|
|
Home | Switchboard | Unix Administration | Red Hat | TCP/IP Networks | Neoliberalism | Toxic Managers |
| (slightly skeptical) Educational society promoting "Back to basics" movement against IT overcomplexity and bastardization of classic Unix | |||||||
| Home | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 |
For the list of top articles see Recommended Links section
|
|
Switchboard | ||||
| Latest | |||||
| Past week | |||||
| Past month | |||||
 |
 |
 |
Jul 25, 2019 | www.unz.com
They're going to do it, I tell you: The whole touchy-feely do-gooding ratpack of Microaggression worriers, reparations freaks, weird sexual curiosities, race hustlers, bat.-Antifa psychos, and egalitarian enstupidators of universities. They are going to elect Trump. Again.
Washington, where I shortly will be for a bit, is crazy. It has not the slightest, wan, etiolated idea of what is going on in America. The Democrats are fielding as candidates a roster of middle-school clowns and unflavored tapioca. Are they secretly in Trump's pay? Like Clinton with her "Deplorables" suicide line?
Probably the Russians are behind it.
|
|
|
Jul 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
2016 a Russia-Trump campaign collusion conspiracy was afoot and unfolding right before our eyes, we were told, as during his roll-out foreign policy speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., then candidate Trump said [ gasp! ]:
NPR and others had breathlessly reported at the time, "Sergey Kislyak, then the Russian ambassador to the U.S., was sitting in the front row" [ more gasps! ]." Common sense says this cycle, this horrible cycle of hostility must end and ideally will end soon. Good for both countries. Some say the Russians won't be reasonable. I intend to find out."
This 'suspicious' "coincidence or something more?" event and of course the infamous Steele 'Dodgy Dossier' were followed by over two more years of the following connect-the-dots mere tiny sampling of unrestrained theorizing and avalanche of accusations...
Here's a very brief trip down memory lane:
2017, Politico: The Hidden History of Trump's First Trip to Moscow
2017, NYT: Trump's Russia Motives (where we were told: "President Trump certainly seems to have a strange case of Russophilia.")
2017, Business Insider: James Clapper: Putin is handling Trump like a Russian 'asset'
2017, USA Today: Donald Trump's ties to Russia go back 30 years
2018, NYT: Trump, Treasonous Traitor
2018, AP: Russia had 'Trump over a barrel'
2018, BBC: Russia: The 'cloud' over the Trump White House
2018, NYT: From the Start, Trump Has Muddied a Clear Message: Putin Interfered
2018, USA Today: " From Putin with love"
2019, WaPo: Here are 18 reasons Trump could be a Russian asset
2019, Vanity Fair: "The President Has Been Acting On Russia's Behalf": U.S. Officials Are Shocked By Trump's Asset-Like Behavior
2019, Wired: Trump Must Be A Russian Agent... (where we were told...ahem: " It would be rather embarrassing ... if Robert Mueller were to declare that the president isn't an agent of Russian intelligence." )
Embarrassing indeed.
"The walls are closing in!" - we were assured just about every 24 hours .
It's especially worth noting that a July 2018 New York Times op-ed argued that President Trump -- dubbed a "treasonous traitor" for meeting with Putin in Helsinki -- should "be directing all resources at his disposal to punish Russia."
Fast-forward to a July 2019 NY Times Editorial Board piece entitled "What's America's Winning Hand if Russia Plays the China Card?" How dizzying fast all of the above has been wiped from America's collective memory! Or at least the Times is engaged in hastily pushing it all down the memory hole Orwell-style in order to cover its own dastardly tracks which contributed in no small measure to non-stop national Russiagate hype and hysteria, with this astounding line:
President Trump is correct to try to establish a sounder relationship with Russia... -- Editorial Board, New York Times, 7-22-19
That's right, The Times' pundits have already pivoted to the new bogeyman while stating they agree with Trump on Russian relations :
"Given its economic, military and technological trajectory, together with its authoritarian model, China, not Russia , represents by far the greater challenge to American objectives over the long term . That means President Trump is correct to try to establish a sounder relationship with Russia and peel it away from China ."
[... Mueller who? ]
Remember how recently we were told PUTIN IS WEAPONIZING EVERYTHING! from space to deep-sea exploration to extreme climate temperatures to humor to racial tensions to even 'weaponized whales' ?
It's 2019, and we've now come full circle . This is The New York Times editorial board continuing their call for Trump to establish "sounder" ties and "cooperation" with Russia :
"Even during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union often made progress in one facet of their relationship while they remained in conflict over other aspects. The United States and Russia could expand their cooperation in space . They could also continue to work closely in the Arctic And they could revive cooperation on arms control."
Could we imagine if a mere six months ago Trump himself had uttered these same words? Now the mainstream media apparently agrees that peace is better than war with Russia.
With 'Russiagate' now effectively dead, the NY Times' new criticism appears to be that Trump-Kremlin relations are not close enough , as Trump's "approach has been ham-handed " - the 'paper of record' now tells us.
Or imagine if Trump had called for peaceful existence with Russia almost four years ago? Oh wait...
" Common sense says this cycle, this horrible cycle of hostility must end and ideally will end soon. Good for both countries." -- Then candidate Trump on April 27, 2016
Cue ultra scary red Trump-Kremlin montage.
|
|
|
Dec 30, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com
1 day ago Maddow is really a propagandist. She really isn't a journalist. Because her credibility and ratings have gone south because so many of the big stories she has been obliged to push have been fake from the get-go. People start to notice that after a while. You can't fool all of the people all of the time as Abe observed. 1 day ago It has been determined to have been a fabrication. It is not just controversial. Maddow may be spot on in fooling her drooling sycophants, but facts seldom ever interfere with her fairy tales and TDS motivated delusions.
10 hours ago Rational Agent:
The CIA told the FBI that the material in the Steele dossier is merely Internet gossip and bar room talk. This is in the inspector general's report (issued Dec 9) and public testimony under oath before Congress (Dec 11).There were several agents in the FBI who were disturbed about the unverified nature of this material, and they were overruled by other agents and their supervisors and this material was then presented to the FISA court four times in the knowledge that it was unverified but the court was told it was verified. That is also in the inspector general's Report and public testimony.
The result of this misconduct was that the head judge of the FISA court Rosemary Collyer, issued on Dec 16 an unprecedented and angry public rebuke of the FBI for repeatedly deceiving the court about the veracity of the Steele dossier.
Enough for you? 1 day ago With apologies to Bob Dylan:
"A man (or woman) sees what he (she) wants to see and disregards the rest."
If you're tuned into cable 'news' at 9 p.m. eastern time looking for objective journalism, well, good luck with that. Cuomo is probably the best bet; he offers a little bit.
Not withstanding that, your point is well made. Not much in the way of great thought on the telly at that time on any station.
1 day ago Independents view Rachael Maddow, Chris Cuomo and Sean Hannity as hate peddlers who spin, lie and twist every single issue to fit their fantasy of how the world exists. I cannot imagine how anyone with a brain or any semblance of logic could be a regular viewer of these hate mongers. If one does a cursory analysis of the predictions these people have made over the past couple of years, you will quickly see how ridiculous and wrong they have been. The bigger problem is that they represent their news organizations and only add to the distrust and declining reliance that rational folks have of the Media.
2 days ago [she is] Just another CIA mouthpiece.
Maddows is furiously back pedalling, not standing by what she said. This speaks volumes.
Maddows is evil.
|
|
|
Dec 30, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com
The Horowitz team didn't attempt an independent fact-check of the dossier, opting instead to report what the FBI had concluded about the document. Unflattering revelations pop up at every turn in the 400-page-plus report. It reveals that the CIA considered it a hodgepodge of "internet rumor"; that the FBI considered one of its central allegations -- that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen had traveled to Prague for a collusive meeting with Russians -- "not true"; that Steele's sources weren't quite a crack international spy team. After the 2016 election, for instance, Steele directed his primary source to seek corroboration of the claims. "According to [an FBI official], during an interview in May 2017, the Primary Sub-source said the corroboration was 'zero,'" reads the report.
The ubiquity of Horowitz's debunking passages suggests that he wanted the public to come away with the impression that the dossier was a flabby, hasty, precipitous, conclusory charade of a document.
... ... ...
The case for Maddow is that her dossier coverage stemmed from public documents, congressional proceedings and published reports from outlets with solid investigative histories. She included warnings about the unverified assertions and didn't use the dossier as a source for wild claims. There is something fishy, furthermore, about that Mueller footnote regarding the "tapes." In their recent book on the dossier, " Crime in Progress ," the Fusion GPS co-founders wrote that Steele believes the document is 70-percent accurate.
The case against Maddow is far stronger. When small bits of news arose in favor of the dossier, the franchise MSNBC host pumped air into them. At least some of her many fans surely came away from her broadcasts thinking the dossier was a serious piece of investigative research, not the flimflam, quick-twitch game of telephone outlined in the Horowitz report. She seemed to be rooting for the document. Rachel Maddow rooted for the Steele dossier to be true. Then it fell apart. - The Washington Post
And when large bits of news arose against the dossier, Maddow found other topics more compelling.
She was there for the bunkings, absent for the debunkings -- a pattern of misleading and dishonest asymmetry.
In an October edition of the podcast "Skullduggery," Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News pressed Maddow on her show's approach to Russia. Here's a key exchange:
Isikoff: Do you accept that there are times that you overstated what the evidence was and you made claims and suggestions that Trump was totally in Vladimir Putin's pocket and they had something on him and that he was perhaps a Russian asset and we can't really conclude that?
Maddow: What have I claimed that's been disproven?
Isikoff: Well, you've given a lot of credence to the Steele dossier.
Maddow: I have?
Isikoff: Well, you've talked about it quite a bit, I mean, you've suggested it.
Maddow: I feel like you're arguing about impressions of me, rather than actually basing this on something you've seen or heard me do.
After some back and forth about particulars of the Mueller report and the dossier with Isikoff, Maddow ripped: "You're trying to litigate the Steele dossier through me as if I am the embodiment of the Steele dossier, which I think is creepy, and I think it's unwarranted. And it's not like I've been making the case for the accuracy of the Steele dossier and that's been the basis of my Russia reporting. That's just not true."
Asked to comment on how she approached the dossier, Maddow declined to provide an on-the-record response to the Erik Wemple Blog. Rachel Maddow rooted for the Steele dossier to be true. Then it fell apart. - The Washington Post
Read more from Erik Wemple:
Part 2: Horowitz report confirms John Solomon's scoop on FBI 'spreadsheet' regarding Steele dossier
Part 3: 'Disinformation' claim 'galls' dossier author Christopher Steele
Part 4: CNN lands an interview with its own contributor
Part 6: A much-cited defense of the Steele dossier has a problem
An untouchable Rachel Maddow busts her bosses at NBC News
Rachel Maddow: 'I don't necessarily want to hear from the White House on almost anything' 2 hours ago She's the left's version of Hannity or Tucker. This is not a good thing to be.
Another plain truth: the Mueller Report was a stunning blow to the Democratic Party establishment and the media and a victory for Trump, the extent of which is still to be determined, no matter how you try to spin it. Democrats and their media allies were willing to take at face value and without further evidence the pronouncements of people like John Brennan and other national security figures who had lengthy, documented histories of lying to the American people and the press. Skepticism went out the window because the spooks were telling the Democrats and the media what they wanted to hear. Rachel Maddow and MSNBC are the Judy Millers of this story, and the rest of the media just ran with it.
The ramifications of that miscalculation are still playing out. Senate conviction of Trump on ANY basis is now dead letter for the remainder of this election cycle because the Democrats' credibility and motives have been blown sky-high -- no small feat given Trump's historic levels of mendacity! It is why the public isn't getting behind the current effort even though Trump has literally been caught red-handed. But the Democratic establishment was just SO eager to blame it all on Russia, so they could exonerate themselves for their horrible strategies and worse policies that led to the 2016 debacle and fend off challenges from the progressives! What have they accomplished instead? Handing Trump a second term.
7 hours ago Rachel Maddow has "Hillary Clinton 2016" branded on her ace. She is totally owned by the corporate liberal establishment.
|
|
|
Dec 30, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com
14 hours ago If this version of events is true then the Steele dossier was one of the most successful Russian intelligence operations since 1917 or anyway 1991. It up-ended the American government for three full years, and is still having a deleterious impact even after being proven false. And deliciously, it was all paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC!
|
|
|
Dec 29, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
" Rachel Maddow rooted for the Steele dossier to be true. Then it fell apart ":
She was there for the bunkings, absent for the debunkings -- a pattern of misleading and dishonest asymmetry.
|
|
|
Dec 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
reported that TV network OAN had filed a lawsuit against Rachel Maddow for the time the host said that OAN "really, literally is paid Russian propaganda."Now, Maddow finds herself having to come up with a defense for her statement in court. And she has also apparently hired Lionel Hutz as her legal adviser.
According to Culttture , her lawyers argued in a recent motion that " the liberal host was clearly offering up her 'own unique expression' of her views to capture what she saw as the 'ridiculous' nature of the undisputed facts. Her comment, therefore, is a quintessential statement 'of rhetorical hyperbole, incapable of being proved true or false."
Oh, it's capable of being proved false, alright. Maddow had previously claimed, on air, about one of OAN's reporters:
"In this case, the most obsequiously pro-Trump right wing news outlet in America is really literally is paid Russian propaganda," and added, "Their on-air politics reporter ( Kristian Rouz) is paid by the Russian government to produce propaganda for that government."
The testimony of UC Santa Barbara linguistics professor Stefan Thomas Gries, however, stands at odds with Maddow's defense. Gries said: "It is very unlikely that an average or reasonable/ordinary viewer would consider the sentence in question to be a statement of opinion."
|
|
|
Dec 28, 2019 | www.unz.com
Summary of Broadcast Produced by Yvonne Lorenzo:
As the New Cold War gathers up speed and escalates, we are entering a "fact free world" as allegations are made that are proved not to be true are promoted; for example, the allegation that the DNC was hacked by Russia has been officially debunked -- no one could name the seventeen intelligence agencies, the Coast Guard was one. The notion of the hacking was cooked up by two agencies: by the DNI's head James Clapper and Brennan at the CIA. Nevertheless, recently News Anchor Chuck Todd of NBC (the most pro-Russiagate network, the ones who shamelessly accused presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard of being a Russian asset) took it one step further: ignoring the facts, Todd again stated that seventeen intelligence agencies agreed that the Russians not only interfered in the election but that they swung the election to Trump. While interference is one thing, no one has previously made that allegation. Consequently, we are now in a fact free discourse in America: no evidence is necessary to prove anything, falsehoods are taken up by the legacy media, what Professor Cohen would call a world of tabloid gossip media, except in their favor the tabloids, fearing lawsuits, will do some fact checking, which is conspicuous in its absence in the legacy media. And Professor Cohen noted that it's hard to get traction and you can't have a conversation with someone when you don't agree upon the facts.
In conversation on a cruise with fellow liberals, Professor Cohen noted most take the view that where there is smoke there is fire and there is something to these allegations of Russiagate and Putin's control over Trump; they state the media wouldn't continue to promote these conspiracy theories, these allegations about Trump's nefarious relations with the Kremlin, without reason and so there must be something to them. Yet while facts have become absolutely critical Cohen notes you can't get people to focus on the facts; for that reason, he feels despair and observes that for the first time in his life in his public discussions of Russia there are no basic premises that people accept any more, for if you say "If there's smoke, there's fire," that is just not a logical way of thinking: you either have the facts or you don't.
Batchelor also points out in the impeachment charges there is a great deal of presumption; there are no facts regarding the president as well, and he cites Trump's letter to Nancy Pelosi and poses this question: what does the Kremlin think about the impeachment?
Cohen answers that the Russian high policy class in the 1990s -- the America worship period -- they and not just the youth, strongly believed that Russia's future was with the West and America in particular, and now what strikes Russians most is the role of Russian intelligence services in the Western allegations. Pro-America Russians thought that American intelligence services didn't play the role that the Soviet ones did. In Russian history classes and as a staple of popular culture, the sinister role of the "secret police" goes back to the Czarist era but what distinguished America was that it didn't have anything comparable in abuses by its intelligence services -- or so it was believed. Consequently, for those who looked up to America, it's a source of disillusion and shock to learn that the American special services "went off the reservation" for quite a long time, not unlike Russia's, and so they have become disillusioned while for those who tried to get Russians to be more nationalistic, their perspective is to say with gratification, "We told you so. Now will you please grow up!"
Russians call the American agencies "the organs" perhaps not being clear on the difference between the CIA and the FBI and conflating them. For Russians, the role of such agencies is baked into the culture and this has resulted in rethinking not only about America but about their own special services. An Op-Ed piece in a Russian liberal newspaper the Russian liberal author wrote, after watching what's unfolding in America, we used to beat up on our intelligence services for decades but now maybe we need them. Contrary to a "cult of the intelligence services," Cohen thinks what must be determined is the role of the American intelligence services in creating Russiagate from the very beginning.
Yet what is critical is to know how Russiagate began in America, with the Barr-Durham probe into the origins of Russia and Russiagate will continue to be a major issue in the 2020 election. What struck Cohen about the letter from Trump to Pelosi -- which was so eloquent he doubts Trump wrote it -- was that he understands it will be an issue in the 2020 elections, and it was a campaign document. That aside, Trump is aware that Democrats are campaigning still on Russiagate; nothing has turned up that it factual. Therefore, despite the absence of facts, this will be a major issue. Ukraine has turned into a stand-in for Russia.
Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post, once a quintessential conservative, published an article titled "Time to Call out and Remove Putin's Propagandist in America." While the article is slightly cagier than that headline, essentially she wants to shutdown and deprive access to media who aren't espousing and promoting the Russiagate/Russophobic narratives. Cohen condemns that kind of behavior is that. On opposite side of Rubin, Cohen stated he himself has never advocated the silencing and removal of those who promote among other falsehoods the provably false Russiagate narrative. He asks where are things drifting and he answers discourse and relations are becoming ugly and awful.
Returning to the past, he notes there was an assumption that Russia under Yeltsin would emerge as a replica and junior partner of America; Cohen believes those who promote the Russiagate narrative and demonize Trump because their "impossible dream" failed -- Russia is too old, too vast to ever be a replica of America. What took Professor Cohen aback in the testimony from Fiona Hill and others was how deep and wide the Russophobia runs in the Washington think tanks. Until she spoke and testified he had no idea how much she -- and the other Russia experts -- hate Russia.
Batchelor noted this is the language of civil war in Trump's letter; Trump uses the term "Star Chamber of partisan persecution" and "coup" which are the language of a country torn in half and he asked the question whether the weakening of the civil contract to be an advantage to Putin and Russia. Cohen notes every newspaper and media source in America say Putin is delighted since it is his goal is to foment disarray in America.
The fact is, however, this chaos and dysfunction and enmity is one of the last things Putin wants. Putin's purpose is to rebuild Russia from the economic and political catastrophes of the 1990s; Putin's role is to reverse the demographic trend -- men died in their fifties in the 1990s -- and spend funds on modernization; that would be his legacy. Four hundred billion dollars has been saved to implement the modernization program. That attempt would be taken with modernizing partnerships with the West. Therefore, the last thing he wants is a new Cold War; the last thing he wants is political turmoil in America or in any Western nation. Cohen points out President Macron of France appears to understand that; he called for a rethinking of relations and said there could be no European security without Russia. Macron has broken with Washington and there will be a hell of fight because Washington is against it. But the notion that Putin wants to disrupt American society is wrong; Putin wants stability and partners.
Cohen still thinks that leadership -- the new President of Ukraine, Trump and Putin --
RJJCDA , says: December 27, 2019 at 9:13 pm GMT
I always listen to the Prof's podcast shows at Batchelor. What bothers me is that so many Trump supporters and public commentators BELIEVE, or at least parrot the idea that Russia INVADED both western Ukraine and Crimea.Dan Hayes , says: December 27, 2019 at 9:16 pm GMTAs the Prof has pointed out and seconded by many others, Crimea has been a part of Russia since late 18th century. Because Khrushchev "gave' it to Ukraine in 50s when it was all one country does not obviate the fact that Crimeans consider themselves Russians as proved by all polling and a plebiscite. They had permanent bases there and the alleged invasion was nothing more than politely escorting the Ukrainian military off from the peninsula without any injuries to either side. Some invasion.
Surely some Russians (whether incognito military/intelligence forces or private citizens) were part of the Donbass forces that rebelled against Kiev. And they had good reasons to rebel witness the horrors of Odessa when 40 something citizens of Russian ancestry were burned alive trapped in a building by Ultra-Ukrainian nazi-like forces.
Now Senate Foreign Relations committee, chaired by Senator from my state, has called for designating Russia as a "terror supporting state." I emailed him and asked if he was insane. He returned a long letter that is full of obfuscations and lies, and I will compose a detailed response soon. But the question presents: is the Deep State and their globalists' master deliberately trying to force Russia into a military alliance with China? Could we prevail against that combination? Haunting resemblance to conditions that created Ribbentrop/Molotov pact in late 30s. And what that foretell?
Note that this article is the thorough paraphrase of the podcast appearing at the base of the article.Isabella , says: December 28, 2019 at 1:04 am GMTWell, I guess when you have such luminaries as members of the Council on Foreign Relations spieling the same level of ignorance, blindness, prejudice, propaganda and plain perverseness, you have to expect it from all levels of "Governance"anonymous [356] Disclaimer , says: December 28, 2019 at 2:32 am GMT
For anyone who knows even a small amount about Russia and her leader, go listen to a recent YouTube convention headed Russia's Resurgence: Prospects for stability in Russia-US relationship.
One thing is for sure – as long as these supposed "think tank leaders" can deliberately blind themselves to reality as this trio did, and spout the utterly brain dead stupidity they used to instigate a Q & A, there is no hope whatsoever of any stability in Russia – US relationship.The people of the media lie because they are for sale and are paid to lie. Rather uninspiring but understandable: they do it for the money and to stay in front of the cameras. But what's everyone else's excuse? Putin is a Svengali who mind-controls Trump? I thought people like that wore turbans and robes. How stupid are Americans, anyway? Who'd have thought something like this would have any traction whatsoever? It's simply incredible.WorkingClass , says: December 28, 2019 at 4:28 am GMTI was born into the Cold War in 1944. I got my draft notice in 1965. I had been expecting it all my young life. The Berlin wall did not fall until 1989.Vaterland , says: December 28, 2019 at 6:27 am GMTThis new Cold War will be over soon. It will turn hot and we will all die or the "West" will collapse and will repatriate it's legions. The Anglo/Zio Empire is in steep decline while Russia and her allies are ascendant.
I agree that the truth is no defense against the "left". Their long march is completed and they occupy the high ground whether it's politics or culture. They have taken over the country just in time to preside over its demise.
Russians who thought their future was with the West were not completely wrong. If the U.S. has a future it is probably with Russia.
There is a couple of points I would like to add on a changing European perspective on the dynamics between the USA and Russia, with Europe caught in-between.EdNels , says: December 28, 2019 at 6:59 am GMT1.) After the Second World War the choice between Bolshevism and US liberal democracy seemed blatantly obvious; for Germany especially it was a question of national survival, since Stalin was viewed as a serious threat by the Adenauer government. Germany had actually enjoyed more internal independence from leading US doctrines in this period. US rule of law, the character of its elites and the general morality of the society had not completely degraded yet either. Today institutional erosion of American democracy, the rule of law and a cynical Neocon approach towards "promoting democracy abroad" turned the USA into a non-appealing leader of 'the West'. The increasing "Sovietization" of its state apparatus emphasizes this point: the expansion of the surveillance state, selective access to real political and economic access to a select few of the privileged; often hereditary dynasties of oligarchs, a political-media complex of agitation and propaganda. Thus, the accusations against Russia (or China for that matter) about a lack of transparency, pluralism and the rule of law sound entirely hollow.
2.) Thus secondly NATO has turned from a credible alliance of defense against the Soviet Union into a tool of US imperialism; especially after the USA has declared victory in the Cold War. Wars surrounding Europe and even inside of it – The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and in Ukraine – were the result. Nations were destroyed, heads of state publicly executed or tortured to death like Muammar Gaddafi and millions of people were killed; many more were made homeless and a refugee crisis was created. And concealing wars of aggression as "human rights promotion" opened a can of worms for cynical nihilism as the new norm of US foreign policy – WMD lies, Abu-Ghuraib and NSA scandals included. Just as the established political-media apparatus is guilty of everything populism is accused of: post factual parallel realities, fake news and fake realities, systematic disinformation, social engineering and conditioning into hysteria and the frenzy of the mob. The pathology of the new US ruling class personified by Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright
3.) There is indeed no lasting European stability imaginable without a permanent peaceful agreement between Western- and Eastern-Europe and Russia. Russia's role as the Eurasian land bridge to China is also essential this century. Mutual agreement has to be found to settle old grievances and fears regarding Napoleon and Hitler on the Russian side and Stalinism and the Soviet Union on the European side. A situation which the USA also currently exploits for political destabilization – especially in Poland.
4.) Germany, currently the central country in the EU, owes its unification largely to Russia. Unfortunately it was a mistake on the Russian side when they had unilaterally withdrawn all their troops from German territory, that they did not demand the same from US/NATO forces. In that moment the transformation of NATO was sealed and the New Cold War had begun. Yet while the attitudes of the older generations are shaped by the US-Soviet Union Cold War, for new generations it's a different story. Increasingly the USA is seen as a more credible threat and/or bully with its war policy, real political meddling and especially in my country the fact that Germany was both forced to sanction Russia, which went against its own vital interests, and then be sanctioned as well.
5.) I am leaving out the value and identity politics debate. Fundamentally the general public on both sides of the Atlantic agrees on the theory on foundations of functioning democracy. Although I do think that since the end of the last Cold War the influence of the USA has been more harmful and corrosive than helpful and stabilizing.
Conclusion: In this new Cold War which was, I think, initiated by the US establishment, we could see a future in which Germany and Russia begin to view themselves more in the light of the Prussian-Russian coalition against the new "Napoleon", the United States. Although this arising conflict could rightly be dubbed: The Unnecessary Cold War.
@WorkingClass It's funny to hear "animalogic , says: December 28, 2019 at 7:09 am GMTthat the truth is no defense against the "left". Their long march is completed and they occupy the high ground whether it's politics or culture.'
'
Left ? Do you believe that the establishment crowd of Democrats (Liberals,) and the managed news (Liberals,) and others Liberals, neoliberals, neocons, or anything else comprising the Russiagate hoax can be describes as Leftist?
It's been determined that the Democrats intentionally jettisoned the Working Class decades ago. It shouldn't be news to working people that they don't have a party!
It was a rational decision to unload the workers, and substitute special interest and identity politics, because of trends of the decline of union membership in age of technology, automation, and YUPPIES! The Democrats are now slick pretenders of social justice, but not left.
@RJJCDA " is the Deep State and their globalists' master deliberately trying to force Russia into a military alliance with China? "jack daniels , says: December 28, 2019 at 8:11 am GMT
Hard to say what their intentions are. (The old ploy of unity at home by means of an external enemy ?) Whatever they are -- US foreign policy (FO) re Russia should go down with Iraq (II) as among the US's greatest FO blunders.
As the Saker has pointed out– Russia & China are in symbiosis, which runs deeper than an alliance.
Russiagate is a kind of "two birds with one stone" deal: you get to bash Trump & Russia using each as a club to beat the other. That this whole base concoction of lies seems to still have legs speaks volumes as to the deep of Trump derangement syndrome & the universality of msm propaganda.@Dan Hayes Yes but the paraphraser should not go anonymous. Bad form.GMC , says: December 28, 2019 at 8:28 am GMTMr Cohen is so far ahead of Washington , when it comes to Russia and other foreign matters, it just boggles the mind of us normies. The Ukraine Gate is all about the Kyivian Jew Oligarchs, trying to oust the thief Democrats from all the IMF looting , that those Kyivians , had their eyes/hands on. It's like – thanks for doing the Coup but all the money we get is – Ours for the looting. And there are hundreds of millions – missing. Russia Gate will go on, until the American public – " Grows Up " as Mr. Cohen says.jack daniels , says: December 28, 2019 at 8:28 am GMTWhat damns the US media, both anti-Trump and Fox News, is that America has been massively meddling in elections all over the globe since Day One, including Russia, and this is known or should be known to anyone with a basic knowledge of international relations, yet it is almost NEVER mentioned when the subject of Russian meddling comes up.SeekerofthePresence , says: December 28, 2019 at 8:58 am GMTThere is a feeling that it would be unpatriotic (treasonous?) to admit it. This is something new for America. In the old days American foreign policy was sharply debated and America's sins were much discussed by the left. But now, the left is on the CIA's side. This probably has to do with the Jewishness of the left. Jews tend to hate Russia as much as they tended to like the Soviet Union. They see post-Communist Russia as politically incorrect (e.g. anti-gay) and Christian, a potentially nationalistic society that could turn anti-Semitic.
Because of Russia's nuclear capability it is not possible for the US to invade it, so we are relying on internal subversion and economic tactics to bring down Putin, leading to the installation of a US lackey with neocon approval. Even as we speak of Russian meddling the CIA is busy organizing and funding anti-Putin elements in Russia.
"We're just trying to spread democracy. What's wrong with that!?"
Yes, the nation has gone mad.sally , says: December 28, 2019 at 9:13 am GMT
Result is measured in rads.@Back1 Stupidity does not produce the invention and promotion of lie after lie,Truth3 , says: December 28, 2019 at 10:15 am GMT
Nor is stupidity consistent with the selection of the best lies from those total of lies generated.
Only lies that work on the minds targeted are repeated.Repeat the lie but hide it, camouflage the lie with some truth, and embedded the lie into the propaganda that establishes the narrative, and then mass produce the lie embedded propaganda that establishes the false or misleading narrative is a complicated process. Repeat and repeat the false narrative is a hat trick that often deceives innocent minds into adopting, embedding and acting on beliefs established in innocent minds by mind control technology. These process are not consistent with stupidity, but instead suggest diabolical genius at work.
When only the lies that work; that is, that control, deceive or influence innocent minds are repeated you are looking process which took intelligence to make work. Inventing lies takes imagination, producing them into propaganda takes skill, and promoting the produced invented lie takes money, power and access.
Selection (of the best or most suitable lie) is an process that requires identification and sufficient intelligence to sort; while repetition requires the selected object be either committed to memory, or to be continuously and precisely regenerated for each promotion(campaign). Promotion is a delicate process; its success so dependant on so many things, that many people have obtained Phds from the subject matter that surround the technology of deceit.
The point is that promoting false narratives is an invented developing technology that takes professionally trained persons to make work. Someone is paying the mind control professionals (MCPs) that are working to embed false narrative into the memory of the minds of the governed masses. MCPs are not stupid people. Not only are they highly trained professionals but also they don't work for free. So who is paying them.
for example look at the rul below. You might need first to visit the url https://duckduckgo.com and when at duckduckgo,com to paste it into the search space and hit go. It seems many browsers and search engines deny or make difficult user access to this website https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/12/28/614755/Russia-Poland-politics-World-war-NATO <in the url you will see the argument between fact and fiction.
Larry King (excuse me I mean Lawrence Harvey Zeiger) on RT is a real oxymoron with RT being the oxy and Zeiger being the moron.Robert Magill , says: December 28, 2019 at 10:28 am GMTThis clown gave NeoCons a free pass for decades. No surprise there, for a Tribal "Kagan" of the Jews.
Why is Steven Cohen credited with this article when obviously it is written by another? What gives, Unz? It is an example of the same facts twisting it rails against.gotmituns , says: December 28, 2019 at 10:48 am GMTI don't give a rat's butt about trump's impeachment or russia.Tom Welsh , says: December 28, 2019 at 10:59 am GMT@Antiwar7 "If there's smoke, there's fire" is not so much stupid as devious. You have to understand that many political leaders nowadays have realised that they don't need hard facts and figures or logic to sway opinion.Monotonous Languor , says: December 28, 2019 at 11:19 am GMTIncreasingly, political divisions are tribal; and the worst condemnation is "you are not one of us". Disagreeing with the party line shows that a person is "not one of us".
That is especially the case when the party line is obviously untrue. Then sticking to it is an absolute proof of devoted, unthinking loyalty. It's more like a pledge of allegiance than a rational statement of fact.
Foreigners have never understood that there are two Americas, nor how to differentiate which one they're dealing with at any point in time.Realist , says: December 28, 2019 at 11:34 am GMT@RJJCDARealist , says: December 28, 2019 at 11:43 am GMTI always listen to the Prof's podcast shows at Batchelor.
I do as well enjoy them very much.
I agree with your comments.
He returned a long letter that is full of obfuscations and lies, and I will compose a detailed response soon.
You are wasting your time he is paid extremely well to promulgate the dumbass dictates of the Deep State.
@Dan Hayes The author of this article is listed as Stephen F Cohen, but if that's the case it's written in the third person.Realist , says: December 28, 2019 at 11:48 am GMTWTF
@WorkingClassJohnny Walker Read , says: December 28, 2019 at 12:29 pm GMTI agree that the truth is no defense against the "left". Their long march is completed and they occupy the high ground whether it's politics or culture. They have taken over the country just in time to preside over its demise.
It is the right as well on important issue to the Deep State there is no right and left.
Does it really matter? America is already a Jewish/Bolshevik occupied nation?9/11 Inside job , says: December 28, 2019 at 12:39 pm GMTTo achieve absolute power, Lenin focused on fomenting a class war, while Hitler set his sights on a race war. Either way, the divide-and-conquer modus operandi of fascist and communist demagogues is pretty much the same, no matter what each side might claim about the other. Their propaganda content may differ, but not so much their divide-and-conquer methods. Attitudes of supremacy come in a virtual rainbow of flavors and colors.
https://thefederalist.com/2017/11/06/bolshevik-revolution-reveals-six-phases-freedom-communist-misery/
Wake up fools, and quit putting your faith in political hacks, red or blue!!theamericanconservative.com : "Forget Trump : The Military-Industrial-Complex is still running the show " By Bruce Fein , July 18, 2018Sean , says: December 28, 2019 at 1:11 pm GMT
theintercept.com " Defense contractors say Russian threat is great for business "Did Russian believe that any assurances could prevent Nato being drawn right up to the borders of Russia? Did Ukrainians believe the UK and US's security assurances 'against the threat or use of force against Ukraine's territory or political independence' could replace Ukraine's possession of nuclear weapons? Zbigniew Brzezinski did speak of Russia "increasingly passing into de facto western receivership" .Dan Hayes , says: December 28, 2019 at 1:28 pm GMTThey say the Russians only heard what that wanted to hear, but the record suggests the Americans misrepresented their intentions, and gave assurances that the Russians took at face value. Russia permitted an American campaign to spent vast sums and organise Yeltsin's reelection, which would not have happened without them. The Russian foreign minister at that time, Andrei Kozyrev, now lives in Miami.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2018-03-16/nato-expansion-what-yeltsin-heardD.C ., March 16, 2018 – Declassified documents from U.S. and Russian archives show that U.S. officials led Russian President Boris Yeltsin to believe in 1993 that the Partnership for Peace was the alternative to NATO expansion, rather than a precursor to it, while simultaneously planning for expansion after Yeltsin's re-election bid in 1996 and telling the Russians repeatedly that the future European security system would include, not exclude, Russia.
The declassified U.S. account of one key conversation on October 22, 1993, (Document 8) shows Secretary of State Warren Christopher assuring Yeltsin in Moscow that the Partnership for Peace was about including Russia together with all European countries, not creating a new membership list of just some European countries for NATO; and Yeltsin responding, "this is genius!"
Christopher later claimed in his memoir that Yeltsin misunderstood – perhaps from being drunk – the real message that the Partnership for Peace would in fact "lead to gradual expansion of NATO";[1] but the actual American-written cable reporting the conversation supports subsequent Russian complaints about being misled.[2]
After obtaining a succession of huge US-backed IMF loans, being found on Pennsylvania Avenue, drunk, in his underwear and trying to hail a taxi cab in order to find pizza in 1995, Yeltsin chose Putin the teetotal former counterintelligence specialist to succeed him. What a sense of humour Yeltsin must have had.
@jack daniels I agree that the paraphraser should not go anonymous. But more important is to bring to the reader's attention that a broadcast podcast is available at the article's end.Wizard of Oz , says: December 28, 2019 at 1:30 pm GMT@Vaterland The American elutes might be forgiven theirvicious follies by Americans if they had not impoverished so many Americans and,at best leaving them struggling.Patrikios Stetsonis , says: December 28, 2019 at 1:33 pm GMT@9/11 Inside job We do not call it "the Military-Industrial-Complex".WorkingClass , says: December 28, 2019 at 1:39 pm GMT
We do not call it "the Banks".
We do not call it "the FED"
We do not call it "the Wall Street"
We do not call it "the Media"Once for all, we call it: "the Jews".
@Realist Agreed. Truth is no defense against the Deep State which is neither left nor right.. Still, it is the ideological left that denies the existence of objective reality. For them there are no facts. Only subjective experience. Useful idiots and propagandists for the Deep State, they "know" Trump is a Russian agent because they can feel it. They don't need no steenking evidence.Onebornfree , says: Website December 28, 2019 at 1:57 pm GMTThe (left) media promote hatred. Orange Man Bad. The ideological left understands and enjoys hatred. They can feel it. When you hate somebody you are ready and eager to believe the worst about them.
@WorkingClass "I agree that the truth is no defense against the "left"."journey80 , says: December 28, 2019 at 2:22 pm GMTIn other words, 2 + 2 = 5 [ to roughly quote Orwell]
Polylogism rules! : https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Polylogism
Regards, onebornfree
@EdNels Thank you. Well said, and not nearly enough.Dan Hayes , says: December 28, 2019 at 2:25 pm GMTIt's my opinion that the relentless use of "left" to describe the neoliberal half of the Republicrat/Wall Street/war industry party is no accident.
Describing the "Democrats" of the Clinton DNC as "left" is useful to discredit and marginalize any political stance that, fairly and realistically, could be considered "left." It produces chaos and confusion, which is the objective of the neocon/neoliberal grifters who control both halves of the war party.
@Realist I suspect that the paraphraser is our own Ron Unz since he strikes me as a hands-on operator. Secondary suspect is Phil Giraldi, UR's National Security Editor.Anonymous [645] Disclaimer , says: December 28, 2019 at 2:45 pm GMTIn any event it's important to dissimulate Cohen's views since he's literally A Geopolitical Voice Crying Out in the Wilderness! For this both Batchelor and Unz are to be commended!!
@Realist There's a left alright; there's just no right. Since the 1960's the conservative movement and Republican Party have conserved exactly nothing while the left has completely transformed America, successfully implementing much of the 1930's communist agenda and turning the government into the enemy of the society at large.Christo , says: December 28, 2019 at 2:51 pm GMTIn his Myth of Religious Violence William T Cavanaugh points out that before the arrival of Frankfurter on the Supreme Court, religion, meaning chiefly Christianity, was held by the court to be the fundamental source of social cohesion and peace in America, while since the late 1940s and post-Frankfurter, religion, now meaning only Christianity, has been consistently held to be not only divisive, but the fundamental source of violence. The point is, this upending of society was accomplished by legislating from the bench, while the Republicans and Conservatism Inc, as we now learn, were funded to neutralize opposition, blowing smoke in Americans' eyes about legalisms at a time when at least 90% of this country was conservative.
Sites like The American Conservative and American Thinker, for example, are apparently funded to publish fawning material about the Jews and Israel that the latter would be too ashamed to write themselves, which also pretty much sums up the Republican's m.o. in Congress.
It's about time the American electorate saw candidates for national and state office as figureheads for their largest donors, who're presently portrayed as almost incidental by the msm. Instead of saying that Mitch McConnell or Lindsey Graham said this or that, accuracy requires we say Paul Singer and Sheldon Adelson's spokesman in the Senate, some so-and-so stooge, said this or that. It's the same on both sides of the aisle, obviously, and it turns out that the owners of both parties are kin when it comes to destroying the social fabric of this country for their own hateful reasons.
@Patrikios Stetsonis You forgot , an aspect. "We do not call it Z.O.G."Bill Jones , says: December 28, 2019 at 3:06 pm GMT
Which commands and guides the US government in both domestic and foreign policy.On similar note to your closing statement ,
To quote Treitschke 1879 "The Jews are our misfortune"Meanwhile, the barking mad cow Maddow now claims:Bill Jones , says: December 28, 2019 at 3:09 pm GMT""really, literally is paid Russian propaganda.""
Is not meant to be a statement of facts.
@jack daniels I see this line, at the beginningAntiwar7 , says: December 28, 2019 at 3:20 pm GMT"Summary of Broadcast Produced by Yvonne Lorenzo:"
Not good enough?
Or is it a later (unacknowledged) addition?
Do we now need a correction to the correction?
@Tom Welsh I totally agree with you. I'm just trying to heap public scorn on that approach. Because if you look at it clearly, it's ridiculous.Desert Fox , says: December 28, 2019 at 3:36 pm GMTThe zionists hate Christians and since Russia is becoming more Christian the zionists hate towards Russia has reached a hysteria that is only matched by their demonic hate of Christians and one of the ways to strike at Russia is through lies and false flags blamed on Russia.Justvisiting , says: December 28, 2019 at 3:59 pm GMTThe ZUS is winning the war against Christians here in America with abortions and pedophilia in high places and the worship of satan in Hellywood and elsewhere and the penetration of the Christian churches by zionist elements.
The zionists will not stop until America is destroyed, zionism is the most dangerous element in America.
Read the Protocols of Zion, it is all right there.
@Back1Anonymous [645] Disclaimer , says: December 28, 2019 at 4:06 pm GMT*All* mainstream media is propaganda from clown world. This defines our era in US. Mass psychosis is the new reality.
The Russia nonsense tells me that US establishment people are stupid and self deluded, truly sad sack dummies.
Several commenters around here have claimed the Apollo moon landing hoax "does not matter".
[MORE]
It is old news, not relevant to today, too controversial, etc.The problem is that once the elites get away with lying, it encourages them to do more of it. This hoax _is_ going to be exposed, and fairly soon–and it may unravel the whole ball of string of intelligence agency and mass media lies.
It is _not_ a left/right issue, so folks of any and all political persuasions will be able to accept it without crushing their ideological dreams.
Check out this article from NASA itself: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/rbsp/news/third-belt.html
This and related new discoveries (on why the Apollo manned moon missions were technically impossible) are discussed in this recent book:
https://read.amazon.com/kp/card?preview=inline&linkCode=kpd&ref_=k4w_oembed_cIFBq8Qs4dgS8X&asin=B07RCCKH1L&tag=kpembed-20
Every space program (national, private) _must_ solve this problem. Lying won't work. They have to deal with it–and the truth is going to get out–soon.
@Desert Fox Judaic identity is essentially about hating Christians, as the Talmud makes clear, and as most anyone who's worked with Jews on Wall Street will attest. Michael Hoffman proves this in his books on Judaism, pointing out that modern Talmudic Judaism came into being nearly two centuries after the rise of Christianity and in opposition to it.Ahoy , says: December 28, 2019 at 4:16 pm GMTEzra Pound. Is there around a literature professor, that can hold the weight of the title, to talk about him to American youth? Hell noooo!!Miro23 , says: December 28, 2019 at 5:04 pm GMTFasten your seat belts then, because the historic American nation is crushing.
@animalogicRealist , says: December 28, 2019 at 5:19 pm GMT" is the Deep State and their globalists' master deliberately trying to force Russia into a military alliance with China? "
Hard to say what their intentions are. (The old ploy of unity at home by means of an external enemy ?) Whatever they are -- US foreign policy (FO) re Russia should go down with Iraq (II) as among the US's greatest FO blunders.
Agreed that it's a mistake, but when they've successfully pulled off the WMD lies, the 9/11 fakery, the destruction of Iraq, Libya etc., control the US media, and can dictate to Congress, then it's understandable that they get rather arrogant.
They simply want to kick Russia and Putin because he was the one that spoiled their Yeltsin looting party – and worst of all arrested and imprisoned their top guy Khodorkovsky. That it drives Germany and the EU towards Russia and strengthens Russian ties with China is secondary. After all, Hitler (after great military success), likened invading Russia to kicking down a rotten barn door, and he didn't work out the implications of declaring war on the US.
@Anonymous I agreed with you, except there is a Deep State and it is not made up of just Jews. But I do concede that Jews are disproportionately represented, as both sponsors and minions, for their demographics.Realist , says: December 28, 2019 at 5:30 pm GMTI believe the Deep State consists of the very wealthy who are greedy for more wealth and power. There are 607 billionaires in the US. There is no reason for the Deep State members to formally collude they all know what needs to be done and how to do it. They use a relatively small amount of their money to place their minions in positions of power heads of the movie industry, the media, the federal government, academia. From then on if the lessers in these groups want to keep their jobs/lives they will toe the line. It becomes self sustaining from tax money and the Deep State glories in more wealth and power. Here is an excellent example of the Deep State in action: The SCOTUS has passed down egregious decisions that abridge the First Amendment and show contempt for the concept of a representative democracy. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1976 and exacerbated by continuing stupid SCOTUS decisions First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission.
These decisions have codified that money is free speech thereby giving entities of wealth and power almost total influence in elections. By gaining control of the SCOTUS the Deep State is able to further their goals.Another take on the Deep State:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/11/14/understanding-the-deep-states-propaganda/@Dan Hayes Agreed.vinteuil , says: December 28, 2019 at 5:33 pm GMT@VaterlandBack1 , says: December 28, 2019 at 5:33 pm GMTNATO has turned from a credible alliance of defense against the Soviet Union into a tool of US imperialism
That's the bottom line, here.
NATO may once have had a reason for being. But now it's just a monstrous golem, lurching uncontrollably towards global catastrophe.
@sally Ok. I'll pass on clarification of my too brief comment. Your elaboration is food for thought.Andrei Martyanov , says: Website December 28, 2019 at 5:40 pm GMTNote that MCP in Tron was Master Control Program.
@EdNels9/11 Inside job , says: December 28, 2019 at 5:45 pm GMTThe Democrats are now slick pretenders of social justice, but not left.
Excellent summary. What goes under "left" moniker (Cultural Marxist, "communists", socialists etc.) in the West nowadays is not left. Agree. it is just another iteration of Neo-liberal politics serving as a substitution for dealing with actual problems of Labor.
@Patrikios Stetsonis politico.com : "The happy-go-lucky Jewish group [Chabad-Lubavitch] that connects Trump and Putin":sally , says: December 28, 2019 at 6:00 pm GMT"Their respective ambitions led the two men[Trump and Putin] – along with Trump's future son-in-law, Jared Kushner -to build a set of close, over-lapping relationships in a small world that overlaps on Chabad , an international Hasidic movement most people have never heard of ."
@gotmituns @ gotmituns <=Why then did you read the article?WorkingClass , says: December 28, 2019 at 6:13 pm GMTAt the heart of the impeachment process (Article II, Section 2, paragraph 3 and 4) are two questions that should interest most folks: @ paragraph 3 lays out a big part of Trump's defense in my view "Section 3 requires ..that the President shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, <=execution requires action so which law did the President not execute faithfully? <= I do not see such a question in the Articles of Impeachment.. @ Sec II, Art. II, paragraph 4 "The President shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.. " < the house found evidence it says, strong enough to indite the president on charges that .. he violated which of these 4 things?
Some think Trump should have been impeached for failure to deliver his tax Return.. but I do not see failure to deliver a tax return as failure to execute a law, or as a high crime, or as treason, or as an act of Bribery, or as a misdemeanor.. so the current impeachment indictment by the House against Trump reveals that the constitution is inadequate. The constitution does not express a government that can protect the Americans such a government governs; from the possibility, or the reality, that a deceitful president will be empowered to that job?
The best governed Americans can hope for from the USA is that the Congress of the USA rather than impeaching will decide to amend the constitution, so that the constitution denies any one that can be shown to be deceitful, to be the President. This one amendment could eliminate making campaign promises and do just the opposite once in office.
Of course such an amendment would mean few in politics today could be the President.
Most likely no matter the outcome of the impeachment, Trump will probably be reappointed President by the electoral college.. (recall that persons who animate the functions allowed to the USA to governed Americans are not elected by those who the USA governs. (Americans c/n vote for their president or their vice president because President and VP are article II persons; and article II persons are appointed to office by processes conducted at the state level, that appoint persons to the electoral college, and it is the electoral college that elects the President and the Vice President). Who has written a book on the electoral college? I have requested information from the government on the electoral college activities since the beginning and to date have received nothing but referrals to others.@EdNels Left ? Do you believe that the establishment crowd of Democrats (Liberals,) and the managed news (Liberals,) and others Liberals, neoliberals, neocons, or anything else comprising the Russiagate hoax can be describes as Leftist?Exile , says: December 28, 2019 at 7:00 pm GMTNo. I do not believe that. I agree with you entirely. But common usage has the people you are talking about as LEFT and I am tired of bitching about it.
@RJJCDA Russia no more "invaded" Ukraine than the United States "invaded" Texas, Ohio or Florida. Ukraine has been a Russian fiefdom for centuries longer than it has ever been "independent," and its fate is no more the business of the United States or Western Europe than the fate of Hong Kong or Syria should be.Exile , says: December 28, 2019 at 7:02 pm GMT@Realist Exactly. Convergent interests are sufficient – no grand cabal or conspiracy is necessary to explain what we observe with our lying eyes.Skeptikal , says: December 28, 2019 at 7:13 pm GMTTo the extent one is ever necessary, that's where guys like Epstein come in.
@Antiwar7 I agree that someone is making the fake smoke.gotmituns , says: December 28, 2019 at 7:25 pm GMT
A.K.A. lies.@sally I never read the articles.Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: December 28, 2019 at 7:30 pm GMTPlease just let me ask americans some opinions aboutanon [232] Disclaimer , says: December 28, 2019 at 8:15 pm GMTif pastor John Hagee and his followers are jews or christians ? , if the thousands of pastors in the USA like Hagee and their millions of followers are jews or christians ? if the US puritan founding fathers were jews of christians ? , if the british angloisraelites are jews or christians ? , if the yankees are jews or christians ? if the wasps are jews or christians ? if the US " deep state " is jew or chistian ? , if the US masses are jew or christian ?
. because blaming the jews all the time of every problem and pretending that that the anglo-yankees are so pure and naive does not seem to be very realistic
Maybe " Jews Я US " ? what do you think ?
@Antiwar7 Americans should have believed into the existenceMichael888 , says: December 28, 2019 at 8:16 pm GMT
of thousands Mayan gods when they first saw the smoke billowing out of the sacrificial pit in front of the menacing idols.Some things never change. Russiagate is no aberration. Establishment Authority, police state apparatuses and religious catechisms, are NOT based on reasoning and evidence, but rather fact-free Narratives handed down from above and grounded by Fear of the Other, the bogeymen (be it Russians, White Supremacists, Black men, Assad, Trump, the Devil, etc), without which authority will collapse. As the historian Will Durant noted, Strabo said it best 2000 years ago:Kolya Krassotkin , says: December 28, 2019 at 9:54 pm GMT"For in dealing with a crowd of women a philosopher cannot influence them by reason or exhort them to reverence, piety or faith; nay, there is need of religious fear also, and this cannot be aroused without myths and marvels the founders of states gave their sanctions to these things as bugbears wherewith to scare the simple-minded."
@Anon John Hagee, his followers and other Christian Zionists are morons. Happily, they are not nearly as common as you imply. Being a Christian Zionist takes a special kind of stupidsteinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: December 28, 2019 at 10:05 pm GMTI cannot see Haggee without immediately recalling Christ's warning to beware of obese wolves in sheep's clothing, who take jiggly church secretaries and XXXL Italian silk suits as proof of God's blessing.
Cohen is another Jewish voice in the Jewish Mafia War between factions. I don't consider him that insightful or honest, as he never mentions the glaringly obvious: the attempt to oust Trump is a Jew Coup.Ilyana_Rozumova , says: December 28, 2019 at 10:08 pm GMT
Start telling the truth about the Hostile Elite destroying America Cohen. Until then you are just another lying Jew destroying the country that welcomed your ancestors.
When will the Traitors be routed out and hung?
No country can withstand Treason from Within going unpunished for any length of time. We either destroy these scum or they will destroy America.@Anon Do you work for free? It is the payroll stupid,Z-man , says: December 28, 2019 at 10:16 pm GMTI gotta hand it to Larry King, even with one foot in the grave he's still doing these interviews and with Professor Cohen no less. Kudos to the old coot. (Grin)
Steven Cohen should be a special advisor to the POTUS. It would be a demotion for Cohen but good for Trump and for America.
|
|
|
Dec 25, 2019 | twitter.com
Donald J. Trump 7:12 PM - 25 Dec 2019
...& overwhelming," but this Scam Impeachment was neither. Also, very unfair with no Due Process, proper representation, or witnesses. Now Pelosi is demanding everything the Republicans weren't allowed to have in the House. Dems want to run majority Republican Senate. Hypocrites!
Donald J. Trump 7:12 PM - 25 Dec 2019
Why should Crazy Nancy Pelosi, just because she has a slight majority in the House, be allowed to Impeach the President of the United States? Got ZERO Republican votes, there was no crime, the call with Ukraine was perfect, with "no pressure." She said it must be "bipartisan...
Trish Regan Dec 23
The
#Dems ' war on democracy ratcheting up as they refuse to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate for a proper trial. GOP Congressman@RepMarkGreen says '#NancyPelosi is a tyrannical person OUT OF CONTROL!'#TrishRegan
|
|
|
Dec 25, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
ak74 , Dec 24 2019 4:19 utc | 78
The imperial lie machine sure is disgruntled that the 1990s attempt to economically and biologically crush Russia once and for all was a failure and Russia has since been reasserting itself. It wasn't "the end of history" after all.That was the source of the underlying current of Russia Derangement among the US elite classes (political, economic, media, academia, professional etc.), the many provocations, and then the total meltdown beginning in late 2016.
Since it really seems to be a collective mental illness (I mean that literally) afflicting a power group which is already psychotic and violent, and since it coincides with the accelerating erosion of the US imperial position, it's looking more and more likely that this must eventually lead to all-out war. I just can't imagine the US stepping back, any more than I could imagine Hitler doing so.
America's obsessive bashing of Russia (and now China) is suggestive of a deep psychological disorder.
Though the Americans and their allied apologists will insist that it is sincerely motivated by a humanitarian concern for Freedom, Democracy, and Human Rights(TM), that is quite laughable given America's concentration camps for undocumented immigrants; its incarceration of immigrant children in cages; or the US Prison Industrial Complex in general, which has been called America's new Jim Crow in that it imprisons millions of African Americans and other minorities and relegates them to a new racist caste system.
No, cut through the barrage of American Moral Supremacism and other delusions, the United States is enraged that, despite its attempt to economically rape Russia in the 1990s through American-promoted Free Market reforms and Neoliberal "shock therapy," Russia is still standing and indeed resurgent.
THAT is what enrages the Americans and triggers them in rug-chewing fits of frenzy.
|
|
|
Dec 24, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
cartman December 22, 2019 at 9:55 am
Today in Russophrenia:In other news, @RANDCorporation report firmly establishes that Van Gogh was a Russian Agent. May be, the dastardly Kremlin plot drove him to cut his ear off?.. At any rate, NATO is now on alert. pic.twitter.com/9k9j5K9rx1
-- Constantin Gurdgiev (@GTCost) December 22, 2019
|
|
|
Dec 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
vk , Dec 24 2019 14:40 utc | 101
Looks like it's Europe's turn in smearing Russia:Putin slams European Parliament resolution on WWII outbreak as 'complete nonsense'
vk , Dec 24 2019 14:53 utc | 102
More on Putin's response to the EP resolution:Headache , Dec 24 2019 15:30 utc | 103We don't need to guess which member is behind the resolution.
Voltairenet has a very interesting article about this subject (also discussed in the last open thread) by prof. Michael Jabara Carley of the University of Montreal: "Justin Trudeau Needs A History Lesson", in which he describes the unsuccessful efforts of Soviet diplomats to create an alliance of European countries against the nazis.karlof1 , Dec 24 2019 20:16 utc | 111I am afraid to mess up the thread, so no link.
People may have read that Putin has said a few more things about the documents he reviewed with his CIS peers; and in doing so, Putin revealed an aspect about himself few have seen previously. Putin made his statement at the annual year-end Defense Ministry Board Meeting . IMO, Putin has had more than enough of the extreme Russophobia now in circulation and he sees it as being very similar to that of prior historical periods where Russia was then subjected to attack from the West. I won't post Putin's diatribe here; you'll need to read it for yourself--I've never seen him so angry or speak undiplomatically. What I will post is what he said after, which IMO is even more important, although removed from the overall context:"I just want to note that this kind of people, people like the ones who were negotiating with Hitler back then, they now deface monuments to the liberator soldiers, Red Army soldiers who liberated the countries of Europe and the European peoples from Nazism. These are their followers. In this sense, unfortunately, little has changed. And we must keep this in mind, also with regard to the development of our Armed Forces . [My Emphasis]
"Here is what I would like to say in this regard, which I think is critically important. Please note: neither the Soviet Union, nor Russia have ever tried to create a threat to other countries. We were always catching up in this regard. The United States created the atomic bomb, and the Soviet Union caught up with it. We did not have nuclear weapon delivery vehicles or carriers. There was no such thing as strategic aviation, and the Soviet Union was catching up in this area, as well. The first intercontinental missiles actually were not built here, and the Soviet Union was trying to catch up.
"Today, we have a unique situation in our new and recent history. They try to catch up with us."
Also note the word Putin chose to describe the Outlaw US Empire's withdraw from the INF Treaty. Clearly, Putin desires to impress upon those charged with Russia's defense that the times are indeed perilous, that the old lies are being spread without any resistance. As with the other three transcripts I linked, this one also demands to be read in full and also in close association with the other three. The Poles will scream along with their sycophants, but Putin is correct about both the past and the present and the danger present within the future.
|
|
|
Dec 24, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
cartman December 22, 2019 at 9:55 am
Today in Russophrenia:In other news, @RANDCorporation report firmly establishes that Van Gogh was a Russian Agent. May be, the dastardly Kremlin plot drove him to cut his ear off?.. At any rate, NATO is now on alert. pic.twitter.com/9k9j5K9rx1
-- Constantin Gurdgiev (@GTCost) December 22, 2019
|
|
|
Dec 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
FSD , Dec 23 2019 14:48 utc | 1
The USA desperately need another resource-rich country to loot and can't find suitable candidate other then Russia. So MIC prostitute Madcow is just a dog of war. The USA deperately need another resource-rich country to loot and can't find sutable candiadate othe then Russia
There is no credible analyst not shackled to the MIC trough who ventures such an analysis beyond of course GE's W-2 harpie, Rachel Maddow.The Western elites have long decided. WW3 is coming. In recent years, the Russians have repeatedly tried to get this message through the western Mediadrome, but to little effect.
The job of the GE spokespeople (Maddow et al) is diversionary/ preparatory spadework i.e. to drill with numbing repetition into the American consciousness who the enemy is. And you can bet the enemy is not who signs their paychecks. Their employers though happen to be OUR enemy.
Thus we find ourselves in the odd position of having Russia's top general attempting to shout through the Maddow racket that our two nations are on a collision course for war. Strange messenger. Or maybe not. They want to live too.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/ /russias-top-general-warns-wor
Russia is in demographic collapse. It lacks the human capital to exploit even its own vast resource trove. The western banking system is over-leveraged. The imaginary numbers have gotten too big. Its 'denominator of the real' badly needs shoring up.
Russian resource wealth, Iran's massive South Pars LNG field are viewed with watering eyes as prolongations of the doomed Ponzi. Europe is energy-poor, geriatric and overrun with Islamic jihadists. With all due respect, who would want it at this late stage? At best, it is a funding source --and a battleground-- for WW3.
Meanwhile the Ponzi is ravenous and never sleeps. No growth - negative interest rates is a bell-ringer for WW3. The alternative is deflationary collapse. Maddow's been mysteriously cranked up again: Rushah Rushah!
So we find ourselves in another Goebellian shift: accuse the opposition of your own ulterior motives. They have no designs on us. Our overlords have designs on them.
Americans are just the People in the middle, hostages in a sense yet seemingly feared enough that our minds are still worth battling over. Trump's affinities are too populist. He's a dodgy helmsman for the massive undertaking of a world war where the people are only to be galvanized, not consulted.
Far from a duteous seat-warmer, he's a leader who squeaked through. The Oval Office is no place for leaders. It was thought to have been neutered of all that leadership malarkey post-JFK. Trump's not enough to hold back the MIC. No POTUS is. He either must depart the job or be compromised into executing the plan. But he's a bad Lieutenant. They'll never be comfortable with him.
Then some evil, diseased mind had an epiphany. Don't just Get Trump! Get a twofer! Get Trump and Russah! Weld them together for one kill-shot. Collusion means no daylight and one bullet. Yes, there's a genius to it, a very sick genius.
Annie , Dec 23 2019 15:29 utc | 4
B, great article as usual but disappointed that you didn't write about the latest sanctions on N2.Piotr Berman , Dec 23 2019 15:30 utc | 5Another act of WAR by the US. These sanctions now cover the comoany, Allseas, laying the pipeline to Germany. They ceased operations and will not complete the project and Gazprom does not have the expertise. Would love to see your
analysis on that.
The NYT propaganda, true to form and loyal to Dem Russophobes just one more attempt to manufacture consentThis is maddening. These crazies are looking for war on Russia. Are the American people stupid enough to give that consent?
My NYT site has the title "Russia Is a Mess. Why Is Putin Such a Formidable Enemy?"Some quotes:
---- 1 ----
Under Mr. Putin, Vladislav Surkov, a longtime Kremlin adviser, wrote in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, a Moscow newspaper, earlier this year, Russia "is playing with the West's minds."Also its own.
---- 2 ----
All the same, said Gleb Pavlovsky, a political scientist who worked for more than a decade as a Kremlin adviser, Russia under Mr. Putin still reminds him of a sci-fi movie exoskeleton: "Inside is sitting a small, weak and perhaps frightened person, but from the outside it looks terrifying."
---- 3 ----
Whatever its problems, Mr. Surkov, the Kremlin adviser, said, Russia has created "the ideology of the future" by dispensing with the "illusion of choice" offered by the West and rooting itself in the will of a single leader capable of swiftly making the choices without constraint.China, too, has advocated autocracy as the way to get results fast, but even Xi Jinping, the head of the Chinese Communist Party, can't match the lightening speed with which Mr. Putin ordered and executed the seizure of Crimea. The decision to grab the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine was made at a single all-night Kremlin meeting in February 2014 and then carried out just four days later with the dispatch of a few score Russian special forces officers to seize a handful of government buildings in Simferopol, the Crimean capital.
==========
If true, the resources committed to "Crimea takeover" were comparable with what Israel committed to assassinate one person, Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, dispatching a team of 33 to Dubai in January 2010. Wasn't the superior productivity the strength of the West?And this is not a joke. Putin is a maniac for balanced budgets, and compared to the expansive American style, the resources committed by Syria were minuscule. And by all accounts, spend well.
REUTERS. Oct 2, 2015 - U.S. President Barack Obama warned Russia on Friday that its bombing campaign against Syrian rebels will suck Moscow into a "quagmire," after a third straight day of air raids in support of President Bashar al-Assad. <<-- Obama was well aware that Russia committed a very small number of troops, and smallish air force that his military expert were describing as obsolete. Russia could not be many times more effective than USA, could it?
No sign of Obama's predicted 'quagmire' as Russia's ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com › world › 2016/09/30
Sep 30, 2016 - BEIRUT -- In the year since Russia began conducting airstrikes in support of the Syrian government, the intervention has worked to secure two ...That explains the next quote from today NYT
---- 4 ----
"Maybe he's holding small cards, but he seems unafraid to play them," said Michael McFaul, a former United States ambassador to Moscow and now a scholar at Stanford. "That's what makes Putin so scary."
=========
Seems that Establishment scours most elite universities, Harvard, Yale, Stanford , Princeton etc. for the dumbest possible graduates. I know from private sources that not all graduates are dumb, many are actually brilliant. Does it occur to McFaul that boldness in playing small cards is even worse than playing large card? Russia (and Assad's partisans in Syria) had to do something well that USA (in government supporters in Afghanistan) did not do at all or did badly.
|
|
|
Dec 22, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Stormcrow , December 21, 2019 at 11:54 am
The Long, Dark History of Russia's Murder, Inc. New York Review of Books
Up next: The bright, sunny history of the CIA
Carolinian , December 21, 2019 at 1:27 pm
Speaking of that.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/12/20/gladio-the-story-of-a-conspiracy/
Acacia , December 22, 2019 at 12:15 am
No surprise. NYRB has had a b*ner for Muh Russia since the early days of the hysteria.
|
|
|
Dec 21, 2019 | off-guardian.org
s Putin losing his grip? Why did Russian disinformation operations fail so dramatically in the UK election? Not only did the "rabid socialist" Corbyn fail to seize power from the Russophobic cold-war warriors of Whitehall but Russia's man in the White House is already planning to move in with them!
|
|
|
Dec 21, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
New_Balls_Please , 19 Dec 2019 09:44
Impeachment is rancid centrist theatre performed by the wizened walking corpses of Pelosi and Schumer, acted out to make it look like they actually have a sliver of decency and acts as a distraction from the election.helenus , 19 Dec 2019 09:19Democrats applauded and encouraged and voted for Trump's funding of ICE, increased surveillance, and removing funding from welfare. This will change absolutely nothing.
The impeachment vote along strict party lines, with both parties hearing the exact same evidence, mathematically proves that the evidence didn't have any bearing on the voter's decisions.YouHaveComment -> SnowyJohn , 19 Dec 2019 09:24Impeaching and losing is worse than not impeaching as it makes the division worse. And the Democrats know they will lose and knew this at the start of the process.ID7776906 , 19 Dec 2019 09:50The solution is to give the electorate the evidence for when they vote in 2020. Some of them will reject the evidence as fake or biased or irrelevant. That is a voter's prerogative.
Truth is the Democrats all held their noses when they railroaded this through the Kangaroo Court of the House and voted on Party lines for impeachment. Very noteworthy that not one Republican agreed and voted Yea. This will backfire on the Democrats and undermine the US political system and do much harm.badbeard -> AndreiK , 19 Dec 2019 09:50I agree with you that the focus ought to be on policy and winning the election; positive campaigns fare better, and impeachments is negative, boring, likely to fail.lightchaser , 19 Dec 2019 09:50And I also agree that the Democrats are not squeaky clean.
However:
Proceeding with impeachment does not prohibit the Democrats form being positive about their own policies and vision. Especially the candidates. The smart Dem candidates will move the conversation on quickly to how good their ideas are whenever they are asked about impeachment.
Unwillingness to impeach in this case would support the claim that they're all as bad as each other, and that the president can do whatever he wants. It is duty to do it.
They have to go for it. It may damage their chances in changing MAGA people's minds, but it will help shore up the democratic vote (something that Hillary struggled with).
This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards . Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs .Ade1342 -> Truthdotcom , 19 Dec 2019 09:50Quid pro quo is not a crime. The nature of a quid pro quo can be.CommunityMod , 19 Dec 2019 09:49What you describe above is not a crime.
What Trump did (ask for an investigation on a political rival) is.
Comments will close here in ten minutes.LibertarianLeaning -> petekreff , 19 Dec 2019 09:49Sovpat -> dallasdunlap , 19 Dec 2019 09:49The best way to sink Trump would be to get hold of his tax returns.
Er yeah... and exactly what do you think these are going to reveal?
Do you think The Donald himself fills these things out? He has scores of companies, and he'll have an army of tax attorneys who deal with this stuff. The returns themselves won't show the tens of thousands of line items for each company's expenses.
People with TDS are delusional. You think you'll you'll find something in his returns that the IRS hasn't?
great post.scipioafricanus , 19 Dec 2019 09:48What's shocking to me is how closely Republicans are copying the behaviour of Trump himself: the insults, the hyperbole, the shouting and screaming, the calls for his political enemies to be censured, the cries of hoax and witch hunt. It's very reminiscent of totalitarian states where the leader's allies compete with each other to prove their cult loyalty to the Chosen One. It's the Trump Party now; what was once Reagan or Bush conservatism has long since departed. The leader can do anything he likes, say anything he likes, and his followers will forgive him everything.Jamie McMillan , 19 Dec 2019 09:48Another confusing article saying Trump 'faces impeachment', then later says he 'was impeached'.Nin Jin -> peacefulmilitant , 19 Dec 2019 09:48What happened in the House? Was that Impeachment? Or does Senate have to vote for it as well?
Dammit. That's actually a good point!ethelbrose , 19 Dec 2019 09:48Putin says charges are made up. Why don't I believe the b*st*rd?AspasiasUli -> vammyp , 19 Dec 2019 09:48Here's a different American perspective: yes, it's a political as opposed to a criminal process. That doesn't mean it is necessarily a partisan political process. Impeachment is the mechanism the Constitution provides for removing a corrupt official. That's what we've got. I have grown very, very tired of people treating this as a horse race, rather than as the only thing that can protect our democracy from an overreaching, dishonest leader. If it hurts election chances, it really doesn't matter, because unless we want to give up altogether on the framework of U.S. government, impeachment has to happen now. This is not a small matter of a phone call. It is a very big matter about betraying the interests of the nation for short-term political gain. And by the way, if it were a Democrat behaving the way this president has, he should be impeached and removed from office. The flaw in the system is the cult behavior of one political party. And I have no idea how that flaw can be mended.pfg2powell , 19 Dec 2019 09:46The subhead says it all: Trump will not be removed from office.stepheinCO -> PeatearGriffin , 19 Dec 2019 09:46Worse, he will have spurious 'proof' that by fould means 'the Washington swamp' is out to get him and ruin his good fight on behalf of 'the people'.
His supporters will be even more determined to see him re-elected and it's even possible that a few 'undecideds' have sympathy on him and swing his way.
That's why it strikes the writer as an anti-climax.
So. Bill Clinton almost got back into the White House. the only thing that stopped him was the stupidity of Hillary, he also has made himself very rich in the process.Craig VanCoevering -> One2Three4 , 19 Dec 2019 09:46"Trump attempted to enlist the help of another country in his campaign for a second term (this is no longer denied), "peacefulmilitant -> UncleKarlM , 19 Dec 2019 09:45Sure. Some Democrats bureaucrat said he overheard, someone who said he overheard someone say that Trump wanted something.
The president of Ukraine even denies there was any solicitation.
It never even reached the level of denial.4LetterFeeling , 19 Dec 2019 09:45An anticlimax, as opposed to Bill Clinton's "climactic" impeachment!!
Who can forget the oral arguments in the Clinton case?
Isn't it the duty of politicians to impeach if the president has broken the law?gottliebvera , 19 Dec 2019 09:45Doesn't this transcend political motivations, and is irrelevant whether its going help or harm at the next election, or even if it's an anti climax or not.. it's an absolute duty
His ego must be hurting something awful. Perhaps Time Magazine should name "Peach of the Year"???bobthebuilder2017 -> MTavernier , 19 Dec 2019 09:42Yet the charge of extortion is speculation. Why didn't the House ask Zelinsky to testify? Perhaps because he himself doesn't believe he was extorted?Truthdotcom -> Cynthia Almy Savage , 19 Dec 2019 09:42Regarding investigating political opponent: is that not what the Obama DOJ was doing in the run up to the 2016 election - predicated on falsified documents and outright fraud to secure a FISA warrent? Is that not what the House has been doing all this time?
I believe that a "political rival" should not be off limits to investigation if they appear to have done something wrong - but do you? Where are the 8 Billion American tax dollars that disappeared in Ukraine during Biden's watch? Why was the investigation called into that called off?
And Obama colluded with Iran to drop cash to those Mullahs in the dead of night--when people are sleeping.AndreiK -> Colin Clarke , 19 Dec 2019 09:40I am sorry, but what you are saying is bullcrap. Hunter Biden was on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas business earning US$600k per year (a mindboggling CEO level salary) whilst at the same time being in rehab in California for a crack addition. There is so much more to that story as well. Here is a well known left wing YouTube channel talking about this - the stuff that just defies belief - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0RiUWBXGY4peacefulmilitant , 19 Dec 2019 09:40Unlike his four immediate predecessors Trump has not started a foreign war. That might be reason enough to keep him in the White House for now.Irshguy , 19 Dec 2019 09:17Disclosure: I don't like Trump. I would never vote for him.But why is naivety a prerequisite for being a liberal? When did this puritanical mindset take root?
Foreign 'aid' is always on a quid pro quo basis. It's used as a soft power tactic to prevent a commie revolution in mineral rich countries. It ensures a compliancy. It's NOT the same as donating a few quid to the Red Cross.
Discuss
|
|
|
Dec 21, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
Truthdotcom -> Upjors , 19 Dec 2019 08:59
But it was totally partisan based what constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley called "non-crimes". Trump would wear such as badge of honour--in the sense he was attacked non-stop by what he calls "The Deep State" and survived.OpenSociety , 19 Dec 2019 08:59He would also claim that the elitist bureaucracy in Washington tried to destroy a President who was for "We the People"--whom the elitist classes call "deplorables" and whom can even be smelt at Walmart.
I was against the impeachment of Bill Clinton. At that time democrat supporters made pantomime protests by dressing as puritans and Mrs Clinton referred to the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy". The case for Trump impeachment is even weaker and unlike with Clinton there has been a lack of due process and no bipartisan support. Impeachment has now become the pursuit of politics by other means which is a bad precedent for the future.Truthdotcom -> Kalumba , 19 Dec 2019 08:52But if you want to re-energise Trump's base, this is a good move.
In the U.S. Schiff is seen as dishonest, a parody make-up trickster, a liar, etc. Pelosi is seen as intellectually feeble and somewhat ditzy. She was pushed onto the impeachment path by the hard Left of the Democratic party. An example of that is the words used by Democrat Rashida Tlaib to refer to Trump--a very vulgar "Impeach the mfer[abbreviation".AndreiK -> Jonathan Stromberg , 19 Dec 2019 08:49No they don't - I paste this from a CNN article:SolentBound , 19 Dec 2019 08:47'a new Gallup poll released Wednesday morning, before the House vote, which shows two things happening since House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, opened up a formal impeachment inquiry in October:
1) Trump's job approval rating has gone from 39% to 45%
2) Support for Trump's impeachment and removal has dipped from 52% to 46%.'Tulsi Gabbard on Twitter a few minutes ago, explaining her refusal to vote:stratplaya , 19 Dec 2019 08:39"A house divided cannot stand. And today we are divided. Fragmentation and polarity are ripping our country apart. Today, I come before you to make a stand for the center, to appeal to all of you to bridge our differences and stand up for the American people. #StandWithTulsi"
According to the latest polls her support is about 2% nationally but higher in Iowa and New Hampshire. Will her supporters stick with her? If not, where do they go? Sanders?
It feels anti-climatic because it was purely political. Democrats have set a terrible precedent here. With no votes from the opposition party and cheers afterwards from the majority party, they proved the impeachment was just a laborious exercise in bold faced politics.HarryFlashman -> tobiastertius , 19 Dec 2019 08:38Now impeachment can be used whenever the roles are reversed and one party simply hates the president from the other party.
So it's ok to have half of the court made up of people who have stated from before he was elected they would impeach him, but wrong for him to have people in the court who are prepared to defend him?Lost_Keys , 19 Dec 2019 08:34You want a show trial in which only the prosecutors get to make their case?
This impeachment is at best a symbolic act of defiance with no consequences.Sithan , 19 Dec 2019 08:16At worst, it's a cynical ploy by establishment Dems to keeps Sanders and Warren tied up in pointless Senate hearings, making it difficult for them to campaign for the election, and giving Grandpa Joe an easy ride. Might Sound a bit tinfoil-hatty, but they'll do just about anything to prevent meaningful change.
That being said, I also don't believe in the strange notion that this has somehow handed Trump reelection. Why? The only people enraged by this are his cult, and they'll show up anyway.
Nahh... We Brazilians have additional reasons to celebrate Trump's Fake Impeachment because Dilma Rousseff was the victim of a Fake Impeachment sponsored by US Embassy in Brazil.PhilSophia , 19 Dec 2019 08:15
The self-destruction of the American political system sounds like music in my ears, as the motherfucker Americans helped a handful of bandits tear my vote. Fuck US very much.And now the poor Jair Bolsonaro is crying for his ass. Each politician mourns the loss of his protector through his hole that it misses him, as we all say in Brazil.
This will likely backfire. Regardless of the rights and wrongs.PaulieneM -> BaronVonAmericano , 19 Dec 2019 08:15
It will entrench most of his supporters and it will turn some waverers agains the Democrats.That's a different debate. And one in which everything is viewed trough a short term opportunistic myoptic lens. In some occasions that might be -accidentally - successful. But mostly short term opportunistic behaviour is strategically (long term) stupid.I agree that it was not very smart for Trump and later republicans to focus on the Biden/Ukraine episode :-). I remember this cartoon with the one person covered in lots and lots of spots pointing at another person who had just the one small spot while crying out: 'look: you have a spot'. Whatever you think about rich offspring getting into high end schools and getting board positions (not a fan): the problem is a lot bigger on the republican side.
|
|
|
Dec 21, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
America is a write-off. It was a terrible idea from the beginning. An empire? Now? Really? Not learning anything from the history books, eh? Ye need an American Union, asap, before ye destroy us all.
|
|
|
Dec 21, 2019 | www.theguardian.com
LibertarianLeaning -> Afraid of Americans , 19 Dec 2019 09:59
pfg2powell -> pfg2powell , 19 Dec 2019 09:58You people need to have stronger memory. Remember all the Iran-Contra criminals who illegally funded right wing terrorists? The guy who pardoned them all is our fucking Attorney General! Trumps presidency is a continuation of the right wing terrorist cabal going back to Reagan; guest starring several Bush regulars.
Yeah Obama fucked up, that doesn't make shit close to even. Obama would have had to kill thousands more people with drones to even come close to the bush/reagan death tolls.
Oh please. The Big O has far, far more blood on his hands than Rump (at least so far). Destroying Libya? Supplying munitions at Al-Qaeada in Syria? Overthrowing Yanukovich and kicking off the Ukrainian civil war? Greenlighting the Sauds genocidal war with Yemen?
Or are you going to insist on including Bush and Reagan in Trump's tally as they're Repug too. Then, it that case why don't we include Wilson (D), Truman (D), Johnson (D), and Clinton (D) In Obama's tally?
Your partisanship is showing, chum.
Trump wasn't impeached for 'alleged sexual assaults, deporting desperate migrants to their deaths, destroying the possibility of preventing catastrophic climate change, causing thousands of deaths by rescinding environmental rules and then covering up the human toll and escalating drone strikes and then hiding the civilian deaths' because as far as I know grounds 'impeachment' under the constitution must be based on misuse of office.TheRedBadboy -> AndreiK , 19 Dec 2019 09:58The point raised by Robinson, however valid, are political. And impeachment is not supposed to be political.
NB As has been pointed out elsewhere impeachment will set a precedent: in the 240 odd years since the US has had a president, only three have been impeached, two in the last 20 years.
You can bet your bottom dollar that the next Democrat president will have everything he/she says or does under scrutiny 24/7 by the Republicans to find grounds for impeachment.
"In the eyes of the majority of the electorate, Democrats have zero moral authority to pursue this impeachment"AndreiK -> badbeard , 19 Dec 2019 09:58And on what evidence do you make this risibly and self-evidently false assertion? The authority of the House Democrats lies in the votes of the Electorate that turned out the Republicans and gave the Democrats the majority.
The only candidate with a realistic chance of winning the nomination that seemed to be following the lead and not going impeachment crazy is Bernie Sanders.And I understand what you are saying, but I do disagree with your last two paragraphs. Especially with respect to shoring up the democratic vote. The times are changing and long term allegiances are shifting. Democrats have to attract Trump voters in key battleground states to win. This impeachment process is massively damaging to that in my opinion.
But look, time will tell come next election. What we know for sure is that Trump will be contesting it.
|
|
|
Dec 21, 2019 | www.theguardian.com
Trump, who was due to arrive at his private Palm Beach resort late Friday, has been looking forward to a trial in the friendlier Republican-controlled Senate and is riled up about the delay, according to Senator Lindsey Graham.
“He’s mad as hell that they would do this to him and now deny him his day in court,” Graham told Fox News Channel after meeting with Trump at the White House on Thursday night.
McConnell has all but promised an easy acquittal of the president. He appears to have united Republicans behind an approach that would begin the trial with presentations and arguments, lasting perhaps two weeks, before he tries drawing the proceedings to a close. The Senate will reconvene 3 January.
|
|
|
Dec 21, 2019 | www.cnn.com
... ... ...
Mark Galli, its current editor (who is leaving the publication in two weeks) takes on Trump directly -- a courageous move on his part, as his magazine has largely been apolitical. "The facts in this instance are unambiguous: the president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president's political opponents," Galli writes. He draws the obvious conclusion for Christians: "That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral." Galli goes further, digging into the behavior of the man in the Oval Office, noting that Trump "has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration." He gets specific: "He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals." As if that wasn't enough, Galli adds, "He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone -- with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders -- is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused." Galli's warning to Christians is clear. "To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: remember who you are and whom you serve," Galli writes. "Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump's immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don't reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come?" Galli also acknowledged Friday in an interview on CNN's "New Day" that his stand is unlikely to shake loose Trump's strong hold on this voter segment, a crucial portion of his political base. Galli's move is even more admirable when you consider that he published his editorial even knowing that, as he said in his interview, he's not optimistic that his editorial will alter Trump's support among white evangelicals. It's not a stretch to say that white evangelicals put Trump into office in 2016. About 80% of them voted for him. They did so because of the abortion issue, mostly. They wanted pro-life judges throughout the justice system. But this was a devil's bargain, at best.
Humility lies at the heart of Christian behavior. As does honesty. In these, Trump has set a terrible example, and he's now been taken down for this by an important Christian voice. If only another 10 percent of evangelicals take this seriously, and I suspect they will, Donald J. Trump's presidency is destined for the ash heap of history.<img alt="Faith could bring us together. But too often it divides us" src="//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/191121180252-20191121-fractured-states-religious-leaders-large-169.jpg"> Faith could bring us together. But too often it divides us Younger evangelicals, those under 45, have been slowly but steadily moving away from Trump during the past two years or so, unhappy about his example. A key topic that has driven them away is immigration. Loving your neighbor as yourself has always been a bedrock Christian value. And Trump's stance on immigrants (especially those of color) has upset the younger generation of evangelicals, with two-thirds of them saying in surveys that immigrants strengthen our country, bringing their work ethic and talents with them from Mexico or Central America or Syria. Climate change is another issue that has caught the imagination of younger evangelicals. "I can't love my neighbor if I'm not protecting the earth that sustains them and defending their rights to clean water, clean air, and a stable climate," Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, a national organizer for Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, told Grist . Needless to say, Trump's contempt on this subject grates badly on these young Christians. Perhaps naively, Americans have always looked to the presidency for exemplary moral behavior, and when there are obvious personal or moral failures, as with Nixon and Clinton, there is disappointment, even anger. But if you're a Christian -- and I lay claim to this for myself -- you understand that it's human to fail at perfect behavior. There is always forgiveness. And, as T.S. Eliot wrote, "Humility is endless."
|
|
|
Dec 21, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com
Delaying the Senate trial erodes the Democrats' argument that impeachment was so urgent that they could not wait for the courts to act on Trump's aggressive claims of privilege.
Seven Democratic presidential candidates who gathered on a debate stage in Los Angeles on Thursday represent another argument for moving beyond impeachment.
... ... ...
Washington is fixated on the daily turns of the impeachment saga, but polls indicate that most Americans are not. Business executive Andrew Yang pointed out that, even when the current president is gone, the struggles of many people will remain, particularly in parts of the country that helped elect Trump in 2016.
"We blasted away 4 million manufacturing jobs that were primarily based in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri. I just left Iowa -- we blasted 40,000 manufacturing jobs there," Yang said. "The more we act like Donald Trump is the cause of all our problems, the more Americans lose trust that we can actually see what's going on in our communities and solve those problems."
That is what voters are waiting to hear, and the sooner the better for Democrats.
|
|
|
Dec 17, 2019 | www.whitehouse.gov
Issued on: December 17, 2019
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515Dear Madam Speaker:
I write to express my strongest and most powerful protest against the partisan impeachment crusade being pursued by the Democrats in the House of Representatives. This impeachment represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat Lawmakers, unequaled in nearly two and a half centuries of American legislative history.
The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence. They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever. You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!
By proceeding with your invalid impeachment, you are violating your oaths of office, you are breaking your allegiance to the Constitution, and you are declaring open war on American Democracy. You dare to invoke the Founding Fathers in pursuit of this election-nullification scheme -- yet your spiteful actions display unfettered contempt for America's founding and your egregious conduct threatens to destroy that which our Founders pledged their very lives to build. Even worse than offending the Founding Fathers, you are offending Americans of faith by continually saying "I pray for the President," when you know this statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative sense. It is a terrible thing you are doing, but you will have to live with it, not I!
Your first claim, "Abuse of Power," is a completely disingenuous, meritless, and baseless invention of your imagination. You know that I had a totally innocent conversation with the President of Ukraine. I then had a second conversation that has been misquoted, mischaracterized, and fraudulently misrepresented. Fortunately, there was a transcript of the conversation taken, and you know from the transcript (which was immediately made available) that the paragraph in question was perfect. I said to President Zelensky: "I would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it." I said do us a favor, not me , and our country , not a campaign. I then mentioned the Attorney General of the United States. Every time I talk with a foreign leader, I put America's interests first, just as I did with President Zelensky.
You are turning a policy disagreement between two branches of government into an impeachable offense -- it is no more legitimate than the Executive Branch charging members of Congress with crimes for the lawful exercise of legislative power.
You know full well that Vice President Biden used his office and $1 billion dollars of U.S. aid money to coerce Ukraine into firing the prosecutor who was digging into the company paying his son millions of dollars. You know this because Biden bragged about it on video. Biden openly stated: "I said, 'I'm telling you, you're not getting the billion dollars' I looked at them and said: 'I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money.' Well, son of a bitch. He got fired." Even Joe Biden admitted just days ago in an interview with NPR that it "looked bad." Now you are trying to impeach me by falsely accusing me of doing what Joe Biden has admitted he actually did.
President Zelensky has repeatedly declared that I did nothing wrong, and that there was No Pressure. He further emphasized that it was a "good phone call," that "I don't feel pressure," and explicitly stressed that "nobody pushed me." The Ukrainian Foreign Minister stated very clearly: "I have never seen a direct link between investigations and security assistance." He also said there was "No Pressure." Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a supporter of Ukraine who met privately with President Zelensky, has said: "At no time during this meeting was there any mention by Zelensky or any Ukrainian that they were feeling pressure to do anything in return for the military aid." Many meetings have been held between representatives of Ukraine and our country. Never once did Ukraine complain about pressure being applied -- not once! Ambassador Sondland testified that I told him: "No quid pro quo. I want nothing. I want nothing. I want President Zelensky to do the right thing, do what he ran on."
The second claim, so-called "Obstruction of Congress," is preposterous and dangerous. House Democrats are trying to impeach the duly elected President of the United States for asserting Constitutionally based privileges that have been asserted on a bipartisan basis by administrations of both political parties throughout our Nation's history. Under that standard, every American president would have been impeached many times over. As liberal law professor Jonathan Turley warned when addressing Congressional Democrats: "I can't emphasize this enough if you impeach a president, if you make a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts, it is an abuse of power. It's your abuse of power. You're doing precisely what you're criticizing the President for doing."
Everyone, you included, knows what is really happening. Your chosen candidate lost the election in 2016, in an Electoral College landslide (306-227), and you and your party have never recovered from this defeat. You have developed a full-fledged case of what many in the media call Trump Derangement Syndrome and sadly, you will never get over it! You are unwilling and unable to accept the verdict issued at the ballot box during the great Election of 2016. So you have spent three straight years attempting to overturn the will of the American people and nullify their votes. You view democracy as your enemy!
Speaker Pelosi, you admitted just last week at a public forum that your party's impeachment effort has been going on for "two and a half years," long before you ever heard about a phone call with Ukraine. Nineteen minutes after I took the oath of office, the Washington Post published a story headlined, "The Campaign to Impeach President Trump Has Begun." Less than three months after my inauguration, Representative Maxine Waters stated, "I'm going to fight every day until he's impeached." House Democrats introduced the first impeachment resolution against me within months of my inauguration, for what will be regarded as one of our country's best decisions, the firing of James Comey (see Inspector General Reports) -- who the world now knows is one of the dirtiest cops our Nation has ever seen. A ranting and raving Congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib, declared just hours after she was sworn into office, "We're gonna go in there and we're gonna impeach the motherf****r." Representative Al Green said in May, "I'm concerned that if we don't impeach this president, he will get re-elected." Again, you and your allies said, and did, all of these things long before you ever heard of President Zelensky or anything related to Ukraine. As you know very well, this impeachment drive has nothing to do with Ukraine, or the totally appropriate conversation I had with its new president. It only has to do with your attempt to undo the election of 2016 and steal the election of 2020!
Congressman Adam Schiff cheated and lied all the way up to the present day, even going so far as to fraudulently make up, out of thin air, my conversation with President Zelensky of Ukraine and read this fantasy language to Congress as though it were said by me. His shameless lies and deceptions, dating all the way back to the Russia Hoax, is one of the main reasons we are here today.
You and your party are desperate to distract from America's extraordinary economy, incredible jobs boom, record stock market, soaring confidence, and flourishing citizens. Your party simply cannot compete with our record: 7 million new jobs; the lowest-ever unemployment for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans; a rebuilt military; a completely reformed VA with Choice and Accountability for our great veterans; more than 170 new federal judges and two Supreme Court Justices; historic tax and regulation cuts; the elimination of the individual mandate; the first decline in prescription drug prices in half a century; the first new branch of the United States Military since 1947, the Space Force; strong protection of the Second Amendment; criminal justice reform; a defeated ISIS caliphate and the killing of the world's number one terrorist leader, al-Baghdadi; the replacement of the disastrous NAFTA trade deal with the wonderful USMCA (Mexico and Canada); a breakthrough Phase One trade deal with China; massive new trade deals with Japan and South Korea; withdrawal from the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal; cancellation of the unfair and costly Paris Climate Accord; becoming the world's top energy producer; recognition of Israel's capital, opening the American Embassy in Jerusalem, and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights; a colossal reduction in illegal border crossings, the ending of Catch-and-Release, and the building of the Southern Border Wall -- and that is just the beginning, there is so much more. You cannot defend your extreme policies -- open borders, mass migration, high crime, crippling taxes, socialized healthcare, destruction of American energy, late-term taxpayer-funded abortion, elimination of the Second Amendment, radical far-left theories of law and justice, and constant partisan obstruction of both common sense and common good.
There is nothing I would rather do than stop referring to your party as the Do-Nothing Democrats. Unfortunately, I don't know that you will ever give me a chance to do so.
After three years of unfair and unwarranted investigations, 45 million dollars spent, 18 angry Democrat prosecutors, the entire force of the FBI, headed by leadership now proven to be totally incompetent and corrupt, you have found NOTHING! Few people in high position could have endured or passed this test. You do not know, nor do you care, the great damage and hurt you have inflicted upon wonderful and loving members of my family. You conducted a fake investigation upon the democratically elected President of the United States, and you are doing it yet again.
There are not many people who could have taken the punishment inflicted during this period of time, and yet done so much for the success of America and its citizens. But instead of putting our country first, you have decided to disgrace our country still further. You completely failed with the Mueller report because there was nothing to find, so you decided to take the next hoax that came along, the phone call with Ukraine -- even though it was a perfect call. And by the way, when I speak to foreign countries, there are many people, with permission, listening to the call on both sides of the conversation.
You are the ones interfering in America's elections. You are the ones subverting America's Democracy. You are the ones Obstructing Justice. You are the ones bringing pain and suffering to our Republic for your own selfish personal, political, and partisan gain.
Before the Impeachment Hoax, it was the Russian Witch Hunt. Against all evidence, and regardless of the truth, you and your deputies claimed that my campaign colluded with the Russians -- a grave, malicious, and slanderous lie, a falsehood like no other. You forced our Nation through turmoil and torment over a wholly fabricated story, illegally purchased from a foreign spy by Hillary Clinton and the DNC in order to assault our democracy. Yet, when the monstrous lie was debunked and this Democrat conspiracy dissolved into dust, you did not apologize. You did not recant. You did not ask to be forgiven. You showed no remorse, no capacity for self-reflection. Instead, you pursued your next libelous and vicious crusade -- you engineered an attempt to frame and defame an innocent person. All of this was motivated by personal political calculation. Your Speakership and your party are held hostage by your most deranged and radical representatives of the far left. Each one of your members lives in fear of a socialist primary challenger -- this is what is driving impeachment. Look at Congressman Nadler's challenger. Look at yourself and others. Do not take our country down with your party.
If you truly cared about freedom and liberty for our Nation, then you would be devoting your vast investigative resources to exposing the full truth concerning the FBI's horrifying abuses of power before, during, and after the 2016 election -- including the use of spies against my campaign, the submission of false evidence to a FISA court, and the concealment of exculpatory evidence in order to frame the innocent. The FBI has great and honorable people, but the leadership was inept and corrupt. I would think that you would personally be appalled by these revelations, because in your press conference the day you announced impeachment, you tied the impeachment effort directly to the completely discredited Russia Hoax, declaring twice that "all roads lead to Putin," when you know that is an abject lie. I have been far tougher on Russia than President Obama ever even thought to be.
Any member of Congress who votes in support of impeachment -- against every shred of truth, fact, evidence, and legal principle -- is showing how deeply they revile the voters and how truly they detest America's Constitutional order. Our Founders feared the tribalization of partisan politics, and you are bringing their worst fears to life.
Worse still, I have been deprived of basic Constitutional Due Process from the beginning of this impeachment scam right up until the present. I have been denied the most fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution, including the right to present evidence, to have my own counsel present, to confront accusers, and to call and cross-examine witnesses, like the so-called whistleblower who started this entire hoax with a false report of the phone call that bears no relationship to the actual phone call that was made. Once I presented the transcribed call, which surprised and shocked the fraudsters (they never thought that such evidence would be presented), the so-called whistleblower, and the second whistleblower, disappeared because they got caught, their report was a fraud, and they were no longer going to be made available to us. In other words, once the phone call was made public, your whole plot blew up, but that didn't stop you from continuing.
More due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials.
You and others on your committees have long said impeachment must be bipartisan -- it is not. You said it was very divisive -- it certainly is, even far more than you ever thought possible -- and it will only get worse!
This is nothing more than an illegal, partisan attempted coup that will, based on recent sentiment, badly fail at the voting booth. You are not just after me, as President, you are after the entire Republican Party. But because of this colossal injustice, our party is more united than it has ever been before. History will judge you harshly as you proceed with this impeachment charade. Your legacy will be that of turning the House of Representatives from a revered legislative body into a Star Chamber of partisan persecution.
Perhaps most insulting of all is your false display of solemnity. You apparently have so little respect for the American People that you expect them to believe that you are approaching this impeachment somberly, reservedly, and reluctantly. No intelligent person believes what you are saying. Since the moment I won the election, the Democrat Party has been possessed by Impeachment Fever. There is no reticence. This is not a somber affair. You are making a mockery of impeachment and you are scarcely concealing your hatred of me, of the Republican Party, and tens of millions of patriotic Americans. The voters are wise, and they are seeing straight through this empty, hollow, and dangerous game you are playing.
I have no doubt the American people will hold you and the Democrats fully responsible in the upcoming 2020 election. They will not soon forgive your perversion of justice and abuse of power.
There is far too much that needs to be done to improve the lives of our citizens. It is time for you and the highly partisan Democrats in Congress to immediately cease this impeachment fantasy and get back to work for the American People. While I have no expectation that you will do so, I write this letter to you for the purpose of history and to put my thoughts on a permanent and indelible record.
One hundred years from now, when people look back at this affair, I want them to understand it, and learn from it, so that it can never happen to another President again.
Sincerely yours,
DONALD J. TRUMP
President of the United States of Americacc: United States Senate
United States House of Representatives
|
|
|
Dec 20, 2019 | www.unz.com
Realist , says: December 19, 2019 at 5:17 pm GMT
The Year of Manufactured Hysteria
The purpose of manufactured hysteria in the US is to obfuscate the issues important to the Deep State like destroying the first amendment, renewing the 'Patriot' act, extremely increasing the war/hegemony budget, etc.
The unimportant internecine squabbles of the 'two parties' strengthens the false perception that there is a choice when voting.
|
|
|
Dec 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
The EveryThing Bubble , 57 minutes ago link
Zero Schmeero , 54 minutes ago linkGOP: Government Of Putin.
RNC: Russian National Committeesticky_pickles , 54 minutes ago linkLike anyone believes the words of a lying *** that upvotes itself. Rev. 2:9 and 3:9, words from a real ***. That must just eat you alive khazar.
attah-boy-Luther , 2 minutes ago linkDNC. Democratic Nation of China
silverer , 1 hour ago linkLed by Feinstein and her driver....
Aha! PROOF! Putin runs the US Senate now! Hear all about it on the Rachel Maddow show.
|
|
|
Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Lurker in the Dark , Dec 19 2019 1:49 utc | 56
My apologies if this has been posted before, but here is a news conference broadcast by Interfax a few days ago detailing a joint French-Ukrainian journalistic investigation into a huge money laundering scheme using various shadow banking organizations in Austria and Switzerland, benefiting Clinton friendly Ukrainian oligarchs and of course the Clinton Foundation.The link is short enough to not require re-formatting:
Lurker in the Dark , Dec 19 2019 2:00 utc | 59
Forgive me for the somewhat redundant post, and again I hope this is not a waste of anyone's time, but this is the source of the Interfax report I posted just above currently at #56. It is relevant to the Ukrainegate impeachment fiasco.https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/press-conference/631034.html (again, link brief enough not to require re-format).
The U.S. and lapdog EU/UK media will not touch this with a 10 foot pole.
KYIV. Dec 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine and the United States should investigate the transfer of $29 million by businessman Victor Pinchuk from Ukraine to the Clinton Foundation, Ukrainian Member of Parliament (independent) Andriy Derkach has said. According to him, the investigation should check and establish how the Pinchuk Foundation's activities were funded; it, among other projects, made a contribution of $29 million to the Clinton Foundation. "Yesterday, Ukrainian law enforcement agencies registered criminal proceeding number 12019000000001138. As part of this proceeding, I provided facts that should be verified and established by the investigation. Establishing these facts will also help the American side to conduct its own investigation and establish the origin of the money received by [Hillary] Clinton," Derkach said at a press conferences at Interfax-Ukraine in Kyiv on Tuesday, December 17.According to him, it was the independent French online publication Mediapart that first drew attention to the money withdrawal scheme from Ukraine and Pinchuk's financing of the Clinton Foundation.
"The general scheme is as follows. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) lent money to Ukraine in 2015. The same year, Victor Pinchuk's Credit Dnepr [Bank] received UAH 357 million in a National Bank stabilization loan from the IMF's disbursement. Delta Bank was given a total of UAH 5.110 billion in loans. The banks siphoned the money through Austria's Meinl Bank into offshore accounts, and further into [the accounts of] the Pinchuk Foundation. The money siphoning scam was confirmed by a May 2016 ruling by [Kyiv's] Pechersky court. The total damage from this scam involving other banks is estimated at $800 million. The Pinchuk Foundation transferred $29 million to the Foundation of Clinton, a future U.S. presidential candidate from the Democratic Party," Derkach said.
|
|
|
Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Russ , Dec 18 2019 22:00 utc | 19
Historically the ability of unelected, unaccountable, secretive bureaucracies (aka the "Deep State") to exercise their own policy without regard for the public or elected officials, often in defiance of these, has always been the hallmark of the destruction of democracy and incipient tyranny.Today's Deep State most resembles the colonial administrations during the heyday of European imperialism. These too worked to run their own secret foreign policy, and to bring their power to bear on domestic policy as well.
Although both halves of the One-Party really want the effective tyranny of state and corporate bureaucracies, it's not surprising that it's the Democrats (along with the MSM) taking the lead in openly defending the tyrannical proposition that the CIA should be running its own foreign (and implicitly domestic) policy, and that the president should be just a figurehead which follows orders. That goes with the Democrats' more avowedly technocratic style, and it goes with the ratchet effect whereby it's usually Democrats which push the policy envelope toward ever greater inequality, ecocide and tyranny.
Now is a time of rising irredentism and the decline of all the ideas of globalization and technocracy, though the reality is likely to hang on for awhile. The whole Deep State-Zionist-Russia-Deranged-Trump-Deranged-MSM-social media censorship campaign is globalization trying to maintain its monopoly of ideas by force, since it knows it can never win in a free clash of ideas.
Impeachment, and the pro-bureaucracy anti-democracy campaign related to it, besides its more petty purposes (distraction from real social problems; forestalling Sanders), is the culmination of technocracy's attempted coup against a president who, even though he agrees with this cabal on all policy matters, is considered too unreliable, too undisciplined, too damn honest about the evil of the US empire. If they can take him down, they think they can restore the full business-as-usual status quo including the compliance of the rest of the world.
Since impeachment's going to fail, we can expect the system to try other ways.
james , Dec 19 2019 1:51 utc | 57
hey b... i like your title - "How The Deep State Sunk The Democratic Party" ... could change it to" How the Deep State Sunk the USA" could work just as well...ptb , Dec 19 2019 2:07 utc | 62Seven of the 11 security state representatives who had joined the Democrats in 2018 gave the impulse for impeachment.
is this intentional?? it sort of looks like it...
good quote from @ 26 lk - "The contradictions of US empire and global capitalism cannot be mitigated by either more liberal strategies or realist ones."
@babyl-on 35
yes that is about right. The top power networks are all a tight mix of names from govt, MIC, and private equity (incl. top 2-3 investment banks). With the latter group naturally paying the salaries of the whole policy making ecosystem, and holding the positions that select future generations who will eventually take their place.They want the security of knowing noone in the world will mess with them. This necessitates that noone in the world *can* mess with them. Pretty straightforward from there.
|
|
|
Dec 19, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
All pretense of our country being a representative democracy @snoopydawg
is gone. Ourtwo partyuniparty government has completely turned its back on serving the needs of the vast majority of the people of this country, and of the wider world. Profit sits at the head of our government. The monikers "Fascist" and "Totalitarian" are apt descriptors of the direction of our current trajectory. A dystopian future surely awaits us on this beautiful, fragile and life sustaining planet that we are trashing with such abandon.Other than that, things are going quite nicely. Nancy is wearing her power pants and fools are applauding.
|
|
|
Dec 19, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
It still amazes me... that people actually think impeachment accomplishes anything other than diverting attention from the Dems giving Trump everything he wants.
Kayfabe.
Impeachment without conviction means next to nothing.
The Senate will not convict. Trumps chances of being re-elected are continuing to improve as Democratic Party insiders work overtime to see to it that Bernie Sanders has to fight the Republican Party, a MSM that either dismisses or ignores his candidacy, AND the Democratic Party which has, once again, stacked the deck against him.
|
|
|
Dec 19, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
WoodsDweller on Wed, 12/18/2019 - 9:30pm
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/12/trump-has-joined-the-losers-of-presiden...... Never-Trump conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin released a scorching assessment ... "Even Trump knows he will be lumped in with the 'losers' in the presidential history rankings such as Richard Nixon and Andrew Johnson," wrote Rubin. "Impeachment will define his presidency, dwarfing any other foreign or domestic action. No wonder he rages against a speaker he is powerless to stop. His worst nightmare is to be humiliated, and if not now, history certainly will regard him as a pitiful, damaged man utterly unfit for the role he won through a series of improbable events ... Just as Watergate figures ... were lionized as defenders of the Constitution, so too will Pelosi and House Democrats ... be among those admired for their lucidity, intellect and character. ... For every clownish, contemptible, screeching and dishonest House Republican, there is a sober, admirable, restrained and honest Democrat.
"No letter, no tweet, no Fox News spin can repair the reputations of Trump enablers," Rubin wrote. The right-wing media that cheered them on will, like outlets that rooted for Jim Crow and demonized Freedom Riders, be shunned by decent, freedom-loving people who reaffirm objective reality. The Republican Party will be known not as the Party of Lincoln but the Party of Trump, a quisling party that lost its bearings and its soul to defend an unhinged narcissist.
|
|
|
Dec 19, 2019 | www.youtube.com
Nathan Pickrell , 2 days agoThis guy is neck deep in the attempted coup to overthrow a duly elected president
ensign j , 2 days agoWhy continue this interview? He is still lying, he is so full of himself its nuts!
Leigh Ann Everett , 1 day agoNo no. These are not mistakes but rather deliberate criminal activity
Red Oz , 1 day agoComey knew that everything was wrong and illegal. Once again, he is lying.
Why is Roger Stone in prison and Comey is a free man?
|
|
|
Dec 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
The EveryThing Bubble , 57 minutes ago link
Zero Schmeero , 54 minutes ago linkGOP: Government Of Putin.
RNC: Russian National Committeesticky_pickles , 54 minutes ago linkLike anyone believes the words of a lying *** that upvotes itself. Rev. 2:9 and 3:9, words from a real ***. That must just eat you alive khazar.
attah-boy-Luther , 2 minutes ago linkDNC. Democratic Nation of China
silverer , 1 hour ago linkLed by Feinstein and her driver....
Aha! PROOF! Putin runs the US Senate now! Hear all about it on the Rachel Maddow show.
|
|
|
Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Jackrabbit , Dec 18 2019 21:58 utc | 16
b:Trump's letter notes that talk about impeachment started as soon as he stepped into office:
IMO the Deep State wanted to initiate a new McCarthyism.Russiagate was the means to do so and that means that Impeachment was always a possibility (though likely a red-herring, as I explain below).
IMO After the Mueller investigation progressives pressed for Impeachment but establishment Democratics (led by Pelosi and Hillary) wouldn't allow it. People were (rightfully) asking why establishment Democrats were protecting Trump.
With this in mind, Ukrainegate is a convenient diversion from Russiagate while providing the Impeachment satisfaction that progressives had clamored for.
It's difficult NOT to notice that ...
... America First Trump actually furthered Russiagate when he hired Manafort (who was known to have worked for pro-Russian Parties in Ukraine and had NO recent experience in US elections) and called upon Russia to publish Hillary's emails (which were KNOWN to contain top-secret information - making any publication a crime under US law);One might excuse this in many ways: Trump's ego; his unfamiliarity with politics and statecraft; or just bad luck. But one can also see these actions, in a larger context, as disturbing part of the effort to initiate the new McCarthyism.... and America First Trump furthered Ukrainegate by the mentioning the name of an announced political opponent when talking about investigating corruption on a call with Zelensky.
|
|
|
Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Jen , Dec 18 2019 21:37 utc | 13
It would seem that the Democrats need this impeachment circus over and done with before the end of 2019 so they can concentrate on cleaning up Joe Biden as their Presidential candidate and pretend he had no history before April 2019 when Volodymyr Zelensky became President of Ukraine. That must explain their strange and shaky choice of issue on which to try to impeach Donald Trump: so that during the campaign season,Biden's past and his son having been on the Board of Directors of a shady energy company (with a licence to explore and drill for oil in an area of eastern Ukraine not far from where a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet was shot down in 2014) can be kept off-limits to the MSM and anyone who dares to challenge Biden on his record. If the President of the United States can be punished for pursuing the Bidens on their record of corruption, then that alone should (in theory) stop anyone else from pursuing them.
There are so many other issues on which to impeach Trump but the issue of Joe Biden's conflict of interest regarding his son's involvement in Burisma Holdings and eastern Ukraine generally is the weakest and the oddest.
Surely the only reason for doing this is to obscure and hide the Democratic Party's involvement with (and meddling in) Ukrainian politics and Ukrainian political issues through people like Alexandra Chalupa and her sisters Andrea and Irena, and Dmitri Alperovich and his company Crowdstrike that looked after the DNC's cyber-security.
|
|
|
Dec 18, 2019 | www.unz.com
thotmonger , says: December 17, 2019 at 7:02 am GMT
How would it fly if Trump's EO instead forbade criticism of Russia in schools and colleges in USA?Very strange that something like this could ever be written and signed. A fast budding and explicit "Judeo lese majetse" is unfolding before our eyes. And if it is meant to protect Jews as a race and nation, then that will naturally induce people to see them as exactly that: a separate nation. Will this quell concern about loyalty or raise more doubt?
p.s. In 2018, Israeli army expert snipers made a turkey shoot of Palestinians marching on the 70th anniversary of their people being ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homeland. A "shoot to cripple" policy only murdered several score but, with high speed dum dum bullets, they blasted bloody wreckage through the flesh and bones of many thousands of unarmed people. You may not see them on your porno channels and game shows, but a large number will be crippled for the rest of their lives.
This is a good example of a very recent state sponsored atrocity on a large scale. Students in our schools and colleges might want to examine this in a variety of ways. The history, legality, ethics, demographic dilemmas etc. Sure, it might roll over into some criticism and activism, e.g. DBS Israel, but is that to be prohibited by our government? What sort of citizens are our schools and colleges supposed to be cultivating if students are not permitted to exercise their freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of conscience?
|
|
|
Dec 15, 2019 | twitter.com
Nathan Brand 3:00 PM - 8 Dec 2019
The Washington Post Opinion page: If you don't agree with us, you must be a Russian asset
|
|
|
Dec 15, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Fred -> srw... , 14 December 2019 at 07:38 PM
Srw,So all other presidents who claimed privilege were actually obstructing Congress and were subject to impeachment as will be all future presidents who claim privilege. Burisma, a Ukrainian company, can not be investigated because a Biden is on the board. Hunter has a very lucrative future ahead of him as an insurance against investigation.
|
|
|
Dec 15, 2019 | www.truthdig.com
gustave courbet KurtV • 12 hours ago ,gustave courbet KurtV • 11 hours ago ,"There is little point trying to convince someone like Johnstone of what every sane person in the world knows to be almost certainly true, that Russia hacked the DNC and attempted to swing the election in favor of" ~ Donald Trump."
Count me among the insane, but such fact-free assertions are pretty standard examples of what passes for facts in the post-post-modern era of Trump. While this is certainly a minority position, competent journalists like Aaron Mate, Matt Taibbi, Michael Tracey and others have been doing good work in pointing out the deep flaws in the Russiagate narrative.
corruptclintons gustave courbet • 6 hours ago ,I'm not sure what neo-progressivism is, but I know a farce when I see it. The Mueller investigation failed to interview two central persons of interest in it's investigation: Craig Murray and Julian Assange. The fact that they did not interview them underscores that this was not a good faith investigation but one working backwards from it's conclusion. Hail Putin (JK, I couldn't care less about the Kleptocrat-in-chief).
gustave courbet corruptclintons • 5 hours ago ,I call it fake progressivism or the alt-left but neo-progressivism works too. They are easy to identify because they all listen to (and frequently cite) the same social media pundits and their logic is so painfully flawed.
They are useful idiots for the right because they advance the same talking points as the right, with a few variations that are designed to appeal to the left. In short, they are lefties who have been neutralized by clever propaganda and "alt-media" pied pipers.
corruptclintons gustave courbet • 5 hours ago ,Funny, I would apply your description of "useful idiots" to centrist Democrats for advancing an agenda that severely hamstring the Democrats' political effectiveness and marries them to historically reactionary forces like neoconservatives and the intelligence community.
In the same way that your "neo-progressives" are labeled "Putin puppets" or "Assad apologists" for opposing destructive and bellicose foreign policy positions, this neo-red-scare language was used to tar principled anti-war voices during the Cold War (MLK Jr comes to mind).
Instead of debating policy positions, we must now try to cut through the Orwellian neologism game just to get to a discussion of substance.
gustave courbet corruptclintons • 3 hours ago ,The anti-war narrative is a great hook with which to reel in some people on the left.
Yes, the level of propaganda being utilized is Orwellian, and until progressives realize they are being propagandized rather than informed, they will be used like pawns on a chess board.
gustave courbet KurtV • 7 hours ago ,Considering that our political establishment, including both parties, our media system including both ostensibly informational and entertainment content, and our civil society are deeply committed to US military and intelligence endeavors, I would "first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye," as the saying goes.
The propaganda system that shapes public opinion around matters of geopolitics is extensive and pervasive. There is a relatively small community of academics, activists, and concerned citizens who are students of history, and more importantly, the history of propaganda and have watched what it can do. I've no doubt you're well-intentioned but I can't help but disagree with your perception. The pro-RTP humanitarian interventionist canard is a great way to get people who consider themselves on the left to back the same military/intelligence apparatus that has been waging war on the third world in pursuit of American political and economic hegemony since the end of WWII.
I'm reminded of the legacy media's reaction after MLK Jr's Beyond Vietnam speech: "Time magazine called the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi." The Washington Post wrote that King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."" The pro-war establishment has had 52 years to come up with new false equivalencies and flawed analyses to disparage the moral and practical clarity of its critics, and they have not.
gustave courbet corruptclintons • 5 hours ago ,It has occurred to me that their contentions are false, but that's precisely the point- if you're doing a competent, exhaustive investigation, you interview people that claim to have information of central importance, if only to exclude those possibilities from consideration. Not doing so is the hallmark of incompetence or something worse.
Of course, these aren't the only issues with Russiagate, only the most glaring. I'll mention briefly that perhaps the great sin of Russiagate (even if it turned out to be true) is that is has neatly distracted from election fraud in the US by US actors, both the DNC's rigging of primaries and the GOP's perennial voter suppression that likely gave Trump the election by securing him electoral college votes in key states.
Instead of looking at the damning evidence of GOP crimes (a hallowed tradition among Democrats), they did the thing convenient to DC insiders and national security apparatchiks: blame Russia. Even if Russia had hacked the DNC, their interference pales in comparison to demonstrable GOP manipulation, yet gets 98% of the coverage (and this will likely be repeated in 2020, thanks to this circus). Presuming Russiagate is entirely legit (which I don't), it's the hangnail distracting the body politic from stage 4 cancer.
Lastly, why on earth would one trust BCCI Bob and the intelligence community, on Russiagate or anything else considering their long history of lying to the American people? Maybe they're not in this case but the burden of proof is extremely high when dealing with serial liars.
"the conspiracy to fabricate the Mueller report would have involved tens of thousands and all would have had to keep quite."
No it wouldn't. It's clear from this statement alone that you haven't studied many conspiracies involving high-profile reports and political narratives that mislead the public. A small number of people can set the agenda, pick witnesses that will back them up either due to credulity, confirmation bias, or ambition, and use a compliant media as a megaphone to broadcast their perspective, then cite that same media (as Dick Cheney was fond of doing). Beyond that, there is a deep dearth of critical thinking in DC, and incentives not to rock the boat. Why put your career at risk to voice an unpopular opinion? A massive conspiracy isn't required, nor is it plausible. People that work in large bureaucracies can infer what the consensus is and go with it. From the JFK assassination to Vietnam, to Iran Contra, to Iraq, to the MANY minor scandals in between that have faded from the public's memory, this is a sadly common phenomenon.
I'm not dismissing the idea that Russians didn't interfere per se, but rather that this interference had an impact on the election (bombshell after bombshell failed to detonate). The media circus around Russiagate, an incident that, insofar as it happened, didn't impact the election, when compared to voter purges that literally handed Trump the White house, has been nearly entirely absent. Why the overwhelming focus, day after day after day of the former to the scant mention of the latter? I would argue that it's because one fits neatly into a jingoistic narrative held by the MIC while the other reveals bipartisan corruption and dereliction.
|
|
|
Dec 15, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
snake , Dec 15 2019 14:03 utc | 2
NATO's fake humanitarian pretext catching up to them very interesting piece that fits into the to jo6pac post @ 1 of the smell of propaganda..
It does not matter who publishes smelly propaganda?At the moment there is no way for concerned, affected or just plain good humans to either eradicate the stench or to jail and make liable the producers, inventors, distributors, publisher or the liars that deny the wrongful facts often found in smelly propaganda..
It is a violation of basic human rights to produce false, deceptive or misleading propaganda.. Maybe there will someday be a war on wrongful propaganda and those involved will find themselves labeled Terrorist.
|
|
|
Dec 15, 2019 | twitter.com
Nathan Brand 3:00 PM - 8 Dec 2019
The Washington Post Opinion page: If you don't agree with us, you must be a Russian asset
|
|
|
Dec 15, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Fred -> srw... , 14 December 2019 at 07:38 PM
Srw,So all other presidents who claimed privilege were actually obstructing Congress and were subject to impeachment as will be all future presidents who claim privilege. Burisma, a Ukrainian company, can not be investigated because a Biden is on the board. Hunter has a very lucrative future ahead of him as an insurance against investigation.
|
|
|
Dec 14, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
One aspect of this report in the NYT is very troubling but not a great surprise to those who pay attention to Asian affairs.The reports that US military leaders had no idea of what to do in Afghanistan and constantly lied to the public should rouse citizens in America to take a different view of military leaders. That view must be to trust nothing coming from the Pentagon or from spokespersons for the military. Included must be any and all secretaries of defence, and all branches of the military.
It is totally unacceptable that 1-2 trillion dollars and several thousand lives were spent by America for some nebulous cause. This does not include many thousands of civilians.
During the Vietnam disaster, it became obvious that American military was lying to the public and taking many causalities in an unwinnable war. Nothing was learned about Asia or Asian culture because America entered Afghanistan without a real plan and no understanding of the country or it's history.
The experience of the USSR in that country should have sent up all kinds of red flags to the invading US military but it apparently did not. Both USSR and America lost thousands of military lives -- but nothing has changed in the country. Life in Afghanistan is actually worse now than before the multiple invasions. The only think which has improved is the cultivation of poppies and the export of opium.
|
|
|
Dec 14, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
It would appear all the escalating rhetoric from a month of impeachment hearings - including one Democratic congressman asking fellow lawmakers to imagine the teenage daughter of Ukraine's president tied up in Trump's basement - have sparked more than just verbal assaults on Republicans ( just as Maxine Waters would had suggested previously ).
The Hill reports that a man in Illinois has been charged after allegedly threatening to shoot Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) and accusing the congressman of "backing the Russians."
Rodney Lee Davis
64-year-old Randall Tar of Rochester, Ill. was charged with communicating threats to injure a person and threatening to assault, kidnap or murder a federal official, according to court documents released this week (full release below).
Contacted at his home Thursday, Tarr said he saw a television ad in which Davis, a Republican from Taylorville, claimed that Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections , and it angered him enough to call.
Prosecutors say Tarr called Davis's district office last month and left a profanity-filled voicemail, saying:
"I just saw you ... on the TV. You backing the Russians, boy?"
"Stupid son of a bitch, you're gonna go against our military and back the Russians?" he allegedly added.
"I'm a sharpshooter. ... I'd like to shoot your f---ing head off you stupid motherf---er."
Tarrlater reportedly told The Associated Press :
"I screwed up," Tarr said.
"I don't even have a weapon to do it, is the silliest thing."
"I wish I could just take it all back and just say he's a lousy (expletive) for backing the Russian theory."
Of course, the only problem with all this is that the Democrats' constant spewing of the narrative that Ukraine did not 'meddle' in the 2016 election is entirely false .
Dr Anon , 45 minutes ago link
greek mafia , 46 minutes ago linkThe bigger story is the number of mentally unstable Americans. When you go driving next, remember that about 20% of them are gorked on prescribed medications. The behavior you will observe makes complete sense in that context.
Pendolino , 47 minutes ago linkDamn...64 and still stupid as hell
" I'm a sharpshooter "
Well he certainly knows how to shoot his mouth off.
|
|
|
Dec 14, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
squid, 7 hours ago link
Meme Iamfurst , 6 hours ago linkThey want to do it by Christmas in the vain hope that this circus will all blow over by November. I think not.
While the typical BubisAmericanus will have forgotten all the details by then, me thinks the hard core democrats, I mean nomal'ish people that usually vote blue, simply stay home.
Part of me, however, thinks back to something that Harry Truman said, "in politics there are no accidents" .
Was this whole impeachment thing completely designed for the dems to fall on their sword and put the Donald back in for another 4? Dunno.
The Republicans will have both houses when in 2024 the the tax take will barley cover interest.
designed for the dems to fall on their sword and put the Donald back in for another 4? Dunno.
Been thinking along the same lines. May be the last thing they want is to be "on line" in 2021. I even wonder if CNN and BSNBC, etc, are there to DRIVE the decent Democrat to the Republicians.
I do think that things are not adding up.
|
|
|
Dec 14, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Md4 , 8 hours ago link
No reputable legal authority would fear ensuring due process for an accused, unless it had no evidence of an actual crime to justify prosecution...but DID have ulterior motives and nefarious purposes for doing so.
Let's be clear.
To date, not a single shred of actual evidence has ever been produced to prove Russian involvement or interference in the 2016 presidential election.
***.
Nada.
We have the opinion of domestic intelligence agencies, but we have no physical or direct evidence.
On the contrary, we have as much reason to believe some or all of them interfered in the Trump campaign, to orchestrate and execute a foreign interference hoax against Trump, before and after his election.
Daily, and throughout this sick prog left congressional abuse of power, we have repeatedly heard claims of an "ongoing war with Russia" in Ukraine.
Which war is this? Is this a continuation of the non-invasion of the Donbas in 2014? The specious and false claims of Russian troop concentrations, and tanks rolling, that even spy satellites didn't see? Are we still lying about this? If so, where are the media reports of Russian airstrikes, burning Ukrainian villages, or body bags?
In any "on-going" war with Russia, we would've been treated to near-constant news video of Russian armor all over eastern Ukraine. Have we? Perhaps this war they keep telling us about is like the Russian "invasion" of Crimea that didn't happen either.
We clearly remember the two Crimean-initiated referenda which put them back in their ancestral Russian homelands, but none of that had anything to do with invading Russians, who already had a substantial military presence in Crimea for decades.
No sir, Professor Turley.
There is no basis whatsoever for Trump's impeachment.
There is mounting evidence of a continued coup against this president, and the substantial number of Americans who actually elected him.
We too are closely monitoring the actual situation...
|
|
|
Dec 14, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
One aspect of this report in the NYT is very troubling but not a great surprise to those who pay attention to Asian affairs.The reports that US military leaders had no idea of what to do in Afghanistan and constantly lied to the public should rouse citizens in America to take a different view of military leaders. That view must be to trust nothing coming from the Pentagon or from spokespersons for the military. Included must be any and all secretaries of defence, and all branches of the military.
It is totally unacceptable that 1-2 trillion dollars and several thousand lives were spent by America for some nebulous cause. This does not include many thousands of civilians.
During the Vietnam disaster, it became obvious that American military was lying to the public and taking many causalities in an unwinnable war. Nothing was learned about Asia or Asian culture because America entered Afghanistan without a real plan and no understanding of the country or it's history.
The experience of the USSR in that country should have sent up all kinds of red flags to the invading US military but it apparently did not. Both USSR and America lost thousands of military lives -- but nothing has changed in the country. Life in Afghanistan is actually worse now than before the multiple invasions. The only think which has improved is the cultivation of poppies and the export of opium.
|
|
|
Dec 12, 2019 | theintercept.com
Just as was true when the Mueller investigation closed without a single American being charged with criminally conspiring with Russia over the 2016 election, Wednesday's issuance of the long-waited report from the Department of Justice's Inspector General reveals that years of major claims and narratives from the U.S. media were utter frauds .Before evaluating the media component of this scandal, the FBI's gross abuse of its power – its serial deceit – is so grave and manifest that it requires little effort to demonstrate it. In sum, the IG Report documents multiple instances in which the FBI – in order to convince a FISA court to allow it spy on former Trump campaign operative Carter Page during the 2016 election – manipulated documents, concealed crucial exonerating evidence, and touted what it knew were unreliable if not outright false claims.
If you don't consider FBI lying, concealment of evidence, and manipulation of documents in order to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a presidential campaign to be a major scandal, what is? But none of this is aberrational: the FBI still has its headquarters in a building named after J. Edgar Hoover – who constantly blackmailed elected officials with dossiers and tried to blackmail Martin Luther King into killing himself – because that's what these security state agencies are. They are out-of-control, virtually unlimited police state factions that lie, abuse their spying and law enforcement powers, and subvert democracy and civic and political freedoms as a matter of course.
In this case, no rational person should allow standard partisan bickering to distort or hide this severe FBI corruption. The IG Report leaves no doubt about it. It's brimming with proof of FBI subterfuge and deceit, all in service of persuading a FISA court of something that was not true: that U.S. citizen and former Trump campaign official Carter Page was an agent of the Russian government and therefore needed to have his communications surveilled.
|
|
|
Dec 13, 2019 | irrussianality.wordpress.com
Unprecedented brazenness December 11, 2019 PaulR 6 Comments 'Something is rotten with the state of Denmark', or if not Denmark then certainly the United States of America. It's the only conclusion one can draw from the way the absolutely normal is nowadays treated as the most extraordinary drama.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump met Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. It's about as normal a diplomatic event as one could possibly imagine, but it caused much of the American commentariat to go into a collective meltdown.
'Trump welcoming Russia's top diplomat to the Oval Office is one of his most brazen moves yet,' declared the Washington Post , which makes you think that Trump really needs to step up his game on the brazenness front. The Post isn't alone in thinking this way, however. What one might call the 'liberal' TV channels leapt on the story too, dragging in some representatives of the American security apparatus to ram home the point (there was a time when liberals regarded the FBI and CIA with suspicion, but such days are apparently long gone).
And so it was that CNN brought on as a guest former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe to 'explain why the photograph tweeted by President Trump of his meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov is so extraordinary.' As McCabe told CNN :
There's no doubt there's something deeply odd about the way this president interacts with Russia. We've never seen anything like this before. Russia is our most significant enemy on the world stage. I don't think that we've ever seen a photograph out of the Oval Office on the lines of the one we saw today.
Meanwhile, MSNBC had its own star witness, former Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel. 'Why is a head of state meeting with the Russian foreign minister?' Stengel asked , 'Vladimir Putin doesn't meet with Mike Pompeo when he comes to Moscow. So it's very curious and it's very strange.'
Actually Rick, dear boy, Putin does meet with Pompeo, as you can see from this photo here. But when did one ever let little details like factual accuracy get in the way of a good line?
Stengel wasn't MSNBC's only witness to Trump's suspicious behaviour. Former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul also put in an appearance. 'He's obsessed with the East, like a certain world leader in the 1940s was obsessed with the East. Why is this guy obsessed with meeting with Russians all over the place', the host asked McFaul. The latter let pass the gratuitous Hitler comparison, and gave his learned response: 'It's truly bizarre. I confess I do not have a rational explanation for it,' said McFaul .
Just in case you think it was only the media, FBI, and the State Department, others were on the ball too. The Trump-Lavrov meeting had Twitter abuzz. Anne Applebaum, for instance, had the following to say.
It's all simply nuts. Trump is Hitler. A former ambassador can't think of any reason why representatives of two major powers might wish to meet. A former deputy head of the US foreign service thinks that heads of state never meet foreign ministers. And all of them believe that a photograph of the US President and the Russian foreign minister is totally unprecedented and suggestive of something deeply suspicious, though exactly what they can't quite tell us. Which makes you wonder what they'd all make of this picture.
I don't know about you, but that looks a lot like Sergei Lavrov and President Obama to me. So, was Obama a Russian agent? Was he secretly selling out US interests to a foreign power? Should we be investigating him as well? It's all rather suspicious, don't you think?
I'll leave the last word to the excellent Fred Weir of the Christian Science Monitor:
It's pretty clear by now that no normal dialog is going to be possible between Russia and the US. Perhaps ever again. It's not my job to advise the Russians what to do, but if it were I would suggest they just give it up. Spend your time going to Beijing, Delhi, Ankara, even Berlin and Paris, but give Washington a miss.
It's the most peculiar damned thing I have ever seen. Even at the lowest depths of the Cold War, the Washington Post would never have run a headline that described a US president meeting a Soviet leader in the Oval Office as "one of his most brazen moves yet."
Analyzing the official photo of Trump and Lavrov in the Oval Office, the main -- disapproving -- takeaway the WaPo has to offer here is: "Judging by the expressions on their faces, the conversation does not seem to have been particularly acrimonious." Geez.
|
|
|
Dec 12, 2019 | www.rt.com
Russian FM Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have briefed the media after talks in Washington, DC, the first such meeting since 2017. Speaking at the press conference on Tuesday, Pompeo said the US was seeking a "better relationship" with Russia and that the two countries have been working on improving relations since his visit to Sochi in May. He said lines of communication between Moscow and Washington were open and relations were candid.
Lavrov echoed that, saying the two met regularly and also spoke frequently by phone. "It is useful to talk to each other," he said. "Always better than not talking to each other."
//www.youtube.com/embed/bp-uZHwMSWA
In a nod to the ongoing anti-Russia hysteria in the US, Lavrov said their joint work was, however, " hindered by the wave of suspicions that have overcome Washington." Calling allegations of Russian interference in US internal affairs "baseless," Lavrov said Moscow had "many times" asked the Trump administration to publish all correspondence between Trump and Putin from October 2016 and 2017, but that it had received "no response."
Allegations of Russian interference in US internal affairs are 'baseless': 'We have not seen any evidence, because it does not exist' – Lavrov pic.twitter.com/M1Ezgs22kd
-- RT (@RT_com) December 10, 2019Russia is hoping the current anti-Russia feeling dissipates like the McCarthyism of the 1950s, Lavrov added.
Pompeo said that cooperation on anti-terrorism is one of the main focuses of the relationship, particularly in relation to Syria.
"We want to make sure Syria never again becomes a safe haven for ISIS or other terrorist groups," he said.
On Ukraine, Pompeo said the resolution of conflict in the eastern regions of the country begins "with adherence to the Minsk agreements."
|
|
|
Dec 11, 2019 | www.theatlantic.com
If the allegations against the president are all completely false, then his supporters can continue to back him with a clear conscience, because anything and everything negative they hear about the president must be false. The consistency of that message is more important than the actual details, which frequently end up contradicting complex explanations for the president's innocence that are often incongruous with each other, such as the insistence that Robert Mueller's investigation was a "total exoneration" of the president, but also " total bullshit ."
|
|
|
Dec 10, 2019 | www.nytimes.com
Opinion With Trump, All Roads Lead to MoscowMonday's congressional hearing and the inspector general's report tell a similar story.
By Jesse Wegman Mr. Wegman is a member of the editorial board.
When it comes to Donald Trump and Russia, everything is connected.
That's the most important lesson from the two big events that played out Monday on Capitol Hill -- the House Judiciary Committee's hearings on President Trump's impeachment and the release of the report on the origins of the F.B.I.'s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
One of these involved the 2016 election. The other involves the 2020 election. Both tell versions of the same story: Mr. Trump depends on, and welcomes, Russian interference to help him win the presidency. That was bad enough when he did it in 2016, openly calling for Russia to hack into his opponent's emails -- which Russians tried to do that same day . But he was only a candidate then. Now that Mr. Trump is president, he is wielding the immense powers of his office to achieve the same end.
That is precisely the type of abuse of power that the founders were most concerned about when they created the impeachment power, and it's why Democratic leaders in the House are pressing ahead with such urgency on their inquiry. They are trying to ensure that the 2020 election, now less than a year away, is not corrupted by the president of the United States, acting in league with a foreign power. "The integrity of our next election is at stake," said Representative Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. "Nothing could be more urgent."
On Monday morning, lawyers for the Democrats on the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees presented the clearest and most comprehensive narrative yet of President Trump's monthslong shakedown of the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for Mr. Trump's personal political benefit. They explained in methodical detail how the president withheld a White House meeting and hundreds of millions of dollars in crucial, congressionally authorized military aid to Ukraine, all in an effort to get Mr. Zelensky to announce two investigations -- one into Mr. Trump's political rival, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter, and another into Ukraine's supposed interference in the 2016 election.
David Leonhardt helps you make sense of the news -- and offers reading suggestions from around the web -- with commentary every weekday morning.
Who would benefit from these announcements? Mr. Trump, who believes his re-election prospects are threatened most by Mr. Biden, and Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, who has been working for years to make Ukraine the fall guy for his own interference in the 2016 election. Mr. Putin has not fooled serious people, like those in the American intelligence community who determined that his government alone was responsible for meddling on Mr. Trump's behalf . But he has fooled Republicans in Congress, who have degraded themselves and their offices by faithfully parroting Mr. Putin's propaganda in the mainstream press.
... ... ...
sdavidc9 Cornwall Bridge, Connecticut 12m ago
Republicans are in lawyer mode, advocating for Trump as if he were their client. Lawyers make the best case they can for their clients. It helps if they believe in the case, but it also helps to know the case's weaknesses so they can avoid them. The best lawyers can do both at the same time. Republicans are called on by the Constitution to exit lawyer mode and enter juror mode (which is, or should be, similar to why-did-this-aircraft-crash mode). So far, they are not heeding this call. From all appearances, they are mouthing the words of the Constitution while avoiding or refusing to hear or understand them. They took an oath to support the Constitution, but they are deaf to its call, or have moved to a place beyond understanding it.Mark Larsen Cambria, CA 26m agoThe issue of whether to impeach was made by the President when he engaged in an abuse of his office for personal gain and then obstructed Congress' oversight function. We all understand the political downside arising from an acquittal in the Senate but that interest needs to be secondary to doing the right thing. On these facts, the decision representatives must make of whether to impeach really is no decision at all. Just do the right thing.Twg NV 26m agoWhen Senator John McCain died, he scripted his own funeral as a full bore defense against Trumpian Nationalism, and as an admonishment against a GOP too willing to sell the soul of our nation out to a cultist repudiation of objective fact, truth, and Constitutional order. McCain was a controversial maverick –a person I both admired and disliked in equal proportion. But there is one thing I will always admire him for: his final letter to the nation. It was a warning! He blew a golden bugle to sound the alarm against those entities both within and without our nation who wish to do our democratic republic harm. McCain, whether you agreed with the premise of the Vietnam war or not, was an American hero who served his country and his fellow soldiers with incontrovertible valor and love. President Donald Trump has no concept of what that dedication and sacrifice entails – and sadly, neither do many of the GOP members who continue to lie and make excuses for a president who is clearly abusing his office for personal gain. McCain characterized Trump's actions in Helsinki as an unfathomable 'abasement of the U.S. presidency.' All I can say is the GOP sure ain't the party of my father who fought in WWII against fascism and autocracy. It aggrieves me to no end to witness what too many members of Congress have become: tyrants toward the very meaning of American democracy. God save us from our own duplicity.Jagmont Rousel Fresburg, Ca. 12m ago@Twg Well said, and though I sometimes did not agree with McCain on matters of policy, I wish he were still with us, hopefully to show his fellow republicans what integrity looks like, and what America is supposed to be about. The Republican party I have known and respected is alas, like Senator McCain, no longer with us.Consiglieri NYC 34m agoAmericans have to realize that the whole world is mocking us, and that doesn't necesarily inspire respect. That cold be dangerous. Many medical professionals have noticed a decay in the mental abilities of the president, and certain abnormalities. It would be wise to suggest to the family that maybe the best way forward, with minimal losses would be to motivate a retirement. That would be face saving for them, and save the country from a bitter impeachment spectacle that would not be positive for the USA.Jennifer Francois Holland, Michigan 1h agoI'm waiting for Trump's financial info to be released. There's something in there he doesn't even want his base to know . I think the logical conclusion is that whatever financials DJT has hidden do indeed lead to Moscow. Actually, all of this is very, very alarming. Does Putin have a political asset planted here? Y or N I wish the answer was no and that we had a different President. Can we as a nation hold things together when our leader wants to tear us apart?AL NY 1h agoAll roads lead to the highest bidder(s). 21st century America in the era of Citizens United. Market pricing and the government is open for transactional business domestic and international. Alternate realities per GRU/FOX/GOP misinformation. Combine foreign money carefully grooming an in-need Trump, and a party worshipping money and you have a perfect storm removing any sense of civic duty. Hundreds of years to build and unwound in a few decades, the breathtaking and tragic fall of greatness and hope in our lifetime. It's not fiction, and every day I have to check if it's really happening, and shockingly it is.DO5 Minneapolis 1h agoThere was no Russian meddling, only Ukraine who meddled in 2016 and they are still at it. Listening to the Judiciary Committee hearings, it seems that the Russians have hacked into the Republican Party servers and are sending talking points to Republicans who are defending the indefensible president.We'll always have Paris Sydney, Australia 1h agoAt some point, Republicans have to ask themselves which is better for their party and the country. Slavish devotion to Trump, or losing an election and leaving Democrats a mess to clean up, as in 1932 and 2008?Mike S. Eugene, OR 2h agoBlock witnesses from testifying, then say that the hearing is incomplete. Romney told America at the Republican Convention in 2012 that Russia was our biggest enemy, DJT wanted them to help Republicans win in 2016, said he believed Putin in 2018, and wants to convince us that it was really the Ukraine in 2019. The House has to impeach, even if politically it may be a bad move, because it is the right thing to do; indeed, the very actions I've seen in the past several weeks has given me glimmers of hope for the country.Federalist California 2h agoTrump will be reelected for the reason that the Russian intelligence agencies are still able to hack our election results, because Trump has blocked fixing the weaknesses. That is what happens when a Manchurian candidate is elected and then allowed to obstruct justice. It is not clear the US will survive Trump. One key thing he did was arrange to have the teams at DHS that watch for smuggled nuclear bombs were stood down and disbanded. See the report in the LA Times last July "Trump administration has gutted programs aimed at detecting weapons of mass destruction".David Rochester 2h agoI don't suppose a constructed transcript of Trump's meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tomorrow will be offered up as a token of our leader's transparency.Markymark San Francisco 2h agoIt's clear now that AG William Barr isn't interested in enforcing the rule of law with fellow republicans, and especially the president. How can there be no recourse when an attorney general completely sells out to a criminal president? Can the employees of the Justice Dept hold a vote of no confidence in the AG? Can 10,000 attorneys nationwide express the same? The prospect of Trump and Barr running roughshod over the rule of law for another year is truly frightening.Aluetian Contemplation 2h ago65,845,063 voters knew clearly who this man was from the beginning and voted for what would have been a better now and future. It was never any secret. 62,980,160 voters also knew clearly who this man was and voted for him anyway. If the Democrats can ensure that we have a fair election in 2020. I'm confident they will win the majority in the house and senate and retake the White House and the end game for Trump will be jail. The problem is, he might not be the only one who's crimes come to light and I suspect a good lot of the GOP are threatening and blackmailing each other to hold the line. If there's any good men or women left in the GOP, your country and history are calling you.Edwin a physician, scientist and realist 2h agoIt has easy to predict Trump's next move for the last 3 years. Just ask, "What would both benefit Trump, and benefit Putin?" Trump supporters = Putin supporters.Kevin CO 2h agoDo you know the American people are fed up with the discourse of all politicians. The republicans are fed up with any decency for the republic. The democrats are fed up with the republicans not facing the common sense of a exec not capable of being the President of the United states. I as a person am fed up with a political system that is not working for all people, just a select few. It's time too have term limits for all positions in gov't. That means all people that serve the people whether it be judges, senators or congressmen/women. It's time to find common sense again in our society as a whole society. We on this earth are all HUMAN.Eben Spinoza 2h agoUnfortunately their are serious problems with term limits. Just consider yourself in the role of a Congressional Representative limited to 4 terms. You know that in 8 years, you'll be be back on the job market. You can selflessly work for the public and damage your ability to get a job or tend to people who can hire you after you leave office. You're rational. Which future would you pick?REBCO FORT LAUDERDALE FL 2h agoTrump needs to keep Putin happy lest he unleash with all the damaging info he has collected on Trump and his financial crooked deals with Russians over decades. THe Russian mob reports to Putin as a former KGB agent he knows how to collect compromat on a politician and how to use it to get Trump to break into a giddy smile when he sees Putin his master it's obvious to most keen observers.M. Barsoum Philadelphia 2h agoFolks it is simple. Can we hear what Trump and Putin said to each other a few months ago. It is recored and on a server it should not be on. I am not sure why nobody is talking about these transcripts.Nelly Half Moon Bay 2h agoFinally! We get someone stating the obvious fact of Trump/Putin. Why are the Dems not talking about this all the time? Why are Congressmen and women not asking the witnesses about this? This is the ONE thing the Republicans are afraid of, so it is the one thing Democrats should do. I have been disappointed that the Russian asset thing hasn't been brought up....It's as if it is purposely bold. Trump is a Russian asset, either witting or unwitting. I doubt if there is one upper Intelligence Official that wouldn't say this. So find the right one and have them sit as a witness for this inquiry. And now the Russian big wig Diplomat and KGb spy, Lavarov, is visiting tomorrow. Good grief! Everyone is thinking this, so get out and say it Dems! Dr. Fiona Hill tried to lead into this direction but still the Dem Committee would take it up and aske her what she thought. Say it: All of Trump's Roads Lead to Russia.Ro Laren Santa Monica 2h agoAny American adult who has made an effort to educate himself or herself about Mr. Mueller's investigation or these impeachment proceedings understands that yes, with Trump all roads lead to Russia. Now if the poll numbers mean anything, Trump's crimes and Russia's involvement only matter to about 60% of us. As Trump's poll numbers remain steady, some 40% of Americans don't care what lawbreaking he is involved with or whether other nations now control our elections. Stop and think about this for a minute. Trump supporters know but literally do not care that Russia is tampering with our elections (2016 and 2020). Their cult-like support for Trump is why the Republican Senate will not remove him. There is no other reason Trump will remain in office. Trump has mesmerized his supporters like a modern day Rasputin. They will do literally anything for him, and Senate Republicans know this. Trump voters do not mind that Putin controls our nation at the highest levels of decision making. Again - think about this - they know he does, and they do not care. So I ask the rest of us. Is this the America we want to live in? To raise our families in? Where a large, rabid minority is in thrall to a lunatic puppet whose strings are firmly in Putin's hands? Because this is very much the America we live in now. The time will come, though, when we, the majority, will no longer tolerate the Trump/Putin regime. But the longer we wait, the harder it will be oust these tyrants.Tracy Washington DC 2h agoIn 2008, Donald Trump Jr. said Russia was an important source of funding for the Trump businesses. American banks wouldn't lend him money. Saudi Arabia likely bailed out Jared's disastrous real estate investment in NYC. Follow. The. Money.Huge Grizzly Seattle 2h agoYou say that Mr. Putin "has fooled Republicans in Congress, who have degraded themselves and their offices by faithfully parroting Mr. Putin's propaganda in the mainstream press." You are correct on all counts, except that the Republicans have not been fooled by Putin. They have gone along, headlong and absolutely willingly, in a complete sellout of personal and national principle and integrity. They should not be forgiven for this conduct, any more than Mr. Trump should be forgiven for his sellout of America.Look Ahead WA 2h agoFor Republicans who believe so fervently in their counterfactual narrative, there is an immediate remedy. Bring facts and evidence to the Committees and testify under oath. Without witnesses and evidence presented under oath, all of the GOP antics simply look foolish and very much like they are defending the guilty. It is unfortunate that there is no penalty for elected officials who share unfounded conspiracy theories, engage in innuendo and obstruct process in official Committee hearings. It is also regretable that this President is not held accountable for trying to intimidate witnesses in real time during testimony. And it is a sad reality that one of the most corrupt rulers in the world, who rules a hostile power, has managed to entirely win over one of our major parties.Gerard PA 2h agoThe strangest defense advanced today was the idea that the alleged state of the economy was reason not to impeach the President: the Republicans assert that America, the Constitution, the principle of our government are for sale to be bought by the rising stock market and a plethora of low-wage jobs. We are Faust, and the smell of sulphur is nauseating.richard wiesner oregon 2h agoIf the IG's report on the 2016 Russia investigation had found the only problem was that two of the agents involved had horrible hangnails, Barr and Trump would have condemned it.Asian Philosopher Germany 2h agoWhatever Trump is doing, he always care about his main benefactors, Putin and MBS. This is the first time I have witnessed in history that an American president became a Russian puppet with all his Republican followers at the Congress and Senate. American constitutional crisis happening right in front of the world. I heard the cries of James Madison, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin from their graves.trudds sierra madre, CA 2h ago Times PickSir, do you honestly think that House Republicans have been "fooled" by Mr. Putin? On the contrary, it's pretty obvious they understand and believe the conclusions from our Intel community. These are instead willful lies for political gain. And while some Americans may actually be misled by the theater presented as rebuttal to the impeachment, it's hard to imagine for most it's once again, not conviction but convenience that places such "patriots" solidly in Russia's back pocket.Michele Seattle 2h ago Times PickThe pattern of behavior is clear and compelling: Trump is selling out this country, its national security, its integrity and sovereignty, in order to keep power and avoid his own prosecution, and protect his financial interests. We must get the truth about his relationships and indebtedness to Putin, the Saudis, and Erdogan. Our country has been hijacked and Trump will continue to corrupt the US and turn it into an autocracy if he is not stopped and held accountable under the law.Linus Internet 2h agoThe country voted for this President knowing he is a flawed man in many ways. I don't think anything changes here - the Senate will speedily acquit him and the voters in the swing states will have to decide if they want to give Mr. Trump a second chance while the rest of the country impotently watches.David CT 2h agoIf one looks at all of his actions as "How could this benefit Russia?" most of it makes sense. Why start a trade war with China and Western allies? Why withdraw from Syria? Why try to polarize the American public? Effectively showing this to the public is critical.Mark New York 2h agoExcellent piece. We all know Trump, Inc. turned to Russian oligarchs after '08 for condo sales. It just so happened that those same oligarchs (read as kleptocrats) were laundering money through Deutsche Bank, who was the only bank willing to lend to Trump. Trump's loan officer amazingly was SC Justice Anthony Kennedy's son. Trump was and is a desperate man in need of cash/ Putin is a desperate man who knows that the geyser of oil money that funds his national budget, and has done so since the 1920's, is coming to an end. Russia has no large material economic exports other than oil and gas, but it does still have a large military, hence the military incursions into Moldova, Ossetia, Georgia, Ukraine and Syria. Desperate men do desperate things, and desperately try to project power with weak hands.turbot philadelphia 2h agoThe Republicans in Congress were not fooled by the Russians. They believe in Trump no matter what the Russians do. The bottom line is - What does Putin have on Trumpstan continople brooklyn 2h agoI don't understand why there hasn't been more of a pushback by the military. They went heavily for Trump in 20116, with many bases in the South and many recruits from economically devastated areas, but in the interim, they have seen his reckless, lurching foreign policy, worship of Putin, and clear evidence that somehow everything he does benefits Russia. A commander's first obligation is to their troops, so knowing the man in charge considers their lives subject to both Trump's whims, and Putin's whispers should provoke some reaction. No?Steven Auckland 3h agoUnfortunately - to put it mildly - impeachment will have no effect on the conduct of the 2020 election. The wheels are already turning, everyone knows their part, and only a massive commitment by an honest intelligence apparatus (if there is one) can stop it. One can only hope that, in 2020, the American people make a statement so overwhelming that there can be no doubt as to their intent, despite whatever meddling there may have been. It is entirely possible that there will never be a truly credible election again as long as there are bad actors who are power hungry or bent on destabilizing democratic governments. And make no mistake, these threats are coming from right wing autocracies, and they are in the ascendancy all over the world. American centrists and liberals are the only force that can change that. Are those stakes big enough for you?Michael Kittle Vaison la Romaine, France 3h agoWe may finally have the answer as to why Trump is so accommodating to Putin. Trump has so many investments in Russia dependent on Putin's support. Trump financial reports will reveal this collusion between Trump and Putin. This should not come as a surprise to attentive Americans. Think of the worst an American president can do and that will bring you close to understanding Trump.Ray Haining Hot Springs, AR 3h agoNobody's saying how Trump withholding military aid to Ukraine would benefit Putin and Russia in their WAR against Ukraine. It was, indeed, MILITARY aid he was withholding, was it not? I understand that this is not the impeachable offense of attempting to enlist a foreign government to win an election, but I believe this aspect of the situation should be brought out.Socrates Downtown Verona. NJ 3h agoThe Republican Party has been officially reduced to a giant miasma of fraud, fiction, fantasy, conspiracy theory, deflection, misdirection and prevarication. After tax cuts for rich people and rich corporations...the GOP has no other public policy ideas (except for bankrupting the government). A civilized country needs little things like infrastructure, education, technology, voting rights, law and order, regulations, fair taxation and facts to move forward. But none of those things are ever mentioned by the Republican Party; conspiracy-mongering and tax cuts are now the official governing planks of the Grand Old Propaganda/Grand One Percent party. This is no way to manage a nation anywhere except into the ground. Americans need to hit the Trump-GOP eject button before these Lord of the Fly Republicans take us over a very steep right-wing cliff of insanity.Bob Hudson Valley 3h agoThe Republican Party is now Trump's party and the Republicans know it and are acting accordingly. You could call them opportunists following the way the political winds are blowing. The Constitution is based on members of Congress caring about the Constitution and searching for the truth. Since this is now not the case when if comes to the Republicans the Constitution has no remedy for this situation. The only remedy is an election and if Trump can manipulate elections to his advantage using foreign powers then there is no remedy and the system of government set up by the founders will be no more. The new system replacing it will be controlled by Trump. Putin figured out how to control Russian elections so he always wins and it is likely that Trump has a goal of imitating Putin. Ultimately this would mean taking over the press as Putin did. Trump cannot declare total victory as long as the there is a free press which he has labeled the enemy of the people.DAWGPOUND HAR NYC 3h agoFrom an acute perspective ..indeed shocking to say the least of the nature of this peculiar relationship. But looking at the big picture as evidence by all that has occurred in his or during this eye opening period for all the world to see....not so much so...For me, this dynamic is much expected.James Ricciardi Panama, Panama 3h ago"The witness has used language which impugns the motives of the president and suggests he's disloyal to his country, and those words should be stricken from the record and taken down," Mr. Johnson said. The Johnson rule effectively reads the impeachment power out of the constitution. How can you impeach a president if no one can say anything bad about him/her?Bruce Rozenblit Kansas City, MO 3h agoWe have yet to plow the most fertile road yet. What does Trump care about over all else? Trump. How does Trump gauge his progress? His money. Where does his money come from? Good question. We all know he has filed for bankruptcy 6 times. We all know that because of those bankruptcies, American banks will not loan him any money. We all know he has significant financial dealings with Deutsche Bank. Now, who put the money in Deutsche Bank that ended up financing Trump's business.? That is the two billion dollar question. We also know that Russian oligarchs deal in billions of dollars. We also know that Trump has close relations with Russian business interests. We also know that Trump kowtows to Putin like Pence kowtows to him. We also know that Trump is doing everything possible to conceal his financial dealings from everyone and everything. So, we know that one billion plus one billion equals two billion. But does it also equal Trump? This money road is one we should take a ride on. Will it also take us to Putin?Mark New York 2h ago@Bruce Rozenblit No, but it will take us to those who are surrogates for him. Those whose wealth only continues because of Vova's "good will."Gluscabi Dartmouth, MA 3h agoThe first Democratic candidate who labels Trump a "Russian agent" will own the simplest and most effective tag line going into the general election, provided of course that that candidate does his best to channel his inner Trump by never backing down but instead doubling down every chance he or she gets. Is Trump a Russian agent, paid for and accounted for? Not easy to say without some doubt, but that doesn't really matter because he sure as shoottin' acts like one. And when have the facts ever stopped Trump from going on the attack? The more Trump denies the label, the more he'll be digging his own grave. The real crime here is not so much the strong arming of Zelenskyy for a Biden investigation. That's small potatoes compared to Trump's withholding congressionally designated US military aid from a country engaged in a hot war with Russia, the same cast of characters who starved anywhere from one to eleven million Ukrainians during the 1930's. The Russian agent must go.Alan Columbus OH 3h agoI would not say Trump's lying "is effective", I would say it "has been effective". At some point, the public and his party may have had it with the thuggery and we do not know when that breaking point is.abigail49 georgia 3h agoFor the sake of protecting our 2020 elections from Russian hackers and disinformation, the House is justified in moving forward fast, over the process howls of Republicans, with the compelling evidence they have surrounding Ukraine. But they need to continue investigating his business and financial ties to Russia and any other autocratic governments and their oligarchs, e.g. Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Especially if he is not convicted and removed by the Senate and stands for re-election, Americans need to know what conflicts of interest he has in making foreign policy and military decisions because American soldiers' lives are at stake. The Mueller investigation did not go down that road. Any businessman with global interests is automatically compromised, even more than a vice president whose son sits on a foreign corporation's board of director. Trump's own children continue to do business in foreign countries and we have no idea what Ivanka and Jared, sitting in the White House with top security clearances, are doing. In short, Ukraine should not be the only concern of congressional oversight committees. There's a lot more.Peter Portland OR 3h agoTrump must believe that Russian help in 2016 did help him to win. He must feel that fake evidence presented by an "independent" investigator such as a foreign government appears to carry more weight that the same fake evidence from a partisan investigator. Otherwise why would he be taking such chances to duplicate via Ukraine what he got from the Russians in 2016. But now that the Russian connection is outed, he can't go back to that well.NA Wilson Massachusetts 3h agoI worry it's all for naught. Dems in the House vote to impeach, GOP in the Senate vote to acquit. Trump remains highly competitive in 2020 election, Russia and other adversaries interfere, Trump stays put. Then what?Rafael SC 3h ago@NA Wilson Think of this situation differently. To have all possible scope to defeat him, we must support everything we can to undermine him. Lack of impeachment would have been business as usual. At some point his finances will get out and then all bets are off.Tracy Washington DC 2h ago@NA Wilson: It's all Hands on deck to save the country. Don't just vote, donate what money you can, work for candidates, knock doors, make calls. It's the only way out of this nightmare.N. Smith New York City 3h agoThe Impeachment hearings weren't really necessary to prove what most everyone who's been paying attention knows. With Trump, all roads lead to Moscow. In fact, he's already acting very Putin-esque in his own way by forbidding anyone in the White House to respond to subpoena, by installing the fear of God in those who do, by punishing anyone who dares to think or act on their own, and then there's the act of holding a foreign country ransom until they agree to do his bidding -- not to mention inviting outside interference in our presidential elections. All the signs are not only there but they are ominous. By holding himself above the U.S. Constitution, Trump has declared war on this country and all the laws that govern it. And while entertainment-starved Americans laugh and cheer at his rallies, he and the Republicans drain our right to vote, and with it our Democracy. Today wasn't an epiphany. It was a warning.bl rochester 3h agoThere seems to be no discussion of the financial backing trump received after '08-09 from sources inside Russia and how these actors would have expressed their support (or conditions for their silence) to the trump campaign during '15-16. Did the FBI not identify and investigate the funders behind trump and their interactions with the campaign during 2016? Would this not have been reasonable for an investigation to look into when its entire raison d'etre was to detect sources of Russian influence?Jim TX 3h agoI wonder if Mr. Wegman believes that this editorial will change anyone's mind or influence how anyone votes in the upcoming presidential election. Basically, this is classic preaching to the choir and sadly mostly a wasted effort. I would like to read articles with proven ideas that worked to change the minds of Republicans and other like them. Such articles might give me some better ideas to convince my pro-Trump friends and neighbors to Vote for America next November.Kingfish52 Rocky Mountains 3h ago"When it comes to Donald Trump and Russia, everything is connected." This! This is the central fact of all the things Trump has done (so far), and yet, the Democrats have failed to make this the central focus of the case against him. Instead, they've focused on one incident, and not even the most egregious one, to justify impeachment and removal from office. This was a terrible miscalculation. No, there is no doubt that Trump attempted to coerce Ukraine into helping with his re-election by announcing a bogus investigation of the Bidens. Nor any doubt that this constituted "high crimes and misdemeanors". But this was not the highest of crimes he's committed, nor have the Dems been able to convince any Republicans, or many independents, that this deserves Trump's removal. Moreover, they failed to produce the "smoking gun" of one witness or document in Trump's own words directing the quid pro quo. They gave plenty of room for the Republican attack machine to cast enough doubt and confusion that all but ensures Trump's acquittal in the Senate. Instead of focusing only on this one incident, the Democrats should have built their case around the theme that "with Trump, all roads lead to Russia". That is a crime that even the most skeptical doubter can grasp, and when linked together, all of his crimes can be shown to be of a pattern of serving Putin, and not the people of the United States. All roads lead to Putin, but the Democrats chose to follow a dead end.DW Philly 2h ago@Kingfish52 I completely agree with you and truly don't understand why the Democrats have not been shouting this from the rooftops. For mercy's sake! The problem is not just that the president solicited help from a foreign power for his own personal gain! That's bad enough, but isn't the point that he did this because he is beholden to Russia? Russia. is. not. our. friend. Why aren't the Democrats explaining this clearly to the American people? Trump is Putin's puppet and it could not be more obvious! Don't people understand that it doesn't just happen to be Ukraine that Trump took a notion to squeeze for his "personal gain"? He doesn't just want to win because it is so nice to win elections. He has to do what Putin tells him. Obviously, every last Republican in Congress understands this clearly. Why can't the Democrats explain it to the American people clearly?Mike Republic Of Texas 4h agoObama did not provide lethal aid to Ukraine, after the Russians invaded Crimea. Obama did not Russia prevent the Iranian nuclear deal. Trump cancelled the Iranian nuclear deal, then provided lethal aid to Ukraine. Now I get it. Trump is working for Putin.Mick Montclair 3h agoBy March 2015, the US had committed more than $120 million in security assistance for Ukraine and had pledged an additional $75 million worth of equipment including UAVs, counter-mortar radars, night vision devices and medical supplies, according to the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency. That assistance also included some 230 armored Humvee vehicles. Trump appears to be echoing a critique leveled at the Obama administration by the late Republican Sen. John McCain. "The Ukrainians are being slaughtered and we're sending blankets and meals," McCain said in 2015. "Blankets don't do well against Russian tanks." While it never provided lethal aid, many of the items that the Obama administration did provide were seen as critical to Ukraine's military. Part of the $250 million assistance package that the Trump administration announced (then froze and later unfroze) included many of the same items that were provided under Obama, including medical equipment, night vision gear and counter-artillery radar. The Trump administration did approve the provision of arms to Ukraine, including sniper rifles, rocket launchers and Javelin anti-tank missiles, something long sought by Kiev.Ivan Memphis, TN 2h ago@Mike Trump was not the one providing lethal aid to Ukraine. It was the house and senate that proposed and forced this aid into an appropriation bill - against the wishes of the Trump administration. After Trump realized he could not block this funding he did the second best thing - he used it to blackmail the Ukraine government to provide him with dirt on Biden and support for Putin's favorite narrative (that it was Ukraine not Russia that interfered in the 2016 election).Mark New York 2h ago@Mike It also took two acts of Congress to get the aid to Ukraine. Trump had nothing to do with it. Only the Impound Inclusion Act for foreign aid allows the President to time the release of the funds, which Trump did not follow. The Act was created because Nixon, like Trump, was playing fast and loose with our tax dollars. Who was the last President who asked for help from a foreign intelligence agency? Which President favored foregn intelligence agencies over his own? Answer no one other than Trump. If that doesn't show he's in someone's pocket, nothing does.
|
|
|
Feb 23, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca
Breakaway MPs hope that smearing Corbyn will obscure the fact that they are remnants of an old political order bankrupt of ideas
The announcement by seven MPs from the UK Labour Party on Monday that they were breaking away and creating a new parliamentary faction marked the biggest internal upheaval in a British political party in nearly 40 years, when the SDP split from Labour.On Wednesday, they were joined by an eighth Labour MP, Joan Ryan , and three Conservative MPs. There are predictions more will follow.
With the UK teetering on the brink of crashing out of the European Union with no deal on Brexit, the founders of the so-called Independent Group made reference to their opposition to Brexit.
The chief concern cited for the split by the eight Labour MPs, though, was a supposed "anti-semitism crisis" in the party.
The breakaway faction seemingly agrees that anti-Semitism has become so endemic in the party since Jeremy Corbyn became leader more than three years ago that they were left with no choice but to quit.
Corbyn, it should be noted, is the first leader of a major British party to explicitly prioritize the rights of Palestinians over Israel's continuing belligerent occupation of the Palestinian territories.
'Sickeningly racist'?
Luciana Berger (image on the right), a Jewish MP who has highlighted what she sees as an anti-Semitism problem under Corbyn, led the charge, stating at the Independent Group's launch that she had reached "the sickening conclusion " that Labour was "institutionally racist".
She and her allies claim she has been hounded out of the party by "anti-semitic bullying". Berger has suffered online abuse and death threats from a young neo-Nazi who was jailed for two years in 2016. There have been other incidences of abuse and other sentences, including a 27-month jail term for John Nimmo , a right-wing extremist who referred to Berger as "Jewish scum" and signed his messages, "your friend, the Nazi".
In an interview with the Jewish Chronicle, the former Labour MP said the Independent Group would provide the Jewish community with a " political home that they, like much of the rest of the country, are now looking for".
In a plea to keep the party together, deputy leader Tom Watson issued a video in which he criticised his own party for being too slow to tackle anti-Semitism. The situation "poses a test" for Labour, he said, adding: "Do we respond with simple condemnation, or do we try and reach out beyond our comfort zone and prevent others from following?"
Ruth Smeeth , another Jewish Labour MP who may yet join a later wave of departures, was reported to have broken down in tears at a parliamentary party meeting following the split, as she called for tougher action on anti-semitism.
Two days later, as she split from Labour, Ryan accused the party of being "infected with the scourge of anti-Jewish racism".
Hatred claims undercut
The timing of the defections was strange, occurring shortly after the Labour leadership revealed the findings of an investigation into complaints of anti-semitism in the party. These were the very complaints that MPs such as Berger have been citing as proof of the party's "institutional racism".
And yet, the report decisively undercut their claims – not only of endemic anti-semitism in Labour, but of any significant problem at all.
That echoed an earlier report by the Commons home affairs committee, which found there was "no reliable, empirical evidence " that Labour had more of an anti-semitism problem than any other British political party.
Nonetheless, the facts seem to be playing little or no part in influencing the anti-semitism narrative. This latest report was thus almost entirely ignored by Corbyn's opponents and by the mainstream media.
It is, therefore, worth briefly examining what the Labour Party's investigation discovered.
Over the previous 10 months, 673 complaints had been filed against Labour members over alleged anti-semitic behaviour, many based on online comments. In a third of those cases, insufficient evidence had been produced.
The 453 other allegations represented 0.08 percent of the 540,000-strong Labour membership. Hardly "endemic" or "institutional", it seems.
Intemperate language
There is the possibility past outbursts have been part of this investigation. Intemperate language flared especially in 2014 – before Corbyn became leader – when Israel launched a military operation on Gaza that killed large numbers of Palestinian civilians, including many hundreds of children.
Certainly, it is unclear how many of those reportedly anti-semitic comments concern not prejudice towards Jews, but rather outspoken criticism of the state of Israel, which was redefined as anti-semitic last year by Labour, under severe pressure from MPs such as Berger and Ryan and Jewish lobby groups, such as the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Labour Movement.
Britain's Witchfinders Are Ready to Burn Jeremy CorbynSeven of the 11 examples of anti-semitism associated with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition adopted by Labour concern Israel. That includes describing Israel as a "racist endeavour", even though Israel passed a basic law last year stripping the fifth of its population who are not Jewish of any right to self-determination, formally creating two classes of citizen.
Illustrating the problem Labour has created for itself as a result, some of the most high-profile suspensions and expulsions have actually targeted Jewish members of the party who identify as anti-Zionist – that is, they consider Israel a racist state. They include T ony Greenstein, Jackie Walker, Martin Odoni, Glyn Secker and Cyril Chilson .
Another Jewish member, Moshe Machover , a professor emeritus at the University of London, had to be reinstated after a huge outcry among members at his treatment by the party.
Unthinking prejudice
Alan Maddison , who has been conducting statistical research on anti-semitism for a pro-Corbyn Jewish group, Jewish Voice for Labour, put the 0.08 percent figure into its wider social and political context this week.
He quoted the findings of a large survey of anti-semitic attitudes published by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research in 2017. It found that 30 percent of respondents from various walks of society agreed with one or more of eight anti-semitic views, ranging from stereotypes such as "Jews think they are better than other people" to Holocaust denial.
However, lead researcher Daniel Staetsky concluded that in most cases, this was evidence of unthinking prejudice rather than conscious bigotry. Four-fifths of those who exhibited a degree of anti-semitism also agreed with at least one positive statement about Jewish people.
This appears to be the main problem among the tiny number of Labour Party members identified in complaints, and is reflected in the predominance of warnings about conduct rather than expulsions and suspensions.
Far-right bigotry
Another of the institute's findings poses a particular problem for Corbyn's opponents, who argue that the Labour leader has imported anti-semitism into the party by attracting the "hard left". Since he was elected, Labour membership has rocketed.
Even if it were true that Corbyn and his supporters are on the far-left – a highly questionable assumption, made superficially plausible only because Labour moved to the centre-right under Tony Blair in the late 1990s – the institute's research pulls the rug out from under Corbyn's critics.
It discovered that across the political spectrum, conscious hatred of Jews was very low, and that it was exhibited in equal measure from the "very left-wing" to the "fairly right-wing". The only exception, as one might expect, was on the "very right-wing", where virulent anti-semitism was much more prevalent.
That finding was confirmed last week by surveys that showed a significant rise in violent, anti-semitic attacks across Europe as far-right parties make inroads in many member states. A Guardian report noted that the "figures show an overwhelming majority of violence against Jews is perpetrated by far-right supporters".
Supporters of overseas war
So what is the basis for concerns about the Labour Party being mired in supposed "institutional anti-semitism" since it moved from the centre to the left under Corbyn, when the figures and political trends demonstrate nothing of the sort?
A clue may be found in the wider political worldview of the eight MPs who have broken from Labour.
All but two are listed as supporters of the parliamentary "Labour Friends of Israel" (LFI) faction. Further, Berger is a former director of that staunchly pro-Israel lobby group, and Ryan is its current chair, a position the group says she will hold onto, despite no longer being a Labour MP.
So extreme are the LFI's views on Israel that it sought to exonerate Israel of a massacre last year, in which its snipers shot dead many dozens of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza in a single day. Faced with a social media backlash, it quietly took down the posts .
The eight MPs' voting records – except for Gavin Shuker, for whom the picture is mixed – show them holding consistently hawkish foreign policy positions that are deeply antithetical to Corbyn's approach to international relations.
They either "almost always" or "generally" backed "combat operations overseas"; those who were MPs at the time supported the 2003 Iraq war; and they all opposed subsequent investigations into the Iraq war.
Committed Friends of Israel
In one sense, the breakaway group's support for Labour Friends of Israel may not be surprising, and indicates why Corbyn is facing such widespread trouble from within his own party. Dozens of Labour MPs are members of the group, including Tom Watson and Ruth Smeeth.
Smeeth, one of those at the forefront of accusing Corbyn of fostering anti-semitism in Labour, is also a former public affairs director of BICOM, another stridently pro-Israel lobby group .
None of these MPs were concerned enough with the LFI's continuing vocal support for Israel as it has shifted to the far-right under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to have stepped down from the group.
'Wrong kind of Jews'
Anti-semitism has taken centre stage in the manoeuvring against Corbyn, despite there being no evidence of significant hatred against Jews in the party. Increasingly, it seems, tangible abuse of Jews is of little interest unless it can be related to Corbyn.
The markedly selective interest in anti-semitism in the Corbyn context among the breakaway MPs and supposed anti-semitism watchdogs has been starkly on show for some time.
Notably, none expressed concern at the media mauling of a left-wing, satirical Jewish group called Jewdas when Corbyn was widely attacked for meeting "the wrong kind of Jews". In fact, leading Labour figures, including the Jewish Labour Movement, joined in the abuse .
And increasingly in this febrile atmosphere, there has been an ever-greater indulgence of the "right kind of anti-semitism" – when it is directed at Corbyn supporters.
A troubling illustration was provided on the TV show Good Morning Britain this week, when Tom Bower was invited on to discuss his new unauthorised biography of Corbyn, in which he accuses him of anti-semitism. The hosts looked on demurely as Bower, a Jewish journalist, defamed fellow Jewish journalist Michael Segalov as a " self-hating Jew " for defending Corbyn on the show.
Revenge of the Blairites
So what is the significance of the fact that the Labour MPs who have been most outspoken in criticising Corbyn – those who helped organise a 2016 leadership challenge against him, and those who are now rumoured to be considering joining the breakaway faction – are heavily represented on the list of MPs supporting LFI?
For them, it seems, vigorous support for Israel is not only a key foreign policy matter, but a marker of their political priorities and worldview – one that starkly clashes with the views of Corbyn and a majority of the Labour membership.
Anti-semitism has turned out to be the most useful – and damaging – weapon to wield against the Labour leader for a variety of reasons close to the hearts of the holdouts from the Blair era, who still dominate the parliamentary party and parts of the Labour bureaucracy.
Perhaps most obviously, the Blairite wing of the party is still primarily loyal to a notion that Britain should at all costs maintain its transatlantic alliance with the United States in foreign policy matters. Israel is a key issue for those on both sides of the Atlantic who see that state as a projection of Western power into the oil-rich Middle East and romanticise Israel as a guarantor of Western values in a "barbaric" region.
Corbyn's prioritising of Palestinian rights threatens to overturn a core imperial value to which the Blairites cling.
Tarred and feathered
But it goes further. Anti-semitism has become a useful stand-in for the deep differences in a domestic political culture between the Blairites, on one hand, and Corbyn and the wider membership, on the other.
A focus on anti-semitism avoids the right-wing MPs having to admit much wider grievances with Corbyn's Labour that would probably play far less well not only with Labour members, but with the broader British electorate.
As well as their enthusiasm for foreign wars, the Blairites support the enrichment of a narrow neo-liberal elite, are ambivalent about austerity policies, and are reticent at returning key utilities to public ownership. All of this can be neatly evaded and veiled by talking up anti-semitism.
But the utility of anti-semitism as a weapon with which to beat Corbyn and his supporters – however unfairly – runs deeper still.
The Blairites view allegations of anti-Jewish racism as a trump card. Calling someone an anti-semite rapidly closes down all debate and rational thought. It isolates, then tars and feathers its targets. No one wants to be seen to be associated with an anti-semite, let alone defend them.
Weak hand exposed
That is one reason why anti-semitism smears have been so maliciously effective against anti-Zionist Jews in the party and used with barely a murmur of protest – or in most cases, even recognition that Jews are being suspended and expelled for opposing Israel's racist policies towards Palestinians.
This is a revival of the vile "self-hating Jew" trope that Israel and its defenders concocted decades ago to intimidate Jewish critics.
The Blairites in Labour, joined by the ruling Conservative Party, the mainstream media and pro-Israel lobby groups, have selected anti-semitism as the terrain on which to try to destroy a Corbyn-led Labour Party, because it is a battlefield in which the left stands no hope of getting a fair hearing – or any hearing at all.
But paradoxically, the Labour breakaway group may have inadvertently exposed the weakness of its hand. The eight MPs have indicated that they will not run in by-elections, and for good reason: it is highly unlikely they would stand a chance of winning in any of their current constituencies outside the Labour Party.
Their decision will also spur moves to begin deselecting those Labour MPs who are openly trying to sabotage the party – and the members' wishes – from within.
That may finally lead to a clearing out of the parliamentary baggage left behind from the Blair era, and allow Labour to begin rebuilding itself as a party ready to deal with the political, social, economic and environmental challenges of the 21st century.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Jonathan Cook, a British journalist based in Nazareth since 2001, is the the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is a past winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His website and blog can be found at: www.jonathan-cook.net He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
|
|
|
Dec 09, 2019 | eastwestaccord.com
There is something to the idea that American political culture is becoming increasingly Sovietized, writes Weir .
This is becoming quite the meme. Upon reflection, I do think there is something in it. Not this idiotic suggestion that Repubicans have somehow morphed into borscht-swilling, shapka-wearing, Putin-loving Russkies. Indeed, there are hardly any actual Russians like that.
But there is something to the idea that American political culture is becoming increasingly Sovietized. Of course it's two separate camps, not a monolith, and the Democrats are at least as guilty as Republicans.
This article below inadvertently illustrates the obsession with malign foreign influences, like that which pervaded Soviet discourse and remains a bad smell in Russia to this day. Russians scoff at the idea that Putin is able to get his own man elected president of the US when he can't even fix the governor in Irkutsk. But the author of this piece implies that Putin is somehow pulling the strings, not only of Trump but all Republicans?
Another rapidly creeping Soviet trait is the weaponization of politics, turning any disagreement into an existential struggle, opponents into enemies, the way words like "treason" or "Russian asset" have become common coin. And they are not just deployed as simple insults: increasingly they have that "enemy of the people" ring to them. The growing prominence of the intelligence services in political life, and their alumni on cable TV news shows, is another worrisome trend to watch.
Also, it looks like big part of the media have become almost Pravda-like, making ideological mission their main priority. I spend some of my down-time perusing shows from Fox News and MSNBC, which an alien from outer space would think were the propaganda organs of two different, mutually-hostile states -- but both very Soviet-like.
... ... ...
THEATLANTIC.COM
The Russification of the Republican Party
GOP lawmakers used to oppose the president's embrace of Putin and the Kremlin. Not anymore.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/12/impeachment-republican-party-russia/603088/?fbclid=IwAR1EC0-CDBEx-3SMS1lJTMT2m0xVjfaguZehK4BIeZ5Bov41Ds1XFi_Cbkg
|
|
|
Dec 08, 2019 | consortiumnews.com
Retired Australian diplomat Tony Kevin, in conversation with former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, says the West is unnecessarily determined to undermine Russia. A t an event last week in Sydney, Kevin and Carr discussed how the West, led by the United States, has been on an aggressive campaign to destabilize Russia, without cause.
When Kevin said he returned to Russia after more than 40 years in 2016 he realized he "had to take sides" in the U.S.-Russia standoff when all Nato countries boycotted the Moscow celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
"I had to take a moral position that it is not right for the West to be ganging up on Russia," Kevin says in his conversation with the former Australian foreign minister.
The New Cold War can traced back to a broken promise made to Moscow on Nato expansion eastward. "London and Washington are orchestrating a disinformation" campaign today against Russia, as the New Cold War has heated up over Syria, Ukraine, NATO troops on Russia's borders and Russiagate.
Watch the hour-long in depth discussion which was filmed and produced by Consortium News' CN Live! Executive Producer Cathy Vogan.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/dJiS3nFzsWg?feature=oembed
ElderD , December 9, 2019 at 15:03
Tony's (especially!) and Bob's sane and sensible view of this dangerous and destructive state of affairs deserve the widest possible distribution and attention.
George McGlynn , December 9, 2019 at 13:27
A quarter century has passed since the fall of the Soviet Union, and little has changed. Cold War patterns of thinking about Russia show no sign of weakening in America. The further we distance ourselves from the end of the Cold War, the closer we come to its revival. Hostility to Russia is the oldest continuous foreign policy tradition in the United States. It is now so much of a part of America's identity that it is unlikely to be ever cured.
peter mcloughlin , December 9, 2019 at 10:45
It is a dangerous miscalculation to think the "New Cold War" will end like the first. Russia (the USSR) had a buffer zone then, it doesn't today. For Moscow the coming war (world war) will be about survival. All that is left is the fall-back position of nuclear deterrence doctrine – annihilation. I don't think western capitals see how perilous the situation is.
AnneR , December 9, 2019 at 07:48
The latest efforts at attacking Russia via smear, allegation and Doublespeak have been, are via that US supported supposed oversight committee, WADA which has done what the US-UK wanted: banned Russia for four years from international sporting events including the upcoming Tokyo Olympics and World Cup (Football – soccer to Americans).
Then there were allegations – of those "highly likely" (therefore one knows to be untrue and unadulterated propaganda to increase Russophobia) sort – about Russian hackers (always giving the impression that the "Kremlin" is behind itl) being the Labour Party's source of the Tory party's US-UK trade deal which would/will deliberately and finally destroy the NHS and replace it with (of course) US "health" insurance company profiteering.
(Always the Tory intention from the NHS's initiation in May of 1948; only its popularity among many Tory party supporters among the working and lower middle classes prevented them from a full-frontal killing off the NHS; the Snatcher's government began the undermining, via installing a top-heavy bureaucratization, siphoning off a sizable proportion of the funds that would otherwise have gone to medical care, demanding that hospitals not "lose" money – a concept completely beyond the remit of the NHS as originally conceived and constructed and like exactions.)
Then there are snide remarks about the meeting today concerning the Ukrainian Azov (Neo-Nazi) attacks on the Donbass (NOT how either the BBC or NPR speaks of this of course) in France. This struggle, between the Russian-speaking Donbass peoples and the neo-Nazis of western Ukraine, has killed many thousands of people (most likely mostly those of the Donbass). The Donbass fighters are spoken of as "Russian-supported" in an attempt to deny them and the reasons for their struggle *any* legitimacy (meanwhile the support for the neo-Nazis goes unmentioned, leaving the listener with the impression that they are the Ukrainian military, thus legitimately fighting a foreign funded and manned insurgency).
Someone even suggested that President Putin needed to be diplomatic. Really? From what I've read the man is the most diplomatic and intelligent politician (not just political leader) along with Xi Jinping and the Iranian government that exist on the world stage. None of them are hubristic, solipsistic, eager beaver killers of peoples in other countries. Unlike their western "world" political counterparts.
Jeff Harrison , December 8, 2019 at 18:30
Mad Dog Mattis spoke the truth when he said that an opponent wasn't defeated until they agreed they were defeated. The US merely assumed that Russia agreed that they were defeated and are doubling down when they now suddenly realize that Russia never said any such thing.
St. Ronnie's whole thing back in the 80's was to outspend Russia militarily and it worked well. We're trying to do it again but Russia isn't playing the same game this time and now it is the US that has a mountain of debt and Russia that doesn't. SIPIRI tags US military spending at $650B and Russian military spending at $62B. But we know that the $650B number is bogus because it doesn't include our in-violation-of-the-NNPT nuclear program which is in the energy department or our veteran's expenses which are in HHS. I don't know what's missing from Russia's $62B but I'll bet they can sustain that a whole lot better than we can sustain our $650B and rising bill.
Antonio Costa , December 9, 2019 at 13:17
Good point regarding Russia's downsizing the Soviet Union. From Gorbachev to Putin there was NEVER a surrender, intended in any way. The intent has been multilateral partnerships. For Russia the US/West won nothing at all except the opportunity to live and work in peace. (By the way this policy has a long Russian history.)
They gave up the Warsaw Pact and America with our worthless "word" expanded NATO.
The US foreign policy has lost even the semblance of sanity. Our naked aggression is clear as never before, a mad man throwing a global fit armed with megaton nuclear projectiles on trigger first strike alert. What could go wrong?
nondimenticare , December 8, 2019 at 15:56
If, magically, Consortium News/CN Live! were a mass-distribution network/magazine (hence universally consulted), allowing the light in for the mass of the viewing and listening public, it could change the world – both an exalting and despairing thought.
Lily , December 8, 2019 at 09:52
It is a great joy to listen to this conversation!
I am really sick of the smearing of Russia done by the US and UK. The Skripal as well as the MH17 case are plain ridiculus. Anybody can see through these silly plants. US and UK obviously don't feel obliged to respect any international rules any more. (The one person who is suffering most at the moment from the decline in respect is Julian Assange, an Australian citizen!)
I wish people would have the courage to break away from the group pressure originated by a nation which has been started by killing more than 90% of the indigenous people in their country and since then has turned the worl into a very insecure place.
Chapeau, Tony Kevin! Thanks to Bob Carr and Consortiums News.
Lily , December 9, 2019 at 01:18
It seems that some facts are beginning to be realized in the military department.
www(dot)zerohedge(dot)com/geopolitical/pentagon-alarmed-russia-gaining-sympathy-among-us-troops
Bob Van Noy , December 8, 2019 at 09:22
Simply, wonderful
OlyaPola , December 8, 2019 at 07:43
Words are catalysts of connotations and connotations are functions of expectations/framing..
Some conflate cause with purpose thereby limiting perception of cause and purpose.
Some understand that causation is interactive and in any lateral system the genesis of causation is difficult to determine.
Some understand that evaluation is a function of purpose and that purpose can be evaluated through such portals into wonderlands such as "What is the "United States of America" and how is it facilitated?"
As thumb-nailed in the comments section of the article Capitalism's suicidal trajectory – OlyaPola
December 6, 2019 at 07:46"From 1922 onwards the strategic purpose of the Soviet Union was to defend the Soviet Union not global domination, whereas the purpose of the "West" has always been global domination. "
From 1922 onwards various tactics have been attempted by the "West" to facilitate their purpose, including attempts at "Orange revolution" in many areas which catalysed many lateral trajectories including the process of transcendence of the "Soviet Union" by the Russian Federation in the period from 1991 to 2005.
Consequently Mr. Suslov's observation re war of "The United States of America" can be extended into present times and hence no "New cold war" exists.
""What is the "United States of America"
An initial step through the portal is that "The United States of America" is – a regime of social relations to facilitate its purpose – the social relations not being restricted to the "nation state" presently self designated "The United States of America" but including classes in other "nation states".
Consequently alternative purposes and social relations pose an existential threat to "The United States of America"; this being perceived of lesser significance in regard to "The Soviet Union" and greater in regard to the Russian Federation.
JOHN CHUCKMAN , December 8, 2019 at 07:30
"At an event last week in Sydney, Kevin and Carr discussed how the West, led by the United States, has been on an aggressive campaign to destabilize Russia, without cause."
The American establishment's problem with Russia is simply that Russia is the only country on earth capable of obliterating the United States. Not even China has yet reached that capacity.
"Carthago delenda est"
Skip Scott , December 9, 2019 at 06:13
There is "cause." Russia was our latest vassal under Yeltsin. Putin stopped the looting, and worked to benefit average Russian citizens. Just watch "The Magnitsky Act, behind the scenes" to know the "cause".
Bruno DP , December 8, 2019 at 02:34
The West is ganging up on Russia? Replace "West" by "United States of America", and I will agree.
Much of the West (i.e. Germany) has been dragged by force into damage control mode. The Magnitsky Act monster, the election interference hysteria, are just 2 crying examples met with shock and disbelief across the pond. The Fiona Hill testimony was a very telling moment for the inner workings of a self perpetuating logic.
Russia is no lightweight by any means, and not always friendly.
But it has regularly done the right thing in international conflicts which the Kremlin seems to understand better than all of "the Western" intelligence combined.
Martin Schuchert , December 8, 2019 at 17:33
I'm German, living in the US, and I agree with your comment. I especially love the last two sentences:
"Russia is no lightweight by any means, and not always friendly.
But it has regularly done the right thing in international conflicts which the Kremlin seems to understand better than all of "the Western" intelligence combined."
|
|
|
Dec 08, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,
A Newsweek journalist has resigned after the publication reportedly suppressed his story about the ever-growing OPCW scandal, the revelation of immensely significant plot holes in the establishment Syria narrative that you can update yourself on by watching this short seven-minute video or this more detailed video here .
"Yesterday I resigned from Newsweek after my attempts to publish newsworthy revelations about the leaked OPCW letter were refused for no valid reason," journalist Tareq Haddad reported today via Twitter .
"I have collected evidence of how they suppressed the story in addition to evidence from another case where info inconvenient to US government was removed, though it was factually correct," Haddad said.
"I plan on publishing these details in full shortly. However, after asking my editors for comment, as is journalistic practice, I received an email reminding me of confidentiality clauses in my contract. I.e. I was threatened with legal action."
Haddad added that he is now seeking legal advice and looking into the possibility of whistleblower protections for himself, and said at the very least he will publish the information he has while omitting anything that could subject him to legal retaliation from his former employer.
"I could have kept silent and kept my job, but I would not have been able to continue with a clean conscience," Haddad said .
"I will have some instability now but the truth is more important."
This is the first direct insider report we're getting on the mass media's conspiracy of silence on the OPCW scandal that I wrote about just the other day . In how many other newsrooms is this exact same sort of suppression happening, including threats of legal action, to journalists who don't have the courage or ability to leave and speak out? There is no logical reason to assume that Haddad is the only one encountering such roadblocks from mass media editors; he's just the only one going public about it.
Newsweek has long been a reliable guard dog and attack dog for the US-centralized empire, with examples of stories that its editors did permit to go to print including an article by an actual, current military intelligence officer explaining why US prosecution of Julian Assange is a good thing, fawning puff pieces on the White Helmets , and despicable smear jobs on Tulsi Gabbard .
The outlet will occasionally print oppositional-looking articles like this one by Ian Wilkie questioning the establishment Syria narrative , but not without immediately turning around and publishing an attack on Wilkie's piece by Eliot Higgins, a former Atlantic Council Senior Fellow who is the cofounder of the NED-funded imperial narrative management firm Bellingcat.
Newsweek also recently published an article attacking Tucker Carlson for publicizing the OPCW scandal, basing its criticisms on a bogus Bellingcat article I debunked shortly after its publication .
The ubiquitous propagandistic tactic of fake news by omission distorts the public's worldview just as much as it would if mass media outlets were publishing bogus stories whole cloth every day, only if they were doing that it would be much easier to pin them down on their lies, hold them accountable, and discredit them.
A recent FAIR article by Alan MacLeod documents how the Hong Kong demonstrations are pushed front and center in mainstream consciousness despite the fact that to this day not one protester has been killed by security forces, while far more deadly violence is being directed at huge protests in empire-aligned nations like Haiti, Chile and Ecuador which have been almost completely ignored by these same outlets.
This deliberate omission causes a distorted worldview in casual and mainstream news media consumers in which protests are only happening in nations that are outside the US-centralized power alliance . We see the same kind of deliberate distortion-by-omission with the way mass media continually pushes the narrative that Donald Trump is "soft on Russia", while remaining completely silent on the overwhelming mountain of evidence to the contrary .
The time is now for everyone with a platform to start banging the drum about the OPCW scandal, because we're seeing more and more signs that the deluge of leaks hemorrhaging from that organisation is only going to increase. Mainstream propagandists aren't going to cover it, so if larger alternative media outlets want to avoid being lumped in with them and discredited in the same sweep it would be wise to start talking about this thing today. It's only going to get more and more awkward for everyone who chose to remain silent, and more and more validating for those who spoke out.
* * *
Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website , which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported , so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following my antics on Twitter , checking out my podcast on either Youtube , soundcloud , Apple podcasts or Spotify , following me on Steemit , throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal , purchasing some of my sweet merchandise , buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone , or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers . For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I'm trying to do with this platform, click here . Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I've written) in any way they like free of charge.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
|
|
|
Dec 05, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
During yesterday's impeachment hearing at the House House Judiciary Committee one of the Democrats' witnesses made some rather crazy statements. Pamela Karlan, a Stanford law professor, first proved to have bought into neo-conservative delusions about the U.S. role in the world:
America is not just 'the last best hope,' as Mr. Jefferies said, but it's also the shining city on a hill. We can't be the shining city on a hill and promote democracy around the world if we're not promoting it here at home.As people in Bolivia and elsewhere can attest the United States does not promote democracy. It promotes rightwing regimes and rogue capitalism. The U.S. is itself not a democracy but a functional oligarchy as a major Harvard study found:
Economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.But worse than Karlan's pseudo-patriotic propaganda claptrap were her remarks on the Ukraine and Russia:
This is not just about our national interests to protect elections or make sure Ukraine stays strong and fights the Russians so we don't have to fight them here , but it's in our national interest to promote democracy worldwide.That was not an joke. From the video it certainly seems that the woman believes that nonsense.
For one the Ukraine is not fighting "the Russians". The Kiev government is fighting against east-Ukrainians who disagree with the Nazi controlled regime which the U.S. installed after it instigated the unconstitutional Maidan coup. Russia supplies the east-Ukrainians and there were a few Russian volunteers fighting on their side but no Russian military units entered the Ukraine.
But aside from that how can anyone truly believe that the Ukraine "fights the Russians so we don't have to fight them here"? Is Russia on the verge of invading the United States? Where? How? And most importantly: What for? How would that be in Russia's interest?
One must be seriously disturbed to believe such nonsense. How can it be that Karlan is teaching at an academic level when she has such delusions?
And how is it in U.S. interest to give the Ukraine U.S. taxpayer money to buy U.S. weapons? The sole motive behind that idea was greed and corruption , not national interest:
[U.S. special envoy to Ukraine] Volker started his job at the State Department in 2017 in an unusual part-time arrangement that allowed him to continue consulting at BGR, a powerful lobbying firm that represents Ukraine and the U.S.-based defense firm Raytheon. During his tenure, Volker advocated for the United States to send Raytheon-manufactured antitank Javelin missiles to Ukraine -- a decision that made Raytheon millions of dollars.The missiles are useless in the conflict . They are kept near the western border of Ukraine under U.S. control. The U.S. fears that Russia would hit back elsewhere should the Javelin reach the frontline in the east and get used against the east-Ukrainians. That Trump shortly held back on some of the money that would have allowed the Ukrainians to buy more of those missiles thus surely made no difference.
To claim that it hurt U.S. national interests is nonsense.
It is really no wonder that U.S. foreign policy continuously produces chaos when its practitioners get taught by people like Karlan. In the Middle East as well as elsewhere Russian foreign policy runs circles around U.S. attempts to control the outcome. One reason it can do that is the serious lack of knowledge and realism in U.S. foreign policy thinking. It is itself the outcome of an educational crisis. U.S. 'political science' studies implement a mindset that is unable to objectively recognize the facts and fails to respond to them with realistic concepts.
The Democrats are doing themselves no favor by producing delusional and partisan witnesses who repeat Reaganesque claptrap. They only prove that the whole affair is just an unserious show trial.
In the meantime Trump is eliminating food stamps for some 700,000 recipients and the Democrats are doing nothing about it. Their majority in the House could have used the time it spent on the impeachment circus to prevent that and other obscenities.
Do the Democrats really believe that their voters will not notice this?
Posted by b on December 5, 2019 at 15:40 UTC | Permalink
Mischi , Dec 5 2019 15:45 utc | 1
next page " never underestimate the stupidity of people. Even professors.bevin , Dec 5 2019 15:56 utc | 2This is the woman that Common Dreams describes as a leading legal scholar. And maybe she is, it would certainly help explain the current state of the US Judiciary and the legal system, which reflects internally the utter contempt for law and custom which characterises US behaviour in international affairs.DG , Dec 5 2019 15:56 utc | 3The same bs argument about "not fighting the Russians here" was used a couple of weeks ago by another witness, Tim Morrison. This shows you that the hysteria is bipartisan...Duncan Idaho , Dec 5 2019 16:00 utc | 4History is not a strong point for the Dims., as it conflicts with ideology. The Repugs just loot and plunder, with little regard for history.oldhippie , Dec 5 2019 16:00 utc | 5There is a large cohort of Americans who believe every word the professor spoke. Whatever you and I may think about it the professor's view of the world is normative for the educated class in America.rednest , Dec 5 2019 16:02 utc | 6Regarding those food stamps, it is actually just a small rule change lowering the unemployment rate to 6% (from 10%) above which a state can waive the existing work requirement for single, non-disabled recipients aged 18-49. States can still also waive it if they deem that job availability is low.Likklemore , Dec 5 2019 16:13 utc | 7Attributed to Mark Twain. Perhaps the learned professor karlan may affirm: "Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."Tick Tock , Dec 5 2019 16:18 utc | 8AND Ukraine wishing to join NATO: well, not so fast for Hungary. Hungary says it will block Ukraine from joining NATO over controversial language law
Budapest has signaled that it will not support Ukraine's bid to join NATO until Kiev reverses a law that places language restrictions on ethnic Hungarians and other minorities living in the country.Legislation that limits the use of Hungarian, Russian, Romanian, and other minority languages in Ukraine must be repealed before Hungary backs Ukraine's NATO membership, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Wednesday.
"We ask for no extra rights to Hungarians in Transcarpathia, only those rights they had before," Szijjarto told Hungarian state media at a NATO summit in London. He alleged that 150,000 ethnic Hungarians living in the region have been "seriously violated" by Ukraine.[.]
In February, Ukraine's parliament ratified amendments to the constitution which made NATO membership a key foreign policy objective. However, a number of hurdles still remain before its membership is likely to be seriously considered. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker predicted in 2016 that it would be 20-25 years before Ukraine would be able to join NATO and the EU.
I don't believe that the so called "Professor's View" is normative for the educated class of Americans. It is the normative view of the Ivy League pseudoeducated individuals that have been placed in leadership positions in the US Goverment and Politics but they are not EDUCATED in any way. Karlan is almost certainly a Jew. She is without a doubt a whore who will do anything for her John as directed by her pimp.Jackrabbit , Dec 5 2019 16:18 utc | 9Being a brain dead feminist helps her with that role in life. I had an ex wife who fought me post divorce for 10 years trying to destroy me in any way she could. She finally stopped with the Breast Cancer she had for 7 of those years finally killed her. I see the same psychotic, sociopathic and off scall narcissitic behavior in every one of these women in politics and academics today. So don't think that something will get better without a terminal solution.
Americans are entranced by the kayfabe (mock combat). Just as in wrestling it is designed to look 'real' but just keeps people engrossed in the action, unable to think of what they are NOT being told.vk , Dec 5 2019 16:19 utc | 10People must free themselves of partisan affiliations that are just levers used to manipulate them.
The establishment uses Democracy Works! propaganda to give you a false sense of power and security. But the people are an afterthought in US/Western politics. The politicians and their Parties work for the money. Much of that money comes from AIPAC, MIC, and other EMPIRE FIRST organizations that are leading us to WAR.
Lazy Americans must get off the couch and form protest Movements. Movements that the establishment works hard to prevent. This is what it takes: France Paralyzed By Largest General Strike In Decades .
It's messy and inconvenient but power only responds to power.
The stoopid cult-thinking must stop. This is where it leads: Buffalo Bishop Resigns Over Sex Abuse Cover-Up . Why do people cling to a corrupt Catholic Church? It's NOT just a few bad apples!! The pedophilia and cover-ups have been worldwide and reach into the highest levels of the Church.
This Buffalo Bishop, like dozens of other Bishops in the last decades, lied to cover for pedophiles and then used the power of his position to remain in his position. His wasn't for the children or any higher morality but for himself. He will get a nice, peaceful retirement - paid for by the deluded Catholic flock.
!!
Bart Hansen , Dec 5 2019 16:21 utc | 11In the meantime Trump is eliminating food stamps for some 700,000 recipients and the Democrats are doing nothing about it.The reason for that if very simple: the Democrats agree with Trump on this.It's the same question many ask when studying Roman History for the first time: where were the legions when the Goths invaded? The answer is that the Goths were the legions, there was no invasion.
The same logic applies to the Right-Left political spectrum in modern Western Democracies. "Where are the lefties?" is the modern question the first worlders ask themselves since 2008.
--//--
As for the Pamela Karlan thing, it's an issue I've been commenting on here for some time now, so I won't repeat everything.
I'll just say again that imbecilization is a completely normal historical phenomenon in declining empires: the earlier example we have is the Christianization of the Roman Empire after Marcus Aurelius' death. The rise of Christianity was the messenger of the Crisis of the Third Century, the historic episode which ended the Roman Empire by giving birth to its demented form after the Diocletian Reforms.
Empires tend to have a very plastic conception of truth, that is, they believe they can fabricate reality for the simple reason they are geopolitically dominant.
It's easy to visualize this. The greatest philosopher of the end of the 18th Century and beginning of the 19th Century was a German, not a British. While Hegel wrote his proto-revolutionary works which would pave the way to Karl Marx, in UK we had the likes of Mackinder and Mahan dominating British philosophical thinking. And even then they weren't the dominant intellectual figures: the UK was the land of accountants and economists, not philosophers. The reason for this is that neither Hegel nor Marx had any ships to do gunboat diplomacy in Asia, as the British did.
Empires tend to think and rationalize the world in a much more plastic/practical way than the periphery. As the old saying goes: the stronger side doesn't need to think before it acts.
Bill H , Dec 5 2019 16:32 utc | 12"...make sure Ukraine stays strong and fights the Russians so we don't have to fight them here"Is this 2019 or 2003?
"In the meantime Trump is eliminating food stamps for some 700,000 recipients and the Democrats are doing nothing about it."Likklemore , Dec 5 2019 16:37 utc | 13Bill Clinton took millions off of welfare support and was applauded for it.
Scroll down the page @ Steven Cheung {VID} on Twitter to watch this exchange where the RATS are told they are the ones who have abused power. Professor Jonathan Turley, a lawyer's go-to-Constitutional Expert:Mischi , Dec 5 2019 16:39 utc | 14"The Record does not establish corruption in this case - no bribery, no extortion, no obstruction of justice, no abuse of power."
Trump should include Prof. Turley on his legal team. The RATS have not thought this through to what will unfold in the Senate. A real court trial; No hearsay and no! no! no! "I was made aware" And the Bidens, Schiff, and Pelosi under cross-examination. And the Whistleblower!!!
Year 2025 it is.
I used to think that stupid was a characteristic of the American right. It took Donald Trump getting elected to see that stupid knows no political borders. Seriously. I thought that education and progressive thinking also led to a clarity of thought. Boy, was I wrong. The most pro-war people in the USA seem to be Democrats. Bizarro world.Vonu , Dec 5 2019 16:40 utc | 15Her delusions are a prerequisite for teaching at an academic level.Chevrus , Dec 5 2019 16:47 utc | 16james , Dec 5 2019 16:52 utc | 17To "...make sure Ukraine stays strong and fights the Russians so we don't have to fight them here"This predates 2003 and stems from the red menace days when it was the communist legions would behave like a set of dominoes and eventually we (USA) would be fighting them in the streets of New York etc. Thus it was imperative that they defeat the commies in French Indo-China despite the fact that they could easily have simply bought the nation by supporting Uncle Ho who had been working for the OSS during WW2. But no, they had to win brownie points with the French by bankrolling their effort to retake the nation and when that didn't work a little "false flag" event employed to keep the ball rolling. I use quotations because while being false, the Tonkin Gulf event wasn't much of a flag.....
At any rate the fact that both Demublicans AND Republocrats are falling back on such antiquated rhetoric is bitterly laughable! It can also be seen as an indicator of just how dumbed down the USAn populace has become. As noted above article, how could anyone think that the RF would plan much less attempt an attack on the continental US?! A closer look at recent history has the US and it's poodles surrounding the RF with missile bases, sanctioning and embargoing the fhaak out it, and generally trying to destroy the nation as a whole with whatever clandestine methods are available. But hey, take a page from the book of Cheney: deny everything and make counter accusations.....
thanks b... propaganda is the usa's education... see your breakdown of the nyt articles... most people don't get this...james , Dec 5 2019 16:55 utc | 18The military industrial complex is in the people of usa's interest.. they think they benefit from the rayatheons, lockheed martins, boeings and etc - as they have relatives working at these places... the usa is one sick puppy, and Pamela Karlan, a Stanford law professor is just further proof of this... sorry if someone else said what i did, as i didn't read the comments yet..
wikipedia on pamela karlan.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_S._KarlanPerimetr , Dec 5 2019 16:56 utc | 19"Throughout her career, Karlan has been an advocate before the U.S. Supreme Court.[10] She was mentioned as a potential candidate to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter when he retired in 2009.[11]
Personal life
Karlan told Politico in 2009, "It's no secret at all that I'm counted among the LGBT crowd".[12] She has described herself as an example of a "snarky, bisexual, Jewish women".[13] Her partner is writer Viola Canales.[14]
she is not an American women apparently.. she is a Jewish women.. oh well, lol...
The fact that the "papers of record" have become mouthpieces for the CIA/deep state has played a huge role in the brainwashing of academia and the rise of neoliberalism. The false narratives these "trusted sources" of information have been serving up create a very real Matrix, a false reality that is ingrained into those who rely upon them for their daily "news". Karlan is merely repeating what she accepts as truth, garnered from the NY Times and Wash Post, CNN, NPR, etc.Believe me, even here in the red states, you won't find a hell of a lot of faculty members at large universities who are Trump supporters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsL6mKxtOlQ
Lorenz , Dec 5 2019 16:56 utc | 20
What I find absent in most discussions about impeachment of Trump is the 800 pound gorilla - what will happen to the US if against all odds, Trump gets impeached. Could the US survive that cataclysmic event or would it rip the empire apart? What contingency plans does everybody make for that unlikely, but not impossible singularity?Dave , Dec 5 2019 17:00 utc | 21"In the meantime Trump is eliminating food stamps for some 700,000 recipients and the Democrats are doing nothing about it. Their majority in the House could have used the time it spent on the impeachment circus to prevent that and other obscenities."Piotr Berman , Dec 5 2019 17:02 utc | 22That's why it's called bread and circus. The loot and pillage party's two separate funding arms get their funding and privilege from the same sociopath/psychopaths who operate the mass murder for profit economy we now live in.
They will continue the slaughter until the enforcers within society finally understand they work for criminally insane cultists who will never have enough money, power, and prestige.
I see that distrust to everything that is good and decent is extended to law professors. Stanford is a short (if sometimes slow) ride from Berkeley that has a more famous professor in its own law school (Wiki):[you knowpsychohistorian , Dec 5 2019 17:15 utc | 23John Choon Yoo (born July 10, 1967)[4] is a Korean-American attorney, law professor, former government official, and author. Yoo is currently the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.[1] Previously, he served as the Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) of the Department of Justice, during the George W. Bush administration.
He is best known for his opinions concerning the Geneva Conventions that attempted to legitimize the Bush administration's War on Terror. He also authored the so-called Torture Memos, which provided a legal rationale for so-called [you know what] =====
First, they torture logic... The ignorants who could not tell tollens from a toilet brush would not even know what to twist, hence the need for professors.
@ b who wrotePiotr Berman , Dec 5 2019 17:15 utc | 24"The U.S. is itself not a democracy but a functional oligarchy as a major Harvard study found:"
My only quibble with another great post is the assertion that the US is functional. Functional would mean it had supportive infrastructure but instead we have homeless shitting in the street because they are driven out of the parks to do so and they must be bad people that don't deserve public toilets.
Functional would mean, as Jackrabbit linked to above, and a I i did a few hours ago in the Weekly Open Thread, that there wouldn't be 117 sexually abusive Catholic priests in the Buffalo NY area doing the same thing as Epstein was doing to his clients.
Functional would mean we would not have the blatant hypocrisy Chervus quoted from the posting above
"To "...make sure Ukraine stays strong and fights the Russians so we don't have to fight them here"
I agree with Chervus that this is same BS that got us the Iron Curtain with Russia after WWII because they wanted Godless communism instead of global private finance. And also, as I ranted recently in the Open Thread, this gave us the 1950's change to the US Motto to In God We Trust which gets back to the control of the obfuscatory/hypocrisy narrative telling us that the private finance cult are doing God's work and that "competition is good/sharing is bad"
The US is dysfunctional on purpose to keep the masses under control and dumbed down/brainwashed
Ha! More connections to Stanford: "Ancient Logic: Forerunners of Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.Ant. , Dec 5 2019 17:17 utc | 25BTW, it is totally lost on the entirety of Western establishment that you cannot make Ukraine strong (wouldn't we all love to see strong Ukraine?) while wrecking its economy by encouraging policies like spending 5% of GDP on the military, switching to more expensive energy sources, cutting itself from traditional markets and supplies, replacing with rather worthless "cooperation" agreement with a trading block that is neither particularly interested in trading with Ukraine (Ukraine strongest exports are in surplus within EU) nor inclined to subsidize it (budgets are tights and plenty of recent EU members are in dire needs already)
I think it's tragic that that creatures like Karlan are not simply seen as the blatant bigots and Nazi's that they are. You have to be wearing a large set of blinkers not to be able to see that.steven t johnson , Dec 5 2019 17:27 utc | 26Unfortunately this is endemic in the western world. 'Democracy' seems to consist of dumbing down the population as much as possible, and telling them what they have to think so the self-anointed leaders of society can have their way (both those in front, and behind the scenes). I'm far from certain this is a recipe for success.
The biggest tragedy is that Americans seem to think that the only way to succeed is to tear down any other country that isn't essentially a puppet government, necessarily defining them as 'enemies', and therefore someone/thing that must be hated and destroyed, by any means, fair or foul.
Russians and Chinese in particular, and BRICS/SCO in general, are showing the way. The countries involved have very different political systems, but they understand that co-operation is much more beneficial than constant conflict. Unless, of course, a quarter of your government tax income is dedicated to supporting an amazingly corrupt Military-Industrial-Intelligence Complex.
Trump supporters approve of cutting food stamps. The majority of Democratic Party politicians approve of cutting food stamps. Both parties agree times are good and the future is rosy. The only thing they disagree on is foreign policy. The guy who couldn't even win the election (and merely fluked in on a technicality that undermines all progress since 1788,) refuses to play by the rules on foreign policy. And he is not justified by success, not in any terms, not in making peace, not in winning, not in anything. The only people who are upset about impeaching Trump are Trump lovers and cranks who think being president is like being elected God and no one but sinners can defy Him.Russ , Dec 5 2019 17:37 utc | 27The Trump supporters were going to turn out for him anyway, barring an economic crisis even they couldn't ignore. Impeachment has no downside so long as it is from the right, and doesn't rile up the rich people. Except the rich donors are leaving the Democratic Party anyway. The strategy for a nicey-nice campaign that leaves enough Trump voters soothed enough to sit it out has one enormous defect: Trump was not elected by the people anyhow.
But the Democratic Party politicians are anti-Communist, which means pro-Fascist, so yes, they do see this as (im)moral principles to die for, though they hope to politically kill for it. Their problem is, Trump is also anti-Communist and pro-Fascist, which everyone knows, which means Trump was merely his office for campaigning. That may be hypocritical and a violation of campaign laws. But in the eyes even of the anti-Communist/pro-Fascist population missiles for Ukrainian fascists with strings or without strings is merely a tactical disagreement. Even worse, the president breaking laws is perceived as strong leadership, smashing the machine, getting rid of those awful politicians and their oppressive government.
This is a typical example of the stupidity and often dementia of most of the highly educated. Especially those in academia, who exist in a funhouse hall of propagandist and ideological mirrors. But it's true of the educated in the general. I personally know plenty of highly educated people who make themselves more stupid and mentally ill by the day by uncritically reading the NYT and watching CNN.mrr52 , Dec 5 2019 17:42 utc | 28I don't know why anyone would expect anything different. All system schooling at whatever level boils down to the same two goals:
- Instill the basic literacy necessary for a given cog position within the hierarchy.
- Instill obedience to authority, including indoctrination into its ideology.
From kindergarten to grad school these are the same; whether one's being trained to pump gas or to assume a high position in the corporate world/government/academia these are the same.
So it's no wonder that an elite Stanford law professor is in practice the exact same stupid, ignorant, deranged yahoo as you could easily find in a trailer park, just with better manners and diction.
That's the American system.
"One must be seriously disturbed to believe such nonsense. How can it be that Karlan is teaching at an academic level when she has such delusions?"Russ , Dec 5 2019 17:46 utc | 29I assume this question was meant rhetorically. After all, Karlan's Russia comment would receive enthusiastic thumbs up from at least Biden, Obama, W. Clinton, H. Clinton, Rubio, Klobuchar, Pelosi, Warren, Graham, Buttigieg, Romney, the late McCain, Pompeo, Bolton, Mattis...the list goes on and on.
For a related, institutionalized, revolting example packaging multiple instances of such delusional thought, see "russias-dead-end-diplomacy-syria" . Have a pail nearby to catch the spew.
steven t johnson 26Jackrabbit , Dec 5 2019 17:47 utc | 30"The guy who couldn't even win the election (and merely fluked in on a technicality that undermines all progress since 1788,)"
I don't think you ever answered when I asked you last time: Are you saying you think Hillary was so stupid she didn't know about the electoral college, and that it was electoral votes she had to fight for, not popular ones? Because if you're not saying that, then nothing is changed: Trump beat Hillary in the electoral fight they were both trying to win. It's pure nonsense to babble about "technicalities".
And if any significant Democrat faction was saying throughout 2016, and not just after the election, that the election should NOT be about electoral votes, please direct me to where and when they were saying that, because I don't recall ever hearing it. And I think the reason I never heard it was because the Dems were so smugly sure of electoral college victory. And if Hillary had won, we never would've heard a word from you or anyone else about the electoral college.
Piotr Berman @24:casey , Dec 5 2019 17:48 utc | 31it is totally lost on the entirety of Western establishment that you cannot make Ukraine strong while wrecking its economyIt's even worse than that. The economy will never recover while oligarchs have a stranglehold on economic activity and government. And USA's capitalist dementia ensures that will never change. (The West as a whole is headed in the direction of unabashed oligarchic rule.)Why would anyone invest in Ukraine? Sometimes I think Putin was happy for the Western coup to succeed and simply planned to keep the best parts.
!!
But do they really believe what they (the mid-level elites) say or is it all some kind of theater of the increasingly absurd? I am never clear on who among the narrative managers is sincere and who is simply acting sincere. Are people like this woman or the Bellingcat narrative managers or any of their numerous colleagues in their mid-level narrative management positions occupying their positions simply due to their acting abilities? They seem to be both delusional and ill-informed. When these people get together at their conferences and dinner parties, does the mask come off?juannie , Dec 5 2019 17:49 utc | 32Mischi #1vk , Dec 5 2019 18:02 utc | 33never underestimate the stupidity of people. Even professors.Or as I think it was Einstein that reportedly said: (I paraphrase from memory)
To truly understand the infinite, just contemplate human stupidity.Related news (on the subject of "American delusion"):Jackrabbit , Dec 5 2019 18:03 utc | 34Well, mr. Stephens kind of tells the truth on the headline. But at least he could be more polite.
casey @31: When these people get together ... does the mask come off?Really?? , Dec 5 2019 18:25 utc | 36I doubt it. They have convinced themselves that they are right and/or are following the wishes of people who are right-thinking. In USA, most people are brainwashed to assume that people with lots of money are right-thinking (as in: they must be doing something right!).
Upton Sinclair:
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.!!
Wasn't the "so we won't be fighting them here" meme used also to justify the Iraq invasion and the War on Terror?karlof1 , Dec 5 2019 18:31 utc | 38Upton Sinclair self-published a book in 1922 about education in America entitled Goose Step . Predating the infamous era of the Nazi/Fascist Goose Stepping thugs then armies, I read a preview and found an inexpensive copy. The subject as might be assumed was about the use of school systems to indoctrinate young Americans at all educational levels and nationwide to conform to the views of the rather few wealthy people who sat on interlocking boards that controlled curriculum--sort of like the oligarchic control over media today.Beibdnn , Dec 5 2019 18:40 utc | 42And as we've seen with the study of political-economy, the ability to erase rather recent developments and personages and inserting false doctrines and their priests was done rather easily and with little noted protest. And so it's gone on down through the decades until today--just look at the War Criminals hired by Stanford and other universities for proof of its being an ongoing problem.
That ideological blinders are omnipresent is easily proven by the various defense planning documents referenced here over the last several years, all of which relate to the unilateral, might makes right mindset that's one of the Evil Outlaw US Empire's longstanding traits that predates the 20th Century. Too many will never learn humility and the reality accompanying it until it's enforced. But there's a wiser group residing within the Empire, some of us present at this bar ready to deal with the mess once humpty-dumpty falls from its perch upon which it's currently tottering.
I just looked up Pamala Karlan. Apparently there is a story that when she was a baby she was so ugly her parents had to put shutters on her pram. She claims to have a partner? There's no accounting for taste I suppose but even for a U.S. citizen there must be a red line. Somewhere? someone! As to her intellectual prowess, in my limited understanding, intellect depends on the platform it rests upon. Put a Jaguar engine into a Mobility scooter and see how well that performs. Plenty of power but no means of utilising it. Logical mechanisms such as law require as little emotion as possible. People like her just bring the demise of a great nation into action sooner rather than later. I suppose we should be grateful such fools consider Russia an adversary, it's makes predicting what comes next much more clear and succinct action can be instigated. Professor Pamela Karlan. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.james , Dec 5 2019 18:58 utc | 44@29 russ...steven is making himself look like a fool regularly with that crap.. oh well..nwwoods , Dec 5 2019 19:19 utc | 45@36 really? yes, indeed.. same faulty logic one would expect from a stanford law prof.. as @22 piotr rightly notes - john yoo, the freak who could make torture in abu graib okay is another one cut from the very same cloth..
i see one of Pamela Karlans comments got the ire of melania trump.. article here..
"The Constitution states that there can be no titles of nobility. So while the president can name his son Barron, he can't MAKE him a baron." Pamela S. Karlan
"A minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics. Pamela Karlan, you should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously biased public pandering, and using a child to do it." -- Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) December 4, 2019
Karlan apologized for her remark as the hearing continued late Wednesday. "It was wrong of me to do that,'' she said, according to the Associated Press. "I do regret it."
Universally accepted fact among the devoted is that "America is fighting Russia in the Ukraine", though there are exactly zero confirmed reports of Russian troops in the region in the past five years.Joost , Dec 5 2019 19:22 utc | 46Many of the dumbest people I met were university students or graduates. They are thought to absorb information as given, reproduce once, forget. They are not trained to question anything, they follow a narrative. Some even denounced everything they ever learned and became a follower of some religion, which is just another narrative.I remember one student dorm in particular. Someone came in and decided it was too warm. Put the central heating thermostat on "arctic winter", opened all doors and windows while it was freezing outside. Then someone else came in and decided it was cold, closed all doors and windows, put the thermostat on "incinerate". Repeat 24/7. The few times I tried to explain how a thermostat works, I felt like being rubbed out of existence. Only one guy understood that you set a room thermostat at a comfortable level and it would regulate to desired temperature. He was an alcoholic, always stoned up to his eyeballs, not a student except for the 3 or 4 studies he briefly tried and failed, and had given up on life in general. He was also the only one there who questioned things.
Yevgeny , Dec 5 2019 19:36 utc | 51!!
Why assume that democracy was not always a trick? Pax Romana anyone?Trailer Trash , Dec 5 2019 19:39 utc | 52Also there are some pretty nasty comments on here about the confused professor that say a whole lot more about the hangups of the poster.
I've seen Jonathan Turley on TV a number of times. He always seemed to be a person of integrity. One needs to add courage to the list after testifying against impeachment on the presented "evidence". I will be very surprised to see him on PBS or CBS ever again. Their news readers are nearly giddy with excitement about impeachment. They never consider what could happen if Trump is convicted but refuses to leave the White House. Then what?chet380 , Dec 5 2019 20:07 utc | 54--------- The food stamp program changes will kill people. As intended. One of the most affected groups will be people who are too sick or otherwise too impaired to work, and maybe unable to even leave their home, but still can't get social support. The system says there is no problem because desperate people can get a free meal on Thanksgiving and Christmas. For the other 363 days a year, go find a dumpster to dive in.
Almost all Social Security Disability applicants are denied on the initial application. There are no interim payments or support of any kind. Many give up, as intended. The rest file appeals and wait years for a hearing before an "administrative law judge", who is not a "real" judge, but just some lawyer with fancy title.
ALJ decisions tend to be rather arbitrary, so a favorable decision depends on which ALJ hears a case. Sure there are more levels to appeal, and many more years of no social support, if an applicant can find a way to survive for years on zero income, all the while being sick with probably no medical care.
Social Security and disability lawyers have colluded to keep lawyers in business. Social Security requires the use of a standard contract that gives the lawyer a fixed percentage of the retroactive benefits. "Retroactive benefits" are the regular monthly benefits that accrue from the officially determined "date of disability". So if it takes three years to get benefits, the lawyer gets a nice chunk of change for a few hours work writing a brief and showing up for the hearing.
The lawyer who signed my contract did nothing to help my case, and he even hired someone else to write the brief and attend the hearing. One wonders if ALJs get some benefit from lawyers to encourage long wait times, since long wait times increase lawyer profits at zero cost.
The US system really is that cruel and barbaric. It would be kinder to take us out back and shoot us, but that's too obvious. Much better to let people die slowly in the shadows so the rest of society doesn't have to see us.
And I'm one of the fortunates who managed to hang on, despite bankruptcy, a civil suit, the disability benefits process (only took six years), and state attempts to revoke Medicaid, all at the same time. I know it sounds melodramatic, made up, or at least exaggerated. That's understandable, because it seems that way to me, too!
About 1000 people a week kill themselves in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. Does anyone wonder why, or even notice? The reason for many of these deaths is the lack of social supports. In Uncle Sam Land, social apoptosis is a feature, not a bug.
Did anyone really expect the Dems to appoint unbiased legal scholars to advise them on the finer legal points of the Articles of Impeachment?Kooshy , Dec 5 2019 20:10 utc | 55This fucking shining city on the hill, is so f*ing shiny that it's flames is burning the world.steven t johnson , Dec 5 2019 20:11 utc | 56Russ@29 forgot the comments where I've reviewed exactly how everybody rejected the Electoral College, holding legitimacy came from winning the real election. Until Gore, every time the EC violated the expectation that it was a technical way of recording the popular vote, there was justified outrage. Bush's camp in 2000 had plans to contest an EC loss, until that shoe turned out to be on the other foot. If Trump had won the popular vote and lost the Electoral College, he would no more accept the results. Only liars take refuge in the simplistic legalisms. And only Trump ass-lickers are so contemptible as to pretend Trump was the stable genius who outplayed Clinton in the real game. Trump had no more idea how to win the EC without winning the popular vote than anyone else. Further, by the witless pretended principles of Russ' ilk, a presidential candidate who managed to win faithless electors who ignored even their own states' pluralities* would still be the legitimate president! Every single defender of Trump the one legitimate president is witless and worthless.steven t johnson , Dec 5 2019 20:13 utc | 57But very likely the real objection to the response is the insistence that Trump isn't magically guaranteed re-election because...well, the real reason is slavish devotion to a God named Trump. Even with the advantage of incumbency this time around, with even more support from the wealthy (the people who have really turned away from the Democratic Party to favor political gangsterism,) Trump is likely to lose the election again. If I were in Congress I would offer a compromise, where the Republicans were assured Trump would not be investigated any more, much less impeached, for abolition of the Electoral College. But I think Trump would say no, because he knows deep down he's a loser.
*US politicians rarely win majorities of the electorate. Politicians of all stripes have agreed that non-voting is always to be deemed as "Satisfied" with either choice instead of "Alienated, with no choice." Decent people suspect otherwise.goldhoarder , Dec 5 2019 20:23 utc | 58@38 Karloff1 You can still Read the late John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education online. He did a great job highlighting the history and purpose of copying the Prussian style of education to replace the one room school houses and instill the "martial spirit" in the American public. I have to hand it to the Oligarchs of old too. They were very effective in their implementation.nietzsche1510 , Dec 5 2019 20:31 utc | 60[malformed/wrong link deleted - b.]
Karlan type of academics is scattered all over the US universities. They are the Academia´s gatekeepers, watching over & "spotting" of our future leaders. the majority of them are claptraps selling jingoism to our youth in order to fulfill the Judeo-Zionist agenda.Trailer Trash , Dec 5 2019 20:39 utc | 61I knew that name sounded familiar...Jen , Dec 5 2019 21:15 utc | 66John Taylor Gatto, former New York City and New York State teacher of the year, stated:The truth is that schools don't really teach anything except how to obey orders; and John Holt concluded, School is a place where children learn to be stupid . . . Children come to school curious; within a few years most of that curiosity is dead, or at least silent.
I recall when I was a student at the University of Technology, Sydney, way back in the Mesozoic era (1980s), the economics dept there had a lecturer there with a Harvard University background so the staff made him head of the department. Just because he had a Harvard University PhD. He was hardly a great administrator and the subjects he taught (compared with other lecturers' subjects) were much less structured. Of course this meant the courses he taught were easier on students' time and energy, though if you made use of the opportunity a less structured course gave, you could turn in an end-of-term essay with impressive research equivalent to the level required of a post-grad.ac , Dec 5 2019 21:34 utc | 68The university also had an exchange program with the University of Oregon, and most of the Oregon students who came to UTS (usually in their second or third year) found the UTS coursework very heavy-going and difficult.
In those days, UTS was only supposed to be a second-tier university in Australia.
This hearing is a theatre performance (kabuki -- hey, I learned a new word, thanks) and PK's lines are an invocation of the official US myth (the shinning city on the hill, the exceptional, indispensible nation). No one in the room took that seriously or literally (especially PK herself) and IMHO these national myths are not really anything to freak out about - every nation has got its myth, and this is an arrogant one, but compared to a few others it's almost likeable.information_agent , Dec 5 2019 22:08 utc | 70Of course it is at odds with historical records and the reality, but all of them are, because, frankly, the truth, being descendants of genocidal, religious nutters and slavers, is apparently very motivational -- in the KSA...
The RU/UK lines are slightly more worrisome, but that's just a matching background for her story - the fluff. She doesn't have to belive it - it's just a performance, an elegant one but meaningless in the end.
A lot of the visitors comment about the deep state, most of the time mentioning three letter agencies. Here comes a piece about a four letters one, acting more or less in the plain sight: OIRA, E.O. 12866
A group of virtually anonymous, unaccountable people wields quite considerable power over both legislative and executive. A very interesting construction...
Posted by: nietzsche1510 | Dec 5 2019 21:03 utc | 65psychohistorian , Dec 5 2019 22:31 utc | 71You hit the nail on the head. Karlan's loyalty is to her tribe, not this nation. That's the crux of almost every major problem and injustice we're suffering from in this country, from private prisons to Wall Street looting to endless foreign wars to censorship. There is one group of people behind it with a very bad track record in terms of how they treat their host nations. I wonder when we will finally get our act together and become the 110th country to expel them.
And Goldhoarder, while you may not mind how your posts look, you've managed to damage this comment thread and until b deletes your poorly structured post, we all suffer for it.
@ Posted by: Lochearn | Dec 5 2019 21:51 utc | 72 who seems to disagree with my concept "dysfunctional on purpose" and wants to use decadence instead and wrote: " Surely there must be some functionality to be able to keep the masses dumbed down/brainwashed; it implies some sort of thought out strategy. How do we get the same narrative trotted out in media in exactly the same format from LA to Warsaw, from Lima to Bangalore if it's all so dysfunctional? "Ian2 , Dec 5 2019 23:07 utc | 75I posit that strategy of "dysfunctional on purpose" is control of the narrative and language and it is purposefully used.
Consider the current seeming understanding of the terms, socialism and capitalism by many of your fellow barflies. Many of our fellow barflies would have one believe that China is socialist and the West is capitalist...exclusively. I and a few others keep trying to point out that both China and the West are, to varying degrees mixed economies, including aspects of both socialism and capitalism
Consider the implicit definition of government if you will. Is government, as compared to dictatorships, not explicitly socialistic? Are not the provision of water, sewage treatment and in many case electricity explicitly socialistic by definition? Is it not dumbing down and brainwashing that many don't understand reality but spout the words and concepts they are fed by those in control of the narrative and media pushing it?
And, not to make too fine a point of it, does all of the West not live under the dictatorship of global private finance at this time? So how much more would I get ignored if I beat that drum as part of my comments here?
Lorenz | Dec 5 2019 16:56 utc | 20:Really?? , Dec 5 2019 23:07 utc | 76IF Trump is removed from office then the war on Lebanon and Iran would be accelerated. Israel will likely go for all the marbles and annex the last remaining Palestinian holdings. Some here believe this couldn't happen but we all live in bizarro world now.
Also, don't expect the Electoral College to oust Pence after the general election since he's more pro-war; even the electors from Democrat controlled states would support him. IMHO, the US would continue on; business as usual.
However, if the Democrats are crazy enough to follow through, the Republican dominated Senate would reject it. Basically a repeat of what happened to Clinton. In the end, nothing changed.
James #44Jen , Dec 5 2019 23:21 utc | 80""It was wrong of me to do that,'' she said, according to the Associated Press. "I do regret it.""
Ya but . . .as Tucker Carlson spot-on reacted, that comment sure looked as though it had been rehearsed in front of the bathroom mirror. It was sooooo lame!!! I mean, it was obvious (on the video) that Karlan really thought she was (wait for it! It's on the way) landing a very clever bon mot!
It is a small thing, yet it speaks volumes about the spirit of this clearly clueless human being (and others of her ilk), and her handlers, who must have cleared this little gotcha for prime time. Been up on the podium too long, bleating to students who can't/don't bleat back! No common sense.
Never a connection with a child, I'll bet, or she could never have said such a thing. Painful to look at the pinched little face, decent hairdo missing in action, with the rant coming out of the tight little mouth. A pathetic individual.
Ditto Noah Feldman from the Felix Frankfurter Dept of the Harvard Law School: Pure bloviation with skin like a baby's bottom. Better coiffed, actually, than Karlan. Quels types!!!
Jackrabbit @ 68:oldhippie , Dec 6 2019 0:18 utc | 87My comment @ 67 was actually just to highlight the (most undeserved) reputations that places like Harvard and Stanford have among certain faculties in Australian universities. In those days Stanford, Harvard and MIT were the holiest of holy shrines to do business studies / economics degrees. Years later I read a book by someone who actually did do a Stanford MBA and the scales fell from my eyes then. The work was similar to what I'd done as an undergraduate (albeit collapsed in the space of 18 months; I had the luxury of doing part-time and then going full-time as a student).
I should have added that the Harvard PhD guy who taught me comparative economics was a lousy teacher as well as a lousy administrator. I visited his office once and it looked as if a tornado had just hit it. To be fair though, he really wasn't cut out to be a lecturer, he was much better at research and analysis.
Before he became a lecturer, he worked at the CIA as a researcher. He knew next to no German (he was of Polish background) so he was assigned to the section to read East German newspapers. A fellow he knew who could speak and read German but no Bulgarian was assigned to the ... Bulgarian section. That experience must account for my lecturer's sloppy personal style.
But now that you draw my attention to the link, yes you are right that the study was done at Princeton University.
@81Jen , Dec 6 2019 0:27 utc | 88Why do you assume a technical illiterate could read those instructions? I can't even begin to do anything with that. It is never simple enough for those who have not been initiated.
HTML works by magic. Your instructions do not convince me otherwise.
Better solution is to forgo links altogether if not competent. Or spell out the link and force the really interested to transcribe. Of course no one is going to go to effort of spelling out a link as long as that one above. Which would be a good thing.
She's been gone some time now (she died in April 2018) but Karen Dawisha , a so-called expert on Russian and post-Soviet politics who obtained a higher degree at the London School of Economics, was another deluded academic twat who wrote the book "Putin's Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia?"ak74 , Dec 6 2019 2:14 utc | 98The 1-star, 2-star and 3-star reviews on Amazon.com of the book refer to the tabloid quality of many of the claims in the book, poor sourcing, cherry-picking of facts and the author's inability to write at a level that would attract a readership outside the academic community.
The least we can say for her is that she is no longer in a position to, erm, "advise" the US and UK governments on issues and help formulate policy that would backfire on Washington and London anyway.
As the great wise man, Frank Zappa proclaimed about the USA: "Politics/government is the entertainment division of the Military-Industrial Government." American politics makes much greater sense (and is a hell of a lot more entertaining) if you understand this truism.Gal , Dec 6 2019 2:19 utc | 99US Presidential Debates and impeachment hearings are a swell occasion for drinking games. Every time a political hack, media shill, or academic invokes some variant of American Exceptionalism, take a shot of your favorite alcoholic beverage. You will be drunk within half an hour--guaranteed!
I'd say unbelievable but I know that is only wishful thinking on my part. What's scary is that these people populate the "educational" system which explains why we're as screwed as we are.
|
|
|
Dec 08, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Here is a congealing conventional wisdom around sending military assistance to Ukraine that is as absurd as can be, and it cropped up again this morning:
"Fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" was extremely stupid when applied to terrorism. It is much more stupid when applied to Russia, and shows how impoverished the FP thinking of even bright, engaged Americans is. My goodness.
-- Justin Logan (@JustinTLogan) December 4, 2019
It is discouraging to see that one of the dumbest talking points from the Bush era has returned. "Fight them there" was always a silly justification for waging unnecessary wars in other countries, and now it is being repurposed to justify the questionable policy of throwing weapons at a conflict in Europe. When it was used in the context of Bush-era wars, it was an attempt to make what were clearly wars of choice seem as though they were unavoidable. When a government needs to defend a bad policy, it will usually claim that they have no choice but to do what they are doing.
When Bush and his allies used this rhetoric, they were trying to spin a war of aggression as an act of self-defense. Now it is part of an even more ludicrous effort to make supplying weapons and other military assistance to Ukraine seem as if it is vitally important to the U.S. Simply put, this is propaganda, and it isn't even very good propaganda at that.
I have written many times why I think it is a mistake to arm Ukraine. It just encourages escalation at worst and the prolongation of the conflict at best. Until recently, the arguments in favor of doing this have not been very compelling, but at least they weren't quite so mindless. Needless to say, Russia's conflict with Ukraine is a local one, and the U.S. doesn't have much at stake in that conflict. Ukrainians aren't fighting Russia and its proxies on our behalf or to prevent them from attacking someone else, but for the sake of their own country.
If Russia hawks insist on providing Ukraine with weapons and other assistance, they should at least be able to acknowledge that this is a peripheral interest of the United States. Exaggerating the importance of this policy to U.S. security just calls attention to how little it matters to U.S. security.
Obviously, we aren't going to be fighting the Russians "here" no matter what happens in this conflict. These are the sorts of irrational claims that we get after decades of irresponsible threat inflation and mistakenly assuming that every conflict in the world is somehow our business.
|
|
|
Dec 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Jackrabbit , Dec 5 2019 19:25 utc | 47
"You're A Damn Liar": Biden Lashes Out At 'Fat' Voter Over Hunter-Burisma Question, Challenges To Push-Up ContestIf this exchange wasn't a set-up then I'll eat my MAGA hat*.
This bubbling "fat guy" comes with FOX News talking points and Joe Biden mops the floor with him. Not only denouncing the question, but insulting the questioner. I like the majestic (IMO pre-arranged) touch: "let him talk". Oh so respectful - yet seconds later he insults the questioner!! LOL.
Anyone that dares to ask about Hunter Biden after this will be dismissed by Biden who will say that the question's been asked and answered and he's being hounded by Trump partisans.
This exchange reminds me of the set-up between Trump and Acosta at the Presidential New Conference , which we discussed at moa at the time.
* Just kidding. I don't own a MAGA hat.
|
|
|
Dec 07, 2019 | www.unz.com
Never in the history of America, probably never in the history of any country, had there been such open and direct control of governmental activities by the very rich. So long as a handful of men in Wall Street control the credit and industrial processes of the country, they will continue to control the press, the government, and, by deception, the people. They will not only compel the public to work for them in peace, but to fight for them in war. -- John Turner, 1922
|
|
|
Dec 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
ilsm -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 01, 2019 at 02:19 PM
Calling Trump 'Putin's boy' brings up coup tactics used by Birchers when Truman fired MacArthur!RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to ilsm... , December 01, 2019 at 02:54 PMBrookings tools (Mr. Vindman (I have silver leaves Vindman does not fit) , Fiona Hill, Holmes eavesdropping....) pleading to Schiff that Trump ain't their kind of 'Murekan empire builder.
Making up "charges", hearsay evidence, hiding DNC US #resistance corruption, despise the constitution, hide behind it and patriotism...... define democracy and who is 'patriotic'. All the trappings of Mao and Hitler before they took over.
"...Making up 'charges', hearsay evidence, hiding DNC US #resistance corruption, despise the constitution, hide behind it and patriotism...... define democracy and who is 'patriotic'. All the trappings of Mao and Hitler before they took over."ilsm -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 01, 2019 at 04:47 PM
[Funny (NOT) that they say the same thing about Trump. Your adversaries and yourself would all make better lampshades or bars of soap than you do citizens.Democracy has never been more than an illusion, sometimes just an allusion, particularly though in modern republican times. Leaders have all too rarely been patriotic aside from maybe George Washington, who largely despised the representative government that he had made. TJ did not exactly fall in love with the US Congress either. In these times the political class and their pet sycophants are more idiotic than patriotic.]
One bone: the coup #resistance despises the "office of the president" more than they (swamp trolls like Schiff's tool Vindman) disdain deplorables and the US constitution.Paine -> Paine ... , December 01, 2019 at 06:37 AMIt is a constitutional thingie in my view going back to the Henry Luce media and Birchers/McCarthy (the ragings over "who lost Chiang's fiefdom in China?") going after anyone who they described wrongfully in most cases as "subversives".
I believe that Washington was like Ike as to taking up the executive office.
Eric Finer in an effort to unearth this buried historyanne -> Paine ... , December 01, 2019 at 07:24 AMCalls congressional reconstruction
A second founding of the republicReconstruction like the new deal
Ended by producing its opposite
BUT we progressive spirits
still rightly honor the eraSimilarly
Jacksonianism by some of us not poisoned
By identity pol anachronismsAnd Jeffersonianism
Despite far greater identity transgressionsWhy not radical republicanism ?
"Eric Foner" in an effort to unearth this buried historyCalls Congressional Reconstruction
A second founding of the RepublicReconstruction like the New Deal
Ended by producing its opposite
[ Please be careful in spelling names, and set down where the specific reference is. This will be important, if a reference is set down. Also, further explanation when possible would be helpful. ]
|
|
|
Dec 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
JohnH -> kurt... , December 04, 2019 at 07:49 AM
What an idiot! "it is obvious that Russia is calling the shots." This lunacy is beyond what even Joe McCarthy could have imagined.RC (Ron) Weakley -> JohnH... , December 04, 2019 at 09:59 AMI doubt that it was imagination that characterized Joe McCarthy's behavior, but with friend kurt then imagination appears to be in full blossom. Joe McCarthy was just an opportunistic scoundrel crassly impersonating a concerned patriot as a pure political convenience for attacking the left in general with specific intentions on casting a specter of fear over all New Deal loyalists. He weaponized socialist sympathizers against FDR's legacy. Remember that it was socialist sentiments that gave rise to FDR and his New Deal. It seemed only fair to Joe that those same sentiments be used to cover FDR in his grave.JohnH -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 04, 2019 at 01:37 PMA good definition of a politician: "an opportunistic scoundrel crassly impersonating a concerned patriot as a pure political convenience.JohnH -> kurt... , December 04, 2019 at 02:57 PM"Patriotism is usually the refuge of the scoundrel." Mark Twain
The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!Incredible paranoia, reminiscent of the 1980s, when the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse!
|
|
|
Dec 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
JohnH -> anne... , December 06, 2019 at 03:53 PM
Charges of anti-Semitism against Corbyn are highly suspect. From what I can see, they all stem from Corbyn's remarks supporting Palestinian rights in the face of the Israeli government's institutionalized racism and oppression of Palestinians.likbez -> JohnH... , December 07, 2019 at 01:53 AMIf Bernie were not Jewish, there would have been an enormous smear campaign against him for exactly the same reasons.
Charges of anti-Semitism against Corbyn are highly suspect. From what I can see, they all stem from Corbyn's remarks supporting Palestinian rights in the face of the Israeli government's institutionalized racism and oppression of Palestinians.Yes. This is clearly one of the most dirty tricks played by UK Israel lobby, if we talk about Corbin. Baseless charge of anti-Semitism became a political smear, the way to destroy political opponent.
Much like charge of "Putin stooge" in the USA. And Russophobia is very similar to Anti-Semitism, if you think about it. It serves as a kind of politically correct anti-Semitism.
|
|
|
Dec 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
JohnH -> anne... , November 28, 2019 at 03:46 PM
Stephen Cohen (one of the few pundits who actually knows something about Russia:)ilsm -> JohnH... , November 29, 2019 at 09:19 AM"Almost daily for three years, Democrats and their media have told us very bad things about Donald Trump's life, character, and presidency. Some of them are true. But in the process, we have also learned some lamentable, even alarming, things about the Democratic Party establishment, including self-professed liberals. Consider the following:
The Democratic establishment is deeply and widely imbued with rancid Russophobic attitudes. Most telling was (and remains) a core "Russiagate" allegation that "Russia attacked American democracy during the 2016 presidential election" on Trump's behalf -- an "attack" so nefarious it has often been equated with Pearl Harbor. But there was no "attack" in 2016, only, as I have previously explained, ritualistic "meddling" of the kind that both Russia and America have undertaken in the other's elections for decades. Little can be more phobic than the allegation or belief that one has been "attacked by a hostile" entity. And yet this myth and its false narrative persist in the Democratic Party's discourse, campaigning, and fund-raising.
We have also learned that the heads of America's intelligence agencies under President Obama, especially John Brennan of the CIA and James Clapper, director of National Intelligence, felt themselves entitled to try to undermine an American presidential candidacy and subsequent presidency, that of Donald Trump. Early on, I termed this operation "Intelgate," and it has since been well documented by other writers, including Lee Smith in his new book. Intel officials did so in tacit alliance with certain leading, and equally Russophobic, members of the Democratic Party, which had once opposed such transgressions. This may be the most alarming revelation of the Trump years: Trump will leave power, but these self-aggrandizing intelligence agencies will remain.
We also learned that, contrary to Democratic dogma, the mainstream "free press" cannot be fully trusted to readily expose such abuses of power. Indeed, what the mainstream media -- leading national newspapers and two cable news networks, in particular -- chose to cover and report, and chose not to cover and report, made the abuses and consequences of Russiagate allegations possible. Even now, exceedingly influential publications such as The New York Times seem eager to delegitimize the investigation by Attorney General William Barr and his appointed special investigator John Durham into the origins of Russiagate. Barr's critics accuse him of fabricating a "conspiracy theory" on behalf of Trump. But the real, or grandest, conspiracy theory was the Russiagate allegation of "collusion" between Trump and the Kremlin, an accusation that was -- or should have been -- discredited by the Robert Mueller report.And we have learned, or should have learned, that for all the talk by Democrats about Trump as a danger to US national security, it is their Russiagate allegations that truly endanger it. Consider two examples. Russia's new "hyper-sonic" missiles, which can elude US missile-defense systems, make new nuclear arms negotiations with Moscow imperative and urgent. If only for the sake of his legacy, Trump is likely to want to do so.But even if he is able to, will Trump be entrusted enough to conduct negotiations as successfully as did his predecessors in the White House, given the "Putin puppet" and "Kremlin stooge" accusations still being directed at him?"
https://www.thenation.com/article/inconvenient-truths-2/
The Russia thingie/falsehoods are part of corrupt demrats assault on the US constitution. They are even now predicting their loss in 2020 due to "interference" and people wanting to know how corrupt the DNC [front running] select has been!RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to ilsm... , November 30, 2019 at 08:31 AMDemrat allies in the shadow revolving door government of neocon humbug factories are denouncing Trump for his ignoring their war mongering imperial objects.
"...assault on the US constitution..."RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to JohnH... , November 30, 2019 at 08:26 AM[Adding assault to injury? The US Constitution was damning enough on its own. What are they thinking inside the deep state apparatus? Don't they know that power and privilege is reserved for holders of wealth by the US Constitution? Who do they think that they are really working for?]
Friend ilsm may be less nuts than it appears, but friend ilsm is not less incomprehensible than it appears. Would it be out of place to thank you for ilsm's sake?kurt -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 02, 2019 at 04:52 PMOur two-party system was largely useless after FDR, but our two-party system has been largely destructive since 1968. Let me know if anything really changes.
It isn't our two party system - it is one of the two parties contained within. The "both sides" are bad is both demonstrably not accurate (with some exceptions that prove the rule) and requires ignoring the shattered norms of the last 10 years that came from only one side. Mitch McConnell is the most dangerous person in America. Trump and Pence are just useful idiots. But Trump is also corrupt and dangerous because he doesn't believe he is constrained by anything. And Mitch keeps proving him right.RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to kurt... , December 03, 2019 at 07:00 AMThe cause goes back as far as Truman with roots all the way back to our nation's founding on the shoulders of slaves and a trail of tears, but "the shattered norms of the last 10 years that came from only one side" were the inevitable effect of a failed political system. When the US government has no obvious external enemies and imminent threats then it must manufacture them from within to maintain a meaningful commanding presence. Otherwise the government would be tasked with solving our nation's social and economic problems, which would be both costly and far too complicated for simple self-absorbed minds.kurt -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 04, 2019 at 10:00 AMI disagree. What the problem is now is that non-whites and women have taken some power - and in fact may be able to displace the white christian patriarchy (actually, I think as long as we can hang onto a free and fair democracy this is inevitable) and the white christian patriarchy is trying to rule from the minority via fascism and authoritarianism.RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to kurt... , December 04, 2019 at 10:31 AMI could almost understand this obsession had you never left Indiana, presumably Indianapolis or somewhere similar, but unlikely Gary. There is greater diversity in the US than just what you have seen. Every picture tells a story, and it is a different story for each.RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 04, 2019 at 10:34 AMOverall the common ground that moves everyone everywhere is money, which in some cases is just a proxy for power and in other cases is a means to material satisfaction. If one already has power, then purchase can be had in reverse, money for power instead of power for money.kurt -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 04, 2019 at 05:01 PMThis is a great explaination of why we need 1. independent regulatory agencies with power, 2. white collar crime enforcement 3. rule of law and most of all 4. an independent judiciary that is not overrun by ideologues and theocrats who ignore the first amendment wholesale.JohnH -> kurt... , December 06, 2019 at 03:44 PMIt would have been nice if Obama has demonstrated his concern for the rule of law by frog marching banksters to Rikers, closing Guantanamo, and prosecuting CIA torturers.kurt -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 04, 2019 at 01:50 PMBut kurt is only concerned with the rule of law when his party is not in power typical partisan hack.
I have been to every state except Alaska and have lived in the North East, Southwest, Midwest, South and California. My comment was about power structures - and the patriarchy of white supremacy and christianity. I am well aware of the diversity. Heck - I even lived next to the Great Checkerboard for 3 summers.
|
|
|
Dec 06, 2019 | www.msn.com
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden acknowledged it "may have looked bad" for his son to serve on the board of foreign companies, but the former vice president stood firm that his son did nothing wrong.
... ... ...
When asked by Telemundo if it was wrong -- even if legal -- for Hunter Biden to take the board seat, Joe Biden doubled down on defending his son."There's nothing asserted that he did anything that was illegal," Joe Biden said. "Here's what I'm not going to do. I'm not going to -- and I know you're not intending to do this -- play the game to take the eye off the culprit."
|
|
|
Dec 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Contained within a 300-page report on the Democrats' impeachment investigation was a startling admission; House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) had obtained call records between Rep. Devin Nunes, Rudy Giuliani, Ukraine intermediary Lev Parnas, and journalist John Solomon .
In response, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) said "It raises a lot of serious questions," before demanding to know what Schiff was up to." I want to know all the people Adam Schiff is spying on ," Schiff told the Washington Examiner . "Are there other members of Congress that he is spying on, and what justification does he have? He needs to be held accountable and explain what he's doing, going after journalists, going after members of Congress, instead of doing his job."
The records showed calls between Nunes and President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and calls between Nunes and Lev Parnas , a Giuliani associate now under indictment for funneling foreign money to U.S. political candidates.
Schiff said the calls raise questions about whether Nunes was involved in what Democrats believe was a scheme to undermine Trump's political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. - Washington Examiner
On Tuesday, Schiff said "I find it deeply concerning at a time when the president of the United States was using the power of his office to dig up dirt on a political rival, that there may be evidence of members of Congress complicit in that activity ."
Nunes says he doesn't recall speaking with Parnas, and that any discussions with Giuliani would have likely revolved around the Mueller report.
"I remember talking to Rudy Giuliani, and we were actually laughing about how Mueller bombed out," Nunes told Fox News on Tuesday. Democrats claim that the Nunes call records reveal that he's been coordinating with the Trump administration and Giuliani to go after former Vice President Joe Biden, who has been credibly accused of corruption in Ukraine involving his son Hunter.
Democrats have been critical of Nunes since his tenure as the House Intelligence Committee chairman from 2017 to 2019. During that time, Nunes made a trip to the White House to inform Trump his transition meeting messages were intercepted by U.S. intelligence.
"I always felt that Mr. Nunes was a dividing character," Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey told the Washington Examiner . "We know of his meetings with the president, which he had every right to do by the way. But in the peculiar position he was in, it was obvious where he was getting his orders and how he proceeded. And I think he's going to get what's coming to him."
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said "there are serious questions" about the calls between Nunes and Giuliani and Parnas. He said Democrats "need to look at them and see what action ought to be taken, if any."
Hoyer declined to say whether it would be in the form of a House ethics investigation or a punitive House floor measure.
"I want to have input from other people before I opine on what we ought to be doing. I will be doing that," he said. - Washington Examiner
The call record produced by House Democrats also reveal calls in late April between Lev Parnas and journalist John Solomon, a previous columnist for The Hill who has broken several bombshell stories regarding the Russia investigation and the Bidens.
"I'm interested in why he was doing this," said Scalise of Schiff. "And under what authority."
|
|
|
Oct 08, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com
Economist's View
I have a new column:JohnH : October 07, 2016 at 09:10 AM , October 07, 2016 at 09:10 AM... ... ...
Donald Trump has promised to make deregulation one of the focal points of his presidency. If Trump is elected, the trend toward rising market concentration and all of the problems that come with it are likely to continue.
We'll hear the usual arguments about ineffective government and the magic of markets to justify ignoring the problem.
If Clinton is elected, it's unlikely that her administration would be active enough in antitrust enforcement for my taste. But at least she acknowledges that something needs to be done about this growing problem, and any movement toward more aggressive enforcement of antitrust regulation would be more than welcome.
"We'll hear the usual arguments about ineffective government" which has been amply demonstrated during the last 7 years by negligible enforcement of anti-trust laws.supersaurus -> JohnH... October 07, 2016 at 10:05 AM , October 07, 2016 at 10:05 AMOnce again we have a stark 'choice' in this election...one party who won't enforce existing laws and another who will just get rid of them. Like flipping a coin: heads, the predator class wins; tails, we lose.
Vote third party to register your disgust and to open the process to people who don't just represent the predator class.
"Vote third party to register your disgust..." and waste the opportunity, at least in a few states, to affect the national outcome (in many states the outcome is not in doubt, so, thanks to our stupid electoral college system, millions of voters could equally well stay home, vote third party, or write in their dog).JohnH -> JohnH... , Friday, October 07, 2016 at 04:32 PMThomas Frank: "I was pleased to learn, for example, that this year's Democratic platform includes strong language on antitrust enforcement, and that Hillary Clinton has hinted she intends to take the matter up as president. Hooray! Taking on too-powerful corporations would be healthy, I thought when I first learned that, and also enormously popular. But then it dawned on me: antitrust enforcement is largely up to the president and his picked advisers. If Democrats really think it is so damned important, why has Clinton's old boss Barack Obama done so very, very little with it?"Peter K. -> DrDick... , Friday, October 07, 2016 at 01:13 PM
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/10/07/some-clintons-pledges-sound-great-until-you-remember-whos-presidentOne party who won't enforce existing laws and another who will just get rid of them...a distinction without a difference.
Who do you prefer to have guarding the chicken house...a fox or a coyote? Sane people would say, 'neither.'
Yes and Clinton supporters attacked Sanders over this during the primaries.Henry Carey's ghost : , Friday, October 07, 2016 at 09:35 PMJosh Mason thinks a Clinton administration may push on corporate short-termism if not on anti-trust. We'll see, but seeing as the Obama administration didn't do much I wouldn't be surprised if Hillary doesn't either.
http://jwmason.org/slackwire/links-for-october-6/
"At Vox,* Rachelle Sampson has a piece on corporate short-termism. Supports my sense that this is an area where there may be space to move left in a Clinton administration."
* http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/10/3/13141852/short-term-capitalism-clinton-economics
Economists have said for thirty years that free trade will benefit the US. Increasingly the country looks like a poor non-industrialized third world country. Why should anyone trust US economists?>They ignored the housing bubble, don't seem to understand the connection between manufacturing and wealth (close your eyes and imagine your life with no manufactured goods, because they are all imported and your economy only produces a few low value-added raw materials such as timber or exotic animals) then you will see that allowing the US to deindustrialize was a really, world-historic mistake.
Trust in experts is what has transformed the US from a world leader in 1969 with the moon landing to a country with no high speed rail, no modern infrastructure, incapable of producing a computer or ipad or ship.
Trump_vs_deep_state will outlive Trump and the people's faith in economists will only be restored after the next financial collapse if all of the financial sector is liquidated, all the universities and think tanks go bankrupt and the know-nothing free traders disappear from our public discourse.
|
|
|
Dec 03, 2019 | www.nytimes.com
The blogger Eliot Higgins made waves early in the decade by covering the war in Syria from a laptop in his apartment in Leicester, England, while caring for his infant daughter. In 2014, he founded Bellingcat, an open-source news outlet that has grown to include roughly a dozen staff members, with an office in The Hague. Mr. Higgins attributed his skill not to any special knowledge of international conflicts or digital data, but to the hours he had spent playing video games , which, he said, gave him the idea that any mystery can be cracked.
...
Bellingcat journalists have spread the word about their techniques in seminars attended by journalists and law-enforcement officials. Along with grants from groups like the Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros, the seminars are a significant source of revenue for Bellingcat, a nonprofit organization.
|
|
|
Jul 09, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Daniel , Jul 8, 2018 3:35:44 PM | 57
Exciting new product intro from Max Blumenthal: Maddow's Tears™, a new formula that produces soothing, cooling moisture in politically convenient circumstances.Daniel , Jul 8, 2018 4:25:49 PM | 58Interesting case of honesty from The Guardian:"I am at a loss to see what motive the Kremlin might have to commit murders on foreign soil during the buildup, let alone the enactment, of a sporting event that is of mammoth chauvinist significance to Russia."
"The most obvious motive for these attacks would surely be from someone out to embarrass the Russian president, Vladimir Putin – someone from his enemies, rather than from his friends or employees. But once again we have no clue."
|
|
|
Dec 03, 2019 | www.nytimes.com
The blogger Eliot Higgins made waves early in the decade by covering the war in Syria from a laptop in his apartment in Leicester, England, while caring for his infant daughter. In 2014, he founded Bellingcat, an open-source news outlet that has grown to include roughly a dozen staff members, with an office in The Hague. Mr. Higgins attributed his skill not to any special knowledge of international conflicts or digital data, but to the hours he had spent playing video games , which, he said, gave him the idea that any mystery can be cracked.
...
Bellingcat journalists have spread the word about their techniques in seminars attended by journalists and law-enforcement officials. Along with grants from groups like the Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros, the seminars are a significant source of revenue for Bellingcat, a nonprofit organization.
|
|
|
Nov 12, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com
Submitted by Wayne Madsen via Strategic-Culture.org,Defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is not about to "go quietly into that good night". On the morning after her surprising and unanticipated defeat at the hands of Republican Party upstart Donald Trump, Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, entered the ball room of the art-deco New Yorker hotel in midtown Manhattan and were both adorned in purple attire. The press immediately noticed the color and asked what it represented. Clinton spokespeople claimed it was to represent the coming together of Democratic "Blue America" and Republican "Red America" into a united purple blend. This statement was a complete ruse as is known by citizens of countries targeted in the past by the vile political operations of international hedge fund tycoon George Soros.
The Clintons, who both have received millions of dollars in campaign contributions and Clinton Foundation donations from Soros, were, in fact, helping to launch Soros's "Purple Revolution" in America. The Purple Revolution will resist all efforts by the Trump administration to push back against the globalist policies of the Clintons and soon-to-be ex-President Barack Obama. The Purple Revolution will also seek to make the Trump administration a short one through Soros-style street protests and political disruption.
It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation of Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when the nation faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care. However, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said he will continue hearings in the Republican-controlled Congress on Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and Mrs. Clinton's aide Huma Abedin . President Trump should not allow himself to be distracted by these efforts. Chaffetz was not one of Trump's most loyal supporters.
America's globalists and interventionists are already pushing the meme that because so many establishment and entrenched national security and military "experts" opposed Trump's candidacy, Trump is "required" to call on them to join his administration because there are not enough such "experts" among Trump's inner circle of advisers.
Discredited neo-conservatives from George W. Bush's White House, such as Iraq war co-conspirator Stephen Hadley, are being mentioned as someone Trump should have join his National Security Council and other senior positions. George H. W. Bush's Secretary of State James Baker, a die-hard Bush loyalist, is also being proffered as a member of Trump's White House team.
There is absolutely no reason for Trump to seek the advice from old Republican fossils like Baker, Hadley, former Secretaries of State Rice and Powell, the lunatic former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and others. There are plenty of Trump supporters who have a wealth of experience in foreign and national security matters, including those of African, Haitian, Hispanic, and Arab descent and who are not neocons, who can fill Trump's senior- and middle-level positions.
Trump must distance himself from sudden well-wishing neocons, adventurists, militarists, and interventionists and not permit them to infest his administration. If Mrs. Clinton had won the presidency, an article on the incoming administration would have read as follows:
"Based on the militarism and foreign adventurism of her term as Secretary of State and her husband Bill Clinton's two terms as president, the world is in store for major American military aggression on multiple fronts around the world. President-elect Hillary Clinton has made no secret of her desire to confront Russia militarily, diplomatically, and economically in the Middle East, on Russia's very doorstep in eastern Europe, and even within the borders of the Russian Federation. Mrs. Clinton has dusted off the long-discredited 'containment' policy ushered into effect by Professor George F. Kennan in the aftermath of World War. Mrs. Clinton's administration will likely promote the most strident neo-Cold Warriors of the Barack Obama administration, including Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, a personal favorite of Clinton".
President-elect Trump cannot afford to permit those who are in the same web as Nuland, Hadley, Bolton, and others to join his administration where they would metastasize like an aggressive form of cancer. These individuals would not carry out Trump's policies but seek to continue to damage America's relations with Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, and other nations.
Not only must Trump have to deal with Republican neocons trying to worm their way into his administration, but he must deal with the attempt by Soros to disrupt his presidency and the United States with a Purple Revolution
No sooner had Trump been declared the 45th president of the United States, Soros-funded political operations launched their activities to disrupt Trump during Obama's lame-duck period and thereafter. The swiftness of the Purple Revolution is reminiscent of the speed at which protesters hit the streets of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, in two Orange Revolutions sponsored by Soros, one in 2004 and the other, ten years later, in 2014.
As the Clintons were embracing purple in New York, street demonstrations, some violent, all coordinated by the Soros-funded Moveon.org and "Black Lives Matter", broke out in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Oakland, Nashville, Cleveland, Washington, Austin, Seattle, Philadelphia, Richmond, St. Paul, Kansas City, Omaha, San Francisco, and some 200 other cities across the United States.
The Soros-financed Russian singing group "Pussy Riot" released on YouTube an anti-Trump music video titled "Make America Great Again". The video went "viral" on the Internet. The video, which is profane and filled with violent acts, portrays a dystopian Trump presidency. Following the George Soros/Gene Sharp script to a tee, Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova called for anti-Trump Americans to turn their anger into art, particularly music and visual art. The use of political graffiti is a popular Sharp tactic. The street protests and anti-Trump music and art were the first phase of Soros's Purple Revolution in America.
President-elect Trump is facing a two-pronged attack by his opponents. One, led by entrenched neo-con bureaucrats, including former Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency director Michael Hayden, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, and Bush family loyalists are seeking to call the shots on who Trump appoints to senior national security, intelligence, foreign policy, and defense positions in his administration. These neo-Cold Warriors are trying to convince Trump that he must maintain the Obama aggressiveness and militancy toward Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and other countries. The second front arrayed against Trump is from Soros-funded political groups and media. This second line of attack is a propaganda war, utilizing hundreds of anti-Trump newspapers, web sites, and broadcasters, that will seek to undermine public confidence in the Trump administration from its outset.
One of Trump's political advertisements, released just prior to Election Day, stated that George Soros, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, and Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein, are all part of "a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities". Soros and his minions immediately and ridiculously attacked the ad as "anti-Semitic". President Trump should be on guard against those who his campaign called out in the ad and their colleagues. Soros's son, Alexander Soros, called on Trump's daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner, to publicly disavow Trump. Soros's tactics not only seek to split apart nations but also families. Trump must be on guard against the current and future machinations of George Soros, including his Purple Revolution.
Pinto Currency nmb Nov 11, 2016 8:37 PM ,
Purple must be the color of pedophiles.MalteseFalcon Pinto Currency Nov 11, 2016 8:39 PM ,Soros, Clintons, Podestas, amd apparently Obama are all into it as we are learning from Comet Ping Pong scandal:
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5b1qtf/comet_ping_pong_pizz...
https://dcpizzagate.wordpress.com/
https://i.redd.it/3l20mhvrxtvx.png
http://investmentwatchblog.com/breaking-from-the-anon-who-brought-you-th...
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a1c_1478546206
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/04/the-strange-case-of-gord...
http://www.newsdailystudio.com/2016/11/05/bill-clinton-wasnt-the-only-on...
Keep your eye on Jared Kushner, who is Trump's son-in-law. He refused to have his newspaper the NY Observer endorse Trump. That is not a good sign.
"It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation of Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when the nation faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care."letsit Occident Mortal Nov 11, 2016 8:45 PM ,None of those "pressing issues" involve the DOJ or the FBI.
Investigate, prosecute and jail Hillary Clinton and her crew.
Trump is going to need a hostage or two to deal with these fucks.
If he doesn't, they will deal with him.
Netanyahu, the greatest neocon of all, endorsed Trump. All TRUE neocons love Trump.Husk-Erzulie nmewn Nov 12, 2016 9:48 AM ,https://biblicisminstitute.wordpress.com/views-of-news/#trumpmeans
Big series of protests being planned. Recruiting ads in Craigslist nationwide. Purple ties and dresses all over MSM this morning.any_mouse californiagirl Nov 12, 2016 2:54 AM ,This is when the Purple Hats, Flags, Balloons start coming out.
Kill it before it grows.
Purple and royalty? Purple in Rome?Erek any_mouse Nov 12, 2016 7:47 AM ,News for the Clintons, The R's and D's already united to vote against Hillary.
I do not understand why they think street protests will bring down a POTUS? And that would be acceptable in a major nation.
Why isn't the government cracking down the separatists in Oregon, California, and elsewhere? They are not accepting the legal outcome of an election. They are calling for illegal secession. (Funny in 1861 this was a cause for the federal government to attack the joint and seveal states of the union.) If a group of whites had protested Obama's election in 2008?
The people living in Kalispell are reviled and ridiculed for their separatist views. Randy Weaver and family for not accepting politically correct views. And so on.
This is getting out of hand. There will be no walking this back.
Purple is the color of royalty!X_in_Sweden Grimaldus Nov 12, 2016 10:58 AM ,Are these fuckers proclaiming themselves as King and Queen of America?
If so, get the executioner and give them a "French Haircut"!
You sayGrimaldus ,"Yes. And who are the neocons really? Progressives. Neocon is a label successfully used by criminal progressives to shield their brand."
Well let's go a little bit deeper in examing the 'who' thing:
"The neoconservative movement, which is generally perceived as a radical (rather than "conservative") Republican right, is, in reality, an intellectual movement born in the late 1960s in the pages of the monthly magazine Commentary , a media arm of the American Jewish Committee , which had replaced the Contemporary Jewish Record in 1945. The Forward , the oldest American Jewish weekly, wrote in a January 6th, 2006 article signed Gal Beckerman: " If there is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it.... "
From the article By Laurent Guyénot ,
*Who Are The Neoconservatives?*
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35106.htm
Are you connecting the dots.......folks......?
. . . _ _ _ . . . Bendromeda Strain Nov 11, 2016 11:04 PM ,
Great avatar!Lavada Chupacabra-322 Nov 12, 2016 10:41 AM ,GROWTH IS THE ULTIMATE PONZI SCHEME
The idea of arresting the Clinton Crime, Fraud and Crime Family would be welcomed. BUT, who is going to arrest them? Loretta Lynch, James Comey, WHO? The problem here is that our so called "authorities" are all in the same bed. The tentacles of the Eastern Elite Establishment are everywhere in high office, academia, the media, Big Business, etc. The swamp is thoroughly infested with this elite scum of those in the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, Chatham House, Club of Rome, Committee of 300, Jason Society and numerous other private clubs of the rich, powerful and influential. The Illuminati has been exposed, however they aren't going down lightly. They still have massive amounts of money, they own the media and the banking houses. Some have described it as MIMAC, the Military Industrial Media Academic Complex. A few months ago here at Zero Hedge, there was an article which showed a massive flow chart of the elites and their organizationGrimaldus ShortCommonSense Nov 12, 2016 9:12 AM ,They could IF and WHEN Trump gets to Washington after 20 Jan 2017, simply implode the economy and blame t it on Trump. Sort of what happened to Herbert Hoover in the late 1920's. Unfortunately the situation in the US will continue to deteriorate. George Soros, a major financial backer of Hillary will see to that. Soros is a Globalist and advocate of one world government. People comment that Soros should be arrested. I agree, BUT who is going to do that?
Agree. I think Trump will yank all the "aid" to Israel as well as "aid" to the Islamic murderers of the Palitrashian human garbage infesting the area. This "aid" money is simply a bribe to keep both from killing each other. F**k all of them. None of our business what they do.Wile-E-Coyote Bastiat Nov 12, 2016 5:35 AM ,We got progressives ( lots and lots of Jews in that group) who are the enemy of mankind and then we got Islam who are also the enemy of mankind. Why help either of them? Makes no sense.
How come Soros never got picked up by Mossad for war crimes against his own people?Martian Moon Wile-E-Coyote Nov 12, 2016 8:13 AM ,And if he is such a subversive shit why hasn't a government given him a Polonium 210 enema.
Always wondered about thatChupacabra-322 RopeADope Nov 11, 2016 9:03 PM ,Soros is hated in Israel and has never set foot there but his foundations have done such harm that a bill was recently passed to ban foreign funding of non profit political organizations
The fact that we all have to worry about the CIA killing a President Elect simply because the man puts America first, really says it all.King Tut Chupacabra-322 Nov 11, 2016 9:11 PM ,The Agency is Cancer. Why are we even waiting for them to kill another one of our people to act? There should be no question about the CIA's future in the US.
Dissolved & dishonored. Its members locked away or punished for Treason. Their reputation is so bad and has been for so long, that the fact that you joined them should be enough to justify arrest and Execution for Treason, Crimes Against Humanity & Crimes Against The American People.
JFK made the mistake of publicly stating his intention of smashing the CIA instead of just doing it quickly and quietlyChupacabra-322 King Tut Nov 11, 2016 9:30 PM ,There are entirely way too many Intelligence Agencies. Plus the Contractors, some of who shouldn't have high level clearance to begin with which the US sub contracts the Intel / work out to.HowdyDoody Chupacabra-322 Nov 11, 2016 10:59 PM ,For Fucks sake, Government is so incompetent it can't even handle it own Intel.
Something along the lines of Eurpoe's Five Eyes would be highly effective.
Fuck those Pure Evil Psychopaths at the CIA They're nothing more than a bunch of Scum Fuck murdering, drug running, money laundering Global Crime Syndicate.
Five Eyes isn't European, it is US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. If you note carefully, the NSA etc think we can't count.chubbar Pinto Currency Nov 11, 2016 8:46 PM ,The FBI is still investigating the Clinton Foundation, Trump needs to encourage that through backdoor channels. Soro's needs to be investigated, he has been tied to a conspiracy to incite violence, this needs to be documented and dealt with. Trump can not ignore this guy. If any of these investigations come back with a recommendation to indict then that process needs to be started. Take the fight to them, they are vulnerable!Chupacabra-322 chubbar Nov 11, 2016 9:12 PM ,Make a National APB Warrent for the apprehension & arrest of George Sooros for inciting violence, endsrgerimg the public & calling for the murder of our Nations Police through funding of the BLM Group.kwc chubbar Nov 12, 2016 4:50 AM ,Have every Law Informent Agency in the Nation on alert. Also, issue a Bounty in the Sum of $5,000,000 for his immediate apprehension.
Trump needs to replace FBI chickenshits & sellouts with loyal people then get the FBI counter-terrorism to investigate and shut down Soros & the various agencies instigating the riots. It's really simple when you quit over-thinking a problem. It's domestic terrorism. It's the FBI's job to stop it.Laddie nmb Nov 11, 2016 8:43 PM ,I read what Paul said this morning and thought, despite Paul's hostility to Trump during the primaries most likely due to his son, Rand's loss, that Paul gave good advice to Trump.King Tut Laddie Nov 11, 2016 8:49 PM ,
Let's face it Donald Trump is a STOP GAP measure. And demographic change over the next 4 years makes his re-election very, very UNLIKELY. If he keeps his campaign promises he will be a GREAT president. However as ZH reported earlier he appears to be balking from repealing Obamacare, I stress the word APPEARS.Let us give him a chance. This is all speculation. His enemies are DEADLY as they were once they got total control in Russia, they killed according to Solzhenitsyn SIXTY-SIX MILLION Russian Christians. The descendants of those Bolsheviks are VERY powerful in the USSA. They control the Fed, Hollyweird, Wall Street, the universities...
Professor Kevin MacDonald's 'The Culture of Critique' Reviewed
Like the South Africans the Tribe TALKED us out of our nation.
Mechanisms for Cuckservatives and Other Misguided White People by Dr. Kevin MacDonald September 22, 2016
Much of the media and advertising exist by pushing buttons that trigger appropriate financially lucrative reflexes in their audiences, from pornography to romantic movies to team sports. Media profits are driven by competition over how best to push those buttons. But the effort to produce politically and racially cuckolded Whites adds a layer of complexity: What buttons do you push to make Whites complicit in their own racial and cultural demise?
Actually, there are a whole lot of them, which shouldn't be surprising. This is a very sophisticated onslaught, enabled by control over all the moral, intellectual, and political high ground by the left. With all that high ground, there are a lot of buttons you can push.
Our enemies see this as a pathetic last gasp of a moribund civilization and it is quite true for our civilization is dying. Identity Christians describe this phase as Jacob's Troubles and what the secular Guillaume Faye would, I think, describe as the catastrophe required to get people motivated. The future has yet to be written, however I cannot help but think that God's people, the White people, are stirring from their slumber.
See: The Wrath of the Awakened Saxon- Rudyard KiplingPaul Kersey -> Paul Kersey Nov 11, 2016 8:20 PM ,"PNAC: Project for New American Century. The main neocon lobby, it focused first on invading Iraq. Founded 1997, by William Kristol & Robert Kagan. First action: open letter to Clinton advocating Iraq war. Members in the Iraq-War clique: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, BOLTON, Libby, Abrams, Wurmser, Perle.Mini-Me Nov 11, 2016 8:18 PM ,JINSA, The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. "explaining the link between U.S. national security and Israel's security" Served on JINSA's Advisory Board: Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, BOLTON, Perle."
If Trump has probable cause on the Soros crimes, have his DoJ request a warrant for all of Soros's communications via the NSA, empanel a grand jury, indict the bastard, and throw his raggedy ass in prison. It would be hard for him to run his retarded purple revolution when he's getting ass-raped by his cell mate.Hurricane Baby -> Mini-Me Nov 11, 2016 8:41 PM ,I agree. Thing is, I think as president he can simply order the NSA to cough up whatever they have, just like Obama could have done at any point. The NSA is part of the Defense Department, right? What am I missing here?Dilluminati Nov 11, 2016 8:26 PM ,Funny: Clinton swears Comey did her in and the DNC blames arrogant Hillary.Skiprrrdog Nov 11, 2016 8:57 PM ,http://www.usnews.com/news/the-run-2016/articles/2016-11-11/dnc-staff-ar...
But in respect to Soro's money and the Dalas shooting or other incited events, there should be a grand jury empanelled and then charges brought against him. I think nothing short of him hiding in an embassy with all his money blocked by Swift is justice for the violence that he funded.
... ... ...
johnwburns Nov 11, 2016 9:10 PM ,It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation of Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when the nation faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care. However, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said he will continue hearings in the Republican-controlled Congress on Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and Mrs. Clinton's aide Huma Abedin. President Trump should not allow himself to be distracted by these efforts. Chaffetz was not one of Trump's most loyal supporters.And so it begins; I really hope that this is just some misinformation/disinformation, because HE PROMISED he would appoint a special prosecutor, PROMISED...
The likes of Bill Kristol, Ben Shapiro and Jonah Goldberg get to catch up on their Torah for the forseeable future but the likes of Lloyd Blankfein will probably get to entertain the court since they have probably crossed paths doing business in NYC. The "real conservative" deeply introspective, examine-my-conscience crowd screwed themselves to the wall, god love them.Ms No Nov 11, 2016 9:05 PM ,Trump should reverse the McCain Feingold bill. That would take some wind out of Soros' sails, at least temporarily because that was Soros' bill. He wanted campaign finance reform which actually meant that he wanted to control campaign finance through 501C3 groups, or foundations such as Open Society, Moveon.org, Ella Baker society, Center for American progress, etc. He has a massive web of these organizations and they fund smaller ones and all kinds of evil.Rebel yell Nov 11, 2016 9:36 PM ,Tyler, please rerun this! How George Sorros destroys countries, profits from currency trading, convinces the countries to privatize its assets, buys them and then sells them for yet another profit: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-08/how-george-soros-singlehandedly...Posa Nov 12, 2016 10:25 AM ,We know so little about Trump ... he's neoCon friendly to start with (remember he hired neoCon Grandee James Woolsey as an advisor)... and remember too Trump is promising his own war against Iran ... (just in case you confused him with Mother Theresa).. But then again JFK took office with a set of initiatives that were far more bellicose and provocative (like putting huge Jupiter missile launchers on the USSR border in Turkey)... once he saw he light and fired the pro Nazi Dulles Gang , JFK was gunned down in front of the whole world.rocknrollinhone... Nov 11, 2016 9:59 PM ,If Trump really is a nationalist patriot he'll need to innoculate the Population about the Deep State... they in turn will unleash financial disintegration and chaos, a Purple Revolution and then assassinate Trump (or have his own party impeach him)
I'm guessing though that deep down Trump is quite comfortable with a neoCon cabinet... hell he already offered Jamie Diamon the office of Treasry Secretary... no doubt a calculated gesture to signal compliance with the Deep State.
Soros is heavily invested in the globalist agenda. Wouldn't be surprised if they don't take a shot at assassinating Trump.bsdetector Nov 11, 2016 11:10 PM ,The Clintons do not do things by accident. Coordination of colors at the concession speech was meant for something. Perhaps the purple revolution or maybe they want to be seen as royals. It doesn't really matter why they did it; the fact is they are up to something. They will not agree to go away and even if they offered to just disappear with their wealth we know they are dishonest. They will come back... that is what they do.bsdetector Nov 12, 2016 12:06 AM ,They must be stripped of power and wealth. This act must be performed publicly.
In order to succeed Mr. Trump I suggest you task a group to accomplish this result. Your efforts to make America great again may disintegrate just like Obamacare if you allow the Clintons and Co. to languish in the background.
The protestors are groups of individuals who may seek association for any number of reasons. One major reason might be the loss of hope for a meaningful and prosperous life. We should seek out and listen to the individuals within these groups. If they are truly desirous of being heard they will communicate what they want without use of violence. Perhaps individuals join these protest groups because they do not have a voice.Batman11 -> Batman11 Nov 12, 2016 3:09 AM ,Organizing a means to receive the protestors' complaints may co-opt any organized effort to disrupt good political interaction and it will also separate out the bad elements cited by Madsen.
The articles reporting that Mr. Trump has changed his response to the protestors is a good effort to discover the protestors' complaints and channel their energy into beneficial political activity. Something must be done quickly though, before the protests get out of hand, for if that happens the protestors will be criminals and no one will want to work with them.
In order to make America great again we need input from all of America. Mr. Trump you can harness the energy of these protestors and let them know they are a part of your movement.
Classical economists are experts on today's capitalism, it is 18th and 19th Century capitalism, it's how it all started.dogismycopilot Nov 12, 2016 5:39 AM ,Adam Smith would think we are on the road to ruin.
"But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin."
Exactly the opposite of today's thinking, what does he mean?
When rates of profit are high, capitalism is cannibalizing itself by:
1) Not engaging in long term investment for the future
2) Paying insufficient wages to maintain demand for its products and services.
Got that wrong as well.
Adam Smith wouldn't like today's lobbyists.
"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."
OH NO, It's ALL WRONG
First five minutes of Alex Jones' video today is clips of people saying "Donald Trump will never be president". Full Show - Soros-Funded Goons Deployed to Overthrow America - 11/11/2016CoCosAB Nov 12, 2016 7:04 AM ,AMERICAN SPRING: She practiced overseas in Tunisia, Algeria, Oman, Jordan, Libya, Egypt... Now it's time to apply the knowledge in her own country!lakecity55 -> CoCosAB •Nov 12, 2016 7:53 AM
Really good chance these subversive operations will continue. Soros has plenty of money. Trump will have to do some rough stuff, but he needs to, it's what we hired him for.
|
|
|
Dec 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
spudski , Dec 1 2019 19:49 utc | 4
"The Ukrainian Office of the Prosecutor General has drawn up an indictment against the owner of the Burisma Holdings energy company, ex-Ecology Minister Nikolai Zlochevsky, that contains information that the son of former US Vice President Joe Biden, Hunter, as a Burisma board member along with his partners, received $16.5 million for their services, Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada MP from the ruling Servant of the People party Alexander Dubinsky told a press conference on Wednesday, citing the investigation's materials. According to him, the money came from duplicitous criminal activity."
- Eric Zuesse posted at Saker Blog
evilempire , Dec 1 2019 21:33 utc | 9
The corruption in ukraine is off the charts.
The article discusses land privatization but reveals a truly diabolical
purpose for the $7.4 billion that was stolen from ukraine.
|
|
|
Nov 30, 2019 | commonsensewonder.blogspot.com
It would be amusing if it wasn't so pathetic. But Schiff has close ties to a notorious Ukrainian arms dealer. Schiff was also a frequent recipient of campaign cash from meth dealer and Hillary Clinton donor Ed Buck. Buck is the LA Democrat with a penchant for shooting up homeless black men with meth and having sex with them. He allegedly killed at least two of them and is currently being charged with two counts of murder. Schiff has yet to disavow him and return his repeated donations.
Paul Pelosi has his own Ukrainian Gas CompanyPelosi's own son Paul Pelosi Jr had his own connection as an officer with a Ukrainian natural gas company. Pelosi actually used his mother, Speaker Pelosi, in a promotional video for the company. Pelosi Jr. earlier had served as an executive just under Mike Mozilla with Countrywide during the height of the mortgage crisis of 2008. Countrywide being one of the worse abusers in the mortgage debacle that almost destroyed America's, and the world's, economy.
Paul Pelosi Jr. made a fortune, walking away unscathed. This before starting a solar energy company to take advantage of huge Federal Government loan guarantees. Another money windfall for Pelosi, who walked away with a fortune when that company went bankrupt. Leaving the Federal Government and the taxpayers to make up for the losses. Nevada Senator Harry Reid's son Rory was involved in much the same scheme. Reid's children, all lobbyists, got rich off fees and loan guarantees from solar companies with no sufficient market underpinnings. Both companies went belly up, leaving the Federal Government and the taxpayers holding the bag.Hunter Biden in China
But it is Hunter Biden's relationship with both China and Ukraine that illustrates the corrupt dealings of the Biden family business. Joe Biden started sucking up to China in 2012 when he toured the country with then-Vice President Xi Jinping. He then toured America with Xi as his guest. In 2013 he went to China and took Hunter along on Air Force II. Two weeks later Hunter incorporated an investment firm with John Kerry's stepson, Christopher Heinz, and Whitey Bulger's nephew. Shortly thereafter they received $1.5 billion dollars for the fund to invest in Chinese research companies.
https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-35/html/container.html#xpc=sf-gdn-exp-2&p=https%3A//www.commdiginews.com https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-35/html/container.html#xpc=sf-gdn-exp-2&p=https%3A//www.commdiginews.com
Duel use technologies approved for export by Biden and KerryOne of the companies they invested in was a Chinese arms company that imported technologies with dual-use purposes. The investment required the approval of both the White House and State Department. It should be little surprise that Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Biden saw to it that the deal went through.
The Russia Hoax: James Clapper throws Barack Obama under the bus
Other investments of the Biden Heinz Bulger fund included a Chinese company that invested in AI technologies like facial recognition. Again duel use technologies, which will be incorporated into the modern police surveillance state that China has become. Thanks to Hunter and Joe Biden, and Christopher Heinz and John Kerry.Kerry and Biden: Burisma and Ukraine
The Kerry, Biden connection continues in Ukraine, though with a twist. Hunter Biden's dealings in Ukraine were so alarming to Christopher Heinz that he dissolved his working partnership with Hunter Biden because of it. It was too crooked. Too obvious. Too corrupt, even for Christopher Heinz. But John Kerry was still tied to it. In spades. The origins of the Hunter Biden deal with Burisma dates back to 2014. Steve Hilton of Fox News laid out the timeline of events brilliantly last Sunday. As well as the ties between Burisma, John Kerry, and a handful of Democrat Senators who supported a "cash for gas" initiative to purchase $50 million in natural gas from Ukraine. https://video.foxnews.com/v/video-embed.html?video_id=6094578904001Devon Archer and Joe Biden: A curious series of events
On April 16, 2014, Burisma board member and Hunter Biden friend Devon Archer meets with Joe Biden to discuss Ukrainian natural gas. On April 18th Hunter Biden forms the holding company, Rosemont Seneca, that will be the conduit for Burisma's money. Three days later, on April 21st, Joe Biden announces the program of US cash for Ukrainian gas, jumpstarting the initiative.
The Coup against Trump: Is John Brennan a Russian Agent?
Coincidence? Certainly not. Then it gets even more interesting. Burisma appoints Hunter Biden to its Board of Directors. Even though he has no experience in oil or gas, or Ukraine, and doesn't speak Ukrainian. It doesn't matter. He is Joe Biden's son. The fix is in. Devon Archer (far left) is pictured with Joe and Hunter Biden. (Screenshot from Twitter) Burisma pays Rosemont Seneca $186,000 per month, which Hunter Biden splits with Devon Archer. That's $98,000 apiece, every month. Well more than the $50,000 a month figure bandied about by the media. At the same time, Burisma pays Hunter Biden's law firm a $300,000 retainer to handle legal affairs.Burisma, Kerry, and David Leiter's ML Strategies
Then Burisma hires John Kerry's former Chief of Staff David Leiter to conduct lobbying on behalf of Burisma and Ukrainian natural gas. It pays Leiter's consulting group, ML Strategies, $90,000. Leiter makes $3,000 contributions, in three $1,000 payments, to Democrat Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey and New Hampshire Senator Jean Shaheen. Shaheen and Markey write a letter to President Obama supporting a "cash for gas" relationship with Ukraine, and calling for an expansion of Ukrainian natural gas exploration. Burisma releases a press release praising Markey and Shaheen's letter. Leiter also makes three $1000 contributions to Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal. Blumenthal immediately announces his support for the Ukrainian "cash for gas" initiative. ( Steve Hilton: The real Ukraine scandal is US cash for gas -- It involves the Bidens and a growing list of Dems )Joe Biden work on behalf of ML Strategies
Shortly thereafter Joe Biden makes his famous trip to Ukraine where he demands the firing of the Ukrainian prosecutor Victor Shokin, who is looking into Burisma Holdings and Hunter Biden.
AG William Barr and Atty. Durham closing in on the Obama, Brennan coup plotters
After the prosecutor is fired Hunter Biden's lawyers file a brief with the new prosecutor in Ukraine, currying favor, and saying explicitly that the charges of corruption against Shokin were disinformation planted by Western governments. https://www.youtube.com/embed/KCF9My1vBP4 Hunter Biden continues to receive payments from Burisma until April 2019, one month before Joe Biden announces his run for the Presidency. He has received close to $6 million dollars thus far. There are reports that Rosemont Seneca received an additional $900,000 payment intended for Joe Biden himself. https://www.youtube.com/embed/KCF9My1vBP4 Hunter Biden continues to receive payments from Burisma until April 2019, one month before Joe Biden announces his run for the Presidency. He has received close to $6 million dollars thus far. There are reports that Rosemont Seneca received an additional $900,000 payment intended for Joe Biden himself. Hunter Biden continues to receive payments from Burisma until April 2019, one month before Joe Biden announces his run for the Presidency. He has received close to $6 million dollars thus far. There are reports that Rosemont Seneca received an additional $900,000 payment intended for Joe Biden himself.Hunter and Joe Biden's admission of consciousness of guilt
This week Hunter Biden stepped down from the board of the Chinese holding company but retained his 10% equity investment. The owners of the company have yet to state what exactly Hunter Biden's duties were. The same could be said of Burisma. Joe Biden says he never discussed his son's business affairs. Hunter says otherwise, in an interview with the New Yorker. Biden's response to his son's Burisma news. "I hope you know what you are doing". Not exactly an endorsement. Certainly a recognition that Joe Biden knew what Hunter was up to. And he knew it stank to high heaven. Joe Biden announced yesterday that his son will have no dealings with any government if he is elected President. This begs the question. If it is improper if Biden is President, then it was improper when Biden was Vice President. Rather than clearing Biden and his son, it is proof of consciousness of guilt, and acknowledgment of impropriety.MBNA, Hunter Biden and Tom Brokaw
But this is not Joe and Hunter Biden's first rodeo. Not in the least. Eleven years ago, just after Hunter graduated law school, he was given an executive position with MBNA, a credit card company in Delaware, paying $100,000 a year. Again with no history of banking knowledge.
The Russia Hoax: What Obama and Brennan knew, and when they knew it.
Shortly afterward, Joe Biden receives over $200, 000 in contributions from MBNA. He then sponsors credit card legislation benefitting MBNA by making bankruptcy laws not apply to the majority of credit card debt. As Tom Brokaw said to Biden at the time ( Video of Tom Brokaw calling out Joe and Hunter Biden's 'corruption' resurfaces amid Ukraine scandal – Newsweek)" Wasn't it inappropriate for someone like you in the middle of all this to have your son collecting money from this big credit card company while you were on the floor protecting its interests?"
Brokaw sets forth the case against Biden
"That's a reference to your son being hired right out of law school by a big company here in Delaware that's in the credit card business, MBNA. He got about $100,000 a year, as I recall. You received $214,000 in campaign contributions from the company and from its employees. At the same time, you were fighting for a bankruptcy bill that MBNA really wanted to get passed through the Senate making it much tougher for everyone to file bankruptcy. Senator Obama was opposed to the bill. Among other things, you couldn't in fact claim that you had a problem because of big medical bills."
"You voted against an amendment that would call for a warning on predatory lending. You also opposed efforts to strengthen the protection of people in bankruptcy. This is an issue that you've heard about before. Your son was working for the company at the same time. In retrospect, wasn't it inappropriate for someone like you in the middle of all this to have your son collecting money from the big credit card company while you were on the floor protecting its interests?"
Biden response, as with all questions about Burisma: "Absolutely not!"James Biden and the Obama billion-dollar housing contract
Joe Biden's brother James has been feeding at the trough as well, securing a $1.2 billion dollar contract with the Pentagon, while his brother was Vice President, to build housing in Iraq. James Biden had no experience in construction or building houses, even though he landed a contract that would make Halliburton and Dick Cheney turn green. ( Joe Biden's Family Has Been Getting Rich off His Political Career for Decades – PJ Media )Hillary Clinton and the corrupt Clinton Foundation
Then there is Hillary Clinton's well-documented history of graft, pay to play, and unbridled corruption. The Uranium One scam. The Clinton Foundation slush fund. Stealing billions of dollars from Haiti by running all aid through the Clinton Foundation. Spending millions on Chelsea's wedding, all paid for by the Clinton Foundation.
FISA Court exposes Obama's abuse of NSA to spy on Americans
In 2016 Ukrainian donors gave more money to the Clinton Foundation than any other country. Roughy $10 million dollars. More than Saudi Arabia ($7.3 Million). Of course this pales in comparison to the $240 million the Clinton Foundation received in the Uranium One scam. On a side note, the person who delivered the Uranium One sample directly to the Russians in Moscow was none other than FBI Director Robert Mueller. So many curious facts.The Steele Dossier, the corrupt Ambassador Yovanovich
This doesn't even touch on the Steele Dossier and Sydney Blumenthal getting dirt on Paul Manafort and Donald Trump from Ukraine and passing it on to the DNC, DOJ and FBI. It doesn't touch on the Clinton loving Ambassador Yovanovich working with George Soros and Ukraine to manufacture dirt on Manafort and Trump and pass it on to the State Department and DNC.
Obama Brennan coup involved State Dept., DOD, DNI, DOJ, CIA and FBI
Or the fact that when the Hunter Biden / Burisma investigation was shut down, so was the investigation the Soros group that worked to find dirt on Trump. Or the recent revelation the Ambassador Yovanovich had a list of conservative American journalists illegally spied on. Whether its political corruption. Or old fashioned self-enrichment. Barack Obama ran an administration where senior officials were lining their pockets in Pay to Play schemes on a level that would make Richard Nixon blush.Draining the swamp of Democrat corruption and abuse of power
At the same time, senior intelligence and Justice officials were spying on a major Presidential candidate. Laying the groundwork for a rolling and ongoing coup against the duly elected sitting President of the United States, Donald Trump. That continues to this day. The release of the IG Horowitz report next week on FISA abuse will demonstrate the abject corruption of the DOJ, FBI and our intelligence agencies. William Barr and US Attorney John Durham have earth-shaking indictments in the works that will, at long last, blow the lid off the Russia hoax. Exposing the coup plotters and bringing the final curtain to the Obama legacy. Yet here we are in the midst of the current political impeachment crisis. The documented corruption and pay to play schemes at the very top of the Obama team must now be revealed and exposed. Joe Biden and John Kerry are as corrupt and dangerous as Hillary Clinton ever was. We don't have to take Joe Biden's word for anything. We already have his confession.
|
|
|
Nov 29, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
On Wednesday, November 20th, Russia's Tass news agency headlined "Joe Biden's son and his partners received $16.5 million from Burisma - Ukrainian MP", and reported:
The Ukrainian Office of the Prosecutor General has drawn up an indictment against the owner of the Burisma Holdings energy company, ex-Ecology Minister Nikolai Zlochevsky, that contains information that the son of former US Vice President Joe Biden, Hunter, as a Burisma board member along with his partners, received $16.5 million for their services, Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada MP from the ruling Servant of the People party Alexander Dubinsky told a press conference on Wednesday, citing the investigation's materials. According to him, the money came from duplicitous criminal activity.
Another Rada member, Andreii Derkach, had earlier posted, to Facebook, on November 11th, what he alleges to be photos of bank statements and other financial records documenting the flows of money from Ukraine into the partnership that Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden and his friend the Yale college roommate of John Kerry's stepson Christopher Hines, Devon Archer, had set up.
The partnership, Rosemont Seneca Boa, is associated with their Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC.
Derkach headlined "THE BILLION DOLLARS CORRUPTION: HOW THE TOP-OFFICIALS OF UKRAINE AND THE USA HAVE BEEN STEALING THE PUBLIC MONEY". The Ukrainian documents were shown, along with English translations of them. For example, from the NABU or National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine:
The data on the veiled transfer of funds for lobbying activities personally to J. Biden were obtained during the investigation. Money in the amount of over USD 900 thousand was transferred to the aforesaid Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, the resident company, with an indication of 'Remuneration for consulting services' as payment details.The person was identified and interviewed as a witness in the course of the investigation, who has been personally engaged in holding transactions for laundering and legitimization of funds in favor of M. Zlochevsky and the Bidens. Investigators possess original copies of the payment instruments and engineering means, whereby the said bargains were performed.
Through making use of the political and economic leverages over new government authorities of Ukraine and intimidating them with the issue of granting financial assistance to Ukraine, Joe Biden has actively promoted the closing of the criminal cases against M. Zlochevsky and Burisma Group corporate executives.
Another document:
According to the data from the Financial Intelligence Unit of Latvia, Wirelogic Technology AS and Digitex Organization LLP paid from July 2012 to December 2015 to Burisma Holdings Limited (Cyprus) account established with AS PrivatBank amounts of USD 14,665,982 + EUR 366,015 and USD 1,964,375 accordingly 'as payments under the loan agreement.'Consequently, the part of the aforesaid funds was charged off in favor of Mr. Alan Apter (EUR 302,885), Mr. Aleksander Kwasniewski (EUR 1,150,000), Mr, Devon Archer and Mr. Hunter Biden [no amounts specified for either].
A letter is shown addressed to Derkach from "The Prosecutor Office of Ukraine," the "General Prosecutor Office of Ukraine," and signed by the Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka, dated 30 October 2019. It said:
As a result of the pre-trial investigation on 02.09.2019, the investigator decided to close the above mentioned criminal proceedings on the basis of paragraph 2 of Part 1 of Art. 284 of the CPC of Ukraine in connection with the lack of corpus delicti [evidence of a crime]. There are no grounds for re-entering information on the facts stated in your application" for "Pre-trial Investigations.
The Burisma cases would not go to trial.
Among the photos that Derkach showed in his article are a "CLIENT STATEMENT for the Period May 1-31 2015" from "Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management" showing, for example, that on "5/13," "Funds Transferred" by "WIRED FUNDS SENT" "BENE. ACCT. ROBERT [Hunter] BIDEN" were "15,000.00".
Derkach says:
Shokin [the man Joe Biden had fired] has repeatedly called upon the NABU director Sitnik in the criminal proceedings on Burisma case, but always got the run-arounds.
and asks:
Why was the NABU in such a hurry to close the cases of Burisma, Zlochevskiy and Biden, and for whom did they collect personal data on Shokin?
Before noting that:
the moment when Shokin demanded from NABU to investigate facts of international corruption coincided with the arrival of US Vice President Joe Biden to Ukraine. And $ 1 billion of loan guarantees that the United States had to provide Ukraine depended on Biden.
He shows a time-line indicating that the turning-point to close down the investigation was "Biden's visit to Kyiv" occurring "December 7-8, 2015." On "June 3, 2016," was the "Signing by the Government of the United States and Ukraine of loan guarantee agreement [U.S. taxpayers to take any loss] worth $1 billion."
Also on November 11th, Ukraine's Interfax news agency headlined "MP Derkach says Biden Jr. received Burisma payments via mediators", and reported that:
Starting from May 2014 to October 2015 Burisma company transferred to Rosemont company $4.817 million, and the latter transferred a payment amounted to $871,000 to the account of Hunter Biden, son of former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, reported MP Andriy Derkach in a video blog on Facebook."This is the official statement from Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley is one of the biggest bank holdings in the USA. Here you can see a cash flow of Rosemont Seneca Boa company owned by Devon Archer, for a year and a half (from May 2014 to October 2016). According to the bank statement, starting from May 2014 to October 2015 Burisma company transferred to Rosemont company $4.817 million, and the latter transferred a payment amounted to $871,000 to the account of Biden," said Derkach adding an official statement from Morgan Stanley.
He noted that in order to help the investigation, he made public new documents on international corruption, which were transferred to him by investigative journalists in 11 criminal proceedings.
Derkach reminded that in total, according to his data from the report of Financial Intelligence Unit of Latvia, in favor of two shell-offshore companies, as well as Hunter Biden with partners, the Burisma company paid no less than $16.5 mln.
Although virtually all of the press says that Mr. Zlochevsky owns Burisma, both of the detailed investigations that have been done of the matter indicate that Zlochevsky sold majority-ownership of the company in 2011 to a Ukrainian billionaire, Ihor Kolomoysky.
Whereas Zlochevsky was allied with Ukraine's democratically elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, who was elected in 2010, Yanukovych became ousted in a February 2014 U.S. Obama-Administration coup and replaced by fascist rulers, who included Kolomoysky.
Therefore, Zlochevsky was the person whom the U.S. Government wanted to be investigated for alleged crimes by Burisma, and Kolomoysky isn't even being mentioned as an owner, much less as the controlling owner, of the firm. But Hunter Biden's actual boss at Burisma was Kolomoysky, not Zlochevsky, who is, instead, perhaps a paid decoy of Kolomoysky.
Kolomoysky is also the chief political benefactor of Ukraine's current President, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Consequently, Kolomoysky had supported both the overthrow of Yanukovych and the recent election of Zelensky.
For Kolomoysky, instead of Zlochevsky, to be targeted in corruption investigations that would be supported by Kolomoysky's agent Zelensky, would be unlikely, unless America's current President, Donald Trump, were to abandon entirely his predecessor's, Ukraine-policy, and were to require Zelensky to do likewise, and Zelensky then were to obey that command from the U.S. White House.
Those things are, as of yet, not expected to happen.
On November 20th, the U.S.-allied 'news'-agency, Reuters, headlined with the anodyne "Ukraine widens probe against Burisma founder to embezzlement of state funds" and buried in that 486-word article - and provided no further information regarding - the stunning 15-word statement (the real news in the article), that:
The investigation [by Ukraine's Government, of Zlochevsky] is effectively on hold, however, because the Ukrainian authorities cannot determine Zlochevsky's whereabouts."
Reasonable presumptions would be that Zlochevsky had received advance notice that he was going to be targeted in yet another 'investigation' into alleged Burisma corruption and had fled Ukraine, much as he had done when Yanukovych was ousted in 2014.
Consequently, thus far, U.S. President Trump has been adhering to Barack Obama's Ukraine policy (which targeted the pro-Yanukovych Zlochevsky, instead of the anti-Yanukovych Kolomoysky). However, with the recent firing of Obama's Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, that could change.
Facebook Twitter Reddit Pinterest WhatsApp vKontakte Email Filed under: latest , Other Media , Ukraine , United States Tagged with: burisma , Eric Zuesse , Hunter Biden , Joe Biden , Kolomoyskyi , ukraine , US presidential election 2020 , Victor Yanukovych can you spare $1.00 a month to support independent media
Seamus Padraig ,
Although virtually all of the press says that Mr. Zlochevsky owns Burisma, both of the detailed investigations that have been done of the matter indicate that Zlochevsky sold majority-ownership of the company in 2011 to a Ukrainian billionaire, Ihor Kolomoysky.
That's interesting. I didn't know that. Kolomoisky's a slippery bastard. Now it appears he's changing sides yet again, at least if this latest report from the NYT is to be believed:
"Mr. Kolomoisky, widely seen as Ukraine's most powerful figure outside government, given his role as the patron of the recently elected President Volodymyr Zelensky, has experienced a remarkable change of heart: It is time, he said, for Ukraine to give up on the West and turn back toward Russia."
It'll be interesting to see if Kolomoisky's latest treachery helps to hasten Biden's downfall!
Seamus Padraig ,
Wouldn't it be poetic justice if the Clintonoids' destruction of Ukraine ends destroying them in return? I would laugh my ass off!RobG ,
Corruption..?Less than six hours after Bojo's disastrous performance on LBC Radio this morning ( here ) we have a 'terrorist attack' in London. There needs to be a modern-day Nuremberg Trials.
George Cornell ,
When Miss Vicki F*TheEU Nuland was scheming with the American ambassador to insert the American stooge "Yats" as she called him, into the leadership of the Ukraine, there was talk about how all the Ukraine gold was being moved to the US for "safekeeping". Does anyone know what happened to their gold reserves?paul ,
It's in safe hands now, having been flown out to the US, along with the 140 tons of Libyan gold and the Iraqi gold and the Venezuelan gold and the gold from the basement of WTC 7. So we can all sleep easy now. Any country taking out IMF loans has to hand over its gold to Uncle Sam.Just as well. Can't be too careful when there are all these standard issue Mark 1 Foaming-At- The-Mouth-Radical-Moslem-Terrorists lurking around London Bridge, as supplied by Central Casting. Luckily they are all on the MI5 payroll so our splendid spook chaps can keep an eye on them.
paul ,
They have lost their oil/ coal/ steel/ gas/ metallurgy/ chemicals/ engineering/ motor vehicle/ shipbuilding/ aircraft/ locomotives/ armaments/ spacecraft/ agricultural machinery industries, and ten million of their population, so they might as well lose their gold as well.George Cornell ,
So what possible expertise or wisdom was Hunt Rhymeswith Biden giving time the board of Burisma? I posed this in an NYT blog and got the reply that the 100k/month was for "the respectability" Rhymeswith would bring to the board. 'Struth!. It's Saturday Night Live every night in Washington.George Cornell ,
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7736135/amp/AP-Interview-Ex-Polish-president-defends-Biden-Burisma.htmlHere it is more officially. Hunter was hired to "boost the reputation of Burisma", as only cokehead sex addicted dishonorably discharged rejects from the Navy can.
King Herod running a babysitting service would make more sense.
This is surely a type of Will Rogers effect.
George Cornell ,
And just for one more whack at what should be a dead horse, most will have noted that former Polish President Krasniewski, handpicked for the interview in the Daily Mail linked above, is the same Krasniewski who is mentioned in the article above as receiving 1.15 million euros and a few other millions in loose change from Burisma.He says earnestly that Biden Jr. never abused his position on the Burisma board. But says little about what surely is a sham contract with Biden Jr. – as to what Biden's, and his own deliverables might have been. No mention by the Mail about his conflict of interest, who seem to be after just allowing Krasy to defend the indefensible, viz. the more appalling of the two Bidens.
No wonder poor Poland stays in NATO and spends money on American arms at the expense of pressing social needs, with leaders like Krasy.
MichaelK ,
Trump's rubbing his tiny hands together with glee at the thought of Joe Biden running against him in next year's election! Biden's the 'perfect' candidate and Trump will wipe the floor with him. Apparently Ohama has raised questions about Biden's 'gualities' as a candidate, that's probably because he's up to his turkey neck in the corrupt swamp of Ukrainian's dire politics along with his pin-head son, Hunter; or 'Hunt' as I prefer to call him.Perhaps the Democrats have decided to sit the next election out, because they sense that none of the sanctioned candidates stand a chance against Trump. Perhaps this is why the billionaire Bloomberg has thrown his golden crown into the ring. The Battle of the Billionaires should be a 'democratic' spectacle worth watching, from a safe distance.
paul ,
Apart from Afghanistan, Ukraine is probably the most corrupt country in the world. It makes Nigeria look like a model of good governance. The income per head there is less than Egypt. It is a failed state, a total basket case. It is a CIA/ NATO playground to aggressively confront Russia.Tens of billions have been poured into this poor and egregiously corrupt country by the EU, IMF, and CIA Front Groups like the National Endowment For Democracy to prop up the Fascist Coup Regime that was installed there in 2014. Surprisingly enough, all this has promptly evaporated into private foreign bank accounts. There is nothing to show for it. Ukraine, just like Iraq before it, has been a happy hunting ground for corrupt US politicians and their junkie offspring. Hence the howls of outrage when Trump threatens their pork barrel by threatening to scale back US involvement in Ukraine.
The only future Ukraine has is an impoverished depopulated backwater, like the Baltics. A source of cheap labour and cheap prostitutes for the EU – the only thing Ukraine produces the EU wants.
Grafter ,
Corrupt individuals of one fascist regime (Ukraine) handing out billions to their partners of another corrupt fascist regime (America). "Consultancy fees" for what exactly ? Anyway nothing to see here it's all perfectly normal "business". Move along now.Vierotchka ,
Ihor Kolomoysky is the hand in the Volodymy Zelensky puppet.lundiel ,
I was wondering if they would ever get round to investigating Hunter Biden's activities. Let's hope this forces them to do so.LeRuscino ,
The Dems have gone into full self-immolation mode & handed Trump 2020 on a plate ! Hilarious to watch the "Pavlov's Dogs" who were trained to hate Trump, like good little sheep, see their fantasies go up in smoke. Don't think for one minute (even second) that I support Trump but I do hate Sheep as their naivety is responsible for 99% of the World's woes.wardropper ,
One self-immolator handing the election to another self-immolator. Let's face it, nobody wants to be President of the United States any more. It's just too much hard work serving the real owners of the White House. We've reached the "Caligula" stage of the fall of the American empire. It's terminal.
|
|
|
Nov 30, 2019 | granitegrok.com
If you've not heard the story, Zlochevsky is alleged to have been doing other people's laundry. About 7.5 billion dollars worth – a sum that has attracted some attention. And not just because Ukraine claims Hunter Biden's attachment to Burisma resulted in a take if 16.5 million. Money that has nothing to do with his complete lack of knowledge about energy or gas but probably relates in some predictable way to the name 'Biden.' The investment firm doing the laundry has close ties to Barack Obama. Joe Biden. Lt. Col Alexander Vindman. Perhaps a few members of the US State Department. And maybe a George Soros funded operation "fighting corruption."
https://lockerdome.com/lad/12377282522354790?pubid=ld-6294-3505&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fgranitegrok.com&rid=duckduckgo.com&width=780
Funny, you ask, what do they mean when they say "fighting."
I confess some of those names are speculative but not the big ones. The Biden's are obviously up to their neck on whatever it is Joe says the Obama Administration signed off. As for Barry-O, he's got fresh trouble because of John Templeton Jr., and Thomas Donilon .
We've seen that Vindman has close ties to the previous Ukrainian government, dating back to Yanukovych and his successor Petro Poroshenko, while this alleged money-laundering scheme was taking place. The connection to the Franklin Templeton Fund is interesting because John Templeton, Jr. was a major Obama campaign donor, and Thomas Donilon, who was Obama's National Security Advisor before Susan Rice and is now the chairman of BlackRock Investment Institute , a major owner of Franklin Templeton stock.
Vindman is a holdover from the Bamster years, embedded at the NSC.
Donilon, well – let his bio tell you who he is to Barack Obama .
He served as National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama. In that capacity Mr. Donilon oversaw the U.S. National Security Council staff, chaired the cabinet level National Security Principals Committee, provided the president's daily national security briefing, and was responsible for the coordination and integration of the administration's foreign policy, intelligence, and military efforts. Mr. Donilon also oversaw the White House's cybersecurity and international energy efforts. Mr. Donilon served as the President's personal emissary to a number of world leaders.
Not a casual acquaintance but watch Obama distance himself from him now. "Who? O I..uh-hardly knew him!"
Under the Obama Administration, former Ukrainian Ambassador Marie Yovanovich, like Biden, like the Soros funded group working with the State Department, were all supposed to be focused on fighting corruption. There's that word again. I don't think it means what they think it means.
But while all this corruption-fighting was underway Joe's kid Hunter gets a sweetheart payoff from Burisma. Joe (who is in charge of Ukraine) gets close to a million for himself. All while 7.5 Billion is alleged to have been laundered through a "fund" whose primary players are a major Obama donor and the President's "personal emissary" (under the watchful anti-corruption eye of a group funded by perhaps the biggest Democrat donor in history, George Soros).
During this series of events, Ukraine got leveraged by the Obama Administration to fire a prosecutor in exchange for a billion in US aid, probably because that prosecutor was getting too close to what we are learning today.
Somebody was engaged in a record number of quid pro quos, and no one is named Trump.
... ... ... Steve MacDonald is a New Hampshire resident, blogger, and activist. A member of the 603 Alliance, NHCMP, NHRVC, LFGC, and the host of GrokTALK! Please Note: My opinions are my own and not those of my Family, employers, politicians, campaigns, or other contributors or commenters at GraniteGrok
|
|
|
Dec 28, 2017 | www.youtube.com
Our Hidden History , 4 days ago (edited)
Elizabeth Ferrari , 4 days agoThat Harding tells Mate to meet Alexi Navalny, who is a far right nationalist and most certainly a tool of US intelligence (something like Russia's Richard Spencer) was all I needed to hear to understand where Luke is coming from.
He's little more than an intelligence asset himself if his idea of speaking to "Russians" is to go and speak to a bunch of people who most certainly have their own ties back to the western intelligence agencies. That's not how you're going to get the truth about Russia. He's all appeals to authority - Steele's most of all, even name dropping Kerry. To finally land on "oh well if you would read my whole book" is just getting to the silly season.
Also "well this is the kind of person Putin is" is a terrible argument. This isn't about either Putin or Trump really, its about the long history of US-Russia relations and all that has occurred. Also, the ubiquitous throwing around of accusations of the murder of journalists in Russia is a straw man argument, especially when it is just thrown in as some sort of moral shielding for a shabby argument.
Few in the US know about these cases or what occurred, or of the many forces inside of Russia that might be involved in murdering journalists just as in Mexico or Turkey. But these cases are not explained - blame is merely assigned to Putin himself. Of course if someone here discusses he death of Michael Hastings, they're a "conspiracy theorist", but if the crime involves a Russian were to assign the blame to Vladimir Putin and, no further explanation is required.
Esen B. , 3 days agoThis interview is a wonderful illustration of everything that is horribly wrong with corporate media. I hope it goes viral.
Lemmy Motorhead , 3 days agoHe is far right, he is calling "cockroaches" Central Asian/ex-USSR workers coming to Moscow and in general his tone is quite ultra-nationalistic.
Esen B. , 3 days agoVery well put! Everything that is labeled as "conspiracy theory" when aimed towards the West, is "respectable journalism" when aimed at Russia.
Esen B. , 3 days ago (edited)That is the video about fire arm legalization "cockroaches ", even if you are not Russian speaking it's pretty graphic to understand the idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8ILxqIEEMg
trdi , 3 days ago (edited)And FYI - Central Asian workers do the low-wage jobs in Moscow, pretty like Mexicans or Puerto Ricans in US. Yet, that "future president" is trying to gain some popularity by labeling and demonizing them. Sounds familiar a bit?
Sendan , 3 days ago"definitelly ddissagree with that assertation about Alexei he's had nationalist views but he's definitely not far right and calling him a tool of US intelligence is pretty bs this is the exact same assertation that the Russian state media says about him."
I disagree that there is any evidence of Navalny being tool of US intelligence, but you are wrong for not recognizing that Navalny is ultranationalist. His public statements are indefensible. He is a Russian ultra nationalist, far right and a racist. Statements about cockroaches, worse than rats, bullets being too good etc - there is no way to misunderstand that.
MrChibiluffy , 3 days agoNavalny is a corrupt ex-politician just like his mentor that was caught red-handed taking a bribe from a German businessman "all on camera" at a restaurant. Most of corrupt politicians and businessmen that get caught by the Russian government always cry that they are politically repressed and the government is evil.
Navalnys brother was the owner of a small transport company that Navalny helped secure contracts with government enterprises '' anywhere in the world that would be a conflict of interest" but that's not why he is in jail! His brother is in jail for swindling the postal service company for transportation costs.
Yarrski , 3 days agoI know he said that i agree he has those views but that was in 2010.
Mohamed Elmaazi , 2 days ago@trdi I am a Russian. And I remember the early Navalny who made me sick to my stomach with absolutely disgusting, RACIST, anti-immigration commentaries. The guy is basically a NEO-NAZI who has toned down his nationalist diatribes in the past 10 or so years. Has he really reformed? I doubt it.
Nikita Gusarov , 2 days agoThis is a solid comment mate. Well thought out, with solid reasoning. How refreshing.
MrChibiluffy , 2 days agoMrChibiluffy, Navalny became relatively popular in Russia precisely at that time, especially during the White Ribbon protests in 2011/2012. I remember it very well myself.
I am Russian and I lived in Moscow at that time and he was the darling of the Russian opposition. He publicly defined his views and established himself back then and hasn't altered his position to this day.
What's more important is that around 2015 or so he made an alliance with the far-right and specifically Diomushkin who is a neo-nazi activist. I understand that people change their views, it's just that he hasn't.
annalivia1308 , 1 day agoNikita Gusarov it still feels like the best chance for some form of populist opposition atm. Even though they just rejected him he has a movement. Would you rather vote for Sobchak?
Ind Aus , 1 day agoYes. The US are looking to repeat Ukraine's regime change.
artemis12061966 , 1 day agoLets not forget that one reason many voted for Trump was his rhetoric about improving the peace-threatening antagonism towards Russia, especially in order to help resolve the situation in Syria. It's not like it was secret he was trying to hide. He only moderated his views somewhat when the Democrat-engineered anti-Russian smear campaign took off and there was a concerted effort to tie him to Russia.
Is it crime surround yourself with people that will help you fullfill your pledges?
RipTheJackR , 9 hours agoOr the death of Gary Webb, prosecution of whistleblowers.....like Private Manning...
Gabriel Olsen , 3 hours agoOur Hidden History... beautiful. Very well put mate :)
Luca Clemente , 4 days ago (edited)Yep, when he talked about murdering journalists, I paused the video and told my girlfriend about the murder of Michael Hastings. Oh an PS the USA puts journalists in Guantanamo. We play real baseball.
TheJagjr4450 , 3 days agoAaron Mate is a brilliant interviewer. He keeps a calm demeanor, but does not let his guest get away with any untruths or non sequiturs. This one of the many reasons I love The Real News. I encourage anyone who appreciates solid journalism to donate to The Real News.
dzedo53 , 4 days agoGREAT follow up questions Aaron... Harding did not expect to get a real reporter... he obfuscates and diverts to other issues because he can not EVER provide any evidence... Going to Moscow will not tell you anything about whether or not the DNC server was hacked.
Noah , 14 hours agoPutin is a bad guy. Therefore he colluded with Trump back in 1987 to help Trump win the election in 2016. Why is that so hard to see?? LOL.
jodi houts , 4 days agoLuke Harding is a complete and total idiot. He kept qualifying his arguments with "I've been to Moscow... I don't know if you know this, but I've been to Moscow..." and even at one point, "Some of my friends have been murdered." LOL, sure, whatever you say, Luke! Like you're so big time and such an all star journalist who isn't just trying to capitalize on the wild goose chase that is psychologically trapping leftists into delusions and wishful thinking.
KAREN Nichols , 4 days agoThank you Aaron Matè for calling out the bullshit. The dem party is dead until they take care of their own espionage and corruption.
david ackerman , 4 days agoThank you for "holding his feet to the fire"...I wish more media was more skeptical as well. Good work!
shadex08 , 4 days agoNSA monitors every communication over the internet. if the Russians hacked the DNC, there would be proof, and it would not take years to uncover. Look at the numbers: Clinton spent 2 billion, Russian "agents" spent 200k to "influence" the election. Great job Aaron for holding this opportunist's feet to the fire. Oh he's a story teller all right. You know a synonym of storyteller? LIAR!!!!
95percent air , 4 days agoGreat job Aaron, your work here makes me feel even better about my contribution to the real news.
Mal c.H , 4 days agoWow Aaron Matte NICE JOB. I'm only half through, I hope you don't make him cry. Do u make him cry? Did I hear this guy say he's ultimately a storyteller? Lol.
jodi houts , 4 days agoIt may seem like Trump has an alarming amount of associations with Russia, because he does.. that's how rich oligarchs work. But it's all just SPECULATION still. Why publish a book on this without a smoking gun to prove anything? Collusion isn't even a legal term, it's vague enough for people to make it mean whatever they want it to mean. People investigating and reporting on this are operating under confirmation bias. Aaron, you're always appropriately critical and you're always asking the right questions. You seem to be one of the few sane people left in media. Trump is a disgrace but there still is no smoking gun.
Fixel Heimer , 4 days agoAs he gets deeper in the weeds of speculation he starts attacking Aaron's credibility.
Hugh Mungus , 4 days agoOmg a bunch of unproven conspiracy crap.. Hes making so many factual wrong statements I don't know where to start here.. How would anyone in the years before his candidacy have thought Trump would gain any political relevance. I mean even the pro Hillary media thought until the end, their massive trump coverage would only help to get him NOT elected, but the opposite was the case. This guy is a complete joke as are his theses. Actually reminding me of the guardian's so called report about Russian Hacking in the Brexit referendum. Look here if you want to have a laugh http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/12/how-097-changed-the-fate-of-britain-not.html
Katie B , 4 days agoHis logic seems to be: Putin does things we don't like -> Trump getting elected is something we don't like -> Putin got Trump elected.
Antman4656 , 4 days agoCollusion Rejectionist! Ha Ha. Funniest interview ever. Well done Aaron. The Real News taking a stand for truth. So what's in the book if there's no evidence? Guardian journalism? Stop questioning the official narrative, oh and have you heard of Estonia. :)) ps that smiley face was not an admission of my working for the Kremlin.
maskedavenger777 , 4 days ago (edited)Best interview ever. Aaron held him to his theories and asked what evidence or proof he had and he didn't come up with one spec of evidence only hearsay and disputed theories. What a sad indictment this is on America. 1 year on a sensationalized story and still nothing concrete. What a joke and proof of gullibility to anyone who believes this corporate media Narritive. I guess at least they don't have to cover policies like the tax theft or net neutrality. This is why we need The Real news.
I'd rather have American business making business deals with Russia for things like hotels, rather than business deals with the Pentagon to aim more weapons at the Russians. When haven't we been doing business with Russians? We might as well investigate Cargill, Pepsi, McDonald's, John Deere, Ford, and most of our wheat farmers.
|
|
|
Nov 29, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Petri Krohn , Nov 29 2019 23:16 utc | 21
TAKE THEM TO THE HAGUE!Manufacturing a pretext for the U.S. missile strike on Syria in April 2018 is nowhere near the biggest of OPCW's crimes. The OPCW is an accessory , both before and after the fact to the crime of mass murder.
It should now be clear to everyone that Syrian "rebels" gassed thousands of hostages in cellars, most likely with chlorine gas, and then paraded the victims in White Helmets snuff videos. OPCW conspired in this crime in both encouraging the terrorists to more murder and by protecting them afterward by assigning blame to Assad and the Syrian government.
The worst of these massacres happened in Ghouta in August 2013 when 2000 civilian hostages (rebel claim) were gassed to death by rebels and their pre-White Helmets "civil defence". The OPCW was there to cover up the crime and to fabricate evidence to assign blame to Syria.
We have been documenting these crimes and hoaxes at A Closer Look On Syria from December 2012. OPCW was used from the beginning to manufacture consent for war. See for example:
- Was the Syria Chemical Weapons Probe "Torpedoed" by the West? by Adam Larson. ( Global Research , May 2, 2013)
karlof1 , Nov 29 2019 23:52 utc | 24
Petri Krohn @21--Canthama , Nov 30 2019 0:21 utc | 26Of course, the OPCW is already there! I highly suggest Caitlin Johnstone's article b linked be read, which can be found here .
We should expand on Petri's number of people involved in this crime to include all the paid disinformation artists noted in Caitlin's essay at minimum. What becomes very clear in all this is the total collusion with OPCW upper level management--those whom the whistleblowers and their allies within OPCW petitioned--in these crimes as Petri contends. Until they are visibly replaced, nothing issued by OPCW has any credence.
OPCW has shown to be a pure political entity, used at will by few regimes in the UN to promote their agenda, b has done a tremendous job to humanity to bring the truth to the public worldwide. Syrians have paid the price for UN leaders support to global terrorism for too long. It must stop now.iv>
/div
|
|
|
Nov 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
A mainstream media and academic expert this week issued a rare admission : that pretty much everything the establishment has fed the public on Syria is false or distorted; but it remains that after tragic eight-year long war is slowly coming to a close, new indisputable facts are coming to light. " Truth did not matter at all," he admits after years of providing commentary for mainstream publications.
In a lengthy thread on Twitter, counter-terrorism author and assistant professor of political science and public policy at Northeastern University Max Abrahms exposed how he saw the 'narrative managers' at work from the inside of the establishment think tank world and media. As his own research came to uncover and document the truth of what was happening in Syria, "the media would excise me and the research from their stories" he revealed. His work in the early years of the war appeared in The New York Times and other major outlets, however, he was increasingly censored and pushed out of a number of platforms for speaking inconvenient truths.
Below is his full commentary , written in the wake of the new OPCW leaks which the mainstream is still trying hard to ignore.
Dr. Max Abrahms, screengrab via The Center For Strategic & International Studies.Every day there are new revelations that the "rebels" were in cahoots not only with Al Qaeda but also ISIS and official reports of Assad using chemical weapons were doctored according to the reports' own authors.
Were you ever skeptical that Assad was authorizing chemical weapons attacks when they were the one thing that put his winning the war at risk?
Authors of the official reports linking him to chemical weapons usage have now supplied evidence that their own reports were doctored .
When I was interviewed about Syria's military using chemical weapons, I expressed skepticism as Assad bucked the political science literature by engaging in the one conduct that would reverse his hard-fought victory.
But the media would excise me and the research from their stories.
The #1 story should be that authors of the official reports linking Assad to WMD usage have supplied evidence that they were doctored in defiance of the scientific evidence and exploited to push regime change in Damascus, which risked creating the Islamic State war with Russia.
Until you get how you were duped into supporting regime change in Syria you'll get duped into supporting other costly ventures to the local population , international stability and our counterterrorism efforts.
Max Abrahms ✔ @MaxAbrahmsThe mainstream narrative of the Syria conflict has imploded.
Every day there are new revelations that the "rebels" were in cahoots not only with Al Qaeda but also ISIS & official reports of Assad using chemical weapons were doctored according to the reports' own authors.
The story of doctored WMD reports and Al Qaeda-led rebels must be told.
What happened in Syria is the American political establishment decided that the ends justify the means. Truth did not matter at all. We were told Assad must go based on WMD reports their own authors say were doctored to support "rebels" who were Al-Qaeda-led and helping ISIS.Watch this interview and determine yourself whether you find trustworthy the official report linking Assad to the chlorine attack which was sold in the
sold in the media as casus belli for toppling Assad and has now been exposed by the fact-finders themselves as doctored.https://www.youtube.com/embed/SMSyLg1E49M
If you think politicians, think tanks and media got a lot wrong in the Iraq war wait until you hear about the Syria war.
If you cheered for another regime change war then it doesn't matter whether the casus belli lacks evidence. The media is unmoved that multiple scientists who made up the official investigation doubt that the Syrian military was behind the attacks or the use of chlorine at all.
Bernard_2011 , 4 minutes ago link
Justapleb , 29 minutes ago linkApparently Trump is too dumb to question what the Deep State tells him on this matter. Assad did it. End of story.
uhland62 , 51 minutes ago linkThis is how they roll out new deep state Mockingbird Media clones.
The older completely discredited clones are replaced with new ones who pretend to have been right there with us all along.
Look at Obama. One solitary vote among so many regarding Iraq and he gained the anti-war vote and a Nobel Prize. Then he went about personally making the kill orders by drone, allowing the wicked witch to overthrow Syria and sodomize their leader with a bayonet. Then on to Syria, various African countries, etc.
I'm sure this *** has written lots on returning the Golan Heights to Syria, returning the West Bank to the Palestinians, renouncing foreign aid to Israel, etc. Right? Not.
truthseeker47 , 57 minutes ago linkThe mendacity of 'the system' can be infuriating when you and your work is targeted.
What I see today is not any different in any way from what my elders told me about the Third Reich and what I heard from East Berlin and the Soviet Union under Stalin and successors. I grew up in West Berlin and we did meet people, heard things.
Heil Hegemon - and Heil to all its lackeys! Heil!!!
MrBoompi , 1 hour ago linkRon Paul was trying to tell everyone right from the git-go that the Syrian gas attacks were a false flag, and the evidence and logic supported a false flag operation. Even more annoying, the 100 or so Tomahawk missiles cost US taxpayers about a $million each. But maybe the missiles were getting old, and the military needed some practice shots.
cwsuisse , 1 hour ago linkWe gassed some folks....
QABubba , 44 minutes ago linkSteele is credible. I believe that the OPCW doctored the reports upon instructions. The narrative management on Syria has totally destroyed the trust in the western governments and has demonstrated that the US, the UK and the EU are not behaving any better than China or Russia.
strannick , 2 hours ago linkSomeone needs to make an argument as to why we should believe any of these guys. I mean, after you have been proven liars so many times, should we not throw the rotten tomatoes?
mailll , 2 hours ago linkAmerica will tell any lie, commit any atrocity, on behalf of its military industrial complex, bankster, Zionist elite, while manufacturing consent for its evil by its corrupt complicit Mainstream Media. Is that even news?
White Nat , 2 hours ago linkIt doesn't matter Max, we already knew all this news about Syria was fake. When they were trying to fulfill an agenda, which was to overthrow Syria for the sake of Israel, since Syria is part of this fictitious promised land, their lies help support this agenda. Just like the Zionist attacks on the world trade center and the pentagon with remote controlled airplanes and pre-planted controlled demolition explosives. They were followed up with a bunch of lies to the entire world telling us it was a handful of Muslims who have never flown jumbo jets before. And they performed top gun maneuvers with these jumbo jets and breached perhaps the greatest air defense system in the world with only primitive box cutters. I totally believe the US and Israel covertly created ISIS. And the support funds came from the Zionist controlled printing presses, and from the pentagon budget that was unaccounted for. But unfortunately, most Americans still drink the Kool-aid. They continue to believe their lies. And because of this, they will keep doing what they are doing.
The Harlequin , 2 hours ago linkHere's Jeffrey Epstein's BFF and Mossad handler Ehud Barak pinning the israeli 9/11 false flag on the Osama bin Laden donkey within hours of the attack.
A chief architect of 9-11, Ehud Barak, interviewed on BBC an hour after attacks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAueLjdKh1s
Married Israeli politician Ehud Barak is seen hiding his face entering Jeffrey Epstein's NYC townhouse
JB Say , 2 hours ago link...more on AVAAZ and Syria from my own archives, probably already republished here at the time!
http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2014/09/17/syria-avaaz-purpose-the-art-of-selling-hate-for-empire/
https://www.globalresearch.ca/avaaz-the-lobbyist-that-masquerades-as-online-activism/5314829
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2012/03/avaaz-sponsoring-fake-reporting-from-syria.html
monty42 , 2 hours ago linkThat was a sloppy *** false flag too. The "agencies" are getting lazy because they own the press and Americans are incredibly dumbed down on foreign policy. The got away with 2 planes collapsing 3 WTC buildings so maybe they figure why bother even making it look convincing.
Soloamber , 2 hours ago linkSince it follows a pattern, it's not even just Syria. The US regime is a state sponsor of terrorism, by their own definition, and go into countries and create chaos and revolution, attempting regime change, creating a crisis they then use as "justification" for escalating into open conflict against the victim. Accuse the victim nation of crimes, blanketing the world in propaganda to delude the masses. Try to focus their attention on a single bad guy in their narrative, a "brutal dictator" or whatnot. Attack by proxy and directly, sanction, bomb, etc until the victim is left unable to produce for their own needs, making them dependent, and then going in to apply the chains of debt to the victim to pay the empire to rebuild what they destroyed. Everyone gets rich, increased resources from theft, testing of weapons systems, dominion over the new vassal nation, etc, while the victim is subjugated.
White Nat , 2 hours ago linkI would like to know who the "narrative managers " are because you know if they do it with Syria they are doing it on everything .
No wonder there is a growing contemptuous distrust of most of the MSM .
It is as if they act in concert and limit anything that doesn't support their agenda.
... ... ...
Fentonbr , 2 hours ago linkisrael and their US sayanim want all of their enemies destroyed using US blood and treasure aka balkanizing the middle east.
Speeches that still matter: Gen Wesley Clark on US going to war in 7 countries in 5 yrs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTbg11pCwOc
The "memo" Wesley Clark refers to came directly from zionist war criminal Paul Wolfowitz who was whispering in the ear of Donald Rumsfeld the whole way.
Wolfowitz is perhaps better known not for writing the Wolfowitz Doctrine but for co-authoring Rebuilding America's Defenses, a report released in September 2000 by Zionist neocon think tank PNAC (The Project for a New American Century). The PNAC membership list is a "Who's Who" of American Zionist New World Order conspirators – in addition to Wolfowitz the list includes **** Cheney Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Kagan, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Richard Perle, Doug Feith and many others.
https://thefreedomarticles.com/wolfowitz-doctrine-us-plan-global-supremacy/
PNAC. Greater Israel Project. Oded Yinon Plan.
Long-term the tribe plans to rule the earth from the third temple in Jerusalem.
That's why they are working so hard to shut the goyim up and flood all white countries with third world sewage.
E Michael Jones and Vincent James Discuss the ADL
White Nat , 2 hours ago linkEveryone now knows how corrupt it all is now, Thank God Clinton lost!
lwilland1012 , 2 hours ago linkHillary Clinton Email: 'Syria Must Be Destroyed For Israel'
https://neonnettle.com/features/1360-hillary-clinton-email-syria-must-be-destroyed-for-israel-
The Harlequin , 2 hours ago linkPuppets have Masters.
UBrexitUPay4it , 2 hours ago link"The mainstream narrative of the Syria conflict has imploded."
"Every day there are new revelations that the "rebels" were in cahoots not only with Al Qaeda but also ISIS & official reports of Assad using chemical weapons were doctored according to the reports' own authors."
IF YOU HAVE BEEN PAYING ATTENTION...
...you would know that the "narrative" imploded from the moment AVAAZ started handing out satellite phones to the "rebels" and "No-Fly Zone" became Clinton's cackling catch-cry ...in 2011!
HRH of Aquitaine 2.0 , 3 hours ago linkBless you for trying, but you would do less damage by quietly withdrawing. You just look silly. USA spent 4+ years fighting ISIS, during which time ISIS spread across the middle East. Russia stepped in with 40 aircraft, funded through their normal air force training program, and destroyed ISIS in 9 months.
Either Russians are superhuman warriors, or the west was lying when it claimed to be fighting ISIS. Which is it?
The MSM in the US is compromised and is fully state media, at this point. Deep state, straight from the ******* pond scum suckers in DC.
|
|
|
Nov 13, 2019 | blackagendareport.com
The National Lawyers Guild, born in resistance to political witch-hunts, seems to have neutered itself in the face of the new wave of manufactured hysteria.
"The Guild has 'a sort of hip neoliberal mindset: anti-Russia, anti-China, anti-Syria etc.'"
I recently returned from a delegation to Russia, and now smell McCarthyism more clearly.
The delegation was organized by the Center for Citizen Initiatives , an invaluable 32-year old citizen diplomacy organization, but CCI said it would not to print the article I wrote about the delegation because it needed to say something critical of the Soviet period, not just praise. The article is titled Russian Pride and US Exceptionalism. A political decision was made that, in order to have access to some highly placed people, CCI needs to be "balanced" about the Soviet period and acknowledge the gulags. That could be a good strategic decision, but I was surprised. [Two weeks later, after the article was published widely with a very positive response, CCI did publish it.]
A few days after my article was printed, my nephew, who helped me edit the piece and works for corporate America, told me he's afraid to open certain websites on his work computer -- off the clock -- because he could be flagged as "suspicious" and questioned. McCarthy was limited to phone taps and other dirty tricks.
Edward Snowden is in Russia because he told us the state has access to everything. My nephew is pragmatic, not paranoid. When I told members of the delegation about him, several said they weren't surprised about his concern, and one called it tragic. I told them they were all extremely cougeous to go to Russia at this frenzied point in history. One elder, seasoned member, said McCarthyism is certainly here and she's very careful. I am not very careful because I hold on to the belief that since I'm not doing anything illegal, they can't get me. History proves otherwise.
"Edward Snowden is in Russia because he told us the state has access to everything."
I have been a proud member of the National Lawyers Guild for 35 years, but since Trump's election I have repeatedly challenged how it has become a partisan organization for the Democrats. The Guild's Democratic Party loyalty, exposed in a Black Agenda Report article , is reflected in its resistance to support for Julian Assange . A recent article by Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, exposes how Assange is being tortured before our eyes, with no pretense of the rule of law. Assange had support when he went after Bush's war, but is now publicly brutalized because he went after the Democrats , so is apparently a Russian asset responsible for Trump, as Tulsi Gabbard and Jill Stein are also "Russian assets." MSNBC claimed that because Gabbard didn't deny she was a Russian asset, she clearly is. Does that sound like McCarthy?
After I publicly exposed the partisan liberalism of the Guild in the Black Agenda Report , I was both chastised for airing dirty laundry and told I raised valid, important concerns about the political compass of the 82-year old organization. There was talk of the need for elders to provide political context, to help the current ahistorical political climate, which believes it's all Trump's fault. However, a third annual convention has occurred since Trump's election and none have addressed the new McCarthyism, or Assange, who is the victim of one of the most egregious cases of legal abuse in history and should be of grave concern to a legal organization such as the Guild.
"Assange had support when he went after Bush's war, but is now publicly brutalized because he went after the Democrats."
Recently, a former Guild president posted an article to the International Committee from Forbes with the ominous title: Russia Attempts To Take Over Venezuelan Oil, Creating A Challenge For The U.S. I responded to the committee and asked if I was missing something, but why can't Russia and Venezuela trade? Within minutes, a Guild member since 1974 asked to be taken off the list because of what he saw as "foolish ultra leftism (an infantile disorder to coin a phrase)" that was a "stupid discussion." Another said I was "lacking in ethical grounding."
One who thought my question was valid, said "I personally support any sovereign nation's ability to make alliances. Russia is not my enemy. Russia was invited into Venezuela just as it was invited into Syria. When I started law school in 2002, at the ripe old age of 52, the only thing I cared about was joining my school's Guild chapter. I have found a good deal of disappointment in the Guild ever since." Others added that the Guild has "a sort of hip neoliberal mindset: anti-Russia, anti-China, anti-Syria etc.," and that "If it's ultra-left to call out the Democrats, I wear the badge ultra-leftist as a badge of honor." One member cautioned, "as Riva said recently, being aware of source is very important." But the discussion has been shut down, with no plans to discuss the implications of the Guild helping to fan the flames of anti-Russia sentiment, let alone the need to quell them.
"If it's ultra-left to call out the Democrats, I wear the badge ultra-leftist as a badge of honor."
A long-time Guild comrade who is now all about anybody but Trump, and knows my nephew, said his story is just anecdotal. "I don't see an across-the-board 'new McCarthyism.' To rise to that level, what I'd need to see is a major concerted effort by the government to destroy the lives, careers and reputations of people accused of being insufficiently hostile to Russia." Are we waiting for the first obvious suicide of this McCarthy period?
An article about the recent conviction of seven Catholic peace activists for a Plowshares action generated this comment: "The greatest risk of nuclear war today comes from Trump Derangement Syndrome. The fact that the leadership of the Democratic Party would use Russia-gate, a pile of absurd lies, for political advantage, at the risk of initiating a nuclear war with Russia is beyond despicable."
The fear of exposing the depth of the rot is pervasive, counter-revolutionary and jeopardizes life itself. That Trump is the only anti-endless war candidate, other than Tulsi Gabbard, exposes the Democrats as the war party they are. Many hope that Trump is the wrecking ball that will knock it all down. Hopefully before somebody pushes the button.
Riva Enteen edited the book Follow the Money, interviews by Flashpoints producer Dennis J. Bernstein. She can be reached at [email protected] .
|
|
|
Nov 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
HD , Nov 28 2019 19:45 utc | 38
Apologies if someone already posted this but on Nov 16 Joe Rogan and Matt Taibbi discussed the current state of the MSM in a wide-ranging conversation that I think most Barflies will find very interesting:Joe Rogan Experience #1386 - Matt Taibbi) , Nov 16, 2019
Savannah Thomas , 1 week ago (edited)"Censorship is telling a grown man that he can't eat steak, because the baby can't chew it." - Mark Twain
T B , 1 week ago (edited)“Biden to me is like having a flashlight with a dying battery and going for a long hike in the woods” - Joe Rogan 😅 1:28:33
Colin Hay , 1 week ago“When the government's boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence.” - Gary Lloyd. We Americans are willingly blind to truth. It'll be the death of us.
John Merlino , 1 week agoGeorge Orwell said it best: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever."
Tenzin Nordron , 11 hours ago (edited)Matt Taibbi: "they’re trying to sound like legitimate news, but they’re also completely selling out at the same time " perfectly sums up news outlets today, on both sides.
Ricky Milano , 1 week agoWhen I was a kid, i heard, on live radio broadcast, Oswald shot to death in Dallas Police Station - still think that's a more blatant murder of Witness.
Adrienne Marini , 1 week ago"There isn't the shame of screwing something up like there used to be." - Welcome to Hell everyone, we have jackets!!!
Major Bloodnok , 6 days ago1:15:32 "There's also people that are like wolves trying to take out that baby joke wandering through the woods." So many good quotes in this podcast.
"We don't have any institutional respect anymore".. When even the broadsheets knowingly sow falsehoods or subtly mislead the public on a regular basis, you'd better be prepared for the harvest. You never win back respect from someone who's sussed out your con.
|
|
|
Nov 26, 2019 | dissidentvoice.org
Did you know that Do
<img alt="Faith could bring us together. But too often it divides us"
src="//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/191121180252-20191121-fractured-states-religious-leaders-large-169.jpg">
