling Germany and the UK over NATO spending, energy policy
and Brexit.
Trump continues, in his circuitous way, to stick a fork in the eye of the globalists whose
water politicians like Angela Merkel and Theresa May have carried for years.
Now with Trump prepared to sit down with Putin and potentially hammer out a major agreement
on many outstanding issues like Syria, arms control, NATO's purpose, energy policy and
terrorism the Deep State/Globalist/Davos Crowd needed something to saddle him with to prevent
this from happening.
The reasoning will be (if not already out there as I write this) that Trump would be a
traitor for sitting down with Putin after these indictments.
These indictments are not of some Russian private citizens Internet trolls like the last
batch. These are Russian military intelligence officers. And the irony of this, of course, is
that the intelligence officers involved in collating and disseminating demonstrably false
information about Trump which led to all this in the first place hail from the country that
Trump is currently visiting, the U.K.
So, the trap is set for the Democrats, Never Trumpers and media to hang Trump next week with
whatever agreement he signs with Putin. In fact, at this point Trump could shoot Putin in the
face with a concealed Derringer and they'd say he killed Putin to shut him
up.
There is no rationality left to this circus. And that's what
these indictments represent.
This is not about right and wrong, it never was. It is, was and always will be about
maintaining power. If this week shows people anything it should show just how far these
powerful people will go to maintain that power, pelf and privilege.
Because winning isn't everything, it's the only thing in politics. Unfortunately, for them,
people all over the West are getting tired of it. And the more they smirk, shuck, jive and cry
"Point of Order!" the angrier the people will get.
As one of my savvy subscribers said to me this morning, the Strzok hearings are brilliant.
They are shifting the Overton Window so far away from the status quo that it will never shift
back to where it was.
I'm sure Mueller, et.al. are thinking they are so smart in doing this today. Just like
Angela Merkel continues to think she's survived the challenge to her power and Theresa May
hers.
They think they've managed these crises.
They haven't. All they are doing is ensuring the next opportunity the people get to rise up
against them at the ballot box the worse it will be for them. And if the ballot box doesn't
work, then pitchforks and torches come out.
It is the way of things. It has happened before and it will happen again.
Those in power and their quislings in the media and the legislatures continue to decry this
growing sense of unfairness as dangerous. Terms like isolationist, conspiracy theorist,
nativist and racist are all used as bludgeons to shame people for feeling outraged at the
corruption they see with their own eyes.
The problem for people like Strzok, Rosenstein and Mueller is that they are simply
expendable pawns. And when the time is right they will be sacrificed to ensure the real
perpetrators walk without a scratch.
"... They also pointed out that it was likely leak not as hack as their copying/transmission speeds of alleged email file transfers were high above those possible to achieve via internet file transfer and hence hinting of local transfer via USB 3.0 or better. ..."
"... That was confirmed by former British diplomat who stated that he received from unidentified person FD copy of those Podesta emails while visiting D.C. in 2016. Assange himself stated that the source of those emails were not Russian at all. ..."
"... So what we got cooked by Mueller here. Allegedly stolen/fake identities, possibly some Bitcoin transactions, maybe some rented laptops, perhaps some rented servers, and probably some phishing,and suspicion of some hacking emails, websites that cannot be ruled out, with absolutely no hint of any connection to Russian government. ..."
"... In fact indictment describes nothing that any computer savvy teenager would not be able to do ..... to do what? RIG US ELECTIONS, not at all as it is clearly stated in this nonsensical indictment, there was no impact of anything listed above on US elections outcome nor any collusion. ..."
"... In other words, completely internet illiterate US grand jury after hearing extremely entangled tech jargon ridden fantastic tale of supposed crime with no hard evidences at all, indicted blindly some shadowy likely made up figures of straight from Russophobia instigated obsession Dream, in last ditch effort to revive long dead corpse of Russia Gate like a drug dealer giving last credit to hurting client out of money. ..."
"... CIA stooges who believe that Russia Gate nonsense mudguards prepare for horrible withdraw symptoms coming soon. ..."
"... n fact Mueller himself deepen the absurd by FBI own admission that alleged crime had no material impact on electoral campaign and election results beyond informing public about never repudiated truth of Dems machinations, which truth if fact was irrelevant to voting outcome as most of those who were exposed to Podesta emails were in states Hillary won while in those critical for Trump voters were largely unaware of them or their content. ..."
"... Mueller who already defrauded US government of $200 millions desperately looking for cover of his own futility and waste of FBI resources as he is ready to make grand jury indict a ham sandwich as long as pig from which the ham came from watch Putin on TV once. ..."
Another conspiracy theory becomes conspiracy fact. I remember when MSM in EU dismissed as
conspiracy theory Assange and Wikileaks claims the secret indictment is being prepared for
Assange and that warrant for Julian would be issued immediately upon arriving in Sweden for
pre trial interview as accused ? No, as a person of interest.
Now, after this recent indictment we know for a fact that Assange was or will be indicted
for treason regardless of fact that statute does not apply to him as non US citizen.
Returning to this phony indictment and baseless accusation contained in it.
The same wild accusation as in 2017 CIA report and the same utter lack of any shred of
evidence whatsoever as pointed out by former CIA, NSA directors and agents whistleblowers who
back then demanded hard evidences of hacking (trace routing log) as these would not in anyway
have disclosed any classified information or methods of collection by doing so.
They also pointed out that it was likely leak not as hack as their
copying/transmission speeds of alleged email file transfers were high above those possible to
achieve via internet file transfer and hence hinting of local transfer via USB 3.0 or
better.
That was confirmed by former British diplomat who stated that he received from
unidentified person FD copy of those Podesta emails while visiting D.C. in 2016. Assange
himself stated that the source of those emails were not Russian at all.
So what we got cooked by Mueller here. Allegedly stolen/fake identities, possibly some
Bitcoin transactions, maybe some rented laptops, perhaps some rented servers, and probably
some phishing,and suspicion of some hacking emails, websites that cannot be ruled out, with
absolutely no hint of any connection to Russian government.
In fact indictment describes nothing that any computer savvy teenager would not be
able to do ..... to do what? RIG US ELECTIONS, not at all as it is clearly stated in this
nonsensical indictment, there was no impact of anything listed above on US elections outcome
nor any collusion.
In other words, completely internet illiterate US grand jury after hearing extremely
entangled tech jargon ridden fantastic tale of supposed crime with no hard evidences at all,
indicted blindly some shadowy likely made up figures of straight from Russophobia instigated
obsession Dream, in last ditch effort to revive long dead corpse of Russia Gate like a drug
dealer giving last credit to hurting client out of money.
CIA stooges who believe that Russia Gate nonsense mudguards prepare for horrible
withdraw symptoms coming soon.
I n fact Mueller himself deepen the absurd by FBI own admission that alleged crime had
no material impact on electoral campaign and election results beyond informing public about
never repudiated truth of Dems machinations, which truth if fact was irrelevant to voting
outcome as most of those who were exposed to Podesta emails were in states Hillary won while
in those critical for Trump voters were largely unaware of them or their content.
Mueller who already defrauded US government of $200 millions desperately looking for
cover of his own futility and waste of FBI resources as he is ready to make grand jury indict
a ham sandwich as long as pig from which the ham came from watch Putin on TV once.
What is going on with the Mueller indictments is open public demonstration of how US court
system is submissive to political control and expediences and serves solely as a political
tool in class war and in this case psychological class warfare aimed exactly in sowing
divisions among population along phony partisan or Identity politics lines exactly what they
accused Putin of doing.
Like Hitler shouting murder while he was murdering Jews , as Israel shouting murder while
IDF is murdering Palestinians, not Mueller shouting treason, collusion, attack on democracy
while while doing the same or worse.
HILLARY CLINTON'S COMPROMISED EMAILS WERE GOING TO A FOREIGN ENTITY – NOT RUSSIA! FBI Agent Ignored Evidence Report from
Decameron
FBI Peter Strzok – the philandering FBI chief investigator who facilitated the FISA surveillance of Trump campaign officials in
2016 – has been exposed for ignoring evidence of major Clinton-related breaches of national security and has been accused of lying
about it.
Hillary Clinton's emails, "every single one except for four, over 30,000 of them, were going to an address that was not on the
distribution l ist," Texas Congressman Louis Gohmert said on Friday. And they went to "an unauthorized source that was a foreign
entity unrelated to Russia." The information came from Intelligence Community Inspector General Chuck McCullough, who sent his
investigator Frank Rucker, along with an ICIG attorney Janette McMillan, to brief Strzok.
Gohmert nailed Strozk at the open Congressional hearing on Friday the 13 th in Washington, but Strzok claimed no recollection.
Gohmert accused him of lying. Maybe Strzok's amnesia about the briefing on Hillary Clinton's email server is nothing but standard
FBI training: i.e., when in doubt, don't recall. It's far more likely that there is a campaign of deliberate obstructing justice,
selective prosecution, and political targeting by top officials embedded in the permanent bureaucracy of the Justice Department,
FBI, and broader IC. Strzok is not alone.
And what "foreign entity" got Hillary's classified emails? Trump haters in British Intelligence and those in Israel who want to
manipulate the US presidency – whatever party prevails – come to mind. Listen closely and you may hear rumors around Washington that
it was Israel, not Russia, that was the foreign power involved in approaching Trump advisers. Time to follow that thread.
Both Representatives Gohmert (TX) and Trey Gowdy (SC) did a great job trying to pierce the veil of denials. But, right after Strzok's
amnesia in Congress, the Justice Department announced the indictment of GRU members. Change of subject. The same foul stench noted
by Publius Tacitus about the GRU indictment filled Congress as Agent Strzok testified.
So, a foreign power (not Russia but "hostile" according to Gohmert) modified internal instructions in HC's server so that a blind
copy went to this other country, all 30,000 e-mails. I wonder what was different about the four that were not so copied. What
are likely countries? The UK, China and Israel would be at the top of my list
So the emails were being bcc-ed or the server was set up to copy all emails passing through it to some foreign server? I am curious
about the mechanics.
It seems that the server was the mechanism. Whether that was by physical access to the server or electronically at a distance.
Her entire system was not secure and could be easily penetrated.
FBI did not have the evidence, as they were pushed aside and not allowed to look into it.
Crowdstrike was hired by DNC (read Clinton family) and handles (or more correctly botched)the investigation. No evidence from
Crowdstrike is probably admissible in court as they are clearly played the role Clinton family pawns. NSA can't have such a detailed
evidence because of encryption. So where did it came from? CIA?
The accusations are worded different this time around. No more of "we assess" like the last time. Direct Le Carre style of fiction
;-)
It is amazing to see the detail with which the US supposedly knows of the names and actions of cyber spy organizations personnel
in Russia. If not the NSA, why not the Mossad cyber units? They have a lot of skill and connections with telecom eqpt and companies.
Are these the only spearfishers to be indicted? And did any go into team Trump?
But don't look at other things like how stupid
team Clinton is with cyber security whether HRC's handling of classified emails with her private server or her campaign's handling
of important matters. And what of the comment of those emails.
Our MSM told us not to look. These things only lead to more uncomfortable
questions and tend to drag us into the morass ... while they do ... what?
"... The rising power of China and Russia has been a threat to US power for some time, no matter if its the US globalists trying their useless hegemon crap to stop them or the US nationalists that have scrapped the old hegemonic empire. The nationalists are more dangerous as their thinking is not confined to the box of the last era. ..."
"... They also pointed out that it was likely leak not as hack as their copying/transmission speeds of alleged email file transfers were high above those possible to achieve via internet file transfer and hence hinting of local transfer via USB 3.0 or better. ..."
"... That was confirmed by former British diplomat who stated that he received from unidentified person FD copy of those Podesta emails while visiting D.C. in 2016. Assange himself stated that the source of those emails were not Russian at all. ..."
"... So what we got cooked by Mueller here. Allegedly stolen/fake identities, possibly some Bitcoin transactions, maybe some rented laptops, perhaps some rented servers, and probably some phishing,and suspicion of some hacking emails, websites that cannot be ruled out, with absolutely no hint of any connection to Russian government. ..."
"... In fact indictment describes nothing that any computer savvy teenager would not be able to do ..... to do what? RIG US ELECTIONS, not at all as it is clearly stated in this nonsensical indictment, there was no impact of anything listed above on US elections outcome nor any collusion. ..."
"... In other words, completely internet illiterate US grand jury after hearing extremely entangled tech jargon ridden fantastic tale of supposed crime with no hard evidences at all, indicted blindly some shadowy likely made up figures of straight from Russophobia instigated obsession Dream, in last ditch effort to revive long dead corpse of Russia Gate like a drug dealer giving last credit to hurting client out of money. ..."
"... CIA stooges who believe that Russia Gate nonsense mudguards prepare for horrible withdraw symptoms coming soon. ..."
"... n fact Mueller himself deepen the absurd by FBI own admission that alleged crime had no material impact on electoral campaign and election results beyond informing public about never repudiated truth of Dems machinations, which truth if fact was irrelevant to voting outcome as most of those who were exposed to Podesta emails were in states Hillary won while in those critical for Trump voters were largely unaware of them or their content. ..."
"... Mueller who already defrauded US government of $200 millions desperately looking for cover of his own futility and waste of FBI resources as he is ready to make grand jury indict a ham sandwich as long as pig from which the ham came from watch Putin on TV once. ..."
The Mueller investigation started with a script allegedly authored by Sergei Skripal;
two tall blonde moscow hotel-room prostitutes peeing on obama's bed; this is genius.
However the hoax unravelled; (the tale was too thin and needed filling out because
Trump
had not even been impeached according to Peter Strozk's dungeon master's original plan.)
The love story of Dawn and Charlie is not Skripal's best work, yet we sense that the
hand
of the master is there somewhere, and look forward to the next episode of his new novela.
In part, this indictment is preparation to drop charges in the Concord Management case, which
will make discovery in the Concord case moot. If they issued these indictments after
dropping the charges in Concord Management, it would be too obvious that this is just a
replacementfor those charges. Won't it be fun if one of the Russians indicted patriotically
volunteers to travel to the use and likewise demands discovery?
Of course, we're all aware that William Binney has analyzed the metadata of the files and
concluded that their transfer was too rapid to have occurred over the internet and must have
been downloaded to a USB drive.
The rising power of China and Russia has been a threat to US power for some time, no matter
if its the US globalists trying their useless hegemon crap to stop them or the US
nationalists that have scrapped the old hegemonic empire. The nationalists are more dangerous
as their thinking is not confined to the box of the last era.
Another conspiracy theory becomes conspiracy fact.
I remember when MSM in EU dismissed as conspiracy theory Assange and Wikileaks claims the
secret indictment is being prepared for Assange and that warrant for Julian would be issued
immediately upon arriving in Sweden for pre trial interview as accused ? No, as a person of
interest.
Now, after this recent indictment we know for a fact that Assange was or will be indicted
for treason regardless of fact that statute does not apply to him as non US citizen.
Returning to this phony indictment and baseless accusation contained in it.
The same wild accusation as in 2017 CIA report and the same utter lack of any shred of
evidence whatsoever as pointed out by former CIA, NSA directors and agents whistleblowers who
back then demanded hard evidences of hacking (trace routing log) as these would not in anyway
have disclosed any classified information or methods of collection by doing so.
They also pointed out that it was likely leak not as hack as their copying/transmission
speeds of alleged email file transfers were high above those possible to achieve via
internet file transfer and hence hinting of local transfer via USB 3.0 or better.
That was confirmed by former British diplomat who stated that he received from
unidentified person FD copy of those Podesta emails while visiting D.C. in 2016. Assange
himself stated that the source of those emails were not Russian at all.
So what we got cooked by Mueller here. Allegedly stolen/fake identities, possibly some
Bitcoin transactions, maybe some rented laptops, perhaps some rented servers, and probably
some phishing,and suspicion of some hacking emails, websites that cannot be ruled out, with
absolutely no hint of any connection to Russian government.
In fact indictment describes nothing that any computer savvy teenager would not be
able to do ..... to do what? RIG US ELECTIONS, not at all as it is clearly stated in this
nonsensical indictment, there was no impact of anything listed above on US elections outcome
nor any collusion.
In other words, completely internet illiterate US grand jury after hearing extremely
entangled tech jargon ridden fantastic tale of supposed crime with no hard evidences at all,
indicted blindly some shadowy likely made up figures of straight from Russophobia instigated
obsession Dream, in last ditch effort to revive long dead corpse of Russia Gate like a drug
dealer giving last credit to hurting client out of money.
CIA stooges who believe that Russia Gate nonsense mudguards prepare for horrible withdraw
symptoms coming soon.
I n fact Mueller himself deepen the absurd by FBI own admission that alleged crime had
no material impact on electoral campaign and election results beyond informing public about
never repudiated truth of Dems machinations, which truth if fact was irrelevant to voting
outcome as most of those who were exposed to Podesta emails were in states Hillary won while
in those critical for Trump voters were largely unaware of them or their content.
Mueller who already defrauded US government of $200 millions desperately looking for
cover of his own futility and waste of FBI resources as he is ready to make grand jury indict
a ham sandwich as long as pig from which the ham came from watch Putin on TV once.
What is going on with the Mueller indictments is open public demonstration of how US court
system is submissive to political control and expediences and serves solely as a political
tool in class war and in this case psychological class warfare aimed exactly in sowing
divisions among population along phony partisan or Identity politics lines exactly what they
accused Putin of doing.
Like Hitler shouting murder while he was murdering Jews , as Israel shouting murder while
IDF is murdering Palestinians, not Mueller shouting treason, collusion, attack on democracy
while while doing the same or worse.
Let's get real here. I don't know if it was part of the original indictment, but there are
now claims that the government, using secret and likely illegal NSA surveillance, _has_ been
able to show a 'trail' from the Russian officers to Guccifer 2.0 and then on to Wikileaks. Is
this true or just more claims without evidence?
U.S. indictments show technical evidence for Russian hacking accusations
Regarding @146, I think I get it now. Mueller can claim anything he wants in this indictment,
including pseudofacts generated through illegal international data collection, because he
knows he will never be asked to present such evidence in a court of law.
Mueller's indictments are not just fraudulent, but easily discoverable as such (as they
are plagiarized). I'm frankly baffled as to why, even if Mueller felt compelled to fabricate
something to blow up Trump's meeting with Putin, he'd go this route.
"... In December, a letter from Senate Homeland Security Committee Chair Ron Johnson (R-WI) revealed that Strzok and other FBI officials effectively "decriminalized" Clinton's behavior through a series of edits to James Comey's original statement. ..."
"... The letter described how outgoing Deputy Director Andrew McCabe exchanged drafts of Comey's statement with senior FBI officials , including Strzok, Strzok's direct supervisor , E.W. "Bill" Priestap, Jonathan Moffa, and an unnamed employee from the Office of General Counsel (identified by Newsweek as DOJ Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson) - in a coordinated conspiracy among top FBI brass. ..."
"... In summary; the FBI launched an investigation into Hillary Clinton's private server, ignored evidence it may have been hacked, downgraded the language in Comey's draft to decriminalize her behavior, and then exonerated her by recommending the DOJ not prosecute. ..."
"... Meanwhile, a tip submitted by an Australian diplomat tied to a major Clinton Foundation deal launched the FBI's counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign - initially spearheaded by the same Peter Strzok who worked so hard to get Hillary off the hook. ..."
FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok reportedly ignored "an irregularity in the
metadata" indicating that Hillary Clinton's server may had been breached, while FBI top brass
made significant edits to former Director James Comey's statement specifically minimizing how
likely it was that hostile actors had gained access.
Sources told
Fox News that Strzok, who sent anti-Trump text messages that got him removed from the
ongoing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe, was told about the metadata anomaly in
2016, but Strzok did not support a formal damage assessment. One source said: " Nothing
happened. "
In December, a letter
from Senate Homeland Security Committee Chair Ron Johnson (R-WI) revealed that Strzok and other
FBI officials effectively "decriminalized" Clinton's behavior through a series of edits to
James Comey's original statement.
The letter described how outgoing Deputy Director Andrew McCabe exchanged drafts of Comey's
statement with senior FBI officials , including Strzok, Strzok's direct supervisor , E.W. "Bill" Priestap, Jonathan
Moffa, and an unnamed employee from the Office of General Counsel (identified by Newsweek as DOJ Deputy General Counsel Trisha
Anderson) - in a coordinated conspiracy among top FBI brass.
It was already known that Strzok - who was demoted to the FBI's HR department for sending
anti-Trump text messages to his mistress -
downgraded the language describing Clinton's conduct from the criminal charge of "gross
negligence" to "extremely careless."
Notably, "Gross negligence" is a legal term of art in criminal law often associated with
recklessness. According to Black's Law Dictionary, it is defined as " A severe degree of
negligence taken as reckless disregard ," and " Blatant indifference to one's legal duty,
other's safety, or their rights ." "Extremely careless," on the other hand, is not a legal term
of art.
18 U.S. Code §
793 "Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information" specifically uses the phrase
"gross negligence." Had Comey used the phrase, he would have essentially declared that Hillary
had broken the law.
In order to justify downgrading Clinton's behavior to "extremely careless," however, FBI
officials also needed to minimize the impact of her crimes. As revealed in the letter from Rep.
Johnson, the FBI downgraded the probability that Clinton's server was hacked by hostile actors
from " reasonably likely " to " possible ."
"Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained
access to Secretary Clinton's personal e-mail account," Comey said in his statement.
By doing so, the FBI downgraded Clinton's negligence - thus supporting the "extremely
careless" language.
The FBI also edited Clinton's exoneration letter to remove a reference to the "sheer volume"
of classified material on the private server, which - according to the original draft "supports
an inference that the participants were grossly negligent in their handling of that
information." Furthermore, all references to the Intelligence Community's involvement in
investigating Clinton's private email server were removed as well.
Director Comey's original statement acknowledged the FBI had worked with its partners in the
Intelligence Community to assess potential damage from Secretary Clinton's use of a private
email server. The original statement read:
W]e have done extensive work with the assistance of our colleagues elsewhere in the
Intelligence Community to understand what indications there might be of compromise by hostile
actors in connection with the private email operation.
In summary; the FBI launched an investigation into Hillary Clinton's private server, ignored
evidence it may have been hacked, downgraded the language in Comey's draft to decriminalize her
behavior, and then exonerated her by recommending the DOJ not prosecute.
Meanwhile, a tip submitted by an Australian diplomat tied to a major Clinton Foundation deal
launched the FBI's counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign - initially
spearheaded by the same Peter Strzok who worked so hard to get Hillary off the hook.
And Strzok still collects a taxpayer-funded paycheck.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's foreign ministry said there was no evidence the 12 people indicted by
the United States on Friday were linked to military intelligence or hacking into the computer
networks of the U.S. Democratic party.
The U.S. indictment named 12 Russian officers and indicted them on charges of hacking the
computer networks of 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her party.
The Russian ministry said the indictment was meant to damage the atmosphere before the summit
between the Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump in Helsinki on Monday.
Lee Stranahan, a host on a Radio SPUTNIK Show, and a former reporter for BREITBART, has said
on air that people have told him that the FBI has been questioning them about him. He says he
thinks that it is possible that he may be indicted.
"... Exactly what I was thinking, he can create multiple indictments and nothing will get to court, he's knows that. What this really is, is a giant PSYOP, crazy propaganda going on in front of us. And how many people protest? Nothing but a witch hunt as Trump have pointed out. ..."
"... I am sure Mueller could create a collusion indictment too, there is no stop against these lying neocons. After all, this is the same guy that was part of the Iraq WMD lies, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEqTZF6nyCY ..."
Exactly what I was thinking, he can create multiple indictments and nothing will get
to court, he's knows that. What this really is, is a giant PSYOP, crazy propaganda going on
in front of us. And how many people protest? Nothing but a witch hunt as Trump have pointed
out.
I am sure Mueller could create a collusion indictment too, there is no stop against
these lying neocons. After all, this is the same guy that was part of the Iraq WMD lies,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEqTZF6nyCY
Assistant Attorney General Rosenstein announced a bizarre indictment against Russian military intelligence operatives today that,
rather than confirming the case of "Russian meddling" in the U.S. 2016 Presidential election raises more questions. Here are the
major oddities:
How did the FBI obtain information about activity on the DNC and DCCC servers when the DNC/DCCC refused to give the Feds access
to the servers/computers?
Why does Crowdstrike get credit as being a competent computer security firm when, according to the indictment, they completely
and utterly failed to stop the "hacks?"
Why does the indictment refuse to name Wikileaks by name as the Russian collaborator?
Please go read the indictment ( here ) for yourself.
I have taken the time to put together a timeline based on the indictment and other information already on the public record. Here
is the bottomline--if US officials knew as early as April that Russia was hacking the DNC, why did it take US officials more than
six months to stop the activity? The statement of "facts" contained in the indictment also raise another troubling issue--what is
the source of the information? For example, if the FBI was not given access to the DNC/DCCC servers and computers then how do they
know what happened on specific dates as alleged in the complaint?
Here is the timeline:
18 April 2016--The Russians hacked into the DNC using DCCC computers and installed malware on the network. (p. 10, para 26)
22 April 2016--The GRU (Russian military intelligence) compressed gigabytes of data using X-tunnel and moved it to a GRU computer
located in ILLINOIS. (p. 11, para 26a)
28 April 2016--The Russians stole documents from the DCCC and moved them on to the computer in Illinois. (p. 11, para 26b).
Late April - 5 May 2016--DNC leaders were tipped to the hack in late April. Chief executive Amy Dacey got a call from her operations
chief saying that their information technology team had noticed some unusual network activity. That evening, she spoke with Michael
Sussmann, a DNC lawyer who is a partner with Perkins Coie in Washington. Soon after, Sussmann, a formerfederal prosecutor who handled
computer crime cases, called Henry, whom he has known for many years. (
Ellen Nakashima's 14 June Washington Post article ) (see p. 12, para 32 of th
13 May 2016--The Russians deleted logs and files from a DNC computer. (p. 11, para 31)
25 May - 1 June 2016--the Russians hacked the DNC Microsoft Exchange Server and stole thousands of emails from DNC employees.
(p. 11, para 29).
8 June 2016--DCLeaks.com set up, allegedly by the GRU (no proof offered).
Also created Facebook and Twitter accounts (pp. 13-14, paras. 35, 38, 39)
10 June 2016--Ultimately, the [Crowdstrike] teams decided it was necessary to replace the software on every computer at the DNC.
Until the network was clean, secrecy was vital. On the afternoon of Friday, June 10 , all DNC employees were instructed to leave
their laptops in the office. (
Esquire
Magazine offers a different timeline )
22 June 2016--Wikileaks contacts Guccier 2.0 stating, "send any new material here for us to review and it will have a much higher
impact than what you are doing."
14 July 2016--The GRU, under the guise of Guccifer 2.0, sent Wikileaks an attachment with an encrypted file that explained how
to access an online archive of "stolen" documents.
15 August 2016--Guccifer, alleged to be the GRU, has email exchange with Roger Stone.
22 July 2016--Wikileaks publishes 40,000 plus emails (note, the Indictment INCORRECTLY states that the number was 20,000).
September 2016--The GRU obtained access to a DNC server hosted by a third party and took "data analytics" info. (p. 13, para 34)
October 2016--A functioning Linux-based version of X-agent remained on the DNC server until October. (p. 12, para 32)
Another great curiosity is the timing of the announcement of the indictments. Why today? There was no urgency. No one was on the
verge of fleeing the United States. All of the defendants are in Russia and beyond our reach.
A careful read of the indictment reveals a level of detail that could only have been obtained from intelligence sources (which
means that information would be invalidated if the defendants ever decide to challenge the indictment) or it was provided by an unreliable
third party.
I was shocked to discover, thanks to the indictment, how inept Crowdstrike was in this entire process. Not only did more than
30 days lapse before they attempted to shutdown the Russian hacking by installing new software and issuing new email passwords, but
their so-called security fix left the Russians running an operation until October 2016. How can you be considered a credible cyber
security company yet fail to shutdown the alleged Russian intrusion? It does not make sense.
The most glaring deficit in the indictment is the lack of supporting evidence to back up the charges levied in the indictment.
How do we know that computer files were erased if the FBI did not have access to the computers and the servers? How do we know the
names of the 12 Russian GRU officers? The Russians do not publish directories of secret organizations. Where did this information
come from?
It would appear that the release of the indictment today was a deliberate political act designed to detract and distract from
the Trump visit to the UK and to put pressure on him to confront Vladimir Putin. I have heard from many of my former colleagues who
are hoping that Putin calls the Rosenstein bluff. If forced to reveal the "evidence" behind this indictment because of a challenge
from a defendant, the results will be a disaster for the prosecution.
A report appeared yesterday on the 'True Pundit' site entitled 'Mueller Plagiarizes Right-Wing YouTube Journalist's Lawsuit
Against Podesta in New Russian Indictments; DOJ's Big Splash Appears Fabricated.'
''George Webb sued John Podesta in 2017, along with other elected and public officials including Justice Department personnel
but today, exact language, accusations and content from Webb's suit appeared in the Justice Department's indictment. Beyond
strange.
'Mueller swiped Webb's hacking allegations against Imran Awan and simply flipped them -- almost word for word – and made
the exact allegations against Russian operatives.'
The reference is to a class action brought last November against John Podesta and others by one George Webb Sweigert and
so far anonymous others against John Podesta and others.
It has long seemed to me that it is likely that we have only seen the tip of the iceberg in relation to the activities of
the Awans. However, I do not feel able to take an informed view on whether the 'True Pundit' report and the material presented
by Sweigert reflect accurate information fed by discontented insiders, genuine 'fake news', or some combination of both.
I would be most interested in what others make of this.
Steven Wasserman, Brother of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, to Oversee Awan Family Investigation Jul 27, 2017
https://squawker.org/all/st...
Louie Gohmert, June 5, 2018
"'We need someone assigned to the Awan case that will protect congress from further breaches and from the Awan crime family...
for heavens sake, we need someone in the FBI to step up and do their job'"
In his opening remarks, Gohmert, a former prosecutor, argued that Rosenstein was "disqualified from being able to select
or name" a special counsel because he had counseled Trump on the matter; therefore, Rosenstein would be a material witness.
The truepundit article is fake news IMO. The only 'plagiarism' cited in it is the use of a domain name similar to the Dems
fundraiser site;
actblue.com
. The class action against Podesta alleges the domain was set up by Awan and the DOJ indictment alleges it was set up by the
GRU. Having now read them both, aside from references to 'spearphishing' - a well know hacking technique - I cannot see another
example of significant repeat language.
Thanks for researching! My eyes glaze over whenever I try to read thru generally boring legal docs. Since I had not encountered
Truepundit before, I read some of the other articles on their front page and realized it's a conservative news site. There
are more and more of those lately. Much needed as a balance to the mostly liberal MSM. I put on my "skeptical spectacles" for
both.
My educated guess as to the answer to your three questions is the same as you imply: 1. everything they have they have through
hearsay from Crowdstrike. 2. See #1. 3. Wikileaks is the only party who would actually respond to the indictment and seek discovery,
so leaving them out means they're not in danger of actually having to produce any evidence.
The timing of this announcement illustrates how badly the deep state desires to sabotage Trump's plan to improve US-Russia
relations. Since they have been playing the Russia card for so long with no real results and to the detriment of their credibility,
the urge to try to obstruct Trump at the 11th hour must have been overwhelming.
Between Trumps experience dealing with shady characters in his prior career (esp the casino industry) and what he has no
doubt learned about his enemies in the borg since getting elected, I'm guessing he has contingency plans. And if not, he has
great Road Runner-like instincts :)
I have a sneaking suspicion that Mr. Mueller, Rosenstein and others are a stalking horse for a complete reorganization of the
DOJ and FBI. By that I mean it appears to now be beyond reasonable doubt that the above have demonstrated that they are highly
political organizations, dripping with partisan agendas.
The question then becomes "how can justice be blind in the USA in the face of incontrovertible evidence it ain't?". To me
that sounds like a call to action for President Trump.
I suspect it is more a case of ineptitude than political bias. They were charged with finding meddling, so they are finding
meddling by using imagination rather than evidence. Can you imagine the uproar if they were to conclude a two-year investigation
by saying, "Sorry, we found nothing" at the end? We don't have to imagine, since that's what happened after the Clinton email
investigation.
I think you could be right. If any agreements are made at the Helsinki summit, Trump will have to reign in the deep state to
implement them. I've been wondering why there hasn't been a complete house cleaning at DOJ and FBI yet. Perhaps Trump is waiting
for them to "jump the shark" so blatantly that when it finally comes it will be seen as the end of their long farce by everyone
but the true believers, who by that point will be seen as delusional by the general public. Trump is the master of the game
of perception. If he pulls it off the Democrats get crushed this fall. If not, we get president Pence next spring. Game on.
I think Rosenstein is bucking to be fired by Trump. This will then allow the Democrats, to claim obstruction of justice, justifying
impeachment. ( Assumption being the Democrats win control of Congress and Senate ) He's been deeply provocative giving ample
reason for said dismissal, Trump has resisted up until now. As long as he resists the temptation Congress will eventually impeach
Rosenstein. As this article went to print documents for his impeachment are being drawn up for release on Monday possibly,
of course subject to politics. ( Please edit the link if you feel it's inappropriate )
https://www.zerohedge.com/n...
PT,
Please excuse me if this is a far out idiotic thought re the timing of the indictment, but doesn't this at least possibly give
Putin some power over Trump? Putin could threaten Trump with having one of the accused "confess" to the hacking per a "collusion"
agreement between Russia and the Trump campaign. If that happened, Trump would be promptly impeached. It would be a whirlwind
circus.
Thx for the confirmation. Sometimes I "war game" these things over a couple of Scotches. I come up with all sorts of notions,
but this one seemed reasonable.
1. How did Mueller arrive at his conclusions? There is no exposition of that in the indictment.
2. Has Mueller established a precedent? Wouldn't other countries use this indictment as an example to indict NSA and other
US intelligence personnel for conducting "normal" intelligence activities.
3. Rosenstein in his press conference reiterated what is written in the indictment that no US person was involved, and that
it did not change the outcome of the election. Does that imply that Mueller & the DOJ are stating that there was no collusion
between the Russian government & the Trump campaign? If that is the case what is the remit of the Mueller special counsel?
4. Why is this indictment handed over to DOJ NSD for prosecution rather than Mueller taking it to the court? Isn't the DOJ
NSD implicated in the FISA abuse being investigated by IG Horowitz?
5. The Russian intelligence agents are innocent until convicted by a court. An indictment is only the prosecution's story.
In this case the prosecution has yet to provide the level of evidence required for a conviction.
6. As is the case with the Russian trolls indicted by Mueller, these agents could ostensibly hire counsel and cause Mueller
much embarrassment by requesting evidentiary discovery. Mueller is now backtracking on the Russian troll case as he either
has no evidence to back the indictment or is unwilling to provide defense counsel with the same which means the prosecution
goes no where.
7. Was this indictment primarily a political document for the TDS afflicted media and people at large? Are Mueller and the
Deep Staters assuming that this indictment goes no where as the Russians will not contest the indictment, so it is a cost free,
politically beneficial indictment?
My personal favourite part is this one :"All twelve defendants are members of the GRU, a Russian Federation
intelligence agency within the Main Intelligence Directorate of the
Russian military." Mueller & Co haven't a clue.
For example, if the FBI was not given access to the DNC/DCCC servers and computers then how do they know what happened on
specific dates as alleged in the complaint?
I believe the NSA records and stores metadata for all Internet traffic, so the FBI asked the NSA for whatever the NSA has
for the DNC/DCCC computers then excluded legitimate sources/destinations for the data before analyzing the rest. Once you have
loaded all the data into a database, it's not difficult.
I have heard from many of my former colleagues who are hoping that Putin calls the Rosenstein bluff. If forced to reveal
the "evidence" behind this indictment because of a challenge from a defendant, the results will be a disaster for the prosecution.
The GRU is part of the military so Putin should order one or two "over the top" to "attack" the Mueller organization. Russia
should be able to afford the best defense lawyers in the United States and should be able to circumvent all and any Treasury
Dept. attempts to block any funding.
I thought immediately that Rosentstein's announcement of this indictment was strangely timed. Your analysis indicates it
was put together hurriedly. Therefore, my first thought was that perhaps Rosenstein was attempting to prevent Trump from meeting
with Putin, as many of the opposition media have suggested Trump should not meet with Putin because of the announcement of
the indictment. After all, they say a POTUS should not hang around with the likes of Putin.
However, most anyone who has followed Trump lately would guess that Trump would not change his planned schedule and would
surely keep his schedule and would indeed confront Putin about the indictment.
Then, if that is what they were hoping, it puts Trump in a spot. If Putin denies the entire story and provides Trump with
a plausible denial and Trump then wants to investigate further, Trump could be accused of doing what the opposition has claimed
all along--"colluding." with the baddest Russian of all.
I think Trump would not be stupid enough to accept either Rosensteein's story or Putin's denial without investigating.
It's Rosentstein's word against the Russians' word in that case, and Trump is caught in the middle and in the same place
he's been all along.
I do hope one or all of the accused do ask for a trial. No way, however, would I look forward to that media circus for weeks
and weeks.
I personally felt the story was made up when Grucifer was mentioned and purported to be Russian. I thought it convenient
that the Russians in America who had been first reported as harmlessly trying to meddle while in the U.S. would be back in
Russia and accused just now. Our FBI is truly inept if that is the case. They let the Boston bombers get away with their attack.
They let the Pulse night club jihadist get away with his, and they let the "professional school shooter" fulfill his destiny.
There are so many tangled webs from those who have practiced to deceive that we are faced with never finding the truth in
our lifetimes.
My only hope for relief from this now, strangely,Lisa Page. I do hope she has been burned badly enough by being stupid enough
to become involved with a married co-worker, who is obviously in love with only himself, that she somehow provides us some
answers.
I know that I will surely be happier when this horror story is over.
If the 12 indicted are actually Russian military intelligence officers then wouldn't it be a simple matter for their superior
to order them to front up and demand their day in court?
Sure, there is a risk that they will be convicted, but spooks willingly undertake far more hazardous missions than this.
A promise could be made that if they are found guilty the Russian government will move heaven and earth to arrange a spy-swap
to get them back and a fabulous recompense for their trouble, so the reward is worth the risk.
Honestly, the prosecutor showed terrible judgement when he included Concord Management in a previous indictment, only to
see that company's lawyer calling his bluff. He appears to be under the impression that naming only Russian persons and not
Russian companies will prevent that from happening again.
Thank you PT for your analysis and commentary on this subject.
It seems this indictment is similar to the indictment filed earlier this year against the Russian astroturfers. And in that
instance, one of the companies charged is defending itself in US court. Not only that, it opted to exercise its right to a
speedy trial!!!
From what I've read, the Mueller team was totally caught off guard since it didn't expect any of the Russians to mount a
defense. According to Andrew McCarthy at National Review who's been diligently commenting on the Mueller probe and related
matters, the special counsel's team made the mistake of filing the indictment when it was evidently unprepared to go to trial.
Mueller's team has consequently asked for delays because it can't produce the DISCOVERY that the defendant has a right to review.
I don't know what the latest news is about the case but at one point the Mueller team provided a HUGE cache of internet postings
allegedly made by the defendant BUT THEY WERE IN RUSSIAN. How on earth did that influence American voters?
Overcome by events. They already are, and the event in question hasn't even happened yet. They are also claiming the this indictment
"proves" treason by Trump, even though it does not even suggest that Trump was involved.
They waited TWO YEARS to produce this "evidence" - which is without evidence, merely assertions.? That in itself condemns
it to complete hogwash.
As for the NSA, they could have produced this stuff at any time in the last two years without compromising any "methods
and sources" since we all know since Snowden and Binney how much they capture and retain. Instead, they had only "moderate
confidence" of Russian "meddling" in the January, 2017, "assessment."
They allegedly had to rely on the Dutch to penetrate the hackers? And that story was hogwash from the get-go.
As for how they "know" that certain files were erased, that could have come from the "certified true images" provided by
CrowdStrike to the FBI - but since CrowdStrike is utterly compromised due to the anti-Russian status of its CEO, that's worthless
"evidence."
If Wikileaks was in contact with Guccifer 2.0, then why did James Clapper expend effort trying to shut down the DoJ negotiations
with Assange who offered "technical evidence" that would prove the Russians had nothing to do with the Wikileaks DNC emails?
Sincerely hope Sy Hersh gets his hands on an actual copy of that FBI Seth Rich report, because if he does, the FBI and the
DoJ are going down. Literally everyone in top management of those agencies (and likely at CIA as well, and possibly NSA) will
be up on charges and headed to jail for actual treason.
They have no choice now but to go all in on this stuff because otherwise everyone involved is going to jail.
You missed the obvious corollary: CrowdStrike is obviously a subsidiary of the GRU. Clever moves disguised as bumbling incompetence!
I second the motion to have one of the Russians "volunteer" to come to the US to clear his name, except that the poor guy will
probably end up in Gitmo.
The Witchfinder General has excelled himself this time. Would I be correct in concluding that more sources & methods have
been burnt here? "KOVALEV deleted his search history" for example is intel that has to have come from inside a GRU computer,
assuming it is true of course.
I'd also just like to highlight that a significant part of this indictment is dedicated to the involvement of both Wikileaks
and Bitcoin. It appears to me that a secondary aim here is to bolster Congressional support to outlaw both.
So, the DOJ is operating as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party in politicking against the President and Congress
controlled by the other party. Is this correct?
How else is one to read this indictment, its coordination with the Democratic leadership ("he must pull out of the Putin
meeting" squawk), and the "unrelated" matter of attacking Rep. Jordan about 25 year old "abuse" charges dating from his time
at OSU? Who was responsible for those "untraceable" attacks-the MSM, the DOJ, the Democratic Party? Is there any light between
these institutions at this point? The attack seems to have been successfully fought off, and Jordan is now parrying with a
direct attack at Rosenstein.
The pace of all this is dizzying. Is anyone else wondering where it leads to?
By indicting foreign intelligence agents has the USA crossed a line so that now USA intelligence agents are fair game in the
courts of foreign lands?
Looking at this deception over the past few years I have always believed its a game of tit-for-tat where the USA hands are
not clean either and that there was a mutual understanding amongst parties that there is a limit to retribution.
Just saw a would-be meme on my Facebook feed . . . to the general effect that the FBI
still hasn't even looked at the DNC's computer or server, but Mueller's indicted 12 Russians
for 'hacking' them.
Of course, there is that old quote from a New York state judge that a prosecutor could get
a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. (Which also reminds me of a riddle: Why is a ham
sandwich better than perfect happiness? Well, nothing is better than perfect happiness,
right? -- and a ham sandwich is certainly better than nothing. . . .)
The sheer arrogance of the yankee presumption to issue such an indictment is breathtaking.
As soon as the summit is over, why shouldn't Russia issue an indictment of the yankee agents
involved in subverting their country? Italy has already, in the past, under governments more
to the liking of the yankee regime, charged CIA agents for crimes committed in that country.
Since I am sure the yankees favoured those cinque stella and the Lega defeated in the past
election, why shouldn't Italy issue a similar indictment?
The yankees are relying on their hegemony to insulate themselves from the consequences of
their own much more unambiguous much more provable acts of subversion. After the imperium
declines, which is inevitable, this indictment provides an analogous precedent for any of the
former satellites to rise up and smite the yankee aggressors with similar indictments.
Perhaps they should also ignore diplomatic immunity to snag those agents acting within the
country.
The indictment, meanwhile, since it is obviously aimed at preventing the Trump
administration from achieving its foreign policy goals, is arguably an act of treason,
particularly since no real proof is offered and the allegations are trivial and/or absurd.
According to the concepts of the Nuremberg four power trial, since the indictment is intended
to provide support for elements within the yankee regime favouring aggressive war, it also
renders Mueller, Rosenstein and their operatives factually guilty of war crimes.
"... The obvious plan in a potentially so-called 'multipolar' World is to ally with the third power -- it is weaker than the second, and in any case it is more congenial, and ultimately most important! it is Energy-Land rich. ..."
"... IMHO personal interests don't weigh heavily here (as some have suggested) however the Tillerson - Oil axis was and remains a supreme consideration (minus Tillerson.) ..."
"... The blame Russia game is very much a sub-rosa contemp. war between corporate + mafia-like factions for control of parts of the NWO. BOA and power-sharing (in the W) is now very vulnerable, or is even being destroyed, (even NATO is at risk!), everyone is scrambling, therefore the over-the-top moves and fights. ..."
"... Any evidence blaming Russia is good to go - the aim is: a) to convince the public, who will absorb some headlines and 'hate' Russia even more, b) to re-assure the players on the anti-R side, we are doing it, and the public is on our side, etc. having the most powerful propaganda organ(S) is a guarantee of the ultimate 'win' it is said so they make up things out of whole cloth. ..."
IMO Trump isn't trying to achieve anything more than to negotiate an agreement that is
favorable to USA/NATO. The Deep State would be happy if an acceptable agreement could be
reached as it would split Russia from China. Jackrabbit at 13.
I suppose Jackr means achieving 'nothing specific' (e.g. Iran's future role in Syria,
etc.), .. OK. Second part IMHO, Trump was/is trying to organise the New World Order (as the
old order, set up at Bretton Woods, is dead or dying) and he means to ensure or create a
'favorable' position for the US. The obvious plan in a potentially so-called 'multipolar'
World is to ally with the third power -- it is weaker than the second, and in any case it is
more congenial, and ultimately most important! it is Energy-Land rich.
IMHO personal interests don't weigh heavily here (as some have suggested) however the
Tillerson - Oil axis was and remains a supreme consideration (minus Tillerson.)
One reason, not mentioned, for Trump's pro-Russia stance is that his base is pro-R and
détente or even strong cooperation with Russia was a heavily implied electoral
promise. Russians are White and they are Orthodox, Christians of a kind (in the popular US
imagination..) and Putin is seen as a strong, competent and 'savvy' leader. 90% of
evangelicals in the US voted for Trump for ex. (Catch the Boers (white) in S Africa wanting
to emigrate to Russia..see news.) Nothing slant-eyed about the Russkies! (apologies to
sensitive US souls on 'race' issue - i am not up to date re PC speech.)
DT's seeming 'ban' of Muslims (the entry / visa hoopla, hardly an attack that provoked
deaths) also satisfied the base and was a strong and direct jab at the support, payment for
and exploitation of islamists (Muslim brotherhood / mercenary forces / terrorists etc. Killed
off and still feared by Russia on their turf )
Russia always makes positive noises about the presumed / known winner of the US elections.
This worked fine with Bush (remember Georgie glommed Putin's soul), was difficult with Obama
(a secret muslim, not a US citizen, it was said, etc.), link, but a sure fire thing with
Trump, as Putin-Russia knew DT would win (imho.)
The blame Russia game is very much a sub-rosa contemp. war between corporate +
mafia-like factions for control of parts of the NWO. BOA and power-sharing (in the W) is now
very vulnerable, or is even being destroyed, (even NATO is at risk!), everyone is scrambling,
therefore the over-the-top moves and fights.
Any evidence blaming Russia is good to go - the aim is: a) to convince the public, who
will absorb some headlines and 'hate' Russia even more, b) to re-assure the players on the
anti-R side, we are doing it, and the public is on our side, etc. having the most powerful
propaganda organ(S) is a guarantee of the ultimate 'win' it is said so they make up things
out of whole cloth.
- Page 14 and 15: This is hilariously stupid! These Russian super spy agents on June
15, 2016, 4:19 MOSCOW TIME and they DID NOT HACK, BUT LOGGED INTO the DNC server and
spent 37 minutes to search for files or that included words (that is for the techo's out
there, they "grep") for the following words:
* some hundred sheets
* some hundreds of sheets
* dcleaks
* illuminati
* широко
известный
перевод (meaning: widely known translation)
* worldwide known
* think twice about
* company's competence
So what kind of super spies, and super hackers would use "some hundred sheets" and "some
hundreds of sheets" as two separate searches. Every computer geek knows that if you don't
waste time to do virtually two identical searches like those. Who ever did these searches
(after they logged in!) knows nothing about searching. The whole tech. world knows if you are
going to do hacking, you use things like Linux grep/sed tools and you wouldn't waste your
time doing pointless duplicitous searches. Why doesn't FBI state what tools were used, every
is logged, or it should be. Thus this person whom ever it was, was naive.
So here is the big one! Foreign hackers are looking for about people talking about the
Illuminati! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!...BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
Another stupid one! Russian hackers searching DNC files for RUSSIAN STRINGS This is
turning into a circus.
So you mean to tell me Russian hackers that logged into a computer (that is they didn't
hacked, the FBI stated as much), are looking about for files about nonsensical matter
including Russian Word Strings. You can't even make this stuff up. THE FBI ARE
CLOWNS!!!
So it goes on page 15 and 16, that these search words to comprise the breathtaking proof
that the culprit then was to admit these words:
Worldwide known cyber security company XXXX announced that the DNC servers have been hacked
by "sophisticated" hacker groups. I'm very please the company appreciated my skill highly .
Some hundred sheets! This's a serious case, isn't it?
I guess XXXX Customers should think twice about company's competence.
F*** the illuminati and their conspiracies
And when did this happen? Some 2 hours later, at 7:02pm.
So think about this! They wrote that paragraph AFTER the search! So how do you search for
something in 37 minutes that you don't know it exists, and with such meaningless words to
write a bragging paragraph, that was supposedly ON the DNC server itself! Meaning, the person
who logged in knew it existed and quickly went looking for where it was to extract it, and
then use later as to frame the Russians!
Look at the time line. The FBI only found that it was a DNC employee that logged in,
looking for something that shouldn't exist in anyway on his server, unless of course he wrote
it himself, and that was to use it frame the Russians. Remember that paragraph was ON THE DNC
Server!!!!
The FBI are morons! This indictment will be thrown out quick smart, and the FBI should be
brought up on charges of aiding and abetting a crime!
Dorian 9
Yeah. That part was funny, too. Why would they launch some oddball searches and then later
use those same words in a post at WordPress? It's like they were trying to get caught ...
unless something else is going on.
Rod Rosenstein had a press conference on July 13th, 2018 where he broke the news that 12
Russians were being indicted for hacking into the DNC server. This was all debunked by former
NSA and father of the surveillance state Bill Binney.
So. I just read the 'indictment charges' from Rosenstein. What I can say about it on
its face is that it is NOT concrete proof of any proven act by these people. It is based
on circumstantial anecdote AND an extensive discussion about where these people fit in
their overall Russian government agency operations.
1. It describes attempts to access (through phishing operations) email IDs and
passwords of selected accounts TWO of whom the government STILL refuses to name (Hillary
Clinton and John Podesta). It also alleges these same nefarious 'Rooskie Military
Meddlers" intended (yes, intended to ) release select emails so that it might upset "the
2016 election."
Clearly here, in order to judge whatever 'effect' this may or may not have had on the
election, the GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE FORCED to completely present the actual emails they
feel were problematic. RELEASE ALL THE FECKING EMAILS! Without concrete and complete
information no reasonable assessment can be made using a "bad men do bad things"
accusation coupled with unproven claims. To me, TRUTH if outed isn't "meddling." It is
immutable. SHOW US the damaging emails FIRST!
2. Regarding the abundant and complete description of the Russian Military agency
(right down to names and positions AND who 'hacked' what account, etc. It may not be
clear to a lot of people here but it is clear to me that Rosenstein and whomever is
behind him in this little news-cycle diversion action have almost certainly blown an
embedded source in that unit. I hope it was worth it. Particularly since it is unlikely
the government WILL EVER prove its claims.
This is just a diversion operation by a closet deep-state operative who is the
effective head of the Department of Justice since Sessions has inexplicably washed his
hands of anything that should rightly be his primary duties. Rosenstein was also greatly
assisted by some IC - which one? Could be the FBI, but the asset inside that military
unit is very likely CIA. My guess is FBI and CIA working jointly in a deep-state
diversion. NSA? Reports indicate at least parts of it disagree with the hacking source
assertions.
To me, this is pretty much it. President Trump has to fire sessions and appoint a new
head who will fire Rosenstein. This person should also deadline Mueller on a short leash
and have him put up or shut up - 2 weeks maximum and then he is disbanded. The new AG
also needs to fire Director Wray because he hasn't changed the FBI culture one stinking
bit. Lastly, the clearances of Mueller, Comey, Wray, Rosenstein and the whole cabal need
to be invalidated.
ROD ROSENSTEIN - so looks completely insane. Very similar to Adam Schiff.
Does anybody remember how easy it was for Podesta to hand over his security details,
when spoofed?
Crowd Strike - used old Ukrainian malware. Had the White House Commission, plus, the
DNC allowed Crowdstrike to look at their servers, but, not the FBI. Now why was that?
FISA Judges were also colluding with the FBI in an attempt to unseat Trump.
Lisa Page and Strzok texted about setting up a dinner/cocktail party as a cover to meet
with FISA Judge Rudy Contreras.
Lisa Page has refused to cooperate with the Congressional subpoena to testify.
FISA Judge Rudy Contreras not only signed off on a FISA spying warrant against Trump, he
also sat on the Mueller team to go after General Flynn (he was removed from the Mueller
team with no explanation provided).
---------------------------------
""Rudy is on the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court]!" Page excitedly texted Strzok
on July 25, 2016. "Did you know that? Just appointed two months ago."
"I did," Strzok responded. "I need to get together with him."
"[He] said he'd gotten on a month or two ago at a graduation party we were both
at."
Contreras was appointed to the top surveillance court on May 19, 2016, federal records
show.
The pair even schemed about how to set up a cocktail or dinner party just so
Contreras, Strzok, and Page could speak without arousing suspicion that they were
colluding. Strzok expressed concern that a one-on-one meeting between the two men might
require Contreras' recusal from matters in which Strzok was involved."
http://thefederalist.com/20...
Why is someone like Rod, anywhere near the steering wheel ??? Why are he and the rest
of these political-child-clowns, not in prison ??? Where the hell, are the adults ??? A
spanking is past due !!! These folk are ALL liars and thieves.
Peter Strzok was "out of scope" (lying) during his last Polygraph test in 2016.
Strzok, thus, lost his security clearance to allow his participation with FBI in the
Trump "investigation". So HOW did Strzok participate. Anyone involved in that breach of
security procedure should be immediately arrested.
and the non stop b.s. just flows from Rosendueches mouth.... and of course that
traitor disgrace scumbag McCain has to get his dying words in. Someone put a pillow over
that Rinos' pukehole already.
Seth Rich (DNC database employee) was the likely leaker of the DNC emails (see Assange
and Kim Dot Com).
Awan Bros (Pakistani) were given total access to dozens of Democrat Congressional
computers w/o ANY security clearance. None of the Dem Congressmen questioned that. Awan
Bros seemed to be laundering $$$ through their "car business" called CIA.
-------------------------
"Imran Awan and his family members were congressional IT aides who investigators said
made unauthorized access to the House Democratic Caucus server thousands of times. At the
same time as they worked for and could read all the emails of congressmen who sat on
committees like Intelligence, Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs, they also ran a car
dealership that took money from a Hezbollah-linked fugitive and whose financial books
were indecipherable and business patterns bizarre, according to testimony in court
records."
http://dailycaller.com/2017...
Rosenstein made a pathetic attempt to set the political table to block the scheduled
one-on-one meeting between Trump & Putin. These clowns are so predictable.
Both Chuck Schumer and McCain (Deep State operatives) came out saying that Trump should
not meet with Putin because it would be an insult to our "Democracy".
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called for President Trump to cancel his one-on-one meeting with
Russian President Vladimir Putin. "President Trump should cancel his meeting with
Vladimir Putin until Russia takes demonstrable and transparent steps to prove that they
won't interfere in future elections," he wrote in a statement. "Glad-handing with
Vladimir Putin on the heels of these indictments would be an insult to our democracy."
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) also came out against the meeting, writing in a statement that if
Trump "is not prepared to hold Putin accountable, the summit in Helsinki should not move
forward."
https://www.thedailybeast.c...
i like Binney; he's a straight shooter. Glad he's called bs on the MSM and intel
community narrative about the "hacking" of the DNC servers, and the
nonsense/impossibility of the DNC emails being hacked and transmitted from within, as the
data transfer rates were absolutely impossible to perform over the internet; it's why the
likelihood of a dl to a thumb drive or other portable data storage device, a handoff to
an intermediary, and surreptitious delivery to Assange is the MOST likely scenario.
The Liar simply keeps employing the Hitlerian "Big Lie" tactic of her pretending to be
an authority figure, and repeatedly reiterating "Wikileaks Russian hacking," which she
KNOWS is a lie before she opens her face hole and spews the green bile.
Rosensteins failed attempt to sabotage the Trump-Putin summit. Won't happen , I don't
know why this swampie is still in a position to try this. He should be fired, tried and
hung.
"in my remarks I have not identified the victims" (8:27) .....
"we need to work together to hold the perpetrators accountable"(9:21) ... certainly, he
is NOT talking about Peter Strozk, whom DOJ provided an attorney with advice not to
answer Congressional questions.
"what motivation they had, independent of what is required to prove this offense....is
not our responsibility"(10:55)
...apparently a policy change since Comey exhonorated Hillary.
"I only comment on the evidence...without regard to politics, is sufficient..."
(10:15)
The DOJ has selectively chosen what facts to gather and what to zealously avoid: Did not
get the DNC server; Did not get oath for Hillary et al interviews; did not prevent Awan
family computer consultants from fleeing; Did not accurately identify classified
documents marked "c" on Hillary server; FISA judge, Rudolph Contreras, was FORCIBLY
recused from the Michael Flynn Case, after he approved surveillance on Trump campaign
members.
Time to rewrite the rules for DOJ/FBI and/or reorg the entire agencies with better
accountability. Certainly remove auto access to NSA info. Congress needs the power to
indict any current of former federal employee and enforce it through the US Marshals.
Dems are so stupid.
John Podesta's office gave his password to hackers.
Podesta was Hillary's campaign chairman.
"The hack and eventual release of a decade's worth of Hillary Clinton campaign
chairman John Podesta's emails may have been caused by a typo, The New York Times
reported Tuesday in an in-depth piece on Russian cyberattacks.
Last March, Podesta received an email purportedly from Google saying hackers had tried
to infiltrate his Gmail account. When an aide emailed the campaign's IT staff to ask if
the notice was real, Clinton campaign aide Charles Delavan replied that it was "a
legitimate email" and that Podesta should "change his password immediately."
Instead of telling the aide that the email was a threat and that a good response would
be to change his password directly through Google's website, he had inadvertently told
the aide to click on the fraudulent email and give the attackers access to the
account.
http://thehill.com/policy/c...
Delavan told the Times he had intended to type "illegitimate," a typo he still has not
forgiven himself for making.
More importantly: the content of the hacked emails should have been the story not who
hacked or leaked them...........
Thank the Deepstate Project mockingbird media for that....
Rosenstein has the demeanor of a pedophile seducing a child. After listening to this,
I need to take a long, hot shower. Just listening to him makes me feel dirty.
Back to paper ballots. At least the cheating can be done locally!
Timing of this is unbelievable. Deep state really don't want Trump to meet with Putin.
Why?
Putin has some dark secrets Demoncrats don't want Trump to find out? Smells phishy to
me.
All I have to say is that a man that would break his wedding vows is capable of
anything. This man should have lost his FBI Security Clearance the day it was found out
that he was cheating on his wife. Adultery alone is more than enough to remove a security
clearance, and many employers would fire someone that committed adultery.
"Cheating on your spouse can even be grounds for losing your job. This is particularly
true in the military, where adultery has a maximum punishment of a dishonorable discharge
and confinement for one year, according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In the
past eight years, 30% of the commanders fired lost their jobs due to sexual misconduct,
including adultery, the Associated Press reports".
We are going full circle now. What this agent is telling us is precisely what we
learned from Alex and from Q. These two are not in contradiction, but they are
complementing each other. They just deal with different aspects of the swamp. It has been
an amazing journey to follow Alex-Q-Fox-Trump. Some uncomfortable details have been
exposed at Strzok's hearing. Some annonymous source exposed RR in connection of Seth
Rich. Trump is about to speak with Russia. All of a sudden RR is feeling the heat under
the pan.He realized he is the frog being cooked in low fire. RR has just raised the white
flag and wants to patch up a nice history that doesn't implicate anybody in America. All
he is praying for is a peaceful resolution of this whole Russia mess. But not so fast, he
still left a knife hanging over Trump's presidency, that is a illegitimate election. RR
still believes in the impeachment depending on the midterm elections.
Who could "plant hundreds of files, containing malicious computer code" on people's
computers. In addition to the Russians, anybody in the world could, after Wikileaks
published the contents of the CIA's "Vault 7" with the exact same code as is known to be
used by foreign governments.
For sure. Look how this psychopathic faced SOB spins as if the Ruskies stole the
entire Electoral College. Let's not also be naive - the US has significantly
(murderously) interfered w/foreign elections past 100 yrs. Then we go about killing those
we select and support - like Noriega, Saddam, Momar (the Shah) and the Assads. Don't buy
this crap. Binney is the most knowledgeable and honest on this matter that I've reviewed.
Look into him and consider trusting his reports.
Dont forget Mossadeq, a dually elected Iranian Prime minister who tried to nationalize
Irans Oil. Installed a minor Grunt by the Name of Reza Shah Pahlavi, whsmgiven Persia on
a Silver platter so long as he was chummy with the Western Oll Barrons. Then the
resulting domino effect with the Islamic Republic of Iran and our current troubles.
Everythiing the Global Deep State touches turns to garbage, they just rape the
resources in all its forms before the Rot goes terminal, oldest tricks are indeed the
best ones.
Another B.S Charge to distract from Strzok, Page Disaster for the Deep State. When the
FBI Lovers turn States Evidence Many of the Top FBI , DOJ Officials will be heading to
Prisons. Rogue FBI has No Credibility any longer after all the Deceit and Corruptions
They engaged in. The reason I Switched from Democrat Voter to Trump Voter is because
Putin called Me at the Last Minute before I sent out My Ballot. He does call me Once in a
While to see If I wanna Go get a Burger at IN N Out and stop and Have a Glass of KGB
Vodka. at a Local Bar in Commiefornia. Just don`t tell the FBI or the Corrupt DemoFreaks
about it. They are so desperate they may come and Bust Me. and Charge Me with Colluding
with the Ruskies.
[RR] has just told America how the DNC was rigging elections ,,,, thanks Rod,
First it was 12 Russians a few months ago with different backgrounds. One of the 12 come
to the USA and demand to see all the evidence against him. Mueller declines and nothing
more is heard about the Russian hacking.
Now its 12 military persons, its a different 12 people but DOJ deep state liars had to
cover for the first set of 12 bs indictments hoping Americans would not remember that
Mueller's indictments go away.
These RR Doj scum bags keep telling lys and they keep getting bigger.
They scumbags picked 12 military people this time because they now the military people
can not com to the USA to ask to see the evidence.
These DOJ traitors are about to have their ass's handed to them, they are so
stupid.
The only thing worse than fake news is, fake indictments.
Rosenstein is dying for credibility, all the while trying to avoid risking prison for
treason.
Rosenstein is J. Edger Hover the second, gathering investigation results to bribe
congressional and federal officials for power and extortion, while shielding criminals
from prosecution.
This creep needs to swing for treason. This isn't why the FBI or DOJ was created. FBI
rank and file and DOJ deserve better.
I'm realizing that in the deep state within the CIA, DOj, and FBI there are a range of
factions. There are RINO factions, progressive factions, and cowboy factions like I think
Rosenstein fits into. Rosenstein may actually be in it for himself, never the less, he is
selling out America, he commits treason.
I'll bet he's even a cross dresser like J Edger was.....
These creeps and clowns share one thing, they have massively abused their power, and
will band together to fight to survive. This is no joke, they may join forces and go to
war against America.
Rosenstein's wife, Lisa Barsoomian, is a protected CIA operative and FOIA shot
blocker....
Barsoomian represented :
Robert Muller three times
James Comey five times
Barack Obama 45 times
Kathleen Sebelius 56 times
Bill Clinton 40 times and
Hillary Clinton 17 times
between 1998 and 2017
She has specialized in opposing Freedom of Information Act requests on behalf of the
intelligence community.
Just saw a would-be meme on my Facebook feed . . . to the general effect that the FBI
still hasn't even looked at the DNC's computer or server, but Mueller's indicted 12 Russians
for 'hacking' them.
Of course, there is that old quote from a New York state judge that a prosecutor could get
a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. (Which also reminds me of a riddle: Why is a ham
sandwich better than perfect happiness? Well, nothing is better than perfect happiness,
right? -- and a ham sandwich is certainly better than nothing. . . .)
"... Yes, this indictment is an obvious poison pill meant to ruin or postpone the summit. Chuck Shumer immediately called for cancelling the summit after Rod Rosenstein made his indictment announcement. ..."
"... Also consider that the House was just about to impeach Rod Rosenstein for obstruction. He has refused to release evidence to Congress regarding the FBI and it's motivations during the Hillary email investigation and also the Russiagate investigation. ..."
"... Item 38 of the Indictment claims that the "Alice Donovan" persona - which as a journalist submitted articles to CounterPunch and other sites - was used by the alleged Conspirators to set up a DCLeaks Facebook page in June 2016. ..."
"... While I anticipate the MSM Russophobes have already declared a slam dunk, the question, in my mind, is whether the "loyal opposition" (various DNC astrotuf) will actually even ATTEMPT to mobilize protests. (I think there may be ongoing Sunday family demonstrations to "attach" to). ..."
"... The DNC "resistance" has promised that if Mueller is fired, there will be thousands in the street ... Forcing Trump to cancel Helsinki would be an impressive wielding of "power" (numbers) they claim to have ... If they make no effort (my guess), well, that would be predictable ... ..."
"... So we're to believe that the Russian CIA does not have any access to English speaking translators and that when it wants to write a fake email in English as part of an elaborate plot against the United States, it uses Google? This sounds much more like the actions of a lone rogue hacker or small group of private hackers than the action of the secret intelligence agency of a major power. ..."
"... ""SERVERS The hackers used a server in AZ but then ran that through a server "overseas." The hackers leased a DCCC computer in Illinois. The use of infrastructure within the US suggests much of the hot air around transfer times -- one of the key attempts to debunk the hack -- is just that, hot air."" https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/07/13/the-russian-hack/ . ..."
"... it would have been impossible had the alleged victims not been idiotically, criminally negligent in handling their email accounts. What's more, it's incredible that US intelligence services and the Dem Party apparatus are willing to reveal how easily their systems were compromised and how helpless they were in reacting to it. ..."
"... Most of the information revealed from the DNC emails was either rather innocuous or confirmed what everyone already knew (that the entire Dem political and media establishment had pre-anointed HRC). Anyone who believes that the "Deep State" is some cabal of demonic masterminds is a giant fool. The best and brightest in DC are cack-handed sociopathic gangsters of middling intelligence and no imagination . ..."
"... It does appear that the whole Russian influence/DNC-Gluccifer/etc. stuff is bullshit. Just like the Trump dossier, White Helmets, Assange rape allegations, Skripal poisoning by Russia, and more. Sickening. ..."
"... It occurred to me that while HRC was Secretary of State, one reason to run her business on private servers was to avoid exposing her mix of private/public activities to open view. The same factor would apply at the DNC. Not that the DOS would have state-of-the-art tech security, but playing outside the field leads to depending on savvy conspirators or naive duds for your operations. So, in order to keep things quiet, Crowdstrike is the provider of cover. I would not want to be the provider of record for the Clinton gang or the DNC. Total fail. Although, Podesta was an idiot to be phished. ..."
"... One side of the current indictment scenario that could play into Trump's upcoming meeting with Putin, is that trashing the opposite party prior to negotiations is Trump's modus operandi. ..."
"... On the other hand, this entire kerfuffle has diverted attention away from those individuals, industries and countries that absolutely did collude with both Candidates, and absolutely did influence not just the election, but also US policies ever since. ..."
Cost $95,000 to pull off this 'conspiracy' to interfere in the 2016 presidential election?
Less than took in by Clinton at a single Wall Street Banker cocktail party. Seriously, you
Russian folks need to understand, it will take at least a billion to rig an election in
America ... we don't come cheap.
Correct, he obviously is fed up with this bs witch hunt, he wont give in to deepstate nor
MSM now even though he will say he raised this issue with Putin and so forth.
Yes, this indictment is an obvious poison pill meant to ruin or postpone the summit.
Chuck Shumer immediately called for cancelling the summit after Rod Rosenstein made his
indictment announcement.
Also consider that the House was just about to impeach Rod Rosenstein for obstruction.
He has refused to release evidence to Congress regarding the FBI and it's motivations during
the Hillary email investigation and also the Russiagate investigation.
Now if the House starts impeachment proceedings they will be seen as trying to impeach a
person that just indicted 12 Russians. In other words, they will be seen as protecting
Russians.
11 - I'd like to see VIPS respond to this line by line, it looks ridiculous from first glance
but I'm not technically knowledgeable enough to comment further. Is there any chance that
Assange could prove the source was an internal leak through a release without losing face? My
immediate reaction is that they really played them selves out on this one, its too flimsy of
a production; but than I said the same thing about every chemical attack in Syria, Skribals,
etc, etc.
Thank you Dorian @9 I loved your rant and can absolutely sympathise with your astonishment.
The FBI is clueless and ridiculous and so it should be. The more I follow this Mueller and
Rosenstein circus, the more I see them as Putin's senior agents in the USA. This latest leak
looks to me to be an attempt to do Putin's bidding to derail any meaningful meeting with the
President of the USA. (Not saying that there can ever be a "meaningful meeting with any USA
President") Who in their right mind wants to meet with a lying, thieving yankee? let alone
make a deal with one!
I say Mueller and Rosenstein are Putin's puppets and the whole damn circus is designed for
ridicule. But then I might be way too far down the rabbit hole to see clearly.
""We must speak with one voice in making clear to Vladimir Putin: 'We will not allow you
to interfere in our democratic processes or those of our allies,'" Sanders wrote in a tweet
on Friday."
Gee, I seem to recall the HRC Campaign and the DNC doing far more proven damage to
the electoral process than anything Russia's allegedly done. Where was Sanders denouncement
of HRC and the DNC then?! Clearly, even more than in 2016, Bernie Sanders is a gigantic
fraud every bit as disgusting as HRC, perhaps even more so given the number of people
deluded by his actions. People like him a big part of the problem and have no part in the
solution.
Item 38 of the Indictment claims that the "Alice Donovan" persona - which as a journalist
submitted articles to CounterPunch and other sites - was used by the alleged Conspirators to
set up a DCLeaks Facebook page in June 2016.
b exclaims: "Note: The indictment reinforces the author's hunch that bitcoin and other
cryptocurrencies are creations and playgrounds of secret services just like Tor and other
'cool' internet 'privacy' stuff are. Its the very reason why one should avoid their use."
YES!
One of the things that rings my irony alarm is that the sort of "right wing" "Liberty
Movement" crowd has been warning for decades now of the One World Government plans for a
"cashless society." They feared that all transactions would be done via computer entries,
which the NWO could manipulate to either prevent a dissident from being able to buy
something, track every purchase, or simply to steal all of anyone's money.
And now, many of those same Liberty Movement voices are out there selling BitCoin, etc....
and selling it HARD.
This same Liberty Movement has been totally freaked out about the "Jack-Booted Thugs" of
the Police State for decades, too. Some USAmericans might even remember G. Gordon Liddy
telling his Radio Show followers to "go for headshots" when the coppers come (because the
police started wearing body armor).
And now, those same folks are cheering on the Pigs cracking skulls of Black Lives Matter
and anti-Trump hysterics. In fact, the LM is upset that more illegal surveillance,
unwarranted searches and extrajudicial killings aren't being done.
It still looks to me like the PTSB are tearing us apart.
While I anticipate the MSM Russophobes have already declared a slam dunk, the question,
in my mind, is whether the "loyal opposition" (various DNC astrotuf) will actually even
ATTEMPT to mobilize protests. (I think there may be ongoing Sunday family demonstrations to
"attach" to).
The DNC "resistance" has promised that if Mueller is fired, there will be thousands in
the street ... Forcing Trump to cancel Helsinki would be an impressive wielding of "power"
(numbers) they claim to have ... If they make no effort (my guess), well, that would be
predictable ...
Does anyone know if these latest charges are still based on that CrowdStrike "report?"
That is, DNC refused to let FBI have access to their servers so that FBI could run their
own forensics. All previous IC claims have been based on CrowdStrike claims.
Did FBI finally get ahold of those servers, and if so, could they possibly still have had
such evidence on them? Weren't they professionally scrubbed years ago?
See Item 41 in the indictment. "On or about June 15th 2016, the 'Conspirators ...' looked up
certain words and phrases on Google Translate, phrases which were later used by "Guccifer
2.0".
So we're to believe that the Russian CIA does not have any access to English speaking
translators and that when it wants to write a fake email in English as part of an elaborate
plot against the United States, it uses Google? This sounds much more like the actions of a
lone rogue hacker or small group of private hackers than the action of the secret
intelligence agency of a major power.
I have read that the indictment says that different offices/locations were targeted, so no.
""SERVERS The hackers used a server in AZ but then ran that through a server
"overseas." The hackers leased a DCCC computer in Illinois. The use of infrastructure
within the US suggests much of the hot air around transfer times -- one of the key attempts
to debunk the hack -- is just that, hot air."" https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/07/13/the-russian-hack/
.
about Crowdstrike:
CROWDSTRIKE
The indictment describes Crowdstrike's efforts to oust the hackers, but notes that a Linux
based version of X-Agent remained on DNC's network until October 2016.
Part of the "big reveal" (with apparent date discrepancies) is that "the hackers" had a
lot of targets over a long period of time.
I still think Trump was joking when he suggested "the Russians" could help him out by
finding the missing (HRC deleted) e-mails not recovered / found during the server
investigation .... poppycock ... but his "joke" was leapt on at the time and (embarassingly)
is claimed to be a "smoking gun" or "trigger" for the hacking.
Yeah, there seems to be very very little there there
I posted the following in response to Debsisdead wondering what was going on at
CounterPunch.
Then there was that whole thing where they were publishing articles written by an avatar
going by the name of Alice Donovan. I don't know what to make that whole thing. I will say
that some of her articles did discuss inconvenient truths that the MSM tries to play up as
"conspiracy theories" (eg. Obama Administration sent weapons to Syria that ISIL received).
But, she also wrote really bizarre stuff indicating she was not whom she claimed to be.
"...the question, in my mind, is whether the "loyal opposition" (various DNC astrotuf)
will actually even ATTEMPT to mobilize protests. (I think there may be ongoing Sunday family
demonstrations to "attach" to)."
I've been assigned to a 'Two Minutes Hate" for Saturday morning. ;-)
Honestly, I wouldn't put it past the ruthless and perfidious Russian intel services to have
actually done this, but it would have been impossible had the alleged victims not been
idiotically, criminally negligent in handling their email accounts. What's more, it's
incredible that US intelligence services and the Dem Party apparatus are willing to reveal
how easily their systems were compromised and how helpless they were in reacting to it.
Most of the information revealed from the DNC emails was either rather innocuous or
confirmed what everyone already knew (that the entire Dem political and media establishment
had pre-anointed HRC). Anyone who believes that the "Deep State" is some cabal of demonic
masterminds is a giant fool. The best and brightest in DC are cack-handed sociopathic
gangsters of middling intelligence and no imagination .
And even if this accusation is true, they have yet to find any actual collusion between
the Trump campaign and Russian government officials, which is the entire (official anyway)
point of the investigation. They have yet to prove that there was any effect on the outcome
of the election. If the Russians are guilty of hacking they will deny, if they are innocent
they will deny. This is Whitewater Redux, where flimsy allegation of criminal activity is
used to dig and dig and dig until they find something juicy that can be used to prosecute.
Ironic!
If Mueller is so sure the 12 intelligence officers are guilty and Putin is so sure they
are innocent, he ought to fly them to DC to stand trial. Professional courtesy from one
secret policeman to another.
The indictment flies in the face of the great research of the meta data carried out by the
Forensicator and Adam Carter. Which practically proves the leaks were a download from the
US.
The article above has many links referring to that research and the backdrop.
I - and everyone else here - agree that this pathetic "indictment" is an act of complete
desperation, designed to fool the foolables.
Re: "The indictment reinforces the author's hunch that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are
creations and playgrounds of secret services just like Tor and other 'cool' internet
'privacy' stuff are. Its the very reason why one should avoid their use."
It does appear that the whole Russian influence/DNC-Gluccifer/etc. stuff is bullshit.
Just like the Trump dossier, White Helmets, Assange rape allegations, Skripal poisoning by
Russia, and more. Sickening.
To clarify, the following is from Rosenstein's announcement, not the indictment.
"There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime.
There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election
result. The special counsel's investigation is ongoing and there will be no comments on the
special counsel at this time.""
What's more, it's incredible that US intelligence services and the Dem Party
apparatus are willing to reveal how easily their systems were compromised and how helpless
they were in reacting to it. Most of the information revealed from the DNC emails was
either rather innocuous or confirmed what everyone already knew (that the entire Dem
political and media establishment had pre-anointed HRC)
Exactly. It occurred to me that while HRC was Secretary of State, one reason to run
her business on private servers was to avoid exposing her mix of private/public activities to
open view. The same factor would apply at the DNC. Not that the DOS would have
state-of-the-art tech security, but playing outside the field leads to depending on savvy
conspirators or naive duds for your operations. So, in order to keep things quiet,
Crowdstrike is the provider of cover. I would not want to be the provider of record for the
Clinton gang or the DNC. Total fail. Although, Podesta was an idiot to be phished.
One side of the current indictment scenario that could play into Trump's upcoming
meeting with Putin, is that trashing the opposite party prior to negotiations is Trump's
modus operandi. See his comments re: Brexit a day ago, then the gushing with May over
the special nature of their most special of special relationships. What looks like a dagger
to the back by Rosenstein, while the boss was out of town, will likely get chuckles at the
summit.
Trump knows very well that this "Breaking News" is meant to disrupt the meeting with Putin.
Trump hates Mueller, so I guess he will briefly mentioned the 'crime' to Putin who will ask
for tangible proofs and Trump will throw the request to Mueller and pass to another more
important issue. Trump does care about been criticized for that, he know that he would be
criticized anyway.,
"And even if this accusation is true, they have yet to find any actual collusion between
the Trump campaign and Russian government officials, which is the entire (official anyway)
point of the investigation. They have yet to prove that there was any effect on the outcome
of the election. "
Yep. On the other hand, this entire kerfuffle has diverted attention away from those
individuals, industries and countries that absolutely did collude with both Candidates, and
absolutely did influence not just the election, but also US policies ever since.
Oh look! A squirrel! Gotta go chase that squirrel!
Trump will most likely just let the Russia dunnit garbage run. It doesn't bother him or slow
him down in any way, it is a thorn in the side for Russia, and gives Trump media cover while
setting up energy dominance.
To Trump, Russia is a competitor in the energy business.
So everyone got what they wanted. Trump can claim he has been proven free of collusion with
Russia. Dems and neocons can claim they were right that Russia did it, even though the
indictment lacks any proof of this.
Trump can use indictments to justify his backtracking on his campaign promises to improve
relations with Russia , and justify continued sanctions, increase military spending, push
NATO allies to buy more from American weapons dealers, and push EU members to block Russian
gas lines
Meanwhile the real elephant in the room continues to be ignored and control both parties,
influence elections, dictate foreign policy and economic decisions , disseminate fake news to
alter public perceptions, etc....
Well, heck, the list of defendants is itself proof that Mueller is desperate that this case
never comes before a court.
How do I know that?
Easy. His previous indictment named persons AND companies, which allowed Concord
Management to surprise everyone by demanding its day in court.
This time around he has only indicted individuals.
He pointedly does not indicted any companies.
This means that a Russian individual has to put their freedom at risk by taking up the
challenge, and Mueller obviously believes that nobody will be willing to do that.
I think he is going to be proved wrong yet again.
I predict that one or more of those defendants does, indeed, step foot on US soil and
demands to be put on trial, and this is going to shake the Mueller investigation to its
core.
The reason I am confident that this will happen is that
a) it is likely that at least one of those defendants does indeed work for Russian
intelligence, and
b) Russian intelligence knows full well that Mueller has nothing and is bluffing
So they will take that person aside and say: Boris/Dimitry/Ivan/baby, go over there and
call their bluff. If they fold then you come home and live like a king. If they convict you
then sit tight and we'll arrange a spy-swap, then you come home and live like a king. What do
you say?
Let's not take a look at the U$A's corrupt and horribly broken "election" systems,
suppression of voters, and outright bought and paid for "representatives". That, would be too
much trouble..
George Steele penned many a masterful dossier, some extraordinarily clever counterfeit
handwritten memoirs, and a pot-boiling John LaCarre spin-off cold-war spy-novel or two.
Steel's drinking has paralyzed his brain; he can't think of anything, he lauds
Skripal's
brilliant descriptions of the two russian prostitutes peeing on barak obama's hotel bed.
WHAT does Skripal do for a living? he writes. Sergei sees himself as a new dostoyevski
!
I agree with those who have argued that whole the Skripal meme is Hillary's gang
goofing
on the Brits. This pee-pee dossier is THE evidentiary source of the Mueller investigation
Yeah the Rowdy Lion has blocked and bearded Russia historically, that's why they make
great patsies for the Yankees whose criminal minds can not get over losing that election!
Put yourself in the place of a maniac primed to be a coddled goddess President of the
USA
¿Wouldn't YOU call reliable old insider George Steele (not knowing the man is
ossified)?
Once the gang realized that Steele's brain was fried, they could not let Sergei Skripal
die.
The always sober Prof. Stephen Cohen warned this would happen on the 11/07, and so it came to
pass. He picked these guys like a dirty nose. The Mueller investigation needs to be shut
down, the cloak of what it is pretending to be has fallen off.
***
Summitgate and the Campaign vs. 'Peace'
Not surprisingly, Trump's meetings with NATO and Putin are being portrayed as ominous events
by Russiagaters.
By Stephen F. Cohen
Excerpt
Also not surprisingly, and unlike in the past, mainstream media have found little place for
serious discussion of today's dangerous conflicts between Washington and Moscow: regarding
nuclear-weapons-imitation treaties, cyber-warfare, Syria, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, the
Black Sea region, even Afghanistan. It's easy to imagine how Trump and Putin could agree on
conflict-reduction and cooperation in all of these realms. But considering the traducing by
the Post, Times, and Maddow of a group of senators who visited Moscow around July 4, it's
much harder to see how the defamed Trump could implement such "peace deals." (There is a
long history of sabotaging or attempting to sabotage summits and other détente-like
initiatives. Indeed, a few such attempts have been evident in recent months and more may
lie ahead.)
There is nothing illegal in and of itself about influencing an election in a foreign
country. Unless doing so is in violation of other laws, such as hacking or violating campaign
financing laws.
And it is most certainly illegal for people to collude with foreign nationals to interfere
in an election, and I suspect that Mueller's next step will be to connect these 12 indicted
Russians with members of the Trump campaign.
Mueller is proceeding very slowly and keeping his cards close to his chest, he knows that
any case he presents has to be fully free of flaws or contradictions as it will be attacked
from all sides.
the comments here range from delusional to outright psychotic
Trump has no ability to outsmart anyone let alone Putin.....take a look at north
Korea...where he declared the threat of nuclear war was over....he mouths a few slogans and
fools try to spin and interpret for the masses of fools what he is talking about.
his choice of staff and advisors were so comical they have all been removed and in their
place are the lowest slime of any swamp..reflecting the attitudes and racism of their leader
who seeks only to enrich himself which he has been doing through foreign affairs....now with
Russia where there is still enthusiasm for america....and where he gets a lot of cash...he
seeks to cozy up to Putin at the expense of NATO partners where he deflects his ignorance by
creating distraction.....again relying on others to explain.
if you all don't think Mueller is developing a real case because he doesn't expose it
while seeking indictments...that is your choice...but don't go on from there to assert it
someone makes the idiocy of Trump legitimate...it does not!
"They" really don't want Trump talking to Putin. Since they can't stop it; sabotage the
meeting. This harkens back to the Gary Powers shoot down... That one worked.
It's hilarious really! But also frightening. As Dorian pointed out, nobody doing "hacking"
are that amateurish, and certainly not the Russians or Chinese for that matter. It pobably
the clods in Cheltenham that are responsible, it bears all the marks of failure, so its
probably British.
I think the Russians got me last night! I woke up this morning, with tremors and shaking, not
feeling well at at all. I was not foaming at the mouth, but I did have a greenish tinge to
the skin and i looked bad in the mirror. I am sure it is Novichok.
How did the Russians know that i would buy that particular single malt! They probably
spied, and knew I would get an Oban and they poisoned me. If I do not comment again, know,
that I too have fallen victim to their devious games. In the meantime I will try to self
medicate with a stout or too. Pray for me. Donations accepted BTW.
Forensic evidence has already proven that the data on the DNC server was downloaded on a USB
thump drive. The bombshells in Robert Mueller's indictment of 12 Russian intelligence
officers, hackers of DNC server, put a damper on Trump's one on one visit with Putin.
Well, you start by blurting out a secret about DNC hack: there was no hack, there was a
leak, but the leaker Seth Rich was conveniently killed during "botched robbery". Guess who
ordered this murder? Obviously, it couldn't have been someone low in the food chain, as the
"investigation" of Seth Rich murder is going exactly nowhere in two years. The Dems via
Mueller just keep whipping the dead horse of "Russiagate" out of desperation.
But next you undermine your credibility claiming that Putin installed Trump. Unfortunately
for Putin, he does not have the resources to do that. Ludicrous sums allegedly spent by
mysterious Russians bandied about by Mueller's "investigation" show that Putin did not have
the money to affect the billion-dollar show that the US presidential elections have become.
Of course, corrupt mad witch, who outspent Trump 2:1 and still lost, would like to blame
someone other than herself, but her story is dead in the water. The Dems betrayed their own
electorate, white working-class people, and lost it forever. The fringe groups they gained
cannot offset that loss.
Trump won the elections not because he was so good, but because his opponent was utterly
repulsive. However, in contrast to Obama and the witch, Trump shows some street smarts: he
prefers to make deals with strong competitors, rather than fight them and sustain huge
losses.
BTW, you forgot that Trump's inclination to make deals includes China, which is certainly
not Christian. Basically, his is a common-sense approach that even an average Joe can
understand. Hence the hysterics of establishment-owned Dems and Republicans. So, I'd say God
bless common sense and the people possessing it.
"... Indictment fuels new calls to cancel Trump-Putin summit ..."
"... Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) demanded substantial changes to the summit saying that complaining to Putin about the indictments needs to be the focus of the entire summit, and that Putin and Trump should never be allowed to be alone in a room during the meeting. ..."
"... Warner was one of the few to not call for the talks to be cancelled outright, with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) saying the meeting needed to be cancelled "now," and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) saying that even shaking Putin's hand would be "a moment of historic cowardice." ..."
Indictment fuels new calls to cancel Trump-Putin summit
On Friday, special counsel Robert Mueller
has indicted 12 Russian GRU officers.
The 12 are
accused
of conspiring
to hack Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC computers to leak information ahead of the 2016 election.
This was the second substantial set of indictments coming out of the investigation.
In
February, the Justice Department
indicted 13 other "conspirators" claiming that they had stolen the identities
of US citizens to manipulate the campaigns. Russia has denied all the charges.
While indictments aren't surprising, as a chance to try to show that the investigation in progressing, the
timing is extremely unfortunate,
to the point that it must
raise suspicions
. The indictment, after all, comes just days before President Trump is to hold a summit with
Russia's President Vladimir Putin.
Trump was already facing bipartisan opposition to having a summit with Putin at all, based on the allegations
of election meddling. The indictments are adding fuel to the fire, sparking more calls from opponents of diplomacy
to pull out of the summit at the last minute.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA)
demanded substantial changes to the summit
saying that complaining to Putin about the indictments needs to be
the focus of the entire summit, and that Putin and Trump should never be allowed to be alone in a room during the
meeting.
Warner was one of the few to not call for the talks to be cancelled outright, with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
saying the meeting needed to be cancelled "now," and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) saying that even shaking Putin's hand
would be "a moment of historic cowardice."
Of course, these lawmakers were all attacking the summit long before these indictments dropped, and this simply
is the new excuse for opposing the plan. With the growing sense that the Mueller investigation is
designed
to just keep going, there is also concern it's going to keep being used as a source of excuses to not
talk to Russia.
No Evidence In Mueller's Indictment Of 12 Russians - Release Now May Sabotage Upcoming
Summit
The Special counsel Robert Mueller issued an indictment (pdf, 29 pages) against 12
Russian people alleged to be officers or personal of the Russian Military Intelligence Service
GRU. The people, claims the indictment, work for an operational (26165) and a technical (74455)
subunit of the GRU.
A Grand Jury in Washington DC issued 11 charges which are described and annotated below. A
short assessment follows.
The first charge is for a "Conspiracy to Commit an Offense Against the United States" by
stealing emails and leaking them. The indictment claims that the GRU units sent spearfishing
emails to the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party organizations DNC and DCCC.
They used these to get access to email boxes of John Podesta and other people. They are also
accused of installing spyware (X-agent) on DNC computers and of exfiltrating emails and other
data from them. The emails were distributed and published by the online personas DCLeaks,
Guccifer II and later through Wikileaks. The indictment claims that DCLeaks and Guccifer II
were impersonations by the GRU. Wikileaks, "organization 1" in the indictment, is implicated
but so far not accused.
Note: There is a different Grand Jury for the long brewing case against Julian
Assange and Wikileaks. Assange has denied that the emails he published came from a Russian
source. Craig Murray, a former British ambassador, said that he received the emails on a trip
to Washington DC and transported them to Wikileaks.
The indictment describes in some detail how various rented computers and several domain
names were used to access the DNC and DCCC computers. The description is broadly plausible but
there is little if any supporting evidence.
Charge 2 to 9 of the indictment are about "Aggravated Identity Theft" for using usernames
and passwords for the personal email accounts of others.
Charge 10 is about a "Conspiracy to Launder Money". This was allegedly done "through a web
of transaction structured to capitalize on the perceived anonymity of cryptocurrencies such as
bitcoin". It is alleged that the accused mined bitcoins, channeled these through dozens of
accounts and transactions and then used them to rent servers, virtual private network access
and domain names used in the operation.
Note : The indictment reinforces the author's hunch that bitcoin and other
cryptocurrencies are creations and playgrounds of secret services just like Tor and other
'cool' internet 'privacy' stuff are. Its the very reason why one should avoid their use.
Such a convoluted tale in fact authored by the NSA?. Most of what the Russians are accused of
can be attributed to the NSA activities.
As Putin pointed out when the accusations were first made, no matter who is elected, US
policies remain the same. There is no motivation for RUssia to interfere.
Obviously a desperate move to torpedo the Helsinki meeting. Given that the indicted lot is in
Russia the judicial consequences will be nill.
By the way B, what do you say about the Novi-bottle found in a house surely searched over
and over? What took the searchers about ten days to found it?
One small point. Craig Murray has said he met with one of the individuals who were involved
with the DNC email release. Although he's been somewhat hazy on it, on the Scott Horton radio
show, Murray said the emails were already in the possession of Wikileaks before he met with
the individual involved. https://scotthorton.org/?powerpress_pinw=23500-podcast
Good job by Concord Management to challenge the previous bullshit. That makes it likely these
charges will also be challenged. The best thing you can do when someone living in a glass
house accuses you of doing something is to force them to expose themselves to the entire
world via evidentiary discovery; and as with the first case, it's too late to put the genie
back in the bottle. This ought to be seen as the equivalent of Novichok/Skripal debacle in
UK, which I trust people continue to follow Craig
Murray's reporting .
As we've seen, the number of Big Lies produced that end up driving policy has dramatically
increased since the USSR's disillusion, while trillions of dollars are stolen from taxpayers
and given to the global .01%--OWS clearly aimed at the heart of the beast. The indictment
will further roil domestic chaos within the Outlaw US Empire making solidarity more difficult
to obtain.
Meanwhile in other legal news, Assange has won a court order
demanding he be unmolested as he goes from Ecuadorian Embassy to airport for his flight into
Asylum. Bet the UK doesn't obey this ruling either further making it a Banana Republic.
Same ol' Deep State playbook, preaching to the converted while having little effect on
anything else. This will give Rachel Maddow many hours of profitable air time as she and her
ilk require no evidence.
However, ordinary people with lazy minds will see the headlines and think they're true and
there will be more pressure NOT to have any productive, mutually beneficial discussions with
Russia, so mission accomplished for Mueller, I guess. Anything to keep people from realizing
that Hillary was a horrible, corrupt, dangerous candidate who kept herself from winning the
election (which was easily winnable for the Democrats going in) all on her own.
How much hot and stinking air can an Empire blow before it blows itself out? Sadly, no doubt,
much more.
They have lost the narrative and don't even know it, they go on with Putin the Poisoner
and Russia did it and they keep it up because they have no choice and they live in fear
because we don't believe them any more.
- Page 14 and 15: This is hilariously stupid! These Russian super spy agents on June
15, 2016, 4:19 MOSCOW TIME and they DID NOT HACK, BUT LOGGED INTO the DNC server and
spent 37 minutes to search for files or that included words (that is for the techo's out
there, they "grep") for the following words:
* some hundred sheets
* some hundreds of sheets
* dcleaks
* illuminati
* широко
известный
перевод (meaning: widely known translation)
* worldwide known
* think twice about
* company's competence
So what kind of super spies, and super hackers would use "some hundred sheets" and "some
hundreds of sheets" as two separate searches. Every computer geek knows that if you don't
waste time to do virtually two identical searches like those. Who ever did these searches
(after they logged in!) knows nothing about searching. The whole tech. world knows if you are
going to do hacking, you use things like Linux grep/sed tools and you wouldn't waste your
time doing pointless duplicitous searches. Why doesn't FBI state what tools were used, every
is logged, or it should be. Thus this person whom ever it was, was naive.
So here is the big one! Foreign hackers are looking for about people talking about the
Illuminati! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!...BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
Another stupid one! Russian hackers searching DNC files for RUSSIAN STRINGS This is
turning into a circus.
So you mean to tell me Russian hackers that logged into a computer (that is they didn't
hacked, the FBI stated as much), are looking about for files about nonsensical matter
including Russian Word Strings. You can't even make this stuff up. THE FBI ARE
CLOWNS!!!
So it goes on page 15 and 16, that these search words to comprise the breathtaking proof
that the culprit then was to admit these words:
Worldwide known cyber security company XXXX announced that the DNC servers have been hacked
by "sophisticated" hacker groups. I'm very please the company appreciated my skill highly .
Some hundred sheets! This's a serious case, isn't it?
I guess XXXX Customers should think twice about company's competence.
F*** the illuminati and their conspiracies
And when did this happen? Some 2 hours later, at 7:02pm.
So think about this! They wrote that paragraph AFTER the search! So how do you search for
something in 37 minutes that you don't know it exists, and with such meaningless words to
write a bragging paragraph, that was supposedly ON the DNC server itself! Meaning, the person
who logged in knew it existed and quickly went looking for where it was to extract it, and
then use later as to frame the Russians!
Look at the time line. The FBI only found that it was a DNC employee that logged in,
looking for something that shouldn't exist in anyway on his server, unless of course he wrote
it himself, and that was to use it frame the Russians. Remember that paragraph was ON THE DNC
Server!!!!
The FBI are morons! This indictment will be thrown out quick smart, and the FBI should be
brought up on charges of aiding and abetting a crime!
So obviously timed to meddle with the Trump-Putin meeting. The United States and its 5 Eyes
partners intercept and store the emails of everyone on the planet, and throws a hissy fit
over the alleged same treatment. No doubt the politicians and media personalities will ascend
their soapboxes to play wounded victims. What a farce. Sad that the public, to a degree, has
now been trained to confuse mere allegations with established fact.
The evidence that the DNC hacks were a local download by someone with legitimate access is
persuasive as shown by the group of former intel professionals who analyzed the metadata.
John Podesta's email was hacked by a phishing email that convinced him to give up his
password. Any half-competent hacker could pull this off, so blaming the Russians is pure
speculation. But, it is consistent with the attempts to blame Russia for the incompetence and
corruption of the Clinton campaign.
The social media efforts by the Internet Research Agency, besides being mostly a
commercial effort as b has shown, are also a rather insignificant portion of the billions of
messages and posts that are posted daily. That these could have had any significant effect is
really stretching the point.
All that being said, I'm still not convinced that Russian intelligence did nothing at all
to attempt to influence the election. Certainly, the US has interfered with many elections
all over the world going back decades, one of the most egregious being our interference in
the Russian elections of 1991. So, there is no logical reason to believe that the Russians
are not doing the same thing.
In addition, I believe that Trump has commercial and financial reasons for being as
friendly as possible with Putin, i.e., Trump Tower Moscow. Trump is not particularly
interested in the politics or diplomacy of detente with Russia (which I would support, in
general), he is purely transactional in his approach and seems to have no interest other than
being the center of attention on media and making as much money as he can.
It is clear that the FBI in an act of desperation, tried to hoodwink the public and the
world, with a false flag operation to blame the Russians for DNC incompetence and criminal
behaviour by Hillary Clinton.
In this attempt of a cover up and foolish attempt of technical miss direction, they have
been caught red handed in gross malfeasance and high crimes.
President Putin should be made immediately aware of this attempt (if he hasn't been
already), and should take Trump to task on these grave crimes and attempts of sedition and
outright treason by US personnel in attempt to trigger a war with Russia.
Under US Code 2381, whomever owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against
them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or
elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death , or shall be imprisoned not
less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be
incapable of holding any office under the United States.
This treasonous behaviour by the FBI and DNC, should be investigated by Military Court.
And those responsible for attempt to start a war, with another super power, should be held to
the fullest account of US Code 2381. Attempting to precipitate a war, is a war crime and
those guilty should face a military court and held to highest punishment available, namely,
execution by firing squad.
High office demands high responsibility. If we do not hold government officials,
especially officials of the Executive Branch of the USA, then we are allowing a government,
like what is happening Washington DC today, to become a rouge nation. These evil merchants of
death, must face prosecution for their hatred, bigotry and lust for war. Warmongers must not
be tolerated in government. And the FBI and DNC have now shown absolutely they are prepared
to lie, however incompetently, to protect the warmongers and evil doers in government.
This act by the FBI is an act of treason: US Code 2381 must now be applied to all those
part of this treason.
b: The detente with Russia which U.S. president Donald Trump tries to achieve will
now be more difficult to implement and to sustain.
-
IMO Trump isn't trying to achieve anything more than to negotiate an agreement that
is favorable to USA/NATO. The Deep State would be happy if an acceptable agreement could be
reached as it would split Russia from China.
AFAICT, the depiction of Trump as pro-Russian is a fantasy concocted by Hillary-Obama and
their deep-state flunkies.
The entire anti-Russia campaign serves two purposes:
1) distraction
- from illegal wars, CIA color revolutions, Syrian occupation, etc.
what has been done is many times worse than temporarily separating families at the border
- from an undemocratic political system
Hillary's collusion with DNC against Sanders and the overall failure of the Democratic
Party to represent the people
2) negotiation
Trump is the 'good cop' to the anti-Russian deep-state 'bad cop'
Yes, this "indictment" is truly pathetic.
1) According to Mueller the "infrastructure" cost "over $95000" obtained by "money
laundering" using bitcoin etc.. Wow. It does not cost much to threaten "US democracy".
2) "Conspirators attempted to delete traces of their presence on the DCCC network using the
computer program Ccleaner". I wonder if they used the free version of CCleaner or the premium
version available for $35. Another dubious if not laughable accusation.
As I understand it the GRU does not do these things -- it's pure military intelligence. The
Russian intelligence services are 1) very (very) good 2) born in real war. So they don't run
little independent operations like hacking US politics just for fun.
That struck me right from the get-go. The hacking would have been done by
Служба
специальной
связи и
информации (Special Service of
Communications and Information ie their NSA/CSE/GCHQ) which is now owned by
Федеральная
служба охраны
(Federal Protection Service). No way would military intelligence have run this.
In Russia int/security organs are not quasi-independent agencies that do what they want.
Exactly, he is going to test the Russian aims to overcome more bullying either in Syria
itself, even after offering to withdraw, or, better, and most probably, in Afghanistan
The whole thing is horrifying, that government agencies can be so inept while having so much
power. It's one thing when they try to apply it to individuals thousands of miles away but to
think they operate this way in regard to US citizens. And it just gets worse...
Sasha
Not much of an offer, the occupation is untenable with Pakistan in the SCO camp.
Trump has no chips to offer except Crimea.Putin/Xi may offer a face saving way out of
Afghanistan and Syria, but even the venue shows who the supplicant is.
You have to be exceptional not to see that is is far more than symbolic that the mountain
has to go to Mohamed.Trump wanted DC or Vienna.
Paragraph 47 of the indictment -- regarding "Organization 1," presumably Wikileaks --
cites intercepted messages showing that Guccifer 2.0 engaged in "failed attempts" to deliver
the docs to Organization 1 "starting in late June 2016." The problem is that Assange had
announced on June 12, 2016 that Wikileaks already had such documents. Given his history, it
is simply beyond belief that Assange would rely on a promise of unvetted docs.
Moreover, that June 12, 2016 announcement was just two days before the Crowstrike news
story of Russian hacking (June 14), followed by the debut of Guccifer 2.0 (June 15).
Independent analysts have long suggested that the latter events were a ploy by partisans
(Clintonites and their national security state supporters) trying to get ahead of the
Wikileaks release by tainting the source of any such documents as Russian.
The greatest threat to mankind is the ability of otherwise intelligent people
to believe unfounded absurd nonsense. Without critical thinking and diversity of opinion the
window to the truth becomes opaque.
The greatest threat to mankind is the ability of otherwise intelligent people to believe
unfounded absurd nonsense. Without critical thinking and diversity of opinion the window to
the truth becomes opaque.
Trump should just refuse to discuss this nonsense with Putin or anyone else. Don't take the
bait. Do your deals with Putin, and ignore the kibitzers. Of course Donald has trouble
keeping his mouth shut.
Mueller messed up the proven information on the illegal access to the DNC (and congressional)
computers by Awan family and the alleged trolling by the alleged Russian spies.
If Mueller has any worries about nationals security, he must investigate Wasserman and
Clinton.
By the way, the Awans were never cleared for having to access the classified information.
Almost 30 congressional computers had been compromised, and the classified information
obtained, by the fraudsters on the US government payroll.
Must laud Dorian for his enthusiasm @12, but any such trial would be conducted in a Federal
Court. Of course, since its inception, the FBI's played both sides of the legality street,
and it's quite obvious that Obama's Justice Department and its FBI agency obstructed justice
with the entire Clinton/Server fiasco in 2016 and has continued to do so.
As for Russia trying to sway a US presidential election, IMO they're telling the truth
that they don't since they can't hope to compete with all the corrupt interests actually
doing so, like AIPAC and the US Chamber of Commerce. Hell, US policy interferes in US
elections when monies sent to Zionistan get recycled into the election cycle through AIPAC or
other sources. What was HRC's Pay-to-Play Foundation if not a method to influence the
election? Dozens of good books are written about the influence of Big Money on US elections
at every level, yet an extremely "conservative" Supreme Court said all that Big Money's just
another form of speech, so say all you want.
Essentially, all levels of US government and elections have become more corrupt annually
since 1866 and the result is today's indictments, providing ever more proof that they're
under Oligarchical control. And unfortunately for the rest of the planet, it's up to the
USA's citizenry to resolve the problem--really, some of us actually do try. Sadly, we lack
the presence of a US Embassy to train and finance our Color Revolution as is done within
every other nation.
You said "Any half-competent hacker could pull this off. "
Don't you mean "any totally incompetent kiddie-scripter could cut/paste a phishing attack
from the dark net, and pull this off , provided the recipient was dumb enough to
respond"?
Imo Trump went into the Prez campaign with his eyes wide open. How else does one explain his
(seemingly premature) drain the Swamp declaration? I understand from the multitude of Trump
docos I've recorded since the campaign began that He had been contemplating the notion of
running for POTUS for at least a decade before he decided to dive in. So he's had at least 10
years to investigate The Swamp, find its flaws and weaknesses, and work out whether he would
be able to find and recruit powerful 'Patriots' willing to lend a hand when (not if) the
going (for a lone wolf) gets tough.
He'll turn this latest slice of Intellectual Pygmy-ism to his advantage. One really
obvious way to do so would be to "prove" that no time should be wasted in getting as close as
possible to 'dangerous' Putin, as soon as possible. And who better to do that than... Ta Da!
MAGA Trump!
Trump seems to have explored every possibility and evolved umpteen solutions to each. The
Swamp is going to regret trying to outsmart him.
"... Here's a more apt headline: "Petulant elites throwing tantrum at prospect of their votes not being 10,000x more powerful than regular peasant votes." ..."
In the face of fervent
opposition from Democratic elites who " think their vote is more
important " than the will of the party's base , the Democratic National
Committee's (DNC) Rules and Bylaws arm
cleared a major hurdle in the fight to curtail the power of superdelegates on Wednesday by
approving a plan that would end their ability to cast votes for the presidential candidate on
the first ballot at the party's convention.
"The activists that have been concerned that superdelegates will overturn the will of the
voters should feel good about this," DNC member Elaine Kamarck said in a statement
.
While the plan to gut the influence of superdelegates -- who have been free since 1984 to
put their weight behind any candidate no matter how the public voted -- has received broad
support from Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) as an important first step toward making
the party's process more "
open and transparent ," establishment figures who stand to lose power if the plan is
implemented are staging a last-minute " revolt
" to block the rule change.
As investigative reporter Alex Kotch noted in a Twitter thread on
Wednesday, at least two of the Democratic insiders who are clinging desperately to their undue
influence as superdelegates happen to be corporate lobbyists -- a fact that Politico neglected
to mention in its reporting on the party elites' "longshot bid to block the measure."
"They don't realize it but they're proving the point of Sanders and everyone else who's
opposed to superdelegates," Kotch writes. "Many prioritize corporate interests over those of
everyday people and thus automatically support the less progressive candidate."
Two of the three superdelegates who are opposed to the Sanders plan:
One is a health care lobbyist
Another is a former lobbyist
The U.S. Rep quoted in the article who's opposed to the change, Gerry Connolly (Va.),
accepts a bunch of corporate PAC money from good corporate citizens like Northrup Grummon and
AT&T. https://t.co/s7KWJGWEGq
Responding to Politico's story on the superdelegates' last-ditch attempt to undermine the
push to curtail their power, The Humanist Report offered an alternative headline:
Here's a more apt headline: "Petulant elites throwing tantrum at prospect of their
votes not being 10,000x more powerful than regular peasant votes."https://t.co/oUlaXY9jLt
-- The Humanist Report (@HumanistReport) July 11,
2018
Wednesday's vote in favor of the plan to ensure superdelegates cannot overturn the will of
voters on the first ballot of the presidential nomination process was the final step before the
proposal heads to a vote before the full DNC next month. "Any attempt to derail the rules
changes at the summer convention is thought to be a long-shot," concluded Astead Herndon of the
New York Times.
Looks like another Steele dossier and it has Brennan fingertips all over. Looks like another
exercise in creation of a parallel reality. The content of the document implies that malware was
installed in GRU computers and those computers were monitored 24/7 by CIA. The documents
describes both GNU officers and DNC employees as unsophisticated idiots. DNC employees who who
should undergo some basic security training were easily deceived by fishing emails from a foreign
country. And a good practice is to disable hotlinks in emails.
I always suspected that Guccifer 2.0 was a false flag operation to hide the leak of DNC
documents. If this is true this was really sophisticated false flag.
BTW GRU is military intelligence unit, so to hack into civil computers is kind of out of
their main sphere of activities. They also should be aware about NSA capabilities of intercepting
the traffic.
I especially like the following tidbit: "On or about June 1,2016, the Conspirators attempted
to delete traces of their presence on the DCCC network using the computer program CCleaner." This
is how third rate hackers (wannabes) behave.
First of all the investigation of DNC was botched by hiring a private, connected to
Democratic Party security company (Crowdstrike), so no data from it are acceptable in court. FBI
did not have any access to the data.
Which means that Mueller is a patsy of more powerful forces
How about speed of download that proved to be excessive for Internet connection? Nothing is
said about Dmitri
Alperovitch role is all this investigation, which completely discredit all that results? See for example diuscusstion at
Why
Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart- Say Hello to Fancy Bear And, again, the question is: Was Guccifer 2.0 in itself a USA false flag operation ?
Looks like Mueller is acting as an operative of Democratic Party. Could not dig up enough
dirt on Trump, so he now saddled his beloved horse, trying to provoke Russia to respond.
And this John Le Carre style details about individuals supposedly involved. Probably were
provided by CIA ;-)
4. By in or around April 2016, the Conspirators also hacked into the computer networks of
the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ("DCCC") and the Democratic National Committee
("DNC"). The Conspirators covertly monitored the computers of dozens of DCCC and DNC employees,
implanted hundreds of files containing malicious computer code ("malware"), and stole emails
and other documents from the DCCC and DNC.
5. By in or around April 2016, the Conspirators began to plan the release of materials
stolen from the Clinton Campaign, DCCC, and DNC.
6. Beginning in or around June 2016, the Conspirators staged and released tens of thousands
of the stolen emails and documents. They did so using fictitious online personas, including
"DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0."
7. The Conspirators also used the Guccifer 2.0 persona to release additional stolen
documents through a website maintained by an organization ("Organization Iй), that had
previously posted documents stolen from U.S. persons, entities, and the U.S. government The
Conspirators continued their U.S. election-interference operations through in or around
November 2016.
8. To hide their connections to Russia and the Russian government, the Conspirators used
false identities and made false statements about their identities. To further avoid detection,
the Conspirators used a network of computers located across the world, including in the United
States, and paid for this infrastructure using cryptocurrency.
... ... ...
13. Defendant ALEKSEY VIKTOROVICH LUKASHEV
(Лукашсв
Алексей
Викторович) was a Senior Lieutenant
in the Russian military assigned to ANTONOV's department within Unit 26165. LUKASHEV used
various online personas, including "Den Katenberg" and "Yuliana Martynova." In on around 2016,
LUKASHEV sent spcarphisliing emails to members of the Clinton Campaign and affiliated
individuals, including the chairman of the Clinton Campaign.
14. Defendant SERGEY ALEKSANDROVICH MORGACHEV
(Моргачев
Сергей
Александрович)
was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Russian military assigned to Unit 26165. MORGACHEV oversaw a
department within Unit 26165 dedicated to developing and managing malware, including a hacking
tool used by the GRU known as "X-Agent." During the hacking of the DCCC and DNC networks,
MORGACHEV supervised the co-conspirators who developed and monitored the X-Agent malware
implanted on those computers.
15. Defendant NIKOLAY YURYEVICH KOZACHEK (Козачек
Николай
Юрьевич) was a Lieutenant Captain in the Russian
military assigned to MORGACHEV's department within Unit 26165. KOZACHEK used a variety of
monikers, including "kazak" and "blablablal234565 " KOZACHEK developed, customized, and
monitored X-Agent malware used to hack the DCCC and DNC networks beginning in or around April
2016.
16. Defendant PAVEL VYACHESLAVOVICH YERSHOV (Ершов
Павел
Вячеславович) was a
Russian military officer assigned to MORGACHEV's department within Unit 26165. In or around
2016, YERSHOV assisted KOZACHEK and other co-conspirators in testing and customizing X-Agent
malware before actual deployment and use.
17. Defendant ARTEM ANDREYEVICH MALYSHEV (Малышев
Арт е м
Андреевич) was a Second Lieutenant in the
Russian military assigned to MORGACHEV's department within Unit 26165. MALYSIIEV used a variety
of monikers, including "djangomagicdev" and "realblatr." In or around 2016, MALYSHEV monitored
X-Agent malware implanted on the DCCC and DNC networks.
18. Defendant ALEKSANDR VLADIMIROVICH OSADCHUK
(Осадчук
Александр В
ладимирович) was a Colonel in
the Russian military and the commanding officer of Unit 74455. Unit 74455 was located at 22
Kirova Street, Khimki, Moscow, a building referred to within the GRU as the 'Tower." Unit 74455
assisted in the release of stolen documents through the DC Leaks and Guccifer 2.0 personas, the
promotion of those releases, and the publication of anti-Clinton content on social media
accounts operated by the GRU.
19. Defendant ALEKSEY ALEKSANDROVICH POTEMKIN
(Потемкин
Алексей
Александрович)
was an officer in the Russian military assigned to Unit 74455. POTEMKIN was a supervisor in a
department within Unit 7445f responsible for the administration of computer infrastructure used
in cyber operations. Infrastructure and social media accounts administered by POTEMKIN'S
department were used, among other things, to assist in the release of stolen documents through
the DCLeaks and Guccifer 2 0 personas.
21, ANTONOV, BADIN, YKRMAKOV, LUKASHEV, and their co-conspiratore targeted victims using a
technique known as spearphishing to steal victims' passwords or otherwise gain access to their
computers. Beginning by at least March 2016, the Conspirators targeted over 300 individuals
affiliated with the Clinton Campaign, DCCC, and DNC.
a. For example, on or about March 19, 2016, LUKASHEV and his co-conspirators created and
sent a spearphishing email to the chairman of the Clinton Campaign. LUKASHEV used the account
"John356gh" at an online service that abbreviated lengthy website addresses (referred to as a
"URL-shortcning service"). LIJKASHEV used the account to mask a link contained in the
spearphishing email, which directed the recipient to a GRU-created website. LUKASHEV altered
the a security notification from Google (a technique known as "spoofing"), instructing the user
to change his password by clicking the embedded link. Those instructions wore followed. On or
about March 21, 2016, LUKASHEV, YERMAKOV, and their co-conspirators stole the contents of the
chairman's email account, which consisted of over 50,000 emails.
Starting on or about March 19, 2016, LUKASHEV and his co-conspirators sent spearphishing
emails to the personal accounts of other individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign,
including its campaign manager and a senior foreign policy advisor. On or about March 25, 2016,
LUKASHEV used the same john356gh account to mask additional links included in spearphishing
emails sent to numerous individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign, including Victims 1
and 2. LUKASliEV sent these emails from the Russia-based email account [email protected] that he spoofed to appear to be from
Google. On or about March 28,2016, YERMAKOV researched the names of Victims 1 and 2 and their
association with Clinton on various social media sites. Through their spearphishing operations,
LUKASHEV, YERMAKOV, and their co-conspirators successfully stole email credentials and
thousands of emails from numerous individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign. Many of
these stolen emails. Including those from Victims 1 and 2, were later released by the
Conspirators through DCLeaks.
On or about April 6, 2016, the Conspirators created an email account in the name (with a
one-letter deviation from the actual spelling) of a known member of the Clinton Campaign. The
Conspirators then used that account to send spearphishing emails to the work accounts of more
than thirty different Clinton Campaign employees. In the spearphishipg emails, LUKASHEV and his
co-conspirators embedded a link purporting to direct the recipient to a document titled
"hillary-clinton-favorable-rating.xlsx " In fact, this link directed the recipients' computers
to a GRU-crcatcd website.
22. The Conspirators spearphished individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign
throughout the summer of 2016. For example, on or about July 27, 2016, the Conspirators
attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a
third-
party provider and used by Clinton's personal office. At or around the same time, they also
targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton Campaign.
Hacking into the DCCC Network
23. Beginning in or around March 2016, the Conspirators, in addition to their spearphishing
efforts, researched the DCCC and DNC computer networks to identify technical specifications and
vulnerabilities.
For example, beginning on or about March 15,2016, YERMAKOV ran a technical query for the
DNC's internet protocol configurations to identify connected devices.
On or about the same day, YERMAKOV searched for opcn-source information about the DNC
network, the Democratic Party, and Hillary Clinton.
On or about April 7. 2016. YKRMAKOV ran я technical query for the DNC's internet
protocol configurations to identify connected devices.
24. By in or around April 2016, within days of YERMAKOV's searches regarding the DCCC, the
Conspirators hacked into the DCCC computer network. Once they gained access, they installed and
managed different types of malware to explore the DCCC network and steal data.
a. On or about April 12,2016. the Conspirators used the stolen credentials of a I )CCC On or
about April 12,2016, the Conspirators used the stolen credentials of a DCCC Employee ('"DCCC
Employee 1") to access the DCCC network. DCCC Employee 1 had received a spearphishing email
from the Conspirators on or about April 6,2016, and entered her password after clicking on the
link.
b. Between in or around April 2016 and June 2016, the Conspirators installed multiple
versions of their X-Agent malware on at least ten DCCC computers, which allowed them to monitor
individual employees' computer activity, steal passwords, and maintain access to the DCCC
network.
c. X-Agent malware implanted on the DCCC network transmitted information from the victims'
computers to a GRU-leased server located in Arizona. The Conspirators referred to this server
as their "AMS" panel. KOZACHEK, MALYSHEV, and their со-conspirators logged into the
AMS panel to use X-Agent's keylog and screenshot functions in the course of monitoring and
surveilling activity on the DCCC computers. 'Ibe keylog function allowed the Conspirators to
capture keystrokes entered by DCCC employees. The screenshot function allowed the Conspirators
to take pictures of the DCCC employees' computer screens.
d. For example, on or about April 14, 2016, the Conspirators repeatedly activated X-Agent's
keylog and screensiot functions to surveil DCCC Employee 1's computer activity over the course
of eight hours. During that time, the Conspirators captured DCCC Employee 1 's communications
with co-workers and the passwords she entered while working on fundraising and voter outreach
projects. Similarly, on or about April 22, 2016, the Conspirators activated X-Agcnt's keylog
and screenshot functions to capture the discussions of another DCCC Employee ("DCCC Employee
2") about the DCCC's finances, as well as her individual banking information and other personal
topics.
25. On or about April 19, 2016, KOZAC1IEK, YERSIIOV, and their co-conspirators remotely
configured an overseas computer to relay communications between X-Agent malware and the AMS
panel and then tested X-Agent's ability to connect to this computer. The Conspirators referred
to this computer as a "middle server." The middle server acted as a proxy to obscure the
connection between malware at the DCCC and the Conspirators' AMS panel. On or about April 20,
2016, the Conspirators directed X-Agent malware on the DCCC computers to connect to this middle
server and receive directions from the Conspirators.
Hacking into the DNC Network
26. On or about April 18, 2016, the Conspirators hacked into the DNC's computers through
their access to the DCCC network. The Conspirators then installed and managed different types
of malware (as they did in the DCCC network) to explore the DNC network and steal documents, a.
On or about April 18, 2016, the Conspirators activated X-Agent's keylog and screenshot
functions to steal credentials of a DCCC employee who was authorized
to access the DNC network. The Conspirators hacked into the DNC network from the DCCC network
using stolen credentials. By in or around June 2016, they gained access to approximately
thirty-three DNC computers.
In or around April 2016, the Conspirators installed X Agent malware on tho DNC network,
including the same versions installed on the DCCC network.
MALYSHEV and his co-conspifators monitored the X-Agent malware from the AMS panel and captured
data from the victim computers. The AMS panel collected thousands of keylog and screenshot
results from the DCCC and DNC computers, such as a screenshot and keystroke capture of DCCC
Employee 2 viewing the DCCC's online banking information.
Theft of DCCC and DNC Documents
27. The Conspirators searched for and identified computers within the DCCC and DNC networks
that stored information related to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, for example, on or
about April 15, 2016, the Conspirators searched one hacked DCCC computer for terms that
included "hillary," "cruz," and "trump." The Conspirators also copied select DCCC folders,
including "Benghazi Investigations." The Conspirators targeted computers containing information
such as opposition research and field operation plans for the 2016 elections.
28. To enable them to steal a large number of documents at once without detection, the
Conspirators used a publicly available tool to gather and compress multiple documents on the
DCCC and DNC networks. The Conspirators then used other GRU malware, known as "X-Tunncl," to
move the stolen documents cutside the DCCC and DNC networks through encrypted channels.
a. For example, on or about April 22, 2016, the Conspirators compressed gigabytes of data
from DNC computers, including opposition research. The Conspirators later moved the compressed
DNC data using X-Tunnel to a GRU-leased computer located in Illinois.
b. On or about April 28, 2016, the Conspirators connected to and tested the same computer
located in Illinois. Later that day, the Conspirators used X-Tunnel to connect to that computer
to steal additional documents from the DCCC network.
29. Between on or about May 25, 2016 and June 1, 2016, the Conspirators hacked the DNC
Microsoft Exchange Server and stole thousands of emails from the work accounts of DNC
employees. During that time, YERMAKOV researched PowerShell commands related to accessing and
managing the Microsoft Exchange Server.
30. On or about May 30, 2016, MALYSHEV accessed the AMS panel in order to upgrade custom AMS
software on die server. That day, the AMS panel received updates from approximately thirteen
different X-Agent malware implants on DCCC and DNC computers.
31. During the hacking of the DCCC and DNC networks, the Conspirators covered their tracks
by Intentionally deleting logs and computer flies. For example, on or about May 13, 2016, the
Conspirators cleared the event logs from a DNC computer. On or about June 20, 2016, the
Conspirators deleted logs from the AMS panel that documented their activities on the panel,
including the login history. Efforts to Remain on the X'CC and PNC Networks
32. Despite the Conspirators' efforts to hide their activity, beginning in or around May
2016, both the DCCC and DNC became aware that they had been hacked and hired a security company
("Company 1") to identify the extent of the intrusions. By in or around June 2016, Company 1
took steps to exclude intruders from the networks. Despite these efforts, a Linux-based version
of X-Agent, programmed to communicate with the GRU-registercd domain linuxkml.net, remained on
the DNC network until in or around October 2016.
33. In response to Company Ts efforts, the Conspirators took countermeasures to maintain
access to the DCCC and DNC networks.
a. Oil 01 about May 31, 2016, YERMAKOV searched for opcn-sourcc information about Company 1
and its reporting on X-Agent and X-Tunnel. On or about June 1,2016, the Conspirators attempted
to delete traces of their presence on the DCCC network using the computer program CCleaner.
b. On or about June 14, 2016, the Conspirators registered the domain actblues.com,
which mimicked the domain of a political fundraising platform that included a
DCCC donations page. Shortly thereafter, the Conspirators used stolen DCCC
credentials to modify the DCCC website and redirect visitors to the actblucs.com
On or about June 14, 2016, the Conspirators registered the domain actblues.com,
which mimicked the domain of a political fundraising platform that included a
DCCC donations page. Shortly thereafter, the Conspirators used stolen DCCC
credentials to modify the DCCC website and redirect visitors to the actblucs.com
domain.
On or about June 20, 2016, after Company 1 had disabled X-Agent on the DCCC
network, the Conspirators spent ever seven hours unsuccessfully trying to connect
to X-Agent. The Conspirators also tried to access the DCCC network using
previously stolen credentials.
34. In or around September 2016, the Conspirators also successfully gained access to DNC
computers hosted on a third-party cloud-computing service. These computers contained test
applications related to the DNC's analytics. After conducting reconnaissance, the
Conspirators
gathered data by creating backups, or "snapshots," of the DNC's eloud-based systems using
the
cloud provider's own technology. The Conspirators then moved the snapshots to cloud-based
accounts they had registered with the same service, thereby stealing the data from the DNC.
Stolen Documents Released through DCLcaks
35. More than a month before the release of any documents, the Conspirators constructed the
online persona DCLeaks to release and publicize stolen election-related documents. On or about
April 19, 2016, after attempting to register the domain clcctionleaks.com, the Conspirators
registered the domain dcleaks.com through a service that anonymizcd the registrant. The funds
used to pay for the dcleaks.com domain originated from an online cryptocutrrecy service that
the Conspirators also used to fund the lease of a virtual private server registered with the
operational email account [email protected]. The dirbinsaabol email account was also used
to register the john356gh URL-shortening account used by LUKASHEV to spearphish the Clinton
Campaign chairman and other campaign-related individuals.
36. On or about June 8,2016, the Conspirators launched the public website dcleaks.com, which
they used to release stolen emails. Before it shut down in or around March 2017, the site
received over one million page views. The Conspirators falsely claimed on the site that DCLeaks
was started by a group of "American hacktivists," when in fact it was started by the
Conspirators.
37. Starting in or around June 2016 and continuing through the 2016 U.S. presidential
election, the Conspirators used DCLeaks to release emails stolen from individuals affiliated
with the Clinton Campaign. The Conspirators also released documents they had stolen in other
spearphishing operations, including those they had conducted in 2015 that collected emails from
individuals affiliated with the Republican Party.
38. On or about June 8,2016, and at approximately the same time that the dcleaks.com website
was launched, the Conspirators created a DCLeaks Facebook page using a preexisting social media
account under the fictitious name "Alice Donovan." In addition to the DCLeaks Facebook page,
the Conspirators used other social media accounts in the names of fictitious U.S. persons such
as "Jason Scott" and "Richard Gingrey" to promote the DCLeaks website. The Conspirators
accessed these accounts from computers managed by POTEMKFN and his co-conspirators.
39. On or about June 8, 2016, the Conspirators created the Twitter account @dcleaks_. The
Conspirators operated the @dclcaks_ Twitter account from the same computer used for other
efforts to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. For example, the Conspirators
used the same computer to operate the Twitter account @BaltimorcIsWhr, through which they
encouraged U.S. audiences to "[j]oin our flash mob" opposing Clinton and to post images with
the hashtag #BlacksAgainstHillary.
Stolen Documents Released through Guccifer 2.0
40. On or about June 14, 2016, the DNC -- through Company 1 -- publicly announced that it
had been hacked by Russian government actors. In response, the Conspirators created the online
persona Guccifer 2.0 and falsely claimed to be a lone Romanian hacker to undermine the
allegations of Russian responsibility for the intrusion.
41. On or about June 15,2016, the Conspirators logged into a Moscow-based server used and
managed by Unit 74455 and, between 4:19 PM and 4:56 PM Moscow Standard Time, searched for
certain words and phrases, including:
Search terms
"some hundred sheets"
"some hundreds of sheets"
dcleaks
illuminati
широко
известный
перевод [widely known translation]
"worldwide known"
"think twice about"
"company's competence"
42. Later that day, at 7:02 PM Moscow Standard Time, the online persona Guccifer 2.0
published its first post on a blog site created through WordPress. Titled "DNC's servers hacked
by a lone hacker," the post used numerous English words and phrases that the Conspirators had
searched for earlier that day (bolded below):
Worldwide known cyber security company [Company 1] announced that the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) servers had been hacked by
"sophisticated" hacker groups.
I'm very pleased the company appreciated my skills so highly))) [...]
Here are just a few docs from many thousands I extracted when hacking
into DNC's network. [...]
Some hundred sheets! This's a serious case, isn't it? [...]
I guess [Company 1] customers should think twice about company's competence.
F[***J the Illuminati and their conspiracies! МШШ F[***]
[Company 1] !!!!!!!!
43. Between in or around June 2016 and October 2016, the Conspirators used Guccifer 2.0 to
release documents through WordPrcss that they had stolen from the DCCC and DNC. The
Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, also shared stolen documents with certain
individuals.
a. On or about August 15,2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, received a request
for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S. Congress. The Conspirators responded using
the Guccifer 2.0 persona and sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate's
opponent. On or about August 22,2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, transferred
approximately 2.5 gigabytes of data stolen from the DCCC to a then-registered state lobbyist
and online source of political news. The stolen data included donor records and personal
identifying information for more than 2,000 Democratic donors.
On or about August 22, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, sent a reporter
stolen documents pertaining to the Black Lives Matter movement. The reporter responded by
discussing when to release the documents and offering to write an article about their
release.
44. The Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, also communicated with U.S. persons about the
release of stolen documents. On or about August 15, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer
2.0, wrote to a person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential
campaign of Donald J. TVump, "thank u for writing back... do u find anyt[h]ing interesting in
the docs i posted?" On or about August 17, 2016, the Conspirators added, "please tell me if i
can help u anyhow ... it would be a great pleasure to me." On or about September 9,2016, the
Conspirators, again posing as Guccifer 2.0, referred to a stolen DCCC document posted online
and asked the person, "what do u think of the info on the tunout model for the democrats entire
presidential campaign." The person responded, "[p]retty standard."
45. The Conspirators conducted operations as Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks using overlapping
computer infrastructure and financing.
a. For example, between on or about March 14, 2016 and April 28. 2016, the Conspirators used
the same pool of bitcoin funds to purchase a virtual private network ("VPN") account and to
lease a server in Malaysia. In or around June 2016, the Conspirators used the Malaysian server
to host the dcleaks.com website.
On or about July 6, 2016, the Conspirators used the VPN to log into the @Guccifcr_2 Twitter
account. The Conspirators opened that VPN account from
the same server that was also used to register malicious domains for the hacking of the DCCC
and DNC networks.
On or about June 27, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, contacted a U.S.
reporter with an offer to provide stolen emails from "Hillary Clinton's staff." The
Conspirators then sent the reporter the password to access a nonpublic, password-protected
portion of dc.eaks.com containing emails stolen from Victim 1 bу LUKASHEV, YERMAKOV, and
thier co-conspirators in or around March 2016.
46. On or about January 12,2017, the Conspirators published a statement on the Guccifer 2.0
WordPrcss blog, falsely claiming that the intrusions and release of stolen documents had
"totally no relation to the Russian government"
Use of Organization 1
47. In order to expand their interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the
Conspirators transferred many of the documents they stole from the DNC and the chairman of the
Clinton Campaign to Organization 1. The Conspirators posing as Guccifer 2.0, discussed the
release of the stolen documents and the timing of those releases with Organization 1 to
heighten their impact on the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
a. On or about Juno 22, 2016, Organization 1 sent a private message to Guccifer 2.0 to
"[s]end any new material [stolen from the DNC] here for us to review and it will have a much
higher impact than what you are doing." On or about July 6, 2016, Organization 1 added, "if you
have anything hillary related we want it in the next tweo [sic] days prefable [sic] because the
DNC [Democratic National Convention] is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters
behind her after." The Conspirators responded, "ok... i see." Organization I explained, "we
think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary ... so conflict between bernie and
hillary is interesting "
b After failed attempts to transfer the stolen documents starting in late June 2016, on or
about July 14, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, sent Organization 1 an email
with an attachment titled "wk dnc linkl.txt.gpg." The Conspirators explained to Organization 1
that the encrypted file contained Instructions on how to access an online archive of stolen DNC
documents. On or about July 18, 2016, Organization 1 confirmed it had "the 1Gb or so archive"
and would make a release of the stolen documents "this week."
48. On or about July 22, 2016, Organization 1 released over 20,000 emails and other
documents stolen from the DNC network by the Conspirators. This release occurred approximately
three days before the start of the Democratic National Convention. Organization 1 did not
disclose Guccifer 2.0's role in providing them. The latest-in-time email released through
Organization 1 was dated on or about May 25,2016, approximately the same day the Conspirators
hacked the DNC Microsoft Exchange Server.
49. On or about October 7, 2016, Organization 1 released the first set of emails from the
chairman of the Clinton Campaign that had been stolen by LUKASHEV and his co-conspirators.
Between on or about October 7, 2016 and November 7, 2016, Organization 1 released approximately
thirty-three tranches of documents mat had been stolen from the chairman of the Clinton
Campaign. In total, over 50,000 stolen documents were released.
"... I believe the US is a right of center country (with a growing right and far right segment) and has been for most of it's history. ..."
"... The identity of the "Democratic Party" has also been stolen. They are not the FDR-JFK Democratic Party of my childhood. but rather, Neo-Toxoplasma Gondii-ists, the "Mind Invaders". ..."
"... Back in the early 1980s, the NZ Labour Party (of Mickey Savage and Norman Kirk) was taken over by Neo-liberal, Roger Douglas and his henchmen/women. ..."
"A Democrat Party composed of moderate Republicans and democratic socialists will be
divided against itself and will not stand."
I believe the US is a right of center country (with a growing right and far right
segment) and has been for most of it's history. If some of the right of center move to
left of center that may look good as far as "not Republican" but as Lambert points out does
nothing for the progressive movement. I read an article where Noam Chomsky mentioned that
people in the USA who call themselves liberals are more moderates and are not the same as
liberals in Europe. If I remember my reading of Thomas Frank's Listen Liberal, his expose' of
segments of the liberal class was to show that calling yourself liberal does not mean much if
your actions say otherwise, i.e Obama and Hillary.
The sluggish business investment chart just supports what Yves wrote in 2005 about the
Incredible Shrinking Corporation. One thing that jumps out is the increasing size of the
booms and busts since 1980 i.e. the Neoliberal Era compared to 1950-1980. In the late 1980's
I worked at a large medical device company. In 1990 I was laid off as part of a restructuring
after an Merger/Acquisition . I remember when the layoffs were announced the director of our
group said he feared the US was becoming "a short term quarter to quarter economy". Hence
booms and busts or casino capitalism. As we're finding out booms followed by busts, i.e.
instability, leads to severe social consequences: inequality, job loss, breakdown of the
family and communities etc.
I'm reminded of an old acquaintance that headed a forward M&A team. Once told of an
experience in an elevator where some lady asked if he was the same guy that came around at
her last employer. He responded yes. She then tentatively asked if she should start looking
for new employment. His answer was again yes.
This was in little more space than 6 months for the middle aged lady.
This also coincides with the great Calif M&A episode during the late 80s and early
90s. Huge wave of wage earners selling houses and migrating to states on eastern boarders due
to RE affordability and cost of living. Experienced this in the Denver – Boulder CO.
corridor at the time, storage tech et al. Funny thing, took less than 10 years before
everything reverted to the state of affairs which drove them to leave Calif. Which then
promoted me to move to Oz after marrying native wife.
Years ago I got an email from an acquaintance; " . I am deathly sick in a hospital in East
Africa. .please help by ." His identity had been stolen by con artists.
The identity of the "Democratic Party" has also been stolen. They are not the FDR-JFK
Democratic Party of my childhood. but rather, Neo-Toxoplasma Gondii-ists, the "Mind
Invaders".
Back in the early 1980s, the NZ Labour Party (of Mickey Savage and Norman Kirk) was taken
over by Neo-liberal, Roger Douglas and his henchmen/women.
" the New Zealand dollar was floated, corporate practices were introduced to state
services, state assets were sold off, and a swathe of regulations and subsidies were removed.
Douglas's economic policies were regarded as a betrayal of Labour's left-wing policy
platform, and were deeply unpopular "
I believe that the actual political spectrum is an Axis (coalition) of the Neo-Liberals
with the Neo-Conservatives .
Who are (in a perfect World) opposed by The Alliance of Everybody Else.
The Axis (a puny minority) are able to exist because they sow constant discord among the
The Alliance. (What is the definition of "abortion" or "healthcare" or "security" or "love"
..???? Let's scream at each other! That will help!)
In New Zealand, we have a coalition Government of (1) Labour (Unions), (2) NZ First
(populist) and (3) The Greens.
The out-of-power, NZ National Party (Neo-Con/Lib Axis) spend their time trying to conflate
and invent "disagreements" within our Labour Coalition Government.
But, it is like a healthy, extended family. You agree to disagree and ENJOY the lively
discussions. Parties compromise and life goes on.
I was in NZ after Rogernomics made the Kiwi $ plunge to about 35 cents US in the 1980's,
and everything was so cheap, dinners were like US $4, motel rooms US $15, homes in Auckland
US $25k.
I dread seeing the prices now, when we visit next year
If a Democratic Party composed of Romneyfeller Republicans and Democratic Socialists will
not stand, then eventually the two separated fighting halves will fight to the death over
which half gets to keep the name "Democratic Party".
Meanwhile, the Woodrow Wilson quote above gives some evidence as to why some people have
long called Wilson "America's most evil President". His bringing official Jim Crow to the
Federal Workforce in Washington DC might be another piece of evidence. His unleashing of a
vicious and bigoted campaign of anti-germanitic cultural and social pogroms all over America
might be another piece of evidence. The fact that he did this as part of his World War I
program, after having worked with Great Britain to lie and manipulate America into World War
I ( some would say on the wrong side . . . ) is another piece of evidence. His political
"extermination" campaign against the American Left ( Debs in prison, etc) thereby reducing
the Left toward its tiny size of today is another such piece of evidence.
The actions of America's most evil President ( Woodrow Wilson) may help explain why
America is a center-right country today.
The Department of Justice won't prosecute Imran Awan, a former IT administrator for Rep. Debbie
Wasserman Schultz and dozens of other Democrats, for allegations of cybersecurity breaches, theft
and potential espionage, as part of a plea agreement one one count of unrelated bank fraud.
After the entry of your client's plea of guilty to the offense identified in paragraph 1
above,
your client will not be charged with any non-violent criminal offense in
violation of Federal or District of Columbia law which was committed within the District of
Columbia by your client prior to the execution of this Agreement
-Awan Plea Agreement
Awan withdrew hundreds of thousands of dollars after lying on a mortgage application and
pretending to have a medical emergency that allowed him to drain his wife's retirement account. He
then wired large sums of money to Pakistan in January, 2017.
Awan and several family members worked for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz along with 20% of House
Democrats as IT staffers who held - as the House Inspector General called it - the "
keys
to the kingdom
," when it came to accessing confidential information on Congressional
computer systems.
And while ample evidence of potential crimes were found by the House Inspector General, the DOJ
says they found no evidence of wrongdoing.
The Department of Justice said it "found
no evidence that [Imran] illegally removed
House data from the House network or from House Members' offices, stole the House Democratic
Caucus Server, stole or destroyed House information technology equipment, or improperly accessed
or transferred government information
."
That statement appears to take issue -- without explaining how -- with the findings of the
House's Nancy Pelosi-appointed inspector general, its top law enforcement official, the
sergeant-at-arms, and the statements of multiple Democratic aides.
In September 2016, the
House Office of Inspector General
gave House leaders
a presentation that alleged that Alvi, Imran, brothers Abid Awan and Jamal Awan, and a friend
were logging into the servers of members who had previously fired him and funneling data off the
network. It said
evidence "suggests steps are being taken to conceal their activity" and
that their behavior mirrored a "classic method for insiders to exfiltrate data from an
organization."
Server logs show, it said, that
Awan family members made "unauthorized access"
to congressional servers in violation of House rules by logging into the servers of members who
they didn't work for. -
Daily
Caller
Awan was arrested at Dulles airport while attempting to flee the country - one day after reports
emerged that the FBI had seized a number of "smashed hard drives" and other computer equipment from
his residence. While only charged with bank fraud,
there is ample evidence that the Awans
were spying on members of Congress
through their access to highly-sensitive information on
computers, servers and other electronic devices belonging to members of Congress.
Luke Rosiak of the
Daily Caller
has compiled the most comprehensive coverage of the
Awan situation from start to finish - and outlines exactly why the Awans' conduct warranted serious
inquiry.
On Feb. 3, 2017, Paul Irving, the House's top law enforcement officer,
wrote
in a letter
to the Committee on House Administration that soon after it became evidence, the
server went "missing."
The letter continued: "Based upon the evidence gathered to this point, we have concluded
the employees are an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives, possibly
threatening the integrity of our information system
s."
Imran, Abid, Jamal, Alvi and a friend were banned from the House network the same day
Kiko sent the letter.
The alleged wrongdoing consisted of two separate issues.
The first was the cybersecurity issues. In an April 2018
hearing
spurred
by the Awan case, Chief Administrative Officer Phil Kiko
testified
: "The
bookend to the outside threat is the insider threat. Tremendous efforts are dedicated to
protecting the House against these outside threats, however these efforts are undermined when
these employees do not adhere to and thumb their nose at our information security policy, and
that's a risk in my opinion we cannot afford."
The second was a suspected theft scheme. Wendy Anderson, a former chief of staff for Rep.
Yvette Clarke,
told House investigators
she
believed Abid was working with ex-Clarke aide Shelley Davis
to steal equipment, and
described coming in on a Saturday to find so many pieces of equipment, including iPods and Apple
TVs, that it "looked like Christmas.
"
Meanwhile, as we
noted
i
n June, the judge in the Awan case, Tanya Chutkan, was appointed to the D.C. US District
Court by President Obama on June 5, 2014,
after Chutkan had contributed to him for years
.
Prior to her appointment to the District Court, she was a partner at law firm Boies Schiller &
Flexner (BSF) where
she represented scandal-plagued biotechnology company Theranos
-
which
hired Fusion GPS to threaten the news media
. Because of this,
Chutkan
had
to recuse herself from two cases
involving Fusion GPS
.
In short,
the Judge in the Awan case - appointed by Obama after years of contributing to
him, was a
partner
at a very Clinton-friendly law firm
. It should also be noted
that Obama appointed Chutkan's husband, Peter Krauthammer, to the D.C. Superior Court in 2011.
The left has, of course, seized upon the plea deal to suggest that there was no wrongdoing.
Then who goes down due to his deal? Was his deal just a freebie? Are there any
politicians or swampers (pardon my redundancy) who are not dirty?
Why can't
Trump supporters see how he goes along with these outrages? This ain't no
stinkin' 4D chess.
Just like Obama, who, even in his 2nd term, would read his teleprompter and
talk about a national issue and pretend that it was somebody else's fault.
Trump is no better than the rest of the puppets who have lived at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue. Obama = Trump = Clinton = The Shrubs... all alike.
The other thing to remember is that Trump and his puppetmasters knew that the
optics on this Awan deal would look bad. And they let it happen anyway. Folks,
the elites don't give a rat's hind end what we think. They think they've won.
They believe that we cannot resist. It's only going to get worse from here.
Therefore, prepare accordingly.
So, if the "deal" is to turn Awan against his former employers,
why would you pardon him of all previous "non-violent" crimes?
Seems to me, if the deal is not public and he refuses to
testify, they have nothing by which to motivate his testimony.
Is this not true? Else, it is exactly as it appears, the deep
state got their way and justice is again the victim.
Concerned about all
the news today about the
corruption of the FBI and
the Department of Justice?
This is the true legal
thriller that started the
firestorm. It tells the
inside story of the
corrupted prosecutions of
Arthur Andersen LLP, the
Merrill Lynch defendants in
the Enron Barge case, the
Ted Stevens case and many
others.
EDITORIAL
REVIEWS
"Licensed to Lie reads
like a cross between
investigative journalism
and courtroom drama. The
takeaway is that both
Bushies and Obamaites
should be very afraid: over
the last few years, a
coterie of vicious and
unethical prosecutors who
are unfit to practice law
has been harbored within
and enabled by the now
ironically named Department
of Justice." –William Hodes,
Professor of Law Emeritus,
Indiana University, and
coauthor, The Law of
Lawyering
"When you've finished
reading this fast-paced
thriller, you will want to
stand up and applaud
Powell's courage in daring
to shine light into the
darkest recesses of
America's justice system.
The only ax Powell grinds
here is Truth." –Patricia
Falvey, author of The
Yellow House and The Linen
Queen, and former Managing
Director,
PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP
"Last year four
government officials
demonstrably lied under
oath, and nothing has been
done to them–two IRS
officials, the Attorney
General, and James
Clapper-which caused Ed
Snowden to release the fact
that the US is spying on
its citizens and in
violation of the 4th
amendment. That our
government is corrupt is
the only conclusion. This
book helps the people
understand the nature of
this corruption-and how it
is possible for federal
prosecutors to indict and
convict the innocent rather
than the guilty." –Victor
Sperandeo, CEO and author,
Trader Vic: Methods of a
Wall Street Master
"This book is a
testament to the human will
to struggle against
overwhelming odds to right
a wrong and a cautionary
tale to all-that true
justice doesn't just exist
as an abstraction apart
from us. True justice is
us, making it real through
our own actions and our own
vigilance against the
powerful who cavalierly
threaten to take it away."
–Michael Adams, PhD,
University Distinguished
Teaching Associate
Professor of English
Associate Director, James
A. Michener Center for
Writers, University of
Texas–Austinor
"I have covered hundreds
of court cases over the
years and have witnessed
far too often the kind of
duplicity and governmental
heavy-handedness Ms. Powell
describes in her
well-written book, Licensed
to Lie." –Hugh Aynesworth,
journalist, historian,
four-time Pulitzer Prize
finalist, author, November
22, 1963: Witness to
History
just keep being
patient and
give this shit
more
time...they
have to take
down a whole
lot of powerful
monsters all
over the world
all at once and
it all has to
be air-tight.
All while
trying to keep
some kind of
peace without
these fuckers
creating a
world war.
Fake outrage over Russia hacking our
election as the Israhell & US
infiltrate and spur regime change
inside of Iran. It's the juice,
stupid...Always the lying parasitic
juice...
Was this one of Q Anus' unsealed unindictments?
Trust the plan?
Only the prosecution, i.e. the
DOJ, can sign off on a plea bargain. This POS
judge should have recused herself, but plea
bargains are essentially between a defendant and
the DOJ. Under the constitution, the president,
i.e. Trump, can hire and fire any level AG or
attorney (read prosecutor) in the DOJ. So
instead of tweeting in protest like one of us
useless eaters, why doesn't Trump kick some
ass. He could start by firing the prosecutor
who signed this POS plea bargain to set an
example.
Debbie is not going to say one word. Her brother Steve
Wasserman, Assistant U.S. Attorney, will keep her informed of
every step of the investigation, and if it looks like its getting
to hot, she'll be on the next flight to Tel-Aviv. This whole thing
will get buried, as it most likely involves the blackmail of, and
breach of US National Security by several dozen Idiotic democratic
members of Congress. No doubt these pakistani spies are somehow
tied to israeli intelligence.
###
*Attention - The Awans & Pakistani ISI are only "sub
contractors" for Hillary (CIA since young/operative/ratline field
commander) & Israeli Mossad (Debbie Wasserman, Weiner, Shumer &
any other affiliated Zionist Jews). Both the CIA
(Rockefeller>Kissinger down the line to CIA-op Hillary/all
presidents except Trump) + Israel (Rosthchild) & Mossad
(Rothschild private intel/military army) have compromised and
co-opted the White House/US Presidency, US Congress, US Senate and
much of state government.
Both CIA & Mossad farm out dirty work ops to other
international Intelligence agencies & military, as well as
criminal organizations in order to created a spider web of hard to
prove 3rd, 4th, 5th party connections to their illegal operations
in order limit their exposure to being outed by real journalists
like the dead Michael Hastings.
Pakistan ISI, the Muslim Brotherhood or any other seemingly bad
actors have 'not' infiltrated and taken over Congress nor anything
else. The Awans and the Pakistani ISI were 'invited' & brought
here by Mossad-Anthony Weiner & Mossad-Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
here to run operations for CIA-international-crime-boss-Hillary
Clinton.
Blackmail, compromise, threaten & Murder is the name of the
game with these Pure Evil War Criminal Treasonous Seditious
Psychopaths.
the deal is so he does not testify that all of the democrat members
committed felonies. Can't arrest half the govt and the law enforcement
personnel that are supposed to arrest them. There are not enough FBI to
arrest all the FBI.
Despite your unwavering adulation and constant fawning,
Trump cares only for Trump. He is a narcassist and most
likely a 'path of some flavor. He doesn't give a fuck
about you or me. All he has ever wanted was power. His
supporters are largely tired of the US gov BS and wanted
it to change for the better. If he betrays that, he
betrays them and suddenly you go from being counted as a
supporter to being a domestic terrorist. Do you have more
than 3 days of food, anti-gov beliefs, and a gun? Welcome
to being the enemy.
Get your head out of your ass and
grow a fucking spine. While I'm being hyperbolic, it can,
and has, happened that fast before.
Everyone is trying to blame Sessions, the Judge, the democrates etc.
TRUMP Is Playing those who support him. The Dept of Justice is Under
Trump. The judge did not do this deal, but the Dept of Justice. So,
TRUMP did this deal and is now playing he supporters for fools with
his tweets about being upset (and being unable to do anything about
it).
Trump could force a real investigation and prosecution. Trump is a
zionist swamp creature. During the election Trump said he would
investigate the Clinton's. After the election Trump said the
Clinton's were good people and that he would NOT pursue them.
It is Trump who will make a major move to remove gun rights. While
crying out in protest.
(The jew cries out as he strikes you, type thing.)
Everyone in Congress including Trump on the red side acts like
a slack jawed faggot. I'm just stunned there isn't one fucking
set of brass balls on any of them. There has been a nonstop
treason and sedition show since before Trump was even elected
being perpetrated by the Democrats. Trump is probably happy
with the leaks coming out of the White House. It's more press
and tv time for him.
One fucking person has gone to jail !
One ! That stupid NSA dyke skank Reality Loser. Nobody else has
even gotten a jaywalking ticket. This falls squarely on Trump
and his abortion of an crooked administration.
Just like Obama,
who, even in his 2nd term, would read his teleprompter and talk
about a national issue and pretend that it was somebody else's
fault.
Trump is no better than the rest of the puppets who have lived
at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Obama = Trump = Clinton = The Shrubs
The other thing to remember is that Trump and his puppetmasters
knew that the optics on this Awan deal would look bad. And they
let it happen anyway. Folks, the elites don't give a rat's hind
end what we think. They think they've won. They believe that we
cannot resist. It's only going to get worse from here. Therefore,
prepare accordingly.
1. Trump could have
sealed the US borders and put the military on them by Executive
Order.
2. Trump hasn't put up any resistance to 2nd Amendment rights
being eroded away in his year and a half in office.
3. His Attorney General Sessions is more useless than a set of
tits on a nun, and hasn't been fired for refusing to do his job of
prosecuting criminals and rooting out corruption.
4. Sessions has been increasingly vocal about increasing civil
asset forfeiture which is totally unconstitutional.
5. Trump hasn't pulled any troops out of Syria or Afghanistan.
6. Trump hasn't made Mexico pay for the wall when he could
easily do it by taxing wire transfers to Latin America.
7. Trump hasn't put any pressure on his own justice dept to
cooperate with Congress.
8. Trump still has done nothing to make NATO pay its fair share
of defense spending.
9. Cops are still being praised by Trump even though they
routinely stand down when Antifa are attacking his own supporters,
or showing total cowardice under fire when lives are at stake.
10. Only 1 person has been prosecuted for sedition, treason and
high crimes in the past year and half in spite of these crimes
being committed on a near daily basis.
The president is one man. One man's head can be blown apart in
front of a national audience with no repercussions.
What
might the Founders have meant when they said, "A well regulated
Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the
right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed?"
If Trump isn't able to do what he was elected to do maybe
instead of attacking him we should thank him for leading us as
far as he has and consider doing our own Constitutional duty.
We have the 'lost' server...now we have first-person, factual
witnesses and the technical perps to prosecute top swamp criminal
links most conclusively, without a shred of doubt even
unto fanatics and trolls. It's happening, it's coming down
worldwide...there will be no civil war. Ignore the fake news. They
are supremely desperate.
And Rosenstein, Wray, and as far down the line as you need to go to
get rid of all the traitors. This is complete bullshit. Some
fucking Pakistani comes and spys on that whore Wasserman and passes
intelligence to who the fuck knows who, and he get's a pass? Might
was well open up the doors to all of the BOP prisons becuase if
Hillary, Comey, McCabe, Strozk, etc. are still wandering out free
then no one in federal prison should be there. These fuckers have
done more damage than any drug dealer, spy, or muderer in federal
custody.
This plea deal is given because they are out to protect the democrat
party and all of the bureaucrats who run the government.... It would
show their ineptitude..... and we can't have that, can we......?
And the big issue is that they expected everyone to buy the
bullshit excuse of" We were just talking about grand kids, blah,
blah" And perhaps even bigger is that there is no actual
representative of the people who calls bullshit and has the power
to demand evidence and demand processing through the justice
system. I know that is the supposed job of the DOJ but if the DOJ
is part of the scam, there needs to be something like a full time
independent prosecutor who is not under anyone.
Bill: "Now, Miss
Lowretta, I know you
are
as
smart
as a whip,
and being that smart, you would know the
consequences
of Mr. Trump being elected...think of your grandchillens; you
want those lil piccaninnies to have a good life...and they will
not be so fortunate under Mr. Trump's administration."
Lowretta: "Yessah Mr Clinton, I do unnerstan' what you
saying. I sho' will work hard to stop that"
Bill: "Miss Lowretta, it's a pleasure meeting with you
again. I figure if you
work real hard
you may even get
to be a Justice in the Supreme Court"
Case settled in the face of overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing,
check
obama appointed judge, check
judge worked with clinton law firm, fusion gps, check
Dws protects Awan till the bloody end, check
hard to imagine how it can get much worse in these United States.
The prior administration and its holdover lackeys are making a
mockery of the criminal justice system
Allowed to take plea so the details of all the compromising info he
had on half of Congress would not come out. THIS is how the DEEP
STATE protects itself, and the DOJ goes along, because that's, simply
the deal. There is no possible explanation for this guy getting a
deal unless he is going to hand over the entire Dem leadership now.
Of course, he won't.
Gumint at work. Do some bad stuff, get paid,
investigate, quash, move on.
Isz next, SVIMVEAR!! (10 points for the attribution)
Rule by the elite is one of the cornerstones of government. When
has the elite not ruled us, except perhaps in times immediately
following the collapse of the then current government?
You can't
leave steaks sitting on the kitchen counter and not expect these
dogs to take the biggest one and leave scraps for the general
population.
Given that Trump is the chief law enforcement officer in the
government, how is it that his underlings are able to get away
with such egregious corruption?
now who gets to make an appeal about this seditious corrupt legal proceeding
that is a cover for the direct transmission of the secret workings of
congressional committees and private communications of congress members
DIRECT TO HOSTILE FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS like iran, via pakistan.
Just another day in bizarro world. The good guys are treated like
shit, the bad guys are treated like heroes. There's no rule of
law. There are no borders. This duplicitous scumbag should
be sent to prison, for a long time.
So, commit one crime, go to jail.
Commit several crimes, plead and walk.
But who are they going after by letting him plead?
Who's the bigwig up above who's so valuable that the Awan minions (if
they are minions) can be let go?
I wonder what they'll get HRC to plead
to in order to unlawfully ignore the rest of her crimes.
Announced on the eve of the nation's biggest holiday.
This has to be
the biggest "f**k you" by the DOJ to the American people in the history
of this country.
Note that the prosecuting attorney in this case had someone pinch
hit for him at the actual hearing:
"Only one person sat at the prosecutors' table: J.P. Coomey,
who...was only added to the case Monday. There was no sign of Michael
Marando, who had previously led the prosecution."
Hard to overcome the violent
atk of nauseous rage at this
headline. The stench from the
DOJ is overwhelmingly strong
on this one.
One must step
back and ask, WTF is going
on. Do we have a justice
system or not-I tthink the
answer is clear that it is
prob a two tiered system or
more.
I would guess the clintons
and mossad are in this big
time. DWS seems to be a
poster child for mossad and
the clintons.
Not being one to say 'I told you, blah-blah', but...
I have maintained all along the journey here regarding
Queen
Madame DeFarge
, that this is simply 'Too Big' to prosecute
for the simple reason that there are too many key individuals in .gov
and the business community for the nation to absorb the
socio-political fallout. This in no way infers that prosecution
shouldn't happen, only that the corruption is so deep & wide that
it was never a realistic view to begin with. That said, things
have a way ironing themselves out, and we're seeing it nearly
every day with the implosion of politics-as-usual.
Not only was he a spy but he probably opened the door to every
other entity which wanted to spy on the USA - wide open. There is
no country if this is not treason.
Whatever it is that this plea bargain is covering up, it must be
pretty bad for that cohort of criminals to accept that it's NOT A
GOOD LOOK either way! They're choosing the lesser of evils, but it
will put another nail in their coffin anyway, and they know it. Be
prepared for yet another flash of violent distraction or somesuch
to drive it out of the press. Wait for the mid-terms to find out
if this dodgy strategy pays off...or NOT!
Sorry but no. This is not a deal in exchange for
cooperation. This deal requires nothing of Awan. When you
are giving a deal in exchange for cooperation that deal is
in writing in "the deal" and the Judge decides after you are
finished cooperating if you met your end of the deal. This
is a get out of jail free deal.
Awan has a deal from a Bank Fraud case in DC. Awan is not the
target and Bank Fraud certainly isn't our big complaint. Huber
is
outside
DC and has a prosecution witness. Another
pawn moved into position.
Wait for it...
Look at what Ramenhead looks like these days. The horror of
it is eating her from within:
A couple of notes. First, here's the plea agreement as quoted
by Luke Rosiak at the Daily Caller:
After the entry of your client's plea of guilty to the
offense identified in paragraph 1 above, your client will
not be charged with any non-violent criminal offense in
violation of Federal or District of Columbia law which was
committed within the District of Columbia by your client
prior to the execution of this Agreement and about which
this Office was made aware by your client prior to the
execution of this Agreement, all of which is contained in
the attached Statement of Offense.
Note 1: While the federal government and Washington DC
government are restricted from prosecuting Awan for any
previous non-violent crime, other state jurisdictions can
prosecute him for these crimes. He could be prosecuted in
Florida, Virginia, Maryland or any other state. Remember, Awan
ran most of his money laundering operations (disguised as used
car businesses) outside of the Washington DC jurisdiction. In
fact, most of the evidence that was discovered by independent
investigators has been found at locations in both Maryland and
Virginia (both of which would still be free to prosecute per
this plea agreement).
Note 2: This seems to be an illegitimate plea deal which is
really just an immunity agreement by any other name. We'll see
how this all shakes out, but the plea deal accepted by this
judge will probably not stand up to even the weakest legal
scrutiny. I don't even know if there's any precedent for such a
deal in American law.
There is a lot that smells very funny about this
agreement. It does not provide any leverage to get him to
be a states witness and it does not prevent him from
claiming the 5th in any Grand Jury testimony because the
issue of State Charges remains. I sure hope sometime in
the future we say that Justice knew what they were doing
and people start going to jail. At the moment I don't see
it, I don't smell it and I don't believe it. I have no
problem with this slimeball skating if the Politicians
are prosecuted and convicted. If he spills all Hillary's
crew will punish him better than a jail cell ever will.
Q1671: "Plea: Deal - No Charges for NON-Violent crime."
Awan still liable for VIOLENT Crimes, either committed by
himself, or by being witness to Crimes, or while serving as a
hub in a Criminal Enterprise, where VIOLENT Crimes are
monetized???
Awan's Case is based on 18 U.S. Code § 1344 Bank Fraud.
U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan is the judge
presiding over Imran Awan's case. She is an Obama
appointee! But, she allowed the case to get really
ridiculous.
She was a Crony of Obama, and kept postponing
the Imran Awan trial, which allowed him to flee to Pakistan,
where co-defendant and wife Hina Alvi has already fled, with
the blessing of the FBI. It's really unheard of, for a
federal criminal 'bank fraud' case to be granted 5 or
6 delays and continuances, as she has in this case. Its
apparent she is running cover for the Democrats.
Records confirm, she was appointed to the federal bench
by Obama after she kicked thousands in campaign donations to
his presidential campaign when he was a U.S. Senator in
Illinois. Obama also appointed Chutkan's husband, Peter
Krauthamer, a judge to the bench in the District of Columbia
Superior Court in 2011.
She a prime example of why judges should never be
politically appointed, voted into office, or have any
political affiliation with any political party.
Now, we have some of the trashiest people on the bench.
Her and her husband needs their asses tossed into jail.
BTW ... neither Imran nor his wife were ever charged with
the most obvious and verifiable crime. Imran intended to
carry and his wife did carry more than $10,000 in undeclared
moneys onboard an international flight. Strangely (which
seems to be the theme of this case), neither was ever
charged with this felony crime.
Why is the DOJ protecting members of Congress or staff
members of Congress?? It appears to be outrageous, yet
whoever made this decision has a calculus. What is the real
reason for the DOJ to protect the illegal actions of the
Awans and those that hired him?
There is a logic behind
it. What is it? If we can find that out we can understand
why this crime was committed by the DOJ.
No no no no, fake news. Plea deal does not cover Federal
crimes.
From Awan plea
Your client further understands that this
Agreement is binding only upon the Criminal and Superior
Court Divisions of the United States Attomey's Office for
the District of Columbia. This Agreement does not bind the
Civil Division of this Office or any other United States
Attomey's Office, nor does it bind any other state, local,
or federal prosecutor. It also does not bar or compromise
any civil, tax, or administrative claim pending or that may
be made against your client.
Deep state manipulated the 2016 'election'. They had
corporate mass media pump Trump 247 as their 'populist'
candidate since their identity politics candidate Clinton
couldn't attract even fleas to her rallies. They wanted to
kill any attention to the masses of Americans countrywide
who were packing arenas & auditoriums to see the old
socialist Sanders.
This plea deal is really a burying of how much corruption
actually occurs on Capitol Hill to keep the phony 2 party
system intact.
"... The fact of the matter is, if Russia wanted to do, cause lot of difficulty to the American election they could have. Instead, they went and talked privately to us. So when the government says Russia intercepted stuff that was very important to us, I'm being very fuzzy about it, it wasn't about the election. They told us that there were certain people in America doing things that were very deleterious to the War on Terrorism for personal and financial gain, and they could have blown it publicly but they went internally to us." ..."
"... I haven't listened to that particular interview yet, but can say the the HRC emails with Sid Blumenthal show the reason we got in bed with Sarkozy (and Britain) to destroy Libya was: ..."
"... To steal the nationalized oil ..."
"... To steal the hundreds of tons of gold and silver. ..."
"... To prevent Libya from developing a pan-African gold dinar and development bank to complete with the Federal Reserve petrodollar and the IMF. ..."
"... I can also say that Hersh documented that Ambassador Stevens was an arms dealer, smuggling Libyan military weapons into Syria to finish the "regime change" operation still ongoing there. Also, HRC knew her "rebels" were hunting down and murdering any black Libyans they could find even before Gaddafi was anally bayonet raped. ..."
Hello There! I'm curious to know if any readers have comments about a recent Sy Hersh
interview. In response to a question about Russian interference in the last US presidential
election Hersh replied:
"I have been reporting something, I've been watching something since 2011 in Libya, when we
had a secretary of state that later ran for president, and I will tell you: Some stories take
a long time. And I don't know quite how to package it. I don't know how much to say about it.
I assure you that there's no known intelligence that Russia impacted, cut into the DNC,
Podesta e-mails. That did not happen. I can say that.
I can also say Russia learned other things about what was going on in Libya with us and
instead of blowing -- [. . . lots cut out here before returning to the topic . . . ]
The fact of the matter is, if Russia wanted to do, cause lot of difficulty to the
American election they could have. Instead, they went and talked privately to us. So when the
government says Russia intercepted stuff that was very important to us, I'm being very fuzzy
about it, it wasn't about the election. They told us that there were certain people in
America doing things that were very deleterious to the War on Terrorism for personal and
financial gain, and they could have blown it publicly but they went internally to
us."
I haven't listened to that particular interview yet, but can say the the HRC emails with Sid
Blumenthal show the reason we got in bed with Sarkozy (and Britain) to destroy Libya was:
To steal the nationalized oil
To steal the hundreds of tons of gold and silver.
To prevent Libya from developing a pan-African gold dinar and development bank to complete
with the Federal Reserve petrodollar and the IMF.
I can also say that Hersh documented that Ambassador Stevens was an arms dealer, smuggling
Libyan military weapons into Syria to finish the "regime change" operation still ongoing there.
Also, HRC knew her "rebels" were hunting down and murdering any black Libyans they could find
even before Gaddafi was anally bayonet raped.
If I come up with more after listening, I'll post again.
Looks like Brennan abused his power as a head of CIA and should be held accountable for that.
Notable quotes:
"... Did the U.S. "Intelligence Community" judge that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election? ..."
"... it is not that ..."
"... even that is misleading ..."
"... the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence Research did, in fact, have a different opinion but was not allowed to express it ..."
"... The second thing to remember is that reports of the intelligence agencies reflect the views of the heads of the agencies and are not necessarily a consensus of their analysts' views. The heads of both the CIA and FBI are political appointments, while the NSA chief is a military officer; his agency is a collector of intelligence rather than an analyst of its import, except in the fields of cryptography and communications security. ..."
"... Among the assertions are that a persona calling itself "Guccifer 2.0" is an instrument of the GRU, and that it hacked the emails on the Democratic National Committee's computer and conveyed them to Wikileaks. What the report does not explain is that it is easy for a hacker or foreign intelligence service to leave a false trail. In fact, a program developed by CIA with NSA assistance to do just that has been leaked and published. ..."
"... Retired senior NSA technical experts have examined the "Guccifer 2.0" data on the web and have concluded that "Guccifer 2.0's" data did not involve a hack across the web but was locally downloaded. Further, the data had been tampered with and manipulated, leading to the conclusion that "Guccifer 2.0" is a total fabrication. ..."
"... "Disclosures through WikiLeaks did not contain any evident forgeries." ..."
"... DHS [the Department of Homeland Security] assesses that the types of systems Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in vote tallying ..."
"... Prominent American journalists and politicians seized upon this shabby, politically motivated, report as proof of "Russian interference" in the U.S. election without even the pretense of due diligence. They have objectively acted as co-conspirators in an effort to block any improvement in relations with Russia, even though cooperation with Russia to deal with common dangers is vital to both countries. ..."
Musings II The "Intelligence Community," "Russian Interference," and Due Diligence
Posted on by JackDid the U.S. "Intelligence Community" judge that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential
election?
Most commentators seem to think so. Every news report I have read of the planned meeting of
Presidents Trump and Putin in July refers to "Russian interference" as a fact and asks whether
the matter will be discussed. Reports that President Putin denied involvement in the election
are scoffed at, usually with a claim that the U.S. "intelligence community" proved Russian
interference. In fact, the U.S. "intelligence community" has not done so. The intelligence
community as a whole has not been tasked to make a judgment and some key members of that
community did not participate in the report that is routinely cited as "proof" of "Russian
interference."
I spent the 35 years of my government service with a "top secret" clearance. When I reached
the rank of ambassador and also worked as Special Assistant to the President for National
Security, I also had clearances for "codeword" material. At that time, intelligence reports to
the president relating to Soviet and European affairs were routed through me for comment. I
developed at that time a "feel" for the strengths and weaknesses of the various American
intelligence agencies. It is with that background that I read the January 6. 2017 report of three
intelligence agencies: the CIA, FBI, and NSA.
This report is labeled "Intelligence Community Assessment," but in fact it is not
that . A report of the intelligence community in my day would include the input of all the
relevant intelligence agencies and would reveal whether all agreed with the conclusions.
Individual agencies did not hesitate to "take a footnote" or explain their position if they
disagreed with a particular assessment. A report would not claim to be that of the
"intelligence community" if any relevant agency was omitted.
The report states that it represents the findings of three intelligence agencies: CIA, FBI,
and NSA, but even that is misleading in that it implies that there was a consensus of
relevant analysts in these three agencies. In fact, the report was prepared by a group of
analysts from the three agencies pre-selected by their directors, with the selection process
generally overseen by James Clapper, then Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Clapper told
the Senate in testimony May 8, 2017, that it was prepared by "two dozen or so analysts --
hand-picked, seasoned experts from each of the contributing agencies." If you can hand-pick the
analysts, you can hand-pick the conclusions. The analysts selected would have understood what
Director Clapper wanted since he made no secret of his views. Why would they endanger their
careers by not delivering?
What should have struck any congressperson or reporter was that the procedure Clapper
followed was the same as that used in 2003 to produce the report falsely claiming that Saddam
Hussein had retained stocks of weapons of mass destruction. That should be worrisome enough to
inspire questions, but that is not the only anomaly.
The DNI has under his aegis a National Intelligence Council whose officers can call any
intelligence agency with relevant expertise to draft community assessments. It was created by
Congress after 9/11 specifically to correct some of the flaws in intelligence collection
revealed by 9/11. Director Clapper chose not to call on the NIC, which is curious since its
duty is "to act as a bridge between the intelligence and policy communities."
During my time in government, a judgment regarding national security would include reports
from, as a minimum, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the Bureau of
Intelligence and Research (INR) of the State Department. The FBI was rarely, if ever, included
unless the principal question concerned law enforcement within the United States. NSA might
have provided some of the intelligence used by the other agencies but normally did not express
an opinion regarding the substance of reports.
What did I notice when I read the January report? There was no mention of INR or DIA! The
exclusion of DIA might be understandable since its mandate deals primarily with military
forces, except that the report attributes some of the Russian activity to the GRU, Russian
military intelligence. DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, is the U.S. intelligence organ
most expert on the GRU. Did it concur with this attribution? The report doesn't say.
The omission of INR is more glaring since a report on foreign political activity could not
have been that of the U.S. intelligence community without its participation. After all, when it
comes to assessments of foreign intentions and foreign political activity, the State
Department's intelligence service is by far the most knowledgeable and competent. In my day, it
reported accurately on Gorbachev's reforms when the CIA leaders were advising that Gorbachev
had the same aims as his predecessors.
This is where due diligence comes in. The first question responsible journalists and
politicians should have asked is "Why is INR not represented? Does it have a different opinion?
If so, what is that opinion? Most likely the official answer would have been that this is
"classified information." But why should it be classified? If some agency heads come to a
conclusion and choose (or are directed) to announce it publicly, doesn't the public deserve to
know that one of the key agencies has a different opinion?
The second question should have been directed at the CIA, NSA, and FBI: did all their
analysts agree with these conclusions or were they divided in their conclusions? What was the
reason behind hand-picking analysts and departing from the customary practice of enlisting
analysts already in place and already responsible for following the issues involved?
As I was recently informed by a senior official, the State Department's Bureau of
Intelligence Research did, in fact, have a different opinion but was not allowed to express
it . So the January report was not one of the "intelligence community," but rather of
three intelligence agencies, two of which have no responsibility or necessarily any competence
to judge foreign intentions. The job of the FBI is to enforce federal law. The job of NSA is to
intercept the communications of others and to protect ours. It is not staffed to assess the
content of what is intercepted; that task is assumed by others, particularly the CIA, the DIA
(if it is military) or the State Department's INR (if it is political).
The second thing to remember is that reports of the intelligence agencies reflect the views
of the heads of the agencies and are not necessarily a consensus of their analysts' views. The
heads of both the CIA and FBI are political appointments, while the NSA chief is a military
officer; his agency is a collector of intelligence rather than an analyst of its import, except
in the fields of cryptography and communications security.
One striking thing about the press coverage and Congressional discussion of the January
report, and of subsequent statements by CIA, FBI, and NSA heads is that questions were never
posed regarding the position of the State Department's INR, or whether the analysts in the
agencies cited were in total agreement with the conclusions.
Let's put these questions aside for the moment and look at the report itself. On the first
page of text, the following statement leapt to my attention:
We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of
the 2016 election. The US Intelligence Community is charged with monitoring and assessing the
intentions, capabilities, and actions of foreign actors; it does not analyze US political
processes or US public opinion.
Now, how can one judge whether activity "interfered" with an election without assessing its
impact? After all, if the activity had no impact on the outcome of the election, it could not
be properly termed interference. This disclaimer, however, has not prevented journalists and
politicians from citing the report as proof that "Russia interfered" in the 2016 U.S.
presidential election.
As for particulars, the report is full of assertion, innuendo, and description of
"capabilities" but largely devoid of any evidence to substantiate its assertions. This is
"explained" by claiming that much of the evidence is classified and cannot be disclosed without
revealing sources and methods. The assertions are made with "high confidence" or occasionally,
"moderate confidence." Having read many intelligence reports I can tell you that if there is
irrefutable evidence of something it will be stated as a fact. The use of the term "high
confidence" is what most normal people would call "our best guess." "Moderate confidence" means
"some of our analysts think this might be true."
Among the assertions are that a persona calling itself "Guccifer 2.0" is an instrument of
the GRU, and that it hacked the emails on the Democratic National Committee's computer and
conveyed them to Wikileaks. What the report does not explain is that it is easy for a hacker or
foreign intelligence service to leave a false trail. In fact, a program developed by CIA with
NSA assistance to do just that has been leaked and published.
Retired senior NSA technical experts have examined the "Guccifer 2.0" data on the web and
have concluded that "Guccifer 2.0's" data did not involve a hack across the web but was locally
downloaded. Further, the data had been tampered with and manipulated, leading to the conclusion
that "Guccifer 2.0" is a total fabrication.
The report's assertions regarding the supply of the DNC emails to Wikileaks are dubious, but
its final statement in this regard is important: "Disclosures through WikiLeaks did not
contain any evident forgeries." In other words, what was disclosed was the truth! So,
Russians are accused of "degrading our democracy" by revealing that the DNC was trying to fix
the nomination of a particular candidate rather than allowing the primaries and state caucuses
to run their course. I had always thought that transparency is consistent with democratic
values. Apparently those who think that the truth can degrade democracy have a rather bizarre
-- to put it mildly–concept of democracy.
Most people, hearing that it is a "fact" that "Russia" interfered in our election must think
that Russian government agents hacked into vote counting machines and switched votes to favor a
particular candidate. This, indeed, would be scary, and would justify the most painful
sanctions. But this is the one thing that the "intelligence" report of January 6, 2017, states
did not happen. Here is what it said: " DHS [the Department of Homeland Security] assesses
that the types of systems Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in vote
tallying ."
This is an important statement by an agency that is empowered to assess the impact of
foreign activity on the United States. Why was it not consulted regarding other aspects of the
study? Or -- was it in fact consulted and refused to endorse the findings? Another obvious
question any responsible journalist or competent politician should have asked.
Prominent American journalists and politicians seized upon this shabby, politically
motivated, report as proof of "Russian interference" in the U.S. election without even the
pretense of due diligence. They have objectively acted as co-conspirators in an effort to block
any improvement in relations with Russia, even though cooperation with Russia to deal with
common dangers is vital to both countries.
This is only part of the story of how, without good reason, U.S.-Russian relations have
become dangerously confrontational. God willin and the crick don't rise, I'll be musing about
other aspects soon.
Thanks to Ray McGovern and Bill Binney for their research assistance.
Jack F. Matlock, Jr.
Booneville, Tennessee
June 29, 2018
And it goes on today. Just over a year ago, Wikileaks source Seth Rich was assassinated. Fox
News and lefty Jimmy Dore reported this, until the Deep State put the screws on and they both
retracted with bogus stories to "correct" their errors. No one talks about this anymore.
After Peter Strzok
failed to address the concerns of Republicans by trying to explain away his anti-Trump texts as "just an intimate conversation"
with his mistress (former FBI lawyer Lisa Page) during yesterday's marathon closed-door session, President Trump chimed in this morning
with a tweet claiming that Strzok had been given "poor marks" on the hearing because he "refused to answer many questions."
The president also reaffirmed that there was "no Collusion and the Witch Hunt, headed by 14 Angry Democrats and others who are
totally conflicted, is Rigged!"
The president then turned his attention to the DNC Server, asking once again why the FBI wasn't allowed to closely examine it?
The DNC never furnished an explanation, despite Wikileaks emails revealing that former spy Christopher Steele had once filed a memo
claiming that "
Russian agents within the Democratic party structure itself" were involved with the theft.
This guy. This fucking guy. Still drawing a salary. That's what is incredible here.
The wheels of justice grind slowly and exceedingly fine. As a Marine I sometimes escorted Marines to courts martial hearings.
They were still drawing their pay, still eating in the mess hall, maybe they were sleeping on a bunk in a holding cell. But, they
were still Marines until the sentence was pronounced and any appeals exhausted. Some were still Marines afterwards just a little
poorer and missing some stripes. But, they got what were largely fair hearings for the military. Strzok is going to get his Justice
unless someone a little more impatient splatters his brains all over the sidewalk.
Gregg, yesterday you were raising hell saying the Marines will save the day. I need to tell you and I know it's hard to believe.
There are young Marine social justice warrior communist. I've met them. Not one or two many Marines and Army, vets in general.
So not all of the Marine Corps is right wing conservative. That was the impression you gave and I didn't have time to add the
data of the Marines that I've met who are in the activist movement of the social justice warrior communist. This is a generational
issue, our generation is in conflict with their generation.
I don't blame them because of the high level of corruption in this nation, perhaps the shock of 9/11 being a fraud, I don't
know, but I noticed this back in 2010.
The 9/11 event had a big impact on many young peoples mind, the trust of government issue is big.
And another anecdotal is a young 82nd Airborne soldier who kept asking me at work about what was behind the curtain, like one
world government etc. he wanted to know everything, so young people are not following the line of reasoning we followed and MSM
parrots.
Yes, prior service older vets like you are important to us, but I want to make sure you understand, just because someone is
a Marine or 82nd soldier doesn't mean they're politically reliable for our way of thinking. That's concerning when five police
officer were killed and many wounded in Dallas by a radicalized vet.
That's the danger, and we think the army of vets in this nation will automatically side with us in a race/civil war. The military
skills demonstrated in Dallas was a warning of things to come. The other component, the number of vets still killing themselves
each day is around 30-40 and suicide is increasing, not decreasing in the overall population.
So much for the idea that Strzok is co-operating with the investigation. It's pretty clear that he isn't and that this whole
meme that Priestap, Page, et al are co-operating witnesses is pretty much bullshit, unfortunately.
PS "Texts taken out of context"
PS "While emotional over the election, I conduct myself w/ upmost integrity w/o bias while undertaking any such investigation,
especially a high-profile case against the POTUS."
PS "In hindsight, it was a bad idea to openly discuss my feelings, but, in no way did those feelings impact my ability to conduct
a fair and proper investigation - we followed where the "facts" took us."
PS "I decline to answer that question on advice from counsel."
: When you state "where 'facts' led us" - what 'facts' are you referring to? To date, there has been zero evidence of any such
collusion or connections between the Trump campaign and Russia." In fact, the only facts discovered thus far have been between
the Clinton camp and Russia and other foreign groups ."
PS "On advice of counsel, I decline to answer that question"
PS "Because of the ongoing investigation, such answers may violate the security of such investigations ."
: "Mr S, I believe nobody here is buying what you are selling. I believe there was/is a serious effort on the part of people more
senior than you to remove Mr Trump from office out of fear of what this Administration may uncover. I believe you are being dishonest
in your answers and frankly shocked you agreed to come here today. I believe everyone on this panel (minus those from the other
side of the aisle) knew exactly what your answers would be and if you think we are going to sit here and accept these answers
you would be a foolish. We are also following the facts and once we uncover more (which we will) we will act accordingly. I'm
glad you retained counsel - you'll need one and hopefully they are very good."
.
"... The U.S. was in talks for a deal with Julian Assange but then FBI Director James Comey ordered an end to negotiations after Assange offered to prove Russia was not involved in the DNC leak, as Ray McGovern explains. ..."
"... Special to Consortium News ..."
"... The report does not say what led Comey to intervene to ruin the talks with Assange. But it came after Assange had offered to "provide technical evidence and discussion regarding who did not engage in the DNC releases," Solomon quotes WikiLeaks' intermediary with the government as saying. It would be a safe assumption that Assange was offering to prove that Russia was not WikiLeaks' source of the DNC emails. ..."
"... If that was the reason Comey and Warner ruined the talks, as is likely, it would reveal a cynical decision to put U.S. intelligence agents and highly sophisticated cybertools at risk, rather than allow Assange to at least attempt to prove that Russia was not behind the DNC leak. ..."
"... On March 31, 2017, though, WikiLeaks released the most damaging disclosure up to that point from what it called "Vault 7" -- a treasure trove of CIA cybertools leaked from CIA files. This disclosure featured the tool "Marble Framework," which enabled the CIA to hack into computers, disguise who hacked in, and falsely attribute the hack to someone else by leaving so-called tell-tale signs -- like Cyrillic, for example. The CIA documents also showed that the "Marble" tool had been employed in 2016. ..."
"... In fact, VIPS and independent forensic investigators, have performed what former FBI Director Comey -- at first inexplicably, now not so inexplicably -- failed to do when the so-called "Russian hack" of the DNC was first reported. In July 2017 VIPS published its key findings with supporting data. ..."
"... Why did then FBI Director Comey fail to insist on getting direct access to the DNC computers in order to follow best-practice forensics to discover who intruded into the DNC computers? (Recall, at the time Sen. John McCain and others were calling the "Russian hack" no less than an "act of war.") A 7th grader can now figure that out. ..."
Did Sen. Warner and Comey 'Collude' on Russia-gate? June 27, 2018 •
68 Comments
The U.S. was in talks for a deal with Julian Assange but then FBI Director James Comey
ordered an end to negotiations after Assange offered to prove Russia was not involved in the
DNC leak, as Ray McGovern explains.
By Ray McGovern
Special to Consortium News
An explosive
report by investigative journalist John Solomon on the opinion page of Monday's edition of
The Hill sheds a bright light on how Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and then-FBI Director
James Comey collaborated to prevent WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange from discussing "technical
evidence ruling out certain parties [read Russia]" in the controversial leak of Democratic
Party emails to WikiLeaks during the 2016 election.
A deal that was being discussed last year between Assange and U.S. government officials
would have given Assange "limited immunity" to allow him to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy in
London, where he has been exiled for six years. In exchange, Assange would agree to limit
through redactions "some classified CIA information he might release in the future," according
to Solomon, who cited "interviews and a trove of internal DOJ documents turned over to Senate
investigators." Solomon even provided a
copy of the draft immunity deal with Assange.
But Comey's intervention to stop the negotiations with Assange ultimately ruined the deal,
Solomon says, quoting "multiple sources." With the prospective agreement thrown into serious
doubt, Assange "unleashed a series of leaks that U.S. officials say damaged their cyber warfare
capabilities for a long time to come." These were the Vault 7 releases, which led then CIA
Director Mike Pompeo to call WikiLeaks "a hostile intelligence service."
Solomon's report provides reasons why Official Washington has now put so much pressure on
Ecuador to keep Assange incommunicado in its embassy in London.
Assange: Came close to a deal with the U.S. (Photo credit: New Media Days / Peter
Erichsen)
The report does not say what led Comey to intervene to ruin the talks with Assange. But it
came after Assange had offered to "provide technical evidence and discussion regarding who did
not engage in the DNC releases," Solomon quotes WikiLeaks' intermediary with the government as
saying. It would be a safe assumption that Assange was offering to prove that Russia was not
WikiLeaks' source of the DNC emails.
If that was the reason Comey and Warner ruined the talks, as is likely, it would reveal a
cynical decision to put U.S. intelligence agents and highly sophisticated cybertools at risk,
rather than allow Assange to at least attempt to prove that Russia was not behind the DNC
leak.
The greater risk to Warner and Comey apparently would have been if Assange provided evidence
that Russia played no role in the 2016 leaks of DNC documents.
Missteps and Stand Down
In mid-February 2017, in a remarkable display of naiveté, Adam Waldman, Assange's pro
bono attorney who acted as the intermediary in the talks, asked Warner if the Senate
Intelligence Committee staff would like any contact with Assange to ask about Russia or other
issues. Waldman was apparently oblivious to Sen. Warner's stoking of Russia-gate.
Warner contacted Comey and, invoking his name, instructed Waldman to "stand down and end the
discussions with Assange," Waldman told Solomon. The "stand down" instruction "did happen,"
according to another of Solomon's sources with good access to Warner. However, Waldman's
counterpart attorney David Laufman , an accomplished federal prosecutor picked by the
Justice Departent to work the government side of the CIA-Assange fledgling deal, told Waldman,
"That's B.S. You're not standing down, and neither am I."
But the damage had been done. When word of the original stand-down order reached WikiLeaks,
trust evaporated, putting an end to two months of what Waldman called "constructive, principled
discussions that included the Department of Justice."
The two sides had come within inches of sealing the deal. Writing to Laufman on March 28,
2017, Waldman gave him Assange's offer to discuss "risk mitigation approaches relating to CIA
documents in WikiLeaks' possession or control, such as the redaction of Agency personnel in
hostile jurisdictions," in return for "an acceptable immunity and safe passage agreement."
On March 31, 2017, though, WikiLeaks released the most damaging disclosure up to that
point from what it called "Vault 7" -- a treasure trove of CIA cybertools leaked from CIA
files. This disclosure featured the tool "Marble Framework," which enabled the CIA to hack into
computers, disguise who hacked in, and falsely attribute the hack to someone else by leaving
so-called tell-tale signs -- like Cyrillic, for example. The CIA documents also showed that the
"Marble" tool had been employed in 2016.
Misfeasance or Malfeasance
Comey: Ordered an end to talks with Assange.
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, which includes among our members two former
Technical Directors of the National Security Agency, has repeatedly called
attention to its conclusion that the DNC emails were leaked -- not "hacked" by Russia or
anyone else (and, later, our suspicion that someone may have been playing Marbles, so to
speak).
In fact, VIPS and independent forensic investigators, have performed what former FBI
Director Comey -- at first inexplicably, now not so inexplicably -- failed to do when the
so-called "Russian hack" of the DNC was first reported. In July 2017 VIPS published its
key
findings with supporting data.
Two month later , VIPS published the results of
follow-up experiments conducted to test the conclusions reached in July.
Why did then FBI Director Comey fail to insist on getting direct access to the DNC computers
in order to follow best-practice forensics to discover who intruded into the DNC computers?
(Recall, at the time Sen. John McCain and others were calling the "Russian hack" no less than
an "act of war.") A 7th grader can now figure that out.
Asked on January 10, 2017 by Senate Intelligence Committee chair Richard Burr (R-NC) whether
direct access to the servers and devices would have helped the FBI in their investigation,
Comey replied
: "Our forensics folks would always prefer to get access to the original device or server
that's involved, so it's the best evidence."
At that point, Burr and Warner let Comey down easy. Hence, it should come as no surprise
that, according to one of John Solomon's sources, Sen. Warner (who is co-chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee) kept Sen. Burr apprised of his intervention into the negotiation with
Assange, leading to its collapse.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and then a CIA
analyst for a total of 30 years and prepared and briefed, one-on-one, the President's Daily
Brief from 1981 to 1985.
If you enjoyed this original article please consider
making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this
one.
Peter Strzok, the FBI counterintelligence agent removed from Special Counsel Robert
Mueller's Russia investigation over anti-Trump bias, appeared before a closed door session in
front of two House committees on Wednesday, where he tried to explain anti-Trump text exchanges
with his FBI mistress as " Just an intimate conversation between intimate friends, "
according to Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee , quoting Strzok's description of the
controversial messages.
While Jackson Lee gladly accepted Strzok's answer, Republican Mark
Meadows of North Carolina wasn't buying it:
While Jackson Lee said she believed Strzok's account that his "intimate" messages didn't
reflect political bias in his work, Republican Representative Mark Meadows said, " None of my
concerns about political bias have been alleviated based on what I've heard so far ." -
Bloomberg
" If you have intimate personal conversations between two people, that normally would show
the intent more so than perhaps something that would be said out in public ," said Meadows.
Meadows said that some of the questions on Wednesday revolved around "who knew what when -
and what was the genesis of the Russia collusion investigation," into Trump's campaign.
Rep Matt Gaetz (R-FL) wasn't buying it either, as Sara Carter details : "
It was a waste -- Strzok is full of it and he kept hiding behind [the] classified information
excuse."
Others had similarly disappointed reactions: Freedom Caucus & Judiciary Committee
member, Matt Gaetz (R-FL) attended today's deposition and reacted to Strzok's testimony,
telling the Sean Hannity Radio Show, that " I am shocked at the lack of curiosity with Robert
Mueller. I mean Sean, if you were in Mueller's shoes, and you had found these text messages, I
would think that you would want to ask whether or not they impacted the investigative decisions
that were made, whether there was bias, whether there was contact with other members of the FBI
regarding the investigation and where it was going and who was making the critical judgment
calls," the Florida Congressman said. " I just cannot believe the lack of curiosity on the part
of Robert Mueller. It was the strongest reaction I had today from Peter Strzok's
testimony."
* * *
Strzok and his paramour Lisa Page - known as the FBI "lovebirds" - harbored extreme
political bias for Hillary Clinton and against Donald Trump while actively involved in cases
against each candidate during the 2016 US election.
Their raging hatred of Donald Trump was discovered in a trove of over 50,000 texts between
Strzok and Page which were discovered by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz. While Strzok
was relegated to the HR department and marched out of his FBI office in mid-June, Page
tendered her resignation in May.
In one of the most controversial text exchanges - perhaps because the DOJ withheld it until
it came to light in the Inspector Genera's report, Page asks Strzok whether Trump will ever
become President:
Page: "(Trump's) not ever going to become president, right? Right?!"
Strzok: "No. No he's not. We'll stop it. "
After the Inspector Genera's report came out in mid-June, President Trump tweeted: "The IG
Report totally destroys James Comey and all of his minions including the great lovers, Peter
Strzok and Lisa Page, who started the disgraceful Witch Hunt against so many innocent
people."
The Judiciary Committee will be meeting with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI
Director Christopher Wray on Thursday to discuss the OIG report. Moreover, GOP Rep. Jim Jordan
of Ohio is expected to bring a House floor vote demanding that the DOJ turn over documents.
Also Thursday, a Republican resolution demanding that Rosenstein and the Justice
Department turn over more internal documents is expected to be brought to the House floor for
a vote. It will be a test of how widely Republicans back the push by party conservatives to
probe inner workings of the FBI and Justice Department and cast doubt on the legitimacy of
the continuing Russia probe. -
Bloomberg
"All we are asking for are documents we deserve to get -- and they are giving us the
finger," said Jordan.
Meanwhile, every Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to protest Jordan's
resolution on "emergency bias," as they say that it shows the committee "has been hijacked by
its most extreme majority members at the expense of upholding longstanding committee rules and
minority rights."
It was not exactly clear how Congress asking the DOJ to see documents related to a massive
political scandal constitute a hijacking.
No one ever mentions how fucking stupid the FBI idiots must be to have ever text this
stupidity with each other. These people are overpaid clowns. Get rid of them ALL.
The Asians are starting to shift away from the DNC, from what I can see. They built up
some actual wealth, and at this point they no longer receive the same minority protections as
other groups. The minute you are the target of theft, you stop hanging around the
thieves.
Aside from this, I was recently listening to an Asian libertarian who goes by
"Pholosopher" on Youtube, and she explained that as a "normie" she just thought of government
programs as "society helping the little guy." IMO, 80% of Democrats are in this very naive
space. Her mind changed in part because some of her family members were victims of the Khmer
Rouge, and this led to some actual thought about what would possess people to do the things
they did.
IMO, the crazier this gets, the more obvious it is that it is time to re-dedicate our
lives to rebuilding a sound culture, otherwise we will not see any culture rebuilt until we
go through another multi-century Dark Age.
lots of experience....waitree...bartending...."educator"...she is like a bad joke
Ocasio-Cortez graduated from Boston University in 2011, where she majored in economics and
international relations. After college, she moved back to the Bronx and supported her mother
by bartending at Flats Fix taqueria in Union Square, Manhattan, and working
as a waitress. She also got a job as an educator in the nonprofit National Hispanic Institute .
[11][12]
At least she is far cuter than her competition... Democrats need new blood anyway. Its a
party that seems to be going nowhere, has the Clinton mafia running it, and hasn't done
anyone any good since the time Jimmy Carter was president.
Bernie might have done better than Hillary against Trump. Will the kids get out and vote
for a Joe Biden? NO The Dems are going to have to go way way left on a hale mary. But Trump
is much much stronger now than in 2016. They lose. They got nothing and their divisions are
getting worse. We should support and encourage them to move further and further to the left.
We can drive them there.
If you live in an area that is Democrat controlled and your own preference is safe, then
register Democrat and vote for people like her.
If you simply divert all the money from the following socialist programs:
1) ZIRP
2) QE
3) Bank bailouts
4) Farming subsidies
5) Defense contract subsidies
6) Big pharma subsidies
Problem is Americans are too easily fooled that stuff which is to their benefits are
something they should not vote for and vise versa. Like all money channeled to MIC.
"... The democratic machine in NYC does absolutely everything it can to suppress turnout to protect incumbents so I was happy to see it blow up in their face today. But still pretty grim to see only 25,000 people voting. ..."
"... The interesting question is how the Democrats will react to this. They may try to sabotage her in some other way. The other is the top 10%ers and other upper middle class voters. I would not be surprised if many Establishment Democrats vote for the GOP over a Berniecrat. ..."
But here is the bigger implication, again from Vox:
Ocasio-Cortez's victory is a story of the complacent establishment taking voters for
granted. It's the story of how the Democratic Party is getting pulled to the left. It's also
about how it's not just progressive policies that are reshaping the party, but also people of
color.
Ocasio-Cortez ran decidedly to the left of Crowley, but she also shook up how Democrats go
about getting elected. Until now, Democrats have seen big money in politics as simply a deal
with the devil that had to be made. Democrats are so often outspent by Republican mega-donors
that they viewed courting big-dollar donors and corporations as part of creating a level
playing field.
But if one of Democrats' top fundraisers and likely successor to Nancy Pelosi can be
toppled, perhaps Democrats need to rethink that deal.
What was most exciting for progressives is the degree to which Ocasio-Cortez ran to
Crowley's left. As a member of the DSA, her website is a laundry list of every blue-sky
progressive policy: Medicare-for-all, housing and jobs guarantees, gun control, ending
private prisons, abolishing ICE, and investment in post-hurricane Puerto Rico.
Crowley also had the endorsement of Governor Andrew Cuomo. 'Nuff said.
AstoriaBlowin ,
June 26, 2018 at 11:10 pm
The democratic machine in NYC does absolutely everything it can to suppress turnout to
protect incumbents so I was happy to see it blow up in their face today. But still pretty
grim to see only 25,000 people voting.
I voted against Crowley cause he came out against installing protected bike lanes in
Sunnyside which was none of his business anyway as a federal official. I wrote to him
expressing my disappointment and he actually called me to talk about it! We had a nice
conversation but still once you choose parking over people's lives it's over.
Ocasio has some good talking points but she also comes across as a NIMBY which is not a
good look in a city with a serious housing affordability and availability crisis.
It is certainly a major step forward and will hopefully be the first of many victories.
Ultimately, what we desperately need are politicians that will truly fight for the common
citizen to get into office and in enough numbers as to fundamentally alter the direction of
government from an institution that is co-opted by the rich to one that is for the
people.
The interesting question is how the Democrats will react to this. They may try to
sabotage her in some other way. The other is the top 10%ers and other upper middle class
voters. I would not be surprised if many Establishment Democrats vote for the GOP over a
Berniecrat.
Bottom line – this is a step forward, but we are not out of the woods yet. There is
a lot of work to do and while we should celebrate, the Establishment will fight back. There
also remains the question of how this person will actually govern. The fact that the
Establishment was against her though is very encouraging.
"... In a mature society, it would not matter if someone was black, white, gay, Jewish, young, old, whatever but what policies they bring to the party. This article, going out of its way to label Nixon as LGBT and Sanders as Jewish, really only means that they are letting the other side set the rules and that is never a winning position. Unfortunately we do not live in a mature society. ..."
"... Not until people are done with identity politics will it be really possible to bring a new order into focus. Support Kamala Harris, for example, because she is not white and a woman? Not unless she has policies that the bulk of Americans want and is not just the old party in a new guise. I suspect that this use of the term 'progressive' is just a term to describe what the majority of Americans want out of their governments. People like Clinton, Pelosi, Waters and Albright can not and will not do this so time for them to be pushed aside. I think that the US Presidential election of 2020 will be very telling of how things play out as the results of the 2018 mid-terms are absorbed. ..."
"... I think identity politics has always served as a diversion for elites to play within the neoliberal bandwidth of decreasing public spending. Fake austerity and an unwillingness to use conjured money for public QE are necessary for pursuing neoliberal privatization of public enterprises. Therefore Bernie and his MMT infrastructure are anathema to corporate democrats and their Wall St. benefactors. ..."
"... Moral Monday represents what I deem as people over profit. I would rather be a spoiler than enable corporate sociopaths to.expand mass incarceration, end welfare as we know it, consider the killing of a half-million Iraqi children an acceptable cost, or oversee the first inverted debt jubilee in 2008 to forgive the liabilities of fraudsters by pauperizing debtors. ..."
"... Once you abandon class-based politics, and all parties accept the neoliberal consensus, you still have the problem of attracting support. You can only do that by turning to the politics of identity, as practised in Africa or the Balkans, where you seek to corral entire groups to vote for you, based on ethnicity, skin colour etc. ..."
"... Modern parties of the "Left" have taken over the methods, if not the ideology, of the old Communist parties, which is to say they present themselves as natural leaders, whom the membership should follow and vote for. ..."
"... Readers should examine the recent book Asymmetric Politics. The key point is that the Democratic Party is as described by David in some fair part an identity-based party, so it is supported by, e.g., many African-Americans. The Republican Party, unusual in the Western World, is not an identity based party; it is an idea-based party. It may not be very good at putting its ideas into effect, but it is an idea-based party that anyone can support. ..."
"... The Republicans are an "ideas-based" party? Well, I guess if you consider the interest-motivated "product" of Overclass-funded think tanks to be "idea-based," then OK. Me, I've haven't seen the Republicans as anything other than a class and (white) race-based party since I was a youth half a century ago. ..."
"... As for the cynicism of how the Democrats use identity politics: granted. Nevertheless, African-Americans have some tangible and valid reasons for voting for them, awful as they are. ..."
"... George Phillies didn't say the Republicans had "good" ideas. He just noted that the Republicans have "ideas". A "bad" idea is still an "idea". ..."
"... So Pelosi's final bequest to the public is a corrupt successor? What a world! ..."
"... Pelosi's been quoted a number of times saying, "we lead with our values". You certainly do, Mrs. Speaker! Thanks for making it clear! ..."
"... Come on, folks. By now you should have learned that what politicians say doesn't mean a damn thing -- it's what they do. The establishment is only interested in perpetuating the establishment. ..."
"... As far as I've seen, they trot out identity politics only when it suits their aims and it has nothing to do with what the voters actually want. ..."
"... Identity politics are to Democrats what religious politics are to Republicans: A pious high ground they use whenever they want to denounce anyone opposed to them as corrupt and immoral, but immediately gets shelved the moment it interferes with the money and power. ..."
"... To me, it's a dishonest policy erasure tactic for favoring establishment candidates. If you're against Hillary Clinton, it's must be ..."
"... Of course the most important identity is that of the worker, the person who must sell their labor power in the marketplace to survive. But you will rarely hear the Democrats discuss that identity. You might hear about "working families" and the "middle class" but it really means nothing. The Republicans use the same language and they are just as mendacious. ..."
"... Working families: Groups of people related genetically or by choice, all of whom, regardless of age, have to work to ensure they have food, clothing, and shelter. ..."
"... I can think of a couple of identity-words to offer to see if anyone identifies with them. Ex-middle class. Nouveau poor. ..."
"... Western Democrats focus too much on a minority which has barely any impact on the economy at the expense of the majority which actually dictates the general economic trend and therefore also creates the byproduct welfare/life quality of all the meme minorities to whom it trickles down. That's the issue here. The difference between normal people and minorities is that normal people know they don't matter in the larger picture, while minorities think they matter while at the same time asking to be treated as part of the normal people even though their very mentality is a paradox towards being normal. ..."
"... The West is simply too bankrupt on things that matter in the bigger picture and too involved in things that don't, a complete lack of prioritization. ..."
Eric Holder, former attorney general of the USA under President Obama, has publicly
announced that he is considering a run for the White House in 2020. (Thanks to that
WikiLeaked email awhile back, we know that Citigroup directed a newly elected President Obama
to appoint him to the position of A.G.)
I fervently pray that Eric Holder, of Covington & Burling, declares himself a
candidate!
Only then will the opportunity again present itself to expose Eric Holder -- and Covington
& Burling -- in their involvement with the creation and operation of MERS (Mortgage
Electronic Reporting System) and its connection to the global economic meltdown (2007 --
2009), the greatest illegal wealth transfer and insurance swindle in human history!
How we would welcome such transparency of evil, how BlackRock profited from that economic
meltdown, then oversaw the disbursement of those TARP bailout funds.
Exposure of the network of BlackRock and Vanguard and State Street and Fidelity; exposure
of their major investors. Further exposure of the Blackstone Group and Carlyle Group and
other such PE/LBO giants!
How the InterContinental Exchange (ICE) was involved in nefarious commodity price rigging,
etc., manipulated derivatives dealing and how today they oversee LIBOR rates!
The further exposure of the influence and perfidy of the Group of Thirty (www.group30.org)
and the Bretton Woods Committee (www.brettonwoods.org) -- oh how we'd love to see such
exposure!
Holder for President? Oh boy Mr. Peabody! That's great!
If a critical difference-making margin of non-voting Black non-voters in Milwaukee were
willing to non-vote between Clinton and Trump even at the price of letting Trump take
Wisconsin, that could mean that the Race Card is wearing thin. Who exactly would Mr. Holder
be able to fool in Milwaukee? He would do well in Hyde Park though . . . getting the Guilty
White Privilege Expiation vote. Will that be enough? Will the Madison vote be enough to make
up for the Milwaukee non-vote?
You know who would be a perfect pair? Holder and Harris. Or Holder and Booker. Or some
such. Seriously, if the DemParty nominates Holder, I will vote for Trump all over again. And
at the Senate or Representative level, I would vote for an old legacy New Deal Democrat if
there is one. But if they run a Clintonite, some protest Third Party looks very attractive by
comparison.
In a mature society, it would not matter if someone was black, white, gay, Jewish,
young, old, whatever but what policies they bring to the party. This article, going out of
its way to label Nixon as LGBT and Sanders as Jewish, really only means that they are letting
the other side set the rules and that is never a winning position. Unfortunately we do not
live in a mature society.
If push came to shove you would have to describe both the Republican and Democrat parties
as bastions of neoliberalism and both parties play games with identity politics as it
fractures those who would oppose them and encourages internecine warfare. Like a kaleidoscope
shifting focus, the 2008 crash has started off a shift in how politics is done and the
success of Trump in the US, Brexit in the UK as well as other leaders is this shift in its
first efforts of readjusting.
Not until people are done with identity politics will it be really possible to bring a new
order into focus. Support Kamala Harris, for example, because she is not white and a woman?
Not unless she has policies that the bulk of Americans want and is not just the old party in
a new guise. I suspect that this use of the term 'progressive' is just a term to describe
what the majority of Americans want out of their governments. People like Clinton, Pelosi,
Waters and Albright can not and will not do this so time for them to be pushed aside. I think
that the US Presidential election of 2020 will be very telling of how things play out as the
results of the 2018 mid-terms are absorbed.
I think identity politics has always served as a diversion for elites to play within the
neoliberal bandwidth of decreasing public spending. Fake austerity and an unwillingness to
use conjured money for public QE are necessary for pursuing neoliberal privatization of
public enterprises. Therefore Bernie and his MMT infrastructure are anathema to corporate
democrats and their Wall St. benefactors.
Moral Monday represents what I deem as people over profit. I would rather be a spoiler
than enable corporate sociopaths to.expand mass incarceration, end welfare as we know it,
consider the killing of a half-million Iraqi children an acceptable cost, or oversee the
first inverted debt jubilee in 2008 to forgive the liabilities of fraudsters by pauperizing
debtors.
The obvious answer is "very" and this applies pretty much to every major allegedly leftist
party in the western world.
The fact is that if you want to form a political party and take power, or even make good
careers, you have to find supporters and get them to vote for you. Historically, after the
growth of modern political parties, they differentiated themselves by reference to social and
economic groups. In most countries there was a traditionalist party, often rural, with links
to church and aristocracy and the socially conservative, a middle-class professional/small
business party and a mass working class party often under middle-class leadership. Depending
on the country, this could, in practice, be more than three or less than three distinct
parties.
Once you abandon class-based politics, and all parties accept the neoliberal
consensus, you still have the problem of attracting support. You can only do that by turning
to the politics of identity, as practised in Africa or the Balkans, where you seek to corral
entire groups to vote for you, based on ethnicity, skin colour etc. The problem is that
whilst the old political distinctions were objective, the new ones are much more subjective,
overlapping and sometimes in conflict with each other. After all, you are objectively
employed or unemployed, a shareholder or landowner or not, an employee or an employer, you
have debt or savings, you earn enough to live on or you don't. It's therefore easier to
construct political parties on that basis than on the basis of ascriptive, overlapping and
conflicting subjective identities.
Modern parties of the "Left" have taken over the methods, if not the ideology, of the
old Communist parties, which is to say they present themselves as natural leaders, whom the
membership should follow and vote for. This worked well enough when the markers were
economic, much less well when they are identity based. Trying to herd together middle-class
professional socially-liberal voters, and immigrants from a socially conservative background
afraid of losing their jobs backfired disastrously for the Socialist party in the 2017
elections in France, and effectively destroyed the party. People don't like being instructed
who it is their duty to vote for.
The other very clarifying moment of that election was the complete absence, up and down
the western world, of voices supporting Marine Le Pen for President. Not a single voice was
raised in her support, although her victory would have been epoch-making in terms of French
politics, and certainly not Albright's.
That tells you everything you need to know, really.
Readers should examine the recent book Asymmetric Politics. The key point is that the
Democratic Party is as described by David in some fair part an identity-based party, so it is
supported by, e.g., many African-Americans. The Republican Party, unusual in the Western
World, is not an identity based party; it is an idea-based party. It may not be very good at
putting its ideas into effect, but it is an idea-based party that anyone can support.
Note that many Democrats are totally terrified by the idea that the Republican Party would
become an identity-based party, namely the white people's party, because if the white vote
supported the Republicans nationally the way it already does in the south the Democrats
would, in the immortal words of Donald Trump, be schlonged.
Indeed, that support is now
advancing up through the Appalachians into central Pennsylvania and the Southern Tier of New
York. West Virginia was once heavily Democratic.
And while some Democrats propose that
America is becoming a majority-minority country, others have worked out that, e.g., persons
of Hispanic or Chinese ancestry may over several generations follow the Irish and the
Italians and the Hungarians and the Jews, none of whom were originally viewed* as being
white, by being reclassified in the popular mind as being part of the white majority.
*Some readers will recall that quaint phrase "the colored races of Europe". At the time, a
century and then a fair amount ago, it was meant literally. Anglo-Saxons were a race.
Irishmen were a distinct race.
The Republicans are an "ideas-based" party? Well, I guess if you consider the interest-motivated "product" of Overclass-funded think
tanks to be "idea-based," then OK. Me, I've haven't seen the Republicans as anything other than a class and (white)
race-based party since I was a youth half a century ago.
That Republicans will distract, misdirect and dissemble to mask their class and race-based
identity doesn't change the reality of it.
As for the cynicism of how the Democrats use identity politics: granted. Nevertheless,
African-Americans have some tangible and valid reasons for voting for them, awful as they
are.
Dyson neatly derailed the whole thing with his 'mean white man' line. Could have just been
Fry vs Goldberg too, Peterson talked past the others yhe whole time.
Whole thing deserves a do-over.
I'm really worried about a repeat of 2016 with a heavy dose of voter purges and
reregistrations. Ocasio-Cortez will need a strong GOTV ground game to pull off the upset.
Cuomo may be part of a political dynasty, but I recall that when Mario Cuomo was sending
out feelers about running for president, there was plenty of "Who's the furriner?" I can't
find the quote, but some Southern politician opined that there weren't many Marios and fewer
Cuomos in the South. (And when Geraldine Ferraro was on the ticket with Mondale, journalists
and columnists "miraculously" discovered that her husband was a mafioso.) So there's white
and there's white.
Not that I'd vote for Cuomo. And I certainly agree with Glenn Greenwald. But ethnic
politics cut all different ways.
Come on, folks. By now you should have learned that what politicians say doesn't mean a
damn thing -- it's what they do. The establishment is only interested in perpetuating the
establishment.
Here in Pennsylvania, Republican senator Pat Toomey has stayed in office only because the
Dem establishment here has refused to back Joe Sestak, a terrific but rebellious candidate,
for years. Last time around, it endorsed a woman over Sestak and another fantastic male
candidate–but she was as crappy as they come. As far as I've seen, they trot out
identity politics only when it suits their aims and it has nothing to do with what the voters
actually want.
If Sestak and his supporters started a little Third Party just for Pennsylvania, how many
votes would he get? If he and his supporters called it the Revenge Against Betrayal Party,
how many votes would he get?
Identity politics are to Democrats what religious politics are to Republicans: A pious
high ground they use whenever they want to denounce anyone opposed to them as corrupt and
immoral, but immediately gets shelved the moment it interferes with the money and power.
To me, it's a dishonest policy erasure tactic for favoring establishment candidates. If
you're against Hillary Clinton, it's must be because she's a woman, not because
she's, say, a neoliberal, corporatist warmonger -- it deliberately supplants legitimate
policy differences with identity. Not only is it breathtakingly dopey as a psychological
theory -- because it's pretty obvious that someone could oppose a person based on
those policy differences -- it's also obnoxiously presumptuous: "I'm going to substitute my
statements as to motivation for yours." None of that matters, of course, as long as the work
of erasing policy from the discourse is done.
And while it surely matters who is in congress and who sits in the oval office, possibly
we should all become more focused and engaged with system change rather than just individuals
running for office. (although damn am I impressed with Alexandria's keen appreciation of
democracy), To that end I offer ideas from the brain of Gar Alperovitz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1-Ss5h9F9k
Thank you, Lee. About a quarter of the way through Gar's talk and may need to take a
little rest to let my soul catch up. For me, in my community which is being hard hit by
gentrification and rents are, for many long-time residents, becoming unaffordable, this might
be the exactly the right ideas at the right time. Tomorrow I will be going to the last
meeting of our neighbourhood food co-op as it dissolves, after 10 years, and I can't decide
whether I am more angry or sad. It was well-intentioned, but just couldn't make it work.
Perhaps a bad plan, or maybe no systematic plan at all. Anyway. I never really expected to
see my $1000 again when I bought that bond 10 years ago.
Meantime, I will listen to Gar finish his talk, and pro'ly get his book from the
library.
So here is Gar talking about the Evergreen Co-ops of Cleveland: "That is a
community-building, wealth-democratizing, decentralized, combination of community and worker
ownership, supported by quasi-public procurement, through a planning system using
quasi-public moneys. That is a planning system. {It} begins with a vision of community which
starts by democratizing as far as you can from the ground up, building capacity at the
national level or the regional level, to purchase and thereby stabilize the system in a form
of economic planning. Now think about those things. Those are ideas in a fragmentary
developmental process as the pain of the system grows and there are no other solutions. "
It is strong stuff, but reading it seems dense and dull, but Gar makes it all make sense
on first hearing. So, in anyone interested in community economic action, do check it out.
Of course the most important identity is that of the worker, the person who must sell
their labor power in the marketplace to survive. But you will rarely hear the Democrats
discuss that identity. You might hear about "working families" and the "middle class" but it
really means nothing. The Republicans use the same language and they are just as
mendacious.
I wouldn't mind the slogans and euphemisms if there was some substance behind them. I get
that Americans generally like to think of themselves as "middle class" whether they are
making minimum wage or millions of dollars but at least put some substance behind your
rhetoric.
Both parties are using identity politics to win elections while avoiding the economic
issues that every poll indicates Americans care about the most. The result is an increasingly
disillusioned and depressed population that hates the entire political system. Almost half of
the eligible electorate stays home during election years. Non-voters tend to be poorer while
the political junkies who are increasingly shrill, angry and unreasonable tend to be
wealthier. These are the people who form the base for identity politics because they have the
luxury to worry about such nonsense.
Working families: Groups of people related genetically or by choice, all of whom,
regardless of age, have to work to ensure they have food, clothing, and shelter.
"It's about the children " Madeline Albright, when asked about 500,000+ dead Iraqi children caused by the sanctions
she promoted said "We think the price was worth it " When will this nauseating hag slink off the public stage?
https://fair.org/extra/we-think-the-price-is-worth-it/
An average person with their limited lifespan can barely manage a quota of about a dozen
people to truly care about and about 70 to be acquainted with. Chances of any of those
belonging to some of those special category people are low to the point of it being
irrelevant and worthless to get acquainted with the categories themselves and their
cultures/language, unless they live in a few congregation capitals on this planet like San
Francisco, capitals which can be numbered on both my hands.
Unless the average person decides for themselves to care, trying to convince them to care
about special identity is tantamount to attempting to rob them of their precious lifespan,
over what? Superficial identities. There are religions which worship the supernatural. Now
there's a religion which worships the superficial called Identity Politics or Social Justice
Evangelism as i like to call it (as usual it has about as much to do with social justice as
Christianity had to do with world peace, and all to do with identity masturbation), arisen
jointly as a result of inflated and growing narcissism and unwarranted sense of
self-importance personality disorders influenced by spending too much time on social media
such as Facebook and Twitter.
Bah. Western Democrats focus too much on a minority which has barely any impact on the
economy at the expense of the majority which actually dictates the general economic trend and
therefore also creates the byproduct welfare/life quality of all the meme minorities to whom
it trickles down. That's the issue here. The difference between normal people and minorities
is that normal people know they don't matter in the larger picture, while minorities think
they matter while at the same time asking to be treated as part of the normal people even
though their very mentality is a paradox towards being normal.
The West is simply too
bankrupt on things that matter in the bigger picture and too involved in things that don't, a
complete lack of prioritization.
"... Comey's memo was a key component in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's decision to launch a special counsel investigation headed by former FBI Director Robert Mueller. ..."
"... Some have also suggested ( Paul Sperry to be exact) that Cambridge professor and FBI "informant" (spy) Stefan Halper, may have had a much larger role in the operation. ..."
"... Halper is a longtime spook whose ex-father-in-law, Ray Cline , was the former chief Soviet analyst and Deputy Director of the CIA from 1962 - 1966. Halper also spied on the Carter campaign during the 1980 election for Reagan - whose Vice President was former CIA director George H.W. Bush ( Ray Cline denied the spying took place). ..."
"... Papadopoulos' statement of offense also detailed his April 26, 2016, meeting with Mifsud at a London hotel. Over breakfast Mifsud told Papadopoulos "he had just returned from a trip to Moscow where he had met with high-level Russian governmental officials." Mifsud explained "that on that trip he (the Professor) learned that the Russians had obtained 'dirt' on then-candidate Clinton." Mifsud told Papadopoulos "the Russians had emails of Clinton." - The Federalist ..."
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) says he'll issue subpoenas for former FBI Director James Comey and former Attorney
General Loretta Lynch, but the panel's top Democrat Dianne Feinstein (CA) has to agree to it per committee rules. Grassley also said
he would be open to exploring immunity for Comey's former #2, Andrew McCabe.
"I will want to subpoena him," Grassley said of Comey during an appearance on C-SPAN's Newsmakers ."
The Iowan added that committee rules require that he and Feinstein "agree to it, and at this point I can't tell you if she
would agree to it. But if she will, yeah, then we will subpoena . " -
Politico
Feinstein may be hesitant to sign on, as she says she thinks Comey acted in good faith - which means she thinks Congress shouldn't
have a crack at questioning a key figure in the largest political scandal in modern history.
"While I disagree with his actions, I have seen no evidence that Mr. Comey acted in bad faith or that he lied about any of his
actions," said Feinstein during a Monday Judiciary panel hearing. Former Feinstein staffer and FBI investigator Dan Jones, meanwhile,
continues to work with Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS on a
$50 million investigation privately funded by George Soros and other "wealthy donors" to continue the investigation into Donald
Trump.
Also recall that
Feinstein
leaked Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson's Congressional testimony in January.
Comey skipped out on appearing before Grassley's committee this week following the June 14 release of DOJ Inspector General Michael
Horowitz's (OIG) report on FBI conduct during the Hillary Clinton email investigation - which dinged Comey for being "insubordinate"
and showing poor judgement. Horowitz is conducting a separate investigation into the FBI's counterintelligence operation on the Trump
campaign, including allegations of FISA surveillance abuse.
Maybe Comey also decided to bail after Horowitz admitted on Monday that
he's under a separate investigation for mishandling classified information after leaking a memo to the press documenting what
he felt was President Trump obstructing the FBI's probe into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn - which was conducted
by the FBI under dubious circumstances, and for which evidence may have been
tampered
with .
Comey's memo was a key component in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's decision to launch a special counsel investigation
headed by former FBI Director Robert Mueller.
Loretta Lynch, on the other hand , was dinged in the IG report over an "ambiguous" incomplete recusal from the Clinton email "matter"
despite a clandestine 30-minute "tarmac" meeting with Bill Clinton
one week before the FBI exonerated
Hillary Clinton .
All part of the bigger picture...
Despite IG Horowitz ultimately concluding that pro-Clinton / anti-Trump bias among the FBI's top brass did not make its way into
the Clinton email investigation, his report revealed alarming facts about FBI officials handling parallel investigations into each
candidate who received vastly different treatment.
For starters, it's clear that the FBI rushed to wrap up the Clinton email investigation before the election, while at the same
time the agency launched an open-ended counterintelligence operation against those in Trump's orbit.
We also know that opposition research paid for by Hillary Clinton was used by the FBI to justify surveilling the Trump campaign
- while new facts point to a multi-pronged campaign of espionage and deceit spanning several continents, governments and agencies
which was deployed at the highest levels in an effort to undermine Donald Trump before and after the 2016 U.S. election.
Some have also suggested ( Paul Sperry to be exact) that Cambridge
professor and FBI "informant" (spy) Stefan Halper, may have had a much larger role in the operation.
Halper is a longtime spook whose ex-father-in-law, Ray Cline , was the
former chief Soviet analyst and Deputy Director of the CIA from 1962 - 1966. Halper also
spied on the Carter campaign during the 1980 election for Reagan - whose Vice President was former CIA director
George H.W. Bush (
Ray Cline denied the spying took place).
From 2012 - 2017, the Pentagon under Obama awarded Halper over
$1 million in "research" contracts - nearly half of which was awarded during the 2016 US election .
Then there's the mysterious Maltese professor, Joseph Mifsud - a key witness in the Mueller investigation who
disappeared last fall , and who told Trump aide George Papadopoulos that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Papadopoulos would
drunkenly repeat the rumor to seasoned Australian diplomat (and
Clinton ally ) Alexander Downer in a London Bar, only to be construed by the FBI as potential collusion in order to justify their
counterintelligence operation against Trump.
And just Monday Trump advisor Roger Stone said that a
second FBI informant , Henry Greenberg, tried to entrap the Trump campaign with an offer to sell dirt on Hillary Clinton in exchange
for $2 million.
While the entire mosaic of events is multi-faceted and requires perhaps the world's biggest corkboard - here's a basic timeline
of various espionage or other spycraft conducted against the Trump campaign.
Papadopoulos' statement of offense also detailed his April 26, 2016, meeting with Mifsud at a London hotel. Over breakfast
Mifsud told Papadopoulos "he had just returned from a trip to Moscow where he had met with high-level Russian governmental officials."
Mifsud explained "that on that trip he (the Professor) learned that the Russians had obtained 'dirt' on then-candidate Clinton."
Mifsud told Papadopoulos "the Russians had emails of Clinton." -
The Federalist
May 10, 2016 - Papadopoulos tells this to former Australian Diplomat Alexander Downer during an alleged "
drunken barroom admission ."
Late May, 2016 - Roger Stone is approached by Greenberg with the $2 million offer for dirt on Clinton
July 2016 - FBI informant (spy) Stefan Halper meets with Trump campaign aide Carter Page for the first time, which would be one
of many encounters.
July 31, 2016 - the FBI officially launches operation
Crossfire Hurricane , the code name given to the counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign.
September, 2016 - Halper invites Papadopoulos to London, paying him $3,000 to work on an energy policy paper while wining and
dining him at a 200-year-old private London club on September 15.
While the FBI has yet to find any evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, they were able to use information Mifsud
planted with Papadopoulos to launch a
counterintelligence operation .
And as new facts and revelations continue to emerge, and IG Horowitz continues to unravel the FBI's counterintelligence operation
on Donald Trump, several rank-and-file FBI employees say
they want Congress to subpoena them so that they can step forward and testify against Comey and Andrew McCabe.
Funny - for two "innocent" people, Comey and Lynch want the exact opposite!
~Grassley also said he would be open to exploring immunity for Comey's former #2, Andrew McCabe.~
Screw you, Chuck. No one gets immunity. Stay the fuck out of what should be the business of a federal criminal grand jury.
Diane has enough trouble of her own with the leaky aide.
No, I think she will. They have the goods on her for leaking like a sieve through her aide and on to the entry level Pulitzer
Prize media whore (remember, they raided the newspaper. The goods are still there).
Rumor has it there is a subpoena waiting for DiFi out there. It would be best if she complied.
If two or more
persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the
United States , conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the
United States , or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder,
or delay the execution of any law of the
United States , or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the
United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty
years, or both.
We don't need Commey and Lynch questioned by those losers on Capitol Hill, that is a waste of money and time. What is required
is a DOJ inquiry, or better yet, a special council for the HRC Mail Server and Corruption in the Meuller probe.
I am normally against a special council, but in this case the DOJ is clearly biased. They should get to the bottom of the crimes
committed by hillery on her mail server including realated crime transacted on the server like uranium one. That is what the FBI
would do to us, and they should be no different. Equal protection under the law means equal punishment under the law as well.
An additional special council should be formed to get to the bottom of the FISA warrant to used for surveillance on the Trump
team and find out if there was any malfeasance obtaining those warrants. This would also bring up the question of whether the
meuller probe obstructed justice by obscuring exonerating evidence that the probe was established with junk evidence.
If a good prosecutor was used, there is enough evidence in the public forum now to throw a bunch of the obama administration
in prison for political corruption and the higher echelon members of the FBI in jail for bribery. That's right, the FBI can't
take gifts, even if the media are offering them. This is corruption of the highest order and our country will not survive this
if it is not prosecuted properly.
IF WE WANT THE SWAMP DRAINED PEOPLE HAVE TO GO TO PRISON FOR LIFE TO PUT THE FEAR OF GOD AND THE PEOPLE BACK INTO BUTEAUCRATS.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed publicly Monday that his
office is investigating James Comey for his handling of classified information as part of memos
he shared documenting discussions with President Trump.
The inspector general's comments confirmed reports dating back to April that the ex-FBI
director was facing scrutiny, amid revelations that at least two of the memos he shared with
his friend, Columbia University Professor Daniel Richman, contained information now deemed
classified.
The confirmation came during Monday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, where Horowitz and
FBI Director Christopher Wray testified on the findings in the IG's report on the handling of
the Hillary Clinton email probe.
"We received a referral on that from the FBI," Horowitz said, in response to questioning
from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, about the Comey memos. "We are
handling that referral and we will issue a report when the matter is complete and consistent
with the law and rules." Comey, back in April, confirmed to Fox News' Bret Baier that the IG's
office had interviewed him with regard to the memos, but downplayed the questions over
classified information as "frivolous" -- saying the real issue was whether he complied with
internal policies.
Grassley, though, told Horowitz on Monday, "I don't happen to think that is frivolous."
Comey, in testimony before Congress last year, acknowledged he shared the memos with the
intention of leaking to the press and spurring the appointment of a special counsel.
In April, Fox News initially learned that Horowitz was looking into whether classified
information was given to unauthorized sources as part of a broader review of Comey's
communications outside the bureau -- including media contact.
Comey, whom Trump fired in May 2017, denied that sharing the memos with his legal team
constituted a leak of classified information. Instead, he compared the process to keeping "a
diary."
"I didn't consider it part of an FBI file," Comey said. "It was my personal aide-memoire I
always thought of it as mine."
In his testimony last year before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey said he made the
decision to document the interactions in a way that would not trigger security
classification.
But in seven Comey memos handed over to Congress in April, eight of the 15 pages had
redactions under classified exceptions.
Looks like Fox and Free Beacon are part of the Deep state as they repeat the Deep State memo that DNC was hacked, not
that information was leaked by an insider and then false flag was performed by intelligence agencies to attribute it to Russia.
Former Obama administration National Security Council cybersecurity coordinator Michael
Daniel confirmed on Wednesday that a "stand down" order was given to counter Russian
cyberattacks during the 2016 election.
During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, asked Daniel
about a passage in the book Russian Roluette. The passage was about a staffer from Daniel's
team, Daniel Prieto, retelling the time that Obama's national security adviser Susan Rice told
Daniel and his team to halt their efforts and to "stand down" in countering Russia's
cyberattacks.
Daniel was quoted saying to his team that they had to stop working on options to counter the
Russian attack: "We've been told to stand down." Prieto is quoted as being "incredulous and in
disbelief" and asking, "Why the hell are we standing down?"
"That is an accurate rendering of the conversation at the staff meeting but the larger
context is something that we can discuss in the classified session," Daniel said. "But I can
say there were many concerns about how many people were involved in the development of the
options so the decision at that point was to neck down the number of people that were involved
in our ongoing response options. It's not accurate to say all activities ceased at that point.
"
Daniel and his team were tasked in developing options to Russia's cyberattacks on the United
States. Russian hacked the Democratic National Committee servers in 2015 and into voter
registration systems of several U.S. states in 2016.
"... "The good news is the Deep State seems less competent than we originally feared" -Well, obviously; or Hillary would be President NOW ..."
"... The Deep State may not have been very competent ( Gee,whudda surprise!)) but– it's still in place. And that fact alone should make all of us uneasy. ..."
"... I'm satisfied that we have the final word on Clinton's guilt and the special treatment she and her staff were given by criminal investigators who believed she was going to win the election. ..."
"... I think a good book to explain what we are seeing is The Fiefdom Syndrome by Robert Herbold. That highlights how various managers set up their own sub organizations in a groups. It focuses on the corporate model yet it can equally apply to any other human organization. ..."
"... Comey took Lynch completely off the hook. She had not recused herself from the case. Prosecution or not was her decision, not Comey's. And even if she had recused herself, the decision would have gone to Yates. Lynch had no good options. If she had said there were no grounds for prosecution, she would have been crucified for partisanship. If she had decided that Clinton should be prosecuted, all hell would have broken loose. Well, there is no way she would have ever made the decision to prosecute, but point is, Comey took her completely off the hook. No wonder Lynch made no big deal about his "insubordination". ..."
"... there were NO pro-Trump factions inside the Bureau. ..."
"... What anti-Clinton faction? Every one of the five agents identified as sending politically biased communications was anti-Trump. As best I can determine every decision by biased decision makers that Horowitz is baffled by, or reports himself "unpersuaded" by the explanations advanced, was anti-Trump. Even when Strzok writes a text message that Horowitz admits is a smoking gun (~"We'll stop Trump") Horowitz says it's no biggie because other decision-makers were involved, "unbiased" ones like, explicitly, Bill Priestap, he of the procedures-violating spy launch against Trump BEFORE any investigation was opened! ..."
"... The real take away is that the Deep State is a reality, far more entrenched than anyone of us knows. Whether it is particularly competent or not ( compared to what? Government in general? ) is irrelevant. No one of any stature in any part of the government bureaucracy will be held accountable ever. They never are. As soon as the media circus moves on, it will be back to business as usual in DC. ..."
"... Speaking of idiocracy, some personal emails between FBI agents were made public this week with the release of the IG report. They give a glimpse into the infantilisation of our ruling "class". It is clear that fatherlessness and the replacement of education with indoctrination have produced a generation of child-men and child-women who view the State as parent, provider, deity (even as lover – supplier of ideologically acceptable bed-mates). ..."
"... jp: "Hard to see how the FBI's mistakes didn't benefit one candidate over the other." That's the standard line from the Clinton campaign. They believe everything begins and ends with Comey causing her to lose. Of course, they never mention why the FBI was investigating her, personally, and key members of her State Dept. staff, not her campaign by the way. ..."
"... The FBI may have hurt her campaign, but only because they were doing their job, albiet badly. She hurt her campaign infinitely by breaking the law and compromising national security, which required a criminal probe into her lawbreaking. ..."
"... Dave: "Peter and Lisa were 2 cops talking about a criminal." Well, that's one more reason not to trust federal law enforcement. I can cite the criminal statutes Hillary Clinton was being personally investigated for. Can anyone cite any criminal statute that Donald Trump was being personally investigated for at the same time? Was he even being personally investigated? A counterintelligence investigation is not a criminal investigation. ..."
"a chaotic cluster of competing pro- and anti- Clinton/Trump factions inside the Bureau"
Which is what the FBI looked like at the time and over the last two years, the
anti-Clinton faction seeming to be centered in New York, and the anti-Trump faction in, what,
D.C.?
This report merely provides more talking points for politicians. And, talk they will.
IG Michael Horowitz had a specific mandate. It was to investigate "violations of criminal
and civil law." It was not to investigate breaches of protocol and bureaucratic
regulations.
This report makes no allegations of criminal activity. As such, it can only be read as
exonerating those under investigation, of same. The ultimate remedy for "breaches of protocol and bureaucratic regulations" is termination
of employment. And, Comey has already been fired. The rest is irrelevant and/or superfluous.
Agreed. the report sheds light on some truly incompetent (and unprofessional, inappropriate
behavior). Disagree – the 'deep state' is behind this. perhaps the most depressing
aspect of this circus is the realization there was incompetence and malfeasance in the Obama
administration. there was incompetence and malfeasance in the Clinton campaign.
There was incompetence and malfeasance in the DoJ, there was incompetence and malfeasance
in the Trump campaign, and there is a whole lot of incompetence and malfeasance in the
current administration. see where this is going? "malfeasance" recognized and leveraged by
"foreign actors" (some other 'deep state' as it were) demonstrates competence in terms of
their job(s).
I am reminded of the Seinfeld episode in which "Puddy" and "Elaine" meet with a priest to
discuss their relationship and its impact on their eternal lives – with Puddy being
Christian and Elaine not. the priest says, "oh that's easy, you're both going to hell "
"It will be too easy, however, to miss the most important conclusion of the report: there is
no longer a way to claim America's internal intelligence agency, the FBI, did not play a role
in the 2016 election."
SO we are expected to believe the FBI, et. al; never played a role before? Spare me
"The good news is the Deep State seems less competent than we originally feared" -Well, obviously; or Hillary would be President NOW
Way funny, this! And all the time we've been looking for enemies abroad-in this case the
Rooshians-the real enemy was right in our own backyard. The Deep State may not have been very
competent ( Gee,whudda surprise!)) but– it's still in place. And that fact alone should
make all of us uneasy.
If you are going to have a deep state, and in a large nation, it does seem necessary, then it
should be a meritocracy. Clearly the system of recruiting high level officials from certain
Ivy League schools does not result in a meritocracy.
Erik: "It was not to investigate breaches of protocol and bureaucratic regulations."
Well, he did, and thank goodness. I'm satisfied that we have the final word on Clinton's guilt and the special treatment she
and her staff were given by criminal investigators who believed she was going to win the
election.
If that's not political bias, then we need another word for it. Political consideration in
the outcome of a criminal probe.
Think about that if it had been a GOP candidate, what would the progressives be saying
about the same behavior?
I think a good book to explain what we are seeing is The Fiefdom Syndrome by Robert Herbold. That highlights how various managers set up
their own sub organizations in a groups. It focuses on the corporate model yet it can equally
apply to any other human organization.
What I find amusing is the emphasis on texts between Strzok and Page. They sure were sloppy
in using govt cell phones for their texting. However, at the end of the day, their texts were
the equivalent of pillow talk. What's the remedy? Everybody wear a wire to bed to trap people
in the act of gossiping? Does anybody think that these casual conversations go on all the
time. There is no group of people more cynical that law enforcement people.
At the end of the day, people did their jobs and prevented their opinions from the proper
execution of their jobs.
Comey took Lynch completely off the hook. She had not recused herself from the case.
Prosecution or not was her decision, not Comey's. And even if she had recused herself, the
decision would have gone to Yates. Lynch had no good options. If she had said there were no
grounds for prosecution, she would have been crucified for partisanship. If she had decided
that Clinton should be prosecuted, all hell would have broken loose. Well, there is no way
she would have ever made the decision to prosecute, but point is, Comey took her completely
off the hook. No wonder Lynch made no big deal about his "insubordination".
H. Clinton squirreled away over 30 thousand emails into a private server. I am reliably
informed that if any other federal employee pulled a move like that they would have been
fired, with loss of pension and possible jail time in as much as this is grand jury fodder.
Not ol' Hillary though.
"There is only to argue which side they favored and whether they meddled via clumsiness, as a
coordinated action, or as a chaotic cluster of competing pro- and anti- Clinton/Trump
factions inside the Bureau. "
More fake news – there were NO pro-Trump factions inside the Bureau.
Michael Kenny
June 15, 2018 at 11:29 am
The important point is that Trump has no need to worry about any of this if he really is as
innocent as he claims. In fact, infiltrated informers, wiretaps etc. are a godsend to Trump
if he's innocent because they prove that innocence. Thus, Trump's making such a fuss about
these things is a tacit admission of guilt.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
Yes, of course. Because if someone spied on you looking for a crime of which you were
innocent, you'd be totally ok with it and would keep quiet. Only someone who's guilty of a
crime would speak up being spied upon.
"There is only to argue whether they meddled via clumsiness, as a coordinated action, or as a
chaotic cluster of competing pro- and anti- Clinton/Trump factions inside the Bureau."
What anti-Clinton faction? Every one of the five agents identified as sending politically
biased communications was anti-Trump. As best I can determine every decision by biased
decision makers that Horowitz is baffled by, or reports himself "unpersuaded" by the
explanations advanced, was anti-Trump. Even when Strzok writes a text message that Horowitz
admits is a smoking gun (~"We'll stop Trump") Horowitz says it's no biggie because other
decision-makers were involved, "unbiased" ones like, explicitly, Bill Priestap, he of the
procedures-violating spy launch against Trump BEFORE any investigation was opened!
To believe Horowitz' conclusions about lack of bias in decision making you have to be as
willfully reluctant to connect the dots as he is. And I'm not, nor should you be.
The real take away is that the Deep State is a reality, far more entrenched than anyone of us
knows. Whether it is particularly competent or not ( compared to what? Government in general?
) is irrelevant. No one of any stature in any part of the government bureaucracy will be held
accountable ever. They never are. As soon as the media circus moves on, it will be back to
business as usual in DC.
Those Russians are so clever. They trained agents for a lifetime to master accents of rural
Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin then duped the bible thumping gun lovers into rejecting her
highness Hillary. The immense Russian powers are extraordinary when one considers the Russian
economy is smaller than Texas.
But seriously, we had eight years of a Democratic president and people had enough and
chose a Republican even though he was outspent. That is the consistent pattern. After Trump
another Democrat will move into the White House.
Speaking of idiocracy, some personal emails between FBI agents were made public this week
with the release of the IG report.
They give a glimpse into the infantilisation of our ruling "class". It is clear that
fatherlessness and the replacement of education with indoctrination have produced a
generation of child-men and child-women who view the State as parent, provider, deity (even
as lover – supplier of ideologically acceptable bed-mates).
A cosmic ignorance radiates from these email exchanges. These agents appear to have been
dropped here from another planet. They not only seem to have been disconnected from or to
have forgotten the Civilisation that gave birth to the society in which they live, but they
seem never to have had any knowledge or awareness of it in the first place.
(Reading between the lines, deducing their "principles" from their mentality, one could
confidently conclude that these adolescents truly believe that State is God and Marx is His
prophet.)
They're going to get away with it with no adequately serious repercussions meaning they're
competent enough, aren't they? That also means they won't be properly deterred and will
simply do it better next time.
jp: "Hard to see how the FBI's mistakes didn't benefit one candidate over the other." That's the standard line from the Clinton campaign. They believe everything begins and
ends with Comey causing her to lose. Of course, they never mention why the FBI was investigating her, personally, and key
members of her State Dept. staff, not her campaign by the way.
The FBI may have hurt her campaign, but only because they were doing their job, albiet
badly. She hurt her campaign infinitely by breaking the law and compromising national security,
which required a criminal probe into her lawbreaking.
If you're going to fault the FBI, you can't then not fault Secretary Clinton. The two go
hand-in-hand, and she comes first in the chain of event.
Case closed. Though she didn't get her just desserts in court, at least she received
political justice. 🙂
Dave: "Peter and Lisa were 2 cops talking about a criminal." Well, that's one more reason not to trust federal law enforcement. I can cite the criminal statutes Hillary Clinton was being personally investigated
for. Can anyone cite any criminal statute that Donald Trump was being personally investigated
for at the same time? Was he even being personally investigated? A counterintelligence investigation is not a criminal investigation.
In a way we now can talk about Intelligence Industrial complex
Notable quotes:
"... The good news is the Deep State seems less competent than we originally feared. ..."
"... In a damning passage , the 568 page report found it "extraordinary and insubordinate for Comey to conceal his intentions from his superiors for the admitted purpose of preventing them from telling him not to make the statement, and to instruct his subordinates in the FBI to do the same. By departing so clearly and dramatically from FBI and department norms, the decisions negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the department as fair administrators of justice." Comey's drafting of a press release announcing no prosecution for Clinton, written before the full investigation was even completed, is given a light touch though in the report, along the lines of roughly preparing for the conclusion based on early indications. ..."
"... Enough: The DOJ Must Show Its Cards to the American Public A Higher Loyalty is Jim Comey's Revenge, Served Lukewarm ..."
"... Attorney General Loretta Lynch is criticized for not being more sensitive to public perceptions when she agreed to meet privately with Bill Clinton aboard an airplane as the FBI investigation into Hillary unfolded. "Lynch's failure to recognize the appearance problem and to take action to cut the visit short was an error in judgment." Her statements later about her decision not to recuse further "created public confusion and didn't adequately address the situation." ..."
"... Page and Strzok also discussed cutting back the number of investigators present for Clinton's in-person interview in light of the fact she might soon be president, and thus their new boss. Someone identified only as Agent One went on to refer to Clinton as "the President" and in a message told a friend "I'm with her." The FBI also allowed Clinton's lawyers to attend her interview, even though they were also witnesses to a possible crimes committed by Clinton. ..."
"... Page and Strzok were among five FBI officials the report found expressed hostility toward Trump and have been referred to the FBI's internal disciple system. The report otherwise makes only wishy-washy recommendations about things every agent should already know, like "adopting a policy addressing the appropriateness of department employees discussing the conduct of uncharged individuals in public statements." ..."
"... In that sense, the IG just poured a can of jet fuel onto the fires of the 2016 election and walked away to watch it burn. ..."
"... One concrete outcome, however, is to weaken a line of prosecution for Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The chief Russiagate investigator has just seen a key witness degraded -- any defense lawyer will characterize Comey's testimony as tainted now -- and a possible example of obstruction weakened. ..."
"... The report thus underscores one of the stated reasons for Comey's dismissal. Firing someone for incompetence isn't obstructing justice; it's the boss' job. ..."
"... the most important conclusion of the report: there is no longer a way to claim America's internal intelligence agency, the FBI, did not play a role in the 2016 election. There is only to argue which side they favored and whether they meddled via clumsiness, as a coordinated action, or as a chaotic cluster of competing pro- and anti- Clinton/Trump factions inside the Bureau. And that's the tally before anyone brings up the FBI's use of a human informant inside the Trump campaign, the FBI's use of both FISA warrants and pseudo-legal warrantless surveillance against key members of the Trump team, the FBI's use of opposition research from the Steele Dossier , and so on. ..."
June
15, 2018The good news is the Deep State seems less competent than we originally
feared.
It will be easy to miss the most important point amid the partisan bleating over what the
Department of Justice Office of Inspector General report on the FBI's Clinton email
investigation really means.
While each side will find the evidence they want to find proving the FBI, with James Comey
as director, helped/hurt Hillary Clinton and/or maybe Donald Trump, the real takeaway is this:
the FBI influenced the election of a president.
In January 2017 the Inspector General for the Department of Justice, Michael Horowitz (who
previously worked on the 2012 study of "Fast and Furious"), opened his probe into the FBI's
Clinton email investigation, including public statements Comey made at critical moments in the
presidential campaign. Horowitz's focus was always to be on how the FBI did its work, not to
re-litigate the case against Clinton. Nor did the IG plan to look into anything regarding
Russiagate.
In a damning
passage , the 568 page report found it "extraordinary and
insubordinate for Comey to conceal his intentions from his superiors for the admitted purpose
of preventing them from telling him not to make the statement, and to instruct his subordinates
in the FBI to do the same. By departing so clearly and dramatically from FBI and department
norms, the decisions negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the department as fair
administrators of justice." Comey's drafting of a press release announcing no prosecution for
Clinton, written before the full investigation was even completed, is given a light touch
though in the report, along the lines of roughly preparing for the conclusion based on early
indications.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch is criticized for not being more sensitive to public
perceptions when she agreed to meet privately with Bill Clinton aboard an airplane as the FBI
investigation into Hillary unfolded. "Lynch's failure to recognize the appearance problem and
to take action to cut the visit short was an error in judgment." Her statements later about her
decision not to recuse further "created public confusion and didn't adequately address the
situation."
The report also
criticizes in depth FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who exchanged texts disparaging
Trump before moving from the Clinton email to the Russiagate investigation. Those texts
"brought discredit" to the FBI and sowed public doubt about the investigation, including one
exchange that read, "Page: "[Trump's] not ever going to become president, right? Strzok: "No.
No he's not. We'll stop it." Another Strzok document
stated "we know foreign actors obtained access to some Clinton emails, including at least
one secret message."
Page and Strzok also discussed cutting back the number of investigators present for
Clinton's in-person interview in light of the fact she might soon be president, and thus their
new boss. Someone identified only as Agent One went on to refer to Clinton as "the President"
and in a message told a friend "I'm with her." The FBI also allowed Clinton's lawyers to attend
her interview, even though they were also witnesses to a possible crimes committed by
Clinton.
Page and Strzok were among five FBI officials the report found expressed hostility
toward Trump and have been referred to the FBI's internal disciple system. The report otherwise
makes only wishy-washy recommendations about things every agent should already know, like
"adopting a policy addressing the appropriateness of department employees discussing the
conduct of uncharged individuals in public statements."
But at the end of it all, the details really don't matter, because the report broadly found
no political bias, no purposeful efforts or strategy to sway the election. In aviation disaster
terms, it was all pilot error. Like an accident of sorts, as opposed to the pilot boarding
drunk, but the plane crashed and killed 300 people either way.
The report is already being welcomed by Democrats -- who feel Comey
shattered Clinton's chances of winning the election by reopening the email probe just days
before the election -- and by Republicans, who feel Comey let Clinton off easy. Many are now
celebrating it was only gross incompetence, unethical behavior, serial bad judgment, and
insubordination that led the FBI to help determine the election. No Constitutional crisis.
A lot of details in those 568 pages to yet fully parse, but at first glance there is not
much worthy of prosecution (though Attorney General Jeff Sessions says he will review the
report for possible
prosecutions and IG Horowitz will testify in front of Congress on Monday and may reveal
more information.) Each side will point to the IG's conclusion of "no bias" to shut down calls
for this or that in a tsunami of blaming each other. In that sense, the IG just poured a
can of jet fuel onto the fires of the 2016 election and walked away to watch it burn.
One concrete outcome, however, is to weaken a line of
prosecution for Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The chief Russiagate investigator has just
seen a key witness degraded -- any defense lawyer will characterize Comey's testimony as
tainted now -- and a possible example of obstruction weakened. As justification for firing
Comey, the White House initially pointed to an earlier Justice Department memo criticizing
Comey for many of the same actions now highlighted by the IG (Trump later added concerns about
the handling of Russiagate.) The report thus underscores one of the stated reasons for
Comey's dismissal. Firing someone for incompetence isn't obstructing justice; it's the boss'
job.
It will be too easy, however, to miss the most important conclusion of the report: there
is no longer a way to claim America's internal intelligence agency, the FBI, did not play a
role in the 2016 election. There is only to argue which side they favored and whether they
meddled via clumsiness, as a coordinated action, or as a chaotic cluster of competing pro- and
anti- Clinton/Trump factions inside the Bureau. And that's the tally before anyone brings up
the FBI's use of a human informant inside the Trump campaign, the FBI's use of both FISA
warrants and pseudo-legal
warrantless surveillance against key members of the Trump team, the FBI's use of opposition
research from the
Steele Dossier , and so on.
The good news is the Deep State seems less competent than we originally feared. But even if
one fully accepts the IG report's conclusion that all this -- and there's a lot -- was not
intentional, at a minimum it makes clear to those watching ahead of 2020 what tools are
available and the impact they can have. While we continue to look for the bad guy abroad, we
have already met the enemy and he is us.
Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well : How I Helped Lose the Battle for the
Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People and Hooper's War : A Novel of WWII Japan. Follow him on Twitter
@WeMeantWell .
Following a Monday report that President Obama is
"secretly" meeting
with top Democratic contenders for the 2020 election,
The
Hill
notes that desperate Democrats beset with
Clinton fatigue
are freaking out over the fact that the much "blue wave" appears to be
crashing
on the rocks
, and there's nobody around to salvage the party ahead of midterms and the 2020
election.
"
There's f---ing no one else
," one frustrated Democratic strategist said. "
Bill
Clinton is toxic, [former President] Carter is too old, and there's no one else around for miles
."
-
The
Hill
In the hopes of reinvigorating the DNC (of which up to 40 state chapters stand accused of
funneling up to $84 million
to the Clinton campaign), downtrodden dems are hoping that Obama
will get off the sidelines and help rally support.
"
He's been way too quiet
," said one longtime Obama bundler who rarely
criticizes the former president, according to
The Hill
. "
There are a lot of people who think he's played too little a role
or almost no role
in endorsing or fundraising and
he's done jack shit
in
getting people to donate to the party.
"
After the GOP made sweeping gains in the 2016 election, the DNC was left in disarray - and
anyone who might be able to lead the party, be it Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren, may run in 2020.
Bernie Sanders is of course out because he may run
and
he's not a Democrat.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was among five possible contenders for the Democratic crown
attending the "We the People" conference in Washington on Wednesday. He received the loudest
applause and heard chants of "Bernie."
But he can't play the elder role for the party, both because he may run for president
and because he's not a Democrat.
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), two other possibilities,
have mass followings but also may join the 2020 race.
-
The
Hill
That leaves the spotlight squarely on Barrack Hussein Obama - whose lack of endorsements during
the primary season and general absence has frustrated Democrats.
Bill Clinton, who is more radioactive than ever after making ill-advised comments over "what you
can do to somebody against their will," has endorsed several candidates since leaving office, yet
Obama has declined to do the same thus far.
"You have all these people running for office, some of them against other Democrats, and
his strategy has been to not endorse anyone and that's what's been so f---ing ridiculous because
not only are you not helping them, you're hurting them
," said the bundler.
Former aides and Democratic strategists said Obama has sought to maintain a lower profile not
only for his party to find new life, but also to avoid playing a foil to President Trump and
Republicans.
A source close to Obama said the former president is looking forward to hitting the campaign
trail, fundraising and issuing more endorsements closer to the midterms. But the source added
that
injecting himself into day-to-day politics would do the Democratic Party a
disservice by making it more difficult for other Democratic voices to rise to prominence.
-
The
Hill
Others say that Obama has remained the unofficial leader of the Democratic Party since leaving
office.
"He always wanted to help, without a doubt. He cares tremendously about our country and our
party. But I think he always intended to be a little more on the sidelines than he's been," said
one former Obama aide. "I think he realizes he is needed and needed badly."
Former Obama aides say that the ex-President is unsettled by policies flowing from the Trump
administration, along with the "tone and tenor" of the White House (but not enough to aggressively
help active Democrats fight, apparently).
According to Democratic strategist David Wade: "
It's certainly not the post-presidency
he might've preferred.
"
Maybe Obama is just having a good time hanging out?
The Neo-cons, excuse me Democrats better get moving. (its so hard to
tell them apart these days) The clock is ticking, November is coming
and more reports showing criminal behavior are on the way.
~"Many of you impatient
homos are whining about no arrests
or indictments have been made yet.
When will it happen? I'll tell you:
Early October."~
Bingo.
The dems have another problem and
appear too stupid to focus on it.
They apparently much rather worry
about having a figurehead to lead
them, but their real problem is
much, much larger. Simply put, they
have no message, save "Hate
Trump!!!" What exactly do they
promise voters these days? Trump
impeachment as an economic program?
Also curious is the fact they
want no part of Hillary. Do they
admit she's as tainted as a leper?
The problem with that will be people
will see through it as cheap,
partisan electioneering. The result
will be an EASIER time to motivate
Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts.
There's as much chance of an
implosion of Democrats in 2018 as
there were back in 2006 when the GOP
was nearly blasted out of existence
then too. Remember how all the
predictions about the imminent doom
of the GOP were front and centre?
Journalists are so lazy, they're
just using Liquid Paper to
erase "Republican" to "Democrat" and
change the date from stuff they
wrote back in 2006.
Doesn't matter if Republicans or
Democrats win. In the end, everyone
else simply loses. How much you
lose is proportional to the distance
from the party elite you actually
are.
Found an interesting article about some developments with Seth
Rich. Hard to make sense of. I noticed the DNC created a tiny
plaque above a crappy bike rack for him. They don't want anybody
to remember him. Probably Hillary's idea.
Seth uploaded the files into a DropBox (per Sy Hersh) and
also may have given others the password to it. He was trying
to make sure that the information got out. He very likely also
asked that he never be named as the leaker, for obvious
reasons.
His family could possibly confirm that he was the leaker if
they knew at the time, though I'm sure that they were heavily
pressured to do otherwise as soon as Seth Rich was murdered.
They would have simply been given a choice along with some
thinly veiled threats.
Bernie sold his mooing cow followers out last time. The DNC will make
him an offer he can't refuse. Biden is a tit grabbing corrupt
cartoon. I say Crusty the clown has a good chance. Do it for the
children!
"... Excellent piece, dexterously explaining the similarity between the IG's dilemma and Mueller's shot at obstruction. If Mueller claims Trump obstructed, and must be prosecuted, Comey must be prosecuted. ..."
James Comey once
described his position in the Clinton investigation as being the victim of a "500-year flood."
The point of the analogy was that he was unwittingly carried away by events rather than
directly causing much of the damage to the FBI. His "500-year flood" just collided with the
500-page report of
the Justice Department inspector general (IG) Michael Horowitz.
The IG sinks Comey's narrative with a finding that he "deviated" from Justice Department
rules and acted in open insubordination.
Rather than portraying Comey as carried away by his
biblical flood, the report finds that he was the destructive force behind the controversy. The
import of the report can be summed up in Comeyesque terms as the distinction between flotsam
and jetsam. Comey portrayed the broken rules as mere flotsam, or debris that floats away after
a shipwreck. The IG report suggests that this was really a case of jetsam, or rules
intentionally tossed over the side by Comey to lighten his load. Comey's jetsam included rules
protecting the integrity and professionalism of his agency, as represented by his public
comments on the Clinton investigation.
The IG report concludes, "While we did not find that these decisions were the result of
political bias on Comey's part, we nevertheless concluded that by departing so clearly and
dramatically from FBI and department norms, the decisions negatively impacted the perception of
the FBI and the department as fair administrators of justice."
The report will leave many unsatisfied and undeterred. Comey went from a persona non grata
to a patron saint for many Clinton supporters. Comey, who has made millions of dollars with a
tell-all book portraying himself as the paragon of "ethical leadership," continues to maintain
that he would take precisely the same actions again.
Ironically, Comey, fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe , former FBI agent Peter Strzok and
others, by their actions, just made it more difficult for special counsel Robert Mueller to prosecute Trump for
obstruction. There is now a comprehensive conclusion by career investigators that Comey
violated core agency rules and undermined the integrity of the FBI. In other words, there was
ample reason to fire James Comey.
Had Trump fired Comey immediately upon taking office, there would be little question about
his conduct warranting such termination. Instead, Trump waited to fire him and proceeded to
make damaging statements about how the Russian investigation was on his mind at the time, as
well as telling Russian diplomats the day after that the firing took "pressure off" him.
Nevertheless, Mueller will have to acknowledge that there were solid, if not overwhelming,
grounds to fire Comey.
To use the Comey firing now in an obstruction case, Mueller will have to assume that the
firing of an "insubordinate" official was done for the wrong reason. Horowitz faced precisely
this same problem in his review and refused to make such assumptions about Comey and others.
The IG report found additional emails showing a political bias against Trump and again
featuring the relationship of Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page. In one exchange, Page
again sought reassurance from Strzok, who was a critical player in the investigations of both
Hillary Clinton and
Donald Trump , that Trump
is "not ever going to become president, right? Right?!" Strzok responded, "No. No he won't.
We'll stop it."
The IG noted that some of these shocking emails occurred at that point in October 2016 when
the FBI was dragging its feet on the Clinton email investigation and Strzok was a critical
player in that investigation. The IG concluded that bias was reflected in that part of the
investigation with regard to Strzok and his role. Notably, the IG was in the same position as
Mueller: The IG admits that the Strzok-Page emails "potentially indicated or created the
appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations." This
includes the decision by Strzok to prioritize the Russian investigation over the Clinton
investigation. The IG states that "[w]e concluded that we did not have confidence that this
decision by Strzok was free from bias."
However, rather than assume motivations, the IG concluded that it could not "find
documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias,
directly affected the specific investigative decisions." Thus, there was bias reflected in the
statements of key investigatory figures like Strzok but there were also objective alternative
reasons for the actions taken by the FBI. That is precisely the argument of Trump on the Comey
firing. While he may have harbored animus toward Comey or made disconcerting statements, the
act of firing Comey can be justified on Comey's own misconduct as opposed to assumptions about
his motives.
Many of us who have criticized Comey in the past, including former Republican and Democratic
Justice Department officials, have not alleged a political bias. As noted by the IG report,
Comey's actions did not benefit the FBI or Justice Department but, rather, caused untold harm
to those institutions. The actions benefited Comey as he tried to lighten his load in heading
into a new administration. It was the same motive that led Comey to improperly remove FBI memos
and then leak information to the media after he was fired by Trump. It was jetsam thrown
overboard intentionally by Comey to save himself, not his agency.
The Horowitz report is characteristically balanced. It finds evidence of political bias
among key FBI officials against Trump and criticizes officials in giving the investigation of
Trump priority over the investigation of Clinton. However, it could not find conclusive
evidence that such political bias was the sole reason for the actions taken in the
investigation. The question is whether those supporting the inspector general in reaching such
conclusions would support the same approach by the special counsel when the subject is not
Comey but Trump.
Comey is simply two-legged pond scum. He did what he thought would preserve his privileged
position. No way a POS like him would go against the wishes of Barry, Loretta and Hillary.
The question I have is this: were those three acting in concert to beat Trump or did Barry
direct Jimmy to do in Hillary with that late-stage reopening of the inquiry? Barry would have
hated to have Hillary replace him, because - if she actually lived through it - she would
probably have reduced him to a minor historical footnote. His ego couldn't handle that. Heck,
I wouldn't even exclude the possibility that Bubba's meeting with Loretta, perhaps including
a phone call with Barry, was about keeping Hillary out of the White House. It might have
cramped Bubba's style, being first dude and all and under close scrutiny.
Although damning in many respects, the IG's report falls short in identifying prosecutable
actions on the part of FbI / DoJ officials... There may be some firings, but that's about
it...
Comey will get to skate with the $$$ from his book tour / Trump bashing tour, Stroczk
and Page sail off into the sunset and likely go to work for some Dim think tank, the rank and
file all go back to work thinking, phew, that one was close...
McCabe is going to be the
poster child that gets the stick, while at the same time the underlying bias in these two
agencies will continue unabated...
This report whitewashed the worst crimes.... The OIG reports recommendations and what they
chose to ignore is reminiscing of Comey's now infamous indictment and exoneration of Hillary Clinton from that 2016 press conference.
The FBI takes bribes from the media for secret insider information and used the media
connections for disinformation to twist the narrative for Clinton. Hundreds of interactions
with MSM, bribes being handed out. These jerks must feel their power to be the unnamed
sources, looks like they've dug their own grave. Literally hundreds of contacts, recorded
bribes and an extreme close relation with CNN and New York Times. This is the source of all
the disinformation, lies, rumors and destruction to our nation. The FBI is the enemy with
their unlawful alliance with communist and homosexuals in the media. I wonder how many FBI
agents are communist and homosexuals?
The key in all this is the political slush fund of over a $100 billion which everyone
ignores, the Clinton Foundation will make or break politicians for a corrupt elitist
communist agenda for the next generation. It's being protected from investigation because of
the previous crimes of Mueller, Comey, Rosenstein, and who knows how many others. The Clinton
Foundation was bribed by foreigners for access, favors and the plan to use the money to take
over the US government.
Uranium One is just one covert operation which ensnares all of these opportunist. The
Haitian relief money, remember Bush II sat right next to Clinton stating the reason or his
purpose was to prevent the Haitian money from being stolen. That was on national full
throated MSM. Are there murders connected to the Clinton Foundation? Considering
Congresswoman Wasserman Shultz most likely ordered an FBI agent to look into Seth Rich,
Pakistanis infiltrating the highest level of leadership, Iranian cocaine smuggling network
the FBI was prepared to take down stopped by Obama because it would interfere with the Iran
nuke deal. None of this is being added to the equation, incredible FBI and overall government
corruption.
It's worse than a swamp, it's an army aligned against us with no honor, decency or even
allegiance to this nation, only their gang, allegiance to an organization, a gang covering up
to continue to do the same. Each agency of the federal government is of this culture, the
break down in this country is apart of every aspect of the government.
Excellent piece, dexterously explaining the similarity between the IG's dilemma and
Mueller's shot at obstruction. If Mueller claims Trump obstructed, and must be prosecuted, Comey must be prosecuted.
Slow-walking an investigation resulting in no charges being filed despite clear evidence
of multiple crimes -- I would call THAT clear obstruction. McCabe and Comey have conspired to
try to dump this on Strzok. It would be funny if it weren't so despicable.
What can you expect from Comey, paid $7 million a year by HSBC, the bank that laundered
some $12 billion in narco trafficker (read CIA proxy) narcotic money? Lock him up in SuperMax
in a narrow cell next to jewboy Rosenstein.i
The thing is, Trump was his boss, and if he decided the Russia coup was a waste of FBI
time, he has every right to fire the head of the FBI, for continuing to waist time and money,
purposely trying to undermine the election.
Remember, this is before there was a special counsel, and if after a year of investigating
there's no there there, there sure as shit wasn't anything back then to investigate!
There is nothing illegal about the President telling Comey to knock it off, or else.
He should tell the press what they want to here. Of course the phony Russia scam played a
part in getting Comey fired, rightfully so. Then stand with his fist in the air shouting Fuck
the Prestitutes!
For a year now, they've been in a search for something, anything, to investigate.
He should fire Sessions, Rosenstein, and Mueller, TODAY, and watch their heads
explode!
There is an evil intent in all this, beyond the obvious.
Many believe WWG1WGA means, "Where we go one we go all".
A Ponzi always collapses the minute it stops growing, it's a 100% certainty. From the
start, ~100 years ago, the Oligarchs who gathered on Jekyll Island knew that their debt money
would grow right up to the day it suddenly collapsed, and planned it with all it's allure,
hooks, and traps, to consume everything, before that day, so that all would be in the same
boat when it collapses. They planned it to fail from the start. It's a mutual suicide Trap,
set up to consume the world, consolidate power, then collapse all the Nation's currencies in
one fail swoop!
For in a single hour such fabulous wealth has been destroyed!
They'll have their grand New World Order, and a knew single currency waiting in the wings,
to rescue the useful idiots from the disaster they've planned.
They'll attempt to number us all, track everything, and dictate how you buy and sell -
through them of course. But not just what you buy with, but what you buy, who you buy from,
how much you buy, and how much you will pay!
That is their plan. How far they'll get nobody knows. I suspect they'll fail miserably,
but the truth is, they're already a long way down this road.
It did not just impact perception. It factually altered the FBI protocol. Comey was high on power of co-running the deep state and subverting justice and the
Constitution. This is high treason, covering high crimes and attempting to unseat Trump at every
juncture.
The FBI isn't and you still think J.Edgar was an aberration ? The FBI is the swamps gamekeeper, nurturing the critters, weeding out the weak, until
only the foulest and strongest they can be unleashed on us. Take two red pills and report back in the morning.
Famous story in the FBI. Young Special Agent selected to drive Mr Hoover
from the office to the airport. As the SA opens the door for the Director
he overhears a fragment of the Director and SAC's farewell conversation...
".............I am very angry about too many Left turns in this country".
Later in the day, "standing tall" in front of the SAC's desk he explains
why a normal 45 minute drive turned into a 3 hour fiasco. Not wishing to anger
the Director any further he explained, he plotted a course to the airport which involved only "Right" turns.
"... the Obama administration intelligence agencies worked with Clinton to block " Siberian candidate " Trump. ..."
"... The template was provided by ex-MI6 Director Richard Dearlove , Halper's friend and business partner. Sitting in winged chairs in London's venerable Garrick Club, according to The Washington Post , Dearlove told fellow MI6 veteran Christopher Steele, author of the famous "golden showers" opposition research dossier, that Trump "reminded him of a predicament he had faced years earlier, when he was chief of station for British intelligence in Washington and alerted US authorities to British information that a vice presidential hopeful had once been in communication with the Kremlin." ..."
"... Apparently, one word from the Brits was enough to make the candidate in question step down. When that didn't work with Trump, Dearlove and his colleagues ratcheted up the pressure to make him see the light. A major scandal was thus born – or, rather, a very questionable scandal. Besides Dearlove, Steele, and Halper, a bon-vivant known as "The Walrus" for his impressive girth , other participants include: Robert Hannigan, former director Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, UK equivalent of the NSA. Alexander Downer, top Australian diplomat. Andrew Wood, ex-British ambassador to Moscow. Joseph Mifsud, Maltese academic. James Clapper, ex-US Director of National Intelligence. John Brennan, former CIA Director (and now NBC News analyst). ..."
"... Dearlove and Halper are now partners in a private venture calling itself "The Cambridge Security Initiative." Both are connected to another London-based intelligence firm known as Hakluyt & Co. Halper is also connected via two books he wrote with Hakluyt representative Jonathan Clarke and Dearlove has a close personal friendship with Hakluyt founder Mike Reynolds, yet another MI6 vet. Alexander Downer served a half-dozen years on Hakluyt's international advisory board, while Andrew Wood is linked to Steele via Orbis Business Intelligence, the private research firm that Steele helped found, and which produced the anti-Trump dossier, and where Wood now serves as an unpaid advisor . ..."
"... Everyone, in short, seems to know everyone else. But another thing that stands out about this group is its incompetence. Dearlove and Halper appear to be old-school paranoids for whom every Russian is a Boris Badenov or a Natasha Fatale . In February 2014, Halper notified US intelligence that Mike Flynn, Trump's future national security adviser, had grown overly chummy with an Anglo-Russian scholar named Svetlana Lokhova whom Halper suspected of being a spy – suspicions that Lokhova convincingly argues are absurd. ..."
"... As head of Britain's foreign Secret Intelligence Service, as MI6 is formally known, Dearlove played a major role in drumming up support for the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq even while confessing at a secret Downing Street meeting that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the [regime-change] policy." When the search for weapons of mass destruction turned up dry, Clapper, as then head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, argued that the Iraqi military must have smuggled them into neighboring Syria, a charge with absolutely no basis in fact but which helped pave the way for US regime-change efforts in that country too. ..."
"... Brennan was meanwhile a high-level CIA official when the agency was fabricating evidence against Saddam Hussein and covering up Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11. Wood not only continues to defend the Iraqi invasion, but dismisses fears of a rising fascist tide in the Ukraine as nothing more than "a crude political insult" hurled by Vladimir Putin for his own political benefit. Such views now seem distressingly misguided in view of the alt-right torchlight parades and spiraling anti-Semitism that are now a regular feature of life in the Ukraine. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... describes Mifsud as "an enthusiastic promoter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia" and "a regular at meetings of the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual conference held in Sochi, Russia, that Mr. Putin attends," which tried to suggest that he is a Kremlin agent of some sort. ..."
"... But WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange later tweeted photos of Mifsud with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and a high-ranking British intelligence official named Claire Smith at a training session for Italian security agents in Rome. Since it's unlikely that British intelligence would rely on a Russian agent in such circumstances, Mifsud's intelligence ties are more likely with the UK. ..."
"... Stefan Halper then infiltrated the Trump campaign on behalf of the FBI as an informant in early July, weeks before the FBI launched its investigation. Halper had 36 years earlier infiltrated the Carter re-election campaign in 1980 using CIA agents to turn information over to the Reagan campaign. Now Halper began to court both Page and Papadopoulous, independently of each other. ..."
"... The rightwing Federalist website speculates that Halper was working with Steele to flesh out a Sept. 14 memo claiming that "Russians do have further 'kompromat' on CLINTON (e-mails) and [are] considering disseminating it." Clovis believes that Halper was trying "to create an audit trail back to those [Clinton] emails from someone in the campaign so they could develop a stronger case for probable cause to continue to issue warrants and to further an investigation." Reports that Halper apparently sought a permanent post in the new administration suggest that the effort was meant to continue after inauguration. ..."
"... Notwithstanding Clovis's nutty rightwing politics , his description of what Halper may have been up to makes sense as does his observation that Halper was trying " to build something that did not exist ." Despite countless hyper-ventilating headlines about mysterious Trump Tower meetings and the like, the sad truth is that Russiagate after all these months is shaping up as even more of a "nothing-burger" than Obama administration veteran Van Jones said it was back in mid-2017. Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller has indicted Papadopoulos and others on procedural grounds, he has indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for corruption, and he has charged a St. Petersburg company known as the Internet Research Agency with violating US election laws. ..."
"... As The Washington Post noted in an oddly, cool-headed Dec. 2 article , 2, 700 suspected Russian-linked accounts generated just 202,000 tweets in a six-year period ending in August 2017, a drop in a bucket compared to the one billion election-related tweets sent out during the fourteen months leading up to Election Day. ..."
"... Opposition research is intended to mix truths and fiction, to dig up plausible dirt to throw at your opponent, not to produce an intelligence assessment at taxpayer's expense to "protect" the country. And Steele was paid for it by the Democrats, not his government. ..."
"... Although Kramer denies it, The New Yorker ..."
"... But how could Trump think otherwise? As Consortium News founding editor Robert Parry observed a few days later, the maneuver "resembles a tactic out of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's playbook on government-style blackmail: I have some very derogatory information about you that I'd sure hate to see end up in the press." ..."
"... It sounds more like CIA paranoia raised to the nth degree. But that's what the intelligence agencies are for, i.e. to spread fear and propaganda in order to stampede the public into supporting their imperial agenda. In this case, their efforts are so effective that they've gotten lost in a fog of their own making. If the corporate press fails to point this out, it's because reporters are too befogged themselves to notice. ..."
"... "Russiagate" continues to attract mounting blowback at Clinton, Obama and the Dems. Might well be they who end up charged with lawbreaking, though I'd be surprised if anyone in authority is ever really punished. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-02/fbi-spying-trump-started-london-earlier-thought-new-texts-implicate-obama-white ..."
"... I've always thought that the great animus between Obama and Trump stemmed from Trump's persistent birtherist attacks on Obama followed by Obama's public ridicule of Trump at the White House Correspondants' Dinner. Without the latter, Trump probably would not have been motivated to run for the presidency. Without the former, Obama would probably not have gotten into the gutter to defeat and embarrass Trump at all costs. Clinton and Obama probably never recruit British spooks to sabotage and provide a pretense for spying on the campaigns of Jeb, Ted or Little Marco. Since these were all warmongers like Hillary and Obama, the issues would have been different, Russia would not have been a factor, and Putin would have had no alleged "puppet." ..."
"... The irony is that Clinton and Obama wanted Trump as her opponent. They cultivated his candidacy via liberal media bias throughout the primaries. (MSNBC and Rachel Maddow were always cutting away to another full length Trump victory speech and rally, including lots of jibber jabber with the faithful supporters.) Why? Because they thought he was the easiest to beat. The polls actually had Hillary losing against the other GOP candidates. The Dems beat themselves with their own choice of candidate and all the intrigue, false narratives and other questionable practices they employed in both the primaries and the general. That's what really happened. ..."
"... I agree that Hillary wanted Trump as an opponent, thought she could easily win. I've underestimated idiot opponents before, always to my detriment. Why is it that they are always the most formidable? The "insiders" are so used to voters rolling over, taking it on the chin. They gave away their jobs, replaced them with the service industry, killed their sons and daughters in wars abroad, and still the American people cast their ballots in their favor. This time was different. The insiders just did not see the sea change, not like Trump did. ..."
"... Long-time CIA asset named as FBI's spy on Trump campaign By Bill Van Auken https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/05/21/poli-m21.html ..."
"... What the MSM really needed was a bait which they could use to lure more dollars just like a horse race where the track owners needed a fast underdog horse to clean up. I believe the term is to be "hustled". The con men of the media hustlers decided they needed a way to cause all of the candidates to squirm uneasily and to then react to the news that Donald Trump was "in the lead". ..."
"... Those clever media folks. What a gift the Supreme Court handed them. But there was one little (or big) problem. The problem was the result of the scam put Trump in the White House. Something that no conservative republican would ever sign onto. Trump had spent years as a democrat, hobnobbed with the Clinton's and was an avowed agnostic who favored the liberal ideology for the most part. ..."
"... The new guy in the White House with his crazy ideas of making friends with Vladimir Putin horrified a national arms industry funded with hundreds of billions of our tax dollars every year propped up by all the neocons with their paranoid beliefs and plans to make America the hegemon of the World. Our foreign allies who use the USA to fight their perceived enemies and entice our government to sell them weapons and who urge us to orchestrate the overthrow of governments were all alarmed by the "not a real republican" peace-nick occupying the White House. ..."
"... It is probable that the casino and hotel owner in the White House posed an very threatening alternate strategy of forming economic ties with former enemies which scared the hell out of the arms industry which built its economy on scaring all of us and justifying its existence based on foreign enemies. ..."
"... So the MSM and the MIC created a new cold war with their friends at the New York Times and the Washington Post which published endless stories about the new Russian threat we faced. It had nothing to do with the 0.02% Twitter and Facebook "influence" that Russia actually had in the election. It was billed as the crime of the century. The real crime was that they committed the crime of the century that they mightily profited from by putting Trump in the White House in the first place with a plan to grab all the election cash they could grab. ..."
As the role of a well-connected group of British and U.S. intelligence agents begins to
emerge, new suspicions are growing about what hand they may have had in weaving the Russia-gate
story, as Daniel Lazare explains.
Special to Consortium News
With the news that a Cambridge academic-cum-spy
named Stefan Halper infiltrated the Trump campaign, the role of the intelligence agencies in
shaping the great Russiagate saga is at last coming into focus.
It's looking more and more massive. The intelligence agencies initiated reports that Donald
Trump was colluding with Russia, they nurtured them and helped them grow, and then they spread
the word to the press and key government officials. Reportedly, they even tried to use these
reports to force Trump to step down prior to his inauguration. Although the corporate press
accuses Trump of conspiring with Russia to stop Hillary Clinton, the reverse now seems to be
the case: the Obama administration intelligence agencies worked with Clinton to block "
Siberian
candidate " Trump.
The template was provided by ex-MI6 Director Richard Dearlove , Halper's friend and business
partner. Sitting in winged chairs in London's venerable Garrick Club, according to The
Washington Post , Dearlove
told fellow MI6 veteran Christopher Steele, author of the famous "golden showers"
opposition research dossier, that Trump "reminded him of a predicament he had faced years
earlier, when he was chief of station for British intelligence in Washington and alerted US
authorities to British information that a vice presidential hopeful had once been in
communication with the Kremlin."
Apparently, one word from the Brits was enough to make the candidate in question step down.
When that didn't work with Trump, Dearlove and his colleagues ratcheted up the pressure to make
him see the light. A major scandal was thus born – or, rather, a very questionable
scandal. Besides Dearlove, Steele, and Halper, a bon-vivant known as "The Walrus" for
his impressive girth , other participants include: Robert Hannigan, former director
Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, UK equivalent of the NSA. Alexander Downer, top
Australian diplomat. Andrew Wood, ex-British ambassador to Moscow. Joseph Mifsud, Maltese
academic. James Clapper, ex-US Director of National Intelligence. John Brennan, former CIA
Director (and now NBC News analyst).
In-Bred
A few things stand out about this august group. One is its in-bred quality. After helping to
run an annual confab known as the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, Dearlove and Halper are now
partners in a private venture calling itself "The Cambridge Security Initiative." Both are
connected to another London-based intelligence firm known as Hakluyt & Co. Halper is also
connected via two books he wrote with Hakluyt representative Jonathan Clarke
and Dearlove has a close personal friendship with Hakluyt founder Mike Reynolds, yet another
MI6 vet. Alexander Downer
served a half-dozen years on Hakluyt's international advisory board, while Andrew Wood is
linked to Steele via Orbis Business Intelligence, the private research firm that Steele helped
found, and which produced the anti-Trump dossier, and where Wood now serves as an
unpaid
advisor .
Everyone, in short, seems to know everyone else. But another thing that stands out about
this group is its incompetence. Dearlove and Halper appear to be old-school paranoids for whom
every Russian is a Boris
Badenov or a Natasha Fatale . In February 2014, Halper notified US intelligence that Mike
Flynn, Trump's future national security adviser, had grown overly chummy with an Anglo-Russian
scholar named Svetlana Lokhova whom Halper suspected of being a spy – suspicions that
Lokhova convincingly
argues are absurd.
Halper: Infiltrated Trump campaign
In December 2016, Halper and Dearlove both resigned from the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar
because they suspected that a company footing some of the costs was tied up with Russian
intelligence – suspicions that Christopher Andrew, former chairman of the Cambridge
history department and the seminar's founder, regards as " absurd " as well.
As head of Britain's foreign Secret Intelligence Service, as MI6 is formally known,
Dearlove played a major role in drumming up support for the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of
Iraq even while confessing at a secret Downing Street meeting that "the intelligence and facts
were being fixed around the [regime-change] policy." When the search for weapons of mass
destruction turned up dry, Clapper, as then head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency,
argued that the Iraqi
military must have smuggled them into neighboring Syria, a charge with absolutely no basis in
fact but which helped pave the way for US regime-change efforts in that country too.
Brennan was meanwhile a high-level CIA official when the agency was fabricating evidence
against Saddam Hussein and covering up Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11. Wood not only continues to defend
the Iraqi invasion, but dismisses
fears of a rising fascist tide in the Ukraine as nothing more than "a crude political insult"
hurled by Vladimir Putin for his own political benefit. Such views now seem distressingly
misguided in view of the alt-right torchlight parades and
spiraling anti-Semitism that are now a regular feature of life in the Ukraine.
The result is a diplo-espionage gang that is very bad at the facts but very good at public
manipulation – and which therefore decided to use its skill set out to create a public
furor over alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
It Started Late 2015
The effort began in late 2015 when GCHQ, along with intelligence agencies in Poland,
Estonia, and Germany, began monitoring
what they said were " suspicious 'interactions' between figures connected to Trump and
known or suspected Russian agents."
Since Trump was surging ahead in the polls and scaring the pants off the foreign-policy
establishment by calling for a rapprochement with Moscow, the agencies figured that Russia was
somehow behind it. The pace accelerated in March 2016 when a 30-year-old policy consultant
named George Papadopoulos joined the Trump campaign as a foreign-policy adviser. Traveling in
Italy a week later, he ran into Mifsud, the London-based Maltese academic, who reportedly set
about cultivating him after learning of his position with Trump. Mifsud claimed
to have "substantial connections with Russian government officials," according to prosecutors.
Over breakfast at a London hotel, he told Papadopoulos that he had just returned from Moscow
where he had learned that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands
of emails."
This was the remark that supposedly triggered an FBI investigation. The New York
Timesdescribes
Mifsud as "an enthusiastic promoter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia" and "a regular at
meetings of the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual conference held in Sochi, Russia, that Mr.
Putin attends," which tried to suggest that he is a Kremlin agent of some sort.
But WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange later
tweeted photos of Mifsud with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and a high-ranking
British intelligence official named Claire Smith at a training session for Italian security
agents in Rome. Since it's unlikely that British intelligence would rely on a Russian agent in
such circumstances, Mifsud's intelligence ties are more likely with the UK.
After Papadopoulos caused a minor political ruckus by
telling a reporter that Prime Minister David Cameron should apologize for criticizing
Trump's anti-Muslim pronouncements, a friend in the Israeli embassy put him in touch with a
friend in the Australian embassy, who introduced him to Downer, her boss. Over drinks, Downer
advised him to be more diplomatic. After Papadopoulos then passed along Misfud's tip about
Clinton's emails, Downer informed his government, which, in late July, informed the FBI.
Was Papadopoulos Set Up?
Suspicions are unavoidable but evidence is lacking. Other pieces were meanwhile clicking
into place. In late May or early June 2016, Fusion GPS, a private Washington intelligence firm
employed by the Democratic National Committee, hired Steele to look into the Russian angle.
On June 20, he turned in the first of eighteen memos that would eventually comprise
the
Steele dossier , in this instance a three-page document asserting that Putin "has been
cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years" and that Russian intelligence
possessed "kompromat" in the form of a video of prostitutes performing a "golden showers" show
for his benefit at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton. A week or two later, Steele
briefed the FBI on his findings. Around the same time, Robert Hannigan flew to Washington
to brief CIA Director John Brennan about additional material that had come GCHQ's way, material
so sensitive that it could only be handled at "director level."
One player was filling Papadopoulos's head with tales of Russian dirty tricks, another was
telling the FBI, while a third was collecting more information and passing it on to the bureau
as well.
Page: Took Russia's side.
On July 7, 2016 Carter Page delivered a lecture on
U.S.-Russian relations in Moscow in which he complained that " Washington and other western
capitals have impeded potential progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such
as democratization, inequality, corruption, and regime change." Washington hawks expressed "
unease " that someone representing the presumptive Republican nominee would take Russia's
side in a growing neo-Cold War.
Stefan Halper then
infiltrated the Trump campaign on behalf of the FBI as an informant in early July, weeks
before the FBI launched its investigation. Halper had 36 years earlier infiltrated the Carter
re-election campaign in 1980 using CIA agents to turn information over to the Reagan campaign.
Now Halper began to court both Page and Papadopoulous, independently of each other.
On July 11, Page showed up at a Cambridge symposium at which Halper and Dearlove both spoke.
In early September, Halper sent Papadopoulos an email offering $3,000 and a paid trip to London
to write a research paper on a disputed gas field in the eastern Mediterranean, his specialty.
"George, you know about hacking the emails from Russia, right?" Halper asked when he got there,
but Papadopoulos said he knew nothing. Halper also sought out Sam Clovis, Trump's national
campaign co-chairman, with whom he chatted about China for an hour or so over coffee in
Washington.
The rightwing Federalist website
speculates that Halper was working with Steele to flesh out a Sept. 14 memo claiming that
"Russians do have further 'kompromat' on CLINTON (e-mails) and [are] considering disseminating
it." Clovis believes
that Halper was trying "to create an audit trail back to those [Clinton] emails from someone in
the campaign so they could develop a stronger case for probable cause to continue to issue
warrants and to further an investigation." Reports that Halper apparently sought
a permanent post in the new administration suggest that the effort was meant to continue
after inauguration.
Notwithstanding Clovis's nutty
rightwing politics , his description of what Halper may have been up to makes sense as does
his observation that Halper was trying " to build something that did not exist ." Despite
countless hyper-ventilating headlines about mysterious Trump Tower meetings and the like, the
sad truth is that Russiagate after all these months is shaping up as even more of a
"nothing-burger" than Obama administration veteran Van Jones said
it was back in mid-2017. Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller has indicted Papadopoulos and others
on procedural grounds, he has indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for
corruption, and he has charged a St. Petersburg company known as the Internet Research Agency
with violating US election laws.
But the corruption charges have nothing to do with Russian collusion and nothing in the
indictment against IRA indicates that either the Kremlin or the Trump campaign were involved.
Indeed, the activities that got IRA in trouble in the first place are so unimpressive –
just $46,000 worth of Facebook
ads that it purchased prior to election day, some pro-Trump, some anti, and some with
no particular slant
at all – that Mueller probably wouldn't even have bothered if he hadn't been under
intense pressure to come up with anything at all.
The same goes for the army of bots that Russia supposedly deployed on Twitter. As The
Washington Post noted in an oddly, cool-headed Dec. 2
article , 2, 700 suspected Russian-linked accounts generated just 202,000 tweets in a
six-year period ending in August 2017, a drop in a bucket compared to the one
billion election-related tweets sent out during the fourteen months leading up to Election
Day.
The Steele dossier is also underwhelming. It declares on one page that the Kremlin sought to
cultivate Trump by throwing "various lucrative real estate development business deals" his way
but says on another that Trump's efforts to drum up business were unavailing and that he thus
"had to settle for the use of extensive sexual services there from local prostitutes rather
than business success."
Why would Trump turn down business offers when he couldn't generate any on his own? The idea
that Putin would spot a U.S. reality-TV star somewhere around 2011 and conclude that he was
destined for the Oval Office five years later is ludicrous. The fact that the Democratic
National Committee funded the dossier via its law firm Perkins Coie renders it less credible
still, as does the fact that the world has heard nothing more about the alleged video despite
the ongoing deterioration in US-Russian relations. What's the point of making a blackmail tape
if you don't use it?
Steele: Paid for political research, not intelligence.
Even Steele is backing off. In a legal paper filed in response to a libel suit last May, he
said the document "did not represent (and did not purport to represent) verified facts, but
were raw intelligence which had identified a range of allegations that warranted investigation
given their potential national security implications." The fact is that the "dossier" was
opposition research, not an intelligence report. It was neither vetted by Steele nor anyone in
an intelligence agency. Opposition research is intended to mix truths and fiction, to dig
up plausible dirt to throw at your opponent, not to produce an intelligence assessment at
taxpayer's expense to "protect" the country. And Steele was paid for it by the Democrats, not
his government.
Using it Anyway
Nonetheless, the spooks have made the most of such pseudo-evidence. Dearlove and Wood both
advised Steele to take his "findings" to the FBI, while, after the election, Wood pulled
Sen. John McCain aside at a security conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to let him know that
the Russians might be blackmailing the president-elect. McCain dispatched long-time aide David
J. Kramer to the UK to discuss the dossier with Steele directly.
Although Kramer denies it, The New Yorker found a former national-security
official who
says he spoke with him at the time and that Kramer's goal was to have McCain confront Trump
with the dossier in the hope that he would resign on the spot. When that didn't happen, Clapper
and Brennan arranged for FBI Director James Comey to confront Trump instead. Comey later
testified that he didn't want Trump to think he was creating "a J. Edgar Hoover-type
situation – I didn't want him thinking I was briefing him on this to sort of hang it over
him in some way."
But how could Trump think otherwise? As Consortium News founding editor Robert Parry
observed a few
days later, the maneuver "resembles a tactic out of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's playbook on
government-style blackmail: I have some very derogatory information about you that I'd sure
hate to see end up in the press."
Since then, the Democrats have touted the dossier at every opportunity, TheNew
Yorker
continues to defend it , while Times columnist Michelle Goldberg cites it as well,
saying it's a
"rather obvious possibility that Trump is being blackmailed." CNN, for its part, suggested not
long ago that the dossier may actually be Russian
disinformation designed to throw everyone off base, Republicans and Democrats alike.
It sounds more like CIA paranoia raised to the nth degree. But that's what the
intelligence agencies are for, i.e. to spread fear and propaganda in order to stampede the
public into supporting their imperial agenda. In this case, their efforts are so effective that
they've gotten lost in a fog of their own making. If the corporate press fails to point this
out, it's because reporters are too befogged themselves to notice.
Daniel Lazare is the author of The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing
Democracy (Harcourt Brace, 1996) and other books about American politics. He has written for a
wide variety of publications from The Nation to Le Monde Diplomatique , and his articles about
the Middle East, terrorism, Eastern Europe, and other topics appear regularly on such websites
as Jacobin and The American Conservative.
Mueller is trying to omit the normal burden of legal liability, "wilful intent" in his
charges against the St Petersburg, social media operation. In a horrifically complex area
such as tax, campaign contributions or lobbying, a foreign entity can be found guilty of
breaking a law that they cannot reasonably have been expected to have knowledge of.
But the omission or inclusion of "wilful intent" is applied on a selective basis depending on
the advantage to the deep state.
From a practical standpoint, omission of "wilful intent" makes it easier for Mueller to get a
guilty verdict (in adsentia assuming this is legally valid in America). Once the "guilt" of
the St Petersburg staff is established, any communication between an American and them
becomes "collusion".
I've always thought that the great animus between Obama and Trump stemmed from Trump's
persistent birtherist attacks on Obama followed by Obama's public ridicule of Trump at the
White House Correspondants' Dinner. Without the latter, Trump probably would not have been
motivated to run for the presidency. Without the former, Obama would probably not have gotten
into the gutter to defeat and embarrass Trump at all costs. Clinton and Obama probably never
recruit British spooks to sabotage and provide a pretense for spying on the campaigns of Jeb,
Ted or Little Marco. Since these were all warmongers like Hillary and Obama, the issues would
have been different, Russia would not have been a factor, and Putin would have had no alleged
"puppet."
The irony is that Clinton and Obama wanted Trump as her opponent. They cultivated his
candidacy via liberal media bias throughout the primaries. (MSNBC and Rachel Maddow were
always cutting away to another full length Trump victory speech and rally, including lots of
jibber jabber with the faithful supporters.) Why? Because they thought he was the easiest to
beat. The polls actually had Hillary losing against the other GOP candidates. The Dems beat
themselves with their own choice of candidate and all the intrigue, false narratives and
other questionable practices they employed in both the primaries and the general. That's what
really happened.
backwardsevolution , June 3, 2018 at 2:50 pm
Realist – good post. I think what you say is true. Trump got too caught up in the
birther crap, and Obama retaliated. But I think that Trump had been thinking about the
presidency long before Obama came along. He sees the country differently than Obama and
Clinton do. Trump would never have built up China to the point where all American technology
has been given away for free, with millions of jobs lost and a huge trade deficit, and he
would have probably left Russia alone, not ransacked it.
I saw Obama as a somewhat reluctant globalist and Hillary as an eager globalist. They are
both insiders. Trump is not. He's interested in what is best for the U.S., whereas the
Clinton's and the Bush's were interested in what their corporate masters wanted. The
multinationals have been selling the U.S. out, Trump is trying to put a stop to this, and it
is going to be a fight to the death. Trump is playing hardball with China (who ARE U.S.
multinationals), and it is working. Beginning July 1, 2018, China has agreed to reduce its
tariffs:
"Import tariffs for apparel, footwear and headgear, kitchen supplies and fitness products
will be more than halved to an average of 7.1 percent from 15.9 percent, with those on
washing machines and refrigerators slashed to just 8 percent, from 20.5 percent.
Tariffs will also be cut on processed foods such as aquaculture and fishing products and
mineral water, from 15.2 percent to 6.9 percent.
Cosmetics, such as skin and hair products, and some medical and health products, will also
benefit from a tariff cut to 2.9 percent from 8.4 percent.
In particular, tariffs on drugs ranging from penicillin, cephalosporin to insulin will be
slashed to zero from 6 percent before.
In the meantime, temporary tariff rates on 210 imported products from most favored nations
will be scrapped as they are no longer favorable compared with new rates."
Trade with China has been all one way. At least Trump is leveling the playing field. He at
least is trying to bring back jobs, something the "insiders" could care less about.
I agree that Hillary wanted Trump as an opponent, thought she could easily win. I've
underestimated idiot opponents before, always to my detriment. Why is it that they are always
the most formidable? The "insiders" are so used to voters rolling over, taking it on the
chin. They gave away their jobs, replaced them with the service industry, killed their sons
and daughters in wars abroad, and still the American people cast their ballots in their
favor. This time was different. The insiders just did not see the sea change, not like Trump
did.
Abe , June 2, 2018 at 2:20 am
"Pentagon documents indicate that the Department of Defense's shadowy intelligence arm,
the Office of Net Assessment, paid Halper $282,000 in 2016 and $129,000 in 2017. According to
reports, Halper sought to secure Papadopoulos's collaboration by offering him $3,000 and an
all-expenses-paid trip to London, ostensibly to produce a research paper on energy issues in
the eastern Mediterranean.
"The choice of Halper for this spying operation has ominous implications. His deep ties to
the US intelligence apparatus date back decades. His father-in-law was Ray Cline, who headed
the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence at the height of the Cold War. Halper served as an aide
to Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Alexander Haig in the Nixon and Ford administrations.
"In 1980, as the director of policy coordination for Ronald Reagan's presidential
campaign, Halper oversaw an operation in which CIA officials gave the campaign confidential
information on the Carter administration and its foreign policy. This intelligence was in
turn utilized to further back-channel negotiations between Reagan's campaign manager and
subsequent CIA director William Casey and representatives of Iran to delay the release of the
American embassy hostages until after the election, in order to prevent Carter from scoring a
foreign policy victory on the eve of the November vote.
"Halper subsequently held posts as deputy assistant secretary of state for
political-military affairs and senior adviser to the Pentagon and Justice Department. More
recently, Halper has collaborated with Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, the British
intelligence service, in directing the Cambridge Security Initiative (CSi), a security think
tank that lists the US and UK governments as its principal clients.
"Before the 2016 election, Halper had expressed his view – shared by predominant
layers within the intelligence agencies – that Clinton's election would prove 'less
disruptive' than Trump's.
"The revelations of the role played by Halper point to an intervention in the 2016
elections by the US intelligence agencies that far eclipsed anything one could even imagine
the Kremlin attempting."
Sorry for not commenting on other posts as of yet. But I think I have a different
perspective. Russia Gate is not about Hillary Clinton or Putin but it is about Donald Trump.
Specifically an effort to get rid of him by the intelligence agencies and the MSM. The fact
is the MSM created Trump and were chiefly responsible for his election. Trump is their
brainchild starlet used to fleece all the republican campaigns like a huckster fleeces an
audience. It all ties to key Supreme Court rulings eliminating campaign finance regulations
which ushered in the age of dark money.
When billionaires can donate unlimited amounts of money anonymously to the candidate of
their choosing what ends up is a field of fourteen wannabes in a primary race each backed by
their own investor(s). The only way these candidates can win is to convince us to vote. The
only way they can do that is to spend on advertising.
What the MSM dreamed of in a purely capitalistic way was a way to drain the wallets of
every single one of the republican Super PACs. The mission was fraught with potential
checkmates. Foe example, there could be an early leader who snatched up the needed delegates
for the nomination early on which would have stopped the flow of advertising cash flowing to
the MSM. Such possibilities worried the MSM and caused great angst since this might just be
the biggest haul they ever took in during a primary season. How would they prevent a
premature end of the money river. Like financial vampire bats, ticks and leeches they needed
a way to keep the money flowing from the veins of the republican Super PACs until they were
sucked dry.
What the MSM really needed was a bait which they could use to lure more dollars just like
a horse race where the track owners needed a fast underdog horse to clean up. I believe the
term is to be "hustled". The con men of the media hustlers decided they needed a way to cause
all of the candidates to squirm uneasily and to then react to the news that Donald Trump was
"in the lead".
It was a pure stroke of genius and it worked so well that Carl Rove is looking for a job
and Donald Trump is sitting in the White House.
Those clever media folks. What a gift the Supreme Court handed them. But there was one
little (or big) problem. The problem was the result of the scam put Trump in the White House.
Something that no conservative republican would ever sign onto. Trump had spent years as a
democrat, hobnobbed with the Clinton's and was an avowed agnostic who favored the liberal
ideology for the most part.
What to do? Trump was now the Commander in Chief and was spouting nonsense that the
establishment recoiled at such as Trumps plans to form economic ties with Russia rather than
continue to wage a cold war spanning 65 years which the MIC used year after year to spook us
all and guarantee their billions annual increase in funding. Trump directly attacked defense
projects and called for de-funding major initiatives like F35 etc.
The new guy in the White House with his crazy ideas of making friends with Vladimir Putin
horrified a national arms industry funded with hundreds of billions of our tax dollars every
year propped up by all the neocons with their paranoid beliefs and plans to make America the
hegemon of the World. Our foreign allies who use the USA to fight their perceived enemies and
entice our government to sell them weapons and who urge us to orchestrate the overthrow of
governments were all alarmed by the "not a real republican" peace-nick occupying the White
House.
What to do? There was clearly a need to eliminate this bad guy since his avowed policies
were in direct opposition to the game plan that had successfully compromised the former
administration. They felt powerless to dissuade the Administration to continue the course and
form strategies to eliminate Iran, Syria, North Korea, Libya, Ukraine and other vulnerable
targets swaying toward China and Russia. They faced a new threat with the Trump
Administration which seemed hell bent to discontinue the wars in these regions robbing them
of many dollars.
It is probable that the casino and hotel owner in the White House posed an very
threatening alternate strategy of forming economic ties with former enemies which scared the
hell out of the arms industry which built its economy on scaring all of us and justifying its
existence based on foreign enemies.
So the MSM and the MIC created a new cold war with their friends at the New York Times and
the Washington Post which published endless stories about the new Russian threat we faced. It
had nothing to do with the 0.02% Twitter and Facebook "influence" that Russia actually had in
the election. It was billed as the crime of the century. The real crime was that they
committed the crime of the century that they mightily profited from by putting Trump in the
White House in the first place with a plan to grab all the election cash they could grab.
In the interim, they also forgot on purpose to tell anyone about the election campaign
finance fraud that they were the chief beneficiaries of. They also of course forgot to tell
anyone what the fight was about for the Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. Twenty seven
million dollars in dark money was donated by dark money donors enabled by the Supreme Court's
decisions to eliminate campaign finance regulations which enabled these donors to buy out
Congress and elect and confirm a Supreme Court Justice who would uphold the laws which
eliminate all the election rules and campaign finance regulations dating back to the Tillman
Act of 1907 which was an attempt to eliminate corporate contributions in political campaigns
with associated meager fines as penalties. The law was weak then and has now been
eliminated.
In an era of dark money in politics protected by revisionist judges laying at the top of
our federal judicial branch posing as strict constructionists while being funded by the
corporatocracy that viciously fights over control of the highest court by a panicked
republican party that seeks to tie up their domination in our Congress by any means including
the abdication of the Constitutional authority granted to the citizens of the nation we now
face a new internal enemy.
That enemy is not some foreign nation but our own government which conspires to represent
the wealthy and the powerful and which exalts them and which enacts laws to defend their
control of our nation. Here is a quote:
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they
create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral
code that glorifies it.
Frederic Bastiat – (1801-1850) in Economic Sophisms
Realist , June 1, 2018 at 4:32 am
Different journalist covering much the same ground:
"Russiagate" is strictly a contrivance of the Deep State, American & British Spookery,
and the corporate media propagandists. It clearly needs to be genuinely investigated (unlike
the mockery being orchestrated by Herr Mueller from the Ministry of Truth), re-christened
"Intellgate" (after the real perpetrators of crime), pursued until all the guilty traitors
(including Mueller) who really tried to steal our democratic election are tried, convicted
and incarcerated (including probably hundreds complicit from the media) and given its own
lengthy chapter in all the history books about "The Election They Tried to Steal and Blame on
Russia: How America Nearly Lost its Constitution." If not done, America will lose its
constitution, or rather the incipient process will become totally irreversible.
Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 6:25 am
Your timing of events is confused.
The deep state didn't try and steal the election because they were overly complacent that
their woman would win. Remember, they didn't try to use the dodgy, Steele dossier before the
election.
What the deep state has done is reactively try to overcome the election outcome by launching
an investigation into Trump. The egregious element of the investigation is giving it the
title "investigation into collusion" when they in all probability knew that collusion was
unlikely to have taken place. To achieve their aim (removing Trump) they included the line
"and matters arising" in the brief to give them an open ended remit which allowed them to
investigate Trump's business dealings of a Russian / Ukrainian nature (which may venture
uncomfortably close to Semion Mogilevich).
If as you state (and I concur) there was no Russian collusion, then barring fabrication of
evidence by Mueller (and there is little evidence of that to date) you have nothing to worry
about on the collusion front. Remember, to date, Mueller has stuck (almost exclusively) to
meat and potatoes charges like tax evasion and money laundering. If however the investigation
leads to credible evidence that Trump broke substantive laws in the past for financial gain,
then it is not reasonable to cry foul.
Seer , June 1, 2018 at 7:02 am
The Deep State assisted the DNC in knocking out Sanders. THAT was ground zero. Everything
since then has been to cover this up and to discredit Trump (using him as the distraction).
Consider that the Deep State never bothered to investigate the DNC servers/data; reason being
is that they'd (Deep State) be implicated.
Skip Scott , June 1, 2018 at 7:29 am
Very true Seer. That is the real genesis of RussiaGate. It was a diversion tactic to keep
people from looking at the DNC's behavior during the primaries. They are the reason Trump is
president, not the evil Ruskies.
Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 8:13 am
We all seem agreed that the Russia collusion is an exercise in distraction. I can't say I
know enough to comment with authority on whether the DNC would require assistance from the
deep state to trash Bernie. From an outsider perspective it looked more like an application
of massively disproportionate spending and standard, back room dirty tricks.
There is a saying; don't attribute to conspiracy that which can be explained by incompetence.
In this case, try replacing incompetence with MONEY.
dikcheney , June 2, 2018 at 5:09 pm
Totally agree with you Skip and the Mueller performance is there to keep up the
intimidation and distraction by regularly finding turds to throw at Trump. Mueller doesnt
need to find anything, he just needs to create vague intimations of 'guilty Trump' and
suspicious associates so that no one will look at the DNC or the Clinton corruption or the
smashing of the Sanders campaign.
Their actual agenda is to smother analysis and clear thinking. Thankfully there is the
forensicator piecing the jigsaw as well as consortium news.
robjira , June 1, 2018 at 11:55 am
Spot on, Seer.
michael , June 1, 2018 at 4:49 pm
Those servers probably had a lot more pay-to-play secrets from the Clinton Foundation and
ring-kissing from foreign big donors than what was released by Wikileaks, which mostly was
just screwing over Bernie, which the judge ruled was Hillary's prerogative. Some email chains
were probably construed as National Security and were discreetly not leaked.
The 30,000 emails Hillary had bit bleached from her private servers are likely in the hands
of Russians and every other major country, all biding their time for leverage. This was the
carrot the British (who undoubtedly have copies as well) dangled over idiot Popodopolous.
Uncle Bob , June 1, 2018 at 10:33 pm
Seth Rich
anon , June 1, 2018 at 7:42 am
Realist is likely referring to events before the election which involved people with
secret agency connections, such as the opposition research (Steele dossier and Skripal
affair).
Realist , June 1, 2018 at 9:32 am
Realist responded but is being "moderated" as per usual.
Realist , June 1, 2018 at 9:31 am
Hillary herself was a prime force in cooking up the smear against Trump for being "Putin's
puppet." This even before the Democratic convention. Then she used it big time during the
debates. It wasn't something merely reactive after she lost. Certainly she and her
collaborators inside the deep state and the intelligence agencies never imagined that she
would lose and have to distract from what she and her people did by projecting the blame onto
Trump. That part was reactive. The rest of the conspiracy was totally proactive on her part
and that of the DNC, even during the primaries.
Don't forget, the intel agencies led by Clapper, Brennan and Comey were all working for
Obama at the time and were totally acquiescent in spying on the Trump campaign and
"unmasking" the identities and actions of his would-be administration, including individuals
like General Flynn. The cooked up Steele dossier was paid for by money from the Clinton
campaign and used as a pretext for the intel agencies to spy on the Trump campaign. There is
no issue on timing. The establishment was fully behind Clinton by hook or crook from the
moment Trump had the delegates to win the GOP nomination. (OBTW, I am not a Trump supporter
or even a Republican, so I KNOW that I "have nothing to worry about on the collusion front."
I'm a registered Dem, though not a Hillary supporter.)
Moreover, if you think that Mueller (and the other intel chiefs) have been on the
impartial up-and-up, why did the FBI never seize and examine the DNC servers? Why simply
accept the interpretation of events given by the private cybersecurity firm (Crowdstrike)
that the Clinton campaign hired to very likely mastermind a cover-up? That is exceptional
(nay, unheard of!) "professional courtesy." Why has Mueller to this day not deposed Julian
Assange or former British Ambassador Craig Murray, both of whom admit to knowing precisely
who provided the leaked (not hacked) Podesta and DNC emails to Wikileaks? Why has Mueller not
pursued the potential role of the late Seth Rich in the leaking of said emails? Why has
Mueller not pursued the robust theory, based on actual evidence, proposed by VIPS, and
supported by computer experts like Bill Binney and John McAfee, that the emails were not, as
the Dems and the intel agencies would have you believe on NO EVIDENCE, hacked (by the
"Russians" or anyone else) but were downloaded to a flash drive directly from the DNC
servers? Why has Mueller not deposed Binney or Ray McGovern who claim to have evidence to
bear on this and have discussed it freely in the media (to the miniscule extent that the
corporate media will give them an audience)? Is Mueller after the truth, or is this a
kangaroo court he is running? Is the media really independent and impartial or are they part
of a cover-up, perpetrating numerous sins of both commission and omission in their highly
flawed reportage?
I don't see clarity in what has been thus far been propounded by Mueller or any of Trump's
other accusers, but I don't think I am the one who is confused here, Vivian. If you want to
meet a thoroughly confused individual on what transpired leading up to this moment in
American political history, just go read Hillary's book. Absolutely everyone under the sun
shares in the blame but her for the fact that she does not presently reside in the White
House.
Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 1:48 pm
You have presented your case with a great deal more detail and clarity than the original
post that prompted my reply. You are also a great deal more knowledgeable than I on the
details. I think we are 98% in agreement and I wouldn't like to say who's correct on the
remaining 2%.
For clarity, I didn't follow the debates and wouldn't do so now if they were repeated. Much
heat very little light.
The "pretext" that the intel agencies claim launched their actions against Trump was not the
Steele dossier, at least that is what the intel agencies say. Either way your assertion that
it was the dossier that set things off is just that, an assertion. I think this is a minor
point.
On the DNC servers and the FBI we are 100% singing from the same hymn book and it all sticks.
Mueller's apparent disinterest in the question of hack or USB drive does rather taint his
investigation and thanks for pointing this out, I hadn't thought of that angle. I still think
Mueller will stick to tax and money laundering and stay well clear of "collusion", so yes he
may be running a kangaroo court investigation but the charges will be real world.
The MSM as a whole are a sick joke which is why we collectively find ourselves at CN, Craig
Murray's blog, etc. I wouldn't like to attribute "collaboration" to any individual in the
media. It was the reference to hundreds of journalists being sent to jail in your original
post that set me off in the first place. When considering the "culpability" of any individual
journalist you can have any position on a spectrum from; fully cognisant collaborator with a
deep state conspiracy, to; a bit dim and running with the "sexy" story 'cause it's the
biggest thing ever, the bosses can't get enough of it and the overtime is great. If American
journalists are anything like their UK counterparts, 99% will fall into the latter
category.
Don't have any issue with your final point. Hillary on stage and on camera was phoney as
rocking horse s**te and everyone outside her extremely highly remunerated team could see
it.
Sorry for any inconvenience, but your second post makes your points a hell of a lot clearer
than the original.
Realist , June 1, 2018 at 4:26 pm
My purpose for the first post in this thread was to direct readers to the article in Unz
by Mike Whitney, not to compress a full-blown amateur expose' by myself into a three-sentence
paragraph. You would have found much more in the way of facts, analysis and opinion in his
article to which my terse comments did not even serve as an abstract.
Quoting his last paragraph may give you the flavor of this piece, which is definitely not
a one-off by him or other actual journalists who have delved into the issues:
"Let's see if I got this right: Brennan gets his buddies in the UK to feed fake
information on Russia to members of the Trump campaign, after which the FBI uses the
suspicious communications about Russia as a pretext to unmask, wiretap, issue FISA warrants,
and infiltrate the campaign, after which the incriminating evidence that was collected in the
process of entrapping Trump campaign assistants is compiled in a legal case that is used to
remove Trump from office. Is that how it's supposed to work?
It certainly looks like it. But don't expect to read about it in the Times."
backwardsevolution , June 1, 2018 at 4:49 pm
Vivian – 90% of all major media is owned by six corporations. There most definitely
was and IS collusion between some of them to bring down the outsider, Trump.
As far as individual journalists go, yeah, they're trying to pay their mortgage, I get it,
and they're going to spin what their boss bloody well tells them to spin. But there is
evidence coming out that "some" journalists did accept money from either Fusion GPS, Perkins
Coie (sp) or Christopher Steele to leak information, which they did.
Bill Clinton passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that enabled these six media
conglomerates to dominate the news. Of course they're political. They need to be split up,
like yesterday, into a thousand pieces (ditto for the banks). They have purposely and with
intent been feeding lies to the American people. Yes, some SHOULD go to jail.
As Peter Strzok of the FBI said re Trump colluding with Russia, "There was never any
there, there." The collusion has come from the intelligence agencies, in cahoots with Hillary
Clinton, perhaps even as high as Obama, to prevent Trump being elected. When that failed,
they set out to get him impeached on whatever they could find. Of course Mueller is going to
stick with tax and money laundering because he already KNOWS there was never any collusion
with Russia.
This is the Swamp versus the People.
backwardsevolution , June 1, 2018 at 1:52 pm
Realist – another excellent post. "Is Mueller after the truth, or is this a kangaroo
court he is running?" As you rightly point out, Mueller IS being very selective in what he
examines and doesn't examine. He's not after the whole truth, just a particular kind of
truth, one that gets him a very specific result – to take down or severely cripple the
President.
Evidence continues to trickle out. Former and active members of the FBI are now even
begging to testify as they are disgusted with what is being purposely omitted from this
so-called "impartial" investigation. This whole affair is "kangaroo" all the way.
I'm not so much a fan of Trump as I am a fan of the truth. I don't like to see him –
anyone – being railroaded. That bothers me more than anything. But he's right about
what he calls "the Swamp". If these people are not uncovered and brought to justice, then the
country is truly lost.
Realist , June 1, 2018 at 4:38 pm
Precisely. Destroy the man on false pretenses and you destroy our entire system, whether
you like him and his questionable policies or not.
Some people would say it's already gone, but we do what we can to get it back or hold onto
to what's left of it. Besides, all the transparent lies and skullduggery in the service of
politics rather than principles are just making our entire system look as corrupt as
hell.
michael , June 1, 2018 at 5:00 pm
When Mueller arrested slimy Manafort for crimes committed in the Ukraine and gave a pass
to the Podesta Brothers who worked closely with Manafort, it was clear that Russiagate was a
partisan operation.
backwardsevolution , June 1, 2018 at 6:17 pm
Michael – good point!
KiwiAntz , June 1, 2018 at 1:00 am
Its becoming abundantly clear now, that the whole Russiagate charade was had nothibg to do
with Russia & is about a elaborate smokescreen & shellgame coverup designed to divert
attention away from, firstly the Democratic Party's woeful defeat & its lousy Candidate
choice in the corrupt Hillary Clinton? & also the DNC's sabotaging of Bernie Saunders
campaign run! But the most henious & treacherous parts was Obama's, weaponising the
intelligence agencies to spy (Halper) on the imaginary Mancharian Candidate Trump & to
set him up as a Russia stooge? Obama & Hillary Clinton are complicent in this disgraceful
& illegal activity to get dirt on Trump withe goal of ensuring Clinton's election win?
This is bigger than Watergate & more scandalous? But despite the cheating & stacking
of the card deck, she still lost out to the Donald? And this isn't just illegal its
treasonous & willful actions deserving of a lengthy jail incarceration? HRC & her
crooked Clinton foundation's funding of the fraudulent & discredited "Steele Dosier" was
also used to implement Trump & Russia in a made up, pile of fictitious gargage that was
pure offal? Obama & HRC along with their FBI & CIA spys need to be rounded up,
convicted & thrown in jail? Perhaps if Trump could just shut his damn mouuth for once
& get off twitter long enough to be able too get some Justice Dept officials looking into
this, without being distracted by this Russiagate shellgame fakery, then perhaps the real
criminal's like Halpert, Obama,HRC & these corrupt spooks & spies can be rounded up
& held to account for this treasonous behaviour?
Sean Ahern , May 31, 2018 at 7:25 pm
Attention should be paid also to the role of so called progressive media outlets such as
Mother Jones which served as an outlets for the disinformation campaign described in Lazare's
article.
Here from David Corn's Mother Jones 2016 article:
"And a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian
counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with
memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian
government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump -- and that the FBI requested more
information from him."
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump/
Not only was Corn and Mother Jones selected by the spooks as an outlet, but these so
called progressives lauded their 'expose' as a great investigative coup on their part and it
paved the way for Corn's elevation on MSNBC for a while as a 'pundit.'
Paul G. , May 31, 2018 at 8:46 pm
In that vein did the spooks influence Rachel Maddow or is her $30,000. a day salary
adequate to totally compromise her microscopic journalistic integrity.
dikcheney , June 3, 2018 at 6:57 am
Passing around references to Mother Jones is like passing round used toilet paper for
another try. MJ is BS it is entirely controlled fake press.
Abby , May 31, 2018 at 6:23 pm
Stefan Halper was being paid by the Clinton's foundation during the time he was spying on
the Trump campaign. This is further evidence that Hillary Clinton's hands are all over
getting Russia Gate started. Then there's the role that Obama's justice department played in
setting up the spying on people who were working with the Trump campaign. This is worse than
Watergate, IMO.
Rumors are that a few ex FBI agents are going to testify to congress in Comey's role in
covering up Hillary's crimes when she used her private email server to send classified
information to people who did not have clearance to read it. Sydney Bluementhol was working
for Hillary's foundation and sending her classified information that he stole from the
NSA.
Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills were concerned about Obama knowing that Hillary wasn't using
her government email account after he told the press that he only found out about it at the
same time they did. He had been sending and receiving emails from her Clintonone email
address during her whole tenure as SOS.
Obama was also aware of her using her foundation for pay to play which she was told by
both congress and Obama to keep far away from her duties. Why did she use her private email
server? So that Chelsea could know where Hillary was doing business so she could send Bill
there to give his speeches to the same organizations, foreign governments and people who had
just donated to their foundation.
Has any previous Secretary of State in history used their position to enrich their spouses
or their foundations? I think not.
The secrets of how the FBI covered for Hillary are coming out. Whether she is charged for
her crimes is a different matter.
F. G. Sanford , May 31, 2018 at 7:48 pm
If Hillary paid a political operative using Clinton Foundation funds – those are tax
exempt charitable contributions – she would be guilty of tax fraud, charity fraud and
campaign finance violations. Hillary may be evil, but she's not stupid. The U.S.Government
paid Halper, which might be "waste, fraud and abuse", but it doesn't implicate Hillary at
all. Not that she's innocent, mind you
Rob , June 1, 2018 at 2:14 am
I need some references to take any of your multitude of claims seriously. With all due
respect, this sound like something taken from info wars and stylized in smartened up a little
bit.
the idea that Stefan Halper was some sort a of mastermind spy behind the so called
"Russiagate" fiasco
seems very implausible considering what he seems to have spent doing for the past 40
years
going back to the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-1980 and his efforts then.
i think he must have had a fairly peripheral role as to whatever or not was going on
behind the scenes from 2016 election campaign, and the campaign to first stop Trump getting
elected, and secondly, when that failed, to bring down his Presidency.
of course, the moment his name was revealed in recent days, would have shocked or
surprised those of in the general
public, but not certainly amongst those in Government aka FBI/CIA/Military-industrial
circles.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 4:36 pm
chris m – Halper is probably one of those people who hide behind their professor (or
other legitimate) jobs, but are there at the ready to serve the Deep State. "I understand.
You want me to set up some dupes in order to make it look like there was or could be actual
Russian meddling. Gotcha." All you've got to do is make it "look like" something nefarious
was going on. This facilitates a "reason" to have a phony investigation, and of course they
make it as open-ended an investigation as possible, hoping to get the target on something,
anything.
Well, they've no doubt looked long and hard for almost two years now, but zip. However, in
their zeal to get rid of their opponent, who they did not think would win the election, they
left themselves open, left a trail of crimes. Whoops!
This is the Swamp that Trump talked about during the election. He's probably not squeaky
clean either, but he pales in comparison to what these guys have done. They have tried to
take down a duly-elected President.
F. G. Sanford , May 31, 2018 at 5:09 pm
His role may have been peripheral, but I seem to recall that the Office of Net Assessments
paid him roughly a million bucks to play it. That office, run from the Pentagon, is about as
deep into the world of "black ops" spookdom as you can get. Hardly "peripheral", I'd say.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:13 pm
F. G. Sanford – yes, a million bucks implies something more than just a peripheral
involvement, more like something essential to the plot, like the actual setting up of the
plot. Risk of exposure costs money.
ranney , May 31, 2018 at 6:17 pm
Chris, I think the Halper inclusion in this complex tale is simply an example of how these
things work in the ultra paranoid style of spy agencies. As Lazare explains, every one knew
every one else – at least at the start of this, and it just kind of built from there,
and Halper may have been the spark – but the spark landed on a highly combustible pile
of paranoia that caught on fire right away. This is how our and the UK agencies function.
There is an interesting companion piece to this story today at Common Dreams by Robert Kohler
titled The American Way of War. It describes basically the same sort of mind set and action
as this story. I'd link it for you if I knew how, but I'm not very adept at the computer.
(Maybe another reader knows how?)
We (that is the American people who are paying the salaries of these brain blocked, stiff
necked idiots) need to start getting vocal and visible about the destructive path our
politicians, banks and generals have rigidly put us on. Does any average working stiff still
believe that all this hate, death and destruction is to "protect" us?
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:07 pm
ranney – when you are on the page that you want to link to, take your cursor (the
little arrow on your screen) to the top of the page to the address bar (for instance, the
address for this article is:
"https://consortiumnews.com/2018/05/31/spooks-spooking ")
Once your cursor is over the address bar, right click on your mouse. A little menu will
come up. Then position your cursor down to the word "copy" and then left click on your mouse.
This will copy the link.
Then proceed back to the blog (like Consortium) where you want to provide the link in your
post. You might say, "Here is the link for the article I just described above." Then at this
point you would right click on your mouse again, position your cursor over the word "paste",
and then left click on your mouse. Voila, your link magically appears.
If you don't have a mouse and are using a laptop pad, then someone else will have to help
you. That's above my pay grade. Good luck, ranney.
irina , May 31, 2018 at 8:13 pm
If you are using a Mac, either laptop w/touch screen or with a mouse, the copy/paste
function
works similarly. Use either the mouse (no need to 'right click, left click') or the touch
screen
to highlight the address bar once you have the cursor flashing away on the left side of
it.
You may need to scroll right to highlight the whole address. Then go up to Edit (there's
also
a keyboard command you can use, but I don't) in your tool bar at the top of your screen.
Click on 'copy'. Now your address is in memory. Then do the same as described above to
get back to where you want to paste it. Put your cursor where you want it to be 'pasted'.
Go back to 'edit' and click 'paste'. Voila !
This is a very handy function and can be used to copy text, web addresses, whatever you
want.
Explore it a little bit. (Students definitely overuse the 'paste and match style' option,
which allows
a person to 'paste' text into for example an essay and 'match the style' so it looks
seamless, although
unless carefully edited it usually doesn't read seamlessly !)
Remember that whatever is in 'copy' will remain there until you 'copy' something else. (Or
your
computer crashes . . . )
ranney , June 1, 2018 at 3:39 pm
Irina and Backwards Evolution – Thanks guys for the computer advice! I'll try it,
but I think I need someone at my shoulder the first time I try it.
backwardsevolution , June 1, 2018 at 8:53 pm
ranney – you're welcome! Snag one of your kids or a friend, and then do it together.
Sometimes I see people posting things like: "Testing. I'm trying to provide a link, bear with
me." Throw caution to the wind, ranney. I don't worry about embarrassing myself anymore. I do
it every day and the world still goes on.
I heard a good bit of advice once, something I remind my kids: when you're young, you
think everybody is watching you and so you're afraid to step out of line. When you're
middle-aged, you think everybody is watching you, but you don't care. When you're older, you
realize nobody is really watching you because they're more concerned about themselves.
Good luck, ranney.
irina , June 2, 2018 at 10:00 pm
I find it helpful to write down the steps (on an old fashioned piece of paper, with old
fashioned ink)
when learning to use a new computer tool, because while I think I'll remember, it doesn't
usually
'stick' until after using it for quite a while. And yes, definitely recruit a member of the
younger set
or someone familiar with computers. My daughter showed me many years ago how to 'cut &
paste'
and to her credit she was very gracious about it. Remember that you need a place to 'paste'
what-
ever you copied -- either a comment board like this, or a document you are working on, or
(this is
handy) an email where you want to send someone a link to something. Lots of other
possibilities too!
mike , June 1, 2018 at 7:43 pm
No one is presenting Halper as a mastermind spy. He was a tool of the deep state nothing
more.
It seems a mistake to frame the "Russiagate" nonsense as a "Democrat vs Republican"
affair, except at the most surface level of understanding in terms of our political
realities. If one considers that the Bush family has been effectively the Republican Party's
face of the CIA/deep state nexus for decades, as the Clinton/Obama's have been the Democratic
Party's face for decades now, what comes into focus is Trump as a sort of unknown, unexpected
wild card not appropriately tethered to the control structure. Simply noting that the U.S.
and Russia need not be enemies is alone enough to require an operation to get Trump into
line.
This hardly means this is some sort of "partisan" issue as the involvement of McCain and
others demonstrates.
One of the true "you can't make this stuff up" ironies of the Bush/Clinton CIA/deep state
nexus history is worth remembering if one still maintains any illusions about how the CIA
vets potential presidents since they killed JFK. During Iran/Contra we had Bush, the former
CIA director now vice president, running a drugs for arms operation out the White House
through Ollie North, WHILE then unknown Arkansas governor Bill Clinton was busy squashing
Arkansas State Police investigations into said narcotics trafficking. Clinton obviously
proved his bona fides to the CIA/deep state with such service and was appropriately rewarded
as an asset who could function as a reliable president. Here in one operation we had two
future presidents in Bush and Clinton both engaged in THE SAME CIA drug running operation.
You truly can't make this stuff up.
Russiagate seems to be in the end all about keeping deep state policy moving in the "right
direction" and "hating Russia" is the only entree on the menu at this time for the whole
cadre of CIA/deep state, MIC, neocons, Zionists, and all their minions in the MSM. The Obama
White House would have gladly supported Vlad the Impaler as the Republican candidate that
beat Hillary if Vlad were to have the appropriate foaming at the mouth "hate-Russia" vibe
going on.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:18 pm
Gary – great post.
irina , May 31, 2018 at 8:18 pm
Roger that. I would really like to see an inquiry re-opened into the
teenage boys who died 'on the train tracks' in Arkansas during the
early years of the Clinton-Bush trafficking. Many questions are still
unanswered. Speculation is that they saw something they weren't
supposed to see.
Mark Thomason , May 31, 2018 at 1:12 pm
This all grows out of the failure to clean up the mess revealed by the Iraq fiasco.
Instead, those who did that remained, got away with it, and are doing more of the same.
Babyl-on , May 31, 2018 at 12:46 pm
So, here is my question – Who, ultimately does the
permanent/bureaucratic/deep/Imperial* state finally answer to? Who's interests are they
serving? How do they know what those interests are?
It could be, and increasingly it looks as if, the answer is – no one in particular
– but the Saud family, the Zionist cabal of billionaires, the German industrialist
dynasties, the Japanese oligarchy and never forget the arms dealers, all of them once part of
the Empire now fighting for themselves so we end up with the high level apparatchiks not
knowing what to do or who to follow so they lie outright to Congress and go on TV and babble
more lies for money.
It's a great contradiction that the greatest armed force ever assembled with cutting edge
robotics and AI yet at the same time so weak and pathetic it can not exercise hegemony over
the Middle East as it seems to desire more than anything. Being defeated by forces with less
than 20% of the US spend.
Abby , May 31, 2018 at 6:36 pm
You're right. They answer to no one because they are not just working in this country, but
they think that the whole world is theirs.
To these people there are no borders. They meet at places like the G20, Davos and wherever
the Bilderberg group decides to meet every year. No leader of any country gets to be one
unless they are acceptable to the Deep State. The council of foreign relations is one of the
groups that run the world. How we take them down is a good question.
Abe , May 31, 2018 at 12:43 pm
Following the pattern of mainstream media, Daniel Lazare assiduously avoids mentioning
Israel and pro-Israel Lobby interference in the 2016 presidential election, and the
Israel-gate reality underlying all the Russia-gate fictions.
For example, George Papadopoulos is directly connected to the pro-Israel Lobby, right wing
Israeli political interests, and Israeli government efforts to control regional energy
resources.
Lazare mentions that Papadapoulos had "a friend in the Israeli embassy".
But Lazare conspicuously neglects to mention numerous Israeli and pro-Israel Lobby players
interested in "filling Papadopoulos's head" with "tales of Russian dirty tricks".
Papadopoulos' LinkedIn page lists his association with the right wing Hudson Institute.
The Washington, D.C.-based think tank part of pro-Israel Lobby web of militaristic security
policy institutes that promote Israel-centric U.S. foreign policy.
The Hudson Institute confirmed that Papadopoulos was an intern who left the pro-Israel
neoconservative think tank in 2014.
In 2014, Papadopoulos authored op-ed pieces in Israeli publications.
In an op-ed published in Arutz Sheva, media organ of the right wing Religionist Zionist
movement embraced by the Israeli "settler" movement, Papadopoulos argued that the U.S. should
focus on its "stalwart allies" Israel, Greece, and Cyprus to "contain the newly emergent
Russian fleet".
In another op-ed published in Ha'aretz, Papadopoulos contended that Israel should exploit
its natural gas resources in partnership with Cyprus and Greece rather than Turkey.
In November 2015, Papadapalous participated in a conference in Tel Aviv, discussing the
export of natural gas from Israel with a panel of current and past Israeli government
officials including Ron Adam, a representative of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
and Eran Lerman, a former Israeli Deputy National Security Adviser.
Among Israel's numerous violations of United Nations Resolution 242 was its annexation of
the Syrian Golan Heights in 1981. Recent Israeli threatened military threats against Lebanon
and Syria have a lot to do with control of natural gas resources, both offshore from Gaza and
on land in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights region.
Israeli plans to develop energy resources and expand territorial holdings in the Syrian
Golan are threatened by the Russian military presence in Syria. Russian diplomatic efforts,
and the Russian military intervention that began in September 2015 after an official request
by the Syrian government, have interfered with the Israeli-Saudi-U.S. Axis "dirty war" in
Syria.
Israeli activities and Israel-gate realities are predictably ignored by the mainstream
media, which continues to salivate at every moldy scrap of Russia-gate fiction.
Lazare need no be so circumspect, unless he has somehow been spooked.
"Among Israel's numerous violations of United Nations Resolution 242 was its annexation of
the Syrian Golan Heights in 1981. Recent Israeli threatened military threats against Lebanon
and Syria have a lot to do with control of natural gas resources, both offshore from Gaza and
on land in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights region."
And water. Rating energy and water, what's at the top for Israel. Israel would probably
say both but Israel shielded by the US will take what it wants. That is already true with the
Palestinians.. The last figure I heard is that the Palestinians are allocated one fifth per
capita what is allocated to Israel's
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 11:59 am
A large swamp is actually an ancient and highly organized ecosystem. Only humans could
create a lawless madness like Washington DC.
irina , May 31, 2018 at 8:24 pm
Yes that is a good description of a swamp. BUT, if it loses what sustains it --
water, in the case of a 'real' swamp and money in the case of this swamp --
it changes character very quickly and becomes first a bog, then a meadow.
I am definitely ready for more meadowland ! But the only way to create it
is to voluntarily redirect federal taxes into escrow accounts which stipulate
that the funds are to be used for (fill in the blank) Public Services at the
Local and Regional levels. Much more efficient than filtering them through
the federal bureaucracy !
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 10:21 pm
But how would one avoid prosecution for nonpayment of taxes?
That seems a very quiet way to be rendered ineffective as a resister.
irina , June 1, 2018 at 2:30 am
The thing is, you don't 'nonpay' them. The way it used to work, through the
Con$cience and Military Tax Campaign Escrow Account, was that you filed
your taxes as usual. (This does require having less withholding than you owe).
BUT instead of paying what is due to the IRS, you send it to the Escrow Account.
You attach a letter to your tax return, explaining where the money is and why it
is there. That is, you want it to be spent on _________________(fill in the blank)
worthy public social service. Then you send your return to the IRS.
When I used to do this, I stated that I wanted my tax dollars to be spent to develop
public health clinics at neighborhood schools. Said clinics would be staffed by nurse
practitioners, would be open 24-7 and nurses would be equipped with vans to make
House Calls. Security would be provided.
So you're not 'nonpaying' your taxes, you are (attempting) to redirect them.
Eventually,
after several rounds of letters back and forth, the IRS would seize the monies from the
escrow account, which would only release them to the IRS upon being told to by the
tax re-director. Unfortunately, not enough people participated to make it a going
concern.
But the potential is still there, and the template has been made and used. It's very
scale-
able, from local to international. And it would not take that many 're-directors' to shift
the
focus of tax liability from the collector to the payor. Because ultimately we are liable
for
how our funds are used !
Bill , June 2, 2018 at 3:19 pm
this was done a lot during the Vietnam conflict, especially by Quakers. the first thing,
if you are a wage earner, is to re-file a W2 with maximum withholdings-that has two effects:
1) it means you owe all your taxes in April. 2) it means the feds are deprived of the hidden
tax in which they use or invest your withholding throughout the year before it's actually
due(and un-owed taxes if you over over-withhold). Pretty sure that if a large number of
people deprive the government of that hidden tax by under-withholding, they will begin to
take notice.
Abe , May 31, 2018 at 11:54 am
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence agency of the government
and armed forces of the United Kingdom.
In 2013, GCHQ received considerable media attention when the former National Security
Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the agency was in the process of collecting
all online and telephone data in the UK. Snowden's revelations began a spate of ongoing
disclosures of global surveillance and manipulation.
For example, NSA files from the Snowden archive published by Glenn Greenwald reveal
details about GCHQ's Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) unit, which uses "dirty
trick" tactics to covertly manipulate and control online communities.
In 2017, officials from the UK and Israel made an unprecedented confirmation of the close
relationship between the GCHQ and Israeli intelligence services.
Robert Hannigan, outgoing Director-General of the GCHQ, revealed for the first time that
his organization has a "strong partnership with our Israeli counterparts in signals
intelligence." He claimed the relationship "is protecting people from terrorism not only in
the UK and Israel but in many other countries."
Mark Regev, Israeli ambassador to the UK, commented on the close relationship between
British and Israeli intelligence agencies. During remarks at a Conservative Friends of Israel
reception, Regev opined: "I have no doubt the cooperation between our two democracies is
saving British lives."
Hannigan added that GCHQ was "building on an excellent cyber relationship with a range of
Israeli bodies and the remarkable cyber industry in Be'er Sheva."
The IDF's most important signal intelligence–gathering installation is the Urim
SIGINT Base, a part of Unit 8200, located in the Negev desert approximately 30 km from Be'er
Sheva.
Snowden revealed how Unit 8200 receives raw, unfiltered data of U.S. citizens, as part of
a secret agreement with the U.S. National Security Agency.
After his departure from GCHQ, Hannigan joined BlueteamGlobal, a cybersecurity services
firm, later re-named BlueVoyant.
BlueVoyant's board of directors includes Nadav Zafrir, former Commander of the Israel
Defense Forces' Unit 8200. The senior leadership team at BlueVoyant includes Ron Feler,
formerly Deputy Commander of the IDF's Unit 8200, and Gad Goldstein, who served as a division
head in the Israel Security Agency, Shin Bet, in the rank equivalent to Major General.
In addition to their purported cybersecurity activities, Israeli. American, and British
private companies have enormous access and potential to promote government and military
deception operations.
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 12:23 pm
Thanks Abe. Sounds like a manual for slave owners and con men. What a tangled wed the rich
bastards weave. The simple truth is their sworn enemy.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 10:19 pm
Interesting that a foreign power would be given all US communications data, which implies
that the US has seized it all without a warrant and revealed it all in violation of the
Constitution. If extensive, this use of information power amounts to information warfare
against the US by its own secret agencies in collusion with a foreign power, an act of
treason.
Seer , June 1, 2018 at 7:18 am
This has been going on for a LONG time, it's nothing new. I seem to recall 60 Minutes
covering it way back in the 70s(?). UK was allowed to do the snooping in the US (and, likely,
vice versa) and then providing info to the US. This way the US govt could claim that it
didn't spy/snoop on its citizens. Without a doubt Israel has been extensively intercepting
communications in the US..
Secrecy kills.
Sam F , June 1, 2018 at 8:23 am
Yes, but the act of allowing unregulated foreign agencies unwarranted access to US
telecoms is federal crime, and it is treason when it goes so far as to allow them full
access, and even direct US bulk traffic to their spy agencies. If this is so, these people
should be prosecuted for treason.
F. G. Sanford , May 31, 2018 at 11:36 am
To listen to the media coverage of these events, it is tempting to believe that two
entirely different planets are being discussed. Fox comes out and says Mueller was "owned" by
Trump. Then, CNN comes out and says Trump was "owned" by Clapper. Clapper claims the evidence
is "staggering", while video clips of his testimony reveal irrefutable perjury. Some of
President Trump's policies are understandably abhorrent to Democrats, while Clinton's email
server and charity frauds are indisputably violations of Federal statutes. Democrats are
attempting to claim that a "spy" in the Trump campaign was perfectly reasonable to protect
"national security", but evidence seems to indicate that the spy was placed BEFORE there was
a legitimate national security concern. Some analysts note that, while Mueller's team appears
to be Democratic partisan hacks, their native "skill set" is actually expertise in money
laundering investigations. They claim that although Mr. Trump may not be compromised by the
Russian government, he is involved with nefarious Russian organized crime figures. It
follows, according to them, that given time, Mueller will reveal these illicit connections,
and prosecution will become inevitable.
Let's assume, for argument, that both sides are right. That means that our entire
government is irretrievably corrupt. Republicans claim that it could " go all the way to
Obama". Democrats, of course, play the "moral high ground" card, insinuating that the current
administration is so base and immoral that somehow, the "ends justify the means". No matter
how you slice it, the Clinton campaign has a lot more liability on its hands. The problem is,
if prosecutions begin, people will "talk" to save their own skins. The puppet masters can't
really afford that.
"All the way to Obama", you say? I think it could go higher than that. Personally, I think
it could go all the way to Dick Cheney, and the 'powers that be' are in no mood to let that
happen.
Vivian O'Blivion , May 31, 2018 at 12:19 pm
The issue as I see it is that from the start everyone was calling the Mueller probe an
investigation into collusion and not really grasping the catch all nature of his brief.
It's the "any matters arising " that is the real kicker. So any dodgy dealing / possible
criminal activity in the past is fair game. And this is exactly what in happening with
Manafort.
Morally you can apply the Nucky Johnson defence and state that everyone knew Trump was a
crook when they voted for him, but legally this has no value.
There is an unpleasant whiff of deep state interference with the will of the people
(electoral college). Perhaps if most bodies hadn't written Trump's chances off in such an off
hand manner, proper due diligence of his background would have uncovered any liabilities
before the election.
If there is actionable dirt, can't say I am overly sympathetic to Trump. Big prizes sometimes
come with big risks.
David G , May 31, 2018 at 5:14 pm
My own feeling from the start has been that Mueller was never going to track down any
"collusion" or "meddling" (at least not to any significant degree) because the whole,
sprawling Russia-gate narrative – to the extent one can be discerned – is
obviously phony.
But at the same time, there's no way the completely lawless, unethical Trump, along with
his scummy associates, would be able to escape that kind of scrutiny without criminal conduct
being exposed.
So far, on both scores, that still seems to me to be a likely outcome, and for my part I'm
fine with it.
Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 5:29 am
My thoughts exactly. Collusion was never a viable proposition because the Russians aren't
that stupid. Regardless of any personal opinion regarding the intelligence and mental
stability of Donald Snr., the people he surrounds himself with are weapons grade stupid. I
don't see the Russians touching the Trump campaign with a proverbial barge pole.
Bill , June 2, 2018 at 3:26 pm
it just happens that Trump appears to have been involved (wittingly or not), with the
laundering a whole lot of Russian money and so many of his friends seem to be connected with
wealthy Russian oligarchs as well plus they are so stupid, they keep appearing to (and
probably are) obstructing justice. The Cohen thing doesn't get much attention here, but it's
significant that they have all this stuff on a guy who is clearly Trump's bagman.
Steve Naidamast , May 31, 2018 at 3:15 pm
There is also quite an indication that the entire Mueller investigation is a complete
smoke screen to be used as cannon fodder in the mainstream media.
On the one hand, Mueller and his hacks have found nothing of import to link Trump to
anything close to collusion with members of the Russian government. And I am by no means a
Trump supporter by any stretch of the imagination, except as a foil to Clinton. However, even
my minimalist expectations for Trump have not worked out either.
In addition. the Mueller investigation has been spending what appears to be a majority of
its time on ancillary matters that were not within the supposed scope and mandate of this
investigation. Further, a number of indictments have come down against people involved with
such ancillary matters.
The result is that if Mueller is going beyond the scope of his investigatory mandate, this
may come in as a technicality that will allow indicted persons to escape prosecution on
appeal.
Such a mandate, I would think, is the same thing as a police warrant, which can find only
admissible evidence covered by the warrant. Anything else found to be criminally liable must
be found to be as a result of a completely different investigation that has nothing to do
with the original warrant.
In other words, it appears that the Mueller investigation was allowed to commence under a
Republican controlled Congress for the very reason that its intent is simply to go in circles
long enough for Republicans to get their agendas through, which does not appear to be working
all too well as a result of their high levels of internecine party conflicts.
This entire affair is coming to show just how dysfunctional, corrupt, and incompetent the
entirety of the US federal government has become. And to the chagrin of all sincere
activists, no amount of organized protesting and political action will ever rid the country
of this grotesque political quagmire that now engulfs the entirety of our political
infrastructure.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 8:48 pm
Very true that the US federal government is now "dysfunctional, corrupt, and
incompetent."
What are your thoughts on forms of action to rid us this political quagmire?
(other than ineffective "organized protesting and political action")
Have you considered new forms of public debate and public information?
Seer , June 1, 2018 at 7:34 am
All of this is blackmail to hold Trump's feet to the fire of the Israel firsters (such
actions pull in all the dark swampy things). By creating the Russia blackmail story they've
effectively redirected away from themselves. The moment Trump balks the Deep State will reel
in some more, airing innuendos to overwhelm Trump. Better believe that Trump has been fully
"briefed" on all of this. John Bolton was able to push out a former OPCW head with threats
(knew where his, the OPCW head's children were). And now John Bolton is sitting right next to
Trump (whispering in his ear that he knows ways in which to oust Trump).
What actual "ideas" were in Trump's head going in to all of this (POTUS run) is hard to
say. But, anything that can be considered a threat to the Deep State has been effectively
nullified now.
Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 8:22 am
Possible, but Manafort already tried to get his charges thrown out as being the outcome of
investigations beyond the remit He failed.
Brendan , May 31, 2018 at 10:26 am
There's no doubt at all that Joseph Mifsud was closely connected with western
intelligence, and with MI6 in particular. His contacts with Russia are insignificant compared
with his long career working amongst the elite of western officials.
Lee Smith of RealClearInvestigations lists some of the places where Mifsud worked, including
two universities:
"he taught at Link Campus University in Rome, ( ) whose lecturers and professors include
senior Western diplomats and intelligence officials from a number of NATO countries,
especially Italy and the United Kingdom.
Mifsud also taught at the University of Stirling in Scotland, and the London Academy of
Diplomacy, which trained diplomats and government officials, some of them sponsored by the
UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the British Council, or by their own governments."
Two former colleagues of Mifsud's, Roh and Pastor, recently interviewed him for a book
they have written. Those authors could very well be biased, but one of them makes a valid
point, similar to one that Daniel Lazare makes above:
"Given the affiliations of Link's faculty and staff, as well as Mifsud's pedigree, Roh thinks
it's impossible that the man he hired as a business development consultant is a Russian
agent."
Politically, Mifsud identifies with the Clintons more than anyone else, and claims to
belong to the Clinton Foundation, which has often been accused of being just a way of
funneling money into Hillary Clinton's campaign.
As Lee Smith says, if Mifsud really is a Russian spy, "Western intelligence services are
looking at one of the largest and most embarrassing breaches in a generation. But none of the
governments or intelligence agencies potentially compromised is acting like there's anything
wrong."
From all that we know about Joseph Mifsud, it's safe to say that he was never a Russian
spy. If not, then what was he doing when he was allegedly feeding stories to George
Papadopoulos about Russians having 'dirt' on Clinton?
I read somewhere that Mifsud had disappeared. Was that true? If so, is he back, or still
missing?
Chet Roman , May 31, 2018 at 6:21 pm
Here are some excerpts that will answer your question from an article by Lee Smith at
Realclearinvestigations, "The Maltese Phantom of Russiagate".
A new book by former colleagues of Mifsud's – Stephan Roh, a 50-year-old
Swiss-German lawyer, and Thierry Pastor, a 35-year-old French political analyst –
reports that he is alive and well. Their account includes a recent interview with him.
Their self-published book, "The Faking of Russia-gate: The Papadopoulos Case, an
Investigative Analysis," includes a recent interview with Mifsud in which he denies saying
anything about Clinton emails to Papadopoulos. Mifsud, they write, stated "vehemently that he
never told anything like this to George Papadopoulos." Mifsud asked rhetorically: "From where
should I have this [information]?"
Mifsud's account seems to be supported by Alexander Downer, the Australian diplomat who
alerted authorities about Papadopoulos. As reported in the Daily Caller, Downer said
Papadopoulos never mentioned emails; he spoke, instead, about the Russians possessing
material that could be damaging to Clinton. This new detail raises the possibility that
Mifsud, Papadopoulos' alleged source for the information, never said anything about
Clinton-related emails either.
In interviews with RealClearInvestigations, Roh and Pastor said Mifsud is anything but a
Russian spy. Rather, he is more likely a Western intelligence asset.
According to the two authors, it was a former Italian intelligence official, Vincenzo
Scotti, a colleague of Mifsud's and onetime interior minister, who told the professor to go
into hiding. "I don't know who was hiding him," said Roh, "but I'm sure it was organized by
someone. And I am sure it will be difficult to get to the bottom of it."
Toby McCrossin , June 1, 2018 at 1:54 am
" The Papadopoulos Case, an Investigative Analysis," includes a recent interview with
Mifsud in which he denies saying anything about Clinton emails to Papadopoulos. Mifsud, they
write, stated "vehemently that he never told anything like this to George Papadopoulos.""
Thank you for providing that explosive piece of information. If true, and I suspect it is,
that's one more nail in the Russiagate narrative. Who, then, is making the claim that Misfud
mentioned emails? The only source for the statement I can find is "court documents".
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 9:20 am
The election scams serve only to distract from the Israel-gate scandal and the oligarchy
destruction of our former democracy. Mr. Lazare neglects to tell us about that. All of
Hillary's top ten campaign bribers were zionists, and Trump let Goldman-Sachs take over the
economy. KSA and big business also bribed heavily.
We must restrict funding of elections and mass media to limited individual donations, for
democracy is lost.
We must eliminate zionist fascism from our political parties, federal government, and
foreign policy. Obviously that has nothing to do with any ethnic or religious preference.
Otherwise the United States is lost, and our lives have no historical meaning beyond
slavery to oligarchy.
Joe Tedesky , May 31, 2018 at 9:51 am
You are right Sam. Israel does work the fence under the guise of the Breaking News.
Joe
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 8:18 pm
My response was that Israel massacres at the fence, ignored by the zionist US mass
media.
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 11:48 am
The extreme wealth and privileges of oligarchy depend on the poverty and slavery of
others. Inequality of income is the root cause of most of our ills. Try to imagine what a
world of economic equals would be like. No striving for more and more wealth at the expense
of others. No wars. What would there be to fight over – everyone would be content with
what they already had.
If you automatically think such a world would be impossible, try to state why. You might
discover that the only obstacle to such a world is the greedy bastards who are sitting on top
of everybody, and will do anything to maintain their advantages.
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 11:52 am
How do the oligarchs ensure your slavery? With the little green tickets they have hoarded
that the rest of us need just to eat and have a roof over our heads. The people sleeping in
the streets tell us the penalty for not being good slaves.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 12:50 pm
Very true, Mike. Those who say that equality or fairness of income implies breaking the
productivity incentive system are wrong. No matter how much or how little wage incentive we
offer for making an effort in work, we need not have great disparities of income. Those who
can work should have work, and we should all make an effort to do well in our work, but none
of us need the fanciest cars or grand monuments to live in, just to do our best.
Getting rid of oligarchy, and getting money out of mass media and elections, would be the
greatest achievement of our times.
Joe Tedesky , May 31, 2018 at 5:30 pm
An old socialist friend of my dad's generation who claimed to have read the biography of
Andrew Carnegie had told me over a few beers that Carnegie said, "that at a time when he was
paying his workers $5 a week he 'could' have been paying them $50 a day, but then he could
not figure out what kind of life they would lead with all that money". Think about it mike,
if his workers would have had that kind of money it would not be long before Carnegie's
workers became his competition and opened up next door to him the worst case scenario would
be his former workers would sell their steel at a cheaper price, kind of, well no exactly
like what Rockefeller did with oil, or as Carnegie did with steel innovation. How's that
saying go, keep them down on the farm . well. Remember Carnegie was a low level stooge for
the railroads at one time, and rose to the top .mike. Great point to make mike, because there
could be more to go around. Joe
Steve Naidamast , May 31, 2018 at 3:16 pm
"We must restrict funding of elections and mass media to limited individual donations, for
democracy is lost.
We must eliminate zionist fascism from our political parties, federal government, and
foreign policy. Obviously that has nothing to do with any ethnic or religious
preference."
Good luck with that!!!
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 8:19 pm
Well, you are welcome to make suggestions on how to save the republic.
john wilson , May 31, 2018 at 9:10 am
The depths of the deep state has no limits, but as a UK citizen, I fail to see why the
American "spooks" need any help from we Brits when it comes state criminal activity. Sure, we
are masters at underhand dirty tricks, but the US has a basket full of tricks that 'Trump'
(lol) anything we've got. It was the Russians wot done mantra has been going on for many
decades and is ever good for another turn around the political mulberry tree of corruption
and underhand dealings. Whether the Democrats or the Republicans win its all the same to the
deep state as they are in control whoever is in the White House. Trump was an outsider and
there for election colour and the "ho ho ho" look what a great democracy we are, anyone can
be president. He is in fact the very essence of the 'wild card' and when he actually won
there was total confusion, panic, disbelief and probably terror in the caves and dungeons of
the deep state.
Realist , May 31, 2018 at 9:33 am
I'm sure the result was so unexpected that the shadowy fixers, the IT mavens who could
have "adjusted" the numbers, were totally caught off guard and unable to do "cleanly." Not
that they didn't try to re-jigger the results in the four state recounts that were ordered,
but it was simply too late to effectively cheat at that point, as there were already massive
overvotes detected in key urban precincts. Such a thing will never happen again, I am
sure.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 9:36 am
It appears that UK has long had a supply of anti-Russia fearmongers, presumably backed by
its anti-socialist oligarchy as in the US. Perhaps the US oligarchy is the dumbest salesman,
who believes that all customers are even dumber, so that UK can sell Russophobia here thirty
years after the USSR.
Bob Van Noy , May 31, 2018 at 8:49 am
"But how could Trump think otherwise? As Consortium News founding editor Robert Parry
observed a few days later, the maneuver "resembles a tactic out of FBI Director J. Edgar
Hoover's playbook on government-style blackmail: I have some very derogatory information
about you that I'd sure hate to see end up in the press."
Perfect.
Recently, while trying to justify my arguement that a new investigation into the RFK Killing
was necessary, I was asked why I thought that, and my response was "Modus operandi," exactly
what Robert Parry learned by experience, and that is the fundamental similarity to all of the
institutionalized crime that takes place by the IC. Once one realizes the literary approach
to disinformation that was fundamental to Alan Dulles, James Jesus Angleton, even Ian
Fleming, one can easily see the Themes being applied. I suppose that the very feature of
believability offered by propaganda, once recognized, becomes its undoing. That could be our
current reality; the old Lines simply are beginning to appear to be ridiculous
Thank you Daniel Lazar.
Sam F , June 1, 2018 at 8:39 am
The recognition of themes of propaganda as literary themes and modus operandi is helping
to discredit propaganda. The similarities of the CW false-flag operations (Iraq, Syria, and
UK), and the fake assassinations (Skripal and Babchenko) by the anti-Russia crowd help reveal
and persuade on the falsehood of the Iraq WMD, Syria CW, and MH-17 propaganda ops. Just as
the similarities of the JFK/MLK/RFK assassinations persuade us that commonalities exist long
before we see evidence.
Bob Van Noy , June 1, 2018 at 1:11 pm
Many thanks Sam F for recognizing that. As we begin to achieve a resolution of the 60's
Kllings, we can begin to see the general and specific themes utilized to direct the programs
of Assassination. The other aspect is that real investigation Never followed; and that took
Real Power.
In a truly insightful book by author Sally Denton entitled "The Profiteers" she puts
together a very cogent theory that it isn't the Mafia, it's the Syndicate, which means (for
me at least) real, criminal power with somewhat divergent interests ok with one another, to
the extent that they can maintain their Own Turf. I think that's a profound insight
Too, in a similar vain, the Grand Deceptions of American Foreign Policy, "scenarios" are
simply and only that, not a Real possible solution. Always resulting in failure
Sam F , June 1, 2018 at 9:23 pm
Yes, it is difficult to determine the structure of a subculture of gangsterism in power,
which can have many specialized factions in loose cooperation, agreeing on some general
policy points, like benefits for the rich, hatred of socialism, institutionalized bribery of
politicians and judges, militarized policing, destruction of welfare and social security,
deregulation of everything, essentially the neocon/neolib line of the DemReps. The party line
of oligarchy in any form.
Indeed the foreign policy of such gangsters is designed to "fail" because destruction of
cultures, waste, and fragmentation most efficiently exploits the bribery structure available,
and serves the anti-socialist oligarchy. Failure of the declared foreign policy is success,
because that is only propaganda to cover the corruption.
You know, not only Gay Trowdy but even Dracula Napolitano think people like Lazare ,
McGovern, etc. are overblown on this issue.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 1:47 pm
SocraticGadfly – Trey Gowdy hasn't even seen the documents yet, so he's hardly in a
position to say anything. The House Intelligence Committee, under Chairman Nunes, are being
stymied by the FBI and the Department of Justice who are refusing to hand over documents.
Refusing! Refusing to disclose documents to the very people who, by law, have oversight.
Nunes is threatening to hit them with Contempt of Congress.
Let's see the documents. Then Trey Gowdy can open his mouth.
What I take from this head spinning article is the paragraph about Carter Page.
"On July 7, 2016 Carter Page delivered a lecture on U.S.-Russian relations in Moscow in
which he complained that "Washington and other western capitals have impeded potential
progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality,
corruption, and regime change." Washington hawks expressed "unease" that someone representing
the presumptive Republican nominee would take Russia's side in a growing neo-Cold War
Mr. Page hit the nail on the head. There is no greater sin to entrenched power than to
spell out what is going on with Russia. It helps us understand why terms like dupe and
naïve were stuck on Carter Page's back.. Truth to power is not always good for your
health.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 10:07 am
The tyrant accuses of disloyalty, all who question the reality of his foreign
monsters.
And so do his monster-fighting agencies, whose budgets depend upon the fiction.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:25 am
Daniel Lazare – good report. "It sounds more like CIA paranoia raised to the nth
degree." This wasn't a case of paranoia. This was a blatant attempt to bring down a rival
opponent and, failing that, the President of the United States. This was intentional and
required collusion between top officials of the government. They fabricated the phony Steele
dossier (paid for by the Clinton campaign), exonerated Hillary Clinton, and then went to town
on bringing down Trump.
"Was George Popodopolous set up?" Of course he was. Set up a patsy in order to give you
reason to carry out a phony investigation.
"If the corporate press fails to point this out, it's because reporters are too befogged
themselves to notice." They're not befogged; they're following orders (the major television
and newspaper outfits). Without their 24/7 spin and lies, Russiagate would never have been
kept alive.
These guys got the biggest surprise of their life when Hillary Clinton lost the election.
None of this would have come out had she won. During the campaign, as Trump gained in the
polls, she was heard to say, "If they ever find out what we've done, we'll all hang."
I hope they see jail time for what they've done.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:38 am
Apparently what has come out so far is just the tip of the iceberg. Some are saying this
could lead all the way up to Obama. I hope not, but they have certainly done all they can to
ruin the Trump Presidency.
JohnM , May 31, 2018 at 9:58 am
I'm adjusting my tinfoil hat right now. I'm wondering if Skripal had something to do with
the Steel dossier. The iceberg may be even bigger than thought.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 10:18 am
It is known that Skripal's close friend living nearby was an employee of Steele's firm
Orbis.
Chet Roman , May 31, 2018 at 2:58 pm
Exactly, his name is Pablo Miller and he is the MI6 agent who initially recruited Sergei
Skripal. Miller worked for Orbis, Steele's company and listed that in his resume on LinkedIn
but later deleted it. But once it's on the internet it can always be found and it was and it
was published.
robjira , May 31, 2018 at 2:13 pm
John, both Moon Of Alabama and OffGuardian have had excellent coverage of the Skripal
affair. Informed opinions wonder if Sergei Skripal was one of Steele's "Russian sources," and
that he may have been poisoned for the purpose of either a) bolstering the whole "Russia =
evil" narrative, or b) a warning not to ask for more than what he may have conceivably
received for any contribution he may or may not have made to the "dossiere."
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 7:20 am
Interesting details in this article, but we have known this whole Russiagate affair was a
scam from the get go. It all started the day after Trump's unexpected electoral win over
Hillary. The chagrined dems came together and concocted their sore loser alibi – the
Russians did it. They scooped up a lot of pre-election dirt, rolled it into a ball and
directed it at Trump. It is a testament to the media's determination to stick with their
story, that in spite of not a single scrap of real evidence after over a year of digging by a
huge team of democratic hit men and women, this ridiculous story still has supporters.
David G , May 31, 2018 at 10:31 am
"It all started the day after Trump's unexpected electoral win over Hillary."
Not so.
Daniel Lazare's first link in the above piece is to Paul Krugman's July 22, 2016 NY Times
op-ed, "Donald Trump, the Siberian Candidate". (Note how that headline doesn't even bother to
employ a question mark.)
I appreciate that that Krugman column gets pride of place here since I distinctly remember
reading it in my copy of the Times that day, months before the election, and my immediate
reaction to it: nonplussed that such a risible thesis was being aired so prominently, along
with a deep realization that this was only the first shot in what would be a co-ordinated
media disinformation campaign, à la Saddam's WMDs.
Chet Roman , May 31, 2018 at 3:37 pm
Actually, I think the intelligence agencies' (CIA/FBI/DNI) plan started shortly after
Trump gave the names of Page and Papadopoulos to the Washington Post (CIA annex) in a meeting
on March 21, 2016 outlining his foreign policy team.
Carter Page (Naval Academy distinguished graduate and Naval intelligence officer) in 2013
worked as an "under-cover employee" of the FBI in a case that convicted Evgeny Buryakov and
it was reported that he was still an UCE in March of 2016. The FBI never charged or even
hinted that Page was anything but innocent and patriotic. However, in October 2016 the FBI
told the FISA Court that he was a spy to support spying on him. Remember the FISA Court
allows spying on him AND the persons he is in contact, which means almost everyone on the
Trump transition team/administration.
Here is an excerpt from an article by WSJ's Kimberley Strassel:
In "late spring" of 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey briefed White House "National
Security Council Principals" that the FBI had counterintelligence concerns about the Trump
campaign. Carter Page was announced as a campaign adviser on March 21, and Paul Manafort
joined the campaign March 29. The briefing likely referenced both men, since both had
previously been on the radar of law enforcement. But here's what matters: With this briefing,
Mr. Comey officially notified senior political operators on Team Obama that the bureau had
eyes on Donald Trump and Russia. Imagine what might be done in these partisan times with such
explosive information.
And what do you know? Sometime in April, the law firm Perkins Coie (on behalf the Clinton
campaign) hired Fusion GPS, and Fusion turned its attention to Trump-Russia connections.
David G , May 31, 2018 at 4:56 pm
Most interesting, Chet Roman. Thanks.
My understanding is that Trump more or less pulled Page's name out of a hat to show the
WashPost that he had a "foreign policy team", and thus that his campaign wasn't just a hollow
sham, but that at that point he really had had no significant contact at all with Page
– maybe hadn't even met him. It was just a name from his new political world that
sprang to "mind" (or the Trumpian equivalent).
Of course, the Trump campaign *was* just a sham, by conventional Beltway standards: a
ramshackle road show with no actual "foreign policy team", or any other policy team.
So maybe that random piece of B.S. from Trump has caused him a heap of trouble. This is
part of why – no matter how bogus "Russia-gate" is – I just can't bring myself to
feel sorry for old Cheeto Dust.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 6:56 am
Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal had some good advice:
"Mr. Trump has an even quicker way to bring the hostility to an end.
He can – and should – declassify everything possible, letting Congress and the
public see the truth.
That would put an end to the daily spin and conspiracy theories. It would puncture
Democratic arguments that the administration is seeking to gain this information only for
itself, to "undermine" an investigation.
And it would end the Justice Department's campaign of secrecy, which has done such harm to
its reputation with the public and with Congress."
What do you bet he does?
RickD , May 31, 2018 at 6:44 am
I have serious doubts about the article's veracity. There seems to be a thread running
through it indicating an attempt to whitewash any Russian efforts to get Trump elected. To
dismiss all the evidence of such efforts, and , despite this author's words, there is enough
such evidence, seems more than a bit partisan.
What evidence? I've seen none so far. A lot of claims that there is such evidence but no
one seems to ever say what it is.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:06 am
RickD – thanks for the good laugh before bedtime. I'm with Mr. Merrell and I
actually want to see some evidence. Maybe it was Professor Halper in the kitchen with the
paring knife.
Realist , May 31, 2018 at 9:21 am
Unfortunately, what this guy says is what most Americans still seem to believe. When I ask
people what is the actual hard evidence for "Russiagate" (because I don't know of any that
has been corroborated), I get a response that there have been massive examples of Russian
hacks, Russian posts, tweets and internet adverts–all meant to sabotage Hillary's
candidacy, and very effective, mind you. Putin has been an evil genius worthy of a comic book
villain (to date myself, a regular Lex Luthor). Sez who, ask I? Sez the trustworthy American
media that would never lie to the public, sez they. You know, professional paragons of virtue
like Rachel Maddow and her merry band.
Nobody seems aware of the recent findings about Halpern, none seem to have a realistic
handle on the miniscule scope of the Russian "offenses" against American democracy. Rachel,
the NY Times and WaPo have seen to that with their sins of both commission and omission. Even
the Republican party is doing a half-hearted job of defending its own power base with
rigorous and openly disseminated fact checking. It's like even many of the committee chairs
with long seniority are reluctant to buck the conventional narrative peddled by the media.
Many have chosen to retire rather than fight the media and the Deep State. What's a better
interpretation of events? Or is one to believe that the silent voices, curious retirements
and political heat generated by the Dems, the prosecutors and the media are all independent
variables with no connections? These old pols recognise a good demonizing when they see it,
especially when directed at them.
Personally, I think that not only the GOPers should be fighting like the devil to expose
the truth (which should benefit them in this circumstance) but so should the media and all
the watchdog agencies (ngo's) out there because our democracy WAS hijacked, but it was NOT by
the Russians. Worse than that, it was done by internal domestic enemies of the people who
must be outed and punished to save the constitution and the republic, if it is not too late.
All the misinformation by influential insiders and the purported purveyors of truth
accompanied by the deliberate silence by those who should be chirping like birds suggests it
may well be far too late.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:53 pm
Realist – a most excellent post! Some poll result I read about the other day
mentioned that well over half of the American public do NOT believe what they are being told
by the media. That was good to hear. But you are right, there are still way too many who
never question anything. If I ever get in trouble, I wouldn't want those types on my jury.
They'd be wide awake during the prosecution's case and fast asleep during my defense.
This is the Swamp at work on both sides of the aisle. Most of the Republicans are hanging
Trump out to dry. They've probably got too much dirt they want to keep hidden themselves, so
retirement looks like a good idea. Get out of Dodge while the going is good, before the real
fighting begins! The Democrats are battling for all they're worth, and I've got to hand it to
them – they're dirty little fighters.
Yes, democracy has been hijacked. Hard to say how long this has been going on –
maybe forever. If there is anything good about Trump's presidency, it's that the Deep State
is being laid out and delivered up on a silver platter for all to see.
There has never been a better chance to take back the country than this. If this
opportunity passes, it will never come again. They will make sure of it.
The greatest thing that Trump could do for the country would be to declassify all
documents. Jeff Sessions is either part of the Deep State or he's been scared off. He's not
going to act. Rosenstein is up to his eyeballs in this mess and he's not going to act. In
fact, he's preventing Nunes from getting documents. It is up to Trump to act. I just hope
he's not being surrounded by a bunch of bad apple lawyers who are giving him bad advice. He
needs to go above the Department of Justice and declassify ALL documents. If he did that, a
lot of these people would probably die of a heart attack within a minute.
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 7:11 am
You sure came out of the woodwork quickly to express your "serious doubts" RickD.
Skip Scott , May 31, 2018 at 8:07 am
Please provide "such evidence". I've yet to see any. The entire prosecution of RussiaGate
has been one big Gish Gallop.
strgr-tgther , May 31, 2018 at 9:39 pm
RickD – Thank you for pointing that out! You were the only one!!! It is a very
strange article leaving Putin and the Russians evidence out and also not a single word about
Stromy Daniels witch is also very strange. I know Hillary would never have approved of any of
this and they don't say that either.
John , June 1, 2018 at 2:26 am
What does Stormy Daniels have to do with RussiaGate?
You know that someone who committed the ultimate war crime by lying us into war to destroy
Libya and re-institute slavery there, and who laughed after watching video of a man that
Nelson Mandela called "The Greatest Living Champion of Human Rights on the Planet" be
sodomized to death with a knife, is somehow too "moral" to do such a thing? Really?
It amazes me how utterly cultish those who support the Red Queen have shown themselves to
be – without apparently realizing that they are obviously on par with the followers of
Jim Jones!
strgr-tgther , June 1, 2018 at 12:17 pm
That is like saying what does income tax have to do with Al Capone. Who went to Alctraz
because he did not pay income tax not for being a gangster. So we know Trump has sexual
relations with Stormy Daniels, then afterward PAID her not to talk about it. So he paid Story
Daniels for sex! That is Prostitution! Same thing. And that is inpeachable, using womens
bodies as objects. If we don't prosecute Trump here then from now on all a John needs to say
to the police is that he was not paying for sex but paying to keep quiet about it. And
Cogress can get Trump for prostitution and disgracing the office of President. Without Russia
investigations we would never have found out about this important fact, so that is what it
has to do with Russia Gate.
"... That did not prevent the "handpicked" authors of that poor excuse for intelligence analysis from expressing "high confidence" that Russian intelligence "relayed material it acquired from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks." Handpicked analysts, of course, say what they are handpicked to say. ..."
"... The June 12, 14, & 15 timing was hardly coincidence. Rather, it was the start of a pre-emptive move to associate Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been about to publish and to "show" that it came from a Russian hack. ..."
"... "No one has challenged the authenticity of the original documents of Vault 7, which disclosed a vast array of cyber warfare tools developed, probably with help from NSA, by CIA's Engineering Development Group. That Group was part of the sprawling CIA Directorate of Digital Innovation – a growth industry established by John Brennan in 2015. [ (VIPS warned President Obama of some of the dangers of that basic CIA reorganization at the time.] ..."
"... "Scarcely imaginable digital tools – that can take control of your car and make it race over 100 mph, for example, or can enable remote spying through a TV – were described and duly reported in the New York Times and other media throughout March. But the Vault 7, part 3 release on March 31 that exposed the "Marble Framework" program apparently was judged too delicate to qualify as 'news fit to print' and was kept out of the Times at the time, and has never been mentioned since . ..."
"... "More important, the CIA reportedly used Marble during 2016. In her Washington Post report , Nakashima left that out, but did include another significant point made by WikiLeaks; namely, that the obfuscation tool could be used to conduct a 'forensic attribution double game' or false-flag operation because it included test samples in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi." ..."
"... The CIA's reaction to the WikiLeaks disclosure of the Marble Framework tool was neuralgic. Then Director Mike Pompeo lashed out two weeks later, calling Assange and his associates "demons," and insisting; "It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors like Russia."Our July 24 Memorandum continued: "Mr. President, we do not know if CIA's Marble Framework, or tools like it, played some kind of role in the campaign to blame Russia for hacking the DNC. Nor do we know how candid the denizens of CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate have been with you and with Director Pompeo. These are areas that might profit from early White House review. [ President Trump then directed Pompeo to invite Binney, one of the authors of the July 24, 2017 VIPS Memorandum to the President, to discuss all this. Binney and Pompeo spent an hour together at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017, during which Binney briefed Pompeo with his customary straightforwardness. ] ..."
"... Another false flag operation? Suddenly false flag operations have become the weapon of choice. Interestingly enough, they are nefariously (always) committed by the US or US allies. MH17 was a false flag with an SU-25 Ukraine jet responsible for downing the passenger jet (to blame Russia). All of the chemical attacks in Syria were false flag operations with the supply of sarin/chlorine made in Turkey or directly given to the "rebels" by the CIA or US allies. The White Helmets were of course in on all of the details. Assad was just simply not capable of doing that to "his" people. Forget that the sarin had the chemical signature of the Assad regime sarin supply. Next it was the snipers who used a false flag operation during the Maidan revolution to shoot protesters and police to oust Yanukovych. Only the neo-Nazis could be capable of shooting the Maidan protesters so they could take power. And then Seth Rich was murdered so he couldn't reveal he was the "real" source of the leak. This was hinted by Assange when he offered a reward to find the killers. ..."
"... The author tosses out that the DNC hack was (potentially) a false flag operation by the CIA obviously to undermine Trump while victimizing Russia. ..."
"... I don't seen any cause to say that any false-flag theory you don't like is merely "tossed out" propaganda. One cannot tell in your comment where you think the accounts are credible and where not. No evidence that the Syria CW attacks "had the chemical signature of the Assad regime sarin supply." ..."
"... There can be no doubt that counterintelligence tools would be pursued by our intelligence agencies as a means to create narratives and false evidence based on the production of false flags which support desired geopolitical outcomes. There would be a need to create false flags using technology to support the geopolitical agenda which would be hard or impossible to trace using the forensic tools used by cyber sleuths. ..."
"... Russia-gate is American Exceptionalism writ large which takes on a more sinister aspect as groups like BLM and others are "linked" to alleged "Russian funding"on one and and Soros funding on another ..."
"... (FWIW, this is a new neoliberal phenomenon when the ultra-rich "liberals" can quietly fund marches on Washington and "grassroots" networking making those neophyte movements too easy targets with questionable robust foundation (color revolutions are possible when anyone is able to foot the cost of 1,000 or 2000 "free" signs or t-shirts -- impecccably designed and printed. ..."
"... Excellent post. Thanks also for reminding me I need to revisit the Vault 7 information as source material. These are incredibly important leaks that help connect the dots of criminal State intelligence activities designed to have remained forever hidden. ..."
"... Actually, both Brennan and Hayden testified to Congress that only 3 agencies signed off on their claim. They also said that they'd "hand picked" a special team to run their "investigation," and no other people were involved. So, people known to be perjurers cherry picked "evidence" to make a claim. Let's invade Iraq again. ..."
"... Mueller is not interested in the truth. He can't handle the truth. His purpose is not to divulge the truth. He has no use for truthtellers including the critical possessors of the truth whom you mentioned. This aversion to the truth is the biggest clue that Mueller's activities are a complete sham. ..."
"... Thanks, Ray, for revealing that the CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate is the likely cause of the Russiagate scams. ..."
"... Your disclaimer is hilarious: "We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental." ..."
"... For whatever reason, Ray McGovern chose not to mention the murder of Seth Rich, which pretty clearly points to the real source of the leak being him, as hinted by Assange offering a reward for anyone uncovering his killer. The whole thing stinks of a democratic conspiracy. ..."
"... Ray, from what I have seen in following his writing for years, meticulously only deals in knowns. The Seth Rich issue is not a known, it is speculation still. Yes, it probably is involved, but unless Craig Murray states that Seth Rich was the one who handed him the USB drive, it is not a known. ..."
"... There is a possibility that Seth Rich was not the one who leaked the information, but that the DNC bigwigs THOUGHT he was, in which case, by neither confirming nor denying that Seth Rich was the leaker, it may be that letting the DNC continue to think it was him is being done in protection of the actual leaker. Seth Rich could also have been killed for unrelated reasons, perhaps Imran Awan thought he was on to his doings. ..."
"... Don't forget this Twitter post by Wikileaks on October 30, 2016: Podesta: "I'm definitely for making an example of a suspected leaker whether or not we have any real basis for it." https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/36082#efmAGSAH- ..."
"... Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic charade and he's left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and Russians. Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the mass media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin "hacking" the election to favor Trump. Which was the entire raison d'etre behind Rosenstein and Mueller's crusade on behalf of the deplorable DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. Sure be interesting to see how Mueller and his crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent edifice of deceit. Will they even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face? ..."
"... If they had had any evidence to inculpate Russia, we would have all seen it by now. They know that by stating that there is an investigation going on: they can blame Russia. The Democratic National Committee is integrated by a pack of liars. ..."
"... My question is simple, when will we concentrate on reading Hillary's many emails? After all wasn't this the reason for the Russian interference mania? Until we do, take apart Hillary's correspondence with her lackeys, nothing will transpire of any worth. I should not be the one saying this, in as much as Bernie Sanders should be the one screaming it for justice from the highest roof tops, but he isn't. So what's up with that? Who all is involved in this scandalous coverup? What do the masters of corruption have on everybody? ..."
If you are wondering why so little is heard these days of accusations that Russia hacked
into the U.S. election in 2016, it could be because those charges could not withstand
close scrutiny . It
could also be because special counsel Robert Mueller appears to have never bothered to
investigate what was once the central alleged crime in Russia-gate as no one associated with
WikiLeaks has ever been questioned by his team.
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity -- including two "alumni" who were former
National Security Agency technical directors -- have long since concluded that Julian Assange
did not acquire what he called the "emails related to Hillary Clinton" via a "hack" by the
Russians or anyone else. They found, rather, that he got them from someone with physical access
to Democratic National Committee computers who copied the material onto an external storage
device -- probably a thumb drive. In December 2016 VIPS explained
this in some detail in an open Memorandum to President Barack Obama.
On January 18, 2017 President Obama admitted
that the "conclusions" of U.S. intelligence regarding how the alleged Russian hacking got to
WikiLeaks were "inconclusive." Even the vapid FBI/CIA/NSA "Intelligence Community Assessment of
Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections" of January 6, 2017, which tried to
blame Russian President Vladimir Putin for election interference, contained
no direct evidence of Russian involvement. That did not prevent the "handpicked" authors of
that poor excuse for intelligence analysis from expressing "high confidence" that Russian
intelligence "relayed material it acquired from the Democratic National Committee to
WikiLeaks." Handpicked analysts, of course, say what they are handpicked to say.
Never mind. The FBI/CIA/NSA "assessment" became bible truth for partisans like Rep. Adam Schiff
(D-CA), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, who was among the first off the
blocks to blame Russia for interfering to help Trump. It simply could not have been that
Hillary Clinton was quite capable of snatching defeat out of victory all by herself. No, it had
to have been the Russians.
Five days into the Trump presidency, I had a chance to
challenge Schiff personally on the gaping disconnect between the Russians and WikiLeaks.
Schiff still "can't share the evidence" with me or with anyone else, because it does not
exist.
WikiLeaks
It was on June 12, 2016, just six weeks before the Democratic National Convention, that
Assange announced the pending publication of "emails related to Hillary Clinton," throwing the
Clinton campaign into panic mode, since the emails would document strong bias in favor of
Clinton and successful attempts to sabotage the campaign of Bernie Sanders. When the emails
were published on July 22, just three days before the convention began, the campaign decided to
create what I call a Magnificent Diversion, drawing attention away from the substance of the
emails by blaming Russia for their release.
Clinton's PR chief Jennifer Palmieri later admitted that she golf-carted around to various
media outlets at the convention with instructions "to get the press to focus on something even
we found difficult to process: the prospect that Russia had not only hacked and stolen emails
from the DNC, but that it had done so to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton." The
diversion worked like a charm. Mainstream media kept shouting "The Russians did it," and gave
little, if any, play to the DNC skullduggery revealed in the emails themselves. And like Brer'
Fox, Bernie didn't say nothin'.
Meanwhile, highly sophisticated technical experts, were hard at work fabricating "forensic
facts" to "prove" the Russians did it. Here's how it played out:
June 12, 2016: Assange announces that WikiLeaks is about to publish "emails related to
Hillary Clinton."
June 14, 2016: DNC contractor CrowdStrike, (with a dubious professional record and multiple
conflicts of interest) announces that malware has been found on the DNC server and claims there
is evidence it was injected by Russians.
June 15, 2016: "Guccifer 2.0" affirms the DNC statement; claims responsibility for the
"hack;" claims to be a WikiLeaks source; and posts a document that the forensics show was
synthetically tainted with "Russian fingerprints."
The June 12, 14, & 15 timing was hardly coincidence. Rather, it was the start of a
pre-emptive move to associate Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been about to publish
and to "show" that it came from a Russian hack.
Enter Independent Investigators
A year ago independent cyber-investigators completed the kind of forensic work that, for
reasons best known to then-FBI Director James Comey, neither he nor the "handpicked analysts"
who wrote the Jan. 6, 2017 assessment bothered to do. The independent investigators found
verifiable evidence from metadata found in the record of an alleged Russian hack of July 5,
2016 showing that the "hack" that day of the DNC by Guccifer 2.0 was not a hack, by Russia or
anyone else.
Rather it originated with a copy (onto an external storage device – a thumb drive, for
example) by an insider -- the same process used by the DNC insider/leaker before June 12, 2016
for an altogether different purpose. (Once the metadata was found and the "fluid dynamics"
principle of physics applied, this was not difficult to
disprove the validity of the claim that Russia was responsible.)
One of these independent investigators publishing under the name of The Forensicator on May
31
published new evidence that
the Guccifer 2.0 persona uploaded a document from the West Coast of the United States, and not
from Russia.
In our July 24, 2017 Memorandum to President Donald Trump we stated ,
"We do not know who or what the murky Guccifer 2.0 is. You may wish to ask the FBI."
Our July 24 Memorandum continued: "Mr. President, the disclosure described below may be
related. Even if it is not, it is something we think you should be made aware of in this
general connection. On March 7, 2017, WikiLeaks began to publish a trove of original CIA
documents that WikiLeaks labeled 'Vault 7.' WikiLeaks said it got the trove from a current or
former CIA contractor and described it as comparable in scale and significance to the
information Edward Snowden gave to reporters in 2013.
"No one has challenged the authenticity of the original documents of Vault 7, which
disclosed a vast array of cyber warfare tools developed, probably with help from NSA, by CIA's
Engineering Development Group. That Group was part of the sprawling CIA Directorate of Digital
Innovation – a growth industry established by John Brennan in 2015. [ (VIPS warned
President Obama of some of the dangers of that basic CIA reorganization at the time.]
Marbled
"Scarcely imaginable digital tools – that can take control of your car and make it
race over 100 mph, for example, or can enable remote spying through a TV – were described
and duly reported in the New York Times and other media throughout March. But the Vault 7, part
3 release on March 31 that exposed the "Marble Framework" program apparently was judged too
delicate to qualify as 'news fit to print' and was kept out of the Times at the time, and has
never been mentioned since .
"The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima, it seems, 'did not get the memo' in time. Her March
31
article bore the catching (and accurate) headline: 'WikiLeaks' latest release of CIA
cyber-tools could blow the cover on agency hacking operations.'
"The WikiLeaks release indicated that Marble was designed for flexible and easy-to-use
'obfuscation,' and that Marble source code includes a "de-obfuscator" to reverse CIA text
obfuscation.
"More important, the CIA reportedly used Marble during 2016. In her Washington Post
report , Nakashima left that out, but did include another significant point made by
WikiLeaks; namely, that the obfuscation tool could be used to conduct a 'forensic attribution
double game' or false-flag operation because it included test samples in Chinese, Russian,
Korean, Arabic and Farsi."
A few weeks later William Binney, a former NSA technical, and I commented on
Vault 7 Marble, and were able to get a shortened op-ed version
published in The Baltimore Sun
The CIA's reaction to the WikiLeaks disclosure of the Marble Framework tool was
neuralgic. Then Director Mike Pompeo lashed out two weeks later, calling Assange and his
associates "demons," and insisting; "It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a
non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors like Russia."Our July 24
Memorandum continued: "Mr. President, we do not know if CIA's Marble Framework, or tools like
it, played some kind of role in the campaign to blame Russia for hacking the DNC. Nor do we
know how candid the denizens of CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate have been with you and
with Director Pompeo. These are areas that might profit from early White House review. [
President Trump then directed Pompeo to invite Binney, one of the authors of the July 24, 2017
VIPS Memorandum to the President, to discuss all this. Binney and Pompeo spent an hour together
at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017, during which Binney briefed Pompeo with his customary
straightforwardness. ]
We also do not know if you have discussed cyber issues in any detail with President Putin.
In his interview with NBC's Megyn Kelly he seemed quite willing – perhaps even eager
– to address issues related to the kind of cyber tools revealed in the Vault 7
disclosures, if only to indicate he has been briefed on them. Putin pointed out that today's
technology enables hacking to be 'masked and camouflaged to an extent that no one can
understand the origin' [of the hack] And, vice versa, it is possible to set up any entity or
any individual that everyone will think that they are the exact source of that attack.
"'Hackers may be anywhere,' he said. 'There may be hackers, by the way, in the United States
who very craftily and professionally passed the buck to Russia. Can't you imagine such a
scenario? I can.'
New attention has been drawn to these issues after I discussed them in a widely published
16-minute
interview last Friday.
In view of the highly politicized environment surrounding these issues, I believe I must
append here the same notice that VIPS felt compelled to add to our key Memorandum of July 24,
2017:
"Full Disclosure: Over recent decades the ethos of our intelligence profession has eroded in
the public mind to the point that agenda-free analysis is deemed well nigh impossible. Thus, we
add this disclaimer, which applies to everything we in VIPS say and do: We have no political
agenda; our sole purpose is to spread truth around and, when necessary, hold to account our
former intelligence colleagues.
"We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say
and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental." The fact we find it
is necessary to include that reminder speaks volumes about these highly politicized times.
Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Savior in inner-city Washington. He was an Army infantry/intelligence officer before serving as
a CIA analyst for 27 years. His duties included preparing, and briefing one-on-one, the
President's Daily Brief.
ThomasGilroy , June 9, 2018 at 9:44 am
"More important, the CIA reportedly used Marble during 2016. In her Washington Post
report, Nakashima left that out, but did include another significant point made by
WikiLeaks; namely, that the obfuscation tool could be used to conduct a 'forensic
attribution double game' or false-flag operation because it included test samples in
Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi."
Another false flag operation? Suddenly false flag operations have become the weapon of
choice. Interestingly enough, they are nefariously (always) committed by the US or US allies.
MH17 was a false flag with an SU-25 Ukraine jet responsible for downing the passenger jet (to
blame Russia). All of the chemical attacks in Syria were false flag operations with the
supply of sarin/chlorine made in Turkey or directly given to the "rebels" by the CIA or US
allies. The White Helmets were of course in on all of the details. Assad was just simply not
capable of doing that to "his" people. Forget that the sarin had the chemical signature of
the Assad regime sarin supply. Next it was the snipers who used a false flag operation during
the Maidan revolution to shoot protesters and police to oust Yanukovych. Only the neo-Nazis
could be capable of shooting the Maidan protesters so they could take power. And then Seth
Rich was murdered so he couldn't reveal he was the "real" source of the leak. This was hinted
by Assange when he offered a reward to find the killers.
The author tosses out that the DNC hack was (potentially) a false flag operation by the
CIA obviously to undermine Trump while victimizing Russia. It must be the Gulf of Tonkin all
over again. While Crowdstrike might have a "dubious professional record and multiple
conflicts of interest", their results were also confirmed by several other cyber-security
firms (Wikipedia):
cybersecurity experts and firms, including CrowdStrike, Fidelis Cybersecurity, Mandiant,
SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, and the editor for Ars Technica, have rejected the claims of
"Guccifer 2.0" and have determined, on the basis of substantial evidence, that the
cyberattacks were committed by two Russian state-sponsored groups (Cozy Bear and Fancy
Bear).
Then there was Papadopoulas who coincidentally was given the information that Russia had
"dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Obviously, they were illegally
obtained (unless this was another CIA false flag operation). This was before the release of
the emails by WikiLeaks. This was followed by the Trump Tower meeting with Russians with
connections to the Russian government and the release of the emails by WikiLeaks shortly
thereafter. Additionally, Russia had the motive to defeat HRC and elect Trump. Yesterday,
Trump pushed for the reinstatement of Russia at the G-7 summit. What a shock! All known
evidence and motive points the finger directly at Russia.
Calling everything a false flag operation is really the easy way out, but ultimately, it
lets the responsible culprits off of the hook.
anon , June 9, 2018 at 11:28 am
I don't seen any cause to say that any false-flag theory you don't like is merely "tossed
out" propaganda.
One cannot tell in your comment where you think the accounts are credible and where not.
No evidence that the Syria CW attacks "had the chemical signature of the Assad regime sarin
supply."
CitizenOne , June 8, 2018 at 11:40 pm
There can be no doubt that counterintelligence tools would be pursued by our intelligence
agencies as a means to create narratives and false evidence based on the production of false
flags which support desired geopolitical outcomes. There would be a need to create false
flags using technology to support the geopolitical agenda which would be hard or impossible
to trace using the forensic tools used by cyber sleuths.
In pre computer technology days there were also many false flags which were set up to
create real world scenarios which suited the geopolitical agenda. Even today, there are many
examples of tactical false flag operations either organized and orchestrated or utilized by
the intelligence agencies to create the narrative which supports geopolitical objectives.
Examples:
The US loaded munitions in broad daylight visible to German spies onto the passenger ship
Lusitania despite German warnings that they would torpedo any vessels suspected of carrying
munitions. The Lusitania then proceeded to loiter unaccompanied by escorts in an area off the
Ireland coast treading over the same waters until it was spotted by a German U-Boat and was
torpedoed. This was not exactly a false flag since the German U-Boat pulled the trigger but
it was required to gain public support for the entrance of the US into WWI. It worked.
There is evidence that the US was deliberately caught "off guard" in the Pearl Harbor
Attack. Numerous coded communication intercepts were made but somehow the advanced warning
radar on the island of Hawaii was mysteriously turned off in the hours before and during the
Japanese attack which guaranteed that the attack would be successful and also guaranteed that
our population would instantly sign on to the war against Japan. It worked.
There is evidence that the US deliberately ignored the intelligence reports that UBL was
planning to conduct an attack on the US using planes as bombs. The terrorists who carried out
the attacks on the twin towers were "allowed" to conduct them. The result was the war in Iraq
which was sold based on a pack of lies about WMDs and which we used to go to war with
Iraq.
The Tonkin Gulf incident which historians doubt actually happened or believe if it did was
greatly exaggerated by intelligence and military sources was used to justify the war in
Vietnam.
The Spanish American War was ginned up by William Randolph Hearst and his yellow
journalism empire to justify attacking Cuba, Panama and the Philippines. The facts revealed
by forensic analysis of the exploded USS Maine have shown that the cataclysm was caused by a
boiler explosion not an enemy mine. At the time this was also widely believed to not be
caused by a Spanish mine in the harbor but the news sold the story of Spanish treachery and
war was waged.
In each case of physical false flags created on purpose, or allowed to happen or just made
up by fictions based on useful information that could be manipulated and distorted the US was
led to war. Some of these wars were just wars and others were wars of choice but in every
case a false flag was needed to bring the nation into a state where we believed we were under
attack and under the circumstances flocked to war. I will not be the judge of history or
justice here since each of these events had both negative and positive consequences for our
nation. What I will state is that it is obvious that the willingness to allow or create or
just capitalize on the events which have led to war are an essential ingredient. Without a
publicly perceived and publicly supported cause for war there can be no widespread support
for war. I can also say our leaders have always known this.
Enter the age of technology and the computer age with the electronic contraptions which
enable global communication and commerce.
Is it such a stretch to imagine that the governments desire to shape world events based on
military actions would result in a plan to use these modern technologies to once again create
in our minds a cyber scenario in which we are once again as a result of the "cyber" false
flag prepared for us to go to war? Would it be too much of a stretch to imagine that the
government would use the new electronic frontier just as it used the old physical world
events to justify military action?
Again, I will not go on to condemn any action by our military but will focus on how did we
get there and how did we arrive at a place where a majority favored war.
Whether created by physical or cyberspace methods we can conclude that such false flags
will happen for better or worse in any medium available.
susan sunflower , June 8, 2018 at 7:52 pm
I'd like "evidence" and I'd also like "context" since apparently international electoral
"highjinks" and monkey-wrenching and rat-f*cking have a long tradition and history (before
anyone draws a weapon, kills a candidate or sicc's death squads on the citizenry.
The DNC e-mail publication "theft" I suspect represents very small small potatoes for so
many reasons As Dixon at Black Agenda Report put it . Russia-gate is American Exceptionalism
writ large which takes on a more sinister aspect as groups like BLM and others are "linked"
to alleged "Russian funding"on one and and Soros funding on another
(FWIW, this is a new neoliberal phenomenon when the ultra-rich "liberals" can quietly fund
marches on Washington and "grassroots" networking making those neophyte movements too easy
targets with questionable robust foundation (color revolutions are possible when anyone is
able to foot the cost of 1,000 or 2000 "free" signs or t-shirts -- impecccably designed and
printed.
Excellent post. Thanks also for reminding me I need to revisit the Vault 7 information as
source material. These are incredibly important leaks that help connect the dots of criminal
State intelligence activities designed to have remained forever hidden.
Skip Scott , June 8, 2018 at 1:07 pm
I can't think of any single piece of evidence that our MSM is under the very strict
control of our so-called intelligence agencies than how fast and completely the Vault 7
releases got flushed down the memory hole. "Nothing to see here folks, move along."
I don't think anyone can predict whether or not Sanders would have won as a 3rd party
candidate. He ran a remarkable campaign, but when he caved to the Clinton machine he lost a
lot of supporters, including me. If he had stood up at the convention and talked of the DNC
skullduggery exposed by Wikileaks, and said "either I run as a democrat, or I run as a Green,
but I'm running", he would have at least gotten 15 pct to make the TV debates, and who knows
what could have happened after that. 40 pct of registered voters didn't vote. That alone
tells you it is possible he might have won.
Instead he expected us to follow him like he was the f'ing Pied Piper to elect another
Wall St. loving warmonger. That's why he gets no "pass" from me. He (and the Queen of Chaos)
gave us Trump. BTW, Obama doesn't get a "pass" either.
willow , June 8, 2018 at 9:24 pm
It's all about the money. A big motive for the DNC to conjure up Russia-gate was to keep
donors from abandoning any future
Good Ship Hillary or other Blue Dog Democrat campaigns: "Our brand/platform wasn't flawed. It
was the Rooskies."
Vivian O'Blivion , June 8, 2018 at 8:22 am
An earlier time line.
March 14th. Popadopoulos has first encounter with Mifsud.
April 26th. Mifsud tells Popadopoulos that Russians have "dirt" on Clinton, including "thousands of e-mails".
May 4th. Trump last man standing in Republican primary.
May 10th. Popadopoulos gets drunk with London based Australian diplomat and talks about "dirt" but not specifically
e-mails.
June 9th. Don. Jr meets in Trump tower with Russians promising "dirt" but not specifically in form of e-mails.
It all comes down to who Mifsud is, who he is working for and why he has been "off grid" to journalists (but not presumably
Intelligence services) for > 6 months.
Specific points.
On March 14th Popadopoulos knew he was transferring from team Carson to team Trump but this was not announced to the
(presumably underwhelmed) world 'till March 21st. Whoever put Mifsud onto Popadopoulos was very quick on their feet.
The Australian diplomat broke chain of command by reporting the drunken conversation to the State Department as opposed to his
domestic Intelligence service. If Mifsud was a western asset, Australian Intelligence would likely be aware of his status.
If Mifsud was a Russian asset why would demonstrably genuine Russians be trying to dish up the dirt on Clinton in June?
There are missing pieces to this jigsaw puzzle but it's starting to look like a deep state operation to dirty Trump in the
unlikely event that he went on to win.
Realist , June 8, 2018 at 4:28 pm
Ms. Clinton was personally trying to tar Trump with allusions to "Russia" and being
"Putin's puppet" long before he won the presidency, in fact, quite conspicuously during the
two conventions and most pointedly during the debates. She was willing to use that ruse long
before her defeat at the ballot box. It was the straw that she clung to and was willing to
use as a pretext for overturning the election after the unthinkable happened. But, you are
right, smearing Trump through association with Russia was part of her long game going back to
the early primaries, especially since her forces (both in politics and in the media) were
trying mightily to get him the nomination under the assumption that he would be the easiest
(more like the only) Republican candidate that she could defeat come November.
Wcb , June 8, 2018 at 5:25 pm
Steven Halper?
Rob Roy , June 8, 2018 at 1:33 am
I might add to this informative article that the reason why Julian Assange has been
ostracized and isolated from any public appearance, denied a cell phone, internet and
visitors is that he tells the truth, and TPTB don't want him to say yet again that the emails
were leaked from the DNC. I've heard him say it several times. H. Clinton was so shocked and
angry that she didn't become president as she so confidently expected that her, almost
knee-jerk, reaction was to find a reason that was outside of herself on which to blame her
defeat. It's always surprised me that no one talks about what was in those emails which
covered her plans for Iran and Russia (disgusting).
Trump is a sociopath, but the Russians had nothing to do with him becoming elected. I was
please to read here that he or perhaps just Pompeo? met with Binney. That's a good thing,
though Pompeo, too, is unstable and war hungry to follow Israel into bombing yet another
innocent sovereign country. Thank, Mr. McGovern for another excellent coverage of this
story.
MLS , June 7, 2018 at 9:59 pm
"no one associated with WikiLeaks has ever been questioned by his team"
Do tell, Ray: How do you know what the GOP Congress appointed Special Prosecutor's investigation –
with its unlimited budget, wide mandate, and notable paucity of leaks – has and has not
done?
strgr-tgther , June 8, 2018 at 12:14 am
MLS: Thank you! No one stands up for what is right any more. We have 17 Intelligency
agencies that say are election was stolen. And just last week the Republicans Paul Ryan,
Mitch McConnel and Trey Gowdy (who I detest) said the FBI and CIA and NSA were just doing
there jobs the way ALL AMERICANS woudl want them to. And even Adam Schiff, do you think he
will tell any reporter what evidence he does have? #1 It is probably classified and #2 he is
probably saving it for the inpeachment. We did not find out about the Nixon missing 18
minutes until the end anyways. All of these articles sound like the writer just copied Sean
Hannity and wrote everything down he said, and yesterday he told all suspects in the Mueller
investigation to Smash and Bleach there mobile devices, witch is OBSTRUCTION of justice and
witness TAMPERING. A great American there!
Rob Roy , June 8, 2018 at 1:48 am
strgr-tgther:
Sean Hannity??? Ha, ha, ha.
As Mr. McGoven wrote .."any resemblance between what we say and what presidents,
politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental."
John , June 8, 2018 at 5:48 am
Sorry I had to come back and point out the ultimate irony of ANYONE who supports the
Butcher of Libya complaining about having an election stolen from them (after the blatant
rigging of the primary that caused her to take the nomination away from the ONE PERSON who
was polling ahead of Trump beyond the margin of error of the polls.)
It is people like you who gave us Trump. The Pied Piper Candidate promoted by the DNC
machine (as the emails that were LEAKED, not "hacked", as the metadata proves conclusively,
show.)
incontinent reader , June 8, 2018 at 7:14 am
What is this baloney? Seventeen Intelligence agencies DID NOT conclude what you are
alleging, And in fact, Brennan and his cabal avoided using a National intelligence Estimate,
which would have shot down his cherry-picked 'assessment' before it got off the ground
– and it would have been published for all to read.
The NSA has everything on everybody, yet has never released anything remotely indicating
Russian collusion. Do you think the NSA Director, who, as you may recall, did not give a
strong endorsement to the Brennan-Comey assessment, would have held back from the Congress
such information, if it had existed, when he was questioned? Furthermore, former technical
directors of the NSA, Binney, Wiebe and Loomis- the very best of the best- have proven
through forensics that the Wikileaks disclosures were not obtained by hacking the DNC
computers, but by a leak, most likely to a thumb drive on the East Coast of the U.S. How many
times does it have to be laid out for you before you are willing and able to absorb the
facts?
As for Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, (and Trey Gowdy, who was quite skilled on the
Benghazi and the Clinton private email server investigations- investigations during which
Schiff ran interference for Clinton- but has seemed unwilling to digest the Strozk, Page,
McCabe, et al emails and demand a Bureau housecleaning), who cares what they think or say,
what matters is the evidence.
I suggest you familiarize yourself with the facts- and start by rereading Ray's articles,
and the piece by Joe diGenova posted on Ray's website.
Realist , June 8, 2018 at 4:12 pm
The guy's got Schiff for brains. Everyone who cares about the truth has known since before
Mueller started his charade that the "17 intelligence agency" claim was entirely a ruse,
bald-faced confected propaganda to anger the public to support the coup attempted by Ms.
Clinton and her zombie followers. People are NOT going to support the Democratic party now or
in the future when its tactics include subverting our public institutions, including the
electoral process under the constitution–whether you like the results or not! If the
Democratic party is to be saved, those honest people still in it should endeavor to drain the
septic tank that has become their party before we can all drain the swamp that is the federal
government and its ex-officio manipulators (otherwise known as the "deep state") in
Washington.
Farmer Pete , June 8, 2018 at 7:30 am
"We have 17 Intelligency agencies that say are election was stolen."
You opened up with a talking point that is factually incorrect. The team of hand-picked
spooks that slapped the "high confidence" report together came from 3 agencies. I know, 17
sounds like a lot and very convincing to us peasants. Regardless, it's important to practice
a few ounces of skepticism when it comes to institutions with a long rap sheet of crime and
deception. Taking their word for it as a substitute for actual observable evidence is naive
to say the least. The rest of your hollow argument is filled with "probably(s)". If I were
you, I'd turn off my TV and stop looking for scapegoats for an epically horrible presidential
campaign and candidate.
strgr-tgther , June 8, 2018 at 12:50 pm
/horrible presidential campaign and candidate/ Say you. But we all went to sleep
comfortable the night before the election where 97% of all poles said Clinton was going to be
are next President. And that did not happen! So Robert Mueller is going to find out EXACTLY
why. Stay tuned!!!
irina , June 8, 2018 at 3:40 pm
Not 'all'. I knew she was toast after reading that she had cancelled her election night
fireworks
celebration, early on the morning of Election Day. She must have known it also, too.
And she was toast in my mind after seeing the ridiculous scene of her virtual image
'breaking the glass ceiling' during the Democratic Convention. So expensively stupid.
Realist , June 8, 2018 at 3:50 pm
Mueller is simply orchestrating a dramatic charade to distract you from the obvious reason
why she lost: Trump garnered more electoral votes, even after the popular votes were counted
and recounted. Any evidence of ballot box stuffing in the key states pointed to the
Democrats, so they gave that up. She and her supporters like you have never stopped trying to
hoodwink the public either before or after the election. Too many voters were on to you,
that's why she lost.
Realist , June 8, 2018 at 3:57 pm
Indeed, stop the nonsense which can't be changed short of a coup d'etat, and start
focusing on opposing the bad policy which this administration has been pursuing. I don't see
the Dems doing that even in their incipient campaigns leading up to the November elections.
Fact is, they are not inclined to change the policies, which are the same ones that got them
"shellacked" at the ballot box in 2016. (I think Obama must own lots of stock in the shellack
trade.)
Curious , June 8, 2018 at 6:27 pm
Ignorance of th facts keep showing up in your posts for some unknown reason. Sentence two:
"we have 17 intelligency (sic) agencies that say ". this statement was debunked a long time
ago.
Have you learned nothing yet regarding the hand-picked people out of three agencies after all
this time? Given that set of lies it makes your post impossible to read.
I would suggest a review of what really happened before you perpetuate more myths and this
will benefit all.
Also, a good reading of the Snowden Docs and vault 7 should scare you out of your shell since
our "intelligeny" community can pretend to be Chinese, Russian, Iranian just for starters,
and the blame game can start after hours instead of the needed weeks and/or months to
determine the veracity of a hack and/or leak.
It's past trying to win you over with the actual 'time lines' and truths. Mr McGovern has
re-emphasized in this article the very things you should be reading.
Start with Mr Binney and his technical evaluation of the forensics in the DNC docs and build
out from there This is just a suggestion.
What never ceases to amaze me in your posts is the 'issue' that many of the docs were
bought and paid for by the Clinton team, and yet amnesia has taken over those aspects as
well. Shouldn't you start with the Clintons paying for this dirt before it was ever
attributed to Trump?
Daniel , June 8, 2018 at 6:38 pm
Actually, both Brennan and Hayden testified to Congress that only 3 agencies signed off on
their claim. They also said that they'd "hand picked" a special team to run their
"investigation," and no other people were involved. So, people known to be perjurers cherry
picked "evidence" to make a claim. Let's invade Iraq again.
More than 1/2 of their report was about RT, and even though that was all easily viewable
public record, they got huge claims wrong. Basically, the best they had was that RT covered
Occupy Wall Street and the NO DAPL and BLM protests, and horror of horrors, aired third party
debates! In a democracy! How dare they?
Why didn't FBI subpoena DNC's servers so they could run their own forensics on them? Why
did they just accept the claims of a private company founded by an Atlantic Council board
member? Did you know that CrowdStrike had to backpedal on the exact same claim they made
about the DNC server when Ukraine showed they were completely wrong regarding Ukie
artillery?
Joe Lauria , June 8, 2018 at 2:12 am
Until he went incommunicado Assange stated on several occasions that he was never
questioned by Muellers team. Craig Murray has said the same. And Kim Dotcom has written to
Mueller offering evidence about the source and he says they have never replied to him.
Realist , June 8, 2018 at 3:40 pm
Mueller is not interested in the truth. He can't handle the truth. His purpose is not to
divulge the truth. He has no use for truthtellers including the critical possessors of the
truth whom you mentioned. This aversion to the truth is the biggest clue that Mueller's
activities are a complete sham.
MLS wrote, "How do you know what the GOP Congress appointed Special Prosecutor's
investigation – with its unlimited budget, wide mandate, and notable paucity of leaks
– has and has not done?"
Robert Mueller is NOT a Special Prosecutor appointed by the Congress. He is a special
counsel appointed by the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, and is part of the
Department of Justice.
I know no one who dislikes Trumps wants to hear it. But all Mueller's authority and power
to act is derived from Donald J. Trump's executive authority because he won the 2016
presidential election. Mueller is down the chain of command in the Executive Department.
That's why this is all nonsense. What we basically have is Trump investigating himself.
The framers of the Constitution never intended this. They intended Congress to investigate
the Executive and that's why they gave Congress the power to remove him or her via
impeachment.
As long as we continue with this folly of expecting the Justice Department to somehow
investigate and prosecute a president we end up with two terrible possibilities. Either a
corrupt president will exercise his legitimate authority to end the investigation like Nixon
did -or- we have a Deep State beyond the reach of the elected president that can effectively
investigate and prosecute a corrupt president, but also then has other powers with no
democratic control.
The solution to this dilemma? An empowered Congress elected by the People operating as the
Constitution intended.
As to the rest of your post? It is an example of the "will to believe." Me? I'll not act
as if there is evidence of Russian interference until I'm shown evidence, not act as if it
must be true, because I want to believe that, until it's fully proven that it didn't
happen.
F. G. Sanford , June 7, 2018 at 8:22 pm
There must be some Trump-Russia ties.
Or so claim those CIA spies-
McCabe wants a deal, or else he won't squeal,
He'll dissemble when he testifies!
No one knows what's on Huma's computer.
There's no jury and no prosecutor.
Poor Adam Schiff hopes McCabe takes the fifth,
Special council might someday recruit her!
Assange is still embassy bound.
Mueller's case hasn't quite come unwound.
Wayne Madsen implies that there might be some ties,
To Israelis they haven't yet found!
Halper and Mifsud are players.
John Brennan used cutouts in layers.
If the scheme falls apart and the bureau is smart,
They'll go after them all as betrayers!
They needed historical fiction.
A dossier with salacious depiction!
Some urinous whores could get down on all fours,
They'd accomplish some bed sheet emiction!
Pablo Miller and Skripal were cited.
Sidney Blumenthal might have been slighted.
Christopher Steele offered Sidney a deal,
But the dossier's not copyrighted!
That story about Novichok,
Smells a lot like a very large crock.
But they can't be deposed or the story disclosed,
The Skripals have toxic brain block!
Papadopolis shot off his yap.
He told Downer, that affable chap-
There was dirt to report on the Clinton cohort,
Mifsud hooked him with that honey trap!
She was blond and a bombshell to boot.
Papadopolis thought she was cute.
She worked for Mifsud, a mysterious dude,
Now poor Paps is in grave disrepute!
But the trick was to tie it to Russians.
The Clinton team had some discussions.
Their big email scandal was easy to handle,
They'd blame Vlad for the bad repercussions!
There must have been Russian collusion.
That explained all the vote count confusion.
Guccifer Two made the Trump team come through,
If he won, it was just an illusion!
Lisa Page and Pete Strzok were disgusted
They schemed and they plotted and lusted.
If bald-headed Clapper appealed to Jake Tapper,
Brennan's Tweets might get Donald Trump busted!
There had to be cyber subversion.
It would serve as the perfect perversion.
They would claim it was missed if it didn't exist,
It's a logically perfect diversion!
F.G., you've done it again, and I might add, topped even yourself! Thanks.
KiwiAntz , June 7, 2018 at 7:30 pm
What a joke, America, the most dishonest Country on Earth, has meddled, murdered &
committed coups to overturn other Govts & interfered & continues to do so in just
about every Country on Earth by using Trade sanctions, arming Terrorists & illegal
invasions, has the barefaced cheek to puff out its chest & hypocritcally blame Russia for
something that it does on a daily basis?? And the point with Mueller's investigation is not
to find any Russian collusion evidence, who needs evidence when you can just make it up? The
point is provide the US with a list of unfounded lies & excuses, FIRSTLY to slander &
demonise RUSSIA for something they clearly didn't do! SECONDLY, was to provide a excuse for
the Democrats dismal election loss result to the DONALD & his Trump Party which just
happens to contain some Republicans? THIRDLY, to conduct a soft Coup by trying to get Trump
impeached on "TRUMPED UP CHARGES OF RUSSIAN COLLUSION"? And FOURTLY to divert attention away
from scrutiny & cover up Obama & Hillary Clinton's illegal, money grubbing activities
& her treasonous behaviour with her private email server?? After two years of Russiagate
nonsense with NOTHING to show for it, I think it's about time America owes Russia a public
apology & compensation for its blatant lying & slander of a innocent Country for a
crime they never committed?
Sam F , June 7, 2018 at 7:11 pm
Thanks, Ray, for revealing that the CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate is the likely
cause of the Russiagate scams.
I am sure that they manipulate the digital voting machines directly and indirectly. True
elections are now impossible.
Your disclaimer is hilarious: "We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any
resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely
coincidental."
Antiwar7 , June 7, 2018 at 6:23 pm
Expecting the evil people running the show to respond to reason is futile, of course. All
of these reports are really addressed to the peanut gallery, where true power lies, if only
they could realize it.
Thanks, Ray and VIPS, for keeping up the good fight.
mike k , June 7, 2018 at 5:55 pm
For whatever reason, Ray McGovern chose not to mention the murder of Seth Rich, which
pretty clearly points to the real source of the leak being him, as hinted by Assange offering
a reward for anyone uncovering his killer. The whole thing stinks of a democratic
conspiracy.
And BTW people have become shy about using the word conspiracy, for fear it will
automatically brand one as a hoaxer. On the contrary, conspiracies are extremely common, the
higher one climbs in the power hierarchy. Like monopolies, conspiracies are central to the
way the oligarchs do business.
John , June 8, 2018 at 5:42 am
Ray, from what I have seen in following his writing for years, meticulously only deals in
knowns. The Seth Rich issue is not a known, it is speculation still. Yes, it probably is
involved, but unless Craig Murray states that Seth Rich was the one who handed him the USB
drive, it is not a known.
There is a possibility that Seth Rich was not the one who leaked the information, but that
the DNC bigwigs THOUGHT he was, in which case, by neither confirming nor denying that Seth
Rich was the leaker, it may be that letting the DNC continue to think it was him is being
done in protection of the actual leaker. Seth Rich could also have been killed for unrelated
reasons, perhaps Imran Awan thought he was on to his doings.
" whether or not"?!! Wow. That's an imperialistic statement.
Drew Hunkins , June 7, 2018 at 5:50 pm
Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic
charade and he's left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and
Russians. Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the
mass media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by
Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin "hacking" the election to favor Trump. Which was
the entire raison d'etre behind Rosenstein and Mueller's crusade on behalf of the deplorable
DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. Sure be interesting to see how Mueller and his
crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent edifice of deceit. Will they
even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face?
So sickening to see the manner in which many DNC sycophants obsequiously genuflect to
their godlike Mueller. A damn prosecutor who was arguably in bed with the Winter Hill
Gang!
jose , June 7, 2018 at 5:13 pm
If they had had any evidence to inculpate Russia, we would have all seen it by now. They
know that by stating that there is an investigation going on: they can blame Russia. The
Democratic National Committee is integrated by a pack of liars.
Jeff , June 7, 2018 at 4:35 pm
Thanx, Ray. The sad news is that everybody now believes that Russia tried to "meddle" in
our election and, since it's a belief, neither facts nor reality will dislodge it. Your
disclaimer should also probably carry the warning – never believe a word a government
official says especially if they are in the CIA, NSA, or FBI unless they provide proof. If
they tell you that it's classified, that they can't divulge it, or anything of that sort, you
know they are lying.
john wilson , June 7, 2018 at 4:09 pm
I suspect the real reason no evidence has been produced is because there isn't any. I know
this is stating the obvious, but if you think about it, as long as the non extent evidence is
supposedly being "investigated" the story remains alive. They know they aren't going to find
anything even remotely plausible that would stand up to any kind of scrutiny, but as long as
they are looking, it has the appearance that there might be something.
Joe Tedesky , June 7, 2018 at 4:08 pm
I first want to thank Ray and the VIPS for their continuing to follow through on this
Russia-Gate story. And it is a story.
My question is simple, when will we concentrate on reading Hillary's many emails? After
all wasn't this the reason for the Russian interference mania? Until we do, take apart
Hillary's correspondence with her lackeys, nothing will transpire of any worth. I should not
be the one saying this, in as much as Bernie Sanders should be the one screaming it for
justice from the highest roof tops, but he isn't. So what's up with that? Who all is involved
in this scandalous coverup? What do the masters of corruption have on everybody?
Now we have Sean Hannity making a strong case against the Clinton's and the FBI's careful
handling of their crimes. What seems out of place, since this should be big news, is that CNN
nor MSNBC seems to be covering this story in the same way Hannity is. I mean isn't this news,
meant to be reported as news? Why avoid reporting on Hillary in such a manner? This must be
that 'fake news' they all talk about boy am I smart.
In the end I have decided to be merely an observer, because there are no good guys or gals
in our nation's capital worth believing. In the end even Hannity's version of what took place
leads back to a guilty Russia. So, the way I see it, the swamp is being drained only to make
more room for more, and new swamp creatures to emerge. Talk about spinning our wheels. When
will good people arrive to finally once and for all drain this freaking swamp, once and for
all?
Realist , June 7, 2018 at 5:25 pm
Ha, ha! Don't you enjoy the magic show being put on by the insiders desperately trying to
hang onto their power even after being voted out of office? Their attempt to distract your
attention from reality whilst feeding you their false illusions is worthy of Penn &
Teller, or David Copperfield (the magician). Who ya gonna believe? Them or your lying
eyes?
Joe Tedesky , June 7, 2018 at 10:00 pm
Realist, You can bet they will investigate everything but what needs investigated, as our
Politico class devolves into survivalist in fighting, the mechanism of war goes
uninterrupted. Joe
F. G. Sanford , June 7, 2018 at 5:34 pm
Joe, speaking of draining the swamp, check out my comment under Ray's June 1 article about
Freddy Fleitz!
Sam F , June 7, 2018 at 6:59 pm
That is just what I was reminded of; here is an antiseptic but less emphatic last
line:
"Swamp draining progresses apace.
It's being accomplished with grace:
They're taking great pains to clean out the drains,"
New swamp creatures will need all that space!
Unfettered Fire , June 8, 2018 at 11:00 am
We must realize that to them, "the Swamp" refers to those in office who still abide by New
Deal policy. Despite the thoroughly discredited neoliberal economic policy, the radical right
are driving the world in the libertarian direction of privatization, austerity, private bank
control of money creation, dismantling the nation-state, contempt for the Constitution,
etc.
Much of what liberals say about Donald Trump and the chilling political moment the Trump
presidency represents is true enough.
Trump really is the arch-authoritarian malignant narcissist that liberals say he is. Trump
thinks he deserves to rule the nation like an absolute monarch or some ridiculous Banana
Republic dictator. He believes he's above all the law, consistent with Louis XIV's dictum
L'etat, C'est Moi ("the state is me"). The notion that Trump can pardon himself from any crime
really is the height of imperial arrogance.
Trump really does value nothing but the advancement of his own wealth and image. There is no
person, no principle, no higher loyalty he is not willing to sacrifice on the altar of
self.
Trump really is the almost perfect embodiment of venal malevolence that liberals say he is.
The idiotic military parade Trump has scheduled for the next Veterans Day is an exercise in
proto-fascistic, Mussolini-like imperial-presidential self-adulation.
This racist and sexist beast befouls the nation and world with his ghastly, eco-cidal
presence. The sooner he draws his last undeserved breath, the better for all living things (or
maybe not: Mike Pence could be worse).
The Authoritarian and Inauthentic Opposition
Fine, but why does this despicable, orange-tinted insult to common human decency
occupy the White House? He holds the most powerful office in the world because the Democratic
Party has long been and remains what the late liberal-left Princeton political scientist
Sheldon Wolin called the Inauthentic Opposition. "Should Democrats somehow be elected,"
Wolin prophesied in
early 2008, they would do nothing to "alter significantly the direction of society" or
"substantially revers[e] the drift rightwards. The timidity of a Democratic Party mesmerized by
centrist precepts," Wolin wrote, "points to the crucial fact that for the poor, minorities, the
working class and anti-corporatists there is no opposition party working on their behalf." The
corporatist Democrats would work to "marginalize any possible threat to the corporate allies of
the Republicans."
Wolin called it. A nominal Democrat was elected president along with Democratic majorities
in both houses of Congress in 2008. What followed under
Barack Obama (as under his Democratic presidential predecessor Bill
Clinton ) – a
different and possibly more dangerous kind of malignant narcissist – was the
standard "elite" neoliberal manipulation of campaign populism and identity politics in
service to the reigning big-money bankrollers and their global empire. Wall Street's control of
Washington and the related imperial agenda of the "Pentagon System" were advanced more
effectively by the nation's first Black president than they could have been by stiff and
wealthy white Republicans like John McCain or Mitt Romney. The reigning U.S. system of
corporate and imperial "inverted totalitarianism" (Wolin) was given a deadly, fake-democratic
re-branding. The underlying "rightward drift" sharpened, fed by a widespread and easily
Republican-exploited sense of popular abandonment and betrayal, as the Democrats depressed and
demobilized their own purported popular base.
Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton did nothing to correct that problem. Quite the
opposite. With a colossal campaign finance war-chest fed not just by the usual Wall Street and
Silicon Valley suspects but
also by many traditionally Republican big money donors who were repelled by Trump's faux
"populism," the transparently corporate establishmentarian candidate Clinton could barely deign
to pretend to be a progressive. She ran almost completely on the argument that Trump was too
terrible and unqualified to be president. Making candidate character and qualities her sole
selling point was a critical and historic mistake given the angry and anti-establishment mood
of the electorate and her own epic unpopularity. So was calling Trump's flyover county supporters a "basket
of" racist and sexist " deplorables "
in a sneering comment (one that
accurately reflected her aristocratic
"progressive"-neoliberal world view) to rich Manhattan campaign donors.
Authoritarianism? Single-Payer national health insurance had long been supported by most
U.S.-Americans when Obama ascended to the White House. Who cared? Not the
"radical socialist" Barack Obama. Like the Clintons before him, Obama coldly froze Single
Payer advocates out of the health insurance policy debate. He worked with the leading drug and
insurance corporations and their Wall Street backers to craft a richly corporatist "reform"
that preserved those companies' power to write their super-profits into the obscenely
exaggerated cost of American medical care.
As our greatest intellectual Noam Chomsky noted two
years ago, Obama "punished more whistle-blowers than all previous presidents combined." The
Obama administration repeatedly defended George W. Bush's position on behalf of indefinite
detention, maintaining that prisoners (US-Americans included) in the US global "war on [of]
terror" were not entitled to habeas corpus or protection from torture or execution.
Obama carried overseas assassination (by drone and Special Forces) – execution (even of
U.S. citizens) without trial or even formal charge – to new levels. Regarding Obama's
drone assassination program, Chomsky wrote acidly about how "the [Obama] Justice Department
explained that the constitutional guarantee of due process, tracing to Magna Carta, is now
satisfied by internal deliberations in the executive branch alone. The constitutional lawyer in
the White House agreed. King John (1199-1216) might have nodded with satisfaction."
Hillary Clinton's 2016 Vice Presidential ticket partner, Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), is
currently a leading sponsor of the " Forever
AUMF 2018" (SJRes 59) (Authority for the Use of Military Force). As the ACLU's
Renee Parsons explains , the measure would " eliminate Congress' sole, inviolate
Constitutional authority 'to declare war.'" It "would remove Congress from its statutory
authority as it transfers 'uninterrupted' authority on 'the use of all necessary and
appropriate force' to one individual." That would garner another thumbs-up from King John.
The Democrats could well have won the 2016 election by running Bernie Sanders. Bernie would
have tapped popular anger from the center-left, advancing a policy agenda and anti-plutocratic
sentiments consistent with longstanding majority-progressive public opinion in the U.S. But so
what? The Democratic nomination process was rigged against Sanders for some very good
ruling-class reasons. As William Kaufman told Barbara Ehrenreich on Facebook last year, "The
Democrats aren't feckless, inept, or stupid, unable to 'learn' what it takes to win. They are
corrupt. They do not want to win with an authentically progressive program because it would
threaten the economic interests of their main corporate donor base The Democrats know exactly
what they're doing. They have a business model: sub-serving the interests of the corporate
elite."
The reigning corporate Democrats would rather lose to the right, even to a proto-fascistic
white nationalist and eco-exterminist right, than lose to the left, even to a mildly
progressive social democratic left within their own party.
Among other things, Russiagate is the Inauthentic Opposition, following its business model,
doing its job, working to cover its tracks by throwing the debacle of its corporatist politics
down Orwell's memory hole and attributing its self-made defeat to Russia's allegedly powerful
interference in our supposed democracy. Russiagate is meant to provide corporate Democrats
cover not only for 2016 but also for 2018 and 2020. It advances a narrative that lets the
Democrats continue nominating business-friendly neoliberal shills and imperialists who pretend
to be progressive while they are owned by the nation's homegrown oligarchs. This year's crop of
Democratic Congressional candidates is loaded with military and intelligence veterans, a
reflection of the Democrats' determination to run as the true party of empire.
"Some Discipline and Pragmatism to the Oval Office"
Under the cover of Russiagate, the pinstripe politicos atop the nation's not-so leftmost
major party seem to have the Sanders wing under control. Clintonite Democratic National
Committee (DNC) chair Tom Perez purged
progressive, Sanders Democrats from leading positions in the DNC last fall. Bernie-endorsed
candidates have flailed in
the Democrats' 2018 Congressional primaries . The not-so "socialist" Sanders' not-so
revolutionary "political [though not social] revolution" seems largely spent, skewered on the
fork of a major party electoral-industrial-complex it falsely promised to transform from
within. In the Iowa Democratic gubernatorial primary last Tuesday, the progressive Democrat
union member and "Our Revolution" candidate Cathy Glasson was trounced by the vapid and
centrist but super-wealthy businessman Fred Hubbell, who self-financed his campaign with
millions of dollars.
I recently watched a "liberal" morning CNN talking head salivate over the prospect of the
Democrats running a billionaire business mogul who "shares the party's world view" –
someone like the just-retired Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. The latte and cappuccino mogul
recently and absurdly ripped the Democratic Party for " going so far to the left ."
Sounding like a once-traditional Republican, Schultz
elaborated :
"I say to myself, 'How are we going to pay for these things,' in terms of things like
single payer [and] people espousing the fact that the government is going to give everyone a
job. I don't think that's realistic. I think we got to get away from these falsehoods and
start talking about the truth and not false promises I think the greatest threat domestically
to the country is this $21 trillion debt hanging over the cloud of America and future
generations. The only way we're going to get out of that is we've got to grow the economy, in
my view, 4 percent or greater. And then we have to go after entitlements."
How to pay for progressive policies long but irrelevantly
supported by most U.S.-Americans ? With (to mention some other measures that have long been
quaintly and trivially preferred by most U.S. citizens) seriously progressive taxation
including a financial transaction tax and with a long-overdue transfer of taxpayer dollars from
the bloated and monumentally
mass-murderous Pentagon budget. There's nothing remotely mysterious about how we could fund
Single Payer and green jobs programs that would
help save the nation and (oh, by the way) the human race from the actual "greatest threat to
the country" (and to the world): environmental catastrophe , fed by
toxic capitalist "growth" (let's hit "4 percent of higher"!) and with the climate
crisi s ("climate change" does not begin to capture to the gravity of the problem) in the
lead.
Here's the accurate translation for "go after entitlements": (1) slash Social Security and
Medicare further; (2) use the fiscal crisis created by arch-plutocratic tax cuts for the
already absurdly rich and by the persistently gargantuan "defense" (empire) budget as an excuse
to decimate further the already weak U.S. social safety net and to (in what promises to be an
epic windfall for Wall Street) privatize the nation's old age insurance system. The real
entitlement that matters most – the inherited oligarchic class rule and despotism of
capital over workers, citizens, and ever more poisoned commons – remains untouched and is
indeed expanded in coffee baron Schultz's glorious "liberal" agenda,
All of which is fairly consistent with the Wall Street- and corporate-friendly
records and agenda of the Democratic Party during and between the ugly "neoliberal" years
when a Georgia peanut farmer (deregulation leader Jimmy Carter) and two silver-tongued Ivy
League law school graduates (NAFTA champion and public assistance-wrecker Bill Clinton and big
bank bailout champion and Trans Pacific Partnership advocate Barack Obama) occupied the White
House. I expect the dismal Democrats to nominate the longtime centrist politician Joe "Regular
Guy" Biden (who claims he would have kicked Trump's ass
in high school ) or the newly hatched faux-progressive Senator and former longtime
prosecutor Kamala "Obama 2.0" Harris (D-CA), but, hey,
why not go full corporate monty and try to put an actual full-on corporate CEO in the White
House in the name of the Democratic Party's "liberal world view"? As the "liberal"
New
York Timesapprovingly explains :
"The election of Mr. Trump, a real estate developer and reality television personality,
certainly opened that door of opportunity, making it clear that American voters were willing
to elect a president with no prior government experience .American companies -- including
Starbucks -- have become more political in recent years, wading into issues like immigration,
gun rights and climate policy And at a moment when many voters say they are frustrated with
partisan gridlock and ineffective government programs, some believe that an efficiency-minded
business executive might bring some discipline and pragmatism to the Oval Office."
Besides Schultz, other corporate CEOs I've heard and read self-described liberals discuss as
potentially desirable presidential candidates include Oprah Winfrey, Mark Cuban, Disney CEO Bob
Iger, Facebook's spooky cult-leader Mark Zuckerberg, and even the JP Morgan Chase chairman and
CEO Jamie Dimon. What the Hell: why not drop the pretense of independence from the nation's
corporate and financial dictatorship and run an actual corporate or financial chieftain for
president?
That would be an act of oligarchic honesty on the part of the dismal dollar Dems. "I like
the idea of Dimon," one left correspondent writes me: "maybe with him as a candidate people
would finally wake up to the fact that the Democrats are the real problem." Don't hold your
breath. "Because," another comrade tells me, "being a ruthless plutocrat is their world
view."
"Trump is Terrible, So Let's Give Him More Spying and Killing Powers!"
What is the Democrats' leading cry? That the terrible Trump is truly terrible – and a
tool of Russia. And, of course, the "terrible" part is all too terribly true – the Russia
part not so much. But after you've bemoaned the terribleness of Trump for the ten thousandth
time, are you ready to get serious about the systemic and richly bipartisan, oligarchic context
within which Trump has emerged? "The Trump administration ," Chris Hedges reminded us on
Truthdig two weeks ago, "did not rise like Venus on a half shell from the sea. Donald
Trump is the result of a long process of political, cultural and social decay. He is a product
of our failed democracy . The problem is not Trump," writes Hedges. "It is a political system,
dominated by corporate power and the mandarins of the two major political parties, in which
we don't count " (emphasis added).
And if Trump is as much of a dangerous and authoritarian monster as liberal Democrats say he
is (and he is), then why, pray tell, have most Democrats in Congress been willing to grant
him record levels of military funding along with re-authorized and
expanded warrantless surveillance and spying powers ? Why are Tim Kaine and other top
Democrats ready to grant him (and his successors) a freaking "Forever AUMF"? Hello? What does
that say about the not-so leftmost of the two reigning corporate parties? The glaring
schizophrenia ("Trump is a monster, let's give him more war and spying powers!") is yet more
proof that the Democrats are indeed an inauthentic opposition , committed to the same
imperial and police state Trump heads today. They are merely waiting to put one of their
ruling-class own atop the same exact and in fact richly bipartisan structures.
What Goes Around: "Trampling on the Helpless Abroad" Comes Home
A final matter concerns the problem of imperial chickens coming home to roost. Liberals
don't like to hear it, but the ugly, richly documented historical fact of the matter is that
their party of binary and tribal choice has long joined Republicans in backing and indeed
crafting a U.S. foreign policy that has imposed
authoritarian regimes (and profoundly undemocratic interventions including invasions and
occupations) the world over . The roster of authoritarian and often-mass murderous
governments the U.S. military and CIA and allied transnational business interests have backed,
sometimes even helped create, with richly bipartisan support, is long indeed.
Last fall, Illinois Green Party leader Mike Whitney ran some fascinating numbers on the 49
nation-states that the right-wing "human rights" organization Freedom House identified as
"dictatorships" in 2016. Leaving aside Freedom House's problematic inclusion of Russia, Cuba,
and Iran on its list, the most remarkable thing about
Whitney's research was his finding that the U.S. offered military assistance to 76 percent
of these governments. (The only exceptions were Belarus, China, Central African Republic, Cuba,
Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Syria.). "Most
politically aware people," Whitney wrote:
"know of some of the more highly publicized instances examples of [U.S. support for
foreign dictatorships], such as the tens of billions of dollars' worth of US military
assistance provided to the beheading capital of the world, the misogynistic monarchy of Saudi
Arabia, and the repressive military dictatorship now in power in Egypt apologists for our
nation's imperialistic foreign policy try to rationalize such support, arguing that Saudi
Arabia and Egypt are exceptions to the rule. But my survey demonstrates that our
government's support for Saudi Arabia and Egypt are not exceptions to the rule at all. They
are the rule ."
The Pentagon and State Department data Whitney used came from Fiscal Year 2015. It dated
from the next-to-last year of the Obama administration, for which so many liberals recall with
misplaced nostalgia. Freedom House's list should have included Honduras, ruled by a vicious
right-wing government that Obama and his Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton helped install in a June 2009 military coup .
The problem here isn't just liberal hypocrisy and double standards. The deeper issue is
that, as the great American iconoclast Mark Twain knew, you cannot maintain democracy at home
while conducting an authoritarian empire abroad. During the United States' blood-soaked
invasion and occupation of the Philippines, Twain penned an imaginary history of the
twentieth-century United States. "It was impossible," Twain wrote, "to save the Great Republic.
She was rotten to the heart. Lust of conquest had long ago done its work; trampling upon the
helpless abroad had taught her, by a natural process, to endure with apathy the like at
home."
"Just a decade after Twain wrote those prophetic words," the historian
Alfred W. McCoy has observed , "colonial police methods came home to serve as a template
for the creation of an American internal security apparatus in wartime." The nation's first Red
Scare, which crushed left and labor movements during and after World War One, drew heavily on
the lessons and practices of colonial suppression in the Philippines and Cuba. As McCoy shows
in his latest book, In the Shadows of the
American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power , the same basic process
– internal U.S. repression informed and shaped by authoritarian and imperial practices
abroad and justified by alleged external threats to the "homeland" – has recurred ever
since. Today, the rise of an unprecedented global surveillance state overseen by the National
Security Agency has cost the US the trust of many of its top global allies (under Bush43 and
Obama44, not just under Trump45) while undermining civil liberties and democracy within as
beyond the U.S.
"The fetters imposed on liberty at home," James Madison wrote in 1799 , "have ever
been forged out of the weapons provided for defense against real, pretended, or imaginary
dangers abroad." Those are wise words well worth revisiting amidst the current endless
Russiagate madness, calculated among other things to tell us that the FBI, the CIA, and the
rest of the nation's vast and ever more ubiquitous intelligence and surveillance state are on
our side.
"... A lot of water muddying today - and it's being stirred from a lot of seemingly unrelated directions. Distract and confuse, great ploys - now who benefits more is the most likely source of today's leafletting. ..."
DOJ Watchdog Finds Comey "Defied Authority" And Was "Insubordinate"
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/06/2018 - 22:44 763 SHARES
The Department of Justice's internal watchdog has found that James Comey defied authority
several times while he was director of the FBI,
according to ABC , citing sources familiar with the draft of a highly anticipated OIG
report on the FBI's conduct during the Clinton email investigation .
One source told ABC News that the draft report explicitly used the word "insubordinate" to
describe Comey's behavior . Another source agreed with that characterization but could not
confirm the use of the term.
In the draft report, Inspector General Michael Horowitz also rebuked former Attorney
General Loretta Lynch for her handling of the federal investigation into Hillary Clinton's
personal email server, the sources said. -
ABC
President Trump complained on Tuesday of "numerous delays" in the release of the Inspector
General's report, which some have accused of being slow
walked or altered to minimize its impact on the FBI and DOJ.
"What is taking so long with the Inspector General's Report on Crooked Hillary and Slippery
James Comey," Trump said on Twitter. "Hope report is not being changed and made weaker!"
"It's been almost a year and a half and it is time that Congress receives the IG report,"
said Congressman Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who has been on the front lines of the battle against
the DOJ and FBI's stonewalling of lawmakers requesting documentation. "This has gone on long
enough and the American people's patience is wearing thin. We need accountability," said
DeSantis.
Another congressional official, who's been fighting to obtain documents from the DOJ and
FBI, said it is no surprise that they are putting pressure on Horowitz. According to the
official, "They continue to slow roll documents, fail to adhere to congressional oversight
and concern is growing that they will wait until summer and then turn over documents that are
heavily redacted."
ABC reports that there is no indication Trump has seen - or will see - the draft of the
report prior to its release. Inspector General Horowitz, however, could revise the draft report
now that current and former officials have offered their responses to the report's conclusions,
according to the sources.
The draft of Horowitz's wide-ranging report specifically called out Comey for ignoring
objections from the Justice Department when he disclosed in a letter to Congress just days
before the 2016 presidential election that FBI agents had reopened the Clinton probe,
according to sources . Clinton has said that letter doomed her campaign.
Before Comey sent the letter to Congress, at least one senior Justice Department official
told the FBI that publicizing the bombshell move so close to an election would violate
longstanding department policy , and it would ignore federal guidelines prohibiting the
disclosure of information related to an ongoing investigation, ABC News was told. -
ABC
During an April interview, Comey was asked by ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos "If
Attorney General Lynch had ordered you not to send the letter, would you have sent it?"
"No," replied Comey. "I believe in the chain of command."
Deputy Attorney General slammed Comey's letter to congress while recommending that Trump
fire Comey last year - saying it "was wrong" for Comey "to usurp the Attorney General's
authority" when he revealed in July 2016 that he would not be filing charges against Hillary
Clinton or her aides (many of whom were granted immunity).
"It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement," Rosenstein wrote in a
letter recommending that Comey be fired. "At most, the Director should have said the FBI had
completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors."
The draft OIG report dings Comey for not consulting with Lynch and other senior DOJ
officials before making his announcement on national TV. Furthermore, while Comey said there
was no "clear evidence" that Hillary Clinton "intended to violate" the law, he also said that
Hillary Clinton had been "extremely careless" in her "handling of very sensitive, highly
classified information."
And as we now know, Comey's senior counterintelligence team at the FBI made
extensive edits to Clinton's exoneration letter, effectively decriminalizing her behavior
.
"I have not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice
or any other part of the government. They do not know what I am about to say," Comey said on
live TV July 5, 2016.
By then, Lynch had taken the unusual step of publicly declaring she would accept the FBI's
recommendations in the case, after an impromptu meeting with former president Bill Clinton
sparked questions about her impartiality.
Comey has defended his decisions as director, insisting he was trying to protect the FBI
from even further criticism and "didn't see that I had a choice." -
ABC
"The honest answer is I screwed up a couple of things, but ... I think given what I knew at
the time, these were the decisions that were best calculated to preserve the values of the
institutions," Comey told ABC News. " I still think it was the right thing to do. "
Comey is currently on a tour promoting his new book, " A Higher Loyalty."
About that delay...
As many wonder just where the OIG report is after supposedly being "finished" for a while,
the Washington Examiner 's Chief political correspondent, Byron York, offers some keen insight
(tweeted before details of the draft were leaked):
• Byron York
A series of tweets on what to expect from the much-anticipated inspector general report on
DOJ/FBI handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation... 1/
10:42 AM - Jun 6, 2018
• Byron York
First, looks like it might be delayed yet again. Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled a June
5 hearing to discuss IG report.
After delay, had to be rescheduled for next Monday, June 11.
Now looks like might be delayed again.
10:42 AM-Jun 6, 2018
• Byron York
Why delays? Feet are clearly being dragged. There are snags over classified information.
Also, and this is intriguing: appears in last several weeks IG got new information, interviewed
new witnesses. Could have contributed to delay. Don't know what it's about. 3/
10:43 AM-Jun6, 2018
Byron York
@ByronYork
Replying to @ByronYork
So, when IG report is finally released-looking like mid-June -- what will it cover? Don't
know its conclusions, but here are some subjects you can expect to be reading about: 4/
10:43 AM-Jun 6, 2018
• Byron York
Expect discussion of 6/27/16 Loretta Lynch-Bill Clinton meeting on tarmac in Arizona. IG has
done extensive investigation.
What was said? What were the intentions of those involved? Expect it to be covered
carefully. 5/
10:44 AM-Jun 6, 2018
• Byron York
Expect discussion of James Comey's decision to begin drafting an exoneration memo for
Hillary Clinton long before the FBI had even interviewed her, or at least a dozen other key
figures in the case.
Also: Why hand out so much immunity? 6/
10:45 AM-Jun6, 2018
• Byron York
Expect discussion of Comey's intentions when he announced reopening of Clinton investigation
on 10/28/16, shortly before election day. Democrats specifically asked IG to investigate
that.
10:45 AM-Jun 6, 2018
• Byron York
Expect discussion of what Andrew McCabe did when he first learned about existence of Clinton
emails on Anthony Weiner's laptop in early October 2016. Did he sit on information? If so, why?
What did Comey know? 8/
10:46 AM-Jun 6, 2018
• Byron York
Expect discussion on rationale for Comey's controversial 7/5/16 statement announcing no
charges would be filed against Clinton.
To say it was unorthodox would be an understatement. What was he doing? 9/
10:46 AM-Jun 6, 2018
• Byron York
Expect discussion of Lynch's refusal to recuse herself from investigation or to appoint
special counsel. Plus, look for discussion of why McCabe waited so long to recuse himself
even after public reporting of Clinton-related political contributions to his wife. 10/
10:47 AM-Jun6, 2018
• Byron York
Finally, don't expect to learn much new about McCabe 'lack of candor' situation re:
leaks.
Not clear whether IG will reveal much beyond what has already been released in wake of
McCabe firing. End/
10:48 AM-Jun 6, 2018
Also, and this is intriguing: appears in last several weeks IG got new information,
interviewed new witnesses. Could have contributed to delay. Don't know what it's about.
How many more new witnesses with new information will crawl out of the woodwork at the
most opportune moment to delay releasing the report. I'm guessing they interviewed McCabe's
hairdresser at Sport Clips to see which direction he combs.
If the strongest language in this report to describe Comey's actions is merely
"insubordinate" and "defied authority", then it's a big, fat, nothingburger... Not a GD thing
is going to happen, lift rug, sweep vigorously...
If the blue team leaked this, then they're trying to get ahead of damaging
information. If it's the red team, then you're right Keyser and a behind the scenes agreement has been
reached letting both teams off the hook for some unleaked transgression.
"Expect discussion of what Andrew McCabe did when he first learned about existence of
Clinton emails on Anthony Weiner's laptop in early October 2016. Did he sit on
information"
I wouldn't sit on anything related to Weiner or his LAPtop.
A lot of water muddying today - and it's being stirred from a lot of seemingly unrelated
directions. Distract and confuse, great ploys - now who benefits more is the most likely
source of today's leafletting.
Your lips to God's ears! This is ridiculous! Insubordinate? That's it? 90% of the people in DC need a good wearing out with a belt! This politically correct nonsense has to end. Call it what it is you lily-livered pansies!
It's treason and sedition. It's a den of snakes!
You want to see America bounce back as a strong and proud nation? START HANDING OUT REAL
PUNISHMENT! Otherwise, it will be the same old sleazy crap over and over again.
agree...that's why we need to stay diligent and demand the proper dissemination of the
impartial facts...
with McCabe seeking immunity...and Comey playing 'Patriot'...and Brennon being and old
lair...and Clapper portraying all previous actions were 'honorable'...we have to ask
ourselves a question...
Anything I hear/see involving Clapper and Brennan I figure is a fictitious psyop. Brian
Cox and Albert Finney already portrayed them in the Bourne films.
SEVERAL Ex FBI agents and current FBI Agents are BEGGING to be subpoenaed, WHY hasn't this
happened, THEY want this MESS OUT in the open, yet TRUMP does nothing?. I would have Congress
do it asap, under OATH and with Criminal repercussions. Horowitz is a EUNUCH.
Exactly. That's why Lockheed Martin paid him $6 million a year. Does anyone think they hired him for his abilities as an attorney when he lacked any
experience in corporate law? Then he went on to Ray Dalio's Bridgewater associates. Wonder how much they paid him
there. What experience did he have for working as an attorney for a hedge fund?
Then he leaves these extremely lucrative jobs to go back to government at $170,00 a
year.
I'd be insubordinate too if Satan's Slut Hillary was breathing hellfire down my neck.
Comey probably likes living as much as the rest of us. Now that the noose is getting tighter,
will he give up the slut???? Hopefully a few of these pukes will turn on her in unison. The
Magical Homo will be tougher to snare.
The former ever-so-sanctimonious FBI Director, classified document leaker and Clinton
water boy Jimmy Comey was "Insubordinate?" Who could have guessed? But remember, Trump fired
the asswipe in order to "obstruct justice." Jail Jimmy without delay.
While we are on the subject, this shows you the type of "friends" that Saint Mueller
keeps.
If reports are true, then IG Horowitz is fudging Coney-Lynch's real crimes; namely the
events leading up to the July whitewash of Killary which include drafting the exoneration
letter before interviewing Clinton, twisting the facts to decriminalize Clinton's offenses
and pressuring FBI agents to alter reports regarding the Clinton investigation.
If the IG brushes past these matters, whatever else he says is worthless. Just tarnishes
Comey's image a tad bit and will be forgotten.
This sounds like they are trying to decriminalize Comey's actions, not indict him. How the fuck does the headline equate
to a criminal charge? Maybe they (OIG) are trying to let this asshole off the hook? What's he going to get? A severe tongue
lashing because he was insubordinate?
"... Hopefully that means he'll respond to genuine lines of criticism against him, including his decision to investigate both Hillary Clinton and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election but only discuss one of those investigations in public . ..."
A Higher Loyalty drops on Tuesday, but, in keeping with longstanding publishing tradition, the good bits have already been
selectively leaked to outlets in advance. We've learned that the former FBI director compares Trump to
a mafia boss , that
Trump's "leadership is transactional, ego driven, and about personal loyalty," and that Comey admits that the widespread belief that
Clinton would become president may have
played a role in his decision to announce that the FBI was reopening an investigation into her use of a private email server
less than two weeks before the election.
We also learn that Trump was
obsessed
with the "pee tape," the most salacious allegation in the infamous Steele Dossier. Comey writes that Trump "strongly denied the
allegations, asking -- rhetorically, I assumed -- whether he seemed like a guy who needed the service of prostitutes. He then began
discussing cases where women had accused him of sexual assault, a subject I had not raised. He mentioned a number of women, and seemed
to have memorized their allegations."
Trump took the bait, sending out two tweets attacking Comey on Friday morning.
But of course, Trump admitted, only days after Comey's dismissal, that he really fired Comey over the Russia investigation.
... ... ...
The Republicans are scared of James Comey.
The Republican National Committee just unveiled a new website, LyinComey.com
, to counter whatever allegations the former FBI director levels against President Donald Trump in his new book, which goes on sale
next week. As CNN reports, the RNC is also buying digital ads and sending talking points sent to GOP politicians. This counter-information
campaign is a sign of how worried Republicans are about Comey's potential to inflict political damage -- and is wholly unconvincing.
For example, the RNC's Comey site says that he "stated under oath that he never posed as an anonymous source to leak information
to the press," then notes that he "later testified that he 'asked a friend of [his] to share the content of the memo with a reporter.'"
The presentation makes these two factual statements seem contradictory when they're not. Comey
testified in a May 3, 2017, congressional hearing that he had never been an anonymous source; he
told lawmakers
the following June that he sent his bombshell memos to The New York Times through an intermediary only after his
May 9 ouster.
Those memos laid the groundwork for allegations that Trump obstructed justice by firing the FBI director. "Comey may use his book
tour to push the phony narrative that President Trump obstructed the Russia investigation," the website warns, citing Comey's testimony
last June in which he said Trump never ordered him to halt the Russia investigation. The framing is somewhat misleading, since legal
experts believe the obstruction question
instead revolves
around Comey's firing itself.
The website's release comes after Comey taped an interview with ABC News that's set to air on Sunday night. Axios
quoted an unnamed source present during the interview who said that Comey "answered every question" posed to him. Hopefully
that means he'll respond to genuine lines of criticism against him, including his decision to investigate both Hillary Clinton and
the Trump campaign during the 2016 election but
only discuss one of those investigations in public .
Writing in The Week on Monday, Ryan Cooper argued that
the Democrats have betrayed their New Deal heritage for a mess of neoliberalism. "Up through
about the early 1970s, it had been a fairly straightforward working-class party, but after a
generation of reform, under Bill Clinton it stood for a muddle of capitalism worship leavened
with means-tested welfare programs," Cooper contended. "At bottom, it was a left-inflected
version of the same neoliberalism that comprises Republican Party doctrine."
Cooper's column provoked a lively Twitter
canoe where some of the most prominent voices in left of center journalism weighed in:
Well, it was a working class party in 1936. Then the Southern Dems figured out that the
black people were in the working class too and also wanted to join unions.
Everything is so convoluted. Sometime I have impression that I am reading depiction of the operations of
Meyer Lansky not a government agency.
Notable quotes:
"... Bill Priestap is cooperating. When you understand how central E.W. "Bill" Priestap was to the entire 2016/2017 ' Russian Conspiracy Operation ', the absence of his name, amid all others, created a curiosity. I wrote a twitter thread about him last year and wrote about him extensively, because it seemed unfathomable his name has not been a part of any of the recent story-lines. ..."
"... So there we have FBI Director James Comey telling congress on March 20th, 2017, that the reason he didn't inform the statutory oversight "Gang of Eight" was because Bill Priestap (Director of Counterintelligence) recommended he didn't do it. Apparently, according to Comey, Bill Priestap carries a great deal of influence if he could get his boss to NOT perform a statutory obligation simply by recommending he doesn't do it. ..."
"... Then again, Comey's blame-casting there is really called creating a "fall guy". FBI Director James Comey was ducking responsibility in March 2017 by blaming FBI Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap for not informing congress of the operation that began in July 2016. (9 months prior). ..."
"... In essence, Bill Priestap was James Comey's fall guy . We knew it at the time that Bill Priestap would likely see this the same way. The guy would have too much to lose by allowing James Comey to set him up. ..."
"... Immediately there was motive for Bill Priestap to flip and become the primary source to reveal the hidden machinations. Why should he take the fall for the operation when there were multiple people around the upper-levels of leadership who carried out the operation. ..."
"... Our suspicions were continually confirmed because there was NO MENTION of Bill Priestap in any future revelations of the scheme team, despite his centrality to all of it. ..."
"... Bill Priestap would have needed to authorize Peter Strzok to engage with Christopher Steele over the "Russian Dosssier"; Bill Priestap would have needed to approve of the underlying investigative process used for both FISA applications (June 2016, and Oct 21st 2016). Bill Priestap would be the person to approve of arranging, paying, or reimbursing, Christopher Steele for the Russian Dossier used in their counterintelligence operation and subsequent FISA application. ..."
"... Parallel to Priestap in main justice his peer John P Carlin resigned, Sally Yates fired, Mary McCord quit, Bruce Ohr was busted twice, and most recently Dave Laufman resigned. All of them caught in the investigative net . Only Bill Priestap remained, quietly invisible – still in position. ..."
"... With all of that in mind, there is essentially no-way the participating members inside the small group can escape their accountability with Mr. Bill Priestap cooperating with the investigative authorities. ..."
"... Now it all makes sense. Devin Nunes interviewed Bill Priestap and Jim Rybicki prior to putting the memo process into place. Rybicki quit, Priestap went back to work. ..."
FBI Counterintelligence chief, Bill Priestap, will sit down for a closed-door session with lawmakers on Tuesday, according to
John Solomon of The Hill .
Priestap will be answering questions about the Hillary Clinton email case as well as the counterintelligence operation on the
Trump campaign - both of which he oversaw . Priestap was the direct supervisor of Peter Strzok - the FBI agent whose anti-Trump /
pro-Clinton bias was revealed after 50,000 text messages to his FBI-attorney mistress, Lisa Page, were discovered by the DOJ's Inspector
General, Michael Horowitz.
All accounts say that Priestap is a cooperating witness . In other words, if there's one person who can confirm that the FBI counterintelligence
operation on the Trump campaign was politically motivated - or that malfeasance occurred during the process, it's Bill Priestap.
Note how excited Solomon looks breaking the news of Priestap's testimony...
Solomon: "I think tomorrow is going to be a pivotal day. I think Congress is going to learn a lot of new information tomorrow
during these interviews."
Dobbs: He is going to be speaking candidly about his employer, the FBI, and those who were running the agency during that period.
Solomon: He was very high up. Had a bird's-eye view of everything that went on in both of these investigations.
While the session will be closed-door, we imagine leaks will be forthcoming as seems to be standard operating procedure these
days.
Just who is Bill Priestap really?
The Conservative Treehouse presented an in-depth analysis in February. We recommend reading this before deciding on what size
popcorn to buy:
***
The game is over. The jig is up. Victory is certain... the trench was ignited... the enemy funneled themselves into the valley...
all bait was taken everything from here on out is simply mopping up the details. All suspicions confirmed.
Why has Devin Nunes been so confident? Why did all GOP HPSCI members happily allow the Democrats to create a 10-page narrative?
All questions are answered.
Fughettaboudit.
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence member
Chris Stewart appeared on Fox News with
Judge Jeanine Pirro, and didn't want to "make news" or spill the beans, but the unstated, between-the-lines, discussion was as subtle
as a brick through a window. Judge Jeannie has been on the cusp of this for a few weeks.
Listen carefully around 2:30 , Judge Jeanine hits the bulls-eye; and listen to how Chris Stewart talks about not wanting to make
news and is unsure what he can say on this...
...Bill Priestap is cooperating. When you understand how central E.W. "Bill" Priestap was to the entire 2016/2017 ' Russian
Conspiracy Operation ', the absence of his name, amid all others, created a curiosity. I wrote a
twitter thread about him last year and wrote
about him extensively, because it seemed unfathomable his name has not been a part of any of the recent story-lines.
E.W. "Bill" Priestap is the head of the FBI Counterintelligence operation. He was FBI Agent Peter Strozk's direct boss. If anyone
in congress really wanted to know if the FBI paid for the Christopher Steele Dossier, Bill Priestap is the guy who would know everything
about everything.
FBI Asst. Director in charge of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap was the immediate supervisor of FBI Counterintelligence Deputy
Peter Strzok.
Bill Priestap is #1. Before getting demoted Peter Strzok was #2.
The investigation into candidate Donald Trump was a counterintelligence operation. That operation began in July 2016. Bill Priestap
would have been in charge of that, along with all other, FBI counterintelligence operations. FBI Deputy Peter Strzok was specifically
in charge of the Trump counterintel op. However, Strzok would be reporting to Bill Priestap on every detail and couldn't (according
to structure anyway) make a move without Priestap approval.
On March 20th 2017 congressional testimony, James Comey was asked why the FBI Director did not inform congressional oversight
about the counterintelligence operation that began in July 2016.
FBI Director Comey said he did not tell congressional oversight he was investigating presidential candidate Donald Trump because
the Director of Counterintelligence suggested he not do so. *Very important detail.* I cannot emphasize this enough. *VERY* important
detail . Again, notice how Comey doesn't use Priestap's actual name, but refers to his position and title. Again, watch [Prompted]
FBI Director James Comey was caught entirely off guard by that first three minutes of that questioning. He simply didn't anticipate
it.
Oversight protocol requires the FBI Director to tell the congressional intelligence "Gang of Eight" of any counterintelligence
operations. The Go8 has oversight into these ops at the highest level of classification. In July 2016 the time the operation began,
oversight was the responsibility of this group, the Gang of Eight: Obviously, based on what we have learned since March 2017, and what has surfaced recently, we can all see why the FBI would want
to keep it hidden that they were running a counterintelligence operation against a presidential candidate. After all, as FBI Agent
Peter Strzok said it in his text messages, it was an "insurance policy".
"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office that there's no way he gets elected – but I'm
afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40."
So there we have FBI Director James Comey telling congress on March 20th, 2017, that the reason he didn't inform the statutory
oversight "Gang of Eight" was because Bill Priestap (Director of Counterintelligence) recommended he didn't do it. Apparently,
according to Comey, Bill Priestap carries a great deal of influence if he could get his boss to NOT perform a statutory obligation
simply by recommending he doesn't do it.
Then again, Comey's blame-casting there is really called creating a "fall guy". FBI Director James Comey was ducking responsibility
in March 2017 by blaming FBI Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap for not informing congress of the operation that began
in July 2016. (9 months prior).
At that moment, that very specific moment during that March 20th hearing, anyone who watches these hearings closely could see
FBI Director James Comey was attempting to create his own exit from being ensnared in the consequences from the wiretapping and surveillance
operation of candidate Trump, President-elect Trump, and eventually President Donald Trump.
In essence, Bill Priestap was James Comey's fall guy . We knew it at the time that Bill Priestap would likely see this the
same way. The guy would have too much to lose by allowing James Comey to set him up.
Immediately there was motive for Bill Priestap to flip and become the primary source to reveal the hidden machinations. Why
should he take the fall for the operation when there were multiple people around the upper-levels of leadership who carried out the
operation.
Our suspicions were continually confirmed because there was NO MENTION of Bill Priestap in any future revelations of the scheme
team, despite his centrality to all of it.
Bill Priestap would have needed to authorize Peter Strzok to engage with Christopher Steele over the "Russian Dosssier"; Bill
Priestap would have needed to approve of the underlying investigative process used for both FISA applications (June 2016, and Oct
21st 2016). Bill Priestap would be the person to approve of arranging, paying, or reimbursing, Christopher Steele for the Russian
Dossier used in their counterintelligence operation and subsequent FISA application.
Without Bill Priestap involved, approvals, etc. the entire Russian/Trump Counterintelligence operation just doesn't happen. Heck,
James Comey's own March 20th testimony in that regard is concrete evidence of Priestap's importance. Everyone around Bill Priestap, above and below, were caught inside the investigative net.
Above him: James Comey, Andrew McCabe and James Baker.
Below him: Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Jim Rybicki, Trisha Beth Anderson and Mike Kortan.
Parallel to Priestap in main justice his peer John P Carlin resigned, Sally Yates fired, Mary McCord quit, Bruce Ohr was busted
twice, and most recently Dave Laufman resigned. All of them caught in the investigative net . Only Bill Priestap remained, quietly
invisible – still in position.
The reason was obvious. Likely Bill Priestap made the decision after James Comey's testimony on March 20th, 2017, when he realized what was coming. Priestap
is well-off financially; he has too much to lose. He and his wife, Sabina Menschel, live a comfortable life in a $3.8 million DC
home; she comes from a family of money.
While ideologically Bill and Sabina are aligned with Clinton support, and their circle of family and friends likely lean toward
more liberal friends; no-one in his position would willingly allow themselves to be the scape-goat for the unlawful action that was
happening around them. Bill Priestap had too much to lose and for what? With all of that in mind, there is essentially no-way the participating members inside the small group can escape their accountability
with Mr. Bill Priestap cooperating with the investigative authorities.
Now it all makes sense. Devin Nunes interviewed Bill Priestap and Jim Rybicki prior to putting the memo process into place. Rybicki
quit, Priestap went back to work.
Bill Priestap remains the Asst. FBI Director in charge of counterintelligence operations.
It's over.
I don't want to see this guy, or his family, compromised. This is probably the last I am ever going to write about him unless
it's in the media bloodstream. I can't fathom the gauntlet of hatred and threats he is likely to face from the media and his former
political social network if they recognize what's going on. BP is Deep-Throat x infinity nuf said.
The rest of this entire enterprise is just joyfully dragging out the timing of the investigative releases in order to inflict
maximum political pain upon the party of those who will attempt to excuse the inexcusable.
All this is an interesting information. But Trump folded long ago. So why they continues so relentlessly pursue him.
Some of the statements are iether naive, or incorrect, or both. For example: ""The Anglo-American response to this development can
be seen in the events in Ukraine, where Obama, the British, and the National Endowment for Democracy staged a coup in February 2014,
overthrowing the government of the duly elected President, Victor Yanukovych, because he refused to turn his country into a western
satrapy to be wielded against Putin's Russia. " also " We know that Paul Manafort was considered practically an enemy combatant in Anglo-American
swamp circles by 2014, because of his Ukraine work with Yanukovych and the Party of the Regions. He apparently chose the wrong side
by fighting against a Nazi coup. The same was true even of Democratic consultants such as Tony Podesta, who worked with Manafort on
Ukraine and were subject to the same reported 2014 FISA surveillance warrant"
Notable quotes:
"... Victoria Nuland, who helped oversee the coup from her perch at Hillary Clinton's State Department, was famously caught on tape dictating the Ukraine succession, after bands of murderous neo-Nazis did the scut-work for the coup. According to Nuland, the price for this handiwork was some $5 billion. ..."
"... The actual "swamp" of the British and their accomplices in the U.S. intelligence community and aligned trans-Atlantic institutions, like NATO, have viewed themselves as being in a state of war against Russia and China since the 2013-2014 events. ..."
"... Flynn had already driven Obama crazy by proposing a determined U.S.-Russian collaboration in the war on terror, and going after the Administration's policy aimed at dismembering Syria. Obama had fired him. ..."
"... Page had already functioned as an FBI informant in a major 2013 New York City FBI case against Russian organized crime figures, and stated on CNN that he briefed both the CIA and FBI regularly on these business dealings in Russia. ..."
"... Was he used as a front to get a FISA warrant directed at the Trump campaign? Was he a spy sent by the FBI both to Russia and into the Trump campaign? The targeting of the alleged activities of the St.Petersburg Internet Research Agency (IRA) in DNI Clapper's January report, again points to the heavy British hand in the coup against the President. ..."
"... Crowdstrike's Dimitri Alperovitch -- the person with sole access to the DNC's allegedly "hacked" computers, whose forensic analysis was adopted wholesale by James Comey's FBI and the U.S. intelligence community -- is a senior fellow in the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Service. ..."
"... What exactly was the relationship of the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and the other black propagandists operating against the President, together with their reporters, with the NED, the Information Warfare Initiative, NATO's Strategic Communications Service, and The Institute for Modern Russia in New York City, or other British or U.S. intelligence agencies during the Obama Administration and subsequently? ..."
"... Steele and Orbis claim that the 17th memo, produced in December 2016, which referenced the salacious and disgusting claim that Trump engaged in perverse sexual activities at a Russian hotel, was solely produced to one David Kramer as a representative of John McCain, Senator John McCain himself, and a representative of the British security services. ..."
"... It has been widely reported that James Comey's FBI was also offering Steele and Orbis $50,000 or more at this point to corroborate aspects of the dodgy dossier smearing the President-elect. ..."
"... David Kramer is the former President of the CIA and NED quango, Freedom House, was a fellow of the neo-conservative Project for a New American Century, held State Department positions dedicated to Project Democracy and soft power coups in Russia and the former East Bloc, and presently serves as Senior Director for Human Rights and Human Freedoms at Senator McCain's Institute for International Leadership in Arizona. ..."
"... Department of Justice concerning four participants in the Trump Tower meeting and others for failure to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Browder's complaint claimed that these people were engaged in unregistered Russian lobbying activities, namely, attempting to overturn the Magnitsky Act. Browder renounced his American citizenship in 1989 to become a British subject and has operated at the highest levels of British finance and intelligence. ..."
The Real Story: Issues of War, Peace, and the Future
Beginning with an announcement of President Xi Jinping, at a conference in Kazakhstan in July of 2013, China has set into motion
an entirely new dynamic in the world, a new paradigm of cooperation between nation states, to build vital modern infrastructure allowing
nations in the former "developing sector" to reach their full economic potentials.
Xi Jinping's vision of the New Silk Road or "One Belt, One Road" project has been endorsed by Russia's Vladimir Putin.
Russia and China are joining in projects which will fully develop the Eurasian landmass, creating a "new financial architecture"
in the Asia-Pacific region.
On July 16, 2014, the BRICS group of nations meeting in Fortaleza, Brazil, joined by the Latin American heads of state, agreed
with Xi Jinping's proposal on the creation of an entirely new economic and financial system, representing a fundamental alternative
to the casino economy of the present system of globalization.
The Anglo-American globalist system is based on maximized profit of the few, and the impoverishment of billions of people.
In the new paradigm, financing for joint great projects is to come from development banks, such as the newly created Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank, ending dependence on such globalist institutions as the IMF or World Bank.
Globalization as administered by the IMF and World Bank is effectively a system of imperial debt slavery, keeping the nations
dependent on their loans in primitive economic conditions, while their raw materials are looted.
As Prime Minister Narenda Modi from India remarked,
"The BRICS is unique as an international institution.
In this first instance, it unifies a group of nations, not on the basis of their existing prosperity or common identities, but
rather their future potentials.
The idea of the BRICS itself is thus aligned with the future.
"
It is not incidental to this remark that Russia, China, and India have set future goals for space exploration, including most
specifically exploration of the Moon and possible exploitation of Helium 3 on the Moon, which has the potential of finally realizing
nuclear fusion power as a primary energy source powering the world.
China has made clear that no small part of this initiative is inspired by the work of Lyndon and Helga LaRouche.
The methods employed echo the ideas of political economy first developed by Alexander Hamilton, and deployed by Abraham Lincoln
and Franklin Roosevelt -- ideas uniquely developed and expanded by Lyndon LaRouche.
Xi Jinping has asked the United States to join this great venture, which could produce thousands of productive jobs and jump-start
infrastructure projects in this country.
Obama adamantly refused Xi's offer, and did everything in his power to block and defeat the Chinese initiative.
President Trump has indicated an openness to the proposition.
These 2013-2014 events were and are a direct challenge to the British imperial system.
They directly challenge the monetary system which is the source of Anglo-American domination of the world.
They directly challenge fundamental British strategic policy extant since the days of Halford Mackinder.
Under the "One Belt, One Road" initiative, joined with Russia's Eurasian Union, Mackinder's "world island" of Eurasia and Africa
will be developed, crisscrossed with new high-speed rail links, new cities, and vital modern infrastructure, based on the mutual
benefit of all of the nation states existing there.
Under the British geopolitical model, this area of the world has been subjected to endless instability, war, and raw materials
looting.
Xi Jinping has also attacked the geopolitical axioms by which the United States and the British have operated.
He proposes instead a model of "win-win" cooperation in which nation states collaborate for development based on the common aims
of mankind.
The Anglo-American response to this development can be seen in the events in Ukraine, where Obama, the British, and the National
Endowment for Democracy staged a coup in February 2014, overthrowing the government of the duly elected President, Victor Yanukovych,
because he refused to turn his country into a western satrapy to be wielded against Putin's Russia.
Victoria Nuland, who helped oversee the coup from her perch at Hillary Clinton's State Department, was famously caught on tape
dictating the Ukraine succession, after bands of murderous neo-Nazis did the scut-work for the coup. According to Nuland, the price for this handiwork was some $5 billion.
The actual "swamp" of the British and their accomplices in the U.S. intelligence community and aligned trans-Atlantic institutions, like NATO, have viewed themselves as being in a state of war against
Russia and China since the 2013-2014 events.
Think about former DNI Clapper's unhinged speech in Australia of June 7, 2017. Clapper ranted that it was in Putin's and Russia's "genes" to attack the United States. Since Trump pursues better relations and shared intelligence with Russia on terrorism, Clapper ranted, Watergate (where Richard
Nixon committed proven crimes) paled in comparison to Russiagate (where both Clapper and Comey have testified that to date the President
has committed no crimes). Clapper told the Aussies also to target China, accusing the Chinese, without any offer of proof, of meddling in Australia's elections.
Former FBI Director James Comey backed Clapper in his testimony on June 8, 2017, attempting to wax eloquent in response to Senator
Joe Manchin, about how Putin exists with one purpose in mind -- to shred and dismember the United States. But China and Russia have completely outflanked these cretins, and the new paradigm is rapidly coming to life with "shovels in
the ground" everywhere.
In response, the Anglo-American elites have absolutely nothing to offer the world except the same dying, decadent globalist "order."
This explains why many in official Washington let loose their inner alien monster every time the President mentions a desire for
better relations with Russia, or evinces his friendship with President Xi Jinping of China.
This is why Hillary Clinton has literally gone insane, raving like Lady Macbeth, and obsessing about Putin's "man-spreading."
That is why, also, they would risk World War III rather than see the "Belt and Road," the New Silk Road, go forward with its "community
of principle" idea of relations among nations.
What Did Trump Do?
Like LaRouche, Trump represents an existential challenge to the post-War British-dictated monetarist and imperial order.
In his campaign platform he called for the reinstitution of Glass-Steagall banking separation.
This would end the casino economy which is about to blow up again -- the real economy never having recovered from the collapse
of 2008.
He wants to build huge modern infrastructure and revitalize the manufacturing sector of the economy with modern manufacturing
techniques.
He wants to return the United States to space exploration and the funding of fundamental science, recognizing the optimistic national
morale which will result from that.
In his public speeches, Trump has repeatedly invoked what he understands as "The American System" of political economy, a concept
developed and elaborated in recent history by only one man, Lyndon LaRouche.
This centers economic systems in nation states, rather than global institutions, and calls for harnessing the resources of the
nation state to develop the economy to higher and higher levels of physical productivity and human culture.
While Trump has features in his version of the American System which LaRouche would not endorse as historically accurate or politically
wise, even the use of the term, invoking Alexander Hamilton and Lincoln's economist Henry Carey, is a direct challenge to the free
trade, small-government nostrums foisted on the United States by a parade of British agents during the Twentieth Century.
The British, up to this point, have been largely successful in burying the actual ideas of Alexander Hamilton and Franklin Roosevelt,
and burying the fundamental advances in these ideas resulting from original discoveries by LaRouche.
Through deliberate miseducation of Americans, the British have made their economic theories and systems, against which Americans
explicitly fought in our Revolution, appear to be universal laws of human behavior.
As his recent speech to the United Nations emphasized, Trump envisions a system of sovereign nations, each striving to develop
and enrich their populations, engaged in cooperative trade relationships, reciprocal in nature and targeted for the benefit of each
party.
His U.N.
speech echoed the foreign policy of John Quincy Adams, a policy which forbade our nation from "going abroad, seeking monsters
to destroy." This is the very opposite of the imperial-gendarme, perpetual-war policy long favored by the British for the United
States.
Trump's positive vision, under present circumstances, requires active collaboration with Russia and China.
To stop the coup, the President's team and his supporters must stop reacting defensively.
He must act on the aspects of his program -- Glass-Steagall, large scale infrastructure development funded by national banking
mechanism devoted to that purpose, space exploration, fusion power development, and joining the "One Belt, One Road" program with
China, which can actually save the economy and produce high paying jobs.
At the same time, they should look at the actual crimes involved in the coup which are already on the public record, investigate
them -- including in the Congress -- and prosecute them.
With respect to Mueller, they should investigate his obstruction of the investigation into the crimes committed on 9/11, together
with a full public unveiling of the Saudi and British role in international terrorism.
In aid of such an effort we present seven crimes implicated in the events in the coup against the President to date.
Seven Actual Crimes
The crimes outlined below make clear that a Special Counsel, not Robert Mueller, should be investigating the U.S.-British response
to China's Belt and Road Initiative, beginning with the illegal coup in Ukraine which has resulted in the targeting of Paul Manafort.
In the British account of the American election, largely published in pieces in the Guardian, they began warning their American
counterparts about the dangers of Donald Trump's accommodating views toward Putin and Russia in 2015.
These warnings were followed by the specific claim that the Democratic National Committee's servers had been hacked by the Russians
as of July of 2015.
According to the British account, their American counterparts were slow to respond, although the FBI says it notified the DNC,
which did nothing about the alleged Russian hack until June of 2016.
The obvious should be stated here.
If the British were developing dossiers on Trump and his associates as early as 2015, Trump and his associates were under surveillance
as of that date or sooner by British GCHQ and/or the NSA.
We know that Paul Manafort was considered practically an enemy combatant in Anglo-American swamp circles by 2014, because of his
Ukraine work with Yanukovych and the Party of the Regions.
He apparently chose the wrong side by fighting against a Nazi coup.
The same was true even of Democratic consultants such as Tony Podesta, who worked with Manafort on Ukraine and were subject to
the same reported 2014 FISA surveillance warrant.
What was the FBI affidavit which justified the 2014 Manafort, Podesta FISA court surveillance warrant, and what was the British
role in obtaining it? What role did the British play, including GCHQ and MI6, in the Manafort counterintelligence investigation?
What were the British "concerns" about Trump communicated to U.S.
intelligence as early as 2015? What was the specific British warning about hacks of the DNC computer in July 2015? By December
of 2015, according to James Clapper's dodgy January, 2017 report on alleged Russian meddling in the election, hundreds of paid Russian
trolls associated with the St.
Petersburg, Russia, Internet Research Agency had begun to advocate for Trump's election.
At the same time, Michael Flynn attended a dinner at RT in Russia, sitting across the table from Putin.
Flynn had already driven Obama crazy by proposing a determined U.S.-Russian collaboration in the war on terror, and going
after the Administration's policy aimed at dismembering Syria. Obama had fired him.
Is this the date when surveillance on Flynn actually began, or did it begin sooner? What was the British role in this surveillance?
Carter Page has also been a subject in Mueller's Russiagate hysteria.
He apparently walked in to volunteer for the Trump campaign without any prior association with the President, and was disavowed
by the campaign soon after.
He went to school in London, had a variety of business dealings in Russia, and had volunteered for the Trump campaign as a foreign
policy advisor by simply walking in the door.
Page had already functioned as an FBI informant in a major 2013 New York City FBI case against Russian organized crime figures,
and stated on CNN that he briefed both the CIA and FBI regularly on these business dealings in Russia.
Was he used as a front to get a FISA warrant directed at the Trump campaign? Was he a spy sent by the FBI both to Russia and
into the Trump campaign? The targeting of the alleged activities of the St.Petersburg Internet Research Agency (IRA) in DNI Clapper's
January report, again points to the heavy British hand in the coup against the President.
According to French journalist Thierry Meyssan, in September 2014, the British government created the 77th Brigade, a unit tasked
with countering foreign propaganda, which worked with the U.S. military in Europe to interfere with websites considered to be distributing
Russian propaganda. This project ultimately morphed into NATO's Strategic Communications Service, tasked with suppressing any news
or person favorable to the Russian position concerning strategic topics, but particularly Ukraine. From its inception, the NATO Strategic
Communications Service incorporated a service of the Atlantic Council, the Digital Forensics Service.
Crowdstrike's Dimitri Alperovitch -- the person with sole access to the DNC's allegedly "hacked" computers, whose forensic
analysis was adopted wholesale by James Comey's FBI and the U.S. intelligence community -- is a senior fellow in the Atlantic Council's
Digital Forensic Service.
News about Russian trolls operating out of the IRA and poisoning the Western mind filled the British press in 2015. In line with
this NATO project is the Information Warfare Initiative in the U.S., centered at the Washington Center for European Policy Analysis
and founded by Washington Post neo-con Anne Applebaum. It is a pseudopod of the National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. intelligence
community, and has concentrated its attacks on the Russian broadcasters RT and Sputnik.
2
(2) Russian trolls and IRA became a hot topic in Washington for the first time as a result of Clapper's reference
to them in his January 2017 Assessment of Russian meddling and a nationally embarrassing Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
hearing in March, 2017. There, full grown U.S. Senators listened in seemingly amazed wonder and without any challenge, as Thomas
Rid, of King's College, London and NATO, Roy Godson, and other British schooled intelligence experts wove a fantastic fairy tale.
They told the Senators that thousands of paid Russian trolls using sophisticated bots had infiltrated the American mind with Russian
generated conspiracy theories and swung the election to Donald Trump. Godson repeatedly had to correct himself, substituting the
current "Russia" for his constant reference to the Soviet Union. According to the same dubious sources, a second evil front opened
by the crafty Russians consisted of purchase of Facebook ads met to sow discord throughout our land.
What exactly was the relationship of the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and the other black propagandists operating
against the President, together with their reporters, with the NED, the Information Warfare Initiative, NATO's Strategic Communications
Service, and The Institute for Modern Russia in New York City, or other British or U.S. intelligence agencies during the Obama Administration
and subsequently? Like the Train meetings targeting LaRouche, the media attacks on the President are not organic. They are organized,
and on a much larger scale than anything ever experienced in this country.
What is the relationship of various Washington D.C. lobby shops, such as Orion Strategies, long associated with John McCain, to
the organized media campaign against Donald Trump? Have our intelligence agencies, actually instigated an Active Measures counterintelligence
program illegally and against a sitting President? What is the overlap of offices, personnel, and entities assigned by Obama to Russian,
Chinese, and Eurasian intelligence functions, including the coup activities in Ukraine, with the illegal leaks of classified information
to the news media?
The Cardinal Events of June-July 2016
(1). The Conspiracy Against the President Takes Off Sometime in June, 2016, Hillary Clinton's campaign took over an opposition
research project on Donald Trump which had previously been funded by Trump's Republican opponents. The contract was with a D.C.firm
called Fusion GPS, who, in turn, employed a British firm, Orbis, and Orbis' founder Christopher Steele.
Steele ran the Russia desk for MI6 until 2009; Sir Andrew Wood, an "associate" at Steele's company, was the British Ambassador
to Moscow between 1995 and 2000, a "Russia" adviser to Tony Blair, and is an associate fellow of the Russia and Eurasia program at
the Royal Institute for International Affairs at Chatham House.
Christopher Burrows, Steele's partner in Orbis, lists himself as a long-time high-ranking British foreign service officer, although
news accounts also place him in British intelligence.
Christopher Steele has also acknowledged a longstanding relationship to the FBI, centered in the FBI's Eurasian Organized Crime
Strike Force in New York City, which media reports date to 2010, the same time the relationship to Fusion GPS went into effect.
Andrew McCabe, the ethically challenged FBI Assistant Director now being investigated for Hatch Act and other violations concerning
the Clinton sponsorship of his wife's campaign against Virginia Senator Richard Black, led the Eurasian task force early in his career,
and has maintained contacts ever since.
Many believe that McCabe was Steele's FBI handler and contact.
In court filings in a London libel suit against them, Steele and Orbis state that they briefed reporters from the New York Times,
the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Yahoo News, and CNN about Christopher Steele's reports on Trump and Russia in September 2016,
and participated in further briefings with the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Yahoo News in October 2016.
In late October, Steele briefed a reporter from Mother Jones by Skype.
Senator John McCain and David Kramer, who was McCain's agent, were briefed on the pre-election Steele memoranda in December of
2016.
Sixteen memoranda smearing Trump, based on paid and anonymous Russian sources, were produced prior to the election.
It is clear that the FBI was also a recipient of all of these memoranda dating back to June of 2016, if not earlier. Steele
and Orbis claim that the 17th memo, produced in December 2016, which referenced the salacious and disgusting claim that Trump engaged
in perverse sexual activities at a Russian hotel, was solely produced to one David Kramer as a representative of John McCain, Senator
John McCain himself, and a representative of the British security services.
The December memo was the product of a collaboration between Steele, Sir Andrew Wood, Kramer, and a representative of the British
security services, which began on November 18, 2016, that is, almost immediately following Trump's election as President.
It has been widely reported that James Comey's FBI was also offering Steele and Orbis $50,000 or more at this point to corroborate
aspects of the dodgy dossier smearing the President-elect.
David Kramer is the former President of the CIA and NED quango, Freedom House, was a fellow of the neo-conservative Project
for a New American Century, held State Department positions dedicated to Project Democracy and soft power coups in Russia and the
former East Bloc, and presently serves as Senior Director for Human Rights and Human Freedoms at Senator McCain's Institute for International
Leadership in Arizona. Hillary Clinton used the Steele Dossier to paint Trump as a Russian dupe throughout her general election
campaign against him.
James Comey used it to justify his FBI counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign which began in July of 2016, and has continued.
Thus, we have the British government and, in all probability, NATO, intervening in an election in the United States to sway the
result.
Most certainly this raises questions about the applicability of election laws which bar foreign funding for exactly the reason
that United States elections should be decided by United States citizens.
Most certainly, once this sequence of events is fully investigated, it will become clear that all government participants intended
to sway the election unlawfully, using the powers of a state to vanquish the will of the voters.
(2).The Russian Hack That Wasn't -- False Reporting of a Crime
On June 12, 2016, WikiLeaks announced that it was in possession of emails damaging to Hillary Clinton, and would soon be publishing
them.
June, 14, 2016 marks the announcement by the Democratic National Committee that its computers had been hacked by the Russians,
the subject apparently of the initial Christopher Steele memorandum prepared for the Clinton campaign.
The purloined DNC emails showed, definitively, that the DNC, which should have been neutral in the primaries, was trying to destroy
the rising campaign of Bernie Sanders.
The emails were published by WikiLeaks on the eve of the Democratic National Convention.
The claim that the WikiLeaks emails were the result of a Russian hack of DNC servers was authored by Dmitri Alperovitch of the
security firm, Crowd Strike.
Alperovitch, a Russian-American who demonizes Putin, is, as previously referenced, a fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital
Forensics Project, deeply involved in NATO's Strategic Communications Service.
The FBI's James Comey accepted Alperowitz's forensic analysis without ever accessing the DNC computers in question.
It is probable that Comey was already operating on the basis of the British Christopher Steele Memoranda asserting that the Russians
were responsible for the DNC hack.
On July 24, 2017, the Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity released a Memo to the President demonstrating that there
was no Russian hack of the DNC.
Rather, the WikiLeaks document trove was produced by a leak from inside the DNC, not a hack.
According to this memorandum, the leaked treasure trove from the DNC was altered in a "cut and paste" job to make it look like
it was the product of a very crude Russian hack. The VIPS are veterans of U.S. intelligence agencies, and include William Binney,
the former technical director of the NSA. Their group first formed to oppose the fabricated reasons for the Iraq War.
William Binney has insisted from the first reference to Russian hacking as the source of the WikiLeaks Podesta/DNC documents,
that if such an event had occurred, the NSA would have traced it and could say so with certainty. In their report, the VIPS point
out that the CIA's "Marble Framework" program allows for obfuscation of cyberattacks and false flag attribution to other state actors.
WikiLeaks has consistently claimed that the source of its dossier was an inside leak from the DNC, implying that Seth Rich, a DNC
data management staffer who supported Bernie Sanders, was one of its sources.
Rich was murdered in July of 2016 in Washington, D.C., in a crime which remains unsolved at this date.
Congressman Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) recently met with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, and states that he has evidence confirming that
the WikiLeaks DNC/John Podesta email trove was the result of a leak, not a Russian hack.
(3). The Trump Tower Meeting -- Entrapping a Presidential Campaign
On June 9, 2016, a meeting took place in Trump Tower involving Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, at the time the campaign manager
for the Trump Presidential campaign, Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law, and five other people. As opposed to media accounts,
only one of the participants in the Trump Tower meeting was a Russian, the lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. By all accounts provided
by participants, the meeting was very short, and involved the Magnitsky Act sanctions imposed by the U.S. Congress on certain Russians.
Many consider these 2012 sanctions to be the opening shot of the New Cold War. This meeting has attracted extensive attention
from Special Counsel Mueller, as the media has painted it as a "smoking gun." The emails setting up the meeting do not reflect
what actually happened at the meeting.
Instead, they bear all the marks of an intelligence-agency entrapment attempt against Donald Trump, Jr., designed to fix the "Manchurian
candidate" label on Trump early in the general election campaign. The emails setting up the meeting specifically offered "dirt" on
Hillary Clinton to be provided by the Russian government itself.
On July 15, 2016, at the same time as the FBI was opening an investigation of the Russians for interfering in the U.S.election
and of the Trump campaign for colluding with them, another British intelligence operative, Bill Browder, was filing a complaint with
the U.S.
Department of Justice concerning four participants in the Trump Tower meeting and others for failure to register under the
Foreign Agents Registration Act. Browder's complaint claimed that these people were engaged in unregistered Russian lobbying activities,
namely, attempting to overturn the Magnitsky Act. Browder renounced his American citizenship in 1989 to become a British subject
and has operated at the highest levels of British finance and intelligence.
Undoubtedly, by the time of the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting, the British government's Trump file already included a full
history of Donald Trump's sponsorship of the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow and its players, Trump's real estate dealings with
Russians anywhere in the world, all of candidate Trump's conciliatory statements toward Russia, and complaints that campaign advisor
Michael Flynn was soft on Russia, and a rebel against the U.S. intelligence establishment from within that establishment.
The file also included surveillance of Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who was considered an outright enemy of Anglo-American
interests given his political work for the former President of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovych and his Party of the Regions, and Trump's
relationship with Felix Sater, a Russian-American and high level FBI informant.
3 The official British government file also probably included surveillance of apartments at Trump Tower associated with a then
ongoing investigation of a Russian organized crime ring said to operate there and figures involved in the FIFA corruption investigation
who also lived there. The FIFA investigation was worked by the FBI Eurasian Organized Crime Strike Force and Christopher Steele.
So, even before the Trump Tower meeting, we find following intelligence services in motion and attempting to concoct illicit dirt
about Trump and Putin: British intelligence, Ukrainian intelligence, the DNI and the CIA in the United States, the FBI, and NATO's
Strategic Communications Service and its U.S. offshoots.
But wait, as they say in infomercial sales, that's not even close to all involved. According to Foreign Policy Magazine
and others, on July 11, 2017, a hacker going by the name of "Johnnie Walker" published a trove of emails from the private account
of Lieutenant Robert J.Otto, who is tasked to a secretive unit in the U.S.State Department focused on Russia. Newsweek magazine states
that Otto is the nation's "foremost" intelligence guy concerning Russia. The emails have not been authenticated. However, they contain
an email purported to be on the day of the Trump Tower meeting between Otto and Kyle Parker, of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs,
featuring a picture of Russian attorney Natalia Velselnitskaya's house in Russia.
Parker credits himself as the actual author of the Magnitsky Act sanctions against Russia, and a close friend of Bill Browder.
Velselnitskaya claims that her children have been threatened as a result of her participation in a legal case questioning the bona
fides of Bill Browder and the factual foundations of the Magnitsky Act. The picture of her house in this context suggests another
level of intense surveillance directed at Trump Tower on the day of the meeting, and the possibility that threats to her family were
actually governing Veselnitskaya's behavior.
The Set-Up
On June 3rd, Trump Jr.was emailed by publicist Ron Goldstone, a British national who operates out of the U.S., whose first career
was as a British tabloid journalist. Goldstone's Facebook account appears to indicate that he is presently on a break from his businesses
and on a world tour of gay bathhouses in which the proudly obese Goldstone takes pictures of himself wearing various strange hats
and shirts in the company of young men.
Who is financing this tour apparently outside the reach of Grand Jury subpoenas? Goldstone has also been photographed with Kathy
Griffin, who famously posted a picture of herself with President Trump's severed head. Goldstone emailed Donald Trump, Jr.
that Aras Agalarov wanted Goldstone to set up a meeting with Trump, Jr. in which sensitive Russian government files about Hillary
Clinton's dealings with Russia would be provided to the Trump campaign as a gesture of official Russian government support of the
campaign. Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting. Goldstone is the publicist for Emin Agalarov, an Azerbarjani pop star. Aras Agalarov
and his son Emin partnered with Trump for the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. The base of operations for the Agalarov family
is the Moscow regional government, not Putin's Kremlin.
The actual twenty-minute meeting involved Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, who did most of the speaking by all accounts;
Rinat Akhmetshin, a well-known Washington D.C.-based lobbyist and American citizen; Ike Kaveladze, a U.S. citizen and vice-president
at one of the Agalarov's companies; Ron Goldstone; and the translator for Natalia Veselnitskaya, Anatoli Samochornov. Samochornov
is also an American citizen who worked with Veselnitskaya frequently, since she does not speak English. He has also worked extensively
for the FBI and the U.S. State Department.
Although Akhmetshin has been linked to Russian counterintelligence repeatedly in the news media, that all appears to be based
on his bragging about his two-year stint in the Russian military as a young man.
The topic addressed by Veselnitskaya was the Magnitsky Act sanctions against Russia, which resulted from a campaign conducted
by violently anti-Putin British operative William Browder, allied with Senator John McCain and the D.C. public relations firm Ashcroft
and Glover.
Any sound investigation about this meeting would focus on who, out of the small army of intelligence operatives watching this
meeting, designed and implemented the clear entrapment attempt against Donald Trump, Jr. for later use.
Since it was surveilled and recorded by multiple intelligence agencies tripping all over one another at the time, (you get the
image of Keystone cops), why was it only surfaced as the "smoking gun" recently? Natalia Veselnitskaya had been paroled into the
United States to serve as the Russian lawyer in a legal case in the Southern District of New York based solely on money-laundering
allegations made by Bill Browder against her Russian clients.
At the time of the Trump Tower meeting, however, Veselnitskaya was traveling on a business visa issued by the U.S. Department
of State after having been previously denied such a visa, and after efforts by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New
York to prevent any free travel by her in the U.S. at all. Immigration attorneys I have spoken to describe this situation as extremely
strange.
(4). Obama's Final Days In Office -- Insurrection Against the President-Elect, Felonious Leaks
In an apparent effort to influence the Electoral College vote following the election, the Obama Administration leaked a preliminary
intelligence community "assessment" that the Russians had hacked the Democrats' computers and otherwise intervened to swing the election
to Donald Trump.
According to the New York Times of March 1, 2017, Obama and his national security colleagues additionally spent the months after
the election and prior to President Trump's inauguration dropping a trail of "leads" in official documents and leaking information,
in the effort to delegitimize Trump and to continue their policies against Russia and China.
Certainly, there is a document trail on this process which appears to be confined to a period of a little over two months.
Evelyn Farkas, formerly of the Defense Department's Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia Desk and the Atlantic Council, virtually admitted
to MSNBC in March that she had participated in this process. This is where the illegal unmasking of names in FISA and E.O. 12333
surveillance occurred, when these crimes were committed. Samantha Power, the U.N. Ambassador, was reportedly involved in 260 unmasking
requests bearing little relationship to her function. Other targets of the House Intelligence Committee concerning illegal unmasking
and leaks include Susan Rice, John Brennan, and Ben Rhodes.
On December 15, 2016, DNI James Clapper signed new procedures allowing the NSA to distribute raw intercept data throughout the
entire intelligence community. These procedures became official on January 3, 2017 when Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed off
on them.
At issue is modification of secret procedures under E.O. 12333, deemed by Edward Snowden and others as the most significant authority
for our present, completely unconstitutional surveillance state. Previously, the NSA was required to filter and redact information
regarding U.S. citizens monitored in foreign counterintelligence activities. DNI Clapper had also implemented a cloud intelligence
data platform accessible by all intelligence agencies, and obliterating many paper and digital access trails and safeguards.
Were these new procedures implemented in any way based on a desire to facilitate leaks and obscure their origin to future investigators?
(5). The January Blackmail/Extortion Attempt
On January 6, 2017, according to James Comey's June 8th Congressional testimony, the intelligence chiefs went to Trump Tower to
present the Obama Administration's report on Russian hacking, hoping to convince the skeptical President-elect to abandon his campaign
promise for better relations with Putin and Russia.
Following that briefing, in a pre-arranged move with the rest of Obama's intelligence directors, Comey cleared the room of everyone
but himself and Trump.
He presented Trump with the Steele dossier's most salacious allegations, namely that Trump had engaged in sexually perverse acts
with Russian prostitutes while visiting Moscow, and Putin had taped it. This is exactly what the infamous J.Edgar Hoover did -- blackmail
Washington politicians with FBI dossiers, assuring them that he could protect them so long as they did as Hoover wished.
In fact, Comey described this as a "J.Edgar Hoover moment" in answers to questions by Senator Susan Collins on June 8th. Dick
Morris describes the entire affair as "just about as close as you can get to a political assassination without holding a gun to the
President's head." Trump appears to have demanded that the entirely fake dossier be investigated, and refused to back down
in efforts to achieve better relations with Russia. In fact, Trump denounced the intelligence community publicly as acting like Nazis.
He also denounced the McCarthyite hysteria they were generating.
While Comey recorded the President-elect's responses on a classified computer moments after leaving him, Buzzfeed, which had frequently
published raw Clinton/Obama "oppo" stories, published the December 2016 British/Clinton dodgy dossier in full.
The U.S.
intelligence community, particularly Obama's ghoulish grand inquisitor, CIA head John Brennan, proceeded to give it credibility
by leaking that both President-elect Trump and President Obama had been briefed on its contents.
Publication of the Trump Russian sex allegations accompanied James Clapper's factless "official intelligence community assessment"
that the Russians hacked the DNC and Podesta, and that they did so to influence the election in favor of Donald Trump.
Put together by analysts "hand-picked" by the CIA's John Brennan, that assessment was backed by no actual evidence.
It has now been thoroughly debunked as "the hack that wasn't" by the analysis presented by the Veteran's Intelligence Professionals
for Sanity.
John Brennan subsequently explained to Congress and the public that he does not "do evidence."
The Democrats, the news media, and their Republican allies led by John McCain and Lindsay Graham, went berserk over the factless
Obama Administration "assessment," demanding special prosecutors and Congressional investigations, and sneering that "other shoes"
were about to drop.
The New York Times' Thomas Friedman, having clearly lost it, claimed that Russia had committed an "act of war," presumably seeking
to invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty.
(6).
The President Calls Out Comey, Brennan et al.
for Wiretapping Him, They Lie About It To Congress
On March 4, 2017, after General Flynn was fired, and after a deluge of leaks of classified surveillance of members of Trump's
transition and national defense teams, President Trump interrupted the entire fake media narrative by tweeting what had become obvious:
that Obama had him "wiretapped" in Trump Tower prior to the election, and that what was happening to him reeked of McCarthyism.
The media, which had been publishing allegations about FISA warrants and intercepts of Trump or his associates for months, erupted
in what has to be one the most shameless demonstrations of the Big Lie ever known.
They declared that Trump was offering wild claims with no evidence, essentially circling back on their very own reporting and
labeling it, "fake news."
Now it has been revealed that FISA warrants existed on Paul Manafort from 2014 through some period in 2016, and from some period
in 2016 through this year, conveniently omitting the period when he was Trump's campaign manager.
Manafort lives in Trump Tower, and was originally investigated under the Foreign Agents Registration Act for his Ukraine activities.
It is fairly obvious that the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower was the subject of massive surveillance.
It is also abundantly clear from the leaks which occurred concerning contacts with the Russians by Trump's campaign officials
and supporters, that the Trump Tower offices of his transition were subject to massive surveillance, either as the result of extant
FISA warrants or under E.O.
12333.
James Comey and James Clapper were both asked directly in their appearances before Congressional Committees whether there was
any evidence at all to substantiate the President's wiretapping claims.
Both of them gave emphatic answers that there was not, and went out of their respective ways to paint the President as a paranoid
wacko.
So now, Robert Mueller is investigating the President of the United States for obstruction of justice, because he fired an FBI
Director who lied to Congress.
Really?
(7).
The Comey Firing-Attempted Entrapment of the President
On March 20, 2017, former FBI Director Comey breathed new life into what was, by then, an insurrection which had run out of steam.
People were simply tired of Democrats, like Adam Schiff,
4 Schiff has a watermelon face combining features of the comic Charlie Brown and a Conehead; his personality is like the grasping
and crazy personality of Peanuts cartoon character, Lucy Van Pelt.
As a prosecutor it took him three tries to convict the hapless former FBI agent Richard Miller of espionage despite overwhelming
and salacious evidence. trying on McCarthyite tinfoil hats before TV cameras and pontificating about the outrage du jour.
Comey, in testimony before the House Select Committee on Intelligence, made it officially public, for the first time, that the
FBI had been investigating collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the election since July of 2016.
He opined that the FBI counterintelligence investigation (which had been leaking like a sieve since its instigation in July, without
producing any verifiable facts about either Russian interference or Trump campaign collusion) could continue for many more months,
if not years.
He refused to say whether the President himself was under investigation, despite the fact that he had told the President that
he was not, and had told Congress the same thing behind closed doors.
Despite the daily press instructions about events which the public must view as scandalous (why scandalous was never explained),
and highly publicized Congressional hearings concerning "Russia! Russia! Russia!" all of President Obama's men, at this late date,
had only managed to arrange the human sacrifice of Michael Flynn for lying to the Vice-President about his conversations with the
Russian ambassador in December.
5 Flynn's scalping itself was the result of the unmasking of Flynn's name and illegal leaks of same to the press as a result
of classified surveillance.
This fact was obliterated by sensational press coverage of the hyperventilated visit of Obama Assistant Attorney General Sally
Yates to the White House to warn, nonsensically, that Flynn had been "compromised" by the Russians because he lied to the Vice-President.
Exactly how this makes any sense at all we have not been told.
As Shakespeare's MacBeth intoned, "it is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." They had
also generated ethics, foreign intelligence registration, and tax questions about their other Trump campaign targets -- typical of
what happens when an entire life is put under a microscope, in a dedicated search for something, anything, that could be construed
feasibly as wrongdoing.
Ask yourself, what have any of these people allegedly done? Spoken with the Russians? Talked about lifting sanctions imposed because
Putin reacted to a coup Obama ran against the duly elected government of Ukraine? Lobbied on behalf of foreign governments? Really?
The actual testimony of Obama's intelligence officials before Congressional Committees, shorn of the media hype surrounding it,
was that there was absolutely no evidence of any Trump campaign collusion with alleged Russian efforts to interfere in the U.S.
elections.
In fact, on March 15, 2017, Comey himself had told Senators Chuck Grassley and Diane Feinstein behind closed doors, that the President
was not a target of his investigations, despite planted press stories to the contrary.
Comey had otherwise continually stone-walled Grassley concerning the Senator's persistent questions about the FBI's relationship
to British operative Christopher Steele.
While unable to produce any saleable legal goods, the illicit investigations had significantly bogged down the President's political
agenda, while fostering an increasingly toxic and divisive national political environment.
The strategy of official Washington, the Republicans who opposed the President's election, the Obama/Clinton Democratic establishment,
and the intelligence agencies operating on behalf of British strategic policies and axioms is clear -- use complicit Republicans
to trap the President in failed and obnoxious policies, such as the healthcare bill; hope that the President's silent majority remains
exactly that -- silent; hope that some of the smelly stuff they are throwing up against the wall actually sticks; distract, distract,
distract the President, and prevent him from working with Russia and China to develop the world, end wars, and implement the massive
infrastructure and space exploration projects which will actually save our economy.
On May 3, 2017, Comey followed his March drama-queen performance before the House, with even more theatrical speechifying before
the Senate Judiciary Committee.
He bloviated that despite the fact that his unprecedented disclosures and handling of the Clinton email investigation may have
impacted the election, and it made him nauseous, he, Mr.
Eagle Scout and True Crime Detective rolled into one, would do the same thing all over again.
He exaggerated the significance of the Anthony Weiner computer discovery by stating that it contained thousands of new Clinton
emails, not previously produced, some of which were classified -- a statement the FBI had to subsequently correct.
As Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein rightly argued, Comey violated numerous Justice Department regulations and ethical
norms in his outrageous actions in the Clinton email investigation.
It is the Attorney General's job to prosecute cases -- to open and close them -- not that of the FBI.
At the same Senate Judiciary hearing, Comey refused to state publicly that President Trump was not under investigation, despite
repeatedly assuring the President of that fact privately.
He knew this allowed the media and Democratic party "color revolution" to continue.
He refused to confirm that there was any investigation into the torrent of illegal classified leaks at the center of the media
campaign.
On May 9th, President Trump fired Comey, setting the stage for Robert Mueller's appointment as Special Prosecutor.
At the center of Mueller's inquiry will be a conspiracy to obstruct justice charge against the President for firing James Comey,
along with any so-called process crimes he can find during his investigation -- registration offenses under the Foreign Agents Registration
Act, tax offenses, or false statements to FBI agents or Congress.
As he builds his case, Mueller will follow his standard playbook, putting unrelenting psychological pressure on those Trump loyalists
he can implicate in the process crimes.
He will continue to target and investigate the President's family for similar offenses in order to destabilize the President himself.
He will continue the relentless demonization of the President, in order to ensure that neutral officials in Washington who witnessed
key events will testify not according to the truth, but according to what they see as future career prospects.
Following his firing, Comey and friends leaked to the press notes which he had allegedly taken following most of his encounters
with the President.
With each encounter, Comey's leaked account says, he returned to discuss what was said and its implications with a close circle
of his FBI comrades.
He prepared for each encounter with the President based on "murder boards" conducted by his FBI colleagues.
In the course of their meetings, Comey says, the President asked for his loyalty, which Comey portrayed like the request of some
mafia don in a bad Hollywood movie.
If it happened, such a request, in the context of what appeared to be an open insurrection against the President by the intelligence
community, is hardly surprising.
The President denies that it happened.
On the day after the President fired Flynn, according to Comey, the President cleared the room and went one on one with him, expressing
the "hope" that Comey could let the matter of Michael Flynn go.
Comey whines that he took the President's "hope" as an "order," giving rise to concerns about possible obstruction of justice.
This line of reasoning was thoroughly eviscerated by Senator James Risch in the Senate Judicary Committee hearing on June 8, 2017.
Senator Risch forced Comey to admit that Trump never ordered him to let the Flynn matter go, but only expressed a "hope" that
he would do so, and no prosecution that Comey knew of ever went forward, based on someone expressing "hope" for something.
While the President denies he ever asked Comey to let the Flynn matter go, Harvard Law Professor Emeritus and famed trial lawyer
Alan Dershowitz writes that the President would be fully within his legal and constitutional prerogatives to order Comey to back
off Flynn.
He could have simply told Comey, I am going to pardon Flynn.
So, it is clear by James Comey's own account that he was trying to set the President up, to entrap him -- an escapade which was
"crudely" interrupted when the President fired him.
Again, confirming this, Comey told Senator Susan Collins in his testimony, that the reason why he did not stop the President from
improper interactions, if he thought they were such, the reason he concealed the alleged improper and possibly illegal conduct from
his superiors at the Justice Department, and the reason he did not resign, was because his encounters with the President were of
"investigative interest" to the FBI.
Otherwise, Comey's leaks reveal a man so leery of even shaking the President's hand (or being photographed doing it) that once
in January he tried to hide himself in the White House drapes in the hopes that Trump would not see him.
The problem for Robert Mueller's obstruction case, among others, is that both Comey and his Assistant Andrew McCabe have previously
testified, under oath, to Congress that there was no pressure to end the FBI's investigations from anyone in the Trump Administration.
And, Comey confirmed in his testimony that prior to his firing, Trump was not under investigation for collusion with Russia, obstruction,
or any other offense.
Further, Comey has proved that he is willing to violate professional norms and Justice Department regulations, if not laws, by
leaking government documents.
The question is, what else was leaked by Comey and his FBI circle? Finally, we now know that Comey lied to or misled Congress
about the "wiretaps" on Trump Tower -- the Manafort FISA warrants prove the case.
Senator Grassley has asked the FBI: Why, if you were wiretapping a close associate of the President, wouldn't you warn the President
about him as is customarily done? The true answer is that the President himself was and is the target of an unprecedented and illegal
coup-attempt conducted by those sworn to uphold the Constitution and the nation's laws.
Those familiar with the relationship between Comey and Robert Mueller describe them as "joined at the hip," "cut from the same
cloth" (can't help thinking of the Union Jack), close personal friends, and mentor (Mueller) to mentee (Comey).
The problem with this relationship is that Department of Justice conflict guidelines specifically bar prosecutors (Mueller) from
investigating issues where close friends (Comey) have a significant role, such as material witnesses.
Official Washington knows all of this and yet touts this investigation as somehow "independent," "apolitical," and "unconflicted."
Will You Help Us End This Coup?
So, now you know.
Since the election and before, we have been stuck in a very elaborate and dangerous British hoax, gambling the future of our nation
in a cold coup against an elected president.
Actual crimes have been committed -- not by the President -- but against the President and the Constitution.
What has happened is that political differences, ideas, have been criminalized, the very danger most provisions of our Constitution
and its Bill of Rights were explicitly designed to guard against.
We have shown you the prosecutorial robot named Robert Mueller, whom others have always pointed to shoot, and why he has been
deployed to take out the President of the United States.
We have told you the real reasons why the President has been attacked by a foreign power, the British and their allies in our
country.
We have shown you that many of the same people and methods were deployed on a smaller scale to deprive the world of the beautiful
ideas of Lyndon LaRouche.
Now, at a point where this President, freed of Mueller and adequately advised, could join with China's Belt and Road and usher
in a new renaissance for mankind, shouldn't we really, finally, win our future, this time?
Federal investigators from the D.C. U.S. Attorney's office recently interviewed former FBI
director James Comey as part of an ongoing probe into whether former FBI #2 Andrew McCabe broke
the law when he lied to federal agents, reports the
Washington Post .
Investigators from the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office recently interviewed former FBI
director James B. Comey as part of a probe into whether his deputy, Andrew McCabe, broke the
law by lying to federal agents -- an indication the office is seriously considering whether
McCabe should be charged with a crime, a person familiar with the matter said. -
Washington Po st
What makes the interview particularly interesting is that Comey and McCabe have given
conflicting reports over the events leading up to McCabe's firing, with
Comey calling his former deputy a liar in an April appearance on The View .
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued a criminal referral for McCabe
following a months-long probe which found that the former acting FBI Director leaked a
self-serving story to the press and then lied about it under oath. McCabe was fired on March 16
after Horowitz found that he " had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked
candor - including under oath - on multiple occasions. "
Specifically, McCabe was fired for lying about authorizing an F.B.I. spokesman and attorney
to tell Devlin Barrett of the Wall St.
Journal - just days before the 2016 election, that the FBI had not put the brakes on a
separate investigation into the Clinton Foundation, at a time in which McCabe was coming under
fire for his wife taking a $467,500 campaign contribution from Clinton proxy pal, Terry
McAuliffe.
New details show that senior law-enforcement officials repeatedly voiced skepticism of the
strength of the evidence in a bureau investigation of the Clinton Foundation, sought to
condense what was at times a sprawling cross-country effort, and, according to some people
familiar with the matter, told agents to limit their pursuit of the case . The probe of the
foundation began more than a year ago to determine whether financial crimes or influence
peddling occurred related to the charity.
...
Some investigators grew frustrated, viewing FBI leadership as uninterested in probing the
charity , these people said. Others involved disagreed sharply, defending FBI bosses and
saying Mr. McCabe in particular was caught between an increasingly acrimonious fight for
control between the Justice Department and FBI agents pursuing the Clinton Foundation case
.
So McCabe was found to have leaked information to the WSJ in order to combat rumors that
Clinton had indirectly bribed him to back off the Clinton Foundation investigation, and then
lied about it four times to the DOJ and FBI, including twice under oath.
McCabe vs. Comey
Investigators from the D.C. U.S. Attorney's office were likely to be keenly interested in
Comey's version of whether or not he knew about McCabe's disclosure.
Comey and McCabe offered varying accounts of who authorized the disclosure for the
article. They discussed the story the day after it was published, and Comey, according to the
inspector general's report, told investigators McCabe "definitely did not tell me that he
authorized" the disclosure . -WaPo
"I have a strong impression he conveyed to me 'it wasn't me boss.' And I don't think that
was by saying those words, I think it was most likely by saying 'I don't know how this s---
gets in the media or why would people talk about this kind of thing,' words that I would fairly
take as 'I, Andy, didn't do it,' " Comey said, according to the inspector general.
During an April appearance on ABC's The View to peddle his new book, A Higher Royalty
Loyalty, where he called McCabe a liar , and said he actually "ordered the [IG] report" which
found McCabe guilty of leaking to the press and then lying under oath about it, several
times.
Comey was asked by host Megan McCain how he thought the public was supposed to have
"confidence" in the FBI amid revelations that McCabe lied about the leak.
" It's not okay. The McCabe case illustrates what an organization committed to the truth
looks like ," Comey said. " I ordered that investigation. "
Comey then appeared to try and frame McCabe as a "good person" despite all the lying.
"Good people lie. I think I'm a good person, where I have lied," Comey said. " I still
believe Andrew McCabe is a good person but the inspector general found he lied, " noting that
there are "severe consequences" within the DOJ for doing so.
Following McCabe's firing, his attorney Michael R. Bromwich (flush with cash from the
disgraced Deputy Director's half-million dollar legal defense GoFundMe
campaign), fired back - claiming that Comey was well aware of the leaks .
" In his comments this week about the McCabe matter, former FBI Director James Comey has
relied on the Inspector Genera's (OIG) conclusions in their report on Mr. McCabe. In fact, the
report fails to adequately address the evidence (including sworn testimony) and documents that
prove that Mr. McCabe advised Director Comey repeatedly that he was working with the Wall
Street Journal on the stories in question..." reads the statement in part.
McCabe vs. the DOJ
McCabe may also find himself at odds with the Department of Justice, as notes he kept
allegedly detailing an interaction with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein raise questions
about a memo Rosenstein wrote justifying Comey's firing. While Rosenstein's memo took aim at
Comey for his mishandling of the Clinton email investigation, McCabe's notes suggest that Trump
told Rosenstein to point to the Russia investigation. Rosenstein's recommendation ultimately
did not mention Russia.
McCabe's interactions with Rosenstein could complicate any potential prosecution of McCabe
because Rosenstein would likely be involved in a final decision on filing charges. McCabe has
argued that the Justice Department's actions against him, including his firing, are
retaliatory for his work on the Russia investigation. -WaPo
As the Washington Post notes, lying to federal investigators can carry a five-year prison
sentence - however McCabe says he did not intentionally mislead anyone. The Post also notes
that while Comey's interview is significant, it does not indicated that prosecutors have
reached any conclusions.
Lying to Comey might not itself be a crime. But the inspector general alleged McCabe
misled investigators three other times.
He told agents from the FBI inspection division on May 9, 2017, that he had not authorized
the disclosure and did not know who had, the inspector general alleged. McCabe similarly told
inspector general investigators on July 28 that he was not aware of one of the FBI officials,
lawyer Lisa Page, having been authorized to speak to reporters, and because he was not in
Washington on the days she did so, he could not say what she was doing. McCabe later admitted
he authorized Page to talk to reporters.
The inspector general also alleged that McCabe lied in a final conversation in November,
claiming that he had told Comey he had authorized the disclosure and that he had not claimed
otherwise to inspection division agents in May.
Michael Bromwich replied in a statement: "A little more than a month ago, we confirmed that
we had been advised that a criminal referral to the U.S. Attorney's Office had been made
regarding Mr. McCabe. We said at that time that we were confident that, unless there is
inappropriate pressure from high levels of the Administration, the U.S. Attorney's Office would
conclude that it should decline to prosecute. Our view has not changed.
He added that " leaks concerning specific investigative steps the US Attorney's Office has
allegedly taken are extremely disturbing ."
Whatever Comey told federal investigators, we suspect it eventually boiled down to "McCabe
didn't tell me," squarely placing responsibility for the leaks - and the lies, on McCabe's
shoulders.
In his final report in a three-part series, Guccifer 2's West
Coast Fingerprint , the Forensicator discovers evidence that at least one operator behind
the Guccifer 2.0 persona worked from the West Coast of the United States.
The Forensicator's earlier findings stated that Guccifer 2.0's NGP-VAN files were
accessed locally on the East Coast, and in another analysis they suggested
that a file published by Guccifer 2.0 was created in the Central time zone of the United
States. Most recently, a former DNC official refuted the DNC's initial allegations that Trump opposition files
had been ex-filtrated from the DNC by Russian state-sponsored operatives.
So, if Guccifer 2.0's role was negated by the statements of the DNC's own former "official"
in a 2017 report by the Associated Press
, why do we now return our attention to the Guccifer 2.0 persona, as we reflect on the last
section of new findings from the Forensicator?
The answer: Despite almost two years having passed since the appearance of the Guccifer 2.0
persona, legacy media is still trotting
out the shambling corpse of Guccifer 2.0 to revive the legitimacy of the Russian hacking
narrative. In other words, it is necessary to hammer the final nail into the coffin of the
Guccifer 2.0 persona.
As previously noted, In his final report in
a three-part series, the Forensicator
discusses concrete evidence that at least one operator behind the Guccifer 2.0 persona worked
from the West Coast of the United States. He writes:
"Finally, we look at one particular Word document that Guccifer 2 uploaded, which had
"track changes" enabled. From the tracking metadata we deduce the timezone offset in effect
when Guccifer 2 made that change -- we reach a surprising conclusion: The document was likely
saved by Guccifer 2 on the West Coast, US ."
The Forensicator spends the first part of his report evaluating indications that Guccifer
2.0 may have operated out of Russia. Ultimately, the Forensicator discards those tentative
results. He emphatically notes:
"The PDT finding draws into question the premise that Guccifer 2 was operating out of
Russia, or any other region that would have had GMT+3 timezone offsets in force. Essentially,
the Pacific Timezone finding invalidates the GMT+3 timezone findings previously
described."
The Forensicator's new West Coast finding is not the first evidence to indicate that
operators behind the Guccifer 2.0 persona were based in the US. Nine months ago,
Disobedient Media , reported on the Forensicator's analysis ,
which showed (among other things) that Guccifer 2.0's "ngpvan" archive was created on the East
Coast. While that report received the vast majority of attention from the public and legacy
media,
Disobedient Media later reported on another analysis done by the Forensicator, which
found that a file published by Guccifer 2.0 (on a different occasion) was probably created in
the Central Timezone of the US.
Adding to all of this, UK based analyst and independent journalist Adam Carter presented his own analysis which also showed
that the Guccifer 2.0 Twitter persona interacted on a schedule which was best explained by
having been based within the United States.
The chart above shows a box which spans regular working hours. It indicates that unless
Guccifer 2.0 worked the night shift, they were likely working out of the US. Though this last
data point is circumstantial, it is corroborated by the previously discussed pieces of
independently verifiable hard evidence described by the Forensicator.
When taking all of these separate pieces into account, one observes a convergence of
evidence that multiple US-based operators were behind the Guccifer 2.0 persona and its
publications. This is incredibly significant because it is based on multiple pieces of concrete
data; it does not rely on "anonymous sources within the government," nor contractors hired by
the DNC. As a result, much of the prior legacy press coverage of Guccifer 2.0 as a Russia-based
agent can be readily debunked.
Such tangible evidence stands in contrast to the claims made in a recently published
Daily Beast article, which reads more
like a gossip column than serious journalism. In the Daily Beast's recital, the outlet cites an
anonymous source who claims that a Moscow-based GRU agent was behind the Guccifer 2.0
operation, writing :
"Guccifer 2.0, the "lone hacker" who took credit for providing WikiLeaks with stolen
emails from the Democratic National Committee, was in fact an officer of Russia's military
intelligence directorate (GRU), The Daily Beast has learned. It's an attribution that
resulted from a fleeting but critical slip-up in GRU tradecraft.
But on one occasion, The Daily Beast has learned, Guccifer failed to activate the VPN
client before logging on. As a result, he left a real, Moscow-based Internet Protocol address
in the server logs of an American social media company, according to a source familiar with
the government's Guccifer investigation.
Working off the IP address, U.S. investigators identified Guccifer 2.0 as a particular GRU
officer working out of the agency's headquarters on Grizodubovoy Street in Moscow."
[The Daily Beast , March 22, 2018]
Clearly, the claim made in the Daily Beast's report is in direct contradiction with the
growing mound of evidence suggesting that Guccifer 2.0 operated out of the United States. A
detailed technical breakdown of the evidence confirming a West-Coast "last saved" time and how
this counters the claims of the Daily Beast can be found in the Forensicator's
work.
The Forensicator explained to Disobedient Media that their discovery process was initiated
by the following Tweet by Matt Tait ( @pwnallthings ), a security blogger and journalist.
Tait noticed a change revision entry in one of the Word documents published in Guccifer 2.0's
second
batch of documents, (uploaded 3 days after Guccifer 2.0 first appeared on the scene).
The Forensicator corrects Tait, stating that the timestamp is in "wall time," (local time)
not UTC. The Forensicator explains that Tait's mistake is understandable because the "Z" suffix
usually implies "Zulu" (GMT) time, but that isn't the case for "track changes" timestamps. The
Forensicator writes that the document Tait refers to in his Tweet is named
Hillary-for-America-fundraising-guidelines-from-agent-letter.docx ; it has Word's "track
changes" feature enabled. Guccifer 2.0 made a trivial change to the document, using the
pseudonym, "Ernesto Che," portrayed below:
The Forensicator correlated that timestamp ("12:56:00 AM") with the document's "last saved"
timestamp expressed in GMT, as shown below courtesy of the Forensicator's
study :
Based on the evidence discussed above, the Forensicator concludes that Guccifer 2.0 saved
this file on a system that had a timezone offset of -7 hours (the difference between 0:56 AM
and 7:56 AM GMT). Thus, the system where this document was last changed used Pacific Timezone
settings.
The logical conclusion drawn from the preceding analysis is that Guccifer 2.0 was operating
somewhere on the West Coast of the United States when they made their change to that document .
This single finding throws into shambles any other conclusions that might indicate that
Guccifer 2.0 was operating out of Russia. This latest finding also adds to the previously cited
evidence that the persona was probably operated by multiple individuals located in the United
States.
Taken all together, the factual basis of the Russian hacking story totally collapses. We are
left instead with multiple traces of a US-based operation that created the appearance of
evidence that Kremlin-allied hackers had breached the DNC network. Publicly available data
suggests that Guccifer 2.0 is a US-based operation. To this, we add:
The Forensicator's
recent findings that Guccifer 2.0 deliberately planted "Russian fingerprints" into his first
document, as reported by
Disobedient Media.
A former DNC official's statement that a document with so-called "Russian fingerprints"
was not in fact taken from the DNC, as reported by Disobedient
Media .
In the course of the last nine months this outlet has documented the work of the
Forensicator, which has indicated that not only were Guccifer 2.0's "ngp-van" files accessed
locally on the East Coast of the US, but also that several files published by the Guccifer 2.0
persona were altered and saved within the United States. The "Russian fingerprints" left on
Guccifer 2.0's first document have been debunked, as has the claim that the file itself was
extracted from the DNC network in the first place. On top of all this, a former DNC official
withdrew the DNC's initial allegations that supported the "Russian hack" claim in the first
place.
One hopes that with all of this information in mind, the long-suffering Guccifer 2.0 saga
can be laid to rest once and for all, at least for unbiased and critically thinking
observers.
Snowden talked about the NSA or is it CIA, had the ability to leave Russian
fingerprints.
All of this was the "insurance" to frame Trump who they knew would win when they saw that
Hillary rallies had 20 people only showing up few old lesbians and nobody else.
Meanwhile, Snowden risked his life and liberty to show us evidence that the NSA developed
technology to make it appear even with expert analysis that NSA hacking originated from a
foreign power.
"... Reached by phone on Tuesday, Richman refused to say when his legal representation of Comey began or whether he was personally representing Comey when the former FBI director testified before Congress in June 2017 about his deliberate leaking of the FBI records. ..."
"... The specific timing of the attorney-client relationship is important, because it may shield conversations between Comey and Richman regarding the coordinated leak of FBI records to the media from law enforcement scrutiny. ..."
"... Richman's legal work on behalf of Comey was not known before today, as Comey testified before Congress in 2017 that Richman was merely a friend . "I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter," Comey testified last June in response to a question from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). "Didn't do it myself, for a variety of reasons." "But I asked him to, because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel," Comey continued . "And so I asked a close friend of mine to do it." "Who was that?" Collins asked. "A good friend of mine who's a professor at Columbia Law School," Comey responded . ..."
Daniel Richman, the law professor who leaked classified FBI records to the media at Comey's request, refused to disclose
when exactly he became Comey's attorney.
Daniel Richman, a law professor at Columbia University
, told The Federalist via phone on Tuesday afternoon that he was now personally representing Comey.
According to The New York Times
, the line of questioning from the office of special counsel Robert Mueller focused on memos that Comey wrote and later
leaked after he was fired from his job by President Donald Trump.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who serves as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote
in a letter to the Department of Justice on January 3 that at least one of the memos Comey provided to his friend was classified.
"My staff has since reviewed these memoranda in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) at the FBI, and I reviewed
them in a SCIF at the Office of Senate Security," Grassley
wrote .
"The FBI insisted that these reviews take place in a SCIF because the majority of the memos are classified.
Of the seven memos, four are marked classified at the 'SECRET' or 'CONFIDENTIAL' levels." "If it's true that Professor Richman
had four of the seven memos, then in light of the fact that four of the seven memos the Committee reviewed are classified, it would
appear that at least one memo the former FBI director gave Professor Richman contained classified information," Grassley
noted in the letter.
Reached by phone on Tuesday, Richman refused to say when his legal representation of Comey began or whether he was personally
representing Comey when the former FBI director testified before Congress in June 2017 about his deliberate leaking of the FBI records.
The specific timing of the attorney-client relationship is important, because it may shield conversations between Comey and
Richman regarding the coordinated leak of FBI records to the media from law enforcement scrutiny.
Richman's legal work on behalf of Comey was not known before today, as Comey testified before Congress in 2017 that Richman
was merely a friend . "I asked a friend of mine to share
the content of the memo with a reporter," Comey
testified last June in
response to a question from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). "Didn't do it myself, for a variety of reasons." "But I asked him to, because
I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel," Comey
continued . "And so I
asked a close friend of mine to do it." "Who was that?" Collins asked. "A good friend of mine who's a professor at Columbia Law School,"
Comey responded .
Despite being given multiple opportunities to do so, Comey never characterized Richman as his attorney, nor did he suggest that
his directions to Richman to leak the memos to the media were privileged attorney-client communications.
The news that Richman is now representing Comey raises questions about whether the special counsel may be investigating Comey
and Richman for their roles in leaking classified information to the news media in order to get revenge on Trump for firing Comey.
The tactic of using attorney-client privilege to shield potentially illegal communications from law enforcement scrutiny is not
a new one.
During the FBI investigation of then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton's potential mishandling of classified information, Cheryl
Mills, one of Clinton's top government aides at the State Department, also claimed that she could not testify about her communications
with Clinton on the matter because
she was also serving
as Clinton's personal attorney .
"I have nothing to say about any of this," Richman responded, when asked directly whether attorney-client privilege was being
asserted in order to shield his communications with Comey regarding the deliberate leaking of classified documents to the media.
Richman was first licensed to practice law in the state of New York in 1986, according to
public records , and his current law license in that state is valid through October 2018.
Who knew? Not me. The FBI does not discuss its operations with other agencies
of the US Government. Period. I made liaison with the FBI on many occasions when I was with DIA and they were always careful to make
it clear that whatever you might give them in the way of information they would give you exactly nothing in return. In retirement
from government I have often observed the FBI working in support of DoJ in court cases.
It has always been my understanding that when the FBI investigated you they searched through records, listened to your telephone,
read your E-mail and in the end interviewed you.
Now I learn that they also recruit "confidential sources" to speak to you about the subject of FBI interest WITHOUT bothering
to inform you that they are going to tell the FBI what you said about things. Some of these "confidential sources" are employed by
the FBI for long periods of time. The American professor now teaching at a UK university who was sent by the FBI to talk to several
Trump campaign people was one such. Other "confidential sources" are recruited for a particular case Sometimes they are recruited
from among the existing acquaintances or "friends" of the person targeted by the FBI. In other words if DoJ, the WH, or the Bureau
(FBI) want to know what I, or anyone else, really says about a given topic, they can recruit someone I know using pressure, persuasion
or money to "rat" me out.
Felix Dzerzhinsky would have been proud of their skills if they had been his men. pl
Of course the FBI uses confidential informants. So does the DEA, ICE and every state and local LEA. It's a staple of every TV
crime show and novel dealing with police. Every gangster, crook, drug dealer, pedophile, terrorist and spy is obsessed with the
idea that some snitch is going to rat him out. The rest of us are rightfully incensed that this could possibly happen to us. There
best be a solid paper trail behind every confidential informant used by all the various cops. And these paper trails need to be
examined by IGs or others outside these users of confidential informants.
To those of us in the intelligence field rather than the LE field, the use of US Persons to inform on other US Persons is anathema.
We are specifically prohibited from targeting US Persons without informing them of our USI affiliation except possibly under rare
and specific circumstances. In those circumstances we have to call in the FBI. The NSA once found the targeting of US Persons
to be beyond anathema. It was a mortal sin condemning one's soul to eternal damnation. That certainly changed after 9/11.
As far as the sharing of information with the FBI, CIA and even NSA goes, I had a very different experience than Colonel Lang
when I was in DIA. In digital operations, we shared information on a daily basis. Our operations were often intertwined and interdependent.
However, I doubt this extended beyond digital operations.
https://trevoraaronson.com/... the war on terror, for the FBI has been one giant entrapment free for all, fueled
entirely on informants of dubious trustworthiness at best.
Several FBI agents would like Congress to subpoena them so that they can step forward and
reveal dirt on former FBI Director James Comey and his Deputy Andrew McCabe, reports the
Daily Caller , citing three active field agents and former federal prosecutor Joe
DiGenova.
" There are agents all over this country who love the bureau and are sickened by [James]
Comey's behavior and [Andrew] McCabe and [Eric] Holder and [Loretta] Lynch and the thugs like
[John] Brennan –who despise the fact that the bureau was used as a tool of political
intelligence by the Obama administration thugs," former federal prosecutor Joe DiGenova told
The Daily Caller Tuesday.
" They are just waiting for a chance to come forward and testify ."
DiGenova - a veteran D.C. attorney who President Trump initially wanted to hire to represent
him in the Mueller probe - only to have to step aside
due to conflicts , has maintained contact with "rank and file" FBI agents as well as a
counterintelligence consultant who interviewed an active special agent in the FBI's Washington
Field Office (WFO) - producing a transcript reviewed by The Caller .
These agents prefer to be subpoenaed to becoming an official government whistleblower ,
since they fear political and professional backlash, the former Trump administration official
explained to TheDC.
The subpoena is preferred, said diGenova, " because when you are subpoenaed, Congress then
pays for your legal counsel and the subpoena protects [the agent] from any organizational
retaliation . they are on their own as whistleblowers, they get no legal protection and there
will be organizational retaliation against them."
DiGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing have long represented government whistleblowers.
Most recently, Toensing became council for William D. Campbell, the former CIA and FBI
operative that was
deeply embedded in the Russian uranium industry - only to be smeared by the Obama
administration when he gathered evidence of two related bribery schemes involving Russian
nuclear officials, an American trucking company, and efforts to route money to the Clinton
Global Initiative (CGI) through an American lobbying firm in order to overcome regulatory
hurdles, according to reports by The Hill and Circa .
diGenova told the Daily Caller that asking for a Congressional subpoena is "an intelligent
approach to the situation given the vindictive nature of the bureau under Comey and McCabe . I
have no idea how to read Chris Ray who is not a leader and who has disappeared from the public
eye during this entire crisis. You know he may be cleaning house but if he's doing so, he's
doing it very quietly."
"I don't blame them," added diGenova. " I don't blame the agents one bit. I think that the
FBI is in a freefall . James Comey has destroyed the institution he claims to love. And it is
beyond a doubt that it is going to take a decade to restore public confidence because of Comey
and Clapper and Brennan and Obama and Lynch."
Meanwhile, the agent from the Washington field office says that rank and file FBI agents are
"fed up" and desperately want the DOJ to take action, according to transcripts of the
interview.
"Every special agent I have spoken to in the Washington Field Office wants to see McCabe
prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. They feel the same way about Comey," said the
agent.
"The administrations are so politicized that any time a Special Agent comes forward as a
whistleblower, they can expect to be thrown under the bus by leadership . Go against the Muslim
Brotherhood, you're crushed. Go against the Clintons, you're crushed. The FBI has long been
politicized to the detriment of national security and law enforcement."
The special agent added, " Activity that Congress is investigating is being stonewalled by
leadership and rank-and-file FBI employees in the periphery are just doing their jobs . All
Congress needs to do is subpoena involved personnel and they will tell you what they know.
These are honest people. Leadership cannot stop anyone from responding to a subpoena. Those
subpoenaed also get legal counsel provided by the government to represent them."
Meanwhile, the former Trump administration official who spoke with The Caller explained that
the FBI's problems go way beyond Comey and McCabe.
" They know that it wasn't just Comey and McCabe in this case. That's too narrow a net to
cast over these guys. There's a much broader corruption that seeped into the seventh floor at
the bureau ."
" They ruined the credibility of the bureau and the technical ability of the bureau, so
systemically, over the past several years, they're worried about their organizational
reputation and their professional careers."
"... As one person who had talked to Clinton about the difference between Trump and Sanders crowds recounted, her feeling was that 'at least white supremacists shaved.'" ..."
"... Why does Trump get away with corruption? Because Bill and Hillary Clinton normalized it ..."
"Clinton to be honored at Harvard for 'transformative impact'" [
The Hill ]. Irony is not dead.
"From the Jaws of Victory" [ Jacobin ]. Some
highlights from Amy Chozick's Chasing Hillary , which really does sound like a fun
read:
"In the public's mind, Clinton's 'deplorables' quip is remembered as evidence of her
disdain for much of Trump's fan base. But there was one other group Clinton had a similar
dislike of: Bernie Sanders supporters.
As one person who had talked to Clinton about the difference between Trump and Sanders
crowds recounted, her feeling was that 'at least white supremacists shaved.'"
UPDATE "Why does Trump get away with corruption? Because Bill and Hillary Clinton normalized
it" [Josh Barro, Business
Insider ].
"... Back in Dec., NYT assured us it was the Papadopoulos-Downer convo that inspired FBI to launch official counterintelligence operation on July 31, 2016. Which was convenient, since it diminished the role of the dossier. However . . . ..."
"... Now NYT tells us FBI didn't debrief Downer until August 2nd. And Nunes says no "official intelligence" from allies was delivered to FBI about that convo prior to July 31. So how did FBI get Downer details? (Political actors?) And what really did inspire the CI investigation? ..."
"... House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes appeared on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday, where he provided a potentially explosive hint at what's driving his demand to see documents related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Trump-Russia probe. "If the campaign was somehow set up," he told the hosts, "I think that would be a problem." ..."
"... government "officials" acknowledged that the bureau had used "at least one" human "informant" to spy on both Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. ..."
"... Think of the 2016 Trump-Russia narrative as two parallel strands -- one politics, one law enforcement. The political side involves the actions of Fusion GPS, the Hillary Clinton campaign and Obama officials -- all of whom were focused on destroying Donald Trump. The law-enforcement strand involves the FBI -- and what methods and evidence it used in its Trump investigation. At some point these strands intersected -- and one crucial question is how early that happened. ..."
"... Which brings us to timing. It's long been known that Mr. Steele went to the FBI in early July to talk about the dossier, and that's the first known intersection of the strands. But given the oddity and timing of those U.K. interactions concerning Messrs. Page and Papadopoulos, and given the history of some of the people involved in arranging them, some wonder if the two strands were converging earlier than anyone has admitted. The Intelligence Committee subpoena is designed to sort all this out: Who was pulling the strings, and what was the goal? Information? Or entrapment? ..."
"... Whatever the answer-whether it is straightforward, or whether it involves political chicanery-Congress and the public have a right to know. And a Justice Department willing to leak details of its "top secret" source to friendly media can have no excuse for not sharing with the duly elected members of Congress. ..."
"... Thanks for stopping by, Bob. Before you ask me your questions I need you to answer a few of mine: ..."
"... You have had a full year to investigate the allegations that my campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in our election. Has anyone obstructed you from doing this job to the best of your ability? If so, who have you notified of this and what corrective action have you taken or requested be taken? ..."
"... Have you found any evidence that I personally committed any crime involving collusion with the Russians to interfere with the election? ..."
"... Have you found any evidence that any member of my campaign committed any crime involving collusion with the Russians to interfere with the election? ..."
Earlier in the week, with Trump now calling out the debacle as
"possible
bigger than Watergate," Strassel tweet-stormed some key points that everyone - leftist and right - should consider ... (that's
wishful thinking)...
1. So a few important points on that new NYT "Hurricane Crossfire" piece. A story that, BTW, all of us following this knew
had to be coming. This is DOJ/FBI leakers' attempt to get in front of the facts Nunes is forcing out, to make it not sound so
bad. Don't buy it. It's bad.
2. Biggest takeaway: Govt "sources" admit that, indeed, the Obama DOJ and FBI spied on the Trump campaign. Spied . (Tho NYT
kindly calls spy an "informant.") NYT slips in confirmation far down in story, and makes it out like it isn't a big deal. It is
a very big deal.
3. In self-serving desire to get a sympathetic story about its actions, DOJ/FBI leakers are willing to provide yet more details
about that "top secret" source (namely, that spying was aimed at Page/Papadopoulos) -- making all more likely/certain source will
be outed. That's on them
4. DOJ/FBI (and its leakers) have shredded what little credibility they have in claiming they cannot comply with subpoena .
They are willing to provide details to friendly media, but not Congress? Willing to risk very source they claim to need to protect?
5. Back in Dec., NYT assured us it was the Papadopoulos-Downer convo that inspired FBI to launch official counterintelligence
operation on July 31, 2016. Which was convenient, since it diminished the role of the dossier. However . . .
6. Now NYT tells us FBI didn't debrief Downer until August 2nd. And Nunes says no "official intelligence" from allies was
delivered to FBI about that convo prior to July 31. So how did FBI get Downer details? (Political actors?) And what really did
inspire the CI investigation?
7. As for whether to believe line that FBI operated soberly/carefully/judiciously in 2016, a main source for this judgment
is, um . . .uh . . . Sally Yates. Who was in middle of it all. A bit like asking Putin to reassure that Russia didn't meddle in
our election.
8. On that, if u r wondering who narrated this story, note paragraphs that assure everybody that hardly anybody in DOJ knew
about probe. Oh, and Comey also was given few details. Nobody knew nothin'! (Cuz when u require whole story saying u behaved,
it means u know you didn't.)
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes appeared on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday, where he provided a potentially explosive
hint at what's driving his demand to see documents related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Trump-Russia probe. "If the campaign
was somehow set up," he told the hosts, "I think that would be a problem."
Or an understatement. Mr. Nunes is still getting stiff-armed by the Justice Department over his subpoena, but this week his efforts
did force the stunning admission that the FBI had indeed spied on the Trump campaign. This came in the form of a Thursday New York
Times apologia in which government "officials" acknowledged that the bureau had used "at least one" human "informant" to spy
on both Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. The Times slipped this mind-bending fact into the middle of an otherwise glowing
profile of the noble bureau -- and dismissed it as no big deal.
But there's more to be revealed here, and Mr. Nunes's "set up" comment points in a certain direction. Getting to the conclusion
requires thinking more broadly about events beyond the FBI's actions.
Think of the 2016 Trump-Russia narrative as two parallel strands -- one politics, one law enforcement. The political side
involves the actions of Fusion GPS, the Hillary Clinton campaign and Obama officials -- all of whom were focused on destroying Donald
Trump. The law-enforcement strand involves the FBI -- and what methods and evidence it used in its Trump investigation. At some point
these strands intersected -- and one crucial question is how early that happened.
What may well have kicked off both, however, is a key if overlooked moment detailed in the House Intelligence Committee's recent
Russia report .
In "late spring" of 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey briefed White House "National Security Council Principals" that the FBI
had counterintelligence concerns about the Trump campaign. Carter Page was announced as a campaign adviser on March 21, and Paul
Manafort joined the campaign March 29. The briefing likely referenced both men, since both had previously been on the radar of law
enforcement. But here's what matters: With this briefing, Mr. Comey officially notified senior political operators on Team Obama
that the bureau had eyes on Donald Trump and Russia. Imagine what might be done in these partisan times with such explosive information.
And what do you know? Sometime in April, the law firm Perkins Coie (on behalf the Clinton campaign) hired Fusion GPS, and Fusion
turned its attention to Trump-Russia connections. The job of any good swamp operator is to gin up a fatal October surprise for the
opposition candidate. And what could be more devastating than to paint a picture of Trump-Russia collusion that would provoke a full-fledged
FBI investigation?
We already know of at least one way Fusion went about that project, with wild success. It hired former British spy Christopher
Steele to compile that infamous dossier. In July, Mr. Steele wrote a memo that leveled spectacular conspiracy theories against two
particular Trump campaign members -- Messrs. Manafort and Page. For an FBI that already had suspicions about the duo, those allegations
might prove huge -- right? That is, if the FBI were to ever see them. Though, lucky for Mrs. Clinton, July is when the Fusion team
decided it was a matter of urgent national security for Mr. Steele to play off his credentials and to take this political opposition
research to the FBI.
The question Mr. Nunes's committee seems to be investigating is what other moments -- if any -- were engineered in the spring,
summer or fall of 2016 to cast suspicion on Team Trump. The conservative press has produced some intriguing stories about a handful
of odd invitations and meetings that were arranged for Messrs. Page and Papadopoulos starting in the spring -- all emanating from
the United Kingdom. On one hand, that country is home to the well-connected Mr. Steele, which could mean the political actors with
whom he was working were involved. On the other hand, the Justice Department has admitted it was spying on both men, which could
mean government was involved. Or maybe . . . both.
Which brings us to timing. It's long been known that Mr. Steele went to the FBI in early July to talk about the dossier, and
that's the first known intersection of the strands. But given the oddity and timing of those U.K. interactions concerning Messrs.
Page and Papadopoulos, and given the history of some of the people involved in arranging them, some wonder if the two strands were
converging earlier than anyone has admitted. The Intelligence Committee subpoena is designed to sort all this out: Who was pulling
the strings, and what was the goal? Information? Or entrapment?
Whatever the answer-whether it is straightforward, or whether it involves political chicanery-Congress and the public have
a right to know. And a Justice Department willing to leak details of its "top secret" source to friendly media can have no excuse
for not sharing with the duly elected members of Congress.
Thanks for stopping by, Bob. Before you ask me your questions I need you to answer a few of mine:
You have had a full year to investigate the allegations that my campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle
in our election. Has anyone obstructed you from doing this job to the best of your ability? If so, who have you notified of this
and what corrective action have you taken or requested be taken?
Have you found any evidence that I personally committed any crime involving collusion with the Russians to interfere with
the election?
Have you found any evidence that any member of my campaign committed any crime involving collusion with the Russians to
interfere with the election?
Assuming the answers to all 3 are "No" (which they likely are or such evidence would have already leaked to CNN via Clapper)
or if he refuses to answer, inform Muller the meeting and his investigation are over. He is will be escorted to his office to
turn over all records gathered in the investigation to the appropriate DOJ officials, debrief them on his findings and then is
fired and all security clearances revoked.
Let the MSM and Dems bitch and cry all they want. You had a year to find evidence for your phony allegations with your top
investigator on the job, access to millions of documents and millions of taxpayer dollars. You failed because there was no crime
committed. Time to move on.
Of course this is assuming the Mueller investigation is actually what it is purported to be which I have serious doubts about.
I think it's more likely Mueller cut an immunity deal for himself when he met with Trump the day before being appointed as SC
and this whole thing was nothing but a charade to keep Trump's enemies believing Mueller is their guy. This way they put all their
attention and energy into this investigation only to have it blow up in their faces just before the midterms when Trump is fully
vindicated by the guy all his enemies said was above reproach. If that happens watch how fast they all turn on Mueller and every
MSM outlet starts running hit pieces on him the next morning.
Mollie Hemingway's piece on a similar vein in The Federalist. Cunts leak like a sieve to their collusional media scum, but
woe-betied Congress getting access. Fuckers should be hanging from lamposts.
"... House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes appeared on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday, where he provided a potentially explosive hint at what's driving his demand to see documents related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Trump-Russia probe. "If the campaign was somehow set up," he told the hosts, "I think that would be a problem." ..."
"... government "officials" acknowledged that the bureau had used "at least one" human "informant" to spy on both Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. ..."
"... Think of the 2016 Trump-Russia narrative as two parallel strands -- one politics, one law enforcement. The political side involves the actions of Fusion GPS, the Hillary Clinton campaign and Obama officials -- all of whom were focused on destroying Donald Trump. The law-enforcement strand involves the FBI -- and what methods and evidence it used in its Trump investigation. At some point these strands intersected -- and one crucial question is how early that happened. ..."
"... Which brings us to timing. It's long been known that Mr. Steele went to the FBI in early July to talk about the dossier, and that's the first known intersection of the strands. But given the oddity and timing of those U.K. interactions concerning Messrs. Page and Papadopoulos, and given the history of some of the people involved in arranging them, some wonder if the two strands were converging earlier than anyone has admitted. The Intelligence Committee subpoena is designed to sort all this out: Who was pulling the strings, and what was the goal? Information? Or entrapment? ..."
"... Whatever the answer-whether it is straightforward, or whether it involves political chicanery-Congress and the public have a right to know. And a Justice Department willing to leak details of its "top secret" source to friendly media can have no excuse for not sharing with the duly elected members of Congress. ..."
"... Thanks for stopping by, Bob. Before you ask me your questions I need you to answer a few of mine: ..."
"... You have had a full year to investigate the allegations that my campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in our election. Has anyone obstructed you from doing this job to the best of your ability? If so, who have you notified of this and what corrective action have you taken or requested be taken? ..."
"... Have you found any evidence that I personally committed any crime involving collusion with the Russians to interfere with the election? ..."
"... Have you found any evidence that any member of my campaign committed any crime involving collusion with the Russians to interfere with the election? ..."
Earlier in the week, with Trump now calling out the debacle as
"possible bigger than Watergate," Strassel tweet-stormed some key points that everyone -
leftist and right - should consider ... (that's wishful thinking)...
1. So a few important points on that new NYT "Hurricane Crossfire" piece. A story that,
BTW, all of us following this knew had to be coming. This is DOJ/FBI leakers' attempt to get
in front of the facts Nunes is forcing out, to make it not sound so bad. Don't buy it. It's
bad.
2. Biggest takeaway: Govt "sources" admit that, indeed, the Obama DOJ and FBI spied on the
Trump campaign. Spied . (Tho NYT kindly calls spy an "informant.") NYT slips in confirmation
far down in story, and makes it out like it isn't a big deal. It is a very big deal.
3. In self-serving desire to get a sympathetic story about its actions, DOJ/FBI leakers
are willing to provide yet more details about that "top secret" source (namely, that spying
was aimed at Page/Papadopoulos) -- making all more likely/certain source will be outed.
That's on them
4. DOJ/FBI (and its leakers) have shredded what little credibility they have in claiming
they cannot comply with subpoena . They are willing to provide details to friendly media, but
not Congress? Willing to risk very source they claim to need to protect?
5. Back in Dec., NYT assured us it was the Papadopoulos-Downer convo that inspired FBI to
launch official counterintelligence operation on July 31, 2016. Which was convenient, since
it diminished the role of the dossier. However . . .
6. Now NYT tells us FBI didn't debrief Downer until August 2nd. And Nunes says no
"official intelligence" from allies was delivered to FBI about that convo prior to July 31.
So how did FBI get Downer details? (Political actors?) And what really did inspire the CI
investigation?
7. As for whether to believe line that FBI operated soberly/carefully/judiciously in 2016,
a main source for this judgment is, um . . .uh . . . Sally Yates. Who was in middle of it
all. A bit like asking Putin to reassure that Russia didn't meddle in our election.
8. On that, if u r wondering who narrated this story, note paragraphs that assure
everybody that hardly anybody in DOJ knew about probe. Oh, and Comey also was given few
details. Nobody knew nothin'! (Cuz when u require whole story saying u behaved, it means u
know you didn't.)
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes appeared on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday,
where he provided a potentially explosive hint at what's driving his demand to see documents
related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Trump-Russia probe. "If the campaign was
somehow set up," he told the hosts, "I think that would be a problem."
Or an understatement.
Mr. Nunes is still getting stiff-armed by the Justice Department over his subpoena, but this
week his efforts did force the stunning admission that the FBI had indeed spied on the Trump
campaign. This came in the form of a Thursday New York Times apologia in which government
"officials" acknowledged that the bureau had used "at least one" human "informant" to spy on
both Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. The Times slipped this mind-bending fact into the
middle of an otherwise glowing profile of the noble bureau -- and dismissed it as no big deal.
But there's more to be revealed here, and Mr. Nunes's "set up" comment points in a certain
direction. Getting to the conclusion requires thinking more broadly about events beyond the
FBI's actions.
Think of the 2016 Trump-Russia narrative as two parallel strands -- one politics, one law
enforcement. The political side involves the actions of Fusion GPS, the Hillary Clinton
campaign and Obama officials -- all of whom were focused on destroying Donald Trump. The
law-enforcement strand involves the FBI -- and what methods and evidence it used in its Trump
investigation. At some point these strands intersected -- and one crucial question is how early
that happened.
What may well have kicked off both, however, is a key if overlooked moment detailed in the
House Intelligence Committee's recent Russia report .
In "late spring" of 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey briefed White House "National
Security Council Principals" that the FBI had counterintelligence concerns about the Trump
campaign. Carter Page was announced as a campaign adviser on March 21, and Paul Manafort joined
the campaign March 29. The briefing likely referenced both men, since both had previously been
on the radar of law enforcement. But here's what matters: With this briefing, Mr. Comey
officially notified senior political operators on Team Obama that the bureau had eyes on Donald
Trump and Russia. Imagine what might be done in these partisan times with such explosive
information.
And what do you know? Sometime in April, the law firm Perkins Coie (on behalf the Clinton
campaign) hired Fusion GPS, and Fusion turned its attention to Trump-Russia connections. The
job of any good swamp operator is to gin up a fatal October surprise for the opposition
candidate. And what could be more devastating than to paint a picture of Trump-Russia collusion
that would provoke a full-fledged FBI investigation?
We already know of at least one way Fusion went about that project, with wild success. It
hired former British spy Christopher Steele to compile that infamous dossier. In July, Mr.
Steele wrote a memo that leveled spectacular conspiracy theories against two particular Trump
campaign members -- Messrs. Manafort and Page. For an FBI that already had suspicions about the
duo, those allegations might prove huge -- right? That is, if the FBI were to ever see them.
Though, lucky for Mrs. Clinton, July is when the Fusion team decided it was a matter of urgent
national security for Mr. Steele to play off his credentials and to take this political
opposition research to the FBI.
The question Mr. Nunes's committee seems to be investigating is what other moments -- if any
-- were engineered in the spring, summer or fall of 2016 to cast suspicion on Team Trump. The
conservative press has produced some intriguing stories about a handful of odd invitations and
meetings that were arranged for Messrs. Page and Papadopoulos starting in the spring -- all
emanating from the United Kingdom. On one hand, that country is home to the well-connected Mr.
Steele, which could mean the political actors with whom he was working were involved. On the
other hand, the Justice Department has admitted it was spying on both men, which could mean
government was involved. Or maybe . . . both.
Which brings us to timing. It's long been known that Mr. Steele went to the FBI in early
July to talk about the dossier, and that's the first known intersection of the strands. But
given the oddity and timing of those U.K. interactions concerning Messrs. Page and
Papadopoulos, and given the history of some of the people involved in arranging them, some
wonder if the two strands were converging earlier than anyone has admitted. The Intelligence
Committee subpoena is designed to sort all this out: Who was pulling the strings, and what was
the goal? Information? Or entrapment?
Whatever the answer-whether it is straightforward, or whether it involves political chicanery-Congress and the public
have a right to know. And a Justice Department willing to leak details of its "top secret" source to friendly media can have no
excuse for not sharing with the duly elected members of Congress.
Thanks for stopping by, Bob. Before you ask me your questions I need
you to answer a few of mine:
You have had a full year to investigate the allegations that my
campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in our election.
Has anyone obstructed you from doing this job to the best of your
ability? If so, who have you notified of this and what corrective action
have you taken or requested be taken?
Have you found any evidence that I personally committed any crime
involving collusion with the Russians to interfere with the election?
Have you found any evidence that any member of my campaign
committed any crime involving collusion with the Russians to interfere
with the election?
Assuming the answers to all 3 are "No" (which they likely are or such
evidence would have already leaked to CNN via Clapper) or if he refuses to
answer, inform Muller the meeting and his investigation are over. He is
will be escorted to his office to turn over all records gathered in the
investigation to the appropriate DOJ officials, debrief them on his
findings and then is fired and all security clearances revoked.
Let the MSM and Dems bitch and cry all they want. You had a year to
find evidence for your phony allegations with your top investigator on the
job, access to millions of documents and millions of taxpayer dollars.
You failed because there was no crime committed. Time to move on.
Of course this is assuming the Mueller investigation is actually what
it is purported to be which I have serious doubts about. I think it's
more likely Mueller cut an immunity deal for himself when he met with
Trump the day before being appointed as SC and this whole thing was
nothing but a charade to keep Trump's enemies believing Mueller is their
guy. This way they put all their attention and energy into this
investigation only to have it blow up in their faces just before the
midterms when Trump is fully vindicated by the guy all his enemies said
was above reproach. If that happens watch how fast they all turn on
Mueller and every MSM outlet starts running hit pieces on him the next
morning.
The First Rule
bowie28
Permalink
"... On July 27, 2017 the House Judiciary Committee called on the DOJ to appoint a Special Counsel, detailing their concerns in 14 questions pertaining to "actions taken by previously public figures like Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton." ..."
"... On September 26, 2017 , The House Judiciary Committee repeated their call to the DOJ for a special counsel, pointing out that former FBI Director James Comey lied to Congress when he said that he decided not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton until after she was interviewed, when in fact Comey had drafted her exoneration before said interview. ..."
"... And now, the OIG report can tie all of this together - as it will solidify requests by Congressional committees, while also satisfying a legal requirement for the Department of Justice to impartially appoint a Special Counsel. ..."
"... Who cares how many task forces, special prosecutors, grand juries, commissions, or other crap they throw at this black hole of corruption? We all know the score. The best we can hope for is that the liberals and neo-cons are embarrassed enough to crawl under a rock for awhile, and it slows down implementation of their Orwellian agenda for a few years. ..."
As we reported on
Thursday , a long-awaited report by the Department of Justice's internal watchdog into the Hillary Clinton email investigation
has moved into its final phase, as the DOJ notified multiple subjects mentioned in the document that they can privately review it
by week's end, and will have a "few days" to craft any response to criticism contained within the report, according to the
Wall Street Journal .
Those invited to review the report were told they would have to sign nondisclosure agreements in order to read it , people
familiar with the matter said. They are expected to have a few days to craft a response to any criticism in the report, which
will then be incorporated in the final version to be released in coming weeks . -
WSJ
Now, journalist Paul Sperry reports that " IG Horowitz has found "reasonable grounds" for believing there has been a violation
of federal criminal law in the FBI/DOJ's handling of the Clinton investigation/s and has referred his findings of potential criminal
misconduct to Huber for possible criminal prosecution ."
Who is Huber?
As we
reported
in March , Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed John Huber - Utah's top federal prosecutor, to be paired with IG Horowitz
to investigate the multitude of accusations of FBI misconduct surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The announcement came
one day after Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed that he will also be investigating allegations of FBI FISA abuse .
While Huber's appointment fell short of the second special counsel demanded by Congressional investigators and concerned citizens
alike, his appointment and subsequent pairing with Horowitz is notable - as many have pointed out that the Inspector General is significantly
limited in his abilities to investigate. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) noted in March " the IG's office does not have authority to compel
witness interviews, including from past employees, so its investigation will be limited in scope in comparison to a Special Counsel
investigation ,"
Sessions' pairing of Horowitz with Huber keeps the investigation under the DOJ's roof and out of the hands of an independent investigator
.
***
Who is Horowitz?
In January, we profiled Michael Horowitz based on thorough research assembled by independent investigators. For those who think
the upcoming OIG report is just going to be "all part of the show" - take pause; there's a good chance this is an actual happening,
so you may want to read up on the man whose year-long investigation may lead to criminal charges against those involved.
Horowitz was appointed head of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in April, 2012 - after the Obama administration hobbled
the OIG's investigative powers in 2011 during the "Fast and Furious" scandal. The changes forced the various Inspectors General for
all government agencies to request information while conducting investigations, as opposed to the authority to demand it. This allowed
Holder (and other agency heads) to bog down OIG requests in bureaucratic red tape, and in some cases, deny them outright.
What did Horowitz do? As one twitter commentators puts it,
he went to war ...
In March of 2015, Horowitz's office
prepared
a report for Congress titled Open and Unimplemented IG Recommendations . It laid the Obama Admin bare before Congress - illustrating
among other things how the administration was wasting tens-of-billions of dollars by ignoring the recommendations made by the OIG.
After several attempts by congress to restore the OIG's investigative powers, Rep. Jason Chaffetz successfully introduced H.R.6450
- the Inspector General Empowerment Act of 2016 - signed by a defeated lame duck President Obama into law on
December 16th, 2016 , cementing an alliance between Horrowitz and both houses of Congress .
1) Due to the Inspector General Empowerment Act of 2016, the OIG has access to all of the information that the target agency
possesses. This not only includes their internal documentation and data, but also that which the agency externally collected and
documented.
See here for a complete overview of the
OIG's new and restored powers. And while the public won't get to see classified details of the OIG report, Mr. Horowitz is also big
on public disclosure:
Horowitz's efforts to roll back Eric Holder's restrictions on the OIG sealed the working relationship between Congress and the
Inspector General's ofice, and they most certainly appear to be on the same page. Moreover, FBI Director Christopher Wray seems to
be on the same page
Which brings us back to the OIG report
expected by Congress a week from Monday.
On January 12 of last year, Inspector Horowitz announced an OIG investigation based on " requests from numerous Chairmen and Ranking
Members of Congressional oversight committees, various organizations (such as Judicial Watch?), and members of the public ."
The initial focus ranged from the FBI's handling of the Clinton email investigation, to whether or not Deputy FBI Director Andrew
McCabe should have been recused from the investigation (ostensibly over
$700,000 his wife's campaign took from Clinton crony Terry McAuliffe around the time of the email investigation), to potential
collusion with the Clinton campaign and the timing of various FOIA releases. Which brings us back to the
OIG report expected by Congress a week from
Monday.
On July 27, 2017 the House Judiciary Committee called on the DOJ to appoint a Special Counsel, detailing their concerns in
14 questions pertaining to "actions taken by previously public figures like Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey,
and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton."
The questions range from Loretta Lynch directing Mr. Comey to mislead the American people on the nature of the Clinton investigation,
Secretary Clinton's mishandling of classified information and the (mis)handling of her email investigation by the FBI, the DOJ's
failure to empanel a grand jury to investigate Clinton, and questions about the Clinton Foundation, Uranium One, and whether the
FBI relied on the "Trump-Russia" dossier created by Fusion GPS.
On September 26, 2017 , The House Judiciary Committee repeated their call to the DOJ for a special counsel, pointing out that
former FBI Director James Comey lied to Congress when he said that he decided not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton
until after she was interviewed, when in fact Comey had drafted her exoneration before said interview.
And now, the OIG report can tie all of this together - as it will solidify requests by Congressional committees, while also
satisfying a legal requirement for the Department of Justice to impartially appoint a Special Counsel.
As illustrated below by TrumpSoldier , the report will go from the Office of the Inspector General to both investigative committees
of Congress, along with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and is expected within weeks .
Once congress has reviewed the OIG report, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees will use it to supplement their investigations
, which will result in hearings with the end goal of requesting or demanding a Special Counsel investigation. The DOJ can appoint
a Special Counsel at any point, or wait for Congress to demand one. If a request for a Special Counsel is ignored, Congress can pass
legislation to force an the appointment.
And while the DOJ could act on the OIG report and investigate / prosecute themselves without a Special Counsel, it is highly unlikely
that Congress would stand for that given the subjects of the investigation.
After the report's completion, the DOJ will weigh in on it. Their comments are key. As TrumpSoldier points out in his analysis,
the DOJ can take various actions regarding " Policy, personnel, procedures, and re-opening of investigations. In short, just about
everything (Immunity agreements can also be rescinded). "
Meanwhile, recent events appear to correspond with bullet points in both the original OIG investigation letter and the 7/27/2017
letter forwarded to the Inspector General:
... ... ...
With the wheels set in motion last week seemingly align with Congressional requests and the OIG mandate, and the upcoming OIG
report likely to serve as a foundational opinion, the DOJ will finally be empowered to move forward with an impartially appointed
Special Counsel.
"To save his presidency, Trump must expose a host of criminally cunning Deep State political operatives as enemies to the Constitution,
including John Brennan, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, James Comey and Robert Mueller - as well as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton."
Killing the Deep State , Dr Jerome Corsi, PhD., p xi
I've been more than upfront about my philosophy. I have said on more than one occasion that progs will rue the day they drove
a New Yorker like Trump even further to the right.
Now you see it in his actions from the judiciary to bureaucracy destruction to (pick any) and...as I often cite... some old
dead white guy once said ..."First they came for the ___ and I did not speak out. Then they came for..."
Now I advocate for progs to swim in their own deadly juices, without a moment's hesitation on my part, without any furtive
look back, without remorse or any compassion whatsover.
Forward! ...I think is what they said, welcome to the Death Star ;-)
There have been (and are) plenty on "our side"...Boehner, Cantor, McCain, Romney and the thinly disguised "social democrat"
Bill Kristol just to name several off the top of my head but the thing is, they always have to hide what they really are from
us until rooted out.
That's what I try to point out to "our friends" on the left all the time, for example, there was never any doubt that Chris
Dodd, Bwaney Fwank and Chuck Schumer were (and are) in Wall Streets back pocket. But for any prog to openly admit that is to sign
some sort of personal death warrant, to be ostracized, blacklisted and harassed out of "the liberal community" so, they bite their
tongue & say nothing...knowing what the truth really is.
Hell, they even named a "financial reform bill" after Dodd & Frank...LMAO!!!
It's just the dripping hypocrisy that gets me.
For another example, they knew what was going on with Weinstein, Lauer, Spacey, Rose etal but as long as the cash flowed and
they towed-the-prog-BS-line outwardly, they gladly looked the other way and in the end...The Oprah...gives a speech in front of
them (as they bark & clap like trained seals) about...Jim Crow?
Jim Crow?!...lol...one has nothing to do with the other Oprah! The perps & enablers are sitting right there in front of you!
"After the report's completion, the DOJ will weigh in on it. Their comments are key. As TrumpSoldier points out in his analysis,
the DOJ can take various actions regarding " Policy, personnel, procedures, and re-opening of investigations. In short, just about
everything (Immunity agreements can also be rescinded). "
Rescind Immunity, absolutely damn right, put them ALL under oath and on the stand! This is huge! Indeed this goes all the way
to the top, would like to see Obama and the 'career criminal' testify under oath explaining how their tribe conspired to frame
Trump and the American people.
Hell, put them on trial in a military court for Treason, what's the punishment for Treason these days???
Also would like to see Kerry get fried under the 'Logan Act'!
As are half of their fellow travelers in the GOP. Neocon liars. Talk small constitutional govt then vote for war. Those two
are direct opposites, war and small govt. The liars must be exposed and removed. The Never Trumpers have outed themselves but
many are hiding in plain sight proclaiming they support the President. It appears they have manipulated Trump into an aggressive
stance against Russia with their anti Russia hysteria. Time will tell. The bank and armament industries must be removed from any
kind of influence within our govt. Most of these are run by big govt collectivists aka communists/globalists.
Who cares how many task forces, special prosecutors, grand juries, commissions, or other crap they throw at this black
hole of corruption? We all know the score. The best we can hope for is that the liberals and neo-cons are embarrassed enough to
crawl under a rock for awhile, and it slows down implementation of their Orwellian agenda for a few years.
FBI monitored phone calls of Trump's personal lawyer
Notable quotes:
"... US prosecutors, according to news reports, have also been covertly reading Cohen's emails. ..."
"... Spying on a lawyer's phone calls and Internet communications is considered highly unusual, given the principle of lawyer-client privilege. However, the Daily Beast ..."
"... Indeed, Trump's enemies within the ruling elite and the state apparatus know with whom they are dealing. The billionaire president is a representative of the criminal American financial oligarchy, a product of the New York real estate, casino gambling and reality TV milieu. His election expressed the degradation of American bourgeois politics and the entire political system. ..."
"... That being said, the methods being employed by Trump's factional opponents within the ruling elite are profoundly anti-democratic. The Mueller investigation itself is based on concocted and unsubstantiated allegations of Russian "meddling" in the elections and collusion by the Trump campaign in Moscow's supposed efforts to swing the election in his favor. ..."
"... This narrative, which has dominated US politics for nearly two years, has been used by the Democratic Party and most of the corporate media to attempt to whip up a war hysteria against Russia and force Trump to more rapidly escalate Washington's wars in the Middle East. It is also the pretext for the expanding campaign to censor the Internet and criminalize political dissent in the name of combating foreign-inspired "fake news." ..."
"... The context for the latest revelations is a sharpening of the conflict between the Trump White House and Mueller. Over the past several weeks, Trump has reshuffled the legal team handling his dealings with the special counsel to pursue a more aggressive legal response to the investigation. Last month, Trump named former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to head the team, following the resignation of John Dowd in March. ..."
"... This week, the White House announced the resignation of Ty Cobb, who had counseled Trump to adopt a cooperative posture toward Mueller, advising that such a course would lead to a more rapid conclusion to the investigation. Not only has that not occurred, but Mueller has increased pressure on Trump to agree to an interview with his investigators. ..."
"... Flood has been described in the press as a "wartime consigliere." His appointment is seen as increasing the possibility of a legal fight to block an interview with Mueller that could ultimately go to the US Supreme Court. ..."
"... In a Wednesday night television interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, Giuliani excoriated former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired last May after Comey announced that the FBI was investigating possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia. Giuliani called him "a disgraceful liar" and said he should be indicted for leaking "confidential FBI information." He called the Mueller probe "a completely tainted investigation" and denounced the FBI raid on Cohen as a "storm trooper" operation. ..."
Multiple media reports on Thursday revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation monitored and logged the phone calls of President
Donald Trump's personal lawyer and confidante, Michael Cohen, in the period leading up to the FBI raid on Cohen's office and residences
in April.
According to NBC News, at least one of the calls that were tracked was between Cohen and Trump.
The extraordinary fact that the federal government's chief police agency, an integral part of the country's intelligence network,
is monitoring telephone communications between the president and his self-described "fixer" points to the explosive level of conflict
within the American ruling class and its state.
The revelation comes a month after the FBI, based on a referral from Robert Mueller, the special counsel who is investigating
alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion by the Trump campaign, raided Cohen's office and residences
as part of a criminal probe into his business dealings. FBI agents seized Cohen's financial records, computer hard drive, cell phones
and taped recordings of conversations. Ostensibly, the main concern of federal prosecutors is Cohen's involvement in hush-money payoffs
to two women, a porn star and a former Playboy playmate, who claim to have had sexual relations with Trump.
US prosecutors, according to news reports, have also been covertly reading Cohen's emails.
Spying on a lawyer's phone calls and Internet communications is considered highly unusual, given the principle of lawyer-client
privilege. However, the Daily Beast quoted Ken White, a former federal prosecutor, as saying, "That sort of thing happens
all the time if you're dealing with mob wiretaps."
Indeed, Trump's enemies within the ruling elite and the state apparatus know with whom they are dealing. The billionaire president
is a representative of the criminal American financial oligarchy, a product of the New York real estate, casino gambling and reality
TV milieu. His election expressed the degradation of American bourgeois politics and the entire political system.
There is little doubt that the FBI and Mueller have seized more than enough evidence of wrong-doing in Trump's business dealings
to bring down an indictment, either to attempt a criminal prosecution -- never before carried out against a sitting president --
or force Trump to resign. Alternately, an indictment could become part of an impeachment effort should the Democrats win control
of the House of Representatives in the November midterm elections.
No one is more aware of the threat posed by these developments than Trump himself.
That being said, the methods being employed by Trump's factional opponents within the ruling elite are profoundly anti-democratic.
The Mueller investigation itself is based on concocted and unsubstantiated allegations of Russian "meddling" in the elections and
collusion by the Trump campaign in Moscow's supposed efforts to swing the election in his favor.
This narrative, which has dominated US politics for nearly two years, has been used by the Democratic Party and most of the corporate
media to attempt to whip up a war hysteria against Russia and force Trump to more rapidly escalate Washington's wars in the Middle
East. It is also the pretext for the expanding campaign to censor the Internet and criminalize political dissent in the name of combating
foreign-inspired "fake news."
These are the methods of palace coup, without the slightest democratic or progressive content. Should Trump be removed as a result
of such a campaign, the result would be to shift the political system even further to the right.
The context for the latest revelations is a sharpening of the conflict between the Trump White House and Mueller. Over the past
several weeks, Trump has reshuffled the legal team handling his dealings with the special counsel to pursue a more aggressive legal
response to the investigation. Last month, Trump named former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to head the team, following the resignation
of John Dowd in March.
This week, the White House announced the resignation of Ty Cobb, who had counseled Trump to adopt a cooperative posture toward
Mueller, advising that such a course would lead to a more rapid conclusion to the investigation. Not only has that not occurred,
but Mueller has increased pressure on Trump to agree to an interview with his investigators.
This week, it was reported that in discussions with Trump's lawyers in March, Mueller threatened to subpoena Trump to appear before
a grand jury if he did not voluntarily agree to an interview. On Wednesday, it was announced that Emmet Flood, a Republican who served
as one of Bill Clinton's lawyers during the House of Representatives impeachment process in 1998, would replace Cobb.
Flood has been described in the press as a "wartime consigliere." His appointment is seen as increasing the possibility of a legal
fight to block an interview with Mueller that could ultimately go to the US Supreme Court.
In a Wednesday night television interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, Giuliani excoriated former FBI Director James Comey, whom
Trump fired last May after Comey announced that the FBI was investigating possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia. Giuliani
called him "a disgraceful liar" and said he should be indicted for leaking "confidential FBI information." He called the Mueller
probe "a completely tainted investigation" and denounced the FBI raid on Cohen as a "storm trooper" operation.
He cited a list of 49 questions for Trump prepared by Trump's lawyers on the basis of an oral presentation by Mueller's investigators
and called the wide-ranging queries concerning links to Russians and potential obstruction of justice, including the firing of Comey,
a "perjury trap." The questions were leaked and published earlier this week by the New York Times . The Times ,
along with the Washington Post , have been in the forefront of the media witch hunt against Russia.
On the question of Trump agreeing to be interviewed by Mueller, Giuliani said, "Right now, the odds are against it."
Most of the media commentary on the interview has focused on Giuliani's statement that Trump reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000
in hush money he paid to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election. Cohen has said he paid the money from his own
funds and without Trump's knowledge, and last month Trump told reporters that he had no knowledge of the payoff.
It is striking that despite the media obsession with Trump and Russia, and the single-minded focus of the Democratic Party on
this reactionary campaign, the public remains skeptical, if not hostile, to the entire matter. The Democrats have said virtually
nothing about Trump's war on immigrants, including the barbaric treatment of the Central American caravan of refugees forced to camp
out at the US border and the denial of their right to asylum. The Democratic Party has dropped its phony opposition to Trump's tax
cut for corporations and the rich and barely noted the mounting assault on social programs, from Medicaid to food stamps to housing
subsidies for the poor.
This is reflected in recent polls, which show Trump's approval rating actually increasing and the Democrats' edge in the coming
midterm elections cut in half since the beginning of the year.
There is mass opposition in the working class and among young people to Trump and his chauvinist, militarist and pro-corporate
policies. It is reflected in the upsurge of teachers' strikes and protests in defiance of the corporatist unions, which the unions
and the Democrats are doing everything they can to isolate and suppress.
This emerging movement of the working class in the US and internationally is intensifying the warfare within the American ruling
class and state. The crisis is being fueled not only by sharp differences over foreign policy -- including tactical differences over
Trump's threat to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and his trade war measures -- but also by a general loss of confidence in Trump's
ability to manage either the global affairs of US imperialism or the tense internal social and political situation.
The independent social and political struggle of the working class is the only basis for a progressive solution to the crisis
of American capitalism. The opposition of workers to Trump can find no progressive outlet within the framework of the capitalist
two-party system. Both factions in the current political wars, notwithstanding their bitter differences, agree on a strategy of expanding
war abroad and austerity and repression at home.
"... Republicans have repeatedly accused Rosenstein of being unnecessarily slow in providing the documents they say are necessary for carrying out several parallel congressional investigations into FBI decision-making. Some of them have suggested the Justice Department is biased against Trump and now seeking to hide the evidence. ..."
"... The seventh and eighth articles of impeachment in the draft document charge Rosenstein of "knowingly and intentionally prevented the production of all documents and information" related to potential abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the federal government's initial investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. ..."
"... It was Rosenstein who authored the memo criticizing former FBI Director James Comey , which the White House ultimately used to justify his firing. Trump later indicated that he removed Comey in part because of the Russia investigation, which helped open him up to charges of obstruction of justice. ..."
"... After Comey's firing, it was Rosenstein who decided to appoint Mueller, a former FBI director who is widely respected for his prosecutorial skill and independence, as special counsel to handle the Russia probe. ..."
"... Since then, Rosenstein has given Mueller a broad mandat e to investigate any criminal activity uncovered by his work, angering the president and his allies. ..."
"... In addition, Rosenstein reportedly signed off on the FBI's raid of Michael Cohen, Trump's long-time personal attorney, fueling widespread speculation that the president might fire him. Rosenstein has privately told allies that he is prepared for the possibility of being dismissed, according to NBC News , but his appearance Tuesday made clear he has no intention of caving to outside pressure. ..."
"... He described a process in which a career federal law enforcement officer swears on an affidavit that the information they presented in a FISA application is both "true and correct" to the best of his or her knowledge and belief. While mistakes do happen and there are consequences for those who erred, he said, the agency employs "people who are accountable." ..."
"... "If the focus is Rod Rosenstein and whether he has done something or failed to do something that could remotely warrant impeachment, I think it's just groundless," said Jack Sharman, a former special counsel to Congress during the Whitewater investigations. ..."
Rosenstein defiant as impeachment talk rises By Olivia Beavers and Morgan Chalfant - 05/03/18 06:00 AM EDT
2,577 63 Ex-doctor says Trump dictated letter claiming he would be 'healthiest' president ever Trump- South Korean president
gives us all the credit Rosenstein knocks Republicans who want to impeach him: 'They can't even resist leaking their own drafts'
White House dodges on Mueller questions Sanders: White House tries to 'never be concerned' with Adam Schiff White House talking to
Waffle House hero about Trump meeting White House says Trump is 'very happy' with chief of staff White House: Jackson no longer serving
as Trump's lead physician Chaplain controversy shifts spotlight to rising GOP star Pruitt's head of security resigns Trump’s
ex-doctor says Trump associates 'raided' his office Romney praises Trump's first year in office: It's similar to things 'I'd have
done' WHCD host: Sarah Sanders lies Netanyahu: iran deal flawed, based on lies WHCD host: Trump is not rich Conservative House lawmakers
draft articles of impeachment against Rosenstein List reveals questions Mueller wants to ask Trump: report NBC: White House chief
of staff told aides women 'more emotional' than men McCain torches Trump in new book: He prioritizes appearance of toughness over
American values White House chief of staff denies report he called Trump an idiot Trump: Threats to pull out of Iran deal 'sends
the right message' Trump: We don't want to be the policemen of the world Trump campaign covered some of Cohen's legal costs: report
Democrats losing support of millennials: poll Cruz again questioning McConnell’s strategies Ex-Bush ethics official to run
for Franken's former Senate seat as Dem: report Parkland survivor calls out NRA for banning guns at convention Michelle Wolf pushes
back on criticism of Sarah Sanders jokes 7 targets Michelle Wolf took aim at during the White House correspondents’ dinner
Trump: If Dems win in 2018 midterms, they'll impeach me WHCD host calls Trump ‘cowardly’ for skipping event again Trump
threatens to 'close down the country' over funding for border wall GOP chairman 'doesn't have a problem' with Tester's handling of
Jackson allegations Election forecaster: Nunes seat no longer ‘safe’ Republican Washington’s heavy-drinking ways
in spotlight Stars of 'Veep,' 'West Wing' to lobby lawmakers ahead of White House correspondents' dinner Republican worries 'assassination
risk' prompting lawmaker resignations Gillibrand unveils bill to offer banking services at post offices Meehan resigns with promise
to pay back alleged sexual harassment claim Rosenstein knocks Republicans who want to impeach him: 'They can't even resist leaking
their own drafts'
On Tuesday, the deputy attorney general
rebuked the nascent conservative effort to impeach him, likely exacerbating tensions with conservatives in the House. House Republicans
are demanding access to classified documents related to special counsel
Robert Mueller's investigation, including a heavily redacted
memo that spells out the scope of the investigation.
"There is really nothing to comment on there, but just give me the documents. The bottom line is, he needs to be give me the documents,"
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said during an interview with
The Hill on Wednesday when asked about his response to Rosenstein.
"I have one goal in mind, and that is not somebody's job or the termination of somebody's job, it is getting the documents and
making sure we can do proper oversight," he said, adding that there are "no current plans to introduce an impeachment resolution."
Republican lawmakers led by Meadows, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus one of
President Trump's top allies in Congress, have
drafted eight articles of impeachment against Rosenstein. The articles make a series of charges against Rosenstein and question
his credibility, reputation and fitness to serve.
Conservatives have called the impeachment articles a last resort. Rosenstein dismissed the impeachment threat and went a step
further by suggesting the Justice Department's independence is being threatened. "There have been people who have been making threats
privately and publicly against me for quite some time, and I think they should understand by now the Department of Justice is not
going to be extorted," Rosenstein said during an appearance at the Newseum. "I just don't have anything to say about documents like
that that nobody has the courage to put their name on and they leak in that way," he continued, after quipping earlier that the lawmakers
"can't even resist leaking their own drafts."
Rosenstein, a career Justice Department official, is widely respected in legal circles. He has been praised for his work leading
the U.S. attorney's office in Maryland, a position to which he was appointed by President George W. Bush and served in for 12 years,
spanning Republican and Democratic administrations. Rosenstein's years of service at the department came through in his public remarks,
lawyers say.
"With a guy like Rosenstein, you can't underestimate the deep connection that many career -- not all -- but many career Justice
Department officials have to the department," said Steven Cash, a lawyer at Day Pitney. "It defines their self image as participating
in ensuring the rule of law in a way you often don't see in other departments -- they are very, very proud of their association with
the department, its traditions, history and independence."
But Rosenstein has plenty of critics on Capitol Hill, where some Republicans accuse him of hindering legitimate oversight.
Republicans have repeatedly accused Rosenstein of being unnecessarily slow in providing the documents they say are necessary
for carrying out several parallel congressional investigations into FBI decision-making. Some of them have suggested the Justice
Department is biased against Trump and now seeking to hide the evidence.
The seventh and eighth articles of impeachment
in the draft document charge Rosenstein of "knowingly and intentionally prevented the production of all documents and information"
related to potential abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the federal government's initial investigation
into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The charges appear to have caught the attention of the president, who threatened to get involved on Wednesday morning.
"A Rigged System -- They don't want to turn over Documents to Congress. What are they afraid of? Why so much redacting? Why such
unequal 'justice?' At some point I will have no choice but to use the powers granted to the Presidency and get involved," Trump tweeted.
Since Trump appointed Rosenstein to serve as deputy attorney general, he has become a key player in the drama surrounding the
Mueller investigation.
It was Rosenstein who authored the memo criticizing former FBI Director
James Comey, which the White House ultimately used to justify
his firing. Trump later indicated that he removed Comey in part because of the Russia investigation, which helped open him up to
charges of obstruction of justice.
Rosenstein has defended the memo on Comey, pointing to criticism from both parties about Comey's handling of the investigation
into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 's use of
a private email server before the 2016 presidential election.
After Comey's firing, it was Rosenstein
who decided to appoint Mueller, a former FBI director who is widely respected for his prosecutorial skill and independence, as
special counsel to handle the Russia probe.
Since then, Rosenstein has given Mueller a
broad mandat e to investigate any criminal activity uncovered by his work, angering the president and his allies.
In addition, Rosenstein
reportedly signed off on the FBI's raid of Michael Cohen, Trump's long-time personal attorney, fueling widespread speculation
that the president might fire him. Rosenstein has privately told allies that he is prepared for the possibility of being dismissed,
according to NBC News , but his appearance Tuesday made clear he has no intention of caving to outside pressure.
Rosenstein took issue with allegations detailed in the impeachment draft, including the charge that he failed to properly supervise
surveillance applications.
He described a process in which a career federal law enforcement officer swears on an affidavit that the information they
presented in a FISA application is both "true and correct" to the best of his or her knowledge and belief. While mistakes do happen
and there are consequences for those who erred, he said, the agency employs "people who are accountable."
It's unclear yet whether an impeachment push will gain traction among rank-and-file Republicans; GOP leaders have remained silent
on the matter. AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Speaker Paul Ryan
(R-Wis.), indicated Wednesday that he sees no reason to fire Rosenstein, as he said earlier this year. Some GOP lawmakers in
recent weeks have also said they've seen improvement from the Justice Department in responding to documents requests.
"If the focus is Rod Rosenstein and whether he has done something or failed to do something that could remotely warrant impeachment,
I think it's just groundless," said Jack Sharman, a former special counsel to Congress during the Whitewater investigations.
Still, Rosenstein's remarks are sure to ramp up tensions between two sides. Ford O'Connell, a Republican strategist, said Rosenstein
came off as "cagey" in his defense and raised questions about what he may be trying to hide. "Everyone knows that this is heating
up and both sides are gearing up for a fight," O'Connell told The Hill.
The dramatic rise fo the number of CIA-democrats as candidates from Democratic Party is not assedental. As regular clintonites
are discredited those guys can still appeal to patriotism to get elected.
Notable quotes:
"... Bernie continuously forcing Hillary to appear apologetic about her campaign funding from big financial interests. She tries hard to persuade the public that she will not serve specific interests. Her anxiety can be identified in many cases and it was very clear at the moment when she accused Bernie of attacking her, concerning this funding. Hillary was forced to respond with a deeply irrational argument: anyone who takes money from big interests doesn't mean that he/she will vote for policies in favor of these interests! ..."
"... Bernie drives the discussion towards fundamental ideological issues. He forced Hillary to defend her "progressiveness". She was forced to speak even about economic interests by names. A few years ago, this would be nearly a taboo in any debate between any primaries. ..."
"... After the disastrous defeat by Trump in 2016 election, the corporate Democrats realized that the progressive movement, supported mostly by the American youth, would not retreat and vanish. On the contrary, Bernie Sanders' popularity still goes up and there is a wave of progressive candidates who appear to be a real threat to the DNC establishment and the Clintonian empire. ..."
"... It seems that the empire has upgraded its dirty tactics beyond Hillary's false relocation to the Left. Seeing the big threat from the real progressives, the empire seeks to "plant" its own agents, masked as progressives, inside the electoral process, to disorientate voters and steal the popular vote. ..."
"... This is a Master's class in blatant historical revisionism and outright dishonesty. Beals was not a soldier unwillingly drafted into service, but an intelligence officer who voluntarily accepted an influential and critically important post for the Bush Administration in its ever-expanding crime against humanity in Iraq. ..."
During the 2016 Democratic party primaries we wrote that
what Bernie achieved, is to bring back the real political discussion in America, at least concerning the Democratic camp. Bernie
smartly "drags" his primary rival, Hillary Clinton, into the heart of the politics. Up until a few years ago, you could not observe
too much difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, who were just following the pro-establishment "politics as usual",
probably with a few, occasional exceptions. The "politics as usual" so far, was "you can't touch the Wall Street", for example.
Bernie continuously forcing Hillary to appear apologetic about her campaign funding from big financial interests. She tries hard
to persuade the public that she will not serve specific interests. Her anxiety can be identified in many cases and it was very clear
at the moment when she accused Bernie of attacking her, concerning this funding. Hillary was forced to respond with a deeply irrational
argument: anyone who takes money from big interests doesn't mean that he/she will vote for policies in favor of these interests!
Bernie drives the discussion towards fundamental ideological issues. He forced Hillary to defend her "progressiveness". She was
forced to speak even about economic interests by names. A few years ago, this would be nearly a taboo in any debate between any primaries.
After the disastrous defeat by Trump in 2016 election, the corporate Democrats realized that the progressive movement, supported
mostly by the American youth, would not retreat and vanish. On the contrary, Bernie Sanders' popularity still goes up and there is
a wave of progressive candidates who appear to be a real threat to the DNC establishment and the Clintonian empire.
It seems that the empire has upgraded its dirty tactics beyond Hillary's false relocation to the Left. Seeing the big threat from
the real progressives, the empire seeks to "plant" its own agents, masked as progressives, inside the electoral process, to disorientate
voters and steal the popular vote.
Eric Draitser gives us valuable information for such a type of candidate. Key points:
One candidate currently generating some buzz in the race is Jeff Beals, a self-identified "Bernie democrat" whose campaign website
homepage describes him as a " local teacher and former U.S. diplomat endorsed by the national organization of former Bernie Sanders
staffers, the Justice Democrats. " And indeed, Beals centers his progressive bona fides to brand himself as one of the inheritors
of the progressive torch lit by Sanders in 2016. A smart political move, to be sure. But is it true?
Beals describes himself as a "former U.S. diplomat," touting his expertise on international issues born of his experience overseas.
In an email interview with CounterPunch, Beals describes his campaign as a " movement for diplomacy and peace in foreign affairs
and an end to militarism my experience as a U.S. diplomat is what drives it and gives this movement such force. " OK, sounds
good, a very progressive sounding answer. But what did Beals actually do during his time overseas?
By his own admission, Beals' overseas career began as an intelligence officer with the CIA. His fluency in Arabic and knowledge
of the region made him an obvious choice to be an intelligence spook during the latter stages of the Clinton Administration.
Beals shrewdly attempts to portray himself as an opponent of neocon imperialism in Iraq. In his interview with CounterPunch, Beals
argued that " The State Department was sidelined as the Bush administration and a neoconservative cabal plunged America into the
tragic Iraq War. As a U.S. diplomat fluent in Arabic and posted in Jerusalem at the time, I was called over a year into the war to
help our country find a way out. "
This is a Master's class in blatant historical revisionism and outright dishonesty. Beals was not a soldier unwillingly drafted
into service, but an intelligence officer who voluntarily accepted an influential and critically important post for the Bush Administration
in its ever-expanding crime against humanity in Iraq.
Moreover, no one who knows anything about the Iraq War could possibly swallow the tripe that CIA/State Department officials in
Iraq were " looking to help our country find a way out " a year into the war. A year into the war, the bloodletting was only
just beginning, and Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil, and the other corporate vultures had yet to fully exploit the country and make billions
off it. So, unfortunately for Beals, the historical memory of the anti-war Left is not that short.
It is self-evident that Beals has a laundry list of things in his past that he must answer for. For those of us, especially Millennials,
who cut our activist teeth demonstrating and organizing against the Iraq War, Beals' distortions about his role in Iraq go down like
hemlock tea. But it is the associations Beals maintains today that really should give any progressive serious pause.
When asked by CounterPunch whether he has any connections to either Bernie Sanders and his surrogates or Hillary Clinton and hers,
Beals responded by stating: " I am endorsed by Justice Democrats, a group of former Bernie Sanders staffers who are pledged to
electing progressives nationwide. I am also endorsed for the Greene County chapter of the New York Progressive Action Network, formerly
the Bernie Sanders network. My first hire was a former Sanders field coordinator who worked here in NY-19. "
However, conveniently missing from that response is the fact that Beals' campaign has been, and continues to be, directly managed
in nearly every respect by Bennett Ratcliff, a longtime friend and ally of Hillary Clinton. Ratcliff is not mentioned in any publicly
available documents as a campaign manager, though the most recent FEC filings show that as of April 1, 2018, Ratcliff was still on
the payroll of the Beals campaign. And in the video of Beals' campaign kickoff rally, Ratcliff introduces Beals, while only being
described as a member of the Onteora School Board in Ulster County . This is sort of like referring to Donald Trump as an avid
golfer.
Beals has studiously, and rather intelligently, avoided mentioning Ratcliff, or the presence of Clinton's inner circle on his
campaign. However, according to internal campaign documents and emails obtained by CounterPunch, Ratcliff manages nearly every aspect
of the campaign, acting as a sort of éminence grise behind the artifice of a progressive campaign fronted by a highly educated and
photogenic political novice.
By his own admission, Ratcliff's role on the campaign is strategy, message, and management. Sounds like a rather textbook description
of a campaign manager. Indeed, Ratcliff has been intimately involved in "guiding" Beals on nearly every important campaign decision,
especially those involving fundraising .
And it is in the realm of fundraising that Ratcliff really shines, but not in the way one would traditionally think. Rather than
focusing on large donations and powerful interests, Ratcliff is using the Beals campaign as a laboratory for his strategy of winning
elections without raising millions of dollars.
In fact, leaked campaign documents show that Ratcliff has explicitly instructed Beals and his staffers not to spend money on
food, decorations, and other standard campaign expenses in hopes of presenting the illusion of a grassroots, people-powered campaign
with no connections to big time donors or financial elites .
It seems that Ratcliff is the wizard behind the curtain, leveraging his decades of contact building and close ties to the Democratic
Party establishment while at the same time manufacturing an astroturfed progressive campaign using a front man in Beals .
One of Ratcliff's most infamous, and indefensible, acts of fealty to the Clinton machine came in 2009 when he and longtime Clinton
attorney and lobbyist, Lanny Davis, stumped around Washington to garner support for the illegal right-wing coup in Honduras, which
ousted the democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya in favor of the right-wing oligarchs who control the country today. Although
the UN, and even U.S. diplomats on the ground in Honduras, openly stated that the coup was illegal, Clinton was adamant to actively
keep Zelaya out.
Essentially then, Ratcliff is a chief architect of the right-wing government in Honduras – the same government assassinating feminist
and indigenous activists like Berta Cáceres, Margarita Murillo, and others, and forcibly displacing and ethnically cleansing Afro-indigenous
communities to make way for Carribbean resorts and golf courses.
And this Washington insider lobbyist and apologist for war criminals and crimes against humanity is the guy who's on a crusade
to reform campaign finance and fix Washington? This is the guy masquerading as a progressive? This is the guy working to elect an
"anti-war progressive"?
In a twisted way it makes sense. Ratcliff has the blood of tens of thousands of Hondurans (among others) on his hands, while Beals
is a creature of Langley, a CIA boy whose exceptional work in the service of Bush and Clinton administration war criminals is touted
as some kind of merit badge on his resume.
What also becomes clear after establishing the Ratcliff-Beals connection is the fact that Ratcliff's purported concern with
campaign financing and "taking back the Republic" is really just a pretext for attempting to provide a "proof of concept," as it
were, that neoliberal Democrats shouldn't fear and subvert the progressive wing of the party, but rather that they should co-opt
it with a phony grassroots facade all while maintaining links to U.S. intelligence, Wall Street, and the power brokers of the Democratic
Party .
Comey, who was FBI chief from 2013 to 2017, was quoting a line reputedly uttered by
Martin Luther in 1521, when he told Holy Roman Emperor Charles V that he would not recan t his sweeping criticisms of the Catholic
Church. Comey's quotation of himself quoting the father of the Reformation is par for the self-reverence of his new memoir, A Higher
Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership .
MSNBC host Chris Matthews recently declared,
"James Comey made his bones by standing up against torture. He was a made man before Trump came along."
Washington Post columnist Fareed Zakaria , in a column declaring that Americans should be "deeply grateful" to lawyers like Comey,
declared, "The Bush administration wanted to claim that its 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were lawful. Comey believed they
were not... So Comey pushed back as much as he could."
Martin Luther risked death to fight against what he considered the heresies of his time. Comey, a top Bush administration policymaker,
found a safer way to oppose the worldwide secret U.S. torture regime widely considered a heresy against American values. Comey
approved brutal practices and then wrote some memos and emails fretting about the optics.
Rather than ending the abuses, Comey repudiated the memo. Speaking to the media in a not-for-attribution session on June 22, 2004,
Comey declared that
the 2002 memo was "overbroad," "abstract academic theory," and "legally unnecessary ." Comey helped oversee crafting a new memo
with different legal footing to justify the same interrogation methods.
In 2014, the Senate Intelligence Committee finally released a massive report, Americans learned grisly details of the CIA torture
regime that Comey helped legally sanctify - including
death via hypothermia, rape-like rectal feeding of detainees, compelling detainees to stand long periods on broken legs, and dozens
of cases of innocent people pointlessly brutalized. Psychologists aided the torture regime, offering hints on how to destroy
the will and resistance of prisoners. The only CIA official to go to prison for the torture scandal was courageous whistleblower
John Kiriakou.
If Comey had resigned in 2004 or 2005 to protest the torture techniques he now claims to abhor, he would deserve some of the praise
he is now receiving. Instead, he remained in the Bush administration but wrote an email summarizing his objections, declaring that
"it was my job to protect the department
and the A.G. [Attorney General] and that I could not agree to this because it was wrong." A 2009 New York Times analysis noted
that Comey and two colleagues "have largely escaped criticism [for approving torture] because
they raised questions about interrogation
and the law." In Washington, writing emails is "close enough for government work" to convey sainthood.
Fl*ck Comey. OMG. I've been wanting to puke into a wastebasket over all of Comey's crap lately. Actually, wanting to puke is
one of my best bullshit barometers. He's a lying sack of shit, strutting his sanctimonious arrogance all over the tee-vee. Meanwhile
back home his family of women wear pink hats to protest Trump. Wonder if James the Great told his family members he approved torture?
Key figures on anti-trump color revolution including Mueller, Rosenstein and Comey are closely connected with Clinton foundation
Notable quotes:
"... Guess who took over this investigation in 2002? Bet you can't guess. No other than James Comey. ..."
"... Guess who ran the Tax Division inside the Department of Injustice from 2001 to 2005? No other than the Assistant Attorney General of the United States, Rod Rosenstein. ..."
"... Guess who was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation during this time frame??? I know, it's a miracle, just a coincidence, just an anomaly in statistics and chances: Robert Mueller. ..."
"... Then of all surprises, in April 2016, James Comey drafts an exoneration letter of Hillary Rodham Clinton, meanwhile the DOJ is handing out immunity deals like candy on Halloween. ..."
"... The DOJ didn't even convene a Grand Jury. Like a lightning bolt of statistical impossibility, like a miracle from God himself, like the true "Gangsta" Homey is, James steps out into the cameras of an awaiting press conference on July the 8th of 2016 and exonerates the Hillary from any wrongdoing. ..."
"... It goes on and on, Rosenstein becomes Asst. Attorney General, Comey gets fired based upon a letter by Rosenstein, Comey leaks government information to the press, Mueller is assigned to the Russian Investigation witch hunt by Rosenstein to provide cover for decades of malfeasance within the FBI and DOJ and the story continues. ..."
I'm on the other side of the planet but a friend in the Mid-West sent me this and I thought I'd ask if anyone else had seen
it?
Is there corruption in DC?
From 2001 to 2005 there was an ongoing investigation into the Clinton Foundation. A Grand Jury had been empaneled. The investigation
was triggered by the pardon of Marc Rich ..
Governments from around the world had donated to the "Charity". Yet, from 2001 to 2003 none of those "Donations" to the Clinton
Foundation were declared.
Guess who took over this investigation in 2002? Bet you can't guess. No other than James Comey.
Guess who was transferred in to the Internal Revenue Service to run the Tax Exemption Branch of the IRS? Your friend and mine,
Lois "Be on The Look Out" (BOLO) Lerner.
It gets better, well not really, but this is all just a series of strange coincidences, right?
Guess who ran the Tax Division inside the Department of Injustice from 2001 to 2005? No other than the Assistant Attorney
General of the United States, Rod Rosenstein.
Guess who was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation during this time frame??? I know, it's a miracle, just
a coincidence, just an anomaly in statistics and chances: Robert Mueller.
What do all four casting characters have in common? They all were briefed and were front line investigators into the Clinton
Foundation Investigation.
Now that's just a coincidence, right? Ok, lets chalk the last one up to mere chance.
Let's fast forward to 2009. James Comey leaves the Justice Department to go and cash-in at Lockheed Martin.
Hillary Clinton is running the State Department, on her own personal email server.
The Uranium One "issue" comes to the attention of the Hillary. Like all good public servants do, you know looking out for America's
best interest, she decides to support the decision and approve the sale of 20% of US Uranium to no other than, the Russians.
Now you would think that this is a fairly straight up deal, except it wasn't, I question what did the People get out of it??
Oddly enough, prior to the sales approval, Bill Clinton goes to Moscow, gets paid 500K for a one-hour speech then meets with Vladimir
Putin at his home for a few hours.
Ok, no big deal right? Well, not so fast, the FBI had a mole inside this scheme.
Guess who was the FBI Director during this time frame? Yep, Robert Mueller. He requested the State Department allow himself
to deliver a Uranium Sample to Moscow in 2009, under the guise of a "sting" operation -- (see leaked secret cable 09STATE38943)..
while it is never clear if Mueller did deliver the sample, the "implication" is there ..
Guess who was handling that case within the Justice Department out of the US Attorney's Office in Maryland ?? No other than,
Rod Rosenstein.
Remember the "informant" inside the FBI -- - Guess what happened to the informant? Department of Justice placed a GAG order
on him and threatened to lock him up if he spoke about the Uranium Deal. Personally, I have to question how does 20% of the most
strategic asset of the United States of America end up in Russian hands??? The FBI had an informant, a mole providing inside information
to the FBI on the criminal enterprise and NOTHING happens, except to the informant -- Strange !!
Guess what happened soon after the sale was approved? 145 million dollars in "donations" made their way into the Clinton Foundation
from entities directly connected to the Uranium One deal.
Guess who was still at the Internal Revenue Service working the Charitable Division?
No other than, Lois Lerner. Ok, that's all just another series of coincidences, nothing to see here, right? Let's fast forward
to 2015.
Due to a series of tragic events in Benghazi and after the nine "investigations" the House, Senate and at State Department,
Trey Gowdy who was running the 10th investigation as Chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, discovers that the Hillary
ran the State Department on an unclassified, unauthorized, outlaw personal email server.
He also discovered that none of those emails had been turned over when she departed her "Public Service" as Secretary of State
which was required by law.
He also discovered that there was Top Secret information contained within her personally archived email. Sparing you the State
Departments cover up, the nostrums they floated, the delay tactics that were employed and the outright lies that were spewed forth
from the necks of the Kerry State Department, they did everything humanly possible to cover for Hillary.
Guess who became FBI Director in 2013? Guess who secured 17 no bid contracts for his employer (Lockheed Martin) with the State
Department and was rewarded with a six million dollar thank you present when he departed his employer. No other than James Comey.
Folks if I did this when I worked for the government, I would have been locked up -- The State Department didn't even comply with
the EEO and small business requirements the government places on all Request For Proposals (RFP) on contracts -- It amazes me
how all those no-bids just went right through at State -- simply amazing and no Inspector General investigation !!
Next after leaving the private sector Comey is the FBI Director in charge of the "Clinton Email Investigation" after of course
his FBI Investigates the Lois Lerner "Matter" at the Internal Revenue Service and exonerates her. Nope couldn't find any crimes
there. Nothing here to report --
Then of all surprises, in April 2016, James Comey drafts an exoneration letter of Hillary Rodham Clinton, meanwhile the
DOJ is handing out immunity deals like candy on Halloween.
The DOJ didn't even convene a Grand Jury. Like a lightning bolt of statistical impossibility, like a miracle from God himself,
like the true "Gangsta" Homey is, James steps out into the cameras of an awaiting press conference on July the 8th of 2016 and
exonerates the Hillary from any wrongdoing. As I've said many times, July 8, 2016 is the date that will live in infamy of
the American Justice System ..
Can you see the pattern?
It goes on and on, Rosenstein becomes Asst. Attorney General, Comey gets fired based upon a letter by Rosenstein, Comey
leaks government information to the press, Mueller is assigned to the Russian Investigation witch hunt by Rosenstein to provide
cover for decades of malfeasance within the FBI and DOJ and the story continues.
FISA Abuse, political espionage .. pick a crime, any crime, chances are this group and a few others did it. All the same players.
All compromised and conflicted. All working fervently to NOT go to jail themselves. All connected in one way or another to the
Clinton's. They are like battery acid, they corrode and corrupt everything they touch. How many lives have the Clinton's destroyed?
As of this writing, the Clinton Foundation, in its 20+ years of operation of being the largest International Charity Fraud
in the history of mankind, has never been audited by the Internal Revenue Service.
Let us not forget that Comey's brother works for DLA Piper, the law firm that does the Clinton Foundation's taxes.
An interesting new term is used in this discussion: "CIA democrats". Probably originated in Patrick Martin March 7, 2018
article at WSWS The CIA Democrats Part one - World Socialist Web
Site but I would not draw an equivalence between military and intelligence agencies.
"f the Democrats capture a majority in the House of Representatives on November 6, as widely predicted, candidates drawn from
the military-intelligence apparatus will comprise as many as half of the new Democratic members of Congress."
Notable quotes:
"... @leveymg ..."
"... @CS in AZ ..."
"... @CS in AZ ..."
"... @CS in AZ ..."
"... "I was truly fired up about Bernie Sanders at that time. I've come a very long ways since then." ..."
The left has never been welcome in the Republican party; and since the neoliberal Clinton machine showed up, they have not
been welcome in the Democratic party either. As Clinton debauched the historical, FDR/JFK/LBJ meaning of the word "liberal",
the left started calling itself "progressives". The left had long been the grassroots of the Democratic party; and after being
left in the lurch by John Kerry (no lawsuits against Ohio fraud), lied to by Barack Obama, and browbeaten by the increasingly
neocon Clintonite DNC, they enthusiastically coalesced around Bernie Sanders.
If our political system were honest, Bernie Sanders would have been the Democratic nominee; and Hillary Clinton and Debbie
W-S (of Aman Brothers infamy) would be on trial for violating national security and corrupting the DNC. But, our political
system isn't honest. Our political system, including the Democratic party, is completely bought and
paid for. And, unfortunately, Bernie Sanders - despite being a victim of that corruption - continues to refuse to make that point.
He refused to join the lawsuit (complete with dead process server and suspicious phone call from DWS's office) against the DNC.
All in the name of working within a party he does not even belong to.
After the 2016 election, the DNC, continuing its corrupt ways, blatantly favored Tom Perez over the "progressive" Keith Ellison,
smearing Ellison as a Moslem lover. Bernie's reaction to this continuing manipulation was muted. On foreign policy, Bernie continues
to be either AWOL or pro-MIC (F-35 plant in VT)/pro-Israel. These are not progressive positiions. AFAIAC, Bernie is half a leftist.
He is left on economics and social policy; but he is rightwing on the MIC, foreign policy, and Israel. There is very little democracy
left in this country, and I am not going to waste my time supporting Bernie, who has shown himself to be a sheepdog. That's my
take on the 2018 version of Bernie. I will always treasure the early 2016 version of Bernie, the only political candidate in my
life that I gave serious money to.
Neither will I waste my time pretending that honest, inside-the-system efforts can take the Democratic party back from the
plutocrats who own it, lock, stock, and checkbook. You might think there is a chance to work inside the system. You might think
the DNC is vulnerable because it learned nothing from the 2016 debacle; but you would be wrong. After the Hillary debacle, they
have learned how to manufacture more credible fake progressives.
------
For it seems that progressive candidates aren't the only ones who learned the lesson of Bernie Sanders in 2016; the neoliberal
Clintonites have too. So, while left-wing campaigns crop up in every corner of the country, so too do astroturf faux-progressive
campaigns. And it is for us on the left to parse through it all and separate the authentic from the frauds.
One candidate currently generating some buzz in the race is Jeff Beals, a self-identified "Bernie democrat"
whose campaign website homepage describes him as a "local teacher and former U.S. diplomat endorsed by the national organization
of former Bernie Sanders staffers, the Justice Democrats." And indeed, Beals centers his progressive bona fides to brand himself
as one of the inheritors of the progressive torch lit by Sanders in 2016. A smart political move, to be sure. But is it true?
By his own admission, Beals' overseas career began as an intelligence officer with the CIA. His fluency
in Arabic and knowledge of the region made him an obvious choice to be an intelligence spook during the latter stages of the
Clinton Administration.
Beals was not a soldier unwillingly drafted into service, but an intelligence officer who voluntarily accepted an
influential and critically important post for the Bush Administration in its ever-expanding crime against humanity
in Iraq.
Moreover, no one who knows anything about the Iraq War could possibly swallow the tripe that CIA/State Department officials
in Iraq were "looking to help our country find a way out" a year into the war. A year into the war, the bloodletting was only
just beginning, and Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil, and the other corporate vultures had yet to fully exploit the country and make
billions off it. So, unfortunately for Beals, the historical memory of the anti-war Left is not that short.
The takeaway here is that many of these self-declared "Bernie Democrats" are, in reality, the "CIA Democrats" that we have
been warned about. And Bernie has not called them out. Another thing he has not called out is the fact that the
party leadership is still blatantly sabotaging even modestly "progressive" candidates in the primaries.
In the latest striking example of how the Democratic Party resorts to cronyism (and perhaps corruption) to ensure that its
favored candidates beat back progressive challengers in local races, a candidate for Colorado's 6th Congressional District
has leaked a recording of a conversation with Minority Leader Steny Hoyer to The Intercept which published it overnight. In
it, Hoyer can be heard essentially lecturing the candidate about why he should step aside and let the Democratic Party
bosses - who of course have a better idea about which candidate will prevail over a popular Republican in the general
election - continue pulling the strings.
The candidate, Levi Tillemann, is hardly a party outsider. Tillemann had grandparents on both sides of his family who were
elected Democratic representatives, and his family is essentially Democratic Party royalty.
Still, the party's campaign arm - the notorious Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (better known as the DCCC, or
D-trip) - refused to provide Tillemann with access to party campaign data or any of the other resources he requested.
Here is yet another thing that Bernie has not called out: The DNC, which is reportedly badly behind in fundraising, is nevertheless
willing to spend obscene amounts of money in primaries just to keep progressives out of races - even Red district races that are
guaranteed losses for Democrats.
Dan Feehan has successfully bought the Democratic nomination for Minnesota's first congressional district (MN-CD1). Dan,
having lived outside the state since the age of 14, has allegedly misled the public on his FEC form, claiming residence at
his cousin's address. Here is Dan's FEC filing form. One can see that it his cousin who lives at this address...
Mr. Feehan has no chance to win in November. While nobody likes a candidate from Washington D.C., people
hate Washington money even more. To be fair to Dan he hasn't taken super PAC money, somehow. But he
has raised 565,000 dollars, an outrageous sum for a congressional race. 94% of this money has come from outside the district,
and 79% from outside the state. Where does this money come from? Well, according to the campaign, from people around
the country who want to keep Minnesota blue. If this was the case, why not wait to give money until Minnesota voted
for a candidate in the primary and then donate? And who on earth has this much money to pour into an obscure race outside of
their state?
Dan Feehan is of the same breed that most post-Trump Democrats are. Clean cut, military experience,
stern, anti-gun, anti-crazy Orange monsters, anti-negativity, and anti-discrimination of rich people who fall under a marginalized
group. What are they for? No one knows. If pushed they want "good" education, health care, jobs, environment,
etc. But they want Big money too for various reasons, but the ones cited are: because that is the only way to win,
because rich people are smart and poor people are dumb, and because money is speech. So they cannot and will not make
any concrete commitments. Hence energy becomes "all inclusive", as if balancing clean and dirty energy was a college admissions
department diversity issue, rather than a question of life or death for the entire planet. Healthcare becomes not a right,
but a requirement with a giant handout to insurance companies. Near full employment (with the near being very important, when
we consider leverage) comes with part-time, short-term, and low paying work.
The Clintonite Democrats and their spawn are postmodern progressives. In their world, there is no way to test if one is progressive.
Within the world of the Democratic party, there is no relativity. It is merely a universe that exists only to clash with (but
mostly submit to) the parallel Republican universe. Whoever proves to be the victor should be united behind without a thought
given to their place within the political spectrum of Democrat voters. They believe, if I were to paraphrase René Descartes:
"I Democrat, therefore I progressive."
Tell me again why I must be a loyal Democrat, why I must support candidates who are corporate/MIC shills, why I must submit
to the constant harassment and sabotage of progressive efforts. Tell me again how Bernie is fighting the party leadership. (That
is, explain away all the non-activity related to the items posted above.)
I'm with Chris Hedges. Formal democracy is dead in the US; all we have left are actions in the streets (and those are being
slowly made illegal). The only people in this country who deserve my support are: 1) the striking teachers, many of them non-unionized,
2) the oil pipeline protestors, who are being crushed by police state tactics, 3) the fighters for $15 minimum wage, again non-unionized.
The Democratic Party used to stand for unions. It doesn't any more. It doesn't stand for anything except getting more money from
the 1% to sell out the 99% with fake progressive CIA candidates. Oh, and it stands for pussy hats.
Anyone who tells me to get in line behind Bernie is either a naive pollyana or a disingenuous purity troll.
leveymg on Sat, 04/28/2018 - 9:44am
We have all been here before. 1948.
That was the year that the clawback of the Democratic Party and the purge of the Left was formalized. It really dates to the engineered
hijacking of the nomination of Henry Wallace at the 1944 Democratic Convention. History does repeat itself for those who didn't
learn or weren't adequately taught it.
however tragic it is. Instead of a true leftwinger, we got Harry Truman, a naive wardheeler from corrupt Kansas City. He was
led by the nose to create the CIA.
I do take your point; but the question is, can anything be done? If democracy has become meaningless kabuki, and the neocon
warmongers are in charge no matter whom we "elect", what is there to do besides build that bomb shelter?
That is why I say that only genuine issues will galvanize the public; and even then, they can run a hybrid war against the
left. They have created this ludicrous Identity Politics boogeyman that energizes the right and makes the postmodern progressives
look stupid. No matter what tactic I think of, TPTB have already covered that base. The problem is that the left has absolutely
no base in the U.S. today.
How will the pseudo-progressives be able to justify being both "progressive" and pro-war?
Talk about cognitive dissonance. But wait. Democraps of any stripe, don't cogitate, hence no dissonance.
zoebear on Sat, 04/28/2018 - 10:12am
Appreciate you posting this essay This
is only one of the many troubling signs which convince me he is being controlled by my enemy.
The takeaway here is that many of these self-declared "Bernie Democrats" are, in reality, the "CIA Democrats" that we have
been warned about. And Bernie has not called them out.
CS in AZ on Sat, 04/28/2018 - 11:12am
Thanks for the essay, arendt I came
to this site in the great purge at daily kos, and I was truly fired up about Bernie Sanders at that time. I've come a very long
ways since then. Thanks to the people here.
And to kos, who now rather infamously said "if you think Hillary Clinton can't beat Donald Trump, you're a fucking moron. Seriously,
you're dumb as rocks." And he said if you're not going to cheerlead for democrats, "go the fuck away. This is not your place."
True words!!
So this site was here and Bernie supporters flocked here. Including me. But over this time I have seen the mistakes I made.
Such a lot of wasted time and energy.
Still searching for answers myself, but I know what doesn't work, and how important for the status quo to keep the illusion
of democracy alive. But more and more people are not buying it anymore. I suspect that a few more crumbs will be forthcoming on
some issues. That's the very best way to keep the show going. And the show must go on.
Pulling back the curtain is really the first and most important weapon we have. Thank you for doing that.
zoebear on Sat, 04/28/2018 - 11:45am zoebear on Sat, 04/28/2018 - 11:45am
Countered with Russia, Russia, Russia. God he was such a prick.
I came to this site in the great purge at daily kos, and I was truly fired up about Bernie Sanders at that time. I've come
a very long ways since then. Thanks to the people here.
And to kos, who now rather infamously said "if you think Hillary Clinton can't beat Donald Trump, you're a fucking moron.
Seriously, you're dumb as rocks." And he said if you're not going to cheerlead for democrats, "go the fuck away. This is not
your place." True words!!
So this site was here and Bernie supporters flocked here. Including me. But over this time I have seen the mistakes I made.
Such a lot of wasted time and energy.
Still searching for answers myself, but I know what doesn't work, and how important for the status quo to keep the illusion
of democracy alive. But more and more people are not buying it anymore. I suspect that a few more crumbs will be forthcoming
on some issues. That's the very best way to keep the show going. And the show must go on.
Pulling back the curtain is really the first and most important weapon we have. Thank you for doing that.
That's how I feel about it. I've been suckered one time too many. The 2016 election was a complete farce. Bernie was sabotaged.
The DNC and Hillary broke their own rules to do it. But Bernie, with a perfect opportunity and lots of support, just walked away
from the fight that he had promised his people.
Sheep dog.
TPTB want the political "fight" to be between slightly different flavors of neoliberal looting/neocon warmongering. They want
unions, teachers, environmentalists, and minorities to, in the words of a UK asshole, "shut up and go away".
The CIA literally paid $600M to the Washington Post, whose purchase price was only $300M. Bezos made 200% of his money back
in a month. The media is completely corporatized; and they are coming for the internet with censorship. Where is Bernie on this?
Haven't heard a word.
Sheep dog.
As TPTB simply buy what is left of the Democratic party, they will enforce this kabuki politics. Any deviation will be labeled
Putin-loving, Assad-loving, China-loving, etc.
You can't have a democracy when free speech is instantly labeled fake news or enemy propaganda.
"I was truly fired up about Bernie Sanders at that time. I've come a very long ways since then."
This is how I see the way some people feel about him. This same thing happened after I voted for Obama. I thought that he would
do what "I heard him say that he would", but he let me down by not even bothering to try doing anything.
What soured me on Bernie was his saying that Her won the election fair and square after everything we saw happen. Even after
learning how the primary was rigged against him. And now he has jumped on the Russian interference propaganda train when he knows
that Russia had no hand with Trump beating Her out the presidency.
Bottom line is that I no longer believe that Bernie is being up front with me. I know that others feel differently, but remember
how people changed their minds on Obama and never accepted Herheinous! People should be free here to say how they feel.
Isn't making it "easier" for them to cheat when they are already doing that. What participating in their corruption does do
is keep the illusion of democracy alive for their benefit. Easier? They're already achieving their end game. Controlling us, electing
their candidates, and collecting our taxes.
Frankly we've been participating in their potemkin village passing as democracy for decades with no effect.
First, a boycott is not "ignoring" voting. It's an organized protest against fake elections. It's actually not that uncommon
for people in other countries to call for election boycotts in protest when a significant portion of people feel the election
is staged or rigged with a predetermined outcome, or where all of the candidates are chosen by the elite so none represent the
will of the people.
In that type of situation, boycotting the election -- and obviously that means saying why, and making a protest out of it --
is really the only recourse people have. It may not be effective at stopping the fake election, but it lets the world know the
vote was fake.
If you line up to go obediently cast your vote anyway, then you are the one who is empowering the enemy, by giving the illusion
of legitimacy to the fake vote.
Now about this big worry about what "they" will say... first, look at what they already say about third party voters.
In the media and political world, third party voters are a joke, useful idiots, who can be simultaneously written off as "fringe"
wackos who can and should be ignored, and also childish spoilers who can be scapegoated and blamed for eternity for election loses.
Witness Ralph Nader and Jill Stein. Of course people should still vote third party if there's someone that truly represents them,
and if they believe the election process is genuine. Because you don't let your voting choices be dictated by what the powers
that be say about it!
For those of us who believe the election process is a sham and a scam, voting is playing into their hands, giving legitimacy
to their show. That is what makes it easier for them to keep the status quo firmly in place, and is literally helping them do
it.
As has been pointed out, if an organized protest/boycott that called the elections fake were to take root and grow, they would
not be able to say we don't care. That's a big if, obviously, but it's better than playing your assigned role in The Voting Show.
Because that show is what everyone points to as proof that the American people want this fucked up warmongering government we
keep voting back into power every two years.
Enough is enough. One of Bernie's slogans, which I still agree with.
Contextualizing the deputy attorney general's memorandum on the former FBI director
In a surprising move on Tuesday, President Trump abruptly fired James Comey, the director of the FBI and the official leading
the investigation into whether Trump aides colluded with Russia to sway the U.S. presidential election. In
his letter dismissing Comey , Trump told him: "While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that
I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively
lead the bureau."
The White House said that Trump
acted on the recommendations of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The longest letter
released was a memorandum to Sessions from Rosenstein laying out the case for Comey's dismissal. In the memo, Rosenstein criticizes
Comey for his handling of the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email server, and offers examples
of bipartisan condemnation of Comey's actions.
For context, we've annotated Rosenstein's letter below.
May 9, 2017
MEMORANDUM FOR THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
FROM: ROD J. ROSENSTEIN
DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL
SUBJECT: RESTORING PUBLIC CONFIDENCE IN THE FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has long been regarded as our nation's premier federal investigative agency. Over the past
year, however, the FBI's reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage, and it has affected the entire Department
of Justice. That is deeply troubling to many Department employees and veterans, legislators and citizens.
The current FBI Director is an articulate and persuasive speaker about leadership and the immutable principles of the Department
of Justice. He deserves our appreciation for his public service. As you and I have discussed, however, I cannot defend the Director's
handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton's emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the
nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken.
Almost everyone
agrees that the Director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives. Discussions
of James Comey's decisions leading up to the 2016 presidential election have been playing out since July. The Atlantic's
David A. Graham
and
Adam
Serwer both weighed in on that debate.
The director was wrong to usurp the Attorney General's authority on July 5, 2016, and
announce his
conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution. A
New York Times
report from July summarized the announcement: "Mr. Comey's 15-minute announcement, delivered with no advance warning only
three days after his investigators interviewed Mrs. Clinton in the case, riveted official Washington and is likely to reverberate
for the rest of the campaign. In offices across the capital, all eyes turned to television screens to hear the outcome of a yearlong
investigation that could have thrown the 2016 presidential election into disarray and changed history."
It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement. At most, the Director should have said the FBI had completed
its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors. The Director now defends his decision by asserting that he
believed attorney General Loretta Lynch had a conflict. But the FBI Director is never empowered to supplant federal prosecutors
and assume command of the Justice Department. There is a well-established process for other officials to step in when a conflict
requires the recusal of the Attorney General. On July 5, however, the Director announced his own conclusions about the nation's
most sensitive criminal investigation, without the authorization of duly appointed Justice Department leaders.
Compounding
the error, the Director ignored another longstanding principle: we do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information
about the subject of a declined criminal investigation. The above
New York Times
story continues: "Mr. Comey's announcement was believed to be the first time that the F.B.I. had ever publicly disclosed
its recommendations to the Justice Department about whether to charge someone in any high-profile case, let alone a presidential
candidate. His decision to announce the results of the investigation was made before the uproar over Ms. [Loretta] Lynch's meeting
with Mr. Clinton, according to a law enforcement official. He decided to make his findings public, the official said, because
he wanted to make the F.B.I.'s position clear before referring the case to the Justice Department." Derogatory information sometimes
is disclosed in the course of criminal investigations and prosecutions, but we never release it gratuitously. The Director laid
out his version of the facts for the news media as if it were a closing argument, but without a trial. It is a textbook example
of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do.
Comey trying to blackmail President using Steele dossier. Comey was also key figure in appointment of the Special Prosecutor.
Mueller investigation is an impeachment investigation with Comey and Rosenstein as key players.
Notable quotes:
"... We know that the authors of the fix were John Podesta, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Hillary Clinton herself, the targets of the leak. ..."
"... We know that the DNC and the Democrats were careless with usernames and passwords. We know that any halfwit IT or DATABASE worker understands how to access the Outlook folder, and copy the *.pst files to a flash drive. MSNBC sticks to their flat earth conspiracy theories and Russian Collusion narrative like a flat-earth creationist. In the words of Carl Sagan, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. ..."
MSNBC' Chuck Todd keeps insinuating that Russia hacked the DNC emails without evidence to
back up. He has no idea who leaked the emails to Wikileaks. There were also many in the DNC
who were pissed off that citizens were sending hard earned campaign donations for Bernie
Sanders, and knew that the Clinton financed DNC was rigging the primaries.
We know that the
authors of the fix were John Podesta, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Hillary Clinton herself,
the targets of the leak.
We know that the DNC and the Democrats were careless with usernames
and passwords. We know that any halfwit IT or DATABASE worker understands how to access the
Outlook folder, and copy the *.pst files to a flash drive. MSNBC sticks to their flat earth
conspiracy theories and Russian Collusion narrative like a flat-earth creationist. In the
words of Carl Sagan, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Jan Wallace
Don't forget the Tarmac meeting...Lynch the AG, and Clinton mixing it up that is obviously not really about golf or
kids...She tells Comey to call it a "Matter" that is collusion.
George Stone
I just read that Dem's filed suit alleging that Russia, Trump & Wikileaks interfered with the 2016 campaign. I guess Dem's
haven't got the memo, There IS NO EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT THEIR CLAIMS. Adam Schiff hasn't presented any evidence, James Comey
hasn't provided any supporting evidence, neither has the FBI or DOJ.
Why is anyone surprised Comey is a consummate phoney? You didn't think he gained his
position by being the best at what he does do you? Work at any large firm long enough and
you'll see his type. Working behind the scenes, lying, playing political games for advantage.
Eventually that person is promoted and proceeds to wreck the company that promoted him.
Comey's only talent IS being a weasel.
The Democrats are obstructing Democracy. There are also members of congress who have
leaked sensitive, if not classified information to the media to aid in this obstruction and
the DOJ needs to investigate these members to see if crimes have been committed. If the
Democrats believe that the President is not above the law then they too should be subject to
this same standards and scrutiny. A special council should be appointed to investigate them
and look into all their financial dealings both domestic and off shore.
I've been saying from the beginning Comey displays a very unhealthy level of infantile
behaviour. How someone like that ever managed to manoeuvre himself so far up, let alone in a
law enforcement agency, completely baffles the mind. He gives much credit to his wife. I'd
bet a lot she coached him through much of the process. He's not leadership material. On the
other side, more importantly even, if I were law enforcement in the USA I'd be taking a very
good look at this man's life when the lights go off.
It is amazing to hear Comey talk of himself and others rules of integrity. He should have
actually done some of those things he would have done a better job.
It is amazing to hear Comey talk of himself and others rules of integrity. He should have
actually done some of those things he would have done a better job.
Comey career was damaged by his treatment of Hillary email scandal and derailing Sanders;
clearly the political role the FBI assumed. So this is a memoir of a politician who happened to
work in law enforcement, and should be treated as such.
An investigation of real Comey role in derailing Sanders and electing Trump still is a matter of the future.
"... Comey is more than willing on several occasions to make misguided decisions because of his uncompromising loyalty to the FBI. Loyalty to the FBI is ever bit as dangerous as loyalty to the president. ..."
"... I am not a fan of James Comey and to this day I have never seen an answer to why it would be ok for the FBI director to hold a press conference for what seemed to be injecting his own political thoughts and opinions far too close to an election to not have known it would have an effect. ..."
"... Comey goes on to say that "in mid June the Russian Government began dumping emails stolen from the institutions associated with the Democratic Party." Here he is implying that Wikileaks is the Russian Government without any evidence to back it up. ..."
"... Is Comey saying Russia in order to protect Clinton?, its possible. Comey has said in his Book he has been investigating the Clintons since the Clinton administration. Each of those investigations he has let the Clintons walk free and has stop the investigations unexpectedly even when evidence appears to pile up, he does admit that Hillary Clinton destroyed evidence even after receiving a subpoena .Comey investigated a suicide in the clintons white house. Comey was behind an investigation of Bill clinton in January 2002. ..."
"... Comey tries to imply if you did not go along with Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election and not supported her or made no positive comments about her as "associating or working with the Russians". I believe this mindset is very dangerous to suggest if you did not support Hillary Clinton for president as if working with the Russians. ..."
"... He says that "Candidate Clinton herself was talking about the Russian effort to elect her opponent.", well we do know that she was who paid for the slanderous "dossier" which is why she knew about what was in the dossier before the "Dossier" was publish by Buzzfeed and CNN. ..."
"... Before the election Comey said he did his job as if Hillary was already President and as if working for Her even though the election was weeks to come. He says " I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next President" ..."
"... Comey expected Trump to curse Russia based on what the suppose "evidence" or the DNC funded "dossier". We do know that the Clinton campaign was running the DNC before Hillary was nominated based on Donna Brazile latest book where she implies that Hillary Clinton cheated Bernie Sanders. ..."
"... Yet Comey fails to mention that he signed a FISA warrant based on the "Dossier" paid by Hillary Clinton and the DNC. He said the Dossier was "salacious and unverified". The Dossier was politically crafted much of it has been proven to be false yet Comey use it to get a FISA warrant. ..."
"... Finishing, Comey goes on to slander president Trump of undermining public confidence in law enforcement institutions when this enforcement institutions have been caught lying, protecting politicians like Hillary Clinton having a double standard when it comes to investigating certain politicians and letting them walk free before finishing an investigation. ..."
"... Comey had his issues with the Justice Department, especially Loretta Lynch although he never says that she had sinister intent. ..."
James Comey is articulate and makes his case in an interesting and effective manner. He
seems competent and well intentioned. Problem is he, like many, considers lying about a crime
a greater crime than the crime. It is not the case. If someone commits murder, is lying about
it worse than the murder?
He rightfully seems horrified that Trump demands loyalty, but Comey is more than willing on
several occasions to make misguided decisions because of his uncompromising loyalty to the
FBI. Loyalty to the FBI is ever bit as dangerous as loyalty to the president.
A justification of the Clinton email server investigation and a nonpartisan critique of
Trump's erosion of norms
A skillfully written and affecting memoir. Comey shares formative experiences: suffering a
random attack by a serial home invader as a teenager, being bullied and then bullying, losing
an infant son. There's a lot of detail about his decision to announce the reopening of the
investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server right before the election. Given
that situation as he described it, had I been in his shoes, I can't say for sure what I would
have done. He means to reveal the ethical complexity and he does it well.
He speaks positively of working for President George W. Bush and then for President Obama,
but he has no such appreciation for President Trump. Contradicting longstanding norms of U.S.
government, Trump demanded loyalty from Comey in his nonpartisan, ten-year term as the FBI
Director, and when Comey did not give it unconditionally and did not halt the investigation
into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Trump fired him. "We had that thing, you
know," Trump said to Comey, referring to the previous conversation in which he had asked for
loyalty. Comey's knowledge of La Cosa Nostra ("that thing of ours," the Mafia's name for
itself) adds a layer of meaning. Comey knows what Mafia guys are like, and he does not live
like them; he is not swayed by appeals to loyalty. That's how he became FBI Director and
that's also how he lost his job under Trump.
"I say this as someone who has worked in law enforcement for most of my life, and served
presidents of both parties. What is happening now," he warns from his new position as a
private citizen, "is not normal. It is not fake news. It is not okay." For those who support
Trump's policy agenda because they believe it will benefit them personally somehow, Comey
delivers a reminder that "the core of our nation is our commitment to a set of shared values
that began with George Washington -- to restraint and integrity and balance and transparency
and truth. If that slides away from us, only a fool would be consoled by a tax cut or a
different immigration policy."
I am not a fan of James Comey and to this day I have never seen an answer to why it would
be ok for the FBI director to hold a press conference for what seemed to be injecting his own
political thoughts and opinions far too close to an election to not have known it would have
an effect.
If you watch the news at all or read the 1 star reviews by people who appear not
to have read the book you will be led to believe this is a book about Trump, and bashing him,
or outing him as unfit in some way.
Especially if you know that the RNC has gone out of their
way to create a website just ahead of the book release for the sole purpose of Comey bashing.
So let me bust that myth. This is not a book about Trump. There are no big jaw dropping Trump
secrets here.
This is a book about James Comey, from his early childhood until the here and
now. Comey touches on childhood memories, being bullied, later on participating or at least
turning a blind eye to bullyng himself. He speaks on his experience being home alone with his
brother when the "Ramsey Rapist" broke into his house. He tells you how and why he decided to
pursue law as a career instead of becoming a doctor. There are humorous anecdotes about his
first job in the grocery store and yes some about his final days as FBI director. You do not
have to be a fan of Comey or any of his decisions to enjoy this book. You may or may not be
satisfied with his explanation of why he decided to make such public announcements on
Hilary's emails, but that is a small part of this book. Personally I was not satisfied and he
does admit that others may have handled it differently. If you are only looking for
bombshells this book is not for you. By the time it gets to the visit to alert Trump to the
salacious allegations the book is 70% over, because as I said this is not a book about
Trump.
Even if I do not agree with Comey's decisions to publicly give his opinion on one candidate
while withholding the fact that there is an investigation surrounding the other even with the
"classified info" that he says we still do not know about I was still able to enjoy this
book. I agree with his assessment in the last televised interview he gave, that if Comey is
an idiot he is at least an honest idiot.
Just finished reading 100% of the book. James Comey
Just finished reading 100% of the book. James Comey starts with sharing an experience of a
time his house was broken in by a robber while his parents were away and he was alone with
Pete. James Comey recounts his investigations of the Mafia. James Comey talks about having
Malaria and thanks his wife Patrice for taking him on the back of her motorcycle to the
Hospital. He mentions his family life and his new born son Collin who passed away in the
hospital after Doctors failed to give Collin treatment while Collin was already showing
abnormal behavior.
Comey goes on to talk about his role as FBI director during the Obama Administration.
He talks about Micheal Brown and how fake news caused a big up roar and hatred on police
by their distortion on what happened in Ferguson and thus caused great divisions.
Comey tries to justify the outcome of not prosecuting what clinton did with her private
email server which had classified government data by saying that even if her actions were bad
though a statute was broken and had lied to FBI officials about having classified information
but she did so carelessly.
He says that the Clinton campaign was calling the criminal investigation surrounding
Hillary Clinton a "matter" and he says that Attorney General Loretta Lynch was strangely
telling him to do the same when confronting the media.
When Attorney General Loretta Lynch met with Bill Clinton privately on a tarmac he saw it not
as a big deal, though it was after this private meeting that the decision of not prosecuting
Secretary Hillary Clinton was decided . So this shows that the Clinton campaign had influence
on the outcome of the investigation concerning Clinton.
Comey goes on to say that "in mid June the Russian Government began dumping emails stolen
from the institutions associated with the Democratic Party." Here he is implying that
Wikileaks is the Russian Government without any evidence to back it up. Though Wikileaks has
already said that it was not Russia but someone living in the United States who sent the
emails to Wikileaks.
Is Comey saying Russia in order to protect Clinton?, its possible. Comey
has said in his Book he has been investigating the Clintons since the Clinton administration.
Each of those investigations he has let the Clintons walk free and has stop the
investigations unexpectedly even when evidence appears to pile up, he does admit that Hillary
Clinton destroyed evidence even after receiving a subpoena .Comey investigated a suicide in
the clintons white house. Comey was behind an investigation of Bill clinton in January
2002.
Comey mentions the piss dossier as evidence "strongly suggesting that the Russian
government was trying to interfere in the election in 3 ways." He later admits the suppose
"evidence" as "unverifiable", this is the same "dossier" that was used to grant a FISA
warrant to spy on Clinton opponent Donald Trump which was paid by Hillary Clinton and her
campaign.
Comey tries to imply if you did not go along with Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election
and not supported her or made no positive comments about her as "associating or working with
the Russians". I believe this mindset is very dangerous to suggest if you did not support
Hillary Clinton for president as if working with the Russians. Again this is all based on the
"unverifiable dossier" , even though the suggested "evidence" is unverifiable a tyrant
Government can use this to justify in going after ANYONE who speaks against the corruption
going within former director James Comey FBI.
He says that "Candidate Clinton herself was talking about the Russian effort to elect her
opponent.", well we do know that she was who paid for the slanderous "dossier" which is why
she knew about what was in the dossier before the "Dossier" was publish by Buzzfeed and
CNN.
He says that his family were Hillary supporters and that they attended the "Woman's March"
which was more of a rally in protest to President Trump presidency. Before the election Comey
said he did his job as if Hillary was already President and as if working for Her even though
the election was weeks to come. He says " I was making decisions in an environment where
Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next President"
Comey goes on to talk about Donald Trump inauguration and as FBI director fails to talk
about the riots and protestors blocking the entrance to the inauguration where they set a
limousine on fire, stores were broken in including a Starbucks. He compares Trump inauguration
to Obama but Obama had no rioters.
Comey expected Trump to curse Russia based on what the suppose "evidence" or the DNC
funded "dossier". We do know that the Clinton campaign was running the DNC before Hillary was
nominated based on Donna Brazile latest book where she implies that Hillary Clinton cheated
Bernie Sanders.
Yet Comey fails to mention that he signed a FISA warrant based on the
"Dossier" paid by Hillary Clinton and the DNC. He said the Dossier was "salacious and
unverified". The Dossier was politically crafted much of it has been proven to be false yet
Comey use it to get a FISA warrant.
Finishing, Comey goes on to slander president Trump of undermining public confidence in law
enforcement institutions when this enforcement institutions have been caught lying,
protecting politicians like Hillary Clinton having a double standard when it comes to
investigating certain politicians and letting them walk free before finishing an
investigation.
A better title would have been " An American's Highest Loyalty"
This memoir is an important piece in the analysis of turn of the century politics in the
United States. It is unfortunate that the media hype for this book has been about the more
recent turmoil in James Comey's service to his country. True, the Trump administration is
different and in many ways dysfunctional. But it is only in the part of the book, that he
deals with it's dysfunction.
If one reads carefully, President Trump is only a more obvious
and verbal and transparent figure in his disdain for the judiciary and the justice
department. Dick Cheney and others in the Bush 43 administration are portrayed as far more
sinister in their actions to sublimate justice after 9/11.
His admiration for President Obama
is evident and little discussed in the media.
Comey had his issues with the Justice
Department, especially Loretta Lynch although he never says that she had sinister intent. His
dealings with the Clinton email controversy is well outlined. His dilemma with his
communication regarding his investigation and its reopening was inadequately described in the
book and his naivety that its reopening would not influence the election is remarkable. He
supposes that the average American voter understands how the investigative system and justice
system works.
His demeaning comments about President Trump's physical flaws add nothing to the book. I
can understand why he wrote them in as these kinds of notations sell books. They added
nothing to the story he had to tell. He should have left them out.
I appreciate that he does not give loyalty to a person. What makes America great is that
we are loyal to an idea. Even if we disagree on the interpretation of the Constitution, we
can all be American. His loyalty seems to be to honesty and integrity which is admirable.
However the highest loyalty should be to one's reading of the Constitution. I just wished he
had said it.
"... Because Comey revealed that he is either a world class liar or a total moron. Actually, he may be both. I also think that he earned the title of "sanctimonious twit." ..."
"... This exchange should leave you slack jawed by the audacity of Comey's lies. We are asked to believe that Jim Comey is a boy scout. Honest to a fault. Just a humble man trying to do the right thing. Oh yeah, he also is supposed to be really smart. He is a lawyer don't cha know. ..."
"... Put yourself in Jim Comey's large shoes. Would you get such a letter and then file it away at the bottom of your burn bag? Or, would you demand immediate action from your senior staff, including a briefing from the CIA liaison officer posted to FBI Headquarters? Call me crazy, but I am betting that someone as smart and honorable and conscientious (you get the drift) as Jimmy Comey would go for the latter. He would want a briefing and want to know what was told to Senator Reid and other key members of Congress. ..."
"... Comey also wants us to assume that he is a total idiot. Who else catches a briefing laying out sordid and salacious details about Donald Trump and members of his crew romping around Moscow and other formerly commie nooks and crannies and does not have even a wee bit of curiosity to ask, "Who is the source?" or "How did the source come to have this info?" ..."
"... 'Litvinenko used to say: They are total retards in the UK, they believe everything we are telling them about Russia.' It is important here that the 'we' clearly refers to the circle around Berezovsky. Of this, a very large part – Alex Goldfarb, Yuri Shvets, Yuri Felshtinsky, for example – were based on your side of the Atlantic. ..."
"... 'Litvinenko said interesting things about the British judiciary system. He was thrilled, he loved it, that in Britain you could prove anything, really. He used to say: "You can't imagine, you can simply raise your hand, tell the judge whatever, and they will believe you! They will believe you!" And in this respect, a Russia to totally different things, so for a Russian person it is all available and beneficial.' ..."
"... 'I want to stress this thought, the one I mentioned in my statement. I quote – Litvinenko used to say: You can't imagine what idiots they are and they believe everything we are telling them. I stress that.' ..."
"... this seems to me clearly to reflect Lugovoi's considered judgment as to the intellectual quality of British intelligence and law enforcement people, and it is also clear to me that Owen's conduct of his Inquiry is only one item among a mass of material vindicating his contempt. ..."
"... No competent intelligence agency would employ a man like Steele, let alone appoint him as head of its Russia Desk. ..."
"... A more plausible scenario, it increasingly appears, is that crucial strings were pulled by Berezovsky when alive, and are still being pulled by his ghost, after his death. As with Ahmed Chalabi, a somewhat similar figure, both in my country and ours we are going to have to live with the consequences of our credulity in the face of conmen, for a very long time. ..."
"... Another way of looking at it is that they're not really stupid, just completely uninterested in the truth. All they're interested in is gathering the 'evidence' that fits the party line--that's how careers are advanced in the Decadent West now. ..."
"... I tend to agree with RaisingMac below. Or perhaps as Publius says, it's a case of both stupidity and mendacity. I may have mentioned before that most Presidents are perfectly happy to go on national TV and state complete and utter lies that they would have to be more than retarded to actually believe. People used to talk about George Bush as if his speech impediments were related to his intelligence. I always thought it was just a case of he just didn't give a damn what he said because he KNEW he would never pay any consequence for anything he said. And that was true about Obama and it's true about Trump. ..."
"... Yes. I cringed every time Obama repeated the reason we were fighting in Afghanistan. "We are denying them space in which to plan their attacks." At least he used good grammar. ..."
"... Just what were Daniel Richman's duties as a "special government employee"? Who worked, according to Richman, "for no pay". Serve as the official leaker of FBI documents? What other documents has Richman seen and by whose authority? ..."
"... No collusion here, nothing to see here, just normal business amongst FBI leaders. Happens all the time, like Attorney General tarmac meetings with spouses of people being investigated by the FBI. ..."
"... Comey was part of the cabal to bring Trump down....pure and simple.. ..."
"... Just another so-called "smartest guy in the room." Does swimming in the swamp destroy brain cells or does the swamp just naturally attract the dimwitted among us? ..."
"... Plenty smart enough to cope with a TV interview, to the average observer with little grasp of the background. Observing from that position myself I can report that Mr Comey's performance would have been more than adequately convincing for most. After I'd watched the interview I had to re-read PT's article carefully to see where Mr Comey had been skating on thin ice. So yes, smart enough. ..."
"... Smart enough to cope with the considerably sharper and more persistent questioning of a hostile lawyer in a Court? Judging by that uneasy manner of shifting in his jacket from time to time even under such undemanding questioning as this, I'd imagine Mr Comey would do better to devote his ingenuity to avoiding such a test. ..."
Lordy, Lordy, Lordy (to quote James Comey liberally). He was interviewed tonight (Thursday, 26 April 2018) by Bret Baier on the Fox
6pm news show and it was shocking. Why? Because Comey revealed that he is either a world class liar or a total moron. Actually, he
may be both. I also think that he earned the title of "sanctimonious twit."
I want to direct you to look at the exchange that starts at 8:30 into the interview. It concerns the so-called Steele Dossier.
This exchange should leave you slack jawed by the audacity of Comey's lies. We are asked to believe that Jim Comey is a boy scout.
Honest to a fault. Just a humble man trying to do the right thing. Oh yeah, he also is supposed to be really smart. He is a lawyer
don't cha know.
So here is the scenario. He claims he is briefed sometime in September or October on parts of the Steele documents. He is not
sure. This really smart guy just cannot remember.
Well, let's see if this helps jog the faltering brain cells of choir boy. There was a letter from Senator Harry Reid, whose panties
were in a bunch after being briefed by someone from the Intelligence Community (probably CIA Director John Brennan)
that there was:
. . . evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump's presidential campaign continues to mount
and has led Michael Morrell, the former Acting Central Intelligence Director, to call Trump an "unwitting agent" of Russia and
the Kremlin. The prospect of a hostile government actively seeking to undermine our free and fair elections represents one of
the gravest threats to our democracy since the Cold War and it is critical for the Federal Bureau of lnvestigation to use every
resource available to investigate this matter thoroughly and in a timely fashion. The American people deserve to have a full understanding
of the facts from a completed investigation before they vote this November.
Put yourself in Jim Comey's large shoes. Would you get such a letter and then file it away at the bottom of your burn bag?
Or, would you demand immediate action from your senior staff, including a briefing from the CIA liaison officer posted to FBI Headquarters?
Call me crazy, but I am betting that someone as smart and honorable and conscientious (you get the drift) as Jimmy Comey would go
for the latter. He would want a briefing and want to know what was told to Senator Reid and other key members of Congress.
But Comey now wants us to believe that he does not remember anything about the specifics of this Dossier and the information contained
in it. Are we to suppose that Comey was getting so many letters and reports about Trump and the Rooskies collaborating on stealing
the election that it was just something routine? I doubt that.
Comey also wants us to assume that he is a total idiot. Who else catches a briefing laying out sordid and salacious details
about Donald Trump and members of his crew romping around Moscow and other formerly commie nooks and crannies and does not have even
a wee bit of curiosity to ask, "Who is the source?" or "How did the source come to have this info?"
Nope. Not Jimmy Comey. Asking such basic, factual questions apparently eluded his razor sharp mind. He concedes that it came from
a foreign intelligence officer (Steele) and, rather than wonder about any possible counter intelligence concerns, says that he took
that fact as validation of the reliability of these fantastical reports.
There was a time when I respected James Comey. No longer. Trump called him a liar today. I think President Trump has it right.
Comey is a liar. What is shocking to me is that someone who is supposedly so smart can be so downright stupid. His interview above
seals that fact for me.
"He concedes that it came from a foreign intelligence officer (Steele) and, rather than wonder about any possible counter intelligence
concerns, says that he took that fact as validation of the reliability of these fantastical reports."
As I have noted in earlier exchanges on these matters, in the press conference where he responded to the British request for
his extradition, the man Steele et al framed over the death of Alexander Litvinenko, Andrei Lugovoi, made the following claim
about what his supposed victim really thought of people like the man Comey appears so happy to believe:
'Litvinenko used to say: They are total retards in the UK, they believe everything we are telling them about Russia.' It
is important here that the 'we' clearly refers to the circle around Berezovsky. Of this, a very large part – Alex Goldfarb, Yuri
Shvets, Yuri Felshtinsky, for example – were based on your side of the Atlantic.
In the appearance on Russian primetime television where Litvinenko's father embraced Lugovoi, in addition to making the quite
implausible claim that Goldfarb had assassinated his son, he made the to my mind not implausible suggestion that the figure who
he was, in his turn, framing, was working for the CIA.
In the Q&A at the press conference, Lugovoi's supposed partner-in-crime, Dmitri Kovtun, made a claim parallel to Lugovoi's,
about British law enforcement, clearly referring to the supposed plot to assassinate Berezovsky with a 'poison pen', which back
in 2003 MI6 had used to frustrate Russian attempts to have the oligarch extradited.
(In this, I think it likely that the Russian Prosecutor-General's Office are quite correct to claim that Goldfarb and Litvinenko
played crucial roles.)
According to Kovtun:
'Litvinenko said interesting things about the British judiciary system. He was thrilled, he loved it, that in Britain
you could prove anything, really. He used to say: "You can't imagine, you can simply raise your hand, tell the judge whatever,
and they will believe you! They will believe you!" And in this respect, a Russia to totally different things, so for a Russian
person it is all available and beneficial.'
Also in the Q&A, Lugovoi returned to his earlier claim about Litvinenko's contempt for people like Steele:
'I want to stress this thought, the one I mentioned in my statement. I quote – Litvinenko used to say: You can't imagine
what idiots they are and they believe everything we are telling them. I stress that.'
(For the press conference, follow the link INQ001886 on the 'Evidence page' on the archived website of the inquiry presided
over by Sir Robert Owen, which is at
http://webarchive.nationala... .)
Whether or not Litvinenko made the remarks attributed to him – and I think it most likely that he did – this seems to me
clearly to reflect Lugovoi's considered judgment as to the intellectual quality of British intelligence and law enforcement people,
and it is also clear to me that Owen's conduct of his Inquiry is only one item among a mass of material vindicating his contempt.
As it happens, the type to which Steele, and also our embarrassment of a Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, patently belongs
– the worst kind of superannuated Oxbridge student politician – is one with which I have quite extensive knowledge, which even
if I had not followed the antics of Steele and Owen, would strongly incline me to think that Lugovoi's judgments were accurate.
No competent intelligence agency would employ a man like Steele, let alone appoint him as head of its Russia Desk.
If people take a 'retard' seriously, then the natural inference is that they are themselves 'retards.'
I have largely lost count of the number of the people in the United States who appear to have taken Steele seriously. But it
seems clear that your intelligence, foreign affairs and law enforcement bureaucracies are as infested by 'retards' as are ours.
The notion of Putin as the sinister puppet master, pulling the 'strings' which caused people to vote for 'Leave' in the Brexit
campaign, or to support Trump, has always been BS.
A more plausible scenario, it increasingly appears, is that crucial strings were pulled by Berezovsky when alive, and are
still being pulled by his ghost, after his death. As with Ahmed Chalabi, a somewhat similar figure, both in my country and ours
we are going to have to live with the consequences of our credulity in the face of conmen, for a very long time.
Another way of looking at it is that they're not really stupid, just completely uninterested in the truth. All they're interested
in is gathering the 'evidence' that fits the party line--that's how careers are advanced in the Decadent West now.
I tend to agree with RaisingMac below. Or perhaps as Publius says, it's a case of both stupidity and mendacity. I may have
mentioned before that most Presidents are perfectly happy to go on national TV and state complete and utter lies that they would
have to be more than retarded to actually believe. People used to talk about George Bush as if his speech impediments were related
to his intelligence. I always thought it was just a case of he just didn't give a damn what he said because he KNEW he would never
pay any consequence for anything he said. And that was true about Obama and it's true about Trump.
This is the nature of
people in power - they don't care what you think about what they said, so they say anything they want as long as it isn't something
so absurd as to make them look like fools directly - in the minds of the rest of the fools listening to them as if what they said
really mattered.
Parsing what these people say is a complete waste of time. What matters is what did they DO and what were the consequences
to the rest of us.
Yes. I cringed every time Obama repeated the reason we were fighting in Afghanistan. "We are denying them space in which to
plan their attacks." At least he used good grammar.
Yes! But i think you really should have said highly convenient credulity. That is why an intelligence agency employs a man like
Steele. That is the key competancy they saw when recruiting. That "flexibility" with the truth is such an asset in the civil service.
I dont believe all players were idiots. I believe they were "fooled" like John Scarlett was fooled about WMD.
The criminal laws in the United States are broad and far-reaching enough that an aggressive prosecutor will always have a pretext
to bring charges against anyone. This is entirely intentional. Those whom the establishment want punished are punished.
At the same time, because everybody and anybody can be made into a criminal whenever convenient, the converse is that violating
the law is considered blameless, praiseworthy even, when doing so aligns with consensus establishment goals.
This does not mean that a shadowy cabal have secret meeting and take a ballot on whom we will persecute today. Rather, it refers
to people of influence and authority, and prosecutors, being, depending on how you look at it, glorified or perhaps degraded politicians,
are exquisitely sensitive to such things.
I deal with attorneys on a weekly basis. The percentage of them which are simply unqualified to wake up in the morning and charge
people for advice is mind boggling.
I am giggling still after reading your comments about our little Jimmy C. I watched the interview yesterday and came away feeling
that somehow I must be losing my marbles, so to speak, because I just could not make myself believe that this person had reached
the level of authority in our government that he had reached before deservedly being fired at last.
When the whole Clinton email situation was at its peak in the news cycle, I finally decided that Jimmy was a prime example
of the Peter Principle. He had reached his level of incompetence. But after watching the interview yesterday, I decided that he
had reached that level of incompetence long before becoming the Director of the FBI. Perhaps all the really intelligent, competent
people just didn't want to go into some sort of bureaucratic swampy environment that taking a management position would mean.
Maybe they all just kept pushing him up the ladder to keep him from going out into the field to do the real work of the FBI. Who
knows? One person--I forget who it was--did call him a malignant narcissist. And that he is. So, I hope he ends up in a federal
prison with his fellow malignant narcissists, though they tend more to violence than he does. I pity his daughters. They have
no hope of growing up to live rational lives.
I then thought the round table discussion afterward was a bit surreal. It's not that I thought the people weren't stating good
points. It was just that I thought they would all be laughing so hard and holding their sides and rolling on the floor laughing
at him.
God save our country if there are many more like Jimmy in high positions. I will have to pray extra hard at church this Sunday.
Just what were Daniel Richman's duties as a "special government employee"? Who worked, according to Richman, "for no pay".
Serve as the official leaker of FBI documents? What other documents has Richman seen and by whose authority?
Does anyone else find it convenient that Comey is now paying him as his attorney, thus giving him "attorney client
privilege". That being the thing Mueller's raid on Cohen's home and office voided for Trump.
No collusion here, nothing to see here, just normal business amongst FBI leaders. Happens all the time, like Attorney General
tarmac meetings with spouses of people being investigated by the FBI.
Just what were Daniel Richman's duties as a "special government employee". Who worked, according to Richman, "for no pay"? Serve
as the official leaker of FBI documents? Does anyone else find it convenient that Comey is now paying him as his attorney, thus
giving him "attorney client privilege". That would be the thing Mueller's raid on Cohen's home and office voided for Trump.
It seems that there is more than meets the eye here. It is becoming more evident that the allegations of the Trump campaign colluding
with the Russian government was actually a cover for the far more insidious collusion of top officials in the Obama administration
including possibly Obama himself to use the resources and capabilities of the federal government to destroy a major party presidential
candidate from the opposing party.
Clapper once again being accused of lying to Congress and being a leaker of classified information. Brennan sure looks very
concerned. Let's see if the rule of law applies to high officials in government. I'm not holding my breath.
Those terms are not mutually exclusive. He looks like both a liar and fool to many of us.
Not surprisingly, there are many great political cartoons to be found on Comey over the past couple of years. It was hard to
limit myself to sharing 3 of them, but I didn't want to end up in the spam bin.
are any Americans in cahoots with the foreign intelligence of an adversary nation
Since when does the Director of the FBI get to decide American foreign policy and does he really understand the principles
of democracy? Donald Trump was clear throughout his campaign that he wanted better relations with Russia so the people who elected
him however flawed the process had an expectation that there would be better relations with Russia. People in the executive might
disagree with this as a policy but in a democracy they should not actively frustrate the will of the people; Trump should call
on anybody who has done so to resign as a matter of principle.
Just another so-called "smartest guy in the room." Does swimming in the swamp destroy brain cells or does the swamp just naturally
attract the dimwitted among us?
Plenty smart enough to cope with a TV interview, to the average observer with little grasp of the background. Observing from
that position myself I can report that Mr Comey's performance would have been more than adequately convincing for most. After
I'd watched the interview I had to re-read PT's article carefully to see where Mr Comey had been skating on thin ice. So yes,
smart enough.
It reminded me of similar awkward interviews here, from Mr Blair in the distant past to Boris Johnson's recent DW interview:
enough ingenuity to convince the most of us and too few of the unconvinced to matter. After all for such people, or I'd guess
in the environment Mr Comey has so far prospered in, there's no call for cast iron explanations. The plausible, as long as it
has some colour of reason, will carry the day.
Smart enough to cope with the considerably sharper and more persistent questioning of a hostile lawyer in a Court? Judging
by that uneasy manner of shifting in his jacket from time to time even under such undemanding questioning as this, I'd imagine
Mr Comey would do better to devote his ingenuity to avoiding such a test.
PT, I vaguely, very, very vaguely (not much) followed up on Fred's book alert on Comey and his book. I stumbled across a young
man's review (as old lady), whose name I had never heard before. Touched old chords somehow. Not sure if I may link here to--of
all possible places--Rolling Stone? And Garrett M. Graff, that is: James Comey's 'A Higher Loyalty' Is a Study in Contradictions,
Inside and Out. The former FBI director's memoir is about life, leadership and undoing all of the above
"... Clapper and Brennan are perjurers, so it seems is Comey. Lynch tanked the prosecution by not reminding FBI that its up to the DOJ, not FBI, to decide to prosecute or not ((how has that gotten lost in all this))... its crooks all the way down to the dark corners of the Shadow State, where drug sales, murder, and terror are the red blood cells of the beast. ..."
"... Strzok and Page are sacrificial pigs who have apparently only convicted themselves of gross stupidity. There is no evidence of crimes being committed in emails. That is why both are still employed. No evidence either one was having an affair, either. Going to lunch is not a crime. ..."
Jim Comey DOES get to arbitrarily judge
what is and what is not classified! As
the head of the FBI, he clearly has the
role of 'Originating Authority' on
determining classification of ANY
document. What it says is, that if
there's ANY doubt, whether it is
classified or not, it shall be
SAFEGUARDED at the higher level of
classification. And the ultimate
authority, is the President of the
United States, if the Originator is
Comey. So Comey took it upon himself
to declassify, classified documents
without the permission of the President
of the United States, who happens to be
his boss.
(c)
If there is
reasonable doubt about the need to
classify information, it shall be
safeguarded as if it were classified
pending a determination by an original
classification authority, who shall
make this determination within thirty
(30) days. If there is
reasonable doubt about the appropriate
level of classification, it shall be
safeguarded at the higher level of
classification pending a determination
by an original classification authority
,
who shall make this determination
within thirty (30) days.
Executive Order
12356--National security information
Source:
The
provisions of Executive Order 12356
of Apr. 2, 1982, appear at 47 FR
14874 and 15557, 3 CFR, 1982 Comp.,
p. 166, unless otherwise noted.
10) other categories of
information that are related to the
national security and that require
protection against unauthorized
disclosure as determined by the
President or by agency heads or
other officials who have been
delegated original classification
authority
by the President
.
Any
determination made under
this subsection shall be reported
promptly to the Director of the
Information Security Oversight
Office
.
(b) Information that is
determined to concern one or more
of the categories in Section
1.3(a
) shall be
classified when an original
classification authority also
determines that its unauthorized
disclosure, either by itself or
in the context of other
information, reasonably could be
expected to cause damage to the
national security.
(c) Unauthorized disclosure
of foreign government
information, the identity of a
confidential foreign source, or
intelligence sources or methods
is presumed to cause damage to
the national security.
(d)
Information classified
in accordance with Section 1.3
shall not be declassified
automatically as a result of any
unofficial publication or
inadvertent or unauthorized
disclosure in the United States
or abroad of identical or similar
information.
[!!!!!!]
Comey is no different than any of those low lifes
you used to see get busted on Cops. He's a
confidence man. A crack head, high on his own
power. He's worse in fact because he betrayed his
fellow Americans en masse.
What nails him is over
confidence. Obama has it, Clinton has it. They all
think that they they're winners at the table and
that it's gonna go on forever. They are the worse
type because they think they deserve it. There is
not a gram of humility in the lot. Prisons are full
of these guys.
Interestingly enough, all these these players
use the same excuses those addicts with smack in
the center console use as they were getting cuffed.
"What? We were just talkin"
"I had no idea that was there"
"I don't remember"
"Some guy told me it was okay"
"I don't know"
"The other guy started it"
"That's my personal stuff. You got no right"
"Those aren't mine"
"Wasn't me"
"I'm not me I'm my younger brother" (nod to Ike
Turner for that one)
It's the sheer weight of these tired old answers
that makes it so obvious that Comey is scum. He has
an answer for everything. Put them all together and
you get a figure eight. He's a punk in the first
order and a henchman of a crime family. I'm hoping
he ends up somebody's punk when this is over.
Hey Cornholius, When you say "these pigs are as dirty as
they get" are you talking about Jeff "Reefer Madness"
Sessions? Because, if you are, I will agree with you.
I'm talking about all the fucknuts who steal the
fruits of your labor and claim to be "serving the
public". Sessions is definitely one of those pigs.
Taxpayers enable and support his behaviour.
This is a constitutional republic. They like
"democracy" because they can claim their crimes
legitimate as "mandates". Their actions are
unconstitutional. That is the law. Be nice if the
next time the military conducts exercises in a
domestic population center the local militia takes
them all prisoner. Train for this.
Maybe ideologically it is a constitutional
republic, but since March 9, 1933 when FDR
signed the Emergency Banking Act the United
States has been a private institution managed by
foreign investors.
"Since March 9, 1933 The
United States has been in a state of Declared
National Emergency ... Under the powers
delegated by these statutes the President may:
seize property, organize and control the means
of production, seize commodities, order military
forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and
control all transportation and communication,
regulate the operation of private enterprise,
restrict travel, and in a plethora of ways
control the lives of American citizens. ... A
majority of the people in the United States have
lived all of their lives under emergency rule.
For forty years, freedoms and governmental
procedure guaranteed by the Constitution have in
varying degrees been abridged by laws brought
into force by national emergency." In Reg. US
Senate report No. 93-549 dated 11/19/73
Why Trump allows this, I can't figure out...either it's
part of a bigger plan, he's a dumb-ass, or he's being
forced to allow this shit-show to go into it's second
season.
Clapper and Brennan are perjurers, so it seems is Comey. Lynch tanked the
prosecution by not reminding FBI that its up to the DOJ, not FBI, to decide to
prosecute or not ((how has that gotten lost in all this))... its crooks all
the way down to the dark corners of the Shadow State, where drug sales,
murder, and terror are the red blood cells of the beast.
And of course Hillary... decades of lies, murders, theft, and the
deliberate arming of terrorists in Syria, per her emails, to 'help Israel.'
These people aren't merely criminals, but domestic terrorists and traitors.
Trump and Sessions' failure to indict these people merits your attention
regardless of what you think of Trump these days.
The lack of prosecutions means a DOJ afraid of what dark secrets may be
revealed in the harsh light of investigation and prosecution.
We would likely, even as cynics, absolutely marvel at the thoroughness of
Washington's corruption if we saw it.
Maybe we'd think about treating DC as a zio/globalist occupied territory
that presents a clear and present danger to the several States.
Strzok
and Page are sacrificial
pigs who have apparently
only convicted
themselves of gross
stupidity. There is no
evidence of crimes being
committed in emails.
That is why both are
still employed. No
evidence either one was
having an affair,
either. Going to lunch
is not a crime.
The real action is
who and what else is
being concealed from the
world.......
FBI are all a bunch
of depraved FUCKS.
If FBI secrets were
to come out for everyone
to see, every criminal
prosecution in which FBI
Fucks were involved
could be dismissed,
overturned, reversed, or
withdrawn from Fed
Court. Gov does not have
enough $$$$$$ to pay the
damages.
So we all get fucked
and FBI cunts stay
employed.
Sso corrupt it is
UNIMAGINABLE !!!!
Close down the FBI
!!!! End the fucking
contest. Do it NOW !!!
Did his crack legal team tell him to shut the fuck up? He's basically cross
examining himself in a public forum.
The Clinton email thing is still
amazing. It's de jure illegal to handle the information the way they did
regardless of intent. No interview was necessary. No immunity to an
unnecessary interview needed to happen either. This is a miscarriage at its
most benign.
Only a boob would believe this "aw schucks" nonesense.
It is amazing he ran the FBI. He is completely delusional. Has no sense of the
rule of law or how to apply it. Has no sense of how the law applies to him. He
cannot see the consequences of his actions on people or how they would
interpret it. Complete narcissist that lacks any empathy. Truly a psychopath.
The level of absurdity of the former head of the nation's purportedly premiere
law enforcement agency giving unlimited interviews to promote a tell-all book
on still active investigations in which he was involved is so high that it
would it wouldn't even be fodder for satire. Sanctimonious "Cardinal" Comey
has become a caricature of himself. He is either bringing shame and disgrace
to the FBI that he purportedly loves, or conclusively demonstrating that it is
more politically corrupt than under Hoover; but without the competency it
displayed under Hooveresque directors. People like Comey, McCabe, Strzok and
Page sent scores of people to prison, ruining untold lives. How many of these
people would have been found guilty if even a fraction of this information had
been available to defense attorneys as exculpatory evidence? Manafort's
lawyers are going to have a field day with all of this (at least in the DC
case where Judge Berman Jackson - a former defense lawyer and ostensibly fair
jurist - is presiding; I pity Manafort's lawyers in front of Judge Ellis in
Alexandria). Every time that Comey opens his mouth, he is making multiple
inconsistent statements of varying degrees. His narcissism and greed are so
monumental that he doesn't even see the damage that he did, is and will
continue to do to his credibility. I do, however, have to end by commending
him for appearing on Fox, though I think that it was more his inability to
turn down a forum for self-promotion than out of any particular
bravery.
Comey said, "it was unlikely to end in a case that the prosecutors at DOJ
would bring."
That doesn't mean the hundred-plus FBI agents who actually
worked the case didn't believe Clinton should be prosecuted. Comey betrayed
FBI agents by not supporting them. Instead, he sided with politicize
prosecutors, including Attorney General Lynch, who weren't going to indict
Clinton no matter what the evidence showed. Comey is a limpid coward and a
disgrace to law enforcement officers throughout the land.
Does Bezos have Comey's book "Riding My High Horse" at number one on
Amazon, like he did with Clinton's book "What The Fuck Happened?" even
though it had only sold 62 copies?
Classified is classified, unless you work for a Clinton.
SO if you put classified information in your book, it is no longer
classified??????
Shit, a whole lot of ex CIA guys need to write books. How about, "Well
we knew that the most murderous and despicable Nazi was in Argentina all
along and lived there for 30 years after WWII but we never went and got
him, because he really didn't do most of the things we claimed he did."
forget the dossier. forget that she destroyed evidence. forget that she
fleeced world leaders for her little foundation. forget the outrageous
speaking fees of her disgraced ex president husband. forget the meeting on
the tarmac with the AG. forget that her campaign was laundering
contributions.
SHE SET UP A FUCKING ILLEGAL EMAIL SERVER IN HER HOME AND
REDIRECTED GOVERNMENT TOP SECRET EMAIL TO THAT SERVER IN AN ATTEMPT TO HIDE
ALL HER CRIMES.
God these people are dirtier than a small time local politician. Jail
em all.
I have learned that there is a gaping deep and wide crevasse between a
'fact' and a 'truth'.
A 'truth' is, e.g., That tall oak out there is a
tree.
A 'fact' is, that depending on where you are standing, you can attest to
seeing less than a half of a tree, (unless you have developed the ability
to see around bends).
So when someone like the weasel Comey is says something is a fact, you
have every reason to doubt that he is telling you a truth.
I have a larcenous heart. I regret that I did not get into government,
seeing how much money can be made and how risk free the jobs are. Few----
compared to the many millions who have literally gotten away with murder,
gathered immense fortunes, and awesome behind the scenes power that is
invisible----have ever been arrested let alone accused, prosecuted and sent
to jail. You can count them on your fingers and toes.
So I have no objections to people buying his pack of lies and him making
some serious money on the advances, the book, and the eventual movie,
starring George Clooney as the hero, Comey.
The Department of "Justice", lost its way long ago. To persist in
calling it the DOJ when it is nothing of the sort, just another
disreputable, bureaucratic fuckup of a government agency, is a total lie.
Comey lies in the interview exposed plus the new Peter Strzok and Lisa
Page emails. Even what must be a very tiny percentage of their emails
during the covered time span have some very revealing contents which the
censors missed:
Interestingly, Comey said Republicans financed the Steele dossier before
Democrats. What if he's telling the truth? Trump is an Independent with an
"R" next to his name-Trump isn't their "Boy". Many Lifer Republicans in
fact are leaving office including House Speaker Ryan. If a Republican is
responsible for financing the dossier, my guess for one is Senator John
McCain.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-mccain-associate-subpoena
I could not watch more than 25% of the first video without projectile
vomiting. This fucker should be shot for treason, as all the rest of the
swamp leaders. The one sailor went to jail for accidentally releasing a
pic in an engine room, and Petras went to prison for so much less.
It's time to water the tree of Liberty with the blood of traitors to the
Republic...
"... As Orwell taught us in, Animal Farm , "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." So no charges against Comey, Hillary, McCabe etc. They simply can't allow a jury to decide if they broke the law. ..."
"... And as Bastiat writes in, The Law , today in the USA, the law has been perverted to the point where its only purpose is to legalize plunder. ..."
"... This guy wants to be a politician SOOO bad. He just doesn't have the chops for it. This is EXACTLY the kind of guy the Clintons would throw under the bus to (once again) save their own asses. ..."
"... look at the exchange that starts at 8:30 into the interview. It concerns the so-called Steele Dossier. This exchange should leave you slack jawed by the audacity of Comey's lies. We are asked to believe that Jim Comey is a boy scout. Honest to a fault. Just a humble man trying to do the right thing. Oh yeah, he also is supposed to be really smart. He is a lawyer don't cha know. ..."
"... So here is the scenario. He claims he is briefed sometime in September or October on parts of the Steele documents. He is not sure. This really smart guy just cannot remember. ..."
"... Comey also wants us to assume that he is a total idiot. Who else catches a briefing laying out sordid and salacious details about Donald Trump and members of his crew romping around Moscow and other formerly commie nooks and crannies and does not have even a wee bit of curiosity to ask, "Who is the source?" or "How did the source come to have this info?" ..."
Fox News host Bret Baier and James Comey sat down for a one-on-one interview Thursday night, in perhaps the most serious and direct
conversations with the former FBI Director to date.
Baier held Comey's feet to the fire on a wide variety of controversial topics - including the FBI's decision to exonerate Hillary
Clinton before interviewing her, what Comey knew about the "Steele Dossier" used to obtain a surveillance warrant on a Trump campaign
aide, and the memos Comey leaked to his friend which he hoped would lead to a special counsel investigation.
Clinton Exoneration
After starting the interview off with a joke about how Comey must find it "a little tougher to get around town without a motorcade,"
Baier pulled no punches - launching straight into asking the former FBI Director if it was true that his team decided to exonerate
Hillary Clinton before interviewing her .
In response, Comey said that because of all the prior investigative work the FBI had done on the Clinton email case, investigators
said "it looks like it's not going to get to a place where the prosecutors will bring it," and that it's "fairly typical" for white
collar investigations to save interviews for last.
Comey: I started to see that their view was, it was unlikely to end in a case that the prosecutors at DOJ would bring .
Baier: Before the interview?
Sure, yeah, because they had spent ten months digging around, reading all of the emails, putting everything together, interviewing
everybody who set up her system. They weren't certain of that result, but they said "Look boss, on the current course and speed,
looks like it's not going to get to a place where the prosecutor will bring it ."
On the topic of Peter Strzok - the anti-Trump counterintelligence agent deeply involved in both the Clinton and Trump investigations
along with his FBI attorney mistress, Lisa Page, Comey said he never witnessed evidence of bias working with the pair, but that he
was " deeply disappointed" when he saw some of the text messages exchanged between them.
"I can tell you this: When I saw the texts, I was deeply disappointed in them," Comey told Baier. " But I never saw any bias,
any reflection of any kind of animus towards anybody, including me . I'm sure I'm badmouthed in those texts, I'm just not going to
read them all. Never saw it."
Comey said that if he had been aware of the level of hatred Strzok and Page had for Trump, he "would have removed both of them
from any contact with significant investigations."
The "leaked" memos
When it comes to the leaked memos that kickstarted the Mueller probe, Comey maintains that the memos he created to document his
interactions with President Trump, seven in all and four of which have been deemed classified; two marked "confidential" and two
marked "secret."
Comey also admitted that he leaked the memos to two other people who he said were members of his "legal team," including David
Kelly and former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.
"I gave the memos to my legal team after I gave them to Dan Richman -- after I asked him to get it out to the media," said Comey,
who likened the memos to his "diaries."
" I didn't consider it part of an FBI file... It was my personal aide-memoire ," Comey said, adding "I always thought of it as
mine, like a diary"
Trump "just wrong"
Responding to a Fox & Friends interview in which President Trump said "Comey is a leaker and he's a liar. He's been leaking for
years," the former FBI Director responded " He's just wrong. Facts really do matter." Comey then claimed that because the FBI approved
the inclusion of the memos in his book, A Higher Loyalty , they are therefore not classified.
Byron York of the Washington Examiner provides an excellent breakdown of Comey's semantic absurdity
here .
The "Steele Dossier" and who paid for it
Baier asked Comey why the FBI used the Steele Dossier compiled by former UK spy Christopher Steele to obtain a FISA warrant on
a Trump campaign aide if it was "salacious," to which Comey replied that the dossier was part of a " broader mosaic of facts " used
to support the application.
And when it comes to who funded the dossier used in the FISA application, Comey claims he still has no idea whether Hillary Clinton
and the DNC funded it.
" When did you learn that the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign had funded Christopher Steele's work? " Baier asked.
" Yeah I still don't know that for a fact ," Comey responded.
"What do you mean?" Baier replied.
" I've only seen it in the media, I never knew exactly which Democrats had funded ," Comey explained, "I knew it was funded
first by Republicans."
Baier quickly corrected Comey, noting that while conservative website Free Beacon had Fusion GPS on "a kind of retainer," they
"did not fund the Christopher Steele memo or the dossier," adding " That was initiated by Democrats ."
"Is everybody believing what is going on. James Comey can't define what a leak is. He illegally leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION
but doesn't understand what he did or how serious it is. He lied all over the place to cover it up. He's either very sick or very
dumb. Remember sailor!"
...two marked "confidential" and two marked "secret."
Comey also admitted that he leaked the memos...
As Orwell taught us in,
Animal Farm
, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." So no charges against Comey, Hillary, McCabe etc. They
simply can't allow a jury to decide if they broke the law.
And as Bastiat writes in,
The Law , today
in the USA, the law has been perverted to the point where its only purpose is to legalize plunder.
This guy wants to be a politician SOOO bad. He just doesn't have the chops for it. This is EXACTLY the kind of guy the
Clintons would throw under the bus to (once again) save their own asses.
The recipe for a Nothing Burger, as created by the DoJ. Peddling bullshit like this on a daily basis must be soul destroying
for any of these weasel cunts that had a soul in the first place.
The really juicy ones are redacted to hell and gone, or text corrupted in all the right places.
" I didn't consider it part of an FBI file... It was my personal aide-memoire ," Comey said, adding "I always thought of it
as mine, like a diary"
IDIOT. Those memos are a work product created while he worked for the FBI. HE does NOT get to arbitrarily judge what is and
is not classified. What HE considers personal is irrelevant.
Arrogant self-righteous douchebag. He should get at LEAST a deserved stay at a Club Fed for this.
"Comey revealed that he is either a world class liar or a total moron. Actually, he may be both. I also think that he earned
the title of "sanctimonious twit."
...
look at the exchange that starts at 8:30 into the interview. It concerns the so-called Steele Dossier. This exchange should
leave you slack jawed by the audacity of Comey's lies. We are asked to believe that Jim Comey is a boy scout. Honest to a fault.
Just a humble man trying to do the right thing. Oh yeah, he also is supposed to be really smart. He is a lawyer don't cha know.
So here is the scenario. He claims he is briefed sometime in September or October on parts of the Steele documents. He
is not sure. This really smart guy just cannot remember.
Well, let's see if this helps jog the faltering brain cells of choir boy. There was a letter from Senator Harry Reid, whose
panties were in a bunch after being briefed by someone from the Intelligence Community (probably CIA Director John Brennan)
that there
was :
. . . evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump's presidential campaign continues to
mount and has led Michael Morrell, the former Acting Central Intelligence Director, to call Trump an "unwitting agent" of Russia
and the Kremlin. The prospect of a hostile government actively seeking to undermine our free and fair elections represents one
of the gravest threats to our democracy since the Cold War and it is critical for the Federal Bureau of lnvestigation to use every
resource available to investigate this matter thoroughly and in a timely fashion. The American people deserve to have a full understanding
of the facts from a completed investigation before they vote this November.
Put yourself in Jim Comey's large shoes. Would you get such a letter and then file it away at the bottom of your burn bag?
Or, would you demand immediate action from your senior staff, including a briefing from the CIA liaison officer posted to FBI
Headquarters? Call me crazy, but I am betting that someone as smart and honorable and conscientious (you get the drift) as Jimmy
Comey would go for the latter. He would want a briefing and want to know what was told to Senator Reid and other key members of
Congress.
But Comey now wants us to believe that he does not remember anything about the specifics of this Dossier and the information
contained in it. Are we to suppose that Comey was getting so many letters and reports about Trump and the Rooskies collaborating
on stealing the election that it was just something routine? I doubt that.
Comey also wants us to assume that he is a total idiot. Who else catches a briefing laying out sordid and salacious details
about Donald Trump and members of his crew romping around Moscow and other formerly commie nooks and crannies and does not have
even a wee bit of curiosity to ask, "Who is the source?" or "How did the source come to have this info?"
Nope. Not Jimmy Comey. Asking such basic, factual questions apparently eluded his razor sharp mind. He concedes that it came
from a foreign intelligence officer (Steele) and, rather than wonder about any possible counter intelligence concerns, says that
he took that fact as validation of the reliability of these fantastical reports.
Jim Comey DOES get to arbitrarily judge what is and what is not classified! As the head of the FBI, he clearly has the role
of 'Originating Authority' on determining classification of ANY document. What it says is, that if there's ANY doubt, whether
it is classified or not, it shall be SAFEGUARDED at the higher level of classification. And the ultimate authority, is the President
of the United States, if the Originator is Comey. So Comey took it upon himself to declassify, classified documents without the
permission of the President of the United States, who happens to be his boss.
(c) If there is reasonable doubt about the need to classify information, it shall be safeguarded as if it were classified pending
a determination by an original classification authority, who shall make this determination within thirty (30) days. If there is
reasonable doubt about the appropriate level of classification, it shall be safeguarded at the higher level of classification
pending a determination by an original classification authority , who shall make this determination within thirty (30) days.
Several of the parties being sued by the DNC have expressed their excitement over the
discovery process , by which they may get their hands on even more evidence which might
incriminate or exonerate various actors. President Trump, Roger Stone, and Wikileaks (which is
countersuing the DNC) have all noted that they're looking forward to checking out the
controversial "DNC Servers" which were allegedly hacked by Russia .
In response to the DNC
lawsuit, Trump tweeted that it could be good news that " we will now counter for the DNC Server
that they refused to give to the FBI," along with the "Debbie Wasserman Schultz Servers and
Documents ."
Just heard the Campaign was sued by the Obstructionist Democrats. This can be good news in
that we will now counter for the DNC Server that they refused to give to the FBI, the Debbie
Wasserman Schultz Servers and Documents held by the Pakistani mystery man and Clinton
Emails.
The Trump campaign also says the lawsuit will provide an opportunity to " explore the DNC's
now-secret records ."
And as we reported on Monday, WikiLeaks is
counter-suing the DNC - setting up a donation fund and noting "We've never lost a
publishing case and discovery is going to be amazing fun."
The Democrats are suing @WikiLeaks and @JulianAssange for revealing
how the DNC rigged the Democratic primaries. Help us counter-sue. We've never lost a
publishing case and discovery is going to be amazing fun: https://t.co/E1QbYJL4bB
DNC chair Tom Perez defended the lawsuit as "necessary," telling Meet the Press that they
had to file before the statue of limitations ran out, and that "it's hard to put a price tag on
preserving democracy."
David Pepper, chair of the Ohio Democratic Party is totally cool with the DNC lawsuit. "I
don't think it hurts," said Pepper. "If you have credible claims, you have a responsibility to
pursue legal action. I think you have a day or two where [the suit] is the story, but that's
different from your overall message."
" I wouldn't have our candidates spending the fall talking about Russia or the suit or
anything like that ," Pepper said.
"They should be focused on health care, education, student debt. We shouldn't divert the
message from those topics to talk about Russia. "
And yet, that's exactly what's going to happen as the DNC lawsuit plays out in the six
months and change before midterms.
"... The media campaign alleging Russian intervention in the 2016 US elections has been based entirely on handouts from the CIA, NSA and FBI, transmitted by reporters who are either unwitting stooges or conscious agents of the military-intelligence apparatus. This has been accompanied by the recruitment of a cadre of top CIA and military officials to serve as highly paid "experts" and "analysts" for the television networks ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... The CIA operation in 2018 is unlike its overseas activities in one major respect: it is not covert. On the contrary, the military-intelligence operatives running in the Democratic primaries boast of their careers as spies and special ops warriors. Those with combat experience invariably feature photographs of themselves in desert fatigues or other uniforms on their websites. And they are welcomed and given preferred positions, with Democratic Party officials frequently clearing the field for their candidacies. ..."
"... the Democratic Party has opened its doors to a "friendly takeover" by the intelligence agencies. ..."
"... The incredible power of the military-intelligence agencies over the entire government is an expression of the breakdown of American democracy. The central cause of this breakdown is the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite, whose interests the state apparatus and its "bodies of armed men" serve. Confronted by an angry and hostile working class, the ruling class is resorting to ever more overt forms of authoritarian rule. ..."
"... But it is impossible to carry out this fight through the "axis of evil" that connects the Democratic Party, the bulk of the corporate media, and the CIA. The influx of military-intelligence candidates puts paid to the longstanding myth, peddled by the trade unions and pseudo-left groups, that the Democrats represent a "lesser evil." On the contrary, working people must confront the fact that within the framework of the corporate-controlled two-party system, they face two equally reactionary evils. ..."
In a three-part series published last week,
the World Socialist Web Site documented an unprecedented influx of intelligence and military operatives into the Democratic
Party. More than 50 such military-intelligence candidates are seeking the Democratic nomination in the 102 districts identified by
the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as its targets for 2018. These include both vacant seats and those with Republican
incumbents considered vulnerable in the event of a significant swing to the Democrats.
... ... ...
The media campaign alleging Russian intervention in the 2016 US elections has been based entirely on handouts from the CIA,
NSA and FBI, transmitted by reporters who are either unwitting stooges or conscious agents of the military-intelligence apparatus.
This has been accompanied by the recruitment of a cadre of top CIA and military officials to serve as highly paid "experts" and "analysts"
for the television networks .
In centering its opposition to Trump on the bogus allegations of Russian interference, while essentially ignoring Trump's attacks
on immigrants and democratic rights, his alignment with ultra-right and white supremacist groups, his attacks on social programs
like Medicaid and food stamps, and his militarism and threats of nuclear war, the Democratic Party has embraced the agenda of the
military-intelligence apparatus and sought to become its main political voice.
This process was well under way in the administration of Barack Obama, which endorsed and expanded the various operations of the
intelligence agencies abroad and within the United States. Obama's endorsed successor, Hillary Clinton, ran openly as the chosen
candidate of the Pentagon and CIA, touting her toughness as a future commander-in-chief and pledging to escalate the confrontation
with Russia, both in Syria and Ukraine.
The CIA has spearheaded the anti-Russia campaign against Trump in large part because of resentment over the disruption of its
operations in Syria, and it has successfully used the campaign to force a shift in the policy of the Trump administration on that
score. A chorus of media backers -- Nicholas Kristof and Roger Cohen of the New York Times , the entire editorial board
of the Washington Post , most of the television networks -- are part of the campaign to pollute public opinion and whip
up support on alleged "human rights" grounds for an expansion of the US war in Syria.
The 2018 election campaign marks a new stage: for the first time, military-intelligence operatives are moving in large numbers
to take over a political party and seize a major role in Congress. The dozens of CIA and military veterans running in the Democratic
Party primaries are "former" agents of the military-intelligence apparatus. This "retired" status is, however, purely nominal. Joining
the CIA or the Army Rangers or the Navy SEALs is like joining the Mafia: no one ever actually leaves; they just move on to new assignments.
The CIA operation in 2018 is unlike its overseas activities in one major respect: it is not covert. On the contrary, the military-intelligence
operatives running in the Democratic primaries boast of their careers as spies and special ops warriors. Those with combat experience
invariably feature photographs of themselves in desert fatigues or other uniforms on their websites. And they are welcomed and given
preferred positions, with Democratic Party officials frequently clearing the field for their candidacies.
The working class is confronted with an extraordinary political situation. On the one hand, the Republican Trump administration
has more military generals in top posts than any other previous government. On the other hand, the Democratic Party has opened
its doors to a "friendly takeover" by the intelligence agencies.
The incredible power of the military-intelligence agencies over the entire government is an expression of the breakdown of
American democracy. The central cause of this breakdown is the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite, whose
interests the state apparatus and its "bodies of armed men" serve. Confronted by an angry and hostile working class, the ruling class
is resorting to ever more overt forms of authoritarian rule.
Millions of working people want to fight the Trump administration and its ultra-right policies. But it is impossible to carry
out this fight through the "axis of evil" that connects the Democratic Party, the bulk of the corporate media, and the CIA. The influx
of military-intelligence candidates puts paid to the longstanding myth, peddled by the trade unions and pseudo-left groups, that
the Democrats represent a "lesser evil." On the contrary, working people must confront the fact that within the framework of the
corporate-controlled two-party system, they face two equally reactionary evils.
"Brennan/CIA democrats" can't talk about about anything else because they sold themselves under Bill Clinton to Financial oligarchy.
And stay sold since then.
Notable quotes:
"... do they honestly think that people that were just laid off another shift at the car plant in my home county give a shit about Russia when they don't have a frickin' job? ..."
Democrats in midwestern battleground states want the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to back off the Trump-Russia rhetoric,
as state-level leaders worry it's turning off voters.
"The DNC is doing a good job of winning New York and California," said Mahoning, OH Democratic county party chair David Betras.
"I'm not saying it's not important -- of course it's important -- but do they honestly think that people that were just
laid off another shift at the car plant in my home county give a shit about Russia when they don't have a frickin' job? "
Betras says that Trump and Russia is the "only piece they've been doing since 2016. [ Trump ] keeps talking about jobs and the
economy, and we talk about Russia. "
The Democratic infighting comes on the heels of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed by the DNC against the Trump campaign, Wikileaks
and several other parties including the Russian government, alleging an illegal conspiracy to disrupt the 2016 election in a "brazen
attack on American Democracy."
Many midwestern Democrats, however, are rolling their eyes.
"I'm going to be honest; I don't understand why they're doing it," one Midwestern campaign strategist told BuzzFeed. "My sense
was it was a move meant to gin up the donor base, not our voters. But it was the biggest news they've made in a while."
The strategist added "I wouldn't want to see something like this coming out of the DNC in October."
Another Midwest strategist said that the suit was "politically unhelpful" and that they havent seen "a single piece of data that
says voters want Democrats to relitigate 2016. ... The only ones who want to do this are Democratic activists who are already voting
Democratic."
Perhaps Midwestern Democrats aren't idiots, and realize that a two-year counterintelligence operation against Donald Trump which
appears to have been a coordinated "insurance policy" against a Trump win, might not be so great for optics, considering that criminal
referrals have been submitted to the DOJ for individuals involved in the alleged scheme to rig the election in favor of Hillary Clinton.
The gloves are off in the multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed by the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) against the Trump campaign, Wikileaks and several other parties including the
Russian government, alleging an illegal conspiracy to disrupt the 2016 election in a "brazen
attack on American Democracy."
Many have suggested the lawsuit is a tactical error by the DNC, as it may expose or confirm
claims against the organization - such as whether they rigged the primary against Bernie
Sanders , the level of coordination between the DNC and the Clinton Campaign, and the details
surrounding the funding of the "Steele dossier," paid for in part by both the Clinton campaign
and the DNC .
The defendants - from President Trump, to Wikileaks - and now Roger Stone - are excited at
the prospect of examining the DNC servers which cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike determined were
victims of Russian hacking in advance of the 2016 elections. Notably, the DNC would not allow
the FBI or anyone else to inspect said servers .
To that end, Stone's attorneys have slapped the DNC with a notification to preserve evidence
related to the case with a "standard pre-discovery notice." Discovery is a pre-trial process by
which one party can obtain evidence from the opposing party relevant to the case.
My lawyers and I will demand to examine the DNC's servers and expose them to real forensic
analysis, not merely accepting the claims of the DNC's paid contractor , to finally
extinguish this bogus Russian hacking claim, once and for all . My lawyers have served the
DNC with standard pre-discovery notice directing the DNC of their obligation under law to
preserve all possible evidence, including their servers, for ultimate inspection and exposure
to critical review . As Julian Assange wrote on Twitter, via the WikiLeaks feed, " Discovery
is going to be fun ." - Roger Stone
Stone notes that "Former CIA experts like Bill Binney and Ray McGovern examined the basic
data available about the copying of DNC data and concluded that there is more forensic evidence
that the material was downloaded to a portable drive , meaning it had to be someone with
physical access to DNC computers ."
"Having made their computer systems the subject matter of multi-million dollar demands for
judicial relief, the DNC has now exposed them to the discovery process ," writes Stone.
In February, New Zealand entrepreneur Kim Dotcom responded to a tweet by President Trump,
claiming that "the DNC hack wasn't even a hack. It was an insider with a memory stick." Dotcom
says he knows "who did it and why," adding "Special Counsel Mueller is not interested in my
evidence. My lawyers wrote to him twice. He never replied."
"... By now, everybody knows that this idea that Trump was colluding with the Russians in order to get them to do things like steal the DNC emails and then release them through WikiLeaks, the public knows that's just total baloney," ..."
"... "I knew the one man who could prove that it was all baloney was Assange. So I went to see him in London, and he confirmed for me that the Russians did not give him the DNC emails. He had physical proof of that, and he was going to let me see that and have that, but only once, I found an agreement so he wouldn't get arrested when he leaves the Ecuadorian embassy in London." ..."
In a recent
interview with Breitbart Radio, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), who reportedly visited the
Ecuadorian embassy in London in August 2017 and met with WikiLeaks' Julian Assange, said that
Assange has physical evidence to prove that Russia did not provide WikiLeaks with Democratic
National Committee (DNC) emails during the 2016 US presidential campaign.
"
By now, everybody knows that this idea that Trump was colluding with the Russians
in order to get them to do things like steal the DNC emails and then release them through
WikiLeaks, the public knows that's just total baloney," Rohrabacher said. "I knew the
one man who could prove that it was all baloney was Assange. So I went to see him in London,
and he confirmed for me that the Russians did not give him the DNC emails. He had physical
proof of that, and he was going to let me see that and have that, but only once, I found an
agreement so he wouldn't get arrested when he leaves the Ecuadorian embassy in London."
Rohrabacher added:
"Unfortunately, this was in the middle of having a special prosecutor, [and] any
discussion with Trump and myself that mentions Russia will be used as an excuse by that
special prosecutor to just quadruple all the areas of investigation into me and into Trump.
So it is standing there. I've been waiting because I know that we're not going to give this
special prosecutor any more ammunition than he needs to try to destroy this president."
Rohrabacher claimed that Assange had evidence and was willing to provide it in exchange for
US/UK authorities agreeing not to arrest him upon leaving the Ecuadorian embassy in London,
where the WikiLeaks co-founder has been "arbitrarily detained" under threat of arrest since
2012.
Assange first sought political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy after the UK sought to
arrest him on a Swedish warrant that has since been lifted. British authorities, thought to
operating covertly at the behest of the US -- due to a purported secret federal grand jury
indictment in the US for Assange -- insist they will arrest him if he attempts to leave the
embassy for violating the terms of his bail. It is believed that once arrested for the bail
violation in the UK, Assange would likely be extradited to the US under the sealed
indictment.
Following his meeting with Assange, Rohrabacher was denied
access to President Trump by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly due to Special Counsel
Robert Mueller's investigation into Trump-Russia collusion during the 2016 US presidential
election. In February, Rohrabacher "said he was told by Kelly that meeting with Trump could put
the president in unnecessary legal jeopardy," according to a report from The Intercept.
Rohrabacher also claimed that Assange "did not want to release the evidence publicly" because
he wanted to avoid exposing "his sources and methods."
The DNC and Hillary Clinton have continually accused WikiLeaks as acting as a "Russian
cutout" during the 2016 election, after the transparency organization published private emails
from Clinton campaign chair John Podesta as well as internal DNC emails. Assange says WikiLeaks
never releases sources, but has emphatically denied that the organization was supplied the
emails by Russia.
Craig Murray -- former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan and "close associate" of WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange -- publicly stated in a December 2016
interview with The Daily Mail that the Democratic National Committee's emails were obtained
by WikiLeaks from a "disgusted" DNC operative who had legal access to them, not Russia.
"Neither of [the leaks] came from the Russians," Murray said. "The source had legal access
to the information. The documents came from inside leaks, not hacks."
Murray said the leakers were motivated by "disgust at the corruption of the Clinton
Foundation and the tilting of the primary election playing field against Bernie Sanders."
The Daily Mail reported that Murray said he "retrieved the package from a source during a
clandestine meeting in a wooded area near American University, in northwest D.C. He said the
individual he met with was not the original person who obtained the information, but an
intermediary."
An investigation into the alleged hack performed last year by Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) claimed that the "data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with
physical access to DNC computers." VIPS findings were
presented to CIA Director Mike Pompeo last November, reportedly at the direction of
President Trump.
Assange has been unable to publicly comment on Rohrabacher's statements, as the Ecuadorian
government has barred him from receiving visitor and suspended his
internet access for the past month.
This article was chosen for republication based on the interest of our readers.
Anti-Media republishes stories from a number of other independent news sources. The views
expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect Anti-Media editorial
policy.
The lawsuit filed by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), naming WikiLeaks and its
founder Julian Assange as co-conspirators with Russia and the Trump campaign in a criminal
effort to steal the 2016 US presidential election, is a frontal assault on democratic rights.
It tramples on the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which establishes freedom of the
press and freedom of speech as fundamental rights.
Neither the Democratic Party lawsuit nor the media commentaries on it acknowledge that
WikiLeaks is engaged in journalism, not espionage; that its work consists of publishing
material supplied to it by whistleblowers seeking to expose the crimes of governments, giant
corporations and other powerful organizations; and that this courageous campaign of exposure
has made both the website and its founder and publisher the targets of state repression all
over the world.
Assange himself has been effectively imprisoned in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for
the past six years, since he fled there to escape efforts by the British, Swedish and
American governments to engineer his extradition to the United States, where a secret grand
jury has reportedly indicted him on espionage and treason charges that could bring the death
penalty. Since the end of March, the Ecuadorian government, responding to increasing pressure
from US and British imperialism, has cut off all outside communication with him.
The reason for the indictment and persecution of Assange is that WikiLeaks published
secret military documents, supplied by whistleblower Chelsea Manning, revealing US war crimes
in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as diplomatic cables embarrassing to the US State Department
because they detailed US attempts to manipulate and subvert governments around the world.
The Democratic National Committee on Friday filed a 66-page complaint that reeks of
McCarthyism, with overtones of the Wisconsin senator's demagogy about "a conspiracy so vast"
when he was spearheading the anticommunist witch hunts more than 70 years ago. After
detailing a long list of supposed conspirators, ranging from the Russian government and its
military intelligence agency GRU to the Trump campaign and Julian Assange, the complaint
declares: "The conspiracy constituted an act of previously unimaginable treachery: the
campaign of the presidential nominee of a major party in league with a hostile foreign power
to bolster its own chance to win the Presidency."
Such language has had no place in official American public life since the right-wing
political gangster McCarthy left the scene in the late 1950s. Ultra-right groups like the
John Birch Society kept alive such smear tactics in ensuing decades, but they were relegated
to the fringes of the political system. Now the Democratic Party has sought to revive these
methods as the central focus of its bid for power in the 2018 elections.
In the targeting of WikiLeaks, the antidemocratic content of this campaign finds its
foulest expression. The DNC suit asserts, without the slightest evidence, that "WikiLeaks and
Assange directed, induced, urged, and/or encouraged Russia and the GRU to engage in this
conduct and/or to provide WikiLeaks and Assange with DNC's trade secrets, with the
expectation that WikiLeaks and Assange would disseminate those secrets and increase the Trump
Campaign's chance of winning the election."
According to Assange and WikiLeaks, however, the material from the DNC and from Clinton
campaign Chairman John Podesta that it made public in 2016 was provided by an anonymous
whistleblower whose identity WikiLeaks does not know because it observed its normal security
practices to preserve secrecy and protect its sources. Not a shred of evidence has been
presented to prove otherwise.
The DNC legal complaint cites the negative consequences of the WikiLeaks revelations in
passages worth quoting:
135. The illegal conspiracy inflicted profound damage upon the DNC. The timing and
selective release of the stolen materials prevented the DNC from communicating with the
electorate on its own terms. These selective releases of stolen material reached a peak
immediately before the Democratic National Convention and continued through the general
election.
136. The timing and selective release of stolen materials was designed to and had the
effect of driving a wedge between the DNC and Democratic voters. The release of stolen
materials also impaired the DNC's ability to support Democratic candidates in the general
election.
But the DNC lawsuit does not explain why the WikiLeaks material was so damaging.
On the contrary, it says nothing about the actual content of what was leaked, other than
claiming that it included "trade secrets" and other proprietary information of the Democratic
Party leadership.
The material published by WikiLeaks about the Democrats fell into two main categories.
First were internal emails and documents of the DNC showing that DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman
Schultz and her top aides were engaged in a systematic effort to block Clinton's challenger
Bernie Sanders and make sure Clinton received the Democratic nomination. In other words,
while complaining that Russia was engaged in rigging the 2016 campaign, the DNC was seeking
to rig the outcome of the Democratic primary contest.
The second batch of documents came from Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta and
included the transcripts of speeches delivered by Hillary Clinton to financial industry
groups for fees as high as $300,000 per appearance. In these remarks, she reassured the
bankers that they need not be alarmed by any campaign rhetoric about punishing them for the
financial skullduggery that triggered the 2008 Wall Street crash and destroyed the jobs and
living standards of millions of working people. She made clear that a Clinton government
would continue the pro-Wall Street policies of the Obama administration.
The DNC suit is a deepening of the effort by the Democratic Party to become the premier
party of the CIA and the military-intelligence apparatus as a whole. In targeting WikiLeaks
and Assange, the Democrats are embracing the smear by CIA Director Mike Pompeo -- now Trump's
choice for secretary of state -- that WikiLeaks is a "non-state hostile intelligence
service," allegedly allied with Moscow.
If, moreover, Assange is a traitor because he exposes the lies and crimes of the US
government, then by implication all those publications, websites and individuals who defend
him and challenge the government propaganda disseminated by the corporate media are
themselves complicit in treason and should be dealt with accordingly.
As the World Socialist Web Site has previously explained, the anti-Russia
campaign mounted by the Democrats is a reactionary concoction, backed by no factual evidence,
aimed at pushing the Trump administration to sharply escalate the war in Syria and adopt a
more aggressive policy against Russia. At the same time, it has been used as the
justification for a massive and coordinated campaign to censor the Internet. The manipulation
of search and news feed algorithms by Google and Facebook will be followed by more direct
efforts at the suppression of left-wing, anti-war and socialist publications.
The campaign has also served to position the Democrats as the party that stands up for the
"intelligence community" in its conflict with the Trump White House. This is now being
supplemented, in advance of the November midterm elections, by an influx of candidates for
Democratic congressional nominations in competitive districts drawn heavily from the ranks of
the CIA, the military, the National Security Council and the State Department (see: "
The CIA
Democrats ").
The conduct of the DNC demonstrates the reactionary and bankrupt character of the claims
by liberal and pseudo-left groups -- all of whom have maintained a complete silence on the
isolation and persecution of Assange -- that the election of a Democratic-controlled Congress
is the way to fight back against Trump and the Republicans. The truth is that the working
class confronts in these parties two implacable political enemies committed to war, austerity
and repression.
"... "Some are asking, though, 'Why wouldn't smashing of cellphones and destruction of thousands of emails during an investigation clearly be obstruction of justice ..."
"... Although mainstream media outlets, liberal pundits, and lawmakers have been obsessing over possible obstruction of justice charges and anticipating impeachment for Trump as a result, these same individuals showed a marked lack of interest in whether or not Clinton and her team obstructed justice. ..."
"... "But if you smash your cellphone knowing that investigators want it and that they've got a subpoena for it, for example, that is a different thing and can be obstruction of justice." ..."
"... Jones followed up, asking, "The law requires intent?" ..."
Comey Claims Nobody Asked About Clinton Obstruction Before Today on Sun, 04/22/2018 - 9:27pm
From the
' you can't make this shit up ' files. Hillary had been involved in government long enough to know and understand the rules
of what she needed to do with her emails after her tenure was over. As well as the rules for handling classified information with
an email account. But I guess she thought that rules only applied to everyone else but her. And why wouldn't she think that she could
do whatever she wanted to? Because she and Bill had been getting away with doing whatever they wanted their entire political careers
with no repercussions.
Using a private email server that would be a way around the freedom of information act would have also allowed her to put her
foundation's business on it so that Chelsea and others could have access to it even though it was tied into her state department
business and the people who did didn't have the proper security clearances to read the emails. (Sydney Bluementhal) Tut, tut ..
When WTOP's Joan Jones asked former FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday if the "smashing of cellphones and destruction of
thousands of emails" during the investigation into Hillary Clinton was "obstruction of justice," Comey said that he had never
been asked that question before.
"You have raised the specter of obstruction of justice charges with the president of the United States," Jones said to Comey
concerning his new book, "A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership." The book was released earlier this week.
"Some are asking, though, 'Why wouldn't smashing of cellphones and destruction of thousands of emails during an investigation
clearly be obstruction of justice ?'" Jones asked Comey.
Comey replied, "Now that's a great question. That's the first time I've been asked that."
Although mainstream media outlets, liberal pundits, and lawmakers have been obsessing over possible obstruction of justice
charges and anticipating impeachment for Trump as a result, these same individuals showed a marked lack of interest in whether or
not Clinton and her team obstructed justice.
There's that word intent again.
"And the answer is, it would depend upon what the intent of the people doing it was," Comey said. "It's the reason I can't
say when people ask me, 'Did Donald Trump committee obstruction of justice?' My answer is, 'I don't know. It could be. It would
depend upon, is there evidence to establish that he took actions with corrupt intent ?'"
"So if you smash a cellphone, lots of people smash their cellphones so they're not resold on the secondary market and your
personal stuff ends up in somebody else's hands," Comey continued. "But if you smash your cellphone knowing that investigators
want it and that they've got a subpoena for it, for example, that is a different thing and can be obstruction of justice."
What about deleting ones emails after being told to turn them over to congress after they found out that you didn't do it when
your job was done. Is this considered obstruction of justice, James? I think that answer is yes. How about backing up your emails
on someone else's computer when some of them were found to be classified?
Jones followed up, asking, "The law requires intent?"
"Yes. It requires not just intent , but the prosecutors demonstrate corrupt intent , which is a special kind of intent
that you were taking actions with the intention of defeating and obstructing an investigation you knew was going on," Comey replied.
Did he just change the rules there? Now it's not just intent, but corrupt intent. This is exactly what Hillary
did, James! She deliberately destroyed her emails after she was told to turn them over to congress, so if you didn't have the chance
to see them l, then how do you know that the ones that she destroyed weren't classified? I would say that qualifies as intent.
But we know that you had a job to protect her from being prosecuted. This is why when the wording was changed from " grossly negligent
" to "extremely careless". you went with the new ones!
BTW, James. Why wasn't Hillary under oath when she was questioned by the other FBI agents? Why didn't you question her
or look at her other computers and cell phones she had at her home? I'd think that they might have shown you something that she didn't
want you to see? One more question, James. Did you ask the NSA to find the deleted emails that she destroyed because she said that
they were just personal ones about Chelsea's wedding? Do you really think that it took 30,000 emails to plan a wedding? Okay, one
more. Did you even think that those emails might have had something to do with her foundation that might have had some incriminating
evidence of either classified information on them or even possible proof of her "pay to play" shenanigans that she was told not to
do during her tenure as SOS? This thought never crossed your mind?
Last question I promise. Did you really do due diligence on investigating her use of her private email server or were you still
covering for her like you have been since she started getting investigated?
This amazing comment came from a person on Common Dreams. It shows the history of
One source told the news outlet that electronic records reveal that Strzok changed the language from " grossly negligent
" to " extremely careless ," scrubbing a key word that could have had legal ramifications for Clinton. An individual
who mishandled classified material could be prosecuted under federal law for "gross negligence."
What would have happened if Comey had found Hillary guilty of mishandling classified information on her private email server?
She couldn't have become president of course because her security clearances would have been revoked. This makes it kinda hard to
be one if she couldn't have access to top secret information, now wouldn't it?
Have you seen this statement by people who don't think that what Hillary did when she used her private email server was wrong
and that's why some people didn't vote for her and Trump became president because of it?
Devin Nunes said today that after reviewing the electronic communication that launched the
counter intelligence investigation of Trump there was no evidence that warranted this
investigation. It is also interesting that Comey memorialized his discussions with Trump but
did not do that with others. His memos note that he only informed Trump on the salacious part
of the FusionGPS dossier and not the other parts. It looks like the conspiracy around the
smearing of Trump by the Obama administration is slowly coming out.
"An article in the Guardian last week provides more confirmation that John Brennan was the
American progenitor of political espionage aimed at defeating Donald Trump. One side did
collude with foreign powers to tip the election -- Hillary's."
"... Putting aside his partisan motivations, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) was unusually blunt two months ago in warning of legal consequences for officials who misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in order to enable surveillance on Trump and his associates. Nunes's words are likely to have sent chills down the spine of those with lots to hide: "If they need to be put on trial, we will put them on trial," he said ."The reason Congress exists is to oversee these agencies that we created." ..."
"... The media will be key to whether this Constitutional issue is resolved. Largely because of Trump's own well earned reputation for lying, most Americans are susceptible to slanted headlines like this recent one -- "Trump escalates attacks on FBI " -- from an article in The Washington Post , commiserating with the treatment accorded fired-before-retired prevaricator McCabe and the FBI he ( dis)served . ..."
"... What motivated the characters now criminally "referred" is clear enough from a wide variety of sources, including the text messages exchange between Strzok and Page. Many, however, have been unable to understand how these law enforcement officials thought they could get away with taking such major liberties with the law. ..."
"... None of the leaking, unmasking, surveillance, "opposition research," or other activities directed against the Trump campaign can be properly understood, if one does not bear in mind that it was considered a sure thing that Secretary Clinton would become President, at which point illegal and extralegal activities undertaken to help her win would garner praise, not prison. The activities were hardly considered high-risk, because candidate Clinton was sure to win. ..."
"... Comey admits, "It is entirely possible that, because I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president, my concern about making her an illegitimate president by concealing the re-started investigation bore greater weight than it would have if the election appeared closer or if Donald Trump were ahead in the polls." ..."
"... The key point is not Comey's tortured reasoning, but rather that Clinton was "sure to be the next president." This would, of course, confer automatic immunity on those now criminally referred to the Department of Justice. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men -- even very tall men. One wag claimed that the "Higher" in "A Higher Loyalty" refers simply to the very tall body that houses an outsized ego. ..."
"... "Hope springs eternal" would be the cynical folk wisdom. FYI we haven't had a functioning constitution since the National Security Act of 1947 brought this nation under color of law, but the IC types wouldn't have you know that. Too tough to square the idea you'd never have had your CIA career in a world where the FISA court couldn't exist either. ..."
"... there is concrete evidence that the Democratic party/Clinton manipulated the primaries to destroy Clinton's challanger. That the DOJ, FBI & other alphabet agencies conspired with Clinton to equally, destroy Trump's campaign. ..."
"... We saw the same nonsense with Obama, the "peace president". Obama a man who never saw a Muslim he did not want to bomb or a Jew he did not want to bail out ..."
"... The best thing about this referral is that it also demands deputy AG Rod Rosenstein the weasel to recluse himself from this case. Rosenstein is the pinnacle of corruption by the deep state. ..."
"... Former CIA Director John Brennan is the prime mover behind the ongoing coup attempt against Trump. He gathered his deep state allies at DOJ and the FBI to join him in this endeavor. Brennan's allies -- McCabe, Lynch, Strzok, Yates, ect., may or may not be aware of Brennan's true motive behind creating all the noise and distraction since the 2016 election. It could be they're just partisan hacks; or they're on board with Brennan to keep secret what was revealed in the hack of the Podesta emails. ..."
"... I noticed Comey tried to pull a J Edgar-style subtle blackmail on Trump by the way he brought up the so-called "dossier" ..."
"... Bill Clinton got recruited into CIA by Cord Meyer, who bragged of it himself in his cups. ..."
"... Hillary cut her teeth on CIA's Watergate purge of Nixon. (If it's news to anyone that the Watergate cast of characters was straight out of CIA central casting, Russ Baker has conclusively tied the elaborate ratfeck to the intelligence community.) ..."
"... Obama was son of spooks, grandson of spooks, greased in to Harvard by Alwaleed bin-Talal's bagman. ..."
Wednesday's criminal referral by 11 House Republicans of former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton as well as several former and serving top FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials
is a giant step toward a Constitutional crisis.
Named in the referral to the DOJ for possible violations of federal law are: Clinton, former
FBI Director James Comey; former Attorney General Loretta Lynch; former Acting FBI Director
Andrew McCabe; FBI Agent Peter Strzok; FBI Counsel Lisa Page; and those DOJ and FBI personnel
"connected to" work on the "Steele Dossier," including former Acting Attorney General Sally
Yates and former Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente.
With no attention from corporate media, the referral was sent to Attorney General Jeff
Sessions, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah John Huber.
Sessions appointed Huber months ago to assist DOJ Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz. By
most accounts, Horowitz is doing a thoroughly professional job. As IG, however, Horowitz lacks
the authority to prosecute; he needs a U.S. Attorney for that. And this has to be disturbing to
the alleged perps.
This is no law-school case-study exercise, no arcane disputation over the fine points of
this or that law. Rather, as we say in the inner-city, "It has now hit the fan." Criminal
referrals can lead to serious jail time. Granted, the upper-crust luminaries criminally
"referred" enjoy very powerful support. And that will come especially from the mainstream
media, which will find it hard to retool and switch from Russia-gate to the much more delicate
and much less welcome "FBI-gate."
As of this writing, a full day has gone by since the letter/referral was reported, with
total silence so far from T he New York Times and The Washington Post and other
big media as they grapple with how to spin this major development. News of the criminal
referral also slipped by Amy Goodman's non-mainstream DemocracyNow!, as well as many
alternative websites.
The 11 House members chose to include the following egalitarian observation in the first
paragraph of the
letter conveying the criminal referral: "Because we believe that those in positions of high
authority should be treated the same as every other American, we want to be sure that the
potential violations of law outlined below are vetted appropriately." If this uncommon attitude
is allowed to prevail at DOJ, it would, in effect, revoke the de facto "David Petraeus
exemption" for the be-riboned, be-medaled, and well-heeled.
Stonewalling
Meanwhile, the patience of the chairmen of House committees investigating abuses at DOJ and
the FBI is wearing thin at the slow-rolling they are encountering in response to requests for
key documents from the FBI. This in-your-face intransigence is all the more odd, since several
committee members have already had access to the documents in question, and are hardly likely
to forget the content of those they know about. (Moreover, there seems to be a good chance that
a patriotic whistleblower or two will tip them off to key documents being withheld.)
The DOJ IG, whose purview includes the FBI, has been cooperative in responding to committee
requests for information, but those requests can hardly include documents of which the
committees are unaware.
Putting aside his partisan motivations, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes
(R-CA) was unusually blunt two months ago in warning of legal consequences for officials who
misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in order to enable surveillance on Trump and
his associates. Nunes's words are likely to have sent chills down the spine of those with lots
to hide: "If they need to be put on trial, we will put them on trial," he said
."The reason Congress exists is to oversee these agencies that we created."
Whether the House will succeed in overcoming the resistance of those criminally referred and
their many accomplices and will prove able to exercise its Constitutional prerogative of
oversight is, of course, another matter -- a matter that matters.
And Nothing Matters More Than the Media
The media will be key to whether this Constitutional issue is resolved. Largely because of
Trump's own well earned reputation for lying, most Americans are susceptible to slanted
headlines like this recent one -- "Trump escalates attacks on FBI " -- from an
article in The Washington Post , commiserating with the treatment accorded
fired-before-retired prevaricator McCabe and the FBI he ( dis)served
.
Nor is the Post above issuing transparently clever warnings -- like this one in a
lead
article on March 17: "Some Trump allies say they worry he is playing with fire by taunting
the FBI. 'This is open, all-out war. And guess what? The FBI's going to win,' said one ally,
who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. 'You can't fight the FBI. They're going
to torch him.'" [sic]
Mind-Boggling Criminal Activity
What motivated the characters now criminally "referred" is clear enough from a wide variety
of sources, including the text messages exchange between Strzok and Page. Many, however, have
been unable to understand how these law enforcement officials thought they could get away with
taking such major liberties with the law.
None of the leaking, unmasking, surveillance, "opposition research," or other activities
directed against the Trump campaign can be properly understood, if one does not bear in mind
that it was considered a sure thing that Secretary Clinton would become President, at which
point illegal and extralegal activities undertaken to help her win would garner praise, not
prison. The activities were hardly considered high-risk, because candidate Clinton was sure to
win.
But she lost.
Comey himself gives this away in the embarrassingly puerile book he has been hawking, "A
Higher Loyalty" -- which
amounts to a pre-emptive move motivated mostly by loyalty-to-self, in order to obtain a
Stay-Out-of-Jail card. Hat tip to Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone for a key observation, in his
recent article
, "James Comey, the Would-Be J. Edgar Hoover," about what Taibbi deems the book's most damning
passage, where Comey discusses his decision to make public the re-opening of the Hillary
Clinton email investigation.
Comey admits, "It is entirely possible that, because I was making decisions in an
environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president, my concern about making
her an illegitimate president by concealing the re-started investigation bore greater weight
than it would have if the election appeared closer or if Donald Trump were ahead in the
polls."
The key point is not Comey's tortured reasoning, but rather that Clinton was "sure to be the
next president." This would, of course, confer automatic immunity on those now criminally
referred to the Department of Justice. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men -- even very
tall men. One wag claimed that the "Higher" in "A Higher Loyalty" refers simply to the very
tall body that houses an outsized ego.
I think it can be said that readers of Consortiumnews.com may be unusually well equipped to
understand the anatomy of FBI-gate as well as Russia-gate. Listed below chronologically are
several links that might be viewed as a kind of "whiteboard" to refresh memories. You may wish
to refer them to any friends who may still be confused.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of
the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He served as an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and
then a CIA analyst for a total of 30 years. In retirement, he co-created Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
A weird country, the USA.
Reading the article I'm reminded of the 1946 Senate investigation into Pearl Harbour, where,
in my opinion, the truth was unearthed.
At the same time, this truth hardly ever reached the wider public, no articles, the book, ed.
Harry Elmer Barnes, never reviewed.
Will McCabe wind up in jail? Will Comey? Will Hillary face justice? Fingers crossed!
The short answer is NO. McCabe might, but not Comey and the Killer Queen, they've both served Satan, uh I mean the
Deep State too long and too well.Satan and the banksters–who really run the show–take care of their own and
apex predators like Hillary won't go to jail. But it does keep the rubes entertained while the banksters continue to loot, pillage and
plunder and Israel keeps getting Congress to fight their wars.
"Hope springs eternal" would be the cynical folk wisdom. FYI we haven't had a functioning
constitution since the National Security Act of 1947 brought this nation under color of law,
but the IC types wouldn't have you know that. Too tough to square the idea you'd never have
had your CIA career in a world where the FISA court couldn't exist either.
Consortium News many sops tossed to 'realpolitik' where false narrative is attacked with
alternative false narrative, example given, drunk Ukrainian soldiers supposedly downing MH 17
with a BUK as opposed to Kiev's Interior Ministry behind the Ukrainian combat jet that
actually brought down MH 17, poisons everything (trust issues) spewed from that news
service.
The realpolitik 'face saving' exit/offer implied in the Consortium News narrative where
Russia doesn't have to confront the West with Ukraine's (and by implication the western
intelligence agencies) premeditated murder of 300 innocents does truth no favors.
Time to grow up and face reality. Realpolitik is dead; the caliber of 'statesman' required
for these finessed geopolitical lies to function no longer exist on the Western side, and the
Russians (I believe) are beginning to understand there is no agreement can be made behind
closed doors that will hold up; as opposed to experiencing a backstabbing (like NATO not
moving east.)
Back on topic; the National Security Act of 1947 and the USA's constitution are mutually
exclusive concepts, where you have a Chief Justice appoints members of our FISA Court, er,
nix that, let's call a spade a spade, it's a Star Chamber. There is no constitution to
uphold, no matter well intended self deceits. There will be no constitutional crisis, only a
workaround to pretend a constitution still exists:
To comprehend the internal machinations s of US politics one needs a mind capable of high
level yoga or of squaring a circle.
On the one hand there is a multimillion, full throttle investigation into – at best
– nebulus, inconsequential links between trump/ his campaign & Russia.
On the other there is concrete evidence that the Democratic party/Clinton manipulated the
primaries to destroy Clinton's challanger. That the DOJ, FBI & other alphabet agencies
conspired with Clinton to equally, destroy Trump's campaign.
Naturally, its this 2nd conspiracy which is retarded.
Imagine, a mere agency of a dept, the FBI, is widely considered untouchable by The President
! Indeed, they will "torch" him. AND the "the third estate" ie: the msm will support them the
whole way!
As a script the "The Twilight Zone" would have rejected all this as too ludicrous, too
psychotic for even its broad minded viewers.
And that will come especially from the mainstream media
I quit reading right there. Use of that term indicates mental laziness at best. What's mainstream about it? Please
refer to corporate media in proper terms, such as PCR's "presstitute" media. Speaking of PCR, it's too bad he doesn't allow comments.
The MSM is controlled by Zionists as is the U.S. gov and the banks, so it is no surprise that
the MSM protects the ones destroying America, this is what they do. Nothing of consequence will be done to any of the ones involved, it will all be covered
up, as usual.
What utter nonsense. These people are ALL actors, no one will go to jail, because everything
they do is contrived, no consequence for doing as your Zionist owners command.
There is no there there. This is nothing but another distraction, something o feed the
dual narratives, that Clinton and her ilk are out to get Trump, and the "liberal media" will
cover it up. This narrative feeds very nicely into the primary goal of driving
Republicans/conservatives to support Trump, even as Trump does everything they elected him
NOT TO DO!
We saw the same nonsense with Obama, the "peace president". Obama a man who never saw a
Muslim he did not want to bomb or a Jew he did not want to bail out
Yet even while Obama did the work of the Zionist money machine, the media played up the
fake battle between those who thought he was not born in America, "birthers" and his blind
supporters.
Nothing came of any of it, just like Monica Lewinsky, nothing but theater, fill the air
waves, divide the people, while America is driven insane.
The best thing about this referral is that it also demands deputy AG Rod Rosenstein the
weasel to recluse himself from this case. Rosenstein is the pinnacle of corruption by the deep
state. It's seriously way pass time for Jeff Sessions to grow a pair, put on his big boy
pants, unrecuse himself from the Russian collusion bullshit case, fire Rosenstein and Mueller
and end the case once and for all. These two traitors are in danger of completely derailing
the Trump agenda and toppling the Republican majority in November, yet Jeff Sessions is still
busy arresting people for marijuana, talk about missing the forest for the trees.
As far as where this referral will go from here, my guess is, nowhere. Not as long as Jeff
Sessions the pussy is the AG. It's good to hear that Giuliani has now been recruited by Trump
to be on his legal team. What Trump really needs to do is replace Jeff Sessions with
Giuliani, or even Chris Christie, and let them do what a real AG should be doing, which is
clean house in the DOJ, and prosecute the Clintons for their pay-to-play scheme with their
foundation. Not only is the Clinton corruption case the biggest corruption case in US
history, but this might be the only way to save the GOP from losing their majority in
November.
But it does keep the rubes entertained while the banksters continue to loot, pillage and
plunder and Israel keeps getting Congress to fight their wars.
Sadly I think you're right. Things might be different if we had a real AG, but Jeff
Sessions is not the man I thought he was. He's been swallowed by the deep state just like
Trump. At least Trump is putting up a fight, Sessions just threw in the towel and recused
himself from Day 1. Truly pathetic. Some patriot he is.
" He's ferreted out more than a few and probably has a lot better idea who his friends are
he certainly knows the enemies by now."
He failed to ferret out Haley, Pompeo, or Sessions and he just recently appointed John
Bolton, so I don't agree with your assessment. If his friends include those three, that says
enough about Trump to make any of his earlier supporters drop him.
Anyway, not having a ready made team, or at least a solid short list of key appointees
shows that he was just too clueless to have even been a serious candidate. It looks more as
though Trump is doing now what he intended to do all along. That means he was bullshitting
everybody during his campaign.
So, maybe the neocons really have been his friends all along.
" America is a very crooked country, nothing suprises me".
Every country on this insane planet is "crooked" to a greater or lesser degree, when to a
lesser degree, this is simply because they, the PTB, have not yet figured out how to
accelerate, how to increase their corruption and thereby how to increase their unearned
monetary holdings.
Money is the most potent singular factor which causes humans to lose their minds, and all
of their ethics and decency.
And within the confines of a "socialist" system, "money" is replaced by rubber-stamps, which
then wield, exactly in the manner of "wealth", the power of life or death, over the unwashed
masses.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa" qualified since 1973, airborne trained US Army vet, and pro jazz
musician.
BTW Jeff Sessions is a fraternal brother of Pence (a member of the same club, same
[recently deceased] guru) and is no friend of Trump.
That would explain why Sessions reclused himself from the start, and refused to appoint a
special council to investigate the Clintons. He's in on this with Pence.
Just as it looks like the Comey memos will further exonerate Trump, we now have this farce
extended by the DNC with this latest lawsuit on the "Trump campaign". The Democrats are now
the most pathetic sore losers in history, they are hell bent on dragging the whole country
down the pit of hell just because they can't handle a loss.
Wishful thinking that anything will come of this, just like when the Nunes memo was released.
Nothing will happen as long as Jeff Sessions is AG. Trump needs to fire either Sessions or
Rosenstein ASAP, before he gets dragged down by this whole Russian collusion bullshit case.
Former CIA Director John Brennan is the prime mover behind the ongoing coup attempt against
Trump. He gathered his deep state allies at DOJ and the FBI to join him in this endeavor.
Brennan's allies -- McCabe, Lynch, Strzok, Yates, ect., may or may not be aware of Brennan's
true motive behind creating all the noise and distraction since the 2016 election. It could
be they're just partisan hacks; or they're on board with Brennan to keep secret what was
revealed in the hack of the Podesta emails.
John Podesta, in addition to being a top Democrat/DC lobbyist and a criminal deviant, is
also a long-time CIA asset running a blackmail/influence operation that utilized his
deviancy: the sexual exploitation of children.
What kind of "physical proof" could Assange have? A thumb drive that was provably
American, or something? Rohrabacher only got Red Pilled on Russia because he had one very
determined (and well heeled) constituent. But he did cosponsor one of Tulsi Gabbard's "Stop
Funding Terrorists" bills, which he figured out on his own. Nevertheless, a bit of a loose
cannon and an eff'd up hawk on Iran He's probably an 'ISIS now, Assad later' on Syria.
I noticed Comey tried to pull a J Edgar-style subtle blackmail on Trump by the way he brought
up the so-called "dossier". Anyone could see it was absurd but he played his hand with it,
pretending it was being looked at. I would say Trump could see through this sleazy game Comey
was trying to play and sized him up. Comey is about as slimy as they get even as he parades
around trying to look noble. What a corrupt bunch.
"The culprit has swayed with the immediate need for a villain "
[What follows is excerpted from an article headlined Robert Mueller's Questionable Past
that appeared yesterday on the American Free Press website:]
During his tenure with the Justice Department under President George H W Bush, Mueller
supervised the prosecutions of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, the Lockerbie bombing (Pan
Am Flight 103) case, and Gambino crime boss John Gotti. In the Noriega case, Mueller ignored
the ties to the Bush family that Victor Thorn illustrated in Hillary (and Bill): The Drugs
Volume: Part Two of the Clinton Trilogy. Noriega had long been associated with CIA operations
that involved drug smuggling, money laundering, and arms running. Thorn significantly links
Noriega to Bush family involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal.
Regarding Pan Am Flight 103, the culprit has swayed with the immediate need for a villain.
Pro-Palestinian activists, Libyans, and Iranians have all officially been blamed when US
intelligence and the mainstream mass media needed to paint each as the antagonist to American
freedom. Mueller toed the line, publicly ignoring rumors that agents onboard were said to
have learned that a CIA drug-smuggling operation was afoot in conjunction with Pan Am
flights. According to the theory, the agents were going to take their questions to Congress
upon landing. The flight blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland.
There has been some former high flyers going to jail recently. Sarkozy is facing a hard
time at the moment. If it can happen to a former president of France it can happen to
Hillary.
Am I a Christian? Well, no. I had some exposure to Christianity but it never took hold. On
the other hand, I do believe there was a historical Jesus that was a remarkable man, but
there is a world (or universe) of difference between the man and the mythology. Here's some
of my thoughts on the matter:
Nothing uncanny about it. There's a frenetic Democratic cottage industry inferring magical
emotional charisma powers that explain the outsized influence of those three. The fact is
very simple. All three are CIA nomenklatura.
(1.) Bill Clinton got recruited into CIA by Cord Meyer, who bragged of it himself in his
cups.
(2.) Hillary cut her teeth on CIA's Watergate purge of Nixon. (If it's news to anyone that
the Watergate cast of characters was straight out of CIA central casting, Russ Baker has
conclusively tied the elaborate ratfeck to the intelligence community.)
(3.) Obama was son of spooks, grandson of spooks, greased in to Harvard by Alwaleed
bin-Talal's bagman. While he was vocationally wet behind the ears he not only got into
Pakistan, no mean feat at the time, but he went to a falconry outing with the future acting
president of Pakistan. And is there anyone alive who wasn't flabbergasted at the instant
universal acclaim for some empty suit who made a speech at the convention? Like Bill Clinton,
successor to DCI Bush, Obama was blatantly, derisively installed in the president slot of the
CIA org chart.
Excellent post and quite accurate information, however my point being that the irrational
fear harbored by the individuals who could actually begin to rope these scumbags in, is just
that : Irrational, as they seem to think or have been lead/brainwashed to believe that these
dissolute turds are somehow endowed with supernatural, otherworldy powers and options, and
that they are capable of unholy , merciless vengeance : VF, SR, etc.
And the truth is as soon as they finally start to go after them they, they will fall apart at
the seams, such as with all cowards, and this is the bottom line : They, the BC/HC/BO clique,
they are nothing more than consumate cowards, who can only operate in such perfidious manners
when left unchallenged.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa" qualified since 1973, airborne trained US Army vet, and pro Jazz
artist.
The father of Imran Awan - a longtime IT aide from Pakistan who made "unauthorized access" to the
House computer network -
reportedly transferred a USB drive to the former head of a
Pakistani intelligence agency
, alleges the father's ex-business partner, Rashid Minhas.
Minhas told the
Daily Caller News Foundation
(DCNF) - which traveled to Pakistan to
interview those involved - that Haji Ashraf Awan, Imran Awan's father, had been giving information
to Rehman Malik - former head of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and current senator.
Malik was appointed to Interior Minister in early 2008, only to step down in 2013 after he lost a
Supreme Court hearing over holding dual UK citizenship.
Minhas told The Daily Caller News Foundation that Imran Awan's father, Haji Ashraf Awan, was
giving data to Pakistani official Rehman Malik, and that Imran bragged he had the power to "
change
the U.S. president.
"
Asked for how he knew this, he said that on one occasion in 2008 when a
"USB [was]
given to Rehman Malik by Imran's father, my brother Abdul Razzaq was with his father
."
-
DCNF
"After Imran's father deliver (sic) USB to Rehman Malik, four Pakistani [government
intelligence] agents were with his father 24-hour on duty to protect him," he said - however Minhas
did not say what was on the USB.
The House watchdog, Inspector General Michael Ptasienski, charged in September 30, 2016 that
data was being
siphoned off
of the House Network by the Awans as recently as two months before the US
presidential election.
The Awan family had virtually unlimited access to Democratic House members' computers, including
classified information.
Nearly Imran's entire immediate family was on the House payroll working as IT aides
to one-fifth of House Democrats
, and he began working for the House in 2004. The
inspector general, Michael Ptasienski, testified this month that "
system administrators
hold the 'keys to the kingdom' meaning they can create accounts, grant access, view, download,
update, or delete almost any electronic information within an office. Because of this high-level
access, a rogue system administrator could inflict considerable damage
." -
DCNF
According to Minhas - "Imran Awan said to me directly these words: '
See how I control
White House on my fingertip
' He say he can fire the prime minister or change the U.S.
president," Minhas said. "
Why the claiming big stuff, I [didn't] understand 'till now
."
"
I was Imran father's partner in Pakistan,
" Minhas said, in two land deals
in Pakistan so big that they are often referred to as "towns."
In 2009, both men were
accused of fraud
, and
Haji was arrested but then released after Imran flew to
Pakistan
, "allegedly exerting pressure on the local police through the ministry as
well as the department concerned," according to local news. Minhas and multiple alleged victims
in Pakistan also told TheDCNF
Imran exerted political influence in Pakistan to extricate
his father from the case
. -
DCNF
Minhas is currently sitting in US federal prison for fraud, and the
Daily Caller
says
they can not confirm whether Minhas' claims about the USB is true. That said,
Minhas says
that neither the DOJ nor the FBI ever interviewed him about the Awans
, which is odd
considering that he's available and connected to Imran Awan.
He is also one of many people with past relationships with the Awans who have said
they believe they are aggressive opportunists who will do
anything for money
.
And parts of Minhas's story correlate with observations
elsewhere. Haji's wife, Samina Gilani -- Imran's stepmother -- said in
court documents
that Imran used his IT skills to wiretap her as a means of exerting pressure
on her.
Haji would frequently boast that Imran's position gave him political leverage, numerous
Pakistani residents told TheDCNF. "
My son own White House in D.C.
," he would
say, according to Minhas. "
I am kingmaker
."
Senator Malik has denied any relationship with the parties reportedly involved, saying "I am
hearing their names for the first time. I am in public and people always do name-dropping."
Imran Awan's attorney Chris Gowen says Minhas's claims are
"completely and totally
false."
The Awans were banned from the congressional network on Feb 2, 2017 by House Seargant-At-Arms,
Paul Irving - after the IG report concluded that the Awans had been making "unauthorized access" to
House servers. The Awans
were logging in using Congressional members' personal usernames
,
as well as breaching servers for members they did not work for.
After several members fired
them, the Awans continued to access their data
, says the IG.
The behavior mirrored a "classic method for insiders to exfiltrate data from an
organization,"
and "steps are being taken [by the Awans] to conceal their activity," reads
the report.
Shortly before the 2016 election, the House Democratic Caucus server was breached by Awan - who
authorities believe secretly moved
all the data
of over 12 House members' offices onto the caucus server.
The server may have been "
used for nefarious purposes and elevated the risk that
individuals could be reading and/or removing information,
" an IG presentation said.
The Awans logged into it 27 times a day, far more than any other computer they
administered
.
Imran's most forceful advocate and longtime employer is Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie
Wasserman Schultz, who led the DNC until she resigned following a hack that exposed committee
emails. Wikileaks published those emails, and they show that
DNC staff summoned Imran
when they needed her password
. -
DCNF
Shortly after the IG report came out,
the House Democratic Caucus server - which the
Awans were funneling data onto,
was physically stolen
according to three
government officials. During the same period of time, the Awans were shedding assets at a rapid
pace.
In January 2017 they took out a loan intended for home improvement, falsely claimed a medical
emergency in order to cash out their House retirement account, and
wired $300,000
overseas
, according to an FBI affidavit. -
DCNF
The FBI arrested Imran Awan at Dulles Airport in July 2017 while trying to flee to Pakistan with
a wiped cell phone and a resume that listed a Queens, NY address. Imran and his wife, Hina Alvi,
were indicted last August on charges of bank fraud - which prosecutors contend was hastened
after the Awans had likely learned that authorities were closing in on them for various other
activities
.
That said, neither Imran nor Hina have been charged over the unauthorized access
concluded
by the House's own Inspector General,
after reviewing server logs. Three other suspects,
Jamal and Abid Awan, and Rao Abbas, have faced no charges whatsoever.
A massive battle is brewing between former FBI Director James Comey, and his deputy Andy
McCabe - as first noted a few weeks
ago by the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross - over exactly who is lying about Comey knowing that
McCabe had been leaking self-serving information to the Wall Street Journal .
Comey stopped
by ABC's The View to peddle his new book, A Higher Royalty Loyalty, where he called his
former Deputy Andrew McCabe a liar , and admitted that he "ordered the report" which found
McCabe guilty of leaking to the press and then lying under oath about it, several times.
Comey was asked by host Megan McCain how he thought the public was supposed to have
"confidence" in the FBI amid revelations that McCabe lied about the leak.
" It's not okay. The McCabe case illustrates what an organization committed to the truth
looks like ," Comey said. " I ordered that investigation. "
Comey then appeared to try and frame McCabe as a "good person" despite all the lying.
"Good people lie. I think I'm a good person, where I have lied," Comey said. " I still
believe Andrew McCabe is a good person but the inspector general found he lied, " noting that
there are "severe consequences" within the DOJ for doing so. As a reminder, the Justice
Department's internal watchdog, Inspector General Michael Horowitz, released a report last week
detailing his conclusions from the months-long probe of McCabe, which found that the former
acting FBI Director leaked a self-serving story to the press and then lied about it under oath
.
In response, McCabe's attorney, Michael R. Bromwich (flush with cash from the disgraced
Deputy Director's half-million dollar legal defense GoFundMe
campaign), fired back - claiming that Comey was well aware of the leaks .
" In his comments this week about the McCabe matter, former FBI Director James Comey has
relied on the Inspector Genera's (OIG) conclusions in their report on Mr. McCabe. In fact, the
report fails to adequately address the evidence (including sworn testimony) and documents that
prove that Mr. McCabe advised Director Comey repeatedly that he was working with the Wall
Street Journal on the stories in question..." reads the statement in part.
So to review , McCabe was fired when it was uncovered that he authorized an F.B.I.
spokesman and attorney to tell Devlin Barrett of the Wall St. Journal , just days before the 2016 election, that the
FBI had not put the brakes on a separate investigation into the Clinton Foundation - at a time
in which McCabe was coming under fire for his wife taking a $467,500 campaign contribution from
Clinton proxy pal, Terry McAuliffe.
New details show that senior law-enforcement officials repeatedly voiced skepticism of the
strength of the evidence in a bureau investigation of the Clinton Foundation, sought to
condense what was at times a sprawling cross-country effort, and, according to some people
familiar with the matter, told agents to limit their pursuit of the case . The probe of the
foundation began more than a year ago to determine whether financial crimes or influence
peddling occurred related to the charity.
...
Some investigators grew frustrated, viewing FBI leadership as uninterested in probing the
charity , these people said. Others involved disagreed sharply, defending FBI bosses and
saying Mr. McCabe in particular was caught between an increasingly acrimonious fight for
control between the Justice Department and FBI agents pursuing the Clinton Foundation case
.
So McCabe leaked information to the WSJ in order to combat rumors that Clinton had
indirectly bribed him to back off the Clinton Foundation investigation, and then lied about it
four times to the DOJ and FBI, including twice under oath.
"... Prior to becoming the DNC's most wanted, Comey and his team notoriously let Hillary Clinton off the hook for her private server and mishandling of classified information - having begun drafting Clinton's exoneration before even interviewing her, something which appears to have been "forgotten" in his book. ..."
"... You left out the fact that he was instrumental in the formation of the Clinton Foundation. ..."
Current and former FBI agents are furious after former Director James Comey gave his first interview
since President Trump fired him last year to ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday night, reports the
Daily Beast
- which was privy to a play-by-play flurry of text messages and other
communications detailing their reactions.
Seven current or former FBI agents and officials spoke throughout and immediately after the
broadcast.
There was a lot of anger, frustration, and even more emojis -- featuring the
thumbs-down, frowny face, middle finger, and a whole lot of green vomit faces
.
One former FBI official sent a bourbon emoji as it began; another sent the beers cheers-ing
emoji.
The responses became increasingly angry and despondent as the hourlong interview
played out.
-
Daily
Beast
"
Hoover is spinning in his grave
," said a former FBI official. "
Making
money from total failure
," in reference to Comey plugging his book,
A Higher Loyalty
.
Jana Winter of
The Beast
adds that when a promo aired between segments advertising Comey's
upcoming appearance with
The View
, the official "grew angrier." "
Good lord, what a self-serving self-centered jackass
," the official said. "
True
to form he thinks he's the smartest guy around
."
... ... ...
Comey was fired by President Trump on May 9, 2017, after which he
leaked memos he claims
document conversations with Trump
to the
New York Times,
kicking off the special
counsel investigation headed by Robert Mueller - whose team started out looking at Russian influence
in the 2016 election, and is now investigating the President's alleged decade-old extramarital affairs
with at least two women. Truly looking out for national security there Bob...
... ... ...
Prior to becoming the DNC's most wanted, Comey and his team notoriously let Hillary Clinton off the
hook for her private server and mishandling of classified information - having begun
drafting Clinton's exoneration
before even interviewing her, something which appears to have been
"forgotten" in his book.
I would rather have RP if he had the
charisma/gusto and also tactical genius of
DT. However, I worry that Ron, as a guy that
delivered babies and educated people on
nonagression, as opposed to running a
something-billion dollar cutthroat RE empire,
might be more at risk of A) being unable to
overcome political roadblocks and
destabilization, and B) something bad
happening to him.
Comey was always the most enigmatic figure to me in this
sad, troubling series of events involving the FBI.
THE
GOOD NEWS: Everyone hates him now. The Rs hate him, the Ds
hate him. Who's Christmas party did he get invited to last
year? I'm guessing the invitations were few. His own ego
has turned him into plutonium. And he deserves even worse
than that.
Every agency has a Jim Comey in it... you know the guy.
Their CV just has an implied "team skills and natural
ability to get a deep brown nose" at the very top of it.
Comey was the FBI Director when warrants
were issued to spy on Trump and his associates. Warrants
gained in part or in whole by, false evidence (the Steele
dossier) presented to a FISA court judge(s), gathered by,
a foreign national former spy (Steele) who was in contact
with his old Kremlin pals, who (Steele) was then paid by
the DNC, Fusion GPS via Perkins Coie to give Hillary
Rodham Clinton (affectionately known here as The Bitch of
Benghazi) some distance from the fake "evidence".
Now besides Comey knowing the source of "the dossier"
one of his deputies (McCabe) was at the same time
"colluding" with a couple FBI agents (Strzok & Page) in a
"counter-intel operation" (on the taxpayers dime) to
gather dirt on candidate Trump. McCabe's wife (we might
recall) got a sizable "donation" from Terry McAuliffe
(another Klinton sleezebag) for her political run in
Virginia.
And we haven't even touched on Comey's theft of
government documents or his turning over those documents
to his friend so the friend could turn them over to the
Alinsky NYT's for the purposes of...getting his mentor
Grand Inquisitor Mueller a gig as "special prosecutor"
(as he admitted to under oath).
Mueller's investigation is tainted with fruit of the
poisonous tree and the entirety of seized evidence
will be unceremoniously thrown out by a 5-4 US Supreme
Court.
There is only one thing keeping Comey out of Prison:
Jeff Sessions.
If we someday get a real AG, who is willing to man
up and appoint a second special prosecutor, Comey is
finished. But for the moment, Mr. Magoo is saving his ass.
Don't hold your breath. The clock on the statute of
limitations is ticking away. I wish someone could
provide me with an honest rational as to why Trump
hasn't fired Jeff Sessions.
Problem is that a sizable portion of the US population
view Comey's actions in the 'if you could go back in
time and kill baby Hitler...' perspective. Yes it's
illegal, yes it's unconstitutional...but was trying to
save the 'World' so it's justified.
I think you
framed it similar...this is the same as injecting
bleach into our veins in the hope in clears up a
pimple on our nose.
"The Democratic Party is better than the Republican Party in the way that manslaughter is
slightly better than murder: It might seem like a lesser crime, but the victim can't really
tell the difference." -- Michael Harriot
With the country's attention focused on James Comey's book publicity gala interview
with ABC at 10pm ET, the former FBI Director has thrown former President Obama and his Attorney
General Loretta Lynch under the bus, claiming they "jeopardized" the Hillary Clinton email
investigation.
Comey called out Obama and Lynch in his new book, A Higher Loyalty , set to come out on
Tuesday. In it, he defends the FBI's top brass and counterintelligence investigators charged
with probing Clinton's use of a private email server and mishandling of classified information,
reports the
Washington Examiner , which received an advanced copy.
" I never heard anyone on our team -- not one -- take a position that seemed driven by their
personal political motivations . And more than that: I never heard an argument or observation I
thought came from a political bias. Never ... Instead we debated, argued, listened, reflected,
agonized, played devil's advocate, and even found opportunities to laugh as we hashed out major
decisions .
Comey says that multiple public statements made by Obama about the investigation
"jeopardized" the credibility of the FBI investigation - seemingly absolving Clinton of any
crime before FBI investigators were able to complete their work .
" Contributing to this problem, regrettably, was President Obama . He had jeopardized the
Department of Justice's credibility in the investigation by saying in a 60 Minutes interview
on Oct. 11, 2015, that Clinton's email use was "a mistake" that had not endangered national
security," Comey writes. "Then on Fox News on April 10, 2016, he said that Clinton may have
been careless but did not do anything to intentionally harm national security, suggesting
that the case involved overclassification of material in the government."
" President Obama is a very smart man who understands the law very well . To this day, I
don't know why he spoke about the case publicly and seemed to absolve her before a final
determination was made. If the president had already decided the matter, an outside observer
could reasonably wonder, how on earth could his Department of Justice do anything other than
follow his lead." -
Washington Examiner
Of course, Comey had already begun
drafting Clinton's exoneration before even interviewing her, something which appears to
have been "forgotten" in his book.
" The truth was that the president -- as far as I knew, anyway -- he had only as much
information as anyone following it in the media . He had not been briefed on our work at all.
And if he was following the media, he knew nothing, because there had been no leaks at all up
until that point. But, his comments still set all of us up for corrosive attacks if the case
were completed with no charges brought."
"Matter" not "Investigation"
Comey also describes a September 2015 meeting with AG Lynch in which she asked him to
describe the Clinton email investigation as a "matter" instead of an investigation.
"It occurred to me in the moment that this issue of semantics was strikingly similar to the
fight the Clinton campaign had waged against The New York Times in July. Ever since then, the
Clinton team had been employing a variety of euphemisms to avoid using the word
'investigation,'" Comey writes.
" The attorney general seemed to be directing me to align with the Clinton campaign strategy
. Her "just do it" response to my question indicated that she had no legal or procedural
justification for her request, at least not one grounded in our practices or traditions.
Otherwise, I assume, she would have said so.
Comey said others present in the meeting with Lynch thought her request was odd and
political as well - including one of the DOJ's senior leaders.
" I know the FBI attendees at our meeting saw her request as overtly political when we
talked about it afterward . So did at least one of Lynch's senior leaders. George Toscas, then
the number-three person in the department's National Security Division and someone I liked,
smiled at the FBI team as we filed out, saying sarcastically, ' Well you are the Federal Bureau
of Matters ,'" Comey recalled.
That said, Comey "didn't see any instance when Attorney General Lynch interfered with the
conduct of the investigation," writing "Though I had been concerned about her direction to me
at that point, I saw no indication afterward that she had any contact with the investigators or
prosecutors on the case."
In response, Loretta Lynch promptly issued a statement in which she said that if James Comey
" had any concerns regarding the email investigation, classified or not, he had ample
opportunities to raise them with me both privately and in meetings. He never did."
Vermont Senator says business model of Democratic Party has been a failure for 15
years
Bernie Sanders has triggered a backlash by making comments interpreted as an attack on [Wall
Street/CIA troll] Barack Obama on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther
King. The senator for Vermont appeared to criticise the first black US President as he branded
the Democratic Party a "failure".
Speaking in Jackson, Mississippi, he said Democrats had lost a record number of legislative
seats. "The business model, if you like, of the Democratic Party for the last 15 years or so
has been a failure,'' said the Vermont Senator...Mr Sanders's comments were quickly branded
"patronising" and "deplorable".
"... Running against what she (wrongly) perceived (along with most election prognosticators) as a doomed and feckless opponent and as the clear preferred candidate of Wall Street and the intimately related U.S foreign policy elite , including many leading Neoconservatives put off by Trump's isolationist and anti-interventionist rhetoric, the "lying neoliberal warmonger" Hillary Clinton arrogantly figured that she could garner enough votes to win without having to ruffle any ruling-class feathers. ..."
"... Smart Wall Street and K Street Democratic Party bankrollers have long understood that Democratic candidates have to cloak their dollar-drenched corporatism in the deceptive campaign discourse of progressive- and even populist-sounding policy promise to win elections. ..."
"... Trump trailed well behind Clinton in contributions from defense and aerospace – a lack of support extraordinary for a Republican presidential hopeful late in the race. ..."
"... one fateful consequence of trying to appeal to so many conservative business interests was strategic silence about most important matters of public policy. Given the candidate's steady lead in the polls, there seemed to be no point to rocking the boat with any more policy pronouncements than necessary ..."
"... Misgivings of major contributors who worried that the Clinton campaign message lacked real attractions for ordinary Americans were rebuffed. The campaign sought to capitalize on the angst within business by vigorously courting the doubtful and undecideds there, not in the electorate ..."
"... Of course, Bill and Hillary helped trail-blaze that plutocratic "New Democrat" turn in Arkansas during the late 1970s and 1980s. The rest, as they say, was history – an ugly corporate-neoliberal, imperial, and racist history that I and others have written about at great length. ..."
"... My Turn: Hillary Clinton Targets the Presidency ..."
"... Queen of Chaos: The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton ..."
"... The Condemnation of Little B: New Age Racism in America ..."
"... Still, Trump's success was no less tied to big money than was Hillary's failure. Candidate Trump ran strangely outside the longstanding neoliberal Washington Consensus, as an economic nationalist and isolationist. His raucous rallies were laced with dripping denunciations of Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, and globalization, mockery of George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, rejection of the New Cold War with Russia, and pledges of allegiance to the "forgotten" American "working-class." He was no normal Republican One Percent candidate. ..."
"... Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very wealthy. But it has left millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache ..."
"... "In a frontal assault on the American establishment, the Republican standard bearer proclaimed 'America First.' Mocking the Bush administration's appeal to 'weapons of mass destruction' as a pretext for invading Iraq, he broke dramatically with two generations of GOP orthodoxy and spoke out in favor of more cooperation with Russia . He even criticized the 'carried interest' tax break beloved by high finance" (emphasis added). ..."
"... "What happened in the final weeks of the campaign was extraordinary. Firstly, a giant wave of dark money poured into Trump's own campaign – one that towered over anything in 2016 or even Mitt Romney's munificently financed 2012 effort – to say nothing of any Russian Facebook experiments [Then] another gigantic wave of money flowed in from alarmed business interests, including the Kochs and their allies Officially the money was for Senate races, but late-stage campaigning for down-ballot offices often spills over on to candidates for the party at large." ..."
"... "In a harbinger of things to come, additional money came from firms and industries that appear to have been attracted by Trump's talk of tariffs, including steel and companies making machinery of various types [a] vast wave of new money flowed into the campaign from some of America's biggest businesses and most famous investors. Sheldon Adelson and many others in the casino industry delivered in grand style for its old colleague. Adelson now delivered more than $11 million in his own name, while his wife and other employees of his Las Vegas Sands casino gave another $20 million. ..."
"... Peter Theil contributed more than a million dollars, while large sums also rolled in from other parts of Silicon Valley, including almost two million dollars from executives at Microsoft and just over two million from executives at Cisco Systems. ..."
"... Among those were Nelson Peltz and Carl Icahn (who had both contributed to Trump before, but now made much bigger new contributions). In the end, along with oil, chemicals, mining and a handful of other industries, large private equity firms would become one of the few segments of American business – and the only part of Wall Street – where support for Trump was truly heavy the sudden influx of money from private equity and hedge funds clearly began with the Convention but turned into a torrent " ..."
"... The critical late wave came after Trump moved to rescue his flagging campaign by handing its direction over to the clever, class-attuned, far-right white- and economic- nationalist "populist" and Breitbart executive Steve Bannon, who advocated what proved to be a winning, Koch brothers-approved "populist" strategy: appeal to economically and culturally frustrated working- and middle-class whites in key battleground states, where the bloodless neoliberal and professional class centrism and snooty metropolitan multiculturalism of the Obama presidency and Clinton campaign was certain to depress the Democratic "base" vote ..."
"... Neither turnout nor the partisan division of the vote at any level looks all that different from other recent elections 2016's alterations in voting behavior are so minute that the pattern is only barely differentiated from 2012." ..."
"... An interesting part of FJC's study (no quick or easy read) takes a close look at the pro-Trump and anti-Hillary Internet activism that the Democrats and their many corporate media allies are so insistently eager to blame on Russia and for Hillary's defeat. FJC find that Russian Internet interventions were of tiny significance compared to those of homegrown U.S. corporate and right-wing cyber forces: ..."
"... By 2016, the Republican right had developed internet outreach and political advertising into a fine art and on a massive scale quite on its own. ..."
"... Breitbart and other organizations were in fact going global, opening offices abroad and establishing contacts with like-minded groups elsewhere. Whatever the Russians were up to, they could hardly hope to add much value to the vast Made in America bombardment already underway. Nobody sows chaos like Breitbart or the Drudge Report ." ..."
"... no support from Big Business ..."
"... Sanders pushed Hillary the Goldman candidate to the wall, calling out the Democrats' capture by Wall Street, forcing her to rely on a rigged party, convention, and primary system to defeat him. The small-donor "socialist" Sanders challenge represented something Ferguson and his colleagues describe as "without precedent in American politics not just since the New Deal, but across virtually the whole of American history a major presidential candidate waging a strong, highly competitive campaign whose support from big business is essentially zero ." ..."
"... American Oligarchy ..."
"... teleSur English ..."
"... we had no great electoral democracy to subvert in 2016 ..."
"... Only candidates and positions that can be financed can be presented to voters. As a result, in countries like the US and, increasingly, Western Europe, political parties are first of all bank accounts . With certain qualifications, one must pay to play. Understanding any given election, therefore, requires a financial X-ray of the power blocs that dominate the major parties, with both inter- and intra- industrial analysis of their constituent elements." ..."
"... Elections alone are no guarantee of democracy, as U.S. policymakers and pundits know very well when they rip on rigged elections (often fixed with the assistance of U.S. government and private-sector agents and firms) in countries they don't like ..."
"... Majority opinion is regularly trumped by a deadly complex of forces in the U.S. ..."
"... Trump is a bit of an anomaly – a sign of an elections and party system in crisis and an empire in decline. He wasn't pre-approved or vetted by the usual U.S. " deep state " corporate, financial, and imperial gatekeepers. The ruling-class had been trying to figure out what the Hell to do with him ever since he shocked even himself (though not Steve Bannon) by pre-empting the coronation of the "Queen of Chaos." ..."
"... His lethally racist, sexist, nativist, nuclear-weapons-brandishing, and (last but not at all least) eco-cidal rise to the nominal CEO position atop the U.S.-imperial oligarchy is no less a reflection of the dominant role of big U.S. capitalist money and homegrown plutocracy in U.S. politics than a more classically establishment Hillary ascendancy would have been. It's got little to do with Russia, Russia, Russia – the great diversion that fills U.S. political airwaves and newsprint as the world careens ever closer to oligarchy-imposed geocide and to a thermonuclear conflagration that the RussiaGate gambit is recklessly encouraging. ..."
On the Friday after the Chicago Cubs won the World Series and prior to the Tuesday on which
the vicious racist and sexist Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, Bernie
Sanders spoke to a surprisingly small crowd in Iowa City on behalf of Hillary Clinton. As I
learned months later, Sanders told one of his Iowa City friends that day that Mrs. Clinton was
in trouble. The reason, Sanders reported, was that Hillary wasn't discussing issues or
advancing real solutions. "She doesn't have any policy positions," Sanders said.
The first time I heard this, I found it hard to believe. How, I wondered, could anyone run
seriously for the presidency without putting issues and policy front and center? Wouldn't any
serious campaign want a strong set of issue and policy positions to attract voters and fall
back on in case and times of adversity?
Sanders wasn't lying. As the esteemed political scientist and money-politics expert Thomas
Ferguson and his colleagues Paul Jorgensen and Jie Chen note in an important study released by
the Institute for New Economic Thinking two months ago, the Clinton campaign "emphasized
candidate and personal issues and avoided policy discussions to a degree without precedent in
any previous election for which measurements exist .it stressed candidate qualifications [and]
deliberately deemphasized issues in favor of concentrating on what the campaign regarded as
[Donald] Trump's obvious personal weaknesses as a candidate."
Strange as it might have seemed, the reality television star and presidential pre-apprentice
Donald Trump had a lot more to say about policy than the former First Lady, U.S. Senator, and
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a wonkish Yale Law graduate.
"Courting the Undecideds in Business, not in the Electorate"
What was that about? My first suspicion was that Hillary's policy silence was about the
money. It must have reflected her success in building a Wall Street-filled campaign funding
war-chest so daunting that she saw little reason to raise capitalist election investor concerns
by giving voice to the standard fake-progressive "hope" and "change" campaign and policy
rhetoric Democratic presidential contenders typically deploy against their One Percent
Republican opponents. Running against what she (wrongly) perceived (along with most election
prognosticators) as a doomed and feckless opponent and as the clear preferred candidate of
Wall
Street and the intimately related U.S foreign policy elite , including many leading
Neoconservatives put off by Trump's isolationist and anti-interventionist rhetoric, the
"lying
neoliberal warmonger" Hillary Clinton arrogantly figured that she could garner enough votes
to win without having to ruffle any ruling-class feathers. She would cruise into the White
House with no hurt plutocrat feelings simply by playing up the ill-prepared awfulness of her
Republican opponent.
If Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Chen (hereafter "JFC") are right, I was on to something but not
the whole money and politics story. Smart Wall Street and K Street Democratic Party bankrollers
have long understood that Democratic candidates have to cloak their dollar-drenched corporatism
in the deceptive campaign discourse of progressive- and even populist-sounding policy promise
to win elections. Sophisticated funders get it that the Democratic candidates' need to
manipulate the electorate with phony pledges of democratic transformation. The big
money backers know it's "just politics" on the part of candidates who can be trusted to
serve elite interests (like Bill
Clinton 1993-2001 and Barack
Obama 2009-2017 ) after they gain office.
What stopped Hillary from playing the usual game – the "manipulation of populism by
elitism" that Christopher
Hitchens once called "the essence of American politics" – in 2016, a year when the
electorate was in a particularly angry and populist mood? FJC's study is titled "
Industrial Structure and Party Competition in an Age of Hunger Games : Donald Trump and the
2016 Presidential Election." It performs heroic empirical work with difficult campaign finance
data to show that Hillary's campaign funding success went beyond her party's usual corporate
and financial backers to include normally Republican-affiliated capitalist sectors less
disposed than their more liberal counterparts to abide the standard progressive-sounding policy
rhetoric of Democratic Party candidates. FJC hypothesize that (along with the determination
that Trump was too weak to be taken all that seriously) Hillary's desire get and keep on board
normally Republican election investors led her to keep quiet on issues and policy concerns that
mattered to everyday people. As FJC note:
"Trump trailed well behind Clinton in contributions from defense and aerospace – a
lack of support extraordinary for a Republican presidential hopeful late in the race. For
Clinton's campaign the temptation was irresistible: Over time it slipped into a variant of
the strategy [Democrat] Lyndon Johnson pursued in 1964 in the face of another [Republican]
candidate [Barry Goldwater] who seemed too far out of the mainstream to win: Go for a grand
coalition with most of big business . one fateful consequence of trying to appeal to so
many conservative business interests was strategic silence about most important matters of
public policy. Given the candidate's steady lead in the polls, there seemed to be no point to
rocking the boat with any more policy pronouncements than necessary . Misgivings of
major contributors who worried that the Clinton campaign message lacked real attractions for
ordinary Americans were rebuffed. The campaign sought to capitalize on the angst within
business by vigorously courting the doubtful and undecideds there, not in the electorate
" (emphasis added). Hillary
Happened
FJC may well be right that a wish not to antagonize off right-wing campaign funders is what
led Hillary to muzzle herself on important policy matters, but who really knows? An alternative
theory I would not rule out is that Mrs. Clinton's own deep inner conservatism was sufficient
to spark her to gladly dispense with the usual progressive-sounding campaign boilerplate. Since
FJC bring up the Johnson-Goldwater election, it is perhaps worth mentioning that 18-year old
Hillary was a "Goldwater Girl" who worked for the arch-reactionary Republican presidential
candidate in 1964. Asked about that episode on National
Public Radio (NPR) in 1996 , then First Lady Hillary said "That's right. And I feel like my
political beliefs are rooted in the conservatism that I was raised with. I don't recognize this
new brand of Republicanism that is afoot now, which I consider to be very reactionary, not
conservative in many respects. I am very proud that I was a Goldwater girl."
It was a revealing reflection. The right-wing Democrat Hillary acknowledged that her
ideological world view was still rooted in the conservatism of her family of origin. Her
problem with the reactionary Republicanism afoot in the U.S. during the middle 1990s was that
it was "not conservative in many respects." Her problem with the far-right Republican
Congressional leaders Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay was that they were betraying true
conservatism – "the conservatism [Hillary] was raised with." This was worse even than the
language of the Democratic Leadership Conference (DLC) – the right-wing Eisenhower
Republican (at leftmost) tendency that worked to push the Democratic Party further to the Big
Business-friendly right and away from its working-class and progressive base.
What happened? Horrid corporate Hillary happened. And she's still happening. The "lying
neoliberal warmonger" recently went to India to double down on her
"progressive neoliberal" contempt for the "basket of deplorables" (more on that phrase
below) that considers poor stupid and backwards middle America to be by
saying this : "If you look at the map of the United States, there's all that red in the
middle where Trump won. I win the coasts. But what the map doesn't show you is that I won the
places that represent two-thirds of America's gross domestic product (GDP). So I won the places
that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward" (emphasis added).
That was Hillary Goldman Sachs-Council on Foreign Relations-Clinton saying "go to Hell" to
working- and middle-class people in Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri,
Indiana, and West Virginia. It was a raised middle and oligarchic finger from a super-wealthy
arch-global-corporatist to all the supposedly pessimistic, slow-witted, and retrograde losers
stuck between those glorious enclaves (led by Wall Street, Yale, and Harvard on the East coast
and Silicon Valley and Hollywood on the West coast) of human progress and variety (and GDP!) on
the imperial shorelines. Senate Minority Leader Dick
Durbin had to go on television to say that Hillary was "wrong" to write off most of the
nation as a festering cesspool of pathetic, ass-backwards, lottery-playing, and opioid-addicted
white-trash has-beens. It's hard for the Inauthentic Opposition Party (as the late Sheldon Wolin reasonably called
the Democrats ) to pose as an authentic opposition party when its' last big-money
presidential candidate goes off-fake-progressive script with an openly elitist rant like
that.
Historic Mistakes
Whatever the source of her strange policy silence in the 2016 campaign, that hush was "a
miscalculation of historic proportion" (FJC). It was a critical mistake given what Ferguson and
his colleagues call the "Hunger Games" misery and insecurity imposed on tens of millions of
ordinary working- and middle-class middle-Americans by decades of neoliberal capitalist
austerity , deeply exacerbated by the Wall Street-instigated Great Recession and the weak
Obama recovery. The electorate was in a populist, anti-establishment mood – hardly a
state of mind favorable to a wooden, richly globalist, Goldman-gilded candidate, a long-time
Washington-Wall Street establishment ("swamp") creature like Hillary Clinton.
In the end, FJC note, the billionaire Trump's ironic, fake-populist "outreach to blue collar
workers" would help him win "more than half of all voters with a high school education or less
(including 61% of white women with no college), almost two thirds of those who believed life
for the next generation of Americans would be worse than now, and seventy-seven percent of
voters who reported their personal financial situation had worsened since four years ago."
Trump's popularity with "heartland" rural and working-class whites even provoked Hillary
into a major campaign mistake: getting caught on video telling elite Manhattan election
investors that half of Trump's supporters were a "basket
of deplorables." There was a hauntingly strong parallel between Wall Street Hillary's
"deplorables" blooper and the super-rich Republican candidate Mitt Romney's
infamous 2012 gaffe : telling his own affluent backers saying that 47% of the population
were a bunch of lazy welfare cheats. This time, though, it was the Democrat – with a
campaign finance profile closer to Romney's than Obama's in 2012 – and not the Republican
making the ugly plutocratic and establishment faux pas .
"A Frontal Assault on the American Establishment"
Still, Trump's success was no less tied to big money than was Hillary's failure. Candidate
Trump ran strangely outside the longstanding neoliberal Washington Consensus, as an economic
nationalist and isolationist. His raucous rallies were laced with dripping denunciations of
Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, and globalization, mockery of George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq,
rejection of the New Cold War with Russia, and pledges of allegiance to the "forgotten"
American "working-class." He was no normal Republican One Percent candidate. As FJC
explain:
"In 2016 the Republicans nominated yet another super-rich candidate – indeed,
someone on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans. Like legions of conservative
Republicans before him, he trash-talked Hispanics, immigrants, and women virtually non-stop,
though with a verve uniquely his own. He laced his campaign with barely coded racial appeals
and in the final days, ran an ad widely denounced as subtly anti-Semitic. But in striking
contrast to every other Republican presidential nominee since 1936, he attacked
globalization, free trade, international financiers, Wall Street, and even Goldman Sachs. '
Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very wealthy. But it
has left millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache . When
subsidized foreign steel is dumped into our markets, threatening our factories, the
politicians do nothing. For years, they watched on the sidelines as our jobs vanished and our
communities were plunged into depression-level unemployment.'"
"In a frontal assault on the American establishment, the Republican standard bearer
proclaimed 'America First.' Mocking the Bush administration's appeal to 'weapons of mass
destruction' as a pretext for invading Iraq, he broke dramatically with two generations of GOP
orthodoxy and spoke out in favor of more cooperation with Russia . He even criticized
the 'carried interest' tax break beloved by high finance" (emphasis added).
Big Dark Money and Trump: His Own and Others'
This cost Trump much of the corporate and Wall Street financial support that Republican
presidential candidates usually get. The thing was, however, that much of Trump's "populist"
rhetoric was popular with a big part of the Republican electorate, thanks to the "Hunger Games"
insecurity of the transparently bipartisan New Gilded Age. And Trump's personal fortune
permitted him to tap that popular anger while leaping insultingly over the heads of his less
wealthy if corporate and Wall Street-backed competitors ("low energy" Jeb Bush and "little
Marco" Rubio most notably) in the crowded Republican primary race.
A Republican candidate
dependent on the usual elite bankrollers would never have been able to get away with Trump's
crowd-pleasing (and CNN and FOX News rating-boosting) antics. Thanks to his own wealth, the
faux-populist anti-establishment Trump was ironically inoculated against pre-emption in the
Republican primaries by the American campaign finance "wealth
primary," which renders electorally unviable candidates who lack vast financial resources
or access to them.
Things were different after Trump won the Republican nomination, however. He could no longer
go it alone after the primaries. During the Republican National Convention and "then again in
the late summer of 2016," FJC show, Trump's "solo campaign had to be rescued by major
industries plainly hoping for tariff relief, waves of other billionaires from the far, far
right of the already far right Republican Party, and the most disruption-exalting corners of
Wall Street." By FJC's account:
"What happened in the final weeks of the campaign was extraordinary. Firstly, a giant wave
of dark money poured into Trump's own campaign – one that towered over anything in 2016
or even Mitt Romney's munificently financed 2012 effort – to say nothing of any Russian
Facebook experiments [Then] another gigantic wave of money flowed in from alarmed business
interests, including the Kochs and their allies Officially the money was for Senate races,
but late-stage campaigning for down-ballot offices often spills over on to candidates for the
party at large."
"The run up to the Convention brought in substantial new money, including, for the first
time, significant contributions from big business. Mining, especially coal mining; Big Pharma
(which was certainly worried by tough talk from the Democrats, including Hillary Clinton,
about regulating drug prices); tobacco, chemical companies, and oil (including substantial
sums from executives at Chevron, Exxon, and many medium sized firms); and telecommunications
(notably AT&T, which had a major merge merger pending) all weighed in. Money from
executives at the big banks also began streaming in, including Bank of America, J. P. Morgan
Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo. Parts of Silicon Valley also started coming in from
the cold."
"In a harbinger of things to come, additional money came from firms and industries that
appear to have been attracted by Trump's talk of tariffs, including steel and companies
making machinery of various types [a] vast wave of new money flowed into the campaign from
some of America's biggest businesses and most famous investors. Sheldon Adelson and many
others in the casino industry delivered in grand style for its old colleague. Adelson now
delivered more than $11 million in his own name, while his wife and other employees of his
Las Vegas Sands casino gave another $20 million.
Peter Theil contributed more than a million
dollars, while large sums also rolled in from other parts of Silicon Valley, including almost
two million dollars from executives at Microsoft and just over two million from executives at
Cisco Systems. A wave of new money swept in from large private equity firms, the part of Wall
Street which had long championed hostile takeovers as a way of disciplining what they mocked
as bloated and inefficient 'big business.' Virtual pariahs to main-line firms in the Business
Roundtable and the rest of Wall Street, some of these figures had actually gotten their start
working with Drexel Burnham Lambert and that firm's dominant partner, Michael Milkin.
Among
those were Nelson Peltz and Carl Icahn (who had both contributed to Trump before, but now
made much bigger new contributions). In the end, along with oil, chemicals, mining and a
handful of other industries, large private equity firms would become one of the few segments
of American business – and the only part of Wall Street – where support for Trump
was truly heavy the sudden influx of money from private equity and hedge funds clearly began
with the Convention but turned into a torrent "
The critical late wave came after Trump moved to rescue his flagging campaign by handing its
direction over to the clever, class-attuned, far-right white- and economic- nationalist
"populist" and Breitbart executive Steve Bannon, who advocated what proved to be a winning,
Koch brothers-approved "populist" strategy: appeal to economically and culturally frustrated
working- and middle-class whites in key battleground states, where the bloodless neoliberal and
professional class centrism and snooty metropolitan multiculturalism of the Obama presidency
and Clinton campaign was certain to depress the
Democratic "base" vote. Along with the racist voter suppression carried out by Republican
state governments (JFC rightly chide Russia-obsessed political reporters and commentators for
absurdly ignoring this important factor) and (JFC intriguingly suggest) major anti-union
offensives conducted by employers in some battleground states, this major late-season influx of
big right-wing political money tilted the election Trump's way.
The Myth of Potent Russian Cyber-Subversion
As FJC show, there is little empirical evidence to support the Clinton and corporate
Democrats' self-interested and diversionary efforts to explain Mrs. Clinton's epic fail and
Trump's jaw-dropping upset victory as the result of (i) Russian interference, (ii), then FBI
Director James Comey's October Surprise revelation that his agency was not done investigating
Hillary's emails, and/or (iii) some imagined big wave of white working-class racism, nativism,
and sexism brought to the surface by the noxious Orange Hulk. The impacts of both (i) and (ii)
were infinitesimal in comparison to the role that big campaign money played both in silencing
Hillary and funding Trump.
The blame-the-deplorable-racist-white-working-class narrative is
belied by basic underlying continuities in white working class voting patterns. As FJC note: "
Neither turnout nor the partisan division of the vote at any level looks all that different
from other recent elections 2016's alterations in voting behavior are so minute that the
pattern is only barely differentiated from 2012." It was about the money – the big
establishment money that the Clinton campaign took (as FJC at least plausibly argue) to
recommend policy silence and the different, right-wing big money that approved Trump's
comparative right-populist policy boisterousness.
An interesting part of FJC's study (no quick or easy read) takes a close look at the
pro-Trump and anti-Hillary Internet activism that the Democrats and their many corporate media
allies are so insistently eager to blame on Russia and for Hillary's defeat. FJC find that
Russian Internet interventions were of tiny significance compared to those of homegrown U.S.
corporate and right-wing cyber forces:
"The real masters of these black arts are American or Anglo-American firms. These compete
directly with Silicon Valley and leading advertising firms for programmers and personnel.
They rely almost entirely on data purchased from Google, Facebook, or other suppliers,
not Russia . American regulators do next to nothing to protect the privacy of voters
and citizens, and, as we have shown in several studies, leading telecom firms are major
political actors and giant political contributors. As a result, data on the habits and
preferences of individual internet users are commercially available in astounding detail and
quantities for relatively modest prices – even details of individual credit card
purchases. The American giants for sure harbor abundant data on the constellation of bots,
I.P. addresses, and messages that streamed to the electorate "
" stories hyping 'the sophistication of an influence campaign slickly crafted to mimic and
infiltrate U.S. political discourse while also seeking to heighten tensions between groups
already wary of one another by the Russians miss the mark.' By 2016, the Republican right had
developed internet outreach and political advertising into a fine art and on a massive scale
quite on its own. Large numbers of conservative websites, including many that that tolerated
or actively encouraged white supremacy and contempt for immigrants, African-Americans,
Hispanics, Jews, or the aspirations of women had been hard at work for years stoking up
'tensions between groups already wary of one another.' Breitbart and other organizations were
in fact going global, opening offices abroad and establishing contacts with like-minded
groups elsewhere. Whatever the Russians were up to, they could hardly hope to add much value
to the vast Made in America bombardment already underway. Nobody sows chaos like Breitbart or
the Drudge Report ."
" the evidence revealed thus far does not support strong claims about the likely success
of Russian efforts, though of course the public outrage at outside meddling is easy to
understand. The speculative character of many accounts even in the mainstream media is
obvious. Several, such as widely circulated declaration by the Department of Homeland
Security that 21 state election systems had been hacked during the election, have collapsed
within days of being put forward when state electoral officials strongly disputed them,
though some mainstream press accounts continue to repeat them. Other tales about Macedonian
troll factories churning out stories at the instigation of the Kremlin, are clearly
exaggerated."
The Sanders Tease: "He Couldn't Have Done a Thing"
Perhaps the most remarkable finding in FJC's study is that Sanders came tantalizingly close
to winning the Democratic presidential nomination against the corporately super-funded Clinton
campaign with no support from Big Business . Running explicitly against the "Hunger
Games" economy and the corporate-financial plutocracy that created it, Sanders pushed Hillary
the Goldman candidate to the wall, calling out the Democrats' capture by Wall Street, forcing
her to rely on a rigged party, convention, and primary system to defeat him. The small-donor
"socialist" Sanders challenge represented something Ferguson and his colleagues describe as
"without precedent in American politics not just since the New Deal, but across virtually the
whole of American history a major presidential candidate waging a strong, highly
competitive campaign whose support from big business is essentially zero ."
Sanders pulled this off, FJC might have added, by running in (imagine) accord with
majority-progressive left-of-center U.S. public opinion. But for the Clintons' corrupt advance-
control of the Democratic National Committee and convention delegates, Ferguson et al might
further have noted, Sanders might well have been the Democratic presidential nominee, curiously
enough in the arch-state-capitalist and oligarchic United States
Could Sanders have defeated the billionaire and right-wing billionaire-backed Trump in the
general election? There's no way to know, of course. Sanders consistently out-performed Hillary
Clinton in one-on-one match -up polls vis a vis Donald Trump during the primary season, but
much of the big money (and, perhaps much of the corporate media) that backed Hillary would have
gone over to Trump had the supposedly
"radical" Sanders been the Democratic nominee.
Even if Sanders has been elected president, moreover, Noam Chomsky is certainly correct in
his recent judgement that Sanders would have been able to achieve very little in the White
House. As Chomsky told Lynn Parramore two weeks ago, in
an interview conducted for the Institute for New Economic Thinking, the same think-tank
that published FJC's remarkable study:
"His campaign [was] a break with over a century of American political history. No
corporate support, no financial wealth, he was unknown, no media support. The media simply
either ignored or denigrated him. And he came pretty close -- he probably could have won the
nomination, maybe the election. But suppose he'd been elected? He couldn't have done a thing.
Nobody in Congress, no governors, no legislatures, none of the big economic powers, which
have an enormous effect on policy. All opposed to him. In order for him to do anything, he
would have to have a substantial, functioning party apparatus, which would have to grow from
the grass roots. It would have to be locally organized, it would have to operate at local
levels, state levels, Congress, the bureaucracy -- you have to build the whole system from
the bottom."
As Chomsky might have added, Sanders oligarchy-imposed "failures" would have been great
fodder for the disparagement and smearing of "socialism" and progressive, majority-backed
policy change. "See? We tried all that and it was a disaster!"
I would note further that the Sanders phenomenon's policy promise was plagued by its
standard bearer's persistent loyalty to the giant and absurdly expensive U.S.-imperial Pentagon
System, which each year eats up hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars required to implement
the progressive, majority-supported policy agenda that Bernie F-35 Sanders ran
on.
"A Very Destructive Ideology"
The Sanders challenge was equally afflicted by its candidate-centered electoralism. This
diverted energy away from the real and more urgent politics of building people's movements
– grassroots power to shake the society to its foundations and change policy from the
bottom up (Dr. Martin Luther King's preferred strategy at the end of his life just barely short
of 50 years ago, on April 4 th , 1968) – and into the narrow, rigidly
time-staggered grooves of a party and spectacle-elections crafted by and for the wealthy Few
and the American
Oligarchy 's "permanent political class" (historian Ron Formisano). As Chomsky explained on the eve of the 2004
elections:
"Americans may be encouraged to vote, but not to participate more meaningfully in the
political arena. Essentially the election is a method of marginalizing the population. A huge
propaganda campaign is mounted to get people to focus on these personalized quadrennial
extravaganzas and to think, 'That's politics.' But it isn't. It's only a small part of
politics The urgency is for popular progressive groups to grow and become strong enough so
that centers of power can't ignore them. Forces for change that have come up from the grass
roots and shaken the society to its core include the labor movement, the civil rights
movement, the peace movement, the women's movement and others, cultivated by steady,
dedicated work at all levels, every day, not just once every four years sensible [electoral]
choices have to be made. But they are secondary to serious political action."
"The only thing that's going to ever bring about any meaningful change," Chomsky told Abby Martin on teleSur
English in the fall of 2015, "is ongoing, dedicated, popular movements that don't pay
attention to the election cycle." Under the American religion of voting,
Chomsky told Dan Falcone and Saul Isaacson in the spring of 2016, "Citizenship means every
four years you put a mark somewhere and you go home and let other guys run the world. It's a
very destructive ideology basically, a way of making people passive, submissive objects [we]
ought to teach kids that elections take place but that's not politics."
For all his talk of standing atop a great "movement" for "revolution," Sanders was and
remains all about this stunted and crippling definition of citizenship and politics as making
some marks on ballots and then returning to our domiciles while rich people and their
agents (not just any "other guys") "run [ruin?-P.S.] the world [into the ground-P.S.]."
It will take much more in the way of Dr. King's politics of "who' sitting in the streets,"
not "who's sitting in the White House" (to use Howard Zinn's
excellent dichotomy ), to get us an elections and party system worthy of passionate citizen
engagement. We don't have such a system in the U.S. today, which is why the number of eligible
voters who passively boycotted the 2016 presidential election is larger than both the number
who voted for big money Hillary and the number who voted for big money Trump.
(If U.S. progressives really want to consider undertaking the epic lift involved in passing
a U.S. Constitutional Amendment, they might want to focus on this instead of calling for a
repeal of the Second Amendment. I'd recommend starting with a positive Democracy Amendment that
fundamentally overhauls the nation's political and elections set-up in accord with elementary
principles and practices of popular sovereignty. Clauses would include but not be limited to
full public financing of elections and the introduction of proportional representation for
legislative races – not to mention the abolition of the Electoral College, Senate
apportionment on the basis of total state population, and the outlawing of gerrymandering.)
Ecocide Trumped by Russia
Meanwhile, back in real history, we have the remarkable continuation of a bizarre
right-wing, pre-fascist presidency not in normal ruling-class hands, subject to the weird whims
and tweets of a malignant narcissist who doesn't read memorandums or intelligence briefings.
Wild policy zig-zags and record-setting White House personnel turnover are par for the course
under the dodgy reign of the orange-tinted beast's latest brain spasms. Orange Caligula spends
his mornings getting his information from FOX News and his evenings complaining to and seeking
advice from a small club of right-wing American oligarchs.
Trump poses grave environmental and nuclear risks to human survival. A consistent Trump
belief is that climate change is not a problem and that it's perfectly fine – "great" and
"amazing," in fact – for the White House to do everything it can to escalate the
Greenhouse Gassing-to-Death of Life on Earth. The nuclear threat is rising now that he has
appointed a frothing right-wing uber-warmonger – a longtime advocate of bombing Iran and
North Korea who led the charge for the arch-criminal U.S. invasion of Iraq – as his top
"National Security" adviser and as he been convinced to expel dozens of Russian diplomats.
Thanks, liberal and other Democratic Party RussiaGaters!
The Clinton-Obama neoliberal Democrats have spent more than a year running with the
preposterous narrative that Trump is a Kremlin puppet who owes his presence in the White House
to Russia's subversion of our democratic elections. The climate crisis holds little
for the Trump and Russia-obsessed corporate media. The fact that the world stands at the eve of
the ecological self-destruction, with the Trump White House in the lead, elicits barely a
whisper in the reigning commercial news media. Unlike Stormy Daniels, for example, that little
story – the biggest issue of our or any time – is not good for television ratings
and newspaper sales.
Sanders, by the way, is curiously invisible in the dominant commercial media, despite his
quiet survey status as the nation's "most popular politician." That is precisely what you would
expect in a corporate and financial oligarchy buttressed by a powerful corporate, so-called
"mainstream" media oligopoly.
Political Parties as "Bank Accounts"
One of the many problems with the obsessive Blame-Russia narrative that a fair portion of
the dominant U.S. media is running with is that we had no great electoral democracy to
subvert in 2016 . Saying that Russia has "undermined [U.S.-] American democracy" is like
me – middle-aged, five-foot nine, and unblessed with jumping ability – saying that
the Brooklyn Nets' Russian-born center Timofy Mozgof subverted my career as a starting player
in the National Basketball Association. In state-capitalist societies marked by the toxic and
interrelated combination of weak popular organization, expensive politics, and highly
concentrated wealth – all highly evident in the New Gilded Age United States –
electoral contests and outcomes boil down above all and in the end to big investor class cash.
As Thomas Ferguson and his colleagues explain:
"Where investment and organization by average citizens is weak, however, power passes by
default to major investor groups, which can far more easily bear the costs of contending for
control of the state. In most modern market-dominated societies (those celebrated recently as
enjoying the 'end of History'), levels of effective popular organization are generally low,
while the costs of political action, in terms of both information and transactional
obstacles, are high. The result is that conflicts within the business community normally
dominate contests within and between political parties – the exact opposite of what
many earlier social theorists expected, who imagined 'business' and 'labor' confronting each
other in separate parties Only candidates and positions that can be financed can be presented
to voters. As a result, in countries like the US and, increasingly, Western Europe, political parties are first of all bank accounts . With certain qualifications, one
must pay to play. Understanding any given election, therefore, requires a financial X-ray of
the power blocs that dominate the major parties, with both inter- and intra- industrial
analysis of their constituent elements."
Here Ferguson might have said "corporate-dominated" instead of "market-dominated" for the
modern managerial corporations emerged as the "visible hand" master of the "free market" more
than a century ago.
We get to vote? Big deal.
People get to vote in Rwanda, Russia, the Congo and countless
other autocratic states as well. Elections alone are no guarantee of democracy, as U.S.
policymakers and pundits know very well when they rip on rigged elections (often fixed with the
assistance of U.S. government and private-sector agents and firms) in countries they don't
like, which includes any country that dares to "question the basic principle that the United
States effectively owns the world by right and is by definition a force for good" ( Chomsky,
2016 ).
Majority opinion is regularly trumped by a deadly complex of forces in the U.S. The
list of interrelated and mutually reinforcing culprits behind this oligarchic defeat of popular
sentiment in the U.S. is extensive. It includes but is not limited to: the campaign finance,
candidate-selection, lobbying, and policy agenda-setting power of wealthy individuals,
corporations, and interest groups; the special primary election influence of full-time party
activists; the disproportionately affluent, white, and older composition of the active (voting)
electorate; the manipulation of voter turnout; the widespread dissemination of false,
confusing, distracting, and misleading information; absurdly and explicitly unrepresentative
political institutions like the Electoral College, the unelected Supreme Court, the
over-representation of the predominantly white rural population in the U.S. Senate; one-party
rule in the House of "Representatives"; the fragmentation of authority in government; and
corporate ownership of the reigning media, which frames current events in accord with the
wishes and world view of the nation's real owners.
Yes, we get to vote. Super. Big deal. Mammon reigns nonetheless in the United States, where,
as the leading liberal
political scientists Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens find , "government policy reflects the
wishes of those with money, not the wishes of the millions of ordinary citizens who turn out
every two years to choose among the preapproved, money-vetted candidates for federal office."
Trump is a bit of an anomaly – a sign of an elections and party system in crisis and an
empire in decline. He wasn't pre-approved or vetted by the usual U.S. "
deep state " corporate, financial, and imperial gatekeepers. The ruling-class had been
trying to figure out what the Hell to do with him ever since he shocked even himself
(though not Steve Bannon) by pre-empting the coronation of the "Queen of Chaos."
He is a
homegrown capitalist oligarch nonetheless, a real estate mogul of vast and parasitic wealth who
is no more likely to fulfill his populist-sounding campaign pledges than any previous POTUS of
the neoliberal era.
His lethally racist, sexist, nativist, nuclear-weapons-brandishing, and
(last but not at all least) eco-cidal rise to the nominal CEO position atop the U.S.-imperial
oligarchy is no less a reflection of the dominant role of big U.S. capitalist money and
homegrown plutocracy in U.S. politics than a more classically establishment Hillary ascendancy
would have been. It's got little to do with Russia, Russia, Russia – the great diversion
that fills U.S. political airwaves and newsprint as the world careens ever closer to
oligarchy-imposed geocide and to a thermonuclear conflagration that the RussiaGate gambit is
recklessly encouraging.
"... Still, George McGovern was a humble man who carried the burden, and honor, of his military service with grace. Though proud of his service, he was never constrained by it. When he saw a foolish war, an immoral war -- like Vietnam -- he stood ready to dissent. He was an unapologetic liberal and unwavering in his antiwar stance. These days, his kind is an endangered species on Capitol Hill and in the Democratic National Committee. McGovern died in 2012. His party, and the United States, are lesser for his absence. ..."
"... Today's Democrats are mostly avid hawks, probably to the right of Richard Nixon on foreign policy. ..."
"... Heck, even Gen. David "Generational War" Petraeus , once found himself in some hot water when -- in a rare moment of candor -- he admitted that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of US favoritism for Israel." Translation: US policy toward Israel (and, no doubt, the foolhardy 2003 invasion of Iraq) make American soldiers less safe. ..."
"... So does the basic post-9/11 American policy of sovereignty violation and expansive military intervention whenever and wherever Washington feels like it -- so long as it's in the name of fighting (you guessed it) "terrorism." ..."
"... George McGovern -- a true patriot, a man who knew war but loved peace -- wouldn't recognize the likes of Klobuchar, Clinton, Schumer and company. He'd be rightfully embarrassed by their supplication to the national warfare state. ..."
"... In 1972, McGovern's presidential campaign (as, to some extent, Bernie's did) reached out to impassioned youth in the "New Left," and formed a rainbow coalition with African-Americans and other minority groups. His Democrats were no longer the party of Cold War consensus, no longer the party of LBJ and Vietnam. No, McGovern's signature issue was peace, and opposition to that disastrous war. ..."
"... His campaign distributed pins and T-shirts bearing white doves . Could you even imagine a mainstream Democrat getting within 1,000 meters of such a symbol today? Of course not. ..."
He knew war well -- well enough to know he hated it.
George McGovern was a senator from South Dakota, and he was a Democrat true liberals could admire. Though remembered as a staunch
liberal and foreign policy dove, McGovern was no stranger to combat. He
flew 35 missions
as a B-24 pilot in Italy during World War II. He even earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for executing a heroic emergency crash
landing after his bomber was damaged by German anti-aircraft fire.
Still, George McGovern was a humble man who carried the burden, and honor, of his military service with grace. Though proud
of his service, he was never constrained by it. When he saw a foolish war, an immoral war -- like Vietnam -- he stood ready to dissent.
He was an unapologetic liberal and unwavering in his antiwar stance. These days, his kind is an endangered species on Capitol Hill
and in the Democratic National Committee. McGovern died in 2012. His party, and the United States, are lesser for his absence.
Today's Democrats are mostly avid hawks, probably to the right of Richard Nixon on foreign policy. They dutifully
voted for Bush's Iraq war . Then, they won back
the White House and promptly expanded an unwinnable Afghan
war . Soon, they again lost the presidency -- to a reality TV star -- and raised hardly a peep as Donald Trump expanded
America's aimless wars
into the realm of the absurd.
I've long known this, but most liberals -- deeply ensconced (or distracted) by hyper-identity politics -- hardly notice. Still,
every once in a while something reminds me of how lost the Democrats truly are.
I nearly spit up my food the other day. Watching on C-SPAN as Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., gleefully
attended a panel at the
American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference, I couldn't help but wonder what has happened to the Democratic Party.
The worst part is I like her, mostly. Look, I agree with Sen. Klobuchar on most domestic issues: health care, taxes and
more. But she -- a supposed liberal -- and her mainstream Democratic colleagues are complicit in the perpetuation of America's warfare
state and neo-imperial interventionism. Sen. Klobuchar and other Democrats' reflexive support for Israel is but a symptom of a larger
disease in the party -- tacit militarism.
AIPAC is a lobbying clique almost as savvy and definitely as effective as the NRA. Its meetings -- well attended by mainstream
Democrats and Republicans alike -- serve as little more than an opportunity for Washington pols to kiss Benjamin Netanyahu's ring
and swear fealty to Israel. Most of the time, participants don't dare utter the word "Palestinian." That'd be untoward -- Palestinians
are the unacknowledged
elephants in the room .
The far right-wing Israeli government of Netanyahu, who is little more than a co-conspirator and enabler for America's failed
project in the Middle East, should be the last group "liberals" pander to. That said, the state of Israel is a fact. Its people --
just like the Palestinians -- deserve security and liberty. Love it or hate it, Israel will continue to exist. The question is: Can
Israel remain both exclusively Jewish and democratic? I'm less certain about that. For 50 years now, the Israeli military has divided,
occupied and enabled the illegal settlement of sovereign
Palestinian territory , keeping Arabs in limbo without citizenship or meaningful civil rights.
This is, so far as international law is concerned, a war crime. As such, unflinching American support for Israeli policy irreversibly
damages the U.S. military's reputation on the "Arab street." I've seen it firsthand. In Iraq and Afghanistan, hundreds and thousands
of miles away from Jerusalem, captured prisoners and hospitable families alike constantly pointed to unfettered US support for Israel
and the plight of Palestinians when answering that naive and ubiquitous American question: "Why do they hate us?"
Heck, even
Gen. David
"Generational War" Petraeus , once found himself in
some hot water when
-- in a rare moment of candor -- he admitted that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception
of US favoritism for Israel." Translation: US policy toward Israel (and, no doubt, the foolhardy 2003 invasion of Iraq) make American
soldiers less safe.
So does the basic post-9/11 American policy of sovereignty violation and expansive military intervention whenever and wherever
Washington feels like it -- so long as it's in the name of fighting (you guessed it) "terrorism." So, which "liberals" are raising
hell and ringing the alarm bells for their constituents about Israeli occupation and America's strategic overreach? Sen. Klobuchar?
Hardly. She, and all but four Democrats, voted for
the latest bloated Pentagon budget with few questions asked. Almost as many Republicans voted against the bill. So, which is
the antiwar party these days? It's hard to know.
Besides, the Dems mustered fewer than 30 votes in support of the
Rand Paul amendment and
his modest call to repeal and replace America's outdated, vague Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). All Sen. Paul,
a libertarian Republican, wanted to do was force a vote -- in six months -- to revisit the AUMF. This wasn't radical stuff by any
means. The failure of Paul's amendment, when paired with the absolute dearth of Democratic dissent on contemporary foreign policy,
proves one thing conclusively: There is no longer an antiwar constituency in a major American political party. The two-party system
has failed what's left of the antiwar movement.
By no means is Amy Klobuchar alone in her forever-war complicity. Long before she graced the halls of the Senate, her prominent
precursors -- Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer (to name just a few) --
rubber-stamped a war of aggression in Iraq and
mostly acquiesced as one president after another (including Barack Obama) gradually expanded America's post-9/11 wars. When will
it end? No one knows, really, but so far, the US military has deployed advisers or commandos to
70 percent
of the world's countries and is actively
bombing at least seven . That's the problem with waging clandestine wars with professional soldiers while asking nothing of an
apathetic public: These conflicts tend to grow and grow, until, one day -- which passed long ago -- hardly anyone realizes we're
now at war with most everyone.
So where are the doves now? On the fringe, that's where. Screaming from the distant corners of the libertarian right and extreme
left. No one cares, no one is listening, and they can hardly get a hearing on either MSNBC or Fox. It's the one thing both networks
agree on: endless, unquestioned war. Hooray for 21st century bipartisanship.
Still, Americans deserve more from the Democrats, once (however briefly) the party of McGovern. These days, the Dems hate Trump
more than they like anything. To be a principled national party, they've got to be more than just anti-Trump. They need to provide
a substantive alternative and present a better foreign policy offer. How about a do-less strategy: For starters, some modesty and
prudent caution would go a long way.
George McGovern -- a true patriot, a man who knew war but loved peace -- wouldn't recognize the likes of Klobuchar, Clinton,
Schumer and company. He'd be rightfully embarrassed by their supplication to the national warfare state.
In 1972, McGovern's presidential campaign (as, to some extent, Bernie's did) reached out to impassioned youth in the "New
Left," and formed a rainbow coalition with African-Americans and other minority groups. His Democrats were no longer the party of
Cold War consensus, no longer the party of LBJ and Vietnam. No, McGovern's signature issue was peace, and opposition to that disastrous
war.
His campaign distributed pins and T-shirts bearing
white doves . Could you even imagine a mainstream Democrat getting within 1,000 meters of such a symbol today? Of course not.
Today's Dems are too frightened, fearful of being labeled "soft" (note the sexual innuendo) on "terror," and have thus ceded foreign
policy preeminence to the unhinged, uber-hawk Republicans. We live, today, with the results of that cowardly concession.
The thing about McGovern is that he lost the 1972 election, by a landslide. And maybe that's the point. Today's Democrats would
rather win than be right. Somewhere along the way, they lost their souls. Worse still, they aren't any good at winning, either.
Sure, they and everybody else "support the troops." Essentially, that means the Dems will at least fight for veterans' health
care and immigration rights when vets return from battle. That's admirable enough. What they won't countenance, or even consider,
is a more comprehensive, and ethical, solution: to end these aimless wars and stop making new veterans that need "saving."
Major Danny Sjursen, anAntiwar.comregular, is a U.S. Army
officer and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has written
a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War,Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians,
and the Myth of the Surge. He lives with his wife and four sons in Lawrence, Kansas. Follow him on Twitter at@SkepticalVetand check out his new podcast"Fortress on a Hill,"co-hosted with fellow vet Chris 'Henri' Henrikson.
[ Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect
the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]
As
reported by The Gateway Pundit 's Jim Hoft, 27 year-old Democratic staffer Seth
Conrad Rich was murdered in Washington DC on July 10, 2016, roughly one block from his
apartment. The suspects
took nothing from Rich, leaving behind his wallet, watch and phone. The murder has gone
unsolved to this day.
Burkman
sued the Democratic National Committee for the release of the hacked DNC server he
claimed will reveal key information in solving the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich.
Lobbyist Jack Burkman, who began a private investigation into the murder of Democratic
National Committee staffer Seth Rich last year, says he was nearly killed after a man who
joined the investigation attempted to murder him last week, according to a report.
"It's a horror story," Burkman told the Washington Post Monday.
Kevin Doherty, 46, shot Burkman multiple times and ran him over with an SUV, according
to the Post
Tension reportedly developed between the two as Doherty began to think the profiling
project was his and began speaking to reporters without Burkman's consent, Burkman told the
Post.
Burkman fired Doherty and sent him a cease-and-desist letter in July, according to the
news outlet. "I just figured the matter was closed," Burkman told the Post. "But what
happened is, I guess, he was simmering and simmering and simmering."
A source who identified as a senior FBI official contacted Burkman and claimed to have
internal documents relative to another case he was working on.
The anonymous source planted envelopes of information under a traffic cone in the
parking garage at the Key Bridge Marriott in Rosslyn, according to Burkman.
As the lobbyist arrived to retrieve the documents, with his pet Dachshund in hand, he
reached under the cone and was shot in the buttocks and thigh and run over by an SUV.
Burkman spent three days in the hospital, and his dog was not harmed.
Doherty was charged with use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and two counts
of malicious wounding. He is currently jailed in the Arlington County Detention
Facility.
We have reached out to Mr. Burkman and will post any updates as we receive
them
Hacking is an ideal space for false flag operation where shadow, intelligence connected
companies like Crowdstype can plan evidence with impunity and traced can be constructed according
to the needs of the day or particular operation. Only British-style poisonings can compete as
they provide the same mantle of secrecy in which real evidence can be buried and fake propagated
;-)
Somebody on UNZ forum said that it is stupid to believe anything that comes from national
intelligence services, especially when they are engaged in color revolution against the current
administration.
The Daily Beast reports that U.S. investigators identified the hacker as a Moscow-based
Russian intelligence operative after the hacker failed to activate a virtual private networking
(VPN) service meant to obscure the operative's location before logging on.
The result was the operative's Moscow IP address being caught in the logs of a U.S. social
media company, allowing U.S. investigators to track the individual. Special counsel Robert Mueller , who is leading
the investigation into Russian election meddling, has taken over the probe into Guccifer,
according to The Daily Beast, which reported that he added FBI agents to his team who
previously worked to track the hacker.
U.S. intelligence agencies previously stated in January 2017 that they had "high confidence"
that "Russian military intelligence (General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU) used
the Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com to release US victim data."
Aside from the obvious legalized bribery (Citizens United), the absolute control of the
corrupt 2-party system, the oligarchic and utterly undemocratic mass media, etc., we also had
the case in 2000 that a bunch of unelected dictators-for-life "decided" the US election,
clearly unlawfully. Bush vs. Gore.
Yes, US is in no position to be lecturing anybody about "democracy". But US is not short
on chutzpah in any political realm.
If elections resulted in real change, Yankees wouldn't have them. All theater for the
zombies, aka the voting class. Only zombies would argue over the merits of the candidates.
The US needs very little from its citizens. These includes obedience, widespread ignorance
and the unquestioned belief they live in a Democracy because voting happens.
The best slaves are the ones that lack the intelligence to recognize their own slavery.
The happiest slaves know that voting is a rigged sham but don't care because the right master
leads them.
Anon from TN
Now, that I believe. Due to dismal school system (purely parochial, no national standards,
local boards full of ignoramuses decide what kids are taught in school) too many Americans
sincerely believe that the world consists of three roughly equal parts: Main street,
out-of-town, and overseas. I guess the election results in the last few decades show this
clearly.
Alas, I stayed with USA friends, well educated middle class, where CNN was the only 'news'
source.
Three other USA acquaintances I visited in their homes, cannot remember having seen a
newspaper other than a local one about marriages and funerals.
The USA reminded me of the Peking court, that, when British warships were reported on the
coast, responded with 'there had been so many pirates already'.
In the Badlands, in a very small café, I identified myself as Dutch, from Holland,
Netherlands.
When all this did not ring bell I mentioned Europe, the first time in my life.
This was understood.
Anon from TN
Maybe I overestimate American citizens (I work at a top-rate University and communicate
mostly with faculty and grad students), but I'd like to come to their defense. CNN (as well
as FOX news, NYT, and other MSM) represent the views of the lower half of US citizens by IQ.
As far as I can tell, blatant lies of Western propaganda achieved among the people with
brains the same result as the Soviet propaganda: even if they state something truthful for a
change, people would doubt that.
You're truly delusional if you think CNN does NOT represent average American thinking, at
least a large paart of it. Last week I suffered through a luncheon of 5 mature adults
extolling Rachel Maddow. Sickening.
Neoliberalism as social system tend to self-destruct. Much like Bolshevism (neoliberalism actually can be viewed as Trotskyism
for the rich with the same dream of "world revolution" as the central part of the religion and a slightly modified Marxism slogan
-- "financial elites of the world unite" ).
"This week, Congressional
Democrats released a detailed tax hike plan that they
promised to implement if given majority control of the House and Senate after the 2018
midterm elections. So much for the crocodile tears about the deficit--
Democrats want to raise taxes not to reduce the debt, but rather to spend that tax hike
money on boondoggle projects.
OK. That will work. (irony) So, they will raise both corporate and personal income taxes if
they gain control of the congress. That will work as a political program (irony). The
California state government will probably back that. (no irony)
Well, there is always Stormy Daniels to fall back on as an issue. She was interviewed
outside a strip joint yesterday where she was to perform. "You call me a whore? she said. I
tell you I am a successful whore." I suppose the idea is to alienate Trump's evangelical base
from him. Oh, well, this theme rings a bit hollow. Trump's base knew what they were voting for
... pl
in fairness to our friends the democrats, the Dems. are proposing an infrastructure plan
that is woefully inadequate, and propose to rescind the recent tax cuts.
Personally, I am just not feeling the electoral excitement.
Of course those suffering TDS (trump derangement syndrome) will applaud undoing Trump
agenda, but then again, they were going to vote Democrat anyway and cut a check, which IMO is
the real point. Funny how now they want to do infrastructure, but not during the Obama
years.
Personally, wrt the tax cuts, I am ambivalent. Anyone who pays anywhere near the official
rate needs to hire a good tax accountant. Net effect on businesses that already take all
available deductions will be a percent or two on gross. A 2% weaker dollar would have a far
bigger benefit for businesses (but worse for the banks).
ISL
the only reason the individual tax rate is important is the effect on LLCs and S corps.
Nevertheless, the corporate tax rate cut is the more important. pl
Have you seen the movie "Wind River" yet? It is the best depiction I've seen of the USA
descending into tribalism due to the loss of jobs, the drug epidemic and environmental
exploitation.
NBC News daily has Kumbaya propaganda to facilitate importing of cheap labor and goods.
But, what good is a service economy if there is no service? Just like Soviet propaganda,
corporate media today is in service of the oligarch owners and sold out party elite. It tries
to avoid the truth. Although, NBC did report on the astronomical rise in cost of ambulance
service. A couple thousand dollars for mile and half trip to the hospital. They said it was
due to the 2008 recession and the cutting of local volunteer emergency services to save tax
money.
Rather than tax the wealthy and corporations, the middle class is going into debt to pay
for education, medical bills, and $40 Northern Virginia one-way tolls. Federal taxes on the
middle class support the endless wars.
I agree the Democrats shot themselves in the foot because they are unconcerned for the
bottom 80% except for their identity issues. They serve their paymasters. The recent Italian
election documents the complete collapse of left leaning parties that ignored the plight of
the workers in the West. To me, to win, the left in America must write off student debt,
implement Medicare for All, end the forever wars and tax George Soros, Jeff Bezos, Bill
Gates, Warren Buffet, Pierre Omidyar, the Koch Brothers and the Walton Family to pay for it.
To work, criminal bankers need to be jailed and corporate boards required to manage for long
term profits that benefit society not just quarterly and themselves only.
Well that settles it. I thought that maybe the Dems were just acting delusional to coddle
their base. This settles it. They actually ARE delusional.
So in addition to replacing us with an infinite number of illiterate third worlders,
taking our guns and jailing us for using the wrong pronoun out of an ever evolving list of
hundreds they are going to take more of our hard earned money. Yeah, how can they not sweep
the 2018 elections with a platform like that. Sheesh.
I never did support the Trump tax cuts. I regard them as being mainly mainstream Republican
tax cuts. President Trump supports them and signed them for all the economic benefits reasons
he cited and cites. But the Republicans' main reason for seeking them remains their long term
goal of destroying Social Security and privatizing the Social Security money . . . the money
I and everyone else have been pre-paying double for ever since the Great Reagan Rescue of
1983. They sought these tax cuts in order to increase vastly the deficit and the debt. Their
expectation is that the next inevitable recession
will make the debt so-nearly-unpayable as to give them another opportunity to accuse Social
Security of causing the debt and of being unaffordable.
So I would support cancellation of the Republican tax cuts for that reason. I would be
defending my Social Security against longstanding Republican efforts to destroy it and
retro-steal all the money I have been paying ( and will keep paying) every since 1983.
(Actually, since 1980 when I worked at half the rate of FICA taxation as after 1983). But
then, I have said years ago in comments that I would like to see taxes re-raised against the
Bush's Base class to recover all the Social Security pre-payment money which was
future-looted-from to give the Bush's Base class a tax cut instead. A tax cut which President
Obama supported and ratified when he conspired with Boehner and McConnell to make the
self-sunsetting Bush Tax cuts into permanent tax cuts. That's why I now call them the
Bushobama Tax cuts now.
There is boondoggle and there is needed repair. The "high speed railway" proposed and
haltingly begun in California is a boondoggle. Fixing all the rotting and decaying bridges
and all the potholes is needed repair. ( Come to Michigan to see some impressive potcraters).
The present and future space program is an investment in possible futures and in
technological advances. Government spending can be a boondoggle but it doesn't have to
be.
At least some of the Democrats have decided to run on something specific instead of vague
emotional appeals only. Something specific can either be voted "for" or "against".
(The Democrats should remember that "tax restoration" may not be enough to get all the
votes they think they are due. There are enough bitter berners out here who remain convinced
that applying political chemotherapy against the malignant metastatic clintonoma and the
Yersiniobama pestis plague infection afflicting the Democratic Party is more important right
now than "more democrats". There is, and will be, a growing effort to defeat every piece of
Clintonite scum and Obamazoid filth which dares to call itself a "Democrat" in every election
that one of these things runs in. The Democratic Party has to be made into a New Deal Party
again, and that means purging and burning every trace of Clinton and Obama out of the Party.
If any DLC/Third Way/Hamilton Project/ Pink Pussy Hat/ Rainbow Oligarchy Democrats are
reading this, they should consider themselves warned.)
If Trump's evangelical base was willing to ignore the p-grabber tape, I doubt this will do
much to change their minds. Don't tell CNN, they were running the story 24/7 even as the
Senate, including many Democrats such as the odious Mark Warner, was voting to roll back the
fairly toothless restrictions on the big banks passed after the 2008 financial crash.
This is the REAL reason Trump will not be removed even if impeached--he's too valuable to
the political class as a never ending media freak show that allows them to get away with
whatever they want while the idiot public is distracted.
Exactly, Sir, it is the corporate tax cut that is the big deal because it starts to level the
playing field for small businesses. The largest corporations hardly pay any tax anyway
because they have the armies of tax lawyers and accountants to leverage all the
"... If on November 6 the Democratic Party makes the net gain of 24 seats needed to win control of the House of Representatives, former CIA agents, military commanders, and State Department officials will provide the margin of victory and hold the balance of power in Congress. ..."
"... Since its establishment in 1947 -- under the administration of Democratic President Harry Truman -- the CIA has been legally barred from carrying out within the United States the activities which were its mission overseas: spying, infiltration, political provocation, assassination. These prohibitions were given official lip service but ignored in practice. ..."
"... The Church Committee in particular featured the exposure of CIA assassination plots against foreign leaders like Fidel Castro, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, General Rene Schneider in Chile, and many others. More horrors were uncovered: MK-Ultra, in which the CIA secretly subjected unwitting victims to experimentation with drugs like LSD; ..."
"... Operation Mockingbird, in which the CIA recruited journalists to plant stories and smear opponents; Operation Chaos, an effort to spy on the antiwar movement and sow disruption; Operation Shamrock, under which the telecommunications companies shared traffic with the NSA for more than a quarter century. ..."
"... The Church and Pike committee exposures, despite their limitations, had a devastating political effect. The CIA and its allied intelligence organizations in the Pentagon and NSA became political lepers, reviled as the enemies of democratic rights. The CIA in particular was widely viewed as "Murder Incorporated." ..."
"... The last 15 years have seen a massive expansion of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, backed by an avalanche of media propaganda, with endless television programs and movies glorifying American spies and assassins ..."
"... The media campaign alleging Russian intervention in the 2016 US elections has been based entirely on handouts from the CIA, NSA and FBI, transmitted by reporters who are either unwitting stooges or conscious agents of the military-intelligence apparatus. This has been accompanied by the recruitment of a cadre of top CIA and military officials to serve as highly paid "experts" and "analysts" for the television networks . ..."
"... This process was well under way in the administration of Barack Obama, which endorsed and expanded the various operations of the intelligence agencies abroad and within the United States. Obama's endorsed successor, Hillary Clinton, ran openly as the chosen candidate of the Pentagon and CIA, touting her toughness as a future commander-in-chief and pledging to escalate the confrontation with Russia, both in Syria and Ukraine. ..."
"... The CIA has spearheaded the anti-Russia campaign against Trump in large part because of resentment over the disruption of its operations in Syria, and it has successfully used the campaign to force a shift in the policy of the Trump administration on that score. ..."
"... The 2018 election campaign marks a new stage: for the first time, military-intelligence operatives are moving in large numbers to take over a political party and seize a major role in Congress. The dozens of CIA and military veterans running in the Democratic Party primaries are "former" agents of the military-intelligence apparatus. This "retired" status is, however, purely nominal. Joining the CIA or the Army Rangers or the Navy SEALs is like joining the Mafia: no one ever actually leaves; they just move on to new assignments. ..."
In a three-part series published last week, the
World Socialist Web Site documented an unprecedented influx of intelligence and
military operatives into the Democratic Party. More than 50 such military-intelligence
candidates are seeking the Democratic nomination in the 102 districts identified by the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as its targets for 2018. These include both vacant
seats and those with Republican incumbents considered vulnerable in the event of a significant
swing to the Democrats.
If on November 6 the Democratic Party makes the net gain of 24 seats needed to win control
of the House of Representatives, former CIA agents, military commanders, and State Department
officials will provide the margin of victory and hold the balance of power in Congress. The
presence of so many representatives of the military-intelligence apparatus in the legislature
is a situation without precedent in the history of the United States.
Since its establishment in 1947 -- under the administration of Democratic President Harry
Truman -- the CIA has been legally barred from carrying out within the United States the
activities which were its mission overseas: spying, infiltration, political provocation,
assassination. These prohibitions were given official lip service but ignored in practice.
In the wake of the Watergate crisis and the forced resignation of President Richard Nixon,
reporter Seymour Hersh published the first devastating exposure of the CIA domestic spying, in
an investigative report for the New York Times on December 22, 1974. This report
triggered the establishment of the Rockefeller Commission, a White House effort at damage
control, and Senate and House select committees, named after their chairmen, Senator Frank
Church and Representative Otis Pike, which conducted hearings and made serious attempts to
investigate and expose the crimes of the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency.
The Church Committee in particular featured the exposure of CIA assassination plots against
foreign leaders like Fidel Castro, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, General Rene Schneider in
Chile, and many others. More horrors were uncovered: MK-Ultra, in which the CIA secretly
subjected unwitting victims to experimentation with drugs like LSD;
Operation Mockingbird, in
which the CIA recruited journalists to plant stories and smear opponents; Operation Chaos, an
effort to spy on the antiwar movement and sow disruption; Operation Shamrock, under which the
telecommunications companies shared traffic with the NSA for more than a quarter century.
The Church and Pike committee exposures, despite their limitations, had a devastating
political effect. The CIA and its allied intelligence organizations in the Pentagon and NSA
became political lepers, reviled as the enemies of democratic rights. The CIA in particular was
widely viewed as "Murder Incorporated."
In that period, it would have been unthinkable either for dozens of "former"
military-intelligence operatives to participate openly in electoral politics, or for them to be
welcomed and even recruited by the two corporate-controlled parties. The Democrats and
Republicans sought to distance themselves, at least for public relations purposes, from the spy
apparatus, while the CIA publicly declared that it would no longer recruit or pay American
journalists to publish material originating in Langley, Virginia. Even in the 1980s, the
Iran-Contra scandal involved the exposure of the illegal operations of the Reagan
administration's CIA director, William Casey.
How times have changed. One of the main functions of the "war on terror," launched in the
wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, has been to
rehabilitate the US spy apparatus and give it a public relations makeover as the supposed
protector of the American people against terrorism.
This meant disregarding the well-known connections between Osama bin Laden and other Al
Qaeda leaders and the CIA, which recruited them for the anti-Soviet guerrilla war in
Afghanistan, waged from 1979 to 1989, as well as the still unexplained role of the US
intelligence agencies in facilitating the 9/11 attacks themselves.
The last 15 years have seen a massive expansion of the CIA and other intelligence agencies,
backed by an avalanche of media propaganda, with endless television programs and movies
glorifying American spies and assassins ( 24 , Homeland , Zero Dark
Thirty , etc.)
The American media has been directly recruited to this effort. Judith Miller of the New
York Times , with her reports on "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, is only the most
notorious of the stable of "plugged-in" intelligence-connected journalists at the
Times , the Washington Post , and the major television networks. More
recently, the Times has installed as its editorial page editor James Bennet, brother
of a Democratic senator and son of the former administrator of the Agency for International
Development, which has been accused of working as a front for the operations of the Central
Intelligence Agency.
The media campaign alleging Russian intervention in the 2016 US elections has been based
entirely on handouts from the CIA, NSA and FBI, transmitted by reporters who are either
unwitting stooges or conscious agents of the military-intelligence apparatus. This has been
accompanied by the recruitment of a cadre of top CIA and military officials to serve as highly
paid "experts" and "analysts" for the television networks .
In centering its opposition to Trump on the bogus allegations of Russian interference, while
essentially ignoring Trump's attacks on immigrants and democratic rights, his alignment with
ultra-right and white supremacist groups, his attacks on social programs like Medicaid and food
stamps, and his militarism and threats of nuclear war, the Democratic Party has embraced the
agenda of the military-intelligence apparatus and sought to become its main political
voice.
This process was well under way in the administration of Barack Obama, which endorsed and
expanded the various operations of the intelligence agencies abroad and within the United
States. Obama's endorsed successor, Hillary Clinton, ran openly as the chosen candidate of the
Pentagon and CIA, touting her toughness as a future commander-in-chief and pledging to escalate
the confrontation with Russia, both in Syria and Ukraine.
The CIA has spearheaded the anti-Russia campaign against Trump in large part because of
resentment over the disruption of its operations in Syria, and it has successfully used the
campaign to force a shift in the policy of the Trump administration on that score. A chorus of
media backers -- Nicholas Kristof and Roger Cohen of the New York Times , the entire
editorial board of the Washington Post , most of the television networks -- are part
of the campaign to pollute public opinion and whip up support on alleged "human rights" grounds
for an expansion of the US war in Syria.
The 2018 election campaign marks a new stage: for the first time, military-intelligence
operatives are moving in large numbers to take over a political party and seize a major role in
Congress. The dozens of CIA and military veterans running in the Democratic Party primaries are
"former" agents of the military-intelligence apparatus. This "retired" status is, however,
purely nominal. Joining the CIA or the Army Rangers or the Navy SEALs is like joining the
Mafia: no one ever actually leaves; they just move on to new assignments.
The CIA operation in 2018 is unlike its overseas activities in one major respect: it is not
covert. On the contrary, the military-intelligence operatives running in the Democratic
primaries boast of their careers as spies and special ops warriors. Those with combat
experience invariably feature photographs of themselves in desert fatigues or other uniforms on
their websites. And they are welcomed and given preferred positions, with Democratic Party
officials frequently clearing the field for their candidacies.
The working class is confronted with an extraordinary political situation. On the one hand,
the Republican Trump administration has more military generals in top posts than any other
previous government. On the other hand, the Democratic Party has opened its doors to a
"friendly takeover" by the intelligence agencies.
The incredible power of the military-intelligence agencies over the entire government is an
expression of the breakdown of American democracy. The central cause of this breakdown is the
extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite, whose interests the state
apparatus and its "bodies of armed men" serve. Confronted by an angry and hostile working
class, the ruling class is resorting to ever more overt forms of authoritarian rule.
Millions of working people want to fight the Trump administration and its ultra-right
policies. But it is impossible to carry out this fight through the "axis of evil" that connects
the Democratic Party, the bulk of the corporate media, and the CIA. The influx of
military-intelligence candidates puts paid to the longstanding myth, peddled by the trade
unions and pseudo-left groups, that the Democrats represent a "lesser evil." On the contrary,
working people must confront the fact that within the framework of the corporate-controlled
two-party system, they face two equally reactionary evils.
Posted on
March 10, 2018 by Yves Smith Yves here. As depressing and
predictable as it is to see Democrats yet again prostituting themselves to financiers, payback
may finally be coming. From Lambert in Water Cooler
yesterday :
Senate: Poll: Five Senate Dems would lose to GOP challenger if elections held today" [
The Hill ]. "New polls published Thursday morning in Axios show Sens. Claire McCaskill
(D-Mo.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) and Heidi
Heitkamp (D-N.D.) would all lose reelection to GOP challengers if voters were heading to the
polls this week." Blue Dogs all. Why vote for a fake Republican when you can vote for a real
one?
So these Blue Dogs who are gutting the already underwhelming Dodd Frank may not be with us
much longer, at least politically. And even though the party is remarkably insistent on
adhering to a strategy of corporate toadying that has led it to hemorrhage seats at all levels
of government, if these seats all go red, it might be a message even the Democrats might not be
able to ignore.
By Marshall Auerback is a market analyst and commentator. Originally published at
Alternet
This act of regulatory vandalism highlights everything that is corrupt about our
political system.
As if to maximize the possibility of another major financial crisis, the Trump
administration and the GOP have recently been busy undercutting the limited safeguards
established a decade ago via Dodd-Frank. The latest example of this stealth attack on Wall
Street reform is the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act,
appropriately sponsored by Republican Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho, chairman of the Senate
Banking Committee. Appropriate, because this is literally a "crapo" bill. It provides a few
"technical tweaks" to Dodd-Frank in the same way in which protection payouts to organized crime
provide businesses with "insurance" against property damage. In reality, it is an act of
regulatory vandalism, which highlights everything that is corrupt about our political
system.
We have grown to expect no less from the GOP, whose sole r aison d'etre these days
seems to be filling the trough from which America's fat cats can perpetually gorge themselves.
What is truly disturbing, however, is that the Republican effort is being given bipartisan
cover by more than a dozen Democratic senators: Doug Jones (Ala.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Heidi
Heitkamp (N.D.), Jon Tester (Mont.), Mark Warner and Tim Kaine (both from Va.), Claire
McCaskill (Mo.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Gary Peters (Mich.), Michael Bennet (Colo.), Chris Coons
(Del.), and Tom Carper of Delaware. To this esteemed group, we should also add Senator Angus
King (ME), an Independent who regularly caucuses with the Democrats. So, in reality, it's a
filibuster-proof "Baker's Dirty Dozen." Digging into the details, perhaps this is what Senator
Mitch McConnell had in mind when he predicted
more bipartisanship in Congress this year . In co-sponsoring this bill, the 13 senators are
providing cover for the GOP when the inevitable fallout comes, dissipating the Democrats'
political capital with the electorate in the process.
Yes, we get it: some of these senator incumbents are in red states that voted heavily for
Donald Trump in the last election. And
the latest polls suggest many are vulnerable in this year's elections. But the last time we
checked, there didn't seem to be an overwhelming wave of populist protest demanding regulatory
relief for banks. All 50 states -- red and blue -- suffered from the last financial crisis, and
it's hard to believe voters in Montana, West Virginia, North Dakota, Indiana or Missouri would
be more likely to support Senators Tester, Manchin, Heitkamp, Donnelly or McCaskill because
they backed a bank deregulation bill (which in reality goes well beyond helping small community
banks). Nor do the 2018 races factor as far as Senators Warner, Coons, or Bennet are concerned,
given that none are up for re-election this year.
No, the more likely answer is money, plain and simple. The numbers aren't in for 2017, but
an analysis of the Federal Election Commission data from the 2016 election appears to explain
what is driving this newfound solicitousness toward the banks. The
Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) points out that "nine of the twelve Democrats
supporting the deregulatory measure count the financial industry as either their biggest or
second-biggest donor." (At least now we have a better understanding as to why Hillary Clinton's
" responsibility
gene " induced her to select running mate Tim Kaine, who
received "large contributions from Big Law partners that represent Wall Street," as opposed
to a genuine finance reformer, such as Senator Elizabeth Warren. Senator Warren is vigorously
opposing the new bill.)
"included among his 20 largest donors the mega Wall Street banks Goldman Sachs and
JPMorgan Chase. Goldman's employees and PACs gave Warner's campaign $71,600 while JPMorgan
Chase gave the Warner campaign committees $50,566 Senator Heidi Heitkamp is also up for
reelection this year and her number one contributor at present is employees and/or PACs of
Goldman Sachs which have contributed $79,500 thus far."
Naturally, all of the senators claim their motives are pure. With no hint of irony, a
spokesman
for Tim Kaine suggested that , "Campaign contributions do not influence Senator Kaine's
policy positions." Likewise, an aide for Mark Warner vigorously
contested the idea that campaign donations from Wall Street ever influenced the Virginia
senator's decision-making on policy matters. Sure, and it was shocking to find out that
gambling took place in Rick's Café.
It is true, as Senator Jon Tester (another co-sponsor)
notes , that the proposed changes introduced in the Crapo bill (notably the increase in the
asset size from $50 billion to $250 billion of those banks that are considered "systemically
important" and therefore subject to greater oversight and tighter rules) do not affect the
likes of Wall Street banks such as Citigroup, JP MorganChase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs
and Morgan Stanley, all of which are still covered by the most stringent oversight provisions
of Dodd-Frank. But the increased asset threshold does exempt the U.S. bank holding companies of
systemically significant foreign banks: Deutsche Bank, UBS and Credit Suisse, all of whom were
implicated in multiple violations of both American and international banking laws in the
aftermath of the 2008 crisis.
Deutsche Bank alone has paid billions of dollars for its role in perpetuating mortgage
fraud,
money-laundering and interest rate manipulation (the LIBOR scandal), which ideally should
invite more regulatory scrutiny, not less. Instead, a new law ostensibly crafted to provide a
few "technical fixes" for Dodd-Frank is now reducing the regulatory oversight of a bank that
has been
cited in an IMF report as one of Germany's "global systemically important financial
institutions." Translating the couched-IMF-speak, the report suggests that Deutsche Bank on its
own has the potential to set off a new global contagion, given the scale of its derivatives
exposure. Not only too big to fail, but evidently too big to regulate properly either, aided
and abetted by members of a party who claim to be appalled at the level of corruption in the
Trump administration.
Another side-effect of raising the regulatory threshold to $250 billion in assets is that it
diminishes the chance of obtaining an early warning detection signal from somewhat smaller
financial institutions. As the experience of Lehman Brothers or Bear Stearns illustrated,
smaller problems that remain hidden in the shadows can ultimately metastasize if left alone,
and become much bigger -- and more systemically dangerous -- later.
So when Senator Kaine nobly suggests
that he is merely providing relief for "small community banks and credit unions" in his home
state, or Jon Tester argues that he is only helping local banks suffering from Dodd-Frank's
regulatory overkill, both are being extraordinarily disingenuous. The reality is that
increasing the oversight threshold by 500 percent does not just help a few "small community
banks and credit unions" crawl out from a thicket of onerous and costly regulation. Even former
Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who favored some regulatory relief for community banks, felt that
$250 billion threshold
was excessive ly lax.
In fact, (
per the Americans for Financial Reform ), the increase "removes the most severe mandate for
25 of the 38 largest banks," which
together "account for over $3.5 trillion in banking assets, more than one-sixth of the U.S.
total." Additionally, as Pat Garofalo
writes : "The bill also includes an exemption from capital standards -- essentially the
amount of money that banks need to have on hand in case things go south -- that benefits some
big financial firms, and even more are lobbying to be included." In other words, this isn't
just George Bailey's friendly neighborhood bank that is getting some regulatory relief
here.
All of this newfound regulatory laxity comes at a time when many of the largest Wall Street
banks have again resurrected the same practices that almost destroyed them a decade ago. Bank
credit analyst Chris Whalen
observes : "The leader of this effort is none other than Citigroup (NYSE:C), which has
surpassed JP MorganChase (NYSE:JPM) to become the largest derivatives shop in the world. Citi
has embraced the most notorious product of the roaring 2000s, the synthetic collateralized debt
obligation or 'CDO' security, a product that fraudulently leverages the real world and
literally caused the bank to fail a decade ago."
Another example: Trump and his henchman, Mick Mulvaney, have also joined the big banks in
attacking the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which by virtue of the Crapo act, will be
blocked "from collecting key data showing when and where families of color are being
overcharged for home loans or steered into predatory products."
Let's be honest here: even in its original form, Dodd-Frank was the bare minimum the
government could have done in the wake of the 2008 disaster. But lobbyists, paid-for
politicians and co-opted bank-friendly regulators have been busy "applying technical fixes" to
the bill virtually from the moment it was passed a decade ago. The upshot is that the
much-trumpeted Wall Street reform is a joke when compared to the comprehensive legislation
passed in the aftermath of the Great Depression (which set the stage for decades of relative
financial stability). Under Dodd, the banks are purportedly subject to "meaningful stress
tests" (
in the words of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell ), but the tests are neither
particularly stressful, nor do they adequately reflect today's twin dangers of off-balance
sheet leverage and the concentration of big banks' on-balance sheet assets in relatively
low-return loans.
What should have been done after the global financial crisis? Professors Eric Tymoigne and
Randall Wray
proposed the following :
"Any of the 'too big to fail' financial institutions that needed funding should have been
required to submit to Fed oversight. Top management should have been required to proffer
resignations as a condition of lending (with the Fed or Treasury holding the letters until
they could decide which should be accepted -- this is how Jessie Jones resolved the bank
crisis in the 1930s). Short-term lending against the best collateral should have been
provided, at penalty rates. A comprehensive 'cease and desist' order should have been
enforced to stop all trading, all lending, all asset sales, and all bonus payments until an
assessment of bank solvency could have been completed. The FDIC should have been called-in
(in the case of institutions with insured deposits), but in any case, the critically
undercapitalized institutions should have been dissolved according to existing law: at the
least cost to the Treasury and to avoid increasing concentration in the financial
sector."
A number of conclusions can be drawn from this whole sordid episode. An obvious one is that
our model of campaign finance is completely broken. While it is encouraging to see some
Democratic politicians increasingly adopting the Sanders model of fundraising,
swearing off large corporate donations , not enough are doing so. Democrats are united in
their concern pertaining to foreign threats that pose risks to the integrity of U.S. elections,
but the vigorous opposition to Vladimir Putin and the Russians isn't extended to the domestic
oligarchs destroying American democracy (and the economy) from within.
The whole history behind Senator Crapo's bill shows how quickly bank lobbyists can
routinely exploit their financial muscle to turn a seemingly innocuous bill into something
which pokes yet more holes into the Swiss Cheese-like rules already in place for Dodd. The
Baker's Dirty Dozen have accepted donations from Wall Street that not only constrain their
ability to implement genuine reforms in finance (and other areas) but also discourage the
mobilization of voters, who see this legislative horror show, and consequently opt out of
showing up to vote at elections because they know that the system is rigged and dominated by
corporate cash (making their votes irrelevant).
Ironically, no less a figure than Donald Trump exploited that voter cynicism in 2016. In
striking contrast to every other Republican presidential nominee since 1936, he attacked
globalization, free trade, international financiers, and Wall Street (and made effective
mockery of Hillary Clinton's ties to Goldman Sachs) and thereby mobilized blue-collar voters in
marginal Rust Belt states, giving him his path to the presidency. Of course, we now know that
this was all bait-and-switch politics, likely facilitated by forces outside the U.S., along
with large corporation donations from domestic elites. We've probably reached the endgame as
far as this "
investment approach to politics " as it disintegrates into a cesspool of corruption and
further financial fragility. It may take another crash before this problem is truly fixed.
In the meantime, this bipartisan subversion of Wall Street reform not only risks making the
next crisis at least as bad as 2008, but also reinforces the notion that both parties are
equally corrupt,
catalyzing the collapse of the American political order . In a further sick twist of fate,
the twin corrosive forces of "golden rule politics" (i.e., he who has the gold rules) and a
rapidly deflating "bubble-ized" economy could all come to a head under the watch of Donald the
Unready. But he won't own this disaster alone, thanks to the help of compromised Wall Street
Democrats.
Jen
Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan from my deep purple state of NH both, voted to allow the bill
to proceed. And of course my esteemed congress critter, Annie Kuster, did her bit in congress. Only 968
days until I can exact my retribution on Shaheen at the polls, first and foremost for her vote in favor of
fast track, but damned if she doesn't give me another good reason on almost a daily basis.
"... Especially, once American policy-makers who saw and experienced war (Ike, George Marshall's generation) departed things started to roll down hill with Reagan bringing on board a whole collection of neocons. ..."
"... Unawareness is always dangerous, a complete blackout in relations between two nuclear powers is more than dangerous--it is completely reckless. Again, the way CW 1.0 is perceived in the current US "elites" it becomes extremely tempting to repeat it. Electing Hillary was another step in unleashing CW 2.0 by people who have no understanding of what they were doing. ..."
"... Obama started crushing US-Russian relations before any campaigns were launched and before Trump was even seriously considered a GOP nominee, let alone a real contender. New confrontation hinged on HRC being elected. In fact, she was one of the major driving forces behind a serious of geopolitical anti-Russian moves. Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in HRC campaign long before any Steele's Dossier. This was a program. ..."
- If they have read the important books at all... The ongoing scandal has been revealing a stunning incompetence of the "deciders."
Too often they look comical, ridiculous, undignified. This is dangerous, considering their power.
My coming book is precisely about that. Especially, once American policy-makers who saw and experienced war (Ike, George
Marshall's generation) departed things started to roll down hill with Reagan bringing on board a whole collection of neocons.
Unawareness is always dangerous, a complete blackout in relations between two nuclear powers is more than dangerous--it
is completely reckless. Again, the way CW 1.0 is perceived in the current US "elites" it becomes extremely tempting to repeat
it. Electing Hillary was another step in unleashing CW 2.0 by people who have no understanding of what they were doing.
Obama started crushing US-Russian relations before any campaigns were launched and before Trump was even seriously considered
a GOP nominee, let alone a real contender. New confrontation hinged on HRC being elected. In fact, she was one of the major driving
forces behind a serious of geopolitical anti-Russian moves. Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in HRC campaign long before
any Steele's Dossier. This was a program.
John McCain is a war veteran and a policy maker, who has seen war closer than Marshal or Ike
still he will shy away from any war even with nuclear Russia.
While McCain is a war veteran, his career was not in any way distinguished - rather he pretty
clearly was given "hall pass" after "hall pass" given his father and grandfather. It also
seems pretty clear his time as a POW has probably significantly influenced his view of the
world.
"The Nightingale's Song" has an excellent treatment of his Naval Academy and service time,
along with and in contrast to Ollie North, Jim Webb, admiral Poindexter and Bud MacFarlane.
Not a pretty picture..
John McCain is a war veteran and a policy maker, who has seen war closer than Marshal or
Ike still he will shy away from any war even with nuclear Russia.
Seeing generations of your close and remote relatives killed and your property destroyed
as a result of war is usually a very sobering collective experience. McCain, apart from being
a rather exceptional warmonger, doesn't know what it is, despite experiencing some serious
trials while being a POW. Ike saw, for starters, concentration camps and, unlike, McCain was
mostly on the ground. This is a crucial distinction.
"It also seems pretty clear his time as a POW has probably significantly influenced his view
of the world."
I agree, and, that was the point I tried to make, not all veterans are necessary qualified
MINDS for deciding future of the coming generations. I have the same suspicion for General
Kelly, having lost a son in Afghanistan and having power to influence the war in Afghanistan,
I think is this situation, like judges, one has to recuse him/herself to be part of planers.
Intereseting that a former staffer from Senator Feinstein is implicated in the mess. How many
others are there who have been doing the same thing? I wonder if Congresswoman Debbie
Wasserman-Schultt's IT staffer Mr. Arwan was accessing any relavent iformation while he was
on her payroll and for whom?
You wanna hear another hot tip? Debbie's brother, Steven Wasserman, is the Assistant United
States Attorney for the District of Columbia -- the very jurisdiction where Seth Rich was
murdered. Not much progress being made in that investigation ... can't imagine why!
Soros might well be a front company for an intelligence agency.
Notable quotes:
"... a former FBI investigator, Feinstein staffer and now a Fusion GPS operative ..."
"... This is quite plausible. Silicon Valley billionaires are definitely "investing" in their PC propaganda agenda. The Seattle billionaire and now the world's wealthiest man owns the neocon rag published from our nation's capital. He's also got lucrative contracts from our IC. Alexa is quite happy to listen into all your private conversations at home. ..."
"... "This funding is critical to ensuring that we continue an aggressive response to malign influence and disinformation and that we can leverage deeper partnerships with our allies, Silicon Valley, and other partners in this fight," said Steve Goldstein, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs." ..."
"... I have often wondered if Soros is not a front company for an intelligence agency. ..."
"... i think it was the open Russia foundation that was funded by Soros, but i see former owner of yukos - Mikhail Khodorkovsky has his name attached to it... ..."
"... It seems the Magnitsky Act is a critical juncture in all the developments towards singling out russia for everything.. ..."
"... i don't know soros or khodorkovskys connection to bill browder in all of this, but would be curious to know. it seems they are all operating to bring down russia, in some way, shape or form.. ..."
"... My understanding is that Mr. Soros has funded, participated and closely associated himself with US' IC community, for various regime change and copes mostly Eastern Europe in past decades. We know that US IC community has the agenda ( a hard on) for discrediting and removing legally elected president of US from his office. We know US Democratic Party has paid and hired members of foreign intelligence for connecting presidential campaign of DT to Russians, for a possible killing of 2 birds with one shot. We know the cheassy silicon billionaires, are no other than the same old Move on Organization which to the bone are clintonian DLC, or the latter day Obamachies. We know Mr. Soros an Easter European migrant like Zbig is totally and fiercely anti anti Russian. ..."
"... When all facts put to gather, sounds like all these elements, entities, and personalities share a common motif and goal, which centers on anti Trump and anti Puttin Russia. When put together, makes a villain's marriage in haven. ..."
"In a Daily Caller op-ed calling the Russian meddling narrative a "
false public manipulation ," Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska claims that Daniel Jones -
a former FBI investigator, Feinstein staffer and now a
Fusion GPS operative - told the Russian Oligarch's lawyer in March, 2017 that Fusion
GPS was funded by " a group of Silicon Valley billionaires and George Soros. "" Zerohedge
------------
Now, this is something different. I have no idea what the relative truthiness of this may
be, but... pl
This is quite plausible. Silicon Valley billionaires are definitely "investing" in their
PC propaganda agenda. The Seattle billionaire and now the world's wealthiest man owns the
neocon rag published from our nation's capital. He's also got lucrative contracts from our
IC. Alexa is quite happy to listen into all your private conversations at home.
I appreciate your use of the phrase ' relative truthiness', and I suggest this latest
truthiness is just part of the movie, and a great movie it is.
Still, it's about time Soros
showed up and he's in good company too, along with this week's poisoned Russian spy and a
paid prostitute with a Trump story to tell. Next ?
We're probably due for a
Clinton/Russia-related Julian Assange document dump, some Russian intel officer arrests in DC
and....a new Steele-equivalent originator offering a more respectable document since after
all any evidence is good evidence.
Anything to keep the show going and the audience enthralled !
As for Soros himself, I suggest that there are plenty of Soros's with plenty of attached
money trails, but George has the watch.
All he is missing is the white cat on his lap.
"This funding is critical to ensuring that we continue an aggressive response to malign
influence and disinformation and that we can leverage deeper partnerships with our allies,
Silicon Valley, and other partners in this fight," said Steve Goldstein, undersecretary of
state for public diplomacy and public affairs."
Soros? All NGO's that apear in MSM articles, I look up their funding. Most funding traces
back to State Dep NED and Soros, along with other older money 'philanthropist' type
foundations.
I have often wondered if Soros is not a front company for an intelligence agency.
i think it was the open Russia foundation that was funded by Soros, but i see former owner
of yukos - Mikhail Khodorkovsky has his name attached to it...
It seems the Magnitsky Act is a critical juncture in all the developments towards
singling out russia for everything..
i don't know soros or khodorkovskys connection to bill browder in all of this, but would
be curious to know. it seems they are all operating to bring down russia, in some way, shape
or form..
My understanding is that Mr. Soros has funded, participated and closely associated
himself with US' IC community, for various regime change and copes mostly Eastern Europe in
past decades. We know that US IC community has the agenda ( a hard on) for discrediting and
removing legally elected president of US from his office. We know US Democratic Party has
paid and hired members of foreign intelligence for connecting presidential campaign of DT to
Russians, for a possible killing of 2 birds with one shot. We know the cheassy silicon
billionaires, are no other than the same old Move on Organization which to the bone are
clintonian DLC, or the latter day Obamachies. We know Mr. Soros an Easter European migrant
like Zbig is totally and fiercely anti anti Russian.
When all facts put to gather, sounds like all these elements, entities, and
personalities share a common motif and goal, which centers on anti Trump and anti Puttin
Russia. When put together, makes a villain's marriage in haven.
Interesting that a former staffer from Senator Feinstein is implicated in the mess. How many
others are there who have been doing the same thing? I wonder if Congresswoman Debbie
Wasserman-Schultt's IT staffer Mr. Arwan was accessing any relevant information while he was
on her payroll and for whom?
" FBI Special Agent David Raynor was suicided yesterday while he was investigating
why former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met this past June (2017) with Baltimore
Police Department Detective Sean Suiter -- who was a member of the wildly corrupt Baltimore
police unit called the Gun Trace Task Force linked to the "Operation Fast and Furious" gun
scandal covered up the Obama regime -- but with Detective Suiter being murdered with his
own gun on 15 November (2017) the day before he was due to testify before a US Federal Grand
Jury..."
"... The deep state (the oligarchs, MIC, and intelligence community, which controls the media and most politicians) whether or not it actually helped Trump by harming Hillary is immaterial. The election is over and there was never any real resolve in the deep state to impeach Trump or to jail Hillary and their never will be. The reason should be obvious. ..."
"... The only thing consistent in the Russian collusion and election rigging nonsense is the groundless and unrelenting vilification of Russia, blaming Putin for everything. Just as we see grandiose deep state theatrics for the US to obtain access to strategic rare-earth resources in North Korea, we see the similar deep state orchestrated theatrics falsely alleging that Russians rigged or interfered in the US Presidential election. Russia's Putin is the main obstacle to the Western bankster-corporate cabal obtaining resource and geopolitical hegemony over the entire planet. That is the main fact. It is the main reason to subject that nation to constant vilification, sanctions, and military aggression and provocation. ..."
"... The deep state cabal will likely spend tens, if not hundreds, of billions of US dollars interfering in the Russian election. Presently they are most likely bribing, blackmailing, and intimidating thousands of people to swing and rig the election to ensure Putin does not win. "You did it to us." Will be their justification when Putin complains. ..."
Well of course there are. We've been told repeatedly that the Obama administration was on the job and focused like a laser
on Russia collusion and meddling.
Unfortunately, the hard drive all that was stored on crashed and it was all lost.
If we really want the truth then we have to stop relying on what people say just because we like them, or we think they are
on our side, and instead we have to examine the interests of the various sources. Only then we can make better decisions. At this
stage of the game the deep state can no longer blame with any credibility Russian hacking as the source of the alleged leak. The
know it came directly from the DNC. However, the deep state has a priority (a very strong interest) to keep the heat on Russia.
The deep state (the oligarchs, MIC, and intelligence community, which controls the media and most politicians) whether
or not it actually helped Trump by harming Hillary is immaterial. The election is over and there was never any real resolve in
the deep state to impeach Trump or to jail Hillary and their never will be. The reason should be obvious.
The only thing consistent in the Russian collusion and election rigging nonsense is the groundless and unrelenting vilification
of Russia, blaming Putin for everything. Just as we see grandiose deep state theatrics for the US to obtain access to strategic
rare-earth resources in North Korea, we see the similar deep state orchestrated theatrics falsely alleging that Russians rigged
or interfered in the US Presidential election. Russia's Putin is the main obstacle to the Western bankster-corporate cabal obtaining
resource and geopolitical hegemony over the entire planet. That is the main fact. It is the main reason to subject that nation
to constant vilification, sanctions, and military aggression and provocation.
The disproportionate ongoing emphasis on the fake story that Russia meddled in the US election, not only serves to stir up
suspicions and fears regarding Russia in the generally brain-numbed population, but mainly at this stage, and by the sheer fact
that the deep state has carried this rouse so far down the field, the only rational conclusion one can make is that the deep state
is going to interfere in the Russian elections in a very major way to ensure that Putin and his cronies - those wicked oil and
gas nationalizers, those heinous enemies of the Rothschild banksters and their plans for an expanded US Fed to the auspices of
their proposed One World Bank; those upstart renegades who support nations which choose to trade oil without US petrodollars;
those evil monsters who oppose globalism and defend their own nation's sovereignty and other nations like Syria which call for
help.
The deep state cabal will likely spend tens, if not hundreds, of billions of US dollars interfering in the Russian election.
Presently they are most likely bribing, blackmailing, and intimidating thousands of people to swing and rig the election to ensure
Putin does not win. "You did it to us." Will be their justification when Putin complains.
"... For someone who is such an outsider, Trump has a knack for stroking the establishment. Droning and occupying Syria, sword dancing, moving US embassy to Jerusalem, more tax cuts, upping military spending, drill baby drill, etc. ..."
"... Also consider these made-for-tv moments: ..."
"... Bloomberg's hysterical reaction in Jan 2016 at the prospect of a Sanders or Trump win; ..."
"... Schumer's snide remark about the intel agencies: "they have a way of getting back at you"; ..."
We might well ask why DNC was funding "opposition research" that they could not use.
Hillary's own embarrassing connections to Russia via Uranium One made it difficult, if not
impossible, for her campaign to question Trump's connection to Russia (if any such connection
was found).
it is reasonable to conclude that the "opposition research" was actually an 'insurance
policy' to ensure that Trump did as he was told after he was elected President.
Problem with "opposition research" thing is that Russian influence was not made an issue
in the election.
Why?
Some might say that Hillary didn't need to raise the issue because she was in the lead.
Yeah, what politician pulls punches like that? The race had already turned ugly with both
Democrats bringing forth women that claimed to have been sexually abused by Trump and Trump
accusing Bill Clinton of sexual malfeasance.
Some might say that making such accusations would be irresponsible because they weren't
proven. Since when does a US politician shy away from innuendo?
Interestingly, Obama also faced questions about his loyalty to the country. In fact, Trump
was one of leaders of the "birthers" that questioned Obama's qualification to be President
and, by extension, his loyalty to America. Criticism of Obama as a "socialist Muslim" by
parts of the right nearly reached "meme" status.
As Trump pointed out during the campaign, it was Hillary that first questioned (obliquely)
if Obama was qualified to be President. And it was her loyal friend Trump that ran with that
ball on her behalf.
For someone who is such an outsider, Trump has a knack for stroking the establishment. Droning and occupying Syria, sword dancing, moving US embassy to Jerusalem, more tax cuts,
upping military spending, drill baby drill, etc.
Trump once boasted that he could kill some one in Times Square and get away with it. Why
would he say such a thing? It's the kind of think that a "made man" might say.
Also consider these made-for-tv moments:
>> Bloomberg's hysterical reaction in Jan 2016 at the prospect of a Sanders or Trump
win;
>> Schumer's snide remark about the intel agencies: "they have a way of getting
back at you";
>> Hillary wins 6 out of 6 coin tosses in Iowa primaries;
>> Bill Clinton's meeting on the tarmac just happen to be caught by a
journalist?
>> Hillary's being dragged into a van among rumors of ill health just happen to be
caught by an amateur photographer;
>> the father of a the guy that shot up a Florida night club shows up at one of
her campaign events - sitting in a highly visible spot behind the podium;
>> and who could forget: "Wiped? like with a cloth?"
Innocent mistakes? Or best government (entertainment) money can buy?
"... It wasn't a "Hack." It was a LEAK. And, his name was #SethRich. Control the Language, Control the Narratives. ..."
"... Seth Rich was a Russian agent? Does that mean we can investigate his murder now? Somebody call that British Boris to throw a hissyfit, and maybe JUST MAYBE we can take a second look... ..."
"... DID they find SETH's Russian Passport Yet ? ? ? ..."
"... Hmm.....Friend of Panda....Fancy Bear....it's all starting to MAKE SENSE .....not..... The Obama and Clinton (and McCain) dorks botched a coup attempt, have the world's sloppiest coverup underway, and they will pay. ..."
"... Mueller would indict a bowl of borscht soup. Nevermind that British MI6 spy, Christopher Steele, hacked the US Election. Nevermind that DNC email leaker Seth Rich was asassinated by British MI6 spies. Nevermind that Assange is held captive by British MI6 spies. ..."
"... And why is ANYONE listening to this lying SOB Steele? Man the media disgusts me in this country. I wish I could find a way to consume less of their product, but I already have no TV, turn off the radio news in a heartbeat when I hear it come on, and visit none of their websites. ..."
Shortly after WikiLeaks released emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on July 26, 2016, former UK spy Christopher
Steele filed a memo with his employer, Fusion GPS, claiming that the DNC "hack" during the 2016 election involved Russian agents
"within the Democratic Party structure itself ," The New Yorker reports.
On July 26, 2016, after WikiLeaks disseminated the D.N.C. e-mails, Steele filed yet another memo, this time claiming that the
Kremlin was "behind" the hacking, which was part of a Russian cyber war against Hillary Clinton's campaign. Many of the details
seemed far-fetched: Steele's sources claimed that the digital attack involved agents "within the Democratic Party structure itself,"
as well as Russian émigrés in the U.S. and "associated offensive cyber operators."
The unverified claim was contained within a multitude of memos compiled by Steele on behalf of Fusion GPS, which was conducting
opposition research on then-candidate Donald Trump for Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
Of note, the 35-page "Trump-Russia" dossier used in part by the FBI to obtain a FISA warrant on one-time Trump campaign advisor
Carter Page was comprised of seventeen of Steele's memos - including one which alleged that Trump had paid "a number of prostitutes
to perform a 'golden showers' (urination) show in front of him," which would defile a bed that Barack and Michelle Obama had slept
in during a state visit - an allegation attributed to four individuals' second-hand reporting.
The shocking claim comes amid recent reports that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is preparing criminal charges against Russian
hackers allegedly behind the breaches of both the DNC and John Podesta's email.
Much like the indictment
Mueller filed last month charging a different group of Russians in a social media trolling and illegal-ad-buying scheme, the
possible new charges are expected to rely heavily on secret intelligence gathered by the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency
(NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), several of the officials say. [ ] Mueller's consideration of charges accusing
Russians in the hacking case has not been reported previously . Sources say he has long had sufficient evidence to make a case,
but strategic issues could dictate the timing. Potential charges include violations of statutes on conspiracy, election law as
well as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
The sources say the possible new indictment -- or more than one, if that's how Mueller's office decides to proceed -- would
delve into the details of, and the people behind, the Russian intelligence operation that used hackers to penetrate computer networks
and steal emails of both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
Meanwhile, as we have been reporting, Mueller has yet to even reach out to Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, or New Zealand entrepreneur
Kim Dotcom - who clearly knew of the upcoming email leaks before they were dropped. While Assange has heavily insinuated it was DNC
staffer Seth Rich, Dotcom has gone "all in" over the last few months - tweeting that he knows Seth Rich was Wikileaks' source, Rich
used a memory stick, and that Dotcom himself was involved.
As Josh Caplan of TGP notes, In Donna Brazile's book, "Hacks: The
Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House," the Democrat operative admits the DNC allowed
alleged Russian hackers to steal data from the party's servers. From the
Daily Caller :
Donna Brazile says in her new book the Democratic National Committee (DNC) went against professional advice and sat idly for
a month while Russians stole data because primaries were still underway in a number of states.
In May, when CrowdStrike recommended that we take down our system and rebuild it, the DNC told them to wait a month, because
the state primaries for the presidential election were still underway , and the party and the staff needed to be at their computers
to manage these efforts," Brazile wrote in her new
book , "
Hacks
."
"For a whole month, CrowdStrike watched Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear operating. Cozy Bear was the hacking force that had been in
the DNC system for nearly a year."
Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear are cybersecurity firms that have
reported ties with Russian hackers. Both groups are blamed for the hacks on the DNC in 2016. CrowdStrike is a private U.S.
cybersecurity firm that oversaw the protection of the DNC's servers.
Nothing to see here folks - just Trump's enemies using Steele's unverified memos with info from high level Kremlin officials when
it benefits them, while ignoring the ones which suggest "insiders" was involved in the DNC hack. Tags
Politics Entertainment Production - NEC Application Software
Seth Rich was a Russian agent? Does that mean we can investigate his murder now? Somebody call that British
Boris to throw a hissyfit, and maybe JUST MAYBE we can take a second look...
Hmm.....Friend of Panda....Fancy Bear....it's all starting to MAKE SENSE .....not..... The Obama and Clinton (and
McCain) dorks botched a coup attempt, have the world's sloppiest coverup underway, and they will pay.
Mueller would indict a bowl of borscht soup. Nevermind that British MI6 spy, Christopher Steele, hacked the US Election.
Nevermind that DNC email leaker Seth Rich was asassinated by British MI6 spies. Nevermind that Assange is held captive by British
MI6 spies.
I am sooooo tired of this Russian hacking, collusion, meddling bullshit. They are just not going to stop until we are
trading missiles with Russia. Then they will say that they were right all along, when in fact they started the damn thing.
And why is ANYONE listening to this lying SOB Steele? Man the media disgusts me in this country. I wish I could find a
way to consume less of their product, but I already have no TV, turn off the radio news in a heartbeat when I hear it come on,
and visit none of their websites.
As part of what Donald Trump has dubbed an ongoing "witch hunt", Special Counsel Robert Mueller has subpoenaed longtime Donald
Trump associate and former aide Sam Nunberg. requesting he appear before a grand jury investigating Russian interference in the 2016
elections. Nunberg, however,
told Bloomberg he has no intention of cooperating with Mueller's subpoena.
"I'm not going to cooperate with Mueller. It's a fishing expedition ," Nunberg
told Bloomberg News . " They want me in there for a grand jury for testimony about Roger Stone. He didn't do anything. What is
he going to do? His investigation is BS. Trump did not collude with Putin. It's a joke."
Nunberg was on Trump's payroll from mid-2011 to August 2015 when he was fired from Trump's campaign shortly after it emerged that
he had posted racially charged Facebook posts. In July 2016, Trump sued him for violating a confidentiality agreement, however the
suit was dropped the following month.
. "What's he going to do? He's so tough - let's see what they do. I'm not going to spend 40 hours going over emails. I have a
life."
Nunberg told Bloomberg he expects one line of questioning before the grand jury to be related to Stone, who Nunberg worked with
closely over the years.
In a somewhat surreal interview, Nunberg also spoke with NBC's Katy Tur on Monday afternoon, reiterating that he was not going
to comply with the subpoena while stating his belief that his onetime boss may be guilty of collusion with the Russians.
After admitting to host Katy Tur that he'd been interviewed by Mueller's investigators, the host asked Nunberg if he believes
the special counsel "has anything" on Trump.
"I think they may," the ex-aide responded. "I think he may have done something during the election. But I don't know that for
sure."
This isn't the first time Nunberg's given a rambling MSNBC interview. Last week, he called presidential adviser and son-in-law
Jared Kushner a "weak link" who has done "nefarious things," and earlier this year, called Trump an "idiot" and a "complete pain
in the ass to work for." In the latter interview, which was conducted by host Joy Ann Reid, many noted that Nunberg appeared to be
intoxicated.
... ... ...
In the subpoena dated Feb. 27, Bloomberg reports that Nunberg was also asked to turn over emails, texts and other communications
with 10 campaign associates, including Trump, former campaign manager Corey Lewandoski and outgoing White House communications director
Hope Hicks starting in November 2015 and running through the present.
Another possible line of questioning could be related to Trump's activities in Moscow in 2013 during the Miss Universe pageant,
which the president once owned. The book by author Michael Wolff, "Fire and Fury," quotes Nunberg extensively describing the early
months of the Trump administration. Wolff said the former adviser was "generally regarded as the man who understood Trump's whims
and impulses best" and a Bannon associate. Mueller's team interviewed Bannon earlier this month.
Incidentally, when asked if Nunberg was correct that Trump "may have done something during the election", Press Sec. Sanders dnied,
saying that "He's incorrect...I certainly can't speak to him or the lack of knowledge that he clearly has."
Seriously, what about Trump's Hotels? Do they employ any Russians? I think that black jack dealer looked Russian.
I am not a big fan of OJ, but Jesus Christ this Mueller investigation acts like our QA department. Non-stop making you do retarded
shit just because someone, somewhere might not fully get exactly what you did because they are retarded.
Mueller better just close up shop before the people supporting him give him the hook. Russian Troll farm? Really? Shitposting
is now a national security issue. omg.
The longer this goes on, the more I think that our government just needs to go away. Total loss of all credibility. And when
he does find something HUGE, if it isn't related to Trump (Uranium One) he just passes it by.
We are now past the point of absurd. Trump will next be guilty of having a bottle of Stoli at his house.
Kudos to this guy for calling this for what it is. Just downright stupid.
I took Russian as my foreign language elective in college and sometimes even understand some of it. I also read RT from time
to time and donated to the Trump campaign.
So someone that worked for Trump says that he doesn't know for sure if Trump did something bad and it is headline news? Give
me a break! What click-bait garbage this article is.
I love the liberal delusion that the Trump-Russia evidence is going to show up any day now while they continue to ignore the
fact that Hillary paid for Kremlin help in the election.
How Ex-Spy Christopher Steele Compiled His Explosive Trump-Russia Dossier
Source A -- to use the careful nomenclature of his dossier -- was "a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure." Source B was
"a former top level intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin."
Maybe this is the guy who stops pretending? He already sounds like would call Mueller for what he is. I bet Mueller is sitting
there in his psychosis thinking that because this guy said what he did he is the one really holding all the dirt.
Someone should go and testify and just start dropping bombs.
I think all witnesses should do the same. Then when they are forced to testify under penalty of contempt, they should plead
the 5th amendment and force Mueller to grant them immunity. This is all total BS. Any witness who cooperates and appears before
a grand jury runs the risk of some bogus perjury or obstruction of justice charges. Mueller is a piece of human vermin.
Mueller has already committed a crime he lied to the Senate, if there was any law and order in this Country Mueller would have
been locked up a long time ago.
I don't know anything about this guy but glad to see someone is calling bullshit on this ongoing witch hunt. And there are
plenty of idiots thinking it is a real thing when basically nothing has been uncovered in a year and a half related to Trump/Putin.
Meanwhile gigantic conflicts on the Hillary side are going totally uninvestigated..
Mueller is not looking for anything Russia-related because he knows no such evidence exists. Instead, he is looking to file
completely unrelated charges against other people such as Paul Manafort, who can then be pressured into making false accusations
against Trump. "Special Counsel" Mule-er is nothing but the leader of a star chamber packed with (((Democrat))) loyalists who
have no interest in serving justice. This entire ruse is nothing but a seditious attempt to overthrow a Constitutionally elected
president because the Deep State and its cronies remain in a state of apoplexy over the 2016 election results. More than anything,
this reminds me of some kind of Stalinist NKVD secret police operation from the 1930s: false charges supported by fraudulent evidence
followed by show trials that delivered the expected results. Truth and justice be damned. Of course, we know (((who))) was calling
the shots in the Soviet Secret Police, don't we?
I don't think he's actually investigating anything. Once in awhile, he pops up with serious-sounding garbage, that really means
nothing.
He's intended to be a shark in the waters around this administration, nothing more. A "potential" threat he might "find" something.
He's had his time at the "Russian collusion" plate, and he needs to be outta pitches.
Meanwhile, the country's business isn't getting done, and Trump's time in office isn't open-ended.
Business like infrastructure, the BloCare repeal, the wall, sanctuary city crackdowns, trade deal overhauls (not simply tariffs,
but new deals or no deals at all), and much more.
His supporters really DO need to rise mightily and force these issues to the front and center.
The Bolshevik fascists are stymieing this president, as they bide their time toward the midterms.
Only in Americana, the deep State mother fuckers, can go over the president like never before, and undermine his authority,
take down his staff and stall his presidency... and basically place him in a corner for the kill.
Trump since his inauguration, wasn't able to get anything done because of these fuckers... they are enemies of the people!
Why are these freaks being allowed to make a mockery of Trump presidency using bs excuses? How stupid people can be to believe
on this shit! Where are the good politicians if any left in Washington? Is there any political decency left in the States? WTFIGO?
Most veterans and folks on the service that I know of are ashamed of these debacle!
The President needs to set a deadline for Mueller - end of summer would be good - either present evidence of collusion with
Russia to Congress - or you're fired. Otherwise this investigation will still be ongoing when Ivanka is sworn in as the 46th.
president January 20, 2025.
He is setting up a trap for Mueller. Get Mueller to go balls to the wall and make a misstep and blow his whole investigation
up by being retarded. Stone created an art of being a provocateur. This guy learned from Stone. Mueller will see that conversation
and think " WE got the President dig dig dig send subpoenas, do raids. " Thing is doing raids on innocent people catches up to
you very fast. You never know who knows who and who is connected to who. This will get Mueller to spend more money and he will
for sure go over the line and cut his own throat. Keystone cops tend to die by their own gun.
As Hofkin mourned the loss of 27-year-old Rich, he saw a powerful meaning in the illicit
cookouts: Even though Rich was not particularly observant, he wanted to make sure that his more
observant friends could enjoy the salami, steak and kebabs with him.
That respect for others' beliefs combined with the can-do spirit made Rich a natural leader
-- and a serious politics geek.
"He was a totally unassuming intellectual who knew very early on that he wanted go into
politics," said Jacob Cytryn, the director of Camp Ramah. "He wanted to get stuff done."
Rich's life was cut short early that Sunday morning, when an unknown assailant shot him four
times, including at least once in the back.
The idealistic young man from Omaha, Nebraska, was on his way home in the Bloomingdale
neighborhood of Washington, a small community near Howard University
that has seen a rise in crime this year . Police heard the gunshots and arrived on the
scene to find Rich conscious and breathing, but he died of his injuries after being taken to a
local hospital.
The motive for the shooting is still unclear. Rich's father, Joel Rich, thought that it
might have been a botched robbery attempt. The shooter remains at large, and the investigation
into the shooting is ongoing. The police are offering a $25,000 reward for information on the
case.
For friends and family it was a shocking end to a short life of extraordinary promise.
Rich grew up in a tight-knit and relatively modest Jewish community in Omaha. Rabbi Paul
Drazen, who knew Rich when he was a young boy still preparing for his bar mitzvah, said he
always knew Rich would go far.
"He was a young man who had dreams, and, frankly, he pursued them," Drazen said "He really,
really pushed hard to be all he could be."
Drazen credited Rich's parents with teaching him the importance of caring for others -- in
words and deeds. When they would visit their son at summer camp, Drazen said, they wouldn't
just bring treats for Rich's cabin -- they would bring food enough for his whole eidah
, or age group.
"That was the kind of lesson they taught through the way they lived," Drazen said. "And they
still live that way."
Rabbi Steven Abraham, the current spiritual leader of Rich's hometown synagogue, Beth El
Synagogue, said that Rich was always actively engaged in a wide range of Jewish
organizations.
"Seth was involved in USY [United Synagogue Youth], he was involved in Ramah, he went to the
community Jewish day school," he said. "The kid was a mensch."
Joel Rich is the immediate past president of their synagogue. His grandparents were founding
members.
"This is a family that is entrenched in our Jewish community," Abraham said.
Rich brought creativity and initiative to his experience at camp, especially during his
summer as the director of boating education in 2011, a year after graduating from Creighton
University in Omaha.
"He was exceptionally thoughtful, very engaged, in his own way, in his Jewish identity,"
Cytryn said. "And he loved roofball."
He had always been drawn to the world of politics: In high school he was a member of the
student democrats club, and at Creighton, where he majored in political science, he served two
terms as a representative on the student government.
After his summer as the director of boating at Camp Ramah, Rich moved to Washington, where
he held jobs in the office of the Nebraska senator Ben Nelson and at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner,
a major polling and consulting firm, before going to work for the Democratic National
Committee.
Seth Rich was only two years into his job as the voter expansion data director working for
the DNC, where he helped boost turnout by connecting voters with resources like polling place
locations.
But it was clear that he had even bigger goals.
"In this business, people cycle in and out, but not him,"
said James Green , a campaign director who gave Rich one of his first jobs in politics. "He
was going to be a rising star."
Since the news of Rich's killing broke, many of his friends and co-workers have taken to
social media to mourn his loss.
Seth Rich was a great guy. Warm, funny, happy, extremely talented and creative. May his
memory be a blessing. https://t.co/z8EdxOhZu6 -- Henry J. Bernstein (@gonzo3249)
July 11,
2016
"Add him to the roll of justice," wrote Democratic stalwart Donna Brazile.
Remember his name and add him to the rolls of justice. #SethConradRich . He lived to make
a difference. He believed in voting rights. -- Donna Brazile (@donnabrazile) July 11,
2016
At a speech on gun reform on Tuesday in Portsmouth, N.H., Hillary Clinton, the presumptive
Democratic presidential nominee,
spoke of Rich's death . Tragedies like these, she said, "tear at our soul."
"Seth Rich was a dedicated, selfless public servant who worked tirelessly to protect the
most sacred right we share as Americans -- the right to vote," said Debbie Wasserman-Schultz,
chair of the DNC, in a statement released after Rich's death.
"He was a joy to have as a member of our team, and his talents, intelligence and enthusiasm
will be deeply missed by many friends, colleagues and coworkers who worked by his side in
service to the highest ideals of our democracy."
Around the office Rich was known for combining a strong work ethic with ample
lightheartedness. He often pulled out his famous panda sweatshirt and wore it around the
office, just to make his coworkers smile, his mother, Mary Ann Rich, told
WOWT News .
"Will I forever miss him, yes. But I have to remember the happy times too to get through the
tears," she said.
"He worked hard and he wanted to make a difference and unfortunately now there is someone
who could have made a difference who isn't going to be there," his father, Joel, said.
Seth Rich's last Facebook post is a final symbol of his dedication to the ideals his parents
instilled in him.
As accounts of the shootings of Dallas police officers spread, Rich made an emotional plea
on Facebook for people to end the violence.
"I have family and friends on both sides of the law," he wrote. "Please, stop killing each
other."
twitter
Seth Rich's last Facebook post, in response to the series of shootings last week.
"... Prior to the convention, Manafort was involved in the successful fight to remove language from the party's platform which called for providing lethal weapons to the Poroshenko government, allegedly to fight against "Russian subversion." Manafort had the backing of Trump for this, as Trump had campaigned for an end to U.S. support for regime change wars, such as the Obama-neocon coup in Ukraine. ..."
"... (Manafort was also instrumental in including a plank supporting restoration of Glass Steagall banking separation, something vehemently opposed by Wall Street and the City of London financial institutions.) ..."
"... It was also in June that CIA Director John Brennan was briefed by GCHQ Director Hannigan, on "evidence" compiled by his agency, of "suspicious" activity they had picked up on Russian activity with Trump. GCHQ is Britain's cyber security intelligence agency, which works directly with MI5 and MI6. Brennan then pulled together an inter-agency task force to investigate the British charges of Russian activity. Among those in the FBI unit which was part of this task force were the now-famous duo, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, whose extensive text messaging shows that they were engaged in creating the fake narrative of "Russian meddling and Trump collusion". One text spoke of developing the Russiagate narrative to either defeat Trump in November, or provide an "insurance policy" against him, if he won. ..."
"... Beginning in 2013, Steele drafted more than 100 memos on Ukraine and Russia, and passed these on to Winer, who was then a special assistant to Kerry on Libya, which had been destroyed in a Clinton-Obama regime change operation. Winer admitted, in an oped in the Washington Post on February 8, 2018, that he passed these on to Victoria Nuland, who asked that he continue to bring them to her. Note that these were written at the time of, and the immediate aftermath of the coup in Ukraine. The Washington Post Deep State conduit, James Rosen, wrote that Nuland found these reports "informative and sometimes helpful", and asked Winer to keep them coming. ..."
"... When asked about the Steele memos on Ukraine in an interview with CBS on February 4 -- four days before Winer's oped was published -- Nuland lied, denying that she had used the Steele memos. ..."
"... Nunes and Grassley are both investigating the Steele-Winer-Nuland connection to see what this means as far as Obama administration direct involvement in running the Russiagate coup. ..."
"... The new indictments against Manafort come from squeezing his former partner, Rick Gates. Using a prosecutor's set of tools, Mueller went after Gates on his weak flank, the threat to him and his family of bankruptcy, were he to fight the charges. In entering his guilty plea, Gates told the court, "Despite my initial desire to vigorously defend myself, I have had a change of heart. The reality of how long this legal process will likely take, the cost, and the circus-like atmosphere of an anticipated trial are too much. I will better serve my family moving forward by exiting this process." ..."
"... On the new charges against Manafort on money laundering, a well-informed insider said he's astonished at the lengths to which Mueller is going. He noted the irony that, when Mueller and Comey were FBI Directors, they never made a criminal case against leading banks which engaged in billions of dollars in money laundering, much of it proceeds from drug and arms-trafficking. ..."
"... One of the banks given a repeated pass was the notorious HSBC, which while being fined repeatedly for money laundering, never faced criminal prosecution. Among those arguing against criminal charges was the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, who said a criminal proceeding against a "systemically important" bank, such as HSBC, would risk "global financial disaster." Obama's Attorney General Holder shared this view, as he refused to file any criminal charges against "Too Big to Fail" banks. ..."
"... Until his appointment by Obama as Director of the FBI, James Comey served on the Board of Directors of HSBC! ..."
"... From this review of the significance of Ukraine in the whole Russiagate process, it becomes clear that the perversion of justice it represents is surpassed only by the danger which flows from the anti-Russia theme it serves. Unless there is an intervention to shut down this witch hunt, as there was to end the hysterical red-baiting charges of the infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, the threshold for a possible nuclear confrontation with Russia is being dramatically reduced. It was Trump's campaign pledge to cooperate with Russia, rather than prepare for war, which is the reason for the Russiagate fraud. ..."
"... With the Ukraine tensions heightened by recent developments, full exposure of Steele's dirty role, and that of his collaborators, has become an essential component of a war-avoidance strategy. ..."
What is not generally known, however, due to the lying coverage in the Transatlantic "Fake
News" media, is that included in this unholy alliance of coup plotters were armed militia units
made up of neo-Nazis, who were responsible for the bloodshed on Maidan Square in Kiev, and
which threatened the ethnic Russians, which constitute the majority of the population in the
eastern Ukraine regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
The lie that there was no neo-Nazi involvement has been maintained, despite ample evidence
to the contrary, including interviews with militants pronouncing admiration for Hitler's
collaborators in the Bandera movement in Ukraine during World War II, when Ukrainian units
murdered ethnic Poles, Russians, and other "non-Ukrainians", including Ukrainian Jews. The
armed "Banderistas" and related thugs have been incorporated into the security apparatus of the
Kiev regime, and continue to march in the halls of Parliament and on the streets, under banners
with pictures of Bandera, the Nazi collaborator, and symbols going back to their alliance with
the Nazi SS.
The coup provoked a chain of events which the U.S., London and NATO used as justification to
impose punitive sanctions against Russia, while demonizing Russia's President Putin, asserting
that the he was engaged in military operations in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, to reverse the
coup. Efforts to stop the fighting between the regime's armed forces and ethnic Russian rebels
in eastern Ukraine led to the Minsk Accord in 2015, which included a cease fire and the
granting of autonomy for Donetsk and Luhansk. The Minsk Accord was brokered by France, Germany
and Russia.
On January 18, 2018, the Ukrainian Parliament ripped up the Minsk Accord, referring to the
two republics as "temporarily occupied" by an "aggressor country," that is, Russia, and vowed
to reintegrate them, by military force if necessary. This bill, which received the full support
of Ukraine's President Poroshenko, has been described by the Russian Foreign Ministry as "a
preparation for a new war." It occurs simultaneously with an outburst of war-like propaganda
from western neocons, typified by a report from the Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS), released on February 20 with the title, "Coping with Surprise in Great Power
Conflicts." The report charges that both Russia and China are preparing for war against the
U.S., and that the Russians are deploying forces and artillery to overrun the Baltic states in
a lightning strike, to reincorporate them into a new Russian empire!
THE CASE OF PAUL MANAFORT
This background is necessary to understand the vicious hostility behind the targeting of
Paul Manafort, a long-time U.S. political operative, by the "amoral legal assassin", special
counsel Robert Mueller. Manafort, who served as Donald Trump's campaign manager at a key moment
in his fight to secure the Republican nomination, from May to August 2016, was indicted by
Mueller on October 27, 2017, charged with numerous counts of money laundering, tax fraud, not
registering as an agent of a foreign government, and of making false statements to the FBI.
Mueller filed a revised indictment on February 28, 2018, following his "turning" of Manafort's
partner Rick Gates, who filed a guilty plea to a single count on February 22. While awaiting
trial in September, Manafort is confined to house arrest.
None of the charges against Manafort are related to the initial mandate given to Mueller, by
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, to investigate the allegations of Russian hacking and
sundry meddling in the 2016 election, and whether Donald Trump had "colluded" with the
Russians. However, they are directly related to the geopolitical manipulations against Russia,
which have been sharply criticized by Trump, both as a candidate and as President.
Manafort was first placed under surveillance following a FISA Court order in 2014. FISA, the
super-secret court set up as part of the post-9/11 apparat to spy on potential terrorists,
granted the surveillance order as part of an investigation into alleged illegal lobbying on
behalf of the Yanukovych government of Ukraine by Manafort and others. Note that the timing of
the court order coincided with the 2014 coup in Ukraine. Manafort had been working for several
years as an adviser to the Party of the Regions, which was the party of President Yanukovych,
who was overthrown by the regime change coup.
The original FISA warrant targeting Manafort
was subsequently not renewed, for lack of evidence. A second order, however, was approved by
the FISA Court for surveillance of Manafort sometime during 2016 -- the exact date of the order
has not been released -- likely around the time Manafort took over the reins of the Trump
campaign. Manafort played a key role in holding the Trump coalition together heading into the
Republican convention July 18-21, as Bush-directed "Never-Trumpers" were attempting to steal
the nomination away from him.
Prior to the convention, Manafort was involved in the successful fight to remove
language from the party's platform which called for providing lethal weapons to the Poroshenko
government, allegedly to fight against "Russian subversion." Manafort had the backing of Trump
for this, as Trump had campaigned for an end to U.S. support for regime change wars, such as
the Obama-neocon coup in Ukraine.
Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, a leading campaigner for tougher sanctions against Russia --
he was one of the authors of the initial anti-Russia sanctions, in the Magnitsky Act -- accused
Trump and Manafort of changing the platform to benefit Russia, which he accused of robbing
Ukraine of sovereignty! It is now reported that Manafort's role in changing the language in the
platform is "under investigation" by Mueller!
(Manafort was also instrumental in including a plank supporting restoration of Glass
Steagall banking separation, something vehemently opposed by Wall Street and the City of London
financial institutions.)
It was during this same time period, June and July, once it was evident that, barring some
unforeseen event, Trump would be the Republican nominee, that the anti-Trump activities of the
"Deep State" went into high gear. While the "Never Trumpers" were unsuccessfully plotting to
prevent his nomination at the convention, Christopher Steele began churning out memos, paid for
by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, which included wild claims about
Putin's secret service filming Trump in compromising sexual activity during the 2013 Miss
Universe contest in Moscow. His first memo was written on June 20, 2016, and he met for the
first time with an FBI official on July 5, 2016.
It was also in June that CIA Director
John Brennan was briefed by GCHQ Director Hannigan, on "evidence" compiled by his agency, of
"suspicious" activity they had picked up on Russian activity with Trump. GCHQ is Britain's
cyber security intelligence agency, which works directly with MI5 and MI6. Brennan then pulled
together an inter-agency task force to investigate the British charges of Russian activity.
Among those in the FBI unit which was part of this task force were the now-famous duo, Peter
Strzok and Lisa Page, whose extensive text messaging shows that they were engaged in creating
the fake narrative of "Russian meddling and Trump collusion". One text spoke of developing the
Russiagate narrative to either defeat Trump in November, or provide an "insurance policy"
against him, if he won.
This incriminating text describes the meeting as taking place in "Andy's office", a
reference to the now-fired Deputy Director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, who told a Congressional
hearing that there would have been no surveillance warrant issued by the FISA court in October
2016 against Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page, had it not been for the Steele dossier.
Nunes has sent a list of ten questions regarding how the Steele's dossier shaped the
anti-Trump mobilization of Obama's intelligence agencies. Among those receiving the list of ten
questions are James Comey, the former FBI director fired by Trump, Obama's Director of National
Intelligence Clapper, Brennan and Victoria Nuland. They are given until March 2 to answer, or
they will face subpoenas. What Nunes is looking for is answers as to when the Steele dossier
was brought to their attention, by whom, what actions were taken in response to it, its role in
the submission to the FISA Court, and whether President Obama was briefed on what the dossier
contained. They lay the basis for possible indictments against those receiving the questions,
and for Steele. Senators Grassley and Graham have already stated they believe charges should be
filed against Steele, who has thus far been protected by Her Majesty's government, which has
acted to prevent Steele from being brought before a court of law.
STEELE AND THE UKRAINIAN CONNECTION
But Steele's role in shaping U.S. policy predates the setting up of the Get Trump task
force. Both Nunes and Grassley are investigating Steele's connections with the U.S. State
Department, including with the notorious Nuland. They are looking into the role of Jonathan
Winer, a former assistant Secretary of State who served as a long-time aide to former Secretary
of State John Kerry. Winer befriended Steele in 2009, when they were collaborating on
investigations of Russian "corruption".
Beginning in 2013, Steele drafted more than 100
memos on Ukraine and Russia, and passed these on to Winer, who was then a special assistant to
Kerry on Libya, which had been destroyed in a Clinton-Obama regime change operation. Winer
admitted, in an oped in the Washington Post on February 8, 2018, that he passed these on to
Victoria Nuland, who asked that he continue to bring them to her. Note that these were written
at the time of, and the immediate aftermath of the coup in Ukraine. The Washington Post Deep
State conduit, James Rosen, wrote that Nuland found these reports "informative and sometimes
helpful", and asked Winer to keep them coming.
When asked about the Steele memos on Ukraine in an interview with CBS on February 4 --
four days before Winer's oped was published -- Nuland lied, denying that she had used the
Steele memos.
But the Steele-Winer connection continued. In September 2016, Winer met with Steele, who
presented to Winer his anti-Trump dossier. Winer drafted a two-page summary of the dossier,
which he gave to Nuland. She told him to present this to Kerry. Later in the month, Winer met
with Hillary Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal, who showed him another specious anti-Trump
dossier, compiled by Clinton operative Cody Shearer. Winer then shared this who Steele, who
then claimed it confirmed the charges he made in his dossier, though coming from different
"sources."
Nunes and Grassley are both investigating the Steele-Winer-Nuland connection to see what
this means as far as Obama administration direct involvement in running the Russiagate
coup. Among those calling for a full criminal investigation into Brennan, Clapper, Comey
and Hillary Clinton, which would reach Obama as well, is former Washington, D.C. U.S. Attorney
Joseph DiGenova, who said it's very likely they could all be indicted.
YET BRITISH HITMAN MUELLER PROCEEDS!
The new indictments against Manafort come from squeezing his former partner, Rick Gates.
Using a prosecutor's set of tools, Mueller went after Gates on his weak flank, the threat to
him and his family of bankruptcy, were he to fight the charges. In entering his guilty plea,
Gates told the court, "Despite my initial desire to vigorously defend myself, I have had a
change of heart. The reality of how long this legal process will likely take, the cost, and the
circus-like atmosphere of an anticipated trial are too much. I will better serve my family
moving forward by exiting this process."
On the new charges against Manafort on money laundering, a well-informed insider said he's
astonished at the lengths to which Mueller is going. He noted the irony that, when Mueller and
Comey were FBI Directors, they never made a criminal case against leading banks which engaged
in billions of dollars in money laundering, much of it proceeds from drug and arms-trafficking.
One of the banks given a repeated pass was the notorious HSBC, which while being fined
repeatedly for money laundering, never faced criminal prosecution. Among those arguing against
criminal charges was the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, who said a
criminal proceeding against a "systemically important" bank, such as HSBC, would risk "global
financial disaster." Obama's Attorney General Holder shared this view, as he refused to file
any criminal charges against "Too Big to Fail" banks.
Until his appointment by Obama as Director of the FBI, James Comey served on the Board of
Directors of HSBC!
From this review of the significance of Ukraine in the whole Russiagate process, it becomes
clear that the perversion of justice it represents is surpassed only by the danger which flows
from the anti-Russia theme it serves. Unless there is an intervention to shut down this witch
hunt, as there was to end the hysterical red-baiting charges of the infamous Senator Joseph
McCarthy in the 1950s, the threshold for a possible nuclear confrontation with Russia is being
dramatically reduced. It was Trump's campaign pledge to cooperate with Russia, rather than
prepare for war, which is the reason for the Russiagate fraud.
With the Ukraine tensions heightened by recent developments, full exposure of Steele's dirty
role, and that of his collaborators, has become an essential component of a war-avoidance
strategy.
if anyone has any doubts about how deep and wide the swamp is, they only need to read
about seth's brother aaron.
a northrup grumman employee?
Wheeler also claimed in recently leaked audio that Seth Rich's brother, Aaron
– a Northrup Grumman employee, blocked him from looking at Seth's computer and
stonewalled his investigation.
Wheeler said that brother Aaron Rich tried to block Wheeler from looking at Seth's
computer, even though there could be evidence on it. "He said no, he said I have his
computer, meaning him," Wheeler said. "I said, well can I look at it? He said, what are you
looking for? I said anything that could indicate if Seth was having problems with someone.
He said no, I already checked it. Don't worry about it."
Aaron also blocked Wheeler from finding out about who was at a party Seth attended the
night of the murder.
"All I want you to do is work on the botched robbery theory and that's it," Aaron told
Wheeler -
Big League Politics
One of the Awan brothers was at the same party, stalked Seth on his walk home and botched
the hit. Seth was alive in Howard Univ. Hospital and was murdered in his bed after being
moved to the private hospital
Loretta Lynch - some of you know her as Elizabeth Carlisle - told WJC on the tarmac that
it was Seth Rich. A procedure known as Arkancide then ensued.
Wikileaks offered a reward for information leading to the killers of Seth Rich. Did the
DNC do anything? No.
Rich was killed by two members of MS-13, who were subsequently liquidated for their
efforts.
Remember when President Trump referred to MS-13 in the SOTU? And then some undereducated
water buffalo on CNN complained to the effect that "No one outside of Fox News knows about
this obscure gang?" Well, Trump wasn't making some random verbal gesture. That was a signal
that he knows, and serious investigators know, about Rich's murder and the DNC.
Muller was the guy who buried 911 investigation. That's probably why he was hired for Russiagate investigation too.
Notable quotes:
"... retired U.S. Navy admiral James A. Lyons, Jr. asks a simple, yet monumentally significant question: Why haven't Congressional
Investigators or Special Counsel Robert Mueller addressed the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich - who multiple people have claimed was
Wikileaks' source of emails leaked during the 2016 U.S. presidential election? ..."
"... Mueller has been incredibly thorough in his ongoing investigations -- however he won't even respond to Kim Dotcom, the New
Zealand entrepreneur who clearly knew about the hacked emails long before they were released, claims that Seth Rich obtained them with
a memory stick , and has offered to provide proof to the Special Counsel investigation. ..."
"... In addition to several odd facts surrounding Rich's still unsolved murder - which officials have deemed a "botched robbery,"
forensic technical evidence has emerged which contradicts the Crowdstrike report. The Irvine, CA company partially funded by Google
, was the only entity allowed to analyze the DNC servers in relation to claims of election hacking: ..."
"... Notably, Crowdstrike has been considered by many to be discredited over their revision and retraction of a report over Russian
hacking of Ukrainian military equipment - a report which the government of Ukraine said was fake news. ..."
"... Also notable is that Crowdstrike founder and anti-Putin Russian expat Dimitri Alperovitch sits on the Atlantic Council - which
is funded by the US State Department, NATO, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukranian Oligarch Victor Pinchuk. Who else is on the Atlantic Council?
Evelyn Farkas - who slipped up during an MSNBC interview with Mika Brzezinski and disclosed that the Obama administration had been spying
on the Trump campaign: ..."
"... "The facts that we know of in the murder of the DNC staffer, Seth Rich, was that he was gunned down blocks from his home on
July 10, 2016. Washington Metro police detectives claim that Mr. Rich was a robbery victim, which is strange since after being shot
twice in the back, he was still wearing a $2,000 gold necklace and watch. He still had his wallet, key and phone. Clearly, he was not
a victim of robbery, " writes Lyons. ..."
"... Another unexplained fact muddying the Rich case is that of a stolen 40 caliber Glock 22 handguns stolen from an FBI agent's
car the same day Rich was murdered. D.C. Metro police said that the theft occurred between 5 and 7 a.m., while the FBI said two weeks
later that the theft had occurred between Midnight and 2 a.m. - fueling speculation that the FBI gun was used in Rich's murder ..."
"... Perhaps the most stunning audio evidence, however, comes from leaked audio of a recorded conversation between Ed Butowsky and
Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who told him of a " purported FBI report establishing that Seth Rich
sent emails to WikiLeaks ." ..."
"... Hersh also told Butowsky that the DNC made up the Russian hacking story as a disinformation campaign – directly pointing a
finger at former CIA director (and now MSNBC/NBC contributor ) John Brennan as the architect. ..."
As rumors swirl that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is
preparing a case against Russians who are alleged to have hacked Democrats during the 2016 election -- a conclusion based solely
on the analysis of cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, a Friday op-ed in the
Washington Times by retired
U.S. Navy admiral James A. Lyons, Jr. asks a simple, yet monumentally significant question: Why haven't Congressional Investigators
or Special Counsel Robert Mueller addressed the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich - who multiple people have claimed was Wikileaks'
source of emails leaked during the 2016 U.S. presidential election?
Mueller has been incredibly thorough in his ongoing investigations -- however he won't even respond to Kim Dotcom, the New
Zealand entrepreneur who
clearly knew about the hacked emails long before they were released, claims that Seth Rich obtained them with a
memory
stick , and has offered to provide proof to the Special Counsel investigation.
On May 18, 2017, Dotcom proposed that if Congress includes the Seth Rich investigation in their Russia probe, he would provide
written testimony with evidence that Seth Rich was WikiLeaks' source.
In addition to several odd facts surrounding Rich's still unsolved murder - which officials have deemed a "botched robbery,"
forensic technical evidence has emerged which contradicts the Crowdstrike report. The Irvine, CA company
partially
funded by Google , was the
only
entity allowed to analyze the DNC servers in relation to claims of election hacking:
Notably, Crowdstrike has been considered by many to be discredited over their revision and retraction of a report over Russian
hacking of Ukrainian military equipment - a report which the government of Ukraine said was fake news.
In connection with the emergence in some media reports which stated that the alleged "80% howitzer D-30 Armed Forces of Ukraine
removed through scrapping Russian Ukrainian hackers software gunners," Land Forces Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine informs
that the said information is incorrect .
Ministry of Defence of Ukraine asks journalists to publish only verified information received from the competent official sources.
Spreading false information leads to increased social tension in society and undermines public confidence in the Armed Forces
of Ukraine. –mil.gov.ua (translated) (1.6.2017)
In fact, several respected journalists have cast serious doubt on CrowdStrike's report on the DNC servers:
Pay attention, because Mueller is likely to use the Crowdstrike report to support the rumored upcoming charges against Russian
hackers.
Also notable is that Crowdstrike founder and anti-Putin Russian expat Dimitri Alperovitch sits on the Atlantic Council - which
is funded by the US State Department, NATO, Latvia, Lithuania, and
Ukranian Oligarch Victor Pinchuk.
Who else is on the Atlantic Council?
Evelyn Farkas - who slipped up during an MSNBC interview with Mika Brzezinski and disclosed that the Obama administration had
been spying on the Trump campaign:
The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff dealing with Russians, that they would try
to compromise those sources and methods , meaning we would not longer have access to that intelligence. - Evelyn Farkas
Odd facts surrounding the murder of Seth Rich
"The facts that we know of in the murder of the DNC staffer, Seth Rich, was that he was gunned down blocks from his home on
July 10, 2016. Washington Metro police detectives claim that Mr. Rich was a robbery victim, which is strange since after being shot
twice in the back, he was still wearing a $2,000 gold necklace and watch. He still had his wallet, key and phone. Clearly, he was
not a victim of robbery, " writes Lyons.
Another unexplained fact muddying the Rich case is that of a stolen 40 caliber Glock 22 handguns stolen from an FBI agent's
car the same day Rich was murdered. D.C. Metro police said that the theft occurred between 5 and 7 a.m., while the FBI said two weeks
later that the theft had occurred between Midnight and 2 a.m. - fueling speculation that the FBI gun was used in Rich's murder.
Furthermore, two men working with the Rich family - private investigator and former D.C. Police detective Rod Wheeler and family
acquaintance Ed Butowsky, have previously stated that Rich had contacts with WikiLeaks before his death.
"According to Ed Butowsky, an acquaintance of the family, in his discussions with Joel and Mary Rich, they confirmed that their
son transmitted the DNC emails to Wikileaks ," writes Lyons.
While Wheeler initially told TV station Fox5 that proof of Rich's contact with WikiLeaks lies on the murdered IT staffer's laptop,
he later walked
the claim back - though he maintained that there was "some communication between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks."
Wheeler also claimed in recently leaked audio that Seth Rich's
brother, Aaron – a Northrup Grumman employee, blocked him from looking at Seth's computer and stonewalled his investigation.
Wheeler said that brother Aaron Rich tried to block Wheeler from looking at Seth's computer, even though there could be evidence
on it. "He said no, he said I have his computer, meaning him," Wheeler said. "I said, well can I look at it? He said, what are
you looking for? I said anything that could indicate if Seth was having problems with someone. He said no, I already checked it.
Don't worry about it."
Aaron also blocked Wheeler from finding out about who was at a party Seth attended the night of the murder.
"All I want you to do is work on the botched robbery theory and that's it," Aaron told Wheeler -
Big League Politics
Perhaps the most stunning audio evidence, however, comes from leaked audio of a recorded conversation between Ed Butowsky
and Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who told him of a " purported FBI report establishing that Seth
Rich sent emails to WikiLeaks ."
As transcribed and exclusively reported on by journalist Cassandra Fairbanks last year:
What the report says is that some time in late Spring he makes contact with WikiLeaks, that's in his computer," he says. "
Anyway, they found what he had done is that he had submitted a series of documents -- of emails, of juicy emails, from the DNC."
Hersh explains that it was unclear how the negotiations went, but that WikiLeaks did obtain access to a password protected
DropBox where Rich had put the files.
" All I know is that he offered a sample, an extensive sample, I'm sure dozens of emails, and said 'I want money.' Later, WikiLeaks
did get the password, he had a DropBox, a protected DropBox," he said. They got access to the DropBox."
Hersh also states that Rich had concerns about something happening to him, and had
"The word was passed, according to the NSA report, he also shared this DropBox with a couple of friends, so that 'if anything
happens to me it's not going to solve your problems,'" he added. "WikiLeaks got access before he was killed."
Brennan and Russian disinformation
Hersh also told Butowsky that the DNC made up the Russian hacking story as a disinformation campaign – directly pointing a
finger at former CIA director (and now
MSNBC/NBC contributor
) John Brennan as the architect.
I have a narrative of how that whole f*cking thing began. It's a Brennan operation, it was an American disinformation , and
the fu*kin' President, at one point, they even started telling the press – they were backfeeding the Press, the head of the NSA
was going and telling the press, fu*king c*cksucker Rogers, was telling the press that we even know who in the Russian military
intelligence service leaked it.
(full transcription here and extended audio of the Hersh conversation
here )
Hersh denied that he told Butowsky anything before the leaked audio emerged , telling NPR " I hear gossip [Butowsky] took two
and two and made 45 out of it. "
Technical Evidence
As we mentioned last week, Dotcom's assertion is backed up by an analysis done last year by a researcher who goes by the name
Forensicator , who determined that the DNC files were copied at
22.6 MB/s - a speed virtually impossible to achieve from halfway around the world, much less over a local network - yet a speed
typical of file transfers to a memory stick.
The big hint
Last but not least, let's not forget that Julian Assange heavily implied Seth Rich was a source:
Given that a) the Russian hacking narrative hinges on Crowdstrikes's questionable reporting , and b) a mountain of evidence pointing
to Seth Rich as the source of the leaked emails - it stands to reason that Congressional investigators and Special Counsel Robert
Mueller should at minimum explore these leads.
As retired U.S. Navy admiral James A. Lyons, Jr. asks: why aren't they?
Something all of us here already know, if Mueller gets away from the delusion of Trump-Russia collusion then it will be his
ass in the frying pan. So he won't go after the Clintons, Obama, Comey or anyone else. Hitlery could show up with a gun in her
hand and tell Mueller she shot Seth and he would ignore it.
And, sadly, there ain't nobody gonna do anything about it unless and until a Special Prosecutor from outside DC is hired. Right
now a snowball in hell has a better chance.
Why don't the Democrats scream about the exploitation of his murder against them like they do with every minor accusation? It's as if they want his death to disappear from the public view...wonder why?
I think it is mostly because they know so much of their world hangs in the secrecy. If they let the Seth Rich story get out,
the Uranium One story gets out. If the Uranium One story gets out, the Awans' stolen cars with diplomatic cover for guns to Syria
in return for heroin to America comes out. If that story comes out, then the ISI Pakistani doctors with fake medical degrees pushing
pharma opiods in America comes out. And finally, Pizzagate, Pedogate, call it what you want, it comes out too. And then all of
these dirty sons of bitches go to jail.
And that's why you aren't hearing any of it. Especially from Mueller. I think he got hoodwinked too. They sold him this job
as a slam dunk to get Trump out of the White House. It really is the shits when the best laid plans of mice go south.
One of Trumps big problems is that as an outsider he did not have people both qualified and loyal to appoint to critical offices
in the deep state. That is why he wound up with a cipher like Sessions, a guy naive and gullible enough to believe the justice
department was filled with honorable and trustworthy people or at least men who played by some set of rules. Having found out
the hard way that he screwed up Trump is groping for a way out, trying to use a knife in a gun fight. The other side is too ruthless
and i suspect they will take him down in the end.
"All I know is that he offered a sample, an extensive sample, I'm sure dozens of emails, and said 'I want money.'
Later, WikiLeaks did get the password, he had a DropBox, a protected DropBox," he said. They got access to the
DropBox."
Why has no one followed the money on this yet? This introduces an interesting angle - did Seth Rich get paid by WikiLeaks?
And if so, can we find evidence of the payoff? How did he afford his expensive watch and necklace?
Report a crime, yet don't allow law enforcement access to evidence to help them solve the case.
Sounds like a case in Illinois. A 1 1/2 year old went missing, yet the parent wouldn't let the authorities search the house.
I don't remember if there was a warrant or what finally happened that the police were allowed to search the home, but they did,
and found the baby, dead, under the sofa.
The other key is Rod Rosenstein's post-indictment presser. At the very end, he gave away the game by admitting there was no
collusion, no Americans were involved, and nothing allegedly done by the Russians affected the election's outcome. BOOM. Stick
a fork in Mueller's ham sandwich indictment.
The one bit of evidence that pushes me over from the possible to probably is the gun, what are the odds of this gun being stolen
from the FBI, not just some random joe, but the FBI themselves. If that was the same gun used in the murder than the odds of it
happening to turn up immediately in a robbery where nothing was stolen in an area where no one commits crimes is so small as to
be near zero. It is vague above, what do ballistics say?
If Trump really wants to drain his swamp then this would be the way in, however if they did murder Seth then they'll murder
Trump's family too so he is neutralized unless they can go in and get everyone involved in one go. Otherwise I'd expect the job
to be handed over to someone ready to die, thinking here a retired general/admiral with no family might be the one to do it.
If Kushner was/is involved with such risky staff, why he tried to join Trump administration. It does not requires any IQ
to understand that he will be the target and that knife are out to depose Trump. In view of color revolution against Trump the
best strategy would be to stay in NYC. You need to be squeaky clean to work for him.
Notable quotes:
"... A spokeswoman for the Kushner Cos, Christine Taylor, said "We have not received a copy of any letter from the New York State Department of Financial Services," adding "Our company is a multi-billion enterprise that is extremely financially strong. Prior to our CEO voluntarily resigning to serve our country, we never had any type of inquiries. These type of inquiries appear to be harassment solely for political reasons. " ..."
"... Kushner's family business, the Kushner Companies, has had longstanding financial troubles related to 666 Fifth Avenue, "the most expensive building ever purchased", in New York City. ..."
"... After Kushner bought the Fifth Avenue property in late 2006 for $1.8 billion - with zero skin in the game coming from Kushner, the building came under intense pressure during the financial crisis. Vornado Realty Trust stepped in with financing in exchange for a 49.5% stake in the building, which is now carrying over $1.4 billion in debt according to a March release by Vornado ..."
"... While Jared has separated himself from his family's business and placed assets in a trust, he has fallen into the crosshairs of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Of interest are discussions between Kushner and Chinese investors during the transition, according to sources familiar with the investigation. Kushner met with executives of troubled Chinese conglomerate Anbang Insurance which was recently taken over by China's insurance regulator. Talks between Kushner and Anbang's chairman, Wu Xiaohui, broke down in March 2017, according to the New York Times . ..."
"... Also of interest to Mueller are Kushner's dealings with a Qatari investor over the 666 property, for which Kusher reportedly sought financing from former Prime Minister Jassim Al Thani, according to The Intercept. The discussion apparently went nowhere , similar to the Anbang deal. ..."
"... Dovetailing off of the reports of Kushner's meetings to shore up his finances, the Washington Post reported this week that officials from at least four countries - China, Israel, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates have explored ways to manipulate Kushner by taking advantage of his "complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience." The story cited current and former US intelligence officials - and noted that it is unclear on whether the cited countries took any action. ..."
"... Kushner is absolute scum, but how come he gets the treatment and not the Clinton foundation ..."
"... Back door attack. The inlaws, the sacred family structure. Eventually trump is going down. ..."
"... They will stop at nothing. They already committed treasonous crimes. ..."
"... They are the majority within gov.org. top to bottom -- Trump is fighting a completely stacked deck of swamp cards. They have no fear of the law. Look at every step they have taken. Look at the reactions. deflection, non-action. Behind the scenes the deals have been made-they will take down Trump ..."
"... If any dirt is found it wasn't an issue worthy of the integrity of the FBI before Kushner gained political office. So the FBI is only discrediting their felonious selves, past and politicized, craven present. ..."
"... Trump's example proved that it is pointless trying to go there and fight them alone. There needs to be a (new) party behind the individual, otherwise one does not stand a chance. ..."
"... Kushner has been systematically targeted by allies and foes alike because he has no foreign diplomacy expertise and they know he can be manipulated. Manipulated due to ignorance and arrogance. The worst kind of manipulation! ..."
"... You don't get unsecured lines from banks anymore unless you are GOD. Not personally. It may be that the company got one, but if Jared got one something funky is going on. ..."
"... NYCB is a garbage bank. They are essentially a 1980s S&L running a book of long maturity multi family loans and funding with purchased CD's in the overnight - 90 day market. (DISCLOSURE: I have been and will be short this stock). As the Fed tightens and the curve flattens, their margins go to shit. They did well in the free money QE world, but their game has been over for a while. They rely on credit underwriting to avoid adding defaults to the litany of woes this environment brings. In fact, taking no credit risk has been their hallmark for years. They generally don't do office or mixed use lending. That they would be making an unsecured line to Kushner is BIZARRE. ..."
"... I would be surprised if DJT is involved in anything illegal in his business. The guy knows how to bend the rules, but risking his great life to launder money for a bunch of Russians?? Just don't see it. Running for the Presidency with skeletons would be suicide, and he knows that. You don't want the antiseptic light of justice shining on the roaches if you've done something not nice. ..."
"... It may be Kushner is as dirty as they come. God knows his Dad is a piece of detritus. I know DJT as a crass vulgarian, with a genius for the common weal and leveraging off OPM. But stupid felon? Not buying it. ..."
"... Thank goodness the FBI and Justice have all the Democrat/Clinton crimes solved so they can dispense equal Justice to the Republicans ..."
After losing his
top secret security clearance and reportedly falling under intense scrutiny by Robert Mueller's probe, the New York Department
of Financial Services has asked Deutsche Bank two local lenders for information about their dealings with Jared Kushner, the Kushner
companies and his family , according to
Bloomberg .
Letters were sent by department superintendent Maria Vullo to Deutsche Bank, Signature Bank and New York Community Bank last week,
said a person who had seen the letter which seeks a response by March 5. Vullo was appointed by New York's Democratic governor, Andrew
Cuomo.
The requested information is broad, and include the banks' processes for approving loans.
Vullo requested copies of emails and other communications between the Kushners and the banks related to financing requests
that have been denied or are pending. She also asked whether the banks have conducted any internal reviews of the Kushners and
their companies and the results of any such inquiries revealed.
The most detailed information about the Kushners' finances can be found in their government disclosures. The couple had unsecured
lines of credit of $5 million to $25 million each from Deutsche Bank, Signature Bank and New York Community Bank according to
a late December filing.
Deutsche Bank's line of credit was extended to Kushner and his mother; lines from the other two banks were extended to Kushner
and his father. Signature Bank also extended a secured line of credit to the couple of $1 million to $5 million, according to
the disclosure. - Bloomberg
A spokeswoman for the Kushner Cos, Christine Taylor, said "We have not received a copy of any letter from the New York State Department
of Financial Services," adding "Our company is a multi-billion enterprise that is extremely financially strong. Prior to our CEO
voluntarily resigning to serve our country, we never had any type of inquiries. These type of inquiries appear to be harassment solely
for political reasons. "
Kushner's family business, the Kushner Companies, has had longstanding financial troubles related to 666 Fifth Avenue, "the most
expensive building ever purchased", in New York City.
After Kushner bought the Fifth Avenue property in late 2006 for $1.8 billion - with zero skin in the game coming from Kushner,
the building came under intense pressure during the financial crisis. Vornado Realty Trust stepped in with financing in exchange
for a 49.5% stake in the building, which is now carrying over $1.4 billion in debt according to a March release by Vornado.
While Jared has separated himself from his family's business and placed assets in a trust, he has fallen into the crosshairs of
Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Of interest are discussions between Kushner and Chinese investors during the transition, according
to sources familiar with the investigation. Kushner met with executives of
troubled Chinese conglomerate Anbang Insurance which was recently taken over by China's insurance regulator. Talks between Kushner
and Anbang's chairman, Wu Xiaohui, broke down in March 2017, according to the
New York Times .
Also of interest to Mueller are Kushner's dealings with a Qatari investor over the 666 property, for which Kusher reportedly sought
financing from former Prime Minister Jassim Al Thani, according to The Intercept. The discussion
apparently went nowhere , similar to the Anbang deal.
Kushner in the crosshairs
Dovetailing off of the reports of Kushner's meetings to shore up his finances, the Washington Post reported this week that officials
from at least four countries - China, Israel, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates have explored ways to manipulate Kushner by taking
advantage of his "complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience." The story cited current
and former US intelligence officials - and noted that it is unclear on whether the cited countries took any action.
Meanwhile, the presidential son-in-law's security clearance was downgraded from "Top Secret/SCI-level" to "secret" this week,
walling him off from the most sensitive information.
Many had expected that Trump would grant Kushner a waiver, even though Trump himself said Friday that he would let
Chief of Staff
John Kelly decide if such an exception should be granted. In a statement issued last week, Kelly said that any changes to Kushner's
security clearance wouldn't impact his ability to do his job:
"As I told Jared days ago, I have full confidence in his ability to continue performing his duties in his foreign policy portfolio
including overseeing our Israeli-Palestinian peace effort and serving as an integral part of our relationship with Mexico," Kelly
said in the statement.
At the end of the day, unless Kushner or his company broke the law, it appears that this entire exercise is meant to embarrass
the president's son-in-law over his troubled 666 property.
Kushner is absolute scum, but how come he gets the treatment and not the Clinton foundation..... .yeah I know but how in your
face are they going to get... wait dont answer that
Trump, the first US President with two Jewish children
, beholden to the money power
of the US establishment (i.e.,
Jewish
money ) that supported his presidential bid (or
bought the presidency for
him), is making the Israeli dream of stealing Jerusalem and the whole of Palestine a reality; especially since
he owes
Jewish investment banks hundreds of millions of dollars, which can be easily written off the books if certain conditions are met.
"I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel," Trump
said .
In one fell swoop, Donald Trump overturned decades of
international
consensus and laws. He also ignored recorded history: Jerusalem was
NEVER the capital of even ancient Israel.
Furthermore, he constantly and nonchalantly overlooks the fact that Israel today is an inhumane,
apartheid
country that uses its carte blanche from the US to do as it pleases in the Middle East. It
oppresses the Palestinians,
treats them like
caged animals , and spreads
chaos in the region regardless of how it affects the peace of the world.
The reason is because the Jews control
the
Federal Reserve , the real center of power in the United States or the
money power of the establishment
(i.e.,
Jewish
money ). In turn, the Fed
wags
every other financial institution in America, and consequently ends up being the
root cause of all
of America's economic ills.
Trump's Jewish Entourage
Not even Trump
, who supposedly wants to "make America great again," dares mention the need to dismantle the Fed. Worse, he drools every
time he talks about
Apartheid
Israel , not unlike every other American politician.
The anti-Christ spirit of
hate
thy neighbor , which revs up the engine of the state of Israel and that of its Prime Minister, seems to fire up Trump's motor
as well with his loathing of
immigrants , especially
of his Mexican neighbors. He and Netanyahu are two peas in a pod – both arrogant, haughty, and supercilious narcissists.
"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 16:18
Back door attack. The inlaws, the sacred family structure. Eventually trump is going down.
They will stop at nothing. They already committed treasonous crimes. All the righteous types just don't get it, they are being
played to heighten the drama and division.. they don't give a shit.
They are the majority within gov.org. top to bottom -- Trump is
fighting a completely stacked deck of swamp cards. They have no fear of the law. Look at every step they have taken. Look at the
reactions. deflection, non-action. Behind the scenes the deals have been made-they will take down Trump.
If any dirt is found it wasn't an issue worthy of the integrity of the FBI before Kushner gained political office. So the FBI
is only discrediting their felonious selves, past and politicized, craven present.
Remember WACO. Remember Ruby Ridge. Remember 911. Remember Lynch. Remember DACA. Remember Obama stealing from Freddie and Fannie.
Remember all the government assistance programs you are paying for, that you are not eligible for because of the color of your
skin, that you had no say in. Nice work, FBI.
Trump's example proved that it is pointless trying to go there and fight them alone. There needs to be a (new) party behind
the individual, otherwise one does not stand a chance.
Kushner has been systematically targeted by allies and foes alike because he has no foreign diplomacy expertise and they
know he can be manipulated. Manipulated due to ignorance and arrogance. The worst kind of manipulation!
How much of the loot from the US taxpayer did Deutche get from the "bailout"? The credibility of their organized bankster cartel
is lower than that of a belarus hooker in jail in Thailand, because they practice fraud professionally. The FBI is an active enemy
of the United States. The masks are coming off.
"The Knives Are Out For Kushner: Loans With Deutsche Under Scrutiny By Regulator"
Will this be the catalyst for Trump to fire Muler's sorry-ass or does he just become more defensive every day about taking
action and hope the issue will just sort itself out?
I too would continue unabated like a crazy man until stopped, if I were Muler.
Kushner wants a security clearance? They get to ream, steam and dry clean his ass. This is no game. Now, it just so happens
I ran one of the biggest commercial real estate shops on the Street. I have been in the market recently for a major developer.
5-10X the size of Kushner. You don't get unsecured lines from banks anymore unless you are GOD. Not personally. It may be
that the company got one, but if Jared got one something funky is going on.
You see, on a secured credit line, the bank only has to reserve about 4-8% of the limit as a capital charge. That allows them
to operate at about 12X leverage. If they are charging LIBOR + 300 for the line, and they fund art LIBOR-50, and the line is fully
drawn (no bank wants a line that isn't utilized, that's why they charge non-utilization fees), their 350BP spread translates into
a nice ~35% ROE. That's good business. On an unsecured line, there is a 100 % capital charge. That's a 3.5% ROE. That sucks balls.
I have literally had a major bank walk away from an unsecured $50mm line when it would have given them the inside track for
a $800 million loan they could securitize and make a quick and easy $25 million on. The regulatory headache and capital charges
just made it a non-starter.
NYCB is a garbage bank. They are essentially a 1980s S&L running a book of long maturity multi family loans and funding
with purchased CD's in the overnight - 90 day market. (DISCLOSURE: I have been and will be short this stock). As the Fed tightens
and the curve flattens, their margins go to shit. They did well in the free money QE world, but their game has been over for a
while. They rely on credit underwriting to avoid adding defaults to the litany of woes this environment brings. In fact, taking
no credit risk has been their hallmark for years. They generally don't do office or mixed use lending. That they would be making
an unsecured line to Kushner is BIZARRE.
If I were working for Mueller, I would be very curious about this stuff, too. If they called me, I would give them a list of
things to look for. Something sounds screwy. Either the reporter has the details wrong, or something IS wrong.
I would be surprised if DJT is involved in anything illegal in his business. The guy knows how to bend the rules, but risking
his great life to launder money for a bunch of Russians?? Just don't see it. Running for the Presidency with skeletons would be
suicide, and he knows that. You don't want the antiseptic light of justice shining on the roaches if you've done something not
nice.
It may be Kushner is as dirty as they come. God knows his Dad is a piece of detritus. I know DJT as a crass vulgarian, with
a genius for the common weal and leveraging off OPM. But stupid felon? Not buying it.
Perry, a member of the Homeland Security subcommittee on cyber security, said Tuesday that the House Office of Inspector General
tracked the network usage of Awan and his associates on House servers and found that a "massive" amount of data was flowing from the
networks.
Notable quotes:
"... Attorneys for the Plaintiffs in the case, Jared and Elizabeth Beck, and appears to argue that if the Democratic Party did cheat Sanders in the 2016 Presidential primary race, then that action was protected under the first amendment. Twitter users were quick to respond to the brief, expressing outrage and disgust at the claims made by representatives of the DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. ..."
"... This author was shocked to find that despite the characterization of the Becks as peddlers of conspiracy theory, the defense counsel failed to mention the motion for protection filed by the Becks earlier in the litigation process. They also failed to note the voice-modulated phone calls received by the law offices of the Becks which contained a caller-ID corresponding to the law offices of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a defendant in the case. In light of this context, the Becks hardly appear to be peddlers of conspiracy theory. ..."
"... It appears that the defendants in the DNC Fraud Lawsuit are attempting to argue that cheating a candidate in the primary process is protected under the first amendment. ..."
"... If all that weren't enough, DNC representatives argued that the Democratic National Committee had no established fiduciary duty "to the Plaintiffs or the classes of donors and registered voters they seek to represent." ..."
"... It seems here that the DNC is arguing for its right to appoint candidates at its own discretion while simultaneously denying any "fiduciary duty" to represent the voters who donated to the Democratic Party under the belief that the DNC would act impartially towards the candidates involved. ..."
"... If Wikileaks' publication of DNC emails are found to be similarly admissible in a United States court of law, then the contents of the leaked emails could be used to argue that, contrary to the defendant's latest brief, the DNC did favor the campaign of Hillary Clinton over Senator Sanders and that they acted to sabotage Sanders' campaign. ..."
"... Seth Rich murder and DHS investigation into 2016 election tampering soon to expose this party's contempt for the law, and all other forms of ethical conduct. ..."
"... Bernie is more than happy to yammer on about Russian bots swarming Facebook and other social media platforms in some insidious plot to rig the election -- and yet he fails to say a word about the actual attempts to rig the election by the DNA and Hillary. ..."
"... Don't forget in their twisted minds that the lies they tell to support their corrupt agenda are "protected free speech". There are no further examples one needs to show that these fuckers are nothing but malignant sociopaths. The death of the Rule of Law is why sociopaths flourish. ..."
"... They are without shame, without remorse, without ethics or morals, feeling or caring. Yet they still try to defend their indefensible actions where contrition and humbleness would be much better long term..."politically". The rank & file snowflakes would eat up a simple apology because they have been brought up to think thats all it takes to right wrongs. ..."
The ongoing litigation of the DNC Fraud Lawsuit and the appeal regarding its dismissal took a stunning turn yesterday. The defendants
in the case, including the DNC and former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, filed a response brief that left many observers
of the case at a loss for words. The
document , provided by the
law offices of the Attorneys for the Plaintiffs in the case, Jared and Elizabeth Beck, and appears to argue that if the Democratic
Party did cheat Sanders in the 2016 Presidential primary race, then that action was protected under the first amendment.
Twitter users were quick to respond to the brief, expressing outrage and disgust
at the claims made by representatives of the DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
The Defense counsel also argued that because of Jared Beck's outspoken twitter posts, the plaintiffs were using the litigation
process for political purposes: "For example, Plaintiffs' counsel Jared Beck repeatedly refers to the DNC as "shi*bags" on Twitter
and uses other degrading language in reference to Defendants." Fascinatingly, no mention is made regarding the importance of First
Amendment at this point in the document.
The defense counsel also took issue with Jared Beck for what they termed as: " Repeatedly promoted patently false and deeply offensive
conspiracy theories about the deaths of a former DNC staffer and Plaintiffs' process server in an attempt to bolster attention for
this lawsuit."
This author was shocked to find that despite the characterization of the Becks as peddlers of conspiracy theory, the defense
counsel failed to mention the motion for protection filed by the Becks earlier in the litigation process. They also failed to note
the voice-modulated phone calls received by the law offices of the Becks which contained a caller-ID corresponding to the law offices
of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a defendant in the case. In light of this context, the Becks hardly appear to be peddlers of conspiracy
theory.
The DNC defense lawyers then argued that: " There is no legitimate basis for this litigation, which is, at its most basic, an
improper attempt to forge the federal courts into a political weapon to be used by individuals who are unhappy with how a political
party selected its candidate in a presidential campaign ."
The brief continued: " To recognize any of the causes of action that Plaintiffs allege based on their animating theory would run
directly contrary to long-standing Supreme Court precedent recognizing the central and critical First Amendment rights enjoyed by
political parties, especially when it comes to selecting the party's nominee for public office. "
It appears that the defendants in the DNC Fraud Lawsuit are attempting to argue that cheating a candidate in the primary process
is protected under the first amendment.
If all that weren't enough, DNC representatives argued that the Democratic National Committee had no established fiduciary duty
"to the Plaintiffs or the classes of donors and registered voters they seek to represent."
It seems here that the DNC is arguing for its right to appoint candidates at its own discretion while simultaneously denying
any "fiduciary duty" to represent the voters who donated to the Democratic Party under the belief that the DNC would act impartially
towards the candidates involved.
Adding to the latest news regarding the DNC Fraud Lawsuit was the recent
finding by the UK Supreme Court, which stated
that Wikileaks Cables were admissible as evidence in legal proceedings.
If Wikileaks' publication of DNC emails are found to be similarly admissible in a United States court of law, then the contents
of the leaked emails could be used to argue that, contrary to the defendant's latest brief, the DNC did favor the campaign of Hillary
Clinton over Senator Sanders and that they acted to sabotage Sanders' campaign.
The outcome of the appeal of the DNC Fraud Lawsuit remains to be seen. Disobedient Media will continue to report on this important
story as it unfolds.
Even on a practical level, beyond the "fraud is free speech" argument, they don't seem to have considered that this argument
is a lose/lose proposition. Even if they (DNC) win legally, they are going to lose as people turn away from the finger they're
giving them.
Notice this is a civil suit brought by a citizen. The Bern is silent and not suing anybody although he was the target
of the scam, or maybe a party to it. The DOJ is silent and not looking to put anybody in jail for what appears to be an
obvious violation of criminal law.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
- - Jeff Sessions
Not so for murder, and rigging the general election. Seth Rich murder and DHS investigation into 2016 election tampering
soon to expose this party's contempt for the law, and all other forms of ethical conduct.
What is the difference? There is no any justice in America. It is all gone.
The US people are polarized and, thanks to Hollywood and mainstream media, with the culture of lawless, violence, and hatred
of everybody. America is a very sick country with a fake President and the utterly corrupt US Congress. It will not end good or
bloodless.
The US military reliance on super-technology is poorly thought of since these high-tech military systems require very highly-educated
and intelligent people to operate these systems while the US educational system being a total failure cannot produce.
Bernie is more than happy to yammer on about Russian bots swarming Facebook and other social media platforms in some insidious
plot to rig the election -- and yet he fails to say a word about the actual attempts to rig the election by the DNA and Hillary.
But, hey, if he can shave a few hundred dollars off of my monthly health insurance premiums he can call for a first-strike nuclear
attack on Russia!
Clearly we have laws for little people while the owners do whatever the fuck they want.
... the State Department completed its review and determined that 2,115 of the 30,490 emails contain information that is presently
classified Out of these 2,115 emails, the State Department determined that 2,028 emails contain information classified at the
Confidential level; 65 contain information classified at the Secret level; and 22 contain information classified at the Top Secret
level....
I think this is the exact reason election boards exists. They should be suing the DNC over this as well, but are full of party
officials. If there was any sane form of democracy, the DNC would be bared from campaigning in most states.
It's a sewer, the whole fucking system is just a cesspool filled with the most reprehensible, self-serving people in the country
outside of Wall Street. But everybody just keeps playing along.
Don't forget in their twisted minds that the lies they tell to support their corrupt agenda are "protected free speech". There
are no further examples one needs to show that these fuckers are nothing but malignant sociopaths. The death of the Rule of Law
is why sociopaths flourish.
They don't live in the same reality as us and never have.
They are without shame, without remorse, without ethics or morals, feeling or caring. Yet they still try to defend their indefensible
actions where contrition and humbleness would be much better long term..."politically". The rank & file snowflakes would eat up
a simple apology because they have been brought up to think thats all it takes to right wrongs.
My take was Bernie was supposed to cat herd the millennials to the Hillary camp but that blew up in their face when the millennials
decided to put down their cell phones and proceeded to give Hillary the bird.
Wouldn't doubt a large majority still ended up voting for but they probably won't admit it.
Doesn't this make the whole candidate selection process, and all the rules and regulations governing a party's whole nomination
process meaningless? If what DEMS did within their own party to Bernie is moot, then what Trump may have done via his "Russian
collusion" is mooted also. Can't have it both ways.
They used the same argument before the appeal... and the corrupt judge agreed with "The Crooks" and closed the case. NOT ONE media outlet covered the fact they actually said in open court that the DNC had no legal obligation to be fair.
" Democracy is not under stress – it's under aggressive attack, as
unconstrained financial greed overrides public accountability ."
I request a lessatorium* on the term 'democracy', because there aren't any democracies.
Rather than redefine the term, why not use a more accurate one, like 'plutocracy', or
'corporatocracy'.
-- -- -- -
* It's like a moratorium, you just do less of it.
Interesting information Guccifer II. He falsified the evidence.
Follow the money. Along with a smoke screen for Hillary political fiasco, Russiagate is a swindle to get more money for intelligence
agencies and MIC. For about 15 companies who run the US foreign policy.
Notable quotes:
"... The CIA and NSA, and other intelligence agencies all work on behalf of these corporate entities. There main objective is to keep us all uninformed and dumber than a bag of hammers, so they can extort all the wealth from our great nation ..."
"... If this video won't stop the brainless McCarthyist regressives from knowing the truth about Russiagate, nothing will. And I mean absolutely nothing. Except maybe if they come here to Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, NYC. We got lots of Russian immigrants here and they are just normal people ..."
"... Russiagate is an excuse to spend more on the military. Wow- surprising, yet somehow not surprising. American Empire is the biggest destabilizing force in the world ..."
"... Guccifer 2.0 is the United States government. Either the CIA, FBI, NSA or DHS. I'd say it was the CIA with the NSA being a close second ..."
Also, when did Russian hackers become so stupid? Since when has the GRU being unable to get even the basics like the up to
date email list for the Clinton campaign, started using two-year-old obsolete malware instead of 0-day exploits, completely forgetting
that VPN's exist and how to spoof an IP address, and on and on and on. These aren't the guys who cloned Nasdaq!
Thank you jimmy so much for doing this interview and thank you Bill Binney for so clearly explaining the technical and structural
reasons why Russiagate is both false and ceaselessly pushed. Amazing interview!
My experience working on the Mississippi democratic party executive committee, the Hinds county Executive committee, and working
for the state employees union here in Mississippi has educated me on the fact that democratic reps and republican reps work together
to pass legislation to benefit the corporate class i.e. business. All you who have replied to my comment make sense, but we must
remember that there is no difference between the Democratic and Republician parties, they all work for their corporate masters.
The CIA and NSA, and other intelligence agencies all work on behalf of these corporate entities. There main objective is
to keep us all uninformed and dumber than a bag of hammers, so they can extort all the wealth from our great nation. In other
words they our commiting treason upon the American people and our constitution and all should be through in prison for the rest
of their lives and all ill-gotten wealth given back to the people of these great nation by rebuilding the infrastructure of America,
investing in the education of our people to secure a prosperous future, and provide healthcare for all Americans. We can ensure
this happens in two ways, pass the 28th amendment and pass FDR's 2nd bill of rights(worker's bill of rights). This will ensure
that corporations will never take control of our country again.
Can we please now move onto whom the person was that stole the data from the DNC? Can I take a stab in the dark (or maybe two
shots to the back of the head?) and guess his name was Seth Rich?
I know I commented this already in the last segment, but this guy is absolutely awesome. Everything he says is substantial,
non-speculative and supported by facts. You're becoming a proper journalist Jimmy. More of people like this please. I got my credit
card again. I will donate shortly. Keep up.
As long as they keep lying about Russia they can continue the sanctions against Russia. Russia is holding it's own even with
the sanctions but originally under Putin Russia had paid off all it's debt to the IMF (World Bank). Now their debt is increasing,
partly because of the sanctions and partly because of helping Syria and preparing for the US to cause a great war. Russia is a
threat to the IMF (World Bank). Russia and China want trade outside of the Petrol Dollar. When Russia was debt free from the IMF
(World Bank) it was completely independent of them. Russia did not have to take orders from the international bankers. That is
why they lie about Russia.
If this video won't stop the brainless McCarthyist regressives from knowing the truth about Russiagate, nothing will. And
I mean absolutely nothing. Except maybe if they come here to Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, NYC. We got lots of Russian immigrants
here and they are just normal people.
Russiagate is an excuse to spend more on the military. Wow- surprising, yet somehow not surprising. American Empire is
the biggest destabilizing force in the world
As I tried to tell you the previous time you had referenced the "conclusions" of the CIA groups, this data nonsense he is handwaving
about is all quite feasible, by using a nearby national server, and much skepticism is deserved! Also he doesn't seem to know
what he is talking about, from all of the paraphrasing.
I am also quite reminded of the psychological incorporation into personal behaviors by habit of the standards and policies
of the industry or professional standards, which for the US Intelligence community includes an explicit policy of disinformation
and dishonesty.
How the hell would the NSA's "man in the middle" logging servers see that the transfer occurs to a local USB2 drive (he assumes
this is the case because 40 megabytes per second is approximately the rate of the USB2 protocol of 400 megabits per second...
Very few USB flash drives were manufactured with solid state storage chips fast enough to reach that full transfer rate before
the widespread adoption of USB3, or the modern USB3.1. Essentially, your chosen headline title is a false clickbait, because as
of today there is insufficient evidence to draw ANY conclusion
Just as they smeared Joe Wilson & his wife, and other great Courageous Americans that came out AGAINST the invasion of Iraq!
Until we start DEMANDING those LIARS leave their seats in Washington, put on the Military Gear, and GO to the Countries they want
to invade! I am past FED UP with them sacrificing our Troops, they return home to be MISTREATED, and kicked to the curb! Americans,
wake up and DEMAND that they GO!
A very interesting interview. It is almost one year old.
When intelligence agencies use the phase "with high confidence" means that they do not have evidence. This is one of
the biggest lie intelligence agencies resort to. They are all professional liars and should be treated as such.
If DNC email offloading was done over Internet (which means it was a hack not an internal leak) NSA should have the direct evidence.
They do not. So this is a progpaganda move by Brennan and Clapper to unleash MSM witch hunt, which is a key part of the color revolution
against Trump.
Another question is who downloaded this information to Wikileaks. Here NSA also should have evidence. And again they do not.
They have already to direct attention from the main issues. Oversight of intelligence agencies is joke. They can lie with impunity.
BTW NSA has all Hillary emails, including deleted.
He also exposes the NSA penchant for "swindles", such as preventing the plugging of holes in software around the world, to preserve
their spying access.
It's almost comical to hear that they lie to each other. No wonder why these retards in the mid-east and every other third
world country gets the better of us.
The Clinton campaign to divert attention to Russia instead of her myriad of crimes that were revealed during the election must
be stopped and the alt media needs to start talking about her and Obama's crimes again and demand justice...control the dialogue
Thank you Paul E. Merrell, J.D. I have been convinced from the beginning of all of this
that this was the line to Wikileaks. Now if we could only get a real investigation into
Seth's murder.
Stop Bush and Clinton , February 19, 2018 at 7:34 pm
"We found that they broke a vast number of laws, did surveillance of a competitor with a
warrant based on fake evidence, all adding up to treason worse than Watergate. But we think
that no reasonable prosecutor would file charges .." -- The FBI
"... The Deep State (Oligarchs and the MIC) is totally fucking loving this: they have Trump and the GOP giving them everything they ever wanted and they have the optics and distraction of an "embattled" president that claims to be against or a victim of the "deep state" and a base that rally's, circles the wagons around him, and falls for the narrative. ..."
"... They know exactly who it was with the memory stick, there is always video of one form or another either in the data center or near the premises that can indicate who it was. They either have a video of Seth Rich putting the stick into the server directly, or they at least have a video of his car entering and leaving the vicinity of the ex-filtration. ..."
"... This would have been an open and shut case if shillary was not involved. Since it was involved, you can all chalk it up to the Clinton body count. I pray that it gets justice. It and the country, the world - needs justice. ..."
Kim Dotcom has once again chimed in on the DNC hack, following a Sunday morning tweet from President Trump clarifying his previous
comments on Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
In response, Dotcom tweeted " Let me assure you, the DNC hack wasn't even a hack. It was an insider with a memory stick. I know
this because I know who did it and why," adding "Special Counsel Mueller is not interested in my evidence. My lawyers wrote to him
twice. He never replied. 360 pounds! " alluding of course to Trump's "400 pound genius" comment.
Dotcom's assertion is backed up by an analysis done last year by a researcher who goes by the name Forensicator , who determined
that the DNC files were copied at
22.6 MB/s - a speed virtually impossible to achieve from halfway around the world, much less over a local network - yet a speed
typical of file transfers to a memory stick.
The local transfer theory of course blows the Russian hacking narrative out of the water, lending credibility to the theory that
the DNC "hack" was in fact an inside job, potentially implicating late DNC IT staffer, Seth Rich.
John Podesta's email was allegely successfully "hacked" (he fell victim to a
phishing scam
) in March 2016, while the DNC reported suspicious activity (the suspected Seth Rich file transfer) in late April, 2016 according
to the
Washington Post.
On May 18, 2017, Dotcom proposed that if Congress includes the Seth Rich investigation in their Russia probe, he would provide
written testimony with evidence that Seth Rich was WikiLeaks' source.
On May 19 2017 Dotcom tweeted "I knew Seth Rich. I was involved"
Three days later, Dotcom again released a guarded statement saying "I KNOW THAT SETH RICH WAS INVOLVED IN THE DNC LEAK," adding:
"I have consulted with my lawyers. I accept that my full statement should be provided to the authorities and I am prepared
to do that so that there can be a full investigation. My lawyers will speak with the authorities regarding the proper process.
If my evidence is required to be given in the United States I would be prepared to do so if appropriate arrangements are made.
I would need a guarantee from Special Counsel Mueller, on behalf of the United States, of safe passage from New Zealand to the
United States and back. In the coming days we will be communicating with the appropriate authorities to make the necessary arrangements.
In the meantime, I will make no further comment."
Dotcom knew.
While one could simply write off Dotcom's claims as an attention seeking stunt, he made several comments and a series of tweets
hinting at the upcoming email releases prior to both the WikiLeaks dumps as well as the publication of the hacked DNC emails to a
website known as "DCLeaks."
In a May 14, 2015
Bloomberg article entitled "Kim Dotcom: Julian Assange Will Be Hillary Clinton's Worst Nightmare In 2016 ": "I have to say it's
probably more Julian," who threatens Hillary, Dotcom said. " But I'm aware of some of the things that are going to be roadblocks
for her ."
Two days later, Dotcom tweeted this:
Around two months later, Kim asks a provocative question
Two weeks after that, Dotcom then tweeted "Mishandling classified info is a crime. When Hillary's emails eventually pop up on
the internet who's going to jail?"
It should thus be fairly obvious to anyone that Dotcom was somehow involved, and therefore any evidence he claims to have, should
be taken seriously as part of Mueller's investigation. Instead, as Dotcom tweeted, "Special Counsel Mueller is not interested in
my evidence. My lawyers wrote to him twice. He never replied. "
The Deep State (Oligarchs and the MIC) is totally fucking loving this: they have Trump and the GOP giving them everything
they ever wanted and they have the optics and distraction of an "embattled" president that claims to be against or a victim of
the "deep state" and a base that rally's, circles the wagons around him, and falls for the narrative.
Meanwhile they keep enacting the most Pro Deep State/MIC/Police State/Zionist/Wall Street agenda possible. And they call it
#winning
"Had to be a Russian mole with a computer stick. MSM, DNC and Muller say so."
They know exactly who it was with the memory stick, there is always video of one form or another either in the data center
or near the premises that can indicate who it was. They either have a video of Seth Rich putting the stick into the server directly,
or they at least have a video of his car entering and leaving the vicinity of the ex-filtration.
This would have been an open and shut case if shillary was not involved. Since it was involved, you can all chalk it up
to the Clinton body count. I pray that it gets justice. It and the country, the world - needs justice.
Kim is great, Assange is great. Kim is playing a double game. He wants immunity from the US GUmmint overreach that destroyed
his company and made him a prisoner in NZ.
Good on ya Kim.
His name was Seth Rich...and he will reach out from the grave and bury Killary who murdered him.
There are so many nuances to this and all are getting mentioned but the one that also stands out is that in an age of demands
for gun control by the Dems, Seth Rich is never, ever mentioned. He should be the poster child for gun control. Young man, draped
in a American flag, helping democracy, gunned down...it writes itself.
They either are afraid of the possible racial issues should it turn out to be a black man killing a white man (but why should
that matter in a gun control debate?) or they just don't want people looking at this case. I go for #2.
Funny that George Webb can figure it out, but Trump, Leader of the Free World, is sitting there with his dick in his hand waiting
for someone to save him.
Whatever he might turn out to be, this much is clear: Trump is a spineless weakling. He might be able to fuck starlets, but
he hasn't got the balls to defend either himself or the Republic.
Webb's research is also...managed. But a lot of it was/is really good (don't follow it anymore) and I agree re: SR piece of
it.
I think SR is such an interesting case. It's not really an anomaly because SO many Bush-CFR-related hits end the same way and
his had typical signatures. But his also squeels of a job done w/out much prior planning because I think SR surprised everyone.
If, in fact, that was when he was killed. Everything regarding the family's demeanor suggests no.
MANY patterns in shootings: failure in law enforcement/intelligence who were notified of problem individuals ahead of time,
ARs, mental health and SSRIs, and ongoing resistance to gun control in DC ----these are NOT coincidences. Nor are distractions
in MSM's version of events w/ controlled propaganda.
Children will stop being killed when America wakes the
fuck up and starts asking the right questions, making the right demands. It's time.
I don't think you know how these hackers have nearly ALL been intercepted by CIA--for decades now. DS has had backdoor access
to just about all of them. I agree that Kim is great, brilliant and was sabotaged but he's also cooperating. Otherwise he'd be
dead.
Bes is either "disinfo plant" or energy draining pessimist. Result is the same - to deflate your power to create a new future.
Trump saw the goal of the Fed Reserve banksters decades ago and spoke often about it. Like Prez Kennedy he wants to return
USA economy to silver or gold backed dollar then transition to new system away from the Black Magic fed reserve/ tax natl debt
machine.
The Globalist Cabal has been working to destroy the US economy ever since they income tax April 15th Lincoln at the Ford theater.
125 years. But Bes claims because Trump cannot reverse 125 years of history in one year that it is kabuki.
Very weak analysis The authors completely missed the point. Susceptibility to rumors (now
called "fake new" which more correctly should be called "improvised news") and high level of
distrust to "official MSM" (of which popularity of alternative news site is only tip of the
iceberg) is a sign of the crisis and tearing down of the the social fabric that hold the so
social groups together. This first of all demonstrated with the de-legitimization of the
neoliberal elite.
As such attempt to patch this discord and unite the US society of fake premises of Russiagate
and anti-Russian hysteria look very problematic. The effect might be quite opposite as the story
with Steele dossier, which really undermined credibility of Justice Department and destroyed the
credibility o FBI can teach us.
In this case claims that "The claim that, for example, Mrs. Clinton's victory might aid Satan
" are just s a sign of rejection of neoliberalism by voters. Nothing more nothing less.
Notable quotes:
"... It has infected the American political system, weakening the body politic and leaving it vulnerable to manipulation. Russian misinformation seems to have exacerbated the symptoms, but laced throughout the indictment are reminders that the underlying disease, arguably far more damaging, is all American-made. ..."
"... A recent study found that the people most likely to consume fake news were already hyperpartisan and close followers of politics, and that false stories were only a small fraction of their media consumption. ..."
That these efforts might have actually made a difference, or at least were intended to,
highlights a force that was already destabilizing American democracy far more than any
Russian-made fake news post: partisan polarization.
"Partisanship can even alter memory, implicit evaluation, and even perceptual judgment," the
political scientists Jay J. Van Bavel and Andrea Pereira wrote in a recent paper . "The human attraction to fake and
untrustworthy news" -- a danger cited by political scientists far more frequently than
orchestrated meddling -- "poses a serious problem for healthy democratic functioning."
It has infected the American political system, weakening the body politic and leaving it
vulnerable to manipulation. Russian misinformation seems to have exacerbated the symptoms, but
laced throughout the indictment are reminders that the underlying disease, arguably far more
damaging, is all American-made.
... ... ...
A recent study found
that the people most likely to consume fake news were already hyperpartisan and close followers
of politics, and that false stories were only a small fraction of their media
consumption.
Americans, it said, sought out stories that reflected their already-formed partisan view of
reality. This suggests that these Russians efforts are indicators -- not drivers -- of how
widely Americans had polarized.
That distinction matters for how the indictment is read: Though Americans have seen it as
highlighting a foreign threat, it also illustrates the perhaps graver threats from
within.
An Especially Toxic Form of Partisanship
... ... ...
"Compromise is the core of democracy," she said. "It's the only way we can govern." But, she
said, "when you make people feel threatened, nobody compromises with evil."
The claim that, for example, Mrs. Clinton's victory might aid Satan is in many ways just a
faint echo of the partisan anger and fear already dominating American politics.
Those emotions undermine a key norm that all sides are served by honoring democratic
processes; instead, they justify, or even seem to mandate, extreme steps against the other
side.
In taking this approach, the Russians were merely riding a trend that has been building for
decades.
Since the 1980s , surveys have found that Republicans and Democrats' feelings toward the
opposing party have been growing more and more negative. Voters are animated more by distrust
of the other side than support for their own.
This highlights a problem that Lilliana Mason, a University of Maryland political scientist,
said had left American democracy dangerously vulnerable. But it's a problem driven primarily by
American politicians and media outlets, which have far louder megaphones than any Russian-made
Facebook posts.
"Compromise is the core of democracy," she said. "It's the only way we can govern." But, she
said, "when you make people feel threatened, nobody compromises with evil."
The claim that, for example, Mrs. Clinton's victory might aid Satan is in many ways just a
faint echo of the partisan anger and fear already dominating American politics.
Those emotions undermine a key norm that all sides are served by honoring democratic
processes; instead, they justify, or even seem to mandate, extreme steps against the other
side.
"... We need a separate, really non-partisan investigation for the rest of the list. I think it would be possible to find competent investigators outside of the more politicized agencies who could be vetted for any political bias before being assigned. Investigation is investigation - you just need a place to start and a list of people to talk to. Facts then shake out. ..."
"... If Mueller does not look sufficiently into the "rolling Soft-Coup" aspects of all this, let us hope that the Congress and the Administration together can force into existence a Special Counsel with all of the powers and staff and funding that Mueller currently has/ will have. . . . to look into the "rolling Soft-Coup" aspects of all this. ..."
"... If such a counsel would look into the "letting Clinton off the e-mail hook" aspects of all this and esPECially into the "who shot Seth Rich" and "e-mails . . . hacked or leaked?" aspects of all this, so much the better. ..."
I agree that the list should be investigated - especially the DNC "hack" hoax as that
involves screwing with the investigation of a Federal crime and has counterintelligence
implications and could lead to lots of indictments.
However, as someone else pointed out in the last thread, Mueller's only remit was to find
evidence of Russian government "meddling" in the election and/or "collusion" with Trump and
the Trump campaign - which he has not found yet and is highly unlikely to find. The 13
indictments are a joke in that regard.
We need a separate, really non-partisan investigation for the rest of the list. I think it
would be possible to find competent investigators outside of the more politicized agencies
who could be vetted for any political bias before being assigned. Investigation is
investigation - you just need a place to start and a list of people to talk to. Facts then
shake out.
If Mueller does not look sufficiently into the "rolling Soft-Coup" aspects of all this,
let us hope that the Congress and the Administration together can force into existence a
Special Counsel with all of the powers and staff and funding that Mueller currently has/ will
have. . . . to look into the "rolling Soft-Coup" aspects of all this.
If such a counsel would look into the "letting Clinton off the e-mail hook" aspects of
all this and esPECially into the "who shot Seth Rich" and "e-mails . . . hacked or leaked?"
aspects of all this, so much the better.
New evidence shows DNC server files were downloaded directly to USB drive, not hacked by
Russians
Now that the liberal left mainstream media is fixated on their latest Trump-Russia collusion
smoking gun, with the revelation that Donald Trump Jr., **GASP**, spoke with a lawyer from
Russia about adoption stuff, it is important to take a step back and realize that this entire
Hillary Clinton concocted Russia collusion narrative started with a DNC server hack that the
FBI never investigated, and now (according to an independent researcher known as The
Forensicator) was not even a hack, but a document download onto a USB drive.
New meta-analysis has emerged from a document published today by an independent
researcher known as The Forensicator, which suggests that files eventually published by the
Guccifer 2.0 persona were likely initially downloaded by a person with physical access to a
computer possibly connected to the internal DNC network. The individual most likely used a
USB drive to copy the information. The groundbreaking new analysis irrevocably destroys the
Russian hacking narrative, and calls the actions of Crowdstrike and the DNC into
question.
The document supplied
to Disobedient Media via Adam Carter was authored by an individual known as The Forensicator.
The full document referenced here has been published on their blog . Their analysis indicates the data was
almost certainly not accessed initially by a remote hacker, much less one in Russia. If true,
this analysis obliterates the Russian hacking narrative completely.
The Forensicator specifically discusses the data that was eventually published by Guccifer
2.0 under the title "NGP-VAN." This should not be confused with the separate publication of
the DNC emails by Wikileaks. This article focuses solely on evidence stemming from the files
published by Guccifer 2.0, which were previously discussed in depth by Adam Carter .
Disobedient Media previously reported that Crowdstrike is the only group that has
directly analyzed the DNC servers. Other groups including Threat Connect have used the information provided by
Crowdstrike to claim that Russians hacked the DNC. However, their evaluation was based solely
on information ultimately provided by Crowdstrike; this places the company in the unique
position of being the only direct source of evidence that a hack occurred.
The group's President Shawn Henry
is a retired executive assistant director of the FBI while their co-founder and CTO, Dmitri Alperovitch, is a senior fellow at
the Atlantic Council, which as we have
reported , is linked to George Soros. Carter has stated on his website that "At present, it looks a LOT like Shawn Henry &
Dmitri Alperovitch (CrowdStrike executives), working for either the HRC campaign or DNC
leadership were very likely to have been behind the Guccifer 2.0 operation." Carter's
website was described by Wikileaks as a useful source of primary information
specifically regarding Guccifer 2.0.
Carter recently spoke to Disobedient Media, explaining that he had been contacted by
The Forensicator, who
had published a document which contained a detailed analysis of the data published by
Guccifer 2.0 as "NGP-VAN."
The document states
that the files that eventually published as "NGP-VAN" by Guccifer 2.0 were first copied to a
system located in the Eastern Time Zone, with this conclusion supported by the observation
that "the .7z file times, after adjustment to East Coast time fall into the range of the file
times in the .rar files." This constitutes the first of a number of points of analysis which
suggests that the information eventually published by the Guccifer 2.0 persona was not
obtained by a Russian hacker.
Disobedient
Media , The
Forensicator stated in their analysis that a USB drive was most likely used to boot Linux
OS onto a computer that either contained the alleged DNC files or had direct access to them.
They also explained to
Disobedient Media that in this situation one would simply plug a USB drive with the LinuxOS
into a computer and reboot it; after restarting, the computer would boot from the USB drive and
load Linux instead of its normal OS. A large amount of data would then be copied to this same
USB drive.
In this case, additional files would have been copied en masse, to be "pruned" heavily at
a later time when the 7zip archive now known as NGP-VAN was built. The Forensicator wrote
that if 1.98 GB of data had been copied at a rate of 22.6 MB/s and time gaps t were noticed
at the top level of the NGP-VAN 7zip file were attributed to additional file copying, then
approximately 19.3 GB in total would have been copied. In this scenario, the 7zip archive
(NGP-VAN) would represent only about 10% of the total amount of data that was collected.
The very small proportion of files eventually selected for use in the creation of the
"NGP-VAN" files were later published by the creators of the Guccifer 2.0 persona. This point
is especially significant, as it suggests the possibility that up to 90% of the information
initially copied was never published.
The use of a USB drive would suggest that the person first accessing the data could not
have been a Russian hacker. In this case, the person who copied the files must have
physically interacted with a computer that had access to what Guccifer 2.0 called the DNC
files. A less likely explanation for this data pattern where large time gaps were observed
between top level files and directories in the 7zip file, can be explained by the use of
'think time' to select and copy 1.9 GB of individual files, copied in small batches with
think time interspersed. In either scenario, Linux would have been booted from a USB drive,
which fundamentally necessitates physical access to a computer with the alleged DNC
files.
The Forensicator believed that using the possible 'think-time' explanation to explain the
time-gaps was a less likely explanation for the data pattern available, with a large amount
of data most likely copied instantaneously, later "pruned" in the production of the Guccifer
2.0's publication of the NGP-VAN files.
Both the most likely explanation and the less likely scenario provided by The
Forensicator's analysis virtually exclude the possibility of a Russian or remote hacker
gaining external access to the files later published as "NGP-VAN." In both cases, the
physical presence of a person accessing a containing DNC information would be
required.
Importantly, The Forensicator concluded that the chance that the files had been
accessed and downloaded remotely over the internet were too small to give this idea any
serious consideration. He explained that the calculated transfer speeds for the initial copy
were much faster than can be supported by an internet connection. This is extremely
significant and completely discredits allegations of Russian hacking made by both Guccifer
2.0 and Crowdstrike.
This conclusion is further supported by analysis of the overall transfer rate of 23 MB/s.
The Forensicator
described this as "possible when copying over a LAN, but too fast to support the hypothetical
scenario that the alleged DNC data was initially copied over the Internet (esp. to Romania)."
Guccifer 2.0 had claimed to originate in Romania. So in other words, this rate indicates that
the data was downloaded locally, possibly using the local DNC network. The importance of this
finding in regards to destroying the Russian hacking narrative cannot be overstated.
If the data is correct, then the files could not have been copied over a remote connection
and so therefore cannot have been "hacked by Russia."
The use of a USB drive would also strongly suggest that the person copying the files had
physical access to a computer most likely connected to the local DNC network. Indications
that the individual used a USB drive to access the information over an internal connection,
with time stamps placing the creation of the copies in the East Coast Time Zone, suggest that
the individual responsible for initially copying what was eventually published by the
Guccifer 2.0 persona under the title "NGP-VAN" was located in the Eastern United States, not
Russia.
The implications of The
Forensicator 's analysis in combination with Adam Carter 's work, suggest that at the very least, the Russian
hacking narrative is patently false. Adam Carter has a strong grasp on the NGP-VAN files and
Guccifer 2.0, with his website on the subject called a "good source" by Wikileaks via
twitter. Carter told Disobedient Media that in his opinion the analysis provided by The
Forensicator was accurate, but added that if changes are made to the work in future, any new
conclusions would require further vetting.
On the heels of recent retractions by legacy media outlets like CNN and The New York
Times, this could have serious consequences, if months of investigation into the matter by
authorities are proven to have been based on gross misinformation based solely on the false
word of Crowdstrike.
Assange recently lamented widespread ignorance about the DNC Leak via Twitter, specifically naming Hillary Clinton, the DNC, the
Whitehouse and mainstream media as having "reason" to suppress the truth of the matter. As
one of the only individuals who would have been aware of the source of the DNC Leaks,
Assange's statement corroborates a scenario where the DNC and parties described in Adam
Carter's work likely to have included Crowdstrike, may have participated in "suppressing
knowledge" of the true origins and evidence surrounding the leak of the DNC emails by
confusing them with the publication of the Guccifer 2.0 persona.
Despite Guccifer 2.0's conflicting reports of having both been a Russian hacker and having
contact with Seth Rich, the work of The Forensicator indicates that neither of these
scenarios is likely true. What is suggested is that the files now known as "NGP-VAN" were
copied by someone with access to a system connected to the DNC internal network, and that
this action had no bearing on the files submitted to Wikileaks and were most likely
unassociated with Seth Rich, and definitively not remotely "hacked" from Russia.
This whole thing hangs on the murder of Seth Rich. The
Dossier and the Intelligence Assessment are fundamentally
rooted to Trump and Russians hacking the DNC and using
WikiLeaks to ruin Hillary Clinton. Without the DNC "hack"
there is nothing to Russia's interference in the election or
any Trump collusion. Seth Rich is the Redline.
Hannity and
CTH can go on and on about all of this but, not Seth Rich.
Mention Seth Rich and get your chain yanked. Everything now
reflects a Limited Hangout. They've been caught, and they're
cutting their losses. What will "they" do to keep Seth
Rich's real killers hidden forever from public view?
You folks are missing the point. Mueller has been at this
for 9 months. He has come up with basically nothing, nada,
zip, zilch. To make himself and Rosie look better they
indict the evil Rooskies and say "aha I told you there was
something there". It is a punt and a fairly transparent one.
The cases against Manafort and Flynn will be dropped for
prosecutorial malfeasance, withholding of evidence, flawed
FISA warrants etc.
It tells me there is no case against not
only Trump but also no case against any higher ups in either
the campaign or the administration. It is a way of saving
face for Mueller and Rosenstein but they may have their own
worries soon enough or perhaps a deal has already been made.
"... As part of their defense, BuzzFeed issued a subpoena to the DNC for information which might help them defend against Gubarev's lawsuit by verifying claims in the dossier - including "digital remnants left by the Russian state operatives," as well as a full version of the hacking report prepared by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. ..."
"... Since the DNC wouldn't let the FBI look at the server and instead relied on the report prepared by CrowdStrike (founded by Russian expat Dimitri Alperovitch - who sits on the very Anti-Russian Atlantic Council along with Evelyn " oops! " Farkas. The AC is funded by the US State Department, NATO, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukranian Oligarch Victor Pinchuk, who apparently owns the Ukrainian gas company Joe Biden's son is on the board of). ..."
"... If the DNC is compelled to turn over the full CrowdStrike report and "digital remnants," perhaps Gubarev would then present a counter-analysis by researcher Forensicator which CrowdStrike apparently "missed" - revealing that the DNC files were copied at 22.6 MB/s - all but confirming that the files had to have been copied locally by an inside source. Many have speculated that DNC IT staffer Seth Rich, whose murder is still unsolved, was the source of the emails provided to WikiLeaks. ..."
"... Word of BuzzFeed's suit against the DNC comes on the heels of a Monday revelation that the news outlet hired a former top FBI and White House cybersecurity official to fly around the globe on a secret mission to corroborate various claims in the dossier. ..."
"... The probe is being conducted by Anthony Ferrante - formerly the FBI's top official in charge of "cyber incident response" at the U.S. National Security Council under the Obama administration. Ferrante is leading the investigation from his new employer, D.C.-based business advisory firm, Forensic Technologies International (FTI) consulting reports Foreign Policy ..."
"... Wouldn't it be funny if BuzzFeed proves the DNC wasn't hacked? ..."
BuzzFeed is suing the
cash-strapped Democratic National Committee (DNC) to force them to hand over information
related to the "Steele Dossier" that might help the news outlet defend itself against a lawsuit
lodged by a Russian businessman who was named in the document. Three separate lawsuits have
been launched against BuzzFeed in connection to the January 11, 2017 publication of the
dossier, which states that Russian tech executive Aleksej Gubarev used his web hosting
companies to hack into the DNC's computer systems.
The dossier, without substantiation, said Gubarev's U.S.-based global web-hosting
companies, XBT and Webzilla, planted digital bugs, transmitted viruses and conducted altering
operations against the Democratic Party leadership.
While one key name in the dossier was blackened out by BuzzFeed, Gubarev's was not. He
alleges that he was never contacted for comment, suffering reputational harm in the process.
-
Foreign Policy
As part of their defense, BuzzFeed issued a subpoena to the DNC for information which might
help them defend against Gubarev's lawsuit by verifying claims in the dossier - including
"digital remnants left by the Russian state operatives," as well as a full version of the
hacking report prepared by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
Since the DNC wouldn't let the FBI look at the server and instead relied on the report
prepared by CrowdStrike (founded by Russian expat Dimitri Alperovitch - who sits on the very
Anti-Russian Atlantic Council along with Evelyn "
oops! " Farkas. The AC is funded by the US State Department, NATO, Latvia, Lithuania, and
Ukranian
Oligarch Victor Pinchuk, who apparently owns the Ukrainian gas
company Joe Biden's son is on the board of).
"As part of the discovery process, BuzzFeed is attempting to verify claims in the dossier
that relate to the hacking of the DNC," said BuzzFeed spokesman Matt Mittenhal in a statement.
"We're asking a federal court to force the DNC to follow the law and allow BuzzFeed to fully
defend its First Amendment rights."
Last month, the DNC claimed that providing the requested information would expose the DNC's
internal operations and harm the party politically (it's always someone else's fault, no?).
"If these documents were disclosed, the DNC's internal operations, as well as its ability to
effectively achieve its political goals, would be harmed ," said DNC lawyers.
If the DNC is compelled to turn over the full CrowdStrike report and "digital remnants,"
perhaps Gubarev would then present a counter-analysis by researcher Forensicator which
CrowdStrike apparently "missed" - revealing that the DNC files were copied at
22.6 MB/s - all but confirming that the files had to have been copied locally by an inside
source. Many have speculated that DNC IT staffer Seth Rich, whose murder is still unsolved, was
the source of the emails provided to WikiLeaks.
Word of BuzzFeed's suit against the DNC comes on the heels of a Monday revelation that the
news outlet hired a former top FBI and White House cybersecurity official to fly around the
globe on a secret mission to corroborate various claims in the dossier.
The probe is being conducted by Anthony Ferrante - formerly the FBI's top official in charge
of "cyber incident response" at the U.S. National Security Council under the Obama
administration. Ferrante is leading the investigation from his new employer, D.C.-based
business advisory firm, Forensic Technologies International (FTI) consulting reports
Foreign Policy.
At FTI, Ferrante launched what's now been a months-long stealth effort chasing down
documents and conducting interviews on the ground in various countries around the world. His
team directed BuzzFeed lawyers to subpoena specific data and testimony from dozens of
agencies or companies across the country and assembled a cyber ops war room to analyze that
dat a, according to sources familiar with the work.
Considering that much of the Steele dossier came from a collaboration with high level
Kremlin officials (a collusion if you will), one has to wonder exactly what channels
Ferrante and FTI have tapped in order to access such information.
Wouldn't it be funny if BuzzFeed proves the DNC wasn't hacked?
"... The pro-Hillary warmongering media, the ones that pushed for war in Iraq and elsewhere, through big lies and false evidence, are the vanguard of this ugly machine that supports the most terrible Trump administration bills, yet, this machine can't stop accusing him for 'colluding' with Russia that 'interfered' in the 2016 US election. Of course, no evidence presented for such an accusation and no one really can explain what that 'interference' means. ..."
"... They're accusing the President of the United States of being a Russian agent, this has never happened in American history. However much you may loathe Trump, this is a whole new realm of defamation. For a number of years, there's been a steady degradation of American political culture and discourse, generally. There was a time when I hoped or thought that it would be the Democratic Party that would push against that degradation ..."
"... Now, however, though I'm kind of only nominally, a Democrat, it's the Democratic Party that's degrading our political culture and our discourse. So, this is MSNBC, which purports to be not only the network of the Democratic Party, but the network of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, is now actually because this guy was a semi-anchor was asking the question to an American senator, " Do you think that Representative Nunes, because he wants the memo released, has been compromised by the Kremlin? " ..."
"... And by the way, if people will say, " Well, it's a weak capitulation of McCarthyism, " I say no, it's much more than that because McCarthy was obsessed with Communist. That was a much narrower concept than being obsessed with anybody who might be under Russian influence of any kind. The so-called affinity for Russia. Well, I have a profound affinity for Russian culture and for Russian history. I study it all the time. This is something new. And so, when you accuse a Republican or any Congressman of being a Kremlin agent, this has become a commonplace. We are degraded. ..."
"... We are building up our military presence there, so the Russians are counter-building up, though within their territory. That means the chances of hot war are now much greater than they were before. ..."
"... Every time Trump has tried with Putin to reach a cooperative arrangement, for example, on fighting terrorism in Syria, which is a necessary purpose, literally, the New York Times and the others call him treasonous. Whereas, in the old days, the old Cold War, we had a robust discussion. There is none here. We have no alert system that's warning the American people and its representatives how dangerous this is. And as we mentioned before, it's not only Nunes, it's a lot of people who are being called Kremlin agents because they want to digress from the basic narrative. ..."
"... Meanwhile, people in Moscow who formed their political establishment, who surround Putin and the Kremlin, I mean, the big brains who are formed policy tankers, and who have always tended to be kind of pro-American, and very moderate, have simply come to the conclusion that war is coming. ..."
"... The Democrats couldn't had downgrade their party further. This disgusting spectacle would make FDR totally ashamed of what this party has become. Not only they are voting for every pro-plutocracy GOP bill under Trump administration, but they have become champions in bringing back a much worse and unpredictable Cold War that is dangerously escalating tension with Russia. ..."
How Russiagate fiasco destroys Kremlin moderates, accelerating danger for a hot war with Russiaglobinfo freexchange
Corporate Democrats can't stop pushing for war through the Russiagate fiasco.
The party has been completely taken over by the neocon/neoliberal establishment and has nothing to do with the Left. The pro-Hillary
warmongering media, the ones that pushed for war in Iraq and elsewhere, through big lies and false evidence, are the vanguard of
this ugly machine that supports the most terrible Trump administration bills, yet, this machine can't stop accusing him for 'colluding'
with Russia that 'interfered' in the 2016 US election. Of course, no evidence presented for such an accusation and no one really
can explain what that 'interference' means.
But things are probably much worse, because this completely absurd persistence on Russiagate fiasco that feeds an evident anti-Russian
hysteria, destroys all the influence of the Kremlin moderates who struggle to keep open channels between Russia and the United States.
Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies, history, and politics at NY University and Princeton University, explained
to Aaron Maté and the RealNews
the terrible consequences:
They're accusing the President of the United States of being a Russian agent, this has never happened in American history. However
much you may loathe Trump, this is a whole new realm of defamation. For a number of years, there's been a steady degradation of American
political culture and discourse, generally. There was a time when I hoped or thought that it would be the Democratic Party that would
push against that degradation.
Now, however, though I'm kind of only nominally, a Democrat, it's the Democratic Party that's degrading our political culture
and our discourse. So, this is MSNBC, which purports to be not only the network of the Democratic Party, but the network of the progressive
wing of the Democratic Party, is now actually because this guy was a semi-anchor was asking the question to an American senator,
" Do you think that Representative Nunes, because he wants the memo released, has been compromised by the Kremlin? "
I think all of us need to focus on what's happened in this country when in the very mainstream, at the highest, most influential
levels of the political establishment, this kind of discourse is no longer considered an exception. It is the norm. We hear it daily
from MSNBC and CNN, from the New York Times and the Washington Post, that people who doubt the narrative of what's loosely called
Russiagate are somehow acting on behalf of or under the spell of the Kremlin, that we aren't Americans any longer. And by the way,
if people will say, " Well, it's a weak capitulation of McCarthyism, " I say no, it's much more than that because McCarthy
was obsessed with Communist. That was a much narrower concept than being obsessed with anybody who might be under Russian influence
of any kind. The so-called affinity for Russia. Well, I have a profound affinity for Russian culture and for Russian history. I study
it all the time. This is something new. And so, when you accuse a Republican or any Congressman of being a Kremlin agent, this has
become a commonplace. We are degraded.
The new Cold War is unfolding not far away from Russia, like the last in Berlin, but on Russia's borders in the Baltic and in
Ukraine. We are building up our military presence there, so the Russians are counter-building up, though within their territory.
That means the chances of hot war are now much greater than they were before. Meanwhile, not only do we not have a discussion of
these real dangers in the United States but anyone who wants to incite a discussion, including the President of the United States,
is called treasonous. Every time Trump has tried with Putin to reach a cooperative arrangement, for example, on fighting terrorism
in Syria, which is a necessary purpose, literally, the New York Times and the others call him treasonous. Whereas, in the old days,
the old Cold War, we had a robust discussion. There is none here. We have no alert system that's warning the American people and
its representatives how dangerous this is. And as we mentioned before, it's not only Nunes, it's a lot of people who are being called
Kremlin agents because they want to digress from the basic narrative.
Meanwhile, people in Moscow who formed their political establishment, who surround Putin and the Kremlin, I mean, the big brains
who are formed policy tankers, and who have always tended to be kind of pro-American, and very moderate, have simply come to the
conclusion that war is coming. They can't think of a single thing to tell the Kremlin to offset hawkish views in the Kremlin. Every
day, there's something new. And these were the people in Moscow who are daytime peacekeeping interlockers. They have been
destroyed by Russiagate. Their influence as Russia is zilch. And the McCarthyites in Russia, they have various terms, now
called the pro-American lobby in Russia 'fifth columnists'. This is the damage that's been done. There's never been anything like
this in my lifetime.
The Democrats couldn't had downgrade their party further. This disgusting spectacle would make FDR totally ashamed of what this party
has become. Not only they are voting for every pro-plutocracy GOP bill under Trump administration, but they have become champions
in bringing back a much worse and unpredictable Cold War that is dangerously escalating tension with Russia.
And, unfortunately,
even the most progressives of the Democrats are adopting the Russiagate bogus, like Bernie Sanders, because they know that if they
don't obey to the narratives, the DNC establishment will crush them politically in no time.
"... The DP is a neoliberal party which has been able to distinguish itself from Republicans by campaigning like progressives, but governing as neoliberals. ..."
"... Trump ran his campaign as a populist who would "drain the swamp." He opposed trade deals, and corporations relocating their factories outside the US. The Clinton campaign ran mostly negative personal attacks at Trump's failed marriages, his university, business bankruptcies, abuse of women, and his Russian connection. ..."
"... The DP has a real problem, how can they continue to be a neoliberal party, and cooperate with the RP, while pretending to support progressive causes when more and more people realize the charade and are demanding real progressive change? ..."
Victor Sciamarelli says: February 10, 2018 at 2:35 pm
An interesting article especially the conclusion under "Top Priorities" where it states, "It
is here that Russiagate performs a critical function for Trump's political foes. Far beyond
Israelgate, Russiagate allows them [democrats] to oppose Trump while obscuring key areas where
they either share his priorities or have no viable alternative."
This is important and I largely agree, but the observation could have gone further. The
DP is a neoliberal party which has been able to distinguish itself from Republicans by
campaigning like progressives, but governing as neoliberals.
Trump ran his campaign as a populist who would "drain the swamp." He opposed trade
deals, and corporations relocating their factories outside the US. The Clinton campaign ran
mostly negative personal attacks at Trump's failed marriages, his university, business
bankruptcies, abuse of women, and his Russian connection. Jill Stein was attacked and
brought before the Senate Intelligence Committee because the dossier claimed, falsely, that she
accepted payment from Russia to attend a RT event in Moscow. And we all know what happened to
the Sanders' campaign.
None of this would matter because Clinton was expected to win. Trump is a hypocrite and a
fake populist but the populist message resonated with voters. Bernie Sanders, the real deal
populist, remains the most popular politician in America and he is the most popular democratic
politician among Republican voters.
The recent FISA reauthorization bill passed with 65 House Democrats who joined Trump and the
Republicans. In 2002 the DP controlled the Senate, but 29 Dems joined Republicans to pass the
Iraq War Resolution along with 82 House Dems. And was the Republican regime change in Iraq
better than the Democratic regime change in Libya? And recall that Hugo Chavez, who was
democratically elected, governed constitutionally, and complied with international law, and if
he ever crossed a line it was trivial compared to the lines Bush crossed, was labeled a
dictator and attacked much like Putin is today.
The DP has a real problem, how can they continue to be a neoliberal party, and cooperate
with the RP, while pretending to support progressive causes when more and more people realize
the charade and are demanding real progressive change?
Maintaining a neoliberal course on behalf of elite interests is more important than winning
elections. Thus, while Trump is investigated, the DP and supportive media are preparing to
demonize progressives and any alternative voices as nothing more than Russian puppets.
"... But not only did Rosenstein discuss with Trump the firing of Comey, he went back to Justice to produce the document to justify what the president had decided to do. ..."
"... How can Rosenstein oversee Mueller's investigation into the firing of James Comey when he was a witness to and a participant in the firing of James Comey? ..."
The most plausible hypothesis is that Steele was simply telling Fusion and the DNC what they wanted to hear to collect the money.
When you go on a witch hunt you're going to find witches.
From the Nunes memo, there was, at the highest level of the FBI, a cabal determined to derail Trump and elect Clinton. Heading
the cabal was Comey, who made the call to exonerate Hillary of criminal charges for imperiling national security secrets, even before
his own FBI investigation was concluded.
Assisting Comey was Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whose wife, running for a Virginia state senate seat, received a windfall of
$467,000 in contributions from Clinton bundler Terry McAuliffe.
Last week, McCabe was discharged from the FBI. Seems that in late September 2016, he learned from his New York field office that
it was sitting on a trove of emails between Anthony Weiner and his wife, Clinton aide Huma Abedin, which potentially contained security
secrets.
Not until late October did Comey inform Congress of what deputy McCabe had known a month earlier.
Other FBI plotters were Peter Strzok, chief investigator in both the Clinton email server scandal and Russiagate, and his FBI
girlfriend, Lisa Page. Both were ousted from the Mueller investigation when their anti-Trump bias and behavior were exposed last
summer.
Filling out the starting five was Bruce Ohr, associate deputy attorney general under Loretta Lynch. In 2016, Ohr's wife was working
for Fusion GPS, the oppo research arm of the Clinton campaign, and Bruce was in direct contact with Steele.
Now virtually all of this went down before Robert Mueller was named special counsel. But the poisoned roots of the Russiagate
investigation and the bristling hostility of the investigators to Trump must cast a cloud of suspicion over whatever charges Mueller
will bring.
Now another head may be about to fall, that of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
If Mueller has given up trying to prove Trump collusion with the Kremlin and moved on to obstruction of justice charges, Rosenstein
moves into the crosshairs.
For the heart of any obstruction scenario is Trump's firing of James Comey and his boasting about why he did it.
But not only did Rosenstein discuss with Trump the firing of Comey, he went back to Justice to produce the document to justify
what the president had decided to do.
How can Rosenstein oversee Mueller's investigation into the firing of James Comey when he was a witness to and a participant in
the firing of James Comey?
The Roman poet Juvenal's question comes to mind. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will watch the watchmen?
Consider where we are. Mueller is investigating alleged Trump collusion with Russia, and the White House is all lawyered up.
The House intel committee is investigating Clinton-FBI collusion to defeat Trump and break his presidency. FBI Inspector General
Michael Horowitz is looking into whether the fix was in to give Hillary a pass in the probe of her email server.
Comey has been fired, his deputy McCabe removed, his chief investigator Strzok ousted by Mueller for bigoted anti-Trump behavior,
alongside his FBI paramour, Page. Bruce Ohr has been demoted for colluding with Steele, who was caught lying to the FBI and fired,
and for his wife's role in Fusion GPS, which was being paid to dig up dirt on Trump for Clinton's campaign
If Americans are losing confidence in the FBI, whose fault is that? Is there not evidence that a hubristic cadre at the apex of
the FBI -- Comey, McCabe, Strzok foremost among them -- decided the Republic must be saved from Trump and, should Hillary fail, they
would step in and move to abort the Trump presidency at birth?
To the deep state, the higher interests of the American people almost always coincide with their own.
a hubristic cadre at the apex of the FBI -- Comey, McCabe, Strzok foremost among them -- decided the Republic must be saved
from Trump and, should Hillary fail, they would step in and move to abort the Trump presidency at birth?
Beautifully written article Mr. Buchanan
To the deep state, the higher interests of the American people almost always coincide with their own.
What it always looks like to me, is that the interests of the deep state never coincide with the actual interests of
the American people, and that indeed, they are mutually incompatible.
It seems to me that one of, if not the main motivation of the deep state is to dismantle the American people's Constitutional
rights, disarm then, and set about creating an Orwellian dystopia for the purpose of exerting total power over them.
Who doubts that Hillary's very grotesque existence is one big collective desire of a certain bent of people to wield total
power over others? Why else would she publically cackle at the torture/murder of a man she disliked unless she figured her audience
agreed that his murder was a good thing, and that once she came to power, that she's really get to the business of putting it
to those deplorables but good! Not for anything they ever did, but for what they were – irredeemable.
In fact, I see the deep state today as an exact incarnation of Orwell's Ingsoc, with it's total surveillance police state,
and all the other tyrannical state power abuses over every aspect of our lives. (Even with the ubiquitous televisions with the
microphones and cameras monitored by the Ministry of Love)
we have the Newspeak speech codes on our universities. The places where our young and brightest are supposed to be taught to
think, and they're doing the opposite- by creating mindless drones who parrot doubleplus good PC bromides.
we have the Eternal Wars
we have the ((inner party))
we have the two minute hate for the Hitler du jour, (Osama, Saddam, Gadhafi, Assad, now Putin )
we have the Ministry of Truth = msm fake news 24/7 lies and more lies
we have the Ministry of Love = Gitmo
we have the all pervasive fear that governs our conversations and alters our behavior. How many dare to discuss the
inner party at dinner parties or at work? How many dare to flout the speech codes?
1984 was the most prescient book ever written, with a nod to The Protocols, as runner up. And the deep state today is nothing
more than what Orwell was writing about. Men and women who seek power for its own sake. And have a deep-seated imperative to wield
that power over others.
That's what the memo is about. Power-crazed assholes hell bent on putting their boot on our collective faces. And mashing it
in.
who doubts, for one second, that John Brenan
(or Hillary or John McCain ) would relish the opportunity to put the metaphorical 'deplorable' in this chair?
for some reason, when I look at that photo, (a peek into the id of the deep state personality) I see Ron Paul in that chair,
with Rudy Giuliani standing there, but it could just as easily be Edward Snowden in the chair, with Dick Cheney presiding..
But the reason I'm belaboring this Orwellian theme is because it is quintessentially salient to this subject of the deep state.
George really laid it all out for us, with the motivations and methods and thoughtcrimes and doublethink and all the rest
"George really laid it all out for us, with the motivations and methods and thoughtcrimes and doublethink and all the rest
"
True enough, but it was Huxley who nailed the underlying theme that made it all possible; the people will trade all of their
other rights for complete sexual freedom.
Orwell's 1984 was an exposition of Totalitarianism, with the Inner Party using these mechanisms because they work. Like you
say, the whole package is now present in the US, although the Inner Party doesn't yet have sufficient power to use full state
violence against the public.
But at some point they'll have to , since the system is based on the implicit threat of violence against dissidents, and it
has to become explicit (social exclusion is not enough). So, realistically, the cabal needs a National Emergency with an official
suspension of Democracy, probably using the framework for emergency rule already in place under Reagan era COG (Continuity of
Government) legislation.
The 9/11 Coup was a failed attempt to activate a COG dictatorship under Cheney (halted by the events in Florida that morning),
but the same planners will inevitably try again. Their private security depends on public insecurity, allowing them to turn the
mechanisms of state power against the public, while paradoxically, they live by the integrity of this same hijacked state structure.
If the state should melt away in generalized anarchy, then the levers of power would no longer work, and they would face the
fate of Ceausescu or Gaddafi – hence the deceptive Doublespeak of the "Patriot Act" and "Homeland Security".
I'm not following this story much because it's boring but I will always be a fan of Nunes by the enemies he keeps. Ana Navarro,
the 'Latina' battle-axe who is a 'Never Trump' 'Republitard' was on TV and made sure to let everybody know that Nunes was not
an Hispanic. He's of Portugese decent, racial politics. LOL Devin Nunes is ok in my book. Hopefully he's not an Israeli firster.
Your information is wrong as always, Corvinky. The leftist "Russian collusion" narrative is collapsing and (((Seth))) and other
lefties are desperate to keep it alive with spin and fake facts. That's why it's quietly changed from claims of collusion to obstruction
of justice since there's no evidence of the former.
If there was other corroborating evidence then why absolutely no mention of it until now? If the (((lamestream media))) knew
and sat on it then they are colluding with the Democrat party on how and what to report which we already know they do. And it
proves that the (((media)) is hyper partisan and not independent but anyone with half a brain already knows that also.
If there was really any evidence of Trump collusion the NSA would have it, but they don't. In fact, it was the NSA that threatened
to spill the beans on the origins of the Steele dossier if the FBI and DOJ failed did not come clean to the FISA court.
San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore. "Science is our best witness in this case. It is not biased and it doesn't lie."
According to police, Zahau bound her own hands and feet with a thick red rope and hanged herself naked off the second-floor
balcony of a guest bedroom. She appeared to have secured one section of the rope to the footboard of the bed before she bound
her feet, wrapped the rope around her neck, tied her hands behind her back, walked to the balcony, and propelled herself over
the railing.
indeed, I suspect that it is because they so often get away with such things that this mega-wealthy Hollywood insider figured
he'd also get away with it.
"Well, then," he said to the police, "I guess you'll have to find out who did it."
Doesn't work that way in a criminal investigation. Man, you really have little clue how our legal system works.
Obviously, you don't either. As someone who was against the Clinton witch hunt that created a perjury trap when they couldn't
get him on real charges related to Whitewater, I can see perfectly well that this is similar – drag this on and on until they
can create some process crime.
There's now a mountain of evidence that shows that they are lying, and the only way for US society to stabilize, is to pull
every thread of the 9/11 shroud until the whole rotten enterprise is revealed, and the US public can see the plotters in daylight.
[Robert] Mueller took over the FBI one week before the 9/11 attacks
His protestations helped the Bush administration railroad the Patriot Act through Congress, vastly expanding the FBI's prerogatives
to vacuum up Americans' personal information
whoever pulls down the "Democratic" facade will be doing the US a favour.
not just the US. They'll be doing the whole planet a favor. 9/11 has been the pretext for serial wars of aggression against
nations that have done us no harm. It has been used as the pretext for the total police / surveillance state that has eviscerated
our constitution, and rendered it a worthless piece of toilet paper, all to the bovine cud-chewing apathy of the dumbed down Americanus
Bovinus. Who can't wait for the next Hollywood movie based on cartoon characters to come out on the big screen.
I was poised to leave this country if Hillary became potus, and still wonder if there's any hope at all.
These psychopaths are as bad as they get. These Straussian neocons and tribalist Jewish supremacists are bad news, man. Very,
very bad news. They're ideologically driven by a Satanic imperative to dominate, and they will never, ever stop. Until
they are stopped. And that would require a resolve that the Americanus Bovinus is endemically incapable of, because it necessitates
a spiritual mettle that's been systematically bred out of them.
They'd rather embrace their smart device chains, than suffer the egregious enormity of breaking a societal taboo or politically
correct norm. And this has all been very systematically constructed with schools that dumb them down, and universities that create
slavish fealty to virtue signaling uber alles.
It's all so very tragic, because for one thing, these people had it made! They're the most wealthy and powerful demographic
in the country. They enjoy assess and perks wildly out of proportion to their fellow Americans. But that is not enough! Then want
that boot on everyone's neck and they want it now, God damn it!
So the world is driven to the brink to sate an insatiable appetite for grandiose megalomaniacal power. And once they have the
power, what fun is that unless you use it?
George Soros doesn't want his son to see the fall of Europa and Western civilization, HE wants to see it! He wants to cackle
like Hillary was able to over the murder of Gadhafi, only he want the stake though the heart of Hungary in particular.
It's this psychotic need of these people to see everyone else suffer, while they laugh at the misery, knowing that they caused
it all. Whether it's in Palestine or Libya or Ferguson. Hate all day long, and with a bottomless pit of rancor and bile tossed
in for good measure.
Hell, when I contemplate them and their obsession to hate, all day, every day, I almost feel pity. Almost.
hatred of Trump is such that a huge slice of the country would support his removal by extralegal, unconstitutional means.
This is bigger than Watergate, a conspiracy at the highest levels, and before it's over, will decide the fate of the nation.
I just hope Trump is up to the task.
I very much agree.
I know of liberals who're despondent, and nearly catatonic over Trump. I've heard it said they're psychologically in the fetal
position, unable to cope with the ascendancy of Les Deplorables. Or, more precisely, the altering trajectory that doesn't have
a demographic dagger being plunged into the necks of 'the irredeemables' and their children as we speak.
They've been so rapturous over the looming evisceration of heritage America for so long, that having to wait a few more extra
years until that glorious day when the 'patriarchy' is dead and in its grave- is existential for them. Of course! they'd subvert
our 'democracy' and Constitution and all notions of decency in their butt-hurt quest, since they've never had a shred of integrity
to begin with. They don't even know what the word means, except as something to mock.
I wonder why when I replace Mueller with Starr in your post I seem to get the same conclusion?
However, I will give you this, Mueller is a POS protecting the Deep State against somebody he deems not worthy of a seat at
the table. Starr was a sanctimonious POS thinking he was leading a crusade to keep an uncouth lowbrow sleazeball out of an exalted
position.
However, I would suggest that some in the cabal have understood, all along, that in order for their dreams and plans to materialize,
there would have to be a Long March through the institutions and while they were conquering the institutions, the masses would
have to be given their breads and circuses.
A fellow traveler of our cause once said to me, words to the effect that, "they'll let you go on your football trips, and they'll
let the drunks enjoy their Budweiser, and of course they'll let people go to the movies and out to dinner."
Wow, the fact that they are talking about talking points to Comey to brief Obama is the big cookie. Obama's legacy is destroyed
completely.
That implements Comey and Obama as traitors. Why does Comey keep tweeting shit? Dude should be lawyering up and perhaps thinking
about getting out of the country.
Hey, Dems? Do we have a Constitutional Crisis yet? LOL at these fuckers.
The best defense is a strong offense. For Comey this worked for a while but I think those days are over. If he was smart he
would lawyer up and shut the fuck up.
Clinton emails found on September 28 and Comey didn't know until October 28, who believes that load of crap.
As soon as I heard in 2007 that the NY Times couldn't find anyone at Columbia who knew Obama,I knew something was up.Columbia
seems to be the default college for frauds with Van Doren,"Dr."Bob Harris,and Meadow Soprano.
. . .yeah and I recall the professor of Political Science who said: never saw him and I knew EVERY student who studied Poli-sci.
It is impossible that I would not have known him. -- or words to that effect.
I'm wondering where Seth
Rich fits into the whole
scenario.
Did he
discover the Hillary/DNC
plot? Was he going to
leak that information?
I'm not sure if the
timeline surrounding his
death fits, but I'm
curious about it.
Can someone here add
some clarification on
this hypothesis?
long winded, but you could start here for some lite bg reading on the
events of the summer of 2016:
July 10, 2016
: DNC
staffer Seth Rich, whose title is reported as "voter expansion data
director," is murdered in the street near his home in Washington, DC.
The police will attribute his murder to robbery, although nothing was
stolen from Rich. His murder remains unsolved.
Here, thanks to William Craddick of
Disobedient Media
, is the crime report, which tells us that three of
the officers at the scene were wearing body cams.
"
I
mran Awan, the former DNC staffer who was arrested
this week while trying to flee the United States, was with Seth Rich the
night of his murder, according to new photographic evidence.
Police who originally investigated the murder suggested that Seth
Rich might have been killed by someone he knew, due to the lack of
struggle. The killer also took nothing from the victim, leaving behind
his wallet containing $2000, watch and phone.
The photo, which directly links Imran Awan to Seth Rich, also links
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Awan's former employer, to the former Seth
Rich's death.
there's bunches more available via your favorite search engine, but
that might pique your curiosity.
It was not only that Steele memo enabled eavesdropping. More troubling fact that FBI considered both Trump and Sanders as
insurgents and was adamant to squash them and ensure Hillary victory. In other word it tried to play the role of kingmaker.
Notable quotes:
"... The former British spy Steele had been hired by the Democratic Party via Fusion GPS to dig up dirt about Donald Trump. He came back with a package of "reports" which alleged that Trump was "colluding" with Russia or even a puppet of Putin. The content of the reports is hilarious and so obviously made up that one wonders how anyone could have treated it seriously. ..."
"... Getting a FISA warrant on Carter Page meant that all his communication with the Trump campaign was effectively under surveillance of the Obama administration. While Page was no longer an official member of the campaign at the time of the warrant it is likely that he had kept contact. All internal communication that Page had access to was thereby also accessible for at least some people who tried to prevent a Trump election victory. ..."
"... One may (like me) dislike Trump and the Republican party and all they stand for. But this looks like an extremely dirty play by the Democrats and by the Obama administration far outside of any decency and fairness. The Steele dossier is obviously made up partisan nonsense. To the use it for such a FISA warrant was against the most basic rules of a democratic system. It probably broke several laws. ..."
Over the last month political enemies of U.S. President Trump and the FBI and Justice
Department have desperately tried to prevent the publishing of a memo written by the Republican
controlled House Intelligence Committee.
The memo (pdf) describes parts of the process that let to court sanctioned spying on the
Trump campaign. The
key points of the memo that was just published:
* The Steele dossier formed an essential part of the initial and all three renewal FISA
applications against Carter Page.
* Andrew McCabe confirmed that no FISA warrant would have been sought from the FISA Court
without the Steele dossier information.
* The political origins of the Steele dossier were known to senior DOJ and FBI officials,
but excluded from the FISA applications.
* DOJ official Bruce Ohr met with Steele beginning in the summer of 2016 and relayed to
DOJ information about Steele's bias. Steele told Ohr that he, Steele, was desperate that
Donald Trump not get elected president and was passionate about him not becoming
president.
If the above memo proves to be correct one can conclude that a Democratic front organization
created "evidence" that was then used by the FBI and the Obama Justice Department to get FISA
warrants to spy on someone with intimate contacts into the Trump campaign.
The Democrats as well as the FBI have done their utmost to keep this secret.
Carter Page was a relative low ranking volunteer advisor of the Trump campaign with some
business contacts to Russia. He had officially left the campaign shortly before the above FISA
warrant was requested.
Andrew McCabe was an FBI assistant director. A few month earlier his wife ran for a Virginia
State Senate seat with the help of $700,000 she had received from Clinton allies.
The wife of DOJ official Bruce Ohr worked for Fusion GPS, the outlet hired by the Democrats
to find Trump dirt. Fusion GPS hired the former British agent Steele.
The former British spy Steele had been hired by the Democratic Party via Fusion GPS to dig
up dirt about Donald Trump. He came back with a package of "reports" which alleged that Trump
was "colluding" with Russia or even a puppet of Putin. The content of the reports is hilarious
and
so obviously made up that one wonders how anyone could have treated it seriously.
Getting a FISA warrant on Carter Page meant that all his communication with the Trump
campaign was effectively under surveillance of the Obama administration. While Page was no
longer an official member of the campaign at the time of the warrant it is likely that he had
kept contact. All internal communication that Page had access to was thereby also accessible
for at least some people who tried to prevent a Trump election victory.
One must wonder if the FISA warrant and eavesdropping on Page was the only one related to
the Trump campaign.
One may (like me) dislike Trump and the Republican party and all they stand for. But this
looks like an extremely dirty play by the Democrats and by the Obama administration far outside
of any decency and fairness. The Steele dossier is obviously made up partisan nonsense. To the
use it for such a FISA warrant was against the most basic rules of a democratic system. It
probably broke several laws.
There are still many questions: What was, exactly, the result of the surveillance of Carter
Page and the Trump campaign? Who was getting these results - officially and unofficially? How
were they used?
I am pretty sure now that more heads of those involved will role. Some of the people who
arranged the scheme, and some of those who tried to cover it up, may go to jail.
If Trump and the Republicans play this right they have practically won the next
elections.
"... Trumps victory was a defeat for the corrupt political duopoly. The Uniparty. Trump is not our savior. But he is a foot in the door. Welcome aboard Mike. ..."
"... The Democrats are now the party of the Wall Street bankers. Congrats to the Clintons and the Gores, because this was their dream when they started the Democratic Leadership Council back in the '80′s. ..."
"... The Democrat campaigns before the Clintons struck were very different. The Chamber of Commerce Republican campaigns always had more money. The Democrats weren't broke, but they always had less. But they always had grassroots efforts going door to door. ..."
"... Looking backwards, its obvious why the Clintons didn't like this. Campaigns that had less money meant less money going into their pockets and into the consultants pockets. ..."
"... If you love bankers and nuclear war, then be a proud Democrat. If not, run like heck and get away from the party of bankers and nuclear war. ..."
The Democrats don't seem to understand that the Russia investigation has made Trump stronger
not weaker. They don't see that their evidence-free probe has strengthened Trump's base and
convinced his supporters that their leader is being unfairly attacked. (According to a January
Quinnipiac survey, a full eighty-three percent of Republicans believe the current investigation
is "a witch hunt". The data suggests that Russia-gate has rallied Trump's backers to his
defense.) Dems don't grasp that, in the last 12 months, Trump has pushed through a massive tax
bill followed by immigration reform that has broadened his support and silenced his GOP
critics. When Trump took office, McConnell, Ryan and Graham were all on opposite sides of the
political divide. Now Trump has them eating out of his hand. He took a fractious, splintered
party and forced them to fall in line. Trump has succeeded in unifying his base while the
collusion fiasco has had no noticeable impact at all. None.
As for the Dems, well, the Dems still refuse to pay attention to their own polling data that
says that rank-and-file members want less emphasis on Russia and more emphasis on jobs, college
tuition, health care, and entitlements. The tone-deaf Dems completely ignore that message
choosing instead to pursue a counterproductive probe that has yet to produce a scintilla of
hard evidence and that has helped to underscore the fact that the Dems have no platform, no
vision for the future, and no solutions for the problems facing ordinary working class
people.
Let me be completely honest: I don't give a flying fig about Russia, Russia hacking, Russia
meddling, Russia collusion or any other screwball thing related to Russia. What I do care about
is what's going on in this country. I do care that the man who ran on a campaign of
"non-intervention" is currently building military bases in East Syria, stirring up trouble in
the South China Sea, supporting counterinsurgency operations across Africa, facing off with
Turkey, providing bombs for the ongoing genocide in Yemen, threatening North Korea with total
annihilation, and pledging to build a new regime of "usable" nuclear weapons. That's what
worries me, not Russia. But what worries me even more is that, just when we need a strong,
highly-principled, credible opposition party to fight the good fight for wages, the
environment, social services, education, infrastructure, civil liberties, and peace– the
Democrats have turned into jello, a wobbly, gelatinous mass of ingratiating losers. What's that
all about?
The Dems are a party without a leader and without a message. They keep carping about Russia
and Trump because they have no convictions, no beliefs, and no fire in the belly. It's a party
of empty suits and phony flannel-mouth politicos. The only thing they're good at is losing,
which is an art they appear to have perfected. The problem is, that the rest of us are sick of
the party's sad-sack song-and-dance, sick of the excuses, sick of the buck passing, and sick of
losing. We want candidates who actually stand for something, who actually believe in something,
and who'll actually fight for something.
Two weeks ago, the Dems shut down the government to see if they could force Trump into
bending on the DACA issue. In less than 72 hours, they checked the polls, ran up the white
flag, and caved in. I cannot remember a more flagrant display of political cowardice in my
lifetime. Personally, I'd rather be on the side of someone who believes in something (even if
he's wrong!), than on the side of someone who believes in nothing at all. Democrat leaders
believe in nothing, which is why they are not worthy of our support. Here's how the World
Socialist Web Site summed up the DACA cave in:
"The US Senate and House of Representatives voted Monday to approve a short-term budget
resolution, putting an end to the partial shutdown of the federal government that began
midnight Friday night. The deal leaves 800,000 DACA recipients without protection in what
amounts to a total capitulation by Democrats to Trump and the Republicans ..
In the annals of cowardly capitulations, there are few spectacles that can match Monday's
collapse by the Democratic Party, which abandoned its blockade against the budget resolution
less than 72 hours after it began. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer announced the
decision in a brief, nearly blubbering speech on the Senate floor, which combined phony
invective directed against Trump with a complete surrender to the bigot-in-chief in the White
House .
The surrender was not Schumer's individual decision, but the action of the entire
Democratic caucus, which had no stomach for any serious fight .." ("Federal shutdown ends as
Democrats cave in to Trump", World Socialist Web Site)
No stomach. No guts. No spine. Admit it: The entire Democratic party leadership isn't worth
the powder to blow it to hell. It would be better for everyone if someone just put them out of
their misery.
The Dems think the midterms are going to be a landslide-blowout. But don't count on it. It's
going to take more than Russia-gate and a few glitzy photos with ME TOO celebrity-victims to
get disillusioned liberals back to the polls. It's going to take a "message", a vision, a
progressive way out of the dark, Trumpian fog we're all stuck in. Unfortunately, the Dems have
no such vision, and they're too busy chasing fictitious Russian trolls on FaceBook to give it a
second thought.
ORDER IT NOW
Look: I worked in the Democratic party at the local level. I know that the people at the
grassroots level are sincere, principled people that are truly committed to making the country
a better place for everyone. I know that! But there comes a time when you have to accept the
reality the party's leaders believe in nothing, that they are joined at the hip with arms
dealers, the neocons, the Intel agencies, Wall Street and the rest of the vermin who control
this country.
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that's the truth.
It's time to pull up our big boy pants and face the facts: The Democratic party is NOT a
suitable vehicle for the progressive agenda. It just isn't. We need to cut our losses and move
on.
This is something that has to be said and is the salient fact of the political reality today.
Once the FBI Rosenstein, Comey and Mueller et al are exposed as is likely, it will be back to
the drawing board, and Trump's sellouts to the deep state on Syria, the Ukraine, Korea and
elsewhere are fundamentally dangerous.
Look: I worked in the Democratic party at the local level. I know that the people at the
grassroots level are sincere, principled people that are truly committed to making the
country a better place for everyone. I know that! But there comes a time when you have to
accept the reality the party's leaders believe in nothing, that they are joined at the hip
with arms dealers, the Neo-cons, the Intel agencies, Wall Street and the rest of the vermin
who control this country.
Yes, it degrades as you go up the structure. Senate Democratic Party leader, dual Israeli/US citizen Charles "Chuck" Schumer was
elected unanimously in 2017, while openly declaring that he's the Nº1 defender of
Israel. You can't say the he believes in nothing – it's just that the interests of the
United States are secondary those of Israel, whatever happens. And apart from the current leaders, that also seems to apply in the past, to a host of
other dual Israeli/US citizens holding top US government positions, for example:
Look: I worked in the Democratic party at the local level.
I know that the people at the grassroots level are sincere, principled people that are
truly committed to making the country a better place for everyone.
Every politician that gets elected is committed to making the country a better place for
everyone. But once elected, the tune changes, when they get indoctrinated by the AIPAC and
get a tour of Israel.
I know that! But there comes a time when you have to accept the reality the party's
leaders believe in nothing, that they are joined at the hip with arms dealers, the
neocons, the Intel agencies, Wall Street and the rest of the vermin who control this
country.
I was a union man back when labor was part of the Dem coalition. I voted for the Dems because
the union said I should. I became neither Dem nor union man when Clinton sent my job to
Mexico. What took you so long Mike? Didn't you see what they did to Nader? Kucinich?
Sarah Palin said we have two parties. Pick one. Is that why you stuck with the Dems?
Loathing for the GOP? Fear of the political wilderness?
I used to hang out at firedoglake. Now I'm at Unz Review. One of the commenters here spoke
for me when he said, paraphrasing, I'm with the Alt Right because there is no Alt Left.
Trumps victory was a defeat for the corrupt political duopoly. The Uniparty. Trump is not
our savior. But he is a foot in the door. Welcome aboard Mike.
The Democrats are now the party of the Wall Street bankers.
Congrats to the Clintons and the Gores, because this was their dream when they started the
Democratic Leadership Council back in the '80′s.
The Democrat campaigns before the Clintons struck were very different. The Chamber of
Commerce Republican campaigns always had more money. The Democrats weren't broke, but they
always had less. But they always had grassroots efforts going door to door.
Looking backwards, its obvious why the Clintons didn't like this. Campaigns that had less
money meant less money going into their pockets and into the consultants pockets.
What the Democratic voters want, "jobs, college tuition, health care, and entitlements",
is obviously the exact opposite of what the Wall Street bankers and the other big money
behind the modern Democrats want. And in today's Democrat Party, the Big Money controls
everything. Anyone paying attention to what few primary challenges occur in the party already
knew this. And by now its public record and should be well known that the creature of the
Wall Street banks (aka Hillary) helped make sure the Bernie-Hillary race was rigged towards
the favorite candidate of the bankers.
Since the same forces are blocking any 'reform' within the party, its going to stay this
way. If anything, the party of the bankers is making sure that none of the Bernie people have
any positions of power within the party. And there is no sign that the next Presidential
nomination contest won't be as rigged, fake and corrupt as the last one. There is also no
sign of a wave of primary challenges to the banker-favorite Democrat incumbents in the
primaries that will be occuring within the coming months.
So, the drive to nuclear war suits the bankers. It makes sure the focus is off any
policies the bankers oppose, which is anything that helps anyone except the bankers. The same
bankers are invested in the nuke and defense industries that seem intent on driving the world
towards a nuclear holocaust.
If you love bankers and nuclear war, then be a proud Democrat.
If not, run like heck and get away from the party of bankers and nuclear war.
You can have a functional welfare state. You can have mass immigration.
You can't have both. Or, ordinarily you can't, not in a fiscally feasible way, as much of
Europe has found out the hard way over the past decade. America's long-time status as the
world's reserve currency let us get away with things that other countries couldn't for a few
decades, but time is running out on that status.
(And even still-immigration levels in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s were much, much less
than the torrent flood we've experienced in the 21st Century. America had a population of
"only" around 225 million in 1979, for comparison. The growth of over *100 million* we've had
since then is nearly all immigration fueled. I don't think people contemplate what 100
million people means.)
In 1972 the democrats ran McGovern on a platform of the three As : acid, abortion, and
amnesty. Richard Nixon went on to win forty nine states out of fifty, an unprecedented rout.
Today fifty years later the Democrats are still running on the three As: Acid(legalization of
drugs), abortion ( total non restriction of all abortions and government funded Planned
Parenthood) and Amnesty( complete removal of any border control and the importation of any of
the seven billion people who live on planet earth). I would also add that today they have
added transgenderism and the idea that there is no difference between male and female and the
widespread belief that all science is created by the DNC and its famous "the science is
settled" dictum. If the Americans vote this absurd party into power then they deserve the
grim future that they will surely reap.
Well we are shit for after all this country and its voters really don't care how many are
slaughtered in our name, as long as it dosen't disturb Monday night football, Bob Dole
referred to the working class as "Joe six pack" and that term still applies long after Dole
left office.. Hell as far as a solution go no farther than the post on here, and just how many
agree/dis-agree with each other for its called divide and conquer and they are very good at
the game, in fact its the only game in town
President Trump has called for the release of the FISA abuse memo which reportedly lists
abuses by the DoJ/FBI,
The Washington Post reported Saturday. The DoJ warned against its release until they have
had a chance to look it over. This is the same DoJ/FBI that is stonewalling and withholding
information from Congress.
Trump reportedly told Attorney General Jeff Sessions through Chief of Staff John Kelly that
he wants to see the memo released, believing that it will shed light on the special counsel
investigation.
The decision rests with the House Intelligence Committee overseen by Chair Devin Nunes who
has said he wants to release them as early as Monday.
Consider what is now known of how Comey and the FBI set about ensuring Hillary Clinton would
not be indicted for using a private email server to transmit national security secrets. The
first draft of Comey's statement calling for no indictment was prepared before 17 witnesses,
and Hillary, were even interviewed. Comey's initial draft charged Clinton with "gross
negligence," the requirement for indictment. But his team softened that charge in subsequent
drafts to read, "extreme carelessness."
Attorney General Loretta Lynch, among others, appears to have known in advance an
exoneration of Clinton was baked in the cake. Yet Comey testified otherwise.
Also edited out of Comey's statement was that Hillary, while abroad, communicated with
then-President Obama, who had to see that her message came through a private server. Yet Obama
told the nation he only learned Hillary had been using a private server at the same time the
public did.
A trial of Hillary would have meant Obama in the witness chair being asked, "What did you
know, sir, and when did you know it?"
"... Many Americans do not seem to understand what is at stake. What America is confronted with is a coup conspiracy organized by top officials of the Obama Justice Department, FBI, CIA, the Hillary DNC, and the presstitute media to overturn the result of a democratic election and remove the president from office. The basis of the coup is a fake dossier purchased for money that consists of unsupported allegations against Trump and that was used to obtain warrants from the FISA count to spy on Trump and various associates hoping to find something that can be used against Trump. Regardless, the false allegations could be fed to the CIA's media assets and used to create a scandal requiring a special prosecutor to investigate Russiagate. ..."
"... If the highest reaches of the police state agencies can get away with an attempted or successful coup against the president of the United States, then that is the complete end of democracy and all accountability in government. The House, Senate, and judiciary will become as powerless as the Roman senate under the caesars. We will live under a dictatorship ruled by police state agencies. ..."
"... This is not minor stuff. This goes to the heart of whether any form of liberty will exist. We all know that the ability of the people to hold government accountable is not assured by democracy. However, there is no prospect of holding government accountable if it is a police state, a road that the US has been going down for some time. The audacious coup attempt against President Trump is our opportunity to stop the momentum to a police state. ..."
"... When Admiral Rodgers, director of the National Security Agency, discovered that the FBI and DOJ were misusing the spy system for partisan political reasons, he let it be known that he was going to inform the FISA court. This caused the FBI and DOJ to rush to the court in advance and confess to "mistakes" and to promise to tighten up procedures so as not to make mistakes in the future. It is these "mistakes" and corrections that the FISA court document reveals. ..."
"... In other words, the information already exists in the pubic domain that proves that Russiagate was a conspiracy organized for the purpose of bringing down the elected president of the United States ..."
"... A case can be made that it would be just as well if the coup succeeds as it would bring an end to Washington's cover as the government of a great democracy with liberty and justice for all. Most other governments, and one would hope certainly the Russian and Chinese governments, would see the coup as America's final transition into a police state and give up their utopian ideas of reaching accommodation with Washington. The constraints on Washington's ability to bully the world would be greatly strengthened by the universal perception that the government of the United States had devolved into a police state. ..."
The Republicans' delay in releasing the summary of the House Intelligence Committee's Russiagate investigation is giving weight
to the presstitutes' claim that the report is not being released, because it is a hack attempt at a Trump cover-up that is not believable.
Only Republicans are stupid enough to put themselves in such a situation.
Readers ask me why the summary memo is not released if it is real. There must be some reasons besides the stupidity of Republicans.
Yes, that is so. Among the many reasons that might be blocking release are:
1) Republicans are very national security conscious. They don't want to provide precedents for the release of classified information.
2) Many Republican congressional districts host installations of the military/security complex. Upsetting a large employer
and directing campaign financing to a challenger is a big consideration.
3) The George W. Bush/Dick Cheney regime was a neoconservative regime. One consequence is that Republicans are influenced by
neoconservatives who stress the alleged "Russian threat."
4) The Israel Lobby can unseat any member of the House and Senate. The Israel Lobby is allied with the neoconservatives and
this alliance intends to keep the US militarily active against perceived threats to Israel's hegemony in the Middle East and against
Russia, which supports Syria and Iran, countries perceived as threats by Israel.
5) Many Republicans are themselves invested in false Russiagate allegations against Trump and would like to replace him with
Pence. Other Republicans believe that Trump is undermining Washington's expensively-purchased foreign alliances and, thereby,
undermining US power.
Many Americans do not seem to understand what is at stake. What America is confronted with is a coup conspiracy organized by top
officials of the Obama Justice Department, FBI, CIA, the Hillary DNC, and the presstitute media to overturn the result of a democratic
election and remove the president from office. The basis of the coup is a fake dossier purchased for money that consists of unsupported
allegations against Trump and that was used to obtain warrants from the FISA count to spy on Trump and various associates hoping
to find something that can be used against Trump. Regardless, the false allegations could be fed to the CIA's media assets and used
to create a scandal requiring a special prosecutor to investigate Russiagate.
Once the investigation was under way, the presstitutes kept the scandal alive hoping to convince enough Americans that Trump must
have done something -- "where there is smoke, there is fire" -- that justifies his removal. It worked against Richard Nixon, but
not against Ronald Reagan, and Trump is no Reagan. If the highest reaches of the police state agencies can get away with an attempted
or successful coup against the president of the United States, then that is the complete end of democracy and all accountability
in government. The House, Senate, and judiciary will become as powerless as the Roman senate under the caesars. We will live under
a dictatorship ruled by police state agencies.
Many Americans say they don't need the House Intelligence Report, because they don't believe the Russiagate BS in the first place.
They miss the point. They need the report, because those responsible for this attempt at a coup must be identified, charged, and
prosecuted for their act of high treason.
This is not minor stuff. This goes to the heart of whether any form of liberty will exist. We all know that the ability of the
people to hold government accountable is not assured by democracy. However, there is no prospect of holding government accountable
if it is a police state, a road that the US has been going down for some time. The audacious coup attempt against President Trump
is our opportunity to stop the momentum to a police state.
Despite my recent postings, many people do not understand that the somewhat redacted FISA court document that has been declassified
and released and explained
by myself, William Binney, and former US Attorney Joe di Genova contains admissions by the FBI and DOJ that they improperly spied
and obtained warrants from the court under false pretenses. In other words, we have it on the authority of the FISA court itself
that the FBI and DOJ have admitted to the court their transgressions. When Department of Justice (sic) congressional liaison Stephen
Boyd says the DOJ is "unaware of any wrongdoing," he is lying through his teeth. The DOJ has already confessed its wrongdoing to
the FISA court.
(See
Lendman
on Boyd's claim that releasing the memo would harm national security and ongoing investigations. This is always the claim made when
government has to cover up its crimes. )
When Admiral Rodgers, director of the National Security Agency, discovered that the FBI and DOJ were misusing the spy system for
partisan political reasons, he let it be known that he was going to inform the FISA court. This caused the FBI and DOJ to rush to
the court in advance and confess to "mistakes" and to promise to tighten up procedures so as not to make mistakes in the future.
It is these "mistakes" and corrections that the FISA court document reveals.
In other words, the information already exists in the pubic domain that proves that Russiagate was a conspiracy organized for
the purpose of bringing down the elected president of the United States.
A case can be made that it would be just as well if the coup succeeds as it would bring an end to Washington's cover as the government
of a great democracy with liberty and justice for all. Most other governments, and one would hope certainly the Russian and Chinese
governments, would see the coup as America's final transition into a police state and give up their utopian ideas of reaching accommodation
with Washington. The constraints on Washington's ability to bully the world would be greatly strengthened by the universal perception
that the government of the United States had devolved into a police state.
"... It's one giant incestuous circle of corruption. And we have even more proof; James Comey testified that he gave his classified memos To Robert Mueller. ..."
"... Mueller's main focus is, has been, and continues to be carrying out a witch-hunt to unseat a duly elected President of the Untied States - President Trump. It's ridiculous and it's an abomination to our constitution and the rule of law . ..."
The Fox News anchor also notes that former FBI Director James Comey may be in hot water over
leaking a memo he says he wrote containing his concerns over President Trump pressuring him to
go easy on former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn.
Also brand new tonight we have new revelations about one of the lawyers that is now
representing disgraced former FBI director, soon to be probably investigated, national
embarrassment James Comey. According to Buzzfeed, one of Comey's attorneys turns out as his
Columbia law professor buddy - the guy he leaked the memo to to the New York Times because he
wanted a special counsel appointed, which turned out to be "oh, Comey's other BFF Robert
Mueller" You can't make this up in a spy novel!
It's one giant incestuous circle of corruption. And we have even more proof; James Comey
testified that he gave his classified memos To Robert Mueller. And according to the reports,
special counsel interviewed Comey about his memos last year. By the way, they also
collaborated before he testified. Those memos contain classified information. They were
created on government computers, so Comey broke the law by removing them from the FBI, but
it's clear that Mueller didn't care about any of that.
Mueller's main focus is, has been, and continues to be carrying out a witch-hunt to unseat
a duly elected President of the Untied States - President Trump. It's ridiculous and it's an
abomination to our constitution and the rule of law .
To recap: right before the election, Strzok and Page texted about an "
insurance policy " against Donald Trump becoming President.
"... On Monday night, Reps. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) and Trey Gowdy (R-SC) told Fox News of the "secret society" texts between FBI investigators Peter Strzok and Lisa Page - contained within a 384-page batch of text messages delivered to Congress from the DOJ last Friday. Of note Ratcliffe says that Strzok and Page were included in the clandestine anti-Trump cabal at the highest levels of the American intelligence community . ..."
"... I'm waiting to see when Mueller is implicated in the secret society. Mueller HAD to know. He's best friends with Comey and his appointment was a set up from the beginning. ..."
"... Also need to keep eye out on Bill Priestap, Strzok's immediate boss, and Baker, BFF and legal counsel to Comey and also the guy who was Chief of Staff to Comey. And don't forget all the WAGS of all of them. Wife of Priestap is Goldman Sachs heiress and runs biggest detective agency in DC. ..."
"... Mueller's gravy train ends if he can't find anything. So he's setting perjury traps like IEDs in the Sunni Triangle. ..."
"... Mueller trying to put the onus back on Trump instead of FBI corruption covering up Obama's treason ..."
"... The Dossier scam was supposed to be a flimsy reason they could point to as one of the reasons Trump lost. With Hillary in the WH, the dossier would never be examined...just alluded to in passing. They'd have said Trump had a good start but got hoist on his own uncontrollable personality. ..."
"... Why did Trump sign 702 without hesitation? The same 702 that enabled them to illegally spy on Trump? Moreover, the 702 Trump signed is said to have been modified to make the process of spying easier and with no added safe guards to prevent what happened with the Trump dossier from ever happening again. Does anyone not find it suspicious that no one in the press has questioned Trump directly for an explanation. Someone needs to ask Trump point blank why he signed the re authorization of 702. We need to hear his answer, especially since we are led to believe he has been victimized by it. ..."
"... Andrew McCabe and James Comey had a long time to work on the personnel of the FBI, who rose, who fell, who went to what offices. You can't trust any of the FBI until they prove themselves by tracking down the bad guys in their own ranks. ..."
"... I think that untangling the webs of corruption and compromise is decades, not years. Look at Italy, they still haven't gotten rid of the various mafias. I don't follow Italian politics, but did the issue of Mafia corruption ever die? Or just keep building? Did some areas get clean? ..."
"... Does anyone find it strange that Americans are not allowed to know if their government is corrupt because of national security? Government crimes and violations of the constitution are classified and top secret. That is what you have folks. All of government is a secret society. ..."
"... I know this site is all in on Trump, but did it occur to you that generally people who work in intelligence or have any intelligence would not discuss their illegal ,treasonous, secret society in writing using AGENCY-ISSUED PHONES. ..."
"... You're assumptions are wrong. Arrogance breeds contempt, and they were arrogant, just like Hillary arrogantly put her emails on an unprotected server in contradiction to well established and seriously enforced federal law. No one could be that stupid, but they can be that arrogant - as they were! ..."
"... The disappearance of the txts leaves a presumption of guilt - not innocence . Otherwise culpable parties would wipe the slate clean all day long, as has obviously happened here, and walk away scot free. ..."
"... You overlook the hubris of outsized egos. These people saw themselves as untouchables like Eliot Ness. They thought they could walk people to the edge and push them over and nobody could touch them. ..."
A whistleblower has revealed to Congress that clandestine, offsite meetings between high ranking FBI and DOJ took place in which
officials discussed ways to undermine President Trump after the 2016 election, Rep. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Fox News on Tuesday.
The bombshell revelation all but confirms a "
secret society " alluded to in text messages released last Friday between two anti-Trump FBI employees tasked with investigating
both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
" The secret society -- we have an informant talking about a group holding secret meetings off-site ," Johnson said.
"We have to continue to dig into it," he added. " This is not a distraction. This is biased, potentially corruption at the
highest levels of the FB I." - The Hill
On Monday night, Reps. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) and Trey Gowdy (R-SC) told Fox News of the "secret society" texts between FBI
investigators Peter Strzok and Lisa Page - contained within a 384-page batch of text messages delivered to Congress from the DOJ
last Friday. Of note Ratcliffe says that Strzok and Page were included in the clandestine anti-Trump cabal at the highest levels
of the American intelligence community .
What we learned today in the thousands of text messages that we've reviewed that perhaps they may not have done that (checked
their bias at the door). There's certainly a factual basis to question whether or not they acted on that bias. We know about this
insurance policy that was referenced in trying to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president.
We learned today from information that in the immediate aftermath of his election that there may have been a secret society
of folks within the Department of Justice and the FBI to include Page and Strzok to be working against him .
As part of the 384 page document delivery, the Department of Justice notified Congressional investigators that five months of
text messages from December 14, 2016 to May 17, 2017 have gone missing (ironically there is a text message about "not keeping texts"
from last Friday's release).
And while Strzok and Page's communications for five months after the election apparently won't see the light of day, what we do
know is that right before the election, Strzok and Page texted about an "
insurance policy " against Donald Trump becoming President.
" I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office - that there's no way he [Trump] gets elected -
but I'm afraid we can't take that risk." writes FBI counterintelligence officer Peter Strzok to FBI lawyer Lisa Page, with whom he
was having an extramarital affair while spearheading both the Clinton email inquiry and the early Trump-Russia probe, adding " It's
like a life insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40 ."
To recap: we now have text messages between Strzok and Page referencing an "insurance policy" and a "secret society" of people
within the DOJ and FBI who came together in the "immediate aftermath" of the 2016 election to undermine President Trump... and a
whistleblower who has now told Congress that's exactly what happened in the form of secret, offsite meetings between officials at
the two agencies.
Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing
or destroying the government of the
United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political
subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or
Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates,
sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity,
desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the
United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or
Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of
persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes
or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of
persons , knowing the purposes thereof --
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by
the
United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
If two or more
persons conspire to commit any
offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and
shall be ineligible for employment by the
United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
As used in this section, the terms "organizes" and "organize", with respect to any society, group, or assembly of
persons , include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs,
classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of
persons .
I'm waiting to see when Mueller is implicated in the secret society. Mueller HAD to know. He's best friends with Comey and
his appointment was a set up from the beginning.
Also need to keep eye out on Bill Priestap, Strzok's immediate boss, and Baker, BFF and legal counsel to Comey and also the
guy who was Chief of Staff to Comey. And don't forget all the WAGS of all of them. Wife of Priestap is Goldman Sachs heiress and
runs biggest detective agency in DC.
the CIA clean'd-up the evidence while Mueller was in California to introduce himself to the nations top FBI personnel. thus,
unable to fly back to NYC.
coincidence? why the fuck wasn't the meeting held in NYC!?!
Imagine if the text messages between these "Secret Society" members talks about killing Trump if the Russia-Russia-Russian
Collusion Farce fails. And further imagine if McCabe, Rosenstein, J. Edgar Comey or even some Obama people like Susan Rice and
Valerie Jarrett are included in those very text messages. Imagine further if Obama and/or Huma or Hillary are included in any
of them...........these people are arrogant enough and so full of themselves and their ability to "fix" the world around them
that it is all entirely possible.........
How about this scenario: Hillary and the rest of the Deep State expected her to win via fractional voting. She had a mortal
lock, so they thought except Trump snagged 20 to 30 million more votes than Hillary did, overriding the fractional voting scheme
they had in place.
The Dossier scam was supposed to be a flimsy reason they could point to as one of the reasons Trump lost. With Hillary in the
WH, the dossier would never be examined...just alluded to in passing. They'd have said Trump had a good start but got hoist on
his own uncontrollable personality.
With Hillary at the top of all the levers of the government, Trump would have gotten bitch slapped repeatedly with little recourse.
This isn't just a couple of rogue individuals, this is an organized conspiracy at the very top, using all the power of the
FBI and DOJ to destroy a sitting president up to and including harming him.
"Mueller probe accidentally exposes FBI COVER-UP of Saudi role in 911"
1/24/18 ***oops?!? This is what happens when the Saudi's let China offer the 'Public Offering' of Saudi Aramco' on the Shanghai
INE Exchange beginning mid-Feb/2018 if all is finalized. Perhaps this why the opening was delayed?
Why did Trump sign 702 without hesitation? The same 702 that enabled them to illegally spy on Trump? Moreover, the 702 Trump
signed is said to have been modified to make the process of spying easier and with no added safe guards to prevent what happened
with the Trump dossier from ever happening again. Does anyone not find it suspicious that no one in the press has questioned Trump
directly for an explanation. Someone needs to ask Trump point blank why he signed the re authorization of 702. We need to hear
his answer, especially since we are led to believe he has been victimized by it.
Simple game thinking, I thought. You can't give up the tools they have until you have won.
The good guys have to assume that the bad guys can go on using covert means, likely they have back-doored their own agencies'
info systems. If not, they have their people scattered through the organization. Or both.
Andrew McCabe and James Comey had a long time to work on the personnel of the FBI, who rose, who fell, who went to what offices.
You can't trust any of the FBI until they prove themselves by tracking down the bad guys in their own ranks.
Great, now we have a 'he said, she said' situation, complete with files that can prove anything, how hard is that to arrange?
For all sides?
I think that untangling the webs of corruption and compromise is decades, not years. Look at Italy, they still haven't gotten
rid of the various mafias. I don't follow Italian politics, but did the issue of Mafia corruption ever die? Or just keep building?
Did some areas get clean?
Problem with all this social stuff is that there isn't a clean in/out test for any group. We are going to find that many of
our leading people throughout society have ties in shades from bright white social innocence to partners in crime black, into
the blackest of the crimes. everyone has lots of connections. The more prominent you are, the wider the variety of people you
have mingled with.
There are political careers in the investigations. Trump and his successors can ride this for 2 decades.
Of course, they will become the issue when in some far distant future the last possible bad guy has died and fortune has dispersed
beyond recall, but the surveillance capabilities are greater than ever and the successors of the current good guys refuse to end
the situation.
The compromise will be immediately ending all surveillance, everyone owns their data in return for amnesty for confessions,
files and loss of 90% of fortunes. Ae open all files to everyone and run a public investigation to understand it all.
Does anyone find it strange that Americans are not allowed to know if their government is corrupt because of national security?
Government crimes and violations of the constitution are classified and top secret. That is what you have folks. All of government
is a secret society.
If one loves words and their meanings take note that freedom is the antithesis of government. If you don't understand the
concepts of the words you use, don't complain when you get what you ask for.
I know this site is all in on Trump, but did it occur to you that generally people who work in intelligence or have any intelligence
would not discuss their illegal ,treasonous, secret society in writing using AGENCY-ISSUED PHONES. Also someone once said that
any anonymous informant should be considered made-up. I'm not denying the agency is anti-Trump. There are all kinds of legitimate
reasons to be anti-Trump. I just wish you and Mr. Johnson would bother getting some slightly less flimsy conspiracy theories before
you go blaring them on the banners. It makes you look pathetic and desperate.
You're assumptions are wrong. Arrogance breeds contempt, and they were arrogant, just like Hillary arrogantly put her emails
on an unprotected server in contradiction to well established and seriously enforced federal law. No one could be that stupid,
but they can be that arrogant - as they were!
The disappearance of the txts leaves a presumption of guilt - not innocence . Otherwise culpable parties would wipe the slate
clean all day long, as has obviously happened here, and walk away scot free.
You say Johnson looks pathetic while you spew out terms like "flimsy conspiracy theories" as your 'evidence.' Juggalo, you
look like a dumb f***ing clown with your head so far up your a$$ you think it's nighttime.
You overlook the hubris of outsized egos. These people saw themselves as untouchables like Eliot Ness. They thought they could
walk people to the edge and push them over and nobody could touch them.
No kidding, right? Watched Tucker Carlson last night interviewing Richard Goodstein (former Hillary Campaign Advisor, obviously
unemployed) Great segment asking Goodstein to answer a "Revulsion Test"!
It was unreal! The damn ignorant libtard just would not, could not bring himself to say that anything bothered him about the
corruption going on in the FBI.
Tucker: Does it bother you that the FBI decided not to bring criminal charges against Hillary BEFORE conducting an investigation
of her, or interviewing her.
Goodstein: No
Tucker: Does it bother you that Strozk said he couldn't take the chance that Trump got elected and had an insurance policy
in mind to prevent it, while he was on the committee investigating Trump?
Goodstein: No
Listen to the rest here...its hilarious and shows how Diseased Liberals are mentally!!
Democrats are the spit and image of the Bolsheviks in 1917 Russia. Democrats in America today despise everything and everyone
that is not Democrat in policy, propaganda, attitude, opinion & belief. If the Democrat Party is allowed to continue as it is
there will be blood and lots of it.
"You must understand, the leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated Christians.
Driven by ethnic hatred they tortured and slaughtered millions of Russians without a shred of human remorse. It cannot be overstated.
Bolshevism committed the greatest human slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant and uncaring about
this enormous crime is proof that the global media is in the hands of the perpetrators."
~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Ok congress critters. If all this is true and a lot of it probably is, can someone enlighten me as to why the delay. I really
see no advantage in holding back on this. It gives every advantage to the Blue team to organize a response and create more smoke
screens. The longer this goes on the more likely this will never see the light of day. Especially when one considers the Red teams
past performance. Release it or shut the fuck up.
Remember these are the same "group thinkers/actors" who voted something like 415-5 to impose harsh sanctions on Russia to punish
Russia for "meddling" in our Democratic processes.
I wonder if any of these critters would take back this vote now?
Maybe they should now vote on imposing "sanctions" on the DOJ and HRC's campaign staffers (Hillary included), as well as the
DNC and the MSM organizations/ "journalists" who spread a bogus story-line for nefarious/unpatriotic reasons.
P.S. I also wonder how many stories/posts on Facebook and Twitter advanced this faux story. Probably about 1 billion more than
Russian bots managed to sneak into the national dialogue. I understand the owner of Facebook has deep pockets. Give him the "Saudi
treatment" - pay up or go to jail, buddy.
Both parties are part of the cabal, including Trump. Arming the neonazis in the Ukraine that wants war on Russia, as well as
US and NATO troops on RUSSIA'S borders. Signing off on the FISA spy ring upon Americans, expanding US WARS, in Syria and Afghanistan
and Africa. Wanting war on N. Korea.
If people would just get that the cabal are addicted to WAR and the enrichment that comes from it as well as it's all ZIONIST
wars, for which Trump is now owned by Netanyahu, as is our Congressional dual Israeli citizens, we might be able to organize under
one banner that never changes witj both parties utterly submissive to the military and security complex. No more WAR .
If this is as reported, and if there was a convening of a meeting in secret outside of the professional roles of law enforcement,
for the purposes of a focused prosecution of a duly elected president, then that is at a minimum an offense that would disbar
employment in the federal government. It would also be grounds for disbarring any attorney.
But what I'm finding equally as troubling is the very casual manner in which somebody from say nation A, can hire person in
Nation B, to provide paid hearsay evidence from Nation C to initiate an investigation that circumvents Nation A's laws of privacy
upon a targeted individual.
That makes the NSA the tool of anyone with money to initiate this type of investigation as described above to harass and intimidate
an individual using tax dollar funded services.
I'm not Ok with Republicans or Democrats doing this.
So someone with means initiates NSL's against a person soliciting banking, building, employment, relationships, all designed
to use the institutional credibility of the NSA or even the FBI to tarnish the standing of a targeted individual.
The bank isn't going to disclose, but they might not offer a loan!
The zoning bard will not disclose, but will withhold permits.
And the zeal and the bias that there groups exercise in their zeal to assist their government in an investigation cumulatively
is damaging. Loan delayed is loan denied. Permit delayed is permit denied.
You want to support legitimate law enforcement activities and investigations, but not this fucking circus.
It is as if you are witnessing the prosecutor receiving cash from a private party, then the prosecutor hand the bailiff cash,
who then passes it onto a paid witness prior to testifying and not swearing in, or being available for cross examination. And
that folks is bullshit. Meanwhile the judge, jury, prosecutor, and defense all met in private during recess and agreed that facts
weren't relevant and to not allow facts to stand in the way of their "convictions!"
John Perkins said that to get in the CIA, you have to pass a personality test that shows you are less than morally sound. Just
imagine the test tube of explosive back-stabbing sociopaths that place must be today.
Maybe. I just think these people "self select" their career paths. A certain type of personality type is driven to government
bureaucracies and/or political office and/or capitalist positions that reward "cronies" to government. A certain ambitious type
learns how to "play the game" and rises up the ranks. The culture in these places rewards corruption (or turning a blind eye to
same). These people like the power, prestige and money-making opportunities. They "scratch backs" so their own back can be scratched.
Whatever the psychology or personality type, these people work to preserve and protect the Status Quo.
i don't agree with you on your general premise of immorality. But if things are as reported and as I describe above, then the
NSA is nothing more than the errand chasers of those with cash and connection, and that that service is paid for by the US taxpayer
to be abused by those whom would misuse it as I described. And if that is the way the system is being misused then there is a
problem.
I don't do the hate America first bullshit but I do call em like I see em..
A line pushed repeatedly by Hillary. That was a lie of course. Only a few (hand-picked) "analysts" from three or four of these
agencies signed off on that important "conclusion."
I also think of all the "intelligence experts" who immediately knew that Assad bombed his own people with banned chemicals.
Whatever they say, you know the opposite must be the truth.
How can General Flynn be charged with lying to the FBI when the FBI agent he lied to is plotting to over throw the president?
Who were the coup leaders? It was McCabe's office that set up the meeting with Flynn. Flynn didn't know the meeting was about
Flynn talking with the Russian Ambassador. Which is normal for an incoming National Security Advisor. There were no witnesses
to the meeting except two FBI agents, one of which is the disgraced FBI agent. Flynn thought like a former Intel General, he was
protecting national security information on a need to know basis.(standard military SOP).
It looks like Flynn was set up to frame Trump. Flynn's charges need to be dropped.
Oh, my! It looks like things are beginning to clarify! Dear American public has it ever occured to you that this whole Trump
colluding with Russia as well as the Russia meddling in the election narrative is just a one big lie. Too big to swallow?
If "Russia" wanted to swing or rig an election, they couldn't. The whole premise is preposterous. "Russia" convinced millions
of voters in a dozen swing states to change their votes? With a few Facebook entries? Good God.
I think it was clear to most of us. It was those who couldn't accept Hillary's defeat who wanted the narrative to keep them
sane. They were the same as Strock, et. al. - too stupid to see the train coming straight down the tracks. When they realized
they would lose their lifetime of job safety and corruption, they panicked.
Who in the US didn't know Hillary was the most corrupt politician and ruthless sub-human animal ever to run for office? They
were the ones profiting either directly or indirectly from all the criminality.
You know who has/had Hillary and Bill pegged better than anyone else? Linda Tripp. I wish I had the link to a recent feature
on her. Her main take-away: The rules of society and laws do not apply to her. She (and her husband) can and had gotten away with
everything. But the scary part is how seemingly everyone in D.C. and the Establishment is allied with them and has/had no issue
with their MO. The Swamp is full of the same type of people and their defenders. These are the type people who are attracted to
"government service" and move up the ranks once embedded. Not just in government, but the press corps and the worlds of finance
as well.
I'll say again. If Trump had been sincere in draining the swamp - and had did it - he would have gone down as the greatest
president in U.S. history.
That he is not committed to this mission - or quickly abandoned it - is a tragic disappointment.
(For those who say he is still trying to drain the swamp, explain why he never made an effort to investigate and expose "Crooked
Hillary," has no interest at all in auditing the Fed, signed legislation imposing severe sanctions on Russia for "meddling" and
filled his administration with Goldman Sachs alums, among other swamp-protecting activities).
There are very senior members of the Intelligence Community who risk exposure, ignominy, and possibly even death if their treason
is exposed to the light of day.
These people are the artists who create false flag events and change foreign Governments at the drop of a hat.
If the Intelligence Community needs to start a war to escape the consequences of their treason; that is what they will do;
without the slightest hesitation.
The rest of the world needs to be extremely sceptical regarding "Intelligence" from the U.S., and wide awake to the risk.
Get everything out in the open before it's too late for the human race.
"This is the fundamental game of the Secret Team. They have this power because they control secrecy and secret intelligence
and because they have the ability to take advantage of the most modern communications system in the world, of global transportation
systems, of quantities of weapons of all kinds, and when needed, the full support of a world-wide U.S. military supporting base
structure. They can use the finest intelligence system in the world, and most importantly, they have been able to operate under
the canopy of an assumed, ever-present enemy called "Communism." It will be interesting to see what "enemy" develops in the years
ahead. " [L. Fletcher Prouty, Alexandria, VA 1997]
"... Anyway, the FBI agent texting about deleting texts? These people had "a secret society." They call it that. But it was a group of people that was hell-bent on denying Donald Trump the presidency, and I Look, just to put it on the record here again for I don't know how many umpteenth time: I don't have any doubt in my mind that that phony dossier was used to secure a FISA warrant. I have In fact, let me say it exactly as it is. I have no doubt that they perpetrated a fraud on a judge at the FISA court. ..."
"... I mean, that's really what it is. If they used the dossier to get a FISA warrant to spy on Trump, that means they lied to a judge, unless the judge was in on it -- and when you're talking about the establishment, I mean, who the heck knows? The FISA court is super-secret anyway. But regardless, it's a giant stink bomb. It is dirty as it can be. Trump is tweeting on it, and the more we learn about this, the more easily understandable it is and the more easily believable it is. ..."
"... RUSH: The wheels are coming off the deep state's efforts to deny Trump the presidency, and -- once he won the presidency -- to get him kicked out and removed. Now we've got stories of the missing texts between Peter Strzok and his paramour, Lisa Page. "House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) on Monday raised concerns that the two FBI agents mentioned a 'secret society' shortly after [Trump] won the election. ..."
"... And he's probably trying to impress her like nothing. He's married. I don't know if she's married or not, but he's just full-fledged headlong into this affair, and she's probably got her interested in it as well. But it sounds like Strzok was the guy. You know, in a relationship, there's always somebody who loves somebody more than the other. Would you agree with that? ..."
"... GOWDY: What Johnny and I saw today was a text about not keeping texts. We saw more manifest bias against President Trump all the way through the election into the transition. And I saw an interesting text that Director Comey was going to update the president of the United States about an investigation. I don't know if it was the Hillary Clinton investigation -- because, remember, that had been reopened in the fall 2016 -- or whether it was the Trump administration. I just find it interesting that the head of the FBI was gonna update the president of the United States who, at that point, would have been President Obama. ..."
"... RUSH: Okay. So this is -- hang on, now -- June 8th, 2017. "As FBI director, I interacted with President Obama. I spoke only twice in three years and didn't document it." It's unstated: "Because I didn't think Obama needed to be documented! He's the impeccable example of integrity, honesty," which is a crock. But here's the next bite. June 8th. Question: This is from Senator Martin Heinrich, Democrat, New Mexico. "Prior to January 27th of this year," meaning 2017, "have you ever had a one-on-one meeting or a private dinner with a president of the United States?" ..."
"... RUSH: Okay. Here's what MSNBC reported, that Mueller interviewed Comey and that Comey gave Mueller his memos on meetings with Trump. You know, Comey said he had to keep notes 'cause Trump lies. He didn't have to record what Obama said 'cause Obama was the impeccable example of honesty and integrity (and all that rot). But with Trump? What a lying sack of you know what! So, anyway, the New York Times says that Comey gave Mueller his memos on his meetings with Trump, and the "jaw-dropping" nature of the text from Strzok. ..."
"... That's why Trey Gowdy is describing this as "jaw-dropping" with Ratcliffe, 'cause Strzok is writing to Lisa Page, "You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I'd be there no question," meaning on the investigating team. "I hesitate " He eventually did join it, obviously. He said, "I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there's no big 'there' there," meaning any collusion. But that didn't stop them from trying to create the illusion that there was, and they spent over a year doing so. But that's why the Strzok text is considering "jaw-dropping," not because of its audacity but because he's talking to somebody close. He doesn't think anybody's ever gonna see it. ..."
Hillary Clinton losing threw the biggest wrench in these people's plans, and they had the fear. They were aware she could lose.
But now we've got a secret society -- DOJ, FBI, intelligence community -- some of it directly in touch with the Obama White House.
No doubt in my mind. "Missing" texts that are not really missing. They are somewhere, just like Hillary's 30,000 emails are somewhere.
They're backed up on servers. They're backed up on devices. They are somewhere. The FBI claims they don't have them, but they are
somewhere.
Just like Hillary's missing 30,000 emails are somewhere. The mystery of the missing text messages between Strzok and the paramour,
Lisa Page, continues to widen and deepen at the same time. It's all too pat. It's too easily understandable. This is easy to understand
as the House Bank Scandal was back in 1988 and '89. An FBI agent even texted about deleting the texts, warning everybody, "You know
what? We might want to get rid of these."
I had a suggestion. Ali on our staff -- not my cat, but Ali on our staff -- suggested, "You know what'd be fun one day?" I'm not
gonna do it today. But I'm thinking about it. "It might be fun one day to take calls from people 30 and under -- you know, Millennials."
The problem with that is that anybody can call and claim they're under 30. So we would have to be really discriminatory and aware
of voices. You know, it's not fair to start judging people by their voices, their gender, their sexual orientation, their race, their
anything.
I mean, even though you can do it, you make a mistake in doing it. You're not supposed to do it. But we would have to raise our
vigilance if we're gonna do that. (interruption) "Profiling!" Yeah, that's exactly right. We would have to profile. If we're gonna
have calls from 30 (maybe even 28, I don't know) and under, then the whole thing's blown if a bunch of 80-year-olds start calling
or 75-year-olds trying to pass themselves off as young whippersnappers.
Anyway, the FBI agent texting about deleting texts? These people had "a secret society." They call it that. But it was a group
of people that was hell-bent on denying Donald Trump the presidency, and I Look, just to put it on the record here again for I don't
know how many umpteenth time: I don't have any doubt in my mind that that phony dossier was used to secure a FISA warrant. I have
In fact, let me say it exactly as it is. I have no doubt that they perpetrated a fraud on a judge at the FISA court.
I mean, that's really what it is. If they used the dossier to get a FISA warrant to spy on Trump, that means they lied to a judge,
unless the judge was in on it -- and when you're talking about the establishment, I mean, who the heck knows? The FISA court is super-secret
anyway. But regardless, it's a giant stink bomb. It is dirty as it can be. Trump is tweeting on it, and the more we learn about this,
the more easily understandable it is and the more easily believable it is.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The wheels are coming off the deep state's efforts to deny Trump the presidency, and -- once he won the presidency -- to
get him kicked out and removed. Now we've got stories of the missing texts between Peter Strzok and his paramour, Lisa Page. "House
Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) on Monday raised concerns that the two FBI agents mentioned a 'secret society' shortly
after [Trump] won the election.
"'The day after the election there is a text exchange between these two FBI agents [Strzok and Page], these supposed to be fact-centric
FBI agents saying, 'Perhaps this is the first meeting of the secret society,' Gowdy said 'So I'm going to want to know what secret
society you are talking about, because you're supposed to be investigating objectively the person who just won the Electoral College.'"
Trump "resistance,""secret society." These people probably gave themselves that name. I can see I really can. I can see where these
two Strzok In the first place, you got hormones raging 'cause they're having an affair.
And he's probably trying to impress her like nothing. He's married. I don't know if she's married or not, but he's just
full-fledged headlong into this affair, and she's probably got her interested in it as well. But it sounds like Strzok was the
guy. You know, in a relationship, there's always somebody who loves somebody more than the other. Would you agree with that?
Can I say that without getting beat up by people? (interruption) I can't? Okay, then forget it. I didn't say that. This guy And I
think probably their connections and their contacts as FBI agents
I think they probably really went to their head. They thought they were really doing something important and cool, but they knew
it's on the edge of legality, probably not legal. But they felt protected. They knew that the Obama DOJ was behind 'em, they knew
Obama was behind 'em. Comey, everybody in the deep state knew that they were probably on the edge here, but all aligned -- and I'm
sure it got very heady. This is a very august group, a very small group of people, a very important project: Getting rid of Trump,
defending the Washington establishment.
And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if these people got totally lost and caught up in how important they were and how cool they
were and how exciting what they were doing was and how important it was. And it was clear from the texts of theirs that we've seen
that they knew that they were on the edge and that they had to keep this under wraps and they had to keep it secret. So they probably
name themselves this "secret society," and who knows, folks! I wouldn't doubt if this whole group decided to name themselves that.
I think we're dealing with a degree, a level of arrogance and superiority. I'm talking about psychological superiority. "We are
better than everybody else! We're the defenders. We're the protectors." You combine that with their opinion of Trump, which is nothing
more than he's human debris. "This guy is sewer-level scum." You couple that with the fact that he's won, he's an outsider, he's
outsmarted them, and now the lid's blowing. Now we know that Hillary hired the people that wrote the fake Trump dossier.
And now we're getting closer and closer to confirming that Obama and the DOJ lied to a FISA judge to get a warrant to surveil.
So they're panicking, and that's why a bunch of texts from the five-month period of real activity on this are now missing. But, my
friends, they aren't missing. The FBI claims they can't find 'em, that there's a glitch and something's happened, but they are somewhere.
They are on the original device. I read that the FBI was using Samsung 5s, Samsung Galaxy 5s. Is that right? (interruption) Well,
those are old devices.
Those are very, very old devices. But we're talking about the FBI here! There are servers, there are backups, there is redundancy.
We're being told that this stuff's gone just like Lois Lerner's stuff just miraculously disappeared, just like Hillary's 30,000 emails
just disappeared. They didn't. They're somewhere. Somebody can get them. Somebody has them. Like you. If you use IDrive here, if
you pick up on the idea of backing up your phones and your computer to IDrive, okay. So you may have a glitch on your phone or your
computer and you lose 'em.
But they're there.
They're on that server, they're on the IDrive server, and they may be elsewhere. So Strzok and Page, their two devices are being
used and their computers. Whatever server side backups are happening, whatever the FBI's backups are. These text messages are somewhere.
And somebody could find them if they wanted to. Now, let's go to the audio sound bites. Let's listen. This is, first off, last night
on Fox News, Representative John Ratcliffe, a Texas Republican, along with Trey Gowdy, talking about this "secret society" at the
FBI. This is interesting because they have learned that these two people are talking about an investigation.
Obama was briefed on an investigation, but they don't know which investigation, Trump or Clinton. Let's get started
RATCLIFFE: We learned today about information that in the immediate aftermath of his election that there may have been a "secret
society" of folks within the Department of Justice and the FBI to include Page and Strzok that would be working against him.
RUSH: "We learn today about " This is above and beyond what is in the four-page memo about the FISA warrant. This is additional.
"We learned today about information that in the immediate aftermath of his election that there may have been a 'secret society' of
folks within the Department of Justice and the FBI to include Page and Strzok," meaning others, "that would be working against" Trump.
Here's Trey Gowdy weighing in.
GOWDY: What Johnny and I saw today was a text about not keeping texts. We saw more manifest bias against President Trump all the
way through the election into the transition. And I saw an interesting text that Director Comey was going to update the president
of the United States about an investigation. I don't know if it was the Hillary Clinton investigation -- because, remember, that
had been reopened in the fall 2016 -- or whether it was the Trump administration. I just find it interesting that the head of the
FBI was gonna update the president of the United States who, at that point, would have been President Obama.
RUSH: So that means Obama's in the loop. The "secret society," Strzok, whatever they're doing, Comey knows. He's FBI director,
Strzok and Page are FBI. She's a lawyer; he's an agent. There are other people involved here. They've got this "secret society" going,
and the texts they saw referred to an investigation that Director Comey was gonna update Obama on. But they don't know which, 'cause
he's right: Hillary was being investigated. They reopened this like a weekend before the election, the email server thing -- which
Hillary never forgot.
Or the Trump dossier investigation. Let's go to June 8th, 2017. "If these texts are accurately, it may not look good for Jim Comey.
On June 8th of 2017, Comey testified before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Russian interference in the presidential election.
And during the Q&A, Mark Warner, Democrat, Virginia, said, 'In all your experience, Director Comey, President Trump was the only
president you felt like in every meeting you needed to document because at some point -- using your words -- "he might put out a
non-truthful representation of the meeting"'?"
COMEY: As FBI director, I interacted with President Obama. I spoke only twice in three years and didn't document it.
RUSH: Okay. So this is -- hang on, now -- June 8th, 2017. "As FBI director, I interacted with President Obama. I spoke only twice
in three years and didn't document it." It's unstated: "Because I didn't think Obama needed to be documented! He's the impeccable
example of integrity, honesty," which is a crock. But here's the next bite. June 8th. Question: This is from Senator Martin Heinrich,
Democrat, New Mexico. "Prior to January 27th of this year," meaning 2017, "have you ever had a one-on-one meeting or a private dinner
with a president of the United States?"
COMEY: No! I met Dinner, no. I had two one on ones with President Obama that I laid out in my testimony, once to talk about law
enforcement issues -- law enforcement ERASE -- which was an important topic throughout for me and for the president. And then once,
very briefly, to him to say good-bye.
RUSH: Okay. So he tells Mark Warner that as FBI director he interacted with Obama, spoke only twice in three years, didn't document
it. And then he tells Martin Heinrich, Democrat, New Mexico (summarized), "No! Dinner? No. I had two one on ones with Obama that
I laid out in my testimony, one to talk about law enforcement issues, law enforcement ERASE, which was," blah, blah, blah. This was
all about the fact that Comey had to document everything he heard Trump say 'cause Trump's such a liar. Now, if these texts are accurate,
the texts say that Comey was "updating [Obama] on an investigation."
They don't know which, and these are texts that Trey Gowdy and John Ratcliffe read, and the texts detailed Comey updating Obama
on an investigation. Comey under oath doesn't say a word here about updating Obama on anything. All he did was talking about law
enforcement issues and ERASE. So people are thinking Comey may have not have been forthcoming under oath while testifying before
the committees. Based on what we've learned with the texts saying he was actively updating Obama on an investigation. Now, the odds
are he's updating Obama on the Trump investigation, because the only thing about the Hillary investigation is how to cover it up
and make it amount to nothing.
There wouldn't be really be a need for an update of that.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: In jaw dropping (unintelligible) Peter Strzok Strzok expressed concern about joining the Mueller team. My friends, look.
If it looks like a witch hunt and it sounds like a witch hunt and it reads like witch hunt, then it is a witch hunt. You know, stop
and think. The Republicans wasted most of the first year of the Trump the presidency because they thought that the media narrative
on Trump-Putin collusion was true, or they thought it was close enough that they couldn't take any chances about going all in with
Trump in case it turned out to be true and he was eventually to be impeached. They believed it.
Look, they're creatures of the swamp themselves. And there was so much of it. And remember, Washington is Washington. And if the
deep state, if the intelligence agencies are saying this over and over and over and over again, if they're flooding the zone, if
every newspaper, every cable network is reporting these leaks, you can almost see how they would have no choice but than to believe
it. And so they kept their distance from Trump. And that whole year, you know, we're talking here.
We're each saying to ourselves, if they would just get on board for three months, if they'd just get on board the Trump agenda,
there'd be no stopping them. And we thought they weren't getting on board because they didn't like Trump or because they rented Trump,
either one of those things. It wasn't that. It was they fell for the narrative. Enough of them thought there might be something to
it that they couldn't risk not buying into it. Speaking of the intelligence agencies, I'm sure some of you have already thought of
this, but it just hit me a few seconds.
For some reason. I was thinking about the war in Iraq. You remember what the intelligence agencies were telling us about the war
in Iraq? You remember what they were telling us? There was detail, there were photos, there was conclusive evidence Saddam Hussein
had weapons of mass destruction. And it wasn't just U.S. intel. It was MI5, MI6. It was intelligence agencies all over the world.
George W. Bush kept quoting them. George W. Bush kept citing them.
George W. Bush sent Colin Powell to the UN with the so-called evidence, and Colin Powell had to present it to the Security Council.
There were photos and all of these bits of proof that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Colin Powell now says that's the most
embarrassing period in his life, because it turns out none of it was true. And remember the immediate aftermath, everybody said,
"Wow, man. How could they have gotten it so wrong, man?" And the story we got that Saddam himself was to blame because he was leading
everybody on.
He wanted the world to think that he was the biggest Arab in the Middle East. He was the giant that was gonna slay the United
States. So he furthered the belief. He helped it along. Sorry. That doesn't wash with me. Okay, so the guy says he's got 'em. That's
your basis for believing it? What if ? Just what if ? Remember, they all thought Gore had won that election, until the Supreme Court
came along and stole it for Bush. This is what they thought.
The Democrat Party is the Washington establishment, and the Washington establishment believes that Gore won the presidency and
the Florida recount math was bogus and rigged, that James Baker did a better job than the Democrat people did in finding votes, the
hanging chads. What if the intel on the war in Iraq was another disinformation campaign to damage another Republican president? And,
boy, did that work. Ever since there were no weapons of mass destruction, look at what we did?
Bush spent 2-1/2 years traveling the country building support for the war in Iraq. We had the massive opening day of Shock and
Awe, and we had the pictures of Saddam's statue coming down, Saddam eventually being captured, hiding out in a hole in the ground
somewhere. But there were no weapons of mass destruction. After that "No, yes, there were, Rush, yes, there were, they've been moved
to Syria, we have pictures of the trucks, they got 'em out of there, they got 'em out. We know he had this."
Well, we know he used nerve gas on the Kurds at one time, which is weapons of mass destruction. But just what if? The, quote,
unquote, intelligence community misrepresented on purpose the degree to which Hussein had WMDs, cause, I'll tell you, it was a very,
very embarrassing moment for the Bush administration. I mean, two years of ontological certitude. This guy posed a bigger threat
than Al-Qaeda. This guy -- they even showed us photos where Al-Qaeda may have trained outside Baghdad.
Now, we know the Republicans are not the favored party in Washington amongst swamp dwellers. Even though many of the CIA apparatus
were, of course, aligned with Bush. But I was just thinking about this the other day. And that was a glaring example where, if it
was legitimate, look how wrong they were, I mean, they couldn't have been more wrong, and it was not just one intelligence agency.
It was the entire intel community in this country and in the U.K. and all of our allies.
There was supposedly unanimous agreement on Saddam having weapons of mass destruction. Now, what if -- this is hindsight, which
is always 20/20 -- what if, based on what we know now -- we know how the deep state has been trying to undermine Donald Trump from
the days he was a candidate to during his transition to even it's ongoing now as president. We're learning of Strzok and the FBI
and the Hillary opposition research dossier that the ends up becoming fodder for a warrant at the FISA court to spy on Trump.
So we know the deep state can mobilize if they want to, and they can create false narratives that everybody in the media believes.
Even had the Republican Party for a year believing that Trump had conspired with Russia maybe to steal the election. What if Saddam
weapons of mass destruction was also a false narrative designed to ? Did it ultimately embarrass Bush? Did it weaken the U.S. military?
Whatever it did, I mean, it opened the doors for the Democrats to literally destroy his presidency in the second term. Which is what
they did.
They launched every salvo they had. They did everything they could to get John Kerry elected in 2014, as the Democrat nominee.
So I just wonder. And then I remember Chuck Schumer telling Donald Trump after he had criticized the intelligence community one day,
Chuck You said, "You better be careful, 'cause those guys can make your life hell, Mr. President." So I don't know. It's all deep
state. It's all stuff happening way beyond wherever our eyes can see and our ears can hear. PMSNBC is reporting that the
It is the New York Times says that Comey shared memos about Trump's meeting. I'm getting this word by word as it's hunt and pecked
on the New York Times: "Comey Shared Memos About Trump's Meeting with the Special Counsel Team." I don't know what that is. I don't
know. This is dangerous to get headlines off TV. So, anyway, we'll track that down and get to it in due course. I just This whole
deep state intelligence community, all of these errors That weapons of mass destruction, that was just huge, and Bush bought it,
totally trusted it.
We all did. Mind-boggling. Now this? What we're learning about Strzok and Comey and there's no question here that there was a
mighty collusion effort between the Democrats, the Hillary campaign, the FBI, the Department of Justice -- that's the Obama administration
-- to spy on the Trump campaign and then the Trump transition team. And slowly but surely we're getting to the bottom of it, despite
a whole lot of efforts to cover it up.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay. Here's what MSNBC reported, that Mueller interviewed Comey and that Comey gave Mueller his memos on meetings with
Trump. You know, Comey said he had to keep notes 'cause Trump lies. He didn't have to record what Obama said 'cause Obama was the
impeccable example of honesty and integrity (and all that rot). But with Trump? What a lying sack of you know what! So, anyway, the
New York Times says that Comey gave Mueller his memos on his meetings with Trump, and the "jaw-dropping" nature of the text from
Strzok.
I was remiss here in not finishing/closing the loop on this. Here's what Strzok Strzok wrote to his paramour, Lisa Page: "You
and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I'd be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut
sense and concern there's no big 'there' there." What this means is Strzok was writing to Page about his lack of desire to be on
the Mueller team 'cause he didn't think there was any collusion!
That's why Trey Gowdy is describing this as "jaw-dropping" with Ratcliffe, 'cause Strzok is writing to Lisa Page, "You and I both
know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I'd be there no question," meaning on the investigating team. "I hesitate
" He eventually did join it, obviously. He said, "I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there's no big 'there' there,"
meaning any collusion. But that didn't stop them from trying to create the illusion that there was, and they spent over a year doing
so. But that's why the Strzok text is considering "jaw-dropping," not because of its audacity but because he's talking to somebody
close. He doesn't think anybody's ever gonna see it.
FBI Comey testifies again as a result of the recent document releases from the FBI. He
appears much more defensive than I have ever seen him before. Ratcliffe is brutal. Issa catches
Comey in a lie about the immunity agreements.
Jordan, Chaffetz, and Gowdy once again just can't
believe how an indictment wasn't warranted.
"... Unable to come to terms with losing the 2016 election, Democrats are still pushing the 'Russiagate' probe and blocking the release of a memo describing surveillance abuses by the FBI, former Congressman Ron Paul told RT. ..."
"... I don't think anybody is seeking justice or seeking truth as much as they're seeking to get political advantage ..."
"... "I would be surprised if they haven't spied on him. They spy on everybody else. And they have spied on other members of the executive branch and other presidents." ..."
"... "The other day when they voted to get FISA even more power to spy on American people, the president couldn't be influenced by the fact that they used it against him. And I believe they did, and he believes that." ..."
"... "I've always maintained that government ought to be open and the people ought to have their privacy. But right now the people have no privacy and all our government does is work on secrecy and then it becomes competitive between the two parties, who get stuck with the worst deal by arguing, who's guilty of some crime," the politician explained. ..."
"... Paul also blasted the infamous 'Russian Dossier' compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, and which the Democrats used in their attack on Trump, saying it ..."
"... "has no legitimacy being revealing [in terms of] of Trump being associated with Russia. From the people I know The story has been all made up, essentially." ..."
"... "I'm no fan of Trump. I'm not a supporter of his, but I think that has been carried way overboard. I think the Democrats can't stand the fact that they've lost the election, and they can't stand the fact that Trump is a little bit more independent minded than they like," he said. ..."
Unable to come to terms with losing the 2016 election, Democrats are still pushing the
'Russiagate' probe and blocking the release of a memo describing surveillance abuses by the
FBI, former Congressman Ron Paul told RT.
A top-secret intelligence memo, believed to reveal political bias at the highest levels of
the FBI and the DOJ towards President Trump, may well be as significant as the Republicans say,
Ron Paul told RT. But, he added, "there's still to many unknowns, especially, from my view
point."
"Trump connection to the Russians, I think, has been way overblown, and I'd like to just
get to the bottom of this the new information that's coming out, maybe this will reveal
things and help us out," he said.
"Right now it's just a political fight," the former US Congressman said. "I think they're
dealing with things a lot less important than the issue they ought to be talking about Right
now, I don't think anybody is seeking justice or seeking truth as much as they're seeking to
get political advantage."
Trump's claims that he was wiretapped by US intelligence agencies on the orders of the Obama
administration may well turn out to be true, Paul said.
"I would be surprised if they haven't spied on him. They spy on everybody else. And they
have spied on other members of the executive branch and other presidents."
However, he criticized Trump for doing nothing to prevent the Senate from voting in the
expansion of warrantless surveillance of US citizens under the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) earlier this week.
"The other day when they voted to get FISA even more power to spy on American people, the
president couldn't be influenced by the fact that they used it against him. And I believe
they did, and he believes that."
"I've always maintained that government ought to be open and the people ought to have
their privacy. But right now the people have no privacy and all our government does is work
on secrecy and then it becomes competitive between the two parties, who get stuck with the
worst deal by arguing, who's guilty of some crime," the politician explained.
The fact that Democrats on the relevant committees have all voted against releasing the memo
"might mean that Trump is probably right; there's probably a lot of stuff there that would
exonerate him from any accusation they've been making," he said.
Paul also blasted the infamous 'Russian Dossier' compiled by former British spy Christopher
Steele, and which the Democrats used in their attack on Trump, saying it
"has no legitimacy being revealing [in terms of] of Trump being associated with Russia.
From the people I know The story has been all made up, essentially."
"I'm no fan of Trump. I'm not a supporter of his, but I think that has been carried way
overboard. I think the Democrats can't stand the fact that they've lost the election, and
they can't stand the fact that Trump is a little bit more independent minded than they like,"
he said.
Donald Trump Jr. called for the release of a memo that allegedly contains information about
Obama administration surveillance abuses and suggested that Democrats are complicit with the
media in misleading the public.
"It's the double standard that the people are fed by the Democrats in complicity with the
media, that's why neither have any trust from the American people anymore," Trump said on Fox
News Friday.
Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch knew well in advance of FBI Director James Comey's
2016 press conference that he would recommend against charging Hillary Clinton, according to
information turned over to the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Friday.
The revelation was included in 384 pages of text messages exchanged between FBI officials
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and it significantly diminishes the credibility of Lynch's earlier
commitment to accept Comey's recommendation -- a commitment she made under the pretense that
the two were not coordinating with each other.
And it gets worse. Comey and Lynch reportedly knew that Clinton would never face charges
even before the FBI conducted its three-hour interview with Clinton, which was supposedly meant
to gather more information into her mishandling of classified information.
That's a really fishy development. Like a mafia running inside FBI ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Intel points to top FBI and DOJ officials communicating via: ..."
"... Burner or disposable smart phones purchased with cash and charged with cash or money order ..."
"... Encrypted phone and web apps, including SIGNAL employed for anonymous texting ..."
"... Phones issued in the name of a spouse or family member, conceivably out of reach of federal subpoenas ..."
"... Use of such telecom devices as part of official government business violates a host of federal laws, insiders said. ..."
"... With many key personnel in the FBI currently under the microscope of the Inspector General -- for potential criminal violations -- top FBI and DOJ officials are communicating on disposable phones via text, voice and internet access to encrypted texting apps, FBI insiders confirm. ..."
"... "The IG is aware of this," one FBI insider said. "They have been up on these guys for a long time." The FBI source's comments reflect the fact that the Inspector General has had court-approved wiretaps running on key members in the FBI and DOJ linked to an assortment of public scandals. ..."
"... "It is OK to publicize this now, because they have dug themselves a very big hole," the FBI source said. "They have switched to burners." ..."
"... The FBI "failed to preserve" five months worth of text messages exchanged between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the two FBI employees who made pro-Clinton and anti-Trump comments while working on the Clinton email and the Russia collusion investigations. ..."
Members of the FBI and Justice Department's top brass at their Washington D.C.headquarters
and other field offices are now using burner phones to stay under the radar of federal
investigators and lawmakers, according to FBI insiders.
The shocking revelations come on the heels of news that the FBI deleted thousands of text
messages between anti-Trump FBI agents before investigators could review their content.
While that is disturbing on one level, FBI and DOJ hierarchy employing the telecom habits of
drug cartel bosses reaches a new low for the once-heralded federal law enforcement agency and
the DOJ. And breaks federal laws as well.
Intel points to top FBI and DOJ officials communicating via:
Burner or disposable smart phones purchased with cash and charged with cash or money
order
Encrypted phone and web apps, including SIGNAL employed for anonymous
texting
Phones issued in the name of a spouse or family member, conceivably out of reach of
federal subpoenas
Use of such telecom devices as part of official government business violates a host of
federal laws, insiders said.
But that hasn't slowed their use by top law enforcement personnel in the United States.
With many key personnel in the FBI currently under the microscope of the Inspector
General -- for potential criminal violations -- top FBI and DOJ officials are communicating on
disposable phones via text, voice and internet access to encrypted texting apps, FBI insiders
confirm.
"The IG is aware of this," one FBI insider said. "They have been up on these guys for a long
time." The FBI source's comments reflect the fact that the Inspector General has had court-approved
wiretaps running on key members in the FBI and DOJ linked to an assortment of public
scandals.
One of the main reasons why the Inspector General's report of its investigation of the FBI
has been delayed is because investigators keep getting wiretap intelligence on the key players,
the FBI official said.
"It is OK to publicize this now, because they have dug themselves a very big hole," the
FBI source said. "They have switched to burners."
Multiple FBI and federal law enforcement sources disclosed earlier that the IG was running
wiretaps on FBI and DOJ officials to True Pundit but requested an embargo on publishing the
information which would interfere with the investigation. True Pundit agreed to withhold until
given the green light to publish.
The FBI "failed to preserve" five months worth of text messages exchanged between Peter
Strzok and Lisa Page, the two FBI employees who made pro-Clinton and anti-Trump comments while
working on the Clinton email and the Russia collusion investigations.
The disclosure was made Friday in a letter sent by the Justice Department to the Senate
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC).
"The Department wants to bring to your attention that the FBI's technical system for
retaining text messages sent and received on FBI mobile devices failed to preserve text
messages for Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page," Stephen Boyd, the assistant attorney general for
legislative affairs at the Justice Department, wrote to Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, the
chairman of HSGAC.
He said that texts are missing for the period between Dec. 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017.
Boyd attributed the failure to "misconfiguration issues related to rollouts, provisioning,
and software upgrades that conflicted with the FBI's collection capabilities."
"The result was that data that should have been automatically collected and retained for
long-term storage and retrieval was not collected," Boyd wrote.
Former FBI Director James
Comey has landed a teaching gig at his alma mater, the College of William & Mary, and
will join the ranks of the school's teaching faculty this fall with a course on ethical
leadership.
The Washington Post reports that Comey has accepted a nontenured position as an executive
professor in education with the school, and will teach the course on ethical leadership in fall
2018, spring 2019 and summer 2019 semesters.
"... But, according to the letter, the FBI told the department that its system for retaining text messages sent and received on bureau phones had failed to preserve communications between Strzok and Page over a five-month period between Dec. 14, 2016, and May 7, 2017. The explanation for the gap was "misconfiguration issues related to rollouts, provisioning, and software upgrades that conflicted with the FBI's collection capabilities." ..."
"... Technical glitches obviously do happen but I can't help getting a bit of a Lois Lerner flashback upon hearing that five months of messages are missing from the time right after Trump was elected until 10 days before Robert Mueller was appointed as Special Counsel. So if you were hoping for any follow up on that comment about an insurance policy, it looks like you can forget it. That's a well-timed glitch. ..."
"... But it seems the DOJ did turn over some additional texts that are worth considering. One involves an early draft of the Comey memo clearing Hillary Clinton. Originally the draft pointed out that Clinton had exchanged emails with President Obama while she was "on the territory" of a hostile power. Eventually, Obama's name was scrubbed from the document and finally all reference to the incident was removed. So that's one more example of the statement being watered down over time. And finally there is this : ..."
"... In another exchange, the two express displeasure about the timing of Lynch's announcement that she would defer to the FBI's judgment on the Clinton investigation. That announcement came days after it was revealed that the attorney general and former President Bill Clinton had an impromptu meeting aboard her plane in Phoenix, though both sides said the email investigation was never discussed ..."
"... Strzok said in a July 1 text message that the timing of Lynch's announcement "looks like hell." And Page appears to mockingly refer to Lynch's decision to accept the FBI's conclusion in the case as a "real profile in courag(e) since she knows no charges will be brought ..."
"... Comey himself had suggested Lynch appeared biased in the email probe and that he felt the need to act independently from her. ..."
"... "And she said, 'Yes, but don't call it that, call it a matter,'" Mr. Comey continued. "And I said, 'Why would I do that?' And she said, 'Just call it a matter.'" ..."
"... Mr. Comey said the "conclusive" episode that persuaded him to make his own announcement in the Clinton investigation rather than leave it to Ms. Lynch came last June, when former President Bill Clinton spontaneously boarded her plane on a tarmac and sat down to talk with her. ..."
"... So the story was that Lynch was biased (she was) but that Comey acted to protect the independence of the investigation. In fact, Lynch knew what Comey was going to say days before he said it. ..."
The Associated Press is reporting that the Department of Justice has given congressional
investigators additional text messages between FBI investigator Peter Strzok and his girlfriend
Lisa Page. The FBI also told investigators that five months worth of text messages, between
December 2016 and May 2017, are unavailable because of
a technical glitch .
Looks like another false flag operation , now with the participation of Italian intelligence services.
Notable quotes:
"... Appears Prof. Mifsud of Maltese descent has close links to former Italian Minister of the Interior Vincenzo Scotti and the Italian Intelligence Agency. See more information from the Link Campus based in Rome. With links to a corrupt Saudi Prince, getting some sense now of a covert operation or a piggy-back Mossad act with knowledge of Intelligence gained from Five Eyes raw data ... ..."
"... "We are very excited to be partnering with the Link Campus Foundation to fund and enable important scholarship that looks to build bridges of mediation in conflict regions around the world," ..."
"... "We have respected the work of Link Campus for some time. The Centre hopes to play an important role in contributing to its efforts toward creating peace and good governance by strengthening the ability of researchers, media, and civil society to speak out and be informed on vital contemporary issues." ..."
"... "The Centre will take a very pragmatic approach to helping bring smarter and more relevant thinking to the area of conflict mediation." ..."
"... "Offering this research platform for experts is EDOF's way of trying to support those who are doing the heavy thinking as to how we can bring resolution to some of the more intractable conflicts in our world." ..."
"... Prince Turki Al Faisal said the evidence, disclosed by the United States late, was "overwhelming" and "clearly shows official Iranian responsibility". "Somebody in Iran will have to pay the price," said Prince Turki , who also served as his country's envoy to Britain and the US. ..."
"... ... Prince Turki al-Faisal , the chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, is a former director of Saudi Arabia's intelligence services and ambassador to the United States. ..."
Appears Prof. Mifsud of Maltese descent has close links to former Italian Minister of the Interior
Vincenzo Scotti and the Italian Intelligence
Agency. See more information from the
Link Campus
based in Rome. With links to a corrupt Saudi Prince, getting some sense now of a covert operation or a piggy-back Mossad act with
knowledge of Intelligence gained from Five Eyes raw data ...
The EDOF Centre will work closely with the various interdisciplinary academic departments at the Link Campus University as
well as with international governments and organizations in order to support experts, academics, researchers, diplomats, governments,
and civil society activists in their attempts to help countries in conflict, crisis and transition around the world. The Partnership
Agreement was signed in Rome on May 8, 2017.
"We are very excited to be partnering with the Link Campus Foundation to fund and enable important scholarship that looks
to build bridges of mediation in conflict regions around the world," said
EDOF's CEO, Dr. Nawaf Obaid . "We have respected
the work of Link Campus for some time. The Centre hopes to play an important role in contributing to its efforts toward creating
peace and good governance by strengthening the ability of researchers, media, and civil society to speak out and be informed on
vital contemporary issues."
Professor Joseph Mefsud will be appointed the Founding Director of the Centre for a period of three years. Scholarships
and bursaries will be allocated in the field of War and Peace studies. The Centre will also hold international seminars and conferences,
produce research publications, and appoint Senior Fellows in the field of War and Peace studies.
According to
Tarek Obaid (
1 ), Founder of EDOF, "The Centre will take a very pragmatic approach to helping bring
smarter and more relevant thinking to the area of conflict mediation." It will achieve this by having three areas of concentration:
training, mentoring, and providing platforms for professional and expert seminars; building up the capacity of institutions and
civic groups; and working with independent and official partners to remove barriers to free expression, robust public debate and
open citizen engagement. "Offering this research platform for experts is EDOF's way of trying to support those who are doing
the heavy thinking as to how we can bring resolution to some of the more intractable conflicts in our world."
Nawaf Obaid is the Visiting Fellow for Intelligence & Defense Projects at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
He is also a weekly columnist for the pan-Arab daily, Al Hayat Newspaper.
He is currently the CEO of the Essam and Dalal Obaid Foundation (EDOF).
From 2004 to 2007, he was Special Advisor for Strategic Communications to
Prince Turki Al Faisal , while Prince Turki was the Saudi Ambassador to the United Kingdom & Ireland, and then the United
States. And from 2007 to 2011, he worked with the Saudi Royal Court, where he was seconded as a Special Advisor to the Saudi Information
Minister. Most recently, he served as the Special Counselor to the Saudi Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 2011 to 2015.
Il 20 marzo alle ore 10:30 presso l'Universitŕ degli Studi Link Campus University, si č tenuto il convegno "Brexit: stepping
off a cliff or indipendence day?"
Il convegno determina il primo atto di una collaborazione italo-britannica post Brexit, ed č stato organizzato in occasione
della firma del Protocollo d'intesa tra l'Universitŕ degli Studi Link Campus University e la London School of Economics and Political
Science, tenutasi lo stesso giorno nella sede dell'universitŕ romana.
Sono intervenuti: Franco Frattini - Presidente del Corso in Studi Strategici e Scienze Diplomatiche e Presidente della SIOI,
Vincenzo Scotti - Presidente dell'Universitŕ
degli Studi Link Campus University, Michael Cox - Direttore della LSE IDEAS e Professore di Relazioni Internazionali presso la
LSE.
Prince
Turki Al Faisal said the evidence, disclosed by the United States late, was "overwhelming" and "clearly shows official Iranian
responsibility". "Somebody in Iran will have to pay the price," said
Prince Turki , who also served as his country's
envoy to Britain and the US.
... Prince Turki al-Faisal , the chairman of
the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, is a former director of Saudi Arabia's intelligence services and ambassador
to the United States.
What a bombshell! Finally some truth about the "Justice system" in the US.
Following on from this should be the whole subsequent story of the DNC-Fusion-Steele dossier in detail, exposing the MSM too
for what it has been worth.
Perhaps then Trump dares to go against the deep state swamp and stop wars instead of following the dictates of CIA, Israel and
Military Industrialists. That would be a real POTUS PLUS result.
""It's troubling. It is shocking," North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows said. "Part of me wishes that I didn't read it because
I don't want to believe that those kinds of things could be happening in this country that I call home and love so much.""
***
Come on, child! Enough with that spectacle. Get real. Have the basic courage to know and to admit what everybody has known
about your country for ages!... The entire world already knows.
More proof, if any were needed, that the only threat to the people of the USA comes from their own government. The 'external
threat' is a fiction calculated to enslave the US population and enrich the Oligarchy.
Somebody's going to leak this in short order. Let's take a real look at what both Dems and Repubs just expanded, let's look
at the monster they are feeding in broad daylight.
It is exactly as I told you. Russiagate is a conspiracy between the FBI, the DOJ, and the
Hillary campaign to overturn Donald Trump's election. We have treason committed at the highest
levels of the FBI and Department of Justice and the Democratic National Committee.
If you believed one word of Russiagate, you now must laugh or cry at your incredible
gullibility.
This scandal should also bring down the presstitute media who have done the dirty work for
the conspiracy against Trump.
18 Jan, 2018
18 Jan, 2018
Thursday on the Fox Business Network, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) teased an intelligence memo that he claimed went "to
the very foundations of democracy" and called on his colleagues in the House of Representatives to make the memo
public.
Gaetz told host Liz Claman the memo involved the FBI, the Department of Justice and President Donald Trump.
"The allegations contained in this important intelligence document go to the very foundations of our democracy,
and they require an immediate release to the public in my opinion," Gaetz said. "Unfortunately, I can not talk
about the specific facts contained within this memo. I can only share my observation -- that if the American people
knew what was happening if they saw the contents of this memo, a lot would become clear about the information that
I've been talking about the last several months. And so, I am calling on our leadership to hold a vote on the
floor of the House to make public the key contents of this intelligence memo regarding the FBI, the Department of
Justice and President Trump."
According to Gaetz, a vote could be held simultaneously with a continuing resolution vote that would make the
"critical allegations" in the document on the floor of the House of Representatives.
All hell is breaking loose in Washington D.C. tonight after a four-page memo detailing
extensive
FISA court abuse
was made available to the entire House of Representatives Thursday. The
contents of the memo are so explosive, says Journalist Sara Carter, that it could
lead to the
removal of senior officials in the FBI and the Department of Justice and the end of Robert Mueller's
special counsel investigation.
These sources say the report is "explosive," stating
they would not be surprised if it
leads to the end of Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation
into President Trump
and his associates. -
Sara
Carter
A source close to the matter tells
Fox
News
that "the memo details the Intelligence Committee's oversight work for
the FBI and Justice,
including the controversy over unmasking and FISA surveillance."
An
educated guess by anyone who's been paying attention for the last year leads to the obvious conclusion
that the report reveals
extensive abuse of power and highly illegal collusion between the
Obama administration, the FBI, the DOJ and the Clinton Campaign against Donald Trump and his team
during and after the 2016 presidential election.
Lawmakers who have seen the memo are calling for its immediate release, while the phrases
"explosive," "shocking," "troubling," and "alarming" have all been used in all sincerity. One
congressman even likened the report's details to KGB activity in Russia. "
It is so alarming
the American people have to see this,
" Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan told
Fox News
. "
It's
troubling. It is shocking
," North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows said. "
Part of me wishes
that I didn't read it because I don't want to believe that those kinds of things could be happening in
this country that I call home and love so much.
"
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., offered the motion on Thursday to make the Republican majority-authored
report available to the members.
"
The document shows a troubling course of conduct and we need to make the document
available, so the public can see it,
" said a senior government official, who spoke on
condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the document. "
Once the public sees it, we
can hold the people involved accountable in a number of ways
."
The government official said that after reading the document "
some of these people
should no longer be in the government.
" -
Sara Carter
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) echoed Sara Carter's sentiment
that people might lose their job
if the memo is released:
"
I believe the consequence of its release will
be major changes in people currently working at the FBI and the Department of Justice
," he
said, referencing DOJ officials
Rod Rosenstein and Bruce Ohr
.
Meanwhile, Rep. Matt Gatetz (R-FL) said
not only will the release of this memo result in
DOJ firing, but "people will go to jail."
Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino says "
Take it to the bank, the FBI/FISA docs are
devastating for the Dems
."
The dossier was used in part as evidence for a warrant to surveil members of the Trump
campaign,
according to a
story
published this month
. Former British spy Christopher Steele, who compiled the dossier in 2016,
was hired by embattled research firm Fusion GPS. The firm's founder is Glenn Simpson, a former Wall
Street Journal reporter who has already testified before Congress in relation to the dossier. In
October, The Washington Post revealed for the first time that it was the Hillary Clinton campaign
and the DNC that financed Fusion GPS.
Congressional members are hopeful that the classified information will be declassified and
released to the public.
"
We probably will get this stuff released by the end of the month
," stated a
congressional member, who asked not to be named. -
Sara Carter
Releasing the memo to the public would require a committee vote, a source told
Fox
, adding
that if approved,
it could be released as long as there are no objections from the White House
within five days
.
Reactions from the citizenry have been on point:
... ... ....
Even WikiLeaks has joined the fray, offering a reward in Bitcoin to anyone who will share the memo:
Oddly, the Twitter account for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence - @HPSCI - has
been mysteriously suspended.
Of all the recent developments in the ongoing investigation(s), this one is on the cusp of turning
into a genuine happening.
"... When the entire episode about the creation of the Trump dossier (by former Brit spy, Christopher Steele) and its dissemination (by Steele and the Democrat hired contractor, FUSION GPS,) to the FBI and the press, is fully exposed, the American people will be confronted with the stark dilemma of how to deal with the fact that there was a failed domestic coup attempted by members of the U.S. intel and law enforcement community. The facts will show that the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the CIA and the FBI conspired and meddled in the 2016 Presidential election. They lied to a Federal judge about the origins of the dossier and used those lies to get permission to spy on Trump and members of his campaign staff. ..."
"... But U.S. officials have since received intelligence reports that during that same three-day trip, Page met with Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin associate and former Russian deputy prime minister who is now the executive chairman of Rosneft, Russian's leading oil company, a well-placed Western intelligence source tells Yahoo News. ..."
"... The response to the information from the FBI, he recalled, was "shock and horror." After a few weeks, the bureau asked him for information on his sources and their reliability and on how he had obtained his reports. He was also asked to continue to send copies of his subsequent reports to the bureau. These reports were not written, he noted, as finished work products; they were updates on what he was learning from his various sources. ..."
"... "I have recently become concerned that the threat of the Russian government tampering in our presidential election is more extensive than widely known and may include the intent to falsify official election results. The evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump's presidential campaign continues to mount. . ." ..."
"... Michael Isikoff referenced those briefings : "The activities of Trump adviser Carter Page, who has extensive business interests in Russia, have been discussed with senior members of Congress during recent briefings about suspected efforts by Moscow to influence the presidential election, the sources said. After one of those briefings, Senate minority leader Harry Reid wrote FBI Director James Comey, citing reports of meetings between a Trump adviser (a reference to Page) and "high ranking sanctioned individuals" in Moscow over the summer as evidence of "significant and disturbing ties" between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin that needed to be investigated by the bureau." ..."
"... September 2016. FBI used the Steele memos as part of the basis for requesting a FISA warrant according to reports by the NY Times and the Washington Post : ..."
"... We do not know exactly when the FISA warrant was granted, but the New York Times and the Washington Post have reported, citing U.S. government sources, that this occurred in September 2016 (see here , here , and here ). ..."
"... After Mr. Page, 45 -- a Navy veteran and businessman who had lived in Moscow for three years -- stepped down (26 September 2016) from the Trump campaign in September, the F.B.I. obtained a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing the authorities to monitor his communications on the suspicion that he was a Russian agent. ..."
"... The Justice Department obtained a secret court-approved wiretap last summer on Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to Donald J. Trump 's presidential campaign, based on evidence that he was operating as a Russian agent, a government official said Wednesday. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued the warrant, the official said, after investigators determined that Mr. Page was no longer part of the Trump campaign, which began distancing itself from him in early August. ..."
"... The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page's communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials. ..."
"... Loretta Lynch, Attorney General under President Obama, approved the FISA application. (Note--federal law requires that the attorney general approve every application to the FISA court.) ..."
"... End of September--Steele revealed in a London court filing earlier this year that he was directed by Fusion GPS to brief reporters at outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Yahoo! News and Mother Jones about his Trump findings. ..."
"... End of September--Steele informs Simpson (i.e. Fusion GPS) that the FBI wants to meet him in Rome. ( Senate Judiciary Committee 0n 22 August 2017, p. 171 ) ..."
"... 6 January 2017--FBI Director Comey briefs Trump on the Steele dossier, which Comey describes as "salacious and UNVERIFIED." : ..."
"... The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing. (Comey's statement before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 8 June 2017) ..."
"... Describing his reports in the Mother Jones interview, Steele asserted, "This was something of huge significance, way above party politics." Things changed, though, when Steele was sued for libel after the dossier was published in early 2017. Suddenly, when he was in a forum where it was clear to him that making exaggerated or false claims could cost him dearly, he decided his allegations were not of such "huge significance" after all . . . .According to Steele's courtroom version, the dossier is merely a compilation of bits of "raw intelligence" that were "unverified" and that he passed along because they "warranted further investigation" -- i.e., not because he could vouch for their truthfulness. (kudos to Rowan Scarborough who initially broke the story). ..."
"... I think one has to start with the assumption that everyone at the highest levels of the federal government, especially the national security apparatus, is a swamp creature. They just don't get there unless they are one. Weasels like Clapper, Brennan, Hayden. Of course that does not mean a person with honor & integrity doesn't get up there. Just far and few between. ..."
"... It is extremely difficult to uncover malfeasance in government in the best of circumstances and it is practically impossible within the national security apparatus as they have the ever present shield of "state secrets". In this context we have to be thankful for small gifts of transparency coming from inside like these disclosures by IG Horowitz as well as by whistleblowers like Snowden. ..."
"... Are you sure the"insurance policy" referred to a way to destroy Trump if he were to be elected? What if FBI counterintelligence agents were involved in illegal surveillance activities that could possibly come to light if Trump were president? The dossier in fact was the insurance policy that they retroactively used to launder previous illegal searches that would have been covered up if Hillary had won. ..."
"... The primary purpose of the "insurance policy" was to protect FBI agents against accusations of malfeasance, which at present, appears to be an accurate description of their behavior. ..."
"... The ENTIRE SYSTEM of FISA-702 surveillance and data collection was weaponized against a political campaign. The DOJ and FBI used the FISA Court to gain access to Trump data, and simultaneously justify earlier FISA "queries" by their contractor, Fusion GPS. FISA-702 queries were used to gather information on the Trump campaign which later became FBI counterintelligence surveillance on the officials therein. ..."
"... So, the snooping began much before Steele was hired by Fusion GPS. Sundance for example believes that the FBI provided this "unauthorized" access to its subcontractor Fusion GPS. This is how Fusion GPS was paid by the FBI. ..."
"... When the time line and interactions are put together it seems that it all begins at the FBI during March 2016, pretty early in the primary season, possibly with Fusion GPS as the subcontractor. Steele only comes on the scene, after the meeting of Mary Jacoby, Glen Simpson's wife at the White House and Fusion is hired by the Clinton campaign. ..."
"... This post and PT's previous ones on the same topic, concern what many here suspect to be an orchestrated attempt to remove the Constitutionally-elected head of state via extra Constitutional means. In other words a soft coup. Rather than "Trump_vs_deep_state", I think the motivations for exploring this possibility here, by and large, come from feelings of patriotism. Particularly from those who swore to defend the Constitution (not the President) from enemies, both foreign and domestic. ..."
"... The question of whether the Rule of Law, or the observance of contitutional propriety, is being upheld is what is being examined here. That second issue is independent of the first. That is as it should be. If it were so that the FBI had played politics against Mrs Clinton that would be as disturbing as if they had played politics against Mr Trump. ..."
"... It will be most interesting to see Trump's most devoted congressional supporters and 'swamp beast fighters' utilize the timeline and verified facts and (unknown-to-indy investigators) details in the 'private' source, to bring justice to bear on this extremely serious matter. Why hasn't the DOJ appointed a special prosecutor; considering what PT and many others here and elsewhere are "piecing together?" ..."
"... I didn't vote Trump but I was shocked by the obvious coup d'etat to overthrow Trump after the election. You see some of us support the rule of law, our constitution, and established process for political change. Just because someone is elected that is unpopular with the losing side doesn't mean you throw away everything and become a willing banana Republic. While this was going on I predicted that if they had succeeded they would have over a million angry people in Washington and I would have been one of them ..."
"... To amplify your point, Terry: once you give the unelected and unaccountable "intelligence community" (or any other part of the Deep State) a de facto veto over election results, you will never get that power back. ..."
"... You as a country have crossed the Rubicon, and when you get to the other side, you are no longer in a constitutional republic, but in something else. ..."
"... In my view, the deep state......... CIA, FBI, NSA....... had the opportunity to prove their commitment to the welfare of the nation...... given they had the means and opportunity to sway the election. ..."
"... Given that the FBI made no serious effort to analyze the DNC servers after the alleged "hack" and, according to Seymour Hersh, are sitting on an FBI report that fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the supplier of the DNC emails to Wikileaks, these two facts also support the conclusion that the FBI at the highest levels are in a criminal conspiracy to overthrow Trump ..."
"... The FBI IS a criminal enterprise ..."
"... The FBI never investigated the DNC servers because they decided to accept CrowdStrike's analysis despite CrowdStrike being run by a Russian ex-pat who hates Russia and sees Russians under every bed. Now they want to try to accuse Trump associates of "hacking"? Seriously? ..."
"... Second, according to Seymour Hersh, the FBI is sitting on a report that explicitly fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the source for the DNC emails received by Wikileaks. ..."
The Trump Dossier Timeline, A Democrat Disaster Looming by Publius Tacitus
When the entire episode about the creation of
the Trump dossier (by former Brit spy, Christopher Steele) and its dissemination (by Steele and the Democrat hired contractor, FUSION
GPS,) to the FBI and the press, is fully exposed, the American people will be confronted with the stark dilemma of how to deal with
the fact that there was a failed domestic coup attempted by members of the U.S. intel and law enforcement community. The facts will
show that the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the CIA and the FBI conspired and meddled in the 2016 Presidential
election. They lied to a Federal judge about the origins of the dossier and used those lies to get permission to spy on Trump and
members of his campaign staff.
Here are the facts as we know them now. (Please note, these facts are sourced and are not my opinion).
Fusion
GPS approached Perkins Coie (a Seattle based law firm) and sought an engagement to continue research it had started on Donald
Trump. (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4116755-PerkinsCoie-Fusion-PrivelegeLetter-102417.html)
The
Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded the research that resulted in a now-famous dossier containing
allegations about President Trump's connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin. (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4116755-PerkinsCoie-Fusion-PrivelegeLetter-102417.html,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-campaign-dnc-paid-for-research-that-led-to-russia-dossier/2017/10/24/226fabf0-b8e4-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html?utm_term=.14d16b270afd).
Russian regime had been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years.
TRUMP declined various business deals offered him in Russia but accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin,
including on his Democratic and other political rivals.
Russian intelligence officer claims FSB has material to blackmail TRUMP.
The Russians had a dossier on Clinton but "nothing embarrassing."
July 2016, Christopher Steele meets with FBI (name of contact unknown) and passes on content from the 20 June memo.
Third report, dated 19 July 2016 , claims that TRUMP advisor Carter PAGE held secret meetings in Moscow with SECHIN and senior
Kremlin Internal Affairs official, DIVYEKIN. (
See dossier ).
But U.S. officials have since received intelligence reports that during that same three-day trip, Page met with Igor Sechin,
a longtime Putin associate and former Russian deputy prime minister who is now the executive chairman of Rosneft, Russian's
leading oil company, a well-placed Western intelligence source tells Yahoo News.
15 August 2016 FBI Agent Strzok's text about the meeting in McCabe's office is dated August 15, 2016. . . According to Agent
Strzok, with Election Day less than three months away, Page, the bureau lawyer, weighed in on Trump's bid: "There's no way he
gets elected."
The response to the information from the FBI, he recalled, was "shock and horror." After a few weeks, the bureau asked
him for information on his sources and their reliability and on how he had obtained his reports. He was also asked to continue
to send copies of his subsequent reports to the bureau. These reports were not written, he noted, as finished work products;
they were updates on what he was learning from his various sources.
"I have recently become concerned that the threat of the Russian government tampering in our presidential election
is more extensive than widely known and may include the intent to falsify official election results. The evidence of a direct
connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump's presidential campaign continues to mount. . ."
Michael Isikoff referenced those briefings : "The activities of Trump adviser Carter Page, who has extensive business interests
in Russia, have been discussed with senior members of Congress during recent briefings about suspected efforts by Moscow to
influence the presidential election, the sources said. After one of those briefings, Senate minority leader Harry Reid wrote
FBI Director James Comey, citing reports of meetings between a Trump adviser (a reference to Page) and "high ranking sanctioned
individuals" in Moscow over the summer as evidence of "significant and disturbing ties" between the Trump campaign and the
Kremlin that needed to be investigated by the bureau."
We do not know exactly when the FISA warrant was granted, but the New York Times and the Washington Post have reported,
citing U.S. government sources, that this occurred in September 2016 (see
here ,
here
, and
here ).
After Mr. Page, 45 -- a Navy veteran and businessman who had lived in Moscow for three years -- stepped down (26
September 2016) from the Trump campaign in September,
the
F.B.I. obtained a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing the authorities to monitor his communications
on the suspicion that he was a Russian agent.
The Justice Department obtained a secret court-approved wiretap last summer on Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser
to Donald J. Trump 's presidential
campaign, based on evidence that he was operating as a Russian agent, a government official said Wednesday. The Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court issued the warrant, the official said, after investigators determined that Mr. Page was
no longer part of the Trump campaign, which began distancing itself from him in early August.
The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page's communications after convincing
a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of
a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials.
End of September--Steele revealed in a London court filing earlier this year that he was directed by Fusion GPS to brief
reporters at outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Yahoo! News and Mother Jones about his Trump findings.
8 November 2016 , Senator John McCain, accompanied by David Kramer (a Senior Director at Senator McCain's Institute for International
Leadership), met in London with an Associate of Orbis, former British Ambassador Sir Andrew Wood, to arrange a subsequent meeting
with Christopher Steele in order to read the now infamous Steele Dossier.
Once Senator McCain and David Kramer returned to the United States, arrangements were made for Fusion GPS to provide Senator
McCain hard copies of the memoranda.
13 December 2016 , Christopher Steele prepares, on his own, the 17th report in the dossier and sends it to Senator McCain
via David Kramer.
6 January 2017--FBI Director Comey briefs Trump on the Steele dossier, which Comey describes as
"salacious and UNVERIFIED." :
The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence
of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to
publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from
the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such
effort with a defensive briefing. (Comey's statement before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 8 June 2017)
One of the more interesting developments in the dossier case came as a result of depositions and testimony in the defamation case
that Aleksej Gubarev filed against Christoper Steele in the United Kingdom last year. When pressed to defend the authenticity and
accuracy of the dossier and the allegations against President Trump, Christopher Steele became a British version of Michael Jackson
and moon-walked backwards.
Andy McCarthy describes the situation beautifully :
Describing his reports in the Mother Jones interview, Steele asserted, "This was something of huge significance, way above
party politics." Things changed, though, when Steele was sued for libel after the dossier was published in early 2017. Suddenly,
when he was in a forum where it was clear to him that making exaggerated or false claims could cost him dearly, he decided his allegations
were not of such "huge significance" after all . . . .According to Steele's courtroom version, the dossier is merely a compilation
of bits of "raw intelligence" that were "unverified" and that he passed along because they "warranted further investigation" -- i.e.,
not because he could vouch for their truthfulness. (kudos to
Rowan
Scarborough who initially broke the story).
There are some very interesting unanswered questions. Here are some that I believe are most relevant:
Why does a former MI-6 officer reach out on his own to the FBI when the normal point of contact would be the CIA?
Who did Steele contact at the FBI?
Who at the FBI asked Steele to travel to Rome in October 2016? [Note--this request is quite odd given the fact that the FBI
has a very large presence in London and, if the purpose was simply to inform the FBI about possible nefarious Russian activity,
could have easily walked over to the US Embassy at Grosvenor Square rather than travel to Rome.]
The failure of the FBI and the CIA to disclose to members of Congress and the President that the information they briefed from
the dossier had been paid for by the Clinton campaign is much more than gross negligence and incompetence. It is prima facie evidence
of collusion and meddling in a U.S. domestic election. Only the culprits weren't the Russians.
As Pogo once said , "we have
met the enemy and he is us."
Thanks for spurring my interest on this monumental deceit with your many posts.
I knew nothing about FISA & mass surveillance other than our government was collecting all communications of every American,
before you began posting on this topic. I've learned more since and it is revolting if one is a staunch believer in the Bill of
Rights as what makes America different.
IG Mike Horowitz was barred from investigating the DOJ National Security Division by the Obama administration. It required
an act of Congress and Obama signed it after the election, to allow the IG the ability to investigate all of DOJ. The DOJ NSD
and FBI CounterIntelligence had a big role to play in all this as all the FISA applications originated there. What we know about
Peter Strzok & Lisa Page, Bruce & Nellie Ohr and the Clinton exoneration all came from the IG. In testimony to Congress, Rosenstein
used the IG investigation to stall the production of documents and witness interviews. It seems the IG report will become available
in a few weeks. That will hopefully shed more light.
Considering that in our country the rule of law does not apply to high officials in government, I am not holding my breath
that any of these miscreants will be held accountable or there will be any changes to the surveillance laws.
So, is IG Michael Horowitz one of the honorable guys in this whole thing? You'd never guess judging by his bio. And his ties to
the Democrats and Comey. I've lost all respect for the FBI. And the IC.
I think one has to start with the assumption that everyone at the highest levels of the federal government, especially
the national security apparatus, is a swamp creature. They just don't get there unless they are one. Weasels like Clapper, Brennan,
Hayden. Of course that does not mean a person with honor & integrity doesn't get up there. Just far and few between.
I don't have any basis to judge Michael Horowitz since I didn't even know about him until a few weeks ago. What we know in
this case is he has allowed us to learn about some of the activities of Peter Strozk & Lisa Page as well as Bruce & Nellie Ohr
which has helped further understand Russiagate.
It is extremely difficult to uncover malfeasance in government in the best of circumstances and it is practically impossible
within the national security apparatus as they have the ever present shield of "state secrets". In this context we have to be
thankful for small gifts of transparency coming from inside like these disclosures by IG Horowitz as well as by whistleblowers
like Snowden.
Both Christopher Wray and Rosenstein in separate testimony were unable to confirm that any of the contents in the Steele dossier
was verified, with the exception of Carter Page's visit to Russia.
It's becoming quite clear that Trump, as President, appeared to be such an appalling concept amongst some highly placed functionaries
that "insurance" was needed to deal with the possibility. And these people had contacts with the media, which, by and large, were
as appalled. Thus the current situation.
Quite unfortunately, Trump's unbounded hubris has played into this mess. Trump is very fortunate that his party is in control
of the legislative branches. One thinks of Hercules and the Aegean stables.
Great compilation and analysis of the available facts. No need to publish the following, but I would suggest that your work
is important enough to correct a couple of typos and provide a clarification which I will identify by paragraph number.
1. Perkins Coie (a Seattle Law Firm)--you get the name right in #2.
9. Put "Lisa" in front of "Page" in order to let the reader know you are referring to Lisa Page.
19. Rowan Farrow, I think, not Rowan Scarborough.
Keep posting and keep up the good work. Bob Randolph
Are you sure the"insurance policy" referred to a way to destroy Trump if he were to be elected? What if FBI counterintelligence
agents were involved in illegal surveillance activities that could possibly come to light if Trump were president? The dossier
in fact was the insurance policy that they retroactively used to launder previous illegal searches that would have been covered
up if Hillary had won.
The primary purpose of the "insurance policy" was to protect FBI agents against accusations
of malfeasance, which at present, appears to be an accurate description of their behavior.
The ENTIRE SYSTEM of FISA-702 surveillance and data collection was weaponized against a political campaign. The DOJ and
FBI used the FISA Court to gain access to Trump data, and simultaneously justify earlier FISA "queries" by their contractor, Fusion
GPS. FISA-702 queries were used to gather information on the Trump campaign which later became FBI counterintelligence surveillance
on the officials therein.
Here's something that's puzzling. The FBI directly or indirectly through Fusion GPS or another a subcontractor, began querying
the NSA database around March 2016 as per the FISC ruling. That's pretty early in the primary. I don't think anyone at that point
was thinking Trump was going to clinch the GOP nomination.
Do you think they were doing this on other candidates too? Bernie? Were they already an arm of the Clinton campaign? Or just
snooping on all or some of the candidates communications?
Here's a stab at your relevant unanswered questions.
"Why does a former MI-6 officer reach out on his own to the FBI when the normal point of contact would be the CIA?"
"Who did Steele contact at the FBI?"
"Who at the FBI asked Steele to travel to Rome in October 2016?"
Steele's CIA contacts were probably more of the bureaucratic liaison variety. Hardly memorable. However, he worked closely
with the FBI Eurasian Joint Organized Crime Squad on several operations. He formed strong friendships doing these "heady things"
as Steele describes . When he decided to bring his concerns to the FBI, he found one of these old FBI friends stationed in Rome.
This FBI friend is who he reached out to. This FBI Special Agent seems to be identified in Steele's Judicial Committee testimony,
but the name and position is redacted. Someone in Comey's Russian investigation team probably decided to continue this established
relationship and venue for the October 2016 meeting. Perhaps it was Comey himself.
DC you are entitled to your own opinion but you are not entitled to your own facts. Both the FBI and Steele in his court case
have stated that there is no confirmation of anything in the reports. They are purely hearsay at absolute best and more likely
a deliberate fabrication for political purposes in the opinion of far more knowledgeable people than you.
To put that another way, the chances of your opinion being valid are judged as zero.
Keep your eyes tightly closed. Your hatred of Trump blinds you to what is really going on. Deal with these two indisputable facts:
1) Comey, under oath, almost one year after the info became available, still said it was UNVERIFIABLE; 2) Steele, himself, also
under oath, now disavows the importance of what he originally claimed was so essential. You should write a novel. You're very
good at spinning a tale without having a shred of evidence to go on.
If you look at the FISC ruling that has been declassified but heavily redacted, you will notice the FBI provided a sub-contractor
"unauthorized" access to the NSA database in March 2016. This access to the raw FISA data was discontinued on April 18, 2016.
So, the snooping began much before Steele was hired by Fusion GPS. Sundance for example believes that the FBI provided
this "unauthorized" access to its subcontractor Fusion GPS. This is how Fusion GPS was paid by the FBI.
When the time line and interactions are put together it seems that it all begins at the FBI during March 2016, pretty early
in the primary season, possibly with Fusion GPS as the subcontractor. Steele only comes on the scene, after the meeting of Mary
Jacoby, Glen Simpson's wife at the White House and Fusion is hired by the Clinton campaign.
Not being an academic, mathematician, nor pollster, I simply run an image search on both Clinton and Trump election rallies. These
showed that Trump would win. Early in the campaign, there were several pics of large crowds at Clinton rallies, but from about
six months out, the images all showed her speaking to fifty to hundred people, whereas Trump images always showed packed stadiums.
The Dossier. A person as portrayed in the Steele would be corrupt/dishonest in most everyday business dealings. With the attacks
against Trump, by intelligence and investigative agencies, any dishonesty, breaking the law in business dealings, would have been
brought up. This tells me he has always operated within the letter of the law. Perhaps sharp and ruthless, but within the letter
of the law.
Trump's ideology/culture is USA through and through. Russia has no ideology, and its own culture.
There is no ideology nor religion involved, so why would a man like Trump that has always operated within the letter of the
law be nefariously colluding with a foreign state?
Needs to be a lot more digging like you are doing PT, as the saying goes "Without fear or favor".
Here's a timeline based on Sundance's work to supplement PT's timeline. I did this for my benefit so likely contain errors. Others
here at SST can correct.
- Before March 2016: a)Fusion GPS hired by Washington Free Beacon to do oppo research on Trump. I have read elsewhere that
it was billionaire fund manager Paul Singer who paid for this, presume to provide GOP candidate he supported in the primary
oppo research. b) FBI provides unauthorized FISA 702 access to a subcontractor who conducts numerous FISA 702(16)(17) searches
on NSA database, which lead to FISA 702 violations. Speculation subcontractor is Fusion GPS. The subcontractor's name is redacted
in declassified FISC ruling.
- March 9, 2016: DOJ oversight personnel learn that FBI has disclosed raw FISA information to a subcontractor that went
well beyond what was necessary to respond to FBI's request.
- Early April 2016: Admiral Rogers learns of FISA 702 violations and orders compliance review at NSA.
- April 18, 2016: Access to raw FISA information by subcontractor ended presume after FBI learns that Admiral Rogers is
on to the FISA violations.
- April 19, 2016: White House log shows Mary Jacoby, wife of Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS visits White House.
- Later in April 2016: Clinton campaign hires Fusion GPS to do oppo research on Trump. See PT's timeline.
- March/April 2016: Fusion GPS hires Nellie Ohr, who also works with CIA and is the the wife of DOJ Deputy Bruce Ohr.
- May 2016: Fusion GPS hires Christopher Steele. See PT's timeline. Presume that Steele receives whatever prior oppo research
the Fusion GPS did which may include info obtained from FISA 702 searches (if Fusion GPS is the FBI subcontractor) and whatever
stuff Nellie Ohr has written up until then.
- May 23, 2016: Mary Jacoby applies for ham radio license. Presume to communicate with Steele without getting "collected"
in NSA hoover.
- June 2016 on: Steele dossier dissemination. See PT's timeline for more detail.
- August 2016: Peter Strzok's "insurance policy" text message. See PT's timeline.
- October 2016: a) NSA compliance review completed and Admiral Rogers goes to FISC to report FISA 702 violations and ends
FISA 702(17) searches. b) DOJ NSD prepares FISA application that in part includes content from Steele dossier. c) FISC grants
warrant.
- A week after election: a) Admiral Rogers goes to Trump Tower and spills the beans b) Next day Trump transition moves
out of Trump Tower to Trump Golf Club in Bedminster.
Publius Tacitus: "When James Comey testified in June of 2017 that the dossier was "SALACIOUS AND UNVERIFIED," he made it very
clear that Steele's so-called "raw intelligence" had no value nor corroboration. If Comey had said, "WE HAVE VERIFIED KEY ELEMENTS
OF THE DOSSIER BUT WILL HAVE TO DISCUSS THAT IN CLOSED SESSION," then Trump would have been a dead man walking."
Then Trump is in big trouble. In the June 2017 transcript, Senator Burr questions first. After about a dozen questions:
"BURR: In the public domain is this question of the "Steele dossier," a document that has been around out in for over a year.
I'm not sure when the FBI first took possession of it, but the media had it before you had it and we had it. At the time of your
departure from the FBI, was the FBI able to confirm any criminal allegations contained in the Steele document?
COMEY: Mr. Chairman, I don't think that's a question I can answer in an open setting because it goes into the details of the
investigation."
This post and PT's previous ones on the same topic, concern what many here suspect to be an orchestrated attempt to remove
the Constitutionally-elected head of state via extra Constitutional means. In other words a soft coup. Rather than "Trump_vs_deep_state",
I think the motivations for exploring this possibility here, by and large, come from feelings of patriotism. Particularly from
those who swore to defend the Constitution (not the President) from enemies, both foreign and domestic.
This said, if Trump actually does go to war with Iran (rather than just threaten it) I will agree with your comparison re Bush
and the neocons of his era.
Nice try Lee, but he still does not contradict his sworn testimony, i.e. UNVERIFIED. Not being able to discuss "details of the
investigation" could have opened up questions about when the FBI first learned of the reports in the dossier. That would have
raised even more uncomfortable questions about the FBIs conduct.
"I check in with this site from time to time because I find coverage of the Middle East that I will not find elsewhere. It has
always been informative. But it is curious to find this remarkable devotion to Trump_vs_deep_state."
Right on the first point. Wrong on the second. To my occasional regret the dream of 2016 had and has few all-in adherents here.
The merits of what you term "Trump_vs_deep_state" are examined from time to time on the Colonel's site. The question of whether the
Rule of Law, or the observance of contitutional propriety, is being upheld is what is being examined here. That second issue is
independent of the first. That is as it should be. If it were so that the FBI had played politics against Mrs Clinton that would
be as disturbing as if they had played politics against Mr Trump.
From my point of view - I'm English, as you might notice - the question of whether the UK Security Services helped
play politics in a US presidential election is relevant whoever the target was. I like to think that our Security Services work
as part of our defence forces, not as political hit men.
The Kremlin targeted "educated youth"? Which ones, the Bernie supporters who were going to be screwed by the rigged democratic
primary? How did they do the targeting, by that $100K ad spend with Zuckerberg? Isn't he then also guilty by association or is
he still the good billionaire? Which other US citizens maintain ties to rich businessmen from Axerbaijan? Which law does that
violate?
When the MSM was all a-flutter with coverage of Simpson's testimony in the Capitol, I heard none of the TV hosts mention that
it was the Clinton folks who hired Fusion. If that is not the case, please let me know.
In his testimony, Simpson supposedly said that Russia was just one country that research into Trump's business contacts were
conducted, the others being the likes of South East Asia and Latin America. We have heard nothing about the outcome of that research.
It will be most interesting to see Trump's most devoted congressional supporters and 'swamp beast fighters' utilize the timeline
and verified facts and (unknown-to-indy investigators) details in the 'private' source, to bring justice to bear on this extremely
serious matter. Why hasn't the DOJ appointed a special prosecutor; considering what PT and many others here and elsewhere
are "piecing together?"
If Trump wanted to do so, he could have all this factual stuff published on the WH web site; yes?
If he did so the counter-narrative would be instantly annihilated, right?
I didn't vote Trump but I was shocked by the obvious coup d'etat to overthrow Trump after the election. You see some of us
support the rule of law, our constitution, and established process for political change. Just because someone is elected that
is unpopular with the losing side doesn't mean you throw away everything and become a willing banana Republic. While this was
going on I predicted that if they had succeeded they would have over a million angry people in Washington and I would have been
one of them
What I find remarkable isn't Trump_vs_deep_state - but rather the blind emotional partisanship that drives far too many people and how
willing so many people are to commit treason and tear apart constitutional law just to "win".
- November 2016: Clapper recommended that Rogers be fired. This was soon after Rogers' meeting with Trump.
- March 2017: Trump tweeted that Trump Tower had it's "wires tapped."
Sundance's theory is very interesting. Given the circumstances and the timeline of events, it seems plausible to say the least
that Rogers tipped off Trump.
I have believed that the FISA courts and procedures are a flat violation of the Sixth Amendment (which guarantees public trials,
the right to confront witnesses and the right of the accused to be made aware of the charges against them) ever since the day
I became aware of them.
To amplify your point, Terry: once you give the unelected and unaccountable "intelligence community" (or any other part of
the Deep State) a de facto veto over election results, you will never get that power back.
You as a country have crossed the Rubicon, and when you get to the other side, you are no longer in a constitutional republic,
but in something else.
Americans should be able to put their personal beliefs about Trump aside and realize that our country has a serious problem when
one-sided opposition research containing little more than rumors is used as the basis for starting a FBI investigation on a presidential
candidate during an election. This is especially true when, as we all know, the "news" of such an investigation would soon be
leaked to the press.
Personally, I have a very low opinion of Trump and his policies. However, this whole "Russiagate" thing, from what evidence
I've seen, is complete bullshit. To see that such obvious bullshit was used to start an FBI spying operation and witch hunts by
both the press and a special prosecutor against Trump is outrageous. It is also a crime under our laws. If it can happen to Trump,
it can happen to anyone.
One would think the great harm caused by allowing our government intelligence agencies to spy on political candidates and then
leak both true and false information about those candidates to the press would be obvious. I hope the people who caused this outrage
are prosecuted for the many crimes they committed.
Very, very well done. Andy McCarthy's and Publius Tacitus's combined work in clearing the political and MSM smoke from around
this Beltway debacle alone is more than is needed to predicate a full criminal investigation.
In my opinion, another Special
Counsel is neither needed nor desirable: a competent apolitical United States Attorney with a special Grand Jury and a couple
of squads of FBI Agents brought in from some place like Chicago should be adequate to the job; or the American taxpayer has not
been getting its money's worth. A not inconsiderable side benefit would be that our system of justice and the FBI might start
to reclaim some of their reputation that is lying in tatters.
The only thing I would add is that I would integrate into the design of the case the multiple unmaskings and unfettered leaks.
This case points directly towards the Obama White House and it is reasonable to suspect that it may include Obama himself.
In my view, the deep state......... CIA, FBI, NSA....... had the opportunity to prove their commitment to the welfare of
the nation...... given they had the means and opportunity to sway the election.
I'm speaking of Sanders... There was enough dirt on HRC to blackmail her into giving the nomination to Sanders. There
was enough dirt on DT to show him as the plaything of the Zionists/ Russians. They had both the Post and Times in their pockets,
not to mention Fox and CNN. Only Sanders had a domestic program which could put money into households and thus grow demand and
the economy, and Sanders was/is a hawk. They didn't. Their loyalty to HRC trumped the nation.... The question left un asked.........
WHY??? What did they have to gain from HRC that no one else offered?
Given that the FBI made no serious effort to analyze the DNC servers after the alleged "hack" and, according to Seymour Hersh,
are sitting on an FBI report that fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the supplier of the DNC emails to Wikileaks, these
two facts also support the conclusion that the FBI at the highest levels are in a criminal conspiracy to overthrow Trump.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who is familiar with the FBI's history of conducting illegal, criminal activities
against various dissident groups in the US and covering up evidence of criminal activity by their own informants - including murder
- and also covering up evidence of criminal activity by other law enforcement agencies such as the Bureau of Prisons.
If any of Trump's associates knew about and encouraged the hacking of Democrats' emails and computer servers, they could
be charged under the statute.
In November, The Wall Street Journal reported that Mueller's team was letting the original DOJ prosecutors retain the investigation
of the actual cyber intrusions into the DNC and other targets.
This is beyond ridiculous.
The FBI never investigated the DNC servers because they decided to accept CrowdStrike's analysis despite CrowdStrike being
run by a Russian ex-pat who hates Russia and sees Russians under every bed. Now they want to try to accuse Trump associates of
"hacking"? Seriously?
Second, according to Seymour Hersh, the FBI is sitting on a report that explicitly fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich
as the source for the DNC emails received by Wikileaks.
These two facts - along with the compromised FBI personnel involved in the Fusion GPS scandal - demonstrate that the FBI at
the highest levels were involved in a criminal conspiracy to prevent Trump from winning the election.
This establishes that the entire "Russiagate" investigation is nothing but more of the same. The real scandal is that the FBI,
the CIA, and other intelligence agencies are involved in a "soft coup" against an elected President.
I can keep smacking you around all day. Here's what Corn reported in January 2017 about his first conversations with Steele: The
former spy said he soon decided the information he was receiving was "sufficiently serious" for him to forward it to contacts
he had at the FBI. He did this, he said, without permission from the American firm that had hired him. "This was an extraordinary
situation," he remarked.
The response to the information from the FBI, he recalled, was "shock and horror." After a few weeks, the bureau asked him
for information on his sources and their reliability and on how he had obtained his reports. He was also asked to continue to
send copies of his subsequent reports to the bureau. These reports were not written, he noted, as finished work products; they
were updates on what he was learning from his various sources. But he said, "My track record as a professional is second to no
one."
When I spoke with the former spy, he appeared confident about his material -- acknowledging these memos were works in progress
-- and genuinely concerned about the implications of the allegations. He came across as a serious and somber professional who
was not eager to talk to a journalist or cause a public splash. He realized he was taking a risk, but he seemed duty bound to
share information he deemed crucial. He noted that these allegations deserved a "substantial inquiry" within the FBI.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/spy-who-wrote-trump-russia-memos-it-was-hair-raising-stuff/
Of course, if you had actually read carefully what I wrote you would have known this.
"... Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, with almost four decades of membership in the House and Senate, openly warned incoming President Trump in January 2017 against criticizing the U.S. intelligence community because U.S. intelligence officials have "six ways from Sunday to get back at you" if you are "dumb" enough to take them on. ..."
"... Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, says he will ask Strzok to explain the "insurance policy" when he calls him to testify. What seems already clear is that the celebrated "Steele Dossier" was part of the "insurance," as was the evidence-less legend that Russia hacked the DNC's and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's emails and gave them to WikiLeaks . <img src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/fbiseal-291x300.jpg" alt="" width="291" height="300" srcset="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/fbiseal-291x300.jpg 291w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/fbiseal.jpg 350w" sizes="(max-width: 291px) 100vw, 291px" /> ..."
"... There is a snowball's chance in hell that this is raw intelligence gathered by Steele; rather he seems to have drawn on a single 'trusted intermediary' to gather unsubstantiated rumor already in existence. ..."
"... "The fact that you do not control your sources frequently means that they will feed you what they think you want to hear. Since they are only doing it for money, the more lurid the details the better, as it increases the apparent value of the information. The private security firm in turn, which is also doing it for the money, will pass on the stories and even embroider them to keep the client happy and to encourage him to come back for more. When I read the Steele dossier it looked awfully familiar to me, like the scores of similar reports I had seen which combined bullshit with enough credible information to make the whole product look respectable." ..."
"... How, you might ask, could Strzok and associates undertake these extra-legal steps with such blithe disregard for the possible consequences should they be caught? The answer is easy; Mrs. Clinton was a shoo-in, remember? This was just extra insurance with no expectation of any "death benefit" ever coming into play -- save for Trump's electoral demise in November 2016. The attitude seemed to be that, if abuse of the FISA law should eventually be discovered -- there would be little interest in a serious investigation by the editors of The New York Times and other anti-Trump publications and whatever troubles remained could be handled by President Hillary Clinton. ..."
Special Report: In the Watergate era, liberals warned about U.S. intelligence agencies
manipulating U.S. politics, but now Trump-hatred has blinded many of them to this danger
becoming real, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern notes.
"... The central fact of US political economy, the source of our exceptionalism, is that lower-income whites vote for politicians who redistribute income upward and weaken the safety net because they think the welfare state is for nonwhites. ..."
"... And by voting against its own interests, the white working class isn't just making itself poorer, it's literally killing itself. ..."
"... With some slight variations, Krugman was essentially re-stating the thesis of my 2004 book, What's the Matter With Kansas?, in which I declared on the very first page that working people "getting their fundamental interests wrong" by voting for conservatives was "the bedrock of our civic order; it is the foundation on which all else rests". ..."
On New Year's Day, the economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman issued a series of
tweets in which he proclaimed as follows:
The central fact of US political economy, the source of our exceptionalism, is that lower-income whites vote for politicians
who redistribute income upward and weaken the safety net because they think the welfare state is for nonwhites.
and then, a few minutes later:
And by voting against its own interests, the white working class isn't just making itself poorer, it's literally killing itself.
Was I psyched to see this! With some slight variations, Krugman was essentially re-stating the thesis of my 2004 book, What's
the Matter With Kansas?, in which I declared on the very first page that working people "getting their fundamental interests wrong"
by voting for conservatives was "the bedrock of our civic order; it is the foundation on which all else rests".
... ... ...
Let me be more explicit. We have just come through an election in which underestimating working-class conservatism in northern
states proved catastrophic for Democrats. Did the pundits' repeated insistence that white working-class voters in the north were
reliable Democrats play any part in this underestimation? Did the message Krugman and his colleagues hammered home for years help
to distract their followers from the basic strategy of Trump_vs_deep_state?
I ask because getting that point wrong was kind of a big deal in 2016. It was a blunder from which it will take the Democratic
party years to recover. And we need to get to the bottom of it.
"... The FBI never investigated the DNC servers because they decided to accept CrowdStrike's analysis despite CrowdStrike being run by a Russian ex-pat who hates Russia and sees Russians under every bed. Now they want to try to accuse Trump associates of "hacking"? Seriously? ..."
"... Second, according to Seymour Hersh, the FBI is sitting on a report that explicitly fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the source for the DNC emails received by Wikileaks. ..."
If any of Trump's associates knew about and encouraged the hacking of Democrats' emails and computer servers, they could
be charged under the statute.
In November, The Wall Street Journal reported that Mueller's team was letting the original DOJ prosecutors retain the investigation
of the actual cyber intrusions into the DNC and other targets.
End Quote
This is beyond ridiculous.
The FBI never investigated the DNC servers because they decided to accept CrowdStrike's analysis despite CrowdStrike being
run by a Russian ex-pat who hates Russia and sees Russians under every bed. Now they want to try to accuse Trump associates of
"hacking"? Seriously?
Second, according to Seymour Hersh, the FBI is sitting on a report that explicitly fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich
as the source for the DNC emails received by Wikileaks.
These two facts - along with the compromised FBI personnel involved in the Fusion GPS scandal - demonstrate that the FBI at
the highest levels were involved in a criminal conspiracy to prevent Trump from winning the election.
This establishes that the entire "Russiagate" investigation is nothing but more of the same. The real scandal is that the FBI,
the CIA, and other intelligence agencies are involved in a "soft coup" against an elected President.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs in the DNC Fraud Lawsuit received good news from the 11th
Circuit Court of Federal Appeals earlier today. The Becks stated via social media that "After
posing two separate jurisdictional questions, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has found
jurisdiction sufficient for the case to proceed on appeal.
The DNC Fraud lawsuit was initially filed on behalf of donors to the Democratic party in the
wake of the revelations stemming from the publication of DNC emails that clearly demonstrated
the party's partisan efforts to support Hillary Clinton and to undermine Bernie Sander's
campaign. After the suit was dismissed late last year, Disobedient
Media reported that the Becks filed an appeal to that ruling.
The suit has proven extremely significant in terms of calling the Democratic Party
establishment to account, with DNC defense counsel forced to argue in open court that the Party
should legally be able to support one candidate over another, in an apparently overt
contradiction of the DNC's charter.
Disobedient Media reported on the numerous issues stemming from the suit, including safety
concerns of the plaintiff's Attorneys and their co-counsel. Among other disturbing events
surrounding the case, including the death of
Shawn Lucas ,
Disobedient Media reported that the Becks had received unusual phone calls from a caller-ID
which matched the Aventura office of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a defendant in the case.
"I'm definitely for making an example of a suspected leaker whether or not we have any
real basis for it," John Podesta said not long before the young DNC staffer, Seth Rich, was
mysteriously killed. Some unsubstantiated claims indicate Rich may have been Julian Assange's
source for the leaked DNC emails
But talk he did. He was alive and talking when the police arrived. And what do the police
ask gunshot victims when that are talking? They ask "Who shot you?". And where is that
testimony? Where are the police reports about when the police found him alive and talking?
And why did the emergency room personnel leave the room and allow .GOV officials enter the
room where Rich was? And then he was dead. His wounds were NOT life threatening.
I wonder who ordered the murder of Seth Rich. Was it John Podesta?
Was it Hillary Clinton?
Was it Debra Wasserman-Scholtz?
As I side note, I wonder who double crossed and informed on Seth Rich?
Was it Julian Assange or was Seth Rich careless and confided his intentions to someone
that he thought he could trust?
I'd bet my balls to a barn dance the whoever those two gunmen were that were on the
surveillance tape were also in the bar that night.
Bet that bar has video too.
You know the kid said something to paramedics and the ER Docs, too.
Seth Rich was talkative when police arrived. Was not even aware he'd been shot. In fact,
the cops were surprised to learn that he didn't make it. So what did Rich have to say before
he passed? And why did Rich wander so long that early morning, far longer than the walk home
should have taken - was he trying to shake someone?
What did he tell his GF?
The frat bro he also spoke with that morning?
The machinations surrounding the Election 2016 and its aftermath could hardy have been
scripted more intriguingly. So many vile characters.
It would seem that if the facts don't get reported by all news agencies then I guess the
truth is not the truth after all.
Bill Binney proved that this was a leak not a hack, because metadata proves that the
transfer rate was much too fast to have been a hacker and was a drive that was plugged
directly into the computer.
The Lucas murder right after serving DNC papers on the law suit, then Seth Rich murder,
nothing stolen but according to police it was a robbery. Then the Haitian minister is
suicided the day before he was to testify on the Clinton Foundation.
Too many dead bodies showing up around democrats, considering Wasserman Shultz looks
inbred, sounds and acts inbred, is extremely racist against those who are not Jews, then
maybe Wasserman Shultz must be investigated, we can't because she is a Jew, just like Harvey
Wienstein can't be indicted and convicted, because he is a Jew.
Then we have Wasserman Shultz running a Pakistani espionage ring connected to Hezbollah
and we don't know if this is the same Hezbollah cocaine ring Obama covered for.
I've been saying for over 2 years now, the collective "we" probably deserves what's coming
for sticking their fingers in the ears, closing their eyes and adamantly refusing to to
consider any evidence except that which supported their previously held beliefs.
It does remove all doubt about the FBIs true role in our society, hopefully opening a few
eyes and minds.
The secret police guarding the one party, the Pure Evil Criminal Psychopath and its
minions.
Its policing work is merely practice and cover for that true purpose.
Don't nominate a new head, send it to the trash can of history NOW..
A federal investigator who reviewed an FBI forensic report detailing the contents of DNC
staffer Seth Rich's computer generated within 96 hours after his murder, said Rich made
contact with WikiLeaks through Gavin MacFadyen, a now-deceased American investigative
reporter, documentary filmmaker, and director of WikiLeaks who was living in London at the
time.
This explosive information was being suppressed by James Comey...FUCK the FBI!
And Andrew the Weiner and Huma have called off the divorce......Hmmmm cannot testifies
against your husband!!! or wife.....
You just know they are all dirty of what we suspect, and I'm sure much more. They would
not do these things if they were not guilty...
Private meetings on air port runways, smashing hard drives and blackberry's, bleach
bit...erasing emails after subpoena... and the list goes on and on.....
Actually there will be a lot of super delegates. At least it's no more than 15% of the
total delegates. It's partly how the Democrats choose their candidate, and ensures the
"establishment" has a say. In 1968, Hubert Humphrey obtained the Democrat nomination for
president, without entering a single primary by sewing up the super delegate vote, which led
to some reform.
Washer-woman making thinly disguised "anonymous" calls (and forgetting about caller-ID) is
a sign of serious desperation. Discovery on this one could be life changing for many people.
"OK, I'll talk: I did X, Y and Z so I wouldn't end up blackmailed to disgrace or dead."
The best part of this whole shitstorm is that if nothing happens to the guilty parties
here, then it is very clear that the Rule of Law is dead in America and revolution a
necessity.
"... Rod Rosenstein, current Deputy Attorney General under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is also a member of the Mueller Gang, having worked directly under Robert Mueller at the Department of Justice as far back as 1990. When Comey was still working as the Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division for the U.S. Attorney's office in New York, Mueller and Rosenstein were becoming thick as thieves. ..."
"... He supervised the investigation that found no basis for criminal prosecution of White House officials who had obtained classified FBI background reports. He did a great job covering for the Team Bill Clinton, including covering for Hillary, as she was one of the people who had access to the reports, and may have even requested them. Convenient for the Clintons, no indictments were filed. ..."
"... Having proven his loyalty to the powers that be, Rosenstein was appointed to work in the US Office of the Independent Counsel under Ken Starr on the Whitewater Investigation into then President Bill Clinton. By some miracle, or clever work by insiders, the Clintons escaped culpability once again. Rod wasn't alone, he had help from his co-worker James Comey, who was also making sure the Clintons were exonerated during the Whitewater affair. ..."
"... Who is surprised when three of the top lawman fixers for the Clinton/Bush cabal have axes in their eyes for President Donald J. Trump? ..."
There is a longtime and incestuous relationship between the fixers who have been tasked with taking down President Trump, under
the fake narrative of enforcing the law. James Comey worked in the DOJ directly under Mueller until 2005. Rod Rosenstein and Mueller
go even further back.
James Comey wasn't just some associate of Mueller back then, but rather his protégé. Under the George W. Bush presidency, when
Comey was serving as Deputy Attorney General under John Ashcroft, Robert Mueller was Comey's go-to guy when he needed help. The two
men, as it came to light years later, conspired to disobey potential White House orders to leave Ashcroft alone when he was incapacitated
in March of 2004. These two men, when together, will not obey orders if they think they know better. Being filled with hubris and
almost two decades of doing just about anything they want, they always think they know better.
Rod Rosenstein, current Deputy Attorney General under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is also a member of the Mueller Gang, having
worked directly under Robert Mueller at the Department of Justice as far back as 1990. When Comey was still working as the Deputy
Chief of the Criminal Division for the U.S. Attorney's office in New York, Mueller and Rosenstein were becoming thick as thieves.
We look back at Rod's loyal work for Hillary Clinton, when he became a clean-up man for the Clinton Administration as an Associate
Independent Counsel from 1995 until 1997. He supervised the investigation that found no basis for criminal prosecution of White House
officials who had obtained classified FBI background reports. He did a great job covering for the Team Bill Clinton, including covering
for Hillary, as she was one of the people who had access to the reports, and may have even requested them. Convenient for the Clintons,
no indictments were filed.
Having proven his loyalty to the powers that be, Rosenstein was appointed to work in the US Office of the Independent Counsel
under Ken Starr on the Whitewater Investigation into then President Bill Clinton. By some miracle, or clever work by insiders, the
Clintons escaped culpability once again. Rod wasn't alone, he had help from his co-worker James Comey, who was also making sure the
Clintons were exonerated during the Whitewater affair.
Here is Robert Mueller, sitting in the middle of his two wunderkinds, making sure the path before them is smooth and obstacle
free, and practically shepherding their careers along the way. Is it any wonder that once Jeff Sessions shamelessly recused himself
from the Russia Collusion Conspiracy investigation and turned it over to his deputy Rod Rosenstein, that Rosenstein would reach out
to his old mentor for help? Who is surprised when three of the top lawman fixers for the Clinton/Bush cabal have axes in their eyes
for President Donald J. Trump?
Enter Lisa Barsoomian, wife of Rod Rosenstein. Lisa is a high-powered attorney in Washington, DC, who specializes in opposing
Freedom of Information Act requests on behalf of the Deep State, err, I mean, the Intelligence Communities.
Same question I have asked before, why are all these Clinton supporters and Obama clones still part of the Trump White House?
Why have they not been removed. It almost seems as if Trump is handing these people the rope they plan to hang him with. You can
bet the farm if Obama was still in office there would be no supporters of a previous Republican administration in his White House.
They would all have been shoved out the back door long ago. Is there no way either Trump or Sessions can get rid of these people?
And if not, why not?
The Trump administration is more than overloaded with Obama holdovers and you can bet none of them is there to help him enact
his America First agenda. Those people have been working to make sure it's "America Last" for decades now.
One wonders how long they will be able to keep pushing that famous non-event, the Trump/Russian collusion theory before they realize
that people are just not buying it anymore.
Years ago, and some of you all may remember it, there was a hamburger commercial on where a little old lady stepped up to the
counter and asked "Where's the beef?" Today the public could just as easily step up and ask the Establishment "Where's the evidence?"
when it comes to Trump and the Russians because all we have heard from the Trump detractors is lots of political bloviation all dressed
up in legalese--but no real evidence to back it up.
Might I suggest that Mr. Trump and/or Mr. Sessions see about removing these people that are willfully preventing the Trump administration
from doing what we elected it to do?
Send your letter modified to be a formal complaint. I have just sent the following letter to Rosenstein by Certified Mail so
that "Someone" needs to sign for it. U.S. Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530-0001
Attention: Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Ron Rosenstein, Esq.
August 10, 2017
Subject: Mr. Robert Mueller, Esq. serving as Special Council, and calling for a Grand Jury
Dear Mr. Deputy Attorney General:
I am writing to you primarily as a way to establish a historical record of your endeavor to investigate any collusion between
President Donald J. Trump and the Russians, during the 2016 Federal Election process. Your temporary responsibilities as acting
Attorney General caused you to be attuned to the entire Department of Justice case load. And so, you would be fully aware of all
facets of the Trump-Russia 2016 Election collision, if any. No collusion was discovered. And so, it would behoove the present
Attorney General Mr. Jeffrey Sessions, Esq., to un-recuse himself now that there is no evidence of a Trump felony. You, however,
Mr. Deputy Attorney General, are complicit with Attorney Robert Mueller, Esq. in establishing a Special Council and appointed
Mr. Mueller to that position.
It is known in public circles that Mr. Mueller is a close friend of former Dir. FBI, James B. Comey. When the President of
the United States, Donald Trump fired Comey, Attorney. Robert Mueller can be seen as an extremely biased prosecutor. Mueller's
assignment, at the suggestion of Comey and its actual enactment, is, in my opinion illegal.
The Special Council began his investigation in May 2016, it has been noted in the Main Stream Media. We are now almost midway
into August and there has been no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion.
I am aware that a Special Council is triggered by ongoing or previous criminal activity and is based upon hard evidence that
can be used to prosecute a felon. Yet Atty. Robert Mueller was made Special Council without any criminal activity performed by
a felon and without any evidence. And then, to establish a Grand Jury for the prosecution, that is totally out of line with ethical
justice and the Rule of Law. The final partisan development is that Special Council Mueller has moved the Grand Jury from Virginia
to Washington D. C., wherein he is likely to load the Grand Jury with Democrats who, politically are biased against President
Trump.
How is that possible at such a high level in the DOJ to allow such misdeeds of justice? The complicit activity described in
the body of this letter is the criminal activity, in my opinion. No, the Mueller investigation and Grand Jury is not a witch hunt.
Rather it is a stronger term, a Vendetta.
Alan Dale Rhoads, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, Oreland, PA, 19075-1401
Lisa Barsoomian, Rod Rosenstein's wife was FBI FOiA Shot Blocker and
covert communication masking official. Did Rosenstein mention her FBI
oversight duties yesterday?
you don't think that maybe this is a honeypot? I think these over zealous criminals are creaming their pants and hanging themselves,
remember Rogers and the NSA be listening to err thing in the house
Deeply disturbing but not surprising. Rosenstein struck me immediately as another one just like Andrew McCabe, who supposedly
was investigating Hilary's infamous server -- he's married to a Virginia Democrat candidate
though this MSM once-over, like all the others, won't go anywhere near the curious fact that the FBI never actually examined
the server, it took the word of Google-funded puppet Crowdstrike, which just happens to be run by a famously anti-Russian activist
and Terry McAuliffe does seem to lead the charmed life doesn't he? His career seems to be a laundry list of grossly unethical
but just-not-quite-illegal behavior...I guess it helps to have friends in high places.
George Papadopoulos ... in 03/06//16, he joined the Trump campaign as a low-level foreign
policy adviser.
Between 03/15/16 and 09/15/16 he tried six times to to arrange meetings between the
Trump campaign and Russians, all of them rejected.
On 04/26/16 he met with a Russian contact in London and was "reportedly" offered "dirt" on
Hillary.
05/21/16. According to Mueller's investigation, a Trump campaign official refused
Papadopoulos's offer to broker meetings with Russian officials.
09/15/16. Papadopoulos emailed a Russian contact, Boris Epshteyn, trying to connect him
with Sergei Milliam, author of much of the Fusion GPS "dossier".
01/27/17. Papadopoulos was interviewed by the FBI, which resulted in his eventual
indictment for lying to the Bureau.
As Pat Buchanan discusses above, on 12/30/17, the NYT's Maggie Haberman (known to be
linked with the DNC), marketed a narrative that the FBI opened its Trump investigation due to
Papadopoulos, and not because of the "dossier".
These dated facts are taken, mostly verbatim, from a timeline compiled by Doug Ross
I recommend his: A TIMELINE OF TREASON: How the DNC and FBI Leadership Tried to Fix a
Presidential Election [Updated Saturday, December 30, 2017].
It's an excellent account of the key events, from 05/31/13 to the present, with dates and
links to key documents.
You can find it at his dougross timelineoftreason website.
Blast from the past. Now we know why Coney behaved this way and who was instrumental in exonerating Hillary. They wanted to
derail both sanders and Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... Comey called her "extremely careless." That was highly charitable. But even by that standard, Hillary was grossly negligent with classified material. Comey says Hillary had no intent to transmit information to foreign powers. But that's not what the statute requires. ..."
"... The FBI said in their statement that they found documents classified as Secret and Top Secret on her personal server. ..."
"... That means she gets off if the Defense lawyer can convince the Jury it's reasonable to believe a sixty-something policy wonk had no fucking clue that a server in her basement was less secure then a government email account because she was not consciously choosing to be less secure. ..."
"... So in this case the FBI chose not to charge her for something we all know she did and is a clear violation of the law as written. ..."
"... Lack of legitimacy hasn't hampered her at all. The same goes for lack of morality, lack of patriotism, lack of decency, lack of conscience. Really at this point we need 7 dwarfs and a prince to rid us of her. ..."
"... More than 2,000 of the 30,490 emails Clinton turned over to the State Department in December 2014 contained classified information, including 110 emails in 52 email chains that contained classified information at the time they were sent or received , Comey said. ..."
"... For Hillary the 110 emails have all been verified by the owning agency that the information was classified at the time Hillary included it in her emails. Thus felonies, except that she is a Clinton and is thus exempt from the laws we peons are subject to. ..."
"... She moved, or caused to be moved, classified material off of a secure system onto an un-secure system. It would still be a felony if she had simply moved one of the 110 found documents to a thumb drive! The FBI basically said she broke the law 110 times and we are recommending to not prosecute! ..."
"... "the FBI itself, less than a year ago, charged one Bryan H. Nishimura, 50, of Folsom, who pleaded guilty to "unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials" without malicious intent, in other words precisely what the FBI alleges Hillary did" http://theantimedia.org/this-m... [theantimedia.org] ..."
"... What she did was illegal, and what she did should disqualify her from having a clearance. Far less connected people have done much the same and gotten 2 years probation and $7500 fine. Petraeus did much the same and got 2 years probation and $100,000 fine. There is plenty of evidence of her breaking the law. The problem is that no one will prosecute it because Hillary is rich enough to afford lawyers that could get her off, and it would just make it look political. ..."
"... She flatly violated a statute that only requires gross negligence (aka, "extreme carelessness"), but Comey dodged and said he wouldn't recommend prosecution because he could not prove intent - even though intent is not required by the statute. ..."
"... But the key point is that under the Espionage act (18 USC 793) you don't get to be careless with national secrets. You request a clearance you promise to not be careless under punishment of Law. ..."
"... She instructed her staff to "remove markings and send non-secure." Her defense was "they weren't -marked- classified when I sent them." ..."
"... I would say that her instruction "send non-secure" makes it pretty clear she knew it isn't secure, and was actively thinking of that fact when she told them to do it. At the same time, she was also setting her up defense, having them (illegally?) remove the classification markings so that she could later testify "they weren't marked classified when I forwarded them." Sounds like she knew it was illegal. ..."
"... That's pretty darn specific. If it was just the confidential stuff, I think your implication that the government classifies everything and this isn't a big deal would be very strong. Multiple accidental Top Secret information leaks is a bit different, though. In the last 15 years, we have sent many government workers to jail for leaking information like this, or even just having it stored at their house. [washingtonpost.com] ..."
"... Posting as AC for obvious reasons. If I had done anything remotely like what Hillary did when I was in the intelligence community, I would have gone to jail and never ever seen daylight again. But then again, I wasn't one of the "elite" and laws actually applied to me. ..."
"... In January 2015, officials reported the FBI and Justice Department prosecutors had recommended bringing felony charges against Petraeus for allegedly providing classified information to his biographer, Paula Broadwell (with whom he was having an affair), while serving as the director of the CIA Eventually, Petraeus pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information... On April 23, 2015, a federal judge sentenced Petraeus to two years' probation plus a fine of $100,000. The fine was more than double the amount the Justice Department had requested. ..."
"... You are correct: what he confirmed was that Clinton lied under oath to Congress, not to the FBI. (He also confirmed that she lied to the American people.) ..."
"... She couldn't have lied under oath to the FBI because she wasn't put under oath, and her interviews were neither recorded nor transcripts prepared, which really makes the whole investigation a farce. ..."
"... Comey will now be tasked with a formal investigation of her lying to Congress. If we're lucky, they'll still get her. ..."
"... I think Clinton is unsuitable for the job of president because she is dishonest, corrupt, and, above all, incompetent. ..."
"... Are you living under a rock? Her private E-mail server, the hundreds of millions of dollars of donations to the Clinton Foundation while she was in office, her nepotism, her speaking fees, her corporate cronyism, her lies about her stance on gay marriage, and her revisionist AIDS history alone ought to be enough to consider her profoundly dishonest, corrupt, and incompetent, and we haven't even gotten to the real political stuff that the Republicans always harp on about. Really, what kind of gullible fool are you? ..."
This statute explicitly states that whoever, "entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document through
gross negligence permits the same to removed from its proper place of custody or having knowledge that the same has been illegally
removed from its proper place of custody.shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."
Comey called her "extremely careless." That was highly charitable. But even by that standard, Hillary was grossly negligent
with classified material. Comey says Hillary had no intent to transmit information to foreign powers. But that's not what the
statute requires.
18 USC 1924.
This statute states that any employee of the United States who "knowingly removes [classified] documents or materials without
authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title
or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both." Hillary set up a private server explicitly to do this.
18 USC 798.
This statute states that anyone who "uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United Statesany classified
informationshall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both." Hillary transmitted classified
information in a manner that harmed the United States; Comey says she may have been hacked.
18 USC 2071.
This statute says that anyone who has custody of classified material and "willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates,
obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years." Clearly,
Hillary meant to remove classified materials from government control.
Anonymous Coward writes: on Thursday July 07, 2016 @09:28PM (
#52467767 )
The FBI said in their statement that they found documents classified as Secret and Top Secret on her personal server.
A clear-case of hate-reading. Which always gets more complicated when you add in legal English. Especially since we're talking
about a defendant in a criminal case, and there's this "Reasonable Doubt" thing that means you can get off even if the Jury
is pretty sure you did it. To counter your specific points:
18 USC 793:
"Gross negligence" is an extremely specific legal term. The
definition [wikipedia.org] starts with extreme
carelessness, but specifies that the carelessness must "shows a conscious and voluntary disregard of the need to use reasonable
care, and likely to cause foreseeable grave injury or harm." Note all that shit about what's going on in the defendants head
("conscious and voluntary")?
That means she gets off if the Defense lawyer can convince the Jury it's reasonable to believe a sixty-something policy
wonk had no fucking clue that a server in her basement was less secure then a government email account because she was not
consciously choosing to be less secure.
18 USC 1924:
Good luck proving that beyond a reasonable doubt. She swore up and down she had no classified info on the server. Which
means to prove that interesting "knowingly" word you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she was lying when she said
that.
Moreover there's an equally interesting "without authority" clause. She's an OCA, and if her President gets called
to the stand and asked "do you think she did something wrong?" he will say no. Moreover the fact that previous Secretaries
did it without being charged, and that John Kerry felt he had to explicitly ban the practice of keeping info on your own server,
strongly implies that it was authorized at the time.
18 USC 798:
Don't be ridiculous. You're seriously arguing that the Secretary of State, who serves at the pleasure of the person
who defines the national interest of the United States, emailing some foreign leader or another is "using classified info to
harm the United States?" Don't get me wrong I'm sure that in literal terms many cabinet officers have been fuck-ups who were
hurting the country (looking at you Rummy), but that's not illegal.
18 USC 2071:
You see that pronoun "same?" The antecedent is "any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed
or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or
public officer of the United States." The whole problem is that she failed to keep her emails in a governmental system, not
that she went into some US Clerk's office, ransacked the files for her emails, and then ran away laughing evilly.
Anonymous Coward writes: on Thursday July 07, 2016 @09:28AM (
#52462567 )
Comey didn't say that she leaked anything. He said that she didn't properly safeguard classified information.
However, there was no intent to leak information, nor is there evidence that anything was leaked. Comey searched high and low
for a precedent which would allow him to bring charges, and he concluded that if he indicted Clinton, he would probably have to
indict a significant portion of the federal bureaucracy.
Hard to bring criminal charges for utilizing a bad process. "Should have known better" isn't a criminal offense.
Actually, you are wrong, it is a criminal offense. Anyone given classified information is briefed on the proper use and handling
of said classified information. The law, under 18 USC 793 subsection (f) actually states that any form of information that through
gross negligence is removed from it's proper place of custody is subject to criminal fines or up to 10 years in prison.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793
Information that the Secretary of State has that she transmits to her subordinates on an unsecured email server does meet the
requirement of "gross negligence".
So in this case the FBI chose not to charge her for something we all know she did and is a clear violation of the law as
written.
He asks the convention to vote that it is unwilling to select a person who has been shown to be 'careless about protecting
government secrets' etc etc.
The delegates would be free to pass such a motion, despite being bound to vote for Hilary when the actual roll call occurs.
If a large number of her delegates support the critical motion, her legitimacy is gone.
Lack of legitimacy hasn't hampered her at all. The same goes for lack of morality, lack of patriotism, lack of decency,
lack of conscience. Really at this point we need 7 dwarfs and a prince to rid us of her.
Anonymous Coward writes: on Thursday July 07, 2016 @06:36AM (
#52461905 )
Page 21: Secretary Powell did not employ a Department email account, even after OpenNet's introduction. He has publicly written:
"To complement the official State Department computer in my office, I installed a laptop computer on a private line. My personal
email account on the laptop allowed me direct access to anyone online. I started shooting emails to my principal assistants, to
individual ambassadors, and increasingly to my foreign -minister colleagues...."
Much of the Bush White House used email addresses on Bush's private
gwb43.com [wikipedia.org] server.
This was originally set up by Rove and Dubya to coordinate the perfectly legal (and thus, by definition, legitimate) firing of
eight Prosecutors who went after corrupt Republicans, and was designed to be FOIA and Records request immune. It auto-deleted
all emails after a period of time.
While it's hard to find direct evidence of the server Powell used, he
has admitted
[politico.com] that a) he used a private address and b) he has no copies of the emails. He claims he never used it to discuss
classified info, but that's more then a wee bit unlikely as much info is considered classified by somebody, and it's impossible
to verify because all of them are gone. Nonetheless
nonetheless [cnn.com] he did have some classified info sent to his email address. Many of the Hillary emails that were declared
Classified after the fact would be impossible to find for Powell or Rice because they were discussions with people who did not
have state.gov email addresses because at the time the whole state.gov email system was just being set up.
Anonymous Coward writes: on Thursday July 07, 2016 @07:05AM (
#52461955 )
"At a minimum, Secretary Powell should have surrendered all emails sent from or received in his personal account that related
to Department business. Because he did not do so at the time that he departed government service or at any time thereafter, Secretary
Powell did not comply with Department policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act. In an attempt
to address this deficiency, NARA requested that the Department inquire with Secretary Powell's "internet service or email provider"
to determine whether it is still possible to retrieve the email records that might remain on its servers.
The Under Secretary for Management subsequently informed NARA that the Department sent a letter to Secretary Powell's representative
conveying this request. As of May 2016, the Department had not received a response from Secretary Powell or his representative."
Anonymous Coward writes: on Thursday July 07, 2016 @02:10PM (
#52464787 )
A lot of people did the same thing and Colin Powell was one of them.
No. There's a difference here. From FBI director Comey and the State Department:
More than 2,000 of the 30,490 emails Clinton turned over to the State Department in December 2014 contained classified information,
including 110 emails in 52 email chains that contained classified information at the time they were sent or received , Comey said.
The State Department inquiry identified 10 messages sent to Rice's immediate staff that were classified and two sent to Powell,
according to Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking member on the House Oversight and Benghazi committees.
The emails, Cummings said, appear to have no classification markings, and it is still unclear if the content of the emails
was or should have been considered classified when the emails were originally written and sent.
It appears that Clinton sent / received over 100 Emails clearly marked "secret" in some form or another; Powell had 2 Emails
retroactively classified. Seems like a very narrow distinction, but it's not. Clinton handled 110 messages (those that were found)
that were unambiguously marked as classified, Powell did not.
The external mail server is not the real problem. Her holding on to the email long after she was supposed to have turned it
over is a minor problem. The 110 Classified emails (those containing information that was classified at the time that she sent
the email) is the problem. Each of those emails is a felony. You don't put classified information on an unclassified network.
Regardless of where the server is hosted from.
A review of Colin Powell's email which was turned over as required upon his departure from the office, (rather than two years
later) found two emails that contained information the State Dept classified after he sent the information. That is not a crime.
It was unclassified when he sent the information. He reviewed the two emails and disagrees that it should have been classified.
And as the top Original Classifying Authority (an individual authorized to determine if information needs to be classified and
at what level) for all of the Dept. of State during his tenure it is his call.
For Sec Rice they found about a dozen emails classified after the fact on her email that was also turned over when required.
Again classified after the fact, so not a crime.
For Hillary the 110 emails have all been verified by the owning agency that the information was classified at the time
Hillary included it in her emails. Thus felonies, except that she is a Clinton and is thus exempt from the laws we peons are subject
to.
Are you seriously trying to make this about a FOIA compliance issue? This has nothing to do with FOIA.
She moved, or caused to be moved, classified material off of a secure system onto an un-secure system. It would still be a felony
if she had simply moved one of the 110 found documents to a thumb drive! The FBI basically said she broke the law 110 times and
we are recommending to not prosecute!
Powell did not have a private server, and while he did have a personal address there is no evidence that any material that
was classified at the time was ever sent to/from it. Politifact rates Clinton's statement that her predecessors did it as "Mostly
false"
"the FBI itself, less than a year ago, charged one Bryan H. Nishimura, 50, of Folsom, who pleaded guilty to "unauthorized
removal and retention of classified materials" without malicious intent, in other words precisely what the FBI alleges Hillary
did" http://theantimedia.org/this-m...
[theantimedia.org]
The Government Has Prosecuted Nearly Every Violator of Secrecy Rules Before Hillary Clinton. The Obama administration has filed
more charges against those who leak classified information than all previous presidential administrations combined, according
to a statement made by CNN's Jake Tapper that was marked "True" by Politifact.
http://usuncut.com/politics/cl...
[usuncut.com]
What she did was illegal, and what she did should disqualify her from having a clearance. Far less connected people have
done much the same and gotten 2 years probation and $7500 fine. Petraeus did much the same and got 2 years probation and $100,000
fine. There is plenty of evidence of her breaking the law. The problem is that no one will prosecute it because Hillary is rich
enough to afford lawyers that could get her off, and it would just make it look political.
(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book,
sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating
to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered
to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same
has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen,
abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior
officer-
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
She flatly violated a statute that only requires gross negligence (aka, "extreme carelessness"), but Comey dodged and said
he wouldn't recommend prosecution because he could not prove intent - even though intent is not required by the statute.
Now, you can argue 18 U.S. Code 793 (a), which requires intent, could not be prosecuted, but 18 U.S. Code 793 (f) clearly was
violated.
Hillary is a criminal who the FBI declined to recommend prosecution for.
Handling classified information requires diligence. You don't get to be careless with it. Intent is not required because you
promise to not be careless with it.
If I allowed through omission, inattention, disregard for process or simple stupidity broke my employer's sensitive data policies
ten times a month I'd have made it around three days before being sacked.
through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody
Comey proved that. She was extremely careless (gross negligence), and she removed classified data from its proper place of
custody (secure networks) and placed it on her private server.
This is beyond a reasonable doubt.
If you assert that Hillary actually ordered the building of a private server, then she's actually guilty of more - that proves
intent :)
The words "extremely careless" were chosen carefully to avoid saying "negligent". To be careless is to be ignorant of the required
security procedures, while to be ignorant is to know what's proper and required, and choosing to not attempt to follow it. If
you're going to go down that road, you'll need to establish that the sysadmins responsible for that server were aware of the that
the system could hold classified information, and they knew the security requirements necessary to protect a system holding classified
information, and chose willingly to leave it unsecured.
What proof is there that the sysadmins were competent, beyond the faint hope that they should be?
What proof do you have that she personally put classified information on her server?
What proof is there that, at the time the server was built, it was intended to hold classified information?
There are an awful lot of bad things here... certainly enough to say the handling was careless. Unfortunately, without an absolutely
solid case for a particular and completely-provable allegation, a successful prosecution is extremely unlikely, and would not
serve the cause of justice in any meaningful way.
This is not about what the sys-admins knew. The server was not on a classified network. It should never have had any classified
on it.
You don't get to be careless with classified information.
The information was on her account that she held the password for. That means she put it on there, or is responsible for giving
an aid her password to put the information on the account. She is only responsible for information she sends, something someone
else sends to her would not be of interest but would result in charges against the other person. Where are those individuals?
This is about classified information put into emails sent from her personal account on her private server. That means she is
responsible, and carelessness is not a valid excuse.
The Server was not intended to hold classified information, it was on the internet, not one of the physically separate classified
networks.
But the key point is that under the Espionage act (18 USC 793) you don't get to be careless with national secrets. You
request a clearance you promise to not be careless under punishment of Law.
That email about the fax proves only that a particular message was requested to be transmitted in an insecure manner. That
does not mean the contents of the fax were sensitive or that removing the markings was improper. As I understand, the subject
of the fax was a set of talking points for a speech, which were sensitive only in that they were not yet publicly released. If
there was indeed a classified piece of information in the fax, it could have been sanitized prior to the insecure transmission.
Without seeing the classified version, it is impossible to tell.
It's not "moving the goal post" to point out that your kick fell far short. Again, consider that a prosecution would be arguing
before a court of law. Nothing is obvious, and nothing is beyond question. If you want to prove something, you have to show your
entire case.
You don't just remove markings. The only exception to this is if the markings were all (U) Unclassified. Then
and only then can they be removed without going through a formal declassification process.
Actually, yes, you can usually just remove markings from (or more precisely, rewrite without markings) unclassified material
that's on a secure system. The unclassified material doesn't need to be "declassified" because it was never classified to begin
with. That includes unclassified parts of a larger document that's marked as containing classified information, and by the same
extension it applies to unclassified data on computer systems that are marked as containing classified data.
What's important is that no classified information actually gets out of the secure environment. Nobody cares about other information,
with a few exceptions.
They are equal as that is the description found in the relevant statute. You don't get to be careless with classified information.
Being careless with classified information is Gross Negligence. This is because mishandled national secrets can cost lives.
Proving Gross negligence is easy. Did classified information get manually transcribed onto the unclassified system? (there
is no software link between the various classified networks and machines and an unclassified network or machine) Yes it did. Was
the intent to transfer to unauthorized persons to cause harm to the US? No, therefore we have Gross negligence.
She instructed her staff to "remove markings and send non-secure." Her defense was "they weren't -marked-
classified when I sent them."
I would say that her instruction "send non-secure" makes it pretty clear she knew it isn't secure, and was actively thinking
of that fact when she told them to do it. At the same time, she was also setting her up defense, having them (illegally?) remove
the classification markings so that she could later testify "they weren't marked classified when I forwarded them." Sounds like
she knew it was illegal.
She consciously refused a state.gov email account.
She voluntarily setup a private email server.
Even a technologically illiterate grandma, when told by her sysadmins at the state department that what she was doing was wrong,
makes is clear that it was likely to cause foreseeable harm.
tl;dr - a technophobic grandma doesn't know enough to ask for a private server, she just takes the state department blackberry
and lives with whatever email it's configured with.
I'm sure this is going to sound stupid, but I'm not sure it's appropriate to prosecute, even when the letter of the law has
been definitively broken. Obviously, this is how it should work, but in many cases laws regarding handling of protected information
are prosecuted with extreme discretion. In other words, charges are often not brought unless there is intent and/or aggravating
factors, even when the law has clearly been broken as written.
Really we need someone with substantial legal experience in this specific area to comment (I won't hold my breath for that).
Despite the fact that the above code is fairly straight forward, I don't feel qualified to assess the FBI's conclusion: "Although
there is evidence of potential violations regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable
prosecutor would bring such a case," (James Comey).
I'm not addressing whether or not it makes sense to use discretion in these cases. Personally, I don't think it's appropriate
and sets a double standard; it's not like someone selling drugs will not get prosecuted because there was no intent to cause addiction.
That said, I don't make the rules, and I really don't think most people in this forum are qualified to judge whether she is
getting preferential treatment by applying the letter of the law, combined with the way that other laws are prosecuted (and the
way laws should be prosecuted). The reality is that, right or wrong, this is not how laws regarding handling of sensitive information
are applied. For the record, I despise Hillary & the Clintons and will not vote for her, even though the alternative is at least
as terrible.
I understand discretion - but if anything, we should hold our government leaders to a higher level of accountability.
Letting Johnny get off with a warning after his first shoplifting attempt, or sending Judy on her way after she's caught speeding
with a warning, is discretion.
But if Johnny is a Congressman, or Judy is the president's daughter, you simply cannot afford to let them off the hook without
damaging the perception of fairness. When the rich and powerful get away with something that we regularly impose upon the poor
and weak, even if occasionally we let the poor and weak get by with just a warning, we destroy the sense of justice in the community.
No the crime is to mishandle or fail to protect classified information. To do so is to be grossly negligent. It does not require
intent, it does not require the act to be willful. Carelessness with classified information is Gross Negligence and is a felony.
Carelessness or willful, both are Gross negligence. Putting classified information into a vulnerable position is Gross Negligence.
When you are granted a Clearance and access, you sign what is basically a Non-disclosure agreement where you acknowledge that
if you have any role in the release or mishandling of classified information you are punishable under the law. She put 110 emails
containing classified information onto an unclassified network. Considering the handling and marking processes of working with
classified information, to describe her actions as careless is false, but that opinion aside, you don't get to be careless with
classified information. Being careless with classified information gets people killed and is illegal.
Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday July 06, 2016 @07:33PM (
#52459649 )
He said Clinton and her staff sent 110 emails in 52 chains containing information that was classified at the time. Eight
of those emails carried top secret information , eight contained classified information and 36 had secret info.
I don't think that's what the FBI statement is saying at all, and I think you're looking at something that's not the statement...
It's very clear that the FBI found that classified information was exposed, but not "in such a way as to support an inference
of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice." The FBI characterization
of what was done is "extremely careless." This is interesting wording because that is not a legal term associated with disclosure
of classified material; "grossly negligent" is the legal term associated with the threshold for felony mishandling of classified
information.
The FBI statement is also very clear on the security classification of what they found, which is why I think you're reading
something else.
110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they
were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains
contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification.
That's pretty darn specific. If it was just the confidential stuff, I think your implication that the government classifies
everything and this isn't a big deal would be very strong. Multiple accidental Top Secret information leaks is a bit different,
though. In the last 15 years, we have sent many government workers to jail for leaking information like this, or even
just having it
stored at their house. [washingtonpost.com]
It was on an unclassified server on the internet. It was exposed. It doesn't matter if anyone found it or not.
It was exposed.
As to classified information there is Classified information marked Confidential, Secret and Top Secret (with additional caveats
and Special access designations). That is classified information. That is what was found on her emails. It is all marked very
clearly as to it's classification level. How is it marked? At the top and bottom of every page, the highest level of information
on the page is marked. At the beginning of every paragraph it is marked. And on the first and last page of the document the overall
(highest) level of classification is marked as well as who classified it and instructions as to when it is to be declassified.
There is also sensitive but unclassified information that, unless on a classified system will most likely not be well marked.
That is not what was found 110 emails containing classified information were found 8 instances had TOP SECRET info.
The Classification system for truly Classified information is not vague, it is clear, it is concise. There are specific and
strict rules for marking it as such, and for handling it. That such information ended up on her private unclassified server exposes
the information. Just being put onto an unclassified storage medium is a criminal act. It does not require intent, it does not
require someone without authorization to access it. That the information was in her emails on the unclassified server on the internet
is sufficient to meet the grounds for the Gross Negligence standard of 18, 793(f).
Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday July 06, 2016 @07:36PM (
#52459661 )
Posting as AC for obvious reasons. If I had done anything remotely like what Hillary did when I was in the intelligence
community, I would have gone to jail and never ever seen daylight again. But then again, I wasn't one of the "elite" and laws
actually applied to me.
I support the NSA and I also support Snowden. Snowden did a brave and terrifying thing that needed
to happen, that needed to be done, knowing the consequences he faced. The NSA is a good organization with many good people doing
what they need to do with love for their countrymen in their hearts and honor in their actions. Some people in the NSA made bad,
perhaps even evil decisions. Sometimes bad people get put in positions they shouldn't be, and sometimes people with power, even
good people, make decisions that are bad.
Supporting the NSA doesn't mean I support all the decisions or people that are a part of it. I believe the NSA did some bad
things, but that doesn't mean I think the organization is bad or comprised of bad people.
What Snowden did may have been illegal, but it was a choice to do what he believed was right. For what it's worth I believe
it was right too. I think it is a terrible thing to have to choose between following the law and doing what is right when the
two are mutually exclusive.
The US justice system was designed intentionally to have people determine not only whether the law was followed, but also whether
the law should apply. Snowden should be able to face a court of his peers and plead his case and that jury should be able to make
a judgement not based on the law, but on whether what he did was wrong or right. It disturbs and saddens me to realize I don't
trust that he could receive such a fair trial.
The Star Chamber was established to ensure the fair enforcement of laws against socially and politically prominent people so
powerful that ordinary courts would likely hesitate to convict them of their crimes.
The constitution would need to be modified, however.
The only times I've ever heard of an actual prosecution for mishandling has been when the person was suspected of actual spying,
or in Manning's case, whistleblowing
I'm surprised that you've not heard of the David Petraeus case.
In January 2015, officials reported the FBI and Justice Department prosecutors had recommended bringing felony charges
against Petraeus for allegedly providing classified information to his biographer, Paula Broadwell (with whom he was having an
affair), while serving as the director of the CIA Eventually, Petraeus pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge of mishandling
classified information... On April 23, 2015, a federal judge sentenced Petraeus to two years' probation plus a fine of $100,000.
The fine was more than double the amount the Justice Department had requested.
Petraeus's mistress was an Army Reserve intelligence officer with Top Secret clearance and had served in the
war zone. She used the information (much of which was Petraeus's notes/notbooks IIRC) to write his biography. I don't recall there
being any allegation of the information going further than that. (It was still wrong.)
As to intent - Hillary Clintons servers were created and operated by her order. Messages were bulk erased by her order. Her
intent of avoiding scrutiny is clear.
Where do you think Sid got the classified information? Why would he have it as an employee of the Clinton Foundation? Did he
have a clearance, and what was his need to know? Who sent it to him? There is little doubt it was all on purpose.
Petreaus doesn't come anywhere near comparing to Snowden. Petreaus gave 8 binders of his notes (some classified some not) to
his Mistress/biographer. She has a clearance, and referred to the notes in preparing the biography but no classified information
was included in her product.
Snowden stole thousands of classified documents and released them without regard to who got them.
The scale and scope are not comparable. Snowden's crime was far worse and far more damaging.
You are correct: what he confirmed was that Clinton lied under oath to Congress, not to the FBI. (He also confirmed that
she lied to the American people.)
She couldn't have lied under oath to the FBI because she wasn't put under oath, and her interviews were neither recorded
nor transcripts prepared, which really makes the whole investigation a farce.
Comey will now be tasked with a formal investigation of her lying to Congress. If we're lucky, they'll still get her.
She said that because nothing marked classified had been sent to her.
She has said that. She has also made the same statement without the word "marked".
I know this may be tough to believe, but a person can be wrong without actually lying.
The fact that she phrased her statement so carefully actually shows the opposite: even if literally true, that statement is
intended to deceive.
Even if the person is question is someone you disagree with politically.
I don't disagree much with Clinton politically as far as I know (it's hard to know what she really believes); I actually used
to be a registered Democrat until a few years ago.
I think Clinton is unsuitable for the job of president because she is dishonest, corrupt, and, above all, incompetent.
Are you living under a rock? Her private E-mail server, the hundreds of millions of dollars of donations to the Clinton
Foundation while she was in office, her nepotism, her speaking fees, her corporate cronyism, her lies about her stance on gay
marriage, and her revisionist AIDS history alone ought to be enough to consider her profoundly dishonest, corrupt, and incompetent,
and we haven't even gotten to the real political stuff that the Republicans always harp on about. Really, what kind of gullible
fool are you?
While Richman told CNN "No memo was given to me that was marked 'classified,' and James
Comey told Congressional investigators he tried to "write it in such a way that I don't include
anything that would trigger a classification," it appears the FBI's chief FOIA officer
disagrees .
While we
previously reported that Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said four of the 7 Comey memos he
reviewed were "marked classified" at the "Secret" or "Confidential" level - tonight we find out
that every single Comey memo was classified at the time, per Judicial Watch director of
investigations Chris Farrell - who has a signed declaration from the FBI's chief FOIA officer
to that effect:
We have a sworn declaration from David Hardy who is the chief FOIA officer of the FBI that
we obtained just in the last few days, and in that sworn declaration, Mr. Hardy says that all
of Comey's memos - all of them, were classified at the time they were written, and they
remain classified. - Chris Farrell, Judicial Watch
Therefore, Farrell points out, Comey mishandled national defense information when he
"knowingly and willfully" leaked them to his friend at Columbia University.
It's also mishandling of national defense information, which is a crime. So it's clear
that Mr. Comey not only authored those documents, but then knowingly and willfully leaked
them to persons unauthorized, which is in and of itself a national security crime. Mr. Comey
should have been read his rights back on June 8th when he testified before the Senate.
In closing, Farrell tells Dobbs "Recently retired and active duty FBI agents have told me -
and it's several of them, they consider Comey to be a dirty cop ."
I find Democratic Party optimism for the 2018 mid-term election to be odd. It seems to rest
on two expectations.
1. The yearning of the faithful Left for some crime that could be laid at DJT's feet as a
plausible basis for impeachment or "sale" to Trump supporters as a basis for voting Democratic
in congressional and gubernatorial elections. This seems an unlikely outcome to me. In spite of
all the hyper-ventilation in the MSM over every rumored "smoking gun" to come in the
Russophobic investigations, there is nothing yet in evidence of a crime with which DJT could be
charged in the process of impeachment and trial. Manafort, Flynn, etc. all have profound legal
problems, but they are not Trump. Guilt by association has not yet become a chargeable offense
in the US. Removal for mental incompetence under the 25th Amendment is not a realistic
possibility. This would require a majority vote of the cabinet and with the concurrence of the
VP. Good luck on that! AND, a hell of a lot of people across the country like Trump's actions
even if they think his behavior is bizarre. Is it seemly for a serving president to host a for
profit $750/plate gala at his Florida resort? No. It is not but most people just don't care
about that. It is not a crime.
2. The Democrats believe/hope that the US economy will decline between now and November and
that will cause scales to fall from the eyes of the masses. Well, pilgrims, that is a hell of a
thing to hope for and that collapse in the economy seems to me to be very unlikely given the
cumulative stimulative effect of DJT actions in tax law, deregulation and his various
jaw-boning efforts with business. The private sector added 250,000 jobs in December BEFORE the
tax law was signed. the DOW crossed the 25,000 frontier early today and just kept going. Rich
people in New York, New Jersey, California and other blue states were never going to vote for
Trump anyway sooo ... the loss of their state income tax deduction is not politically
significant. Republican Congressman Reed from western New York state was asked about this today
on the Tee Vee. He replied that he understood this would be difficult for rich people in the
big cities but that in his district the average income is $42,000/year and that the continued
$10,000 real estate deduction would take care of 99.9% of his constituents and so he had voted
for the new tax law.
It seems to me that the Democrats are counting their chickens mighty early. pl
A.Pols ,
The Democrats are indeed counting their chickens....
The economy can do all kinds of things such as deflate when the hot money (endless levitation
by the Fed) runs out, which it won't unless Petrodollar and Dollar reserve currency status
come to an end. Now there is a real good chance that will happen, but probably not by
November of this year, though by November of 2038 it probably will have come to pass.
I had been a Democrat since my first election in 1968, but these days what do the Democrats
actually represent? If you love the idea of Stone Mountain being blown up and you're a full
fledged diversity catamite or gender crybaby, then They're the virtue signalling voice of
"progressivism". Otherwise what do they offer except domestic stagnation, persecution of the
people who keep the lights on, and schizoid foreign intervention?
Anyone who thinks Alabama was a call to man the barricades is mistaken.Roy Moore was a
stinker of a candidate, but he still made it to the one yard line.
Greco ,
Perhaps Democrats have reason to be cautiously optimistic, if not assured of themselves.
They have been aided no less by Trump's former strategist. The self-proclaimed Leninist,
Mr.Bannon, has stuck his little dagger into the president. I don't know what mindlessness
propelled him to sit for hours with Mr. Wolffe on record and mercilessly attack the president
and his family. It's possible Wolffe is playing loose with Bannon's words, but it doesn't
appear that Bannon himself can recall with any certainty that he didn't say what has been
attributed to him.
I assume Bannon's inner Machiavelli figured he would be quoted anonymously as a "White
House source." Serves him right to be exposed like this, but he has caused untold damage to a
movement he has both helped to propel and control, not to mention having forced Trump into
unneeded damage control just at a time when he was getting into the swing of things and was
beginning to turn the table on his enemies.
At least we now know why McMaster astutely decided to get rid of Bannon from the NSC and
why Kelly had him fired. Bannon was not only a leaker, he would privately disparage anyone
who attempted to stand in the way of his influence, including the president. I just hope
Trump is now better served by those around him now, but that doesn't strike me being
necessarily so.
Where will the economy be at the end of 2018
I HAVE NO CLUE!
too many variables for me:
Reasons for crash:
Personal debt rising starting to cause problems. Credit card debt up/Car loan defaults up
US debt rising.
US balance of trade continuing
Fed says it will quit increasing QE & may raise interest rates.
China and bricks completing parallel monetary trade and movement systems to stop US financial
monopoly. Ie chinese SWIFT replacement system, Chinese credit cards, Russian increasing gold
holdings compared to US$
Rents and housing most expensive compared to wages ever.
US health care costs rising
Reasons for good times
Central banks printing money and buying stocks.
Tax laws brings money back to US (more stock buybacks)
US debt ceiling seems to be an illusion
Trump great spokesman for business
Trump may use new tools to fight recession (helicopter money etc.)
Trump says he likes cheap US$
Momentum of stock markets
Trump has started no new wars. Military $$ stay mostly inside the USA
Trump gets huge infrastructure bill passed
Wild cards
Crypto currencies?
Interest rates?
Job outsourcing or coming back to USA?
Economic Black Swan from outside USA
I tend to agree that the economy is due for a crash to the limited degree I read economics
news and opinion (I used to be much more interested but after forty years of waiting for the
"Big Depression" which hasn't come, I've become tired.) But hoping it will happen in the next
year is clearly speculative.
Bottom line is Democrats have no plan for 2018 - and therefore are likely to lose big
again.
Of all the components of the tax bill (many of which are problematic--but that's mostly b/c
it's a tax bill, not necessarily for ideological reasons), I thought putting a lot of tax
onus on wealthy bicoastals was a stroke of genius. Having said that, things are looking in a
lot of mixed directions: many people are uneasy for all sorts of reasons about Trump, but the
bottom line (esp on economic matters) does not look too bad, to say the least.
In many ways, actually, the overall situation looks like Bill Clinton 2.0: people had all
sorts of issues with WJC--Democrats were uneasy with him and Republicans absolutely hated
him. But things were looking OK or better in general and voters weren't going to punish him
for nothing that was particularly off track. I see the Democrats trying some of the same
tricks. Maybe even all the way to impeachment. Unless things come apart at the seams very
visibly, none of them will stick on DJT.
The stock market and financial asset prices in general drive perceptions of the strength
of the economy. As long as financial assets prices remain in melt-up mode it will benefit the
incumbents. While the Fed and the other major central banks are slowly reducing liquidity by
either reducing the rate of growth of their balance sheet or reducing it outright as in the
case of the Fed, there's no knowing when speculation peaks. The one thing that bulls should
watch is the flattening of the yield curve.
"... Mr.Molyneux, You've really become the best journalist alive today, thank you for your commitment to courageous integrity in reporting the insane conditions of our society. ..."
It's great that The Deep State's attempted coup against Trump has (thus far) failed...
BUT, given all the serious crimes that The Left has been caught red-handed
involved in, and the complete lack of legal repercussions that have resulted, I'm losing
faith in our ability to mend the American justice OR political systems :/
All these witch hunts have done, is continue to exonerate Trump, and expose crimes, and
corruption from the deep stare, MSM, DNC, Clintons, and Obama. As well as further discredit
our intelligence agencies, and destroy what little faith the people had in them.
All this debacle, constantly demonizing Trump is the Dems way of hiding there own
corruption. Smoke & mirrors. The Dems remind me of an Ouroboros like creature eating its
own tail but destroying itself
Mr.Molyneux, You've really become the best journalist alive today, thank you for your
commitment to courageous integrity in reporting the insane conditions of our society.
It you need to read a singe article analyzing current anti-Russian hysteria in the USA this in the one you should read. This is
an excellent article Simply great !!! And as of December 2017 it represents the perfect summary of Russiagate, Hillary defeat and, Neo-McCarthyism
campaign launched as a method of hiding the crisis of neoliberalism revealed by Presidential elections. It also suggest that growing
jingoism of both Parties (return to Madeleine Albright's 'indispensable nation' bulling. Both Trump and Albright assume that the
United States should be able to do as it pleases in the international arena) and loss of the confidence and paranoia of the US
neoliberal elite.
It contain many important observation which in my view perfectly catch the complexity of the current Us political landscape.
Bravo to Jackson Lears !!!
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberals celebrate market utility as the sole criterion of worth; interventionists exalt military adventure abroad as a means of fighting evil in order to secure global progress ..."
"... Sanders is a social democrat and Trump a demagogic mountebank, but their campaigns underscored a widespread repudiation of the Washington consensus. For about a week after the election, pundits discussed the possibility of a more capacious Democratic strategy. It appeared that the party might learn something from Clinton's defeat. Then everything changed. ..."
"... A story that had circulated during the campaign without much effect resurfaced: it involved the charge that Russian operatives had hacked into the servers of the Democratic National Committee, revealing embarrassing emails that damaged Clinton's chances. With stunning speed, a new centrist-liberal orthodoxy came into being, enveloping the major media and the bipartisan Washington establishment. This secular religion has attracted hordes of converts in the first year of the Trump presidency. In its capacity to exclude dissent, it is like no other formation of mass opinion in my adult life, though it recalls a few dim childhood memories of anti-communist hysteria during the early 1950s. ..."
"... The centrepiece of the faith, based on the hacking charge, is the belief that Vladimir Putin orchestrated an attack on American democracy by ordering his minions to interfere in the election on behalf of Trump. The story became gospel with breathtaking suddenness and completeness. Doubters are perceived as heretics and as apologists for Trump and Putin, the evil twins and co-conspirators behind this attack on American democracy. ..."
"... Like any orthodoxy worth its salt, the religion of the Russian hack depends not on evidence but on ex cathedra pronouncements on the part of authoritative institutions and their overlords. Its scriptural foundation is a confused and largely fact-free 'assessment' produced last January by a small number of 'hand-picked' analysts – as James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, described them – from the CIA, the FBI and the NSA. ..."
"... It is not the first time the intelligence agencies have played this role. When I hear the Intelligence Community Assessment cited as a reliable source, I always recall the part played by the New York Times in legitimating CIA reports of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's putative weapons of mass destruction, not to mention the long history of disinformation (a.k.a. 'fake news') as a tactic for advancing one administration or another's political agenda. Once again, the established press is legitimating pronouncements made by the Church Fathers of the national security state. Clapper is among the most vigorous of these. He perjured himself before Congress in 2013, when he denied that the NSA had 'wittingly' spied on Americans – a lie for which he has never been held to account. ..."
"... In May 2017, he told NBC's Chuck Todd that the Russians were highly likely to have colluded with Trump's campaign because they are 'almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favour, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique'. The current orthodoxy exempts the Church Fathers from standards imposed on ordinary people, and condemns Russians – above all Putin – as uniquely, 'almost genetically' diabolical. ..."
"... It's hard for me to understand how the Democratic Party, which once felt scepticism towards the intelligence agencies, can now embrace the CIA and the FBI as sources of incontrovertible truth. One possible explanation is that Trump's election has created a permanent emergency in the liberal imagination, based on the belief that the threat he poses is unique and unprecedented. It's true that Trump's menace is viscerally real. But the menace posed by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney was equally real. ..."
"... Trump is committed to continuing his predecessors' lavish funding of the already bloated Defence Department, and his Fortress America is a blustering, undisciplined version of Madeleine Albright's 'indispensable nation'. Both Trump and Albright assume that the United States should be able to do as it pleases in the international arena: Trump because it's the greatest country in the world, Albright because it's an exceptional force for global good. ..."
"... Besides Trump's supposed uniqueness, there are two other assumptions behind the furore in Washington: the first is that the Russian hack unquestionably occurred, and the second is that the Russians are our implacable enemies. ..."
"... So far, after months of 'bombshells' that turn out to be duds, there is still no actual evidence for the claim that the Kremlin ordered interference in the American election. Meanwhile serious doubts have surfaced about the technical basis for the hacking claims. Independent observers have argued it is more likely that the emails were leaked from inside, not hacked from outside. On this front, the most persuasive case was made by a group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, former employees of the US intelligence agencies who distinguished themselves in 2003 by debunking Colin Powell's claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, hours after Powell had presented his pseudo-evidence at the UN. ..."
"... The crucial issue here and elsewhere is the exclusion from public discussion of any critical perspectives on the orthodox narrative, even the perspectives of people with professional credentials and a solid track record. ..."
"... Sceptical voices, such as those of the VIPS, have been drowned out by a din of disinformation. Flagrantly false stories, like the Washington Post report that the Russians had hacked into the Vermont electrical grid, are published, then retracted 24 hours later. Sometimes – like the stories about Russian interference in the French and German elections – they are not retracted even after they have been discredited. These stories have been thoroughly debunked by French and German intelligence services but continue to hover, poisoning the atmosphere, confusing debate. ..."
"... The consequence is a spreading confusion that envelops everything. Epistemological nihilism looms, but some people and institutions have more power than others to define what constitutes an agreed-on reality. ..."
"... More genuine insurgencies are in the making, which confront corporate power and connect domestic with foreign policy, but they face an uphill battle against the entrenched money and power of the Democratic leadership – the likes of Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, the Clintons and the DNC. Russiagate offers Democratic elites a way to promote party unity against Trump-Putin, while the DNC purges Sanders's supporters. ..."
"... Fusion GPS eventually produced the trash, a lurid account written by the former British MI6 intelligence agent Christopher Steele, based on hearsay purchased from anonymous Russian sources. Amid prostitutes and golden showers, a story emerged: the Russian government had been blackmailing and bribing Donald Trump for years, on the assumption that he would become president some day and serve the Kremlin's interests. In this fantastic tale, Putin becomes a preternaturally prescient schemer. Like other accusations of collusion, this one has become vaguer over time, adding to the murky atmosphere without ever providing any evidence. ..."
"... Yet the FBI apparently took the Steele dossier seriously enough to include a summary of it in a secret appendix to the Intelligence Community Assessment. Two weeks before the inauguration, James Comey, the director of the FBI, described the dossier to Trump. After Comey's briefing was leaked to the press, the website Buzzfeed published the dossier in full, producing hilarity and hysteria in the Washington establishment. ..."
"... The Steele dossier inhabits a shadowy realm where ideology and intelligence, disinformation and revelation overlap. It is the antechamber to the wider system of epistemological nihilism created by various rival factions in the intelligence community: the 'tree of smoke' that, for the novelist Denis Johnson, symbolised CIA operations in Vietnam. ..."
"... Yet the Democratic Party has now embarked on a full-scale rehabilitation of the intelligence community – or at least the part of it that supports the notion of Russian hacking. (We can be sure there is disagreement behind the scenes.) And it is not only the Democratic establishment that is embracing the deep state. Some of the party's base, believing Trump and Putin to be joined at the hip, has taken to ranting about 'treason' like a reconstituted John Birch Society. ..."
"... The Democratic Party has now developed a new outlook on the world, a more ambitious partnership between liberal humanitarian interventionists and neoconservative militarists than existed under the cautious Obama. This may be the most disastrous consequence for the Democratic Party of the new anti-Russian orthodoxy: the loss of the opportunity to formulate a more humane and coherent foreign policy. The obsession with Putin has erased any possibility of complexity from the Democratic world picture, creating a void quickly filled by the monochrome fantasies of Hillary Clinton and her exceptionalist allies. ..."
"... For people like Max Boot and Robert Kagan, war is a desirable state of affairs, especially when viewed from the comfort of their keyboards, and the rest of the world – apart from a few bad guys – is filled with populations who want to build societies just like ours: pluralistic, democratic and open for business. This view is difficult to challenge when it cloaks itself in humanitarian sentiment. There is horrific suffering in the world; the US has abundant resources to help relieve it; the moral imperative is clear. There are endless forms of international engagement that do not involve military intervention. But it is the path taken by US policy often enough that one may suspect humanitarian rhetoric is nothing more than window-dressing for a more mundane geopolitics – one that defines the national interest as global and virtually limitless. ..."
"... The prospect of impeaching Trump and removing him from office by convicting him of collusion with Russia has created an atmosphere of almost giddy anticipation among leading Democrats, allowing them to forget that the rest of the Republican Party is composed of many politicians far more skilful in Washington's ways than their president will ever be. ..."
"... They are posing an overdue challenge to the long con of neoliberalism, and the technocratic arrogance that led to Clinton's defeat in Rust Belt states. Recognising that the current leadership will not bring about significant change, they are seeking funding from outside the DNC. ..."
"... Democrat leaders have persuaded themselves (and much of their base) that all the republic needs is a restoration of the status quo ante Trump. They remain oblivious to popular impatience with familiar formulas. ..."
"... Democratic insurgents are also developing a populist critique of the imperial hubris that has sponsored multiple failed crusades, extorted disproportionate sacrifice from the working class and provoked support for Trump, who presented himself (however misleadingly) as an opponent of open-ended interventionism. On foreign policy, the insurgents face an even more entrenched opposition than on domestic policy: a bipartisan consensus aflame with outrage at the threat to democracy supposedly posed by Russian hacking. Still, they may have found a tactical way forward, by focusing on the unequal burden borne by the poor and working class in the promotion and maintenance of American empire. ..."
"... This approach animates Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis, a 33-page document whose authors include Norman Solomon, founder of the web-based insurgent lobby RootsAction.org. 'The Democratic Party's claims of fighting for "working families" have been undermined by its refusal to directly challenge corporate power, enabling Trump to masquerade as a champion of the people,' Autopsy announces. ..."
"... Clinton's record of uncritical commitment to military intervention allowed Trump to have it both ways, playing to jingoist resentment while posing as an opponent of protracted and pointless war. ..."
"... If the insurgent movements within the Democratic Party begin to formulate an intelligent foreign policy critique, a re-examination may finally occur. And the world may come into sharper focus as a place where American power, like American virtue, is limited. For this Democrat, that is an outcome devoutly to be wished. It's a long shot, but there is something happening out there. ..."
American politics have rarely presented a more disheartening spectacle. The repellent and dangerous antics of Donald Trump are
troubling enough, but so is the Democratic Party leadership's failure to take in the significance of the 2016 election campaign.
Bernie Sanders's challenge to Hillary Clinton, combined with Trump's triumph, revealed the breadth of popular anger at politics as
usual – the blend of neoliberal domestic policy and interventionist foreign policy that constitutes consensus in Washington.
Neoliberals celebrate market utility as the sole criterion of worth; interventionists exalt military adventure abroad as a means
of fighting evil in order to secure global progress . Both agendas have proved calamitous for most Americans. Many registered
their disaffection in 2016. Sanders is a social democrat and Trump a demagogic mountebank, but their campaigns underscored a
widespread repudiation of the Washington consensus. For about a week after the election, pundits discussed the possibility of a more
capacious Democratic strategy. It appeared that the party might learn something from Clinton's defeat. Then everything changed.
Links to his blog below. He's what investigative reporters should be like but most
definitely are NOT like these days. He's sharp as a tack and doesn't miss a thing.
Transparent DOJ and FBI Desperation: New York Times Attempts "Trump Operation"
Justification
December 30, 2017
The article found below is where he discusses his first clue about the HUGE scandal
confirmed at the above DETAILED analyses. If this doesn't result in just a whole bunch of
high level swamp creatures doing a perp walk or AT THE VERY LEAST losing their jobs, you'll
know there's no hope:
THE BIG UGLY – Why U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras Recusal From Mike
Flynn Case is a Big Deal
December 8, 2017
"... The attempt to tease, weave and develop a narrative against President Donald J. Trump over a Russian connection began almost immediately after his victory in November last year. This was meant to be institutional oversight and probing, but in another sense, it was also intended to be an establishment's cry of hope to haul the untenable and inconceivable before some process. No one could still fathom that Trump had actually won on his merits (or demerits). There had to be some other reason. ..."
"... Central to the Trump-Bannon approach to US politics has been the fist of defiance against those entities of establishment fame. There is the Central Intelligence Agency, which Trump scorned; there is the FBI, which Trump is at war with. Then there is the Department of Justice, which he regards as singularly unjust. ..."
"... Australia , Washington's ally with an enthusiastic puppy dog manner, wanted to help, to tip off US authorities that a great Satan, Russia, might be involved. ..."
"... Australian ex-officials were by no means the only ones involved in providing succour to the anti-Trump effort. A picture was being painted by other sources – British and Dutch, for instance – pointing to the Kremlin as central to the Democratic email hacks. The FBI probe, in time, would become the full-fledged investigation led by a former director of the organization, Robert Mueller . ..."
"... "Many people in our Country are asking what the 'Justice' Department is going to do about the fact that totally Crooked Hillary, AFTER receiving a subpoena from the United States Congress, deleted and 'acid washed' 33,000 Emails? No justice!" ..."
"... More to the point, Trump is certainly right in questioning the historic inability of the FBI to be a credible instrument of justice, even if history is not his strong suit. The Bureau under J. Edgar Hoover was a monster of surveillance, its reputation, despite being in deserved tatters, defended by one president after the other. ..."
"... As for bias, Trump is certainly right on the score that certain FBI officials, foremost amongst them lawyer Lisa Page and FBI special agent Peter Strzok , were demonstrably favourable to Clinton over him. ..."
"... Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected] ..."
The attempt to tease, weave and develop a narrative against President Donald J. Trump
over a Russian connection began almost immediately after his victory in November last year.
This was meant to be institutional oversight and probing, but in another sense, it was also
intended to be an establishment's cry of hope to haul the untenable and inconceivable before
some process. No one could still fathom that Trump had actually won on his merits (or
demerits). There had to be some other reason.
Central to the Trump-Bannon approach to US politics has been the fist of defiance against
those entities of establishment fame. There is the Central Intelligence Agency, which Trump
scorned; there is the FBI, which Trump is at war with. Then there is the Department of Justice,
which he regards as singularly unjust.
The FBI investigation into Trumpland and its reputed nexus with Russia remains both bane and
opportunity for Trump. As long as it continues, it affords Trump ammunition for populist
broadsides and claims that such entities are sworn to destroy him.
To watch this story unfold is to remember how a soap opera can best anything done in
celluloid. The New York Times has given us a New Year's Eve treat, claiming that former
Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos spilt the beans to former Australian foreign minister
Alexander Downer at London's Kensington Wine Rooms in May 2016.
The two men had, apparently, been doing what any decent being does at such a London venue:
drink. Papadopoulos' tongue started to wag as the imbibing continued. There was a Russian
connection. There was dirt to be had, featuring Hillary Clinton.
Downer, however hazed, archived the discussion. He could make a name for himself with this
decent brown nosing opportunity. Australia , Washington's ally with an enthusiastic puppy dog
manner, wanted to help, to tip off US authorities that a great Satan, Russia, might be
involved. So commenced the long road to the fall of Trump's former aide, who conceded, in time,
to have lied to the FBI. Trump's response was to
degrade Papadopoulos as a "low-level volunteer" and "liar", giving him the kiss of
unimportance.
Australian ex-officials were by no means the only ones involved in providing succour to the
anti-Trump effort. A picture was being painted by other sources – British and Dutch, for
instance – pointing to the Kremlin as central to the Democratic email hacks. The FBI
probe, in time, would become the full-fledged investigation led by a former director of the
organization, Robert Mueller .
This provides the broader context for the Trump assault on all manner of instruments in the
Republic. Earlier in December, Twitter was again ablaze with the president's fury. The blasts
centered on the guilty plea by former national security advisor Michael Flynn. He had, in fact,
had conversations with the former Russian ambassador. Trump's approach was two-fold: claim that Flynn's actions had been initially, at least,
lawful, while the conduct of the
FBI and Department of Justice had been uneven and arbitrary.
"So General Flynn lies to the FBI and his life is destroyed, while Crooked Hillary
Clinton, on that now infamous FBI holiday 'interrogation' with no swearing in and no
recording, lies many times and nothing happens to her?"
He then reserved a salvo for the DOJ.
"Many people in our Country are asking what the 'Justice' Department is going to do about
the fact that totally Crooked Hillary, AFTER receiving a subpoena from the United States
Congress, deleted and 'acid washed' 33,000 Emails? No justice!"
The persistent inability to understand Trumpland as a series of bullying an exploitative
transactions blunts the value of the FBI investigation. Whatever it purports to be, it smacks
of desperation, an effort in search of an explanation rather than a resolution. The Trump
Teflon remains in place, immovable.
More to the point, Trump is certainly right in questioning the historic inability of
the FBI to be a credible instrument of justice, even if history is not his strong suit. The
Bureau under J. Edgar Hoover was a monster of surveillance, its reputation, despite being in
deserved tatters, defended by one president after the other.
As for bias, Trump is certainly right on the score that certain FBI officials, foremost
amongst them lawyer Lisa Page and FBI special agent Peter Strzok , were demonstrably
favourable to Clinton over him.
... ... ...
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures
at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]
"... The best part about Trump is that he does not have to run false flags to get the public's support. ...No inside jobs like 9/11 and no fake shootings like Sandy Hook. He just has some solid policies that benefit normal Americans! ..."
Fox News host Maria Bartiromo interviews Representative Bud Cummins about the 2016
weaponization of the FBI and DOJ and the same group of people in 2017 working to undermine the
Trump administration.
This Tuesday FBI Asst. Director Andrew McCabe will meet with the House Intelligence
Committee. Around the same time Trump lawyers will be meeting with Robert Mueller. Could be a
big news week.
Lutz • 12 days ago
Only the chosen tribe can shut down an agency like the F.B.Lie. Control through money
distribution. They control everyone, PERIOD.
Tom Turek > Claude Taylor • 13 days ago
FBI? On site the night before 911, On site within minutes after Sen Wellstone's chartered
almost new Twin Turboprop Beachcraft with 2 pro plots smashed into the ground on approach.
Wellstone was about to expose 911. Illegally taking over the TWA800 investigation from NTSB
and many times removing evidence overnight that investigators found suspicious of a missile
strike. Told us that a low voltage wire in a fuel tank overheated and caused the plane to
break into 2. Wreckage still under armed guard!
About what 'IDEALS' is DJT talking??
Doctor72 • 13 days ago
The best part about Trump is that he does not have to run false flags to get the public's
support. ...No inside jobs like 9/11 and no fake shootings like Sandy Hook. He just has some
solid policies that benefit normal Americans!
MikeG the Deplorable > Doctor72 • 13 days ago
What a refreshing change.
Cyrano • 13 days ago
This man is afraid to call it treason...
centurion • 13 days ago
It's a very sad day for Trump supporters when they elected a person to jail the law
breakers in Washington, CIA, FBI, BLM, NSA, the Clintons, the Bush's and Trump does
absolutely nothing about it. Failure to do something IS consent.
Mistaron • 13 days ago
Why is this guy dancing around? It's not 'bad management' mate, it's bloody Treason!
Elim • 13 days ago
I just saw a clip of Trump answering questions at a news conference. He was answering
questions about the Russian collusion crap, and was saying that Putin and his government
denied any interference, just as he denied any collusion. When Trump was asked what he
personally believed, he said that he supported what the intelligence agencies said about it.
In other words, he believes what he was told by our intelligence services...which is what,
exactly? He didn't answer the question.
Why Rosenstein does not investigate the DNC corruption instead or along with targeting Trump? "Who the hell cares if it was the Russians who hacked DNC emails that
proved their hypocrisy, mendacity and the corruption of the media?" What was the crime committed by Trump that warrant opening
the investigation ?
Notable quotes:
"... Mueller has a rather large conflict of interest: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-19/hillary-clinton-told-fbis-mueller-deliver-uranium-russians-2009-secret-plane-side-ta ..."
"... Mueller participated in one of the greatest expansions of mass surveillance in human history. ..."
"... Mueller was even okay with the CIA conducting torture programs after his own agents warned against participation. Agents were simply instructed not to document such torture, and any "war crimes files" were made to disappear. Not only did "collect it all" surveillance and torture programs continue, but Mueller's (and then Comey's) FBI later worked to prosecute NSA and CIA whistleblowers who revealed these illegalities. ..."
"... There's much more about Mueller which makes it clear he's no friend of democracy. http://www.globalresearch.ca/special-prosecutor-robert-mueller-is-a-political-hack/5594943 ..."
"... Apparatchik /ˌɑːpəˈrɑːtʃɪk/ (Russian: аппара́тчик [ɐpɐˈratɕɪk]) is a Russian colloquial term for a full-time, professional functionary of the Communist Party or government "apparat" (apparatus) that held any position of bureaucratic or political responsibility, with the exception of the higher ranks of management called "Nomenklatura". James Billington describes one as "a man not of grand plans, but of a hundred carefully executed details."[1] It is often considered a derogatory term, with negative connotations in terms of the quality, competence, and attitude of a person thus described.[2] ..."
"... Rosenstein and Mueller's Excellent Adventure. Mr. Mueller's Day Off. Sorry, it is hard to take this unconstitutional special counsel in search of a crime seriously. ..."
"... Rosenstein and Goldilocks??? You know, like from Hamlet. . . ..."
"... When Comey testified that AG Loretta Lynch ordered him to call the criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton's violations of email-protocols on a private server & ignoring security classifications, putting our National Security at risk -- why didn't the Senate Intelligence Committee subpoena Ms. Lynch to testify ..."
"... Why did AG Loretta Lynch refuse to demand that the FBI put Hillary under oath & also record their questioning of her during Emailgate? Why was Hillary accorded special privileges in violation of FBI-protocols -- that citizens would never be accorded? ..."
"... Mueller is close to the Clintons -- he is close to Comey. In my opinion, a man of integrity would not have accepted the role of Special Counsel in this trumped-up coup d'etat. Shame on him. ..."
"... as long as the moronic brain-washed idiots on Broadway continue to give Hillary standing ovations just because she "tried" to break the glass ceiling .you know, the participation trophy ..then she will keep on thinking she is actually someone worth admiring. She is not. She is incompetent. She is corrupt. She is a criminal. She is unethical. She is, and always will be Crooked Hillary. A failed politician who should be in prison for the rest of her life. ..."
"... From Comey's statements regarding Hillary Clinton, I believe that should be reopened, especially regarding Bill Clinton's meeting with then Attorney General Lynch. Is Lynch so stupid not to think the public would see that for what it was, a cover-up. The Russia thing is a cloak to cover the Clinton/Lynch meeting. ..."
"... Rosenstein worked under Mueller for 3 years, early in Rosenstein's DOJ career: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Rosenstein#Department_of_Justice You can argue appearance of impropriety on both sides. Mueller is friends with Comey, and he was Rosenstein's boss at the beginning of Rosenstein's DOJ career. ..."
"... "Hardcore anti-Trump Democrat Senator from Virginia and Russia conspiracy theorist, Mark Warner, made $6 million from Russian search engine and tech company Yandex back in 2012. GotNews reports that the $6 million he pocketed represents 10% of his entire net worth. This is corroborated by the Christian Science Monitor, which reported his net worth to be around $80 million." ..."
"... Let's think about Hillary and Bill that were "broke" when they left the White House and then trace their actions while following the money. The uranium sale to the Russians was just the tip of the iceberg. They enriched themselves on the backs of the American people and should be in jail. Trump acted within the law as far as we can see and the investigations don't stop. ..."
"... It's starting to look more like an insurrection than an investigation. Definition of insurrection : an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government. ..."
"... I think Mueller is too close to Comey to investigate this whole thing. I know that I could not be completely fair if one of my friends was a witness. I would clearly give them more weight. ..."
"... "If he 'doesn't have a conflict of interest' it's because lawyers have turned that phrase into a term-of-art which allows them to go about their scuzzy ways blatant partiality notwithstanding. The man who has no conflict of interest has hired four lawyers who are part of the modest minority of the public who finance Democratic Party campaigns, of which 3 have given four figure sums to Democratic campaigns. It's not difficult to find attorneys who do not make political contributions of note. Only a single-digit minority of the public are campaign contributors ..."
This is getting so ridiculous! Let's have everyone recluse themselves and get down to the work of running the country! Who the
hell cares if it was the Russians who hacked DNC emails that proved their hypocrisy, mendacity and the corruption of the media?
Why aren't we "investigating" the DNC? Answer: because our "media" has been weaponized by them against it's "enemies."
Putin is an enemy because he didn't take kindly to Clinton's political weaponizing the press in it's sphere of influence. Can't
say I blame him. If the CIA can't hack Putin, and the US is helpless to prevent further hacking, then we have a much bigger problem.
Trump's ham-fisted attempts to get actual government officials to "go public" to reduce the media heat he feels, is much ado
about nothing. I wish he didn't care about the publicity, but then – if he didn't – he wouldn't be President now.
G.R. headline: "Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller Is a "Political Hack" -- note what JT said:
snippett: Unsure About Assassination of U.S. Citizens Living On U.S. Soil Rather than saying "of course not!", Mueller said
that he wasn't sure whether Obama had the right to assassinate Americans living on American soil. Constitutional expert Jonathan
Turley commented at the time: "One would hope that the FBI Director would have a handle on a few details guiding his responsibilities,
including whether he can kill citizens without a charge or court order."
***
He appeared unclear whether he had the power under the Obama Kill Doctrine or, in the very least, was unwilling to discuss
that power. For civil libertarians, the answer should be easy: "Of course, I do not have that power under the Constitution."
Mueller participated in one of the greatest expansions of mass surveillance in human history. As we noted in 2013:
FBI special agent Colleen Rowley points out:
Mueller was even okay with the CIA conducting torture programs after his own agents warned against participation. Agents
were simply instructed not to document such torture, and any "war crimes files" were made to disappear. Not only did "collect
it all" surveillance and torture programs continue, but Mueller's (and then Comey's) FBI later worked to prosecute NSA and CIA
whistleblowers who revealed these illegalities.
All parties involved swore a supreme loyalty oath to the U.S. Constitution, which includes fidelity to our Bill of Rights. All
ignored the torture, illegal spying and abusing the Espionage Act but they did lock up those that had fidelity to their oath (i.e.:
John Kiriakou).
Why has the Press lost interest in that disloyalty by most, not all, DOJ employees – they swore to protect Americans' constitutional
rights.
Whenever a member or supporter of the !% tells us that Mr. X is highly respected etc., you can be certain that Mr. X will not
act contrary to the beliefs and aspirations of the established order.
You are exactly right! Mueller is an Apparatchik. Which wiki says is:
Apparatchik /ˌɑːpəˈrɑːtʃɪk/ (Russian: аппара́тчик [ɐpɐˈratɕɪk]) is a Russian colloquial term for a full-time, professional
functionary of the Communist Party or government "apparat" (apparatus) that held any position of bureaucratic or political
responsibility, with the exception of the higher ranks of management called "Nomenklatura". James Billington describes one
as "a man not of grand plans, but of a hundred carefully executed details."[1] It is often considered a derogatory term, with
negative connotations in terms of the quality, competence, and attitude of a person thus described.[2]
Members of the "apparat" were frequently transferred between different areas of responsibility, usually with little
or no actual training for their new areas of responsibility. Thus, the term apparatchik, or "agent of the apparatus" was usually
the best possible description of the person's profession and occupation.[3]
Not all apparatchiks held lifelong positions. Many only entered such positions in middle age.[4]
Today apparatchik is also used in contexts other than that of the Soviet Union or communist countries. According to Collins
English Dictionary the word can mean "an official or bureaucrat in any organization".[5]
According to Douglas Harper's Online Etymology Dictionary, the term was also used in the meaning "Communist agent or spy",
originating in the writings of Arthur Koestler, c. 1941.[6]
In Australia, the term is often used to describe people who have made their career as factional operatives and leaders in
political parties, and who are therefore perceived to have little 'real-world' experience outside politics.
Rosenstein and Mueller's Excellent Adventure. Mr. Mueller's Day Off. Sorry, it is hard to take this unconstitutional
special counsel in search of a crime seriously.
When Comey testified that AG Loretta Lynch ordered him to call the criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton's violations
of email-protocols on a private server & ignoring security classifications, putting our National Security at risk -- why didn't
the Senate Intelligence Committee subpoena Ms. Lynch to testify regarding:
Why did she advise Comey to call the investigation a "matter"? Why was she pressuring him to back-off and not indict
Hillary? To what degree was POTUS Obama involved in Hillary's e-mail gate? What was in the 30,000 emails that Hillary deleted?
What took place between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch on the airplane during Tarmac-gate in AZ? They didn't talk about
their "grandkids" alone, did they ergo, did Bill Clinton promise that if AG Lynch & Comey refused to recommend an indictment
that Hillary would recommend her to be nominated for the US Supreme Court? What, if any other, quid-pro-quos were offered
by Bill on behalf of Hillary in order to obstruct justice?
Why did AG Loretta Lynch refuse to demand that the FBI put Hillary under oath & also record their questioning of her
during Emailgate? Why was Hillary accorded special privileges in violation of FBI-protocols -- that citizens would never be
accorded? What was Obama-Lynch's role in aiding-and-abetting Hillary to avoid prosecution of crimes that other US citizens
would endure for lesser crimes?
Let's be honest please: It wasn't Trump or the Russians who obstructed justice -- attempted to rig our elections -- who perverted
the course of justice: -- It was Obama, Bill & Hillary Clinton, AG Loretta Lynch and Comey– all of whom thought that Hillary would
be POTUS and were happy to help her out -- and whom were willing to turn a blind-eye -- to her crimes in order to enjoy the perks that
she would provide in return for ignoring her blatant, willful & criminal activities.
Mueller is close to the Clintons -- he is close to Comey. In my opinion, a man of integrity would not have accepted the role of
Special Counsel in this trumped-up coup d'etat. Shame on him.
Yes! But, as long as the moronic brain-washed idiots on Broadway continue to give Hillary standing ovations just because she "tried"
to break the glass ceiling .you know, the participation trophy ..then she will keep on thinking she is actually someone worth
admiring. She is not. She is incompetent. She is corrupt. She is a criminal. She is unethical. She is, and always will be Crooked
Hillary. A failed politician who should be in prison for the rest of her life. The idiots on the left who continue to venerate
her are true 'sycophants' -- emphasis on 'sick.'
From Comey's statements regarding Hillary Clinton, I believe that should be reopened, especially regarding Bill Clinton's meeting
with then Attorney General Lynch. Is Lynch so stupid not to think the public would see that for what it was, a cover-up. The Russia
thing is a cloak to cover the Clinton/Lynch meeting. It's a sham that DOJ has let go. My main complaint is -- how much is this
going to cost the taxpayer? It has no basis in fact from anyone, so why are we here? Well, because the Dems are afraid of Donald
Trump! Sessions should tell his Deputy to end this by terminating the whole thing. Hopefully Dems will,pay for this in 2018. We
will not let Americans forget!
Rosenstein worked under Mueller for 3 years, early in Rosenstein's DOJ career:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Rosenstein#Department_of_Justice
You can argue appearance of impropriety on both sides. Mueller is friends with Comey, and he was Rosenstein's boss at the beginning
of Rosenstein's DOJ career.
The Dems won't rest until they get Trump's tax returns. Next we'll see "leaks" coming out of the IRS because Trump hasn't cleaned
house over there yet.
And, yes, if Trump is to reveal his tax returns, so should every member of Congress be under scrutiny and/or investigation.
I'm sure we'd find some interesting information. Like this from Mark Warner's:
"Hardcore anti-Trump Democrat Senator from Virginia and Russia conspiracy theorist, Mark Warner, made $6 million from Russian
search engine and tech company Yandex back in 2012. GotNews reports that the $6 million he pocketed represents 10% of his entire
net worth. This is corroborated by the Christian Science Monitor, which reported his net worth to be around $80 million."
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -
"As far as we know, President Donald J. Trump has made 0% of his net worth from Russian companies. Maybe Warner should investigate
his own ties to Russia.
Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, is blocking the
White House from appointing a Treasury Department official to oversee financial crimes committed by terrorists. Warner, worth
over $80 million, is one of the Senate's richest members."
Let's think about Hillary and Bill that were "broke" when they left the White House and then trace their actions while following
the money. The uranium sale to the Russians was just the tip of the iceberg. They enriched themselves on the backs of the American
people and should be in jail. Trump acted within the law as far as we can see and the investigations don't stop.
The left is tribal and now even becoming openly violent.
It's starting to look more like an insurrection than an investigation. Definition of insurrection : an act or instance
of revolting against civil authority or an established government.
What a mess. Mueller has to recuse himself on anything Comey related, right? So, if Mueller opens an investigation into obstruction,
then both he and Rosenstein have to step aside. So Trump is correct when he says he is not under investigation. Hasn't Comey,
(and Coats and Rogers) all testified under oath that there was no obstruction? Hasn't it been determined that there is no 'collusion'
(whatever that means) between Trump and Russia? So what is the special counsel investigating?
How about instead of obstruction, they take a look at sedition?
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire
to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose
by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by
force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined
under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
Michael Aarethun – he is not going to find Diogenese in Washington, DC. I think Mueller is too close to Comey to investigate
this whole thing. I know that I could not be completely fair if one of my friends was a witness. I would clearly give them more
weight.
Rosenstein has a clear conflict of interest. Mueller probably doesn't have a conflict of interest, but if I were in his shoes,
I would hire an attorney whose sole job is to deal with conflict of interest issues and other ethical issues that are certain
to come up. I would also take steps to see that this "ethics counsel" can't be fired without approval by the (acting) Attorney
General -- whoever is sitting in for Sessions.
"If he 'doesn't have a conflict of interest' it's because lawyers have turned that phrase into a term-of-art which allows
them to go about their scuzzy ways blatant partiality notwithstanding. The man who has no conflict of interest has hired four
lawyers who are part of the modest minority of the public who finance Democratic Party campaigns, of which 3 have given four figure
sums to Democratic campaigns. It's not difficult to find attorneys who do not make political contributions of note. Only a single-digit
minority of the public are campaign contributors. Comment dit-on Establishment stitch-up ?
There is strong circumstantial evidence that an insidious plot unprecedented in American
history was hatched within the FBI and the Obama Justice Department to help elect Hillary
Clinton and defeat Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
And when this apparent effort to improperly influence the election did not succeed, the
suspected conspirators appear to have employed a fraudulent investigation of President Trump in
an attempt to undo the election results and remove him as president.
Such a Machiavellian scheme would move well beyond what is known as the "deep state," a
popular reference to government employees who organize in secret to impose their own political
views on government policy in defiance of democratically elected leadership.
However, this apparent plot to keep Trump from becoming president and to weaken and
potentially pave the way for his impeachment with a prolonged politically motivated
investigation – if proven – would constitute something far more nefarious and
dangerous.
Such a plot would show that partisans within the FBI and the Justice Department, driven by
personal animus and a sense of political righteousness, surreptitiously conspired to subvert
electoral democracy itself in our country.
As of now, we have no proof beyond a reasonable doubt of such a plot. But we have very
strong circumstantial evidence.
And as the philosopher and writer Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal in 1850: "Some
circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."
Newly revealed text messages about the apparent anti-Trump plot are the equivalent of a
trout in the milk. It smells fishy.
The Plans
The mainstream media and Democrats dismiss talk of an anti-Trump conspiracy by the FBI and
Justice Department as right-wing nonsense – paranoid fantasies of Trump supporters with
no basis in facts. But there are plenty of facts that lay out a damning case based on
circumstantial evidence.
Recently disclosed text messages between FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa
Page suggest there may have been two parts of the apparent anti-Trump plot.
"Part A" was to devise a way to exonerate Clinton, despite compelling evidence that she
committed crimes under the Espionage Act in her mishandling of classified documents on her
private email server.
Absolving Clinton cleared the way for her to continue her candidacy at a time when all polls
and just about every pundit predicted she would be elected president in November 2016. If
Clinton had been charged with crimes she would likely have been forced to drop her candidacy,
and if she remained in the race her candidacy would have been doomed.
But "Part A" of the apparent anti-Trump plot was not enough. A back-up plan would be
prudent. It seems the Obama Justice Department and FBI conjured up a "Part B" just in case the
first stratagem failed. This would be even more malevolent – manufacturing an alleged
crime supposedly committed by Trump where no crime exists in the law.
And so, armed with a fictitious justification, a criminal investigation was launched into
so-called Trump-Russia "collusion." It was always a mythical legal claim, since there is no
statute prohibiting foreign nationals from volunteering their services in American political
campaigns.
More importantly, there was never a scintilla of evidence that Trump collaborated with
Russia to influence the election.
No matter. The intent may have been to sully the new president while searching for a crime
to force him from office.
But thanks to the discovery of text messages, circumstantial evidence has been exposed.
The Texts
The text messages exchanged between Strzok and Page, who were romantically involved, confirm
a stunning hostility toward Trump, calling him an "idiot" and "loathsome."
At the same time, the texts were filled with adoring compliments of Clinton, lauding her
nomination and stating: "She just has to win now."
One text between Strzok and Page dated Aug. 6, 2016 stands out and looks like the proverbial
smoking gun.
Page: "And maybe you're meant to stay where you are because you're meant to protect the
country from that menace." (This is clearly a reference to a Trump presidency).
Strzok: "Thanks. And of course I'll try and approach it that way. I can protect our country
at many levels . "
It is reasonable to conclude that Strzok had already taken steps to "protect" the country
from what he considered would be a dangerous and harmful Trump presidency.
Just one month earlier, then-FBI Director James Comey had announced he would recommend that
no criminal charges be filed by the Justice Department against Clinton. Given all the
incriminating evidence against Clinton, Comey's view that she should not be prosecuted made no
sense by any objective standard.
This is where Strzok played a pivotal role. As the lead investigator in the Clinton email
case, he is the person who changed the critical wording in Comey's description of Clinton's
handling of classified material, substituting "extremely careless" for "gross negligence."
As I explained in
an earlier column , this alteration of two words had enormous consequences, because it
allowed Clinton to evade prosecution. This removed the only legal impediment to her election as
president.
Documents made available by the Senate Homeland Security Committee also show that Comey
intended to declare that the sheer volume of classified material on Clinton's server supported
the "inference" that she was grossly negligent, which would constitute criminal conduct. Yet
this also was edited out, likely by Strzok, to avoid finding evidence of crimes.
This seems to be what Page and Strzok meant when they discussed his role as protector of the
republic. It appears that Strzok was instrumental in clearing Clinton by rewriting Comey's
otherwise incriminating findings.
Were Page and Strzok also referring to the investigation of Trump that was begun in July
2016, right after Clinton was absolved? After all, Strzok was the agent who reportedly signed
the documents launching the bureau's Trump-Russia probe. And he was a lead investigator in the
case before jumping to Robert Mueller's special counsel team.
If there is any doubt that Strzok and Page sought to undermine the democratic process,
consider this cryptic text about their "insurance policy" against the "risk" of a Trump
presidency.
Strzok: "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office –
that there's no way he gets elected – but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like
an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40. "
The reference to "Andy" is likely Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who was also
supervising the investigation of Clinton's emails at the same time his wife was receiving
roughly $675,000 in campaign money in her race for elective office in Virginia from groups
aligned with Clinton.
What was the "insurance policy" discussed in Andy's office? Was it the FBI's investigation
of Trump and his associates? Or was it the anti-Trump "dossier" that may have been used by the
FBI and the Justice Department as the basis for a warrant to wiretap and spy on Trump
associates? Perhaps it was both.
The Dossier
The "dossier" was a compendium of largely specious allegations about Trump, compiled by the
opposition research firm Fusion GPS. The dossier was funded by the Clinton campaign and the
Democratic National Committee. Comey called it "salacious and unverified."
Various congressional committees suspect the dossier was illegally used to place a Trump
campaign associate, Carter Page, under foreign surveillance. When asked about that on Wednesday
during a hearing on Capitol Hill, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein refused to answer,
which sounds like an implicit "yes."
Using a dubious, if not phony, document in support of an affidavit to obtain a warrant from
a federal judge constitutes a fraud upon the court, which is a crime.
The dossier scandal recently ensnared Bruce Ohr, a top Justice Department official, who was
demoted last week for concealing his meetings with the men behind the document.
Ohr's wife worked for Fusion GPS. This created a disqualifying conflict of interest for Mr.
Ohr. He was legally obligated under Justice Department regulations to recuse himself from the
Mueller investigation of Russia's role in the election, but he did not.
Congress needs to find out whether the dossier was exploited as a pretext for initiating the
Russia probe against President Trump. It would also be unconscionable, if not illegal, for the
FBI and Justice Department to use opposition research funded by Clinton's campaign to spy on
her opponent or his campaign.
Both agencies have been resisting congressional subpoenas and other demands for answers,
which smacks of a cover-up. Since the Justice Department cannot be trusted to investigate
itself, a second special counsel should be appointed.
This new counsel should also reopen the Clinton email case and investigate the conduct of
Strzok, Page, Comey and others who may have obstructed justice by exonerating Clinton in the
face of substantial evidence that she had committed crimes.
If Strzok or anyone else allowed their political views to shape the investigations of either
Clinton or Trump and dictate the outcomes, that is a felony for which they should be
prosecuted.
The Mueller investigation is now so tainted with the appearance of corruption that it has
lost credibility and the public's trust.
Nationalism really represent a growing threat to neoliberalism. It is clear the the rise of
nationalism was caused by the triumph of neoliberalism all over the globe. As neoliberal
ideology collapsed in 2008, thing became really interesting now. Looks like
1920th-1940th will be replayed on a new level with the USA neoliberal empire under stress from
new challengers instead of British empire.
Rumor about the death of neoliberalism are slightly exaggerated ;-). This social system still
has a lot of staying power. you need some external shock like the need of cheap oil (defined as
sustainable price of oil over $100 per barrel) to shake it again. Of some financial crisis similar
to the crisis of 2008. Currently there is still
no alternative social order that can replace it. Collapse of the USSR discredited both socialism even
of different flavors then was practiced in the USSR. National socialism would be a step back from
neoliberalism.
Notable quotes:
"... The retreat of [neo]liberalism is very visible in Asia. All Southeast Asian states have turned their backs on liberal democracy, especially Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar in the last decade. This NYT article notes that liberalism has essentially died in Japan, and that all political contests are now between what the west would consider conservatives: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/15/opinion/liberalism-japan-election.html ..."
"... What is today called "Liberalism" and "Conservatism" both are simply corrupted labels applied to the same top-down corporate-fascistic elite rule that I think Mr. Buchanan once referred to as "two wings of the same bird of prey." ..."
"... Nobody at the top cares about 'diversity.' They care about the easy profits that come from ever cheaper labor. 'Diversity' is not suicide but rather murder: instigated by a small number of very powerful people who have decided that the long-term health of their nations and civilization is less important than short-term profits and power. ..."
"... Hillary and Obama are to the right of the President that Buchanan served in his White House. Richard Nixon was to the Left of both Hillary and Obama. I can't even imagine Hillary accepting and signing into law a 'Clean Water Act' or enacting Price Controls to fight inflation. No way. Heck would freeze over before Hillary would do something so against her Banker Backers. ..."
"... It's sure that financial (neo)liberalism was in a growth phase prior to year 2000 (under Greenspan, the "Maestro") with a general belief that the economy could be "fine tuned" with risk eliminated using sophisticated financial instruments, monetary policy etc. ..."
"... If [neo] Liberalism is a package, then two heavy financial blows that shook the whole foundation were the collapse of the dot.com bubble (2000) and the mortgage bubble (2008). ..."
"... And, other (self-serving) neoliberal stories are now seen as false. For example, that the US is an "advanced post-industrial service economy", that out-sourcing would "free up Americans for higher skilled/higher wage employment" or that "the US would always gain from tariff free trade". ..."
"... The basic divide is surely Nationalism (America First) vs. Globalism (Neo-Liberalism), as shown by the last US Presidential election. ..."
"... Neoliberalism, of which the Clintons are acolytes, supports Free Trade and Open Borders. Although it claims to support World Government, in actual fact it supports corporatism. This is explicit in the TPPA Trump vetoed. Under the corporate state, the state controls the corporations, as Don Benito did in Italy. Under corporatism, the corporations tell the state what to do, as has been the case in America since at least the Clinton Presidency. ..."
"... But I recall that Pat B also said neoconservatism was on its way out a few years after Iraq war II and yet it's stronger than ever and its adherents are firmly ensconced in the joint chiefs of staff, the pentagon, Congress and the White House. It's also spawned a close cousin in liberal interventionism. ..."
Asked to name the defining attributes of the America we wish to become, many liberals would answer
that we must realize our manifest destiny since 1776, by becoming more equal, more diverse and more
democratic -- and the model for mankind's future.
Equality, diversity, democracy -- this is the holy trinity of the post-Christian secular state
at whose altars Liberal Man worships.
But the congregation worshiping these gods is shrinking. And even Europe seems to be rejecting
what America has on offer.
In a retreat from diversity, Catalonia just voted to separate from Spain. The Basque and Galician
peoples of Spain are following the Catalan secession crisis with great interest.
The right-wing People's Party and far-right Freedom Party just swept 60 percent of Austria's vote,
delivering the nation to 31-year-old Sebastian Kurz, whose anti-immigrant platform was plagiarized
from the Freedom Party. Summarized it is: Austria for the Austrians!
Lombardy, whose capital is Milan, and Veneto will vote Sunday for greater autonomy from Rome.
South Tyrol (Alto Adige), severed from Austria and ceded to Italy at Versailles, written off by
Hitler to appease Mussolini after his Anschluss, is astir anew with secessionism. Even the Sicilians
are talking of separation.
By Sunday, the Czech Republic may have a new leader, billionaire Andrej Babis. Writes The Washington
Post, Babis "makes a sport of attacking the European Union and says NATO's mission is outdated."
Platform Promise: Keep the Muslim masses out of the motherland.
To ethnonationalists, their countrymen are not equal to all others, but superior in rights. Many
may nod at Thomas Jefferson's line that "All men are created equal," but they no more practice that
in their own nations than did Jefferson in his
... ... ...
European peoples and parties are today using democratic means to achieve "illiberal" ends. And
it is hard to see what halts the drift away from liberal democracy toward the restrictive right.
For in virtually every nation, there is a major party in opposition, or a party in power, that holds
deeply nationalist views.
European elites may denounce these new parties as "illiberal" or fascist, but it is becoming apparent
that it may be liberalism itself that belongs to yesterday. For more and more Europeans see the invasion
of the continent along the routes whence the invaders came centuries ago, not as a manageable problem
but an existential crisis.
To many Europeans, it portends an irreversible alteration in the character of the countries their
grandchildren will inherit, and possibly an end to their civilization. And they are not going to
be deterred from voting their fears by being called names that long ago lost their toxicity from
overuse.
And as Europeans decline to celebrate the racial, ethnic, creedal and cultural diversity extolled
by American elites, they also seem to reject the idea that foreigners should be treated equally in
nations created for their own kind.
Europeans seem to admire more, and model their nations more, along the lines of the less diverse
America of the Eisenhower era, than on the polyglot America of 2017.
And Europe seems to be moving toward immigration polices more like the McCarran-Walter Act of
1950 than the open borders bill that Sen. Edward Kennedy shepherded through the Senate in 1965.
Kennedy promised that the racial and ethnic composition of the America of the 1960s would not
be overturned, and he questioned the morality and motives of any who implied that it would.
Liberalism is the naivete of 18th century elites, no different than today. Modernity as you
know it is unsustainable, mostly because equality isn't real, identity has value for most humans,
pluralism is by definition fractious, and deep down most people wish to follow a wise strongman
leader who represents their interests first and not a vague set of universalist values.
Blind devotion to liberal democracy is another one of those times when white people take an
abstract concept to weird extremes. It is short-sighted and autistically narrow minded. Just because
you have an oppressive king doesn't mean everyone should be equals. Just because there was slavery/genocide
doesn't mean diversity is good.
The retreat of [neo]liberalism is very visible in Asia. All Southeast Asian states have turned their
backs on liberal democracy, especially Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar in the last decade.
This NYT article notes that liberalism has essentially died in Japan, and that all political contests
are now between what the west would consider conservatives:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/15/opinion/liberalism-japan-election.html
Good riddance. The idea that egalitarianism is more advanced than hierarchy has always been
false, and flies against the long arc of history. Time for nationalists around the world to smash
liberal democracy and build a new modernity based on actual humanism, with respect to hierarchies
and the primacy of majorities instead of guilt and pathological compassion dressed up as political
ideology.
"Liberalism" is not dying. "Liberalism" is dead, and has been since at least 1970.
What is today called "Liberalism" and "Conservatism" both are simply corrupted labels applied
to the same top-down corporate-fascistic elite rule that I think Mr. Buchanan once referred to
as "two wings of the same bird of prey."
Nobody at the top cares about 'diversity.' They care about the easy profits that come from
ever cheaper labor. 'Diversity' is not suicide but rather murder: instigated by a small number
of very powerful people who have decided that the long-term health of their nations and civilization
is less important than short-term profits and power.
Its been dead for nearly 20 years now. Liberalism has long been the Monty Python parrot nailed
to its perch. At this point, the term is mainly kept alive in right-wing attacks by people who
lack the imagination to change their habitual targets for so long.
To my eye, the last 'liberal' politician died in a susupicious plane crash in 2000 as the Bush
Republicans were taking the White House by their famous 5-4 vote/coup and also needed to claim
control of the Senate. So, the last authentic 'liberal' Senator, Paul Wellstone of MN was killed
in a suspicious plane crash that was never properly explained.
Hillary and Obama are to the right of the President that Buchanan served in his White House.
Richard Nixon was to the Left of both Hillary and Obama. I can't even imagine Hillary accepting
and signing into law a 'Clean Water Act' or enacting Price Controls to fight inflation. No way.
Heck would freeze over before Hillary would do something so against her Banker Backers.
And, at the root, that is the key. The 'Liberals' that the right now rails against are strongly
backed and supported by the Wall Street Banks and other corporate leaders. The 'Liberals' have
pushed for a government Of the Bankers, By the Bankers and For the Bankers. The 'Liberals' now
are in favor of Endless Unconstitutional War around the world.
Which can only mean that the term 'Liberal' has been so completely morphed away from its original
meanings to be completely worthless.
The last true Liberal in American politics was Paul Wellstone. And even by the time he died
for his sins, he was calling himself a "progressive" because after the Clintons and the Gores
had so distorted the term Liberal it was meaningless. Or it had come to mean a society ruled by
bankers, a society at constant war and throwing money constantly at a gigantic war machine, a
society of censorship where the government needed to control all music lyrics, the same corrupt
government where money could by anything from a night in the Lincoln Bedroom to a Presidential
Pardon or any other government favor.
Thus, 'Liberals' were a dead movement even by 2000, when the people who actually believed in
the American People over the profits of bankers were calling themselves Progressives in disgust
at the misuse of the term Liberal. And now, Obama and Hillary have trashed and distorted even
the term Progressive into bombing the world 365 days a year and still constantly throwing money
at the military machine and the problems it invents.
So, Liberalism is so long dead that if you exumed the grave you'd only find dust. And Pat must
be getting senile and just throwing back out the same lines he once wrote as a speechwriter for
the last Great Lefty President Richard Nixon.
Another question is whether this is wishful thinking from Pat or some kind of reality.
I think that he's right, that Liberalism is a dying faith, and it's interesting to check the
decline.
It's sure that financial (neo)liberalism was in a growth phase prior to year 2000 (under
Greenspan, the "Maestro") with a general belief that the economy could be "fine tuned" with risk
eliminated using sophisticated financial instruments, monetary policy etc.
If [neo] Liberalism is a package, then two heavy financial blows that shook the whole foundation
were the collapse of the dot.com bubble (2000) and the mortgage bubble (2008).
And, other (self-serving) neoliberal stories are now seen as false. For example, that the
US is an "advanced post-industrial service economy", that out-sourcing would "free up Americans
for higher skilled/higher wage employment" or that "the US would always gain from tariff free
trade".
In fact, the borderless global "world is flat" dogma is now seen as enabling a rootless hyper-rich
global elite to draw on a sea of globalized serf labour with little or no identity, while their
media and SWJ activists operate a scorched earth defense against any sign of opposition.
The basic divide is surely Nationalism (America First) vs. Globalism (Neo-Liberalism),
as shown by the last US Presidential election.
A useful analogy might be Viktor Orbán. He started out as a leader of a liberal party, Fidesz,
but then over time started moving to the right. It is often speculated that he started it for
cynical reasons, like seeing how the right was divided and that there was essentially a vacuum
there for a strong conservative party, but there's little doubt he totally internalized it. There's
also little doubt (and at the time he and a lot of his fellow party leaders talked about it a
lot) that as he (they) started a family and having children, they started to realize how conservatism
kinda made more sense than liberalism.
With Kurz, there's the possibility for this path. However, he'd need to start a family soon
for that to happen. At that age Orbán was already married with children
Neoliberalism, of which the Clintons are acolytes, supports Free Trade and Open Borders.
Although it claims to support World Government, in actual fact it supports corporatism. This is
explicit in the TPPA Trump vetoed. Under the corporate state, the state controls the corporations,
as Don Benito did in Italy. Under corporatism, the corporations tell the state what to do, as
has been the case in America since at least the Clinton Presidency.
Richard Nixon was a capitalist, not a corporatist. He was a supporter of proper competition
laws, unlike any President since Clinton. Socially, he was interventionist, though this may have
been to lessen criticism of his Vietnam policies. Anyway, his bussing and desegregation policies
were a long-term failure.
Price Control was quickly dropped, as it was in other Western countries. Long term Price Control,
as in present day Venezuela, is economically disastrous.
Let's hope liberalism is a dying faith and that is passes from the Western world. If not it will
destroy the West, so if it doesn't die a natural death then we must euthanize it. For the evidence
is in and it has begat feminism, anti-white racism, demographic winter, mass third world immigration
and everything else that ails the West and has made it the sick and dying man of the world.
But I recall that Pat B also said neoconservatism was on its way out a few years after
Iraq war II and yet it's stronger than ever and its adherents are firmly ensconced in the joint
chiefs of staff, the pentagon, Congress and the White House. It's also spawned a close cousin
in liberal interventionism.
What Pat refers to as "liberalism" is now left wing totalitarianism and anti-white hatred and
it's fanatically trying to remain relevant by lashing out and blacklisting, deplatforming, demonetizing,
and physically assaulting all of its enemies on the right who are gaining strength much to their
chagrin. They resort to these methods because they can't win an honest debate and in a true free
marketplace of ideas they lose.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan from my deep purple state of NH both, voted to allow the bill to proceed. And of course my esteemed congress critter, Annie Kuster, did her bit in congress. Only 968 days until I can exact my retribution on Shaheen at the polls, first and foremost for her vote in favor of fast track, but damned if she doesn't give me another good reason on almost a daily basis.